Chapter Text
#1 he suddenly becomes unnaturally cold. + When he sleeps, he seems dead because his soul isn’t in his body, and his functions are slowed
Yugi Muto is cold. It surprises Jou one warm, spring morning, playfully brushing a hand against his friend's slender, pale arm. Not as pale as it would grow to be, yet, but he should have been peachy, warmed by the sun, and the frigidness sends a jolt back up to where his spine and skull connect, and he yanks his arm away, shocked. Yugi looks at him in confusion, curious and round eyes looking up at his. He shivers, swearing he can see something behind them for just a moment, a tiny dark flicker, a seedling. A shadow. He shakes it off as nothing.
It happens again, later, leaving his fingers almost numb from holding that small hand. His eyes are vibrant and alive, his smile bright and joyful, but his skin is cold as a corpse, like something's been sucking the warmth from him, draining it away, taking it. It disturbs Jou, even though he tries not to show it, not to show just how unsettled he is by this sudden, sharp change, because clearly, his friend isn't hurt, isn't worried at all. He hardly seems to notice, doesn't talk about it, just the occasional rub of his shoulder, asking to borrow Jou’s jackets more often. Drinking hot drinks in the school library when everyone else drank lemonade or pop.
Jou asks him one evening, walking Yugi home from school--carrying him, to be accurate, the boy had suffered another dizzy spell, a layer of pressure between his mind and his eyes that left him drooping like a dying flower into Jou's arms, so common, recently—He's flopped back, comfortably, hair gone soft against Jou's jacket, eyes half open. His body feels so heavy, so cold, for someone so small and vivid.
“You’re cold,” Jou says, running a gentle hand over Yugi’s forehead. His friend shrugs, lightly.
“I mean, a little chilly,” Yugi says, self-consciously reaching his hand to lightly tug at the chain around his neck. He doesn’t speak the rest of the evening. Jou carries him upstairs, and lightly deposits him in his bed, finds himself lingering to watch him, to see if he’s alright. He rests there, still, quiet, unbreathing. His chest doesn’t flinch like a breathing thing’s would, and he makes no tiny little sounds in his sleep, no indication of dreams. No indication of life.
He’s alive, of course, Jou sees him on the way to school the next day, bouncing up to show off his new keychain he got from the Hot Topic at the Domino mall, but walking home from Yugi’s house, the eye of that golden-glowing triangular window following him down the driveway, all that lingers in his mind is just how warm Yugi’s pretty golden puzzle had been, when he brushed an accidental hand over it, tucking him in.