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Yuuri sighs and puts his hands on his hips.
"You can't possibly still be moping ."
The resulting shouting in his head tells him that his counterpart is indeed still moping. There are things being thrown around and it's all very distracting. So distracting that he has to stop walking for a while to avoid walking into something.
"You wanted this too," he reminds him with a twinge of annoyance and he pictures his angry face glaring back up at him. But the other is blissfully speechless for a change and Yuuri feels a surge of triumph.
He begins to walk again but the peace is short lived when his counterpart decides to do the mental equivalent of stomping around in his head.
He closes his eyes and there is the curious sensation of sliding into water.
When he opens them again, he finds himself in a room that looks like it belongs to a child. Bright and colourful with toys piled high, interspersed with D-Wheel magazines. Most of it is on the ground, though. Like the room's owner had ripped then from the shelves and thrown then on the floor in a fit. In the center of the room is a huge, king-sized bed, with a pile of big, fluffy blankets.
After a moment, he spies him buried in so many pillows that only the tufts of his blue and blond hair are visible.
"What's wrong with you now?" He says by way of greeting and he rolls his eyes when a lone finger sticks out from the blanket fortress. Brimming with maturity, he is. "I could just lock you in here, you know. I won our duel, so it's only natural that I call the shots. If you're going to sulk, do it quietly.”
There is a rustle from the bed and Yuuri feels a frisson of unease when he realizes that Yuugo’s bright blue eyes are even brighter with a faint sheen of tears.
"I. Hate. You." He enunciates each syllable so clearly that there is no question of whether he means it or not. But Yuuri doesn't take it to heart since it's been the only thing his counterpart had been willing to say to him since he'd… well. Absorbed him, for a lack of a better phrase.
"You didn't make me come all the way down here just for that, did you?" Yuuri asks with his tone just a shade off from being cross. But the rather pathetic expression on his face automatically shaves off a good portion of the chill. He sighs and starts to stroll over to the bed, carefully skirting around the Legos that seemed to be placed with some deliberateness around the bed. He feels almost vindicated that, for all of his softness and tears, Yuugo is still a vicious little bastard.
He doesn’t hate that about him, he thinks as he fondly reminiscences about how he never once went for the brakes for the entire time he’d known him. Reckless. Uncaring of anything that isn’t right before his eyes. For all of his faults, Yuugo is still one of his most interesting opponents. Better to spend an eternity with Yuugo than one of those spineless Obelisk dogs, or a boring by-the-book honour student.
Once safely to the bed, Yuuri reaches out to give the blanket pile an unceremonious prod and leans back to avoid the pillow that goes whizzing past where his head was a second ago.
“Really now. What is wrong with you this time?”
“Nothing.” The pile of pillows let's out a shuffling noise as their owner tries to squirm even deeper.
Yuuri practically oozes skepticism when he leans over to fix the top of his forehead with an unimpressed glare. “Really. Nothing. You’re throwing a tantrum because of nothing .”
He gets more sullen silence. Just when he thinks he's going to have to use more persuasion , Yuugo shifts, glaring up at him with red, puffy eyes. The redness has spread down to the tips of his nose and to the curve of his cheeks and it makes Yuuri want to groan. At least only Yuuri can see him now, otherwise, he might just die of secondhand embarrassment.
“I was thinking about… about Rin.” The words come out in a rush, like he's trying to get them all out before he loses his nerves.
“Rin,” Yuuri repeats flatly, growing even less impressed. He remembers short green hair and panicked amber eyes but overall the only remarkable thing about her was that the Professor wanted her. But for Yuugo it seems he had her on the brain. He clicks his tongue.
“Are you still sore about losing to her?” he asks idly, resisting the urge to reach out and yank on one of those ridiculous spikes of hair. “If it makes you feel better, the next time I see her, I'll crush her for you.”
Horror and rage immediately rushes in to displace the melancholy in Yuugo’s face and it suits him much better. “What?! No! Don't you touch her, you jerk!” Yuugo is now out of the pillow pile and is glaring at him fiercely. But as soon as the fire had come, it deflates again and he's back to looking mopey. Before Yuuri could tease him again, Yuugo had already started to speak.
“No… I was just thinking… without Rin, I didn't really have anything else, you know? No one else even knew my name. It was always… fusion this, fusion that. Like… like I'm not Yuugo without her. But… but it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough to save her…”
Yuuri shuffles. An uncomfortable amount of emotion is spilling out into the room and it nearly makes him itch and want to crawl out of his skin.
“Well, that's why you couldn't have beat me, then,” he says with a deliberate flippancy. “If you are weak enough to need someone else to define who you are.”
“Oh, shut up,” the other boy groans, rolling over in disgust. “Dammit, why the hell did I try to talk to you about this?! Agh, I'm an idiot!”
“Don't tell me you've only just figured that out.”
“Shut up.”
Yuuri rolls his eyes at the exchange, finally giving in as he reaches over to yank at his hair. The resulting yelp is even more satisfying than he pictured. “Now, if you're quite done with wasting my time, I do have things to be doing.”
Yuuri takes the irritated silence to mean that his work is now done.
"My name," his counterpart suddenly says just as he is about to get up.
"What about it?" he asks. He’s slightly confused at first, but realization slowly dawns at about the same rate as the red flush that makes its way across Yuugo’s face. He stays quiet, just long enough to watch him fidget. Letting the silence hang between them.
Eventually, he takes pity on him, leaning in and tousles his ridiculous mop of hair. "Yuugo."
The change that comes over his counterpart's face is immediate. He can't help but enjoy the widening of his eyes as a flush of pleasure fills his pale cheeks. Suddenly, he is struck by how… alive he looks. Vivid and animated, despite him now only being a ghost that lives inside him.
"Yuuri," Yuugo mumbles in return, a hand reaching up awkwardly to tug at his bangs. There is even a smile playing on his lips. Small and almost giddy. Ridiculous.
But for some reason, his lips can’t help but curl in response. They stay like that for what feels like hours.
Eventually, Yuuri has to go. Back to his self-appointed mission. Even now, he can feel the rest of him calling out. Yearning for reunion.
Just before he turns to leave, Yuugo speaks up once more and there is a heaviness, a graveness, to his words that Yuuri is surprised by.
"Are you sure about this?"
He turns to see Yuugo staring at him with eyes that are far too old and wise to belong to someone as ridiculous as him.
"About what?" he drawls dismissively, but the seriousness doesn’t leave Yuugo’s face.
"If you do this,” he says quietly. “No one will call you Yuuri anymore. We… We will all just be him. Are you really okay with that?"
For a long while, Yuuri doesn’t say anything. Only stares straight at the boy who wears his face.
He’s got Yuuri as a name.
Not even Zarc will take that away from him.
“Worried about little old me?” he teases. “Don't. I'm sure you’ll be more than happy to see me go.”
“Damn straight,” he mutters, crossing his arms and scowls at nothing. “But there's no damn way I'm going to let you off that easy for what you did to Rin. Even if you forget, I'll make you remember, Yuuri . I'll keep calling your name until you get sick of it.”
Yuuri blinks slowly. Somehow that sounds almost… sentimental, especially coming from his counterpart. He shakes his head with a laugh.
“Good. It wouldn't be any fun otherwise, Yuu-go .”
For the last time this night, he musses his hair affectionately and pivots on his heel and begins to make his way back to the exit. The room is already looking tidier already, with the books and magazines back on their shelves where they belong. Even the toys had seemingly picked themselves up, leaving the floor bare and pristine once more.
A tightening of his eyes gives him away when a lance of agony suddenly shoots up his leg and he hurriedly moves his foot off of the small piece of coloured plastic that he knows wasn’t there before he stepped. Scowling, he determinedly ignores the sound of Yuugo’s laughter as he resurfaces.
Serves you right, bastard .
Once he's in the material world again, he can't help laughing too.
Well played.