Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Possession ❯ Good Enough ( Chapter 5 )

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Good Enough
by Edmondia Dantes

Disclaimer: I still don't own anyone!

AN: Due to popular request and a shy tap on my shoulder, it's Ryou's turn. Shounen-ai, snarky Bakura comments.

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It isn't as strange as he thinks.

At least, I don't think it is. But then, I suppose I'm not the best person to speak objectively about it. In all actuality, I'm probably the worst.

But I... no, we understand.

It's hard. I can admit that much.

Sometimes, keeping it all in, hiding it behind the mask of silence - sometimes it's enough to make me sick. Sometimes the thick wall I throw up in the presence of others is so stifling it makes me want to scream and cry and rant at the top of my lungs.

But it's safer like this.

It's better like this.

And never mind that reality goes a little blurrier every time we slip away. Normalcy? A faded dream, really, lost within the eternal shimmering light of a ring whose power overshadows my every breath.

Losing yourself - it's not so bad. Not if you can find your other.

Balance. Absolute, perfect harmony. It's beautiful, if you can get it - terrible and wrenching when you cannot.

I hated Yugi's yami, for a while. Yes, I was free of my yami's influence - but it hurt. It hurt so badly that I stayed up nights sobbing my eyes out and screaming at the sky because I felt so horrible and aching and empty inside...

Everybody goes a little bit crazy sometimes.

It just happens when you lose half of your soul. That half can be horrible and cruel and violent and terrible - and it won't matter. It doesn't matter.

He's my yami. Mine.

And he's awful and he's evil and he's frightening and cold - but he's mine.

Yes, I sound obsessive.

But I'm not the only one.

It's not hard to notice when you know what to look for. And unlike my yami, Yugioh has on occasion been persuaded out into the real world.

It's actually kind of funny, in a twisted sort of way.

Our friends skitter away from Yugi when he's holding hands with his yami. I'm just surprised the pharaoh shows that much affection. My yami would never do something like that.

Though he did hug me once, so hard I couldn't breathe. And then he stuck his tongue out at the would-be flirt I had been talking to before he decided that she was getting too close to me. And then he wiped her memory while laughing maniacally. Well, it was better than stealing her soul, which had been his original intention.

...my yami.

But this isn't about him, not really. I've seen Yugioh pull a nearly identical maneuver with Yugi. Both the pharaoh and the thief, I have noticed, are insanely jealous. The girl in question turned remarkably red when the pharaoh yanked Yugi back against him and flicked her off. Yugi turned very red too. Probably cause the girl was goggling, he was plastered up against his yami in a very incriminating position, and I harbor the dark, sneaking suspicion that he was pleased. My yami, surprisingly, laughed and declared that it was the first time he ever agreed with anything the pharaoh had done.

...Yugi's yami.

They're both beautiful. They're both murderers. They're both a bit psychotic.

But that's all right, because both Yugi and I are a little crazy too. We have to be.

Why else would we embrace the darkness so wholeheartedly?

My yami says light and dark belong together, and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. According to him, we're stuck together for eternity, and that's just fine with me.

It seems so absurd. But it isn't. Falling in love never is. Falling into whatever this is - it's so much more. So much that the world ceases to matter, so much that anything outside seems startling and strange and annoying.

When you have your other, why care what happens to anyone else?

It sounds bad. I know. But I can't change the way I feel. I've tried - I've spoken with my father more, I've hung out with my friends more often - and then every night I tumble into the bed of a thief and forget everything else but his eyes. Schoolwork suffers - he doesn't see the point, and is more than willing to distract me. Even though I eat with my father whenever he's home, I wind up darting out of the room once we're done and flinging myself into my bedroom and my yami's embrace.

He's possessive. And cruel. But that's fine with me.

Because though he might hurt me with a careless word or threaten to kill everyone I love - he would never do it.

He's the only person in the world who will ever love me this way. At least, I think he does - whatever the case, he's the only one I will ever need this way.

Yugi, I think, is starting to realize that himself. It's happening too fast, and yet too slowly. I've been there. I know how strange it feels. He's zoning out more often, lunching in the company of his yami, and spending less time with his friends - classic symptoms of an obsessive addiction to your other self.

And if my yami's hunch is right, he's doing... other things, as well.

When Yugi wandered into class on the day he broke up with Rei, my yami started from his usual doze in his soul room, gaped at him for a moment, and burst into hysterical laughter.

//He got laid!// he howled triumphantly. //Bwahahaha! Good for the pharaoh!// he chortled wickedly, his laughter reverberating in the back of my mind. It tickled.

I turned bright red and hid my face in my arms. /Yamiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I didn't need to know that!/

He didn't even try to stop snickering. //What's the big deal? Pharaoh noticed us...//

/YAMI!/

I have never been more embarrassed in my life. Sometimes sharing minds can be... odd.

But it's so very nice... my yami isn't the most affectionate creature, but he occasionally pokes his nose out into my thoughts and makes a scathing comment or three. It's a guilty pleasure, really, the cool trickle of his thoughts in my mind, the soft prodding and poking of my self with which he occasionally amuses himself.

Apparently, I squeak.

Yugi's guilty pleasure is just a bit more obvious than mine is. Half the time when we're sitting in school I sense Yugioh lounging in spirit at the side of his aibou. I can admit that I'm a little bit jealous - Yugi gets a lot of attention. When his yami tumbles out of the puzzle and they have lunch, Yugi winds up being petted and cuddled, as if the pharaoh can't bear to let him go. There's a sense of shamelessness around him, careless and wild, that I can't help but envy. Then again, Yugioh has nothing to hide. If anyone thought twice about his actions, they would be left to helplessly wander the world with their soul in tatters.

My yami adores that thought.

And Yugioh doesn't care. He'll keep a possessive arm wrapped around his hikari, he'll put the fear of Ra into any unbeliever, and he'll kill someone just as soon as breathing.

He and my yami are more alike than they think.

Frightening, really. All of us - despite their age - we're nothing more than children. And yet here we are, tangled into each other more intimately than anyone else could dream. Here we are, more dangerous than any could fear. Here we are, more innocent than any could believe.

Contradiction?

I suppose, in many ways, that we are.

Why does the light desire the darkness? Because it's everything that has ever haunted our dreams.

Why does the darkness covet light? Because it's everything they've been missing.

Why do we live this way? Because we ache for completion.

Why does it seem like we haven't a choice? Because we don't.

They think they know what's best for us.

They think we don't understand.

Silly, really. They're the ones who don't get it.

Falling in love with yourself seems ridiculous.

But if that self is another being, older and wiser and more powerful than you - and he needs you like nothing else in the world - and you're stunned into shock when you realize how much you need him - and he's there and you're there and you can read every thought and every question and all the desire you didn't know you'd been hiding - it's easy.

So very, very easy.

When the night is silent and still in the wake of passion, and he's soft and quiet and content, and his arms are wrapped around me - it makes me happy. So happy... of course then he sits up and demands to know why I keep bawling like a little brat. My yami is not very good with romance.

He's a psychotic maniac, and I love him more than anything else in the world.

Cruelty and power and lust linger in the darkness. Purity and innocence and love live in the light. Add them together, and you get us.

It's just... fascinating. To always be together, to feel everything as one, to know each other inside and out - it's so... so right in so many ways.

But I suppose the world doesn't see it that way.

That's all right.

As long as someone else knows, as long as someone can relate - then it's all right.

Everything is fine.

Yugi will figure it out soon enough. Yugioh already knows.

There's nothing wrong with it.

Nothing at all.

We're all right.

Everything is all right, so long as we're together.

And, as my yami says, if it disagrees, then the world can go to hell.

That's good enough for me.

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AN: :-) Ryou's a sweetie, ne? I see him as quietly accepting of this whole matter. But don't forget - he's just as preoccupied with his yami.

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