Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Simple ❯ Text Message ( Chapter 8 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: YamiYugiPuzzleshipper2 
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.27.2014 | Updated On: 09.16.2014 | Pages: 10 | Words: 8.1K | Visits: 136 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.27.2014 | Updated On: 09.16.2014 | Pages: 10 | Words: 8.1K | Visits: 136 | Status: Work In Progress
Disclaimer: I do not own
anything relating to Yu-Gi-Oh
Note: Story will be updated every Wednesday
Warning: TONS of cursing throughout story
Chapter Warning: Chapter has a little homosexual slander (use of word "fag/faggot"–I do NOT support it but it worked for the story so I decided to put it in there).
Homosexual Slander: It is in the conversation in the first part of the chapter. I didn't want anyone to be surprised or offended, so yeah...It's not in there often, just once or twice.
Chapter VIII: Text Message
"Yami."
Joey, Tristan and Ushio all looked over at the brunette as she strode towards him; Mana and Mahado stood behind him, eyes widening as Yami looked at her and then turned to them and shook his head. Both of them nodded and then turned and walked off, glancing over their shoulders at him.
He wondered vaguely if they knew what he had done. But he highly doubted it.
"Tea, what–?"
"I don't need you three around. Go away," she snapped at the blond.
Joey looked at her for a moment and then glared at Yami for a minute before leading the other two away with him. The red-eyed teen found it odd that Yugi was not around but dismissed this as Tea stopped in front of him.
"What the fuck was that last week?"
Yami didn't answer, merely leveling her with a stare.
"Well?" she pressed.
"Well what? You got what you wanted. Or most of it, anyways. Let's be honest, shall we? You were using me just like I was using you. I just wanted to get a little relief from all the stress and you wanted me to be your first. We both got half of what we wanted."
"Are you a fag or something?" she spat suddenly.
Yami startled and his eyes stretched wide in shock, opening his mouth once before baring his teeth. "Don't call me that," he snarled back.
"So then you are. Great. That's just great–"
"I am not gay," he snapped coldly. "I gave you what you wanted. Can't you just leave me the fuck alone now?"
"You used me."
"And you used me. There were two of us in this equation."
"You didn't even get a boner."
Yami froze and blinked.
"You made out with me, touched me, fingered me, and you didn't once get a boner. So either you're gay or you're just fucking stupid. Because I am the best thing that couldeverhappen to you."
"The best thing that could ever happen for him is if you left him the fuck alone."
Both of them turned towards Yugi as he strode forward. The smaller teen was not even really sure what he was doing, but under all the anger, Yugi could see the fear that was seeping through Yami's system and had come to his rescue.
Which was strange because he never came to anyone's rescue. It never paid off.
"Honestly, Tea, maybe you just aren't his type."
"Funny, coming from you, Yugi," the brunette hissed at him, stepping forward. "You're the one who has been in love with me since pretty much the day we met."
"I was neverin lovewith you. It was a crush. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Why the fuck are you even in our business anyways? This is between me and Yami."
"And now it's between you and me."
"Explain that to me, because you were never in this conversation in the first place."
Yami looked like he was going to be sick as he watched them. Yugi stopped a step away from her and glared spitefully, seeming to fume as his eyes bore into hers; the smaller teen didn't miss that Bakura and Malik had stopped a few feet down the hall at the vending machines and were now openly staring at their cousin who seemed to be frozen in place.
"You're over here bitching about how you're the best thing he could ever have but you're not. You're not the best anything," Yugi spat, shaking his head and glaring. "And don't eventryto make this about my crush on you, okay? Because that hasn't been here for a while. But here's the thing, Tea, Yami doesn't need some puppy dog running after him all the time or some bitch who wants things that she shouldn't. Shit, you think you know so much about him but you don't know anything. You know his name. You know his face. And that's it. That's all you know about him. You never even had abasisfor a relationship with him. Fuck, evenIknow that. Shit, I know more about him than you do and you've been in love with the idiot for two years now!"
Bakura and Malik stared in shock for a moment and then looked at their cousin who had paled drastically and looked even sicker than he had moments before; his face was green around the edges, he had a small drop of sweat crawling agonizingly slowly down the side of his face from his temple…
"At least have a crush on someone who actually knows youexist. God, what is withgirls? They always hit on the guys who don't even know that they exist. You like Yami, but Yami only ever spoke to you orofyou the day that Joey and Tristan pranked you in PE and in the library when you flirted with him. What did you not get about himdismissingyou? For fuck's sake, I could understand if you were a fuckingblonde–"
"The fuck?" Malik snapped, making all of them look at him for a moment before turning back to the argument at hand.
"–but this is ridiculous. I mean, at least when I was crushing on you, you knew who I was. Maybe I was stuck in the friend-zone, but hell, at least you knew my name. Yami has never given two fucks about you in the first place. But then, you never gave two fucks about me either. So I guess you and I have that much in common."
"Is this some kind of way of trying to make me see that you would be good for me?" Tea asked sharply, rolling her eyes. "Newsflash, Yugi, that is never going to happen."
"I don't want you!" Yugi yelled, shaking his head. "And you're so fuckingdenseto think I do! God, Tea, you fucking–you make me want to beat my own head in with a baseball bat, that's howstupidyou are!"
Tea's mouth fell open.
He grabbed at his hair and shook his head, spitting, "You don't understand anything, do you? You thought that when he wasignoringyou, he was playinghard to get! No, he wasn't fucking playinghard to get,he was telling you there isno chance. Because there isn't. And there neverwillbe. I mean,honestly,Tea!"
Yami couldn't take his eyes off the two in front of him, not even when he saw his cousins coming from his peripheral vision; they stopped a few steps away and watched with wide smirks on their face, obviously terribly amused by the small boy.
"You don't have friends in common. You never had any classes together. You don't have the same intellect level. You flirted with him in front of me when I still liked you. Do youreallythink that is attractive toanyone? You come off as aslutwhen you do that. It makes you look unfaithful. 'Oh, yeah, I love you, but by the way, I think I'm going to go ahead and flirt with him too, in the meantime, but don't worry, it's all just for fun'. Did you think that was how it worked? No, Tea, if you're going to be with someone, you're not supposed to flirt with someone while someone else isclearlycrushing on you. And, by the way, you shouldn't string people along either. It might just come tobite"–he chomped his teeth loudly–"you in the ass."
Tea gasped and Yami stared with wide eyes but the other two started snickering behind their hands, struggling not to full out laugh at this.
"Because you know, maybe if you weren't such a bitch all the time, I might have been able to vouch for you, but not now. Instead you string me along like a puppy dog, then go and demand that Yami dates you when really all he wanted was a quick. Fuck." He was smirking and his face twisted cruelly as he added, "You don't meet the criteria because you're a maniacalbitchwho wants, wants, wants, and never gives. What the fuck would you have to offer Yami anyways? What do you have to offeranyone,Tea? He couldn't evenfuckyou without realizing that you're fuckingcrazy!"
The sound of flesh colliding echoed through the hallway like a shotgun and all of them stared in shock before Tea seethed and snarled, "And you wonder why no one could ever love you" before turning and storming off down the hall to her homeroom.
Yugi didn't do the classic thing of touching his cheek where the handprint was; instead he spun around and pushed Yami who stumbled and hit the ground, staring at him with wide eyes as he snarled, "This isyourfault!" before turning and storming off to his own class.
Bakura and Malik waited until he was gone before they gave in to their laughter, the noise bouncing off the walls as they helped him to his feet. "Holy fuck, that was awesome," the silver-haired teen snickered, shaking his head slightly and wrapping his arm around his shorter cousin's shoulders, chuckling darkly. "Please,pleasego finger-fuck someone else. I want to see if it happens again."
Malik howled with laughter again and Yami gave them blank looks before shaking his head slowly and pulling away.
Yami was seated next to her for the test which was the only reason his mind even went in that strange direction.
The brunette didn't look up except when she thought he couldn't see her but he was always watching from the corner of his eye so he caught her each time; it was safe to say he didn't draw attention to her looking at him because she had not done so with him so instead he let her stare until she was sated of her curiosity and turned away again to take back the task of doing her work.
Now Yami had no attraction to her and he still had yet to interact with her but seeing as she was right next to him at the moment, he honestly didn't try to stop himself from looking.
His red eyes drew in every single bit of her body, not for the sake of imprinting her being in his mind but purely because he honestly couldn't understand why he feltnothingtowards her or any other female.
He would have shaken his head if he wasn't already watching as she started to shift awkwardly in her seat, acutely aware of his blatant staring; he tore his eyes away again and looked at his own test, slightly annoyed with his own thoughts but far from able to turn them off.
One in the back of his subconscious bit particularly hard, drawing his attention to the fact that he had messed up royally and odds were, whatever little thing there was between himself and Yugi was gone.
He wished he could have been relieved but he was far from it.
In fact, the only thing he actually felt was pure, unfiltered dismay.
And he didn't know why.
But he did know that now was definitely the time to see to it to test Yugi's little theory of seeing if another girl would "do it for him" where Tea had failed.
He was far from stupid, so he knew that Vivian would never do so, first because he didn't know her–at all–and second because she looked oddly like Tea did herself. And the thought itself left his stomach twisting and his lip curling back and his blood boiling in his veins because of his own stupid mistake as well as the million and one things that had gone wrong because of that simple,terriblystupid choice.
No, he had a few select friends of the female variety and if he was honest with himself, onlyoneof them had ever gotten a reaction out of him aside from deep-rooted friendship.
So, really, he only had one option.
And yes, he dreaded it.
But he also knew she would never turn him away.
He hated himself for his own knowledge of the girl's affection towards him. Because what kind of sick bastard would do these kinds of things?
Yugi did not encounter Yami again for two weeks. When they were even near each other or in the same room, they always put distance between themselves, taking opposite corners of wherever they were, never once bothering to acknowledge the other.
It was only because the project was due in a month and a half that Yugi even approached him, waiting impatiently for the red-eyed teen to notice he was standing next to him as Mana and Mahado laughed and messed around; all laughter died when they noticed him and Yami looked confused before turning his head and staring at him.
"Library, tomorrow," he spat, turning and walking off before the other teen could get anything in edgewise.
"God, is hestillbitter about that?" Mana said, rolling her eyes and flicking her long hair with the back of her hand like a supermodel.
It was meant to be a joke but Yami couldn't find it in himself to even crack a smile. "Well, yes, of course he is. I mean, I did finger-fuck his crush."
Mahado gave him a small smile even as his sister frowned slightly and gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm sure he will get over it soon."
"He doesn't need toget overit," Yami argued, shaking his head. "I was the one who messed up. I mean, he has every right to be mad at me. But, honestly, I don't understand why he would like her anyways. She treats him like he's her personal pet or something, always admonishing him."
"Maybe Yugi needs that," the other boy said with a small shrug. "You never know. What doesn't work for you could work for him."
"He gets treated like a goddamned slave."
Again he shrugged. "Yami, you and Yugi aren't the same. Maybe he needs that more than he needs someone who would coddle him. And besides, maybe she had the right idea in doing that. Yugi is a wildcard–"
"No one deserves to be treated like dirt!" Yami spat, getting up abruptly. "No one deserves to be treated like that. I don'tcarewhat the fuck someone thinks they need, that isneverit!"
Both of them gawked as the red-eyed teen stormed off and Yugi watched with dark eyes, following his every movement and wondering what the fuck had just happened to make him leave like that. He was pretty sure it wasn't him who made him run because Yami had never left even when he was glaring daggers into his back and wondering why his eyes didn't have laser vision so he could fry him.
Yugi took one side of the table and Yami took the other. Yugi got two books and Yami got four. Yugi go four books and Yami got eight to outdo him. Yugi got mad and Yami smirked. Yugi threw things at him and Yami glowered. Yami glowered and Yugi smirked. But the rest of the time they ignored each other.
The entire area around them was actually empty; everyone in the library took places in other spots and no one sat near the two of them. Yami found this oddly hilarious. Were they really that scary?
Then again, the air around them seemed to vibrate with tension, angry and bitter tension and their avoidance definitely made sense in all honesty.
Ten minutes before the bell rang, Yugi finally got up and came over to his side, handing him his sheet and snatching his from him before he could object.
But as they looked it over, both of them ended up swapping them back and then looking over the other's shoulder before pulling back and snarling, "You copied what I wrote!" at the same time before glaring furiously.
"Well, great, now we have a copy of the same exact shit," Yami said with a roll of his eyes.
"No shit, moron."
"It's not just my fault. It's yours too. You can't just blame this onme."
"I'll blame it on whoever the fuck I see fit. And right now, you're the only one here."
Yami grabbed one of the books and then held it up. "Blame the authors because they're all bitches who recycled each other's work." The book fell with a resounding boom throughout the library when Yugi smacked it out of his hand. The librarians and several students looked up but couldn't find the source of the noise and instead went back to whatever they were doing.
"Son of a bitch."
"Why are you talking to yourself?" Yami questioned, raising an eyebrow. "And in such an angrytone."
Yugi looked ready to punch him but instead took a deep breath. "You fucking bastard."
"Again, why are you talking to yourself?"
"I am talking toyou!" he spat.
"I know who my father is, though," Yami objected, smirking cruelly. "Doyou?"
Yugi lunged but then stopped himself at the last second, pulling back and glaring at him fiercely. "I'm not about to get my ass suspended for you," he snapped.
"Surely you don't believe you could take me in a fight," Yami stated, bristling. "I'll break every bone in your body before you can even blink."
Yugi leaned forward and placed his face a mere inch from Yami's and then blinked several times. "Oh, but I don'tfeelvery broken."
"We're not fighting yet."
"What do you call this exactly?"
"It's called a verbal spat–an argument. You had one with Tea two weeks ago."
Yugi grabbed at the collar of his uniform shirt and bared his teeth when he growled, "Leave her out of this."
"It's not my fault she never liked you." He pulled Yugi's arm away by pressing into the bundle of nerves on his wrist; Yugi snatched his hand away and glared at him before looking at it curiously. "Honestly, I didn't make her crush on me."
"I didn't make you finger-fuck her either and yet you did."
Yami frowned and then narrowed his eyes. "Yugi, we have to put this aside for right now. Our grade depends on it. And like you said, we could have fucked over the first one but not this one. It's forty-five percent of our grade. We don't do it, we don't pass, and we will never recover before second half of the semester starts."
Yugi chewed the inside of his cheek for a long time before closing his eyes and nodding; as much as he hated to admit it, Yami was right. There was no way to save forty-five percent of their grades in only three weeks when the project was turned in and finals started up. "Yeah, I know. When…when do you want to get together for this then?"
"I told you before that I can't go to your house so you would have to come to mine," Yami muttered, drumming his nails against the table and looking up at the ceiling with a small sigh of irritation. "I don't know, after school I guess?"
Yugi groaned. "I have to work at the shop. And then I need to clean up the house because Grandpa is coming home in a week."
"He's still in the hospital?"
"No, but his friend is."
Yami stared for a moment. "The man on the gurney?"
"Yeah, Professor Hawkins. Grandpa has been there since he was discharged." He sighed. "Hawkins will be okay, but Grandpa wants to be there with him for right now."
Yami chewed his cheek for a long time and then closed his eyes and shook his head; Professor Hawkins, another who had been in Egypt, another who would most likely recognize him if they were to ever meet. "Very well. I guess I will go with you to yours." He opened his eyes and then started digging into his pockets before pulling out a single small white touch-screen phone with a small button in the middle and two on the sides, unlocking it and starting to text. Yugi tried to read it but he didn't recognize the symbols that Yami used because they were hardly Japanese.
"What language is that?"
"Arabic."
And then, as the word left his mouth, Yami froze.
Yugi blinked in confusion. Why the fuck did Yami know Arabic? He himself knew Arabic, but that was because his grandpa taught him how to speak it. He could not read or write in Arabic for the life of him.
And yet, because Yami looked so alarmed, Yugi neglected to say anything.
He did, of course, make a note of the information for later use.
Who knew that later would only be fours hours' time?
The two got to the shop where Yugi manned it for two hours before deciding that it was too slow a day to keep it open as they needed to get their work done. When they got up to the living room, both of them took separate sides of the couch and continued working from there, using the coffee table to pass notes between each other as talking seemed to result in tearing each other's head off.
Half the time the things they wrote was what the other was about to record themselves, frustrating them both to no end as they finally scooted into the middle to sit next to each other and be able to see what the other was writing without pushing a paper between them.
His phone went off and Yugi had to admit that he liked the slender little white object. It had a nice simple ringtone to it, like bells sounding and then water rippling and one like fire crackling.
"I'm sorry," Yami muttered, taking it out of his pocket and unlocking it. "My cousins are texting me."
"Who's who?"
"Malik is the bells, Seto is the water and Bakura is the fire. It makes it easier to figure out who the hell is texting me before I read it," he responded, starting to type away. "I honestly hate reading a text thinking that it is from one person only to find out that it is from someone else entirely."
Yugi nodded. He had that same pet peeve.
He looked at him curiously and found that Yami was still rapidly typing in Arabic rather than Japanese, pausing occasionally before adding more words and then sending; it seemed to take forever for him to finally stop texting and look over, but when he did Yugi felt a little sick.
Yami had paled slightly and his eyes looked unfocused, different, shadowed and somewhat glazed over, the color returning to his face after a few moments but his eyes stayed the same and Yugi could see the pupils dilating slowly but surely as they adjusted to the muted light in the room. As they dilated, the haze lifted but that shadow and unfocused expression lingered.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing," he said quickly, turning away and starting to write with a sideways glance towards the taller boy who narrowed his eyes slightly before turning back to his own work.
"Hey, uh…why did you put those as their ringtones?"
Yami didn't pause in writing, not looking up. "I…Because, and I know this is going to sound really stupid, but it's their…elements. Like their personalities, you know?"
Yugi nodded and had no doubt that the red eyes caught the movement.
"So Malik is like the wind, Seto is like ice, and Bakura is fire. Obviously, there was nothing that was purely wind so I got this bell chime, and the only ice one was someone breaking ice and it was weird and hurt my ears."
"Wow, that's actually pretty cool."
Yami shot him an incredulous look. "If you say so."
"Well, I do, so ha."
The taller teen stopped short just as Yugi did, both of them staring at each other dubiously.
Had Yugi just messed with him?Withouta sarcastic quip that was supposed to hurt?
For a moment they just stared at each other and then very slowly turned their attentions back to their work.
The atmosphere was no more awkward than it normally was so Yugi really wasn't surprised when it claimed the air and Yami didn't look the least bit surprised either, still going with his half of the project rather diligently.
Thank Ra there was no mention of his look-alike in any of these pages.
Then again, had Yugi never been to a museum before?
Yami wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brows in thought before turning his head and assessing the other boy who looked back after a moment; no, Yugi might have gone to one but he probably didn't stay long. He couldn't really see him being very interested in it in the first place.
History was probably a bore to him.
Something to excel at in class but nothing that he would actively study if he was not pushed to do so.
That was kind of sad but it made so much sense.
"May I have something to drink?"
Yugi's eyes stretched wide. May? Did he really just saymay? He blinked a few times and then slowly got up with a small nod, watching as the little white phone went off and he turned his attention to it instead of him.
Yugi had literally never had someone ask him if theymayhave something.
It felt awkward to hear and definitely strange in his head.
"Soda, Gatorade or water?"
"Um…what kind of soda?"
Did he imagine it or was Yami hesitating?
"Sprite, Root Beer, and…Orange Fanta."
"Sprite, please."
Yugi snatched the green bottle from the fridge and frowned. Was he really raised to be this polite? It kind of irked him to be on the other end of it, but that was merely because he was unused to it. Others never said such things to him. It was always pretty much a demand and now Yami was respecting him and it was justweird, especially considering how often they fought.
When he got back to the couch, he found that the other boy had fallen fast asleep on his side, half-curled in the fetal position with his phone in his hand, threatening to fall out of his grip.
Kami, how long had he been in the kitchen?
He furrowed his brows.
That explained why Yami hesitated. Yugi had dragged him half out of his doze but upon choosing, when Yugi did not speak again and instead dwelled on Yami's behavior, he had taken it as a signal that the conversation was over and he was free to sleep.
Yugi frowned a little and looked at the notes that Yami had been writing before chewing his cheek. Should he wake him?
But he looked so peaceful and it seemed rude to wake him up. Besides, he looked kind of cute like that.
Yugi wasn't too daft to admit to it. Yamididlook cute and innocent the way he was asleep. His face looked childish with his eyes closed despite the sharp line of his jaw and the mature features to his face. His eyelashes were long and practically touched his cheekbones. And his other cheek was bunched up from how it lay on his outstretched arm and the hand that lay on top of that. In his sleep he actually looked relaxed.
Yugi decided to let him be.
It was only ten minutes later that his phone rang and Yami's fingers twitched but the teen didn't respond otherwise and then Yugi was laughing when he realized that Yami had it set on the highest volume so that it would vibrate, possibly to wake him up, but it obviously wasn't working because he had yet to stir aside from his hand.
He slipped it out of his palm, happy that the phone was so small and smooth and coverless so that it fell from his fingers easily, catching it in his left hand and then putting it on the table.
Of course, like every other smart-phone in existence, its screen lit up with a green bubble of text. Yugi didn't look at it, of course, but after about the fifteenth text he finally got annoyed, wondering how the fuck he was supposed to turn it off if there was no power button.
No, there was a menu button, a list button and a back button.
And nothing else.
What the fuck?
Oh, the power button was on the side.
He started to press it when a single word in the text caught his attention.
Atem.
Who the fuck was that?
He looked the text over and then looked back at Yami with wide eyes.
Atem, come on, answer the fucking phone already.It's important!
Yugi glanced back at the text and then put the phone back down for a moment before finally grabbing it and sating his curiosity; Yami did not have it password-protected, which was good for him.
The bad part?
Most of the texts, but about three of them, sent from Seto and Bakura, were in Arabic. The further he scrolled, the more they came up in Arabic, but when he got near the bottom of the lists of texts, they became Japanese.
Which obviously meant that Yami used Arabic to keep his texts completely hidden.
But what the fuck?
Why the hell would he need to do that?
Yugi messed with the phone again, surprised when twenty new texts came rolling in right after the other, half in Arabic and half in Japanese, all from Seto Kaiba.
And then, slowly, came the question…How the fuck did Yami know Seto Kaiba?
Yugi knew him from his interviews as the CEO of Kaiba Corp. but that didn't explain how Yami had hisnumber.
When Yami had said Seto, he had not thought he meantKaiba. Because that would be bat-shit crazy to assume that Yami knew the Kaiba brothers.
But apparently he did.
Maybe that was who Yami had turned around to talk to that day at the hospital. Because he had turned away and walked off after a few minutes while in the meantime Rebecca and Bakura and Malik started flipping the finger at each other while Yugi had shaken his head and walked off with the blonde tailing him after sticking her tongue out and pulling on her bottom eyelids with her middle fingers before chasing him out of the building.
There was no way…how the fuck did–Yami said hiscousinwas in the hospital. He didn't say which cousin. Which meant, maybe it was Seto who had been in the accident? No, oh crap, how could he haveforgotten?
Yami said, "Yeah, I haven't heard any news about Mokuba" that day on the couch.
Mokuba. Seto Kaiba's little brother.
Oh shit.
That meant Yami wasrelatedto the Kaiba brothers.
He looked at the taller teen behind him who was still fast asleep and tried to picture it. The three of them hadnothingin common–except, maybe Mokuba's tiny size. Because according to the news reports, he wastiny. Utterly tiny.
But Seto was taller than Joey. Not by much, but he had about an inch or two on him.
Yugi put the phone on the table and got up.
Now, okay, so Yami was related to them–and thatalsoexplained his little comment about his parents that went uncompleted in the mall that day since theyworkedfor Kaiba Corp. so he must have known both about thetworemarriages and divorces as well as their lack of involvement in his life–but that did nothing to explain why Seto called him "Atem". What the fuck was with that? Atem…that was a name, right? That had to be a name.
Wait, hadn't he heard that in a story with his grandfather? Yes, actually. Grandpa told him that Atem was a god of some sort–a sun god, maybe? No, he didn't really think he was a sun god. Crap, Yugi couldn't remember it for the life of him; the shock was still in his system and overriding his thoughts for the moment.
Internet. The internet would have the answers. It always did.
He leaped to his feet and took off into his room.
It took a second to start up his computer but as soon as it was on, Yugi was in the search engine, rapidly typing and looking up "Atem". A bunch of them came up saying that it was a god of some sort but that explained nothing so he continued until the fourth page in which the answer was clear.
Atem was…
Atem was the pharaoh of Egypt five thousand years ago, wielded the Millennium Puzzle–a symbol of power that wassaidto harbor the power of darkness, died at the age of seventeen. Yeah, that didn't exactly help him out now. This guy was dead and Yami–that was who Yugi knew him to be and that was what he would call him–was very much alive and asleep only a few feet away from him.
He scrolled through the results for a long time, pursing his lips in frustration, and then finally clicked on a link that said "Newborn looks like five-thousand-year-old pharaoh" and nearly choked when he saw the picture. That was Yami–granted it was a baby picture, but it was still Yami–right next to the tablet. Another shot showed Yami at the age of six, and a few more until he was thirteen and then they just stopped. The website said that Yami was named after his ancient look-alike ancestor. It said that his current status was unknown as no one had seen him in Egypt for over two years.
A few comments read that he was probably dead. A few others said that was ridiculous and his parents were just keeping him under lock and key while the shit-load of crap his family was under was being sorted through. A few others read that he had been captured and probably being held for ransom or something.
Yugi had to scroll up to the top again to see the comparison pictures to see that underneath each of the photos was the caption "The son of the ambassador of Egypt looks like his five-thousand-year-old ancestor." There was even a picture of a computer-generated photo of the pharaoh using old hieroglyphics to make an accurate portrait; Yugi choked when he saw the two pictures side by side. The only difference between the two was the eyes. And those were so alike it was amazing.
The pharaoh had flecks of a deep, violent shade of dark purple surrounding the pupils of his eyes and Yami's were completely red with no other color. But the shape, the long lashes, the stance they held, the way their heads were held, the shape of their jaws, and the hair were exactly the same. The only difference outside of their eye color was the fact that Yami was several shades lighter in his complexion and Atem had a deep tan coloring to his skin.
There was a snarling sound behind him, a noise of pure rage, and Yugi spun around just in time to see Yami before he was tackled to the ground and pinned there. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" the red-eyed teen spat at him, glaring angrily. "You went through my fucking text messages!"
Yugi squirmed–or at least tried to–and Yami turned his body slightly, just slightly, and then Yugi couldn't move at all. His limbs were pinned too effectively, his body was weighed down with Yami's when he distributed his weight just enough to keep Yugi's arms pinned with one hand around his wrists which were restrained over his head and a single hand in the center of his torso.
"W-what…what are you doing?" he managed, eyes wide.
The air practically vibrated with his anger and Yami's eyes were wild, darkened with a terrible rage that made Yugi want to hide under his bed. This was Yami's wild half in action. Yugi had never really wanted to see the boy pissed off and at his worst, and yet this was exactly what Yami was showing him.
"You went through my text messages," he repeated, his lips curling back to show off his teeth. Yugi felt terror well through him as soon as his eyes settled on Yami's teeth; his canines were unusually sharp and looked like they could tear his flesh open if he so much as applied a little pressure. He'd seen those teeth on Malik and Bakura and he'd witnessed a fight between the two of them in which both of them had pulled back with bite marks; Bakura had bitten him when Malik had pinned him and Malik had bitten him when Bakura got him in a headlock. The bite marks had welled up with blood from where their canines had broken the skin.
"I…You were asleep and Seto–"
"Mycousintexts me," Yami spat, "and you think that because I'm asleep, you can gothrough my phone?"
"N-no!" Yugi stammered, still staring at those sharp teeth and swallowing hard. "I just–h-he texted you and when you didn't answer he started texting you over and over and I was going to wake you up but I saw the name 'Atem' instead of Yami and I…I got curious. I'm sorry!"
Yami continued glaring at him, head tilting to the side angrily, and then pulled away, his jaw flexing as he went over to the laptop and started to clear out his history. Yugi watched him without objection and when Yami got through the four pages of his search about Atem, Yami spun on him so fast Yugi fell backwards again out of shock and fear. Yami merely stared at him, expression hard and cold and disgusted.
And then suddenly he was gone.
Yugi stared after him as he walked out of the room and hesitated to follow; when he got up, Yami was suddenly there and he was on his ass again out of surprise. Yami held his phone in his right hand, shaking it at him with a look like a wolf staring down its prey. "You went through this," he said in a low, deadly calm voice that made Yugi's bones chill with horror. "So tell me what the fuck gave you any right to do it."
He flinched and shook his head, looking away. "I didn't have any right to go through it."
"Look at me, damn it!" Yami spat angrily, making Yugi's head snap around to look at him in shock again. "Do not fucking look away from me when I am talking to you."
Yugi flinched and stared, eyes widening further. Yami was in some state of wilderness that made Yugi want to hide under a rock somewhere.
"Now, repeat what you just said."
"I…I said I didn't have any right to go through it."
Yami sneered at him. "'I didn't have the right to go through it'."
It was odd, because the fact that his voice lowered, that he didn't scream at him, scared him much worse than anyone else had managed to do to him all sixteen years of his life and he was seconds away from pissing himself.
"So then why the fuck would youassumethat just because my cousin calls me 'Atem' instead of Yami you have the fuckingrightto go through my text messages?" he spat, looking ready to attack him for a moment before instead running his hands through his hair and settling for just glaring at him. "I fucking hate presumptuous assholes like you. I fucking hate them."
Yugi flinched again but didn't speak, seeing that Yami was clearly not finished.
"You know what? This makes you a fucking liability. Someone finds me and they might just fucking find you too. Did you ever think that knowledge is a burden andnota power?" Yami hissed at him, walking closer and making Yugi scoot back into the bedpost; he hit it hard and let out a sharp gasp of intense pain, eyes widening. Yami didn't falter and instead got in front of him and crouched there, getting to eye level with him. "No one was supposed to fucking know about this. Do you not realize that?"
Yugi didn't answer and then trembled when Yami barked, "I'm talking to you!"
"I–I…N-no?"
"Why thefuckis there aquestion markat the end of that?"
"S-sorry."
"Stop stuttering."
Yugi couldn't answer because he was pretty sure he would have ended up stuttering if he opened his mouth and tried to force a response. Yami didn't make him talk. Yugi watched as he got up and pulled away from him, stepping back a couple of times and then looking at his phone. It wasn't until Yami was out the doorway that Yugi realized he was about to leave; he got to the living room just as Yami was grabbing his canvas bag and tackled him so hard that they both hit the backrest of the couch and sent the piece of furniture toppling over.
Yami struggled beneath him but Yugi managed to pin him down, steeling all of his muscles and making it impossible for the taller teen to get out from under him.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Yami snarled at him, no longer struggling and now just looking at him with a furious expression; Yugi kept him pinned on his stomach, his legs locking Yami's in place against the fallen furniture and his hands holding Yami's behind his back.
"What did the articles mean? They said that there was something going on with your parents?"
"Oh, so you think you can go through my stuff and then demand answers?" Yami sneered at him, very suddenly bucking sideways and rolling them over; the speed and impact of Yami's weight left him breathless and the taller teen had him pinned in a millisecond. "Fuck you."
Yugi squirmed but just like in his room, Yami's grip was infallible and impossible for him to get out of. "Yami–"
"Aren't you going to call me Atem?" he spat angrily, eyes wild and leaving Yugi shocked. "I mean, you know that's my real name so why aren't you calling me by it?"
Yugi swallowed hard. "I only know you as Yami."
"Yeah, aren't you lucky? You only got to experience Yami. You never had to deal with Atem. But we can't all be as lucky as you, can we?"
He blinked and Yami released him rather suddenly, getting up and hopping over the couch's base before grabbing his phone back from where it had fallen from the impact; Yugi pulled himself into a sitting position and watched as the taller teen started texting rapidly, arms crossed and expression less than happy.
Did Yami hate himself? Or…rather, part of himself?
Because it sure sounded that way when Yami spoke. He spat his name like it was poison and his voice had been so dark and murderous that Yugi had had a brief moment where he thought Yami might do just that.
Yami's phone ringing startled him out of his reverie and Yami was suddenly glaring at him. "Keep your fucking mouth shut," he snapped, pulling the phone up to his ear; Yugi wasn't sure what language he was speaking but it definitely wasn't Japanese so he guessed it was Arabic. But he was still too freaked out to really try to figure what was being said.
"Hello?"
Yugi listened to some other voice, sharp, nasty, brutal, snapping at him from the other end and Yami merely turned his head and stared at the ground with his jaw set. Yugi didn't think it was fair that Yami only got that one word out before the other voice started barking at him, especially not when, three minutes later, the phone disconnected and Yami stared at it for a moment before pocketing it again.
"You know, if I were in some kind of stupid movie, I would have my team of secret agents hunt you down and kill you for knowing this crap," the red-eyed teen said suddenly, turning to him and staring with a brutal expression that made Yugi flinch again. "Aren't you lucky you aren't in a movie?"
Yugi let out a small breath and Yami's eyes narrowed for a moment before he turned away again and crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head.
"I am so screwed."
"Yami, I–"
"Don't," Yami snapped, spinning on him. "Don't fucking talk anymore. Don't apologize because it doesn't fuckingmatterif you're sorry or not. Don't ask questions because then I might feelobligatedto answer you. Don't look at me because I feel like my head is going to explode."
Yugi blinked and then turned away, listening as Yami took a few deep breaths and then started pacing. Yugi let his eyes wander and spotted Yami moving back and forth quickly, jaw clenched and hands running through his hair in frustration. Whatever it was that scared him so badly, Yugi had obviously just released it to bite him in the ass.
Note: Story will be updated every Wednesday
Warning: TONS of cursing throughout story
Chapter Warning: Chapter has a little homosexual slander (use of word "fag/faggot"–I do NOT support it but it worked for the story so I decided to put it in there).
Homosexual Slander: It is in the conversation in the first part of the chapter. I didn't want anyone to be surprised or offended, so yeah...It's not in there often, just once or twice.
Chapter VIII: Text Message
"Yami."
Joey, Tristan and Ushio all looked over at the brunette as she strode towards him; Mana and Mahado stood behind him, eyes widening as Yami looked at her and then turned to them and shook his head. Both of them nodded and then turned and walked off, glancing over their shoulders at him.
He wondered vaguely if they knew what he had done. But he highly doubted it.
"Tea, what–?"
"I don't need you three around. Go away," she snapped at the blond.
Joey looked at her for a moment and then glared at Yami for a minute before leading the other two away with him. The red-eyed teen found it odd that Yugi was not around but dismissed this as Tea stopped in front of him.
"What the fuck was that last week?"
Yami didn't answer, merely leveling her with a stare.
"Well?" she pressed.
"Well what? You got what you wanted. Or most of it, anyways. Let's be honest, shall we? You were using me just like I was using you. I just wanted to get a little relief from all the stress and you wanted me to be your first. We both got half of what we wanted."
"Are you a fag or something?" she spat suddenly.
Yami startled and his eyes stretched wide in shock, opening his mouth once before baring his teeth. "Don't call me that," he snarled back.
"So then you are. Great. That's just great–"
"I am not gay," he snapped coldly. "I gave you what you wanted. Can't you just leave me the fuck alone now?"
"You used me."
"And you used me. There were two of us in this equation."
"You didn't even get a boner."
Yami froze and blinked.
"You made out with me, touched me, fingered me, and you didn't once get a boner. So either you're gay or you're just fucking stupid. Because I am the best thing that couldeverhappen to you."
"The best thing that could ever happen for him is if you left him the fuck alone."
Both of them turned towards Yugi as he strode forward. The smaller teen was not even really sure what he was doing, but under all the anger, Yugi could see the fear that was seeping through Yami's system and had come to his rescue.
Which was strange because he never came to anyone's rescue. It never paid off.
"Honestly, Tea, maybe you just aren't his type."
"Funny, coming from you, Yugi," the brunette hissed at him, stepping forward. "You're the one who has been in love with me since pretty much the day we met."
"I was neverin lovewith you. It was a crush. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Why the fuck are you even in our business anyways? This is between me and Yami."
"And now it's between you and me."
"Explain that to me, because you were never in this conversation in the first place."
Yami looked like he was going to be sick as he watched them. Yugi stopped a step away from her and glared spitefully, seeming to fume as his eyes bore into hers; the smaller teen didn't miss that Bakura and Malik had stopped a few feet down the hall at the vending machines and were now openly staring at their cousin who seemed to be frozen in place.
"You're over here bitching about how you're the best thing he could ever have but you're not. You're not the best anything," Yugi spat, shaking his head and glaring. "And don't eventryto make this about my crush on you, okay? Because that hasn't been here for a while. But here's the thing, Tea, Yami doesn't need some puppy dog running after him all the time or some bitch who wants things that she shouldn't. Shit, you think you know so much about him but you don't know anything. You know his name. You know his face. And that's it. That's all you know about him. You never even had abasisfor a relationship with him. Fuck, evenIknow that. Shit, I know more about him than you do and you've been in love with the idiot for two years now!"
Bakura and Malik stared in shock for a moment and then looked at their cousin who had paled drastically and looked even sicker than he had moments before; his face was green around the edges, he had a small drop of sweat crawling agonizingly slowly down the side of his face from his temple…
"At least have a crush on someone who actually knows youexist. God, what is withgirls? They always hit on the guys who don't even know that they exist. You like Yami, but Yami only ever spoke to you orofyou the day that Joey and Tristan pranked you in PE and in the library when you flirted with him. What did you not get about himdismissingyou? For fuck's sake, I could understand if you were a fuckingblonde–"
"The fuck?" Malik snapped, making all of them look at him for a moment before turning back to the argument at hand.
"–but this is ridiculous. I mean, at least when I was crushing on you, you knew who I was. Maybe I was stuck in the friend-zone, but hell, at least you knew my name. Yami has never given two fucks about you in the first place. But then, you never gave two fucks about me either. So I guess you and I have that much in common."
"Is this some kind of way of trying to make me see that you would be good for me?" Tea asked sharply, rolling her eyes. "Newsflash, Yugi, that is never going to happen."
"I don't want you!" Yugi yelled, shaking his head. "And you're so fuckingdenseto think I do! God, Tea, you fucking–you make me want to beat my own head in with a baseball bat, that's howstupidyou are!"
Tea's mouth fell open.
He grabbed at his hair and shook his head, spitting, "You don't understand anything, do you? You thought that when he wasignoringyou, he was playinghard to get! No, he wasn't fucking playinghard to get,he was telling you there isno chance. Because there isn't. And there neverwillbe. I mean,honestly,Tea!"
Yami couldn't take his eyes off the two in front of him, not even when he saw his cousins coming from his peripheral vision; they stopped a few steps away and watched with wide smirks on their face, obviously terribly amused by the small boy.
"You don't have friends in common. You never had any classes together. You don't have the same intellect level. You flirted with him in front of me when I still liked you. Do youreallythink that is attractive toanyone? You come off as aslutwhen you do that. It makes you look unfaithful. 'Oh, yeah, I love you, but by the way, I think I'm going to go ahead and flirt with him too, in the meantime, but don't worry, it's all just for fun'. Did you think that was how it worked? No, Tea, if you're going to be with someone, you're not supposed to flirt with someone while someone else isclearlycrushing on you. And, by the way, you shouldn't string people along either. It might just come tobite"–he chomped his teeth loudly–"you in the ass."
Tea gasped and Yami stared with wide eyes but the other two started snickering behind their hands, struggling not to full out laugh at this.
"Because you know, maybe if you weren't such a bitch all the time, I might have been able to vouch for you, but not now. Instead you string me along like a puppy dog, then go and demand that Yami dates you when really all he wanted was a quick. Fuck." He was smirking and his face twisted cruelly as he added, "You don't meet the criteria because you're a maniacalbitchwho wants, wants, wants, and never gives. What the fuck would you have to offer Yami anyways? What do you have to offeranyone,Tea? He couldn't evenfuckyou without realizing that you're fuckingcrazy!"
The sound of flesh colliding echoed through the hallway like a shotgun and all of them stared in shock before Tea seethed and snarled, "And you wonder why no one could ever love you" before turning and storming off down the hall to her homeroom.
Yugi didn't do the classic thing of touching his cheek where the handprint was; instead he spun around and pushed Yami who stumbled and hit the ground, staring at him with wide eyes as he snarled, "This isyourfault!" before turning and storming off to his own class.
Bakura and Malik waited until he was gone before they gave in to their laughter, the noise bouncing off the walls as they helped him to his feet. "Holy fuck, that was awesome," the silver-haired teen snickered, shaking his head slightly and wrapping his arm around his shorter cousin's shoulders, chuckling darkly. "Please,pleasego finger-fuck someone else. I want to see if it happens again."
Malik howled with laughter again and Yami gave them blank looks before shaking his head slowly and pulling away.
Yami was seated next to her for the test which was the only reason his mind even went in that strange direction.
The brunette didn't look up except when she thought he couldn't see her but he was always watching from the corner of his eye so he caught her each time; it was safe to say he didn't draw attention to her looking at him because she had not done so with him so instead he let her stare until she was sated of her curiosity and turned away again to take back the task of doing her work.
Now Yami had no attraction to her and he still had yet to interact with her but seeing as she was right next to him at the moment, he honestly didn't try to stop himself from looking.
His red eyes drew in every single bit of her body, not for the sake of imprinting her being in his mind but purely because he honestly couldn't understand why he feltnothingtowards her or any other female.
He would have shaken his head if he wasn't already watching as she started to shift awkwardly in her seat, acutely aware of his blatant staring; he tore his eyes away again and looked at his own test, slightly annoyed with his own thoughts but far from able to turn them off.
One in the back of his subconscious bit particularly hard, drawing his attention to the fact that he had messed up royally and odds were, whatever little thing there was between himself and Yugi was gone.
He wished he could have been relieved but he was far from it.
In fact, the only thing he actually felt was pure, unfiltered dismay.
And he didn't know why.
But he did know that now was definitely the time to see to it to test Yugi's little theory of seeing if another girl would "do it for him" where Tea had failed.
He was far from stupid, so he knew that Vivian would never do so, first because he didn't know her–at all–and second because she looked oddly like Tea did herself. And the thought itself left his stomach twisting and his lip curling back and his blood boiling in his veins because of his own stupid mistake as well as the million and one things that had gone wrong because of that simple,terriblystupid choice.
No, he had a few select friends of the female variety and if he was honest with himself, onlyoneof them had ever gotten a reaction out of him aside from deep-rooted friendship.
So, really, he only had one option.
And yes, he dreaded it.
But he also knew she would never turn him away.
He hated himself for his own knowledge of the girl's affection towards him. Because what kind of sick bastard would do these kinds of things?
Yugi did not encounter Yami again for two weeks. When they were even near each other or in the same room, they always put distance between themselves, taking opposite corners of wherever they were, never once bothering to acknowledge the other.
It was only because the project was due in a month and a half that Yugi even approached him, waiting impatiently for the red-eyed teen to notice he was standing next to him as Mana and Mahado laughed and messed around; all laughter died when they noticed him and Yami looked confused before turning his head and staring at him.
"Library, tomorrow," he spat, turning and walking off before the other teen could get anything in edgewise.
"God, is hestillbitter about that?" Mana said, rolling her eyes and flicking her long hair with the back of her hand like a supermodel.
It was meant to be a joke but Yami couldn't find it in himself to even crack a smile. "Well, yes, of course he is. I mean, I did finger-fuck his crush."
Mahado gave him a small smile even as his sister frowned slightly and gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm sure he will get over it soon."
"He doesn't need toget overit," Yami argued, shaking his head. "I was the one who messed up. I mean, he has every right to be mad at me. But, honestly, I don't understand why he would like her anyways. She treats him like he's her personal pet or something, always admonishing him."
"Maybe Yugi needs that," the other boy said with a small shrug. "You never know. What doesn't work for you could work for him."
"He gets treated like a goddamned slave."
Again he shrugged. "Yami, you and Yugi aren't the same. Maybe he needs that more than he needs someone who would coddle him. And besides, maybe she had the right idea in doing that. Yugi is a wildcard–"
"No one deserves to be treated like dirt!" Yami spat, getting up abruptly. "No one deserves to be treated like that. I don'tcarewhat the fuck someone thinks they need, that isneverit!"
Both of them gawked as the red-eyed teen stormed off and Yugi watched with dark eyes, following his every movement and wondering what the fuck had just happened to make him leave like that. He was pretty sure it wasn't him who made him run because Yami had never left even when he was glaring daggers into his back and wondering why his eyes didn't have laser vision so he could fry him.
Yugi took one side of the table and Yami took the other. Yugi got two books and Yami got four. Yugi go four books and Yami got eight to outdo him. Yugi got mad and Yami smirked. Yugi threw things at him and Yami glowered. Yami glowered and Yugi smirked. But the rest of the time they ignored each other.
The entire area around them was actually empty; everyone in the library took places in other spots and no one sat near the two of them. Yami found this oddly hilarious. Were they really that scary?
Then again, the air around them seemed to vibrate with tension, angry and bitter tension and their avoidance definitely made sense in all honesty.
Ten minutes before the bell rang, Yugi finally got up and came over to his side, handing him his sheet and snatching his from him before he could object.
But as they looked it over, both of them ended up swapping them back and then looking over the other's shoulder before pulling back and snarling, "You copied what I wrote!" at the same time before glaring furiously.
"Well, great, now we have a copy of the same exact shit," Yami said with a roll of his eyes.
"No shit, moron."
"It's not just my fault. It's yours too. You can't just blame this onme."
"I'll blame it on whoever the fuck I see fit. And right now, you're the only one here."
Yami grabbed one of the books and then held it up. "Blame the authors because they're all bitches who recycled each other's work." The book fell with a resounding boom throughout the library when Yugi smacked it out of his hand. The librarians and several students looked up but couldn't find the source of the noise and instead went back to whatever they were doing.
"Son of a bitch."
"Why are you talking to yourself?" Yami questioned, raising an eyebrow. "And in such an angrytone."
Yugi looked ready to punch him but instead took a deep breath. "You fucking bastard."
"Again, why are you talking to yourself?"
"I am talking toyou!" he spat.
"I know who my father is, though," Yami objected, smirking cruelly. "Doyou?"
Yugi lunged but then stopped himself at the last second, pulling back and glaring at him fiercely. "I'm not about to get my ass suspended for you," he snapped.
"Surely you don't believe you could take me in a fight," Yami stated, bristling. "I'll break every bone in your body before you can even blink."
Yugi leaned forward and placed his face a mere inch from Yami's and then blinked several times. "Oh, but I don'tfeelvery broken."
"We're not fighting yet."
"What do you call this exactly?"
"It's called a verbal spat–an argument. You had one with Tea two weeks ago."
Yugi grabbed at the collar of his uniform shirt and bared his teeth when he growled, "Leave her out of this."
"It's not my fault she never liked you." He pulled Yugi's arm away by pressing into the bundle of nerves on his wrist; Yugi snatched his hand away and glared at him before looking at it curiously. "Honestly, I didn't make her crush on me."
"I didn't make you finger-fuck her either and yet you did."
Yami frowned and then narrowed his eyes. "Yugi, we have to put this aside for right now. Our grade depends on it. And like you said, we could have fucked over the first one but not this one. It's forty-five percent of our grade. We don't do it, we don't pass, and we will never recover before second half of the semester starts."
Yugi chewed the inside of his cheek for a long time before closing his eyes and nodding; as much as he hated to admit it, Yami was right. There was no way to save forty-five percent of their grades in only three weeks when the project was turned in and finals started up. "Yeah, I know. When…when do you want to get together for this then?"
"I told you before that I can't go to your house so you would have to come to mine," Yami muttered, drumming his nails against the table and looking up at the ceiling with a small sigh of irritation. "I don't know, after school I guess?"
Yugi groaned. "I have to work at the shop. And then I need to clean up the house because Grandpa is coming home in a week."
"He's still in the hospital?"
"No, but his friend is."
Yami stared for a moment. "The man on the gurney?"
"Yeah, Professor Hawkins. Grandpa has been there since he was discharged." He sighed. "Hawkins will be okay, but Grandpa wants to be there with him for right now."
Yami chewed his cheek for a long time and then closed his eyes and shook his head; Professor Hawkins, another who had been in Egypt, another who would most likely recognize him if they were to ever meet. "Very well. I guess I will go with you to yours." He opened his eyes and then started digging into his pockets before pulling out a single small white touch-screen phone with a small button in the middle and two on the sides, unlocking it and starting to text. Yugi tried to read it but he didn't recognize the symbols that Yami used because they were hardly Japanese.
"What language is that?"
"Arabic."
And then, as the word left his mouth, Yami froze.
Yugi blinked in confusion. Why the fuck did Yami know Arabic? He himself knew Arabic, but that was because his grandpa taught him how to speak it. He could not read or write in Arabic for the life of him.
And yet, because Yami looked so alarmed, Yugi neglected to say anything.
He did, of course, make a note of the information for later use.
Who knew that later would only be fours hours' time?
The two got to the shop where Yugi manned it for two hours before deciding that it was too slow a day to keep it open as they needed to get their work done. When they got up to the living room, both of them took separate sides of the couch and continued working from there, using the coffee table to pass notes between each other as talking seemed to result in tearing each other's head off.
Half the time the things they wrote was what the other was about to record themselves, frustrating them both to no end as they finally scooted into the middle to sit next to each other and be able to see what the other was writing without pushing a paper between them.
His phone went off and Yugi had to admit that he liked the slender little white object. It had a nice simple ringtone to it, like bells sounding and then water rippling and one like fire crackling.
"I'm sorry," Yami muttered, taking it out of his pocket and unlocking it. "My cousins are texting me."
"Who's who?"
"Malik is the bells, Seto is the water and Bakura is the fire. It makes it easier to figure out who the hell is texting me before I read it," he responded, starting to type away. "I honestly hate reading a text thinking that it is from one person only to find out that it is from someone else entirely."
Yugi nodded. He had that same pet peeve.
He looked at him curiously and found that Yami was still rapidly typing in Arabic rather than Japanese, pausing occasionally before adding more words and then sending; it seemed to take forever for him to finally stop texting and look over, but when he did Yugi felt a little sick.
Yami had paled slightly and his eyes looked unfocused, different, shadowed and somewhat glazed over, the color returning to his face after a few moments but his eyes stayed the same and Yugi could see the pupils dilating slowly but surely as they adjusted to the muted light in the room. As they dilated, the haze lifted but that shadow and unfocused expression lingered.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing," he said quickly, turning away and starting to write with a sideways glance towards the taller boy who narrowed his eyes slightly before turning back to his own work.
"Hey, uh…why did you put those as their ringtones?"
Yami didn't pause in writing, not looking up. "I…Because, and I know this is going to sound really stupid, but it's their…elements. Like their personalities, you know?"
Yugi nodded and had no doubt that the red eyes caught the movement.
"So Malik is like the wind, Seto is like ice, and Bakura is fire. Obviously, there was nothing that was purely wind so I got this bell chime, and the only ice one was someone breaking ice and it was weird and hurt my ears."
"Wow, that's actually pretty cool."
Yami shot him an incredulous look. "If you say so."
"Well, I do, so ha."
The taller teen stopped short just as Yugi did, both of them staring at each other dubiously.
Had Yugi just messed with him?Withouta sarcastic quip that was supposed to hurt?
For a moment they just stared at each other and then very slowly turned their attentions back to their work.
The atmosphere was no more awkward than it normally was so Yugi really wasn't surprised when it claimed the air and Yami didn't look the least bit surprised either, still going with his half of the project rather diligently.
Thank Ra there was no mention of his look-alike in any of these pages.
Then again, had Yugi never been to a museum before?
Yami wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brows in thought before turning his head and assessing the other boy who looked back after a moment; no, Yugi might have gone to one but he probably didn't stay long. He couldn't really see him being very interested in it in the first place.
History was probably a bore to him.
Something to excel at in class but nothing that he would actively study if he was not pushed to do so.
That was kind of sad but it made so much sense.
"May I have something to drink?"
Yugi's eyes stretched wide. May? Did he really just saymay? He blinked a few times and then slowly got up with a small nod, watching as the little white phone went off and he turned his attention to it instead of him.
Yugi had literally never had someone ask him if theymayhave something.
It felt awkward to hear and definitely strange in his head.
"Soda, Gatorade or water?"
"Um…what kind of soda?"
Did he imagine it or was Yami hesitating?
"Sprite, Root Beer, and…Orange Fanta."
"Sprite, please."
Yugi snatched the green bottle from the fridge and frowned. Was he really raised to be this polite? It kind of irked him to be on the other end of it, but that was merely because he was unused to it. Others never said such things to him. It was always pretty much a demand and now Yami was respecting him and it was justweird, especially considering how often they fought.
When he got back to the couch, he found that the other boy had fallen fast asleep on his side, half-curled in the fetal position with his phone in his hand, threatening to fall out of his grip.
Kami, how long had he been in the kitchen?
He furrowed his brows.
That explained why Yami hesitated. Yugi had dragged him half out of his doze but upon choosing, when Yugi did not speak again and instead dwelled on Yami's behavior, he had taken it as a signal that the conversation was over and he was free to sleep.
Yugi frowned a little and looked at the notes that Yami had been writing before chewing his cheek. Should he wake him?
But he looked so peaceful and it seemed rude to wake him up. Besides, he looked kind of cute like that.
Yugi wasn't too daft to admit to it. Yamididlook cute and innocent the way he was asleep. His face looked childish with his eyes closed despite the sharp line of his jaw and the mature features to his face. His eyelashes were long and practically touched his cheekbones. And his other cheek was bunched up from how it lay on his outstretched arm and the hand that lay on top of that. In his sleep he actually looked relaxed.
Yugi decided to let him be.
It was only ten minutes later that his phone rang and Yami's fingers twitched but the teen didn't respond otherwise and then Yugi was laughing when he realized that Yami had it set on the highest volume so that it would vibrate, possibly to wake him up, but it obviously wasn't working because he had yet to stir aside from his hand.
He slipped it out of his palm, happy that the phone was so small and smooth and coverless so that it fell from his fingers easily, catching it in his left hand and then putting it on the table.
Of course, like every other smart-phone in existence, its screen lit up with a green bubble of text. Yugi didn't look at it, of course, but after about the fifteenth text he finally got annoyed, wondering how the fuck he was supposed to turn it off if there was no power button.
No, there was a menu button, a list button and a back button.
And nothing else.
What the fuck?
Oh, the power button was on the side.
He started to press it when a single word in the text caught his attention.
Atem.
Who the fuck was that?
He looked the text over and then looked back at Yami with wide eyes.
Atem, come on, answer the fucking phone already.It's important!
Yugi glanced back at the text and then put the phone back down for a moment before finally grabbing it and sating his curiosity; Yami did not have it password-protected, which was good for him.
The bad part?
Most of the texts, but about three of them, sent from Seto and Bakura, were in Arabic. The further he scrolled, the more they came up in Arabic, but when he got near the bottom of the lists of texts, they became Japanese.
Which obviously meant that Yami used Arabic to keep his texts completely hidden.
But what the fuck?
Why the hell would he need to do that?
Yugi messed with the phone again, surprised when twenty new texts came rolling in right after the other, half in Arabic and half in Japanese, all from Seto Kaiba.
And then, slowly, came the question…How the fuck did Yami know Seto Kaiba?
Yugi knew him from his interviews as the CEO of Kaiba Corp. but that didn't explain how Yami had hisnumber.
When Yami had said Seto, he had not thought he meantKaiba. Because that would be bat-shit crazy to assume that Yami knew the Kaiba brothers.
But apparently he did.
Maybe that was who Yami had turned around to talk to that day at the hospital. Because he had turned away and walked off after a few minutes while in the meantime Rebecca and Bakura and Malik started flipping the finger at each other while Yugi had shaken his head and walked off with the blonde tailing him after sticking her tongue out and pulling on her bottom eyelids with her middle fingers before chasing him out of the building.
There was no way…how the fuck did–Yami said hiscousinwas in the hospital. He didn't say which cousin. Which meant, maybe it was Seto who had been in the accident? No, oh crap, how could he haveforgotten?
Yami said, "Yeah, I haven't heard any news about Mokuba" that day on the couch.
Mokuba. Seto Kaiba's little brother.
Oh shit.
That meant Yami wasrelatedto the Kaiba brothers.
He looked at the taller teen behind him who was still fast asleep and tried to picture it. The three of them hadnothingin common–except, maybe Mokuba's tiny size. Because according to the news reports, he wastiny. Utterly tiny.
But Seto was taller than Joey. Not by much, but he had about an inch or two on him.
Yugi put the phone on the table and got up.
Now, okay, so Yami was related to them–and thatalsoexplained his little comment about his parents that went uncompleted in the mall that day since theyworkedfor Kaiba Corp. so he must have known both about thetworemarriages and divorces as well as their lack of involvement in his life–but that did nothing to explain why Seto called him "Atem". What the fuck was with that? Atem…that was a name, right? That had to be a name.
Wait, hadn't he heard that in a story with his grandfather? Yes, actually. Grandpa told him that Atem was a god of some sort–a sun god, maybe? No, he didn't really think he was a sun god. Crap, Yugi couldn't remember it for the life of him; the shock was still in his system and overriding his thoughts for the moment.
Internet. The internet would have the answers. It always did.
He leaped to his feet and took off into his room.
It took a second to start up his computer but as soon as it was on, Yugi was in the search engine, rapidly typing and looking up "Atem". A bunch of them came up saying that it was a god of some sort but that explained nothing so he continued until the fourth page in which the answer was clear.
Atem was…
Atem was the pharaoh of Egypt five thousand years ago, wielded the Millennium Puzzle–a symbol of power that wassaidto harbor the power of darkness, died at the age of seventeen. Yeah, that didn't exactly help him out now. This guy was dead and Yami–that was who Yugi knew him to be and that was what he would call him–was very much alive and asleep only a few feet away from him.
He scrolled through the results for a long time, pursing his lips in frustration, and then finally clicked on a link that said "Newborn looks like five-thousand-year-old pharaoh" and nearly choked when he saw the picture. That was Yami–granted it was a baby picture, but it was still Yami–right next to the tablet. Another shot showed Yami at the age of six, and a few more until he was thirteen and then they just stopped. The website said that Yami was named after his ancient look-alike ancestor. It said that his current status was unknown as no one had seen him in Egypt for over two years.
A few comments read that he was probably dead. A few others said that was ridiculous and his parents were just keeping him under lock and key while the shit-load of crap his family was under was being sorted through. A few others read that he had been captured and probably being held for ransom or something.
Yugi had to scroll up to the top again to see the comparison pictures to see that underneath each of the photos was the caption "The son of the ambassador of Egypt looks like his five-thousand-year-old ancestor." There was even a picture of a computer-generated photo of the pharaoh using old hieroglyphics to make an accurate portrait; Yugi choked when he saw the two pictures side by side. The only difference between the two was the eyes. And those were so alike it was amazing.
The pharaoh had flecks of a deep, violent shade of dark purple surrounding the pupils of his eyes and Yami's were completely red with no other color. But the shape, the long lashes, the stance they held, the way their heads were held, the shape of their jaws, and the hair were exactly the same. The only difference outside of their eye color was the fact that Yami was several shades lighter in his complexion and Atem had a deep tan coloring to his skin.
There was a snarling sound behind him, a noise of pure rage, and Yugi spun around just in time to see Yami before he was tackled to the ground and pinned there. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" the red-eyed teen spat at him, glaring angrily. "You went through my fucking text messages!"
Yugi squirmed–or at least tried to–and Yami turned his body slightly, just slightly, and then Yugi couldn't move at all. His limbs were pinned too effectively, his body was weighed down with Yami's when he distributed his weight just enough to keep Yugi's arms pinned with one hand around his wrists which were restrained over his head and a single hand in the center of his torso.
"W-what…what are you doing?" he managed, eyes wide.
The air practically vibrated with his anger and Yami's eyes were wild, darkened with a terrible rage that made Yugi want to hide under his bed. This was Yami's wild half in action. Yugi had never really wanted to see the boy pissed off and at his worst, and yet this was exactly what Yami was showing him.
"You went through my text messages," he repeated, his lips curling back to show off his teeth. Yugi felt terror well through him as soon as his eyes settled on Yami's teeth; his canines were unusually sharp and looked like they could tear his flesh open if he so much as applied a little pressure. He'd seen those teeth on Malik and Bakura and he'd witnessed a fight between the two of them in which both of them had pulled back with bite marks; Bakura had bitten him when Malik had pinned him and Malik had bitten him when Bakura got him in a headlock. The bite marks had welled up with blood from where their canines had broken the skin.
"I…You were asleep and Seto–"
"Mycousintexts me," Yami spat, "and you think that because I'm asleep, you can gothrough my phone?"
"N-no!" Yugi stammered, still staring at those sharp teeth and swallowing hard. "I just–h-he texted you and when you didn't answer he started texting you over and over and I was going to wake you up but I saw the name 'Atem' instead of Yami and I…I got curious. I'm sorry!"
Yami continued glaring at him, head tilting to the side angrily, and then pulled away, his jaw flexing as he went over to the laptop and started to clear out his history. Yugi watched him without objection and when Yami got through the four pages of his search about Atem, Yami spun on him so fast Yugi fell backwards again out of shock and fear. Yami merely stared at him, expression hard and cold and disgusted.
And then suddenly he was gone.
Yugi stared after him as he walked out of the room and hesitated to follow; when he got up, Yami was suddenly there and he was on his ass again out of surprise. Yami held his phone in his right hand, shaking it at him with a look like a wolf staring down its prey. "You went through this," he said in a low, deadly calm voice that made Yugi's bones chill with horror. "So tell me what the fuck gave you any right to do it."
He flinched and shook his head, looking away. "I didn't have any right to go through it."
"Look at me, damn it!" Yami spat angrily, making Yugi's head snap around to look at him in shock again. "Do not fucking look away from me when I am talking to you."
Yugi flinched and stared, eyes widening further. Yami was in some state of wilderness that made Yugi want to hide under a rock somewhere.
"Now, repeat what you just said."
"I…I said I didn't have any right to go through it."
Yami sneered at him. "'I didn't have the right to go through it'."
It was odd, because the fact that his voice lowered, that he didn't scream at him, scared him much worse than anyone else had managed to do to him all sixteen years of his life and he was seconds away from pissing himself.
"So then why the fuck would youassumethat just because my cousin calls me 'Atem' instead of Yami you have the fuckingrightto go through my text messages?" he spat, looking ready to attack him for a moment before instead running his hands through his hair and settling for just glaring at him. "I fucking hate presumptuous assholes like you. I fucking hate them."
Yugi flinched again but didn't speak, seeing that Yami was clearly not finished.
"You know what? This makes you a fucking liability. Someone finds me and they might just fucking find you too. Did you ever think that knowledge is a burden andnota power?" Yami hissed at him, walking closer and making Yugi scoot back into the bedpost; he hit it hard and let out a sharp gasp of intense pain, eyes widening. Yami didn't falter and instead got in front of him and crouched there, getting to eye level with him. "No one was supposed to fucking know about this. Do you not realize that?"
Yugi didn't answer and then trembled when Yami barked, "I'm talking to you!"
"I–I…N-no?"
"Why thefuckis there aquestion markat the end of that?"
"S-sorry."
"Stop stuttering."
Yugi couldn't answer because he was pretty sure he would have ended up stuttering if he opened his mouth and tried to force a response. Yami didn't make him talk. Yugi watched as he got up and pulled away from him, stepping back a couple of times and then looking at his phone. It wasn't until Yami was out the doorway that Yugi realized he was about to leave; he got to the living room just as Yami was grabbing his canvas bag and tackled him so hard that they both hit the backrest of the couch and sent the piece of furniture toppling over.
Yami struggled beneath him but Yugi managed to pin him down, steeling all of his muscles and making it impossible for the taller teen to get out from under him.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Yami snarled at him, no longer struggling and now just looking at him with a furious expression; Yugi kept him pinned on his stomach, his legs locking Yami's in place against the fallen furniture and his hands holding Yami's behind his back.
"What did the articles mean? They said that there was something going on with your parents?"
"Oh, so you think you can go through my stuff and then demand answers?" Yami sneered at him, very suddenly bucking sideways and rolling them over; the speed and impact of Yami's weight left him breathless and the taller teen had him pinned in a millisecond. "Fuck you."
Yugi squirmed but just like in his room, Yami's grip was infallible and impossible for him to get out of. "Yami–"
"Aren't you going to call me Atem?" he spat angrily, eyes wild and leaving Yugi shocked. "I mean, you know that's my real name so why aren't you calling me by it?"
Yugi swallowed hard. "I only know you as Yami."
"Yeah, aren't you lucky? You only got to experience Yami. You never had to deal with Atem. But we can't all be as lucky as you, can we?"
He blinked and Yami released him rather suddenly, getting up and hopping over the couch's base before grabbing his phone back from where it had fallen from the impact; Yugi pulled himself into a sitting position and watched as the taller teen started texting rapidly, arms crossed and expression less than happy.
Did Yami hate himself? Or…rather, part of himself?
Because it sure sounded that way when Yami spoke. He spat his name like it was poison and his voice had been so dark and murderous that Yugi had had a brief moment where he thought Yami might do just that.
Yami's phone ringing startled him out of his reverie and Yami was suddenly glaring at him. "Keep your fucking mouth shut," he snapped, pulling the phone up to his ear; Yugi wasn't sure what language he was speaking but it definitely wasn't Japanese so he guessed it was Arabic. But he was still too freaked out to really try to figure what was being said.
"Hello?"
Yugi listened to some other voice, sharp, nasty, brutal, snapping at him from the other end and Yami merely turned his head and stared at the ground with his jaw set. Yugi didn't think it was fair that Yami only got that one word out before the other voice started barking at him, especially not when, three minutes later, the phone disconnected and Yami stared at it for a moment before pocketing it again.
"You know, if I were in some kind of stupid movie, I would have my team of secret agents hunt you down and kill you for knowing this crap," the red-eyed teen said suddenly, turning to him and staring with a brutal expression that made Yugi flinch again. "Aren't you lucky you aren't in a movie?"
Yugi let out a small breath and Yami's eyes narrowed for a moment before he turned away again and crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head.
"I am so screwed."
"Yami, I–"
"Don't," Yami snapped, spinning on him. "Don't fucking talk anymore. Don't apologize because it doesn't fuckingmatterif you're sorry or not. Don't ask questions because then I might feelobligatedto answer you. Don't look at me because I feel like my head is going to explode."
Yugi blinked and then turned away, listening as Yami took a few deep breaths and then started pacing. Yugi let his eyes wander and spotted Yami moving back and forth quickly, jaw clenched and hands running through his hair in frustration. Whatever it was that scared him so badly, Yugi had obviously just released it to bite him in the ass.