Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Stuck On You ❯ Chapter 16 ( Chapter 16 )

|~*DISCLAIMER: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the property of Kazuki Takahashi. It does not belong to
Rhapsody Moonschild and/or Tat Claire Kokoro.*~|

Yami's POV

And he dares to look surprised. And he dares to reach out to me. Such audacity.

I'm shaking and unstable and I have the feeling that if I let him touch me I will break
into a million tiny pieces.

I trusted him. I trusted him. But I know now what was going through his mind...
get a little sympathy, get me to open up to him, a ready-made excuse for his insanity...

I will never trust him again. Never.

His fingertips brush my sleeve and I stumble back from him. The confused, hurt look
still lingers in his eyes.

The tears begin to flood my eyes, choking me, and I start running.

*

He still doesn't understand love. He has no capacity for it. How could he? He is
created from his hikari's hatred and the power of the Sennen Rod. He IS hate and anger
and sadness... how is there room for love in a psyche like that?

I stop running, gasping for breath and leaning back against the bark of a tree. In my
tear-blurred vision are many more trees--for no reason at all, my aimless sprint has
taken me to the park.

He might be following, just to rub it in. That thought hits me like a cold punch in
the stomach and I turn around, grab the lowest branch, and climb the tree I'm leaning
against.

It's not easy; I've never done it before. The branches scratch me and the trunk is very
hard against me. My arms and legs strain for handholds...

I welcome the pain, so much more bearable than emotional pain.

There, I'm in the tree. I look out through its cloud of leaves and see no one. I laugh
humorlessly as I realize what sort of tree I've climbed--a weeping willow.

I don't cry for very long. Mostly I just sit there in a fog, unthinking, just...
I don't cry for very long. Mostly I just sit there in a fog, unthinking, just...
feeling what's happening now, the prickle of the scratches, the unyielding, uncomfortable
branch beneath my butt.

And a few moments of silence lead to hear something that has been bothering me under
everything else for a while now--knocking.

Knocking in my head--knocking on my soul room door. Yugi is nothing if not persistent.

I'm tired of ignoring him, so I let the defenses down--I shut my eyes, and I let him in.