Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Urgency of Life ❯ falling .9999999999999 ( Chapter 10 )

The Urgency of Life

A Seto/Joey fanfic by subaruxkamui4ever

This is the finale-thingy. Joey sorts out his feelings, and knows now what he wished he had known long ago. Well, ain't that the saddest damn sob story you ever heard? I think I'll have to pull out my violin and play it all out in a saddeningly sad tune. This is the ending, and I'm actually very sad. Although I finished it, so I win. I liked this story, wasn't it a trip and a half? Hopefully these boys learned their lesson, they'll never deny their feeling ever again! That should help out all the writers on FF.net! Merry Christmas! I bring tidings of submissive boys! And now I retreat to the loving arms of Clear Vision, good-bye all! Bye, Seto, hope you get a new body soon! Bye Joey, don't stay in that sock drawer of Seto's for too long! You'll never find him in there!

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Here is the Beginning. It is not the beginning of the End, and it is not the End of a single thing.

This is the Beginning.

Born from the end of far too much. More than I was willing to give. But it does not matter.

The Beginning will not be stopped. My will, the will of He that I lost, the will of the one I am now.

I am taken with the Beginning and I am someone new. I am both He and I, the lost two from before.

They were human and were cursed from the first moment they became aware of one another's life.

Their selfish and empty lives would destroy one another in time. It was inevitable. Fate.

They hated Fate. Especially Him. He sought to defy Fate, and eventually succeeded. It cost Him all that He had, but He wouldn't run away from Me.

And I was the force that drove Him. The power that fueled Him. The love that consumed Him.

I lifted Him up to Fate, so Fate could see Him as He defied It. To It's face.

He did not serve anyone but Himself, and I was His other half, His other Soul.

I can see this, because I am All of Them Both. I am the Soul that they were Together.

I carry It inside me, It is safe within me. I love both He and I.

But Joey is the one you know the best. Joey can still speak as one alone.

Joey can join Seto as The One Soul, or Joey can come apart, alone and simply be Joey again.

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As Joey, it will be easier to talk about these memories. I can stay as just Joey whenever I want to, but the new part about me and what was left of Seto sharing a body is that I can become the half of him and me that is the whole soul joined with him, since his soul is all I have left of him. Just his pure energy, the balance to my own, only without all the things that made it Seto's own feeling. Now, it's just a feeling that he was based on, and was for a time.

He'll come back someday after I die, and he'll be similar, based on the same energy, but until I die as well, I'm afraid it's all I've got of the one I loved more than life itself. And still love in the same way, even though that person, Seto Kaiba, doesn't exist anymore, and never will again. There is only ever one heart puzzle that a person can have. The pieces, they fit together in a certain way that holds all your personality traits, your feelings and emotions, your favorite things, the things that create You. Once the heart puzzle dies, so does the part of the person that was shaped around the puzzle, and all that's left is the life that can never die. The same life that will, in time, receive another heart puzzle, and begin anew. And I am certain that we will know the things we did not know before.

I miss Seto. I loved him so much, and it hurts to say those words, but I cannot lie. I love him still.

I always will. He was my other Half. And I have no other Half anymore. No one could come close.

I cry for long and empty nights. I still live in his house. I stay in his room. I sleep in his bed.

I know he called them `ours' but I would rather call them his. His things are precious like nothing else can touch.

His company belongs to me. I have no authority whatsoever. I am not involved in any way. Everything is run by appointed and official people, places, and things. I don't understand it very well, or how it all works. But it's all in my name. Kaiba Corp., owned by Joey Wheeler. Imagine that. Or better yet, imagine the rest of the people who knew he and I, and the moment they heard the news. All of his things are mine now. And in that way, he is still here.

Here with me. I would burn it all, everything he ever owned, if it would give him back to me. But he cannot go back or forth any longer. He isn't a real person. But he saved my life.

He said he would from the start. That was the reason behind everything that led to the Today I see here and now. He was stubborn, and insistent, and he demanded that he would save me from the very day he took me from the rest of the world. There is nothing to be done in the force of a will that powerful. He knew that I would never hurt him in any way. And he saw his chance to save me from myself. I would never, ever in my life allow Seto to take my drugs, or any other for that matter. And I would never cut him or treat his body carelessly, I wouldn't starve him, or make him sad for no reason. But I would do all these things to myself. So, his first step was to somehow make me treat myself the way I treated Seto. And his plan would work flawlessly.

I haven't done a single line since that day. I've taken care of Seto inside me as I would take care of Seto anywhere. I've showered care and concern upon him, through my body that was unsure of what to do with its newfound state of health. I still love him this much. I keep him close, closer than anything is and could ever be, in a secret place that is only his. I keep him there, and with him are my memories of him, and the ten months we had together.

Through me, Seto Kaiba is still a real person. He will continue to survive because I remember him. I remember the way he was, how could I not? I am nearly in fear of the countless masses that unfortunately will never be able to erase his memory from their lives. They never saw him at all, I am the only person who knew him and remembered him fondly. The images in my mind are real, and they are images of events that happened here in reality, and Seto Kaiba is one of them, he was a real person, he lived with me. This is the other reason why I can no longer cause myself suffering. I am Seto Kaiba. I am the last piece left. In my memory is his last hideout, his last waiting place before the final comeback, and it seems that he's got us all fooled, once again. He'll walk out one of these days, tired of waiting and irritated with the foolish indecisiveness of Death, and upon the first vision we catch of him, here amongst the living once more, he'll roll his eyes at our amazement because we had dared to lose hope so soon. We would no doubt be struck with awe, The Great Seto Kaiba, the miracle that just won't quit. And then he'll make a sound at us, disgusted with our reactions, and at the same time dismissing our existence rudely. He'll turn on his heel and stalk away as such a truly important person should, and he'll begin formulating a new and even more expensive and elaborate plan to host the next great tournament of Duel Monsters, with which he will finally be able reclaim his title as the Greatest Duelist That Would Ever Be. And then, almost as if on call for this sort of thing, Fate would seize the opportunity so carefully constructed to fit Seto's own selfish purposes, and steal it away from him in the name of Destiny. Seto would be stripped of all credit and originality for the organization and would forego the honor to whomever it was that they claimed he must be, some idiot of a Sorcerer who's tale was undoubtedly reiterated from that infuriatingly ridiculous fairy tale, and all the while ruining his plans and robbing him of his nearly won title, always waiting until he was within reach and then shattering the prospect entirely. And in the end, forced to do what he would have done all along in the first place, and somehow inevitably acquiring the shining title of Everyone's Friend by no fault of his own, having to shake himself free of the all the little clambering idiots for what he thought was the last time, or at least prayed it was. All just to be able to calmly level the whole damn thing in a desperate attempt to free himself from the stifling jaws of the iron-clad amusement of Fate.

And everything would be like it was, as it used to be, in the time that he was here with me. Laughing at all his miserable misfortunes and failures was easier with him inside me. I knew the truth, that he would never return. So I gave up knowing the truth, and placed all my efforts into believing in Him, rather than truth. He was much more honest than Truth had ever been, anyway. My faith in him was unshakable and founded in the reality of the person I knew was real, much more tangible a belief than any religion or pure concept could ever be. I knew without a doubt, he still existed, I felt him every moment of every day. It was a terribly heavy burden, I felt a constant state of loss and loneliness, never able to have peace of mind from his memory or feeling. I never slept well without him next to me. The sheets were so cold, and I would always have to warm them all by myself. And his bed was huge, I could sprawl out in any way I wished and wouldn't even feel him on his own side, when he had been here with me. Now I could do whatever I wished, without fear of bothering him or distracting him. I wished that I could. I wished that I could really irritate him, one last time, just to see his eyes filled with that rage that I had always coaxed out of him so long ago. Sometimes I sit back and think of ways to piss him off, things that I had never dared to do for fear that he might have killed me, actually murdered me. I always laughed at the image of his snarling and enraged temper so easily felt all around him. I wonder when I'll have the chance to try one of these ideas out on the real thing.

I wait here patiently. I have nothing else to do, no obligation to anyone for the rest of my life. I don't go to school anymore, or hang out with other people who sometimes stop by. They don't ask me to come outside, they understand that I can't leave him. All of my memories of him and I were here in his house. We spent all our time together here, and to this day I have never been able to set one foot outside. I don't think about if I ever will. Time will prove that fact on it's own. I am satisfied to live out my life here together with the way we were. If I am silent, I can still hear him yelling at me in anger, whenever I remember doing something to piss him off in vivid detail. I can sit in our room and think of a question that I asked him, and after a few seconds without thought or sound, I will hear his response, just as it was when it left his lips. He is still here with me, and it's more than enough to keep me alive for as long as I can stay here, in this house. Following my thoughts and memories, chasing endlessly after the remotest and faintest traces of Seto Kaiba that remain here, lingering in the presence of he and I, and settling into the very foundations of the home itself. This is a feeling I can live for. I'm no longer in love. I am in love with the memory of our love. It is the best feeling in the world, and I hold it close to our heart.

AN: Well, it's not the joyous reunion that some may have wanted (maybe even me), but it's not as sad as it sounded like it was going to be. For a while I thought that it would all end in tragedy, and maybe the world would blow up, or something.....but here you are, then. This feel like closure, it's often missing in angsty stories so I made sure to smooth out some of the rougher edges of the last full chapter. Hopefully this helps with the cryptic and ever elusive plot, I guess some things are left unsaid for the better, as not to embarrass Seto. He's sensitive, that little sissy boy...