[fic] Pain of Promises - Yugioh, YYxY, angst, PG, theme 45
Title: Pain of Promises
Author: Chey (duelist_gurl163)
Theme: 45 - “A promise is all I want. A promise that you will never forget me.” for 50_lovequotes
Rating: PG
Genre: angst
Parings: YamixYugi implied
Archive: You're lookin' at it
Warnings: None really
Spoilers: End of the series
Summary: If only he could forget that he was never coming back.
---
Loud bangs echoing from upstairs were the first signs to Jounouchi that something was wrong.
“Yugi?” He asked aloud, climbing the stairs. “Yugi, what is…?” He stopped, staring. The entire upstairs hallway was filled with…stuff. Furniture, boxes, clothes, books, odds and ends, it was all thrown haphazardly into the hall outside Yugi’s room.
“Um…Yugi?” He asked, peering into the room. He saw Yugi tugging at a drawer in his desk, and raised his voice. “Yugi, it’s me- arragh!” He yelped and dove out of the way as Yugi suddenly wheeled around and threw the empty drawer at the doorway. “What was that for?!”
“Jounouchi?” He seemed to have just noticed him.
“Yes!”
“Oh…sorry…you can come in.”
“Thanks…” He picked his way through the mess and into the room, which was disconcertingly barren. Yugi was now hunting through another drawer, throwing things out the doorway. Jounouchi carefully stayed out of range and finally asked, “Yugi…what’s going on?”
Yugi kept snatching up things and throwing them without a word, a strange blankness in his face.
“Yugi! Hey! Are you listening to me?” He reached out and grabbed his arm. “Yugi, what are you…what happened to your hands?”
Yugi closed his fists, trying to hide his bloody fingertips. “I was trying to get the wallpaper off.”
Jounouchi looked up at the wall and sure enough, he saw bare patches here and there, some streaked with reddish marks.
“Yug, you can’t take wallpaper off with your bare hands.”
“I’m aware of that now.”
“You need bandages on those, or at least some antibiotic ointment, otherwise you could get an infection-“
“Jounouchi, I’m fine.”
“No!” He finally snapped. “Come here, sit down, I’m going to get some first aid, and then you’re going to tell me what the hell you’re doing.”
Yugi allowed himself to be pushed back to sit on his bare mattress, (the linens had been stripped from it), and didn’t argue. He just stared quietly down at the floor as Jounouchi bandaged his fingers.
Finally Jounouchi asked, “Yugi…what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Everything you own is out in the hallway, you tore your fingertips all raw trying to get your wallpaper off, when you know that isn’t possible. Why didn’t you stop? What were you thinking in the first place? Something isn’t right, that isn’t you. You don’t do stupid stuff like that.”
“I just…”
“Just what?”
“I just…want to get rid of everything…that reminds me of him.”
Jounouchi opened his mouth to speak, but Yugi suddenly barreled on ahead, “It hurts…you know…it hurts too much. I had to do something. So I thought…if I could get rid of things that make me think of him…but then the more I got rid of the more I found that reminded me of him, so I had to get rid of it too…”
“The wallpaper…?”
“He was asking about it once. Just chatting…and he asked if I picked it or if my family picked it…and it made me think of that conversation and it made me think of all the other times we’d sat around and talked and he was always asking me questions about little things…and he was always so interested in the answers…” Yugi suddenly brought his fists down on the mattress with a thump, choking, “I don’t want to remember those conversations anymore!”
“Yug…”
His voice grew high and feverish. “But it’s not going to work…don’t you see the problem? Everything…everything makes me think of him. I finally realized that I could empty this room and it won’t change anything. So I thought maybe I’ll leave the house…but this whole city reminds me of him. We spent so much time running all over it…so I think I’ll have to leave the city. But just being in Japan is going to make me think of him, and how fascinated he was by our customs. And if I go to another country, that won’t even help, because I’ll still see things like clothes or places or even stupid things like stop signs that will remind me of something or someplace I was with him…or I’ll see something new and the first thing I’ll want to do is tell him about it and then it’ll hit me all over again that he’s gone.”
Jounouchi’s voice softened. “Yugi…”
“There are so many things…I never got a chance to say,” Yugi whispered miserably. “And this room, and this stuff, and this place…it all just reminds me that we had so much time, and I took it all for granted.”
“Yugi, it’s alright,” He tried to break in gently. “It’s okay to feel hurt. But Yug…Yami wouldn’t want you to forget him.”
“I know!” He suddenly burst into tears at the sound of the old familiar name. “I know…Jounouchi, I know…” He wrapped his arms around himself and cried harder. “He’s gone, Jounouchi…he’s gone and he only wanted one thing…for me to remember him. But it hurts…it hurts so terribly, and all I want right now is to forget…I just want to forget him and forget I’m betraying him because it just hurts too much to keep that promise…”
Alarmed at his crying and in an attempt to comfort, Jounouchi offered kindly, “I don’t think he would consider it betrayal. He was always very understanding.”
“Yeah…he would…he always understood when…things were difficult…” He sniffled, chewing his lower lip as his eyes filled with tears again and he got up. “I need to keep going…the dump closes at dark, and I haven’t got everything together yet-”
Jounouchi grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back onto the bed. “No. Come on Yug…this isn’t good. I miss him too…it’s only been a few weeks, so it’s still really tough right now. But things will get better. I know it hurts, but you don’t really want to forget him. You’ve got too many good memories there, and you would never break a promise you made him. Eventually things won’t hurt so much when you think of him. And when they do, you’re going to want all your things that remind you of him.”
“I…I guess.” He swallowed hard, shaking. “I loved him, Jounouchi. He never knew.”
“No, he knew, when people really care about each other, they know these things.”
“But what if he didn’t? What if he left not knowing-”
“He did. I promise, he knew. He knew he meant something special to you. And he knows you aren’t betraying him.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because, Yami loved you too. It works both ways. You still have a bond with him, even if he’s not here, that doesn’t erase everything you meant to each other. If he was in your place, he’d feel the same way. ”
His well-meant words only brought more tears, so Jounouchi gave up talking and awkwardly gave him a one-armed hug instead, patting his back. A few moments passed before Yugi gulped and squeezed his eyes shut, whispering to prevent his voice cracking from sobs. “Jounouchi, I don’t want to forget him. I just…want to forget that I’m alone…and that he’s never coming back.”
“Yug…you’re not alone.”
“He’s gone.” Yugi’s eyes clouded. The pain vanished from them, but it left nothing behind; just a hollow stare that mirrored the emptiness in his heart.
Suddenly frightened and forgetting his discomfort, Jounouchi brought up his other arm and gave him a real hug, holding him firmly and speaking just as firmly. “No, Yugi, you’re wrong. As long as there is one person in this world that remembers him, he will never be gone. Because you loved him he’ll still be there inside you. Nothing will take that away. Do you hear me? It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay. Nothing can take him away from your heart, you’re not alone. Yugi…are you listening…? Yugi?”
Yugi’s eyes never even flickered, and he remained silent.
x-x-x
Notes: You get to decide what happens. I was feeling depressed when I wrote it so it could be taken as this was Yugi finally giving in to his emptiness, locking himself away from life, and from here he never really "comes back." Or, because I wasn't feeling so hopeless enough to make that bleak outlook certain, you could take this as the lowest point, but because he finally acknowledged the loss that means that from here Yugi will eventually start to heal. Either way works.
The theme just inspired the conversation, I realize that otherwise it doesn't really fit. I decided that was a good enough tie-in though.
Yaye angst.