Disclaimer: I own nothing…X_X

 

Wow, a whole chapter in one day. I guess boredom really is good for something. This is turning out a whole lot different than I originally planned it ^^;;;

 

Seto: Yeah, in the original you were nice to me.  This is just… just… this is just uncalled for!

 

Yami:….I kinda liked it.

 

Seto: O_O You WHAT???? TRAITOR!

 

Yami: -_-;;;

 

Dai: ^^;;; Don’t worry. I have that other long one shot almost done…and then that other story –

 

Seto: And both of them involve either Yugi and I breaking up, or him rejecting me entirely!

 

Yugi: X_X;;; He’s got a point, Dai…

 

Seto: And let’s not even go into your sequel for Raising Trouble….

 

Yami: ^_^ That I do like.

 

Seto: XP That’s because you get to be the sex-crazed pervert everyone knows you are.

 

Yami: x_x

 

Dai: SETO! Stop giving away all my upcoming stories!

 

Seto: XP

 

Yugi: ~_~;;; Anou… before this A/N gets any longer, I think we should start the story….

 

 

Anata o Wasurenai

Chapter four

By: Dai-onna

 

 

 

Yuugi watched over Seto the entire time he slept. He told himself that  it was to make sure that the other was okay, and to get him anything, should he wake up, but in truth, he knew it was because he had missed seeing the other so much, especially asleep. He loved watching him rest,  seeing his face at  ease and peaceful. It made him long for the times they had been together. In the beginning of their relationship, Seto had been guarded often, but every now and then, just before or after sleep, he would let  the walls down a little and just act like a normal person, letting Yuugi in and talking with him, telling him anything he wanted to know.

Yuugi had cherished those moments, when he would curl up in his lover’s arms, his back resting against Seto’s chest, and just listen to him talk, about anything. Those times had been coming more and more frequent  and he had thought he was really getting through to his lover, when Seto had begun to pull away from him entirely and hide himself in his work. It was heart-wrenching to think about and he just wished he knew what had happened to change things for them so much.

He was startled out of his thoughts when he heard Seto groan softly and turned his attention back to him, seeing the brunette’s eyes flutter open. For a moment they had a far off look in them, but then they focused on him and Seto smiled just a little. The look had his heart skipping a few beats and him trying to remember how to breathe. He wanted to throttle the other, to beg him not to look at him like that, lest he throw himself into Seto’s arms and set himself up for the heartbreak that was certain to come. Instead he just smiled back at him and tilted his head to the side.

“Sleep well?” He asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the atmosphere of the room.

The brunette sighed a little and shook his head slightly, wincing at the action. Yuugi realized that his head must still be bothering him and berated himself for not thinking about it earlier. He placed a hand on Seto’s shoulder before he could think better of it, and stood from the chair he was sitting in.

“I’ll go get you a glass of water and the medicine the doctor prescribed for you.” He offered softly, causing Seto to smile at him again. Something that had Yuugi wanting to run for safe ground.

“Thank you.”
”No problem.” He chirped with false cheeriness as he all but bolted for the door, heading to the bathroom to retrieve a glass of water, and fished the bottle of pills out of his pocket. He set the bottle on the bathroom counter after he got two pills out, and filled a glass with cool water before returning to the bedroom where Seto was half sitting, half laying against the headboard.

He looked up when Yuugi came in and the smaller boy quickly averted his eyes, lest the other smile at him again, and handed him the pills and the water.

Seto thanked him once again and dutifully took the medicine, laying back down to wait for it to kick in. As he waited, he turned to look at Yuugi.

“You don’t have to stay beside me. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m sure there are other things you’d rather be doing.” He said quietly, obviously not wanting to burden the tri-color-haired teen.  Said teen blinked a little, surprised, but nodded softly.

“Alright. But I won’t be far. Call on the intercom if you need anything.” He told him gently, heading for the door.

Seto nodded a little and closed his eyes, resting back against his pillows wearily.

It was only a few minutes before he was asleep again.

 

A void. That was only word he could find to aptly describe his surroundings. There was nothing. No forwards or backwards, no left or right. Not even up and down. He was floating; he decided. All of his senses seemed to be on high alert, and yet he could feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. There wasn’t even black, or white, or any other color in the spectrum. There was just nothing. Nothing but himself, alone and confused. So many questions filled his mind and he didn’t have an answer for any of them. Who was he? Where was he? How old was he? Where did he come from? Had he always been here? Had he somehow just come into existence? Was he even a he? He thought so, but at the moment, he couldn’t even be sure of that.  His mind was frayed and he had nothing substantial inside it. He knew odd things that made little sense to him. He knew that food with lots of grease were bad for your cholesterol; but he had no idea what cholesterol was, or grease for that matter. He knew that the average cheetah could run up to seventy five miles per hour, but he had no idea what a cheetah was, or how long  a mile was. Everything was just a jumbled clod of useless information that did him little good, especially in this void that surrounded him.

Absently, he wondered how long he had been here, just thinking to himself. He had no way of knowing how much time was passing, and at what speed. He could have been in this abyss only a matter of moments, or for hours, or day, weeks, years. He couldn’t tell, didn’t know, and every moment that passed, another moment seemed to fade from his memory like water from a sieve. It was madness. He could have screamed at that moment; may have, but lost in the emptiness, he heard nothing but the incoherent ramblings of his own tortured mind.

And then there was something, a silhouette in the distance, growing closer, larger, until the shape of a person; a man, he decided, was right in front of him and he was staring up into a stern face, his own eyes meeting cold, stony, compassionless ones. In that moment, he knew fear. Even if he had never felt it before, he recognized it instantly in the one moment as he stared up at the man towering over him, making him feel small, and helpless, and oh so afraid..

He was seized up by the front of his shirt, and the body that he couldn’t feel before was suddenly thrumming with pain, he could feel bruises littering his lanky frame, could feel blood seeping from various scrapes and cuts. But the worst, the most prominent pain, was coming from his back where he could all but see the long, angry red lashes that came from the unyielding leather of a belt.

“Worthless boy! Listen to me when I talk to you.” Came a booming voice, seemingly from a distance, and suddenly his attention was back on the man in front of him, holding him up so that his toes barely touched solid ground.. Fear seeped through every inch of his body and he wanted badly to find a corner to curl up and hide in. Hide away where this man with the loud, angry voice and hateful eyes couldn’t find him. Where he couldn’t hurt him again.

“Gomen n-nasai, gomen nasai.” His own, small, fearful voice sobbed out. He wanted to run; wanted to get away from this, wanting to find warm, safe arms that he had missed for so very long. He wanted to curl up in his mother’s arms, listen to her hum softly as she held him, and breathe in her familiar scent of flowers and cinnamon. But even as he thought of the gentle woman whose face he couldn’t remember, the void around them seemed to come alive, and melted into a graveyard, filled with tombstones, some nameless, some etched with strange markings, but he could see the two largest ones clearly, bearing the names of the people who had given him life, who had  raised him for those few, precious years, who had given him a brother… given him hope.

He wanted to cry, wanted to fall to his knees and sob for the family he had lost, sob for the happiness that always seemed to elude him, but he couldn’t escape the grip of the angry looking man.

“You’re weak. Weak and pathetic.” The man growled, pulling his belt from his pants. He tried to get away, to run before he could be beaten again, but his hands and feet refused to move, even as he was dropped to the ground, he was frozen in place, held by invisible bonds.

“No, please… stop… I’ll be good…. I’ll be strong, I promise.” He cried out weakly, tears in his voice. His words only seemed to further enrage the man.

“Listen to you; begging like a weak little mongrel. You coward. You’re nothing!” The man bellowed. The sound of it made him want to cringe.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry….”

“I’ll have to teach you to be stronger. Teach you to act like a real man.”

Even seeing it coming, he was unable to prepare himself for the first blow, or the second, or any of the ones that followed as the belt came down on his unprotected skin. It felt like he was on fire, like the flesh was being burned away from his body, and there was no way to get  it to stop.

“Yamete,  Otou-sama….”

 

Yuugi was startled when he entered Seto’s room once again. The brunette was still asleep, but he was thrashing in bed in a manner before that Yugi had never seen. Startling cries were falling from his lips as he fought against the sheets, the pillows, anything his body came in contact with. Yugi rushed to his side, calling out  the boy’s name as he reached for his shoulder, attempting to shake him, wanting to pull him out of his nightmare. Instead the young billionaire only cried out, trying to escape the touch, and swatted at his hand

Worried, Yuugi tried again, but this time his wrist was caught by Seto’s hand in a vice-like grip that had him wincing and straining to pull his hand back, though unsuccessfully. He was certain the other was bruising his wrist, but was more concerned by the pained cries that were escaping him, and the tears leaking from his eyes.

/Yami! Yami help me!/ Yuugi called out to the spirit in his mind. Ever since he and Seto had gotten involved, Yami had become less and less needed as a protector, mostly cause there was no danger around, and the only times that he had surfaced was when Seto challenged Yuugi to one of his ‘duels’ though said matches had usually involved clothes coming off and Yami back in his soul room before the matches even ended. Yuugi knew that his other half had felt somewhat neglected, and possibly even useless, something which grieved Yuugi to no end, since he had grown to miss their talks, which had become rare. And when Yami had been unable to spare Yuugi the heartbreak of ending his relationship with Seto, the spirit had all but closed himself off from him.

Now, however, Yuugi needed him desperately.

/Yami! Please, he’s too strong!/ He called out, and Yuugi was relieved to feel the familiar essence of his dark half as the ancient spirit took over.

Yami looked down at Seto, startled by the sight of the thrashing teen, and tugged at his wrist helplessly, not able to match Seto’s strength. So his only hope was to wake him. Like Yuugi, he tried shaking him, but to no avail.  Making sure to block the sight  off from Yuugi, he drew his free hand back and struck the teen hard across the face.

Some small, sadistic part of his mind relished the action, wanting some sort of vindication against the brunette for the pain that he had  caused his aibou, and perhaps even for the loneliness that he had felt when the young billionaire had stolen Yuugi’s attention from him, leaving him all but ignored within his soul room.  He berated himself for the thought. His aibou had been happy; Seto had made him happy, that was all he had needed. But in the end, where Yuugi had been pained and sorrowed at the loss of his relationship with Seto, Yami had been outraged, wanting to hunt down the brunette and demand to know why he had treated Yuugi that way when Yami had been so sure that the young tycoon had been just as in love as Yuugi had.

Instead he had retreated to his soul room to wallow in the fact that he had failed his Hikari.

Glaring down at Kaiba, he was startled to realize that the brunette’s eyes were now wide open, though they were vacant and the tall boy was still thrashing. With a growl of frustration, he began to shake the boy once again.

“Kaiba! Snap out of it.” He yelled , not wanting the other to further his injuries with his actions.

And like a switch had been hit, the tall teen’s thrashing ceased and he was looking up at him with haunted blue eyes that made Yami’s heart ache in a way that he couldn’t quite explain.

“Yuugi…. Sorry… so… so… sorry…” the brunette murmured, causing Yami’s eyes to open wide, surprised by his words, as well as the fact that he thought he was Yuugi. “Never… wanted to… hurt you.”

Yami bit his lip, wanting to say something to the boy to calm him down, reassure him, but before any words could make it past his mouth, his wrist which was still being held captive was jerked and he tumbled down on top of the other to find Seto’s lips pressed firmly against his own, the young billionaire holding him firmly in place.

He was completely dumbfounded. He had no idea what to do and his mind seemed to have shut down completely, leaving him frozen in place until Seto finally pulled back from him, his eyes closed.

“Sorry… Yuugi…so sorry.” were the only words to escape the brunette’s lips before he fell back into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

Yami stood there, pale and shocked, holding his hand to his tingling lips. Never in his entire existence had the pharaoh ever felt so hollow and confused inside. Seto had kissed him.  Thinking that he was Yuugi, Seto had kissed him. And now he had no idea what to do.  He took a few wobbly steps back from the bed, his breath caught in his throat as he stared at the sleeping teen, and released a strangled sound before forcing Yuugi back in control and locking himself in soul room, leaving his startled aibou to wonder what  exactly had happened.

 

~~Owari~~

 

Seto: I hate you so much… you know that don’t you.

 

Dai: ^^ yup.

 

Seto: -_-;;;

 

Yami: *blushing and hiding in his soul room*

 

Yugi: Don’t worry. Dai will make it better…..won’t you?

 

Dai: Of course! I can’t let Yugi be sad for too long ^_^

 

Seto: Yugi??!!! What about me?????

 

Yugi: -_-;;;;; please review so she’ll contiinue this.