#chiazu

But he wasn’t alone. In the endless expanse of his dreamscape he might have been, but here he always had another with him. The Spirit of the Puzzle, Yuugi’s “Other Self”, took spirit form beside his bed, and leaned over in concern.

“Is everything all right, partner?” he asked.

Yuugi smiled weakly. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”

His other self’s frown didn’t waver. “You seemed disturbed. Was it a bad dream?”

“It . . . yeah. Something like that.”

Yuugi was never sure how to describe his dreams. “Nightmare” was the technical term, he guessed, but he never dreamed of things like serial killers chasing him, or showing up to class stark naked. Instead, his dreams took the form of shapes and colors, sensations and sounds rather than anything concrete. He could remember the feeling of the heat scorching his every breath, could feel the weight of despair and panic in his bones, could still hear the agonized keening of the dying Red-Eyes Black Dragon ringing in his---

Yuugi reflexively scrunched his shoulders up to block his ears, even though there was no sound in his room. He didn’t want to hear that sound ever again. Not even in his own memory.

“You don’t look well,” his Other Self said, and Yuugi forced his shoulders to relax as he sighed through his teeth. The concern was nice, but as much as he didn’t ever want to hear a Red-Eyes Black Dragon die again, he also didn’t want to--- “If you tell me what’s wrong, I could help.” ---talk about it.

“That’s okay,” Yuugi said, and he forced another smile as his Other Self’s frown grew. “It was just a bad dream. I’ll be fine by morning.”

“Mmm. If you say so. But if you have another, we’ll need to talk about it.”

Yuugi rolled his eyes. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I do,” his Other Self said. “And if you say no that time, we’ll play a game for it.”

For a second, Yuugi thought he heard wrong. But when his Other Self continued to stare at him as seriously as ever, Yuugi shoved himself up into a half-seated position and demanded, “Are you serious?”

Finally, his Other Self’s frown gave way to a little smirk. “If that’s what it takes. Is it?”

Yuugi huffed, and flopped back down on his bed, turning his back to his Other Self. “I can’t believe you. Me? Of all people?”

“What’s wrong with it? It wouldn’t be a Shadow Game,” his Other Self said, and Yuugi was glad his back was turned so that nothing of how his stomach turned at the phrase would show on his face. “And the Penalty would only be that you would have to tell me what was bothering you.”

“Just a Penalty for me, huh? Because you know I’d lose?” Yuugi muttered.

His Other Self hummed a moment before he said quietly, “No . . . I don’t think I do.”

Yuugi furrowed his brow. He’d meant what he’d said as something of a joke. His Other Self was ridiculously skilled at gaming, but it wasn’t as if Yuugi himself was a slouch, and enough loud pep talks from Jounouchi had encouraged him to be less self-deprecating. But the seriousness with which his Other Self had responded was . . .

It was strange, but not as much as the way his heart dropped when he thought of Jounouchi and his aggressively uplifting encouragement, the faint echo of the Red-Eyes’ death cry resounding again in his memory. He clutched his blanket tighter for support before he asked, “Hey . . . Jounouchi-kun’s okay, isn’t he?”

“He seemed fine when we saw him today,” Yuugi’s Other Self said, and Yuugi released a sigh of relief. “Why? Did something happen?”

“N . . . not recently,” Yuugi said, but even after he said it it felt like just as much of a lie as his initial denial was. It had been only a week since Battle City had ended and they had all returned home---only a week since Malik had tried (both directly and indirectly) to kill Jounouchi three times, and succeeded on the last, if only temporarily. But Yuugi felt as if Battle City had aged him by years, no matter how ridiculous that sounded. Maybe he was experiencing the inverse of what his Other Self felt.

“All right,” his Other Self said dubiously. “But if you have any concerns, you should ask him at school tomorrow.”

“I will,” Yuugi said, even though he knew he wouldn’t.

As he always did when he was anxious about something, Yuugi got to school early the next day. He sat in his desk, his shoulders feeling like they were holding a coiled spring between them, tapping his foot against the floor. His Other Self didn’t say anything about it, but Yuugi could feel him watching with rapt attention. It was simultaneously the best and worst; he appreciated the concern, he really did, but being watched so closely did nothing to ease his anxiety.

“Mornin’, Yuugi!”

But that did.

The instant Yuugi looked up and saw Jounouchi’s sun-bright smile, the spring that had been lodged between his shoulders broke and fell away. For the first time since he had woken from that awful dream the previous night, Yuugi felt himself able to smile genuinely, every muscle in his body relaxing.

He might have heard a Red-Eyes Black Dragon die, but that didn’t mean it actually happened.

“What’s up?” As he always did, Jounouchi tossed his own bag onto his desk before making his way to Yuugi’s, not missing a beat. He leaned back against the desk, half-sitting on it, his arms loosely crossed as he leaned over to look down at Yuugi. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Yuugi said, and his answer was automatic, but it was also true. Now he knew for sure: Everything was okay.

Jounouchi watched him for a second, lips pressed tightly together, before he leaned down closer, eyes narrowed in a shrewd look. On instinct Yuugi pulled back, but that only caused Jounouchi to lean even closer, so close their foreheads were nearly touching.

Up close like this, Jounouchi’s eyes looked like they had flecks of gold in them.

“Hmm . . . okay,” Jounouchi said finally, apparently having discerned something from staring at Yuugi up close. “But if anything comes up, you tell me, all ri---aagh, what the hell---?!”

Jounouchi leaped back, swinging behind him, frantically trying to brush something off his neck. The something became clear a moment later as Bakura skipped out of the way of Jounouchi’s flailing hands, and stepped in front of Yuugi’s desk, smiling brightly.

“Good morning,” he said, holding up the shoelace he’d used to tickle the back of Jounouchi’s neck.

“Morning, Bakura-kun,” Yuugi said, returning his smile.

Jounouchi, on the other hand, was not so amused. He yanked his jacket down to fix where it had been rumpled, and then demanded flatly, “Bakura, what the hell?”

“Sorry. You were so distracted I couldn’t resist,” Bakura said, his smile never wavering as he slipped the shoelace into his pocket. “I had to take the opportunity where I saw it.”

“Oh yeah?” Jounouchi said, and there was a light in his eyes now, a challenging arch in his eyebrows, that gave Yuugi enough warning to scoot his chair back. “Then maybe I can’t resist doing this!”

On the last word he launched himself forward, and threw his arm around Bakura’s neck. Holding him in a headlock, he began furiously mussing Bakura’s hair with his fist.

“Jounouchi-kun!” Bakura gasped, half-laughing as Jounouchi smooshed his hair down into his eyes. “Stop, I give up, I’m sorry!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jounouchi said, and he released Bakura from what Yuugi could tell had been a painless noogie with one final muss of his hair. By now, Bakura looked as though he’d walked to school through a tornado, and no amount of attempting to flatten his hair back into shape would help him. Yuugi bit down on another smile.

Everything was fine. There was nothing he could do to stop his dreams; he’d learned a long time ago that they would repeat as many times as his subconscious felt it necessary, and that the most he could do was try to decipher what they meant, and then live with that meaning. But as exhausting as it was to be woken by nightmares, even the same one, night after night, all that mattered was that everything in the waking world was as it should be.

Honda and Anzu crossed the room to join them, Anzu handing Bakura a comb so he could try to fix his hair, Honda throwing a playful punch Jounouchi’s way that Jounouchi batted to the side. As he fended off Honda’s roughhousing, Jounouchi glanced Yuugi’s way and tossed him another grin.

Yuugi smiled back.