Chapter Text
Atem leaving… That had broken him.
(Nothing before had been able to. Not Kaiba, not Pegasus, not the Orichalcum Seal, not the Shadow Realm, not Gods and Dragons and Being of Darkness consuming the world. Not even those dark first months, when the spirit wasn”t really Atem yet, just the personification of his pain and resentment, his half soul still saw raw from the millennia of agony.)
Yugi hadn’t stepped out of the antique temple with everyone else, once the light dimmed.
Jonou’Ichi and Anzu had both tried to pull him away from the graves, from the last resting place of Atem, but he hadn’t moved an inch, still on his knees where his other half had left him. Nothing had been able to make him move. Not Kaiba when he entered the chamber, fury deforming the usually placid lines of his face, and froze at the sight of a downed, silent Yugi, in front of the very last depiction of Atem. Not even Mokuba when he pushed forward, worried for his brother and himself stopped, shock clear on his young face. Not even when they’d both stepped out, Kaiba full of righteous anger against the rival that left him behind without a goodbye, Mokuba quick on his duty to his brother and affected himself as a large part of his suffering for the last ten years had been confirmed as over.
(Kaiba stumbled slightly. Atem, his rival, was gone, just like that. He hadn’t even been there, hadn’t even been the one to beat him one final time, and now Atem was gone. Forever.)
The sun went down and up thrice, and on its way down again, before Yugi stepped out of the chamber, the low light. He took a step outside, only to fall to his knees again, his legs weak from hours of unuse, and looked up to the sky. The low light made him squint, his eyes still dry despite the slight pain.
The sunset colored the world in the reds of the blood Atem never shed when he went on and died again.
(The red of the blood Yugi had shed after Atem went on and died again.
The blood he had left onto the chamber’s stones, in the three days he spent inside. His hands throbbed in pain, knuckles bloody and probably broken, much like his scraped knees, visible through the rips of the black linen pants he’d traded his leather ones for when they got into that forsaken desert.)
His grandfather was right outside of the door and jogged to him as he fell, a kind expression softening his wrinkles. Yugi was quickly bundled up in a blanket, a woolen hat hiding his hair except from some soft blond bangs hanging over his eyes, even lower than they usually did, and pulled up by someone else until he was under a thick tent, out of the cold desert wind.
Anzu, Jonou’Ichi, Honda, Ryou, even Kaiba and Mokuba were still there, sitting cross-legged around a low table with mugs of tea and coffee, the CEO half-heartedly typing on his work computer, his usual scowl deepening as Mokuba lost another life on his video-game with a sad sound effect.
His closest friends jumped to their feet, earning a growl from Kaiba when they jostled the table and almost spilled their coffee on his very important company computer, and swarmed around him.
(Yugi had always been on the small side, as was his grandfather, and would probably always be, but he’d only once felt smaller as he did at that moment, a tiny ball of blanket and woolen hat and grief and hurt and surrounded by his taller friends as they worried for him.)
( Atem had been the tall one out of them. He’d been the one to raise their chin, to look up and forward, to square their shoulders and ground their feet and speak loud and clear.
Yugi had never felt smaller than when he lost him. )
He tried to answer Anzu’s questions, but the only sound that came out of his mouth when he opened it for the first time in three days was a broken, raspy sob.
Yugi was a crier, he’d been for years, since he was a little boy in kindergarten who’d inadvertently stepped on an ant, and he usually cried for all things, big or small, important or not, for himself or anyone else.
He would, and still did cry about anything.
(Yugi hadn’t cried once in three days, even though he had no Pharaoh to comfort him anymore. Hadn’t shed a tear as he painted the stone with his blood, the ocean-deep well of grief flowing in his veins and outside and yet never drying out.)
But once the first sob echoed into the tent, he couldn’t stop anymore. And he knew he had never cried that hard, he knew he’d never sobbed so brokenly before, even when he thought his grandfather would maybe never come back, because back then he still had held hope.
He cried about anything, always had, but never before had he felt such grief tearing through his fragmented soul, reaching for the other half that was not there anymore. Never before had he heard himself wail in whispers, voice and heart and soul broken beyond repair
Because Atem was not “anything”. He wasn’t an ant Yugi had stepped on, a card he’d ripped by inattention or a pretty dice he lost before he could offer it to Anzu. He wasn’t a lost duel or game, or even a broken vase or burned tofu ruining his late mother’s favorite recipe.
Atem had not ever been “anything”. He’d been Yugi’s everything.
And now… now Yugi was nothing.