Inside the Puzzle

Bleeding Distractions

Jounouchi finished washing his hands and began to dry them before leaving the restroom. It wasn't technically open to the public, but the blonde had the biggest urge to go and he didn't have enough time to tell Yugi where he was going. He would've pissed himself otherwise. He looked around, but didn't see his friend anywhere. "Yugi?" His eyes scanned as far as his height would allow, but when there was no sight of the spikey hair, he started walking for the counter. Yugi wasn't there, but he realized when he listened, he could hear hiccupping and sobbing. He panicked slightly and walked in the direction of the sounds.

There, in the middle of the aisle, was Yugi, on his knees with his hands covering his face, and crying. He knelt in front of the other man and put a hand on his shoulder. Yugi didn't react right away, still lost in his emotions, so Jounouchi gripped at the fabric slightly. In this instance, Yugi's head shot up to see who was touching him, his eyes wide. Brown eyes were looking back at him sadly. More tears spilled. Jounouchi was still there. He hadn't left Yugi.

"Yuug?" The blonde spoke quietly. "What happened?"

Yugi sniffled and rubbed his eyes, shaking his head. "I freaked out. I couldn't find you and I kept getting this bad feeling. I felt like something was trying to get me..." He mentally winced at his answer. Yep. That sounds better. I would've been better off telling him I had a nightmare with my eyes open.

"It's gone now," Jounouchi reassured. "There's nothing around but us. I'm sorry I didn't say anything, but I really had to use the bathroom and I didn't think you'd appreciate me pissing on the floor." He waited a moment for Yugi to compose himself, then said, "Do you wanna use the bathroom to wash your face? Your eyes are all red."

Yugi shook his head. "No, it's okay. We can go. I don't need to do anything else."

The blonde gave him a look, but didn't say anything. He stood up and Yugi followed suit, heading towards the door.

--

The trip to the grocery store took longer than anticipated. What was meant to be a simple trip for a notebook became a long-winded adventure that took three hours between deciding on the color of the notebook's cover, if it would be wide-ruled or college-ruled, and how many subjects it would have. The store was having a final sale of all its back-to-school stock and of course, it had to be Jounouchi doing this with him. Yugi couldn't have cared less about the notebooks' appearance. It took nearly an hour of rummaging for Yugi to grab a black notebook with three subjects—mainly because Jounouchi had insisted on stopping Yugi every five seconds to look at the design on every notebook he picked up.

After picking out a notebook, Jounouchi decided it was necessary to do some shopping for groceries. They were technically well off—Yugi had done it last week—but the items Jounouchi was going for were an odd combination of salty snacks and soup-style ingredients. He'd picked up mushrooms, beef broth, celery, carrots, and stewed beef.

"You realize we have beef?" Yugi asked rhetorically. "We could've just cut it up into chunks. It would've saved you like..." He picked up the package from the cart and his eyes went wide. "Eight dollars? Seriously? They charge that much for chunks of meat?" He whipped his head up to look at Jounouchi. "Jounouchi, you're not buying this. It's way too expensive."

The blonde wasn't having it, though. "I'm not buying it for me, Yuug. It's for you. I'm gonna make you some really good soup."

Yugi's face fell. "I'm not sick and you have to be to work by two." He thought about the words almost as soon as they'd left his mouth, wondering if Jounouchi had had a similar thought as well. If he did, he was keeping it to himself. If that were the case, Jounouchi would be saving it for a later conversation. I'm not sick. I'm not sick. I'm not sick. Yes, you are. You think you're dealing with the ghost of a guy who shared a body with you. Because that in itself doesn't sound insane. He sighed and realized how far behind Jounouchi he was.