Beastly King (Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic Puzzleshipping/Blindshipping)

The Castle (6)

I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or Beastly

    I've changed my name.
    There was no Atem anymore. There was nothing left of Atem. Atem Sennen was dead. I didn't want his name anymore.
    I looked up the meaning of Atem online, and that clinched it. Atem means "gift." I wasn't one anymore. I found a name that means "ugly," Feo (who would name their kid that?), but finally settled on Yami, which means "dark." That was me, the dark. Everyone-by which I mean Mai and Ryou-called me Yami now. I was darkness.
    I lived in darkness too. I started sleeping during the day, walking the streets and riding the subways at night when no one could really see me. I finished the hunchback book (everyone died), so I read The Phantom of the Opera. In the book-unlike the dorky Andrew Lloyd Webber musical version-the Phantom wasn't some misunderstood romantic loser. He was a murderer who terrorized the opera house for years before kidnapping a young singer and trying to force her to be the love he was denied
    I got it. I knew now what it was to be desperate. I knew what it was to skulk in darkness, looking for some little bit of hope and finding nothing. I knew what it was to be so lonely you could kill from it.
    I wished I had an opera house. I wished I had a cathedral. I wished I could climb to the top of The Empire State Building like King Kong. Instead, I had only books, books and the anonymous streets of Domino with their millions of stupid, clueless people. I took to lurking in alleys behind bars where couples went to make out. I heard their grunts and sighs. When I saw a couple like that, I imagined I was the man, that the girl's hands were on me, her hot breath in my ear, and more than once, I thought about how it would be to put my claws on the man's neck, to kill him, and to take the girl back to my private lair and make her my love whether she wanted me or not. I wouldn't have done it, but it scared me that I thought of it at all. I scared me. "Yami, we need to talk."
    I was still in bed when Ryou came in. I'd been looking through the window at the garden he'd planted, my eyes half closed.
    "Most of the roses are dead, Ry."
    "That's what happens to flowers. It's October. Soon they'll be gone until spring."
    "I help them, you know. When I see one that's turned brown but it doesn't fall off, I help it. The thorns don't bother me too much. I heal up."
    "So there are some advantages, then."
    "Hai. I think it's good to help them die. When you see something struggling like that, it shouldn't have to suffer. Don't you think?"
    "Yami..."
    "Sometimes, I wish someone would help me like that." I saw Ryou staring at me...well as close to a stare that a blind man can give. "But there's a few like that red rose, still clinging to the branch. It doesn't fall. It's freaking me out."
    "Yami, please."
    "You don't want to talk about the flowers? I thought you liked flowers, Ry. You were the one who planted them."
    "I like flowers, Yami. But right now I wanted to talk about our tutoring relationship."
    "What about it?"
    "We don't have one. I was hired as a tutor, and lately all that means is that I receive an enormous amount of money to stay here and catch up on my reading."
    "That doesn't work for you?" Outside, the last red rose drifted on a sudden wind.
    "No, it doesn't. Taking money and doing nothing in return is stealing."
    "Think of it as redistribution of wealth. Aknamkanon's a rich bastard who doesn't deserve what he has. You're poor and deserving. It's sort of like that guy who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. I think there's a book about that."
    I noticed Pilot, sitting by Ryou's feet. I wiggled my fingers at him to try and get him to come over. "I've been studying anyway. I read The Hunchback, Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein. Now I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray."
    Ryou smiled. "I think I detect a theme here."
    "The theme is darkness-people who live in darkness." I kept wiggling my fingers at Pilot. The dumb dog didn't come.
    "Perhaps if we discussed the books. Do you have any questions about-"
    "That Oscar Wilde guy-was he gay?"
    "See? I knew you'd have some keen insights, something clever to contribute to-"
    "Don't screw with me, Ryou. So was he?"
    "Rather famously so." Ryou jerked on Pilot's harness. "That dog is not going to come to you, Yami. He is as disgusted with you as I am, lying in bed in your pajamas at one in the afternoon."
    "What makes you think I'm in my pajamas?" I was. "I can smell you. The dog certainly can. And we're both disgusted." I looked down sheepishly.
    "Okay, I'll get dressed in a minute. Happy?"
    "I might be-particularly if you took a shower."
    "Okay, okay. So tell me about Oscar Wilde."
    "He was put on trial after he had an affair with the son of a lord. The young man's father said that Wilde had enticed his son into the relationship. He died in prison."
    "I'm in prison," I said.
    "Yami..."
    "It's true. When you're a kid, they tell you that it's what's on the inside that counts. Looks don't matter. But that's not true. Guys like Phoebus in The Hunchback, or Dorian, or the old Atem Sennen-they can be scumbags to women and still get away with it because they're good-looking. Being ugly is a kind of prison. Anzu was right, it's harder to see what's on the inside."
    "I don't believe that, Yami."
    "The blind guy has insights. You can believe it or not. It's true."
    Ryou sighed."Yami, can we return to the book?"
    "ROBIN HOOD! That's the book!" I exclaimed making both Pilot and Ryou jump in surprise.
    "Oh for the love of, Yami, the topic, can we get back to it?"
    "The flowers are dying, Ryou."
    "Yami. If you don't stop sleeping all day and let me tutor you, I will quit."
    I stared at him. I knew he was mad at me, but I never thought he'd leave.
    "But where would you go?" I said. "It must be hard for you to find jobs when you're ... I mean, you're..."
    "It is hard. People think you can't do things, and they don't want to take a chance. They think you're a liability issue. I once had a guy at an interview say, 'What if you tripped and injured a student? What if the dog bit someone?'"
    "So you get stuck tutoring a loser like me."
    He didn't nod or say yes. He said, "I studied hard so that I can work, so I wouldn't have to be supported by someone else. I can't give that up."
    He was talking about my life. That's what I was doing, living off Aknamkanon, would always do if I couldn't figure out a way to break the spell.
    "You gotta do what you gotta do," I said. "But I don't want you to leave."
    "There's a solution. We can go back to our regular tutoring sessions."
    I nodded. "Tomorrow. Not today, but tomorrow. I have something I need to do today."
    "Are you sure?"
    "Hai. Tomorrow. I promise"

This chapter even though was a little depressing was fun to write especially when Yami/Atem made Ryou and Pilot jump. We are so close to getting Yuugi to move in, yay!

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