Yugi curled in a ball in the chair of his office, the tears from before not ceasing. He began to question everything now. He began to question everything, including the life after Yami passed on or came back.
If he would still remember Yugi...
If he would be good as new...
If Yami would regain full consciousness...
If Yami would love him despite everything he had done.
Yugi bit his shaking bottom lip, trembling with the movements. He didn't deserve to hear that deep, beautiful baritone voice again. He didn't deserve to feel those muscular arms around him. He didn't deserve to hear that pleasuring laughter and those jokes. He didn't deserve to see those Crimson eyes gazing lovingly upon him.
He didn't deserve any of it.
Yugi sobbed.
He couldn't bring himself to ask for forgiveness for 2 reasons:
Yami was unconscious and probably wouldn't hear, apparently.
And what he did was absolutely unforgivable.
"Y-Yami..." He whimpered, "I-I...I hope you...are in no pain...where y-you may be..."
-------
"AAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
The pain worsened.
A young male was on his hands and knees, the tears streaming down his cheeks from the pain that only seemed to worsen. The pictures he saw were all mumble jumble, a shock wave piercing his head and his screams heard through the silence.
Why had he just been with his family...
And now he's back in this lonely desolate place.
He clutches several cuts that came from the pains. I know, usually it's the other way around, but this was correct. The young man whimpered and screamed a shrill cry through the darkness. Now, he was growing extremely desperate for one thing:
Death to just come and take him into its comforting grasp.
"H-Help..." He whimpered, falling flat on the ground, his arms and legs giving out, and he cried, the pain only getting worse and worse.
His breathing was haggard and his chest heaved, the pains seeming to have a source there of all places. He stared to his right, his left cheek being smushed into the floor, and his eyes not focusing properly from the tears.
"H-Help..." He whimpered, his voice cracking, "Ple-AAAAAGH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAGH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
He couldn't move anymore. The pain was so intense. It was so real. He was so could. He was so alone and abandoned. He had no one to help him in this darkness. Why was he even trying?
"I...can take this..." He whispered to himself, spotting a happy dagger a little ways away.
Suddenly, he felt a pair of warm arms wrap around him, feathers pressing against his back and sides in a tight and gentle embrace. He could hear quiet sobbing, but it wasn't his. He looked up weakly, his breathing slightly stabled, but still uneasy and shallow.
A light toned voice shushed him, resting a hand on the back of his head and shaking slightly. The man sighed, his body limp in the arms of his newcomer.
"Y-Yami..." The voice whispered in a gentle and caring tone that was one to make someone feel better even in the harshest of realities.
Yami, the man's, heart melted when he heard that voice. He began to cry silently upon the sound of this voice, crying into the hollow of this angel's neck. He weakly clutched the Guardian practically as if he was a lifeline.
"H-Heba..." He whimpered, shaking. His tears fell faster, knowing that his younger brother had come back to him, if only for a few minutes.
Heba nodded, the side of his head rubbing up again the side of Yami's head. Heba seemed to be choked up just as Yami was.
"...Heba..." Yami broke their silent tight embrace "I can't do this...it hurts....nothing's right...I...I...just can't..."
Heba choked back a silent sob. He nuzzled into Yami in return, sniffling.
"Yami..." He murmured, his voice ever so slightly cracking, "You have no idea...how far you've come...but how far you've gone..."
Yami rested his chin on his brother's shoulder, listening to his words. He had absolutely nothing to say as the pain raged on within his body, steadily being tamed by Heba's warmth, but the warmth alone wasn't helping entirely. He tightened his grip on Heba as they continued to hold each other.
Finally, Heba let go of him. He looked Yami in the eyes, seeing his tear stained cheeks and puffy sharp eyes. His wings swept against the ground, a circle of cloud forming behind them, almost like a portal.
"Yami...Yugi is taking this harder than anyone else..." He whimpered, holding Yami's hand so that Yami could stand up despite the rising pain.
Yami watched as a swirl began to literally swirl around on the surface of the portal, soon showing a hospital room with 4 silent occupants. One being a tall, lean man; One being a saddened, brunette lady; One being a young man who sat with his knees pulled close to his chest, and the final one in a hospital bed.
The fourth and final one was hooked onto many different machines. He had a feeding tube, a breathing tube, several very large IVs, his heart rate on the monitor was almost nonexistent. Yami's jaw dropped as he looked on and came to realize...
This was him being visited by Yugi, Mahad, and Mana.
But this particular visit was extremely tense. Heba flinched slightly when the boy, who Yami saw to be Yugi, whimpered. He didn't look at anyone but the unconscious Yami in the bed.
He sniffled, "...I'm sorry..."
Yami raised an eyebrow as he watched Yugi silently look up and lock gazes with the other two of them, both having tear stained cheeks.
Mahad looked up back at him and looked slightly a bit confused to Yami.
"S-Sorry?" He asked, "Why should y-you be sorry?"
Yugi sighed, biting his bottom lip.
"This." He said, feeling his voice rise, "Yami. Him. E-Everything."
Yami gasped slightly, shaking his head.
"Yugi..." He whispered, even though he knew Yugi wasn't going to hear him, "It's not your fault."
Mana looked up then.
"B-But Yugi-" she said, but was interrupted by Yugi.
"No. I know it was me." He said, shaking his head, and feeling the tears come in stronger, "I bought him that ticket. I thought it would have been a good birthday present, but look at where it put Yami!"
Yami tilted his head, Heba still continuing to tense behind him. He to be remaining silent so that he wouldn't be found out for crying.
Yami looked back up, forcing himself to watch on.
Mahad took a step forward.
"Y-Yugi, you didn't know this was-"
"YES. I KN-KNEW GOOD AND WELL. I ADMIT THAT NOW." Yugi said, his voice still rising as his emotions began to take over, "I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. His dead step brother came to me in dreams. He begged. Pleaded. Cried for me not to do it. But I was SO EAGER and CONVINCED that this would be one of the BEST things to get Yami. I WAS SO CONVINCED."
Yami felt his bottom lip quiver when he realized his Aibou was growing sadder and his voice was cracking more and more. He watched, tensing up as Yugi stomped his foot and went on.
"So I IGNORED him. I IGNORED all his attempts to stop me. I wanted to get Yami the BEST PRESENT I COULD. So I bought him the ticket."
Yugi had to stop, shaking now and the tears falling rapidly down his cheeks as he realized that is really was all him. He sniffed, his voice now cracking with every single word that left his lips.
"A-And now l-look at him..." He whimpered, shaking his head.
Yami's jaw slightly dropped and he felt a lump forming in his throat. He didn't want Yugi to be scared. He didn't want for Yugi to accuse himself of what had happened that night of the concert.
He had good intentions...
But they ended badly.
Mana seemed completely taken back by his words and his accusations to himself that it almost made her start crying. She stepped forward, shaking her head.
"Y-Yugi..." She said, reaching out to rest her hand on his shoulder, "You can't really mean-"
"NO." Yugi glared through his tears at her and Mahad, "Don't you DARE try to tell me th-that it WASN'T me. Because it WAS me. I did this to him. I WAS TOO SELFISH to take into consideration those warnings. It was MY FAULT."
Yami put a hand on the portal, now silently sobbing. He shook his head, shaking violently with the tears that fell down his cheeks. He couldn't believe what he was hearing his Aibou say. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault at all.
It was quite the opposite.
"But now...Y-Yami's paying the price..." Yugi's voice faded and Yami looked on to see him clench his fists and burst into another round of tears.
After that, Yugi ran out of the room, his loud sobs echoing through the halls and also in Yami's mind where they continued far after the video or such was over.
Yami fell to his knees, resting his forehead on the portal and continuing to cry. He continued to shake his head. He continued to repeat that it wasn't Yugi's fault and that it was his own. He should have never gotten Yugi involved with everything.
Heba knelt next to him, consoling him with reassuring nothings being whispered into his ear as the angel's voice quivered. Yami payed his hand on Heba's shoulder, still slightly crying. Heba pat his back, slightly shaking himself.
"Yami..." Heba said, "I know it hurts, but now, you're at a crossroads."
Yami looked at him, the tears still falling, but his sobs fading.
"When you saw your family, you had technically died right there. You had gone brain dead, and it is usually impossible to bring them back." Heba explained further, before Yami's questions could be asked, "However, you still came back. Now, you are officially at a crossroads with two choices."
Yami listened intently as two portals appeared on either side of them both. One showed a pure and perfect paradise, and the other showed a scene of Yugi and Yami on the river banks the one night, sleeping together under the stars.
"Your soul is ready." Heba said simply, "It wants to go back to where it came from. However, your mind and heart believe that you must stay. Either way, you will have to choose."
Yami stood there, balancing his thoughts. He had to think this all through so that he knew what was the right choice. Suddenly, that various pain returned and he winced loudly.
"I..." He said, looking at the image of he and Yugi, "I can't stay here very l-longer..."
Yami turned to Heba.
"I wanna go home."