Wings of Time

Before Memories are Mine

The morning came muggy and grey. Yugi nuzzled his face deeper into his blanket, half-consciously assuming that the lack of light meant it was still too early to be awake. Besides him on the floor, Aleah too was merely a lump of blanket.

'Abiou...'

A corporeal hand brushed back his bangs. Yugi scrunched up his face.

'Not now, Yami. It's too early.' he mentally groaned.

'Please. I...I need to know at least my name.'

'Oh, I didn't ask about that. I'm sorry.'

'It is all right, little one. You were enjoying yourself. I will just...just sleep a bit more. Besides, I might not want to know all my memories, if I am as horrible as it seems.'

Yugi sighed through his nose. 'Yami, you are not evil. Didn't you listen to all that she said?'

'But she hates me.' The words rung through Yugi's mind with a ring of pain. He longed to reach out and embrace the spirit, suddenly feeling quite ashamed for all the time he had wasted chatting with Aleah about himself—let alone all the other useless trivia they had talked about. Like the future of the next ten years.

'Yami...I don't think so.'

'Did you not listen to her?'

'Didn't you? I think she loved you, and that's why she was hurt.'

'Key word there, abiou. Loved.'

'Oh, Yami—'

"Is it still raining?" asked a groggy voice.

Prying through sticky eyelids, Yugi peered out at the lump of blankets lying beside him. All he saw was a mess of curly blond hair nesting somewhere near the top of the cocoon. He glanced up at the window, but all he could see was soggy grey.

"I can't really tell." he said. "My, this weather is really strange."

"No kidding. You did say that it wasn't suppose to rain all week, right?"

"Yeah."

"Jeez, I really hope this has nothing to do with me." The last of her sentence came out muffled as she yawned and he could spy a bit of her pale forehead peeking above the blanket. "Dang, I feel sore."

He grinned shyly. "Me too. I guess that's what we get for sleeping on the floor, right?"

"I thought all Japanese people slept on the floor anyways."

Yugi snorted. "Where did you get that idea?"

'She always did have the strangest ideas about people.' he heard Yami mutter across their link.

'What do you mean by that?' he thought back.

"Well, they always did in the animes."

Yugi raised an eyebrow, though he knew she couldn't see it. "I do not live in an anime."

"I don't know," she said, at last poking her sleepy eyes above the brim of her blanket cocoon. "You have the eyes for it. All big and shiny and purple. They're cute. Too cute, just like in an anime. You did say that's your natural eye color, right?"

He was busy hiding his blush when he responded, "I'm pretty sure."

"And you call yourself Japanese." she snorted and retreated back into the warmth of her pod.