A/N: This is it- this is it, isn't it, the end. Not a magnificently long chapter as I was planning- sorry, but I couldn't just think of enough to say that didn't look kind of... redundant... Er, what am I going on about? You want to read the story!

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Chapter 6: Ending up the inane, insane hero

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From then on, I didn't hear for Yuugi for a week. Then another one passed without a call, and then months went by. I think, then that he had really learned to give me up, and he had told the others to do the same.

The part of me that was still my boyhood self wished him well.

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I dragged myself home one day after a long haul of classes, and all I wanted to do was collapse on my bed before I had to get out for my evening library clerk job. I opened the door and suddenly I was pushed outside again by Yami.

"Go away!" he told me.

So I got kicked out of my own house. It's times like these when I reconsidered my decision of staying with him. Since I'm not much for bloody confrontations when I'm down, though, I wandered down to the neighborhood park and sat myself down on a bench to wait for Yami to get over whatever was stuck in him...

"Hikari!" I felt myself being slapped awake. Yami was standing beside me with a frantic look in his eyes.

I blinked. "Did I fall asleep?" I asked.

He pulled me up. "Idiot hikari," he said, "what the hell did you do that for? I didn't tell you to go kill yourself, for Ra's sake! Your fingers are fuckin' blue!"

Ah, shit. I looked down- he was right. Even medical laypeople know that blue means frostbite or something just as deadly. I had to get inside. Luckily, Yami was on the same track because I was already being dragged home, treated to a stream of muttered curses as we went. When we were finally inside, Yami laid me down on my bed and looked at a loss. "I don't know what to do about this," he said. "Idiot Japanese, all this.... snow..."

"Ice," I told him. When I walked into the kitchen to get some, I caught a glimpse of something gold on the table. I walked over to inspect it. It was a gold protective pendant, teardrop shaped with some replication of a carving or scroll inside.

"It's not a replication," Yami said gruffly. He scowled. "I was going to wrap it."

"What's this inside?" I asked.

He smiled. "By the top is Hathor- she can also be a goddess of foreign things... I was pretty foreign back then. In the center is Seth, god of chaos..."

"I know, I know," I interrupted. "What about the hieroglyphs?"

"No idea," Yami said. "I can't read them."

"I would have thought you would pick one of the lords of death to protect me," I commented.

"I would never," he growled. "I have no respect for those who are beyond fighting me back. So... you like it? Or what?"

Right- tomb robber. I just grinned to myself as I fetched the ice and rubbed it down my hands, letting Yami save some face. He rushed back over to me when I cried out at my ten burning fingers.

Yami can be almost awkwardly sweet- hell, a year ago I would have thought I was crazy if I called him that. But he's got a pretty good memory for everyday things, better than mine, so he remembered things like my twenty-first birthday.

I turned twenty a year ago around the time that Yuugi and Anzu got married, I graduated to the next level in my courses and my life started to fall apart for the last time- because that time, Yami helped me pick up the pieces. It's not like he's sweetness and light, nothing like that- I'd know there was really something wrong if he was! He can still be an ass when he feels like it.

He just loves to provoke me, I know. I think he likes the way we bicker- almost like an old couple. We fight continuously, almost, over everything from my daily life- he thinks I get out too much- to the weather because I love going out in the snow and he thinks I'll freeze some important parts off. Heh. Guess he won that one.

But he's nice. When he feels like it. Just like everyone else in the world, I guess.

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My life continued to pass idyllically. No matter what happened in the world outside, in my world there was just the same familiar routine: wake up, go to school, go home, be with Yami, go to sleep; repeat. Go shopping or to other places only as necessary. So I found myself living more in the spirit realm with Yami than in the world that I was born in.

Then, one day, Yami said, "I didn't want you to be like me."

I thought it sounded familiar, until I realized it was the phrase that he did-or-didn't want me to hear when he said it so many months ago, after one of our last fights. I didn't want to know what he meant, not if it would disturb the little peace we had between us. But he persisted.

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"You turned out just like me," Yami said regretfully. I was stretched out on my mattress while he rubbed my back. I made a noncommittal sound without turning around.

"I never was around people much," said Yami, sounding almost like an old sage about to tell his life story. "Back in my life, I was never around people too much. There were... qualities... about me, which led people to naturally seek other friends. After my family died, there was no one interested enough to learn about me. And, I was so prideful that I never let myself show any interest in them."

"I'm the same way," I commented. "But... I think there's something about us that distances people?"

"Our beautiful looks, must be," Yami said sarcastically, and I laughed.

"Seriously, hikari..." he stared off into space for a while and stopped his fingers' movements on my back. I nudged my body against him impatiently and he started. "You know I... you chose to be with me, right?"

"No, I just like telling people off," I said as I sat up. He looked... repentant... if such a quality could be applied to someone like him. I kissed him gently on the nose. Yami, startled, eyed the kissed spot, giving him a cross-eyed look. I giggled at that.

"Don't giggle," he said impatiently. "It makes you sound like a girl."

But then he smiled and I knew he didn't mean anything by it- eh, he was probably right. So I kissed him again, on the mouth this time, and he took the opportunity to pull me down on top of him. My shirt was already gone from when he had been giving me a massage, and I took the chance to return the favor.

"Are you really a virgin?" I blurted out as he adjusted himself on the floor. He gave me an annoyed look. "Yes, I am, but you won't know it," he said. I think I'm improving on his sense of humor.

I think if anyone saw us now, it'd be strange. They'd see me lying on the floor, grasping for some unknown disembodied figure. But my mind and his are in the spirit realm by now, where physical constraints don't matter- and we can each have our own bodies.

It's wonderful.

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So I'll continue on like this. In the modern village, there's no one around to wonder why this quiet boy has such a shadow of a life- why he spends his time alone and talks to himself.

But I was never that attached to my sanity, anyway. All the world of shadow dealings, as strange and hideous as they might be- it's a more comforting resting place than the "real" earth that I inhabited for twenty-odd years. The shadows of the dead are better company to me than any friends I may have made there.

I was hardly happy then- and now whenever I can be alone and be in my mind, I'm happy. Take my sanity or my soul, as long as I can be with Yami. I'll make it work.

After all, everyone should get to be the hero of his own life story.

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The End.

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A/N: Er... (glances around)... how was that? It didn't turn out nice and happy (well, kind of, maybe, depending on your point of view) and it didn't turn out very!dark like I thought it would, either. It really didn't turn out like much I was thinking of at all. Well, I'll see if people like it (sweatdrop).

Actually, it sucks. So feckin' cliché- I can't believe it took, what, 3 weeks to come up with that? Urgh.

Yeah.

THANK-YOU!!! Thank-you. Your kind (and occasionally helpful!) reviews actually finished the story, because I wouldn't have finished it otherwise. So thanks a bundle and fond huggles to you all! (huggles readers).

Now listen up- IMPORTANT there is a SEQUEL to this story that is on right now! I uploaded it as the same time as this chapter. It is called "Love", which you should be able to search for or find on my user profile. It's not a usual sequel per-se, it's from Yami no Bakura's POV and is a one-shot. So check that out, I think it turned out pretty well! Once again, "Love". For a list of upcoming fics, check my profile.

Comments and critiques much appreciated! Ja ne!