Because of Memories Forgotten

Summary: Manga!verse AU. Yuzu was five when she first met the Sakaki boys or… boy, depending how you look at it.

Based on the prompts made by guest Martyn.

I've wanted to play with the "four Yus, one body" idea and this was a fun way of doing it. This was written before we got the manga chapter that Yuya and Reij are from the future.

{~~~}

Yuzu was five when she first met Yuya-Yuto-Yugo-Yuri.

…well technically she only met Yuto then.

It was when her dad wanted to open up his own duel school.

"It'll be great, Yuzu!" He said. "We'll introduce a new generation to our hot-blooded entertainment duel!"

Yuzu was five but she knew this was a bad idea. "You're no good with numbers." She said. "The bank letters are always red and that means no good, right?"

He deflated but he quickly bounced back. "That is true…but I won't let such a little thing such as finances stop me!" Her dad had set his mind set on a goal, nothing could stop him.

So her dad had called a friend, his best friend he claimed. Her dad's friend, Yusho Sakaki, was a travelling performer who married the leader of a duel gang. Yuzu thought it was weird and so did her dad but that was the power of love. She decided then and there that she was never falling in love.

When Uncle Yusho and Auntie Yoko came, they brought their boys…or they said they brought boys. Yuzu only saw one.

"We're Yuya-Yuto-Yugo-Yuri." He said. "I'm Yuto."

Yuzu was confused. "Is Yuya-Yuto-Yugo-Yuri you're full name but you just like Yuto?" She asked. Maybe he was like Noboru Gongenzaka who only liked to be called Gong.

He shot her a pained look, as if he didn't want to say any more but he tried to explain anyway. "We, as in all of us, are Yuya-Yuto-Yugo-Yuri. I am Yuto."

"That makes no sense. You can't use 'we' when there's only one of you."

"Ah…that's-" Yuto scratched his head, trying to find better words. There were only so many words he could have known. "There is four of me. We are one but one is many. Like-like…like a jar of pickles. Or a deck. Lots of things that are still one thing."

"I don't get it." And Yuzu thought it wasn't important if she didn't get it. Yuto was only four and four-year-olds have crazy logic.

Yuzu didn't have crazy logic. She was five and she had proper adult logic, how else was she going to help her dad sort out the red bank letters?

Yuto would grow out of it when he turned five too.

{~~~}

As time went by, Yuzu grew to like Yuto. He was quiet but he was always listening, even if he didn't get what was being said.

While the adults talked about the duel school and other things, Yuzu and Yuto also talked about the duel school and other things too. They were going to help make the school work after all.

It was a sunny day and the two of them were sitting under a tree in front of her house. They had books, some filled with colorful pictures while others had more words and smaller writing. Yuto was as good at reading as Yuzu was at numbers.

"We think the idea's okay but I also think that the idea is stupid." Yuto said. "Entertainment dueling is something that you make. Someone can help you but it won't be your entertainment duel if you copy someone else."

"Where did you come up with that?" So Yuto did have some adult logic, but his we's and I's were still confusing.

His eyes darkened and he shoved his nose deeper into his book. "A kid on the street." The boy grumbled. "He said our dueling was fake, that we weren't speaking properly."

Yuzu giggled. "Now that's silly! How do you speak with dueling?"

"Exactly! That's what we said too."

Yuzu's eyes drift to the window, where she could see his parents and her dad laughing over something. Maybe it was a funny story; her dad always had lots of stories to tell.

"Do you ever miss home? You've been here for…" She started counting off the weeks on her fingers. "You've been here for three weeks, that's nearly a month. Don't you get homesick?"

"Home?" He said, puzzled. "We never left home. Home is right here."

"So do you live nearby?" But she had never seen the Sakaki's leave, like this was all a big sleepover.

"House? Oh…oh!" And he started laughing, shoving his head into his book to muffle the sound.

"What's so funny?" Yuzu huffed.

He heaved as the last couple laughs escaped him. That was rude, laughing when she hadn't told a joke. "I'm sorry, it's just that…you thought a house was a home."

"But that's what a house is, right? A place to call home." Talking to Yuto always led to confusing things.

"But if you didn't have a house but you still had you're dad, you'd still have a 'home' wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, I guess that does make sense…"

Yuto closed his book and looked up at the sky. "We don't have a house but we do have each other and mom and dad. That's what makes up our home." He turned to her with a bright smile painted on his face. For a moment, Yuzu thought he could have been a different person.

"You have crazy logic." Yuzu said. "I hope you grow out of it."

Yuto wasn't offended but he laughed again, this time quieter and softer. "It's traveler's logic." He said. "You'd get it too if you were always traveling."

{~~~}

If there was one Yuzu loved about the Sakaki's staying with them, it was Auntie Yoko's pancakes.

Every morning, the smell of Auntie's cooking floated through the house and worked better at waking everyone up than any alarm clock ever did. The first time Yuzu stumbled into the kitchen and saw the piles upon piles of pancakes, she wasn't sure how the five of them could finish all of it. It would take days of eating nothing but pancakes breakfast, lunch and dinner to finish it all.

But then Yuto stumbled down the stairs and, as quickly as were made, the pancakes were scarfed down by a single boy.

Yuzu was caught somewhere between shock, amazement and disgust as she watched Yuto level the pancake mountains. He also had a weird way of eating too. First he ate cautiously, savoring each bite, then he would eat normally, occasionally playing around with syrup soaked slices every once in a while, then he would pick up a knife and fork and eat all prime and proper, like he was in a fancy restaurant, but then he would start shoveling food like the pancakes were going to run away from him before going back to eating slowly.

It was off putting but the adults didn't say anything about it. His mom and dad were probably used to it and Yuto was already finished by the time her dad came down for breakfast so he never saw him eat.

"You should stop eating so much." She said as the boy tipped the remains of his plate into his mouth. "Anyone who eats like that every day is going to get super fat."

He glanced at her and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Good thing we ain't an anyone." He said. "We're an any-four so we've got to eat that much. Being four takes up a lot've energy. "

She wacked him over the head (but she didn't hit him too hard because Auntie Yoko was just around the corner). "That makes no sense, Yuto." So much for thinking that he was getting adult logic.

"It make's perfect sense." He retorted, rubbing his scalp. "And I ain't that gloomy guy, I'm Yugo!"

What?

The boy pushed his plate aside and let out a small burp. "Now that hit the spot!" He said, leaning back into his chair and patting his belly.

Yuzu didn't know why Yuto was calling himself Yugo now but he was being loud and ob-no-ious, just like the other boys at school. She wanted him to turn back into Yuto.

Auntie Yoko had disappeared upstairs to wake up Dad and Uncle Yusho so Yuzu took the chance to give Yugo a solid whack on the head.

"Oi! What was that for?"

"I'm knocking the fat out of you!" It was crazy logic but maybe it would bring Yuto back. "I don't want you to turn into a giant pancake blob."

Yugo's eyes brightened. "That's a great idea! And…hey! No, it's not stupid! But don't…Yuzu hit me again! Don't believe what the others say!"

Yuzu was surprised that he actually believed her between…arguing with himself? She knew hitting someone on the head couldn't make fat go away but it could make crazy go away.

So she grabbed her fan and whacked him again.

"Hey! Not so hard!"

Or maybe she was making him more crazy.

{~~~}

Yuto came back.

It wasn't anything big or stunning like in the movies when characters swap personalities and names. The Sakaki boy just walked down the stairs one morning and said, "I'm Yuto today."

"What happened to Yugo?"

"Getting a scolding from Yuri for being an idiot." He said. "You'll see him again but now it's my turn." He rubbed the back of his head where she had been hitting Yugo for the past couple days. "You hit really hard. We all felt it."

"Ah…sorry…" She really was. Maybe Yuzu didn't like Yugo at first but he became her friend, a different kind of friend to Yuto but still a friend. "But…who's Yuri?"

Yuto shivered like someone dropped ice down his shirt. "You don't want to know."

So she left it at that.

{~~~}

Yuto and Yugo looked exactly the same but personality wise they couldn't be more different.

Yuto was quiet. Yugo was loud.

Yuto liked the colour black. Yugo liked the colour white.

Yuto was good at hiding. Yugo was good at finding.

There was no way for Yuzu to confuse the two and it was easy, it was just two.

But then two became three.

And Yuzu met Yuri.

It was during a game of "find the most coolest thing". Yugo always won when she played with him, finding thing that she didn't even think could be found like a nest of baby pigeons looked after by a crow or a banana peel that had blueberries inside of it. Against Yuto though, she had a better chance of winning.

And Yuzu was certain she won this time.

It was small and had been hidden underneath bigger shrubs. If her bracelet hadn't slipped off and rolled away, she would have never found it. It was a broken training wheel half buried in the dirt. Around it, two different plants had grown entwined in its axel. One was dark and thorny while the other was bright green with pretty leaves that had jagged edges.

Carefully, she dug the wheel out of the ground and held it by the green leaves to avoid the thorns.

Yuto was already there waiting for her at the front of her house.

"I found this rock." He said holding out a smooth pale stone with several darker splotches. "It looked like someone cried on it."

"That's pretty." She said, peering over the rock. There were splotches of a lighter shade over the main stone grey. "But take a look at what I found!"

Yuzu revealed the vine-covered wheel from behind her back, making sure she didn't knock the thorns into her friend. Yuto didn't say anything, though. His eyes widened almost comically and then he…changed. His eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted into something akin to a scowl. This wasn't Yuto or Yugo.

The boy slapped the wheel out of her hands, scratching her fingers in the process.

"Hey! What-"

"Stupid girl, that was poison ivy." His voice was higher pitch yet crueler, carrying a sort of arrogance of a spoilt brat.

Yuzu looked down at her hands which, apart from the scratches from not-Yuto-or-Yugo, were covered in red splotchy rashes.

"Eek!"

{~~~}

The Sakaki boy alternated between Yuto, Yugo and Yuri; between the calm, the reckless and the cruel. It was confusing with the addition of a third persona but Yuzu got used to it eventually. It was proof that her adult logic would overcome the childish craziness…or she was slowly going crazy herself.

Even though she had only met three of them, Yuzu knew there was a forth one. Yuya-Yuto-Yugo-Yuri was how the Sakaki boy had introduced himself, themselves. It was only a matter of time before she met Yuya.

But he never appeared.

Sure, there were times when it looked like someone else other than Yuto, Yugo or Yuri was in control, like when they pretended they were part of a circus or watching Dad and Uncle Yusho duel. He would have more grace than Yugo, more enthusiasm than Yuto, more kindness than Yuri and the brightest eyes Yuzu had ever seen. But it was only ever for a moment. The only reason she had caught on was because it happened so frequently. Plus, there were the little comments…

"Yuya would love these hippos!" Yugo said when they visited the zoo.

"That's more of a Yuya thing." Yuri said, eyeing the trapeze hanging from the roof.

"Yuya would know what to do…" Yuto said when they got lost and was on the brink of tears.

Soon, four months had passed and it was time for the Sakaki's to go. Uncle Yusho had helped establish a base and a reputation for the budding duel school so now it was up to Yuzu and her dad to keep it afloat.

"I'm going to miss you." Yuzu said, giving the Sakaki boy a hug.

"Me too." The boy said, but in a tone she had never heard before. Firmer than Yuto's, higher than Yuri's and brighter than Yugo's.

She pulled away and stared at the boy, a wide grin across his face and up to his eyes despite tears falling.

"Yuya?"

"Goodbye Yuzu."

And the Sakaki boy, the boys Yuto, Yugo, Yuri and Yuya, was gone.

{~~~}

Memories are fickle things.

One might think that something could be recorded, retained and remembered especially if it was particularly odd or different. Yuzu certainly thought so. The Sakaki boy that was actually four should have been something unforgettable. Yuto was calm and always attentive. Yugo was wild and filled with energy. Yuri was cruel but not completely heartless. Yuya…Yuya was a smile that never faded. A persons like that seems like something that world never be forgotten.

But how clear are your memories from when you were five?

The world constantly bombards us with new information every day, hour, minute, second. There is only so much it can be hold.

The years tumbled forward and memories of four months spent with a quirky boy with a quadruple personality were soon overwritten by worries about finance and school.

When these two met again, there was no recognition. Not that they were ignoring each other but there were more pressing matters at hand. The boy's memories were muddled and full of holes with a bounty on his head and hunters on his tail. Yuzu only saw the persona of Phantom, a mysterious entertainer that was sure to pull the her dad's school out of the red, her memories of the Sakaki boy long forgotten.

But not all was forgotten.

"Hm? Is that girl…?"

"Yuya's memories are confused, so he hasn't noticed."

"But how can this be?"

They were still there but it wasn't the time or place.

But soon.

{~~~}

Hey, do you guys remember the 'Not Beyond Space and Time' oneshot I've been planning where the Yu-boys replace the previous protagonists? There's actually too much stuff to cram into a single chapter so it's going to become a series (that I can hopefully finish). I've posted some stuff on AO3 under the series 'Arc V Protagonist Replacement AU' but I'll also be cross-posting her on FFN. The first story is 'Dark from the Beginning' and will be posted as a crossover. Thank you for reading and don't forget to smile!