Work Text:
The door slammed and Yugi jumped. He fumbled the PlayStation controller back into his hands and watched his roommate throw his jacket on the floor in the entrance of their dorm.
“I’m back,” Atem growled.
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well?” Yugi asked.
“Understatement of my life.”
Yugi scooted a cushion down the couch to make room. Atem flopped face-down next to him, in what they had dubbed the Angry Position. This wasn’t a situation that could be multitasked—Yugi paused the game on screen. He reached out to pat Atem on the shoulder, then thought better of it.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“There’s not much to talk about,” Atem said, muffled. “The same thing happened that happens every time.”
“He was hoping you—”
“—Were soulmates, yeah. When we got the check, he touched my hand and then immediately left when he didn’t see anything. Barely said goodbye.”
Yugi deflated, empathetic pains stinging his heart. “That sucks.”
“I just don’t know how much more obvious I can make it. I literally have ‘not soul-hunting’ on my profile, and I tell everyone that I’m looking for something casual.”
“Some people are really hoping, I guess.”
“It’s so dumb.” Atem flipped over onto his back to throw his arms up at the ceiling. “Why pretend like you’re not soul-hunting when you are? Why even swipe right?”
“I’ve met people who swipe everybody without checking the profile when they’re hunting. Maybe that’s what this guy did.”
“That’s stupid. Do these people think real life is like the movies? We won’t be despondent, on a date just to feel something, and it turns out we were soulmates all along. Nobody meets like that.”
“Yeah.” Yugi picked at the plastic controller, unsure what to say.
It was hard to blame the people who were desperate to find their soulmates at any cost. Yugi wasn’t that romantic, but even he thought a little too much about his parents trading colored smears every time their hands brushed, watching them fade back to skin. He remembered the old pictures of his grandparents at their wedding, the kiss stains still visible. Back in high school he was monstrously jealous of everyone who got lucky enough to find their soulmate in class. Those young couples, touching each other just to flaunt the handprints before they disappeared, doodling on each other’s arms from side-by-side desks. It was a fantasy everyone dreamed of—finding the one person who was meant for you.
“I don’t know,” Atem sighed, when the silence stretched too long. “Maybe I should give up the soulless stuff.”
“Don’t give it up because of a few jerks,” Yugi said. “Plenty of people go soulless in college.”
“Yeah, until they meet their soulmate, and then I’m back to square one.” He rubbed his eyes. “I shouldn’t have read that study.”
“It was probably clickbait.”
“No, I went and read the study from the article. Ten-percent of the global population never meets their soulmate, and they controlled for population density.”
Yugi did his best impression of someone who hadn’t also read the entire study, under his blankets in the dark. “Yikes.”
“Does nobody else think they might be in that ten-percent? If your soulmate can be anywhere, they might be on the other side of the planet. My soulmate could be in Finland right now and I’d never even know they exist.”
“Do you really think you won’t find them?”
“Why not? I’m not some magical exception. It’s why I’m going soulless instead of sitting and waiting. Maybe I can find someone else in the ten-percent to be with instead.” Atem breathed harshly and rubbed his eyes again. “It doesn’t seem to be working out so far, but.”
After reading the study, Yugi had similar thoughts about being in the ten-percent, but he didn’t have the stomach to go soulless. Knowing he was just a placeholder would drive him insane, not to mention the inferiority complex. Maybe he’d find his soulmate, maybe he wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to play second fiddle to a hypothetical stranger until he found out.
Going soulless forever was a different matter entirely. Yugi hadn’t thought that far ahead, but part of him deep, deep down did want to find his soulmate at some point. The idea of living his whole life soulless—as soulless-mates, some people would sneer or whisper pitifully—sounded as alien as breathing underwater. For it to be Atem’s first plan was rare, if not unheard of.
“Do you really want to go soulless for life?” Yugi asked, before he could decide it was a bad idea.
“Honestly?” Atem tilted his head back to look at him. “No, not at all.”
“Then why…?”
“I don’t know. I’m lonely?” He swung up to sit properly, but didn’t make use of the position. He stared at his hands, a wry smile twisting his features. “You know some of these people who say they’re going soulless won’t even kiss me ‘just in case’ they meet their soulmate at some point?”
Yugi scooted down and put an arm around his shoulders. Atem tucked his head under his neck, releasing a shaky breath. No colors burst, no smears of cosmic fingerpaint broke the planes of skin that touched. For years, that’s how it had been. He couldn’t help his disappointment, the first time or the many times after.
“Some of these people,” Atem continued, “really hate that they’re going soulless. They’re bitter and angry and do everything they can to make sure I know I’m not as good at their hypothetical perfect match, like I don’t already know. Like we both don’t know, but I don’t care about someone who’s perfect. I just want someone to touch me.”
In the past, Yugi quickly accepted when people weren’t his soulmate, regardless of how he initially felt. Anzu wasn’t it, so that crush got discarded after a bout of disappointment. Jou wasn’t, Ryou wasn’t, he even thought it might be Seto for a little bit, but it wasn’t him either. He’d known Atem wasn’t his soulmate for this long, so in theory he should be able to quietly accept it.
But he didn’t want to. Yugi curled a hand around Atem’s frustrated fist, smoothing a thumb across the side. There were still no colors. More than he could remember, Yugi wished they would appear. He wished he had the excuse to want it so bad.
“I’d be with you,” he said softly. “If you wanted.”
“I thought you were waiting,” Atem said.
“It’s like you said. I could be waiting for someone I’ll never meet and make myself miserable. I don’t know. Maybe I’m in the ten-percent, too.”
“If you’re doing this to make me feel better—”
“I’m not.” He turned their hands over and laced their fingers. “I promise, I’m not.”
Atem squeezed. “You’re not saving anything are you?”
In lieu of an answer, Yugi retracted the arm from around his shoulders. When Atem sat up, confused, Yugi kissed him. Gently, to see what it was like.
As soon as he pulled away, Atem grabbed his face for more. Yugi hung his hands in the crook of his elbows, unable to do much more than keep his impulses in check. For something soulless, for something that wasn’t supposed to be, for something that wasn’t halfway as good as the one person out there that was made to be his partner… Kissing Atem sure felt like it was the right thing to do.
It felt so right that they didn’t leave the couch for hours. They kissed and touched and barely managed anything that wasn’t essential for surviving, unable to keep their hands to themselves for the entire rest of the day. Yugi marveled, over and over, about how easy it was to love the fact that his skin didn’t change color.
At first, they kept it a secret. Among their peers, Yugi and Atem were still just friends that were maybe a little more physically affectionate than most friends. The minute they got home, the masks came off, so-called friendship dissolving into hungry kisses and wandering hands.
For proof of concept, and out of paranoia that the flame they’d sparked would burn out if they blew off enough steam, they avoided sleeping together for the first month. No matter how close they got, they reigned themselves back into keeping it above the waist. When that one-month timer ran out and they tried taking things further, the spark only intensified.
By some miracle, they made it another month and a half before anyone figured them out. Jou caught them making-out between classes, and before he could run off and announce that his two best friends were soulmates, they explained that he really shouldn’t. After that, there wasn’t a point in not making their relationship public.
They told anyone who asked, in no uncertain terms, that they were going soulless with each other. The reactions ranged from baffled but supportive, to scoffing, to pity. None of it phased them, at least not on the outside.
Atem brushed off the less-than-friendly reactions—he was used to it, after all—but Yugi grew more and more irritated with every inconsiderate reaction. When he held Atem’s hand, when they hugged, when they kissed, he saw people stare, shocked and appalled, before quickly averting their eyes. Some people winced. He wanted to run up and shout at them, demand why they felt the need to make light of genuine happiness. But he knew what they’d say.
It's not real, said those hypothetical voices. Once you find your soulmate, what you’re feeling right now won’t compare. Nothing could hold a candle to the person you’re meant to be with.
“How do you deal with it?” Yugi asked, lying on Atem’s lap one night. “What people say.”
“Practice, honestly,” Atem answered. “I have a method, but it’s a little counter-intuitive.”
“I’ll take anything.”
“Well… they’re right. We aren’t the happiest we could possibly be, scientifically speaking. There’s someone out there made for us, and it’s not each other.”
Yugi soured. “That’s not very helpful.”
“Let me finish.” Atem pinched his cheek playfully. “Logically, yes, they’re right. But if we never meet our soulmates, we’ll never feel that ultimate happiness anyway. We can’t be as happy as possible with each other, but if we’re never that happy? In our entire lives?” He combed through Yugi’s hair, smiling down at him. “I’d rather take a little bit less happiness instead of none.”
“Me too.” Yugi traced colorless lines on his face. “But I wish they’d stop saying it.”
“They won’t.” Atem kissed the center of his palm. “It’s better to stop listening.”
Months became years. Wherever their respective soulmates were, it wasn’t anywhere nearby.
Their soulless relationship stood the test of time that no one expected. Even their friends, as supportive as they were, didn’t expect them to last this long. They had long since explained the relationship to their families. And that was where the problems started.
“Can we talk about this later, Mom?” Yugi pleaded over the phone, and wished he could say never. He wished Atem would come home, but he was working late. Tonight of all nights.
“I’m just worried about you, honey,” his mother said, not for the first time. “I’m glad you and Atem are happy now, but what about later?”
“That’s what you said before, and everything is fine.”
“It might take a decade! But when you meet your soulmate—”
“If I meet my soulmate, Mom. If, if, if, you don’t know that I will.”
“Is it so wrong for me to want the best for my only son?”
“How do you know this isn’t what’s best for me?”
She sighed, and he could almost see her rubbing her temples. “You’re right, Yugi. I don’t.”
“So can we stop having this conversation now?”
“I might not know what’s best for you, but your soulmate—”
“I don’t care!” Yugi shot up from his seat, pacing around the living room of the apartment they picked out together. He had to step around and over boxes left over from the move-in. “I don’t care about what my soulmate thinks, I don’t even know who they are.”
“You’re going to care when you do find them, Yugi. What about when Atem finds his? This relationship simply wasn’t built to last.”
“It’s lasted this long.”
“And it’s going to end in heartbreak. Unless you both find your soulmates at the same time, one of you is going to be left alone.”
“Do you think I would just leave? That he would just leave? With no thought to closure?”
“That’s what I’m saying, Yugi. There won’t be closure. When you find your soulmate, there won’t be anything worth staying in this relationship for.”
“Will you stop insinuating that we don’t actually love each other?”
“I have no doubt you love each other, but you’ll love your soulmate more than you can imagine. More than you’ve ever loved anyone.”
He grit his teeth. “Funny. I love Atem more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
“You know that’s not what I—”
“Goodbye.”
Yugi jabbed at the end call button and resisted the urge to throw his phone across the room. He plopped down where he was, in the middle of the living room, and put his head in his hands.
Despite everything that everyone said, they were happy. There was no fleeting sense that the relationship could be better. Nothing was missing in the depths of their souls. There were no explosive fights, no threats of leaving, no cheating to find a soulmate, nothing that anyone thought about soulless-mates was true. Yugi had never thought he could be happy in a soulless relationship, but Atem proved him wrong every day.
The doubts kept coming. From friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers alike, no one believed they would last. No one believed they would be happy. As much as he hated it, Yugi started to worry. What if they were right? What if he wasted years preventing his own happiness? What if Atem’s years were wasted? He wasn’t sure he could live with himself if that were true.
The sky darkened and Yugi hadn’t moved. The front door opened, heralding Atem’s return, and he remained motionless.
“I’m home,” Atem called. The door shut. “Why are all the lights off?”
One by one, the lights around the house flicked on. Yugi wiped his face on his shirt to pretend he hadn’t been crying. When the living room switch clicked, Atem all but teleported to his side.
“Hey, what’s going on, sweetheart?” he asked. “Are you alright, did something happen?”
“Mom called today,” Yugi mumbled.
“Oh. Did she bring up—”
“Yeah.” He sniffed. “Of course she did.”
Silence. Then Atem shifted, pulling Yugi into his lap and holding him. Yugi tucked himself in, swallowing the lump in his throat over and over.
“We don’t listen to that stuff, remember?” Atem said. “It’s not meant for people like us.”
“I know.”
“And no matter what anyone says, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“See?” He squeezed Yugi tight. “They can’t take that from us.”
Yugi wanted to believe it was that simple. That saying I love you could banish all the worries planted in his mind. It wouldn’t, though. He knew it wouldn’t.
“What happens,” he tentatively asked, “if you find your soulmate?”
“I—” Atem started, then broke off. “If what?”
“What happens if you find your soulmate? Or if I find mine?”
“That’s such a long-shot, Yugi.”
“But it’s not impossible.”
Atem didn’t reply because Yugi was right. It was a long shot, a one in a million chance, a fraction of a population of billions, but improbable still left a small, small possibility. What if?
Would they be forced to give up one happiness for another? Would they break each other’s hearts because it was the “right” thing to do? Would they still be happy together at all if they met their soulmate? Would they become bitter, angry, resentful? Would they spend their soulmate-filled lives pining for each other, for the relationship they shouldn’t have had?
“I don’t know,” Atem admitted.
“Me neither,” Yugi said.
They sat in an uncomfortable silence for minutes, thinking, holding each other. Not wanting to let go, but simultaneously wondering if the end was near. If they would be forced apart, through no fault of their own, no matter how much they wanted to stay together.
“Can we get take-out tonight?” Yugi asked.
Atem smiled into his hair. For some reason it hurt. “That sounds like a good idea.”
After dinner, a new movie, clean-up, and promising that they would unpack the rest of their boxes this weekend, they went to bed. The specter hanging over Yugi’s head had shrunken, but not disappeared. He held Atem all through the night, for fear that he might never get to again.
People started to lose their patience.
The longer they stayed together, genuine smiles turned uneasy. Support turned into gentle critiques. Questions turned into expectations. Atem joked—once—about buying a ring at a dinner among friends, the entire table went pin-drop silent. Yugi hung up on his mom if she dared mention soulmates. Atem stopped speaking to his dad for similar reasons. The happiness people had for them slowly bled out
There was still no sign of the soulmates they were supposed to have. No colors burst between Yugi’s fingers when he shook his new employer’s hand, no rainbow covered his arm when he bumped into someone on the street, no smudges appeared when he handed over his card at the grocery store. Atem was similarly at a loss. If they weren’t supposed to be together, but they hadn’t found their soulmates, what else were they supposed to do?
Suffer seemed to be the answer no one wanted to say out loud. They were supposed to suffer alone, watching their friends find their matches, and wait. Not touching another soul except to check for colored stains, and otherwise keep their hands to themselves.
They did no such thing. Yugi was as enthusiastic about casual PDA as everyone else was against it. Atem happily joined in the fun, hanging around his shoulders whenever he got the chance. They took every opportunity to show off how much they loved each other, regardless of their soulmate status.
At work, Yugi kept his private life private, only telling people he was in a long-term relationship and letting them do the work. He never introduced Atem as anything other than his partner, and Atem did the same. People often assumed they were soulmates until they were proven wrong, whereupon their friendliness would become off-color. Ironically.
Not listening was a more potent mantra than ever before. Yugi finally had a break from the drudgeries of life-while-soulless when Anzu invited him out to lunch, one-on-one, for some long overdue catching up.
“It’s a lot of work,” she summarized of her dance studio, “but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
“You’ve earned it,” Yugi said. “I haven’t met very many people who almost got a doctorate in performing arts.”
“One day you’ll know someone who actually has the doctorate. I’m going to go back to school one of these days.”
“Hey, don’t push yourself. You’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Oh, I wish. How are things for you?”
“Busy. We’ve been house hunting to finally get out of that old apartment and settle down.”
Anzu’s eyebrows flew into her hairline. “Settle down?”
Yugi shrugged. “It’s about time. We don’t have any immediate plans to get married, but I’m supposed to get a promotion right near my birthday next year. I’m not putting it past Atem to not take advantage of a day full of events, you know?”
“Right.” She didn’t look any less surprised. “That makes sense. How’s the hunt going?”
“Terrible!” he laughed, because if he didn’t laugh, he would rip his hair out. “Honestly, it’s like we find the perfect house and then find out the price is out of range.”
“Maybe you should save it for a couple years.”
“The market might get even crazier, though. We talked it over, we’re ready to do this soon.”
“No, I meant… settling down.” She said it like it was a secret.
“Why?” Yugi asked, feigning complete innocence. “Our tenth anniversary is coming up, I think that’s grounds for settling down.”
“Right, but. Don’t you want to get out there a little more?”
“Get out there and do what?”
“You know. Find your soulmate?”
He gave her the even stare he gave everybody who asked that question. “No, actually. I’m fine.”
Anzu gawked. “Wh-what?”
“I said I’m fine. Atem and I are happy.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I appreciate your concern, but I’m not interested in finding my soulmate. I have one already.”
“Yugi.” She gave him a familiar, patronizing look, as if he didn’t know what he was saying. “Look, I know you’ve been together for a long time, and that’s great. But he’s not actually—”
“Yes, he is. He’s the only one I’ve ever had, and the only one I ever want.”
“So you’re abandoning your actual soulmate for him?” Anzu gestured out the window, at the outside world. “How do you think they’d feel? They’re lonely too, but who knows, they might be looking for you. And you’re just going to turn up your nose because they didn’t get to you fast enough?”
Yugi set his jaw. “I don’t care how they feel. I don’t know who they are.”
“You might—”
“I might. I’m not going to put my life on hold for someone who might show up, might be wonderful, might be exactly what I need. I’ve found someone who is all of those things, right now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not eventually, right now. I don’t need you or anyone else telling me what to do with my life when I’ve made up my mind already.”
“We’re worried about you two, Yugi.”
“That’s great! I’m glad you care enough about us to worry, but I wish you’d care about us enough to stop sticking your nose into our relationship—or any relationships we might hypothetically have in the future.”
“I just don’t understand. Don’t you want to meet your soulmate?”
“I’ll make this simple.” Yugi jabbed his finger out the window. “If my soulmate were to show up today and throw themselves at my feet, I would tell them to get lost.” Her jaw dropped in horror, but he kept going. “I don’t want them, I don’t need them, because I already have someone I know is perfect for me. Atem is my soulmate by choice, and if you don’t like it, I don’t think we should speak anymore.”
With that, he stood up and walked out. Anzu called for him, he passed the waitress carrying his order, but he kept going. All the way out of the restaurant, to his car, and all the way home.
Where Atem waited, with a ring in a box.
“I can’t believe you.”
“I can’t believe you!”
Yugi shoved Atem through the bedroom door, sealing their lips together and trying not to laugh out of sheer joy. After lunch with Anzu had left him in a huff, Atem spent the entire rest of the day with him, made a suspiciously nice dinner, and proposed before they even got dessert on the table. The ring fit snug around his finger, a cool band of silver and diamonds, marking the love they never got to see as he kissed Atem senseless.
“Can’t believe,” Atem managed when he had his mouth free, “you thought I’d wait a year.”
“I thought you’d at least wait until we had a house.” Yugi pushed him back onto the bed and crawled on top, kissing any bare skin available. His brain moved too fast to think about the intricacies of taking off clothes—they were engaged. They were going to get married. It would have made him cry if he wasn’t already so horny.
“No point.” Atem pressed down on his head, keeping him at his neck. “It wouldn’t have been worth it to wait that long when I wanted to do it today.”
“Fair enough.” Yugi nipped along his throat, only stopping at his ear. “How long have you been waiting, then?”
“Um. Eight hours.”
“What?” He shot up out of sheer astonishment. “You bought these today?”
Atem smiled, half shrugging. “Yeah?”
“Did you plan this?”
“No, I swear. Well, okay, I knew I was going to make dinner and I was going to buy the rings when you went out for lunch no matter what, but I meant to wait at least a little while.” He picked up Yugi’s left hand, smiling tenderly at the ring. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how happy you would be—how happy we both would be when I finally did it. I gave up on the whole ‘waiting’ thing in about an hour, so. Here we are.”
At that, Yugi had nothing to say, awed by the little story. When they had the conversation about engagement, they both agreed something nice, but private, and Atem all but begged to be the one to pop the question. Yugi had no problem letting him. Atem was always better about the traditional romantic stuff.
But this—proposing the same day he bought the rings, because he was just too excited to spend the rest of their lives together? Yugi never could have predicted something like that.
“Excuse me,” he said, tracing the contours of Atem’s face, “if this is a bit too bold.” He leaned down, pressing a delicate kiss to his lips. “I am going to suck you dry tonight.”
Atem laughed, breathy and excited. “Yay.”
Unable to resist any longer, Yugi kissed his mouth one last time, closed his eyes, and let muscle memory guide his trail down. He left no square inch of skin unmarked, desperate to show Atem how much love he held. How much devotion. How much thanks, for being the one to show him this kind of life was possible. To give him the chance to find love, even if everyone else said it was wrong, to stay by his side and make sure he knew he was never alone. When everyone else saw colors, when everyone else had a soulmate, when Yugi was positive he’d be waiting for love forever, Atem came along and gave him hope.
The idea of finding his “real” soulmate was laughable. Yugi’s real soulmate was right here.
Here, and becoming a whimpering mess before his pants were even off. Deciding to show mercy, Yugi licked one last stripe up his stomach, opening his eyes to admire his work.
And stopped breathing.
All along Atem’s body, everywhere he’d touched, were bright, flaming, red-orange marks. The ones at his neck faded rapidly, dissolving back to brown, but the recent ones… those were his handprints, his lips, his tongue, marks from his teeth that definitely weren’t bruises.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
“What?” Atem said, sitting up at once. “What is—”
He stared too. At Yugi’s face, at his hands that were—Yugi frantically looked down at his own hands—streaked lilac purple, like he’d dipped them in buckets of paint palm-first.
“What’s happening?” Yugi asked, confused, choked up, head spinning, watching the colors fade. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Atem said, shaking.
Tentatively, he reached out a brushed Yugi’s forearm. A delicate stripe of purple appeared, following the path his fingers made. Yugi held his hand and did the same, amazed and terrified. He wondered if he was dreaming. He wondered if they were dead.
“Are we…?” he asked, not daring to say it aloud, as if it might break the spell.
“We must be,” Atem reasoned, but his face struggled to comprehend saying it. “We must be, but how?”
“Did we do it ourselves?”
“Can that happen? Does this happen?”
“It must happen.” Yugi took his hands, swiping them just to see the color. “We—We did it.”
Atem smiled, stupidly happy. “We did it.”
A dozen times, Yugi touched his hands and pulled them away, saw the bright orange and soft lilac. He burst out laughing and the tears broke at the same time, sobbing and hiccupping with joy and shock in equal number. Atem trapped him in an embrace, not even trying to hold himself together.
They stayed on that bed for hours. They kissed and touched and barely managed anything else.