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Best Left Forgotten	By : Ykarzel Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3872 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh!, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Best Left Forgotten

Chapter Two

"You hold the
answers deep within your own mind. Consciously, you've forgotten it. That's the
way the human mind works. Whenever something is too unpleasant, to shameful for us too entertain, we reject it. We erase it
from our memories.

But the imprint is always there� Nothing is ever really forgotten."
- Original Author Unknown

He knew, in a distant part of him that still knew reason,
that he was making a scene.

Still, his shouts continued.
One name he knew � knew nearly as well as his own. Honda. And then another, a name he had to grasp for,
Yugi. It came to him, but from memories
he couldn�t remember or the bits of conversation he had heard since waking he
didn�t know.

They would know, he was sure. They had to know.

To learn that his sister had seen him a bare three times in
the years he couldn�t remember, and that he�d moved out of his father�s
apartment when he turned sixteen, was a shock.
How were two people who�d barely seen him in years supposed to tell him
who he was?

He needed Honda, who�d stuck stubbornly by his side. A best friend even when he�d become someone
he didn�t want to be. And Yugi, his name
was Yugi, the one who had started to
cry when Jou looked at him and asked him who he was.

They knew him, even if he did not know himself.

Even before looking at them, when they�d asked his age, he
knew as the word left his mouth that something wasn�t right.

As they�d started to panic around him, he�d caught sight of
a young boy, with black hair and gray eyes.
He would be close to fifteen in age, Jou thought, and Jou knew he was older than him. He didn�t
know how he knew, but he did.

He felt panic creeping up on him, encouraged by his shouts,
and tried to push it down. When he
wasn�t able to do it, he stopped shouting, taking deep breaths. It didn�t matter that he�d stopped; Honda and
Yugi were rushing into the room anyway.

They stared at him, and he stared back. He suddenly stopped moving, suddenly stopped
yelling, and was suddenly very tired. He
hurt, he realized belatedly, all over.
His right arm continuously reached up to touch the bandage on his head �
it felt wrong there � but his left still lay unmoving. He looked away from the two in the doorway
and down at his arm.

It was wrapped also, but in something much harder than soft
bandage.

�My arm is broken,� he said, pointing to it with his good
arm. But really, it hurt to lift that
arm too, and he let it fall back over to the other side. He fell back into the pillows behind him.

Yugi walked over to him, setting a hand very lightly on the
arm. �Is that why you yelled?�

Jou�s eyes felt heavy, and when he shook his head, it
swam. Yugi�s eyes met his, and Jou noted
that they were a light purple, large, and kind.
He liked Yugi already. �They
didn�t know me.�

Another hand was on his shoulder. He wanted to swing his head to look but
Yugi�s eyes held him and he remembered that his head hurt. When Honda spoke he knew he didn�t have to swing
around. �Your sister and father love
you,� he said softly, awkwardly, as if speaking in such a way was not usually
his job. �But you mother does her best
to keep your sister away from you, and your father knew you would be happier
living with Yugi and his grandfather.�

�How many?� Jou asked.

Yugi and Honda looked at each other, but neither knew what
he was asking. �How
many what, Jou?� Yugi asked slowly.
Jou was glad he talked that way, his head was swimming again, and he let
it rest against the pillows.

�Years,� he said. In
his head, the word had formed just fine.
But it reached his mouth late, as if an echo, and came as a long slur.

Yugi seemed to understand then. �Five Jou, you�re missing about five years.�

Jou groaned, and closed his eyes against that thought. Finally the swimming stopped and instead, he
was coaxed to let it all go. He listened
to the silent call and drifted to sleep.

The next time he woke, it was daylight out. He glanced around the room. He saw somebody�s back retreating, but didn�t
try to sit up to look. People were
always in the room. He heard them, even
asleep � half asleep really � coming in and out, making noise, poking at him, or
waiting for him to wake up.

Slowly, moving only his eyes and not his head, he looked
around the room. Nobody was in it now;
he was alone. The thought wasn�t a
pleasant one. He was alone and he didn�t
know himself.

He stared up at the ceiling.
His thoughts moved slowly, as if drifting lazily across a lake. They just didn�t seem to see the need to
hurry. He hurt. Everything hurt. His head hurt, his arm hurt, his whole body
ached, especially on the left.

He tried to speak, just to hear his own voice, but the swear
word he prepared to express how much he hurt got lost somewhere on the way to
his mouth. What did come out was a
grunt, a rasp of a voice that was too long unused and without water.

He was ravenous, he realized. His stomach felt like it was collapsing into
itself. But even that feeling came
slowly, and the identification of what it was.
Inside, he panicked. What was
wrong with him? Why couldn�t he think right?

The answer drifted in just as slowly. Drugs.

His eyes moved to look at the tube connected to his right
hand, the one that wasn�t broken. They
were drugging him. And, he suspected
after a long minute staring at the tube, feeding him.

He let his neck relax back into the pillows and his eyes
fell half shut of their own accord. He
wasn�t sure when he drifted off, but the next thing he knew he was waking to
sniffling.

He blinked up at Yugi.
He smiled at Jou even as he continued to sniffle. When he spoke it was softly and slowly, which
Jou was grateful for.

�Hey, Jou.�

Jou tried to reply, but what came out was hardly a
word. Yugi didn�t seem to mind. Jou felt him take his large hand into his
smaller one, mindful of the tubes.

�They told me you woke up this morning, but I had to run
home to shower. Sorry that I missed
it. I didn�t want you to wake up alone.�

Again Jou tried to talk, and again the words fell apart in
his throat. Yugi guessed what was
wrong. He brought Jou a Styrofoam cup
with a plastic lid and straw. Jou started
to reach up for it but Yugi brought it to his lips, angling the straw for
him.

It was harder than he expected to suck from the straw. His dry lips didn�t seem to want to close
around the tube. Once the water hit his
mouth though, it was like strength returning.
He paused only a moment to lick moisture onto his lips before he drank
again.

Yugi smiled at him, even if his eyes still showed that he�d
been crying. �They said you�d be
thirsty. Hungry too. Once you start waking up every few hours
they�ll put you on a liquid diet and after a day or two of that and you can go
back to real food.�

He stopped drinking long enough to look pleadingly at
Yugi. �Why not now?� his voice was still
harsh, but the words at least came out as words, even if they did come slowly
and echoed in Jou�s head.

Yugi chuckled slightly.
He reached up and brushed Jou�s bangs away from the bandage and his
eyes. Jou returned to drinking while he
waited for an answer. �You�ve been
asleep for nearly three days, Jou. If we
gave you solid food now your stomach would refuse it and you�d be sick. You don�t want to be throwing up.�

Jou drank too fast, the water catching in his air tube. As soon as he started coughing Yugi pulled
the water away and held tighter to his hand.

Coughing wracked his body with pain. The convulsions hurt � his left side screamed
in agony. He jerked away from the pain
instinctively, but that only caused a knife to dig into him and he shouted.

Two small, but firm, hands pushed his shoulders into the
pillow, stilling him. He chased away the
rest of the coughs by softly clearing his throat.

�A piece of sheet metal cut you very deeply on the left
side, Jou,� Yugi�s voice came, breaking through the pain. �You have to try not to move it.�

He didn�t realize he was crying until he felt the tears leak
down the sides of his face. As soon as
Yugi trusted him to lay still, though, he was wiping
the tears away. �It�s alright Jou,� he
said softly. �Now that you�re awake
they�ll hook up the morphine to a push button that you can use for when it
hurts. And you�ll be out of here in a
week, two tops. A month and a half from
now you�ll be completely better.�

Jou breathed slowly and looked up at Yugi. He tested his voice before using it, but the
water had brought it back. �I don�t even
remember you. How can I get better?�

Yugi�s hand was back around his, comfortingly, but Jou sort
of thought he was comforting himself because he looked like he was going to cry
again. �The doctors say you might get
your memories back. They have no way to
know. So you might remember. Not right away, but someday. And if you don�t, then I�ll just remember for
both of us, okay?�

Jou suddenly wanted to hug him. �Were we friends?� he asked. He wanted to ask �Were we just friends?� but
somehow that didn�t seem appropriate.

Yugi nodded. �Were
and are. And will continue to be.�

Jou tried to smile at him.
He felt warmer inside, not so scared now. Not alone.
�You�ll stay with me?� he asked.
His words were starting to slur again and he knew he wouldn�t be up much
longer. The drugs were taking away his
ability to think again.

�I�ll be here,� Yugi said with a nod. �And Honda will be back later this
afternoon. Your dad in
the evenings. But I�m here all
the time. Grandpa pulled some strings to
exempt me from visiting hours. The
doctors allow it because seeing things you know is supposed to help.�

Jou blinked rapidly, fighting to stay awake. �Tired,� he said apologetically.

Yugi shook his head.
�It�s alright. When Honda gets
here I�m going to run to your apartment and pick up some of your stuff. So it might only be him here when you wake
up.�

Jou made a soft noise of assent as his mind gave up the
battle his eyes had already lost.

He woke again to muffled curses, and tried to smile when he
recognized the voice. He pulled his eyes
open against the resistance of the sticky glue of sleep. �Hey Honda,� he called. Finally his words came as words; without a
hard slur or an echo, even if they were quiet.

Honda looked up from where he was rubbing his bumped
knee. �Jou,� he said, falling into the
chair to the right of Jou�s bed. �Did I
wake you up?�

�S�ok,� Jou said softly, offering
his friend a smile. �S�good
t� see you.�

Honda smiled weakly back.
�Good to see you alive,� he answered.
�Yug�s down at your apartment getting some of your stuff.�

Jou stared at him.
He�d known that, but� �I have an apartment?�

Honda nodded uncomfortably, as if just reminded of something
he�d rather forget.

Shock pulled Jou the rest of the way out of the drug
haze. He knew it wouldn�t last for
long. �Dad said I moved out but I
thought I�d be in with you.�

Honda shook his head.
�When you were sixteen you moved in with Yugi. When you were eighteen you moved into your
own place, though Yug is there with you more often than not.�

Jou sagged into the pillows, trying to process that. �What else, Honda?� he said quickly, urgency
taking away the breathless quality of his words. �What else don�t I know?�

Honda shifted, again uncomfortable. �Well, you and I are still like brothers,
but, ya know, Yug�s your best friend.�

Jou stared at him. A
week ago, or, five years and a week, he would never have believed a time would
come that he would trust somebody more, or even as
much as Honda. And yet, the way Yugi had
treated him, and the easy way Honda said it, made him believe it. He also dismissed the idea that he and Honda
had ever been involved. He always
thought it might happen, but obviously it hadn�t.

He was surprised how calmly he was handling it. He was desperate for Honda to tell him all he
knew, but he was observing � attempting to piece the puzzle back together for himself.

Honda looked like he was struggling for something else to
say. Jou could understand. It had to be hard to tell somebody about
their own life like they hadn�t lived it.

�You�re studying to become a teacher,� he said
suddenly. Jou stared at him. �You are,� Honda said, almost
defensively. �You have an internship
down at Mokuba�s school right now.
You�re a student teacher in his class three or four times a week. They adore you there.�

Jou knew Honda wouldn�t lie to him. But still, a teacher? He hated school. And he hated teachers. They were all idiots. Almost every one he�d ever had. They had no idea how to teach a student that- He stopped in mid
thought. Of course he had become a teacher.
Somebody had to show them how it was done� Who was Mokuba?

The door opened � it had never been shut that he could
remember � and Yugi walked in. He looked
thrilled to find Jou awake.

�Jou, I brought some of your stuff. And the doctor said they�ll start feeding you
tomorrow morning.�

Jou tried to smile at him.
However, Yugi walking in had broken his urgency to know all he could
from Honda, and with that loss went his energy.
He was already falling asleep, he could feel, and knew anything he tried
to say would only get lost on the way to his mouth. Again, sleep claimed him.

When he woke yet again, it was very different. He knew right away it was early morning by
the light. He hurt this time. Not like before, when he�d coughed and his
whole body felt like it was broken. This
time he could feel the cut on his left side.
It ached, sort of, in a distant way.
He could feel the pain, nothing dulled it, but it was far away from
him. Still, he could feel it. Before, he
hadn�t even been aware his side was sliced and his arm broken.

Now, his whole side felt on fire, his arm ached in dull throbs
that pulsed with his heartbeat, and something was numb about his left leg. He felt it all, but it wasn�t important. It was easily ignored.

He blinked awake. His
thoughts came through the haze of sleep, but not, he realized with a shock, the
haze of the drugs.

Yugi was beside him.
His head had fallen forward to rest on his arm on the edge of Jou�s
bed. He was down near Jou�s calves,
where the sides of the bed ended.

A nurse walked in, and Jou looked up at her. She smiled at him warmly but put a finger to
her lips and pointed at Yugi. Jou nodded
minutely � his head throbbed along with his arm, and though it was easily
ignored, he instinctively knew that movement would break through that barrier.

She sat a tray down on the swing table that was attached to
the high side of his bed. The smell of
it made him ravenous. Even through the
barrier that made all feeling unimportant, he was keenly aware that his stomach
felt like a plastic bottle that had all the air sucked out of it to the point
that it collapsed in on upon itself.

He forgot Yugi, and looked around for the buttons that would
help him sit up. They were on both
sides, and he used his right hand to push the top of his bed up. Yugi jerked awake the moment the bed moved
under him.

�Jou, you�re awake.�

Jou ignored him, faced with a new problem. The tray was resting on the table on the left
side of his bed. He had to swing the
turn table to be in front of him. Except,
his left hand was all but useless, and his right was attached to tubes that
would not stretch that far.

While he was still working the problem out in his head, Yugi
saw what he was looking at and moved the table for him. Jou continued to stare at it, dumbly. It was suddenly harder to think again, he
felt the drugs seep in. He fought it
though; he was too hungry to sleep.

It must have shown on his face, because suddenly Yugi was
holding his hand. No, not holding it,
pushing something into it. �They�ve lowed your dosage, Jou, so that you�ll wake up. But you can increase it if there�s too much
pain. Just push the button on that and
it�ll come.�

Jou nodded and reached for the food. He didn�t want the drug now; he knew he
wouldn�t be able to stay awake.

He managed to get the lid off a container he expected to be
soup with one hand. Yugi was already
opening various other containers for him.

Jou stared at the liquid inside the bowl. Chicken, he knew, by smell, but only
broth. His stomach whimpered in protest.

�You�ll be on solids soon Jou,� Yugi said. �You have tea here too.�

Picking up a spoon, Jou shoveled a spoon into his mouth, and
nearly gagged. It wasn�t that it was
particularly bad, but it was so salty that it had shocked him. He tried very hard not to cough, remembering
how that had felt last time.

Yugi�s nose curled at the smell of the chicken broth. �Grandpa says, it�s
a huge pot of water that they throw a cube into. He swears he�ll never get sick again just so
he never has to eat it again. I�m sorry Jou, you should be on solids soon.�

Jou didn�t care. It
was salty, and the first bite had taken him aback, but he was starving. He sucked it down as fast as the spoon and
his wired hand would allow. His urgency
was partially due to hunger and partially due to the growing fog in his
head. He knew he�d be asleep soon.

The broth was salty, and he unthinkingly reached for his
water with his left hand. Pain lanced
from his left shoulder to his waist, as if he�d be cut in half, his back
separated from his front.

�Jou, the button.� Yugi was pushing the little holder into Jou�s
hand and he fumbled for the button. The
drug rushed into him instantly. When he
could breathe again, Yugi was holding the water in front of him. He sucked gratefully on the straw.

A frustration he�d never known before washed over him. That he couldn�t move,
that he couldn�t do anything for himself, that he couldn�t remember the one
person taking care of him. The
frustration brought angry tears to his eyes.
That brought more frustration � he didn�t cry.

Yugi was holding his hand again, but he didn�t speak. Still, somehow Jou felt that Yugi
understood. That comforted him slightly,
until he remembered that he didn�t
remember Yugi.

He didn�t fight the sleep that clouded his brain. At least in sleep, he didn�t have to know any
of it.
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