Hey! I love the yandere-ish puzzleshipping au, and the comic about Yugi giving Atem a collar made me love it more.
If it's okay to ask, would Yugi's other friends be aware of Atem coming back or that Yugi's acting strange? Would it result in Atem being isolated or something?
Super excited to see where the au goes (if you choose to continue it ^^)!
hehehe thank you very muchhh~ Yes! yandere-esque puzzleship with Yuugi being the yandere for once? Ugh I Love 😩 😩 I'm so happy this comic's gotten more of us who enjoy this flavor of Yuugi and Yami to come out of the woodwork (Dances with joy)
Hmm you mentioning about Yuugi's friendos gave me some ideas... If I get the time later, I'd love to draw em haha. So for now, I'll just mention what I'm not going to be drawing instead, cause I think the friendship gang feat. gramps can add an interesting dynamic to this AU!
I'd say that since this AU's big main point is Yuugi being terrible at dealing with grief, he's probably a bit more distant from his friends than he was in canon. Ofc he's still friends with them, but he's likely built up a bit of a wall that makes him seem standoffish. It's different from his "I'm being bullied" S0 quiet tho, it's clearly something tinged with grief, and since his friends want to be understanding, they back off for the first couple of weeks and just focus on making him happy.
Only... Yuugi seemingly isn't happy. At least, not in the way he used to. He can still laugh, cry, and get angry like anyone else, but there's a pervading sense of tiredness in him that worries everyone. Grandpa tries to get him help, but Yuugi rebuffs him, and since they no longer live together (Yuugi works in some game dev company and thus had to live somewhere else for commune reasons He also can't stand the idea of living in the same place where Atem once was) it's hard to make him go.
Jou and Honda are a bit more tough love about it, staging interventions and everything, but no attempt, therapy or otherwise ever seems to stick. Even Anzu, who had moved to America, tried to do some reverse-shovel talk thru their video chats to essentially guilt-trip Yuugi to take care of himself. Though that blows up in both their faces when Yuugi takes offense, and they get into a big fight about it. It takes them months to patch things up, and an actual in-person meeting later on for them to hash it out properly. Yuugi does feel guilty about being as harsh as he's been to his friends, but the void Atem left behind in his heart can't ever seem to close, no matter what he does. Jou and everyone else in turn, decide to do the "I can't tell you not to do it but I prefer to be next to you when shit hits the fan" approach, and instead just try to be there for him and support him when the tides are rough. Eventually, Yuugi just decides to accept that he probably can't ever be whole again, and sorta just coasts through life trying to enjoy it as much as he can with his friends by his side.
And then Kaiba comes to visit, with a short Egyptian man trailing behind him. And when the gang hear the news, they laugh and cry tears of joy, all while hoping to everything they know that Atem's return won't spell further hurt for their dear friend.
