Chapter Text
"Hey, was there ever a time that music was fun?"
Click-click-clack. Clack-click-clack. Click-clack-clack.
"I’ve long forgotten about that kind of innocent love"
The room had been thrown into darkness for the last few hours; the blinds had collected dust on top of each individual shudder from the length of time it'd spent there, and the world outside had shut itself out from the room after hours of trying to claw its way in. Only the blinding white light of the two monitors in the room and a small lamp giving off its soft yellow glow on the other side of the room were allowed to illuminate the small room.
The world outside had come to a near-standstill—never a complete halt, for it was impossible to stop the world from turning—and the majority of sounds that came with its life had ceased to sound for the time; instead, in the tiny little apartment for one, only the click-clack of computer keys, the shh-shh of a moving mouse, and the shrrk-shrrk of the sole chair leaning back and forth. Through the padded headphones, a half-composed melody thumped out, constantly being rewound and adjusted.
The boy leaned back in his chair, amethyst eyes that have long since gone deep purple staring at the bars of messy notes and beats on the screens in front of him. He blew one of the golden bolts out of his eyeline and leaned back over his desk to get a better look at his work-in-progress.
For the last two years, Mutou Yuugi has been known and seen by no one; no one has seen the baggy (yet somewhat stylish) clothes hanging off his form, the anonymous groceries delivered every week to his door, nor the music echoing the emotions in him that flowed out of his fingertips into the great beyond. The heavy eyes that bore the weight of the world had shut themselves away from society, preferring to spend their entire time crafting lyrics that reflected an aspect of their tired self. The hands that wrote music many related to also passed online assignments that they would never use—having long been self-isolated from the light, they saw no point in it except for the one person who knew of their current existence insisting upon it.
Yugi raised his arms above his head, stretching his arms and back as bones went crick-crack from the sudden pulling after lack of rigorous use. He let out a long breath before punching a few more lines into his song, pausing for a moment before clicking backwards to a previous line and adding a little more; after a fierce concentration lasting a few minutes, he pulled it back and let it play through the headphones on top of his ears.
"The half-baked dream that I entrusted everything to had rotted away somewhere and turned into delusion."
The voice of his preferred (if he would even go so far, favorite) voicebank sang out the words Yugi himself couldn't bring himself to sing. He'd tinkered with other voicebanks back when he initially started his producing journey—a byproduct of being shut away after everything that had occurred—but eventually grew into the ATEM voicebank. Its range was similar to the voice in Yugi's head that sung the words he couldn't sing; perhaps it was for that reason Yugi became known across online forums for his expertise in using ATEM and its relevant software.
Yugi refocused on his work, carefully dripping out the feelings he'd kept harbored inside and fanned like a dying flame trying to get back on its feet and turning them into lyrics. He was no unknown face online—not anymore, at least. His follower count across all his socials was a clear fact of that.
But he never really cared for things like that.
"Once upon a time, I was a person who could’ve been anything,"
He only wrote music because there was nothing else to do in the empty world he found himself in after that day.
"But these useless hands that can’t even save my soiled future,"
Would anything have changed if he'd done something different? Would he have died with them in the fast-paced crunched flames?
"Tell me, why are they still not doing anything now?"
Instead he couldn't even look at the light that wanted to greet him every morning.
From his right screen, where his synthesizer software was loaded, the screen glitched for a brief second. Yugi's gaze flickered from left to right, tilting his head curiously at the split-second anomaly. When nothing happened for a few more seconds, he turned his attention back to his other monitor.
Another glitch. Yugi snapped his head over, watching the screen glitch a few more times. He pulled his mouse over to the other side to see if he could internally repair any of the damage—but then something grabbed his mouse.
His chair flinched backwards with him in it, his hand clenching the front of his shirt as he watched the horror unfold in front of him. From behind where his mouse cursor was trapped, the glitching hyperfocused and began to form a figure of some kind. Then, with little more than a few ceremonial sparkles, a boy was hanging onto the mouse cursor, his little legs swinging in the air.
Yugi's dulled amethyst eyes met the boy's bright ruby ones through the monitor. The boy blinked, then lit up. "Hey there! Can you move me to the ground, please?"
A moment passed between the two of them; the boy in the monitor tilted his head curiously as Yugi carefully moved his hand to his mouse and lowered it. The boy jumped off the cursor and smiled up at Yugi. "Thanks!"
"You look like ATEM," Yugi replied, glancing at the box that ATEM came in two years ago that sat neatly on a nearby shelf, before looking back at the boy on his screen. "The voicebank."
"What are you talking about?" The boy huffed with a exasperated look. "I am ATEM!"
It must be a glitch, is Yugi's first thought. Just one of those cursors or pop-up buddies you can download. I probably got one at some point and forgot.
"I'm perfectly real, thank you!" The boy—ATEM?—huffed. Yugi blinked, realizing his thoughts weren't as hidden as he thought. "I can think and speak for myself, I'm not some program!"
"...Why are you real?" Yugi had many questions, including a very snarky but you're stuck inside a computer comment that he shoved down his throat. " How are you real? That wasn't a function ATEM was said to come with." Yugi reached for the box on his shelf. ATEM thought for a moment; out of the corner of his eye, Yugi could see him watching Yugi examine every inch of the (his?) packaging for any small text.
"I'm... not sure," the voicebank admitted; Yugi looked over to see ATEM examining his new form. "I don't really know anything like... I know things but I don't remember learning them? But I do know one thing—I want to sing." ATEM looked up at Yugi with a determination that struck through the composer in a way he didn't like feeling. "I want to sing your songs, with all the feelings you've put into them! I've heard your songs, I've sung them myself... I want to convey the words you've given to me that have reached other people, I want to keep conveying them to those who want or need to hear it, and I want to do it with you!" ATEM bowed low to his producer holding his packaging. "So please... let me help you!!"
Silence rang in the room except for the low hum of the A/C—originally muffed over Yugi's dedication to his craft—and the muffled tap of Yugi putting the packaging down on his desk beside his monitor. After a few moments, ATEM picked himself up slowly and stared at Yugi. Yugi let his body sink into his chair and his eyes wander around his room, anywhere except the eyes of his new... roommate? companion? Whatever ATEM was now, because just calling him "the voicebank I use" felt rude.
The feelings he'd put into his songs—Yugi knew that what he was writing wasn't the full scope of everything. For the last two years, he'd been drip-feeding the faceless names on the internet tiny little pieces of the emotions he'd kept stored away inside of himself—but there was a lot inside of himself he hadn't faced yet. He knew it was there, yes, but he ignored it, turned it away and tucked it deep inside himself. There were feelings he would never put into feelings—never wanted to.
But now someone wanted to hear his feelings. No, his own damn voicebank , which had come alive , wanted to hear his feelings.
"...You haven't heard all of them yet." Yugi crossed his arms, his eyes finally catching ATEM's. "And you're just a voicebank." ATEM blinked, his eyebrows widening and his shoulder shifting down for a moment before giving Yugi a nod.
"I suspected that." When Yugi raised an eyebrow at him, he added, "from your expression just now. But I want to hear them all. And besides, because I'm your voicebank, doesn't that make me the best candidate to hear your feelings? All you have to do is put them into a song!"
...Put them into a song...
Yugi spun his chair away from his computer, staring at the wall behind him. Floating shelves held photos with a light covering of dust, books, and a few artificial plants; if it weren't for the fact that Yugi never left the house, the room wouldn't look like a room a hermit of two years would live in.
"I need some time," Yugi muttered. "I can't put them all into a song right now." There's a lot to unpack there... I don't know if I'm ready.
Silence hung in the air for a few moments. Yugi's hands shifted to his baggy leggings, crumpling the fabric underneath as his knuckles turned white. He heard ATEM take a breath behind him.
"Okay."
Yugi turned back around, staring at the other; he had moved his hands in front of him, holding them like a princess at court. "I can wait." He turned to look up at the screen behind him and smiled. "Is this your new song?"
"Yeah," Yugi grabbed his mouse and added a few more bars and lyrics; when he went to click play he paused, glancing at ATEM. The voicebank looked back at him and smiled; he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Cause a dog that’s beaten enough times eventually learns to feel nothing!" The song fell from his lips in the exact way Yugi had programmed them in; ATEM smiled up at him after the note hung in the air for a beat longer than intended. "It sounds really good! Can you play all of it?"
Yugi nodded, pulling the song tracker back to the beginning; he unplugged his headphones and muted the ATEM voicebank that wasn't alive and hit play. Yugi's music rang through the still room, and ATEM's voice picked up the song once it was his cue. The animated little singer on his screen stirred up an emotion in Yugi he hadn't felt since that fateful day two years ago.
The voicebank I use to sing my songs has come alive and wants to hear all of my feelings, written into a song... Yugi sighed under his breath. It's an optimistic viewpoint for a digital program to have.
"Now, now, now, let’s try to dance, inside a dream that’s long become empty!"
...But if anyone could do it... could it be you?