The thing with that, miss, is you can be great. You can have all the riches in the world, all the fame in the world, but you'll still be lonely. There'll still be the ache where you feel something's missing, and you'll never know what it is.

[Yuugi smiles a little sadly, curling his hand around the spot near his stomach where the puzzle would have been resting. Lonely. Hah. He's such a hypocrite. Even though he still has all his friends, they would never really fill the empty feeling where Atem's absence was concerned.]

I know that without my friends to cheer me on, I wouldn't have won most of my duels, and of course there was a time before I was the King of Games. [He smiles a bit morosely now.] I was an easy target, definitely the smallest in school, so I got beaten up and bullied on the regular. Two of my very best friends, Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun, even used to tease me.

[Ah dark times.]

That's why I treasure my friends. I know how lonely I'd be without them.