A/N: Written for the GX bingo, the non-flash version, #023 - awe.
Respect and Disrespect
As her older brother, Fubuki commands a certain amount of respect. And a certain amount of disrespect as well, particularly when he's done something particularly foolish like dressing up as Magician's Valkaryia in trying to convince her to be Black Magician Girl and all because he's got brown hair and she's got yellow…or gold.
He's done more or less silly things than that too, but once he's gone, she remembers those less and the times when he sparkles like her hero or mentor or something special, she recalls more.
Like the time when he wins his first tournament. The first duel she sees him in too, because before that it's just a bunch of cards to her and she doesn't see what's so special. Like a sword's just a bit of metal until you see a sparring match, or a real fight. She sees a duel and sees how his brother sparkles, how he commands the audience, how he appears so strong –
And she falls in love with duelling on the spot.
Though her brother's addicted to the spotlight, she thinks fondly. She can't just forget the times he'll do something outlandish and without shame. He's clever, but he's got a long list of demerits and detentions to his name – though the Orisis students, or a few in particular, this year seem to be beating his personal records. He'll think it a personal insult – or he would, if he was there. He wasn't.
Still, he sparkles bright in her memories and she'll never forget.
Like the time he won his first tournament. The time that drew her in like a butterfly to a flame, into duelling, into the spotlight she'd come to hate before then because she'd been embarrassed so many times when her brother's silliness left everyone staring at her. She isn't as unfazeable as her brother and it shows every time. Her detention-free record. Her avoidance of the spotlight – except duelling, because she's proud of duelling and not just because of how her brother sparkled on that first stage. Because she's inherited the Tenjoin stubborn streak and people are still quick to think girls can't duel. There are exceptions, of course. Kujaku Mai, who still gets a lot of bad press despite having proven herself time and again. The Chinese champion who's held her title for over ten years. Rebecca Hopkins who's one of the youngest champions in the world. And Kaiba Seto must have some confidence in women and duelling, since the only dorm in Duel Academia who's got a separate girls dorm is Obelisk. Ra and Orisis dorms are co-ed.
Though, contrary to popular opinion, females do not automatically get into to Obelisk. They earn their spots just like anyone else who attends the Prep school or works their way up from Ra. Of course, the students know that. And their families. The people that matter, and in Duel Academia at least, the fact that girls can more than hold their own is the norm and she loves that about the place.
What she'd also thought she'd love was the image of her brother on the main duel stage, duelling his heart out, in a spotlight that held him and captured her rather than him doing one of his embarrassing stunts that he didn't really put his entire soul into. The difference between true passion and pastimes – or searching for something more. Sometimes, she isn't sure. They're all searching for something, even if they don't realise it. Often, they find things without realising it – but that won't stop her from searching for her brother people are also more likely to find things when they put in the effort to look and he means more than enough for her to do so.
Sometimes it's a selfish reason. Not purely because he's her brother and that should be reason enough, but he's the reason she started duelling, the person who brought her her first deck and offered whatever cards he'd gotten from random packs and wasn't using for himself, the person who cheered for her when they duelled during breaks in primary school and the year they'd spent together in the prep school before Fubuki graduated and headed to the Academia proper. And them sometimes she just misses his voice and his face aglow with light particularly when he stands in the spotlight and just wants him there, even with the annoyances she'd often wish away as a child. He commands both respect and disrespect, pride and embarrassment and a special part of her heart she can't, in his absence, ignore. And that she can't stop yearning, or searching, for.