A/N: This was requested by MegaMovieMonday. Sorry for the really incredibly long wait!

He could hardly believe he was here. This moment wasn't something he had ever looked towards, had ever expected. He had never imagined himself here, in this time and place, sitting in his bedroom and staring down at the college acceptance letter.

Katsuya Jonouchi was going to college.

Jonouchi shook his head. He had read and re-read the letter several times. Even though he had been working so hard in the past couple of weeks, spending hours in the library studying with Yugi, getting Anzu to quiz him, driving Honda mad by talking about his plans for paying for tuition and all the money had saved up for this – it still didn't feel real. Had he really done it? Even as he had done all the work there had been a part of him that had thought that he wasn't going to make it. That he wasn't going to qualify for college, that he wasn't going to be able to make anything of himself after all. Hell, just a few years ago he hadn't even expected to graduate.

Still shaking his head, he put the letter down on his nightstand. It was nearly midnight already, and he should be going to bed. He had only a week of school left before his final commencement ceremony.

And then he was going to college.

Him. Katsuya Jonouchi. He was going to college.

A small smile grew on his face as he laid back on his pillow, hands behind his head.

I made it, was the last thought he thought before he drifted straight to sleep.

He blinked. When he had ended up standing on a street in Domino? Hadn't he just been about to fall asleep? Was he dreaming?

It was fully light outside, and cars were flying past on the main street. Buildings stretched into the air. He glanced around. It was warm outside. People were passing him without seeing him, dressed in light clothing. It was spring, he could tell by the flutter of a few cherry blossoms that had been drug in by the wind.

He turned around in a slow circle. He had already figured that he was dreaming, but he figured he might as well stick around since it wasn't really a bad dream.

He heard the sound of faint thumping. A sharp intake of breath and the scuffle of feet. Someone swearing and the word getting cut off halfway through.

His eyes instantly, instinctiely moved to the alleyway that he was standing nearby.

Okay, maybe this is going to be a bad dream.

Down aways into the alley, a fight had broken out between a group of kids about half his height. He could see the blur of flying fists, at least one person was kneeling on the ground and cradling a limb, everyone involved had gotten their school uniforms torn.

He especially recognized the shock of blond hair in the middle of the group.

Jonouchi broke into a run, charging down the alleyway. But no one looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and by the time he had reached them, three of the kids had run away the other direction and only two boys were left.

One was Hirutani. Jonouchi felt a shudder go through him at the twisted, evil grin that had spread across the boy's face. He was so young. He was so young.

The other one was Jonouchi, age twelve.

"Ha!" Hirutani said, gasping for breath. "We showed those bastards!"

Young Jonouchi didn't answer. He just sat down against the wall and started to rub one shoulder.

"You were on fire today, Jou," Hirutani said, clapping Jonouchi on his other shoulder. "I'm so glad you decided to join my gang."

Young Jonouchi again didn't answer. He just shrugged.

"Ah, silent as always, like the little monster you are," Hirutani laughed. "It was a good show. You were vicious. That gang won't be stepping on our turf any time soon."

"Guess not," young Jonouchi muttered.

Hirutani laughed again – that big, charismatic laugh that had always drawn other, weaker kids to him in the hopes of protection. Jonouchi felt his blood boil.

"Well, I'm headed back to our little 'lair'," Hirutani said. "See you around there, yeah."

"...yeah."

"Great! See you around, Jou."

The young Hirutani sauntered out of the alley, walking right past older Jonouchi as though he didn't see him. And perhaps he didn't. Perhaps Jonouchi couldn't be seen in this dream.

Young Jonouchi sat for another few minutes, just absently rubbing his shoulder. Jonouchi felt his own shoulder twinge in sympathy. He thought he could remember this fight – a kid had nearly gotten him in the neck with a metal pipe, but he had caught it on his shoulder instead. That shoulder still felt achy when it rained.

Then young Jonouchi dropped his hands into his lap and let his head hang down. He sighed. A swear dropped from his mouth. Then with a groan, he picked himself up.

He turned towards older Jonouchi.

And he stopped. His eyes widened.

"Who the hell are you?" he said.

Anger. There was so much anger and hate in that voice, in those eyes. Jonouchi felt something in him break.

"I guess...I'm you. Sorta. You're going to be me, rather."

"Shut the hell up, what the frick are you talking about?" young Jounouchi said.

His hands raised slightly, curling into fists. Jonouchi held up his hands.

"Hey. I'm not looking for a fight."

"The way you're trying to look like me is just begging for me to put my fist in your face."

"Calm down!" Jonouchi said. "Geez! Was I this much of a brat?"

"You're really asking for it now."

Young Jonouchi cocked his fist back and moved in for the kill. Jonouchi sighed and rolled his eyes. His younger self wasn't exactly the master of street fighting yet. Jonouchi had several years of experience on him.

He sidestepped the blow, casually kicked the boy's feet out from under him, but then caught him by the arm before he could faceplant onto the pavement.

"Let go! Bastard! Let go of me!"

"You've got the speed, but you're way too angry," Jonouchi said. "Makes you swing wild. No matter what Hirutani tells ya, being the vicious little monster in a fight isn't actually the best way to go. Gotta have a bit of restraint, see. Let's you explode more."

Young Jonouchi continued to struggle and pull, trying to get out of older Jonouchi's grip. He swung another punch at him, which Jonouchi caught with his other hand easily.

Young Jonouchi glared at him with rage, but it had tempered a bit with wary curiosity.

"You're good," he said slowly.

"Yeah, because you learned to get better at fighting over time. Not that it's anything to be proud of, you little brat."

Young Jonouchi's eyes flashed. But he stopped struggling, and so Jonouchi let go. Young Jonouchi instantly jumped backwards, putting distance between them. He eyed the older Jonouchi.

"Am I smoking something?" he finally asked. "Because you really do look like me."

"I'm dreaming," Jonouchi said, shrugging. "You're just a figment of my imagination, probably."

"Shut up, I am not. I'm real."

Jonouchi's shoulder slumped a little.

"Yeah. You are. Because you're me. Guess a part of you is still stuck in my head after all."

Young Jonouchi frowned.

"You're weird."

"I get that a lot."

Older Jonouchi sighed. He looked his younger self up and down. He was a full head shorter than Jonouchi was now, dressed in his middle school uniform with the jacket hanging open and the shirt underneath rumpled, most of the buttons missing. There was a cut on the back of his hand, and another on his knee that had also ripped the pants. His sneakers were falling apart. His badly bleached blond hair hung in thick, badly cut chucks over his eyes. And there was so much anger there. There was so much roiling, dark anger and hatred. And not just any hatred.

"You kinda hate yourself, don't you?" he mumbled, almost self-conciously.

The younger Jonouchi actually flinched.

"Shut the frick up," he whispered.

His hands had rolled up into shaking fists. Older Jonouchi shook his head and ran a hand over his face.

"No, I mean...never mind. I didn't..."

He closed his eyes for a minute. Then he opened them again. He stepped forward. Young Jonouchi tensed, like an animal afraid of being cornered, but he stood his ground. Older Jonouchi knelt down in front of his younger self. He put his hands on young Jonouchi's shoulders. Young Jonouchi actually flinched a little.

"What are you..."

"Listen to me, kid," Jonouchi said. "Even if this is just a dream, and you're just a figment of my imagination...I want you to listen to me anyway. Things are going to get better."

Younger Jonouchi looked at him with a mixture of uncertainty and cynicism.

"I know. It doesn't look like it will. Life sucks. School sucks. Dad sucks. Everything sucks. But damn, kid, you are going to make it. You are going to make it so far, so far that you can't even see it from here."

"You're lying," young Jonouchi said. "There's – there's nowhere for me to go."

"I just told you that you couldn't see it from here, smartass," Jonouchi said, shaking him lightly. "Listen. Years from now, things are going to look better. You're not going to be alone. You're not going to spend your days sitting in alleys and nursing wounds because you don't want to go home. Damn, if you could see where you're going to end up...you'd hardly believe it!"

"You're still lying," young Jonouchi said, but he sounded uncertain.

Jonouchi smiled up at his younger self. This small, broken boy who felt he had nowhere to go.

"Here," Jonouchi said. "This is still my dream. I want to show you...I want to show you just how far you're gonna go."

He stood up. He extended a hand to his younger self. Young Jonouchi stared at it for a minute. He looked up at his older self.

"What am I going to see?" he asked, suspicious – but curious, too. And just a bit hopeful.

Jonouchi's smile widened even farther.

"Oh, so much," he said. "So much, so many good things that your heart's gonna feel like it's gonna explode – in a good way. You're gonna see friendship, and happiness, and a future. I want to show you that you have a future now."

Young Jonouchi stared at older Jonouchi's hand for another moment.

Then, slowly, hesitantly, he put his hand into his.

Jonouchi squeezed it, the small, beat up hand. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Around him, he felt the dream twist and turn, fading away into the memories that he had found in the last few years. It all took only a few seconds, in the dream. He could hear his younger self's sharp intake of breath.

"There," Jonouchi said. "I told you."

Then he opened his eyes, and he was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. He turned over. There was his college acceptance letter, right where he had left it.

He sat up in bed and reached for it again, reading it over for the billionth time.

He smiled.

For a moment, he could see his younger self in the back of his head. Still smiling, he leaned his head back.

"I told you," he whispered. "We made it, didn't we?"

A/N: It has literally been months since you requested this, MegaMovieMonday, and I am so sorry T-T I hope it met your expectations! Thank you for this prompt, it was really fun and moving to write. I hope everyone that reads this can also take this as an inspiration, that no matter where you start you can go so far.