Author's Notes: This is written by Lily22. I'm sorry I didn't ask
permission first, and I'm sorry I didn't get anybody else to beta this.
This was just a spur of the moment thing anyways, and I'm sure nobody
minds. Right?
~~
His mother had fallen asleep.
Sighing gratefully, Yuugi leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes to the rumble and frequent bumps of the train. Hopefully, his mother wouldn't wake up for a few minutes, and he'd get some rest. But with his eyes closed, each bump was magnified, and no sooner had he started to relax before the train lurched underneath him and his eyes snapped open.
Yuugi glanced over at his mother again. Still asleep. Her strawberry-blond hair fell over her eyes and she absently shook her head to dislodge them. But at least she was still asleep.
Carefully, Yuugi pulled out his prized possessions-his dueling deck and two photographs. One was of his father and mother, standing together and looking extremely happy. His father had been fifteen years older than his mother, but they had been in love-or so they thought. But being pregnant with Yuugi had changed his mother's opinion, and soon, she had divorced Yuugi's father.
Staring down at his father, Yuugi couldn't see much of a resemblance. His father's black hair and his mother's red-blond hair had somehow mixed together, then separated to form Yuugi's own, unique hair, but besides that, his father hadn't given Yuugi any characteristics. From his mother, he had gotten his height (or lack thereof). If Yuugi thought of this like a puzzle, which he usually did, it was missing a couple of pieces. But he had figured that out too.
His father, a few days before death, had give to Yuugi a picture of his father. "This is your grandfather, my father. You'll go to live with him when I'm gone. But your mother will have to take you there."
The last pieces of the puzzle, that curious hairstyle and those violet eyes, had been from Yuugi's grandfather. From what he could see, Sugoroku Mutoh was a kindly old man, but how could he help being nervous going to live with him?
But then again, anything was better than living with his mother, who hated him for ruining her life.
~~
"You're telling me you only have three cards??" Jou asked, laughing slightly. "Three cards isn't exactly enough for a deck, Anzu."
"Ha ha ha, Jounouchi, but if you'll remember, I didn't exactly have money to spare, buying cards."
"Ah, yes. And if _you'll_ remember, I gave ya those cards, so you should be thanking me!"
Anzu rolled her eyes. "Enough, enough! I have money now, so why don't we go to that store you were telling me about?"
"Yeah. It's called the Kame game shop. It's right around he....." Jou stopped speaking very silently, and they both stopped walking.
They were about two houses away from the store, and they had gotten there just in time to see a woman and a boy (his son? But the woman seemed a bit too young to be having children...) at the door. The woman snarled something and, wrenching the boy's arm, shoved him into the store. An elderly man with graying hair stood inside, smiling, but at the boy's yelp, the smile dropped off his face, and his purple eyes went cold.
The woman left quickly, almost tripping on her high-heels. "What're you brats looking at?" She snapped upon passing, and rounded the corner.
"Er... Jou, maybe we should come back later..." Anzu muttered, eyes directed pointedly at man and boy heading inside.
"Nonsense, Anzu! If we just waited a few seconds, I'm sure everything will have settled down," was the blithe reply. True to his word, about a minute later, Jou dragged a very reluctant Anzu into the store. Overhead, a bell tinkled pleasantly, alerting the owner of their entrance.
"One moment!" The owner shouted from a back room with a grunt. "Just have to move a few boxes!"
"Anou... Jiisan, if you're busy, I could help them," a boyish voice said, also from the back room.
"You?" There was a few moments' pause, in which the owner seemed to be considering. "Well, okay. If you have any problems, just call for me!"
"I will!" The boy they had seen earlier came into the front room, smiling cheerfully. "Welcome to the Kame game shop," he announced, as if he'd rehearsed it, though from the way he seemed unsure of his surroundings, he had never been here before. "My name is Yuugi. How may I help you?"
"Yuugi, huh? My name's Jounouchi, and this is Anzu," Jou butted in, before Anzu could tell Yuugi what they wanted. "We're looking for duel monster cards." "Duel monster cards! Great!" Yuugi looked even happier. "Do a lot of people play around here?"
"Not really, only me an' Anzu. And maybe a handful of other people."
"Oh, cool. I don't remember really anybody playing back where I come from." Yuugi paused, and then, "So, what kind of cards are you looking for?"
"Butt-kicking monsters!"
Anzu elbowed Jounouchi. "Actually, I'm the one looking for cards. I only have three at the moment, wanna see?" She pulled the cards out of her pocket, and handed them over.
"Magician of Faith, Elf's Light, Shining Friendship," Yuugi read aloud. "Hey, that's good! You've got all light monsters! You could build a light- based deck. Soul of Purity and Light is great for a light deck... Oh, but what kind of cards are you looking for?"
"Umm..."
"Anzu doesn't know anything about the cards," Jou announced. "She's just looking for cute ones."
"Hey!" Anzu shot her friend a severe look that got him to look at least a bit abashed.
"Well, that is... at least she knows more than Honda!" Jou amended, then muttered, "not that that's saying much."
Yuugi's laugh was like the tinkling of the bell, and for a moment, Jou almost reflexively looked up at it. "Cute cards, hm? I have... Petite Dragon in my deck, I dunno if you'll think it's cute." He took the deck from his pocket, and began thumbing through.
"Hey, wait! You duel, Yuugi?" Jou exclaimed, putting a hand to his pocket.
Purple eyes fixed on Jou momentarily and Yuugi stopped looking for a moment. "Well, yeah."
"I'll duel ya!"
"Er, I thought we were looking for cards for Anzu-san?" Yuugi glanced over at said girl, who opened her mouth to respond.
"That's okay, she doesn't mind waiting!"
"Jou! Stop speaking for me!"
Jou merely grinned, patting her roughly on the back. "What do you say, Yuugi?"
Yuugi blinked. "I... don't see why not."
"Great! Er, what do you say we stake a card on this duel? The winner gets both cards?"
"A... card?"
"Oh no, Jou... Don't..."
"Oh come on, Anzu! If he's good, he won't lose his card!" Jou turned back to Yuugi. "How about we each put down a dragon card?"
"Anou... Are you sure? I'm... I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty good..."
"You're not chicken, are you?"
"But.."
"Come on! I don't care how good you are, let's duel!"
"Well... okay, then..." Yuugi led the two over to the side, where an empty desk sat with four chairs around it. He sat down, Jou sat across from him, and Anzu chose a seat to the side.
Grinning like a cat that's just eaten the canary, Jou took out a card and placed it face down. Anzu groaned at that, but said nothing. Yuugi looked unsure of himself, but followed Jou's lead and also put down a card.
They shuffled each other's decks, and each put their respective decks at their right hand side. Yuugi quickly jumped up to grab paper and a pencil. Neatly, at the top, he wrote "Jou" and "Yuugi", and put a line down the middle to divide columns.
"How many life points?" Yuugi asked, pencil poised.
"4000."
Yuugi nodded. "Tribute?"
"...Nah. Only if it says you hafta on the card."
Yuugi nodded again, wrote "4000" under each of their names, and handed pencil and paper to Anzu. "Would you keep score for us?"
~~
Not long after, Jou was ahead with 2300 life points, while Yuugi only had 850. Jou, gleefully destroying Yuugi's monsters with the Flame Swordsman, also had a face down card in the magic/trap card area. Yuugi had one face down monster on the field.
"I flip summon the Man-Eater Bug."
"Oh SHOOT! My Flame Swordsman!"
"And I play this magic card, Premature Burial, which leaves me with only 50 life points. I revive... the Summoned Skull." Yuugi put said card on the field. "And now, I attack."
"Shoot!" Jou groaned, leaning back. "I just lost!"
"You... did?" Yuugi looked surprised. "But what was that face down card?"
"That? That was a bluff. It was the Hamburger Recipe, a ritual card. I didn't have the Hungry Hamburger card in my hand, though."
"Oh really? I'm sorry, I thought it was Magic Jammer."
"You're sor--?" Jou began, but was cut off.
"Yuugi!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Yuugi got up and bowed slightly. "I'll be right back." Running to the back room, he raised his voice a bit. "What is it, Jiisan?"
"Hah!" Anzu crowed the instant Yuugi left. "I knew you'd lose at your own game one of these days."
"What do you mean?" Jou asked innocently.
"That stupid scam of yours! Bet a dragon... and you bet your Baby Dragon, lame-o card extraordinaire... But this time, you lost!"
Jou stuck his tongue out at her. "But its not like I lost much, anyways. Just a Baby Dra--" He stopped. "Ah! I was so stupid! Yuugi probably just bet his Petite Dragon! He told us it was in his deck."
Anzu shot him a strange look. "He discarded it from his hand for Magic Jammer, remember?"
"He... did, didn't he? So what'd he bet? It must have been even worse than..." Jou flipped it over. "Curse of Dragon?? He risked a Curse of Dragon when he could've just risked a Petite Dragon??"
"And look at his hand," Anzu nearly shouted. "Dark Magician, Mirror Force, Dark Hole, and Reborn the Monster!"
"Why didn't he play any of these?" They exchanged astonished looks.
"I... I didn't want you to lose," Yuugi whispered, looking extremely abashed. "I guess I kinda cheated, huh."
"Cheated! Yeah, but you cheated for me." Shaking his head, Jou picked up his Baby Dragon. "Here, you earned this, even when you tipped the scales in my balance." Now that he realized what Yuugi had been doing for him, Jou felt extremely embarrassed to be giving the boy such a pathetic card as that one.
"Baby Dragon," Yuugi read aloud, no hint of disdain in his voice. "I couldn't take it. You keep it. Oh!" Suddenly, his face lit up, and he began digging through his deck again. "I know, take this! If you polymerize it with your Baby Dragon, you can summon Thousand Dragon."
"But... Yuugi... you won! I should be giving you a card, not the opposite way around..."
"No, please take it. As a gift, if you will." When Jou accepted, Yuugi's smile was bright enough to light up the entire room.
~~
Jou and Anzu left at about 5:00 to meet up with Honda, who was at work until 5:30. Yuugi waved happily after them, his smile lingering with them long after they rounded the corner.
Yuugi sat back down, face suddenly somber. He looked at the life point score sheets and booster pack wrappers, reminders of his first friends in a long time. He gathered them in his arms, and, about to walk up the stairs, paused.
He threw it all in the trash can, and continued up to where Sugoroku had said his room would be, eyes darkening with tears.
~~
His mother had fallen asleep.
Sighing gratefully, Yuugi leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes to the rumble and frequent bumps of the train. Hopefully, his mother wouldn't wake up for a few minutes, and he'd get some rest. But with his eyes closed, each bump was magnified, and no sooner had he started to relax before the train lurched underneath him and his eyes snapped open.
Yuugi glanced over at his mother again. Still asleep. Her strawberry-blond hair fell over her eyes and she absently shook her head to dislodge them. But at least she was still asleep.
Carefully, Yuugi pulled out his prized possessions-his dueling deck and two photographs. One was of his father and mother, standing together and looking extremely happy. His father had been fifteen years older than his mother, but they had been in love-or so they thought. But being pregnant with Yuugi had changed his mother's opinion, and soon, she had divorced Yuugi's father.
Staring down at his father, Yuugi couldn't see much of a resemblance. His father's black hair and his mother's red-blond hair had somehow mixed together, then separated to form Yuugi's own, unique hair, but besides that, his father hadn't given Yuugi any characteristics. From his mother, he had gotten his height (or lack thereof). If Yuugi thought of this like a puzzle, which he usually did, it was missing a couple of pieces. But he had figured that out too.
His father, a few days before death, had give to Yuugi a picture of his father. "This is your grandfather, my father. You'll go to live with him when I'm gone. But your mother will have to take you there."
The last pieces of the puzzle, that curious hairstyle and those violet eyes, had been from Yuugi's grandfather. From what he could see, Sugoroku Mutoh was a kindly old man, but how could he help being nervous going to live with him?
But then again, anything was better than living with his mother, who hated him for ruining her life.
~~
"You're telling me you only have three cards??" Jou asked, laughing slightly. "Three cards isn't exactly enough for a deck, Anzu."
"Ha ha ha, Jounouchi, but if you'll remember, I didn't exactly have money to spare, buying cards."
"Ah, yes. And if _you'll_ remember, I gave ya those cards, so you should be thanking me!"
Anzu rolled her eyes. "Enough, enough! I have money now, so why don't we go to that store you were telling me about?"
"Yeah. It's called the Kame game shop. It's right around he....." Jou stopped speaking very silently, and they both stopped walking.
They were about two houses away from the store, and they had gotten there just in time to see a woman and a boy (his son? But the woman seemed a bit too young to be having children...) at the door. The woman snarled something and, wrenching the boy's arm, shoved him into the store. An elderly man with graying hair stood inside, smiling, but at the boy's yelp, the smile dropped off his face, and his purple eyes went cold.
The woman left quickly, almost tripping on her high-heels. "What're you brats looking at?" She snapped upon passing, and rounded the corner.
"Er... Jou, maybe we should come back later..." Anzu muttered, eyes directed pointedly at man and boy heading inside.
"Nonsense, Anzu! If we just waited a few seconds, I'm sure everything will have settled down," was the blithe reply. True to his word, about a minute later, Jou dragged a very reluctant Anzu into the store. Overhead, a bell tinkled pleasantly, alerting the owner of their entrance.
"One moment!" The owner shouted from a back room with a grunt. "Just have to move a few boxes!"
"Anou... Jiisan, if you're busy, I could help them," a boyish voice said, also from the back room.
"You?" There was a few moments' pause, in which the owner seemed to be considering. "Well, okay. If you have any problems, just call for me!"
"I will!" The boy they had seen earlier came into the front room, smiling cheerfully. "Welcome to the Kame game shop," he announced, as if he'd rehearsed it, though from the way he seemed unsure of his surroundings, he had never been here before. "My name is Yuugi. How may I help you?"
"Yuugi, huh? My name's Jounouchi, and this is Anzu," Jou butted in, before Anzu could tell Yuugi what they wanted. "We're looking for duel monster cards." "Duel monster cards! Great!" Yuugi looked even happier. "Do a lot of people play around here?"
"Not really, only me an' Anzu. And maybe a handful of other people."
"Oh, cool. I don't remember really anybody playing back where I come from." Yuugi paused, and then, "So, what kind of cards are you looking for?"
"Butt-kicking monsters!"
Anzu elbowed Jounouchi. "Actually, I'm the one looking for cards. I only have three at the moment, wanna see?" She pulled the cards out of her pocket, and handed them over.
"Magician of Faith, Elf's Light, Shining Friendship," Yuugi read aloud. "Hey, that's good! You've got all light monsters! You could build a light- based deck. Soul of Purity and Light is great for a light deck... Oh, but what kind of cards are you looking for?"
"Umm..."
"Anzu doesn't know anything about the cards," Jou announced. "She's just looking for cute ones."
"Hey!" Anzu shot her friend a severe look that got him to look at least a bit abashed.
"Well, that is... at least she knows more than Honda!" Jou amended, then muttered, "not that that's saying much."
Yuugi's laugh was like the tinkling of the bell, and for a moment, Jou almost reflexively looked up at it. "Cute cards, hm? I have... Petite Dragon in my deck, I dunno if you'll think it's cute." He took the deck from his pocket, and began thumbing through.
"Hey, wait! You duel, Yuugi?" Jou exclaimed, putting a hand to his pocket.
Purple eyes fixed on Jou momentarily and Yuugi stopped looking for a moment. "Well, yeah."
"I'll duel ya!"
"Er, I thought we were looking for cards for Anzu-san?" Yuugi glanced over at said girl, who opened her mouth to respond.
"That's okay, she doesn't mind waiting!"
"Jou! Stop speaking for me!"
Jou merely grinned, patting her roughly on the back. "What do you say, Yuugi?"
Yuugi blinked. "I... don't see why not."
"Great! Er, what do you say we stake a card on this duel? The winner gets both cards?"
"A... card?"
"Oh no, Jou... Don't..."
"Oh come on, Anzu! If he's good, he won't lose his card!" Jou turned back to Yuugi. "How about we each put down a dragon card?"
"Anou... Are you sure? I'm... I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty good..."
"You're not chicken, are you?"
"But.."
"Come on! I don't care how good you are, let's duel!"
"Well... okay, then..." Yuugi led the two over to the side, where an empty desk sat with four chairs around it. He sat down, Jou sat across from him, and Anzu chose a seat to the side.
Grinning like a cat that's just eaten the canary, Jou took out a card and placed it face down. Anzu groaned at that, but said nothing. Yuugi looked unsure of himself, but followed Jou's lead and also put down a card.
They shuffled each other's decks, and each put their respective decks at their right hand side. Yuugi quickly jumped up to grab paper and a pencil. Neatly, at the top, he wrote "Jou" and "Yuugi", and put a line down the middle to divide columns.
"How many life points?" Yuugi asked, pencil poised.
"4000."
Yuugi nodded. "Tribute?"
"...Nah. Only if it says you hafta on the card."
Yuugi nodded again, wrote "4000" under each of their names, and handed pencil and paper to Anzu. "Would you keep score for us?"
~~
Not long after, Jou was ahead with 2300 life points, while Yuugi only had 850. Jou, gleefully destroying Yuugi's monsters with the Flame Swordsman, also had a face down card in the magic/trap card area. Yuugi had one face down monster on the field.
"I flip summon the Man-Eater Bug."
"Oh SHOOT! My Flame Swordsman!"
"And I play this magic card, Premature Burial, which leaves me with only 50 life points. I revive... the Summoned Skull." Yuugi put said card on the field. "And now, I attack."
"Shoot!" Jou groaned, leaning back. "I just lost!"
"You... did?" Yuugi looked surprised. "But what was that face down card?"
"That? That was a bluff. It was the Hamburger Recipe, a ritual card. I didn't have the Hungry Hamburger card in my hand, though."
"Oh really? I'm sorry, I thought it was Magic Jammer."
"You're sor--?" Jou began, but was cut off.
"Yuugi!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Yuugi got up and bowed slightly. "I'll be right back." Running to the back room, he raised his voice a bit. "What is it, Jiisan?"
"Hah!" Anzu crowed the instant Yuugi left. "I knew you'd lose at your own game one of these days."
"What do you mean?" Jou asked innocently.
"That stupid scam of yours! Bet a dragon... and you bet your Baby Dragon, lame-o card extraordinaire... But this time, you lost!"
Jou stuck his tongue out at her. "But its not like I lost much, anyways. Just a Baby Dra--" He stopped. "Ah! I was so stupid! Yuugi probably just bet his Petite Dragon! He told us it was in his deck."
Anzu shot him a strange look. "He discarded it from his hand for Magic Jammer, remember?"
"He... did, didn't he? So what'd he bet? It must have been even worse than..." Jou flipped it over. "Curse of Dragon?? He risked a Curse of Dragon when he could've just risked a Petite Dragon??"
"And look at his hand," Anzu nearly shouted. "Dark Magician, Mirror Force, Dark Hole, and Reborn the Monster!"
"Why didn't he play any of these?" They exchanged astonished looks.
"I... I didn't want you to lose," Yuugi whispered, looking extremely abashed. "I guess I kinda cheated, huh."
"Cheated! Yeah, but you cheated for me." Shaking his head, Jou picked up his Baby Dragon. "Here, you earned this, even when you tipped the scales in my balance." Now that he realized what Yuugi had been doing for him, Jou felt extremely embarrassed to be giving the boy such a pathetic card as that one.
"Baby Dragon," Yuugi read aloud, no hint of disdain in his voice. "I couldn't take it. You keep it. Oh!" Suddenly, his face lit up, and he began digging through his deck again. "I know, take this! If you polymerize it with your Baby Dragon, you can summon Thousand Dragon."
"But... Yuugi... you won! I should be giving you a card, not the opposite way around..."
"No, please take it. As a gift, if you will." When Jou accepted, Yuugi's smile was bright enough to light up the entire room.
~~
Jou and Anzu left at about 5:00 to meet up with Honda, who was at work until 5:30. Yuugi waved happily after them, his smile lingering with them long after they rounded the corner.
Yuugi sat back down, face suddenly somber. He looked at the life point score sheets and booster pack wrappers, reminders of his first friends in a long time. He gathered them in his arms, and, about to walk up the stairs, paused.
He threw it all in the trash can, and continued up to where Sugoroku had said his room would be, eyes darkening with tears.