Note: This is an AU in Jaden's POV. This will contain multiple pairings throughout the fic, including some of the major ones and some of the not-so-popular ships.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

Prologue

The Strong One

You know, it's almost funny.

Your life can change dramatically in a few moments, in a simple event, and nobody notices. Your heart can burn and crumble and break a hundred times, and somehow you stay alive.

There is no pain worse than heartache - but it's a pain that nobody will ever know about. It can't be caught or spread like a disease. It isn't contagious, and only you can feel it.

But it's a long-lasting, torturous pain that you can't forget about.

/

I am the strong one.

I'm the one who keeps the others going, gives them hope, helps them stand up when they fall down - call it whatever you want. I'm the one that holds us all together.

And I know it.

When I say 'the others', what I really mean is: 'my friends'.

I don't really know when, exactly, it happen. All I know is that, one day, I suddenly realised that my friends all turned to me for help before they turned anywhere else. Some more than others, but at one point or another, every single one of my friends had looked to me for help.

And I always did what I could. I pushed my limits to help my friends, and I didn't ever think that I did the wrong thing in doing so. My friends were my friends. I cared about them. Of course I was going to help them when they asked.

/

My school isn't much - just your average high school in your average city - but it's where I met all my friends.

And also where I met him.

He was different. Different from everyone else.

He was my friend, but he didn't hang out with us all the time - usually only when Zane was around.

Zane was the older brother of my best ever friend, Syrus Truesdale.

Zane was also the lover of Jesse Andersen.

Who was Jesse? The one I loved.

It pained my heart to see the two of them together, since I had long ago accepted my own feelings for Jesse, but I never once thought about splitting them up. They seemed so happy together - I would just have to be happy for them, and contain my own feelings in whatever way I could.

The only person who knew of my feelings for Jesse was Syrus.

Don't get me wrong, I told my friends everything else about me. Up until I admitted to myself that I was in love with Jesse Andersen, I shared everything with them.

But when I fell in love …

It was just a secret I didn't want to tell.

Syrus forced it out of me, in the end, because he noticed that I really didn't want to go over to his house whenever Jesse was there. Simply because, of course, he was there to be with Zane.

/

Does all this sound confusing?

If it doesn't, maybe it should. Or maybe that's just me.

This is my story, but I don't really understand it.

I don't get how I managed to get from there to where I am today?

At that point, I was just a normal, everyday school student, in the local high school. I walked around with my friends, and I kept my secret feelings for Jesse Andersen hidden from everyone, and Syrus told nobody my secret.

This was the way it was.

But then things started to change …

Please R&R