Disclaimer: All canon-based characters, situations, and plotlines are copyright to their original owners, creators, and designers. I make no profit, nor want any.
Story Title: Halloween Tricks
Chapter Title: Sudden Party Plans
Characters: Juudai, Johan
Story Word Count: 2,717
Chapter Word Count: 2,717
Genre: Friendship, Humor, Supernatural
Rated: PG-13
Status: 1 of 8 chapters
Notes: This takes place in between Juudai vs. Johan's duel in 106 and 107, and Juudai vs. O'Brien in 108 and 109. Date-wise, it's late October, about four days before Halloween, 2006. I researched how Halloween is celebrated in both Sweden and Japan for this. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
Summary: Juudai gets it into his head to throw a Halloween party to welcome the transfer students. But there's one new student who thinks there's a much better way to spend the holiday of the spirits.
Juudai stretched out underneath the tree at the top of the cliff, playing a little with a leaf he'd found. It was fall, or at least that was what the calendar said. If you looked around at the green leaves still on the trees, the grass that hadn't so much as thinned out, and the people in swimsuits playing in the water, you certainly wouldn't know it around here. Which was just fine and dandy with the young duelist.
"So, nice view you've got up here," a voice spoke, one that was quickly growing familiar to him, and he sat up, grinning. Johan Andersen ambled into view, Ruby Carbuncle perched firmly on his shoulder. As soon as Juudai saw that, his own partner Hane Kuriboh flittered into existence, tackling Ruby with a cheerful squeal.
"Hey! Yeah, I love it." He gestured downward with one hand, indicating the whole sprawling view of the beach and the dorms that could be had from up there. It was kind of hard to see the Ra dorm, but both Obelisk dorms and the Osiris dorm were in full view.
Johan settled down beside him, a light grin on his lips. "Nothing like this at North School."
"What's it like up there, anyway?" Juudai wondered, picking up a piece of grass and shredding it a little between his fingers. "Manjoume doesn't talk about it a whole lot."
"You'd probably think it was cold." Johan replied. "I'm pretty used to this. This is warm weather for me. Really warm."
He picked up a leaf himself and played with it. "But I love it up there. Not that I'm not enjoying being here." He shot a quick glance towards Juudai, who grinned cheerfully back at him.
"Duel Academia's the greatest! It's hard to believe I'm going to have to leave at the end of the year." Juudai pouted a little, but only for the briefest of seconds. Johan tilted his head some.
"What are you going to be doing after you graduate?" That was a question most third years started thinking about at some point, though usually not at the start of the year. Johan couldn't say he was all that surprised that Juudai hadn't seemed to give it much thought at all, though.
Now he just shrugged casually. "I guess I'll go into the Pros. But I dueled some of those last year. They weren't all that much of a challenge." Not like some of his other duels. Daitoukuji-sensei. Kagemaru. Edo. The Light of Ruin. And frankly, dueling for money instead of for fun really sounded boring the more thought he put into it.
"There'll be something you can do," Johan reassured him. He thought about his own dream, and wondered if he should mention it to Juudai. No. Not just yet. After all, they barely knew each other. Maybe another time.
Juudai nodded, shredding another blade of grass. He wasn't usually at any kind of a loss for words, and he didn't feel like he was now. Being quiet around Johan just seemed a little natural. Then something crossed his mind.
"Isn't there some kind of a holiday or something coming up?" He hadn't really paid that much attention to it before. But he thought he remembered something about it.
Johan closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. "Oh, right!" He grinned, his eyes popping back open. "It's almost Halloween. This coming up Tuesday. What do you do around here for it?"
"Uh, well." Juudai sat up a bit, thinking some himself. "Not a whole lot that I can remember. I mean, sometimes back home, some of the little kids would dress up and go around for candy, like they do in America, but not here, here. You know, at school."
"You mean this is going to be your third Halloween here and you haven't done anything?" Johan asked, that grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth. Juudai shrugged, answering it with one of his own.
"Guess so. I wasn't thinking much about it the first year I was here, cause everything was all new and exciting. And last year, Shou had just gotten promoted into Ra Yellow, so we were celebrating that." And not long after that, Edo had turned both his and Kaiser's lives upside down, and he hadn't really thought about celebrating anything for months.
This year's different! This year, he had Johan. And Jim and O'Brien and Amon, but he hadn't really gotten to know any of them yet, and Edo was still around somewhere, and there was Kenzan and Shou and Asuka and Fubuki and Manjoume and Rei. So, they could all do something! In fact…the idea burst into his mind in a brilliant blaze of light.
"Maybe we could ask Principal Samejima if we could throw some kind of a Halloween party! Everyone can dress up, like they did for the school festival!" Seeing Johan's curiously tilted head, he quickly explained how that had happened back in his first year.
"That sounds like a lot of fun. Think you'll have one of those this year too?"
Juudai shrugged some. "Maybe! Last year it got cancelled because of Genex, but nothing like that's going on now." The dis-belt on his wrist almost seemed to twitch, but he ignored it in favor of this new idea. "What would you want to dress up as?"
"I don't know yet. We don't even know if we can!" Johan couldn't help but laugh at Juudai's instant enthusiasm.
"Of course we can." Juudai waved aside Johan's objection with casual ease. Why wouldn't they be able to? All they had to do was ask, Samejima would say yes, and then they'd put everything together. Sure, they would only have a couple of days, but he'd done some of his best duels with even less preparation than that!
Johan glanced over the edge of the cliff, his gaze going from one dorm to the other, then back to Juudai. "Where could we have it at? Osiris is a little on the small side." He didn't want to say that he didn't think the Obelisk Blues would be all that happy about sharing their space either.
"There's a couple of big rooms in the main building we could use," Juudai replied with immediately. "Or we could hold it outside." That was even better. Outside, after dark! His imagination began to boil over with images and thoughts and plans. He jumped to his feet quickly. "Come on, let's go talk to the principal!"
"Hold on!" Johan tugged him back down quickly. "Where are we going to get everything from?"
"There's all kinds of supplies just laying around in places. You wouldn't believe everything that's happened around here." Juudai told him. "And we're all good at making things happen on short notice. Just you wait and see!"
Johan could still just laugh, and he pulled himself to his own feet this time. "All right, if you say so. Come on, let's go talk to him then."
Juudai's customary cheerful grin wreathed across his face, and he headed down the far side of the cliff quickly. Hane Kuriboh and Ruby Carbuncle paused briefly in their game to chirrup at their respective partners, wanting to know where they were going and why they couldn't just sit there so they could keep on playing.
"Come on, Ruby!" Johan beckoned to her, almost as fired up as Juudai was about this the more he thought about it. "You can play with Hane Kuriboh some more later!" His partner obviously took that as a promise, as she barely took the time to swipe slightly at the feathered puffball's wings before zooming back over to Johan.
Working their way down from the cliff to the more populated areas of the school didn't take all that long. Juudai babbled a mile a minute, trying to get every idea in his head out, and apparently trying to get them all out at the same time. Johan paid attention, doing what he could to sort the ideas out, at least as best that he could, and hopefully he'd be able to find the ones that could actually be accomplished in what time they had.
"A lot of people probably still have their costumes from back then," Juudai said, heading into the main building. "But they could make new ones if they wanted, or order them. A whole lot of places are good about delivering what we want around here. Guess it comes from being owned by Kaiba-sama." That was something he did regret about the trip to Domino: he'd never gotten a chance to meet with the school's owner. He'd heard that Saioh had, but he hadn't.
Still, meeting Yuugi's Grandpa hadn't been that bad, and maybe he'd meet Yuugi one day?
He was so distracted by the sudden turn his thoughts had taken, he didn't see someone stepping out of the library as they passed it, not until he'd already crashed into them.
"Oh, sorry about that!" Juudai scrambled back to his feet with Johan's help and grinned at the other. "Wasn't watching where I was going."
"Of course you weren't." It was an Obelisk Blue student who stood there, brushing himself off and glaring at Juudai out of piercing black eyes. "I wouldn't expect a Red to be watching where he was going."
Juudai blinked a few times. "Hey, are you new? I don't think I've seen you around here before." He rubbed the back of his head and grinned. "Though, I could have and I just don't remember it."
"What business is it of yours if I am?" the Obelisk snapped before looking at Johan. "You could really do better for a friend than this Red, Andersen-kun. I'm sure he only beat you by some kind of a fluke." His lip curled derisively as he glared back to Juudai. "If he were really any good, he wouldn't be a Red." He almost seemed to spit the word out as if it tasted bad on his tongue.
Before either of them could have formed something coherent in response, the Blue student stalked on past and quickly out of sight. Johan glanced at Juudai, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Does that happen a lot around here?"
"Used to happen all the time." Juudai shrugged casually. "A lot of the Blues got it knocked out of them after that whole Society of Light thing. He'll get over it. Come on, Principal Samejima's office is right down this way."
Johan hurried along with Juudai, who started up his litany of every thing that he wanted to do and have done for this party. Thoughts of the new Blue student faded out of both of their minds in the more immediate distraction of the planning.
Getting in to see the Principal was a lot easier than Johan himself might have expected. Granted, he had a fairly easy time seeing Ichinose, but since the Principal of North School was his guardian, that was to be expected. He didn't think Juudai had that kind of relationship here, though.
"What can I do for you, Juudai-kun, Johan-kun?" Samejima asked as the two of them entered his office. There were no available chairs to sit in, but Juudai wasn't quite the type to sit down anyway, not when he had something like this on his mind.
"Could we have a Halloween party, Principal Samejima?" Juudai got right down to business. "It's just in a few more days, and it would be a really great way to welcome the new students, and Johan and Jim and all the others, too! Maybe we could even arrange some duels or something. Everyone could dress up and we could make all kinds of fun foods and it would be the best party ever!"
Samejima steepled his fingers before him thoughtfully. "There isn't much time left to pull something like that together."
"Johan said the same thing." Juudai waved one hand casually. "But we're good at it, like I told him. I think we can do it."
The principal looked at the two of them, and Johan and Juudai both could only imagine what sort of thoughts might be going through his mind. "Very well," he said at last. "I'll add it to the afternoon announcements, and you can begin preparing as soon as you'd like."
"Great!" Juudai cheered, eyes bright and dancing. "You won't regret this! We're going to have a lot of fun!"
Samejima nodded slightly, a hint of amusement in his eyes. "I'm certain that you will. You had best get to work on it if you want to be ready by then."
"Right! Come on, Johan!" Juudai tugged his friend right on out of there, chattering with even more animation about what he had planned in his head. Johan glanced over his shoulder towards the Principal, and had time only to see him watching them leave, a strange look in his eyes, before the door closed behind them and he was pulled more firmly into the powerful sphere of Juudai's enthusiasm. That gave him absolutely no time to think about what he had seen, or even if he had seen it at all.
Juudai headed right for the Osiris Red dorm, paying little attention to what was going on around him. Johan ambled along beside him, making sure that he didn't bump into anything. Juudai hasn't acted like this before. He supposed he shouldn't be all that surprised, since it was hardly as if he knew what Juudai would be like all the time, but still, it just didn't seem quite right.
"Aniki!" Both Kenzan and Shou waved, calling out to Juudai as he showed up. Johan grinned; he hadn't really had a chance to meet either of them for more than a few seconds yet. He'd spent most of his time either in class or with Juudai.
"Hey, guys! Guess what: we're going to have a Halloween party! Johan and I got it cleared with Principal Samejima!" Juudai barely gave them time to react before he was going on about it again. Johan let him talk; there was something oddly pleasant about Juudai's voice, especially when he was so enthusiastic about what he was talking about anyway.
Shou tilted his head a bit to the side curiously once Juudai paused for a breath or two. "I could help with the decorations," he said, "and there's still spare costumes around. Some of them haven't even been worn yet."
"I thought there would be!" Juudai declared, throwing one fist up into the air. "We can get Tome-san to make the food. She makes the most awesome …everything! I haven't had anything of hers I don't like yet! Did I ever tell you that she made me lunch right in the middle of Kaiser's school duel?"
"Decorations, food, costumes." Johan ticked the various items off on his list, trying not to listen too much to some of Juudai's reminiscences. Not that they weren't fascinating, but when they were trying to plan things, they were a bit distracting. "You said something about some duels, Juudai?"
Juudai nodded quickly. "That could be the best part! Do we have anyone around here who plays a fiend deck? Or something with zombies? I bet Camula would love Halloween."
Sometimes Juudai failed to recall that not everyone had been there for some of what he remembered. Shou shuddered just at the mention of the vampire of the Seven Stars, while Kenzan and Johan simply looked baffled. Juudai didn't bother to explain, his mind a thousand miles away already. "Even if we don't have anyone with decks like that, the dueling'll be fun enough without that. Maybe we should rig up something to decide who duels who?"
They fell into the deep decision of how to organize it all, all of them, even Johan, working together easily on everything, as if they'd done this sort of event time after time.
As afternoon faded away and evening began to enclose around them, none of the group saw a pair of angry eyes watching them from the gathering darkness near the dorm building. So you want a Halloween party, Yuuki Juudai? I'll give you one that you won't ever forget. And show everyone how much of a phony you really are, you Red.
To Be Continued