It was another lovely Saturday at Duel Academy, a day free from classes when the students were free to do as they chose. It was nearing sunset, and the sky was lit up with beautiful hues of red and orange. Suddenly, a voice rang out across the expansive lawn:

"Hey Chazz, wait up!"

Chazz turned around to greet the owner of the familiar voice, and saw his girlfriend Ellen running across the grass to meet him.

"Hey," he said with a slightly nervous smile once she reached him, "I haven't seen you all day." He moved to put his arm around her shoulder out of habit, but then thought better of it. He hesitated slightly before saying, "Hey Ellie, can I talk to you about something?"

She was slightly surprised by his sudden request, but just said "Sure. Is everything okay?" She grabbed his hand as they continued walking.

"Well..." he began, wondering whether or not he himself knew the answer to the question. He looked down at their joined hands and bit his lip, finally finishing with "No, not really." He took his hand out of hers and stopped in his tracks, and she did the same.

"What's up with him?" she wondered. She looked at him worriedly, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Ellie, I know you're probably going to hate me for this, and I couldn't really blame you if you did, but..." he paused for a moment.

"But what?" she urged, an impending sense of doom hanging over her.

He flicked his eyes up to meet hers for a moment before looking back at the ground. "I met someone else."

The words hit her like a ton of bricks. She had trusted Chazz completely, probably more than she should have. "Oh..." she said sadly. "How long has this been going on?"

He turned his eyes even further away from hers when he answered, "about two months."

And suddenly, she was more angry than sad. "What do you mean 'two months?' I thought we agreed in the beginning that there would be no secrets between us, Chazz! Why would you do this to me?"

By now he was frustrated as well, and she could tell it in his voice when he yelled back "I didn't tell you for a long time because I knew you'd be mad, like you are right now!"

His statement only made her angrier, and she shot back with, "Chazz, I wouldn't have been mad if you'd told me up front about it, but now that I know you were cheating on me, yes, I am mad! How could you be such a coward?!"

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. She sighed, before continuing more softly. "Why would you want to end it like this? We could've had a good, clean break if you had just been honest with me."

"I'm sorry Ellen," he said, as his angry expression turned to an almost guilty one. She just watched him standing there for a moment, giving him a chance to say something else if he wanted to. He was biting his lip again, and his back was slightly hunched over as he watched his shoe scuff patterns in the grass. When it became clear he had nothing more to say to her, she turned and walked away.

On the way back to her dorm, Ellen passed her friend Jaden. "Hey, Ellie!" he greeted her with a big grin, seeming as spunky as ever. She gave him a small smile and raised a hand in return, afraid to talk for fear that she might start to cry.

His smile fell when he noticed her unhappy mood. "Whoa, wait just a minute," he said to her, catching her by the arm. He furrowed his eyebrows slightly in concern for his friend. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She just shook her head and turned away from his eyes, trying to pull her arm out of his grip. But he wasn't about to let go. "Hey, it's clear that something's wrong, and I'm worried about you. Let me try to help. Please?"

Try as she might to resist, his soft voice broke through her defenses. She nodded her consent, still not looking at him. Jaden gave a quick nod as well, and by non-spoken agreement, the two began walking back to the Ra Yellow girls' dorm.

They were only a couple minutes' walk away from Ellen's dorm, so they arrived outside the building soon. The two of them both knew it was strictly against the rules for boys to go into the girls' dorms or vice versa, but they'd been breaking the rule for years and hadn't been caught yet, so it wasn't a concern to them any more. Jaden kept holding on to Ellen's arm the whole way, as if he was afraid she might change her mind and run away at any moment. But she was lost in her own thoughts, and hardly even noticed his presence.

When the two got to Ellen's room, Jaden led her to sit on the bed next to him. Her roommate had gone to visit family for the week, so there was no chance of them being interrupted.

Jaden didn't say anything for a moment, not knowing how to begin what was soon to be an unpleasant conversation. Eventually, he gave up and said softly, "So, you want to tell me what's wrong now?"

Unable to contain her tears any more, Ellen put her face into her hands and started to cry. Jaden was a little surprised, since it wasn't like her to show much emotion, but he quickly got over it and wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to comfort her.

"Hey Ellen, it's okay. I've got you. Everything's going to be fine." He continued to whisper soothing things to her as he rubbed her back with one of his hands. He hated to see the girl he cared for so much be so unhappy.

After a while, her sobs quieted down to sniffles, and she pulled away from his embrace.

"I'm sorry," she said as she wiped her eyes, "I don't usually get all teary like this."

"It's fine," he said with a small smile, keeping a hand resting lightly on her back. Jaden patiently waited for Ellen to collect herself and for her breathing to completely return to normal.

"To answer your question," she began, looking at the floor, "I'm upset because Chazz left me for somebody else."

"What?" Jaden asked, almost as dumbfounded as she had been by the event. She smiled a tiny bit at his reaction. "Yeah, I hadn't seen it coming, either. I guess I should have listened to you and Syrus when you told me that dating him was a bad idea. Apparently he's been seeing this new girl for two months."

"Two months?" Jaden repeated, his voice rising. He dropped his hand from her back and stood up suddenly, fists clenched. "I'm gonna go give that jerk a piece of my mind!" He started quickly for the door.

"Wait, Jaden. Stop!" she implored him, and he could hear the sobs coming back into her voice.

He stopped and lowered his hands, sighing. Chazz deserved to get beat up for hurting her like this, but he didn't want to do anything to further upset the her. After a moment, he went back to sit next to her on the bed. "Fine, I won't kill him," he muttered. Ellen let out a small sigh of relief. "Thanks."

"But you should know, Ellen," he soon began again, "that he deserves it. And he never deserved you. You're way too good for him."

She blushed slightly at the compliment. "Thanks, but it was my fault for trusting him. I never should have given him the chance, I guess."

"It's not your fault. After you two started dating, a lot of us started to think he had changed." She nodded in response. He didn't bother to add "I guess we were wrong," even though they were both thinking it.

For a few minutes, the two were quiet. "Well, Ellen," Jaden eventually began in a more lighthearted voice, trying to make the conversation less sad, "is there anything I can do to cheer you up?"

Ellen smiled at her friend's thoughtfulness. "Well, my roommate's out of town right now, so it gets kind of lonely. Will you stay here with me for a while? We can watch a movie." she said hopefully.

He laughed lightly at her request. "Sure, I'd be glad to. Anything you want."

Looking into his eyes, she said, "Thanks, Jaden. You're a great friend." She then went to hug him, but moved back quickly upon noticing his tear-stained shirt. "Uh, sorry I got your shirt all wet," she said, slightly embarrassed.

Jaden just chuckled. "It's fine, no worries. So, what are we gonna watch?"

Once they had picked out a movie, Ellen brought out her laptop and pulled up the film. Since the screen was pretty small, they had to sit close together to see it, but the two had been friends for so long that it didn't bother either of them.

About halfway through the movie, Ellen started getting sleepy, so she rested her head on Jaden's shoulder. He blushed a little, but didn't pull away. Instead, he put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her even closer to him. She eventually fell asleep like that, so after the movie was over, Jaden closed the laptop and put it down. Being careful not to wake Ellen, he carefully removed her from his shoulder and laid her down on her bed, putting a blanket over her. As he stood watching her for a moment, he shook his head. He simply couldn't comprehend it.

How could Chazz ever give her up for someone else? If I was ever lucky enough to get her to be mine, there's no way I'd ever willingly let her go.

Eventually he pulled himself out of his thoughts and, after planting a quick kiss on Ellen's forehead, quietly left her dorm.

A few days later, Ellen was sitting in her room bored when she heard a knock at the door. She smiled involuntarily, knowing immediately who it was. "Coming!" she yelled, getting up from the bed and walking over to the door. Her suspicions were confirmed when she opened the door to see a guy with multi-toned brown hair in a Slifer Red uniform.

"Hey, Jaden," she said, motioning for him to enter.

"What's up?" he asked as he walked by her. "Oh, same old same old." she responded, closing the door behind him.

It amazed Ellen how much better Jaden had made her feel just a few days after her breakup with Chazz. He had been coming to visit her every day since then, and she couldn't deny that she enjoyed his company. In fact, his kindness and sense of humor had caused her to develop a crush on her long-time friend.

Well, if she was to be honest with herself, "developed" is the wrong word; Ellen had liked Jaden even before she started dating Chazz, but since she thought he would never like her back, she pushed her feelings to the side. Now, her old feelings for him were starting to return. But of course, she would never tell him this, because she knew he wouldn't feel the same way about her, and didn't want to hurt their friendship.

"Ellen, are you in there?" Jaden's hand waving in front of her face brought her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry about that." She shook her head slightly as if to clear it. "I kind of zoned out."

"What were you thinking about?" he asked her curiously. She blushed a little, but hid it by turning around to go pointlessly move something on her dresser. "Oh, n-nothing."

He frowned a bit in confusion, but decided not to push the issue. Then he remembered what he had been planning to do today, and he blushed as well. "Well, umm, there was something I had wanted to talk to you about..." He scratched the back of his head out of nervousness.

Ellen turned back around to see Jaden looking uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "Sure, Jaden. What is it?"

"Well, I..." he didn't seem to know how to continue, so he started over again. "You see... the thing is..." his speech drifted off again.

"You know you can tell me anything, Jaden. We've been friends practically forever." She was trying to reassure him, but inside she felt just as nervous as he was acting. He nodded in acknowledgement of her statement. Then, he spoke again.

"There's something I need to tell you, Ellen. And I hope that, no matter what, we can still be friends after this." Now she felt more nervous than ever and began to blush. She was hopeful, but was trying not to get her hopes up too high.

He seemed to notice her growing blush, and taking it as a good sign, he smirked. He walked slowly over to her until they were only a few inches apart. "Actually," he said in a quiet voice, "it might just be easier to show you what I mean."

At that moment, Jaden reached up and placed one of his hands on the side of Ellen's face. After looking into her eyes for a moment, he closed the gap between them and connected his lips with hers.

At first, she was too shocked to respond, but after a moment she began to kiss him back. As her lips moved against his, she slowly put her hands around his neck and started playing with his hair. He moaned slightly in response to her gentle ministrations, and then pulled away.

The kiss had not been very long, but they both felt out of breath, regardless. They just looked at each other for a minute, both of them smiling, as they tried to catch their breath. Jaden soon broke the silence.

"Ellen," he paused momentarily to gather up his nerve and get his thoughts in order, "I really, really like you, and I have for a long time. In fact, I might as well tell you now, I love you. I know you just recently got out of a relationship, but I can't wait any longer to ask; Ellen, will you be my girlfriend?"

Ellen's smile grew so wide that it actually started to hurt her face. She put her arms back around his neck. "I love you too, Jaden. Actually, I liked you before I ever started going out with Chazz, but I never told you because I thought you didn't feel the same way." She paused for a moment to keep him in suspense, grinning. "And yes, I would be happy to be your girlfriend."

He smiled instantly and pulled her close to him for another kiss.