Hello all
Yes it's a new story, even though I haven't finished The Sands of Egypt yet I've decided to put this up just to see what peoples reactions are like, so please don't hesitate to review.
This is a warning that this will not be updated for a while (probably - depends on how stuck I get with TSoE) I have also rated this as T for future references...
SUMMARY
How could this happen? How could one kid be so forgiving, so kind...and just so DAMN HAPPY! When he had absolutely no reason to be... Just your average not-listening-to-the-uncaring-world teenager Yami has his life changed by being shown another point of view.
Yami sat on his bedside, furious.
Of course his parents had to just make that decision for him; it wasn't like he had a life, like he had friends, like he wanted to stay in Egypt. But no, they had decided as a family, he might not like it, but it was happening anyway.
Yami was moving, not just to the next town but halfway around the world...to Japan.
Yugi sighed slightly as he drew himself out of bed, before going through his usual meticulous morning routine. First he showered; making sure that the loose marker around his wrist wasn't obscured or damaged; he then dried himself off completely before taking his own blood pressure and a small home blood test, and writing down the results. Next he dressed himself in his usual attire of a white undershirt, his school uniform of a white shirt, long blue pants, and loose blue jacket.
He carefully inspected the tender flesh of his throat before quickly clasping his usual neck belt around it. He glanced at the clock to see the time was still 5:30, before quickly running a brush through his wild hair. He grimaced slightly at the faded amethyst ends; he would need to re-dye them soon. He brightened quickly deciding that he would go to the hairdressers this afternoon to fix it.
He was soon down in the game shop and all ready for the day ahead. He smiled slightly, and then headed down into the store room to try out some of the prototypes that his grandfather had just got in and waited for the rest of the family to wake.
Yami yawned as he felt someone shake him awake. He glared when he saw who it was, still sour about the move. He wasn't about to let up lightly, and his parents knew how stubborn their son could be when he put his mind to it.
"Yami, look you know that we didn't really have much of a choice." His mother said, for what felt like the thousandth time. "Your father needed to go for this job; we couldn't keep on like we were in Egypt." Yami sighed. He'd heard this spiel a thousand times before he didn't know why his parents thought repeating it would make any difference. It all just seemed a bit convenient that said job opportunity had occurred in his father's home country, especially with how he and the hot sandy climate didn't get along.
Pursing her lips his mother decided to change tactics.
"What would you have done? I know you wanted to stay in Egypt, but could you have torn our family apart."
Yami looked at her, and for once he didn't have anything to say. She let the words hang in the air, and then stood, snapping the thoughtful silence between them.
"You start your new school today so please give it a chance."
"Yes mum." Yami replied shortly. But his words were softer than before.
Yami trudged down stairs to the kitchen, his bad mood returning to hang around him like a black cloud, a trademark scowl upon his face. His dad sat in a corner with the paper, grunting as he walked past. Yami and his father were cut from completely different moulds. His father was tall and bore the aged and weathered skin typical to the Japanese race. Yami instead had the same smooth, latté coloured skin as his mother. He was taller than her, but was nowhere near considered tall himself. He was his mother's son through and through.
Pointedly not acknowledging his father Yami reached into the fridge and pulled out some cut up fruit from the night before. Snacking on it as he wandered through the house, he nodded at his mother, grunted back to his father and then retreated back up to his room, his mother calling for him to get ready for school.
Begrudgingly he slowly changed into the regulation school uniform. He stared at himself with an unimpressed face. The uniform was bland, a plain white shirt, boring blue pants, and the same colour jacket. Actually the jacket wasn't that bad; with the adjustable buckles on the sleeves and how it fell when open... no it was the rest of it that was the problem.
Pursing his lips he quickly changed the pants for a slightly different pair, they were a similar blue but darker and these has an extra belt half sewn about the waist and buckles and pockets littered the edges. He slipped on a black singlet underneath his school shirt, and then undid the front of the shirt letting it hang open. The tight top clung to his lean muscles, showing off his wiry frame. Lastly he traded the regulatory school shoes for a pair of boots that sat far better with his pants.
His mother came up the stairs. She looked sternly at him and his attire. "Yami-" she began.
"Before you say it, I am wearing the uniform." He pulled the shirt closed, then the side of the jacket, each bore the school emblem. His mother looked unconvinced, staring pointedly at his jeans.
"I can see you stretched it on the school pants." She said softly.
Yami rolled his eyes. "No one will even notice." He said brusquely before leaving the room with his book bag slung over his shoulder, hearing his mother's irate sigh as he walked past.
The school was similar to his one in Egypt. He was interested to find that he would have to find his classroom instead of staying in the one room all of the time, though it did pose a problem that he had not foreseen. How was he supposed to find his way around?
He wandered towards the office that was marked at the front of the school, thankful for the first time in his life that his father had insisted on his learning Japanese on top of the traditionally taught English, and of course his own native Arabic.
He conversed briefly with the lady at the desk who explained to him a basic layout of the school as well as handing him a map. Yami yawned slightly, the sickly sweet of the lady grated on your nerves after a few minutes and she had insisted that he be led to where his homeroom(1) was , by herself none the less.
Mercifully she only spoke quietly with his teacher before he was directed to sit down beside a shaggy blonde haired boy. The teacher then quietly marked off everyone's names before small bursts of chatter started forming among those assembled.
The blonde beside me turned around and introduced himself.
"Hey, by the way, my names Joey(2)." He said friendlily. Yami couldn't help but be disarmed by the loose genuine grin. He was suddenly stuck by the thought of this boy's similarities to a golden retriever. Laughing to himself softly he introduced himself.
"Yami Sennen," he said offering his hand. Joey took it and turned to the others who had crowded around. Joey introduced them one by one.
"This is Tristan," he pointed to the tall brunette, "Marik, and Malik" he indicated two boys who looked almost identical only the first looked slightly older, and rougher around the edges, the second was more tame and about an inch shorter. "Bakura and Ryou," these two were much the same, but the difference was far more pronounced, Ryou looked far gentler and had kind doe-brown eyes. Bakura on the other hand was wilder, and in some ways was scarier than Marik. Joey pointed to the last of the group, a tall brunette with steel grey eyes, "and that's Seto." Joey said shortly, Yami watched in fascination as the brunette's eyes softened for a moment before swinging to glaze over Yami for a short while then returning to his laptop.
Tristan spoke up, looking around as if for another who had to be there, "hey Joey, where's Yugi?" He asked perplexed.
"He had an appointment this morning; remember it's the first of the month." Joey said, as if this should be obvious.
Yami frowned confused, but decided to keep his peace, waiting to see if he could find out who this 'Yugi' was.
That class and the next passed smoothly. Yami had to admit that he was struggling slightly with the language, he had never spoken it in large amounts aside from with his father at home and the strain of having to concentrate on what everyone was saying was starting to get to him.
So he used his normal solution and tuned out. He let the foreign sounds of the classroom meld away as he waited for the bell to go for recess.
When they finally were released into the freedom of lunchtime Yami followed Joey out onto the grass in front of the school. There he found most of the group as they had been in Homeroom, chatting amongst themselves, Yami sat content to simply listen for now and watch his new friends.
They were about halfway through their break when Yami looked up to see himself walking across the playground. He did a double take and realised that it was merely another boy that was near to his exact duplicate, all barring the colour of their skin.
His jaw dropped, before snapping shut quickly as the boy spotted their group and began walking towards them.
"Hey, Yug" Joey called, waving at him; the others called their greetings, except calling him by the name of 'Yugi.'
The newly titled Yugi waved at them, waiting until he was much closer to speak to them.
"Hey, guys." He said casually, "I can't really chat, I've got to get to the office to sign in." He noticed Yami. "Hello," he said, unsure of whether the new boy wanted to be greeted.
"Hi," Yami said softly, "I gather your name's Yugi, I'm Yami."
"Nice to meet you. Are you new today? I haven't seen you around before?" Yugi asked, fairly certain in his assumption as he knew almost everyone in the school. He was the type of person who paid attention to that sort of thing.
"Yeah," Yami said shortly. "My family and I just moved here from Egypt." His tone left no doubt that he didn't want to pursue the subject. Yugi merely nodded, and looked at his watch, a look of shock coming over his face.
"Oh, damn! I've got to go sign in before the bell goes, see you later. Nice to meet you Yami." Yugi called this over his shoulder as he quickly hurried off.
The bell went very soon after that, and Yami idly wondered if Yugi had made it to the office on time. Joey amiably offered to lead him to his next class, Ancient History. He was pleased to see that they had it together so at least he would have someone he knew.
When they arrived the teacher was not yet in the room so Joey led Yami over to a set of three seats. Yami was surprised to find Yugi sitting there waiting for them, Joey sidled in to sit on the end table nearest the wall whilst Yami slipped in beside Yugi, between the two.
As the lesson progressed Yami once again found that he was getting a headache from straining to understand the foreign buzz around him.
Without noticing it he began to take down his notes in Arabic, until he heard a moan from Joey, "Aww come on mate, that's not fair..." he moped. Yami turned around to see Joey staring at his book intently, apparently trying to copy his notes.
"Then I guess you'll have to take them yourself then." Yami quipped. He found that he was starting to feel more comfortable around the blonde, and indeed all of his friends.
"It says 'When does lunch start' anyway Joey, so I don't really think you want to copy that." Yugi's soft voice said from Yami's other side. Yami looked across surprised.
"You speak Arabic?" he asked, this time speaking in his native tongue.
Yugi smiled – not a smirk, no, just a genuine joyful smile – and replied in kind. "Yes my Grandpa taught me, both he and my father were Egyptologists, so they both knew. Grandpa decided to pass that knowledge onto me."
Joey, now thoroughly baffled by the sudden burst of different languages, decided to step in.
"Okay, for those of us who only speak ONE language, would you be kind enough to allow us into your own little code?"
Yugi and Yami exchanged a glance for a moment before looking back at Joey. A smug "la" (3) from Yami was all he heard in reply.
The rest of the day passed smoothly, Yami found he also had Maths with Yugi which made it far easier to understand when he didn't need to translate it into another language – Maths already seemed like a language of its own.
When the end of the day came Yami bade farewell to his friends before heading back to the office to finish signing the forms for his enrolment.
As he was leaving for good he heard a soft noise off to one side. It sounded like grunting...like someone grunting in pain. Yami knew that noise, he'd heard it enough from the victims of the bullies at his old school.
Yami headed towards the sound. A dim voice in his head noted that this probably wasn't the best idea, it was only his first day at this school and he didn't really think it a good start to be making enemies on the first day. But that voice was soon quelled by Yami's sense of justice, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he walked away whilst someone was living hell.
Yami rounded the corner to see Yugi cowering against a wall, encircled by three taller figures. Without stopping Yami raced towards the figures. "Hey!" he shouted at them, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"
The three turned to face him, an identical sneer pasted on each one of their faces. "Teaching this little shit a well deserved lesson," the tallest turned towards Yugi, kicking him as he continued "when we want something we get it, and no little twerp is gonna say no!"
Yami saw red. Not just from the words of the idiot before him, but seeing him kick the poor kid pushed him over the edge. Without further thought he darted forward, using the run up he slammed himself into the tallest of the three carrying them both into the ground.
Rolling onto his back Yami swept his legs in a wide arcing movement, taking the bully closest to him behind the knees. He curled his legs under him and used the momentum to spring once more to his feet. The third figure had, by this time, had realised Yami as a threat and came at him swinging.
Yami's quick reflexes saved him, he dodged the blow as much as he could, sending it scraping off the side of his head, clipping his ear. Trying to ignore the insistent ringing Yami replied in kind sending a strong right cross straight into the others jaw.
He didn't see the one behind him until a shadow probably twice his size enveloped him. He turned to the new threat just in time to meet a solid punch to his gut, followed by another to his jaw. He lashed out with his feet taking the boy in the knee. He fell to the ground howling. Yami twisted and rammed his elbow into the guy behind him, then surveyed his handiwork.
The first guy, the tallest one, was still clutching his knee with a pained look on his face, the other was still doubled over from the elbow blow.
The third lay ominously still.
Yami stretched out a hand to Yugi who took it tentatively. Yami smiled kindly at him, helping him to stand and walk out of the school.
"I can see you're gonna make a great impression here Yami."
A/N:
1 – I think that's what it's best known as, at my school its called roll call but I know that's an uncommon name so I went with the former.
2 – I am going to be using the American names in this fic, just cause I can't guarantee that I will spell the Japanese ones properly – that and with Joey vs. Jouninchi (sp?)... Joey's faster.
3 – It's Arabic for no, in case anyone was wondering.
Anyway, hope you liked the first instalment. I am thinking this will be just a short three parter but I can't guarantee that I won't get carried away.
Until the next chappie... Please Review, especially on the fight scene it's the first I've ever written so I hope that it didn't come out too jumbled.
– Phoenix