The Red Phone
by Meilanu

Duel Academy.

A flourishing school in which Seto Kaiba had created for future generations to educate themselves of Duel Monsters--the magical creation of Maximillion Pegasus. By this time, Duel Monsters had gained its popularity throughout the world. But for one student, Duel Monsters meant more than just fun and games. No, for Aster Phoenix, it meant so much more. After all, his own father mysteriously disappeared, and all that he left behind was an otherwise petty card. For Aster Phoenix, the children's card games had become his life.

It shouldn't be a surprise. For, in a time like this, Duel Monsters had become the main priority of everyone's lives.

Aster Phoenix, who preferred the name A.P.--and not AP--, was to attend Duel Academy, at first, under the orders of his father-figure. But as Aster would later realize, his reason for attending Duel Academy would change, and his life would take a new direction. For the better.

Indeed, the moment he found that red phone, his life would change. Forever. It wasn't known to Jaden, but the reason that Aster had appeared in front of Jaden's dormitory in the first place was that he had found a red phone. A red phone that had absolutely no meaning until he, as in A.P. had given it to him. Because then, it became special. Precious. If it wasn't for A.P, Jaden would have simply moved on, drifting without a care. In fact, he most likely would have forgotten about it.

It all began on another sunny day at Duel Academy, where nothing seemed out of place. A.P. was walking around the campus for the first time, as he was sent to the Academy for a very specific task--not that anyone here knew. Besides that point, Aster enjoyed the leisurely walks that he took around the campus, as he barely had the chance to be outside due to his...publicity. It brought him peace. From the corner of his eye, Aster Phoenix recognized a color that simply did not match with the rest of the scenery. Among the green grass and whatnot lay a red object, which was currently making noise--and not to mention, lying on a pile of brown leaves, as if it was calling out to him to "pick me up! pick me up!" Which is exactly what he did. A.P. studied the phone carefully, thinking of how he would be able to locate the owner of the phone. But quite conveniently, on the back of the phone had an recognizable face, and a name. Figures, A.P. thought to himself. For while A.P. didn't know many people at the school, it was impossible for anyone in the school not to know Jaden Yuki, trouble maker of all time. He was informed many times when he was being briefed at the Headmaster's office. "Be wary of the Yuki boy. He's a bad influence." However, this made A.P. more curious about said boy. What made it even more peculiar was that Sartorius had requested him to look for Jaden Yuki. While A.P. obviously believed Sartorius, he was confused as to why they were both saying different things. Was it possible for someone to be both good and bad? Now that he had found Jaden's phone...

He had found a reason to meet Jaden, and Aster wasted no time to make a move.

Informed by a student from the Ra dorm--who will remain unnamed due to privacy rights, or something along the lines of that, Aster found himself in front of Jaden and Syrus's dorm. The door was open, as if it was calling for him to enter, tempting him to indulge in the joy within. It was then, when Aster knew, the sensation had come to him. He knew that it would be his destiny to duel Jaden Yuki, right then and there.

But of course, due to his father figure's orders, Aster had to be patient, and use the red phone as a catalyst. Aster had not come to Duel Academy prepared with a deck, just as his father had told him to. He found this quite peculiar, but decided not to dwell on the thought. Dwelling brought bad news. Dwelling made him think of the past that brought no smiles, that brought no happiness. In a way, he felt jealousy whenever he thought of Jaden. His smile was always warm, his laugh heard from miles away. His thoughts lingered as he laid his eyes on him. Him, the one A.P. had to defeat.

Jaden, obviously not knowing any better, cocked his head to the right and, after an awkward silence, he flashed his teeth. "Hiya, bro! Are you a new student? Are you lost?" Syrus eyed Aster with a suspicious look, obviously suspecting him of something. Aster had to keep his cool, his demeanor depended on it. He resisted the urge to break out into laughter, to forget all about his "duties" and invite Jaden back to his personal yacht so they can play together. He resisted confidently, and tried to think of other things that wouldn't tempt him. Temptation was cruel. It was why his real father was gone. And at the thought of him, he also remembered...

Justice needed to be restored!

Without a word, A.P. briskly left the building to recollect his thoughts.

Which left Jaden and his sidekick--oops, I mean, best buddy--puzzled. "Erm, was it something I said?" Jaden genuinely inquired, obviously looking bummed out that someone ran out on him. Syrus shrugged, and went back to what he was doing. In reality, however, Syrus was thinking about how this "A.P." punk might effect Jay on a bad note. He didn't want his best buddy to be distracted by another "man."

Jaden's eyes lingered on the empty spot in the doorway. His curiosity got the better of him. But he thought to himself, There would be other times though. There would be plenty of time for them to see each other again. Right?

And little did Jaden know, the next time he would see A.P. was going to be exactly twenty minutes from now. Because, as Aster was inspired by Justice, he found the courage to stand up and fight. To stand up in what he believed in. And while he hoped to get acqainted with Jaden, he knew his priorities. Hopefully he and Jaden will become closer than ever. Aster was on his way to restore justice--one step at a time. He would follow his father's orders, by challenging Jaden to figure out his strategy, yet the thought of dueling Jaden made Aster's heart skip a beat. Could he really do it? Was this really possible? Aster reached into his pocket to take out the red phone. "Oh."

Right. He forgot to hand it back. He held on to it dearly though. The phone was the Symbol of their relationship--whatever it may be. In another world, perhaps they could have been best friends. Aster certainly hoped so. But things were so complicated. He didn't know what to make of it. Was it simply chance? Or were they destined to meet? Was it the work of the gods? The red phone couldn't provide him with the answers he wanted, and he almost had the urge to throw it to the ground. But he stopped himself, knowing that it was Jaden's phone...which made all the difference.

Aster was so focused onto his flashback that he didn't even recognize anyone come up to him until....

"Hey, bro?" A voice, and not just any voice, but a familiar one had asked. It was Jaden. Aster froze. He panicked, almost. Keep your cool, dude. Keep your cool. He reminded himself.

He looked up into the brown pools of Jaden Yuki's eyes. While he appeared to be cool and collected, in reality, his heart was beginning to beat faster. He was getting nervous. Come on, why are you doing this to yourself? Think of father. The fact that Jaden was so close made it hard to really think about his next moves. After all, if he's supposed to be the great duelist of all time, he had to have a strategy. Just like in any sport, the best way to win a game is to have the best strategy. Or something along the lines of that.

"Call me A.P." Good, keep your voice cool.
"Alright, A.P." He smiled. "I didn't get a chance to say hi to you right, so!" He punched the air. "Hi, I'm Jaden Yuki! I'm going to become the best duelist in the world!"

A.P. smirked. It was obviously established earlier that he knew exactly who Jaden was, but Jaden, as usual, was being Jaden. Clueless til the end. But this time, and this time only, A.P. decided to play along. "My pleasure."

The two began to walk side by side. A.P. was wondering if Jaden simply came up to him just because he was the "new kid" or if he really wanted to talk to him. But A.P. didn't want to ask

"How do you like Duel Academy so far? Isn't it the best? I love this place, it's really cool...Oh, do you know...." And while A.P. certainly didn't mean to, he ignored what he had to say. As you see, Jaden loved to talk--especially about duel monsters. And even though Aster has devoted his life to duel monsters, he has a suitable purpose for doing so. He always thought back to his father, who is currently M.I.A. Aster felt that Jaden didn't understand his life goal, his dreams. He didn't understand what it was like to be in his position, which made Aster feel even more lost. He wanted someone who can relate to him, but at the same time, he wanted to feel happy for once. And to Aster, Jaden was the definition of Happiness. It was as if, if Jaden ceased to be happy, the world around him would fall into a deep depression, and nearly impossible to fix.

"...all time?" Jaden looked over his shoulder and took a glance at Aster, expectingly. Aster took a moment to recuperate and tried to come up with an answer, to whatever the question was. After a brief seconds, Jaden shrugged, obviously not the type of person who could wait for a response. "Oh well!"

"H-hey! Dude!" Aster yelled out to Jaden, who stopped running. "Wanna come check out my deck?"

Jaden sincerely thought about it. Ever since Aster had lost the first time they dueled--which Jaden fondly remembered due to a certain phone call that interrupted their duel--it was obvious that Aster's deck needed a lot of work. After all, the cards he used that day weren't exactly...suitable. And so, being the nice guy he is, Jaden decided that yes, he should definitely check out his deck. Which is what he said.

"Sweet! How about you come over to my yacht at 5 tonight?" Jaden froze. Wait, a yacht? And of course, without realizing it, he voiced out his thoughts.

"...Yeah. You didn't recognize my bachelor's pad?" Jaden's mind went reeling. If he was such a rich person, what on earth was he doing here of all places? "Well, it's okay, I'm sure you can't miss it. It's out on the landing deck, so don't forget, 5 P.M. tonight!" With that he briskly walked away. And once again, Jaden found himself looking at Aster walk away from his presence, with limp shoulders and head down. He never felt so much sorrow before. It was then, that he vowed to himself that he would cheer Aster up, that he wouldn't frown anymore.

The clock struck five, and lo behold, Jaden was nowhere to be found. Aster knew he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. But then, as soon as he was about to go turn off his front lights, he saw Jaden running down, waving wildly. "Sorry dude!" He yelled, while he skidded a stop in front of the door. "Syrus was holding me back for a while there." Aster's heart skipped a beat, though he had no idea why. Syrus is one of his closest friends...you can't compete with that, A.P.! He frowned a bit, but decided to shake off the thought and invited Jaden in. "Oh! I brought some spare cards too, just in case." He whipped them out of his wallet, and as soon as Aster saw them, he put them down on the table. "Maybe there's something that could be useful when we fix your deck tonight." He winked and then plopped down on a couch. Aster went back to his room to grab his "deck"--which wasn't really his deck--and nonchalantly walked back to the room where Jaden was waiting.

"Ready?" Jaden asked with a determined smile.

"Definitely." Aster responded with a firm voice, while in his mind, he was feeling anxious.

They spent the rest of the day looking at each other's decks, and Aster kept note of what kind of cards Jaden had in his deck. Perhaps this would be helpful later on. The fact that Jaden always talked about his Elemental Heroes made Aster wonder how they would compare to his Destiny Heroes. It could be interesting. But in the meantime, Aster played along with Jaden, letting him fix "his" deck with whatever spare cards Jaden wanted to add.

When it was getting dark, Jaden had picked up what he had left and bid Aster good night. "Let's do this again sometime!" And with that, he departed.

Later that night, Aster couldn't fall asleep. The evening went out well, just as they had planned. Although it was awkward to have the sunset in the background, Aster felt confident in himself, and while he didn't mean to, he felt really close with Jaden. And at the same time, he felt like he was betraying him. The thought of Sartorius lingered in the back of his mind, the mission that he had agreed to was still there. It wasn't going to disappear anytime soon.

Aster was stuck. He couldn't make a choice between what he thought was right choice and what he felt was like the right thing to do. He wished that he could've done both to have a happy ending. But who was he kidding? He closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep.

The next day, Aster awoke to the sound of a ringtone. An unfamiliar ringtone. Aster rubbed his eyes and attempted to find the source if this very uncool ringtone. And finally, when he had pretty much riled up everything in his room, he finally saw that flash of red in the corner of his eye. He quickly grabbed the phone and without looking at who the caller was, he picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Silence greeted him.

And finally, a gasp of disbelief and then a dial tone that indicated the person had ended the call.

...What's going on? Aster asked himself. But then, everything made sense after he pressed a few buttons on the phone to see the previous calls. The number that had called him was none other than Syrus Truesdale.

Aster's heart dropped the moment he let go of the phone. He watched frozen as it met the ground, but he made no move to pick it up. Question after question kept coming to mind, and as soon as he thought he got an answer, another ten questions replaced it. Did this mean that Jaden really did know that his phone was missing? Was Syrus onto him? Was he going to tell Jaden everything? What would Jaden think of him now?

Aster didn't want to know the answers. He didn't want to ruin the friendship that they had established. It literally was just yesterday when he, for the first time in years, felt really close to someone. Aster knew that Syrus was closer to Jaden, he knew that they spent more time together, but he also knew that he wanted the same thing too. And just because Syrus was one of Jaden's close friends, that doesn't mean that he has any right to take his happiness away. Syrus wasn't going to ruin anything between Jaden and him.

I can't allow that. Aster thought to himself firmly.

He decided that, although he wasn't ready, now was the right time to tell Jaden the truth. And then, it would be up to him what to do. One could say...after this confession, the ball was going to be in his court.

He grabbed his real deck, which consisted of Destiny Heroes among other cards, the Red Phone, and his phone before running out of the door with a mission in mind.

He had to beat Syrus to the clock. He couldn't imagine the horror of the impending doom that was surely to occur if he didn't.

Jaden, on the other hand, was pacing back and forth in his dorm trying to figure out where his phone was. He didn't even notice that it was gone until now. "Where on earth did I leave it!" He tapped his chin with concentration. Syrus had assured him that it was bound to show up, and with a matter-of-fact tone he also said he was going to call it--and hopefully, they could arrange a meeting as to when and where they could pick it up.

So far, however, he had no luck. Syrus was nowhere to be found, and for some unbeknownst reason, Jaden found himself distracted with thoughts of...

Jaden shook it off. No, I must find that phone!

Aster continued to briskly walk towards the one place he felt that Jaden would be. Call it a gut reaction if you'd like.

The dorm room.

There was no reason for him to be anywhere else. As soon as he skidded to a stop, he saw that the door slowly squeaked open, and inside he saw...

"Jaden!" Aster exclaimed, running inside without warning.

Jaden jumped in surprise but didn't seem too shocked to find him there. "What's up!" He inquired, recuperating quickly.

"I...." Aster began, averting his eyes. He had no idea where to start. There was too much to tell, and little time to spare. Any moment now, Syrus could pop in out of nowhere. But when he looked up again, he could tell that Jaden was all ears. And with that single look, Aster got the courage to talk.

"I have something to tell you."

Jaden cocked his head to the right with curiosity.

"You see..." Aster decided to start from the beginning. He talked about his loneliness, his want for friendship, for acceptance. He told Jaden about his father's mysterious disappearance. He told him about his new father figure, about his purpose and his reason for dueling. And finally, when he reached the end, he reached into his pocket and brought out the red phone. The red phone that had changed everything.

"And...this. This was meant to be a spark. A spark between a hatred that was meant to be planted as soon as I threw away this phone. A hatred that I found impossible. My...father figure wanted me to..." Aster couldn't finish his sentence when he saw Jaden's face. He didn't notice until now, but with each thing he said, Jaden's smile slowly began to turn into a frown, and by now he had glanced down to the point where Aster couldn't see his face. And at that moment, Aster knew that it was over. His happy ending wasn't going to occur. He couldn't have happiness. He didn't have acceptance. He was going to be lonely again.

But then...

From a bitter glare of disappointment, to a content expression of acceptance...and finally, to the good ol' Jaden laugh, Aster's eyes twinkled as he noticed the change in Jaden's expression. "It's all cool, bro! I totally understand." And although Aster was hesitant, the smile that Jaden had offered gave him peace, for after all, Jaden brought him happiness. And it was also at that moment when Jaden had realized the importance and special meaning of the red phone, and Aster himself. Their friendship had taken a turn at this time. For the better.

Syrus decided to make his entrance then, and when he saw that Aster had the phone, he jumped and exclaimed, "Give it back to him, you thief!"

Both Aster and Jaden took a glance at each other before looking at Syrus, who was confused. "Jay! Can't you see that he's the bad guy here?" He resumed pointing and accusing, but Jaden laughed it off. "He's the one who found my phone, Syrus!" Aster couldn't help but smile victoriously at Syrus. But he then remembered that this was the moment when he was supposed to give back the phone. He held his hand out, and Jaden his. Their hands brushed against each other, and even after Aster had already handed Jaden back his phone, their hands continued to linger until Syrus coughed at the awkward moment. "Haha." Jaden had chuckled, scratching the back of his head. "Oh, hey, I got an idea..."

For the first time in his life, he felt that he had found his true friends. True friends that he could trust. While Syrus may have been suspicious of him for a while, he knew that they were going to warm up to each other. And as for the issue with Jaden...he had smiled and laughed it off.

That's when he knew that everything was going to be okay, that they were going to be able to be great friends. When all was right in the world once more, and there was nothing to worry about. He was now complete, with his other half.

And now, Aster Phoenix knew for sure, that it was destiny. That they were meant to meet each other, that the red phone didn't come to his way merely by chance, no matter what anyone else may say. It wasn't the work of Sartorius, it didn't have anything to do with his father figure. Now, Aster had no worries. No matter what Sartorius was going to do to him in the future, it didn't matter now. He had the support of Jaden. Jaden understood and accepted him for who he was. He didn't brush him off, and he was totally cool with his life goals. No one had ever told him that before.

"Get your game on!" He suddenly heard Jaden say, acknowledging the fact that Jaden had just challenged him to a duel. He saw the determined look on his face, and Aster knew that he wasn't going to hold back.

This time...this time, he knew that everything was going to be okay, no matter the outcome.

A/N: Dedicated to my friend Jesusbot, who adores Heroshipping xD