Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Hath No Fury
Word Count: 1,967
Rated: PG-13
Romance: Keith x Mai
Notes: This is set mostly close to the end of Duelist Kingdom, refers to pre-canon events, and was written for the second season of the Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
Summary: There was a little more to Mai giving Jounouchi her entry card for his duel against Bandit Keith than she wanted to tell.

She hadn't lied. She wanted Jounouchi to win, to bring the light back to his sister. That girl was luckier than she could imagine, to have someone so devoted to her. Mai couldn't remember ever having someone who had cared about her that much. Her parents were only the vaguest of memories in the back of her mind, and virtually everyone else she'd met had only cared about her good looks or her ability to duel.

Just like he had. Her fists clenched at the memory as she walked through the halls of Pegasus' castle. He hadn't even said a word to her or noticed her. She knew he remembered her. No one forgot her, especially not after all they'd had together.

Maybe it had something to do with everything that had happened to him after he'd lost that duel to Pegasus? That had changed a lot in him. They'd known each other at the time, though she wasn't certain if she'd ever call it dating. It had been a phone call here and there, a mocking meeting over drinks once every few months, sometimes a few hours in bed, enjoying themselves for the sheer pleasure of doing so.

He wasn't the Keith she'd known before that game. He'd always been a pain in the ass, not to mention fond of drinking and the ladies. She wasn't the only person he'd ever bedded, nor was he the only one she'd flirted with, and sometimes more. She was no saint. A quick glance down at what she was wearing now showed that. She wasn't ashamed of herself or how she used her body to distract other duelists. If they were real duelists, they wouldn't be distracted in the first place. Yuugi certainly hadn't been. At least not by her body.

She slowed to a stop and looked behind herself. Should she go back and watch? Her tears over losing had ended, and she had just the right coloring so no one could tell she'd been crying in the first place. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to watch and see how much Jounouchi had improved since she'd seen him duel last. Or to see how Keith had changed since those days.

It had been a long time since she'd seen him play anyway. It had to have been years. Four or five at least. She'd been there the day that he'd lost to Pegasus and that boy, and had tried to talk to him afterwards.

"It wasn't your fault! He did something weird, probably watched your cards from somewhere, that's all!" Mai tried to get that through to him, but Keith wasn't in the mood to listen after his crushing defeat.

"Doesn't matter! I still lost to a kid!" The American blond growled, shoving her away from him roughly. "A kid! No one's gonna take me seriously anymore! You heard 'em all laughing out there, Mai!"

He hadn't been wrong. A lot of the audience had simply broken out into gales of laughter when an inexperienced kid had defeated the greatest of the Card Professors of America. Pegasus had to have done something. Maybe he'd gotten hold of Keith's deck and marked out what cards he had? There had to be an explanation for it, one that made sense.

"Don't worry about it. There's another tournament coming up next month. If you've got any kind of duelist's pride at all, enter it and win it!" She held her head high, a challenging gleam in her eye. She knew that she'd be entering in it, and there weren't that many people who could give her a good game. He was one of them, and she didn't want that to stop any time soon.

Keith only shook his head even more. "There's only one person I want to duel anymore, and that's Pegasus!" He all but growled the words out, and she wanted to smack him. How could he be this stupid? Even if Pegasus hadn't cheated somehow, he was the man who had created the game! No one could beat him!

"Keith…" She had virtually reached the end of her rope with him. If he wasn't going to listen to her, then she didn't see any reason to stay around here. "Let's go get some drinks." Drinking tended to get his mind off of a loss, if he'd had one, and put him in the mood for other things. Maybe he'd calm down once they'd fooled around for a while.

"That's enough, Kujaku." Keith snapped the words out at her this time, and she stared at him, hands clenching into fists. "Shut up."

Mai couldn't believe her ears. "What did you say?" No one told her to shut up. She still wasn't entirely certain on how or why they'd started to date, only that it had felt like the right thing to do at the time, and they were some of the few adult duelists around. It was about all the attraction they had for each other. It was also an attraction that was fading with every second he stared at her like that.

"I said, shut up!" Keith paced up and down furiously, then yanked his deck out and stared at it. She wondered if he were going to do something sensible like try to work out a new strategy. Instead, he threw the cards down and kicked the small pile they made, scattering them all over the floor.

"That's so mature, Howard." Mai rolled her eyes. This was not what she'd been expecting after this competition. "I'm going out for a drink and some fun. You coming or do I have to have fun by myself?"

"Get out of here." He seized hold of some of the cards and began tearing them apart. "These stupid…stupid…cards!"

Mai considered for a full thirty seconds on if she wanted to just smack him senseless, and decided it wasn't worth the effort. "You want me out of here, I'm out of here. I've got better things to do than sit around listening to you whine because you lost."

She didn't look back as she went to pack her few things and head out of the hotel. She didn't look back no matter what.

In a way, that had helped to shape her as a duelist as well. She'd stopped even trying to think of duelists as worth anything but her contempt. Either they bragged too much when they won, or they whined too much when they lost. She'd lost track entirely of Keith after leaving as well.

Even if I'd stayed in the States, I wouldn't have found him. He didn't want anyone else seeing him. She'd heard rumors, of course. Duelists could gossip as much as the next person, and the few times she'd gone back to the States for tournaments, she'd heard people wondering what he was doing and where he was. Rumors whispered that he hadn't touched a Duel Monsters card since that last game, and she had an idea they were true.

But now, here he was again. She hadn't wanted to talk to him. It was more than the fact he'd changed, becoming harder, colder, and even more of an ass than he'd ever been before.

At least she hadn't run into him when she'd been out there exploring the island. I would've hit him. I know it. Or worse, she would have challenged him, and when she beat him, he would've been even crazier than usual. He wanted that duel with Pegasus, and everyone else was just a stepping stone to it, much like how Yuugi was. Only Yuugi had been able to deal with that and face her as herself, not just a stop on the pathway.

Was Keith going to be able to do that? Was he going to pay attention to Jounouchi as the duelist he was, and not just someone to be pushed aside so he could duel the king of the island?

She started to take a few steps back towards the dueling arena. It wouldn't be easy to get to someplace that would give her a good view and yet not let them see her. She didn't want to be seen, all things considered. Not by Yuugi and his friends, not by Pegasus and his goons, and not by Keith at all. Sooner or later, she suspected that Keith would want to talk to her, and she just wasn't in the mood for it.

I never will be again, either. Keith wasn't the person she wanted to be with, or be like, ever again. Some of what she'd thought had been because of him, not just because of how things had ended, but because of conversations they'd had while they had been together in the first place.

What she'd heard from Yuugi and Jounouchi was different. Friends and rivals, but most of all friends. The situation wasn't one she could remember seeing anywhere. The way they all stuck together like ducklings was kind of funny. Even she and Keith hadn't been like that, and they'd been closer than a lot of duelists she'd known before.

Mai ran a hand through her hair and tried to make up her mind. It only took a few seconds. She moved quickly, thinking of the way the corridors were laid out. She would miss part of the duel. She was certain of it. Jounouchi had ran as quickly as he could to get back in time, and she'd already wasted enough of her own time thinking over the past. But she could see the end, and that was what mattered.

The sound of voices ahead of her brought her quick steps to a close, and she moved more quietly and carefully. It wouldn't be a disaster if she were seen. Watching wasn't against the rules. But this was personal, in many ways. Jounouchi was the one she wanted to win. He needed it more.

Just like Keith needed to lose. Winning wouldn't get him anything beyond another defeat by Pegasus. She was still groping towards a fuller understanding of what it could mean to win and lose in Duel Monsters, but the changes in Keith made it plain he still didn't understand the way things should be yet.

It didn't take her all that long to find a place where she could see and not be seen. She settled herself in and watched. A quick glance at the field showed that things were about as she'd expected them. Keith had a powerful monster on the field, and Jounouchi looked as if he could scarcely breathe for terror. She suspected he would pull something out of his cards to win the day soon enough. He'd been showing more and more skill with every duel, and he'd obviously learned a lot just in the time they'd been on the island. He had the same duelist's spirit that Yuugi did, if not quite as much of it.

She kept her eyes on Keith, knowing he would be so involved in mocking Jounouchi that he'd never notice her attention, even if he could have seen her at the moment. He was just like she'd remembered him: cruel, arrogant, foul-mouthed, and deserving of everything that had happened to him. If he'd listened to her that day…

It was no use to waste time on might-have-beens. She watched, finding herself smiling as Jounouchi pulled out a last minute win, turning Keith's own card against him. That's right, Jounouchi. Teach him a lesson. The part of her that had once cared for Keith agreed with the duelist's side of her. It was for the best. He deserved it. He needed it.

And like any scorned woman, she enjoyed the sight of someone beating the living daylights out of her ex-boyfriend.

The End