(A/N): Yet again, I've taken up another series of meme request drabbles. Lovely, innit? I love oneshots way too much, apparently. Here's the LiveJournal meme.
1. Pick a letter.
2. Pick a prompt that starts with that letter (ex. K is for Keyhole)
3. Pick a fandom / comic / webcomic and a character/pairing.
Leave them in a comment and I'll write a drabble of it. No repeats in letters.
See my profile for a list of the letters already written and what fandoms I will write. I am taking requests from FFNetters too.
D- Duel // Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's // Jack x Yuusei Requested by Nikil-san on LiveJournal.
Enjoy!
D is for Duel
Jack Atlus was the King of Riding Duel, no one contested that.
Every day, a few laps were driven, several cards (a deck's worth) used, and several plays pulled in an attempt to unseat him, to catch him off guard, to pull something he didn't expect.
They never could. Jack Atlus had a combo to match each and every one of their pitiful parries, and to send the damage back at them hundredfold.
He was the King. No one could stop him. And it was something he proudly proclaimed to the enraptured audience whenever he could.
He didn't know how to respond when he was challenged by another duelist, one quiet, near indiscernible type that would never have come to his arena were it not for him luring him here-a show of arrogance on Jack's part, to be true, but one rightly shown. It was more a display of power, rightfully (or unrightfully, however one looked at it) aquired.
Pride goeth before the fall.
Jack showed off his usual bravado, his pride in his skills, the not-so-subtle ways of his circut, his crown. The ways that had always intimidated his opponents, induced them into action.
The colbalt-eyed duelist only gave him an indiscernible stare-unlike the others, he knew him, had known the former him inside and out, knew the man before he became King.
Jack involuntarily shivered slightly on knowing from the way the blue eyes glittered that he wasn't seeing the King at all. No, he saw Jack, just Jack. And nothing else.
He didn't like that he couldn't read the colbalt-eyed duelist's face at all. It was completely blank, save for the brief bursts of emotion that he let him see...as if he, not Jack, was the one in control.
He had the audacity to do what he wanted in the King's court, like some sort of...foolish jester. A clown, a fool, sang the outer shell, the King. The inner, Jack, was frightened. He knew it had been a long time-two painful years-since he had last seen the opponent's face, but back then, the reserved duelist had been more open, open to everyone...especially him, Jack, his first brother. What had changed?
Of course, he knew. He knew it was because he had betrayed him, pushed him down to become the King-but the other had willingly allowed himself to be pushed down, he reasoned with himself. It was mutual. They both knew what the other wanted.
But now, Jack knew nothing about what the other wanted. And he felt that the other knew what he himself wanted.
Want? He had everything here. He wanted nothing. He was King.
So why did the eyes tell him that he was lacking something?
That was all they would say. Jack couldn't read any further. He couldn't read the trap they had set in their defense, couldn't read that final play, couldn't counter it.
The jester had knocked off the King's crown.
And in the end, Jack noted, the pain in defeat came from having control wrested from him, for allowing to be intimidated by the other, for intimidating himself...for not knowing what was coming until it was too late...
...and for not being able to read Yuusei's face the way he once could.
(A/N): Review, plz?