Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Better On You
Word Count: 2,185
Rated: K
Focus: Juudai, Johan
Notes: This takes place a few days after the transfer students arrive, and about a week or so before Juudai and O'Brien have their duel. If you want to see a few touches of what could develop into Juudai x Johan, you're perfectly welcome to. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
Summary: Why does someone as skilled as Juudai is stay in Osiris Red? Johan just has to know.

Osiris Red was the least wanted dorm in Duel Academia. The rooms were crowded, with anywhere from one to three people in each one. Each one had their own bathroom, but the bathrooms weren't all that fantastic, having just the basic facilities. Ra Yellow, in comparison, had much larger rooms, and the individual bathrooms were quite well appointed, with large bathtubs and enough space to keep almost anything that one might want. Obelisk Blue was, of course, even better than that. The rooms there were luxurious and spacious, with wide-screen televisions and everyone having their own school issued laptop computer.

And yet, the most talented and gifted duelist in the entire school couldn't have been brought out of Osiris Red with the combined force of dynamite, chain saws, and the population of the world in general asking why. Yuuki Juudai stayed in that same second floor room that he'd been assigned to on his first day, and appeared to have put down roots.

All of that confused Johan Andersen more than a little. Johan knew quite well why he stayed in Osiris Red, even though he, like Amon, Jim, and O'Brien, had a comfortable room in Obelisk Blue. The reason was stretched out underneath him on the lower bunk, talking softly with Hane Kuriboh. Johan simply liked being around Juudai, and Juudai liked being around him. But that still raised a question that he wondered quite a bit about. Why did Juudai stay here and not go up a level? Or two, even?

He ran his hand a little across Ruby Carbuncle's head, then decided that he might as well ask. What was it going to hurt, after all? At the very least, Juudai would just tell him that it wasn't any of his business. And it wasn't; he was just suddenly insatiably curious about the whole business. He carefully wiggled around, then leaned his head over the side of the bed and looked down to where Juudai was. "Hey. Got a minute?"

"Sure!" Juudai grinned brightly back at him. Johan wondered if it were even possible for Juudai to get into a bad mood. It wasn't something that he'd seen yet if it was. "What is it?"

Johan didn't answer right away. He just swung down and settled beside Juudai. Ruby settled herself on his shoulder and trilled a greeting towards Hane Kuriboh. The two of them still wrestled on occasion, and Johan had to admit that once or twice, they'd looked just a bit closer than he'd ever seen Ruby be with anyone else, even another one of the Gem Beasts.

"So, what is it?" Juudai asked, tilting his head a little to look at him. Johan turned towards him, grinning some. This was going to be interesting.

"Juudai, you've been the best student here since …well, since you started coming, really. You win just about every duel that you're in, and you're the most popular guy in school." Johan laid out his logic first. Juudai kept listening, though he did look a bit confused. "So, why aren't you in Obelisk Blue? Why are you here?"

Juudai blinked a few times. "Well…Asuka gets better grades than I do, and so do Shou and Manjoume and Kenzan and a lot of other people," he said, rubbing the back of his head some and smiling that rather confused smile of his. "I don't think I'm the best student." That appeared to have honestly never crossed his mind. Johan wasn't going to just let it slide, though.

"You're still the best. You win all those duels. You beat me." Johan flashed a grin at him. "But when I get Rainbow Dragon, you are so on for that rematch."

Juudai's grin was equally quick back at him, but Johan still wasn't done. "And there's more to being the best student than having the highest grades, you know."

"I guess." Juudai shrugged some. "The thing is, Johan, there's a pretty good reason why I'm still here."

This got Johan to sit up and take notice. There was a reason? Not just the faculty not noticing how awesome Juudai was? Not that he'd thought that. Samejima obviously knew. "What is it?"

"I'm here because I want to be. I like it here." Juudai waved a hand around. "It's quiet most of the time, and it's really cozy. Sure, I've got to share a bathroom and Kenzan snores like a freight train…or like a dinosaur, really…, but I like it." He grinned a little more. "Besides, there's another reason."

Johan tilted his head this time. "Oh?"

"I get to share my room!" Juudai's eyes all but glowed in their joy. "I've got Kenzan and Manjoume and you here all the time! That's the coolest thing ever!"

The champion of North School had to laugh. He had to admit, that was a pretty good reason. It could get kind of lonely being all by one's self, even with the company of good friends and family like the Gem Beasts or Hane Kuriboh. "Is that all?"

Juudai hesitated a little in replying this time. "Well, not really." He laughed some, and gestured up. Johan tilted his head back until he saw a brown tailtip twitching from on top of the rafters. "That's Pharaoh. He was our alchemy teacher's pet before Daitokuji-sensei died and Pharaoh ate him."

"He what?" Johan blinked a few times. "Did you just say that the cat ate your teacher?"

"Yeah. But he was already dead, so it was okay." Juudai shrugged casually, as if this were something he lived with every day. Perhaps he did. Johan was in no position to judge. "He lives in Pharaoh's stomach now. I think he likes it there. At any rate, he wouldn't want to go to Obelisk or Ra. He likes being in Osiris Red. I think it makes him feel closer to Daitoukuji-sensei." He rubbed his head a little, thinking. "I don't know how they could get any closer, but cats are weird sometimes."

Johan wasn't going to argue with that either. He could start to see just why Juudai liked to stick around here. There was a color to Osiris Red that the other two dorms didn't have at all. A kind of a sense of warmth and life, if that were the right way to put it.

"So, since Pharaoh sticks around me, I stick around where he wants to be and where I want to be." Juudai finished up. He laid back on his bed and stared at the bottom of the bunk above him. "There's some other reasons, too. You know, I hadn't honestly thought about this before."

Johan squirmed around and lay down beside Juudai. The bed wasn't really built for two, but Johan liked being this close to his friend. "What other reasons are there?"

"If I were in Ra or Obelisk, do you know how much work I'd have to do?" Juudai visibly shuddered at that. "All that homework. And studying! All the time! I wouldn't have any time for anything, like fishing or hanging out with you or anyone else or dueling! You know, the important stuff! And I'd have to work to make sure I stayed there. I don't have to put up with that here."

Johan's lips twitched some as he turned his head to look at Juudai. Funny, he'd never noticed that there were flecks of yellow in the deepest depths of Juudai's brown eyes. "You're lazy," he teased. "You're a sloth. You'd fall asleep the second you walked off the dueling field if you could."

"Sleeping is awesome!" Juudai countered. "It's like magic! And it's a really great way to get in some duel practice, too. I came up with five or six new strategies from that nap I had in Chronos-sensei's class today!"

"I'm not surprised." And Johan wasn't. Not in the slightest. He kept on looking at Juudai, close enough to feel his warm breath. "So, anything else?"

Juudai shifted around a little so the two of them were only inches apart. "One or two things, I guess." He grinned just a little. "It kind of annoys Chronos-sensei. And some of the Obelisks." He laughed briefly. "Some of them were getting all bent out of shape about it. They were worried I was making them look bad or something since I keep doing all of this stuff, like with the Seven Stars and Saioh, and I'm still an Osiris. I never really got it straight. They didn't like talking to me for some reason."

That also didn't surprise Johan. He didn't think that there was anything Juudai could do that would surprise him. He turned his head and watched as Ruby Carbuncle and Hane Kuriboh squirmed out from the two of them and went over to cuddle up together on the chair by the bed. They apparently didn't care which dorm that either he or Juudai were in. Not that he blamed them, really.

"And the view from here is absolutely gorgeous, too," Juudai went on. Johan turned back to look at him again. "Remind me to take you out there sometime soon. The moon just looks so gorgeous coming up over the ocean, and there's an awesome view of the volcano, too. I wouldn't trade this place for anything!"

Johan grinned some. "Sounds good to me." He'd always loved a good view of the ocean. The thought of seeing the one that Juudai loved so much intrigued him just as much, if not more.

"In fact, why don't we go right now?" Juudai decided suddenly, pushing at Johan some to get him off of the bed. Johan slipped out and got to his feet quickly, straightening out his vest and shirt as he did. He couldn't think of any reason why they shouldn't, after all. It was a warm weekend afternoon, homework was done, at least in his case, and Juudai would probably put his off until the morning it was due, and still manage to squeak by. Everyone else was off having duels, studying, or just keeping themselves occupied somehow.

Which left the two of them quite alone, and the more that this happened, the more than Johan found he liked it happening. The prospect of some awesome scenery did not hurt in the slightest, either.

Juudai led him to the cliff behind the building and gestured one way. "You can see the volcano from there. I dueled Darkness up there! Spent the next few days in the infirmary, though." He grinned at the thought, then gestured the other way, towards the ocean. "Last year, there was this sea captain who wanted me to come be his mascot. I didn't like that too much, so I came back here. There's no place like Duel Academia. Ever."

"Yeah." Johan turned first one way, then the other. North School was interesting in its own way, but nothing like what had ever happened here had happened there. He wished sometimes that he'd been able to come to school there instead. He would have been able to be a part of it all from the start. He would have known Juudai from the start.

But then he might not have the Gem Beasts. Professor Ichinose had let him go to that tournament in his first year, and he couldn't be sure that Professor Samejima would have done the same. Not that it ultimately mattered, he guessed. He was here now. "This really is the best dorm." It had Juudai. That was what made it the best. It didn't need all the fancy upgrades that Obelisk and Ra had.

"There's one other reason that I wouldn't want to move out of here." Juudai said after a few moments, turning to look at Johan as he did. The other looked back, now curious as to what he meant by that. What other reason could he mean?

Juudai grinned quite, quite mischeviously as he reached out to playfully yank on Johan's frilled shirt. "Because I'd look ridiculous in blue! It looks a lot better on you than it does on me!"

Johan blinked once or twice, then laughed, ruffling Juudai's hair. "You're right. Red is completely your color, anyway. Goes with your hair."

Juudai smacked at him teasingly, that warm and wide open grin blazing across his face. "You know the best reason I stay here, though?" Johan shook his head, and Juudai's grin somehow got wider. "Because I love it here. I'm happy here." Something in the way that Juudai said 'here' made Johan wonder just how happy Juudai was when he was anywhere else…then all that vanished as Juudai started to tug on his arm energetically. "Come on, let's go have a duel! Best two out of three wins!"

"Wins what?" Johan countered. Not that he had anything against dueling Juudai, he just wanted to know what the stakes were going to be before they got down to it.

"Just wins!" Juudai replied, running back to his dorm. Johan hesitated only for a moment before he followed, grinning. This really was Juudai's proper place. And it always would be.

The End