Note: I cannot write duels. I'm about as adept at writing duels (and just dueling in general) as I am at weaving baskets while reciting differential calculus equations blindholded and dangling upside-down over the mouth of an active volcano. Since doing such things is not a hobby of mine, you can conclude that I'm pretty much horse crap at writing duels.
I have never played a game of Duel Monsters before in my life. If I wrote a duel, I'd probably slaughter the game horribly. Since I do not want to risk that, I will not be writing the duels in this story. There will be duels in this story, it's just that they won't be expressly written. I apologize, but I believe you'd prefer this absence of duels over horrible forced, botched, amateurish attempts at writing duels.
Peace.
"This night is just an ordinary night, just like an ordinary night. The people sing, the people dance, and they are always right. They dance forever and sing forever and clasp their hands so tight. And when the morning comes they smile, and fill their hearts with light."
"People are assholes. Fact." His voice echoes in the empty room. There is no response. Encouraged, he continues.
"People enjoy being assholes. Fact." Again, no response. Again, he continues.
"Some people are such assholes that they kill themselves. Fact."
A long silence passes without a response, and he lowers his head and laughs quietly. His whole lean, boyish frame shakes. It's sad what depths of insanity some people can fall to.
"Does it fit?" asked the tailor. His expression betrayed genuine worry, as if any disapproval on his costumer's part would mean life or death for himself.
"It fits," said his customer, a silver-haired boy of fifteen. Then, feeling that it couldn't hurt, he added, "It's the best fit I've had in this country. Thank you."
The tailor seemed positively ready to pee himself in delight. "Excellent! Then, if you please, Mister...ah..." He trailed off and his face flushed red with embarrassment at having forgotten his prized costumer's name. "Ah..." He checked the schedule in his hands and squinted, seemingly puzzled.
"Phoenix, it's Phoenix," said the customer, giving an offhand smile.
"Oh," said the tailor.
"I know, it's a peculiar name," said Edo Phoenix. He adjusted the lapels of his new suit, a custom-made, tailor-fitted white blazer with sharply creased white pants, which perhaps totaled over a thousand dollars in cost. The nervous tailor bowed low, even more embarrassed.
"I apologize, Mister Phoenix...I didn't mean...if you are insulted..."
"It's all right," said Edo, by now starting to become exasperated by the tailor's constant apologizing and increasingly neurotic tendencies. "I'm from America, you see."
"Really! What are you doing here in Domino, then, if I may chance to ask?" the tailor said. "Are you...ah...a performer? A pianist, maybe?"
Edo tilted his head back and laughed. "No, sir. I couldn't play the piano to save my life. I'm a duelist. A professional duelist."
"Duel..."
"Duel Monsters. It's a card game." Edo was slightly taken aback by the tailor's lack of knowledge about the game, given that the tailor lived in Domino, the hub of the dueling world, home to both Kaiba Corp and the Duel King, Yuugi Mutou. "You must have heard of it at least once."
"Duel Monsters..." Then, unexpectedly, the tailor's brow wrinkled and a furious expression came onto his face. It was the first time Edo had seen an actual emotion besides doglike simpering and embarrassment on the man's face, and the effect was both comical and frightening at the same time. "Hah! A pair of cads with those awful...contraptions...that they use to play that game came into my store, why, not a week ago! And they tore all of the...all those racks...over there..." He pointed to a rack of freshly ironed suits hanging before the window, and several rows of suits lining the walls. "...they tore them all down and stomped all over my merchandise. Positively wrecked all of it...some of my best suits I had to throw away. I've spent the past week cleaning up their mess! And they attacked me too, said things not fit for civilized ears, and left laughing like mad! I reported them to the police, but they said--would you believe it--gangs of those card-playing buffoons have been running around wrecking stores, causing mayhem, and they just can't be kept in check. That game's a horrible influence on youth, I tell you that!"
Edo winced--the man had started spitting with the force of his last words."I'm sorry for your misfortune," he managed to say.
The tailor instantly reverted back to his nearly hysterical state of shame. "Oh--Mister Phoenix--I meant no offense...that is to say...you are...if you'll forgive me..."
He was interrupted and Edo was saved the pain of having to respond by a loud banging on the window. The tailor and Edo both turned, and Edo saw a group of five or six boys in their late teens, all wearing duel disks and dressed in ragged tank tops and sagging pants. They stood before the window and shouted indistinctly. Some of them pounded hard on the glass with their duel disks and others laughed like hyenas.
The tailor instantly screamed, and Edo wasn't surprised when the tailor's screams sounded exactly like a woman's. "That's them!" he bawled. "The ones who came last week!"
One of the gangbangers kicked in the window and it fell straight forward, crushing the rack of suits behind it. The group followed straight after, screaming and howling like maniacs. The leader of the group--the one who'd kicked the window--swaggered toward the tailor (who by now had crumpled into a ball below his desk), lifted him by the collar, and punched him twice in the face. Edo, barely comprehending the scene, drew back, tripped over the bottom of a rack, and fell backwards. But the gangbangers hadn't noticed him yet--their attention was focused on wrecking as much of the store as possible while the tailor whimpered and wailed in the clutches of their leader.
"So we heard you squealed to the cops about us, you pussy," he said, with a crooked grin. "And seems like you've done some cleaning up of your shit dump of a store. Oops, my bad--looks like we've fucked it all up again!", and he hauled the tailor even higher into the air. The tailor screamed again.
"You fuckin' pussy," the leader went on. "You goddamn faggot." He lifted his free arm--the arm with the duel disk on it--and pressed the edge of the duel disk to the tailor's neck. Pushing cruelly, he said, "It's your fuckin' kind that we hate so fuckin' much. We're gonna fuckin' run you out of your little shop here. Fuckin' kill you!"
The duel disk pressed even deeper into the tailor's neck, sinking as easily into the flesh as if the tailor's neck was made of rubber. The tailor had given up screaming by this point. He made a choked noise, thick with fear.
Then Edo's fist connected to the side of the gangbanger's face.
It didn't do much--the gangbanger was a hardened, muscular man, much bigger than Edo, but it had the effect Edo wanted. He'd gotten the gangbanger's attention. With a slow, wincing glare, the leader turned and fixed his eyes onto Edo's face, pure hatred in his eyes. Almost casually, he slung the tailor aside and flung his arm forward to hit Edo--but Edo jerked out of the way and the leader overbalanced, colliding into a rack of suits but catching himself before he fell. By this point all the other gangbangers in the store had taken notice, and now turned, watching the scene with hungry anticipation.
"You fuckin' prick!" screamed the gangbanger. "Who do you think you are! Fuckin' fairy--"
"You call yourselves duelists," Edo said, giving the gangbanger his best frozen smile, "but you don't recognize me?"
"No!" said the gangbanger. "Why the fuck'd we know you!"
Edo couldn't say he was surprised. "Too bad," he said, in the calm, offhand way that he knew pissed off crazy testosterone-driven hotheads the most. "Let's just say I'm a bit of a duelist myself."
The gangbanger drew back, gave Edo a condescending stare, and sneered. "Oh, so the little fairy thinks he can beat me. I don't mind. This is my game. This is what I'm talking about. Kid, you ever heard of Sozano Haruki?"
"Is he a historical figure?" said Edo. "You'll have to forgive me--I'm sadly unfamiliar with Japanese history."
"No!" the gangbanger nearly roared. "It's me, you motherfucker, me! I'm Sozano Haruki, the best street duelist in the town of Domino, leader of the Duel Devils!"
"Don't have a cow, Sozano-sempai," said Edo. Ignoring Sozano's growl of indignation, he turned to the rest of Sozano's gaping gang and shrugged casually. "I've got a novel idea. Why don't I take you all on at once?"
This was, expectedly, greeted with cries of, "What? No way! Little fairy's out of his fuckin' mind! He thinks he can beat us?" Edo only smiled and lifted his hand, calling for quiet. He was amused, but not surprised, when they obeyed.
"Hear me out," he said. "Look, if I lose you can punch me or kill me or whatever. Six of you and one of me. What've you got to lose?"
"You're out of your mind, man," hissed Sozano. "Your mind."
"Sure you're not afraid?" said Edo.
This taunt had the desired effect. Sozano's gang began crying out in disagreement, but Sozano cut in sharply and they shut up. "I'm not afraid, little fairy. Just trying to show you some mercy. I'd feel bad if you got utterly and completely beat without knowing what the fuck you're getting yourself into. Y'understand?"
"I know what the 'fuck' I'm getting myself into," said Edo. "Let's begin."
"Ha," said Sozano. He bore a sneer on his face, and there was both anger and smugness in his eyes. It was the expected expression of someone who thinks they can win, but is disoriented by the behavior of their opponent. Edo loved seeing his enemies wear that face--it made defeating them all the sweeter.
He bent down and took his duel disk out of his suitcase, which he'd left lying by the counter. The tailor was perched upright next to the suitcase and, while not unconscious, he might as well have been. He was still as a statue and his eyes were wide as golf balls, his mouth agape and fear and shock etched into every line of his face. Edo flicked him a small smile, but he was certain the man hadn't noticed at all.
He took time to survey his enemies and felt his revulsion for them grow. He'd hated them from the instant they broken into the store and attacked the defenseless old man. Brute strength and bragging words without the skill to back it up--more than nearly all things, Edo hated that the most. Dueling them was a duty, a form of justice. Crush those assholes. Open their eyes. Show them what true power is...then watch them go running with their tails between their legs, crying and whimpering and unable to comprehend what had just happened with their puny heads.
All criminals were cowards inside, Edo knew. All criminals were God damned cowards.
He felt hatred and vindictive pleasure watching them. Six young men, all of them with varying expressions of thuggery on their faces. He could tell much about the way they dueled just by their stances, by their faces, and he knew that he could defeat each one of them with laughable ease. They may be bigger than him, they may be more intimidating physically, but as duelists they were beyond weak. They no doubt believed in brute strength--monsters with high attack power and big, ugly costumes--above all things and had no conception of strategy. He gleaned this from each of them, and even before the first move was played, he knew how to beat them.
So it came as no surprise when he did--totally, completely. Absolutely.
The last holograms faded, and Sozano stood stock still in the middle of the store, his expression practically identical to the one the tailor was wearing and had been wearing for the past fifteen minutes as the duels exploded in front of him. His gang stood with similar dumb expressions around Sozano, but Edo ignored them. They were flunkeys. They didn't need to be dealt with. What mattered was that he had demolished their leader--dueling them had just been an added dramatic effect, an extra "fluorish", in a manner of speaking.
"Who the--you the--" babbled Sozano. He stared down at the cards that had scattered around him, as if he could not believe that they had failed him. Edo took a step forward. Sozano retreated--as expected. He may be more powerfully physically but the duel today had shown that emotionally, spiritually, Edo was clearly superior. He could squash Sozano like a bug.
"My name is Edo Phoenix," said Edo, reaching into the chest pocket of his brand-new blazer. He pulled out a business card, the one that declared his career to be "Professional Duelist". "Remember that name," he said, flicking the card toward Sozano, who mechanically caught it, "and remember this face."
"You...you're a pro duelist..." said Sozano slowly.
"That's right," Edo said, and then suddenly all of the playfulness, the smirking condescension, was gone from his voice, replaced by a cold, hard determination--the most commanding voice Edo could muster. "Leave. And never come back to this store again. In fact, drop the 'dueling delinquent' act altogether. You're too pathetic for it. If I hear that you've come back here and bothered this man again, I'll have you arrested. They'll listen to me, see. I can remember you and describe you perfectly to the police, and they'll lock you and your sorry gang up and make you regret it. And I'm sure everyone--all your 'rival gangs' and your girlfriends and whatever--I'm sure they'd all like to hear you got your ass kicked by a little kid. Now get out!"
Sozano needed no further prodding. He stared at Edo. His lip quivered. He was too frightened by his devastating defeat to even think about attacking Edo, too scared of the boy's icy yet overwhelmingly bloodthirsty aura. He ran. His gang, whimpering, followed suit. One of them cussed, not out of crassness but out of fear.
There was silence. The store was in a miserable state: the glass window lay on the ground, though thankfully it wasn't shattered, and racks had been pulled off the walls and knocked over, leaving torn and crumpled suits everywhere. Cards, too, littered the ground--Sozano's cards. Edo stepped on one of the cards and crushed it with his dress shoe.
"Oh, oh. M-m-mister...mister Phoenix..."
It was the tailor, finally snapping out of his long mute trance. Edo turned and gave the man a sympathetic look.
The tailor sat slack beneath his counter, staring at Edo with awe and fear and admiration and a bit of stupidity. He didn't seem to be able to control the motions of his mouth. "In...incredible. Incredible. Th--th-- I thank you! Mister Phoenix..."
"No need to thank me. I'm just doing my job," said Edo.
"Job?" said the tailor, with surprise.
Edo allowed a satisfied smile to appear on his face. "Yes. My job. As a hero."
He picked up his suitcase and headed out of the door, not turning back once. He did, however, give one parting wave toward the tailor, the poor miserable tailor whose life had been ruined in one day...and saved that very same day.
"He loves me. Not fact."
Again, the voice floats into the silence, oppressive in its absoluteness. And once again, the response is that same silence.
"Not fact," the voice repeats, almost pleading.
The room remains silent.
The boy breaks down. He falls to the ground, sinking out of his chair, and clutches his hair and sobs like a child. But that's what he really is: a lonely uprooted child, torn away too quickly for the pain to have disappeared. He cries out between his sobs.
"Why? Why? Say something, damn it! Say something, damn you! Say something!"
But, as he expects, he is only answered with silence.
He wasn't surprised by the messy state of Saiou's apartment. Neither Saiou nor his sister Mizuchi were much into cleaning. It wasn't like either of them had much experience living normal lives in the first place. After the defeat of the Wave of Light, Saiou had retreated to living quietly in a Domino apartment, still playing his role as Edo's manager but completely renouncing his Tarot fortunetelling. Mizuchi lived with him. She had told Edo that Saiou seemed to be falling ill recently.
He's not the only one, thought Edo, stepping over a cardboard box piled high with old clothes. He stumbled, however, over a long rolled-up carpet hidden just behind the box, and ended up landing against the wall, elbow first. This obviously caught Mizuchi's attention, as she came dashing into the room, not dressed in her miko robes but wearing a rather ridiculous-looking dressing gown.
"Edo...Edo-kun!" she said. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," said Edo, pulling himself upright. "How are you, Mizuchi-san?"
"Good, good..." said Mizuchi, but she seemed distracted. "Brother is very eager to see you...oh, here he is."
They had arrived at a door, slightly ajar, and tinkling classical music could be heard from within the room. Mizuchi stepped in first, pushing aside the door and revealing Saiou, leaning over an upright piano placed beside his bed, playing away.
"Brother!" Mizuchi cried. She seemed angry. "I thought I told you to rest!"
Saiou turned, noticing the two new arrivals for the first time. He blinked, then smiled. "Hello, Edo."
"Don't ignore me, Brother," snapped Mizuchi. "Get into bed, right now. You're not feeling well."
Saiou gave Edo a smile that clearly said "imagine, my younger sister and she's acting like my mother", but complied, getting up from the piano and sitting himself on the bed. His gaze flickered between Mizuchi and Edo.
Mizuchi's expression softened and she walked to Saiou's side, resting her hand over his. "If you need anything, just call. Don't over-exert yourself, all right?"
"Mizuchi," said Saiou, with a small nod. Then Mizuchi was up and out of the room. The door clicked shut behind her.
Without a word, Edo walked to the bed, standing right where Mizuchi had stood moments before. Saiou's expression melted with concern, and he reached up a hand and touched Edo's forehead.
"Are you all right, Edo?" he said, his voice heartbreakingly soft and tender. "Mizuchi acts like I'm a cancer patient, but I'm really not ill at all. You...on the other hand...you seem quite sick these days. Are you tired?"
"I'm fine," Edo said. What a lie.
"Are you sure you don't want me to cancel your duel tomorrow? If you're not feeling well..."
"I said I'm fine," said Edo, more sharply than he'd intended. He pushed Saiou's hand away and dropped down by Saiou's side. Saiou gazed at him but made no move to pull the boy closer, no move to reach out and touch Edo. Edo felt something in his heart stir.
"You haven't been yourself since, well...since Juudai defeated me at Duel Academia. It worries me," said Saiou, bending over and looking deep into Edo's eyes.
"Neither have you," said Edo. He didn't mean it--the words had just escaped him and he knew they hurt Saiou because Saiou was himself now, more than he'd been for an entire year, that after his loss to Juudai he'd returned to the true self he'd been before this mess. But the words had dropped out and Edo couldn't ignore the brief expression of pain that appeared in Saiou's eyes, even as Saiou strove to hide it.
"I...I didn't mean that," said Edo. "Sorry."
Saiou didn't respond. A silence followed, a thick silence pregnant with a gaping need for something. It didn't make sense. How could something be full of absence? Edo averted his eyes from Saiou and stared at the plain carpet. He wanted Saiou to say something. Anything.
Saiou did. "Are you blaming yourself, Edo?"
He said the words so abruptly and so full of confidence that Edo jerked up and whipped around, staring at Saiou, uncomprehending. "What? For what?"
"You know what. What else is there to blame yourself for?" Again, Saiou's large purple eyes swam into the field of Edo's vision. "Duel Academia. The wave of light," he said, his voice dropping down to a whisper. "You blame yourself."
"For--for--"
"For not being able to save me. For not being able to fulfill your promise to me. For losing to the light and having to hand the salvation of your friend over to Yuuki Juudai. It hurts you, doesn't it?" Saiou's voice wasn't accusing or critical. It was calm, patient, understanding. For some reason that was more painful.
Edo managed to fake a laugh. "You're talking crazy, Saiou--"
"Why else would you be so sick these days? Look at me, Edo," said Saiou, taking Edo's hands. Edo reluctantly looked into his friend's face and felt slightly encouraged by the tender, open expression on Saiou's face. "Your illness isn't because of an infection or a virus or anything like that. It's psychological, isn't it? The light is over. Your father's been avenged. Now is the time for the burden to lift, Edo...not for you to beat yourself up even harder."
The happiness welling up in Edo vanished instantly. What do you know about me? he screamed in his head. "I'll leave the diagnosising to the doctors, if you don't mind."
Saiou seemed to think Edo was just being his usual snarky self. He smiled and pulled himself away from Edo, sitting back with his hands on his lap. "Well, at least you're in a good enough mood to--"
But Edo cut him off, suddenly abandoning all reserve and shoving Saiou over onto the bed, kissing the older man greedily. He kissed deeper, repeatedly, over and over again, his arms wrapping around Saiou, hands sinking into Saiou's long navy hair. As he filled himself with the taste of Saiou's mouth he fumbled with the buttons of his own shirt with one hand, trying to tear it off. Saiou caught his hand and stopped him.
"Edo, Edo!" he said, seizing Edo's chin and holding him off with his other hand. "Stop this--stop it now--"
"Why?" hissed Edo, his conscious mind suddenly registering that Saiou hadn't kissed him back, not once, not even once--
"Because..." Saiou sat up, pushing Edo off of him. Like a petulant little child Edo sat and glared at Saiou, his shirt still partially unbuttoned. "I don't want this, Edo."
Edo was thunderstruck. "You don't want me?"
Saiou took a deep breath. "It's not that. It's..." He faltered. "Edo, I couldn't."
"Why?"
"Because I can't, it would be wrong..."
"Wrong?" Edo grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at Saiou. It bounced off harmlessly. "What's gotten into you? You never had a problem before! You used to fuck me all the time! I remember, there were times you couldn't get enough of me--I wasn't even through the door and you were already shoving your boner in my mouth!"
Saiou winced at the crude imagery and turned away from Edo, his blue sheet of hair shielding his face. "That was different. That was when I was possessed."
"So when you're not possessed, you're impotent?" Edo laughed harshly.
"I couldn't, Edo," Saiou said, obviously trying hard to control his voice, to keep from crying out or bursting into tears. "I wouldn't be able to do that to you... It's too much. It'd hurt you too much."
"It hurts me more knowing you don't love me," said Edo. He let his words come out as an accusation.
"Sex doesn't equal love, Edo," said Saiou.
Edo couldn't think of anything to say in response to this, but he needed to respond anyway. He opened his mouth, trying to say something, but Saiou was already speaking again, once more peering into Edo's eyes, trying to elicit understanding. Understanding Edo wouldn't give. Couldn't give.
"I ruined you the first time I fucked you," said Saiou quietly. "I wasn't myself. You're still just a child, Edo, and you wouldn't understand...but to me, more than anything, you represent purity, purity and innocence. I could kiss you and you might enjoy it, but I know I'm soiling you. It's wrong, that's what it is. I love you--and that's why I can't. I do love you, believe me."
Edo let the full meaning of Saiou's words sink in. "So I'm too pretty to fuck," he said with bitter sarcasm.
"No--"
He didn't let Saiou finish, didn't let Saiou offer whatever half-assed holy explanation he was going to. He grabbed Saiou by the face and hauled him into another kiss. Saiou broke away instantly, nearly shoving Edo over in his haste to get away from him.
Edo supposed that if heartbreak had a color, it would be the color of Saiou's eyes now, bright with fear and revulsion and pity and tears.
"Fine, fine. I don't need you." Edo's words seemed to echo in the sudden immeasurable void that had formed between them. He stared at Saiou, not breaking eye contact. He willed Saiou to say something. Maybe even kiss him. Hell, he could take Saiou's pious whining and declarations of impotency. Anything but this silence.
Then he tore himself away. He got up and left the room, too quickly for Saiou to have time to protest. He left, ignoring the fact that his shirt was still hanging half-buttoned, brushing Mizchi by with a brusque "Nothing" when she asked what was wrong, what had happened. Within a minute he had left Saiou's bedside and was out of his door, practically running down the hallway. He ran.
The elevator call key was smooth beneath his fingers. He pressed the button and fixed his gaze on the floor beneath his feet. He could feel his head pounding and the dull ache around his eyes was nearly unbearable. He could drop down and scream right now.
There was a shout from down the hall. Edo looked and saw Saiou dashing over, his hair flying behind him. "Edo!" yelled Saiou. "Edo!"
The elevator doors opened at the moment, and Edo dove inside and slammed his fist on the door close button, over and over again. The doors shut. The elevator began to plummet. And Saiou's calls were gone.
As the elevator went down, he closed his eyes. And he wasn't the least bit surprised to discover that he didn't feel sad at all.
To be continued.