From the Outside Looking In

Story One: Just a damn necklace

Disclaimer: I own the made up characters like Kim, the teacher and Becky - if you recognise it, chances are it's not mine!

Summary: A series of one-shots from an outsider's perspective of the Yu-gi-oh! group. Story One, Just a damn necklace: a teenage delinquent discovers what happens when a certain short boy with tri-coloured hair thinks he has lost that weird gold necklace of his in a school fire…

Kim Sanders was not having a good day. Not that she ever really did in school. Something of a delinquent, she argued with most of the teachers at Domino High nearly every day, and today was no exception.

"Stupid bitch," she muttered to herself, still fuming, as she stalked the corridors. She had been sent out of her Science class after a disagreement with her teacher had ended with her shouting and swearing as her legendary temper got the better of her. While she knew very well, and had just been reminded, that she was supposed to wait outside the door until the teacher came to get her, but, furious, she felt she just had to keep moving to burn her temper out. Argh! She hated that stupid old cow anyway, Mrs Henderson was just taking her own bad day out on her! She'd even confiscated Motou's big gold necklace from him, claiming it got in the way of his work (Crazy thing - so big, shaped like an upside down pyramid - see, she did know some things, stupid Henderson - and was that real gold? Yikes). Well, his friend - the blonde one, loudmouth, Joey was it?- had already knocked over a beaker when he was arguing with the other one, Tristan or something. Now that Kim started to think of it, as her temper gradually cooled slightly, Motou had seemed fairly upset that she'd taken it, his oversized eyes on his necklace all the time that old witch had taken it and shut it in her desk at the front of the room, saying he could have it back at the end of the lesson. Kim felt kinda sorry for him - even though he was clearly some sort of gamer geek, no one she'd ever hang out with, it was his own damn property, none of the other teachers had taken it from him before! Damn! She glared angrily ahead. See what would happen if someone tried to touch her stuff! Her fists might have something to say about it!

Bloody hell! What was that!?

Kids were shrieking now, drowned out only by the sound of the fire bell, which screamed to life. Damn, her heart! That had come from almost right behind her! Like a proper explosion! Probably Matthews or Shephard or some of the other geniuses in the other class - some morons just shouldn't be left with chemicals and Bunsen burners.

Wait - now everyone was leaving class, heading towards the doors, talking loudly as their teachers tried to make them follow their directions to go quietly and go line up outside. Cool, Kim thought, once her heart rate had slowed back down after the shock of the explosion, didn't seem like anyone was hurt and it looked like they'd get the fire brigade! Ha ha, men in uniform! Looked like the day was getting better already!

Knowing that her class would have used the fire door to the back of their classroom and that she'd be in even more trouble if she didn't go and join the rest outside soon, Kim headed that way - only to find that although the Science rooms were thankfully deserted, they were smoking, acrid black smoke starting to fill the air. Woah! Was that a proper fire over there?! Bloody hell, spreading fast! Good thing she's grabbed her own bag before she'd stormed out, causing another argument. No real danger to her, though, she could just go back the other way. Heh, worse that would happen is that the classroom would probably get gutted - brilliant, less homework!

Although…

Bet that stupid old bag had forgotten Mutou's dumb necklace - the teacher's desk was the opposite side of the room to the fire door, and she'd probably been way from it, making some other poor student's life a misery, when the explosion happened. See, that was why she hated teachers like that, always thought they were right, probably hadn't given it a second thought when they'd all left. Hah, Motou's family would be damn annoyed if it got burnt, if all that gold was real! Wonder none of the other geniuses in the school hadn't mugged him for it yet - although, with those bodyguard friends of his…

Wha-?! Damn! Another, smaller, bang. Screw it! She was near it, she'd grab the damn thing, give it back to Motou - even better if Henderson thought it'd gotten burnt up!

Kim darted into the room, yanked open the drawer - see, she'd been right! - snatched the pyramid thing by its chain, and got out of there.

Once outside (she'd dragged her feet a bit once she was away from the Science block, taking the longer way through the school, but had sped up a bit when she thought they might suspend her or something if she messed around too much with the whole school in a panic, and even more when it occurred to her that if that fire caught some more chemicals the explosion could be a lot bigger next time), she meandered over to the confusion that was her class, grumbling back to her teacher when she was spotted. She noticed the way that Matthews (ha, she'd known it was that idiot!) was getting treated by a paramedic for what looked like some burns on his hands while being lectured by a teacher. Prat - Kim thought he'd been lucky to get away from the school with just that, considering how fast the blaze had spread afterwards. Damn, that meant so had she! She shook this uncomfortable thought off as she was grabbed by Becky - in her opinion one of the few damn people on the school worth talking to. "Woah! Damn, don't do that! Thought you were stuck in there!"

"Nah," Kim replied, distracted - she'd just noticed what was causing the commotion among her classmates, aside from people gawping at the ambulance and fire-fighters that had just arrived - Motou seemed to be crying, and damn, was he trying to shove away his classmates, trying to get back inside? His three friends seemed to be hanging onto him, trying to talk to him while looking anxiously back at the school themselves, almost as if they wanted to go back too.

"Weirdo!" muttered Becky. "Sod off!" Kim replied, "he might have lost some family member in a fire when he was a kid or something. Anyway, hang on, I'm gonna go give this thing back, it's damn heavy," she added, brandishing the necklace and beginning to stalk towards the middle of the foursome, shoving aside gawping students as she went.

"Motou!" she yelled over their noise - he was properly crying now, and had screamed particularly loudly when another explosion blew out the window of what was once their Science classroom, much to the appreciation of the other watching students - "Hey, shut up for a minute!" One of his friends, the one she thought was called Joey - turned to snap something to her - and had then frozen, mouth slightly open, at the sight of the necklace, swinging slightly from its chain, bunched tightly in her fist.

Giving him and the other two a weird look as they'd started staring at her too, Kim pretty much shoved the necklace in Motou's face. The effect was startling: he seemed to completely freeze, tears still pouring down his face, to stare disbelievingly at the necklace. Then, slowly, accompanied by the delighted exclamations of his friends, he held out trembling hands to it, until he was clutching it to himself, throwing the chain quickly over his head.

"…You're welcome." Kim muttered, staring at him weirdly, before glaring and adding "Just don't tell that old bag that I grabbed it, understand?!" After receiving a rather shell-shocked nod and stammered thanks in response, Kim turned and strode back to her own friend, trying to ignore the feeling that they were all staring at her back.

"The hell was all that about?" Becky asked, staring over Kim's shoulder at the little group. "Beats me, I just grabbed the stupid thing on my way out. Whatever, probably some priceless family heirloom or something, but if that's the case the geek shouldn't bring it to school."

"You grabbed it? Ha, you going soft on me? Got a crush on starhead?"

"Shut up, no way!" Kim irritably swung her bag at her laughing friend. "Now, let's go check out some firemen!"

End

Authors' note: I just thought it would be interesting to get some outside perspective on the Yu-gi-oh group in a situation like this, and hopefully its clear that her opinion on Yugi etc as a geek are from "Kim"s own views, not my own - I was trying to show the thought processes of an angry, somewhat delinquent schoolgirl without getting in trouble with ff for swearing. Also, if not obvious, set in America - went with the dub on this one.