Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Reminiscing
Characters: Asuka, Juudai, Yubel
Romance: one-sided Asuka x Juudai, Juudai x Yubel
Word Count: 2,225
Genre: Humor, Friendship||Rated: PG-13
Feedback: All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Summary: After Asuka's not-confession, Yubel is a little curious to find out just what Juudai knows about the Obelisk woman's emotions.
Asuka couldn't help a small glance over her shoulder before she was out of sight of Osiris Red. It took her two tries to find Juudai. He blends into the shadows too much. She bit her lip; Shou had told them all what had happened after Juudai's duel with Brron and she thought she understood it. At least some of it, anyway.
I wonder if he knew what I was trying to say. Not only that, she wondered if he understood why she hadn't. She wiped at her eyes and wondered why they stung before she turned her face toward the path before her. It wouldn't have worked. He has someone else anyway.
Perhaps if she told herself that enough times, she'd end up not feeling as bad about it as she did right now.
Juudai closed the door to his dorm behind himself and leaned against it. I don't think I've dueled that many times in one day since…since back in Dark World. For a short while, that was how it had felt when he dueled anyway. Finishing his opponent in the shortest time possible, even though this time they lived.
I should thank Asuka for that. She'd helped him remember what dueling had been like before everything. Before Dark World and knowing the burden of his duty. Before…
"Me?" Yubel lounged against the wall, her lips widened into a cocky smirk. He laughed for a moment, unsurprised by her appearance.
"Kind of." No matter what, there would be the occasional touchy moment between them. He guessed that all relationships were like that. But this wasn't going to be one of those for them. "Were you watching?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Yubel's voice was light, taunting, teasing. Juudai rolled his eyes and wondered if he should bother moving for the moment. The door was more comfortable than he'd thought it would be. He'd have to lie down sooner or later. He just thought it might be later.
He shot another glance toward her and wasn't surprised to see her still waiting for an answer. "Sure. Why not?" He always had wondered how much Yubel watched from where she nestled in his soul. Just because their souls were one didn't meant she always paid attention.
Yubel didn't answer right away. That was like her as well. She gave answers, even to him, only in her own time and in her own way. "That girl was trying to say she loved you, Juudai."
Juudai blinked once or twice. "I know." It had been hard to miss, even for someone like him. He eyed the bed; as tired as he was, he couldn't be certain if he could get over there without stumbling some. Yubel would probably laugh at him if he fell on his nose tonight.
"You're quite the popular one, then." Slick amusement wrapped itself around Yubel's words. "That boy, that girl, me."
He lifted his head to meet her mismatched eyes, now with a smile tugging on his lips. "They have names, Yubel." She only shrugged and he shook his head. Sometimes he didn't know what he was going to do with her. "Johan. Asuka."
"Yes, them." Yubel snorted, but there was no heat to it. "You knew she…cares about you?" He heard that pause. Try as she might, admitting that other people loved him wasn't something Yubel could do with any sort of ease.
"Of course." He considered for a few moments, then nodded to himself. "I'm going to take a shower." That would help him feel better after all of that dueling. He didn't ask if Yubel intended to come along.
Acquiring a towel and his nightclothes, he headed out the door again. Yubel wasn't visible but he spoke to her nevertheless. "I figured out that she liked me the first time I met her."
Yubel's amusement trickled to him through their connection. "Is that so?"
"Of course. She went out of her way to tell me I needed to get back to my dorm." One benefit about being the only Osiris Red left this year was that he never had to worry about anyone else being in the shower when he wanted to use it. He dropped his dirty uniform in the hamper and went to get the hot water running.
"And from that you decided that she liked you?" If sarcasm were acid, there might well have been a small hole in the floor.
Juudai tilted his head as he thought back to that long-ago first meeting. "Well, there was that, and she warned me to stay away from Manjoume. I didn't listen to that, though." Not that he regretted that either. He would've missed out on one of his best friends.
"Obviously." Yubel faded into view just beyond the range of the shower, arms folded across her chest and eyes focused on him. "Is that the only reason?"
Osiris Red didn't have the same kind of variety of soaps and shampoos that everyone over in Obelisk Blue had. He remembered Shou's excited report about the shower area there as if it were yesterday. The whole concept of ten different choices for his shower gel experience apparently made going up a dorm worth it for his friend. Juudai preferred the single choice that Red gave him and started to soap up.
"Pretty much." Juudai wondered if the water would actually fall through Yubel while she was in her spirit form. None of the rest of his deck had ever come out while he was in the shower. Bubbleman would probably enjoy it, and so would Aqua Dolphin. Maybe he'd take them to the hot springs one of these days. Or he could see if Yubel would enjoy them. That would be even better.
Something else occurred to him as he washed. "We almost got engaged once, though. Kind of."
"Oh?" It was amazing how much emotion Yubel could pack into a single word. He would have to ask how she did that.
Thinking about that sent a grin across his lips. "Yeah. It was back in first year. We were playing tennis for phys ed and the head of the tennis club then, Ayanokouji, he got all mad because Asuka was talking to me. She was just telling me that Daitoukuji-sensei told her where Manjoume was, since he'd run off. But Ayanokouji thought it was something else, I guess." He shrugged some, water spilling through his hair and down his back.
"So what does that have to do with you being engaged to her?" Of all the emotions Juudai heard, jealousy wasn't one of them anymore. She was fascinated by stories about what he'd done before they'd found each other again, he knew. He enjoyed telling her too.
"Well, Ayanokouji decided to challenge me to a duel and the winner would become Asuka's fiancé." Juudai laughed and tossed his damp hair back. "I didn't know what he meant by that, though. I didn't even know what 'fiancé' meant."
He expected some sort of a laugh from Yubel and when he heard nothing, parted his damp hair from over his eyes to look at her. She still stood against the wall, but now all three of her eyes were narrowed and staring at him. "Yubel? You all right?"
"You forgot what a fiancé was?" Her voice held just a trace of annoyance and he groaned. Uh-oh. Doghouse again.
Juudai blinked slowly before he started to rinse out his hair. If he kept himself busy, maybe he'd find a way through this that didn't involve Yubel and massive amounts of anger.
"Yeah, I di…" He broke off as the word she'd used clicked in his mind. "What do you mean 'forgot'? I hadn't even heard the word until he said it."
Yubel shook her head. "We were fiancés, Juudai." A faint smile crossed her lips for a few seconds. "You asked me to marry you when you were seven years old."
Oh. That explained it. "I guess that got wiped out too." He sighed; it could've made everything so much easier if he'd remembered her. Or if he hadn't sent her away to start with.
Before he could get so much as a twitch of angst in, Yubel folded her arms and wings around him. He leaned into her and sighed, water cascading over both of them. "I'm sorry, Yubel," he murmured, wrapped his arms around her. He sometimes felt as if he couldn't say that enough times.
"It's all right, Juudai. It's over now." She stepped back and tilted his head up with the tips of her claws. "You need to get some rest. You've had a rough day."
There was no arguing that with her, even if he'd wanted to. He finished up his shower and rubbed himself dry, thinking over what they'd talked about. In a way, he decided, he wasn't done with the story yet. "I won the duel, you know. It was hard, he had a pretty tough deck. But I did it. I asked Asuka what a fiancé was and she just called me an idiot."
Yubel laughed, flicking droplets of water off her wings. He wondered what rules governed when she was solid and when she wasn't. Then again, Yubel always had made her own rules.
"I would've done the same thing." Yubel smirked and Juudai rolled his eyes at her. "Only I would have done this as well." And her human hand smacked the side of his head. "Because you would be an idiot to have to ask me about that."
"Hey!" Juudai glowered at her and swatted her with the end of his towel. "You didn't have to do that."
"You learn better like that. There's a reason you sleep in class, you know."
Juudai sniffed and raised his head. "Because I'm tired!" He headed over to where he'd left his clothes and glanced at Yubel behind him. "I didn't find out what one was…again…until last year, around Valentine's Day. Fubuki-san explained it to me when I told him what happened."
Yubel tilted her head to one side, amusement evident once again. "I could've told you."
"Yeah, but you weren't here last year, were you?" Juudai retorted, wriggling into his nightclothes. "But Fubuki-san was and he couldn't believe I didn't know." He made a face at the memory. "It took him ten minutes of bewailing the fact I didn't know before he got around to telling me, actually."
He tossed his towel into the hamper and made his way back to his dorm. As much as he enjoyed being the only one in there, it was a little quiet and dark. He, Pharaoh, and Yubel were the only living beings in there. Well, unless he counted the rest of his deck. At any rate, he was the only actual hu…
Moving on.
"Anything else you want to know?" He asked Yubel once he'd closed the door and nestled himself into the bed. She wasn't visible, but her warm presence glowed in his heart and soul. That was better than being able to see her in his opinion.
"I want to know everything about you, Juudai." Again that teasing and taunting in her voice. He grinned; that was one of the many reasons that he loved her. She was the stone he liked to sharpen his wits on.
"That could take a while. We have what…ten years to catch up on?" Something like that anyway. He'd told her various events of his life but there just hadn't been time to talk about everything. He still wondered what Trueman was doing and where he was, and how Fujiwara Yuusuke tied into all of this. He hadn't heard from O'Brien since the other left the island days earlier.
He still couldn't see her but he could feel her arms around him nevertheless. "We have forever to be together. Take your time."
She had to be right. That annoyed him about her now and then. She just couldn't have the decency to be wrong and let him win an argument. Oh, well, they did have forever. He would have to win one someday. "Let's see…" He thought over the last two years, of all the time that he'd spent here at Duel Academia. That was when everything had really started to be exciting for him. He'd met the best duelists, the best people that he'd ever known. He'd had more adventures than he had ever dared to dream and he knew that they weren't over with yet.
Yubel prodded his shoulder with a finger. "Did you fall asleep already?"
He bit back a yawn spawned by that. "Not yet. I was just thinking about what I could tell you." He'd probably fall asleep in the middle of it but she could remind him another time. "Did I tell you about the time I was kidnapped by a sea captain?"
"A pirate?" Yubel snorted a little. "It wouldn't be the first that happened to you, you know."
He glanced toward her, or turned his mental attention toward her at any rate. "You're telling me about that later, you know."
"You first." Chalk up another one in Yubel's favor. Juudai closed his eyes and stared into the shadows of his own mind.
"It all started when Shou and I had an argument over fried shrimp."
The End
Note: Yes, in episode 2, Juudai really did ask Asuka if she'd fallen in love with him at first sight. The indications are that he was joking about it, but still, the words were said. Juudai's not really oblivious to love: he just wasn't interested in it most of the time.