When two peoples dinner dates don't show yup for whatever reason, they find solace in each other, talk of old times, and that bottle of free wine some unknown stranger was apparently kind enough to send them. Short one shot. (Mai and Yugi centric.)

I don't know how I ended up writing Yugi and Mai on an (albeit impromptu) dinner date, but it happened. there's not much point to the story except to suggest that… well, you can never really gt rid of old ties, no matter how many years pass. Standard disclaimers apply.

So, hope you like.

"I got friends all over this country
I got friends in other countries too
I got friends I haven't met yet
I got friends I never knew
I got lovers whose eyes
I've only seen at a glance
I got strangers for great grandchildren
I got strangers for ancestors."

- Ani DiFranco, Willing to Fight.

Company.

'Well, will you look at that.'

There's a vague note of amusement in Mai's voice and when Yugi's head remerges from where it was searching for a long lost napkin under the table, he can see the reason why.

'…Did you order that?'

'No and judging from your tone of voice, you didn't either,' Mai is leaning back in her chair, arms folded, observing the narrow, green bottle on the tabletop in the same way she usually would the layout of a duelling arena.

Yugi leans forwards to pick the bottle up, turning it over and over in his hand. It's a rosé, and the dull brown label is written in a foreign language, probably French or something else he can't understand. He whistles. '…Looks like it's a little outside of both of our budgets, for one thing.'

'Never assume what's in a lady's purse, Mister Mutou. Still, expensive brand, sure, but I highly doubt it's as old as the label says it is. See the absence of the first two date numbers? It could be nineteen eighty six or ninety six. Still a decade, either way, but the bottle's done up to make it appear older.'

A smile quirked Yugi's lips. 'And how do you know so much about wine, exactly?'

She gives him a wink. 'Breeding, Yugi, hun. Just good old breeding. Still I'm not sure the person kind enough to send it our way really knew that.'

'So okay, what do we do with it?'

'I think drinking it would be a good start.'

Yugi shuffles a little in his chair. 'Um… well I sort of can't, I'm driving.'

Mai's eyes rolled melodramatically. 'So call a cab. Seriously, Yugi, you don't just pass up stuff like this when it's placed right in front of you. While I'm not usually one to believe that anything is free, I'm willing to break that rule where good calibre alcohol is concerned.'

'Well I…'

She was already pouring by now, so there was honestly no real point in arguing. 'As Joey would say if he were here, Yugi, life's too short.'

'Yeah and so is my tolerance level.' It's a confession, really, but he figures there's no need to blush

She laughs. It's the same laugh as it's always been, low, hard, but with perhaps less of an edge to it than he remembers from Duellist Kingdom. It's nice, really when it's not just teasing him. 'I can't believe you, Yugi. You've been sitting at a table with a beautiful woman for the last hour –and I might also note that I went to great pains in selecting this ridiculous outfit in the first place if certain lunch-buddy females would actually show up and tell me they can't come like try earlier than five minutes after I'd gotten here– and yet that's the first time that cute little face of yours has cracked into a blush. Really, you have more resistance in that department than I'd ever have imagined.'

'Speaking of resistance? Please note, Mai, that I haven't grown more than a few inches since high school, I figure I haven't had enough training for my alcohol tolerance to be any higher than it was back then.'

Mai considers her glass for a moment before deciding to top up the liquid that's already in there. She hasn't actually drunk any of it, yet. 'And what was your tolerance level "back then" Yugi Mutou?'

'Um… well, I'm not sure, really. I was never awake for enough to count them by the end of it…'

It's a perfectly innocent phrase, really. So innocent, in fact, that he really doesn't get why Mai is laughing again. 'You know Yugi you're going to have to make me a promise that you will never change your outlook on life. I'm serious. You have to remain this way forever because any other Yugi Mutou would be totally intolerable. I couldn't stand it if you had an ego to match your eyes.'

'Hm. Yeah, then I guess I'd be like you,' He feels a light kick from under the table. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to draw attention to the fact that Mai's shoes are rather pointed and probably can hurt him if she means them to. 'You're pushing it, Yugi. Still, it's not like this is a date. An extremely lucky chance meeting, yes. But not a date. So you don't need to worry too much about insulting me so much I'll refuse to pay my half of the bill.'

'Heh. True. Thank you for that, by the way, I completely couldn't have managed if I'd had to sit here alone.'

'Who were you meeting here originally, anyway? I don't figure many people come to this place if they're planning to eat alone. The singles menu alone could crush a wallet.'

Yugi sighs a little. 'Ryou. Last minute meeting with his manager so he had to cancel. Typical, really. I think we come to this place say… once every decade? The last time I remember being here was my parents' anniversary and they haven't celebrated one of those since I was at least eight.

'Yeah, that's another thing we have to cover on the bill frontage… Tell you what, I'll duel you for it.' Mai smirked.

Yugi frowned. 'Very funny.'

'Who say's I'm joking? I've got my deck right here.'

Yugi glances at a purse only just large enough to contain a deck of duel cards. He honestly doesn't put it past her. 'Mai…'

'Oh calm down, Yugi. Surely you know me well enough by now.' Her smile wavered. 'You haven't duelled much since that time, have you?'

'Well it's kind of hard to find the time.'

'Nobody told you to work ay Kaiba Corp.'

'Actually someone did. Kaiba. Or he might as well have told me. The words "it's strongly advised that you consider this once-in-a-lifetime offer. I mean it, Mutou," are about as soft as Kaiba's orders ever get. But otherwise…' he shook his head. 'Tournaments? Sure, I've been to a few… still get hounded every time I go there, but my game is really slipping and everyone can see it. The papers have started to get their "Three Hit Wonder Headlines: "Can Yugi Mutou still pack the punch not to be knocked out by the kids in little league duelling?"'

Mai shakes her head a little sadly. 'Oh, Yugi, I believe that about as much as I believe that Seto Kaiba ordered the bottle on the table between us.' Yugi allows himself to smile.

'Still. It's kinda not the same anymore and since the game's popularity is going down in favour of the new Dungeon Dice Hologram technology, it's getting hard to find decent players.'

'Beaten by Dungeon Dice, huh?' Mai raised an eyebrow.

'Yeah. Grandpa would've probably been more than a little mortified.'

'I'm sorry, Yugi. Not that I ever really understood any of this but…' she paused. 'You must miss him.'

'Sure I do, and he's not all I miss. Anzu's on the other side of the globe and probably dancing her feet off even as we speak. Honda's in Kyoto. Otogi's off in some other country designing some new videogame I'll no doubt be called up to test in a few months time. Mokuba's never around and I'm trying my hardest not to strike up conversations the Egyptian exhibits in the Domino Museum every chance I get. Jounouchi's… Jou's trying to get into one of those mature student colleges courses they're running across town.'

'Trying and failing last I checked. Shame they can't make duelling a remedial. But he'll get there, Yugi we both know he will,' she smiled around the bottle. 'Except that a part of me thinks that you might not want that.'

Yugi shuffled under the uncomfortable light of the truth. 'Of course I want him to, it's just…'

'Just that you'll miss him,' Mai leaned back again, playing with her earring in a manner really not becoming in a silk and linen restaurant, but somehow it's an action which still looks good on her. As if Mai could ever be anything other than completely in control of her appearance. 'Just that eventually everyone you care about goes off and does their own thing. I've been getting that ever since the day I met you kids and I have to say while I don't completely regret it there are still days I wish I'd never met you,' she says it jokingly but still, she says it, and it's the closest thing to a confession of dependency that Yugi's ever heard from her. Must be due to the alcohol they've already consumed.

'Well…' Yugi doesn't actually say yes, but the he doesn't have to. Mai knows what she's talking about.

'Back to the subject in hand,' Mai goes on, mercifully. 'The free alcohol.'

Yugi smiles and picks a glass up. 'We're supposed to toast this to someone, but I can't think who too.'

'How about the guy who sent it?'

'We still don't know who that actually is…'

'So? We can still toast.'

'…You know, Mai, for all we know this is another plot to put us out of the next tournament. Seriously this could be laced with anything.'

Her eyebrows raise that little bit higher, coupled with an almost unfamiliar grin. 'I'm not quite that suspicious, Yugi. And I don't know when you became that bad either, for goodness sakes, pick up your glass and start toasting the guy already.' Yugi shrugs and lifts the glass, manages to stop the red liquid from spilling over the sides.

While we're at it, Mai, anyone else you can think of?'

Mai thinks about it for a long, quiet moment. Two pairs of purple eyes fixed on each other firmly and thinking the same thing as they do so. 'Let's try to absent friends,' she said. 'Even those who want to lumber us with paying bills for reservations in expensive restaurants.'

Glasses chinked together quietly in the almost still of the restaurant.

'I'll drink to that one. But next time, we make them pay, right?'

'Definitely.'

He walks away from the restaurant completely unnoticed. This is quite a feat, actually. People do tend to recognize a man like himself on the street these days, but then he supposes it's only to be expected.

'Ah, Yugi-boy, you really shouldn't worry about them, you know. How long you all have lasted… quite remarkable, really, even for one who happens to have experienced the negative side of you and your friends' little bond first hand.'

Such a long time. He can see the beginning of wrinkles creeping over the edges of his hands, which is really quite intolerable, but not bad enough to warrant having anything done about it just yet. He'd never been one for such indignities, anyhow. One of these days, those kids would follow him of course, and then they too might even feel the intolerable feeling of death which he had so often had to experience.

Not now, though. Now they had youth on their side, amongst other things. He's quite certain he recognized both of them, now than he thinks about it. Duellist Kingdom, of course. The beauty who made her way to the final rounds. Did herself very proud too, if he recalled rightly. Somewhat of a brash mouth though, if he recalled… It made him pause, for a second, because for a brief instant in that room, she had reminded him of someone who could never be forgotten.

'Perhaps that is one of the things you once liked about me, Cecelia… Tell me, my darling… would you approve of me now? Granted, offering free wine –however fine a make it might be– does little to make up for a rather tattered past… but then again… a drink to old times. I'm sure it hardly matters either way what those old times might be. Do you agree?'

Truly, he already knows the answer.

And he always did like to keep an eye on things. You might say he liked to ensure that certain things –certain memories– were not allowed to fall away.

'Still… Millennium Item holder's prerogative seems to be that no one who meets you is ever truly forgotten.'

It is getting a little late in the evening. He should probably get back to the hotel before Croquet starts to worry about his unexpected absence and decides to call the authorities. Really, it wouldn't do to have his whereabouts tracked to Domino City when he was supposed to be halfway across the continent in Europe aiding a new game design.

"Shout if you will, but that just won't do.
I, for one, would rather follow softer options.
I'll take the easy line; another sip of wine,
and if I ignore the face you wore it's just a way of
mine to keep from flying colours."

-Jethro Tull, Flying Colours.

Fin.

Reviews and concrit are appreciated. I hope that last quote worked…