-Lay All Your Love On Me – A Yu-Gi-Oh! songfic-
Summer on Domino City has never really grasped me as a fun time. I lay in my living room, sprawled out over my couch in a tank top and shorts. Across from me, my friend – and roommate – Mai Valentine laid sprawled on the floor, the air conditioner blowing cold air over her bare stomach.
"Ugh…why must it be so damn hot?" I groaned, fanning myself with yesterday's copy of the newspaper to try and catch the cold air from the conditioner.
"Blame the climate…" Mai replied.
"I already did. Gimme something else to blame. I just sounded like Tora then."
"You did, and no."
"I'll blame your boyfriend then."
"Fine by me." I grinned tiredly and returned to my heat-induced stupor. The reason Mai was over was because my sister Tora and my cousin Aki were in Sapporo for the week, attending some snowboarding competition Tora was entered in. She's not bad a snowboarder; she's better at skateboarding, though. The heat did nothing to ease up the fact that I was jealous. The entire city of Domino had been struck by a heatwave that had already crept into its fifth day, and the hospital was overflowing with dehydrated patients.
"Rune, phone." Mai suddenly said, breaking me out of my stupor. I lifted my head and sure enough, there was the phone ringing. I pulled my long black hair from the back of my neck and got up to go answer it in the kitchen.
"Hello?" I answered, sitting on the bench and sipping at a glass of water.
"Hi Rune!" I heard a voice yell on the other end of the phone. They had to yell; I could hear a serious commotion going on in the background. 'Without Tora? That's a first,' I thought.
"Hi Yugi. What's going on?" I asked. There was a crash on Yugi's end, and I heard Tristan yell "Watch it!" I moved back into the living room and turned the speakerphone on. It was way too hot to have my sweat all over the phone.
"We're just organising the beach trip. You remember, Rune?" Yugi said. Mai looked over at my calendar, where today's date was circled in blue highlighter.
"I marked it Yugi, don't worry. Rune had a dentist's appointment this morning as well." she said. I rolled my eyes at her and shuddered at the memory of my dentist's hand down my throat.
"We'll be ready when you guys come around." I said.
"See you soon!" Yugi hung up, as well as us, and I took the phone back to its stand in the kitchen.
"Come on then. If we're gonna be ready when they get here, we'd better get ready before they get here." I called. I walked into Tora's room and nicked her green beach bag. She's not here; she's not gonna miss it. You can tell it's hers, too. It has images of things she's taken photos of. She's a good photographer. Anyway, going back into my room, I threw into the bag my purple beach towel, a bottle of sunscreen, an extra change of clothes, a book, a small first-aid kit (can't be too careful), my iPod, my phone, and other necessities.
"Rune, what the hell is your bathing suit doing in Aki's room?" Mai asked, walking into the room holding a black one-piece bathing suit. I shrugged and took it from her.
"I'd say Tora was trying to prank us." I replied. She shrugged and left, leaving me to change. Over my bathing suit, I put on a pair of purple boardshorts, a white T-shirt, and my purple thongs. What? Tora's not the only one with a colour fetish. On my head went a sunhat and my sunglasses.
"Ready to go?" I called to Mai. We met up in the living room, Mai wearing co-ordinating purple and white. Tora once said that Mai needed another colour in her life, and introduced her to blue. My poor baby sister was black and blue by the time Mai had finished. The doorbell rang at that point, and Mai raced to answer it, beating me by mere seconds.
"Hey Joey." we chorused, Mai adding in an eyelash flutter. I groaned silently and stood up. For two adults, they sure as hell acted like children. Speaking of adults, anyone wanna answer as to why Seto Kaiba and Marik Ishtar went up to Sapporo with my sister and cousin? Yeah, there's a shock to the system for you. I grabbed my bag and led the two lovebirds out to a bright red car – Duke's.
"Hey guys." I smiled at the occupants of the car – Duke (of course), Serenity and Yugi. Duke opened the boot, and Mai and I deposited out stuff in there.
"Whose idea was this anyway, Yugi?" I asked as I slid into the back seat.
"Atem's, actually. He said he wanted to see the ocean." he replied. I rolled my eyes and smiled. Trust my boyfriend to come up with something like this. Being an ex-pharaoh, I imagine the planning must've been easy. Wait…
"There's an ulterior motive, isn't there?" I asked, glancing at the tri-colour haired boy sitting beside me. He gave me an innocent smile.
"Hey guys, check out the view!" Duke suddenly said. We all craned our necks over the hood, and nothing but blue water stretched out in front of us.
"Lovin' this view!" I said as the sand came into our line of vision.
"Let's do this summer right!" Duke said, turning up the radio. We cheered, and 'Summer Of '69' blared out. The song ended as we pulled into a car park beside Ryou's silver car. Out of it came him, Rebecca, Tristan, Tea and Atem.
"Aww…I thought Malik wanted to come." I pouted, acting like Tora and making Rebecca giggle.
"He and Bakura had to do some things at the museum with Ishizu." Ryou explained to me. I nodded.
"I like how we refer to your dark half by your last name." I said.
"Doesn't that get confusing after a while?" Rebecca asked.
"Not if it gets people to actually use your first name." Ryou replied, and we all laughed. I felt someone breathing gently on the back of my neck, and an arm gently snake around my waist.
"Ready for some fun?" Atem whispered in my ear, placing a kiss underneath my ear.
"Only if it's clean." I replied.
"Come on, you two, let's spend this summer right!" Joey yelled.
"Let's go!" I said, dragging my boyfriend in the direction of the fun.
"Hey Rune, can you pass over the sunscreen?" Tea asked from beside Mai.
"Sure Tea." I replied, not looking up from my book. I grabbed the white bottle and passed it to her. She squeezed some of the sunscreen out and began rubbing it into her legs. Mai turned over onto her stomach to bronze up her back and readjusted her sunglasses.
"Any of you girls up for beach volleyball?" Joey yelled, pointing to the two teams already at the net. I stood up.
"I'm game," I said, catching the ball Tristan threw to me, "What about you girls?"
"No thanks." Mai said.
"Me neither." Tea seconded. I scoffed and pouted.
"You guys are no fun." I declared, walking over to the net and taking my place on Joey's team. Also on my team was Tristan and Yugi, while on the other team was Duke, Serenity, Rebecca and Ryou.
"Prepare to have the pants beaten off ya, Dice Boy!" Joey said, taking the ball from me and serving it. Rebecca kept it from hitting the sand, while Serenity and Ryou got the ball into a comfortable position for Duke to attempt spiking. Tristan blocked the spike, while Joey and Yugi passed it to me, and I spiked it over the net for a point.
"Sweet!" I cried, jumping into the air. Joey and Tristan high-fived each other.
"You got lucky, mutt!" Duke yelled, pointing accusingly at the blonde.
"Nah, we just have a better team. Right, Yugi?" I said, grinning at the shorter boy. He just grinned back and kept talking to Tristan. 'How he does that, I will never know,' I thought. The volleyball game continued for a while, until Joey accidentally sent the ball into Ryou's face, bruising his cheek, so we all stopped for ice-cream.
"Thanks Rune." Serenity said as she took the strawberry ice-cream cone from me. I smiled in reply and took a spoonful of the gelato in front of me. We began walking back to our towels, all the while talking about anything that came to mind, such as Serenity's modelling career. She's not as famous as Tora with her sports, but she's come so damn close Tora's jealous.
"Don't go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me." suddenly blared on the speakers around the beach. I jumped and nearly spilt the orange treat all over me.
"Are you okay, Rune?" Tea asked over the top of her vanilla milkshake.
"Yeah, peachy," I replied, "I just never thought I'd hear this song again."
"What, the song playing now?"
"Yeah. It's the same song Atem and I sang on out first date."
"I wasn't jealous before we met
Now every man that I see is a potential threat." I heard from somewhere in front of m. I snapped my head forward, and my golden eyes fell on my boyfriend, standing on the beach in his crimson shorts, a microphone sitting perfectly in his hand.
"And I'm possessive, it isn't nice
You've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice." The way Atem sang that song, in that naturally deep voice of his, made me shiver with delight. He offered his hand, and I took it, smiling.
"But now it isn't true
Now everything is new
And all I've learned has overturned
I beg of you." I smirked cheekily and took the microphone form him. There was a flicker of surprise in his red-violet eyes, but when I lifted the microphone to my lips, he smiled.
"Don't go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me."
"It was like shooting a sitting duck
A little small talk, a smile and baby, I'm stuck." I twirled around, keeping my eyes on Atem's gorgeous red-violet ones all the time.
"I still don't know what you've done to me
A grown-up woman should never all so easily." I closed my eyes briefly as I remembered how he and I met. We were in a park, me looking after my neighbour's two small children with Aki, when she waved over Marik and introduced me to him standing beside the Egyptian.
"I feel a kind of fear
When I don't have you near
Unsatisfied I skip my pride
I beg you dear." The microphone was slipped from my hand, and Atem stood a couple of metres in front of me.
"Don't go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me
Don't go sharing your devotion
Lay all your love on me." I smirked and sauntered up to him, swaying my hips slightly. I leant in closer to his lips, thinking he was going to be kissed.
"I've had a few little love affairs
They didn't last very long and they've been pretty scarce." I sang, grinning cheekily at the look in Atem's eyes. He shot out his tanned arm and pinned me to his side, a look of playful revenge in his eyes.
"I used to think I was sensible
It makes the truth even more incomprehensible." He dropped his head into the crook of my neck. I slipped the microphone from his hand and held it up in front of us.
"'Cause everything is new
And everything is you
And all I've learned has overturned
What can I do?" we sang, smiling at each other. I pressed the microphone into Atem's hand and twisted away.
"Don't go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me
Don't go sharing your devotion
Lay all your love on me." I stood in front of him, ready for the finale.
"Don't go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me
Don't go sharing your devotion
Lay all your love on me." As the final notes died, and as the crowds around us cheered, Atem and I shared a kiss.
"So…the whole 'beach party' thing was so he could propose to you?" Tora asked a few weeks later, safely deposited in her boyfriend's lap. I nodded and took my hand away from Aki, who was admiring the classic white gold diamond ring I was wearing on my left finger. She glared at me and returned to cuddling Marik.
"I must say, I was impressed." I replied, turning my head to look at my fiancé. Tora scoffed and ran her hands through Kaiba's brunette locks.
"Over-the-top proposals are for those who are too scared to do it the classical way." she announced. Aki whispered something to Marik, who threw a yellow cushion in her face. As she vaulted over and proceeded to wrestle with our cousin, Atem leaned over.
"Lay all you love on me." he whispered in my ear, threading his fingers with mine. I smiled and looked at the ring, where a small inscription could be read:
"Lay all your love on me, Rune. – Atem."
Disclaimer applies to the anime and characters – Kazuki Takahashi – the song 'Lay All Your Love On Me' and the cheesy beach scene – ABBA and the 'Mamma Mia!" musical – and Rune, Aki and Tora – me.