Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: The Thing In The Corner
Characters: Shou & Juudai
Word Count: 848||Status: One-shot
Genre: Friendship, Humor||Rated: G
Challenge: Written for the One Friendship Boot Camp, prompt #2 annoying; Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section B, #75, write a human/animal interaction.
Summary: Something is in Juudai and Shou's dorm. Something that is scaring the daylights right out of Shou.
"Aniki. Aniki!"
Juudai wanted to close his eyes and go right back to sleep. Being in the second year meant more work than he'd thought, even when he didn't do as much of it as he should. Avoiding doing homework was almost as tiresome as doing it in the first place. So he wanted to get some sleep. But Shou kept calling him. It wasn't anything bad; if it were actual trouble, then it would be Hane Kuriboh waking him up, and he would be on his feet in seconds.
But instead, Shou kept on doing it, and a few moments later, a small hand touched his shoulder. "Aniki! There's something in here with us!"
At first Juudai found himself tempted to tell Shou that of course there was; Hane Kuriboh was there, even if he wasn't out and about right now. But that wasn't what Shou meant. It couldn't be; he couldn't even see Hane Kuriboh.
Which meant there really was something there. He rolled over, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, and looked at Shou, who was busy looking over into one of the darker corners of the room. "What is it?"
"Look!" Shou pointed a trembling finger in the direction of that corner. "Can you see it? It's looking at me!" He shuddered violently. "I woke up and it was on me and then it ran over there and it keeps staring at me!"
Juudai blinked again, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, wondering if this could somehow be a dream. Things didn't usually wander into their room. Even the stray spirits that lived here - some of them connected to people's decks and some not - didn't wander in here.
But the more he looked, the more he did see something in there, and he rubbed his eyes yet again in an attempt to see it more clearly. A strange chittering sound came from the corner, and Shou squawked, all but leaping onto the empty top bunk.
"It did that sound when I woke up! What is it?" His raw terror at possibly being devoured by whatever the intruder was pulsed through the room. Juudai didn't find it all that scary; that corner wasn't very big, so whatever it was probabliy couldn't eat Shou.
Well, probably not. A zombie could probably do it, if it got a good bite and kept on going.
Deciding on the spur of the moment not to tell Shou that - yet -, Juudai fumbled around in the small stand where he kept his duel disk when he wasn't using it. He kept a few other odds and ends there, and one of those was a flashlight. Whatever the thing over in the corner was, it only chittered again, a long stream of noise that Juudai kind of felt was meant to be insulting.
A beam of light slashed through the darkness, revealing the creature for what it was: a squirrel. Juudai tilted his head, staring at it. "What are you doing in here, little guy?"
The squirrel chittered again, but whatever it meant by that, Juudai had no idea. He shifted up a little, moving to the edge of the bed. "Are you hungry? Is that why you're here?"
"We don't have any food!" Shou all but squeaked, not having moved an inch. "We're not a squirrel dining room! If it wants food, can't it run over to the Blue dorm?"
Juudai glanced over at Shou, head tilted. "Are you scared of squirrels?"
Shou fidgeted a little, looking away. "No." He said it in a way that told Juudai that wasn't entirely true. Juudai didn't see a reason to push the question, though.
Instead, he reached back to his bedside table and worked one hand around until he pulled out a bag. "Actually, we kind of do have some food. I brought this from home." He dug around inside and tossed a handful of nuts toward the squirrel. "Help yourself!"
Juudai didn't know if squirrels spoke Japanese or not, but this one pounced on one of the nuts and held it between its paws, staring down at it. Then it swished away out of sight.
Shou let out a long breath and slumped down next to Juudai's bunk. "Did that really happen?"
"Did a squirrel come in, scare you to death, and then I bribed it with some nuts to go away?"
"Yes."
"Yup."
"I was hoping you wouldn't say that."
Shou stayed where he was for a few minutes, then crawled back up to the second bunk and tucked himself underneath his blankets. Juudai curled up under his, listening to the sound of squirrel feet coming in and out for a while before it stopped completely.
Juudai kept the squirrel fed for another two weeks. In two weeks, Tyranno Kenzan moved into the dorm, and the squirrel stopped coming by, clearly recognizing a higher predator.
Shou thought about saying thank you, but decided not to. After all, Kenzan wanted to steal his aniki. He'd rather have the squirrel. At least it was easily bribed.
The End