Chapter One
She couldn't remember exactly how the events had unfolded. How things had just seemed to shift so suddenly throwing her off balance and then suddenly the pieces slowly fit together. All she knew was that it had started right around the time she had met a boy with tri-colored hair and violet eyes. After that one thing led to another and here she was. Where here was exactly she didn't know but she was staring at a golden pyramid reflecting the sun brilliantly as it set on the horizon.
She turned her gaze and stared into slightly darker violet eyes a strong hand grasped her chin gently and lifted her gaze. "My queen….." was the hoarse gentle whisper as he kissed her. It was the most natural thing in the world for her.
Kiley had gotten her GED at 15 in the United States seeing as how her mother went abroad. After her father remarried and had children with her step mother she hadn't really felt right there living with them. Her father had never asked her to leave but she didn't feel like she could stay. Her older brother was in college in the states and barely emailed or texted her these days. He had said their family broke apart when she their mother had a mid-life crisis and decided leave them for a career. Michael was not the same after their parents divorced. He became more and more distant at the years went by. As he graduate and left for college the gap grew even wider.
Kiley's mother, Taeko Tomoe, had started out as a personal assistant with a promising career ahead of her in Japan. Then she had met Ronald Normandy, an American student studying abroad, and fell in love. Soon after that she had quit her career to become a house wife. For years she had raised his children and been a doting wife. Then one day she had decided to go back to school to further her career. Kiley and Michael were old enough to not need her constantly anymore and Ronald supported her decision. What he didn't see coming was the drive and thirst it gave Taeko to be back in the business world again. She was a force to be reckoned with and quickly after graduating entered an intern pool and worked her way up.
Taeko had gone from the soccer mom to the hardly ever their mom overnight. Her father who had only ever wanted a simple family life hadn't agreed with the sudden change in his wife. Between her mother's ambition and her father's disdain her family became non-existent. It tore their family apart and divorce was inevitable. She stayed with her father for several years before she felt like she had outlived the space. Her stepmother, Susan, was much younger than her father and didn't have trouble having a set of young girl twins only after 5 years of being together.
Kiley couldn't hate Susan. Susan had always been kind to her but only ever kept her at arm's length like she was forced to like her only because she was Ronald's daughter. Why would you exactly want someone else's daughter when you could not only have one but two of your very own. It seemed natural to want to have children with her husband that was exclusively theirs. Kiley and her father grew father apart and it wasn't long before she felt unwanted. Kiley knew even at a young age she had really made the gap more significant.
After years of absence and the only occasional phone call; her mother offered to take her on until she was eighteen but she traveled so much. That had been the only problem. Kiley had become withdrawn and wasn't doing well in school anymore since the divorce. She was becoming a discipline problem as well. Kiley decided to test out of school and follow her mother around the world in her business affairs with Taeko's blessing. Though her mother and father didn't agree on much at all leaving school was something they did agree on. They hoped some time abroad and their daughter would find herself again.
Kiley was still lonely but her attitude improved being with her mother. They would live in a city for a few months while her mother staked a corporate claim and then move on. In just 2 years Kiley had been to London, Milan, San Francisco, Paris, Madrid, and Nepal. Kiley started to make friends again. She had a few friends from all over that she kept in touch with via the wonderful invention called technology. She would see them again her mother toured her destinations regularly. This current one though was new, Domino City, something to do with a company called Industrial Illusions in Japan. Kiley had studied a lot of languages on her tours of the world and spoke them good enough to get around. Luckily she was half Japanese and knew the language well. The only problem was she looked like a foreigner with her light brown hair and grayish blue eyes inherited from her father. She didn't worry too much she was a veteran of travel and being the odd American by now.
Kiley walked down the street exploring as she always did. She had been to Tokyo to visit her extended Japanese family but never to this city. There were two corporations that the city seemed to be based around Industrial Illusions and Kaiba Corp. Her mother was supposedly working on the merger of the companies on a confidential project. According to her mother Kaiba Corp lacked imagination for new projects and Industrial Illusions lacked money to finance new projects. The two were to be partnered on a project and Taeko would handle the negotiations.
The buildings were tall and the streets crowded like most of the cities she had visited. She soon grew tired and stopped in a park to rest. Listening to her ipod she relaxed and thumbed through a novel. Her gaze was torn away from her literature as she saw a teenager similar to her age running away from two others. He was short for a boy probably at her height and slender. What caught her attention the most was his odd hair. It was tri-colored and stuck straight up in a weird spiky style. She had seen all sorts of fashions and hair styles in her travels but she had to say this one was the most unusual she had ever seen. The boy was soon caught by two thugs. If she could guess they were from his school since they were all wearing the same uniform and they were probably the class bullies.
"Give us your money Mutou."
"Stop it! I worked hard to save up this money." He yelled backed against a tree clutching a knapsack on his shoulder for dear life.
Kiley usually didn't interfere in matters that weren't her own but she couldn't let this kid get his face kicked in. She stood up making her way over to them flipping open her cell phone. She watched as she approached and to her surprise the boy was standing defensively despite his clear disadvantage. He was staring stubbornly at the two only to receive a harsh punch to the cheek. Despite his courage he was cut down.
"You're a glutton for punishment Mutou." The bully said cracking his knuckles and going in for the kill.
"Hey! STOP IT!" Kiley yelled.
It caught their attention long enough as she walked over.
"Why should we short stack."
She gritted her teeth. She knew she was little she hated when people pointed that out. "Because you shouldn't ever put your hands on someone else. Also! I'm going to call the police if you don't stop right now!"
Her threat seemed to sink in long enough for her to put herself between the thugs and the boy. Her threat didn't seem to last long though. One of them grabbed her wrist harshly making her gasp in surprise. Her cellphone clattered to the ground useless.
"Back off Gaijin. This is between us and him. The shrimp owes us some money."
"Let go of me!" she snapped and her hand connect sharply with her aggressor's cheek with a sound THWACK!
"OW BITCH!"
Kiley coughed as she was punched in the stomach instantly. "No! Don't hurt her…here!"
Yugi was used to this honestly he didn't know why he tried to avoid it. It was really because of his Grandfather. His grandfather told him to always do the right thing and never let anyone put him down. He explained this would help him grow into a strong young man. He wanted to be stronger but it wasn't to be so he was just too little and he always would be. He was slowly reaching into his bag grimacing at his bruised cheek when he heard the voice of a girl. He looked up seeing a girl his age maybe a little older walking towards him cell phone held out and a look of determination on her face. She had grey eyes and light brown hair cute in a short fashion. He could say she was cute in a tomboyish way. She put herself between him and the bullies from his school. He was should have told her to stop but he was surprised that a stranger, a foreigner no less would stand up for him. Anyone else would probably just ignore what was going on and let it happen.
Her attempt to thwart the bullies was quickly proven to be a failure. They not only grabbed her but ended up hitting her too. Yugi suddenly felt strangely protective. He had to stop them no matter what since she had stuck herself out there to protect him. No one ever did that. He quickly reached into his knapsack and dug out his hard-earned and saved money. He handed it over and hoped they would take it and leave them alone. It worked.
The two boys counted it before shoving him back down. "Same time next week Mutou." He chuckled
"Why did you do that! If you give them what they want they'll never leave you alone." She snapped
"I couldn't let them just keep hurting you!" Yugi argued back annoyed that she wasn't grateful he'd helped her
Kiley took a sharp breath to argue back but yelped instead and held onto her ribs instead. "Oh no…you're hurt."
Two gentle hands grasped her shoulders. "I'm okay….just sore…AH!" She screamed as she tried to move to fast. She wasn't akin to strangers touching her especially teenage boys.
"Hold on let me help you."
"I d-don't know you." She said
"I won't hurt you." He said smiling gently
She looked up with pain filled eyes into the most beautiful violet eyes she had ever seen. They were large and wide and full of worry. "I'm Yugi…..Yugi Mutou. You shouldn't have tried to help me." He lectured
"Don't be stupid! They were trying to hurt and steal from you were you just going to let them?" Kiley snapped back the moment broken at his nagging tone
"Well…I was trying to fight back." He sighed
"Yeah…I could tell." She said sarcastically
"Well at least I stood my ground!" he pouted
She couldn't help but smile at that "Yes…yes you did."
He looked back at her and instantly there seemed to be something. Neither knew what it was and really didn't give it much thought. Kiley didn't know why she never felt this instantly comfortable around anyone but this strange haired boy seemed genuinely nice. Realizing she had been less than polite to him she offered her name and an apology.
"I'm sorry…..I'm just in pain I can be a brat sometimes. My name is Kiley….Kiley Tomoe." She said
Yugi smiled at her "Nice to meet you."
Yugi helped her up and together they limped to his home not too far away. On their slow painful trek there he told Kiley he was a student at the local high school and those bullies, one named Ushio, had stolen from him since grade school. Like her he was on the smaller side and got picked on a lot. He was shy and quiet and didn't have many friends it seemed. Sitting on a broken in but comfortable couch she listened to him. She felt bad for him as she sat on the stool with an icepack on her ribs.
"Don't you think you should go to the hospital? I mean Ushio is really strong and you are a girl." he asked sitting on the coffee table across from her
"I don't think anything is broken just bruised and being a girl has nothing to do with it! I can take a hit." She said with a painful sigh "Besides…look whose talking. You've got a nice shiner on your cheek there."
"I can't believe Ushio punched a girl!" he said scowling
"Well I did slap him first." She said
"No excuses!" He said arms crossed. Kiley giggled he was small but mighty it seemed
"What's so funny." He asked curious at her laughing
"Nothing. You're just cute that's all." She admitted
He blushed a dark crimson "R-really?"
No girl had ever called him cute except for his mom.
"Of course. You're very kind." She said withholding she thought his eyes were gorgeous. Even though he was short and had weird hair he was a cute kid.
"Thank you Tomoe-san." He said
"Call me Kiley." She encouraged
"Where are you from? You don't sound like you're from Domino."
"I'm not I'm from the United States. I travel with my mom we're here for a few months on a business trip." She explained
"You're not in school?" Yugi asked curiously
"I sort of graduated already. In the U.S. you can graduate early. My mom wanted me to go abroad with her so I had to. Besides I didn't have a lot of friends in school I made more friends traveling then I did when I was in school."
"Wow. That's cool! You've been all over the world?" Yugi asked
"Well…not everywhere but a lot of places." Kiley explained
"Sounds like fun. I wish I could do that instead of being in school." He said
"It's all right. Sometimes I wish we could stay in one place." She said
"When I graduate I'm going to do what my grandpa did." He said
"What did he do?" she asked curious
"He used to travel ALL over the world finding out and bringing back rare and exotic games." He said excitedly
"Games?" she asked curious
"Yeah. Puzzles and stuff. It's really cool we sell them in our shop do you want to see?" Yugi asked hopeful
"Um…maybe another time." She said smiling. In all honesty it sounded kind of lame but she didn't have the heart to tell him that.
He looked disappointed but caught on to her words. "Another time? Would you really come back?" he asked hopeful
"Um…yeah…sure." Kiley said
"Cool! Next time you come back I'll show you some of my favorite games and we will play together."
"How about you just meet me in the park where found each other today?" she suggested
"That might be better. There is more room there and Grandpa won't….barge in." Yugi said blushing
"Why would he barge in?" Kiley asked curious
"B-because I don't bring a lot of people home….especially girls." He said twiddling his fingers
Kiley blinked a few times before started giggling loudly. She winced grasping at her ribs but still chuckling "Owww….don't make me laugh Yugi."
"Kiley it's not funny! It's embarrassing!" He said offended she would blow off his utter mortification so chalantly.
"Okay…okay…I'm sorry. It sounds embarrassing. If it makes you feel better just tell him I'm your girlfriend or something." She said with a shrug
"I-I can't do that!" he said turning crimson
"Why not? It might get him off your back." She said not understanding
"No it wouldn't! It would only make it worse! He'd be all nosey and ask all kinds of questions…you have no idea." He groaned at the thought
Kiley chuckled some more and found herself enjoying his company. They talked a little while longer until she looked at her watch. She gave Yugi her cellphone number so he could text her when they could meet up again. He seemed overjoyed. Although he was a weird boy with strange hair and a strange fascination for games Kiley felt drawn to him. She couldn't help but look forwards to seeing him again.