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: Welcome Home
Characters: Juudai, Rei
Word Count: 2,239||Status: Complete
Genre: Friendship||Rated: G
Feedback: All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Summary: Rei can't wait to see Juudai again now that he's returned from Dark World. But the reunion isn't quite what she was expecting.
He's back! He's back! Rei ignored the snapping of twigs in her face and the pull of sharp-fingered branches in her hair as she rushed through the forest, running as swiftly as her legs could move her toward Osiris Red. It likely enough would've been faster to take the path, but Rei was never one to take the easy route when the direct one was before her.
She stumbled out from the treeline and paused long enough to yank an especially clinging branch out of her hair and toss it to one side. She took a breath and her bearings in the same moment and charged onward, her target now in sight.
"Juudai-sama!" She cried out the words before she thought of anything else. If someone had asked her, she wouldn't have known whatshe should've thought in the first place. Seeing him again took up all of her processing now.
Rei pounded up the stairs to the second floor of the Red building and headed for the third door. She'd made this trip dozens of times while Juudai and the others were gone, so much that sometimes she dreamed about it and couldn't always be certain which trips happened and which didn't.
Eyes bright and shining at the thought of seeing him again, she threw the door open and stepped inside. She'd barely crossed the threshold when she stopped in her tracks, arms waving to catch her balance.
"Juudai-sama?" Rei murmured, not entirely certain at first if her eyes told her the truth. He looked like Juudai in every particular, even though there were small changes, ones that most people wouldn't have noticed. Rei, however, seldom missed anything about Juudai.
He turned to look at her as she hesitated, a faint, half-hearted smile on his lips, as if he weren't used to using them like that anymore. "Rei." He held a box in his hands, one that she recognized. How could she not, since she'd been the one who'd put it there almost a month earlier?
She didn't move from where she was, gaze flickering up and down him, trying to put all of what she saw into some sort of sense in her head. "That's yours." She found words where she always found them, in not caring how much sense they made, so long as her heart was in them. "I bought it for you for Christmas."
Juudai blinked a couple of times, looking first at the box and then at her, as if he'd just now noticed the bright holiday wrapping on it. He glanced around the room again, then back at her. If he meant to say something, she didn't let him get a chance. Not when there was so much that she wanted to say.
"I saved up almost since I got back home from my first trip here. I wasn't sure what I wanted to get you or when I could get it, but I knew I wanted to get you something. I hope you like it." Would this have been any easier if she'd been able to do this at Christmas? Probably not.
Juudai nodded as he started to unwrap the package, tugging at the tape and ribbons with great care. Tension creased his forehead with each movement and she shifted a bit closer into the room. I wonder what's wrong with him. He's acting like he thinks something's going to jump out at him.
When he pulled out the fur-lined red jacket, she couldn't help the thrill of pleasure at the surprise in his eyes. "I know you won't need it here, but you're going to graduate in a few months and I figure you could end up somewhere where you do need it."
"I...thanks, Rei." He ran one hand over it. I think he's paler than he was. Didn't Shou-sempai say something about that place not having a real sun, just a comet? Hundreds, if not thousands, of questions surged up to her lips and she had no idea of how she held them back. Maybe it was something in the darkness of his eyes. Maybe it was a hint of being ladylike.
She couldn't help but smile at his thanks, though. "I hope it fits. I checked on your other jackets to see if I had the size right." She waved a hand toward the small closet that held the rest of his uniforms. Juudai followed her gesture, then looked around once again.
"I thought there'd be more dust." He shook his head as he stepped over to the closet to hang the new jacket up. "I guess Tome-san kept it clean."
Rei could feel her cheeks heating up at that. "No, she didn't. I mean, she wanted to, but I asked if I could do it instead."
Juudai glanced back at her, confusion writ large on his face. "Why would you do that?" He paused for a moment, eyes going vague and distant. Rei hurried over to him without thinking.
"Juudai-sama? Are you all right?" She had no idea of what he'd gone through in those strange other worlds, but it had to have been horrible if this were the results! She reached out to touch his hand, only to have him pull away a heartbeat before she could. "Juudai-sama?"
He blinked, focus and sense returning to his expression. "Huh? Oh...I'm all right, Rei. I just was tal..." He broke off and shook his head, turning to finish hanging the jacket up. "It's not important." From the way he bit the words back, she wasn't going to get anything else out of him about whatever it was.
Rei fidgeted, trying to think of something she could say or do that would relax him. Maybe she could make him lunch? He probably hadn't had a decent meal since he'd left! He did look thinner, now that she paid the extra attention to notice it. I should've brought one over with me! She scolded herself fiercely for not having done so. It didn't matter what else she'd been doing; Juudai-sama needed good food and she hadn't provided!
"We all missed you." She blurted the words out. "You should've told me you were going! I would've gone with you!"
She couldn't believe how fast he turned to face her, eyes blazing with a heat she'd never known. "No, Rei. I wouldn't have wanted you there!"
Her eyes widened and she found herself stepping back. The idea that Juudai-sama wouldn't have wanted her around hadn't ever entered her mind. "You...why not?" Everyone else was good enough to go with him! Why not her? She was every bit the duelist that any of them were! She could do anything they could!
Juudai's eyes burned with a hot passion she'd never seen in him before as he stared at her. She almost thought they changed from their usual warm brown to something stranger, sharper, colder...she hadn't seen them change color, had she? From brown to...no, that couldn't have happened. Those were Yubel's eyes, not Juudai's eyes. Then the moment dissipated. "You wouldn't have wanted that either, Rei. Those worlds are harder than you can imagine." His hand dropped down to his deck holder, rubbing against it. "Worse than the one we were in before. A lot worse."
Worse than that world? Rei almost said that out loud and opened her mouth to do just that when Juudai shot her another look, one that cut her words off at once. "Would you tell me?" She asked instead. "What did happen? Shou-sempai didn't really say anything, just that you were going off on a journey to become an adult." She didn't like how those words tasted in her mouth. How could Juudai-sama be more of an adult than he already was?
Almost before she'd finished the question, he shook his head. "Not today." From the way he said it, she wondered if he'd ever actually tell her what happened.
"All right." She couldn't push him. No matter how strange he acted at the moment, no matter what else had happened, she couldn't demand to know something that he didn't want to talk about. She didn't want to leave, though. Not yet. He'd been away for months and she woken up more than once with horrible nightmares of that thing Yubel sinking its talons into Juudai's stomach and laughing about it. Seeing him here in front of her, unhurt, was more like a dream come true, one she didn't want to take a chance on waking up from.
He settled down on his bed while she fidgeted and stared up at the underside of the mattress above him. "How is Martin?" She wondered if he'd asked only to have something to say to break the awful silence.
"He's fine! He and his father are going to go on a trip soon, to get to know each other better again. I've been helping him get ready; he's going to take classes online while they're gone." Rei fiddled with the ends of her hair, trying to think of something else she could tell him. "No one's seen Ryou-sama either. Not since everyone else came back." She peeked at him, hoping for an affirmative answer to her next question. "You don't know where he is, do you?"
Juudai slowly shook his head. Not right away, though. Again, his eyes went distant as if ...well, as if he were talking to someone else, someone she couldn't see. Was it Hane Kuriboh? She wished she could see the cute fluffball in this world.
"Oh." The idea of her first crush not ever coming back sent her heart reeling as much as the thought of Juudai not coming back had this last week. He'd changed so much from when she'd first met him as well, but he was still the same Ryou-sama at heart. "I'm sure he'll come back sooner or later." He was probably off finding duels in one of those other worlds. If they were as hard as Juudai-sama said they were, then they would be exactly the kind of place he'd be happiest in.
She thought Juudai smiled a little. She couldn't quite well given how he was tucked into the shadows under there. He looks tired. She didn't want to wear him out on his first day back. "Juudai-sama, if you do want to talk to anyone, or tell someone what happened, I'm always ready to listen." She would take any amount of time out of her day that she needed to for him.
Juudai tilted his head toward her and she was more certain of the smile now. It was more of a tired lifting of his lips, but it was close enough for her. "Thanks, Rei." He lifted the back of his hand to his mouth, stifling a yawn, and she stepped back toward the door.
"I should be going. You need your rest." She'd bring him lunch tomorrow. She knew just the recipe to use; the same one she'd made him back before all the insanity began, when he'd been in the infirmary after his duel against O'Brien. If it restored him once, it would happen again, wouldn't it? "I'll see you later."
"Right. Thanks for the jacket, Rei." He hesitated, lips almost forming something else. Then he shook his head. "Thanks." She wondered what he'd almost said almost as much as she wondered what he was really thinking.
"Rest well." She turned and headed out the door, closing it softly behind her. She stayed there for a moment, not at all certain of why, but listening. Was he talking to someone? She thought she heard his voice, but it was too low and muffled for hear to hear clearly if it was. He had to be talking to Hane Kuriboh.
What happened to him? Whatever it was, she wanted to know, hoping that telling someone would help him. He was still Juudai-sama, still the one she'd dueled against almost two years earlier, and who'd taught her so much by that duel. But there was something else there as well, something she couldn't identify, something stronger, deeper, and wiser, a wisdom wrung from the heart.
Well, if he wouldn't talk to her about it, then she knew people she could talk to about it instead. The people who had been there with him, who'd made that trek through those terrible other worlds. Shou-sempai'd told her a little, but now she was determined to find out everything. And if that didn't work, then she knew what would: a duel. Even if she didn't beat Juudai-sama, then maybe dueling would help him come to terms with whatever'd happened.
Even if he doesn't tell me about it. She bit her lip at that thought, but she knew it was true nevertheless. He didn't have to talk to her to settle his issues.
That didn't mean she wouldn't try, though. She hurried down the stairs and to the main building. The first thing she needed to do was get him something to eat. That stamina lunch wouldn't wait until tomorrow! She might have to call it a stamina supper but getting proper food into him would be the best first step she could manage.
No matter what, though, her heart thrilled just because she could bring it to him in the first place. After two months of worrying, fretting, nightmares, and anger, it was all over with. Juudai-sama was home.
The End