Campanology

Genres: Romance

Summary: The stuck attic door was opened with time, revealing a long-ago love story that never even got the chance to exist. On keepsakes, distance, and letters left unsent. / Post-canon AU, Fameshipping Vivian x Ryuuji

A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 8.5, Tier Five, with the chosen pairing of Fameshipping (Vivian x Ryuuji). This takes place massively post-canon, and involves an OC. Please give that a chance! I hope you enjoy it!

Campanology

Nessa Winters had lived in the house for five weeks before she finally considered herself fully moved in. Sure, she still had a box or two lying around, but they were all things she would stuff into a closet before long and forget about with little effort. The house itself was charming, a little too old or too small for most who would want to buy a home in Monarch Beach, but the property was huge, and she liked the quirkiness. It was the little things like the red door or the mirrors worked into the woodwork above the doorways on the main level.

It still bothered her to live alone, so whenever she cooked she made as much noise as possible, to make the house seem more lively, and she had brought a great stereo system for her living room to play her jazz music. She thought about getting a dog, for the company.

One of the neighbors had been by with a bottle of wine and a few stories about the old woman who had lived here nearly a decade ago when the house had been occupied. It sat empty all that time, its corners collecting dust, until Nessa had seen enough promise in it to buy the place. She'd promised the neighbor a barbeque invitation once the weather warmed up.

Before she went to sleep, she decided to call her contractor first thing in the morning. There was still that matter of the attic door to solve.

Inside her bedroom, she had the blinds fully closed on only one side—she hated being woken up by the sun shining through, but there was a beautiful tree planted just outside her window in the front yard and she loved to look at it.

Still, the sun woke her up, and Nessa found her phone in the pocket of her jacket, hung up in the closet, after a good ten minutes of searching.

"—Dave? Yeah, the door still won't budge. I've tried everything, but it's stuck. Solid as a rock." She listened to his advice on the other side of the line. Hammer and chisel? What, didn't he think she'd tried that already?

"The moisture in the air? Don't give me that."

"No, I'm serious." He had a solid voice, dependable, and she was glad she trusted her kitchen remodel to his company, it looked great. "As it gets warmer and drier out, the door won't stick. You might just have to wait it out. If the door's still actually locked you might just have to break it."

"Thanks for the help." She hung up, went to work, and forgot all about it. She moved some boxes into the closets, and forgot about those too. She had a barbeque, and invited all of the others on her block.

She had forgotten completely about the strange attic door that had never opened until the one weekend morning when she walked past the set of stairs leading up to it, clutching a basketful of laundry, when she noticed the very edge of the door stood ajar.

The door and the surrounding wall of the stairwell were painted white, and the floorboards of the stairs creaked horribly, and were surprisingly worn and dipped, like for whatever reason these stairs had seen more traffic than those in the rest of the house combined.

Nessa had dropped the laundry and climbed the stairs without hesitation, grasping the slightly loose edge of the door, remembering her contractor's words and deciding there might have been a grain of truth in them after all. The noise the door made as it scraped across the floor was horrendous, and she hated to think about what she was doing to either as she pulled it open, but at long last the room was open to her and she took a cautious step in.

She couldn't help the feeling that she was desecrating someone else's space, even though it was still her house. She had never known the attic was this large, but as she surveyed the room there were so many things packed into every corner that she knew the room must truly be huge to hold it all. There was a switch by the door, and as she flicked it a single lightbulb sprang into life above her head.

A wind chime looped with a mystic knot in red silk at the top fluttered merrily in the dull breeze from the now-open door, and Nessa spotted a few pieces of old wood furniture pushed against the walls. An astrolabe sat with a thick layer of dust on top of one of the tables, and she picked it up, setting it down again when a dust cloud rose up to greet her nose.

There were boxes—old, real boxes, not just tacky cardboard—and expensive looking clothes wrapped in plastic. There were stacked paintings of shorelines and skylines and some more modern art, geometric squares and squiggles. She didn't fancy it, but the previous owner must have.

Her footsteps left visible prints in the dust, and as Nessa continued to walk into the room her eyes gravitated towards a large box, covered with stickers. Some were travel stickers, but one was clearly a line of stickers from a photo booth, showing in black-and-white a very pretty girl and a boy with dark, messy hair. His arm was looped around her shoulders, and in the first photo she appeared annoyed, trying to brush it off, but in the final photo she was smiling directly at the camera. Nessa pulled the box forward, lifting it gingerly. It was much lighter than she'd thought it would be.

Carrying it towards the center of the room—virtually the only open space, with enough light from the opaque, tinted window and the overhead lightbulb to see by—Nessa opened the box, setting the lid down beside her.

Inside was a rubber-band-bound stack of letters and postcards, each dated from the 1990's. Each was addressed to a Vivian Wong from a Ryuuji Otogi, and while the letters were written in English, the handwriting was difficult to read. This Vivian had apparently kept them organized chronologically, and Nessa was grateful for that as she began to read.

—Did you make your flight okay? I ask because I haven't heard back, and I know you're not the type to do something as idiotic as die in a plane crash—

"Ryuuji!" When Vivian called him up on that Saturday morning, he hated that he didn't have an excuse for her.

"Why do you want me to drive you to the airport?" he asked, still muzzy from too-little sleep.

"Because I can't afford a taxi and check my luggage," she answered simply. "Or an in-flight meal. Hey, wanna get breakfast on the way?"

"Is that your way of asking me to buy you breakfast?"

"What, my sparkling personality isn't enough of a draw?" Her voice had dropped then, and Ryuuji had put the phone on speaker to get dressed. He'd made up his mind a minute ago to comply, but that didn't mean he wouldn't milk the opportunity.

"Please, Ryuuji," she continued. "I really need a ride. And some coffee. I will probably die without my coffee."

He shrugged an arm through a shirt sleeve, buttoning it up as quickly as he could. "I dunno. You're assuming I don't have anything better to do than chauffeur you around Domino. What if I told you I've got a business meeting in ten minutes?"

"Then I would be forced to call Jonouchi," she said. "And this is assuming he would actually wake up to take the call, by the way. His trunk isn't big enough for my suitcase, so I'd have to keep it on my knees, and it's really heavy and I'd just rather not. Please, Ryuuji?"

He sighed, picking up the phone again and deactivating the speaker. "I'll come pick you up in a few minutes. Just tell me what hotel you're at."

The coffee she ordered had some unpronounceable name, and Ryuuji compared it to the cup of tea in front of him. Simple. Easy to remember, easier to drink. Inexpensive. A glance at the coffee. Complicated. Too hot to drink unless you wanted to do away with your taste buds. Expensive to the point of insanity.

He supposed what a person drank said absolutely nothing about their character. Nothing at all.

"So, do you know of any other duels in the area?" She leaned closer, clutching her cup with both hands. "I mean, I've got a bunch of tournaments lined up in China, but this one was just too much fun! It'll be nice to see everyone again. Especially Yugi. And Kaiba." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "and you, of course."

Ryuuji busied himself by taking a sip of tea and trying not to look bored. "Sure. If I hear anything I'll let you know. But you know Kaiba, he's got a new tournament like every other week. I'm sure something will crop up eventually."

"That's good to hear." She took a sip, wrinkled her nose, and picked at her okonomiyaki.

After an extended pause, she took another sip. "Isn't it your job to supply the conversation?"

"If you'd like me to talk, you'll get an earful of Black Crown business."

"What's that?" she said, her mouth full of okonomiyaki.

"…You don't have any idea what I do, do you?" he asked.

"Nope. Didn't really care at first, but now you've got me interested." She grins at him, finishing the last of her food. "Thanks for the breakfast."

"Don't mention it."

He ends up carrying her luggage to the curb for her, preempting her request, and she, oddly enough, asks if it's okay to write him.

"Call me old-fashioned," she said, "but I like sending letters. So send me a postcard or two now and then, okay?" She tucked a piece of paper with an address on it into his jacket pocket, grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and wheeled it away into the terminal. In a matter of seconds, he'd lost sight of her completely.

—So write me back when you get a chance. And if you don't have any chances, make one happen, because I haven't written an actual letter that's not business-related in a while and this is actually kind-of nice—

—Vivian,

I've decided that your ignorance is inexcusable. I'm sending you some Dungeon Dice Monsters equipment—top of the line, I assure you. This stuff is so new it hasn't even hit the shelves yet. So don't try to pawn it or anything. You'll hurt my feelings. I'm sure that's the last thing you want—

Vivian turns to the box, wrapped in tissue paper and more tape than could possibly be necessary. When her fingernails aren't enough she turns to the scissors, opening the box and looking at the plastic-wrapped Dungeon Dice Monsters game. She glances at the rules card and considers tossing it behind her before realizing that she'd probably need it to become halfway decent at the game. And Ryuuji would probably never accept halfway decent.

She paused, sitting down with the box at her cramped dining-room table. Beating the game's creator would surely be an accomplishment worth mentioning at future tournaments and dinner parties.

She picked up the dice, rolling them in her palm. She'd never tell him, but she actually found the idea of the game wildly creative and fun to play.

Or maybe she would tell him. Raise his ego a bit before she crushed it by beating him. She rolled the dice. A six and a five.

Well, she didn't expect perfection the first time, anyway. Gave her something to aspire towards.

—Learn the rules of the game, because I'll want to see how good you really are the next time we meet—

Nessa leaned backwards, rolling her shoulders back and wishing that attics had been designed to be more comfortable. The floor made her legs ache, and as she stretched them out her foot struck the side of a box and another cloud of dust rained down.

Instead, she rolled to her stomach, settling the box with the letters beside her elbow and lifting the lid closer so she could look at the photos again. That Vivian was lucky—that Ryuuji guy was pretty attractive. She'd date him if he were her age. Heck, if he really was the creator of that DDM game, she'd date him if he were any age.

She turned towards the next letter—more of a postcard, really—and held the paper delicately in both hands. It was remarkably well preserved, and she didn't want to go and get dust on it or let the oil from her fingertips stain it. Either the handwriting was getting easier to read, or this Ryuuji was making more of an effort to be legible. It was still sloped and spiky, the letters close together, but they were more printed instead of a cursive, run-on mess. It wouldn't have mattered; she kept on reading, anyway.

—Dear Vivian,

Happy Birthday!—

Vivian wondered just how he knew that her birthday had been the previous week, but as she skimmed the postcard he answered the very question. Apparently she had given Kaiba her D.O.B. when she'd registered for his tournament, and Ryuuji'd gotten it from him. Good to know he'd gone to such efforts.

She felt more than a little bad for having only sent him one note. True, it had been a postcard, and she'd written it on the back of a photo of her accepting her trophy for a tournament in Shanghai, but she thought he'd be appreciative! She never could have guessed that he'd take this correspondence pursuit so seriously.

In her desk drawer she located a clean piece of paper and a nice pen. She had news to share with him after all—it was only a local tournament, but DDM did have a presence in China, and he'd probably be glad to hear that she'd taken his words to heart.

—Seriously, it defeats the purpose of this whole system if I have to keep on writing to you without you writing back. How will I ever get any answers?—

—I'll pick you up again at the airport, just give me the time and flight number so I can track it—

This time she chucked her suitcase into the trunk, lifting it open as soon as he pressed the button from inside the car. He was half-way out of the vehicle before he even realized what either of them were doing.

"Come on," he said, gesturing towards the passenger side, trying not to look awkward standing there with his arms braced on the roof. "I figure we can catch some lunch. You're here so early! The tournament isn't for another week."

"I know." She was uncharacteristically quiet, and he didn't ask any more questions as he navigated traffic, following the streets automatically to a restaurant he knew she would like. They served Western food, and she brightened when she saw the menu. He remembered her ridiculous coffee order, and wondered if she had other complicated tastes. Asking would probably be considered rude, so he didn't, and let her chatter away about the upcoming tournament. She was one of the lower seeds, but she was in the same bracket as Yugi and hoped for a rematch.

She ordered Coke. Diet. He supposed there wasn't anything overly complicated about that.

They ate their meal in relative silence; he was still waiting for her to come around and actually say what was on her mind, but it appeared that she never would.

After he finished eating he fiddled with a spare napkin before grabbing a pen from his pocket and scribbling a message on it. He folded it once and passed it across the table.

You know you can tell me if something's bothering you, right?

"I know," she said, trying to make the whole process sound light. "And I'll tell you later. I promise."

He wanted to ask what was wrong with right now, but decided to wait, as she wanted.

He waited the entire week until the start of the tournament, where he finally saw her again at the opening ceremonies.

At the tournament complex she grabbed his arm and, completely on impulse, dragged him towards a photo booth machine. "I want one," she explained, and stuck some money into the machine. She wouldn't let him see the results, declared his face a disgrace, and pulled him back for another round, which he got to keep.

The idea crossed his mind that he could have kissed her in the booth, just let their session be nothing but shots of the back of his head. She would probably hate him for that.

Instead, he tucked the photos into the inside pocket of his jacket, close to his chest, unwilling to wrinkle them in the slightest.

He asked her for a DDM match sometime that week, and she resolutely refused to schedule anything that could conflict with a match time up to the finals. He had to admire that kind of perseverance, and when she was eliminated during the second round she spent the following afternoon with him instead of watching the duelist who had beaten her lose to Mai Kujaku. She lost spectacularly to Ryuuji in Dungeon Dice Monsters, but that didn't mean she didn't put up a hell of a fight. She challenged him immediately to a rematch, and this time the game was closer.

"I'm a quick study," she said. He believed her.

She asked him to take her to lunch and drive her to the airport again at the tournament's conclusion, telling him with a grin that asking anyone else to do it just wouldn't feel the same.

They sat across from each other in a booth at the same restaurant they'd eaten at a week prior. Vivian leaned across the table, resting on her elbows, tilting her head down as if every word spoken was a secret.

"Bombshell! I'm considering moving." At the strange look on his face, she elaborated. "I'm considering moving to either Japan or America. I've got modeling work already lined up, I just needed to look at houses, and I did that the week before the tournament. What do you think?"

He couldn't respond, he was still processing the information, so he lifted his glass of soda to his lips and drank, trying to think. "That's…nice," he finally said. "Why do you want to move?"

"I can have a better life if I move," she told him. "More freedom. There are better opportunities for work as a model. The tournaments are better. I think rent might even be cheaper, but I'm still looking into that."

At least China and Japan were on the same continent. America seemed a million miles away to him now. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Of course it's a good idea," she said primly, leaning back in her booth. "I'm not asking you for your opinion on that. I'm asking you for your opinion on where I should move."

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked. Vivian only stared at him blankly.

"If it was, I'd know already. I still need to go to California, look at a few of the towns around Los Angeles. It doesn't really matter to me which one. I just wanted the opinion of a friend."

Ryuuji looked closer at her—really looked, and what he saw wasn't the woman who had casually interrupted his Saturday morning a year ago to impose on his car and his wallet. She'd called him her friend, and he wasn't sure if he liked that. He wasn't sure what he would have liked, but he knew he didn't want her to move any farther from Domino than she already was. She was distant enough without the distance.

It was a shame he couldn't come up with a single reason why.

"Give me a reason," she tells him. "Give me a reason to move here, and I will. But without that, what's the point?"

"What will you do?" He only asked when he finally found his voice.

"Look at more houses. Look at my finances. It's a trade-off. Domino has skyscrapers, but California has the beach." She laughed, twirling the straw in her drink. "I've always liked the beach."

He knew a mayday alert when he saw one, and tapped out the Morse for SOS with his fingers on the table. She gave him another strange look, but this time she didn't ask or protest when he took her luggage from the trunk and wheeled it to the terminal's curb for her. She got her answer, as always, in a letter.

—I didn't have any reasons for you that weren't selfish, or stupid, or didn't make sense. I still don't. I think sometimes you're a bit selfish and stupid and don't make a whole lot of sense, but I don't mind that. I kind-of like it. And I know I'm not blameless of the same crimes. I just didn't want you to move to America. I'm worried I'll never see you again—

She flipped the letter over. That was the last one. No! It couldn't be the last one. Nessa shifted the bundle of letters together, carefully re-wrapping them in the rubber band before digging through the letter-box. She produced a few unbound postcards, the words written on them so impersonal and brief that she could hardly call them correspondence.

The first was a "Wish You Were Here!" holiday card, with a beach and palm trees on the front. She flipped it over.

—So you got your beach, huh? I'll have to make do with this one. I'm sorry you weren't in town the last time I was there. I should have told you earlier. Maybe I'll visit in the summer? If you'll have me, that is—

She turned to the next, feeling like she knows the people mentioned in these letters so well, even for never having met them and for most, not even knowing what they look like. She put her own faces to the names, imagining whole stories for the names mentioned once and then never again.

—Jonouchi and Mai were disappointed you couldn't make it to their wedding. They weren't the only ones—

The third card is the last.

—If you don't start responding to my letters, I swear I'll never write you again—

It ended there. Dumbfounded, Nessa turned the card over in her hands, as if willing text to magically appear on the surface. There had to be more than this. She glanced wildly around the room, taking in every dust-covered surface, every memento of a life long gone. Nessa cannot believe that the woman described in these letters would have ever let that man go without a fight, just like that.

There was something stuffed into the bottom of the box. She dug it out with limp fingers, uncurling a square drink napkin. The ink is faded and blurry, but the writing is still there, plain as day.

You know you can tell me if something's bothering you, right?

Underneath the crumpled napkin had been a series of additional folded letters and envelopes. She took them out now, grateful to have found more, turning them around in her hands when she noticed that while each envelope was addressed to the same man, none of them had a postmark. Confused, she opened the sealed letters, tripping at first over the different script.

Where Ryuuji's had been short and sloped, this was far more elegant and tall. It was exactly the kind of handwriting she would have imagined Vivian writing with, and as Nessa finished unfolding the first letter she thought she was finally beginning to understand.

—Dear Ryuuji,

You are an idiot. This knowledge is probably nothing new to you, but I thought you might enjoy hearing it from a different source. Not only are you an ungracious winner at DDM, that terrible food gave me food poisoning. I mean, I enjoyed it at the time, sure, but the second my plane cleared customs it felt like my stomach was trying to exit my body through my throat. It's not pleasant. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even you.

Seriously, why can't men just ever say what they feel? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for me to leave before you finally make up your mind?

Just admit it! You made up your mind about six months ago, you just don't like knowing you were wrong. I think this is one time where I don't like knowing I'm right—

Vivian stood in the kitchen, looking out through the windows towards the ocean. She could see it from here, curling like a blue ribbon against the horizon, and she didn't think twice about the decision.

"I'll take it," she said, dashing her signature across the papers. She doesn't feel anything. She doesn't expect to.

—Ryuuji,

I can't mail this. If I can't say it to your face how can you expect me to write it in a letter? Especially not one that will actually reach you. I think I'll just write this down and then forget about it, except it's much harder than that. I can't forget you so easily. I know what we're both doing. I wonder if it's easier on you than it is for me. Probably. You have your company to escape to. I chose an entirely different country.

Were you worried, at all? Did you lose sleep because of this? I did. The insane thing is, even now I have no idea if my thoughts are completely unfounded. I have no idea if you read into a series of letters written by a woman who loves you.

That's right. I love you.

I love you, but I can't tell you. I don't know how. I'm just so sorry it has to end this way. I'm sorry it has to end at all—

And as Vivian sealed up each letter and put them inside a box, along with every other scrap of paper he'd ever sent her, she cannot help but wonder if she'll ever get over it, or if she'll have to go on living feeling like there's a hole inside her chest that the ocean is trying to fill.

Slowly, she raised an arm to her face, brushing the back of her hand across her cheek. She felt tears there.

Nessa was crying. She didn't know why she was crying. Did it make any sense, to grieve for a dead woman and the love story of hers that never even existed at all?

The box was empty now, and Nessa began to pack it up slowly, putting all of the letters back in their envelopes and returning each one to its proper order. She put the box itself back into place atop a table, sliding it into the divot left from the absence of dust.

She walked down two flights of stairs, her legs feeling heavier than they've ever felt before, and headed into the dining room. She went to her desk and pulled out a clean piece of paper from the top drawer. She found a new, nice pen from a cup made of wire, perched on the desk's edge. She sat down and cleared her thoughts.

She began to write a letter.

End.

Notes:

1) Campanology is the study of bells, from how they are cast, tuned, and played. I'm using it as a metaphor, but it's also nice to think about wedding bells or bells tolling for death in the context of the story.

2) The OC is named as Nessa, but if you think of that as short for Vanessa you can draw some interesting parallels with her initials…

3) Nessa's (formerly Vivian's) California house is described as being compliant to feng-shui (the red-painted door facing south, etc). Monarch Beach is a real place and is quite amazing. We do not canonically know Vivian's birthday, but while I never listed an exact date she has to have one, right?

4) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews!

~Jess