Greetings. 'Tis yet another one shot from me, and yet again for Compy's pairing challenge. This time around it's puppyshipping. So there are aspects of that in here. And a bit of polar on the side. So without further ado I give you 'If you could only read my mind.'
Oh, and good luck to my fellow contestants!
xxxx
It had been too long. Yet. Not long enough. Especially within the disaster she had seen him last. Of course, it's not from lack of trying it had been so long. On the contrary in fact. Naturally though when she had tried, he wasn't there. He was in Egypt, of all places. 'Maybe,' she thought, 'maybe it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe what they had said was true. Maybe she was chasing a fools dream.' He couldn't possibly like her. She sighed again, ignoring the mounted evidence of how much he really did care about her. 'And how could anyone? Not after what I did.' The nagging voice in her head was terrible full of itself. So all-knowing. She sighed once more. It was all far too complex. For what was supposedly such a 'simple' matter.
The city centre was crowded, but she still felt alone. She still wondered what compelled her to stay. Did she really care about him? Love him even? Regardless of the reason, they needed to talk. She knew it was corny, (but then again what wasn't when it came to this group?) but in her heart of hearts she knew she loved him. It was only her head that needed convincing. And all it was take was his answer.
xxxx
It was misfortune that he was walking down that street that day. That he had to bump into her at that moment. But fortune or not, it happened. As long as he lived he never knew what possessed him to tell her what he did. It was probably grief for a recently departed friend. But most likely it was jealousy. Not that he would ever admit it if he knew.
The streets were crowded, but he was far to occupied to notice. He was so close to his destination that he didn't even see her until they had collided. The resulting yell brought him in touch with reality pretty quickly.
"Oi! Watch where you're going!" the screech was familiar. He looked up. Staring at him right in the face was a purple coat and skirt combination, with a white corset top. He hadn't seen her in months.
"Mai?" He asked in disbelief. Mai stopped her rant and looked at the guy she had almost knocked over.
"Tristan?" she asked unnecessarily half in disbelief. 'Well, it's not Wheeler, but it's close enough.' She thought dryly.
"Mai! It's been so long, where have you been?" he asked, still in a sort of shock.
"Oh here and there. How have you guys been? How was Egypt?" she played her part in formalities. Tristan looked a little surprised. How had she known about Egypt?
"Eventful, I'll give it that. How did you know about it?" he asked.
"I was looking for Joe… You guys," she said, catching herself in time. There was no use revealing the real reason for her visit right away. Not until she had the chance to speak to him. However, unfortunately, Tristan didn't miss the slip up. He frowned internally. Mai would just hurt him, he thought clumsily as he tried to reason why what he was about to do was a good idea. It was half formed, even in his mind, but that didn't stop him none-the-less.
"So I bet you're wondering how everyone is right," Tristan started. Mai mutely nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak yet.
"Tea is trying to get a scholarship of some sort to some dance school somewhere, Yugi and I are just trying to finish school, so's Joey," he rambled on, jumping straight into the new topic. The half formed notion left his brain and jumped straight into his mouth without a passing thought.
"He and Kaiba have struck up an agreement of some kind too. They are, kinda, going out," he said, wincing slightly as he finished, groping at the end for something to say. It took Mai a few seconds to digest what he had said.
"I. Ah. Would you mind saying that again?" Mai asked, a bit dazed as she thought of all the times they had confessed their undying hatred to each other with a passion so intense it was almost holy. Tristan was looking around sheepishly, wondering what exactly had just left his mouth.
"They are, ah, together?" he repeated, unsure of what he was saying and why. 'If Joey could hear this I would be so dead right now!' he thought.
"Ah huh, and in what sense was that?" Mai asked, in disbelief. Tristan's eyes looked from side to side, wondering how exactly he was going to get out of this, and what he could say next.
"In what sense do you think I mean?" Tristan asked slowly, now wondering why he was only burying himself deeper. Mai just looked at him. He gulped and floundered with his next sentence.
"It sort of happened like this," Tristan began, remembering seeing something like this happen in a movie his English teacher had forced them all to watch. "We were in Egypt, and Kaiba showed up, wanting to be the one to duel the Pharaoh. But then…" Mai looked confused. Tristan gave a nervous laugh. "It's a long story. Anyway, after that all happened we realized we still had a few days left in Egypt. So we started to head back to our, accommodation, and a huge sandstorm kicked up. We sought shelter underground and we all got separated. Kaiba and Joey were together and alone. We're not quite sure what happened but when the storm had died down, we couldn't find them so we all started looking. And when we did find them they weren't trying to kill one another. They were quite friendly. I guess one thing had led to another and…" he left it hanging. Ok, so he had fallen asleep during the movie, but Tea had said something to that extent about what happened. And the sandstorm thing was half true, they had been on the boat back and Marik had said that if that had happened while they had been on land they would have had to hide underground.
The way he delivered the little story was too was disjointed. Mai looked like she was trying to piece together what he had said, and it had even sounded false to his own ears.
"That, is so ... Unbelievable!! Where did you get that from?" Mai yelled, snapped out of her daze. Tristan looked sheepish. Mai was fully going to throttle him, but someone else beat her to it. A very familiar someone who had every right to be pissed at Tristan's story. Joey already had Tristan twisted up like a pretzel before Mai realized exactly what this meant.
Her search was over, and the hard part was here. In between shouts of, 'I'm gonna get you!' 'I didn't mean it I swear.' And, 'you better have a good reason. Why him of all people?' 'Agghhh, words cannot describe how untrue that is, and how much you are so dead for it.' 'Um, April Fool?' 'It 'aint April!' Mai walked slowly towards the fighting duo. She was right on top of them before Joey looked up.
"Hi. It's been awhile." She said softly.
"Mai!" Disbelief mixed with wonder uttered that one word.
"There's something I want to tell you…"