Missed Connection
a ygo fanfic by yllimilly
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AN: This is Miho's side of the story (manga-verse, chapter 7) and possibly the most canon-esque piece I've ever written. Warning: this reads more like a long vignette, the piece ends with more loose ends than it started with! -Milly
tw racism, internalized racism, internalized homophobia
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Missed Connection
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As a military child, Miho was used to moving around.
So even though Domino was, technically, a much more attractive city than Richmond Cove (auroras can only do so much to alleviate the hardships of 30-day long summers and complete lack of entertainment in a city), Miho was unphased when she stepped into her new classroom.
"I'm Miho. My dad's in the military," she said almost nonchalantly without looking any of her new classmates in the eye. She bowed and beelined for the vacant seat in the second to last row in the classroom.
"Are you adopted?" Was someone's idea of how one greets a transfer student.
Hearing that question, the students turned their heads to Miho like sunflowers follow the sun.
"No." She didn't even bother looking at the asker. No she wasn't adopted, and yes she was Japanese, and yes her dad was Japanese and her mom Canadian but her dad was Canadian too, like anyone else, and she was born here and she didn't have to explain anything to anyone.
Class resumed as, what she guessed, usual. She hadn't attended public school in a long time - since grade 5, actually. So this was effectively her first authentic high school experience, with the jocks and prom craze and spending their whole weekends in shopping malls. (There was no such thing as a shopping mall either on the base nor on the adjacent native reserve).
Fifteen minutes had passed and she was bored already. At the boarding school her parents had sent her to, the curriculum went faster and was more advanced. Namely because there were even fewer things to do at the boarding school than at the base and reserve combined. Consequently, she was at least… a month ahead of her new peers.
She opened her best friend (a book), which she hid in the pages of her math textbook, and fled the sluggish atmosphere of the classroom. Then 'ploc'.
A little paper pebble thrown landed in her hair, interrupting her reading. She considered throwing it away, then reluctantly, thought better of it. Someone might want to warn her of something. So carefully, she unfolded the projectile.
chink
Unphased, she folded it in half and placed it in the earlier pages of her book. No use giving whoever the satisfaction of turning around or appearing angry. She resumed reading.
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"Your new bedroom's ready, sweetheart!"
Such was her mother's greeting upon returning home that night. Miho was wary about her mom's amateur home designer ambitions. At least the house smelled of homemade spaghetti sauce, which was a change from the stuffy air of the cafeteria and their greasy fries, greasy hot dogs, greasy pizza.
Her mother had been jabbering about how pretty her daughter's bedroom was going to be when they would be reunited - after a year and a half of living hundred of miles apart. (Richmond Cove was well beyond the arctic circle, where one can not rely on cars to drive wherever one wants; Miho saw her family in the summer and during the Winter Holidays). Miho couldn't curb the woman's enthusiasm for pink... and lavender… and an overall extremely girly aesthetic.
"It's…" Miho sighed. "It's nice, mom."
"What is it, sweetie?" The mother seemed to sense the disappointment from the kitchen. "I'm sorry about the curtains, they didn't have the right size. I had to back order them."
"Thanks, mom," she said as neutrally as possible. On her bed laid a pile of back-to-school gifts, Miho guessed; knee-length, dresses, ankle-length dresses, long sleeve, button-up dresses. And a pair of white laced ballerina shoes. She closed the door behind her and set out for the kitchen, where she would help her mother by setting the table. Her new objective would be, from this day on, to remind her mother that she was sixteen, two years into puberty, and less than a year from being a high school senior.
"I saw Annette today. Your cousin Betty has a bagful of pretty clothes to pass on to you!"
Or not.
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Miho decided to wear one of the dresses at school to please her mother, and because as an outsider, she had nothing to lose, anyway.
"It's so retro! I love it!"
She couldn't tell whether the girl was serious or not.
"Oh my god I love your hair. It's so straight and black. Can I touch it?"
The other girl did without waiting for Miho to consent. Not that she wouldn't have declined; the attention did feel nice…
A group of girls were now surrounding her, exchanging fashion tips.
"Where did you buy this?"
"Um…" Saying 'actually my mother did … sew them' would be social suicide.
"Don't be stupid, Nicole! She's not from Domino. She took 'em with her when she moved in. Right?" The dark skinned girl winked at Miho.
"Um, yea- "
She was interrupted by a collective 'ew!' which was, she assessed, not directed at her, but rather at the pair of boys who passed them in the corridor. The blond half of the pair threw a nasty look at the girls, while the taller, brown haired one walked as if though he wasn't seeing the girls. Or perhaps he didn't want to be seen.
The nice girl - the one who had berated 'Nicole' - caught on to Miho's inquisitive look. "That's Joey Wheeler. He's a loser… I mean not just because he's dirt poor. He's a pretty nasty bully. And that's Tristan Taylor. His dad's a cop and he's a spoiled brat. He's literally hit on every girl in the school. Pathetic. If he tries to say anything to you don't pay attention. He's desperate for a date. If you know what I mean."
Miho had learned her fair share of human anatomy while in board school, but judged it best to go with the innocent girl persona and let it slide. These girls seemed to judgemental, she didn't want to pass as a slut or anything like that.
"Okay. Thanks."
The first bell rang. Students started flowing to their classes. Soon Miho's snazzy retro chic, and the athletic stench of the boys, dissipated in the air, and she was alone again. The new kid.
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She was already used not to see her dad too often. She didn't know if she'd get used to living alone with her mother and her lavish attention. Back in Richmond Cove, Miho's parents lived together at the base, while she was alone in boarding school. Now that her dad was posted at a base down south only a couple hundred miles from a major city (Domino), the family had decided on a different living arrangement; Dad would live alone on the base and let the two civilians enjoy a semi-normal life in the city. A chance, perhaps, for a new life for the career military wife who had faithfully followed her husband to any latitude and longitude.
Consequently every mother and daughter supper was the platform for a new small business idea for the former stay at home mother: a coffee shop, a pedicure salon, a catering bakery service, a home-based pet grooming service. Miho didn't care as long as she wasn't drawn into those plans.
She knew she would get used to sleeping and doing her homework in a life-size Barbie house. But she couldn't get used to the loneliness. She'd missed her parents, at times, and her privacy, too, and sometimes she was just plain fed up with the teenage drama, but at least there was always someone to talk to at the boarding house. Someone to chat with, to play with, to sneak out on the roof and smoke with (although one trial had been enough for Miho). Someone to do her nails and likewise, to gossip with and copy homework from.
Someone who just got it.
And the kids here didn't get it.
The kids in Domino lived with their parents and hadn't moved around too much. They complained they were cold at the slightest breeze and wasted their money on ugly clothing (Miho couldn't believe wearing fluo was a thing - and those ugly giant glasses...)
Oh, it wasn't like she could complain. She was never unwelcome at any table during unch time. The kids welcomed her, they hadn't run out of curiosity yet. But theirs didn't run too deep; whenever she felt she was connecting with someone, meaning whenever she felt comfortable enough telling her how it felt to feel like you belong to nowhere at all, the conversation broke into something like 'so there's no McDonald's in Richmond Cove? that's crazy,' and that was that.
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In chemistry she was sitting with a girl named Anzu. Anzu wasn't like the other girls.
To begin with, she didn't care too much about fashion. Or boys. Or about what anyone thought about her or anything else.
Consequently, and quite irrationally in Miho's private opinion, Anzu wasn't really popular amongst the high school crowd. The boys whistled at her and she was always the first girl to be picked on a team of anything in PE. She played sports with the boys at recess but Miho could tell she didn't completely fit in - she could never be one of the boys, because she was too girly and even if she were a tomboy, well, tomboys never completely fit in anywhere, really.
But Miho sort of liked Anzu, and it seemed like Anzu liked her back in a way. But then again, Anzu acted nice and protective towards anyone, so who knew how she really felt about Miho? She probably saw her as the new kid who could use a friend.
Either way it seemed like Anzu could never devote her attention to one thing for too long. There was always someone to defend, someone to berate somewhere. In chemistry especially, because the two boys - Joey and Tristan - always sat right behind her (them), and over time Miho saw a pattern which she couldn't quite explain. The more the boys misbehaved in class, the more it angered Anzu, and the more violent she got towards them, the more they asked for negative attention. So predictable. Miho did her best to stay out of it as possible; Joey, the blond one, had really bad anger control and was known to break or damage any inanimate objects unfortunate enough to stand in his path. Or eyesight.
Maybe Anzu had a crush on him, Miho theorized. Minus the bad haircut and worn out clothes and the really bad acne, he was (or would be) pretty good looking. As for Tristan, well, he only ever followed suit on whatever Joey started (and some of his antics were stupid bordering on unexplainable), so it didn't matter what he looked like - in Miho's not so humble, but still private opinion, he had nothing going for him. Sometimes he looked like he didn't even want to act mean to the weak ones. It was as if though he fell compelled to.
To Miho he was plain uninteresting, although she wouldn't go as far as labelling him 'pathetic' like the other girls did. She just didn't care enough about him for that.
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"I don't know which one sounds best. Flower's Storybook or The Book of Flowers?"
"Flower's Storybook sounds weird, mom."
"Flower's Book is already taken."
"Won't don't you try Flower's Story?"
"It sounds weird, Miho."
The girl resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her mother's logic - or lack thereof. "Why do you want to open a flower shop now, anyway? Valentine's Day is over."
"There's Mother's Day, then Father's Day, and then there are weddings all summer."
Miho focused on twirling spaghetti around her fork. "Okay."
"You could show more enthusiasm."
"I am showing enthusiasm, Mom." She forced a smile as evidence.
"You're not very nice, Miho. All my life I took care of you and your father. Now that I want to follow my passion you've shown me nothing but contempt."
"Yes, but your 'passion' changes every week, Mom."
"This is what I mean!" The woman raised her voice. "I'm not getting any support from you and your father! He doesn't care, either!"
"Dad said you could do whatever you wanted, didn't he?"
Her mother regarded Miho for an awkward time, seemingly caught in an internal debate.
"One day you'll understand."
Miho let it slide. There was no use trying to prove anyone wrong, no use getting in a fight with her only physically accessible relative.
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In the first days she'd get things thrown at her every period, at least once. She'd only ever read the first 'note', and that had been more than enough. Over time the missives grew less frequent, and the little paper pebbles turned into awkwardly folded post-its and then, when her schoolmates finally accepted that she would not be bothered learning whichever creative slurs the anons could come up with, the pellets stopped raining altogether.
People grew more open as they discovered she wasn't as boring as her homemade clothes (she eventually came out) and she started being invited to wide scope social activities, like 'study' sessions and a few birthday parties. She usually said yes to those, and gained popularity thanks to her mother's generously-portioned (to put it mildly) homemade party snacks. Soon she was accepted at any cafeteria lunch table, provided there was a seat available, and a few people were already asking her more elaborate questions information like when her birthday was, what her favorite colour was, and why didn't she come play table tennis with them after lunch instead of hiding in the school library?
As such, Miho was, by the standards of outsider grownups, moderately well integrated with her new peers.
Even more than other household names. Anzu, Joey and Tristan never were at any of those events, never part of those larger cliques who seeked her amicably.
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Her father, visiting one weekend, was pleased to hear this. Well, his wife's version of things.
"She has some friends here," the woman repeated. "Right Miho?" Then, turning to the father: "She's been invited to a party every weekend since we got here."
"Two parties, mom. Not five."
"Well, I made four batches of rice krispies' squares," she stated with poorly concealed pride in her voice.
"That was for the study session at Nancy's."
"Well that's what I said! A party!" She turned to her husband as if though a middle-aged man serving in the military knew the intricacies of the contemporary definition of the word 'party'. "And what do you kids do, really? I was your age once, don't you think I don't know what you are up to," she said and winked as if to position herself as the obvious ally in this issue. Miho didn't react.
"Actually we did study." She had to admit that her mother was right, in a way; Miho had been the only one to bring her books, and the only one to know the material, and the only one eager to get something done (i.e. tutoring the other girls, pretty much, as the Domino High curriculum was still behind her old school). The rest of the evening was spent eating chips with salsa, playing video games and watching cute vloggers on Youtube.
"Just because I get invited to her birthday party doesn't mean she's my friend. Everyone gets invited to whatever Nicole Nguyen does. She's like the Queen of Facebook events."
"Well isn't that the same thing?" The woman asked rhetorically, her glazed look revealing her hesitation. She turned to speak to the man. "She's even started to volunteer at the school library."
"I'm mostly just shelving books. Even a first grader could do that."
"Why do you keep putting yourself down? You're the best of your class in math. And in literature."
"I think the teachers just like me because I look serious."
"You are serious, sweetheart. So mature for your age. And you haven't even started dating yet," the mother stated airily, in blissful ignorance.
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"Is it true?" Anzu asked one day. It was one of the first warm, sunny days of spring, and the two girls had agreed to eat lunch outside, together, to discuss their chem lab (although they both knew nothing of the sort would happen). Miho said nothing, waiting for her new friend (friend? sure, sort of) to elaborate.
"I mean, in board school and everything." Anzu looked down, her features hardened by a sincere, newfound interest in the hem of her skirt. A bang of dark brown hair fell from behind her ear. "You know." Then she ate the last bite of her sandwich and started unwrapping the cling wrap from around her rice krispie square. (Surely their mothers would get along).
Miho sighed to fill the silence. "You mean if we have lesbian orgies and all that?"
Anzu stayed still.
Miho sighed silently. "No, it's not like that. I mean things happen, but it's not like people say it is."
Anzu remained immobile, holding her snack a little too preciously.
Miho pulled her lips into a tight line, then took a quiet, but deep breath. "Anzu, do you think you-"
"I don't know," Anzu said brusquely. She opened her mouth to speak again, but nothing came but a loud sigh. "I don't know. It's just..."
Miho put down her celery stick. The crunch would somehow ruin the serious bonding moment. Plus Anzu really seemed to feel uneasy about opening up.
"It's just that I've… never fallen in love, like, I never had a crush or anything. I'm not normal."
"I'm sure you'll find someone. You just have to be patient."
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Anzu was distant, spoke little and laughed nervously the next time they met in chemistry. Miho let her be. She'd been lagging behind her books anyway. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame wasn't going to read itself.
Behind her, the boys were quieter than usual. Well, not as rowdy would be a better way to put it. Maybe it was because they'd started hanging out with Yugi - to get help on their homework or some other reason, who knows why the pair would suddenly pair up with shy, little, nerdy Yugi - although they still got into fights. The girls made sure to spread the gossip far and wide.
They also said Tristan had started venturing to the other schools for flirting - how else could one explain why no Domino High girl had reported being hit on by the loser in over a month?
During class Miho was poked in the shoulder blades by Tristan - with a pretty little piece of paper. Miho froze.
Tristan looked away and - blushed? Miho looked around until her eyes locked with Nancy, who pointed at herself. Relieved that it didn't come from Tristan himself, Miho accepted the note. It was neatly folded note with a sticker on it, and her name written in oh so girly, glitter gel cursive.
Hey Miho! Do you want to come to my party on Friday? ps tell your mom to make those Nanaimo bars again their amazing! -Nancy xoxox
Miho forced herself to smile at the girl, then put the folded note between the earlier pages of her book, with no intention of retrieving it ever again.
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That night Miho looked uninterested enough in her mom's potential small business ventures that she was sent to her room without dessert - the same dessert that made her mom passive-aggressively 'slave herself away' for her daughter.
Miho didn't care. She missed Richmond Cove. Yes, that dung hole she'd wished she could escape everyday of her life there. It would be silly if it wasn't so frustrating.
She could now measure the length of her stay in Domino in weeks (months, almost) and was surprised to see how quickly her body had adapted to her new weather down here - she felt cold on a Spring day that she knew to be much warmer than anything she'd experienced in her summers spent on the base with her parents at Richmond Cove.
Her mind was both here and there still, never quite belonging to either. Sometimes she spent evenings sipping pop and boy-watching at the burger joint with her girl schoolmates (and the school's token gay guy), and she would forget all about the long, dark evenings spent doing math homework in her upper bunk bed. Sometimes - more often than not, according to her mother - she spent her free evening time glued to the telephone, making endless long distance calls to her friends still at the boarding school, and she felt alive because she remembered what friendship truly felt like and it was better than anything even though she knew the feeling to be waning across the time spent apart and the distance…
One day her best friend (she was the one who taught her what to do when she had her first period, and also one day they drank a small bottle of rhum they'd sneaked in the dorms and kissed) was describing to her on the phone the colors and shape of the aurora that was dancing in the black northern sky and Miho closed her eyes to see it for herself in her mind's eye and she cried. She made up and excuse and hung up and cried in silence, in her childish Domino bedroom, pegged at a latitude too small to allow for miracles.
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She wasn't in the mood for a new teacher. She wasn't in the mood for stupid new rules and mysterious packages left on her desk by someone who'd grown tired of letting her ignore their previous messages. (Miho assumed this… box couldn't come from a total stranger.) Rather, she was in the mood to rewind her whole morning, up to the moment she woke up in a puddle of her own drool and the slapping realisation her eyes were still puffy from all the crying from… four hours ago, and that yes, she was still in Domino.
She would not open that package. She would not answer that dumb teacher. She would just - focus on being infinitely angry at whoever decided today would be the day she became the center of attention of the classroom.
So she retreated inside herself and did what she was told without resisting, without thinking, telling herself that today would be just one of those days.
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And so Tristan had - completely unexpectedly - a crush on her. Finally the day came where she, too, was on the wrong end of Tristan Taylor's advances. She could feel Nancy and the girls' looks on her. Had they been betting on when it would happen?
After the teacher left the classroom, just as unexpectedly, she quietly handed him the puzzle box. Without looking at him in the eye.
"This is yours," she said, and went back to her seat. No, actually - this was the kind of moment she could legitimately use to excuse herself from the masses and isolate herself in the bathroom.
"Wait," Tristan asked, walking up to her as she walked past the classroom door. "Can I talk to you after class?" He asked it as if though his allegoric constipation had reached implosion levels.
Miho sighed. "Sure."
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"I'm sorry Tristan. I just never thought of you that way."
"Do you want… Maybe… Maybe you could try to think of me that way?" He sounded incredulous as he said this, as if he himself wasn't too sure of what he'd just said, or more accurately, of how completely brazenly idiotic he'd been for saying what he'd just said.
"It's just..." She didn't even know what she didn't feel like saying.
"I could show you around the city. You're new- I know the city real well-"
"I'm not really looking for a boyfriend right now."
"I don't have to be your boyfriend."
She gave him a look. Just that. A look. With her eyes.
"Well," he started haphazardly, "not right now, anyway."
She exhaled loudly. His friend, the blond, was lurking just around the corner - and so was the little geeky kid the pair had started hanging out with. Surely for his lunch money or something of the sort - there was no way the trio willingly spend time together. They had too little in common. The boys were excited enough over the ordeal - if feeling awkward in the presence of a lovestruck bully counted as an ordeal - that they laughed. Childish enough to laugh.
Miho would rather be hearing her mother prattle on about which cute French words she could use to name her bakery-cafe.
"Look, I'm sorry, I'm not interested." She bowed for effect - there was no negotiating. "You look like a nice guy", she lied, but then it somewhat felt true the moment she said it, "but I'm really not interested."
She walked away with more questions than answers in her head.
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