CHAPTER 1
Chazz sat with his back to the window, looking around his dilapidated dorm room. He could hear the wind blowing through trees outside and the irritating chirps of birds. Students laughed, playing pick up duels outside and enjoying each other's company.
He was never completely certain why he had to buy friends, or why he wanted to in the first place. The Chazz didn't need real friends. What he had instead were Tori and the other one, who he never approached as actual people. They treated him as a wallet, so he treated them like a service. He never bothered to remember which he told what or which he did something with. Not that it mattered, they didn't correct him and he wouldn't have apologized if they had.
After one too many humiliations on his part, they started openly admitting to only hanging out with him because of his money — either oblivious to how the sentiment reflected on their respective characters or too preoccupied with making him look worse to care.
A lot of things changed in two years. Instead of being on top of the world in Obelisk Blue, he was at the bottom in Slifer. The queen beds and personal bathrooms gave way to cots and cockroaches. The ceiling leaked during heavy storms, warping the unfinished wood floors. This was his third year now, in this falling apart place. His expectations of working hard and getting the hell out faded long ago.
He knew every crack in the walls by heart, every thumbtack hole left by previous occupants. The lightbulb in his overhead light fixture had gone out at some point but he never bothered to change it. Instead he used a lopsided floor lamp with a cracked shade; it, at least, had been a part of his Obelisk decor before he had left for North Academy, and before Doctor Crowler had unceremoniously crammed his disgraced and disappeared pupil's possessions into a storage locker. Most of his other belongings were still in boxes piled around the room. Dirty clothes mixed with clean on the floor. Papers and battered cards littered his desktop.
The room was unbecoming for a Princeton, but it was perfect for him. He was Chazz the underachiever, Chazz the weak. Chazz the scrub. If his brothers could see him at this moment, in this filthy room wearing an unwashed black jacket that was unravelling at the seams, they'd wonder why they ever bothered to include him in their plans of world domination. This was always where he was going to end up; the world never liked him much, and for good reason.
No parents, raised instead by emotionally abusive brothers with infectious delusions of grandeur—of course he became a shithead. Entitled, supercilious, underhanded, he seemed to take to the role of Youngest Princeton well, at first. But once he got to Duel Academy, the manageable shit breeze became a perilous shit storm. Everything that could go wrong did, twice as bad as he thought possible. His bad luck would be impressive were it not so brutal.
He didn't notice anyone approaching his room until the doorknob twisted and a thump sounded from the other side of the wood when the lock caught.
"WHAT?" Chazz shouted angrily, his voice more hoarse than usual from disuse.
"It's me!"
"Fuck off." He put as much venom behind the words he could, but his strength faltered and his voice cracked slightly.
"Can I come in?"
"No. That's why the door is locked, idiot."
Shuffling feet. "Come on, I need to give something to you."
"I don't want it. Go away!"
"Come onnnnnnnn."
This was getting him nowhere. Sighing with resignation he stood, grabbing a random book from his bag and tossing it on the bed. Movie magic. It's almost like I wasn't being a pathetic waste of life.
He threw the door open in a huff to reveal the Jaden Yuki, the sole person he blamed for most of his problems. Wordlessly, he took a step back to invite the other boy inside.
"It's about time!" Jaden whined, stepping over a pile of garbage Chazz didn't recognize. "You know, it's a beautiful day out, you should really be doing your—" He snatched the book off the bed "—Duel Technique homework on the lawn. Didn't you take this class last semester?"
"You're here for a reason?"
"Yeah!" The Slifer's face lit up once again as he let the book fall out of his hands onto the duvet. "I pulled this card from a new booster pack today. It was made for you, dude!"
With much fanfare, he pulled a folded piece of yellow construction paper from his back pocket and held it up in the air. The two of them stood in silence for a moment before Jaden let out an embarrassed laugh. "Oops, wrong pocket!" Repeating the gesture, but from the other side and way more awkwardly since he was using his right hand to root in his left pocket, he presented what Chazz could distinguish was a trap card.
"The hell is this?" He demanded, snatching it from Jaden's hand.
"Read it, duh!" Jaden was visibly very excited about whatever dumb card he found, and Chazz anticipated tearing it in half right there if he couldn't make use of it, for no other reason than to see that annoying grin slide off his rival's face.
"Ojama Pajama," he read aloud. The artwork showed the Ojama trio eating junk food in a frilly pink bedroom. This card incorporated his schizophrenic deck strategy, using Ojamas to protect light machine monsters and Armed Dragons from destruction. He stared at the card, growing angrier with every passing moment. "This is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen."
"What? Chazz, it—"
"What use is this to anybody? No one else is going to manage to pull off these strategies together as flawlessly as I can even with this piece of shit and I" he waved the card in the air for emphasis, "am able to do it without some contrived piece of shit trap. This is a waste of ink and the space it took up in the pack. Now leave."
The other boy looked completely crestfallen. "I don't understand…" He blinked, taking a moment to think under Chazz's hateful glare. "Oh, I get it. There's a lot of text on that card."
Chazz balked. Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, he managed to force out a reluctant, "What?"
"Why don't you slip it into your deck so you can see how it works. Get your game on!"
"I know how to read."
Jaden laughed, "Of course you do! But sometimes you need to see a card in action."
"I don't want this stupid thing. Why the fuck would I want to duel you?"
"Um… to learn your new card?"
"Get."
"It'll be fun?"
"OUT!"
Before Jaden could say anything else that could give him an aneurysm, Chazz grabbed him by the upper arms and forced him outside onto the rotting boards of the balcony. He kicked the door shut behind him.
Chazz considered hurling that useless Duel Techniques book through the window, scaring away the birds that never shut the hell up. Instead, he reexamined the card still clutched tightly in his hand, slightly crushed and bent. He smoothed it out on the side of his black pants. It was a surprisingly decent card.
"Hey boss, you gonna put that in your deck?"
"No."
Ojama Yellow was taken aback. "Why not? It's perfect for you!"
"That's all fine and fucking great," Chazz hissed, his temper getting the better of him. "But I'm not going to give that asshat the satisfaction of seeing me play it."
"I don't get it, boss…"
Chazz scowled in the little thing's direction, and it seemed to get the message to drop it. He was only glad the real Ojama brothers never dressed in anything as dumb as what they were wearing on the card, otherwise he'd figure out a way to make them sleep outside. If they slept. Where did they sleep?
With Yellow's bulbous eyes trained on him, he reached under the bed and pulled out the box he kept his Reject Well collection inside, stashing the card atop the pile of useless monsters before returning the box to its place.
"I'm going to bed," he mumbled, more to himself than the duel monster.
"But it's only eight—"
"Don't disturb me."
Climbing into bed fully clothed, Chazz knew he wasn't going to sleep for a very long time. His thoughts kept wandering back to the slacker. Why couldn't he get it through his thick head that Chazz didn't deserve the kindness he insisted on showing him?
Chazz snorted. Deserve. What does 'deserve' have to do with anything? He didn't believe in 'deserve.' Good things happened to bad people, good things happened to good people, and bad things happened to him.
That's just how it was.
Hours after the sounds of laughter finally died outside his window, he fell asleep.