The boy peered out of the shadows in the ally. His black bangs, which had never been combed with anything other than his fingers, fell over his blue eyes. His back to the wall, he scanned the street. There, a woman, carrying a bag that bulged slightly with fruit. As quietly as he could, he slipped out from his hiding spot. Trailing slightly behind her, he reached out one grubby hand to grab a piece of fruit from the bag.
His hand was stopped with the woman's other hand, the one not holding the bang, suddenly grabbed his wrist. He briefly looked up at the woman's face before looking down at his feet. He gritted his teeth. He knew what came next. If the was caught (which didn't happen very often, he was a fast runner) he would be yelled at, maybe beaten. The best thing to do would be to just take it until-
"What is your name, dear?"
Huh? No one had ever asked for his name before. That posed and interesting problem…
The boy looked back at the woman's face, really seeing her for the first time. Her skin was dark, the darkest he'd ever seen, and her black hair fell to just above her shoulders.
"I don't have one," said 'the boy'.
The woman's brow furrowed. "People must call you something."
The boy considered. "Well, sometimes people call me boy or kid, or when they've been drinking the silly drink they call me a-"
"Do you have a place to stay?" the woman cut him off.
The boy shook his head.
"My name is Martha," said the woman, "and I might have a place for you if you want."
The boy's eyes opened wide, "Really?" he asked.
Martha nodded and let go of his wrist.
The boy stared at the house that Martha had taken him to, slack jawed. It was a fairly plain building with two stories, but to the boy, it was a mountain.
The two walked into Martha's house, passed a room with a table and about nine or ten chairs and up a staircase. The arrived in a hallway and passed several doors before Martha stopped in front of one that, to the boy at least, looked exactly the same as the others. Martha opened the door to reveal two boys sitting cross-legged on the floor.
The two boys were about his own age (which was five, give or take) but didn't even look up as the door opened. The two had several cards in between them and held a few in their hands.
"I tune my Dark Resonator with my Vice Dragon," said the boy on the right who had blonde hair and wore a white shirt and jeans. He picked up two cards and placed them on a pile on his right, then took one from a smaller pile on his left. "I Synchro Summon Red Dragon Archfiend!" he said as he placed the card in front of himself. "Now," he continued, "my Dragon attacks your Sirocco the Dawn."
The boy on the left, a red-head whose hair stood up like an unruly haystack and wore an orange t-shirt, green headband and shorts reached for a card on the floor.
Martha rapped on the door frame with her knuckles. The two boys looked up and their eyes almost immediately fell on the new boy. He shifted nervously.
The red-head grinned. His stood up placing the cards in his hand on the floor as he did. "Found another one Martha?" he said, walking over to where the woman and boy stood.
The new boy shifted his gaze to the floor.
The red-head moved his head so it was between the new boy's head and the floor. He grinned, then spoke "My name's Crow," said the red-head then pointed at the blond with his thumb, "and that's Jack Asfalt."
"Atlas!" Jack shouted.
"What ever, Masfat," Crow laughed, earning a growl from Jack. Turning his attention back to the new boy, he asked, "You got a name?"
The boy shook his head.
Crow just grinned. "That's all right. After all, neither of us had names when we first came here." Turning back to Jack he said, "Isn't that right Hatless."
"At-lis!" Jack shouted again.
Crow ignored him, "We'll take care of him Martha."
"And you'll stop teasing Jack!" Martha said in a stern voice.
"But Marthaaa…" Crow said in that half-whine half-beg that any self respecting child knows by the age of three, "he keeps eating my cereal."
"I do not!" Jack said, standing up. If it was possible for a five year old to look indignant he did.
Crow walked over and attempted to stare Jack down. The effect was somewhat ruined, however, by the fact that Crow was a few inches shorter than Jack. He realized this and evidently switched to offensive. "Then what happened to the bowl I left on the table the other day?"
"You know," Jack replied, "I saw Nerve eating a bowl of cereal a few days ago…"
"Don't try and blame this on Nerve!" Crow was almost shouting now, "Any way, my cereal had peanuts on it."
"So?"
"So Nerve is allergic to peanuts!"
And a brawl would have started right there had Martha not stepped in. "All right, that's enough! Jack, don't eat other people's cereal and Crow, stop teasing Jack."
"Yes Martha," they said in unison.
"Good. Now, I'm going to leave, so please try not to knock the bed over in front of you new roommate."
"Oh come on," Crow shouted, "that only happened once."
But Martha was already closing the door behind her.
Jack walked back over to where he had been sitting before the new boy had been introduced. "Should we finish the duel, or do you want to surrender?"
"What do you think?" Crow chuckled, sitting down opposite Jack, picking up the cards he had placed on the floor. "This'll just take a sec," he said to the new boy.
"I do believe my dragon was just about to destroy your oversized turkey." Jack said with a smirk.
You could practically see steam coming from Crow's cards. "Don't call my Blackwings turkeys! I activate Rising Energy!" he flipped over a card on the floor. "Now Sirocco is stronger than your Dragon."
"Not for long," Jack replied, "I activate Dark Bribe! So your Rising Energy's negated, Sirocco is destroyed, you take one thousand points of damage and I win."
The new boy looked around the room. It was fairly plain, with an uncovered wood floor and white walls. There were two bunk beds on opposite sides of the room.
There was a shout, a thump, a yelp and when the new boy looked down, Jack had Crow in a head lock and was giving him a noogy. Crow in a wild attempt to free himself, struck out with his legs, one foot knocked one of the decks over and cards fanned out over the floor.
"Now look what you've done!" Jack shouted, releasing Crow to pick up his cards.
"What I've done?" Crow shouted back. "You had me in a head lock."
"That was self-defense," responded Jack, "you tried to tackle me."
As the squabble continued, the new boy noticed a card by his feet. It had a white border and the picture was in shades of black, red and orange. He reached down to pick up the card, but Jack beat him to it.
"That is mine," Jack said, "and I'd appreciate it if didn't touch it."
"S-sorry," the new boy said hesitantly, "it's just..."
"Just what?" Jack tried to raise an eyebrow, but only succeeded in making it look like there was an angry blonde caterpillar on his forehead.
The new boy stared at the eyebrow for a moment, failing to see Crow making frantic "don't say anything" motions and said, "Um, is there anything wrong with your-"
Jack attempted to look at his forehead, realized it was impossible and then gave a glare that said that instant death would reward and further comment.
"Um…" the new boy decided to go back to his original topic rather than risk Death by Angry Jack. "Your card, um, looks sort of like mine."
Crow looked at the new boy in surprise, though it might be because he had avoided Death by Angry Jack. "You've got cards?" he asked.
The new boy nodded.
After a quiet moment, Crow asked, "Well?"
The new boy blanked, "Well what?"
"Can we see it?"
The new boy hesitantly reached into a pocket. He had never shown the card to anyone. He had been too afraid someone would steal it.
He held the card up carefully. Crow squinted, his lips moving visibly as he read the name to himself. After a moment he said, "Ster Doost Dragon?"
"Let me see that," Jack said, elbowing Crow out of the way. After only a brief pause he said, "That says Stardust Dragon, you idiot."
The resulting scuffle was tuned out by the new boy as the studied the card in his hand. "Stardust Dragon…" he breathed. Something about the name seemed right, as if the creature drawn on the cardboard was responding, telling him that this was its name. For the first time that he could remember, the boy laughed.
The new boy lay on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling. He had ended up above Jack and was finding it hard to sleep. After dinner and a hot bath, (more firsts), Martha had given him clean clothes, and when you've spent most of you life in a shirt that was already pretty filthy when you found it, that took some getting used to. However, the main reason sleep eluded him was his name, or rather, lack of one. Crow suggested "Star" and "Dusty" because of his card. He said that his first card had helped him with his name. "Crab", after Martha had forced a brush through his hair, only to find it stuck up in spikes of its own accord. But none of the names felt right. He felt that he had a name and that it was an important part of who he was.
He rolled over, his eyes falling on the post at the corner of the bed, upon which the only things in the world that were his rested. There was Stardust Dragon, of course but there was also a folded piece of paper. He grabbed the piece of paper. He grabbed the paper and slowly unfolded it. The edges were torn in places and the paper was so worn that it barely crinkled as the unfolded it. He had had it longer than he could remember and he felt that the black squiggles held an important secret.
Hadn't Jack been the one that read his card? Could he decipher the code that he had been unable to for so long? It was worth a shot. He rolled over to the side of the bed, moved over to the edge until his head stuck over the side and said, "Pusst."
"I think you mean psst," said Jack, angling his head to see the new boy, "and no need to be so quiet, Crow sleeps like a log."
As if on cue, Crow growled in his sleep, "You deserved it you pansy now let go of his legs and get over here!"
This odd statement was ignored. "Erm… I was wondering if you could tell me what this says," the new boy said holding the paper over the edge of the bed.
Jack yawned. "Can't this wait until morning?"
"It's kind of important."
Jack grumbled something like "Kind of important could wait 'till morning," but took the paper, got out of bed, shuffling over to the window where some moonlight shown. Tilting the paper to catch the light, his eyes ran over the paper. He blinked then read the note again. He then slowly walked back to the bed, handed the note back to the new boy, and asked, "Where did you get that?"
"I don't remember," the new boy replied, "I've had it since forever. What does it say?"
Jack hesitated then said, "It says, Your name is Yusei Fudo."
~Fin~
This has been in my head for a while. After all, there's no way Yusei could have remembered any thing about himself if he was one during Zero Reverse, right? This is my brains attempt to explain that small plot hole. Hope you enjoyed, R&R please!