Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh and other things related to the real world. I only own the story and the Seo siblings.

The Fine Line Between

Chapter 1

It was then the first day of Battle City.

Yugi Mutou was walking in a mini park on top of a building, looking around as if finding something.

"My starting point is here... Kaiba-kun should broadcast the opening ceremony soon. How do you Duel at places like these? [1]" he wondered, as there were quite a lot of people, mostly families enjoying their stay on what could also look like a small amusement park.

Then a deep, cool voice of a man emanated on the air...

"My fellow Duelists, welcome to the Battle City! [1]"

No, it was not a flashback, nor it was really happening. It was the sound of my older brother, Young-woong, watching the 56th episode of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, most likely in subtitles since the audio was in Japanese.

Unfortunately, I could hear it as I was walking on the 3rd floor corridor of the building where we have been renting an apartment. It was only 6:45 in the evening on a Tuesday.

Tuesday is the only day where I get to go home really early. Classes at Shindong High School, where I am in my final year, end early on that day due to weekly faculty meetings. It is also the only day where I am not required to attend cram school and where I get to take a break from studying very hard, which has always been a part of a typical schedule of a high school student thanks to our national college scholastic ability test. Given these circumstances, somehow most people think I should be looking forward to my early way home.

However, I was even deprived of the minimal break time that I could only have. I could have used the early arrival time to watch my favorite variety show Hello Counselor, but then a few months ago some idiot from a cable TV network decided to do reruns of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters on their channel at the same timeslot as Hello Counselor. This really annoyed me, given that oppa [2] happened to be a hardcore, beyond obsessed fan of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. I hated Yu-Gi-Oh in the first place and I had been really sick of him forcing me to it to the point that I wanted to send a letter expressing this concern to Hello Counselor.

As I opened the door to our apartment, the sound of the 56th episode came into full blast, almost breaking my eardrums. I saw part of oppa seated in the floor, intently watching the show, but then I saw more of our LCD television, broadcasting the 56th episode of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. He might not have even heard that I already arrived home. Rolling my eyes and sighing, I took a few steps to the entryway and locked the door behind me. I removed my sneakers and placed them on the shoe rack beside me before entering the living room.

True enough, he did not hear me arrive, as he still watches that anime show in high volume. Neither did he notice me sit on the sofa behind him and readjust the bright orange muffler that I had been wearing. I noticed the remote control lying on the floor beside him, unguarded. I smiled mischievously, suddenly having a good idea of what to do.

Taking advantage of his inattention to his surroundings, as silently and as stealthily as I can, I took the remote control and went back to where I was seated. Oppa must not have noticed as his attention is still on the TV.

Remote on hand, I waited for a while, letting the guy with the deep, cool voice finish his babbling. I guess it was something about the rules of some game. I'm not exactly sure. Despite the presence of subtitles, I still somehow could not understand what he was really talking about. I eventually found out that the owner of that deep, cool voice is a good-looking guy with short brown hair and blue eyes.

"Now, the Battle City will begin! Duelists, scatter across the city and locate your enemies! [1]" he announced, officially starting the Battle City tournament.

Right after that statement, I changed the channel. Hello Counselor is currently on air, in the middle of discussion about a concern. That feeling of triumph was refreshing for me.

I can see oppa seething in anger even though his back is facing me. I tried ignoring it, clutching the remote control.

"Young-hye... how dare you..." Oppa said as he turned around and faced me. He might have looked like he is ready to kill me, but that does not faze me even a bit. I looked back at him, trying to match his threatening gaze.

"Oppa, I have the right to watch TV too," I said. I'm not just going to back down.

Without saying anything, he simply snatched the remote control and flipped back to the cable channel where he was watching Yu-Gi-Oh. He returns to his position as if nothing happened.

This infuriated me more than ever.

"Hey!" I yelled in the loudest way possible. I kicked him hard on his shoulder from behind, causing him to fall over the floor and keel in pain. I tried to snatch the remote control away from him, but it turns out that he had applied a death grip on it, making it difficult for me to take it away from him.

We fought over the ownership of the remote control, both of us holding it tightly on each side. It was like a messy mix of tug-of-war, wrestling, and mixed martial arts.

"Oppa! Why the hell won't you just let me watch?" I shouted at him in a loud voice, not only because I was really mad him but also I had to struggle to make myself be heard over the still loud sound coming from the TV.

"Dream on, Young-hye! There's no way you'll make meskip this awesome show!" He also shouted at me, and I could see that he was equally struggling against the high volume of TV, which is his fault to start with.

"You idiot! You can watch this over the Internet!" I retorted.

"Subtitles suck!"

What the hell.

"It's not a valid excuse to deprive me of my free time you crazy bastard of a brother!" I stood up and pulled the remote control towards me. As he won't let go, the struggle continued.

But then in the middle of the struggle, he suddenly decided to let go of the remote control, but not before using all his force and energy trying to throw me along with it. Thinking of my survival first, I also let go of the remote control. It came flying towards the TV, breaking the LCD screen. Our home became quiet all of a sudden. Turns out that it also muted at the same time.

We both turned to the just broken 40-inch LCD TV, with a glass crack where the remote control had collided, the screen started showing bars of different colors and emitted purple electric sparks. I suddenly had a weird feeling about the purple electric sparks.

Oppa then started blaming me. "Look at what you've done! This is all your fault!"

"What the hell?! And now you have the nerve to blame me for damaging it?! Don't you dare tell me you did not blow up that TV for your experiment!"

I saw oppa's expression change to a sour one. I'm pretty much sure I hit a nerve somewhere. Ever since he saw his future as an electronics engineer, he suddenly dedicated himself to "blow up" (my own term for disassembling stuff that function normally and reassembling them with customized parts that came from who knows where) most of the appliances and gadgets at home. My mobile phone even became a victim of it. For three months, my friends had no choice but to send me SNS messages instead (and I have no choice but to either find a cafe with Wi-Fi connection or depend on my school's Wi-Fi). Our mom, currently working overseas, bought me an iPhone as a replacement. Though really thankful for that, I would have preferred that oppa replace my phone instead since he was the one who destroyed it anyway.

Oppa remained quiet, unable to fight back and looking guilty.

"I knew it." I muttered.

"So what if I did?!" Oppa suddenly yelled at me as if I am the only deaf person in the country.

"Dammit! For everyone's sake you've just let the TV be, idiot!" I also yelled at him with equal intensity, mainly as retaliation to the near damage his shouting has brought to my eardrums.

I returned to the sofa to pick up my bag. It was on that moment that I decided to walk out on him. As I was about to leave, I inadvertently checked out the TV. My utmost anger replaced with horror as I saw what was once purple electric sparks had already developed into large purple lightning bolts, ready to strike and knock someone down. As his back was the one facing the TV, oppa did not know of this and of the damage that it could cause.

Despite being angry with him, my sisterly instincts quickly took over me. The purple lightning seemed ready to battle, or rather, ready to strike down an unaware being.

By instinct, I quickly pushed oppa on the side to safety. Sure, it may have been rough, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Everything happened instantly. The purple lightning bolt struck the tallest being that it can find (which happened to be me), and before I knew it I already lost consciousness.

...

Seo Young-woong was enraged when his sister Young-hye suddenly pushed him on the side. His eyes were closed due to pain. Who the hell would do that, he thought. As he was nursing the pain emanating from his backside, he opened his eyes.

He became beyond horrified as the first thing he saw was Young-hye being struck by the purple lightning from the broken LCD TV.

"Young-hye!" he called out. "Young-hye! Look out!"

But then it was too late for him to say that. As he realized this, he then tried to stand up and rush to his sister despite the pain.

However, before he can even manage to stand, a blinding light suddenly surrounded the whole interior of the apartment, forcing him to cover his eyes.

The light disappeared in the same way as how it came.

Young-woong opened his eyes, only to see a living room without Young-hye.

"Young-hye? Where the hell did that girl go?" he wondered aloud as he finally managed to stand up.

He walked towards the living room. He checked out the broken TV. The multi-colored bars already disappeared, rendering a blank black screen, but the crack still remained. He saw Young-hye's bag still there at the floor. He also checked the entryway and saw the sneakers that she usually wears in school still in the rack. He quickly checked her room (despite it being off-limits to everyone) located a few steps away from the living room, andfound it empty.

He started worrying, realizing that Young-hye might have not taken off after all. As he returned to the living room, the TV screen suddenly flickered, emitting white noise in a low volume, which surprised him.

The screen started showing another episode of Yu-Gi-Oh. It was the part of the 72nd episode wherein Anzu Mazaki helped out Mokuba Kaiba in escaping the warehouse where the Ghouls held them.

Young-woong wondered about the sudden episode jump, as he remembered watching the 56th episode of the same show just a while ago. Unless the idiot behind the Yu-Gi-Oh reruns made an embarrassing mistake... otherwise it would be too weird.

He carefully watches the episode as he always does, remembering every scene by heart: Mokuba managing to get out of the top window of the warehouse, Anzu falling down along with some of the Ghouls amidst the pile of boxes, Mokuba hiding temporarily for safety from the other Ghouls trying to find him and then runs his way out...

Everything happened accordingly, but what really surprised him was the next scene.

Young-woong knows that it was supposed to return to the continuation of the skyscraper duel, but instead it showed Mokuba running as far as possible from the pier to get help until the latter reached the more crowded part of the city. As shown on the TV screen, Mokuba suddenly spots one of the Ghouls chasing him, and to avoid being spotted, he crossed the street. However, because of such urgency, he was not able to see a speeding truck that was about to hit him.

Despite being the spectator and having no direct connection to the scene itself, Young-woong can't help but call out to Mokuba, "Look out!"

Mokuba looked at his side (as if he heard Young-woong but that was not the case) and saw the truck moving forward to him like a raging bull. Given the speed, it looked like it was too late for Mokuba to run to his safety.

But it was not this scene itself that shocked Young-woong the most.

He saw a black vortex appear on the side out of nowhere, "spitting out" what looked like an unconscious teenage girl with long wavy black hair and dressed in a school uniform with a bright orange muffler on her neck. The projectile force that came along with the teenage girl was enough to, albeit unintentionally, push Mokuba to the opposite sidewalk where he was supposed to go.

The teenage girl was able to push Mokuba to the opposite sidewalk, bringing the latter to safety. Though surprised, Mokuba felt relieved that he was safe. Wanting to see his savior, he tried to regain his composure and stood up as immediately as possible. However, it was not the sight that he expected to see.

Despite the strong projectile force, the short time was only enough to push Mokuba to safety. The truck collided with the teenage girl instead, sending her flying forward towards the street, her head hitting the cold cement. Blood oozed freely from her head. Passers-by slowly gathered to see the commotion. The Ghoul who had been chasing Mokuba was already gone.

Mokuba, horrified, rushed towards the teenage girl, trying to help out the person who saved him.

It was that way that Young-woong was able to see who she was. But then, just like Mokuba, he became horrified as he finally came to know her identity.

It can't be, he thought. He couldn't believe it. The uncanny resemblance despite being an animated drawing, the uniform and bright orange muffler being an exact copy, and the name on the small rectangular name plate attached on the right side of her blazer (that he was able to read)...

He hung his head low, blaming himself at the same time as he admitted to "blowing up" the LCD TV. He kicked the TV, shutting it off immediately and leading it to its further demise.

To be honest, he didn't really want to believe it, but there was no other evidence that would deny the fact that the teenage girl happened to be his sister.

...

The first thing I felt was pain.

It was everywhere: on my head and all over my body. At first, I couldn't remember what happened... ah, yes, I was struck by a lightning bolt.

And in the middle of all this pain, it did not definitely help that the first thing that I would hear was Kim Jong-kook's song Loveable playing in the background. Yes, I was addicted to the cheerful song to the point that I created a mini-dance for it, but the fact that it made me suddenly want to dance to it despite the pain was something else.

I slowly opened my eyes, cautious just in case I would encounter bright light.

It was just the opposite: the environment was mostly dark, but I could make out a wooden desk with some school things placed on top, a cabinet, an orange fruit plushie, posters of pop groups like Apink, 2PM, Sistar, EXO...

This just looks like my room... Wait, it's just my room!

I know that being in my room should be reassuring enough, but why do I feel paranoid?

As I want to see whether I'm really in my room or somewhere else, I tried sitting up and turning my head around. I was able to, but I have to endure the pain. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-kook's song was about to end in a while.

Right after the song ended, I suddenly heard someone speak in a language I could not understand. I turned to the direction of the voice. It was from a white-haired, purple-eyed, tan-skinned guy who was about my age, seated on a chair nearby the iPod speaker dock where I usually play my favorite music. He was wearing a white sleeveless shirt, black pants, and shoes, which freaked me out because it was still winter in our country (doesn't he get cold?). And why the hell does he wear shoes inside the house, let alone inside my room?

His presence made me angry. Not only that I hate having people inside my room; I also hate people touching my stuff without my permission. The white-haired guy just plainly did that.

But then he also crept me out, especially that he's technically a two-dimensional being... a drawing, in a sense.

And then he looked familiar, but I'm not exactly sure...

Anyway, I opted to remain silent, observing my environment and trying to figure out what's happening. The white-haired guy proceeded to say something else, still in a language I couldn't understand.

I tried interrupting him in a quite nice way. "I'm sorry. I can't understand what you're saying..."

However, it did not work. He kept on speaking, and I tried telling him that I could not understand what he was saying. At the first few tries, I spoke in Korean, my native language, but as he didn't stop, I thought he might have not understood and thus, I tried English. Either way, the idiot simply didn't listen and continued pacing around without looking at me, rambling away. My patience was already running thin at a dangerously high rate, to the point of...

"Dammit! Can't you just fucking speak English?" I practically yelled at the top of my lungs, agitated and irritated.

He stopped and faced me.

I stood up quickly from the bed without giving any damn care to the shooting pains all over my body. In fact, the pain even powered my irritation to this crazy idiot.

"I keep on telling you in a nice way that I don't speak your language and can't understand you, yet you won't even listen! Do I have to keep yelling like this?" I maintained my agitated high-volume voice. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

He finally spoke in English. "Figures," he said, more to himself than to me, "the Millennium Rod's power didn't affect you the way it's supposed to be..."

Ah, so you're still ignoring me? Thank you for further thinning my patience.

"Aren't you going to answer my question, arrogant idiot?" I yelled again. I really didn't want to do this because it also hurt my throat in the process but if this white-haired crazy bastard still wouldn't answer my question then I would have to break his skull.

He looked at me in the eye and raised his hands to chest level with his palms open, as if surrendering.

"I'm sorry," he said (in English), "things have been crazy outside. My dark personality already took over and I have no choice but to take refuge here. It's really complicated but I'll do my best to fill you in the details later. I assumed you can speak Japanese because of your looks..."

You assumed I can speak Japanese because of what I looked like? Where the hell did you get that idea? I don't have any Japanese blood whatsoever and no one ever told me that I look like a Japanese.

And, really, I'm waiting for your answer to my question.

"...so I kept on speaking Japanese. Anyway, my name is Marik Ishtar from Egypt."

Finally. Why does it have to take me ages before I can get an answer to my simple question?

Thank god I don't have to yell anymore.

"That song was catchy, by the way. That's one of the things I've been trying to tell you a while ago. Too bad I couldn't understand its lyrics," he added.

I took note of his comment about Kim Jong-kook's song but chose not to respond about it. I slowly nodded instead.

"Marik, isn't it..." I said in my normal voice.

Why does his name sound so familiar?

Anyway, I continued, trying to ignore the fact that Marik took my sketchbook from the desk, ripped a page of it, and got a fine point permanent marker on my pencil jar, all without my permission. "Alright, got it. Nice to meet you. My name is-"

"Hanae Nishi. I know your name. You don't have to tell me." With all confidence, Marik interrupted me.

"Hanae Nishi"? Hanae Nishi? You know my name and it's Hanae Nishi, you say?

Is this white-haired crazy bastard a total idiot? Who the hell was that "Hanae Nishi" and how did that become my name?

I was really shocked and irritated, and I made sure I showed it. I also did an incredulous stare for added effect.

Marik wrote something on the ripped page of my sketchbook. He raised the paper enough for me to see what's written on the paper, which happened to be these three Chinese characters: 西英恵.

"Isn't this your name?" he asked.

"Yes, it's indeed my name. That's how my name is written in Chinese characters, but for god's sake there's no way it could be a Hanae Nishi." I explained, exasperated.

"But that's how everyone calls you," he said, putting down the paper on my desk.

Everyone, you said? Who is "everyone"?

"They said that's how these characters is read in their own language. At least Yugi Mutou and his set of friends do, anyway," he continued.

Yugi Mutou?

I sighed and shook my head, really annoyed. Seriously, they had misread my name and I think because of them everyone else would be doing the same. Oh my goodness.

"Oh my god, you're really something, aren't you?" I gushed in sarcastic amazement. "So, Marik, you're going to actually believe that Yugi Mutou and his friends instead of-"

Wait, that Yugi Mutou?

I stopped speaking as this thought suddenly sprouted in my mind. The sentence that I was supposed to continue vanished.

Now I remember... Yugi Mutou and this white-haired crazy bastard in front of me whose name is Marik Ishtar...

Realizing what this actually meant, I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and index finger and looked up as if stopping a nosebleed.

"Oh my god... Oh my god oh my god," I kept on muttering the same phrase over and over.

I can't believe it.

Could I actually be in my older brother's fandom?

But then, if I am in the Yu-Gi-Oh world, why am I here in my room?

Or is this why everything is two-dimensional?

What did I do to deserve this?

"Are you okay?" asked Marik. Preoccupied with the too many sudden realizations, I ignored him.

Still looking up and holding the bridge of my nose, I walked towards the mirror with difficulty as pain all over my body had not yet subsided. I took a deep breath and braced myself.

I then brought my head down to its normal position and released the bridge of my nose. I faced the mirror in eye level. The sight that the mirror reflected horrified me.

Facing me is an equally horrified two-dimensional teenage girl with long wavy black hair (and a straight fringe), fair skin, and blue sharp-looking eyes, wearing a school uniform with a small rectangular name plate (with my name on it) attached on the right side of the blazer and a bright orange muffler on her neck.

I lifted my hands and touched my face. The two-dimensional teenage girl on the reflection did the same.

This was where I realized that me being transported to the Yu-Gi-Oh world happened.

I screamed.

Since I scream really loud, I won't wonder if Marik already covered his ears.

I turned from the mirror and faced him. Marik looked back at me. (Figures, he did cover his ears.)

He removed his hands from his ears. He looked like he is bracing himself for something.

"Okay, Marik," I said, "may I tell and ask you something?"

He nodded as if he has no choice.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. This is it.

"For your information, Marik Ishtar," I started in my calm and normal voice, then in my most agitated and loudest voice possible: "my name is Young-hye! Seo Young-hye! Not Hanae Nishi! And can you just fucking tell me where the hell I am right now and how did I get here?!"

Footnotes:
[1] = Since I watch and follow the original Japanese ones, these were taken from the GX_ST English subs of the series.
[2] = "Oppa" is how a woman calls her older brother in Korean

A/N: This story is inspired by an old Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's fanfic that I wrote (and eventually deleted). I'd also like to hear/read your thoughts on the story or this chapter so please do leave a review. Thank you.