Valon and me were sitting on the couch, watching black and white cartoons, when we heard a ruckus outside. We scrambled to the front window and pushed the curtains back, revealing a small group of people-about six of them. We looked at each other but didn't say anything as dad suddenly wrenched open the door and stepped out. He was only wearing a pair of dirty jeans and a wife beater. I could almost imagine how chilled his skin must've been.
He crossed his arms over his chest, and all of a sudden, the six people started blabbering all at once, their faces turning red, and their expressions ugly and unfriendly. Dad's shoulders tensed and the muscles on his arms bulged. One of the women stepped behind her husband as if to block herself from our dad's hard stare.
Dad put two fingers in his mouth and let out a sharp whistle, making the group wince and shut up. They all stood stock still as our daddy explained something to them, and their eyes would drift to the house whenever he gestured to it. Valon and me got bored as the scene progressed on. We dipped our fingers in the condensation on the window and drew crude messages to the people standing out there.
It seemed like forever before the people finally left and our dad came back inside. He had a sour look on his face and bypassed us completely when we went up to him. His bare feet thudded against the hardwood floor as he shouted over and over, "Mei! Where the fuck are you! What the fuck! What the fuck!"
Mei stumbled out of the bathroom a second later. She had a mirror in one hand and a tube of lipstick in the other. Dad walked straight up to her and knocked it all out of her hands with a quick flick. He was snarling like a bull, piercing her with a deadly look. Mei yelled in outrage and tried to shove him away, but he snatched onto her wrists and held her in place.
"What the hell were you thinking!" he roared in her face. "You yelled at some people's kids and threatened to run them over if they didn't get out of the way? Are you fucking demented?"
Valon glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, and I could tell he was fighting a grin. I shook my head at him, signaling for him to not laugh. He would be in a whole mess of trouble for interrupting one of Mei and dad's legendary fights. They escalated whenever someone got in the middle of them.
I grabbed Valon by the shoulder and steered him back towards the couch, despite his protests. We sat shoulder to shoulder with a blanket draped over us. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume way up high.
The day after the fight, I stole Mei's car, and consequently, ran over a nail in the street. I had the car pulled off to the side of the road with the hazard lights on, and was currently rummaging through all the shit in the back of the trunk for the spare tire. The other thing I was keeping an eye out for was the jack, but I didn't see it anywhere. After searching for nearly ten minutes, I gave up and sat on the sidewalk, miffed at my luck.
I must have sat there for over an hour just thinking about what I was going to do. By that time, my butt and face were numb from the cold, and my nose had started to run. I wiped the snot off on my jacket and decided I'd just drive the car back slowly, despite knowing that Mei would probably belt me when she saw what I'd done.
Just as I started to close the trunk, a guy around my age came bounding down the steps of his house towards me. He was dressed in green cargo pants and a black hoodie to protect him from the cold wind; his multi-colored hair being pushed away from his face by a navy bandanna. He was slimmer around the waist and broader in the shoulders, unlike me, who had a skinny frame in general.
He stopped beside the car and twisted his head to the side to see the punctured tire. "Hey," he casually greeted. "I've been watching you sit out here for the past hour and figured you needed some help. Your tire finally let out?"
I stared at him and clutched my keys tightly in my fist. "You've been watching me?" I asked suspiciously, inching further away from him.
He looked startled for a second, his purple eyes widening briefly. "Well you are sitting outside of my house," he pointed out. "I had to make sure you weren't some creep slinking around."
We stared at each other for a good five seconds before I shrugged indifferently, dropping my guard a little. "Fair enough." More awkward staring. "So you going to help me or what?"
He nodded and asked me what I needed him to do. I asked him if he had a jack, and he said he did. When he got back with it, we got to work raising the car, taking the rim off, and taking all the nuts and bolts off. Through the whole process, the guy-Yami was his name-got me trapped into a conversation with him. We got to talking about school, college plans, and the like. I didn't have much to say, but Yami was like a nonstop chatterbox. The guy just wouldn't shut up.
"I went to the dance with that guy I was telling you about. Duke Devlin. He started that whole shebang about Dungeon Dice Monsters. You know who I'm talking about?"
"Can't say that I do."
"Oh, well, he's a really cool guy. I should take you to get some booster packs sometime. I feel like you're the kind of guy who could get into a card game."
"I like games," I said.
"See? I knew it," Yami grinned, adjusting his falling bandanna. "I know the best place to get them. How about I take you there tomorrow afternoon, and we can start building your deck."
I dropped the wrench I was holding and stared at the newly replaced tire. Mei would never know the difference. I would just have to scrounge up enough money to buy another spare tire, or find the time to steal one.
"Yeah, okay," I told him. "But you're going to have to pick me up."
He smiled and stuttered as he said, "S-Sure, no problem."
I stared at him some more, wondering if his cheeks were pink because of the cold, or because of something else entirely.
Thankfully, Mei was out of the house by the time Yami pulled into the dirt driveway the next morning. His red truck made the rest of our yard look bleak and boring. Valon was staring at it from the porch. He kept asking, "Who is that? Do you know who that is? Where'd you meet him at?"
I shoved him back into the house non too gently. "Get inside before you catch pneumonia, idiot."
"Is that your boyfriend, Yugi? I knew you were gay."
I closed the door in his face and jogged the rest of the way to Yami's car, glad that he already had the inside of it warmed up. He greeted me enthusiastically and jumped into conversation immediately. Normally, I wasn't one to talk unless I had something worth saying, but when Yami was talking, I couldn't help but make a comment or two after everything he said.
We prattled on until we got to a part of town that I rarely visited. Yami pulled into a handicap space, to which I grinned at. He shuffled me inside and immediately darted towards the back of the store, where all the card packs were kept. I took a little longer to check out the front of the store before joining him.
He was holding five packs out towards me, but the only thing I was looking at was the price. "Are you serious? It's going to cost me forty-five dollars for those measly looking things?"
Yami looked determined. "I promise you, it's totally worth it." He could probably tell how resistant I was going to be about it, so he dragged me to the glass cases at the check out center, and pointed at the displayed cards. "That's what they look like. Course, these cards are the rarer and more expensive ones. People usually choose the ones that best aid their deck type."
Scanning them over, I spotted one that caught my attention. It had seven stars on the top of it and had the image of a guy dressed in purple robes underneath it. At the very top were the words: Dark Magician. I pressed my face against the glass and stared it curiously, wondering why I had the urge to buy it.
Yami, seeing that my attention had been caught by the card, leaned in close to me and smiled. "Do you want that one?" he asked.
My eyes dropped to the small tag underneath the card. I sucked in a breath and shook my head. "I can't afford that, Yami. My dad would skin me alive for wasting that much money on a card."
He stared at me with a blank face for a second before he turned away and waved the cashier over. I stood back and watched in shock as he pointed at the Dark Magician card and said, "I'd like to buy this one." He then proceeded to dig his money out of his wallet and handed it to the worker. The card was plucked out of it's case and placed in a bag. Yami hurried towards me once it was in his possession and held it out to me.
"Here, I got you a gift," he said, looking cheeky as hell.
I didn't understand. "But it's not my birthday or anything…" I said. "You just wasted your money on that."
Yami huffed and rolled his eyes. He slung and arm around my shoulder and pressed the bag to my chest, forcing me to take it. "No, I bought it for you because you were drooling all over it."
"But-"
"And," he interjected, throwing a finger in my face. "Because that's what you do when you like someone, right? You do nice stuff for them." Somehow I felt there was a double meaning to that, but Yami didn't elaborate on it.
"Um, right," I said. "Thanks for the… gift."
Yami just smiled.
A/N - Don't worry, Atem will appear in the next chapter.
Anyhow, Yami showed Yugi two acts of kindness. First with the car and then with the gift. I decided to make Yami a more friendly guy. You know, kind of touchy and likes to talk a lot. He's the kind of guy that would have your back no matter what.
Thanks for all of you who left reviews! You are all such lovely people, and I'm glad you like the idea of Akefia being Yugi's father.
