Story Title: Chains of Crystal
Chapter Title: Release
Romance: Fubuki x Otogi
Timeline: Effectively AU season 1 of GX.
"Why not?" Fubuki was an expert pouter, and he pouted expertly at his sister as she sorted through her cards. "He's not that bad of a guy."
"I know." Asuka paid only the minimum attention necessary to her older brother as she worked through the cards spread before her. "I'm not interested."
Fubuki could also whine like a professional. "You might be if you went out with him! Just once. I'm not asking you to marry him. He's not asking you to marry you! Just a little walk on the beach. What could it hurt?"
"You, if you don't stop asking me." Asuka replied calmly, picking through her monster cards. She had an important duel the next day, and she wanted to be certain everything was ready for it. "If you're all that eager to get someone to go out with Manjoume, why don't you do it?"
Fubuki considered that for a moment. It wasn't really that bad of an idea. Manjoume was good looking, a little rough around the edges, but he had a very good heart, that he kept trying to hide the best that he could. "Maybe I will." He flashed one of his best grins at his sister. "So don't say I didn't give you a chance if you change your mind later.
Asuka just shook her head as she kept on looking through the cards. Would this one be a better choice for a support card? Or maybe… "Don't worry, I won't."
Fubuki would've laughed if he didn't know, deep inside, how much dueling really meant to his sister. But even a duelist couldn't live by cards alone! That was one of the reasons he kept trying his best to see if he could at least get her to try a date with someone. He always waited for some guy to show an interest in Asuka before he asked her, though. He knew she wasn't interested, so he had to wait for the other side of the equation. It wasn't as easy as it sounded.
He reminded himself to be there at her duel the next day. She had plenty of support from all their friends, and there was no way that Manjoume would have missed a duel of hers regardless, but this was his sister dueling, and he would be there no matter what.
"Well, I'm going to go talk to him about it." Fubuki pushed himself to his feet and brushed his hair back some. He was going back out in public, after all, and he preferred to look his best. It was for the good of everyone seeing him. They deserved to see him at his finest at all times.
"You have fun." Asuka weighed two spells cards carefully. "If you two wind up needing it, you've got my blessing." She'd long since stopped being concerned over Fubuki. He was a big boy. He could and would date anything or anyone that said yes to him. Misawa had a chart somewhere of all the available people on the island, and how many of them Fubuki had dated. It was impressive.
Fubuki flashed her another grin. "When don't I have fun?" He sauntered out, closing the door behind himself as he did. Fun was what Fubuki did. He could have fun doing almost anything, and usually did.
Now the next step was to find Manjoume and see if he were averse to taking a walk on the beach with him instead of his sister. He had never really thought that much about if Manjoume were possibly interested in guys or not. For that matter, Manjoume hadn't really expressed an interest in anyone but Asuka for as long as Fubuki had known him. In Fubuki's mind, that meant the possibility existed. Every answer was a yes until a no was expressed, and even then negogiations were possible.
He kind of doubted that Manjoume would be at the Osiris dorms. Even if that's what he technically was, he wasn't going to hang out there any more than he really had to. He needed space, after all. That meant the most likely place at the moment was probably the beach, which suited Fubuki himself right down to the ground. Water was his favorite element to be near if he had a choice in the matter.
So he wandered down that way, searching for the familiar black-clad, black-haired figure. It didn't take very long before he'd found him, since Manjoume knew perfectly well that Fubuki had went to try to persuade Asuka to go out with him.
"Well? What did she say? When is she going to meet me?" Eagerness lit his gray eyes, and Fubuki wished he had better news for him. Though it wasn't as if he himself were that bad of a catch.
But that kind of depended on Manjoume, and he had to get through this first. "She's busy right now." Fubuki told him. "But she did suggest that maybe you and I could do something." Of all the many ways to describe Fubuki, shy definitly wasn't one of them.
Manjoume blinked a few times in an attempt to process this. The thought of dating a guy had never actually crossed his mind. On the one hand, Asuka was probably the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life, and the sweetest, kindest, and every other description one could think of, and several that one could not. On the other hand, if he did date a guy, even just a simple walk on the beach that never went anywhere beyond that, and it got back to his brothers, they'd probably be furious and hate him even more than they already did.
That, above everything else, decided it for him. "Sure, why not. Maybe that'll help change her mind."
"That's just what I was thinking!" Fubuki declared. "So, did you want to wait until after dinner or go ahead and have it now?" He was very flexible when it came to such things. There were many people around the school who would have agreed with that: most of them after a date with him.
Manjoume considered thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Why not now?" The weather was pretty good for late fall, and most of the students would be away from the beach and studying now anyway. As much as it wouldn't bother him to let people see and possibly get word back to his brothers, he also preferred some form of privacy. Given the condition of his deck, that wasn't something he could get that often.
"Hey, big brother!" A squeaky little voice proved that true less than a heartbeat later. A small yellow thing popped out of his deck and hovered over one shoulder. "I thought you were going to be dating that Asuka girl! What happened?"
Manjoume growled to himself; he usually tried to pretend the Ojama brothers and the rest of the spirits that lived in his deck weren't there, especially when he was around other people who couldn't see them. Since at the moment the only other person on the island who could see them was Juudai, and he wasn't there, that made this moment a little awkward.
"Get out!" he hissed as he and Fubuki started towards the beach. "Leave me alone!"
"Manjoume? You all right?" Fubuki looked towards him, eyebrows raised a bit curiously. Manjoume managed to seize hold of Ojama Yellow and yanked him out of sight.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about a duel, that's all." Manjoume started to stuff the duel spirit back into his card when it squeaked out something else he couldn't quite hear all the way. "What was that?" he muttered, glancing down at the tiny spirit as it struggled in his hand.
"There's something weird down at the beach!" Ojama Yellow declared. A moment later, Ojama Black and Ojama Green appeared as well, each hovering over Manjoume's shoulders.
"Yeah, we don't know what it is, but it's strange! Maybe you should check it out?" Green suggested. Manjoume wished he could swat at them without looking like he'd lost his mind. Enough people already thought that from previous times he'd tried to get them to leave him alone.
Manjoume growled to himself. "Fine. Get back in your cards and we'll go see what it is." They were already going to the beach anyway. It was probably just some kind of ugly shell that had caught their attention. Or maybe a weird card someone had thrown away. People still did that, even after everything that had happened with cards being abandoned around here. Some people just never learned.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Fubuki had watched him a little curiously. There was something different about Manjoume, similar to something about Juudai, but Fubuki had never really known what it was. It had something to do with their cards, he knew that much. But whatever it was, it wasn't dangerous, so he'd never worried himself that much about it.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Manjoume didn't care if he sounded all that upset. Fubuki wouldn't mind. But one day he was going to find out who it was that had 'gifted' him with the ability to see and hear duel spirits, and hurt them. Badly. "Let's hit the beach."
Given that the Academy was on an island, it didn't take them very long to get there. The Ojamas hadn't exactly specified which part of the beach it was on, but Manjoume couldn't bring himself to care that much. If it were all that important, he could come and look for it later if they didn't find it.
As it turned out, however, it wasn't that hard to find at all. Half-buried in the sand, most likely brought there by the last tides, it gleamed and sparkled in the sun. Fubuki shaded his eyes with his hand and looked at it.
"What is that?" He couldn't remember seeing anything like it before.
"Dunno. Let's go see." Manjoume tried not to appear as if he were all that interested, but the closer he got, the more he couldn't help but wonder what it really was. It couldn't be anything that valuable, could it? Not if it were just floating around in the ocean.
Fubuki reached it first, and he bent down to dig it up quickly. What he uncovered was a crystal, a deep shade of emerald green, round as the moon, and just small enough to fit into the palm of the hand. "Whoa. This is gorgeous!"
Manjoume eyed it a bit distastefully. Sure, it was pretty, but it wasn't really worth the Ojamas getting excited about. Of course, they got excited when they smelled a bit of bad cheese in the kitchen, so he couldn't exactly trust their judgment. "What is it?"
"I don't know." Fubuki picked it up and looked at it for a moment before he looked at Manjoume. "Do you want it?" He started to hold it out, and Manjoume shook his head for a moment, then frowned.
"Well…it's not really me, but do you think Asuka would like it?" Maybe it would help soften her heart towards him if he gave her something this pretty.
Fubuki started to brush the sand off of it carefully. "She might." He brushed it off more and more, his fingers rubbing against it, then stopped. "It…moved!"
"Huh?" If Manjoume hadn't known Fubuki better, he might have thought he was joking. Or mistaken, since obviously it could've just moved because he was touching it.
Slowly the other started to rub at it again, and this time Manjoume saw it move. Then green smoke, the same shade as the crystal itself, began to boil forth from it, quickly reaching a height of nearly six feet before it resolved into the form of a young man a bit older than they were, with black hair, green eyes, and a furious expression.
"Where is he?" The stranger asked, eyes blazing. "Where is Darkness?"