I'm not too fond of so-called 'fluff' myself but this site is full of fangirls so I have to make some sacrifices if I want to keep people interested.
When they left the building, most of the clouds that were floating above the area previously were no longer there. Despite this, the sun still succeeded in hiding, having disappeared between some buildings, and the area still kept an eerie feel to it. It was starting to get late, and Yuri's dad was going to be home soon, so they needed to be quick. Thankfully Yuri was now back on his feet, having recovered from the ordeal on the thirteenth floor. As they came to the road Fuchsia stopped to look at him.
"Which way is your house?" she asked with a smile.
"Oh, umm, it's not far," he replied meekly.
"No silly, which way is it?"
"Umm, we turn left."
"Alright, you lead the way."
He turned to look at her, although not directly. He looked towards and floor beside her. As he did his face began to turn a bright red.
"I was, umm wondering, if, you, umm wanted to meet again sometime? No! That was a stupid question...!"
"I'd love to. Where were you thinking?"
Just then the ball of light that was Kurilux appeared from nowhere. She smiled at him, although he appeared less than impressed with her. His embarrassment immediately turned to rage and he began to grumble at her, though since he was looking towards the ground, he failed to notice Fuchsia was able to see her too, and was examining the concentrated ball of light.
"No, no, why did you have to appear now! I was busy talking to Fuchsia. Why do you always appear at the wrong time? Now she will think I'm stupid!"
"It's ok, I can see her too. I have something similar, his name is Kurirose, but I left my cards at home. She's so cute, what's her name?"
He moved his head up from the ground to focus on Fuchsia who was now smiling directly at him. Kurilux quickly moved into his line of sight though, so he was forced to move his head if he wanted to maintain eye contact with her. Kurilux looked cheerfully at him, but he tried his best to ignore her.
"Her name is Kurilux," he said as quickly as he could.
"Hi Kurilux, is he always like this when you appear?"
Kurilux turned to look at her and let out a squeal, a fine example of her usual glee. Somehow she always appeared to remain happy, in spite of how Yuri often spoke to her. Yuri began to blush again, guessing what Kurilux's answer to the question was. Fuchsia giggled in response, which made his face become even redder. Some people in the road turned the heads to look at the trio but they quickly moved on.
"I'm not always like this," he protested with a stamp of his foot.
"Oh really?" she sniggered.
"Yes!"
"Sorry, it's just you look so cute when you're mad. So, where were you thinking of taking me?"
"I don't know."
"Well it was obviously somewhere, otherwise you wouldn't have asked. Look, I'll let you calm down and you can think about it."
"Ok."
The walk home took longer than expected as although he was able to stand he was still getting his energy back. They talked about all kind of things, but it wasn't forced like with Scarlett. She didn't probe him about things he didn't want to talk about, and, unfortunately for him, Kurilux never went away. She was constantly vying for both of their attention but he tried his best to ignore her. She even circled around his head a few times which caused Fuchsia start giggling again.
Eventually it was decided that they were to meet at a café near to where he lived, on Friday after school. He wanted to do it the next day, but was scared of what might happen if he didn't turn up to the Arcadia Building; he did tell her this and it seemed to concern her. Although she didn't pester him about the other things he didn't want to talk about, she really wanted to know what Teller spoke to him about when she and Psycho were asked to leave the room. Was she being intrusive? Probably - but it did seem to be out of genuine concern. She knew Teller was up to something, and assume there there was no way that it was only his muscles that caused him to him.
When they reached his apartment block he finally decided to tell her. He positioned his face opposite the iris recognition device, and took a deep breath. The door immediately slid open and when they entered the lift he decided it was time to be more open about his exchange with Teller. Kurilux disappeared moments earlier so there wasn't anything to distract him anymore, so in a sense he was out of excuses.
"He says I'm powerful. He wants me to join and he said he'll give me nice cards, but I'm no good at duelling..."
"Be careful Yuri. If you're not happy about something then tell them. The Arcadia Movement has changed a lot since I first became a member. I just wanted somewhere where I could make some friends I could relate to, but now I know it's more than just a hangout for psychic duellists. I think Teller has been taking it in the wrong direction since he took over from Check*"
When they entered the apartment it became clear his father wasn't home before them, so there was no way of him knowing that he stayed outside for the afternoon, so he breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was as he left it this morning, so the cards were still scattered across part of his room. As he didn't expect to have anyone round he made no rush to clean it, having planned to do so after he got home from school. Of course, at the time he didn't expect he was going to have someone come over, let alone, know that he was going to make another new friend.
Fuchsia carefully studied the house from her position by the entrance, taking a moment to have a good look into every room. There was the main room, with a sofa, a TV and some cabinets. This was the one where they were both standing, and it was connected to all of the other rooms. Obviously there was a kitchen and bathroom, and there were located opposide the entrance. To the side of the apartment were the two bedrooms, a master bedrom, and Yuri's room. The final room, the smallest, located opposide the the two bedrooms, contained a surprising mix of objects. Inside it was the shoe rack and several coat hangers, but also a treadmill, which stood out like penguin at the North Pole.
"Hey, you have a treadmill, that's so cool," she said.
"It's my dad's. When I get mad I go on it to calm down. I use it a lot," he replied, in a frail tone that was typical of him.
"I noticed you do a lot of exercise. For someone who doesn't go out much your muscles a pretty impressive."
"I, umm, need - do you, umm, you want something, to eat?"
"It's alright, I'm fine."
"Oh..."
"I'm only staying until your dad gets back, remember? You do what you usually do and don't worry about me."
"Umm, ok. I will just have a sandwich."
"I take it your room the one with the cards on the floor..."
"No."
He dashed over to his room and shoved the mass of cards underneath his bed. A couple of them got bent as a result of the franticness of his actions but he didn't appear to care. His primary concern was to have them out of sight, not that having a few cards scattered across part of the floor was too much of an issue, seeing as they probably weren't going to be using his room anyway. When he turned to dash back out of the room he was stopped by Fuchsia who was blocking the doorway. His found his eyes were level with her chest, which made him feel uncomfortable, so he hastily moved them up so that he was peering into her own. She held a playful expression and winked, which made him feel even more uncomfortable.
"I think it is," she said with a wink, "You're so funny."
"Really?" he said beginning to blush again.
"I haven't heard anyone say such a blatant lie before. Did you really think you'd get away with that one, mmm?"
"Um..."
"Sorry, I'm embarrassing you again, aren't I? I'll let you get on with your dinner. After your dad gets home I have go though. If you give me a piece of paper I'll write my mobile phone and home numbers down for you."
"Ok. Do you want the TV on?"
"Sure, why not? Is it ok if I tear a piece off of that sheet on your bed?"
"Ok."
Yuri turned the TV on for her then went off to get his dinner ready. He guessed it must have been past six o'clock seeing as the news was on, and that meant his dad was going to be home anytime soon. She flicked through some of the channels but eventually decided to stick to watching the news.
"Now, have you ever wished you could revive a lost friend or relative?" said the newsreader, "Researchers at New Domino University say this is possible, and trials of inserting the DNA of someone who died nearly fifty years ago into cells have been successful. Amazing isn't it? I'll pass you over to my colleague Satoshi for more information."
"Yes, thank you, I'm joined now by one of the scientists behind the project and he will explain how it works. Thank you for being with us Professor Dy," said Satoshi, who was located in a laboratory with another man.
"My pleasure; ok so here's how it works. We have a zygote, yes, and what we do is remove the old DNA and replace it with some that we have been storing at a very low temperature. We have to store the DNA at such low temperatures because otherwise it will get damaged. Then afterwards we incubate the egg, and if all goes well, we should be able to start trials with surrogate mothers soon. The implications of this are staggering you know, we could revive Yugi Mouto or Seto Kaiba for example, well maybe not Seto Kaiba, but you get the idea. Then again, environment is a big factor in a person's development, so if Kaiba were given to a loving family he might not grow up to be so sour, who knows?" said the scientist.
"Wow, that's amazing. Surely your work deserves a Nobel Prize if everything goes according to plan?"
"I hope we do get one, but I won't be too sad if we don't; the team building an entire brain from stem cells are just as worthy I think, like us, they've spent years on the project and it's definitely something to watch out for as well."
"True. If you could pick anyone to revive, who would it be?"
"Ooh, that's a tough one; probably my wife, because I've never been able to get over her death. It's been the driving force behind this project. There were times when I thought it was never going to be possible, but the thought of her coming back is what kept me going."
"Wow, I see. One more thing, if this technology were to get in the wrong hands shall we say, do think it could be used to create an army of clones?"
"Well it's certainly possible, if one has enough strands of DNA of course, I mean we've cloned animals before, but I doubt anyone would be crazy enough to want to do such a thing."
"I do hope not. Thank you for your time and now it's back to you in the..."
Suddenly the front door to the apartment opened. It was Yuri's dad. As soon as he walked in he let out a gasp of amazement. Yuri rushed out of the kitchen to meet him, and Fuchsia also diverted her attention to him. They both looked at him with a blank expression and he stared back at them as he opened the door.
"Yuri who is the fine lady you've brought home with you? Is she from school?" he said as he walked through the door.
"Yuri, let me handle this," she said as she got up from the sofa, "Sorry, I can explain. My name is Fuchsia, and I come from the Arcadia Movement..."
"You what – really? Since when, is Yuri a member of the Arcadia Movement?"
"He's not. Well not yet anyway. His friend from school found out about his powers so she took him to the Arcadia Building, and I was told to escort him home so that I could talk to you."
"I see. Can you come with me for a minute; I want to talk to you."
"No, please," cried Yuri as he shed a tear, "Fuchsia is really nice to me. I don't want her to go."
His dad walked into his room, the one next to Yuri's. He gestured for Fuchsia to follow him in, which she did. He then shut the door and began talking to her. Yuri abruptly stopped what he was doing and placed his head against the door, to look through the keyhole, to see if he could hear what was being said.
"Yuri is very vulnerable. I can't have him becoming friends with just anyone. How do I know you're not going to take advantage of him?" he said.
"Look, I'm sorry, I'll leave if you want me to," she responded.
"There's no need for you to leave. Just tell me why you're here and what you want with Yuri."
"I don't want anything out of him. I was only ordered to escort him home. Yuri is vulnerable; I can see that from the way he acts, so I'm going to make sure nobody takes advantage of him."
"How do I know you're not just saying that?"
"It hurts me to say this, but between you and me, I don't agree with everything the Arcadia Movement does, but there are lots of people just like him there and, as fellow psychics, they want to get to know him. I know Yuri is quite vulnerable, I guessed that from the way he behaves, and I want to be his friend, not take advantage of him. He's invited me to the café on Friday, is that alright with you?"
"I can't see anything wrong with it. Sorry for getting angry. You seem like a very sweet person."
"Thanks. Yuri is very cute by the way."
His dad smiled at her, and hearing those words Yuri began to blush again. When his dad began to walk towards the door he made a sprint for the kitchen and got back to preparing his sandwich, in the hope that he was not discovered.
"You can call me Max, and you can stay for dinner if you want," his dad said as he twisted the doorknob.
"No, it's ok, really. I should be going back home now, it's getting late. I'll just say good bye to Yuri and I'll be off." she replied.
She walked into the kitchen and placed her arms around his chest, which caused him to flitch. The knife he was holding dropped onto the work surface with a clang. His reaction to her affection made her giggle and his father watched with a confused expression.
"Hug?" He asked, obviously confused by her show of affection.
"Yes - don't worry - you'll get used to my hugs eventually," she replied as she let go of him.
After Fuchsia left his dad didn't mention her again. Yuri was left to finish his dinner in peace while his dad did some exercise on the treadmill. Once he finished his dinner he got ready for bed. While in bed he pondered what Scarlett thought of Fuchsia. She didn't look at if she cared too much about him talking to her but that fact she raised an eyebrow made him wonder, though that he was very good an gauging people's emotions. The next day at school Scarlett was waiting near to the entrance for him when he arrived. She didn't look annoyed, but at the same time she didn't look distinctly happy either. Her face was unmoving, which was unusual given how she usually came across as quite eccentric and full of life.
*Check is a character in Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2010: Reverse of Arcadia.
