Chapter 7! Whoohoo! From now on, I won't have many chapters pre-written (unlike before) so I might update even slower. ;_; Sorry.

Thanks everybody for the reviews! And hits! And for everything! Huntress passed the 2,000 hits mark! –fangirl squeal-

Disclaimer: YGO 5Ds cannot possibly belong to me if I don't live in Japan.

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Chapter 7: Budding Roses

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Today was the morning after the rough training session- I wouldn't say that my arms and legs felt perfectly normal, but it didn't bother me too much. My body was used to hard work… I did live in a halfling school after all. And there was a nice breakfast to greet meet after my waking up at 8:00 by an alarm clock (Carly's Hello VampCat one), French toast. Currently I was seated at my table with Carly, while the rest of the gang (Sherry and a couple other girls, we sat with the guys at lunch and dinner) were getting their food. Suddenly, a loud-voiced person behind me that wasn't my glasses-wearing friend revealed their position with a load greeting directed to me.

"Good Morning, Akiza!"

For a moment, I expected to turn to only see an ash brown haired man placing his chin on my shoulder in a compromising position. But the voice was feminine, even though it had the same snarky tone.

Instead, I turned to see the glamorous blond Angela smiling at me like a catnipped cat in a pose that would only work in a photo shoot.

"Whattaya want?" I said rudely.

It wasn't normal for me to be this out of character and bitchy, but this girl certainly asked for it. She wasn't my direct enemy- but she'd taken advantage of Carly many times over, and Carly's enemies were mine too. It was impossible to count how many times innocent little Carly had accidentally let some information slip about her new scoop because of Angela's butting in. But… well… it wasn't like she did it intentionally. She was just a naturally malicious and nosy girl.

"Sorry Angela, that was a bad way to greet you." I smiled serenely, trying to make amends. "I've just been having a rough morning." (It was slightly true. My hair took a few more minutes to roll up than usual.)

Ugh, I didn't like to be nice to her, but she hadn't been even that nasty to Carly recently, so I had no excuse. Obviously the Carly sitting across from me still hadn't forgiven her yet, because she'd even set down her latest book in order to listen to our conversation and possibly interrupt it.

"It's OK, Akiza!" That blond smiled her stupid like fake smile. "I just came to get a new scoop for HaLFLiNG! Weekly."

Yeah, the reason for Angela's and Carly's rivalry is their two newspapers that they're reporters for. Angela's the star reporter for HaLFLiNG! Weekly, which is our school's non-official newspaper. They tend to be more of a magazine; with major gossip articles and some language that the teachers don't want representing us for the other vampire academies around the world. But it's the more popular newspaper; that's why it sticks around.

And that leads me to The Atlas Academy Times, Carly's domain. It's our school's official newspaper, but sadly it isn't as popular as the aforementioned one. It's a lot more G-rated than the total PG-13 material in HaLFLiNG! Weekly, which makes it a safer read. Though usually it doesn't have interesting stuff, every once in a while Carly makes a great find and everybody picks up a copy. Sadly, it's rare, and hasn't been happening recently.

But why's Angela coming to me for a scoop? Don't I have 'Carly's property' printed all over me? With that kind of competition and my closeness to Carly, it should be obvious that only Carly and her newspaper crew can get headlines from me.

"Um…"

I stared at the bespectacled girl across from me, who looked a bit worked up. Who wouldn't be? Angela was even doing it in front of her!

Before I could properly reply, Angela continued speaking.

"So, I came for info about why you and your groupies have been disappearing lately for meetings with Goodwin."

I was about to retort when Carly stepped in. I expected her to. That girl gets pissed by Five Anger Activating Factors (the FAAF. She wanted the initials to be JA when planning, but she couldn't think of suitable words. Onto the list.)

1. Jack talking to a girl who is obviously interested. (Prime examples are Mina and Stephanie; Mina is a teaching assistant for our Vampire history teacher Trudge and is a halfling, Stephanie is a barely vampirian waitress to the school's little café, Café la Green. They both love Jack (as in puppy love.))

2. I or any of her other friends are threatened.

3. Angela is being a nosy, nasty scoop hog.

4. Somebody disses her newspaper.

5. (this one is ridiculous, you've been warned.) If somebody steals her glasses when she isn't looking. As in, sleep. (Long story short Crow took her glasses on the night before April Fool's and ended up with a flyswatter mark on his cheek for the rest of the day. Don't ask why, but Carly keeps a flyswatter in her bag at all times for emergency reasons. And, well, even Crow with his bright orange hair can't get through to an armed Carly with bad vision.)

This time, FAAF numbers two and three had been done by the Queen of Nosiness like usual. And of course, with two horrible FAAF actions themselves having been done, it was time for Carly to make her stand.

"Angela, can you please not come to Akiza for news reports? With two competing newspapers in one school, it'd be nice if I could interview the people I wanted to without interruptions. And for now, the five that have been going to the Headmaster for meeting after during study hall have said that they want to be interviewed by me, not you."

Angela stared at her for a moment, nibbling her lip with thought. Then she tossed her locks in an elegant manner over her shoulders with a satisfied smirk.

"It's their problem for wanting an amateur like you to interview them. I'll find plenty better scoops for this week's edition of HaLFLiNG! Weekly. See you around, Carly Carmine."

With another hair toss and a fake photo smile for everyone around us, Angela was gone to sit at her breakfast table.

"God, that girl is someday gonna get it," Carly muttered, mostly to herself. Then she continued eating her French toast.

But Angela had mentioned something that I thought Carly would react to. I thought just that my black-haired airhead companion just was not really noticing me and the other Signer's disappearances, but now it seemed liked she was deliberately ignoring the subject. The first time we'd gone to Goodwin's Sherry used a grades excuse, but that one was weak and Carly let it pass because she was reading. But I hadn't told her much about last night, and I'm sure she wanted to know.

"Hey, Carly?" I asked.

Carly looked up with a piece of French toast stuffed in her mouth.

"Hrm?"

This was totally the wrong picture for a serious question, but I had to ask anyways.

"Carly, why haven't you been asking about my and the other four's disappearances?"

The air around us grew thin as a paper sheet, and then in one blow it was back to normal when Carly sighed.

"I thought this wouldn't come up and you'd just blame my air-headedness," she started off, trying to smile but having it crack in half with doubt.

"But really, I noticed when after you guys left and I and Jack were alone. There was something off with him, I realized."

She looked off again, swirly blue glasses still preventing me from seeing her eyes, the gateways to her soul. Yusei and she were very alike in that aspect, that looking to their eyes could tell you everything. But she was hiding them, even from me, her best friend. She hid them from everybody.

"I was going to ask, but a part of me prevented that from happening. Because I decided that I would wait until you decided to tell me. Even though it hurts, and I could use it as a newspaper scoop or something, I want it to turn out that way."

Carly looked at me once this statement was said, and I could feel her cool gaze rest on my rounded face.

"I can tell you still can't tell me. So I'm going to wait."

I felt my chest tightening, feeling that block of pain that had been there ever since I starting keeping the secret inflate in size. My heart banged against my chest in guilt, who was I? Hiding a secret from my best friend? I should've created an adequate, very appreciative response to Carly's kindness, but only two words managed to escape my throat in a mangled squeak of my normal voice.

"Thank you."

And something in her renewed smile said that those words were enough.

~(-)~

I held myself in a ball, tears nearly coming out of my eyes but just not making it. The need to cry still panged within my heart, but I kept it at bay. I couldn't cry for such reasons, such selfish reasons. Why was Carly so kind? Such a selfless person, sacrificing her pain so that I could be comfortable. This was why Jack was in love with her. Everybody could tell.

It all started when Yusei beat Jack once, in a duel outside of class. Only a few spectators were there, in the deserted duel area just before 9 o'clock, when their battle came to a close. Both were breathing hard, Jack's glare digging into Yusei's hair like a knife, and my hands held to my chest in shock while Crow and Sherry stared in awe. Carly had missed the preliminaries; she went early to bed being the good girl she was. It would've broken her heart to see that, her crush being defeated by his rival. And so Jack ran, cowardice powering his legs, and wasn't seen until the next day in dueling class.

It wasn't even a duel day; it was a deck analyzing session. But when Jack challenged Yusei with a rigid index finger pointing to his chest, even Yanagi couldn't say no. All of our thirteen-year old selves (with some younger and older pre-teens in the mix) were excited, eager to see a battle between the, at that time, the powerhouses of our class. (Later on, that title got passed to another person, too- me, surprisingly. Crow and Sherry got some attention too, but Carly just didn't have the courage to stand out.)

Crow, Sherry and I had exchanged furtive glances. Knowing Jack, he'd spent the whole of last night fixing up his deck preparing for this, wanting to get his pride back. Because, after all, he was the one who'd been better than Yusei and the rest of us the whole time, and who always gave his best friends Yusei and Crow advice anytime he asked. But now the former was exceeding even his skills, and in his eyes it couldn't possibly be fair.

But the duel ended just like the first, with Jack's life points plummeting to a trodden 0 and with Yusei's still a few hundred. Nobody spoke; nobody had dared to breathe. And then Jack left the ring with an enraged expression, and nobody tried to stop him. Not even our teacher. Yet at that moment the silence was shaken.

"Professor Yanagi, I have to go help him."

And Carly ran off in the direction of our ex-champion, leaving us all more stunned than before. She'd acted so fast, so quick to Jack's pain. She, Carly, who'd never skipped a class in her life except for that one week she was sick, immediately did so to help him.

Professor Yanagi whistled in that moment that she sped out the door.

"Young love," he said.

And for the rest of the day the two were not seen, not even by the then-waitress (fine, waiter) at Café la Green Rally, who claimed that Jack had not come to get his daily ritual of coffee.

But the next day, the two were in class and acted like nothing had happened.

"What happened?" I'd asked.

"Nothing important… I just cheered him up," she'd replied thoughtfully.

The next day, after dueling class had just ended (where we made up the deck studying session), Jack asked- in front of everybody- for Carly to go out with him. And that was a huge deal at the time, especially with Carly being 12 and him being 15, but she'd accepted and they'd been together since with a few bumps along the way.

And my 13-year old self was amazed, but now that I look back I know that Carly's utter kindness was the thing that healed him after his sound defeat. And that tenderness that she provides, with his unbeatable strength, is what makes them perfect together, two melding pieces of a puzzle.

Her endless compassion, devotion- and I'm repaying all that by being a horrible BFF. Dammit, I hate myself.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door.

"May I come in?"

My breath stopped for a second. His oh-so-familiar voice, that kindly figure, was just person I needed to be with right now.

"Come in," I croaked.

He let himself in, blazing eyes instantly taking in my wretched face and crinkled clothes from sitting in one position too long. Yusei was the only guy I'd let in my room, because I knew he wouldn't do anything dangerous or snoop around. Not that a guy like Bruno would snoop around, but I just trusted Yusei just that much more.

My fellow halfling laid himself on the untidy floor, propping up his head to be eye-level with me, enrapturing me with his understanding gaze.

"Did someone do this to you?"

"No," was my muffled answer.

He didn't believe it.

"Sayer?"

I chuckled.

"I wouldn't cry for him, you idiot."

He smiled, a display of warmth.

"Good."

His cerulean eyes scanned me again; saw the invisible tears almost ready to fall.

"Are you beating yourself up?"

Shaking, I nodded. Then I poured out my heart's contents of my day, the torturous classes of dueling class and riding and then having to stuff down dinner and training with him and Placido while I still felt weak and everything, splattered it all on the floor, about how Carly's infinite goodness was tearing me apart. I knew exactly how Jack felt- perhaps not as bad, because they'd gone through hardships of a man and a woman and now they were experiencing another problem. Why was I so upset, when he had it worse, why oh-

"Snap out of it."

He turned my face forcefully to face his, and I realized in my blabbering he'd sat up to be kneeling. And we looked at each other, and something wonderful bloomed in my heart, coming from the seed that had been planted when I first met after my duel with Jack. A sprouting red rose bud had opened, spreading the aroma of gripping, fresh love.

Yusei looked down from my gaze, snapping the intensity in two. My heartbeat slowed down again, and that newfound feeling sank into the recesses of my chest. I realized he was holding my hand.

"I know you have it hard. We have to keep secrets, and that's just the duty of being who we are. I know it's going to be a tough road. That's an undeniable fact. But we all have to get through this, we just have to. We have to accept that this is our duty, that this is something that we'll all do together. Even though we'll get hurt on the path, I know that we'll all be ready. We help each other, and if someone falls, everybody will lend a hand to get them back up. Nobody on my watch is going to have their soul broken in two, whether it's the fault of our enemies or us."

His eyes, ablaze with passion, staring a hole through the floor. There was an awkward few seconds. I didn't know how to respond.

I wiped tears that I didn't know had fallen from my upper cheek.

"You snap out of it this time, Yusei," I teased. "Don't get carried away with your speeches."

He smiled, and everything was alright. We slipped into easy conversation, and didn't discuss the topic of being Signers for a while.

In those few minutes of easiness, I made a promise to myself. I'm going to let that rose in my heart bloom into the most beautiful flower ever that has existed. The thorns are only scars of when I've gone through hardships, and one has been added because of my blaming of myself for Carly's selflessness. But already the flower is opening, in these few moments with Yusei. I'm going to let him make my rose bloom. I'm going to let him tend to my heart. He's going to make that rose the most beautiful flower you ever saw, I swear it.

I swear it.

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Oh my, oh my. I did NOT expect this chapter to be this long. At first I wanted it to be just the Angela bit with some Carly angst, and I said what the heck, and added the other 2/3 of what you just saw. My fangirliness-O-meter was exploding with how much Faithshipping I put in. =)

And that bit about Rally being a wait(er)ress? I was looking through a list of 5D's charries on the yugioh wiki, for candidates to be the waitress back when Akiza was 13 (after all, you can't have a 13 year old Stephanie working at a café, that's just not right… underage working whatnot. She's around Akiza's age, right?) and I found Rally, imagined him as a grown-up wait(er)ress serving Jack Blue Eyes Mountain Tea… and you probably know where it went from there. XD

And well, I can't believe this chap has over 3,000 words. My longest chappie ever. Woot!

Another note, I'd be lying if I said Carly's reaction wasn't affected by me reading House of Night: Marked, Stevie Rae's response from Zoey asking why she wasn't questioning about her filled in Mark. The basic idea of Carly responding like that was planted by reading that part of the book, so I'd say that it's a bit of a paraphrased quote if you will. So it wasn't entirely original.

Please review, people! I haven't been asking for it lately, but I always appreciate some constructive crit with your review too. That helps me become a better writer. =) Thanks for reading!