Story Title: Chains of Crystal
Chapter Title: Dueling
Romance: Fubuki x Otogi
Timeline: Effectively AU season 1 of GX.
Otogi paged through the rule book a little carelessly. He'd already read it more times than he could remember in the four days since his arrival there, wanting to be certain that he remembered it all. His knack for games wasn't quite like Yuugi's or Atemu's, but he thought he could manage. He'd watched as many duels as he could during those days as well, and was fascinated by the whole concept. The more he watched and learned, the more he really wanted to start playing.
"Having fun over there?" Otogi did not need to turn to know it was Fubuki who had asked the question. Not only did he recognize his voice, but Fubuki did own his crystal and was his master. He'd recognize his master, no matter how much he hated the thought, any day of the week.
"I think some of my friends would've loved this game," he said, looking at the book again. "I wish I could show it to them."
"Maybe you can sometime." Fubuki replied, strumming on a ukulele he'd picked up from somewhere in his room. "You never know."
Otogi smiled a bit, not really wanting to say that as far as he'd been able to tell, he'd never see his friends again. For everything to have changed so much, he had to have been sealed up for centuries. If not thousands of years or more. "Maybe." He looked through the book again, and thought he might possibly have a hang of the rules. "I think I might know how to work all of this."
He wouldn't be a match for any of the duelists around here, though. He was intelligent enough to know that much. Not for a while. Not without practice.
Fubuki looked up with a grin. "Want to try? I've got enough spare cards so you can make yourself up a deck if you want."
Otogi considered it for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Maybe this would also take his mind off of the nagging notions that he knew Yuusuke somehow. The other hadn't come around very often in the last few days, but whenever he did, Otogi was certain if he'd been a cat, he would have arched his back and yowled. There was something wrong and it grew worse with every passing day.
Thankfully, his attention was pulled away as Fubuki set several binders in front of him. "I keep the monster cards here, the spell cards here, and the trap cards here," he said, pointing to each set. "If you need any help, let me know?"
"Sure." Otogi started to look through the various card sets, trying to find ones that would suit the slowly forming strategy in the back of his mind. He wasn't certain how effective it would be, but it was something to try.
He also tried not to notice just how close Fubuki appeared to be to him. It wasn't any closer than he'd been since he'd first emerged from the crystal, but just as with Yuusuke, but in a much more pleasant way, he reacted to Fubuki's presence. He was a little more relaxed, a little more inclined to enjoy himself, and every now and then he found himself admiring the lines of Fubuki's face.
Otogi had never cared that much about what gender any lovers of his were. He'd had his share of men and women both, djinn and human, during the course of his life before his imprisonment. So finding himself attracted to Fubuki was only a bit of an annoyance because of the fact Fubuki was the current owner of his crystal. There weren't any rules against bound djinn and their masters having a relationship that stretched beyond the 'master and slave' situation, not that he knew of. But that didn't prevent him from being a little wary about the whole situation.
As he worked through the cards, a tap came to the door. He didn't bother to look up; his magical senses hadn't reacted at all, which meant it was probably someone competely normal. He could by now figure out when it was one of Fubuki's friends, either by the way they knocked or just his reactions to it. And since his nonexistent cat fur hadn't wanted to raise up, it wasn't Yuusuke either.
"Fubuki?" It was a quiet female voice, one he also didn't recognize. So, it wasn't Asuka or one of her two friends. He still had troubles telling them apart. "Do you have a minute?"
"Sure, Kaori. What's the problem?" The name still wasn't familiar. Not that Otogi was very surprised by that. He couldn't recognize half the people here most of the time. It was a much larger school than he'd thought when he'd first seen it.
"It's…I…" The girl stammered a little. "I don't know if I should be asking you this…"
"Oh, come on!" Fubuki's smile was evident in his voice. "What is it? I won't tell."
"All right…it's…it's about a boy…" Otogi curiously looked over enough to see that the girl's cheeks were bright red with embarassement. Fubuki only smiled.
"You've come to the right person. The Wizard of Love, at your service!" Fubuki pulled her over to the side and started talking to her quietly, too low for Otogi to hear unless he used his magic. Which he wasn't going to do at the moment. This was obviously a private moment.
The Wizard of Love. A smile tugged briefly at his lips. That was one thing he'd learned about Fubuki. He was in love with love. Otogi wasn't certain if that meant he would ever think about being in love with someone or not. And asking would possibly bring what he wasn't sure he wanted: an answer.
A few minutes later, Kaori was gone, with a much more hopeful look in her eyes. Fubuki closed the door and wandered back over to pick up his instrument again, picking at the strings a little.
"You do that a lot, don't you?" Otogi asked, going through the trap cards now. "Help people out like that?"
"Someone has to," Fubuki shrugged casually and kept on playing a soft little tune. "Hey, Otogi, I was wondering something." Otogi made a little curious noise as he debated over a few cards. "Want to go out tonight? Just you and me."
Otogi's head came up quickly and he stared at the young duelist in surprise. "What?" Had he just been asked out on a date? After what he'd been thinking, it was a little on the surprising side.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me. There's this perfectly glorious beach out there just waiting to get walked on once the sun goes down." Fubuki grinned at him mischeviously. "You can find the most interesting people there."
Otogi began to smile a little. "That's true. Sure. I'd love to go out with you."
Fubuki grinned widely at that. "As soon as it gets dark, then. How's that deck coming, anyway?"
"Almost done." The black-haired djinn turned back to it. "I just want to be sure I've got everything in here I want in here?"
"All right. We can play in here, if you want. Or we can get you a duel disk and we can go outside for it."
Otogi thought about both of those options. On the one hand, playing in here meant that when he lost, there wouldn't be an audience. On the other, getting out and meeting even more people was always a plus. "We can go out." He grinned some. "Besides, I know you love an audience." It had been hard to miss, given the duel that Fubuki had had against Ryou two days earlier. Ryou had won, but anyone could have told Fubuki was having fun no matter what. He was also a deadly player when he wanted to be. Otogi was looking forward to facing that himself, with or without people watching.
Fubuki nodded unashamedly, then jumped up and headed for his closet, rummaging around. "I think I have a spare around here somewhere that you can use."
Otogi sorted through the rest of the cards quickly, making his final decisions, then shuffled them a few times, doing a few practice draws to see how the mix was looking. It would be hard to tell more accurately until he actually went through a duel, but he thought this was going to be an adequate deck. "All right, I think I'm ready."
"Good!" Fubuki stepped back and pulled out a Duel Disk. "And here you go!" He blew some dust off of it and brushed a little more off. "I haven't needed to use this one in a while. It's the one I had when I first came here. I just kept it in case anything ever happened to that one." He motioned with one hand over to the Disk he usually used.
Otogi took it and settled it on his arm. It almost felt as if it belonged there. He decided he'd give some thought to modifying it for himself later, if he could. But it would do for the moment. He picked up his deck and slid it into the holder, then turned to Fubuki. "Ready?"
"Ready!"
Together, the two of them left the room and headed down to the arena where the Obelisk Blue students usually had their pickup duels or practice duels or just any kind of duel that they wanted to have. Otogi had watched more than a few there recently, and he all but itched to teach some of those arrogant idiots what it meant to be a real gamesman. Yuugi had taught him once, and he was willing to pass it on. After all, he was older than they were, and it was the duty of the elders to teach the young, wasn't it?
A few casual words thrown out by Fubuki, indicating they were going to duel, was all it took to have the arena at least half-full by the time they got there. Everyone liked seeing Fubuki duel, since he put on more of a show than just about anyone there.
As they entered, Otogi found himself suddenly wanting to hiss and claw at something. He looked around, and saw Yuusuke sitting in the stands, sunglasses in place as they'd been since that afternoon when he'd shown up to get them. Otogi couldn't remember seeing him without them since then, no matter what.
"Looks like a good crowd." Fubuki said, waving around happily to everyone. "Think you're ready for this?"
"Guess we'll find out, won't we?" Otogi grinned at him, then walked with Fubuki to the center of the arena. "I hope you're ready."
Fubuki only grinned back at him. "Well, let's get this started. Shuffle my deck?"
"Thought you'd never ask." He accepted Fubuki's deck in one hand and used the other to pull his own from his disk and handed it over. He shuffled quickly, enjoying the feeling of all those eyes on him. Having an audience just made this all the more interesting.
But he also couldn't shake the feeling of wrong that came from those other eyes, the ones behind Yuusuke's concealing glasses. The other had insisted he was fine now, he'd only needed to lay down for a while that day. But why did he keep wearing them, even at night? Otogi had seen him leaving the Obelisk Blue dorms after sunset once, and those glasses were still there. Something was very wrong. Maybe I'll have to find the time to look into this.
Once they had both shuffled and returned their decks to their disks, each of them took up the proper spot in the arena. "Let's duel!" Fubuki declared, Otogi echoing him only a breath later. "You can have the first move," Fubuki went on to tell him. Otogi nodded, and drew his cards.
Yuusuke hasn't watched any of Fubuki's duels since I've been here, he realized suddenly as he started to look over what he'd drawn. I've been to them all and he hasn't been there. So why now?
He cast a quick glance up towards where Yuusuke sat, then turned his attention back to his cards. Wrong doesn't even cover all of this.