Disclaimer! All fictional entities featured belong to Kazuki Takahashi and were rented by me. Except Sara Scinner and Silpheed the cockatoo; they're mine. This story has been beta-read by Pidge-san, AlukaKaiserin, and ChazzyLuverGurl.

"CHEAP LAUGH"

ACT ELEVEN

"I summon my Sonic Duck in Attack Mode! Now things will really go quackers!"

Near closing time at The Gay Clown, Sara and Farley were killing time with a duel in the most under-appreciated and old-fashioned way: on the floor, sitting around a mat. At the moment, there was no other place she'd rather be. Silpheed was busy checking out Barbie, who sat on the check-out counter as scantily dressed as ever. He would've been all over her, if it wasn't for Ken sitting next to her.

"Mm, quackers is right," said Farley, sipping on his can of Coke. He tossed a quick, sly glance at his face-down monster in Defense Mode. "Say, I hear that Zoey's coming out of the hospital tomorrow."

"Yup! It's gonna be awesome-nity to have her back! You know, I was thinking: maybe you and Zoey and Silpheed and I could get together sometime and go to Pegasus World? Ever been there?"

Farley put his drink down and smiled. "Oh sure, once or twice. I remember my first ride over there: the Ojama Whirl. I love how dizzy you feel after getting off of it, though I can't say I like the puking part, heh, heh. Yeah, that sounds like a great way to wrap up the summer break!"

Sara frowned at the words "wrap up the summer break." If she'd had her way, she would make summer vacation much longer, up to six months, in fact. The other six would be for school, because that would only be fair for all the teachers. But there's a reason why this kind of thinking is considered wishful.

She jabbed her tongue into her left cheek. "Well, I've been to Pegasus World at least twelve times, and I like that ride, too! Once, I rode it so many times that my brain practically flew out of my right ear! Also, I wound up going home with the wrong family, who apparently had a kid who looked just like me and went home with my family. It was like that story about the Prince and the Pauper, only the cops got involved. I mean, really, what are the odds?" she hooted, stopping to take a sip from her can of ginger ale.

Farley almost shot Coke out of his nostrils. "W-wow, no kidding?! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!" he snorted.

Sara gargled and swished her ginger ale around a little before swallowing and continuing, "Hey, maybe the Ojama Whirl can be our first ride? You and me, riding side by side? It's even better when two people get dizzy together, you know. In fact, while we're on the subject of two, I've got a joke for you." Her smile broadened into a grin as her cheeks turned rosy.

"Really? Awright, shoot."

Sara tapped her finger on her Sonic Duck card. "Why did Sonic Duck cross the field?"

"To attack my monster?" Farley asked, lifting his drink to his lips once more. Sara paused to listen to his slurping. She liked how he slurped; he sounded like the popping of bubbles blown on a summer day.

With the boldest face she could muster, she blurted, "More than that, it's so she can tell her buddy Farley that she likes him."

Phhhhhhtt! No sooner had she delivered the punch line, he fired a jet stream of fizzy drink out of his nostrils and all over poor Silpheed, who'd been too fascinated with Barbie to pay a cent of attention! Before he knew it, his lovely white feathers were drenched and dripping with brown.

"RAWK! HEY!"

Farley clutched his chest, choking out an apology. "G-g-gosh, s-sorry, Silpheed, I--ow!"

Silpheed dove in and pinched his knee with his sharp black beak before waddling off to the bathroom, shivering either from rage or from having been doused with a cold soft drink. Sara leaned in and murmured, "He's awfully touchy about his feathers, 'specially since he keeps losing a fistful of them."

Farley wiped his nose with his forearm and sniffed, "Oooo-kay. But that-that joke…what do you mean by that? That Sonic Duck likes me, o-or that you do?"

"I do!"

"Oh? Oh…oh! Oh. Oooohhhh, boy." Farley fiddled with a lock of his muddy blonde hair. A momentary silence draped over the entire shop, save for the humming from the lights hanging overheard and a running faucet from the bathroom.

Sara cut the silence. "What's the matter? Don't get the joke?" For perhaps the first time since they'd met, Farley made no reply. Not being the type to enjoy silence, she decided to explain.

"Hey, come on, you know that I've always liked you like a friend, right? Friends like each other. And yet, despite how long we've known each other, I can't help but feel a kind of, like, connection that's a lot like friendship, only deeper." She paused to squeeze her tongue into her cheek again, as if she was looking for the words to convey what she meant. "It makes my stomach do the worm, my heart do the bump, and my liver do the watusi. You could say that you're the keg that turns my whole being into a shindig from the sixties. Farley, I think I might, like, like-like you." A huge grin still crowned her lips. Her cheeks remained rosy, but not so much from embarrassment as it was from elation.

Farley's face crumpled. Seeing the look on her face must've made him feel almost sorry for what he was about to say. "I…see. You, uh, sure have a way with words, don't you? Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before you dropped the double-L bomb…"

Question marks appeared in Sara's eyes. "Really? You knew all along?"

Farley rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, his face fading into an apple-red shade. "Well, you've kinda been dropping hints for the past week or something, big hints. Here, I'll prove my point with a montage of flashbacks, if that's okay." He pointed up towards the ceiling.

"Awright, I love montages!"

Farley trudged up the sidewalk at six in the morning with keys in hand. The sun was just crowning over the rooftops, dabbing the purple sky with strokes of pink and orange. Even though it was early, he wiped the beads of sweat off of his forehead, mumbling to himself about the humidity. To his surprise, he found a wide-awake Sara leaning against the door, grinning like a jester. Silpheed perched on her shoulder, blinking rapidly to fight off his tiredness.

He rubbed his eyes out with his knuckles. "Huh? Sara? What are--how long have you been--?"

"Ha-ha, good thing the doc's arrived, 'cause I've got the Farley Fever!" She trotted over to him and snatched the keys out of his hand. "Allow me to get the door, mercy. That's French for thanks, by the way."

Farley scratched his head, a bemused smile creasing his lips. "Uh, actually, I think the term is merci."

___XP___

Farley pounded his fist against the vending machine, glaring at the bag of Doritos that dangled precariously from its slot. "Come on, I'm paying good money for this. I just want a bag of chips!"

Suddenly, from out of the blue--

"YAAAAAAAGH!"

"Whoa!"

Bucket over her head, Sara charged head-first into the machine--WHAM!--like a football player; before long, she was a dazed, scrambled and twitching mess on the ground. The machine didn't move an inch, but the Doritos miraculously did.

Plop!

Farley sucked in his cheeks. "Are…are you okay? You…really didn't need to do that."

She raised her head and flashed a weak thumbs-up. "Either this, or the fire crackers, buh-buddy. Here are your Doritos, Ta-Tantalus." She pawed the inside of the flap until she pulled out the bag.

___XP___

On a particularly sweltering day, the air conditioner was cranked to the max. Sara and Silpheed leaned into the threshold of the shop and luxuriated in the artificially refrigerated gust. Like two dogs in the back seat of a car, their tongues hung out. Sara held out her arms like tree branches.

"Phew! Man, is it hot! Hey, Farley, come over here! It's nice and breezy by the door."

From out of the comedian's room, Farley emerged with a half-full water bottle in one hand, and his long-sleeved shirt bunched underneath his other arm. He was in a white undershirt, stained here and there with perspiration. "Zoey probably wouldn't like it if I took my shirt off, but God, I'm melting! If I'd known there'd be a heat wave, I would've dressed a little lighter…did you say something?"

Sara sucked in her lips so tightly; it looked like she was trying to swallow herself. This time, a different kind of heat branded her clammy cheeks.

"Farley!" she whined without even giving a second's worth of thought. "It's already too hot!"

Silpheed's crest feathers fluffed up with intrigue, and to get some more of the cool air underneath his plumage. Here he'd thought that sexy jokes were his specialty.

"Yeah, that last flashback kind of gave it away. Oh, then there's this morning when you tried to sing a kazoo rendition of 'Octopus's Garden' in front of my house…but I think I'm going to refrain from showing that flashback. I'm not trying to humiliate you, really, I'm not. I kinda suspected that you, er, like-liked me, but I wanted to wait until you came out and said it directly. While we're on the subject of saying things, I've got a joke of my own." Farley flipped over his monster, which turned out to be Wall of Illusion.

"Why did Wall of Illusion return Sonic Duck to your hand?"

Sara jabbed her tongue into her cheek. "Um, because Sonic Duck was just another brick in the Wall?"

Farley's lips folded into a sad smile. "It's so he can tell his friend Sara that he's sorry."

The grin on Sara's face faded. "That the Wall's sorry, or that you're sorry?"

"…I am. Listen, you're a swell girl, a funny one, too. I appreciate your bravery in telling me how you feel, and I like you and all, but…I don't like you like that."

"What, you don't, like, like me, or you just don't, like, like-like me?"

Farley sighed, growing weary of the overuse of the word "like." "To be frank, I only like you as a friend, nothing more, nothing less. I'm really sorry."

Pause.

"…I thought your name was Farley? Is Frank your alias? 'Cause I've got an alias, too, for when I get my big break." She took a moment to slip on the bucket and latex beak that she'd packed in her backpack that rested beside a shelf. "Sonic Sara! Quick-quack, quick-quack!"

Farley clapped a hand over his face. He couldn't think of another way to convey his message any clearer. "Oh, for the love of Pete--"

Sara cocked her head to one side and passed her friend a funny look. Pete? Who was Pete? Before she could ask about this Pete character, however, Farley had cleared up the mat and was now folding it up. "Uh, you know? It's getting pretty late; I think it's time that I closed the store." Before she knew it, he had literally swept her off her feet and taken her outside, only to hand her her backpack and her deck.

He took the keys out of his pocket and locked the door in a manner that Sara noticed was much hastier than was characteristic of him. The searing red look on his face made it seem as though someone had thrown a cherry pie at him, one that was fresh out of the oven. Farley whirled around with a finger entangled in his hair, lips pursed into a semi-forced smile. "I don't want to be redundant, but once again, I'm really sorry. I…I hope that we can still all go to Pegasus World, as friends. Ah, better shake a leg! My, uh, biscuits are burning!" Jamming the keys back into his pocket, Farley raced down the sidewalk like an Olympic sprinter, leaving Sara underneath the expanding shadow cast by the rooftop.

Sara watched him go; what else could she do? Chase him? She felt too dizzy to, out of confusion and out of how quickly he'd pulled her outside. On top of that, it felt like someone had thrown a rotten tomato in her face. She could practically feel the metaphorical fruit dribbling down the sides of her nose, its pungent odor pricking the inside of her nostrils. She'd gotten familiar with that feeling on a number of occasions, but she never liked it.

Out of all the things she could've said about this whole incident, she wiped her face and murmured, "Dang, I don't know who Pete is, but whoever he is, he's one lucky duck. Don't you think, Silph? Silpheed?"

She looked over her head, under her feet and every direction in between for her companion, but found no sign of him…that was, until she glanced into the window of the darkened joke shop.

Tap! Ta-ta, ta-ta, tap-rap! He tapped against the glass with his beak.

"RAWK! Hey! Don't leave me with Ken!"

"Holy cow! Farley, wait, come back!" She took off like her signature monster after the boy, who for some reason seemed to pick up speed for every time she called him. His biscuits must've been cinder cakes, by then.

It didn't matter if he had anywhere to go or not; Zane was always an early bird. When he was in school, he would get up precisely at six to watch the sunrise. In his current condition, though, he'd wake up at six and simply lie in bed and think. An hour or so later, he'd carry out his morning routine: shower, groom, dress, pills, and breakfast.

In the shower, the steaming, warm cascade was a comfort, however slight and temporary. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last. For one, if he wasn't so conscious about wasting water, he probably could've stood there for hours and brooded while the needle-sharp drops pierced his clammy skin. For another, well, no sooner had he shut the water off and threw back the curtain, a shrill, parrot-like shriek severed the early morning silence.

"RAAAAAAWWWWK!"

Zane shot an icy glance to the window. Even though the shade was down, it was open. Through it, a black, beady eye scanned his dripping nakedness from crown to toe, but appeared to be especially interested in the place in between. It gleamed with hunger.

"CYBER DRAGON! RAWK!" the cockatoo whistled.

Zane was too tired to care about what Silpheed was doing at his window sill so early in the morning, or about chasing him off. He simply wrapped a towel around himself, and then reached out to twist the shade shut.

"Aw, bananas! RAWK!" Silpheed tapped on the glass with his beak. Almost predictably, Sara wheeled up behind him on her skates. She was wearing her Sonic Duck costume, with a bag full of newspapers slung around her shoulder.

"C'mon, Silpheed! These papers aren't gonna deliver—say, what'cha looking at?"

The bird squinted at the window. "Cyber Dragon…RAWK!"

"Cyber what? Ooh, wait, are you talking about Zane? Wow, he's on our route? Awesome-nity!" Sara cheered. "We should stop and say hi!"

Silpheed trembled a little, as though he'd just seen something marvelous. "Four Cyber Dragons…"

Sara tapped a finger against her bucket-hat. "Four? Funny, I thought he only had three?"

"One's too big for his deck. RAWK!"

Sara squeezed in next to her pet and rapped on the window. "Hey, Ziti! Are you in there? Silpheed says you have four Cyber Dragons! Is that true? Hello? Huh-looooo?"

But Zane continued to glare forks and knives into his reflection in the foggy mirror, cycling his sudsy toothbrush around his molars. He couldn't find it in himself to care about Scinner's question; if he ignored them long enough, they would have to go back to their business, which apparently was now paper delivery.

"He must be dropping a duck egg," he heard her mumble as she placed something on his sill. "Okay, we'll just come back later, then! Here's your paper, by the way. I put the comics on top, 'cause, you know, when you read the funnies first, the news doesn't look as depressing. And laughter prevents cancer…as well as help with your bowel movement. I know it helps mine," she snickered. "Anyway, good mornin'!"

"RAWK! Bye, Cyber Dragon!"

Their departure was as abrupt as their arrival, but Zane couldn't care less. He spat in the sink, repeating this mantra over and over in his head: That didn't happen. That didn't happen. That didn't happen.

With his bathroom duties out of the way, he dressed himself in his usual black attire and headed for the kitchen to make breakfast and apply his medication. From the top shelf of the fridge, he retrieved the milk and orange juice. From the pantry, he pulled out the Bran Flakes. Setting them all on the table, he then opened the dish-washer to pull out his dining ware--washing dishes by hand put awful stress on his lower back, so he washed them in a machine. So is but one of the setbacks of being tall.

As soon as he'd set everything up for the most important meal of the day, Zane sat down, poured himself a bowl of cereal, and reached out for the milk, just before a vision clicked on in his head. He was at Duel Academy, in the middle of his graduation duel with Jaden Yuki.

"And now, I call forth Cyber End Dragon!"

By the effect of Time Fusion, Cyber End once again loomed overhead, looking as ferocious as ever, no matter how many times he had summoned it. So far, Jaden hadn't exactly played at his very best, and it rubbed him something fierce. He had wanted to go out with a bang, after all. There was only one effective punishment that he could deal Jaden, and that was defeat. By the second effect of Time Fusion, however, Cyber End could not attack until the next turn.

"I finish my turn by laying one face down."

Everyone in the stands was sweating bullets, especially Dr. Crowler. What miracle could Jaden possibly pull out of his deck, this time?

"I activate Fusion Recovery! This brings back Polymerization and Burstinatrix from my Graveyard. Sorry, Zane, but you're not the only one who can re-summon a monster!" The fiery femme fatale graced Jaden's side of the field, ready for action.

ATK: 1200

"Next, I'll activate Miracle Fusion! I just remove Burstinatrix and Avian from play…and I can summon my Elemental Hero: Flame Wingman!" His own signature beast took Burstinatrix's place, dragon arm aimed like a cannon.

ATK: 2100

"But wait! I'm not done yet! Go, Polymerization! Merge Sparkman with Flame Wingman to create the Elemental Hero: Shining Flare Wingman!"

ATK: 2500

The glow from the winged warrior's armor bathed the arena in an ethereal green light. Not a bad move, Zane had to admit.

"And here's the cherry on top! For every Elemental Hero I have chilling in the Graveyard, Flare Wingman gains 300 Attack Points! Now let's call off. Hero role call!" Eight Heroes added their power to Flare Wingman's. He glowed ever brighter with every new Attack Point.

ATK: 4900

Zane could notice that twinkle returning in Jaden's eyes as he immediately declared an attack on Cyber End Dragon, that determined glint that accompanied every duel he'd seen Jaden compete in. He should've known better than to doubt the boy.

SSSSSH! Cyber End went out like a giant stained glass window. The Obelisk graduate braced himself as his Life Points were drained to a meager 1100.

"Oh, yeah! But Flare Wingman's not done, yet! 'Cause when he destroys a monster in battle, you take damage equal to the number of your monster's Attack Points! That's 4000, right there!"

Miracle, indeed.

Of course, that wasn't how the duel had ended, for Zane had nullified the effect with his face-down, Damage Polarizer. The really real ending was to be saved for another flashback for his reminiscing pleasure. Unfortunately, the rush from the memory ended in the instant he took his first spoonful of Bran Flakes. It tasted like wood shavings drowning in fruit pulp and seeds, like he was munching on hamster food.

He stopped in mid-chew to glare down at his cereal, to realize that while he'd been dreaming about duels gone by, he'd poured orange juice into his Bran Flakes instead of milk. He rolled the mush around the inside of his mouth with his tongue while deciding what to do with this flaky, orange mess.

Forget it. I'll just have toast, instead. This storyline had better hurry along, so I can find my final opponent.

Grunting in disgust, he spat into the bowl, then cupped the bowl in his hands and trudged for the garbage can. They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But there is an unspoken fact that however one's breakfast goes, the rest of their day goes that way, as well. For example, if one pours orange juice into his cereal, the rest of their day tends to go rotten. Not that this was new to Zane.

So later on, with a piece of crumbly dry toast in one hand, he sat with the paper that he had gone outside to retrieve from his window sill. He placed it on the table and scanned every word of it, from the bolded titles to the periods. Fortunately, he found no news about himself; he was the kind of man who sought discretion about his private affairs. But none of the articles held his interest for too long, not even the one reporting rumors about a final Destiny Hero card being manufactured by a group that sponsored Aster Phoenix, or the one about some professor from West Academy becoming a teacher at Duel Academy when the new school year would begin. He hadn't spared even a passing glance at the comics, which lay on the farthest right corner of the table.

At least he was alone.

Zzzzt!

Never mind.

Zane looked up from the paper and across the kitchen, to the front door. The doorbell continued to hiccup like a gas-intoxicated bee. Getting up to investigate, he shuffled towards the door and peeked through the tiny window in the center of it. Sara was outside, ringing the bell again and again with that moronic grin scrawled across her face. Her perverted pet perched on her shoulder, trembling for some reason that he honestly couldn't care less about.

Predictable. Doesn't she have anyone else to harass? He turned his back towards the door. From his pocket, he pulled out a pair of plugs and applied them to his ears. Sure enough, he could no longer hear his doorbell, or anything but the sound of his pulse, for that matter. He slunk back into the kitchen. She could ring his doorbell all day long, but he had no intention of answering it.

That was, until she whipped out a fog horn.

Bwooooow!

This didn't bother him in the sense that it was too loud; with his ears plugged up, all he could hear was a faint noise that sounded like a cow's lowing. What did bother him was the stomping of footsteps in the apartments above him, and he didn't need to hear it to know it was there. He felt it in his backbone. Sometimes one didn't need their eyes or ears to sense negative energy in their surroundings. Why, bones could possibly be the sixth sense, or at least be part of it.

His instincts warned him that a riot was about to ensue: the last thing he needed this morning. In the end, he swallowed his reluctance and headed back to the door. No sooner had he opened it, he almost had his nose snapped off by the yellow clapping toy she waved around in one hand, while the other continued to blow that fog horn like there'd be no afternoon.

Sara noticed him in the doorway and stopped immediately. She moved her lips in every frantic direction, but he didn't hear a word. He just stood there, looking as sour as he felt. He took note of the pair of floppy, black rabbit ears she wore on her head. Heaving a mental sigh, he reached into his left ear to pull out the plug.

"Cheese Louise, we've been trying to get your attention for ten minutes! Are you going deaf? 'Cause if you are, I think you should see an otterologist. That's a guy that looks at ears. And otters, because they keep getting swimmer's ear, I guess."

You mean an otologist, Zane corrected, though not out loud.

A woman whose hair was in curlers shuffled out from next door in a robe and purple slippers. "Hey, jackass! Tell your girlfriend to cut the noise pollution or I'm calling the police!"

If Zane's eyes had been pistols, he would have shot his neighbor dead in a heartbeat just by glaring at her. Unfortunately, this wasn't so. "She's not my girlfriend," he snarled.

"Of course, I am. I'm a girl who happens to be your friend, silly!" She jammed her clapping toy into her pocket so she could reach up and give him a noogie. Zane snatched her by the wrist to pry her off. The woman simply gave a snort before shuffling back indoors.

"Don't touch the hair."

"Pfft, relax! We only came around to ask to borrow your friendship."

"…For how long?" He meant this in the context of, "How long are you going to stand here, wasting time?"

"Oh, just 'til one of us dies."

In that case, we won't be 'friends' for very long. If we were, to begin with.

Sara slapped her knee, chuckling at her own joke. "No, seriously, we came over to--"

"See your Dragon! RAWK!" Silpheed's beady eyes wandered until they found the spot between Zane's legs. If it were in his character, he probably would've strangled that feathered freak.

"--give you this." Pulling the rabbit ears off of her head, he stood up on tip-toe and set them on Zane's head like a crown. Then she took two steps back to admire how he looked. "There! Now you look like Dark Rabbit."

"RAWK! Or a Gothic Playboy bunny," added Silpheed.

Scratch that. He would've strangled them both. But he couldn't. Or was it that he could've, but wouldn't? Either way, he should've just slammed the door on them right then and there, and he did, but she slid her foot in the doorway.

He ripped the rabbit ears off of his head. "Look, kid, why don't you go pester someone else about the details on your escapades?"

She stuck her tongue out. "We would, but all our friends went to Pegasus World with us. You didn't. But you ought to; you won't regret it. You've got a ton of time on your hands, don't you? 'Cause you don't go to school and all? I mean, Peggy World dances circles around being cooped up in an apartment on your lonesome, doesn't it?"

Sara dug into her pockets to fish out a handful of photos. "Allow me to show you proof of this."

"Allow me to slam the door on your face." This time, however, both of her feet were in the doorway. In fact, she and Silpheed were now literally up in his face. They failed to notice as he began to grind his teeth. The first photo depicted a beaming Sara sitting next to a pink-faced boy with muddy blonde hair in a roller-coaster car. She had him in a head-lock, nooging him like she'd never noogied anyone before.

"Sitting around doesn't let you ride the Toon Terror with good ol' Farley, does it? Though I'm not sure why he didn't invite Pete to come with us. Must've had a bug or something…"

Zane couldn't see anything in the second photo, for thick, icky brown globs of foodstuff blotted out the imagery. Sara held it up like it was something to be proud of. "Yeah, I threw up when we were taking this pic. My advice: don't polish off a chili dog before mounting the Ojama Whirl. Still, you can't do this when you're sitting around, can you?"

The third photo showed Silpheed fooling around between someone's legs, eyeing their rear with that devious glint in his eye. "Sly dog here horsed around with a pretty girl…who turned out to be the big man himself!" She switched to a fourth photo, where Maximillion Pegasus rubbed his sore backside, surrounded by bodyguards who had their hands on their gun holsters and gave Sara, Farley, and Silpheed evil looks.

"Seriously, what are the odds of bumping into the maxi-millionaire Pegasus at his own park? Heh-heh, I didn't know whether to faint or pee myself. So I did a little of both. He was such a good sport about the whole thing, too."

"RAWK! And his butt was fabulous!" Silpheed seemed to lick his beak.

Sara put away the pictures and placed a hand on her hip. "All in all, that last day of summer was a blast! What'd you do all summer, hm?"

Try to avoid morons like you. If you're not going to go away, then I'll make you.

"Did you go to Kaiba Land? We would have, but after the, uh, incident last year, we've kind of been ba--whoa!"

Unable to take any more, Zane gathered enough nerve to shove Sara out of the doorway, while slamming the door shut and locking it. She did look crazy enough to break into someone's home uninvited. He may have had locked her out, but she managed to scamper over to the kitchen window and press her face against the glass. She refused to quit pushing it.

"Have you ever been outside, ever? And I don't mean to be outside just to duel. I mean, come on, you look all grey and pasty! My little cousin would probably try to eat you if he met you. And don't you get lonely in there?"

"RAWK! He's got his four Dragons." The cockatoo's eyes darted right back to Zane's crotch.

Zane's veins simmered with acid, roasting him from the inside-out. He felt that infuriating chest pain flare up again; he turned his back so she wouldn't see him clutch his chest. Lovely. On the inside, I've got pain in my chest. On the outside, I've got a pain in my head. At least school's tomorrow. Stiffly, he shuffled towards the window to draw the blinds and twist them shut.

"Hey! Y'know, hiding never solved anything, Sunshine. If you never come out of your shell, one day you might look back on your life when your blue hair turns grey and you won't find anything to laugh about and say, 'Wow, my life was cool.'"

She wants to be a stand-up duelist? How about a preacher, instead? My life is memorable enough, thought Zane, re-applying his ear plug. It will be, when I find that special opponent and challenge him. He reclaimed his seat at the kitchen table, this time to shuffle through his deck. This time, he didn't care if she started a riot outside. If the police dragged her away, at least then she'd leave him alone.

TO BE CONTINUED…