Things drastically changed after that. For everyone.

Zuzu started spending all her time with Varsch at school, and Ally, Tate and Fredrick at You Show. She tried to talk to Yuya many times, but each time he would push her away. Though it hurt her more than she cared to admit, she tried not to let it bother her, tried to convince herself it was Yuya's problem, not hers. But still it hurt.

As for Yuya, all the humiliation and blackmail he'd been through had left him a social outcast. People began to spread all kinds of rumours about him, shunned him in the halls, whispered and laughed behind his back. He'd also been receiving regular beatings each day from Nathan and his thugs. He was having to hide all his bruises and scraps with make up now. He had too keep quiet about everything or else Varsch would spill all of his and his friends' secrets to everyone. Something he couldn't let happen. Keeping it from his mom was easy, he'd had plenty of practice in his past at keeping these things to himself. And Varsch took care of Zuzu. He'd essentially built a bubble around himself and her. Whilst inside, she was completely unaware of the cruelty and hate everyone directed at her friend. She would then tell Tate, Ally and Fredrick her point of view so they didn't know what was happening either. Plus Yuya had stopped coming to You Show. Not only did he no longer have a deck, but he didn't feel up to entertaining at the moment. It was like all the happiness had been sucked out of his life. Now he just wandered through it like a ghost, not reacting to anything on the outside. Whilst on the inside, everything was cutting into his heart deeper and deeper each day.

"Hey freak." Nathan said one morning, as Yuya was taking things from his locker.

"Mm?" Yuya hummed quietly, looking up at them with dull, depressed, eyes. Which seemed to be the only kind he had nowadays.

"We were wondering why you were looking so pale." Said Devin.

"What?" Yuya whispered. The gang of bullies all smirked, then Nathan poured a tin of white paint all over Yuya's head.

"Oh that's why." He said, shoving Yuya to the floor as everyone laughed. Yuya just dropped his head and bit his lip, feeling humiliated. As usual no one attempted to help him, no one wanted to be seen being friendly to the school's newest outcast. It was, for lack of a better term, social suicide.

Yuya didn't even try to defend himself anymore, he'd lost the will to do so. Instead he just went to the gym locker room to use the showers and hopefully get the paint off. He took the time to have a good think. He barely even felt the warm water against his skin. No matter how much he turned up the heat, he still felt cold inside.

Why did this happen? He thought. My friends hate me. And my deck is… He fought against the tears that always threatened him at the thought of his beloved deck. I just don't understand why those guys would go to such extremes to make me feel this way. Am I really that bad a person? Are all the things they say about me true?

He sighed, something he'd been doing a lot of recently, and turned the tap off. When he opened the curtain he got quite a surprise. A horrible one. All his stuff was gone, and there was writing all over the walls and lockers.

Clown

Coward

Joke

Freak

Lousy Dueltainer

Loser

Go to hell

No one likes you

Just drop dead freak

These were just some of the horrible things they wrote. Yuya read all of them, over and over until they were too blurred to be made out behind his tears. He fell to the floor, crying and wondering yet again what the purpose of all of this was.

"Maybe it's true." He sniffed. "Maybe they really are all doing this because I'm the loser they say I am."

He just sat there on the floor for a while, half crying, half shivering. He didn't dare look up, he didn't think he could face those horrible words again. Mostly because he knew they were true. How had he been reduced to this in the space of a few weeks. The answer was simple really. Deep down Yuya had never really recovered from his father's disappearance. Losing someone he was so very close to, and then being made fun of about it had hurt him deeply. It set a scar across his heart that refused to heal, and he built up a wall of silliness and stupidity to make himself feel better. Until he defeated the sledgehammer and learnt to pendulum summon and he finally felt safe. Like he could take down his wall and be himself again. But he also exposed his weakness again, and these jerks had taken advantage of that. The truth is, he'd always been vulnerable, but not many could see that. Until now…

His self-hateful thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door as a hoard of boys entered to get ready for their gym class. A class that just happened to include Nathan, Robin and Devin. As soon as the group saw Yuya, sitting naked on the floor with obvious signs he'd been crying, they fell about laughing. Yuya blushed and instinctively reached for his goggles, only to find they weren't there. Then he remembered that they'd been stolen along with the rest of his clothes. He looked up with a terrified expression as the boys' laughter increased, they'd only just noticed all the hateful things written on the wall. Yuya was both afraid and mortified, so he did the only thing he could think of: run. Seeing him try to 'make and escape' was apparently great entertainment to everyone as they decided to laugh even harder. And things were not better for Yuya out in the hall, where a bunch of students on the way to their next classes were able to see him. He yelped and did his best to cover his essentials as they all began pointing and laughing.

"Please stop." He whispered. But no one could hear him. They were too busy laughing at him to listen to him. Which seemed to be the way everyone acted towards him nowadays. He found himself running up to the roof, something he'd been doing a lot as of late. He always like to sit up here to think when he was down. Although it was awfully cold without his clothes. Not that he was complaining, he'd definitely take freezing to death over dying of humiliation.

"I should just face it." He said sadly, leaning against the wall of the stairwell and sliding to the floor. He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them. "I've gone from school clown to school laughing stock. From an entertainer to a downright joke."