I do not own YGO! DUEL MONSTERS.
Téa wasn't nervous or anxious. Nor furious. Much less cheerful. Téa felt confused and strange, as if she didn't fit into everything that was happening and, well, that seemed to be really the case.
While Yūgi had told her about what he and Yami both needed, she didn't quite understand why she should do it. Nor how. She was on bad terms with Yami since the afternoon of the museum and believed that Yūgi was also upset with her, but he wasn't.
I would have preferred that though, she thought. Téa would have preferred them to be upset with her so that they wouldn't involve her more in that matter than she knew almost nothing.
She moved her fingers nervously on the hotel restaurant table. Thanks to Yūgi she had been able to arrange a kind of appointment with the Owsten couple, owners of the newly opened museum.
As she had heard, she had to get information about who visited the so-called Mana in the hospital, as well as what really happened, or what they thought happened. However, the strategy she had in mind was not something to be especially proud of.
"Sorry for the delay," then said a female voice behind her. No time gave her head to turn when the beautiful woman with dark complexion and blue eyes was already sitting in front of her. "I am Ishizu Ishtar. You must be Téa Gardner, right?"
Téa nodded and the woman soon asked for a drink to one of the waiters.
"Mahad won't be able to come, or so he told me. Maybe he'll show up later," she rolled her eyes as she continued talking, although Téa couldn't tell the reason. "Thing of men. Who can understand them?"
"I will be direct," Téa said to interrupt Ishizu. She methodically crossed her fingers and lowered her elbows so that her forearms had support on the table. She hoped her expression expressed the seriousness she wanted to pretend. "I think my boyfriend cheats on me."
Ishizu seemed funny about it.
"I'm sorry for that, but I think you have the wrong woman," she said, feeling obviously alluded to. "I am engaged and, from what I see, we are very distant in a matter of age."
"I was not mistaken," Téa said before Ishizu took her purse with the intention of retiring. "It's just that you are the person I find closest to her right now. I mean, since his brother couldn't come."
Slowly and with the eyebrows practically together, Ishizu stopped her intention of getting up, suddenly giving Téa all her attention.
Yūgi was right, Téa thought. Mana had no one else. It was just her, her brother and his fiancé.
Which, she tried not to accept, caused her some pity.
"Are you talking about Mana?" asked the woman in front of her.
Her surprise showed how much it cost her to believe that the girl, which Téa didn't know, did something like that.
"That's what they say her name is," she replied, pretending to control her anger. "I think they started seeing each other during the winter."
A smile peeked in Ishizu's expression as she shook her head.
"Then it's not Mana," she concluded. "In case you didn't know, she is in the hospital, fighting between life and death. She has no time or vitality to be with a boy."
"And who can insure it?" interrupted Téa. "She doesn't need to be alive to burn in my boyfriend's mind, does she? Surely you know him and don't want to tell me!"
"This is absurd!" Ishizu exclaimed, raising her voice slightly. Some people turned in her direction so she quickly regained her composure. "No one apart from the closest ones come to visit her."
"I'm sorry I find it hard to believe that only you visit her. Didn't she go to high school? To an academy? Somehow she had to meet him!"
God, Téa noticed some sidelong glances and was glad she wasn't someone well-known.
"She did," Ishizu's eyes became hard and sharp. Téa was afraid to show how much she intimidated her. "But few are close enough. And, of course, we do not allow any stranger to approach."
"Oh, so my boyfriend is not a stranger. I'm sure you know it!" she accused using her few acting skills.
Although in part not everything was a lie.
"Enough. I will not allow this to continue," Ishizu clenched her jaw. "Mana suffered a very serious accident. The arts conservatory takes care of her and doesn't allow anyone other than us, her family, and Ryou, her best friend, to approach. So unless your boyfriend's name is Ryou Bakura, which I doubt very much, I don't think your love problems have anything to do with Mana, or with us."
Téa blinked at the name, but didn't have time to ask. Ishizu hit the table with her palms and jumped up, just then the waiter decided to bring her the drink she had asked for. With a thank you and a forced smile, the young woman told him to add it to her hotel account and looked at Téa one last time in the eyes, directly, getting her to swallow.
"I don't know what you're looking for or who you really are, but don't try to get close again, understand?"
Her angry footsteps echoed until she left the restaurant and headed for the elevator, only then, when the doors closed, Téa could exhale all the air she kept in her lungs.
Another of the waiters approached to ask for her order, but, once again, she shook her head and rose from her seat. With a delicate movement she took her cellphone from her pocket and placed it next to her ear.
"I hope you heard that," she said.
"Loud and clear," Yūgi replied on the other side of the line before adding. "It was enough. Thanks, Téa."
Then both hung up.
Téa sighed again as she left the elegant place where she felt out of place. She looked back and began to walk. She didn't know who Mana was. She was not at all interested in what had happened to her, but, by Ishizu's tone and gaze, she could sense one thing for sure: something was dangerous. Not only the state of Mana.
Once the call was cut, Yūgi inspired and exhaled before looking back at his brother and Mana. Yami seemed very focused on his thoughts as he rubbed his chin with the fingers of his left hand; instead Mana was notoriously conflicted, fiddling with her fingers in front of her chest and floating from side to side with her eyes fixed on no point.
He swallowed before expressing aloud what the three of them would surely be thinking.
"Ryou Bakura," said Yūgi. "You didn't say you knew him."
"I didn't know I knew him," Mana replied. "Ha, and I thought they were hallucinations of mine..."
"At least we know it wasn't an accident," Yami said, rising from the sofa he was on and approaching Mana with a determined look. "Do you see it, Mana? The conservatory wouldn't put so many restrictions if it had only been negligence."
Yūgi also got up.
"But that only gives us a suspect," he waited a few seconds before continuing. "Since we all know that neither Mahad nor Ishizu did it..."
Mana looked nervously out the window. They understood, somehow, everything that went through her head.
"So what?" she asked without looking at them. "We go and tell my brother it was Ryou Bakura who caused the accident and it all ends there? That can't be! Why would someone as important as 'my best friend' do that to me?"
"Because you don't even remember him as a best friend," Yami replied harshly before turning around. "We cannot go to the conservatory to look for evidence, especially for the amount of time that has passed. Nor can we accuse him so lightly, he has the support and trust of your family, then..."
"We can only make him confess, huh..." Yūgi said.
Yami nodded effusively.
"Yes. He has to confess it. In the art exhibition. I am sure something must be there to betray him."
"Something like what?" asked Mana. "I can't even say for sure it was him."
There were several seconds of silence, each in their thoughts.
"I don't know," Yami replied, just to turn around and look Mana straight in the eye. "But we will find out, Mana. I promise."
She had no choice but to nod. Although Mana had no evidence, even if she was not certain, she knew that Yami and Yūgi were quite right to suspect Ryou Bakura.
He had been going to the hospital. She was being watched in the hospital. Both went to the conservatory and knew each other.
And, above all, she couldn't deny the indescribable feeling of dread that came when she saw him that day in the art room of the Domino school.
She had to take a deep breath so as not to sink into the despair of the confusion. She had made the decision to move forward with the mystery and both Yūgi and Yami were willing to help her no matter how dangerous that could be.
She smiled slightly at them. She really doubted that Bakura was as dangerous as the situation described him, but she didn't really know him anymore.
And maybe she never did.
They only had to wait until the day of the exhibition. Luckily, they wouldn't wait too long.
