Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds

The Night Has Been Too Lonely

By Lucky_Ladybug

Notes: The characters are not mine and the story is! I was told of the Project Sakura YGO fanzine by Time Thief and thought there wasn't time to think of something and enter, but I did end up trying. They had so many applicants, though, that I wasn't able to get in. But I loved their idea so much, of comparing YGO characters' traits to flowers, that I wrote a fic anyway and planned to post it if I didn't make it in. I will be anxious to see the fanzine when it comes out later this year. I know it will be amazing! I based the fic largely on an AMV I made and posted on YouTube. The AMV itself was an AU version of events in my fic The Night After, which deals with tying up loose ends in Crash Town (or more specifically, the loose end of Radley being left in the mines). Nico having an interest in plants is partially inspired by Amber2002161 and partially inspired by the Over the Nexus game.

There's a song that says the one who won't be taken can't learn to give, and the soul afraid of dying can't learn to live.

The flower shop was open for business as usual that day. Kalin walked in as he did frequently now, his expression grim, his task sad. But he had to smile a bit when he saw Nico behind the counter, trying to look all grown-up. She had taken over after Barbara's arrest—a decided improvement.

"Hi, Kalin," she greeted him with a sad smile. "The usual?"

"Yeah," he replied. He leaned on the counter with one hand. "How are you doing, Nico? Is everything alright at home?"

"Everything is wonderful," Nico smiled. "West and I are so glad Dad survived the fall, and thanks to your help, he's going to get completely better!"

Kalin gave a genuine smile. "I'm glad. At least something has gone right."

Nico's eyes flickered with sadness. "Yeah. . . ." They both knew what Kalin was thinking about. She finished filling the vase and handed it to him. "Here you go, Kalin. . . ."

Kalin took it and set the money down. "We know who to really thank that your dad is alive," he said quietly.

"Yes," Nico agreed.

Billy was sitting outside the shop in a chair when Kalin came back out. He looked up, his eyes dead, and quickly looked away again.

Kalin sighed to himself. Billy had been Radley's second-in-command, his oldest friend. Just like all the rest of the Bunch, he had joined Lawton out of fear when Radley had been defeated. Unlike most of the rest of them, he had been forced to work as a guard in the mines and he had seen Radley suffering. He hadn't been able to remove the shock collar and he had abandoned Radley out of fear for his life. He had also tried to duel Marty, another friend of his, in order to stay free of working the mines as a prisoner. He had never been the same since then. To look in his eyes now, he truly was dead inside. He had tried to kill himself more than once. Kalin had tried to talk with him, knowing all too well that kind of grief and guilt and heartbreak, but it hadn't done any good. Billy was too swallowed up in the memory of his sins to listen. Kalin understood that too.

"Hello, Billy," he said at last, deciding he didn't want to just walk by and say nothing.

Billy offered a half-hearted shrug in reply. "Tell him I miss him," he said softly. "I'd trade my life for his in a heartbeat."

"I know," Kalin said. "He knows too."

He went past Billy and headed for the Southern entrance to the town. He could ride, but he always walked. Satisfaction Town wasn't big and it didn't take long to reach the miners' cemetery just outside the town limits.

He and the kids tried to bring flowers to all the graves. The people who had died working the mines deserved to be remembered. It looked good to see vases with flowers on every grave. Most had varied or random arrangements. For the most part, they sadly didn't know who was buried in each grave or what kinds of flowers the dead had liked.

There was one grave, however, to which Kalin always brought the same flowers.

He knelt down when he arrived, pushing aside the old vase and setting down the new. "Yellow roses," he said quietly. "I still remember. Yellow for friendship, just like you told me that day at Barbara's. The friendship you offered me so many times and I rejected. I'm so sorry."

He shut his eyes tightly. His poor ex-boss had been left behind in the mines when he had escaped courtesy of Yusei. On the one hand, that had led to Jordan being discovered alive. On the other . . .

Jordan had been so badly shaken when he had soared out of the mine in a mine cart, seriously injured from the fall. But he had stammered out the story to a shocked Kalin, that Radley had found him and had struggled to get help for him, pushing him in the cart he had fallen into despite being so gravely injured himself from the shock collar. Malcolm hadn't wanted Radley to work the mines. He had wanted his archenemy dead. The collar had been repeatedly overloaded far beyond what the other prisoners had been suffering.

Some of the guards had seen Radley struggling with Jordan. Lawton, inspecting the mines himself during the hours before his duel with Yusei and Kalin, had been near enough that he had decided to do something about it. He had thrown the dynamite right at them both. Radley had managed to push Jordan far enough away that he had sailed down the track and eventually safely out of the mine.

Radley could have saved himself, perhaps, if he hadn't done that.

Yusei had taken Jordan to the small hospital in town while Kalin had gone back for Radley. He had feared the worst, but hoped desperately he was wrong. He and Yusei had survived an explosion with little injury.

Kalin still had nightmares about what he had found.

"Radley! Radley, where are you?!" Kalin yelled as he ran through the now-silent tunnel. He could see where the explosion had happened; the walls and floor were all blackened. But there was no sign of his former boss.

Something crunched underfoot. Stiffening, Kalin looked down. Radley's pendant. . . . He dropped to one knee, gingerly lifting it out of the soot. It was still completely intact. He wiped it clean with a swipe of his finger. As he did, something small fluttered off of it. When he grabbed for it too, it floated down and lay in his hand. A charred scrap of black leather. . . .

Kalin stared at it for a long moment as the truth began to sink in. There were other, similar scraps on the floor. Some were red with fresh blood.

"Oh . . ." Kalin picked up several more. "Oh my God . . ."

This was all that was left.

He clenched his fist around the pendant. Lawton would pay for his cold-blooded murder. And Kalin . . . Kalin would never stop paying that he had allowed it to happen.

Lawton had laughed when confronted about it that evening. Radley had been a pathetic nothing commanding an army of kids, he had sneered. He had deserved what he got. Kalin had snapped, adding his anger and pain at himself for leaving Radley behind to his rage over Lawton's barbaric behavior. Lawton had definitely paid, both in their duel and now at The Facility. And Kalin was still paying too.

It had been devastating enough to realize that he had left Radley behind and he had died because he had still been there. But to Kalin's further horror, when the townspeople had learned of Radley's death, they had told him how Radley had always fought for the town, that he had been protecting it against Malcolm all that time, and that he had only agreed to the duels for labor because of how Malcolm had been terrorizing the townspeople to get at him, even kidnapping many of the children. Yes, he had enjoyed making money, but he had never mistreated his labor and always tried to think of how to free Malcolm's prisoners from the mines. That had been his ultimate goal in looking for a strong Duelist.

Kalin had completely misjudged him. Radley had looked like a typical biker punk, but he hadn't been one of the villains of the story at all. And all Kalin could do now was bring flowers every few days to a grave that held a small box with scraps of leather and no body, because there was none left to be found, and apologize over and over for rejecting someone who had only wanted a friend, a confidante, someone to help him drive Malcolm out for good.

Yusei was worried about him. He had been there on those first visits to the grave, but he had had responsibilities back in the City and hadn't been able to stay long. He called when he could, but the latest save the world crisis had to come first, of course. Kalin certainly couldn't talk to the kids about how he felt, and he didn't want to burden Jordan when he was only alive because of Radley's sacrifice. The Bunch was completely lost in grief. For the most part, Kalin felt very alone—just as Radley must have felt when he had tried so often to reach out to Kalin and had been rejected.

Well, they said turnabout was fair play.

The Bunch still gathered at the diner every night, sharing sodas and cider and playing with the jukebox, but it wasn't happy and joyous anymore. Kalin could never bring himself to join them. Sometimes he stood outside the building, just staring at it as he allowed himself to become lost in his memories. He would see Radley, friendly and smiling as he poured cactus cider or root beer or whatever he felt like drinking that night. Kalin would share one or two with him and then get up and leave, always abruptly and hurtfully. Kalin had just wanted to get away from him. Now Kalin only wanted him back. But that was impossible. Kalin had squandered their time together until there was no more left.

The memories were always very strong out here. Not that he needed to be here to think about Radley; the man was constantly on his mind. But being out here with the stillness and the death and the yellow roses still made the memories all the more poignant.

Kalin gently ran his hand over the petals. It seemed an eternity ago, although in actuality it had only been weeks. It was still another lifetime.

Radley was a strange sort of person. He dressed tough, but he was friendly and kind. Kalin being in town excited him; he hadn't had a good Duelist in so long. He had even taken the time to take Kalin around town, showing him all the best places and the places to avoid.

"This is Barbara's flower shop," he said grandly when they arrived. "No, I don't know what's up with its name either. I'm not sure I wanna ask. Some of the Bunch gets the giggles about it. My reaction is more along the lines of what the hell was she thinking? But eh. Live and let live. My family never bought into that philosophy, but I do. They rejected me for just being me. As long as nobody's getting hurt, I don't want to do that to anyone else."

Kalin quirked an eyebrow at the rather crude sign hanging above the shop, but said nothing. He had certainly heard much worse on the streets of Satellite. Radley no doubt had too, wherever he had come from, even if he chose not to parrot it. He rarely swore at all, actually, unless he was either singing a song lyric or trying to make a point, as he was now. In almost every way, he was the exact opposite of what one might think he was just from looking at him. But Kalin still held him at arm's length. He didn't want to get involved, and he still didn't believe Radley was sincere.

Radley wandered over to some of the potted flowers on display. "You know, flowers are highly important to the Spanish culture," he remarked. "Every one of them has a meaning."

"Really," Kalin intoned. "And you know all of them?"

". . . None of them, actually." Radley laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Unless I still remember what my grandmother taught me as a kid."

"You're Spanish then," Kalin said without real interest.

"Spanish-American, thank you very much," Radley said. "Yeah, the family's been here for several generations. Kessler . . . that's German, right?"

"I think so." Kalin shrugged. "I'm not really close to my family."

"That makes two of us," Radley said. "My real family is here in town, all the great guys in the gang."

They walked on past the open door of the shop. Inside, Barbara was definitely giving both of them the evil eye.

"She's supposed to be neutral in the conflict, but something just doesn't feel right about her," Radley whispered to Kalin. "I try to avoid her most of the time. She's fine with that; she doesn't like me."

Kalin grunted. "Have you given her any reason not to?"

"No, I haven't," Radley insisted, a bit indignantly. "The Bunch doesn't go ripping up places like some motorcycle gangs do."

"I meant more like unwanted attention," Kalin said.

"We don't do that either," Radley said, definitely annoyed now. "We've got class, more than Malcolm's Crew does. They'd be the ones more likely to try to force themselves on a woman."

Kalin shrugged. He didn't really care that much. There could be good and bad on both sides, but that was nothing to him.

They went around the other side of the shop and Radley's mood abruptly changed. "Now here's a flower I know the meaning of," he said, cheerful again. "Yellow roses." Several fresh cut stems were lying on a table, and he picked one up and handed it to Kalin. "Yellow roses are for pure and genuine friendship."

Kalin turned it around in his hand, not even bothering to be careful of the thorn. What a flippant, silly gesture. It wasn't like Radley really wanted to make friends. He set it back down on the table as he brushed past.

Radley stared after him as he went, the frustration and hurt in his eyes. That was only one of many occasions when Kalin would wound him over the next two months.

Kalin looked down at the flowers in the narrow vase. "They suit you, you know," he said. "Friendship was one of your strongest qualities. The Bunch all followed you because they loved you, not out of greed or because they were intimidated or forced. Now that my mind is clear and I see the truth, I wish I had been your friend too."

He hesitated. "Billy misses you. We all do. You're always a part of our thoughts . . . and our hearts. And that sounds so cheap. It's not like having you here. Maybe you would still be here if it wasn't for what Billy and I both did in abandoning you when you needed us most. You saved Jordan's life and he and the kids are forever grateful, but . . . you should have been able to live too."

Slowly he got to his feet, running his fingers over the pendant he had hung on the pole for identification. He wished he had another chance. But of course that was a vain and hopeless wish. He'd had so many chances through the two months he had known Radley, and he had hurt the other man on every one of them.

"I'll be back soon," he said softly.

He turned to go . . . and nearly walked right into a ghost leaning against the plateau by the grave, his hands behind his back against the rock.

"Radley?!" Kalin rasped.

Radley gave him an awkward and embarrassed smile. "Did you . . . really mean what you said?" He looked awfully solid for a ghost. He brought his arms out from behind his back. Several pieces of leather were missing from his jacket, revealing raw and tender skin still healing from burns and cuts.

Kalin came closer, still unable to believe what he seemed to be seeing. He reached out, gently taking one of the injured arms in his hands. When he found it was solid, he nearly dropped it.

Radley was still smiling awkwardly. "Those old mines are kind of peppered with old tunnels and even some secret passageways. I guess it dates back to the Old West days of the town. I fell through one of them when I got blasted. A few prisoners were holed up in there, hiding from Malcolm's guards. They had some supplies they'd somehow managed to swipe and they were just planning to stay in there indefinitely. Me crashing down in their midst was a shock. I was dead from the blast and the fall and being electrocuted one final time on top of that, but they tried to bring me back."

Kalin shakily touched the side of Radley's face. Solid. . . . He was really alive. . . .

"Funny thing is . . . Kalin . . . you kind of brought me back," Radley said. He reached up and laid his hand over Kalin's. "Well . . . they got my heart pumping again, but I was real sick and out of it, you know? I kept leaving my body. I saw you setting up this grave and coming here mourning me a lot. I could hardly believe it. But when I realized I wasn't having a delusion and that you really cared about me after everyone left me, it . . . gave me the will to live again. I got back in my body and my fever went down. I finally healed enough that I insisted we all come out and face the world again. They hadn't believed me when I told them Malcolm and Lawton were gone. Me seeing it when I was astral-projecting wasn't good enough for them. They'd just been too hurt by the guards and were too scared. But when I was better enough that they couldn't stop me, I came out. And I found you here again."

Kalin was still staring at him, at a complete loss for words. "I brought you back," he echoed, still in disbelief.

"Yeah," Radley said. "Loneliness . . . feeling all alone in the world . . . it's a terrible thing, Kalin. It's always been the thing I feared the most. I lost the will to go on when I thought no one cared what happened to me. You gave that back to me. You really did."

". . . You're still healing," Kalin said, looking at his arms.

Radley nodded. "Truth is . . . I'll probably faceplant into the ground if I push away from this rock," he admitted. "I was worried about you and the other guys too much. I had to come out."

"I'll help you," Kalin promised. "I'll nurse you back to health. And the others . . . they all miss you terribly."

Radley gave a sad smile. "I'm glad they didn't really turn against me."

Kalin went back to the grave and lifted the small vase of flowers. "Yellow roses, for friendship," he rasped, holding it out to him.

Radley took it, stunned, and then slowly started to smile. "Kalin . . ."

Kalin shakily lifted the pendant off the marker and undid the clasp. "How did this come off?" he asked.

"I wasn't wearing it," Radley said. "The guards made me take it off to get the collar on. It was in my pocket. It must have fallen out when I tried to shield myself and got blown through the secret door."

Kalin put it around Radley's neck, his hands still shaking. "You're alive," he whispered. "I . . . there's so much I wanted to say . . ."

"I think I heard you say it," Radley smiled at him. "I saw you here a lot when I was astral-projecting." He sobered. "Kalin, I forgive you for what happened. You were dealing with your own demons. I just wish I'd realized and I could have tried to help you."

"You forgive me?!" Kalin stared at him in shock.

"Of course I do." Radley's smile deepened. "What do you say we go back to town, as friends?"

Kalin finally smiled too. "Let's. There's a lot of people who want to see you."

Radley managed to walk back with Kalin when he leaned heavily on the younger man for support. Kalin held him firmly, still reeling, still trying to believe this was real. He had thought there was nothing left to even bury. But here Radley was intact and whole. Kalin could feel his breath on his face.

He had another chance to do it right. . . .

Billy, now standing forlornly near the town sign, was the first to see them when they came back into town. He gasped, going absolutely sheet-white. "R-Radley . . . !"

"Hey, Billy," Radley said quietly. "I came home. It's about time, don't you think?"

Billy's legs crumpled and he fell at Radley's feet, sobbing uncontrollably. It was the most emotion Kalin had seen from him since the day he had brought back those sad scraps of leather and the pendant. Billy had screamed himself hoarse back then. After that, he had become closed-off and reserved, as he had been earlier that day. Kalin had recognized that emptiness of soul all too well.

"He's tried to kill himself several times," Kalin said to Radley. "He believes he was responsible for your death."

Radley stared at him in horror. Slowly he let go of Kalin, easing himself down next to Billy. "Billy . . . hey, it's okay. I'm alive! And what happened to me wasn't your fault. They were going to kill me anyway. You couldn't have stopped it."

Billy shook his head. "I . . . I just left you," he choked out. "You lost the will to go on because of me! I saw the light go out of your eyes, but I just ignored it and ran away!"

Radley slowly drew Billy into a hug. "It wasn't just because of you," he said quietly. "And I know you and the others were all scared of Lawton. You didn't mean to hurt me."

"If I'd been there . . . if I'd stayed . . . maybe I could have saved you from the explosion," Billy said.

"And maybe you would've got killed instead of me. Maybe you wouldn't have been lucky enough to come back. The way it is, everything's working out now. I forgive you, Billy."

Billy stared at him in disbelief. "Radley . . . how . . . how can you?!"

Radley took two of the roses and gently pressed them into Billy's hand, being careful of the thorns. "Because you're still my friend."

Billy stared, still not sure this was real. He looked down at the yellow roses, shakily running a finger over the petals. Then, finally, he threw his arms around Radley and just clutched him close.

Kalin smiled. Maybe now, at last, Billy would heal.

Maybe they all could.