This chapter is the start of Season Zero's canon timeline. As such, we're getting into stuff that some readers already know about. About that: I want the chapters of this story that are based off of manga chapters or anime episodes to be recognizable, but not so similar it becomes boring to those who've already read/seen them. So while events in this fic may mirror canon to a degree, I will certainly be throwing in my own original scenes and twists. As the story progresses, it will start deviating more and more from canon.
But anyway, I'm sure you've had enough of my chatter.
Chapter start!
Submersion
By: The Half-Blood Guardian
Previously:
Yuugi turned fifteen, and the spirit realized that it had been just a little under eight years since his Light had first received the golden box and the puzzle inside. The boy was now in the first year of something called "high school," which both he and the spirit had determined almost immediately to be the worst place on earth when Yuugi had entered it a month prior.
Neither Yuugi nor the spirit could've predict the events that were about to be set into motion.
Chapter 3: Set the Stage
"Woohoo!"
"Finally!"
"-nch time-"
"Yes!"
"-et's play basketba-"
"We'll let the girls play too, this ti-"
"-outta here!"
"-et everyone-"
"-ven him? Who's gonna tell-"
"-I'm starv-"
Lunch break had finally arrived, and the vast majority of the class had immediately transformed into a mass of whooping, chattering excitement that swarmed for the door. There were only a few students who weren't rushing noisily from their seats, instead opting to take their time.
One such student sitting near the back of the class barely seemed to react to the declaration of temporary freedom other than to glance up at the front of the room to check that the teacher had left. Once assured that this was the case, he reached into his desk and pushed aside some school supplies before pulling out the case for a game he had sneakily stashed at the back. He placed it on the desk, opened the case, and took out the game pieces.
Yuugi was soon immersed in his own activities, unaware of the goings-on of the rest of the classroom. His eyes were narrowed slightly in concentration, totally focused on the game of miniature Pop-up Pirate that sat in front of him. He carefully slid one of the tiny plastic swords into a slot in the side of the barrel, releasing a sigh of relief when nothing happened. Then he picked up another sword.
"Hey, Yuugi!"
Yuugi jumped in surprise, the plastic sword in his hand jerking forward at just the right angle for it to jab into another of the slots. The little pirate figurine that had been lying in wait inside the barrel was launched into the air, and Yuugi jumped again with a small "eep!" at the second surprise in as many seconds.
A moment later, embarrassed and blushing, he quickly tried composing himself as he looked around for who had spoken. He caught sight of a rather nondescript boy whose name he couldn't recall at the moment. The boy held a basketball under his arm and was standing a few feet from the door, conspicuously stationary while the eight or so other students still in the classroom headed for freedom.
"Quit playing games by yourself and come play basketball for once," said the nondescript boy, shifting impatiently and obviously itching to join his other classmates for lunch break rather than waste his time and potentially tarnish his reputation by hanging around a social outcast. He must have drawn the short straw.
Yuugi looked at the basketball, thought of the times he'd had to participate in the sport for gym class, and immediately shied away from the idea.
"That's okay," he timidly declined, glancing back at the game on his desk for a second. "My team would just lose…"
A small, resigned smile briefly ghosted across his lips. The other boy gave a shrug that said "suit yourself" and quickly left to go join his friends, not bothering to argue with Yuugi's statement. They both knew it was true.
The last of his classmates exited the classroom, and Yuugi gave a half-sigh at the bad luck he'd been having with several luck-based games lately. Even if he hadn't been on a streak of rotten luck, basketball would still have been a no-go for him. The sport relied very little on luck and required a great deal more physical skill and strength than he possessed. It was best for himself and everyone else that he didn't join in on the game. He stood up to retrieve the pirate figurine and a couple of plastic swords that had been jostled to the floor.
I wish I could play my kind of games with someone, Yuugi thought wistfully. Never mind that he would probably spend the whole time trying to hold back flinches at every sudden movement they made. After years of others walking all over him, it had become so ingrained a reaction that he questioned if he would ever be able to rid himself of it. Despite this, his one wish was still the same as it had always been. He still wanted friends.
Sometimes he wondered why in the world that was. He'd mostly gotten used to being isolated whether he was in a crowd or not, and pretty much everyone other than his grandpa and young children made him at least a little bit nervous. Maybe it was like his reflexive flinching; maybe he'd spent so long wishing for the same thing that the desire was ingrained in him.
Yuugi set the plastic swords and pirate figurine down on his desk with the rest of the pieces and packed them up in their case, then freed his backpack from its hook on the side of his desk and stuffed the case into it so he was sure to bring the game back home with him once school let out for the day. Light glinted off of something else in the backpack and caught his attention. His lips quirked up at the corners in a small but genuine smile.
And speaking of wishes…
Yuugi briefly took the Pop-up Pirate case out in order to reach the object beneath it. He slid the object from its confines with care, too focused on it to bother using the same care with the bland-looking box in his other hand. He thoughtlessly stuffed it back into his bag so he could use both hands to place the other item down on his desk.
Before him there now sat a dazzling golden box, adorned with a number of delicate hieroglyphs and one bold, stylized eye, all of which had obviously been carved with meticulous attention to detail. Two plain rubber bands held the lid of the beautiful box in place, keeping its contents from falling out. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Yuugi removed them, smiling once they were gone.
Inside this box is my greatest treasure: the Millennium Puzzle! He thought to himself, mentally narrating with a rather theatrical inner voice. To go with it, there's a riddle, which is also a hint: it's something that you can see, but have never seen before. What do you think it is?
As if waiting for a response, Yuugi paused for a moment. Then he reached out and slowly began to lift the lid. The answer is-
Suddenly, something swooped down in front of him and snatched to box right out of Yuugi's hands. He yelped, thoroughly pulled from his one-sided internal "conversation," and turned around quickly so his eyes could follow the path his treasure had taken. His gaze landed on Hiroto Honda, a tall boy with medium brown hair that he always had sculpted into a straight, precise point at the front of his head. Yuugi felt he could safely assume that he was the one to take the puzzle box.
"What are you talking to yourself about, Yuugi? Jeez, you win the prize for creepy!" Honda looked at Yuugi as if he'd said the strangest thing ever, and Yuugi blushed. Oops. Apparently he'd been thinking aloud again.
"Also, your 'greatest treasure?'" Honda continued. "What's that supposed to mean?" He snickered, glancing at the object in his hand with amusement.
"Something you see, but have never seen before?" A different voice said, and Yuugi finally noticed that another one of his other classmates, a boy named Katsuya Jounouchi, was standing just behind Honda. Jounouchi was a couple inches shorter than Honda and was recognizable by his shaggy blond hair and his reckless, slightly hot headed attitude.
"What's in here anyway?" Jounouchi asked, grabbing the box from Honda to look at for himself.
Yuugi watched his careless treatment of the artifact with such nervousness that he could feel his knees wanting to tremble, but he forced them to stay still and instead hurriedly said, "Y-you can look, just don't lose anything! It's r-really important to me!" Great, now he was stuttering.
Jounouchi ignored him and lifted the lid, glancing at the contents. The small amount of genuine curiosity he'd had about what was in the box quickly faded. He scoffed. Inside were just some scattered pieces of metal. Probably another silly puzzle, knowing his smaller classmate.
Admittedly, the pieces did look kinda like gold, but while he would deny it, Jounouchi knew that Yuugi wasn't totally dumb. At least, he couldn't be dumb enough to carry around a bunch of gold with him, even if he wasn't one of the most picked on kids in school.
"Well this is stupid," Jounouchi said, looking up from the box and quirking an unimpressed eyebrow at Yuugi. "It's just a bunch of… sparkly, girly stuff. I bet there's not even an ounce of real gold in it, either." He let the lid fall closed and turned to his comrade. "Here, Honda. Catch."
The puzzle box went sailing through the air toward the unprepared brown-haired teen, who instinctively leapt forward to catch it before it hit the ground.
Yuugi gasped in alarm, belatedly and uselessly reaching out his hand for the box. Then Honda tossed it back to Jounouchi, who grinned and repeated the action.
"No, wait! Honda-kun, Jounouchi-kun!" He scrambled around his desk to get closer but could do nothing except watch helplessly while the two tossed his most prized possession back and forth as if it were an old football. "Please, s-stop throwing the Puzzle like that!"
A particularly careless throw, and the lid flew off, landing on the (thankfully carpeted) floor and allowing a few pieces of the puzzle to topple out as well. Yuugi's hands and arms and legs and everything were shaking with anxiety as he scrambled in vain to catch the pieces. "Please! You don't know how much it means to me!" Jounouchi caught the box and paused, looking at Yuugi.
"Well then, why don'tcha man up and come take it back?" Jounouchi said, holding the box out and waving it around temptingly close to Yuugi, then pulling it away when it looked like his shaky hands might just reach for the object.
"Nuh-uh, it's not gonna be that easy. Come on, hit me! If your punch is any less wimpy than you are, I might just give the stupid thing to you. No fuss, no muss. So," he spread his arms out in invitation, looking almost like he was waiting to be hugged instead of hit. Yuugi felt a wave of humiliation at the idea that that might actually be what the other boy was expecting. "Go ahead! Show me what you got!"
Honda watched from where he leaned against the door frame, a slightly bewildered but mostly bored expression on his face. Why was Jounouchi even bothering with their classmate? It was totally pointless; they hadn't even been in high school for two months yet, and everyone already knew by now that Yuugi Mutou was on the top five list of weakest, most harmless students at Domino High. In fact, if it weren't for those two other wimps, Tomoya Hanasaki and What's-his-bucket Imori, Honda would've been able to say with absolute certainty that Yuugi took first place, hands down. As it was though, the three short teenagers probably all tied for first.
Honda was brought out of his thoughts when Yuugi took a step closer to Jounouchi. The smaller boy had completely stopped shaking and his muscles were no longer taut with stress. His hands were balled at his sides and his eyes, which had become eerily empty and almost clouded, were locked onto the puzzle box. He took another step towards Jounouchi, then another. Honda's own eyes widened, and his slouch against the wall straightened somewhat.
You've gotta be kidding me, he thought, practically gaping. Is he actually going to-
Then Yuugi stopped walking forward and just stood there for a few seconds, his gaze still firmly on the puzzle box in Jounouchi's hand. Slowly, his eyes regained their focus, and he pulled them away from the box. He shook his head slightly, blinking a few times as if he were coming out of a daze. And perhaps that was exactly what was happening, because when he saw how close he had gotten to Jounouchi, a look of surprise joined the one of anxiety in his expression and he unconsciously took a small step backwards.
He glanced at the golden box that was still being held hostage before looking back at the blond teenager, and though he didn't realize it, a look of defeat and absolute devastation crossed his face and stayed there.
"Please," he murmured. "Please just give it back. I," he paused, seeing a tiny, split second flash of what looked like disappointment in Jounouchi's eyes. It most likely wasn't, but it made him swallow and bow his head in shame, anyway. "I don't want to hit you, Jounouchi-kun… I-I can't hit you… I hate violence…" he finished in a whisper, closing his eyes with his head still bowed.
Jounouchi studied him with a critical eye for several seconds.
"Whatever," he scoffed, turning to leave. Yuugi's eyes opened and his head snapped back up to look at the other teen in shock, temporarily forgetting about his possibly misplaced feeling of shame. "I was gettin' bored of this, anyway."
Then Jounouchi let go of the box. It started to fall, and Yuugi frantically lunged for it. Unlike with the puzzle pieces, he managed to catch the box before it hit the floor. He let out a shaky sigh of relief, then looked back up to see Honda following Jounouchi out the door, staring at his friend with an odd expression. Yuugi didn't blame him. He was confused about Jounouchi's actions, too.
The weight of the puzzle box in his hands brought him out of his confusion, and he quickly went in search of any other misplaced puzzle pieces that might be scattered across the floor. After triple checking that no gold pieces remained on the ground, he closed the lid, secured it with the rubber bands, and hugged the box to his chest. Then he looked up at the clock.
Seven minutes until lunch was over. He'd gotten lost in his thoughts again, and as always, time had passed by much faster than he had been expecting it to. There was no way he would make it to lunch now, even if he had felt like facing the dangers of being surrounded by unsupervised peers. He sighed a little.
Oh well. I can always eat when I get home.
"Hey man, what was that back there?" Honda asked Jounouchi. The two were walking down the now deserted hall in the direction of the cafeteria. Nonchalantly scuffing the tile floor with his sneaker, the other teen played dumb.
"What was what back where?"
"You know," Honda said, "Why did you just let him have it?"
Jounouchi shrugged carelessly. "I already said why; I got bored." The response was just a little too casual, and the other teen knew him just a little too well. Honda eyed him even more suspiciously.
"I call bull." He declared. "You can do the same stupid thing for hours and never get bored of it, yet you get bored less than five minutes into one of your little 'teach Yuugi to be a man' plots you like so much? I'm not buying it." Then he had another thought. "Why do you even bother with the shrimp? It's not like you're actually trying to teach him anything, right?"
Jounouchi suddenly got a shifty look in his eyes. "'Course I'm not!" He said quickly.
Honda raised an eyebrow at him dubiously. "Don't tell me you're going soft," he teased, though it was only halfhearted.
"No way!" Jounouchi denied with a fierce glare. "Look, I'll prove it!" He stopped walking to dig around in his pocket for the item he'd sneakily slipped into it without really getting a good look. He found what he was searching for and pulled the object out, his fingers remaining closed around it for a few seconds. Just as Honda was about to snap at him to quit it with the dramatic suspense, Jounouchi opened his hand to reveal one of the shiny pieces from Yuugi's puzzle box.
Both he and Honda nearly jumped when they got their first real look at it, startled by the eerie, unnaturally gleaming golden eye that stared blankly up at them and sent unexplained shivers down their spines. Then they each mentally chastised themselves for getting so irrationally scared of a stupid piece of metal. Once Honda could look at it with only a slight amount of trepidation, it finally registered to him what it was. His eyes met Jounouchi's, incredulous.
"Is that-?"
"Yeah. Guy probably hasn't even realized it's gone yet." Jounouchi smirked smugly while his gut twisted. He resolutely told himself he felt nothing but what his expression showed.
"Huh," Honda replied, not knowing how else to respond. Even ignoring the fading but unsettling tingle that still ran through him from looking at the puzzle piece, there was something that bugged him. He wasn't entirely sure what he was feeling, but whatever it was, he didn't like it very much.
"See? If that doesn't show I'm still serious, I don't know what does." Jounouchi said, slipping the piece back into his pocket with another poorly concealed shiver. They fell silent, neither of them having anything to say and neither really caring.
Then Honda snorted unexpectedly. Before Jounouchi could jump to any conclusions and assume the taller boy was mocking him or something, Honda explained, "I was just remembering that assembly we had at the start of the school year where they were talking about bullying."
Jounouchi suddenly got an indignant look on his face, and without realizing it, he stopped walking. "That thing was so stupid! They listed like a thousand different 'unacceptable and hurtful behaviors' and pretty much said that if someone does any of 'em, they're a bully!"
"Those people just don't get it!" Honda said, he and Jounouchi now feeding off each other's escalating emotions. "All we're doing is keeping wimps on their toes. We're doing society a favor!"
"Yeah!" Jounouchi agreed. "Can you imagine if they all got used to being babied? Then when someone comes along and wants to actually hurt them, they'll be totally unprepared for it!" He glared at a wall, addressing it as if it were one of the people preaching nonsense at the assembly. "Bet you never thought of that, did ya?" He sneered self-righteously at it, not seeing Honda stare oddly at him for the third time that day. "Who're you callin' a bully? I haven't done anything wrong!"
A memory from less than ten minutes before popped into his mind: him standing over Yuugi in their classroom while the shorter boy looked at him with misery and utter defeat showing in both his small, slumped shoulders and his large, desperate eyes. Jounouchi's stomach flip-flopped sickeningly and all feelings of self-righteousness fled from him.
To try countering the unwanted guilt, he kicked the wall, puffed out his chest and began strutting down the hall. Unfortunately, he was too busy with his prideful display to notice the person walking the other way until he was crashing right into them. The force knocked him backwards and he landed on his rear in a rather undignified manner.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" He yelled before even looking to see who he'd bumped into. If he hadn't been so worked up, he might have noticed how Honda had gone completely silent instead of laughing his head off like he would have normally been doing by now.
Finally he looked up. And up. And up.
Standing over him and looking totally unphased was a man with small, dark eyes, dark hair, and ridiculously thick eyebrows. But most noteworthy of all, he was absolutely gargantuan.
Jounouchi quickly stood up to reduce the height difference, certain that the guy only looked so big because the blond had been sitting on the ground. He was proven wrong when he found he still had to crane his neck to look at the other's face. He and Honda, who was standing nervously a few feet behind him, barely made it up to a little bit above the guy's elbows. He distantly wondered if the man had to duck when he walked through doorways.
"What were you saying about bullies?" Asked the man, who Jounouchi had already begun referring to in his mind as Mr. Giant Guy. Those dark little eyes pierced Jounouchi's.
Jeez, was this what Yuugi felt when looking at his peers? If so, then Jounouchi seriously pitied him.
Wait, what?!
Jounouchi quashed the thought. Yuugi was a wimpy little kid who wouldn't stand up for himself. Jounouchi was not a wimp! He was a real man! He violently shoved down his nervousness and scowled at the freakishly tall person standing in front of (towering over) him.
"None of your business!" He snapped, head held high. "Stay out of this, you f-"
His insult was cut off by an arm catching him in a surprise headlock and a hand clamping over his mouth and nose, though he was sure the latter was an accident when the hand's owner spoke and turned out to be Honda.
"N-nothing! It's nothing! We were just, uh, talking about that assembly we had a while back! You know, the one about bullying!"
The giant looked at the brunet blandly, the only hint of emotion on his face being the slight quirk of an eyebrow. "I see." He stated. After a moment, he added, "Bullying's no good."
Honda nodded his head vigorously. "That's right! You-you are absolutely right! Bullying is terrible!" Jounouchi started to squirm in his grip, but he didn't let go.
Apparently, that was enough to satisfy the man, as he resumed his walk down the hall. Honda watched him go with trepidation when he suddenly spoke again.
"Oh, and be sure to properly button your school uniform."
The brunet nodded again, though the other couldn't see it. "You got it!" He said, thankful that he had already done as commanded but worried about the way his friend had left his rumpled jacket completely unbuttoned.
Continuing to ignore Jounouchi's squirming, Honda kept his hand and fake smile firmly in place until the enormous guy rounded the corner at the end of the hall. As soon as he was gone, the brunet dropped both his hand and the smile. Jounouchi coughed and began taking in gulps of fresh air, but started shouting the moment he'd caught his breath.
"What was that for, you jerk?! I couldn't breathe!"
"Idiot! Don't you know who that was?" Honda hissed, ignoring the blond's indignant yelling.
"No, and I don't care!" Jounouchi huffed, about to start up again when Honda responded, looking decidedly aggravated.
"Well you should! That was Tetsu Ushio you almost insulted! He's not just a public moral member, he's the head of them! A lot of the school rules were made by him. Anything he says goes. Even the teachers have less influence than him. He's freaking untouchable! You can't just go around insulting people like him!"
That made Jounouchi close his mouth, thoughts spinning in his head. Strangely, one of the first things that entered his mind was surprise that this Ushio wasn't actually an adult like he'd thought. How in the world was that guy only a couple years older than he and Honda!
"Hey, hold on a sec," he said as another thought came to him. "How'd you know all that stuff about this guy, but I haven't even heard of him 'til now?"
At that, Honda lifted his chin and straightened in an almost militaristic fashion.
"Public moral members often rub elbows with beautification club members. Though we go about it in different ways, both Ushio's group and mine are in the profession of trying to purify the school. It's only logical that I would know about him, isn't it?"
This time, it was Jounouchi who sent an odd look in the other's direction. Honda would get these odd obsessions every once in a while, but he was used to them by now, and they didn't really bother him since the brunet usually got over them after a couple of weeks.
This obsession, the stupid "beautification club" stuff, had been going on since almost the very beginning of the school year, and somehow it was still holding Honda's interest. Jounouchi was seriously hoping it would go away soon, because while he could usually get used to his friend's shifting hobbies, something he couldn't quite get used to was the way Honda's speech suddenly became more formal now whenever he talked about his "sacred" duties as a janitor – no, not janitor, sorry! A beautification club member.
Jounouchi snorted. Honda looked over at him.
"Yeah? You got something to say?" He said defensively, his speech back to normal. His eyes were narrowed.
Jounouchi just smirked, then whistled innocently, knowing it would get a rise out of the other teen. And it did. Honda growled slightly and tensed, ready to tackle the source of his irritation right there in the hall. Just as he lunged, however, Jounouchi came to a sudden stop, and Honda went toppling to the ground, his own weight betraying him. He turned around and got up, ready for another go. Then he saw the frown on Jounouchi's face. He huffed in annoyance, but held himself back.
"What is it now?" He asked impatiently.
Jounouchi's frown stayed in place as he looked thoughtfully at a chipped floor tile. "When we left the class, the clock said there were twenty minutes 'til lunch was over," he said, then blinked. By now, there were probably less than ten minutes left, and they were still nearly on the opposite side of the school from the cafeteria. Both he and Honda looked at each other.
"…Oh." Honda said. "Well crap." Then they both sprinted down the hall, fervently hoping they'd make it in time to get lunch.
Jounouchi couldn't have run more than thirty feet before a chilling tingle emanated from his pocket, giving him goosebumps and causing him to stop. He pulled the puzzle piece from his pocket.
It took Honda several seconds to notice he was no longer being followed, and in that time, Jounouchi looked back at the unnerving, probably fake gold puzzle piece in his hand and shivered again. Disgusted at his reaction to one stupid, inanimate object, he shook his head, glancing out one of the windows that lined the hall and down at the canal that ran along one side of the school. On impulse, he opened the window. Then he took one last look at the creepy eye and chucked it outside.
He firmly told himself that it was definitely triumph he was feeling as he saw it tumble through the air, and that his gut was definitely not squirming or tying itself in knots as he watched the puzzle piece plunge beneath the surface of the water and sink to the bottom of the canal.
"Come on, you idiot! We're gonna miss lunch!" Honda shouted at him from farther down the hall.
Jounouchi ran to catch up with a thoroughly ticked off Honda, feelings of guilt and thoughts of creepy puzzle pieces wiped from his mind in his pursuit of food.
Yuugi opened one of the side doors of the school, glad to be done with classes for the day. The bell signaling the end of school had gone off a little more than half an hour before, so there was no one else around, just like he'd predicted. He'd remained hidden for a time after class, waiting for the other students to leave, as had been his custom for the past several years. His waiting had paid off, and fortunately, there was no one around to bother him on his way home.
As another stroke of luck, he had been assigned almost no homework! He was looking forward to the quiet time he would have to work on the Puzzle. With a little smile now on his face and a slight spring to his step, he headed for the gates. Rounding a corner, he suddenly heard several shouting voices, and quickly ducked back behind the edge of the wall. He cautiously peeked around the corner of the building to see what it was he would have to avoid.
Unexpectedly, what he saw was a gathering of about fifteen students who were assembled in neat, orderly rows, facing one figure even taller than them. Squinting to make out the figure, Yuugi realized that it was Tetsu Ushio, if he remembered the name correctly.
They must be the public moral guys, he realized. Members of the public moral group were essentially the school's hall monitors. He had never seen any of them in action, but he'd heard that they took what they did very seriously. He'd caught glimpses of them between classes, and he knew that they were the ones who kept order. Their job was a very important one. He should definitely avoid disrupting their training.
As inconspicuous as possible, Yuugi continued on his original course for the front gates. He had only been walking for a few seconds when a voice stopped him.
"Hey, you! Wait a moment."
Yuugi started at the loud voice and glanced over his shoulder at the group. All but one of the students were still in formation, standing straight-backed and ready for orders. Only Ushio-san was facing him, and all his attention seemed to have been drawn to the younger teen. Well, so much for not disrupting anyone.
"Y-yeah?" He asked.
Ushio started towards Yuugi. "You're Yuugi Mutou, right?"
The upperclassman got closer, and as he did Yuugi felt as though his feet had been glued to the ground. Ushio-san was huge! His fists were level with Yuugi's face, and Yuugi could swear each one was almost as big as his head. He gulped, but tried to shake off his fear. After all, Ushio-san was the head of the people who helped keep order in the school. That meant that he was a protector, and therefore not someone Yuugi should be afraid of.
"Um, yes," he all but squeaked as soon as he had somewhat regained his voice.
"I've actually been meaning to ask you something."
Yuugi blinked. What could someone so important possibly want to ask him? His unasked question was answered a moment later.
"Have students in your class been bullying you?"
"Huh?" Yuugi blurted intelligently, caught off guard. He regained control of his thoughts and mouth quickly, though, and immediately protested.
"Nothing like that's happened to me!"
He was about to politely say his farewells and leave when Ushio spoke again.
"Wait a moment. People who are bullied often deny that it's happening. I'll have to properly investigate this." Ushio hummed thoughtfully and briefly studied the boy. Yuugi tried not to squirm in discomfort. "You can relax, Yuugi-kun. I'll be your bodyguard from now on."
An image of Ushio-san following him around everywhere popped into Yuugi's thoughts, and his mind immediately rebelled against it. Not only would that take away a huge portion of Ushio-san's valuable time, it would totally ruin what little respect his classmates had for Yuugi (he forced himself to believe that that respect did exist). Plus, he still couldn't shake that unsettled feeling he got when he was around the other.
"But that hasn't happened; no one's been bullying me!" He protested again. "I-if you'd please excuse me, I really have to be going now, Ushio-san! Goodbye!"
Yuugi turned on his heal and dashed for the school gates, feeling Ushio's gaze on his back the entire time. He shivered slightly, unnerved. Perhaps it would be best if he took the bus home today.
By the time Yuugi made it to the front door of Kame Game Shop, the clouds in the west were just beginning to take on the orange tinge that signaled the start of the sun setting, and he was feeling much calmer. The hairs on the back of his neck had now settled back down and his previously bunched up muscles were relatively relaxed.
As he reached for the handle, he noticed with mild interest that the sign on the inside of the door had been flipped to "CLOSED." That was strange. The shop was usually open at least another hour.
He stuffed his right hand into the baggy opening of his left jacket sleeve and fished around for a moment to locate the inconspicuous little flap. When he found it, he undid the little fold and slipped his extra house key out of the tiny hidden pocket he'd made as an anti theft measure. Unlocking the door, he called out his usual after school greeting.
"I'm home, Jii-chan!"
A responding call of "Welcome back!" came from the floor above, and Yuugi smiled as he closed and re-locked the shop door behind him. He breathed in deeply through his nose, smelling dinner even from the first floor.
"You're a bit late, Yuugi." Sugoroku commented when his grandson stepped into the little kitchen, backpack still slung over one shoulder and recently shucked shoes grasped in his hand. Yuugi ducked his head, blushing in embarrassment.
"Sorry, Jii-chan," he mumbled, scuffing the floor with his sock-clad toe. Sugoroku just shook his head and smiled fondly, choosing not to push.
"Not to worry, my boy. Now," he clapped his hands together once, "how about some food, eh?" Yuugi beamed.
"Okay!"
After dashing to his room to drop off his backpack and shoes (as well as being scolded – and ignoring the scolding – for not putting the latter in their proper place for about the five hundredth time) Yuugi came back to the kitchen. Sugoroku huffed, but his exasperation was soon quelled when his grandson thoughtfully set the table for both of them.
Yuugi's stomach growled fiercely as he sat down and scooted his chair in, giving him an unnecessary reminder of the fact that he hadn't eaten since breakfast. As soon as they were both seated, he reached for the closest of the two serving dishes and pulled it toward him, lifting the lid. His mouth watered at the smell that wafted up with the steam.
Sugoroku Mutou wasn't the worst chef out there; his cooking had never made anyone that queasy, and he rarely burned things too badly. There were no tales to be told or songs to be sung of poisoned or completely inedible meals made by his hands.
That being said, it was also well known among any who had spent a decent amount of time around the Mutous that Sugoroku was by no means a great cook.
However, Yuugi's empty stomach was influencing his sense of smell, and his grandfather's cooking currently smelled heavenly. Looking at it, he realized for the first time that there was enough for three people instead of just the two of them. But his mother was gone as usual, and no one else was over, so why would there be so much?
The thought was quickly brushed off, and he served himself some of the main dish while his grandpa was busy with the side dish: a simple bowl of steamed vegetables. When he was done serving, he passed the large container to the man, who returned the favor by sliding the smaller bowl towards him.
Not much later, Yuugi had polished off his plate, but was still hungry. The older Mutou finished soon after him, and he glanced furtively at his grandpa, only to find his gaze already on Yuugi. Sugoroku was sitting back with his fingers laced, making no move to indicate he wanted seconds. There was a knowing look in the man's eyes, and the boy once again blushed and ducked his head.
His grandfather always seemed to know things that really should have been impossible for him to know, so it really shouldn't have surprised him that the old man had decided to make extra food on a day Yuugi had missed out on lunch.
As a child, he had once asked Sugoroku, wide-eyed and mystified, if he could read minds. The man had looked him in the eyes with a solemn expression and told him that all old people could read minds. Yuugi had squeaked nervously and scampered off. Thinking back on it, he could just imagine his grandfather, the unrepentant tease that he was, bursting into laughter as soon as Yuugi was out of earshot.
Inwardly snorting at the amusing mental image, he sent the man a grateful smile and scooped another helping onto his plate.
After dinner, the two Mutous joined forces with dish soap and scrubbies to abolish the remnants of food still left on their dishes and utensils, then sought the help of a wet dish towel to wipe down the table. Once that was finished, they went their separate ways, Sugoroku to the living room to watch a bit of television before bed and Yuugi to his bedroom to work some more on the Puz- er, on his homework.
Only a few minutes after sitting down at the wooden desk under the skylight in his room, Yuugi heard a loud complaint coming from the living room. Curious, he got up to go check out what was happening, absently grabbing the puzzle box and taking it with him.
Upon entering the living room, he heard his grandfather mumbling under his breath as he kneeled on the floor at the back of the TV, which was currently letting out the annoying sound of crackling static, the picture only half-visible behind a frenetic, tumultuous wall of black and white dots. Yuugi ventured closer, setting the puzzle box down on the tea table as he passed the sofa.
"Blasted electronics!" He heard more clearly as he got closer. "First the phone, now the TV…" the man's mini-rant quieted back down to the occasional grumble. Yuugi bent down next to his grandpa.
"Jii-chan?" He asked. Sugoroku started, bumping his head on edge of the TV stand. He let out a quiet cuss, and Yuugi blushed at the colorful language. "S-sorry!" Yuugi stuttered as the man looked up, an irritated scowl still on his face. The scowl quickly dropped and was replaced by a smile.
"It's quite alright, Yuugi. This old head of mine has taken far worse hits than that little tap there, and I'm still alive, aren't I? I was just frustrated at the TV, that's all." He turned and pressed the power button, cutting off the irritating noise and jumbled picture.
"Do you need help fixing it?" Yuugi asked.
The old man's lips quirked up a bit higher at his grandson's thoughtfulness, but he shook his head.
"No, I think I'll be just fine. And I suppose I could wait until the weekend to get it fixed, anyhow; the phone already went out on me earlier today, so I might as well get them both taken care of at the same time…" he trailed off, beginning to muse. "Hm… that scientific journal on ancient Egyptian artifacts that I've been meaning to finish reading is still sitting on the bookshelf. I think I'll do that instead." At that moment, he caught sight of the golden puzzle box sitting on the tea table.
"And speaking of ancient Egyptian artifacts…" he mumbled to himself, then continued louder, his voice incredulous, "You still haven't given up on that puzzle yet, Yuugi?"
Yuugi frowned, looking affronted by the mere suggestion. "Of course I haven't! Why would I do that?"
Sugoroku shook his head in exasperation. "You may be a whiz at ordinary puzzles, but even you wouldn't be able to solve this one. The Millennium Puzzle is beyond human understanding, Yuugi."
The look on Sugoroku's face was the look of someone who'd repeated himself hundreds of times and been brushed off each and every one of those times. Likely because that's exactly what had happened. And once again, his words were ignored. He sighed.
Looks like it's time for a history lesson on the Puzzle. Again. Sugoroku thought. Well, here we go. He cleared his throat.
"You know, Yuugi, there's quite a history behind the Millennium Puzzle."
Yuugi gave the same long-suffering look to his grandfather as Sugoroku had given him. Nevertheless, he carried out his part of the "play" that was the history lesson on his Puzzle, a lesson which at this point had become something of a tradition for the two of them.
"A history?" He said his line. Sugoroku nodded.
"Mhm. An excavation team found the Millennium Puzzle in Egypt, deep inside a Pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. However, out of the handful of people on the excavation team that went in, only one lived to bring the Puzzle back to the surface. It was said that several other teams had already gone in but never came out.
"Since then, one by one, every person to have the Millennium Puzzle in their possession and not treat it with the proper respect has mysteriously ended up dead, including the one member of the excavation team to make it back out. Soon after he left the tomb, he joined his comrades in death. With his last breath, he screamed two words…" Sugoroku tilted his head down in a way that cast darkness over his features. "Shadow Game…"
Despite the ominous nature of the story, Yuugi had to stifle a laugh at the man's dramatic acting and narration. This was definitely where he'd gotten his own inner narration skills from.
"Shadow Game? Wow…" he dutifully said. Sugoroku nodded again, humming a confirmation and leaning over to point at the puzzle box.
"Look at the symbols carved here. They read, 'the one who solves me will receive my dark knowledge and power.'"
"I see!" Yuugi said. Then he decided to take the "play" in a direction it hadn't gone before. A little smile crossed his face, one that held the tiny spark of mischief he'd inherited from his grandfather. "'Dark knowledge and power,' huh? I guess my wish will come true! Now I'm definitely going to finish it!"
Yuugi gave his best evil cackle, which, in Sugoroku's opinion, didn't sound so much diabolical as adorable. Still, the man put on a frown of mock-indignation and exclaimed, "Stop, fiend! I'll not let you unleash the powers of darkness! Besides, that's a treasure, you know. Give it to me!"
With speed surprising for a man of his age, Sugoroku made to swipe it from Yuugi's hands, but Yuugi had his youth on his side and zipped out of reach before the golden box could be taken from him.
"No! You just want to sell it!" He said, already having scurried around the tea table and started up the stairs by the time Sugoroku could try making another attempt at catching him. Yuugi called down to him from the top of the stairs.
"And anyway, whatever happened to treating the Puzzle with respect?" He dashed to his room to sequester himself inside. Just before the door closed all the way, Sugoroku caught the wide, giddy smile that split Yuugi's face.
Brushing the back of his hand against his forehead, he let out a long sigh.
I'm getting too old for this, the rather cliché thought came to him, but a large smile had broken out on his own face. He hadn't seen Yuugi wear that expression in far too long. It was good to see that the boy could still smile that way.
As Sugoroku was heading to bed later that night, he glanced at the strip of light that spilled out into the hall from underneath the door to Yuugi's room. He stopped just outside the door when he heard soft metallic clinks coming from within. The sound brought his thoughts to both his grandson and the golden puzzle the boy was so enamored with.
It had been eight years now, Sugoroku reflected, since he had walked into the storage closet to find Yuugi playing with the artifact.
Has it really been that long? He wondered, shaking his head as he listened to the soft clinks coming from the other side of the door. And he's still at it; that boy just doesn't give up! With a quiet snort of amusement, Sugoroku thought, He doesn't even need the crazy hair; that stubbornness alone is enough to tell people he's my grandson.
A short time later there was one final click, followed by a quiet, muffled thud, then silence. Sugoroku carefully eased the door open and peaked inside. His eyes fell on the figure slouched at the wooden desk beneath the skylight. Hearing the light snores that drifted from the figure, the man stepped through the doorway and approached the desk. He came to a stop beside it. There, in all his rumpled, unconscious glory, was Yuugi, his eyelids closed but fluttering with dreams, hair poking out in even wilder directions than normal, and mouth open just enough to let out his soft snores and a thin line of drool that had begun to trail onto the surface of his desk.
Once again, Yuugi had fallen asleep while working on the Puzzle. There was even a golden puzzle piece still clutched in one hand. The old man clicked his tongue quietly as he eyed the uncomfortable-looking chair and the odd angle the other's neck was bent at. Young or not, the boy was going to wake up very sore tomorrow if he slept like that.
Sugoroku slid the puzzle piece out of the sleeping teen's fingers and placed it back in its case, then reached over and pulled the bedspread down. Returning to Yuugi's side, he gripped him under the arms and gave a few gentle, upward tugs.
"Alright, Yuugi. Let's get you to bed."
"Mmphrmph…" Yuugi protested.
"I know, I know." Sugoroku said sympathetically.
Still mostly asleep, the boy woke just enough to rise from his seat with his grandfather's help, shuffle the four feet from there to his bed, and collapse on top of the sheets.
Sugoroku pulled the covers up to Yuugi's chin, tucking them around his grandson. If the teenager had been truly awake, his face would've been colored red by a blush of mortification, and he would have been protesting the actions, claiming that his grandpa was treating him like he was still a little kid. ("Stop it, Jii-chan! I'm in high school!")
But he wasn't truly awake, and so the only thing he did was snuggle deeper into the blanket and mumble a brief, nonsensical "auto-thanks," as Sugoroku had taken to calling the things: a result of deeply-ingrained good manners rather than any genuine gratitude (or awareness). Chuckling softly, the old man replied anyway.
"You're welcome, my boy." Yuugi's mouth twitched upward at the edges, a motion mimicked by Sugoroku's own as he turned off the desk lamp. With the light of the nearly full moon – which was visible now, since Yuugi had taken down the black poster board from his window last year – he was able to easily make his way out of the boy's bedroom.
Shuffling down the hall towards his own room, Sugoroku allowed his previous musings to continue.
Yuugi and the Millennium Puzzle. The words "unstoppable force meets immovable object" came to his mind. Or, as the case was here, "undeterrable boy meets unsolvable puzzle." He couldn't stop himself from grinning. A second later, the grin slipped when something else came to his mind.
"The one who solves me will receive my dark knowledge and power." Those were the words written on the outside of the Millennium Puzzle's box, the promise made to the winner.
Sugoroku had seen too much during his own time as an archaeologist to doubt that those words were true.
It was a good thing the artifact so far appeared to be unsolvable. "Dark knowledge and power" in the hands of anyone was a terrifying thought, and he shuddered to think of what would become of someone as pure-hearted and kind as Yuugi, should such darkness be introduced to them. He reminded himself once again that according to its own rules, the Puzzle would not penalize those with pure hearts.
Still, it was definitely for the best that his grandson wasn't able to solve it.