After a long day, Yumi and Sakuya talk about what's been going on in their lives.

Flopping down onto her futon, Yumi pulled out her phone to end another long day. With December closing in fast, her training had to become even more serious. That plus the end of the semester at school meant what little free time she'd had following summer was dwindling smaller and smaller.

The good news was she'd finally begun adapting to having such a packed schedule, though it didn't stop her from still wondering how others were able to juggle so much at once. Some of her classmates had been doing this kind of thing for at least a few years before now. Did everyone feel as anxious and tired as she did these days and just pretended not to?

Despite being close to a revelation as to the fundamental flaws of society and how it mistreats its youth, her mind had already shifted to another topic, specifically whether or not animals from different countries could understand each other. She pulled out her phone to search for the answer but accidentally pressed the app for a new social media website she'd signed up for, spending the next twelve minutes or so scrolling through it and forgetting the entire purpose behind why she was there to begin with.

After several minutes of wasting time and putting off homework, her phone began to ring. Given that there were only about two or three people who actually called her, she answered immediately. "Hi!" she yelled, assuming that would be fine for whoever was on the other end.

"You sound like you were waiting for a long time," Sakuya said, unfazed by the high-pitched greeting.

"I was so bored!" Yumi whined, kicking her feet for effect. What effect was up for debate given no one could see her right now.

"You finished your homework early today, then?"

"Absolutely," she lied. "That is definitely what I did."

She sighed. "There's not even that much. You need to do it more frequently."

"I usually get it done. It's just really boring and I don't like it."

"Nobody likes homework," she told her. "Well, some people do, but they're weird. You have to do it, though."

"It's hard since I'm not as smart as you."

"You're smart enough. There's no need to compare yourself to me."

"I guess. You're still a super genius."

"Stop complementing me and tell me about your day already."

Yumi laughed, rolling over to try and better recollect her day. Things had started to blend together a bit now that she had a consistent routine. "School was fine. We're starting to review for the exams since the semester's about to end. Then I got to practice, and we're getting more serious there, too. We're tuning my deck to counter the people we know are going to show up in Tokyo and trying to fix my side deck for that."

"I never went over that with you. Do you need help?"

"We've got it covered. I didn't think my trainer liked me very much, but she's still super dedicated! You're need to duel me when you come home in a couple weeks so I can show you how strong I am now. And use your real deck, too."

"You think you can handle me at my full power?" she sneered, taking a superior tone.

"Yeah!"

"Then you'd better prepare yourself. I've never even used more than 10% of my full power against you before."

"Really?"

"No. Like, 75% at the lowest. I don't really know, though. I don't track stuff like that."

"I want to say cool stuff like that, too!"

"You're too sweet to dismiss people like that. Stick to your normal stuff."

"You think I'm sweet?" she gasped.

"What? No. Shut up. I didn't say anything."

"You totally did! I always thought I tasted more salty, though."

"Kazuhiko is salty. You're..." She sighed. "Yeah, sweet."

"Hideo would probably be savory. You're sour."

"I'll take that as a compliment since I like lemon flavored things."

"And Kyoko would be really spicy."

"Let's stop talking about how people taste. It's weird."

"That's something a sour person would say," she said with a grin. "What have you been doing today?"

"Nothing unusual," she replied. "Math has started to get a little challenging, but I'm handling it. When I'm not in class, I'm usually writing my book. I'm almost done with the second draft."

"Let me read it already! I want to see what it's about."

"Not until it's done," she told her sternly. "I don't want you to see it until it's good."

"I bet it's good already."

"It's better than it was before, but not good yet."

Yumi groaned, rolling around on the floor in her room. "I want to read it."

"When it's done, you'll be the first one."

"I better be or I'll keep whining about it. You know you can't resist when I do that."

"Because you're very loud, yes."

"It's a talent." Switching gears, she pressed Sakuya for information on something they'd discussed in the past. "Have you made any friends at school yet?"

She paused for a second before answering. "Not yet," she admitted.

"Isn't it lonely, though? There's got to be someone you get along with."

"Not really," she said. "Sometimes I feel alone, but I have you to talk to at the end of the day. So it never really gets to me."

"What if I got really sick and couldn't talk to you anymore?"

"I'd drop out and go be with you."

This was clearly not the answer she wanted. "If you do that, I'll get you sick. Then we'll both die. So you're not allowed to drop out."

"Realistically, I probably could. Plenty of authors have gotten published without much or any education."

"School is important! You tell me that all the time, so if you quit, what's stopping me from giving up?"

"The fact you're good and wouldn't follow my bad example."

"I don't know, I'd follow you just about anywhere. You usually have things under control."

Sakuya couldn't stop herself from laughing at that. "I really don't. I don't know why everyone thinks I'm like that. It's just...trying not to screw up too badly."

"You're good at acting like you've got a plan, at least."

"Don't remind me," she said, almost disgusted with herself. "That's just going to make me start lying again."

"No it won't. You promised me you'd tell the truth, and you won't break that promise."

"How do you know that? I could always mess up or do it without even thinking."

"You won't because I'd get really upset. Then you'd feel bad."

She was almost ashamed to admit that something that simple was probably the exact reason she'd been sticking to the truth so stringently as of late. "Okay, maybe that's true. You still put too much faith in me. I'm not as impressive as you think I am."

"I think you are," she said. "Honestly, the only reason I'm training as hard as I am now is because I want to catch up to you. The tournament is just kind of a secondary thing."

"You still need to try to win, though, right?"

"Duh, of course. But I'll be happy if I can just get a little bit closer to where you are by the end of this. No matter how hard I have to work, I'll catch up one day. That's a promise." Yumi sighed to herself after saying this, forgetting for a second she was still on the phone.

"Are you okay?" Sakuya asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"Do you want to go to sleep?"

"No, I'm fine. I want to talk to you."

"Is there anything bothering you, though?"

Yumi was quiet for a second, then sighed again. "I guess."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sakuya sat up, holding the phone against her head while she wrung her hands to try and control her own worry.

"I'm just...tired. I feel really busy lately and I'm not totally used to it. Just lots of stuff that's always happening and not much time for myself or stuff I like to do."

"I guess it would be pretty hard to adjust to having such a big schedule when you haven't done it before, right?" Yumi didn't say anything. In fact, she started regretting bringing it up at all. These talks were supposed to be fun and a way to unwind for both of them. Sakuya didn't need to be bothered with all of this. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she finally said. "I'm...being kind of selfish," she laughed. "I'm talking about feeling stress over all of this when you're the one at an elite school with no one besides me to talk to. You've been doing this for way longer than me, and you're-"

"It doesn't matter what I've been doing. Just because something's easy for me doesn't mean you can't still have problems."

"I guess." She was quiet again. "I don't know why I'm having this much trouble. I should be used to it now."

"Sometimes it's hard to adjust to change. I have problems with that, too."

"The worst part is it's just a little too hard. Not a lot, but just a little bit. I can handle it most of the time, but it keeps piling up over and over again and it just gets..." She set her phone down to rub her face. "It's that little bit that hurts. And it doesn't even seem like it's getting to be too much most of the time until I get really bad."

"What happens then?" she asked, Yumi realizing at that moment she hadn't told Sakuya of any of her anxiety problems over the last few months.

She had to fight to keep her fear from getting the best of her. "Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, and then it makes me feel all panicky and tired and afraid. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does..."

"I wish you would have told me sooner," she said. "I'm sorry. What do you do when that happens?"

"Sometimes nothing. I just have to sit somewhere quiet and hope it goes away quick. Suzy taught me how to try and calm myself down, so sometimes I do that."

"Do you talk to anyone about this?"

"Not really. It's mostly just been people finding out by accident. Until now, I guess."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" she asked.

"You help me enough as it is," Yumi said, feeling a bit better after having finally told someone about her problems in a way that didn't involve a panic attack. "And you know you can talk to me if you're ever in trouble, right? You're not just here to listen to me complain."

"Of course," Sakuya agreed. "I know I can depend on you."

"Thank you for being my friend. You've helped me a lot since we met. I can't wait to see you again soon."

"You don't have to thank me," she said, starting to feel embarrassed. "You know I love you, too."

They both froze, mentally rewinding several seconds to confirm that that did, in fact, just happen. Yum spoke first, trying to keep her nervous and overjoyed laughter under control long enough to ask, "What did you say?"

Sakuya did what she did best and malfunctioned, mumbling something entirely incomprehensible as her face went red. It came out so naturally she didn't even realize what had happened. It's not like it was a lie, exactly. It was just extraordinarily embarrassing to admit like this.

"I have to go," she said suddenly, her voice cracking.

"I love you!" Yumi shouted just as the phone went silent. She spent the next several minutes rolling around on the floor laughing to herself and sending Sakuya as many heart emojis as she could type. Meanwhile, Sakuya herself was thinking of the best way to shove herself inside a closet and hide there until she died.

Today seemed like a good day to put this chapter out.

Got something nice to break up the action some more. Kind of going hard on more character-centric stuff at the moment since plot is about to backhand everyone in the next couple chapters. This seemed like a cute way to do it.

Not exactly by design, but I've been switching up the format of the last couple chapters in a row. Last one had nothing to do with characters we already know, this one is almost entirely dialogue, and one in the near future is going to be entirely from the perspective of a single character we've only briefly met. Don't know if that's good or bad, but I like to experiment.

Not much left to say for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to talk to the people you trust about stuff that bothers you.