Author's Notes: Part ½ of a birthday package for Cryptographic Delurk. Something silly to start.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! and its characters are copy-written to Kazuki Takahashi and Konami. I do not own these characters or this franchise. I am just playing around with fictional people in a big make-believe sand box.
Warnings: Suggestive themes and disappointment.
"We've been together for a while. I figured now is as good a time as any to share this with you..."
"Will you stop," Shizuka laughed. She lightly slapped his elbow as he fumbled for the key to the lock. "So you needed an extra set of hands to help you pack and thought of me. I'm flattered. I kind of don't know why you didn't ask my brother too, though? Or even Honda-kun. I'm sure they would have been happy to help us with the heavy lifting."
Ryuuji observed her attire again. She normally wore pastels, or something with floral print, but today she opted for her "work uniform"—a simple white T-shirt and jeans. The pant cuffs were rolled up, revealing yellow socks and red sneakers. Had it not been for the paint stains on her clothing, she very well would have matched her brother in casual wear.
"This is a private matter," Ryuuji said, tracing the lines in the key with his index finger. "Something best kept between the two of us."
Shizuka rubbed her thumb along her jaw in thought. Ryuuji knew when to keep certain details hidden, until he was comfortable or deemed it necessary to share the information. They had been dating for years, starting the summer after her high school graduation and all throughout college, till she earned her art degree. A year after that, they had made the mutual decision to live together, but she had to wonder just what it was that he could have been hiding after all that time?
"Oh, I get why you wouldn't want onii-chan here," she said, her eyes rising with a grin. Ryuuji looked at her through his peripheral vision, holding the lock in one hand as he inserted the key.
"Hm?"
"You've got a bunch of naughty stuff in there, don't you?" Shizuka teased. "You're afraid onii-chan and Honda-kun will see."
She enjoyed seeing the hint of color grow on his cheeks, his eyes narrowing as the key stuck in the lock.
"That's what it is, isn't it?" she pressed, excited with prospect. "A storage unit this big, you must have a rack or something in there. Maybe a pommel horse? A cage? Some whips? Paddles? More restraints? Masks? Ropes? Boxes of toys? Oh, oh! Maybe a Sybian?"
"How do you know what a Sybian is?" Ryuuji asked, finally turning his head to look at her directly in the eye.
"What? Am I not supposed to know?" Shizuka asked, hands on her hips with a small smirk. "You think the woman who learned 25 shibari techniques through online tutorials didn't come across anything else on the world wide web? Not everything I do is purely for your benefit."
"Blame the internet for your corruption. Got it," Ryuuji muttered.
"Not the internet. Onii-chan had an old VHS tape lying around when I helped clean out his apartment last year."
"Why am I not surprised," Ryuuji rolled his eyes at the thought. "And no, I don't have a Sybian."
"Aw," Shizuka said.
"… Though, I do suppose, you're not incorrect about there being boxes of toys."
It was Shizuka's turn to change color. Her hands rose to her face, her cheeks warm beneath her fingertips.
"Really?!" she squeaked. "I was just joking about that stuff!"
"You're probably going to be disappointed," Ryuuji said ruefully, with a forlorn smile. "I really trust you, and with us moving in together, you'll be seeing all this anyway. It doesn't make sense for me to hide it. I just... I hope you don't think poorly of me after I open this door."
"Ryuuji," Shizuka cooed, genuinely touched by the confession. She reached forward and cupped his shoulder. "Why were you worried I would think less of you? Well... I guess we all have secrets, little pleasures we may not necessarily want to admit upfront..."
Ryuuji jerked a brow, unsure if those words were entirely for him when she brought a finger up to her mouth, as though contemplating something else.
"But I'm happy you're choosing to share it with me," Shizuka said warmly. His skepticism melted as he felt her squeeze his shoulder reassuringly, and he smiled.
"You just remember that when you see the collection, okay?"
Shizuka's heart rate increased and her lips settled into a tight line, the corners of her mouth turned upward as she considered everything the word entailed: collection.
The lock was undone with a turn and a "click." Ryuuji then knelt down to grab the handle at the bottom of the storage unit's door, and he looked back up to Shizuka.
"I'm serious. I've never shown this to anyone else. No judgments."
"I get it, I get it!" Shizuka said, equal parts excitement and anticipation. "Just show me the goods already!"
Ryuuji bit the lining of his cheek. There were some uncomfortable moments where she shared one too many similarities to her older brother in temperament.
"Alright," Ryuuji intoned. "Here it is."
The door lifted with a loud roll and clatter. Ryuuji took her silence for bewilderment, and Shizuka blinked once, twice, thrice, trying to comprehend what she was staring at.
"What am I looking at?"
"My collection," Ryuuji said with a grand sweep of his hand.
"You... collect dice," Shizuka said, taking a step into the unit and pulling what looked to be a clear tackle box with multi-colored resin off a wire rack shelf. She looked at Ryuuji, his expression lying somewhere between tension and hope. She then noticed his favorite earring, in explicit detail.
"Of course you collect dice." Her eyes traced every corner and edge of the storage unit, packed to the brim with boxes upon boxes and shelves upon shelves of polyhedral shapes. "I take it you've been doing this a while?"
"Since I was a little kid!" Ryuuji said. He pulled another tackle box off the shelf and popped the lid open, showing her the arrangement in their respective compartments.
"My dad got me this set when I was five. Oh, and this set was for Christmas that year. I got this one when I passed my math exam in third grade. And this one..."
There were 36 compartments in that box alone, and Ryuuji seemed to have a story for each set.
"I have no idea where I got this one, but it's bright orange and glows in the dark. Isn't that cool?"
"Ah, yeah," Shizuka said. "Don't those need light to charge? They've been in storage for a long time. Are you sure they still work?"
"Hmm, I'm not sure. I haven't rolled any of these in years." Ryuuji tossed the D20 he had been examining back into the box, snapped the lid shut, and decided to reach for another repurposed tackle box.
"So you've catalogued and organized all of this?" Shizuka asked, looking at the box in her hands.
"I wish!" Ryuuji exclaimed. "I have a bunch of boxes with mystery bags that I've needed to sort for years."
"Mmm," Shizuka hummed with a tight nod. "This is... quite a hobby."
She lightly shook the box in her hands, performing a round of basic arithmetic in her head.
If a basic set of resin dice was 1400 yen, and she was holding a case with 36 sets of dice, then that would mean she was holding 50,400 yen worth of dice.
Multiplied by the stacked tackle boxes on the shelving units, and the cardboard boxes of "mystery bags" that weren't sorted...
"You have spent millions of yen on dice," Shizuka uttered. Ryuuji placed his hand on the back of his head at the assessment.
"Ah, well... I have been doing this since I was like, three years old," he said sheepishly. "You get a set every other weekend, it does add up over time."
"It's not really that bad," Shizuka said with good natured smile. She placed the plastic tackle box back on the shelf, and reached for a wooden box with a golden lock. It was more decorative than functional, as there was a solid line underneath the key hole, though it had no visible loop or locking mechanism to secure it shut. The box parted with an upwards push, revealing a set of metal dice with a wave pattern across their features on a bed of plush red velvet.
"It's just a handful of yen per set, after all."
"Hahaha, a handful!" Ryuuji chuckled. "I wish! That set you're holding is seventy thousand yen."
Shizuka nearly dropped the box.
"W-what?" Shizuka stuttered. "Seventy thousand for... for dice?!"
"Not just dice," Ryuuji said, oblivious to her horror as he took the box out of her hands.
"These are forged from Damascus steel. They make high-end blades out of this stuff! It takes hours to engrave the faces. A lot of craftsmanship and precision went into making these."
It took a fair amount of willpower for Shizuka to maintain a neutral expression.
Alright, perhaps she wouldn't consider spending so much money on a single set of dice, but Ryuuji was an independent businessman with his own company. Who was she to tell him how to spend his funds? This was clearly what made him happy.
Although...
"Have you played with those dice? In a game?"
"No," Ryuuji laughed. "This is a vanity set, for sure. It looks impressive, but all these little waves in the metal affect the balance. My rolls wouldn't be completely random. I should know. This d20 tends to favor the four and the eleven faces."
"I see," Shizuka said meekly. "Well, it's not like you're dropping seventy thousand on every set you like, right?"
"Oh no. No no no," Ryuuji said with the shake of his head. "For specialty and artisan sets? It's all over the board. It can be anywhere between thirty thousand yen all the way to half a million yen. Depends whether it's a limited run for the season, or if it's made of a material that's hard to work with, or things that are hard to acquire because of international trade laws. Things like that."
Shizuka wasn't sure if she heard that correctly.
"You've paid half a million yen for dice?"
"It was a set made from the fossilized femur of a Tyrannosaurus Rex," Ryuuji claimed, enunciating as though this would convince Shizuka of it's rarity and worth.
"That's... That's..."
"Incredible?" Ryuuji asked hopefully.
"That... sounds like something Dinosaur Ryuzaki would buy." Shizuka had squeaked the comment in a manner that was almost like an insult. Ryuuji didn't pick up on the subtext.
"Ha, Dinosaur Ryuzaki wishes he could buy it. Only 3 sets were ever made and he doesn't have one—and I'm not selling mine anytime soon."
"And it's just been sitting in this storage unit since you bought it?" Shizuka asked.
"Of course! I'm not going to take my special fossil set out to play on game night. That's just ludicrous."
"Uh huh."
Ryuuji registered the apprehension to her tone.
"You're not upset with me about this, are you?" He frowned, deeply, his eyes fluttering with heartbreak. Shizuka raised her hands with a nervous grin.
"No! No, I'm not upset. I'm just... Trying to wrap my head around it, is all," Shizuka said. "I collect handmade paints in small batches, so I understand. Kind of. I mean, I've never paid anywhere near the amount you've spent on dice, but I..."
She felt guilty, and aggravated, and conflicted, looking at him, staring at her, desperate for her approval, yet so ready to leap at the chance to defend his hobby—his first love.
"I understand this is art to you," Shizuka said, and with those words, she finally understood the obsession. "I mean, it is art. It's art! You said it yourself: there's craftsmanship involved. Artisans. Professional artists. I get it, Ryuuji. I really do get it, and I think it is beautiful that you're a devoted patron to those artists and support the work they do."
Shizuka wasn't entirely certain she convinced herself with her own argument, but the joy on Ryuuji's face made the sudden declaration worth it.
"I'm so glad you feel that way," Ryuuji sighed. "I was so nervous you'd dump me if you saw this collection. I mean, it has been an obsession—"
An addiction, Shizuka thought grimly.
"—and I am aware I have a lot of dice. Just standing here, with you, and looking at it all... I've actually been wanting to thin the herd, so to speak. Been thinking about it for a long time, but the task always seemed daunting to pursue by myself. I was wondering if... maybe... you would like to help me sort through the collection? When you have the time?"
In that moment, Shizuka understood.
This wasn't about Ryuuji revealing his hoard of dice.
This was about Ryuuji showing her his past, and making room for her in their future.
"Yes," Shizuka said, clasping her hands at her chest with a smile. "Yes, yes, of course I'll help."
"Great," he sighed. "If you're up for it, we can start right now. No need to feel like we have to get everything done today, though. How about we try to get through this shelving unit and see how we feel in an hour?"
Shizuka nodded in agreement, pulling a singular wooden box with an engraved image of a woodland grove off the shelf.
She opened the box, scrunching her nose at what was inside.
"Ryuuji, I think something bad happened to these dice."
"Oh no, did the resin warp?"
"I don't know, but something really weird must have happened while these were in storage because these look like animal droppings."
Ryuuji placed the box of Damascus steel dice aside to examine the contents she was holding. He breathed a deep sigh of relief when he saw the set.
"Oh, nothing bad happened! These are supposed to look that way!"
"These dice are supposed to look like turds?" Shizuka asked, visibly disturbed.
"They don't just look like it; they actually contain it!" Ryuuji said excitedly, picking up the D20 and rolling it between his fingers. "It's another artisan set. In some parts of Sweden, they use dried pellets as incense because the moose up there eat stems and boughs in the wintertime. So when the pellets are burned, they have an earthy pine aroma."
"And they made dice out of them?!"
"Kind of. The pellets are inclusions in the resin, so you can't really smell them. But they look funny, don't they?"
"Yeah, funny." Shizuka didn't think so in the slightest. "How much did you pay for these?"
She regretted the question as soon as it left her mouth.
"Not too much," Ryuuji said with a flippant wave. "This set was only thirty thousand yen. It is just moose poop, after all."
Shizuka wasn't laughing.
"You paid thirty thousand yen for shit," Shizuka said. There was no anger, or resentment, or ill will in her voice, only the stinging air of judgment.
Which hurt him so much more.
"Hey, what's with that face? Are you judging me? Oh, no, you're judging me!" Ryuuji squawked. "You said you weren't going to judge me!"
"I didn't say that," Shizuka said, her tone level, civil, but her eyes looked so weary as she shut the box. "I said I was happy you were sharing this with me."
"You don't sound happy!" Ryuuji said. Shizuka simply placed the box in his hands and walked, dejectedly, out of the storage unit.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to get some fresh air. I'll be back in a few minutes. This is a lot to take in. I'm sorry. I know this means a lot to you. I just... need some time to think."
Ryuuji considered the weight of the box in his hands as he watched her walk away.
"… Right."
Perhaps it would have been better to keep his collection a secret.
END PART ONE