A/N: Here's Chapter 3, for your reading pleasure. Getting impatient for active plot yet? Don't worry, it's coming.

Voakands: Few things about stories leave a bad taste in my mouth as plots that have endings you can spot from a mile away. Unless, of course, those stories are well-written – in which case, I don't mind nearly as much.

Mira: From what I've read of the manga, Yugi's grandfather was supposed to be a bit of an annoying geezer anyway, at least in the beginning. And I like the roller coaster analogy! Kudos!

Chibigreen: Thanks! It's hard for me to balance the two. If there's no action, the story's dull, but if there's no plot development, one never gets from point A to point B. Let me know if you see either of those happening.

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They met each other at the café. The place was part of the local bookstore, so when they found each other in the food court, they'd already each picked out a book to read, just in case the conversation died out. They both chuckled at this realization.

"I guess we're not planning on saying much, are we?" Kyle inquired.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd love to talk about something. But if we don't find anything to talk about... well..." Monica shrugged. "We can at least refer to books for topics of conversation."

"Quite so." Kyle pointed to the waiting line. "Shall we?"

"Yes, indeed." She grinned and joined him in waiting; they perused the menu for several moments. When Monica finally approached the waitress, she said, "I'd like a bear claw and a large Frappuccino."

The waitress glanced at Kyle. "And what would you like?"

"Hmm. I think I'll have the same, thanks."

"Two bear claws and two large Frappuccinos, coming up."

As the waitress set to work, Monica looked to Kyle in surprise. "I always took you for someone who liked his coffee boiling hot."

"Usually I am," he answered. "But what harm is there in trying something new? At least this won't sear my mouth."

"I suppose you're right," she said. "I've known a few hot coffee drinkers who really didn't like the frozen kind, though. Said the cold took away from 'the experience'." She scoffed. "Experience. Please. There's more of an 'experience' to be had with the frozen stuff, enjoying the taste while at the same time downing it fast enough that it doesn't make your mouth go numb, having the right amount of whipped cream with each sip..."

He chuckled. "You sound like an expert on savoring frozen coffee."

"Maybe I am," she sniffed.

"Yeah, sure," he grinned. "You're the kind who always drinks a Pepsi in the morning and then rushes out to class feeling horribly late."

She winced. "Tell me you haven't been watching me through the window."

Kyle simply laughed and shook his head.

"Whew!" She made a show of wiping her brow in relief. "That description gave me the creeps... you hit it dead-on. I don't even know why I feel late going places, either. Most of the time I'm way early."

He shrugged. "Better early than late."

"A fine phrase to hear from the dreaded Kyle McCraine," she snickered. "You didn't even show up half the time in gym class, as I heard it."

"You heard right. There didn't seem to be any point in showing up for more than half the time anyway. I still passed."

"Not exactly with flying colors, I'll bet."

"C is still a passing grade, last time I checked."

"Hmm." She looked him over. "You seem to be in good shape... looks can be deceiving, though."

"I'm in the best shape of my life, thank you very much," he scoffed.

The waitress handed them their breakfast, for which they both thanked her. She couldn't help but grin at the verbal sparring – she wished she heard more of it at the counter.

Monica and Kyle sought out the nearest open table and took their seats across from each other. Monica stirred her Frappuccino with her straw for a few moments, getting the whipped cream to sink into the semi-frozen fluid's depths. Kyle took a bite out of his bear claw and watched her for a few moments.

"So," she said. "When did you decide to quit smoking?"

"A couple weeks before I moved out on my parents," Kyle answered. "It wasn't doing me any good. I don't even know why I got into it in the first place."

"Well, there goes my next question."

He smiled.

"What was it like, living with them?"

His smile faded and he sighed. "I don't even know if I could describe it. But... he wanted me to just follow his plan. Fall in line. Do what he wanted me to do."

"'He'? Your dad?"

"Yeah." He absently stirred his coffee. "I think his entire plan was to make sure that he and Mom were taken care of in their old age. I think the last thing he wanted was to see me putting them in a nursing home." He scoffed slightly. "Actually, I shudder at the idea, too... give them six weeks and they'd be running the joint."

She gave a light chuckle. "Sounds like paradise."

"Getting out was paradise. I mean, can you imagine what that was like, having all those expectations piled onto your shoulders like that?"

"To be honest... yeah, I do," she answered.

His expression softened. "Your mom, right?"

"Yeah. She wanted me to be this prissy character, just like her... all upper crust, with my nose in the air..."

"I think you accomplished that part."

She glared. "Anyway. She'd always wanted to take me out of public school and put me into one of those high-rolling Catholic schools, full of all the snobs I was hoping to avoid."

"How'd you manage to stay out?"

"I pretty much walked out whenever the subject came up. She seemed to think I didn't have any friends in public school and so it was pointless for me to stay there anyway... and she was right... but I didn't want to go to a private school. I at least wanted to stay among the familiar."

"Even if you hated it?"

She nodded. "At least I could cope with it. I'd already learned to." She offered him a shrug. "I guess it doesn't matter now. We're both out of there. I don't know about you, but I don't plan on going back."

"There's not much reason for me to go back," Kyle admitted. "But there're a couple people I might go back for."

"Chubs, for example?"

He nodded. "And his mom. I owe those two a lot."

"How so?" she inquired.

"They took me in for the first couple days after I left my parents. His mom never asked any questions – at least, she didn't ask me – but instead made sure I felt at home while I was there."

Monica smiled. "Wow. She sounds great."

"She really is. I've often found myself wondering if there's some way I could repay those two for how they helped me... but I'm always frustrated to not find a solution." He took a sip of his coffee, then smacked his lips for a moment. "Interesting."

She grinned. "That's what someone says when they're trying to be nice about something someone else likes."

"Not like that. I've just never tried this stuff before." He looked at it for a moment. "I guess it takes some getting used to, huh?"

"A little bit," she nodded. "I think it's good stuff, myself."

"Oh, it's got the right taste and everything. And it sure wakes you up, just not in the traditional 'coffee' way. More like... cold shower."

She giggled. "If you say so. I don't take cold showers. I don't need to wake up that badly."

"Sometimes I do," he responded. "A way to snap back to reality. I can't be in the dream world all the time... much as I might like to."

"Tell me about it," she sighed. Then she glanced at the Millennium Shield, in its perpetually small form as a pendant on the gold chain about his neck. She pointed at it and smiled. "That's pretty."

"Hm? Oh." He chuckled. "I almost don't even notice it there anymore."

"From your Egypt trip, you said?"

He nodded. "Yeah. A souvenir, I guess."

She leaned back. "You know, I just thought of something. You said my uncle's death wasn't the reason why you wanted to start being nice to me, but you didn't tell me what was. And it occurs to me that all of this happened after this little venture you took to the other side of the world. Did something happen there?"

He raised an eyebrow, and he could sense Theoris grow distinctly uncomfortable with this line of questioning. If you had a body, you'd be shifting around.

I would, indeed.

"I suppose something did," Kyle finally answered. "Gave me a new perspective. It was a slow thing, at first, but the realization came to me that... I didn't have to be a monster. I didn't have to be a creep, or an asshole, or what-have-you. I could just be a person. My own person, regardless of what everyone else wanted me to be."

"'Everyone else' being your parents, I'm assuming."

"Mostly. Why do you say that?"

"Because I've found that teachers respect their students' own decisions a lot more than they respect a student's parents' decisions. If they see a student sitting there taking orders from his parents all the time, the teachers wonder if the student isn't just going to become a clone." She rocked her head to one side and smiled. "And in this country, cloning is illegal."

"Okay, okay, so my parents," Kyle amended. "They wanted me to be a doctor. Especially my dad. He was trying to train me up to become one. He always had me studying medical journals, taking classes to accommodate the field I'd eventually enter in college, he was saving up money for grad school..."

She winced. "I wonder what it was like for him to find his son moving out on him."

"I wouldn't know. Zack, a friend of his, Chubs, and I all moved my stuff out of my room while my parents were gone to work. All that was left behind were a couple pieces of furniture that couldn't quite make it. I left a note for them... but to this day I don't know if they ever read it." He chewed his lip for a moment. "Probably going in to see my room almost completely empty was enough for them."

"I would imagine," she said softly.

"What about you? How'd you move out?"

She shrugged. "After graduation, I didn't have any reason to stick around my own parents, so I lined up an apartment, and just... left. In front of my parents, though. I wanted them to see that I didn't want anything more to do with Mom's 'plan' for me. Should've seen her... she was screaming and bellowing the entire time. Almost hit me, she was so angry. But what could she do?"

"Nothing, I guess," Kyle answered. "You were eighteen by that time."

"Yep. I had money, I was accepted into a college of my own choice... I turned down the college that Mom wanted me to go to." She gave Kyle a wry smirk. "It was an Ivy League university, too."

He blinked in surprise. "You turned down Ivy League to move to Oregon and go to a nowhere college?"

"Honestly, I don't think I'd have been able to handle it," she said. "Knowing that I was going where she wanted me to go... even if I eventually turned to a field of my own choice. Plus the workload there would've been appalling. I just wanted out."

He nodded. "Out of everything in her plan."

"Even if it meant..."

"...going somewhere you might enjoy less."

She gave him an embarrassed smile. "Sorry... I guess I'm preaching to the choir, huh?"

"A little." He smiled back. "But don't worry. I don't mind it. Talking about it with someone who understands can be a lot more therapeutic than talking with a counselor."

"Got that right." She smirked. "So, are you gonna finish that breakfast of yours, or what?"

He scoffed. "You're one to talk, you haven't touched yours!"

They shared a moment of laughter as they consumed their food, and each other's time.

--

Chubtacular: ...Wow.

McKaroon: Surely you have something less obvious to say than that. Kyle rolled his eyes. Chubs could be funny at times, but other times his responses were too obvious to even try to supplement.

Chubtacular: Okay... I'm thin as a rod and I'm wearing a necktie.

McKaroon: ...Smartass.

Chubtacular: You know it. So what, does Monica have the hots for you now?

McKaroon: I don't know. Maybe you should ask her.

Chubtacular: And ruin all your fun? No way. Getting involved is something I'd like to avoid, thank you.

McKaroon: Afraid?

Chubtacular: Hmm, what was your first clue?

McKaroon: The dazzling repartee. You have a tendency to rely on sarcasm and wit to get you out of a situation you don't like.

Chubtacluar: Damn, you figured me out.

McKaroon: Oh, I figured that part out a long time ago. What I don't understand is why you continue to think a relationship like this is never going to work out. It seems to be going fine, to me.

Chubtacular: She spent the night at your apartment by accident. Unintentional, mi amigo. She wouldn't have stayed if she'd realized that was going to happen. And you can't have a relationship based entirely on mishap and coincidence.

McKaroon: Why not? Some people manage their entire lives on a relationship like that.

Chubtacular: Celebrities don't count. Those relationships are only as deep as their publicists can make them.

Kyle snorted at that one. "I suppose that's true enough," he muttered aloud.

McKaroon: We're just two people who happen to have been caught in similar circumstances. Look at how far we've come. We went from hating each other wholeheartedly to willing – and even happy – to spend time together.

Chubtacular: And that's a proud achievement, don't get me wrong. But do you think you'd actually be able to manage a full turnaround?

McKaroon: We may as well have already. She called it a date. And I'm in no mood to argue with her what to call it.

Chubtacular: Full turnaround = marriage

Kyle winced. "Augh!"

McKaroon: ...Thanks a lot, my blood pressure is skyrocketing. Don't think I can't hear you laughing, either.

Chubtacular: I wouldn't dream of it.

McKaroon: Let's move on to another subject...

Chubtacular: Fine by me.

McKaroon: How's dueling going?

Chubtacular: Going great. I finally made it to fourth tier.

McKaroon: That's good news. Your deck's doing well, I hope, with those prize cards.

Chubtacular: From the Madison tournament? Oh, yeah. Without those I wouldn't have made it to fourth. And I've been getting some more real good cards along the way, too. Tourney winnings let me afford them.

McKaroon: Good to hear. Heard anything about bigger tournaments coming up?

Chubtacular: Yeah, a message board was mentioning a rumor about a really huge one in Japan coming in the next couple months. Like, Industrial Illusions or KaibaCorp is sponsoring.

McKaroon: That's what I've been hearing, too, but no one's confirming anything.

Chubtacular: Well, if it's real, we'll hear about it soon enough, I think. But if it's KaibaCorp, Monica has reason to be worried.

McKaroon: Yeah, I know, the Blue-Eyes cards. I'm surprised Kaiba hasn't found them yet; she's played a Blue-Eyes out in the open at least once.

Chubtacular: I know. Maybe he's got something planned for her?

McKaroon: ...You're not helping.

Chubtacular: He's not that dumb. He'll be after them, wait and see.

McKaroon: Have I ever told you how much fun it is talking to you? You're so positive and outgoing.

Chubtacular: I know. It's one of my greatest charms.

Kyle scoffed. "Yeah, if you were a snake charmer..."

McKaroon: Okay, I've got stuff to take care of. I'll talk to you later.

Chubtacular: K, ttyl

Kyle logged off, then leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Well, that was productive," he muttered.

If you wish to be productive, Kyle, perhaps you should speak with Monica.

To what end, might I ask?

Ask her if she would like to spend more time with you.

You mean, arrange another date?

That is the idea, yes. If you wish this relationship to "work out", it would only be a sensible choice to spend more time with her. And if she wishes a relationship with you, I believe she would say yes – unless there is some bizarre custom among your culture I have yet to encounter.

Kyle snorted. I'm sure there are lots of those. But for now... yeah, calling her might be a good idea.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number. Seconds later...

"Hello?"

"Hey, Monica, it's me."

"Hey, there. Whatcha up to?"

"Nothing much, just taking a break from studies."

"Same here. I've got some pizza in the oven, too."

"Sounds like a perfect dinner."

"Doesn't it though?"

Kyle grinned. "Listen, I was wondering if maybe you'd like to get together again, sometime."

"I thought you'd never ask." Kyle could hear the smile in her voice. "When and where?"

Well, well, he thought. Looks like things are turning out just fine. Take that, Chubs.

His grin widened.

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