Lost and Found – Chapter 2

Tea broke the uncomfortable silence by changing the topic. "So, Joey, how's Mai?"

Joey looked up surprised. "Mai? Good, I guess. I don't really see a lot of her other than when we're doing the school thing or the weekend thing."

Tea was confused. "So you went back to college? With Mai?"

Tristan and Yugi laughed. Joey said, "No, Tea, we share custody of our son."

Tea felt someone had dealt her a blow to the head. "YOU have a SON?!"

Joey grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, he's almost six. Can you believe it?"

"He's real cute, too," Tristan added. "He favors his mom."

As the two guys traded insults and pummeled each other, Tea turned to Yugi. "God, I've missed a lot, haven't I?"

Yugi swallowed. "You've been gone a little over ten years, Tea. A lot has changed."

Tea sighed and fiddled with one of her braids. "I guess it had to. Somehow, I don't know, I thought everything would just freeze in time and stay the way it was when we were sixteen. And yet, I was kinda hoping that it would be all different."

She swiveled back towards her two friends. "So, Tristan, what about you? Married?"

"Him?" Joey stuck a thumb in Tristan's direction. "Who'd want to marry him?"

"Shut it, loser," Tristan snapped playfully. "Got plenty of women. I just can't decide which one to make the luckiest girl in the world when she marries me."

Even Tea snorted. "So, you and Serenity didn't work out?"

Tristan abruptly stopped laughing and turned to look out the window. His jaw clenched.

"What did I say now?" Tea asked, a little hurt by her friend's sudden mood change.

Yugi leaned over and quietly said, "Serenity is dating someone else."

"Why?" Tea responded.

"Because, this lug never told her how he felt," Joey said as he crossed his arms against his chest. "One of these days I'M going to do it and spare us all."

Tea couldn't hide her smile and said to Yugi. "Yeah, some things didn't change a bit."


"What is this crap?" Seta Kaiba said as he angrily threw his card unit across the lab. "What the hell am I paying you people for?"

"Sorry, Seto," Mokuba's voice squeaked through the speakers. "We're still working out some of the bugs."

Kaiba snorted. "Bugs. It doesn't deserve such a glorified name. A better word would be offal."

He spun around and headed out of the lab. "Get this shit working properly or find yourself another job."

Mokuba stared stunned at the closing lab doors below him. At almost twenty years old, he was not going to let his older brother make him cry.


"So this is it. Back home." Yugi gave a vague wave towards the old gaming store. "Not much has changed. Well, maybe it's a little shabbier since you saw it last."

"It looks great, Yugi," Tea smiled and blinked the unexpected tears away. "Where's your Grandpa?"

Yugi gave her a strange look. "Grandpa died quite a few years back."

The surge of good feeling in her heart became a solid lump in her throat. She laid a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Yugi. I didn't know."

Yugi smiled. "That's all right. I probably should have told you before now, but it was a difficult thing to write. And then, we didn't get to talk a lot over the last couple of years."

Before she could say anything in reply, he turned and headed towards the front door.

After they were all settled inside and sipping tea, Tea found a moment to ask, "Yugi, are you sure it's okay I crash with you? I don't want to put you out or anything."

His smile brightened, "Nothing would make me happier. I'm a little surprised – I think we're ALL a little surprised – that you didn't choose to stay with your parents."

Tea twined a braid around and around her finger. "They were, uh, out of town."

Yugi frowned. "You didn't tell them you were coming home."

It wasn't a question. Tea didn't respond.

"So, Tea, you wanna hear about the rest of the gang?" Joey began.

Tea sipped on her tea. "Sure."

"Well, don't sound too excited or nuthin'!"

Tea grinned. "Sure, Joey! I would love nothing more than for you to fill me in on every teensiest detail of our friends' lives over the last ten years!"

Joey sat back on the couch. "Well, that's better. Okay, here goes. Um, who should I start with guys?"

"How about Duke Devlin?" Tristan suggested.

"Oh sure, him I know about. Let's see, basically I haven't heard from the guy in a couple of years. He kinda wigged out when his game quit selling and turned really strange. After I while I quit hanging out with him."

Tea arched an eyebrow and tried not to laugh. "Who else? What about Weevil? Didn't you always hate that guy?"

"Oh don't get me started!" Joey punched a hand in his fist. "He gave up duelin' and went into the bug business. He invented some kinda roach killer and made millions. He lives in some fancy-smancy house with a great-lookin' wife and a couple of kids."

Tea looked at Yugi. He smiled and shrugged. Joey began again, "And then there's Rex Raptor. Yeah, that kid turned out to be a big loser. He dropped out of college and ended up working at the fry factory. Hah hah!"

"Hey! I worked at the fry factory 'til last December!" Tristan yelled.

"Aw, but you at least were a manager there. Besides, you hated that job. You only did it until you struck it big," Joey replied.

"You struck it big, Tristan?" Tea asked.

Tristan turned red and wouldn't meet her eyes. Joey punched him on the shoulder. "Yeah, he's a big time artist now! Got his own gallery and everything. Makes all the ladies drool."

"AND he's quite talented, too," Yugi added.

"Enough you guys! Shut up about it!" Tristan cried, thoroughly embarrassed. "It's just something I did as a hobby. Turns out a few people with really lousy taste wanted to buy my stuff. And then some crazy idiot actually let me have gallery space."

Tea leaned over and patted his knee. "I'm sure it's great. I'd really like to see your work sometime."

Tristan turned another shade of red and nodded.

"What about you, Joey? What do you do for a living?" Tea asked.

"Eh, I don't like to talk about it," he said, pouring himself more tea.

Tea turned to Yugi who said, "He's a social worker. He works with children."

"You? I mean, that's great!" Tea smiled her broadest.

Joey shrugged. "Well, somebody's got to look out for the little guys. I mean we don't want them turning out like us. Now do we?"

They all smiled at the joke, but the conversation ended awkwardly.


"Mokuba! There you are!" Kaiba walked across the crowded bar to the private table his brother was seated at with a couple of girls. "What the hell are you doing in a dive like this?"

"Hey, big bro." Mokuba didn't even glance up from the tall stein of beer he was drinking.

The girls looked nervously up at the elder Kaiba. He glared down at them. "Beat it."

As the women hurriedly made their exit, Kaiba leaned over his younger sibling. "Are you drunk?"

Mokuba waved his hand. "Sure looks that way."

Kaiba shook his head. "Why?"

Mokuba looked up at him with bleary eyes. "Maybe because I'm such a goddamn failure. Maybe this is the only thing I can do that I'm good at. Now that I'm unemployed and all."

Taking a seat, Kaiba regarded his brother closely. "Who said anything about being unemployed. Last I heard, you still worked for the Kaiba Corporation. For me."

Mokuba shrugged. "Yeah, but I couldn't fix that VR unit. I can't get the bugs out. It's not working. So, I'm not working. God, I'm such a failure." His head slumped forward to touch the table.

"Get up. Get up right now before you embarrass yourself or me any further. This is no way for a Kaiba to act," Kaiba said, getting angry.

Mokuba slapped his brother's hand away. "Well, maybe I don't wanna be a goddamned Kaiba anymore. Maybe I wanna be my own person. Maybe I just wanna be left alone. Like you. Left all alone."

Kaiba sat back and briefly closed his eyes. "Is that what you want? I mean, is it really? To waste your life away all alone?"

"Works for you, doesn't it, big bro?" Mokuba slurred. "After SHE died, you just wanted to crawl up in your hole and shut out the rest of us. Me, Yugi, your friends. Well, I hate to break it to you, bro, but she left all of us. Not just you. But, some of us had to a company to run when you bailed. We didn't have the luxury of just up and quitting."

Kaiba blinked and started to say something but Mokuba continued, "And then you just show up one day out of the blue and start bossing everybody around. You go back into that godforsaken gaming lab just like you never left. Well sorry, boss, but we're not into gaming anymore. We have more important things to concentrate on. Hell, it's shit you ordered us to work on years ago. We've been going a million miles an hour, hardly sleeping, and now you want to go back to playing games?! Sorry, big bro, as an ex-employee of the Kaiba Corporation and your sorry ass excuse of a little brother, I now have the pleasure of saying to you – go fuck yourself."

Kaiba was silent a moment. "Are you finished making your little speech? All out of your system?"

Mokuba shrugged and nodded. Kaiba grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. "Good, cause we're leaving."

Mokuba tried to fight him. "Get your hands off me. I said I don't work for you anymore."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "Shut up. Now get going."

The bartender frowned over at them, but decided not to interfere. "Where are we going?" Mokuba asked, as he was half carried out of the bar.

"You – are going on a vacation." Kaiba answered.


Tea was placing the few things from her rucksack into the dresser. Everything fit into one drawer. "You packed light," a deep voice called from the doorway.

Tea jumped. "Yeah, I don't own much. Besides, I don't know how long I can stay."

Yugi bowed his head. "Not long, I guess."

Tea was silent a moment. "Yugi, one of the things I came back here for. Well, I mean, I guess I should say one of the 'people' I came back here for --- is you."

Yugi crossed the room and sat on the bed. "I was hoping you would say that. Was it because of my letter?"

Tea sat down next to him. "Well, that, and I know we have a lot of unfinished business. I don't think either of us actually fully dealt with what happened a long time ago. Yong, you see –"

"Yong?" Yugi interrupted. He didn't see how her dead lover had anything to do with them.

"Yeah, Yong helped me to realize a lot of things before he died. He made me see that this whole life I created for myself was just a way for me to escape dealing with my past."

Yugi swallowed. "So, you've come home to, uh, deal with it?"

"Yeah," Tea whispered, staring down at the floor and playing with her braids.

Yugi took her hand. "Are you scared?"

Tea nodded. Yugi folded her across his chest and held her tightly. "So am I."