Toli: This is Chapter 3!

Me: We're so happy you like it!

Toli: We don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Or any of the characters associated with it. But we do pretend…

Note: I changed the way Yami and Yugi communicate a little because my computer keeps deleting the symbols I put on here. So, here's the change!

Yugi to Yami

Yami to Yugi

CHAPTER THREE: THE CONFUSION

The next day was…Saturday! So there was no school. Yugi invited his friends over again and they stayed for hours, talking and hanging out.

Yami stayed inside the Puzzle. He was still looking out for anything weird.

"Why don't we go to the arcade?" Tea suggested.

"Yeah!" Joey agreed loudly. "I can kick somebody else's butt on dat game I was playin'!"

Tristan snorted. "I let you win that time," he said.

Joey waved a hand. "Whateva. Anyway, let's gooooo!"

Everyone put their shoes back on and left. Yugi locked the house door and the shop door behind them. Briefly he tapped into the mind link to see what Yami was up to.

Yami, why have you been so quiet lately? Is something wrong?

Well…no. Nothing, Yugi, nothing at all is wrong.

But even without having to read Yami's emotions, Yugi could tell Yami was lying. But why? Why would Yami lie to Yugi? It didn't make any sense at all.

"…And dat's how I know I beat Tristan fair 'n square wit' nona his 'lettin me win' crap," Joey was saying to Tea.

"All right, Joey, you've made your point," Tea said exasperatingly. "Gee, Yugi, you'd think he'd know how to not run off at the mouth by now, wouldn't you?"

"What?" Yugi asked stupidly. Then he remembered what she had said. "Yeah, right, of course," he answered quickly.

All three of them looked at Yugi strangely. "Is anything wrong, Yugi?" Tea asked.

Yugi shook his head. "Everything's fine," he said. "I was just…trying to remember if I had locked both doors."

"Oh," Joey said. "Didja?"

Yugi nodded.

'Okay," Tea said. They all continued on.

As they got closer to the arcade, more traffic appeared. The cars were also going pretty fast, since it was lunch hour. The noise was pretty loud, so none of them tried to talk to each other.

Yugi was following behind Tea, still pondering why Yami had lied, when he noticed that Joey had slowed and was walking directly behind him. He didn't pay much attention to it, though. Yugi looked up ahead and saw the arcade, still several yards away.

Then, in a split second, something very strange—and very scary—occurred. Yugi had been trying to estimate how many more minutes it would be until they made it to the arcade, only to get his mind off Yami, when he felt Joey's hands on his back. Before Yugi could raise a question, Joey shoved him very hard to one side.

Yugi stumbled to his right, balanced awkwardly on the edge of the sidewalk for a nanosecond, then tripped off the sidewalk and fell flat on his back in the middle of the street, hitting his head hard on the asphalt.

Yugi heard two noises as he looked up at the shifting sky in a daze. The first was the horn of an eighteen-wheeler blaring as it beared down on him, and the second noise was Tea screaming.

I'm going to get run over! Yugi thought frantically.

Before he could linger on that thought too long, someone grabbed his shoulders and pulled him very quickly out of traffic. The eighteen-wheeler zoomed by, its driver not seeming to care that he had nearly flattened a teenager.

Tristan had jumped into the street and saved Yugi in the nick of time, and now he had turned on Joey. "What is your problem, Joey?!" he yelled in Joey's face.

Yugi sat on the sidewalk, unable to move, simply trying to catch his breath. Tea knelt beside him and looked ready to cry. "Yugi, are you okay?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"I…I think so," Yugi replied, not exactly sure if that was true. He wanted to throw up, and probably would have if Yami hadn't busted into his thoughts.

Yugi, are you all right?! What happened?!!

...I think Joey pushed me. But I'm sure he didn't mean to shove me into the traffic. Maybe he was just fooling around…

I'm not so sure about that,Yami replied, sounding very angry. I saw him when you didn't, Yugi. He was trying to kill you. On purpose.

Yugi couldn't believe it. But why would he want to do that?

Yugi heard Yami sigh. I don't know, Yugi.

Tristan was still yelling in Joey's face, shouting about how Joey could have killed Yugi. "If that was your idea of a joke, it sure wasn't funny!"

Joey raised his hands and looked very confused. "But Tristan, dat's jus' it—I didn' shove Yugi. I was jus walkin' behind 'im. I dunno what happened!"

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that?!" Tristan roared.

"Yeah, because it's da truth!"

"All right, guys, enough!" Tea said, getting between them. "Whether Joey did it on accident or didn't do it at all, the important thing is that Yugi is safe and unharmed."

Tristan still looked like he wanted to punch Joey's lights out, but he sighed. "You're right, Tea."

"I think I need to go home," Yugi said, getting up on legs that were still not quite steady.

"We'll walk you there," Tea offered immediately.

Tristan nodded. "And you"—he pointed at Joey—"can walk in front, so we can all see you."

SOMEWHERE ELSE

She smiled with satisfaction at the brown-haired boy's reaction to the "accident". "Perfect," she said. "Soon I'll be able to divide them all, right down the middle, so Yugi can't have his precious circle of friends to rely upon. Then I will complete my objective.

"I simply can't wait until then."

END CHAPTER

Me: I hope you all liked that!

Toli: Yeah this is where the story gets plotty.

Me: "Plotty"?

Toli: Well, exciting is too formal. I like plotty better.

Me: Whatever floats your paper-mache boat. Anyway, please come back for our fourth chapter! And if you have a better name for this story, please let me know!

NEXT IN CHAPTER 4…There's another "accident", but this one is even worse than the first…

REVIEW RESPONSES

Mena: Welcome!! Our first response goes out to Yami-AJ Yu-Yu-InuCaptor. Well, I guess he did, didn't he? Lucky for you, it wasn't Tea. Please come again!

Toli: All right, next one's for Silver Moon Phoenix. Hey, Yami did stay alert, didn't he? And yes, the mystery person struck, just not like you might have thought. Don't forget to look for the next installment, okay?

Mena: Okay, we're out this piece!