Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.
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"This is the last one we can have for a while," Alex said, handing over the flask. Tristan poured a small amount of the whiskey into his soda bottle. "Then we gotta wait 'til Christmas and New Year's are done with. Goddamn cops."

"Yeah," Tristan commiserated. He took a sip of his drink, and added, "Don't bother emailing me the times. I gotta lay off for a while."

Alex raised an eyebrow, then looked over at the bench Ryō was sitting on a dozen feet away. "You want us to kick his ass out of here? Anderson's still pissed, y'know."

"I said don't mess with him."

Alex hid a snort in his own soda. "Is he blackmailing you or what?"

When Tristan didn't reply and just took another chug of soda, Alex pursed his lips for a moment before changing the subject. "Ch. 'S fine with me--racing you's not worth the effort until you get a better machine."

Tristan flipped him off. "Screw you, I've beaten you before."

"Beaten," Alex emphasized. "Don't live in the past, loser."

The civility in the conversation steadily disintegrated until the last race was done. Yuho had won again, and he immediately took the money and Saori off to celebrate. Tristan pulled out on his bike without looking back and left Ryō to walk home.

He spent the next two nights at home, but that got really boring really fast. A little after 10 the second night he called up Joey and, surprisingly, found the blond at home.

"Wanna play pool?"

"Sure," Joey replied.

"Okay. See you there."

"See ya."

There was a western-style pub between his house and Joey's apartment--closer to Joey than him, but the walk was only annoying in the middle of summer or winter--with a couple of pool tables crammed into it. The managers always let Joey in, since they knew the teenager from the times he had to go down there and lead his father back home after particularly bad days at work, and unless the place was too busy and room was limited, they could usually play for a while before getting pushed out.

Learning Duel Monsters had also gotten Joey to start practicing his skills at other things and had stopped him from relying so heavily on luck, so over the last year his pool skills had improved to the point that he was beating Tristan more than half of the time. It was annoying.

They played six sets without speaking. Joey was lining up his shot and staring at the ball when he asked suddenly, "You're not in trouble again, are you?"

"No," Tristan replied, focused on chalking his cue. "I'll take care of it myself."

"Big surprise there," Joey muttered under his breath. He added: "Bring it up before everyone freaks out again this time, will ya?"

"Don't worry about it," Tristan said.

Joey made his shot, bounced the cue ball off the opposite wall and sank the 5 ball into the side pocket, and that was the end of the conversation that night.

Having to baby-sit Johji was annoying enough, but having to drag the little brat along with him just for a simple errand was worse. In Tristan's mind, if Morgan needed a respite from the kid that badly, she shouldn't ought to've had him in the first place.

He was smart enough not to mention that to her, though. Living with Johji was better than having to live with one of their parents.

But it was still a pain in the ass to go shopping with him; he always had to walk down the exact center of the aisles, since Johji liked to knock things off the shelves.

"I'm boooored!"

"I don't give a damn. Now stop being annoying so we can get out of here."

"I'm gonna tell Mommy that you swore in front of me!"

Tristan made several under-the-breath comments about curses from God and kids switched at birth, as he debated getting the smaller packages of yakisoba noodles so that he could buy some tangerines. Shinji liked tangerines too, so even if Morgan was irritated, he'd have an ally.

"You stopped showing up."

Tristan caught the package before it could hit the ground, and carefully set it back on the shelf before turning around and glaring at Ryō.

"So what?"

Ryō shrugged. "He was disappointed, is all."

"Disappointed."

"Who the hell are you?" Johji demanded.

"Shut up, brat," Tristan replied.

"You shut up! I'm gonna tell Mommy that you yelled at me and that you were talking instead of doing errands, bastard!"

"You're the one who was almost a bastard, and stop swearing in public!"

"I don't have to listen to you!" Johji started rattling off a list off all the swear words he knew, loudly. Tristan covered his face with a hand.

A moment later he looked over at Ryō, who was staring at Johji with a priceless expression. Tristan recalled that he'd never met his nephew before, and said, "Let me borrow your scarf."

Ryō tugged it off and handed it over, still a little wide-eyed. Tristan shrugged a shoulder out of the straps of the baby-carrier and slung it around so that he could reach Johji.

"Bi--hey, what're y--mph! MMMPHT!"

Tristan knotted the scarf behind Johji's head and slid his arm back through the carriage. "Thanks," he said, not looking over at Ryō.

"I think that might suffocate him," was all the other teenager replied.

"Good," Tristan muttered, "it'll be doing the family a friggin' favor." He reached back and tugged on the scarf just enough to loosen it a fraction.

Through the scarf, Johji's retort managed to sound remarkably like 'motherfucker.' He started hitting Tristan on the shoulders.

He grabbed the first packages of yakisoba that he could reach and started to walk away, briefly waving a hand over his shoulder. "Bye."

Ryō didn't follow him out of the aisle, and Tristan was relieved enough that he didn't even care that people were looking at him and Johji funny.

A week and a half later, after school had started again, Ryō asked if he could have his scarf back.

"Oh, yeah," Tristan said. "I forgot about that. I washed it when I got back, but it's been sittin' on my dresser. I'll bring it in tomorrow."

Ryō smiled. "Oh, I don't have anything to do today. I can walk back with you and get it this afternoon--unless you have somewhere to be?"

"I gotta watch Johji," Tristan lied, before instantly yelling at himself for not picking something that would have prevented him from going home for hours.

Ryō just continued to smile. "That's all right. It shouldn't take me a minute to get it and leave."

Tristan shoved his hands into his pockets, irritated. He noticed that Ryō's original question had managed to hold him back enough that Joey and the others were too far ahead of them to be in hearing distance. "Yeah, well . . . fine, whatever."

"Thank you," Ryō replied.

Tristan slumped into his jacket collar and looked away. "Stop smiling at me like that," he muttered.

Tristan and Ryō broke away from Yugi and Téa at the bus stop, and at the second stoplight Joey turned to the left while they kept walking forward. Once everyone else was gone, neither of them talked.

It wasn't until they turned onto the street that led to Tristan's house that the brunet spoke up.

"I like Serenity, all right?"

Ryō chuckled. "I think we all caught on to that one."

There was a reply to that, but Tristan didn't give it; and Ryō and Bakura both noticed.

When they reached the gate, Tristan finally looked over. "I'll get it out of my room. Wait here."

"Can't I come in?" Ryō asked, tilting his head. "It's pretty cold."

"Morgan doesn't like it when I have people over while watchin' Johji, and if he even heard your voice, he'd be sure to tattle."

"Do you know that whenever you lie, you glance to your upper right?" Ryō shifted his case to his right hand and pointed to his left eye. "If you would just switch it over to this eye, then it would look like you're trying to remember something, and it would be much harder to tell. It's common body language."

Tristan stared at him for a silent five seconds. Then he swore vehemently under his breath and kicked the gate open before stalking inside.

Ryō interpreted that as an invitation and followed him.