Jedi Padawan Mutou Yugi bolted out of his bedroom, clad half in his pajamas and one quarter in a tank top. "What is it?" he asked, his voice muffled by the shirt.
As he yanked it all the way over his head, he was greeted by the very stern glare of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. "How many times do I have to tell you to keep your boots out of my way?"
"They were under the coffee table! How did you trip on them there?"
With an exasperated sigh, Luke shook his head. "I didn't trip on them. I tried to put one on. You need to keep your too-small-for-me boots in a place where I won't mistake them for my own!"
Embarassed, Yugi nodded. "I'm sorry, Sensei. I'll keep them in my room."
"See that you do. But I know that I've asked you not to call me 'Sensei.' You can just call me Luke. I may be training you, but you don't need to be so formal."
"Okay, Sensei-kun."
Luke was about to chide his apprentice again, but instead, his voice was cut off before he could speak. Gaping blankly at the shorter man, he finally stammered out, "Sensei...kun?"
"'Kun is an informal suffix to tack onto a friend's name."
"Oy. I already speak four languages. Try not to get me mixed up. 'Kun' is 'nut' in Rodian, 'pet' in Twi'leki, and 'animal' in Huttese."
Rolling his eyes, Yugi replied, "Like I would have known that. I speak three languages- Nihongo- er, Japanese- English- er, Basic- and the language of ancient Egypt. English isn't even my best, but I know it well enough."
"If you didn't, Han and I would have been in big trouble when he crashed us into Japan."
"You kidding? You're lucky it was the middle of the night."
"We were lucky you were around in the middle of the night."
"I told you, I'm a night person. It's usually a lot quieter. Usually."
"Well, if you hadn't offered to help, we wouldn't have gotten off Earth before the authorities arrived on the scene. From what I gathered by Earth's technology- or lack thereof- most people would have freaked out if a ship suddenly landed fifty meters away."
"Well, my main thought was 'why the hell do weird things always happen to me?'"
Luke laughed. "I know just how that is. I was the center of all weirdness back when I was a kid. And to think I used to beg for adventures."
"I learned two years ago that adventures just... happen. If you look for them, you're just going to find trouble. My idea of fun these days is zoning out to music."
"You said you used to be into games. What happened to that?"
Yugi suddenly tensed up. "I... told you. I don't want to talk about it. Not now, maybe not ever."
Luke rubbed his temples. "Sorry I asked. I just don't like having people keep secrets from me."
"I'm sorry, Sensei, but I just... can't talk about it yet."
"I understand. Trust me. I don't like hiding things from people, but even I've had to before. But hey, we've got to get going. I promised Leia that I'd try to settle that mess with the fuel smugglers on Bespin, and I don't think it's a good idea to leave you behind."
"What, don't you trust me?"
"I do, but since that break-in a few months ago, people are looking sideways at you. It was the day after you arrived. Cilghal even went so far as to call the situation 'human-y.'" Luke grinned. "Other people were calling it 'fishy,' you know, and so she decided to distance her species from it. Mon Calamari don't like the term 'fishy' much."
"Does anyone like me here?"
"Leia's kids think you're great."
"I mean among the trainees."
Luke frowned. "Honestly, I don't know. I hope so, but you should probably not count on it. But heck, I don't think any of them would mess with my Padawan."
"Well, if nobody likes me here, why do you keep me around? Do you want to be the guy with the least popular student?"
Luke chuckled gently. "It's not important how many people like you. It's how much you like other people, and how much you are liked by the people who do like you. I was the super-geek of my school, but I had a few close friends. You can't do much about how popular you are, but you can control your own attitude. If you don't let yourself dislike the other students, someday they'll come around and realize that you're a good guy." He ruffled Yugi's hair, which was a mass of very vertical, multicolored spikes. "As for why I chose you to be my Padawan, it's a simple answer. You remind me so much of myself that I just couldn't help picking you."
Startled, Yugi smiled. "I do?"
"You bet. When I was your age, it was just before I got dragged into the Rebellion. I had finished looking like the biggest dork in school, and was hoping to find purpose to my life. When you told me that there was nothing for you on Earth, I was reminded of what I told my first mentor before we left Tatooine."
"Well, when my grandpa died, my mom couldn't handle me. All my friends took off after high school, and I was left crashing at the house of a sort-of-friend."
"You told me that Kaiba guy was a friend."
"He... was... but not really. More like ex-enemy who decided he could put up with me."
"Aha. One of those." Luke scoffed. "It's such a waste of time and energy to be enemies, then become allies." Glancing at his wrist-chronometer, Luke cursed. "We're running late. You ready?"
"Lemme grab my jacket." Yugi ran to his room, but was halted by his own jacket hitting him in the face. "Hey! I had it under control."
"But not on time. Let's go."