2. Forgiveness and Trust
Mai munched on a granola bar from her own stash while the captain spoke, anxious for him to finish so she could take a walk alone before the crew started handing out jobs. She wanted to make sure she was not assigned to the same task as anyone from Joey's circle of friends. At least they had been grouped by tournament divisions for the little lecture, and none of them were in her division.
It'd been nice, she admitted with some self-reproach, being with him on the lifeboat. A part of her wanted to think that maybe helping Tristan save his life would put her in a better light, but she didn't want to harbor any false hopes, and the comment from Joey about how the Pharaoh had complicated everything for Téa and Yugi reminded her that they hadn't cut him a break, and he'd certainly deserved it more than she did. The best thing for her to do, then, was to go back to keeping herself as far removed from them as possible until they could get off this godforsaken island and get home and she could work on forgetting him once and for all.
Finally, the captain finished talking and released them for a half hour break. She stretched and looked up and down the beach. They were surrounded by woods and cliffs. A walk near the woods, maybe, while she waited for one of the crew to give her a job.
"Ah, Miss Valentine!" a somewhat shrill voice called out and she sighed, screwing on an airy smile as she turned to face the Tournament Commission president.
"Yes, Mr. Goradon?"
"I would like all the remaining competitors to meet over there by that group of rocks, if you would."
She fought to keep from rolling her eyes. "Now? Don't you think we should at least wait until we've all gotten our group assignments and taken care of things like water and food?"
"Oh, this won't take long," he assured her, ushering her in the direction of the rocks in question.
Great. Right back with Joey and Yugi and their little club.
It took about five minutes for everyone to gather, sixteen duelists plus a few of their guests. There was, of course, Joey and Yugi along with Téa, Tristan, Serenity, and Duke. The Kaiba brothers, naturally. Yugi's friend Rebecca. That weird fish freak Mako Tsunami. Pegasus and his henchman Croquet. Alrik Cronhielm. Raul Pérez and his girlfriend Renata Reis. That prissy German guy Zigfried von Schroeder and his significantly less prissy brother, Leon. Christine Aileas. Lawrence Andrews. Kenan Bagatui and his wife, Makena. Renée Carole. That revolting Jacques Rousseau, the French duelist she'd seen in many European tournaments. And of course, Mr. Goradon and another tournament official.
"Wonderful, wonderful!" Mr. Goradon enthused when they were all there. "First I want to say how happy I am that everyone made it off the ship alive and well. I am so relieved to know that we did not lose one person to such a horrible accident.
No, you just almost did, thanks to the stupid crew, Mai thought bitterly, glancing at Joey.
"What accident?" Zigfried von Schroeder drawled in his thick German accent, tossing his long, pink hair over his shoulder. "I was under the impression that someone sabotaged the ship."
"Ah, yes," Mr. Goradon sputtered a bit. "Well, that of course will be the concern of U.S. Homeland Security once we're rescued, as the captain said. But anyway, I wanted to speak to all of you about continuing the tournament right here. I think it would be a great morale boost for the crowd and huge holographic duel monsters hovering over the beach couldn't hurt our chances of getting spotted by a plane or ship, either.
Okay, he actually has a point on that last one, Mai conceded.
Kenan Bagatui, a thin but muscular man with skin the color of black coffee politely raised his hand. "Mr. Goradon? Do you think that perhaps our efforts would be better spent on more pressing matters?"
"Afraid you can't cut it?" Jacques Rousseau spat.
Kenan just smiled. "I am merely suggesting that perhaps Duel Monsters should not be our first priority under these circumstances." Mai decided she liked Kenan.
"No one is suggesting it is our first priority," Goradon quickly assured him, although it was obvious to everyone that it very definitely was his first priority. "I am merely suggesting that once our survival needs are secured, we could pass the time and help quicken our rescue by continuing the tournament. I assume all sixteen division semi-finalists have their decks?"
Mai looked around and did, indeed, see at least sixteen duel disks, including her own, attached to sixteen arms.
"Good, good! Then what do you say? Shall we continue with the tournament?"
There were a few nods and a few skeptical looks.
"Mr. Pegasus? As tournament host, what do you think?" Goradon asked, clearly hoping for backup.
Mai looked at Pegasus with interest, suddenly realizing how unusual it was that he'd remained quiet this whole time, letting Goradon do all the talking. "Well, Mr. Goradon, I think—"
"All right folks!" a voice interrupted, and they turned to see Evan Haines along with the cruise director—Amy something, Mai remembered—approach. She couldn't help but glare at him coldly, remembering how he'd nearly prevented her and Tristan from reaching Joey in time.
"Dude, that's the guy who—" she heard Tristan grumble, then shut his mouth quickly when he realized Joey was next to him.
Joey was also giving Evan a hard look, and at first Mai wondered why since he couldn't possibly know about Evan stopping them on the stairs, but then she remembered he'd also been the one to intervene when Joey had tried to talk to her last night after dinner. Joey's gaze moved from Evan to Mai and she looked away quickly.
"It's time to figure out who's going to do what tasks," Evan was saying.
"I'm sorry, but we were having a little meeting here," Mr. Goradon stopped him. "Could we do this later?"
Evan gave Goradon an incredulous look. "Uh, I'm sorry, Mr. Goradon sir, but I wasn't aware you had more pressing matters to attend to than our survival."
"Not more pressing, no," Goradon backpedaled furiously, and Mai couldn't help but warm back up to Evan just a bit for making that stuffed shirt squirm. "I just wanted a moment to talk with my top duelists here."
Evan crossed his arms and eyed him angrily. "Well I'll tell you what, Mr. Goradon. I'll give you and these vaunted 'top duelists' of yours all the time you'd like—"
"Thank you, I knew you'd understand."
"I'm not finished," Evan said. "You and your whole group here can join me and Amy here and about ten other people I have enlisted to hike to the other end of the island to look for signs of people and some alternative shelter. Then you can have all the time in the world for your little meeting while we're hiking."
Mai's eyes widened. A hike around the island in the same group with Joey and his friends? No thanks!
Many of the others seemed equally unhappy with the suggestion. Jacques Rousseau, Raul Pérez, Zigfried von Schroeder, and Kaiba all indicated in various ways that they were above such tasks. Mako Tsunami protested that his talents were put to better use fishing for dinner—an assessment with which Mai heartily agreed. Joey whined about his ankle, although he'd told Mai and Tristan not an hour earlier that it was fine.
"You know what?" Evan said heatedly, silencing them. "I don't care! I cannot believe the arrogance of you people! It's just a game but you act like you're big heroes or something, saving the world!"
Mai couldn't help but raise her eyebrow at Yugi and Joey at this comment. She saw Joey and Tristan smirk at each other while Yugi's face remained expressionless. If you only knew, Evan.
"All of you, you're going on a hike. Gather at the lifeboats in ten minutes to get water canteens and some food."
For a moment, Mai briefly considered flirting with Evan to get him to reassign her, but not only had she already done that too much with him, she was still too mad about the night before to pull it off. I guess that's that, she thought, resigned, as she headed back down the beach toward the lifeboats.
As she left the little alcove, she saw Pegasus pull Yugi and Kaiba aside and suddenly it hit her. Pegasus! How could she be so stupid to not have thought of it before? Yugi and Kaiba hadn't been with the others in their muster station last night because they'd gone to see Pegasus. He must know something about what was happening! She wondered if maybe he even had something to do with it, although she doubted he would put himself in harm's way.
Burning with curiosity, she dragged her eyes away from the three of them and made her way to the lifeboats. When they got there, she watched as Yugi gathered his gang together. She was about to turn away when she was surprised to see him motion her over as well. She debated a moment whether or not to ignore him, but curiosity won out over pride and she joined them.
"Pegasus wants to talk to all of us," Yugi told them without preamble when Mai, Joey, Tristan, Téa, Serenity, Duke, and Rebecca were all there. "He thinks he knows why the ship was sabotaged."
"So why was I invited to this little party?" Mai asked. "I don't think Pegasus really wants to see me."
"He invited you to this tournament, didn't he?" Yugi replied. "This concerns everyone who has been involved in a Shadow Game."
Mai went rigid. Shadow Game? Before she could respond, however, Joey jumped in.
"Shadow Game? We closed the Shadow Realm two years ago! What do Shadow Games have to do with any of this?"
"That's what we're going to find out," Yugi replied.
Shadow Games! Mai thought, feeling shaky as her nightmare came flooding back. She closed her eyes, trying to push back the image of the hourglass and all that sand, while Joey and his friends ignored her, happily playing on the beach below.
"Mai?"
She opened her eyes to see Joey looking at her in concern. Great. Screwing on a smile, she answered, "Yeah?"
"You okay?"
"Never better," she said, turning away from him. Damn.
Fortunately, Evan arrived then, offering a distraction. He was leading a smaller group over to join them.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me, not those two," she heard Joey grumble, then almost groaned herself when she saw Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood among them. Also there was an Australian duelist named Michael Hardy who had been in her division and had lost in the second round; a young Japanese teenager she recognized as Sho Inoue, an up-and-comer on the Asian circuit; Amy-the-cruise-director and three more pursers in uniform, plus three passengers—two men and one woman—whom Mai didn't know.
Evan gathered them all together and began doling out one water canteen and three MREs apiece. He also had ten flashlights and two two-way radios that he gave out randomly—Mai got one of each because she had a backpack to carry them in—and some other provisions, like matches and a first aid kit, the latter of which Sho Inoue, also with a backpack, got to carry. Three other passengers had backpacks as well: Michael Hardy, Kenan Bagatui, and Mako Tsunami, plus each crew member had a pack of gear with the cruise line's logo on it. They were all given a little extra food to carry for everyone in addition to the MREs, blankets, and several large thermoses of water.
When they were all organized, Evan explained that they would head around the island to the north, following the coastline as best they could. They were looking for signs of civilization—a long shot, Mai thought—shelter possibilities, or anything else that might be useful to know about the island. For a while he wanted them to stick to whatever path they could find, keeping the coastline in sight, but eventually they would fan out to cover more ground. Finally, they set out.
As they made their way off the beach and toward the cliffs to the north, the going got rockier. Their band of thirty-eight stretched out, walking at different paces. Seeing that Goradon was working the crowd, trying to drum up enthusiasm for continuing the tournament, Mai deliberately hung back from the rest of them.
To her chagrin, Joey hung back as well.
"Hey Mai," he said, dropping back to walk beside her.
She stopped short and turned to face him. "Joey, what do you want from me?" she asked, feeling tired.
"I already told you, I just wanna talk."
"Why do you have to make this harder than it already is?"
"Why do I…?" he gaped.
"Just please, leave it alone." She started walking again, leaving him behind.
"That's your answer for everything, isn't it? To run away?"
She stopped and spun around again, annoyed. "Because I know what I did was unforgivable and it's too hard to be around you and know we can never be friends again!"
"So you get to decide all by yourself?" he demanded, his eyes on fire. "I don't even get a say? I don't think so, Mai. It's just the same thing all over again, where you push everyone away and then blame them. Well I'm not gonna let it happen this time. If you can't forgive yourself, that's your problem, but don't go telling me what I can and can't forgive!"
He folded his arms as he went on. "You said in your letter that you wanted to accept responsibility for your actions and not find someone else to blame, and here you're putting this on me, like I'm keeping us from being friends, and that's a load of garbage. You said you were lonely because you refused to reach out to your friends. You said you wanted to be the person you wanted to be and not just what you think you have to be to look strong to others, but you're still running away. You want change? Stop running away!"
She cocked her head, looking at him in surprise. "You remember what I wrote in that letter almost three years ago?"
He threw up his hands in exasperation. "Are you kidding? I practically have the stupid thing memorized! I only carried around the thing for three years while I waited for you to be ready to face me."
This stunned her. "What? Why?"
He gave her an incredulous look. "Why do you think? After everything we've been through, Mai, how can you not know what you mean to me?"
She stood completely still, trying to process this, her heart pounding in her chest. How much I mean to him? He couldn't possibly mean—
"Are you bothering the lady again?"
Mai turned, startled by the interruption, to see that Evan had come up behind her. He went past her to confront Joey.
Joey clenched his fists and growled in frustration. "I AM NOT BOTHERING HER! I'M TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION HERE!"
"That's enough!" Evan barked, grabbing Joey's arm, but Mai intervened.
"That's okay, Evan," she said rather frostily, "I've got this one."
Both Joey and the purser looked at her in surprise and Evan let go of Joey's arm. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Let's catch up with the others, Joey," she said, taking his wrist and pulling him away.
She couldn't help but notice Joey giving Evan a triumphant wave over his shoulder. "See ya, Evan!" he called out cheerily, to which Mai yanked on his arm harder than was strictly necessary.
When they were further up the path, she pulled him aside into the shelter of the trees and stopped, looking at him again. "Are you serious?"
"What am I, speaking Greek here? Why else would I have spent the last two days chasing you down on the ship?" He blew out a puff of air that sent his bangs flying momentarily out of his eyes. "When have I ever done anything to make you think I wouldn't forgive you? Why do you think I got into that duel with you in the first place? If I didn't give up on you then, why would I now?"
"You gave up on the Pharaoh, didn't you?" she shot back.
He stopped, looking confused. "What the heck are you talking about, Mai? You wanna fill me in here? Why do you keep freaking out over the Pharaoh?"
"Come on Joey, I'm not stupid! I know everyone thinks that that Puzzle is just some good luck charm that Yugi outgrew, but I know what it was and what it meant. You couldn't forgive him for what he did to Yugi back in California, could you?"
"Say what?" Joey cried. "Is that what you think? That Yugi got rid of the Puzzle because the Pharaoh played the Seal of Orichalcos and Yugi lost his soul? That he made a mistake and we just dropped him? He was our friend!"
"And it was more than just a mistake."
"Yeah, okay, it was a really big mistake, but so what? You don't just drop your friends because they screw up, Mai. Besides, we all got our souls back because of him. What kind of ungrateful jerks do you think we are?"
"Then where is he? Why doesn't Yugi have the Puzzle anymore?"
"It's a really long story."
"I've got time," she said.
"We'll lose the others."
She growled in frustration. "Fine," she said, pulling him by the arm again until they were back on the path. "Talk while we walk."
He did, explaining to her about how they had gone to Egypt and into something he called the Pharaoh's "memory world." It was a fantastic story and had she not lived through a Shadow Game and the whole Orichalcos nightmare, she wouldn't have believed it. He ended the story describing how Yugi defeated the Pharaoh in a Ceremonial Duel that sent him into the afterlife.
"Why?" she asked, when he was finished.
"Why what?"
"Why did Yugi duel him just to send him away?"
He rolled his eyes. "Not because of the Orichalcos, if that's what you're thinking. It was just time. His purpose here was finished and he didn't belong with us. He belonged in the spirit world or the afterlife or whatever that was. It's not like they could keep sharing one body forever. Kind of an awkward arrangement, don't you think?"
"True," she conceded. "It really wasn't because of the Orichalcos then?"
"ARRGH!" Joey growled. "Am I stuttering here? NO! It had nothing to do with the Orichalcos. We never held that against him!"
"Then why did Yugi sound so resentful about it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"At the ball the first night. He said I wasn't the only person who was irresponsible with the Seal of Orichalcos and he sounded so bitter."
Joey gave a deep sigh. "Ho boy, how do I explain this one? Okay, for some reason that no one but Téa seems to understand, Yugi has the Pharaoh's memories. So even though the Pharaoh is gone, he kinda isn't gone because he and Yugi are kinda the same. Argh. I know this makes no sense," he groaned in frustration. "It's like a part of him still is the Pharaoh. When he said that about you not being the only person who used the Seal of Orichalcos, he was trying to be on your side, Mai. He wasn't talking as someone who was the victim of the Orichalcos; he was talking as someone who'd used it. He was reminding Tristan that he'd screwed up, too, and we'd gotten past that. If he's bitter, it's at himself, not someone else."
He gave her a pointed look. "Sometimes it's harder to forgive yourself than others, don't you think?"
"I…" she stammered, stopping again. Joey stopped beside her, waiting for her to say more, but she didn't know what to say next. She tried again. "When I saw that he didn't have the Puzzle any more, I figured that the betrayal had been too much. And if he couldn't earn your forgiveness, how could I possibly…?" she trailed off and lowered her eyes.
Joey hunched down to put himself in her line of sight. "The thing about forgiveness, Mai, is that you can't earn it. You either get it or you don't. And you had it, right from the start. From before we ever even got into that duel. It's what you decide to do with it afterwards that matters. I learned that one from Yugi," he smiled.
"I ever tell you how Yugi and I became friends?" he asked, straightening up.
She lifted her face to meet his eyes again, giving him a sort of resigned smile. "No, but I have a feeling you're going to."
"Well, I wasn't always the upstanding guy you see before you."
She rolled her eyes.
"Tristan and I, well, we were kinda punks," he continued. "We thought we were tough and we liked to give kids that we thought were weak a hard time. Like Yugi."
"Somehow I've never thought of Yugi as weak."
"Yeah, well you've only known him since he beat Kaiba and all the 'King of Games' stuff. This was before he'd finished putting that Puzzle of his together. He was small and quiet and shy, and that translated to our dumb high school brains as weak. He'd been working on the Puzzle at school and we swiped it from him and played keep-away. Téa almost kicked our asses for it, too," he smirked.
"Good for her," Mai approved.
"So I palmed a piece of the puzzle. Not just any piece, either. The big middle piece, the one with the Eye of Horus engraved on it, only of course I didn't know then what it was. I was just mad that someone—a girl, no less—had stopped us from having our fun so I took the piece that looked the fanciest and threw it out the window into a canal. A really disgusting canal. Like a sewer."
"Nice."
"Yeah, like I said, I was kind of a punk. But you know what Yugi did next? If it'd been me, I woulda gotten revenge somehow. He's not a fighter, but he's a smart guy. He coulda figured out some way to get back at us. I thought he had, actually, because all the sudden me and Tristan have got this big guy coming after us saying he's Yugi's bodyguard. And this guy was mean, the kind of guy that smuggled weapons into school, not just a dumb jerk like me. He coulda killed us and probably wouldn'ta thought twice about it. But Yugi stopped him. Yugi. All five feet of him. He jumps in between us and this huge guy and takes the worst of it. And you know what he said? He called us his friends. After we'd given him such a hard time, he takes a beating for us and calls us his friends."
"Okay, is it just me or is that a little bit pathetic?" Mai said skeptically.
"Maybe," Joey replied, "but I tell you what, I never felt so small in my whole life. And after that, I wanted to be the kind of person that deserved a friend like that. So I jumped into that gross, disgusting canal and got the puzzle piece back for him."
"That's really sweet and all," Mai said sarcastically, "but is there a point to this little story?"
"Yeah, and I'll get to it if you keep your yap shut," he said, but with a fondness that made her feel very light. "The point is, we didn't earn his forgiveness. We definitely didn't deserve it, but we got it anyway because that's just the kinda guy Yugi is. And it changed us. Well, it changed me anyway. Tristan didn't really come around until a little later, but that's a whole 'nother story." He grinned at the memory. "Anyway, I ain't exactly in a position to be deciding who's good enough and who isn't to get forgiven."
She shook her head. "You aren't seriously comparing petty high school bullying to what I did…"
"I'm saying it doesn't matter. You're my friend whether you think you deserve it or not. What you do with that next is up to you. Me and Tristan didn't have to earn Yugi's forgiveness, but it made us want to earn his trust."
She felt the sarcasm drain from her as she sobered. "Can you ever trust me, then, Joey?" she asked.
"Hello, you just saved my life! But you have to stop running away. You have to trust me too. Can you do that?"
"I want to," she admitted. "It isn't easy for me, though. I haven't had a lot of people in my life I could trust."
"Including me," he said.
"Actually, I was mostly thinking of my father. You… you're the only person I've ever been able to really trust. "Well, you and your friends, I suppose."
"Except I blew it. I owe you an apology, too. I was a terrible friend to you after Battle City. First I'd lied to you about that dream I had, that you weren't in it, letting you think you weren't important to me when you were. Then after you left… you'd been through so much and I didn't even bother to check in with you afterwards to see how you were. No wonder you thought you were alone. But not anymore, Mai. I promise you, I will always be here for you. Count on it."
His gaze was so intense as he said this that it sent a thrill through her, but that warred with the guilt she felt over having blamed him before. "The decisions I made after Battle City were not your fault."
"No, but not letting you know how important you are to me is. So I'm telling you now." He grasped her shoulders, startling her. "You're important to me. I want you back in my life. Please," he added, softly.
She looked at him a moment, trying to figure out how he could possibly mean it. After everything she'd done, after the three long years she spent agonizing over how to face him again, could it be that simple? I want you back in my life. Just like that? She studied his face: his mop of hair always hanging in his eyes, the scratch down his cheek from the explosion, his brown eyes that always seemed to look right through her. She could see in those eyes that he meant every word, that she was somehow, impossibly, still important to him. Could she do any less than admit how incredibly important he was to her as well, how much she wanted him in her life too?
"I want that, too, Joey," she said at last. He smiled, and she returned it, but then a thought struck her and she frowned again. "But what about your friends? I'm not so sure they want me around."
Joey let go of her shoulders and slapped his forehead. "What did I just say? Do my friends sound like the kind of people who can't put the past behind them? They're cool with you, Mai. Don't worry."
"Even Tristan?" she asked doubtfully.
"You helped him save my life when the ship was going down. I think that might have caught his attention." Then Joey snickered. "Besides, after Serenity wouldn't speak to him for almost two days because he was hard on you. I don't think he's gonna risk hassling you again."
Mai cocked her head, amused. "I'll bet you hated that," she said dryly. "But poor Tristan! I hope someone set Serenity straight about what happened. She should know the truth."
"She knows, now anyway. She just doesn't care about ancient history any more than I do."
Mai nodded. "Okay then." She wasn't sure what to say next, wasn't even sure she trusted herself to speak. Her eyes caught his again and she was almost overwhelmed with the strength the emotions bubbling up in her, so she averted her eyes and looked down at her feet. He's back in my life, I can't believe it, just like that, he's back in my life… Then she realized that they were alone on the path. Her cheeks growing warm, she said, "Uh, we should probably catch up with the others."
"Yeah," he agreed. The started walking side by side, their shoulders brushing each other as they hiked.
"So Mai," he asked after they'd gone a little way. His tone of voice sounded odd, like he was trying too hard to keep it light. "You see Valon at all after California? I'm just curious," he added quickly when she raised an eyebrow at him. "You know, wondered if he still duels, that sort of thing."
She took a moment to answer. "I haven't seen him, no."
"Good," Joey said quietly looking straight ahead as they walked.
"What? There isn't enough forgiveness to go around for Valon, too?" she teased, both amused and a little elated at the display of jealousy.
"I didn't say that," he objected. "I just think it's better to forgive some people long distance. A reeeeaaaally long distance. A different hemisphere would be good," he said with a sideways glance at her.
She gave him a brilliant smile. "That works for me."