Battle Plan
"Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change." Jesse Louis Jackson
Chapter 15: Time to Shift Gears
It's strange. I feel like I was narrating my life, and now I've reached the point where I can't use the past tense anymore and I have to use the present. Actually, I've been feeling like that ever since I apologized to Yami for running home just to return the Egyptian God cards. Suddenly, I feel like the clock is ticking away, and I'm supposed to be doing... something. Chipping away at some goal. But what?...Of course. Yami's in spirit form trying to entertain me by retelling this amusing story of Joey, Kaiba, Mokuba, a rubber duck and some gastric acid. Even though I was there, at least in a spirit form. Yami and Kaiba's duel had ended, and this one had gone faster than usual, which made Kaiba extremely angry. And Mokuba... Mokuba had a rubber duck, which he cautiously profferred to his mad older brother. Kaiba squeezed it, I guess as some sort of tension relieving thing... and, of course, it quacked. So Joey cracked up, and Kaiba tried to crack Joey's head up by tossing the rubber duck at him forcefully. Or rather, Joey's stomach. I guess Kaiba wanted to have the wind knocked out of Joey so that he would fall over, gasping for breath; this is what Joey did: he DID, in fact, fall over, breathless, but he also threw up. All over the rubber duck. And Yami tells this story with such vim and vigor written over his ectoplasmic visage that it's hard not to giggle along.
But now I remember why I feel compelled to be working away at something: I'm sick, and Yami quite possibly means for me to get well so that we can go to the museum as quickly as we can (and, of course, because he is always sincerely concerned about my welfare). That means if I get well, Yami will want to go and search for his ancient past... his ancient past... and that's bad. Bad, seeing as seeing Yami go would make Tea unhappy. My brain feels full. Owch.
"Yami, no offense... I mean that story's really funny and all," I say, smiling really big to show that I mean it, "but I kind of have a headache."
Yami simmers down quite a bit. "Oh, I'm sorry partner. I didn't realize."
"It's alright--ow."
"Partner?"
My throat feels scratchy. If I talk to Yami long it will only get worse. Come to think of it, a sore throat, once you catch it, is really the only... is it a disease? Whatever... it's the only malignment--is that the right word? Maybe not--that you can continuously keep, if you want. You just keep talking.
...I suddenly feel determined to be very talkative.