Replayshipping (Yugi x Rebecca)
One by one, they fell for it.
"Oh, aren't you adorable!" her mother's friends would croon.
"My little pumpkin, my darling baby girl!" her mother laughed.
"She's such a little baby," her girl classmates complained. "Why do all the guys like her?"
"She's really cute, like a baby," the boy classmates would say as they ranked the cutest girls in class. "She's like someone you can protect and stuff."
"What'sa matter, kid?" her opponents would sneer. "Get lost on the way to kindergarten?"
It was easier than showing her real face. No one liked her real face, like before, when...
"It doesn't matter if I wrote the formula wrong," her teachers snapped. "Don't talk back to your elders."
"Rebecca thinks she's sooo cool because she's sooo smart," girls said.
"She's an annoying smarty pants," boys said. "Nobody likes a smart girl."
It was so much easier to wear a mask. To pretend to be dumb and helpless. The only time she could stop pretending was when she defeated others in duels, and even then, the mask was necessary to throw her opponents off guard. There was no freedom. The mask was all she had to protect herself. So she would giggle, smile, and make her teddy bear dance.
It was the only way to survive.
Yugi didn't think so, thought.
"Why'd you give up, Yu-kun?" she said. "If you could win, why didn't you try?"
Her cutesy voice was a poor mask to the anger she felt. Why had he forfeited if he could win? Did he think of her as a baby to be coddled? Well, she had given that impression...but it didn't stop the fury in her brain.
Yugi Mutou just blinked at her, barely taller than she was. He didn't look three years older than her, with his round, youthful face and warm violet eyes. If Rebecca had worn her glasses, let her hair down, and dressed more formally, like she preferred, she might have even looked older than him.
But there was something else: something else in those violet eyes that seemed...deeper. Past his youthful face, there was a strength there, radiating from him in a way that she could never truly show about herself.
He smiled at her; not a gentle, condescending smile, but a warm and cheerful one.
"You weren't playing me as yourself," he said. "I didn't want to win against a fake Rebecca-chan."
Her breath caught in her throat.
"Huh? What are you talking about, Yu-kun?"
"Exactly, that's what I'm talking about," Yugi said. "That's not your real voice, and that's not your real face. You should be yourself, Rebecca-chan. Defeating a fake you wouldn't be a real win."
"I-I'm not a fake!"
How could he see through her so easily? How could he know that this face wasn't real? She put on her best "about to burst into tears" look, but Yugi only smiled sadly.
"Rebecca-chan, we're friends, right?" he said.
"Huh? I-I guess so..."
"Well, you see, friends want their friends to be themselves. We don't have to lie to each other. Instead, we have to be the best versions of ourselves for each other. I'm your friend, and I want to know the real you."
The real...Rebecca...
Her insides started to tighten up, and this time, there were real tears pricking at her eyes. No one...no one had ever seen it. No one had ever tried to see it. Yugi reached out, and touched her shoulder gently. The touch sent shocks down her arms and all the way down to her toes; it was a strange, tingling sensation.
"But..." she said quietly. "No one...wants...to see the real me..."
"I do."
"You won't...like me...anymore..."
"Don't be silly."
She lifted her eyes to meet Yugi's. There was warmth and reassurance there, and for the first time, Rebecca felt a weight lift from her chest that she hadn't known was there.
Her mask fell away. Her back straightened, her eyes sharpened, and her teddy bear dropped from her hands. Yugi didn't look away. His smile never faltered – in fact, it got bigger.
"Well?" Rebecca asked impatiently, a new, intelligent edge to her tone.
Yugi grinned.
"Yeah, I can see the real you, now," he said.
Rebecca put her hands on her hips and thrust her chin high.
"Well, then I demand a rematch!" she said. "And this time, you can't hold back, Mr. World Champion!"
Yugi laughed, a gentle sound that sent heat acros her cheeks.
"Whatever you say," he said. "I guess it's replay time."
"That's not grammatically correct. You should say 'it's time to play again.'"
Yugi smiled broadly, and patted her on the shoulder.
"It's good to meet you, Rebecca Hopkins," he said. "For real, this time."
Rebecca smiled awkwardly – it was the first real smile in...who knows how long.
As they returned to the Battle Box, Rebecca paused. She reached up and twined her fingers into her hair, extracting the hairbands from her pigtails. Her hair fell freely, joyfully, down across her back, and as the wind picked up and played with it, she felt real.
With warmth in her heart, she ran to meet Yugi.
She left the teddy bear behind.
A/N: Aw, kawaii! I love this pairing. Next is Replaceshipping (Gozaburo x Noa x Seto).
