Chapter 4: A Deep Breath and Then—

Battle City had changed nothing for Duke; reaching the finals was meaningless if he couldn't even survive the first duel upon arrival.

So the critics were right. He wasn't a champion.

"The winner of the first match in the Battle City semi-finals is Mai Valentine!" the referee bellowed. As if everyone didn't already know.

Fighting back a sigh, Duke snapped his deck out of its holder, deactivating his Duel Disk. He kept his expression breezy, as if it didn't matter, but his insides churned as he walked to the center of the platform, stood face to face with the woman who'd just put a permanent dent in his career, and handed her his rarest card.

"Strike Ninja," she said, examining it approvingly. "Bonne carte."

"Good match," he said, though his throat was tight around the words.

"To you as well."

The dueling platform released a hiss and lowered. Mai descended the stairs first and was mobbed by the same crowd of people who'd cheered for her all match. Kaiba and the other disinterested finalists had already disappeared into the elevator, and Duke would have wished to be with them if not for a single girl still on the viewing platform.

Serenity.

After giving Mai a quick hug, the girl retreated from the group and stood at the foot of the steps.

Waiting for him.

He made his way down the short set of stairs, coming to a stop in front of the cute brunette with soulful eyes.

"I'm sorry you didn't win, Duke," she said, hanging her head as if she'd been the one to lose. "I was cheering for you."

And despite everything, he couldn't help a smile. "I noticed."

Her cheeks pinked.

"Thank you," he said, throat tight for a different reason now.

She mumbled something that sounded like "no one should be on the court alone."

Duke glanced over her shoulder at Tristan, who was seething in their general direction. Anzu and Joey were still crowded around Mai, but Duke didn't miss Joey's hateful glances either.

His stomach twisted.

"Anyway," he said, tossing a hand carelessly. "Duel's over. Time for me to get lost."

Serenity glanced over her shoulder, noticing what he already had. But instead of pulling away, she stepped closer, lowering her voice.

"Duke, why doesn't Joey like you?"

He swallowed. Every part of him wanted to lie—to say something that wouldn't disappoint the girl who'd treated him like a champion.

"I have to go," he said.

He stepped around her, skirted the group still crowded around Mai, and made his way to the elevator.

Joey watched through narrowed eyes as Duke retreated with his tail between his legs—as he should—until he disappeared into the elevator and was gone. Then he grinned around at the group.

"Alright, we're headin' back to the lounge to celebrate!" he announced.

Mai raised an elegant eyebrow. "Should you not prepare in case you duel next?"

He scoffed. "Joey Wheeler is always prepared."

Anzu and Tristan both rolled their eyes, which wounded his spirit.

"Serenity, back me up."

"I'm sure you'll do great," his sister said, but her smile was distracted.

He frowned, but before he could say anything else, Mai gave him a gentle push in the direction of the elevator.

"Very well, mon cher, we shall celebrate. I would offer to buy drinks, but Monsieur Kaiba has already done so."

"I wonder if feasts like earlier are normal for Kaiba." Tristan looked on the verge of jealous tears at the very thought.

Everyone piled into the elevator, and Mai shook her head at Tristan.

"A healthy spread, to be sure," she said, "but that was no feast."

"What's a real feast like, then?" Anzu asked, chiming in for the first time. Joey was pretty sure she'd daydreamed through the whole duel, but he knew better than to call her on it unless he wanted his ear twisted.

"First, the room would be much bigger."

Tristan frowned. "I don't think the room affects the food."

"You would be wrong. A feast is as much about room, music, and guests as it is about exquisite cuisine."

"Great." Tristan tossed his hands in the air. "So Joey's never gonna see one his whole life."

Joey narrowed his eyes. "If I ain't gettin' invited to a feast, you ain't neither."

The elevator dinged their arrival.

"What do you do for a living, Mai?" Serenity turned as they all piled out, walking backward in order to still address Mai. "You seem so mature and experienced."

"Mai works on one of them fancy cruise liners," Joey said knowingly.

Serenity nearly tripped, her eyes doubling in size.

The taller woman laughed. "I have sailed the world for six years now."

"How does an airship compare?" Anzu smiled.

Mai raised her shoulder in a shrug. "Ça va. But a blackjack table would be nice."

Joey covered Serenity's ears disapprovingly. She giggled, shrugging him off.

"Teach me blackjack, Mai?"

Joey let out an equally disapproving gasp and hooked an arm around her shoulders, steering her away from the others. "You're grounded."

His sister smirked, a far-too-sinister expression for her innocent face. "Grounded for being a rebel?"

"Grounded for cheatin' and gamblin'."

She elbowed him in the side. "I told you I don't cheat!"

"So you're admittin' you gamble. Grounded!" But he grinned when he said it, and so did she. After a moment's hesitation, more seriously, he asked, "How are you doing?"

She pressed her fingertips gently around her eyes. "It feels odd. Everything I see here is new, but I keep wondering if home will look different. If my friends will. I'm so used to seeing it all blurry and shifted, it's almost like seeing it the right way is the mistake." Then she smiled. "But I'm happy. Happier than I've ever been."

He swallowed a lump in his throat, hugging her close. "Me too."

Just ahead of them, a woman in a KaibaCorp uniform turned the corner, then quickly took a step back and bowed to allow their group to pass by.

Joey came to a screeching halt.

"Hey!" He grinned and jumped forward. "Can I get one of them T-shirts?"

She straightened, meeting his eyes. After getting a real look at her, Joey blushed. She looked like she'd been cut from a beauty magazine and pasted into the black, faintly pinstriped uniform. The overhead lights pulled glowing red shimmers from her dark hair, which was twisted into a fancy bun woven with small braids, and her eyes were the kind of mint that made chocolate more delicious than it could ever be alone.

"Beg pardon, sir?" she said. She had the tiniest lisp, like she either wasn't speaking her native language or was a bit shy around certain letters.

And that adorable lisp made Joey forget his own native language.

So they just stood there.

In awkward silence.

Until Serenity giggled. "He wants a Battle City shirt. There was a finalist earlier who had one."

The maid smiled. "At once, sir. Would you rather follow me, or shall I have one delivered to your room?"

"I'll follow you anywhere," he blurted out, instantly turning the heat in his face from low to medium-high.

If the silence before had been awkward, it was nothing compared to the empty seconds after that.

"Right this way," the maid finally said, gesturing back the way she'd come.

Tristan grabbed his shoulder and hissed in his ear, "Now I know what happened to all the girls who supposedly mobbed you in Battle City. Did they call for taxis or just leg it?"

Joey shook him off with a scowl.

"Catch up with you guys in a minute," he said, hurrying after the maid, who'd already started down the hall.

After the duel, Serenity had only stopped herself from following Duke because she didn't want to leave Joey. But when he got distracted chasing after a souvenir, she couldn't really be blamed for taking the open window.

She followed the others to the lounge, waiting for a chance to slip away without questions. Lucky for her, that opening came the minute they all stepped into the large room because it was vibrating with music—and it became obvious why Yuugi had been missing from the group.

"Karaoke without us!" Tristan shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the stage.

Yuugi's voice cut off with a squeak, his face darkening to a shade of tomato. The redhead he was with grinned fiercely into her own microphone.

"Challenge me if you dare," she said.

That was apparently all the invitation Tristan needed. Mai also seemed excited at the idea, following him to the stage.

Anzu, however, hung back.

"Somewhere else you'd rather be?" Serenity asked, hoping she wasn't alone.

But Anzu gave a slightly high-pitched laugh and waved her off. "Of course not! Who else—where else would I be?"

She hurried to chase the others, and Serenity was once more alone on the court. Karaoke with the others would have been fun, but not if Duke was sitting alone in his room.

A sudden voice echoed overhead: "Mai Valentine will advance to the second round of the finals. Now that the first match has been determined, there will be a twenty-minute intermission before the contestants are chosen for the second duel."

Twenty minutes. It wasn't long, but it would have to do.

Serenity turned to escape from the room, but just before she did, she noticed the waiter standing at the bar, arranging bottles of flavoring syrups. And she had a better idea.

Joey's palms were sweating. He didn't know why; they just were, and the more he tried not to think about it, the sweatier they got.

"So have you worked here long?" he asked, and his voice squeaked. He winced. Rubbed his palms on his jeans. "Not here like the blimp 'cause you probably don't just work on a blimp—I mean, that would be crazy. Unless you do. Just work on a blimp. 'Cause ain't nothin' wrong with that."

The maid turned, blinking at him. "Sorry, did you say something?"

He shook his head fiercely, almost knocking it off his neck.

She led him to the end of the hall, where there was a room full of linens and cleaning supplies.

"It's like a fancy hotel," he muttered to himself.

She paused in reaching for a shelf. "Beg pardon?"

He repeated the action of nearly decapitating himself. She frowned, and he couldn't blame her for the frustration. He was making a fool of himself. As usual. Meanwhile, she held herself like someone who knew which spoon to use at restaurants that had three spoon options, five forks, and a dozen courses.

After producing a stack of black T-shirts, she asked him for his size. He said extra-large because baggier was better—baggier meant things fit longer even if he grew or changed shapes. He didn't have the means to replace clothes often, so . . .

Even as he had the thought, his spirit sank. He really was making a fool of himself; he was barely a one-spoon-option guy.

"Thanks," he mumbled as she handed him the shirt.

"I look forward to your match in the semi-finals," she said. He wondered if she meant it or if she was just being polite because she was a tournament employee. Or maybe she was looking forward to it because she hoped to see him lose.

"Thanks," he said again, like a robot. He bowed out of the awkward mess he'd gotten himself into and rushed to the lounge, only stopping to toss the shirt into his room and close the door on his momentary insanity.

When he entered the lounge, he was greeted by Tristan belting out an emotional, off-key version of what might have originally been a Celine Dion song.

"Karaoke without me!" Joey shouted, betrayed.

His traitorous friends all shrugged at him like it couldn't be helped.

"Anzu's up next if you want to get in line," Yori said as he reached the group, "and then I'm gonna blow you all away like bowling pins."

"Wait a sec." Joey frowned, glancing from one end of the group to the other. "Where's my sister?"

Mai glanced around as well, standing. "She entered with us."

"You guys lost my sister?!"

Tristan stopped singing. "No, she was right here."

Joey whipped around in a circle, scanning the whole lounge, but Serenity was nowhere to be seen.

And neither was Dice-boy.

"If Devlin did something, I swear—" Just as he tried to storm for the door, Anzu reached out and caught his wrist.

"Don't just assume you know what's going on," she huffed. "Maybe Duke isn't as bad as you think. And Serenity doesn't have to answer to you for everything she does anyway."

Joey's heart bristled like a porcupine. "So she is with that—"

"No!" Anzu scowled. "She went to the bathroom. Will you stop being a control freak?"

He deflated. "I'm not a . . . You're sure?"

"Yes. She talked to me right after we got to the lounge. Now either park it in a chair or get on the stage and relax."

He heaved a sigh and stepped forward. "Alright, Tristan, hand over the mic."

If he was going to make a fool of himself like usual, better to do it around the people who already accepted him.

Serenity took a deep breath, checked the door number again—ten—and knocked. Her fingers tingled, and not just from the cold metal tray she held.

After a few seconds, the door beeped and slid aside to reveal Duke, his green eyes wide and startled.

"Serenity." He glanced down the hall, saw that she was alone, and seemed even more startled.

"I thought we could have drinks." Her heart hammered into her lungs, bullying her breath. "Maybe. If you want."

She lifted the silver tray the waiter had given her, displaying the two curvy smoothie glasses, one rim topped with a strawberry and the other with a wedge of pineapple.

"Do you like piña colada?" She smiled nervously. "Or there's strawberry. I didn't know. I should have asked."

"I love piña—" He stopped himself with what seemed to be great effort. Took a breath. "Is it okay that you're here?"

"Well, it might be a little inappropriate for me to come into your room." The attempted tease was ruined as her voice came out high-pitched, like the squeaking of a mouse. It always did that when she was embarrassed just to embarrass her further. She cleared her throat. "I thought we could sit by a viewing window. There's a cute little table."

Why had she called it cute? He was going to think she was so immature.

"I just meant . . . I don't think your brother would approve."

"I don't care," she said, startling herself. She swallowed. "I mean, I do, but it isn't his decision. It's mine."

He shook his head, earring bouncing. "You don't know anything about me."

"I'd like to." She lifted the tray again, which was getting quite heavy. "That's sort of the whole point of drinks, isn't it? And you saved me from a gang. The least you can do is let me get you a drink."

She thought he would say no again, could see the debate in his face, and in the silence, she worried that maybe she'd overstepped things. Maybe she was being clingy and annoying rather than supportive like she wanted to be. Maybe he didn't want anything to do with her but was too polite to tell her so.

But when he spoke, he said, "Piña colada is literally my favorite flavor, and I'd love to get to know you, too."

Then he lifted the tray from her hands and led her to the next hallway over where there was a little—not cute—table next to a window that overlooked the fading city lights. He turned her chair, let her sit, and rotated it to face the table again as if she weighed nothing. She blushed.

Serenity had only ever been on two dates in her life. The first was a movie that she hadn't even realized was supposed to be a date until the boy had tried to hold her hand. The second was a school dance that had gone just fine until the actual dancing part, which the boy had called "lame" and refused to participate in, leaving Serenity wondering why he'd asked her to a dance in the first place.

Duke was already better than both boys, and Serenity blushed harder at the thought.

She grabbed the strawberry smoothie, stuck the straw in her mouth, and kept her hand up to shield her red cheeks. Duke either didn't notice or pretended not to, testing out his own smoothie. From the way his eyes lit up, it must have been good. Serenity's was as well, but she drank too fast and got a sudden stab of brain freeze in her eyeballs that made her pull back.

"So. Hi." Duke smiled at her. He had a thin tattoo stretching from beneath his left eye down his cheek, like the remnants of a tear trail. "My name is Duke Devlin, and I'll be seventeen in a few short months. I'm from Los Angeles, California, which is just as crowded as it's rumored to be. Despite having movie-star-good-looks and being right in their backyard, Hollywood has passed me up for every single movie they've made in my lifetime."

Serenity giggled even as she still winced from the brain freeze.

"Shocking, I know. I have two parents and two dogs. Some days I like the dogs better, but they don't buy me food, so let's just keep that between us." He paused, tapping his straw, then added, "Oh, I have my own car, an '83 Mustang convertible, which would be a lot more impressive if we were in California and I could take you for a drive. Since we're not, you'll just have to take my word for it and not assume I'm lying to show off."

"If you were going to lie to impress me, you could have said you were in all those movies," Serenity pointed out.

Duke snapped his fingers. "Should have thought of that."

She giggled again. "I've heard you own a game store."

To her surprise, he winced. "I do."

"It sounded like a good thing to me," she said.

"Well, if you think it is, then I'll take the win."

She tilted her straw back and forth in her smoothie, wondering what she could possibly say that would be as witty and fun as his introduction.

"Nice to meet you, Duke." She smiled. "I'm Serenity Wheeler, originally from Brooklyn, New York; then from Domino City, Japan; then from Brooklyn again; and now living in Rhode Island thanks to the 'providence' of my mom's new job."

He pointed at her with the hand holding his drink. "Caught that."

She bit her lip as her smile grew, then went on. "I have no dogs, but if I did, I think I'd like a pit bull."

"Because they're misunderstood?"

"Because they're cute." She blushed.

He chuckled. "Well, you're not wrong."

"I started a marine biology club at school." Like that was anything to brag about; it certainly wasn't as impressive as owning a business like he did. "And . . . I have a brother. You probably noticed that one already. Do you have any siblings?"

She quickly sipped at her smoothie to stop her mouth from running.

"Just me." He leaned forward, tipping his pineapple slice back and forth on the rim of his glass. "I didn't know Joey had a sister until today. But, I mean, we only met . . . the once."

He obviously felt bad about whatever had happened with Joey, and though Serenity still wanted to know what it was, she didn't want him to retreat again.

"Joey and I grew up separate," she said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. "Me with Mom, him with . . . Dad. Once, I even told someone I was an only child on accident. It was mortifying."

"That sounds hard." His smile was gentle, comforting. "Especially since you two seem so close."

"We are." It was true even if Joey didn't know she was on a tennis team and she didn't know how he'd met Duke. It wasn't about the details. "He means the world to me."

"He's a lucky guy," Duke said. Then he cleared his throat, and she noticed the tips of his ears were red.

"What?" She shifted nervously.

"I have to ask . . . I'm the same age as Joey, so you . . ."

She no longer felt bad for comparing him to past dates—if he was worried about her age, his mind was obviously on a similar track, and that made her insides tingle.

"Nine months younger," she said.

"Wow." He blinked. "I was kind of hoping you were twins, but that's close enough. How . . . ?"

She didn't really know an easy way to explain it, but somehow she didn't mind telling him the less-than-ideal truth. "Joey was the accident—our parents weren't even married yet. And then there was all this fighting because Dad wanted to stop with just Joey, but Mom wanted a girl; she'd wanted Joey to be a girl. And, um, I guess she convinced him, but then I was born really early. The doctors didn't even think I would survive."

"Glad you did," Duke said quietly.

She blushed. "I was in the hospital for months, and they had to pay all these bills, so . . . Dad started gambling. They were still fighting about all of it even when I got old enough to understand and remember. I mean, if they were still together, I'm pretty sure they'd still be fighting about it. Now Mom just vents to all her friends."

Duke frowned. "About you?"

"No. Not me. Just Dad and Joey." She sucked in a deep breath and reached for her smoothie. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so serious."

"I don't mind." He accidentally tipped his pineapple slice into his drink, then fished it out and set it on the edge of her glass instead. "I prefer serious conversation to surface-level. Anyone can talk on the surface."

She liked that. "Does that mean I can ask why you like your dogs more than your parents?"

"Of course. And I was mostly joking. My parents get along with each other and with me; I'm lucky that way. There's just this one little thing."

"Your business?"

He blinked. "How'd you know?"

"The way you looked when I asked about it before. Do your parents not like that you own a game shop?"

Serenity had finished her smoothie, and she didn't want to keep sipping it when it would just make annoying slurp sounds, so she bit into the pineapple slice, filling her mouth with sweet juice and an undercurrent of tang.

"The opposite. Dad's the one who organized my business. He runs it, not me." Duke shifted in his seat, folded his arms on the table. "He wanted to make me look like some kind of prodigy to give me a leg up in life. His dad did it for him, too, so supposedly we're the family of geniuses." He shook his head. "Really, we're just the family of shrewd businessmen."

While he sipped at his drink, Serenity pushed the bit of pineapple rind around the bottom of her glass with her straw.

"Dad pushed me to do this tournament, too," Duke said, looking down at the table. "I was supposed to catch the spotlight, stand out as special, 'build my brand.' I don't know how he thought I could do that next to Seto Kaiba—the guy who literally can do it all. The tech, the championships, the business. . . . It's like putting the moon next to the sun. You can't even see me here."

Serenity smiled. "I see you just fine."

He met her eyes again, and he gave her a return smile that set her heart racing in a way she'd never felt before.

"I like you," she blurted out, instantly turning as pink as the remnants of her smoothie.

He laughed. "I noticed."

"I'm sorry." Why was she apologizing? It was true, but did he think she was too eager? Did he think—

"I'm not." He was still wearing that smile. "Did you notice I like you back?"

And hearing that, Serenity's insides felt like everything in the airship had stopped but she was still flying.

Note: Sorry this is a day late. Moving was hectic, and even now, I'm sitting in the middle of a million boxes that still need to be unpacked. But I'll get there. Slowly. Next update will be Thursday, August 29th.