Just a Girl

by tushmonkey

Maria Takanashi is average. Average teenager living in a small town no one cares about. That is, until her mother dies and Maria has no one. Now it's two months later and Maria is off to New Domino to find family she's never met. But weird things start happening just as Maria settles in to her new life, and these weird things may make Maria into more than just a girl. YuseixOC.

55. Chapter 54

SOTC: Sleeping in Waking by Rina Sawayama

---

I stare out into the room.

Although there's no one else with me, I see teenaged Mom all throughout the room: picking out clothes from the closet, reading on the floor, singing in her hairbrush. I even see her and Hiro lying on the bed together, comfortably asleep in each other's arms.

I know their faces, what they've done, what they haven't. One of them I've known for years, and the other…well. I've never known him.

But it goes beyond just these two. Nayla, Annie, Tatsuo, Zephyrus—I don't know anything about them. It seems like everyone and everything I'm related to is never really who and what I think they are. And if I don't know them, how could I know myself? They are what make me into what I am, but any time I've gotten inklings of that person, they wither and drift out of my palms.

It seemed like lifetimes since I stared out over New Domino from the twins' living room—a newborn taking her first good look at her Star Child life —and asked myself who I was. It was lifetimes ago and I still don't have an answer.

Martha knocks softly on the bedroom door and starts to walk up the mini set of stairs, but halts when she spots me on the floor beside her. "They're all here."

I nod, still eyeing the room, and rise. We descend the stairs and come to the dining room where Aki and the twins have finally joined us. They lived the farthest from Martha's, and the group has an unstated routine of waiting for everyone to join the huddle before proclaiming anything. Though, I have a feeling that while the boys and Martha were awaiting their arrival that an explanation—even if brief—of last night's events unraveled naturally.

The twins run up to me and entwine their arms around my waist, each of my hands landing on their heads at once. Their trembling bodies press against me with all their weight. As if that's not bad enough, Rua looks up at me and says, "We woke up this morning and you were just gone."

The guilt hits me hardest then. With Bruno and Yusei's hostage information undisclosed and the general chaos of our lives right now, Rua and Ruka's best assumptions over my well-being could have anything under the sun—none of them bright.

"I'm okay," I assure, gentle. "I'm sorry and I'm okay."

It doesn't sound as convincing as I'd like and I'm sure that's due to the fact I don't quite believe it myself. But the twins do and that's all I can ask for right now.

I direct them back toward the table and meet Aki's eye as we sit down. Those copper-colored orbs meet mine with stiff yet warm relief, willing to revel in my appearance yet wary of the tale that's to come with it.

Martha's quick to set a cup of tea in front of me and I murmur a thank you. The heat warms my face as I stare down into it, my nose basking in the mix of mint and green tea. I notice everyone around the table nurses a mug and sip tonics of their own, various scents melding together and forging a fortress of calm over everyone.

Then it begins.

"It was Sherry—the bomb threat," Yusei announces, cutting straight to it. Gasps escape from some in the group but no one goes farther than that. "It was meant as a means to get her into Headquarters alone and without any limitations so that she could scan a card her father left for her. But when she did that…"

I blow at the surface of the tea and take a sip.

Bruno goes on where the noir-haired mechanic left off. "There was this blinding light and suddenly we were all in some sort of white room—someplace completely apart from the building we were originally in. Somewhere…surreal." He glances to Yusei and receives a nod to go on. "There was a floating eye in the middle of the space. Once we'd all seen it, it was like we were paralyzed, in a trance."

"And then there was Maria."

I tense at the sound of my name and I can feel glances being thrown my way. My fingers clench harder around my drink as the two mechanics continue to tell my role in the story, but I remain silent.

"We didn't know at first because she looked nothing like herself, she was just a gold silhouette." The memories play back in my head, and I'm sure the reel of scenes whirls in Yusei's mind, too. "But then I heard her voice calling out to us… There were hands trying to drag her down into the floor. Bruno and I tried to save her, but the hands held me down until they covered Maria whole."

"And then what happened?" Aki implores, apprehensive.

In the pause that covers the dining room in silence, I answer her in my head: nothing. That's all I remembered until waking up on the beach, so that was the end of it. But I catch the look cautious Bruno and Yusei share with each other. My brow tightens together as the two men turn their sights on me.

Bruno asks, "You don't remember, do you?"

I can feel the lump collecting in my throat immediately, my eyes pricking with tears. This is all too familiar. The blackouts, the visions, the Lichtenberg figure, the dreams, the voices, the seizure…the factory. That's the worst of them all. The memory glues itself to my eyeballs, as if to cram my brain with the fact that I'd taken lives that night. I took them and the only thing in my body that remembered it was my guilt.

Had it happened again?

"Tell me," I whisper.

"After you'd been taken under, this black cloud started to form over where you had been," Bruno says, concentration leading his eyes toward the table, "and then it became this…monster. It was huge—like Godzilla-big—and it looked like a wild animal. It didn't have eyes, I remember that the clearest."

"It saved us," Yusei follows up and by the urging tone in his voice, I'm sure he knows I need it. His eyes burn into me, as if with just a look those three words could be stamped past my skin and into my heart. "Once it stomped on the eye, everything went black. Then…" his voice lowers, but picks up again after a pondering expression, "then we woke up."

"We were on the beach with Mizoguchi, Sherry's bodyguard. He led us to you and, when I tried to wake you up," Bruno frowns at the memory, almost as if he doesn't quite trust it, "you…shocked me."

The blender begs to be a part of the discussion at that moment and whirs up some opinions of its own behind us. The microwave screams in opposition and the ceiling fan starts swinging its arms around in rage. The little radio Martha tends to listen to when cooking crackles back and forth between morning talk-show hosts and static.

My head hangs and my hands stuff themselves between my arms and chest. My heart pounds against my eardrums.

"Maria," Aki breathes, "you have to calm down—"

"Aki, don't!" Bruno yells.

I turn to her then and see her hand hovering just above my shoulder. I whip up from my chair before she can touch me, the image of Bruno doing the same thing last night blotting my thoughts and ebbing my body in the opposite direction. Our eyes lock—fearful gold to concerned cinnamon.

And I bolt. Through the living room (the television flicking on), past the lawn (the D-Wheels revving) and down the street (car alarms blaring up and streetlights popping on). My bare feet slap against the pavement; I step on rocks and gravel as I go, but the adrenaline kicks into overdrive just like it had the other night, fueling my lungs with a purposeful amount of oxygen. I follow the same path I had the night I confronted my grandmother and, soon enough, I find myself slowing to a stop in front of that infamous streetlight.

I wheeze for my breath, once, twice. On the third, the tears come pouring. I drop into the bench next to the light fixture and hunch over. My palms press into my sockets, as if dams have any chance against tsunamis.

I don't know how long I sit there before I here footsteps crunching toward me. I can't care less who it is, even if it's some passerby just out for their daily stroll. Let the world see, who gives a shit. What do you even have to hide anymore? The person lays their hand on my knee but I pay it no attention.

"I know you guys just want to understand what's going on, but I can't do this," I cry, between raspy breaths. "I'm tired of explaining. I'm tired of being the one with answers. I'm tired of being on display twenty-four-seven. I'm tired of trying to keep it together. I-I'm just so…"

Tiredangrybitterscaredhelplessstressed.

The person sighs and rests next to me on the seat. A hand goes to my back and rubs circles along my spine. I get the sweeping feeling of being young again, crying over spilt milk and Mom doing the same thing.

But mom isn't here. This is not just something to get past or a motion to go through.

"I know," Aki responds.

Nothing more comes from either of us until I wipe away my last tears. My body lifts back into the seat and I move to rise but Aki's hand goes back to my knee, this time a warning. I follow her line of vision to my feet, bloodied and cut up from the fixture's glass still on the ground.

Aki turns her head in the direction of Martha's house and up the road is the rest of the group. Had they been waiting there all this time?

Aki motions them over. My eyes avert to my lap once they're near, not at all embarrassed or angry, just incredibly fatigued and dizzy. I put up no resistance when Yusei scoops me into his arms, instead laying my head on his chest and listening to the lulling thrum of his heartbeat on the way back to Martha's.

The dreadlocked woman's shock lasts for seconds when we come to her front door. She leads Yusei down the hall and to the patient room. He rests me on the bed as Martha rummages through the cabinets for supplies.

The exhaustion from a plethora of days is overwhelming, but the exhaustion of insomnia and a hardcore crying session houses the power of gods—sleep gods. They are definitely working their miracles on me at long last and tuck me in to a good morning's rest.

—

When I awake from dreams of fat babies shooting arrows at people that cause narcoleptic episodes, I hear the voices of Ushio, Mikage, and Martha talking outside the door. I'm so fogged down by sleep that I don't catch anything they say and by the time I'm fully awake it's quiet again. Rolling over in the bed, I face the window; lapis-blue stretches over the sky and hugs itself around the fiery setting sun. I've slept the day away.

Figures. It was about time I crashed.

I realize then that my sleep was, for once, not plagued with strange and terrifying vision-dreams. It's an odd statement to claim, saying that your dreams cause you insecurity and stress. But those are exactly the words I'd use and when it concerns statements I've made, this one is the least of my worries.

The door opens and I wheel myself back around. Martha's eyebrows shoot up, but that's as much surprise she shows seeing me awake.

"It's a good thing I came to check on you. Hungry?"

"Yeah," I croak out and cough the grogginess from my throat. She spins around and grabs the doorknob. Something rises up inside me and I call out, "Wait!"

Martha looks over her shoulder, her face an even mixture of astonishment and worry. I don't know who it is that starts talking and I don't know what it is inside me that heaves these words out of my throat. Maybe it's the sleepiness or sleep depravity or every cell in my body screaming "fuck it!" Whatever it is I know it isn't common sense, because my common sense would never believe that mentioning Tatsuo's possible (and ever-likely) murder would be a good startup for dinner conversation.

"Nayla told me about...what she thinks happened to Tatsuo," the words jump out of my mouth unevenly. I avert my eyes to a space on the wall to her left, knowing there is absolutely no point of return. "That she thinks someone killed him."

It's quiet, but the air certainly isn't calm. A glance to my grandmother's face tells me she's fuming inside, and if I couldn't have guessed from that, her tone proves true when she answers firmly, "I'm not doing this—"

I can't make up for what's already been voiced, but the last thing I want to do is let the matter stir in the air. I couldn't hold it in and if Martha wants to scream and punch all she wants, I'll volunteer as the punching bag. But if we're gonna do it, we're doing it now. "Martha, she told me you think—"

"She knows what I think?" she practically snarls back, whipping back around from the door. Her dark eyes shine like coal as she walks further into the room, anger lighting them up. "She doesn't even know what she thinks half the time. Tatsuo was a friend to all of us—his death hurt all of us. I know that everyone grieves differently, but do you know how hard it was for me to sit through that? Nonstop?"

She comes close enough that I can see the tears lining her eyes. Martha's gaze looks less like coal smoldering in a pit and more like a lonely, starry night. "And then, on top of that, for both our kids to just up and leave months after Tatsuo's death! Do you want to know the real reason I didn't chase after your mom, Maria? It was because I had faith she could handle anything that came her way and that she'd come back to me if there ever came a day she couldn't. And I wasn't so sure about that for Nayla, so I picked her over my own daughter."

She takes a deep breath, yet it does nothing to smooth out her choked-up words. "I've picked her for the last eighteen years. And now my daughter is dead."

Martha steps out of the room, no stomping or slamming doors. She said her peace and, despite the feeling to follow and hug her, I go to the dining room where the family squeezes into place at the dinner table. I stand at the head and gesture for Gin to give me his plate.

"Where's Martha?" he questions.

"We're supposed to wait for everyone before we eat," Maya reminds.

"She needs a minute," is all I say to them.

Gin hesitantly hands over his plate and I slide a piece of meatloaf onto it. An assembly line of dishware comes my way and I pile each of the younger kids' plates with food, all the while ignoring the inquisitive stares of the Signers.

—

With dinner done, the Signers, Bruno and I go out on the porch. Aki's called us two and the twins a taxi to take us back to the Tops. Rua and Ruka coax her into spending the night, which doesn't take a ton of effort on their part. The only hitch is that she would have to leave earlier in the morning to go get ready for school; I promise her a ride there and back to school, free of charge.

As we wait for the cab, I notice an addition to the bikes hugging the curb that wasn't there this morning. My guess is that Ushio and Mikage came to drop off Yusei's D-Wheel when they stopped at Martha's. I'll bet they picked everyone else's brain about what happened last night while they were here, too—one stone, as the saying goes.

The car finally comes and we say goodnight to everyone. The ride is mostly silent, but pleasantly so. It's nice just to feel the breeze coursing through my hair and cooling my skin.

Like the night the twins dueled Lucciano, the four of us rearrange the living room furniture and camp out there for the night. Rua has his heart set on making a fort, but with both Aki's and my nagging about the hour, he sulks into the mound of sheets. With the promise of a next time, we call it light's out and go to sleep. Well, they do. I shut my eyes past the time they're deep asleep, but open them to stare down the ceiling. Even if I hadn't spent the day in my dreams, sleep wouldn't come easily to me—or rather the other way around.

But I don't mind the warmth and comfort the trio brings, not in the slightest.

That said, with nothing but my thoughts to amuse me, the serenity in silence I found earlier doesn't return. Eventually, when the sky's black has turned blue, I venture out to the terrace, remove the bandages from my feet, and dip them in the pool. The chlorine stings a bit at first, but the chill of the water overpowers it and soaks into my frayed nerves, filling them with the calm I'd been longing for.

My thoughts remain scattered, but it's better than the almost frantic motion they had before. After a while, they begin to surround one thing and one thing only: Mom.

The glass door slides open suddenly and Aki and I exchange quiet hellos. She rubs one of her eyes as she walks toward the pool's edge and sits beside me.

"You're up early," I say, half-grinning.

She smiles back. "I could say the same to you."

"Can one really 'be up early' when one 'hasn't gone to sleep'?"

Aki shoots me a deadpanned glare, but easily dismisses it as she turns her eyes toward the horizon. "You did sleep the entire day, so I guess I can't bug you about it—this time."

"So kind you are," I fake-gush and throw a hand to my bosom. Aki scoffs and rolls her eyes, then we sit and watch the sun creep over the skyline, little by little.

"Do you come out here to watch the sunrise every day?"

"Ah, no." I tip my head to the side. "It wasn't intentional. I just came out here to think."

I can feel her eyes boring holes through my skin and the apprehension radiating from her form. I say nothing, make up my mind to let her ask if she wants and tell her the truth if she does. Like with Martha, my usual urge to bottle up and tell half-truths has subsided.

I can't exactly say I'm rolling with it. But right now, I'm just done giving so much of my energy to being an enigma. Maybe, come tomorrow, I'll go back to being the hermit crab I've always been, tip-toeing around things and fleeing at the first sign of distress.

Or maybe this is the first step to being the open book I've always dreamed of being. Who knows. Who cares.

"What about?" I look at the redhead, straight in the eye. I must look somewhat offended, because she quickly disclaims, "If you don't mind talking about it."

I give a slight shake of my head and wonder how to go about it. The…exchange with Martha hadn't ended well with me just blurting things out. It's best to just ease into things this time around.

"How are things with your parents, Aki?"

This obviously surprises her; I'll guess she thought the conversation would lead down another road, one paved with spirit marks and supernatural powers. Yet she answers, gradually, "Everything's…good. We've been trying to spend more time together, but with everything going on… They want me at home all the time, but it just doesn't feel right to be."

"Yeah. I mean, they have every right to be worried," I say, kicking my feet back and forth, "but I guess if I had to pick anyone who could face a ghost-serial killer, it'd be you."

We both laugh. Aki's smile fades sooner than mine.

"They know I can take care of myself. I just think they don't want me to." She glances at me, a sorrowful shimmer setting into her eyes. Her stare turns on the water. "Part of it I think is because they want to take care of me, they want to make up for all the years they lost of me being a dependent little girl. They want that reality back. But the other part—the more apparent part is that they're scared I might act and then do something I regret. They're scared I don't have as much control as I let on, and I can't say I blame them."

I have only met descriptions of Aki's parents. They seem nice and typical, but obviously not enough to keep their daughter from the hands of Arcadia.

I'd read some things on the Arcadia Movement since our last heart-to-heart, enough to know about the fucksack that ran it and the kidnappings that provided him with an army of psychics to spread his philosophies and do his bidding, along with the cult mentality he developed to keep his victims in line. I couldn't stomach much more than that, especially the experiments. God…

But most of all I couldn't bear to read about Aki. Anything and everything she had endured, I wanted to hear it from her lips, not the biased and malintent. And if she never tells me, I will respect that. All things considered, I'd say Aki is doing the best either of us can hope for. Why should she turn back to such a bleak period when the life ahead of her is thriving?

I scoot closer and lean my head on her shoulder. "You have control. You have so much fucking control, Aki!" I snap up, suddenly bursting with energy and bawling my hands into fists. Raising them to the sky, I claim, "You have the reins to the fucking world in your hands, Aki!"

She chuckles at the outburst and quirks a brow. "Yeah and so do you!" She frowns when I roll my eyes. "You have that control in you, too. We just have to find it. And I'll tell you now, it sure isn't easy," her voice grows softer, "but it sure is a lot better than looking over your shoulder nonstop and just waiting for the moment where everything falls to shit."

"Aki!" I say in a scolding, shameful tone. "Language, young lady."

She nudges into me and pushes out a snicker. "But seriously—and this might be a little late, but thanks for always believing in me and having my back. You've been a lifesaver in more ways than one and…I really appreciate you." The psychic's face flushes pink and she tries to hide it, but I can see the little smile snuggling into her mouth. "And I'm sorry I don't ask about your parents and how things are at home more."

Aki's browline creases as she turns to me. "Why are you sorry?"

"Because," I huff out of my nose and lie back on the tile. The sky holds my eye. "That's like basic friend stuff—Friendship 101: always ask about people your friend cares about. Those people, by extension, are people you care about, so…show it."

I shift my eyes her way, but can only see the curve of her spine as she hunches over to gaze into the water. A bout of silence coasts on the wind. I rest my eyes for the time being.

"Can I ask about your mom?" she asks, the hesitance peeking through her tone.

Aki eyes me over her shoulder after a few seconds pass. Before she can retract her words, I return my gaze to the heavens and reply, "What do you want to know?"

"Is she what you were thinking about before I came out here?"

I nod.

"What were you thinking about her?"

I sigh. Listen to my friend switch her position and then follow suit so that we're looking at each other, from above and below.

"There's this line from a book I read that essentially says that we're forced to romanticize the dead, because if we don't we sound like total assholes. So I-…since being here, I keep learning things about her that I know she would have never told me and just don't align with the image I've painted her in. I mean—" I roll my eyes, "—she wasn't a bad person or anything. But this tendency to see her in this shining, rose-tinted light…is dwindling. On one side, it makes me feel like the asshole, but on another I feel relieved because it just explains so fucking much about me."

I am my mother's child, my conscience snorts.

"How…do you mean?" Aki's eyes squint.

"When she was at her best, I was also at mine. That's how we worked, that was the system. And in the sunshine, it was so beautiful—we'd be dancing and laughing. Now I see that system in the dark, where it's just silent and still and we're both at our worst. I'm finally acknowledging that that system functioned on a sickening amount of dependency and just how bad we might have been for each other: Mom taught me to care, but she never taught me to care about myself. And she probably could have never taught me because I'm not sure she knew how. So that's what we were for each other: something to care about.

"And once she died, I fell into a pit… No. I think I've always been in the pit. It just wasn't so bad when I had company, when the light was hitting it in a perfect way. Now that I have only myself, it just feels lonelier and more gaping by the day."

Saying all this aloud just makes it all that more real. I don't realize the tears streaming down my cheeks until I finish and don't even bother to wipe them once I sit up again. Aki lunges at me in seconds and raise a hand to her arm, lazily.

"You're not alone," she whispers, shaking me gently. "You're not alone."

I try to believe her.

The sliding door parts open again. Aki startles away from me, but I stay still. "Did we miss a moment?" Rua yells at us.

"Yeah!" I shout back.

"Damn!"

"Language!"

—

Once I've sent the trio off to school and go back to the flat to make myself into an actual human being, I head to the grocery store. I find all the ingredients for the dinner I have planned and decide last minute on something simple for dessert.

I don't bother sending any of the guys a text to know that I'm coming over. Someone will be there and, if not, how much do you want to bet the door will be open, anyway?

I go for the knob, run into the door, then give it a flat expression. I guess I can't be too upset—this means they learned their lesson from Yeager. I ring the doorbell a few times, not intending on being obnoxious, just finding an astonishing amount of joy in tapping the tiny button.

Jack opens the door with an annoyed expression. It lessens when he recognizes me, but it doesn't disappear wholly. Instead, he arches a questioning brow.

I glance to the side guiltily and shrug. He accepts the answer with a sigh and turns around, leaving the door open. I kick it closed on my way in and hop down the stairs. I feel Yusei and Bruno's stares trail me into the kitchen and I meet them once I settle the first set of bags on the counters. Well, mostly it's Yusei I face; Bruno averts his vision and dallies his attention on some random part on the Yusei-Go.

"You mind if I borrow your kitchen?"

"Why?" Jack questions back, not bothering to look up from the paper.

"Because…I'm going to cook?" I stress out the last word, unsure of another plausible reason to do so. Then it comes to me, the reminder that my powers are no longer secret, and they had all witnessed them at their worst.

The tall blond purses his mouth before flipping a page. "Hmph. I'll be the judge of that."

I breathe easy.

In short: yes, I can borrow the kitchen. Just love to make everything difficult, don't you Jack? Despite the exasperation my thoughts swim in, a small smile tugs at my lips. I go back up the stairs and yank the remaining groceries out of the seat.

I fall into my own rhythm then, something similar to what I imagine zoo animals do—just shut the onlookers out, but don't ignore them entirely. I tie my hair into a bun and shrug off my long cardigan, ready to get down to business. I think after some time—past washing and seasoning the chicken—the guys accept this quiet, calm residence I take up in the corner as the best of all outcomes; close enough to not be pushed away, but far enough to give me space.

It's kind of scary how well they've come to know me. I wonder if this is just 'typical Maria' to them now.

"Yusei." The mechanic swivels in his seat, looking up at me with an unexpectant eye. He hadn't thought I'd talk to him beyond my earlier question. "Can I borrow a book?"

He nods and when I begin to shift my weight into my other foot, readying to go, Yusei rises. I stand there clueless as he starts up the stairs. I shake the stupid look off my face and catch up to him, silently questioning everything about the situation. The only explanation I can scramble up is that he doesn't trust with his stuff anymore. I try to tell myself we're past that but can't help being a little peeved when we come to the bookshelf in his room.

"Thought I'd get lost on the way?" I mumble.

We hold each other's gaze for a moment. I catch a hint of cautiousness flickering in the light and that alone causes a bruise to my heart. It was only a couple days ago that we could practically be body-to-body and it didn't feel like the most awkward thing on the planet. What happened to that? Oh, I know—life happened. I turn to the shelves and squat down, twenty-percent rifling through titles and eighty-percent pouting.

Something taps against my scalp and I snap my head up, eyes wide. Yusei stands there, a twinge of smugness in his smirk. He places the hardcover where I can see it.

"I just wanted to make sure you got the right one," he says. I mouth the title to myself—Astrophysics for People in a Hurry? "Sounds like you, huh?"

My lips pout once again with the comment, this time with the added menace of a squinted glare. "Very funny." I take the book with two hands and return the gesture with a guilty smile. "But thanks."

He nods again and we stand in each other's company for a few more seconds. Yusei, for once, is the one who opts out. "Yusei!"

My hand instinctually reaches out for him, but the retrospect of these last couple days causes me to pull back before it even touches the man. If he notices, he doesn't give it away.

"Can you talk to Bruno for me? He likes you the most and… Well, he keeps looking at me like I'm gonna fry him like a catfish or something." My eyes lower to the floor. "Can you just get it into his brain that I'm still me and completely not whatsoever upset with him at all?"

A minute smile rises to his face and he gives curt nod of his head. "I can do that."

We leave the room soon after and part ways. A while later, amidst multitasking reading Yusei's book and stirring sauce, the cerulean-haired giant wanders into my domain, twiddling with drawers and cabinets unnaturally. I watch him out the corner of my eye, curious and amused.

After I watch him go once around the kitchen, shuffle to a stop, and start the act all over, I sigh and shake my head. "You look like a lost puppy."

The tech-whiz freezes, a minor shriek thrown from his mouth. Then he tries to save face, but comes up empty-handed. "Uh…"

"Come here." He does so without pause and I set the book down. Scooping up a tablespoon of the tomato sauce, I blow on it and stick it out for him to taste.

He looks at me for a moment and slurps it down. A hand raises to his mouth and his dull, brown eyes light up. "Hey, that's good!"

"Doesn't need anything?"

"I mean, I'm not really an expert on these kinds of things," he shares, chuckling and rubbing the back of his neck.

I shrug and shift back to the pot with a grin. "I trust your judgment."

I catch the tension in his shoulders from my peripheral. "…Maria, about the other day—"

"Bruno," I cut him off, head shaking. "Food heals everything. It's water under the bridge, really. And thank you, for being so willing to help me that night. I…needed that."

Bruno's mouth splits into a lopsided grin. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

I snort, "Yeah, at the Headquarters. You thought I was a criminal."

"That was really dumb of me," he admits, sheepishly. "But then we kept talking and you tried to assure me that my amnesia would just be a passing thing. This was such a minuscule moment in the grand scheme of everything, but believe it or not, you were the first person I spoke to all day that give me something positive to think about. You were the only one that gave me…hope."

"Bruno…"

He chuckles nervously, glances to the side. "Ah…you also said that people thought you were a bad person, so I just wanted to tell you—that's not what I think of you, Maria. No matter what happens, I-I know you're just trying your best."

My mind speeds up enough to clamp my mouth shut. Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I'm so stupefied by his kindness all other bodily functions escape me. Almost. "Th-thank…you," I spurt out, bordering aggressive.

Bruno nods in a jerking manner and scurries away without another word. I slowly face the oven once more and my body eventually relaxes. A smile presses into my cheeks. I sneak a peek over my shoulder; Jack and Bruno have fallen back into their (one-sided) bickering routine over modifications for the Wheel of Fortune. The smile expands into a grin. My gaze latches onto the tanned turbo-duelist on the sidelines easily. He's already looking my way, tranquility softening his gaze.

I shoot him a grateful expression. "Thank you," I mouth.

He gives the slightest shake of his head. One side of his mouth lifts higher than the other, forming a delicate smirk.

I turn away, still grinning like a dope.

The twins and Aki join the group sometime after. Rua calls dibs on being the official taste-tester, but I chide him and his sister away from the kitchen until their homework is done. I delegate Aki the task of cutting up fruit, and she's content with being involved but not in charge of anything that has a possibility of burning down the building. We talk about school and television in the meantime, until the siblings come back down and gear the conversation toward dueling. I don't mind at all, just happy to be surrounded by such a bubbly and loving energy. Crow rolls in when day turns to evening, tired from a hard day's work, but quickly rejuvenated by the medley of smells permeating the air. Like a raccoon, he lurks his way into the kitchen and I have to shoo him off repeatedly.

The twins set the table and the gang gathers round. Bruno, Aki, and I set the dishes down a line in the middle of the table—chicken parmesan, garlic bread, broccoli, and fruit salad—and everyone digs in. The tense quiet of this morning has vanished and the conversation rolls out without effort. Carly drops by halfway through the meal and we drag her into a seat, pass her a plate.

Since it's the start of the weekend, the twins plead to stay over, pulling out all the stops, puppy-dog eyes included. It's completely unnecessary considering the guys figured as much would happen (although Crow does put on quite the teasing act to make them work for it). Dinner finishes up and Jack and Carly make a split for her apartment, but not without some mocking howls and whistles from Crow and me.

Carly's face burns red as a fire engine and, once Jack escorts her completely out the door, he pokes his head back in yelling, "Piss off!"

Crow and I share a pair of shit-eating grins.

He, Aki, the twins, and I make our way into the den to scroll through the limited channels on the TV—"Cable's for the rich," the flame-haired man always justifies. We spend a couple hours watching reruns of Two Broke Girls (Crow's guilty pleasure). It's only a matter of time before the twins start to crash from their constant energy-high and everyone else begins their descent into food-comas. The pair of redheads lead the kids upstairs, and instead of following I head back to the lower level.

Someone's gotta take care of these dishes.

I fall into autopilot, scrubbing away, listening to Yusei and Bruno chatter about machinery, and not thinking of much. I hum the tune of an old Spanish song Mom used to play in the shop, nodding my head side to side and tapping my foot.

With all I'd said to Aki this morning about Mom, it doesn't mean I love her any less. I still want to dance like a fool with her, go shopping with her, sit and have breakfast every morning, decorate the house for holidays. If I had the chance to see her just one more time, I wouldn't speak anything I'd admitted this morning; I would wrap my arms around her in a bear hug and bawl like a baby.

I place a dish on the counter and stare at the wall ahead. Maybe, once this is all over, I'll give her grave a visit. Bring her favorite flowers and say a proper goodbye. I'd never gotten that and neither did she—we both deserve better.

The fridge door closes abruptly, startling me from my deep thoughts. The ceiling light above flickers off and on. I stare at it, only looking away once I'm sure everything electrically-run is calm in the area. I sigh and turn towards the man beside me.

The guilt hardly shows on his features and that on its own is enough to know that the brunt of it lays deeper, in his heart or soul. Yusei speaks, a gradual and quiet acknowledgement, "Sorry."

I shake it off and focus my attention back to the soapy water. "No harm, no foul."

His presence lingers, even past chugging a glass of milk. "…Do you want help?"

"Ah, no. I'm okay."

He strides past me despite the response and grabs another cloth from a drawer. "The sooner you finish, the sooner you can go to bed."

With forced annoyance, I watch him run the towel over a dripping plate and return it to its home in the cabinets. "Don't you have work to do or something?" I mumble.

"I'm taking a break."

"You know what would be a better than that?" I prod, my tone goading. Yusei's brow arches. "Getting some good, ol' fashioned shuteye. From the sounds of the snoring upstairs, I'd say Bruno's already ahead of the game, so why don't you be a good little duelist and do the same?"

Yusei, stubborn as usual, resists the bait. His only reaction is an upward tug in his lips.

"You know," I start again, my voice restored to a lighter version of its default, "just because I'm joking doesn't mean I'm not somewhat serious. I mean, do you ever stop working?"

"There's always something to improve," he says, short and sweet.

I roll my eyes. "Fine. I won't harass you anymore. You're grown."

"I appreciate the concern, Maria," he shares after a moment of silence. "Honestly."

"W-well, yeah…I mean…" The confession clearly throws me off balance, and the resulting word-vomit keeps tumbling out. "I care about you so…yeah."

I mentally cringe and feel a sudden, overwhelming desire to stuff myself down the sink's drain. Though I'm not successful in that endeavor, by the sound of the blaring stillness in the room, I'm sure I did a spectacular job of making every atom floating around in the air uncomfortable. My teeth dig into my bottom lip and I scrub the pan a bit harder.

"I care about you, too."

I can't will myself to look at him, I just can't. I scour the pan harder and my energy quickly burns out; I'm left trying to chug down air, trying to smother the heat rising to the surface of my body.

Then it all just gets sucked out of me in one fell swoop. Yusei's touch on my elbow has the same effect it did on me at the retirement home, leaving me cool and collected. I'm beginning to think it's some strange case of energy-transfer or something; how else could his hands feel so warm after chilling me to my bones?

I slowly start scrubbing again. Yusei lets go.

"Thanks again for letting me borrow your book," I scrounge up.

"How are you finding it so far?"

"I'll be honest," I laugh to myself, "I was more than skeptical when you handed it to me, but it was as the saying goes—I judged it too fast. The concepts are kind of…intimidating? But the guy tells it in a way that makes it way more sufferable."

A gust of laughter comes rushing up from his stomach and the sound is so peculiar that I finally will myself to look at him. The expression fills his face with a refreshing air, carefree almost. It spurs a smile in me.

"You think physics is insufferable?"

My mouth flaps open and closed like a dumbass. "Wha-! Uh, no…ah… Mm."

The spare huffs of the laugh trail out of his nose and he tilts his head in consideration. "It's not for everyone. I get it."

"It's not that, like," a finger itches the top of my scalp, "it's not interesting. It just doesn't keep me interested. Typically. But that's what I'm talking about—this book is a page-turner!"

"Take it." Before I can sputter an objection, he tacks on, "Since it's so interesting, I expect a hundred-percent on the test I'm planning to give you."

I send him a glare of disbelief, then snort it away. "Pfft, whatever."

We finish the dishes soon after that. Yusei walks back to the workspace and, when he notices I'm on his tail, gives me an inquisitive look. I sit down in Bruno's spot, snugging my cardigan close and pulling my knees into the seat.

"I'm not tired," I declare, tracing a finger along the desk. Then I point it at him. "And you're not in a position to lecture me, anyway."

"Fair enough."

We sit in an easy silence, Yusei's typing the only sound heard throughout the entire house. My eyes shift back and forth between the monitor and the brilliant man. The dark background of the screen casts a hollow light on his face, causing his gemstone eyes to sparkle all the more.

"Is this," my voice lifts unsurely, hesitantly, "something you've always wanted to do? You know, like, since you were a kid?"

The tapping on the keyboard slows until it stops. Yusei shrugs one shoulder. "It comes naturally to me."

"And it makes you happy?"

He relaxes in his seat, eyes facing the coding script, reflecting. "I'd say so. There's a…certain feeling that comes with it—satisfaction, maybe even a bit of pride. Everything you do, all the work you put in reaps tangible results. And I'm always ready to help someone who needs it."

Such a Yusei-esque answer. I suppose I can't say I'm disappointed.

A sneaky grin weasels itself onto my face. I change my position so that I can lean closer into the duelist's space. "So, wait. What did you want to be when you grew up?"

It takes a pleading wiggle of my eyebrows for him to give up the goods. His eyes slide away from me and I can't quite read his expression—he's closing himself off. Should I not have asked?

"I wanted to be a physicist."

It isn't a total surprise. But with his body language and distant tone of voice, I wonder if I'm nearing a line not to be crossed. This dream of his, it's something special to him. I don't want to send him on a spiral he needs time to come up from, not at this time of night. He won't tell you anything he's not okay with you knowing, I remind myself. That said, I still have the urge to tread carefully now, even if I haven't stepped on any toes.

Gentler, in a whisper, I ask, "What kind?"

"All of them," he says, matter-of-fact.

"You were really shooting for the stars, eh?" I jab, then smile full of teeth. "But that's very you."

Yusei absorbs the comment with a half-smile, and lifts an eyebrow expectantly. "And what about you?"

"Ugh," I shrink back into my chair, trying to push down a cringe, "y'know. Typical girl stuff."

"I wasn't around a lot of girls when I was younger, so I wouldn't actually."

I sigh, then tear off the metaphorical band-aid. "I wanted to be a dancer."

"Why?"

I whine, "I can see the judgement on your face."

"Not judgement," he chuckles, "I'm trying to imagine it."

I heave yet another sigh, murmuring, "Do you really want to know?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

I turn myself away from him and toward the wall. Take a deep breath. Mentally put on my 'fuck it!' cap. "I've always been...tall and gangly. I hated it when I was little because I would get so much unwanted attention from it. It was worse after my hair was cut short, cause then I just felt like a boy—and girls are supposed to be tiny and pretty a-and pink."

My stare hovers over my entwined hands. "So that's how it started, basically; I wanted to feel more girly. I began watching choreography videos and performances and…I don't know. To be so sure of every move you made, to know that when you leapt into the air you were going to land back on your feet… For there to be this swarm of people acting as one giant...universe while simultaneously creating their own individual gravity in the moment—all of that resonated within me, I guess."

I reluctantly meet Yusei's gaze again, all too aware of gabbing my life-story. Apart of me hopes he's fallen asleep. Instead, his eyes line with attention, soft in nature but sharpened by the computer's light. Yusei gives me that look. His smirkish smile tugs a corner of his mouth and in a velvety voice, he comments, "You sound like you know."

"I…tend to do that." My finger loops around a stray curl.

"I think you would make a fantastic dancer."

"You've never seen me dance," I reply with a huff through my nose.

The King of Turbo Duels angles his head away, a shade falling over his stare. If he murmured his words any lighter, I wouldn't have caught them: "But I see you and that's enough."

I don't think of my heart banging in my chest. I don't think of the hitch in my breathing. I don't think of the cage's worth of butterflies fluttering around my stomach. I don't think of his calming touch. I don't think of my wishy-washy desire for the man sitting next to me.

I only think about how it would feel having his breath warming my cheeks as he leans in. The anticipation rising in both our chests. Our lips colliding, two halves becoming whole. His palm against my cheek and then my hands furled in his hair.

The room has gone completely dark. A gasp escapes once the recognition hits and in a snap, all the electronics in the room blink back on.

"Duel mode activated," the D-Wheel's stiff, feminine voice announces.

"Fuck." I jump out of my chair. "I-I'm so sorry."

Yusei's lifts out of his seat and shuts the machine down after a few taps of his finger. He comes back to the work station, waits for the computer to boot back up, and reopens everything that was initially started.

"I-I'm sorry," I repeat, frowning guiltily. "Is everything okay?"

"I've been making sure to back everything up twice as much since Yeager stole the program," he explains. "And it looks like you only powered it down anyhow, so we're all good."

"That's—" I clear my throat unnecessarily, "—good. Well, I should, um, really get some rest. Never know what magic awaits in the morning," I throw in a (forced) chuckle for good measure.

I move to walk past him, eyes ahead of me. But my route stops immediately after his hand falls atop mine; it's a shy kind of hold, one with his fingers loosely grazing my knuckles at first, but coiling the digits more securely around my fingers after a moment. I raise my line of sight from our linked hands to his eyes. I nearly melt from the warmth they bask me in. And, with our proximity, I begin to think that my fantasy may have been more along the lines of premonition.

"When it happened," he starts, low and hesitant, "what were you thinking about?"

"You," I should have said. Could have said. Would have, if not for…

This morning's heart-to-heart with Aki pushes through to the surface of my mind. Further back in time, another conversation plays about the duelist in front of me and her romantic feelings concerning him.

Friendship 101: don't be so desperate for attention and affection you end up stealing your friend's man.

So, I could have said my honest feelings like I've promised myself over and over to do. And I could have said nothing, just pushed myself into him then and there.

But I do neither. My hand slips from his and the swelling tension drops as I back away from him. I open my mouth to speak a one-worded lie:

"Goodnight."

---

So, how was it, yall? Hopefully worth the wait :/

There's a lot happening in this one—as usual lol—but I really quick want to expand on Maria's talk with Aki; I just wanna put a focus on how important this is for Maria's character/mentality and broaden it to out to how it reflects on society because I feel that it probably won't come as a natural explanation in the actual fic, and it wasn't explored enough in the anime.

All of Maria's mental issues aside, Maria's struggle to come into herself as both a person and Star Child stems from a mentality that resists change. She (indirectly) alludes to this mindset that when you get used to something, you just accept that that's the way things are and how they're supposed to be, which can be detrimental in the long-run. She settles, too—that's really all she knows and when you've been doing that all your life that's an incredibly hard habit to break. So when it comes to her mom teaching Maria that she is the only person Maria can depend on and will care about her, that really sets Maria up for a terrible view of herself and of the world.

Not only does she get this from her mom, she gets it from living in the countryside altogether. Even in real life, I feel like rural areas have a mindset of "well this has worked for us for x amount of years, so why should we change?" The series insinuates this ideal when Team Taiyou is introduced and they give background on the team's desire to be more than what is expected of them, and the backlash they receive from other countrysiders for it. Not to mention, Maria has brought up this way of life has been detrimental on an inter-social scale: the countryside hates New Domino and what they stand for but doesn't try to stand against them. Yet, even though they have sympathy for the Satellite, they didn't do anything to help them. So, there's just this deep-rooted, harmful neutrality and overall complacency that the countryside has going on and it's really been internalized for Maria.

But the Signers didn't have nearly as tough a time accepting their fates and I think part of that reason is due to the environment they grew up in, too: the guys grew up in the Satellite and had to fight for everything. Aki grew up thinking everyone hated her and the world was out to get her. And the twins are kids, so they're used to being followers and find comfort in not being alone in the hot-mess of being Signers.

So, yeah. I just wanted to lay this out for you guys because I know there's no way yall are going to remember 54 chapters worth of content, and it's been almost 5 years spanning all of it. I just want to get everyone on the same playing field, y'know?

Thanks for reading, loves. I appreciate every single one of you!

TTFN