"Finally we're done," Yuuma exclaimed, yawning and stretching himself. He felt the Numbers Club's stares on him. Of course he did. He knew why, they knew why. He had chosen Vector over them, or so they thought.

Of course it wasn't like that. Yuuma valued all of his friends equally.

But somehow, he felt more understood in the presence of the orange-haired ex-Barian. Maybe because Vector didn't desire to make him smile. Maybe because Vector didn't treat Yuuma's sadness as an illness that needed to be treated. Maybe because Vector didn't...

"Yuuma!" Tetsuo called him as he walked over to his seat. "Wanna duel? I've bought some new cards recently."

Yuuma looked up and sighed. "I don't want to."

Again, stares. Yuuma knew why. It wasn't like him to not duel. But it couldn't be helped. Not right now.

"To summarize, Yuuma is scared of losing without Astral," the class rep concluded, which earned him a hit from Kotori. Consideration wasn't his forte.

That was it.

Yuuma jumped over his table, taking his bag in the process, and ran out of the classroom. With a bit of a delayed reaction, Kotori went after him while the others decided to look at Vector.

"Don't blame me," the ex-Barian said as he gave them an uninterested gaze. "Not like dueling weaklings like you would be interesting for anyone, right?" A giggle.

Vector knew so well how to humiliate Yuuma's friends. But he had different priorities now, so when Tetsuo challenged him to a duel, he waved the request away like the nuisance it definitely was to him.

"I have to work, no time for that."

Work. There was that. All of the Barians had started having part-time and/or weekend jobs in order to afford their shared home. Most of these jobs were painfully obvious - for example, Nasch and Merag were mostly working in an aquarium.

But Vector's job was one that he did in the evening hours, meaning he had plenty of time to duel. But the fact that Yuuma had dropped his deck when he'd jumped over the table... was something that had priority for now.

Vector had taken it as a principle to not help Yuuma too much, but he'd figured that even an idiot should not deserve to lose his deck due to annoying friends.

So now Vector picked up Yuuma's deck and pocketed it carefully, walking out of the classroom calmly.

Not even halfway through the hallway, he saw Durbe. Durbe and Kotori, that was.

"But I need to see Yuuma!"

"He has a rough time right now, just leave him be."

Seems like Nasch told Durbe to help out.

For Vector, it was convenient. It took some of the work away. He gave Durbe a brief nod - that nod was returned in the same brief fashion - and walked past the two.

Yuuma was still predictable.

Vector had been aware from the start that Yuuma would be at the station square. He'd heard the stories.

The stories of Yuuma's and Astral's first and last duel. About how they'd had fun. About how Yuuma'd been out of it ever since.

That's why it was obvious that Yuuma was at the station square.

Sitting down, Yuuma was staring at the Emperor's Key, lost in thought about someone who was so close, yet so far.

He knew he'd meet Astral again. It was just that it was agonizing, the idea of only meeting his best friend - his soulmate - when Astral World was in danger.

How was that fun? How was that fair?

Suddenly, something dropped - seemingly from the sky - into his lap.

His deck.

Yuuma looked up to see Vector's face. The orange-haired's expression was neutral, not giving away any emotion.

Vector sat down next to Yuuma. "Take better care of it."

Yuuma nodded, rubbing his eyes. He'd cried. Vector knew. Yuuma knew that Vector knew.

Still, Vector said nothing.

"Vector?"

"Hm?"

"I don't want to duel."

"Mhm."

Vector didn't really know what to say at all. The obvious choice for Yuuma would be to leave his deck at home. To Vector, it made sense that Yuuma didn't want to duel. He'd seen it.

Whenever Yuuma had two level 4 monsters, he would try to hold back the tears and XYZ summon Gagaga Gunman. By now, the card had become a proof of his loneliness. Yuuma didn't have any of the Numbers, anymore. More precisely, he didn't have Hope anymore.

Any physical memory of Astral except for the Emperor's Key was gone.

So whenever Yuuma tried to summon a Rank 4 XYZ monster, he'd shout "Show yourself, Num- I mean, Gagaga Gunman!", and he'd laugh nervously. And later, he'd cry.

Vector understood, although he didn't quite share the problem. He still had Rank-Up-Magic - Barian's Force in his deck (Not that he was able to use it outside of Astral World anyway, since he didn't have any Numbers anymore). A reminder of the past. He didn't cherish it, but it was good to have physical proof of one's memories. Yuuma didn't even have Numeron Force at this point since it only existed when Astral was with him.

A thing Vector would like to have back was his Over-Hundred-Numbers, though. Not that he'd get it back - it had vanished along with Don Thousand.

"Astral told me to smile." Yuuma muttered, almost quiet enough for Vector to not hear it.

"Not like smiling changes anything about your feelings." Vector sounded cold as he spoke, for he couldn't grasp Yuuma's emotions at all. It was like reading a book. He knew how emotions worked, but the years of being disconnected from his own memories changed him. The last time he'd vividly felt positive emotions was when he'd died. Strange, it was.

"What am I supposed to do?" Yuuma asked, his voice caught in a sob. He looked at Vector, tears showing in his eyes.

Vector sighed. "Just don't take your deck to school and they can't duel you, simply as that."

It felt strange to Yuuma. A world where he didn't duel. Something would be missing. But in the end, having his deck with him and still rejecting every duel was just the same as not bringing his deck to school in the first place. Still, it sounded like a better option than having the reminder of Astral's absence with him every day.

"I think I'll do that." Yuuma weakly said.

Some moments of silence passed, silence which Vector used to wonder as to how he could get away from here quickly.

Then suddenly, Yuuma's D-Gazer made a sound. Someone was calling.

"I bet it's Kotori," Yuuma muttered and took his D-Gazer out of his pocket, only to see that it wasn't Kotori. "Alit...?"

Yuuma accepted the call, causing Alit's grinning face to appear on the screen.

"Oy, Yuuma! You got some time to spare? We could watch a movie over at my place!"

Yuuma's eyes lightened up in anticipation of an occupation that wasn't dueling. He looked at Vector, feeling guilty for leaving the one who'd helped him alone.

Vector would've welcomed that a lot, but Alit didn't leave him such a choice.

"And you're invited, too, Vector. No buts," Alit added, winking at Yuuma.

"And what if I say no?" Vector retorted, not planning to come along at all. He knew this was part of what Nasch had arranged. But this didn't mean that he wanted to participate.

"Then I'll make sure that you can't come to pick up your clothes at night!" They heard Merag shout off-screen.

She had a point. Vector would need clothes sooner or later.

"Fine, I come along," Vector said, visibly annoyed.

Still, Yuuma was very happy about it. He smiled and said "We'll see you in half an hour then" before ending the call.

"Alright, how do we even get there?" He asked, rubbing his neck as he looked at Vector.

"You gave them a time frame without knowing how much time it takes to get there?" Vector shook his head in disbelief. He had known Yuuma was stupid, but not that stupid.

"Kind of," Yuuma said sheepishly, looking around. "It's strange that I've never been there, really."

"That's because we'd piss each other off if we invited people," Vector explained as he started walking. "Like that one time when Mizael had Kaito over at our place."

Yuuma remembered that one. Mizael and Kaito had tried to find out how to make Mizael's deck work without Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon, but their bickering had annoyed the other six former emperors so much that they'd kicked both Kaito and Mizael out for a few hours.

The only reason why Yuuma knew about it was because Kaito and Mizael had ended up continuing their meeting at his place back then.

He chuckled at the thought.

By now, he and Vector had arrived at the subway station.

"You're lucky, by the way," Vector said, smirking a little. "We need like twenty minutes from here."

Dumb luck was something Yuuma had indeed.

The former Barians had strange amounts of money, Yuuma noticed, and he wondered where they had it from. Their house was huge, but then again it was not surprising since they were seven people living together.

The sight that Yuuma witnessed when he first entered the living room was hilarious.

A bunch of DVDs were scattered on the floor with Rio, Shark and Alit sitting amidst them.

Mizael was sleeping on one of the three couches (apparently, the Barians had known they'd need a lot of space) and Yuuma could not help but to notice that it was funny how Mizael's face was covered by his own hair.

"Oh, Yuuma!" Alit exclaimed, standing up to greet his friend. "Sorry, we haven't managed to pick a movie yet."

Vector started laughing. "You guys really suck, you know that, right?"

"Not like you're helping anyway," Shark hissed as he looked at the movies.

Rio just smiled at that, not bothering with their bickering. "So, Vector..."

Vector gave her a death glare as he could tell from Rio's tone that she'd do something to piss him off very soon.

Yuuma had already sit down next to Shark to help with picking a movie, not listening to what Vector and Rio were talking about.

"Hey, hey, Shark~ What kind of movies do you guys like?" Yuuma asked. From looking at the movies, he could not tell what their taste was. Horror movies, action movies, history movies, dramas, strange anime... They didn't match.

"We never watch movies together because our tastes are so different," Mizael tiredly said, yawning as he cracked one eye open. "You guys are loud."

Yuuma had to laugh because of Mizael's hair covering half of his face. Mizael immediately realized, hastily fixing up his hair and sitting up.

"So... what movies are here thanks to whom?" Yuuma asked, looking at the history movie right next to him. But he didn't get an answer because right then, he heard something that sparked his attention.

Purposely talking louder, Rio asked, "Why didn't you tell us that you were crashing at Yuuma's place to help him out a little, Vector? We could've helped out, too." She smiled, but Vector knew she was internally laughing at his incoming misery.

Yuuma turned his head to the direction of Rio and Vector. "Wait, what?"

Vector sighed, cursing Rio mentally. Ever since they'd been reborn, they'd learnt to not hate each other's guts anymore, but the result had been that Rio took great pleasure in embarrassing Vector.

Yuuma's eyes were shining at this point, something Vector definitely could not deal with. "You can stay as long as you want, Vector! It's awesome!"

"...Yeah," Vector said, not sure what to reply. "Anyway, let's try to pick a mo-"

"Still not done?" Durbe came in through the front door, followed by Gilag who greeted with a "Yo!".

"You look sort of exhausted, Durbe," Rio remarked as she sat down on the couch that was next to Mizael's. "Did something happen?"

"Well, I had to prevent Kotori from following Yuuma, so...," Durbe said, looking down at the movies on the floor, with his gaze halting at the history movie Yuuma was holding in his hands.

"Kotori? She tried to follow me?" Yuuma asked, looking at Vector now since he'd been in the classroom when that happened.

"Kind of," Vector said, shrugging as he picked up a horror movie from the ground.

"We figured you didn't wanna talk to her at that time," Shark added to the explanation.

"So, what movie is it?" Gilag asked, scratching his head.

And then they were all talking at the same time, discussing what movie would be okay for most of them... and they failed to notice how Vector simply put the horror movie into their DVD player, smiling like a child as he started it.

But when they noticed, no one except for Yuuma had objections anyway. It saved them time they'd otherwise spend discussing over which movie to watch.

Gilag and Alit chose to sit down next to Mizael, with Gilag getting some popcorn before doing so.

"But Vector! I can't stand horror movies!" Yuuma complained, pouting as he made himself comfortable next to Vector.

Durbe and Shark just sat down next to Rio, not bothering to argue with Vector's choice.

"We'll just watch all of the movies then," Rio decided, smiling as she was aware of how much fun that would be.

And so Yuuma gave up his pouting and just let it go.

Vector had enjoyed his horror movie to its fullest - or rather, he'd enjoyed the terrified reactions of the others (especially Shark's since the octopus-haired ex-Barian had - without success - tried to hide his small moments of fear).

After that, they'd watched an action movie so Alit, Gilag and Yuuma would be satisfied. Then there was something with dragons because Mizael had asked for it... which was fine for most of them, except for Vector ("Dragons are boring").

Essentially, every movie had at least one person who didn't enjoy it at all (except for Rio, who enjoyed them all). But then again nobody really minded, they knew their turn would come.

...Except for Shark and Durbe, anyway. It was almost 7 PM when the former Barians realized they'd almost forgotten something.

"Vector, Nasch, you need to go to work, don't you?" Rio pointed out, making Yuuma look at Vector and Shark with interest.

"You work? As what?" Yuuma hadn't known any of that.

"None of your business," Vector dodged the question, making Shark try to hold himself from laughing.

"Can I come along?" Yuuma insisted, looking at the two of them with a happy expression - an expression that he'd been lacking for quite a while now.

Vector shook his head and stood up. "Nasch and I still need to change. You guys can keep watching the movies."

"I need to go, too," Alit remarked, getting up. "You forgot we're working in the same location today, Vector? Anyway, just let Yuuma come along if he wants to." He gave Yuuma a thumbs-up while grinning.

Vector sighed while Shark was still chuckling. "You realize he's gonna see you, too, right, Nasch?!"

"I really don't care, this was definitely worth it," Shark said, now standing up as well.

"Thank you, Shark!" Yuuma said, now looking at the remaining former Emperors. "What about you guys?"

"We'll stay here," Durbe announced as he turned off the TV. Then he chuckled softly. "Gilag wants to come along though, doesn't he?"

Gilag nodded as he stood up. "I would never pass on such an opportunity!"

Yuuma didn't know what to make of that sentence, but he let it slide.

"I'm changing then. Vector, get Yuuma a change of clothes, too. It's not like he's gonna go to a concert in his school uniform." With these words, Shark went to his own room and closed the door behind himself.

...

Yuuma took a moment to process the information.

"A concert?!"