Author's note 1: Named after "Nightcall" by Kavinsky.

Author's note 2: This took me FOREVER to re-word.

Nightcall

Solomon waved good-bye to the two as they got into Mai's blue convertible. As Mai drove off, Yugi took in the smell of the black leather seats. He noticed that it had manual transmission.

"Wow, Mai! It's beautiful!"

"If you like it now, then you'll love it, once you find out how fast it goes." She smiled, "How 'bout it?"

"No. I mean, ...don't you want to talk?"

"About what? I take you to prom, you have a good time, then I take you home. The End."

"Have you ever gone to the prom before?"

"No!" She glanced at him, then back at the road. She felt that she should not had snipped at him. Mai muted the stereo, "Yugi, ...I never went to prom. I couldn't stand anyone in my high school. And, I didn't have any real friends."

"Really? I'm sure someone was a good friend of yours."

"No..." She sighed, "Well, there was this one guy. His name was Roger. He was a bit shy, but a punk, ...like me. We met in middle school. One day, I saw that someone punched him and asked what happened. Turns out that he walked in on five guys, who had a crush on me. They apologized about what they said about me, but Roger told them that I had no boyfriend." She chuckled as she took a look at Yugi, "I guess we were so close that everyone thought that we were dating." She looked back at the road, "Anyway, ...the news spread like wildfire. He got punched in the face when the jocks confronted him about it. After he told me about this, he said that he always knew that there were few guys that liked me, but he didn't know that THAT many guys liked me. And, the funny thing is, was that I didn't have to do much to confirm it. I only had to tuck my bangs behind my ears, start wearing my lipstick at school, and flash a smile at a few guys I knew that most girls liked. I was interested in none of the guys at school, but they kept coming to meet me. Once the hot girls noticed, I became popular, on accident. And, once I started dressing like those girls, I was untouchable."

"What happened with Roger?"

"We used to be close, like you and Joey. At first, he was uncomfortable about me hanging out with the popular kids. Roger confronted me. I was bad when he first met me, but he told me that I was becoming a bad person. But, I knew I wasn't bad like some of the popular girls were. They were always popular. Roger thought I was becoming like them, but actually, I was just becoming a worse version of myself. I probably did one bad thing for every other good thing I did. The popular girls never liked that. Once I started dating guys, that's when he started arguments with me. And, he also befriended the bad kids and became increasingly violent. I couldn't get him to stop, so we eventually stopped talking. Years later, he came up to me and he asked me out to the prom. I lied to him and said 'no' because I wasn't going."

"But, you told me that you didn't go."

"That's right, Yugi. The true reason why I said 'no', when he asked, was because he still thought that I was his property. That I belonged only to him. The truth was that how he told me that story years ago, ...I realized that he liked me. And, I never liked him in that way. Changed the way I looked after I figured out that the reason why he got beat up was because he tried to lie over the truth. After it got out that I wasn't his girlfriend, he changed. So, I decided to change, too. I didn't want to be friends with a guy like that. His actions got worse, after I became popular. He even joined a gang. Long story short, he died young and I never went to his funeral." She paused. "Yugi? I can be nice, but I'm a bad person. I'll only just let you and all of your friends, down."

"I don't believe that, Mai. You've always been there for us. And, you'll always be my friend, no matter what you do. Even if you become like Roger, then I'll still be friends with you."

She put her hand on the stick shift, "No, you wouldn't."

"Yes, I would."

"Stop saying that! You're lying-!" Mai felt Yugi's hand on hers.

"Mai?" She looked over at him and was surprised by the gentle look he gave her.

"Don't look at me like that!" She stopped the car at a red light and pulled her hand away and back onto the wheel. She looked back at the road with a scowl on her face.

"Like what?"

She turned to him, "You can't possibly believe that! You can't possibly trust anyone that much, in your life, to never hurt you. I thought Roger and I were going to be friends forever and he left me. So what the popular kids liked me; they didn't get me like he did! Everyone I ever liked either left me or hurt me! You can't possibly subject yourself like that to everyone you meet!"

"Armor works both ways, you know." She starred back at him, shocked. She did not know how to respond. "Mai, if you expect everyone to hurt you, then what good is it if you can never take it off? Doesn't it make it hard for anyone to reach you under all of that?"

She tapped her left hand on her chest, "If my friends loved me, they'd reach through all of it to find me." The light turned green.

"If you put up too many barriers to test if someone loves you, then you could end up hurting yourself, as well. Aren't you afraid that you'll cut someone so deep that you'll harm them, when you didn't intend to?"

"It's worth it," she said coldly. She turned back to the road and shifted the gear into drive.

"Even if it means that you'd miss out on what you've been looking for? Wouldn't you risk taking off your armor for that opportunity?" Mai looked down at him, for a moment, expressionless. She heard a genuine concern in his voice. "Mai, when it comes to love, I think I might be afraid of all the same things that you are. And, Mai, ...no one has the right to force you to take off your armor for them."

"Yugi...I'm sorry for being this way with you."