Kisara tended to avoid the central plaza of Domino University because it was, just as it was today, crowded, loud, and entirely overwhelming. Today, though, she had two hours between classes, and nothing much else to do. That was how she, somehow, found herself wandering amongst the covered tables advertising various student organizations, bumbling her way through the streams of people.
A table with a red-lettered banner emblazoned with Duel Monsters Club caught her eye from the corner of the plaza. She shyly fidgeted with the cross-body strap on her messenger bag, mulling the situation over in her head. On one hand, she knew Seto's love for the Duel Monsters game ran deep, and her limited knowledge of the game, in a certain regard, limited their connection. On the other hand, she was shy with new people, and wasn't sure how to appear interested in Duel Monsters without sounding clueless and dorky. She tipped her head slightly, trying to judge the crowd around the Duel Monsters Club table from afar. The table was one of the less dense groups in the plaza; from what she could see, there were only three people hanging out under the Duel Monsters Club tent. They were casually dressed and appeared to be approachable enough to a dork like Kisara. Two of them seemed to be focusing their attention on—Kisara squinted—someone very short, with spiky, colorful hair. Her heart skipped a beat as she made the connection—Yugi Motou.
So that was Yugi Motou. Seto's sworn rival, though from what she understood, Seto's obsession with this rivalry was mostly one-sided. Early on in the relationship, she had gotten the sense that Yugi was some kind of taboo, triggering subject to Seto, and she hadn't brought him up since; as a result, she felt an odd mix of fear, reverence, and excitement to know that she was standing so close to him. Her palms tingled.
She felt herself drift towards the table, her heart pounding in her ears. As she approached, the group turned to look at her. A tall, lanky boy with shaggy blond hair waved at her. "Hey, how's it going?"
Kisara shrugged her shoulders slightly. There was a short, awkward pause.
"Can we help ya?" The blond boy prompted.
"I...I was just, you know. Coming by to check you guys out. Er, my boyfriend is obsessed with Duel Monsters, so I thought maybe I should know more about it. Maybe you guys can teach me how to play."
"My kinda girl," the boy said encouragingly. "It's nice to meet ya."
Kisara grinned, turning her attention towards Yugi. "I know who you are. You're Yugi Motou," she said, before instantly regretting it.
For what it was worth, Yugi Motou appeared to be accustomed to, if not still embarrassed by, his minor celebrity. "Yes, that's right," he said.
"I'm assuming you know who I am, then," the blond boy said, grinning teasingly at Kisara.
Kisara shook her head apologetically. "Um, no, sorry." The boy scrunched his nose at her playfully, and she quickly added, "I mean, I'd like to." She relaxed her shoulders, feeling surprisingly at ease. It had been awhile since she had spent a significant amount of time with anyone except the Kaiba brothers, and she found herself enjoying the more lighthearted company.
"Joey Wheeler. I'd say it's nice to meet ya, but I don't know if it's nice to meet someone who doesn't remember the fourth-place finisher in the Battle City tournament."
Kisara giggled. "I...um...wow. Yeah, I don't know how I missed that."
Joey smiled at her; Kisara thought she saw him wink, and she bit her lip shyly. "Don't beat yourself up about it. Rookie mistake," he offered.
"So your boyfriend plays Duel Monsters? Do we know him?" A third person, tall and brown-haired in a tan Anorak, piped up. "By the way—it's Tristan."
"Tristan, hi. Oh, boy, it's going to be hard keeping up with names," Kisara said.
"That's...two names, sis," Joey pointed out jokingly.
Kisara rolled her eyes. "That's. Um, that's fair. I'm not great with names."
"We didn't catch yours, by the way," Yugi interjected politely.
"Oh! Ah—right. I'm Kisara," she said, offering her friendliest smile. "It's nice to meet you guys."
"It's nice to meet you too, Kisara. Speaking of, guys, I gotta head to class. Catch you later." Tristan grabbed his backpack from under the table and disappeared, offering Kisara an amiable wave as he left.
"So Kisara. We gonna hear about this boyfriend of yours? What's his deal?" Joey asked after Tristan had left.
Kisara's eyebrows raised. "Um, you might know him," she said hesitantly. Suddenly, she became acutely aware of how bad of an idea this probably was.
"Are you datin' Duke? We haven't been seein' him around for awhile..." Joey speculated.
Kisara cringed. "Um, no. I, uh..." Panic glued her to the spot, and her eyes darted around the plaza, planning a route of escape. Joey's demeanor was still playful and friendly, but Yugi was beginning to look concerned.
"Are you all right?" Yugi asked, frowning up at Kisara.
She could almost feel the adrenaline trickling through her veins. "I, uhmmm. Yeah. It's good. Uh, forget it."
Joey looked at her quizically. "Um, what, dude?" he said, though his voice was more curious than accusatory.
"It's...uh, yikes, okay. I think you guys know him. Um? My boyfriend is Seto Kaiba."
Kisara felt the air in her throat turn to ice; although she hadn't been sure what kind of reaction she was expecting, she hadn't anticipated stunning the pair of them into silence.
"Th—that's great," Yugi said finally. "Wow, well, it's nice to meet you, then, Kisara." He extended his hand towards her, and she shook it, feeling extremely self-conscious.
Kisara chanced a quick glance at Joey, who's face had visibly darkened since she said Seto Kaiba's name aloud. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was looking at the ground. Kisara shivered, feeling uncomfortable with the stark contrast between the boisterous boy she had met a few minutes ago, and the one she was talking to now.
"We should take you and Kaiba to dinner, Kisara! It's been so long," Yugi continued brightly. "We haven't seen Kaiba in years. Are you going to be busy tonight?"
Kisara gulped. "Erm, Seto's working, I think. And I have class tonight, but I'll be done by six-thirty." She wrung her hands awkwardly, glancing at Joey, who seemed to refuse to acknowledge her presence.
"Get dinner with us," Yugi offered cheerily. "We're meeting back up with Tristan and another one of our friends tonight for pizza at Regents'. You can meet us back here."
Kisara gulped. "All right. I...well, I'll see you here after class, then."
Hanging out with Yugi and his friends was suprisingly easy, Kisara was discovering—they were friendly and, if anything, more indifferent than she had expected to her relationship with Seto. The formalities involved in getting to know a large group of people, while somewhat tedious, at least provided Kisara a break from the spotlight as the others took turns revealing information about themselves: Tea was a cosmetology student, Tristan was simultaneously working towards a GED and working as a supervisor at a fast-food joint in the same strip mall as Regents' Pizza, Yugi had gone professional with Duel Monsters and was taking a course on Ancient Egypt between tournaments. When it came Joey's turn to talk, he had muttered something about the local drugstore, and quickly turned back to his pizza and beer. Everyone's introductions were followed by a period of relative quiet, and Kisara took the opportunity to help herself to a second slice of pizza.
"So what happened that led you to get together with Kaiba?" Tea asked, delicately setting down a glass of iced tea. Out of everyone she had met today, Kisara felt the most cautious around Tea, though she couldn't quite pinpoint why—maybe it was her delicately pointed questions. It was probably the delicately pointed questions, which made Kisara feel like she was being interrogated about something she didn't fully understand.
"We were, um, paired together for a class I'm taking. Introduction to machine learning algorithms," she said, pausing to take a bite of pizza.
"Nerd," Tristan teased. The pint of beer grasped in his hand was mostly empty, and he had grown significantly warmer towards Kisara as the stein had emptied.
"And you're...planning to work for KaibaCorp?" Tea inquired, draining her iced tea through a straw. Her tone made Kisara shiver—it wasn't out-and-out passive aggressive, but it was almost as if Tea were trying to find any other reason than Kisara being attracted to Seto for her to be in her current position.
Kisara shrugged. "I'm not sure—I'm taking classes right now to get ready for graduate school. It could be years before I have to make a decision like that." She felt uncomfortable as she watched the group's interest in her fade; it appeared that they didn't find her career aspirations to be particularly interesting. Kisara twisted off a piece of pizza crust and awkwardly chewed at the corner of it.
"It's just hard for us to imagine," Tea offered after a moment of silence.
"We're happy for you, and for Kaiba," Yugi offered quickly. He smiled gently at Kisara, which only made her feel even more awkward. She glanced towards the corner of the table at Joey, and for a moment he met her gaze, rolled his eyes, and looked away.
At long last, the group trudged its way towards the parking lot and huddled together in the harsh yellow glare of the parking lot-lights, their breaths spreading clouds of steam into the cold air. Kisara shivered and snuck a quick glance at her phone—still nothing from Seto. It was eight-thirty, and Seto hadn't suspected anything—for all he knew, she had gone home and curled up with a cup of hot cocoa. Or was debugging a particularly tricky script in the library. There was no reason for him to suspect that she had spent the night hanging out with Yugi Motou. And his friends.
"My car's on campus—I can give you guys a ride home," she offered, realizing that the group's movement had slowed to a halt.
Yugi shook his head. "Tea and I live a couple of minutes the opposite direction of Domino University. We'll be all right. Thanks, Kisara."
Kisara looked awkwardly to Joey, whose arms were crossed tightly across his chest. "Let me give you a ride home," she pleaded. "The car's only, like, a seven minute walk from here. I haven't had anything to drink tonight. You don't live too far away, do you?"
Joey shook his head. "I'm good," he said gruffly.
Kisara noticed Yugi give Joey a meaningful look. "It's cold tonight," Yugi reasoned.
"I'm not going to hurt you, or anything," Kisara added awkwardly.
Joey shrugged noncommitally, and Kisara edged closer to him, glancing up towards his eyes. "It is cold. Come on, I'm a good driver. I'd hate to see you walk alone in the cold." She watched as Tea gave Joey an emphatic nudge with her shoulder, and Joey grumbled softly, shuffling towards Kisara.
"Fine. C'mon, let's get goin'." He lifted his hand from his pocket to give a half-wave goodbye to Yugi and Tea, and then he and Kisara were shuffling across the parking lot alone.
Notes: I forgot where exactly I left off on what Extras is, haha. So if it was a series of one-shots, then I'm kind of breaking that, a conversation between Kisara and Joey (and her subsequent processing of everything with Seto) is going to be part two of this story.
As I said before, I'm not exactly as comfortable writing Yugi and his friends as much as I am Kisara (who is essentially an OC) and the Kaiba brothers. I had a couple of back-and-forths with Cryptographic DeLurk about five-ish years post-canon Yugi and gang, although they did not read any of this, so whatever issues you have with my characterization of things isn't their fault, haha. They are writing an amazing story following Joey (/Mai/Seto I believe) that I have been reading and would recommend, if they're okay with me recommending it (and please let me know if you're not).
Joey and Kisara/Seto and Kisara aka part II is coming, as are some other wintery/holiday-ish stuff that I've been toying with.
Thanks for reading! :)