"See ya later Yug!" Joey Wheeler called out to his shorter friend. They were just leaving the school yard. Joey and Tristan were waving good bye as they turned a different direction on their way home. Yugi waved good bye to them as he walked next to their other friend, Tea.
Tea and Yugi headed toward the game shop where Yugi lived. "So, anything interesting at the game shop these days?", the brunette asked looking at her friend.
Yugi looked up for a bit, thinking, "Well, there was this new game that we got. I am pretty excited to try it out, but I don't think I will have time tonight. I actually have a lot of homework to catch up on." He returned his gaze to Tea, who was quietly laughing at him.
"You've been pushing your homework off again, haven't you?" Yugi nodded. The casual conversation continued until they reached the shop. "Well good luck on that homework Yugi," Tea said as she turned to head to her own home. After waving bye, Yugi walking into his home. He knew his grandfather would be busy running the shop. With the new game being there, the shop had more customers than normal.
"Hello Grandpa!", Yugi called out to his grandfather who had just finished up with one of the customers. Solomon Muto, Yugi's grandpa, smiled that the youth.
"Welcome home Yugi," he greeted kindly. With that Yugi went to helping his grandfather with the shop for the rest of the afternoon. Being a small shop, it wasn't too bad to deal with everyone, but it was still rather busy.
It was evening by the time Yugi made it to his room. He enjoyed spending time with his grandfather, even if it was only to help out with the shop and eat dinner. Tired, he fell onto his desk chair and sighed. He still had all that homework to work on. Spending time with his grandfather was fun, playing games was fun, doing homework was definitely not fun.
He opened his book and began to look at the problems he had to work out. It was nonsense, the school was asking him to figure out nonsense, and he hated it. Sighing once again he began to actually look at the first problem on his homework.
It was math. There was numbers and letters and some symbols. He knew it was possible, it just had to be possible to solve. But his attention at school wasn't the best and he had no interest in the topic anyways. He laid his head down on the pages of his book and began to poke at the item that had landed on the desk as he did so. It was probably this motion of poking the puzzle that lead him to speak out to the spirit inside of it. "This is impossible, Yami", he sighed.
Just then the spirit appeared sitting on Yugi's desk next to the Millennium item. Yugi jolted up from his position, almost falling out of his chair. He was still not complete use to the other's presence. Yami, on the other hand, was looking at Yugi's unfinished homework. "Is this what is impossible?" he asked the younger boy.
Yugi, who quickly recovered from the surprise of Yami appearing, nodded. Wow, I really should have expected that, he thought to himself, noting to be prepared for Yami next time he called to him. Looking back at his homework, Yugi pointed at the problem he was looking at earlier. "See, what does this even mean?" he complained, pouting as he did so. "You wouldn't know how to do any of this by chance would you?"
The spirit looked at the problem Yugi was pointing at more closely, then turned his attention to the boy. "Sorry Yugi, I have no idea how to answer these questions", he admitted.
"See what I mean!", the younger boy said, throwing his arm up in the air as if giving up. But he knew he had to finish it. He would have asked Tea for help, but she had dance practice that night, so Yugi didn't want to bother her too much.
"What do you think you should do first?", Yami asked, bringing Yugi back from his thoughts.
"What?", Yugi responded, a little thrown off.
"In your homework problem Yugi. What do you think you should do first?" Yami pointed down at the problem again. He had gotten down from the table and was now standing besides Yugi, leaning over the homework a bit.
Yugi looked back down at his homework. What should I do first? He asked himself. The question itself was asking about the price of a computer after being put on sale for twenty percent. "Well," he began, answer Yami's question, "I guess I would need to know how much the sale would affect the price of the computer." He looked up at Yami, hoping for some kind of confirmation from him.
The spirit smiled at him and nodded. "That makes sense to me," he said. Yugi couldn't help but smile back at him. It felt good to know that the spirit agreed with him, even if he knew that Yami didn't know how to actually work the problem. "How would you do that?" Yami asked, pushing Yugi further along.
Yugi looked back to the problem. The sale was for twenty percent off. So, how much is twenty percent off? Yugi thought about that question for a bit. He didn't know and it was a bit frustrating, but when he looked back at Yami's patient face, he felt more relaxed about the question. "Okay, so it is twenty percent off. Twenty percent of what?", Yugi began to speak his thoughts out loud, while Yami just watched. "Wait! It should be twenty percent of the price of the computer, right?" The struggling teen announced as he made that realization. He looked back at Yami, who was again smiling at his effort.
"If that is what you think it is, Yugi, then figure out what twenty percent is", Yami responded, encouraging the boy. The night continued much like this. Yugi would get stuck on a question and Yami would ask him what he thought he should do step by step. After a while, Yugi found himself doing most of the work without any guidance from the spirit of his puzzle. And after a few hours, Yugi was done with every assignment that he had pushed off.
Yawning he looked back at Yami, who was now just quietly watching him to see if he would need anymore help. "Thanks Yami," Yugi said as he put away all of his school work.
"See Yugi," he said with a smirk, "it wasn't impossible." The spirit showed no signs of being tired like Yugi did. But Yugi could tell he was glad that all of Yugi's homework was complete.
Remembering his earlier comment on how the problems were impossible, Yugi laughed as he said, "I guess not." Yugi went to start getting ready to go to sleep, but the spirit wasn't quite finished talking to him yet.
"Many tasks that seem impossible at first can become easy if you work them out calmly and think about what needs to be done", he told Yugi.
Yugi looked at him and nodded. "Right, like in duel monsters and other games", he responded, applying the Yami's advise to a topic he already used it in.
"Yes," Yami responded walking toward the boy who was picking up his blue pajamas for the night. "Just like in duel monsters. And just like how you figured out a way to defeat Pegasus in Duelist Kingdom."
"But we did that together," Yugi pointed out.
The spirit smiled softly at the younger boy. "Yes we did. But it was you who figure out how to defeat him." Yugi yawned again. And with that the spirit had retreated back into the puzzle and Yugi got ready to head of to sleep.
Thanks to everyone who read. And thanks for the favs and the review. It does mean a lot to me. I did go back and correct some grammar and spelling issues in the first chapter. Hopefully this one won't have so much.