Chapter Text
*Note: My indentations get eaten up by the AO3 format. I'm working on finding a solution.*
Chazz Princeton was the first real friend I made at Duel Academy.
… I can explain.
See, I got along great with most of the other Ra Yellows and Slifer Reds, and even a few of the Obelisk Blues, but it’s not like we hung out outside of classes. I was eating most of my meals in the Ra dining room with whoever happened to be around, until one morning I felt adventurous enough to wrap up my breakfast and take it outside.
Just for the record, Autumn on Duel Academy Island is disappointing. There’s not much shedding of leaves, and you can forget about a cold, crisp day. Sweater weather isn’t a thing. Still, given the circumstances of living next to an active volcano, there are some very nice days, and this was one of them. The highest hill within the school grounds had a big, shady tree and a panoramic view of the beach and the water. At first, I thought everyone would be crazy not to be there all the time, but apparently dueling consumed their lives so thoroughly that taking a break to watch the sunrise didn’t occur to them. That’s why I didn’t expect any company, until I came across a pale boy with messy black hair talking animatedly to no one at all.
“Will you leave me alone?” He swatted at the air.
I hesitated to approach. The guy looked a little nutty, but what did I really have to lose around here? Except a duel. Ugh, maybe I should just leave. Anything but a duel.
Before you judge me, you should know this: Duels are a fucking hassle. You have to clear a huge area of ground and make sure there’s nothing to trip over or hit your head on before you start, because there’s a higher likelihood of card-game-related injury than you’d reasonably expect. Some of us even have crappy insurance that doesn’t cover card-game-related injuries – we can’t all be as rich as Seto Kaiba. Also, it’s pretty humiliating to hit your head whilst losing life points.
Once you’ve cleared the area, expect spectators. Random people always stop to watch a duel happening in a public place. Incidentally; since, for some reason, you don’t need a permit to have a duel in the middle of a public place, people just throw down in the middle of the mall! Or the post office! Once, I had to weave my way through a crowd of 500 people to get to my middle school because two guys decided to resolve their personal issue via a deck-measuring contest. I’ve looked it up online: Duel-related traffic collisions are at an all-time high, because you never really know when you’ll drive right into one.
Some people on Duel Academy Island duel standing in rowboats, on cliffs, and inside of volcanos for the drama of it all. You should know, that’s not actually proper form, nor is it safe. I mean, duh, guys, that’s what field spells are for. It’s a good thing duel disks are waterproof and temperature-resistant, although certain types of Egyptian sand will really mess you up, which is a bigger problem than it sounds like.
Okay, speaking of duel disks? Those things are expensive. KaibaCorp has a huge monopoly on dueling technology, so unless you want a 20-dollar novelty piece of plastic where the trap slots get stuck and the graveyard eats your cards, you’re pretty much hamstringed to a 200-to-500-dollar piece of state-of-the-art equipment, and you’d better hope you can get that thing insured.
Not only are they expensive, but they’re fucking heavy! Why do you think Duel Academy has a gym class? It’s mostly arm exercise. Duel fatigue syndrome is a major cause of hospitalization, or on Duel Academy Island, infirmary visits. Duels can go on for hours, or even days with periodic breaks, and people usually get so excited that they forget to have water or food on hand. Carrying a five-pound piece of equipment on your arm only increases your odds of passing out, and the older models weigh even more.
And another thing? Possibly my least favorite thing about dueling? Nobody has any social skills! Have a problem? Duel about it. Your friend slept with your girlfriend? Duel! The grocery clerk caught you stealing? Duel! Your teacher gave you a bad grade because you plagiarized your essay on the history of special summoning? You guessed it… a card game. Most kids around my age don’t even know how to articulate their problems because they’ve been taught that dueling solves everything. People get into fights all the time, which is just how people are, but instead of talking it out, they go for a card game. In middle school, I had a friend who was seeing a psychiatrist, and she went to great lengths to hide it because people would laugh at her and ask why she hadn’t tried dueling. Then, when she tried to switch healthcare providers, her doctor tried to duel her to keep her business. It’s kind of messed up that card games have replaced reasonable discourse.
“But Jamie,” you ask. “If you hate dueling so much, why are you enrolled in the world’s top dueling school?” It’s pretty simple. It’s the same reason you’d go to Harvard even if you didn’t want to: parental pressure. The strongest force on the planet.
So, this guy was sitting on a hill, talking to something that wasn’t there, and I decided I might as well take my chances. He was wearing all black instead of a garish primary color, so I was kind of hoping I’d get lucky and he wouldn’t be a Duel Academy student at all. “Hey there!”
He turned around, face slightly pink. “Shit. I mean, hi!”
“This is a hell of a view.”
“Yeah, sure.” He fumbled for his duel disk. “You wanna duel, or what?”
“Oh… I just wanted to eat breakfast,” I said.
He stared me down, like he was waiting for me to blink. After a few seconds of that nonsense, he just sighed. “Sit wherever you want. I don’t care.”
I sat, dubious as to whether this guy would be any kind of good company.
“People wanna duel me all the time,” he grumbled. “Ever since, well, you know.”
“Ever since what?” I really did not know.
“I’m Chazz Princeton,” he said, holding his head a little higher.
I didn’t say anything. I still didn’t know who he was.
“North Academy?” he prompted. “Blue to Red in under a month? ‘Chazz it up?’”
I opened my mouth, hoping something intelligent would come out, but instead it was an inarticulate, “Uhhh…” ‘Chazz it up?’
“How long have you been here?”
“A few weeks, maybe?” I said.
“Then you have no idea who I am?” he said incredulously.
“None at all,” I admitted. “Sorry.”
He narrowed his eyes, and then sighed again and stared out at the water. “I guess that’s fine.”
“So you’re an Obelisk?”
“I was, but there was this whole thing. You probably don’t want to hear it.”
“Lay it on me,” I said. “It can’t possibly be more boring than the rest of my week.”
He smirked. “Heh. Fair enough.”
He told me a story, and I offered him a biscuit, and that was the beginning of that.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
Dr. Crowler was supposed to be an expert on dueling, so I was really looking forward to his class. I’ve always liked duel theory: trap and field spells, planning an attack, etc. Fun fact: There is no such thing as a perfect attack! It doesn’t matter what monsters you have on the field, or what trap cards you have backing you up; a skilled duelist will be able to out-maneuver you regardless. Even your spells aren’t foolproof. Every card has at least one blind spot. I always thought that was kind of cool, that you could have the tightest defense imaginable and still get burned. Dueling isn’t about cards at all. It’s about thinking on your feet.
Anyway, imagine my disappointment when I found out that Dr. Vellian Crowler was almost completely uninterested in teaching, and fully invested in the bullshit Duel Academy caste system. In case you live under a rock, this is how it works. Duel Academy students get ranked when they arrive, based on a written assessment and a practical assessment administered by a qualified duelist, and divided into three houses. Obelisk Blue students live in the best dorms, have high-speed internet access, and don’t have to do their own laundry. Ra Yellow students get a pretty average living space (a lot more roomy than your average college dorm, if you ask me), pretty decent food, relative anonymity as a result of the other houses starting most of the shit, and blazers in a color nobody looks good in. Slifer Red students sleep four or five to a small room, have no hot water or reliable electric wiring, and their dorms look like converted toolsheds (My working theory is that Crowler originally planned for the Slifers to live in the forest and subsist off of nuts, berries, and squirrel meat until the school board strong-armed him into letting them live in buildings and following FDA guidelines as far as their nutrition was concerned.).
Crowler seemed intent upon proving the lower-ranked duelists to be idiots. I left my first Crowler seminar shaken, but hopeful. He may have been absolutely nasty to most of the Slifer Reds and a good portion of the Ra Yellows, but he didn’t seem to have formed an opinion about me yet, which I thought could work to my advantage. I just had to be prepared for class and establish myself as a competent student.
The next class, I got all my notes ready so if I was called on, I could answer any question Crowler fired at me. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have bothered. Dr. Crowler knew exactly who I was.
“The answer is correct. You could be an asset to Ra Yellow,” said Crowler, acknowledging my flawless explanation of the different types of spells. “If you could keep your hands off of Chazz Princeton!” He cackled.
My pulse pounded in my head. A bunch of the Obelisk Blues laughed with him, loudly. I sat there, frozen, wishing I could just disappear. What kind of teacher says something like that in class?
If anything had become clear that day, it was that Chazz would never again be one of them, and perhaps I’d never get there either.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
“If you could build any deck, what would it be?” I asked Chazz, putting down my notebook and pencil for a respite from homework.
He was shuffling through his cards. “Something badass, like dragons,” he said. “And I’d get rid of the Ojamas.”
“Trouble in duel spirit paradise?” I teased.
“Always,” grumbled Chazz. “I thought just the one was bad enough. Who knew it had siblings?”
“Have you tried just being nice to them?”
“Why should I?” he said. “It’s not like I asked for this.”
“I know the feeling. Sometimes I wish everyone would just go away.” It was a moment before I felt his eyes on me. He had a searching, laser-beam stare that had unsettled me until I realized he only ever turned it on me. Then, it became more reassuring than anything else; he had “A Look” just for me. His Jamie Face.
“I can give you some space anytime you want,” he said, hastily averting his gaze.
I cut off his last syllable. “No! If I want to torture myself, I’ll ask Crowler about his doctorates.”
Chazz laughed at that, but trailed off hesitantly, as if he didn’t know how to process the compliment.
“Hey, guys!” came a cheerful shout from several yards away. Jaden Yuki, a giant grin on his face and a brilliant, red coat on his back, jogged up the hill to meet us.
“What do you want, Jaden?” grumbled Chazz.
“To greet the new student!” declared Jaden, extending a hand to shake. “I’m Jaden Yuki!”
I smiled back at him, however nervously, and shook his hand. “Jamie Blaine. Ra Yellow, in case you’re… uh… colorblind or something?”
Chazz snorted, and I kicked him gently in the side. “Ow,” he complained.
“How about a friendly duel, Jamie? To formally welcome you to Duel Academy!”
Chazz and I exchanged a look of mutual exhaustion. “Maybe some other time,” I said.
Jaden’s brow furrowed. “Oh. Uh, sure! How about after lunch?”
Chazz stood up and wedged himself in between Jaden and me. “We’re not dueling today. Go play air guitar somewhere else.”
“Gee, guys, if you wanted to be alone together, you could have just said so!” Jaden chuckled, and then turned and skipped back down the hill. “Later!”
I yelled, “Who’s ‘alone together,’ you pervert?” at the same time as Chazz yelled, “Wait a minute, you don’t get to just say that and walk away, scrub!” When we both realized he was well out of earshot, we just gaped at his retreating back.
Chazz’s face was a brilliant, Slifer Red. He slid down the tree and sat facing the beach. “That was humiliating.”
I slid down next to him. “Yeah,” I said, a sly grin spreading across my face. “Who’d wanna be alone together with you?”
“Hey!” I dodged his awkward tackle, but his long jacket got caught around my leg and we rolled all the way down the grassy slope. “Shit,” yelled Chazz.
“Oh my god!” I grabbed onto him for dear life. For such a skinny guy, he’s surprisingly solid. It took me a minute for the world to stop spinning, and then I realized we’d hit the bottom of the hill. “Sorry,” I said, trying to disentangle myself from Chazz. “Shit, sorry!”
I felt a hand on the back of my head and one on my back, lifting me into a sitting position. I was still slightly stunned from the fall. Chazz propped me up against his chest, between his splayed-out legs. “Open your eyes,” he said. “I got you.”
“I can’t believe you actually tackled me, you idiot,” I grumbled, stating the obvious. I opened my eyes. The world still seemed slightly wobbly.
“You can be a real asshole when you wanna be!” he accused, letting go of me and putting a deliberate distance between us. “If I wanted to be emasculated, I’d sit alone in my room with my duel spirits.”
“You’ll live.” I rolled my eyes and hoisted myself to my feet.
“Ow,” Chazz complained. “I think I hit my head.”
I lent him a hand to help him up, and we trudged back up the hill. Maybe a little handsy, but that was just normal Us-behavior.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I decided that the best way to spend my alone-time would be to commit to canvas the view from the shady tree on the hill. I got some basic shapes down before the start of the school day, and then lugged my art supplies back to Ra Yellow. “Hey, Bastion!” I grabbed my fellow Ra student and resident mathematical wizard on his way down to breakfast. “I’ve got that ladder you lent me. Just say where and when you want it back!”
“Thanks, Jamie,” he said. “Can I come by after classes?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you coming to breakfast?” Bastion’s favorite food is breakfast food. He literally eats it for every meal, most days.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna dump my art stuff first!” I unlocked my door with the easel strapped to my back precariously sitting on one shoulder.
“That blazer of yours isn’t going to survive the semester,” remarked Bastion.
I grinned. It was getting paint-splattered. “It’s okay, it’s not really my color anyway.”
We walked down to the dining room together. “What did you need that ladder for, anyway? You never actually said.”
“I painted a Polymerization on the ceiling of the Slifer Red boys’ dorm.” A girl’s gotta keep busy, after all.
“… And they know about this?” said Bastion, skeptically.
“Banner okayed it! Everyone else will be surprised.” Banner had spied one of my doodles in class and asked – no, insisted that I paint something for the Slifer dorm. Bastion and I got in line for the breakfast buffet. “And Chazz was there to hand me tools.”
Something about Bastion’s, “Mmm,” didn’t sit well with me.
“Something wrong?” I scooped a bunch of sausages onto my plate.
“Is Chazz Princeton, the disgraced North Academy duelist, really the person you want to spend all of your time with?” he said. “People… talk.”
“Bastion, if you want to hang out, just text me and we can go for some terrible coffee in the Ra Yellow common room,” I said firmly. “But don’t badmouth my friends.”
“’Friend,’” he said coldly. “As in singular. But whatever floats your boat.”
Um. Ouch?
The boy behind Bastion in line chimed in, “What’s Princeton got that you can’t get locally?”
I grimaced as a few other eavesdropping Ra Yellows guffawed along with him.
“Has he Chazzed you up yet?” said the guy behind him.
Gross. I plunked my tray down on an empty table.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
“Jamie!” A Slifer I didn’t know was running after me. “Jamie Blaine!” He was a little guy, with a mop of robin’s-egg-blue hair and round glasses.
“Yeah?” I was a few minutes early for Professor Banner’s History of Dueling, so I slowed down.
“I heard you’re the one who did our ceiling!” He had a big grin on his face and his eyes were shining with excitement.
We went in to take seats in the front of the classroom. Banner’s class was my favorite class, because he made the history of dueling seem to come to life before our very eyes! He was an incredible storyteller. I think more history teachers should be good storytellers. Banner also didn’t segregate the classroom by color, like Crowler. The most important thing to him was that we cultivate a passion for our cultural history, not that we get at each other’s throats.
“Yeah, I did the Polymerization,” I laughed. “Is it okay? Should I have painted a Kuriboh instead? Those are cute and cuddly…”
“No, it’s amazing! Everyone loves it, even Chumley, even though he keeps having nightmares about being sucked into space because he’s on the top bunk!” exclaimed the blue-haired Slifer. “I’m Syrus Truesdale,” he added. “You should have dinner with us Slifers tonight – everyone’s going to want to shake your hand!”
“What’d she do?” said a Ra Yellow I didn’t know.
I laughed again, slightly embarrassed at the attention. “I painted a giant rendition of Polymerization on the ceiling of one of the Slifer dorms.”
“So, does this mean you’re making a career out of lying on your back in the Slifer dorm?” said an Obelisk Blue in the back of the class.
“Hey!” cried Syrus, over the general smattering of laughter the remark had elicited from the other students.
“Leave it, man,” I said. “People are just mad that I’m friends with Chazz.”
“You’re friends with Chazz?” said Syrus. I braced for more insults, but he actually looked more impressed than anything. “How can you stand him? He’s moody, egotistical, and takes up all the lukewarm water in the shower!”
“I guess we just have a few things in common,” I said, as Banner arrived, cat in his arms, to teach his class. As he began the lesson, I whispered, “I’ll come ‘round the Red dorms at five, yeah?”
“Yeah!” said Syrus, just a little too loudly.
Banner’s eyebrows knitted together crossly. “Detention, Syrus!”
“Shit,” mumbled Syrus.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I met Bastion outside our dorms to return his ladder. “I may have to borrow this again,” I joked. “It sounds like the spell card ceiling was a hit.”
“You can have it whenever you want,” said Bastion. “I mostly use it to repaint my room after the walls are overrun by equations.”
“Say what now?”
“Where are you headed now?” he said, hoisting the ladder onto his shoulder. “I’m headed to the dining room, if you want to join me.”
“I actually have plans,” I said, blushing a little. “The Slifers invited me over to the dark side for the evening, and who am I to say no to dinner with a bunch of pariahs in red coats?”
“I hope you haven’t forgotten that you tested into Ra Yellow,” said Bastion gravely. “You could be a great duelist. Don’t let them distract you.”
“Dueling and test-taking are two very different things.” His attitude about my social life was starting to get on my nerves.
“Those tests are formulated to select only the best of the best,” argued Bastion. “Those Slifers are where they are because they need to hit the books.”
“Bastion, I can understand hearing this kind of talk from those douchebags in Obelisk Blue, but you?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m a little disappointed.” I started to walk away, shaking my head. “Anyway, I’m sure you’re welcome for dinner as well, but if you’d rather not come with, I’ll see you in Crowler’s class tomorrow.”
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I stopped at the door to the Slifer dining room. Should I knock? I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t have to worry about it, because the door flew open and Syrus and a few other Slifers welcomed me inside with big smiles and a lot of chatter. Across the room, I could see Chazz sitting alone in the corner. I waved at him, and he waved back, turning slightly red.
“Ah, leave him,” said a larger guy in the gaggle. “He’s been moping like that all day.”
“I’m starving,” said another Slifer. “Can we eat now?”
Jaden gave me a big hug. “Duel for dessert?”
“Jesus, Jaden, you remind me of my ex-boyfriend,” I complained. “You just won’t leave me alone.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Well, it sounds like you dated him!”
Syrus shoved him out of the way, saving me. “No!”
Jaden tried to elbow his way back to me. “But Syrus” –
“No!” said Syrus. “We’re gonna eat dinner!”
In the midst of the ruckus, I looked around for Chazz, but he had disappeared.
Dinner was an unbelievable amount of fun. Fun was something I’d never expected to have again, so it was a relief to find that it still existed. They were having sticky rice and broiled steak, which happens to be my favorite meal (I made a mental note to pay Miss Dorothy a visit and thank her for upending her entire meal schedule for me.). I didn’t really want to admit it, since he was so unbelievably annoying, but Jaden was actually fun to talk to. He was non-judgmental and capable of what seemed like hours of animated banter, and he was pretty easy on the eyes. Everyone hung around, talking, long after the plates were cleared. Part of the group split off and opened up a board game.
There was a lull in the conversation around 7pm. “Wow, you guys…” I said, resting my head on my hand. “Do you all do this every night?”
“Um….” Jaden narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Every other Thursday, we study” –
“We study,” interrupted Syrus. “Jaden never studies. Asshole.”
Jaden continued, -“And we don’t chill like this during exams.”
“Which you never study for anyway,” said Syrus, insistently. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He turned his attention back to me.
I admit, I was a little misty-eyed. “I, uh,” I blinked a few times and tried not to look pathetic. “We don’t do this in Ra Yellow.” I smiled weakly. “Y’know, it’s every man for himself.” It had been that way ever since I got to Duel Academy. I missed people. I missed connection.
“Even at dinner time?” said Chumley, the big guy (He’d practically drowned his plate in hot sauce, which astounded me even after I was informed he was heir to a hot sauce business.).
“We’re all on our own,” I said. “I guess sometimes Bastion talks to me?”
“Bastion’s a really smart dude,” said Jaden.
“Yeah,” said Syrus. “And kinda standoffish.”
“He let me borrow his ladder for the giant Polymerization painting,” I said, halfheartedly.
“That’s cool,” said Syrus. “It sounds like he likes you!”
“He just keeps saying mean shit about Chazz…” I sighed, looking around the table with some apprehension. I felt like I belonged there. Did I really have to bottle it all up? “It just feels like… I want to have two friends, but I can only have one or the other.”
“I’ve got news for ya,” said Jaden, smiling with so many blinding teeth. “You’ve got way more than two friends!”
My new Slifer friends concurred heartily.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
“How was dinner last night?” said Bastion, staring at the whiteboard with a determined intensity that should have melted it.
“Oh, what, now you can’t look at me?” I slammed my textbook on the desk next to him. It had a glossy photo of Crowler on the front, making a face I preferred not to have pointed at me when I fell asleep at night. It said “Duel Monsters: Advanced” in bold, hot pink text. “Dinner was amazing. Best time I’ve had since I got here. You should come with me next time.”
Bastion just shook his head and gathered up his books. “I’m going to sit closer to the front.” He moved two rows down without another word.
“Seriously?” I sat down where I was, right next to the seat Bastion had sat in consistently since the first day of school. What does he want from me?
A few Obelisk Blues were giggling several rows back. Maybe two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have noticed, but now the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I suddenly felt very small. I was thinking about hunching my shoulders and trying to sink through the floor, but then Jaden came skipping down the steps and sat down next to me. “I guess Bastion got tired of his seat,” he said, giving me that toothy grin of his. He didn’t have any books.
“Yeah, that’s what happened,” I mumbled.
“Great,” said Jaden. “Syrus and I get you all to ourselves!”
Syrus sat on my other side. “Is there a pop quiz today?” he said.
“That’s the beauty of a pop quiz, Syrus,” I said, craning my neck to see if Bastion would look back. “No one knows.”
“Oh no…” He wrung his hands.
Angelina Lane, a Ra Yellow student I’d once worked well with on a class project, shouted something across the room that I didn’t quite catch.
“Huh?” My head whipped around. “What?”
“I said, what’s yellow, but red all over?”
“I can’t wait to find out,” I sighed.
She laugh-snorted. “Probably your dorm room. Ew!”
“That’s a good one, Ang,” I said. “I’ll be sure to write it down in that notebook where I did our entire trap cards project on my own, while you stared at yourself in the mirror and texted Obelisk Blue guys who’d probably rather have slept with a wet rag.”
“Dang,” said Jaden. “That was intense.” He looked almost impressed for a moment, and then reverted to his usual, cheerful self. “So, Jamie, are you gonna hang out with us again?”
“Oh my god, you’re right, said Angelina, in her Valley girl lilt, to the posse of Ra Yellow girls around her. “She’s like an animal.”
“Watch out for rabies, Jaden,” said one of her friends.
“Jamie?” said Jaden, as if he didn’t hear her.
Glumly, I said, “Sure, I don’t think anyone else wants me.”
“Great!” he said, as if he hadn’t heard the second half of that statement. “I still want that duel!”
Crowler marched in and started the lesson, saving me from having to address that remark.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
The insults were starting to numb me. Whether they were upset that I dared make friends outside my social stratum, or they were jumping on the bandwagon and shooting at a convenient target, it didn’t matter anymore. Nobody wanted to talk to me in the Ra Yellow dorms or at mealtimes. Angelina and her weird little clique made animal noises every time I passed them on campus. Worst of all, I couldn’t seem to find Chazz anywhere.
I waited under the sprawling tree on the hill before first period every day, but he stopped showing up. Every time I had dinner with the Slifers, he managed to avoid all of us. I came to the conclusion that he just didn’t want to see me anymore. I just added it to my list of things not to cry about.
I was sitting in the Slifer Red dining room, picking at a bowl of rice, while Syrus and his friends talked about duels they had been a part of that had come close or tied. This train of conversation had been going strong for half an hour. In spite of myself, I scanned the room for a head of messy black hair and a black trench coat, but I must have lost the only person who really understood me.
“Hey,” said Jaden. “You gonna finish that?”
I slumped onto the table. “Probably not,” I said, voice muffled by my arm.
“Something the matter?” Jaden scooted closer to me.
I lifted up my head. “Have you seen Chazz?”
“He’s been acting kinda weird lately, now that you mention it,” said Jaden. “He never eats in the dining room anymore, and he’s usually locked in his room.”
Ah, that’s right. Chazz, the only other person besides Jaden who can skip class all the time and still come up with decent grades. They should really start grading for attendance – what an exploitable system. “Did he say anything?” I asked. “About… maybe, why?”
“Well, I asked him a couple of days ago, and he said it was nothing,” said Jaden, scratching his chin.
I nodded. Figures. I took a sip of water.
“But then, I heard him talking to his duel spirits last night, and I think he has a crush on you,” he added.
I spit out my sip of water.
“Jaden,” whined Syrus. “You don’t say things like that while people are drinking liquid!”
When I’d finished coughing, I said, “Rewind, guys. What did he say, exactly?”
“Something about being alone in the world,” said Jaden. “And something about you and me doing unmentionable things on top of”-
“Okay now stop!” Jesus, no wonder Chazz wants to smother himself with a pillow. That mental image is too much not to censor the animation.
“Hey, we all know Chazz can be a little dramatic!” chuckled Jaden. “Maybe this is one of his emo things!”
I stared at the wall for a while, as Syrus and his friends debated whether it was better to play certain trap cards at the beginning of a duel, or to wait until the end. There was a clock on the wall behind Chumley’s head, and I was imagining it melting, like a Salvador Dali clock. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” I said, making my exit.
“Bring your duel disk,” Jaden called after me. “We can throw down!”
“Jaden, shut up, she’s obviously upset,” Syrus chided him.
I was grateful to the Slifers – I really was. After all, it’s not like I could really show my face anywhere else without having animal noises made at me, or hearing disturbingly detailed rumors about what I was supposed to have done with however many Slifer Red students at a time (depending on the rumor). But I really needed to ditch everyone for a while.
I found myself walking all the way down to the beach, hands in my pockets, in the dusk. I pulled my deck out of my jacket pocket. The paint-splattered Ra Yellow jacket I was wearing was probably violating the dress code in a bunch of ways, but it honestly didn’t seem like the teachers cared about that. It was supposedly the community handbook, but I’d never seen a copy of that. Besides, people were always ripping the sleeves off their uniforms to make them into stylish vests.
The mainland was visible in the distance, but only when it was dark. As the flames of a glorious Duel Academy Island sunset turned to embers, I could see tiny city lights. I tried to imagine people doing the dishes, reading a book, helping their children do their homework so the poor things could get accepted somewhere besides a school for card games…
I looked down at the cards I was shuffling in my hands. It was stupid to pretend I belong here.
The sun set, and I was alone.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
Banner’s class was drawing to a close, and I was gathering up my books, when Banner called my name. “Jamie! May I have a word with you?”
“Absolutely.” My heart sank. I knew my grades were slipping in Crowler’s class, but I was kind of hoping I’d get a better grade in History of Dueling. Everyone else filed out of the room.
“Jamie, I have noticed a difference in the quality of your schoolwork,” said Banner. “And I want to make sure you are okay.”
“I’m fine,” I said. Did he really care? I was dubious.
“Really?” said Banner. “Because it seems to me that a girl who once participated with such zeal, answering questions, writing extra pages, now spends most of her time with her head on her desk.” His cat, Pharaoh, meowed at me from his favorite spot, right in the middle of the lectern.
I was agape. “I uh,” I said. “I’m tired.”
“I used to be like you, you know,” said Banner, paperclipping a bunch of essays and putting them in his briefcase. “But I dealt with my problems.”
“How?”
“I dropped out of medical school,” he said.
“Medical school?” I said, confused.
“Yes,” he said. “Can you guess what happened?”
I tried to think, but my brain was suddenly blank. “Um. You didn’t want to be a doctor?”
“Of course I wanted to be a doctor,” said the professor. “I left medical school because I realized that all of my classmates were mean and vicious. They called me names and broke my personal property.”
“So you just left?” I said, as incredulous as I sounded. Leave an opportunity like medical school? He could have been a doctor instead of running after brats in matching coats!
“Jamie, you are missing my point. If you are surrounded by terrible people in school, who do you think you will be surrounded by in your career?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I never thought about it like that. But Professor, how did you get your teaching post here?”
“I have a passion for teaching and an avid interest in the Shadow Games of old, so I got a few doctorates.”
“A few?”
“Yes, four of them.”
And to think, Crowler walked around touting his one doctorate like it made him king. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Duel Academy is an unforgiving environment, Jamie,” said Banner. “Especially for the sensitive, intelligent ones. Just remember that there is no shame in ‘leaving medical school’ if it’s not the right place for you.”
“Thank you, Professor. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Now go and do something to de-stress!” Banner grabbed his bag and his cat and walked out of the classroom. “We have a pop quiz tomorrow. Don’t tell Syrus.”
I grinned at his retreating back, but the smile faded quickly as I was left alone in the lecture hall, a room like a cavern. Just because Professor Banner had told me a crazy story didn’t mean it applied to me. I was different, I told myself. I could tough it out.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
The next morning, in the Ra Yellow dorms, the lazy murmur of chatter wound its way through the small groups of my classmates clinging to the furniture in the common room. “No way!” said one of Angelina’s clique, softly, but not quite softly enough in her excitement. “How did it happen?”
“I hear he has a black eye.”
“Why didn’t they duel it out last night?”
“I heard it was about that Jamie Blaine girl,” said a blond girl at breakfast. “The one who basically joined Slifer Red.”
What was about me? I made my way around the tables to her seat. “Sorry,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder. “What were you saying a minute ago?”
The girl blushed crimson, realizing I’d overheard. “It’s not like people think you actually left,” she said, scrambling to cover her ass. “It’s just, like, you spend all your time there, and you sleep through class like a slacker now”-
“No, I know, you’re all a bunch of dicks,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “That’s old news. What happened last night?”
“Oh, um, Chazz Princeton punched a guy in the face,” said the blond girl.
“Jesus Christ, why?”
“They’re saying it was because he said something about you,” said the girl. “Supposedly, Chazz broke his jaw.”
“I can’t believe an Obelisk Blue would lose a fistfight,” said Bastion, approaching us with his breakfast tray. “It’s really quite unseemly, the whole thing.”
“I guess I better go and find him,” I muttered. “This situation is way out of control.”
Bastion grimaced. “Or, you could leave well enough alone. Chazz has made his bed.”
“Yeah, well, far be it from me to let him lie in it alone,” I shot back, heading for the door. Though fully aware of that double-entendre the moment it came out, I committed to my line and didn’t turn back to rescind it.
I was really hoping the Disciplinary Action Squad hadn’t been called in. Those guys were usually so unnecessary. He wasn’t in his room, on the hill, or in the Slifer Red dining room. Then, it dawned on me: My only lead was probably in the infirmary with a broken jaw, or a black eye, or a bruised testicle, or whatever the hell the rumor mill was going to decide on before the day was out. I high-tailed it to the only place I knew where to look for my only witness.
The infirmary was dark, blinds drawn over the windows and curtains around each bed. I was going to have to look behind all of them. I crept up to the first bed, heart pounding, when I heard a moan from the other side of the room. “Hello?” I said, barely a whisper.
“Who’s there?” said a low, gravelly voice from the last bed.
I steeled myself and opened the curtain. “Oh, holy shit.” I’m pretty sure this guy is in my Advanced Dueling class. “What happened to you?”
The guy’s face was wrapped in bandages. “Chazz fucking Princeton happened. Ow!” He cradled his jaw.
“He broke your jaw?” I whispered.
“Dislocated.” Talking appeared to be painful. “Go away,” he mumbled.
“I’m going,” I assured him. “I just need to know why he hit you.”
“Defending your honor, or some shit.” He was still rubbing the side of his face.
“Yeah, you should really keep my name outta your mouth,” I said. It was starting to look like I had my very own vigilante in a black trench coat, meting out justice in my name. If only I could get him to talk to me. “Any idea where I can find him?” It was a shot in the dark.
“No.” He rolled over, back to me.
“’Kay, bye.” I let the curtain fall back into place. I turned to bolt from the room, but then the nagging nausea of conscience made me turn back. “Listen, man, I’m so sorry about this.”
He didn’t say anything, so then, I really did bolt from the room.
If Chazz really didn’t want to be found, I was never going to find him. He acted like a spoiled city brat, but he knew the island better than most people at Duel Academy. He’d trekked across it to catch a boat to North Academy, where he’d learned to use maps and compasses to navigate across the harshest of terrains. He could be very handy with tools and adapt to wilderness conditions more easily than most of the privileged babies on the island, including me.
Dejected, I wandered back to my room, amidst whispers and stares, and came face-to-face with a piece of printer paper taped to the door of my dorm room. It said, “DON’T OPEN RED INSIDE.” I ripped it off and left it lying in the hall, slammed the door behind me, and fell asleep horizontally across my bed. It was time for class, but for some reason, I was too drained and sluggish to care. Something about the prospect of finding Chazz had awakened my fighting spirit for half an hour, like I could stay awake in class and make jokes with the Slifers, like hearing my name dragged through the mud wherever I went and having no friends dressed in my color and the constant pressure to duel-duel-duel might just be bearable. But realizing I could never track him down, my best friend, on a volcanic island to ask him what his fucking problem was… It crushed me.
I spent the rest of the entire day lying in bed, listening to loud music and painting the rest of my ocean view from memory. Maybe I should just drop out, I thought. Maybe I should do what Chazz did – get on a boat and go as far away as possible. Who would have missed me?
I dragged myself out of bed to the Slifer Red dining room, where, at least, I could be reasonably sure no one would make sport out of tallying up my supposed sex partners in front of me while I ate. Syrus and Jaden were always so happy to see me, that I thought it might be safe just to go down to Slifer Red, eat dinner, and return to my room to pace in circles and destroy my eardrums with my heavy metal collection from the mainland.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I probably should have just stayed in bed. Saltine crackers are a perfectly respectable breakfast. When I walked into the Slifer Red dining room, I was immediately waylaid by Jaden, and he had an agenda. “Come on, Jaden,” Syrus was complaining. “I’m hungry. Can’t we bother Jamie after we eat?”
Yes, please, I thought. Dinner first, and then a daring escape.
“Hey, Jamie!” said Jaden, brightly. “I heard Chazz got in a fight! Is he okay?”
As if I didn’t already feel responsible for what happened. Way to play, Jay. In a complete monotone, I said, “I do not know. I have not seen him.”
Syrus gulped. Like, a big, exaggerated, cartoon gulp. And he may not have been the only one, because when I looked around, it appeared that the other, less emotionally tone-deaf Slifers were picking up on how awkward it really was that Jaden wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. I’ll give you a hint: Very.
“When was the last time you spoke to him, anyway?” said Jaden, saying the exact wrong thing.
“About four weeks ago,” I said, in the same monotone.
The other Slifers were starting to look genuinely uncomfortable, but no one tried to distract him or anything. It was looking like everyone was used to just letting Jaden say and do whatever he wanted with no consequences.
“That’s kind of a long time!” said Jaden. “I have to say, I thought he’d be done with his tantrum by now!”
A Slifer put down his dinner tray to undo a button on his shirt. The air was thick with me being utterly done with this.
“Oh, it’s over,” said someone directly behind me.
I whipped around. “Chazz?”
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“You have some serious explaining to do,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
“Let’s hear it!” said Jaden.
“Jaden!” Syrus hissed.
“Why are you back in polite society?” I asked Chazz.
“When I punched that Obelisk douche, I asked myself, ‘Is this something that would have happened with Jamie around?’” he said. “Obviously, the answer was no. I…” He turned red and started running his fingers through his hair.
“You…” I prompted him.
“I feel like I’m running at half capacity without you,” he said. “I guess I’ve just never had a best friend before” – he stopped to swipe at the air next to his head and interject, “Go away, you don’t count!”
The crowd had melted away somewhat, but Jaden grabbed everyone’s attention back by declaring, “What better way is there to celebrate a best friends’ reunion than with a duel?”
“Leave it, Jaden,” said Chazz.
“What is this obsession with dueling me?” I complained. “Just leave it alone!”
Jaden was still smiling. He was the only one. All the other Slifers had backed a safe distance away. “Come on, it’s just a duel!”
“Jaden, you’re making a fool out of yourself,” said Chazz. “Leave her alone.”
“It’s just a little friendly competition!” said Jaden. “She can take it. Otherwise, why is she here?”
There was that question again. Why was I there?
“Stop it,” said Chazz, more forcefully. “You’re being a dick.”
“Not everyone wants to duel all the time, Jaden!” said Syrus. I wasn’t expecting him, of all people, to defend me from Jaden, his best friend, but I was happy to have the support.
Jaden’s smile faltered. “Whuh?” he stuck out his lower lip. “Why not?”
Unsafe. Expensive. Annoying. We’ve been through this. “I just don’t, okay?” I said, finally tired of the bullshit. “I’m tired! Why is this such a big deal?”
“’Cause I wanna see your moves!” said Jaden. “I’ve never seen you duel before, like, with anyone.”
“There’s a reason for that!” I yelled at him.
“Look, if it’s the Duel Request Forms, I’ll do all the paperwork,” said Jaden.
Chazz put his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to do this,” he said in a low voice.
I looked up at Chazz. “I’m starting to think beating the shit out of him with his own duel disk might be worth it,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Beating the shit out of people won’t solve your problems,” he muttered.
“What are you guys whispering about?” said Jaden. We ignored him.
“Oh, yeah, like when you dislocated that guy’s jaw because he called me a whore?” I hissed at Chazz.
“No, that felt pretty damn good,” muttered Chazz. “I mean, if you knock Jaden down, he’s only going to get back up and tell you what a good friend you are. I used to think he was just insanely passive-aggressive, but I honestly doubt he knows how to do that.”
“… Shit, you’re right,” I said. I rounded on Jaden. “I don’t want to duel you. I don’t like dueling.”
Jaden shut his mouth.
“You can’t mean that!” said one of the Slifers. They all started throwing out theories as to why I didn’t want to duel. “You’re just having a bad day!” “Or maybe you ate something weird!” “Or you had a bad duel!”
“No, I just don’t like it,” I said. “I’m thinking about dropping out.”
“What?” Chazz yelped, rounding on me.
“I’m sorry, I was gonna tell you!” I grabbed his arm. “You could come with me.”
“I already dropped out,” said Chazz. “And I came back! Because it was a mistake!”
“You needed to see things from a different perspective. Maybe this is my North Academy.”
“Your North – I – No!” Chazz ripped his arm from my grip. “I spent weeks in the wilderness, freezing my ass off, dueling for piles of fucking peanuts, and I came back,” he repeated. “And I had no friends! I lost everything! I lost my deck! They bumped me down to Slifer Red, because I was an idiot and I deserved it! You’re not going anywhere!”
“I knew you were just like them!” I yelled, at the top of my lungs.
“Don’t do this,” said Chazz, softly.
The Slifers fell silent, staring at me, wide-eyed.
It was like we were alone.
“I knew,” I lied. That was the worst part: I hadn’t known. I felt like I’d deluded myself into thinking Chazz was some other breed of duelist. And then I walked out, leaving Chazz, and Jaden, and everyone else to figure out what had just happened.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I walked alone, down to the beach. I slipped in the dark, and fell a bunch of times, but I made it to the sand. I could feel my deck in my pocket, like it was weighing me down. I looked across the ocean, to the lights of the mainland. It seemed so far away in the daytime, when I was writing papers, dodging gossip, and painting the view from above; but in the nighttime, when anything was possible, especially now that I knew I would be alone forever, the lights felt attainable.
What was I going to tell my parents if I dropped out of Duel Academy? They’d be furious. All that tuition money, down the drain. I was so distracted that it was a minute before I felt my deck vibrating. It felt like something was trying to escape from my pocket. I was going to grab the cards and put them on the ground so I could get away, but before I could, a person somersaulted out of them. I wish I was kidding.
For a while, I assumed I just couldn’t see duel spirits, but apparently, it was too much to hope for. The young lady landed on her ass and then stood up, brushing sand off of her long, pink gown. “Your hair is a mess,” I said.
“Your life is a mess,” retorted the duel spirit, fixing her tiara. She had a lot of blond hair.
I was taken aback. “Excuse me?” I wondered if the rose in her hand could ever really wilt. “You look like that spell card my uncle Zig gave me,” I said.
“I am that spell card your uncle Zig gave you,” said 100-Year Awakening.
“You’re a spell card? I thought duel spirits were all monsters.”
“Wrong!” she said. “Even field spells have spirits. Someone snoozed in class.”
“What do you want? I seriously don’t need this right now.” I sat on a rock and stared out to sea.
“Your uncle gave me to you because he wanted you to let some magic into your life, you ungrateful bitch,” said the beautiful princess.
“…. What?” I turned my head, slowly.
“Yeah, you heard me,” she said. “Your parents didn’t pick this school. You did.” She held out her shimmery, insubstantial hand.
“What happens if I hold your hand?” I said dubiously. “Can I even touch you?”
Scoffing at my reluctance, she grabbed my hand and yanked me through a white vortex. She was surprisingly solid.
“Holy shit,” I said. The empty space we were floating in was fairly quiet, actually. It was dotted with sparkly stars and the occasional rainbow. “Is this the Shadow Realm? I thought the Shadow Realm was supposed to be terrifying.”
The princess was floating lazily beside me, gown fluttering in the wind. Her hair looked soft and feathery. “This is where I hang out. I could sleep here all day! Too bad you’re about to ruin your life – it’s really distracting.”
We landed in my parents’ living room. “Is that a plastic duel disk?”
“It was your very first,” said 100-Year Awakening, rolling her eyes. She was literally filing her nails in the corner. “Just watch.”
“Mommy, it’s trying to eat my facedown cards!” whined tiny me. “Can’t I have a real one?”
“When you get older, sweetie,” said my dad. That was back when he had a full head of black hair.
I watched my child-self try to extract a Duel Monsters card from a plastic prison.
My dad called my brother from another room. “Jeffrey, will you come and help your sister with her duel disk?”
“Coming!” came Child-Jeffrey’s voice from the other room. He ran in wearing his soccer jersey from elementary school. “Why are you so bad at using this thing?” he complained, grabbing the duel disk out of Child-Jamie’s hands.
“I’m gonna be the best duelist in the whole world,” I watched myself yell.
“Better than Yugi Moto?” said Jeffrey.
“Yeah! I love Duel Monsters,” said Child-Jamie. “I wanna be a duelist!”
“Do you have your deck?” said Child-Jeffrey. “I wanna beat you again.”
100-Year Awakening strutted into view. “Have we seen enough?”
With a sound like a bubble popping, we were back in the sparkly void.
“So, what?” I grumbled. “I loved Duel Monsters.”
“Enough for your parents to send you to Duel Academy,” pressed the princess.
“And I’ve regretted it ever since,” I said.
“No, you regretted it the minute it got hard!” the duel spirit accused me.
“I don’t think”- I began to protest, but before I could, I found myself falling into another memory.
It was the first test I ever failed at Duel Academy. I watched myself walk into Crowler’s class and sit the entire exam. I cringed a bunch of times. “So many of these answers are obvious now,” I said.
100-Year Awakening chuckled. “You’ve grown as a duelist already.”
“Or that exam was easy.”
“Let’s look over this guy’s shoulder and see what exam he’s taking,” said the princess.
I figured I should just humor her. I looked, my eyes widening as the test went on. “Holy shit, he’s taking an easier test.”
“He’s an Obelisk Blue,” said the princess. “You thought it would be easy to go to the top dueling school in the world?”
“I took down my Duelist Kingdom poster after that test,” I said, staring at his blue jacket. “So you’re saying it’s Crowler’s fault I lost motivation for dueling?”
“Ugh, no! Figure it out. Put two and two together. I have to go back to sleep,” said 100-Year Awakening, yawning into her delicate hand. “But you better get your shit together or we’re going on another trip.”
“Wait, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to have gotten from this!” I fell back through the noisy vortex and came out on the beach, where I’d started out. Fucking useless duel spirits.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I didn’t want to see anyone. I sneaked back to my dorm, but I knew I’d never be able to fall asleep after the ordeal with uncle Zig’s card (“uncle” Zig being more of a cousin-removed on my mother’s side). I thought about ripping the card up, leaving it for dead in the woods, and drowning it, but something told me it wasn’t that easy to shake a duel spirit. My night was spent staring at the ceiling as the sky lightened outside my window.
I’ve determined that gossip is the fastest-traveling thing in the universe. It bends time and space to make it feel like everyone’s been talking about you for ages already. Suddenly you’re watching your back, inspecting every person you encounter for signs that they’ve heard it too. I don’t know why I thought a dueling high school would be different from a normal high school. What did I think I’d be doing? Chillin’ out with the crew in the schoolyard? Finding trouble, never working too hard? I should have known. High school sucks, pretty much across the board.
I guess at a public school, I wouldn’t have to endure ambushes by Angelina Lane before 8am. Her shrill voice carried over the breakfast buffet: “Yoo-hoo, Jamie! Wait up!” Her specialty was bouncing around the dorm in a full face of makeup and with her hair done before the rest of us were even awake. I think it made her feel superior.
“What can I do for you, Angelina?” I crossed my arms, waiting for the onslaught.
She jogged to me and struck a pose. Yes, a pose, you heard me. I was like she had to make sure the bullying came out cute enough. “Sarah heard from Jasmine, who heard from Becca, who heard from Cory, who heard from Jaden, that you’re thinking of dropping out,” she said, all in one breath, and flashed a shiny smile. I tried to interject, but she stopped me. “And I just want to say, I think it’s a great idea!”
Shocker.
She stuck out her lower lip like she was concerned. “This place isn’t built for weird, outsider-people like you and Chazz Princeton! I think you should both go. You’ll feel so much better! See you around!” Angelina bounced off to join her friends.
So, Jaden was spreading rumors about me. That kid has the emotional intelligence of a fucking turnip.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
I tried to lie low for most of the day, but it seemed like all the chatter had my name on it. If hanging out with Chazz and the Slifers hadn’t made me a choice topic of conversation already, it would seem that declaring a plan to drop out of school certainly had. One girl wanted to know if I was “also sleeping with Jaden,” as if it was to be understood that I was already sleeping with Chazz. Some asshole from Obelisk Blue had the audacity to ask me if I was going to “keep Syrus’s lovechild” (his words) in front of several faculty members and Syrus’s hot brother, who looked like he might murder the guy (and maybe me as well – I wasn’t sure). To top it all off, Crowler called me out for looking tired, citing my “busy social calendar,” which elicited a storm of laughter.
I sat down at the dinner table next to Bastion and slumped over with my head in my arms.
“You should eat something,” he said, barely looking up from his newspaper.
“I’m not hungry,” I mumbled.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to someone,” I said. “A friend.”
“Then you should go and find one.”
I peeked at him to confirm that he was serious. “I sort of thought you might fit the bill.”
“I tried to be your friend,” he said, in the same, even tone of voice. “But you can’t expect me to associate myself with your illustrious career in social suicide. Even I have my limits.”
I sat quietly for a minute, eyes stinging with hot tears held in. Then, I sat up. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m going to go and find a friend.”
“So what are you planning to do, exactly?” said Bastion, not even looking directly at me. “Sleep your way through the entire Red dorm?” He took a crunchy bite out of a piece of toast.
“Yeah, Bastion, that’s exactly my plan.” My words took on that biting tone that I was getting used to hearing from myself. “I’m starting on the Blue dorm next week if you want to join me.” I stood up and bolted from the room. I almost hesitated when I realized I’d knocked a chair over, but I realized I no longer cared.
I climbed the hill that overlooked the water, hoping to god that a certain Slifer duelist wouldn’t be there. Please don’t be here, please don’t be here, please don’t – shit. I looked to see if I could turn around and walk away without alerting Jaden to my presence, but apparently, there was no such luck.
“Hey, Jamie! Come check out the ocean. The waves are doing something really cool today!”
I stood paralyzed. If I went up the hill, it would be like conceding that Jaden and I were friends (or more) before the whole world, but running away would be showing fear. I rubbed my forehead, trying to will away the tension headache that already had root in my skull.
“Jamie? Hurry, the coast looks so neat right now!”
Oh, for the love of… My whole body was shaking, trembling with rage. My face felt so hot that I momentarily wondered how red my skin looked.
“Uh… Jamie?”
“Shut up!” I cried.
“Wha” –
“I said SHUT UP! Shut the FUCK up! Don’t you have anything better to do than sit here, in MY favorite spot, ruining MY day, and spreading disgusting rumors about MY life?” Jaden’s face registered surprise, and then concern, but I wasn’t finished. Not even close. “I get it, I really do. Dueling is your life! You have nothing else! You’re probably bad at everything else! You probably didn’t finish middle school! And everyone seems to feel bad for you, but I don’t anymore; because the truth is, you might be a ‘great duelist’ or whatever, but you’re not a great guy. Apparently, you’re not even a GOOD guy. You’re just pathetic, and I am SICK of you!”
Jaden just stared at me, mouth agape.
I’d run out of steam, so I guess it was only natural for the waterworks to start. That was a new low point – bawling my eyes out in front of Jaden Yuki.
“What the hell, Jaden?” said someone, fast approaching on my right.
“I don’t know,” said Jaden. “She just yelled a lot and started crying.”
“You idiot,” said the other person to Jaden. “What’s your damn problem?” I couldn’t see who it was through my tears, but suddenly there was a strong hand on my shoulder, steering me away from Jaden. “Let’s go somewhere else,” whispered the person, handing me a blue handkerchief. … Obelisk blue.
I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and sneaked a peek at his face. It was Syrus’s hot brother. “Ah, fuck,” I said out loud, completely on purpose. I wrenched myself from his grasp.
“Sorry,” he said, stepping back a respectable distance. “Are you okay?”
“This is not what I need right now,” I said, the sobs starting up again. “Please just leave me alone!”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “Let me just take you back to the Yellow dorms. It’s getting dark.”
“Oh, yeah, and have everyone talking tomorrow morning?” I laughed harshly through the tears. “I’m better off just getting eaten by wolves, and trust me, once they start talking about you and me, you’ll wish you had been eaten too.”
Syrus’s hot brother sighed. “The rumor mill. Jesus.”
“I thought this school was for fucking dueling,” I said, swiping the handkerchief from his hand. “But apparently it’s more like a court of public opinion.”
“It’s pretty brutal,” he said. “This place is like a pressure cooker. Everyone’s here to win, so sometimes they forget their opponents are also human beings. You can’t let it get to you.”
“Do they talk about you?” I cringed at the smudged eyeliner on Syrus’s hot brother’s handkerchief.
“Yeah, all the time. It used to really bother me, but then I figured out how to make it all irrelevant,” he said.
“Feel free to share anytime,” I prompted him.
He glanced at our surroundings. It really was getting dark. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I’ll tell you my secret if you let me walk you back to your dorm.”
I let out a long, deflated sigh. “Fine.” The tropical insect activity on Duel Academy Island was a bitch. Everyone thinks of it as this beautiful, idyllic paradise, but the mosquitos are the size of remote-control drones.
We started walking back to the Yellow dorms. “You can’t make gossip go away. Other people will always say what they want,” said Syrus’s hot brother. “But you can drown them out.”
“’Drown them out?’ With what, exactly?” I was skeptical.
“You have to give them something better to talk about,” he said. “Everything you do gives these idiots something else to say about you, so you might as well do what you want instead of letting fear hold you back.”
“We can’t all duel to the top of our class,” I said. And then I tripped over a rock. Great, I’m well on my way to taking over Syrus’s clumsy sidekick position.
He caught my arm. “There are a million ways to make your life extraordinary.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, brushing dirt off the ankle of my jeans. “What if I’m not extraordinary? What if I really am just a whore who can’t duel?”
He stopped me by putting both hands on my shoulders and looking me dead in the eye. “You made it to Duel Academy. Something about you stunned the admissions committee. You are extraordinary.”
“I’m not convinced.” I wriggled from his grasp and we kept walking.
“Be convinced,” he said. “Something tells me you’re going to ditch the rabble one way or another. They can eat your dust.”
We were coming up on the entrance to the Ra Yellow dorms. I stopped at the gate. “Thanks,” I said. I was too bug-bitten to feel empowered and too tired to argue with him.
“No problem.” He turned to walk away.
“Oh, hey,” I called after him. “One more thing.”
He turned back.
“What’s your name?” “Syrus’s hot brother” was getting to be a bit of a mouthful, even in my head.
“Zane Truesdale.”
“I’m Jamie Blaine.”
I fell right into bed after that, and just as I was falling asleep, I imagined the buzz of the rumors as mosquitos on a volcanic island that was soon to erupt.
I was jerked from a deep sleep, not three hours later, by a commotion in the hallway.
“Jamie?” said a muffled, male voice from outside my door. There was a series of knocks. “Jamie, hurry up!”
I opened the door a crack. “Jaden?” I backed away. “How did you even get into the Ra Yellow dorms?”
“I literally just took my Slifer Red jacket off and walked in the front door,” he said. “Sometimes I worry about the security on this campus…”
“What are you doing here? Why would you risk trespassing when Crowler is ready to skewer you and have a barbecue?”
“Vivid,” he muttered.
“More to the point, I don’t wanna duel you!” I said. The sleep was beginning to melt away and I was beginning to remember how much his giant head looked like a target.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “It’s okay! I’d love to see what you’ve got, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Have a seat and tell me what your fucking problem is now!” My voice was rough from all the yelling and crying I’d been doing lately.
“Well, here’s the thing,” he said, bouncing on the edge of my bed. “My good friend Chazz hasn’t been happy in a really long time!”
He fucking hates you.
“Like, possibly ever,” continued Jaden. “And so when you showed up and started paying attention to him, I thought his days of being lonely were over! But you should have seen him last night – he was completely crushed!”
My heart sank. “So?”
“So, why the hell would you push the North Academy button?” said Jaden. “Even I can tell that it’s a sore spot!”
“I don’t know,” I moaned. “I know I messed up, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix this!”
“First of all, he’s your best friend,” said Jaden. “When you have huge news, you don’t just tell everyone at once! It makes your best friend feel like crap.”
“Well, I get that now,” I snapped. “But he’s been pretending I don’t exist. Does that sound like best friends to you?”
“Maybe you both messed up and it’s up to both of you to apologize?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What?”
“Did you just give Chazz the exact same talk?”
Jaden blinked a few times.
“Well, see you around!” he said, heading for the door. “Don’t forget to apologize to Chazz! I told him he could find you in the duel arena!”
For someone so obtuse, Jaden could be incredibly manipulative.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
It wasn’t hard to sneak around the main building at night. There were security guards available to be deployed in the event of something seriously sketchy, but they rarely patrolled outside of special occasions. If you had some serious sneaking-around to do, it was a piece of cake to get in and out undetected. The duel arena was dark, except for the exit lights. The dueling platform was dim, and the seats were almost obscured by the gloom.
I stood in the middle of the platform. “Chazz?” I said, to the darkness.
“Took you long enough,” said Chazz. I spotted him in the stands, reclining in the back row.
“Jaden really knows how to throw a party,” I quipped.
We chuckled for a few seconds over Jaden’s antics, and then it was quiet again. It was too quiet, like the silence of a tomb. It was the kind of quiet I wasn’t used to with Chazz.
He stood up from his seat. “I’m an ass.”
“Chazz” –
“Just let me say my thing and I’m done.”
I bowed my head, giving him free reign of the conversation.
“Okay, so, uh…” He messed with his hair. “So I’ve never actually had a friend before? At least, not a real one. I had lots of people who hung around when I was an Obelisk, but they stopped giving a shit about me after I dropped out. I guess you’re the first person who’s ever wanted to hang out with me on a consistent basis.”
I dropped to sit on the edge of the duel platform.
“So when you made a bunch of other friends, I got… uh.” He lost steam.
I raised an eyebrow. “You got…”
“Jealous!” He spat out the word like phlegm. “I thought you were gonna see how chill everyone else in Slifer Red is and you wouldn’t want to hang out anymore! And then people started saying gross things about us, and I figured you’d be better off without me anyway.”
“Chazz, you idiot,” I said. “I’m better off without you like Ojama Yellow is better off summoned alone. Or like Pharaoh is better off without Dr. Banner. Or like Syrus is better off without Jaden.”
He looked stunned. “Did you just compare Syrus to a pet cat?”
“The way I see it, you’re good at dueling,” I said. “And dueling is all about confidence – you have to know in your gut that you can crush the other guy. How about a little confidence in your friends?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” said Chazz . “When you put it that way.” He wound his way through the seats in the arena and climbed up to the platform with me.
I let out a sigh. “I gotta say something.”
Chazz swung his legs over the edge and sat next to me. “Go ahead.”
“I, too, have royally fucked up,” I said. “You’re not, like, my first friend or anything, but you’re my first BEST friend. And Jaden says you’re supposed to tell your best friend big news first. Is that… correct?”
“I dunno,” said Chazz. “Probably.”
“Anyway, sorry about that,” I said. “And also about bringing up North Academy like it wasn’t a big deal. That was fucked up.”
Chazz scooted over so I could put my head on his shoulder, the way we used to sit when we were still hanging out. “Let’s not do this again,” he said, and we both laughed weakly.
“Jaden thinks you have a huge crush on me,” I mumbled.
“What?” said Chazz, abruptly.
“Well, what does he know? He overheard like, half a conversation with your little spirit buddies, and concluded that you’re pining for me. Just forget about it; his social skills are severely lacking.” I rolled my eyes in the dark. “Besides, there’s so much more going on right now! Dude, I have to tell you what went down this afternoon,” I said, the events of the day flooding back. “Come on, you can walk me back to Ra Yellow. I met Zane Truesdale!”
“I’ve met him. He’s not that cool,” said Chazz, a bit resentfully.
“He’s a really nice guy, though! He seriously saved my ass.”
I hadn’t realized how tense I’d gotten from my falling grades and failing social life. Walking and talking with Chazz felt like I could breathe again. I could have sworn I spotted a brown-and-orange-headed figure in the bushes, high-fiving a smaller, blue-haired figure, but as you already know, it was dark out.
-_=-~-+-=_=-
“So I talked to Banner, and he gave me all these pamphlets,” I said, laying out the pamphlets on the table in the Slifer dining room. “Next semester, I want to enroll in the game design program and start an independent study in duel history!”
“Game design? I thought Duel Academy was just for dueling,” said Syrus.
“No, I actually talked to this guy, Beauregard?” I said. “He’s in the game design program, and he said he’d be happy show me the ropes.”
“Beauregard, huh?” said Jaden, a huge grin spreading across his face. “What a giant win for you!” Syrus elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow!”
“Do I want to know?”
“No, you don’t,” said Syrus.
“Aaagh!” yelled Chazz, flapping his arms in the air. “Leave me alone!”
“You know we can see you when you do that, right?” I said. “Swatting duel spirits away from your face? It’s very visible.”
“You’d hate it too,” he grumbled. “Duel spirits, hanging around at all hours of the day!”
“I’d like to think I could handle it,” I said.
“Those Ojamas are ugly little shits,” said 100-Year Awakening, suddenly and without warning, from directly behind my left ear.
I just about jumped out of my skin. “Oh, you bitch!” I exclaimed.
“New friend?” said Chazz, smiling wickedly.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, whatever…” I collected all my pamphlets back as my duel spirit friend blew a raspberry in my ear and disintegrated. I had to smile. Uncle Zig sure knew how to throw a curveball. “You guys, I feel like things might be okay!”
“They will be,” said Syrus. “For you! Me, I’m about to fail Crowler’s test on field spells!”
“You have to let me make you flash cards next time,” I insisted.
Chazz put an arm around me. “You’re such a nerd.”
“Hey,” I said. “I could get PhDs! I’d be an expert!”
“Like Crowler?” Jaden suggested.
“Like Banner,” I corrected him.
“Sounds good!” said Jaden, high-fiving me across the table. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s bewildering how Jaden actually understands some things. He may not have apologized to me, but he’d stopped bugging me about a duel and started being my friend – and the thing about having Jaden as a friend is, he’s a pretty good one.
That night, Chazz and I went down to the beach and dueled the old-fashioned way, without the holograms and the trash talk, and guessed which boats were headed where and who was on them. And I didn’t mind that my jacket was an awful color, the mosquitos were the size of remote-control drones, and most of the school thought I was a whore. I was happy.