Chapter Text
On tired legs, Aki crossed the plaza towards the Poppo Time building, intent on going down to the boys’ garage, as usual.
It wasn’t that today had been an especially taxing day, really; classes at the academy had been just the same as always. She wasn’t doing poorly in school or anything, either. In fact, she was still among the best-performing students on any and all tests.
Even so, recently, everything felt especially exhausting and wore Aki out more than usual.
In truth, she knew the reason. She almost wished she didn’t, though.
It had been a few weeks since her harrowing, (hopefully) final encounter with Divine now, when he had cruelly kidnapped Yusei in order to lure her to a meeting with him, but the shock and fear of the whole affair still crawled in her bones. The emotions this undesired meeting had whirled up had festered and tightened into this ugly, uncomfortable clump that seemed to follow Aki everywhere now, always sitting in her gut, ready to remind her of Divine, his poisonous words and the frightening duel she’d had with him even in the most inopportune moments. It sapped her energy, and she was acutely aware of it.
Worse yet, she knew it was affecting her performance at the duel academy, too. Though her test scores were fine, ever since she had seen Divine again, she felt… hesitant to duel others. Whatever security she had thought she’d had in terms of controlling her powers, it felt like the duel with Divine had ripped it away from her. Suddenly, she doubted her grip on her powers again, and for the first time in a long while, worried that she would hurt others again. Unfortunately, as though sensing her doubt, her powers seemed to respond to that.
There hadn’t been any incidents at the academy yet—thankfully—but with every passing day, she worried more that there might be, eventually. It was this sinking feeling lurking at the back of her mind. Though her classmates seemed to trust her well enough and didn’t seem to notice she was struggling, Aki knew something was off. Every time she duelled, she could feel her powers thrashing this way and that, tense and almost trembling, in a way. Perhaps she hadn’t hurt anyone yet, but every time she felt that trembling, she feared she was only one, tiny lapse in concentration away from injuring someone after all.
Just like she had injured Yusei, despite thinking, when she had accepted the duel against Divine, that she would be able not to.
She was still chewing on that, more than anything else. Try as she might, she couldn’t forgive herself for it, even though all the others—and most importantly, Yusei himself—did. He had even healed in the meantime, mostly.
For some reason, the forgiveness and assurances of her friends weren’t enough, though; not enough to shut up the tiny voice in her head that kept telling her she should have had a better grip on herself, that she should have been able to prevent this.
Do you really think you’ll be able to figure your powers out all by yourself? How will you ever be able to feel secure in your mastery of them?
The words were replaying in her mind for surely the hundredth time since she had gone to rescue Yusei from Divine’s clutches now, and she hated it. She despised the way Divine had burrowed in her head again, like a brain tumour slowly beginning to take hold. Even when he wasn’t controlling her, he could still poison her mind like this, exert his vile, corrupting influence over her—it was infuriating. The tainted hum of his voice seemed to follow her into her very sleep, saddling her with tiredness and headaches on top of everything else.
Sighing deeply, Aki tried to banish the seemingly permanent fog hanging over her mind and the slight ache behind her eyes before finally stepping through the open garage door.
“Hi, everyone,” she greeted automatically.
When she looked around the garage a moment later, however, she realised that there wasn’t an “everyone” today.
“Hey, Aki,” Yusei greeted, from where he was sitting next to Jack’s runner on the floor, tools and cables strewn around him as usual. He was the only one there.
“Are Jack and Crow not here?” Aki asked. In the aftermath of Yusei’s kidnapping and subsequent hospital stay, the other two had (understandably) seemed very eager not to leave him out of their sight for a while, which made it odd that neither of them were anywhere to be seen now.
Yusei shook his head. “Crow’s running deliveries and Jack was initially watching me work on his runner but grew tired of it and decided to go to that café across the plaza, I think. Or meet Carly. Or both. I wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest. I just know he left and will be back eventually. And I think the twins are out with their friends.”
Leaving her bag in the corner, Aki hummed. “Oh. Okay then.” Walking towards Yusei, drawn to his warm presence like a moth to a flame, Aki plucked up the courage to lean down to give him a kiss on the cheek. He leaned into it immediately. The novelty of that still hadn’t worn off; in fact, the novelty of their relationship in its entirety had yet to wear off. Though normally, she wouldn’t have greeted him quite as affectionately, albeit not for lack of wanting. Rather, they usually tried to avoid excessive teasing from Crow or one too many dramatic eye-rolls from Jack. When it was just the two of them like this, though, there was nothing holding them back.
“Hi,” she greeted again, quietly, while she was still leaning her head against his.
“Hey,” he breathed back, in that content tone she by now knew was always accompanied by a small smile.
Pulling back, Aki gave him a once-over with her eyes. They caught on the usual points they had already been doing for the last few weeks now; she couldn’t help it.
The cuts on Yusei’s face had healed nicely, though a tiny scar across his eyebrow remained. Some of the other injuries hadn’t faded quite as well, however. The burns around his neck were barely visible unless he tilted his head backwards and stretched the skin there, but Aki knew they could be felt under one’s fingertips, and the strap of the black tank top he was wearing only barely covered the relatively fresh scar across his shoulder. Looking at it still made Aki’s insides twist uncomfortably, remembering the ugly, deep gash that had caused it.
Yusei had brushed all concerns about the new scars off, of course, reiterating that they would blend in with all the old ones he already had. She was never quite sure whether he really meant that or whether he was pretending to for her sake, though.
Exhaling through her nose and not bothering with decorum, Aki sunk down onto the floor to sit behind Yusei and lean her forehead against his right shoulder. Gingerly, her hands came up to wrap around his waist, careful to avoid the left side of his ribs—the only injury that hadn’t fully healed yet.
“Exhausted?” he asked, understanding.
“Mh-hmm.” She decided not to elaborate just yet, instead breathing in the weird mix of laundry detergent, sweat, and engine grease that seemed to cling to him today. If anyone had told her a year ago that she would ever find this combination of smells comforting, she would have called them crazy. Now, it brought her such immediate calm that she closed her eyes on reflex.
Having the opportunity to be with him like this, to savour this new relationship brought her more joy than she could describe. It was like someone had lit a fire inside her—not a scorching, destructive thing, but instead a pleasant, nurturing flame, providing warmth and comfort. The feeling was addictive. Not to speak of the fact that this relationship seemed to bring her a stability that had been sorely lacking in her life before, because Yusei was like a port in a storm. No matter how high-strung her emotions, no matter how frazzled her nerves, she could always come to him and count on it that his presence alone would be enough to help her calm down. She’d technically already had that back when they were just friends, but now, it was even stronger. Aside from that, she relished the way he seemed to welcome every gesture, every touch, every crumb of attention she could spare him. He took everything, gracefully and gratefully, and gave twice as much back.
Yet, at the same time, being with him like this came with a cutting, decisive pain—looking at him hurt, accepting his kindness and adoration hurt, because she felt like she didn’t deserve it. Not after what she had done to him. Even though Yusei had forgiven her for everything, even though he seemed to welcome and cherish her presence like none of it had ever happened.
He seemed happily blinded to all the scars she had given him, old ones, from back when she had been Arcadia’s poster girl first and everything else second, and new ones alike. Meanwhile, she couldn’t look away from them, each and every one feeling like it was a scar on her heart, too.
But heavens help her, nothing could have made her give up the sweetness of those smiles he only reserved for her now, or the comfort of his embrace. He was like the sun to her, and she was the flower struggling in the shade, stretching out to feel his endless warmth.
Perhaps this was exactly the kind of punishment she deserved, she thought. Perhaps she deserved to eternally wither in her own guilt while Yusei kept tending to her like he was trying to save a priceless rose from wilting. The most bittersweet purgatory.
Of course, it was his warm, guileless voice that drew her out of her thoughts.
“Anything happen to tire you out this much? There hasn’t been any more trouble with that Heitmann guy, has there?”
Despite everything, Aki breathed a small chuckle against Yusei’s shirt. “No, thankfully. He’s been awfully quiet ever since that duel.”
Yusei hummed, putting the screwdriver he had been holding aside in order to gently take one of her hands, lift it up and kiss her wrist.
Aki’s breath hitched.
“Just the usual, then?” he asked, and she knew it wasn’t out of curiosity. Even before they had gotten together, Aki had known that Yusei did this thing, where he would offer others to vent whatever was bothering them by asking seemingly innocuous, general questions. If they kept denying them or brushing them off, he would leave it alone, never one to push, never one to dig.
Aki raised her head until she could almost rest her chin on his shoulder. “It’s not… It’s more than just the usual.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She sighed again, her hold on him tightening just a fraction. He let her know he appreciated it by squeezing the hand he had been holding before briefly.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’d help. But… before I get to that, how are your ribs?”
If there was one thing Aki had learned blindingly fast after getting together with Yusei, then that he was a complete, medical hypocrite—insofar as that he would diligently check on anyone else who was injured, make sure they were resting and healing well, but would completely sweep all that under the rug when it came to himself. Worse yet, where things like doctor’s orders and prescriptions were concerned, he was a downright disaster. Not because he thought he knew better, but because he got so caught up trying to get back to normal life and focussing on all his projects and what not immediately that he simply forgot he was supposed to be keeping himself in check.
Needless to say, Aki understood Crow’s frustrations with his foster-brother in that regard much better now. As such, she had also taken to aiding Crow in keeping track of what Yusei couldn’t keep track of himself; namely, his health.
As he peeked at her over his shoulder, Aki could see Yusei’s brows furrow for just a second. “They’re fine, Aki. It’s practically nothing now. It’s not that bad.”
Yusei’d say ‘it’s not that bad’ even if he was carrying his freshly hacked-off left arm in a bag, Crow’s voice echoed in Aki’s head immediately, and it irked her that she now knew it was completely true.
“Isn’t it?” she asked. “Can you breathe deeply without it stinging yet?”
Yusei avoided her eyes.
Busted.
“Mostly.”
“You know you still have pain killers you’re supposed to be taking if it stings, right? It’s important that you breathe as normally as possible. Have you been taking them as prescribed?” Aki didn’t necessarily like having to nag at him, but it wasn’t like they were talking about house chores Yusei had forgotten to do—this was about his health, literally one of the most important things in life. Not that it seemed like he sorted his priorities that way.
Yusei sighed. “I thought I could lay off them already. I think they make me tired, and I don’t like it.”
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Aki murmured, “Maybe. Or maybe what’s making you tired is the fact that your body’s trying to heal three cracked ribs despite you barely accommodating for that. You know that the doctor’s orders to take it easy and rest when you need to weren’t just for show, right?”
With a huff, Yusei slumped back against her, letting his head roll back onto her shoulder. “I know, I know,” he acquiesced, “I’m just… bad at remembering that.”
The weight of him against her was comfortable, in a way, even if the angle was odd. “I’ve noticed.” Her left hand very gently came up to brush against his left side, where she knew the cracked ribs were. They had to be at least close to healing fully, if nothing else. “Does it sting?”
Yusei hummed. “A bit. I didn’t really notice it while I was working, before.”
“You don’t seem to notice anything while you’re working. I’m starting to worry you might pass out from exhaustion or starve in front of your runner if we let you.”
Yusei gave a half-smile, turning his head so he was nuzzling her neck. Aki tried to fight the blush rising to her cheeks and failed. The touch was welcomed, of course, but she still hadn’t really gotten used to it, even though touches like these had quickly increased in frequency between them. It had turned out they were both naturally touch-starved people, which perhaps wasn't surprising, given that Aki had downright avoided people for a lot of her life and that Yusei had grown up in Satellite, where there simply hadn't been many opportunities to get touchy-feely with others. As such, they had swiftly welcomed being able to give one another what they had missed without knowing they did before—physical affection.
"I'm not that bad," he tried to protest, but it sounded half-hearted, at best.
She leaned into his touch, but still said, "Take a painkiller? Please?"
Humming again, Yusei said, "Fine." With the hint of a pout, he added, "You're strict."
Aki shook her head ever so slightly. "I'm worried about you."
Sitting back up—and blatantly proving that his ribs did still hurt, judging by how carefully he did it—Yusei took her hand again, pressing a kiss to it. "I know. I'm just teasing. I appreciate it."
Giving a small huff and a smile, Aki made to get up. "Where did you leave them? I'll get you one, and a glass of water."
"By the laptop," he told her, gesturing in the direction of the one, measly table they kept in the garage. "And thanks."
While she made her way to the laptop, he added, "Speaking of which, could you give me the laptop, too, please? I need to connect it to the computer of Jack's runner."
She hummed an affirmative, getting both from the table. Passing Yusei the laptop on the way back, she quickly went upstairs to fetch the glass of water, as well.
When she came back downstairs, Yusei was sitting cross-legged in front of Jack’s runner, the laptop placed in his lap a little awkwardly, several cables already leading from it to an open panel on the runner. He was also absent-mindedly running a hand over his ribs.
“It’s practically nothing”, my foot. He’s hopeless.
Approaching him again, she tapped his shoulder, handing him the painkiller and the glass of water. Yusei thanked her quietly and she sat back down on the floor next to him. If nothing else, he at least didn’t hesitate to take the painkiller now that she had given it to him.
Aki, meanwhile, moved so they were sitting back-to-back, then gently leaned against him. She could feel Yusei press back against her, and as soon as his left hand was free, he reached back to grab her right with it. It was a slightly awkward position for their hands to be intertwined, but Aki didn’t mind. She relished the feeling of their fingers brushing against one another. Despite the fact that they were mostly rough, littered with callouses, and usually stained with some kind of engine grease, Aki had never in her life met someone with hands as gentle as Yusei’s.
“So, now that I’m all set, do you still want to talk about whatever was bothering you earlier?” Yusei asked, while he was tapping away on the laptop with his free hand.
Aki pressed her lips together, thinking it over. On one hand, she didn’t want to dump all of her anxiety on him, but on the other, she knew he wouldn’t judge her if she needed to work through it. Quite the contrary, he would probably encourage her to be open about it.
“Saying I ‘want to’ talk about it is a bit of a stretch. But maybe that’ll make it better…” She let out a slow breath, collecting herself. Then, she began, “It’s just… I’m worried, recently. When I duel, I mean. I thought I was doing all right with controlling my powers, but ever since the duel with Divine… I feel like I can’t get a grip. Every time I duel, it feels like I spend more energy worrying about what my powers will do and how to direct them without hurting anyone than I do formulating strategies.” Unintentionally, her voice had gotten consistently quieter as she talked.
She could feel Yusei give her hand a gentle squeeze. In a moment like this, it was almost better that she didn’t have to look at him, because she wasn’t sure she could have withstood the undoubtedly soft, worried expression on his face.
“Did anything happen to warrant that worry?” he asked, similarly quiet.
“Aside from me sending you to the hospital, you mean?” Aki had gotten even quieter, shame curling in her gut anew as she said it.
She could feel, more than see him turning his head to peek at her. “Aki, that wasn’t on purpose.”
“In light of the outcome, I don’t think my intentions matter.”
“I’d argue they do. The whole situation was rigged against you, Aki. Keeping that in mind, you did the best you could. Besides, I’m fine now, aren’t I?”
“You say that with three cracked ribs.”
A sigh could be heard from him. Then, he pushed back against her, gently signalling her to sit up, and shifted until he was facing her, leaving the laptop behind himself on the floor. Having to look up into his indigo eyes was every bit as disarming as Aki thought it would be. It only got worse when he gingerly started stroking her cheek with the knuckles of his right hand.
“I know what happened was horrible for you, and I know you wish you’d been able to deal with the situation differently. But I forgive you, everyone else forgives you, and you don’t deserve having to tear yourself apart from the inside about this,” Yusei said, softly, punctuating his words with a small kiss to her forehead.
Aki felt a lump form in her throat and tried swallowing around it. “I just… I’m worried I might slip up and injure someone. What if it happens again? What if I hurt people and…” And they become scared of me, and avoid me, and call me a monster again. “What if I hurt you again?”
Yusei’s gaze stayed unbearably soft, and Aki leaned into the warmth of his hand like he was the first source of heat after she had walked through a snowstorm.
“Why would you hurt me? I know you don’t want to.”
Not knowing what to do with her hands—or what to do with herself, in general—Aki balled her fists in her skirt. “No, but I could slip up, I could do it on accident. Because apparently my grip on these powers isn’t as good as I thought it was and…” Her words lost themselves, the guilt and doubt tying her throat shut.
Yusei’s left hand came to mirror his right when he placed it against her other cheek. “Aki, that’s the fear talking. I know how much headway you were already making with your powers before all this happened. And so do you. And that wasn’t for nothing. Duelling Divine upset you and made you doubt yourself; I get that. Believe me, I do. But don’t allow that fear to control you.” He paused, then added, “Besides, you duel people at the academy, don’t you?”
She made a small noise of protest. “Well, yes. I kind of have to. It’s not called ‘duel academy’ for nothing, after all.”
“And did anything happen?”
“Well… No. Not yet.”
“Scratch the ‘not yet’. Nothing happened. That means your fear’s a liar. As most of them are.” He said it with so much conviction, like it was obvious.
Aki couldn’t bring up the same amount of optimism. “Something might still go wrong. It feels like I’m fighting not to let something terrible happen every duel. Like my powers are straying, somehow… somehow slipping.” She brought her hands up to cover Yusei’s, the sensation of his hands against her cheeks feeling like the only thing that tied her to reality right now.
Yusei’s brows furrowed in thought. “Have you tried identifying when and why they feel like that?”
Aki briefly bit her lip. “I know the ‘when’. Every time I duel, especially when it’s my turn. But I don’t know the ‘why’. The only theory I have is that Divine… somehow did something to them, but that doesn’t hold up, does it? After all, when should he have? It… it doesn’t make sense.” She sighed, trying to relieve tension. “All I know is that I can feel how it’s wearing me out, how the stress is whittling away at me. It’s affecting my duelling performance, too—I feel like I’m not nearly as good as I would be if I didn’t have to worry about this.” When she made to rub her eyes with her hands, Yusei removed his from her face.
A moment later, they returned when he gently brought them up around her, pulling her in. Uttering no protest, Aki melted into his embrace, relishing the warmth of his chest as her cheek pressed against it. From this position, she could ever so quietly hear his heartbeat, something that brought her an indescribable feeling of peace.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured, and despite her doubts, she couldn’t help but believe him. “Whatever it is, it won’t last forever. Maybe I can help you get out of this low somehow.”
She hummed into his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist again. If she could have whiled away her time doing nothing but leaning against him like this, she wouldn’t have been half as anxious, she thought.
~*~*~
Yusei, meanwhile, tried to think of something, anything he could do to improve this situation. He hated that Aki still blamed herself for what had happened with Divine. Where he was concerned, none of it had been her fault in the slightest—he didn’t blame her one bit, not for the kidnapping and not for his injuries.
That aside, even if he had blamed her in any capacity, just what she had done in the last weeks would have more than made up for it. During his recovery, she had been there every step of the way, doing everything she could to help. She had visited him while he had still been in the hospital, she had helped procure the prescription medications he was supposed to be taking several times, she had accompanied him to get the stitches removed and when Crow and Jack were too anxious to leave him all by himself, but had to go out for some reason, she would always come over to keep him company and assuage his brothers’ fears.
Obviously, Aki still seemed to think she didn’t deserve forgiveness, and he didn’t know how to convince her otherwise. He recognised that it wasn’t as simple as telling her she didn’t have to blame herself, either, even though he tried anyway. Guilt was something he had enough familiarity with to know that it wasn’t so easy to shake.
Still, he tried to think of something he could do, some way he might help her after all, as he didn’t want to leave her alone with this.
It was clear that the duel with Divine, despite not having been her fault, had shaken Aki’s confidence to its core. Whatever strides she had made with her powers before—and Yusei knew she had been doing her best to fully get them under control—Divine had all but undone them in one fell swoop. It begged the question how, exactly, he had even accomplished that. While it was clear that having to see him again was deeply upsetting to Aki, Yusei could not quite figure out how the upset correlated with her grasp on her psychic powers seemingly weakening out of nowhere.
Though it wasn’t his fondest memory—mostly because of Divine’s constant, disgusting manhandling—Yusei tried thinking back to the duel, to what had happened during it.
Aki was tense from the start, but it got significantly worse after she hit me the first time. She probably wasn’t expecting she’d hurt me. She was hoping she’d be able to get only Divine from the beginning.
Adjusting his hold on Aki ever so slightly, Yusei leaned down to kiss the top of her head. She breathed out slowly, continuing to lean against him. He didn’t mind; as far as he was concerned, they could have stayed like that forever. In just the few weeks between that unfortunate encounter with Divine and now, he had already learned that they were both most content when they could be in each other’s arms.
Yusei continued reviewing his memories, in the meantime, trying to find anything that could help him understand the situation.
In comparison to the later attacks, the first two were relatively tame, though. All I got from them were two cuts and a bit of dust in my eyes. Why were the later ones so much worse, then? Was it because of Thorn of Malice? Because it heightened Black Rose Dragon’s attack points? Or…
He remembered Aki’s helpless, frightened expression, the fear in her eyes that became consistently worse as the duel went on.
She got more and more worried the longer the duel went on. She was so afraid of hurting me… What if that’s it? What if the fear was the thing that let her spiral further and further out of control? Her powers are tied to her emotions to some degree, aren’t they? Then by that logic, the calmer the is, the easier it should be not to hurt people in a duel, no?
Yusei was letting these thoughts run their course while he idly stroked a hand through Aki’s hair. His heart gave a soft pang when she nuzzled into his chest, her brows furrowing.
If you could just see yourself the way I see you.
He wished there had been an easy fix for this, a way to show her that she didn’t need to doubt herself, that the forgiveness she had been granted was deserved. Nothing hurt more than having to watch her tear herself apart over this, to have it hang over them like a shadow. He wanted her to be able to savour this new relationship between them just as much as he did, without any doubts or guilt eating away at her.
“You say it’s during duels when your powers feel the most unstable, because you’re worried you might hurt someone. Do you think it would help being able to duel someone without having to worry about that?” Yusei asked, a theory taking shape in his mind.
Aki hummed. “I… Maybe?”
“Well, you do still want to get the hang of your powers, despite everything, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I want to be able to use them without hurting people—and I thought I was so close to pulling that off, too, at least… At least before all this.” Her hand was stroking along his left side ever so gently again, the touch barely strong enough to register. “I feel like it’s my duty to be able to control them. I don’t want to be a danger to others.”
I don’t want them to call me a monster and abandon me again.
She didn’t say it, but between the lines, Yusei heard it anyway. Not that he could blame her. No matter what her powers did, she didn’t deserve to be isolated. But he knew how people could get when they were exposed to something they didn’t understand or something they thought might threaten them. It was dangerously easy to fall into the pattern of pushing away, of ostracising anything that was unfamiliar and frightening, even if it was a living, breathing being who could feel deeply hurt by this.
Coming to a sort of agreement with himself, Yusei took a breath, then said, “Duel me.”
Aki stilled immediately, then sat up to stare at him, uncomprehending. “What?”
Yusei tilted his head, trying to keep his expression as neutral as possible. “Duel me,” he repeated.
Aki searched his eyes in confusion, her brows furrowed. “Why? Are—Are you crazy? You’re literally still healing from the last duel with me you were involved in!”
Patiently, he shook his head. “That doesn’t count, Aki. You weren’t duelling me, then. You were duelling Divine. And none of what he did during that duel remotely counts as ‘fair’.”
Putting a bit of distance between them, Aki sat on her feet, still staring at him as though he had randomly grown a second head. “Even if it doesn’t—My previous duels with you weren’t exactly harmless, either.”
He shook his head again. “Those don’t count, either. You didn’t even know you could use your powers in a way that doesn’t hurt people, back then.” He purposefully didn’t say that she had also intentionally used them to hurt others, at the time. Given how much her perception of herself during that period of her life had soured between the Arcadia Movement collapsing and now, he thought it would be cruel to remind her of it.
Aki averted her gaze, one hand coming up to fiddle with her necklace—a nervous habit, he knew. “I still don’t know whether I really can direct them without hurting anyone.”
Shifting a bit closer again and putting his hand under her chin, he gently tried getting her to look at him; not pushing, just letting his fingertips ghost against her skin. She followed the movement without resistance, then leaned into his hand when he moved it to stroke her cheek.
“You’ve been back at duel academy for a while now, but you didn’t hurt anyone there, did you?”
“I, well… no.”
“And if I remember correctly, your dad challenged you once to make up for all the duels he missed over the years, didn’t he? You didn’t hurt him, either.”
“…No, but…”
“And didn’t Rua challenge you at some point, too? He might not have phrased it that way, but I think he wanted his chance to go up against the mysterious duellist from the Daimon area, after all.” He didn’t say “witch”. He would never say “witch”, he refused to. It wasn’t what she was, and he never wanted her to feel the sting of the hatred associated with the word ever again. “You didn’t hurt him, either. Even though he was a little frightened when you summoned Black Rose Dragon.”
Aki kept glancing at him, then elsewhere again, as though she couldn’t bear to hold his gaze. “I… I didn’t, no. But most of that was before the duel with Divine.” Her protest was half-hearted, at best.
“Not all of it, though. And between the duel and now, you haven’t hurt anyone, either.”
“I… No. I guess I didn’t.”
Taking the chance, Yusei leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. He made no secret of his intentions, but stopped at the last few centimetres between them, searching out her eyes, a voiceless question hanging in the air. Though Aki had stiffened briefly at the unexpected nature of his movement, she seemed to realise what he was requesting in that moment and flushed. To his delight, she closed the remaining distance between them seconds later, enthusiastically granting him the short, sweet kiss he had wanted. Despite everything, it was still a bit new, getting to kiss each other and everything. Shamelessly, Yusei took advantage of it as much as he could.
Kissing her felt like it made the world that much brighter, like it made life explode with colours and something in his chest jump in childlike joy. He almost couldn’t get enough of it, and paced himself only because he worried he might strain her patience if he didn’t.
When he pulled away again, he said, “I think you should be a bit kinder to yourself. You can direct your powers without hurting people. I’m sure of it.”
Her expression had softened considerably, but there was still a small frown on her face. “I’m not sure duelling you is the best way to test that hypothesis.”
“That’s not the hypothesis I mean to test, anyway.”
Now, some curiosity seeped into her features. “But there is a hypothesis you mean to test?”
He hummed. “Mostly, I just want to help you regain some confidence in your abilities. But there is something I’ve been thinking about.”
She didn’t put more space between them again—if he had wanted, he could have simply closed the distance and kissed her again. And again. Yusei liked that thought more than he wanted to admit.
“That being?” There was still worry clouding her face. Yusei kept caressing her cheek, relishing the way it seemed to erode that worry little by little.
“Your powers are in some capacity linked to your emotions, right? And at the Arcadia Movement, you were taught to focus on rage when you used them?”
Though something in Aki’s eyes darkened at the mention of the movement—it always did—she nodded. “Divine always encouraged me to think of all the things I could be angry about. All the ways in which I’d been wronged, or the fact that normal society would never accept me. He… He always said I could turn that pain into power.”
Yusei frowned. “I don’t think that’s how ‘turning pain into power’ works. Isn’t the idea when people say that usually to work through that pain and rise above it, rather than cause yourself more pain and put other people at the mercy of your emotions?”
“That’s evidently not how Divine interpreted it,” Aki said in a flat tone, her displeasure at having to think of that man again evident.
As such, Yusei steered the topic away from him, “Seems that way. But my point is, he seemed to know that your powers correlate with your emotions, too. He just had you focussing on your anger. What if you need a different focus in order to fully control them in a way that doesn’t endanger others?”
In between, she nuzzled into his hand again. His heart gave a funny little jolt when she did it. Then, she tilted her head, confused. “Like what?”
“In every duel where you’ve hurt someone or damaged something—excluding the second one with Misty—you were always in some way upset, angry, hurt, or all of those. The destruction always resulted from inner turmoil. So, by that logic, if you were completely calm, nothing should happen, right?”
She pressed her lips together for a moment, her eyebrows drawn together in a thoughtful frown. “How am I supposed to guarantee that I’ll be able to stay calm during a duel, though? Maybe during one that’s simply for fun, but if there are stakes? If there’s something important on the line?”
“Maybe there’s a way you can achieve the kind of calm that’d keep your powers harmless, even then. But that’s not the point now. The point right now is just to see whether I could be right and your state of mind does directly correlate with how your powers behave.” Looking directly into her eyes, with no malice, concern, or fear, he repeated, “So. Duel me.”
All the concern that he lacked, she seemed to compensate for tenfold just with her expression alone. “How am I supposed to guarantee I’ll be able to stay calm in a duel with you?”
Yusei gave a light shrug. “I trust you.”
Aki’s frown deepened as she minutely shook her head. “You shouldn’t.”
A small sigh escaped him, not so much frustrated as he was worried for her.
You don’t deserve to beat yourself up like this, he wanted to say, but worried she would deny it.
“Aki, you have to start somewhere, don’t you?”
“And you want me to use you as a guinea pig?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t mind.”
“Yusei, I don’t want to hurt you.”
His hands moved to rub her upper arms. “You won’t.”
There was something almost dismayed to the look she gave him. “How are you supposed to know that?”
“Call it a gut feeling.” She seemed to want to scoff at that, but he stopped her by adding, “Aki, when you didn’t want to hurt your father, you were able to stop yourself, too. And there’s no Divine to drag me into the impact zone of attacks that were meant for him this time. That aside, what if really getting the hang of these powers is a matter of practice, just as anything else is? Then how are you supposed to get practice if you don’t have anyone you trust yourself to practice with?”
For a moment, she only looked at him with a blank expression. Then, she began shaking her head, though it appeared to be more in disbelief than disapproval. “Why are you so eager to help others when you know it comes at the cost of your own safety?”
Because I have to.
The thought was immediate and not unfamiliar, but Yusei didn’t voice it, instead remaining quiet at first. He didn’t really know what to say to that question to begin with, and even more so, he knew that no answer he could give would satisfy her.
“Aki, if there’s anything that indicates things might start going wrong, we can still stop,” he then told her, quietly.
The concern in her expression lessened only by a fraction. Even so, she seemed to be considering the idea, at least.
“I just want to help. I don’t want to leave you alone with this,” Yusei added.
Aki sighed. “I know you do. I just wish there was a way to help with this that didn’t include a risk of you or anyone else getting hurt.” Her eyes flitting this way and that, she seemed to be thinking about his idea for a moment longer before she took a breath, looked at him sternly and said, “Okay. I’ll duel you. But if anything starts to look like it might go wrong, we stop. Immediately. Outcome be damned.” She was tapping her index finger against his chest as she spoke.
Yusei held her gaze, nodding. “You have my word.” He took the hand poking at his chest and held it, gently. “On my honour as a duellist.”
Corny though it was, it had the desired effect, as Aki’s features softened and she seemed to be holding back a roll of her eyes. Now less stern, but no less determined for it, she said, “And we do this somewhere where I won’t have to worry about property damage, either.”
Thinking of possible locations, Yusei quickly came up with a spot they could go to. “All right.”
Having gotten what she wanted, Aki almost seemed to deflate a bit. “And if your ribs start bothering you, we stop, too. You’re supposed to be careful,” she added, seemingly as an afterthought, now much less serious than before.
Yusei quirked the ghost of a smile. “I’m also supposed to be talking walks and making sure I breathe deeply and normally, though, aren’t I?”
Aki raised one of her eyebrows at him. “If you’ve been listening to the doctor’s instructions well enough to remember that, how come you’re so bad at sticking to the rest of them?”
It was Yusei’s turn to avoid her eyes as heat rose to his cheeks. “You… You’ve got me there.”
“You’re hopeless,” she murmured, but he could have sworn he had heard a note of amusement in her tone.
He looked at her again, smiling. “Shall we go, then?”
Aki let out a breath, then braced her hands on the floor. “Fine. Where will we be going?”
Yusei got up at the same time as she did, though slower, as not to accidentally move in a way that could upset his ribs. “I think I know a place. We’ll have to ride the monorail for a few stations, though. And…” From where he stood, he looked down at the abandoned laptop and Jack’s runner. “Before we leave, I should probably get that software upgrade for Jack’s runner started. That way, it’ll run while I’m away.”
Before he could even entertain the idea of asking her, Aki had already leaned down, picked the laptop up and placed it in his hands. Yet another reminder that she had all the things he was and wasn’t technically allowed to do with his cracked ribs much better memorised than he did.
“You should probably also shoot Jack and Crow a message that you’re out with me, lest they start panic-calling everyone in your friend circle if they don’t find you here,” Aki suggested.
Closing his eyes, Yusei gave a small sigh. “Right. Don’t want them to think I got kidnapped twice in the span of a month. But after that, we leave.”
Aki hummed her assent, though she still didn’t look enthusiastic about the whole idea.
~*~*~
A few monorail stations and a short walk brought them to a forest at the edge of the city. Aki had the vague feeling she had been here before, ages ago, probably on a school trip or something. Though she could not for the life of her remember why.
She and Yusei were walking hand in hand, which still managed to feel like a novelty even though they had done it several times before, at this point. He had requested—and that was just the thing, wasn’t it, Yusei requested these things instead of just doing them on presupposed consent—to hold her hand almost the second they had been out of the house and, short of when he needed to do necessary things like scan his monorail ticket, he had barely let it go. He had even foregone his gloves, leaving them at the garage and treating Aki to the warmth of his slightly rough palms.
Not that she minded the handholding, not at all. It was just… still almost strange, to think he would not only want to be this close to her, but want to do it in public, where people could see and would know that he, Yusei Fudo, star duellist and more or less the city’s hero, was together with her, too. He didn’t seem at all ashamed of or embarrassed about being seen with her, in a context that left nothing to the imagination where their relationship status was concerned. Just the awareness of that did things to Aki’s head.
“Why here?” she asked out of the blue, trying to chase away her own brain-fuzz.
Yusei briefly looked at her, then let his gaze sweep over the trees surrounding them. “Well, mostly because you said you wanted to go somewhere without risk of property damage. And… there’s no property here, far as I know. But also because I just like it here. I found this forest not long after we moved to the mainland, one of those days where I was just driving around to learn the layout of the city. It reminds me a bit of the green areas surrounding Martha’s place. Except there’s… well, even more green here.” He shrugged. “I haven’t gone all that far inside the forest yet, to be honest, so I don’t know how far it goes. But what I saw from my runner was nice.”
Looking around them, Aki could agree with that assessment. While it was true that she had a soft spot for gardens, forests, and green areas in general, it seemed to be particularly lovely here—especially considering how close they still were to the city. The nearest apartment buildings, parking lots and fast-food joints were only a quick jaunt away, even on foot. Even so, the noise seemed to fade away almost entirely after only a few minutes of walking, leaving only the rustling of leaves, branches crunching underfoot and birdsong in its wake. Above, sunlight filtered through the trees, hitting the forest floor to create a patchwork of illuminated spots, perfectly completing the image of a peaceful forest, despite the close proximity to hustle and bustle of New Domino.
When they reached a clearing, Yusei stopped, taking in the area.
“I think here should be good. That all right with you?” he asked, his eyes on her.
Aki swallowed, her earlier worry rearing its head again. While making the trip here, getting to talk to Yusei and being distracted by the feeling of his hand holding hers, it had been easy to forget the purpose for their little excursion. Now, she became uncomfortably aware of it again, though.
Taking in the area just the same as he had seconds ago, Aki made her own notes about the location.
It’s spacious enough for a duel… and he’s right, there are no buildings or anything. We didn’t see people on the way here, either.
She glanced up at the treetops, judging their height.
If I summon Black Rose Dragon here, her head might still be visible above some of them.
In spite of her gut twisting with anxiety, Aki gave Yusei a nod, stiff though it was.
“This place should be fine.” Slowly, she let the strap of her bag slip down her shoulder and released Yusei’s hand in order to take out the duel disk inside.
Yusei hadn’t bothered with a bag, of course—he had simply put on his usual bracer and lifted the duel disk right from his runner.
As soon as she had put hers on—with a not insignificant amount of trepidation—he stepped towards her and did that thing he had already done in the garage again, where he gingerly reached for her face.
Divine had often approached her like this, too, had caught her chin between his thumb and index finger to urge her to look at him. It was surprising how different a functionally identical movement could be between two people. When Yusei approached her like this, he didn’t catch her chin in his hand, didn’t hold onto her, directing her gaze as he wished. Rather, his fingers gingerly touched her just under her jaw, closer to her right cheek. Additionally, the touch itself wasn’t so much a command to look at him—as it had been with Divine, as all things had been with Divine, under the surface—but rather, a suggestion to tilt up her head, almost a nonverbal plea to answer his gaze. Even when he was taking the initiative, Yusei still found space to let her make up her own mind, to reject whatever he meant to do if she didn’t like it. Perhaps it shouldn’t have boggled Aki’s mind as much as it did.
She followed the gentle touch of his fingers this time, too, looking at him without hesitation.
“Just… something I wanted to tell you before we get started. This isn’t an experiment, and this isn’t a test, okay? Sure, I’d like to figure out whether my theory from earlier was right, but that’s not the purpose of this duel. This is because I want you to have a chance to regain some confidence. And I know you’re nervous, but… I want you to think of this as just a run-of-the-mill, leisure-time duel, first and foremost.” He came even closer, stroking her cheek again. She leaned into it, greedy like a spoiled house cat. Aki couldn’t help but think she could have comfortably gotten lost in the endless-seeming blue of his eyes. “You’ve got nothing to prove to me, all right? And if you want to stop, we stop. For whatever reason. I promise I won’t make a fuss or get miffed about it. I just want you to have a chance to feel more at ease in your own skin again.”
He was leaving it all up to her. The duel, her choice. When to end it, her choice. He was giving her all the freedom in the world. Of course he was. Even knowing that it would be in his character to do so, though, Aki couldn’t help but feel almost overwhelmed by this amount of agency.
“…Okay,” she agreed, belated.
He smiled, that content, soft smile she knew he saved for her. She still didn’t know how she deserved it. Then, to top it off, he pressed a kiss to her cheek, prompting heat to flood her face.
“Let’s do this, then. I haven’t duelled standing in a while, anyway. Who knows, maybe you’ll snatch that victory you missed out on during the Fortune Cup.” There was a distinct note of amusement in his voice as he stepped away from her to take his place on one side of the clearing.
Aki huffed, pretending not to be flustered. “As if. If Jack can’t beat you, neither can I.”
“Don’t say that. You’ve got a completely different duelling style than Jack.”
“Still doesn’t make me better than you,” Aki threw over her shoulder as she walked to the other side of the clearing. The anxiety still sat in her gut, a sharp, cruel thing; the darkness, ready to creep back in and swallow her. Between Yusei offering her to stop the duel whenever she wanted to and his casual, not at all concerned tone, the edge was taken off just a bit, though. She wasn’t at ease by a long shot, but it was significantly better than it had been before.
As she came to stand opposite him, one more thing occurred to Aki. “Ah… Who goes first?”
Ladies first, her mind unkindly supplied her with, in Divine’s smooth, venomous voice.
Yusei, meanwhile, shrugged. “I don’t particularly care.” Looking down at himself, he suddenly began pawing his jeans’ pockets. “Wanna do this old-school and toss a coin? If I can find one, that is. I’m pretty sure I had some spare change somewhere, last I checked.” Before she could even answer, he had already produced a coin from one of his back pockets.
Aki nodded at him.
“All right, heads or tails?” Yusei asked.
“Heads.”
With what looked like practiced ease, Yusei tossed the coin high in the air, caught it with two hands hand put it against his palm. “And heads it is. You go first.”
While Yusei pocketed the coin again, Aki took her usual stance and pushed the button on her duel disk to make it extend to its full length.
As soon as he mirrored her movement, although without the need to press a button, they both instinctually called, “Duel!”
Aki could already feel her heartbeat quicken before she had even drawn five cards. She kept her eyes on Yusei’s and found not even a hint of trepidation, let alone fear there.
We can stop anytime, she repeated his words in her head.