Author's Introduction:

(Firestar turns from her drafting board to address the audience.) Yeah. I'm as surprised as you are.

Love Gave The Wound

Strangers In My Way: Yugi Motou

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

(Sir Philip Sidney, from Astrophel and Stella)

It's the end of the school day. The classroom's empty. Everyone's gone home.

Everyone but me, that is.

Everyone but me, and Kokoranno, and...me.

The other me, that is—the other mysterious me, who always knows exactly what to say, exactly what to do. Everything about him is almost too cool, too skillful—his wrists flick languidly as he deals cards; his hands are graceful as he rolls dice. His eyes can see down to the depths of people's souls, and his silver tongue always has a witty remark for his opponent.

Today's opponent is Kokoranno, a tiny man with beady eyes that scan like nervous radar as he deals out his Post-It note predictions to his unsuspecting fans. He smirks at me from beneath his wild hair, but his panic is almost touchable as we face each other over a desk piled high with papers and a bottle of chloroform.

I hate the bottle of chloroform, wanting to grab it and dash it on the tiled floor in a fit of rage. I'm furious with the reason Kokoranno had the cholroform to begin with, the lust in his eyes as...

I shake the thoughts away. Kokoranno will get his. I've no doubt of that. He's a phony pretending to be a psychic, but he has to work a bit hard to make his predictions come true. I can still feel my skin prickle as the bookcases fell like enormous obscene dominoes in the library, eager to crush me beneath their weight. Luckily, I managed to escape, and now there's no need to worry anymore, is there? The other me is here now. He'll solve everything. I won't have to...

...do...

...anything.

The first flame of dissatisfaction licks at my mind.

Just for once, I wish this other me would let me fight my own battles. Just because I'm not tall and dark and enigmatic like him—does that mean I don't get a chance?

No one invited him here! No one asked him to just waltz in here and play games with my life like this! Doesn't he realize that if his graceful wrists pull even one sheet of paper the wrong way and that chloroform bottle shatters on the floor, that it will be me who's prone and helpless on the floor? I'm not expecting him to stick around for the aftermath if it goes wrong.

It's not that I'm not grateful for his help. I didn't always like being me—it's hard to be Yugi Motou, that short, shy pushover, that lonely, sad little wimp. But it was my life. I was me. Now this newer, cooler Yugi has somehow risen up to take my place, and I don't know how. If he wanted my life, he could take it. I'm not strong enough, not brave enough to compete with him.

If he's Yugi, what do I get to be?

It wasn't much of a life, but it was my life, and if he takes it away I've got nothing.

Not to mention, of course, the fact that he keeps risking aforementioned life in crazy, perilous games! Each time the stakes climb higher and higher, as if he's addicted, as if he can't get enough of the ecstasy of danger. What does he have to worry about anyway? It's my body, my friends, my risk.

The chloroform bottle suddenly splinters to dust on the floor in front of not me, but Kokoranno. He's swaying, dizzy, lost in his own fantasy of true psychic powers, but let him dream. I've won the game—well, one of me has won the game. And to my fury, it is that other me who's hurrying across the room to claim the prize.

Through his—my—our—eyes, I see the motivation for today's dangerous game. And for once, I absolve him completely of any blame I would ordinarily lay on him for taking his wild risks. The motivation, his reason, is something we have in common. Possibly the only thing we have in common. It's something—someone—I would risk my life for, too.

Tea is lying on the floor, eyelashes dark crescents on her pale face, crumpled like a broken doll against the tiles. She looks so fragile, so alone. Who wouldn't want to help this beautiful girl—who wouldn't risk their life for her?

But I haven't risked my life for her—he wouldn't give me the chance. He walks on my feet across the room to her, lying unconscious on the tiled floor, her glossy hair spread beneath her flushed cheek as she slumbers, unaware of the battle for her that has just gone on. He lifts her into my arms so he can hold her, uses my hands to brush her bangs away from her closed eyes, to stroke her cheek. It's my eyes that are resting so kindly on her, but he's the one who's looking.

"And over here...we have a sleeping beauty!" he chuckles, cradling her against his—my—shoulder. I'm furious with him, want him to put Tea down, now. I don't think he'll hurt her, but I don't want him calling her beautiful, dragging his knuckles down her cheek. I don't want him looking at her with that emotion in the eyes we're currently sharing. He has no right to do this—to take my body, my world, my life, my Tea!

"A sleeping beauty..." he murmurs again, pressing his cheek to hers briefly before closing his eyes. I can feel him relaxing, relinquishing control to me. How magnanimous of the body-snatcher, to let me have a turn! I could hit him. And he doesn't even know. That's the worst part! He doesn't mean it...

"Yugi?" Tea asks sleepily, blinking up at me. I find myself in full control of myself again, my arms suddenly full of her. She's confused, patiently waiting for me to tell her why I'm kneeling on the floor, cradling her against me. I hug her close, happy to be able to feel her warmth. Happy to be able to feel.

"You fainted, Tea," I say simply, not wanting to talk about it. "It'll be okay."

"Okay," she says dazedly, trustingly. I help her up, one arm possessively tight around her waist, and together we head for the classroom door, giving her the illusion that she's doing the walking, when actually it's all me.

"Thank you, Yugi," she says, her voice soft and drowsy still, leaning her slight weight against me.

My heart has never been heavier as I reply gravely,

"Don't thank me."

How this really happened: I was talking back and forth with a friend on DeviantART, and she said, "I didn't know you were a Yu-Gi-Oh! fan."

"Oh, sure," I said. "I love the early YGO manga in Shonen Jump, I've got tons…I even wrote a few fics back in the day." And then I remembered this story, and realized with a bit of a start that I'd forgotten one of the most important characters—Yugi himself! This chapter has actually been written for about sixteen seasons, and I just never put it up. Shame on me; now that's a wrong I just had to right.

The technical stuff: I know that this early in the manga, Yugi has no knowledge of the spirit living inside the Millennium Puzzle. However, it served this chapter's purpose better if he did. That's just creative license on my part.

Come sit with me, Yugi. Have a cup of tea and keep me company; I fear the shining wire tonight. There is no question, you are my friend.