fitzcaelte

nope. nowhere near a keyboard. Seriously.Coolness Factor (part 3 of 3)a Yuugioh! fanficPart 1 herePart 2 hereRating: PG-13 for swearingSummary: Yuugi is the kid everyone picks on, Jounouchi and Honda are the ones doing the picking-on, Anzu is his only friend in the whole world, Ushio is a jerk, and 'Yami' ... is the new kid.The school grounds were quite dark at midnight, especially at the dirt track. The lights of the street were some two hundred meters away, and three walls of the school sheltered the space from view. Since the only security guard was usually fast asleep in his chair by ten, it was a perfect place to conduct illegal business - a fact Jounouchi, Honda, and Ushio could all attest to.Ushio came to the grounds a few minutes before midnight, swaggering in with his hands in his pockets. He had a pair of brass knuckles tucked away there, just in case he needed extra intimidation. It was unlikely, all considered; Mutou was a well-known wimp, a total pushover.Of course, he wasn't expecting the kid to have ten thousand yen tonight. No; that would actually make it too easy. Mutou would show up with whatever money he'd managed to scrape together in the scant hours since school had ended, and then Ushio would beat him up a little and demand the rest - with interest. It was a guarenteed money source for quite possibly the rest of the school year.The grounds were very silent. The cicadas sang; the air was uncomfortably muggy, even at this late hour. Ushio wondered if it would rain.And where the hell was Mutou?"Hello, Ushio-senpai," someone said from where the light was at its dimmest, near where the vault mats were stored against the gym shed. "You're right on time."Ushio turned to look, but it was so dark in that corner that it took a bit of time for his eyes to adjust to the poor light. It had to be Mutou; the kid standing there was short, and his hair was that crazy Mutou style. But he sounded way too confident for his own good. "Mutou?" he asked anyway."Who else would be here?" Mutou asked. As Ushio drew closer, he backed away and around one of the vaulting mats. It was chest-height for Mutou, so it probably looked like a decent source of protection to him. Ushio smirked."You bring the money?" he asked, still not taking his hands out of his pockets. He leaned menacingly over the vault mat, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark.Mutou twisted and ducked his head, reaching for something in his back pocket. What came out was a wad of cash. A huge wad of cash. Too much. Ushio felt his eyes growing huge. What the hell, was Mutou secretly loaded!?Mutou held up the wad of cash, waving it slightly. "I not only brought the cash - I brought an extra hundred thousand," he said. His voice was too deep, too confident. Like there was something up his sleeve."Smart move, kid. Hand it over," Ushio demanded, putting out his hand. It was shaking slightly. Fuck, two hundred thousand yen! He was going to do this again!"Ah!" Mutou drew back his hand in an admonishing manner. "What fun is that? Let's play a game for it."Ushio's open palm curled into a meaty fist. "Sure. A game. I call it 'beat the squirt to a pulp until he gives me my money!'" He knew Mutou was a game freak, but to want to play a game for insurance money was seriously freaky.It was hard to see in the dark, but something flickered across Mutou's face - it wasn't exactly fear. "I think it's a type of game you'll like." And that was when Mutou pulled out the knife.That changed the situation immediately. It wasn't a very long knife - maybe three or four inches - but Ushio still didn't fancy getting stabbed by that thing. He hadn't brought any weapons except the bronze knuckles. Pressing his lips into a fine line, Ushio grit his teeth and spat out, "Fine. What game?""It's simple," Mutou answered. He unrolled the wad of cash, and laid his palm flat on the surface of the vault mat. Then he placed the stack of cash over the back of his hand. "All you have to do is place the money on the back of your hand like this, and--"Lifting the knife high with his other hand, Mutou stabbed downwards, spearing a chunk of the money on the tip of the knife. He lifted it away with the speared money. "The money you get onto the knife is yours. The one with the most money at the end of the game wins. And if you stab your own hand, then it's game over." Mutou's teeth flashed in the dark. "I told you it's simple. It just takes guts."Ushio curled his lip, feeling his insides curl as well. "What the hell kind of game is that?" he demanded, sweating a little. The idea of stabbing himself made his hands shake a little more than he would have liked to admit."What?" Mutou taunted. "Don't have the willpower to do it? I suppose not. Look at who you have to steal from. You probably can't even get on the kiddie coasters at the carnival."If Ushio had been thinking properly, he might have realized just how little this sounded like the Mutou he knew. As it was, steam was coming out of his ears. "All right, you little brat! I'll play your game and I'll fucking win!" He grabbed for the stack of money in Mutou's hand, and Mutou let it go. "I'll go first!"Mutou handed the knife over with a slight shrug, and Ushio took his first turn.* * *Yamino had to hide his smirk by turning his face downwards.At first he had been worried that Ushio would recognize him; with this in mind, he had arrived early and hidden himself in the shadows next to the gym shed, depending on the darkness to hide the obvious differences between himself and Yuugi. The light was so poor here, though, that by the time Ushio could have realized that he had a different skin tone and somewhat different build, he was blinded by confidence this was his victim.And in truth, Yamino had been somewhat worried in general. Ushio was huge; Jounouchi and Honda together had been no match for him, and while Yamino could hold (and had held) his own in a fight, it wouldn't have ended well for him. But Ushio was predictable in all the wrong ways, falling easily to taunts and afraid of Yamino's knife, drawn so completely into playing 'the game' that he had failed to realize that with the knife in his hands, Yamino was utterly defenseless.This was disgustingly easy!So easy, in fact, that although Yamino should have ended the game already, he let it go on for several turns. Each time the knife was passed to him, the stack of 'money' was significantly smaller; Ushio was stabbing the money visciously hard in his anger. Yamino made no effort to take nearly as much with each turn.Most of the money was fake, collected from several board games in his own room. Again, the darkness had saved him from being found out."I'm winning!" Ushio laughed, but his breathing was fast. Yamino could see his hands trembling violently as he again accepted the thin stack of money from Yamino. "By a landslide! We should just stop now and save you the humiliation."Ushio was scared out of his mind by now. It took everything in Yamino to not laugh in his face. He was scared of stabbing himself, so scared he couldn't stop shaking. Just like a bully. They can dish it out, but they sure can't take it. "Who am I going to be humiliated in front of? The gym shed?" Yamino couldn't help taunting. "The game doesn't end until the last yen note is on the end of that knife."Ushio stared at him, then at the stack of money resting on the back of his knuckles. Yamino watched as a drop of sweat rolled down his left temple. Oh, he was nervous. Maybe too nervous. Yamino abruptly realized he'd made a mistake pointing out that there was no one to be humiliated before; after all, that ran both ways, didn't it?It was now or never. Yamino shoved his left hand into his back pocket.* * *"Who am I going to be humiliated in front of? The gym shed?" Mutou asked, cruel humor lacing his tone. "The game doesn't end until the last yen note is on the end of that knife."Ushio stared at Mutou, at that unfamiliar smirk on his face, and felt sweat roll down his temple. Shit, he was going to stab himself this time. He couldn't stop shaking.But Mutou was right about one thing: who was going to ever know about this besides the two of them? No one. And Mutou was a wimp. Why the hell was he playing this game? He looked at the money on the back of his hand. It was his already, by right. Mutou had brought it and it was his.Fuck this game!Ushio threw down the knife with a triumphant laugh and went to grab the money off the back of his hand. He'd just beat the shit out of Mutou on principle now--!Mutou grabbed the knife off the mat and stabbed it towards the money, knifing through the last of it with such preciseness that Ushio froze in fear. He could feel the tip of the knife on the back of his hand!"Hm. Seems I got the last note after all," Mutou mused.Ushio slowly lifted his eyes to Mutou's face. If he moved, Mutou might stab him on accident. Mutou looked up at him with a perfectly level face, his features obscured by the shadows cast by his bangs. "Don't move, Ushio-senpai. My hand's not all that steady right now.""You little shit," Ushio hissed, his heart pounding in his ears."Don't say that just yet," Mutou advised, lifting his other arm. A black square was in it, and he raised it towards Ushio's mouth. "Now, Ushio-senpai, since you tried to cheat, I won by default. So, I'm giving you a choice." Mutou's hand trembled - or deliberately wavered - in its grip on the knife, scraping the sharp point against skin. "Either you tell me the names of everyone you have extorted money from this way, or I can stab through the back of your hand."Ushio felt his eyes bug out of his head. "That's blackmail!""Hm. No, I don't think it is." Mutou's lips twitched. "Let's just say this confession is insurance against me stabbing you." The black box next to his mouth clicked and began to hiss softly, and Ushio realized it was a tape recorder. "Now, let's hear it."For a moment Ushio was livid, but the knife was still there scraping his knuckle. He licked his lips. "You got guts, Mutou," he said in a low voice, with grudging respect, and began.* * *The next day came with warm, drenching rain.Yuugi approached the school, mostly hidden under his umbrella. The sky was a depressing gray. Yuugi wasn't sure if it matched his mood yet.He'd been in on -- well, part of Yamino's plan to stop Ushio, but he was still unclear on the details. He'd agreed to keep a lookout for Yamino at the north wall of the school, which meant he had missed all of the action between Ushio and Yamino, worrying himself sick. It had been a terrible idea from the start; Yuugi didn't want Yamino taking his licks for him, and trying to trick him with fake game money? How stupid could Ushio be?But Yamino had emerged from the school grounds no worse for the wear, and exactly as rich as when he'd entered them, and at Yuugi's insistence they'd confirmed together that Ushio was still on his feet and going towards his home.Yuugi couldn't believe it when he heard the tape Yamino had managed to record. "He really thought you were me the whole time?" His voice had come out as an embarrassing squeak."It was dark," Yamino had pointed out. "And we've got blackmail material now. He won't--""Turn it in," Yuugi urged.Yamino had stared at him. "Why?""I don't know how you got him to record that," Yuugi had told him, "And I don't want to know. But you should turn it in. That way everyone who he's blackmailed for insurance money can get their money back."Yamino had never replied, and Yuugi had decided not to force the issue just yet. He was still reeling from being party to something ... not exactly legal.But he didn't see Yamino in the school yard. Nor did he see Ushio. Since it was miserably wet, Yuugi just went straight into the school building and to his shoe locker; he'd see Yamino in homeroom soon enough.He rounded the corner and felt a hand fall on his shoulder.Yuugi's nerves were still shot from the night before. He jumped a mile and came down facing Jounouchi Katsuya."Oh," Yuugi said nervously. "Hi."Jounouchi still looked worse for the wear. His eye was spectacularly black and blue, and his cheek had stitches in it. But the smile he was giving Yuugi was totally different from anything else Yuugi had ever seen. "Hey, Mutou."Yuugi bit his lower lip. "What did you want?""I just - you like riddles, right? I got a riddle for you." Jounouchi straightened from the wall a little and cleared his throat. "What is it that you can't see, but is always there?"Man, there were a million answers for that riddle. Yuugi shook his head slowly. "I don't know." Please don't let it be a wedgie or a swirlie. Neither would make much sense in the context of the riddle, but Jounouchi - well, logic wasn't his strong suit."Yu-jyo,", Jounouchi answered, his mouth twitching and his face turning red. "Friendship. That's us together, right?"Yuugi stared at Jounouchi. "J-Jounouchi-kun ... did you just make up a riddle that was a play on words?" And what he was extending! Yuugi couldn't think of a thing he'd done to make Jounouchi suddenly decide that--"Shuddup!" Jounouchi barked, red to his ears now, before he rubbed the back of his head. "I-I just heard that -- well, you know, Ushio's been expelled, and I heard it was you, and ... you stood up for me with Nanasen, and ..." he trailed off while Yuugi tried to make sense of things. Ushio, expelled? Had Yamino turned in the tape after all? "No one's ever thought I didn't deserve what I got. I guess what I'm sayin' is, you're not such a bad guy after all."It took Yuugi a moment to find words himself. But when he did he knew that, for once, they were definitely the right ones. "I'd be glad to be your friend, Jounouchi-kun," he said, and smiled.finAnd it's finally complete! HOORAY.