Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Do Duel Monsters Dream of Cardboard Sheep? ❯ Happy Beginnings ( Chapter 12 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Final chapter! I just hope ff.net puts this one up right. Now I can work on the side stories! Yay!

Apparently some people were having problems with chapter eleven, but last time I checked they were fixed. So please, read chapter eleven first.

Joey looked at the clock, then back at Yugi. "All right, lemme run over this again, keep everything straight. Ailill Motou and Gabriel Gallagher?"
Yugi smiled. "Actually, Joey, it's Ailill Gallagher and Gabriel Motou."
"Okay. And they're third cousins of yours from Kalamazoo? Or was it Walla Walla?"
"Somewhere very far off. We decided it was best to not say exactly where they came from, in case there was someone in the class who was actually from Kalamazoo, or wherever we'd decided they came from."
"Ah. I see dat."
"And they're just cousins."
Joey grinned as he looked at them for maybe the thousandth time since he'd arrived at the game shop. Ailill's hair was no longer in the style that could be easily mistaken for a girl's. It was now into several sections that curved into soft points; they seemed kind of half-spiky, like the things Joey's own hair formed. Like Joey's, a good deal of it had flopped in his face. The markings under his eyes had been washed off (with considerable difficulty, Joey knew, because he had been present at one of the attempts- apparently Gabriel hadn't made the paint very water-soluble).
Gabriel had done something… unique to his own hair. If hair could have kids, and the hair of Yugi and Mako Tsunami had gotten married, Joey thought as he looked at it, this would be their child. Yugi saw Joey staring, and he shrugged. "At least the hair gel ran out before he could spike it all up."
These changes, plus the fact that they were both wearing standard-issue Domino High uniforms, had changed them so effectively that Joey really could tell himself they were Yugi's cousins. Especially with Gabriel's hair the way it was. They could always say crazy hair ran in the family.
Ailill and Gabriel returned his grins. Ailill gave him a thumbs-up. Yugi pushed open the door of the game shop with his elbow, and they all began to run.

Ailill laughed as he pulled ahead of Yugi and Gabriel, then passed Joey. He could hear them shouting from behind, and he deliberately increased his speed for about half a minute, whereupon he slowed his pace and allowed Joey to catch up again.
This was someplace where numbers and commands from somewhere above did not determine just about everything. This was a place where he could speak not just through kything but through actions.
This was life.
Ailill stopped at the gate to the school and waited for them. Joey was already there. Yugi and Gabriel reached the two of them a minute later, gasping and panting. He could see Yugi's other friends approaching; when he turned he saw a limousine a ways off, coming from the other direction.
He smiled and looked up and watched the birds.