merryfortune

41. Play

Title: PLAY CARDS!

Ship: Zinniashipping Aoi/Miyu

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Word Count: 3,249

Rating: T

Warnings: Choose Not to Warn

Tags: Post Canon, Established Relationship, Dating, Fluff and Angst, Trauma Responses, Crying, Past/Referenced Child Abuse, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Communication, Literal Sleeping Together, Happy Ending

   Aoi had been looking forward to her and Miyu’s date all week.

   Sure, it wasn’t the flashiest of ideas but it was quality time nonetheless and that’s what mattered most to Aoi. She was a homebody, anyway. She didn’t want to go out on expensive dates, eat at restaurants so fancy that she didn’t know her soup spoons from her dessert spoons. She was more than happy to hole up at her and Akira’s flat with Miyu and play games all night.

   It was simple. It was basic. It was all she wanted.

   And same for Miyu.

Miyu was more boisterous, sure, and could hardly sit still. She liked long, romantic walks on the beach and splashing in the waves, she liked to bring a picnic along and such. Getting cloistered in a fuddy-duddy restaurant was very much not her style.

So, after school on Friday, they got together for a sleepover. They had it all planned out, they’d watch a movie, order takeaway pizza for dinner, and play games afterwards. It was sure to be so much fun.

Miyu smuggled her pyjamas into her school bag and brought a case of her toiletries, too. Her scheming was that her Mother would think that she was at her Father’s and her Father would think she was at home with her Mother. Being the child of divorce could be absolute bliss sometimes. So long as she kept her phone off and hoped that her parents didn’t communicate but they hated each other's guts now these days so what were the odds of that happening anyway?

She went to an all girls private school in a different ward than where Aoi attended Den City High School but with a short walk and a bus ride, she arrived all good eventually. She rocked up to the school gates in her fancy tartan skirt and waved hello to Aoi as soon as she saw her.

The sun was setting already and there was a crisp breeze in the air. Miyu walked up to Aoi and hugged her first things first. She nuzzled her head into the crook of Aoi’s head and shoulders. Aoi, not one for public displays of affection, didn’t hug back and thus stiffened but there was a smile on her face nonetheless as her voice pitched upwards in excitement.

“Aah, Miyu, I’m so glad you could make it.” Aoi squealed.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Miyu assured her, “though, traffic tried.”

Aoi laughed and she let Miyu let go of her first. Though, her hands lingered. With one, it returned to her backpack, she hefted it slightly since it was fuller than usual with her supplies but with her other… It intertwined with Aoi’s hand and she held it firmly.

“Let’s go.” Miyu said.

“Sounds good to me.” Aoi agreed with a nod of her head.

They walked down the street together. Aoi had all the directions embedded in her head. Miyu, meanwhile, was self proclaimed that she could get lost in a paper bag so she just let Aoi take her home to hers without complaint. Their hands never once lost contact: palm to palm, flush, and fingers intertwined.

All whilst they set off into the blazing sun and the night which descended upon the city with a chill in the air. They passed by advertisements and restaurants, already packed with people who wanted to make the most of their Friday. It was a long haul until they got to the train station. Then, it was just two stops and they were basically there.

Miyu rested her head on Aoi’s shoulder. She played look out as she idly tracked the locations that they whizzed through on the subway. She jostled Miyu awake when it was their time to get off. Miyu pawed at her eyes and pretended she hadn’t been fast asleep.

Needless to say, it was a load off when they finally arrived in the rich and fancy part of town where Aoi and Akira’s apartment was located. At the very top of the building, up flights and flights of stairs with an elevator there to practically teleport them to the top.

“Hello, Aoi.”

She was greeted by her nanny robot and politely introduced Miyu to it. Miyu treated it like it was a real human being. Why wouldn’t she? She hadn’t gotten the opportunity to meet Aqua yet, soon, she hoped but until then, she’d get her fix of curiosity where she could.

She slipped her schoolbag off her shoulders shortly after and sighed. That felt good. Then, she and Aoi got changed concurrently. They put on pyjamas and slumped on the couch afterwards. This time, Aoi curled up on the lounge and nestled into Miyu’s side with her head on Miyu’s shoulder.

“You're the guest,” she said whilst she cuddled, “you pick.”

“Sounds good.” Miyu smirked.

And that’s when Aoi knew that Miyu was going to pick the most dog shit movie imaginable. Sure enough, she was right but at least it was a laugh riot. It was full of plot holes and contrived coincidences, the budget was bad, and most of the time the jokes didn’t land but it was fun to make fun of and that was somehow more important. It gave them plenty of opportunity to bond and during the third act, they had Aoi’s nanny robot order them pizza. She already knew Aoi’s favourites and Miyu had no complaints.

The food arrived in perfect timing to the credits so no reason to pause. Aoi answered the door and she took inside two boxes of piping hot pizza. Since Akira wasn’t home, that meant there were technically no rules so she and Miyu ate the lounge to a background noise of random DuelTube videos and such. Half hearted video essays and music videos, mostly.

Together, kicked back and relaxed on the lounge, they ate Aoi’s selection of pizza: a margarita and a supreme. They enjoyed them well enough. They were thick and hearty, generous with cheese and the latter, toppings, too. Though Miyu complained, supreme would be way better with pineapples because yes. She was one of those people.

Still, it kept them fed and happy. Once they had eaten more than a reasonable share because hey, they were growing teenagers, they packed away the leftovers into the refrigerator and washed their hands. Now, it was time for the real fun to begin.

This, and hopefully making out with her girlfriend in bed later, was the part of the night that Miyu had been looking forward to the most: playing games.

Cringe as it may sound but Miyu was a huge gamer. She loved DDR at the arcade and maintained a respectable high score up there as the all time number one, of course, she loved crane games and puzzle games. She had sudoku mastered and much, much more.

But as Aoi brought out those cards… It was like chumming the water in front of a shark.

They were just playing cards, Miyu assured herself. Normal playing cards out of a bent up pack that Aoi had been using for years and years. The joker was even missing after all this time. The diamonds had lost their lustre and multiple cards were dog eared. They were just going to play nice, easy, simple games like old maid and snap. Maybe even trumps if they were up for it.

But it was fun, they went back and forth with Miyu racking up win after win. It was just dumb luck though. That’s what Miyu tried to convince herself as her hand hurt whenever she slammed down a card during their game of snap, adrenaline pumping and enthusiasm going overboard.

Then Aoi pulled out the big guns.

Aoi, very kindly, had been smiling and playing along without complaint. Even when Miyu gloated and bragged, that she was luckier, that she was more skilled, but like a smiling assassin, with a flutter of her slender fingers, she showed Miyu Duel Monster cards.

Specifically her two decks, Trickstar and Marincess.

The atmosphere of the night completely changed. Miyu locked in. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Not just greasy food that was eaten in excess but something else, too. Something primal and hungry and full at the same time.

“Do you want to keep learning Marincess combos?” Aoi asked.

“Hell yeah I do.” Miyu replied all too eagerly.

She snatched up the cards. They were mysterious to her. Made by Aqua, with love. They had been printed via technology that the hot dog wagon, Cafe Nagi, stowed like contraband and used by Playmaker to print his Cyberse cards, too. These were one of a kind and in a sense, just for her.

It wasn’t quite the same but these cards were her birthright. This was Aqua’s deck and she was Aqua’s Origin: Aoi, their combined champion who had done her best to bring them both justice.

Miyu held onto them jealously. She shuffled through them, peeped the different names, then looked up. She met Aoi’s gaze and nodded decisively. It was time to get her game on, to duel or die.

And she died.

Miyu had played as well as anyone learning a new deck could have played. There was something about the cards which just clicked with her, that playing with them was second nature to her but there were still some bungles as she learned.

Then there was the problem of whom she was going up against.

The one and only, Blue Angel. Charisma Duelists extraordinaire and when she was using her Trickstar deck, she was unstoppable. Even when she was going easy on Miyu and even coaching her here and there, Miyu was completely bowled over by those fairies whose gimmick was burn, baby, burn and she burned.

Miyu lost her grip on her cards and they cascaded over the paper playmat. It all came rushing back.

The powerlessness of defeat. The misery and despair of it all. The walls closed in on her, the colour of their paint, cream, paled. It made her sick. She wasn’t somewhere safe anymore, playing card games on a coffee table, she was in that little, white room again.

She snapped and it was ugly.

Miyu went through all the stages of grief. The initial agony which hit like a truck and left her eyes glazed over, her mind a blank slate slowly filled by the memories of the past. The singe of electricity, the uncomfortableness of hunger. Only for her disorganised thoughts to unite under the banner of bargaining.

Her? Lose? Absolutely not. That couldn’t be possible. She was a winner and winners always ate good.

Miyu tried to retrace her steps. Where did she lose her win condition? She tried to figure it out. Her hands searched uselessly through her cards, causing a pile and a mess on the table as her Marincess monsters splashed about over the playmat.

But when Miyu couldn’t find where she had lost control of the game, having played as best as she could, she turned her emotions external. She wasn’t the problem. Aoi was but when she looked up, Miyu didn’t see Aoi. She saw red and blue, she saw the digital opponent who had taunted her unfeelingly time and time again as a child.

“You…” Miyu slurred. “You, how could you do this to me?!”

Her voice turned to a roar. Aoi flinched as she took the verbal onslaught. It wasn’t sore losing, it was a trauma response. But that meant very little salvation to Aoi until Miyu lost steam and she came back to her senses.

Miyu’s throat was saw, her lips dry. Her stomach was tight and bloated. Her dinner no longer agreed with her as she threw herself at the wall of her past.
She was going to be sick. She could taste bile at the back of her throat as her vitriol petered out.

Because she saw it.

An all too familiar horror in the brown of Aoi’s eyes.

Just as Miyu snapped, she snapped again. This time back to her senses. She trembled. Her words came crashing down on her all the same as they had to Aoi.

Her emotions turned inwards, like the winds of a tempest at sea: they blew every which way but now they galed harrowingly through Miyu’s heart. She clustered close to herself, holding herself in a hug to anchor her through the storm that she had caused.

“I’m sorry,” Miyu sobbed into her hands, “this always happens, I scared you… Didn’t I?”

Aoi was thunderstruck.

Mostly because she couldn’t say no.

She hesitated and the longer she did, the harder Miyu cried.

“I’m sorry.” Aoi said in the tiniest voice.

There were no right words to say. Aoi’s hands strained as they searched inwards, only to find each other as Miyu kept herself cooped up at the other side of the coffee table. She cried. Loud and hard over her Marincess cards. Fresh psychic wounds as her teardrops scattered around her Crystal Heart.

Aoi could only watch helplessly as Miyu went through this cycle. It was terse and uncomfortable but Miyu was a big girl now. That’s what she reminded herself. She wasn’t a small and helpless child anymore. She was loved. She was found. She knew both those things but they did little to sweeten the salt of her tears as she cried until she could cry no more.

Miyu was a gamer and an artist and a student at an all girl’s school and she liked to swim. She was an idiot and she was a fool and she was a victim. She was covered with scars, inside and outside, from the Lost Incident. She had seen therapists, because of course she had, and they described this whole ordeal that she went through whenever something she loved reminded her too much of the Lost Incident as a survival mechanism. That competitive edge had served her well during those torturesome games but outside of that little room…

They were ill suited to civilised and polite society.

Especially when it left Miyu with such an alien high. Victory was the sweetest and most tremendous achievement that there was but losing? Losing, an insult to her pride and her grit, was a worse punishment than starvation or electrocution. Her biggest issue was that she actually loved the insanity that her competitive edge brought out in her because it was her secret weapon in any given situation, until it humbled her when everything went wrong. Duel Monsters, in particular, was well known to Miyu for bringing out this horrid beast inside of her which is why it had to be lower stakes games like old maid, DDR, and sudoku or else... Well... This was the result and just one of many the same.

Miyu’s friends at school, and her teachers and coaches, too, had seen these outbursts. They didn’t know what caused them. They just called Miyu short fused when it came to losing. That she was just tantruming but that wasn’t the case at all and Aoi, who had come to intimately know the horrors of the Hanoi Project, understood that.

She reached out across the table as Miyu wound down. She simpered. Her sobs had turned into hiccups. Her tears mostly cried.

“Do you feel better yet?” Aoi asked. She placed her hand over Miyu’s.

Miyu’s hand was warm. Her blood coursed through her and her internal temperatures had risen sky high. Aoi’s hand was calm and soft. She appreciated the weight it brought to the situation to remind her that she was safe. These games were just for fun.

She had been too much into her head. There was a lot of weight to these particular cards, too, given their origins as Aqua’s creation and Aqua’s rebirth was still up in the air.

“I… I think so.” Miyu uncertainly replied. Her voice quavered.

“Take as long as you need.” Aoi said soothingly.

Miyu nodded but as long as she needed was a lot shorter because what she needed most, as she gazed unto Aoi, was her forgiveness. That had been nasty and Miyu’s words tasted vile now that she had processed them beyond the instant her survival instincts failed her.

With her other hand, she reached up. She patted her cheeks dry. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. She carefully edged along her eyelashes to fully rid them of her tears.

“Th-That was… a lot.” Miyu remarked as she dried her eyes.

“It's okay,” Aoi said, “I’d rather you work through it than bottle it up.”

She got up and came around. Miyu flinched when Aoi sat next to her. She was so ashamed of how she had treated her in that burst but even so, Aoi met her with kindness. Understand. She leaned into Miyu’s side, head on her shoulder.

“It probably goes without saying…” Aoi reminded Miyu. “But next time… I don’t want to be crucified for winning against you. I’m your girlfriend, not your chew toy.” Aoi’s mind went back to Playmaker’s duel with her brother, it was ugly then but uglier now…

Miyu hiccuped guiltily, “I… I know. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”

“Thank you, Miyu.” Aoi said.

“Anyways, I-I’m tired,” Miyu confessed, unable to meet Aoi’s gaze, “I’m ready for bed.”

“Me too.” Aoi agreed softly.

It was getting late anyway. Well, not really. Not for a Friday night, anyway, and especially not for a sleepover but the fun and games were over. There was nothing left to say but good night. They went through the motions of brushing their teeth and getting the bed ready for two but they were ginger with each other. Soft spoken, walking on eggshells.

Aoi went to bed first. She and Miyu tried to avoid clustering in her ensuite. They needed space but somehow, they ended up in the same bed together. Aoi had the sheets pulled back on half of her queen bed as though waiting for Miyu, her head resting on her pillow and she looked angelic.

She was curled up underneath her duvet. She was illuminated from underneath faint fairy lights. Her room was very teenage girl in a way, dark and cosy with pink walls and blue accessories. She had plush toys and a quilted doona cover. Miyu smiled to herself, minty fresh, and her head cleared as she entered Aoi’s bed with her.

She was slow as her hand reached out. She touched Aoi’s shoulder as she faced away from her and she slotted in against Aoi’s body perfectly. Aoi was skinny and slender, Miyu had slightly more meat to her by comparison as she became Aoi’s big spoon without complaint. Aoi was so serene and on the cusp of sleep that there wasn’t so much as a flicker of response in Aoi’s face as Miyu got comfortable alongside her.

“Tonight’s been amazing, by the way,” Miyu whispered, “until, well you know…”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself despite everything.” Aoi mumbled in reply. She didn’t open her eyes.

“Good night, I love you.” Miyu said.

“I love you, too.” Aoi replied and a smile finally formed on her lips.

Miyu was gladdened by the relief in those few words. A literal weight off her shoulders and a sign of renewal as she leaned in. She kissed Aoi good night on the side of her face before she put herself to rest afterwards.