Polarshipping!

It’s amazing how she can not see him even when their eyes are locked.

Mai stares right through him from across the crowded lobby. They’re both milling about, sipping drinks at standing tables. He knew she would be here. She knew he would be here. They both knew this would be awkward.

Did they do anything to stop it? No. Did they talk, or spell out boundaries like communicative, responsible adults? Negative. Did they even try to find a buddy to run interference and prevent the inevitable combustion when his spark met her tinder? 

'course not.

The lights dim and Pegasus takes the podium to thunderous applause. Mai turns away, and Jonouchi’s not sure she’s even seen him at all. He forces himself to watch the eccentric Industrial Illusions CEO, even as he feels an almost magnetic pull to stare thirty seven degrees and twenty meters to his left. 

Jonouchi tries to focus on whatever new crazy release Pegasus has in mind, but he’s not interested in this sort of thing even when his ex-friend-partner-big-sister-girlfriend-whatever-the-hell is distracting him out of the corner of his eye. 

It’s not like he’s still in love with her. The heartbreak was too long and too messy for that. He’s not sure what that love even was anymore, and doesn’t care. Whatever it was, was important. But only to him.

“...Duelist Kingdom kicked off on this very date, eight years ago! So it’s fitting that we launch our revamped field spells...” The speech fades into white noise as Jonouchi feels like he’s been punched in the gut. The date is what now?  He can’t help it. He stares at her. There’s no indication she’s noticed anything. That she’s replaying the duel in her head the way he is, remembering the feel of the cards and the smell of perfume and the look in her eyes when he says ‘friends’  ‘The day I met you’ her voice echoes in his head, some talk they had wandering the streets of Battle City. ‘when you said that sappy stuff about friendship... I thought ‘this is a person I want to be friends with’. What kind of person am I to you now, Mai? Eight years. 

Six years of... something.

One year of heartbreak. 

One year of... nothing. He’s staring. He’s staring and he knows how stupidly creepy it must look, but he doesn’t... he just... 

She just stopped. Stopped talking to him. Stopped answering his questions. He had so many. He didn’t understand. They complemented each other so well for so long. Until he pushed too hard. He wanted to understand her, he wanted to know. But she didn’t share. She didn’t talk about emotions. She couldn’t. 

He couldn’t handle that.

Couldn’t handle the limbo of not knowing where he stood in her life. Couldn’t handle the excuses, the ‘maybe’s and the ‘I want to be friends again someday’ and the frustratingly confusing replies when he couldn’t take the silence and sent page-long texts about his emotions. 

Just talk t’ me. 

Just tell me how we do this.

Just lemme be in your life.

She doesn’t owe him that. She doesn’t owe him anything. He doesn’t want a friendship of debts and guilt. He gave and he gave and he did it not wanting anything in return. 

That doesn’t mean it’s painless when he gets nothing.

Everyone and their mom (literally, Anzu’s parents had given their advice very freely) had told him she’s not worth it. She tried to kill you! But he doesn’t want to hear that. If they think she’s not worth it--they don’t know. They don’t see the same person he does. The person who gave him a card, who motivated him, who brought his sister and helped him up and tried to trade her soul for his. 

They don’t know any a’ that. 

He knows she’s not going to look back today. This isn’t a fairy tale. There’s no destiny, there’s no magic. This is real life now. And he’ll be fine. He’ll mingle with the bigshot American duelists and he’ll go to his hotel room tonight and check instagram and give his sister a call if the time difference matches up. He’ll tell her he saw Mai, and she’ll change the subject. They’ll talk about the event, and he’ll go to sleep and get on the plane tomorrow and he’ll be okay.

He’s not pining anymore. But he’s still--

--her friend.