A Heart to Duel For; Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagonists x Reader

Chapter 22: A Surprising Discovery

I sneezed, dust exploding in the air around me and settling onto the floor and boxes nearby. Then I sneezed again. And again. I sneezed five times in all when I finally stopped and caught my breath.

"I'm still alive!" I shouted to no one in particular, though mostly for my mother who no doubtedly heard my explosive sneezes downstairs. I sniffed, trying to inhale any fresh air but there was none; our attic hadn't been cleaned out or aired in years. For all I knew I could be breathing oxygen from the fifteenth century. But that was impossible considering my house hadn't even been built until about thirty years ago so the best I was getting was really old twenty-first century air.

I dusted myself off and got up to stretch, my muscles cramped from the sitting position I had been in for the past hour in the musty attic. I had been trying to find things to help with my history project my teacher had set. We had to write about a family member so I chose my grandfather on my mother's side of the family. A notebook lay at my feet, the open page littered with bullet-pointed notes and stray doodles.

I sighed and rubbed my watery eyes. "I hate allergies," I grumbled to myself, and then sneezed again.

Cardboard boxes surrounded me in a ragged circle, plenty of them open and several more still sealed shut. My grandfather was born here in Adelfell just like me, so a lot of his stuff had been preserved since it was easy to move around the small town.

Some of the things I found had been surprising, like a cat stuffed animal and notebooks with half written stories and ideas scribbled inside. I wasn't sure what kind of story 'The Hidden Power in Hidden Eyes' was since there were just a few vague notes but the characters sounded interesting from it. There was more too; things about sports and curses and whatever a Shinigami was. I'd have to look that up later.

I opened up the last box I wanted to look in before going down to breathe some good air. The lid was on tight and I struggled to take it off but it finally came off with a groan. Inside lay the things I least expected from my grandfather of all people: Duel Monsters cards. Tucked neatly inside was a faded grey fabric binder that probably was a rich black at one point, the edges frayed and moth bitten, and a white washed plastic deck box that had most likely been green on its best days.

Grandad was a duelist too? I wondered in awe. How was this possible? For years I thought I was the only duelist in my family, but these items in front of me clearly contradicted that.

I grabbed a cleaning wipe from the tub next to my notebook and wiped off the dust on the binder before picking it up carefully and setting it down on the floor to examine it properly. The protective pages felt flimsy under my touch; they were nothing like the firm, sturdy ones in my own binder.

There's a Blue Eyes in here. That must have been a rare card back in Grandad's time, I thought as I admired the shining white dragon, its head turned and poised to attack. I continued to leaf through the pages. Some of the cards glittered strangely with gold or silver borders. One even had stars on its surface when I moved the binder in the light. It was fascinating. What kind of technology made these cards?

I could've looked through the binder for hours but I forced myself to close it so I could check out the deck box. Maybe there was still a deck inside there, and that would be valuable information since it should be Grandad's main deck.

Putting the binder aside with the rest of things I wanted to take back to my room, I turned to grab the deck box—after sanitizing it too with a fresh cleaning wipe. But as I picked it up I realized there was something underneath it: a small chestnut leather diary.

All thoughts of going downstairs and concerns for my lungs vanished as I picked up the diary. The leather was smooth and it was bound together with a thin knotted strap that I undid easily. I made myself as comfortable as I could on the bare wood floor and began to read.