Who I Thought You Were - Yusei Fudo/OC [REWRITING]

Three -- Past Secrets

"Have the covered cracks piled up so much that it's difficult to handle them?"

—"No Good Reason", Everglow

Nova

Once all the kids are asleep, I head back to the garage to tinker with my Duel Runner. The Runner, which I've named Apatura, is a sleek black bike, with lavender and indigo accents. The rear of the Runner was made to resemble butterfly wings and are painted to look like the wings of a purple emperor butterfly—my favorite type of butterfly. The computer has been acting up recently, and I haven't figured out what's been going on.

"Do you have a minute to talk?"

I look up, seeing Yusei at the door. I don't want to admit to myself how much I missed those royal blue eyes. One look into those eyes and I'd melt.

"Y-yeah," I stammer.

"She's a beauty," he says, nodding to my Runner. "Something wrong, or are you just souping her up?"

"Been acting up. The computer lags during Turbo Duels," I answer.

"Mind if I take a look?" he offers.

"Knock yourself out," I say.

He checks the laptop screen and starts typing. "You've got a bug in the code," he explains. "I can fix it easy."

I look down at my boots. "I forgot how good you are at fixing things," I say. "I like the new bike, by the way. The red suits you better than the white."

"Thanks. Yours isn't too shabby, either. Still with the butterflies, I see."

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. It's how I duel, and it's how I go through life," I respond.

"They suit you, you know," he says. Awkward silence hangs between us for a moment as he fixes the code for my Runner until he breaks it. "What happened to us, Supernova?"

"Haven't heard that nickname in a spell," I mutter. I start to chew my lower lip as I remember the last time I spoke to Yusei.

"Yusei, you can't stay with him!" I beg, grabbing onto his wrist.

"I have to! I can't just leave Kalin to rot!" he argues. "He's trying to make Satellite a safer place! Don't you see that?"

"How long are you going to let him lie to you?" I snap. "He's power-drunk! It's only a matter of time before he does something stupid and gets caught."

"We can't just let the duel gangs roam free!"

"Yeah? When's the last time you heard someone speaking positively about the Enforcers? Don't you see that you're the guys everyone's afraid of now?"

"We're different from those other guys! We aren't the ones who killed your parents. And we'll come back alive," he spits.

My stomach sinks. "They used to tell me the same thing," I say, my voice not even sounding like my own. "They thought they were doing what was right. 'Sticking up for the little guy' and all. It got them killed."

"Then they didn't fight hard enough," he says.

My hand moves on instinct, slapping Yusei across the face. His eyes, glazed over with hurt, meet my own. "They died defending their daughters. Don't you dare think for a second they didn't fight with everything they had."

"N-Nova, I didn't—"

"Save it," I snap. "You won't stay undefeated forever. And when the day comes that you inevitably lose, I hope you remember this."