Call It Whatever

Chapter 5

I just woke up to Yugo laughing.

It sounds really close. Is he in my room again?

Yugo, what are you doing?

I sit up and rub my eyes. I see him sitting on the edge of my mattress. He's leaning over something, laughing.

"YUGO!" I shout.

He jumps. He turns around. In his hand is an old photograph of me when I was about four. "Aw... you were so cute!" he cooes. "Look at that little face!"

I can't even focus on what he just said. All I can focus on is this:

"WERE YOU GOING THROUGH MY DRAWERS!?"

Yugo is still laughing. I rip the picture out of his hand and set it on my pillow. I glare at him. I'm just waiting to see how he defends himself this time.

"I'm sorry," he says. "But you were asleep, and the drawers were right there. I had to know what you kept in here."

"Imagine if you had been going through my drawers and you saw a severed human hand," I say, trying to sound ominous.

Yugo makes a face. "God, you're so morbid, aren't you?"

Oh, Yugo, you have no idea how morbid I can get. "What if I told you that that was the hand of the last person who decided to go through my drawers?"

Yugo leans over. He puts his hand against my forehead, and shoves me back down onto my pillow. "You have no chill."

I can't help but smile.

Suddenly, there's a loud knock on the door. "Come in!" I shout.

Xander walks in. "Oh, how long have you been up?"

"Not that long." I shoot a death glare at Yugo. He snickers.

"Well, there's a tournament match going on right now. I was wondering if you guys wanted to go watch it. I mean, I kinda have to be there, Supreme Four and all, but you guys don't have to go unless you want to."

My heart jumps. Xander? Giving us a choice? That never happens. He usually drags us to every tournament match.

Is this because of my injury?

I should tumble down the mountain more often.

"Who's up?" Yugo asks.

"Uh... honestly, I'm not sure." Xander laughs. "I think Shu and Valt are up today, but I'm not sure who they're battling. Lui might be up today, too. I can't remember."

I ponder this. Despite the fact that my chest is super sore from the bruises, I find myself wanting to see how these matches play out. Besides, if Lui's up, I want to see how he's doing. He seemed pretty angry at himself yesterday.

He seemed pretty out of it, yesterday.

He seemed pretty crazy, yesterday.

I wonder how he's holding up.

I wonder if he pulled himself together.

"I'll go," I say.

Xander's eyes widen. "Uh, you don't have to. Aren't you hurt?"

Yugo stands up and glares at Xander. "Oh, he gets bruised and suddenly you're all "are you okay baby? Does it hurt? You don't have to" and then I get A KNIFE IN MY LEG AND YOU TELL ME TO WALK IT OFF!?!?!? HOW DOES THAT WORK!?"

"You were the one telling me it was nothing!" Xander responds. "Ukyo nearly fractured a rib!"

"I HAD A FIVE-CENTIMETER KNIFE IN MY THIGH!"