Serenity listened, or at least pretended to listen, as her teacher announced that a few of the middle and high schools of Domino city were going to be participating in a "mentoring program." Basically, from what she heard, each of them would be paired with an older student from a different school. The program was anonymous for some reason or another but they could choose to say who they were if both parties wanted to. At the end of the school year the schools that were involved - the teacher said which ones, but Serenity was absorbed in a drawing she was doing at the back of her notebook - would be meeting up and holding a "Spring Formal." For the length of the program the participants could talk about whatever they wanted; homework help, family problems or even duel monsters. Serenity held back a giggle about that, she could bet that if Joey's school was involved that's all his partner would hear about. She stopped drawing, closing her notebook and trying to look like she had been paying attention the entire time when her teacher passed, handing her a folded piece of paper.

Serenity looked around as the other girls in her class opened theirs and were speculating on what their partner would be like. She opened hers as well and found only an email on it, nothing else. She supposed it was so they couldn't judge their partners based on their gender or anything. With a small sigh Serenity turned back to her notebook. Part of her wanted to join in with the other girls but she didn't know how, so she stuck to what she knew and that was drawing. She had worried she'd lost her one joy when she started to go blind, but now that her sight was better than ever she found she hadn't lost a thing. She took a quick glance at the clock and saw that school was nearly over. Quickly she finished her drawing and held it up slightly to admire her work. It had begun with a simple doodle but as she let her mind wander it turned into a small dragon looking to the distance. She might colour it when she got home, black with red eyes, if she remembered correctly that was one of Joey's favourite cards. With a smile she packed up her things and as her classmates walked in groups of three or four, Serenity found herself walking alone, her mind lost in thought, trying to imagine what her partner was like.

"I'm home!" Serenity called as she kicked off her shoes and headed to the kitchen where her mother was preparing dinner. "What are you making?" She asked, peering around. Receiving no answer Serenity looked up at her mother and saw that she was listening to something on her phone's earpiece. Her mother told her to go and do her homework; she'd call her down when diner was ready. Serenity held in a sigh and headed up the stairs to her room. One thing she loved about her house was, because of the way it was laid out, the entire upstairs was her bedroom. It was the biggest room of the house, even with the slightly slanted ceiling, and she suspected her mother gave it to her as an excuse to not spend time with her, though she always said she wanted to give her privacy.

Serenity dropped her bag on the floor and headed over to the desk where her laptop sat. She turned it on and, as she waited for it to start up, she looked at the pictures that sat framed on her desk. There was one of her family, before the divorce, and two pictures from the Battle City tournament that had taken place some time ago. The first picture was a shot of her and Joey and the second one was a group shot of her with Joey's friends that the younger Kaiba had taken for them. He was a sweet kid and she hoped he didn't turn into his brother. She didn't know much about the older Kaiba, she had only met him the once, but Joey didn't like him and she trusted Joey's judgment on people. If Joey hated him, there was a good reason and she found herself hating him too. That was the one thing she didn't like about the picture, in the background you could see the older Kaiba. He had been walking past and had happened to glance at them right as the picture was snapped. She pushed the negative thoughts from her head and typed in her password for the laptop. She really had no reason to password protect her computer; she just did it out of habit.

As she opened her email she wondered if Joey's school was part of the program, if she'd been listening she'd know. If it was she hoped she got Téa or Yugi as her partner, they were easy to talk to and she really liked them. Of course it would probably be better if she didn't get anyone she knew as her partner. It was going to be hard enough talking to someone; if she had problems she didn't want the person to be able to tell Joey. Besides, she saw Téa a fair bit. Once a week or so the two of them would meet up with Mai and have a girl's day. It was nice having friends, even if they were really her brother's friends and she didn't have any at her school. Serenity pulled the paper out of her pocket and taped it on the desk so she wouldn't lose it. After staring at it long enough she typed a message to Blue_Eyes (at) domino . net.

Dear Blue_Eyes,

I've been assigned your partner for this "mentoring" thing our schools are doing. I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to talk to you about, guess we'll have to just see what happens. I know we have the option of saying who we are but I'd rather we just refer to each other by code names or our emails. It'll be easier to talk that way I think.

Silent_Serenity_Love (at) icemailer . com

P.S What's the Blue Eyes for? Are you a Frank Sinatra fan?

Serenity hit the send button and began doing homework. While she kept telling herself that it was just a dumb assignment her eyes kept glancing up at the screen to see if she had any new messages. She had finished a good portion of her work by the time her mother called her down for dinner, with a last glance at the screen Serenity got up and went down to eat.

Her mother asked her how school was, as she did every night. Serenity looked at her plate and pushed the peas around aimlessly before replying.

"Nothing much, got an assignment in health class," she said looking up.

Ms. Wheeler nodded and asked what sort of assignment it was, but before Serenity could reply her mother's cell phone rang. Ms. Wheeler looked at the call ID and answered the phone, after a short but heated discussion that Serenity ignored her mother hung up and quickly finished her dinner. As she ran to get her coat she apologized to her daughter and told her she'd be home late. Serenity waved to her goodbye with a smile on her face, but after she was out the door her smile fell. Serenity sat at the table and finished her dinner alone, as she usually did. Her mother was a public relations executive for Kaiba Corp and the real reason she hated Kaiba. Her mother was almost always on the phone because her job required her to be aware of how the company was being perceived in the media and she specialized in damage control. She had to answer tough questions about layoffs and scandals that were usually just rumors. It seemed as though she was working overtime after Battle City, but Serenity didn't care why her mother was gone, just that she was. She washed the dishes and headed back up to her room, leaving the living room light on for her mother like she did almost every night. Serenity changed into her pajamas and sat back down at her desk to finish what was left of her homework when she noticed she had received an email.

Dear Silent_Serenity_Love,

I agree we should keep our identities a secret. In the mean time you can call me Seth. I've been told that I am supposed to ask you if there is anything you want to talk about.

Seth

P.S. Sure, let's go with that.

Serenity read the message a few times wondering what she should use for her name. She didn't want to use anything that sounded too much like her real name. She looked around her room trying to find something. She paused, looking at her bookshelf, but shook her head. It would be too obvious an alias if she told him she wanted to be called Hermione or Kitty. Kitty, that's it, she though as she turned to look at her cat sleeping soundly on her bed.

"You won't mind if I borrow your name, course you won't. You're my pretty kitty," Serenity said out loud, the Egyptian Mau looked up for a moment before yawning and going back to sleep with a purr.

Seth,

It feels weird talking about my problems to a stranger but I guess its nice having someone other than my cat to talk to. My parents got divorced when my brother and I were small. For reasons I never knew they decided to separate us. I think they did it to spite one another. My brother lived with our dad until he died last year. He lives on his own now, not wanting to live with Mom and I. Probably a good thing cause Mom is almost never home. She's a PR and they're always busy. It gets lonely. I wish I could talk to her, get her to spend time with me like she did when I was little, but I'm so tired of being the only one who's trying. It seems like after my operation, once she knew I was going to be alright, she stopped paying attention to me.

Kisa

Serenity hit send and put her finished homework back into her school bag. She went downstairs to brush her teeth and looked out the window to see if she could see her mother's car coming down the street. With a sigh she locked the front door and heading back to her room, taking her laptop to bed with her and waited for another reply. Soon enough that little message icon popped up and she found her heart beat quickening, she had never told anyone how she felt before and wasn't sure how they'd respond to it.

Kisa,

I'm afraid I'm of no help on the parent troubles, mine died years ago. I do, however, understand what it's like to be alone. I think that's the real point behind this stupid assignment;to give each person at least one person to talk to without fear. I do know a little something about PRs, they're crucial to a company, if your mother is as busy as you say she is then she's doing a good job and because of her hundreds of people will still have jobs. It's late, and we have school tomorrow. You should get some sleep. Good night, I'll talk to you again tomorrow.

Seth

And with those simple words a tradition was born.

So, here it is. This story is a lot of firsts for me. My first Yu-Gi-Oh, silentship, and my first story that is supposed to be fluff filled. I want to thank Peacewish for inspiring me to try doing something like this. It was her story Coffee Girl that really made me want to try my hand at one myself. This story is also for FireEdge who got me supporting this ship to begin with and for being the best test audience ever. The emails are parodies of shaw, hotmail and yahoo. Figured I'd point that out in case anyone missed it lol. I know it doesn't follow cannon events, but most of my knowledge comes from wiki and the abridged series so just ignore the time line and pretend it makes sense... EDIT: I did some tweaking with the ages to give some time between the show events and the fic. The Japanese age differences are used (Serenity is 3 years younger than Joey, Seto is the same age as Joey not 2 years older, etc) but the English names were used simply because those are the ones that I know, except for Serenity's mom. She get's the Japanese last name cause I figure after the divorce she'd go back to her maiden name, and since as far as I an tell she doesn't have a given name she is now called Kaiya. So yes, Kaiya Kawii is Serenity's mom *nod*.

Also, I know reviewing can be a sensitive topic. I won't hold my story hostage or demand reviews, but I do tend to update faster because I have the motivation to do so when I get reviews. A lot of people have trouble leaving good reviews, and aren't sure what to write. On my profile I have a lovely guide to reviewing borrowed from Peacewish's livejournal. Please don't hesitate to check it out.