Summary: Yuugi was great at getting blood stains out of clothing.

Warning: Laundry. It's a nightmare. Season Zero, and everything that implies.

Author's Note: Written for a drabble challenge at ygodrabble on LJ. The prompt was "Reality".

Split

by Mahayana

Yuugi was great at getting blood stains out of clothing. After the third school shirt ruined by a bloody nose, his mother gently pressed a bottle of stain remover into his hand and took him downstairs to show him how to wash his clothes. He started keeping a spare shirt in his shoe-locker. Wrapped up in a plastic bag to keep the dirt off. His mother didn't know that the nosebleeds were always caused by someone else's fist. No need to worry her any more than he already did.

But recently… There was a stain on Yuugi's coat sleeve that he did not recognize. He picked at it with a fingernail. He was always so careful to wash the blood out before it set… How did he miss this one?

He glanced at his knuckles. They were bruised and scraped. The skin on his second and third knuckle was split. The tears were freshly scabbed over. He only saw these kinds of cuts on Jounouchi, after he had gotten into a fight. And won.

Yuugi never won fights. Yuugi never fought back. He was only good at standing up and using his bones as a shield. He would always take a fist to the head in place of somebody else. He was used to it after all. Anzu told him it was the worst way to protect people ever. She told him he should take martial arts. Judo or something. He tried joining the judo club once. They laughed at him for looking like a grade-schooler. He learned well from the lessons that day. He learned how to curl around his sprained wrist so that their kicks would only hit his back and shins. He stared at the stain, nausea congealing in his throat.

The school bullies in the hallway were afraid of him today. They didn't bump into him and make him apologize. They stayed on the other side of the corridor. Some had dropped their eyes in fear. Nobody had ever feared Yuugi in his entire life. Nobody had reason to. He wasn't scary. Or tough. Or dangerous. He just wanted to play games.

There was a box cutter in his backpack. And a lighter in his pocket. He didn't put them there. He fingered the leather collar around his neck. Earlier he had found some dried blood in his hair. It wasn't his. Yuugi wondered if he was going insane.