A/N: A retooling of an old story that I thought was still passable among my older works. Mostly Asuka/Juudai friendship, with some Fubuki and Manjoume to be found on the side. It mostly just embodies my feelings about the pairing, and is my attempt to give it slightly less painful closure.

...I never realized how fond I am of Asuka until I started writing and re-writing all these stories with her as the POV character.

"I have... a date, actually," Asuka said, almost flatly. "So tomorrow would probably be a bad time..."

"A date?" asked the voice over the phone incredulously. "Anybody I know?"

"It's Manjoume-kun," she replied carefully after hesitating for a moment. "I told him I was ready to try dinner. Once. And we'd see how it went."

"...Does Fubuki-san know?"

"I couldn't hide it from him if I wanted to, Juudai. You know that."

"There are some things that can be hidden if you know how," Juudai murmured, his voice carrying a hint of weight to it. Before Asuka had the chance to say more, though, he continued, "Anyway, you don't have class tomorrow, right? I'll just come find you when you're done with the date, or before it, and wait for you to be done. No big deal."

Asuka sighed. "But that's exactly the problem. I do have class tomorrow... I was called in suddenly to cover for one of my coworkers, and I can't find anyone to cover for me. I have to figure out how to tell Manjoume-kun to reschedule, but I know his times are tight, too, being in the pro league..."

"Let me do it," Juudai answered easily, so much so that she wasn't sure she'd heard him right the first time.

"...Juudai, it doesn't work like that. I don't think they'll allow someone who doesn't work there to-"

"Trust me, I know exactly what to do. It's not like I've never covered for someone before."

Who would you have covered for? Asuka wanted to inquire, but never got the chance. Not for lack of trying, though.

"Juudai—"

"Go on your date. I've got the school thing handled."

There was a distinct grin in his voice, she noted, before the phone went silent, and the deal was settled before she'd even agreed to it. Once again, she'd been swept up in the whirlwind that was forever his life. Perhaps it was her life, too, and that excitement had bled across into her boundaries, sinking too deep to ever get away from.

That would have been if she wanted to get away from it, though. A morbid, little-girl part of her was curious how he was going to work this one out.

Manjoume had invited her out to eat at one of the city's more upscale restaurants. Asuka did her best to keep her speculations of the evening (and his intentions) to a minimum, in case they got away from her, and turned to practical matters like discovering if she even owned anything nice enough to wear to a fancy restaurant. She had some nice skirts and slacks for interviews, but didn't particularly like any of them. Finally, she decided on a flowing skirt in shades of lilac and lavender that clung to her hips and a dark blue top that she hoped was sober enough to balance out the skirt. She did her hair and fished out a pair of dressy shoes and decided that the outfit wasn't perfect, but would do.

The whole time, Manjoume looked nervous and pale, but he smiled when she smiled. Asuka asked no questions as she followed him to the dark car waiting at the curb. She smiled at the driver as she got in and he nodded politely back.

To his credit, Asuka thought that the only way the meal could have been better would be if Manjoume had just let himself relax. Food had never been an issue for her; she'd always been of the opinion that it was the company that made the meal more than the food, and to be perfectly honest, Manjoume was fairly good company when he wanted to be. But he dropped his fork twice, nervousness making him clumsy, and clumsiness making him more and more nervous. Despite her own situation, Asuka was far less nervous than he was — her mind continued to wander to school, and if Juudai had even managed to get there in time, or if he'd just said it to make her go with Manjoume, just this once, and then reap the consequences later rather than sooner. It didn't seem his style to go back on his word or forget a promise, but...

The third time Manjoume fumbled with his fork, right before the check came, Asuka kept trying to think of something to say which would make him see what an idiot he was being for being so tense instead of natural. There seemed to be nothing she could say though that would not be met with stubbornness or an overblown statement of self-loathing, though. Most of the night, she was expecting him to cross the line and ask her to be his girlfriend, or try to take things too quickly, but he never did. The night wound down — it seemed dinner was all he'd had planned, if the familiar route the driver was taking home was any indication — and she couldn't be sure if she was pleased, disappointed, or both at the same time.

When she opened the door to her apartment, Fubuki and Juudai were both sitting at the kitchen table. Asuka could only assume her brother had let Juudai in this time, since she was certain she locked the door, but somehow couldn't remember giving either of them a key. It was a peculiar thought, but she had no time to think on it when Juudai sprang up from his chair.

"Asuka! Have I got a story to tell you!"

There was a hint of shimmer in his eyes as he looked her up and down that wrenched unexpectedly at her heart. Juudai stepped away from the table, the mug he had apparently been drinking from still warm and steaming, and Asuka cast a suspicious glance at Fubuki. He only spared her a smart grin that looked terrifically like Juudai's.

They got along far, far too well sometimes.

Grabbing her hand and leading her almost unwillingly to her bedroom, Juudai hopped onto her bed and sat cross-legged atop the comforter. Asuka took a seat at the edge of the bed, a little less haphazardly than the way he'd practically bounced onto the mattress.

"How did it go?" she asked hesitantly.

Juudai smiled. "You wouldn't believe what happened. I got there, right? And I had to lie on your behalf and say I was from a different school, filling in for you. It took a little bit of convincing, and they kind of gave me funny looks, but it worked somehow." His face twitched a bit, revealing the omission of information he otherwise wouldn't say — Asuka saw it, but said nothing, almost afraid to find out. So he continued avidly, "You have a great class. The students were awesome, and we talked for your entire class. We even touched on stuff like current pro duelists, it was great!"

"Out of curiosity, which names came up?"

"Manjoume's, of course! Apparently, one of your classes has a lot of fans of his in it. Mostly girls, hehe. And Johan came up too, and that led to a discussion about spirits... which I guess is his thing now in the pro league, huh?"

It figured. Thinking about it, Manjoume probably had a lot of admirers now, and yet... he'd turned them all down because he was still reserving his heart for her. She didn't know for sure how she felt about it. And Johan... of course he'd be using his skill and title to raise awareness of spirits, rather than for the fame of it all. He'd always been selfless like that.

"It seems that way. I suppose not everyone believes it, though..."

"Yeah, well, their loss," he muttered, in what might have been a joke, but one couldn't always tell. "A couple of them did mention they thought it was total bullshit, and I was sort of tempted to prove them wrong, but I didn't want to get you in too much trouble."

"...Thanks," Asuka said wanly.

"—Well, anyway, just as we were talking about that, one of the student teachers comes in and asks who I am, because she thinks I might be an intruder or something." Perhaps not the word anyone else would have used, but it got the job done, Juudai concluded. "And I was almost found out! But I managed to ward him off, I guess. Kinda hope he doesn't go to the higher-ups about that, though... hehe."

"You didn't tell him anything you shouldn't have, did you?"

"What? Of course not!" he said with a shake of his head and a dramatic hand gesture. "I just told them I was a student teacher volunteering to take your place in an emergency. Didn't tell them what kind of emergency, but, heh, it wasn't really a lie."

Asuka smiled, coaching herself to react with amusement rather than skepticism, playing along eagerly as he warmed to the tale and it began to unwind fantastically before them both. For the time he was telling it, she sat there in wonder. He would never cease to amaze her. Sure, he shouldn't think about quitting his day job, whatever that happened to be at the moment, but at least he knew how to think on his feet beyond dueling if he managed to get in at all.

Fubuki slammed a box of frosted sugar-enhanced chocolate cereal with marshmallow pieces on the table in front of the bowl he had just poured himself, making his spoon jump. He announced to Asuka, "You haven't gone shopping for clothes since you moved, have you?"

"Eat your cereal," she demanded through a glare in between bites of her muffin.

"But sister! You've never been to an American shopping mall!" Fubuki intoned grandly, standing up and ignoring the cereal. "They've got things like nothing you've ever seen before! I hear they have some REAL shops, not like the stuff back home."

"You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it," Asuka sighed.

"But I am going into the city with you, today. It's your sisterly duty as the younger of the Tenjoin siblings!"

That there was even such a thing as a "sisterly duty" to accompany her older brother shopping and play model (or, more accurately, dress-up doll) was news to her. She looked up at Fubuki, who was now standing in an overly dramatic pose with an overly dramatic expression near the kitchen sink.

Interrupting the beginnings of her exasperated response, the door opened, and a familiar voice in the distance called, "Asuka? You here?"

Juudai stepped into the kitchen and stared at Fubuki, who stared back only briefly before grinning slyly. It had been two years since he'd last been in town, and Juudai was suddenly uncomfortably aware that he'd reappeared without warning — or knocking.

The other man took in the room in a single glance, boy and sister and cereal and all, and said with an increasingly disturbing grin, "Ah! How nice of you to drop in, Juudai-kun! Asuka and I were just finishing up breakfast to go shopping." He tossed his bowl of cereal into the sink, where it landed with such a loud chink of porcelain that she flinched visibly in anticipation of the shatter.

Juudai blinked, nodding to Asuka amiably before she could get an indignant, scolding reply together. "I see. That seems like a tough feat, huh?"

"Oh, you have no idea! I'm going to be dragging her kicking and screaming..."

Asuka tried to get her word in edgewise. "How about this. I won't go kicking and screaming if I have someone to suffer with me." Then, a pointed glance at the unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome, visitor.

Juudai stared numbly. Fubuki danced over, putting a hand on his head and telling him with utmost glee, "You are going to help me pick things out for Asuka, aren't you? It won't be suffering at all!"

"I... maybe...?" he tried. His face said he had the sinking feeling that he wouldn't be able to worm his way out of this one like he'd been able to with the teachers two years ago. If he lucked out, he might not have to buy anything for himself that was big-brother-approved.

Juudai couldn't tell if the circumstances of that would involve Fubuki being in a generous mood or Fubuki being in a stingy mood.

Surely she must have been a figment born of the best film noir classic no one ever heard of, with her silken straight dirty-blonde hair and her strongly defined face and a lush hourglass figure that no real woman actually possessed, all flattered by the sight of her in a casual, simple dress. Fubuki's choice, of course.

This felt ridiculous. Ridiculously pretty, but still ridiculous.

It was a nice, deep maroon dress, almost a similar bordeaux to the gown he'd managed to get her in for their graduation party, only with ruffled hems and long sleeves, and a "fashionably" uneven skirt that went to mid-calf on her left side and mid-thigh on the right.

The sad part for him was that since getting Asuka in the dress, the trip had been nothing but business since then.

"I don't even like this kind of frippery," Asuka complained, trying her best to make it sound as little like an irritated complaint as she could, because she knew Fubuki would do his best to make a big deal about it.

"You don't have to like it. It still makes you look wonderful! I see you in it and feel like you could just glow, with radiance and contentment and other things you don't associate with dressing up. But every girl deserves to look pretty sometimes, even the ones who won't fall in love if their lives depended on it."

Just then, Juudai peeked around the corner of the dressing room, with a belt in his hand.

"Uhhh..."

In truth, he was at a loss for words. He'd certainly missed Asuka in the princess gown at graduation - which Fubuki had scolded him, half-playfully, for missing the spectacle as soon as he'd first gotten his hands on him after the fact — but after looking her up and down for a second, he grinned widely, waving the gold buckle end of the belt.

"That looks great, Asuka!"

"—Juudai-kun, what do you have there?" Fubuki interrupted just as Asuka opened her mouth yet again to reply. She was too slow and deliberate with her words yet again...

"Um, a belt...? I was gonna try it on, since I sorta need one for myself, I guess—"

"Ooh! Perfect! Just what we needed here. Let me see!"

Fubuki extended his hand expectantly, and Juudai, not wanting to incur another bout of dramatics just in case, carefully handed over the belt, dropping his traveling bag on the floor. Apparently, he wasn't very good at looking at sizes before grabbing things, though - Asuka and he were both pretty safely on the slender side for both their genders and heights, but judging from how the belt wound almost twice around her thin waist, Fubuki clucked his tongue and shook his head.

"No, no, no. Juudai, go get this about... a thirty-two, I think."

"That's... awfully small..." he remarked, eyes widening.

"You're forgetting American stores measure in inches, not centimeters. Get two if you really want one; I'll help you with it."

"Ah, forget the belt, I don't need it," Juudai said, then broke out into a facetious grin. "Hey, I have a better solution. Maybe it'll fit Asuka better if she eats more."

"Excuse me?" Asuka choked. He probably didn't really have a clue about the implications of what he was saying, but even so, maybe it was time he learned. "That's rude, Juudai!"

"Is it?" Fubuki said, placing a hand on the top of her head loftily. "Because you know, I was thinking of making dinner for you tonight to thank you for being such a good sister. That might help, don't you think?"

Asuka stopped short in the middle of another glare, feeling her initial offense, and the motivation for her glare, flutter out of her and away like smoke through an open window.

"Sounds like a plan," Juudai agreed with a grin. "I'll help." For a moment, she wanted to question the wisdom of letting Juudai anywhere near an oven, or perhaps her brother for that matter, but if they worked together, it could produce either beautiful things or horrible things. She couldn't be sure which was more likely.

"Juudai, niisan..." she started, then raised a hand to brush a lock of hair out of her face. "You don't have to do that. I eat just fine, thank you, and my diet is none of your concern. Juudai, go get the smaller size. In inches."

The expression on Fubuki's face looked like he wanted to say, It certainly goes to all the right places, whatever you eat, but after she caught him and held up the plastic store hanger threateningly, he refrained. Asuka wasn't sure what could be done with one of these things, but it was certainly doable to find out.

Before turning the corner, Juudai called over his shoulder, "The dress looks nice on you, Asuka."

Asuka offered the retreating figure a thin smile.

"You two... if you break my oven, you're splitting the bill for a new one."

Juudai laughed. "Hey, no problem. It's not gonna break!"

"Right!" Fubuki chimed in. "If I have Juudai-kun to help, we can make magic together. Am I right?"

"Oh, yeah!"

The way they got along when both determined to accomplish a common goal was absolutely frightening. "...All right. Be gentle, and don't overdo it," Asuka warned. "I still can't believe you won't let me near the thing until you're done cooking..."

"It's a surprise," Juudai told her with a grin Asuka identified as him on a wild determination streak. He was going to do this, and there was no stopping him. In fact... it almost seemed like he was the one with the idea, rather than Fubuki, which was surprising, considering Fubuki knew all her favorites to begin with. And also considering Juudai couldn't cook anything edible.

Fubuki put a hand on Asuka's shoulder and directed her out of the kitchen. The ceramic bowl from breakfast was still in the sink, and she idly wondered just how full it was going to get by the time dinner was over, especially when keeping in mind Juudai's absolutely boundless appetite. Or how much would be left in her pantry and fridge, for that matter.

...Come to think of it, Juudai had sauntered off on his own for a little while when she and Fubuki had been looking through some tops and dresses, when they had stumbled upon the maroon dress that her brother had insisted she try on, and wouldn't take no for an answer to. Could they have been planning it from the start? She could only wonder for now. Settling down on the couch with the sound of murmuring, metal clattering, and plasticized shopping bags rustling in the background, she let her mind wander, and for a short, blessed while she forgot to think about how disastrous this might turn out.

"I smell something burning," she called into the kitchen conversationally after a while of peculiar silence.

"No you don't," answered Fubuki in a mirrored tone. "Give it five more minutes!"

She sighed, not looking back towards the door frame, almost in fear of what she might see. Sure enough, in what must've been less than three minutes, Juudai walked in grinning, descending upon her and grabbing her hand to drag her off the couch in a hurry. "Come on, Asuka! It's done!" She let him almost literally yank her towards the kitchen enthusiastically.

Asuka stared at the dishes set upon the table, completely forgetting about her earlier concern regarding her oven. Chicken salad, flank steak rolls, and a sweet potato minestrone soup. She was almost surprised Juudai hadn't insisted on anything fried, but perhaps they were both being considerate, despite his earlier insistence to gain weight. As Juudai stole a piece of the steak rolls with a triumphant grin on his face, Asuka looked down at the piping bowl of soup, almost daring it to evaporate into nothing.

It smelled delicious.

She tentatively raised the bowl up to her face, bathing it in steam, making sure not to burn her mouth or fingers in the process.

It tasted even better.

"Thank you," Asuka allowed gratefully, smiling. "Thank you, both of you. I really needed that."

She woke up with a slight start as she realized someone was in bed next to her. However, it didn't occur to her at all that it was a stranger, that someone might have crept into her room to watch her as she slept, somehow. Asuka rolled as much as she could without disturbing the other person, and glanced over her shoulder to see the familiar shape of the back of Juudai's hair, a little crushed against the other pillow.

Their backs were pressed together. She couldn't explain how they wound up that way, but somehow, they'd huddled together like this. She recalled they were talking late at night during this, one of his visits, but couldn't remember when she'd fallen asleep, or even laid her head down to rest her neck. Perhaps she'd already been asleep by then, in all but the physical sense.

As she settled back down to sleep again, a voice intruded on her reverie, quiet and still. "Asuka, something wrong?"

Her attention shifted from one world to the next. "I thought you were asleep."

"Not really." His slight figure turned so he rested on his back. "You're comfortable, and I'm a night owl, so I figured I'd keep you company. You forgot to put the blanket on the bed, too, so I thought you might be cold. And besides, I can't sleep with you thinking so loud."

Juudai was smiling, she could tell even without seeing it. Still, she wondered where the idea of "thinking too loud" came from. If he could read minds, he probably would have isolated himself long ago, so how...?

"Well... I haven't had a sleepover since I was a little girl, you know," she admitted easily, not sounding embarrassed at all. "So I suppose I can call this my first 'grown-up' sleepover in about fifteen years."

"Yeah," Juudai said, and she could feel the muscles in his back moving slightly as he curled up against her. "I like that way of thinking of it."

It was so easy to sleep again with a slim body warm against hers, and soft hair to illuminate the darkness, and a smile on her mind to chase away the bad dreams. Asuka had never had a friend who seemed so genuine before, and because of that she almost had to assume that he wasn't real, that he didn't really exist. But she didn't mind. So many things had turned out exactly the same way, and he was the embodiment of every one of them.

One day when he wasn't expecting it, Asuka kissed Juudai on the doorstep, before they could go inside and Fubuki could see them. He was wide-eyed with surprise when she drew back.

"I'm sorry," she told him calmly. "I just... I was proving to myself that I don't need you like that anymore. Not the way others do. Forgive me." Then she slipped inside and greeted Fubuki, and Juudai followed a moment later as though nothing had ever happened.

Asuka almost betrayed herself with a contented smile.