The Heart Does Go On

Joey and I were in the car on the way to picking up Tea and Yugi from Yugi’s house.

After we were...done, I fixed my hair back into a ponytail, applied a small amount of make-up, and wore a black fitting shirt over my bikini top.

“This is going to be my first dueling tournament with a girl on my arm.” Joey informed me.

“Sorry it has to be me.” I smiled.

“Are you kidding? You’re model material. Bikini model at that. I wouldn’t have it any other way!” Joey excitingly said.

We pulled next to Yugi’s Gramps shop and we got out so we could talk to Gramps for a second.

“Hey Gramps how are you?” Joey asked as we walked in.

“Hi Joey, hi Ella. I’m good thanks. Yugi and Tea are upstairs, Yugi is preparing for the tournament! I take it you’re going to enter as well?” Gramps asked Joey.

“Yeah I can’t wait to kick some duelist butt!” Joey replied, and Gramps giggled.

“Well, have fun tonight.” He said as Tea and Yugi walked down the stairs.

“Ready to go?” Joey asked, and Yugi and Tea nodded.

***

“We have a few big names here for quite a small tournament.” Yugi said once we got there.

“There’s the obvious three – Rex Raptor, Weevil Underwood and Mako Tsunami. Reckon Kaiba will show?” Tea asked.

“Kaiba’s coming.” I smirked.

“How do you know?” Yugi asked.

“He asked me not to work tonight because I ‘wasn’t needed’ therefore he’s coming.” I replied.

“He probably wants to beat Yug! HA! He wishes!” Joey laughed.

“Well it’ll be nice to have a duel with Kaiba with no stakes on the line.” Yugi said.

“Well, now we’re at the beach, I can take this top off.” I smirked, and peeled the black fitting t-shirt off my body.

My barely fitting bikini bought the looks of a lot of guys around me.

Joey smirked at the attention I was getting.

“That’s right, Joey Wheeler now has a hot girlfriend!” He shouted at them.

“Wow, so Joey finally got a girlfriend?” I heard an unknown female voice say from behind me.

We all turned around, and a beautiful blonde was standing there, looking amused.

“Oh, hi Mai.” Yugi said.

“Here comes trouble.” Tea whispered into my ear, un amused.

“Please don’t tell me this is Joey’s girlfriend,” The blonde said pointing to me “she’s WAY too pretty for him.”

“Yep, she sure is. Ella, this is an old friend, Mai Valentine.” Joey said.

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled, and then instantly recognized her.

“You too, hun. You must be brave to put up with Joey.” She smirked.

“Haha, yeah, I guess.” I trailed off.

“WE are going for a walk.” Tea said, and dragged me off.

“Look, there’s probably something you should know.” Tea sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“Joey used to REALLY like Mai. She never liked him back, she saw him as a kid. Those feelings have faded, even watch them.” Tea said, and we looked over.

Mai was talking to both Joey and Yugi, and Joey was only semi-paying attention, he kept looking over at both Tea and I. When he saw us, he gave us a smile and a wave, and I waved back.

“See? His attention is all on you. If he didn’t like Mai anymore, he’d be staring at her cleavage or something. But I thought you should know, in case you got the wrong impression or heard it from someone else.” Tea explained.

“D-do you think Joey only originally liked me because I have the same body type as Mai?” I asked Tea.

“God no. He liked you from day one, he kept stuttering about you during class and when you weren’t around. The Domino High school uniform, it’s designed to hide that stuff. He didn’t know your body type until he saw you in casual dress in your first date.” Tea said.

“Okay, because this is going to sound sort of weird...I briefly had a ‘fling’ with a guy named Oliver back home in L.A. He was WAY obsessed with Duel Monsters, Kaiba was his biggest hero. He was even more obsessed with Mai, and even admitted to me he only liked me because I reminded him of Mai. He liked me for a year after that, but I dumped his arse back to the Stone Age.” I explained.

“Wow, what a loser. But I can assure you, Joey likes you for being Ella Campbell, not because you remind him of Mai Valentine.” Tea replied.

Joey ran up to us.

“I couldn’t stand Mai anymore, and I missed you too much.” He pouted.

“Awww, that’s cute. I’m going to see if Tristan and Serenity are here yet.” Tea said, and walked off.

Joey walked closer to me, and wrapped his arms around my small body. He kissed my head.

“Aw, well isn’t this cute.” We heard a sarcastic voice, and I looked up to see Kaiba standing there.

“Why do you care?” I asked, breaking away from Joey.

“I called you two cute, I didn’t say I was getting involved in your private matters.” Kaiba sneered, and then he noticed I was wearing a bikini.

His eyes trailed to my chest, and he seemed stuck there for a moment.

I saw Joey snigger at the corner of my eye, and I could tell he noticed too.

“Get lost rich boy!” Joey sneered.

“With pleasure, just to get away from you mutt.” Kaiba said coldly, and strode off.

“I can’t believe rich boy was checking out my girl! I have something he doesn’t have” Joey cheered, doing a happy dance.

“Why, why, why if it isn’t Joey Wheeler.” I heard a high-pitched voice say.

“Weevil Underwood! What do you want?” Joey snarled.

“Who’s the girl?” Weevil asked, as his attention turned to me.

“This, this is my girlfriend Ella.” Joey smiled.

“Well, I’m challenging you to a duel after we sign up.” Weevil sneered, and walked away.

“Hey, where do you sign up anyway?” I asked Joey.

“I don’t know, I’m going to go find Yugi again and find out.” Joey shrugged.