Like a Mean Joke
Written for Femslash Fete on Dreamwidth
Prompt: Jocular
Title: Like a Mean Joke
Ship: Guiltshipping | Ruri/Sayaka
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V
Word Count: 2,830
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Tags: Pre-Canon, Fluff, Love Confessions, Getting Together, LGBTQ Themes, Past/Referenced Bullying
Girls like Ruri didn’t like girls like Sayaka.
They probably didn’t like girls at all.
Growing up, Sayaka was always the odd one out and she wasn’t too sure why or what she could do about it. She was painfully shy. Awkward. She wore glasses. She wasn’t good at dueling despite enjoying it and had all the graceful coordination of a wet paper bag. She didn’t get it and she didn’t think that the other children who othered her got it but for whatever reason, Sayaka was on the outside.
She was always last picked.
She was always ignored when she tried to use her voice.
There was nothing she could do to leave an impression, good or bad, on other children when she was in elementary school. And so, Sayaka developed a shy and even isolated personality. Some of it the fault of others and some of it her own as she convinced herself that at every turn, she would be tolerated at best and forgotten at worst.
Though maybe things would look up when she changed schools. She was enrolled one of Heartland’s best after elementary school but first. She had to get there.
With a few weeks to go on the school calendar, regardless of if Sayaka stood out or blended in, there was one incident in particular that stuck to her and soured whatever she possibly could have salvaged of her self-esteem in middle school. It was close to graduation and there was a lot of buzz around her class and even the year: excitement to go to big school, actual school. Fanned by on-set puberty and encouraged by expanding freedoms and daunted by new responsibilities: everyone was a little on edge for good and for bad.
Sayaka was somewhere in the middle with it all. She was excited. She was scared. Then, just as she was looking for some magical sign that it would all get better, she found it – and she wished she hadn’t, in hindsight.
It was so cliche but it had been more than enough to make Sayaka’s heart pound and her mind believe. She found a love letter in her shoe cubby. She held it preciously as she read it over and over again.
The actual confession, it promised, would happen after school if she waited by the tree with the love-heart bough. Enticed by such rosy promises, Sayaka vibrated with excited and she clutched on desperately to the letter. She followed through with its instructions and she watched as her schoolmates walked on through whilst she stayed behind.
She watched the crowds disperse. The noise and the laughter, the games played and more. She smiled, though, any minute now. She watched the teachers supervise and listened to buses rattle on through the mainstreet, she heard the chime of a bike’s bell and more. Still nothing.
She watched the sunset dye a deeper orange and just as she decided to give up, someone turned up. To make fun of her. Of course. Why else? No one else would actually notice her…
The girl who didn’t fit in.
Sayaka felt like a different person after this incident. She felt small and unimportant. Ruined. Ridiculed. The punchline of a mean joke. The photos from when she graduated all had a miasma about them. She hated them, she wasn’t smiling in any of them as she faced the problem of a new gauntlet.
They said middle school was brutal.
She felt a pit in her stomach when she arrived at her new middle school for the very first time. She was around all these new people, no one knew her and she knew no one but even so.
There was a light in the dark: Ruri.
Sayaka fell head over heels all but immediately.
Kurosaki Ruri was the coolest girl she had ever seen. Long, luscious hair of purple, bright eyes of maroon, she always had a smile and an approachable air around her. She was friendly, she treated all she met equally with kindness and fairness.
She was the kind of girl that wouldn’t look twice at someone as invisible and frumpy as Sayaka and yet.
“Good luck,” Ruri told her as they shook hands, “let the best Duelist win.”
“R-Right.”
Like many Duel Schools, Heartland Academy put their students through the ring of fire from the get go. There was no first day ease in, reading the syllabus and ice breakers games, nope. It was go, go, go, with action packed days which brimmed with duels.
Then, once the cream of the crop had been sorted, then the actual schoolwork like literature and arithmetic could ensue.
Sayaka wasn’t too sure how the brackets worked. Maybe they were random, maybe they were seeded. All she knew is that on her first day, in her first match, she was to go up against Ruri.
From across the school’s gymnasium, Ruri seemed like an insurmountable challenge. She put up more than a good fight. She was the strongest of the strong, she cheered and she yelled and she played the best game that she possibly could have with her Lyrilusc monsters.
But Sayaka did her best.
She wanted to earn Ruri’s good graces since she was so firmly of the belief that girls like her and girls like Ruri didn’t get along but she wanted to fit in. She wanted to have someone like her and there was no skill more impressive than the ability to win. With this in mind as her resolve, Sayaka fought alongside her precious Little Fairy with ferocity she didn’t even know she had.
And it was worth it.
The impossible happened. Even Sayaka didn’t believe it despite all the evidence around her. It had come down to the wire, it could have gone anyway, it was probably just a fluke but all around it, Sayaka was confronted by the outcome of the duel. The way the audience yelled and cheered, how Ruri smiled and congratulated her. The way the points numbers tinkled and drained away to zero not for her but for Ruri.
She had won the duel.
“That was so much fun,” Ruri cheered even though she had lost, “congrats on winning.”
She bounced around and smiled. Sayaka fidgeted and she hoped that she wasn’t getting the wrong idea but…
This could be the start of something big.
After the match, it was time for lunch and Sayaka didn’t want to clingy per se but she did give chase. Ruri left on a beeline, enveloped by her friends and a guy who kind of looked like. Sayaka followed along and when Ruri noticed, she turned around and smiled big.
“Do you want to join us?” she asked.
“Y-Yes, I’d love to.” Sayaka replied.
One thing led to another and they all ate together on the lawn outside. It was fun. The atmosphere was happy and bubbly. It almost felt like a dream for poor Sayaka.
She didn’t want it to end but the school bell tolled regardless of if she wanted it to or not.
So Sayaka struck up her nerve. Whilst the others tried to move on, she asked for Ruri’s attention. She turned around, her skirt swished and she smiled.
“What’s up?” Ruri asked.
“I want to give you something.” Sayaka replied.
She wanted to cement this first meeting with Ruri as being something more. Something that was important. She still wasn’t convinced that her win against Ruri wasn’t some form of beginner’s luck, so she decided to give up what had won her the duel: her Little Fairy.
As she tried to convey her emotions that pent up, overeager and self flagellating, Shun – Ruri’s brother – had noticed her lagging behind. He scowled as he approached. He inserted himself into their little moment and smacked Sayaka’s hand away.
The card fluttered downwards and Ruri all but turned on that dime.
She stomped towards Shun, her put face in his.
“Oh my gosh, what is your problem, big brother?!” Ruri scolded Shun.
Sayaka’s heart raced and dang. If she didn’t already have a crush on Ruri from meeting her across the duel field, it definitely would have solidified here as she saw yet another side of her, all bold and brash. Her hair fluttered in the wind as she stood up to her bully of a big brother.
Shun, embarrassed that he had been put into place by his little sister, skulked off. She’d won that fight pretty quickly.
Then, she turned on her heel at him and she smiled the biggest smile at Sayaka, “I would love your copy of Little Fairy as a keepsake, Sayaka.” she said.
She stepped closer and Sayaka feebly handed over the card. Their fingers brushed as she let Ruri accept the token.
“Here’s to a beautiful friendship.” she said. She gave Sayaka a wink and framed it with the card art as she stuck it up near her face in a peace sign.
And it turned into a lot more than just that. On both sides even.
They were the fastest of friends. Sayaka had never been swept off her feet like this before. Her heart raced around Ruri no matter what they did: if they were talking about the weather, sharing answers to the math homework, or opening fresh packs of cards. It didn’t matter so long as they were doing it together.
This was Sayaka’s first time having a best friend – and even a friend group. Through Ruri, Sayaka got quite acquainted with her other friends and brother too. They almost became like one big happy family. They squabbled, they made up afterwards, and then shot the shit.
It was pretty much the middle school experience that Sayaka had hoped for after being bullied and ignored in elementary school. It was normal and mundane and the best days of her life as she finally had colour and companionship in her day today.
Naturally, it couldn’t last.
In more ways than one.
It was just the end of another school day. She thought very little of it as she went to go and collect her things from the cubby at the end of the day. She wanted to swap over her shoes, made sure she had her homework and then she saw it.
A letter.
Albeit, a very cute one. It was pink-coloured with a wing-shaped sticker on the front. It was addressed to her and there was some very familiar writing on it but even so.
It gave Sayaka the worst feeling of deja-vu that she had ever had. She felt physically nauseous as this scene from elementary school played out all over again to almost the last detail.
Sayaka opened up the letter. Her heart thudded in her chest whilst her blood boiled. Once again, she had been asked to meet a certain someone at a certain place: in the shade of a tree, by the school gates. More to come in person.
Already, Sayaka knew how this would end: in tears and in flames. She fought the urge to crumple up this letter, tear it up and throw it away, move town and change her name. She wanted to die on the spot and she wanted something better for herself than being a coward.
Sayaka steeled her nerves. It was a letter from Ruri, and this was undoubtedly her handwriting, and she trusted her friend so, she did as she was told. She waited at a tree by the schoolgates for her friend and unlike this time.
Ruri met her there.
She looked the perfect picture of a comic strip out of a romance manga. She stood in the shade of the tree and she bounced up and down on the spot as soon as she saw Sayaka. She was sweet and excited.
Yet it all filled Sayaka with dread as she slowly took steps closer and closer to Ruri.
“I’m glad you could make it.” Ruri beamed. “I have something to tell you.”
That was exactly what Sayaka was afraid of. She remained quiet and let Ruri do the talking. Though, she wasn’t exactly listening with the blood that droned in her ears as anxiety did all the interpretation that her rational brain should have.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” Ruri began. “But we’re really good friends, right?”
“Right…”
“So I wanted to spend more time with you. In a special way.” Ruri said.
She was so bright. Brighter than the sun. Sayaka couldn’t look at her without feeling like she was about to melt on the spot.
“You mean a lot to me. I miss you when your not around,” Ruri rambled, “your so smart and humble, you’re sweet as anything and… well…”
“Well?” Sayaka prompted her.
She looked up slightly to meet Ruri. She brimmed with excitement. Sayaka’s glasses flashed and she steeled her nerves. Ruri took a breath and she put her hands on her hips.
“Sayaka,” Ruri announced, “I like you, will you go out with me?”
“H-Huh?”
It was like a gun went off.
Instead of a love confession, all Sayaka heard was a declaration of war. Irritation and irrationality bubbled in her veins as she processed Ruri’s words, stripped of all intonation and sincerity. Sayaka only heard them in a vacuum, in the abyss of bullying that she had climbed her way out of.
Sayaka’s expression flickered and she felt a rare burst of anger. It was almost fizzy within her chest, misplaced and overcompensating as her eyes watered.
“Ruri.” she said, very seriously. “If this is a joke, it's not a very funny one.”
Ruri blinked, she was disconcerted slightly and maybe even offended. She stepped back, her hand curled in closer to her and she placed it atop her breast. Her brows furrowed.
“Why do you think my confession is a joke?” she asked.
Sayaka shivered.
There was a harsher edge to Ruri’s voice than she likely intended: she had struck a sore point, an open wound, in Sayaka’s psyche that she had no knowledge of prior but still. It hurt. It hurt them both.
“I… I don’t know…”
Because here’s the thing.
Ruri wasn’t like those girls who were mean nor was she like the boys who played along with such cruel pranks. Ruri wasn’t exactly a jocular person, she wasn’t even an overly jolly person for that matter. Sure, she was happy and cheerful but she wasn’t a prankster, she was witty but her humour wasn’t mischievous in origin, or worse: malicious. She was kind-hearted, with a pure soul and a blithe smile, she saw the good in everyone. That’s exactly why Sayaka liked her – and liked her back, in that way.
So of course she meant every word. This wasn’t a mean joke, it was a genuine confession. As that realisation settled in, Sayaka smiled from behind her glasses and the tears that threatened to shed.
Ruri’s expression lightened up, she held her hand and she tried again with a courageous smile, “So, let’s try this again,” she said, “will you go out with me, Sayaka?”
“I’d… I’d love to, Ruri.”
Ruri’s smile started small then widened. Bit by bit. She beamed, she was over the moon and she lunged at Sayaka for a hug. She smothered her to bits and pieces, twirling her on the spot and smushed her face against her chest but gingerly, Sayaka hugged her back.
She felt the last rays of the sun a little warmer than before. She could hear Ruri’s heartbeat. She smiled to herself. This was real and it was the best thing that could have happened to her rather than a mean joke.
With it settled – Kurosaki Ruri and Sasayama Sayaka – as official girlfriends, they picked out a spot on the nearest Saturday to have a date. The next day, at the allotted time, they wound up at a cafe which got only the sunniest of windowsills and the sweetest of desserts.
They settled in a booth and everything was yellow, or at least that’s how Sayaka felt. It was exciting, her eyes were refreshed as it felt so good to spend this precious time with Ruri. They ordered drinks and there were cakes and sandwiches on their way too. They talked about everything and anything.
Was there a tangible difference between best friends and girlfriends? At first, Sayaka couldn’t tell but then when her melon soda arrived with two straws, it suddenly struck her just how much of a world of difference there was between now and then.
They both leaned in to share this frothy melon soda topped with vanilla ice-cream and a maraschino cherry, Sayaka realised something. It was a strange epiphany, out of nowhere, as she smiled and she laughed with Ruri, she looked deep into her eyes and her heart felt full. She really liked Ruri and Ruri really liked her.
Huh, Sayaka mused. It turns out that girls like Ruri truly did like girls like Sayaka.