Just a small cute story I decided to make ^^
"Are you guys sure about this?"
"Whaaat, you scared?" Hiroki jeered, pulling the board out of the box and setting it on the floor between them all.
"N-No!" Taiyou's voice came out a bit more meek than he intended. When the three of them had decided on a sleepover at Hiroki's, this particular activity hadn't been on the menu. "W-Well, uh... I mean... I'm not so good with this kind of stuff, is all..."
"Ouija's just a game," Saori said softly. "It's totally fake..."
Taiyou nodded slowly as he watched Hiroki place the planchette on 'hello.' "If you're sure..." Hesitantly, his fingers joined his teammates' on the planchette.
"So, uh... how do we even work this thing?" Hiroki asked.
"Are you kidding?" Saori huffed cutely. "This was your idea, and you don't even know how to play?"
"Listen, I know how it's played, I just don't know if you're supposed to like, say some cool magic junk before you start or something!"
Saori shook his head. "No, you're way overthinking it. You just start asking questions, like this." He cleared his throat. "Are there any spirits here?"
They all watched the planchette in varying states of suspense... though nothing happened.
"M-Maybe they're busy?" Taiyou suggested.
"Busy doing what?" Hiroki asked bluntly. "They're kinda dead."
"Uh.... ghost stuff... like haunting houses, I gues--" His sentence ended in a squeak as the planchette moved beneath his fingers, slowly but surely making its way to 'yes.'
"Woah, sweet!" Hiroki grinned. "You know how to play Vanguard?"
"Why would a ghost know how to play Vanguard?" Saori asked sweat dropping as he hugged a pillow.
"I dunno how old the ghost is! Maybe they died like a week ago! In a Vanguard related accident!" He looked about the room, as if expecting to just see some spectral entity hanging around. "Hey, how'd you die, anyway?"
"I can feel you pushing it towards the 'V,' Hiroki...."
"Don't know what you're talkin' about."
Taiyou piped up. "Umm... shouldn't we be a little quieter? What if the ghost thinks we're being rude?"
"Are you afraid of the ghost or do you want to make friends with it," Saori asked rather teasingly. Usually he's really shy, but around his two best friends, he was more lively and cheerful.
"I-I'm just saying--" and his voice became a peep, "what if we make it angry?"
"Hey, guys? Did you see this thing move at all?" Hiroki asked, looking down at the board.
The planchette rested on 'M,' definitely not where it had been a few moments ago. Then slowly, so slowly, it seemed to gravitate towards 'U.'
"W-Which one of you is doing that!?" Taiyou cried.
"Don't look at me." Saori immediately turned his head in Hiroki's direction.
"Hey, it's not me, either! I'm a man of integrity!"
"You weren't a man of integrity 20 minutes ago when you ate the slice of pizza I called dibs on!"
All the while, the board continued to spell-- 'R' 'D'--
"M-Murder..." All the colour drained from Taiyou's face. "I don't think I can take any more of this..."
A silence hung around them. Before Taiyou could excuse himself to the bathroom and then not come back out, Hiroki asked another question, expression suddenly intense. "What do you want?"
Creeping around the board, the planchette spelled out another word-- REVENGE.
"Do you know who did it?"
YES.
"Mmm," Saori thought aloud, "well, even if you know who did it, how are you gonna get back at them when you're dead?"
Nothing.
"M-Maybe they never thought that far ahead?"
"Bro, did you just ruin this ghost's whole unlife with a single question?"
Then, something. 'Y.' A big something. 'O.' Oh, god, this was a MISTAKE. 'U.'
"HEY DO YOU GUYS WANT TO CARDFIGHT," Taiyou yelled.
The board was shoved unceremoniously back into the box and into the back of a closet, the door of which slammed so hard Saori thought he felt the room shake a little.
"Sooooo," Hiroki rode to grade 1 and passed.
"So." Saori did the same. "12."
"No guard." No trigger. "Howwwww's everything with you now? You know... Kazumi and Verno...."
"They're fine. Go for it." A crit-- seriously? "But um... they keep treating me like a kid...." Ride.
"I can understand why," Taiyou chimed in from the sidelines. "No one expected you to be this innocent and sweet."
"True, before when you were diffrided you were something else."
"I-I guess...." he said with a small blush as he laid a few cards between them. "Two."
"Crit." Hiroki tapped his vanguard. "All effects."
"I swear to god--"
"Crit," and this one was accompanied by the most shit-eating little smirk Hiroki was capable of. "Alll effects."
"Mou... no fair...." Saori pouted.
"Sounds like someone's upseeeeeet."
"Hmpf-- round 2!"
"I fight winner," Taiyou elected.
By the time they caught themselves yawning, several hours had passed. The little clock on Hiroki's desk flashed 2:00 AM.
"Guess we should pack it up, huh?" Hiroki scooped all his cards up off the floor.
"Guess so," Taiyou replied with another yawn.
Hiroki flipped the lights off and crawled into his bed while Taiyou and Saori splayed out on the floor.
Thirty minutes passed. Hiroki rolled over.
"Guys, are you still thinking about--"
"The ghost?" Taiyou finished for him.
"You guys wanna, uh, go for a walk, actually?"
"Really? You guys can't sleep because of that dumb game?" Saori sat up. "Well... I can't sleep either, so I'll come with you, but it's definitely not because of that, okay?" He finished off with a blush.
"You're so full of crap."
The night air was cool as they followed the sidewalk to nowhere in particular, no sound around them but the one of their own footsteps. None of them had said a word, but the silence was comfortable. Once a playground came into view as they turned a corner, though, Hiroki pointed to the jungle gym for all of a half-second before declaring "Race ya!" and breaking into a sprint.
Taiyou grumbled something about An Unfair Headstart before rushing off in the same direction.
Saori just kept his pace, laughing as his teammates clambored up the bars like a couple of monkeys, swiping and grabbing at each other in attempted sabotage.
At the end of a heated battle, Taiyou's hand grabbed the top rung first. "Ha! That's what you get for trying to cheat!" He sat down at the very top, and Hiroki took a spot right next to him.
"Don't make me push you off."
Saori joined them a few moments later. The structure wasn't all that tall, but it still gave them a pretty good view of the next street over, and everything else around them. As the only ones out and about, Taiyou thought they felt a bit like conquerers. The playground, the neighbourhood, the night itself-- right now, it was all theirs.
"So what if that ghost possesses me, huh?" Taiyou asked.
Saori kicked his legs gently. "Do we have to talk about the ghost more..."
"Well, obviously, I'd cardfight it and get you back," Hiroki said matter-of-factly.
"It's a ghost, not a diffrider."
"Then I guess you'd just be out of luck."
"Wow."
"I guess what I'm saying is--" Hiroki rubbed the back of his head and looked away all of a sudden. "Don't go getting possessed, or diffrode, or, whatever."
"Aw," Taiyou leaned in close, "you getting sappy on me here?"
"N-No!" Hiroki leaned back just as far making Saori giggle. "It's just trouble I don't want to deal with!"
Taiyou grinned. "I think that's Hiroki-speak for 'Yes! Don't leave us!'"
"Oh my god, you..." Hiroki rubbed his temples before throwing his hands up. "Okay, fine, maybe I was getting sappy! I just... don't want you guys changing into something else on me."
"I won't change if you don't," Saori said, with a warm smile.
"Trust me, I don't plan on it."
"Yeah!" Taiyou added. "Whether it's a ghost or anything else, I'll tell them nooo thanks!"
"Good, that settles it, then." Hiroki laid back against the bars, and the other two followed suit.
"The sky's really pretty tonight." A flash streaked across the night, and Taiyou pointed it out. "Oh! Look! Make a wish!"
"Pretty convenient we'd see a shooting star right now, huh?" Saori laughed. "Must mean we're lucky."
"We're gonna knock any ghost out of the park," Hiroki said confidently. "They're gonna regret messing with us."
"Hell yeah! When we're together, nobody can stop us." From between them, Taiyou held both his hands up. Their highfives broke the quiet night for just a moment. "... Okay, for real though, it would be kinda cool to help a ghost get justice."
"Can we stop talking about ghosts!?"
Taiyou and Hiroki started laughing, and soon, Saori couldn't help but join in. Then, they slid off the junglegym and started back to Hiroki's.
Whether ghosts or gods or monsters-- nothing was going to get in the way of more goofy boardgames, or hours-long playtest sessions, or late-night romps. Nothing was going to get in the way of their friendship. They were sure of it.