A/N: Yu-Gi-Oh belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. Some Replayshipping if you squint a little. Dub version used for this fic.

Meaning Behind the Red

In elementary school, V-day took two days.

On February 13 they would spend the whole day decorating their mailboxes. The teacher would open up her whole cabinet to a reveal a huge array of art supplies, construction paper, safety scissors, colored felts and stencils. Some would go for the stencils, carefully tracing out the perfect shape of a bouquet or cupid or angel and pasting them on the front with accurate precision. Others were a little more daring and opted for relatively personal, creative, but not always successful, renditions of these icons.

The best thing was probably the glitter. This was truer for girls than boys but the boys were probably just pretending they didn't like it. The easiest and cleanest kind of glitter came in squeezable tubes that you could just uncap and trace over your picture like a felt pen. The only problem with this kind is that you have to remember to wait for it to dry before touching it or else you'll smear your picture. The other kind, or the "dry" kind, usually came in a little bottle and you had to pour glue onto your picture before sprinkling it on. If you didn't have the wet glitter (if someone else was using it, for example) than you can leave a trail of glue on the page, pick out a bit of the dry glitter between your fingers, and carefully drop these bits on top of the glue. You could also spread the glue around with your fingers, dump a whole bunch of glitter on it and shake off the rest on a carefully laid out piece of paper towel.

By the end of the day, bits of construction paper and other miscellaneous materials would litter the carpet and half of the arts supplies would either be missing or empty. After clean-up (which was pretty unpleasant since the teacher made them pick up every bit of paper on the carpet by hand), many of these things would turn up again, sometimes a little stickier or sparklier than their original state. Afterwords, everyone was forced into a line-up, with the teacher at the head of the line, and made to march to the washrooms in an orderly fashion.

Now Yugi always knew where he belonged in that line. Somehow the teacher (and every teacher in the school did this) felt he/she might lose a kid along the way no matter how long or short the distance was. Consistently the shortest kid in every class, he was right behind the teacher at the very front where he/she could keep an eye on him. The only year representing an exception to this pattern didn't turn out to be the blessing he'd thought it would be because he ended up blindly following the little girl in front to him into the girl's washroom. This social taboo took awhile to register but he finally realized "certain fixtures" were missing and everyone was frozen in her spot staring at him. Hurrying out of the door, Yugi ended up bumping into a girl on her way in and getting his sticky fingers tangled in her hair. After some attention-grabbing angry words, hundreds of "I'm sorries," and classmates jeering "Yugi liiiiikes Miho!" the teacher stepped in and peace was established.

The valentines themselves were usually sold in packs of 30s or 60s, which was more than enough to fulfill the class list the teacher mass produced for each of them. Although he wasn't completely willing to admit it, Yugi liked going shopping with this grampa for the ones that suited him the best. He was especially excited when the stores finally had the Duel Monsters edition because he then had the fun task of trying to match the classmate with the monster.

The teacher wouldn't let them distribute their cards until the end of the day but the wait only made it better. In addition to the valentines, people brought chocolate, cinnamon hearts and those chalky multi-colored hearts with short messages on them. The teacher gave out valentines as well and his/hers (usually hers) were the best because she'd accompany them with little nick-knacks like pencils, erasers and even Kinder Surprises © if they were lucky. Thus V-day was a community event that involved everyone, with each contributing something that made the day an anticipated occasion.

With the shift from elementary to high school came a shift in the customs involved in V-day. Preparation lasted about a week due to all the buying and selling of roses, balloons and teddy bears, which one could opt to have delivered on the 14th to the recipient's classroom. Of course the delivery process itself thrilled some and disappointed others. People walked around in twos, dropping off their sweethearts at her class before going to his own. This pairing process could also be seen in the hallways where the spirit of the day brought about a new found courage in some to establish connections they otherwise would have avoided doing any other day. People employed different tactics in doing this and some yielded more positive results than others. Many, however, were left confused due to misjudgments in whose locker belonged to whom or random unmarked envelopes with shotty, plagiarized poetry inside.

It was in this spirit that Yugi summoned the nerve to slip a little something of his own into Téa's locker. Of course, his childhood friend recognized the messy but legible hand right away and politely thanked him for this thoughtfulness. She proceeded to declare a singles hangout at Burger World in which Yugi was more than welcome to come along. Recognizing the subtle and gentle rejection, he went along with the crowd, masking his disappointment with anecdotes about the embarrassing things that happened to people on that special day.

--

"It would be more appropriate to attend a torture and execution (1) than to give out cards," Was the unexpected reply.

In his attempt to reengage with the positive memories associated with this day, Yugi found himself going around asking various singles their thoughts. He received a range of answers from "it's the best day to hook up with lonely, desperate people" to "it's a just a commercialization process invented by Hallmark © to make people spend money." Clearly a lot of these comments reflected the speaker's bitterness or masked apathy and Yugi, being in the same shoes as them, couldn't help but sympathize.

"Don't you know, Yugi? Several early Christian martyrs were named "Valentine." Valentine of Rome was a Roman priest who was martyred in AD 269 and Valentine of Terni was martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian. There might be a third martyr as well, someone who died on a February 14. That may be where the date came from but no one really knows anything about him."

Maybe the answer wasn't so unexpected after all. Rebecca Hawkins, the child prodigy, had no reservations when it came to sharing her knowledge. Adjusting her glasses, she went on about the Pre-Roman connection to the holiday, the associations these ancients had with their Gods, the stars and the changing seasons. Most people wouldn't know these things in such detail and Yugi was sure Rebecca recently looked up this info. Despite her somewhat objective stance, the fact that she bothered to look this up suggested a certain preoccupation Yugi couldn't help but notice.

"Pretty much every holiday means something different now than they used to back then, right?"

"That's true. But that's no excuse for completely disregarding the history behind it. We should show some appreciation." The whole time they spoke, she hadn't once looked at him. Although they sat beside each other on the grass, her eyes were turned ahead, the sides of her glasses blocking his vision of her gaze. She fiddled with the blades of grass beside her and her speech didn't resonate with its usual confidence.

"Well, we can't expect everyone to do hard-core research on everything." Yugi wasn't sure who he was trying to convince more, himself or her, "No doubt nothing is the way it used to be. The meanings of things change."

"Sometimes the original is better. Origins give birth to history, to the stories behind icons. Things lose their significance the further removed they are from their beginnings."

"That's true. But isn't it people who add significance to things? I mean look at money, it's just paper until the community decides its worth."

Rebecca bit her lip pensively. She wasn't all too thrilled with the topic but her competitive side told her to keep countering, "It's not the same thing. Money is just currency, a commodity for exchanging goods. A holiday is meant to commemorate a significant event in the past. We commemorate things to remember them, Yugi."

"I guess. But is Valentine's Day really considered a…. holiday?" Rebecca "hmmed" and Yugi thought back to all the days schools closed down due to "holiday" purposes. Of course all those card exchanges in elementary school and rose deliveries in high school wouldn't have been possible if they shut down school on Valentine's Day.

"Well that just goes to show how devoid it is from its origins!" Her voice raised an octave and a little spark of passion laced her tone, "They made a frivolity out of the pain and suffering of those who sacrificed themselves!"

Yugi drew his knees up to his chest, his eyes reflecting compassion, "You're right, and it's really a shame. But you really can't help it. We can mourn over the loss of value and significance but we'd just be miserable all the time if we do that. I don't know, it's just that the current representation of Valentine's Day makes people a lot happier now than the one in the past did."

"It's seems unfair though."

"Yeah, and it's not really for everyone. But meaning isn't just on the historical level, it's on the personal level too. Some people have good memories attached to certain holidays and some people have bad ones. But really, it's your own experiences that come to mind, not the textbook stuff."

Rebecca remained unconvinced. She preferred not to think about all the missed holidays spent on an airplane or a lone hotel room. And it really wasn't to her advantage to be reminded of her grampa's constant obsessive analysis of the ordinary things they dug up and the piles of work dropped on her during times when other people would be relaxing with families beside a warm fire with all their presents and stockings and carols and grand dinners and desserts and –

"Since neither of us have anything better to do, we could hang out on Valentine's, what do you say?"

Rebecca turned to Yugi with a raised eyebrow, "Do you mean, like, give gifts and chocolates and that kind of stuff."

"Well," Yugi replied shyly, "We don't have to if you don't want to. We can just go to Burger World or the arcade; you know, chat and pass the time."

She thought about it for a moment. Technically, there was nothing to lose. Then again, if Yugi got her a present, she'd be obligated to return the gesture and then he'd give her another gift and then she'd have to return the gesture again and then it would be an endless cycle with each gift getting more expensive than the previous.

"I don't know."

Yugi laughed, "I know it's hard for that genius brain of your to process it but we're just going to hang out and have fun. No obligations."

For some reason, she actually believed him. It was the same way during their first duel together before he gave her the Ties of Friendship card. Yugi was just genuine like that and she felt there wasn't much risk involved in taking the chance. Well, not this time.

"Okay. No Burger World though."

"Fine, no Burger World."

--

The next Valentine's rolled around and Rebecca and her grandfather just so happened to be in Domino again. Yugi and Rebecca found themselves checking out the new game shop in the mall, completely oblivious to the time or date. It wasn't until an ice cream vendor offered them a two-for-one Valentine's special on his strawberry that the "significance" of the day became apparent. Yugi graciously got each of them a strawberry cone (since it was such a great deal) before they headed to the arcade to check out the new racing game.

Due to her vocation, Rebecca wasn't in town all the time and the following year, Yugi found himself sending out E-cards to all this friends on V-day. Some responded with short greetings on their own E-cards and others didn't. Rebecca attached a picture of herself inside Tutankhamen's tomb with her reply and, out of curiosity, Yugi just had to comment on it. In no time, emails flew back and forth between them, the subject of them constantly changing with details increasing until it seemed like they were both in the same town again. To Yugi's surprise, Rebecca offered to send him a little relic from her grandfather's findings, something she'd managed to coax her grampa into letting her keep. How this was even possible was beyond Yugi but, in less than a week, he received an Express package from Egypt labelled "fragile". Inside were five carefully wrapped playing pieces for a game called Senet with brief instructions regarding the rules of the game. Knowing Yugi was the only one who'd really appreciate the value of these relics, Rebecca sent every Senet piece she could find until his collection was nearly complete.

Out of gratitude, and not obligation, Yugi felt compelled to send her something in return. It wasn't the most creative idea, nor did it hold a tremendous degree of significance but Yugi opted to send her a Beanie Baby © for each Senet piece she sent him. They were cute and affordable and (considering her attachment to Teddy) he assumed she'd like them. The first one he sent off was a clownfish by the name of Jester. Jester came with a tag along with a birth date and poem:

Date of Birth: September 30, 2000

He loves to play in the sea
With his friend the anemone
Dancing is their favorite way
Of spending each and every day!

It wasn't long before he got an email reply thanking him for the clownfish and playfully poking fun at his choice in gifts. However, she very much enjoyed the red and white stuffy and would love to start a collection of them. She also told him she'd be in town at the first opportunity she got to deliver the last, most important piece of the game by hand.

After fifteen minutes of staring outside of the window completely zoned-out, he caught Rebecca coming in through the double doors of the eatery. Although it was sunny outside, the mid-February chill made Yugi shiver as the doors slowly closed. She plopped down on the seat in front of him and eagerly pushed the brown package in his direction. It was a Senet board. Made of a teal opal, the rectangular box was divided into ten boxes horizontal and three boxes vertical. A slide-out panel provided a convenient place to keep the pieces and each of the four sides were decorated with exotic patterns. After gaping at the treasure for almost a full ten seconds, Yugi sheepishly handed her a blue gift bag.

"Lurkey the Turkey," She read with a sloppy grin, "That makes ten, thanks Yugi!"

"I'm glad you like them," He said modestly and pulled out a velvet bag, carefully pouring out the ten teal pieces on the table, "I read over the rules, think I sort of get how this game works. Wanna give it a whirl?"

He already knew the answer before Rebecca could reply. They set up their board and started slowly at first but quickly picked up speed. It didn't take long for the clinking sounds of stone and the strategies spiraling around in their minds to drown out whatever sappy song played on the speakers.

- End-

A/N: (1) This line originally came from a show called The Big Bang theory.

For those wondering: Kinder Surprise © is a type of hallowed-out chocolate egg with a toy inside. Hallmark © is a franchise of gift shops. Beanie Babies © are collectible stuffed animals belonging to "Ty." Each one of these comes with a heart-shaped tag indicating its name, date of birth and a short poem about it.

Reviews would make it a (belated) Happy Valentines Day :)