3:50PM, Ancient Egyptian Literature Club

“I would like to formally welcome you to the Ancient Egyptian Literature Club or AEL Club for short.” Martin smiled at them as he collected his cards, arranging them into a clean stacked deck.

“Whatever” Seto grabbed his cards and started walking off toward the club door.

“You’re not even going to introduce yourself?” Martin turned his attention to Seto as he walked toward the door.

“It’s not even worth my time.” Seto turned slightly, connecting his gaze with Kikoe.

He’s...intense for a card game playing nerd. Kikoe thought to herself as he broke eye contact, walking through the club room door.

“There’s no need to be rude!” Martin yelled out but Seto had already disappeared from view.

“I’m sorry for his attitude. He’s usually a little less grumpy but me beating him probably hurt his feelings.” Martin donned a shaky smile as he placed his hand on the back of his head.

“Shut up, you loser!” Seto’s voice echoed from the hallway.

“Says the coward running away after losing!” Martin yelled at the open door but found no further response from Seto.

“Should we just go or…” Danshiro awkwardly pointed with his thumb toward the open door, staring at Kikoe.

“Uh, yeah...maybe.”

“You guys can’t leave! This is the first official meeting of the AEL Club.” Martin jumped up from his chair with an energetic leap.

“Well, we’re not really members of the club so…” Danshiro said before getting cut off by Martin as he started approaching them.

“I’ve already taken all the necessary steps to make sure you both are already official members of the club. Welcome!” Martin placed his hand on Danshiro’s shoulder and gave a thumbs up to Kikoe.

“You did...what?” Kikoe responded, visibly confused.

“ I submitted the club application forms for you and Sanaba-san. I also did it for Kaiga-kun too but he hasn’t noticed yet…” the thought of Seto finding out about it sent shivers down Martin’s spine.

Kikoe and Danshiro looked at each other with concerned eyes before they started slowly creeping toward the exit.

“My apologies! I haven’t even explained the purpose of the club yet, have I?” They could see the stars light up in his eyes as he appeared oblivious to their not-so-subtle movements toward the door.

“We’re going to be studying the text I found on this ancient Egyptian tablet I sneak out of Egypt!” Martin grabbed out an earth brown rock from his bag. It was no bigger than a standard size school notebook. “This is only one of the many pieces of my collection that I found!”

Danshiro stopped as he saw the rock, suddenly extremely intrigued. He approached Martin with cautious anticipation. “Do you mind if I hold it?” Danshiro asked Martin with his eyes cast aside.

Dan seems to be pretty curious about this. Kikoe still stood near the door, examining Danshiro as he appeared oddly curious about the rock.

“Of course you can hold it! We’re going to be interpreting it and the others in my collection as our club activity.” Martin’s enthusiasm filled the small room as the passion within his voice was nearly palpable.

This looks so cool! Danshiro ran his fingers along the rough edges of the hieroglyphs. The depiction on the tablet had a central figure that appeared to be a magician of some sort surrounded by hieroglyphs.

“Kiki! Do you even see this?! We have real Egyptian tablets!” The stars that once donned only Martin’s eyes now found their home in Danshiro’s eyes as well.

“Haha. Yeah...so cool.” Kikoe finally walked to Danshiro and peeked over his shoulder, examining the tablet.

“Umm, Dan, you should look in the bottom right.” Kikoe whispered into his ear as a particularly interesting message was written in small print.

“Copyright: Official Egyptian Tour Souvenir 2005.” The message read.

“These tablets could be the key to deciphering the ancient game of duel monsters that we now know as Fu-Gi-Oh!” Martin chimed in again as they stared at the tablet.

“Who do you think you’re kidding?! This thing is just a tourist souvenir!” Danshiro seemed more than a little disappointed to find out they were inauthentic. He shook his hands as Martin as he spoke, tossing it back over to him soon after finishing.

“You think I don’t know that that message is written there? I’m the one that wrote it! How do you think I smuggled all of them out of the country?” Martin responded with a dejected tone.

“We’re out of here. Right, Kiki?” Danshiro turned back to Kikoe.

“Yeah, I think we should be heading out, Martin. Good luck with whatever you’re doing.” Kikoe gave him an awkward bow before heading out of the classroom.

“I promise I’m telling the truth guys…” Martin whispered to himself.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Is that Kaiga-kun over there?” Danshiro pointed at Seto as they turned a corner.

“Yeah, it does look like him. I wonder why he’s just leaning against the wall. Doesn’t seem to be really doing anything. What a weirdo.” Kikoe whispered in response.

“I heard that.” Seto responded.

“I’m sorry.” Kikoe gave an awkward apology.

“I was wondering how long you were going to be in there before he dropped the ancient Egyptian mumbo jumbo. Happened quicker than I really thought.” Seto continued but refused to make eye contact with them.

“He dropped that ‘truth’ bomb on you too didn’t he.” Danshiro seemed surprised for only a second before responding.

“Why do you think I was dueling him? He was so dedicated that he had ‘memories from a long dead pharaoh’ which helped him win duels. I was hoping to put him in his place by beating him but you saw how that went.” Seto’s disappointment filled his words at the admission of his defeat.

“Ancient Egyptian pharaoh?” Kikoe and Danshiro responded in tandem.

“Oh, you must’ve ran off before he finished his spiel then. He believes he has the spirit of an ancient pharaoh in his pyramid necklace.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Danshiro responded, dejected.

“Bye, losers. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into before actually joining that club.” Seto lifted himself from the wall and started walking away.

“Oh, Kaiga-kun, before I forget. He submitted paperwork for all of us. We’re already official members of the club.” Kikoe called out to him.

“He what!” Seto whipped his body around, finally making eye contact with Kikoe. A burning fire raging in his eyes.