Disclaimer: Melodiously not mine.
AN: A birthday present for Littlekuriboh. Many happy returns, babs.
Bop to the Top
© Scribbler, February 2009.
It started as a vague thrumming as they walked down the corridor clutching their maps, like the background noise of an air-conditioning unit in the process of breaking down. Gradually it got louder, until there was a clear beat and everyone looked around to see who'd left open the door to a music room.
"Can you hear that?" Anzu murmured, not wanting to alert their guide, who wasn't reacting in the slightest to the noise.
"Where's it coming from?" Honda wondered. "These are all science classrooms." The smell of sulphur filled the air, along with that strange, indefinable smell you only got in schools – ink mixed with old coffee and sour resentment.
What seemed like a living pulse of music suddenly surged up the corridor like a ripple turning into a wave across a lake. Yuugi actually ducked, as though it might hit him the same way a blast of energy from a duel could knock him off his feet. The pulse was followed in short order by a cacophony of voices and what appeared to be several hundred bopping, bouncing, flouncing bodies.
"Exchaaaaaaaaaaaaaaange students! We got us some exchaaaaaaaaange students!"
"The hell?" Jounouchi threw up his arms like he was trying to protect his face from flying shrapnel, but this particular brand of shrapnel had grabby hands and promptly streamed around him, Honda, Yuugi, Anzu and their guide. "Hey, leggo! Gerroff me, you weirdoes!"
Nobody listened. They were too busy … singing.
Yes, singing.
"We hope you will enjoy it,
We like it here and boy it
Has a lot to offer if you
Come with us and our crew
And see use prowl and ROAR!"
There followed a lot of harmonised roaring, during which Yuugi found himself dragged backwards by his backpack. When they'd agreed to this exchange trip, he'd thought the worst they'd have to worry about was getting lost or not knowing enough written English to cope with their classes. Nowhere in his internal list of potential disasters had 'being mobbed and kidnapped by singing teenagers' featured. He heard Anzu shriek, and saw Honda's hair disappearing down the corridor as he was literally carried off by six basketball players.
"Let us go!" Jounouchi hollered, also being carted away over the heads of the student body. "Whoamommawhothehellisthat? Watch where you put those hands, buddy! Aah, I'm gonna fall! More butt support! More butt support!"
"Guys!" Yuugi yelled, until he was spun around and found himself face to face with their pretty blonde guide.
"Welcome!" she declared in the manner of an overenthusiastic cheerleader. "To! East! High!" She accompanied each word with a handclap, which all the kids behind her immediately started mimicking.
"WELCOME!" they bellowed. "TO! EAST! HIGH! SEE THE WILDCATS PROWL AND ROAR!"
Suddenly Yuugi really, really wished he'd run away from the Ceremonial Duel. Yami would know what to do it a bizarre, obviously magical situation like this. Music blared from no discernable source, everybody was grinning manically, and they all moved in complete synchronisation, as though they'd been rehearsing this for months.
The crowd burst through into the school cafeteria, spinning Yuugi along until he was looking out across the huge area. What he saw made him gape. It seemed like every student in the whole school was there, dancing their hearts out and singing wildly.
What really caught his attention, however, was the sight of Anzu on a raised table in the middle of it all, leading a clutch of girls in what looked to be a very complicated dance from her last revue. They followed with ease, and though she still looked bemused, Anzu was smiling.
"Anzu!" Yuugi called.
She looked up at him, shading her eyes. Half a dozen girls did likewise. "Yuugi!"
"Yuugi!" echoed one of the girls.
"Cutie!" replied another, blowing him a theatrical kiss.
"Come on down and join the fun,
There's enough for everyone.
Shake your arms, your legs and booty,
Come on down here right now, Yuugi!"
"Whoa!" Yuugi yelped as he was suddenly lifted up and thrown off the balcony. "Yaaaaaaaah!"
He kept screaming even after he hit the giant wildcat balloon and slid safely down it to the floor. He was immediately hoisted to his feet by two boys in white lab coats, and then thrust onto a tabletop. People swirled around him, jabbing elbows and knees with the energy of little kids who'd ingested nothing but additives since birth.
Yuugi looked around him. "Jounouchi? Honda?"
What the hell was going on here?
Honda and Jounouchi, arms linked and performing their Victory Dance, looked over at Yuugi with what could only be described as expressions of baffled enjoyment. Around them everyone was copying their moves, turning what was usually an embarrassing display into something almost … graceful.
"Can-can, we kicked a little can-can …" warbled voices a lot more tuneful than either of his friends.
"What are you doing?" Yuugi wanted to know. He had to yell just to be heard.
"We can't help it!" Honda said breathlessly. "It must be something in the air!"
"Looks like it got you too, buddy," Jounouchi observed.
"Huh?" Yuugi looked down. He was apparently running through the movements of drawing and playing Duel Monsters cards from a wrist-launcher, which somehow had turned into the next segment of this most bizarre of welcomes. He had his own posse of copycats at his feet. "But I never … I didn't…"
"Exactly."
In perfect unison, Honda and Jounouchi leapt off their table and into the waiting crowd, revealing Anzu once more, who was apparently involved in some kind of dance-off with their pretty blonde guide on her table. Around them, the girls who'd sung at Yuugi were all half-crouched, egging them on.
Yuugi tried to stop. He couldn't. Moreover, suddenly … he didn't want to. It was like after your foot fell asleep, and warm tingles slowly spread up it as the feeling returned. The urge to keep going suffused him.
He watched as Anzu twirled into a perfect arabesque, having shed her shoes somewhere along the way. The crowd undulated from side to side, still singing.
"You'll learn, oh you'll learn before the day
Is out, not to mess with our Sharpay!"
Yuugi had once thought nothing could be scarier than life with a dead spirit in his head and several megalomaniacs trying to kill him, his friends and his family, and take over the world.
He'd been wrong. There was a power more daunting than even the Oricalchos, and it was hidden in an unassuming high school in Albuquerque.
Fin.