A/N: Wow, barely made the deadline for this one! I really had a hard time coming up with a concept for this pairing – originally, I was going to do another post-canon work, but I just wasn't feeling the flow, you know? xD
So yeah, this is for the next round of the Fanfic Contest – Hostshipping, or Ryou Bakura/Tea Gardner. I wanted to do something a little different though, so this is AU and more of a family/friendship kind of love than anything romantic. I hope you all like it!
Ryou Bakura wasn't the type to get lost easily – especially when he was going to places he'd already been before. However, he had accidentally gone off at the train station before his stop was supposed to be, and his two-minute walk to the Gardner's house turned into what was now a thirty-minute hike through downtown Miura. He should've gotten Mrs. Gardner's cell phone number after his last visit, but it always slipped his mind by the end of the session.
He did have someone who could help; he pulled out his cell phone and looked through his slim list of contacts for Seto Ryuichi's home number. After all, Mrs. Gardner was Seto's aunt on his mom's side.
He'd also been the one to tell Ryou that they were looking for an English tutor for their young daughter, one who could also babysit during the afternoons while Mrs. Gardner worked part-time, at least until Tea started kindergarten. He was surprised she didn't learn English growing up, with an American father, but was glad all the same that she was learning.
"Seto?"
"Ryou? What do you want?"
The two spoke English to each other outside school, as a way for Seto himself to practice learning and for Ryou to keep his familiarity with his mother tongue. It was what started their friendship, something Ryou was also grateful for – neither he nor Seto had many other friends, and even though they weren't close, they had each other at least.
"I took the bus to the wrong stop to get to Tea's house, and now I can't find it."
He heard Seto sigh and loud laughing in the background; Ryou guessed he was at home babysitting his little brother Mokuba. "Listen, I don't know where you are, and I know you. Did you find your way to the harbor?"
"I… yes, I did."
"Good. Follow that until you get to the place with the sailboats. Then make a right on that area with the big gingko tree and walk for a quarter kilometer. Then you get to Shitamachi which is where the train usually drops you off, right?"
"Right. Thank you Seto. See you at school tomorrow."
Seto hung up without a goodbye, but that was pretty typical of him. Ryou started walking, thinking of what he would teach Tea today. Maybe "me" and "you" so that she would stop asking him to use the awkward ore-sama when they played pretend games.
After another ten minutes of walking, he found the train stop he usually took. From there, it was familiar to him.
Finally, he made it to Mrs. Gardner's house. He knew that she had to work in the afternoons, and hoped that she wasn't sitting around waiting for him. Ryou knocked on the door, and heard a voice call out, "matte kudasai!"
He was glad that Mrs. Gardner was still there, and waited as she opened the door dressed in her work clothes. "Omatase shimashita!" he apologized and gave her a polite bow.
"It's all right, Bakura-kun," she said. For some reason, she always tried to speak English to him – probably to prove that her English was just as good as a teenager's even if he was British-born. He wasn't sure if her husband spoke English to her, though he imagined it happened occasionally if he grew up in America.
However, for some weird reason, she always addressed him with a Japanese way even when speaking English, using the –kun and calling him by his last name. He'd seen a few people he met do that, and wrote it off as an odd Japanese thing.
"I am terribly sorry. I left at the wrong train stop. Did I keep you from your work?" She made a motion for him to enter, and he put down his school bag and shoes. "It is no problem. You were early two week before. Now I have to go. I am back in two hour. Ganbatte, Tea!"
"Abayo!" came a cutesy voice from the other room, and Ryou turned to see Tea bouncing around. "Konichiwa, Bakura-kun!"
"Hello, Tea." He sighed; he'd been trying to start with greetings, but she kept forgetting. He couldn't blame her too much; she was four, and very extroverted for a Japanese little girl.
"He~llo Ryou-kun." She had remembered her lessons then, at least some of it. Ryou did feel bad about making her try to unlearn the honorifics, they'd probably been drilled to her head until she managed to do them right.
"Ba-ba-ba-ba-Ba-ku-ra-kun." He smiled, having heard her sing and babble to herself often, sometimes making plays with words. His Japanese instructions said it was good for kids and young adults to learn vocabulary, so he was fine with that. For right now he would try asking some questions to see what vocabulary she remembered.
"What did you eat Tea?"
"I eat… I eat… gohan?"
"Rice."
"Rai-seu?"
"Rice."
"Rice!"
Okay, she was making progress. Ryou wasn't too concerned about the pronunciation, since even Seto messed up his words often when he wasn't trying. Her grammar wasn't great, but even four year olds who spoke English first talked like that. And she'd been able to use English to answer a question, which was good!
Ryou let her go draw and color to herself for a few minutes, as he looked through his backpack; he was sure he'd have something to give her. He was happy to find that many of the instruction booklets and their tips he'd gotten when learning Japanese also could help the other way around as well.
"Tea?"
"Hai?"
"Who is okaasan?"
She laughed and tackled his legs affectionately. "Bakura-kun, baka-kun. Okaasan is okaasan."
"Okaasan is mum."
"Mamu?"
"Mum."
"Hai." She went back to coloring on her paper. "Mam, mamu, mamukai. Mama mieru, mamukai me."
Ryou laughed at her joke – she was playing around with English grammar, or at least he hoped so. He'd only been meeting with Tea a few times a week for a month, and she was already doing very well. He'd guessed that the best way was to immerse her by speaking English as much as possible, and she seemed to pick up on the phrases. It made him feel good – nobody had ever learned anything from him before.
"Tea, who is otousan?"
She laughed again. "Chichi is otousan." Well he supposed that one was technically correct…
"Dad."
"Dad?"
"Yes! Dad."
"Yesdad?"
"Dad. Or dada." He figured she'd like that one.
And she did, when she started singing again. "Dada, mama, chichi, haha. Otousan, okaasan, ojouchan… who is ojouchan?"
He smiled and got up to see what she was drawing. She rarely ever asked him how to say something in English, and when she did he took it as a sign that she really was interested in learning. "Ojouchan is daughter."
"Dotto? Mudo da!"
Ryou laughed again and sat down cross-legged beside her on the floor. "What are you doing?Nani yatte n da yo?" He pointed to the picture.
"Kazoku-atai," she replied back. "Mamu, Dada, dottor."
He pointed to the last figure, the tall one colored in blue. "Who is he?"
"Oniichan!"
Ryou was silent. His mind flashed back to the days of him and Amane, practicing Japanese together as their family planned to move before… well, they would often practice and learn together from books. She always called him nii-san, and the word brought back so many memories. Now, a few years later, it still touched him.
He forced himself to turn back to Tea. "Who is oniichan?" He didn't know she had any siblings. Maybe he had gone away as well…
"Anata-baka, Bakura-oniichan."
Now Ryou was touched. He thought of himself as just a tutor, a friend of a family friend or something like that. To hear that she saw him as an older brother really made him happy. He gave her a hug.
"Can I call you imouto-chan?" he asked.
"Atai?"
"Yes."
"Yes! Daisuki, oniichan."
He smiled and deepened the hug; it was nice to know that she loved and looked up to him like that. Ryou hoped that this meant he could at least do some of the things for her that a big brother did for a little sister, even if he was just a teacher and babysitter.
"I love you too, imouto-chan."
A/N: So here it is, finally done!
Can I just say I love the idea of AU Kaiba? And him and Ryou calling each other by their first names is so cute!
I will translate the phrases for the benefit of others. Most of these are from TV Tropes or from dictionaries, so PLEASE let me know if there are mistakes:
Ore-sama: a very egocentric and macho-man pronoun to refer to oneself, which Yami Bakura used in the original Japanese.
Matte kudasai: Please wait.
Otamase shimashita: Sorry to have kept you waiting.
Ganbatte: Do your best.
Abayo: An informal way to say goodbye.
Gohan: Rice.
Okaasan, haha: Two ways to say mom. The former if you're talking about your mom, the latter if you're talking to your mom. Same with otousan and chichi for dad.
Ojousan: Daughter.
Mudo da: It's useless, referring to how she was trying to rhyme her words.
Kazoku: Family.
Atai: A little-girl way to say I, comes from watashi.
(O)nii(san/chan): Older brother.
Imouto-chan: Younger sister.
The rest are pretty easy, I figure most people who watch anime and read anime fanfics have at least the basics down. Anyway, please review and wish me luck! I hope you all enjoyed!