I was inspired to write a Ryou Bakura story after seeing so many pictures on DeviantArt depicting him in winter clothes. He's one snazzy dude with a heck of a taste in clothes, apparently. Teehee. And so, I introduce my newest OC, Brielle "Kirie" Goodwyn. Please let me know what you think of the story with a lovely review!

I do not own YuGiOh or Bakura, though I really wish I did. _ I only own my original character and the plot of this story.

Love Like Winter

Chapter 1

"Brielle, are you listening to me?"

I started at the sound of my mother's voice, snapping my head up from where it had rested in my hand so fast I both heard and felt a joint pop in my neck. I cringed. I'd feel that later, I was sure. I gingerly rotated my head around to help ease the growing ache and looked at my mother. "Yes?"

She huffed at me, pouting, "Can your mind not wander off for five seconds so I can know whether or not you'll remember to tell your teacher-"

"That my name is Brielle, I just moved here and I'm terribly sorry but I haven't had enough time to purchase the school uniform just yet," I picked up where I'd interrupted her easily, rolling my eyes. "I know, I know."

"Yeah, well I don't care about 'I know'. What I'm worried about is 'I forget'," she teased. "The last thing we need is for you to get a detention your very first day." She pulled the collar of her sweater a little closer around her tiny frame where it was slipping down her shoulder and glanced at the thermostat. "Is it supposed to be this cold?"

"I doubt the teachers here are that cruel, Mom, and if you're really worried about it being so cold, I don't see why I should even get the uniform. You saw how short those skirts are," I told her. She smiled at me.

"Yeah, but you've got those nice leg-warmers, and the uniform comes with a jacket."

I smiled back at her, snatched my book bag off the chair, my schedule and note off the kitchen table, and a piece of buttered toast before giving her a peck on the cheek. "Call the heater guy when you get a chance; I don't want you freezing."

"I will," she said, "I'm sure this cold spell won't last long. It's only early October, for heaven's sake! Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"

I turned and held a hand to my heart, mocking offense. "I am perfectly capable of walking to school all by myself, Mom; I'm a big girl now. I'll see you! Wish me luck."

She held up a hand as I walked out of the apartment. "Take care, hon'. Stay safe!"

Shutting the door behind me, I stood there on the other side for a moment. I shivered and rubbed my arms. Mr. Soseki, our landlord, would have to do something about the heat. Hopefully it wouldn't cost too much more on top of the rent. We would really need it badly when winter came. At our old apartment back in the States, we'd lived on the ground level and it had been cold there, but this was Domino City, Japan, and we now lived ten stories higher than we had previously. I shrugged to myself. At least we wouldn't have to shovel the walkway, like we used to; that was a plus.

I started down the hall to the elevator, only to find that it was in the midst of being repaired. Shaking my head in disbelief, I took the stairs and went down as carefully and quickly as I could. I made it out the door without incident and hoped the walk to Domino High School would be just as uneventful. I didn't need my amazing kultz-skills to show up unwanted and delay my arrival to school. Or my departure, for that matter. Or any time in between.

Lucky me, I was able to find the school without complications arising, so I made my way to the first class on my schedule. The school was a large building, but it seemed pretty straight-forward. I made it to classroom 219 and carefully opened the door. It seemed that class hadn't started yet and the teacher hadn't arrived, yet there were still a good majority of uniform-clad students present. Looking at them made me feel embarrassingly underdressed in my casual, faded and ripped, jeans and sweater.

I was about to swivel straight around and walk out when a throat cleared behind me. i turned my head to look up at a large man in a semi-formal suit smiling kindly at me. "Pardon me. Oh, are you the new student?"

It took about a total of five seconds for me to find my voice to respond. "Y-yes, that'd be me."

The teacher smiled in understanding and gave my shoulder a small nudge to get me going. "Don't worry, they don't bite. Let's get the day started. I'm sure you've got a lot more introductions to do. Might as well start it off right." We walked to his desk together and he called for the class to get to their seats and give him their attention. Still standing, he clasped a hand on my shoulder and spoke to the whole room in a voice full of vibrant emotion, almost as though even the desks, chairs, walls, and other inanimate objects were listening to him speak. "We have a new transfer student; Miss Brielle Goodwyn. Brielle," he turned to me, "Care to tell us about yourself?"

'Not really,' I squirmed to myself, but decided to buck up and face the class. Smiling a bit shyly, which, I'm sure, came off looking totally awkward, I spoke. "Uhm, hi. I'm Brielle, or Brie, if you want. My parents and I just moved here from America because my Dad got a job at Kaiba Corp. Uhhh..." I nodded to myself, unsure how to continue. I flapped my arms by my sides once and laughed nervously. "Thaaaat's about it..."

Concluding that I wasn't going to say more, the teacher assigned me my first seat of the day. I gave him my note explaining my lack of uniform, which he scanned quickly and nodded acceptably. As the student who I'd be sitting next to raised his hand and I moved toward him, I took a good look; spiky tri-toned hair, leather-clad underneath his uniform, with a strange, large gold pendant around his neck and wide violet eyes. Either he was some tough-guy wannabe or just had a leather fetish, I couldn't say. His clothes and his baby face just didn't seem to add up in my mind. Either way, I was stuck next to him unless the teacher redrew his seating chart.

I figured this guy couldn't possibly be too bad considering he didn't look like he could even hurt a fly and took my seat. He smiled kindly at me and we continued on to the day's first lesson.

Afterwards, I packed up my belongings and stuffed my personal list of things I'd have to catch up on, seeing as I'd come in after lessons for the year had already started, and promised the teacher, Mr. Nakamura, that I'd even do whatever homework I would have missed on the syllabus. Some people call it "sucking up"; I call it "covering my ass".

Yugi Muoto, the spiky-haired boy I'd sat next to, stood up from his desk and introduced himself formally. I shook his hand, straightening to my full height of 5'3'', noticing that I was a few inches taller than him. It made me wonder if he'd ever gotten picked on; with his odd hair and manner of dress, it seemed like a guarantee.

"You dad works for Kaiba Corp, huh?" he said as we walked out the door.

"Yeah; he used to intern at a gaming corporation in the U.S. and they got him a job here, so we packed up and moved. My mom and I were surprised; we'd heard that the company was really stingy with hiring people," I told him.

"Heh, yeah. Well, no, not really. It's the head of Kaiba Corp. who's really the stingy one." He brushed a finger under his nose with a laugh. "Have you heard anything about him?"

"The head of Kaiba Corp?" I lifted my head and thought about it for a moment. "No, not really. What about him?"

"You may not believe it, but he actually goes to this school." My eyes burned from the way I'd popped them open and stared at him. He laughed. "Yeah, his name is Seto Kaiba."

"You talkin' 'bout Kaiba?" a Brooklyn accent asked from behind us. We turned around to see a tall, blond-haired guy striding easily down the hall, his book bag resting casually behind his shoulder.

"Oh, hey, Joey," Yugi greeted. The blond's eyes got soft as he smiled at the shorter boy. It was obvious they were good friends. It made me wonder how they'd become friends; Joey had a tough air about him. The look in his eyes seemed to speak volumes about their friendship, like they'd seen through tough times together. Yugi turned back to me. "Joey, this is Brielle. She moved here from America."

Joey gave me a long look. "'S a pleasure to meet ya. So, what's this about that snot, Kaiba?"

"My father works for Kaiba Corp," I supplied, "That's why we moved here. Yugi was telling me he goes to this school. Is that true?"

"Pssh, yeah," Joey grunted, "The rich president of Kaiba Corp. You'll know it's 'im when you walk into a cold room. He's not too friendly." He spat the word sarcastically. "Hard to believe he goes to school here and not staying in his private mansion working on his gaming systems."

My eye nearly started twitching with the amount of disdain in his voice. I guessed Kaiba wasn't a very popular character.

"Well, we should get to the next class," I started off down the hall. "Guess I'll see you guys around."

With that, I walked straight to my next class and opened the door. As I stepped into the room and swept my gaze over the other students, one in particular caught my eye. He was sitting in the far corner, by the window, completely isolated from the other students. It seemed, however, that he preferred it that way; he was busy reading a book. When I walked in, he looked up and we locked gazes. All at once, a chill crept down my spine at the obvious disdain in his eyes; so this was Seto Kaiba.

He seemed to give me a once over and sneered before going back to his book. I flushed from head to toe, mentally pleading with my teacher, who'd noticed me and began to make the customary introductions, to seat me as far away from Kaiba as possible. It seemed, though, he hadn't heard me, and seated me directly in front of the guy. Great, I thought, Now I have to deal with him staring at the back of my head and hating it for the rest of the year. I sighed and resigned myself to this undeserved and cruel fate, trudging along slowly to my assigned seat. As I sat down, I stared out the window, into the courtyard, watching other students as they took their gym class. Above the courtyard was a marvelous view of the city; at least I'd have a nice view.

Halfway through the class, I ended up dropping my pencil, which, to my horror, rolled behind my desk. Grumbling to myself, I turned and bent to reach for it, only to find that it was on the other side of Kaiba's desk and the only way for me to get it would be to make a show of standing and walking around to the other side of my desk, picking it up, and waltzing back around to my seat. However, just as I was about to do just that, his foot moved and he kicked my pencil around to the other side of his desk, where it sat only a few centimeters from my hand. Glancing up at him, I noted the fact that he wasn't even looking at me and the scowl on his face seemed to scream, "I hate the fact that you exist and if the only way to get rid of you is to help get your stupid pencil back, I'll do it, so leave me alone now". Averting my gaze, I picked up my pencil and mumbled a "thank you" under my breath as I straightened in my seat and continued writing notes.

After that math class, my mood was in the toilet. I consoled myself with the mental image of black, anime stress vapors floating around my head. After being assigned my locker, I decided to stop by there and put away my math and geography books, which I'd had to pick up. Taking out the combination, I put it into the lock and it opened; however, my locker was determined to keep me out. After fumbling with the handle for a good minute and fist came out of nowhere and pounded on it three times, startling me so bad I was sure I had a heart attack. But sure enough, the locker swung open easily after that. I glanced to my side, seeing Joey there with an easy-going smirk.

"I had that locker last year," he explained, "It just needs a good kick in the ass once in a while."

I gave out a nervous laugh. "Uh, thanks," I said as I piled my textbooks on the shelf and swung the door closed. "You've got to be psychic or something." At his confused stare, I elaborated. "Kaiba was in my last class."

"Oooh, bad luck."

"It gets worse. He sits behind me," I murmured, and started off to my next class. He kept pace with me and winced as I recalled the situation.

"Ouch," he said. "Neh, don't worry 'bout it. He's like that to everyone. Ya get used to it, eventually." We both stopped in front of the same door and laughed, but he stopped me with a nervous smile. "You've got double bad luck."

"Oh no, Kaiba's in this class too, isn't he?" I groaned. A throat cleared right behind me and I winced and mumbled, "He's right behind me, isn't he?" Joey's eyes turned into steel and he gave a curt nod, but he wasn't looking at me. I turned around and met Kaiba's glare. I instantly became so nervous that I started shaking, but Joey clapped me on the shoulder and pulled me a bit closer to his side.

"Your father works for my company," Kaiba stated, looking down at me with cold eyes. I could do nothing more than nod meekly. He sneered. "He's lucky to have a job at my company," he said before sweeping past me. He turned his glare on Joey and snorted, "Wheeler." Then he disappeared through the doorway, into the room.

Joey and I exchanged looks, but I couldn't control my shaking. Had Kaiba, my father's boss, just made a threat? That's what it sounded like to me, almost as though if I did anything to upset him, he'd fire my dad in less than a heartbeat. Though it didn't make any sense; I'd done nothing to upset him. Nothing at all. Maybe I was just imagining things, though.

"Peh, the nerve o' that jerk!" Joey exclaimed, "Don't worry, Brie, ya got me an' Tristan in this class wit' ya. We won't let him push ya around."

I ducked my head and grumbled, "Thanks." My mood hadn't improved at all, though I was lucky in one aspect; even if I had an enemy in this class, I had twice as many friends by my side. And I didn't have to sit anywhere near Kaiba. This time I was sandwiched between Joey and another tall guy in the same row with his brown hair in a neat spike at the front, whose name, I'd learned, was Tristan, and whose personality was almost that of Joey's, if only for the exception of him being just a tad calmer. And again, I got a window seat, so that improved my outlook by a fraction.

Three classes has gone by so far; I'd already met people who I had a very real possibility of becoming good friends with, and I'd also met someone I wished I could go without seeing for the rest of my life. As the bell tolled for the next class, my mind wandered to what else could possibly happen today.

Okay, so I know that Bakura wasn't in this one (*Fangirls whine and pout*), but have patience, everyone! He'll be here soon! (In the next chapter, actually. *Fangirls go wild*) But Brie's already met friends and, unfortunately, Kaiba. And why the hell is Kaiba being so damn pissy, anyway? *whispers* I'll bet it's "that time of the month". *gets attacked by rabid Kaiba fangirls* Uh, please review and let me know what you think! I'd love to hear from you! ^^ Until next time! *runs away from a mob of YuGiOh! fangirls*