NB: This chapter edited March, 2006. Bakura Ryou is now referred to as Bakura and I've just fixed some small errors and a few paragraphs which really irked me. Thank you!
DISCLAIMER: Miki does not own Yu-Gi-Oh! I wonder if I surprised anyone with that statement.
Options, Choices and Obsessions - CHAPTER 1:
Drawing Hell from a Bucket
Otogi was the first to break.
"Fine," he snapped wearily, tired of waiting and tired of this awkward, tense atmosphere. Sooner or later, he'd have to draw anyway. He shut his eyes and dipped his hand into the bucket.
"What'd you get?" Jounouchi tried to look over Otogi's shoulder, but realised it was pointless since the Otogi had no intention of finding out himself. Not while some dumb blond was staring over his shoulder, anyway.
"My shot." Anzu went next, just glad not to be the first. She pulled out her piece of paper, and hurriedly scrunched it to her chest so Jounouchi wouldn't try to peer at it.
"Fine. If I show you mine, you have to show me yours." The blond offered.
Honda scoffed. "You don't even have to draw, so how can you say that?"
"Just draw already," Jounouchi growled, running a hand through his hair. He was beginning to get bored, and it wasn't as though he could really partake in the outcome anyway.
Honda obeyed, more because he didn't want to be last to draw, than because he actually ever listened to his friend's advice. "Please be number two… Please be number two…" he muttered to himself. Right about now, Yuugi's kinky habit of always drawing the perfect card would be a great quirk to have. He scrunched his paper into the palm of his hand as he grabbed it from the bucket.
Finally, Yuugi drew and then Bakura.
"Okay… on the count of three…" Yuugi started. Who knew why this was such a big deal that they had to draw for it. Oh, right… Because none of them had been willing to give in and compromise. Not even Bakura. Not even obliging Yuugi, who was always trying to find good points about everyone anyway.
"One…"
Honda wondered if there were any good points to rooming with Kaiba anyway.
"Two…"
Probably not. But Yuugi could probably find them if he tried, and three weeks was more than enough time, right?
"Three."
They flipped their papers over as Yuugi said three.
Anzu, Yuugi and Bakura sighed in relief… But Otogi and Honda found themselves staring helplessly at the numbers written on their scraps of paper. Honda envied the bucket. He couldn't believe that this stupid, plastic bucket got to dish out three weeks of hell. Well, he hoped karma got it and it ended up at a rubbish dump being eaten by rats.
"Someone up there doesn't like me" he muttered under his breath.
"I guess the bucket doesn't either" Anzu giggled.
Honda shot her an irritated look, keeping his curses to himself.
"That wasn't fair!" Otogi said suddenly, breaking the tense silence. "I demand a redraw!"
Jounouchi snorted. "You drew first, so the only person who could have tampered with your draw was you."
Otogi flushed. "So? I meant to pick up the paper with a tear in the side! But someone tore this one too!"
Yuugi and Jounouchi gaped at him, while Honda stared blankly and Anzu dissolved into giggles.
"You tried to fix your draw? And you still didn't get the right card?" Bakura giggled, trying to cover it up with a hand.
Otogi flushed again and scowled. "Like Anzu didn't do the same thing."
"What?" She shrieked, her face turning scarlet.
"I saw you put that stuff on the papers." Otogi accused her.
"What stuff?" she said defiantly.
He shook his head, tut-tutting. "Cherry flavoured lip gloss. You put it on the corners of the papers because it's clear, so you can't really see it, but you can feel it because it feels smooth."
Anzu paled.
"Otogi? Is there something you need to 'fess up to us?" Jounouchi stared at him.
"NO" he snapped, feeling five pairs of eyes on him. "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"Nothing. Just so you know, we're here for you when you decide you're ready." Anzu patted his arm.
"WHAT ARE YOU ALL TALKING ABOUT?" Otogi roared, and stomped off into Yuugi's kitchen.
"So, Honda… You and Otogi are sharing with… Kaiba…" Yuugi said slowly, watching Honda's reactions.
Honda gave a slight shrug. "I know." He stared down at his piece of paper. On it was written the number 5. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 were safe – numbers 4 and 5 meant certain death – and it wasn't going to be a quick one either.
Class trips were supposed to be spent with friends, doing whatever friends happen to do. But this one… Honda wasn't really looking forward to it. For one, Jounouchi had cut his leg open and needed constant shots and checkups because he was showing signs of infection, and since the annual trip was basically touring (lots of walking, lots of travelling, lots of bother), Sensei had forbidden Jounouchi to go. That meant there were five of them – Anzu, Honda, Bakura, Otogi and Yuugi.
But then… Even worse – due to overbooking, their hotel had run out of hotel rooms and instead of sharing a room between two, it was now sharing between three. That was the only reason Anzu was allowed to share with 'members of the opposite gender', according to Sensei… Then, to make everything infinitely worse, Sensei had happily informed them that since they were the last group to write up their 'room-sharing-groups', they'd be sharing with… one… Kaiba… Seto…
All these crappy conditions that happened to change the way the trip was meant to be, Honda thought as he stared outside to see the rain beginning to hit the windowpanes.
He glared at the rain. "That weatherman up there must hate me," thinking about walking home in the rain. His motorbike was in for repairs since it had had a run in with a car, and he had to leave earlier than the others since he had chores to do at home.
They'd agreed collectively that since half the trip was spent in hotels in cities, and the other half was spent on the road that they'd draw lots. The first lot drawn had to share for the first half of the tour, and then if sharing a room with Kaiba really was an absolute hell, then they'd have a redraw.
Honda rolled his eyes as he felt something smooth on the paper. Was this Anzu's cherry lip gloss? He peered more closely and noticed that the other side of the paper was torn…
Were those two really so stupid that they couldn't even tag the right pieces of paper?
"Well, I have to get going…" He stood up and stretched, already feeling damp from just looking at the rain.
"See you tomorrow morning then!" Anzu called out happily.
Sure, she was happy, Honda thought bitterly. She didn't have the horrors of sharing a hotel room with Kaiba Seto and Otogi Ryuuji for at least the next eleven days. God, if he was unlucky, it would be 23 days…
The whole entire trip! Ahhh!
-(S)-
Honda barely slept all night.
When his mother knocked on the door at four-thirty, she looked shocked to see him awake. "Are you okay Honda? Are you sick or something?"
He shook his head a little, barely moving from his position on the bed. "Everything's packed. I'm all ready to go."
"Well… Uh…" She wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to say. When did her son start being organised?
"Do you have enough money?"
He nodded.
"How about clean boxers?"
Honda rolled his eyes. Of course…
"Toothbrush? Toothpaste? Book?"
He blinked at her. Why take a book? Oh, right – because the flight was god-knows-how-long and because Otogi wasn't good at maintaining a conversation for longer than five minutes. Well, not a civilised conversation anyway.
He slowly got up and shuffled over to his bookshelf, noting that he didn't actually feel like reading anything on it.
His mother sighed and stepped out of the room momentarily. "Here," she thrust a book at Honda and put her hands on her hips. "Just don't get it messed up, okay? What time's the taxi coming?"
Honda glanced towards the clock. "Now."
He mumbled to himself and stretched before picking up his backpack and his suitcase and lugging them out to the waiting taxi. 'I just hope this trip doesn't kill me…'
-(S)-
"Okay, here are your tickets. Don't get them confused because as soon as I hand your tickets to you, I am no longer responsible for them."
Honda tucked his tickets into his wallet alongside his passport and frowned at the photo on it. It made him look like he was constipated… His face was a little screwed up and he looked to be in pain. How appropriate for international travel.
Three hours later, he was reminding himself why he'd agreed to sit next to Yuugi and Bakura… Bakura was squeezing his hand so tightly Honda could barely feel his fingers anymore, and Yuugi looked a pretty delightful shade of green. By contrast, Otogi was sitting happily, his ears with earphones in them, and his legs up on the seat next to him, since Anzu was in the bathroom – and had been for half an hour – making Honda wonder if she was ever coming out again.
Bakura had taken the window seat, since he said he wanted to see the engines – just to make sure they worked – and Yuugi had taken the seat next to the aisle for obvious reasons, ie. just in case he needed to sprint to the bathroom…
Honda was of course, in the middle. Otogi was on the other side of the aisle with Anzu's vacant seat, and behind Honda were Kaiba and a few other girls – who of course flocked to Kaiba like he was magnetized or something.
-(S)-
"So we've just gone backwards in time eight hours?" Otogi yawned and asked as they felt their feet on firm ground.
Honda nodded.
"So it's still breakfast time?"
A shrug. "I guess. But how can you be hungry after that?"
Otogi smirked. "That's why I didn't offer to sit next to the midget."
Poor Yuugi still looked green, and Anzu was looking as though she might fall over at any instant. Baura looked his normal self now that his feet were back on the ground. And Honda was wondering how much more of this he could take…
Everyone has a limit, and Honda was no exception.
"By the way, where exactly are we?" Otogi asked innocently.
-(S)-
"Room 31," Honda replied to Yuugi's question. He frowned, looking at the list and turned towards Sensei. "Um… Sensei? Why aren't we on the list?" he asked, almost hopeful that they wouldn't have to stay here, with Kaiba. The thought had been playing on Honda's mind the entire flight – apart from the bits where Yuugi was sprinting for the bathroom and Otogi was acting as though it was all first-class entertainment. That boy could seriously be trying on people's nerves.
"Honda, I called out your names at the beginning of the list." Sensei sighed and waved a hand. "Your room is number 28. Kaiba already has the key."
Honda nodded and he and Otogi followed Yuugi, Anzu and Bakura to the lifts, their luggage trailing along behind them.
"So… I guess this is where we say good luck… And I hope you're alive tomorrow morning. Oh… don't forget that we have to be back down in an hour." Yuugi reminded Honda, noting that Otogi was more interested in his fingernails than what he was saying.
Honda nodded. Then the lift doors opened and he and Otogi stepped inside. As the doors closed again, he was sure he saw Anzu and Bakura laughing at them.
-(S)-
Kaiba had grabbed the room key as soon as Sensei had called out his name, and now he was sitting on his way-too-hard hotel bed (he'd already tested the other one, and it was worse) and he was wondering if it was possible for two idiots to get lost between the foyer and the hotel rooms. He didn't think so.
Otogi seemed just as brainless as Jounouchi, even if he had invented a pretty good game. But Honda… Kaiba wasn't too sure about him. Of all of Yuugi-tachi, he was probably the one Kaiba knew least. Anzu talked way too much for her own good, Yuugi – well, he was just Yuugi – and Jounouchi was still a mutt, even though Mokuba tried to tell his brother otherwise. Bakura wasn't too annoying, but the fact that he had a crazy "other self" living in his head wasn't too appealing to strangers.
Either way, what did Kaiba care? He flopped backwards on the bed and shut his eyes, feeling the aching muscles in his neck.
He'd spent the entire flight scribbling out sketches and probable blueprints for his next version of the duel disk, but he'd still have to run them all virtually before he could be sure they would work.
Hmph.
-(S)-
Honda knocked on the door and waited for Kaiba to answer. After a minute, he became aware of Otogi tapping his foot impatiently on the ground and drumming his fingertips against the door.
"Otogi, we have to share the same hotel room for the next twenty three days. Unless you want to make this a living hell, I'd suggest you lay off already," Honda frowned.
"Lay off what?"
"You know what you're doing Otogi." Honda said through his teeth.
Otogi merely smirked as Kaiba opened the door slowly.
"Hi Seto…" he drawled out, knowing that Kaiba hated the use of his first name.
Honda just rolled his eyes and dragged in his luggage. He flopped onto the bed that didn't have Kaiba's luggage next to it, and rummaged blindly through his backpack for what he was looking for.
Unfortunately for Honda, there were only two beds in the room, as every other student on the trip had already discovered.
"I guess we're sharing," Otogi looked down at Honda with a certain amount of distaste written on his face.
Honda shrugged. "It's not like we haven't done it before."
Otogi wrinkled up his nose. "You make it sound as though this is a regular fixture on my calendar."
"Hell, Otogi. You can have the floor. I don't care at all, but if you take the bed, no complaining." Honda was really too tired to care what their conversation sounded like to the average observer.
At the moment the only other person observing seemed oblivious to it all, as he was typing frantically into his laptop, a frown on his face.
"What do you think the night life is like?" Otogi peered out of the hotel window, trying to spot anything that looked distinctly like a club or a pub.
Honda didn't even bother to get up off the bed. "I don't care. I've just spent the entire plane trip being wedged between a green coloured midget, and a… uh… Bakura… And I just want to sleep. Okay?"
Otogi shrugged. "You might change your mind later. Anyway what was the answer to my question?"
"Which one?"
"The one I asked you before."
Honda sighed. "How long ago?"
"When we were still at the airport."
"Oh… We're in Germany, Otogi."
Otogi simply nodded and started pulling clothing out of his bag, tossing them onto Honda.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT?"
Otogi blinked at Honda's outburst. "Organising my wardrobe."
"Go organise it somewhere else!" Honda snapped, feeling his head beginning to hurt. He picked off several pairs of pants and some belts which were decorating him, and threw them back at Otogi.
"You know Honda… You'd look really good if you would just wear leather pants."
Honda rolled his eyes. "Don't even think about it Otogi."
"I'm thinking tight black leather pants, black top – with strategically positioned holes, of course – how about some holes in the pants too?"
"You're making me sound like Yuugi."
"True true… But I always thought twins were cute."
"Otogi!" Honda growled menacingly as he watched Otogi pulling out more clothes.
"Too bad you wouldn't fit in my clothes…"
"Thank god for that…"
"But… I'm pretty sure you'd fit in Kaiba's, right?"
"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT." Kaiba snapped, glaring at them warningly from his position on the bed.
"Jeez… Everyone's so touchy today." Otogi sulked, pouting. But it didn't really have the Yuugi-effect. "I was just thinking that if you would let Honda-kun wear some of your leathers, he'd look a whole lot better… Almost edible…"
Honda felt his face turning pink. Edible? He hurriedly jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom…
Only to walk out three minutes later to have Otogi jump straight at him.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OTOGI?"
Otogi looked up at Honda, clinging to him helplessly, and blinking innocently. "Nothing."
Kaiba was shooting daggers at Otogi. "Give them back." His tone was cold and calm – way too assured of himself – Honda thought.
"I'm not giving them back! You have twenty pairs of identical pants anyway!"
Honda blinked.
"This is your last chance Otogi… unless you want to be a pile of ashes before the hour's over." Kaiba was taking a step closer with every second word, his eyes intently glaring at the raven-haired boy, who just continued to cling to Honda.
Honda shuddered. Kaiba looked serious.
Otogi shrieked and did the only thing he could think of – jumping off Honda and running into the bathroom, slamming the door shut, locking it and leaning against it.
Honda grimaced. Kaiba hadn't stopped approaching, even though Otogi was now in the bathroom. He'd probably just have stepped away, but even Honda liked Otogi enough that he didn't think leaving him to the dogs… or Kaiba… was very nice.
"Kaiba… whatever Otogi did, I'm sure he'll give it back to you if you'd just-" He stopped talking to Kaiba as the boy's cold blue eyes focused on him.
"Fine." Kaiba dropped his glare and scowled, walking back over to his bed and sitting on the edge, looking extremely pissed off.
Honda blinked. Was that it? "Um…" he glanced towards the clock. Their hour was nearly over. "Kaiba? I think we have to be back downstairs now. Sensei will have our heads if we aren't there…"
"Fine."
"Well… aren't you coming?" Honda stepped closer to the door.
Kaiba didn't respond.
"Well?" Honda prompted again, shrinking back a little as Kaiba glared at him.
"I'm watching the door." He stated as though it was obvious, and turned his gaze back to the bathroom door.
Honda was silent and began to shut the room door as he left.
Then Otogi peeked his head out of the bathroom and Kaiba was sprinting towards it before Otogi even realised who it was.
"OTOGI YOU ARSEHOLE! GIVE THEM BACK!"
Honda sighed and slammed the door shut after himself.
"Hey Honda!" Yuugi chirped as he joined his friend in the hallway.
Honda sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Why did that kid have to be so happy?
"Honda!" Anzu ran up to him, looking equally chirpy.
Honda clenched his fists. Right now, he'd like nothing better than to just kick their arses to the other side of the world.
Yuugi, seemingly noticing Honda's mood, changed his tone. "How's rooming with Otogi and Kaiba?" he asked cautiously.
At that moment, the door down the hallway flew open violently and a raven-haired boy ran out, his voice shrieking at the top of his lungs "Honda-a-a-a-aaaaaaaahhh!"
He ran straight past said boy, and a moment later, Honda realised why – Kaiba was sprinting after him, pure rage on written on his face. "YOU BASTARD! GET BACK HERE NOW!"
Yuugi sighed. "Just think, Honda, at least we're already ten hours into our trip, right?"
Anzu smiled happily. "That means, there are only…" she trailed off, not knowing how to compute the maths.
Honda finished for her – "you mean to say there are only five hundred and fifty two hours more…"
Anzu smiled. "See? It's not that bad…"
- MM -
Author Notes: I'm sure drool-able isn't really in the dictionary, but I had to think something up other than nosebleeds...
Read and Review please! I like the next chapter better than this one... but just input please! I just have to edit it so update should be tomorrow or the next day! Virtual plushies for all! Don't worry I'm not neglecting my other fics!
By the way, does anyone else have an indecisive dog who thinks he's a human?
