The next morning was a little hectic. Mai was yelling at her boyfriend through the phone, causing her booming voice to echo through the house. She was pacing from the kitchen to the den like a pissed off lioness, trying, yet failing, to pick things up around the house as she did. Ryou was casually watching the food channel which further ticked Mai off because he was supposed to be helping her clean the downstairs.

Our mom was coming to visit sometime tomorrow and Mai always liked to get the house all dolled up for her. The only problem was, Ryou usually did everything in his power to not be helpful in any way, or he would make the house look worse, and trash it behind Mai's back. He didn't like our mom and he didn't want anything to do with her. He disliked her for a mildly decent reason though

See, Mai, Ryou, and me all have the same mom, but we all have different dads. Mai was the only one who knew her dad because he wanted to get to know her. Ryou's dad didn't mean to knock our mom up in the first place, so he cut off all connections with her and with him. I came about from a one night stand, so it was pretty obvious that I didn't know my 'dad.'

The point is, Ryou didn't like our mom because he thought that she was a slut. I'm not even kidding. He had zero respect for her. He was cold as ice whenever she was around, and I could tell that he didn't like our mom being around me. Ryou would always try to get me out of the house as much as possible whenever she was visiting. I didn't ever try to protest because I knew that he felt as though he was protecting me, so I just let him do what he wanted. Besides, I'd choose Ryou over our mom any day.

"Yugi, get your ass to school!" Mai shouted during a pause in her conversation.

Bleh.


Apparently, there was a surprise pep rally before break today. I didn't really care because it meant that our classes were five minutes shorter. I lived for days with short classes. It didn't seem like much of a difference, but I could tell.

So after second period I followed everyone into the gym where the rally would be taking place. I wasn't exactly sure what the whole thing was about. I don't think anyone did. We all just walked to our grade designated bleachers and waited to see what would happen. Some music was playing and there were newly made posters plastered against the walls, though I was too far away to read what they said. It was about five minutes later before the school's activity planner, Mrs. Mazaki, took the microphone and started shouting cheerfully into it.

"Good morning Domino High! How are you guys doing today?"

Only the freshmen and half of the seniors answered her with a bunch of hooting. They were the only two grades who ever tried, because the seniors wanted to be the best, and the freshmen were the underdogs, so they thought they had to show everyone up.

"Great! Well, as you all probably know, we have a few grade schools visiting today, so we decided to show them how much fun we have at Domino High! What better way then a pep rally?"

Oh, I could think of five things off the top of my head that would be better than this. Nobody liked pep rally's. Especially when it was still so early in the morning. Those grade school kids were going to run for the hills once we were through here.

"Alright, can I get my girls up here?" Mrs. Mazaki waved to a group of people who were waiting by the door. Once they stepped more into the light I realized that they were either pep club members, or captains of the girls sports teams. Each one of them was carrying a small bag that was just a little bigger than their palm.

"As you can see, the girls are all carrying cosmetic bags full of… makeup!"

I seriously never would have guessed. Just what the hell was going on?

"Each girl is going to pick two people from each grade. The two people will sit in chairs opposite of each other, and one of them will be blindfolded. The person who is not blindfolded will have their makeup done by the blindfolded person. They will have five minutes to put on face, eye, and lip makeup. Whoever does the most accurate and neat job will be the winner."

Oh this was going to be hilarious. I could hear half the girls whining about not wanting to be a part of it because they didn't want to mess up the makeup they already had on. The other half of the girls, and most of the boys, were all raising their hands to participate.

Mrs. Mazaki laughed. "Alright, girls, go pick two people from your grade."

I looked at the girl walking towards the juniors and was slightly surprised to see that it was Mana. She had the most gleeful expression on her face and I instantly knew why right after she reached into the crowd and pulled Yami out. Of course. Humiliating your friend was always a good way to go about things. I almost laughed at the look he gave her.

My good mood suddenly turned sour when Mana's blue eyes locked onto mine, and I swear, she cackled. I swear it so hard!

"Yugi!" She yelled through her cupped hands. She held out her tanned hand to me and I couldn't do anything but stare at it dumbly. Was this chick crazy? There was no way I was getting or putting makeup on! I refused.

"Woo-hoo! Go Yugi!" People cheered my name and pushed me out of my seat towards the happy grinning Mana. Once I was in arms length of her, she snagged my shoulder in an iron grip and pulled me to the other side of the gym.

I felt like I was walking like a crippled chicken. My legs weren't working properly at all and my heart was pounding way too fast. Holy hell I did not want to do this in front of the whole school. This was just downright embarrassing.

Mana pushed me into the chair that was on the left and Yami sat down in the other one. Right. I momentarily forgot that he was my partner in this. The good thing was that he looked just as nervous as I felt.

"Okay!" Mana shoved her cosmetic bag into my hand. "Yugi, you're going to be blindfolded and Yami is going to be the canvas."

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…

Without warning, Mana bunched up a white shirt and tied it around my eyes. I fiddled with the cosmetic bag nervously. Holy crap my hands were shaking so bad. Luckily, the zipper on the bag was already undone.

"Is everyone ready?" Mrs. Mazaki asked. I guess Mana and the others gave the affirmative. "Alright… you have five minutes. And your time starts… now!"

Was it bad that I could literally feel the blood pumping through my arms? Come on, Mutou, focus!

"Hey," an unfamiliar voice said. "Don't worry about doing a good job. I don't mind if you scribble all over my face." Oh, it was Yami. Wow, his voice was kind of deep.

"O-okay…" I said unsurely.

You're fine, you're fine. I kept chanting that in my head as I rummaged through the bag. What was that stuff Mai constantly ran out of? The face stuff? Face stuff! I grasped a bottle type thing and assumed that was the first thing that would have to go on. I quickly unscrewed the cap and squirted some on my hands.

"Is this enough?" I asked.

"I mean, I guess so…" Yami said. "I've never done this before, so I don't really know."

Right, Yami was a guy. Oh well. Guess I'd just wing it then. I reached my hands out and patted the air, trying to find him. "Where's your face?"

"Here," his hands clasped around my wrists and brought them forward.

I almost jumped back when I suddenly felt his skin underneath my hands. I started feeling around trying to figure out where his nose and other facial features were. While I was doing that, Yami was trying not to laugh.

"You need to start rubbing the stuff on," he said.

My mouth ran ahead of my mind and I heard myself saying, "Bitch, who's the makeup artist here?"

My hands, which were on his cheeks, slid down to his chin as he threw his head back and let out a loud laugh. I was kind of surprised because most people got offended by my humor. Whenever I said things like that I was just being playful. I liked how he knew I wasn't serious.

"Sorry," I could tell he was smiling by the tone he used. "I guess I forgot my place for a second."

I grinned back at him. "Well, since you apologized I guess you're redeemed. Now come here so I can make you look like a bruised apple."

Before he could say anything I smeared my hands all around his face, not caring that I was going over his eyelids, or over his mouth. The whole time I was rubbing the stuff in he was making small unhappy noises. It was pretty darn amusing.

"Okay, I think I'm done with that," I reached back into the bag and felt an object that was thin on the top and bottom and fat in the middle. Must be eye stuff. Mai was always putting it on in the car.

With my messy hands I unscrewed the cap and felt the bristle at the end.

"What's that for?" Yami asked.

I started grasping for his face again and found his cheekbone. My hand slithered upwards until I found the hollow of his eye.

"You may want to shut your eyes," I warned before I starting brushing the bristle in upward motions over his eye. Or maybe it was his eyelid. Who knows.

"Ow…" he whined. "That hurts!"

"That means it's working!" My hand slipped and I ended up smearing the stick across his temple and down his jaw. "Trust me, you're going to look like Lady Gaga on one of her good days."

"I'm going to?" He asked. "You mean I don't already?"

I put the eye stick away. "I mean, there's just so much work to be done." I reached in the bag and felt a smaller tube. Okay, I knew that this was lipstick. I was hoping it was bright red. "You're like that girl from The Princess Diaries. Mia. We can only go up from here."

Yami snorted. "Are you calling me ugly?"

I gripped his chin and ran my thumb over his lips. Huh. They were really soft. He must be a chapstick kind of guy. "Who said anything about being ugly? Shame on you for assuming things! And pucker up!"

I could tell he was trying not to open his mouth as I rubbed the lipstick on his lips. Most of it was off mark, so it ended up going past the corners and onto his cheeks.

"Blegh!" He started making spitting sounds. "You got it in my teeth!"

I laughed and put the lipstick away. "Yami, we have to make it look like you're a bloodsucking vampire. Girls dig that kind of stuff, you know?" I winked, but then remembered that the cloth was over my eyes so he couldn't see.

"I thought you were making me look like Lady Gaga?"

I reached back in the bag, but didn't feel anything else. "She's the head of the vampires. I thought everyone knew that. Wow, you're just not with the times."

He laughed again and I couldn't help but love how he just went along with all the crazy shit I was talking about. I was actually surprised how comfortable it felt to joke around with him when I had never even talked to him before.

"Time's up!" Mrs. Mazaki yelled so suddenly that I jumped in surprise.

I eagerly reached for my blindfold and pulled it off, hissing slightly as light once again entered my vision. I blinked a few times until I could see, then looked over to Yami. I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

"Ahaha!"

Yami crossed his arms over his chest and pretended to look annoyed. I could see his lips twitching in amusement though. He really did look ridiculous. His face was a completely different shade from his neck, the black eye makeup made him look like a raccoon that had been crying, and the lipstick made him look like the Joker.

"Yami! You look better than you have in years!" Mana said from behind us. Her smile was impossibly wide. "You should do his makeup every day, Yugi."

I laughed, "Only if you pay me."

It was then that our art teacher came over with her camera. She motioned for us all to get together while she readied her very expensive looking Cameron for the shot. Mana yanked me to her side and put one arm around my back, then did the same to Yami on her other side.

"Say cheese ladies and gentleman."

I nearly bust a gut that she had just called Yami a girl. That just made my day. As if that wasn't good enough, we won the award in the competition for: Worst Makeup Job.


At dinner I told Mai and Ryou all about the pep rally and how I got to put makeup on Yami. Mai thought it was hilarious because she couldn't imagine me even knowing what would go where on a face. She joked that she could teach me later if I wanted. Yeah, no thank you.

Ryou found it amusing, but he was even more interested about the fact that Yami, as in the guy we had talked about yesterday, was my partner. All throughout dinner he kept fluttering his eyelashes and making kissy faces at me. I was about to stab him with a fork, but he was lucky because the doorbell went off before I could.

"I'll get it," Mai muttered as she placed her dishes by the sink.

Ryou shot me a curious look and I just shrugged. Was it our mom? Did she decide to come a day early or something? The door opened.

"Joey Wheeler, what the hell are you doing here?"

Oh, it was just Mai's boyfriend.

"No," Ryou whined, thumping his head against the table. "He's going to eat all of our leftovers."

That was the truth. I don't think I've ever seen someone eat as much as Mai's boyfriend. He had a pit for a stomach and usually raided our fridge whenever he came over. It drove Ryou up a wall because then he'd have to go out and buy more groceries. Mai just commented on how it was disgusting how he ate, and I just shrugged it off. I mean, what else can you do when a hungry blonde comes into your home and is determined to empty out your whole pantry.

"You have a lot of nerve coming over here after what you said to me on the phone this morning!" Mai shouted.

Ugh, I hated it when they were fighting. They were both so loud that you could hear them from every part of the house. It's like they wanted me and Ryou to know all about their problems.

"I know," Joey said. He sounded sheepish. "I came to apologize to you. I got you these, too."

He probably got her flowers or something. That kiss up.

So, basically, for the next ten minutes there was a lot of yelling and then a lot of apologizing. The whole time it was going on, me and Ryou were flicking ice cubes at each other. I got a good shot at his forehead and he got my ear. It hurt like hell because I had two studs in.

"You idiots!" Mai interrupted a few seconds later. "The ice is melting all over the floor!"

I looked over my shoulder and saw her and Joey in the doorway. Mai was holding some kind of flowers. They weren't roses or anything, that was for sure. In fact… the stems of the flowers were all uneven. Really. Did Joey seriously rip them out of a random garden? Oh well, Mai probably noticed anyways.

Joey skirted around her and thumped me on the shoulder, hard. I swear I heard my neck crack.

"Hey, Yug. How you been doin?" He asked. Sometimes his accent slurred his words so much that it was hard for me to understand him.

I tried to smile at him. "Alright, I guess."

I noticed him eyeing my studs and the leather buckled collar I wore around my neck. He really didn't like them. He used to tease me about wearing them all the time, saying that real men would never wear jewelry. He didn't consider me a 'man.'

Joey used to try and get me to fight him. He would take my stuff and wouldn't give it back unless I tried to take it from him. I think he even made me cry at one point. That's when Ryou got fed up with it all and he literally punched Joey in the face, saying, "You leave my kid brother alone! He doesn't need to prove himself to you! He's just being who he wants to be and you're trying to mold him into someone he's not! So you better quit bullying him around or else I'll rip off your manhood and sell it on the black market!"

Simply put, Joey never messed with me again. And he was super wary of Ryou now.


A/N - Thanks to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter. Love ya'll tons!