Chapter 2 – Party Planning
As the bell rang indicating the start of lunch Atem and his friends meet outside under a large tree. It was a nice sunny afternoon which they enjoyed after spending all morning indoors. Téa and Serenity had yet to arrive, curtesy of Serenity, so the guys could start making plans for Téa's 18th. Atem wanted to do something special for his girlfriend, he had figured out the perfect present to give to her now all he had to do was come up with an 18th party to remember. All they had managed to do was come up with an invite list before Téa and Serenity reached them. The rest of lunch was spent with the group of friends discussing their visits to the guidance councillor's office and the latest gossip in duel monsters. The remainder of the afternoon was spent writing practice essays for their exams that were coming up.
Once the bell rang indicating the end of the school day Téa and Serenity headed off to the mall while Duke went off to his game shop, the Bakura brothers continued arguing as they said goodbye, mainly Ryou, and headed home. Joey, Tristan and Atem headed towards Domino Park where they planned to continue their planning.
"Ok, so who are we inviting again?" Joey asked as he sat down and pulled out a couple of biscuits he had managed to steel from Serenity at lunchtime.
"Let's see. We have the 3 of us, Téa of course, Serenity, Duke, Ryou, Mai, her sister Dyani. There's also Demi, Tina, Scott, Dean, the twins Riley and Rydel. The girls from her dance class; Catherine, Lisa, Chloe, Crystal, Michelle, Hannah, Odette, Liara, Britney, Diana and Teyla. There's also Mana, Mahad, Kisara and the Ishtar siblings who will be flying in the weekend before. I guess we should also invite the Kaiba brothers, altogether that makes 34 people." Atem said as he ticked each person off on his fingers as he listed them.
"Do you think we should invite some more people from school?" Tristan asked as he saw a group of kids in matching uniform walk past.
"Tristan does have a point, I mean out of that 34 only 17 are from school and most of them are girls."
"You two should really pay more attention during math class. Yes there are 17 from school but there is also 17 friends & family. That's 50/50, and since when do you two complain about their being too many girls?"
"Atem has a point there." A voice said from behind them.
"Hey Duke, what are you doing here man? I thought you were going to your game shop." Tristan asked their new arrival.
"I did but as soon as I walked in the door I saw Ashley, Katie and Jade those annoying girls from school. Basically I decided to go to the one place they hate being seen at when I heard they were looking for me."
"We really need to get you a girlfriend dude, otherwise you'll be forever known as 'that guy' if you know what I mean." Tristan told him as he patted him on the shoulder as he sat down.
"Yeah, people are going to think your either gay, not that there is anything wrong with that, or you're going to end up with the most craziest self-centred chick the world has ever seen."
"Thanks for that JOSEPH! I know who else you should invite to the party."
"Who?" All three boys asked in unison.
"The Flaming Pixies."
"The who?"
"Really Joseph, and you call yourself one of her best friends. They are a band who cover other artist's songs but mainly they cover Katy Perry. You know, one of her idols."
"That's an excellent idea Duke, but how can we get them?" Atem asked his friend.
"Easy, school has hired them for prom, just ask Serenity for their number as she's the one who got them."
"But prom is after her birthday this year, it's in September."
"It's getting harder and harder not to hit you. Your sister is on the prom committee, meaning it doesn't matter if prom is after Téa's birthday as Serenity has their number regardless."
"Oh, now I get it."
"Finally". Atem, Tristan and Duke muttered together quietly.
"It's getting late, we should call it a night." Atem gathered up their papers, bid his friends goodnight and he'll see them at school tomorrow before heading home.
It was the 6th of July so he still had time to finish organising everything for the party but Atem was worried that something would be forgotten. As he was trying to get comfy in bed that was when it had hit him. He had forgotten about the venue and most venues needed to be booked months in advanced. He shot out of bed and turned on his computer, there had to be somewhere affordable around they could use. As it turned out all the places they could afford with enough space were either already booked up or had to be booked at least 6 months in advance. Feeling a little discouraged he sent Ishizu a quick message about his screw up before he once again tried to get comfy in bed.
Téa woke up on Tuesday morning to the sound of birds chirping away outside her bedroom window. Tèa knew from the way her boyfriend was acting that he was planning her a surprise 18th birthday party and as she looked out her bedroom window she could only imagine the sort of things he'd come up with. She couldn't believe that in a few short weeks she was officially going to be an adult but a little sad at the thought of leaving her friends at the end of the year to go to New York.
She took a quick shower and got dressed into her school uniform before heading downstairs to join her mother and sister for breakfast. Once finished she went back upstairs to brush her teeth and grab her schoolbag then once again headed downstairs, bid her mother and sister goodbye and made her way to Atem's house like she did every morning before school.
Téa reached Atem's house just as he was walking out the door. "Looks like someone managed to get up on their own this morning." She said as she gave him a small kiss on the side of his mouth.
Atem returned the kiss but only deeper. They broke apart slightly breathless and hurried to school before they were late. At school they ran into Joey and Tristan just as they were entering homeroom. "Fancy seeing you guys here." Joey told them with a wink as he opened the door. Lucky for them the teacher hadn't arrived yet, but looking around the room they saw the Bakura brothers in a heated argument most likely about something Bakura had done to some poor innocent soul. Duke was sitting at his desk while showing off some dice tricks to a group of girls, the dancing twins were arguing over their next dance routines and the rest of the class were all in their own little worlds.
The Bakura brothers had moved on from arguing and were currently leaning over their desks and pulling each other's hair while Ryou was calling Bakura Florence and Bakura was calling Ryou Fluffy, which was how their substitute teacher found them as she entered the room 10 minutes after the bell. "Sorry I'm late class, I got stuck behind a moving house on my way to school. Ryou, Kaito, stop pulling each other's hair and sit down unless you want an after school detention."
That made Ryou sit down and sit up straight in his chair, Bakura thought about the fun he could have in detention but one look at his brother and he sat down in his chair with a glum expression. Their teacher just knew that it was going to be another long day. She wished that Domino High hadn't decided to try the new teaching system where each class only had one teacher instead of the students changing classrooms for each subject like they used to. She was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Duncan was even going to come back after her maternity leave, if she didn't then she may be stuck with the trouble makers forever, well at least one anyway.
"All right class," she said as she looked at Bakura in particular, "today we are going to start off with what we were discussing yesterday afternoon, Egypt."
"But miss, we already went over that."
"True, but how many of you were actually paying attention." The class was silent. "Exactly, so like I said we're starting with Egypt." The class spent the next 2 hours going over the Egyptian culture and history, with Atem answering most of the teacher's questions. Every once in a while Bakura would put his hand up to answer a question much to everyone's surprise. In fact for the last half hour Miss Cate, Atem and Bakura were so deep in conversation that they didn't even notice that the rest of the class had either fallen asleep or steering out the window. It wasn't until the bell rang for morning tea and everyone shot out of the classroom did they stop and realize what had happened.
The rest of the day went by pretty fast and before they knew it school had finished for the day. The only evidence they had for their trouble was the amount of homework that they had been given. They had to write 2 different essays about Egypt, one on its culture the other its history. They had 3 book reviews to write for English, a math test for Algebra, some experiment for science and something that no one could remember for home ec. Atem and Bakura were the only ones who didn't have to write the essays on Egypt and for their contribution they got an automatic A for it.
Since they didn't have extra essays to write Bakura challenged Atem to a game and while the rest of the gang spent the evening helping each other with their homework the two boys played game after game. After the 8th win to Atem and his homework completed Ryou declared that it was time for him and Bakura to go home before Bakura could challenge Atem to another game, he was already going to hear about it all the way home and most of the night.
The rest of the week went by pretty fast and before they knew it, it was Saturday. The gang were currently at Kaiba's mansion at Mokuba's request, or rather Mokuba's birthday invite. Mokuba had turned 16 on Tuesday 7th July but waited until Saturday to celebrate. Mokuba had begged his brother until he was just about blue in the face before Seto reluctantly agreed, the reason for this was because he really didn't want Wheeler, Atem or Bakura there for his own person reasons that he was constantly told he needed to work on, well maybe not Bakura.
In attendance was Atem & Tèa, Joey & Mai, Tristan & Serenity, Duke and the Bakura twins. It never bothered Mokuba that his friends were all older than him for he was lucky to have friends at all, unlike his brother who shared the same friends but would never admit to it. The group of friends were currently outside by the pool watching as Joey and Tristan tried to drown each other.
"You two knock it off or else I'm coming in." Duke told the two boys before jumping in anyway.
"HEY, GET OFF ME MAN." Joey tried shouting at him before both Tristan and Duke dunked him back under.
It went on for another 5 minutes before Mai started shouting at them to grow up and she'd ban them from having any cake if they didn't. The three boys took to racing each other across the length of the pool instead. Before they knew it the cake was being cut and presents opened. The party went just how Mokuba wanted it except for when Bakura tried putting a fake snake under the food table. For the most part Kaiba stayed off to the side with his nose in a book until he saw what Bakura was trying to do out of the corner of his eye, this was when they were cutting the cake and on his way to the table Kaiba pushed Bakura into the pool fully clothed.
Hell must have frozen over as Joey went to give Kaiba a high-five after that and Kaiba had actually high-fived him back. This had put everyone but Bakura into an even better mood for the rest of the evening. Bakura on the other hand was fuming and thinking of many ways he could get back at Kaiba, which led to Ryou keeping an eye on his brother for the rest of the party.
"First I'm going to challenge him to a duel, then when he loses I'm going to take his precious Blue Eyes and lick them. After that I will lick them some more and them maybe I'll offer them back before…"
"Kaito!"
"What? I was in the middle of…"
"I know exactly what you were in the middle of." Ryou told him while wagging his finger at him. "Can't you just behave yourself for once in your life while we're out?"
"Where's the fun in that?"
Ryou sighed at him while shaking his head. "I just don't know what to do with you sometimes."
"Me, more like you. Sometimes I wish Akira was my twin instead, everything would be more fun."
"Fun! Try disastrous. It's bad enough having you two in the same room let alone as twins and…" Ryou trailed off as many disastrous things his bothers could get up to popped into his head. He was beginning to wonder if he was the only sane one in his family, he'd rather have Kaiba for a brother then his own two psychotic older brothers.
Tèa stopped in conversation with Serenity and walked over to the Bakura brothers when she noticed that Ryou started to look a little green. "Are you alright Ryou?" He snapped out of his nightmare daydream and nodded his head before following her back to Serenity as far from his brother as he could get. Let Bakura do whatever, he can be someone else's problem for a while.
Before they knew it, it was 10:30pm and time for everyone to go home. The said goodbye to Mokuba and Kaiba and made their way to their respected houses. Ryou and Bakura were arguing again as they left, but what else was new.
As Atem lay down in bed later that night he knew now that Mokuba's party had finished the countdown to Tèa's 18th had just gotten shorter.
This isn't how I wanted to end it but if I didn't stop here then I would have just gone on and on with nothing in particular. I added Mokuba's birthday party at the last minute just to make the chapter a little longer so I hope you like it and sorry if it seems a bit rushed.