Chapter 2 – In which Bakura creates a problem
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"Last resort," Seto muttered under his breath. "There's a small chance that Shizuka girl might know what she's talking about, but the last thing I want to do is talk with her about winning Anzu over. No, I don't need her now, but she'll be filed away in the back of my mind. Like the reserves. When the big guns are exhausted, pull out the little guys! But I think I can win this war with the big guns… Anzu must like big guns, right?"
"Big brother, you're scaring me," said Mokuba from the passenger seat. "Can you please concentrate on not crashing?"
"Kaiba Seto does not crash!" he said indignantly, as he swerved sharply to the right to avoid hitting a motorcycle; he cut off a pickup truck, which promptly veered to the side, crashed into a convertible, and caused a three-car pileup. "Everyone else gets out of my way or suffers the consequences. I'd better make sure Anzu's little friends know that too…" and he was off again.
"Can I have cookies for dinner?" Mokuba asked.
"…the pointy-haired one likes to tackle people, I've noticed, so I'll have to keep him in my peripheral vision…"
Mokuba tightened his seatbelt and decided to take that as a yes.
"Does Anzu have any pets?"
Considering that it was Kaiba Seto asking that question, and that it was Bakura Ryou he was asking, the query was unsurprisingly followed by silence. Annoyed, Seto poked Ryou's shoulder.
"What was that for?" Ryou exclaimed.
"Oh, so you can talk."
"Of course I can talk!"
Seto shrugged. "I'd never heard you before, so I wasn't sure."
"What do you mean you've never heard me? Of course you've heard me speak!"
"I didn't pay attention," Seto explained reasonably.
"We've been in the same classes at school for months. I was at Duelist Kingdom! I was a finalist in Battle City!" Ryou's voice cracked indignantly.
"Oh," Seto said, "is that why your hair looks so familiar?"
Ryou stomped off. Seto's spirits were not easily crushed, and he grabbed the next of Anzu's friends that he saw. "Does Anzu have any pets?"
Honda tended to be much less suspicious than Jounouchi, so he merely shrugged. "Yeah. Why?"
"I'm going to kidnap it and hold it hostage until Anzu agrees to date me," Seto explained. He didn't put too much stock in Honda's brainpower and wasn't worried about the other boy ratting him out. True to his expectations, Honda simply raised an eyebrow.
"Sounds like a plan…" he said, hurrying off quickly so that Kaiba couldn't see the grin creeping onto his face. He slipped into his seat in history just before the bell rang. As Ayami-sensei began roll call, he leaned over and whispered to Anzu. "How's your corn snake doing?"
"Still really bad-tempered," Anzu whispered back, her brow furrowing. "She tried to bite me yesterday. I think it'll be a while before she's used to people."
"That's great," Honda said, smiling widely.
"You look tired," Ryou said sympathetically as Anzu slammed her bag on the desk the next morning.
"You look awful," Jounouchi said more accurately, but less tactfully.
"I didn't get much sleep last night," Anzu said through gritted teeth.
"Whyever not?" Seto asked innocently, appearing over her shoulder. "You should let me take you on a nice restful date this afternoon."
Jounouchi, still unused to Seto's pursuit of his friend, made a funny noise as he choked on his tongue. Yuugi helpfully pounded him on the back.
"I didn't get much sleep," Anzu said, turning around so her frigid glare would penetrate Kaiba, "because I was awoken in the middle of the night by somebody screaming like a girl, with his arm in my snake cage and my snake attached to his hand!"
"You don't know who it was though, because it was dark, and he escaped through the window before you could turn on the light," Seto said reasonably, glancing down at his right hand, which bore puncture wounds exactly the size of snake teeth. "Also, your pyjamas are really cute."
"I think that's breaking and entering," Yuugi said uncertainly.
"What are you, the midget police?" Seto snapped. "And for your information, leaving a window unlocked is practically asking for visitors. How was I to know it wasn't a petting zoo? I mean, there were animals."
"When was the last time you've been to a 'bring-your-own-ladder' petting zoo? My window's on the second story!" Anzu snapped back.
"I didn't bring a ladder, I brought a trampoline."
"Hey, you're afraid of snakes?" Jounouchi asked, finally reentering the conversation with a wide doggy grin.
"I'm not afraid of snakes," Seto said with dignity. "I could have been screaming like a girl for any number of reasons."
"Why would you be afraid of snakes?" Anzu asked, rolling her eyes. "They're like dragons without wings."
This gave Seto pause. Jounouchi was about to tease him again when Seto's face suddenly broke into a soft, charming smile. Anzu's heart fluttered dangerously and she completely forgot for a moment that he was an idiot and a jerk. "We're so alike, you and I," he said with a rich chuckle, reaching out and smoothing a lock of her hair aside. Anzu regained enough of her thought process to remember that she had been too sleepy to shower or brush her hair this morning. "You've got dragons on the brain too." He gazed deeply into her eyes, and his hand got caught in a snarl on her head. Luckily, the yank on her head also yanked her back to her senses.
"Yuugi's right," Anzu said, trying to pull her head away, which just resulted in Kaiba's hand getting more tangled in her hair. "Breaking into my house in the middle of the night is illegal."
"Nonsense," Seto said, also trying to remove his hand from her snarled hair. "I bought out the bank that owns your mortgage."
This was too much for Anzu. "You're still creepy!" she exclaimed. "You snuck into my bedroom!"
"Hey," Seto said, finally dislodging his hand, and frowning at her. "Everyone thought it was romantic when the guy from Twilight did it."
This was definitely too much for Anzu. Luckily, Honda jumped in. "You've read Twilight?" he asked quizzically.
"No," Seto said immediately, but his eyes were shifty, and he finally left Anzu alone. In fact, he left everyone alone until halfway through their Biology class.
"Does anyone know the taxonomic ranks?" Tanaka-sensei asked. She was met with silence. "The highest is Kingdom…?" Still nothing. Her eyes sought out Anzu, who could normally be counted on to raise her hand, but Anzu was still exhausted from the debacle last night and was dozing on her lab stool. "Kaiba Seto? Can you enlighten us?"
"Mokuba wanted it as a bedtime story, okay?" he snapped.
"Hold on guys, I have to take this call," Anzu laughed, turning away from her friends. "Hi, mom?"
"I better get going," Yuugi announced, standing up. They'd gone out for pizza after school, but it was time for him to return to the Game Shop and help out his grandfather. "See you tomorrow, everyone!"
"Bye, Yuugi," Jounouchi and Ryou chimed. "Seeya," Honda added. He and Jounouchi wrestled over the last piece of pizza, and Ryou tried not to get brained by a flailing elbow, and it was a long time before they noticed that Anzu had hung up the phone and was staring off into space.
"Okay," Jounouchi said guiltily. "I know you only had one piece so you can have a bite of this last slice…"
"What's wrong, Anzu?" Ryou asked somewhat more perceptively.
"I…" she blinked and shook her head. "My parents just got a call from the bank. Apparently our mortgage has been paid off."
"Congrats!" Honda cheered.
"No, no, we didn't pay it off," Anzu said in frustration. "When my parents asked why, the bank just told them it was an engagement present."
The boys fell silent, remembering Kaiba's announcement from earlier.
"He paid off my neighbors' mortgages too!" Anzu exclaimed. "Why is Kaiba doing this?"
"He's a warm-hearted, generous soul?" Jounouchi suggested. There was a pause, and then the whole table burst out laughing. Anzu's laughter, however, came out slightly hysterically.
"Really," she said, her voice strained, "why is he doing this? Sure, he likes to flaunt his money and do outrageous things, but why has he fixated on me all of a sudden? He asked me out, and then decided to marry me, and now he's buying houses for my whole block! Did someone poison his water or anything? I mean…" her voice dropped. "You don't think someone could have done something to him, could they? If Pegasus decided he was out for revenge… or Marik… or…" her eyes drifted over to Ryou, and she quickly glanced away.
There was a moment of silence, and then unexpectedly, Ryou laughed. Anzu quickly looked back over at him – no, not him, but the other one. "Dark" Bakura, or whatever the spirit liked to call himself.
"Bakura," she said swiftly, "did you do something to Kaiba?" Bakura merely laughed. Ryou tried to say something, but Bakura had completely taken over. Ryou mentally made a frustrated noise, but Bakura ignored him.
"What did you do to him?" Anzu demanded. "Tell me how to make it stop! I don't want Kaiba bothering me anymore!"
"Come now," Bakura grinned, "Hasn't it been entertaining?"
"No," Anzu said, eyes narrowed, at the same time that Jounouchi said "Definitely!" "It's been embarrassing. And it's not right! You're making Kaiba do things he wouldn't normally do! When he snaps out of it, he's going to be so mad that he bought the whole bank!"
"Probably won't even notice, actually," Honda chimed in.
"Make it stop," Anzu said, leaning forward with steely eyes. Had she directed that look at anyone other than Bakura, who had a near-suicidal lack of self-preservation, the victim would have fled in terror. As it was, Honda, who was sitting closest to Bakura, edged away nervously, and Jounouchi made sure he had a clear shot to the door.
Did you really do something to Kaiba? Ryou asked his counterpart.
Of course not.
Why would you possibly confess to something you didn't do? Ryou asked, exasperated.
Bakura smirked (infuriating Anzu). It's so much more fun this way. Now she'll be suspicious of Kaiba. Maybe she'll even try to explain to him that he's been brainwashed – can you imagine his reaction?
"Bakura!" Anzu yelled once more. Bakura shifted his attention away from the mental conversation. "I'm not kidding! Do something about Kaiba!"
"Oh, relax," he said, leaning back in his seat and stealing the last slice of pizza from a frozen Jounouchi. "I can't undo anything, so you'll just have to wait for it to wear off."
Bakura! Bakura Bakura Bakura! Ryou moaned, throwing a very loud temper tantrum within the confines of his own head. Pleeeease don't make my friends' lives miserable!
Ryou, you've asked me that a thousand times, and my answer is always the same, Bakura said patiently.
Anzu's normally sweet demeanor had suffered thanks to her recent trials and tribulations, and she just hoped that people didn't question Bakura Ryou too closely about his black eye. (That, she felt really guilty about.) However, shopping with Nuuki on Friday cheered her up. The girls giggled and tried on clothes and Nuuki got a haircut and Anzu experimented with dramatic purple eyeliner that she ultimately decided made her look like the lovechild of a hooker and a clown. She had a genuinely fun time, so on Monday, when Nuuki's usual lunch companion was absent, Anzu invited the other girl to sit at her table.
"This is Nuuki, guys," Anzu said, putting her bagged lunch on the table. Nuuki smiled shyly and gingerly sat down next to Anzu.
"Aw, we know Nuuki," Jounouchi said, his mouth full.
"Hi everyone," Ryou said, sitting down next to Jounouchi. "Oh, hello, Nuuki. How was shopping?"
"It was really nice… what happened to your eye?" Nuuki asked, concerned.
Anzu crammed her sandwich into her mouth quickly. Ryou coughed. "I, ah, fell down the stairs."
"So, happy belated birthday!" Honda said quickly. "Did you do anything fun?"
"I had a lot of fun," Nuuki responded, confused, but turning willingly. "My cousins came up and we went roller skating."
"Awesome!" Jounouchi exclaimed. "I did that for my birthday one year, although my best parties have always been when we go play laser tag."
They chatted through lunch, and Anzu was lulled into a false sense of security, when suddenly a shadow loomed over her. "Anzu, darling, I missed you all weekend," Seto said languidly, sprawling onto the bench beside her, carelessly knocking Yuugi off the edge. "What say you ditch afternoon classes and come to the Caribbean with me? I'll bribe your teachers to give you an A for the day."
Anzu closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. It's not his fault, she reminded herself. He doesn't know what he's doing. She opened her eyes and gave Ryou a dirty look. He threw up his hands and returned her glare with a helpless expression. It's not Ryou's fault either! Anzu had to remind herself. It's that dark spirit's, so I shouldn't take it out on Ryou. She looked at his bruised eye and winced. Anymore.
Ryou, for his part, was trying to tell her that Bakura hadn't actually done anything to Kaiba, but when he opened his mouth, Bakura jerked back into wakefulness and kept him silent. Fine, I won't say anything! Ryou finally thought, frustrated. I'll just let Anzu stew and mistrust him and be miserable.
Now you're getting the point! Bakura said, delighted.
"Kaiba," Anzu said, rubbing her temples and trying her hardest to be polite. "Please, please go away."
"Is the Caribbean too sunny for you? I wouldn't mind Alaska either. We could go polar bear watching," Seto suggested.
"I'm really not interested in dating you," she explained carefully. "And I'm convinced that, if you thought about it, you would realize that you don't really want to date me either." She couldn't help herself, and glared again at poor Ryou.
"Kaiba Seto always knows exactly what he wants!" he exclaimed, sounding extremely offended. Anzu let her head fall onto the cafeteria table and groaned. "Anzu," he said, more quietly. "You're beautiful, you're smart, you're sincere… and I want you."
And oh, it was a good thing her head was already on the table, because Anzu could feel her body turning to mush. He hadn't wasted time with lots of flowery words, he had just laid it out there, and it made her feel wonderful and desirable. Even seeing Jounouchi's aghast expression wasn't enough to dispel the warm butterflies in her stomach… but when she saw Ryou's large, frightened eyes, the butterflies withered and died.
"Kaiba, you don't know what you're saying," Anzu replied quietly. At first this made her feel sad, and she shook her head violently. This was ridiculous! He wasn't in his right mind, so she shouldn't pay his words any mind, and she certainly shouldn't be upset that it wasn't real. Kaiba was still Kaiba, and she wasn't the type to be seduced by a few compliments anyway.
"Of course I know what I'm saying! This is one of the five languages I'm fluent in!"
Anzu rolled her eyes; luckily the spell was broken. "I'm very impressed," she said sarcastically. Thankfully, he took that for an actual compliment, and trotted off beaming.
"What did you mean, he didn't know what he was saying?" Yuugi asked bewilderedly, finally resuming his seat. Nuuki looked just as surprised.
"I…" Anzu sighed. "It's complicated." She failed in a valiant attempt not to glare at Ryou again, and Yuugi glanced from one of them to the other, not understanding. Ryou opened his mouth and forced out a slight noise before shutting it in defeat.
"Does Kaiba like you, Anzu?" Nuuki asked confusedly.
"No," Anzu said firmly. "No, he does not. And I don't like him either," she added. "It's complicated, but somehow he's got it stuck in his head that he has to ask me out." She sighed. "I wish I knew how to get him to stop."
"Oh," Nuuki said slowly, looking at Kaiba's retreating back, not entirely convinced of his non-sincerity. "And you really don't like him? Not even enough for one date?"
"No," Anzu said firmly. Perhaps she was a little too firm, because Nuuki flinched. "No, I've known him long enough to know that we're incompatible," she tried to explain a little more rationally. "And this is… unlike him." She successfully not-glared at Ryou.
"Oh," Nuuki said uncertainly again.
"Do you have any suggestions?" Anzu asked, a little desperately.
"On how to get Kaiba to stop asking you out?" Nuuki pondered. "I suppose if you were dating someone else, he would do the decent thing and leave you alone…"
"Hmm," Anzu said slowly, furrowing her brow. "That might work. I wonder… well, would it work?" she asked pointedly, glancing at Ryou.
He nodded meekly. This has great humor potential, Bakura thought wickedly.
Oh, shut up, Ryou said grouchily. And of course it's not going to work. Didn't you hear that Nuuki's premise was based on Kaiba doing the decent thing?
You little cynic, Bakura thought fondly. That's exactly what I think too… that's why it'll be so funny.
Anzu sat up straighter. "Well. Well, if that could work," she mused, her eyes dancing. Finally, a solution! She would just have to pick her date carefully. It would have to be someone believable… she glanced briefly at Jounouchi, then looked away. And it would have to be someone Kaiba couldn't easily snap in half, so she regretfully struck Yuugi off her list of possibilities.
"Hey Honda," Anzu said sweetly, putting her hand on his arm and leaning in closely. "You want to go to the movies this afternoon?"
Going on a pretend date with Honda had been surprisingly easy. They grabbed some burgers, played a few video games (Anzu didn't lose quite so badly as she usually did – she'd been practicing!), and found a movie playing at the local theatre that they could both agree to watch. It was just like hanging out as friends; really the only difference was that when they ran into a few girls from their school as they were exiting the restaurant, Anzu grabbed Honda's hand and laughed loudly at whatever he was saying (which, unfortunately, turned out to be the revelation that his sister's beloved pet bunny had died over the weekend).
At the theatre, they bought popcorn and settled in their seats to watch the movie. When the lights came up at the end of the show, Anzu turned smiling to the seat next to her, then blinked.
Honda was gone.
"Kaiba," Anzu said, trying to sound reasonable, "please give Honda back."
Jounouchi hovered menacingly over her shoulder. She had only allowed him to be present at this confrontation under his solemn promise that he would neither speak nor move.
"Why?" Seto asked, scowling. "Do you miss him?"
"Where are you keeping him, Kaiba?" Anzu sighed. "It's been three days. Have you been feeding him? And do you know what we've been through, trying to come up with a cover story for his parents?"
"He says he's happy, not going to classes," Seto lied with dignity. "I'm doing him a favor."
"Oh for cripes sake, Kaiba," Anzu snapped. "I'm not going out with him! Happy?"
"I knew it!" Seto said with surprising relief. "I knew it! What can he give you that I can't?" he asked rhetorically.
"It's more like what Honda doesn't give me," Anzu retorted. "And that's a headache!" She stomped off.
Honda appeared at school the next day. He seemed fine, although he had a funny odor to him, and a habit of shivering violently whenever someone said the word "orange". He showed a disinclination to speak about what happened to him, although Anzu noticed him sending a text message to Kaiba Mokuba that started "ur gaming system ROCKS". After he refused to answer any more of their questions about where he'd been, Anzu and Yuugi reluctantly let the matter drop. Jounouchi, however, continued to yell "ORANGE" every few minutes, because it was funny to watch Honda squirm like you'd just dropped a spider down his back.