Hello, folks! Miss me? :D The weather in Cambodia is almost the same as my country – HOT! The foods, the transportation, the busy roads, the people…well, they're not too bad, and not too good either. The only thing that is good in Cambodia is the scenery and the sad tragic history about wars between Khmer Rouge and the Cambodians. Oh, and not to mention, one of the 7 wonders of the world, Angkor Wat! Yeah, I have fun there don't worry. Now, enough babbling from me and on to the story! But before that...
I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Keys:
"Talks"
'Thoughts'
Chapter 3: Introduction
The sunlight's radiation grew stronger as the time passed minute by minute. A gust of wind caused the swaying trees to rustle, producing unique beautiful melodies in the wide peaceful forest.
The sunrays then spotted an old long tree branch, revealing two brown feathery sparrows chirping and singing happily to each other. However, their little 'chat' was shortly cut off when they heard laughter behind their hiding place.
Without hesitation, the lovely couple flew to that direction and soon, eight figures appeared talking joyfully in the woods. The sparrows stood on a tree branch comfortably, their watchful eyes were now laid on a greedy boy who was hungrily devouring a hamburger in one hand. What he didn't realize was that two star-shaped tricolor haired teens were watching him, amused.
"Is he always behaving like this when it comes to food?" The older teen, Yami asked while holding a soda can in one hand.
"Unfortunately, yes." The younger look-alike, Yugi answered shamefully.
"I apologize for Joey's rude behavior…"
"Ah, not at all. I've got used to it actually."
"Huh?"
Yami chuckled when he saw Yugi's confused yet innocent look that displayed on his cherubic face.
"Because one of my cousins, Marik behaves like that too."
To show that his fact was true, the red-eyed youth pointed towards the direction where they spotted Marik who was busily grabbing all the delicious food he could find on the table while at the same time, laughed maniacally before saying,
"Mine, all mine!"
Just then, he noticed a mouth-watering chicken drumstick resting neatly on a large white plate.
Marik's eyes sparkled in delight as he hastily grabbed the chicken but what he failed to notice was at the same time; Joey grabbed the bottom part of it.
Two glutton eaters stared at each other with similar warning look, each wondering what their opponent would do next.
As a result, they fought with each other while grabbing their precious drumstick in both hands, each pulling with all their efforts.
"Mine!" Joey shouted while trying to get his 'property' back.
"Mine!" Marik barked as he pulled the chicken aggressively but Joey managed to pull back.
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
They were both applying the same amount of pulling force, thus caused them to lose their grip on the food and fall into the dirty bushes in unison.
In the end, many hungry ants scurried off to do their work – picking up their 'treasure' and went back to their humble little 'home' to celebrate their victory on getting their prize.
"It's all your fault!" Joey pointed accusingly at the older teen who busily brushing off the dirt from his shirt.
"Me?! You're the one who's responsible for this!" Marik shot back angrily.
"If you'd given me that chicken, none of this would've happened!"
This time, Joey had reached his dangerous state – argue time.
"If you're the one who'd have given me that chicken, this would never have happened!"
"It's your fault!"
"No, it's your fault!"
The stubborn duo ended up fighting with their fists throwing in all directions as they rolled and rolled into the other side of the forest. Then, they were gone and silence took place.
"They'll definitely be great friends." Yami said with a grin.
"I sure hope so." Yugi smiled blithely before they went back to their picnic spot.
As the time passed by, everyone had settled down while spending the rest of the day on this great enjoyable picnic.
Yami stood on a corner and rested his head on a tree trunk. He was watching Yugi chatting cheerily with his friends and that reminded him of the conversation he had earlier with his cousins and the 'newcomers'.
They had each introduced themselves before they decided to have a picnic as their welcoming party.
His ruby orbs were now laid on a boy who appeared to be the Marik's look-alike.
'Malik Ishtar.' Yami thought silently to himself.
Malik was known as the sporty type of guy because he entered all kinds of sport competitions in the same school Yugi had enrolled to – The Newcastle University.
His efforts had rewarded himself a cabinet full of sport trophies and his best achievement was being the Master of the Martial Arts club. All in all, he was tough but had a very bad temper.
Yami's gaze then switched to the white spiky haired youth.
'That's Ryou Bakura if I'm not mistaken; his last name is coincidently the same as Bakura's first name.'
Ryou, the brainy one of the group, was a straight A student of all time and thus received a full scholarship for his A-Level course. Overall, he was just a kind, polite, hardworking and shy big-brain albino.
'Now, the other one…'
Yami caught a glimpse of a honey-brown eyed stripling running to the bushes with a sandwich in one hand, followed by a crazy Marik who was chasing him with that slimy saliva dripping down his mouth.
'That's Joey, right?'
Joey Wheeler. From Yami's point of view, was a greedy, clumsy and talkative young teen that kept thinking about food.
According to his friend's information, Joey was a troublemaker who paid less attention to his class, thus attended detention almost everyday, not that he minded anyway.
His only good quality was that he was willing to protect his friends and lend a helping hand if he wants to. Whenever his friends felt upset about something, he could always find a way to cheer them up.
In conclusion, he had a good quality of being a friend, but a bad quality of being a student.
'Last but not least…Yugi Mutou.'
Yami's heart skipped a beat every time when Yugi appeared in Yami's mind, and he couldn't find the reason why.
'Mutou…wonder why this name feels so familiar to me.'
Yugi, the considerate happy-go-lucky adolescent, was just an ordinary 18-year old college student who wished to become a scientist one day.
His child-like appearance would made people thought he was a teen who's incapable of doing almost anything but if you know him better, he was actually an independent, responsible and understandable guy whom you're lucky to have him as a friend, especially his heartwarming smile that could be a cure for the coldest heart.
Yami and his three cousins only reveal their names, ages, school's name, their study courses and their hometown as their personal details. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Yami?"
The ruby-eyed youth snapped out from his thoughts when he heard Kaiba's stern voice.
"What is it?"
"We should go now."
The said teen nodded in understanding before straightening himself.
This was the time they went back to their cottage but before that, the four 'elementals' said their goodbye speeches to their 'new' friends who began to set up their own tent.
-Straight forward to the cottage-
"So…" Kaiba stared at his cousins with his calm yet serious expression.
They gathered around the small wooden table as their usual meeting place but this time, the meeting was very important.
"First off, I want to know whether you three had revealed your true 'identity' to those visitors or not, Yami."
Kaiba's blue eyes then set on the spiky haired teen.
"Did you use your powers on them?"
"No." Yami's firm tone proved his point.
The brunet then swung his head to the albino and the Egyptian. At this moment, Yami noticed his cousin's eye color slowly changed to pure ocean blue.
"Bakura, Marik. Did you…"
"No!"
Their answers were soon rewarded themselves each a hammer-like punch on the head from Kaiba.
"Oww, what's that for?" Bakura whined annoyingly while gently rubbing his head.
"Do you think that look of yours can fool me? Now, spit it out. Why on earth did you use your powers even though you know it's forbidden?"
Bakura had no choice but to reveal his true reason of using his powers on Ryou.
"I'm sure Ryou didn't know anything about your powers judging from the way you did it, so I forgive you but only once!" The brunet said with a grunt.
"And now it's your turn."
Kaiba grabbed Marik's shirt collar with ease before he had a chance to escape to the door. The lavender-eyed stripling silently cursed himself for getting caught. Finally, he gave up as he obediently told everyone the truth.
Obviously, you know what happened next.
"Marik!"
-Meanwhile, in Yugi's tent-
The foursome were discussing about their project for the summer holiday.
"Argh! This stinks!" exclaimed a very frustrated Joey.
"Stop complaining, Joey. We're supposed to finish this project within two weeks and if you keep whining like that, we'll never get this work done!" Malik said while rolling his eyes in annoyance.
"Alright, guys. Listen up." Yugi announced before placing his book down onto his lap.
"I suggest we should each work on a section so it'll make things easier and faster for us. Joey, you do Section A."
The shortest teen of the group pointed the page to his friend who nodded in understanding.
"Ryou, you do Section B."
The albino nodded as well.
"Malik, you do Section C."
Malik stared at the pages with interest before grinning.
"Hmm, germination huh? I like it!"
"I do Section D. So, any questions?"
Yugi swung his head from left to right and saw Joey rising up his hand.
"Yes, Joey?"
"I was wondering why we can't work on it like what other students did? You know, using textbooks and Internet instead of coming here? Wouldn't that saves us time?"
"True. It does save us time but investigating and finding answers ourselves are a better learning method. Also, you know that's not the only reason why we came here, right?"
Joey had nothing to say so he just nodded.
Everyone in the city had wanted to explore the 'outside' world and that included "The Abandoned Forest".
The only thing that prevented them from doing it was because of an invisible barrier the Governor had created in order to protect the city from harm. That barrier was activated ever since that 'incident' happened so it only access for authorized personnel.
If you are wondering how Yugi and the others managed to escape from the barrier, they found a way to enter a truck that was supposed to export the supplies to their neighboring country.
When the truck passed through "The Abandoned Forest", they jumped off the truck and entered the forest sneakily without being seen until Yami and his cousins found them.
So now, they just hope that their parents won't find out the truth before they returned to the city. Naughty boys, aren't they?
"So…" Joey closed his heavy book and smiled evilly at his tricolor spiky haired buddy.
"What do you think of your look-alike, Yami Katsuo?"
Yugi blushed when the image of Yami invaded his mind, but quickly brushed it off and simply said,
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Now, tell me. I want to hear every detail of it."
Yugi scratched his head in a shy way but answered nonetheless.
"Well, he's kind, polite and gentle. He's simply a nice person to talk to."
"Do you like him?"
That question made Yugi realized what Joey truly meant.
"Yes, I like him." He said before narrowing his eyes.
"But only as a friend."
"Oh really?" Joey said before he took a sip from his soda but he failed to notice an evil smirk displayed on Yugi's delicate face.
"So, Joey." Yugi said in an innocent tone.
"What do you think of Seto Kaiba?"
Joey nearly spat out the soda but managed to calm down after that.
"What?"
"You heard me." Yugi crossed his arms and pouted cutely, hoping that expression would convince his friend to tell him the truth.
Joey wanted to protest, but then decided to answer his questions anyway.
"All I know is that he's rude, serious and so not a nice guy to talk to, you should stay away from him, Yugi."
'Thinking about him makes me sick!' Joey thought to himself.
"Really? He looks like a good person to me. He's probably just being…well, you know, shy."
"Shy?!" Joey's eyeballs looked like they were going to pop out from its sockets.
"Oh no, you get it all wrong, pal. I know what I think is right, trust me."
Yugi was confused at his friend's remark but shrugged before replying,
"If you say so."
Then, his amethyst irises fell onto the albino.
"Now's your turn, Ryou!"
Ryou was hesitant at first, but sighed regretfully.
"To me, Bakura Akira is a very mysterious person."
'And dangerous.' He added in thought.
Joey nodded in agreement. "He looks like one, is he related to you, Ryou? Because his first name is the same as your last name, plus you both look alike."
Ryou shook his head immediately at hearing that remark.
"Oh well. Now, Malik. What do you…Malik?"
The three adolescents searched for his mauve-eyed friend and found him standing at the entrance of Yugi's tent.
"You're asking me about that guy, Marik Ryouta?" An evil glint of hatred flashed in his eyes.
"I just want to kill him."
Then, he was gone, leaving the confused threesome to their devices.
To Be Continued…
The end of Chapter 3!
Sorry if you think this chapter is too short but still, I hope you enjoy the story so far and a big thanks to readers who either faves my story or add my story to alert list.
If you wonder why Malik hates Marik so much, You have to wait for the next chapter!
So, stay tune for Chapter 4: Friend!
Lastly, Review please!