A Note to Bakura fangirls - I promise I'm not having a dig at Bakura in this chapter, it just seemed to fit quite well don't kill me or anything! (Runs in terror from mob of marauding fangirls!)

Oh yes! A More General Note - I don't know if it's grammatically correct, but when I use '-!' in a piece of dialogue or whatever it indicates and interruption, a point where someone is cut off in the act of speaking/thinking/writing, whether by someone or something. Just so you know.

I also don't do Gymnastics, so this is based on research which I have done for the purpose. If you find errors please let me know.

Enjoy!

Chapter 3 - Gym

Joey was excited when he woke the next morning. His Gym kit lay at the end of the bed next to the sketch. He dressed quickly and hurried off for school, eating toast left out by his father for him as he ran. He had good reason to feel the butterflies. Today was the first time since Grade School that they'd been given the chance to do Gymnastics. Apart from Duel monsters and sketching, Gymnastics was one of the few things that Joey felt he could do well at. In fact he was a leading member of the regional squad. He trained on Monday and Thursday afternoons instead of going to Yugi's, and most Saturday mornings as well. Maybe today he'd be brave enough to show everyone hat he was capable of. Maybe he'd finally be able to admit to the gang that he was thinking of trying out for the national squad in the next few months. None of them even knew he did it, apart from Bakura who took contemporary dance in the community hall once the Gym equipment had been put away.

Gym started after break. In the changing rooms Seto Kaiba was getting into his kit. In the toilets. Again. It was bad enough he had to bare his legs to the screaming fangirls (and guys), without being seen topless by the drooling morons. He changed quickly and resumed his usual stance, leaning against the lockers by the door. He glanced around for the opportunity to mock some of the more pathetic weaklings when his eyes lighted upon the sight of Joey Wheeler, facing away from him, taking off his shirt.

"Ah! Wheeler!" He thought to himself, "Lets see the puppy fat mutt. I bet -! Oh."

His eyes widened. The shirt was lifted up as if in slow motion before his eyes, revealing toned, but not overly muscular, flesh. Seto was no weakling, and knew enough about muscle structure to know that the display of upper body strength he was seeing here implied a good deal of arm strength too. The skin was taut and golden over the tightly wound elegance of a back that put Kaiba's own to shame. Maybe Wheeler wasn't the runt he seemed. Seeing the boy slip out of the locker room quietly a few minutes later, he followed, intrigued.

The first thing Joey did as he jogged into the Gymnasium was smile. He was surprised to see such a variety of equipment. He'd had to cross the field to get to the Gymnasium building, and so had built up enough body heat in the run to start his warm up effectively.

"Right." He muttered to himself, slipping off his shoes and stepping onto the mats, "Top to bottom."

Reaching his arms high above his head he stretched up as high as he could, before dropping his hands and rolling his shoulders and neck simultaneously. He worked out the muscles in his arms, rotating joints and flexing. He felt good, knowing his body was in the best condition it had ever been in.

Seto Kaiba, who on a point of principle had not run despite his curiosity, walked in as Joey, facing away from him, bent over to place his hands squarely on the floor, with plenty of elbow flexibility besides. The sight of the boy's arse waggling in the air was enough to make the brunette smirk, but he held it in and retreated to the shadows to watch. It wasn't a bad arse really.

Joey looked around and tried to decide what to use first: parallel bars; pommel horse; rings? He did a few cartwheels and back-flips over the mats to check his condition, and was walking on his hands when he decided. Not that there was much of a difficulty really. Given a choice of a thousand different pieces of apparatus and he's still go for the High-Bar every time. The teacher wasn't around yet, and the others were busy towel-whipping each other and trying to find out who had man-boobs. He wasn't exactly going to get much chance to freestyle later.

He was surprised to see that the High-Bar had even had a pit installed with it. The school certainly did have money to burn. He laughed, wrapping up his hands and dusting them up. As he moved towards the bar he felt the adrenalin begin to build within his veins. He performed the ritual, a double neck roll and a clap of the hands. The High Bar was his speciality.

With no one around to lift him up he'd have to jump for it. Not best practice but his only real option under the circumstances. He tried to imagine Yugi lifting him and laughed again.

First strength, bringing up his ankles to the level of his hands, his legs running parallel to his body. Then he began to swing.

Kaiba stood in the doorway, cast in shadow, his eyes widening as he watched Joey spin. Utterly graceful, Joey circled the bar, changing from over to undergrip, twisting in mid-air, seeming to defy gravity, floating over the bar, before plummeting down, bringing his chest close to the bar again. It was incredible, that bigmouthed Wheeler could hide such a talent, such a secret so well. That the usually scatty blonde haired boy could be so elegant and so controlled, his body a symphony of movement.

Joey was in, as he so eloquently put it: "DA ZONE". Left to his own devices, without his coach nagging at him to pull of some fancy trick or another, he flew. This was the real High Bar: that place between flying and falling; that utter concentration it took to change his grip; the challenge of seeing how many turns he could fit into one rotation. His body sang with happiness, but he remained silent, having learnt very early on that being vocal within your technique often meant landing, quite literally, on your face.

He was ambitious and his actions were dangerous, but hell it wasn't like anyone was watching if he fell. He wanted to try it, to see if he could pull off the dismount he'd been attempting for months without the pressure of being watched. Feet flying over him for the last time, he prepared and made the move: a triple twisting double straight dismount. It was only his third attempt and one of the hardest moves in gymnastics.

As Joey tumbled in the air Seto opened his mouth in a silent gasp. Surely he'd miss? Blood rushed into his ears as the boy fell, hair spinning outwards like Golden silk.

Joey made it feet first into the pit for the first time in his life. His triumphant cry rang across the whole Gym.

"Woohoo!"

At that point the crowd of boys entering the building swept past Kaiba, led by the teacher.

"Wheeler! What the hell do you think you're doing in that pit?"

Heh, that was a rather lively chapter wasn't it? Chapter 4 - An Afternoon and an Evening to come soon. More review please!

Thanks again to Crystal-Nimrodel and everyone else etc blah blah blah...

No guys, I'm sory to admit that I do not own these characters.