A/N: Chapter 4 is now up! Yay, more positive reviews from you guys. I'm glad you're all enjoying it so far. However, the journey has only just begun. I'm sorry for posting this chapter a day late! I hope you guys can forgive me. Not a lot to say at this point, so I hope you enjoy the latest chapter. Again, a review is always appreciated.

Chapter 4: To Get Stronger

The sound of the alarm echoes in Anzu's bedroom. She was already awake, before her alarm sounded. She was very sleep deprived. Her eyes were red, the bed covers on the floor and when she blinked her eyes, it would make her head ache. She begins to fantasise about Yugi falling on top of her, completely different to what actually occurred yesterday. Stop it brain! I can't think about things like that. Moaning to herself, she gets up slowly and then turns off her alarm on her bedside table. She begins to get ready for school. Looking at herself in the mirror, she notices how red her eyes are. Maybe a splash of cold water will help.

Once she'd finished changing, she walked downstairs to join her mother in the kitchen. "Good morning darling," her mother greets with a wide smile.

"Morning," Anzu replies roughly. She settles for toast and orange juice, and sits herself down at the table.

Her mother notes her daughter's unusual, sluggish behaviour. "You're usually bright and awake in the morning."

"I didn't get much sleep last night," she explains, whilst munching on her toast.

"Is it to do with a boy?" She teases.

Anzu starts coughing, as she nearly choked on her breakfast. "No!"

"I was just kidding darling. But then again… your reaction says otherwise."

"It's nothing." Anzu quickly finishes her breakfast and leaves for the door.

He mother shouts, "have a good day at school darling!"

Honestly mother… That's the first idea you think of? Well, it is true… but I can't tell her that, she'll pester me all day. She sighs to herself. This is why I need more female friends. I don't have anyone I could talk to about this stuff.

Anzu finds Yugi already waiting for her outside of the game shop. "Morning Anzu," Yugi greets her as she walks up to him.

"Good morning," she responds and they begin walking to school.

Anzu begins yawning heavily and she quickly covers her mouth. "Did you have trouble sleeping last night?" Yugi asks.

"Yes," she simply states. She was mentally trying to suppress her inappropriate thoughts, since that was what kept her up all night.

"I had trouble sleeping too."

"Really? How come?"

"I don't know. It was just one of those nights I suppose."

The two of them arrive at school and head for the classroom. They both enter together. Honda, who was already there, notice the too walk in together. "Here comes the 'item.'" At that comment, Katsuya rapidly grabs him.

"Keep quiet idiot," he whispers.

Honda pushes Katsuya off him. "You want to go Jonouchi!"?

"Sure! I'll knock you out in a second!"

Ignoring the two arguing, Bakura greets Yugi and Anzu. "Good morning. It seems Honda and Jonouchi are lively as ever."

"It would seem so," Yugi says. He looks around for Ryuji. "Where is Otogi?"

"He's running late." At that point, the homeroom teacher enters the classroom and everyone moves to their seats.

The homeroom teacher explains that there will be a new transfer student joining their class. "I want you all to make our new student feel welcome. Mr Jonouchi!"

The whole class turn to Katsuya, finding him with his head face down on his desk. He abruptly lifted his head at the teacher calling him. "Yes sir?"

"Would you like to repeat what I had just said to the class?"

He ponders for a moment. "Umm…that my fly is undone?" The teacher quickly looks down. The rest of the class begin to snigger. Fortunately, his zipper was fine.

"Watch your attitude Jonouchi! Or would you rather spend detention with your coach?"

"No sir." He slouches back in his seat.

"Now then, I will introduce your new student. You can enter now," the homeroom teacher ushers in the new student. The girls in the classroom, apart from Anzu, started squealing in excitement. The student was a very attractive male, with the face of the model.

He bows and introduces himself. "My name is Shinji Kitagawa. It's nice to meet you all. I hope we'll all be able to get along."

Just at that moment, Ryuji bursts into the classroom, panting. "And where have you been Mr Otogi?" The teacher asks him, irritated.

"I have no excuse. I overslept," he explains, trying to regain his breath.

"I see. You will stay behind at the end of the day, and you will clean this entire classroom by yourself." Ryuji understands and goes to his seat. "I'm sorry Mr Kitagawa for Mr Otogi's rude manners."

"That's quite all right sir."

"Now, I will allocate you to the seat next to Miss Mazaki." Shinji nods and walks to his seat. He sits down and places his stationary on the desk. Once he'd finished, he politely greeted Anzu with a smile.

"Hello Mazaki. It's nice to meet you."

"Hi, and you too Kitagawa," she also responds with a smile. For some reason, this made Yugi, who had been watching them two, a little jealous. After all, he was a lot better looking than he was.

The bell rang, indicating break time. The teacher asks Anzu for a word briefly. "Yes sir?" She questions.

"I have a favour to ask of you. Would you be kind enough to show our new student around?"

"Of course sir."

"Thank you Mazaki."

She goes to Shinji and explains to him that she'll be showing him around the school. He thanks her, and they go and leave the classroom. Yugi watches them leave together. Why am I letting this bother me? She's only showing him around like any good student would.

"Is someone a little jealous?" Katsuya suddenly springs up in front of Yugi.

"Of course not," Yugi argues.

"By the way Yugi…" Honda buts into the conversation, "what happened yesterday? If you know what I mean."

"Me and Anzu worked on the assignment. Like I said we would."

Honda falls animatedly. "Are you kidding man?! Not even any hot making out?"

Yugi blushes a little at that comment. "No! We're only friends Honda."

"Something must have happened between you two. I mean, you walked into school together this morning."

"We walked to school together before. So that's nothing new."

Honda begins to smirk, putting that last comment beside. "Oh I see now. You couldn't do anything. After all, your grandpa was home."

"Knock it off already Honda!" Yugi starts getting annoyed.

Bakura and Ryuji joins them, seeing Yugi getting irritated. "What are you guys discussing?" Bakura asks.

"How Yugi still can't get with Anzu." Honda tells them.

"Yugi isn't the type to do anything that would make her uncomfortable," he explains.

Yugi then has a flashback to when he was positioned on top of Anzu. Not now brain! This causes him to blush and fidget a little. The others all notice Yugi's sudden change of behaviour.

Ryuji smiles curiously. "What are you nervous for all of a sudden?"

Katsuya swiftly grabs Yugi by the shoulders and starts shaking him. "You're hiding something aren't you?! Something did happen didn't it?"

Damn! What do I say? I can't tell them about 'that' incident. They'll never shut up about it. He tries to think of something to say. "Well, I'm minding the game shop this Sunday and Anzu is coming over to help."

"So that's it." Katsuya lets go of Yugi.

"Would you like me to help too?" Bakura asks, unknowingly. Honda bashes him on the head. "Ow! What was that for Honda?"

"Are you stupid or something? This gives them a chance to be on their own."

"What? I don't…Oh." He only clicks on at that point.

On the other end of the school, Anzu is currently showing Shinji the sports hall. Shinji is currently staring with amazement. "This place is impressive. It's so much bigger, compared to my old school. I'm really into sports you see. I was the champion at fencing at my old school." He explains, smugly.

"I'm impressed Kitagawa. That's a real talent you've got there." She realises that they've been gone a while. "We should head back to class. Our next period will be starting shortly."

"Okay," he agrees and they begin to head back to the classroom. Whilst walking back, he asks her, "Are you seeing anybody Mizaki?"

She looks at him briefly. "No, I'm not," she states.

"Do you want to go for coffee this Sunday?"

"Sorry, I can't. I'm spending it with my friend."

"I see." He ends the conversation there and surely enough, they arrive back at class.

At the end of class, Yugi quickly gets his things together and rushes out of the classroom, not even saying goodbye to his friends. Anzu asks Katsuya why Yugi went off like that.

"Beats me," he says. "Probably wanted to avoid piggy over here." He points to Honda.

"Shut your face Jonouchi! And stop calling me that!"

"What? Piggy?"

"Yes! That!"

"Why should I? It suits you perfectly."

Honda grabs him roughly. "That's it! I'm going to punch your face out!"

Ryuji sighs. "Knock it off you two. You're acting like a bunch of children."

They both cross their arms and turn away from each other. "Well I'm going home." Katsuya states. "Don't bother walking with me, piggy."

"I wasn't going to! And I told you not to call me that!"

"Sometimes I wonder why they're friends," Bakura says to Ryuji. "They seem to argue a lot."

"That's just the way they are," Ryuji explains. He places his foot on one of the chairs, to tie one of his shoe laces that came undone. "You should go home as well Bakura. I have to stay and clean up remember."

"I wish I could help out." Bakura grabs his bag. "See you tomorrow Otogi…" Bakura notices, whilst Ryuji is tying his shoe lace, a dark bruise on Ryuji's ankle. "Um…Otogi."

Ryuji looks at him, finishing his lace off. "What's up?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Try not to be too long, okay?"

"Sure."

Bakura leaves the classroom, thinking about how Ryuji got that bruise. I wonder if he got into a fight on his way to school. Maybe that's why he was late. Or maybe not. I'm sure Otogi would have told us if he got into any trouble.

Yugi is currently running out of the school's entrance. I'm sorry Anzu, but I don't want you or the others to know where I'm going. He finally stops running. He has stopped at the local gym, which wasn't too far from the game shop. Why am I doing this? He questions to himself. I just hope Katsuya doesn't attend the gym on Mondays. Yugi slowly enters the building. He begins to feel ashamed by how weak he is going to be. No, I shouldn't let it bother me. Everyone has to start somewhere.

He changes into his sports gear, in the locker room. He fetches his water bottle and heads for the gym. He sees that there are a lot of body builders, who were a lot taller and bigger than him. Just ignore them. He decides to start with the dumbbells to warm up.

After an hour of working out, he goes and collapses on one of the side benches, panting to himself. I didn't think it would be this hard. He looks at his hand and notice how much it's shaking, due to the strain. He sighs to himself and finishes his last drops of water. After regaining all of his breath, he heads back for the locker room. He decides to take a shower at home.

Before he was about to leave, he overhead someone. "Pretending to be a high school student? That's a bit risky to get a catch, even for you Kitagawa."

Did he just say Kitagawa? Yugi listens and looks for where the voice was coming from. He manages to find who was speaking. He notices that Shinji was there speaking with the gang leader, from that time when he and his friends went to that new theme park. Why is Shinji talking to him? And what's this about pretending to be a high school student? Yugi positions himself behind one of the lockers, so he can continue listening.

Shinji begins talking. "Well you see, I've spotted a good catch this time. It won't be long until I get it."

By 'catch' does he mean one of the girls in our school? He couldn't mean…

"So what did you say to impress her?" The gang leader asks him.

"That I was a champion at fencing in my old school. She even said that she was impressed by it," Shinji says cockily.

"What a bad boy you are." The leader then leaves him and walks out of the locker room. Not too long after, Shinji also leaves.

Yugi begins panicking. He must have meant Aznu! Just who really are these guys?! Yugi rushes home, once he was sure that they had left. As soon as he arrived home, he burst through the door. Before he hurried to his room, his grandpa stopped him.

"Where have you been Yugi? You didn't tell me you were going to be late today."

Yugi also didn't tell his grandpa about starting the gym. "I was hanging out with Jonouchi and Honda. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier," he lies. Before his grandpa could say anymore, Yugi hurried to his bedroom. He picks up his phone, to call Katsuya, but then stops. He realises that he would have to tell him that he went to the gym. I can't tell the others either! What am I supposed to do now?!

Morning arises, and Yugi is just leaving the game shop. He sees that Anzu was waiting for him. "Hi. Morning Anzu," he greets.

"Hi. Yugi…why did you run off after last period yesterday?" She asks, concerned.

"Grandpa wanted me home quite early, so that I could help him with something." He lies. "Sorry I couldn't walk home with you."

"That's okay. I just thought someone may have troubled you."

"No I'm okay. Shall we go?"

She nods and they walk to school. Yugi thinks to himself about what happened yesterday at the gym. He doesn't know how to warn Anzu that Kitagawa is actually a pseudo student, and that she could possibly be in danger. Also, he doesn't have any evidence that could prove this. So telling the homeroom teacher would be pointless.

Anzu looked at Yugi, realising he was thinking very hard. "Is something on your mind?"

Yugi looks at her and shakes his head. "Nope. I just remembered that we haven't worked on our assignment again."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about it too." She thinks momentarily. "How about we work on it during lunch?"

"Okay," he approves.

They almost arrive at the schools gates. Anzu sighs disappointingly. "I can't believe we got here so fast."

Yugi suddenly stops walking. Anzu, confused, who was ahead of him, stopped too and turned to face him. He unexpectedly spats out. "I do have something on my mind!"

Anzu doesn't reply straight away. "You do? Well, why didn't you say before when I asked?"

Why did I just yell that out? Great…there's no avoiding her now. "I don't know…I just…" he mumbles. "Anzu. Do you…um…like Kitagawa?"

"Like him?"

"I mean…since he looks like the popular type." What am I on about now?! I'm supposed to warn her, not ask about her opinion of him.

Anzu thinks. Is Yugi perhaps jealous? No, he couldn't be. "He seems nice, but I don't like him that way, if that's what you meant." Yugi relaxes a little. "Why do you want to know?"

Yugi then tenses a bit. "I was just wondering. No real reason. He just doesn't seem like the trustworthy type is all."

"Oh now I get it. You're worried about me."

"I guess so…" he rubs the back of his head, bashfully.

She smiles at him. "That's sweet of you Yugi, but don't worry. I won't mix with the wrong crowd. Now come on, let's go and meet the others."

He agrees and they arrive at the gates. I hope now she'll be more wary of him. But in the meantime, I need to figure out how I'm going to prove he's a fake student.