Play Your Part, Shizuka

Chapter 12

Review

Katsuya really did not know who had spread the news. Even so, come Monday morning everyone had somehow managed to find out that 'Jounouchi Shizuka' had gone out on a date with the elusive Kaiba Seto. If Katsuya had thought that the glares the girls had been giving him before were murderous, then these ones were knives to the back when he was asleep.

"Is something the matter?" Seto's voice questioned, bringing Katsuya's eyes to meet with blue ones. Katsuya was suddenly reminded of his dream and clutched onto the front of Seto's shirt as his breathing grew frantic. It was so hard to get enough air for some reason. He had never felt like this before, he had never experienced such fear. It was fear of another human being, not the darkness or silly superstitions. And to make matters worse, the previous day he had actually seen Keith look at him the same way he always did in his dreams: with hunger that could not be satisfied. Last night the dream had been worse because of that. Things had gone a lot further and it had held a lot of detail. Before that the dream had been just a repeat of the first one but that new dream, along with Keith's gaze, had put Katsuya in such a state of unease that he had put pants on that day, even though Shizuka never wore such long and baggy pants.

"Shizuka?" Seto called, grabbing Katsuya's shoulders. The blond jumped and is wide eyes focused on Seto's face again. The brunet actually looked worried and Katsuya briefly noted that he had started shaking.

"It's nothing", Katsuya spoke quickly. It was too quickly and he knew it, but could not do anything about it. "I had a pretty bad dream last night. Every night during the whole weekend, actually. It's nothing. It'll pass once I wake up properly."

"Alright", Seto said. "If you say so." He brushed his fingers against Katsuya's cheek and at that instant all of the boy's fears faded away. "We're still going out this Wednesday, right?"

"Of course", Katsuya replied and grabbed the hand caressing his cheek. He stretched the hands out into the dance position and gave his partner a wide smile, a sign that he was fine now. Seto actually smiled back before taking his other hand off Katsuya's shoulder and wrapping it around the shorter teen's waist. Katsuya raised his free hand to rest it against Seto's shoulder. When Katsuya thought the music would start playing, the teacher's shrilly voice rang through the ballroom.

"I think everyone has gotten the hang of the basics of waltz by now so we will now be learning a new dance every lesson", the bossy woman hollered across the room. "Also, from this lesson forward you will all be free to chose your partners yourselves." The teacher's hawk-like gaze met Katsuya's own dead-on. "I think this will be a true blessing to you, Jounouchi Shizuka-kun."

"Hooray…" Katsuya mumbled with clear sarcasm. He barely had enough time to notice the amused expression on Seto's face a moment before a blond-haired girl stepped in and grabbed the brunet's arm. Katsuya recognized her as the same one he had criticised on the very first lesson.

"You'll dance with me, won't you Seto-kun?" the girl cooed and fluttered her eyelids at the tall boy. Seto rolled his eyes before focusing his gaze on Katsuya's face. He did not glance once away from the wigged blond even as he spoke to the girl clinging to him: "I really don't care which of you annoying little leeches tries to gain my attention. None of you will be calling me by first name."

Katsuya simply had to smile at Seto, getting the message. None of these girls interested the brunet. He only had eyes for Katsuya, Shizuka.

The blonde girl looked absolutely devastated before shooting a venomous look at Katsuya. The boy wanted to give the witch a smirk in response but was pulled away from the new pair by his arm. Angry for being both interrupted and manhandled he turned around to glare at the person who had the guts to touch him so possessively.

Angered brown clashed with cheerful emerald and Katsuya immediately recognized the infuriatingly sugary smile of one Otogi Ryuuji.

"I see your partner dumped you for another without a moment's hesitation", Otogi spoke in a confident tone of voice. "How rude, and positively cruel." Otogi lifted Katsuya's hand and the blond barely managed to recover from shock fast enough to pull his hand back right before the raven-haired teen's lips touched his skin. Otogi did not seem to be bothered by the clear rejection and continued smoothly, like noting had gone wrong: "Let me be the one to soothe your pain, my beautiful flower."

Katsuya briefly noticed a brunette girl glaring at Otogi's back with teary eyes and immediately realized that the jerk trying to swoon him had done the exact same thing to his partner that he accused Seto of doing. Katsuya sneered at the green-eyed boy as he snarled: "Seto did not dump me, and I'm no flower." He squeezed his hands into tight fists. "Call me something so frail and disrespectful again and you'll see how beauty can be only skin-deep."

Otogi looked to be at a loss for a moment, clearly not used to being rejected deadpan. But Katsuya could not find it within himself to feel sorry for the raven-haired teen. The way he had been looking at him when their eyes first met was way too similar to the way Keith looked at him.

"Well", Otogi mumbled with a small cough. "This sure is awkward."

Katsuya agreed with the statement wholeheartedly, but decided that he might as well get this thing over and done with. The least he could do for denting the other boy's pride like that was to at least give him a dance. He knew what it was like to have your confidence trampled on like that.

"I guess", the wigged blond conceded. He offered the raven-haired teen a brief smile as he offered: "That doesn't mean that I will refuse you the chance to dance with me, since you went through such trouble for it. And as I have already said, I don't really care who I dance with as long as I will still have my feet intact afterwards." Even though the statement was not exactly true anymore, since Katsuya cared enough to prefer dancing with Seto to everyone else but that was not something the boy was ready to go spreading around while surrounded by murderous Seto-fan girls.

&&&&&&&

It was really bothersome to bandage her chest up every single morning, not to mention difficult. Still, it was necessary to keep the act up so Shizuka went along with it. It would not do for Katsuya to grow a pair of breasts overnight, now would it?

"I swear, Katsuya", Shizuka heard her father lecture as soon as she was out of her room. "You take so much more time to get ready to head out than before, yet you look as scruffy as ever." The man ran a hand through his sandy blond hair, the same color Shizuka's own locks were at the moment. "The least you could do is run a comb through your hair if you're going to take over half an hour to dress yourself."

"I'll keep that in mind, 'tousan", Shizuka replied as she tucked her shirt into her pants. It would not be looked kindly upon if hshe showed up at work with her clothes askew; the employer would not like it. And in addition to that she did not want a repeat of last Thursday when she had slept in and appeared at work as a mess. Mazaki had seen it as her duty to fix up her clothes, something that had lead to the most embarrassing moment of Shizuka's entire life so far. She thought with rising terror what Katsuya would do once he went back to school after the vacation and the class president started going mother hen on him. She was probably in for a very angry phone call after she got home from school herself.

"There you are, Jounouchi-kun", an amused female voice greeted as soon as Shizuka entered through the backdoor. "Your wife has been looking for you." The voice belonged to a young woman, Himitsu Miwako. She held her light brown hair in a tight bun behind her neck, in order to keep it out of the way while she worked. Shizuka had never seen her with her hair open so did not know how long it really was.

"Not funny", Shizuka huffed as she stomped past the now giggling woman. She was a regular worker who usually took care of instructing the summer workers. She enjoyed teasing the students and was likely to go on calling Mazaki Shizuka's, or rather, Katsuya's wife the whole time she worked here. Hopefully Katsuya would never find out, or she would be in double the trouble.

"I'm sorry, Jounouchi-kun", Miwako spoke in a tone of voice that was not the least bit apologetic. "You are just adorable when you're irritated." The woman released a short laugh. "You look almost like a little girl when you glare like that."

"Gee, thanks…" Shizuka muttered, making a mental note to watch out for that woman. The last thing she needed was someone at work finding out her secret. It would not only mean problems for Shizuka, but for Katsuya as well.

Fortunately Shizuka was spared from the woman by no other than Mazaki, who stormed into the back room, her eyes locking on Shizuka immediately.

"There you are!" she exclaimed. "You're almost late and we're really busy here. We have a lot of customer's today, picking up some pastries to go. Apparently there has been an accident further down the street and all the drivers who are stuck are picking up a quick breakfast before going back to their cars."

"I'll be right there", Shizuka replied before opening a locker and throwing her jacket inside. Then she pulled out and apron and tied it around herself while she walked after Mazaki, who had already returned back to the store.

&&&&&&&

Katsuya had been hoping to get to talk with Seto after the lesson, but found himself effectively stopped by the combined efforts of the Kaiba Seto fan club and Otogi. The raven-haired man had attempted to strike up a conversation with Katsuya so many times that the girls trying to crowd Seto had had enough time to pretty much chase the brunet out. But the wigged blond decided that it was not such a horrible thing, since he was still going out with Seto in a few days.

"No, Otogi, I don't want to see your car", Katsuya said for what felt to be the hundredth time already. "No matter what special features you have installed I am not interested." Katsuya glared at Otogi's smiling face. "Just because I danced with you it doesn't mean I'm going to jump at the chance to spend more time with you." Seriously, had the black-haired boy learned nothing from the other teen's previous rant? "Why don't you ask one of the other girls? I think they would be thrilled to see your car and actually be disappointed if you really do have some special features installed that you want to lecture about."

"But I would so enjoy giving that lecture to you", Otogi spoke with a gleeful smile. "It's no fun if the girl is an easy catch."

"Well I'm not any kind of a catch", Katsuya snapped before turning away from the emerald-eyed nuisance. "See you around, Otogi." There was a call to wait from the other boy but Katsuya ignored it as he made his way out of the ballroom. His mother was probably already waiting for him in her car, ready to drive him home before she went to drop some papers off at the office. The woman had it pretty easy with her bendable schedules.

Just like the boy had expected, her mother's car was waiting in the parking lot. Katsuya made his way to it with long strides that immediately slowed down when Katsuya saw the man sitting next to his mother. And the man was doing more than sitting. He was currently thrusting his tongue down his mother's throat, a sight Katsuya had never wanted to witness. It was 'icky' to see your parents kissing but it was simply wrong to see someone other than your father swapping saliva with your mother.

When Katsuya was next to the car he performed the extremely satisfying action of rapping his knuckles on the window behind Keith, grinning widely when he saw the man visibly jump as he pulled away from Ayami. Then Katsuya moved over to the back of the car and opened the door, climbing inside before slamming the door shut behind him.

"It took you longer than usual to get out, Shizuka", Ayami started to speak as she turned to her 'daughter'. She was clearly trying to act parental after having been caught making out with Keith. "Were you talking with Kaiba-kun again?"

The way Ayami used Seto's name did not pass Katsuya's attention and the boy snarled inwardly. On the outside he simply smiled liked his sister would and replied: "No I wasn't. I wanted to talk with him but he left before I could."

"Then were you chatting with some girls from your class then?" Ayami questioned and Katsuya decided that his mother would not like to hear that there was another boy after her sweet and innocent daughter. So he lied: "Yes 'kaasan. I got stuck talking with a couple of girls."

"Well I'm glad that you seem to be getting along with everyone", Ayami said with a smile, completely oblivious to the fact that almost every girl in the dance class hated 'Shizuka's' guts. Katsuya was spared from having to lie any more when Keith suddenly spoke out: "Okay, so the girl had a good time. Now that that's settled how about we get going?"

"Right right…" Ayami spoke in a slightly drained manner, like one usually would with an impatient person in their company. In Katsuya's opinion Keith should have gotten a snapped reply, along with an insult or two. The man was not impatient, we was downright rude. Even Katsuya could see the difference so how could his mother not see it?

&&&&&&&

"So, what did Jou tell you when you finally called him?" Hiroto asked when he and Shizuka were walking down a street. Shizuka had just finished at work and Hiroto had come to pick her up, an act that would have had the girl giving the brunet a kiss if Mazaki had not left at the same time with her. So Shizuka had been forced to cut down on her enthusiasm at seeing Hiroto after her busy weekend with helping his father clean out the closet. It had been a tedious job that had been supposed to be done half a year ago so it took the two the whole weekend.

Fortunately Mazaki lived on another part of the town so the girl had taken off into another direction some time ago, giving Shizuka and Hiroto a chance to talk about the girl's discussion with her older brother.

"He had been on a date", Shizuka said with a mischievous smile spreading on her lips. She grabbed Hiroto's arm and pulled the boy slightly closer in order to whisper to his ear: "And he had a date with Kaiba Seto of all possible people. Turns out Katsuya caught Kaiba's eye at dance practise."

There was some full-blown laughter from Hiroto and the brunet almost tripped over his own two feet. His face would have actually become very close acquaintances with the concrete of the street if Shizuka had not still had a hold of his arm, helping the brunet regain his balance before he fell over.

"That's probably the most ironic thing I've heard in years", Hiroto managed to say after his laughter had finally subsided. "I bet Jou was furious when he saw Kaiba first. Makes me wonder why he agreed to go on a date with him, though."

"He said he wanted to keep his act together so he could not possibly do the one thing no girl would do. And that's turn down Kaiba Seto", Shizuka replied. Hiroto released a snicker before speaking out his own theory on the matter: "More like he wanted to rob all the real girls of the chance to go out with Kaiba. He has always hated the way girls squeal over him all the time."

"That actually sounds like something 'niichan might do", Shizuka admitted and giggled. "He can be quite vengeful sometimes." It was not usual that Shizuka would admit to any possible faults her precious older brother might have but with Hiroto around the girl knew it to be safe, since the brunet was probably the one person who was near being as close to Katsuya as she was.

"I think 'vengeful' would be a bit of a strong word for it", Hiroto said with a wide playful grin. "I would think the word 'bitchy' is a closer description of Jou, excuse my bad language."

"Naturally", was Shizuka's automatic response. That was one thing Shizuka liked in her role as her brother. She got to hear all of the usual phrases Hiroto used with Katsuya, and it was a good opportunity to get to know all sides of the boy she had chosen as her future boyfriend.

To be continued…