Authors' Note:  Sorry for the delay! What with PM being out of town, again, up until a few days ago, we had a bit of a hiatus on the writing. *pelts PM with marshmallows*  Having said that, she's back again, and we are writing on our ficcies once more!  Thanks so much to all who reviewed!  Oh, and you'll definitely want to read the chapter after this one.  It's a doozy!  *grins and rubs hands together* Trust me, it'll be well worth the wait!  --Neph

Disclaimer:  Nope, we still don't own anything, except Yuki and Skunkzilla and they're not in this chapter. 

The Evil Laugh:  Yes, that's why I hide from PM!  I'm sure she'd rob me blind if she could.  And what can we say, we like long days?  So glad you like the Honda/Ryuuji!  And the little kiss!  We're so glad that you like our collaboration.  We really do have a great time writing together.  And fear not, the charade is not over just yet!  We will be updating soon!  And don't worry, PM lives to abuse bishies!

Mikazuki Kagaya:  Wow!  Thank you, thank you!  I haven't read her books, but I'll look into them.  And I'll pester PM to see if she's perchance read them.  We have much more ahead!  Though, I don't know how lucky Seto will think himself in the future.  It's never quite that easy, ne?

SGL:  You are so right!  Definitely the calm before the storm!  Thanks so much!

angelbird12241:  Thanks!  We'll be updating again soon!

Ice Puppet:  Yes, we adore Ryuuji!  So glad that you think we're doing him justice!  And the squirrel amuses us muchly, as well.

Marmalade Girl:  Well, you should be back by now!  I'm not sure the lack of updates is a good thing, but at least you didn't miss any of them.  Thanks so much for your review!  The craziness is only going to get worse, I'm afraid.  Poor Seto, indeed!

Windswift:  Ryou definitely has problems.  And this has just been the tip of the iceberg.  Thanks so much!  We will be updating soon!

Green Eyes Silver Dragon:  Thank you very much!  The next update should come soon.  So glad that you're enjoying it!

Chapter 9

Explanation

Matters such as the ones they had just experienced could not simply be kissed away, so it was of no particular surprise when Honda ushered his koi away from a group of well-wishers the next school day. Ryuuji, who was still in a bit of a mood despite their making up, was not at all pleased when he realized exactly what Honda was taking the trouble to talk to him about.

"You want to what?!" Ryuuji's voice had gotten remakably high-pitched with that one word, and he noted with more than a little satisfaction when Honda winced.

"I want to explain to him what happened."

"I heard you, I heard you!" Ryuuji repeated, his tone impatient as he glared at Honda. "I just don't believe you! After everything that happened, you have to go and pull this stunt again! Are you just acting like a masochist or do is there actual reasoning behind your actions?!"

Part of him knew that he was being unreasonable, but enough of him didn't really care so he just continued to rant until Honda placed a hand on his shoulder. This calmed him down enough so that he sulked instead, which to Honda wasn't that much of an improvement. Still, it was better than nothing and for that Honda was extraordinarily grateful. He liked Ryuuji *very* much, as had been shown several times before, but that didn't mean he couldn't help but be annoyed when the black-haired teen went into one of his emotional fits.

Well, he wasn't sure 'emotional fit' was the right way of putting it, but it sounded about right when one considered the circumstances.

"Calm down," Honda finally said as patiently as he could.

Ryuuji didn't explode, something which surprised him, but an eyebrow twitched. That reminded him greatly of Yami no Yuugi, who seemed to do that every time somebody annoyed him (which was pretty often, actually).

"Calm down?" There was a hint of dangerous lack of emotion behind those words, but this time Honda was wise enough to catch them as Ryuuji repeated again, "You want me to calm down?"

"Ryuuji… I know you don't like this. But even though Ryou isn't my boyfriend anymore, it doesn't mean that I can just abandon him. He's still *our* friend."

When Ryuuji didn't answer, Honda didn't panic. He just waited, patiently, with the firm belief that sooner or later Ryuuji would be swayed to his side. And if he didn't… well, the back-up plan was to knock him out to make sure that he didn't say anything to Ryou before Honda could, and to make it up to him with a hundred kisses.

Or something like that.

"You know, you have this annoying ability of being able to make sense when I really don't want you to," Ryuuji finally grumbled, his tone of voice conveying his very grudging defeat. And even after Honda had kissed him on the nose between blabbering thanks and apologies and the such, the expression on his face didn't change.

*****

The expression on Bakura Ryou's face didn't change either when he realized that a certain ex-lover was coming up to him and asking him if they could take a moment to go and talk to each other. To be frank, his night had been rather... how should he put it, hellish after he had run away from Seto. Once the door had slammed, Ryou had immediately run up to his level and watched from there as Seto had driven off. As soon as his 'date' was gone, Ryou had wandered into his home where he spent the rest of the night wondering exactly what drugs had been put in his food to make him act like such an idiot. Currently, he was absolutely convinced that there was still something wrong with him. That would, at least, explain the headache he had.

It never occured to him, of course, that the headache might have been the product of banging his head against a wall in a rather misguided attempt to figure out why he had acted the way he did. And the only reason why he stopped was not because he had finally started to feel pain, but because the spirit of the Sennen Ring had screamed for him to stop before he got a headache. And if Yami no Bakura got a headache, it could only be a matter of time before Ryou was being strangled by his own intestines.

Definitely not a pleasant thought, and it was definitely enough incentive to stop Ryou from making a rather ugly bruise on his face. Right now though, Ryou was still somewhat in a state of shock, especially since Honda had come to him with the most... odd request. Would he mind taking the time to have a few words with the brunette? Just for a little while... he needed to say something.

Well, that wasn't really the best way to get Ryou's good graces. After all, the last time he had spoken to Honda, he had discovered that the brunette was breaking up with him and running off with... with... another one of his friends! That kind of thing tended to stick with people, and it also made it more difficult for Ryou to have any incentive to listen to Honda.

But Honda had asked very nicely and Ryou couldn't think of any polite way to decline. He could think of many rude ways of telling Honda to get lost, but it didn't mean he would actually use those ways. He couldn't even contemplate of using those ways... it wasn't in his personality. Lots of things weren't in his personality, although lately he had been starting to ignore that fact as he... well, expanded his horizons. That was a nice way of putting it, if not completely accurate. But who cared about accuracy these days anyway?

Still, his curiosity won out, because he was somewhat interested in knowing what Honda would want to say to him. Who knows, maybe it would mean the end of this ploy so that both he and Seto could get on with their own lives. And that was definitely a good thing, especially since Ryou was going to have to be very hard-pressed to face the billioniare again after what had occured on their last 'date'.

So, with that sparkling little hope in mind, Ryou got up and followed Honda out of the classroom.

He tried not to sweat when he felt two icy blue eyes glaring a hole in his back as he did so.

Actually, Seto wasn't glaring, per se. In fact, it was more of a hard stare that he was giving Ryou, as if he could somehow burn a hole into Ryou's consciousness and make sense out of everything if he only looked at him hard enough. In spite of himself, Seto was still internally puzzling over Ryou's actions at the end of the evening the night before. On top of this, there was now some sort of a conversation with Honda looming on the horizon. It was unfortunate for Seto that he couldn't make much headway at all in deciphering what motivated Ryou's behavior, so he simply stared after them, wondering whether this conversation would end up being a good or a bad thing. After all, if it gave Ryou answers (or whatever it was that he was seeking), then this whole charade could be over, which would surely be a good thing. Then Kaiba Seto could go back to being Kaiba Seto, the isolated, intense person whose life was only driven by a few key motivations--none of which was a certain white-haired male who seemed to have been taking up an inordinate amount of space in his thoughts, given his relative lack of importance. Then agan, Seto was well aware of the possibility that things could play out in an entirely different fashion. For a time after the other two had departed, he was plagued with images of a Ryou who ran into the classroom, threw himself at him, and began sobbing against Seto for all of the class to see. That notion disturbed Seto on a great many levels... somewhere in there, the thought of seeing Ryou ending up hurting more after this definitely bothered him more than it should... just seeing him go off to speak with Honda gave him something of a bad feeling...

Honda had led Ryou out into the hallway and headed down a short ways until they had reached a deserted corridor where they could speak privately. "I know that what I did hurt you..." Honda began awkwardly, gazing down at his feet and shifting his weight back and forth a bit as he spoke. "That was never my intention. I never wanted you to be sad, and I think that right now, you probably are... a little... unless you're really over it and moving on with K--" Honda cut himself off before he got off track and began to tread on dangerous material. If he got started on Seto now, on seeing Seto with Ryou the night before, there was an excellent chance that he'd never even make it to the point he was trying to reach.

Hence, he cleared his throat a bit and tried again. "I just thought that it might help you if you understood what happened. I think that you have a right to know, and I want you to see that I never lied to you or did anything with the deliberate intention of misleading you. It just... kind of... happened..." Honda added uncomfortably, cheeks tinging a slight pink at the memory of how Ryuuji had practically pounced on him and then kissed him. "Anyway, if there's anything that you'd like to know... I'll try to answer you as best I can..." Honda finished, giving Ryou an encouraging look. "Was there anything...?"

Ryou couldn't help but stare at Honda, an incredulous expression gracing his features as he stuttered, "Na… nani?"

He was, plainly said, very shocked about this sudden turn of events. It seemed that one moment he was still trying to figure out how his world could have become so messed up… and now he was actually being offered a chance to have his questions answered.

Immediately, he wondered if there was something up. How else to explain this… this… he didn't even have a name for it. It was just too weird….

"Ryou?"

Ryou jerked when he heard that as he stared at Honda with wide eyes. On one hand, Honda was one of the few people he was comfortable with when it came to using his first name. But that was a different time, and now he just flinched.

"Please don't call me that, Honda-kun."

Honda looked somewhat hurt as Ryou turned away. "I'm just not comfortable with you calling me that anymore, Honda-kun."

"Gomen, Bakura."

The two settled into an uncomfortable silence as Ryou toyed with questions. Although it just seemed that when he was finally being given an oppurtunity to figure out everything, he couldn't figure out what he wanted to know. All the questions that had been swimming in his head had apparantly cascaded out of his ears like a mini-waterfall, leaving him with a big, fat empty space.

Finally, he looked up and asked, "What happened?"

Honda's eyes widened a bit at Ryou's question Of all of the things that he'd been anticipating, he foolishly hadn't expected a large, vague, open-ended question like that to fall into his lap. "What happened?" he repeated, features scrunching somewhat in confusion, though his mouth hung open.

Ryou nodded, and when it seemed that Honda was not going to say anything were he not prodded (and though Ryou was going to do this verbally, for an insane moment, he wondered whether or not prodding Honda with a stick might have been a more effective tool). "I want to know how this happened..." Ryou wasn't going to be more specific than that, because it would require mentioning how Honda choosing Ryuuji over him, and somehow, he knew that uttering those words would give him a bad feeling.

Honda frowned thoughtfully, trying to figure out the best way to explain this without making the situation worse. Who knew what Ryou would do then? After all, their break-up had led to the insanity that was Ryou going out with Kaiba Seto. What was next, Yuugi's grandfather?! Well, perhaps that's an extreme example, but still... Yes, deep down somewhere inside Honda knew that there was something of a distinction between Seto and Yuugi's grandfather, but he did find the notion of Ryou going on a date with either one to be completely bizarre.

Choosing his words as carefully as he could--which admittedly was not that carefully, for Honda had never been known for his tact and at the moment he was still sputtering rather awkwardly at random intervals--Honda began to tell Ryou how it had all changed that one night. "So, you know a few days back... when you and I were still, and I had walked you home, and I was trying to tell you that I wanted us to--" Honda broke off, shaking his head and trying to clear out all such extraneous thoughts that possibly could upset Ryou.

He drew in a deep breath. "Well, anyway, I was walking back home and thinking about things between you and I, mostly. Just before I got home, though, Ryuuji just popped out of nowhere and sort of--" Honda again broke off, knowing better than to finish that sentence. He imagined that the phrase, 'pounced on me' would not make Ryou any more likely to forgive them--especially not Ryuuji. And Honda very much wanted Ryou to forgive both of them. He wasn't just trying to make things right for his own sake; Honda didn't want to see Ryuuji losing any of his friendships over this, either.

Given that Ryou was now eyeing him strangely, Honda realized that he needed to hurry up and put something at the end of that sentence or start a new one, because the abrupt pause was growing more and more suspicious as it went on, and an accompanying expression was beginning to form on the silver-haired male's face. Of course, rushing to speak was usually not a good idea for Honda, not when the words needed to be chosen carefully. Naturally, what followed was something of a fiasco. "--uh, warned me about squirrels," Honda finished lamely. Then he grinned a bit at the memory. Rabid squirrels--only Ryuuji would even attempt so ridiculous an explanation. "Yeah, I know. It sounded absurd to me, too. So, anyway I started asking him what was going on. Well, Ryuuji started getting kind of--"  Danger. 'Suggestive' would not be something that Ryou would like to hear. "--and then he said that he couldn't take it anymore and I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked him what he meant. Then he said that he needed to talk to me, but that he'd seen me looking upset when I was walking by and how I was good at making people laugh, and before I could try to get to the bottom of what he wanted to talk to me about, he just suddenly kis--," Honda blurted, clapping a hand over his mouth a moment too late this time, possibly due to the fact that he'd been talking so rapidly that his hand-to-mouth timing was off.

His eyes widened a bit, and he looked at Ryou with something of a panicked expression. Still, now that he'd gone this far, Honda didn't see any other choice but to plunge on and get all of it out at once, before Ryou said or did anything, because he honestly didn't know if he could start telling Ryou the rest of this later. "Anyway, after that, I was kind of wondering what was going on, and then he told me that he... had feelings for me and wanted to be with me, but that it was my decision and that he wouldn't do anything or tell you what had happened if that was what I wanted. At first, I didn't believe any of it, because I was with you, and why would he... but then he convinced me that he was telling the truth. I had no idea what I should do or think..." Honda closed his eyes for a moment, remembering. "I didn't want to hurt you... I was so confused... but then he was just looking at me like he wanted me to kiss him, and I just knew. And so... I did..." Honda whispered, opening his eyes and gazing at Ryou again, now wearing a apologetic expression. "I never knew that it was coming. Honestly, I never even thought it was possible. I wouldn't have lied to you when we were together. You know that, Bakura. So, you see, neither one of use ever wanted to hurt you. It kind of just... happened... Is that what you wanted to know...?" Honda asked in a voice that was growing increasingly meek and eventually trailed off into nothing.

Honda's eyes closed, as if he were scared to see Ryou's face. Something which was pretty understandable, actually, since who would want to see such a gentle face break down in tears? Or be in shock?

That, to put it simply, was one of the reactions Honda had expected. Sadness, confusion... maybe a little anger? Just a minimum amount, of course... nothing that would warrant him to worry about somebody's safety. Ryou was such a quiet person... he seemed more likely to have a breakdown than go into full-blown psycho mode. Even though the news was admittedly harsh, Ryou didn't seem like the type of person who would act rashly. Or violently. Or anything that would deliberately seek out to affect other people.

Well... hurt them was really the more accurate word.

Honda waited for a reaction along the lines of tears and sniffling, but he never got one. Instead, he stayed there, eyes closed in guilt, when it finally occured to him that they had simply gone too long without a reaction. Not to say that he was going to welcome crying... it was simply what he had expected. He wasn't prepared to deal with no reaction whatsoever... a calm Ryou usually meant problems when he should be emotional. Not for himself, but for Ryou. Ryou tried to keep things bottled up within him, but it rarely worked. What usually ended up happening was a before-mentioned breakdown, which could be potentially lethal to Ryou and all observers.

Honda opened his eyes, but Ryou was already gone.