And now, without further ado:
= = = = = = = CHAPTER 7 = = = = = = =
The next morning at Domino High School, a deeply sleep-deprived Ryou Bakura wandered into class and almost sat in someone else's desk. He'd put the Care Bears tape on loop, and then fallen asleep on the floor in front of the TV, under the assumption that Yami no Bakura would absorb some of the programming, become horrified, and lock himself away. Unfortunately, the whole matter had worked in a way very different than the Ishtar's intentions, and not only had Bakura's sleep been invaded by fuzzy, primary- coloured bears, but...
I am eeevil...I am haaaate...I am...NO HEART!! Bwahahahaaaa...
/Please stop saying that./
Silence, Beastly...and bring me my chariot.
Bakura groaned and put his head on his desk. The only thing he could do was nod when Honda asked him shyly if he was still up to their date that night. In fact, he was starting to drift off...
Across the room, however, Jounouchi was making enough commotion that everyone was distracted from Bakura's lethargy. He'd gotten his math test back and scored a '97', and was making sure everyone knew about it. Anzu looked it over and smiled slyly.
"Hmm, Kaiba's been rubbing off on you, has he?"
"Phhtt...nothing to do with Kaiba. I'm just naturally smart," Jounouchi declared cheerfully, completely missing the double-entendre. Anzu rolled her eyes.
"And if you believe that..."
Unnoticed, Bakura sat up, opened his eyes, blinked, and got to his feet, apparently totally absorbed by the ceiling lights. Slowly, with a strange look in his eyes, he clambered onto his chair and looked intently around the buzzing classroom. His not-quite-there gaze settled on Jounouchi, who had made his test into a paper airplane and was aiming it at Kaiba's head. Honda caught sight of him and joined in the discussion.
"Man, what are you doing?"
"Getting Kaiba's attention."
Anzu stared at him. "What are you, three? Why don't you just stick a bug in his hair while you're at it?"
"Yeah, come on, Jounouchi," Honda put in, "that's a crappy way to treat your crush."
"Aw, Honda, you big sap, knock it off," Jounouchi muttered, turning red. "People're gonna hear!"
"Like the whole city hasn't already figured it out...put that thing away, Jounouchi, come on, the teacher's gonna show up any minute!"
Yuugi poked his face over the side of Jounouchi's desk, took in the situation, and smiled at Anzu. "Hey, I wouldn't worry...I think Jounouchi knows what he's doing."
The blond boy grinned at Yuugi and chucked the plane as hard as he could over the heads of the other students, across the classroom to where Kaiba was sitting with his nose in a copy of Ovid's 'Metamorphosis'. The brunet's hand shot out as Jounouchi's delivery got within range, and he snatched it out of the air without even looking up. Kaiba unfolded the airplane, studied it for a moment, and, as Yuugi and his friends looked on in bewilderment, rolled Jounouchi's test up into a ball, popped it into his mouth, chewed on it for a moment or two, then swallowed it.
Honda, Anzu, and Yuugi stared blankly. Jounouchi promptly had a hissy fit.
"You...you utter jackass!!! I was gonna make copies of that, you son of a--!"
Kaiba poked his tongue out at the blond and went back to reading his book. Jounouchi continued to fume and glare daggers at the brunet.
Yuugi was the first to speak up. "Uh...Jounouchi...aren't you guys, you know, well, not-hating each other?"
"Yeah, man...I mean, call me old-fashioned, but you seem to be pretty much acting the same at each other as before, and I'd like my boyfriend to like me, thank you."
Jounouchi raised an eyebrow at Honda. "Bud, tell me you weren't expecting me and Kaiba to get all publicly mushy and kissy-faced at each other after just one accidental fight-turned-make-out in the school parking lot."
Anzu blinked. "But, uh, it sort of looked like you guys..."
"Worked something out? If I still found this idiot loathsome, I'd have just ripped his test up and thrown the pieces out the window," Kaiba commented from his seat without looking up. "And factoring in that he wrote a love note on the back..."
"I hope the ink chemicals make you puke, Dragon Breath," Jounouchi called merrily over to the CEO, who responded with the Bird and a nearly-invisible smile. Yuugi exchanged glances with Anzu, and grinned suddenly.
"Oh, I get it now."
"Yeah, I know you do, Yuugi...hey, Honda, what was that about a boyfriend? You and Bakura finally hookin' it up? Took you long enough to ask him, man, I thought Malik was gonna pull an Otogi on you and swipe him!"
Honda blushed and opened his mouth to protest, but saw the expectant looks on the faces of his friends and sighed with defeat. "All I did was ask him to go to a Bruce Lee marathon with me...but I dunno if he'll be able to make it, he looks pretty tired today."
Jounouchi's grin widened to match Anzu's and Yuugi's in size. "Uh-uh, looks like Honda's finally got a looooove liiiiife..."
"I think it's disgusting that you think it's okay to act like a f gutter whore, you b!!"
Yuugi and his friends, along with everyone else in class 2-B, suddenly noticed that Bakura had, for some reason, decided it was okay to climb up on his desk and begin a shouting match with himself. More weird even than that was the vaguely stoned look on his face, and the fact that he was not only speaking English, but was making strategically-placed BEEP noises throughout his sentences...
"Love is love, you f intolerant piece of s!"
"Disgusting f pervert!"
"Oh-ho, you want disgusting, motherf?! I'll show you disgusting! I got your disgusting right here!!"
The girls of 2-B were promptly treated to the sight of a shirtless (and somewhat spikier, but no one except Yuugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, and Kaiba noticed that part) Bakura, who jumped on the teacher's desk and began an impromptu can-can, punctuated by a chorus about how he was proud to be a 500-pound trailer park ho.
Honda's jaw hit the desk, but rebounded when Jounouchi grabbed his shoulder and pointed.
"Aw shit, what the Hell is he doing?!"
"It's the other Bakura! I've got to get mou hitori no boku to seal him away again!" Yuugi panicked, grabbing the Puzzle.
"No, not in front of all these people," Anzu hissed, grabbing the smaller boy. "You guys will have to subdue him and take him somewhere safe, like the nurse's office...and I've got to figure out a way to explain this that won't get Bakura expelled! Oooh, that rotten yami no jinkaku..."
"I'm not actually sure it's him," Yuugi piped up suddenly, as Honda and Jounouchi got to their feet and stalked cautiously towards their salsa- ing classmate. "Mou hitori no boku just had a look, and he says Bakura looks kind of like he's been hypnotized."
Honda and Jounouchi had meanwhile managed to circle behind the white- haired boy without his noticing. Jounouchi signalled to Honda, and the duo leapt onto the desk and grabbed Bakura in a double chokehold... and promptly fell forwards to the floor as the formerly foul-mouthed fiend-in- human-form slumped forwards in their arms, limp, boneless, and apparently asleep. Having extricated themselves from a tangle of limbs, the two boys hefted their burden between them and left the chaos-ridden classroom as quickly as they could, with the now-normal Bakura snoring gently into Honda's right ear.
= = = = = =
"...so Kaiba and I told the teacher and the principal that Bakura was on some kind of new medication, and it was the side-effects that made him do it. They had to take the word of two of the best students in the school, right?" Anzu said as the group made its way home. Kaiba had called his limo and, after leaving Jounouchi with a note on memo paper that made the blond turn seven shades of red, had gone back to his own house. So it was only Yuugi, Honda, Jounouchi, Anzu, and a very dazed and embarrassed Bakura walking back from class.
"I called Rishid and had him pick up the tape," Jounouchi added. "Man, he nearly had a heart attack. He said he forgot that he'd taped over the last hour of the fuzzy gaijin bear show with "The Best of Jerry Springer" for his sociology presentation on the decay of North American culture. Aren't you lucky it wasn't the Tokyo Shock Boys, Bakura?"
Honda stifled a smile at the look of horror on Bakura's face. "So, um, what exactly was that back there, anyways?"
"Well, Rishid and Isis said they figured it had something to do with the television content filtering more potently through your brain and into the yami no jinkaku's soul room when you're asleep. So they're kind of strongly affected by T.V."
Understanding suddenly dawned on Yuugi's face. "So that's why mou hitori no boku was acting so weird the other Sunday...I fell asleep watching "Ran" the night before."
"It's too bad," Anzu piped up, "we're kind of back where we started with the Ring and all."
Bakura sighed deeply. "I've decided that there's no point anymore to trying to get rid of him. He's just my proverbial cross to bear."
"Well, mou hitori no boku says he isn't surprised," Yuugi said in the ensuing silence. "He says it's very difficult to get rid of a spirit attached to a Sennen Item. He also says he's glad he doesn't have to use up all that energy on sealing spells anymore."
"Mou hitori no Yuugi is getting lazy," Anzu teased. Yuugi blushed and scrunched his shoulders up shyly.
"Well, um, he says he...Hey! Where did you learn that word?"
"Tell him you two are cute when you're lazy," Anzu said with a grin. Yuugi's blush deepened.
"Uhh..."
"We'll leave you lovebirds alone now," Jounouchi snickered as he turned down the street towards his own neighbourhood. "Hey, Bakura, if you've decided there's no more point to ditching Ring-boy...just remember to keep him away from sparrows, 'kay? And television...and pizza...and Malik..."
Honda and Bakura said their good-byes as well, then went in the opposite direction, towards the cinema.
"You still up for a Bruce Lee double bill?" Honda asked hesitantly. He was relieved when Bakura replied with a warm smile.
"Of course. I had my nap while my guest was doing his little table- dancing routine. But, Honda, just one thing..."
"Yeah?"
"If I reach over and grope you during the movie, or start a fight with the other patrons, or steal something...you'll know it's not really me, right?"
Honda smiled. "Of course."
As the two continued on with the setting sun at their backs, a voice re-emerged in the back of Bakura's mind.
Can I ask that you never do that thing with the bears and the screaming Americans again? It was really weird.
/I suppose that's the one thing you've done this week that wasn't purposely designed to make my life miserable.../
...I'm sorry about the thing with Yami no Malik, okay?
/Pardon?/
I said SORRY, alright? I shouldn't have...left you to him like that. You're my host, after all...you deserve better, even if you are a wimp.
/Wow...a real apology.../ Bakura thought, stunned.
Don't get too used to it. I'm still the Thief King, I still want a World of Darkness, and there's no way in Hell I'm going mushy like that obnoxious priest or the bloody pharaoh. And I fully intend to grope your date at choice intervals during this movie thing.
/Oh, feel free to do that last one./
Huna?
/Nothing./
...I think I'm starting to grow on you, my host.
/Stranger things have happened./
Heh.
"Hey, Bakura?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you humming 'The Cat Came Back'?"
The white-haired boy smiled, just a little. "No reason, Honda. No reason at all."
= = = = = = =
END!!! Wheee!!
And thus...it ends. cries Oh, well, it was fun anyway, and now I can get onto other stuff in the fanfiction department...like finishing the myriad other fics I've started but never posted. I suck. XP Sorry. Much love to the reviewers. You are the reason I keep poking away at the keyboard in the long hours of the night.
ShiroiYami: There, you see? Yaoi doesn't have to be all rape and improbable sex scenes and Bakura acting like a thirteen-year-old girl. And...I guess I should take that as a compliment. Better assaulted than violated, I suppose...well, bugger, now I've got the word 'violated' in my fic and I'll get angry reviews from people who were expecting something...a little different, I suppose, from what I'm offering. whistles tune again just to be annoying
Dark-necrophhia666: I hate and fear the Teletubbies also. I was going to use them, but decided against it. Even Yami no Malik doesn't deserve to suffer like that...okay, I lied, he does. But my cherished readers don't.
BLL: Aww...blushes You're too kind. And your Ryuuzaki 'n Haga "Weekend at Bernie's" plotbunny is eating my witty brainmeats even as we speak. Good point, though: Care Bears are like fluffy and colourful thought police. For something made in the 80s, they have strikingly...Soviet overtones. glomps and tickles
Evergladelord: Glad you think so.
Anony-mouse-skye: Care Bears loathing does seem to be rather a recurring theme here, dunnit? grin Not like I'm trying to drum up sympathy for Yami no Malik or anything, though. And Hitomi can't have Bakura, he's Honda's. And Malik's, if I get around to it. sparkle
= = = = = = = CHAPTER 7 = = = = = = =
The next morning at Domino High School, a deeply sleep-deprived Ryou Bakura wandered into class and almost sat in someone else's desk. He'd put the Care Bears tape on loop, and then fallen asleep on the floor in front of the TV, under the assumption that Yami no Bakura would absorb some of the programming, become horrified, and lock himself away. Unfortunately, the whole matter had worked in a way very different than the Ishtar's intentions, and not only had Bakura's sleep been invaded by fuzzy, primary- coloured bears, but...
I am eeevil...I am haaaate...I am...NO HEART!! Bwahahahaaaa...
/Please stop saying that./
Silence, Beastly...and bring me my chariot.
Bakura groaned and put his head on his desk. The only thing he could do was nod when Honda asked him shyly if he was still up to their date that night. In fact, he was starting to drift off...
Across the room, however, Jounouchi was making enough commotion that everyone was distracted from Bakura's lethargy. He'd gotten his math test back and scored a '97', and was making sure everyone knew about it. Anzu looked it over and smiled slyly.
"Hmm, Kaiba's been rubbing off on you, has he?"
"Phhtt...nothing to do with Kaiba. I'm just naturally smart," Jounouchi declared cheerfully, completely missing the double-entendre. Anzu rolled her eyes.
"And if you believe that..."
Unnoticed, Bakura sat up, opened his eyes, blinked, and got to his feet, apparently totally absorbed by the ceiling lights. Slowly, with a strange look in his eyes, he clambered onto his chair and looked intently around the buzzing classroom. His not-quite-there gaze settled on Jounouchi, who had made his test into a paper airplane and was aiming it at Kaiba's head. Honda caught sight of him and joined in the discussion.
"Man, what are you doing?"
"Getting Kaiba's attention."
Anzu stared at him. "What are you, three? Why don't you just stick a bug in his hair while you're at it?"
"Yeah, come on, Jounouchi," Honda put in, "that's a crappy way to treat your crush."
"Aw, Honda, you big sap, knock it off," Jounouchi muttered, turning red. "People're gonna hear!"
"Like the whole city hasn't already figured it out...put that thing away, Jounouchi, come on, the teacher's gonna show up any minute!"
Yuugi poked his face over the side of Jounouchi's desk, took in the situation, and smiled at Anzu. "Hey, I wouldn't worry...I think Jounouchi knows what he's doing."
The blond boy grinned at Yuugi and chucked the plane as hard as he could over the heads of the other students, across the classroom to where Kaiba was sitting with his nose in a copy of Ovid's 'Metamorphosis'. The brunet's hand shot out as Jounouchi's delivery got within range, and he snatched it out of the air without even looking up. Kaiba unfolded the airplane, studied it for a moment, and, as Yuugi and his friends looked on in bewilderment, rolled Jounouchi's test up into a ball, popped it into his mouth, chewed on it for a moment or two, then swallowed it.
Honda, Anzu, and Yuugi stared blankly. Jounouchi promptly had a hissy fit.
"You...you utter jackass!!! I was gonna make copies of that, you son of a--!"
Kaiba poked his tongue out at the blond and went back to reading his book. Jounouchi continued to fume and glare daggers at the brunet.
Yuugi was the first to speak up. "Uh...Jounouchi...aren't you guys, you know, well, not-hating each other?"
"Yeah, man...I mean, call me old-fashioned, but you seem to be pretty much acting the same at each other as before, and I'd like my boyfriend to like me, thank you."
Jounouchi raised an eyebrow at Honda. "Bud, tell me you weren't expecting me and Kaiba to get all publicly mushy and kissy-faced at each other after just one accidental fight-turned-make-out in the school parking lot."
Anzu blinked. "But, uh, it sort of looked like you guys..."
"Worked something out? If I still found this idiot loathsome, I'd have just ripped his test up and thrown the pieces out the window," Kaiba commented from his seat without looking up. "And factoring in that he wrote a love note on the back..."
"I hope the ink chemicals make you puke, Dragon Breath," Jounouchi called merrily over to the CEO, who responded with the Bird and a nearly-invisible smile. Yuugi exchanged glances with Anzu, and grinned suddenly.
"Oh, I get it now."
"Yeah, I know you do, Yuugi...hey, Honda, what was that about a boyfriend? You and Bakura finally hookin' it up? Took you long enough to ask him, man, I thought Malik was gonna pull an Otogi on you and swipe him!"
Honda blushed and opened his mouth to protest, but saw the expectant looks on the faces of his friends and sighed with defeat. "All I did was ask him to go to a Bruce Lee marathon with me...but I dunno if he'll be able to make it, he looks pretty tired today."
Jounouchi's grin widened to match Anzu's and Yuugi's in size. "Uh-uh, looks like Honda's finally got a looooove liiiiife..."
"I think it's disgusting that you think it's okay to act like a f gutter whore, you b!!"
Yuugi and his friends, along with everyone else in class 2-B, suddenly noticed that Bakura had, for some reason, decided it was okay to climb up on his desk and begin a shouting match with himself. More weird even than that was the vaguely stoned look on his face, and the fact that he was not only speaking English, but was making strategically-placed BEEP noises throughout his sentences...
"Love is love, you f intolerant piece of s!"
"Disgusting f pervert!"
"Oh-ho, you want disgusting, motherf?! I'll show you disgusting! I got your disgusting right here!!"
The girls of 2-B were promptly treated to the sight of a shirtless (and somewhat spikier, but no one except Yuugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, and Kaiba noticed that part) Bakura, who jumped on the teacher's desk and began an impromptu can-can, punctuated by a chorus about how he was proud to be a 500-pound trailer park ho.
Honda's jaw hit the desk, but rebounded when Jounouchi grabbed his shoulder and pointed.
"Aw shit, what the Hell is he doing?!"
"It's the other Bakura! I've got to get mou hitori no boku to seal him away again!" Yuugi panicked, grabbing the Puzzle.
"No, not in front of all these people," Anzu hissed, grabbing the smaller boy. "You guys will have to subdue him and take him somewhere safe, like the nurse's office...and I've got to figure out a way to explain this that won't get Bakura expelled! Oooh, that rotten yami no jinkaku..."
"I'm not actually sure it's him," Yuugi piped up suddenly, as Honda and Jounouchi got to their feet and stalked cautiously towards their salsa- ing classmate. "Mou hitori no boku just had a look, and he says Bakura looks kind of like he's been hypnotized."
Honda and Jounouchi had meanwhile managed to circle behind the white- haired boy without his noticing. Jounouchi signalled to Honda, and the duo leapt onto the desk and grabbed Bakura in a double chokehold... and promptly fell forwards to the floor as the formerly foul-mouthed fiend-in- human-form slumped forwards in their arms, limp, boneless, and apparently asleep. Having extricated themselves from a tangle of limbs, the two boys hefted their burden between them and left the chaos-ridden classroom as quickly as they could, with the now-normal Bakura snoring gently into Honda's right ear.
= = = = = =
"...so Kaiba and I told the teacher and the principal that Bakura was on some kind of new medication, and it was the side-effects that made him do it. They had to take the word of two of the best students in the school, right?" Anzu said as the group made its way home. Kaiba had called his limo and, after leaving Jounouchi with a note on memo paper that made the blond turn seven shades of red, had gone back to his own house. So it was only Yuugi, Honda, Jounouchi, Anzu, and a very dazed and embarrassed Bakura walking back from class.
"I called Rishid and had him pick up the tape," Jounouchi added. "Man, he nearly had a heart attack. He said he forgot that he'd taped over the last hour of the fuzzy gaijin bear show with "The Best of Jerry Springer" for his sociology presentation on the decay of North American culture. Aren't you lucky it wasn't the Tokyo Shock Boys, Bakura?"
Honda stifled a smile at the look of horror on Bakura's face. "So, um, what exactly was that back there, anyways?"
"Well, Rishid and Isis said they figured it had something to do with the television content filtering more potently through your brain and into the yami no jinkaku's soul room when you're asleep. So they're kind of strongly affected by T.V."
Understanding suddenly dawned on Yuugi's face. "So that's why mou hitori no boku was acting so weird the other Sunday...I fell asleep watching "Ran" the night before."
"It's too bad," Anzu piped up, "we're kind of back where we started with the Ring and all."
Bakura sighed deeply. "I've decided that there's no point anymore to trying to get rid of him. He's just my proverbial cross to bear."
"Well, mou hitori no boku says he isn't surprised," Yuugi said in the ensuing silence. "He says it's very difficult to get rid of a spirit attached to a Sennen Item. He also says he's glad he doesn't have to use up all that energy on sealing spells anymore."
"Mou hitori no Yuugi is getting lazy," Anzu teased. Yuugi blushed and scrunched his shoulders up shyly.
"Well, um, he says he...Hey! Where did you learn that word?"
"Tell him you two are cute when you're lazy," Anzu said with a grin. Yuugi's blush deepened.
"Uhh..."
"We'll leave you lovebirds alone now," Jounouchi snickered as he turned down the street towards his own neighbourhood. "Hey, Bakura, if you've decided there's no more point to ditching Ring-boy...just remember to keep him away from sparrows, 'kay? And television...and pizza...and Malik..."
Honda and Bakura said their good-byes as well, then went in the opposite direction, towards the cinema.
"You still up for a Bruce Lee double bill?" Honda asked hesitantly. He was relieved when Bakura replied with a warm smile.
"Of course. I had my nap while my guest was doing his little table- dancing routine. But, Honda, just one thing..."
"Yeah?"
"If I reach over and grope you during the movie, or start a fight with the other patrons, or steal something...you'll know it's not really me, right?"
Honda smiled. "Of course."
As the two continued on with the setting sun at their backs, a voice re-emerged in the back of Bakura's mind.
Can I ask that you never do that thing with the bears and the screaming Americans again? It was really weird.
/I suppose that's the one thing you've done this week that wasn't purposely designed to make my life miserable.../
...I'm sorry about the thing with Yami no Malik, okay?
/Pardon?/
I said SORRY, alright? I shouldn't have...left you to him like that. You're my host, after all...you deserve better, even if you are a wimp.
/Wow...a real apology.../ Bakura thought, stunned.
Don't get too used to it. I'm still the Thief King, I still want a World of Darkness, and there's no way in Hell I'm going mushy like that obnoxious priest or the bloody pharaoh. And I fully intend to grope your date at choice intervals during this movie thing.
/Oh, feel free to do that last one./
Huna?
/Nothing./
...I think I'm starting to grow on you, my host.
/Stranger things have happened./
Heh.
"Hey, Bakura?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you humming 'The Cat Came Back'?"
The white-haired boy smiled, just a little. "No reason, Honda. No reason at all."
= = = = = = =
END!!! Wheee!!
And thus...it ends. cries Oh, well, it was fun anyway, and now I can get onto other stuff in the fanfiction department...like finishing the myriad other fics I've started but never posted. I suck. XP Sorry. Much love to the reviewers. You are the reason I keep poking away at the keyboard in the long hours of the night.
ShiroiYami: There, you see? Yaoi doesn't have to be all rape and improbable sex scenes and Bakura acting like a thirteen-year-old girl. And...I guess I should take that as a compliment. Better assaulted than violated, I suppose...well, bugger, now I've got the word 'violated' in my fic and I'll get angry reviews from people who were expecting something...a little different, I suppose, from what I'm offering. whistles tune again just to be annoying
Dark-necrophhia666: I hate and fear the Teletubbies also. I was going to use them, but decided against it. Even Yami no Malik doesn't deserve to suffer like that...okay, I lied, he does. But my cherished readers don't.
BLL: Aww...blushes You're too kind. And your Ryuuzaki 'n Haga "Weekend at Bernie's" plotbunny is eating my witty brainmeats even as we speak. Good point, though: Care Bears are like fluffy and colourful thought police. For something made in the 80s, they have strikingly...Soviet overtones. glomps and tickles
Evergladelord: Glad you think so.
Anony-mouse-skye: Care Bears loathing does seem to be rather a recurring theme here, dunnit? grin Not like I'm trying to drum up sympathy for Yami no Malik or anything, though. And Hitomi can't have Bakura, he's Honda's. And Malik's, if I get around to it. sparkle