03 : Slipping
By: Kokoro Kakera HP
Disclaimer: Yugiou, (Manga, anime, products, etc.), belongs to Kazuki Takahashi
Author's Notes:
La de da
She was so caught up in her anger, that she didn't notice Nato Juban standing a few feet behind her, standing partly behind a corner. His eyes followed her every move until she disappeared behind the front double doors of the school.
I was looking at you all day yesterday.
I wasn't happy to see you with HIM.
Then another one dared to come near you.
I'm so angry...
Stay away from them.
They don't know how special you are.
They don't realize you're mine.
Sincerely,
Closer to You
Anzu shut her eyes as she pressed her forehead against her closed locker.
'I can't... take this anymore... I just...' She'd come to school earlier that day to see if she could catch the person sending her the letters. She'd hidden herself around a corner so that she would be able to get a glimpse of anyone that entered the school from the front and went to her locker. Even if they came up behind her, she'd of still gotten at least an idea perhaps, of anyone that went by her locker in the morning. It had turned out to be a failure as a plan though, because all she'd accomplished was getting to school extra early. No one particularly suspicious had arrived and when there were people who walked by her locker, even after seeing her standing nearby no one had acted strangely or flustered in anyway.
She perked up when the sound of the front doors opening reached her ears. Someone strikingly familiar came into view.
'Ryou!' She hadn't seen the man in at least a month. The last she'd heard of him, he'd gone for an extended summer vacation that went into the school year to collect himself after the Yami Bakura fiasco.
"Ryou-kun!" She called. He noticed her right away and ran to her excitedly.
"Anzu-kun! Hi! It's been a while hasn't it?"
"I'll say! Not to sound rude or anything, but what brings you here all of a sudden?"
Ryou smiled. "Just the end of my extended vacation. I'm going to be attending school here from now on."
"That's great!" She grinned sincerely for the first time in days. "I can't wait until the others hear about this!"
"Me neither- ah, Anzu-kun? What's that?"
"Eh?" She followed the path his eyes took and found herself looking at the stalker's letter to her clutched tightly in her hand. "O-oh, this? N-nothing!" She laughed weakly.
"Ooohh... I see. Been receiving love letters have we?" Ryou teased. He had mistaken her fearful uneasiness for nervous embarrassment.
"Ha... you saw right through me... can't get anything past you..." She wondered if she sounded as lame to him as she did to herself.
He didn't seem to notice however, or forgot about it if he did since instead of commenting, he pointed at the back of the sheet of paper she was holding. "There's something written on the back you know."
"What?" She turned the paper around and looked at the print on the back Ryou had pointed out to her.
I know you wouldn't betray me, but THEY can't be trusted to stay away from you.
Today, I'll kill those two for you.
Then, I'll kill anyone else who goes too close to you. Just watch, Anzu-chan.
I'll protect you from everyone who tries to touch you.
Anzu's mouth went dry and she could hear her blood rushing in her ears. The letter fell from her hands and fluttered to the floor. 'Oh no... Yugi!' Her mind raced to figure out who else she'd been with the day before. 'Come on... think! Who else was I with yesterday!? Jounouchi? Honda? No... I have no time for this!'
"Anzu-kun? What's wrong?" Ryou looked at the distressed brunette with great concern, noticing her suddenly horrified expression. "What did the letter say?"
"I-I have to go..." Almost mechanically, she stooped down to pick up the offending piece of paper she'd dropped - a task made difficult by her badly shaking hands - pushed it into her locker through the top door crack, and ran down the hallway to the doors leading outside without so much as a goodbye to Ryou.
"Anzu-kun-!" He called, but she had already gone out.
The schoolyard had already begun to fill up with people. Anzu burst into the yard and looked around frantically. She felt a giant flood of relief when her three closest friends finally walked in through the school gates.
"Yugi! Jounouchi! Honda!" She yelled.
"Anzu!" The three jogged forward to greet her.
"Yugi!" She looked over him concernedly. "Are you okay?"
"...Ya..." He frowned. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"...Eh... well-" Anzu tried to think of a good answer.
"And what was so important that you had to go to school an hour earlier today?"
"...Um-"
"Woah... hey look." Honda pointed towards the school, interrupting Anzu's bumbling attempts to think of a good excuse.
"Um... That's what they use to get up to the upper level windows so they can clean them." Jounouchi said as a matter of factly, looking at the pulley-controlled platform for multiple-story building window washers. It had been placed at the third floor. "Aside from the fact that it's empty, what's so interesting about it?"
"Not that dufus, them!" Honda physically directed Jounouchi's gaze by shoving down his head so that he was looking at the people talking underneath it.
"Kaiba and Nato!" Jounouchi blinked, then shrugged. "Maybe it's not as weird as you think. Two jerks socializing with each other isn't that farfetched you know."
"Kaiba?" Anzu whispered, something suddenly tugging urgently at the back of her head.
"Uh... ya... Kaiba? Jerk? Guy who always insults us?" Jounouchi said slowly. "You okay Anzu?"
"Kaiba..." She said again. "Yesterday, I..."
"Anzu?" Yugi frowned. "What about Kaiba? What happened yesterday?"
"I talked to him yesterday..."
"You what!?" All three boys gaped at her in shock.
"You chatted with that loser?" Jounouchi gaped in disbelief.
"Jounouchi! Kaiba's our friend now! ...Uh, sort of anyway." Anzu barely heard the commotion though. Something, or rather someone was on the roof of the school, but she couldn't make out whom. The person however, was right where the ropes and cables holding the window washers' platform were. She broke into a dead sprint even before she saw the platform lurch dangerously. No one else had noticed.
"Watch out!" She screamed, her legs taking huge strides with each running step. She sped past curious onlookers, glad that it was still quite early and not many people inhabited the yard and thus didn't hinder her way.
It all happened within a second, but for Anzu, it felt much longer than that.
All of the cables holding up the platform snapped simultaneously. Nato had already left, seemingly having finished talking. Kaiba on the other hand had been distracted by the piercing twang of the cables snapping and he'd looked up, only to see the quickly descending platform heading his way.
"Kaiba!" Anzu propelled herself forward once she'd gotten close enough and tackled the man. Dimly, she heard the crash of the platform behind them as they hit the ground a few inches away, and the screams of all the students who'd witnessed the event.
"Anzu! Kaiba-kun!" Yugi, Jounouchi and Honda, as well as a few others ran to the two.
"Damnit..." Kaiba groaned. "What the hell just-" He opened his eyes to see Anzu atop of him. "Mazaki!?"
She coughed, trying to clear some of the dusty dirt that she had partially swallowed. "Kaiba." She croaked. "You okay?"
"I'll answer that after you get off me." Blushing, she hurriedly rolled off of him and sat up, coughing some more.
"Anzu!" She looked up to see Yugi, Jounouchi and Honda huddled anxiously around her. "Are you okay!?"
"I-I..." A crowd had formed around them, all murmuring excitedly about what had just happened.
"Everyone, get back!" A teacher forced her way through the crowd so that she was in the center of it. "Go back to your classes!" She yelled. "NOW!" She screamed when nobody moved. As the crowd dispersed, she turned to Anzu and Kaiba. "You two, to the nurse's office. Now."
"I'm fine." Kaiba brushed off his slightly dusty school uniform and stood.
"The nurse will be the judge of that." The woman said sternly. She grabbed his arm and snatched up Anzu's arm in a vice-like grip and began to drag them to the infirmary.
"O-ow-ow-ow! Tayu-sensei, please-!" Anzu winced. 'SHE'S the reason I'm going to need the nurse!' She was sure that the woman's grip was making her arm nearly come out of its socket.
Silence.
The only two people in the room had no idea what to say to the other, or didn't want to say anything. They sat across from each other on separate beds, staring mostly at the floor. It was Anzu who finally decided to break the silence - unable to take it anymore.
"You okay?" She said hesitantly. "You... didn't answer me back there - even after I got off you." She let out a feeble laugh that immediately died when she met his clearly not amused face. "I'm not that heavy..." She murmured. She let out a sigh.
"I'm fine." He answered after a small moment of quiet. "Although, me being fine could be considered quite the miracle after the way you attacked me earlier."
"I was making sure that you didn't get killed!" Anzu stood up, glaring at him indignantly. "If I hadn't done it, you would have-"
Today, I'll kill those two for you.
'That's right... All this, is really my fault... and I still have to make sure that Yugi doesn't get hurt! ...But first I have to somehow keep Kaiba alive and out of this from now on... He may be a jerk sometimes, but he really cares for his brother - who's growing up to be much nicer than him, so he MUST be doing something right...'
Realizing that she'd taken a few steps in Kaiba's direction and was currently staring down at his face - now sporting a curious expression, Anzu backed up, falling back to sit down on the bed on her side again. "I'm glad you're okay." She said quietly. "Mokuba would have been devastated if anything happened to you."
It became silent again.
"This is the second time."
"Huh?" She uttered intelligently, looking up in surprise.
"This is the second time you've done something for us." He regarded her quizzically. "What's in it for you?" Anzu glared at him.
"Nothing! I can't believe you're asking me such a thing! I saved Mokuba before because I could. I saved you today because I could. That's all." She huffed. "When you stop comparing me to you, you'll stop being confused." She nearly choked after the words left her mouth - they were nearly the same ones Kaiba had thrown her way a few days before.
There was a short, deep chuckle that - Anzu was ashamed to admit - made her inwardly squirm with delight. He had a very nice voice. "I wouldn't waste my time on something stupid like that. Not when it concerns you anyway." She forced down another surge of anger, glad nonetheless that it was there. It was like a slap that reminded her of the most important thing about Kaiba - no matter how sexy he was he would always be a jerk. Which allowed her to be friends with the guy, but nothing more.
"It's a good thing that Nato left before it happened, otherwise I would have saved him instead. I bet HE would have been nicer to me after." Anzu shot at him. She frowned then, something striking her as strange. 'He got out of there at a pretty convenient time... didn't he?'
"Kaiba?"
"What?"
"What were you and Nato talking about before the accident?" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"That's none of your business."
"Come on!" She made a small sound of frustration. "Tell me as a way of paying me back for saving your life."
"I thought you said that you expected nothing from me?"
"Kaiba!" She lowered her voice when the silhouette of a teacher appeared at the shaded window of the office. She swallowed her pride. "Please." He gave her a strange look.
"...He just wanted to know if I would be hosting another duel monsters tournament."
"Oh..." Deflated, Anzu shrunk a little where she was sitting. "Nothing else?"
"I thought you were interested in Yugi. What, the height difference turned you off?" He snickered. "I didn't think you would be desperate enough to go for someone like Nato."
"Shut up Kaiba! And it's not like that!" Anzu wanted to hit the infuriating man badly. "I just..." She let out a loud sigh. 'Maybe I'm just paranoid... I mean, I can't really be sure that Nato was staring at me in class during detention before...besides, someone was on the roof when it happened. Nato probably just got out of there at the right time...'
"Mazaki-san." She blinked, hearing her name.
"Yes?" The teacher walked to her and handed her an envelope with her name neatly handwritten on the back.
"This is for you. Please be careful of your things, had I been someone else, this might not have been returned to you." Anzu's eyes widened when she recognized the familiar envelope type and trademark heart sticker on the flap.
"T-thank you..." She froze. 'What if-!' She stood up quickly. "Tayu-sensei!" The woman stopped at the door.
"What is it, Mazaki-san? And please sit down, the nurse will be with you once she's completed her meeting with the school principal."
"Sorry..." She sat down. "Please... tell me, did you see anyone near this letter before you picked it up?" The woman rolled her eyes.
"Don't be silly Mazaki-san. This was near the site of the accident where you and Kaiba were and a great deal of people as well. I assumed you'd dropped it during that... heroic act... perhaps you should refrain from being quite so active. You look quite tired." The woman said, noting the dark circles around the girl's eyes.
"Oh... Thank you." She said. "Oh! And one more thing!"
"Rest for now, Mazaki-san." Tayu said as she left the room, not letting Anzu finish.
She sighed and sat back down forlornly.
Kaiba glanced at her curiously, noting her suddenly gloomy air, but didn't comment. He'd never been the nosy type and when it came right down to it, he simply didn't care about what was going on in anyone else's life - least of all someone as annoying as Anzu Mazaki. Worrying about her was something he left to Yugi and the other groupies that she was always hanging out with.
"Hey, Kaiba?"
"What?" If this was another stupid question, lifesaver or not, he would ignore her.
"I'm sorry about today. If I really did hurt you when I tackled you... I'm sorry." She said quietly.
"You're apologizing for something insignificant." He gave her a weary look before getting up and heading for the door.
"Ah- where are you going?"
"I'm leaving. This is pointless."
"But Tayu-sensei-"
"I really don't care." He said shortly. He left.
"Woah, what was his problem?" A blond entered the room promptly after Kaiba's exit, followed closely by a taller brown-haired guy.
"What are you guys doing here!?" Anzu demanded, shooting up from her seat. "You're supposed to be in class!"
"Skipped." Jounouchi said carelessly. "Yugi wanted to know how you were. And since Honda's not in my class, I couldn't tell him that I'd be checking on you, so he skipped too."
"Oh, you guys..." She hugged them. "This is the last time I'm ever going to say this when you break the rules, but this is so sweet of you!"
"Okay, okay... Not that I don't appreciate the heartfelt thanks, but what if someone sees us?" Honda said, patting her back awkwardly. "Now that we know you're okay, we gotta get out of here."
"I'd say it's too late to worry about that." The three froze at the sound of a stern, icy voice coming from the door. Jounouchi and Honda spun around, pulling from Anzu quickly.
"Shii-"
"Shut up! We're in enough trouble!" Honda yelped, elbowing Jounouchi hard.
"I'll say..." Anzu said weakly, trying not to cringe under Tayu-sensei's terrifying death glare.