Dance with Me
By: Starian Princess

Chapter 3

With her head buried beneath the pillows, Tea felt that she could escape from everything; from her problem with Yami and now, from her problem with Ryou. She couldn't deny the fact that she did feel something the moment his lips had touched hers. But still, something hadn't been right.

'Why am I even thinking about this? Wasn't I crazy about Yami earlier?' She stared up at the ceiling as her thoughts raced back towards her ivory-haired friend. Thoughts of the kiss had been plaguing her mind from the moment she had run away from him, up until the moment she reached home.

'The dance is the day after tomorrow. I don't have time to be worrying about this now.' She breathed in trying to regain whatever strength she had left in her, as she leaned up from her lying position.

"Ryou," She stated then paused as his hazel eyes and kind smile came into view once more, "will just have to wait."

He simply couldn't understand what was going on now. The moment his yami had reached the front steps, he could feel that something was wrong. He sighed. He already had enough drama in his life due to what had transpired earlier. Now clearly, something was bothering his normally indifferent darker half.

"What's the matter with you?" Bakura looked up, meeting his hikari's piercing gaze.

"What ever do you mean?" He sneered back. He did not want to talk about this right now.

Ryou sighed again. His yami was going to be difficult to talk to, but nothing had ever bothered him this much before. That led the lighter half to wondering what could have possibly made the former tomb robber so ticked off. Without having to think much though, the answer presented itself quite obvious.

"Tea…" He whispered, his eyes widening. Now, he was very curious.

"What did you say?" Bakura leaned back against the headrest so that he could get a better look at his companion.

"Did something happen between you and Tea?" The question, apparently, had caught him off guard.

'Perhaps, my little hikari isn't so dense after all…' He mused, as he watched his lighter half regard him with a rather wary look on his normally calm face. 'If he had a look like that all the time, I bet that he'd be just as intimidating as I am.'

"I heard that you asked Tea to the dance, Yami." Hard violet eyes met soft amethyst ones.

"It seemed to me that she was waiting for me to ask her, partner." The former pharaoh's answer only proved to add even more confusion to the current thoughts running through his head.

"But did you really want to ask her?" He pursued, feeling not the least bit satisfied.

"I suppose. She is a very charming person and a good friend to add to that. I'd be but honored to be the one to escort her to such an event." To this, he faced his lighter half who was examining him none to discreetly. "Is that the answer you were looking for?"

"Actually, Yami, no. Honestly, have you not noticed?" Yugi was regarding him now with a look of hurt mixed with bitter sadness.

"Noticed what? Aibou, you are talking in incomplete sentences." The ever knowing tone in his voice did not waver though.

And finally, the shorter boy could not take it any longer.

"Yami, listen! Tea likes you! She's liked you for so long now! And you seriously haven't noticed that!"

There was a pause as the former pharaoh stared into his longtime partner's watery eyes.

Then he sighed and answered solemnly, "Of course, I'd known about it. I just… I just didn't know how to react."

"You didn't know how to react? Yami, do you like her back or not?"

And to this once again, he answered grimly, "I like her. But not the way she likes me. I had always thought that maybe if I continued to ignore her insinuations, she would realize that you liked her."

"Me?" For a moment, Yugi stared back at his darker half dumbly.

The spirit nodded and watched as the boy smiled dejectedly.

"It is true that I once liked her, very much in fact. But when I noticed that she liked you, I realized that I simply wasn't the right person for her. Her heart belonged somewhere else."

"You're right, aibou." To this, Yugi looked up at his yami once more. "Her heart does belong somewhere else, neither with you nor with me. And she herself may not have realized this yet."

"You kissed her?" Light hazel eyes stared back at him in disbelief, and now the tomb robber was beginning to regret that he had decided to tell his hikari the truth.

He sighed. "Yes, I did. She thought that I was you and had embraced me because she thought that she had made you upset. Just what did you do when you ran off a while ago to search for her? I thought that you were going to tell her that you and I had made the pharaoh ask her to the dance."

This time, Ryou sighed. "I wanted to tell her that. But when I saw her, she just looked so pleased with how everything turned out that all I could do was smile and be happy for her."

"But you weren't." Bakura grinned.

"I was happy for her, and not for myself. And why doyou look so smug about all this? I thought that you wanted her as well."

He watched as his hikari frowned, but this only proved to amuse him further.

"I do want her, and I can have her at any time I so desire. But little hikari, you don't seem to understand something. When I had kissed her, she kissed me back thinking that I was you."

By then, the pieces had begun to fall into place and the look on Ryou's face had changed from one of disappointment, to one of surprised happiness.

Pushing her finished homework to the side of her desk, Tea smiled. She had gotten so much work done in a matter of a few minutes and she was all too delighted with that fact alone.

'Now, I can pick out the perfect dress.' She grinned as she walked over to her closet and pulled it open. And after skimming through a number of outfits, she brought out three of which she decided to choose from.

Carefully looking down at her choices, she noticed a card sticking out of the one in the middle. Curiously, she bent down to retrieve it, and after reading its content she gasped.

She remembered this dress now. It was the one Ryou had given her after she had gone to a dinner with him. He had said that it was a present especially for her.

She couldn't help but gaze affectionately at the gown, remembering the smile he had flashed at her that very night. But just when her thoughts had begun to drift further towards everything else about him, she mentally snapped herself out of it.

It wasn't right. It just wasn't right for her to be thinking that way, she frowned. 'Why am I being so fickle about this? I had wanted Yami to ask me, and he did. And now… And now, I just can't get Ryou out of my head!'

She placed a hand on her temple and massaged it, as she breathed in deeply. "I… I need to go for walk." She muttered as she stood up, grabbing her coat and running out the door.

"Do you really think that she likes me?" The tomb robber frowned, watching his uneasy half from the corner of his eye.

"Well, little hikari, it is either that or she just has a physical attraction to you. But knowing Tea, it would probably be the former."

Ryou seemed to contemplate this before he nodded and settled once more into his composed state. It had been Bakura's idea to take a walk since he had been fidgeting far too much for his liking. And in truth, the spirit also needed time to sort out his feelings for the girl. It had begun to drizzle and so they had decided to go back home.

Rounding a corner, the two stopped immediately as the sight that greeted them was not the one they had expected.

The object of their thoughts, apparently, was seated on the curb, staring into space and not caring as droplets of rain fell onto her back, shoulders and even her face.

Bakura was the first to regain his composure as he looked to his hikari to gauge his reaction. But unfortunately, the lighter half just stood there frozen just as the girl was.

With a huff of irritation, the tomb robber then decided that he had to take matters into his own hands, again.

-TBC-