Hey people! I told you I'd update soon! Please read and review! And now onto my beautiful replies!

Ilikeyaoi: Thanks for reviewing again! And thanks for the heads-up. So Joey's Japanese name is Katsuya Jounochi. Katsuya, what a sweet name! Ha-ha, it's a whole lot better than my name! I hope you enjoy the next chapter.

Dreamer of Dragons: Thanks for reviewing and thank you for the wonderful compliments! I know (Puts hands up guiltily) you caught me red-handed. I'm horrible at there and their and where and were. I can never get them straight. (Smiles) But I am improving, or at least I hope so. So hopefully in the future I will correctly be able to use there and their and where and were. I hope you enjoy the next chapter!

The Life of a Blonde

Chapter 4: Issues with Math

By yllom21

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh (Did you actually think I did? Heehee)

Joey had never been this bored in all of his life. Of course, there was the exception when he went to the doctors and he waited for over 2 hours just to find out that he entered the wrong room. There was the time that the roller coaster he was on broke down on the highest part of the ride and he had to wait for a chopper to bail them out. But seriously, how could math be so boring?

When he had entered the room, he hadn't been thinking about the issues with math, or anything about school at all. Alex had just managed to steer Joey into the room before the bell rang, a fete she was proud of because Joey had temporarily forgotten where his locker was, and there had been a holdup in the halls because a freshman decided to throw up. But when he entered the room, that all changed.

The first moment he saw Mr. Riley, he had mixed reactions. First off, the man looked more like a lawyer than a teacher. He knew that teachers usually wore fancy stiff clothes to school, but how many times had he seen a teacher write a math equation on the blackboard in a suit? Not very often, he thought. Alex had walked to her seat, which was in the second row near the window, and sat down like the math teacher always came to school in a suit. No big deal right? Wrong, how rich might this guy be?

After that, he assumed that this guy must be strict. Seeing somebody in a suit makes them seem all formal, fancy, perhaps stiff and arrogant it was if he was going to a wedding. Joey highly doubted that the man was going to a wedding. He was scribbling something on the board in chalk, and when Joey looked closer, he realized that it said "Homework: Pg 235, 2-50, evens". Not exactly what Joey wanted to hear, or more correctly have to do, on his first day of school.

"Excuse me, Mr. Riley?" Joey said hesitantly and in a quiet voice, praying that the teacher would hear him and the students would not. Their glowing eyes, some of them behind long hair or glasses, were all peering at him in the same dreary silent fascination that the kids in his homeroom were staring at him. It could only mean one thing, either student's at this high school took new kids very seriously, or they all recognized him as the duel monster champion… just great.

Of course, the entire time Joey spent noticing his fellow classmates' adoration; Mr. Riley spent ignoring him. He scribbled more stuff on the black board. Joey hoped dearly that it was not homework. He strained to look at the board out of the corner of his eye. He noted that Mr. Riley was now writing down equations, and was no longer scribbling down the day's homework.

Deciding that Mr. Riley's silence was a bad thing, Joey decided to remind his math teacher that he was a new kid. But before he could utter a word or figure out exactly what it was he wanted to say, the suit-wearing teacher waved impatiently and said in a surprising dull voice, "New student, I got it, sit down," and so he did.

He was glad that there was an empty seat behind his new redheaded friend, and he gladly sat down in it, trying his hardest to ignore the stares from his classmates. Alex, who had seemed to realize why the blonde was so edgy, pointed out that the boys senior gym class was playing soccer right outside the window.

"So, what do you think of dear old Mr. Riley?" she said with a chuckle. After hearing Joey groan she added in, "It's not what you think, I thought he was going to be strict to, but he's not". Joey wondered how a dude in a tie could possibly not be strict, Joey was about to question what the redhead meant, but Mr. Riley spoke out first.

"Good morning class," he said in that continuous dull voice of his. He was peering down at them through thick pebble-like glasses and his old face loomed large at them. Alex hadn't been kidding when she described him as 'old'. He looked old enough that he should have retired; in fact, he probably could have retired ten years ago.

The class didn't respond to his ever-so-friendly hello, probably because it seemed so routine. The class was settling down in comfortable position with notebooks placed carefully in front of them, almost like they where expecting to take notes.

"Let me take attendance," he said as he pulled out a notebook, almost dropping it as his hands shook.

"Shawn Bering," he said as he began to recite the names on the list. More out of curiosity than anything else, Joey peered at the kid who had said "here" in a sneering voice, it had sounded like the Shawn he met in the hall. He noted the spiked black hair and the sneer on his voice; it was indeed the boy in the hallway.

After noticing that Shawn was peering at him like everyone else, Joey turned his attention to the kids playing soccer outside. Hewondered if the brunette had seen where Joey's attention had been, behind his long thick hair.

Everybody (excluding Joey) answered 'here', the almost bald man blinked, "And it seems like we have a new student today". Joey blinked, hadn't he just told Mr. Riley that? "A Mr. Joey Wheeler, if I am correct in saying so,"

"That's me," the blonde said with weak smile, wondering if a shabby old man in a fancy old suit could be sarcastic.

"Yes it would seem so…" Mr. Riley started out, before he shook his head abruptly. Suddenly he said, "Back to the note section!" and he turned his head around and pointed out various things on the board. The students copied it down, eyelids fluttering as they tried there hardest not to doze off.

Joey was beginning to wonder how anyone could ramble on so long about the various uses of pi (1), when his eyes drifted off. He began inspecting his fellow classmates out of the corner of his eye, with his long hair shielding his face, of course. All of them where dozing off, shaking themselves slightly when they heard the sound of chalk scraping against a blackboard. They dozed off again after they had finished copying down the notes. Some people were not bothering to take notes at all, and were instead resting their heads, or in case of a brown-haired girl, doing her Spanish homework.

Joey was about to turn back and copy down the notes that the professor had scribbled down when he noticed a girl. She was beautiful! Her long shiny black hair went all the way down to her waist, and every single strand was combed to perfection. Her body was perfect, as her mini-skirt and t-shirt pointed out. Even though he couldn't see her entire face, he could see the pale perfect skin, and her small nose, causing Joey to guess that her face was just as flawless as everything else. Joey felt his face about to go hot when she twisted herself in her seat, and then Joey caught a look of her eyes. They where grey, beautiful grey and yet, Joey suddenly gained a hatred to the black-haired beauty.

The look Joey had caught in her eye had screamed about vengeance and ignorance. She was the type of person who always wanted her way, and when something became old to her, she discarded of it. Joey's feelings towards her evaporated, and now he felt that he hated her more than Seto Kaiba, and he hadn't even met her.

He hated Seto Kaiba, and yet, he felt different about this evil-looking girl, he felt like he loathed her! Although he would never would admit it, he respected the teenage C.E.O to a certain degree. Although the brunette always acted cold, like he owned the world, there had been a few times when his iron mask had failed, and the blonde had seen his true attitude. Kaiba had always said that when they got into sticky situations, and the blue-eyed C.E.O had somehow managed to get himself stuck in there at well, he always said that he was doing it for his company or for Mokuba, the two main priority's in the fellow teen's life.

But Joey was sure that Seto Kaiba did it for more than his company. When Tea had been trapped under the crane hadn't Kaiba helped? The outcome had nothing to do with Mokuba or Kaiba's company, and yet he had helped anyway! And of course, the blonde had seen the way Seto Kaiba was like to his younger brother, Mokuba Kaiba, and he saw that Kaiba could be a nice generous guy, but for some reason he was only like that to his brother. It was a pity really.

Even though Joey could spend hours cursing the billionaire under his breathe, he had never truly loathed him, he had only disliked him.

But he felt differently about the brunette girl in the front row, he loathed her, and for reasons he did not know, heck he didn't even know her name! He would have to ask Alexandra to tell him who she was, once they got out of math.

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"Hey, who's the girl with long-black hair that was just in our math class?" Joey asked as he leaned against Alex's locker, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes. He was surprised when Alex had somehow stood up in a sudden burst in energy and walked out of the door like she had been cowing down on sugar and had been squirming in her chair for the entire period.

"Valerie Dawson," the redhead said in huffy manner, not like her usually hyper self. She stared up at the blonde, almost as though she was testing him, "Why?"

Joey paused as he frowned mentally. How could he explain to his newfound friend that he felt a very bad vibe coming off the beautiful girl?

"There's something I don't like about her," Joey said slowly, deciding it would be best to tell the truth, honesty usually pays off.

"I agree," Alex said as she grabbed a text book off the shelf in her locker and slammed the door creating a very loud crash. She looked relieved about something.

"It's nice that one boy in this entire school has a clear head on these situations," she continued as she started to dodge around the bustling students, it was hard for Joey to keep up with his twisted ankle.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"It's just… every single boy in this entire school has a crush on her and they can't see what she's really like," Alex said in an angry voice as she began to swear, quite violently at her seemly rival.

"I don't like her, she's too big for her boots," Joey said trying to quiet the redhead down as he followed her down the hallways. They weren't in the same class next period, which disappointed the blonde. His class was on the way to Alex's and she had said, that she would drop him off.

"That's your history class," she said pointing to a doorway, "I'll pick you up when the period ends, wait for me," and then she was off, moving so fast that if Joey had blinked, he would have thought that she had disappeared.

Joey decided that the best move would be to go into the room and hope that the teacher was at least a little more exciting than Mr. Riley. He was one of the first people there, or so he guessed as there where only a few people in the room, and they were chatting to each other. Probably trying to squeeze in a few minutes of chat time before the bell rang. However they all ended there conversation (a few stopped in mid-sentence) and turned their heads onto the teen, recognition in there eyes.

After ignoring the awe looks of his fellow classmates, Joey headed to the front of the class to tell Mrs. Larkin about being the new student and to ask if there were seating arrangements. Mrs. Larkin's looked completely normal (or at least more normal than Mr. Riley at any rate). She was typing on her computer at a very rapid pace (perhaps a few seconds slower than Kaiba's typing pace). She still managed to be aware of his approaching steps because when he was an inch away from her desk, she stopped typing and turned to smile at her new student behind her scarlet red glasses.

"I'm Mrs. Larkin, you're Joey Wheeler correct?" she said but without waiting for his answer she continued, "I've heard rumors about you, they say that the new student is a famous duel monster champion. Have you been spreading these rumors or are they bogus?"

Joey licked his lips wondering how he could tell his History teacher that the rumors were 100 true. He would have never guessed how being a celebrity would affect him in his new school. His chief worry had been about hiding his scars. But now he completely forgot about his bruised ankle and decided to tell his teacher the truth.

"I didn't spread the rumors…" Joey said hesitantly, "But they're true. I am a famous duel monster champion. I never would have guessed that there reactions would have been like this," and then he gave her the Joey-Wheeler-Melt-All smile causing her tense attitude to drop.

She looked at him in the same manner the students did, causing the blonde to guess that this must be the first time a celebrity visited there school. Deciding to ignore her look (as well as his fellow classmates) he headed to the back of the room and dropped his books in the corner desk.

His conversation must have lasted longer than he had thought, or it had taken longer to find the room, either or the bell soon rang. The students talking immediately hushed and the sound of running footsteps could be heard as the door opened. Joey guessed that the girl at the door wasn't the one running since she wasn't panting heavily and he could still hear the heavy footsteps. There was also the small fact that the girl at the door was Valerie Dawson, and Joey highly doubted that she was running. In fact he was hoping that a teacher had sent her to Mrs. Larkin's room to get a book, but against his wishes she headed to the back of the room and sat down… right next to Joey.

After sending her an evil glare of death (he had had plenty of practice against Kaiba) the teenager found to his disappointment that she was looking the other way and was pretending to listen to Mrs. Larkin's long difficult speech about getting to class on time and about the rules against purses (Valerie had a bright pink one under her arm). She turned to the class and beginning a discussion about Adolph Hitler and how he used the Jews as his scapegoat for Germany's problems. (2)

Joey found that he could pay attention to Mrs. Larkin's discussion as she normally broke off from her discussion to explain theories with funny short stories. Most of the class was paying at least half attention, the only ones excluded from that group were the students that looked so tired they could drop down dead.

But the blonde couldn't help drifting off. His head was really starting too spilt into two and his ankle as well as his other wound were really starting to ache. There also was the eerie feeling of people staring at him. Joey was sure that everybody in the room glanced at him once, but it seemed that Valerie Dawson spent the entire History period staring at him and glancing away when he glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

After trying to listen the entire period (And only remembering that Mrs. Larkin had been talking about Hitler) the bell rang, and Joey sat up and walked out of the room faster than even Alexandra could have managed. But of course, he managed to bump his ankle rather hard on the door on his way out.

After waiting a few seconds (and hiding his face behind his long blonde hair) Alex popped out and Joey began to follow her rather bustling pace. She was talking at a rather fast pace and after hearing only half of her conversation, Joey managed to make out that she was talking about Shawn.

"Shawn's the dude with the black spiked hair, right?" he asked as she paused and began to gasp for breathe.

"Right," she nodded

"And what were you saying about him?" Joey pondered as they began there long descend down the stairs and Joey began to focus on stepping heavily on one foot and barely using the other and trying to make it seem natural. Joey managed to make it to the first floor unscratched, but he also managed to pick up nothing on what Alex had said about Shawn.

"What did you say about Shawn?" Joey said as he tried his hardest to keep a step behind Alex. She had finally stopped her rambling and she seemed to be in a better mood. But instead of answering his question, she flushed and pointed him to his next class, and before Joey could respond she had disappeared in the wave of students.

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A few periods later, Joey was ready to jump for joy when the bell signaling the end of the period rang. Grabbing his books and exiting in a rather Alex-speed way, Joey began to troop to where he believed the lunch room was. Before the period had started Alex had shouted to him over the clamor of slamming lockers that she was too far away (she was going to gym) to pick him up and show him where the lunchroom was and yet make it to lunch on time.

"Just go all the way down this hall and down the staircase and you're there," she said as she jumped from foot to foot, anxious to get on her way so she wouldn't get stuck having to do the ever so hated push ups.

"Right," he nodded as he watched Alex speed off to her gym class.

So that was where Joey was heading, trying to ignore the increasing growls that came from his stomach. He had just recalled that he hadn't eaten the day before, and since he hadn't had breakfast that day, he was literally starving. But he had to save his money. The little he had, he had to use so he could contact his friends and his sister. And besides, there were bills and his father's booze money to think about.

He jostled down the stair cases, ignoring the sharp jabs of pain that shot up his leg as he headed to the lunchroom. He mustn't think about lunch… he mustn't think about lunch… he mustn't think about lunch… scratch that he was hungry! After letting his stomach decide the decision over his brain (Tristan had always said he always listened to his stomach and never his brain) Joey searched around the large impressive (or at least more impressive than his last school's) lunchroom for Alex's recognizable flame-red hair.

He wasn't really expecting to catch sight of her small slim frame. She had said before she had run off in a very un-lady like manner that the reason why she wasn't able to pick him up was that she only managed to make it to the lunchroom on normal circumstances. "So," she had said with a wink, "Do you really expect me to be able to make it with you on my tail?" After growling at her (which only accomplished receiving a laugh from her) she had told him the directions to the lunchroom.

So, deciding to wait a minute or so before he properly searched, he headed to the drinking fountain to get a drink (what did you expect?) that would hopefully rid him of his dying hunger.

After waiting a little while (and receiving looks of astonishment when the other students near the drinking fountain realized who he was) he headed back into the rambling, bustling, screaming crowd and began to search for Alex's flame-red hair (which would really stand out in the crowd).

After searching and mumbling under his breathe, "Wow he's tall… did she just give that dude the finger… holy smokes she looks like she's in preschool," he finally caught sight of the redhead.

The girl was walking down the staircase with a scarlet binder the exact same color as her hair in her hand and she seemed to be in deep conversation with a girl who was keeping pace with her.

"Hey, Joey!" Alex cried out when she caught sight of him, running the last few paces as the girl behind her struggled to keep up, "This is Paige Walker!" she said as she pointed to the girl next to her who had a long brown braid and cerulean blue eyes.

"Nice to meet you Joey," she said with a certain awe in her voice which annoyed Joey to no end.

"Nice to meet you to Paige," he said with a smile, "But please don't act weird just because I'm a celebrity," Catching the surprised look on her face out of the corner of his eyes, he turned to Alex who had a beaming smile on her face.

"Come on Joey!" she said with bubbling enthusiasm that wasn't right, after one just came from Gym.

"The faster we get into line the faster we get our food!" and after grabbing both Joey's and Paige's arms she pulled them towards the very long line of student's, "I wonder where Evan and Toby are?"

"She's always like this at lunch," Paige whispered to Joey as she fixed braid, "I think it's because she has to be somewhat calm during class, she let's all of her energy out at lunch,"

"I do not!" Alex cried with indignity as she stamped her foot on the ground, "I'm just hungry that's all; pretending to pay attention in class takes away all of my energy!"

"Then why are you so hyper?" Paige asked with a glimmer in her eyes as the redhead struggled to properly answer her and not get herself sucked even farther into a trap.

"Ok, ok fine! I might be a little bit hyper!" she said glancing at Paige and adding as an afterthought, "And yes I said a 'little'. I'm nowhere near hyper! You've seen me hyper and you know how high I can get… hmm I wonder if they have any sugar cookies?"

Joey glanced at Paige before smirking, "You're hyper enough already, you don't need any more sugar,"

Alex glanced at Joey and then Paige before accusing, "You two are out to get me so you can tell your fellow aliens how to adduct me!" and then she turned to the lunch lady who was looking at her in alarm and said in a quiet un-Alex like manner, "Can I have a hotdog please?"

Joey burst out laughing, soon followed by Paige who told the lunch lady that she wanted a salad and receiving a "You're way to healthy, you're a kid remember?" from Alex. Joey calmly told the lunch lady to give him a hamburger as he followed the two girls wishing that the entire school day was as much fun as lunch.

(1) Incase any of you guys decided to drift off into la-la land during math class; Pi is an irrational number (3.14…..) that is used in plenty of formulas.

(2) All of us do know about World War 2 right? Whew, you where all starting to scare me. Of course all of you know that Adolph Hitler was the dude that started the concertration camps. If you don't then… well, please go to school.

Hey people, remember me? I'm the annoying authoress who's trying to type a half-way decent story! I want to thank everybody for reviewing and reading! Please review! I'll give you a cookie! (Sighs) Aren't I pathetic?