My Little Obsession

Responses are on my profile! I'd like to thank: TheGodFish, mewchoochoo, and Mistress-Shadowkat.

Oops! I've been forgetting to say the disclaimer.

Disclaimer: So for before, now, and later chapters if I forget, I don't own any of this! Not a single bit! Well, except for plot, of course. But you knew that already, you smart, smart people, you.

I got the general definition of obsession from the dictionary feature of the site, if anyone's that interested in getting into the fine details. It's a handy feature. :) Also, I'm actually not making this up; Jounouchi and Ryou do sit beside each other in the manga. It's so convenient!

Oh, last thing. The OC is a random person with a random name that won't appear except for the odd time I need her. Really, she isn't important at all. So don't worry about that.


An Opportunity Arises

What is an obsession, exactly?

I ponder this about five minutes into class, the teacher already droning on and on, with most of the class either taking notes like a good pupil or asleep. I suppose I should be doing this too (taking notes that is), but as usual I am transfixed by Jounouchi, who at this very moment is throwing a paper ball at Seto Kaiba on the other side of the classroom. It misses horribly.

But I've gotten myself distracted. What is an obsession?

The definition states that it is a fixation of the thoughts or feelings by a certain desire, idea, image, or in my case, a person, Jounouchi.

To prove this, we look at my thoughts when we examine each object in turn.

When I look at my eraser, I hope Jounouchi might lean over and ask me to borrow it. Simple, maybe, but still communication nonetheless.

When I look at my pencil, I stare at the bite marks at the end of it from the last time I had lent it to him, during a test, and he had chewed nervously on it whenever he was unsure of a question. Therefore, quite a lot, and the end was permanently mutilated. Though I don't care about that, I only think how jealous I am of that pencil.

When I look at this assignment (that must have been handed out sometime during my daydreaming), I can't help but think, 'I don't want to do this assignment; I want to do Joun-

Oops. Let's steer clear of those types of thoughts.

Let's think of something else to distract myself. Hmm… ah! This new assignment!

Let's see…

Ah, the unit project. Now, this particular unit (or sub-unit, because really, everything was learned over the course of about a week) was a rather pointless one. We were learning weather. Now I've always thought of weather as basically common knowledge. I look up to the sky and say 'Cloud. Sun. Sky. More clouds.' That's usually the end of it.

Whoever made the curriculum for us must not have thought so, because here we were, learning all the details that none of us particularly cared about like high pressure, low pressure, and the Coriolis effect, because everyone knows we're all aspiring weathermen.

Right.

The project itself looked simple enough; each group would pick a topic, research it, and basically teach the class. But the key word there was group; would I possibly be put in –

"-and Saitou -"

The teacher was already naming the groups! I hope I didn't miss my name already. I should have been paying attention. But if I'm right, they'll be in groups of –

"-Takahashi and Yamada -"

Two. Perfect. Now I just need the right partner.

"-Motou and Mazaki -"

That was a typical group pairing.

"- Kaiba and Otogi -"

That's interesting; I wonder if that would work out?

"- Hanasaki and Nosaka-"

That little kid obsessed with some American superhero, right? And that girl with the ribbon…

"-Suzuki and Kobayashi -"

Now this is starting to get boring again. I'll just place my head comfortably on my arms…

"- Jounouchi-"

My head snapped back up to the teacher. That caught my attention. Now, assuming that this goes along the lines of any good romance book I've ever read, or show I've ever seen, I'm now supposed to be paired up with my crush. It was as simple as that. Even if those happened to be fiction, and this was real life, I knew the way it was supposed to work.

"- And Honda-"

I clenched my eyes shut. This wasn't fair! It went against all the rules of – well, everything! And I don't want anyone tell me there aren't any rules, I know there are! Just because they aren't written down… Well, anyway, they don't even work well together! Forget that even, I highly doubt they work at all! This couldn't possibly get any worse…

"Bakura and Watanabe-"

My eyes flashed open again, and my nose throbbed in recognition. I looked over to Yumi Watanabe, or the nose destroyer, as I had fondly named her. She sent a death glare back at me and moved her thumb over her throat in a slitting motion. How could someone get so angry over having their name forgotten? And what are the chances that I'd be the one to find that one person from personal experience? Redraw! Change the groups! Please! Have mercy!

Of course, being the quiet fool I am, I say none of this out loud.

Fortunately enough (now that's a phrase I haven't used much lately), the most unexpected person came to my rescue, though of course he didn't know it. Kaiba stood up, blue eyes blazing, laptop miraculously closed.

"I'll be working on this project independently."

Now any ordinary student wouldn't be able to get away with that, but as all of my classmates and I, the whole school for that matter, know, Kaiba was no ordinary student.

The teacher obviously hadn't forgotten that either. Adjusting his glasses and clearing his throat nervously, he addressed Kaiba in a voice that he had been clearly hoping was loud and confidant; it came out as more of a squeak.

"And… w-why should I let you when it clearly states on the assignment-"

"For one," Kaiba interrupted smoothly, "I refuse to let some partner," he spat out as if it was a vulgar word, "drag down my mark. Secondly, I could just as easily have you fired; I'm sure that our next teacher won't make the same mistake as you."

The teacher swallowed visibly.

"W-Well…I'm sure an exception could be made – a-assuming you're confident enough in yourself that – well, I'm sure you are, of course, but that is to say-"

"Hey, what about me then?" scowled Otogi, effectively quieting the teacher's ramblings.

Yumi had already thrust her hand up in the air, smiling as sweetly as she could in his direction. Good, that's one homicidal girl off my hands.

The teacher coughed, trying desperately to regain composure. "Well, as Kaiba doesn't wish to be partnered, I suppose… you wouldn't mind becoming Otogi's partner, Watanabe? Good then. That just leaves Bakura by himself now…"

"If you don't mind," I spoke softly, putting my hand up meekly, "could I possibly… work with Jounouchi and Honda?"

With my fingers crossed under my desk, things couldn't go wrong. Though I wish that I could've been alone with Jounouchi, being in his group with Honda wasn't a horrible alternative. The teacher turned to Honda and Jounouchi.

"Well, I… do either of you have any objections?"

"No way! This is awesome! We got someone smart in our group!" Honda cheered, pumping his fist.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Jounouchi, I hate to break it to you, but you're a dumb ass -"

"Shut up Honda! You're one to talk! You -"

"Jounouchi, Honda!" the teacher yelled. The rest of the class and I watched him closely, fascinated by the vein pulsing in his temple. "Quiet down now or detention for both of you!"

They both sat down, grumbling darkly under their breath.

"Just… just get into your groups," said the teacher tiredly, rubbing his temples. He trudged over his desk and sank into his chairs, taking a large gulp of his coffee, muttering something about awful students and long vacations. All the students took this as a sign of a free period; most went over to their partners and started talking about subjects that were definitely not considered educational and other students just left the classroom; of course, Kaiba was quick to open his laptop and start typing away.

I turned my desk around to face Jounouchi's; Honda had already pulled up a chair and the two of them were talking. Unfortunately, it wasn't about science.

"Y'know, I bet we could get awesome results if we had one big bucket of water over the doorway -"

"No, no, Honda! We need a bunch of water balloons, so we can keep reloading! Besides, I want to keep some spare ones; if I could get one of the girls wet enough…"

They both paused for a moment, matching perverted grins on both of their faces. I cleared my throat awkwardly; I didn't really want to hear about this. Both of them blinked and stared at me; they obviously hadn't notice me come.

"Hey there!" Honda said enthusiastically. "Almost forgot you were in our group!"

Jounouchi, on the other hand, was staring at me very seriously. "Listen, Bakura, can you do us a favour?"

"I-I'd… I would love to! What is it?" I looked at him, wide-eyed. Asking me, for a favour? Oh, the possibilities!

"Well," said Jounouchi solemnly. "I was wondering… Could you get those girls that follow you around under by the doorway in a few days? We wanna soak them."

"W-What!"

"Yup," said Honda, nodding sagely. "You just lead them behind you, say you want to talk about your 'feelings' or some junk like that, you know, the kind of things girls like, and then you come in with them and -"

"N-No!" I spluttered. "I-I can't – i-it would be – I'm sorry, but -" I sighed and buried my head in my hands, "Can we please just choose a topic?"

"No sweat," Honda said, clapping me on the back. "We can talk about this later!"

I mentally groaned.

"Is there any topic either of you want…?"

They both grabbed their papers and scanned them.

"Tornadoes!"

"They destroy everything!"

"Spinning faster and faster, out of control!"

They both seemed to feel the need to demonstrate for me, because they promptly began spinning around wildly like out of control tops. I winced as Jounouchi bumped into Honda, who overturned my desk, scattering my books and papers everywhere.

I managed to smile weakly. "Tornadoes it is, then."

"Sorry about that," Honda said sheepishly, and began gathering my things.

"Yeah, sorry. Thanks for letting us choose, though. You rock, Bakura," said Jounouchi, reaching back down to grab my assignment trapped under the fallen desk, fortunately missing my cheeks which I could only imagine were flushing a dull red.

"N-No problem," I stammered.

"So, when are we going to meet up then?" asked Honda, placing my textbooks back on my desks.

"Says here that we each got our own stuff to get done by ourselves, then some groups stuff to do together," said Jounouchi, scratching the back of his neck.

"So, independent work first…" I said, chewing on the bottom of my lip in thought, "and then we can get together for our group work and presentation preparations later. Also, if you need it, I could help you two with your work…" I looked at them hopefully. While this was more directed at Jounouchi than Honda, I didn't want him to know that; he was still my friend after all, and I wanted everyone to get a good mark from this project.

"Sounds good to me!"

"Same here!"

I nodded to them both thankfully. "Glad to hear it. I'll try to finish my part as quickly as possible."

They both nodded back, and I suddenly felt incredibly happy. This might have been the break I was looking for. I could do my part, get some alone time with Jounouchi to help him, and from there… I could barely contain my happiness.

What started out as a bad day just got a whole lot better.

-o-O-o-O-o-

The rest of the day seemed to pass without me noticing. If anyone had asked, I wouldn't have been able to tell them any single event that happened that day at school after the group work. When the final bell rang, I practically skipped out of the classroom, leaving some very bewildered classmates behind.

I walked down to my locker, humming happily as I went. Yugi jogged up from behind me.

"B-Bakura! Wait up!"

I slowed down slightly, my locker being in sight anyways. Yugi slowed down, breathing slightly irregular, but he was at a comfortable walking pace now.

"You look happy today."

"That's because I am happy, Yugi," I said cheerfully, arriving at a full stop at my locker. I spun the dial of the combination lock deftly, whistling all the while.

"Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"Nope!" I smiled down at him, "It's my little secret!" I began going through the books. Well, I need this book, this one, and I definitely need my science textbook, so I can't forget that…

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Yugi said, slapping his forehead. "I wanted to invite you over to the shop after school! Everyone else is going to be there."

I closed the locker shut with a resounding bang, stowing away the books into my book bag. "I really can't Yugi, I'm sorry. I have to work on that science project!"

Yugi frowned in confusion. "It's not due for another two weeks, Bakura…"

"I know!" I replied happily, "But I guess I've just been inspired to get as much of my part done as possible, so we can get straight to the group work!" I had already started skipping down the hallway.

"W-Wait!" Yugi called after me. "Isis Ishtar phoned last night and –"

"Bye Yugi!"


I know, I know, the project thing is so overdone… that's why I added Honda into the mix. I feel so clever. XD

Sorry for the late update. I've done some exams, others are still coming… but look, I found some time! Anyways, until next time! (And possibly leave a review, please :3).

Update: June 17, 2006

A titch of almost invisible edits, because I have so much trouble making any major changes even if they are really needed to my work: June 24, 2008