Stealing Lunch
Anzu frowned and sat up straighter in her seat. The spirit? Surely not. The other Yugi had banished him, hadn't he? It had only been a flash, after all. The glimpse of light could as easily have been sunlight reflected off the window as a sudden glimpse of the Ring that she hadn't seen since that disastrous game with the insane spirit who had taken control of Ryou.
Wanting to reassure herself as to his identity, the brunette stole another peek at their new friend. He was just sitting there, head studiously bent over his desk as he took notes, gloved hand moving steadily, if a little stiffly. The black gloves he had worn since that game would have been stylish if it hadn't been for the thickness of the right-hand glove, which she knew concealed bandages covering the wounds inflicted by the spirit onto their companion in their duel last week. Ryou wasn't really a friend as such. Yugi called him a friend, but even he didn't pay much attention to the youth, although early on he'd made sure Ryou knew that any invitation to the gang was open to him. For the first few days Ryou had taken him up on his offer, but when he had come along with them Yugi had basically ignored him after the first cheerful greeting, and it had quickly become obvious that Jou and Honda still thought of him as the spirit of the Ring. Anzu herself had never paid much attention to him either, but that was because he seemed to want to avoid her.
Her parents spent much of their time away, so she'd had to learn to be self sufficient. She'd taken a job at one point, but had given it up after her narrow escape from an escaped prisoner. Despite that setback, however, she was still confident and assertive – too much so. Everyone needed a shoulder to lean on sometime, and she was old enough to want that from someone other than her parents. The first time that the other Yugi had manifested himself to save her, Anzu had thought that she'd found him, the perfect man.
Now, however, she knew better. Yugi's other self might be strong enough for her, but while Yugi supported her ambitions wholeheartedly, his other self seemed to regard them – and her – with tolerant amusement. After a while in their company the other Yugi's arrogance grated on her nerves even more than Yugi's constant cheerfulness did when undiluted. At least Yugi toned it down a little when it was just the two of them, although she knew that was just because he found her attractive and that made him shy around her sometimes.
Another flash of light attracted her attention, and her eyes flew to Ryou's white hair. This time she was sure it was the spirit. The hair was wilder than Ryou's, and the eyes he turned to her were narrower and more calculating that Ryou's had ever been. She was only permitted to see that face for a moment, however, before the features softened, expression gentling, and Ryou gave her a confused look before turning back to his note-taking as the teacher's eyes moved in their direction.
Anzu looked at the teacher, trying to focus on differential equations, but her mind was working on another problem altogether. What was she supposed to do about the dark spirit? She could tell Yugi, but Yugi couldn't do anything, and she wasn't actually certain that the other Yugi would believe her. He'd probably put it down to nerves, like the way that Jou and Honda reacted around the quiet boy despite the fact that until now they'd all thought that the spirit was dead. What else could she do against someone who didn't even have his own body? A new thought occurred to her, spurred by the memory of the momentary flash in the spirit's pale blue eyes. He wasn't hurting anything that she could see. Perhaps now that he realized that he couldn't take Yugi's puzzle he just wanted to lead an ordinary life as Yugi's spirit did.
Nodding to herself, the girl pulled a piece of paper out of her notebook and wrote a quick note asking Ryou to meet her at the park after school. After making sure that the teacher was looking in the other direction, she leaned over and handed the folded paper to the girl sitting next to her.
"Pass this to Bakura-kun," she said quietly, and pulled back to her own seat before the teacher caught her. The note traveled quickly to the pale youth, although Anzu caught several hostile stares from the recently formed 'Ryou Bakura Fanclub.' Ryou fumbled the note open and looked at the note inside before tucking it into his desk, making Anzu wish that his hair didn't hide his face quite so well. As if hearing her thought, the youth turned slightly and nodded to her, features shifting as he did so until when he raised his head it was the spirit who gave her a slow smile, edged with just enough menace to make her catch her breath before he turned back to face the front of the room.
Rushing out the door of the classroom, Anzu stopped in the bathroom to wash her face and run a comb through her hair before heading off to the park and her meeting with the spirit. She had to stop again a bit later to explain to Yugi that she couldn't go to the arcade with him and the others today, but after that it was only a few minutes walk to the park. Once on the gravel path, she began looking around for Ryou's unmistakable white hair.
Several minutes passed as she walked through the greenery before Anzu finally saw the thin figure sitting on a bench and waving at her. Immediately she turned towards him, wondering what she could say that wouldn't hurt him feelings. Saying 'Hello, it's nice to see you, now can I talk to your spirit sounded extremely rude and more than a little insulting, but it was hard to think of a polite way to put it. Actually, she'd rather hoped that the spirit would take care of that problem for her, but it seemed like she have to face Ryou after all.
"Ah, hello Ryou-san," she began nervously, wondering if he'd take exception to her use of his name.
"Hello, Anzu-chan," the youth returned, looking flattered and rather embarrassed as he patted the seat beside him in invitation. "Was there anything in particular that you wanted?" Not sure how welcome she'd be after she divulged her reason for being there, Anzu remained standing, facing the pale youth.
"In class today I…" she paused, searching for the right words. "I believe that I saw the Ring. Are you still wearing it?"
She'd thought that she'd framed the query quite delicately, but Ryou went white and had just begun to stammer something unintelligible when there was a flash of light – this time unmistakably that of the Millennium Ring, and the spirit leaned back on the park bench and looked up at her with a pitying expression. "Yes, he's still wearing our Ring. He had it off for less than a day in all." A contemptuous sneer crossed his face. "That's how long it took him to figure out just how little your offer of friendship was worth." Folding his arms across his chest, the spirit leaned back, staring up at her as if daring her to prove him wrong.
"He doesn't talk to me." Anzu protested unthinkingly. "I've tried, but it's like he's purposefully avoiding me."
The youth in front of her shifted slightly in his seat and she frowned, wondering whether what she had said had really been stupid or thoughtless enough to drive the spirit away. "Ryou-san?" she asked, frowning slightly. "You're back?"
Ryou's arms fell to his sides and he smiled at her. "I think that Bakura-san wanted to see whether you'd be able to tell us apart since the others never have been." His eyes clouded for a moment and then he looked back at her. "I'm sorry if you think I've been avoiding you."
"But considering the size of our fanclub you can't really blame him for being cautious around girls." The spirit snorted and crossed his legs. "Sit down, we're not going to eat you."
Smiling brightly Anzu obeyed, taking a seat next to the spirit on the bench. "Ryou-san called you Bakura, but that's his name isn't it?" It would make sense for them to share a name, and it would certainly make it easier for her to talk to them if she could call the spirit a different name than Ryou, but she wanted to be certain first that she wasn't insulting them both by using their names improperly.
"Another way in which my 'landlord' is the perfect host," the spirit agreed. "Not only is his body similar to the one I had when I was alive, he shares my name also. If you are going to call my host 'Ryou' then you may address me as Bakura." Shrugging, he made as if to stand, then paused and turned to her with sudden cruel interest in his eyes. "What will you tell the pharaoh about this, I wonder?" He had already stood and begun walking away by the time she collected her scattered wits enough to reply.
"I wasn't planning on telling anyone anything. What I do is no one's business except mine!" She yelled the last words at his retreating back, glaring as they switched again and Ryou turned to wave at her. Anzu stormed home, slamming the door behind her and kicking off her shoes with enough force that they hit the wall on the other side of the room. As she stamped up the stairs to her room, bag in hand, she resolved to give the spirit a piece of her mind the next time she saw him. That had been a nasty trick to pull on her.
By lunchtime the next day she'd nearly forgotten why she was angry at him, but it was still a good enough excuse for her to grab his arm and pull him to an empty table. Ryou came easily enough, but Bakura took over as she reached her seat and pulled away, stalking around to the other side of the table and taking the place opposite hers. Unpacking her lunch, Anzu glared across the table at him.
"Well, well," he began lightly, and amused smile playing across his lips. 'Someone's angry today. If you've been looking at your little friends with that face it's no wonder they didn't let you sit with them." Anzu stared at him, unable to believe that he'd just said that, and his smile grew, spreading over his face and making him look more like a mischievous teen than an evil spirit.
She opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort, but found herself laughing instead. "So are you going to send me away then?"
Anzu hadn't been serious, but Bakura smirked and leaned over to snatch one of her rice balls. "Sure I will," he told her, "Just wait 'till I've finished eating your lunch before you leave." Popping the treat into his mouth, the spirit laid his own lunch out on the table and gave her an arch look, practically daring her to reciprocate. Well, she'd never been able to resist a dare, and wasn't even going to try this time. She wanted to do something to wipe that smirk off his face, so she reached with her chopsticks to take a piece of his bento.
Her action surprised a chuckle out of him, and he shrugged, apparently conceding defeat on this front as he turned his attention to his own food, eating in silence until he had devoured all but a few pieces of his meal. Anzu fidgeted in her seat, picking at her food and trying to think of something to say that didn't sound completely inane. Finally Bakura broke the silence with one of his light comments.
"Considering how little you've eaten, you might as well have let me steal your lunch. I'd probably get more use out of it." With that, he took another piece and popped it into his mouth, smirking as he chewed.
Anzu spluttered, nearly choking on the mixture of laughter and protestations that bubbled to her lips. "You damn thief!" she exclaimed when she could breathe again. "I wanted that!"
He wagged a finger at her chidingly. "You should know better than to trust an evil spirit, especially one whose intentions have been so amply demonstrated. Besides, I was a thief when I was alive so I'm doubly untrustworthy," he said as he leaned over and speared another piece of her lunch.
"I didn't believe it before," she said, shaking her head in mock disappointment. "But now I see it's true. You really are an evil spirit." Glancing at her watch, she saw that there was less than a minute left before they had to be back in class. Following Bakura's earlier example she shut up and ate as quickly as she could, finishing the last of her rice balls just in time to grab one of the spirit's before he ate them all. Bakura rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored the infraction, simply gathering up the remains of his lunch.
"Goodbye," he told her as the bell went off, and once again she was looking at a slightly disoriented Ryou.
"It's time for class," she said quickly, not sure how much attention he'd paid to her conversation with Bakura. "We'd better get going or we'll be late." Ryou nodded and followed her to class, smiling faintly as they moved towards the room. "Do you mind me using your time to talk to Bakura-kun?"
"Not really," Ryou responded thoughtfully from behind her. "I get to have my school time and most of the rest of the day, so it doesn't really matter if he takes an hour or so to do his own thing every day. Whether he uses that time to talk to you or wander around the streets or whatever, it doesn't really matter to me." He shrugged at her and went into the classroom, finding his desk as she took a seat behind her own. Anzu thought about what he'd said for a few minutes. It sounded like they had some sort of system in place so that Bakura could have time in charge without depriving Ryou, but she didn't quite understand how it worked, and she wondered who had suggested it. Bakura hadn't seemed the type to compromise to her, but then she didn't really know him that well yet. She was going to enjoy getting to know him that wall, she decided, feeling very satisfied with her day so far, and turned her attention to the teacher.
After school she caught up with Yugi an the rest of the gang at the arcade, taking a seat and watching as Yugi beat Jounouchi at Kung Foo Fighters for the nth time. She admired Jou's dedication, but sometimes she just wished he'd give it a rest. At least it only took three games for Yugi to get tired of it today, and they were able to move on to a new game.
Now that they were looking, the four of them managed to find a game that none of them had tried before – a multiplayer video game based on the original Sonic games. You could form groups of up to four in order to make your way through the levels and defeat Eggman. She'd been surprised that Yugi hadn't played the game before, but it required a minimum of two players and even with the other Yugi helping him, Yugi simply didn't have enough hands to play two characters at once.
Gathering around the games table, thy each took a seat and chose a character. As the only girl in the group, Anzu had the dubious honor of being Amy, the only pink hedgehog in existence, while the boys fought over the other characters. Predictably, it was Yugi who gave in first, taking Tails, the cute flying fox, rather than Sonic, the title character, or Knuckles, the macho echidna. Jou and Honda got into a fight over which one of them would take Knuckles, with Honda finally winning the rights to the character and leaving Jou with the blue speedster.
Finally everyone had their characters ready to go and the game began with their four characters standing on a moving walkway that was rapidly approaching a large city. Here the cutscene began, showing Eggman, a fat, bald man in a floating doughnut, broadcasting a threat to the city. Apparently he'd planted bombs in different locations all over the city and if they didn't surrender control to him he'd blow them up. The scene switched to show their characters resolving to collect all the bombs and destroy them.
Then the game began and Anzu found herself in the sewers with Jou's character zipping around hers like mad as he got the hang of the controls. After a quick glance at their timer, Anzu shook her head at Jou and headed Amy off into the sewers, a bright pink blur breaking the brown and green monotony. Jou waited a few seconds longer before following, his character's greater speed allowing him to catch up with her in a matter of moments, but he overshot and nearly fell into one of the piles of sewage that obstructed their way. They continued through the level, killing slime-covered robots by jumping on them and navigating the maze of passageways to reach the bomb. The rest of the game went much the same way, although who Anzu was partnered with switched occasionally, and the game did get harder as they progressed. Finally they destroyed the last of the bombs and faced the final showdown with Eggman and his 'elite' robots.
Listening to Yugi's advice, Anzu was able to deal out a small amount of damage to the little man's odd machine, but it was really Yugi who killed it while Anzu spent most of her time keeping his minions occupied so that they didn't mount a surprise attack on Yugi or Jou who, despite being on his last life, was still jumping around as recklessly as ever. Honda spent most of his time slamming into Eggman, but Yugi sent him off to help Anzu when she was overwhelmed. All of a sudden the hulking robots who had been flanking her fell apart, and Anzu blinked sweat out of her eyes as she dissociated herself from her character. She'd been concentrating so hard on her own part that she hadn't even noticed when Yugi finally beat Eggman and blasted him into the air in the final cutscene.
"Man, I'm beat." Honda grinned over at her, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "Let's grab an ice cream and head for home."
The suggestion was met with an enthusiastic response, and the gang trooped out, stretching and groaning about staying the same position for so long. Outside it was much cooler in the crowded arcade, and Anzu turned her face to the breeze gratefully, letting it dry the sticky sweat on her face and hands. Yugi took off at a run for the ice cream store, and Jou and Honda immediately turned it into a race. Laughing quietly to herself, Anzu followed at a brisk pace, not wanting to lose sight of the boys.
At the store Anzu chose her favorite strawberry ice cream with chocolate chips on the top and hurried to get out of Jou's way as he ordered a three-scoop sundae with everything. She certainly couldn't have eaten that much, but he seemed to be enjoying himself with it. By the time they left the store the blond was already halfway through the enormous icy treat while she and the others hadn't gotten down to the cone yet. They walked towards her home, Yugi chattering away cheerfully in the center of the group about how they'd beaten the record.
When they reached Yugi's home the groups separated and Anzu continued on alone. She crunched the end of her cone with pleasure, thinking that the day had been even better than usual. Not only had having lunch with Bakura been surprisingly fun, spending most of the day away from Yugi and the others had made her afternoon with them much more fun than usual. She really should spend less of her time with the group. They could be fun to be with for a while, but the sameness of their usual routine became infuriating after a while, and they were more than a little childish.
Resolution made, Anzu entered the house and headed up to her room to do her homework. She had an essay to write for her English class that she needed to turn in by the end of the week and she hadn't started it yet. Knowing Jou, she figured he'd start trying to copy hers on Thursday night, but she'd rather get as much done now as possible so that she could have more time to herself or, she thought, a smile coming to her face, with a certain ancient spirit, later in the week.
Anzu was halfway through the first draft when the noodles she'd put on earlier started to boil and she had to leave the papers to add tomato sauce and basil. By the time her dinner was ready to eat she'd finished the draft and had a fair idea of what she wanted to do with the final, so she put the work aside and went to her supper, glad for the respite it gave her aching fingers. When she finally crawled into bed the essay was finished and ready to be turned in and she was so exhausted that she fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.
Her days had quickly fallen into the new pattern she had decided for them. Lunches with Bakura had become one of the things she most looked forward to each day, and she was spending the majority of her afternoons practicing dance in her room rather than with Yugi and the others. Yugi had mentioned it once or twice, but it had been almost a week since he'd last said anything about her absence so she assumed that everyone had simply accepted her sporadic appearances as normal now. It was nice that Yugi had done so, but she did wish that Bakura would show a little more interest in her presence.
Today, she had decided, was going to be the day she discovered once and for all whether Bakura actually cared about her company or whether he was simply putting up with her. She still wasn't exactly sure how she was going to do that, but she wasn't going to wait around forever for him to make up his mind. It might be rather pitiful, but Anzu wanted a boyfriend, and if the spirit wasn't going to fill that place she wanted to know that now, before she got any deeper than she was already. Even now she'd find it difficult to relegate Bakura to the status of 'just friends'; she didn't want to build up her hopes and then find out that he found her as annoying as she found Yugi.
All thought of romance were wiped from her mind as the teacher stepped into the room and she stood with the other students until he reached the front of the room. Anzu really hated this teacher. Not only was math one of her least favorite subjects, Takeshi-sensei was just nasty. He seemed to enjoy being able to tell the pupils off, and there wasn't a student in his class that hadn't stood outside at least once.
Clasping her hands in her lap, Anzu watched warily as Takeshi paced back and forth in front of the class, droning on about the uses of imaginary numbers. They'd gone over the same subject in her last class so Anzu was more resigned than surprised when he handed out a quiz and fixed the class with a grim stare. Fortunately she'd been paying attention, but even so she barely managed to finish the last problem when the teacher called for everyone to pass up their papers.
While she put down her pencil with a sigh of relief, Anzu could see Jou writing frantically and several others holding back their tests and scribbling last-minute answers. When Takeshi started looking through the papers Ryou turned around to give her a sympathetic look. He too knew what was coming next.
Sure enough, the man finished going through the tests held up one with a nasty smile. "Jounouchi Katsuya, is this your paper?" The youth nodded, staring at the floor and clenching his fists. "Pitiful," he sneered. "Fifty problems and you've done less than ten. At this rate, boy, you're likely to fail abysmally. Is that what you want?" The nasty smile on his face made it clear that Takeshi was enjoying being able to humiliate Jou.
Before Jou could answer the bell rang and Iruma-sensei entered the room, smiling around at them impartially and ushering Takeshi out with sharp flapping motions of her hand. As he left the room there was an audible sigh of relief from the students, and Anzu turned her attention Iruma-sensei as she began her lecture on Japan's history. The background hum of the class began again, quietly, as students took notes, subvocalised, talked to each other, or simply hummed as they listened to the history teacher.
For the next few hours Anzu sat and listened to her teachers, diligently taking notes in some classes and daydreaming her way through others. Finally the lunch bell rang, and Anzu gathered up her things, trooping off with the others to the cafeteria. As usual, she took a seat by Ryou, unpacked her lunch, then looked up to find Bakura near her.
"You're an idiot, you know that?" She began conversationally, in much the same tone as they usually used together. Sometime during the day her thoughts had crystallized and she'd decided not to bother with subtlety. It had never been part of the spirit's actions, after all, and she had already been throwing subtle hints which Bakura had completely ignored. Instead she'd use the tried and true method of finding out whether he was interested.
Meanwhile, Bakura was already grinning at her in anticipation of some sort of punch line, or perhaps seeing some way to insult her in return in a way that he found humorous. She didn't want him to turn the conversation to a different track and lose her opportunity so she spoke before he had a chance to respond to her original statement. "Yes, you're definitely lacking in brains." With a grin she leaned forward and kissed him gently, a delicate butterfly kiss that barely touched Bakura's lips.
"I thought I was an idiot." Bakura protested jokingly, wrapping a hand around the back of her head and pulling her closer. "You really shouldn't kiss people you don't like," he continued, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. "It might give them the wrong idea."
Bakura kissed her. It was gentle, undemanding, and erratic, and it left her with her mind reeling as she tried to understand just what he meant by it. He laughed when he saw the dazed expression on her face and shook his head, chuckling to himself. "I like you too." A smirk crossed his face, then, "See you later." Ignoring her attempt a protest, the spirit stood and sauntered off, taking most of her lunch with him. Typical.
The End