Title: Paradox
Author: Alice
Fandoms: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Spoilers: None since this is AU!
Pairings: Yami no Yuugi x Bakura Ryou. Side Jounouchi Katsuya x Mazaki Anzu and possibly others.
Summary: Bakura Ryou was always an average student, until his mother got a new job that required their family to move constantly. As a result, Bakura fell behind. His luck might change when he begins school at Domino High and finds himself sitting next to boy genius, Atemu Yami.
Part: 4/?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Shounen-ai and language.
Recommended Listening: None.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is owned by Kazuki Takahashi.
Author's Notes: Alice lives. Several months later I finally have come back to post again. I am so, so sorry for the delay! Like I told you all previously, I went to Puerto Rico and while I was there…I sort of lost my inspiration. And then I went to Otakon and got interested in Fullmetal Alchemist. And sadly, I couldn't remember what I was planning for this chapter. And then, when I finally remember…I didn't have time to type this chapter up. High school is a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be. . But Alice is back with more! I would like to extent a huge thank you to all of my lovely reviewers! Thank you guys so much for the encouragement and kind words. I'm glad you guys like the story so far and you guys think I pulled off the characters well! You guys have no idea how happy that makes me. I was really worried starting this fic off, thinking I was going to do a horrible job and butcher the characters. So I'm glad people like it. I hope you all continue reading, reviewing, and that I don't disappoint you. This chapter may be a bit of a let down because, since I haven't written in almost five months, I fear that I may have gotten out of touch with the characters. Hopefully that won't last long and it won't be nearly as bad as I think. Anyway…I apologize for my rambling. You've waited long enough, you shall wait no more! I hope you enjoy my lovely chapter of my lovely fic!

Paradox
by Alice Midnight

chapter four

Time was a strange and confusing thing to Bakura Ryou. There were moments in his life that seemed to drag on forever and other times that seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. In the instance where the hands on the clocked seemed to have stopped moving, Bakura would generally sit and stare blankly forward and muse over various topics that were going on in his life at that time. In the later occasion, when time flew by like a bird, Bakura would find himself wondering simply where the time had gone. Bakura Ryou was also like most people in the world in the sense that in his lifetime all the moments that he wished would end quickly seemed to go on forever and the times that he wished would never end seemed to never last nearly long enough.

And that was why the week waiting for his first tutoring lesson with Atemu seemed to drag on forever in poor Bakura's mind. The hours sitting in class felt like an eternity and at night, when he tried to sleep, he instead would toss and turn uneasily, anxious. The idea that Atemu wouldn't be able to help him improve his wonderfully bad grade-point average was a terrifying one indeed. Bakura knew, he knew, that he couldn't afford to fail at school. His future depended on it. And his future was everything. And Atemu was, quite possibly, his only hope at success. Bakura was still tragically behind in all his classes and that, simply, was unacceptable. Unfortunately, time was clearly rebelling against the poor boy and made the days go on for far longer than they should have. Although, Bakura was under the impression that time was only a figment of the mind and that it was neither fast nor slow but that was a minor technicality and easily ignored.

However, no matter how long a day, an hour, a minute seems to drag on at some point it will end and the wait will be over and whatever it is you were waiting for will finally be within your grasp! Unfortunately for Bakura, that didn't seem to be happening at all as Tuesday refused to come and Monday seemed to not want to end.

"Bakura, you look stressed. Is something the matter?" Anzu's gentle voice drifted down to Bakura's ears but his mind didn't seem to register them. His arms were folded on top of the cafeteria table and his face was buried into the folds of his arms, his white hair cascading down around him. He shook his head left to right in a slight acknowledgement to Anzu's question but did not answer her. Anzu's blue eyes narrowed slightly and she leaned across the table to gently prod Bakura with the tip of her fork. "Bakura? Are you alright?" she tried again, raising her voice slightly. Bakura jerked upright and the fork assault and blinked, wide-eyed at Anzu for a minute before nodding slowly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just…I'm just worried about school. I'm not doing to well and I really need to turn my grades around," Bakura said, looking down at the empty table. Jounouchi and Honda had received lunch detention and Yuugi, being the kind hearted soul that he was, had offered to join them in mopping the lobby floors. Bakura's heart went out to his friends, those poor unfortunate souls. The Domino High School lobby was a death trap in disguise. Bakura was sure that hidden under the caked up grime and dirt on the floor was a trap door that would lead to a torture chamber below the school. He'd had several disturbing dreams about being dragged down there the first few weeks of school. Luckily, those dreams had passed and he was now into dreaming about Jounouchi being dragged down instead. Bakura, of course, would never voice these dreams aloud to his friends but he couldn't help but wonder in that moment if Jounouchi would ever return from this dreaded detention or if the floor would swallow him whole. And would it take Honda and Yuugi with him? Ah, well, that was another story entirely.

And unfortunately for Bakura, his attempt at changing the topic inside his own head from his academic failure to Jounouchi's death-by-floor failed miserably due to Anzu reaching over and patting his arm and overall doing everything in her power to make Bakura unable to forget. "Don't worry Bakura; you haven't been here that long. You'll catch up soon! And if you ever need any help, Yuugi, Honda, Jounouchi, and I are all here to help you."

Bakura smiled at the girl softly, shaking his head. "I know, and thanks for that but I don't think you guys will be able to help me out much. I'm too far behind. Don't worry, though," Bakura added quickly when he saw the worried look in Anzu's eyes, "I'm getting some help with my work." He shot Anzu another bright smile and returned her gesture by patting her arm. "You're right, I'll be fine. I just gotta relax, I think. Though…I really appreciate you guys being there for me. I've never…had anyone say that to me before…" Bakura trailed off, his brow furrowing at the realization that what he was saying was, in fact, true. Besides his own parents, and long ago, Amane, no one had ever been able to look Bakura Ryou in the eyes and tell him that they would be there for him when he needed a shoulder to cry, someone to comfort him, to help him. Now, though, Anzu had more or less said that very statement, though in much fewer words and with a less impressive vocabulary. This realization caused Bakura to temporarily lapse into silence as he pondered what exactly this meant. In the end, though, the answer was obvious.

Bakura Ryou had friends. Real, wholesome, honest friends. Friends who cared about him, would have his back, would support him…do all the things Bakura knew friends were supposed to do but had never had the chance to experience before. Until Bakura had started at Domino High, the only friends he ever had were his own parents. Once upon a dream, Amane had been his best friend, but that time was long past and since her death Bakura had been unable to find a single real friend to stay by his side. The fact that Bakura moved around a lot didn't help matters. On the rare occasion Bakura would make a friend that he thought he could keep for life, his family would of course have to move soon after, and Bakura would find himself alone once more. This time, however, it seemed that would not be the case. Bakura…he liked it in Domino. He liked the city, the school, and his new friends and for the first time, he had the reassurance that he wouldn't be unjustly torn away from them at any given moment. And they cared about him in return, or at least they acted like they did. If in the end, it was all an act and they truthfully loathed Bakura's very being, Bakura would at least treasure the fact that he had at least been given those few weeks of happiness.

"Well, we're glad to be here, Bakura," Anzu said happily, placing her hand over top of his on top of the table. "We really want you to know that we consider you one of us now. It feels like you've always been here with us…you just fit." She closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath. "I know…I just know that with us…in this place, is where you're supposed to be. I just know it. I hope you feel the same… I hope you feel like you belong here with us."

Anzu peered at Bakura through half-lidded eyes and her eyes glistened happily at his smile. "Thank goodness," he said softly, "'because I was just thinking the same thing."

Bakura Ryou was never one to panic. He was the type of person to always try and come up with an alternative plan, idea, motive and he tended to look on the happier side of things. His father referred to it as always searching for the silver lining. Even in a dire situation, Bakura always did his best to remain calm, cool, and collected. And that was why when he arrived at school Tuesday morning to find Atemu Yami not present Bakura did his best not to overreact. He figured that Atemu probably had his reasons for being late, strange as they may have been. Fortunately for Bakura, as the hours dragged on without any sign of the spiky-haired, red eyed genius with the not-so-geeky glasses entering the classroom and Bakura found himself growing more and more anxious, he learned that he was good at concealing his nervousness. After the first class was over, when any other student would have kept sending glances out the window to see if he could spot the star-shaped head of Atemu, Bakura just continued to stare at the front of the room. And after their second class concluded, when any other student would have been chewing violently on the eraser of their pencil, Bakura simply sat and picked eraser shavings off his desk. And by the time lunch rolled around the shorter boy still had not shown up, when any other student would have been tearing their hair out in pure agony and screaming to the Gods above in rage, Bakura simply ate his food and listened intently as Jounouchi recounted a strange dream he'd had the night before about being devoured by the floor.

And at the end of the school day, as Bakura made his way home alone he found himself shaking physically. "Shit," he whispered, mentally berating himself for his use of a swear. "I can't believe he didn't come to school…hopefully he left a message for me telling me why he didn't…or maybe he just forgot?" It was true that Bakura hadn't mentioned their upcoming lesson to Atemu once since the arrangement had first been made but Atemu struck Bakura as the type of person to keep his word so he felt there was no reason to remind him. Now, though, Bakura severely wished he had. The obvious reason, of course, was that perhaps Atemu was sick but according to Jounouchi, Atemu had only ever missed school once and it was not due to illness. Atemu had come to school even if he was sweating and pucking every few minutes. With that knowledge in mind, it occurred to Bakura that whatever kept Atemu from gracing Domino High with his presence on that particular day must have been something major. "Maybe someone died," Bakura muttered, his green eyes turned down to the pavement under his feet.

Bakura soon found himself confused and somewhat worried, however, when he reached his house to find no message for him on the machine. And when he asked his father if anyone had called for him, he was highly disappointed to find out that no one had called all day. With a sad sigh and a distant look in his eyes, Bakura made his way to his bedroom and dropped his book bag down at the foot of his bed and flung himself onto the mattress. "Uggh," he informed his pillow dully. "Not good day," he said without any elaboration. Bakura pushed himself up and glanced around his room lazily. "I can't believe he didn't come…or at least call to let me know why. I guess, maybe, someone really did die and he just didn't think about it? I hope so. Well, no, I don't hope someone died but that Atemu just has a good reason for not showing…" Bakura trailed off lamely, blinking slowly. "Um…I'm talking to a pillow about my problems. I must be a sort of loser."

A sigh escaped the boy's lips as he slid off the edge of his bed and crouched on the floor next to it, pondering what to do next. He quickly decided that it as in his best interest to take a stab at his homework and hope that maybe, by some strange luck, Atemu would show up or the knowledge he required would magically appear in his brain.

It wasn't until very late that night when Bakura was still up trying to finish his work, alone, that he realized that neither of those things had happened. This was most unfortunate for Bakura. More than that, though, it left Bakura with a strange…almost unexplainable feeling inside. It felt a bit as though his dreams were slowly dissolving down around him. After all, hadn't he been mentally cheering the day before over how his life was finally turning around? He had friends and he had a means to finally making his grades go up but here he was, alone and confused, without a clue as to why this turn of events had occurred. If Atemu couldn't help Bakura, who could? Any why on Earth had Atemu not let Bakura know he wasn't coming? And Atemu had seemed so polite, too, that Bakura found it strange that he didn't have the common decency to let Bakura know why he wasn't there. Given, as Bakura already mentally established earlier, there was the possibility that someone had died or some other great tragedy had occurred but until that was confirmed for him, he couldn't help but feeling a tad angry.

A little bit of help was all he needed. A little bit…no, wait that was a lie and Bakura knew that. He needed a lot of help to catch up. He needed a lot of help making everything he had to do in class make sense. He needed help pushing his D's up to A's. And for that, Bakura needed Atemu. And the one thing that was missing in that moment was none other than Atemu. And as the night wore on and Bakura spent hours working on one problem at a time, he found himself wondering how exactly he was going to get around this new dilemma if Atemu couldn't help him at all.

end chapter four

Oh God, that was a horrible chapter. buries face in hands Horrible, horrible. I kept repeating myself over and over again, especially at the end. Ah, but what can I do? This was written at 2:00 A.M after all and like I said before, this chapter may seem a bit odd because I'm getting back into the mood to write the characters and fics in general. It's coming along nicely, though. I really got into this chapter, especially the beginning, which is why I think it came out better than the second half. sigh Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to get out and will be longer. I'll be working on it a lot harder and longer and I actually have more to do with it. This chapter was more or less a filler in a way. Anyway…I hope you enjoyed and didn't think it was too horrible. Like I do. ;-;

Next chapter: Let's try this tutoring thing again, shall we? This time Atemu may actually show up: glasses and all.

Alice