Pilot: Part 2

"Supposed I told you I could get you the test answers," Yami said as soon as his brother walked into his office.

"I would say go for it," Atem told him. "And you could have said so in a text."

Groaning, Yami lifted both of his hands to his temples and massaged them. "Do you know the difference between right and wrong?"

Atem lifted a shoulder at the question. "Yami, I discovered at a very early age that if I talk long enough, I can make anything right or wrong. So either I'm God or truth is relative," he concluded. "In either case, booyah."

"Interesting," Yami replied, bringing a hand down to rub his chin. "It's just that the average person has a much harder time saying 'booyah' to moral relativism."

"You don't have to play shrink to protect your pride. I get it," Atem scoffed. "You're chicken."

Yami glared at the other. "Are you trying to use reverse psychology on a psychologist?" he asked, insulted.

"No, I'm using regular psychology on a mindless twit."

"I'm a Professor. You can't talk to me that way."

Atem rolled his eyes. "A six-year-old girl could talk to you that way!"

"Yes, because that would be adorable."

"No, because you're a five-year-old girl, and there's a pecking order."

"Fine, whatever," Yami shouted, pulling out a sealed binder from his desk drawer. "Here you go. Every answer to every test this semester."

"Aw, thanks, Yami," Atem said, reaching out for the thick booklet that held his easy-way out. "You're a doll."

"Wait, wait, wait." Atem scowled when Yami slapped his hand away. "What do I get in return?" he asked.

Atem gave his brother a confused look. "Um, the satisfaction of us being even?"

"That's not gonna do it…I want your car."

"My Lexus?" Atem asked, appalled.

"Yeah, I know; even, fairness, right, wrong, there is no God, booyah, booyah –"

"I'm not giving you my car for a semester's worth of answers."

"Will it be just a semester, Atem? Won't you be asking me for this for your entire stay here?"

Though there was truth behind what Yami was saying, Atem remained adamant. "There's no way I'm giving you my car."

Yami smiled when Atem made a move to leave. "Have a nice disbarment hearing," he said after his retreating brother.

Atem halted in his tracks and glowered at Yami over his shoulder. After another moment of consideration, he turned back, grabbed the binder off his desk, and tossed him the keys to his car. "I hate you," he muttered, making sure to slam the door behind him as hard as he could. Damn him.

The moment Atem walked back into the library, Anzu came speeding out of the study room, her face bright red and her lips thin. "Where have you been?"

"Had to pick something up. Anyways, it's getting kind of late. Dinner and drinks?"

Anzu's mouth widened in disbelief. "Do you even care about what you started in there? You're willing to put human beings in a state of emotional shambles for a shot at getting in my pants."

Atem lifted a brow. "Why can't you see that for the compliment that it is?"

"You – !"

"Okay, okay," Atem said, putting his hands up defensively. "What do you want me to do?"

"Maybe one decent thing would be to go in there and clean up your mess."

Atem looked over Anzu's shoulder into the room and watched as Malik picked up a chair and shoved it towards Jou as if the other was a wild bear. Oh, Jesus.

"Okay," Atem assented. "But, after that, dinner right?"

Anzu laughed, while shaking her head. "Yeah, sure," she said, storming back into the room. "As if there was a dinner on earth that could make me forget that you are a shallow douchebag."

Atem winced to himself and followed her into the room. Screamed accusations was all he could hear and when asking if everyone could quiet down didn't work, he threw his textbook on the table, silencing everybody. "Alright everybody. I want to say something. Sit down," he said, aiming the last demand at Jou and Malik. "You know what makes humans different from other animals?" Atem began, once everyone was settled.

"Feet."

"You're an idiot, Malik," Jou replied. "Ducks have feet."

Atem ignored them. "We're the only species on Earth that observes Shark Week," he said. "Sharks don't even observe Shark Week, but we do. For the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this – " Ryou let out a little gasp as Atem proceeded to snap the pencil in half " – and part of you dies, just a little bit on the inside," he continued. "Because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give my brother a teaching position. People can find the good in just about anything but themselves. Look at me," he said, gesturing to his stylish attire and handsome face. "It's clear, to all of you, that I am awesome. But I can never admit that, because that would make me an ass. But what I can do is see what makes Yuugi awesome."

Said man tried to fight the blush that filled his face when Atem gestured to him. "He's kind. We need kind people in the world. I sure wouldn't mind a world with more Yuugi's in it, would you?" Atem said. "And Anzu. She has wisdom to offer. If we listened to her sometime, I'm sure we wouldn't regret it. And Seto – he doesn't take shit from anybody. If we all had backbones like him, we'd probably like ourselves a lot more for not being push-overs. And Malik. Who cares if Malik thinks he's all that? Maybe he is."

"Damn straight," Malik commented.

"Then there's Jou, who laid-back and down-to-earth with a good head on his shoulders. Don't ever change Jou. And, last but not least, Ryou – Ryou's a shaman. You ask him to pass the salt, he gives you a bowl of soup. Because, you know what? Soup is better. Ryou is better. You are all better than you think you are, you are just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself. Now, I want you to look at the person sitting next to you. I want you to extend to that person the same compassion you extend to sharks, pencils, and my brother."

When it seemed as if he had inflated everyone's ego enough, he turned to Anzu. "Now if you will all excuse me, I have a dinner engagement with Anzu."

There was a pause from the brunette. And then, "I lied."

"What?" Atem said.

"Well, thanks for calming everybody down, but since you're not a Spanish tutor and just a lying jerk who purposely upset everybody in an attempt to get with me, I'd appreciate it if you leave and stop wasting all of our time."

It took Atem a few moments to recover from the full blow of Anzu's assault. "Fine," he eventually said. "But I'd like to say that the benefit of being a lying jerk is having all the answers to tomorrow's test which I'd be happy to share with anyone's who time I haven't wasted."

"I don't get it, Atem," Jou said. "If you have all the answers, why put together this study group?"

"I don't have a study group, Jou. I made it up. That's what I do. I make things up, and I used to get paid a lot of money to do it, before I came to this sorry-excuse of a school. I was a lawyer."

A small chorus of boos was his response, and Atem walked out of the room before anyone else could say anything to him. It was only when he got outside, completely pissed at the effort he had wasted, that he zipped open the binder in his hands. Over the span of the next thirty seconds, he grew more and more confused at the blank forty pages or so that filled the binder. It was only until he got to the last page – which had the small written word of 'booyah' at the bottom – did he bolt off to his brother's office, whipping the door open once he got there.

"Atem, before you say anything," Yami said, holding up his hands. "I want you to think about the gift you've been given."

"An excuse to stab a family member."

"No, not that. An important lesson, brother dearest. You see, the tools you acquired out there will not help you here at Domino. What you have right here is a second chance at an honest life."

Atem sighed. "Why are people trying to teach me things at a school that has an express-tuition aisle? Give me my keys."

"No, I have to keep the car for the lesson – no, don't hit me! Please don't hit me!" Yami threw the keys in Atem's hand as the other made a start towards him. "Atem?" he called when his brother walked out of the room. "Atem! Are we cool?...We cool."

It had taken a half hour of sulking on the main steps of the school, until Atem noticed someone taking a seat beside him.

"Hey."

Atem looked up into the violet eyes and blew the air from his mouth. "Hey."

A few moments of awkward silence, then, "That speech you made earlier to us, even though you made it up…It was really nice. Thanks."

Atem couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips. "You're welcome, Yuugi. So, I guess you think I'm the biggest douche on the planet, too?"

"No," the smaller said with a smile. "Not the biggest."

"Ha." Atem looked over at Yuugi and smirked. "Shouldn't you be studying?"

It was another voice from behind them that answered. "Nah. It got borin' after you left."

"Real question is: shouldn't you be rolling around in a bed of test answers?" Anzu asked coming up next to them, with Jou beside her. Seto, Malik, and Ryou weren't too far behind.

Atem laughed a bit, throwing the stack of empty pages in his lap onto the cement below. "I don't have the answers," he said quietly. "I'm gonna flunk the test."

"Just study for a few hours," Yuugi said. "It's not that hard."

Shaking his head, Atem sighed for about the fifth time that night. "The funny thing about being smart is that you can get through most of life without having to do any work …so I'm not really sure how to do that."

Yuugi bit his lip and glanced back at Anzu, flashing her his infamous puppy-dog eyes. Behind Atem, Anzu shook her head and made a gagging motion, to which Malik gestured to Atem and then slid his finger down his cheek to imitate a tear.

Ryou looked back and forth between all of them, raising an eyebrow at their mouth movements and hand gestures. "What's going on?" he said, loudly. "Can you guys hear me? Am I deaf? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Ryou," everyone groaned.

"Good."

"You know what, Atem," Anzu started, "we actually didn't get that far without you so if you wanna come back upstairs…"

Atem furrowed his eyebrows, skeptically, and shot a look over his shoulder at Anzu. "Really?"

"Well it is your study group."

"Come on." Yuugi smiled and patted Atem's arm. "Let's go study."

Almost immediately, Jou and Malik initiated a heated race back up to the library, and Seto rolled his eyes, but followed reluctantly. He needed this A, after all.

Yuugi picked himself off of the steps, flashed Atem a dazzling smile, and walked with Anzu into the building.

Being the only ones left, Ryou turned to Anzu and tilted his head. "I'm sorry for disliking you for the past hour, and I see your value now."

Atem watched Ryou walk away into the building and nodded his head, before standing upright. "Well…" he said to himself, as he trudged up the steps, "that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."