Chapter 2
"The Dumb and the Pointless"
"Okay, okay, I've got one," Joey said eagerly, bouncing up and down in his seat, waving his hand wildly above his head and nearly hitting Ryou's in the process. He sat up straighter as all eyes turned upon him, drawing in the air around him like Superman would his cloak. "Alright. What…do you think is the stupidest thing ever?" This was said with the biggest grin he face could contain, as his eyes glimmered with unsurpassable pride at having come up with such a great question.
Seto snorted as everyone visibly dropped with disappointment at the letdown. "That question," he replied without missing a beat.
"Oh, hahaha, very funny, I'm dyin' of laughter," the blonde man snapped back, flinging a dirty look at the smug CEO. He refused to let that too-confident grin and jeering comment spoil his special moment. "Just answer, you morons."
Bakura shrugged noncommittally, deciding to humor the guy, and also take the wide open opportunity to shoot an insult somewhere. "Fine. Malik."
"Shut up, tomb robber."
Having nothing better to do, Yugi decided he might as well jump in too. "I choose 'tax forms'."
"Amen to that."
"Politics."
"Ooh! Good one."
"Wars."
"C'mon, hippie, don't spoil it for the sadists of the world."
"Love."
"That's just 'cause you can't get it."
"CEOs and their incredibly large ego."
"Hey! That's not nice. Okay fine, then I switch my answer to 'little brothers'."
"I wouldn't know, I never had to put up with one."
"Shut up, you two. I'm changing mine to 'women'."
"Be nice. They're not stupid, just...enigmatic"
"Big words."
"How is 'enigmatic" a big word?"
"I've got it! School!"
"..."
And there was a moment of silence in which this last answer was chewed, tasted, swallowed, and digested. Slowly, seven pairs of eyes shifted first to look at each other, then to the person who had come up with the idea.
"Well, can't argue with that," Joey muttered thoughtfully, voicing everyone's thoughts out loud. "Damn. Does that mean that Marik wins this round?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Ryou interrupted, looking very hurt – and rightfully so, really, as his profession had been directly picked out and stepped on. "I'm a teacher, and I can tell you that school is not stupid!"
"Maybe the idea of school isn't stupid, but the way the system works sure is," Seto replied, refilling his coffee mug. He blinked when he suddenly found his hands empty, that magical pot of life-giving elixir having been rudely jerked out of his hands by a certain miffed hikari.
"Oh really? How so?" Ryou challenged, crossing his arms emphatically over his chest, holding Seto's hundred-dollar coffee pot mockingly just out of his reach. No way he'd stand by and let these people call school stupid. Never mind that he ran through three cases of red pens in as many weeks just correcting spelling alone, let alone the embarrassingly ridiculous amount of grammar mistakes –
But that wasn't the point.
"Oh, c'mon, Ryou, we're not poking fun at you specifically. Just, y'know, the fact that you never learn what's actually important in school," Marik shrugged, opening a bottle of beer with bare hands that had ceased to feel pain some hours ago. It never occurred to him just how ludicrous a statement that was coming from him – a man who had skipped two out of three days of school for every year beginning from the second grade.
"And it takes twelve years to learn what you could in six, if that," Seto added, having given up on trying to make Ryou return his coffee and settling for what he had left in his mug. He grabbed the sugar bowl, stirring in one-tenth of a spoonful of sugar before downing the contents like a tequila shot. "Do you know how much time is wasted in our system? An entire year of Geometry could be squeezed into three months." At this point, Ryou slammed the pot back down on the table, and the CEO seized the opportunity to grab the pot once more, before tilting it over his depressingly empty mug. Surprise registered in his brain when steaming hot caffeinated magic didn't rush out immediately. Instead, only a few drops came grudgingly forth. Seto frowned, shaking the pot that stubbornly refused to refill itself.
"Uh, big brother, you have to make more," Mokuba pointed out gently, before taking the pot away from him and making his way across the kitchen to the open bag of coffee beans that no one had spared the time to put away.
"Whoa, Kaiba, you look like you could fall asleep right now. What's wrong? Not used to staying up all night? Getting on in your years, are you?"
"Shut up, mutt. Not all of us are too stupid to get tired after three hours of 'answer this question.'"
"Has it really been three hours?"
"Will you people please get back on subject?" Ryou wailed, his loud voicing causing a couple of over-liquorated (or over-caffeinated) people to jump. "Here I am, all ready to defend myself, and no one will take a shot!"
"Oh, give it a rest, hikari," Bakura mumbled, setting down the empty bottle he'd been nursing and wiping his mouth with the back of his shirt. His hair was in a mess – well, more so than usual anyway, and credit for this was due to Marik, who had braided it while the man had been too drunk to notice. That was four hours ago, and no one had had the heart – or the guts – to tell him yet.
"Yeah, Ryou, you know that if you could, you'd be over here trashing it like the rest of us," Joey pointed out, leaning his chair back at a dangerous angle, and immediately arousing in several people's heads the urge to kick the legs straight out from under him.
Ryou threw up his hands. "Okay, so does nobody think school isn't dumb?" If he had a supporter, they were either too shy or having too much fun at his expense to come to his aid. "Oh, come on now! Yugi?"
The shorter man blinked up at him, before a lopsided smile teased its way onto his lips. "Yeah, I can see where I'd be your best shot, but no. Sorry, Ryou, I'm actually with them on this one."
"C'mon, Yuge, I know you didn't do so well in school, but you made friends there, right? It couldn't have been that bad."
"Ryou-kun, I had to go through seven – no wait, eight years of hell before I got to that point. Other than Kindergarten and first grade, when kids just didn't know what in the world was going on, and then the last two years where I had you guys, I was teased mercilessly. Ask Joe. He remembers."
The aforementioned blonde shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that. In my defense, you were small and weak. Not exactly easy to pass that up."
"See?" Yugi rolled his eyes, shaking his head to clear away the rather unpleasant memories flooding it. "Besides, why do you think I haven't pestered them about putting Shadow-chan into the public system? Because I know he'd have to go through the exact same thing, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone."
"Hey yeah, why haven't we put Shadow-chan in school?" Ryou asked, looking up at Seto. "He's way past due for integrating into the system."
"Excuse me, were you listen to me at all?" Yugi said in an exasperated voice, before scowling as Marik came up and used his head as an armrest. "Hush, little guy," the bleach-blonde man drawled, "Let these grown-ups talk. And Ryou, what's school going to do for him? I mean, besides teach him self-defense through first hand experience."
The coffee perked, and Mokuba handed the pot over to his brother before adding his two cents on the subject: "I always just thought we'd find him a tutor if we had to. And it's not like we can't home school him. It's like Yugi says – and by the way, get off him, Marik, his face is redder than I've seen it in a good while – you know Shadow-chan wouldn't fit into the schools."
"Well, not if he doesn't even get to try!"
"School's not going to teach him anything, Ryou," Marik said impatiently, having planted himself a safe few feet away from Yugi. He was now using his yami as a shield in case the shorter hikari should decide to extract revenge.
"For once, I agree with him. He can cover so much more ground at here! With Seto, though, not me. Even I'll admit that all I could teach him is gambling," Bakura paused, re-thinking this comment for a moment, before adding, "And given whose reincarnation he is, I'm betting it'll only take a week at most for him to beat me at that, too."
Joey nodded in agreement. "And look at us! We went to school for God knows how many years. What did it do for us? I failed school, and I've still got a great job!"
"I wouldn't brag about that job too much, mutt, you couldn't have ever gotten it without Mokuba pushing for you."
"Will you stop going off on tangents? What can school do? Hmm, let me think…Teach you to count?"
"Shadow-chan can already do that."
"To read?"
"That too"
"To write?"
"We can teach him that."
"Science?"
"Can't be that hard, we'll let Seto do it."
"History?"
"Aw, Ryou, a freakin' half-baked potato could do that!"
"So lets see you try!"
"Shadow actually knows quite a bit about history already."
"Well, he can't make any friends here."
"Did you not listen to a word I said earlier? Putting him in school is like putting a sheep in the lions' pen!"
"G'morning."
Everybody jumped at the entrance of the soft voice into their rambunctious volley of argument, and eight pairs of eyes all swiveled towards the doorway. Shadow stood there, clad in pastel-blue star-covered pajamas that were slightly too big. His hair was sleep-tousled, the blonde bangs flopping haphazardly over soft crimson eyes that were gazing around the room, though their movements were a bit hindered by lingering traces of sleep. "Did…did you guys not sleep at all last night?" he inquired after a pause, having taken note of the countless empty bottles and tin cans, and the near-empty bag of coffee.
"Well, no," Bakura admitted. "But did you have a good sleep?"
"Yup," the child smiled, padding forward, his bare feet making a soft slapping sound against the tiled kitchen floor. Having reached his father, he crawled into the man's lap like an affectionate kitten. "Had a nice dream. And you must'a emptied a whole case last night," he added, wrinkling his nose distastefully.
"You're good," Bakura grinned, not a trace of shame in his voice. "Can you tell how many pots of coffee Kaiba over there had to make to stay on his feet?"
"'bout five, give or take half or so," the child replied promptly, after barely glancing at the bag of coffee.
"Is he right?" Yugi asked in fascination.
"Yeah," Mokuba replied, gazing at the boy with something akin to awe in his down-gray eyes.
"See Ryou? He didn't need school to tell him that."
"Put that beer away, Marik. You've had enough to last you weeks. And you know the rules, no drinking in front of the kid," Seto ordered, knowing that if he didn't put his foot down, these people would all turn into raging alcoholics, regardless of the fact that there was a minor in the house.
"Okay, O'chibi. We're gonna give you a test." Ryou took the boy and sat him on a stool, determined to prove his point. "Answer as best as you can, alright?"
"Okay…" the boy replied uncertainly. "But after that, can I have breakfast?"
"That's beside the point. Now! What is three plus five?"
"Eight," the boy answered without a slightest hint of a pause, wondering why in the world Ryou-oniichan was acting so weird this morning, and why he was pacing around and around in a small circle, orbiting four particular tiles on the floor.
"Just give up, Ryou…"
"Shut up, gave keeper, I wanna see Shadow win this game," Bakura hissed, smacking the other man on the head.
"Hush, you two. Alright, what's three times five?"
"Fifteen."
"Three divided by five?"
"Three-fifths."
"Give it to me in decimal form, 'Chibi-chan, you're not getting off that easy."
"Zero point six."
"Whoa," Joey muttered to himself. "Don't even think I could'a done it that fast."
"Okay, fine. How do you spell 'your' as in 'that's your car?'"
"Y-o-u-r."
"Then what's y-o-u apostrophe r-e?"
"That's the shortened form of 'you are.'"
"Fine! When were the atomic bombs dropped on Japan?"
"August, 1945."
"Who is Katsura Kogorō?"
"Wasn't he…leader of the Chōshū army during the Bakumatsu?"
"Oh for – how are you so good?" Ryou cried, before storming out of the room in a huff without even bothering to come up with an excuse for his abrupt exit.
Shadow stared after him, eyes wide in bewilderment and fear. "Did I – was it something I said? I don't…did I get that last one wrong?"
"No, kiddo, you got it right. I think Ryou's just having a bad day," Bakura said reassuringly, a proud smile plastered on his face as he scooped the boy into his arms, loving the way the child automatically adjusted himself to fall right into position against his chest and shoulder.
"Why? What did Marik-aniki do to him last night?"
"Hey! How do you know it was me?"
"Marik, a half-baked potato would know it was you. Now put that beer away before I chain off your hands!"
"Tyrant," the hikari grumbled, but reluctantly complied because he knew Seto had both the will and the power to carry out his threat.
"What's going on?" Shadow muttered, already knowing that his question would most likely go unanswered.
"Never you mind, kid, let's get you some breakfast. Do you want jell-o? We made some last night."
"Bakura, that jell-o's made out of pure vodka!" Mokuba cried in disbelief, firmly convinced that if left alone, Bakura would kill both himself and the boy before the week was up.
"I'll just have toast, Otou-sama," Shadow said quickly, not even wanting to know about the jell-o shots. He'd long ago decided to stay away from the deeper working of his guardians' world. It was safer to just not know.
"Toast, then. Grape jelly, apple jelly, strawberry jam, or apple butter?"
"Grape jelly. Thanks, Seto-ojichan."
"No problem, kid. I wouldn't trust a soul in this room with my toaster anyway. Expect Mokuba and possibly Yugi."
Shadow smiled, before reaching a hand up to tug at his father's platinum white bangs. "Hey, 'tou-sama? Did you know your hair's been braided with hot pink ribbons?"
The words had barely tumbled out of his mouth before he found himself sitting alone on the counter in a suddenly empty kitchen. From far away, he could hear Bakura's distinct yells of fury and the rapid thumps of his preys' fleeing footsteps. Too late, he realized that he had misjudged the situation and spoken too soon.
"This means I won't be getting anything to eat until noon, and that's if I'm lucky," he sighed sadly to himself. "They could've at least put me on the floor. I'm too short to jump down without spraining an ankle."
In the background, a stunned cry told him that 'Tou-sama had found an unwitting victim in poor Ryou-oniichan.
Note:
Aniki isanother term for 'big brother', if I'm not mistaken (which I very well could be, since I've never taken Japanese, so please correct me if I'm wrong)
In Christmas Eve, Shadow refers to Seto as 'Seto-kun.' This is inconsistent with both this story and the revised version of Soul's Last Mission, so please ignore it – I'll get around to fixing that eventually. That piece was written at a time when I was too lazy to do research, or I would've known it was definitely inappropriate for Shadow-chan to use this title with his honorary uncle. I've switched it to 'Oji-chan,' which was the closet term I could find, but again, if this, too, is wrong, someone please correct me…
Well, I finally pushed myself to finish this chapter. Credit for the 'Shadow and school' idea and some of the dialogue used in this chapter goes to Shadow over Egypt and dragonlady222 – thank you both so much :)!
Also, UltimateAngstQueen pointed out that the Japanese don't have middle names…yeah, whoopse, I knew, but totally spaced it. So let me offer an explanation: It's possible for a person to have both an English name and keep their original Japanese name as a middle name (at least that's possible with Chinese names). Now, Shadow's name is already in English format (surname after first name) so let's go ahead say, legally, 'Shadow' is his English first name, 'Okita' his Japanese name, and 'Sagara' shall stay his last name. That should work out…right? (-sheepish grin-)
That should be all…so until next time, sayonara, minna-san! And Merry Christmas 2006!
