And so... the new chapter is here! I am alive and well... sorry for the wait. I wasn't busy, just super super lazy. Hee tee.

Disclaimer: If I am writing this story, would I own Yugioh! (question mark) No, I don't think so. I'd be drawing or animating it.

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"Seto?"

He was sitting at the end of a long ebony colored table, playing with his sashimi. In one hand he absently picked at the dead fish on his plate, and the other was laying very still on the table. His brother, Mokuba, was staring at him from the other end of the table, concern apparent on his face. The boy too was not eating, rather, concentrating on his older brother.

"Seto? Helloooo?"

While Mokuba was trying to get his brother's attention, Kaiba's mind was far from the dinner table. His eyes, indeed, were glazed over, and his head swirled around one image that he couldn't get out of his mind. Why was it getting harder... his schoolwork, his homework, his office work? His brain just didn't seem to want to do the tedious things in life anymore. It only thought about one thing...

"Seto?"

"Fucking Jesus! Oh gods, Mokuba, you scared me."

Mokuba was now a good ten feet away from his older brother, but before he had been so close to Kaiba's face their eyeballs might have touched. Mokuba was hyperventilating. He rarely heard Kaiba curse, but when his brother did curse, it was so loud Mokuba's eardrums temporarily went on vacation. That is to say, they blew a fuse.

"Sorry Mokuba. You really shouldn't do that. It irks me."

"What?"

"Oh gods. Are you okay?"

"What? What did you say Seto?"

"Come on. Time for bed."

"Huh?"

Kaiba took Mokuba by the hand and started to lead him down the long hallways of the house to the grand staircase that took up most of the front entrance hall. It was a grand staircase, made out of ivory (pure ivory, because Kaiba hated elephants) and banisters wrought of 24 karat gold. Kaiba was so proud of that staircase that when he slid down it he imagined it a lover helping him achieve his... well, now is not the place to say that. *coughcummingcough* Ahem.

Kaiba handed his little brother over to a butler, and said goodnight. Mokuba said 'what' again, and Kaiba just nodded. The butler proceeded to carry Mokuba to the Nanny, for his bath.

Kaiba, meanwhile, walked down the long hallway lined with candles and pretty pictures of fruit (picked out by Mokuba personally) to his study. He had a long night of homework to do, because that afternoon something worrisome had occupied his mind, and he just couldn't do his homework.

Kaiba walked, each step echoing in the good acoustics of the hall, and he thought. It was most troublesome, how his thinking almost always revolved completely around this particular thought. He was worried. He had grown fond of... too fond of... and now he was really worried. He was worried, too, about how worried he was becoming. This had never happened to him before. He did not fret over anything. He did not dote upon anything. He didn't love anything. Well, except his money and his things and maybe his brother, but that was besides the point! Kaiba had never, ever, liked, let alone loved, something which he had never possessed. Something he could not have. Never. He could obtain wealth, status, power... all of those things were easy and enjoyable to get.

Kaiba unlocked the door to his study. Once inside, he flicked on a lamp. He sat down straightly and slowly in his leather outfitted computer chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Yes. It truly irked him. Made him frustrated more often than not. He hated the feeling, but he wanted it. Wanted it so badly. Jealousy, was it? No... longing? Lust? Perhaps. Kaiba leaned his elbows on his solid oak desk and rubbed his temples. Unattainable, was she? Well, he would get her. And soon. It had to be soon. Both of them. He would have both of them then. Ha. And then he'll see... they'll all see that he could have anything he wanted! Kaiba slammed fists on the table, and laughed. Quietly at first, but it grew louder, until the whole 2,300 square feet of his study was ringing with it, his maniacal laughter. Kaiba relaxed, reclining in his comfortable chair. Yes... we'll see. I'll get them. Both of them. Ha!

****************

Anzu awoke. She felt well. Wait a minute...

Anzu wasn't cold, shivery or achey anymore! Her fever... it must be gone! How wonderful!

Anzu scrambled out of bed and threw open her bedroom window. Sunshine poured into her room, making her wood floor glitter. Anzu twirled around in her nightgown. Finally! After a week of stuffiness clouding her brain, a clogged nose and fluctuating body temperature and stomach aches, she felt good as new!

Anzu hurriedly pulled on a bra, blouse and skirt, intending to zoom downstairs and proudly show her parents she was over her fever.

She stopped at the kitchen doorway. There was no one there. Anzu glanced at the microwave's built in clock. 11:09 a.m. Oh gods no!

Anzu screeched, and started looking all around the house for her socks, shoes, backpack, lunch money... what else was she forgetting?!

She was about to rush out the door when her cell phone went off on the kitchen counter. She had forgotten it! And who was calling? Anzu almost tripped running to get it. She didn't bother to read who was calling as she swiftly shut and locked the door and started sprinting to school.

"Hello?" Anzu asked as pleasantly as she could while running with a heavy backpack on her shoulders.

"Hi sweetie. You sound much better. How are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?" Why was her mother calling in the middle of the day to check up on her? If she had been in school with her cell phone on, she would have gotten a detention.

"I'm fine too, honey. What's that noise in the background?"

Anzu flew by a girl on a bicycle who was twinging her bike bell.

"Oh, that's just a bike bell, mom." Anzu panted, trying to ignore the stitch in her side.

"Uh-huh. Are you watching television now?"

Did her mother think she was at home? Oh, that must be it. Her mother assumed she was still sick. Well, she was doing the right thing, running to school. Four hours late.

"No mom, I'm going to school." There was silence on the other end of the phone. Anzu jogged by a man selling newspapers. The man yelled something to her, but she didn't pay him any attention. Stupid man selling newspapers...

"You're going to school, sweetie? Well..."

"Yes," Anzu said, running across a crosswalk. She was almost at Starbucks. Good. Starbucks was the halfway point.

"Anzu, darling. Today's Saturday. And you don't have school until Tuesday. It's Saturnalia weekend." Anzu stopped so fast, she almost fell flat on her face.

"Wh-what?"

"Honey, you made a mistake, that's all. Where are you right now?"

"I'm..." Anzu looked around her. She was standing in front of Starbucks, and some people were staring at her through the large clear glass windows. She saw one boy turn to a girl through the window and say something, and the girl laughed hysterically. Then she turned to Anzu and smirked, then waved. Anzu snarled.

"I'm going home. Bye mom."

"Bye dear. See you at five."

Anzu snapped her cell phone shut. Time to go home and mope. Well, it wasn't really her fault. It was a simple mistake, really... anyone could have made it.

"Who am I kidding? I'm the only one dumb enough in Domino City to think today was a school day..." Anzu griped under her breath. "Might as well go home now."

She was starting to attract a lot of stares, mainly because of her backpack and the fact that the citizens of Domino City knew it was a Saturday. But she held her head up high, and started to march home.

She didn't get very far, however, when she felt a hand land on her shoulder. Anzu whipped around.

"Hello mortal. Nice to see you up and about after your sickness... pity, though, that you haven't been sick for long." Bakura grinned, his dark eyes boring into hers. She blinked.

"Stop touching me." She knocked his hand off her shoulder. Bakura put his hands up, then into his pockets.

"Christ, what's wrong, mortal? Think I'm going to contaminate you with little germies?" Anzu rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm just worried about where that hand has been." Bakura's smirk disappeared.

'Ooooh! Dis!' Anzu thought. 'Score one for me!'

Bakura examined his hand, then wiped it on his pants and put it back in his pocket. "Well, mortal. The reason why I even laid my perfectly clean hand on your dirty disease-ridden body is that I have a proposition for you..."

Anzu stopped him. "I'm not stealing anything, Bakura. Forget it."

Bakura's smirk returned. "Oh, no no. I wasn't going to say anything of the sort." He pulled his hands out of his pockets and examined one of the hand's fingernails.

"I was actually wondering if you would...ah... accompany me to a sweets shop?"

Anzu wasn't sure if she heard him correctly. "A what now?"

"Why, a sweets shop. A store quite near here. It's fantastic. Perhaps you've been there?"

"I don't know. What's the name of it?"

"Candylicious. It has the absolute best fudge. I've been dying to go there ever since Ryou had his stash of the fudge eaten by his father."

"Ummm..."

"Aw, c'mon, Anzu. You don't even have to pay. My treat, sweet."

What? Did he just call her 'sweet'? And why...

"No thanks. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm carrying a rather large backpack over my shoulder, and it's--"

"Oh, come on. I insist. Besides, the backpack is inconspicuous. No one will notice it."

And then Bakura was steering her down the street, attracting curious looks from passerby. Anzu grudgingly went along with Bakura. Maybe the sweet shop had lemonade and she could get some. It was kinda hot outside.

"Well, here we are. Nice place, isn't it?"

The name of the store shop was spelled out in candy... giant letters molded in the form of candy anyway. The C was made of chocolate bars, the A was shaped with gummy bears, but then Anzu's attention was drawn to the store windows. They were clear, covered with plastic stick ons of candies, but through those stick ons inside the shop a person could see rows upon rows of every candy imaginable. There were lollys, chocolates, jellies, jams, jars of chocolate, licorice and sours. Anzu barely registered the chocolate fountain in the centre of the shop before she was pulled inside by Bakura.

The place was huge. Anzu wanted to look at everything, but Bakura hurried her over to the counter before she could protest.

"You can look later. We only have time for ordering now, before the shop gets really full. I'm surprised you haven't been in here before."

Anzu just nodded and stared up at the glossy ordering sheets high above the cashiers heads. This place... was magical. Anzu couldn't believe she'd never set foot in here before. She had to take her parents to this place, and Joey, Tristan and Yugi too!

"What would you like to order?" asked a perky blonde cashier. Her long blonde hair was pulled into mini pig-tails, and she had a wide, white smile on her face outlined in strawberry red lipstick. Her name tag read, in sparkly letters that did not seem out of place: "MISA".

"I would like a..." Anzu's eyes scanned the overhead menu. Her eyes lit upon an ice cream dish she had not had in ages. "A banana split, please."

"Very well," Misa punched in some numbers on the cash register. "And what would you like?" Misa asked Bakura. He winked at her.

"I'll share hers."

Anzu started. Wait, what?

Misa smiled. "Alright, that will be... $12.50."

"Wait---" Anzu began, but Bakura placed twelve dollars and two quarters into Misa's hands.

"Thanks. Here's your receipt. Take this. It'll buzz when your order is ready." Misa handed a square black box with little light surrounding its perimeter to Anzu, who took it.

"Come on Anzu... let's grab that table over there."

Bakura again led Anzu. She sat down, confused, on the candy-cane striped bar seat at a round table near the back corner of the shop.

Bakura leaned on his elbows and smiled at her. She blushed, more than bewildered. He clasped his hands together and started humming. Now Anzu was scared.

"Okay... what is this all about? Am I on candid camera?" Anzu pushed her chair a bit away from the tiny circular table.

"No. But I realized something, that week you were sick. I...I... are you moving away from the table?"

Without her knowledge, Anzu had scooted two feet away from the table. Curse her subconscious mind.

"I was..."

"Well, move back. I need to smell it."

"Smell...what?"

"Your perfume. Come back here."

Scared, Anzu put herself back in her original distance from the table. She had an idea where this was going...

"Anyway, I had a revelation. It just came to me. I decided... well, I knew. Do you know that feeling, hmmm? That wonderful, butterfly... er... feeling?

Anzu was pretty freaked out now. Bakura was really making her feel uncomfortable. She could not handle this. It was a joke, right? Ha ha ha...

The black box starting buzzing, indicating their order was ready. Oh gods... their order.

"I'll get it!" Anzu practically shouted, frazzled and accidentally knocked over her chair. She didn't pick it up, however, and instead ran over to the 'pick up order here' station, where Misa was placing a cherry atop the three scoops of vanilla ice cream. Wow. That banana split was huge.

As Anzu very carefully made her way back to the table where Bakura was dreamily staring into space (she mentally smacked herself) she thought up a plan. Just run out of the door. Bakura would come to his senses later... maybe he drank bad orange juice that morning. There was no way...

She placed the huge bowl of the banana split onto the table, which barely seemed it could hold itself up, let alone the humongous bowl.

"Did you get two spoons, and plenty of napkins, Anzu-sama?" She flinched at the ending to her name.

"I... they're on the tray."

"Oh goodie." 'Goodie?' Anzu thought, chewing on her lower lip.

"But I do have something to tell you first, Anzu-sama---"

That was it. She could no longer bear to be there. She had to leave. It was too confusing and too... too... wrong. Bakura was not going to say he liked her and could they become boyfriend and girlfriend. No, no. Too much stress, have to run away...

She jumped up from the table, causing one spoon to slide off of the banana split (it was already in the ice cream) and plink onto the tray just beneath it.

"I'm so sorry, I just remembered, my mother is expecting me home..."

Before Bakura could say anything, Anzu was quick-walking to the exit. She had to get out of there. Too much stress... her eyes felt raw, and tears were about to be shed out of them.

Then, the sirens went off. Anzu stopped, halfway out the door, when the alarms started sounding. Had she broken some kind of stupid law that she had to remain in the shop before she had finished her ice cream? No, that was silly. She heard someone scream, "Stop right there!"

Anzu turned around. The shrill yell had come from Misa, the cashier, and she was running right toward Anzu.

"You think this is funny? Why did you do it?!" Misa was now shaking Anzu by the shoulders. "Give me back the merchandise, bitch!"

"Wha- stop shaking me!" Anzu pulled herself out of Misa's dizzying grip. She faced the young cashier, who looked about three years older than her.

"I said turn out your pockets! You're not getting away with Candylicious property without paying for it! Stop being sneaky and tell the truth!"

Anzu stared at the mad cashier. "I don't have anything in my pockets..." Anzu said slowly, but Misa let out a very un-ladylike snort and retorted:

"Oh really? And I suppose you aren't the burglar who's been breaking in here every night these past two weeks stealing money and other crap from the store! I was about to lose my job because of you, you little bitch! That's just why the manager of this place put in a high-end security system... to catch you! And now we've finally done it. Oooh, boy, you're gonna pay, baby, you're gonna pay!"

Anzu rolled her eyes at the girl, whose mouth dropped open.

"Don't you roll your eyes at me!"

"I don't have a single thing in my pockets, see?" Anzu pulled a lolly, a packet of gummy bears, a bag of gumdrops, malted milk balls, sours, and skittles, and a roll of money out of her jacket pocket. They were all unopened Candylicious merchandise, and the wad of money had been in the unused cash register just that morning.

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IF YOU SKIP TO THE LAST STARRED PARAGRAPH RIGHT NOW, THIS WILL NOT END BADLY FOR ANZU. THIS IS A WARNING TO ALL OF YOU.

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While Bakura was being questioned about this little incident of petty theft by a police officer, Anzu was being handcuffed and led into the back of a unmarked police vehicle. She was quietly sobbing. What would her parents say? Oh gods... her life was so over. She was being charged with a night in the Domino City jail. She would probably get a year of suspension by the school, her friends would shun her, her clubs were as good as closed... and worst of all, her straight A average would be broken, and she'd fall into the depths of despair.

Bakura had gotten his revenge. She felt sick. It was all a plot. Take her to the shop, slip some merchandise in her pocket, make her feel all uncomfortable so she'd run out in a hurry and be detected by the state-of-the-art security system installed by the manager a couple of days ago because all of their stuff started disappearing. It was a clever plan, and had she not fallen for it, she would have been very angry at Bakura.

But he'd won. He'd defeated her so that she could not be angry at him. She was only angry at herself. 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... shame on me.' Anzu thought sorrowfully as she gazed out of the tinted window at Bakura's hysterical face. He was a good actor. Maybe he'd take her place as the star role in the musical theatre show. Yeah, he probably would.

Anzu sighed and tears rolled down her cheeks. What would she say... to everyone? What should she do... about this mess? She felt horribly ashamed. She was already crying.

To make matters worse, the horn of the police car started beeping, loudly, with quick succession to every loud blast of sound. It made Anzu's head hurt.

"Stop, please..." Anzu moaned. She was talking to herself. Well, not to herself, but to the police car horn. The crazies had already begun.

"Please stop. I'll give you a cookie..." Anzu pulled a chocolate chip cookie out of her pocket. Oh gods, had she stolen this too? It was shaped like a jail. Anzu pushed it at the car horn, which gobbled it up, and blared for more.

"I think I have some more cookies..." Anzu looked under the seat. There was a banana split there. Good. Maybe that will shut the annoying noise. She smashed it over the horn. It swallowed the glass bowl and ice cream whole. It still honked for more.

"Fine! Here, here's Bakura!"

Bakura happened to be leaning against the car door, dressed as a police man with a nice white mustache. Anzu pulled him in through the window, and he barked at her in a language she didn't understand. Norse, maybe?

She didn't care. She fed him to the car horn. It also ate him, but was still hungry. Anzu didn't have anything else to give the stupid horn, but it kept up its beeping until she had an idea. A marvelous idea. Yes.

"Okay, you want more food, you damn steering wheel? Here I am!" And she was sucked into the mouth of the wheel, and crushed by its razor sharp teeth. Ah, to be freed of the burden of life. Now everything was alright... no one could imprison her now!

But the horn still blared.

****************

Anzu groggily sat up in bed, then lay back down. Her head hurt tremendously, and she couldn't breath. She opened her mouth and air rushed in, filling her lungs. Her nose was stuffed up, and her stomach felt terrible.

The clock by her bedside read 4:45 a.m. and was beeping rapidly. Anzu reached over and knocked it to the wood floor. It stopped beeping.

Anzu slowly flipped onto her right side. She remembered something, and suddenly it all made sense.

'Thank the gods... that crazy candy shop, Bakura being all weird, me going to jail and all that other nonsense... it was all just a dream.'

Anzu started to smile but was soon fast asleep, dreaming another odd dream that would startle her awake two hours later.

Outside of her bedroom window, a blue moon shone on a patch of muddy earth that covered a half-buried once white box.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Time for another two-month vacation! Only kidding... and yes, I did not elaborate on the 'white box' mystery, but it will be revealed! And what the heck was Kaiba talking about in the beginning? Even I haven't figured that out yet...