A/N: Yay after this is all me! I know the first author did her/his own chappy ten, but I want to take my twist on things.
Cold and Lonely
Chapter Nine
"Yeah?"
Yuugi swiftly tried to rein in his blushing fit. While he listened to Bakura conversing quietly on the phone, he began to wonder what kind of drugs he'd been on. 'Honestly,' he told himself, 'In less than twenty-four hours, I've alienated most of my old friends, made at least one new one, and moved out. And on top of that, I've shown more honest emotion today alone than I have in the last four weeks!'
"Yuugi?' Bakura's voice broke through his musing. Yuugi looked up, smiling. "Malik says that his voice teacher has to take her girlfriend to an important event, so he'll be leaving class earlier than usual. I told him to meet us by the big fountain around 2:30."
"Cool. So, shall we commence with the shopping?" As he said this, on a sudden thought, he pulled out his wallet. After pausing a moment in consideration, an excessively pleased expression crossed his face. His white-haired companion shifted around and looked on warily as Yuugi pulled a card out of his wallet.
"What is THAT?"
"Seto Kaiba's debit card." Yuugi's tone was that of someone telling a gullible person that jumping off a third floor balcony onto concrete doesn't hurt, and being believed.
"And….do you know the code?" Bakura was definitely interested. "Really, it's not all that far, you'll be fine..."
"Seven-Three-Eight-Six." "Come on, all you have to do is be sure to land on your feet!"
"Excellent….." Splat! Bakura carefully claimed the card from his devious little friend. "I believe…..this calls for a shopping spree."
"I concur. Shall we go?"
"Quite. Where to first?"
"Curl Up and Dye. I want, no, I NEED a brush and a scrunchie." This said, Yuugi grabbed the ancient thief's arm and dragged him towards the salon.
"You're positive this'll look alright?" This question was aimed towards a buxom green-haired woman who had her hands, up to her wrists, in Bakura's white hair. Well, previously white hair. Right now, it was a rather impressive foamy purple and green. Yuugi sat nearby, head cocked to one side and his newly braided hair hanging below his shoulder blades.
"Sweetheart," at this Bakura flinched, "You're gonna look absolutely FAN-TAST-IC!"
"But it's purple and green. PURPLE and GREEN!"
"Don't 'cha worry…..it'll be great, you'll see!" Yuugi, from his seat on the counter, decided that this woman was WAY too enthusiastic. Looking for a distraction from Bakura's feigned (Well, Yuugi hoped it was feigned) thrashings of terror as the woman dunked his head in the sink, the braided teen wandered over to a rack of hair products and claimed two bottles of black dye and one of blue.
Drifting up to the counter, Yuugi plunked down his acquisitions. "Can I pay for these, and his," he pointed at Bakura, "hair now?" The cashier looked over the counter and raised an eyebrow, seemingly oblivious to the startled swearing of the teen being tortured by an emerald-haired vixen behind him.
"No problem…..The grand total comes to forty-seven fifty." Yuugi produced the bank card, swiped it quickly in the proffered machine, and then punched in the code. As he had guessed, Kaiba hadn't even noticed the loss of the card, and it was of yet still unblocked.
At this point, Bakura staggered to the front of the salon, looking slightly dazed and not just slightly drown. Behind him, the lady with the jade mane chased him with a battery powered blow-dryer.
The pale (and now seeming paler) Egyptian shook the muzziness from his mind and reached up to touch his new black, blue-tipped hair, before smiling down at his cheekily grinning companion.
"It look good?"
"Looks great. No one will recognize you…..wasn't that worth it?"
"No, and I could say the same about recognition about you, midget."
"Oh god…don't call me that. ANYTHING, but not that….anyway, shall we continue on?" Yuugi grabbed the bottles off the counter and dropped them into Bakura's backpack.
"Sounds good…Kitten." Yuugi grimaced.
" I want THAT!" The 'that' in this case happened to be a barbell tongue ring adorned with a behorned devil smiley.
"Well Kitten, (Yuugi visibly winced) do you have a tongue piercing?"
"Well, no…"
"You realize that you still need parent or guardian permission?"
"Yeah, but it's easy enough to get around that. Like when I got my tattoo, I paid a bum to come pose as my uncle."
"…You have a tattoo?" Instead of answering, Yuugi pulled up the back of his shirt to reveal, tightly curled around a green gem, a white dragon in the small of his back. Tiny red eyes glared out from the safety of the teen's skin. Bakura, kneeling, reached out and ran a finger along the tiny, exquisitely detailed scaled spine, seeming to have forgotten that they stood in the middle of a body-piercing parlor. Yuugi hadn't, and quickly pulled away, dismissing the burning trail along his dragon that his friend's touch had inspired as he turned slightly to face Bakura.
"What's…what's wrong?" There was an expression closely resembling awe on that face, and a hint of?...yes, that was definitely amusement. Bakura, not turning his gaze away from the tattoo, reached into his backpack and pulled out an extendible plastic file. From within that he pulled a single sheet of starkly white paper, handing it to the small duelist as both hands moved him back into a position from which the Egyptian could examine Yuugi's back.
"Some guy named Charley that I met in a bar gave me twenty-five dollars for a photocopy of that design…." There, in Yuugi's hands, was a vibrantly dramatic ink drawing of his dragon. "I'm glad to see that he was a skilled as he boasted he was, if a slight bit…inattentive. I never realized that it would look so luminous, so…." The other teen leaned close, his nose barely millimeters from the skin, his warm breath sending shivers down his hapless victim's back. His voice lowered to a whisper, "So very alive…Like your very own guardian."
Abruptly he straightened, releasing Yugi and sitting back on his heels. "The transfer went really well…do you mind if I take another look at it later?" Yuugi, shivering at the thought, nodded and handed the drawing back. Bakura's sheer intenseness was unsettling, almost frightening. If Yuugi hadn't been so secure around the other, he most likely would have run screaming long since.
Unnoticed, an impatient customer stood tapping his foot, "If you two are done with your little love-fest, do you mind MOVING? Some people are trying to shop…." Muttering foul obscenities seemingly in several different languages, Bakura shot to his feet, bowed mockingly to the irate customer and slunk off with roommate and backpack in tow. Yuugi caught snippets of English and French, and possibly a recipe in German, but otherwise, the majority of what was being said was unintelligible and foul, or at least sounded that way.
Plopping themselves down on a bench near the front of the store, Bakura wasted no time in retrieving yet another drawing. Seemingly of the same dragon, only larger and wrapped around an ornate sword, he gestured towards his left arm.
"I want to get that extending from wrist to shoulder." Yuugi let out a low, appreciative whistle as he studied the drawing, before giving an approving nod and passing it back to his companion.
"Nice. You know who you're going to get it done by?"
"Probably Charley, if you can take me to his place."
"No problem whatsoever. I've been meaning to get another one done. Hey, do we really need anything here?"
"I almost forgot! I need to get some sterilizing solution so I can re-pierce my ear. Stupid thing got infected last time…."
"….what?"
"I've got two earrings, a nose ring and two eyebrow rings on each side." He leaned down and pointed out the nearly invisible holes to Yuugi. "Give me a sec, I'll be back."
"Okay." Yuugi watched as Bakura snagged the attention of an attendant, talked to him for a few seconds before being pointed towards the back of the store. The braided teen hesitated for a moment, and then strode over to the front counter.
"What can I do for ya, Chibi?" Yuugi winced at the use of yet another lame nickname. He had to admit that Bakura dubbing him 'Kitten' wasn't quite as irritating as he'd lead himself to believe. Better than being called 'Chibi', at least.
"I'd like to buy this…" Yuugi pointed to a blue-white iridescent fang earring, "….and this." The other object was a small blued steel ring set with a greenish gem-like bead.
"That'll be $32.95." Yuugi pulled out his wallet and fished out a twenty, a ten and a five. He accepted the bag containing the jewelry and slipped it into a pocket just as Bakura returned with his prize. After paying with Kaiba's card, the two left the store.
A/N: hmm I don't know what the hair changes, O-o must find a way to change them back…shadow magic shall work xD