Hi! Bet you weren't expecting it this fast considering what I said with the last chapter. This chapter sheds a bit more light on Yami's past in a bit of a...indirect way, I guess. It might even be a bit cliche, but whatever. Anzu's life at home is also revealed a bit.
*the next day*
Rumors spread fast. Everyone was talking about the kids who got arrested in the night. Apparently, it was because they were caught drinking behind the school. Yuugi was spared from getting bullied because everyone was so preoccupied with the rumors.
Last hour was Theater Arts. It was one of Anzu's favorite classes. Except for when there was a partner project and she was paired with someone she currently very much disliked.
"So what do you think we should do?" Anzu asked Yuugi. They were supposed to be working on a script together. The best script was going to be made into a play that would be performed for the whole sophomore class. But the way things were going between Yuugi and Anzu, it was very unlikely that they were going to even have an idea before the deadline.
He didn't respond, just kept looking at the notebook in front of him, which he had been staring at for the past few minutes. "I don't have any ideas, but I'm open to anything you suggest." If he was ever going to open his mouth, anyway!
Nevertheless, Anzu kept her cool on the outside and didn't give up. "What are you reading?" she wondered, curious. She tried to glance at his notebook and Yuugi just snapped the book shut and gave her a dirty look. "Well, at least now I have his attention," she muttered sullenly.
"Why do you hate me so much?" she asked venomously.
Yuugi looked at her in surprise, his previous expression completely evaporated. If anyone else was looking in on the conversation, they'd think that Yuugi was the victim. "I don't hate you," he replied earnestly.
"Could've fooled me."
"No, really. I'm sorry if I'm acting really rudely, I just don't like to talk much." Anzu was entirely sure that the brat was lying through his teeth. If what he said was true, he still could've at least answered her a couple of times.
"Whatever, let's just get started on the project. Do you have any ideas?" Anzu asked again.
"What about Egyptian gods?" Yuugi suggested innocently. "I really like Egyptian mythology."
"Um, I can tell. Why do you wear that tacky thing around your neck anyway? All it does is get you into trouble," Anzu stated sourly, pointing to the pyramid that Yuugi wore.
"Not true!" Yuugi squeaked. But he chose not to elaborate, leaving Anzu to think that he was lying again. Seriously, that pendant was like a trouble magnet. Anzu forced herself to focus on the project instead of getting into a argument, which was becoming increasingly difficult for her.
"Anyways, I don't know much about Egyptian mythology. Got anything else? Like anything else from this century?"
Yuugi didn't seem to notice that comment as he seriously considered the question. All around them, groups were already starting their writing. The boy was silent for a while, then shook his head. "Nope, sorry," he replied nonchalantly, really getting on Anzu's nerves.
Finally, it was time to go home a few horribly slow minutes later. Anzu leaped up from her seat too fast, knocking all of her stuff to the floor. Yuugi's too. Anzu cussed and gathered up her stuff quickly, not noticing the black notebook that she picked up on accident.
Gracia, Anzu's best friend, walked her home. And of course, Gracia was only interested in talking about the kids who were arrested in the night.
"...Stupid, drinking in the back of the school like that. Did they really think that getting drunk behind the school was smart? I'm surprised they didn't get caught sooner, personally..."
Anzu didn't really listen to the chatter. Gracia was a great friend, but she was an airhead. She only cared about what was being gossiped about in school.
Instead of listening, Anzu was really just looking around at the dilapidated neighborhood around her. The houses were run-down, a lot of the lawns were overgrown, and trash littered the ground. No one was in sight, hiding in the houses until the safety of the night to come out and conduct their businesses.
Gracia didn't stop talking as Anzu stopped in front of her house. So until her friend let up enough for her to say good-bye, Anzu stood there patiently. The normally empty lot across from her house caught her attention as Anzu noticed that it was no longer entirely empty.
There was a rusted camper sitting in the dead center. It looked like a piece of junk, and almost like it belonged in that lot. She didn't think too much about it. Some one probably just dumped it there last night to get it off their hands. It happened all the time.
Anzu tuned back into her friend's conversation just as Gracia said, "Oh, I gotta go. My mom's enforcing the four thirty curfew now because those idiots got arrested. Just goes to show how much my mom trusts me." She gave Anzu a look that hinted Anzu should show some sympathy.
"That sucks," Anzu said, rolling her eyes for her friend's benefit.
"Yeah, well. At least you're lucky enough to only have your mom around for a few hours," Gracia said airily, not realizing what she had just said.
"I gotta go, Gracia," Anzu said, gesturing towards her house kinda impatiently. Gracia got the hint and left, waving over her shoulder as she went.
"Seeya, Anzu!"
Once Anzu regained her composure, she went inside her house and slammed the door shut behind her. "Are you home, Anzu?" her mother called from the kitchen. Anzu wandered into the room and let her backpack drop to the floor. "I'll take that as a yes," the older woman said, trying to remain cheery when it was obvious that she wasn't. There were bags under her eyes from a lack of sleep and her face made her look ten years older than her real age, fourty-five.
She was standing at the stove, cooking pancakes for dinner. To anyone else that would be weird, but Anzu and her mom started doing it ever since Anzu was five. At least once a month, it was tradition to make breakfast for dinner.
"Hi, mom," Anzu answered, giving her mom a hug from behind. "How was your day?"
"Not great. There's not enough money to keep paying the phone bill, and the phone company keeps threatening to shut off the line," her mom replied, sighing. "I hope your day was better than mine at least."
"Barely. I'm stuck with a person I don't like to do a partner project in Theater Arts. He absolutely refuses to help me, and it's very unlikely that we'll finish in time for the deadline. We still don't have any ideas, and most of the groups have already started outlining."
"Well, both of our lives suck. How about you and me trade places for a day?"
"I might be tempted to take you up on that offer, Mom," Anzu said, joking. She knew that her mom had to work hard to make ends meet, and that she'd probably crack under the pressure if Anzu tried to fill in her mom's spot.
She dropped onto a chair around the kitchen table. Her mom came over with a steaming plate of pancakes and a bottle of syrup, which she set in front of her daughter. Then she went back to the stove to cook her pancakes and sat down across from Anzu a few minutes later with her own plate.
They ate in silence, having really nothing left to talk about. Anzu's mom never mentioned just what she did everyday when she went into the city and Anzu ran out of things to complain about at school.
For perhaps the thousandth time, Anzu wondered why her mom never let her into the city. It made her wonder just what her mom was doing. Still, Anzu didn't press the matter.
Anzu finished her 'dinner' and dumped her plate in the sink. "I'm going to go do my homework, Mom."
She went into her room and sat down heavily on her bed, which creaked in protest. Anzu unzipped her backpack and rummaged around for her Algebra 2 book. Her hand paused when it brushed a notebook binding. Anzu didn't carry a notebook. She only carried around loose-leaf paper and a sketchpad, which didn't have a spiral binding.
Anzu fished the unfamiliar item out of her backpack and studied it for a minute. Then she realized where she saw it. It was Yuugi's notebook, the one he had been staring at.
While Anzu knew that it was rude to pry, she also felt miffed from being treated like crap from this kid. So what if it was rude? Yuugi had been rude her, so why shouldn't she at least get the satisfaction of looking through his notebook? Besides, it was probably all school work, anway.
To Anzu's immense surprise, it wasn't. The pages of the book seemed to be filled with a story of sorts. It was written in a journal style, with the name Yami scrawled at the bottom of each entry. Curious, she began to read the story.
By the time Anzu finished, it was almost eight o'clock and she was completely blown away. Most of it seemed to be about a teen-aged boy and his brother. One day, the little brother was kidnapped, and his older brother searched for him with a possessed type of devotion. He ended up working in a network of spies, after meeting one in an alley on accident. It turned out that his little brother was captured by a bunch of crackpots called the Jackals, who believed that a pagan god would come to life on the earth through sacrificing captured teenagers.
In the end, the boy was too late to save his little brother, but he did utterly destroy the Jackals afterwards. It was completely tragic, and Anzu felt herself wanting to cry.
Why had Yuugi hidden this from her? It would make an awesome play! Anzu had no idea that Yuugi was so good at writing stories. She planned to confront him about it the next day after she returned the notebook. With such amazing story writing skills, Yuugi should've had no problem with the Theater Arts project.
*Yami's camper*
"Shit!" Yami hissed, tearing apart his backpack. He shook everything to the floor. There were textbooks, a couple of pencils, a few pens, and several papers, but no sign of his journal. He searched every inch of the small camper, trying to find a journal that he knew wasn't there.
Yami threw himself on the couch in surrender about a half hour later. It must've happened when Anzu had dumped their stuff on the floor. She picked up her things so fast that she must have picked up his notebook on accident. Hopefully Anzu knew that it wasn't polite to read things that weren't hers.