[Fic] Seven Days of Stroke the Kitty: Chapter One: I Should Have Known Something Was Wrong

[danyellaskyler]

Title: Seven Days of Stroke the Kitty: Take 2
Chapter: 1/7
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Author: Danyella Skyler Silverfire & Kage Kashu
Website: My Livejournal & Her Livejournal
Rating: R or M
Genre(s): Humor/Romance/Action
Pairing(s): Katsuya/Seto
Summary: It all started with a little experiment. Bad Malik. Hilarity and chaos ensue as more people give Jounouchi more sugar than his brain can handle.
Chapter Summery: Honda's POV, Monday. The beginning of the... trouble... Um... Chaos. Let the Kaiba torture begin. (You only mentally abuse the one's you love. We love Kaiba and Jounouchi.) Honda has issues that he refuses to discuss but will constantly allude to.
Warnings: Uh... Really bad sexual humor. A lot more... happening. But the plot remains the same old good thing it was then... But... More. References to fish eaten corpses. Cruelty to teachers. Cruelty to Kaiba. Callous disregard of rules and regulations. Blatant weirdness from Yuugi-tachi and more! Abuse of Honda via briefcase. (Read to find out more)
Disclaimer: We don't own them though we wish we did. So Yu-gi-oh! ain't ours.
Author's Note: Sugar: check. Caffeine: check. Alcohol: check. Plot has boiled in the back of our heads for over a year, and now we rewrite! We-thinks we kinda snapped at age 21. Humor turned kinda adult in the rewrite. We hope you like it. We is proud of what we did, which is both sad and scary at the same time. Tea is good. Heehee.
Word Count: 12,658 (Just the story, not the notes. A lot more with the freaking notes. Whoohoo! Getting weirder. Whoohoo.)

Chapter One: I Should Have Known Something Was Wrong

I didn't do it!! I wasn't even there! Call any of my friends, they'll vouch for me. We were off saving the world from that evil psychopath who for some odd reason is now one of our friends. Wait... Who are you?

Huh? Oh. Shit. I didn't do it!

Oh, you just want to know what happened. That's a relief.

Wait, whatdaya mean, you want to know what I was talking about? That has nothing to do with what happened. You could say that I know alotta people who need psychiatric help... Maybe I should take psychology and become a therapist for people who attempt to conquer the world for weird reasons involving my friend Yuugi...

Huh? Oh, so you don't want to know now... That's a relief.

Hmm? What happened last week? Jounouchi went absolutely nutters.

Oh, you want a thorough explanation. Um... I think we should sit down for this. Want some coffee?

So... Why are you asking me? Uh, pardon the grease... I was working on my bike. After last week, I figured I needed a bit of a break.

Cutting? What do you mean? School's cancelled. Pending investigation, or so I've been told.

Yeah, because of last week. Alotta shit went down last week. There were...

What? I guess I can do that. Let's start with Monday morning, then. I was there most of Monday. Here we go... This'll take a while, you realize?

Right. Sorry. I'll start talking now.

I was going around front of the school after parking my bike when I saw the first signs of it. You see, I should have known something was wrong; the way he was sitting on the bicycle rack should have given it away. He doesn't usually sit on the bicycle rack, and when he does, he doesn't do it like that. He normally would just be kind of leaning slash sitting, if you know what I mean.

Have you ever read Ranma 1/2? Well, if you have, think Ranma in neko-ken, only twitching.

Huh? Oh, I'll go get it and show you. Be right back.

Ah, here. Like this. He was sitting like this. On the bike rack. With a deranged look in his eyes, as he stared over the students milling about in front of school before class. It was kinda creepy. You ever watch the Discovery Channel? It was like a lion up on a ledge looking out over a herd of zebras... Kind of. It was just freaky.

And then, there was way he was looking at me, once he noticed me. I felt like... Uh... Um... Sorry, that was my stomach. Uhmm... Do you want anything? I've got some dango, if you want...

Hey! I'm a freaking teenager, what do you expect me to snack on? Stale bread and thick water? That's... Now that I think about it that sounds pretty gross.

Fine, fine. I'll get back to the story, if my stomach doesn't protest again too soon.

So, he had a scary look on his face. And he was hunkered down in a pretty dang odd position. "Mnya!!! Honda-kun!!!" And then he was jumping... I probably didn't mention this yet, but he didn't jump like a normal person... Even his jumping... that was hyper.

I didn't mention the occurrence of hyperactivity yet? Well, to any normal person, it was extremely noticeable. But this is Jounouchi. He got the entire drama club involved in a funeral for the school lunch one day... Anzu gave it a really touching eulogy. It brought tears to my eyes... But there were raw onions involved, so perhaps it wasn't all that surprising. I'm still not sure just what the lunch that day was supposed to be... The lunch menu said drunken fried rice, but there was no sign of rice... And there were raw onions. And there was an entire bulb of garlic, unpeeled, and I do mean bulb...

Oh, sorry. I just got a little distracted. It's normal for me, you know. You should have seen me that one time. Jounouchi had gotten this really big...

Oh, sorry. I forgot. Anyway. Back to my ever lengthening story.

He flew at me. He hit me flat on the chest, sending me back a good four or five feet. Impressive if you take into account that he's kinda scrawny, and I'm a rather sturdy person, and I hadn't been walking, 'cause I had stopped to try and figure out what was up with him... We went over the sidewalk, thankfully... So we landed in the wet grass, which is almost as uncomfortable as hitting sidewalk, which I know from experience... That one time that Jounouchi...

Right. Back to story. So we landed. Right. And I acquired new grass stains to go with the black grease stains that seem to be on everything I own... Including some of my mom's dress shirts... Which should never have been in my hands in the first place, so I'm not sure why there's grease stains on it... Although there aren't any on those freaky weird things Mom makes me wear for the festivals and parades and funerals and stuff... She keeps them at my aunt's house... She only even let's me see them right when she's about to put them on me, after making Dad dunk me in the tub and scrub me with the damn dog's brush... Because of the grease. And yeah, I meant it when I said "put them on me". I'm secure enough in my masculinity to admit that my mother dresses me for formal occasions. She probably will even when I'm forty. Or she'll train the person I end up with... Or marry... Or whatever...

Oh. Sorry again. Well, you could say that that was the first time that week I ended up on the ground with Jouno on my chest like that. It's a surprisingly uncomfortable position. He's a lot heavier than his scrawny limbs make it look.

Huh? Uh. No. I said "limbs" and I meant limbs. And you'll have to put up with the side stories if you want me to tell more, because, you never know, something like that might occasionally be semi-relevant to the story. And that way you get a better idea of the people I'm talking about. Since we don't really know you, it shouldn't surprise you that we believe you don't know us.

Anyway, he was really loud that day. "So nice to see you!!!" he says to me. Even his voice shook from suppressed energy and cheer. He was super cheerful last week. It was suppressed only because he was still fighting it at that point. Really. He gave up by the second day. I'm not sure, but I think it was easier to deal with on the first day, because each day he got progressively worse.

I was kinda scared at that point. "Umm... what are you doing, Jouno?" I asked him; I was frightened, disturbed, and in more than a little pain, as he had landed rather heavily on my chest. Yes, it hurt. A lot. I still have bruises from that... and the other times; but we'll get to that later. I don't have padding, because I get too much exercise, dealing with dumb shits who want to take over the world, stealing precious heirlooms from my friend Yuugi on the way, and occasionally kidnapping your son. Why do me and my friends always get into those kind of things?

Hmm? Yeah. He's gotten kidnapped quite a few times... Once, Malik nearly got him drowned because of the mind-control kidnapping and some other stuff. Found out later that it was Kaiba of all people that had rescued him. By being an ass of some sort. Jouno said a key drifted past his nose. Ya get the picture?

Anyway, he wasn't finished with me at that point. He was all, "I'm a kitty!!!" And he milk-treaded(1) me! You wouldn't believe how weird it feels to have a human doing that to you... Other kids were looking at us really weirdly. More weirdly than usual, they were actually staring. Usually they kinda do the look-look away thing that really annoys Jounouchi... He says that they do it because we get away with alotta weird shit in spite of our grades, and manage to never get kicked out. I personally think it's because of Kaiba's obsession with Yuugi's cards. Or maybe something else. Like that heirloom I was mentioning.

Well, after that he turned around, still standing slash sitting on my chest and apparently saw Yuugi. "Mnya!!! Yuugi!!!" And he pounced. Poor Yuugi. I mean, I'm big enough to handle that kind of thing; but Jounouchi pouncing poor, short, goth kid... It probably hurt Yuug' a lot more than it did me. "You're cuddly!!!" The one that attempted to make Yuugi dress as a teddy bear last Halloween said that like it was the greatest discovery since sliced cheese. I like sliced cheese. I'm still hungry. Want a grilled cheese sandwich?

Hey! Don't you remember what it's like being a teenage boy? There are three things always at the forefront of every single thought. Sex, food and "stupid people are everywhere". You know; the whole "no one understands me" thing. Although I keep thinking that Yuugi only has one of those problems. And he's at just the right level to make it look like he's looking at Anzu's face, when he's actually looking at her breasts. I think she knows that, though. But she's too interested in his split personality to mind too much... Yuugi's short. Even the other Yuugi's short. I don't see what she likes so much... And there's this weird bondage-friendly atmosphere around Yuugi even at the best of times...

Oh, yeah. I'm off track again. So... What was I saying last time I was actually on track?

Oh. Right. Poor Yuugi and sliced cheese. So I would have to say that about the time he pounced... That's about when I realized that something had to be very wrong with Jounouchi. And when I heard the maniacal laughter in the background, I knew it had to be something to do with...

Malik. It wasn't surprising; he always does that, or else he looks drugged(2). I mean, last time, when our history teacher was saying something about Neapolitan... No... That's not right... Um... short conqueror guy. Midget complex. The teacher said something about that guy, and Malik just busted out with maniacal laughter, when a moment before, he looked about to pass out from boredom. But that's beside the point.

The point being that something was overly wrong with my best friend. He's kind of off sometimes, in the morning... But it had never really been as bad as that. At least, I don't recall it being like that. Ever. If someone had brought a tranquilizer gun to school on that day, things would have been smoother throughout the week. But, alas, that didn't happen until Saturday. Which you're gonna have to ask someone else about. Because... Well... I don't want to talk about it.

Why not? Well, I didn't really see Jouno on that day, except pretty early in the morning. I was... busy, for the rest of the day. But Monday... Well, Monday I was there to see a lot of things no one else got to see. Heh heh, heh... Um... Yeah.

So Yuugi got himself mauled by a genuinely insane teenager.

Eh? Well, he's my best bud. Of course I can call him that. He's pretty insane at normal times too, you know. It's just... Last week it was a lot worse.

Around the time that Yuugi got dropped, Anzu had shown up... You ever meet Anzu? She's like a cross between a cheerleader and a gothic dancer wannabe... without the skankiness and while actually being able to dance. You wanna know what the first thing she said was? "Jou, what are you doing?" You see, she just had to catch his attention... I honestly don't think that she has any sense of self-preservation.

Probably why she actually hangs out with us end-of-the-world types. Only reason I'm in this is 'cause my best friend happens to get caught up in all of this regardless of whether or not Yuugi's even involved... 'cause Yuugi's always involved with that stuff, except when he isn't. And if he doesn't get involved, the other side will get him involved. Then we get involved because we're supposedly the cheerleaders. At least, alotta those jerks often call us that. But I, at least, do not cheer. I encourage. Enthusiastically.

Uhmm... Off track again, are we? Well, you could say, as soon as Jouno noticed her, he was like a horse after water. Or a cat after cream. Only without the licking and slurping. That would have been gross. "Mnya!!! Anzu!!! Padded!!!" he yowled. Yes, he was petting her breasts. Not stroking, petting. And kind of poking. She didn't seem to be very happy with it. Of course, if I was a girl, I probably wouldn't have been happy either. And maybe, if I was a girl I could get...

Ah ahem! Um... No. I'm not talking about that right now. This is about Jounouchi. Not my sexual crisis. It's been pretty bad, you know. It started about a year ago... But we aren't talking about that, are we? Luckily you aren't O... O... Um... You aren't that person's father. If you were that person's father, that would mean I was interested in my best friend, which I'm not; that's not to say that my best friend isn't interesting and all, but I just don't view him that way! Dude! He's my best friend! I'm not that kind of guy! Dear god, I was even there for his Beanie Baby phase! And I stayed friends with him even when he nearly sold me for one of the 'collectables'. It was horrible... I didn't want to talk to him for an entire week after that.

Eh? What can I say? We were ten.

Ahem. Anyways. There was a lot of laughter at what Jounouchi said, not so surprisingly. And when it escalated, the other evil freak joined in. I had no idea when Bakura showed up. If my memory serves me right, it was somewhere between me and Anzu. Unless he was there before that. Because Jounouchi was still latched onto Anzu when Bakura started laughing. I think.

So, I was a bit too busy sitting - yeah, I had managed to sit up - and staring at Jounouchi and Anzu, because I had never really seen my friends grope my friends. It was enthralling, and slightly disturbing. Yeah, I was a bit freaked out about that. Jouno and Anzu? It would never work anyway, because Jou's gay. Um...

Um... You didn't know!?! Oh shit. He's gonna... either kick my ass or congratulate me, after he gets out of intensive care... I don't know which. For spilling something like that before you found out, especially after last week. Although, now that I think about it, it is kind of odd that you didn't know. I mean... Haven't you ever been into your son's room? There's a distinctive lack of posters featuring half - or more - nude females. Although, he doesn't exactly advertise it. That would be asking for fights. He used to, you know; because he wanted to fight. He was really pissy a couple of years back.

Huh? Um... He would go and hit on some badass punk type, and the guy would get pissed off and try to beat him up... All he would have to do is fight back. And he had this really well practiced sob story for the teachers, so that he rarely got in trouble for it. He'd cry that nobody liked him, because he's gay, and none of the gay guys like him because he had had a girlfriend...

Oh, he didn't, but the teachers didn't know that. It worked really well. Most of the time he'd just get off with a warning even though it happened three times a week. Except when he was bored, then it happened more, or when he was busy, then it happened less, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

He never gave you his warning slips? Hmm... He probably will be mad at me when he gets out. Oh well, he might forget by that time. I hope. Last time we got into a fight - yeah, last week - he kicked my ass. No, not Monday. Gladly not Monday.

Anyways. Anzu was pissed off about the groping. She yelled at him, "Hentai!!!" and then, he was flying again; this time, away from her. I don't think she even had time to hit him. Thankfully, for her sake... or his.

"Mnya!!!" he called as he flew. He was heading towards Malik at a pace that he would never have managed at any other time. Probably due to the amount of sugar I later found out was in his system. He has a freakishly high metabolism. I would have gotten seriously ill off of that much sugar. "Malik!!! You got more!?! Yagotmoreyagotmoreyagotmoreyagotmore!?!?!?!" he shrieked in a rather childish manner. Then, after pinning Malik, who didn't even try to get free, he proceed to, I think, grope the other deranged blonde quite thoroughly.

Yes. Grope. There were hands in places an old dude like yourself can only imagine. It had to have been illegal, doing that in front of a school.

We found out later that the teachers didn't really give a shit. And Jounouchi apparently had stockpiled get-out-of-jail-free cards... after stealing all of Kaiba's. Then they ran rampant, and the entire school had them, if you know what I mean.

You don't? Um... The entire school was running rampant and out of control... And, since the teachers weren't doing anything, we had the highest attendance in our school's history. Which is a shocker... I saw people there that I had never seen anywhere but in gangs on the streets. Literally. And Jounouchi kicked all of their asses. Quite thoroughly. With great ease... And I don't think he was trying to hurt them...

Anyway, Malik seemed to have anticipated Jounouchi's move. Literally. He'd been planning on it, it seemed. "Jouno, I didn't know you felt that way!" he said, all devious sounding. And I wasn't sure if it was just me, but... he seemed to be enjoying that... too much. Um... Visibly so. At the time, I was wondering if I should be embarrassed, but so much worse happened just that day... He was flat on his back, being straddled and groped... under his clothes... by Jounouchi, who was practically twitching. "You should have just said something," he said. The pervert. Malik was arching into Jounouchi's questing hands. There was no way I could have mistaken that for anything else. Perv.

"Huh!?! Oh skittles!!! Sankyuu!!! Oh, oh, oh!!!" he sang as he pulled some sort of drink out of Malik's clothes.

Yeah, I did mean drink. You see, I didn't actually see when he got the skittles. In fact, I didn't even see the skittles. How Malik managed to hide that in his clothes when he hadn't managed to hide that other thing... well, I'm not going to ask Houdini(3). "Oh, oh!!! Rashid!!! Mnya!!!" I think that's his war cry, because he always yelled that right as he was leaping. And he flew, he didn't jump; he flew.

And Anzu's two cents were somewhere along the line of "Oh my god, oh my god! What's wrong with him?" I figured that the impact had jarred something loose. She had sounded halfway between laughter and tears. I probably would have been too if it hadn't been for that huge ass bruise that had been forming on my chest. Either one would have just caused it to hurt more.

Of course, Yuugi was the one to ask the intelligent question. "Is he possessed?"

That is the intelligent question if you've hung out with our group long enough. Really. There was this thing with Malik... And there's that thing with Yuugi's and Ryou's alter-egos... They hate each other, by the way. That is, the alter-egos each have a distinct hatred of each other, not Yuugi and Ryou. There's really no self hate anywhere around there. If nothing else, the alter-egos are both narcissists. Like, big time. Ryou's has a tendency of sticking people in things, though. One time, it was this bully, and he stuck the guy in the couch in the student lounge. Something about the guy deserving to get sat upon. Now that was something fun for the school counselor to sort out.

After a moment, the insane one spoke up. He said, "No." Who's the insane one? I can see the question on your face! The insane one happens to be Malik, who actually has or had a split personality. Haven't seen any sign of it lately though. "I was just conducting an experiment. It seems to be coming along quite nicely." You wanna know why I wasn't surprised that he was behind that?

My answer to his comment pretty much said it all. "You're controlling him again aren't you?" I asked suspiciously. You see, we'd had trouble involving Malik and mind control before this. That was the thing where Jounouchi got kidnapped and half-drowned. You can be sure that I was pissed as hell about that, although I doubt Jounouchi told you about it. The people who challenge my friends to Duel Monsters have a tendency of taking "Duel" in the old way. That is, the loser dies, or just gets really badly hurt. Or gets funny scars in places they'd probably rather not talk about in front of polite company.

The psycho's next answer kinda ticked me off. "No, just conducting an experiment." Then he started to laugh maniacally again. I don't think he knew any other way to laugh, and that's kinda sad in a way. Not sure what way, but I do know that it's in a way. I mean, sure Jounouchi and Bakura do it sometimes, but at least they know other ways to laugh.

Yeah, Jouno does do that laugh pretty bad, too. Malik's problem probably comes from growing up in a hole... Don't tell him I said that.

I kinda felt sorry for Rashid though. He was all, "Get it off me." I hope that Jounouchi thoroughly traumatized that guy. I don't really like him.

What do you mean, contradicting myself? I don't like him, I hope Jouno caused him severe mental trauma, and I felt sorry for him. What's contradicting about that?

That was when Jounouchi uttered the phrase that we would all come to know too well in the days to come, "Stroke the kitty!!!" He was entirely too enthusiastic sounding each time he said that. All said while rubbing himself very provocatively against Rashid's legs. There was nothing the rest of us could do, other than sit back and stare at him in shock. That wasn't right on so many levels it wasn't funny - even if it kind of was in a really bizarre way. Not even Malik found it funny - or maybe he did, and I'm just underestimating him... We all watched in this kind of dazed sort of horror, as Jounouchi paused mid-rub, and then bounded away, saying, "Poing!!!(4)"

Then there was math class. Do you want to know what happened in math class? I'm not so sure I want to tell, because there was this little incident with cottage cheese...

Hey! What, what!? Okay, I'll continue.

Well, to begin with, I was eating my healthy breakfast in class, like I usually do.

Yes, it was healthy. My health teacher says so.

I had my croissant, my sliced peaches, a small tub of yogurt, a slightly larger tub of cottage cheese, a tall glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, and a can of the best of green teas - which I promptly wished I could hand over to Kaiba like I did on the days when we had health(5) first - all spread out on a nice table cloth that my ex had given me that she made in Home Ec... She was surprisingly good. Table cloth got shredded last week, though... But I had my vase, with a posy that Ryou(6) gave me... Like every other day... And I was reading the morning paper. I really liked my math class.

There was this one article that day... Football(7). You probably wouldn't be interested. Malik had his international newspaper, that I'm sure he couldn't read all of, but he shared it with Ryou - he usually would have shared it with Jounouchi, but he was conspicuously absent for math class that morning - so I suppose it went to some good use.

Alright, I'll lay out the scene in a perfectly clear manner for you. I was sitting there reading the football article and enjoying my nice buttery croissant, while Yuugi was reading about that headless corpse(8) that washed up in the harbor the day before and eating an apple. Anzu was giggling over the comics and enjoying her triple shot cappuccino with whipped cream and a cherry - I was kinda confused about the cherry, so don't ask. Malik was muttering - repeatedly - something about something - I don't know what, but I think it was Arabic - while chowing down on a really large bowl of cereal - shredded wheat? - with bananas - hell if I know where he got the materials for that... and Ryou was stuffing his face with tea cakes and occasionally muttering in English - I know it was English - "tea cakes" and sighing about how much he loves food, while tugging on Malik's paper to get a better look here and there... Kaiba wasn't there at that time, because he had counseling... but we left the business sections on his desk. Otogi, I believe was the only one - as per usual - who was actually paying half an ear to the teacher. From my angle - nice angle - it looked like he was inspecting the fingernails of the girl sitting next to him.

Heh? Pity what? Our teachers? Nah, they deserved it.

Well, that's what was going on when it happened.

Huh? When what happened? The teacher left. His wife had called in a panic about monkeys, or children... Perhaps pregnancy and cabbage. I don't know. I was busy reading. Maybe she was giving birth... Nevermind. Not important. Completely irrelevant. Never seen him again. But the important thing was that he left the class. All alone. With nothing but our evil genius minds to occupy us. And maybe games. But the caffeine was kicking in. There's a surprising amount of caffeine in green tea.

I was still minding my own business when Jounouchi showed up. He was covered up to his knees in something suspiciously soot-like. In fact, I think it was soot. Which means that he had been down in the school basement. Probably bugging the creepy man who lives down there and talks to the furnace. I think - I'm not sure, but I think - that he's a janitor. Never seen him leave his precious furnace, though. You know, there are rumors that his wife was burned alive in that furnace...

No, I think it's just a rumor. Although, on Halloween, some kids like to go down there and make weird howling noises all day. It's pretty annoying if you ask me.

Right. Jouno showed up all sooty from the knee down. Then, he proceeded to lift me from my seat, and plonk me down in the hallway. With nary a word, and completely destroying my breakfast, what was left of it. But my cottage cheese... You don't want to know what happened to my cottage cheese.

Wait... You do? Okay... Wow. You really are his dad.

Well, when Jounouchi picked me up - by the way, he looks way too scrawny to be that strong, take that as you will - my cottage cheese went everywhere. Somehow, making things worse, my orange juice had fallen into it when Jouno bumped the table before picking me up... So the cottage cheese was really watery... and orangish.

It got in hair, it got in eyes; it went down shirts and pants. It totally covered the skank that sits directly in front of me - that's the one that Otogi was inspecting the fingernails of. It somehow completely missed Otogi though. Lucky him. On me, it looked like I'd had a wet-nap in class.

Hey! It can happen! There was this one girl in our class, in history class; she had this really loudly raunchy dream about Jounouchi - to which my good friend cheered loudly... in counterpart to her loud cries of "more more" and "slap that bitch!" It was funny, but deeply perturbing.

I think, at that time, Kaiba was sitting right in front of her, and he twitched so violently when she screamed "Katsuya" into his ear that his desk and everything on it fell to the floor. It didn't even wake her up. She just screamed "harder!"

For some odd reason, everyone liked her after that. She had been one of those people that nobody really notices... Well, she sure was noticed after that. That went on for an hour before she finally woke up with this... weird sighing sound(9).

She's got a really weird thing with the class president now. I still think it's odd that nobody could wake her up. Believe me, we tried.

Where was I? Oh, right. Flying curds, whey, and orange juice. And the wet-nap thing. Kind of embarrassing, but not like what that girl did. Although, that won her a lot of respect in some people's eyes.

Occasionally her and Jounouchi get together right behind Kaiba and start making loud sex sounds when the teachers are out - only when he's particularly pissed off at Kaiba though.

Anyway. On with story. I got dumped in the hall, and, not long later, so did the rest of the class. One by one, we were lifted from our seats, cottage cheese and all, and dumped onto the hallway floor.

After a while, Jouno actually spoke. His voice was starting to show some of the first signs of oncoming hoarseness. He yelled out that he had the "Need to clean!!!" and disappeared down the hall, coming back mere moments later with a large bucket held like a lover... Or something like that.

He went into the classroom, dumped the bucket on my desk - which didn't amuse me at all - and said that he was "All done!! Now it's time to follow Kitty!! Mnya!!!" Which confused the class, me included.

You see, I know Jouno pretty well, but his behavior was so different from his normal behavior, that I was confused and worried... And I didn't really know what to do, or how to deal with it, either.

We soon found out the horrors that he had planned for us.

Okay, no, it wasn't scary at all, and it was actually kind of fun, but... It was strange, and confusing... And made me see more of Kaiba's mind than I really wanted or needed to. I could have lived the rest of my life quite happily without knowing just how boring of a monotone he could go off into.

Usually when I hear him talking, he's either extremely passionate - when attempting to get Yuugi to duel him; megalomaniacal - when dueling with Yuugi; angry and or condescending - talking with or down to Jouno; or sarcastic - when talking about or to Mr. Pegasus or magic and mystical things. Difference being: the words used. Occasionally, I'll hear him bored - when talking to a teacher.

What? No, I don't know what he sounds like at work, but I think it would be a combination of all of the above. I've talked to some of the people that work for him... And I'm still pissed off about that damned monkey escapade he put me through!!! Um... Don't ask.

Anyway, back to the point, the point being that he's not a positive person, and I personally think he's antisocial and needs to go to group therapy with Yuug' and Jouno, and maybe Pegasus.

What did he actually do with us?

That's kinda simple, I suppose. He gave us a tour of the school... That is, his version of a tour, and his version of the school. You see, he sees it a bit differently than the rest of us students. At least, he did last week.

This was the school that we had gone to for a couple years... As for the tour, he somehow made it interesting. I will say this much: Jounouchi would make a wonderful tour guide. But to expound upon what he did... He led our class down the hall to the janitor's cart and proceeded to explain in enthusiastic detail about how many people he knew of who had been stuffed in the garbage on that particular cart. After expounding about the third person he gave us a manic grin and put a hissing and ticking paper bag behind some mops. At the time, I didn't really think about it, but a few minutes later I started worrying about it.

Apparently, it was just a fox snake (10) from the science lab - found out the next day what happened to the rest of them, and boy was Anzu pissed - tied to one of those old, annoying alarm clocks, but it would have been more than enough to scare the crap out of the janitor when he got back from wherever he was at - probably having a smoke.

Jounouchi then led us into the girls' restroom and told this rather amusing story about how this broken porcelain doll had remained behind the toilet of the center stall for over a year with girls leaving flowers and candles around it because it was rumored to have belonged to this really popular model that had once gone to our school and had died not long before in a tragic bicycle accident and that on the night of the new moon she would possess the doll and wander the school searching for her high school crush, moaning and crying tears of blood. Or something like that. It got stranger, but I can't remember the whole thing. One of those urban legends. At least, I'm sure it will be. Your son is a good storyteller.

Yeah funny. It was really funny. Especially at the time. I mean you should have seen how many people where freaking out about that story. It was hilarious; I never knew that so many people in our class were so gullible.

Anyway after thoroughly creeping out the gullible, he rather cheerfully led us out of the bathroom towards the empty auto shop classroom where he told about this time he lost a game of strip dice with this cheerleader who had graduated the year before.

Huh? Yeah, that actually happened, it was funny to watch him as he took off each item of clothes, 'cause he didn't do it normally. He made it this big production that took about three minutes - and occasionally borrowed help... all that for taking off an open jacket that was practically falling off anyway.

Well, after that he led us into the actual auto shop and told about how he had gotten into this really big fight with these three meat heads with only me to back him up and how he won. It wasn't exactly how I remember the fight, but he did tell a good story with a lot of running around and demonstrating. Of course, I had to confirm holding the leader down and putting makeup on him after knocking out his two lackeys. I find it kinda weird they had a hard time believing that, but they accepted the blatant lie of Jouno having stuffed one of them in the trunk of the gutted car while beating up another one. I mean, that car's trunk didn't even have a freaking lid.

Hey! That's uncalled for. I'm just trying to be polite by not cursing in front of my best friend's creepily Kaiba-like dad.

No, really. Dude. You look just like him. You even have the loom thing, and the same freaky-ing-coloring. And you should see how he reacts to my cursing. And that was without Mokuba being within a one mile radius. He's a teenager. He needs to... I dunno, maybe... Get out more?

Oh, right. Story. So... After that he led us through the various classes slash shops and restrooms, through the teacher's lounge - with its broken snack machine that gives out free snacks when you push a certain sequence on the keypad, and good old Jounouchi was kind enough to share the code with the entire class, although, I myself already knew it - and into the school's main office. There we found out some interesting facts about the principle's secretary; apparently she loves heather, can't stand roses, and her favorite food is American chili. Gross.

After thoroughly flattering the secretary - and proposing to her three times - he opened the door to the school councilor that deals with "our kind", and introduced us to Kaiba's monotone as he went off about some invention he was working on in as scientific and as boring a manner as possible. The councilor's eyes where actually glazed! I had never seen him like that before!

The councilor, not Kaiba. Kaiba gets that look surprisingly often, usually in the classes that he rarely shows up to and still passes with flying colors. The councilor, on the other hand, was always interested in anything you told him; except, apparently, whatever Kaiba told him. I mean, I think Kaiba could have started going off about the mating habits of the water bison in that tone mid-sentence and he wouldn't have even noticed. I wonder if he's ever actually done something like that...

Huh? What did I mean by "our kind"? Well, it's kinda simple really; it's the students who cause trouble in various ways. You know, "our kind". We all like to yank his chain just to get him to leave us alone. I mean, he won't stop asking questions - no matter how childish - until we tell him something, no matter how much of a blatant lie it is. I mean, I told him that I had this reoccurring dream that I was being chased by a giant hamster that was in one of those ball things through a blown glass shop that had a floor that had a beautiful mosaic of an adorable stuffed horse standing on a mountain of bear skulls. And that as a result of the dream I could tragically no longer watch Hamtaro, then I proceeded to, very sadly and actually crying - crocodile tears - do the Ham-ham dance for him.

He absolutely loved it. So did my drama class. They thought the story was inspired. It was after that we started the "Therapy Book" where we put down our better stories to the councilor in it, and every two months we would have a vote on which was the best, and the winner gets this really funny shirt. Or they get to dig through the mystery bag. Yuugi pulled out some of those google eyes from it once.

Anyway, that should give you an idea of what our counselor is like. But I must add some very important things to that... You see, he's not your normal High School counselor that just does it because he gets paid... This guy actually enjoys his work.

If we don't show up, he hunts us down at home. If we aren't at home, he hunts us down in our hang out spots. He found me when I was hiding in the girls' locker room. This guy is a scary, scary man...

Yeah. That's why we go. Do you know how embarrassing it is to get dragged out of the arcade, while hanging out with your friends, by your school counselor, who loudly proclaims that he will make you talk? I've had that happen to me before too, you know.

While we were in there - to put us back on track, because I haven't even covered lunch yet - Jounouchi launched himself at the counselor, jabbering a mile a minute about his "breakthrough".

"I can do it now... I can, I can! You were right! See! They follow me!!" He gesticulated in the strangest manner in our direction. You see, he was using all of his body. And you know; he nearly broke Kaiba's knee by doing it. Luckily for Kaiba, the arrogant bastard moved in time to only get grazed... But it still looked painful. "They hung off of my every word! I will make my dream! I will be Prime Minister!"

Of course, Kaiba cut in on that rant - not so sure I minded in this case - with a rather sour sounding, "Of what?" I think Kaiba must be fond of lemons. Or Warheads. Which he had. Until Jounouchi noticed them.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Candy!!!" he yelled, hanging on tightly to Kaiba's uniform jacket, hands diving into Kaiba's many non-uniform pockets. Comes from having custom made school clothes. Out of those pockets came two bags of Warheads, a bag of Poprocks, a Milkyway, a bag and a half of Botan rice candies, a small bag of spicy beef jerky, an empty Frito-Lay bag, an M&M - singular... Yeah, I know, he seems too... cleanly to do something like that... and three cell phones. From his jacket.

Then Jouno had to go for the pants. From those pockets he pulled out a package of Smarties, a package of Starbursts, a beef and cheese stick - still in wrapper - various IOU notes, a couple of dozen receipts, a wallet, a loose credit card, a small troll doll key chain - keys attached, and the thing had green hair (11) - two more cell phones, and a few dozen coupons for pizza and the like, along with a small, bear shaped jar of honey - I confiscated the coupons and the honey, for reasons that I don't feel like discussing.

Makes me wonder what he keeps in that must-weigh-a-ton briefcase of his. More candy? More cell phones? A small helicopter? I know he has a computer in it. But I've caught glimpses of other things. Like a porn mag. I think. There was nudity. It might have just been a National Geographic, though.

Although, the fact that there was a nude, green haired thing in his pocket is actually kind of funny. And it doesn't suit him at all. Maybe earrings? No. Troll doll earrings on Kaiba? Ack. Maybe Anzu could get away with it... Or Mai. Maybe Otogi... 'cause, you know, he pulls off the dice pretty well. Damn well, if you ask me which you aren't so don't say anything else here, because I've been having this trouble lately when talking about things involving dice and earrings and... and... Nevermind. Attention away from Honda's crisis, okay?

Good. I'm glad you don't want to know. Because then I'd have to say something and it wouldn't be pretty. Where was I?

Oh. Yeah. Kaiba's pockets. While we were all staring at the candy Jounouchi was shoving down his own shirt, we failed to notice - until afterwards - that the beef jerky, the five cell phones, the beef and cheese stick - still in wrapper - the IOU notes, the receipts, the wallet, the credit card, and the key chain had disappeared. Along with Kaiba. But we had been to enthralled watching Jouno hide all of that to notice until afterwards.

Who knows where Kaiba went after all of that. I mean, it was kind of obvious that his therapy session had ended. Did I say therapy? I meant counseling.

Yes, I meant counseling. We aren't that crazy. But some of us do need anger management courses every now and then.

No, I'm not telling you that. It's their business, not mine nor yours.

Well, anyway, Jounouchi had gone off again, leaving us all to deal with getting back to class or getting lunch on our own. In a way, I was kinda thankful for that... And during lunch time, I decided to just hang out in an empty class room, away from the crazies, because one of Otogi's cheerleaders had decided to try and beat me up... I'm not really one to hit a girl, so...

I felt a lot of pity for him... Otogi, that is. I'd been hiding - pretty well actually - from Otogi's cheerleaders... especially the ugly one. That is, the one that tried to beat me up. She almost managed it, too, but I got away just as the riot squad appeared, dragging Malik kicking and screaming down the hall...

What? What bomb? Oh. That. No, I don't think it had anything to do with Jounouchi's 'bomb'. Just... five or six freshmen dragging Malik down the hall, face down. I, up to that point, had never actually seen - in person - someone claw at the ground as they got dragged. And you know; the cartoons and stuff don't have it quite as funny as it is in real life.

Why did I call them the riot squad? That particular group of freshmen has a tendency of showing up right before a riot... often being the cause of said riot. Actually, the full name of that group is the "Badluck (12) Riot Squad" being as every single one of them has an obsession with one or another member of that band. You know, I heard that the lead singer is a moron.

Right. I know; it has nothing to do with the story... But I kinda like their music. Have you heard their latest album? Hey! Stop glaring! Okay, okay. I'll just... continue. Like I can tell you want me to. Stop looking at me like that!
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