Friends, Enemies, or More?

Chapter 3: Say Wha?!

Bakura sighed, turning from Malik and starting to walk to his first class just as the bell rang. He was halfway to his class when the intercom went on:

"Mr. Bakura and Mr. Ishtar, please report to the principal's office." The woman's voice said.

Bakura froze, thinking for a minute. He hadn’t done anything yet, so why would he and Malik be called to the office. He shrugged, heading the already familiar path to the principal's office.

Malik on the other hand was freaking out. He hadn’t done anything wrong! Then realization hit. Bakura had been called too, maybe the thief had blamed something on him. He growled, briskly walking toward the principal's office. He saw Bakura nearby, and decided to give him a piece of his mind.

"Hey! Bakura!" Malik called, walking over to the thief.

Bakura turned to face Malik, his face showing no expression, "Yeah?" he asked.

Malik froze from the look on Bakura's face. If the thief had really blamed something on him, wouldn’t he be smirking devilishly or having a fake look of innocence on his face?

A hand snapped Malik out of his thoughts, "Hey Malik, you alive in there?" the white haired thief asked. Malik nodded, not asking the question he had intended. Bakura opened the door to the principal's office, to meet the stern face of the male principal.

The principal was a stunt, fat man with a face that looked like a cherry since it was round and always red, and tended to turn purple when he was angry. The principal looked up from the papers on his desk to look at the two boys, smiling a bit, which surprised them both.

"Both of your siblings, Ishizu and Ryou, in your case, Bakura, have called me this morning to reconstruct your schedules. Malik, since you have a perfect A record at this school so far, I decided to stick you and Bakura, who has a perfect D record, in the same classes. And in this way, I hope to get Bakura to improve and so does Ryou and Ishizu," the principal said, smiling all the way.

Bakura and Malik just stared at him when he said this, then stared at each other, their eyes wide…

"SAY WHA!?" They both yelled in unison.

The principal jumped at their sudden yell, but shushed them, "It was not my choice. It was your sister and brother's choice, guided by my advice. Here's your new schedules and have a good day." The principal said, handing each of them a single piece of paper with their schedule on it, and then waved them off, returning to his paper work.

Bakura took his paper a bit hesitantly, looking over his schedule and glad to see the schedule didn’t say gym on it, he hated that class. But it was one of the classes he actually got an A on…

"Bakura?" Malik's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Since we're both in the same classes, I guess we'll be seeing each other quite a bit more, right?" The blonde seemed pretty calm about all this.

Bakura scoffed, "I wouldn’t count on it. And don’t think you have permission to come over to my house and do that stupid 'studying' thing that Ryou nags me about." He said, heading to their first class, which happened to be math, his worst subject (and mine!).

Bakura walked into the classroom, Malik close on his heels. The teacher looked at them a bit angry, but Bakura just held up his new schedule and sat down, ignoring the teacher completely.

Malik, on the other hand, bowed to the teacher, "Gomen…" he said before sitting in the seat in front of Bakura. The teacher nodded to Malik, smiling a bit but giving a glare to Bakura, who just shrugged it off.

The teacher soon got to work on the lesson, everyone (except Bakura) scribbling down notes. And their day continued on that way. Malik working hard to stay on top, while Bakura barely listened and wrote down barely anything on his papers. The blonde had noticed several times that Bakura seemed a bit distracted by something, although what that thing was, he was unsure of.

During lunch, Bakura hadn’t even showed up in the cafeteria, which Malik found strange. He knew the spirit was immortal and didn’t really need to eat, but he normally ate anyways. Or just came to give someone else a hard time.

Bakura was outside in the empty courtyard, sitting on a bench and staring up into the darkening sky. He was thinking about a lot of things, but the thing on his mind was last night, which still seemed to be bugging him. Finding Malik again, the only person who was actually nice to him and didn’t want to send him deep into the Shadow Realm, made him feel a bit better about his current situation of Ryou being gone. He sighed, unable to retrieve his emotions right now, and for anyone who passed by him, they would find his face unreadable.

The thing that had been distracting Bakura during the school day so far, was exactly what was distracting him from food right now. Every period, Malik would sit in front of Bakura, and the thief would find himself mesmerized by the blonde's hair or scent, and it annoyed him greatly. Not because he wasn’t paying attention to the teacher when he knew he should, but that he was distracted by the very person that hosted the bastard who had sent him plummeting into the shadow realm.

"Hey Bakura." A voice said, startling the thief out of his thoughts. He looked to see Malik, the blonde's backpack on his back and bulging with the amazing amount of books. Malik sat down next to Bakura and put his backpack next to him on the ground.

Bakura looked over at him before speaking, "What do you think you're doing, Malik?" he asked, not remembering saying that Malik could sit down next to him.

"I was just wondering where you were." Malik said, then added, "You know, Bakura. I'd really like it if you would stop blaming me for what my darker half did. I never did anything to you and yet you hate me."

Bakura felt his body stiffen when Malik said that, but he quickly recovered, "I just don’t like you, Ishtar. Get over it. Even if you weren’t the one who did that, it was still your fault. If you want to be friends, it'll. take a while."

Malik smiled a bit, "Thanks, Bakura. Just give me a chance, that's all I ask. Um…Ishizu and Odion have to visit the Pharaoh tonight…so do you think I can come to your place after school?" he asked hesitantly, expecting the answer that was coming for him.

They remained in silence for a few minutes until Bakura finally spoke, "Fine." He said, causing the blonde to smile wider, "Arigoto, Bakura." Malik said. Bakura looked at him for a moment, then looked at the sky, "Don’t speak Japanese, Malik. I'm better with Arabic or English, you know that."

Malik nodded, "I guess so," he said just as the bell to go to 5th period rung loudly, causing both teenagers to stand and head silently to their next class.
~~~Later~~~

Malik ran up to the thief king, panting a bit and walking along side. Bakura had ran off not even a second after the bell to go home had gone off, and hadn’t waited for him.
"Hey, why did you leave so fast?" Malik asked, adjusting his heavy backpack a bit.

"I don’t like school, Malik. I want out of there as soon as I can without getting detention or the teachers pissed at me. You just need to hurry up." Bakura said, realizing that he had just about said that Malik could come with him whenever he wanted to.

Malik sighed, "I guess so." He said, as they continued to walk in silence. Malik fiddled with his hands, keeping his gaze on the ground. They soon approached Bakura's house, and the thief quickly unlocked the door and headed inside, flipping on the lights. "You want something to eat, Malik?" he asked, putting his backpack down on the carpet next to the door, which was slightly crimson colored.

Malik put his backpack down next to Bakura's, nodding, "Um, sure. Whatever you're getting." He said, the white haired teen going into the kitchen and leaving the blonde in the living room.

Malik sat down on the couch, sighing and resting his sore shoulders from his heavy pack, he really needed to get one of those rolling backpacks or something, cause his was going to kill him by the end of the year. He turned toward the kitchen when he heard a few cupboards opening and closing.

Suddenly, a pair of hands could be felt on his shoulders, slowly massaging them, causing the blonde to sigh happily and lean against the hands. He jumped a bit when he realized whose hands they were, but made no complaints. Bakura was behind him (duh), his hands working the Egyptian's shoulders and back, the food lay forgotten in the kitchen.
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