A Means of Communication

Chapter 15: Pig Latin

The sun blared mercilessly down on Monday morning as Ryou walked through the iron gates of school. School. What was school? He knew he would enter that building, find a desk and proceed to sleep on it until the end of the class. The bell would ring and he would jump up out of his chair with dried drips of spit at the corners of his mouth then run to his next class where he would doze off again. This process would be repeated until the end of the school day when he would exit the iron gates once again and catch a bus home, where he would stay for two hours until it was time to pull an all nighter at work, again.

'I need a new life,' Ryou said to his dragging feet that moved him ever closer to those school doors.

Then he saw Honda. The guy was talking to a girl on the steps to the building.

Ryou was unsure what to do but while he was busy thinking about it his feet pulled him forward and before he knew it Ryou was five feet away from an awkward encounter with the brunet.

Eventually Honda saw him. His eyes bulged and then shifted away.

Ryou forcefully stopped his wandering feet.

"Yeah, ah, yeah, thanks," he grumbled to the girl. The female left and it was Ryou staring at the nervous Honda who was just far enough away to escape communication obligations.

Ryou opened his mouth and forgot to say something.

Honda was looking at the ground and he hesitated before he turned to walk away.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" Ryou spoke, too loudly.

Honda looked back over his shoulder. His expression was brittle and that was very unusual. "Sure."

It wasn't a very definite answer but Ryou took it as the brunet walked away.

Ryou was just about to feel sorry for himself again when he heard a pair of friendly voices coming up behind him."... can you believe it? His email! Damn that Malik is cool! And he said I can write him any time I wanted."

"Shhh." That was a Yugi shush. "Don't say that name here."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," the blonde apologized. "Hey Ryou! Ryou!"

Ryou sighed and turned to greet the two of them. "Hi guys."

Jounouchi was ecstatic as he ran up to Ryou's side. Yugi rushed by his friend's side making hushing sounds and gesturing warning signals.

"Hey, guess what?" Jounouchi questioned, face glowing. "Just guess. You'll never ever, ever guess! It's great."

"You met Yugi's boyfriend Yami?" Ryou asked.

"Ha!" Jounouchi jumped triumphantly. "But he isn't Yami! He's-"

"Jounouchi!" Yugi cried. "I told you, not here!"

Jounouchi put a hand over his own mouth. "Oops, sorry, Yugi. I just- damn! It's exciting! And I thought Ryou knew about- ah... you know..."

"Jounouchi, I do know who Yugi's boyfriend is," Ryou reassured. "But we call him Yami in public."

"Ah," Jounouchi agreed. "That makes sense." Then his mood changed. "Hey but... how long have you known about... ah, you know," the blonde made little air quotation marks with his fingers, "'Yami'?" Yugi put a hand to his forehead, exasperatingly.

Ryou thought. "About a month, I suppose."

"A month!" Jounouchi exclaimed. He spun hurtfully towards Yugi. "But- but you two haven't been going out that long, you said," Jounouchi accused.

"Yeah... Ryou found out pretty quick," Yugi admitted apologetically.

"So you could tell Ryou but you couldn't tell me?" Jounouchi questioned.