maturity
yuugiou fanfiction
ryuujitsu & co.

Disclaimer: Saying we own Yuugiou is like saying Yami no Yuugi is bald.

A/N: Something fairly lighthearted, also an AU one-shot. Tendershippy and somewhat o-o-c, beware of 'you's and such other grammatical monstrosities. My English teacher would have a fit. A pointless slice-of-life drabble. I hope you like it. Inspired by Jamnesty. Oh! Also, Faust is coming along. Malik just fell out of a window, actually. Heehee.

It's been a long time been a long time
been a long lonely lonely
lonely lonely lonely time
--Rock & Roll, led zeppelin

The Jamfish annual spring live was well into its second hour. Already three local bands had played and there were five more to go. The crowd was mainly one of college students from the nearby universities but there were a few teenyboppers in their seifuku and bobby socks. Every so often you were able to spot the hot electric costumes of Pink Noise fans interspersed amongst a general sea of black hooded sweatshirts. Stepping off the stage with his bass guitar slung over one shoulder, Bakura knew that this was the last place he'd have imagined meeting his history professor.

And yet there Yaten stood at the edge of the throng, looking exceedingly out of place with his fine white hands jammed deep in his pockets. It was the slouch, Bakura decided as he made his way across the field. The slouch just wasn't there.

Yaten Ryou was twenty-three but from the rigid positioning of his shoulders and back and the fine lines under his eyes you would have guessed he was at least thirty. The man was soft-spoken but given to moments of extreme passion, usually in two different sets of situations—one, when lecturing, and two, when Bakura was. . .ahem. He was dressed to fit in with the regular crowd at Jamfish with the requisite baggy dark clothing, but from his stiff posture he could as well have been wearing a tweed suit. The man jumped a little when he felt the press of Bakura's hand against the small of his back.

"Ease up a little, sensei," said Bakura. "You look too much like a professor tonight."

"Ah, do I?" His professor forced his shoulders down and pushed his hips forward slightly, shifting his weight to one leg. There we go, thought Bakura, grinning. Classic slouch. Ryou suddenly went from thirty to nineteen. "Is this better, Mr. Bakura?"

His eyes were shining smoky green in the darkness. They came from his mother, a British woman who had since divorced her Japanese husband and returned to England. The hair was white and long and wavy. The whiteness was courtesy of bleach and dye. Bakura speculated that it would have otherwise been some sort of sandy blonde or perhaps a murky brown from the cross-breeding.

Ryou smiled and his lips parted into a soft pink curve. "Hello, Mr. Bakura. Fancy meeting you here."

"Did you hear us?" said Bakura. "Or did you just get here."

"I've been at a staff meeting." Ryou's reply made his heart sink but then the professor laughed and his heart was buoyed. "No, I'm afraid not."

"Desdemon," said Bakura, a little disappointed. He was looking at Ryou's slim hips and the girly hoodie and the black cross earrings in both of the man's ear lobes. He started sweating again and felt a cool wind sifting through his hair, which Malik had, in a sudden fit of "stylistic genius," hacked off to his jaw. "We're playing again in two weeks at the livehouse. You going to stick around?"

"Yes." Ryou moved closer to him. He was shorter by half a head but they were both equally skinny. "Yes, of course."

Bakura's bandmates were grouped around their van, replacing equipment, waiting until it was their time to go up again. Yuugi looked ridiculous playing lead guitar but his fingers were fast and he was good. Yami was on keyboard and drums and wrote most of the music; unsurprisingly he got along better with Yuugi than with Bakura. Malik did vocals and part-timed as electric violinist, when they wanted to go Malice Mizer-style. Usually they were as metal as you could get, demonic as bats out of hell.

Bakura had met Ryou six weeks before school started, when he had been going twenty kilometers above the speed limit, run a stop sign, and then had almost hit what he thought was an old lady—from the white hair and all. On discovering that said pedestrian was not a hag but actually quite a pretty young man, Bakura had apologized profusely and then managed to scheme and wheedle until he had a phone number. From there they covered all the bases. And then school had started and so began the series of extremely creative meetings to escape the prying eyes of the school board, Jamfish included.

The grass was wet and Bakura sat with his bass in his lap, twanging absently at the strings. "I'm glad you came, sen—Ryou," he said, not looking up.

"O. . .oh," said Ryou uncertainly. "I had to come. I wanted to. I all but ran out of the staff meeting. I'm sorry I was late." The stage lights were being cooperative, and with his flushed face Ryou went from nineteen to sixteen.

"You look nice tonight," said Bakura awkwardly. He thought back to his first crush in third grade. Megumi-chan always wore pigtails. He remembered proposing to her with a packet of instant ramen instead of a ring, one knee in the playground mulch. He'd seen her the other day and had tossed a flier at her for the Jamfish show. Her hair was cut to her chin and her face was pinched. No more pigtails.

Then he remembered the other day after class had been let out, how he'd sat Ryou down on his desk and how he had gone on his knees but for an entirely different purpose. He thought about the other's reddened mortified face and his begging, gasping mouth and the way Ryou's knuckles had gone yellow-white against the wood of the desk. How the loose braid of hair had come loose and how strange it had looked, cascading down the back of the suit that only a professor wore.

"The music is very loud," said Ryou. He frowned and suddenly he was aging rapidly—sixteen to thirty.

Bakura frowned too. "Shuddup, old man," he said forcefully, slurring his words just-so. You always look so old. For a moment he loomed over Ryou's head and grabbed at the man's hands, and then they were kissing sloppily like teenagers.

:fin:

A/N: It didn't make much sense. It wasn't supposed to. And it was short. Um, review anyway, please? sweatdrop

Note: Desdemon is not "des demon." It's what Othello called Desdemona. Usually to fit the rhyme scheme. Or at least that is what I suspect. Sorry I missed your show, Amano-sempai.