Note: This is my first attempt at any kind of serious fanfiction, as you may have noticed- the rest are ridiculous, and filled with insanity. But, moving on. I don't own the characters featured in this story. But the idea applied to Jonouchi and the talent of empathy is owned by me. And I wrote the two different descriptions of empathy. Jonouchi's sound kinda weird to me, but hey, I don't understand my mind.

This idea was drawn from the self-dissection I've been going through the last few weeks.

And, finally, to the point- no, I haven't forgotten about Corporate Troubles or Don't Touch Me, thank you. I'm just insanely lazy. Don't like it? Bite me. You don't write them, honeys. I get enough trouble from my psycho fangirls here, thanks. But I love you anyway.

...Please don't hurt me. :3

And I don't own the Twilight Zone. But I wish I did.

A Different Kind Of Genius

Kawaii Chibi Kitty Angel

Chapter One

Jonouchi Katsuya slouched in his seat, head rested on one hand, tapping short, bitten fingernails against the re-pulped, graffitied wood of his desk rhythmically. His soft, wide brown eyes appeared closed, but in the true reality, Jonouchi was looking discreetly sideways from under thick brown lashes, watching a frenzied, panicky girl across the room.

She was one of Otogi's cheerleaders, he knew- she was usually primped and manicured to perfection, but today she was flyaway, and despite her almost-convincing expression and only slightly-off makeup job, he could tell she was on the verge of a break-down.

He watched her fidget, chewing her pencil, messing with her long black hair, and keeping her blank expression carefully under check. One hand was crossed over her stomach protectively, but she started violently when the boy behind her tapped her on the shoulder. Her books were closed, which he knew was unusual for her. He'd been watching the people in this class quietly since the beginning of the year.

'Not another one, Otogi,' He thought resignedly. 'That's three in the last two months. And this one was bright, too.'

He cast his eyes back down again, tracing the all-too-familiar lines of the scrapes and scratches on his desk once more. He knew that none of them knew he paid attention to anything more than a girl's arse. He didn't particularly care, either. 'And not just girls'...' He thought discreetly, and forced back a small smile.

"Jonouchi-san!" Taobasa-sensei barked. Jonouchi jumped, eyes flashing up to his teacher's own blue ones with a sharp, glittering ferocity. Catching himself, he blinked sleepily to cover his mishap.

"Nyeh?" He mumbled inarticulately, both hating himself for it and loving the reaction of the people around him. To be clear, Jonouchi loved people. He loved the things they did, loved to know why they did them. They fascinated him.

Taobasa's face suffused with blood, and he bared his teeth in a smile- 'Like a dog,' Jonouchi thought in fascination. "Jonouchi-san. Since you seem to be so in tune with our current lesson, perhaps you could name for me a non-academic proficiency available in some students?" He sneered. Jonouchi studied him. He was in his older thirties- the blonde knew he picked on his students because he had become emotionally unstable with his own image as the grey grew steadily from his temples. He had watched it happen over the last few years.

Back and over to his right, Jonouchi heard the trademark snap of Kaiba Seto's laptop as he snapped it shut and straightened up to watch the humiliation of his single unconquerable classmate. A wave of belligerence built up in his gut as the image of the smirk he was undoubtably wearing popped into his head. He'd seen that smirk too many times.

"Empathic, sensei," He said clearly as Taobasa began to turn away. The older man froze, and turned back to look incredulously at him.

"You don't even know what that means, gaki," He said, snorting. "You just pulled one from the textbook." He wrinkled his nose unflatteringly, and smirked, showing about an two centimetres of pink gums on the left side, above smoke-yellowed teeth. Jonouchi stirred, and sat up.

"Empathy is the ability to tune in to other people's emotions by a natural introversial curiousity, Taobasa-sensei," He began, painfully aware of the stares of those around him. 'This is ruining my image...' he thought nervously, but found himself unable to stop. "An empathic person will, more often then not, be subject to less academic prowess than other students, and more likely to have break-downs or mental instability due to the fact that their peers are more likely to pile problems onto them because they always seem to understand," He finished, and then snapped his mouth closed, sinking down in his seat. Taobasa stared at him, gray hair and all. So did the pregnant black-haired cheerleader, temporarily forgetting her own problems. So did the rest of the class.

Taobasa shook himself. "As admirable as it is that you memorized the definition in the textbook," He snapped, "I'm afraid cheeky plagiarism is unwelcome in my classroom, Jonouchi-san. Go wait in the hall, and I'd like you to remain behind for lunch. Class, turn your books to page three-hundred-fifty-four."

Kaiba Seto watched Jonouchi vacate the room with outward passiveness, but immediately looked down and flicked open his book as soon as his passed the doorjamb. ' 'Empathy-' ' he read silently to himself, ' '-the ability to use creative social curiousity to read the emotions of others using a complex natural instinct for reading faces, gestures, postures, etc. Often associated with natural actors, and considered one of the less common talents. Useful in fields such as psychology, sociology and anthropology. Not often found in more than a small degree.' .' He sat, momentarily dumb-founded. 'There is no possible, not even a slight glimmer of a chance that the make-inu could've thought of that on his own... it simply isn't... possible!'

It was moments like this that truly startled Kaiba Seto- moments where vocabulary failed him, and science appeared to have temporarily short-circuited in order to make way for something that may as well be out of the Twilight Zone. Jonouchi didn't do smart.

Slowly, he drew up and leaned back in his chair, bright blue eyes slightly hazy with deep thought. 'But... '...often associated with natural actors...' ...I wonder.' He shifted, impatiently, wanting- needing- to be gone, to know. When it came to curiousity, Kaiba Seto was... 'persistant'.

In layman's terms, he was as bloody stubborn as an ox, and twice as pugnacious. Kaiba wanted to know.

Kaiba would know.

- - - - -

Jonouchi sat quietly in his desk in the silent classroom, listening to the harsh crack of a piece of apple tearing under his teeth, and writing repetitively on a sheet of paper, 'I will not plagiarize, I will not pretend to know something I don't.'. His hand scrawled the words listlessly, barely controlled as the blonde retreated into his imagination, silently dreaming about people that didn't exist anywhere but in his head.

He snapped out from the middle of a sharp mental battle of wits between the antagonist- who, suspiciously enough, had began developing brown hair and blue eyes as he was characterized in his mind- and the protagonist, a tall, lean blonde warrior, as the antagonist of his conscious life sat down backwards in the seat in front of him, both legs primly to one side, looking to Jonouchi like nothing less than the Kami's own worst enemy. "Nani?" He asked shortly, blood boiling unhappily as he didn't bother to look up from his work and face him head-on.

The blue-eyed classmate pulled away the lines- 'I will not plagiarize, I will not pretend to know something I don't. I will not plagiarize, I will not pretend to know something I do-'- and folded long arms over them in grim finality, staring at Jonouchi's still down-turned skull intently. "I have questions," He said bluntly.

The blonde raised his head slowly and met his eye with an unnervingly steady chocolate gaze. When he did open his mouth to respond, Kaiba barely registered the words until a moment later.

"Bite me, bakayarou." With that, he dropped his eyes and looked over sideways at the window broodily. Kaiba resisted the temptation to comply with little ease, furious.

He glared at the boy's blonde, tousled head. "You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" He jeered, leaning back off the papers and folding his arms. Jonouchi smiled, and flicked his eyes back to the brunette, head still slightly down, and slightly turned.

"I wouldn't, but you would," He quipped softly, and grinned impishly. The brunette blinked, startled at the lack of vehemence and total conviction of the statement.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" He yowled, mentally convincing himself hat it wasn't yowling, it was a forceful growl.

Jonouchi's grin grew a little wider, and he snorted without answering. Kaiba glared and leaned forward, nostrils flaring slightly with anger. Finally, incredulous, Jonouchi leaned back in his seat and met his classmate brown-eye to blue. "It means," He said slowly, and clearly, as though he were talking to a child, "that you are entirely too obvious."

For a moment, Kaiba gawked. Then, without thinking for the first time in about eight years, with disastrous effect, he blurted out incredulously, "Am I really?"

Jonouchi began to laugh uncontrollably.

- - - - -