Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Follow the Dragon ❯ Chapter Eight ( Chapter 8 )

“Follow the Dragon”

Written and edited by: JoeysGal and F_D_C2003

Rating: NC17

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Hentai/Romance/Shounen

Type: Continuation

Credits to: Various websites and books on China, Hong Kong and Japan.

 

DISCLAIMER: Anything you read about in this fic, I DO NOT OWN! I merely use real-life things to make the fic more realistic and believable. I also make no money off of writing this… imagine the possibilities if I was…

 

JoeysGal: HOWDY ALL!! I am back again with the next installment! I hope you will accept my apologies for the delay, but I won't bore you with my excuses this time!! Onto the reviewer reviews! ^_^

 

F_D_C2003: W00TW00T here I am! Here we are! That damned survey with 50 questions was annoying as Hell but I did it anyway! Lol. Seriously… you should send me more of those. Anyway… I hope you and your tribe are doing well… mine are doing OK… except for the constant sexing, mood-swings and randomness which is the norm around here… you already know that… xD

 

Etsuyo a.k.a Arisu: HEYA!! I'm so glad you got that job. I'm still eating lots. Haven't been able to go jogging because I've been sick. Found out I most likely do NOT have endometriosis… and… yeah. That's me updated in about two sentences XD Hope you enjoy this chapter! I am also anticipating the next one of yours!!

 

DragonLady222: Yo! Thanks for your comments! You're one of the most constant reviewers for this fic and I thank you for it! ^^

 

**

 

“Well… I don't know about you guys, but I'm still hungry!”

 

Everybody had seemed to have forgotten their stomachs as they watched Bakura disappear into the bustling throng of market-goers. They figured that the thief would get Otogi's wallet back, but under what circumstances was anyone's guess. Would he hold a knife to the man's throat? Challenge him to a duel? Send him to the Shadow Realm? Or merely just snatch it back? They would soon find out.

 

“Me too, Honda.” Anzu agreed. “Come on; Bakura can catch up to us.”

 

“I just can't believe someone would do that,” Otogi was clearly still quite pissed. “He's a hawker; they rip people off for a living! But to steal someone's wallet too?! That's just being greedy!”

 

“You get them everywhere,” Malik added casually. “They're a lot worse than this in the bazaars in Cairo. You get kids as young as 3 or 4 pick-pocketing.”

 

Ryou strolled up to walk next to the Egyptian boy. “Is it true that you get your hands cut off if you are caught stealing?”

 

“Uh… not so much, really. Those who follow the prophets of Allah might cut the hands off someone that steals.” Malik replied.

 

“It's a wonder that Bakura never got caught back in his day,” Ryou reflected. “He was no better than that hawker back there… except he didn't try to rip people off, he just took stuff.”

 

“He must be good with his hands, then,” Malik smiled, a little playfully. “Which means you must be too.”

 

Ryou looked stunned and slightly at a loss for words before turning an impressive shade of crimson. It wasn't the type of thing he expected Malik, of all people, to say to him. He laughed tentatively. “Um - I never - I don't think I could steal anything.”

 

Marik, who had been observing his hikari's obvious flirting, decided enough was enough. “Let's stop here; I'm done walking around this place!”

 

Malik raised a blond eyebrow. “What would you like, Ryou? My shout,”

 

On the other side of the marketplace, Jounouchi had finally found Kaiba - who was now rabid-fan-girl-free. It seemed the novelty of having a famous Japanese technology tycoon in a busy lunch-time district of Hong Kong, mingling with the commoners, had worn off. Either that, or nobody had any idea who the hell he was. Or didn't care.

 

“I think it is in our best interests, Jounouchi, to do everything together from now on.” Kaiba mentioned, looking at the menu of a small dumpling stall. “Yamanaga-sensei will have something planned for us due to the incident at the museum today, I have no doubt of that.”

 

“He's such an anal prick,” Jounouchi mumbled. “It wasn't my fault I got locked in the damn closet!”

 

“Actually, it was.” Kaiba corrected. “But it wasn't so much that; it was that you decided to run ahead without me, and according to Yamanaga, I should have stopped you. So now, we will both pay the consequences for your actions.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

Jounouchi was not looking forward to the rest of this trip. If this is how it began, what was the rest of it going to be like? He had already gotten Kaiba and himself in trouble; Otogi's wallet had been stolen, and Yuugi already had to make a claim on his travel insurance for something that wasn't even his fault. He hated to think of the disasters that were yet to come. The events of today would certainly make for a good first journal-entry.

 

“Here,”

 

A small plate of dumplings was promptly pushed into Jou's face. “Huh? What are these for?”

 

“It's on me. Now, let's go.”

 

That's peculiar, Jounouchi thought as he followed the slightly taller man through the crowd to find a seat. Why would be buy me lunch? He's been a total jerk to me the whole time, yet he pays for my lunch? Then he spotted Yamanaga-sensei from a distance, observing them. Jou assumed he was going to watch them like a hawk for the rest of the trip.

 

“Kaiba, you kiss-ass! You just bought me lunch because Yamanaga was watching us.”

 

“The less shit I have to put up from him the more I'm going to enjoy this trip.” Kaiba retorted. “Besides, I have enough to worry about with Kaiba Corp back at home. So, play nice, puppy.”

 

Jounouchi shoved a dumpling in his mouth. “I forgot what I was going to say, but screw you!” he muttered with his mouth full. “But these dumplings ain't so bad. What flavour did you get me?”

 

Kaiba smirked one of his infamously malevolent smirks. “Dog.”

 

Jou wretched a couple of times before proceeding to barf all over the pavement. He hacked and coughed and wheezed like a mad thing before finally regaining composure. After taking a long and satisfying drink from his water bottle to wash away the foul taste, he said, “You… bastard…! What the hell were you thinking?! They eat dog in this country?!”

 

“I thought it was quite fitting.”

 

“That was low, Kaiba, even for you.” Jou spat. “Where do you get off, doing shit like that to people?”

 

“Oh come on now, Jounouchi. It was just a bit of light-hearted fun.” Kaiba said sarcastically, scoffing his own, more normal-flavoured prawn dumplings.

 

Jou rolled his eyes. “You're sick.” That said, the blond stalked off back into the crowd, searching determinedly for any signs that may have Japanese writing on them. Any sort of food from his home country would be welcome after eating that.

 

Son of a bitch, Jou thought, stewing over Kaiba's little prank. Does he really hate me that much? Here I was thinking he was actually making an attempt at being nice by buying my lunch… How stupid was I? He must get kicks out of dominating other people… What a bastard he must be to work for; I feel sorry for his employees. Jounouchi decided that his friends would probably laugh and cry uncontrollably at him if he told them of this incident. Honda especially would not let him hear the end of it. I've got to think of a way to get my revenge…There's no way Kaiba is getting away with this!

 

**

 

In the little time that Bakura had to study the man who had stolen Otogi's wallet, he had still been able to pick up a few vital points that would lead to his whereabouts. He was short for a man - about five-foot-six - and overweight. He smelt of cigarette smoke; an unsightly growth adorned his left eyelid and he was clad in seemingly normal attire - a pair of blue jeans and a beige-coloured polo shirt.

 

Otogi, in Bakura's mind, was of little significance to him - but he was a friend of Ryou's, and that was enough. Bakura thought of his hikari just then, and what might have happened had it been his wallet that was taken instead of Otogi's. Bloody hawker will wish he'd never been born.

 

Up ahead, the brown-eyed thief spotted a group of Caucasian people that stood out from the rest of the lunchtime crowd - obviously tourists. They looked to be American or some other western culture; their voices could also be heard a mile away. From what he could hear, Bakura knew they were speaking English. In amongst the group was the man Bakura was searching for - the unmistakable tumor-like thing protruding grotesquely from his eyelid. He was once again trying to bargain with a woman who looked like she couldn't decide what she wanted.

 

Bakura slid behind a fruit stall and spied around the corner of it. From his vantage point he could see the man take out a slim black leather wallet with a designer label imprinted on it. Immediately he recognised it as being Otogi's. He was stunned to see the man hand it over to the woman for inspection, as if she might buy it.

 

That sly little clot, Bakura thought. He steals people's goods and then sells them on in the same place? What an amateur…Suppose I'd better get it back before it's gone for good.

 

Bakura quite aptly strolled up to the group and stood for a few seconds with his hands in his pockets, watching. The tourists were too flustered in trying to choose what to buy to even notice him.

 

“Excuse me, madam,” Bakura said, snatching Otogi's wallet out of her hands. “but this wallet is not yours to take, I'm afraid. You see, it is mine, and this man here stole it from me. I am but stealing it back from him.”

 

“Hey!” the chubby man cried. “Give that back to her! My item! She will buy!”

 

“I don't think so,” Bakura said. Then, addressing the group, said, “This man steals people's goods and then tries to sell them on to others. He's trading unlawfully as a hawker and, might I add, the items in his bag of goodies are all fakes. Except for this one, of course - being that it is mine and cost three-hundred pounds from Harrods* in London.” Bakura proved this by flipping the wallet open to reveal several credit cards and other such items that the hawker hadn't bothered to take out before selling it on.

 

“Well I never,” one woman gasped in a thick, southern-drawl of an accent.

 

“Shame on you, mister!” another exclaimed. “Come on people; let's take our money elsewhere.”

 

With that said, the group high-tailed it out of the marketplace. Bakura looked down at the short, cantankerous man. He started shouting all sorts of obscene profanity in Mandarin in which Bakura didn't understand anyway.

 

Bakura took two cigarettes from his back pocket and shoved one in the man's mouth to shut him up. “Let me give you some advice, mate. Firstly, if you're going to curse at me, do it in English, at least that way I can understand you. Secondly, if you're going to steal and rip people off… do it properly.”

 

The man looked at him, puzzled, then once again began ranting and raving in Mandarin. Obviously he was a mainlander as he appeared to be fluent in the language - otherwise, Bakura fathomed, he would be nutting off in Cantonese. He soon calmed down and started sucking on his cigarette.

 

“Why you take? That my business! You no can do that!” he said.

 

“If you were half as good as you think you are in this…” Bakura struggled to think of an appropriate word, “…`business'… then you would be a lot better-off, and not being able to sell one measly wallet wouldn't matter to you, because you'd already have enough money to provide for your family for the rest of the week anyway.” The fiend replied. “So what's the big deal?”

 

The man looked like he understood, but didn't quite fully get the gist of what Bakura meant. “My children not eat tonight thanks to you! I know this job not good, but I have no other choice!”

 

“Do you think I give a rats?” Bakura muttered. “To sell fake things off as genuine is one thing, but to steal real genuine things and then sell them off is another.”

 

“Let me do my business, and I let you do yours.” With that said, the man threw his cigarette butt at Bakura's feet and promptly left, merging back into the crowd.

 

Idiot mortal, Bakura thought, sending the man to the Shadow Realm at once, scarcely batting an eyelash. The man collapsed to the ground in the middle of the marketplace; several people from nearby market stalls rushed to help him. Some just can't be saved, I'm afraid.

 

Bakura turned the soft black Giorgio Armani wallet over in his hands and flipped it open. A corner of what looked like a photo was poking out from one of the slots behind the many other credit cards, phone cards and such, so Bakura pulled it out. It was a photo of Otogi and Honda with an arm over each other's shoulders, seemingly in an embrace that one would think to be a little more than just `friendly'. Huh, well, no prizes for guessing who Dice Boy is in love with… Bakura replaced the photo and shoved the wallet into his jeans pocket, making his way back to find Ryou and the others.

 

**

 

Steam rose in huge billows from the pavement as a light rain began to fall from the sky. Jounouchi was glad for it; the humidity made him feel like he hadn't one drop of sweat left in his body to extract in order to try and cool himself. Jou was pleased to find a yakitori stand and ordered a couple of skewers of chicken marinated in teriyaki. He wasn't entirely sure he trusted the Cantonese cuisine anymore, not after the `dog' incident with Kaiba. Hell, he wasn't even sure he could trust Kaiba buying him anything now.

 

That's it, from now on, I'll buy my own stuff! Jounouchi decided. I'll have to ration my spending money, that's all. I hope this trip is going to be worth selling off Jinzo for…

 

“Hey, Jounou,” Honda strode casually up to him, once again with Anzu at his side. “Otogi got his wallet back; I think Bakura Mind-Crushed him or something!”

 

“Honda, only Yami can Mind-Crush people,” Anzu retorted, extracting a fact from her mental encyclopedia about Yuugi's alter-ego, being the know-it-all that she hoped she was. “Bakura would have just sent the guy to the Shadow Realm - not nearly as impressive.”

 

Jou paid for his yakitori and tucked in feverishly. “That's great you guys.” He said, clearly more interested in eating than hearing of Bakura saving the day.

 

“We should probably head back to the coach now,” Anzu mentioned. “We're supposed to be at Ocean Park at two o'clock.”

 

“And you know this how?” Jou asked.

 

“Yeah! How do you seem to know everything all the time?” Honda sided with Jou.

 

“Like, duh! It's all in our itinerary,” Anzu exclaimed, unable to comprehend how Jou and Honda never seemed to know what they was doing or where they were going at any given time on any given day. “Geeze, get with the times, you guys.”

 

Before long, the students of Domino High had reached their third and final destination of their first tour of Hong Kong. Tomorrow would also undoubtedly be jam-packed full of other sight-seeing activities as well, followed by a train-ride to Guangzhou in mainland China in the evening. Jounouchi couldn't wait to get into more temperate climates; being this close to the equator in such hot, humid conditions seemed unnatural to him. He couldn't comprehend how people actually lived in this weather year-round. He was actually looking forward to hitting the powder when he got home and improve his snowboarding skill.

 

“Alright, we're here! I can't wait to see the pandas!” Anzu exclaimed joyfully as she leapt off of the coach.

 

“This place must be huge! Look at that rollercoaster!” Honda pointed in the distance.

 

“It is huge, Honda-san.” Yamanaga-sensei butted in. “But we'll be taking a guided tour of the place so nobody can get lost. We don't need anymore episodes like that today…do we Jounouchi-san?”

 

Jou grinned sheepishly. “No, sensei…”

 

Kaiba barely refrained from rolling his eyes.

 

“First we'll be taking a guided tour through Marine Land, then the Lowland Gardens and finally you can choose one of the rides to go on. Our tour-guide is waiting, so let's go!” After paying their entry fee, Matsuri-sensei piloted the group once again through the entrance of the gigantic complex where another group of people and the guide were waiting.

 

“Welcome to Ocean Park, everyone! My name's Alex and I'll be your guide for the day…”

 

Unfortunately, the guide was a French-Canadian who only spoke, well, French and English. Nevertheless, once the tour got underway, nobody seemed to mind the fact that they couldn't understand a word that Alex was saying. Except for Kaiba. Who did. Naturally.

 

“Oh, Yuugi, isn't this cool?!” Ryou gasped as they walked into `Sea Jelly Spectacular', an all-new jellyfish exhibit. “They don't have anything like this at home…”

 

“Hey Marik, this jellyfish looks like your hair!” Bakura shrieked, pointing to a riotous looking jellyfish with huge spike-type legs.

 

“Oh yeah? Well this thing right here looks like your face!” Marik countered, pointing to a hideous, scum-sucking sea-cucumber squirming across the bottom of one of the tanks.

 

Bakura went beet, having nothing to say after that.

 

“Ooooh, burned!” Malik laughed. “High-five, yami!”

 

“Great success!” Marik replied in an over-exaggerated middle-eastern accent.

 

“You've really got to stop imitating Borat*, yami,” Malik pointed out. “Even though you're good at it.”

 

“Let's just hope he doesn't start streaking through hotel conference rooms on a regular basis…” Bakura muttered, remembering watching the absurd film with the Ishtars and his hikari.

 

“Now that would be a sight to behold,” Otogi added, imagining the senselessness of it all.

 

“You really think so?” Marik replied, encouraged.

 

“What I meant was… It'd just be too preposterous.”

 

With his ego never deflated, Marik replied, “Nah, people in the conference room wouldn't' be jumping on me to get me out of there - they would all be trying to have sexy time with me instead!”

 

Malik cracked up. “High-five!”

 

Bakura shook his head. “Idiots.”

 

**

 

While Alex mindlessly rabbited on in English about the wonders of Ocean Park - as he had done a thousand times over - Kaiba, being the one person who could actually understand him, found it to be one of the single most monotonous things he had ever had to endure. In retrospect, this would really be quite funny - ironic, even - to the average person. Not Kaiba, though. He couldn't think of a more boring way to spend an afternoon in one of the most amazing, cosmopolitan tourism centres that Asia had on offer. I mean, who really cared about animals anyway, besides those tree-hugging activists trying to save the rainforest? And those crazed celebrities who would rather “go naked than wear fur”, shamelessly proving this to the world by streaking across the catwalks of Milan and down public streets of London, attracting paparazzi like bees to a honey pot.

 

Kaiba reminded himself that Mokuba was an avid animal-lover, having two turtles, three dogs, a cat and a dwarf rabbit in his keep. Kaiba, on the other hand, had a giant tropical aquarium in his office in which his architect had recommended because it was supposed to relax you in times of great stress. Right. Like Kaiba was going to sit at his desk and stare at fish all day. Frankly, Kaiba wasn't even sure who fed the damned things. Wasn't watering pot plants a lot easier? It did make for a nice feature, however. He had to agree on that, due to the amount of compliments it obtained from annoying overseas clients who hadn't quite seen anything like it before.

 

After touring the jellyfish enclosure, taking a stroll down the “Pacific Pier” - an outdoor boardwalk involving the sight-seeing of sea lions, the students soon came to what was known as the Shark Aquarium* - a giant, under-water tunnel in which tourists could walk through to view the sharks and other marine life above. It was rather dark inside, but light enough to be able to see the magnificent creatures gliding around like they were involved in some form of unrehearsed ballet.

 

“Now people, as you can see it's rather dark in here - that's because the animals you can see above us are used to the deep, dark depths of the ocean. There are seventy sharks in this enclosure and they get fed once a day. They are due to be fed today in about five minutes,”

 

“This is kind of creepy,” Ryou observed, gooseflesh rising on his arms. There was a noticeable drop in temperature as they walked further through the oceanic aquarium.

 

Malik strode up next to him. “I think it's kind of… nice.”

 

All at once, tiny white lights began to glow on the floor and around the low-standing walls where the glass of the tunnel adjacently to it. Almost everybody stared in wonder at the many different types of sharks, rays and other aquatic life, when suddenly a Giant Manta Ray swam overhead, shrouding all light from the enclosure with her four-metre wingspan as she made her grand appearance.

 

Ryou thought this was the single most awesome natural thing he had ever seen in his life. “Wow…” he breathed.

 

Malik stood closely next to him, his hand brushing momentarily over Ryou's. He turned and smiled at the English boy, who at the present moment was feeling tingly and awestruck and excited and oddly overwhelmed with emotion. He wasn't quite sure why, but Ryou felt strangely attracted to Malik just then, standing under the aquarium with tiny lights all-round, calmly looking into each other's eyes. There was a sort of humbleness about the moment he couldn't quite describe. It was all over in a matter of seconds.

 

//What was that?//

 

Ryou jerked back to reality as Bakura made his presence known. /Um…I don't… quite…know./

 

Son of a bitch, Bakura thought, that little love-rat Malik is after my hikari. MY hikari.

 

Alex started nutting off in English about how marvelous and wonderful their only Manta ray was, and how they planned to breed from her in captivity. “Ooh, and look, here come the shark-feeders! You are in for a fantastic sight here, folks! One of them has come all the way from Japan with a degree in Marine Biology to work here…”

 

“Wasn't that awesome?” Malik said after a short time. “I've never seen anything that big before…”

 

“Me either,” Ryou said, gazing down at the tiny little twinkling lights. Why did I just feel like that when you came and stood beside me? When you looked at me? Why did I feel so out of breath? Why won't my heart stop beating so fast?

 

Jounouchi, who was hovering in the midst of the group with Yuugi, watched the shark-feeders curiously. “Hey, Yuug'?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Doesn't that guy look kind of familiar? The one feeding that big sucker on the right there,” he pointed. Yuugi's violet eyes followed the direction.

 

“You're right, Jou… Is that…?”

 

Jounouchi nearly jumped back in fright as he recognised the man whom he had dueled on a series of occasions. “It's Mako Tsunami!”

 

**

 

*= Harrods: This is one of the most famous and amazing department stores in the world… you can probably buy ANYTHING from this shop!

 

*= If you don't know who Borat is… you need to get out more.

 

*= “Shark Aquarium”. This is literally what they call it at Ocean Park. Original isn't it?

 

JoeysGal: That about sums it up for this chapter! See ya next time peoples!! ^_^