Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Reawakening The Ghost ❯ Information High ( Chapter 1 )

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Reawakening The Ghost

by Igatona

Chapter 1 : Information High

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"In so many ways is the past a hindrance. In so many ways is curiosity our worse enemy."

Anzu then closed the book she was reading, turning to Honda, her report partner. Honda was puzzled by the whole "In so many ways is the past a hindrance. In so many ways is curiosity our worse enemy." sentence and his facial expression, which crossed the barely human limit, definitely showed this confusion to Anzu, who had been trying to explain the whole idea behind the report to her clueless partner for the past fifteen minutes.

"Honda! I keep telling you. The guy in the book says this because he's in a pickle and he's trying to know about something he shouldn't!"

Still, Honda didn't get it.

"Please, tell me why I took you as my partner..."

"Because our class doesn't allow the two brainiacs to team up together, so, instead, you're stuck with me! Pity huh?"

"Oh yeah, now I remember."

"Hold on a sec, I have to go to the bathroom."

And indeed he did, storming out of his room, making a mad dash to see the porcelain god. While he was busy with his business, Anzu decided to snoop around. Ruffling the already ruffled dirty clothes of Honda, she stumbled onto a curious red jacket.

"Hey, it's Honda's red jacket, I wonder why he stopped wearing it." she thought.

She continued to snoop around, removing the jacket to stumble onto the find of the century. Clean clothes. Amongst these were : a red shirt, some red pants, a pair of red boots, and even red gloves.

"I didn't know Honda had an obsession with the red color."

She thought about it for a while. Then, it hit her like a sack of bricks. There was one single possible conclusion, and as Honda was about to open the door, she turned around, her mighty finger of accusation pointing at Honda while yelling out for everyone to hear : "You were the Red Avenger, weren't you!?"

This surprise greeting sent Honda right on his butt, as Anzu, when she wanted to, could yell obscenely loud. He, of course, had forgotten all about it, mostly because he barely managed to get over it. However, Anzu's incessant finger pointing had woken up something he'd rather have continued to ignore for the rest of his life.

"Anzu, why are you saying something like this...hehe?"

The sheepish grin on Honda's face made sure to prove that he was indeed the culprit. Well, that and the everything red clothing he had neatly stashed away instead of just spreading it around like he would usually do. Honda got back up to face Anzu.

"Honda, why?"

Honda thought about his answer, and could only come up with something stupid.

"As if someone like you would understand."

Anzu felt insulted at this, and slapped Honda hard on his right cheek.

"You dummy! How do you know if I'll understand or not!? Even then, does that really mean anything? Why did you hide this from us?"

"Jou knows."

"Oh, so Jou knows you killed his father."

"Jou was there, he saw it with his own two eyes. Hell, it was originally his plan from the start."

"Whaaat!?"

Thus, Honda explained the playful chat they had when Jou had slept over, the current dam in Anzu's head had been broken, and now, loads of new concepts and ideas, like Honda being a wanted murderer and Jou being an abused child, were currently flooding her head. She obviously didn't know how to react to this.

"Wait, next you'll tell me that Sugoroku is molesting Yugi, right? And that Otogi's father practices mutilation on his son. And that the Kaiba brothers are lovers!?"

Honda slapped his forehead.

"You're pathetic, Anzu."

"But how was I supposed to react!? I've just learned that two of my best friends hid stuff from me, and serious things too!"

"Hey, you hide things from us too!"

"Oh yeah? Like what!?"

"That you've been stuffing your bra ever since Mai considers us friends in order to match her bust size!"

Anzu was evidently shocked by the bullseye Honda had scored, and appalled by the pervert comment of her friend.

"You brainless twit! I do not stuff my bra!"

And she slapped him, again. However, Honda, instead of coming back towards her, laughing, seemed to be not that happy after all. Anzu moved forward a bit, looking to see if she had really hurt Honda. The good news is that he wasn't hurt. The bad ones was that he was frowning.

"Honda, what's wrong?"

"While you were yelling and slapping me, I was thinking about things I don't want to talk about."

"Aw, come on, Honda, now that both our secrets are out in the open, we can talk freely, right?"

"Do you think stuffing your bra is as important as the life of a person?"

"That's not what I meant."

"I hope not."

"But Honda, what's wrong? I've never seen you this serious before."

What to answer, Honda thought. Even though he had forgotten the incident for a while, it still lingered in his mind like the last stain that doesn't want to go away. The one that grows more and more, parasiting off your anxiety and worries until you can't think of anything else. Fortunately, Honda had loads to think of. His friends, for one. His motorcycle, for another. Right now though, Anzu's curious nature had made the stain bigger than what Honda could handle.

"Anzu...you're making me uncomfortable."

"You need to talk to someone, Honda. I'm sure that something evil's eating you inside."

"Oh, you have no idea. The thing is, I don't want to talk to you. Not that you're not a good friend, but I'd rather talk with someone who knows me better."

Anzu sighed, and conceded for today.

"I'll go call Jou..."

* * *

"Haven't you guys noticed that Honda and Jounouchi are together more often nowadays?"

This small talk comment came from Otogi, who tends to notice little things that others have noticed a long time ago and have completely forgotten.

"Of course, they're best friends! Like the Lava and Swamp Battleguards." said Yugi, smiling, making the ever-so-often connection to Duel Monsters.

"I mean, more often than usual, and I don't think I'm the only one that noticed this. Right, Anzu?"

Anzu, seemingly in a daze, suddenly woke up, agreeing with Otogi.

"Oh yeah."

"Anzu, you seem distant..." the one known as "the other Yugi" amongst his circle of friends, had unparallelled flair to appear at the strangest times, except in duels, where he was almost expected.

"Well, I was thinking about this conversation I had with Honda when we were doing the english assignment. I...kinda discovered something about him and that made him get the blues."

"Oh, what was it? His porn stash?"

Anzu slapped Otogi behind the head, insulted.

"No!"

Otogi fell silent.

"Can you tell us what it was, Anzu?" Again, "the other Yugi" went forward with an interrogation.

"I don't know if Honda would want me to tell you guys."

Respecting Honda's privacy, they did not intrude further. However, Anzu had succeeded in putting worry into Bakura, Otogi, Yugi and Yugi-2 (as she called them sometimes).

* * *

At an ice cream parlor were sitting Jounouchi, hot-head extraordinaire, and Honda, the human rapier. Honda had his feet on the table while delecting himself in the pleasure that was a chocolate ice cream cone, eyes closed to fully savor the flavor, innocently licking it while Jounouchi was looking at him with interest.

Honda opened his eyes, glaring onto Jounouchi who seemed a little bit too close for comfort.

"Aah! Jou, man, don't get so close to me!"

"Sorry, just noticed something on ya."

"What now...?"

"When you lick your ice cream, you look like you were licking a...ya know..."

Honda thought about it, and almost threw his ice cream cone at Jou.

"Shut up!"

Jou laughed at Honda's stereotypical reaction.

"Man, you so totally walked into that one."

"Well, you're gonna walk into my fist once I finish this chocolate ice cream."

Honda finally ate the cone, which reinforced Jounouchi's comment on Honda not being so straight, and Honda didn't seem to move.

"Weren't you supposed to punch me?"

"I'm far too lazy to waste energy in punching you. Maybe if it was Kaiba, I'd be more enclined."

"Wait, YOU would punch Kaiba?"

"I don't see why not, the guy's a prick."

Both of them laughed half-heartedly, Kaiba jokes had taken a downfall ever since Kaiba had been treating Jou less as a dog, and something a bit higher on the food chain, like a wild dog, closer to a wolf. Especially since Kaiba had lost to Jou in a local tournament he held. No one saw Kaiba for weeks after that.

"About what Anzu called me about, are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Positive, I'm sure it'll go away on its own. I mean, it's not like Anzu told the others, right?"

Jou nodded, agreeing with Honda, although in his mind, he knew that this wouldn't last.

* * *

"Guys, Honda was the Red Avenger!"

There she went, blowing Honda's big secret. Yugi, alongside Otogi and Bakura, were about as shocked as someone who went through 200 volts of pure electricity, gasping, saying they'd have never guessed, and pretty much acting cluelessly about things.

Otogi maybe less, but it doesn't change the fact that he was still surprised.

"So that's what's been eating him..." said Yugi, who now proposed he should be the leader of the "Coalition against Honda beating himself over the head because of something that happened sometime ago."

Silence fell. Then someone put it back on the shelf. That someone was Bakura.

"Didn't you say you didn't know if Honda wanted you to tell us?"

"Well, yeah...but come on! Honda needs our help!"

"I agree!"

So they all went in Honda's general direction. After interrogating Anzu on the whereabouts of her english report partner, she said he and Jou were meeting up at the ice cream parlor.

* * *

The two of them were still there when Anzu and the rest finally made it there. Although both of them had finished their respective ice cream, they didn't think it was entierly necessary for them to go elsewhere, which was why Anzu and the rest caught up to them.

Yugi called out to Honda, and both Jou and Honda wondered why that was.

"Honda! It's not healthy to dwell on the past."

Both of them looked at each other, and muttered curse words about Anzu. Too bad they couldn't just feign ignorance right now. So they did the next best thing - run away. With Yugi in hot pursuit, Otogi who really could care less so he stepped out of their way, Bakura not being the most athletic of fellows and Anzu who felt extremely guilty about revealing Honda's secret, they were easily able to get to Honda's motorbike and escape. Yugi tried to run after them, but couldn't rival with two dummies riding the equivalent to 150 horses.

"Rats! We lost them!"

To that, Bakura and Anzu glared at Yugi.

"Maybe if you didn't shout at them, they wouldn't have ran away!" yelled out Anzu, obviously pissed.

"Sorry, but I really want Honda to get over this..." answered Yugi.

They sat down, wondering what they would do. Otogi, who had disappeared for a while, returned with a strawberry ice cream cone. Everyone glared at him, he could only shrug, glare back, and let loose a "What!?" of epidcal misunderstanding proportions.

* * *

"I think we lost them."

"Maybe so, but we can't stop in the middle of the highway."

"Oh yeah...I was wondering why you were driving so fast. Now I know, hehe."

The sound of the motorcycle zooming through cars ran into their heads until Jou replaced it with a thought.

"Hey, Honda! Where are we going?"

Honda didn't know, and he told Jou such.

"How about you go to my pad? It's getting lonely to sleep in the apartment, and you could sleep over, it's not like I have to ask my folks for that now..."

Honda felt a bit guilty, and almost wanted to stop the bike right now, remembering that he would get squashed by an oncoming 18-wheeler, he pressed on, not talking.

"So, is it okay or not?"

Honda was torn between two things. One wanted to comfort his friend Jou, the other didn't want to set foot in that apartment ever again. Just the thought of witnessing the scene of the crime brought memories of the distorted body that was Jou's dead father. However, an unknown characteristic had made the balance shift in favor of going to Jou's place. Honda didn't know why, but he felt attracted to it.

"Besides, I have to face my fears one day..." Honda thought. "Sure, next exit on the right, right?"

"As always."

Going off the highway, he drove off perfectly towards Jou's house, he then finally noticed that whenever he gave a lift to Jou, Jou's arms were around his waist.

"Funny, the things you notice at the strangest times." Honda thought.

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Author's note : This might seem like a bad place to cut off the fanfic, but I did need to cut off somewhere, and I wanted part 2 to be something else entierly, so...Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and look out for part 2.