A/N: I was writing a Kaiba/Jou fic, and my little sister looked over my shoulder and freaked out. So I told her, "It's not THAT unlikely- I mean, I could be pairing up Kaiba and Honda or something really weird like that!" And cue yet another reason why I should never ever EVER say things like that and expect to get away without having to write yet another one-shot.

Shounen ai. Pairing: Kaiba x Honda. ^_^;; Try not to kill me, eh?

Kaiba's POV.





"Learning About You"





You always seemed to be a rather distant person, and that annoyed me. The others- I could see them, could understand them easily enough. Though you did speak to me on occasion (typically in anger), you were usually strangely apathetic about it. Yes, you were angry at my actions or the situation, but never really at me specifically.

Yuugi's other half was willing to kill me over a card game. Jounouchi- hell, he downright hates my guts. Why can't you? I never did anything that would have redeemed me in anyone's eyes. I certainly never did anything around you and your friends that wasn't intended to alienate someone.

"Ask yourself why you never trusted us," you once said to me, and it was such a strange expression in your eyes, such a peculiar tone in your voice.

For the life of me, I don't know.

I never trusted anyone. Mokuba, maybe, but only because I'd practically raised him myself. I still don't understand how he became such a better person than I am, but I'm so damn glad that he did.

I wonder; are you an only child? I don't know. I don't know very much about you at all, really. I know lots of things about Yuugi and his other half and Bakura and HIS other half and even a few about Anzu and the puppy, but not you. Never you.

The others' lives, mine included, have been dragged out and examined without mercy, but yours always seemed to just barely avoid it. Whenever anything that might've hinted at your family or your past popped up, you always managed to vanish.

So maybe I should ask you why you can't trust anyone at all. I, at least, have one person I feel I can believe in no matter what. You say you do, but do they really know you? I don't think they do, or at least not so much as they and you would all like to think.

I watch you sometimes, out of the corner of my eye. You have all these funny little habits, and it's odd, but I'm starting to recognize them and, odder still, when you'll fall into them. But I like that. It makes me happy to think I that know you. So few people know you well, and I don't think anyone knows what drives you.

Is that why am I in love with you- because I want to know you? Wouldn't it have made more sense to fall for Yuugi, or maybe even the puppy? They are my rivals; they drive me to fight, to fury like no one else can or probably ever will again, barring further troubles with the Millennium Items. But instead, it's you- the one who half the time seems no more than a shadow: a cling-on leech to the others who so rarely has anything new to add.

No, that's wrong. If you don't leap out and say it straight off, that doesn't mean you haven't understood it. And you're brave; I've seen that. It's just too easy to see your edges blurring into Jounouchi, or to expect you to always be with Anzu and Bakura on the sidelines.

I would like to see if you can duel. And if you can't, well . . . I'd like to teach you.

You calm me, I think. That's a strangely precious feeling. Not many people can do that. True, not many people can anger me either. Not many people can drive me straight to insanity and back again, or infuriate me so greatly that my very SOUL aches with it . . . but only you and Mokuba can calm me. Surely that means something. Surely that must mean that I love you.

Of course it does.

Because if it doesn't, I'm afraid to think of what it would really mean.

Somehow, though, I think it does, and I wonder, just a bit . . . what would it be like to kiss you? I think that's one thing I'd really love to know, more than any other.

Yes . . . I really want to learn the taste of you.





* ende "learning about you" *





. : review the precious little secret : .