christinabakura: Protectshipping, please? :D
Aww yiss I ship the shit out of this, omg, let me tell you. Ahh. <3 <3 <3
Honda had a weakness for ponytails.
Ribbon-chan had been proof enough of that. In point of fact, Jyounouchi still teased him about her sometimes. Shizuka had been his big exception, but the blonde did have pictures of his sister with her hair in pigtails. Otogi’s flawless hairstyle hadn’t helped, either; Honda had seen him briefly and solidified Jyounouchi’s assumption that it was a full-on fetish, not just a run of the mill point of attraction.
In light of this, Honda thought, Ryou Bakura had to know what he was doing. The white-haired youth was a space case, sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid by any means, and Jyounouchi harped on him over his taste often enough that there was no possible way Ryou was in the dark.
So when the boy arrived at his house to work on a group project for Sakamoto-sensei’s class, with his hair tied up and back, Honda was almost immediately on edge.
“Bakura, you’re early,” he said, eyes flitting up to the back of Ryou’s head as he slipped inside. He was wearing shorts for quite possibly the first time since they’d met—Honda didn’t keep track of other people’s wardrobes, but as they didn’t have PE together, he’d never really seen how long Ryou’s legs were. For his shirt, he was back to a casual t-shirt, with a low neckline and the sleeves rolled up. He wasn’t remotely surprised that the shirt was blue and white; Ryou didn’t seem to own much else. But the red hair tie was an interesting touch; the former Ring-bearer rarely wore warm colors to begin with, much less something as bright as candy apple red. His ponytail swished pleasantly behind him, and Honda felt color creep into his cheeks. Maybe Jyounouchi was right; maybe he did need an intervention.
“I took a shortcut,” Ryou explained, smiling easily. It was nice to see that again—he’d been uncharacteristically down in recent months, and Honda suspected that it had to do with the loss of the Ring. For better or for worse, the boy had been invested in keeping the damn thing.
But then, Honda couldn’t blame him. Ryou was something of a loner, but the Ring spirit had been a part of him for years. And if the loss was anything like Yuugi’s…
He didn’t want to think about the other Yuugi—Atem, the Pharaoh, whichever. What he should have been thinking about, really, was their English project.
“Honda-kun, you should’ve told me your AC was broken. We could’ve met at my place,” Ryou admonished, pulling at the collar of his shirt with one hand. Honda caught a glimpse of smooth skin over raised collarbones and swallowed hard.
“I… forgot?” he said lamely, finally managing to meet Ryou’s eyes. “I’ve got ice in the freezer. I could get you a drink.”
Ryou smiled again, and Honda hurried to get to the kitchen. Maybe it was the ponytail—maybe it was that Ryou was just attractive to begin with and he’d been too occupied with Otogi until recently to properly notice—but he had a feeling this would be a long homework session.
