I'm too stupid to own Yu-Gi-Oh.

How come Jou doesn't have a boyfriend? Why is Yami so frustrated with him? And why does Jou get confused when someone uses a pickup line on him? Is he really all that stupid? Or is his stupidity just a cover?

Picked Up Already

Started on August 4, 2005

Finished on August 5, 2005

"Mr. Jounouchi, what are you doing?"

"Nothing sensei I was just—"

Yugi moved his chair close to Yami's while Jou and the teacher were bickering about what Jou was doing in the middle class when he was supposed to be paying attention. "Hey Yami, what happened last night at Kaiba's party? Did Jou finally hook up with someone?"

Yami shook his head. "I'm sorry Yugi, but I tried everything. There were people that were definitely interested, but I don't think Jou was."

"How could you tell?" Yugi asked, glancing over at the teacher who was still yelling at Jou. "It's about time Jou got a boyfriend don't you think though?"

"Yeah, but Jou just wasn't interested..."

"Hey Jou, this is my friend Rex. Rex, this is Jou. Have fun you two," Yami said, winking at Jou before drifting back into the crowd.

Jou scratched his head in confusion and smiled politely. "Hi Rex. How are you doing?"

He took out his hand and Rex shook it, holding it just a few seconds longer than necessary. "I've heard lots of good things about you, Jou. Yami tells me you're an excellent duelist and that you made it to the semi finals at Battle City. I came close, but you know how things go," Rex remarked, waving his hand as if he was a celebrity. "Perhaps you'll like to duel me sometime?"

"Oh, I would love to, but I lost my dueling deck a long time ago. In fact, I stopped dueling quite a while back, ever since school started again." Jou shrugged and took his hand back.

Rex coughed slightly and looked uncomfortable. "Err... that's all right then. Maybe you would like to take a look at mine then tomorrow night? Maybe come over to my house to check it out?"

"No offense, but I'm not interested in Duel Monsters all that much anymore."

"Maybe you would like to come anyway, just to hang out."

"Oh, but why would I come over if I don't want to see Duel Monsters? I mean I hardly even know you and what can you and I really do anyway?"

Rex blinked several times and watched as Jou helped himself to some chips. "When I said that, I meant it as, maybe we should hang out sometime. I don't literally mean look at my dueling deck the whole time. And I mean that we should get to know each other a little bit better."

Jou looked confused for a second and then asked rather stupidly, "Oh, you were asking me out?"

"Well maybe Jou was just being clueless," Yugi suggested, taking out a notebook and starting to take notes. The teacher had stopped screaming at Jou now and now instructed them to copy the notes off the board. "But I didn't like Rex all that much anyway."

"I don't know," Yami said, shaking his head. "He must have been pretty darn clueless for the rest of the evening then."

"Really? How do you figure?"

"Well, let's just say I had an idea..."

Yami pretended to be talking to Otogi, the creator of Dungeon Dice Monsters, nearby when another duelist by the name of Espa Roba came by and started to talk to Jou. Yami shushed Otogi for a second and started to eavesdrop on the conversation that he hoped was going well...

"Do you believe in love at first sight or should I--"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Jou interrupted loudly and rudely, "How someone can 'fall in love at first sight' beats me. In order to love someone, you need to first KNOW them and know who they are! If you first meet them, you can't expect it to be love because I'm willing to bet my life that it isn't! Besides, love is more than just skin deep; you need to get to know the person inside and out and then find out if it really is love or not so no I do not believe in love at first sight!"

Espa dropped his cup of soda and it shattered into little pieces. "Umm, I didn't mean to be rude but I was just simply asking because I thought—"

"Please. I'm not one to judge, but man, you're pretty stupid if you actually believe in love at first sight. Are you the type of person to judge someone on how they look or something? Not to sound judgmental but—hey!"

At that moment, Yami made a quick ending to the conversation he was having with Otogi and yanked Jou away from Espa, making a quick excuse, insisting that he needed to talk to Jou about something really important. Yami could feel Espa's relief as Yami forced Jou to follow him into the men's bathroom.

"What were you doing?" Yami hissed, once they got inside. "Why did you start insulting Espa Roba for and why did you accuse him of only liking people for their looks? Are you insane or are you trying to be mean on purpose?"

Jou had a confused look on his face. "Uh... did I do something wrong?"

"Yes! When he asked you, he was using a pickup line on you, Jou! You know the, Do you believe in love at first sight or do I need to walk by again? Something like that. Haven't you ever heard of that one before? It's the most commonly used one!"

"Pick up lines? What are—OH, THOSE THINGIES! I've heard of them before!"

Yami groaned.

"Yes, those thingies."

Yugi disguised his laughter as a cough and he started to cough loudly, attracting a dirty look from the teacher, but Yugi only gave her a charming innocent smile (one that he was very capable of pulling off) and she resumed writing down notes.

"I see your point," Yugi agreed quietly to Yami. "But you cannot think that just because of two poor incidents yesterday meant that he wasn't interested in any of them. I seriously think that if he had known, he probably would have tried harder with Espa, even though I don't think he would have worked it out with him anyway. Why didn't you try someone that he might be more compatible with? Like Malik? Surely they got over their differences during Battle City by yesterday."

"I would have, except Malik was too busy making out with Marik in the corner."

"Oh... I see that would have been a problem. Okay, there must have been others... or did you give up after Espa? Please tell you me you did not give up."

"No, of course not! I kept trying and trying. I'm not the type to give up."

"Oh, good!"

"But to be honest, I wish I had."

"Eh?"

Mako was a brilliant duelist. The one time Yami played him, he barely managed to get out of the duel with life points and left him panicking every turn. Even though Jou doesn't play anymore, he still he hoped that Mako would get him interested enough to play and get them together at the same time.

Mako was a little bit older than both he and Jou, but Yami figured that when it came to love, it didn't matter. Yami thought that Mako was going to be the one to end Jou's single status once and for all. When he introduced them, he noticed that Mako wasn't as snobby or as arrogant as the other two, which he thought was a good sign.

This time, Yami made sure that Mako and Jou were sitting in the same table instead of standing around talking. Yami wanted to supervise the conversation, just in case it went as badly as the last two.

When Yami had to get up and talk to Seto Kaiba himself, he left them talking about Duel Monsters, which was precisely what Yami wanted. Hopefully, the discussion will lead to something like, "Hey, let's go to a movie sometime," and then it would stop all of Yugi's worries that his friend would never date.

Things seemed to be going pretty well. When Yami settled back in his seat, he noticed that Jou had switched the subject and had started talking about jobs. Jou learned that Mako was a fisherman and was utterly amazed at how much Mako had to say. In return, Mako asked him what his job was.

"So what do you do? Besides standing around looking hot all day?"

His tone was light and jokingly and Yami hoped that Jou would take it that way because it was obvious by the way Mako was smiling that he was teasing him. However, Jou didn't take it that way and said something else, completely opposite of what Mako had intended to mean.

"Hot? Oh, I guess you're right, I am sweating a bit here, aren't I? Stupid me, I knew better than to wear a long sleeved shirt. And do my armpits smell or something? I forgot to apply deodorant. You see, I was running a little bit late, and I knew that Yami was coming over to pick me up soon so I just..."

Oh no, Yami thought, listening to Jou talk about his hygiene. This is a disaster.

"Jou got confused by another pick up line again? I can't believe Jou is that dense, even Honda would have gotten it!"

"Honda would have gotten a lot of pick up lines, Yugi. I don't think Jou and dating works out. For one thing, he can't even tell when someone is hitting on him and when they do, he gets completely confused and ends up either annoying them or insulting them." Yami glanced up at the teacher before continuing. "And some lines were so obvious too! I felt like smacking him on the head after last night!"

"Well... maybe that's part of Jou's charm."

"Stupidity?"

"I wouldn't call it that."

"True. He got smarter as the night went on."

"What do you mean?"

Jou was standing around, biting his nail when a man by the name of Bandit Keith came up to him and patted him on the shoulder.

Yami bit his lip nervously. Even from the other side of the room, Yami felt as if he couldn't be far away enough. He was a conceited and liked to brag about himself so much that Yami tried to run from him every time he wanted to talk. Unfortunately, Keith wanted to talk to Jou and Yami hoped that Jou was prepared. According to rumors, Keith was famous for charming ladies and men alike into going to a hotel room. This time, Yami hoped that Jou would be stupid like he was (okay, maybe not stupid, but it wasn't exactly smart either) before.

He even attempted to hit on Yami and Yami made it pretty clear to everyone at the beginning that he was already taken (by Yugi, of course) by punching out Weevil Underwood, who had tried to kiss him and announced loudly for everyone to hear, "I'm already taken so shove it."

Yami wasn't normally the type to punch people, but hey, there were exceptions to everything.

"Hey, I never seen someone so far from home before," Keith said breezily, standing in front of him, eyeing Jou with a pure look of curiosity.

Yami had tapped into his millennium powers and had started to listen while pretending to be really interested in the painting of the Blue Eyes White Dragon hanging on the wall. He gritted his teeth as Keith started talking once more.

"I hope it didn't hurt though," Keith spoke, moving up closer to Jou, giving him one of those smiles that people found handsome and genuine. He brushed his blonde hair back and looked at Jou, expecting answer or perhaps a giggle.

"What hurt?"

"You know, when you fell from heaven," Keith replied, making Yami shudder in disgust. "And do tell me, are you wearing astronaut pants? Because I can tell that your ass is out of this world. Oh, my name is Bandit by the way. Remember that because you'll be screaming my name all night."

It took Jou a minute before he responded. Jou leaned forward, looking as if he wanted to kiss him. Yami's stomach did a little flip. Did Jou really fall for that? But before Yami could do anything, he saw Jou raise his right hand and punched him in the jaw.

Keith stumbled backwards and Jou raised his leg and kicked him right where it hurt the most, sending him the floor. "That's for assuming that I would go have sex with you," Jou declared, and kicked him again. "And that's for checking my ass out! Pervert!"

Yami applauded.

The teacher resumed her lecture and turned off the lights so she could turn on the projector. Yugi took this time to give Jou a triumphant smile, even though Jou was not looking his way and was instead fighting to stay awake. Then Yugi turned his attention back at Yami and squeezed his hand.

"Thanks for trying anyway," Yugi said giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"MR. MUTOU!"

Yugi jerked his eyes open and moved away from Yami guiltily. Yami blushed red and they both looked up to see the teacher scratching her head in anger so much that her glasses fell off. They would have laughed, but they knew they were in too much trouble already.

"How many times must I insist on no PDA? Detention, both of you! I cannot believe that you would do your hanky panky in my classroom! Have you not learn you lesson? Today, at three thirty, and bring your—"

"Man," Jou said to the person sitting next to him, "what's up with her? You would think that she would let them slide. People make out all the time when she's not looking anyways. How pointless." Jou diverted his attention back to his seatmate and saw him smiling in the darkness. "Why are you smiling this time?"

"Nothing," was the answer, "So Yami tried to hook you up again last night at my party?"

Jou nodded, still hearing the teacher's bickers at Yugi and Yami. "They were all pretty nice, except that Bandit guy, which I can't believe you invited, but there's only one guy for me, and luckily, he doesn't use stupid pick up lines to try and get me."

The grin grew even bigger, much to Jou's delight and he felt the young CEO's hand reach over and grasp his own. "Damn straight," he whispered huskily in his ear.

"But really, I'm sick of playing dumb! Yami thought I was so stupid for acting as if I didn't know that they were hitting on me!"

"You knew when I was hitting on you."

"Whatever. Shut up and meet me after class. I can ditch History."

A chuckle was heard in response. "That's what I love about you Katsuya."

"Whatever, I love you too Seto."

-OWARI-

I had so much fun writing about how "stupid" Jou was! XD I can honestly picture Jou misinterpreting pick up lines though... it's really quite possible, considering how clueless Jou is sometimes.

A little bit from my humorous side (Do I even have one?) that I hope that you guys find interesting :) Leave your comments and opinions on this weird little story, it'll be well appreciated!

-lilrubydevil-