Naming the Flame

Naming the Flame

Trei

Chapter Four

Malik drew his
diamond-haired koibito into his arms, lifting the nearly weightless body from
the concrete. Behind him, Ryuuji and Kaiba had separated vastly in the moments
following the Egyptian’s cry, leaving a substantial gap that only Jounouchi
filled. The blond, as would be expected in a situation of that sort, didn’t
appear to be too thrilled about the arrangement. He kept this awareness alive
by occasionally scowling at Kaiba and edging closer to Ryuuji. As if it was any
doubt among the spectators now whose puppy he was.

The crowd was pushing and
shoving now to get a glimpse of what had caused the din to break. Assuming the
horde would dismiss Ryou and himself as bystanders and move onto the two
previously brawling teens, Malik subtly clutched Ryou closer to his chest and
searched for a way out. Oh, lovely. Trapped in a mosh pit with an unconscious
kojika.

From somewhere in the
crowd, a voice yelled, “Hey! That’s that Egyptian asshole that tried to kill
Yugi Motou!”

Malik resisted the urge to
sigh exasperatedly as the masses began to hiss and chatter rabidly. Oh,
right. Remember all the negative things I‘ve done. Don’t remember that I
willingly gave Yugi my god cards and the Rod. Don’t remember that I saved Ryou
from wearing white after Labor Day…. Don’t remember that I defended the name of
organized teenagers worldwide by banishing Honda to the Shadow Realm for an
hour for calling me a “neat freak”….

Back in the world of
sanity, Jounouchi, who had, admittedly, never been a fan of M’s, ’s, stepped up
to the Egyptian’s side and frowned out at the crowd. And when wonders
threatened to cease, Ryuuji took up Malik’s other side, folding his arms
challengingly. Malik would have fainted if Ryou wasn’t tucked so securely into
his arms. Otogi Ryuuji and Jounouchi Katsuya helping him? …He hadn’t
given them any drugs tonight, had he?

The grumbling in the mob
began to rise in volume and despite himself, Malik felt nervous. Sure, he could
have easily taken any one of them down with little more than a toothpick, but
even Kaiba couldn’t have taken the twenty plus angry teenagers. Not to mention
the fact that Kaiba had already conveniently made his exit.

It was a stalemate. No one
breathed or moved for concern of beginning an all out crusade against evil
blonds. Malik, in one of his stupider moments, backed up a step to shift his
weight to the opposite leg, making it look as though he were planning to bolt.
Ryou’s head dipped dangerously over Malik’s arm, his arm dropping lifelessly at
the ground. Obviously, this didn’t make od iod impression on the Anti-Malik
Assembly.

“He’s killed that boy!”
someone shouted.

Malik scowled. Now that
was the stupidest thing he’d heard all night outside of Jounouchi feigning
tears to weasel out of an argument with Ryuuji. Kill Ryou? What, just because
the Rod’s spirit routinely massacred people, it made Malik the
villainous asshole? …Right, no one knew about the Sennen Rod’s spiritept ept
Yugi’s friends and Malik’s undersized family. Press conference, please?

Most likely by accident (a
very idiotic accident), a girl near the frontlines began choking violently on a
kernel of popcorn. Now, because Malik had once long ago owned an Item that
contained the power of possession, the kernel choking was obviously his
fa So, So, drawing enough evidence from this, the pack of enraged teenagers
stampeded at the four teenagers, their blood-thirsty eyes trained solely on
Malik, disregarding or maybe not even noticing the ivory treasure in his arms.

Malik followed animal
instinct and pitched out of the way, careful to keep Ryou from hitting the
ground. As a result, the pavement did a fairly painful dance routine on the
bare skin of Malik’s arms. Jounouchi and Ryuuji held off as many as they could,
but the masses were fixed on tearing Malik apart, unconcerned with what or who
they had to push aside to do it.

A rather muscular teen
around eighteen broke through Jounouchi’s restraining grasp and dove straight
at the sprawled Egyptian. His eyes were manic with an animal instinct Malik
recognized as bloodthirst. …Greaaat.

However, the Egyptian’s
attacker never got close enough to even breathe the same air as Malik. Moments
before he touched ground, another figure, lither and smaller, darted from the
mob and tackled the older teen to the pavement, landing a crunching smack
on the attacker’s skull. The guy blinked hazily and dropped back onto the
concrete, clutching his head.

Malik’s savior climbed to
his feet deftly and reached a hand in Malik’s direction. The Egyptian was
ned ned by how alike the boy and Ryou were in appearance. The only major
differences were height and the piercing oceanic gaze of this one. Malik had
forgotten Ryou wasn’t the only gorgeous boy in the universe (some would define
that as Chronically Whipped).

Suddenly quite conscious
of the onslaught of infuriated teens, Malik grabbed the outstretched hand and
was pulled with surprising strength to his feet. Without a word to his savior,
Malik reached to the ground and hoisted Ryou into the comfortable sanctuary of
his arms. Lucky baka. He got to be carried. Malik started at the sudden
spitefulness and looked around suspiciously for any waxy accessories.

“Riku!”

Malik’s white-haired
savior jerked his head up, sending tendrils of diamond whipping through a
sudden breeze as he looked raptly through the many faces. After a moment with
no luck, he turned to Malik and said, “You had better hurry. Your friends won’t
be able to hold them off for much longer.”

Malik nodded and followed
the agile boy’s lead through the swarm, ducking periodically to avoid grasping
hands and the like. I fuck up once and I’m branded for life! Malik
thought with an edge of annoyance, kicking a random ankle for rge. ge.

Once they were through the
barrier of people, the boy - Riku, Malik assumed - snagged a sharp hold of
Malik’s shoulder and twisted into a watery crevice between An’ya’s and Eien’s
legs. A few - dozen - peopped ped by and Malik got a closer look at his savior.

“Thank you,” he said
breathlessly, shifting Ryou’s weight awkwardly in his arms.

Riku regarded Malik
curiously before smiling vaguely. “You’re welcome,” he replied simply.

“Riku!”

The ivory-haired boy who
looked so like Ryou it was alarming (who knew Ryou wasn’t the only teenager in
the world with naturally white hair?) glanced up and groaned. “Sora,” he
muttered, mostly, Malik assumed, to himself. “I shouldn’t have left him….”

Malik, genuinely curious,
inquired, “Sora?”

Riku nodded, distracted by
scouring the scattered teenagers outside for “Sora” (1). “He’s never been to a
club before. I thought I could…introduce…this kind of place to him while we’re
visiting my uncle. I‘m hoping to undo the rest of his childish naivety.”
Grinning, Riku returned to his detailed search, though worry was apparent in
his stunningly bright azure eyes.

Malik brushed an absent
hand through Ryou’s hair, commenting, “I know. I have the same problem with
this one.” He jostled Ryou’s lifeless body gently as emphasis to whom he was
teasing.

Riku tore his eyes from
the outside and analyzed Ryou diligently. At length, he smiled in that vague
way he seemed to be fond of and nodded his agreement. “He looks the type,” he
said thoughtfully.

“Riku! RIKU!”

Now biting his lip, Riku
shifted his weight to his front arms, making the dullest of splashes as he rose
to his feet. “I have to find him,” he said to Malik, still staring into the
quad. Glancing at the Egyptian and Ryou, he said, “It would be safer if you
stayed here. But…you look capable of taking care of yourself.”

Malik grinned, taking a
liking and respect to the other boy, and nodded. “Yes. Thank you for your
help.”

Riku smiled and nodded,
vanishing into the light to search for Sora.

Once the boy had left,
Malik dipped his hand into the water at his feet and gently ran his damp palm
over Ryou’s forehead. “Ryou,” he whispered, kissing his kojika’s forehead,
“wake up. Come on, least you can do after all that is open your eyes. …A kiss
would be better though….”

In response, Ryou groaned
and stretched haphazardly, aentaentally whacking Malik across the face in the
process. The Egyptian jerked back and winced. “Or you could hit me.”

Groggily making his way to
the surface of consciousness, Ryou mumbled, “Malik? What….” He groaned. “Never
mind. I remembered.”

Deciding this was one of
those “Honey, we need to talk” moments of their relationship, Malik settled
back against An’ya’s hand and said, “Honey, we need to talk.”

Ryou’s eyebrows lifted at
the endearment at just about the same second Malik realized he’d used his
sarcasm outside of his own mind. Coughing brusquely, the Egyptian amended, “Why
did you pass out?”

Ryou recovered fairly
slowly from his koibito’s peculiarity in speech and returned the favor by shocking
the pupils out of Malik’s eyes with his answer.

Malik jerked back, almost
forgetting Ryou was still half lying in the fountain and using his lap for an
armrest. He gaped like a carp (2) at his beautiful koibito and cried, “He said what!?”

Reaching up to toy
anxiously with Malik’s hair, Ryou averted his eyes and replied softly, “That’s
what he told me. The spirit of the Sennen Rod is alive again. And not just
alive. Human. Mortal, I mean.”

“I think you could have
stopped at the first ‘alive’, kichou,” Malik teased, fighting to vanquish the
panic building in his stomach. The spirit of the Sennen Rod to to haunt him.
Inwardly, the Egyptian sighed loudly and desecrated a few mentally expensive
objects. Just when things were starting to grow normal. Well…all right,
so dating a partly possessed member of the same sex and being periodically
chased by rabid anti-Malik advocates wasn’t exactly Webster’s definition of
“normal”. …But who judges normality, anyway? Weird people in denial. Right? Of
course right. (3)

Ryou shifted his weight
against Malik’s leg and as a result threw a few waves with his erratic
movements. Just before Malik could warn his koibito that he was halfway to
pneumonia by lying in the cold water, a dangerously close geyser beat him to
it. Which is the back story several people pondered over later following the
scream that echoed through the courtyard of Eien An’ya.

Standing rigid and
thoroughly soaked from the tips of his hair to his sneakers, Ryou heaved in
elusive breaths, eyes wider than was previously assumed possible for his face.
If one were to dunk a Persian cat into a vat of water, it would have garnered
the same result. Complete with hysterical laughter-stricken Egyptian.
…Soon-to-be suffering Egyptian. (4)

THWACK.

“Ow! What!?”

**

Ryuund Jnd Jounouchi
escaped from the bloodthirsty crowd as soon as Ryuuji saw someone guide Malik
to safety. Now, like Ryou and said Egyptian, the Dungeon Dice creator and his
koibito were waiting out the thunderous mob in a darkened passage. Namely under
the curved and clawed foot of Eien.

The sable-haired teen was
leaning against the ball of the dragon’s foot, crossly repositioning his torn
shirt. “Damned Malik,” he grumbled. “Damned Kaiba. Damned world.”

Jounouchi, peering
clandestinely through giant claws, commented, “You including me in that?”

Ryuuji rolled his eyes and
retorted, “Yes, Jou, you too.”

“Figures.” The blond shot
a grin over his shoulder and said cheekily, “Well, if your fans were afraid of
you before, they’re going to be swamping you now.” He lifted the torn fabric at
Ryuuji’s shoulder, revealing several inches of bronzed skin.

The younger boy made a
face aetureturned to his futile mission, more to occupy his hands than to fix
the rip. “Damned fans,” he grumbled.

“I’m sure they love you,
too.”

“Hmph.”

Grinning, Jounouchi
retu to to combing the lingering horde with narrowed amber eyes. He could
understand the people’s fury at Malik, but they were directing it at entirely
the wrong party. If only they, like Jounouchi and his friends, knew of the
spirit of the Rod and how he had manipulated Malik’s mind to corruption, they
wouldn’t have such a fiery hating passion against the young Egyptian. If
Jounouchi could deal with it, they could too. Hell, if Ryou could date
him, they could at least tolerate him.

In the spirit of random
interrogations (and following his reputation for unfounded timing), Jounouchi
inquired lightly, “So why the attack on the dragon’s slut?”

Ryuuji snickered at the
slur and abandoned his shirt. The tear was sexy, even if it did ruin one
of his favorite outfits. “I made fun of the ‘Sacred Lockets of the Brothers
Kaiba’,” the younger teen snickered together with finger-imitated quotation
marks.

Jounouchi glanced over his
shoulder, gaping in disbelief. “You didn’t,” he said flatly.

“I did,” Ryuuji affirmed
proudly, folding his arms over his chest in a manner that purely mocked said
CEO.

“And you’re still
breathing?!”

Ryuuji smiled sweetly,
leaning his elbows forward on his folded legs to rest his chin on the back of
his hands. “Alive and well, suki (5),” he hummed melodically. Then with a
teasing leer, Ryuuji said, “Care to test it?”

Jounouchi repressed a grin
and cuffed the other’s shoulder. “Don’t be such a hentai (6),” he laughed. A
moment’s hesitation, then…. “Not in public, anyway,” he amended.

“But public is the best
place - ”

Jounouchi’s hand smothered
the rest of Ryuuji’s purred reply.

“Mmmff fmph!” Ryuuji
protested with a hand-masked scowl.

With his free hand,
Jounouchi slapped Ryuuji upside the head and in the same motion gestured
frantically toward the silent courtyard a few meters away. Ryuuji followed his
koibito’s arm and the subsequent line it drew until his eyes met….

Holy shit, what were
those things?

Slinking through Eien
An’ya’s courtyard were legions of the ugliest black creatures either Jounouchi
or Ryuuji had ever seen. They illustrated the worst stages of hideousness and
silhouetted the bleakest of auras on the concrete buildings surrounding them.
And prowling above the front lines was a dark Egyptian with an apocalyptic
smirk.

Ryuuji, to help avoid the
thrumming horror in his stomach, hummed the funeral march.

**

Malik drew his motorcycle
to the curb a block away from Ryou’s house, noting that if said boy’s father
caught his son not only out of bed but on a motorcycle with a previously dubbed
hentai, cataclysmic incidences would follow for all parties involved. Plus,
Ryou was nearly asleep; his grip around Malik’s chest was dangerously loose.

From his vantage point,
Malik could make out the absolute blackness emanating from his kichou’s house.
Well, at least one thing had gone right tonight. So much for instituting
Ryou’s nightclub education. Not even a dance in Eien to go away with. Or a make
out session in the folds of An’ya’s wings. Oh, well. Vacation wasn’t over yet.

Malik turned his head to
wake Ryou only to find that his kojika had pressed his forehead into his
shoulder and was now dozing lightly, breathing softly against Malik’s neck. The
Egyptian smiled and resisted the urge to start singing, “My koibito’s a live
tenshi chibi! My koibito’s a live tenshi chibi!”

Settling for a kiss to his
saiai’s fringe-tapered forehead, Malik whispered, “Wake up, koi, we’re here.
You’ve been asleep longer than you’ve been awake tonight, you know.” He paused,
receiving no reaction at all from the stationary tenshi leaning into his back
rapturously. “Ryou, you’re home!”

“I know,” a sleepy voice
answered. The arms around his chest tightened possessively.

Reddening slightly, Malik
cleared his throat sharply. “No, not…. I mean your home. House. Uh…you
know, parents? Jacuzzi?”

Ryou’s head shot up at the
mention of the Jacuzzi. Now fully awake, said teen yelped, “Jacuzzi?! What?!”

Smirking, Malik replied
with sarcastic innocuousness, “You planning on going inside or do I have to get
your father to come out here?”

Ryou pouted vaguely and
nestled his face into the Egyptian’s neck, murmuring, “Hanarenai (7),” in a
subdued voice.

Now fighting an all-out
mortified blush, Malik whined maturely, “Ryou, y-you have to. Unless you want
your father chasing you down the street with one of those ancient Egyptian
swords he keeps in his study….” He shuddered at the memory. On his way out of
the basement he’d had a flashback of those blades. Or more specifically, those
blades halfway through his abdomen. It made him more than a little green to
think of voluntary acupuncture after that.

“Can’t I stay with you
tonight?” Ryou’s stifled voice asked quietly. “I’ll go home in the morning; I
promise.” As if to seal the pledge, the younger boy squeezed his arms around
Malik’s torso sleepily.

Well, who in any mind
could refuse Ryou? Especially a drowsy Ryou with judgment so poor he couldn’t
yet pry his eyes open long enough to realize it was nearly past dawn.

Making up his mind in a
severed fraction of a second, Malik revved the bike’s engine and tore down the
street, grinning as he felt Ryou smile against his neck. Whipped? Malik
thought. Eh. It’s not that bad.

**

The former spirit of the
Sennen Rod roved the dawn-lit streets of downtown Osakalishlishing in the feel
of wind on his face and through his hair. So long since he’d felt anything like
this…so long since he’d felt the sun. Funny that the rise of the sun had always
been his favorite heavenly transition. Sunset was clichéd and the rise of the
moon wasn’t all that exciting. Sunrise, though…sunrise was symbolic.

Plus, it had red in it.
And red was good. Red was gory. The spirit of the Sennen Rod liked gore. Thus
he liked red. And sunrises.

When the ex-Rod’s spirit
had first stumbled upon his new minions, he had still been ensnared in the
mordant fangs of the Shadow Realm (a summer getaway it was not). They called
themselves the Heartless, he learned, and had been destroyed by a handful of
children not so many years before. Now, apparently, they desired revenge on the
traitorous white-haired teenager and the spry brunet that had ruined them.

Viewing possibility in
these mindless creatures, the spirit had organized a deal with these fairly
stupid fiends. He told them he knew the whereabouts of the white-haired one
(even if the spirit had known it wasn’t Ryou they were after, it
probably wouldn’t have mattered), but that tracking down the brunet would be a
little more difficult. The fiends would aid the spirit in his bidding and the
spirit would bestow upon them Shadow Powers and the two boys they wished to
macerate. And as soon as the spirit of the Ring had been properly manipulated
into releasing him, the Rod’s former guardian had his initial tools for world
domin - wait, wrong plan…. What was the spirit supposed to be doing,
anyway?

Other than having no idea
what they were to do for the Egyptian spirit, life was good amongst the
Heartless and their new similarly merciless ruler.

Suddenly, a new object
hurtled itself into the spirit’s path, but before the Egyptian could sigh with
annoyance and banish its soul to the Shadow Realm, it rasped, “I have come upon
the white-haired bishie boy! I have come upon the bishie!” in the voice the
spirit had gifted to all the Heartless, guttural and hoarse.

The dark Egyptian lifted
an arm and halted the hordes behind him with a quick scissor stroke of his
hand. “His condition?” he asked quietly.

The demon pulled webbed
hands up to its chest and began scratching the backs with ebony needle-like
claws. “It is alive, Master, it is alive. But it is wounded, Master.
Wounded. It is wounded.”

Cutting into a growled
sigh, the spirit questioned, “Did you follow where he went?”

The scratching paused.
“Ehm - no. No, Master, I did not. Not all the way. The way. Way not all. Saw
him leave Taki Hi. Taki. Taki. TakiTakiTakiTakiTakiTaki. Was with another
child. Chiii…ld. Luh. Duh. Ch…ch…eye…luh…duh. Cheyeluhduh!”

The spirit massaged his
temples. He was beginning to wonder if giving speech to these idiots was really
necry. ry. They enjoyed speaking too much to be of much threat. Oh, well. The
spirit’s goal this time around was of a more trivial nature, but not at all
easier to claim. It wouldn’t matter if the Heartless could talk if they could
fight. And with Shadow Powers, even the most adorable of babies is terrifying.

“I return back to the
front lines, Master. Mah. Star. Meh. Star. Meh…mah…my…. My star! I am hungry,
my star, hungry. I am hungry.”

“You may find food in the
city,” said the spirit dismissively, beginning the walk again. My star?
…Drooling, mindless…. Hm. Stars were made of gas. Gas burned. Burns crack. And
wounds spill blood. Blood. Red…sunrises….

The demon spurted joyously
and scampered off to scour out an innocent heart to consume.

And people called the
yamis strange for enjoying blood.

**

Malik awoke the following
morning (or afternoon, judging by one’s opinion of two o’clock) with a tiny
panging ache in his arm. In fact, it was a fairly large ache, now that he had
gained enough consciousness to feel correctly. OW! Shit! Big pain! Giza
pyramid pain!

Oh. That’s why. Ryou had
made a rather comfortable bed out of Malik’s chest and was using the Egyptian’s
collarbone as a pillow…but that didn’t explain the pain in his arm. OUCH.
Oh. Ryou’s Ring. And with the Sennen Item crushing into Malik’s still-present
gauntlets, the Egyptian was moderately certain he wouldn’t have any arm left to
amputate soon.

It took a few minutes for
Malik to work out why they were sprawled on the couch, let alone fully clothed.
Then it broke through his sleep-hazed memory. Ryou had come down with a
fleeting virus due to the unscheduled meeting with Eien An’ya’s fountain jets
and the motorcycle ride that followed. In truth, Malik held himself
responsible, but Ryou had been adamant in defending him - through fits of
sneezes and with a voice so nasal he’d given up trying to argue after Malik
fell off of the couch laughing at him.

Despite the touch of
annoyance he felt afterward toward his koo foo for pissing him off, Ryou
allowed Malik to compensate. Naturally, that task removed the want for sleep
for a few hours and clocked them both with identical wallops of fatigue. And
now they were paying for it - or, at least, Malik was.

Agh! I have to get him
off. He’s sweet and I love him but if he doesn’t get off in ten seconds I’m
going to push
him off.

From his unperturbed
station on Malik’s chest, Ryou drank in sound breaths through his koi’s
sweatshirt. His line of thought ran a little shallower than Malik’s.

Ugh. The sun’s in my
eyes….

This inspired Ryou to turn
his head away from the sunlight, thus jerking the Ring deeper into Malik’s arm.

“Aghh, that’s it!”

Tearing out a startled
yelp, Ryou was eradicated from his position of luxury and hit the floor flat on
his back. The sunlight tickled his face mockingly. He groaned, “What was that
for?”

Malik turned onto his side
lazily, massaging his sore arm. “For unconsciously trying to impale me with a
should-be rusted, circular, golden sewer pipe.”

Ryou grimaced against the
menacing sunlight. Shielding his eyes with the knife of his hand, he
deadpanned, “I appreciate the visual. Don’t make me list what yours
looked like.”

Malik’s eyebrows vanishundeunderneath the tassel of golden fringe. “Are you always this cranky or
am I exclusively privy?”

“You get exclusive
privileges to everything else,” grumbled the younger boy, rubbing his back
cringingly.

Before Ryou could even
move to sit up, however, he was trapped to the floor by an unrelenting force.
Well. Hello, Malik.

The Egyptian kissed his
koibito promptly and teased, “Almost everything else.” He emphasized
this point by crossing his arms over Ryou’s collarbone and leaning seductively
close to the other boy’s lips.

Ryou blushed fiercely and
stammered, “Y-you…I - Malik!”

“Yes?”

“Get off!”

Malik sulked visibly.
“Why?”

“Because I can’t breathe!”

The pressure on his chest
lessened immediately, the Egyptian’s petulance vanishing in favor of concern.
“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly.

Which garnered a sharp
belt upside the head from Ryou. “First you get me sick, then you break my back
and now you’re trying to suffocate me! No wonder you stay with me!
Anybody else would kill you!”

“…Aishiteru (8)?”

Ryou rolled hyes.yes.
“You’re scandalously lucky I’m too tired to hurt you.”

“You already did,” sniffed
the Egyptian, clutching at his chest dramatically.

Ryou leveled him with a
sarcastic look.

“…You’re not a morning
person, are you, tenshi?”

THWACK.

Malik shielded his head
from further attack and whined exaggeratedly. “Agh! Twice in less than twelve
hours! You’d think I did something!”

“…Shut up, saiai.”

**

After Malik dropped him
off a block from his house, Ryou snuck into the backyard and scaled the
drainpipe. All the while he prayed under bre breath to any god from any
religion that no one caught him this time. He may have successfully ran away,
but Fate didn’t often let him get away with being childishly nefarious. Fate
was a little exclusive in her good graces. Damned elitist.

The first thing Ryou did
after climbing into his room was remove the Ring from his neck. He was
absolutely sick of the Sennen Items and the calamity they wrought into their
holders’ lives. Nothing against his own spirit, but if the Sennen guardians had
their way, the world would be a wrinkled black crisp while their
immortal souls soaked up the aftereffects of their total destruction. …Now that
he thought about it, Ryou concluded that as weird and sadistic as the spirits
were, they were no better than Fate. Elitists; all elitists!

Grumbling, Ryou stashed
the Ring in the lowest drawer of his bureau, glad to be rid of it. Maybe if he
ignored it long enough, the spirit inside would grow so angry thing ing would
just melt. That could be nice…if Ryou’s school uniform hadn’t been in that
drawer. …School was elitist, too. He didn’t know exactly why yet, but it
seemed to be the insult du jour.

Ryou changed swiftly and
lifted a comb from his bedside to impatiently tease the snarls from his hair.
Damned elitist motorcycle.

Suddenly, he heard voices
in the hall outside. Or at least he hoped they were outside. The last
thing he needed was another voice inside his head.

“You didn’t tell me you
were hurt!”

“You expect me to?”

“Not anymore, I don’t. Let
me see.”

“It’s fine, bijin (9).”

“No, it’s - Riku!”

“Sora, get off.”

“What did that?!”

“A Heartless.”

“When?!”

“…When…I was looking for
you. I ran into a dozen or so of those things. But never mind.”

“No, what happened?”

A sigh. “It’s not
important.”

“Then tell me.”

“You’re not easily
dissuaded, you know that? It’s just…. They’re not average Heartless.
They’re…indestructible. One alone nearly killed me.”

“You?”

“Yeah. Something’s
different about them, Sora. I couldn’t get a single hit off any of them.”

“But…how?”

“…I don’t know. Steroids?”

“Funny. Riku, you twit,
you’re bleeding.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah.” ‘Oh,‘Oh, yeah?’ That’s your
big reaction?”

“Pretty much. Why?
Screaming work better for you?”

“Not at the moment….”

A chuckle. “You’rch ach a
closet hentai, bijin.”

“You never complain.”

“I don’t, do I? “C’ “C’mon, we need to stop
the bleeding before you get anemia or something.”

Stillness once again
reigned the hallway, the only distant sound being footsteps descending the
stairs. Ryou towed his door open a crack and scoured the hallway. There was a
suspicious crimson stain on the carpet. …That would be Hell to clean….
Ryou wrinkled his nose. Not even six months together and already he was getting
neurotic about tidiness. Damned elitist Malik.

Overview: I’ve dated
Malik too long, the Ring spirit remains unbalanced, there are two anonymous
people in my house that are neither my father nor poltergeists, the spirit of
the Sennen Rod is human and scores of monsters called the ‘Heartless’ are tormenting
the city. Well, isn’t this a tidy Thriller meets The Mummy? I should have just
stayed in the Jacuzzi.

Sighing at his poor
judgment, Ryou silently stole down the staircase. Won’t trip - won’t make
noise - won’t sneeze - won’t cough - won’t…. Oh. Floor. Niiice floor. Pausing
just outside the living room, Ryou glimpsed the sources of the previous
conversation.

One, a boy with feathered
ivory hair, sat on the couch, leaning his arms forward on his thighs. He was
patiently biting his tongue while another, a young-looking brunet kneeling on
the floor, cleaned the stream of scarlet coming from his saiai’s shoulder with
an already steeped cloth.

Ryou watched as the
white-haired teen winced harshly and said sarcastically, “You know, if you
doused my arm in kerosene you could set it on fire?” A hiss. “It would hurt
less,” he grumbled, his surreally bright aqua eyes looking desperate to wrench
his arm out of the smaller boy’s grasp.

The brunet merely smirked
and continued daubing his koibito’s shoulder with a cloth supposedly soaked in
the alcohol sitting beside the brunet’s feet. “Don’t tempt me,” he threatened
impishly, grinning.

The other rolled his eyes
flagrantly and strained to keep his arm from jolting.

“Ryou! You’re finally
awake!”

Throwing out a yelp
through his lips, Ryou jumped and spun around in panic. Uh oh! Father! Be
calm, Ryou - scratch that. Going onto plan B…. …Didn’t plan that far ahead.
Um…pretend to be invisible…pretend to be invisible….

“Ryou?”

Okay…plan C anybody?

His father stood in the
kitchen doorway, smiling tensely at his son. Ryou restrained himself from
blushing. Great. Now whenever his father looked at him, it would be with that
expression of discomfort and uncertainty. All for making out in a Jacuzzi. With
his boyfriend. All right, so he didn’t exactly have the right of way this time,
but it still humiliated him to be scrutinized that way. It wasn’t like he
scratched the basin or anything.

A noise in the living room
drew bothu’s u’s and his father’s eyes to the two boys Ryou had never met
before. The white-haired teen and the brunet were both gazing curiously at him.
For his part, Ryou’s father recovered his social graces and stepped up behind
Ryou, hesitantly dropping his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Sora, Riku, this is
my son, Ryou. Ryou, Riku and Sora.”

The brunet, who his father
had pointed out as Sora, smiled and nodded amicably. Riku merely tilted his
head to the side, his vivid sapphire eyes examining the younger boy with an
inquiring grin, as though he knew somng Rng Ryou did not. Well, gee, what
else is new?

“Ryou,” said his father
edgily, “Riku and Sora just arrived this morning.” When this garnered no
reaction, he added, “Riku is your mother’s nephew.”

Ryou started in
astonishment, but Riku merely smiled smugly, his assumptions certified. For his
part, Sora gazed between Riku and Ryou quickly and laughed, “Riku, you idiot.
Say something!”

Riku cast a wry grin at
his newly confirmed cousin and asked, “Bet you’ve never seen a Keyblade (10)
before, hm?”

Apparently at some inside
joke, Sora and Riku burst into tolls of laughter. Ryou stared, raising an
eyebrow at his father. Said adult shrugged with a warm smile. Apparently, he
was fond of his wife’s nephew. Oh, lovely. Competition.

When their laughter melted
away, Riku and Sora exchanged a fleeting smile. It wasn’t held or doting, but
it was affectionate enough to send off warning bells in Ryou’s head. So they were
dating. Probably concealing their relationship from the public eye - which
unquestionably included Ryou and his father. They were following Malik and
Ryou’s former plan of action. Ryou would have to warn them later that the
Jacuzzi was cursed and haunted.

After all, he could only
pity his father now that he gave more thought to the situation. If Ryou ever
walked in on his father in that condition, he would burn his eyes out and
drench his tongue in arsenic. His father…with a woman…with anyone.
Eeeeeeeeugh!

While Ryou mentally
twitched, the flap of Riku’s pack fluttered open in the breeze the air conditioner
offered. And there in the middle compartment swooned a smooth vanilla candle,
whose internal cry of “kawaii! shounen-ai! (11)” left no doubt
that the entire Bakura family tree, not just the Jacuzzi, was cursed.

To be Continued…

1 - Hehe, if you haven’t
guessed by now or haven’t played the game, Sora and Riku are from the PS2 game Kingdom
Hearts. Riku, I believe, is unjustly beautiful and looks surprisingly like
Ryou. That’s a matter of opinion, though. =) (The links didn’t work in the
preview, so just eliminate the spaces you see.)

http:// kaldea.org /riku/
gallery/official/17.jpg. That’s Riku *swoon* and this:

http:// www.rpgdreamer.com/
rpgworld/ kh/kh-97.jpg
is Sora. *Sigh* Aren’t they beautiful? (Hehe, open them into separate windows
and put them next to each other - isn’t that adorable?)

2 - That was for Pepper
Breath, hehe!

3 - Fiddler on the Roof
reference. =) I’ll give you a hint…. Ever since my husband died, I’ve
been a poor widow. No one to talk to, nothing to say to anybody…. *Giggle*
I love Yente.

4 - Based on a true story.
Not mine, though. *Clears throat*

5 - Suki (love)

6 - Hentai (pervert)

7 - Hanarenai (I can't
leave you)

8 - Aishiteru (I love you)

9 - Bijin (beautiful one)

10 - Keyblade - a weapon
in Kingdom Hearts. More information on that in future chapters.

11 - Kawaii (cute)
shounen-ai (boy love)