Rishid paced up and down the hallway to the apartment in quick, brisk strides. It had been exactly six months, three weeks, five days, and twelve- Rishid stole a quick glance at his watch- thirteen hours since the whole Ishtar family decided to move into a larger apartment suite in the city of Domino. After Isis got a huge promotion at the Domino City Museum and Shadi was hired as the Egyptian exhibit caretaker, they both decided that it would be best to probably get a bigger place to live in. Or rather, they didn't have much of a choice, considering what had happened to their past home.
Rishid shook his head. Never again was he to ever leave Malik and Marik alone in the house together if the only other occupant was a sleeping Shadi. It so happened that the deranged Marik had a lasting and bondless affinity for the smell and taste of aerosol. No doubt his preference stemmed from the fact that he was exposed to mass amounts of the stuff when he styled his hair. After that fateful day when the yami-hikari team attempted to create aerosol-flavored chicken in the microwave, their budget had taken quite a downfall. Rather then pay for all the repairs to the home, Isis decided it would be best for them to live in more secure environment. Namely, an apartment complex in a secluded neighborhood a couple blocks away from the museum that even the police didn't dare venture into.
It wasn't the gangs that kept them away, (the gangs themselves didn't pleasure themselves quite so much as to go into the neighbor either) but rather a little old woman who owned the apartments in question. She was a curious woman, always butting her nose into anyone's business that was unlucky enough to pass by and throwing unwanted comments at every opportunity. She even went so far as to say, "God bless you Mr. Ishtar," to a rather disgruntled Malik on a Sunday evening. It wasn't so much the sarcastic tone she used as it was the whole 'God blessing him' thing he had a problem with, but the fact that Malik wasn't prepared to get blessed by any god unless it be Ra himself anytime soon. And he sure as hell wasn't going to let any old woman ask some unknown "God" person, who for all he knew could be the god of misfortune or some other mishap, do a whole bunch of bless work. If it wasn't for the fact that said old woman didn't happen to own a house full of cats, Malik would have taken the liberty of murdering her in her sleep. Now he was planning on doing it in broad daylight.
He knew he could tattle on her to his yami, who had conveniently returned from the Shadow Realm. The Pharaoh was an idiot. He didn't even know how to properly use the Millennium Puzzle, or Millennium Triangle as Marik liked to call it. Clearly the Shadow Realm had affected his depth perception. Malik snickered at the thought. Since he and Marik were separate, his yami no longer knew his thoughts so the young Egyptian was free to mock the mental wreck. Of course, he had to admit that his yami was the best partner in crime he'd ever had.
We were going to make millions with that aerosol-flavored chicken, he thought whimsically. At least Marik won't have to worry about making his hair stand up. His yami's hair now stood permanently on end in all its blacked glory.
Still chuckling to himself, Malik walked into the market. He looked around at the different shops, some with neon signs flashing in the broad daylight. He rolled his eyes at the stupidity. The teenager glanced at his shopping list:
Twinkies, salt and vinegar potato chips, banana pudding, eyeliner
He caught sight of himself in the reflective surface of a piece of glass on the ground. His lavender eyes remained undefined. The last of his kohl had been destroyed when his chicken experiment back fired, literally. The sad fact was the house was nearly falling down around his temporarily deafened ears when the ex-Tomb Keeper regained his troubled consciousness.
Putting the thoughts of failure behind him, Malik strode down the sidewalk toward the convenience store. A bell jingled as he obeyed the sign on the door that said, 'Push'. The lack of punctuation on the command bothered him to no end, but it was a fact of life in this twisted and insane world.
The sixteen-year-old meandered down the four-foot aisles of the plastic clad food from America. Malik thought about Isis's great distaste for American food as he pulled two family size bags of salt and vinegar potato chips from the shelf. He came to the aisle with hid absolute favorite food. How can she not like American food, the Egyptian wondered as he gazed at his one true love; Twinkies.
The golden brown, cream-filled commodities glistened it their cellophane wrappers in the light that radiated from the cheap, flickering, fluorescent lights in the ceiling above. Elevator music played in the background. Malik was vaguely aware of it, but he no longer cared about the annoyances of the world around him. He stared starry-eyed at the golden idols before him. He had heard a rumor that the blessed Twinkies could outlast a nuclear holocaust, but Malik couldn't keep them around long enough to find out.
"One day," he whispered to a random Twinkie, "when I rule the world I will prove that you can outlast the greatest of calamities." The Twinkie gazed back lovingly with imagined eyes.
The other customers in the store were disturbed by the growing puddle of drool at Malik's feet as he gazed at the Twinkies. After a moment more of gawking, Malik began yanking the Twinkies from the shelf, his dark skin in contrast with the golden perfection of the pastries. He dropped them into a fabric shopping bag that he carried with him when he went to the market.
Malik scurried down another aisle. He found that in this demented world there was no sweeter and more perfect combination than salt and vinegar potato chips, Twinkies, and banana pudding...
A shriek overcame the perpetual elevator music. All eyes turned to the source; Malik. "Where is the pudding! Where is the sacred banana pudding?" the fazed boy exclaimed in terror and bewilderment. His voice softened to an inaudible mumble and he curled up in a ball on the floor and rocked back and forth, knees held to his chest. "There's no more pudding. The beautiful, my beautiful banana pudding is gone. How...How can this be? It...It can't be... I'm dreaming... Dreaming, dreaming..." He started singing, "Dream a dream, I know it will come true!" The singing stopped and the muttering continued, "But I don't want this dream to come true."
Tears welled up in his lavender eyes, "They're out of banana pudding!" he wailed, tears spilling like waterfalls from his eyes.
Just then, the bell above the door was disturbed as another customer entered. It was Marik. The front of his spiky hair was still black from the chicken incident, his face, however, had recovered. His eyes, that were also lavender, fell upon his hikari as the young man sat sobbing on the tile floor. "Malik?" He strode over to his light. He squatted down next to the trouble teenager, his leather pants squeaking at the uncommon movement. "Malik-chan, what's the matter?" His words were caring, but his voice was sporadic and his eyes darted about the room in the telltale mark of his ever-present instability.
Malik turned his tear-stained face to his dark and sobbed pitifully, "They're out of banana pudding." He buried his face in his yami's purple, mid-drift tank top.
"There, there," Marik comforted, patting his hikari on the head. His eyes darted over the shelves. "Look!" His mask of sanity fell away. "They do have some!"
"They do?" Malik questioned. He watched as his yami triumphantly skipped over to several small yellow boxes whose labels clearly read: Banana Pudding Mix. "Wow. I've never seen it look like that before." Malik leapt up and rushed over to inspect his yami's discovery. "Why do you think it says mix?"
It was of course a mistake to ask his yami any sensible question. Marik cleared his throat and answered in a matter-of-fact way, "There are many different flavors of bananas in the world because there are many different kinds of bananas. The company clearly could not decide which banana to put in so they put them all in."
"Oh," Malik crooned in understanding. He marveled at his dark's vast knowledge of bananas and then proceeded to stuff six boxes of the stuff in his bag. He rushed to the check out counter, not wanting anyone else to rob him of his fantastic discovery.
The man behind the counter rang up the costs and stated a price that Malik found to be a bit too high. Having regained his icy composure, the Egyptian fixed the store owner with a hard glare and instructed him to carefully go over the ticket once more. The price decreased considerably. Malik paid with cash and walked placidly out of the store with his yami in tow.
"What brings you here?" Malik asked his yami as the two strolled down the sidewalk.
"Well, I would have just hung out at the house, but after I accidentally dropped a knife on the neighbor's rabbit Isis said I'd better take a walk. I decided we could spend some time together," Marik explained with a toothy grin. He hugged Malik, who immediately felt like vomiting. There was just something about his yami hugging him that didn't sit right in his troubled mind. Maybe it was the fact that Marik's messy hair aggravated him to no end. Or perhaps it was his yami's poor taste in clothing. Malik couldn't make up his mind, but there was definitely something unlikable about his yami.
"Aww... Look a couple," someone sneered in disgust. Malik's eyes widened and he pulled away. He might have had OCD. He might have been a psycho, or a power hungry maniac, but he was NOT gay!
Malik pulled a Twinkie from his stash of thirty some odd and dangled it in front of his yami's face. "You want the Twinkie?" Marik was enraptured. "Go get it!" Malik threw the sugary delight into the traffic. He didn't stop to watch his yami chase after it. He'd seen it before. The crazed apparition would dash into the danger and dodge the cars to get the manifested idol of carbohydrates. When Marik finally got the treat, his hikari would be long gone.
Malik sprinted down the street, dancing nimbly around the people in his path. He ended up at a make-up store. Isis said he could get eyeliner here. The sixteen-year-old found himself overwhelmed by all the separate items of make-up. If he had time, he would have experimented with all of them, but he didn't know how long it would take his yami to get here. He found the section where the precious eyeliner resided, but he couldn't decide what brand he wanted. The logical solution was to, of course, buy them all! So he did.
The merchandise-laden Malik staggered up to the counter. "Gay pride festival?" the man at the counter questioned.
"What did you say?" Malik seethed, his right eye began to twitch.
"You heard me," the man jeered, "pretty boy."
Malik's complexion darkened several shades as his rage grew. His arm flew across the counter, slender fingers coiling around the man's shirt collar. He yanked the salesman halfway across the counter and screamed in his face. "I'M.NOT.GAY." He slammed the man's head against the counter, knocking him senseless. He shoved the eyeliner into his bag and walked out of the building. The theft alarm went off as he walked away with stolen merchandise. The Egyptian ducked into an alleyway and jogged home. He slipped past his yami who sat on the couch holding his injured wrist. Malik suppressed a snicker and snuck into his room to hide his stash of eyeliner somewhere in his bedroom where he could hopefully find it when he needed it.
Then he walked down stairs to the kitchen. Shadi glanced up from the bills that sat on the dining room table. He shuddered in disgust as Malik removed his precious Twinkies from the bag. Malik glanced deviously at the servant of Anubis as the turban wearing one returned to his work. Shadi hated Twinkies. Mwahahahahahaha, Malik laughed maniacally in his mind. So he thinks he can try to kill off the Pharaoh before I do and get away with it? A plot formed slowly in his mind. "Yami," he called, walking into the living room with a wicked look on his face and a bunch of Twinkies in hand. He had stashed the rest in the cabinet. Revenge would be sweet; literally.
Shadi shifted uneasily as he wondered in slight paranoia what Malik was planning. He forced himself to think of something else, and he suddenly wondered, Where are Rishid and Isis?