Disclaimer: Don't own any of the original characters of YuGiOh, only their fictional personalities those are used for this story.

A/N: I'm rewriting 'Try Again' as an experiment. Please R&R if you like it and say what you think. Feel free to express yourself :)

Additionally, I could use a beta so if you liked to help me out, drop me a message.

Note: This story takes place long after the final arc of YuGiOh. I'm ignoring many facts, mostly the ones connected with the disappearance or appearance of some characters. Don't feel bothered by it, however; otherwise there would be no story or it would be too complicated.

Chapter 1: "Babble Babble"

Yami liked to play games. Mind games, physical games, mental games, desk games, card games, whatever… Never had he told what games he liked to play the best.

Seto liked to play games as well and he liked to get in his possession anything someone dared to mention that he could not get. He liked to hunt for rare cards, best cards, most powerful cards, God cards, dragon cards…but never had he said what his most desirable prey was.

And Bakura liked… Bakura. He was a sadist in his own kind of way. He liked pain, disorder and confusion.

All three of them had something in common. They were all bound with their pasts and their lives in the ancient Egypt. But everything had been so much easier back then in the good old Egypt, every one knew the role they had to play, the boundaries they could try to break and the aims they were trying to reach. It was all one huge circle of life, beginning with birth, ending with death and… actually, scratch that, the life in the good old Egypt was as complicated as ever. It never changes, you know.

Although not Bakura nor Yami and definitely not Seto were living in the ancient Egypt anymore nothing much had changed in their social situation. Fighting, competing, hungering for power and riches, it was all the same with maybe some exceptions there and then. Maybe it was because of their pasts; maybe it was because of their changed roles that the three of them had hated each other throughout the time and kept doing it. …sometimes it almost seemed like the past was haunting them. But maybe they were hunting the past.

So there was this wicked game that Seto, Yami and Bakura instinctively kept playing. It didn't make much sense as their fighting was as significant as fatuous rivalry can be but they still kept their fighting triangle alive … But this all has started to sounds way too complicated by now. So, to cut a long story short and make it simpler, the situation was somewhat like this:

Seto spent most of his free time bothering Yami, wanting to duel him, wanting to defeat and humiliate him, wanting to be smarter and better. Like a sly fox watching the pray Seto watched his enemy. Seto was quite easy to figure out, however. If he had an aim, he reached it. Then he moved on. Yami was an exception; he was something Seto couldn't just reach and move on because he could not be better than him. He would be one day and HE knew it.

Yami on the other hand did not care about Seto or all the victories over him. Much. Except for those numerous times when he was desperately trying to outrun one of those meaningless duels. Most of the time, however, Yami had better things to do; one could almost think that the ex-Pharaoh almost enjoyed his timeless and ageless tries to figure out the labyrinths of Bakura's creepy mind, his paranoid guesses where and when someone (or one particular being with white hair and sharp fangs) is going to try and take over the world or … something similar. He didn't trust the spirit of the ring. Especially starting from the day Bakura had gained himself a brand new body. His powers had partly disappeared after the millennium items were destroyed but he still was powerful enough to make Yami's headache never go away (whenever he saw him).

And what more was Bakura up to? He was trying to annoy every living being he met. Especially Seto because to steal something from that supposedly well guarded house was one of the biggest challenges at present. That made the older Kaiba brother furious and oh how much fun it was to watch that…

But… surprisingly as it may seem, Bakura still could be considered the most relaxed and sane from this company of three. He had grown addicted to enjoying his life as one of the mortals, (after he similarly to Yami had finally gained his own body and could function normally on his own). Bakura actually liked the life as it was, even if he often found it dull and boring and tried to spice things up with his own methods.

Let's throw in some more fact once we're at it. There was this one thing that complicated the whole situation. Yami and Bakura couldn't really be called 'mortals' and neither could be Seto Kaiba. Why? Because they weren't ageing. They were immortal and yet they lived in this world as mortals. For Yami and Bakura it wasn't anything new to get used to because they had already spent 5000 years locked up in their millennium items as spirits, even though living in their own bodies after such a long time was something to get used to. Anyway, for Seto Kaiba the whole situation was a little more difficult. He wasn't growing any older and now he was stuck looking like a bloody-18-years-old-teenager-too-grown-up-to-be-18. How exactly could they know that they weren't aging? Well, 6 years had passed since all the troubles dealing with millennium items had been solved and the items got destroyed, and Yami, Seto, and Bakura hadn't changed even a little bit. That all was really a little bit sad…

Others of their much talked and much hate-loved gang, however, had grown up and were living their own lives by now. Yugi, now as tall as Yami himself, was a young gentleman, working in his grandfather's game shop. It had changed greatly now, looking more like a huge game mall rather than just a small shop. Yugi was managing the things in the shop rather well after his grandfather had left him the key of the shop, declaring (in a short note left on the kitchen table) that is was time for him to travel across the world and see a load of new places. At the beginning little Yugi had been terrible confused, sad, depressed, betrayed and feeling every other emotion what a 17 years old teenager left alone in a small game shop could feel. How could his grandfather just leave him like that and how would he torture that old crackhead once he would return was the main concern of his thoughts for one and half a year. But, as the time passed by, he came to the realization that it probably had been the best for his grandpa just to do what he had always wanted to do and follow his heart's calls (and if the oldie ever decided to return Yugi was ready to stone him anytime). After all, leading a shop couldn't be that bad, could it?

Yugi paid a high price for thinking thoughts like those at the beginning because it had been amazingly difficult to lead a shop on his own with nothing but a worthless Yami being there to help (or not so much) him. At one point (and they had turned out to be many points) he had wanted nothing more than just to crawl under his bed and never to come out so that he wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of documents and countless bills and a Yami that had difficulties to learn how to open and close the cash-deck properly. And that really wasn't much of help. Yami had always tried hard but failed even harder at helping in any way. He was an awful shop assistant, terrible cook, hopeless driver, pitiable street sweeper and the list went on. But back to Yugi now. At the moment he was dating the same good old Tea, even if he was in serious doubts that he would ever be willing to marry her. Marry? Ha, he doubted he wanted to see her for more than 20 seconds per day.

Our dear Mr. Mutou still lived in the upper floor of his mall. Yami lived there as well, doing nothing and resembling a lazy sack that spent his time desperately trying to learn something useful although… it was hopeless. As much as Yami had been wise and powerful as the pharaoh of Egypt as much was he a total misfit for the life in the 21st century.

Now let's turn to …Ryou Bakura, the nice, randomly white-haired guy who was still the same nice, still very randomly white-haired guy as before. Just now he worked as a policeman and liked when people in streets referred to his as the 'officer'. He loved his work and in his free time wondered if he should make a move on Yugi or not. Yes, six years were quite a long time to decide that but Ryou was still the same nice white-haired coward as before (even if he was a policeman now). He was living in his father's house although the father himself wasn't living there anymore. He had moved out and left his property to his son, saying that he needed his privacy (Ryou hadn't guessed till nowadays who really needed the privacy- he or his father) and it would be better for them all if he left and went back to England. Ryou didn't mind it, as well as Bakura who wasn't doing anything useful except for planning how to steal something (and that was not very useful)…with Ryou, as a policeman, hot on his heels.

Mokuba (now with more maturity than ever) helped his brother with the company. Seto was quite worried that he didn't get older. Let's be serious, the fact that he still looked like a gorgeous, young and desirable 18-year-old-but-too-grown-up-and-mature-to-be-18 was getting quite obvious and what would his business partners think if he stayed young forever? Well,hello, everyone, I'm Seto Kaiba and I'm immortal. Don't be bothered by it though, my mental health is stable and this sickness is not progressing too fast so far. So, where were we…?

The fact that Seto wasn't getting any older didn't bother Mokuba though; he even found it amusing in a weird way and liked to refer to Seto as his 'little baby-brother'. Sometimes. Then Seto would usually murmur that Mokuba had lost his mind and had a really wicked sense of humor. Very black humor, if he was allowed to add. To not let Seto worry as much as he used to, Mokuba told his brother over and over again that he's going to take care of everything and there's always a possibility to simulate a little accident involving one Seto, one car and one cliff if Seto's going to staying young forever. However, that didn't make Seto feel much better or worry less.

And then there was…Joey. Joey who liked Mai. Joey who still liked Mai. Joey loved Mai actually and they were married and had one child. What a surprise, eh? But let's be serious, everyone had known that they would grow up and end their stupid I-don't-like-you-even-if-it's-obviously-I-have-erotical-dreams-involving-you attitude one day. It was a surprise that it happened so soon, actually. They had got together 5 years ago and married the same year. Then they got a child who was a four years old monster by now…as Yami liked to call him. He was as terrible as Joey himself and made Yami's head hurt (sometimes even more than Bakura) Yes, Yami's head because Yami was the nice guy who always had nothing better to do than help Mai and Joey to baby-sit their junior. And to be honest, Yami hated that brat. He hated little children who pulled him by hair and wanted to play some weird games with miniature cars or unnaturally looking dolls. Even worse, Mai and Joey's little darling liked to play dressing-up when his friends came to a visit… soldiers and robots were the hit and they always needed a "fair lady" to rescue. Sure the once mighty Pharaoh had always somehow managed to avoid this role of the 'fair lady' that needed to be rescued but… to put it in other words, Yami was a miserable baby-sitter as well…

One more notable personality was Tea who was a dancer. And a teacher. Yes, she was teaching dancing. And dating Yugi. She was still driveling after Yami, hoping to hear a proposition from Yugi and still annoying. Beside, she was the same good friendship loving person she had always been. But let's not talk about our beloved Tea now because…

Last but not least there were Tristan, Duke and Serenity who were leading a weird and wicked threesome relationship. It was too weird to even describe and none of their friends really wanted to describe it or to ever know what exactly happened behind their closed door. They themselves didn't care what the others thought. The present situation was good enough so what more could these three ask for?

So there we have it- a very vague insight of some of the main character's lives. Now that we have this picture in front of us, let's add some more not so very significant but still memorable details involving Yami, Seto and Bakura.

The three of them had not dated anyone in the last…what, 5000 years?… Seto was very easily frustrated when his brother or anyone else brought up this subject. He had never felt the need to date girls. Nor had he ever felt the weird need to look at guys.

Yami was trying his best to act nice and helpful around his friends and not to freak out every single time when Joey and Mai asked him to help with baby-sitting. His friends always tried to avoid talking about love, dating and anything connected with relationships whenever Yami was together with them because he tended to become unusually bitchy and was sullen for the rest of the day or evening if they did. That didn't stop Bakura to annoy Yami whenever he had a chance to do it. It was almost his favorite thing to do, almost because it was even more fun to steal something from Seto's supposedly well-guarded house.

Their emotions were something they didn't usually speak about with others. It was almost like they were some kind of monuments lacking many humanly aspects. It was almost as if they were wearing masks around other people to make them unaware of the fact that they could actually…feel. When one seems fearless, emotionless and perfect as those three seemed to be, you can be almost sure that it's only an illusion behind that something else is hiding, something lovable, something breakable…

Well, except in the case of Bakura, of course….

(Marilyn Manson: This is the New Shit)

Babble, babble, bitch, bitch

Rebel, rebel, party, party

Sex, sex, sex, and don't forget the violence

Blah, blah, blah

Got your lovey-dovey sad and lonely

Stick your stupid slogan in

Everybody sing along