Hello everyone! You will no doubt recognize this as "A Walk in the Rain", only this is the new version! More will be coming, so STAY TUNED!!

This one is more than twice as long as the original, so I'm sure you will all love this one more than the original.

I don't own Yugioh. I don't own Heartshipping. I don't own Yugi or Ryou. I don't own you. Now read.

A Walk in the Rain

The Rain's Orchestra

The bell chimed signaling the end of the school day. Yugi stood up and gathered his books together. It had been another one of those boring old school days where nothing ever happened. His social studies teacher had drone on and on about World War I, and since he had heard about so many times, he kept having to hold himself steady and not fall asleep in class with his head propped on his arm. Yugi took a quick glance at his three best friends Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor, and Tea Gardner walking out the classroom door. He had plans to walk with his friends to the card shop and hang out. He left the class to go to his locker, narrowly avoiding someone with white hair(he quickly apologized over his shoulder without looking back) and he watched as Joey, Tristan, and Tea walked up to him.

"So are we on for today?" he asked cheerfully. His face fell at the expressions that had suddenly spread across their faces.

"Sorry Yugi-kun, but I have to be home early today." Tea said sadly. "My mother wants me to help her around the house before some guests come over for dinner. Remember? Tonight's when my father has that dinner with his boss and fellow employees."

Before Yugi could ask the other two, Joey interjected.

"And me and Tristan have detention again...Sorry Yug.", Joey said. "I didn't actually think that Mrs. Harris would really be that angry about that drawing of her with the body of a Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon."

"Speaking of which Joey, that was kind of cool the way you made her have three heads and was spitting flames in the shapes of F's at those drawings of the students I did.", Tristan pointed out.

"The point is," Joey glared at Tristan, "We can't come with you. Too bad. We have to be stuck in detention writing lines about how much we 'love' Mrs. Harris."

"Oh...ok then." Yugi said sadly. He usually walked home with one of them everyday. That way the bullies couldn't get the jump on him on his way home. Because of his reluctance to fight back and he made for an easy target, Yugi was often a victim of kids bigger than him beating him up or mugging him, but after he had made friends with Joey, Tristan, and Tea, kids didn't try to beat him up anymore. But that didn't really stop them from throwing out short comments or preventing him from heading home by himself. Yugi took his bag and headed toward the front doors. He then made a discovery that it was raining down hard. Yugi sighed.

"And I didn't even bring an umbrella." Yugi muttered. In hindsight, at least the bullies might not even bother trying to jump him in rain.

"Than I can share mine." said a voice. Yugi nearly jumped out of his skin from being startled at someone being there. He turned to see Ryou Bakura standing next to him, carrying a bright blue umbrella. He had long white hair that was way longer than most boys should have long hair and it seemed to spike out in some other directions at times. (Then again, Yugi had no right to talk judging by his own tri-colored hair.) His brown eyes seemed to be staring at Yugi curiously, waiting for him to say something.

Ryou Bakura was from England. (Or he was living there but was from Japan, Yugi couldn't really remember) He and his father had moved to Domino City, Japan about two months ago after a car crash had killed his mother and sister. (He didn't like to talk about it) His father was an archaeologist who was currently away in Egypt uncovering some recent ruins that had been discovered. Ever since he had come to their school, he had also become a prime target for bullying because of his "girlish" figure. True, he was rather skinny for a guy and spoke with a soft voice but with a slight accent, but maybe that was just how British people looked and spoke.

Yugi hadn't really thought about making friends with him. (Joey didn't really want to jump on that bandwagon by being friends with the girly guy) Besides, he had thought that Ryou didn't really want friends, judging from how he avoided everyone and never really looked at anyone's eyes.

But today, he seemed different than the quiet Bakura that he usually was. Ryou was actually smiling, a first that Yugi had ever seen him do.

"Hi Bakura." Yugi greeted. "You don't mind if I walk with you right? I live down by the card shop."

"Yeah I don't mind. In fact I have to pass the card shop to get home." Ryou said. Yugi inched closer to Ryou so that he was under the umbrella. Noticing how close they were, Yugi blushed.

"Sorry Bakura."

"That's ok." he shrugged as they started walking toward the card shop. The rain seemed to let down even harder. Yugi shuddered at how cold it was, careful to avoid the ankle deep puddles that were along the way. They walked together in complete silence until a rather large raindrop hit Yugi in the face.

"I hate rain..." Yugi muttered.

"I like rain. I see it as the Earth's way of cleansing itself." Ryou said suddenly. Yugi stared at him. Since when was Bakura so...philosophical?

"The Earth's way of cleansing itself?"

"Yeah. Like no matter how wrong things go in the world and no matter how bad things get, the Earth is able to purify itself and cleanse itself of sin.", Ryou explained.

"Wow...I never thought of it like that..." Yugi said to himself. They walked in silence for sometime, the only sound heard was the pounding of the rain. Yugi started to see what Ryou meant by "Rain cleansing the Earth". Some of the grime in the streets was washing down the gutter drain, making the street suddenly seem cleaner than it used to be. There was a sudden rumble of thunder in the air. The noise made Yugi jump a little, nearly smacking into Ryou.

"It's just the thunder Yugi-kun. It's the Earth's way of celebrating." Ryou said softly.

"Celebrating what?"

"The Earth is celebrating its cleansing. It wants itself to be heard by all."

"Thunder still scares me though..." Yugi said quietly. Ryou politely nodded as he looked up at the darkened clouds up above that refused to let up. Yugi glanced at him, noticing for the first time how gentle, yet intense his brown eyes were.

A lightning bolt flashed in the sky with another clap of thunder. Yugi jumped even more and clung to Ryou.

"Although lightning scares me a lot more..." Yugi whimpered. That's odd...I don't think I've ever said anything about that to the gang...

"The Earth is using lightning to light itself up. So that it can be seen by all. Lightning is nothing to be feared." Ryou said calmly. He didn't even seem to be fazed by Yugi's grip on his arm.

Yugi relaxed his death grip on Ryou, but would flinch and cling tighter when the lightning flashed along in the rain.

"You know, it's like an orchestra, a thunderstorm..." Ryou said suddenly.

"An orchestra?"

"Yeah. Listen to the sounds of the thunderstorm. Doesn't it sound like an orchestra playing? Listen carefully to the sounds rain makes when it comes in contact with things." he explained.

Yugi perked his ears to listen to the pounding rain and thunder. Bakura had a point, it did sound a little bit like an orchestra. Another lightning bolt flashed, but this time Yugi didn't jump. He was now able to enjoy the falling rain and the thunder and lightning, which had lessened up lightly. The rain made small "kerplunk" sounds when they splashed into puddles, tin roofs "ratta tattaed" from the rain, and some wind chimes were blowing around in the wind. All the sounds combined with the thunder and the occasional lightning strike really did seem to feel like the two of them were watching an orchestra play a song.

The thunder represented drums, drumming their very own tune while the lightning cymbals clashed in the background. The swirling gray clouds added to the color and made it seem all the more better. The wind's flutes and clarinets whistled softly while the violins strung their bows, slicing the rain through the air so that it would spread everywhere and not just in one place.

They soon reached the card shop. Yugi ducked out from under the umbrella to the card shop door. He squeezed some water out of his multi-colored spikes of hair before facing Ryou, who was watching.

"Thanks for walking home with me Ryou." Yugi said. "But you know, you didn't have to..."

"But if I didn't have to, then why did you accept my offer?" he asked curiously.

"Because..." Yugi stopped, realizing that he really didn't have a good reason. "Well, I figured that maybe if we walked together, maybe we would get to know each other a little but more. Maybe we could be friends..." he trailed off.

Ryou laughed a little. "I guess we could say that we are friends now."

"You're right. We are friends now. I never knew you were so deep, really."

"My mother was a bit of a poet. She read all kinds of books and stories and taught me things like that."

"She must have been a really great mom." Yugi smiled. Ryou smiled sadly.

"She was. I'm sure that if she had met you, she would like you."

"I'm sure that I would like her too." Yugi agreed. "So, I'll see you later?"

"Of course. Maybe we can hang out some other time. See you later." Ryou waved as he walked off down the street, disappearing out of sight. Yugi looked up at the rain and lightning and then back to where Ryou had been standing a moment before. He came inside and drained some of the rain water out of his clothes before looking outside. The sun was starting to peek out in between the clouds, but it wouldn't last long. Yugi thought back to Ryou's words before, trying to imagine what the sun would be right now.

...An audience cheering the orchestra...this ones asking for an encore.

Yugi couldn't help but smile.

I should start walking with Bakura more often...