I don't own Yu Gi Oh, but if I did, I wouldn't have let 4Kids lay a finger on the anime.

"So, Marik, tell me again," Ryou said as he followed Marik through the upstairs hallway of the Ishtar's mansion-like home, "why am I stuck helping you with this attic cleaning duty of yours?"

"Because, my dear Ryou~" Marik chimed cheerfully, "you're one of my best friends who is so nice and helpful and just love helping people and cleaning!"

"I don't like cleaning!" Ryou snapped. "When have I ever said I liked cleaning?!"

Marik hummed in thought as he silently led his friend to the attic's entrance in the ceiling. He jumped up and yanked at the knob chained to the door, pulling it down and stepping out of the way as the door opened and the ladder lowered to their level. With a bow and a wave of his hand, Marik beckoned Ryou to go first in a gentlemanly way. Ryou pouted and huffed, ready to argue with Marik for pulling him out of his studies just to help him clean (which meant that he was most likely going to have to do most of the work, if not all of it) but he groaned and climbed the ladder nonetheless.

"Ugh, it's so dark in here!" Ryou shouted once he stepped into the attic, squinting his eyes to try to gain some sight of the room.

"Well, then turn on the light!" Marik shouted from below. He grunted moments later as he began to climb up after Ryou.

Ryou tentatively stepped further into the attic, his palms up to feel the space around him. "How the hell am I supposed to turn on the light when I can't even see the switch?" He grumbled to himself. "Honestly, that's just so dumb- agh!"

Ryou's foot caught on an object hidden in the dark, causing him to stumble and slide face first into the floor below. When his body hit the floor, a cloud of dust flew out and filled Ryou's mouth, making him cough and hack as he choked on the particles. During his coughing, the light turned on and illuminated the area around him. Ryou looked over his shoulder and saw Marik by a wall just as he lowered his hand from the light switch.

"Whoa, are you okay?"

Ryou glared at the young man and opened his mouth to make a sarcastic remark, but with the coughing fit taking over his lungs, he settled for simply standing up and brushing the coat of dust from his clothes. The dust around him increased as he did so, and it went up his nostrils and made him sneeze uncontrollably.

Marik watched him from his spot with an amused grin plastered on his face. "Hey, man, did you catch a cold or something?"

"No!" Ryou said. "I-achoo! It's the-achoo! It's because-achoo! Dust..."

Marik made a small noise of understanding, tilting his head back in a half-nod; it almost seemed like he was throwing his head back to laugh, but he didn't. Still, Ryou didn't miss the amused grin growing wider as Marik turned towards a box covered with dust and dark, damp stains. Seeing the box Marik went to made Ryou realize that there's an attic that needs to be cleaned, so he started to look around the attic to find a good place to begin and gasped at the sight. Surrounding them were many objects like musical instruments, instrument cases, framed paintings of people Ryou didn't recognize and knew weren't related to the Ishtars at all, fake plants, and tons of boxes.

They were all coated with dust.

Oh, sweet mercy, I'm not going to survive through this day, Ryou lamented as he blocked his nostrils with his fingers. "Ugh, Marik, what is all of this stuff?"

Marik shrugged as he tilted a box on its edge to find a label. "Dunno, really. A lot of this stuff was here when we moved in, and we just sort of kept it and shoved more stuff up here."

"Really? No one bothered to clean it up earlier? And again, why do I have to help you with the cleaning when I don't even live here and you have two siblings downstairs?"

"Didn't we already go through why you're here?" Marik chuckled. "Anyway, Ishizu is doing some paperwork for the museum and Rishid is outside taking care of the backyard, so both of them are out. And we just kept pushing back the date to empty out the attic until my sister strategically forced me to do it on the one day when I'm not busy but they are so I have to do this by myself, which is where my bestest buddy in the entire world comes in!"

Ryou pouted and crossed his arms. "Excuses, excuses," he mumbled.

"Aw, don't be like that, Ryou! Just think about it like this: when we're done up here, we get to enjoy the big lunch Rishid's going to whip up after he's done with the yard, you know, like a really tasty reward!"

At the mention of Rishid's cooking plans, Ryou dropped his arms and stared blankly at Marik. His mouth started to salivated with the thought of eating food prepared by Rishid's hands, and he had to purse his lips in order to trap the drool. After a few moments of staring at Marik and imagining the delicious array of food that was to be, Ryou sighed in irritation and cursed his insatiable love for Rishid's cooking.

"Ugh! Fine!" Ryou turned towards the nearest pile of boxes and ignored the triumphant giggling behind him. He then paused. "So, where do we start?"

"We start by looking for anything valuable or reusable," Marik replied as he started to rip off a strip of tape from his box. "You know, separate useless junk to throw away from priceless memorabilia to be kept, stuff that can be resold, and stuff that can be donated."

Ryou nodded and returned to the pile of boxes he went to, pulling the collar of his shirt over his nose before any more dust snuck into his nostrils. He lowered the first box of the stack to the floor and fingered the tape on it until it finally came off. He sifted through the contents inside. Nothing but clothes with holes and old newspapers, he observed. He pushed that box out of the way and lowered the next one, which was already aged and torn to the point that no amount of tape could seal it, so opening it wasn't going to be a hassle. Inside that box Ryou found some valuable stuff to keep like jewelry, old recipes (something that he'll try to get Rishid to make for him) and clothes still in good condition. He set those items apart in a separate pile before moving that box away. As he moved the third and final box, a twinkle glinted in the corner of his eye, catching his attention. Moving the current box in his hands away, Ryou reached for the object and pulled it towards him. He looked down at it in awe.

The object that caught his eye was a small wooden chest with bronze hinges, casings, and rose patterns all over it. "Marik!" Ryou called over his shoulder. "Come lool at this!"

"What is it?" Marik asked as he made his way over to Ryou and knelt next to him.

Ryou pushed the chest in front of Marik to let him look. "I have no clue, but it looks really cool!"

"Hm, I think I saw this somewhere before, though," Marik muttered in thought. He tested the top part and it opened without effort, revealing an assortment of old-looking writing material like a bottle of ink, a couple of feather pens, and a worn leather journal. Marik picked up the journal and flipped through the pages as Ryou fingered the pens. When he looked inside the front cover and spotted the name, he gasped and smiled.

"What?" Ryou said as he gave Marik a questioning look.

"Aw, wow, Ryou, this is Rishid's journal!" Marik replied. "I know what this is! This is Rishid's writing chest!"

"His what?"

"His writing chest! It's this thing one of the male clan members made for Rishid when he was a child, and he used it to keep his writing stuff in here as well as a couple of stuff from our mother. Like this." He gestured to the journal in his hand and pulled out a scarab-shaped necklace charm carved from jade.

"Oh, pretty!" Ryou chimed as he took the scarab charm and turned it in between his fingers.

Marik shook his head and rolled his eyes. He then flipped to the first page of the journal and snickered. "Aw, that's so cute!"

"What is?"

"Listen to this," Marik said. He then cleared his throat and, with his voice pitch heightened, read, "'Hello, journal. My name is Rishid Ishtar and I'm five years old. My mother made you for me, so I'm going to cherish you forever and talk to you- or is it write in you?- everyday from here on out!'"

Ryou snorted and laughed. "Is that what he really wrote?" He craned his neck to look into the book and frowned. The introductory page was written in Arabic, a language he hadn't learned yet. "Huh..."

"Yeah, that's what he wrote," Marik chuckled as he turned the page. He scanned the pages with a small smile that grew bigger with each line he read. "Oh, man, Ryou, listen to this entry: 'Dear Journal, I think I may like this girl in the clan. She is really pretty and nice and smiles a lot and makes really cool looking blankets and has this cute kitten-' Geez, hadn't he heard of a freaking comma?"

"Marik, he was five, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, now where was I? Oh, right: '-and has this cute kitten that plays a lot and rubs on everybody's leg and she lets everyone touch her long pretty black hair that is really shiny. I do not think I can talk to her though because when I try to talk I get this big ball stuck in my throat and feel kind of sick and I do not think she would talk to me anyways because I am not a real Ishtar. Mother says that when I get sick like this it is called having butterflies in my stomach. I do not like having butterflies in my stomach. They make me feel weak and hot like a fever except not as bad and I do not want any sort of bugs inside me at all.'"

"Aw, Rishid's first crush!" Ryou cooed. "That's really sweet!"

"Ha ha ha, I know, right?" Marik flipped through a few pages. "'Dear Journal, today I met my baby sister. Her name is Ishizu and she is really cute! She is a new born so she mostly sleeps but when she is awake she tries to talk but she does not know how to talk so she just makes noises and drools and passes gas.'" Marik paused at that part, laughing at the image of Ishizu passing gas, drooling, and making baby noises. That is definitely going into the memory chamber!

"'I got to hold her today and she looked up at me and her eyes are a beautiful blue like crystal water. She held onto my finger and we kind of talked while Mother and Mister Ishtar talked in another room. They thought I would not be able to hear them but I did and I heard Mister Ishtar say that now that Mother can have his real children he can finally have a son. Does that mean that I will never become a real Ishtar?'"

Marik paused again, swallowing as the last line of that entry struck his heart. Ryou became silent as well, knowing from his friend's recounts of their past and how their lives were tied around having the Ishtar name and duty. He understood, even if he couldn't relate to, how the Ishtar legacy ruined them all in certain ways.

"Uh, let's see what else he wrote," Marik said as he awkwardly flipped through the journal with less enthusiasm than before. "Hey, here's one: 'Dear Journal, Mother read to me a copy of a Shakespeare sonnet she kept to herself and it was kind of funny if a bit rude. I wonder how his wife reacted to being described as a person who had colorless cheeks and big feet that stomped around like a big troll. I kind of laughed at the poem. Mother then taught me how to write my own poems and I wrote what is called an anaphora.' Aw, he misspelled anaphora in this. 'I wrote it on the next page because it is really long. Next page please.'"

"Well, that's polite and instructional of him," Ryou chuckled. "Never heard of a kid writing something like that."

Marik nodded and turned the page. He silently read the writing with a smile, but the smiled started to fade the more he read, his lips forming the words. He then took a shaky breath.

Ryou furrowed his eyebrows in concern. "Uh, Marik? What's wrong? What does it say?"

Marik gulped and rubbed the corner of his eyes before saying, "It's just some really depressing stuff, man."

"R-really?"

"Yeah..." This time, without making his voice a humorous falsetto, Marik read aloud: "'I Don't Want to be Sad by Rishid Ishtar.

"'I don't want to be sad.

I don't want to have the other kids laugh at me because I'm a servant.

I don't want to keep crying in my room at night.

I don't want to be beaten.

I don't want Mister Ishtar to hit me because I accidently called him Father.

I don't want the bigger boys to fight me because I have no one to defend me.

I don't want to be lonely.

I don't want to be pushed out of groups because I'm a fake Ishtar.

I don't want the grown-ups to take away my only friends because I'm not worthy of them.

I don't want to be used.

I don't want people who only talk to me to order me around

I don't want friends who'll ask me for stuff but then hurt me and mock me later.

I don't want to be sad, I want to be happy.

I want to be surrounded by friends that'll laugh with me, not at me.

I want the adults to see that I'm still a kid like their kids and that I won't hurt them.

I want hugs, not punches.

I want kisses, not kicks.

I want Mister Ishtar to allow me to call him Father.

I want everyone to see me as a real boy like Pinocchio.

I want to be a real Ishtar.

I want to be able to smile all of the time, not cry.

I want to be happy.

So why can't I be happy?

I don't want to be sad.

So why am I so sad?'"

The attic filled with a heavy silence when the poem ended. Marik closed the journal and looked around, taking one shaky breath after another and shaking his head slowly. Ryou just sat still, staring absentmindedly at the open chest as the words echoed in his mind.

"He was five when he wrote this," Marik stated, breaking the quietness.

"...Yeah," Ryou said in a hushed voice as he drew a circle on the floor.

Marik waved the journal in his hand. "He was five years old when he wrote this." He chuckled humorlessly. "Just goes to show you how fucked up my clan was."

Ryou nodded as Marik spoke. His mind filled with a millions things to say, small phrases that were supposed to offer consolation or at least give him some reason to use his voice, but he had no clue what to say to what he just heard. He glanced at Marik from the corner of his eye. Marik was smiling wryly at what Ryou knew were memories of his childhood, at the abuse they all suffered at the hands of their madman of a father, and what worse mistreatment and bullying Rishid was tortured with because of his bloodline. Ryou bit into his bottom lip and was about to suggest getting back to cleaning the attic-anything to clear their minds, when small noises sounded from the attic's entrance. Both teens whipped their head around to it and saw Rishid's shaved head poking through.

"Oh, hey, you two," Rishid said as he climbed up higher and stepped into the attic. He had a bundle of garbage bags and rubber gloves tucked under his arm. "I saw that you guys left this downstairs and decided to bring it up to you." He bent down to set the stuff on the floor, and when he straightened, he was suddenly tackled by Marik in a tight hug.

"Rishid, I'm so sorry," Marik murmured. He pressed his face into Rishid's chest.

Rishid looked down at the messy mop of blonde hair with a bemused frown, "Uh...What?"

"I'm sorry for what you had to go through. No one should have to feel that way as a child. Children are supposed to live happy, carefree, and loving childhoods!"

"Marik, I am afraid that I don't-"

"He means that you shouldn't have been depressed as a child," Ryou spoke up. He looked down at his feet. "We, ah, read your journal from when you were a kid and the poem that was inside it."

Rishid's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Poem? What-" Then came the memory of his childhood years spent on venting his sorrows and thoughts into his journal, his most trusted companion when everyone refused to listen to him and acknowledge his existence. His face brightened at the realization and he smiled down at his brother. "Oh, Marik, come on now," he said sweetly as he ruffled the boy's hair. "You don't have to feel bad for me, that poem was written twenty years ago. It has all passed."

"I know that, Rishid, I know that!" Marik said. He looked up into Rishid's eyes. "But that doesn't change the fact that you were abused both physically and emotionally in a way that no human being should be. I mean, what kind of environment makes a child so depressed that he feels hated just for being him?"

"The kind that is long gone and has no effect on the happiness and love I feel now," Rishid replied softly. He stepped away from Marik and took the journal from his hands. "In fact, I feel so much love and joy that I think I might want to throw away this old thing. There're too many horrid memories in this for me to focus on the good ones I want to form, and the good ones I already have." He picked up a garbage bag, opened it, and tossed the journal inside.

"Uh, wait! Are you sure you want to do that?" Marik said as he watched his brother. "I mean, don't you want to keep that or something to look back on if there are good memories inside?"

Rishid chuckled quietly. "Like I said, little brother, it just has too many bad memories for me. Besides," He pointed to his temple. "All of the good stuff are in here, anyway. Now..." He trailed off as his eyes scanned the attic around them, taking notice of the many boxes and items that would take the two boys forever to sift through and throw away. "Let's get this place clean up. Knowing you, Marik, you'll just leave poor Ryou to do it all by himself."

Both Ryou and Rishid laughed lightly as Marik huffed indignantly. Marik was about to protest, to tell Rishid that he was pitching in, but he let it go and smiled along with them. He went back to sorting out junk from the valuables, shoving the trash inside the same bag as the journal.

Ugh, the fluffiness! The fluffiness of epic proportions! I really didn't want this story to end with so much cheesy, cliché fluff, but I guess that with a sad childhood-to-happy adulthood transition, it's imminent, huh?

So, despite that, was this good? Leave a review!