This the Life, and Who'd Argue?
(This is the Life – Two Door Cinema Club)

Paradise of the adolescent; salty taste on the tip of your tongue, a tingling on bronzed skin, a breeze that felt brand new, and daylight that never seemed to end. This was the life, a refreshing change to all things from his past. Marik Ishtar had finally found a way he could forget his desolate childhood spent in the tombs of long-gone Ancient Egyptian Kings. There was such life in the ocean, in the waves crashing over his shaggy blonde head. He had taken up surfing and even managed to persuade his brother, Rishid, to join him. Shredding apart the incoming tides was like being reborn. Of all things on land, the ocean was his new home-place; haven.

Since the events about a year and a half prior, Marik hadn't socialized much outside of Rishid and his sister, Ishizu. Nobody else could possibly understand their special sense of action or their extreme indifference to things in the world. They were all three scarred deep inside and still healing—healing slowly in their own time. Delicate, desert flowers that bit until you bled.

Marik napped often in the sand of the shore, taking in the sunlight he had been so deprived of. The sunlight was always the strongest at noon, always the warmest and most tingling on the beach in the constant summer of Egypt. He could usually go undisturbed, other local beachgoers completely creeped by the way he and his siblings carried themselves and their sudden appearance. However, sand was kicked in his face, caking the inside of his mouth making breathing an absolute chore. He shot straight upright, choking, spitting and hurling the sand out of his mouth.

"What the hell, asshole?" he growled, still spitting up sand. He blocked the sun to reveal it was no asshole at all, but rather, his sister instead. "What's the deal with trying to kill me, Zu? I thought we already got payback out of the way?"

She smiled knowingly. "C'mon, get up. Rishid wants to catch some waves before we head back home, and you know he doesn't like to go without you."

"Yeah, alright, alright." Ishizu pulled her little brother up to his feet as he brushed the sand off his skin. The dirty-blonde grabbed his board and signaled for his brother to follow along into the water. "Hurry up, Rishid! I wanna see if you've gotten any better since the last time we surfed together!"

Rishid, nearly giant in comparison to his siblings, smiled and followed along to catch up with his baby brother. He was finally starting to loosen up, and he and Ishizu both knew it was all Marik's doing. All his and the newfound hope they had found in the past year. Burdens were lifted, and they all found themselves a little lighter.

The bronze brothers raced out into the tide, wide-eyed and eager for that cool water to splash against their skin. Marik was already atop his board and paddling out into deeper sea and harsher tide. He spotted the ideal wave and claimed it, standing on his personal throne and ruling over the sea as its king. And the water tunneled over him, like it was cradeling him. In moments like this, he was clean; pure. All of his sins just vanished in that salty water and the fish beneath him would swallow it up.

And then he lost control and tumbled into that cold ocean, but it felt good. It gave him goosebumps and got all that grime out of his hair, made his head lighter and made his vision clearer. He bathed in that shivering cold, as if he were rolling around in sheets. He ignored everything else, all the nagging. His delight was dangerous, depriving him of air. Rishid's grasp pulled him above water, bringing him back to reality.

"Are you alright?" he gasped, holding Marik above the water still.

Marik choked, "Yes, I'm fine. I wasn't drowning, I was fine. I know what I'm doing."

Rishid sighed, exhausted. Sometimes he wondered if Marik actually did know what he was doing. He wondered about that little boy, worried about him as if he were still five-years-old.

"Are you boys okay!?" They heard Ishizu call from the distant shore. With that, they knew it was time to head back. Worrying Ishizu meant she would be stressed out and checked out for the rest of the day. They swam back to shore, dragging along their surf boards and shaking the water out of their hair.

The Ishtars packed up their things in the back of their vehicle and sped off to town, where they were still unpacking in their new apartment. They favored the hustle and bustle of the city. They didn't even miss the desert. Not at all.

Things had become a little more routine since the events of the Battle City tournament. Ishizu had taken on the role of 'housewife' as Marik called it; doing the housework, the cooking, and looking after the boys. Rishid brought home the bacon, and Marik was still struggling to hold down a job. It all bored him, and the boredom sunk him right back into a state of depression he was still fighting with. Marik was rarely as giddy as he once was as a child, rarely smiled with such innocense and naivity. Even in such darkness, he was still somehow peppy and optimistic about life. It must have been his youth.

He hadn't even been living for twenty years, and already he had so much destruction caused at his hands. In his passionate desire for a normal life, he had removed any ability to be normal for the rest of his life. All of his evildoings, he knew they would follow him forever. And they should, because that's what he deserved. No redemption for this vengeful murderer of souls, this deprived soul.

The stillness in the walls drove him mad. Marik couldn't stand being at home most of the time. It was more of a P.O. box than anything, really.

He practically ran out the door and walked through the streetlights, music blaring loudly in his ears—another newfound love of his. He rather liked being out at nighttime and gazing on all the stars in the sky, though there were scarcely any in town. Even nighttime aboveground was brighter than those tombs. Any darkness was better than that hellhole that used to be home.

This had become a part of the routine; staying at home only long enough to get antsy and then run off into the streets. And in this routine, he would always see the same girl, about a year younger than him. She was tall, maybe the same height as him, he could never tell because of the yellow stiletto's she always wore. She had bangs that were cut straight and brushed off to the side, and medium length hair—black, and peeking from under that was a long braid with orange and green beads entangled in it. She had a very petite figure and wore a white cami, the center of the bust presenting a small, light yellow bow and a bright yellow mini-skirt that reminded Marik of some type of marshmallow. Some nights, she even wore a moss-green vest. He never got close enough to see her eye color, though.

"I'm Merit," she said just loud enough so that he could hear her. Lucky his music player had just died on him, otherwise he never would've caught it. "I've seen you maybe every single day since you moved here?"

He didn't respond at first. Marik wondered what roused her to speak to him today, because he certainly had no intentions of making social contact with her today or any other time soon. "Yeah, I've seen you, too."

"Got a name?"

What sort of stupid question was that? "Marik."

"That's funny," she started rather shyly, "if I was a boy, my parents were going to name me that. Why'd you move here? Parent stuff?"

He paused for a moment. "Yeah… parent stuff."

Merit didn't have anything to really respond with. She just started jabbering about her own home life. Something about how her parents dragged her all over Egypt and sometimes to other countries to show off exhibits and other stuff that only rich people seemed to care about, Marik didn't really listen that much. He was more concerned with dropping her so he could go home and eat something and crash in bed. He was so mind-numbingly bored, and this boring conversation wasn't helping at all.

"I've seen you surf. You're pretty good at it," she continued, trying to get some sort of reply, finding it very difficult to get more than one word out of him. "I could never do that, the water scares me."

Marik was baffled. Scared of the ocean? What planet was this chick from? "Why?"

"I dunno, something about how deep it is, and all the fish—mainly sharks and stuff. I especially don't like going underwater; I'm scared that when I come back up for air something will block my way or pull me down to the ocean floor. It's just too claustrophobic and I don't have enough control."

There was silence. Awkward, more to Merit than Marik.

"Well," she started, "I'd better head home. Mom and Dad are gonna be furious with me," she laughed, "Bye!" Merit waved and raced back home. The whole thing left Marik dumbfounded. What exactly just happened, and why did it happen?

She left his mind rather quickly after a few minutes of pondering her intentions and even her agenda. When was she on the beach, he hadn't ever seen her there before? At home, Ishizu had cooked dinner. Something that wasn't near perfection, but it was good enough, and since his sister was trying so hard, Rishid and Marik were always very enthusiastic about her cooking.

As usual, Ishizu asked Marik where he went, and his response was always the same. He didn't find it important enough to mention Merit. He figured he would probably never talk to her again, anyways, and if he did mention her, his sister would make way too big a deal out of it. Rishid and Ishizu both were always pressuring him to talk to someone—anyone. He really needed friends, they said. The relationship between the three of them was like Mother, Father, and Son, but Husband and Wife didn't apply here. Ishizu, Rishid and Marik continued to be siblings, but the older two always found it necessary to parent over their baby brother. He still had the mind of a child.

After the routine dinner, Marik slumped into bed and stared at the wall. He wouldn't fall asleep for another hour and a half, maybe two or three. Just like every night in paradise.

And the next day was just like the day before with the exception of Rishid going to work. Ishizu drove Marik to the beach as per the usual, and he rushed out to those ocean waves, only today, his peripheral vision kept an eye out for that Merit girl. It wasn't so much that he cared to see her again, only that he was curious, now. She seemed strange, even to him.

Ishizu noticed her brother acting a little hesitant running to the water today. The bounce in his step was a little off, like he was sure something was following him. She looked a ways behind his path to see if, in fact, someone were chasing him, only to find common beachgoers sunbathing.

Merit was indeed watching. She was extremely interested in the ear-to-ear smile on his face that only seemed to appear when he was out on those waves. She wondered if she could ever see that close up, if it were possible that anything else could make him that happy. If it were possible, she was gonna be the one to find out.

When Marik finally caught sight of her, he dragged his board through the sand and walked over to her place on the beach, a very threatening look on his face, completely opposite to the look he carried out on the water. "What are you so interested in me for?"

"I just wanted to get to know you…" she started, a little nervous by the face he was making, "I thought that maybe you could use a friend, you and your brother and sister all look really lonely, and I know nobody ever talks to you guys. There are rumors that darkness follows you three wherever you go."

"Well, they're right. Stay away from me." Conversation over. He turned to walk back to his sister.

"I highly doubt that."

"Why are you even here if you're so scared of the ocean? What's the point?" Marik practically shouted back at her. This was all very frustrating and was disrupting his daily routine that he had grown so accustomed to.

"Because I like the sun. And I like watching the surfers and the kids building sandcastles. Its relaxing," she replied, "I get bored at home all by myself. Video games get boring and honestly, I'm tired of my parents just giving me money to go buy whatever I want. They aren't, like, absent from my life or anything, I just wish they were around a little bit more. But they're busy, I get that," and here she went, jabbering on and on again. It was like she didn't know how to stop.

"I get it, I get it," Marik interupted, already bored of her melodrama. She smiled awkwardly, knowing very well about her annoying habit.

"So, what sort of things do you like to do, Marik? Besides surfing and going for walks at night?"

Marik had to think about this one. Was there really anything else he liked to do besides that? Those two things pretty much summed up his daily life at the moment. "I dunno, haven't tried much else."

She laughed, "What? You been living under a rock this whole time?" Spot on, actually.

"Pretty much," he shrugged. "Besides, what else is there to do, really?"

"Well," she started, "there's all sorts of things. Like, watching movies and buying things and playing video games and board games and hiking and visiting museums and all sorts of other stuff. I mostly play video games and visit museums. I love Ancient Egyptian stuff, especially." It was at this moment that Marik suddenly noticed the old, gold bracelet around her wrist. It was, indeed, an ancient piece of jewelry; the scriptures on it reminded him of his studies underground.

"Where did you get that bracelet?" he asked, still staring at it.

"Oh, this?" she raised her wrist, "my Dad gave it to me when I turned thirteen. He said an ancient Egyptian queen wore it who was beloved by her people. I'm not sure how he managed to afford it, but I cherish this piece of jewelry. All things Ancient Egypt are so elegant."

He scoffed. "More like morbid."

"You got a problem with Ancient Egypt?"

Marik shrugged. "I'm just not super fond of it, that's all."

Merit leaned back into the sand, letting it fall over her long, skinny fingers and warm her palms. "You sure are mysterious. What did your parents do before you moved here? I was told you and your brother and sister all came from somewhere deep in the desert: the Valley of Kings, actually. Has the subject of our country's history really bored you so much?" she chuckled, "I would've killed to be where you were."

"And I killed to get out."

Author's Note: This is something I've been meaning to work on for a while. Before you get your panties in a bunch over Merit, let me just tell you that I'm leaving everything totally ambiguous so you can choose whether or not they like each other more than friends. Some people will totally hate her, and that's cool, feel free to do so. Some of you might like her, some won't care.

Basically, I wanted to write something about how the Ishtar's continue with life after Duel Monsters. Their strange family dynamic is very interesting, and this is the first time I've really been able to write something of a decent length. For anyone that's read any of my other fanfiction, you know just how bad I am at writing long chapters. In fact, most of them look like a series of One-Shots.

Anyways, hope you enjoy. Please read and review! Constructive Criticism is always welcome.