Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

This is an old, incomplete fic I worked on during finals last year. I doubt I'll finish it, but I figured I might as well put it here instead of leaving it to rot on livejournal.
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-'

The first day that Tristan came in with a black eye, no one thought anything of it. When they asked, he said it was the result of a fight he'd picked. Joey made fun of him for being so slow that he got a shiner, and Téa told him he was an idiot for getting into fights for fun, but that was all.

A week later, he came in with another bruise, this one on his cheek and slightly scabbed where the skin had broken. It had also gone unmarked, though Joey had slapped him in the back of the head and told the brunet to bring him along the next time he picked a fight--he was getting bored lately anyway. Tristan rolled his eyes and shoved him away.

Two days later, Domino High's heater conveniently broke and overheated the school during second and third period, and the students were allowed to take off their uniform jackets and roll up their sleeves until it was fixed.

Tristan had some very bad bruises on his arms, one of which was obviously fingerprints, and there was a knife cut on his right arm near the shoulder. He'd pulled his sleeves back down when Yugi had noticed and asked what happened, even though it was roasting, and said they were just leftover from the last fight.

Yugi had grown accustomed to people drawing weapons on him, so he didn't think anything of it and let the subject drop. Joey was silent.

Joey dragged an obviously irritable Tristan off during lunch that day. By the time the rest of the gang found them by the back of the school, Joey was yelling at Tristan for his stupidity and recklessness, Tristan was swearing at Joey for interfering where he wasn't wanted, and both of them were trying to punch the other. Téa and Yugi managed to break them apart, and Ryō successfully misdirected the teacher who'd been told that two students were fighting on school grounds to the gym.

Tristan stormed off and ditched the rest of his classes, and Joey refused to explain what he'd been referring to, even to Yugi, so nobody knew what the hell was going on, but it was obviously bad.

That had been Friday. Tristan ditched Saturday classes as well; and when Yugi went to his house under the excuse of dropping off his homework, his sister seemed surprised that he hadn't been at school. Yugi tried to stammer out an explanation that wouldn't get Tristan in trouble, but he had never been that great at lying on the spot; and finally Morgan just took the homework and said she'd give it to Tristan whenever he came back.

—

On Monday Tristan was back in school, sitting in his desk before any of them except Ryō arrived. He brushed it off when Yugi apologized for getting him into trouble, saying that his sister hadn't done more than yell at him for a few minutes before Johji had demanded her attention.

Ryō had to get to school early because one of the students in their class was paying him to tutor her in literature, so he knew that Tristan had arrived before everyone else to hide the fact that he was limping.

He didn't mention it, and the trick worked for a while--even Joey believed it when Tristan skipped eating lunch with them because he said that he needed to finish his latework. Ryō was curious how he was planning to leave after school without anyone noticing, but he never found out; in the break between fourth and fifth period, Tristan glanced out the window, scowled, and then stood up and walked carefully out of the classroom.

Ryō sat behind the brunet, and he looked out the window as well. He made a note of the teenager standing at the school gate, made a note of the way Tristan walked up to him, and made a note of the obvious animosity in their brief conversation.

Joey hadn't seen Tristan look out the window before he left, but he noticed Ryō watching, and moved to look out as well.

"What's up, Baku--"

Joey frowned, leaned forward and shaded his eyes with a hand, and squinted. Then his hand dropped and he swore very quietly and very, very violently. Ryō scooted his chair away.

Joey turned to leave classroom, but then the teacher walked in and made him take his seat. He just shook his head when Yugi asked him what had happened.

Once the teacher had her back turned, Ryō looked out the window again. He made a note of the glint of metal in the other teenager's hand while he talked to Tristan, and the fact that the brunet constantly kept himself out of arm's reach. He wrote something in the bottom margin of his notebook, before ripping the corner out and folding it once.

When Tristan returned to the classroom a few minutes later and the teacher asked where he'd been, he told her that he'd had to go to the restroom. Joey sat with his arms folded and slouched in his chair.

Once she was writing on the chalkboard again, Ryou tapped Tristan in the arm with his pencil and slipped the note onto his desk. When Tristan opened it, he read: He saw you talking out the window.

A few minutes later, the brunet tossed another scrap of paper over his shoulder. Ryō caught it before it could slip through the crack between his desk and the wall, and unfolded it.

I guessed from the glaring.

Ryō didn't correct his assumption.

—

That afternoon, Tristan split as soon as school was over. If Joey had planned to follow him, he was sidetracked by Téa stealing his backpack. When he tried to get it back, she threw it to Devlin, who waited until Joey was coming after him before tossing it back to her, thus starting an impromptu game of Joey-in-the-middle. Yugi looked sorry for the blond, running back and forth on the school lawn, but he didn't interfere. Ryō stood next to him and watched, preoccupied.

The game lasted for a few minutes, until Joey stood still and started yelling at the both of them--though the majority of his cursing was directed at Devlin.

Téa set one hand on her hip, the other dangling the backpack at her side, and glared at him. "You can have it back once you tell us what's going on! We're concerned about him too, but you're the only one who knows what's up!"

Joey paused, but shook his head. "I don't know nothin'," he replied. "He's obviously not talking to me, or haven't you noticed?"

"Cut the crap, Joey," Devlin replied. "He's not talking to you because you already yelled at him for whatever's going on."

"It's none of your business," Joey snapped.

"But we're worried about him," Yugi replied, deciding that now was the time to play the good cop. "It must be something really bad to make the both of you act like this. Isn't it?"

Joey didn't reply, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

The group was silent for a few moments, and Téa looked ready to give up and throw the backpack at Joey's feet, when Ryō said, "The guy at the gate had a knife."

Joey jerked his head up and looked at him.

"I saw it while they were talking. He's probably the one who cut him last time," Ryō continued. "You know who he is, don't you?"

Joey looked away, his hands fidgeting in his pockets. ". . . Yeah."

"Why's he after Tristan?" Yugi asked, taking over the conversation again. Ryō let him, knowing that Yugi was likelier to get answers out of the blond than he was.

When Joey didn't reply for a few seconds, Yugi made a small, subtle hand motion, and Téa moved to stand next to him, breaking up the rough semi-circle that had surrounded the other teenager.

". . . I don't know, okay? I'm just guessing. But. . . ." He glanced over at the gate. "The guy's a two-bit bookie. Or he works for one. Something like that."

There was a collective blink. "Tristan gambles?" Yugi asked, sounding as confused as Devlin and Téa looked.

"He . . . races," Joey finally said. "That bike. He doesn't usually wager money on himself, though, so none of this makes sense, but. . . ."

"What's that guy's name?" Ryō asked, when the blond didn't say anything more.

"Jared," Joey replied. "Jared Takami."

Yugi and Téa continued talking, asking questions about what they could do to help and whether the police would be any use. Joey reminded them that racing was illegal and Tristan was underage, which ended that quick enough. Whenever he found an opportunity, Ryō asked more questions about Takami--where he hung out, when he was likely to be there, how many people were in his gang and how were they armed. Joey answered without thinking about it, because Yugi and Téa and Devlin were asking lots of stuff too, and Ryō always managed to make his questions fit the flow of the conversation.

Eventually everyone had to leave. Ryō rode the bus with Devlin and waved goodbye when they separated at the station, before heading home.

—

Late that evening, a white-haired teenager in jeans and a green shirt walked into the yakitoriya that Takami's gang was using as their hangout. He left one person soulless, another with a knife wound, two simply unconscious, one unscathed, and all with their memories erased of his appearance. He also left with the information of how much money Tristan owed.

—

Bakura had never been prone to pickpocketing. It was a petty form of pilfering, and beneath the King of Thieves.

But it was good enough for Tristan. He wouldn't want the brunet to think he was worth, say, jewelry, after all.

It took four days of wandering in the very crowded parts of Domino's downtown and riding in rush hour trains, but he managed to collect the 48,500 yen that Tristan needed. He also stole a small but ornate and dangling mother-of-pearl earring from a woman on one of the trains, just for effort that it required.

He only got one of the earrings off before the train came to the woman's stop, but that didn't matter--as thick as his hair was, it was impossible to see whether Ryō was wearing any earrings, let alone just one.

—

Tristan had been coming to school looking mildly cheerful for the past few days, at least in comparison to the rabid bad mood that he had been in before, so Yugi and Téa were starting to think that things were okay again. Joey remained skeptical.

Eventually, though, Takami and his gang had found someone to blame their inexplicable attack on and had dealt with him accordingly, thus enabling themselves to return to their normal mode of operations. Ryō guessed it had started once more when Tristan showed up at school early again, this time favoring his other leg. He'd been carrying the 48,500 yen in his case, waiting.

As he finished tutoring Karin and walked to his seat, Ryō made a note that Tristan's hand was slightly swollen. He guessed that the brunet had given up on trying to get the money and decided to just fight his way out of the situations he got into.

That was a dangerous way to live, especially in a city like Domino, Ryō remarked as he took his seat.

—

At no point in the school day was Ryō Bakura near Tristan Taylor's backpack for any noticeable length of time.

—

When Tristan arrived home and managed to side-skirt Morgan long enough to get into his room, he was rather astounded to find an envelope containing the amount of money he needed to pay off, plus 2,500 extra.

(Even when faced with an obvious madman and a room full of injured and possibly dying companions, Jared had padded the amount that he was owed. He'd figured if the crazy white-haired guy was going to pay it up, great; and at worst, it wouldn't be a loss if he was forced to write the debt off.)

His first thought was that Joey had done this; but he easily wrote that off as impossible. His second thought was that Yugi had won a punishment game, but that also seemed unlikely since one, Yami was more about destroying his enemies than extorting them, and two, Yugi didn't know what was going on anyway. Even if Joey had spilled about the racing--which Tristan was beginning to suspect he had done, thanks to an offhand comment from Devlin--Yugi still couldn't know about Takami or what he owed.

His third thought was that he should stop thinking and go hand the money over before Takami got his thugs to jump him again. Who knew--maybe the damn stuff came from the Shadow Realm and would melt in a few hours if he didn't hurry. Stranger things had happened.

—

Tristan walked into school the next morning, whistling. At the looks he got from Joey and the others, he gave them a slightly altered version of events. He left out the fact that he'd started making bets in the first place to be able to take Serenity to a shrine festival a few weeks back, and that someone had tampered with his bike, letting out just enough gas that he lost and had to make another bet to try and cover the expenses, which also went wrong. He also explained that he'd got the money by doing part-time work. Neither Yugi nor Joey appeared to believe otherwise, so Tristan began to think that the money really had been magical and the Shadow Realm had done something useful for once.

Ryō wrote another note in the margin of his notebook, just above the corner he had previously ripped. The mother-of-pearl earring brushed against his jawbone when he bent his head to tear it out and fold it in half.

He tapped Tristan's arm with his pen once, and when he had the brunet's attention, he tapped it again. Tristan caught on and held his hand out behind him, below the desktops. Ryō dropped the paper into his palm and went back to taking notes.

When Tristan opened it, he read: You realize you're in his debt now?

It took a moment to sink in.

When it did, Tristan jerked around to stare at Ryō, but the other teenager was busy copying down their teacher's lecture and didn't acknowledge his hissed question. Before he could force the other teenager to look at him, the teacher made him turn back around. He did, and Ryō made a note of the tension in the brunet's shoulders.

A few minutes later, Tristan openly crumpled up the note and threw it into the gap between his desk and the wall. Ryō and Bakura remained unfazed.