Remembrance.

That hand that grasped his, eyes that looked up at him with so much confusion and recognition at the same time, that was what had started it. That was what, ultimately, started everything. It was just a desperate attempt to get him to look at him, and it hadn't even been attraction that had started it. it was just this one sole attempt to finally get someone to talk to him and, if anything, he should have understood the most.

Yuugi wouldn't ever have been. Naturally he'd been in the same situation but he could never truly understand how terrible it was living with someone who was with you all the time, watching you, doing things so that you would scream so badly until you passed out in the chamber of your own mind. Your own psychotic little mind, that was dependant on the small bits of sanity that you still clung to in your daily life.

It started with a desperate need for someone to understand.

It ended with… Well. You'll find out soon enough.

"Don't you miss it?" The casual way Ryou was proposing the question was annulled by the way his voice was shaking as he proposed it.

"What should I miss exactly?" Malik's voice was calm but bore a dangerous tone. Ryou better not be taking this too far. He wasn't ready for this yet, to talk about him so freely, relive the errors and mistakes that he'd tried to desperately to erase.

But Ryou wasn't intimidated so easily. Ryou needed to talk about absolutely everything. He'd been sick and done with always being portrayed as the weak link, ready to be cast away and put in the dark forever. He wasn't going to be weak anymore and feel as if the world would crash down on him any time soon. It was something he'd dreamed about, having entertained the thought of even killing Bakura just to get his life back. To his own demise, or perhaps that was the sad irony of it, he couldn't even function properly with the spirit now absolutely gone.

"Him."

The glass on the floor shattered with how fast Malik's hand had shot out to in an automatic reflex to push it away. Ryou was unfazed. Malik's erratic outbursts had become the norm for him, every time he visited him. He could clearly tell this was affecting him, the bags under his eyes, the harsher lines around them that gave the jade colour that much more depth, but also, gave way to so much more emotion. He had turned older in a mere month. There was no way for him to ignore this.

"I won't TALK about it!" His voice had reached that same pitch that he always used when he panicked. Ryou was certain he was the only one who had seen it with the exception of his family. Because he knew that his family had been through a lot with him.

"Yes you will." Ryou's soothing voice had Malik jumping up from the couch in no time, he wasn't fortunate enough to escape the soft browns that regarded him. Ryou Bakura wasn't what people had told about him, he wasn't quiet or a pushover. Once he'd had something in his mind, there was no one who could whisk it away. He was extremely pushy in his own way, and perhaps that's what he'd always missed. That firm grasp of control.

The silence stretched on. Neither of them was willing to give up that firm control they believed they owned, and not shared. Or even lost such as this moment. It was a fact that neither wished to accept but now that they had been left completely alone, with no one to tell them what to do, it was harder to seize control of it.

"What the –" His laugh was painful to hear. It was all sorts of things, ranging from insane to terribly sad to something that was akin to hurt even, perhaps guilt. Perhaps these were all the emotions that Malik had been going through ever since Battle City happened, ever since the Pharaoh had returned to this peaceful past and peaceful life that he'd never gotten to have in the first place. He was angry with everything, the world was to be smashed into darned pieces because the only person he'd ever hated was now gone.

The only person he'd ever considered so deep a part of himself, that he was starting to miss him. And it was just this terrible dance of going back and forth between guilt and lies, hurt and comfort, this terrible circle of feeling euphoric and absolutely debased, all emotions coming back to him in full force and making him crawl under the couch with the burning shame that left his cheeks tinted with red.

"What am I SUPPOSED to miss Ryou!" The animalistic snarl that had now taken ahold of his features, was starting to remind Ryou of the very person Malik claimed he never thought about. "Am I supposed to miss his abuse? His insults?" Another cup smashed onto the floor to join the first one. "The fact that he tried to kill me?"

"You're missing him regardless." He wasn't bothered by Malik's anger, after all, Bakura had been the same to him. He was angry because he refused to admit that inside, he felt terribly lonely and confused. "And it's okay Malik, it's okay to feel that way."

"No it's not!" Hands buried themselves in a mop of blonde hair and tugged at the strands so hard, that at the moment Ryou saw the tiny specks of water in his eyes, it might've been because of that. But it wasn't – it never was. "It's not okay! Rishid keeps telling me that I should be glad that he's gone, that I should be thankful for being alive but I can't – I can't and I don't and there's something wrong me entirely –!"

"I miss Bakura too," Ryou's quivering voice had managed to make Malik's rambles stop. Even though his emotions still lingered like a final chord of a piano piece – they were still shaking up the room even if there was this odd silence that had been left in its wake. "I miss him being there, I miss him making decisions for me, I miss whatever I used to hate."

Malik was silent.

"But it's hard," the smile was not meant to be comforting. It was a way of trying to smile through whatever had happened before. Living through the nightmares that kept him up at night, and through the hardship that was life now. And he couldn't admit that to anyone else. He couldn't admit that despite hating Bakura for everything that he'd done, it was difficult to pick up where he'd left off. The gapes in his memory were one for starters. "It's hard starting over."

"It's not the same." Malik snapped, clearly not convinced. "You don't understand – he wasn't a PART of you, he wasn't something that you created!"

"And yet I've lived with him for as long as you have." The tone that he was taking was starting to become annoyed as well. "His presence was there from the very start, I had no say in that, he wasn't kind to me, neither was Mariku!"

There was no answer to that and Ryou continued, standing up with his pale face flushed with anger, his hands shaking, and portraying such confliction in just one person that Malik had to swallow for a minute. "I hate him! I still hate him for everything that's happened!" More words, more gestures, more silly ways of showing that idiot that he wasn't the only lunatic on this planet left. They both had suffered damage and it was Ryou's purpose to make him see it. He no longer wished to spend his evenings alone, he didn't desire thinking in bed of how much his life had been screwed over by Bakura. He didn't wish for that life anymore. "But I'm not cowardly, I will say that I miss having someone around!"

When he had grasped Malik's hand in the very start it had been back all the way in Egypt. It had been a sunny day, one that had burned him in funny places and have his companions laugh at him for being sensitive. But the day had been dark. Bakura had been gone, he had dissolved under the heat of the sun and left Ryou with a gaping hole in his mind and psyche. Because what was his purpose now? It wasn't even the fact that Bakura had now completely vanquished. It was that, for all his bravura and all the tiny little plans that had hatched inside his mind, he had never been the person to kick him out in the first place. He didn't even have a chance to redeem himself before it was all over.

Before he was victim of everything that had possibly happened to him. But he wasn't a hero. He was just that poor boy who'd been victimized and terrorized for so long, and that was now finally free.

But he didn't feel free. He didn't feel that way at all.

And on that day, between silly laughs and tears that had been shed, his eyes had caught Malik's and he'd noticed the same kind of confusion that he was feeling. And in that moment he'd grasped that tan hand and made him come back to Domino, in spite of everything that he had currently believed in. Perhaps Malik had known too.

That they needed this.

"You're sick Ryou." The words hurt. But they didn't hurt as much as seeing that fake smile just trembling on Malik's face before he threw his arms around him and hugged him so tightly that his ribs started to hurt. "You're so sick, just like me – we can both receive the comments together."

"Ah – " The anger hadn't faded but having these arms around him, even if it was just for comfort, was so incredibly nice.

"You think you're alone… " Malik softly uttered, "But you're not."

"Stupid.." Ryou whispered before nails dug into shoulderblades and he tried to hurt the other for being as idiotic as he was. "If I was I hadn't sought you out." He had never been pretending to want this solitude, yet everyone had seemed to take it that way. Yuugi had found consolation in Anzu, and the rest of the gang hadn't been as terribly affected as he had been. And he had been terrified of telling anyone what was really going on. Because how does one manage to tell anyone willing to listen, that you miss the person who's tormented you so much? That you're confused on how to gain control of your life back?

That would only be Malik.

"… I guess we're both not then."

"No… I guess we're not."

It started with a desperate need for someone to understand. But as Malik's face has closed in on his own, and soft lips pressed without a need for desperate consolation – Ryou realized that he had ended up with more than he originally bargained for.

It ended with butterfly kisses and someone that was sharing the joys of life with him, under loud and rough laughs, and painting the sky with their stupid arguments.

But he guessed, they were happy that way.

It was their ending.

A/N: Wow. This was the first time I've written Angstshipping! I truly apologize if Malik seemed a bit OOC, but I've tried my best to make it work. I do love this pairing, I just haven't ever written it, and I was sick and tired of all the clichés making them truly 'angsty'. Neither of them really are.

I honestly hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love to hear so!