Chapter Two
Different colored crayons were lying around on the floor, causing Ryou to sigh.
"Bakura! You left your things everywhere again! Pick them up!" Ryou called out and instantly the short fluff of white hair crawled out from underneath the table to pick up the coloring utensils. Ryou sighed and pet Bakura's head gently. "Sorry for yelling. I could have stepped on them and then you'd have no more crayons to play with, because they would be all broken."
"Ry is fat then," Bakura whined as he put the crayons into his box. He put them neatly and looks at Ryou. He looked around and tilted his head as he asked Ryou a question. "Why does Ry live alone? Where are big brother's mom and dad?"
Ryou's expression suddenly became sad and darkened, making the little Bakura tear up. The Hikari's eyes had widened in shock when he saw those little tears in those big eyes. Ryou panicked and flailed his arms.
"Don't cry, Bakura! What's wrong?" Ryou said hugging Bakura. It was only about two days since Ryou had found the little version of the spirit of the ring, but he found that the little child the type of company he needed to dull the pain of loneliness. Ryou became attached quickly and soon almost practically spoils the young boy whenever he cries.
"I made Ry sad!" Bakura cried out with a pout and a sniffle. Ryou smiled gently and pet Bakura's head gently.
"You did nothing wrong," Ryou told Bakura. "It's perfectly normal to ask those questions. Bakura, I live alone, but sometimes my friends visit me, so I'm not that lonely."
"But you look so lonely," the small boy stated as he took Ryou's hand gently. He smiled gently at the little Bakura and petted his head. It was so fun and nice to pet the fluffy mess of white hair.
"Hey Ryou," a familiar voice called out. "It was freezing outside!"
Ryou picked up Bakura, before going to greet the visitor. It was Marik. He did have a spare key after all, but honestly the Hikari didn't expect the other to come into his house so soon. How was he going to explain about the Bakura in his arms? Ryou decided that it was better to explain it now than later.
"Why do you have a kid?" Marik asked looked at the small version of Bakura. He poked the cheeks of the young boy to check if he was seeing things or not. Apparently, it was fun to poke around with a 3 year old kid's cheeks since they were so squishy with baby fat. Ryou looked at Marik, who was preoccupied with Bakura's cheeks, and noticed that the Egyptian decided to wear his normal entire that consisted of showing off his midriff in the beginning of spring. No wonder he was cold.
"O-oh, right," Ryou said as he tried to get Marik away from Bakura, who clearly did not like the poking. He tried to think up of an explanation before the other had come up with one all by himself. Marik's ideas were often not a good thing. However, it was too late, and Marik had jumped to the nearest possible conclusion for the sight in front of him.
"He's your kid, isn't he?" Marik asked. "Who did you knock up? Oh, how old is he anyway?"
Ryou was about to protest, but Bakura piped up with his small voice and said, "Three!"
Marik's eyes widened and looked at his best friend. He was speechless. If that was true and the child was Ryou's then that would mean that Ryou had sex with some girl around high school life. That wasn't true, because the British boy was a virgin. Marik, however, was a lover of drama and sent his imagination into the max as he came up with all these scenarios in explicit detail. Ryou had to cover Bakura's ears the whole time to protect his innocent mind.
"Marik! He's not my child," Ryou protested in the middle of some theory that Marik had about his sex life with a nurse that took care of him when he was injured. "He's Bakura."
"Well, yeah, I understand that technically he's a Bakura, because he's your kid," Marik said with a lazy grin. He believed he had everything all figured out.
"Who are you? I'm Bakura!" the little kid said. "Are you big brother's girl friend?"
"Girl friend?" Marik said, blinking. He stared at the kid. Actually it was more like a glare. Little Bakura trembled and hid his face in Ryou's chest. With a soft sigh, Ryou pet the young boy's hair as he looked at Marik.
"Did you really need to do that?" Ryou asked, upset that the little kid was terrified of his best friend.
"All I did was stared at him," Marik said with a shrug, not knowing what he did wrong. He probably thought that he could never do anything wrong. "Say, he looks more like the Spirit of the Ring Bakura than you do."
"That's because I think he might be," Ryou answered, looking at the two orbs staring up at him. He smiled gently at Bakura, relaxing the child. "He doesn't remember anything, but he has the same habits and tastes. The only difference is that one is more smiley than the other."
"Oh this is Bakura?" Marik asked as he poked Bakura's belly. "Why didn't you just say so?"
Ryou sighed deeply. He wasn't even going to reply to that question. Bakura squirmed in his arms and he looked down at the little boy. He was ticklish. That was so cute.
"Who is this?" Bakura asked Ryou, pouting. He didn't like being poked around with. He stared at Marik.
"That's Marik. He's a friend of mine," Ryou told Bakura.
"Friend?" Bakura asked. "He looks like a girl."
Ryou saw Marik's face twitched so he took a step back from him. He put Bakura down and the little boy ended up just clinging to his leg instead.
"He's only three, Marik. Don't hit him," Ryou said with a sigh. "He doesn't know any better and also if he was actually Bakura, then you might be running into some troubles later on."
"I'm not a girl though. I just happen to be fashionable," Marik replied. "So what are you going to do when you have class tomorrow? You can't really bring him to school."
Ryou's eye widened. Marik was right. Bakura was in no shape to be alone in the house. Even if it was the Spirit of the Ring's adult form, Ryou still wouldn't trust him being near things such as kitchen knives alone. He looked down at Bakura who looked back at him.
"I don't know," Ryou answered honestly. "I need someone to babysit him then. But I don't know who to ask and I don't have the money to pay someone to take care of him. Also, what if Bakura suddenly regains his memories and sends the baby sitter to the Shadow Realm? What if the baby sitter treated Bakura poorly?"
Ryou was listing all of the possible bad outcomes that came in his mind. There were many when Bakura was involved. He wasn't sure to trust a random stranger with Bakura or him with a stranger. It was just how things went if the child had the ability to send the babysitter to the Shadow Realm or worse. Ryou didn't want Bakura to hurt himself somehow either.
"Calm down," Marik told Ryou. "You're going to give yourself a heart attack. Why not ask Malik to babysit Bakura?"
"What if he kills Bakura out of amusement?" Ryou asked, as he paled at the idea.
It was true that Malik didn't go to college, because it was hard for him to find one that would accept him with no prior high school education. He, however, did not care. He simply helped around the museum with Marik's sister. It wasn't much of a career, but it kept from becoming some sort of hitman. Then again, Ryou had no evidence that Malik didn't kill people for money. He has seen a bit of a high bit murders whenever Malik decided to 'take a trip to Egypt'.
"Well, I can't do it. I have classes around the same time you do," Marik said, thinking. "How about we ask Yami and Malik to do it together? I'm sure if you explain it to Yugi, he'll convince Yami to do it somehow."
"How would that make it any better? If Bakura regains his memories, he'll try to send both of them into the shadow realm," Ryou stated. He looked down at Bakura, but there wasn't any Bakura right next to him. Apparently, Bakura had gotten bored of the conversation and began doodling on a piece of paper.
"Yes, but with Yami around, Malik won't try to kill Bakura," Marik said, as if he knew the perfect plan. Ryou knew how well exactly his plans went. It was usually not well at all. "And Yami is too much of a goody-two shoe to actually hurt Bakura while he's small and defenseless."
That plan was actually pretty sensible.
Ryou blinked and replied, "I thought you were going to say something stupid, but that might actually be bloody brilliant!"
"Isn't it?" Marik said. "I don't know what you just said there with your British, but I think that was a compliment."
"It was."
"Okay, that's great. Now can we get some food?" Marik asked. His stomach took this as a queue to suddenly growl loud enough for Ryou to hear it clearly. The white haired individual smiled and laughed at the random sound as he took Marik to the living room.
"Sure, just watch Bakura for me," Ryou said as he gestured to the little boy that was doodling up a picture of Marik. It was sloppy, but someone could really say that it looked like Marik. Ryou smiled gently and went into the kitchen to cook.
Bakura got up and shoved the drawing onto Marik's lap.
"Oh, is that me?" Marik asked. "It's not good enough. It doesn't show off my flawless tan enough. Oh what's that face on my mid riff?"
"It's a frowny face!" Bakura exclaimed as he pointed at it. "It's because your tummy made a scary sound! I heard it all the way here."
Bakura was referring to the loud growl. He was exaggerating a bit, but it was adorable. Marik smiled and pet the young thief's head. He always wanted to when he was partnered with Bakura, but he knew that the hair was either going to poke out his eye or Bakura would send his pretty ass into the Shadow Realm. The only response he got from this tiny version was a smile.
"So, your name is Ma…Mar…" Bakura said, but he couldn't say the name properly. He frowned deeply as he struggled with the name. He pouted and shouted out, "Ma! I can't say that name. It's hard."
Marik was about to fall off the couch. It really sounded like the young Bakura just called him in a manner that a child would call a mom. What was with Bakura's obsession with Marik being a girl? Marik just didn't see it. As far as he knew, he was very manly. Maybe it was the inner Bakura that was actually making fun of Marik? No, what was the chance of that happening? The Spirit of the Ring would actually find himself embarrassed to have called Marik that nickname.
"What's wrong?" Bakura asked as he looked at Marik. The boy blinked in confusion.
"It's nothing," Marik told him as he grinned evilly to himself. This was good thing to tease the other about when he regained his memories. He had to stop grinning evilly though, because Bakura had started to wander off in the house on his own. What if the little midget had gotten himself hurt? Marik had once angered Ryou and it didn't go so well, so he had to follow Bakura around. How hard could it be to take care of a little Bakura? Certainly it was less work than it was to work with the adult version.
"Get back here," Marik said, running up the stairs to get Bakura. He ran after the little boy, but he didn't know how quick the boy was. Marik knew that the Spirit of the Ring was very swift, because he had to be to steal important items and his image of being the thief king was predominant, but this boy was only 3!
Bakura laughed and continued to run around the rooms. He managed to slip by Marik and ran down the stairs. He jumped around once Marik had lost sight of him and hid in the closet.
"Shit," Marik cursed as he looked around for the little boy.
"Marik! Don't curse around Bakura!" Ryou called out from the kitchen. He didn't know what was going on in his house, but it sounded like Marik was having fun with Bakura. Marik was not having fun at all. The white haired midget held in his giggle as he saw from the crack of the door that the tanned man had not been able to find him. Marik looked in all sorts of places. He looked under the table and behind the couch. He even went back upstairs to see if he missed a room that the boy could be hiding in.
Marik was about to give up, but Bakura started to panic being alone in the closet without Marik in sight. He burst out of the closet and ran to Marik. He jumped onto the other and hugged him tightly. He was tearing slightly and not surprised when the taller boy had fallen onto his back.
"There you are!" Marik said, but then he noticed the tears. "What happened, Bakura?"
"I thought Ma disappeared!" Bakura cried out and he practically slapped Marik with his long sleeves. It didn't hurt Marik at all though. "Stupid Ma! You should have found me!"
Marik was surprised as he hugged Bakura. He didn't know what the young boy was feeling. Maybe he had abandonment issues. But Marik had another idea in his head. He remembered when Ryou was talking about that time that Bakura had showed the village of Kul Elna to him as punishment when Ryou had talked back to him. Marik did try to do some research on the matter and found out that the village was wiped out. He also remembered that Shadi had revealed the true past of the Millennium Items were more dark than people would expect.
The village of Kul Elna was sacrifice for the ritual to make the Millennium Items. It was unbelievable for some time, but it matched with what Ryou had told him. Bakura had belonged to the village. Though there were no actual records if anyone did survive the massacre. The only thing that said was that Kul Elna had disappeared overnight and that their people had a strange white hair trait that was predominant in their village.
Marik didn't tell Ryou the whole story though. He felt that there was no need to reveal what he had found out of his curiosity. Ryou only thought that the mass murder of the village was something that Bakura had done. Since the warriors had similar uniforms to the royal army, Marik didn't want to harm Ryou's relationship with Yugi or Yami. Marik didn't even know all the details. He's been meaning to ask Bakura, but this was the first time he seen Bakura since Battle City. He couldn't as a child that had no memories left to tell him about. But maybe Bakura's reaction was because of that memory that was deep in his soul. If only Shadi was still alive, Marik would ask him to probe Bakura's soul to find the right answers.
"Ma, what are you thinking about?" Bakura asked as he poked Marik's cheeks just like how the Egyptian was doing to him earlier. Marik suddenly regretted poking the child so much now. "You look so sad! It's okay! I'm not sad anymore! Ry said Bakura is strong."
Marik smiled at the kid.
"I'm not sad," he answered him. "I'm just hungry."
That answer had some truth to it. He was starving when he came to Ryou's house, now he was practically eating his own stomach out because of all of the running.
"Oh, me too!" Bakura exclaimed. "Let's go bother Ry until we get food!"
Marik liked that suggestion so he got up. Answers could wait. He walked into the kitchen to bother Ryou with a little Bakura holding onto his hand. Their plan of annoying Ryou to cook faster failed, because the other had just finished cooking a meal for them.
"Oh just in time," Ryou said as he put the food on the plates.
"Awh," Marik whined softly.
"What? Do you not want your food? Because I could just feed more to Bakura," Ryou suggested as he blinked. He picked up Bakura and helped him onto his stool. He sat at his normal spot at the table.
"No! My food," Marik stated selfishly as he sat down to eat the food that was made by Ryou. It was like heaven in his mouth, because Malik didn't actually cook. "So good!"
"That's good," Ryou replied with a smile as he slowly ate his share. Bakura had already begun to stuff his face with the food, making a mess of his shirt. It was only another one of Ryou's shirt, because Ryou didn't actually have enough money to buy clothes for Bakura yet. He only manages to get crayons with some pocket money he had left over from grocery shopping. Ryou sighed and wiped the child's face with a napkin. It looked like that Bakura needed another bath after dinner. It was starting to turn into a routine.
"So did you have fun with Marik today?" Ryou asked the small look alike of the Spirit of the Ring.
"Ma and I played tag and hide and seek!" Bakura replied cheerfully. "But Ma is really bad at them."
Marik wasn't actually that bad at those games. Bakura was just a very crafty person, even though he was only 3. Ryou smiled at the child until he noticed the nickname.
"Ma?!" Ryou shouted out, blushing.
"He can't pronounce Marik. Even though I think it's an easy name," Marik said as he continued to eat the food unfazed. He somehow managed to get used to the nickname quickly, but he still had a blush on his face.
