Yes, it's another "walk" with our two favorite (ok, MY two favorite) people, Yugi and Ryou. They were my favorites in Yugioh anyway.

I don't own Yugioh. I don't own Heartshipping or the adorable couple that is Yugi and Ryou. I wish I did, but that would require me owning the entire Yugioh series, where I would rewrite it to make this couple seemingly possible in the show...or something...sorry, now I'm just rambling...

A Walk in the Leaves

Buried Underneath the Foliage

"Ryou! Hey, over here!"

Ryou snapped around at the call of the shorter male that was running toward him. Yugi grinned up at him, glad that he had caught up. On one of Yugi's frequent visits to the park, he had spotted Ryou walking down the street away from the park. Despite the promise that they had made last time, Yugi still had not seen Ryou at all at the park or during school hours, so he was almost ecstatic at seeing the white haired friend nearby. He couldn't explain his precise feeling behind this, just elated joy at seeing his friend, he supposed.

"Ah, Yugi-kun. What brings you here?" Ryou asked.

"What have you been doing lately Bakura?" Yugi asked casually.

"Catching up on homework and reading some good books." he shrugged. Yugi caught the title of a gold covered book in Ryou's arms. Egyptian Theories: A Study on Pyramids, Reincarnation, and Other Aspects of Ancient Egypt.

"I see that you're really into Egypt." Yugi pointed. He didn't notice the way Ryou bit his lip.

"...Let's go." he said suddenly as he started walking away. Yugi had to hurry to keep up a little with Ryou's fast strides. Panting slightly, he looked up at him.

"Where...are we going anyway?" he asked curiously.

"That's why you sought me out, wasn't it? To catch up with things and walk around for a bit." Ryou asked.

"Ah...yes. Yeah, of course!" Yugi chirped. They soon reached a lower downtown part of Domino, where many colorful trees with different colored leaves decorated the city. The Domino Plant Garden was down this way, Yugi realized, especially when they stopped outside of the gate leading in.

"Hey, why don't we walk around here for a bit?" Ryou asked, and before Yugi could even say yes, Ryou had grabbed his hand and pulled him through the gate after muttering a greeting to a security officer nearby. Apparently, they took looking at plants real seriously around here. Ryou slowed down slightly, but had still not let go of Yugi's hand, as if he was leading him to a specific part of the garden. They soon stopped, where they kept some of the tallest trees of Domino, all vibrant shades of brown, red, green, pink, blue, yellow, white, and violet. Due to the fall season, many of the colorful leaves had fallen from their branches and made huge piles all around the trees.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Ryou asked. Yugi nodded, before addressing the issue at hand.

"Umm...Bakura?"

"Yes Yugi-kun?"

"You're still holding my hand."

An awkward silence fell between the two as Ryou immediately let go of his hand. "Sorry," he said after a moment, "Got a little carried away with showing you these trees."

"That's ok." Yugi dismissed with a slight wave of a hand. He could see why Ryou liked these trees enough to practically drag Yugi here. They both sat down underneath the shade of the tall trees, watching the leaves swirl downward around them every once in a while. Knowing Bakura, Yugi felt like he was waiting for him to make some philosophical remark about why trees shed leaves or something along that line. But Ryou didn't even say a word, book in his lap, elbows propped up on it with his mouth touching his closed hands, his eyes watching the leaves falling down. After a moment of silence, Yugi finally spoke.

"Bakura?"

"Yes Yugi-kun?"

That was another thing, why all the formalities? Not that it bothered Yugi anyway, but it was a little much. Of course, he didn't voice this aloud.

"What do trees make you think of?"

Ryou picked his head up from his hands as he turned to look at Yugi. "Do you really want to know?" he asked quietly.

"Of course."

"They make me think of my mother."

Yugi stared.

"On a tree, every individual leaf is slightly different from the other leaves in some shape or form. In a way, these leaves are the tree's children. The tree protects them by holding them high up from the ground, away from trampling feet and leaf blowers. Holding them against the weather. But then the tree ends up losing its leaves, leaving them all alone someday. In some cases, the tree is cut down due to some force of nature. Who was there to protect the tree from harm? No one, except its children who couldn't really have down anything about it. I think of myself and Amaya as one of those little leafs from the mother tree. The mother ended up getting cut down while Amaya was torn to pieces by harsh fall. And me? I'm still drifting here and there, blowing through the wind wondering if the next sewer I sail over will end up being my watery grave."

Yugi picked up a star pointed leaf up off the ground.

"You blame your father for it?"

"In a way, yes. He was like the lumberjack who used the saw, AKA car crash, to cut my mother down. He was never around at home to spend time with us, so he wasn't there for her to protect her from things like this."

"I'm not sure if your father really would have been able to prevent something like that. Fate works in really weird ways and not often in the ways we like." Yugi pointed out.

"True..."

Yugi twirled the leaf he had picked up in between his thumb and forefinger. "Did you ever think that the reason trees lose their leaves is because the mother tree feels that the time is right? The time for their children to go out into the world and travel all over the place? Maybe your mom wants you to let go too, but she never got to tell you that..."

"I suppose so.", Ryou said after a moment. He spread out onto his back to look up at the clouds peaking through the clouds. Yugi took the initiative and spread out next to him to look up at the clouds as well. The leaves crunched underneath them and he could feel some of the leaves fall next to him. A couple fell on their faces, which made them both burst into fits of laughter every once in a while.

"What do you see when you look at the clouds?" Ryou asked sometime later.

"Well, I'm kind of seeing something over there that looks like the Batman symbol from that one American movie I saw...and over there appears to be a Kuriboh kicking the crap out of Darth Vader from that other American movie..."

Ryou laughed. "Yugi, I was kind of serious."

"Ahh..."

He would never admit to Ryou what he really saw up in the clouds on that particular day. A distinct cloud that looked like two people holding hands. One had long hair and was holding what appeared to be a book under one arm while the other had spiky hair.