Chapter Two

Warning: This chapter contains some detailed kissing; not enough to shove the rating higher, but it's still there. If you don't want to read it, then don't.

For the record, I will not be running lemon or lime scenes in this fic.

He descended into insanity in a matter of seconds; his mind screamed protest for a brief, futile moment, then everything simply melted away, his skull meeting the ground with a short, sharp crack. Any semblance of control over himself was gone clear out the window, his whole body shutting down as a result - he found that he was going numb, and more concerningly, that his breathing was slowing, slower and slower; at this rate, he would surely stop breathing.

It was, therefore, no real surprise that he stopped breathing.

Fortunately, this wasn't the first time something along these lines had happened to Marik; he had been taken over by a ferocious hatred before, and let's just say that his brain had made a very lucky decision. Now it had the memory of the process involved as a precedent, his subconscious knew exactly how to deal with overpowering emotions such as hate, identical to the sort that were now threatening to kill their own creator. As they attempted to force his heart to stop, it reacted the way it had been taught to; splitting the Egyptian's personality asunder, pouring all of that love into the new mind; and, in this way, saved Marik's life.

That, in not so many words, is why the poor teen collapsed, laid low by the smile of Anzu Mazaki; closer inspection showed that he had fainted dead away. Worried friends lifted him up, later crowding about him in the sick bay, until the nurse told the lot of them to clear out – and stop trying to avoid classes by invoking that whole friendship excuse, it's really not cute anymore, I've heard it a million and one times now!

Of course, an argument ensued over who should be allowed to watch over the drooling Egyptian; it would have been strange if it hadn't, Marik's social circle being composed primarily of very determined, hyper-loyal young men. Eventually, the elderly lady did relent, allowing the oft–ignored Ryou Bakura to stay, admitting that such a studious worker would have no issues skipping just one class - unlike everyone else present. The rest of the well–wishers were given a swift booting from the room, Ryou was told to be a good boy; and just like that, the obligatory plot point character was gone, never again to be mentioned in this fic.

And so, the scene was set – Marik unconscious, his friends all dozing in Maths, which just left the white–haired boy with the biggest following in the whole school awake. To be honest, Ryou didn't mind sitting in the sick bay for several hours; anything was better than facing the fan club, in his opinion. Producing from his school jacket a thick and well–leafed copy of The Lord of the Rings, he buried himself deep within the book, lost to the real world soon after, as he read for about the millionth time the bit where Frodo hurled the One Ring into the fiery depths of a volcano (ahh, if only that were his Millennium Ring), and then everyone celebrated. Sometimes, when your life was going haywire, it was good to read a story so fantastic that it took you away from all your worries. Ryou's life wasn't exactly messed up at this point, sure; but it was about to be severely compromised.

You see, as a result of his reading, he didn't see something open its eyes, and blink – something that looked like Marik Ishtar, but really wasn't Marik Ishtar. For a few brief seconds, bolts of emotion flickered through the Egyptian's body, his chest convulsing a little as the two personalities struggled for control; sanity jousting against the incredible love that had threatened to kill him earlier – then sanity remembered this really great picture it had seen on the internet, and it was all over. The creature that had once been Marik sat up, running tan fingers through its hair until it stood out in a greasy halo of sorts around its head, completely ignoring the wary look Ryou was giving it as it did so.

"Marik…?" The pale teen's back brushed against the wall; he wasn't quite sure what to make of this. He'd seen pictures of the hairstyle before, and so understood that it belonged to the Egyptian's hate personified – but he'd never actually met Dark Marik in person, and surely the other Yugi wouldn't have been so dumb as to have left some avenue of escape when he'd banished that Marik. Besides, the way his friend now stared at the medicine cupboard before him was anything but hateful; it was more lustful, a gaze that was usually only witnessed in a certain sort of film, a genre that Ryou wasn't overly fond of–

–and Marik was still watching the damned thing.

It didn't take the pale teen too long to start getting worried.

"Um, Marik?"

At the sound of his voice, the head snapped around to face him with an audible crack, mad eyes staring into Ryou's; they were the eyes of an obsessive, bloodshot and longing. He blinked and looked away as soon as he was able (the clunky pendant under his shirt suddenly very warm, soft whispers slinking into his mind), but he still couldn't help but notice the way his friend was now running his tongue around the edges of his lips, leaving a wet trail behind. To be honest, that was the sort of thing that was simply very hard not to notice, and the Egyptian's performance would likely have netted not–Marik a major role in the latest upcoming horror film, had it been seen by the right people.

When, in a development most alarming, the thing began to pull its way out of bed, clawing hands reaching out towards the pale teen, about sixteen million thoughts shot through Ryou's head, which cannot be recorded here for obvious reasons. He backed up further against the wall, then further still, until he was practically flat against it – hard plaster grinding into his back, a tingling in his chest, a whispering in his ears, a sickly yellow light blossoming from his Millennium Ring.

Incidentally, all this came in stark contrast to the creature, who only continued to advance with a calmness that was nonetheless unstoppable; a single thought going through its twisted mind as it closed in, and a printable thought, too:

Hubba-hubba! Drop and give me fifty, baby!

And that, dear reader, is where the real story starts.

Ryou's first kiss, as many first kisses in our world are, was nothing like he expected it to be.

In the playful depths of his mind, it was to take place in a church, the day warm and pleasant. They would both be perhaps twenty–five or so, fresh out of university and ready to support each other; their personalities neatly balancing, that pesky Ring Spirit out of the picture. All thought would go straight out of Ryou's head as the command came –'You may now kiss the bride' – and at long last, sinking into the sunshine that was his preferred happy ending, he would look into her eyes, bend his head a little in preparation, wrapping his arms around her as she advanced; always the confidence to his slight shyness. At last, the new groom would give into his instincts and move forwards himself, their lips connecting somewhere in the middle of their embrace. The kiss itself would be dry, not wet and sloppy; there would be no struggle of lips nor tongues, just the two sets of mouths meeting in a harmonious gesture.

In reality, Ryou's first kiss took place in the sterile white of a sick bay, a sixteen year old being pretty much attacked by something that definitely wasn't his friend, even if the body it inhabited happened to look like it. He dodged the first lunge, but it turned out to be a feint - before he knew it, he was pinned to the wall as though he were a butterfly in Haga's collection, the scent of disinfectant filling his nostrils, vision dominated by a restless gaze that bordered on evil. The kiss itself was moist, rough and oppressive - a little spit dribbled over the poor boy's chin as his head was forced sharply backwards, his neck aching in protest as it was held in an unnatural position. To top it all off, the other male seemed to be hellbent on groping him, if the hand constantly trying to get at Ryou's hips was any indication. The whole experience was thoroughly uncomfortable, not to mention scary.

As the initial shock wore off, and oxygen deprivation began to set in, the younger teen squirmed like a fish desperate to escape a hook, twisting this way and that, his struggles becoming more and more dire, until he eventually managed to knee his assaulter hard between the legs. The thing–that–was–not Marik released him with a yelp, Ryou's slight frame sliding down the wall as the boy struggled to draw more air into his lungs. Before he could recover, the Egyptian was diving at him again, the pale teen's eyes widening in shock at the sight of that utterly insane face, then abruptly narrowing.

Ryou's second kiss was, luckily enough, not to be the second attempt from the creature that had taken his friend over; the thing's lips made it to perhaps ten centimeters from his, before they were repelled with an uppercut so swift as to send it reeling. Snarling in fury, the white haired boy tangled shadows around the monster's feet, sprinting for the door as soon as he was able, praying that Not–Marik didn't recover from the blow too quickly. He went speeding out into the corridor, face contorted into something decidedly more serious, accented shadows under his hooded eyes, the Millennium Ring under his shirt blazing with a sickly yellow light, hair spiking upwards as he yelled out several words that definitely weren't from any modern language.

The sick bay was very quiet after that; broken only by the ringing of the school bell, and the shifting of fabric as the Egyptian stirred. Wiping a little blood from his nose, Not–Marik sat up on the floor, gazing listlessly into the distance for a long moment–

–and then he began to giggle, his face torn asunder by an enormous grin with far too many teeth in it, his eyes wide and his voice ricocheting off the walls as the giggles became snickers, which became laughter, which developed into an all–out howl, head thrown back. He was love incarnate, passionate but by no means gentle – and he was going to make the whole world tear itself asunder.

You could say that it was to be the most tearful breakup of all time, but I'm not really into bad puns.