This chapter is slightly longer and when things start to get interesting. Reviews are love!

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.

Chapter 4- Façade

"Come on, Bakura, enough blowing things up already!" Ryou's voice was lost in the high pitched scream that came from the television as a woman died horrifically on the screen. "You've been on that for two hours now and we need to leave to get to Joey's now or we'll be late!"

"Let me just finish this level, I'm nearly at the- OH BUGGER!" A zombie had appeared out of nowhere and wiped out his health points. Bakura continued his cursing and made to return to the last save point when Ryou switched the console off. "Noooooo!" Bakura howled. "Why would you do that?"

The smaller boy sighed before glaring pointedly at the clock and back to Bakura, who huffed.

"Ok, fine, let me just get changed and we'll go. Though I blame my losing on you distracting me by talking," he said as he stomped off towards his room. Bakura took his video games very seriously.

Ryou sent Joey a quick text saying they would be a little bit late before heading through to their kitchen and opening one of the cupboards. After moving a few jars and bottles he revealed the little stash of alcohol he had saved specifically for this occasion. He emptied the secret hideaway and carefully replaced the jars before straightening up with his collection. Whilst he was hunting around for a bag to put them in Bakura sauntered into the kitchen and casually leaned on the door frame tapping his foot.

"We're going to be late if you don't hurry up you know," he smirked as he watched the smaller boy move around the kitchen.

"Oh sod off, Bakura," Ryou remarked without pausing in his search.

Bakura simply chuckled and went to fetch his coat from the hall. A moment later he was joined by Ryou, who was brandishing a bag filled with bottles which he shoved at his housemate.

"You can carry them; they'll look more natural coming from you."

"What are you trying to say?" Bakura replied pretending to be offended, but he took the bag anyway. It was true that Ryou kept up a shy, innocent act around their friendship group at all times and he was unwilling to break it, though Ra knew why he didn't let his true personality through. For all intents and purposes he was just a shy little British boy who tried to stay out of trouble, when in actuality he had a hyper (and sometimes annoying) streak that only showed itself when he was at home.

Bakura continued to think about Ryou's odd behaviour as they finally headed out towards Joey's. He had spent a long time trying to fathom his friend's reasons for being so shy, the only thing he had come up with was that he liked someone in the group and was too afraid to show his true self to them. Bakura knew he himself often did that when he was with others; his cold exterior hid a more sensitive side that not even Ryou knew the full extent of. But Bakura had his reasons… That damn Egyptian…

The taller boy continued to be lost in his thoughts for most of the journey and his housemate left him to it, for he knew better than to interrupt his Bakura's reverie. It was only as they turned onto Joey's street that Ryou finally spoke.

"Ok, I think tonight might be the time to admit it, you know," he said carefully, hoping not to provoke a reaction from his friend. Bakura's head shot up.

"Admit what?"

Ryou looked at the floor, blushing slightly. Nevertheless, he continued. "You know… Admit to Malik that you… um…" He paused as he heard a quiet chuckle from Bakura.

"Not much gets past you does it?" he murmured. "You know, maybe I will. Maybe tonight's the night." The smaller boy looked rather surprised at his answer- he had expected anger and possible outright denial- but Ryou had decided enough was enough. Someone needed to do something about those two before either of them did something stupid like end up in prison and then they'd never get together.

"I have a condition though," Bakura continued, and Ryou's heart sank. Bakura's 'conditions' usually meant him having to do something either incredibly stupid or cripplingly embarrassing.

"I want you to show the group who you really are, I want you to loosen up and not give a damn what any of them think of you. Even if it's just for tonight I want you to act like you do at home."

Ryou was shocked. He had never heard Bakura act so… Kind wasn't the word, but it was pretty damn close. He took a moment to think it through before deciding it wasn't such a bad idea after all. He was willing to shatter his innocent façade if it meant Bakura would stop pining after Malik. He slowly nodded in agreement just said, "Ok."

Nothing more was said as they made their way up to the door for the Katsuya household. Ryou quickly checked his watch and groaned.

"You do realise you made us twenty minutes late, right?" he reprimanded. "Next time I'll take the console away altogether and you'll have to get ready on time."

"What makes you think there'll be a next time?" Bakura smirked. "I'm only here because you dragged me along."

Ryou huffed irritably. "We both know that's not true, so don't act like you're all cold and stuff, I know there's more to you than that. Maybe I'm not the only one that needs to change his behaviour."

Bakura merely shrugged as the smaller teen rang the doorbell and stepped back. A few seconds later it was opened by Joey, who grinned at them and said, "Finally, we were wondering when you two were going to show up, everyone else is here, just follow the music!" He stood back to let the two white haired teens into his house. As Bakura entered he passed the blonde the bag of bottles and winked. Joey seemed slightly taken aback at this but didn't question it, opting instead to shut the door and usher them down the hall towards the living room.

As the two white haired teens entered they were greeted by a chorus of welcomes from their friends. Malik waved to them from the end of a three-seater sofa where he was holding a glass of something dark and fizzy; Marik was sat on the other end of the sofa towards the edge of the room with a large bottle of what looked like neat vodka, which he held up in mock salute as they entered.

The other sofa in the room held what appeared to be two passed out teenagers that Ryou and Bakura eventually identified as Tristan and Duke: Tristan was sprawled out horizontally taking up all the space with his head resting on Duke's lap. They both looked a little worse for wear. In the armchair next to them, to their great surprise, sat the CEO of Kaiba Corporation, who seemed to actually be there voluntarily and was drinking from a can of some sorts. He nodded slightly at them before turning back to his drink. Joey, who had entered the room after them, made his way over to Kaiba and sat down at the foot of his chair like a well-trained dog. Bakura had to resist a smirk at that- he had observed Joey for quite a while and had figured out his crush probably before the blonde himself.

"Make yourself at home guys!" Joey had to raise his voice to be heard over the music, which was loud but not unbearably so. The speakers were currently blasting out some chart song neither white haired boy had heard before.

There were a couple of other comfy chairs around the room, so Bakura opted to take the one next to the passed out Tristan and Duke- purely because there were more bottles of various alcoholic drinks around there. He reached for the nearest bottle and took a long drink before realising it was tequila and nearly choked. Ryou, after rolling his eyes slightly, decided to go and talk to Malik, so settled himself between the two Egyptian boys on the other side of the room.

"Hey, Ryou, how's it going?" Malik asked once Ryou was settled.

"Good thanks," Ryou smiled. "Took me a while to get my idiotic housemate off his arse and out of the door but we made it. Where's Tea?"

"She couldn't make it- had emergency dance class or something. And that's such a British thing to say, you know," Malik replied with a laugh. "Bakura says it all the time; he hates it when I make fun of him for it though. Well he hates it when I do a lot of things but that's just 'Kura you know?" he said happily, taking another gulp from his drink.

Ryou raised an eyebrow at this. "Does Bakura let you call him that?" he questioned.

"Course, why wouldn't he?" Malik said. "It's been his nickname for a while now, even though it's more for convenience than anything else. Why do you ask?"

The smaller boy laughed. "Because once I called him that and he threatened to claw my eyes out if I said it again. I'm very surprised he lets you say that actually. He isn't one for nicknames or general cute things really."

Malik took a moment to digest this information before looking across the room to where Bakura had found some other bottle and was drinking deeply from it. "That's odd." He stated. "I wonder…"

They were interrupted by a loud laugh from Marik who had been listening to their conversation with great interest.

"What's so funny?" Malik asked irritably, tearing his eyes from Bakura.

"You!" Marik laughed while wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. Ryou noted his half empty bottle and figured he was slightly tipsy.

"What about me?" the smaller Egyptian demanded.

"You're totally in a transparent closet." Marik said, going from joking to serious in the space of a second in traditional Marik style. "You're totally hot for that guy and you won't even admit it to yourself."

"Marik, I. Am. Not. Gay." Malik said through gritted teeth. "I thought we agreed you wouldn't bring that up tonight."

"I don't actually recall-" Marik started, but he was cut off by Ryou.

"There's nothing wrong with being gay, Malik," the brown eyed boy said earnestly. "And you should never lie to yourself either, it will never end well."

"Ra, not you too!" Malik threw his hands in the air dramatically- spilling a bit of his drink in the process- before getting up and flouncing out of the room.

"What did I do?" Ryou said in a small voice, looking as though he was about to cry. Marik awkwardly put an arm around him, making the smaller boy blush furiously by doing so.

"Nothing, just Malik being Malik. He's only honest when he's drunk and has no control over what he's saying, and now that's probably not going to happen tonight because he'll be on his guard. He really does like Bakura you know," he said, looking down at Ryou with purple eyes.

"Really? Well Bakura likes him too but he'll never admit it."

They both looked over to Ryou's flatmate, who had finished yet another bottle and was starting on a six pack of beer. Ryou sighed.

"I don't think it'll take long before Bakura is drunk, now we need to find a way to get Malik in the same state as him, then maybe something will happen," Ryou mused.

Marik took another swig of his vodka before a brilliant idea came to him. "Ryou, I believe I have a plan."