The only thing Marik remembered from the hospital was being told he was going into surgery.
Bakura explained everything that had happened to him over the period of a few months:
He was rushed into the hospital with a major injury to the lower back part of his head. Someone had bashed it in (his father) and it fractured. Marik was severely lucky that none of the fractured pieces were entrapped in his brain tissue. Apparently though, he had needed lots and lots of therapy. You see, located in the lower back section of your brain is the Occipital Lobe. This part of Marik's brain was partially damaged. When this happens, your distortions of the visual field, and your perception of size, color, and shape are affected. This explained why everything that Marik did remember from the hospital was off or blurry. He still didn't have as good vision as he did before the incident.
Though there was a separate reason that Marik hadn't been able to recognize any faces while being hospitalized. It was because he was in so much pain that it hurt him to think. You'd also be in pain if you'd suffered through a major head injury. In the time of a few months, the doctors did not just repair Marik's head.
They also discovered that he was deaf. Now the doctors had no way to fix this, for the deafness wasn't caused by any disease. The loss of hearing was a result of multiple blows to the head over a long period of time. Marik refused to tell the hospital that his father was the cause for this. He just claimed that he had had a lot of blackouts, and he must've hit his head a lot during those times. That's what Bakura said he told them anyways. He didn't remember that either.
There was one small solution to Marik's deafness. He received a hearing aid. And although it wasn't a drastic help, it still helped a bit. Instead of complete lack of sound, Marik could make out loud noises. He could also somewhat make out his own voice if he really wanted to hear it. And sometimes if someone was talking really close to his ear, he could hear them as if from a distance. He still learned how to read lips though, and he also learned basic sign language.
Bakura attempted to learn basic sign language, but he was no good at it. So he just decided to talk more slowly until his friend had less trouble with reading lips.
Currently, Marik was relaxing in the living room of his friend's house. They now lived together, and Marik just had to accept it. He had to accept the fact that he needed more than two legs to stand on.
"Are you ok?" Bakura mouthed to the Egyptian. He'd been asking that a lot lately. Marik simply nodded.
"I'm gonna make popcorn." The whitette mouthed.
Bakura went into the kitchen and shoved a bag of popcorn into the microwave. In a matter of minutes, the snack was popped. The whitette reached for a bowl from the cabinet to his left, and poured the snack into it. He shuffled back into the living room and sat next to his now-mute friend.
That's right, Marik didn't talk at all anymore. He had tried a bit right when he left the hospital, and sometimes he would yell, just because he wanted to know if he could hear himself. But otherwise, he didn't find it necessary to talk. It was too much of a pain to try and make himself sound normal.
Bakura sat right next to the Egyptian, decently close. He wove an arm around Marik's waist, and set the bowl of popcorn on both of their laps. Marik was deeply focused on the captions on the screen before him. They were watching some horror movie that Bakura loved. As a little girl was getting butchered on screen, Marik popped a piece of the snack food in his mouth. He smiled as he felt the kernel crunch between his teeth. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he leaned his head on his friends shoulder. He could almost feel the smirk on Bakura's face.
"I think we should talk." Bakura said, really close to Marik's ear.
The Egyptian could barely hear it. Marik turned to look at him, showing that he was paying attention. He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. What if Bakura was angry at him for something? But instead of saying anything, Bakura slowly started to lean forward. He gently began to kiss Marik. There was no reaction from the Egyptian. He was completely still, even after Bakura pulled away. The whitette frowned.
"What's the matter?" He mouthed.
But Marik wasn't paying any attention. He was too busy dwelling on the emotion he'd just felt. It was indescribable. It was addicting...He needed more. In a split second, Marik had leaned forward and kissed Bakura back. But the Egyptian was being much more forceful, his kiss was filled with longing. He forced his tongue into his companion's mouth. Before they knew it, they were full fledge making out. After a minute more, they had to part for air. In between puffs of breath, Bakura mouthed "I want us to be together, Marik." The Egyptian was kind of stunned. All he could do was nod, his way of saying 'me too'
After they finished the movie, leaning on each other the whole time, Marik went up to what was now his room. He examined his surroundings once more. His room wasn't large, but it wasn't small either. There was a nice twin bed in the center, and a dresser to the right. That was the only furniture, and that was all he really needed. He wasn't a greedy person. Which is why every time he walked into his room, waves of gratitude consumed him. He couldn't thank Bakura enough. He had a place to stay without his monster of a father. And now Marik didn't have constant reminder of the accident. The longer he was separated from those memories, the less anxiety he felt. With a slight smile, Marik fell into bed. He tossed and turned for a little bit as his mind still wide awake. But eventually his physical exhaustion took over, and he fell asleep.
Marik walked with Bakura to school the next day. The whitette wasn't really talking, so Marik knew something was wrong. He'd tried to ask what was up by talking. At first he thought he wasn't talking loud enough. But when he tried asking Bakura again, and a stranger from pretty far away stared at him, he knew the volume he was using was fine.
So why was Bakura ignoring him? Marik stared at the ground. He knew it was stupid to get attached to someone. He was just going to end up hurt.
Why in the world did he think he deserved love?
It made no sense though, just the previous night, Bakura had kissed him. And now he wasn't touching nor talking to Marik. The Egyptian finally noticed how far away his companion was standing. He began to panic. Had he done something wrong?
After awhile, they made it to school. At first, some lost part of Marik thought Bakura would stay with him. But the whitette ditched Marik to go hang with his group of friends. And so Marik was stuck with his own group of friends. They interrogated him, but Marik didn't catch all of the things they were asking. So while they thought he could hear them, he dug through his bag and found a paper and pen.
He wrote: I'm deaf now because I got hurt really badly. Yes, that's why I've been absent for a few months.
His friends' reactions were priceless. Yugi's jaw dropped, and everyone else followed suit. They began to write things on the paper in response.
Things like: "So you'll never hear again?"
"Who hurt you to the point of deafness?"
"Are you being transferred to special classes?"
Marik answered a few of them, but the bell soon rang. He only knew it did because everybody started to scatter to class. He didn't though. He stayed in the hallway until everybody was gone.
And once all of his friend's were gone, he had no distraction. The pain set in. Bakura was ignoring him. The one person he'd actually cared about was ignoring him. Marik could only think of how stupid and naïve he'd been. He ran off to the bathroom, feeling suddenly sick to his stomach. He threw up the contents of his breakfast.
It was the first real sized breakfast he'd eaten in a long time.
Then he collapsed into himself, hugging his knees to his chest. For the first time since the accident Marik cried because of emotional pain.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed the update, inspired by KoriTheEvilEditor! Please review!