Thoughts About Father

Summary: Yugi, Jonouchi, Seto, Ryuuji, Ryou, Honda-they have father's, don't they? Here are their thoughts on their dads. A Father's Day fic. Summary changed-now has Japanese names instead of dub names.

Disclaimer: I don't own it. Now, just read the stupid story and FREAKING REVIEW!!

Thank you very much to my one reviewer. Everyone should take an example from him/her.

This chapter is semi-confusing, but I don't care! I like it!


Chapter 4: Ryuuji

Ryuuji feared his father.

He did not hate his father, but he feared his father.

Alcoholic, gambling crazed, greedy. Those were the main parts of his father that Ryuuji knew.

He could vaguely remember a time when Akira Otogi had held him in his arms and given him love, back when his mother was alive.

Was it my fault? Did I kill her?

Ryuuji had loved his mother so much. She had been beautiful and perfect. His father loved her too. But when she died, he changed. Akira became somebody whom he was not. Or maybe whom he truly was, but Ryuuji's mother had made him so happy that he hid it. But after that he got sucked under wave after wave after wave of despair, until one final tsunami of depression, and that was what broke the once strong man. And he couldn't help but suck Ryuuji, his only child, down under with him.

Did I do something?

Ryuuji had been five the first day his father went out at night and did not return until the small hours of the morning, smelling strange, a strong, pungent odor that was wrongness in all it's forms to Ryuuji.

Did I do something wrong?

And he had dice. That was how Ryuuji's obsession with dice all began. As a way to get both closer and away from his father.

Ryuuji opened the Game Shop to support his father's gambling addiction.

Ryuuji had been seven the first time his father struck him.

Did I do something to make him mad?

Fast and hard. On the face. It made him bleed. But Akira did not care.

Ryuuji longed for a true father so badly. He longed for somebody, anybody, to be there for him , to cheer him on when he succeeded in life. Because all Ryuuji wanted was to make his father proud. It was one of the things he wanted so badly he would hurt himself for it.

So he did.

He hurt himself by never telling his friends the truth about his mysterious bruises and cuts. Hurt himself. He tortured himself by wondering those horrible questions every day.

Because every time his father struck him, it left not only a dark bruise marring his skin, it left another one marring his soul.

And thus, he gradually came to an answer for his questions about his father.

I must have.