A/N: Uh, hi, guys. I'm not dead yet. ::nervous laughter:: Anyway, I just want to say that thank you for sticking up with me. I'm almost done with only a couple of chapters left. It isn't going to be much on the romantic relationship—well, so far, I don't think so—but more on the development of their relationship so I think it's a change from what I usually do. Regardless, I hope you're still interested. I'm so sorry, again, for the delay in the posting of chapter. I can't say how sorry I am for not posting this sooner but if it's any consolation, I made this a bit longer.

Thanks. Would you mind dropping a review after reading this, by the way?



Chapter 7: Masquerading Silhouettes

And I don't want the world to see me

Coz' I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

- Iris, Goo Goo Dolls

XXX

Daniel isn't a fool to think that the rift between him and Yami wouldn't lead to something messy. While they haven't been hostile with each other, each of them is prone to breaking down. In a short span of time, they've been short-tempered, anti-social and basically unnervingly quiet that everyone who knows them is already asking about them. He's learned not to bother his roommate, which he guesses is a good thing because at least he doesn't have to explain his own actions to Yami, but that still doesn't change the fact that he is worried.

See, he wouldn't worry exceedingly much if Yami showed signs of being back to his normal, nerdy self. He wouldn't have to fight the urge to just force the guy to live like normal, functioning human beings do. But the problem is, Yami hasn't been talking to anyone, as far as Daniel's heard anyway, and hasn't been eating more than an apple a day. Daniel knows that academic-wise, his roommate hasn't changed, submitting essays and term papers in abundance. The professors know something is up, though, because apparently, Yami Motou hasn't seen the university's councilor just yet. Which, after surviving an attack and having someone close to him die, he should really do.

But Yami is a stubborn guy, Daniel knows that for sure.

And Daniel… he always has a problem with shutting up.

"Dude, that's your 4th cup of coffee tonight!"

Yami sighs; the way he usually does when he's exasperated at someone. He turns to look at Daniel, who's watching him from his bed. Daniel has his arms crossed, an annoyed, worried look on his face and a bed with scattered school materials on it behind him. They've just arranged the room again, with the study desks as far away from their beds as possible. It's still a considerably short distance, of course, but there's only much one can do in a dorm room. Daniel is looking pointedly at his coffee.

"I need to finish my paper."

"Bull. You submitted your last yesterday. You said so yourself," Daniel quips. He stalks to Yami's desk fast enough to catch what Yami is doing. His eyes widens and he gasps.

"You're pulling yourself out?" Daniel asks louder than he intends to. He sees his friend's shoulders slump dejectedly and his head turn to the side, apparently to avoid his gaze. Yami nods. "Are you insane?! You just got yourself a scholarship for next term!"

Granted that the next term wouldn't be staring in four months, a scholarship is still a scholarship and Yami would be an idiot to drop it, Daniel thinks. Then again, that's a petty rationalization even from Daniel. He doesn't want Yami to go, not at the state he is in. No, he didn't miss the blank, dull look on Yami's eyes a few seconds ago. Which he, mind you, really despise seeing because he's doing his best to cheer the guy up here. This is how he repays him?

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to be looked after," Yami answers hotly.

Daniel blushes, cursing his slip of tongue.

"It's not that!"

"I get it, okay? You feel obliged because Lance's your best friend. He probably asked you to look after me or something but damn it, I don't need protecting!" Yami replies. He stands up and heads to his bed before facing his roommate. "No one's going to hurt me anymore. I'm safe. So if that's the only reason you're here, I suggest you cut it out, Daniel."

Daniel shakes his head.

"You think I'm that petty? Lance is my best friend, yes. I feel compelled to make things easier for you, admittedly." Yami's eyes narrow. "But that's not why I'm helping you. Even if you and Lance didn't ever become a couple, I'd still be here. I befriended you, so you're my friend. And it's cheesy, fucking crappy, but I'd rather gouge my eyes out than let you pull yourself out just because you haven't even moved on!"

"Haven't? I'm moving on. I've moved on. I'm fine. I'm okay."

"Cut it out, will you, Yami?" Daniel cuts him off. "This is insane and you know it. You've worked so hard for that scholarship!"

Yami sighs, concedes for a while. "Some things are more important than some scholarship, Daniel." He whispers, as if the person he's trying to convince is himself. Daniel quirks an eyebrow suspiciously, an apparent non-verbal way of saying, "Such as?"

When his roommate doesn't respond, the former pharaoh looks up and flinches at the pointed look he's being given. It's not fair, he thinks. It just isn't because he isn't like everybody else. He doesn't grieve the way they do—and really, see the councilor? He doubts a stranger can understand how he's feeling right now. He doubts anyone can actually sympathize—completely, unconditionally—with what he's going through. Not that it's any excuse.

Perhaps pulling out halfway through the semester is a stupid idea. He should have thought about it more. But lately, it's all about school and requirements. Essays, quizzes, projects, term papers, reports… he isn't complaining; however, all these things are overwhelming. Somewhere between distracting himself from thinking about Lance and catching up in school, he buried himself in layers of this is who you should be during this period and this is what you must pretend to feel when these kinds of people talk to you.

Suddenly, he can't breathe anymore!

And there's way too many people asking him how he's doing, checking up on him as if he's so close to killing himself, which isn't true by the way. Yami appreciates the concern, he really does, but there are some issues that he needs to settle on his own. If he is really going to forget about Lance and how seriously fucked-up everything has become, he would have to do it when the professors aren't giving him second glances and his classmates, pretending to care. There's also the issue of Daniel and Kaiba. Damn it, why can't he be left alone?

"I don't expect you to understand," Yami says, eyes trained on the floor. He's leaning on his knees, elbows carrying most of his head's weight. He still isn't looking at Daniel, which irritates the guy even more. "Lance's death isn't my only—I'm not upset only because he's gone, alright?"

That's the closest thing to a confession that he's ever given, Yami realizes about himself.

"What?"

"There's—sometimes you think you know the person well enough and you assume that by knowing, you'd be able to make him feel better about himself… but that's just not possible," Yami mutters. He thinks about what he remembers about his old life—of tomb robbers and strict black-and-white laws; of "My word is Law" and sacrifices, bloodshed and power. Inside his head are the echoes of children and mothers wailing, begging for their lives.

"In the name of the Pharaoh—"

In order to protect the majority, the blood of the minority needs to be shed.

It was a burden to live in the darker years of ancient times, where civilizations attempt to take over each other's territories. There is bloodshed and lost properties. There is destruction. Loss. A crave for power. A need for protection. Sacrifice. Mothers and children killed.

And Yami dreams about these things from the moment he turned his back on his "destiny". From the moment he watched the doors close one final time as he looks at Ishizu who promises him his other memories back. Everyone he knows is there—Yugi, Seto, Mokuba, Jonouchi, Honda, Anzu, Ishizu, Malik—and at that time, it made sense that he doesn't really belong in the past anymore. That from then on, he wouldn't be the pharaoh who doesn't remember his name, who was sacrificed to seal the Shadow Realm. The one whose destiny is to lose his memories.

He's done bad things in his past life and he dreams about them. Hears them in the walls of the campus and though it drives him insane, sends him high with denial—no, this isn't happening; Ishizu said there won't be any setbacks—he really can't talk about this. Lance is even out of the question.

"You know you can always talk to me," Daniel offers after a long time. He's waiting for Yami to explain further, to shed some light to what's really going on. But his roommate isn't talking anymore. Has gone back to his shell, apparently. He frowns when Yami shakes his head.

"It isn't as simple as that. And really, you don't have to," Yami chuckles bitterly. "I'll manage."

"Yes, you will because you're strong that way. However, if you think pulling yourself out is a medium in aiding you, then you're being stupid. You're running away."

"So what if I am? Is it that bad?" Yami retorts. There isn't much force on his voice but the frustration is there. Thickens everything, even. He retreats afterwards, ashamed. He avoids Daniel's gaze, apologetic for some unknown reason. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine. Running away won't solve anything and I'm sure you're aware of that. You still have me, Yami. I'm here and I'm going to help you, okay? You won't have to be alone."

"What am I? Some kind of traumatized victim?"

"I hate to break this to you but you are acting like one."

"Daniel—"

"You're not leaving uni, okay? No. I'm not letting you. Promise me."

"But—"

"Promise me."

Yami glares at him. There's anger there, no one should tell him what he has to do. Then there's embarrassment and fear; that Daniel would discover how messed up the former pharaoh actually is and who knows where that will lead to? Gratefulness follows right after, when he grabs Yami for a hug and Yami lets him (even though he clearly hates being in close physical contact with anyone now).

"Fine."

"Good. Let's go eat now."

XXX

Seto's on his 4th beer that night—and seriously, beer?—when someone knocks on his door. The bane of having a dorm room, rather unlikely of him by the way but it was less effort on his part. He decides to ignore it, knowing whoever it is will go away when the message is clear. When it doesn't, he groans and glares at his door.

The thing is, he doesn't like to drink. It's a waste of his time and he doesn't get anything from it. He's a straightforward man, and while the idea of hiding from his problems is tempting, he does not do it that way. To hell with everything, he simply runs over the issues that he has. But tonight is different and things have been quite messy lately. Mokuba has decided not to talk to him for a while, after their quick argument two days ago, and the company, though faring well, was almost breached into by some ambitious hacker in Poland. Basically, he's way too worried about his company and his brother to even consider that he has school requirements and professors to bear with.

So when he unwittingly snaps at his Philosophy professor and is sent out of the classroom exactly three hours ago, Seto snaps and buys himself a case of beer. He's not known for rash decisions but to hell with it. He's in college and he's not doing anyone harm.

"Kaiba!"

It's Yami, and normally Seto wouldn't mind. He's concerned about the guy, admittedly; but he needs a break and he really, seriously doesn't want to talk to anyone right now. He hears Yami trying on the doorknob again and is immediately greeted with an intense feeling of satisfaction when he hears the ex-pharaoh curse stubbornly at the locked door. Why is Yami here in the first place?

Most importantly, how does he know where Seto stays?

"If you haven't noticed, this is a dorm and people are sleeping." He calls back and ignores the fact that he basically shouted, thus defeating the purpose of being quiet and sullen.

"If you open the door then you can at least hear what I have to say," Yami stubbornly replies.

Seto looks up for a minute, as if blaming the ceiling for having an annoying ex-rival outside his room. He almost trips on the case of beer that he bought while he heads for the door and it aggravates him further. When he yanks the door open, determined to glare Yami's existence away—because seriously, he isn't in the mood to deal with Yami's crap—he scowls instead upon seeing the glare that Yami greets him back with. What the hell?

"I normally stay away from your affairs but seriously, Kaiba, can't you at least fix your mess with Mokuba? He's worried as hell!"

What? Huh?

Apparently Kaiba's silence doesn't answer Yami's question. Yami walks towards the brunet and frowns at the smell of alcohol. He sees the case and then glances at Seto. He was drinking?

"Normally, I'd tell you to fix get a hold of yourself but truthfully, Kaiba, are you okay?"

Yami can't help it. He worries, too; doesn't know why only that he does. And sometimes he thinks it's a flaw; that he worries too much about other people. Then again, sometimes he shut people away so that defeats the purpose of being the good friend everyone else deserves from him. But the thing is, he never sees Kaiba drink and seeing him now, probably a bit tipsy, Yami wants to know how big Seto's problem is to make him snatch some bottles of beer.

"Mind your o—"

"Don't give me that crap. You've been into my personal space more than I want to, I'm just repaying the favor."

Seto rolls his eyes and walks back to the couch. His laptop is lying inconspicuously on the coffee table and beside it, his two cellphones. The gray one, Yami knows, is for official businesses. He's seen the brunet use it a couple of times during classes and the blue one, he assumes, is for personal ones. Unsurprisingly, there are 6 missed calls from Mokuba.

"Mokuba's worried, you know." He tries, softly this time because as much as he's an ass, Seto cares for his brother very much.

"Hn."

Yami fights the urge to roll his eyes as well. Instead, he sits at the far end of the couch and stares at the other man. It's strange, how somehow he's doing the approaching now when he's been pushing Seto away. It's all for Mokuba, though, and he's just concerned.

"Daniel's panicking because of you."

The former pharaoh's eyes widen. What? He doesn't question how Seto knows the guy because hell, he knows Lance; but panicking? Daniel? The confusion must have arisen in his eyes because Seto chuckles bitterly and drinks his beer again. When he's done, Seto throws Yami a sneer that says, "surprised I turned the table around, aren't you?" Frankly, it does not matter. Not really. Besides, that mess with Daniel about the pulling out is his and Daniel's problem. Even if Kaiba wanted to help, he really wouldn't do much.

"I'm surprised no one outside your roommate has noticed that you haven't been your normal geeky self," the brunet drawls. It's annoying, Yami finds, but he also feels that Seto's doing it on purpose. To irk him too much that he'd volunteer to walk out.

"But that's not the problem we want to solve right now, is it?" he counters. "I'm here because obviously, you're avoiding your brother and he's gotten so worked up because of whatever mess you've started that he called me to ask you what's bothering you." Well, okay, so technically, that wasn't true because Mokuba had only called to see how Yami was doing and it was Yami who volunteered to check Seto. Still.

Seto stiffened visibly at the mention of his brother's name and he glares at Yami for bringing it up. It's not his place to interfere. "Tell him I'm fine then. I don't care."

"Hah. Right. Hey, Mokuba, guess what? Your brother's fine! Yes, he is. Oh, and he's two bottles close to getting drunk. Because that would go so well. " Yami retorts sarcastically.

"I don't need your help so can you just get the hell out of here, Yami?"

Instead, Yami sinks deeper in the couch and stares at him smugly. "I don't think so. I'm quite comfy here."

"Ass—"

"See, Kaiba, it's simple. I'm not going anywhere and you're going to get stuck here with me all night. Yes, how horrible for you. Devastating, really. But whatever crap you've fallen into, you need to fix it because as much as I want to see you drunk, or tipsy, for blackmail material, it's not good when I have to be your classmate in your morning classes as well." That was pretty harsh even for Yami but he's just been through several not-going-smoothly classes and he's tired.

"Whatever."

No one speaks after that. One of them falls asleep first, head lolling to the side. It's Seto and Yami, who's close to falling asleep too, notices and grabs a pillow for Seto's use. He wonders why they're at each other's throats lately when Kaiba has been basically sneaking up on him and offering him unwanted advice on how to move on and all that crap. Then again, everyone has limitations, don't they? And apparently, Seto is still human enough to crumble under the pressure that he has to go through everyday. A small, almost insignificant part of Yami sort of pities Seto, for having to bear with a lot of things but that is immediately squished by the reasoning that the brunet is admittedly stronger than anyone else Yami has ever known. That he knows what he's getting into.

He falls asleep soon after beside Seto and it's going to be awkward in the morning but it doesn't matter at the moment. Yami closes his eyes, and really, he should have known better.

He really should have.

XXX

"I'll go ahead and get us a cab, okay?"

He's kinda tipsy, has drank one too many drink and he knows Lance has, too. If the intoxicated look in his eyes is any indication; that is. Lance nods at him; still preoccupied with his sister's unexpected phonecall. Anastasia still adamantly refuses to acknowledge that her older brother is in a relationship with another man. But it's her problem, Lance said before, and he's not going to follow her just because she's "that way".

Yami doesn't know why he thought walking farther from the bar they went to is a good idea, only that he has to get themselves a cab and so far, not one is passing by the place. So he walks, hands in his pocket and his jacket not doing much to protect him from the cold. He's just past the darkened alley when three guys block his path, sneering at him lewdly. That's bad news, he tells himself and he immediately heads back when one of them grips his shoulder tight.

"Where're you goin', pretty thing?"

Yami stiffens and smacks the hand away, but it doesn't move. Instead, he's turned to face them and they grin at him. It makes him sick. "Don't touch me," he grits out but unfortunately, they seem to get even more entertained at the warning.

"You're not going to go chaste on us, are you?" another teases as his hand reaches even farther down and tries to grab Yami's crotch. It's all but natural that Yami grab the hand and punch its owner hard on the face. When the man staggers back, holding his broken nose, the other two men with him lash on Yami and slams him to the wall in the process. The impact immobilizes Yami for a while until he realizes that they're crowding up on him and he's trapped between them and the wall. Chances are, Lance also doesn't know where he is.

Lance.

"Yami?"

Yami gasps at the familiar voice. No, go away, he wants to say because he knows how these things end up with. Sooner or later, one of them is going to get hurt badly and he hopes that it isn't Lance. Wait, why are there five men now?

"Lance, don't—!"

Too late. Attracted to his voice, Lance had just walked on them and caught the attention of the men. He punches the one that's trapping Yami and the man lands on his back with a loud 'oof!'. Lance isn't quick on avoiding punches, though, because suddenly he has four other men on him and it's not long before he's trading punches with them, hitting and being hit. Yami watches, horrified, before he's compelled to join in and defend Lance as well.

There's only two men left now, the other three either dropping unconscious after being punched way too much or running away, and it was only a moment when Yami is kicked in the stomach and he doubles in pain that Lance turns around to attend to him.

Lance is way too distracted by Yami's pain to notice that the man he's fighting is going to hit him with a rock. But Yami sees, tries to catch Lance's attention. And he's too late.

"Lance!"

Lance slumps forward, his head having hit harder than was probably expected. There's blood on the injury and that's never good. "Y-Yami, you okay?" he croaks as he falls on his boyfriend.

"Come on, don't close your eyes, okay?"

"Sleepy."

"Lance!"

"G'night…"

"Help! LANCE!"

"Wake up, Yami! Goddamnit!"

Yami wakes up in a jolt, eyes widening at the unfamiliar surrounding before he catches Seto's gaze. Last night's events flash in his mind and he blushes at having accidentally slept in.

"I'm sorry," he mutters, the dream still fresh in mind.

Seto grimaces and waves it off. He's dressed into casual clothes now, having decided not to attend any of his classes this morning. It should trouble him—the fact that he didn't wake Yami up the moment he realized Yami had slept in with him on the same couch. But Yami had slept soundly at first, or so it seemed. Apparently, he was having a nightmare. Good job at classifying dreams, Kaiba.

"Shouldn't you be in class by 9?" He asks Yami, whose eyes widen in realization. "Figures. You might want to hurry up. It's past 8."

In an instant, Yami stands up and tries to fix his disheveled appearance. He's by the door when he falters and turns around. "You're not going to interrogate me or anything?" Yami offers, a quiet plead. Seto picks it up, though, and shakes his head, sipping on his coffee and looking at anything but his former rival.

"It's none of my business. If you want to talk, well, talk. I really don't mind; nor do I care that much."

"Oh. Thanks, Kaiba."

Yami's already almost out when Seto calls him back.

"I don't care what you've actually dreamed about but you'll do better by not mulling over it."

"Bye, Kaiba."

"Whatever."

Despite it all, Yami reluctantly smiles. It's small, but it's a change, he figures.