Summary of Chapter Six: Tozoku and Yugi talked a lot this last chapter before and during their search for the missing (erm, hiding?) Ryou. Unfortunately, it ultimately ended with the two of them royally agitated. Then we find out that Yami (as in the Pharaoh but not Atem? Whatever) knows Tozoku and calls him 'Toz'. They get into a little kerfuffle and it ends with Yami saying 'Marik says hey…' and walking away – this clearly get some sort of emotions going in Tozoku, but he refused to let that show. Then we go back to Yugi, who had returned to his dorm room to see if Ryou had returned. He hadn't yet, but then he got there :O They talked briefly and Ryou admitted that Tozoku was actually his half-brother and that's where he left off! Duh, duh, duh! Or something.

Chapter Seven

"Duke, that guy over there keeps staring at you…" Tristan said under the loud music, being careful to make sure the randoms around them didn't hear his concerns.

"Who?" Duke asked.

"Man this party is awesome!" Joey shouted as he returned to Duke and Tristan to the side of the room with three beers in his hand. "Best one we've been to all year!"

"Like you can even remember half the parties I've gotten you in to." Duke laughed.

"Yeah, whatever -hic- man." Joey waved his friend off as he handed the two of them his extra beverages and returned to the crowd.

"What a tool." Tristan said with a grin as he popped the tab of his beer and took a swig.

"Yeah, but what were you saying?" Duke said as he put the unopened can of beer down.

"You know I don't think I've ever seen you drink at one of these parties?" Tristan said, swaying slightly.

"Yeah, I don't drink – but that's beside the point – who is staring at me?" Duke asked as he scanned the room for someone watching him.

"Oh yeah," Tristan said, "doesn't seem like he's where he was when Joey came over… Sorry man."

"What did he look like?"

"Maybe I was just seeing things." Tristan laughed, "I don't know, he was like blonde… Really tan too, I don't know."

"Tristan, you're drunk."

"Nah, just a little tipsy, Joey on the other hand, he is drunk." He informed.

"What? Tristan, I said you're not drunk… You couldn't have been seeing things; you've had two beers…"

Tristan chugged the last of his beer and then burped rather loudly, "Three." He said triumphantly as he picked up the beer Duke had put down just a bit ago and opened it to start his fourth.

Duke rolled his eyes, thinking to himself, 'This is why I don't drink.'

"Hey man, you gonna be alright here? I'm going to see about getting some water…" He said as he pushed off the wall that he and Tristan were leaning against.

"Oh yeah, man. I'm good."

As Duke weaved his way through the throng of partying college kids he felt his ass grabbed several times and was almost fell on by some drunken girl trying to do a handstand… The entire time he was just wondering to himself, 'Why do I come to these things…?'

Once he had reached the frat-house kitchen where several of the hosts were dishing out beverages was he asked for a glass of water and got several odd and somewhat dirty looks as they handed him a red solo cup filled part way with water from the tap.

"Thanks." He nodded to them as he walked off back toward the living room where the main party was being held.

"Hey!" A voice called out, but Duke dismissed it as an unknown voice and it probably didn't belong to someone trying to get his attention. "Hey!" The voice came again, "Nice earring!" It called out once more, this time Duke knew it had to be directed at him so he twisted around on his heels coolly, in search of the voice's owner.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be shouting, I was just trying to say I liked your die-earing." The voice came again, as Duke finally found the owner.

"Oh thanks, and no problem." He smiled politely to the person that had walked up to him, smiling wide and bright. This person couldn't have been more than eighteen… Duke was fairly certain of that; and he was also fairly certain that, despite their feminine stance, they were in fact a guy. He was sort of short with blonde hair, about shoulder length – though a little less – and shockingly vivid lilac eyes.

"Nice outfit." Duke said after giving the kid a once over. He wore several gold bangles around his wrists and a cut-off purple hoodie with his tanned arms and midriff showing followed by some black-gray cargo pants. Like Duke, this guy had his ears pierced, but he wore modestly dangling golden pyramid earrings.

"Oh thanks," The individual said, quickly glancing over himself, "I usually wear something like this. Anyway, name's Marik!" He had to shout a bit over the music.

"Good to meet you, Marik. I'm Duke." The black-haired teen nodded and then took a step to the side to return to Tristan.

"What are you drinking?" Marik's voice called once more.

"Huh? Oh just some water – I don't drink alcohol." Duke admitted freely.

"That's cool, I don't either." Marik said smiling, "Are you here with someone?" He asked.

"Uh, yeah, I'm here with a couple of friends… You?"

"Sort of here by myself right now…" Marik frowned, though his lilac eyes maintained their radiant sparkle, "Waiting for my friend, he said he was going to bring someone, but I don't know who."

"Oh, sorry about that man, I'm sure they'll be here soon though."

"Yeah…" Marik said, not wanting to be dismissed. "I guess, I'll see ya around…" He said with a bit of a pout before he began to turn away from Duke.

"See ya." Duke said a bit uneasy. He didn't mean to be rude to the kid, but he didn't really care about his friend's friend or whatever and was trying to get back to his friends, who at this point were probably wasted. Duke let out a sigh, "Hey, if you wanna wait with me and my friends, I guess that'll be alright…"

"Oh gosh! Okay!" Marik squeaked out with a big, toothy smile. "I'll text my friend to let him know I'm hanging out with you so he can find me."

"Cool." Duke said unenthusiastically, unsure of what else to say, as he jerked his head toward where he and Tristan were chilling.

Marik smiled happily as he followed his new friend through the crowd of partiers to where Tristan was practically falling over within a fifth can of beer in his hand.

"Hey Tristan, it cool if Marik hangs with us for a bit?" Duke asked nonchalantly and not really expecting or caring for an answer.

"Ye- -hic- yeah…" Tristan stuttered out before his eyes shot open in surprise. He turned to Duke and began to whisper, "Dude, you found h- -hic- him!"

"What?"

"The guy that was -hic- staring at you…" Tristan clarified, blinking one eye at a time in an attempt to focus his vision on Duke.

"Seriously? This is the guy?" Duke asked rolling his eyes and what he had gotten himself into.

"Uh yup." Tristan nodded drunkenly.

"Tristan, maybe you should sit down." Duke suggested as he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder and forced him into a sitting position on the ground against the wall. Turning to face Marik, who had just pocketed his cell phone, Duke frowned down at the kid.

"What?" Marik asked in confusion.

"Were you following me?"

"Uh, what?"

"When I went out to the kitchen, did you follow me out there?"

"No? I was just going over there to wait by the door…" Marik said, his smile fading quickly.

"Hm, my friend said he saw you staring at me… Were you?" Duke pressed.

"Uh… I'm going to just go wait by the door for my friend…" He said a barely noticeable redness forming against his tan cheeks.

"I'm not trying to be a dick about it, just wondering." Duke tried to clarify as Marik slipped away into the crowd.

"What were you thinking about all this time?" Yugi asked as he took a seat beside his friend on the bed in their dorm room.

Ryou let out a shaking sigh. "A lot of stuff…"

"Do you want to talk to me about it?" Yugi said placing a concerned hand on Ryou's shoulder.

"Y-yes…" He stammered out. "But I don't know if I can… That was one of the things I was thinking about…" He admitted as he looked up from his knees and into Yugi's eyes.

"Hm?"

"Tozoku is my stepbrother." He stated.

Yugi's eyes grew wide. He had been a complete and total jerk to Ryou's stepbrother all day… But wait, why was Ryou being such a jerk to him all day? "Uh, I, uhm-" He fumbled for the right thing to say.

"Wait, there's a lot I need to try and say… I just, it might take me a while to figure out how to say it…" Ryou said nervously playing with his hands.

"It's okay Ryou, take your time." Yugi said with a reassuring smile.

The silverette let out a shaky sigh and nodded, while still not removing his gaze from his knees. "O-okay, well… It's sort of a long story, but-" he swallowed hard and then sniffled; tears were now falling into his lap. "Please don't hate me for what I'm going to say, I already hate myself enough…"

Yugi flinched a little, taken aback by his friend's half-request and half-confession. "Ryou, I would never hate you…"

"We'll see…" He let out another shaky sigh, "Remember how I said I was abused… By my stepdad…?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well, that was Tozoku's real dad…"

"Oh my god…" Yugi muttered to himself. "Did he-"

"Yugi, please." Ryou pleaded for quiet. "Tozoku and I became friends, but… whenever he tried to stop his dad from beating me or my mom, and he almost always did, the beatings were just worse." The troubled teen shuttered against the memory and Yugi wrapped a consoling arm around him.

After releasing another distressed sigh from his lips, Ryou continued, "Eventually I, uh… I started cutting myself… I had to wear baggy clothes, but luckily all I had were Tozoku's hand-me-downs so most of my clothes were baggy…" He paused for a moment, "Kids at school made fun of me a lot… I, uh, Tozoku tried to make them stop but then when he wasn't around it was just worse… I…" A long pause entered the conversation.

"Take your time." Yugi said with a light smile.

"Everyone called me a loner and a fatty and a loser and a faggot and… and just everything… I- I, stopped eating…"

The spikey haired boy frowned at the confession. In addition to self-harm, Ryou also had a history of anorexia… Wait! That must be why Tozoku asked if Ryou was eating regularly!

"One day I uh, I-" He exhaled uneasily, "I passed out in the middle of class and they had to call paramedics… They found my cuts and scars from cutting and my bruises from being beaten and, and… They were all just, they were all over me, I couldn't think, I didn't know what to do… Yugi, I was so scared, I was like eleven!" He turned to his friend, tears running down his face, and grasped his shoulders tightly.

"Ryou, I… I don't know what to say…" He hugged his friend who then began mumbling into Yugi's chest.

"I, I didn't know what to do… I didn't know what to say, I- I told them it was Tozoku…" He let out a heavy sob into Yugi's chest and then pulled away and curled himself up into a trembling ball at the opposite end of the bed. "I, I lied and got Tozoku… Tozoku, the only person that ever protected me… I- I got him arrested and thrown through court and stained his record forever… Yugi, I'm a terrible person." He wheezed.

"Ryou, you're not a terrible person… You're stepfather is the terrible person… Wait, why wasn't there a trial?" Yugi wondered aloud.

"He didn't want me to get in trouble or get his dad thrown in prison so he just went along with it…" Ryou muttered into his pillow in between sobs. "Plus he already had a record so the police didn't even bother looking into anything… I wish they had, I wish he had told the truth…"

"But someone eventually found out you said?"

"Yeah…" Ryou let out in a short sigh as he sat up in bed, "just four months after that… How ironic, right…?" He said rhetorically and slumped back into his pillow.

Yugi placed a hand on Ryou's curled up right leg, which was the top one in the fetal position he had rolled himself into. "How did he know about Monday, Ryou." Yugi questioned warily. "Did he atta-"

Ryou jutted up and interrupted, "No, he was protecting me." He said quickly. "I don't know who it was but some guys just jumped out of nowhere and started beating me up… They, they…" He let out a shaky sigh, "They kept calling me a faggot and… one of them was saying he," The boy stopped as he was shaking more ferociously now and he was crying even more now. Yugi wasn't sure how that was possible. "He said, he was- was going to… to r-rape me." He was staring blankly across the room at the wall above Joey's still unmade bed, tears and redness consuming his cheeks.

Yugi was voiceless, he was completely shocked – frozen in a state of fear for what his friend had endured and he wasn't even there to help him.

"Hey Marik!" A low voice said happily.

"Hey Yami, I don't really feel like staying here…" Marik answered.

"What? Why? You were saying over text you met some friendly people. What happened?" Yami's deep voice demanded an answer in a caring tone.

"I, I just don't want to stay here… I sort of embarrassed myself…"

"How so? Do you want me to talk to someone…?"

"No!" Marik said quickly.

Yami smirked at his friend's reaction, "Are you crushing on this person?"

"No!" Marik said even faster this time. "I don't even know him!"

Yami laughed, "Are you sure you don't want to go talk to him, fix whatever it is you did that embarrassed you?"

"I think that time has come and gone…" Marik responded after considering the proposal for a moment.

"Alright, well where should we go then?"

"I don't care, I guess just back to the dorm… Wait, didn't you say you were bringing someone?"

Yami frowned. "I said I might bring someone, it didn't work out…"

"Who was it? Can I know?" Marik pressed his friend.

"Eh, it's not important right now; didn't work out anyway."

"Will you try to bring this person some other time? Oh! Maybe we could all have lunch sometime!" Marik suggested with a grin.

After pausing for a moment to contemplate whether or not he would pursue the individual in question, he nodded. "I guess I'll try to see if they want lunch with us sometime."

"Oh goody!" Marik said with a smile as he and Yami walked from the living room's entrance into the kitchen.

As the two of them waded through the throng of drunken college students – who were standing and falling down while waiting in line to get more booze from the kitchen – to get out of the frat house, Marik eventually peered up meekly at his friend, "Yami, why don't people like us…?"

"What do you mean?" The taller of the two answered quizzically.

"I mean… why don't people want to be our friends or… like, date us…?" Marik frowned and looked down at his feet, unable to look up at his friend as he finished the question.

Yami frowned but did his best to prevent Marik from seeing; the taller of the two grabbed his friend's hand and gave it a light squeeze as they exited the frat house through the kitchen. "I'm not sure, Marik." He confessed after a moment of thought, "I think people find us awkward or scary."

"I'm the scary one right?" Marik said with a giggle which got a rather loud laugh out of Yami.

"Yeah, you leave 'em shakin' in their boots." He said smiling into Marik's twinkling lilac gaze.

Tozoku paced back and forth in his single person dorm, which he had thankfully arranged to have with some of the dorm advisors in his building.

"God damn you, Yami!" He let out in a hiss of disapproval. "Why are you always getting involved with my shit, god damn it!" He spat. "And bringing Marik into it, for crying out loud…"

'Marik…' He thought to himself as he let out a disgruntled sigh. 'Why does Yami have to be such an asshole all the time?'

The tall pale man sighed once more, "Maybe he's not trying to be an asshole," he muttered to himself, "but he sure is coming off that way…"

Of course the way Yami approached Tozoku and the manner of his addressing him wasn't outright rude or offensive, but Tozoku always had a knack for picking up on asshattery.

"No." Tozoku said abruptly and sternly to himself. "I don't care what that prick says, I will never forgive him…"

There was a long pause.

"Why can't Marik see this jackass for what he really is…?" He asked the air around him rhetorically as he fell back into his pillow. "Why do I always end up looking like the bad guy?" He muttered as he stared up at his ceiling in preparation for yet another night of restless sleep.

Duke kicked his friend lightly who was now dangerously close to passing out. "Tristan will you stand up for a minute, this is important."

"Erm, a goddu ta d-brf…" Tristan stammered out, unable to form words at this point.

"Yeah, you can throw up or pass out or whatever you gotta do as soon as you stand up and answer my question: Is that that guy Ryou said Yugi was going to meet earlier today?" Duke demanded as he tapped his foot against Tristan's side once more.

A moment passed of silence. "Ugh, you're hopeless." Duke said in annoyance and defeat.

"Fffer- gettugh…"

Duke rolled his eyes as he examined the Yugi-lookalike from across the living room. He had on a cobalt blue jacket and a fitted black tank top with fitted leather pants to match. Duke admired the man's conviction with the double-belt but shook his head slightly at the several chains at his hip.

'This has to be that – what was his name? Yami…? – that Ryou was talking about earlier…' He thought to himself as he continued to study the tall figure speaking to Marik. 'Was this who Marik was waiting for, or had he too fallen into Marik's… Game? Trap? Whatever you want to call it.'

Duke wondered silently, 'Maybe I should go over and investigate? No, I'd probably just screw everything up for one or both of them or get involved in something I don't care to be twisted up in…' He dismissed his thoughts as he turned to see Tristan leaking boozy vomit out onto the already stained and ruddy carpet of the frat house.

"Ugh, I told you to stop drinking three beers ago." Duke said in annoyance, "You have no one to blame but yourself…" He shook his head and looked up to see Marik and this supposed Yami fellow leaving the living room – he assumed to grab some drinks from the kitchen.

Notes: The relationships between everyone are starting to open up to you all :O Well, more or less? Any who, we'll eventually dig deeper into the Yami and Tozoku relationship (though I'm not sure when). Hm… I had other notes, but I'm really tired… I can't really remember them all :/

-Yami is sort of based off of Yami from the show, but also the – stereotypical – 'straightest' gay guy I know in real life… Oh how I hate and yet love him (long story)!

-Poor Ryou :( His story just keeps getting darker and darker I feel :( He has a lot of baggage and I really hope Yugi will help him out with it all!

-I really like this chapter, let me know what you think of it and what you think will come to pass in future chapters in reviews!

-Favorite, follow, review, etc! The emails I get for those alerts keep me from forgetting about my stories lol