A/N: And I am back from vacation! After three days of doing virtually nothing but a heck of a lot of walking (boardwalks. Why do they have to involve walking?) and sightseeing (dolphins, wild horses, a museum with shrunken heads...) I'm back and ready to present the next chapter. Enjoy!

Thanks to: The Awesome Alchemist, Almond Luver, Fujimori Chikaru, sandydragon, Spottedpaw13, seira-g, xXI. Hate. TwilightXx , and redwolfJM for reviewing!


"He doesn't want me telling anyone this, but my brother...he's bisexual."

Marik lay in bed as Ryou's words repeated through his head.

"But it doesn't make any sense," he thought. "Why would he choose to hang out with the one person in the schol who hates people like...us instead of with people who would actually understand and accept him?" It felt odd to think of Bakura as someone like himself. As if Bakura didn't make him feel strange enough already...

Come to think of it, why did he feel this way? What exactly was it that he felt for Bakura? From the moment he had first laid eyes on the white-haired boy, butterflies seemed to have taken up residence in Marik's stomach. Every time he even thought about that crown of silky white hair atop Bakura's head, Marik had a yearning to run his fingers through it, to bury his face in it. (It certainly didn't help that Bakura happened to be in quite a few of Marik's classes, either.)

Their brief encounter in the bathroom that day had only seemed to increase Marik's feelings. The second Bakura had touched his wrist, a firey desire had coursed through Marik, burning him from the inside. He had wanted to throw his arms around Bakura, to have Bakura hold him, to just forget everything that had happened to him since he had "come out of the closet."

Marik could only recall one time that he'd had feelings similar to the ones he had right now: when he'd had a crush on Yami Muto back in the seventh grade. Only this time, the feelings were much, much more powerful.

"Oh, hell no!" Marik groaned in realization. Of all people, his stupid adolescent hormones had chosen Bakura?! How did that make any sense? Ryou was a lot friendlier, and he actually hung out with Marik and the others. So why Bakura?

All at once, the memory of his dream came crashing down on him. That was it? That was the reason that Marik's hormones had gone haywire? All because of a dream he had?

"It was just a dream," Marik said aloud. "Dreams don't mean anything. They're fine when I close my eyes, but when I open them again, they're gone! They're not real!" Besides, the boy in his dreams couldn't have been Bakura. Could he? Marik had been having that dream for weeks before Ryou and Bakura had come to Domino City High. It had to be a coincidence. Right?

A knock on the door snapped Marik out of his thoughts. Malik poked his head in.

"Hey, I just got a text from Ryou. He and Bakura are heading to the library to study for the history project and he wants to know if we can meet them there."

Marik groaned inwardly. He knew that he and Bakura would have to meet up at some point, but why did it have to be today? There was no way Marik would be able to focus in the ancient Greeks with everything else going on in his head.

"Okay, I'm coming." He sat up. Malik looked at him.

"Hey, are you okay? You ran in here as soon as we got home from school. Actually, you've been acting really weird for the past few days, now that I think about it."

"Uh..." Marik hesitated. He trusted his twin, more than his friends, actually, but he didn't feel comfortable talking about hormone problems and he was quite certain that Malik wouldn't feel comfortable hearing about them. "I'm fine. It's just...school, I guess. The science test from a few days ago, the pop quiz in math today that I wasn't ready for, and now this history project...it's pretty stressful, especially for me." He got a blank stare from his brother in return.

"Yeah...okay, sure, if you say so." From the tone of his voice, it was pretty obvious that Malik didn't believe Marik's fib, but didn't want to pry. "Listen Marik, I'll admit that I'm no Dr. Phil, so I'm not too good at talking about problems and stuff, but you know that you can talk to me about anything, right? If you want to, that is."

Marik blinked. Malik didn't usually talk like that. He usually tried to keep up a "tough guy" appearance, especially at school.

"Uh, yeah, Malik. Whatever you say."

"I just wanted to make sure you know that. Come on, we'd better get going."

"Malik?"

"What?"

"Since I can talk to you about anything, I just wanted to say that you are being way too nice right now," Marik said, smiling. Malik crossed his arms, but it was obvious that he was trying not to smile.

"Well, excuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess!"

"There, that's more like my older brother!" Marik laughed.

"Yeah, whatever. Come on, runt, Ryou and Bakura are probably at the library by now."

"Okay, I'm coming." But how will I be able to handle having Bakura for a partner?


Aw, brotherly love! I don't know why I make Malik such a nice guy. It's way out of character for him. But, he's one of my favorite characters (third after Marik and Bakura) so I don't want him to be a complete jerk like he is in the anime.

R&R, please. It feeds the plot bunnies.