The peanut-gallery was larger than usual today, and it even seemed to have garnered a number of male members. There was a notable change in the whisper-to-giggle ratio as well. Bakhura was intrigued by this and vaguely confused by the questions he was getting.

"Um, um, do you mind me asking how you got that scar...?" Romi said shyly, pointing to her own right eye.

"Clumsiness." Bakhura shrugged a little. "I was lucky not to lose the eye. See it's good that I was hit from a downward angle because that made it bounce off my eyebrow and skip past the eye." He illustrated by drawing his finger down his face as he spoke.

There were many quiet whispers. "B-but, um, what was it? How did it happen?" Romi pressed, her eyes cast down and her face flushed.

"A street-fight," Bakhura answered; that was sort-of true. "Years ago."

"How many other countries have you lived in?" Hiroko asked.

"Just one. My family came from Egypt and I've spent a few years there."

"Do you travel much?"

"Not at the moment."

"What's the value of a five-carat diamond?"

"One and a half million yen." Bakhura paused after answering that, frowning slightly. Wait. That was a kind of incongruous question. "What?" He looked oddly at the boy who had asked. The boy paled a little and tried to hide in the crowd that had suddenly started whispering madly.

"YOOOU!" Bakhura turned just in time to see Ryou charging toward him, looking absolutely livid.

"Wha-" Bakhura started and then stumbled as Ryou slammed into him and promptly started hammering his fists against Bakhura. "What the hell, Ryou?"

"Stupid! Gonna-! Oh my god I can't-! Bastard!" Ryou fumed, shoving and hitting at random.

"Ribs! Ribs!" Bakhura shouted, grabbing at, and after a few tries managing to catch, Ryou's wrists to stop the assault. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Bakhura demanded; he was pretty sure he hadn't done anything terrible today.

Not like yesterday, anyway.

"What's wrong with you? I told you I was going to get harassed and this is worse than getting my ass kicked and it's your fault!" Ryou shrieked and struggled against his hold. "None of this would have started if you hadn't shown up at my school because you think it's funny! And now you made it worse and the whole god-damned school is saying stupid shit about me and won't leave me alone! I can't believe you did this to me! For fun! I just want to be ignored and get through high school with as little pain as possible and you're ruining it! I hate you! This isn't a game! This is my life!"

The world stopped. He couldn't move. He couldn't breath. He couldn't see anything except Ryou's angry face still screaming at him, the words now meaningless. Oh God, he'd fucked up. He'd fucked up bad. Ryou had gotten his wrists away from Bakhura and was hitting and pushing again. Bakhura stumbled back, he almost turned his ankle he was so lacking for coordination, and then he started running.

...

"And everything's just a joke to you and you don't even think about what I have to deal with! I'm always cleaning up your messes and-"

"Bakura-kun! BAKURA-KUN!"

His eyes, wet with angry tears, opened to find Anzu next to him, roughly shaking his shoulder and staring. "Bakura-kun, he's gone," she said, looking at him with a strange expression.

"W-what?" he mumbled, confused, looking around and bewildered that the Thief was indeed nowhere to be seen. "Where did...?"

"He ran away, Bakura-kun," Anzu said quietly.

Ryou became aware of the crowd still standing around him, their eyes all focused on him. Their stares assaulted him, like the uncomfortable heat of a spotlight, only accompanied by a greasy feeling. He'd ignored them, or maybe even been oblivious to them, until Anzu had stopped him, and suddenly they were all pressing on him, and he felt nauseated.

"W-why did he- he just- I don't-"

"... It was after you said 'I hate you,' Bakura-kun," Anzu said in a voice barely above a whisper.

The blood froze in Ryou's veins. Had he said that? How could he let that slip past without even noticing? How could he be stupid enough to let it? "Oh god," he whispered. "Oh god." His knees buckled and he sank to the ground, staring at nothing.

Anzu sank down next to him, a hand still on his arm. He felt numb and thought he was starting to shake. This was bad. This was very bad. "He went that way," Anzu whispered, pointing down the street.

Ryou was back on his feet in an instant and running.

...

"Pickuppickuppickup!" Bakhura whined desperately, his phone cradled in two hands against his cheek.

After the second ring there was the click and then Malik's voice, "Morning. What's u-"

"I fucked up!" Bakhura blurted.

There was a startled moment of silence, and then, "What?"

"I fucked up! I fucked up so bad! Ryou hates me! I didn't mean to! I didn't think it was that serious!" Bakhura's breath was coming fast and his throat was too tight and his chest hurt, just under his collarbone.

"Slow down! Slow down!" Malik demanded. "Ryou does not hate you and what the hell happened?"

"He does! He said he does!" Bakhura gasped, stumbling on nothing; he couldn't even walk right.

"Can I please get some context?" Malik asked.

Bakhura tried to reign in his breathing as he walked down the narrow alley. "I- I went to his school and stood outside to wait for him because it was a nice day and I wanted to walk with him, b-but then these girls started asking me questions and it was really funny! I mean, I didn't even say we were living together, but they jumped to it and they were all excited and it was funny! And then I went again a couple days later and Ryou got all annoyed because the girls were making up comic-book fantasies about us, and that was funny but Ryou was afraid he was going to get beat-up. So I tailed him for a few days and when some guys did try to mess with him, I shook them up a bit, and I might have broken into one of their houses and... left a note to scare him. I- I don't know what happened today, but Ryou's really mad and he just started yelling and hitting me and he said he hates me."

"Oh Jesus," Malik sounded a little muffled and irritated. "He didn't mean that, Bakhura, he was pissed off. He didn't know what he was saying, he was just venting."

Bakhura shook his head, barely seeing where he was going. "Ryou's always in control! He doesn't make mistakes! He always says what he means!"

"No, that's bullshit," Malik retorted. "Everybody says stupid shit when they're mad. He probably didn't even realize he said it."

"What if he did?" Bakhura whispered, his feet stopping and leaving him motionless in the middle of an alley. "I can't- I can't-"

"He didn't," Malik insisted. "That's completely asinine. He's not going to just turn around and hate you because you embarrassed him."

"I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if I can fix it!"

"Would you stop freaking out? This isn't a big deal! You're blowing it way out of proportion!"

"You weren't there!" Bakhura protested. "You don't know that! You're not even listening!"

"I am listening and you sound like a damn ten-year-old!" Malik shouted back. "This is nothing! You need to go talk to him and just apologize for outing him and he'll be mad for a while but it will be okay!"

"You're not listening!" Bakhura accused again. "You didn't see how angry he was!"

"This is stupid!"

"Why did I even call you?"

"Would you shut up and pretend you're an adult for half a minute?"

"God damn it shut up!" Bakhura shouted, frustrated and near hysteria. "You're useless!" he screamed and threw the phone at the pavement.

He froze.

Bakhura stood there silently for a few seconds, staring at the phone. Its screen was black and he could see the green color of the inside parts showing through where the corner had broken off. "Shit," he whispered. He dropped down and grabbed up the broken phone and the battery cartridge that had skidded away a few feet. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Bakhura whimpered slightly as he fumbled the battery back into its place and tried to make the back stick on again, but it refused to click into place. He mashed the power-button down and stared at the phone for a few seconds, holding his breath. Nothing happened. The screen was still black, the phone was still cracked and the inside parts were still showing through the missing corner.

Bakhura bit his lip until he could taste blood. He slowly climbed to his feet, the broken phone clenched tightly in one hand. He stared up and down the alley, his body starting to shake. Now he'd really fucked up.

...

...

So, I guess I decided on the cliff-hanger, and look at what a good cliff-hanger point I found to break it! Tomorrow's update will continue from the moment this one ends. For those of you wondering "Why is Bakhura acting like a pre-teen?" remember, he is not sane, and while he looks about 20, he doesn't think at 20. He has a lot more intellectual capacity, knowledge, and tactics etc, but emotionally I put him at about a 12-14 level (although, not being assaulted by 12-14-year-old hormone levels makes him a little less erratic than that...)

I kind of wonder how many of you have been reading the bits with Bakhura's fanclub and thinking '"peanut-gallery"?' Er, since that was a long generation out of date when I picked it up, I don't know if it ever makes its way into parlance except for people trying to be cute with it... I'm not entirely sure how it ended up in my working-vocabulary. The 'peanut-gallery' was what the live studio-audience was referred to in the Howdy Doody show (that's what Woody's show in Toy Story 2 was an homage to. And... I have never even seen an old rerun of, actually... damn, my americana is lacking.) I think of it as meaning 'excitable, responsive audience'... So, yeah, there's that explanation for my out-of-date colloquialism use.