A/N: this chapter covers approximately nine months time and is completely narrative. i tried including dialogue at points but the story is progressing slower than i am comfortable with. this seemed like the best way to sum up a large amount of time without simply saying (one year later), and it allowed me to build Marik's character.
Marik never learned what Bakura had planned to tell him. Ryou never asked Marik to join Domino High. As a matter of fact, the two hardly ever spoke again.
Ryou started going to a therapist on Wednesdays, and tried hanging out with Yugi's circle of friends during the day. Despite efforts by both the boy and the group, it soon became evident that it wasn't going to work, so Ryou found himself a new group of friends. It turned out that two girls in the class had always wanted to approach him, so when they saw him start to open up to Yugi's friends they took the opportunity to learn more about him through them. Eventually, Yugi convinced them to talk to him themselves and they hit it off almost instantly. One of the girls had brown hair and a fascination with travel, so Ryou found himself talking a lot about his father. The other had dark hair that normally looked black, but – when the light caught it just right – it was revealed to be deep blue. Her spunky attitude reminded him of his sister... at least, the way Ryou remembered her.
Amane was usually a bookworm, seeming to the entire world like the perfect well-behaved, straight-A's child, but around her baby brother she revealed her true self. With Ryou she was (almost) always hyper, saying and doing stupid things to make him laugh or sometimes just to keep herself from going insane, but he loved it nonetheless. It also strengthened his admiration of her, to see her reveal that personality and then – at the drop of a hat – turn it off and go into Perfect Child mode once more. It was so automatic, he started calling it PC-Mode, which (again, almost) always made his big sister laugh.
He found himself talking about Amane a lot, but they didn't react the way Yami said friends would. They comforted him, they showed concern and, when appropriate, they even laughed. They loved listening to him talk about his family, his past, and anything else that he cared to say. Their friendship was nothing like what Yugi and his group had, and he loved it.
Marik and Bakura saw each other every night. Marik spent his days learning how to care for himself now that Ryou was hardly ever around. He learned how to cook, though not without consequence, so he put his knowledge to use and got a part-time job at the local museum. In just a couple months, he was able to replace Ryou's kitchenware. The museum closed for the winter, but Marik put away what he had left to begin saving for a computer. Bakura insisted on paying for half of it and, when Marik refused, he found himself being given a brand new laptop for his birthday.
The couple spent the first few days of winter vacation together all day. After Christmas, Ryou spent a few days with his friends and got invited to a New Year's Eve party. This caused conflict, as the couple wanted to bring in the New Year together, but Ryou didn't want to turn down his friends. Bakura eventually threatened to invite Marik along and kiss him in front of everybody – therefore ruining any chance at a relationship his hikari had – and Ryou gave in. The couple got to have the night to themselves and, though they spend it indoors, Marik made traditional osechi-ryori (minus the fish cakes) and onigiri. Bakura didn't eat much, which worried his young lover, but when the night came to an end his peculiar behavior was explained. Just before midnight, in a voice and a manner one-hundred percent unlike his usual self, he told Marik he'd held to a tradition as well. He'd written a poem, a haiku – the last line of which was Marik, I love you.
They shared their first kiss of the New Year, followed by the best sex they'd had yet. Marik was in such a good mood the following day that he allowed Ryou to take any of the untouched meals with him when he left to spend the day with his two friends. As soon as the pale boy was gone, Marik called his sister repeatedly until she answered and, when she did, he told her everything.
A week later, when school started up again, Marik often turned to his computer for entertainment. The museum would be re-opening in a month or so, and he would re-apply for his position at that time, but until then he needed something to fill his days. Ishizu still wasn't talking to him, but he presumed she'd need at least a month to process her new knowledge. In the meantime, he discovered a website where users submitted their artwork, and it had numerous features for turning the art into something sellable. Without thought, he took the money he'd set aside for his computer and spent it on art supplies.
As a child, he had exposure to only one medium, but he'd always excelled at it. Due to his nature, however, he had limited subject knowledge and mostly painted artistic renditions of the scriptures he'd been taught as a child, but they sold well. Two weeks after returning to the museum, he was promoted to a full time position. He called Ishizu with the news. She praised his job and his painting hobby, and even showed signs that she had begun to accept his 'chosen' lifestyle. However, the new schedule caused a fight with his boyfriend and when he called her up that same day for support, she was reluctant to give it. For the first time in months, he went to see Yugi. Even the King of Games didn't know what to tell him, though he did show some jealousy toward the job position. Yami told Marik he should have a female friend to discuss relationship problems with and, against Yugi's will, gave him Tea's number. Marik returned home, not much interested in talking to Tea, but he kept her number nonetheless.
Bakura eventually came around, after seeing the positive difference in Marik's demeanor. Of course, the Egyptian had days where he complained about everything, but Bakura also learned the best ways to deal with it. The good news was that his lover seemed happy, and the days in which he came home satisfied with life far outweighed the ones where he needed to have a warm bubble bath prepared within five minutes of walking through the door.
Holidays and festivals came and went – Ryou celebrated Valentine's Day with his girl friends, so Bakura surprised Marik with chocolates for White Day. When spring came, Kyoko and Reina invited Ryou to a local cherry blossom festival. Marik had no interest in the festival activities, but he did convince Bakura to go on a few moonlit walks so they could observe the seasonal beauty. More than once, these walks ended in making love outdoors, in increasingly risky locations.
With work filling his days and love filling his nights, Marik found less and less time to paint. Though his job generated enough to pay his share of things around the house, he enjoyed his hobby and looked for ways to upkeep it. Using the museum, internet and public library, he brushed up on his knowledge of hieroglyphs and began filling personal art requests. Painting a simple word or name took only an hour, usually, and he found personal reward in writing things from his own name to entire sentences in the dead language.
Over the summer months, he found himself regularly exposed to Duel Monsters. In stores, at cafes, and – with the help of KaibaCorp – even in the streets. Living on the same side of town as the rich teenager, the streets were often busy with traffic to and from KaibaLand. Marik also found himself bumping into Yugi's group of friends more often. The Egyptian's time in public was limited by his job and his boyfriend's hatred of daylight, but they worked out a schedule that ensured at least one date a week. Over time, Yugi even began to address the couple willingly, and Marik did find talking to Tea strangely relieving. Joey and Tristan took longer to accept the boys into their lives, but they were regularly distracted by Duke and Serenity anyway.
On the days when Ryou controlled his body, he would almost always leave the house to Marik. The few times he did have the girls over, Marik mostly stayed in his room. Whether Ryou was home or out, Marik put every workless, Bakura-less moment toward either reading or painting, and it was usually the latter. In a total of about six months, he perfected his ability to paint the Egyptian version of the three God Cards. When finally released them to the public, they would sell in bulk.
About halfway through this process, Bakura began acting peculiar. Marik figured it was just because the summer had drawn to an end and Ryou would be returning to school soon. When the pale boy came home after his first day of classes, Marik gave him a small gift box and told him it was an early birthday present. He didn't care when the recipient opened it, but he did want to know what his plans were for the second. (He assumed Bakura did not remember his own birthday, and so would celebrate it on the same day as his host). Ryou informed Marik that he had no plans for that day, but also that – in the years they'd shared a vessel – Bakura had not shown any interest in celebrating. Marik ignored this and told Ryou to come straight home from school that day, and to be prepared to let Bakura take over.
When Ryou told his friends he would be busy on his birthday, they insisted on taking him out the day before. Marik was working late on the first to make up for requesting the second off, so Ryou had no reason to be home that evening and ended up spending it at the mall. Kyoko and Reina bought him a new outfit and split the cost so there would be no hostility over 'whose gift was better'. After changing into his new clothes (which were very punk and unlike anything he'd worn before), they dragged him out of the mall and to a nearby bakery. He fervently told them they were not going to buy him a cake, to which they slyly said they knew. Before he could question it, the attendant handed them a box over the counter which they took cheerily over to the corner booth. Ryou dreadfully obeyed when he was told to open the box, and inside was a personalized cake wishing him a happy 19th birthday. He looked up at them, from one to the other, then lovingly hugged them both and said he'd never know what he'd done to deserve such wonderful friends.
Marik's idea of celebrating Bakura's birthday was some combination of Egyptian tradition and his own twisted uniqueness. He decorated the interior of the house with zeena and dressed himself as a servant. Some months prior, he had asked his lover to describe what he wore in his time as Touzokuou, and used this knowledge to purchase a garment as similar to it as he could imagine. Bakura found this quite amusing, along with his partner's idea of turning their evening into a role-play session. With his long hair, pale skin and slightly leaner build, Bakura felt rather comical in the garment at first. He touched his cheek absently as he stared at his reflection, then had an idea. Sure enough, he found the concealer (which he'd suspected his lover occasionally wore) and applied it carefully beneath his right eye. When Marik saw what he'd done, he felt amused and embarrassed. Later that night, when they lay together as boyfriends (no longer servant and master), he would tell his lover that he was a very good role-player, but also that he was glad he hadn't cut his hair. Bakura would reply by calling him the strangest person that he'd ever slept with, in any of his lives. Marik would nuzzle him and beg to be reminded that he was the only person the spirit ever loved, and Bakura would laugh before kissing him and saying those fateful three words.
