The Caged Rose
Disclaimer: I'm afraid YGO still doesn't belong to me. Sorry guys. No sexy boys making out on TV today.
Pairings: Malik/Ryou, Bakura/Marik. Some others later on.
--NOTE: All of chapter seven until the '\\' mark is in Malik's perspective.
Warnings/Other: Yaoi, Yuri, angst, school-fic, maybe some OOC, completely disreguards story line.
Summary: Ryou is a depressed yet caring loner who just wants some love. Malik is a popular, 'egotistical' honours student. Malik has a secret crush on Ryou, whose trust is literally impossible to gain. The rest is up to fate when they bump into eachother in the halls. YAOI, YURI.
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He floated in a grey haze, dimly aware of pain, and someone shouting his name.
"Malik!" Did he recognize that voice? But the voice in his memory had never held that emotion. What was it? Concern?
He tried to sit up, tried to explain he was okay, but pressing darkness drew him further from understanding, further from the frantic whispering that urged him to stay awake. Was he asleep?
"Oh my God, someone get the nurse!"
His lips wouldn't form words when he tried to speak, nor would his eyelids open when he tried to see. The darkness was consuming him and pulling him away from the silky yet petrified voice that was his light. He barely recognized it through all the fog slowing down his thinking process.
He felt his shoulder being joustled slightly, but he couldn't figure out who was so worried about him and why. Sounds and echoes of voices reached his ears, but the noises sounded as if they were reaching him very distantly over thousands of miles. He wanted to tell whoever it was now holding his hand that there was nothing to worry about. But most of all, he wanted to get back to Ryou.
"Please, Malik, be okay..."
A hushed whisper snaked into his thoughts, and he yearned to reach out and tell this person they didn't need to be so fearful for his health. It was then he noticed how detatched he felt from everything. His ears were still working, but that was about the only physical sensation he even had. The nerve endings in his arms and legs seemed separate from his body, as if he was trapped in an immobile shell in replica of human stature.
\\
Ryou held on tightly to Malik's hand as the nurse administered the IVs into Malik's arm. The blonde had to have his vitals stable before they could transfer him back into the surgery ward to repair the broken stitches. Tears were leaking slowly out of Ryou's eyes as he whispered comforting words to Malik. All he could do was curse his stupidity, his naivity, his bedamned heartlessness that had caused the accident in the first place.
He didn't want Malik to go into surgery, but he also didn't like the idea of the Egyptian lying coma-like in a hospital bed. The nurse watched how the pale boy's tender gaze flickered over Malik's face with the utmost of concern.
(--Flashback)
The chair he sat in wasn't particularly comfortable against his soft, creamy skin as he waited patiently in the hospital room for his grandmother, his only living relative other than his father left, to come out of surgery. His grandparents, though old, had taken him under their wings and raised him. Now, he was eleven years old and more lonely than ever. After his grandfather died about a year back, his grandmother hadn't been able to take living in the large, quiet house and instead moved herself and Ryou across town and back into his father's house, thus cutting him off from the few friends he had managed to make.
He hadn't seen his father since the night after the accident. Sometimes he wished he would wake up from the nightmare he lived every day, and open his eyes to find out that he was still seven years old, that he still had a mother and a father, and a sister. But that was never possible. He had been wishing for the haunting coldness of his life to turn back around for the past four years, and it had gotten him absolutely nowhere.
Ryou waited for a long time until his grandmother would come out of surgery. Although he didn't want to think about it, his logical mind told him there was a very good chance he was soon to be all on his own. The idea of living all alone before he even hit his teenage years scared him more than anything, as he curled into a ball on the chair. He had always been small for his age; small and skinny. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old picture of himself, his mother, and Amane that had been taken. His father would have been in the picture, but Mr. Bakura had forgotten to set the camera for enough time to allow him to jump into the frame. Ryou sighed. He missed his family.
A shadow passed over him, and he looked up into the solemn face of the doctor he had seen hours upon hours ago. "Y-Yes?" He asked quietly, his gentle British accent flowing over the word.
The doctor's face frowned even more than the boy had ever thought possible. "We tried."
Tears Ryou didn't know he'd been holding back began spilling out of his eyes one by one. He was all alone now. No one left at all. No one to say goodnight to him, no one to go to if he had a bad experience at school, no one to tell him that a nightmare wasn't real... No one. He knew he probably wouldn't be put into foster care just yet. His father still had legal custody of him, and as far as the hospital was concerned, Mr. Bakura had just gone off on a buisness trip for a few days and Ryou had stayed with his grandparents.
But they were wrong. So wrong.
That night, after Ryou had walked the three miles him from the hospital by himself, he fell asleep in his bed, half burried under the covers. The moonlight glittered its way into his room through the curtians that he hadn't bothered to close. Even the cool gaze of the moon looked sad as tears leaked out of his eyes.
At that point in time, he just wanted to leave. Not necessarily die, but just go away from everything for a long while. And he did that by pushing everyone away for a very long time.
(--End flashback)
Ryou could feel the all-too-familiar prick of tears beginning to form in the backs of his eyes, but he refused to shed a single tear. Not yet. Not while he still had the chance to gaze upon the almost frighteningly peaceful expression on his Malik's face.
Pause.
A shake of the head, and Ryou released Malik's hand. What was wrong with him? He didn't have any romantic feelings for Malik. Although, he couldn't help but notice how beautiful Malik was, How each golden strand of hair fell perfectly over a deeply tanned face, eyelids gently closed over sparkling amethyst orbs of sincerity. And he couldn't forget how safe and loved he had felt when Malik had held him not too long ago.
Fortunately, the team of doctors had assembled and discussed the surgery procedure quickly that day, and Malik was soon wheeled away to the surgery ward. Ryou watched helplessly as the nurse pushing the bed turned a corner, and he lost sight of Malik.
//
"Do you plan on visiting him?" Bakura asked quietly as he watched Marik out of the corner of his eye. "Or...?"
Marik shrugged. "Not while /he's/ there."
"I know Malik already asked you this, but why do you hate the kid so much? I've seen him around and he's in a class of mine- he would never intentionally hurt somebody."
"That doesn't change the fact that he almost caused Malik's death."
"Marik," Bakura sighed, "I know you're angry with Ryou. I know you dislike him. But what about your /brother/? He loves Ryou more than anything. And because of that fact I think you should try and be a little bit nicer to him, for the sake of your siblingship with Malik."
Marik was quiet for a few moments before he responded, "If you weren't the type to be frustratingly correct in everything, Bakura, I'd smack you."
A thin silver eyebrow arched. "Oh really...?"
//
Two bleary amethyst eyes opened to the cold, empty darkness of a hospital room late at night. For a moment he thought the darkness from before was back to consume him once again, but he blinked a couple times, and the outlines of the lights on the ceiling became visible. He didn't dare try to sit up; last time he did that he only ended up with mass amounts of pain followed by a black-out. Breathing in through his nose, he tried to look around the room as best he could to see if anyone else was present. Somewhere deep inside him, he was hoping Ryou had stayed, just so he could watch the angelic boy sleep.
But as he listened carefully for any sounds of life other than his own, he realized with a sigh that he was the only one in the room. Carefully, he reached over to the table beside his bed, sliding his slender bronze arm though the railings, and grasped the digital clock. He held it at such an angle that he could view the time, and scoffed at himself once he saw the numbers reading '3:29AM.' Of course Ryou wouldn't be sitting by his bedside at such an inane hour. He set the clock back on the table and returned his arm to his side.
He thought back to how this had all began, and couldn't help but mentally berate himself. The way he slammed on the brakes in shock after Ryou's words was probably leaving the gentle British boy feeling more guilty than ever before. A couple tears began forming in his eyes; he only wanted to hold the boy yet it seemed like fate was trying to drive them apart. With a deep breath, he blinked back his tears and tried to calm himself down before anything else happened. As he closed his eyes to try and attempt sleep, he allowed a single tear to slide down his cheek.
* * *
Ryou's expression was forlorn as he pulled out his Algebra II binder out of its watery grave in his backpack. He'd forgotten how carelessly he'd thrown his backpack over the fence in his front yard upon accepting Malik's invitation. Flicking through the pages that were still somewhat damp, he paused in mild shock when he came across the crinkled up drawing of Malik's face.
The imprint smiled back at him almost hauntingly, in such a different state of being from the way Malik looked and probably felt now that it was a couple days later. He removed the sheet of paper from his binder and set it against the bookshelf he had placed near his computer table a few years ago.
Algebra long forgotten, Ryou twisted in his seat so that he was facing the picture of Malik face-to-face. He stared deep into Malik's eyes, thinking, as he absentmindedly picked up his cordless phone and examined it. Not even a week ago he had called Malik to apologize for his behaviour. Hestiantly, he dialed Malik's number, knowing full well that he would not find the energetic Egyptian boy answering the phone.
There were a couple of rings before someone finally picked up, and to Ryou's relief, Bakura's voice came through on the other end.
"What?"
Ryou blinked, then shrugged. Well, if someone had called him at nearly four in the morning, he couldn't have promised he would be too polite either.
"Are you even there?" Bakura asked, repressing a yawn.
"Y-Yes, I'm sorry, Bakura. It's me, Ryou."
"... Can I help you with something?"
A sigh. "I don't even know why I called. I guess it's because I called Malik a few nights ago, before all... this started happening, and--"
"And you called because you were hoping to get Malik on the phone?" Bakura cut him off.
"Well... I guess so. I'm sorry for calling at such an inopportune hour, Bakura, I just... I dunno, I wanted to try and fix everything."
"... I see. Why don't you call back tomorrow or something, at a better time? We can continue this conversation then. Marik's finally gotten to sleep, and I don't want to wake him by talking too much."
"Thanks, Bakura. I'll talk to you tomorrow then." Ryou waited until the other had said goodbye before hanging up. Feeling slightly better about the situation in general, he switched off the lamp on his computer table, casting one last glance to Malik's portrait before he crawled into his bed. Falling asleep was hard that night, but Ryou coaxed himself to sleep with the notion that tomorrow was a new day and things had a chance of looking up.
...he hoped.
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Shori: You know it's sad when a thing of 7 quarter-sized cookies keeps you from being hungry all day long.
Bakura: ... I bet you can't wait to go back to school.
Shori: As a matter of fact you're right 'Kura.
Bakura: o.O;
Shori: The review counter is back *Sob* People stopped reviewing... So now it's back! 10 more reviews and I'll update.. _ It'll probably take me that long to write chapter 8 anyways.
Bakura: A win-win situation...
Shori: Yup.
x Shori
Disclaimer: I'm afraid YGO still doesn't belong to me. Sorry guys. No sexy boys making out on TV today.
Pairings: Malik/Ryou, Bakura/Marik. Some others later on.
--NOTE: All of chapter seven until the '\\' mark is in Malik's perspective.
Warnings/Other: Yaoi, Yuri, angst, school-fic, maybe some OOC, completely disreguards story line.
Summary: Ryou is a depressed yet caring loner who just wants some love. Malik is a popular, 'egotistical' honours student. Malik has a secret crush on Ryou, whose trust is literally impossible to gain. The rest is up to fate when they bump into eachother in the halls. YAOI, YURI.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
He floated in a grey haze, dimly aware of pain, and someone shouting his name.
"Malik!" Did he recognize that voice? But the voice in his memory had never held that emotion. What was it? Concern?
He tried to sit up, tried to explain he was okay, but pressing darkness drew him further from understanding, further from the frantic whispering that urged him to stay awake. Was he asleep?
"Oh my God, someone get the nurse!"
His lips wouldn't form words when he tried to speak, nor would his eyelids open when he tried to see. The darkness was consuming him and pulling him away from the silky yet petrified voice that was his light. He barely recognized it through all the fog slowing down his thinking process.
He felt his shoulder being joustled slightly, but he couldn't figure out who was so worried about him and why. Sounds and echoes of voices reached his ears, but the noises sounded as if they were reaching him very distantly over thousands of miles. He wanted to tell whoever it was now holding his hand that there was nothing to worry about. But most of all, he wanted to get back to Ryou.
"Please, Malik, be okay..."
A hushed whisper snaked into his thoughts, and he yearned to reach out and tell this person they didn't need to be so fearful for his health. It was then he noticed how detatched he felt from everything. His ears were still working, but that was about the only physical sensation he even had. The nerve endings in his arms and legs seemed separate from his body, as if he was trapped in an immobile shell in replica of human stature.
\\
Ryou held on tightly to Malik's hand as the nurse administered the IVs into Malik's arm. The blonde had to have his vitals stable before they could transfer him back into the surgery ward to repair the broken stitches. Tears were leaking slowly out of Ryou's eyes as he whispered comforting words to Malik. All he could do was curse his stupidity, his naivity, his bedamned heartlessness that had caused the accident in the first place.
He didn't want Malik to go into surgery, but he also didn't like the idea of the Egyptian lying coma-like in a hospital bed. The nurse watched how the pale boy's tender gaze flickered over Malik's face with the utmost of concern.
(--Flashback)
The chair he sat in wasn't particularly comfortable against his soft, creamy skin as he waited patiently in the hospital room for his grandmother, his only living relative other than his father left, to come out of surgery. His grandparents, though old, had taken him under their wings and raised him. Now, he was eleven years old and more lonely than ever. After his grandfather died about a year back, his grandmother hadn't been able to take living in the large, quiet house and instead moved herself and Ryou across town and back into his father's house, thus cutting him off from the few friends he had managed to make.
He hadn't seen his father since the night after the accident. Sometimes he wished he would wake up from the nightmare he lived every day, and open his eyes to find out that he was still seven years old, that he still had a mother and a father, and a sister. But that was never possible. He had been wishing for the haunting coldness of his life to turn back around for the past four years, and it had gotten him absolutely nowhere.
Ryou waited for a long time until his grandmother would come out of surgery. Although he didn't want to think about it, his logical mind told him there was a very good chance he was soon to be all on his own. The idea of living all alone before he even hit his teenage years scared him more than anything, as he curled into a ball on the chair. He had always been small for his age; small and skinny. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old picture of himself, his mother, and Amane that had been taken. His father would have been in the picture, but Mr. Bakura had forgotten to set the camera for enough time to allow him to jump into the frame. Ryou sighed. He missed his family.
A shadow passed over him, and he looked up into the solemn face of the doctor he had seen hours upon hours ago. "Y-Yes?" He asked quietly, his gentle British accent flowing over the word.
The doctor's face frowned even more than the boy had ever thought possible. "We tried."
Tears Ryou didn't know he'd been holding back began spilling out of his eyes one by one. He was all alone now. No one left at all. No one to say goodnight to him, no one to go to if he had a bad experience at school, no one to tell him that a nightmare wasn't real... No one. He knew he probably wouldn't be put into foster care just yet. His father still had legal custody of him, and as far as the hospital was concerned, Mr. Bakura had just gone off on a buisness trip for a few days and Ryou had stayed with his grandparents.
But they were wrong. So wrong.
That night, after Ryou had walked the three miles him from the hospital by himself, he fell asleep in his bed, half burried under the covers. The moonlight glittered its way into his room through the curtians that he hadn't bothered to close. Even the cool gaze of the moon looked sad as tears leaked out of his eyes.
At that point in time, he just wanted to leave. Not necessarily die, but just go away from everything for a long while. And he did that by pushing everyone away for a very long time.
(--End flashback)
Ryou could feel the all-too-familiar prick of tears beginning to form in the backs of his eyes, but he refused to shed a single tear. Not yet. Not while he still had the chance to gaze upon the almost frighteningly peaceful expression on his Malik's face.
Pause.
A shake of the head, and Ryou released Malik's hand. What was wrong with him? He didn't have any romantic feelings for Malik. Although, he couldn't help but notice how beautiful Malik was, How each golden strand of hair fell perfectly over a deeply tanned face, eyelids gently closed over sparkling amethyst orbs of sincerity. And he couldn't forget how safe and loved he had felt when Malik had held him not too long ago.
Fortunately, the team of doctors had assembled and discussed the surgery procedure quickly that day, and Malik was soon wheeled away to the surgery ward. Ryou watched helplessly as the nurse pushing the bed turned a corner, and he lost sight of Malik.
//
"Do you plan on visiting him?" Bakura asked quietly as he watched Marik out of the corner of his eye. "Or...?"
Marik shrugged. "Not while /he's/ there."
"I know Malik already asked you this, but why do you hate the kid so much? I've seen him around and he's in a class of mine- he would never intentionally hurt somebody."
"That doesn't change the fact that he almost caused Malik's death."
"Marik," Bakura sighed, "I know you're angry with Ryou. I know you dislike him. But what about your /brother/? He loves Ryou more than anything. And because of that fact I think you should try and be a little bit nicer to him, for the sake of your siblingship with Malik."
Marik was quiet for a few moments before he responded, "If you weren't the type to be frustratingly correct in everything, Bakura, I'd smack you."
A thin silver eyebrow arched. "Oh really...?"
//
Two bleary amethyst eyes opened to the cold, empty darkness of a hospital room late at night. For a moment he thought the darkness from before was back to consume him once again, but he blinked a couple times, and the outlines of the lights on the ceiling became visible. He didn't dare try to sit up; last time he did that he only ended up with mass amounts of pain followed by a black-out. Breathing in through his nose, he tried to look around the room as best he could to see if anyone else was present. Somewhere deep inside him, he was hoping Ryou had stayed, just so he could watch the angelic boy sleep.
But as he listened carefully for any sounds of life other than his own, he realized with a sigh that he was the only one in the room. Carefully, he reached over to the table beside his bed, sliding his slender bronze arm though the railings, and grasped the digital clock. He held it at such an angle that he could view the time, and scoffed at himself once he saw the numbers reading '3:29AM.' Of course Ryou wouldn't be sitting by his bedside at such an inane hour. He set the clock back on the table and returned his arm to his side.
He thought back to how this had all began, and couldn't help but mentally berate himself. The way he slammed on the brakes in shock after Ryou's words was probably leaving the gentle British boy feeling more guilty than ever before. A couple tears began forming in his eyes; he only wanted to hold the boy yet it seemed like fate was trying to drive them apart. With a deep breath, he blinked back his tears and tried to calm himself down before anything else happened. As he closed his eyes to try and attempt sleep, he allowed a single tear to slide down his cheek.
* * *
Ryou's expression was forlorn as he pulled out his Algebra II binder out of its watery grave in his backpack. He'd forgotten how carelessly he'd thrown his backpack over the fence in his front yard upon accepting Malik's invitation. Flicking through the pages that were still somewhat damp, he paused in mild shock when he came across the crinkled up drawing of Malik's face.
The imprint smiled back at him almost hauntingly, in such a different state of being from the way Malik looked and probably felt now that it was a couple days later. He removed the sheet of paper from his binder and set it against the bookshelf he had placed near his computer table a few years ago.
Algebra long forgotten, Ryou twisted in his seat so that he was facing the picture of Malik face-to-face. He stared deep into Malik's eyes, thinking, as he absentmindedly picked up his cordless phone and examined it. Not even a week ago he had called Malik to apologize for his behaviour. Hestiantly, he dialed Malik's number, knowing full well that he would not find the energetic Egyptian boy answering the phone.
There were a couple of rings before someone finally picked up, and to Ryou's relief, Bakura's voice came through on the other end.
"What?"
Ryou blinked, then shrugged. Well, if someone had called him at nearly four in the morning, he couldn't have promised he would be too polite either.
"Are you even there?" Bakura asked, repressing a yawn.
"Y-Yes, I'm sorry, Bakura. It's me, Ryou."
"... Can I help you with something?"
A sigh. "I don't even know why I called. I guess it's because I called Malik a few nights ago, before all... this started happening, and--"
"And you called because you were hoping to get Malik on the phone?" Bakura cut him off.
"Well... I guess so. I'm sorry for calling at such an inopportune hour, Bakura, I just... I dunno, I wanted to try and fix everything."
"... I see. Why don't you call back tomorrow or something, at a better time? We can continue this conversation then. Marik's finally gotten to sleep, and I don't want to wake him by talking too much."
"Thanks, Bakura. I'll talk to you tomorrow then." Ryou waited until the other had said goodbye before hanging up. Feeling slightly better about the situation in general, he switched off the lamp on his computer table, casting one last glance to Malik's portrait before he crawled into his bed. Falling asleep was hard that night, but Ryou coaxed himself to sleep with the notion that tomorrow was a new day and things had a chance of looking up.
...he hoped.
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Shori: You know it's sad when a thing of 7 quarter-sized cookies keeps you from being hungry all day long.
Bakura: ... I bet you can't wait to go back to school.
Shori: As a matter of fact you're right 'Kura.
Bakura: o.O;
Shori: The review counter is back *Sob* People stopped reviewing... So now it's back! 10 more reviews and I'll update.. _ It'll probably take me that long to write chapter 8 anyways.
Bakura: A win-win situation...
Shori: Yup.
x Shori