Rowan: Hi all! Special thanks to all who reviewed! I changed my mind, I'm dedicating this chapter to Dark Angel Penny, hieiandkuramalover, cool, and Camille because they gave me nice, helpful reviews. I do not dedicate this chapter to those people who review my story and talk about another story instead of mine. Though not exactly a flame, I find it equally insulting when someone talks about another story and how it is so much better than this one. Now, I know that there are better writers out there ( I personally worship the ground Pikachumaniac walks on. She's such a great author!), but if my story is so horrible, and such and such a story/author is waay better than mine, then why bother to review. Now, the more diplomatic thing to do is say that my story/writing is good, enjoyable, and that it reminds one of such and such a story, which is incredibly well-written, or something like that. Uh…that's all I'm going to say.

Sakura: Now then, you may not like this, but we're gonna need you all to sign the following document:

I, (fill in name here), do solemnly swear to abide by the following guidelines: before, during, and after reading this chapter:

I will not curse at the authoress, Ms. Rowan Anzu Morona, and her other half, Ms. Sakura Dragona Dusdun. I will not feel any urges to murder, mutilate, torture, or inflict any other form of cruel and unusual punishment (including whipping, hanging, slicing and dicing, etc.) upon any of the characters in this story, nor the authoress. I will blame all of the events in this chapter upon a vicious muse whose absence has influenced the authoress to other means of inspiration. I will wait patiently for Chapter Ten, and not yell at the authoress to hurry with the next chapter. I will recognize the heavy workload of the authoress. I will not flame, no matter how much I want to.

I, (fill in name here), do hereby recognize this legal and binding contract. Under no circumstances will I break any of these rules that I have hereto bound myself. I will take a deep breath, thank Takahashi Kazuki-san for all these wonderful and exciting characters which have inspired the authoress, wish everyone (the cast) a Happy St. Patrick's Day (luck o' the Irish to you all!) and begin to read the next chapter of this story.

Rowan: One last thing: Thanks to Penny for beta-reading this chapter!

Disclaimer: Once upon a time, a brilliant person created an amazing anime/manga called YuGiOh! It went on to become extremely successful and made this person very rich. Unfortunately, that person is not me.

Not me: That's right! I created it! I'm a genius!

Rowan: I meant that I, Rowan, did not create it!

Warning: Um, some shounen-ai, which is boy/boy fluff and such. If you don't like, I suggest you leave now. And if you don't (leave even though you don't like), well, don't say I didn't warn you. Also, there may be some OOC-ness in the story.

A Love Denied

Chapter 9: Mistaken Misery

---

The next day, Ryou and Bakura woke Jou up bright and early. Because he had not fallen asleep

until four in the morning, Jou was feeling cranky and upset. At the breakfast table, Ryou inquired about Jou's bad mood.

"Jou, are you feeling alright?" the gentle man asked as he passed the blonde the butter.

Jou nodded as he groggily accepted the fattening version of margarine. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little tired, is all."

Ryou paled and looked quickly over at Bakura, who was happily chowing away at his pancakes. "We did not disturb you, did we?" he asked, embarrassed.

Jou smiled and shook his head. "Nah, it's just jetlag. After all, I've been living in New York for six years. I've gotten pretty used to it."

Ryou leaned across the table and looked up at Jou with bright, eager eyes. "What's it like? What's it like in America?"

Jou brought his hand up to his chin in thought. "Lonely," he finally replied.

"Lonely?"

Jou nodded. "Yeah. I mean, Domino seems like a metropolis, but compared to New York, this place is like a pig pen! So many people…so many people with so many places to go…everybody in a rush. The wind in the city practically chants in the ears of all who live there, rush, rush, rush. Rush, hurry, rush. It's crazy. And all I could do was think about you all, back here in Domino. Not a good way to spend six years."

Ryou nodded in comprehension as he let this knowledge sink in. "So, why did you-" Ryou was stopped by Bakura, who placed a finger to his lips and pointed to his wristwatch. "We've got our appointment in twenty minutes. Do you think you two could continue this conversation in the car?"

~*~~*~

Jou looked to his right, then to his left, then tried to see who was more likely to give. Ryou was the better bet, but because he was driving, Jou did not want to distract him. "Uh…why exactly do you guys have a car with only two seats?" Jou asked.

Bakura shrugged, unintentionally giving Jou some room to move. "There was only ever two of us."

Jou sighed. "I could've called for my limo you know."

Bakura and Ryou both looked over at Jou. "You have a limo!"

Jou shrugged, giving Bakura back the space he had just claimed. "Well, you guys didn't ask. Now, all I can think of to solve this lack-of-space issue is if we pull over and reassign seats."

Ryou pulled over to the side of the highway and got out, Bakura and Jou spilling out after him. "So, Jounouchi, what do you suggest?"

Jou slid into the driver's seat, and pointed at the passenger's seat on his left. "Ryou, what I suggest is that you sit on Bakura's lap, and I drive."

Being completely agreeable with this plan, the two white haired males took their seat (or lap, in Ryou's case) and buckled their seatbelt. When everyone was settled in the vehicle, Jou placed his hands on the wheel and took a deep breath. "All right, where are we going?"

"The wedding planner's," Ryou replied.

Jou blinked. "What do you need me for then?'

Ryou and Bakura both looked out the window, the former wearing a sheepish expression and the latter an apprehensive one. "Well…"

"Y'see, we were wondering if you wouldn't mind largely chipping in for the payment of the bill."

Jou smiled reassuringly at the two of them. "Ah, guys, you didn't need to be so anxious about asking me! And you really didn't need me to be squashed in the same seat as Bakura for half the trip either. Of course I'll help pay the wedding planner's bill." Ryou smiled at Jou and Bakura smiled at Ryou's smile. Jou blushed as his friends spouted out "thank you"s to him. "Shucks. It's nothing. I figure, if Kaiba's gonna pay me big bucks, why not use it for my friends?"

"Kaiba pays you?!"

"For what?!"

~*~~*~

Jou sat patiently in the lobby, not really wanting to be part of the wedding preparations. Neither did Bakura, which would explain Shizuka's and Mai's presences at the planner's by the time the three boys arrived. The girls had eagerly taken Ryou to the back to help the clueless man with the many preparations, leaving Jounouchi and Bakura in the waiting room. Jou pulled out his newspaper and began to read, while Bakura walked around and surveyed the samples laid out. When he was finished, he took a seat beside the blonde, who had by that time reached the Classifieds ads.

"Of all the places for me to end up in, this is not what I would have expected."

Jou looked up at the former thief. "Oh?"

Bakura looked over at Jou and half-smirked. "Six years ago, before Ryou and I had gotten together, I thought I had received the best gift ever. That of a real body to call my own. You remember that day?"

Jou nodded as he set down his newspaper. He sure remembered that day. That was the day he had fallen in love with Yami. Had it really been that long ago?

"I had thought that there was nothing in the world that could make me happier. Now, in a few months, Ryou and I are going to be married. Matrimony, bound together for all of eternity. And you know? Just sitting here, knowing that Ryou is planning our future together, I'm happier than I've ever been. And each day I spend with Ryou is better than the last, and not half as good as the next. That, Jounouchi, is love. Remember that. When it hurts to be away from that person for just one instant, yet a single minute of pure and total bliss is enough to last you a lifetime. When you would do anything for that person, even give them up to someone else, just for their own happiness. When all of that and more happens, then, my friend, you will most indefinitely have found love."

Bakura then turned in his seat and picked up a magazine, leaving Jou to mull over his profound words.

~*~~*~


"So, what now?" Jou asked as he, Ryou, Bakura, Mai, and Shizuka left the wedding planner's.

"Well, we're going to home to meet Yuugi and the others for a movie or something," Shizuka replied, painfully reminding Jou that Yuugi and his sister lived in the same house and that they had definitely… uh… you know.

"Whose car did you take?" Jou asked the girls, praying for one that seated at least three.

Mai smiled. "Mine, hon." The blonde smiled and pointed to a shining black limousine, which pulled up. The window rolled down to reveal Seto inside. Opening the door, he stepped out and affectionately greeted Mai. Then, turning to the others, he said, "To the Game Shop?" with such limited enthusiasm Jou just knew Seto had to be asking himself why he was going to that place two days in a row.

Ryou looked longingly at the limo, then regretfully at his and Bakura's two-seater. Sighing, he said, "Yeah, see you there Kaiba, Mai, Shizuka, Jounouchi." He and Bakura walked over to their vehicle.

"Hey! I have an idea!"

"Well, there's something new."

Jou glared at Seto and continued, "Ryou, Bakura, why don't you two hitch a ride with Kaiba, and I'll drive your car back."

"Are you sure?"

Jou nodded. "Absolutely sure."

~*~~*~

Ideas were stupid. They really ought to be abolished. After all, what use were ideas when they landed one in such a situation as this?

Jou had been driving fairly quickly down the speedway (he really thought that it was called that for a good and logical reason; to encourage drivers to drive fast), when the right rear tire became short of breath. The car swerved, right and left, again and again, and Jou became increasingly sick. It was Jou's luck that just as the swerving car was at its peak, they came across a huge sheet of ice covering the entire roadway. The swerving became so bad, that the car started going around in circles. The car twirled around and around, right off the sight of the road. The side of the road just happened to be a steep and rather rocky hill. One that went down for quite a time, before landing in a muddy ditch. A sinking sand kind of muddy ditch, which Jou had to quickly scramble out of in order to survive. Once Jou had scrambled out of the car, he had attempted to climb back up to the road, with little success.

So, three hours later, Jou was still sitting beside the half sunken car, and had thoroughly exercised all minute, hour, and second passing activities: counting the seconds it took for an earthworm to get from one of Jou's shoes to the other (3, 842, as it turned out), seeing how many different shapes one cloud could be (nine, to be exact, but Jou was still looking), and finding out how many licks it really did take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop (none so far, as Jou didn't have a Tootsie pop handy to experiment on.) Just as Jou was about to resort to counting the blades of grass in one square inch (which would turn out to be 1, 703, 924, according to the earthworm) a car drove by.

Now, in the three hours that Jou had been sitting by the side of the road, approximately one hundred cars had gone by (not that Jou had been counting). What made this car stand out, however, was that it stopped. The driver stepped out of the car and shouted down to the desolate Jounouchi "Hey! Wanna ride?"

Jou nearly leapt at the chance to accept this offer, that is, until he saw whom it was, namely, Malik. Jou normally would not be prejudiced against who he hitched a ride from, but considering that this Egyptian was the very one who had taken over his mind well over six years ago, Jou felt he ought to make an exception. Standing up from where he sat, Jou shouted up to Malik, "Thanks but no thanks. I'm, ah, waiting for a friend of mine to pick me up. Sorry."

Malik smirked down on Jounouchi. "Really? Then why's your cell phone in the mud?"

Jou looked down to where the other blonde pointed and sighed. "Damn," he whispered under his breath. To Malik he replied, "Uh, it ran out of minutes right after I called."

Malik laughed. "That's an American cell phone dimwit. You have no minutes here. C'mon, let me give you a lift. It's the least that I can do."

Jounouchi's eyes bugged out. Did this guy have a built-in telescope or something? But Malik did have a point. And besides, why would the Egyptian want to hurt Jou now? So, with a sigh, Jou climbed up the steep slope to the road and accepted Malik's offer.

~*~~*~

As the car pulled up to the game shop, Jou had just about changed his opinion of Malik altogether. Amazingly, they had spent the entire trip just talking about the past, when they had been in high school. There was an awkward period when Battle City was mentioned, but Malik immediately cleared that up by making a sincere apology for all that he had done, to Jou and to his friends, that Jou couldn't help but forgive him. After all, Malik had grown up living under the Pharaoh's shadow. Naturally he'd be bitter, right?

Not to say that Jou still wasn't wary of the Egyptian, just that he probably deserved a second chance. Unlike Jou's hatred for Kaiba, which would always exist, no matter how civil they tried to act with each other, Jounouchi felt that he and Malik could, eventually, become friends. That is, if they both worked hard at building that type of relationship.

Anyway, as the car drove up to Yuugi's shop and Jounouchi stepped out, Malik said something that would forever stick with Jou. "Jounouchi! I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but if ever you need anything, just tell me. I'll help you, simply because I want to make peace with you and your friends. If I cannot do that, I may never be able to love." With that, Malik drove off, without letting Jounouchi ask the blonde what he meant by what he said.

Stepping quietly into the shop, Jou found Yuugi, Shizuka, and everyone else assembled in the living room, sprawled across the couch and reclining on the floor. Once again, Jou noticed everyone in groups of two, painfully reminding Jou of how alone he truly was.

Sitting in front of the entire assemblage sat Yami, with Anzu in his lap. They were speaking to each other in whispers. Nodding, they seemed to be coming to some sort of conclusion. Then, before Jou was able to make his presence known, Yami and Anzu looked up at the group and spoke.

"Well, I had hoped for everyone to be here, but Anzu and I have decided that we've kept you all here for much too long." Yami began. Then, turning and smiling at the brunette beside him, Yami asked, "Do you want to tell them, or should I?"

With those words, a feeling came upon Jou, one of dread. The kind that comes right before a storm is about to break.

Anzu smiled back at Yami. Then, turning to the others, she said in excited tones, "I'm pregnant!"

"What?!"

Anzu nodded and blushed. "Also, Yami and I are getting married!" Holding up her left hand, she wiggled her ring finger in order to show off her diamond band.

Shizuka and Mai ran up to Anzu, congratulating her, as the men went over to Yami. Jou, in the back of it all, stood at the threshold of merriment a stranger who did not belong. Anzu's words still rang in his ears. " 'Yami and I are getting married!' 'I'm pregnant!'" Jou tried to force the words from his mind, but found that he couldn't. Quickly, he turned and ran out into the sudden downpour outside.

~*~~*~

Yami was shaking hands with Bakura when he heard the front door slam shut. Turning, he tried to make out the retreating figure in the rain. "I wonder who that was?" he said out loud.

"Jounouchi," Bakura replied.

Yami looked up at the former thief turned soon-to-be bridegroom. "What?"

Bakura nodded as he extracted his hand from Yami's. "Yeah, he just got here when you broke the news of your engagement."

Yami shook his head. "No, Jou wasn't supposed to find out like this! If I had known he was here…I've got to go after him!" Running, Yami grabbed his coat and bolted outside, strange, foreign words ringing in his ear.

"When it hurts to be away from that person for just one instant, yet a single minute of pure and total bliss is enough to last you a lifetime. When you would do anything for that person, even give them up to someone else, just for their own happiness. When all of that and more happens, then you will most indefinitely have found love."

~*~~*~

He was walking down a dark street during a rainy day, tears mingling with the water falling from above. A familiar voice called his name. "Jou! Jou, where are you?" The voice was now at the other end of the street, and coming closer to the blonde, who now recognized the voice as his beloved's: Yami. "Jou! Wait up! Jou!"

Jou tried to ignore the voice, but how could he? How could he ignore that birdsong that made his knees go weak and his stomach fill with butterflies? Yami caught up to him in no time. "Jou! Are you alright? Jou, speak to me!"

Jou turned his tearstained face to Yami. "Oh, Yami, I…"

"I'm sorry Jou! I should've known you'd react like this! We should've broken the news to you gently. Please forgive me!"

"Why?" Jou asked hoarsely.

"You're right! Why should you forgive me? Me, a 5000 year old Pharaoh who comes and steals the girl of your dreams! If you want, I won't marry Anzu! I'll let you have her. You deserve to be with the one you love!"

Jou gave Yami a confused look. "But, Yami…"

"No buts about it! Go on, you marry Anzu. You start a family together. You deserve that! Don't worry about me, I'll be fine as long as you're happy Jou!" Yami cried over the roar of the rain.

"But Yami, I don't want to marry Anzu! I want to-"

Yami slapped his forehead. "Of course you don't want to! Why would you, when you know the child she's carrying is not yours! I'm so stupid!"

"No, Yami! You're not stupid! You're -" Jou tried to say.

"No, I'm a horrible horrible person! Jou, please forgive me! Please! And marry Anzu, I insist!"

"Yami, listen to me! I don't want to marry Anzu! I want to…" Jou was about to say, 'marry you,' but when he saw the tears in Yami's eyes and the love shining through them, he couldn't bring himself to say it. "I want to see you happy, and you're happy with Anzu. So marry her. I insist. If you don't, Anzu will be left a single mother, raising her child on her own, and we can't allow that. So you must marry her!"

Yami smiled. "Really Jou? Oh, thank you, thank you! Will you be my best man?"

"No, make Yuugi your best man."

"Okay Jou. Thank you." Yami hugged Jou for a second, a second in which Jou was able to catch a whiff of Yami's unique and special scent. Then he got up and ran through the rain back to the game shop and his future bride, leaving a heart-broken Jou in the streets all alone.

~*~~*~

Rowan: Malik's here to stay! Lalalala!

Sakura: And you are still weird! Why the hell are you singing?

Rowan: Cuz Malik's here! Yay!

Sakura: Is that a good thing?

Rowan: Yeah! Jou'll have a fellow sufferer in love.

Sakura: Oh? Care to elaborate?

Rowan: No.

Sakura: why not?

Rowan: Cuz I want people to keep reading this! Sorry for the long delay! Didn't mean to make you all wait so long! Anyways, review please!