NOTICE: Yeah. This chapter hasn't actually changed but the storyline has, so I figured I'd update it with the correct summary. New target is 10 chapters (?). Ryou is Bakura in the anime. And in this story he's sarcastic, pessimistic and kind of pathetic (or so his yami constantly tells him). Bit of a change.

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Summary: Ryou can't stop wanting what he can't have. Until Yami Bakura changes his mind. [Shounen-ai BxR. YxA, HxS. Yuugi-tachi in college.]

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Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh was created only by Kazuki Takahashi

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The Hero Gets the Girl

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Chapter 1: Nothing ever turns out the way you hope it will

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In all the classic stories, there's a valiant man with a destiny to fulfill that goes through all kinds of hardships and peril. This man will have a company of loyal companions to accompany him in foreign lands and a woman back home that is his reason for fighting. When the hero wins, as he always does, he and his lady will be married and live happily ever after.

This is what happens in the stories that everyone likes to hear, because the listeners picture themselves to be the hero. But for every hero, there is a company of loyal companions, whose fate you never learn because it's not important. Even if it's a companion who loves the lady most.

I wonder... if the hero ever wonders if his companions are happy to be just background noise?

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I frowned down at my diary. Oh sorry, Yami, my journal, because only a girl would keep a diary.

Funny that girls have been on my mind a lot lately. Well, I guess that's not much of a surprise- I am, after all, a semi-healthy and hormonally normal (even if I'm not normal elsewhere) teenage boy. Almost not a teenager anymore- I'm turning twenty next month.

And yet I can't get over a really short, small, insubstantial high school crush.

I had a crush on Anzu for a week, tops. Oh fine, Yami, a month. Only a month! Right after Duelists' Kingdom when we were freshmen.

So I guess it's mainly not that I'm so broken up over losing Anzu- it's the fact that I'm losing out on love, while all my friends are winning. Yuugi has Anzu, Honda has Shizuka... Jou told me that even Otogi and Kaiba, of all people, have some kind of twisted relationship.

Ok, so maybe being a bachelor is better than screwing around with Kaiba. But not by much- that tall, dark and trenchcoat thing works for me.

How did I get onto Kaiba? Uh... bad choice of words. Ahem. Here I've been lying on my bed, staring into space for three minutes when I should be pressing my cuff links. Or something like that. I can't believe even Jou knows more about formal dressing than I do... well, at least that's what I'm assuming, since he volunteered to give me some pointers.

I don't have a car. I have a bicycle, which will be reeally useful in getting me to Domino in this tuxedo. But Yami told me not to worry about it, and smirked. So I guess I should be feeling sorry for the poor bastard whose car... ok, whose car is sitting in front of my apartment. With Yami in the driver's seat.

Dammit! Did he drive that thing here? Please tell me he didn't... God. Another day, another lawsuit.

"Hello Ryou," Yami said. "Like the car?" Before I could answer, he dematerialized and the ring appeared around my neck again. I muse about leaving it at home- I do not want him reappearing on the wedding cake, or something like that. But of course, it's a moot point. Where I go, Yami goes. We're part of the same package.

It's a two-hour drive to Domino.

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During the drive, I have nothing better to do than to think. Pathetically wallow, Yami says, but he's not the one who's in a constant state of mental limbo because of a sadistic, masochistic and homicidal three thousand year old spirit. No, of all our friends I'm the only one who's lucky enough to get that.

Yuugi even gets the good yami. Yami Yuugi is great- he even encouraged Yuugi to ask Anzu to marry him. I can't see my yami encouraging me to do anything that doesn't involve a loss of life or at the very least, blood.

No, Yami. Don't be vulgar.

I know I'm being unfair to Yuugi, because he never chose to be the hero, just like I never chose to be the partly psychotic sometimes-villain. He just happens to be the one whose grandfather owns a game shop, who had a rare card, who ended up dueling Kaiba, who Pegasus took an interest in, who has a yami who helps him win duels, who's short and kawaii and looks like a porcupine with that hair, who Anzu agreed to marry.

Who had Anzu as a childhood friend, to begin with. And a puzzle to wish on. So that made things easy.

No, you don't help me win duels, Yami. You take over and play them for me. That doesn't help my dueling skills.

Anzu is really cute. She's really, really nice. Probably the one who's genuinely nicest, out of the group. Though I think Yuugi would have been, if his yami didn't have objections to me. Anzu is also one of the only girls I've ever known. I went to boy's boarding schools for so long, and I get nervous when I'm even around girls. I guess it's only in shoujo manga that girls go for the thin, girly, quiet types.

Girls like stability. One of the more intelligent things I've heard Honda say, actually. I mean, who doesn't? Friends do. Friends want a friend they can count on, not someone they're always walking on ice around because they're never quite sure if it's really you or if it's an evil Egyptian spirit. A really creepy spirit that no one wants to go near. Yeah... I heard Anzu say all that to Yuugi once.

If I'm this pathetic, it's not my fault.

Welcome to Domino. Population: 300,000.

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Yeah, it's official. I'm the worst-looking person here. Yami could have at least stolen a car with all the windows intact.

"Hi, Ryou-kun!" said Anzu, coming over. "You look great! Yuugi will want to see you."

Ah. This could be uncomfortable. Think, Ryou... get her to go away... "Shouldn't you be upstairs... hiding, or something?" I asked. "I thought that no one was supposed to see you until you walked down the aisle."

She laughed. "Well, I don't think anyone's ever been married in a game shop by the groom's grandfather, either," she said. "Might as well toss all the other traditions. Besides, Yuugi couldn't wait to see me!"

"You look great," I said honestly. "Yeah... I'm... going to go find Yuugi-kun."

"Ok!" she said brightly. "If you see him, tell him that Kaiba-kun said the flowers are going to be put in the back, and he should be here in about five minutes."

Kaiba's delivering the flowers. What next.

Anzu looks really stunning today. More than usual, in that tight-fitting wedding dress. So does Shizuka, for that matter, over by Honda and Jou, who can't seem to realize that his little sister is legally an adult, now, judging from the way he's policing Honda. He's telling them about his latest rendezvous Mai, I'm sure... now there's a looker.

Suddenly I can't take it anymore and I run to the back, hiding in one of the bathrooms. And then I cry for the first time in years. Just when I think I've gotten over it all.

Yami appears. Great, going to rub salt in the wound? But instead, he just frowns at me, and rips off part of my dress shirt- in the back, where the long coat covers it. He runs the sink water hot and dips the fabric in, and rubs it over my eyes.

"Stop it," he says. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself."

Is he being... thoughtful? I can't believe it, and I stare at him. He looks at me in disgust and dematerializes.

Outside I can hear the kitchen boys banging on the locked door.

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They slip the rings on each other's fingers. And... they kiss. Very sweet, I guess. I'm not really paying attention. I'm listening to Yami's account of how he poisoned an entire Arab caravan and what he did with the bodies, and for once I'd rather listen to him than to what's going on around me. Mechanically, I stand when everyone else stands, and clap when the shop fills with the sound of cheering.

I follow the crowd as everyone rushes to the front of the game shop, and the happy couple jumps inside a new sports car that Kaiba commissioned and Jou... decorated. Malik and Ishizu are cramming the last of the suitcases into the tiny trunk.

What the hell is he doing here? Yami growls.

Suddenly I feel Yami taking control, and I fall into my soul room. YAMI!

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When I come to, I'm lying on my back in the middle of the street, and Kaiba is standing over me, slapping my face.

"Stop that, Seto-kun," said Otogi, taking one of his hands. "You're going to break something."

"He already broke enough things!" said Kaiba. "Of course, that Yuugi and his girlfriend wouldn't want to persecute them." He sighed as he stepped back and let Otogi take his arms. "I knew it was a bad idea to invite both of those Egyptian freaks."

"What did I do?!" I shouted, opening my eyes. "Yuugi! Is he all right? What about Anzu?"

"Fine, fine," Otogi said soothingly. "They're all just fine."

"What happened?" I yell.

Yuugi comes up. His hair is somewhat crushed. "Ryou-kun! You're awake!" Behind him is Anzu. Her beautiful wedding dress is caked with dirt from the street. Looking around, I see that Malik is lying on the once-new sports car, holding his side and groaning as blood seeped through his fingers.

"You... er, your yami... saw Malik Ishtar," Otogi explained. "You could say he wasn't exactly happy to see him. You... he... jumped him and pulled out a pair of knives and so Malik fought back..."

I groaned. Apparently Yami has yet to get over all those times that Malik sent him to the Shadow Realm. "Yuugi, Anzu... I'm..."

"We know it's not your fault," said Yuugi. "And no one got seriously hurt, except maybe Malik, but he doesn't blame you either."

Right. Sympathy. Like I needed that from them. "I ruined your wedding," I said. I got up and dusted myself up as best as I could, as they offered a thousand condolences. I didn't want to hear any of them. I didn't want to see any of them.

"I'm sorry. Have a good honeymoon."

I got into my stolen car and drove away.

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A/N: Please, review... !