Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.
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#1: The Magician

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It began as most tragedies begin -- with an action whose consequences were not thought out.

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Ryou smiled when he arrived in the classroom and spotted Yuugi and the others sitting in their usual corner of the room, but when he spotted Honda leaning over Jounouchi's chair and making fun of his cards, his hand tightened around the handle of his satchel. But when he called out a greeting after a split-second's hesitation, Honda only glanced up and raised a hand in recognition before turning back to the game. Anzu waved him over and started explaining how the game had gone so far, Yuugi smiled a hello, and Jounouchi was too busy chewing on his lip and glaring at his cards to say anything.

By the end of the day, Ryou had convinced himself that he had been seeing things yesterday.

However, his nervousness returned that afternoon when, instead of joining the others to wait at the bus stop, Honda called goodbye to Jounouchi and began walking down the street in the same direction as Ryou.

"Do you have errands to do, Honda-kun?" he asked politely, fingers gripping the handle of his case a fraction too tight.

Honda slung his bag over a shoulder. "Kinda, yeah," he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. "You mind if I walk this way?"

Ryou shook his head reflexively. "No, of course not."

The two lapsed into uncomfortable silence at that. Ryou made a few attempts at conversation as they were walking, but Honda's replies were distant and curt at best. It wasn't until they had reached the street for Ryou's apartment building that Honda finally began speaking animatedly, dragging Ryou into a conversation about the quiz they had had in Geometry that morning and asking what he had gotten for the answers.

Ryou knew that Honda was almost as good at math as he was, so when he noticed that the other teenager was walking up the stairs to his apartment with him and forcing the conversation to continue, a knot of apprehension began to form in his stomach again. He reached his door and pulled out the key with a feeling of relief.

Ryou slid the key into the lock before turning and giving Honda a slightly shaky smile. "Well, good luck with your errands. Have a good afternoon!" he said cheerfully.

Honda leaned an arm against the wall. "Actually, Bakura, could I come in for a minute?"

Ryou's hand tightened around the key again, but he just blinked. "Um . . . if you. . . ." Ryou caught himself before he could issue an invitation and simply turned the key, before stepping inside and holding the door open.

The briefest hint of a smirk crossed Honda's face, but it disappeared quickly. The brunet straightened up from the wall and walked inside.

Ryou blinked again at that, and finally he shook his head. As he was putting on his slippers, he told himself that he wasn't just being silly, he was being ridiculous. He straightened and smiled at Honda, who was still pulling the guest slippers on. "Do you want something to drink?" Ryou asked as he set the case next to the wall and walked into the large room that doubled as his kitchen and study area. "I can make some tea, or there's juice, or soda if you'd like that."

"Not really," Honda said. "I prefer blood."

Ryou started and jerked around to stare at him.

Honda leaned against the wall, casually guarding the exit, and gave Ryou a half-grin. "I am a vampire, you know."

Ryou wound up staring at him for a few long moments, before finally snapping out of his shock. He glanced wildly at the door.

Honda gave it a look as well, before turning back to Ryou. The half-grin was now a full-fledged smirk. "Yeah, that whole 'needing an invitation' thing? That's a lie."

Ryou stared at him, then took another step backwards. "You . . . you can't be serious."

Honda shrugged, then walked over to the chair in the living room and sat down. "I am. Apparently it was some myth born out of the idea that you have to have a soul to enter a house." He leaned his head over the side of the chair and gave the other teenager a look. "You gonna stand there all day?"

Ryou shook his head violently. "No! You can't be a vampire. They're not real!"

"You saw that woman," Honda said flatly.

Ryou flinched and took a further step away. Honda didn't move, and he kept his head tilted, but he said coolly, "Don't try for the door -- I'll catch you. I am faster."

Ryou's faltered slightly, and finally he just sank against the wall beside the door. "How?!"

Honda snorted and gave him an annoyed look. "You have that sick obsession with the supernatural -- do you really need to ask?"

"But. . . ." Ryou pushed himself away and straightened, but the glare he gave Honda was half-hearted at best. "But it's day! How could you be walking around in sunlight if you're a vampire!?"

Honda held up a hand and let the sunlight trickling into Ryou's apartment through the window blinds play over his skin. "Yeah," he said idly. "That's a lie, too. There's a lot of them, actually. The crosses, the silver, the thing about wild roses, whatever the hell that's about. . . . Oh, and the shadows and mirrors shit. Bram Stoker was an idiot." Honda gave him a wide smile before folding his arms over his head and stretching out in the chair.

Ryou just continued to stare at him, so Honda finally lifted a foot and pointed it at the couch along the far wall of the living room, perpendicular to his chair. "Sit down already. I'm getting a crick in my neck."

Ryou obeyed, though he dragged his feet the whole way and made a wide loop around the chair. He sat on the edge of the cushions in the middle of the couch, a decent distance from Honda but still with an almost straight line to the door for when he had a chance to run. "You can't. . . ." Ryou trailed off and interlaced his fingers, giving up on denial. "What happened?"

"It's a long story," Honda said shortly.

Ryou didn't really want to know. "So you're . . . really . . . immortal and everything?"

"Yeah." Honda held his hand up again. "Never gonna die, never gonna get old, blah blah blah and all that shit."

Ryou frowned and leaned forward slightly, his awareness of the gravity of the situation slowly fading. "But if you'd not going to age -- won't you look like this forever?"

"Yeah," Honda said again, a hint of annoyance creeping into his carefully blank expression. "I've got maybe two more years before people realize I'm not growing, and then I'm gonna have to split. I doubt I'll be able to stay anywhere more than four years at the most."

Ryou, who knew the pain of moving around firsthand, made an empathetic face. "That's horrible."

"Yeah, well, she didn't do this because she liked me," Honda said, jarring Ryou back into his suddenly surreal reality. The other teen instinctively scooted a little further down the couch.

Honda smirked at that.

There was a long, strained silence in the small apartment before Ryou finally said, "I won't tell anyone."

"I can't rely on that," Honda replied matter-of-factly. "Jounouchi hates ghosts and zombies and vampires, and all that kind of crap. I don't plan on letting him know they're real."

"But I. . . ." Ryou trailed off helplessly.

"Don't worry," Honda said blandly. "It only hurts until you pass out."

He gave Ryou a very wide smile. His canines were a little longer and sharper than normal people's.

Ryou ran. He was fast -- he'd been on the track team for three years, before he'd received the Ring and become ostracized at his old high school -- but Honda was faster. The brunet shoved himself out of the chair and tackled Ryou as he tried to go past.

Ryou lashed out with a foot, aiming for the side of Honda's knee, but he was slammed into the thick carpeting before he could land the kick.

"Let go of me!" Ryou yelled as loud as he could, hoping that the neighbors might overhear and do something, but then Honda clamped a hand over his mouth and twisted his head up and to the side.

Ryou cried out at the sudden sharp pain in his neck, and he bit down on Honda's hand, trying to make the other teenager let go.

Honda slammed the side of his free hand against his spine. Ryou sank limply against the floor, feeling as though something had exploded inside his head. Sheer terror kept him conscious, but not enough to do any real good.

Then the Ring beneath his shirt began to warm up, that split-second warning sign that he'd come to adjust to, and for the first time in his life Ryou said a prayer of thanks at feeling it. He made a half-hearted effort to jab an elbow into Honda's ribs, to distract him long enough for the spirit to take over.

He winced painfully when Honda moved off of him enough to grab his arm and sling him roughly onto his back. The brunet gave him a grin. "Stop being so annoying; I'm not going to kill you," Honda drawled. "Not permanently. . . ."

There was a pulse from the Ring, and then, to Ryou's horror, it went cool again.

As he was trying to connect Honda's words and the spirit's actions through the fog in his brain, Ryou could feel the other teen carelessly pulling open his uniform jacket and yanking his shirt out from where it had been tucked in. He made an effort to shove him away, but his head hurt. . . .

Honda undid Ryou's pants and wrenched them slightly down his hips, before biting to the left of the pelvic bone.

"Aaaaaa!!" Ryou made a greater effort to shove Honda's head away, but the brunet grabbed his wrist and slammed it back against the carpet.

Ryou continued trying to squirm away, so Honda twisted his wrist sharply. There was a cracking noise, and Ryou fell still, drawing his breath in ragged gasps. "Stop. . ." he said faintly.

Honda continued drinking, and when darkness began to encroach on Ryou's vision he let it take over, grateful to be away from the pain in his stomach and head and hand.

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When his mind dragged itself back into consciousness, he was lying on the sofa and Honda was back in the chair, watching the television. He'd replaced the guest slippers with his shoes.

Ryou noticed groggily that the pains in his neck and wrist were gone, but his stomach itched in that maddeningly healing way.

The taste of blood was in his mouth.

Ryou rolled onto his side and managed to push himself up. He gave Honda a confused look, then stared down at his hands. "You didn't. . . ."

"What? I didn't make it clear enough?" Honda asked sardonically. "Yeah, you're dead." He smirked, but his cold expression returned a second later. "But it'll take you about a week to really feel it. That's when you'll need to eat. It's usually two weeks, but you lost a lot of blood, so you'll have to replenish it faster this first time," he added helpfully.

Ryou just stared at him, trying to comprehend too much too fast. "I -- what?"

"Two weeks," Honda repeated slowly, sounding annoyed. "That's when the blood runs out. It's not medically right, but that's how it is." He shrugged.

Ryou shook his head insistently. "But I don't want to kill people!"

Honda glared at him. "It's not like it's a new thing for you." Then he shrugged again. "You could feed off people earlier than that. Then you could take less and leave them unconscious, but that's pretty stupid -- you'll get caught. It's safer to just kill them. I don't care one way or the other."

"Don't care?" Ryou said, confusion colliding with hystericalness.

Honda asked, "Who turned you?"

Ryou stared at him. "What? He did!" Then he paused, half-lifting a hand to his mouth. "He . . . he di. . . ." Ryou trailed off and looked at Honda.

The other teen stood up and slid his hands in his pockets. "I don't know why, but you can't say their name. Just a pronoun. So I don't have much to lose if you're stupid and wind up in jail."

Ryou stood as well, fists clenched at his sides. "Why?" he demanded, his voice choking. "Why?!"

Honda gave him a humorless smile. "You're sure not going to tell anyone now," he replied. Then the smile turned ugly. "And like I said, it doesn't happen because I like you."

He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him as he went.

Ryou stared at the door for several long minutes, before his knees gave out and he sat back down on the sofa. Ryou wrapped his arms across his chest, feeling the solid metal of the Sennen Ring underneath his wrinkled shirt, and he finally gave in and asked, Why didn't you do anything?

[Immortality is something I could have use for,] Bakura replied, taking over Ryou's hand a moment later and flexing the previously-broken wrist. [Interesting. . .] he mused.

Ryou didn't have to put his reaction into words -- one of the small advantages of sharing body- and mind-space. The spirit laughed. [Don't worry, landlord. I know you have a delicate stomach. I'll take care of the meals from now on.]

Ryou bit down on his lip, holding back his tears, as he sank onto the sofa. He rolled onto his side and buried his face in the crook of the cushions, away from the sunlight that was still leaking in the blinds.