Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.
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#17: The Star
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When he woke up the next morning, the Ring lay at his side, and it was snowing.
Ryou wiped the dried blood off the pointers, set aside the top quilt and his t-shirt to be washed, folded the bed back up, cleaned his fading wounds, and made himself a pot of coffee.
(You're going to be late for school, landlord,) Bakura said, the first time he'd spoken to Ryou since he'd sworn at the teenager for turning around last night. (Go put on your uniform.)
Let me stay home today.
(No.)
If I go to school, I'm going to be wincing because of these, Ryou said, placing a hand over his chest briefly. Yuugi-kun and the others will notice. Otogi-kun will probably accuse Jounouchi-kun of hitting me, and then everyone will want to know what really happened, and it will be more conspicuous than if I just don't go.
(. . . They'll heal within an hour. Keep your face blank.)
Some of the blood got onto the quilt, and I'll have to wash it at a laundry mat, since it's too big for here. And I'll need to go somewhere out of the neighborhood to do that. And I want to run an errand.
(What?)
I want to look for books. On vampires. It's better to do that across town, too.
Bakura snorted. (You want to look for books. On vampires.)
If we're real, then there must be something out there that's useful. It's either that or looking for the woman who turned Honda, but there's no guarantee that she knows anything, either.
There was a long pause, and at last Bakura said, (Fine, landlord. I felt like this would be a good day for an exercise in futility, anyway.)
Ryou ignored the sarcasm and finished his cup of coffee, before beginning to pack up the quilt.
He decided to leave the bloodied jeans in the bathroom until later that night, when he could sneak over to another apartment complex and put them in a trash bin there.
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It was almost sunset when he returned. The owner of the last bookstore he'd been in had chided him for reading in the stacks, and Ryou had decided that then was as good a time as any to go home.
He was certain that he would be getting a call from his father when the man received the bill for Ryou's credit card -- the books he'd bought filled two sacks, and juggling those plus the package with his quilt while riding the subway home had not been particularly pleasant. But hopefully his father would be satisfied to know that Ryou had splurged on books rather than games. Ryou didn't think it would be necessary to tell the man what kind they were.
And besides, if his father called him about the credit card, they would be able to talk. And that seemed vaguely precious. Ryou knew he was going to have to fake his death or disappear by the time he graduated high school unless he could find a way to make himself look older than he was, so he had a feeling he would eventually regret it if he didn't talk with his friends and family while he still could.
Ryou set the two sacks beside the couch, and poured that morning's coffee down the sink before making a new pot.
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He read through the books until he fell asleep on the couch late that night. Bakura briefly took over his body to dispose of the jeans an hour before dawn.