Her Sweetness: Well, here we are, at the next chapter. Um, please enjoy this, okay? (I put my heart and soul into it!) Hmm…

Well, not really into it, but… Oh, you know. Review afterwards! They make me smile.

Call On Me

Chapter 8:

It was about 5:55 pm and the sun was hovering just over the horizon. Flares of reds and oranges shot across the sky, streaming it with party favors. Which happened to be appropriate, because of the two boys who were speed walking under the fevered sky, hurrying to a party that was less than a block away.

"Marik…" Malik panted, "Why do we have to walk so fast…? Ryou's house is like fifty feet away!"

"We don't want to be late do we? Besides, I want to get at those puzzles. And Malik…" He turned around and looked sternly at his hikari, "I want you to be on your best behavior tonight! We want the Pharaoh and Yugi to feel comfortable sleeping in the same room as us."

"Um… comfortable?"

He continued walking, his shadow cast on the sidewalk below, "If they're not comfortable… if they don't trust us like true friends, they'll sleep with one eye open and then we wont be able to take the puzzles."

"Oh. Okay, Marik, I'll be really friendly!" He smiled at his yami who took no notice.

They arrived at the house and, along with his hikari, Marik took a deep breath. Before his fist even landed on the wood, the door flew open to reveal Ryou, dressed in a tight white t-shirt and flare jeans with a faded sex-bracelet hanging on his right wrist. He smiled and jumped up and down, "Hallo, hallo! How are you? I'm so glad you're here! You're right on time!"

"Uh, hi, Ryou-" Before they could finish their greeting, they were being pulled in through the doorway. The house was well lit and pretty big. It actually was the same size as Marik and Malik's house, but without all the cluttering and junk, so it looked bigger.

"You're right on time." Ryou repeated himself as he motioned towards the living room, "Please follow me!"

They nodded and treaded cautiously, thinking that maybe a trapdoor would open up. When they got into the room, the glow of the large screen television caught their eye. The television had a beautiful hardwood coffee table, on which, three pairs of feet were resting. The feet belonging to Yami, Yugi, and Bakura, who were sitting on three surrounding loveseats.

Yugi was the first to hear them come in, "Oh! Kiram, Kilam!" He ran over and practically tackled the two with a bone-crushing hug.

Marik looked at him in question, thinking, 'This is going better than expected.'

"Oh, ah ha ha ha…" Yugi eased up and blushed, "Sorry, but I never got a chance to thank you for saving me on Thursday! From those basketballs? Yeah, you guys are the best."

Marik and Malik grinned at each other, accepting the title of 'The Best', "Well, thanks Yugi." Malik smiled, "Um… you're the best too."

Yami had gotten off the loveseat he was situated in and grabbed Marik's arm, pulling him over and practically slamming the boy into the seat next to his, "Hello, Kiram. Listen, remember when you said you asked Oracle T a bunch of questions about me? Well, I think I can answer your questions. So, go ahead, shoot."

Marik sighed. This was going to be a long night.

Ryou had sat himself down, next to his yami who hadn't taken his eyes off of the television. It was a violent show about beheadings and dismemberment… and so, naturally, Bakura could really relate.

"'Kura." Ryou nudged his yami in the ribs, "Don't you think you should say hi to them?"

"Hmm. Hi to who…?" He didn't take his eyes off the TV.

"Ugh. To Kiram and Kilam. They just walked in the door."

Bakura waved at someone in the room, to whom he didn't know, "…Hi, Italy… Ooh! Ryou, did you see that? I've never seen a spine bend that way!"

He sighed, "Oh, Bakura…."

Yugi was watching the television with mild interest. None, actually. Him and Malik were hitting it off and they found the show to be annoying. Malik found it hard to not tell Yugi a lot because he was asking a lot of questions and it was hard to hide his real life from those large prying orbs.

"Kilam's kinda a weird name. Is it Italian?" Yugi asked, his eyes closed for the moment, but his face still smiling and happy.

"Um. I-I don't know… maybe." Malik thought that talking as little as possible might work, but Yugi just wouldn't quit.

Yugi giggled and tilted his head to lean into the curve of the couch, "You sure don't know very much about your home country, do you? You're stuttering."

"W-Well… I mean, I… I left Italy when I was very little. So I don't know much about it at all."

"Hmm…that's so sad." His smiled faded, but it came back quickly, "Let's play the name-game! Okay, how does that sound?"

Malik sighed, "Urm… great, Yugi."

Meanwhile, Marik was holding up a bit better. But not by much… Yami was even worse than Yugi, not wanting answers to his questions, but wanting praises and complements instead. Marik was receiving more information about Yami than he knew what to do with, it really was getting annoying.

Yami pointed to his hair, "And the gel I use for special occasions is imported from Egypt. It gives my hair extra bounce and still holds it in place, have a feel."

"Uh! N-No, that's o-"

"Go ahead," He grinned and held out his bangs, "You know you want to…!"

"…" Marik sighed, deciding to do it for the mission. He lightly fingered the golden lock of hair, then let if fall back in Yami's face, "…Nice."

"I knew you'd like it! So, like I was saying… Like, 5000 years ago, I totally ruled everything! And do you know Kaiba? Yeah, he was like my High Priest, so that made him my total underling and it was so cool. I remember one day… it was a Thursday, I think… No, no, I'm thinking about my birthday. That was on a Sunday!" Yami blinked, "Do you like my eyes?"

By this time, Marik was ready to stab himself, "… Yeah, Yami, you're eyes are nice."

"Yeeeaaahhhh…." He mused, "But how nice?"

Marik gritted his teeth, and with everything he had in him, he managed to match Yami's girlish jabber, "Oh my gosh, Yami, you're eyes are like awesome! I mean, they're all… multicolored and stuff! They match your hair so totally well! It's like… like a match made in heaven."

"Really?" Yami's eye brightened and he was going a mile a minute with Marik at the same speed.

A match made in heaven, indeed.

"Okay, everyone!" Ryou stood up, after having his eyes glued to the horrific show that was still on. He smiled brightly at the four people and his yami, "Who wants to go to the pool?"

They all raised their hands.

"Okay, then, follow me!" He and Bakura began walking down the hall and the rest followed, unquestioning.

Marik whispered to his hikari, "I didn't know they had a pool, did you know they had a pool?"

"I had no idea they had a pool."

When they were out of the house and onto the deck, Ryou asked if they had swimsuits and only Yugi and Yami said yes. Marik and Malik didn't even know they had a pool, so they didn't have any. Ryou lent Marik Bakura's old trunks (which fit quite nicely) and Malik wore a pair of Ryou's.

Their pool was really big, in the shape of a four-leaf clover. The water was sparkling and glinting under the rainbow sky. It was surprising that Marik and Malik knew nothing of it, being over there so much.

"WWWOOOOOHHHHHH!" Yugi cannonballed into the deep end of the pool right away. Or… what he thought was the deep end of the pool. It ended up being only three feet deep and Yugi almost broke his tailbone. He emerged above water, blushing and rubbing the seat of his trunks, "Um… I-I'm okay."

Trying not to follow Yugi's example, everyone else got into the pool slowly. Except Marik. When Malik slid into the pool, he noticed his yami sitting near the edge.

"What's wrong?" He whispered.

"Look," Marik held out his arm, "You know how I covered my body in that makeup to make lighter? (Malik nodded) Well, it comes off with water. I can't go in. And Malik…"

"What?"

"Come here." Marik lifted his hikari out of the water and took a rubber band he had to tie up Malik's long, blue hair into a bun, "Don't let your hair touch the water, cause the color will come out with chlorine."

"Don't let it touch the water?" Malik said that a bit too loud and it caught Yami's attention.

He sauntered over and sat next to Marik. He smiled, "What's wrong, why aren't you getting into the water, Kiram?"

"Uh… I can't swim."

Yami grinned. "You know, when I was ruling Egypt, I swam back and forth across the Nile all day long, to keep in shape! My personal trainers were amazed at how fast I could go. I out swam alligators and crocodiles just for fun! I actually remember this one time where…" He went on and on.

Marik sighed and motioned to Malik to go off and mingle. He would be stuck with Yami for a while. Malik went off and met with Ryou, Bakura and Yugi in the center of the water.

"Why is Kiram not in the water?" Ryou asked, repeating Yami's question.

Malik bit his lip, "Oh, yeah, well… he can't swim."

Ryou nodded, knowingly, and began to talk to Yugi about something. But, before he could get into the conversation, he noticed Bakura starring at him. Malik tried to shift his gaze, but Bakura's eye twitched, which made Malik stand up straight.

"Your hair is in a bun, Luigi." Bakura said simply, causing Yugi and Ryou to look at Malik.

"Oh, yeah." Yugi smiled at him, "It looks good like that, Kilam, you should wear it that way every once in a while."

"Thanks… I-I don't like getting it wet."

Bakura nodded, knowingly, and slowly scooted away from the small group. He got out of the pool o the side by the ladder and made his way over to where Marik was going through an extreme amount of torture with stories of Yami's ruling days in Egypt and how wonderful it all was.

"And of course there was no indoor plumbing back in Egypt!" Yami folded his arms, seemingly mad at something, "We were manly and we dug holes to squat in!"

Marik shuddered, "… Cool."

Bakura was watching this for a few moments, slightly amused at Yami giving the other boy a work over with his "back in the day" stories. But, Bakura sighed and did what he came to do. He walked up behind the boy till he was like a foot behind Kiram and, with one quick jolt from his foot, shoved him in the water with a splash and a howl.

"GAAAHHH!" Marik yelled making a large tidal wave in the pool. The wave-rolling north and flinging Malik, Ryou and Yugi out of the water and into the plants that surrounded the deck.

When the wave subsided and settled, Bakura was holding his sides, doubled over in laughter, his face redder than it was the day that they tripped Father Ramsey. Ryou knocked the water out of his ears and glared daggers at his yami, "Bakura!"

He managed some control enough to answer his Light, "Y-Yes, Ryou?"

"What was that all about!"

As his hikari continued to yell at him from afar, Bakura searched the deck for Kiram. He was in the center of the pool, glaring at the ex-Tomb Robber, "Bakura, you idiot! You could've drowned me!"

He tilted his head to the side, grinned and got into the water and waded over to Marik.

"Don't touch me," Marik protested as Bakura held his wrists down under the water. "What are you doing?"

Bakura answered by motioning towards his body, "Where'd you get the instant tan?"

Marik's eyes were wide as he looked down at his tanned body, his makeup washed away. He groaned. This was going to be hard to get out of.

Yugi squinted, "Ooh, hey, Kiram! I love your tan! Um… Where'd ya get it?"

"I… I've always had it, Yugi. I just like to cover it up sometimes, so I don't get any darker or anything like that. You know, the summer air and all." Marik finished lamely.

But it was good enough for Ryou, Yugi and Yami who nodded and Yami began regaling them all on a heart-warming story he had on the subject about his tan in Egypt. They listened with fading interest.

When Yami's story was over (which lasted about twenty minutes), Ryou chauffeured the group inside the house to towel off and on to his next activity, which he claimed would be "Oodles of fun! You'll love this."

Her Sweetness: Well. And there we have part one of this silly little piece. I've altered it from my original point of view to make it a bit longer.

I'm going to take Computerfreak101's advice for my next chapter. Her advice was to answer reviews, so I suppose that should take up some space. I hate having short chapters for you guys, but you know how it is.

Okay, so. That about covers it. Review, please.

Much love!