Make Yourself
Chapter 08: The Riot
By: Shounen Squared

I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, any of its characters, or any of the songs throughout this little FANfic.

Signs of Ryou's presence were left all over the school on Friday morning.

Firstly, he, The Sleep and MasoKissed all worked together to form huge walls of desks in the middle of all the main hallways. After they did so, they would place hallway-width cardboard squares in front of the desk barriers, which would make it more difficult for the faculty to simply disassemble the walls. And on those cardboard cut-outs, in huge letters, Ryou's protest group would write, "Inappropriate Opinions Beyond This Point." Now that all the halls were blocked off, students and teachers alike would have to wait outside and listen to Ryou's crowd protest. He was confident in making his voice heard.

All windows leading to the outside were painted with the gay rights flag: the seven colors of the rainbow with a pink triangle in the middle. There were at least a hundred windows that had to be painted, but about thirty-five out of fifty people were able to show up, so it didn't take them too long. They weren't actually meant to focus on gay rights in general, since that wasn't the core of the issue. It was intended more as a sign of presence, like a signature.

Ryou finally reached his limit and decided that that was enough vandalism. He didn't want to go any more overboard than he already had. As far as leaving reminders of their presence, they'd done enough. After all, it would be obvious who was responsible for all of the damage, and he didn't want to cause others too much trouble after the repurcussions of this.

Many of the previously unaware students that saw all that have been done thought, of course, that it was blown way out of proportion. They'd make remarks such as, "The gay ones are always the first to snap." Ryou would have to use everything in his mental strength not to beat the guy upside the head for saying such ignorant things. Honestly, who in their right mind could actually think that homosexuality was a mental disease?

Mrs. Harper, who was an overacheiver, was the first faculty member to arrive on the Domino High School campus. To say the least, she was shocked when she saw half-a-hundred angry bodies blocking the main entrance to the building. At first, she was quite puzzled as to what was going on; she found herself racing around the commotion demanding, "Who's responsible for this!"

"That would be me." said a cheerful, British-enriched voice toward the back of the group.

And as Ryou made his confession without fear, everyone pointed to him, just in case someone who was hard of hearing could also have a visual aide. Ryou simply waved.

Mrs. Harper did not fail to march straight to the back of the crowd. "Ryou, you are in serious trouble! You know that, don't you?" She seemed to be forgetting that a teacher wasn't allowed to lay a hand on their students, because she was so furious that she was poking him in the chest with each word. "You are preventing students from going into their school! Do you realize you are interfering with the law by denying a student's right to education? You'll be locked up in juvenile hall! Or at least forced to do community service!" Mrs. Harper threw her hands in the sky in annoyance.

Ryou gave a classic comical expression, fearing for Harper's own sanity as well as his personal safety. That expression quickly was replaced, however, by a soft chuckle. "I apologize if you feel that your authority is being lowered because of this whole ordeal. That's right, now, isn't it, Harper-san? You're finally figuring out that mere words can't stop a deprived minor, if you are being unreasonable to that minor. Anyway, we can't be penalized that heavily. After all, we aren't hurting anyone or anything. This is a peaceful protest. We just want to be heard. Apologies if it interferes with the schedules of the administration, but the minimum of our presence has been decided. One day." He grinned, feeling very satisfied. "Or, it may be shortened, if you so desire. But you have to comply and grant the artists back their rights."

Mrs. Harper was about to further argue, but felt herself being slowly forced away from Ryou. Students who weren't involved in the protest could easily recognize the two bands and made haste to get autographs, handshakes, hugs, and kisses. Bakura, along with the eight other stars, were infuriated that they were once again being swamped by groupies. But they noticed that it was giving teachers a more difficult time of messing things up. They decided to go along with it this time.

Bakura plastered the biggest (yet fake) smile he could on his lips, and continuously cried out to the raving teens: "Haha, that's right! It is I, Bakura Ryou of the world-famous rock band, The Sleep, in broad daylight with a pen that I need to put to use!" The younger white-haired boy made a facefault due to the insane laughter that was erupting from his mouth. Bakura couldn't have sounded more un-Bakura if he tried. Soon, the bandmates and his friends were following his lead.

Even the people that--for whatever reason--hated music, would go to get autographed pictures and the like, at least to sell for profit on eBay. The entire outdoor area was in chaos, and the administration seemed quite distressed. Which didn't take anybody by surprise.

The usually stupid students began to not mind the protest. They didn't dare complain about it. Why should they rival a mob that was preventing them from going to school? It would be insanity (not to mention social suicide) to be requesting entrance to the school when they currently didn't have access to it. Numerous people, even bigots and homophobes, joined in to help Ryou's group. Despite the cause, which was fairly controversial, both agreers and dissenters came to assistance, thanking Ryou for starting something interesting.

Still, it was a disappointment to Ryou. He knew that so many people were "supporting" his riot only because it made things more interesting than the average school day. So far, he felt that he was not truly getting his voice heard.

The mob blocked off the entrance for about another hour or so before they began to get tired. They'd been screaming, shouting, standing, running, and chanting for far too long, and even the most physically fit were growing impatient and irritable. As were the teachers, who called in some back up of their own: the police. Cars topped with blue sirens pulled through the front parking lot, and two to four officers were easily able to push past the fatigued protestors.

No matter how drained Ryou was, however, he still needed some form of protest to keep his voice strong. So when the teachers and staff finally managed to remove the huge cardboard barricades in the school's central hallways, the groups and organizers were accused as the obvious "pranksters" that had been behind the wall-of-desks idea.

"Ryou! Don't tell me this is your group that did this, too." Mrs. Harper stared at her student incredulously, and almost fearfully.

Ryou flashed a broad smile and replied, "Why, of course we did."

"Well, do you think you and your fifty-something-member-reading-rainbow-posse could disassemble these monstrosities?" asked the teacher, meaning the teacher version of, "Get your ass up there and get these desks out of the hall right now."

"Nope. I'd rather not. Now, once you grant me justice, then maybe I'll help you out. But until then, I'm not taking orders from you."

Bakura cocked his head to the side as he stared at his look-alike. What the hell? This wasn't like the Ryou he knew at all. The Ryou he knew didn't act this way. Usually, he was shy, and a pushover at times. Seeing him like this was almost scary. He was supposed to be the agressive one, the zealot. Bakura Ryou. This is how he would react normally, not Ryou. Not that he minded Ryou sticking up for his rights, but such attitude and bravery from him of all people made Bakura feel a bit insecure. He was soon able to shrug it off, though. Legal rights were being denied, so he couldn't blame Ryou for reacting in such an angry, explosive way.

Eventually, Ryou actually let down his headstrong defenses. The protestors were tired, hungry, thirsty, and above all, grumpy. They sure as hell couldn't handle much more uproar. So (much to many's surprise) Ryou later caved in and began to help restore the desks to their original location. This meant all this work would be for nothing, but Ryou was starting to see that no matter what he did, the equality would not be restored. Hell, this was high school: there was no equality. There never had been equality, and there never would be either. That may have come off as pessimistic or depressing, but it was the mere truth to Ryou. There is just some stuff in life you have to deal with.

As it turned out, the rest of the day was an in-school suspension for Ryou. Everyone who had assisted him (who wasn't eighteen or didn't live on their own) had gotten their parents called. Unfortunately, Ryou was still a minor, and he was the one who had to make the phone call in front of the principal.

"H-hello?" Ryou shuddered noticeably.

"Ryou?" his mother sounded traumatized to receive a phone call from the school during the day. And it couldn't be good news, because the administration was forcing him to make the call. Ryou had gotten in deep trouble for something. Despite her knowledge of this, she began to ask frantic questions, "Why on earth are you calling right now? Did you forget something at home?"

"Iie, kaa. I" --he looked up to the glaring principal-- "kind of got in trouble."

"What!"

If you haven't noticed, I edited the chapter. It looks much neater now. So if you haven't noticed, then NOTICE, biatch, and appreciate my hard work :) haha, review, please.