Author's Note: It's been 12 years since I've first posted this fic. Haha. Came across it when I opened an old email and saw that some fics I wrote in the past were still getting reviews?!

Since I have some time on my hands at the moment, decided to do some cleaning and editing of the old chapters, and to see how I could continue where I left off. Wish me luck!

Further notes: I envisioned Ryou's relationship with Yami Bakura to be a more playful/teasing relationship than an abusive one that we see in most fics.

'...' yami to hikari

"..." hikari to yami

On to the fic!

The sun was high in the sky, and hardly a cloud was in sight. A dull summer haze had filled the atmosphere, enticing more than half of Domino's population into utter laziness. Ice cream vendors have come and gone, and trash bins were overflowing with plastic cups and spoons.

Many have locked themselves in their freezing air-conditioned rooms, entertaining themselves with old cartoon re-runs, video games, or the internet. The pitiful minority, who could not afford the aforementioned luxury of machine-generated cool air, had no choice but to wallow in the immense heat. Ryou Bakura was one of them.

Ryou was sitting with his legs crossed on the tiled wooden floor of his room. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead, his back, his torso, and drenched his entire body. His silvery white hair was messily tied into a high ponytail, but even this didn't help add relief from the heat.

His cheeks were slightly flushed pink, and his lips were slightly cracking due to dehydration. He absent-mindedly licked them, for his legs, like the rest of his body, were too lethargic to get up and grab a drink. The only form of cooling he had been an old electric fan blowing right at his face, but it did not really help a lot; the heat was just too much.

Despite his apparent physical discomfort with the sticky sweat practically clinging to his small body, he was too engrossed with what the solitary sheet of paper in his hand had to offer. It was a letter from his father, stating that his excavation work in Egypt had not been going well as planned. Cuts had to be made on Ryou's already modest budget, and this included the income Ryou made on his part-time job that he juggled together with his studies.

It was bad news. Definitely bad news.

Well, at least school was out during the summer, and Ryou was certainly luckier than those named Jounouchi and Honda, who had to attend extra summer revision courses due to their consistent slacking. Regardless, the part-time job he had was stressful enough, and he did not need the Spirit of the Ring's meddling to sabotage his chances of getting a raise, and thus a much-needed larger paycheck.

'I heard that', the millennium-old spirit growled from his soul room.

"I bet you did. It's your fault that I'm struggling in the finance department now", Ryou mentally retorted, sticking out his tongue in the process.

'You were the one who let me take control', the yami casually replied, hiding a smirk.

"You threatened to arson the whole restaurant if I didn't, you pyromaniac!" Ryou cried exasperatedly, rubbing his temples. His dark was as stubborn as Jounouchi sometimes.

'Don't you dare compare me to that lazy gluttonous mutt.'

"Whatever."

He and his darker half had created a closer 'bond' with each other after Battle City. They talked, or bickered, more, but at least the spirit did not just keep taking control of the poor light's body.

It was more of a give-and-take situation, actually. If the hikari provided the yami with enough 'entertainment', the yami would then stop harassing the hikari by taking control. Ryou did let the spirit out once in a while, though, and but often regretted it.

The aforementioned 'entertainment' to the yami would usually involve some havoc. This included sending stoplights to the Shadow Realm, creating a mass traffic jam and numerous car crashes, unceremoniously changing the "Open" sign to "Closed" in Devlin's game shop, and playing with the modern appliances Ryou had to use at work.

It was because of the spirit that Ryou was entangled in a web of lies, muttering poorly constructed excuses for his strange behaviour at work, as well as for the bizarre occurrences that have happened since his employment to the popular international food-chain known as McDonalds™.

These incidents included the uncharacteristic explosions of the beverage dispenser, especially when his co-worker Anzu Mazaki was using it, as well as the cashier going haywire, making its contents fly all over the girl, and the freezer occasionally imprisoning the poor Mazaki girl when she went in to fetch a few burger patties [1].

Ryou didn't know if his darker spirit hated the girl's close relationship to Yugi, or her obsession with friendship, or both. It was a common fact that Yami no Bakura hated Yugi, as well as his Yami, for constantly foiling his plans for World Domination™, as well as being a goody-two-shoes Pharaoh. As time passed, this hatred had branched out to even Yugi's close friends, or rather, hapless cheerleaders, as he liked to call them.

The only reason Ryou could hang out with them was because his dark wanted to keep a close eye on them, and in more than a few occasions, prank them to no end. The others could not place their suspicions on "innocent" Ryou, who easily feigned shock as the rest of them after each prank was successfully accomplished, while inwardly scolding the manically laughing spirit in vain.

It was also a known fact that the darker side of Ryou despised Anzu's friendship speeches, no matter how short or long they were, but it was usually the latter. Who in their right mind would be able to stand hour-long rants about friendship and unity anyway? Yugi, probably, but everyone except the oblivious Anzu knew that the poor boy was smitten to her. Who would be able to miss his purple eyes staring longingly at her while she made her revolting speeches? The poor guy was hopeless.

This aspect of the yami's hate was understood by Ryou, however, as the hikari shared this same annoyance and phobia to long grueling speeches. He did not act his basal impulses to attack Anzu with sharp pointy objects, though. The only reason for this was because he knew that the dancer was suffering enough under his dark's cruel intentions as it were.

'You should be happy I haven't started on the machine that makes McFlurry™'

"I don't want even to think about it"

'You should. Think of the possibilities. Mazaki covered in the cold, white cream with the Oreo™ bits all over, with the contraption is in flames, smoking behind her. The fire alarm would go non-stop, and alert every fire station in the vicinity, while all the customers are soaked with the emergency sprinklers attached to the ceiling. She'll be fired for sure this time. Hilarious.' Then he cackled his trademark insane laugh.

Ryou shrugged his yami's comment off. His boss was getting suspicious of the equipment constantly breaking down. He couldn't risk not getting the promotion he had been working so hard for, especially since his employer had started to notice he was always on shift whenever Anzu "broke" any of the machines.

Ryou desperately needed a raise to get enough money to get the air-conditioner fixed, after his yami destroyed it, thinking it was a fridge, and stuffed all sorts of frozen products inside through the ventilators. Sighing at his dark's ignorance of the purpose and function of modern appliances, he laid his father's letter on top of the rising stack of bills, and picked up the newspaper to see if he could find a second part-time job to soften the blow of his father's sudden news.

McDonalds™, even though it was popularly known worldwide, hardly paid enough for the groceries and the apartment's utilities bill. Maybe Ryou could blame his dark for his insanely childish craving of playing with water in the bathroom, and his taxing gluttony for expensive raw steaks, but still… He needed another job, as hectic as his life already was.

Skimming over the "Jobs" section, he mentally crossed out the jobs that he had worked at before. These included the supermarket, which the yami had an enjoyable time making watermelons explode and having frozen meat products suddenly come to life and curse random passerby with his shadow magic.

Then came the accounting job, when the computers would just "magically" be filled with either viruses or porn, usually the latter, and the calculators do the "log" function instead, every time one pressed the "multiply" and "add" button.

Needless to say, those jobs did not go very well, and the spirit would just do something that made Ryou seem like a taboo to the industry. The only reason McDonalds™ didn't fire him yet, was because all the strange things were happening to Anzu, not him.

The girl should have regretted the day she passed in her application form, with only the goal to get closer to Ryou at heart. Her obsession with being friends with the whole population was certainly paying off. In a negative way, that is.

One of the job applications caught his eye and awakened Ryou from his reminiscing and digressing. The ad was plain and simple. It read:

Opening for part-time assistant at Kaiba Corporation. Details and pay to be discussed. Interview to be held at 18th to 22nd of May, 2pm to 5pm. For more inquiries, call 810-56943.

Ryou knew that Kaiba Corporation was one of the largest companies in Domino. If the interview went smoothly, he'd soon be rolling in cash. He knew that despite Yugi-tachi's obvious disapproval of anything related to Kaiba, Ryou needed the money, and he needed it fast. His sweaty body constantly reminded him of precisely how crucial this was.

A lot of people hated the smug, arrogant CEO, but in this case, Ryou had no other choice.

'Don't tell me you're actually going to work for the priest.'

"It's just an interview, no harm done, right? And how many times do I have to tell you, he's not a priest. He's a CEO. C-E-O."

'Whatever you say, hikari. He's still that annoyingly moronic priest to me. I don't want you to even be fifteen meters within the radius of him.'

"And why not? It's the highway to big money."

'From what I recall…That priest was known for being a closet pedophile. Kept harassing all those new servant boys from Israel." [2] the yami said with a grunt. "I don't want the body that I share with some modern sissy geek boy even be touched by that goon."

"One, he's not a priest. Two, even if he was, I'm sure he isn't a perv. He seems like a celibate kind of guy. Three, Kaiba Corporation is big, small chance of actually meeting with him. Happy?"

'Che.'

"C'mon, it's a new place for you to burn things up. A lot of TECHNOLOGY. TECH-NO-LO-GY." Ryou replied, emphasizing on the last word. Might as well turn his vulnerability into some sort of bargaining chip.

'Go for it!' the spirit replied semi-sarcastically.

"Haha. I knew that you'd see it my way. And if you call me sissy geek boy again, no more macaroni and cheese pasta for dinner."

'Nooooo…!' the spirit hollered in mock-fear, before retreating to his soul room.

Grinning at the spirit's strange, but expected reply, Ryou stood up, stretched his limbs, and went to the phone and punched in Kaiba Corp's HR contact number.

He figured that he would need a shower later.

TBC

Chapter End Notes:

[1] I don't know for sure if McDonald's has that giant freezer the size of a room that contains all those frozen products... they probably do, right?

[2] Some Biblical reference to Israeli slaves in Egypt in days past. Not sure if the YGO arc overlaps with the Israel slaves era though

How was that for a start? Seto/Ryou isn't particularly popular, but it's been one of my favourite ships since the beginning of time. I think it might have something to do with the laid-back tone of the fics - more verbal sass than anything, hehe.

Let me know your first impressions, comments and suggestions (: