A/N: I like to dedicate this chapter to Borath, who was, and likely still is the only favorite author for this screenname. Borath wrote amazing Yu-Gi-Oh fanfictions, and I recommend especially "Submission" and "Domination, because I absolutely paraphrased a line from them (only said by Yami to Joey).

I sincerely apologize for the mistake in formatting. I fixed it as best as possible. I was rearranging this chapter to flow better, and added half a scene that shouldn't have happened last chapter. If it feels like you're reading the same chapter, well, part of it is. Apologies again.

Ch 26: The Little Boy

1 week ago

"What about baking?" Yami asked. His mind was coilded in the ever concerning presenece of Bakura and his likely self mutilation habit. The article, he thought on it often, definitely focused on self mutilation as a symptom of eating disorders, but Yami thought that maybe had to do with Ryou and Bakura being half a soul. He had barely registered the eating disorder information. Thankfully Ryou seemed ok for now…

"Hello in there?" A tan hand waving agitatedly in his vision made Yami blink out of his ever-present Bakura thoughts. Marik stood above him in the armchair with a pile of papers slightly crinkled in one hand, and not the spatula Yami had come to associate with cookies.

Though, with a house of all boys, aside from Yugi's mother, not much actual cookie baking tended to happen in the Mouto residence.

"Sorry. I thought you were baking?"

"What?" Marik shot Yami a confused look, one eyebrow quirked. Then he smiled slightly as cognizance flashed in Marik's eyes. "Oh! I mean electronic cookies, internet history. But that's not important: why are you looking about self mutilation?"

Yami's heart raced, though he knew logically he wasn't on personal inquisition. But it was Bakura's private information. "…the article was about eating disorders Maybe it was about Ryou."

"Ryou's ok right now. Besides, your search terms were obviously about Bakura."

"How do you know?" Not realizing he was quickly showing face.

"I know because I can't forget," Marik gestured just behind his shoulder blades, where the top of his engraved scarring of Yami's own history lay. "I'll never forget the sound of a knife against flesh makes, Yami, and Bakura was definitely cutting into flesh."

Conversationally Marik sets the papers down on the coffee table near enough to where Yami sat, he could make out the websites he had been on, but Marik's continued speech explained his internet faux paux: assural of privacy was not necessarily guaranteed. "I heard him in the bathroom, not long before I saw this in the search history."

"Search history?"

"That, cookies, data: it's all stored in the computer for anyone to find, a digital treasure hunt, really. But, I went through and deleted everything so Solomon wouldn't see anything. You should shred that by the way."

"Wait, why can't Solomon know?"

"Did you pay any attention in your citizenship appeal with Kaiba at all? Never mind, I don't think either of you two really get it. You and Bakura, and I are seen as minors in Japan, as kids by their laws until age twenty. Self mutilation's a reportable thing."

"Ryou talked with his father,"

"Solomon isn't Bakura's father. Who even knows if he likes him," Marik retorted, obviously in internal dilemma with his own history of fathers and father figures.

Yami grabbed Bakura's hand as he continuously subconsciously cracked his torn knuckles, "What did you do now?!"

A heavy sigh. Bakura ripped his hand from Yami's grasp, letting his non dominant fall upon his injured knuckles. Pain was always a welcome sensation.

"Bakura," a low voice. "What did you do to your knuckles?" Each word enunciated

Bakura stared off into the distance, watching the self same little boy swing cheerfully as his mother pushed him. Yami sat poised next to him, as if ready and alert to spring into action if Bakura decided to run off again. Guess there was no foreseeable way to avoid this conversation. How idiotic could he be? Letting the heat anger him so much, but it seemed liked everything angered him.

Finally, another heavy sigh—definitely exaggerated—and Bakura answered. "Got angry, punched a tree."

Yami muttered something that sounded vaguely like, "At least that's normal."

"Fuck off, Pharaoh."

"What, did you like it when you cut up Ryou, so you decided to continue in this life?" mocking.

"Shut the fuck up," Bakura hissed, cognizant of the small child. "You don't know me!"

Yami seemed to pull himself together enough to apologize. "You're right, I'm sorry. Did you do this in your past life?"

The apology stirred some murky squashy emotion Bakura didn't want to acknowledge, and he mumbled, "Yes." Before he realized what he said.

"Why?"

"I'm not talking about this with you!"

"Well, you need to talk to someone."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does. I bet Ryou would be horrified. He'd insist you see a therapist."

"And who is going to pay for that? Kaiba?" a laugh, bitter. "Just forget about it, Yami. I'm not…"

"Not what,"

"Nothing. Just forget this."

"Forget what, exactly? You're always saying to forget it." Yami countered. "Do you want forgotten?"

Yes. Bakura declined to respond.

Yami hugged his knees to his chest and looked out, at the playground, where the boy called out to his mother. His face was far chubbier than Bakura's and he sported a head of deep brown hair, whilst Bakura's was naturally white. "It's in the eyes." As he spoke, Yami wondered if there was ever a time Bakura's eyes had expressed such naivety and innocence.

Ignoring Yami's rambling for a span of minutes. He looked up to a face full of fuzzy brown hair and felt two small arms reach around his to give him a sideways hug. He snarled, ready to spit fire, when the intruder to his personal space was pulled back by a disheveled young woman.

"I'm so sorry for my son," she apologized, bowing.

The boy squirmed in her grasp. Bakura simply nodded his head, still lost in the feel of being hugged for the first time he could ever remember.

As the women left, Yami and Bakura could hear the boy's protests, "He looked sad, so I hugged him, Mommy."

Yami shot Bakura a smile at the young boy's overall cuteness. He remembered the card still in Bakura's hands. Snippets of memories of Bakura's protectiveness over the card tumbled through Yami's head. He grabbed for it, fingers latching on and pulling the card out of Bakura's hands, before he could react.

"What the fuck!" Bakura shouted. Yami recognized the rising panic in Bakura's face. He reached into the opening at the top of the plastic card protector, deftly pulling out the Change of Heart card.

For the second time that day, Yami was left speechless, as he saw three tiny razor blades between the clear front and black back of the protector. "Fuck, Bakura," he said at last.

Bakura snagged the card protector back, grabbing at it as Yami stared dumbly at the pieces of metal, storming off to put the blades to use, unconcerned about the fate of his once favorite card. He reached his and Ryou's apartment, sweat making his shirt to his skin. He pulled a face as he let himself in with his key.

Ryou glanced up from the armchair, where he was curled up with a novel and a steaming mug of tea. "Hello Bakura," he said, distracted as he flipped a page in his book.

...

Yami toyed with the Change of Heart card as he walked the short distance to his house. He snuck around the back way to prevent running into Solomon, whom would surely question him after he and Bakura had left the backroom in shambles. He silently crept towards the stairs near the living room, only making it past the couch, where Marik and Yugi were playing a new Duel Monster's game, courtesy of Kaiba Corp, before he was stopped.

"Come play with us, oh King of Games," Marik called as he punched buttons furiously on the game controller. Yami shook his head, fully intending on locking himself in his room.

Yugi caught his eye, which Yami desperately tried to prevent. "What's wrong, Yami? You look terrible."

Yami scowled, still flipping the card over in his hands as Bakura had done—he searched his memory and was horrified when he realized Bakura must have been doing that since spring. His stomach cramped, and a slightly smaller arm grabbed his and forcibly pulled him to the couch, where he collapsed onto it.

"Yami?" Yugi stared owlishly at his former partner. "Talk to us."

Yami jumped up, anger fueling him. "It's none of your business!" he shouted to Yugi, akin to Bakura's retort to him.

Marik tossed the controller on the cushion, game forgotten, and stared at Yami, bewildered. He had never heard Yami speak in anger to Yugi. Glancing between the two, he wondered what would happen next. Yami fell back against the sofa, Yugi at his side, as if he hadn't just been on the receiving end of Yami's shouting.

"No it isn't my business," Yugi said calmly, simply. "But your happiness is."

Marik asked, "What happened?"

Yami pressed his face into his hands. He muttered something that sounded like, "It's not my secret to tell."

Marik cocked his head, eyes narrowing instantly as he realized just what must of happened. "Bakura worked today, right?" He spliced through the mystery with pre-recognizance, narrowing the conversation to one figure.

Yugi glanced in the direction where Yami had entered the house, then the opposite direction, towards the game shop. "He did," Yugi said slowly. When Yami reacted badly, Yugi took that as an indication Bakura was the source of his frustration, and likely the mess of the gameshop he and his grandfather had cleaned in awkward silence. "What did he—?"

"He didn't do anything, Yugi. It's what I did." Yami spoke heavily, as if this afternoon had aged him all of his thousands of years.

"I didn't see him when I was down there," Marik scooted over on the couch. "In fact I didn't see you either, just the mess…" Another aside to the correct whom and what this conversation should focus on.

Yamii lifted his face from his hands, and Yugi and Marik could see his red rimmed eyes. He stroked the card absently, not quite aware of the presence in his hands, but comforted all the same.

"Isn't that Bakura's" Yugi asked, remembering when Bakura has angrily snatched it away from Yami at the beach the month prior.

Marik glanced at it, comprehension giving way to confusion at the sight of a Duel Monsters card, or rather the lack of understanding of it's significance. "Where's the protector he always has it in?"

Determining the information wasn't revealing, Yami croaked out, "He has it."

Both Yugi and Marik stared into identical looks of confusion as they looked over Yami's head. "I'm lost," Marik offered. "Thought I knew…" Yami stared at the paused video game in stony silence as Marik and Yugi attempted to reason through not enough information. Though Yami knew Marik ought to know, but it wasn't his horrifying secret, and Yugi just seemed so innocent…

The two tossed around instances of Bakura's idiosyncrasies, hoping to catch Yami's reaction. Finally, a knowledgeable Marik stated the incident with Bakura in the school stalls a few months ago, similar to Yami's experience with Bakura in the same stalls, leaving off what both Marik and Yami knew as the sound of sliced open human flesh.

Yami clenched his jaw. And Bakura was making exactly which of those cuts during those two instances in the bathroom stalls. He jumped up, unable to hold back the emotion leaking out the corners of his eyes. Yami ran up the stairs to one of the rooms Solomon Mouto had granted him at the beginning of this weird return to life.

And this, self mutilation must have been how Bakura was dealing with it. Yami set himself on his bed, ascertain Marik wasn't too far behind. He only hoped Yugi remained downstairs as the tears flowed freely from his eyes.

"What the hell, Yami?" Marik, as promised, appeared with a hand to the wooden panel door.

Yami let his tears continue to flow, hidden underneath his haphazard bangs. He refused to look into Maik's eyes, alight surely with the knowledge of what must have happended between former Pharaoh and thief. "I knew you'd follow."

"Yeah, well you're lucky Yugi didn't also," Marik crossed his arms, but allowed Yami the moment for unchecked emotion, before the smallest of the three came up, surely not far behind.

"Good."

"He's not stupid, you know," stated Marik, more as a warning as he heard Yugi's footsteps.

A glare from Yami.

"Or naive," Marik added.

"Or innocent," the third voice of Yugi re-joined the conversation. Yami attempted to hide his tears behind his hands, to which Yugi removed Yami's hands, and enveloped Yami in a hug. "Come on, whatever happened today, you need to talk about it, whether Marik knows about it or not. And whatever you tell him won't break me, I promise."

At that, Yami divulged the happenings of the afternoon to the two participants in his bedroom, a much calmer end of their day then the Bakura apartment.

"You're drinking that? It's already boiling," Bakura grouched as a greeting. He threw himself on the sofa, grabbing a few sheets of paper off the coffee table, and proceeded to fan himself as sweat continued to drip down places sweat should not drip.

Ryou looked at Bakura properly, scowling when he noticed Bakura still in outdoor shoes. "The genkan, Bakura?" he suggested, some of Bakura's infamous sarcasm dripping off his words.

Bakura sat up at the tone. He glared, unable to remain passive with his mind still reeling from everything that happened with Yami. He reached down, plucked a shoe off his foot, and threw it across the kitchen. Ryou ducked, holding the book over his head as a shield. He gave Bakura a look that conveyed: really? He tossed the other shoe, satisfied as it landed right inside the genkan, near its mate.

He flopped back against the couch, too sticky hot to be bothered with escaping to his bedroom. "Bad day?" Ryou asked. Bakura rolled his eyes over to look at Ryou, who gazed at him, eyebrows knitted, then rolled his eyes back to the ceiling. You could say that.

He shrugged. Ryou returned to reading his book, and the room was silent save for the paper cracking as Ryou turned a page. "I picked up your room," he commented off handedly.

"Why?" Bakura demanded, shifting on the couch to stare at Ryou as he flipped another page unaware of the venom in Bakura's eyes. He, however, looked up when Bakura spoke again, "Why the fuck would you go in my room?"

Ryou snapped the book closed. "Because it's disgusting! Clothes everywhere, leftover dishes strewn about, stains from god-knows-what…" he ranted.

Bakura paused. Stains? The only stains he was cognizant of, were the crusty dark brown ones that dotted his floor when he had bled too quickly. "Stay the fuck out of my room!" he roared, spittle dripping from his mouth.

Ryou watched him leap from the couch, still flushed from the walk home in the humid mugginess, when a thought popped in his head, causing him to forget the rest of his rant. "Why are you wearing long sleeves in this heat?" A valid question as students had taken to wearing their summer uniforms to school, technically against the rules, but only the strictest teachers enforced it, as they also donned lighter clothing.

Bakura turned around. He faced Ryou with an intensity and anger Ryou hadn't seen since his challenges against Yugi. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, and seemed to reconsider all in the same instant. His shoulders sagged in an admission of defeat. He nearly whispered, "Don't think about it."

Ryou watched Bakura walk off. He heard Bakura's bedroom door close with a click, then the latched as Bakura locked it. Once again, the house was silent, but Ryou could no longer enjoy his novel. He tapped his fingers along the spine of the closed book, pondering the entity that had been the spirit of the Millennium Ring.

Bakura, safely tucked behind his closed and locked door, relaxed the card protector, letting a single razor blade drop into his waiting palm.

A/N: Age of majority in Japan is age 20, as Marik states.