"Yami…"

Yami Marik looked up from his spot on the couch. He had been entranced in an episode of this strange show that his shujinkaku called Friends.

Phoebe… Yum. She looks hot! I wonder if gaki-me watches this show. Wait… No I don't.

Marik had been fervently denying any thoughts he had about the gaki-me, Yugi Motou. Even though he'd been thinking about him a lot. Too much. Particularly, his touch.

How can an organ tingle like that?

Why, yes. Marik had become so infatuated with skin he'd looked it up in the encyclopedia. He now knew that skin was an organ. Let's all clap for him for a minute, okay?

…

…

…I don't hear those hands!

…

…

…No, seriously. I expect you to clap. This is a great achievement for our little Marik!

…LOUDER!

Geez, you guys are weak. Anyway, Marik was slightly smater now—er, smarter.

"Yami!"

Marik looked up into the curious violet orbs of his better half. "What is it, Malik?" he growled.

"I heard a rumor that you're 'with' that Pharaoh's brat."

"Pardon?" Marik raised his eyebrow at him. He was getting pretty good at that, actually.

"With. As in, dating." Malik drew up his left eyebrow like a taut string.

Marik mentally pouted. Damn it! Malik's better at that than me!

"That's not true."

"Uh-huh…" Malik glared at him suspiciously. "So why haven't you collected my five dollars from him yet?"

"He spent it in the arcade the day he stole it from you," Marik explained.

"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" Malik demanded. "You're not exactly the most honest person."

"Are you thinking of the snowball incident?" Marik whined.

"I am thinking of the snowball incident," Malik declared.

Marik made whimpering sounds like a kicked puppy. "I told you, that wasn't my fault."

"And that was a lie. You knew that the toaster would cause a fire and melt all of the snow—"

"Look, let's not talk about this now." Marik held up a hand and stopped his hikari before he had to relive the whole entirely-strange incident. "The point is, the information that you got was faulty. I am not, nor was I planning to be, nor will I ever be, 'with' the one you call the Pharaoh's brat, the one I call gaki-me, Yugi."

"Why not?"

This question took Marik by surprise. Malik sidled onto the couch next to him.

"Phoebe's hot," Malik observed, grabbing a few corn chips from a bowl Marik had set on the nearby coffee table. Marik growled.

"My corn chips," he growled.

"Not anymore, loverboy," Malik teased. He set the bowl of corn chips in his lap. Oh, what I would've given to be that bowl! …I mean… Ahem… Anyway…

"Why don't you tell me what's really going on between you and Yugi, and then you can have your beloved corn chips back," Malik dared.

Marik rolled his eyes in return. "There is nothing going on between me and the Pharaoh's gaki-me."

"Oh yeah? Then why are you blushing?"

Marik growled. "I am not blushing!"

"You are so. You're going out with him, aren't you?" Malik popped a couple of chips into his mouth and crunched them loudly.

"It's news to me!" Marik attested. "Yugi and I aren't in that kind of relationship. We're merely 'acquaintances.'"

Malik's eyes lit up. "That sounds rehearsed!" he said gleefully.

Marik's eyes flooded with guilt. Wow, he thought glumly, that really did sound rehearsed. But I'm not going out with gaki-me, that's just silly and presumptuous and even radical. But hikari seems to think I am.

"Who told you this 'rumor' anyway?" Marik demanded. "Was it at least somebody trustworthy? Somebody whose word you would take against mine?"

Malik scoffed, "I would take anybody's word against yours!"

Marik's face fell glum. "Thanks a lot."

"And, just so you know, it was Tea."

Marik's eyes widened. "Tea…?"

Why.

Malik paused, expectantly, and his face adopted a worried expression when he didn't see Marik kicking his legs in the air and rolling around in a fetal position, giggling maniacally as he revealed his revenge plots on Tea Gardner.

Marik searched inside of him. Nothing. Not even a hint of a revenge plot. He could envision the color rouge on flesh, that "blushing," but nothing of Tea, except maybe her blushing. Why aren't I as mad at her as I should be?

"Yeah, Tea. Look, I'm not mad that you're gay; that's all good and stuff; keeping an open mind is what helps the world go 'round. At least, Ryou says that, er, said, only once, during an incident… surely you remember when Bakura tried to feed his lesser half rat burgers?"

"I remember," Marik said glumly. He hadn't even heard what Malik had said, lost in his own thoughts.

"Just don't go kissing the little guy in front of me, okay?"

Did anybody see Syrus on YGO GX? (squeaaaaaaaaals) I say that for the 1st time tonight, and now I'm a fannnnnngiiiiiiiiiiiiiirl…Seriously, though, Syrus looks like a cross between Yugi and Ryou. If Ryou got a sex change and Yugi and he had a child, SYRUS WOULD BE THAT CHILD. I'm so seriously. O. He's so cute, it's eerie. Not necessarily in a bad way… (insert happy face here)