Annzy: OKAY! Here is the next installment of "A Vampire Story!" Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 9: Hide-and-Seek
Bakura and Marik were watching television while they waited for Yugi and Anzu, and Bakura was having trouble focusing on the television because of his undying urge to drink the boy sitting - oh, I don't know - about 5 inches away. It was really annoying him actually.
Marik was having trouble concentrating too, because he had seen Bakura's mark was red, and he was searching through every bit of knowledge that he had about vampires to try and figure out why. Especially since he had almost died that morning.
Needless to say, they were avoiding eye contact.
They both ended up looking at the wall that Marik had splattered with paint one day. Bakura had decided to keep it like that, because after looking at it for a while, he had begun to like it. Not that he would ever admit that.
Marik had been wondering when Bakura was going to paint over it because that's what he had said he was going to do. And he had decided that when the white-haired boy painted over it he would just splatter more paint on it.
Eventually, Bakura turned off the TV because he could hear Yugi and Anzu's footsteps. He told Marik to act casually and Marik responded with an eye roll and said, "Yeah, because it's soooo hard." Bakura would have said something, but then the doorbell rang and he took a deep breath, put on his Ryou face, and opened the door.
"Hi! Welcome to my home!" Bakura said with fake enthusiasm and hospitality. He knew he would hate himself for this later.
Anzu was staring at Bakura with an open mouth, she looked at Yugi (Who was smiling triumphantly) and then back at Bakura and said, "Y-you're Ryou Bakura!"
Bakura smiled kindly, "Yup! That's me!" He looked at Anzu, she looked different from his usual fan girls. I wonder what it is… he thought.
She was smiling so brightly and then she took Yugi aside and whispered, "You couldn't have at least warned me about him?"
Yugi shook his head, "Then it wouldn't be a surprise!" he insisted. Anzu chuckled, then she went back to Bakura and said, "Bakura-san, it is my pleasure that I meet you, I really like you're book "A Vampire Story," it helped me through a tough time."
Bakura was confused a little, but he hid that and said, "Great! I'm glad that I could help you!" And then he noticed what was different about Anzu then his other fan girls.
She didn't have hearts in her eyes like the others. Bakura figured that was probably because she had a boyfriend. Her eyes were more, grateful? Thankful? Is that what she's feeling?
This doesn't make sense, why would she feel grateful to me for writing the book? Unless she's a vampire. Wait a minute… Bakura, remembering what his host would sat at a time like this, said, "Ah, please come in, you must be cold!" Yugi and Anzu stepped into his house with huge smiles, and Bakura said, "I'll go make you some tea, feel free to sit down."
As Bakura went into the kitchen, Anzu walked slowly through the living room, trying to take everything in. The lovely wood furniture, the flat-screen TV, the blue couch, the blue matching recliners, the ceiling fan, the mini tables put in next to the seats, separating the couch from the recliners. And then she noticed the white walls, well, 3 walls were white, on was multi-colored. She looked at it curiously. Why only do that to one wall? she thought, why not do it to all three? She puzzled over this for a minute, before Marik's voice caught her attention.
"If you're wondering why the wall is like that, I got bored one day." Anzu turned to look at Marik, she hadn't noticed him until now. She smiled politely and said:
"Um, hi, Do you live here?"
"Yup, I'm Ishtar Marik, the new illustrator."
"Ah, how long have you lived here?"
"Um," Marik thought about it, "About a month maybe? Not sure, why?"
"Just wondering." She sat down on the recliner and Yugi took the other one. Anzu wanted to ask another question, but she wasn't sure if it would be rude or not.
Marik noticed this, and asked, "Is something troubling you?"
"Ah," Anzu started, "Well, I'm just wondering, are you Ryou's boyfriend?" If Marik had been drinking something he would have spurted it everywhere, instead he said, "Wh-what! NO! Why would you think that?"
"Oh, uh," Anzu said, surprised, "I just thought, you know since you're living together…"
"I just don't have a place to stay, that's all!" Marik insisted, he sweat dropped when he saw that they didn't believe him.
"Its okay, we have nothing against gay couples," Yugi said.
Marik sweat dropped more and he felt like leaving when Anzu said, "Yeah! You don't have to hide it."
Marik was about to yell when "Ryou" walked in.
"Sorry it took so long, so what have you been talking about?"
"Nothing!" Marik said, a little too quickly. Bakura gave him a puzzling look and set the tea tray down. He sat next to Marik (since it was the only available spot) and drank some of the tea. Marik wished there were more chairs in the room because this was so not helping Anzu and Yugi's opinion of him right now.
Bakura smiled kindly at Anzu and said, "Yugi here tells me that you are a big fan of mine."
Anzu smiled brightly, "Yup! I really like your book! It was the most helpful book I've read in a long time."
"Mm," Bakura took another sip of tea and said, "What did you like most about the book?"
"Learning about all the cool powers vampires have, I thought they were awesome."
Bakura smiled, "What's your favorite?"
"Hm," Anzu thought for a minute, "Probably the turning into a cat bit."
Bakura smiled, "I like that one too! But my favorite is the fast way of learning languages."
Anzu's eyes lit up, "Yeah! That was totally awesome!"
"Isn't it?" Bakura and Anzu talked about vampire powers a for a little while, and Marik was wondering how the heck Bakura was this good of an actor. Whenever Anzu said something that would normally make Bakura scowl, he would instead smile kindly and answer back. Marik had to resist staring at Bakura to check if he was a different person or not.
Eventually, the room was silent for a little bit and then Bakura said, "Ah-" and then drank some tea.
Anzu looked at him, "Is something wrong?"
"Ah, no," he said, then he managed to somehow make himself blush a little (which made Marik's eyes go wide and he couldn't help but stare at him) and say shyly, "I was just wondering, are you…"
"Am I what?"
"…Are you a vampire?"
It was silent for a little bit, then Anzu said, "… Yeah, yeah I am, are you?"
Bakura smiled brightly and said "Yeah! It's so nice to see some other vampires!"
Anzu returned Bakura's smile, "Yeah! Especially ones that are so polite!"
Bakura laughed, resisting the urge to kill something. Polite? He thought, I'm polite? Me? The thought made him sick, and he was a vampire!
Meanwhile, Marik was still having trouble with Bakura's profound acting skills. He was even convincing himself that the white haired boy had amnesia and turned into this nice person, or maybe Ryou took over or something… Speaking of which, how does that even work? Marik thought, I mean, he says that he took over Ryou's body, but how? And where did Ryou go? Marik almost asked Bakura this, but luckily he stopped himself before he said anything. He decided he should at least try and listen to the conversation, in case someone asked him his opinion or something.
"…did you know Marik?" said someone. Damn it…
"I'm sorry, what was the question?" Marik said.
Anzu smiled, "I was just wondering if you knew Ryou was a vampire."
"Oh, yeah, yeah I knew."
"And you still went into business with him?" Anzu said, but she said it in a way where Marik heard, "And you still decided to be his boyfriend?" but Marik assumed that Bakura didn't know about that, so instead of yelling at the girl angrily and walking away, he said, "Well, I figured he wouldn't kill his fellow employee."
Anzu and Yugi nodded as one, making Marik sweat drop, and then Bakura said, "Well, I should start making dinner." He got up and took the tea tray with him.
Marik, not wanting, to be alone with Anzu and Yugi stood up too, but Bakura said, "Why don't you mingle with the guests Marik? Show them around a bit." Marik was going to argue, but Bakura already walked into the kitchen. Marik sighed, and turned around to 'mingle.'
Bakura walked into the kitchen and almost punched the wall. He had heard Marik's conversation with the guests earlier, and he was not very happy about it. They think we're gay? That's absurd! I used to have a girlfriend… 5,000 years ago…but still! He felt very angry and had once wanted to punch Anzu in the face, hereby knocking her out, but his want for the Millennium Puzzle stopped him.
Come on Bakura, just a few more hours, and then the Puzzle will be in my grasp. While he was making dinner, (fried shrimp with broccoli, white rice, and soup) he couldn't help but think of his guests opinion of him and Marik.
He felt very angry, obviously, that anyone could think that and he wanted to punch something - hard, but at the same time, he felt like laughing. Laughing! That's not really a joking manner is it? He also felt, confused, he didn't know what else he felt-he didn't know how he should feel. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. And when Anzu had asked if he was Marik's boyfriend, he remembered the kiss on the cheek and couldn't help but blush a little. This made him more upset than anything. Marik was drunk,DRUNK! That kiss didn't mean anything, anything! So why should I be blushing? Why should it even come to mind? It shouldn't, and it won't, anymore. He continued with making dinner and filled his head with thoughts about books he has read recently, thoughts on what the other Millennium Items are, who has them, if he should buy a new couch soon, basically, anything that didn't have to do with Marik.
Meanwhile, Marik was ready to bash his head against the wall. Anzu kept asking him questions about himself and some of them he'd rather not answer.
"How much do you like Ryou?"
"Not at all actually."
"How did you meet?"
"I applied to an add for an illustrator."
"How long have you been dating?"
"We never started."
"When did you know you were gay?"
"I'M NOT GAY!" he practically shouted the last part, and he hoped too late that Bakura hadn't heard him, but then he remembered vampires have super hearing, and he prayed that Bakura was too involved with dinner to hear anything like he did when he was reading.
Marik sighed, "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"
She hesitated, "Oh no, you don't want to hear about my life."
Marik could tell by the way she said those words that she was one of those people who could drone on an on and on about themselves forever. Marik felt like crying he was so happy, "No really!" he insisted, "I want to hear about you, like, when did you become a vampire?"
"Well," Anzu started, a hint of amusement in her voice, "It all started when I got accepted to this college…" she started to tell her story. Marik listened and nodded at appropriate times. Yugi sometimes joined in with some other information and Marik pretended to be interested, happy that the conversation was off him.
During dinner…
Yugi was happily eating while Anzu chatted with Bakura. But then the soul inside his Puzzle spoke up.
"Yugi!" it said.
"What is it Yami?" It was a joke between them, the Pharaoh seemed slightly dark to Yugi, so he called him Yami. The Pharaoh didn't really care, he actually liked the name.
"Just thought you should know," Yami began, "I sense an evil spirit in Ryou."
"Evil? In Ryou? But he's been nothing but nice to us since we got here."
"Sometimes the most evil people are the ones that seem the nicest. Just be wary of him Yugi."
"All right…"
Then he returned to eating. Yami's words were still ringing in his ears, and he started to wonder…
After what seemed like a painstakingly long time, Yugi and Anzu were done with their dinner and were just about to leave.
"Hope to see you guys again soon!" Anzu said as she walked out, waving. Marik waved back with a polite smile. Yeah, not going to happen! Marik thought. He had concluded that Anzu was very annoying. Yugi wasn't too bad, he actually looked like he was sorry when Anzu had asked him all those weird questions. What Yugi did next confirmed that.
He had tugged on Marik's sleeve, stopping him from waving and said quietly, "Sorry about all those questions, hope they didn't make you feel uncomfortable. I actually figured you weren't gay while you were talking."
Marik smiled, "It's okay, some people just… ask a lot of questions."
Yugi smiled, then turned to Bakura, "Thanks again for inviting us over for dinner. I wish I could repay you in some way."
Bakura had to disguise his smirk as a kind smile and said, "It was no trouble at all! But um…"
"What is it?" Yugi asked.
"Well, it's just that, I really like that necklace you're wearing, could I maybe…have it?"
Yugi looked apologetic and said, "Ah, well, I'm really sorry, but I can't give this away, sorry, if there's anything else-" he stopped when he saw the look on Bakura's face.
Bakura looked like a madman, he still had a smile on his face, but now it looked creepy, and he had this crazy look in his eye, and his left eye was twitching a bit.
"…Ryou…?"
Bakura's face fell into a scowl, he let out a cry of anger and lunged for the Puzzle. He tried to take it off, but Yugi had grabbed onto it and Anzu had come to help him.
"GIVE ME THE PUZZLE!" Bakura screamed. He was furious. He had just acted nice for an entire evening, and for what? Yugi had refused to give up the Puzzle. He was way past reasoning, now he would kill for this thing.
Marik hadn't digested what had happened at first, but when he saw them fighting over the puzzle, he joined in to take the Puzzle away. But then, the Puzzle started glowing. It blinded everyone, making everyone except Yugi let go of it to cover their eyes. When they opened them back up, they saw Yugi, only he changed, drastically.
He had gotten taller, his face looked more grown up, and a grown-up frown replaced that childish smile.
He had changed into Yami.
He was not happy, and then he said, "So! This entire time you just wanted the Millennium Puzzle eh?"
Bakura smirked, "Well now, I wouldn't have acted that nice if I didn't want something in return. You know me Pharaoh, I would use any means necessary to steal."
Yami looked at Bakura with a puzzled look, "I'm sorry, I do not think we have met. But you must be the evil spirit I sensed."
"Ah, you can still sense those type of things Pharaoh? Much hasn't changed in 5,000 years has it?"
Yami narrowed his eyes, "How do you know me?"
Bakura laughed an evil laugh, "You don't remember me Pharaoh? I would have thought you would remember the King of Thieves."
Yami's eyes went wide, "You are Bakura? The thief who stole half of my riches and killed many of my men?"
"That would be me."
"How are you still alive?"
"The same as you," Bakura answered back with a smirk, "I put my soul into this," he held out the Millennium Ring, "and then inhabited a body to move around in."
Yugi scowled, "How did you get that? I ordered my most trusted of advisors to hide those items."
"Questions later, first give me your Puzzle."
Yugi smiled, "How about we settle this with a game?"
Bakura laughed, "Still up to your old games Pharaoh? Very well, what are the rules this time?"
"Oh," Yugi said, clearly enjoying this turn of events, "Just a simple game of hide-and-seek."
"Hide-and-seek?" Bakura asked, incredulously.
"Yes, hide-and-seek, but this game is a little more challenging."
"Explain."
"This isn't just a normal game, this is a shadow game."
Bakura's eyes lit up, "A shadow game? I haven't played one of those in over 5,000 years." Marik had heard of shadow games, but he had never played one, or seen one in action before. He was looking forward it.
"We each hide someone. I hide Ishtar-san, you hide Anzu. We each have five minutes to do so. Then we start searching. First one to bring back their person to this house is the winner, and you can not cheat. What is cheating? Well, if Ishtar-san or Anzu calls out, revealing where they are, then that's cheating, things like that. The winner gets the other's Millennium Item, and the losers, or cheaters, will suffer a death-like experience."
"Death-like experience?"
Yami nodded.
"So we don't actually die?"
Yami nodded.
Bakura grinned, "You've gone soft Pharaoh, very well, I accept these terms."
Yami smiled. Everything went dark around them for a moment, then it was back to normal. "All right, the five minutes for hiding starts," a sandglass appeared in front of Bakura, floating in midair, "NOW!" the timepieces turned over, and Bakura grabbed it, grabbed Anzu and ran for it.
Yami grabbed Marik's shoulder and said, "Come, I know the perfect hiding spot." Marik usually would have argued, but he didn't want to know what happened if you disobeyed a shadow game. He said, "Okay, where are you taking me?"
"To a place," Yami said as he walked out the front door with Marik trailing behind.
"What kind of place?"
"The place which I'm taking you to."
Marik sighed, This is going to be a long game, he thought.
Bakura was leading Anzu through the nearest forest. He figured hiding her in a forest would be best because it was so big. And, he also had absolutely no idea where to hide her. That's why he had run out so fast, he wanted to look for a good hiding spot. And, sometimes, when he didn't know what he was looking for, a walk in the forest calmed him.
This whole time Bakura had been pulling roughly on Anzu's arm, making her follow. But Anzu didn't like this, so she pulled her arm away when she felt Bakura's grip lessen slightly (because he was becoming calmer) and said, "I'll follow you, you don't have to pull on my arm."
Bakura turned and glared at her, "Fine," he growled, "But don't try to run away, because that's cheating." He began to run faster, and Anzu, a little afraid now, followed behind him.
She couldn't understand how this could possibly be the kind person from before. Then again, it seems like all crazy people appear nice when you first meet them… then she remembered what Yami had said earlier: "You must be the evil spirit I sensed."
Evil spirit? she thought, is this spirit like Yami? She thought of the conversation over again and figured that it probably was like Yugi's Millennium Puzzle, only this Yami was much darker than Yugi's.
She actually knew quite a bit about Yugi's secret soul inside his Millennium Puzzle. But she didn't really care, to her they were almost the same person, just different aspects of him.
Anyway, Bakura was starting to get angry that he couldn't find a place to hide, and he had no idea how long he had been, I need to start wearing a watch… he thought. But then he remembered something.
There was an old abandoned house in the middle of the woods.
He grinned, and let out an evil laugh, then he ran faster, leaving Anzu using most of her strength to keep up.
He knew there was an old trunk inside the attic of the house just big enough for one person to fit inside. He knew this because one day, when he was bored and tired of writing, he had walked into the woods and had come across the old house.
He had thought that it was a quant little house, it was done in an olden style. The house was made of, what once was, oak. But now the wood had started rotting and it had lost it's woodsy appeal. There were two support beams supporting a little roof above the front door's porch. There were two windows above the door, and a circle-shaped window to reveal the attic.
Bakura had thought that this was like something in a fairy tail, and he wanted to see the inside so that he could turn that happy little fairy tale into his next big horror novel in one of his books. (Which he did, in a book called Murder in the Old House.) So he had went inside, went up into the attic, and saw the trunk.
And now he was taking Anzu here. He secretly hoped the house would collapse while she was inside it, but then he remembered that wouldn't kill her.
He led Anzu up the stairs, past the dusty old kitchen and living room, past the worn-out second-floor bedrooms and bathroom, and stopped. He jumped up and pulled on a small rope, and the stairs came tumbling down, revealing the opening to the musty old attic. If you focused, you could feel the attic swaying in the wind. He walked up to the trunk and opened it with a flourish. He heard Anzu enter the attic and he smirked.
"Get in," he ordered.
Anzu stared at the trunk. "In that thing?" she said.
"Yes."
"Can I hear a please?"
"No, now get in."
Anzu sighed and stepped inside the trunk. Bakura closed the lid and walked down the stairs leading to the second floor. He pushed the stairs back up so that you couldn't tell that they were there. He looked up and smiled. You wouldn't be able to see that small rope unless you were looking for it. And the door blended in perfectly with the ceiling so you couldn't tell a door was there either. He then left, feeling confident that he would be the winner in this game.
Yami was walking calmly to his destination. Mostly because he wanted to be as quiet as possible in case Bakura got done with his hiding early and tried to follow him, and partly because he wanted to keep Marik in suspense.
Meanwhile, Marik was getting very impatient. He didn't like expense, he liked to know things right away, that was one of the reasons why he didn't like books, they didn't tell you your answers right away. They always wanted to be "clever" and let the readers try and guess first.
Marik hated guessing.
But he still did it sometimes, like now for example, because what else did he really have to do right now?
Maybe he's going to put me in a random building
'Wouldn't that be easy to spot?' his inner self cut in.
Yeah, you're right -
'I'm always right.'
Whatever, maybe he'll put me into a random bathroom.
'Maybe he'll send you to the bad ideas store.'
Aw, my feelings are hurt now.
'Maybe he'll send you to the cemetery.'
That's dumber than my random building idea.
'Whatever.'
Marik sighed and began to think of other thing he'd rather be doing right now, like sleeping. He was extremely tired since he had been researching into the early hours of the morning every day. And walking with Yami wasn't really helping matters either.
You see, he hated the Pharaoh. Why? It's very simple. It was the Pharaoh who had given his ancestors the order to kill off all vampires, and it was thanks to him that he was in the position he was in now. Also, he didn't really like the Pharaoh's point of view (POV). To him, killing off all of the vampires was no different than what happened to the Jewish people during World War II (1). So he wasn't entirely thrilled when he found out that the Pharaoh's soul was back. But then Marik thought of something that didn't make sense.
Yami knew a vampire, she was his host's girlfriend, wouldn't he have killed her right away?
Now Marik wished that he had paid more attention to Anzu's story.
Does this meant hat the Pharaoh is done with killing vampires? If that's the case, then he could tell my family to stop killing them…
Suddenly Yami stopped walking and Marik, who wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, bumped into him and forgot his current thoughts. He blinked and looked around. They were near a river, next to a stone bridge. He Didn't really see where he could hide, then he noticed that Yami was walking towards the bridge, so he hurried to catch up.
Yami stopped at the side edge of the bridge. He put his hand on the stone and started feeling around for something. Marik had wondered what, when Yami pushed a brick inside the rest of the bridge and a few of the other bricks left the bridge, revealing a door.
Marik stared open-mouthed at the door. Is that safe? He had never seen anything like this in real life before. This was one of those things you only found in movies. Then again, vampires are supposed to be like that too…
Marik closed his mouth and looked at Yami.
"You want me to hide there?"
"Yes please."
"…Is it safe?"
Yami laughed, "Don't worry, it was meant to be a storage unit for the janitors who clean the bridge, but the new janitor doesn't like his working materials inside a bridge. He says it's not practical."
More like he thought he'd suffocate if he got trapped inside.
Marik gulped, "Tell me there are air holes in there."
"There is, there are little holes through one of the sides."
Marik sighed, "All right, I'm going in now," he said more to himself than to Yami.
It's fine, it's only a cramped, dark, musty old place that you could probably suffocate in, no problem. Not much different from the pyramid I used to live in back in Egypt. No biggie.
He stepped in and found that he had just enough room to sit down with his back leaning against one of the sides and with his legs straight out in front of him. He put his arms out and found that they had enough room to move, but they couldn't both be sticking straight out at his sides at the same time.
"Don't worry, I'm sure your friend will find you soon enough," Yami said as he was closing the door.
"One question!" Marik shouted before the door closed completely, "Are you done killing vampires?"
The door stopped and opened back up again to expose a stern-looking Yami. "What makes you say that?"
"My family is the descendants of the people you originally told to kill off the vampires." All was silent for a while, but Marik could tell Yami got what he was saying.
Yami sighed, "I'll talk to you later, let's just say I've realized my mistake… I'm just sorry it took this long for me to realize it," then he closed the door.
(1): I did NOT mean to offend anyone in any way, shape or form. I am EXTREMELY sorry if this offended any one. I was just trying to show how much Marik hated this.
OKAY! (pretty sure) there's only one chapter away from the Halloween special! YAY! Also I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!