Tenshi: Sorry for the delay everyone, but I finally gor my laptop back!

Ryou: Yay! Tenshi-chan's back!

Tenshi: Yes, I am! Also...

CoppyCat: Thanw you all for all...

Tenshi: the awesome reviews that we got...

CoppyCat: on the last chapter.

Tenshi: I'm glad you liked it! You made me...

CoppyCat: Very happy. Also thanks for all the...

Tenshi: Favourites and Storry alerts...

Bakura: Cut it out with all that completing each other thing, will ya? It's really annoying.

Tenshi: Sorry. Anyway, let's move on. Ryou sweety, would you help me a bit here?

Ryou: Sure! ^_^ Tenshi-chan doesn't own yu-gi-oh! or it's caracters, though I have a feeling Baura wouldn't die so easilly if she did... or at least, he'll come back if she will.

Tenshi: Thank you Ryou*Hugs Ryou tightly**recieves death-glare from Bakura* Now on to the storry*shaking*...

A silent moan was heard, being the only sound to break the heavy silence. Brown eyes slowly opened to be met with only darkness.

For a few aeconds, he just layd there, looking absentmindedly ahead, not shure where he was or how he got there. He moved his head a bit, to realise that there was something soft underneath it. A pillow...?

He clenched a fist, to feel bed-sheets in his hand.

He was in a bed.

Ryou tried to roll over, to try and find something else about where he was, but a wave of pain in his chest stopped him in mid-move. He tried again, more slowly this time. To his surprise, the boy realised that both his hands along with his chest were covered in bandages.

"Someone actually helped me..."

The next thing he saw was a (weirdly familiar) bedset, that held on it a boul with a sponge, and a few bandages, probably leftover from patching him up. There was also an alarm-clock there, that showed Ryou it was almost three a clock in the morning.

However to his horror, the next thing he noticed made him gasp~loudly~ in shock. And at the sound, his master's eyes snapped open.

Now, Ryou was shure he would be punished. Not only that he couldn't remember ever getting home that day(or by now, the previous day), and he didn't get one single thing done the wholw day, but now, as if it wasn't enough, he also woke his master up.

Bakura had been asleep on a chair next to Ryou's bed when the injured teen opened his eyes, and now he woke up at hearing a sound. Well it's a good thing he always has been a light sleeper. The first thing Bakura noticed was that he was in a chair. When in the world did he... Oh, that's right. He's been tending to Ryou, than when he was ready, he sit down to wait for the boy to wake- Wait, the boy! His eyes snapped large, then relaxed just a bit when he saw the boy safely on the bed, finally awake.

When his master's eyes became large at the memory, Ryou mistook for rage. So ignoring that bugging voice in the back of his head that was telling him otherwise, he hurried to sit up so he could bow to the other.

Big mistake.

He was only halfway-up when suddenly a horrible pain crossed his chest, like he's just been stabbed with a long and sharp blade.

His body quickly got him the rest of the way, and his hands reached up to grasp at his heart as he was gasping loudly for air.

When he was finally able to breathe normally again, he remembered what he's been doing. He turned to face his master and got ready to bow down, when...

"Stop, you're only going to hurt yourself more."

"M-m-m-master, I'm-m-m sorry." he bowed his head down. Then as he looked back up, he watched his master stand up and walk towards him. The boy closed his eyes to supress a few tears. He was going to be beaten, Ryou was shure of that. So he waited for the pain, that never came, replaced in stead by a ~somehow~ gentle touch on his shoulders, than being pushed slowly back down on the bed. Brown orbs went wide.

"Bakura-s-sama...?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Bakura asked sternly, facing away from the boy.

"Wh-what do you mean, Bakura-sama?"

"Why didn't you tell me that you were being bullied?"

"I... I don't..."

"Do not try to lie to me, boy. Those injuries on you, they don't lie. More than half of them aren't caused by me, and most of them are too old for this to be just a coincidentall happening. No, this has been going on for a while now. So, why didn't you tell me?"

"B-because..." Ryou's tone started to change. It was becoming darker, full of resentment, and something else, that Bakura never thaught to ever get to hear in the boy's voice. He also let his head down, in a way that shadows now covered his eyes completely, hiding them away, and giving Ryou a very dark apearence. "I dind't want you... no, I didn't want anyone to know about... The thing is, this is my life, and I don't want others to butt in or start asking quescions about it. And if someone found out even a bit, that's exactly what they'd start to do." Bakura turned to face him.

"Well, about that you're right. So start explaining. And begin with why the hell would it be so important to keep it hidden! You nearly died today! And if things kept going like this, soon you would have died..."

"And why would you care? Oh, that's right, you wouldn't want your slave to die, cause than you wouldn't have anyone to do all your dirty jobs for you. Well have you ever wondered what if, you know, maybe I didn't mind dying? After all, what do I have to keep me alive?" the boy statrted, his voice getting louder and darker by the second. Bakura would've said the last words were filled with venom and resentment if he didn't know the boy better.

"What do you mean?" he asked exasperately.

"You're pretty slow at catching up." The thief rose a brow. "Didn't you ever wonder why my friends, or family, never searched for me, or tried to get me away from you?" Bakura's facial expression started changing, realisation downing on him with every second. "It's because I don't have any! All my family is dead, along with one of my only friends!"

'His family is dead?'

" Yuugi was the last person I held any conection with! He was the only one who ever saved me from my lonelyness, and the only one who cared about me, and who ever helped me after my family died. Now we're separated forever. So what reason could I possibly have to live? To survive? For the beatings? To go back to being abused and beaten up every day? To go back to the pain of being alone? No one will ever care about me anyway, I know that, so what's the point? Of course, you'd say I would live for the hope of someday meeting Yuugi again. You'd say that would be my dream, and the thing to help me carry on. Well, it used to. But, i realised... the only thing I'll ever do would bring him more problems and put him in danger again. No. It's better this way. He should... just... go on... live a... ha-happy life... a normal... life... if I... met him, I-I... I'd just... put him in d-danger... and probab-... probably get him... killed..." Ryou's body was shaking with sobs. He started hard, but his walls broke down after the first few phrases, and teras slowly started falling down his face, though the thief didn't notice them thanks to his face being turned down.

'His- his family is dead? I- wouldn't have guessed he'd be so much like... ' "How?"

"..."

"How did your family die?"

"W-We-well... they... we, were in- a car accident... One of- the only times we got to spend together... we were going... somewhere... they wouldn't... tell us..." sobs were interrupting the teen every few words. "They said... it was a..." sniff "surprise... we were... in the c-car..." the last word came out obviously strained, like he had difficulty even pronouncing the dreaded word. "Marik was... with us... he was an o-orphan, and lived with u-u-us... he was m-my best f-f-friend. In that a-accident, both my parents... and.. my little... sister... were... killed on... the spot... it was all foggy, but... I remember... there was... lots of... blood and... my family's... bodies... it-it was... awful... me and... Marik... made it... to the hospital... and were put in... intensive care... but... one day... Marik started... saying... strange things... and looking... into nothing... and then... he told me... to live... and, get... over that... make frie-friends... be happy... and then..." But Ryou didn't get to end that phrase, as he started crying violently and couldn't stop enough time to form even one word. Bakura, however, didn't need to hear the rest. He could understand where the boy was heading with that sentence.

"Lay there and rest. Try not to hust yourself." Bakura said while walking out of the room, leaving a stunned Ryou behind.

He stormed down the stairs and out of the house. He needed to get away and think stuff through. And that- was not something he enjoyed doing.

Ryou... was an orphan? He never even thaught of that possibility. Though now, it all seemed very obvious. Why didn't he see it earlier? Who would've thaught? Him and the boy would be so much alike? Both whitnessed their families and friends die, both had a tragic past that they had to somehow overcome, but thatn, why were they so different now? What went differently for Ryou than it did for him? After all, unlike him, the teen had the ability to care about others. Like he did for that shrimp that he saved when they first met. He was willing to give himself away in order to save the boy, and now, he was giving up his last hope, his last thing to cling onto, just in order to keep that boy safe! And unlike him, Ryou didn't become coldhearted and powerull, agressive... no. The boy was taking in all the fury and agressiveness of this world, without fighting back for one second. So what? What was different between them?

And why in the world was he suddenly so interested in the boy? What difference woulod it make anyway? After all, the boy was just a slave, and nothing more. That's what he kept saying and thinking.

Without knowing it, the white-haired thief found himself in front of a very collorfull and happy-looking building. It made him sick! A big and collorfull logo hanged over the door, calling "Kame Game Shop!". ~ugh, this was just discusting, why in the world would anyone put so much collor and livelyness onto just one building?~

Normally, he would have walked just by the place, making a note mind never to come there again unless he was in the mood to play a cruel trick on someone. But this sime, it was different. When he got right in front of the shop, he felt a strong pulse, and something pulling onto him, calling him to enter the game-shop. And his instincts told him to follow that feeling, so he did. The only thing that kept him alive all that time were his instincts. He allways trusted them, and they allways proved correct.

That's how he found himself climbed up on one of the walls, wich was heading away from the sun, so that the shadows help him. He got up to the second floor, and there, getting close to a cretain window, he got that feeling again. That was the one. That's where that strong feeling was coming from. That's where he had to go. And that's where he went. He opened the window very easily, by using his shadow-magic.

Good. Now all he had to do was find the thing that would emmit such strong shadow-magic. Because now that he was so close, he could clearly tell what it was. Though he felt it would be shadow-magic from the begining, but he couldn't rush to the conclusion. He looked around the very tidy room. With blue walls and white ceiling, wooden floor and a carpet, with a darker shade of blue than the walls. Also there was the bed, with light-blue sheets, and a desk, where weirdly, all the school stuff had been cleared out. He walked to the dresser and opened it, shocked to find it completely empty of clothes.

Though now that he thaught about it, the room did seem like it hasn't been lived-in for quite some time. A small layer of dust had formed over everything, and there was even a spider-web formed on the chandeleer. However there were still a few toys on the bed, some paper-sheets, crayons and some non-school-related things on the desk, and two towels hanging on the back of the chair.

But anyway, it wasn't his buisness to make an investigation on that room. He was there in search of something(though he didn't know exactly what). And he would find it, take it, or leave it depending on what 'it' was. The Albino closed his eyes and concentrated on the feeling of the shadow magic, trying to detect the source. Andafter a few seconds, obviously, he did it. He turned around and walked over to the dusty nightstand. Putting a hand on the drawer, he pulled it open.

Red orbs widened, and his mouth fell open, letting his small fangs show.

Tenshi: There. All done. Sooo... sorry for the shortness, but that's just the way it turned out to be. I'll put the next chapter up soon, so please bear with me! Though thhis time, I'm really going to wait untill I update Strange Happenings, I promise I'm going to put it as soon as I can.

CoppyCat: I don't want to be random, but did you say... fangs?

Tenshi: Yeah.

CoppyCat: Fangs as in...

Tenshi: No not vampire fangs, just those little fangs of his that he exposed when he ate that steak. This isn't a vampire storry. Though come to think of it, I did think about writing a vampire-fick. What do you all think? Should I? What pairings should I use? Put in abuse scenes? Any ideeas you have...

CoppyCat: please just send them in...

Tenshi: in a reaview, and let us know...

CoppyCat: What you think about it.

Tenshi: I really would love...

CoppyCat: to write a vapire-fick...

Tenshi: but it all depends...

CoppyCat: On what y'all guys say.

Bakura: You're doing it again!

Tenshi: Oh, sorry... Anyway, se you all soon! Bye ^_^