A/N: Yeah, I know, it's been a month. Yeah, I know that I'm not a horrible person for updating in a month. Do I have any excuses for it being this late? Except for being lazy, no, I don't. Can't even say that I've been busy with school with it being the end of the school year and all because I do all of my schoolwork at home. Any who, here's the next chapter. Thanks for all the reviews and everything else that I've received. And no, I don't Yu-Gi-Oh! in any way, shape, or form.

Reflection
Chapter 8: Accepting Loss

"Curse that horrible demon spawn of a drink. I swear that I will never ever drink that foul substance again. Just remind me that I said this next time we do something like that, okay, Yugi?" Malik groaned, resting his head on the counter in front of the cash register.

"You really didn't seem to think that it was a 'horrible demon spawn of a drink' last night when you unknowingly destroyed Ryou and Bakura's newly founded relationship. Or when you just happened to drop an open can of beer on Jono's head at 4 in the morning, successfully waking up everyone in the whole apartment building," Yugi comment, rolling his eyes.

The tanned man didn't even bother attempting to question Yugi about what happened just the night before. Although, he was fairly certain that it was probably for the best if he didn't find out about any of the stuff that had happened anytime soon. Or anytime at all, for that matter. Ryou had ignored him all morning, while he had breakfast at Yugi's apartment before they went to work. That most likely meant that nothing good had happened, not that anything good ever came out of him being drunk.

"Brother, please do not rest your head on the counter, it does not look good for the customers. You are still are working right now, whether or not you have a hangover or not," Ishizu scolded him, as she walked up to the register.

He slowly lifted his head off of the counter to glare at his sister, revealing the heavy bags underneath his eyes. "Customers? What customers are you talking about that actually care if I'm not acting like a professional at this exact moment? Oh, I know! Those mute, invisible ones that are right in front of us. Sister, this place is absolutely dead."

"Well, this is a small art shop in the middle of the city. Even with it being summer, it's still a Monday morning and there just so happens to be a more popular art store about 5 minutes away. So, only the regular customers would be showing up on a day like today," Yugi added in.

The eldest of the three glared down at the other two. It was rather obvious that she wasn't too pleased with their attitudes towards any of it. "The two of you need to stop being so pessimistic about this. When you run a shop, you find out almost immediately that you are going to have some good days, and then a lot more bad days. However, was it not just last week when we had more customers in here in a single day than we usually do in a whole week? For a shop like this, it is those days that make it so we are still in business," Ishizu sighed, her point now proven, "Yugi, can you help me in the back for a moment?"

The amethyst eyed teenager nodded and followed his new boss into the back of the store. It was in complete order, just as it had been the first time he had been in here. That was, except for a few boxes shoved over to the side from a shipment the store had apparently gotten on Friday afternoon.

"So, what was it that you needed my help with?" he asked, with a smile.

"All I need you to do is to help me lift a couple of these boxes over there. I would have asked my brother, but I do not believe that he would have been much of a help in his current state," she explained.

He silently groaned inside of his head, and grabbed one end of a box while Ishizu grabbed the other end of it. The blue eyed woman confidently led him towards a shelf that had a similar looking box on it. He helped her out with a few more of the boxes with ease, before she informed him that she could handle the rest of them by herself, for the time being.

"Yugi, would you please tell me what trouble Malik got into last night, at your place? I know that he does not truly care if something had happened, and hopes that if it were something truly horrible that he could then write it off as being drunk. However, if he did something that bad, then I know that he would regret not apologizing for it," Ishizu requested.

The feeling that Ishizu was looking directly into his soul was still present as they made brief eye contact with each other but it was nowhere near the extent that it had been when he had first met her. That may have had something to do with the fact that he had became friends with her little brother, but he couldn't be completely sure.

"Yeah, I do have to admit that he did mess up last night. In fact, he had most likely completely ruined two of my friend's, Ryou and Bakura, relationship, not to mention that he probably angered mostly everyone in our whole apartment building this morning. They're probably cursing his name right about now," she nodded at him to go on, "He invited Bakura to dance with him, despite knowing that Bakura was completely wasted by that time, and what it would definitely lead to. Ryou just happened to wake up about 10 minutes later to find the two of them making out in the kitchen, with Malik talking dirty to Bakura. As anyone would do, Ryou ran away from the scene, and Bakura sobered up a little and chased after him. We haven't seen Bakura since then. Then early this morning he was up to no good and decided that dumping a whole can of beer over my friend, Jono's head while he was passed out was a very good idea. And it was a cold one, right out of the fridge too. Jono's screaming woke a lot of people up," Yugi explained, rubbing his temples.

"I… see. I am going to have to have a talk with him later today," she commented.

He took that as an opportunity to leave the back room, and quietly snuck out as Ishizu processed the information he had just given her. Hopefully, she would be able to do something to convince Malik to apologize to Ryou, and anyone else he had angered last night.

"Aibou, are you almost off of work yet?"

Yugi's head shot up at the sound of the very familiar voice. As he expected, Atemu was standing in front of the cash register, next to Malik. The two of them seemed like complete opposites in that moment, with Atemu grinning brightly at him, obviously enjoying his day so far, and then there was Malik, who was once again resting his head on the counter, looking rather depressed.

"You don't have to worry about that, I was just about to tell him that he might as well leave now because we don't exactly need 3 whole people to handle the two imaginary customers that we have at the moment. No, you don't count as a customer, Atemu," Malik groaned, not even bothering to lift his head up.

Yugi let out a small breath and smiled at his coworker, and new friend, "Thank you, Malik, it's really nice of you to do this for me."

The blonde merely lifted his head a couple of inches off of the counter and rolled his eyes before muttering, "I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about, Yugi. Just leave already before Sister comes out of that room again and makes you do more mundane chores."

"I think that the two of us will just have to go and get out of your hair then. We'll see you again later… now, enjoy the rest of this beautiful afternoon, with all of your customers and that wonderful hangover you must have right now," Atemu wished sarcastically, before grabbing a hold of Yugi's hand.

Malik glared at them as they walked out of the store, but didn't make a single move to actually try and stop them from leaving, despite Atemu making fun of him. The younger twin just laughed, thinking of the way that Malik had been complaining about the exact things that his brother had just mentioned, despite neither him nor Ishizu paying any attention to any of his complaints. It was something that he had had to learn how to do the previous night.

"So, why exactly did you come to pick me up today, mou hitori no boku? I thought that you had said that you had to work this afternoon with that guy that both you and Bakura utterly despise or something," the amethyst eyed twin questioned.

"I was supposed to have work this afternoon, well, at least until Bakura phoned me up and told me that he wanted to pick up an extra shift for today. I couldn't exactly tell the guy 'no' between not having to work and feeling a bit bad for him, even if it was all his own fault," the elder of the two answered.

Yugi nodded in agreement, although he didn't really understand why Atemu felt bad, and then continued to let his twin half drag him down the street to wherever he had in mind. He knew that the other must have someplace in mind after all, or he wouldn't have been dragged around with such utter determination. He just hoped that the place was at least halfway decent.

"This is it," Atemu informed him several minutes later, stopping in front of a small lunch type place.

And they were too. The lunch place was oddly quiet for this time in the afternoon but the reason for that more seemed like that it was more out of the way than most places then it being a bad restaurant. The name of the place made him smile to himself, happily remembering moment from his early childhood. The time in particular that he was thinking about was back when him, Atemu, and Seto all had an obsession with these make-believe monsters, his favourite being 'Slifer Red' which just happened to be the name of the restaurant.

"I'm going to take a somewhat wild guess and say that this is one of Seto's restaurants? He seems to have a habit of naming them after things from our past, like the one Jono's working at," he asked, as they walked into the lunch place.

Atemu led him to a small, two person table that was by beside the window. "Of course it's owned by him. I doubt that he would be very happy with me if I took you to a place that wasn't owned by him and had the slightest possibility of being better than any of his restaurants. Besides, going to a restaurant owned by Seto, we know what will happen if anything goes wrong and we tell him about it."

"I'm guessing that everyone who was involved in the matter would be punished in some way or another or they would all be fired for being incompetent?"

The crimson eyed twin laughed but nodded, knowing that it was the exact truth, almost word for word. Their cousin had an incredibly low tolerance for any sort of mishaps or accidents that might ruin his reputation in any way… even if that had never been the person's intention in the first place.

"Excuse me, sirs, but is there anything in particular that you would like to drink today or would you just like water?" the waitress asked, politely.

"No, I'll just have water, thank you," Atemu answered.

"Could you please get me a coke, by any chance?"

The waitress nodded and walked away, leaving the two brothers by themselves. Atemu raised an eyebrow at the younger but Yugi merely looked the other way in an attempt to avoid eye contact and muttered something about needing his daily sugar intake. The sun suddenly moved from behind a stray cloud, pouring in through the window, and suddenly it seemed like it was accenting every single one of Yugi's features. The colour of his eyes, the curve of his lip, and even the faint shadows from his hair. All of it made it so that he couldn't even attempt to tear his eyes away from the scene.

"Mou hitori no boku, what are you staring at? Is there something on my face?" Yugi asked, suddenly noticing the look he was giving him.

"You. I was suddenly reminded of just how perfect you are for me," he answered, the words slipping out of his mouth easily, and almost thoughtlessly.

A major weight felt like it was lifted off of his chest, one that had been weighing him down for a long time. However, it only took him another 5 seconds to realize that he had just crossed a major line that had been there ever since they had met for the second time. He could see it all over Yugi, with the way that he completely tensed up the moment that the words had left his mouth.

"Are you two of you ready to order now, or do you need a couple more minutes?" the waitress asked, butting in at the perfect moment.

The silence in the apartment was almost completely unbearable. The only things that he could hear was the faint sound of a clock ticking from one of the other rooms, and the occasional creaking sound that honestly worried him just the slightest bit. It almost felt as if the silence was suffocating him. A desperate wish ran through his mind, making him blink back the tears as he once again remembered the events from the night before.

Out of nowhere, the doorbell rang, making him physically jump out of his seat on the couch. Hadn't he asked Yugi and Jono this morning not to bother him tonight because he thought that he needed some time to himself? He was sure that he had, but that only made him hurry to the door slightly faster than he normally would have, even ignoring his book, which was laying wide open on the floor.

"What are you doing here?" Ryou asked, unconsciously narrowing his eyes in dislike for the person at the door.

Much to his dislike, the person who was standing at his door was one of the main reasons for the pain he was currently in. Sure, he may not have known Bakura as well as he would have like to but that didn't mean that being cheated on hurt any less than it would have if he had known him better.

"My sister informed me of what exactly I did last night. I'm not too sure how she actually found out about any of the events that happened last night because I'm not even sure of any of it myself, but I have a small feeling that -," Malik tried to explain.

"I'm sorry but could you please get to the point here? I don't really want to be around anyone at the moment, never mind being around you."

The blonde Egyptian stopped talking for a moment and stared, obviously taking in Ryou's appearance for the first time since he had arrived. Ryou knew that he looked like a complete mess and started to feel slightly ashamed of it, but stubbornly shoved any feelings of shame down. Even though he knew that Malik was seeing a rundown man with red eyes, matted hair, and clothes that hadn't been changed since the previous morning, he still tried not to care.

"Go on and tell me what you're here for. And please just don't say something stupid like that you wanted to apologize for something that was completely out of your control. If you do, I might just have to hit you," he demanded, slightly harsher than he had intended to.

"That is actually what I came here to do. However, the situation wasn't actually completely out of my control. I could have been less of an idiot and I could have not tried to seduce Bakura, especially when I had been informed of your relationship with him just a few hours before what had happened. So, whether or not you accept this, I'm sorry for what happened last night," Malik answered, calmly.

"Just… just get out of here. I need a bit of time to think these things through."

"And… you know, Bakura is suffering because of this just as much as you are right now. Sure, you look physically worse right now, but I talked to him earlier and he told me that being at work was the only thing that was stopping him from running over here and begging for your forgiveness until his last breath. Of course, he didn't quite put it that way, but I think you get it," the blonde commented before turning around and walking away.

Ryou closed the door and slowly walked back into the living room area, the back of his eyes stinging once again. The book was picked up off of the floor, despite him knowing that he wouldn't even get through a whole page. There was too much to think about.