A/N: Yeah, yeah, I know that it's been a while... again. I have all these ideas floating around my head but... none of them are for this story, so it's annoying. Thanks for the reviews, and everything else from the last chapter. Anywho, enjoy the chapter, and please review. Oh, and I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of the characters.

me: Thank you so much for the review, and for standing up for me. Makes me feel a lot better.

Yaoi Hater: Yeah, I'm responding to this despite the fact if you're actually reading this, then well, I question you a lot. Maybe it's because you didn't read part the first chapter that you didn't understand that this doesn't take place when they're little kids. And if you hate so much, why do you even bother reading it at all? I write this for my own enjoyment, and for anyone else who wants to read it. If you have a problem with it, go ahead, I don't care. You're just looking for something to complain about, and something to waste you time on, anyways.

Reflection
Chapter 10: Unavoidable Questions

Why was it that today had to be the day that he saw Jono sleeping in a car? Why couldn't this have happened some other time, when he didn't have so much happening in his life already? There were things like how nobody was able to get a hold of Ryou, which at first, hadn't been as big of a deal as Bakura had made it out to be but as the hours went on, everybody kept getting more and more worried that Ryou had been in the apartment while the robbers had broken in. And then there was that other thing of how he and his brother of all people had just confessed to each other, only a few minutes before Bakura had burst into the apartment.

The faint lights of a nearby town appeared in the distance, reminding him of just how far they had driven in their search for the older white haired man. After all, the town that they were currently approaching could be none other than Duelist, the only town in the area and the very same town that he had spent the last decade or so of his life. It was also a good 3 or 4 hour drive from Domino City. Now that he thought about it though, he had mentioned it to Ryou once or twice before, telling him how quiet it was there, and how everyone respected each other's privacy for the most part. He could only hope.

The amethyst eyed boy forced himself to keep his eyes open for a little bit longer though. It would be long before they reached the small town, and then hopefully they would be able to stay at Jono's parent's place for the rest of the morning because he couldn't stay up much longer. That thought reminded him of something that he really needed to do right about now.

"What the hell, Yugi? Why the fuck did you wake me up like that? A 'hey, Jono, could you please wake up' would have been nice instead of you honking the fucking horn, you bastard!" Jono screeched, barely half a second after he had hit the middle of the steering wheel.

"I'm not about to drive you another 3 or 4 hours all the way back to the apartment, I don't think that I'd been able to make even halfway there without fall asleep and driving off the road, and I know that it would be even worse for you. On the other hand, we're about a 15 minute drive away from Duelist, so I'd really appreciate it if you could phone your parents and ask them if we could spend the rest of the night there. If not, then phone Honda," he commanded, in a harsh tone that he rarely used.

"And why can't you do it?" Yugi didn't even have to look at Jono for him to get the point, "Alright, alright, I get it. I'll phone, just give me a couple of minutes."

Yugi nodded slightly, and continued driving, the only keeping himself awake from the reminder that they would be able to stop soon and the sound of Honda and Jono swearing at each other in the background. Sure, the night sky was beautiful but that didn't mean that it was enough to keep him awake at the moment nor did he want to be seeing it. Just as he passed the city limits, Jono stopped swearing at the person on the other end and there was a soft click as he shut his cell phone.

"So, where exactly are we headed for the night?" he asked the tired blonde.

"Honda's, I didn't have the heart to wake my parents up at this horrible time of the day. Besides, I told Honda that if he lets us stay over than I'll say that he now owes me $150 instead of the $200 that he actually owes me. It's probably more than that that he actually owes me from times that I was drunk and he took advantage of that," Jono answered.

"Well, that probably made up for the fact that you woke him up seeming he's usually completely broke and you have a bit of a bad habit of throwing away money whenever you're drunk."

Jono just shrugged at him as he closed his eye to try and tried to get a few minutes of sleep before they got to Honda's place. Then he would hopefully be able to get some more sleep there. Maybe.

"When exactly are you going to get your fucking stupid ass off of that god damned couch? I know that you're missing your new little boy toy now that you've gone and made it pretty much official but that doesn't give you a damn reason to lay around when there's way more important things out there to do," Bakura sneered.

The crimson eyed twin turned onto his back and retaliated, "What more important things? Neither of us have work today, and we've searched almost the whole fucking city, so there's no way that he's anywhere around now. So, the only chance we have of finding him right now is if Aibou and Jono get lucky and find him."

"Oh, just shut the hell up, you bastard."

Atemu laughed silently at his childhood friend, who was currently avoiding eye contact while he drank the rest of his morning coffee. It wasn't actually the time to be laughing though, the knowledge that neither of them could do anything to help find Ryou without doing something stupid like getting the police involved, and the fact that Ryou had gone missing and his apartment was completely bare was slowly becoming more and more real. Not to mention that no one had heard from Yugi or Jono since an hour or so after they had left the night before.

It would have been a horrible lie if he had even implied that he wasn't worried about his Aibou. Everything was overly tense at the apartment, and the lack of contact from the group that was still out was only making things worse as time went on. Sure, he was worried about his Aibou's friend too, but he had only begun to talk to the man a bit more in the past few days. And then the way he had been acting since Sunday, it would not have been surprising if he finally got annoyed with people bugging him and went to stay in a hotel for a night.

"You're sure that they're alright, right Bakura?" he asked, hesitantly.

"I thought that I just told you to stop fretting over your little love bird, you god damn idiot. Are you really going to give up faith on the little guy that easily? He's a lot stronger than you obviously think he is," Bakura yelled at him.

"I haven't come in at the wrong time or something again, you guys? I did come here as soon as I was able to," a new voice added in, before Atemu even had the slightest chance to respond.

A blonde, tanned teenager was standing in the doorway to the apartment, awkwardly watching the two men and obviously, he was rather confused seeing Bakura yell at Atemu. It looked like he had just got there a moment or so before to Atemu's relief, the teenager hadn't even taken off his shoes yet. What was even more surprising than that though, was that he had walked into the apartment without either Bakura or Atemu noticing.

"No, it's completely fine. I did ask you to come over last night, and so, I can't blame you for being so late when you have Ishizu of all people as an older sister," Atemu spoke up.

Bakura quickly glanced from Atemu to Malik and then back again before groaning to himself. There was no way that he could continue any sort of conversation about Yugi while Malik was standing right in front of them. Not while the teenager was one of the many people who were blissfully unaware of what was going on right in front of their eyes. There really were too many of those people.

"Ugh, don't worry about it, it's just as this idiot said, even if you did walk in at the wrong time again, we can't blame you for coming over when we asked you to do so. Besides, the two of us will just have to continue this conversation later on," Bakura agreed, looking directly at Atemu.

"Ok, that's fine then," Malik accepted, without a second thought, "Oh yeah, is there any possible chance that I could see what condition Ryou's apartment is in? I'm just a bit curious about that."

"Of course you can do that, right Bakura? There's no harm in letting him see the damage that whoever broke in did to the place, after all," the crimson eyed twin butted in, finally getting up off of the couch.

The blonde Egyptian thanked Atemu as he led the youngest down the hall towards Ryou's apartment while Bakura hesitantly followed close behind him. The door to the apartment was unlocked, not to anyone's surprise. However, Malik was completely surprised at the condition the place had actually been left in. a couple of things were missing, such as the TV and the laptop that had been on the coffee table, and there were clothes thrown everywhere around the room.

"I thought that you guys had told me that this place had been broken into? There's absolutely no sign of forced entry or anything like that at all. There are just a few things that are missing and that is it," Malik commented, calmly.

"I doubt that it was too difficult to break in. I doubt that he even locked the door if he wasn't home at the time, never mind having any sort of alarm system or anything else of the sort. Things like that are completely foreign to Ryou," Bakura admitted.

"I actually meant to ask the two of you this last night but I was too damn tired to remember such a thing seeming you got me up at 4 in the damn morning," Jono laughed tiredly, but nobody in the room bothered to pay any attention to him, "What the hell made you two drive all the way here from Domino City in the middle of the night? I know you weren't drunk because you're not dead yet, so there had to be some legitimate reason for it," Honda demanded, staring down Yugi and Jono.

"Well, long story short, we're looking for a friend of ours who went missing yesterday evening. He's been really upset for the past few days, so it's likely that he just wanted to get out of town for a little while. However, his… boyfriend found his apartment door open and completely bare of any valuable, including the TV. He got a bit worried, and so, here we are," Yugi explained, with a small shrug.

"Yugi, you're worrying me because this is apparently the short version of the story."

Both Jono and Yugi quickly glanced at each other before Yugi both let out a short, nervous laugh that only gave Honda more reason to worry about what had happened. Honda's visitors looked a bit tense as they say at the table in Honda's 2 bedroom apartment despite how relaxed Honda himself actually looked. Almost every comment that either or the two said made him wonder just what was happening in Domino City a bit more. Especially when one of them had mentioned that woman that Jono had apparently been seeing last week or so. It was no secret to anyone how Jono acted around women.

A loud know at the door interrupted the brief silence, and the person outside yelled, "You two fuckers! I know that you're in there. And Honda, you bitch, some and unlock the damn door already so I can beat Jono's ass into the ground!"

Honda swore under his breath, and quickly jumped up out of his seat to go unlock the door before the man started to shout again, or worse, kick the door to the ground. Yugi groaned as he realized just who it was at the door, not that there was really more than one possibility. The blonde quickly snapped out of the short shock he had went into and ran out of the room, either going to hide in Honda's bedroom or in the bathroom. Not that it would do any good at all.

"Yugi, tell me where that little motherfucker went. I still need to teach him a lesson for not even attempting to get a hold of me in any way. It's been a whole damn month now, and I haven't heard so much as a fucking 'hello' from either of you," the man demanded, as him and Honda walked into the room.

"Jono ran off into one of the other room to hide from you," the amethyst eyed man answered calmly, sipping at his orange juice.

He watched with amusement as the tall, blonde man walked out of the room again, with a vicious smirk on his face. Jono was definitely in trouble this time, from the sounds of it. After all, they had befriended the guy after he had tried to rob Honda's family's restaurant a couple of years back when his family was almost always in debt in one way or another. Loud swearing from both men came from the other room and a few minutes later they both walked back into the kitchen and living room area. The man looked rather pleased with himself, and Jono just clutched at his poor stomach.

"Good morning, Marik. Sorry about not getting a hold of you in the time that we've been living in Domino City, I've been really busy. But I guess that isn't all too surprising," Yugi greeted the taller of the two blondes.

"Ha, I expected something like that to happen to you, Yugi. Half of the time I wonder if you live in this fucking pathetic world or in some dream world that you create in those drawings of yours. So, what has been so interesting that you haven't even tried to remember to phone every once in a while?" Marik asked, taking the last seat at the table.

"Well, I've been busy with a couple of hit girlfriends the past few weeks, and I recently got a job at Yugi's cousin's restaurant that just so happens to be very high class," Jono answered.

"And that means that you've had a single girlfriend who may or may not have been good looking, and then she just so happened to screw your idiotic self over. Then you got a job at Yugi's cousin's place purely by coincidence, and the restaurant is middle class. Not that I was even talking to you in the first place, you damn mutt," Marik corrected.

Jono shut up with a defensive snarl on his face, despite that what Marik had just said was completely true. No attention was paid to him though, because Honda and Marik were both too busy paying attention to Yugi, who had a much higher chance of having something interesting to him. Out of nowhere, Yugi's eyes widened and he jumped up out of his chair.

"Shit, I forgot to phone Atemu and Bakura. I'm so sorry you guys, I'll catch all of you up on everything in a few minutes or so," he apologized, before running off in search of his newly charged cell phone.

"What the fuck have we missed?" Marik muttered under his breath.

"Thank you so much for the delicious meal, Miss Otogi," Ryou thanked, giving a soft smile to the older woman.

"Oh, don't worry about it, because it was no bother to me, young man. Especially after my Ryuji went and said something so rude to you for no reason. So, it was the least that I could do to make you lunch. Just think of it as my way of apologizing for my son," the black haired woman explained.

"It wasn't that big of a deal to me. I took no offense from your son's words, mostly because it was something that I actually needed to hear, believe it or not. So really, I should be thanking him too despite how rude he was being. I don't blame him for saying that."

Miss Otogi did absolutely nothing to suggest that she had even heard a single word of what he had just said, except for a small twitch in her eyebrows. It was not that surprising at all though. Ever since he had been so nicely 'introduced' to her son, Ryuji, he had learned that she was very stubborn and definitely not someone who would take 'no' for an answer. She had insisted that she make him lunch in exchange for the rude words that had been sneered at him while he had been leaving the family's hotel just a bit earlier in the day.

The change in scenery ended up being exactly what he needed. There was nothing that he needed to clean up from that night, no constant reminders of what happened, no need to keep up appearances around other people, and no almost constant phone calls from him. After all, even if this lace seemed a bit smaller than how Yugi had described it, it was doubtful that he would ever some back. So, he really didn't care what any of the townspeople thought about it and that was something that he had needed for a very, very long time.

"So, what exactly brings a nice boy like yourself to a small 'blink and you miss it' town such as this one? Surely you can't be visiting family or anything like that because I know what every boy your age looks like and you look nothing like any of them," Miss Otogi questioned.

"I'm here to get away from a lot of different things. For one of those things, it's almost the exact same as Ryuji guessed, except that I don't have a 'bitch of a boyfriend' who listens to my every word and he didn't finally get sick of me abusing him and called the cops. I do have a boyfriend though, well, I guess I do. It's just a few days ago, we were drinking with a few friends and I fell asleep, but when I woke up I found him making out with another guy," he explained.

"I know your pain in that particular area even if you don't believe me. I have one little piece of advice for you though. Don't end your relationship on something that happened while either of you were drunk because you will do nothing but regret it in the future. Now, what's the other reason that you're here?"

"I moved from England about a month ago, without my father knowing about it. Last week, he finally got a hold of my new phone number and has been phoning me multiple times a day, demanding to know every detail about my life. Also, he won't stop telling me that I have to come back to England for some reason or another. I know it's actually just because he doesn't want me somewhere where I'm able to ruin his reputation. It really frustrates me."

"I can't say I know how you feel. But, it seems like this was more the real reason why you left than the small fall out you had with your significant other. Now, does he know that this was the reason you left?"

Ryou shook his head, his eyes closing in an attempt to ignore the guilt and to give himself a moment to think. Now that he had had some time to think, he could see the truth in both things that she had just said. He should give Bakura another chance, or should have given him a small phone explaining everything that had been happening. Because he wasn't actually all that angry about Sunday night, in fact, he doubted his ability to do something different while he was in that state. First though, he would spend another day or two here, before going back to Domino City. He just hoped it all wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass before that.

"I think that I've come to a decision…"

"Ryou, is that you?"

He had spoken too soon.

"Mou hitori no boku, we found him."

"That's great, Aibou."

"There's one little problem though. He refuses to some back to Domino for a few more days. I was hoping that…"

"I understand you're saying, so don't worry about it. I'll… attempt to prevent Bakura from running over there until tomorrow."

"Thank you."