Hey! This is the last update to any of my fics before I go away on holiday! I am going to Cambodia and Thailand during the time period of 10th December to 23rd December! So during that time, no updates/replies to messages or anything. Perhaps make this your chance to catch up on all my YGO fics *shot*. In any case, I'll bring my handy-dandy- notebook so that I can write during holidays anyway! Shall be fun! X3

Anyway, this chapter has no POV and it's quite dialoguey haha. There's more Ryou stuff in this one, which is always fun and Otogi's pretty prominent throughout the chapter, going around finding out about the people around him... And Bakura needs to work things out rofl.

Read on!

Chapter Seven: Truth

Malik stared at the two in disbelief. They stared back. Bakura stared. Otogi stared. Malik stared. Everyone was all staring at one another in the midst of awkward silence.

The Egyptian teenager wasn't quite sure what to make of seeing his hated childhood frenemy pin his roommate – one of the few he can rely on at that too – to the wall as if they were about to make out. Malik's blood began to boil. He clenched his fists. And Bakura knew that if he didn't do or say something quick, there'd be an explosion of Malik fury. Everyone knows by now that Malik fury explosions are dangerous and should be avoided.

"Um, it's not what it looks like!" Bakura could've hit himself for saying that. The excuse he used is way overdone and he knows that Malik knows it too.

Otogi leaned closer with a grin. "Then what does it look like?"

"Get off me, damn it!"

With a sigh, Malik unclenched his fists. 'Sheesh, Kura really lets himself get caught in these situations...' he thought irritably. He paced over and yanked Otogi off the white-haired Touzoku boy. "Fucking hell, Otogi-baka. You're like a cat in heat!" he snapped before picking up the pile of clothes and continuing on his way back to his dormitory room. Once they heard a door slam, Bakura relaxed his shoulders and blew a sigh of relief.

Bakura scowled at Otogi. "He's going to scold me later, thanks to you!" The male model blinked a couple of times then laughed, only serving to piss Bakura off more. "This isn't funny, you know! What the hell were you doing?"

"You weren't trying to push me away, you know!" Otogi pointed out. Bakura backed off a couple of steps. Yes, the damn model had a point but he still shouldn't have it! "But I really don't think what you're doing is right. Poor old Malik-san is trying his best and most of it is all for you! But you're too busy pining after his brother who only finds you interesting if you play his game! All you're doing is taking, receiving..."

"Huh?" Bakura raised an eyebrow. He didn't understand what Otogi was getting at. But what he said about Mariku can't be true! Mariku seemed to genuinely like him, even when he wasn't always being a nutcase with him. There was something he understood though. Malik's been all over the place trying to help others, getting the courage to confess and even offering to help him with Mariku... But what had he done for Malik in return? Was he just going to leave Malik with making fruitless efforts? That wasn't fair. How could Otogi observe something like that?

It's simple. Otogi has known Malik for a very long time. He would know better.

"If you're not going to do anything, then stop Malik with what he's doing. You don't deserve either of the Ishtars'."

"I get it already!" Bakura retorted, and then he took off in the direction of his dormitory room where Malik was. 'Geez,' he thought as he ran, 'I want to win Mariku over, not Malik. Why is it that whenever I take action or do something, it's always for him? Otogi and Mariku both seem to think I have to take care of him! I guess all I've done are the small things, but it's always when I'm told to! Isn't this enough?' He reached the door to his dormitory room and swung it open. Charging inside, he declared, "Malik! Let's train for the sports day together!"

Malik ignored him at first as he was too busy changing to care for his surroundings. Bakura scowled even though he figured that he'd have to deal with the Ishtar behaving like this. He pondered for a moment what would have happened if someone other than Malik walked in on him and Otogi. Like say, Ryou or Mariku. It would've been worse if it was Mariku, Bakura figured.

"Malik, we should train!"

"Already did my training," Malik replied with a bored tone as he took off his shirt and began to fan himself. "Why did you and Otogi-baka get so hot and heavy? The atmosphere is totally not helping me. I dislike sweating." He grabbed his towel, shampoo, soap and hair conditioner. "I'm going to take a shower."

Bakura frowned. "You're being weirdly calm."

"I'm not the one cheating on somebody."

"I'm not with Mariku that way so it's not cheating!"

"Now did I say that somebody was Mariku? Eh, whatever." He headed towards the door and saw as Bakura stood at the doorway, purposely getting in the way. "Get out of the way." Bakura placed his hands on Malik's shoulders, taking the Egyptian off-guard. He leaned backwards and fell to the ground, Bakura falling forwards and landing on top of him. "Whoa!" The two realised the position they were in and began to turn dark shades of red. Bakura quickly scrambled away and threw out apologies. Malik sighed. "Well, you were already with Otogi-baka before. I don't want Otogi-baka's leftovers."

Bakura threw the first thing he could grab at Malik. He watched as a pillow hit the Egyptian straight in the face. "I'm telling you, Otogi was doing his usual trickery! I bet you that right now, he's pinning Ryou to a wall and ravaging his face!" Malik leapt straight to his feet in a panic. "You know, I didn't actually mean that."

Malik glared at his roommate. It wasn't that he didn't believe what Bakura was saying about it all being Otogi, he just didn't like the fact that Bakura wasn't doing enough to fight back either. Quite frankly, he was certain that Bakura was capable of better and he just wasn't showing it. If Bakura was to be his slave dog, he really needed to step up his game.

"So you wanted to train, did you say?" Malik decided to change the subject. He wondered if he was letting Bakura go a bit too easily. But then again, he could just pummel some good training into him and all will be solved. Bakura nodded. "Well, I'm not expecting much but Honda is good at those strength events. Also it helps that because Otogi-baka won't bother to let Honda know he's in some big challenge, we have the upper hand! Because Bakura, you and me, we have teamwork!"

"Where you expect me to do something and there's a one in ten chance that I'll do it," Bakura replied flatly. Malik threw his towel and other belongings to his bed and yanked Bakura to his feet. As Bakura complained about Malik not having a shirt on – though Bakura did note that Malik shirtless had a strange appeal to it – the Egyptian dragged him to the athletics track. He dashed off to grab equipment and returned with a discus, a shot-put and a javelin.

Bakura got worried instantly. He knew how to throw those items but that didn't mean he was great at it. Malik is really expecting him to participate in these events, isn't he?

"Right. We're going to get you to be a pro at these events! You're lucky I'm used to chucking heavy objects fairly far distances!" Malik declared.

"Okay, what heavy object were you throwing and what was the target?"

"I threw a computer chair at Mariku once."

"Shit!"

"I did give him about three warnings before I did so."

"Even so!"

---

Otogi had returned to his own dormitory room where Ryou was writing up a report for the student council and Mariku was lounging around on his bed, drawing up an idea for a new prank to play on his form teacher. So what if he doodled yaoi smut on the blackboard? How dare the teacher oppose this! Ryou ended up lecturing him on why not everyone supports smut only for the white-haired vice president to get told that the doodles should've converted everyone.

"Ryou, have you done your report for the council shit yet?" Mariku asked, getting bored with plotting fast. He finally noticed Otogi return to the room and sat up with a grin. "Ah, perfect! Ryou's too busy to make out, do you want to?"

The dark-haired model stuck his tongue out at his Egyptian roommate. "Already done that with Bakura."

Mariku's eyes widened. He didn't look particularly pleased for a moment but then he suddenly burst out laughing. "That's why you didn't return sooner!"

Ryou looked up from writing his report. "You did what with my brother?"

Otogi grinned at his roommates. "I'm kidding! I did talk to him for a bit but Malik-kun wasn't happy about us hanging out."

"Ah, as expected of my idiot brother!" Mariku responded, lying back on his mattress. He chuckled as the bed made a creaking sound. "But I do wonder about Bakura though. Ryou, why hadn't you talked to me about Bakura much?" Otogi sat down next to him while Ryou pondered the question.

"You hadn't really asked," Ryou replied eventually.

"Yet I ramble about my random shit all the time. You should think more about yourself," Mariku muttered, following it up with a sigh. "I mean, look at you! Doing that stupid report for that stupid school presi- oh, you still like him, don't you?" Otogi's jaw dropped at this. Ryou, liking that Seto Kaiba person? But he was so confident over his abilities to observe... How could he have missed this? Mariku saw Otogi's expression and sighed again. "I'm going to go bug Malik and Bakura for a while. See you bitches later."

And with that, he left the dormitory room, slamming the door behind him. Ryou's cheeks went pink as he finished up his report. He placed the report in a file and sat back on his bed.

"I'm sorry about Mariku-kun behaving like that. He usually keeps his actual feelings about things to the side but is comfortable enough to let slip just a little in front of me..." Ryou told his emerald-eyed roommate who watched him with curiosity.

"Indeed," the male model replied, twirling some hair with his fingers. "He acts crazy so people think he's brutally upfront but as his childhood friend, I know there's more than meets the eye. I want to figure him out too," he admitted. It was true. Of all the people he'd met, Mariku was definitely one of the most interesting to him. The more he thought he understood, the more the truth about Mariku managed to slip away. It frustrated him but it also made investigation more interesting. Another thought returned to him. "Oh yes, you like Seto Kaiba?"

Ryou blushed and shook his head. Then he nodded. "Well, I used to. I came to this school really unconfident and Bakura went off by himself because he doesn't really like interacting more than he has to. Seto Kaiba-san was in my form class and I noticed immediately how confident he was. I didn't get on with Mariku-kun back then even though he was my roommate... So I was meek and well, Kaiba-san was so confident and so I admired him lots. I wanted to be more like him. Mariku-kun learned of this and suddenly he decided to be friendlier to me and well..."

Otogi grinned. "Is he often telling you to think more for yourself?"

The white-haired teenager nodded shyly. "Yeah. Mariku-kun pushed me into talking to Kaiba-san more and eventually Kaiba-san invited me to join the student council with him. He said to me that at this rate, I could become student president! Because I felt more confident in my abilities thanks to Mariku-kun, I went back to thinking about how I had feelings for Kaiba-san. Only Mariku-kun knew. But I realised that I didn't have feelings for Kaiba-san anymore because I no longer admired him in that way... Mariku-kun was still egging me on at that stage though and so I didn't have the heart to tell him to stop because it made me happy that he was supporting me so much."

He gasped, realising that he really was opening up a lot. Otogi's expression was soft. Listening to Ryou spill out what he'd kept to himself intrigued him. It only made Otogi grasp an even better understanding of Ryou's next actions. He stood up and began pacing around the room.

"So you thought that if someone else got together with Seto-san, then Mariku-kun would see the situation as 'oh no, Ryou has no chance now, well that's that then'? So Yugi-kun approaching you about getting Seto-san and Yami-san together and you accepting would make Mariku-kun think 'Ryou doesn't want to be found out and being the pushover guy he is, he'll accept Yugi's request!' But really, you were looking for a chance to cast Seto-san aside for Mariku-kun to see."

Ryou's jaw dropped. "How do you know?" He had another quick thought and decided to correct an aspect of Otogi's explanation. "But um, I knew that Kaiba-san and Yami-kun were together, but because they kept it secret... I just wanted someone to bring it out in the open with everyone hearing it from Kaiba-san and Yami-kun themselves! If I just said that they were going out, Mariku-kun would tell me that it's just a rumour to screw around with me..." He looked up at his roommate once more. "But it's amazing that you can work out this much from knowing some basic aspects of the situation!"

Otogi flicked his hair away from his eyes. "I have my ways."

"Actually, the situation got complicated because I knew Malik-kun was perfect for bringing stuff out in the open and he actually succeeded in doing so. The school got in a buzz over why Malik-kun dragged Yami-kun into his spat between him and Kaiba-san but... I don't want to use him like that. He was made to look the fool and I think Mariku-kun didn't appreciate that..."

"Malik-kun seems willing to go with your plans though! Even though I heard he confessed to you and got rejected..."

Ryou's eyes averted to the ground. "I felt bad because I'm just using him. I'm putting him to the test. I felt like if I could have Malik-kun feel like he could open up to me, then maybe Mariku-kun would too. He always helped me so I wanted to help him. To be honest, I wanted Malik-kun to notice this and get annoyed with me before I get ahead of myself but..."

"Don't get so hung up over the Ishtars." Ryou felt like his heart froze at those words. He stared at Otogi and waited for him to explain what he meant by that.

"What do you mean?" he asked eventually as he was getting nothing else from the model.

Otogi bit his lip. The time when they'll find out the truth about the Ishtars will come eventually, won't it? The way Ryou and Bakura were both getting so friendly with the Ishtar twins – surely they'll learn the truth? Then they would regret getting close. Otogi knew that finding about what made the Ishtar twins the way they were today was something he'd never ever forget. And it would forever daunt on him that they were what their adoptive parents believed them to be.

Monsters.

The time would come when the Touzoku twins would realise that too. What would they do when they realised?

"...Have you ever heard Malik-kun say 'Don't get close to me; I will tear you to shreds'?" Otogi asked. Ryou nodded quickly.

"He's yelled it out a couple of times when destroying the classroom... Especially last year."

"Well..." Otogi headed to the dormitory room door. "He learned that phrase from Mariku-kun long ago! I wonder if he still thinks he can say it..." Without another word, he left the dormitory room and headed up to the top floor balcony. Once there, he looked out over the school and caught a glimpse of Mariku heading over to what looked like Bakura and Malik.

About the new knowledge he'd gained of Ryou... He wondered what he would do with this new information. In all honesty, what Ryou had said irritated him a lot. He liked Ryou and all and knew that while he didn't have bad intentions, he seemed to have led Malik on. Even though Malik was tough despite his circumstances, he was still easily toyed with. It's simple to manipulate another through kindness. Otogi knew all about manipulation. He also knew that the Bakura of before – he too wanted to get closer to Mariku via Malik.

From that, Otogi could tell that the Touzoku twins were different. They had a way with the Ishtars that not many others did. While he admittedly wasn't that nice towards Malik, he still felt it was unfair the way Malik was treated. Even though he said people shouldn't get close to the Ishtars, it was mostly a warning about Mariku. Malik had a lot more in terms of emotional scars so getting close to him meant patience and understanding but Mariku could leave everyone around him physically and emotionally scarred.

"I think I know why the Touzokus are so fascinated by the Ishtars. Bakura likes strange and the Ishtars are strange. Ryou wants to help others and quite frankly, those Ishtars need serious help..." Otogi mumbled to himself with a wry smile. As he sat himself down in a corner on the balcony, he had one more thought cross his mind before he closed his eyes. "Still, the ones to be most wary of are Bakura and Mariku..."

---

The day finally arrived. It was sports day and Domino City Boarding School was more like a ghost town as buses took all the students to an athletics stadium. All the students had each signed up for at least one event. The basic idea was that the top students in their grade in each event would go to the big athletics tournament and also the classes that had the most first-place getters would win.

First off was the speech at the beginning done by Seto Kaiba. Again all the classes were lined up with the students in each class ordered by shortest to tallest. Bakura couldn't help but notice that Malik had shot up in height and was now second shortest in the class. Also he'd trained a lot so he was a lot more toned, most evident in his arms and legs. After Bakura realised that he had been checking Malik of all people out, he decided to examine the rest of his class. Otogi seemed like he'd be fairly fit considering when you're a model, you have to keep in shape. Jounouchi and Honda were decent in Gym class and Yami had a general talent for anything he tried so Bakura felt his class had a decent chance of being the best class of his year.

He knew Mariku was likely to be good at sports but his motivation on whether to participate a lot or not was questionable. In fact, while Seto was giving some speech that was supposed to motivate all the students, Mariku looked like he wanted to go back to bed.

After Seto gave his speech, the classes went into the stands to await calls for their events. It was just Bakura's luck that the first years had the 400 metre race, the third years had long jump while the second years – his year – had shot-put. And Malik had forced him to sign up for that event. Oh and Honda was doing that event too. Fuck.

"Go get one for Team Malik!" Malik cheered loudly. He then pointed at Honda. "Team Otogi-baka is going down!"

Honda raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Oh, you didn't get the memo? You're Otogi-baka's slave."

Honda glanced at Otogi who shrugged. He made the wise decision of not asking. Malik had a way of randomly assigning labels to people. It really was one of things best left a mystery. Bakura shot Honda a sympathetic look as he and a couple other members of his class made their way to the shot-put area.

Otogi suddenly turned to Malik with a serious look in his eyes. "Something just came to mind. I left it aside but I thought 'maybe I really ought to tell Malik-kun after all!' So can we talk in private?"

Malik glared. "No way, Otogi-baka! I was thinking of going down to cheer on Bakura properly!"

"What, you don't want to know the real reason why Ryou-kun rejected you?" Malik stared at Otogi instantly after he said that question. Otogi grinned, knowing he'd definitely got Malik's full attention now. "I wonder why he rejected-"

"Tell me," Malik cut him off, his expression and voice now serious too.

The dark-haired model's lips twisted into a devious smirk. "Well then, follow me and I'll tell you."

---

Joy! Mariku chose to do shot-put! Bakura and Mariku exchanged grins as they then walked side by side to the teacher who was taking care of the shot-put event. "Thank god you're here," Bakura blew a sigh of relief. "Please assure me that Malik won't throw a fit if I don't win. I hate shot-put."

Mariku chuckled. "Ryou signed up to be a cameraman so he doesn't have to participate in any events. Normally I'd do one event and then bunk off but I decided that I would enter every single event because then I have a good chance of getting my photo taken! Then I can appear in the school magazine!"

Bakura raised an eyebrow. "Who gives a shit for that magazine?"

"Careful, Ryou writes for that dumb old magazine!"

"And I care because...?"

"Because he's your brother."

"What a shocking revelation..." Bakura rolled his eyes as he approached the teacher. "I'm Bakura Touzoku; I signed up for shot-put." The teacher ticked his name off on the list. Mariku and all the other entrants gave their name as well. When all the students on the list had been marked as present, the event began using alphabetical order by surname.

Of the students Bakura recognised, he realised that he, Mariku and Honda were the only ones who chose to do shot-put. The rest were students with huge, muscular builds that Bakura knew he'd never interact with in a million years. One of the tallest, most muscular students approached Mariku and Bakura with huge smirks.

"You freaks have no chance at winning this event," he told them with a smug grin.

'Oh, he's one of those egotistical losers who think they're all that. Sounds sorta like Mariku and Otogi only they have more reason to be like that, I guess...' Bakura thought to himself with a frown.

Mariku returned his grin. "Alright! I'll let you win if you promise to stop looking at porn during class. Seriously, seeing you get horny during class is the biggest turn-off of the century."

"Why you!!" the student clenched his fists only for his name to get called out for his turn. With a grunt, he muttered something about letting Mariku off the hook. The student threw the shot-put and unfortunately for Bakura and Mariku, he was good at it and could throw pretty far. Next up was Honda who threw it half a metre ahead of him.

'Ah, good job Honda. But sadly I think that distance is too far for me to aspire to beat...' Bakura thought with a sigh.

Eventually it was Mariku's turn. He stepped into the ring in which the students would throw from, completely confident in his abilities. Bakura knew Mariku was capable of winning this event. He took a shot-put and threw it. Everyone let out a gasp when they saw how far he threw it. It must've been a metre ahead of what was the top student so far!

The teacher sighed. "While that was a great throw, you stepped over the line so it's discounted."

Some of the other students began to crow over this misstep while Mariku shrugged. Bakura sighed. The idiots don't realise that Mariku has two more throws and if he lands another good throw, he's nailed an automatic first place. It got to Bakura's turn at last and he was thankful that the person who went before him did a horrible throw.

He stepped up to the ring and took the shot-put that the teacher handed him. Bakura remembered the positions that Malik taught him when it came to holding the shot-put and then throwing it. He held the shot-put near his neck and bent back and forth to gain momentum. He gained enough momentum and strength to throw quickly and threw the shot-put with all his might. Instead of looking to see how far he threw it, he glanced at his feet and blew a sigh of relief. He hadn't stepped over the line.

Bakura watched as his throw got measured and reported back to the teacher who was marking down the scores. He was careful to remember that he had to exit outside the back of the ring because if he didn't, he'd be disqualified. Doing a quick glance over what the teacher was writing as he passed, he realised that unfortunately, he was the fifth worst of the twenty competitors. And two of those five below him made a misstep.

Mariku patted Bakura on the back sympathetically. "Beanpoles like you shouldn't do muscle events!"

"Shaddap!" Bakura swatted Mariku's hand away. He sighed. "Malik will get pissy if I don't win this. Or at least if I don't beat Honda."

"Well, just beat Honda in a different event. Malik is probably more focused on beating good old Otogi anyway! He probably gave you the challenge of beating Honda as something for you to do," Mariku replied with a grin.

Eventually everybody had each done three throws. Bakura managed to improve by a metre, making him the seventh worst while Mariku constantly threw ridiculously good throws only to find a way to get disqualified each time. Some students wondered if he was doing it on purpose or he really was making silly mistakes. Nobody could really tell.

---

Bakura went back to the stands just as the next event for the second years was announced as well as the results. As usual, the top three competitors from each event go to the tournament. Malik shoved past Bakura before the white-haired teenager could manage a hi. Bakura glanced at Otogi who shrugged.

Seto was on a platform on the field part nearest the stands. He got handed the results and read out the winners of the shot put. "In third for shot-put second years, we have Tetsuo Ishiyama... Second is Hiroto Honda... And in first place we have Kenta Iwata!"

The students in the stands all cheered, especially the classes who had a student place in the top three. Bakura sighed as he sat down in-between Otogi and Yami. Yami smiled slightly while Otogi casually put his arm around Bakura. Bakura couldn't be bothered shoving the male model away – Malik's behaviour concerned him more.

With a sigh, Bakura turned to Otogi. "Did I let Malik down?"

Otogi put a finger to his lips. "Mm... Let's just say that the truth can be worse than lies." He nodded, satisfied with his answer. "Yeah, you could put it like that."

Bakura raised his eyebrows. "Do explain." Otogi shook his head. "Why not?" The model shot a glare at him, snatching his arm away. He got up to his feet and began to take off in the direction that Malik went. "Wait!" Bakura ran after Otogi who stopped partway down the stairs. Otogi then suddenly turned around and scowled up at Bakura.

"Malik and I are going to participate in the long jump event! If you haven't signed up then go away!" Otogi snapped. "Don't bother going to him, not in his current state! I told him the real reason behind Ryou rejecting him and he seems to think that you've been using him too!" Bakura froze, bewildered by Otogi's words. Otogi decided to continue on down the stairs and made his way to the long jump area.

Standing on the staircase from the stands to the ground was Bakura. He couldn't move. 'Using him too?' Bakura thought. 'Has that how Ryou's really been treating him? Does it really look like I just keep Malik around for amusement? So that I can get closer to Mariku? Even though there's truth in that, I still want to be there for Malik too. I'm not used to doing things for other people; I'd shut myself into a closed circle for too long that I don't know how. But how does Otogi know stuff about Ryou that I don't? Had they buddied up or something?'

"Hey Bakura... Are you okay?" Jounouchi asked; the blonde resting a hand on Bakura's shoulder. He shook the white-haired teenager gently to help catch his attention and stared at him with concern. "Otogi seemed out of it there. Did he say something to you?"

Bakura turned to face the blonde. "I haven't worked something out." He swivelled around fully and went back up the stairs to the part of the stands where his class was. After doing a quick scan of the class, he found Yami amongst them. "Ah, Yami! I thought you would do the long jump!"

Yami shook his head. "I'm in the class relay, the hundred metre sprints, the two hundred metre sprints and the high jump. All those events are later in the day so I'm basically in the stands all day. Why?"

"I hate to say it but I need your help with something!"

If anyone knows about the background of the Ishtar twins other than the Ishtar twins, it's Otogi. It'll be fun developing on those three in future with their dynamic. I really want to get Otogi bringing out the truth about himself too, he's too busy shoving himself aside and getting the gossip and scandals on everyone else around him. XD Erm, anyway!

Next chapter: Bakura seeks Yami's help and is set out to prove to Malik that the friendship is genuine. Meanwhile, Malik is aiming to get into the huge sports day tournament. Can he get into the top three for any events - because Bakura sure is struggling with that. And what's this about Ryou and ghosts?

Until next time, adios!

Mel-Girl.