Chapter 7

Ryou was watching the clock, tapping his foot on the ground impatiently. How cute, he (should I call him he?) needed to use the restroom again. The teacher noticed to and sent him out of the room without telling the other students why.

I don't know when the teachers were told the Ryou was pregnant, but I'm sure that more than a few of them passed out when the heard about it.

She let Ryou in a few minutes later. Out of the all the teachers I'd seen deal with Ryou our math teacher obviously did the best. Somehow she managed to make everything look like Ryou was getting in trouble, not that he was getting special attention.

Ryou was a good student, even with a baby growing inside him. He paid more attention for the rest of class than I did.

When class let out for lunch I hurried over to him "Have you made up with Malik yet"

"No" he muttered darkly "I don't think either of us even want to"

"You can't force responsibility on him, you know. It isn't his fault you're pregnant"

"It's not fair that he gets to pretend this didn't happen while I'm stuck dealing with it, and he didn't have to completely ditch me" Ryou looked a little down

"Well, it's Friday. I was going to have a party at my house. If you want to come, I can just not tell Malik about it. How does that sound?"

Ryou looked down at me, I was pretty short, and smiled "Sure, sounds like fun"

"I'll have something healthier than pizza, since you have the baby's health to worry about"

Ryou groaned "You sound like Bakura!" he complained "All he does now is pester me about eating healthy!"

If that wasn't funny enough, Bakura appeared in spiritual form "Only because if I don't pester you all you only eat crap"

Ryou stuck his tongue out at his yami before turning back to me "What time should I come?"

"6. That's what I've told everyone else"

He scowled "Um… I might be a little late. I have an appointment and…"

"That's okay. Well, I'm sure you're hungry" he blushed slightly "I won't keep you"

SC

Joey arrived an hour early. He'd said that arriving early to a party was a way of showing he was a great friend of the host. I told him that friends help friends. So now everyone else would be here in five minutes and Joey was helping me with the final preparations.

"How about this one?" he held out a movie I'd never seen before "It's about some chick who gets pregnant from being raped and it totally ruins her life"

"Uh…" Bakura would kill me if I showed that one "No. Let's stick to happy endings"

"But she finds happiness when she dies in child-birth because she got to leave her awful life without the guilt of choosing to abandon the baby"

Yes. Bakura would kill me very, very slowly if I let Ryou watch this. Heck, he might make peace with Malik just so they could kill me together, assuming Malik still felt any sort of friendship toward Ryou. He had too. Only about a week before they fought the guy had spent almost two days in the hospital just so Ryou could have some company while he was being diagnosed with what turned out to be the baby.

Someone knocked on the door. I sent Joey to answer it while I hid the movie, lest he try to put it into the TV behind my back.

"Hi Yugi" I turned around and smiled at Duke "Where's everyone else?"

"They haven't come yet. Joey came with an excuse thinking the party was an hour earlier than it actually was, and you live the closest"

Duke nodded. He did just live across the street. "Remember when we were watching that horror movie last time and Malik came up with that prank he said he'd spring on you next time? Did you prepare for that?" he asked, looking at the various decorations me and Joey had hung up.

"Malik isn't coming"

Duke blinked, looking surprised "Why not?"

"He and Ryou are kind of fighting now. I didn't want it to be awkward for anyone so I just invited Ryou"

"Why Ryou. Just out of curiosity. Did you draw names out of a hat, or something?"

"I'm closer to Ryou" I told him. Ryou was the one I got along with better, but really it was because he was pregnant. With the baby Ryou was starting to distance himself from everyone, and I was worried that if I didn't do something he'd think we didn't want him as a friend anymore. It was actually the reason I was having the party.

Anzu came in next, with some sort of casserole her mom had made when she found out we were eating healthy for once. Something also done just for Ryou.

After that Tristan came in with a large bag of MnMs that he ate in five minutes. It was quarter past six now and Duke was pestering me about when Ryou would come "Are you use he said yes?"

"Duke, I'm positive that he not only said yes, but also told me he might be late"

Duke was the only gay one in our group. It didn't make much of a difference to us, but it might soon. I think he has a crush on Ryou.

Someone knocked very lightly on the door. I opened it and Ryou stood there smiling brightly "I'm not to late, am I?"

"Not at all. We haven't even put the first movie in" he looked upset "Tristan had some bet with Joey. It held everything up. Your coming late didn't make us wait or anything" He nodded, looking relieved. My philosophy was that if I ever got married and my wife got pregnant I'd cater to her every need, but Ryou still seemed worried about being a burden.

I led Ryou inside where we watched some strange French movie that Joey had picked out before eating dinner. Everyone looked a little shocked to see what had been made for them. Looks like Anzu was the only one who seriously believed I was having a healthy meal for them. Or course, Ryou knew I meant it too, since he'd been told the reason why.

//Yugi, does Ryou look okay to you?//

/He's fine/

//We haven't had a decent conversation about his condition since we found out. I think you should talk to him soon//

/Yami, I'm sure nothing's wrong/ I glanced at Ryou, who was eating the meal we'd set up a lot less grudgingly than Joey or Tristan. He actually seemed just fine with it. /But it might be a good opportunity to remind him that we care. I'll talk to him at some point tonight/

SC

"What's this about" Ryou sat down on my bed as I shut the door "Aren't we holding the others up?"

"They can wait a little while, or start without us. We just wanted to talk to you"

"Oh"

I sat down next to him. Bakura and Yami both appeared behind us, glaring at each other before settling down next to their respective hikari. I didn't like Bakura, but Ryou was really comfortable with him so I allowed the spirit of the ring to come to my house.

"We're just a little curious. The only update we've ever gotten on the baby is that it exists"

Ryou looked a little amused. The look in his eyes read 'that's all you wanted to ask about?' "Well… I just got a check up today so… It's not to interesting really, just that the doctor thinks I'm eating to much junk food and the baby's healthy in spite of that"

"That's great. It'd be awful if anything bad happened"

"Actually" Ryou looked at Bakura for a second then back at me "I…. I think I'm starting to show. It's not much. Just a tiny little bump but…"

"May I see?"

Ryou nodded and lifted his shirt up so that I could see his stomach. There was a tiny bump there "Yugi, what do I do when it gets bigger?" I blinked and looked up at him. He didn't look amused anymore, he looked frightened "I'm… I'm scared of when everyone finds out. They won't treat me the same. I'll just be a freak in their opinion"

"Well, that bump's hardly there. I'd say there's plenty of time to figure things out, but don't worry" I smiled at him "If everyone does act like that, they'll all grow tired of it after a week or so"

He nodded "Thanks"

"Do you know hoe long until it moves?"

"I… I think I got pregnant the day before my birthday… meaning I'm only about 9 weeks along. It should be a while"

I nodded "You'll have to let me know right away when it does"

"When what does?"

Ryou and I both flinched and looked at the door. Bakura growled at Anzu and Joey, who were standing in the now open doorway. I needed a lock.

Yami looked at me, then at Ryou, who'd pulled his shirt down. I kind of wanted to keep looking at the bump, but it must have been creepy for him to have people interested in a small rise on his skin. At least, that's how I think he'd look at it.

"I…" Ryou looked a little upset. He glanced at the floor "I should… probably tell you but…" after a few seconds of silence he looked pleadingly at me. I looked back at him before realizing he was asking me to tell them. Well… it had taken him days to work up the nerve to tell Malik, and he'd only told me and Yami because we forced it out of him… Sure…

"Ryou's pregnant" I told them. Anzu fainted, which had to be a huge blow towards whatever confidence Ryou had that everyone else wouldn't make a huge deal out of it. Joey looked a little sick for a second before recovering from the initial shock.

"How?"

"He's a hera… hema… her…" I glanced back at Ryou and whispered "what's it called?"

"Hermaphrodite" he whispered back

"He's a hermaphrodite" I told Joey "Someone who's both genders"

"Is it okay to call him 'he'?" Huh… I was just wondering about that.

No one answered Joey. The question was either something Ryou was always really sensitive about or he was having a mood swing, probably the later of the two since Bakura wasn't giving Joey death looks.

Anzu regained conscious sometime while we were calming Ryou down and Joey took her out of the room to explain everything to her where neither of them could say something to further upset Ryou.

I was amazed when we came back downstairs and it had only been about 145 minutes. Yami stayed out now but Bakura had vanished. The rest of the night went by without incident.

SC

It was about 6 in the morning and someone was knocking on the door. I got up to answer, telling the others to keep watching the movie without me.

It was Ishizu "What is it? Shouldn't you be at work"

"Oh. I have the day off" she looked off in the distance seeming concerned "Actually, I came here to talk to Ryou. Is he here?"

"He just left" We'd gotten a call at five thirty from his doctor saying he needed to go back to the office. Ryou had apologized for having to leave before we were done and left, looking a little disappointed. Poor kid "What did you want to talk to him about?"

"…Malik" she admitted "It's just… well… he's seemed kind of depressed lately… and I haven't seen him or Ryou together for weeks"

Looks like Malik didn't tell her about the issue with the baby. Maybe he was worried that she'd force him to take responsibility that he strongly believed wasn't his. "He and Ryou are fighting. I think it's actually best not to get involved. I wouldn't want to force either of them into anything"

Ishizu seemed doubtful of this, but nodded. Malik would catch it from her when she got home, I could already tell.

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SnowCreek: Wow…. I'm writing really long chapters (in comparison with my other stories)