Emerald-demoness: Okay, I don't think I'll get many more votes so this is the final poll.

Yaoi: 3

Non-yaoi: 1

What I'm going to do is put Marik with an O.C. girl since his yami is truly stuck in the shadow realm in my story. Ryou will be with Bakura and Yugi will be with Yami. I'll keep the romance non-graphic. Anyway, on with the story!

Chapter Five

Flashback

Ryou was eleven. Innocence had brought home a starving puppy. He knew he couldn't keep it, but maybe he could sell it to a loving family for money. He looked up, startled, when the door was opened. He tried to hide the puppy, but his father walked in too soon. One look at the puppy was all his father needed to go on another rampage.

"How dare you bring such filth into my house!" His father screamed at him.

"But father, it's just a puppy! It was starving and I thought I could-" His father cut him off.

"I don't give a fuck if it was starving! You will never bring another animal in my house again!" His father yelled at him before picking the poor puppy up by its neck and throwing it against the wall. Ryou flinched when he heard yelp, followed by a snap. The puppy lay still. Ryou started crying, and his father started beating him.

'I thought I could at least be helpful to the animals I like so much . . . but all I did was get it killed. Will this happen to everything I like?' Ryou thought, right before the memory went dark, he felt another snap.

Flashback

Affection left his room, as did Sneak, Defiance, Hope, and Trust. Ryou was sleeping in his room, as he always was during a split. They sat on the bed in the neat corner of his soulroom, waiting. Sure enough, another door appeared.

The door opened to reveal the newest personality, Love. He was bruised and bleeding, just like all of them were in the beginning. He was also limping, just like Innocence had. Unlike the others though, there were no special circumstances that lead to the creation of Love. Ryou just couldn't feel that emotion anymore.

Ryou snapped awake, sitting up quickly. He was in Yugi's room, his mind told him quickly. After a few seconds, he realized that everyone was in the room, even Kaiba and Mokuba. "What-?" He started to ask before Yugi interrupted him.

"You passed out, we brought you up here and had Kaiba's personal doctor come over. You were out for about an hour." He told him, worried.

"What happened Ryou? Why'd you pass out?" Tristan asked.

"I-" Ryou paused and took a deep breath before continuing. "I reabsorbed Affection."

"What made you split? You don't have to tell us if you don't want to." Yugi asked/told him.

"I think I'll wait awhile. But, I think I reabsorbed him because I felt affection again. . ." Ryou said.

Bakura nodded and said "I believe I remember hearing you thinking something about family right before you passed out. Since I doubt you were thinking about your father, it makes sense."

Ryou blushed and looked down.

"Aww! We love you too!" Joey and Tristan joked. Ryou just laughed slightly.

"Ryou, when Affection saw Love . . ." Bakura trailed off as Ryou paled.

"I'd really rather not think about that right now, if you don't mind." Ryou told him. Bakura just nodded.

"Anyway, you're welcome to stay here until your father's gone, and you can come over to avoid him when he comes back." Yugi told him.

Ryou smiled and joked "Great, now I just have to have Bakura knock him out when he comes over unannounced!"

Anyone who wasn't staying over, meaning everyone but Yugi and Ryou, left. Yugi and Ryou basically spent the day playing duel monsters (without the Yamis) and watching TV. Yugi got to know the real Ryou, and found that he had trust issues, and was more confident, but other than that he was just darker, no longer innocent.

While they were bonding, Bakura was going over the memories Ryou got when he absorbed Affection. He knew Ryou was trying not to think about the implications of the last memory. He also knew that it would eventually come back and bite Ryou on the ass. Like when he gets Love's memories and can't deny it.
'Why did I have to get the emotionally wrecked?' Bakura asked himself. Then he looked at the other two candidates and grimaced. 'Never mind, Ryou is perfectly fine compared to psycho and friendship-midget.'

'Now, how the hell am I going to help my hikari deal with this?'

That night Ryou had another nightmare. It was a mix of his past fear of getting everyone/thing he cared for hurt and his current fear of what happened to Love. When he woke up, Bakura was there. They were in the sitting room, on the couch with Ryou's head in Bakura's lap.

"I didn't think you'd want to wake up in your soulroom." Bakura told him.

Ryou just sat himself in Bakura's lap, hugging him while silently crying. Bakura was startled at first, but relaxed and did his best to comfort his hikari. They were like that until Ryou fell back asleep.

Ryou had bags under his eyes the next day. He knew Yugi was concerned, he also knew that Yugi knew, mostly, what happened. The nightmare wasn't what was bothering him that day.

'Why? Why the hell do I trust him?' Ryou kept asking himself. 'I can't trust anybody! I know that! So why do I trust him? He'll just betray me! Won't he?'

He was careful to block his thoughts that day, not wanting another opinion. Not wanting the topic of his inner conflict to know what he was going through.

*Yugi's POV*

'Yami?' Yugi asked through the link. 'Yes?' Yami replied.

'What do you think is up with Ryou? I don't think it's the memories he got yesterday.' Yugi asked.

'I really don't know aibou. It's probably something we don't know about. He hasn't really given us too many details. He doesn't trust anyone fully because of what his father put him through.' Yami stated.

'I'm really worried, he looks so . . . troubled.' Yugi said. 'I know aibou. The best we can do is be there for him when he needs us.' Yami told him.

*Normal POV*

Ryou went home that night, thankfully his father was gone. He went to bed as soon as he had eaten and taken a shower. He had a nightmare again. He was comforted by Bakura, again. He was conflicted the next day. Again.

'Ryou? What's wrong?' He heard his yami ask him. He cringed. He was forcefully pulled into the soulchamber.

Bakura was sitting on the couch, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well?" he asked him.

Ryou was silent. He went to the opposite side of the couch and sat down. "You'll slip up eventually. It will be easier if you just tell me what's wrong now." Bakura told him, watching his every move.

Ryou still didn't say anything. He had an idea of why he trusted Bakura, but he didn't like it. Trusting someone was dangerous. Even more so if they hadn't proved themselves.

'But didn't he already prove himself?' a little voice in the back of his mind, which he suspected was Trust himself, asked.

'Hasn't he kept the bullies away? Didn't he keep your father away? Didn't he protect you at the tournament?' the voice asked, without mercy.

'He put me in the situation at the tournament!' He protested weakly.

'But he still protected you. That's more than I can say for your father.' The voice countered.

Ryou snapped and rounded on Bakura. "Why the hell do I trust you!"