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Joey spent the rest of the week asking the right questions, pulling some strings in his social network, and making phone calls that his parents would be apoplectic to hear him making. He even left school at lunch on Tuesday to talk to Seto's little brother about him. Mokuba had been guileless enough to answer honestly, even telling Joey how there were some Saturdays when Seto could hardly stand. By Friday, Joey'd found what he was looking for. He made one last call during lunch, made a sizable withdrawal from an ATM right after school, then went to the motel room to wait, pulling out his laptop as he sat on his bed and waited for the right time.
Seto's second customer that Friday had been one of the impromptu ones, the ones who called for same-day service that he had to squeeze in among the regulars and those who'd made appointments ahead of time. But this client had booked two full hours, and Seto was more than a little nervous. It was a man. Those sessions were always the most painful. They were meeting at a cheap motel, which was just as normal for Seto as an upscale hotel.
Seto went to the front desk and got the key-card, then went to the room, suppressing the protests his soul made each and every time. They were getting quieter the longer he did this, which worried him. He straightened up as he stood in front of the door, then opened it and went in. What he saw made him freeze, then slam the door behind himself before he started shouting.
"What the hell Wheeler? What the actual hell?!" Joey put his hands up in defense as Seto charged forward, looking furious. As Seto made to take a swipe at him, Joey deflected the blow and knocked Seto onto the bed behind him, the impact from that alone making him wince. Joey began to speak before Seto could yell at him again.
"I could tell somethin' was wrong, okay?" he said somewhat quietly, a tone in his voice that Seto had never heard before. "I was able to figure it out 'cause I'm not actually as dumb as you think I am." He crossed his arms. "You've been exhausted and chugging way too many pain-killers for someone our age. Too many for anybody, for that matter. It's not safe, and Ryou told me that Mokuba's gettin' worried about you."
"So this is some kind of intervention?" Seto demanded as he sat up. Joey couldn't tell if his face was red from shame or anger. Probably both.
"No, this is me giving you a break." He tossed the envelope of cash on the bed, and continued, "Do whatever you want for the next two hours." He moved towards the door, intending to leave, when Seto's voice stopped him.
"Why? Why would you do this?"
The voice held such brokenness and pain that Joey didn't trust himself to turn around and look at Seto's face.
"Because no kid should have to worry about his older brother like that," he answered quietly. "It hurts Mokuba to see you hurt, and he's starting to catch on that the amount of pain you're always in isn't normal. He needs to see you improve, and the only way for you to improve is to rest." With that, Joey left the room and the motel, walking down the street with his hands in his pockets as he went to find some place to eat and kill time.
Seto, apprehensive about this gift of time, took Joey's advice in the end, deciding to take a nap. He took off his shirt and jeans and climbed into bed only after locking the door as securely as possible. In the unfamiliar darkness of the motel room, he could still fall asleep within seconds, telling himself to wake up in exactly two hours.
Two hours later, Joey had come back to the room to find that Seto still asleep. He sat in the chair in the corner, wondering if he ought to wake him up. He decided he'd give him a few minutes, since he most definitely needed the rest. Seto woke up on his own, actually, and when he sat up in bed with his back to his friend, Joey's jaw dropped.
"Holy shit." The words fell from his mouth before he could stop himself, and Seto whirled around, looking furious. Now Joey could see his bruises too, and he kept his mouth shut this time, though his eyes were wide with shock. He'd never seen so many bruises on one body before. They must have been what he'd glimpsed last Friday. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Seto's fierce glare silencing any words he might have spoken. They stared at each other in silence for a few moments before Seto turned around, quickly dressed, and left without a word.
Joey felt like he'd glimpsed a whole new world he'd only ever heard about.
Over the next few weeks, that arrangement with Joey continued: two hours every Friday, same place, same time, same payment. Sometimes Seto napped, sometimes the two boys would eat and talk, and once Joey had sheepishly asked Seto for a bit of tutoring, just enough for him to be able to pass the class. He didn't want to be stuck in high school forever, after all. They began to become friends, which was a surprise to both of them.
Joey's and Yugi's friendliness in school also persisted, making themselves a new established presence in Seto's life. Yugi and Ryou helped him complete his deck while also teaching Joey how to play the game, helping him to build a deck of his own. Of course, Joey had been dumb enough to challenge Seto for his first proper duel. Seto annihilated him and cautioned him to choose his opponents more carefully in the future. Anzu hung around them as well from time to time. From what Seto could see, Anzu had a crush on Yugi, but Yugi was entirely oblivious to it. It was amusing to see her vain attempts at getting his attention on something other than card-games.
About a month after Joey made his dramatic transformation from complete bully to a not-so-bad-after-all loud-mouth, Yugi finally solved the Millennium Puzzle, bringing it to school to show them what it looked like when the puzzle was solved. Although he was good at the subject, Seto had never taken much of a genuine interest in history. No matter what the teachers said, he never thought of people from the past as being very relevant to him, especially the ancient past.
Later that same day, he saw Ryou in the bathroom, leaning over the sink with his shoulders hunched over.
"Are you alright?"
Ryou quickly straightened up, putting on a fake smile as he said with false cheer, "Oh, yes, I'm quite alright!"
Seto frowned. "I thought you said that friends don't lie to friends."
Ryou looked startled, then grinned sheepishly. "I did, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did." Seto locked the bathroom door for privacy (something he wasn't technically allowed to do, but this was one occasion where he thought it was justified to screw the rules) and walked closer, noting how his approach made Ryou start to look a little nervous. "What's wrong?"
"My chest has been hurting since this morning," Ryou admitted, beginning to look flustered.
"What kind of pain?" Seto asked. Pain was something he was well acquainted with, which enabled him to help Ryou.
"Sharp," was all Ryou could think of as a way to describe it.
"Internal or external?"
"External."
Seto started to unbutton Ryou's uniform jacket.
"Is this necessary?" Ryou was a private person like Seto, not because he had something to hide, like Seto did, but simply because he was shy.
"Yes." The jacket open, Seto could see the shape of something underneath Ryou's shirt, as well as five little spots of blood arranged strangely on the white cotton. "What is this?" he asked touching the object slightly, which made Ryou wince. He started to unbutton Ryou's shirt, making his British friend blush.
"It's a necklace. My father sent it to me from Egypt," Ryou answered, staring up at the ceiling as he tried not to feel uncomfortable with this.
"What the hell…" Seto's words made Ryou look down, and for a moment he stopped breathing. Seto just shook off the strangeness of the situation and continued calmly. "Do you want me to take it out, or do you want to go to the nurse?"
"You can take it out," Ryou answered quickly, growing increasingly agitated. Seto carefully removed the spikes of the golden artifact from where they were embedded in Ryou's chest, grabbing paper towels and pressing them to the holes left behind as they began to bleed. Ryou's hands shook as he took the Millennium Ring from Seto, staring into its eye as Seto got another paper towel and wet it in the sink, coming back to clean the blood from Ryou's chest. Seto glanced up at Ryou, who seemed frozen in shock.
"Hey, are you gonna be alright?" Seto asked, pressing a dry paper towel to the wounds again. It seemed like they had just about stopped bleeding. Ryou's head snapped up, surprised, then nodded.
"Yes, yes, I'll be fine," he assured hurriedly.
"You're not very good at faking it, Ryou," Seto commented. "If you're going to keep saying that you're fine, you should get better at lying." Ryou sighed heavily and closed his eyes for a moment.
"Seto…" Ryou wasn't sure how to continue, afraid that Seto would think him insane if he told the truth.
"Yeah?" Finally, Seto straightened up, having done everything for Ryou that he could. He let out a grunt of surprise as his friend suddenly threw his arms around him, hugging him closely. After a moment, Seto hugged him in return and could feel Ryou shaking at his core.
"You know I'm not crazy, right?"
"Of course you're not crazy," Seto answered matter-of-factly. "You make more sense than most people." Ryou sighed and leaned in against Seto as his knees went weak for a moment, then he released him and began to button his shirt.
"Thank you, for everything," he said, his eyes on his hands. "I think I'll be fine."
Seto studied Ryou with narrow eyes. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Ryou smiled back.
"Good, you were much more convincing that time," Seto responded with a slight smirk. They both left the bathroom, but an eerie voice was still ringing in Ryou's ears: "Even if you remove the ring, you can't get rid of me. I've chosen to stay in your body forever!"
Two weeks later, Marik Ishtar and Mr. Bakura flew from Egypt to Japan. Marik, sick as he was, had been admitted to a hospital in Tokyo as soon as they touched down while Mr. Bakura stayed with him as a translator, helping him to learn English and Japanese while he recovered. This was news that Ryou kept to himself and his family, not wanting to spread rumors in case his friends did get to meet Marik. He'd prefer that Marik be allowed a fresh start in a new place. That's what he was here for, wasn't it? A fresh start and a new life?
All the while, Ryou also kept the incident with the Millennium Ring to himself, as did Seto, who understood discretion perhaps better than anybody else in their small friend group. He was surprised that Seto never asked him about how the Millennium Ring had come to be embedded in his chest like that, but he was also grateful for it. Seto kept his peace because he figured that if Ryou wanted him to know, he'd tell him. He kept a closer eye on Ryou after that, though, since now he knew that Ryou was just like him: even when he needed help, he kept his problems to himself.
Which included his problems with bullies. Once in a fortnight, there was a certain gang that would come around when Ryou was alone and stuff him in a locker or do something else equally juvenile, cruel, and humiliating. Sometimes Seto stopped them, but it was always a matter of chance whether or not he could show up. This time around, when they tried to steal Ryou's dueling deck, Ryou blacked out, waking up a little while later to find his deck safe and sound. But how had he gotten to the stairwell? Hadn't they stopped him when he was outside? And where on earth had those bullies gone? Even though he was freaked out, or maybe because he was so disturbed, Ryou kept this to himself as well. The next day, he found out that the three bullies were hospitalized and in a comatose state.