(Kai) 21Feb12. To explain Ryou's eye color changing in the show/books. I don't actually know from experience.

Slowly, he ran the brush over his hair, avoiding the application of too much pressure. There was no need to exert the effort, to undergo the pain, of removing the knots from his hair so late in the evening. This was not for looking good; it was for calming down.

Ryou stared balefully at his reflection in the mirror and yawned; the brush shiffed over his hair quietly, leaving the top layer of white in a semi- state of order. The clock read midnight. Ryou sighed, his arm tiring, and leaned over the vanity, head in his folded arms. He absentmindedly twitched the brush back and forth in the air with his fingers, staring into the middle space silently, trying to guess how awfully altered his sleep schedule would be because of the day, and the way he passed out in the middle of it.

What had it been this time? A robbery? A murder? He looked under his nails.

No blood.

He scanned the contents of his room via mirror. Nothing new, save for the red and gold embroidered lamp he'd discovered last week, but his yami had refused to discuss. So what had the spirit been doing with his body that early yesterday?

He'd been shut in his soul room again, unable to view what was happening, and only vaguely aware he'd just gone to bed a couple hours before. It hadn't been light out when he felt the shift.

Ryou thought back, staring at his reflection, on the following events.

The shift had occurred in the middle of his body's walking forward, and Ryou, who hadn't been able to fall back asleep in his soul room, but had just started dozing off, was thrust abruptly into consciousness, both inside and out. He tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and went tumbling to the ground, his schoolbooks flying. Falling was not such the surprise; his schoolbooks were.

It was not the first time he was shift back in the middle of his yami taking the body somewhere; but every time the spirit had sent him to school before, he'd forgotten the books. Ryou lay out on the ground, staring at the scattered texts.

"Hey, there," a voice said from above, as Honda knelt down to start gathering the papers that had went every where, "that was some trip you took."

Ryou flushed with embarrassment, and moved to a kneeling position. As he hastily began shoving papers back into his arms, he looked around; just ahead, with retreating backs, walked the rest of the group- little Yugi, and Jounouchi, and Anzu, all of whom were beginning to turn to look at the scatterment. Honda looked at him gently, as the boy muttered a curse, and handed him the rest of his things. Ryou stood, got his legs working under him, and adjusted to the fact his underwear was on backwards. He flushed suddenly, with this realization, and cursed himself wildly for it. It was bad enough to have a mad-cap crazy Other Half, but to have one with absolutely no modesty and zero respect for personal boundaries... Not only do you take over my body, but you insist on SEEING it also. Ryou thought, loudly enough for the spirit to hear, but there was now a conversation with which to deal, and the boy had no time to discover his spirit's reaction.

"Ah, yes," Ryou mumbled, smiling politely at Yugi, who looked up at him with the expectancy of one waiting for an answer. Ryou had quickly learned a smile, yes, would do.

Yugi beamed up honestly at him, "Great!"

An amused thought of horror flashed through Ryou's mind- What have I just agreed to?

"I'll get you those notes as soon as we get there."

Oh. Notes. Probably on Math. Shudder. If only he hadn't missed school yesterday- he became annoyed- Because SOMEBODY felt like taking a two o clock stroll at the cemetery.

"Thank you very much, Yugi," Ryou completed the required level of conversation and pretended then to busy himself reorganizing the jumble of papers in his arms. Yugi seemed satisfied, and returned to his animated joint Jounouchi-Anzu discussion on new card shipments.

And that had been the most of his day, until about four, when exhaustion came creeping up around him, like Ammit, closing around him from behind in a devouring fashion. Ammit. Such a random thing to come to mind... Ryou shut his eyes; how weary he was, just sitting in his room thinking.

And at four-thirty, his bed joined the assault- its warm comforters and cool sheets, beckoning out, calling gently, making promises of dark, quiet unconsciousness, which would be kept, if only he lay down... oh and the pillow... soft, amiable little whore; whispering its nothings into his ears, as the day (and previous night) came crashing down around him and Ammit the wake-eater pushed him tumbling onto the mattress. And there he's stayed. Completely content, and dreaming, and not caring.

But now it was midnight.

Moreso, midnight and a half.

Ryou sat up, his arms reaching up above him, and his back arching in an almost satisfactory stretch. He smiled. He had finally achieved, after two weeks, a solid eight hours sleep- without his Yami taking over the body, waking him, or... or anything. And it had of course, taken place at the worst possible time. At least he'd finished the homework due tomorrow. ...Today...

He leaned toward the mirror, tugging at the skin around his eyes lazily- he was bloodshot. The stress must have been getting to him. His eyes shut; he rubbed them, knocking loose the last bits of sleep. Again he leaned toward the mirror. "Hello."

The mirror Ryou did not respond, but gave him back the annoyed look he projected.

"You should go back to sleep," he told himself, and then scolded, "You have school tomorrow."

He glared into the mirror, the squinted, as if trying to will himself to sleepiness where he stood. If eyes are the window the soul, he thought, people would think look at me and say, 'Ryou! Why do you look so torn and tired and in pain?'His brown eyes blinked slowly, and Ryou felt the foreboding come up at him, swift and rushing, and it smashed him in the chest and sucked the breath out of his body.

His brown eyes widened.

His brown eyes.

Brown eyes.

"Yami!" he screeched, leaping from the vanity in horror, "What have you done?"

Ryou covered his eyes with his hands, suddenly nauseous, "My eyes! Oh, my God..."

There was a sort of flickering light, as his Yami appeared in a somewhat less flashy manner than usual, and he looked down at his Hikari, who stumbled in his manual blindness, and fell to the ground with a floor-to- butt thud.

His Other Half was openly sobbing into his arms. The Dark looked down at him in surprise- to be having such a break down so suddenly and perturbingly. He frowned. "What's wrong with you?"

A command for answer, less question.

Ryou sniffed in terror, the object of his fears confirmed in demi-flesh, "Your eyes! And m-mine..."

The spirit frowned more deeply; bothered by the feeling of being bothered by Ryou's inexplicable breakdown. "Why do you sob? Why-"

A strangled sob cut through his words, and put his voice on ice. Ryou, shaking, lowered his hands are stared the spirit directly to the face, to the eyes, and a fresh burst of tears escaped him. Trembling in the chords, he whispered, "Brown. Very d-dark brown."

The Dark glowered menacingly, and took a step forward. "No!" came Ryou's voice, a screech, "Don't come near me!"

Intrigued, the spirit shifted languidly back, "Have you gone insane?"

The question held no sarcasm, but spoke of a practiced understanding of the state, and mere curiosity.

"N-No," the boy on the floor glared up at the man, "I've gone you."

A quirked eyebrow. "Explain this."

Violently, with a daring Ryou would never have expressed under normal circumstances, for fear, the boy leapt to his feet and charged at the spirit, and stopped in front of him, "Look at me."

The Dark looked.

"I'm growing bored."

Ryou's face crumpled and his face flushed three-fold with his despair, "Y- You don't get it."

"No," the spirit was unworried and pointed.

"Have you ever heard the expression," Ryou's voice shook, "'the eyes are the window to the soul?'"

"Perhaps."

"I thought maybe it wasn't true- that I couldn't be- that you weren't the other side of my soul- but look!"

The Dark looked again, and said, quietly, "You have very pretty brown eyes, Hikari."

Ryou flushed again, and looked down, the tears spilling freely down his cheeks- his heart pounded in his chest, and the dark that wasn't his yami spread up behind him, tugged at his peripheral vision, and blurred his sight. It quietly snuck around him, and enfolded him, until the only thing he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears and head and face, that burned so hotly, and all he could see were the toes of his yami's long feet, as they blurred in the dark, and it claimed him in his misery and desolation, and the hopelessness built up, until he could feel nothing, and he managed, weakly, as his body pitched forward, and the hot tears stung as they slipped salty onto his tongue,

"But my eyes are green."