Everyone in the world had something that they were proud of.

For Edo Phoenix, it was his ability of estrangement. It seemed unusual to those who knew of which talent that he harbored such pride in, for he had various other talents he could choose from—his athletic championships, his PhD's, or the most obvious—his title as a teenage protégé, entering the pro-leagues at a mere age fifteen. But estrangement—the ability to distance himself from others, from memories he rather not remember, from occurrences that shouldn't have occurred—was the only way he was able to cope. Stopped his finger from pulling the gun trigger inches away from his skull.

A fist whipped him across his face. He stumbled back from the impact, hoping the few steps of distance between him and his assaulters would buy him enough time to recover, only to be hampered by the cold, hard wall behind him. He shook his head to reduce the shock. Unconsciously, his tongue ran over his bloodied gums and jiggled the tooth that had slowly unloosened over the past fifteen minutes or so.

Another slap caught him head on, this was an open-palmed one—the most shameful strike to receive—and he was no exception. His expression brazened out with wide-eyed beatific with pinpricks of tears materializing in the creases of his eyes as he crashed to the floor, his elbows snapping on impact with the ground.

A hand grabbed a fistful of his hair. "…not so high and mighty, are you now?" the man hissed. The stench of alcohol reeked into the alleyway. "A little brat like you—try to make fools out'f us? You picked a fight with the wrong guys, man." Tugged his hair. "No duelist beats us an' gets away with it."

The other shadows—punks—teenage punks, older than himself by a handful of years—looking shady in their baggy pants and hoodies—smirked in the background. The man glanced behind.

"Throw me a knife!" he called. A glint of silver flashed momentarily in the air, and then his main assaulter had a lethal weapon in his clutches. Then he leaned in and ran his tongue up Edo's cheek, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake, all the while sliding the blade of the knife under Edo's tie and cutting it loose. "This gonna be fun..."

He leaned forward and pressed his lips over the younger boy's, angrily squeezing his thigh to extract a gasp when Edo refused him access to his mouth.

"Resisting me?" the man demanded, yanking him up by the hair. "Not smart, you little slut."

He tried to jerk out of his ensnarement, but instead succeeded making direct eye contact with he assaulter. As he stared into his eyes, he panic evaporated, leaving an emptiness that filled up the surroundings with a chilling coolness. His attacker's gaze was ferocious and placid all at once, a vivid blue misting with a layer of thin frost that held a constrained calmness, like a tiger prowling in a cage waiting to be let loose. Unable to look at him any longer, Edo shifted his eyes elsewhere.

Without amenity, his fly unzipped and the bulging obscenity uncoiled like a liberated spring in front of his face. It was then the full extent of the situation crashed onto him. With legs paralyzed and knees glued to the ground, he took the swollen member into his mouth, feeling the tartness on his tongue as he began to suck. Shouts and insults were hurled at him from every which way until they puréed into one massive scream pounding at he eardrums. Hands tugged at his pants and pulled them into a heap around his ankles.

Yeah. Sometimes it was easier to forget.

"Don't look at me like that."

Unable to form words with his mouth, Ryou merely blinked in response to Edo's sneer. He was careful to keep his face devoid of emotion. A part of him immediately felt remorse for the younger boy's predicament, but apparently it wasn't the part that showed on the exterior, because Edo mistook his hard stare for disparagement rather than a mask to hide his shock while he regained self-control underneath it.

"…f-fuck it, Hell Kaiser…" The words sprayed from his lips in the form of splutters. "…of all the possible times we could have come across each other…you have to see me like this…"

If it wasn't for the fact Ryou was still residing in a volatile state of shock, he would have made a retort about how Edo was a fool for putting his reputation in his rival's eyes on the top of his list of things important. If the word 'rivals' even fitted the bill, that is. It was hard to define their relationship as rivalry, much less dub each other as actual rivals. It was more among the lines of indifference, vanity, and grudging respect that drew the paparazzi by the dozens to crowd around Ryou and Edo in the coincidental chance they received invitations to the same cocktail party by some Pro-League corporate suit.

A low, throaty laugh accompanied by the sound of fingernails scraping the dirt-cragged pavement brought Ryou out of his musing. "You're not saying anything. Am I too disgusting for words? Well? You're normally so eager to insult your opponents, calling them pathetic and weak. Is that what I am? Weak?"

Half-lidded eyes peered up at Ryou dolefully, as if almost challenging him to agree with the question. The tearstains on his face were evident, even in the dim illumination the streetlights provided. 7:21 and it was darker than hell. October nights didn't provide much light for idle stroll.

"Stop it."

Edo froze. His eyes flickered with uncertainty.

Ryou wasted no time and pressed on, "You're hurt. We should treat your wounds."

Unsurprisingly, Edo resisted. "There is no way I'm going to some fucking hospital and end up on the front cover of tomorrow's newspaper. No way. Uh-uh."

"The hotel I'm staying at is only several blocks away," Ryou replied, maintaining a cool composure. He mentally laid out a plan in his mind and went through all plausible residences that wouldn't protest against housing a surly kid in denial of suffering post-rape syndrome. Halfway through the list, a name shone out from the rest. "Once you're there, I'll call Juudai. He'll know what to do."

He'll know what to do. He better know what to do.

Because Ryou himself had no idea what to do.

Edo's reaction wasn't unpredictable. The moment Juudai's name was raised, his eyes had widened in fearful alarm. But the weakness in his eyes was quickly masked with a snarl. "Don't you dare," he hissed, baring his teeth. "Juudai's a fool."

By now, Ryou had realized it was useless to reason with him. Normally, Edo was already a handful to deal with—bullheaded and stubborn as he was, he would never let Ryou have the upper hand whenever they engaged in their verbal clashes—perhaps it was pride? Whatever it was, the quality was amplified tenfold thanks to the incident he was just put through. There was no way for Ryou to penetrate Edo's mental barrier. Rather than wasting more time by explaining his reasons for choosing the hospitality of Yuuki Juudai over, say, Monkey Saruyama, followed by another round of insults, he decided to move matters along on his own terms. Without a warning, Ryou kneeled down and scooped the younger boy into his arms. He was lighter than Ryou an anticipated and he would have easily been able to carry him without burden had it not been for the outburst of thrashing and kicking feet that accompanied the deed.

"Fucking pedo don't fucking touch me! I'm not some fucking kid so quit treating me like one! Get your filthy, grubby little hands off me faggot—"

"Then walk by yourself," Ryou suddenly growled, patience in shreds and resounding barely repressed cold fury. He released his hold on Edo, who was completely unprepared to support his own weight and ended up collapsing into his own knees. Winces in his movement like a rickety machine were sharpened by the shadows from the streetlight.

"Fuck…"

He glared up at his dark savior. A twitch in Edo's lips signified he was preparing to scream at Ryou for his incapability to be sensitive, but that twitch leveled out once Hell Kaiser Ryou took a step forward and loomed predominately over the protégé using his full height. His eyes remained icy even as Edo visibly flinched.

"Get up." There was no tolerance in his voice. "Get up, and let's go."

The apartment had no distinguishing features to speak of. The entire building was painted dreary beige that blended with the trees around it. Shutter-curtain windows were stacked up on each floor allowed minimum view of the workings of each residence. The only visible entrance was a discrete white door where a speaker and a panel filled with three rows of buttons were fastened to the wall next to it.

Ryou walked full thrust to the building with Edo lagging behind. Taking a moment to study the panel, he rang the bell entitled 23-C. A moment later, a voice came from the other end of the intercom.

"Hello?"

"Juudai. It's me. I'm with Edo Phoenix. An incident has arisen. Could we…come up?"

A pause. "Kaiser?" Juudai sounded dubious on the other end. "What happened? Is somebody hurt?"

Ryou pressed the button and opened his mouth, when he caught sight of Edo's alarmed expression. He stopped, contemplating what to say.

"We can talk once we're up there," he finally spoke, never breaking eye contact with Edo. Inwardly, he was begging the heavens that Juudai understood.

There was a long silence.

"… Ah. Come up."

The double doors emitted a resounding buzz that signified Juudai had allowed them access to the foyer. Although Edo had been boring holes into his skull moments before, he severed the optical link and hobbled in as quickly as his shaking legs would take him. Ryou followed him with a shadow of a frown on his lips.

Once inside, Ryou considered taking the stairs but opted for the automatic transportation of the elevator considering his companion's weak physical state. His judgment couldn't have been any worse.

With four metal walls enclosed around him, Edo began to have small fits of what would seem to have been claustrophobia. His breathing turned into quick, short staccatos and his forehead turned glossy from sweat. He began to sway. Out of instinct, Ryou placed a hand on Edo's shoulder to support his wavering, only to withdraw the hand when Edo recoiled from his touch with a growl and glower.

"I'm fine," he insisted, though they both knew he was lying.

Vertigo was on the edge of overwhelming him when the elevator skimmed open to reveal the maroon carpeting of the 23rd floor. Wasting no time, Ryou pushed Edo into the hallway, though perhaps harder than he had intended to. His shove sent the silver-haired boy lurching forward into the door of a residence residing adjacent to the elevator; Edo only managed to save his nose from smashing because his reflexes forced him to raise his arms and stop himself from crashing completely into the door in the last second.

Cursing vilely, he snubbed all help from Ryou and shot him tirades about how he was fine and not to freaking touch him.

"Which of these is Juudai's?" he demanded curtly, glancing around at the numerous doors.

Ryou gave him a tight-lipped glare before going to inspect the brass number plate on each door. Arrogant, condescending punk.

He finally found 23-C and was about to push the doorbell when Edo interrupted him with a hissed, "Wait!"

Ryou stopped, despite the various voices in his head screaming to do otherwise.

"We can still turn back. Juudai doesn't need to know about this!"

"You said you didn't want to go to the hospital."

"Fuck you, Marufuji!" he hissed. "That doesn't mean I want to share my business with some naive dick..."

A hand slammed into the wall right next to Edo's face before he could utter another word. The shadow that Ryou's leather-clad body cast over the younger boy grew as he drew dangerously closer towards Edo, trapping him against the wall like a cage animal, until his face was hovering directly over Edo's—blue pierced into blue, cobalt versus cerulean, one had eyes narrowed into slits while the other had eyes wide open with an absolutely stricken expression.

"I am this close, Phoenix," Ryou snarled, "this close to royally fucking you up. I've had it with your attitude. I'm doing you a favor—not the other way around. So shut it."

And with that, something about him died. Edo just slumped; the petulant, hormonal frustration of being a seventeen-year-old teenager seeping away, his eyes slowly closing as if he was about to drift into sleep.

Ryou removed his arm and allowed Edo to slink away from the wall. Without another word, he pushed the doorbell, ignoring Edo's whimpers. Moments later, it opened halfway, revealing the smiling face of Yuuki Juudai. He gestured for Ryou to come in.

"Kaiser. Hello, long time no see. I apologize for the additional company but I was having a friend over when you called. You remember Hayato, right? You…"

Juudai trailed off, having finally caught sight of the small, trembling figure slinking behind Ryou, huddling himself like he had the shivers. He blinked, as though his eyes were deceiving him with illusions. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but words wouldn't come as of seeing the trembling mass that had once been known as the dueling icon across the nation.

Finally, breathing in a quiet, apprehensive voice, he whispered, " Edo?"

It was a very nice place Juudai was residing living in. The boy in question was lounging comfortably in the living room, half-facing Ryou, half-facing the adjacent wall where a picture of abstract art hung. One arm dangled off the rim of the settee he was laid back in while the other one brought a cup to his lips.

"What happened?"

Customary question. Ryou didn't know where to start. "I found him in the lane—"

"He was assaulted," Juudai cut in briefly. "The state of his clothes speaks for themselves, and if I know Edo, he's not the type to start street scuffs..."

"Hn."

However, it seemed as if Ryou's stoic expression no longer had the emotion-masking effect because Juudai took one look at his face and read him like an open book, acknowledging that his statement had only scratched the surface.

"There's more...?" His eyebrows creased in worry. "What is it, Kaiser?"

Ryou shook his head. "I don't know what happened," he lied.

" Edo refused to let me look at him, even when I offered him bandages and anesthesia." Juudai frowned, looking deep in thought. "And he had a limp." A beat. Juudai's expression cleared. "Well, at least there were no visible wounds to speak of. Edo's a bit ruffled up, but I think he'll recover." He rose from the couch and headed towards the kitchen. "You can leave," he added, almost carelessly, after a momentary mid-step pause.

"I want to stay," Ryou blurted out.

Juudai regarded Ryou's strange behavior with a glance behind his shoulder. "Ah. And, by the way... you don't have to keep secrets from me. If you know something, spill it." Regarding Ryou's questioning look, Juudai drew his mouth into a tight-lipped smile. "My time with Haou…it gave me an insight into the workings of the human mind. I'm not as out of the ring as you think."

And then Ryou knew Juudai had grown up. He was no longer the same child Ryou had slapped congratulating high-fives with following a stalemated duel at the end of the year. Juudai's entire persona had dramatically changed since the first year. Brown eyes that were once wide with innocence and delight were now narrowed with maturity, and rimmed with thin, slanted eyebrows. Months of maturing had taken a physical toll on him as well. His hollowed cheekbones and angled jawline only sharpened the differences from present-day Juudai and the once round, plump, happy face of younger Juudai. Pride seeped into his stature, as much broader shoulders held himself with a different sense of knowledge and accomplishments. Rippling muscles on his biceps were visible to the naked eye beneath his school uniform.

Ryou's throat suddenly went dry. "Can you help him?" he asked hoarsely.

Juudai studied him, before nodding. His expression was serious, and slightly cynical, with an underlining tone of worried concern—if anything, Juudai was now the mirror reflection of Edo.