Shadow: I'm too busy to come up with something witty right now so – (please insert wittiness here.) x3

Notes: Shonen-ai/Yaoi, which means boy x boy. This time it's Kleptoshipping (Yugi Mouto x Yami Bakura). I've included mentions of Caste, Dark, Heart and Peach, so bear that in mind.

Warnings for implied rape, sexual situations, violence, squick, mild horror, cussing and character death. Don't like? Don't read.

OCs lie within. Italics is anything set in the past.

Connections

"Who are you?" Yami demanded, glaring across the tree-stump that lay between them at the pale-haired youth in his cream sweater. That wasn't Ryou, not in any way, shape or form.

The doppelganger spread his arms wide, brown eyes gleaming in the unnatural light of the Shadow Realm slowly creeping over their heads. "I am a thief and a stealer of souls. Did you miss me, Pharaoh?"

Anzu Nakamura smiled at her new bedroom, dumping the cardboard box of her personal belongings she'd personally brought from her old home in the middle of the floor. She could hear her father – Kanaye - huffing somewhere down the hall of the apartment, carrying the last of some of the heavier furniture in with one of his good friends, her mother – Yasu - cooing to her one year-old little brother Kisho. Her new room, their new home – the fourth-floor apartment in an up-scale block just outside of downtown Domino City.

Anzu loved it.

Domino was a beautiful city – the air was fresh, there were parks and green spaces abundant, and people had seemed genuinely pleased to meet the Nakamura family when they'd arrived, a few of their new neighbours – if you could call the residents of the apartments on the other floors that – volunteering to assist them with carrying in their things if they wanted, offering condiments like tea, bread, milk and sugar to Yasu as 'unpacking can take so long, dear, can't it?' Rolling her eyes at the friendly babble Anzu had trotted past, her hands kept full by her father constantly dumping some piece of minor household furniture in it to be taken and put somewhere everyone wouldn't trip over it on immediately entering the flat. (She'd successfully managed it with all but one item, and her father's yell as he tripped over the doorstop had been quite amusing to say the least. The new neighbours overhearing had laughed, and Yasu had blushed bright red. Anzu, smothering snickers with one hand, defended her choice of doorstop location with: "But it's a door stop. Where else was I supposed to put it but beside the front door?")

Eventually, as the afternoon ended and evening drove on, the family came inside their new home, and shut the door. All the largest furniture had been shifted to its correct place, with a lot of the smaller items positioned correctly as well. The cushions were plumped, the television was switched on, and Anzu plugged in the telephone to the wall and hung the clock above it – it was always handy to have a clock near the phone, as Kanaye often complained his wife and daughter lost track of time when talking to their friends. With a clock directly overhead, no-one could be in doubt just how long they'd been chatting.

The evening wandered away, and drifted off to night. Anzu, sleepy, bade her parents goodnight and went to kiss them both on the cheek, slipping off to her new room (and old bed thankfully – it had taken ages to get her mattress worn in just the way she liked it) to sleep. The clocked ticked comfortably in the hallway in its same old pattern – tick tick tock -, and Anzu smiled as slumber claimed her.

Tick tick tock.

It had been a usual day, really. Bright, sunny, fluffy clouds floating across the sky, busy traffic, Yugi late for school again –

For such a small kid, he could run pretty fast when he felt like it.

Dashing into the school building and diving for his locker Yugi was totally preoccupied, snatching up his books for the day and rushing down the school's hallways with them tightly pressed to his chest –

A hand grabbed his arm.

A thud of his heartbeat and violet eyes narrowed, Yami swivelling about to face the one who had dared to touch him. "What do you think you are -" words slid into a hiss. "Bakura."

"Pharaoh." The thief greeted him courteously enough, lips quirked and eyes all alight with dark, wicked fire that Yami oh-so-hated –

"Let go of me." The former king made as if to pull his entrapped limb back, but Bakura only tightened his grip, unrelenting. "Yugi is late for register." He wasn't going to question just how it was the other could stand before him when Honda had sworn the Millennium Ring had been flung into the wild forests surrounding Pegasus' Castle, described the way the Item had fell, all a-glitter… It was better not to question things where the thief was concerned.

"Tardiness is a vice." Still the same neutrality in Bakura's tone, Bakura's expression.

Yami tried to yank free his arm once more. "Your host is obviously late too if you can stand here and point your finger at me!"

Quirk turning into an outright smirk, wide and curling and deeply, deeply unsettling. "…You're only half of what you were, and half of what you are."

"That makes no sense, thief." Yami snapped, patience reaching its limits. "Now release me!" Surprising Yami, Bakura did as he was told. When the other turned to go -

"Pharaoh?"

"What?" Yami was clearly irritated – the urge to skip the Shadow Realm and blast the other spirit straight to Hell was first and foremost in his mind. But Bakura had done anything really wrong – yet, anyway.

Bakura's face was shadowed by his white bangs, eyes completely lost in darkness. "I preferred the whole, if you recall, but I'll take a half if I have to."

Yami frowned at him at him, not understanding, and then turned and hurriedly left for class.

It was the end of Anzu's first week of school, the girl having just arrived home after a long day. Kanaye, pleased to see his daughter, stopped to give her a hug and welcome her home, listening with a smile as the teenager recounted her day. The phone rang. Kanaye and Anzu, expecting Yasu to pick up the other receiver, continued talking, but the phone just rang and rang.

The answering machine kicked in eventually, the voice of a soft-spoken teenage boy drifting through the hall. "Anzu? Anzu, it's Yugi. Call me back when you get this message, alright?" It clicked off.

"'Yugi'?" Kanaye asked his daughter, curious.

Anzu shook her head. "I don't know a 'Yugi'." She moved over to the phone, lifting the receiver and redialling to try and trace the call but:

"This caller used a restricted number."

She looked up at her father. "…It's a restricted number."

Kanaye frowned in thought. "That's odd…"

The clock ticked above the phone.

Tick tick tock.

Yugi?"

Yugi jumped, startled, his hand flying with the jerky movement and knocking a chunk out of the 3D puzzle he'd been trying to erect on his desk. "Ah!"

"Oh…I'm so sorry." Ryou Bakura stepped forwards into Yugi's bedroom, gesturing rather awkwardly to the door he'd just walked in through as Yugi clutched his chest, eyes wide. "I didn't mean to startle you. Your grandfather just told me to come upstairs…" The pale-haired teenager shifted awkwardly. "I'm sorry. Should I go?"

"No!" Yugi insisted emphatically, snagging hold of his shy friend's arm when it looked like Ryou was going to turn and go away. "You're here now."

Ryou looked like he wished he'd bolted. "…Yes." At Yugi's urging the boy took a seat on the room's bed, the smaller youth looking at him curiously from his own seat at the desk. They weren't far apart.

"Is there something you wanted to talk about, in particular? You don't usually come out of your house unless you're dragged, Ryou." Yugi smiled, easing his perhaps hurtful words with his sunny personality.

"Actually…" A glance towards the door – and why did Yugi get the feeling Ryou was so incredibly nervous? There wasn't anything to be nervous about; he was – "Yes. There was something I wanted to…talk about. Yes, talk."

A few minutes of awkward silence, before Yugi asked hesitantly: "…What is it?"

Ryou looked up at him and Yugi was struck by the warring emotions in the foreign boy's expression, the tremble in pale hands.

"Ryou…?" Yugi took a breath when his friend approached him, took his face with those long, gentle fingers of his and kissed him chastely, sweetly. His lips were soft, and firm and dry.

An innocent kiss, from the innocent Ryou.

Another pause, where violet and brown met and held and no-one knew quite what to say.

Yugi raised a hand to touch his mouth, surprised. He hadn't minded the kiss, not at all, and should he ever like a boy he could see himself falling deep and fast for Ryou but –

"I'm sorry Ryou," Yugi slid his eyes down, guilt touching his heart; "I like Anzu."

Ryou's expelled breath, a cycle of life, in and out. "It's…okay." The boy touched Yugi's chin, raising pretty lilac to look his way again. The white-haired boy couldn't hide his disappointment, but he smiled. "I understand."

About a month later the phone rang again, Anzu and Yasu too busy in the kitchen to go and answer it. Kanaye was out at a business meeting. The answer-phone kicked in:

"Anzu, it's Yugi again. Why won't you call me? You've been avoiding me at school as well… Did I do something wrong?"

Yasu frowned, carefully spooning some feed into the protesting Kisho's mouth. Baby food was already splattered all over the plastic surface of the high chair the toddler was seated in, and all down Kisho's bib. "Anzu, sweetheart, I thought you dealt with this 'Yugi'…?"

Anzu looked up from where she had been doing her homework at the table, shaking her head. "No, 'kaa-san. There isn't a 'Yugi' at my school – I checked. And the number is restricted."

"Hm," her mother tutted under her breath, "we'll just have to pick the phone up in time one day when he calls and tell him he's got the wrong number."

"Yes, 'kaa-san." Anzu returned to her homework. The clock ticked in the hallway.

Tick tick tock.

"Let go of me." It was becoming quite common for those words to leave Yami's lips, but never so breathlessly, never when both his arms were trapped, his eyes were flashing and he were pinned so tightly to the wall.

Bakura's lips curved into their familiar gloating smirk. "And what will you do if I don't…?"

"I swear to Ra I'll kill you."

A snort of laughter, dark and muffled against the ever-present collar around Yami's throat. "I can never die." The vibrations sent shudders up the pharaoh's spine, pleasure or anger or fear or disgust -

"I said let go of me!"

"You can't kill me, Pharaoh…" Bakura's words were little more than a croon, his eyes bright and mocking. "So what will you do?" He bent his head again, forcefully pressing a kiss upon the other, even when Yami tried to kick, struggle – Withdrawing for panting breath, the pharaoh's eyes gleaming murder. "I hate you and yours…"

"You utter bas-"

"You say such pretty things, sweetheart!" Bakura laughed when Yami hissed at him. "If you have such a problem with my attentions, why not let your little light half out to play…?"

"I will not let you touch him!"

"Fine by me." An effortless shrug, fluid and rippling and pushing the two spirits just that little bit closer. "I'll take either half, but something always did strike me about playing with fire…"

"Anzu," early in the morning this time, while the family were eating breakfast. "Anzu, it's about Ryou… And Yami. Haven't you noticed Yami's been acting odd? Please call me back…"

Kisho huffed in his high chair, demanding his mother's attention, but Yasu's gaze, alongside her husband's, was fixed on Anzu.

"Sweetheart," the woman began, "are you quite sure there isn't a Yugi…?"

"Quite!" Her daughter snapped, dropping her spoon into her empty bowl with a clatter. "And there isn't as Ryou, or a Yami either!" Anzu snatched up the bag beside her chair, storming out of the apartment on her way to school. The front door slammed behind her.

Kanaye looked at his wife, serious. "This is really beginning to bother her now, isn't it?"

Yasu nodded, returning to feeding her youngest. "It wouldn't be so bad if the boy called and we picked the phone up – but we always seem to be doing something when he rings, or unable to pick up the receiver in time…" She sighed as Kisho spat a glob of his breakfast out in disgust. "Then we could tell him he has the wrong number."

"…I have to get to work." Kanaye stood reluctantly, kissing his wife on the cheek. "If 'Yugi' should call again…?"

"I'll try to get to the phone on time." Yasu smiled wearily as her husband left for his job, Kisho and the clock the only other sounds beside herself in the now practically empty kitchen.

Tick tick tock.

He wasn't looking well. Yami swallowed as he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, his unmade-up eyes seemingly larger than before due to the deep shadows lining them. His skin, wan, his body seeming gaunter, a high turtleneck jumper burying his form in thick black. The darkness only made him seem that much more pale… The former king touched a hand to the mirror, to his own face reflected there. It was irony, wasn't it? He was a ghost, slowly fading away into a ghost yet again…

The hand pulled back, pressed against the collar of his jumper, pulled it down so the side of his neck could be seen. The mark against his skin there was still red, slowly purpling, dented where teeth had bit and broken skin and how Yami had kicked the bastard that had done it where it hurt, wild and furious as ever.

"What's wrong?" There was barely a flicker of light from the Puzzle Yami wore, Yugi appearing and asking his question, wide eyes large and innocent. Incorporeal, but a shadow while his Shadow controlled the body.

Yami jumped guiltily, hand flying away from his throat. Thankfully his high collar fell back into its usual place, hiding his mark. Maybe Yugi would put his reaction down to surprise, maybe not. The boy was wise, at times utterly profound, but at others he was so blindingly naïve…

"Everything's fine, aibou." The old lie slipped out, Yami's smile thin and forced.

Yugi looked at him solemnly. "You look terrible. I'm looking terrible – not so much as you, as the effects fade when I regain control but -" A step forward, translucent fingers raised to touch Yami's cheek, hovering just above the surface of skin. "You look ill, Yami. Can't you sleep? Can't you eat?"

"I don't eat, aibou." Yami's smile was a little warmer this time, more natural. "You know that."

"And yet my food doesn't seem to nourish you anymore." Pleading for an answer…

Truth: "My dreams are haunted."

Question: "By what? Egypt?"

Half-truth: "Darkness."

Question: "…Can I help?"

Lie: "No."

Yugi most certainly could help, but Yami wasn't going to let him. Not at all, not ever. Not the way Bakura was… And Bakura was just too damned clever now to be called into a Shadow Game.

Yami was stuck.

Anzu dragged her feet as she climbed the stairs up to her apartment, trying to put off reaching home as long as possible. She'd been and bought groceries for her mum as she knew they'd been a little low on the staples – bread, cookies, butter, chocolate, ice-cream -, and now she was oh-so-slowly ascending the stairs, not wanting to go home and be interrogated about some strange boy she didn't even know.

"Anzu?" A voice calling her name from behind her made Anzu pause mid-step, retreating backwards to the floor she'd just departed to smile at the elderly neighbour who'd just called her name. Tanaka Hiromuri was a lovely woman who had apparently lived in the block for years – so she'd told Anzu's mother the day they'd moved in, anyway -, and she had always been kind, and friendly. Widowed for some sixteen years she had three cats – Jingle, Spinx and Loo-la -, one of the felines sliding out of Hiromuri's part-open door to rub against Anzu's ankles, purring. Tanaka herself blinked worriedly. "Is the elevator broken?"

"No, Tanaka-san." Anzu shook her head, smiling gently. "I just felt like taking the stairs."

"But it's four flights of stairs! And you must have had a long day at school…"

"I felt like the exercise, Tanaka-san."

"Hm," the old lady flapped the comment off, "are you all settled in your new home now?" The Nakamuras had been in their apartment for just over two months.

"Yes," Anzu nodded, "Kisho loves his new room that Oyaji-sama painted for him."

"And you yourself? Settled in your new school well?"

"Wonderfully." Another smile – Anzu really did love her new school. A sudden thought struck the teenager, and she shifted the bag of groceries in her arms so they wouldn't slip while she was talking. "…Who lived in my family's apartment before my family, Tanaka-san? If you know?"

Hiromuri smiled brightly. "A couple – newlyweds, they were. They had the flat for three years or so before his job moved them to Tokyo."

"Before that…" Anzu hesitated, not quite sure if she wanted the answer to the question at the forefront of her mind, "Tanaka-san, was there ever a girl called Anzu who lived in the flat?"

"Anzu?" The widow thought for a few moments in silence, before her smile broadened and she nodded. "Yes! She was a young girl, quite pretty, with blue eyes and brown hair. Such a friendly child – she was a dancer, you know."

"How long ago was that?"

"Hm…" Another few seconds while Tanaka thought, "at least thirty years ago? Anzu-chan's family moved out to the suburbs, and Anzu-chan herself went to New York to study dancing. She bought me some flowers before she left."

"That was nice of her…" Anzu bowed her head politely, privately worried. "Thank you for speaking to me, Tanaka-san." She scuttled off, taking the last stairs up to her home quickly now.

The phone was thankfully silent when she got in, the only sound the ticking clock.

Tick tick tock.

"I'm sorry, Yugi; I suck at logarithms." Anzu Mazaki smiled resignedly at Yugi, dropping the pencil she'd been using to help her try and explain the awkward maths problems they'd been set in class.

"It's okay Anzu…" Yugi returned the smile as brightly as ever, "thank you for trying."

"I just wish I could have been more help -"

"…Is something wrong?" Another voice broke into their discussion, Yugi whirling about in his seat –

And flushing bright red when his nose smacked into something warm and firm and smelling faintly of cocoa.

"Ryou." Anzu was smiling somewhere over Yugi's head and Yugi looked up, realizing he'd just turned around into Ryou Bakura's chest – the foreign boy had been leaning over him? "Could you help Yugi with his maths?" The brunette waved a sheet of near-illegible mathematical-looking scribbles the albino's way. "You're much better at it than I am."

"Sure." Ryou took the seat Anzu vacated for him, pulling the maths textbook the girl and her best friend had been working from before towards him. "What seems to be the problem?"

Yugi stared at the other boy. Ryou was just so –

Brown eyes looked up at Yugi and for a second something unnameable, unverifiable, flashed in them. Yugi's mouth went dry.

"Yugi?" Ryou repeated his question, seemingly not affected at all. "What seems to be the problem?"

His companion swallowed, before pointing to his work. "It's these logarithms…"

The phone rang during dinner. Kanaye waited a few moments for the answer-phone to pick it up:

"Anzu? It's me, Yugi. Anzu you've never ignored me before, and I -"

The man abruptly abandoned his food, moving to snatch up the receiver. "Excuse me, but -" He halted mid-sentence, frowning. His wife and daughter looked up at him, curiously, and Kanaye held out the receiver, as if surprised. "…He hung up."

The clock beside him laughed.

Tick tick tock.

"I'm not dueling you, nor will I play any other game."

"You're a coward." Yami's lips were curved in a snarl, anger sweeping through his system in an unstoppable wave.

"Perhaps in you opinion, but in my own I am quite glad I am not a fool." Bakura reached out to touch a hand to the monarch's cheek, lips twitching in amusement when the other flinched away from him. "Why would I play a game against the King of Games? I'd much rather play with him in a different sense…"

"Bastard." Insofar Yami had evaded the other's grasp, but had unable to avoid the thief's company altogether. "Is the only reason you're doing this to fuck with my mind?"

"Isn't that my reason for doing everything?" Mocking, cruel glint of brown. "It most certainly isn't your delightful company – I've met more sociable asps."

"And my aibou?"

"That naïve idiot? He's sweet, I suppose, in the way foolish little lambs are before they get their throats slit."

"Touch him and you'll live to regret it, thief."

Bakura laughed. "Now what fun would it be if only one half of the Morning Star cursed my name? I'd rather be wholly-damned, anyday."

"…It's about Bakura…"

Anzu pressed herself into the hallway wall, biting back the urge to just scream. These calls, this Yugi – why was he calling? Anzu didn't know him! Anzu didn't want to know him! 'Yugi' could take his 'Yami', and his 'Ryou' and his 'Bakura' and got to hell – Anzu was sick of his anguished, anguished voice on the answer-phone! She had her own problems to deal with – why did 'Yugi' insist on trying to burden her with his? Her parents were getting more and more edgy with each phone-call as well – it was hell just expecting the phone to ring, only to know when you went to answer it would stop ringing before you got there, or if you let it be, the voice of Yugi drifted out pleading in his mournful voice. It was depressing, and it was beginning to get the Nakamura family down.

And – what about this Anzu? The other Anzu, for surely 'Yugi' could not be calling her. She'd never met a Yugi in the entirety of her life… Was it the Anzu who had lived in the apartment thirty years previously? It could be but then…why would a boy sounding her age be calling someone who had to be in their forties now, talking about school?

"…Anzu, please call me back? I miss you."

Anzu took a deep breath, closing her eyes and counting to ten. She was going mad, she knew it. There was no way she could carry on like this…

Wait. Tanaka-san, on the floor below-! Anzu fled her apartment, running down the stairs to the floor below –

The door slammed behind her; the clock ticked patiently.

Tick tick tock.

The Memory World… Yami let his gaze rake the world of his past, sharp gaze taking in the mighty Egyptian city below his balcony and remembering none of it. He still couldn't recall his name, despite being here, the cartouche Anzu had given him that hung around his neck still hopelessly blank. He still thought of himself as 'Yami', by the name his aibou had given him, but the people of this time called him nought but 'Pharaoh'…

Yami took a sip of heated wine from the cup he cradled to him, his long cloak around him warding off the night's chill as he watched the stars come out, ancient constellations take up their positions in the sky. His drink tasted a little odd but he merely assumed it to be flavoured spices, returning inside to his large sleeping quarters after he'd drained every drop. The alcohol warmed his insides, spreading heat to the very tips of his fingers as he slipped between the thin sheets of his bed, carefully resting his neck on the headrest. He was just…now…so very tired…

…He only knew he was awake by the sound of the throbbing in his skull, his own heartbeat pounding away at his temples. His head felt heavy, dull, his limbs dead weights that pressed into the flat bed beneath him. The weave dug into his skin, the sheets twisted about his legs and he felt hot – too hot –

Groaning, Yami let his eyes slide half-open, vision swimming and world spinning.

"So you're finally awake…" Blurred movement above him, white-red-silver-gold-tan-pale giddy and whirling. Yami felt sick just looking at it and he closed his eyes, head already too screwed up to be thinking so hard.

"You…" The other's tone was familiar, hand drifting down his chest cool and unsettling and – "Don't touch me." Yami struggled for coherency but his words were slurred, his movements slow and difficult as he tried to evade the hold that was touching him where it shouldn't. He was Pharaoh…

"You're in no condition to complain." Annoyance.

"You…" Yami was aware of sleep calling to him once more, blackness sweet and inviting, "drugged me?" He could feel the smile, body pressing against his chest and making it even harder to breathe, lips moving along his neck in a parody of affection.

Hot breath against the king's ear: "Well done, Pharaoh." And still the voice was so familiar…

"You -"

"Would you like something to drink, oh Horus-upon-earth?" A bowl was pressed up to Yami's lips, something acrid-smelling and wet sloshing against his closed mouth with the movement. Thick…sticky where it touched skin. Yami opened his lips to deny the drink but it was already being poured inside – when he struggled he was held down. Liquid filled his mouth, bitter, metallic, ran down his chain when he tried not to swallow but then he choked –

Eventually, Yami drank, exhausted, drugged and only half-conscious. The taste of whatever it was his assailant poured down his throat made him want to gag, but he was prone when the bowl was taken away from his lips, sliding into black and unconsciousness even as he felt a hand creep for the kilt he wore around his lower half –

…

The shattering of a vase and a scream awoke him.

Yami jolted awake, pain shrieking through him at the action, his hands clenching in his scarlet-stained sheets as his eyes met the frightened gaze of a female servant stared at him in absolute terror –

…Scarlet? He was covered in thick, sticky, red, cloying and thick and turning brown, dark brown. It dribbled down his face and he could taste copper-

Blood.

Something within Yami twisted, churned, and he scrambled from the bed, fire blazing up his spine and down his legs. Pain dropped him to the floor, his stomach roiling and rolling and rebelling against him as he retched violently, bile thick and pink and red red red –

"Pharaoh!" Hands on his back, worried eyes, worried faces. Mahado, headdress askew, Seth, hat completely abandoned, crimson footprints on the floor, scarlet sticky palms. Blood everywhere, covering him.

Yami felt violently ill. He'd drank blood…? More pain up his spine. So…the blood wasn't all.

Tanaka-san had been more than happy to help. Inviting Anzu in for a drink the girl had gone willingly, broaching the topic of her predecessor carefully and prodding around the subject of 'Yugi' –

And of course the previous Anzu – Anzu Mazaki, Anzu Nakamura learned – had had a best friend called Yugi…

"He was a duelist. In one of the old popular card games, you know?" Hiromuri had brought an old photograph of two teenagers: a picture of a pretty blue-eyed brunette, and a slightly shorter smiling boy with strange hair. The girl of course was Anzu, the boy Yugi. And Yugi had such wide, innocent eyes…and a weird necklace hanging from a chain about his neck. The elderly woman pointed to the necklace. "He always wore that…and then one day he suddenly stopped." Tanaka sighed. "Shortly after that he stopped visiting with Anzu-chan. I never saw him again, which is a pity."

"What did Anzu say?" Anzu asked quietly, mind trying to process the information that had been given to her.

"She said she didn't want to talk about it."

"So he's gone…"

"Yeah."

Ryou and Yugi stood awkwardly after the Ceremonial duel. Yami – no, Atemu had lost, and moved on to the afterlife, leaving Yugi alone.

"I'm sorry," Ryou voiced quietly, hanging his head low.

Yugi looked at him, frowning. "You have nothing to apologise for."

His friend shook his head. "I have a thousand things to apologise for, and I doubt I've even managed to do half of them yet." Yugi looked confused, so Ryou shook his head again. "It doesn't matter for now."

The phone-calls began to increase in regularity, calling all hours of the day and night. When one phoned at three am, waking them all up, Kanaye stormed from his bed. As Kisho began to squall, the slowly becoming familiar voice arose from the answering machine:

"Anzu, please. I know you're there – why won't you pick up?"

Kanaye yanked the cord plugging the phone into the wall from its socket, and thundered back to bed. Balefully, Anzu stared at the dead phone, before creeping back to her own slumber.

…Seven o' clock the same day, the phone rang again, Yugi speaking once more:

"Anzu, you don't know what he's done. I know you've seen things before and now he – Please, Anzu, I'm so scared."

Kanaye looked up from his breakfast, glaring around at his family gathered around the kitchen table getting their sustenance for the day. "Who plugged in the phone again?" Yasu, Anzu and Kisho were silent, tense and cowed. Scowling at the lack of a reply, Kanaye stood up, his chair screeching on the floor, and stomped over to the phone. There was no dial tone, and the cord was still unplugged from the wall.

The clock ticked mockingly at them all. Tick tick tock.

Ryou and Yugi lay together on Yugi's bedroom floor, puzzling through their homework. Well, procrastinating from puzzling through their homework. Yugi was busy chattering about Anzu, and her dreams of becoming a dancer.

Interrupting his friend, Ryou cut in: "Do you still like her?"

"Yes." Yugi nodded simply. "I always have."

Ryou leaned in, and kissed him quite firmly on the lips. Pulling back, and asking seriously: "Do you still like her?"

Yugi blinked at the other boy, his answer more hesitant the second time. "Yes…"

Ryou leaned forwards again, kissing him more strongly – and this time didn't withdraw until a good few minutes had passed. "…Do you still like her?" His voice was rough. "Even when you know she's going to leave you behind at the drop of a hat to run to New York?"

Yugi stared at his friend, noting the depths of Ryou's eyes, the tangled spikes of the albino's hair. "…You're not Ryou."

"No." Short reply, annoyance slanting thin eyebrows down.

"Ryou never liked me, did he?"

"No." Yugi temporarily lost all speech and so Bakura leaned in a third time to try and take advantage but –

Yugi raised a hand, pushing the other away, and squirmed out of Bakura's grasp. "I can't kiss you."

Bakura looked irritated. "Why the hell not? I'm a good kisser."

Yugi felt his lips quirk at the other's arrogance – but forced his mirth down sternly. "You tried to steal my Millennium Puzzle, and kill both my yami and myself."

"And I failed rather miserably, didn't I?" Slight bitterness, Bakura reaching for Yugi again –

"How do I know you won't try to kill me in my sleep?"

Bakura looked at him, expression lightening to vague, cynical amusement. "If I was going to kill you, isn't it more my style to do it when you're awake?"

"True…"

"And what I kill you for, anyway?" The thief gestured to Yugi's – noticeably bare – throat. "In case you didn't notice, the Millennium Puzzle is long gone, buried beneath Egypt's sands."

"As is the Ring." Yugi kept backing away as the other tried to grab hold of him. "How are you still here?"

"How the hell should I know?" Bakura smirked when Yugi stumbled over a pile of books, smacking into the wall where the tomb-robber come pin him. "Got you."

Yugi had the sense to look wary.

The internet was a wonderful thing. Anzu Nakamura had sat down before her PC and typed 'Anzu Mazaki' into Google, not really expecting anything to come up but – lo and behold! The woman was a dance instructor, teaching various forms up in northern Japan…

It was quite a prestigious dance academy, according to the website. People travelled from around Japan to join, and there was a waiting list to get in. Browsing through the many pages Anzu was deeply absorbed, never realising just how many different types of dance there were. She'd always just thought of dance classes as teaching 'ballet' and 'everything else', but it seemed there were so many subcategories.

And then Anzu hit the jackpot. 'Anzu Mazaki' had a contact email address.

This defied all belief. Yugi had never thought himself the passionate type, never thought himself beautiful or awe-worthy or great…and yet Bakura pushed him against the wall and ravaged him like some unstoppable forest fire, burning and licking and hot and whispering sweet deadly promises that hurt Yugi's head to think about in too much detail. One caved into Yami Bakura eventually, it seemed. Always. The thief was just so…so persistent.

Groaning Yugi felt his mouth covered with another's, a denim-clad leg push between his own two and pin him firmly in place. The wall was hard and Bakura was firm and attentive, and Yugi threw himself to the fire in an action most would deem pretty suicidal. Yugi still hadn't told anyone of Bakura's 'return' – had the other ever actually left to start with? Yugi hadn't told them of his and Bakura's 'relationship', now having gone on for just over a month. Yugi hadn't told them Bakura regularly took over Ryou's protests and kissed him soundly until Yugi could think of nothing but BakuraBakuraBakura and colours whirled behind his closed eyes from lack of breath. Yugi hadn't told anyone anything.

Bakura was quite happy with that.

Mazaki-sensei had replied to Anzu's email. Fearing the innocently glowing email in her inbox Anzu hovered her mouse over it, almost afraid to read the insofar unopened contents. Taking a deep breath, gathering her courage, Anzu finally clicked it. The email opened, the page loaded, and the message was quite simple. Reading towards the end:

…Nakamura-san, I don't think it's possible for my friend to have been the one phoning you. I really don't. I assure you.

Yours sincerely, Mazaki Anzu

Anzu frowned, frustrated at such an unhelpful reply, typing a hasty 'Why not?' and sending it before she could think twice. She attached no honorifics, no other words or questions or signatures, only her issue.

The clock ticked out in the hallway, almost laughing.

Tick tick tock.

Lying in bed together was peaceful, Yugi concluded, even if the one you were lying beside was prone to shifting every so often, vaguely irritable. Yugi didn't care, too lazy to even raise his head from where it cushioned itself on his arm, sated from their activities before.

"We'll probably have to get a shower soon." Bakura broke the silence, hooking fingers beneath Yugi's chin roughly to drag a sleepy violet gaze up to look at his own. "Unless you wish to give your grandfather a heart-attack when he walks in on us like this?" Yugi let out a low grumble in the back of his throat, but began sitting up, sliding the covers back so he could stumble to the bathroom to get clean. Bakura's hand brushed his back, for once unusually gentle. "…Your darker half and you look greatly similar without your clothes…"

Yugi froze, stiffening in the act of sliding a shirt down over his head. "You…did this with At –Yami?" He looked back over his shoulder at his lover, something unnameable churning in his stomach. Worry. Fear. Dread.

Bakura's smirk was languid. "Afraid to speak his name in front of me?"

"You were never a friend of his." Yugi's words were clipped, disliking the smirk. Bakura hadn't smirked at him since they'd gotten 'together' – not like that. That smirk was reserved for pre-relationship Bakura, the evil bastard. Yugi's dread increased tenfold. "Why would he have let you touch him?"

"Jealous?" The former thief was still being infuriatingly oblique. "I thought you and he used to talk about everything. Hm," a brief bark of laughter, "maybe I was just his dirty little secret?"

"He hated you!" Yugi snapped, bristling at the jab. "He would've never -" Memories flashed into his mind then, streaked images of wan skin and tired eyes and smiles that never reached the soul. Yami jumping when questioned, his short answers, his nervousness – "You forced him." Yugi's eyes narrowed in anger. "How did you mange to force him?"

"That's for me to know and -"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence!" Yugi leapt up from the bed, eyes suddenly gleaming murder. "What did you do to Yami?! How dare you?!"

Bakura sighed, impatiently stretching out hand to grab the boy's arm. "Yugi -"

"Don't touch me," Yugi hissed, pulling back.

"Yugi!" More irritated than anything Bakura snatched for the other again, but Yugi stepped back from him, still furious. "You little -"

"You hurt Yami!"

Bakura scowled, grabbing his own shirt and pulling it on, his boxer shorts. "Of course I hurt the bastard!! Did you pay no attention in the Memory World?!"

"Of course I did!!" Yugi back-stepped when the other snatched at him, tried to run for the door but Bakura blocked his way. "You asshole – it was Yami's uncle who murdered your family, not my yami!! And now – what exactly did you do to him?!"

"I raped him."

Yugi gaped, words deserting him. That the other could say that so calmly, so matter-of-factly…

"And I suppose you could say I mentally tortured him up until that point – I wouldn't leave him alone." Bakura looked up, his jaw fixed rigidly as he glared at Yugi. "What other way was there to get power over Pharaoh? I would've gladly humiliated either of you but he took the brunt – how pathetic it is that both halves of the Pharaoh developed such a tragic martyr complex!"

Yugi scowled. "Don't you dare sneer at me, Bakura. What right do you think you have to do such a thing?"

"He was determined I should never touch you." Bakura's eyes gleamed, malicious. "He did everything he could to stop me. I do believe I took great pleasure in wrecking all his pretty work…" Yugi's hand flew to his mouth – he now felt physically sick. Yami… "Now," Bakura approached the smaller youth again, still blocking the way to the door, "come here."

Yugi shook his head, suddenly frantic to get away, to find some way to escape –

His eyes fell on the window leading to the roof. Scrambling for it Yugi managed to push it open, slide out onto the tiles and the night open above him, but Bakura grabbed his ankle. He shook the thief's grasp off and tried to slam the glass down onto the tomb-robber's head, but Bakura shoved and Yugi went sprawling over the Game Shop roof. While Yugi tried to get to his feet Bakura climbed out onto the roof himself, much more agile on the slippery surface than the other youth.

"Yugi-!"

"No!" Yugi backed away from him. "Bakura, you utter bastard, I'll -"

"You'll what, Yugi?" Bakura lunged forward with alarming speed, seizing hold of the smaller male's arms, pinning them to Yugi's side. "Kill me? Don't make me laugh! You're pathetic!"

"I'll tell the Ishtars you've returned." Yugi glared at the other, fighting to be free. "I'll have them take you and seal you away in those accursed tombs you used to seal so much, have you locked away -"

It was the final straw. Bakura had hated his time imprisoned in the Ring, was determined never to be forced into captivity again. The slightest mention of such a thing can tip the already precariously-placed balance and send everything over, over, over, and the world was a spinning whirl of colours to Yugi as suddenly his feet had nothing under them and he was falling through air.

The scales toppled with a crash.

Anzu Nakamura sat terrified in her once-new bedroom, another new email from one Anzu Mazaki sitting in her inbox. Her reply. Around the girl were all her belongings, the things she'd brought from her old home, but they brought her no comfort. All Anzu felt as she stared at the new email was cold, sinking dread.

Out in the hallway, the phone began to ring.

"Anzu? Anzu? It's Yugi. You never called."

Anzu opened the email.

"I'm worried. Yami's gone now and Ryou…has been acting strangely. Anzu, about Bakura -"

Mazaki-sensei had tried to ease her words in her email, but Anzu was quite smart enough to pick out the answer to her question.

…Nakamura-san, Yugi couldn't have called you. I know this for a fact. 'Why,' you asked me in your last email? I'll tell you. Yugi Mouto, my once long-time best friend, is dead. He fell off of his roof some thirty years ago, back before I moved to New York to study dancing, and died on the way to hospital. He's quite, quite dead. Dead people cannot, as far as I know, use a telephone. I'm sorry I can't be of any further help.

Anzu swallowed again, words blurring in front of her on the page. Yugi was still talking from the answer-phone out in the hallway.

"…I'm scared, Anzu. I'm scared, and I feel…" He trailed off. "Please call me back."

Anzu buried her head in her hands, tears pricking the back of her eyes. What number did one use to call the dead? She couldn't call back a boy that had been waiting for a phone call for thirty years, waiting for another Anzu to come along to tell his woes to. Anzu had never picked up in time for Yugi, and now Yugi was forced to call and call again…

The phone rang again.

"Anzu, it's Yugi…" The message trailed on again, another way of wording, the same terrible, unavoidable woe. The clock in the hallway ticked it's solemn, unceasing accompaniment, mocking the limbo Yugi was stuck in.

The call ended. The phone rang again. Anzu left it, and began to cry.

Tick tick tock went the clock, and the phone kept ringing.

They gathered after his funeral to mourn, but eventually trailed away by themselves to grieve. Anzu found herself alone with Ryou, both of them bereaved. How could their friend commit suicide…?

Ryou spoke first. "I can't believe Yugi could have -"

"He didn't." Anzu snapped. "He would've never."

"Then what? He fell by accident?"

"…No." Anzu bit her lip. "Yugi wouldn't have climbed out onto the roof alone – he was always cautious."

A pause, Ryou looking concerned. "Anzu, you're aware of what you're suggesting…?"

"Someone was with him; Yugi was pushed."

A long beat of silence.

"There's no proof."

"I know."

More painful, painful silence.

Ryou broke it. "…The Egyptians had an interesting tale…." The youth took a deep breath. "If someone was murdered…the killer would have to take their heart, unless they wanted the spirit of the dead person to come back and haunt them."

"Wouldn't that doom the murdered one's spirit to wander forever?" Anzu couldn't help the curious question – when Yami had come into their lives most of the gang had brushed up a bit on some of the Egyptian myths and customs, and…well, she'd read things and – "They wouldn't go on to the afterlife."

"Exactly." Ryou's brown eyes were solemn, half-shadowed under his snowfall of hair. "The murdered one would never meet the god s and their loved ones in Aalu, their heaven. It would be the murderer's final revenge, reserved solely for those they hated the most."

"Yugi…" pain flickered to life inside of Anzu, agony at the thought of her best friend suffering in such a way and never finding Atemu, the spirit he had loved so much. "Yugi still had his heart. No-one stole it away."

'Ryou' smiled, and Anzu felt a chill run down her spine.

She left for New York a few weeks later.