This fic was written jointly by Tramontana Keeper and SeventhDaughter. And a huuuge thanks to Nehti, our wonderful beta!

Disclaimer: We don't own YuGiOh. How sad.

CHAPTER ONE

School on Monday that particular week, the week he and Malik first became friends, was not something Ryou was looking forward to. His weekend had been rather… well, dull was the only way to describe it. His yami had been strangely quiet all of Friday, and on Saturday when Ryou asked what was wrong, his yami had angrily replied, "Leave me alone! I'm thinking, can't you tell?"

"Um… ok." Wow. He's THINKING. Breathe, Ryou, he told himself. The world has not come to an end. Yet.

Of course, the answer Ryou received had not helped him with his original problem, the one that he had turned to Bakura with in the first place. Tentatively, he tried again. "Yami," he ventured, "do you think this is all getting a little boring?"

There was a pause. "What?"

"You know. Yugi's been visiting with his Grandfather's family and won't be back till Monday, Joey and Tristan took Serenity to the beach, Tea and Mai are on one of their big shopping sprees, Otogi's away on another business trip, and Kaiba's… Kaiba. Besides, even if they were all here, wouldn't we just be doing the same things we always do? Watching movies, playing Duel Monsters, or hanging out at the arcade…?"

"You left Malik out."

"Malik?" Ryou blinked. "Oh, you mean that new kid?"

Malik Ishtar had appeared in Domino City the week before, and even though Ryou had seen him every day at school, he didn't quite think of him as part of the crowd yet.

Although everybody else seemed to know him.

Come to think of it, the strange hostility that had been surrounding the new kid had bonked Ryou on the head several days ago, and it made him wonder what Malik had done to deserve it. His yami was not forthcoming on the subject.

"That's an idea," he muttered.

He rose and grabbed his windbreaker from the back of a chair it was draped over. I'll take a walk and see where we end up, he thought at his yami.

The silence he got from Bakura was one he had learned meant indifference.

Outside, the city was chilly. Strong winds propelled him down the street, blowing leaves and random squirrels in his face. The park down the street was unusually empty, and he sat down on the edge of the slide and watched the swings flap violently in the wind.

It suddenly occurred to him that he'd never gotten an answer as to why his yami seemed so disturbed. He considered trying to ask the moody Bakura what was wrong, but that would really be breaking their unspoken truce of peacefulness – Bakura had promised not bother his hikari if Ryou didn't disturb him. He pondered the question as he blindly circled the park, eyes on the ground.

With unexpected suddenness, he came up hard against a warm, solid something. Ryou reeled back and tripped over the low wall of the sandbox, falling headfirst into the sand. "Ouch," he tried to say, and got a mouthful of gritty sand. Behind him, a splash was heard.

He raised himself onto his hands and knees and spit out dirt, then looked around. The someone he'd bumped into had slammed into the tree that stood behind them, and from there had fallen into the fishpond. Ryou blinked, for the second time. Since when was there a fishpond in the park?

The someone sat up spluttering. He wiped scummy water from his dripping hair. "Yick," he muttered. Ryou climbed out of the sandbox and hurried over. He offered the boy a hand. "I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking, and I…."

"It's-" coughhackchoke "-ok." The boy stood up and swayed, nearly tripping again in the uneven footing. "Ryou? Watcha doing here?"

Ryou peered at the boy. Under all the muck, the long blond hair, dark skin and gold jewelry seemed faintly familiar. "Malik?" he asked.

"What?" The Egyptian lifted his foot to step out of the pond and lost his balance. He flapped his hands comically in an attempt to regain his footing. Ryou, trying hard not to giggle, grabbed onto one of his arms and helped him back up.

"My house is just down the street. You don't want to walk around looking like that, people will think you're some kind of…" he clapped his hands to his mouth before he could say 'bog monster'.

Malik looked down at himself and laughed. "I do look kind of like a bog monster, don't I?"

"Did I say that out loud?" Ryou blurted.

"You thought that!" Malik turned, a mock scowl twisting the attractive features of his face, but doubled over mid-turn, clutching his stomach.

"Malik! Are you ok?" Ryou cried. The easygoing blonde looked like he was having major convulsions.

At a closer look, wasn't he just laughing?

Malik straightened and reached underneath his shirt. What was he looking for under there? Ryou wondered.

"Ah hah!" Malik exclaimed, pulling a frog from the back of his shirt. He gave it a piercing look, before asking sarcastically "anybody for frogs' legs?" as he tossed it over his shoulder.

He's not so bad, Ryou thought. "Let's go to my house, so you can change your clothes."

"Great!" Malik grabbed his hand and pulled him down the road.

When they had reached the house, Ryou led Malik straight to the shower. "I'll leave some clothes for you on the counter."

"Sure!" Malik was already pulling his filthy shirt over his head. As he turned to leave, Ryou caught a glimpse of Malik's tanned, lightly muscled stomach. He hurried out, hoping that Malik hadn't noticed his glance. Inside his head, his yami burrowed deeper inside himself.

Ryou grabbed one of his striped t-shirts and a pair of jeans and boxers and nervously re-entered the bathroom. It was so steamed up that it reminded him of London fog; he had to feel his way to the counter. Almost thankful, he left the clothes and made his way quickly to the kitchen.

When Malik came down ten minutes later with a towel around his hair, he had already made a pot of hot chocolate. Ryou looked up. "Do the clothes fit alright?" he inquired nervously.

Malik looked around. "They're fine – do you have a pair of scissors?"

Ryou bemusedly reached into a nearby drawer and handed him the scissors. He watched in disbelief as Malik stripped off the t-shirt and proceeded to cut off three inches from each sleeve and about ten from the bottom. He slipped it back on, and it now came just above his midriff. He pinched the loose waistband of the jeans. "Got a belt?"

Ryou accurately imitated a codfish for about ten seconds before recovering from the mutilation of his precious shirt, of whose like he had seventeen others in his closet. "Malik, that was MY shirt!"

"It still is your shirt," Malik commented, nonchalantly toweling his hair.

"But you killed it!" Ryou protested. Inside his mind, his yami snorted. Malik looked at him weirdly.

"I'm not giving you any hot chocolate until you apologize for killing my favorite shirt!" Ryou stood in front of the pot with his hands spread on either side of him.

Malik pouted. "But I like hot chocolate!"

Sighing in resignation, the blonde stepped closer to Ryou and took his hand, putting on a penitent look. "Oh, Ryou, I'm so sorry I killed your shirt!" Tears glinted in the corners of his eyes. "Can you ever forgive me?"

It was hard for Ryou to take the display seriously with his yami howling with laughter inside his head. Loftily, he pulled his hand away and turned back to the pot, pouring a cup for the puppy-faced blonde.

They took their hot chocolate to the living room. Ryou sat gingerly on the edge of the puffy armchair, cradling his cup between his hands. He lifted it to his lips and took a small sip, glancing surreptitiously over the rim of the cup at the Egyptian. Malik was sprawled on the couch directly across from him, miraculously not spilling any of his hot chocolate. That could have been because he had already finished it.

Ryou tried to drink calmly, without looking at all the skin Malik managed to expose. His gaze flew to Malik's face, but the other seemed blatantly unaware of his provoking position.

"You done yet?" Malik asked.

Ryou jumped, blushing furiously. Had Malik noticed him staring? "What?"

"The hot chocolate," Malik said patiently. "Are you finished with it?"

"Uh, yeah." Even though Ryou wasn't done, he took both mugs and put them in the sink before returning to the living room.

"So," he said, trying to think of something to talk about.

"So what?"

He inwardly cringed at the stereotypical and inane question, but asked it anyway. "How's it going in Domino City?"

Malik cringed. "That's a really stereotypical and inane question, did you know that?"

"Actually, I did, but what else was I supposed to ask?"

"I know, but as your friend I'm telling you that you shouldn't ask me that. I mean, so has everyone else I've talked to from Domino City."

Ryou blinked (for the third time this chapter). "Fine. So are you a natural blonde?"

Malik's hand flew to his mouth. "Like, oh my gosh, does it really show?"

"Uh-"

"I was kidding," Malik said.

"Phew. You scared me for a minute there." Ryou paused. "What do you do in your free time?" He really didn't quite know what to do with this guy.

Malik gave up hoping for an original question. "How about I ask you something?" When Ryou nodded his assent, he said, "Ok, so: What is the air speed velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut?"

Ryou burst out laughing. "An African or a European swallow?"

Malik looked delighted. "So you've also seen 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'! Isn't it an awesome movie?"

From there they moved on to other movies they had both enjoyed/hated, and then books, and then their favorite Beanie Babies, and then their favorite automatic weapons. During their conversation, Ryou noticed that Malik kept fingering the gold bands on his arms. After a while, he decided to ask about them. "Why do you wear those?"

"These?" Malik held up his arms. "I don't know. Don't you think they're pretty?"

Ryou, blushing, tried his best to answer the question objectively, and concluded that the bracelets and the chokers suited Malik very well. "Yeah."

Ryou's stomach growled. He looked at the clock, wondering if it was nearing dinnertime. "Yowch!" he cried out in surprise. "It's a quarter after midnight!"

Malik seemed unperturbed by the late hour. "Time really flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?"

Ryou looked at him, and smiled shyly. "We were having fun, weren't we?"

Malik stood up and perched on the arm of the chair. He put his arm around Ryou's shoulders. "Friends?"

Ryou tried hard not to flinch under Malik's arm, but against the sweet smile Malik was directing at him, there wasn't anything he could say but- "F-friends."

On that dreaded Monday morning, Ryou lifted his eyes from his desk just as Kaiba walked in, about a millisecond before the bell rang. Malik walked in a millisecond after it rang. By now the familiar gang was back in town. They surrounded Yugi's desk, all chattering about their eventful weekends. Malik was putting his backpack on the back of his chair when the topic of their discussion reached his ears.

"What did you do this weekend, Ryou?" Tea was the evil culprit.

"I wasn't too bored, actually. I spent Saturday evening with Malik. We had a lot of fun." They all blinked at him. People seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

Joey broke the spell. "The blonde maniac?"

Hypocrite. Malik silently wondered whether or not he should give them a choice: should he shove his knife down their throats, or up their asses?

"Joey, that's not nice!" Yugi said immediately, unknowingly saving them all from a painful death. Malik decided to give them the choice after all.

"I don't know what you all have against him," Ryou said quietly. "He seems like a really nice and interesting person."

"I'm sure he is," Tea said tentatively. They had agreed not to mention Battle City at all, especially not around Ryou. Ryou didn't seem to remember hardly any of what had happened, and they saw no reason to call to mind the nasty experience.

The teacher finally walked in (ten minutes late) and the lesson began.

As it turned out, Malik was a fairly brilliant student, even if he didn't get along with most of the teachers. He tended to ignore them very blatantly in class, and still know the answer to any question they asked him.

Kaiba found Malik especially annoying. He was not that fond of the Egyptian to begin with, due to a certain kidnapping of his younger brother Mokuba. Malik sat behind him in class and had a tendency to peer over his shoulder and make comments about whatever Kaiba was typing at the moment, even if he knew nothing at all about the subject. Like now, for example. Kaiba was typing away, when suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around, irritated. "What?"

"You have a typo," Malik said earnestly. The amusement glinting in his eyes betrayed his less than altruistic intentions. Kaiba stared.

"Right there," Malik pointed helpfully, "third line, fifth word." Kaiba, ignoring the obvious intent of the obnoxious teen behind him, turned back to his work. He did fix the typo.

Three minutes later, Kaiba felt another tap on his shoulder. "You should fix that sentence. Argentine ants do belong to the genus iridomyrmex."

Malik received a rather fierce glare, for all his efforts. He smiled innocently.

Two minutes later, Kaiba heard a whisper behind him. "Fix the grammar in that last sentence. It doesn't read well."

A minute later, Kaiba felt the tap again. He slammed his laptop shut and turned, and in one swift motion, backhanded Malik across his face. The crack resounded in the suddenly silent classroom. Malik's head snapped to the side, his impertinent expression frozen in place. Then, he calmly straightened up and backhanded the CEO right back. A few students hooted in the background. "Let's see some ketchup!" Joey called out.

"Stop it! Stop this right now! Kaiba, Ishtar, control yourselves!" Ishimoto Sensei clapped his hands. "Report to me after class."

Assigned together to detention scrubbing desks and cleaning windows in their homeroom, Malik and Kaiba worked as far from each other as possible. Malik bent over his desk, scrubbing enthusiastically, then craned his head to look at Kaiba.

"Hey. This homeroom thing sucks. What's the point of it anyway?"

Kaiba momentarily stopped his window washing, his back still towards Malik. "What do you mean, what's the point?"

Malik had his Middle Eastern experiences in mind while he described his problem with the way the rest of the world worked. "Why do we have to separate during the day? If we stayed in one class, everyone would get to know each other better, and we'd be able to work well, as a unit. And the teachers would be able to keep track of us better." He grinned. "Not that that's a bonus."

"I don't really care who I spend my time with. The point is to get through the day as quickly as possible. I don't need 'unity' with anybody."

"That's because you've never experienced it." Malik flopped down on a chair. "Another annoying thing is this 'detention' stuff. Making us hang around the school cleaning desks just because there was a tiny disturbance in class is stupid. If each student cleaned his own desk the job would get done in a fraction of the time."

"The idea is to encourage us to behave better during class, not to make us do everybody's job." Kaiba's tone implied his disdain for Malik's intelligence.

"No. Couldn't tell. But wouldn't docking our grades be much more effective? Especially in a country that puts such an emphasis on academia as Japan."

"They know that at least one of us is an excellent student," and at Malik's sideways glance Kaiba added, "and the other one is moderately smart. So making us do menial work to get a point across is a better way. Why are you looking at me like that?" Malik was giving him a contemplative look. "I'm thinking of throwing my wet sponge at your head. Should I?"

Kaiba made a totally unexpected move. He laughed. Malik dropped the sponge in shock, and it landed on the floor with a drop-scattering splat. "Only if you want me to upend my pail over yours."

The classroom the next morning was still a little wet.

For the rest of the week, Kaiba treated Malik civilly. In return, Malik promised to try to refrain from making obnoxious comments. Life seemed good for everyone. Slowly, Malik felt himself integrating into this new life in Japan and especially into Yugi's group of friends. The shorter their memories seemed on a certain chapter in his life he'd hoped closed, the more he allowed himself to loosen up and act like natural around them. He seemed more cheerful, his smiles brightened his face more often, and his annoying comments tripled in number.