17-Year old Ryou Bakura had always been somewhat detached from other people his age. He’d always been labelled as the small, girly-looking kid.
And after moving to Japan a year ago, he’d become known as the weird, British, girly-looking kid.
In hindsight, the opinion of him being weird was probably true.
Sections of his memory were completely blank. Even entire days could be completely absent from his memory.
Ryou had never known why.
Until one day during the Duellist Kingdom tournament.
He’d been told of the malevolent spirit inhabiting his Millennium Ring.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ryou staggered into the unlit house, bruised and battered. Several of his classmates had attacked him as he walked home.
In Ryou’s mind it was ridiculous. The boys had attacked him because they’d heard their girlfriends talking about how cute Ryou was.
What did that even matter? He was gay!
He dropped his shoulder bag by the door which he then closed behind him and locked.
Realising, with a groan, that his left ankle was sprained, he limped over to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen.
Seizing the first aid kit, Ryou then slowly made his way upstairs to the bathroom, needing the large mirror.

It took him two hours to clean and cover the majority of his wounds.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Having done so, he then stumbled back downstairs with the intention of making himself some dinner.
His exhausted body, however, had different ideas and led him over to the large sofa, where the boy curled up and immediately fell asleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ryou awoke when the front door of the small house opened, thunder clashing outside amidst driving rain.
The figure in the doorway was a little taller than himself and far more sinister. The snowy, white hair spiked up, ever so slightly resembling horns and the chocolate-brown eyes held a crimson tinge.
In his hand he held a takeaway bag from Burger World, the new fast food restaurant that had recently opened in town.
He closed the door and strode over to the sleepy boy lying on the sofa.
Ryou sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
Bakura sat down next to him, frowning and prodded one of the dark bruises on his face.
“What happened to you?”
Ryou internally screamed. If he told Bakura what had happened, the psychotic yami would be out, literally hunting the two schoolboys for blood-sport.
Sensing no response, Bakura merely sighed. “Attacked again?”
Still no response.
“Thought so.” Bakura placed the takeaway bag on the coffee table. “You eaten yet?”
Ryou shook his head, his hair waving wildly.
“Help yourself, there’s plenty.”
Ryou smiled a thanks and took a burger from the bag.
“You can tell me you know.”
Ryou froze mid-bite.
“I mean, I’ll kill them for you if you want.” Bakura’s psychotic grin gave Ryou a strong desire to slam his head into the tabletop.
“At any rate, just tell me, I’ll protect you.”
Ryou openly stared at Bakura, he’d never heard his yami say something so close to being sentimental.
Ryou felt some stray bangs being brushed from his face, Bakura’s cool fingers leaving a tingling sensation on his face.
Bakura drew the boy into a hug, kissing a particularly vivid bruise on his forehead.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In truth, Ryou didn’t really care that most people he met held a strange sort of disdain for him. He had Bakura and as long as he did, he’d be happy.