Painful Memories: Part III: Consequences

Coffee and Parfaits

It was still dark when their plane finally hit ground in Cairo, Egypt. Ryou had pulled the window shade up and was looking out over the city. The two had slept through most of the flight until the attendant had come by to make sure everyone was awake and the bright lights were turned on. In all honesty, Marik was glad to be back home, though he did like visiting Domino now and then. He had spent a full day in Domino and his body was still on Cairo's time zone. Even though it was dark out still, he felt like it was only an hour until sunrise, and he was probably right. Ryou looked bleary-eyed and sluggish, his pale hair sticking out at odd angles.

The plane taxied around and then everyone rushed to exit at once. A few of the people Marik recognized as the ones who had glared at him earlier when his phone had gone off. He noticed none of them made eye contact with him now, probably trying to avoid him and anyone else as best as they could. He and Ryou exited the boarding tunnel and headed straight through security checks. As they got their bags X-rayed for the second time that trip, Marik was pleased that he hadn't brought any of the Millennium Items with him. He was pretty sure Pegasus must have had a good plan to sneak them back into Egypt, probably using a Shadow Pocket or even just the old-fashioned paying off the guards. Either way was effective, and Marik kind of wished he and Ryou had ridden back with them just to see what he did. But Pegasus wasn't sure how long it would take to gather the others. Kaiba especially was a wild card, so they decided to travel separately.

A few years back when Marik's Rare Hunters followed his every word, the airports hadn't been nearly as locked down. You weren't required to kick your shoes off or stand in an enormous line behind screaming children and pissed off passengers. It kind of took all the fun out of flying. Once the two of them had finally gotten through customs and the inconvenient security checks, Ryou broke off from the crowd, urging Marik to follow, and stood against the wall to stay out of the walkway.

"This place looks bigger than I remember it," Ryou eyed the long line of weary travelers passing. "And busier." He lowered his voice and leaned in a bit closer, "The last time I came, I had to hide the Millennium Ring in my chest to keep it from getting picked up on the scanners."

"Oh yeah, I remember you doing that."

Ryou nodded, then blinked. "Well the Thief did at least. I don't know how he did it, and I was a complete wreck the whole time I was in line waiting to reach the guards. I thought for sure it was going to go off, and I wasn't sure how I was going to explain it."

Marik grinned, "You had some botched surgery?"

Ryou laughed, "I don't know if that would've worked."

"You hungry? There's a decent coffee place up here that I always stop at. Not good, but decent."

Ryou nodded and followed his lead. "Don't we have to meet Rishid and Ishizu?"

"Not for a couple of hours. Pegasus and the others should be landing soon. He texted me a few hours back." He gave Ryou a sly grin, "Surely we can find something to occupy ourselves until then."

Ryou arched an eyebrow at him, "It depends on what you think we'll occupy ourselves with."

Marik froze and gaped at him, "That's not what I meant! Food and drinks, that's all, nothing insidious."

He shook his head, chuckling under his breath, "Somehow I find that hard to believe."

Instead of rising to Ryou's bait, Marik focused on leading them to the coffee shop. As they dodged in and out of crowds, it did occur to him that there were a lot more people here than he was used to. Maybe there was some kind of event going on. They had to cross a large atrium that usually had a ton of empty couches, especially at this ungodly hour, but every single seat was taken. The place was filled with people.