A Means of Communication

Chapter 14: Love Notes

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"Yugi's on his way," Ryou said to the rock star on his couch as he hung up the phone.

Atemu nodded, gut aching. He would see Yugi in a few moments, however briefly. His journey into the outside world had not been totally in vain. "Thanks. Thanks a lot, Ryou."

Ryou shrugged. "I couldn't have left you there on the street, now could I?"

Atemu nodded. The conversation topic passed, followed by awkwardness. Atemu's mouth twitched. There was a block of silence build between them. A new subject of conversation was needed. But what did the two of them have in common? There were only two answers to that question. Yugi and Bakura. And the latter was a death trap.

"So..." Atemu commented, looking around at the dinky apartment. "This is where you live."

"It's no million dollar estate," Ryou responded and Atemu wondered if that was a slight at his wealth but the rock star let it go.

"It's... small," Atemu observed. "And empty." That was followed by more silence. Atemu rushed to put more words between them. "You don't decorate?"

"No time, or resources," Ryou answered, finally sitting down in a chair at his kitchen table. "Besides I'm hardly ever here."

"Oh yeah," Atemu recalled. "Your job. Yugi told me."

Ryou's head jerked up. "What did he tell you?"

Atemu told the truth. "Ah, that you had a job. He didn't tell me why. Said it was your business."

Ryou leaned back into his chair in acceptance, his gaze drifting.

Atemu eyed the white haired teenager. "He also said that he was worried about you."

Ryou shrugged. "That's Yugi."

Atemu allowed himself to grin. "Yeah... Yugi." Then he pulled himself out of his day dream and leaned forward. "I used to live in an apartment like this."

Ryou looked questioning. "I find that hard to believe."

"I wasn't born into royalty," Atemu corrected. "Before our big break, we lived in this horrible district in Tokyo, on the top floor of our building and our landlord didn't care enough about his residents to fix the elevator."

Ryou was still looking at the floor. "Sounds hard."

"We couldn't help it. We had no money. Being an unknown musician doesn't pay as well as you would think," Atemu reasoned matter-a-factly.

"Who's we?" Ryou asked curiously.

Atemu hesitated. But Ryou had asked for it... "Me and Bakura."

"Oh," Ryou spoke flatly.

Now that the topic had been brought up... "It was hard. Sometimes we couldn't pay the rent and sometimes Bakura would mysteriously get the money. I thought he was into a sketchy business, like selling drugs or something but it turned out that he was stealing."

Ryou did not move a millimeter. His chest did not even expand to breathe.

Atemu inhaled; he had to at least try to make this average teenager understand. "Sometimes I think Bakura misses it, our life like that."

Ryou made an odd sound in his throat that Atemu couldn't translate.

"The freedom, I mean," Atemu clarified. "He hates being bossed around, having a scheduled life."

Ryou offered nothing to the conversation. He was staring, staring at his mucky carpet with hard eyes.

"I'm not saying that's an excuse for what he did..." Atemu continued.