Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Millennium Dark ❯ falling topieces ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 10 "Falling to pieces."

Author's notes: So all the random reviews I've been getting recently for MD have been suggesting you all want me to update. So here we are.

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Yami grimaced and sank further into his seat as Seto verbally lambasted him in the now empty hotel room. He was hoping that there was some power that would allow him to defy the laws of physics and become one with the chair. So far it wasn't working. Seto barely stopped to take a breath as Yami winced and tried to cover his face with his hands, or at least try and wish his oversized pendant would do something to save his life before his manager killed him.

"How the hell could you possibly keep this from me?! I could have been at least a little more prepared!" Seto yelled, throwing the newspaper at Yami. "Now I have this piece of crap telling me that you're dating a dwarf?! Not only a dwarf, but the lead singer of our greatest rival?! What were you thinking?!"

"Seto, I wasn't -"

"Wasn't what?! Thinking clearly because I wouldn't have even GUESSED that's what you weren't doing!" Seto cut him off. "I don't even care that you're gay, but of all the guys you could have had, you chose YUGI MOTOU?!"

Yugi frowned as Mai paced back and forth across the room, not saying a word. As used as he was to her fits, her mood swings and everything else, the moments when she didn't say a word scared him the most. He was sitting in a chair that completely dwarfed him and he looked on with large amethyst eyes. Even though he was sure that his eyes were going to cross over from watching her pace so much, Yugi dared not to say anything that would jolt the tense situation.

Suddenly, Mai stopped pacing and Yugi snapped to attention. "I don't even know what to say to you, Yugi!" Mai exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips. "I thought you out of the entire band were the most intelligent! Didn't you think that this would create the biggest controversy since the debate of whether Michael Jackson's black or white?!" Mai's jacket was sitting on a chair in the hotel room, her sleeves rolled up.

The smaller of the two didn't say anything to that for a while. Finally he replied, "But M-Mai … I didn't know it was so wrong to be in love."

That nearly stopped Mai in her tracks. "It's not wrong to love someone, but damn it, Yugi, why couldn't you have chosen someone ELSE? Someone who wasn't Yami Akaiame? This is going to ruin us!"

She didn't have to add it, but Yugi did in his mind. It's going to ruin us, and it's your fault, Yugi.

Shadi looked to Bakura and Malik. "What do you think he's doing in there?" he asked, quietly.

"Probably ripping Yami's head off and spinning it on a pike," Bakura suggested, looking a bit worried. He rubbed his head and looked at the other two. "Maybe I should've blurted his little secret to Seto like I said I would when he told me."

Malik and Shadi did a double take before looking at the white haired guitarist. "You knew?!" Shadi exclaimed, trying to keep his voice down, and failing horribly. "Why the hell didn't you say anything sooner?"

Bakura seemed a bit stunned by Shadi's exclamation. "Believe it or not, I'm friends with Shiny-Pants now and he did ask for me to keep it a secret." He shrugged. "It's his own damn fault for not telling Seto."

"Bakura," Malik finally spoke, "think about it for a moment. You're dating the lead singer of your band's biggest rival. Would you go and tell our esteemed, short-tempered manager?"

For a moment, Bakura didn't seem to have an answer to the inquiry. "Malik, it would have gone a hell of a lot better if he didn't pussy foot around it either. When did he think it would have been a good time? When we're all buddies and sipping tea? Or maybe when we finally go on Oprah? Springer sound better to you?"

"Oh shut up," Malik refused to concede the point, and Shadi looked between the two of them, surprised they were having a civilized conversation. About as civilized as those two would ever get, good day or no. "Why are we even standing outside the door eavesdropping like a bunch of old women?"

"Because everyone loves some good gossip," Bakura replied, pressing his ear against said door. He blinked, and then pressed harder against the wooden door. Malik and Shadi looked at each other perplexed. "Eh-what the hell is going on in there?" Bakura muttered quietly to himself. "They've stopped talking." He turned to the two tanned ones, "Do you think Seto killed him?"

Shadi lowered his head, shaking it ruefully. "There are times when I think you really dyed your hair white and the chemicals from the dye have destroyed your brain cells, Bakura." Putting his hands up in the air, Shadi lowered one to smack Bakura upside the head. "Let's go practice or something."

Bakura rubbed his head and muttered curses under his breath. Yet he relented and followed Malik and Shadi down to the rehearsal room. However, the white haired guitarist was not without retribution as he tripped up Shadi on his way to the drum set and sent the dark haired one nearly crashing into his prized instrument. It was a highly contrasting mood compared to the one their lead singer was experiencing.

Mai had left the room, leaving the paper with Yugi, complaining that there was so much crap now she had to deal with. The smaller of the two stared at the paper, biting his lip. How did a thing like this get out? He had no earthly idea. With a shaking hand, Yugi reached out for the newspaper, hoping that when he read it, that the article would be a bunch of nonsense and that none of this was truly happening.

The paper was already heavily creased as Mai was folding and unfolding it during her previous rant. Yugi frowned as his eyes began reading the lines. Line by line, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, column by column, his heart sank. Everything was accurate, right down to where they met for the first time. "No," Yugi whispered, but as hard as he tried to pull his eyes away from the glaring accusations, he had to keep reading. Could there be something that could easily disprove this?

However, the next three lines proved Yugi wrong. It was a quote. From Yami. He spoke of their relationship, and how he didn't have time for it anymore. Yugi's hands began to shake as his eyes froze on the quote. "Yami did this?"

Yami swallowed hard, as Seto stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard that he could hear a crack rip through the wood. He heard Seto spaz on Bakura, Shadi and Malik, but none of the words he said to them registered with Yami. Nothing mattered. Slowly he got to his feet and ran his tongue over his chapped lips. Yami ran a hand through his hair, and looked around the room.

The room, which had once been one of Yami's favourite hotel rooms that he'd ever stayed in, quickly became the room he wanted nothing more than to leave. "God, how could this happen? I thought I'd been so careful…"

He turned suddenly, as the door opened with a painful creak. Bakura stepped in, and closed it behind him gently. The guitarist didn't need to say anything; Yami could see it in his eyes. Yami looked at him, his purple eyes lost and confused. "Eh…how are you…holding up? Still have your hearing?"

"This isn't the time for jokes, Bakura," Yami half-snapped, sinking down to the floor. Bakura sucked in a sharp breath and walked over.

"Best time if you ask me," Bakura replied, kneeling down. "Hey, Spike … I don't know you don't know what the hell to do right now…that's why I'm here. What you need to do right now is phone the squirt-Yugi. Phone him and sort this mess out."

"B-But, Bakura…what if he doesn't want to speak with me?"

"That doesn't matter. You phone and you tell Yugi what is really going on, and if he doesn't accept that, then maybe the brat didn't really love you."

Yami stared at him for a moment, completely stunned that all this was coming from Bakura. "Y-You're not Bakura…what kind of impostor are you?" Yami said brokenly, wiping at his eyes.

"Eh!" Bakura smacked the lead singer upside the head. "The one time I'm trying to comfort your candy ass and you're saying this? You're a tool, Yami. Seriously. Look, I'll even get the phone for you. Just don't tell anyone, alright?"

Yami nodded and watched as Bakura stood back up, went to Yami's bag and picked up his cell phone. He came back over and sat down, giving Yami the phone. "Thank you, Bakura…" Bakura nodded and waved his hand. The tri-coloured haired singer stared at the phone momentarily before dialling Yugi's cell phone.

Ryou frowned, as he looked over at Maric and Shaadi. "Should we go in there now?" he asked, biting his fingernail.

Maric shook his head and sighed heavily. "He's going to need some time to himself, Ryou. I think we're all going to need some time to figure out just what the hell is going on here."

"What is going on here, though?" Shaadi asked, looking at his band-mates. "Yugi is dating Yami; although I see why Mai is so upset from a career standpoint…it was still harsh to say those things to Yugi. He couldn't help whom he fell in love with." He looked at the door of the room Yugi was in. "I think we should be there for him. This is a really rough time, if he believes any of what is in that paper."

Ryou nodded and smiled slightly. "You're quite right, Shaadi! He's our band-mate, but more importantly, Yugi is our friend. We need to be there for him. Even if he doesn't want us to be there, we have to be." The three nodded to each other before Ryou opened the door of the room. "Yugi?"

Seto walked right out of the hotel, onto the streets and just walked. He needed to walk off this anger, this absolute furious mood he was in. People parted instantly for him, he was as famous as his band was. His trench-coat flared behind him as he stalked through the crowds, uncaring of the clap of thunder that signalled a downpour. All that ran through his mind was the newspaper article.

The headline seemed to mock him, ridicule and desecrate everything that he had worked so hard to create. All his years of work with Millennium Dark were going to blow up in his face over a homosexual affair with their rival's lead singer. There was no way that he could rebound this, not when it is this high profile. Anything he said would be mutilated and regurgitated into some other kind of bullshit. The media was always this way, and because it was him, because he was Seto Kaiba and this was his band, most of the blame would go squarely on his shoulders.

Rain pounded on him relentlessly, as the British locals scrambled to open their always handy umbrellas; Seto continued walking in no particular direction. He continued walking, for what seemed like hours on end, before finally falling to his feet in a park, in front of flawless white stone steps. He bowed his head, and clenched his fists tight enough to have his nails break the skin. Slippers lightly but quickly stepped down the steps and around him, the chatter of women unintelligible to him.

In a few moments, the patter of slippers stopped, and Seto was certain that he was alone. Alone with his thoughts, and the absolute destruction at the hands of this scandal, which was out of his hands. Seto Kaiba never hand anything out of his hands. Everything was always meticulously calculated and executed by him and him alone. "I'm going to be ruined by this," he hissed. "I'm a failure."

"Well, I could have told you that," a voice said in front of him and Seto's head snapped up and his eyes widened. "You work for so many years and give up at the first sign of trouble? My first instinct about you was right."

Seto's mouth hung open before he pursed his lips. He blinked, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. In front of him was a young brown-skinned woman dressed in a shimmering white Saree, adorned with simple silver jewellery. "S-Simran?"

Yugi turned around suddenly as he heard his own cell phone ring. "I thought I turned it off," he muttered, and got up, leaving Ryou, Maric and Shaadi standing at the door. He picked up the phone and clicked it on. "Hello?"

"Yugi, it's me…"

"Yami?!"

"I want … did you see the newspaper?"

"How could I not?" Yugi's voice was bitter, as he gripped the phone. "Why didn't you tell me that you didn't have time for us anymore?!"

Yami paused. "Yugi, I do have time for us, I will always make time for us. That paper just printed lies, I-"

"Did you or did you not say `work is getting in the way and it's becoming a pain in the ass, this thing.' Did you or did you not?"

"Yes, but I-"

Yugi's lip trembled, but his voice remained firm. "Then…if you said it, this is the end, Yami Akaiame! We're finished! I hate you!" And he hung up, holding back tears.