Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Trials of Life ❯ Running Away ( Chapter 3 )

Running Away

AN: Chapter three and this soon! It's a miracle. Though I still don't have a genre, please I need help!

Disclaimer in first chapter along.

Warning in first chapter, if you're a homophobe and are STILL reading this then you're too stupid waste my time on.

This is what I have to say to all those that reviewed since I last updated: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! You don't know HOW much it helps me to know that people are actually reading my stories!

The ones who've reviewed since I uploaded chapter two are the following:

inuyasha0001

yamiwith

TheHikariWhoLovesBishis

Anonymous

Dark_Fox

Sharem

Doot

Thank you all so much.

Eventually…..

/…../ is Yugi to Yami

//…..// is Yami to Yugi

~*~*~Last time~*~*~

Yugi sighed, remembering just how well Selene had always been able to read him and just how stubborn she was when it came to finding out exactly what was bothering him. "It's just that, those guys used to be my friends but…." He paused, trying to come up with the right way to phrase it without coming across as a wimp or bursting into tears.

But his efforts were all for naught when Selene, sensing his turmoil, pulled him into a reinsuring embrace. He suddenly burst into tears and told them everything that had happened, from completing the puzzle to the finals at Battle City and his friends' recent treatment of him. The whole table listened silently as he poured out what he'd obviously been holding back for too long a time. When he finished they sat in silence for a few moments, each completely absorbed in his or her own thoughts.

~*~*~On with the story~*~*~

`Oh gods,' Yugi thought after he'd gotten some semblance of control over his tears, `they're probably going to think I'm just some kind of baby who needs to be taken care of and leave. Oh gods, please no.' Yugi shivered at the thought, still in the embrace Selene had pulled him into earlier.

Selene's thoughts, however, were on a completely different tangent than what Yugi guessed they were. `Oh man, Yugi. I can't believe it. Hasn't he been through enough already? I rescued him from one hell only to have him sent straight into another. Damn! I swear I won't let that happen again. He's like a little brother to me and I won't let him get hurt anymore.' She tightened her embrace when she felt him shiver in fear.

The others thoughts ran along the same tangent as Selene's, though they didn't know anything about what he'd already been through so that wasn't there, but each of them promised themselves that they would protect him no matter what. They may have known him for only a few hours, but something about him just drew them to him. Selene's nickname, he was a hikari, an angel too. They were never going to let him get hurt again.

"I'm sorry Yugi. I wish I could've been there. You've been through so much you didn't deserve already, and now this. I'm so sorry." Selene said.

Yugi pulled back slightly and looked at her in shock. "You mean…..you're not……disgusted or anything?" Then it was time for the others to look at him in shock.

"Disgusted? Only at their horrible treatment of you. But I could NEVER be disgusted with you Hikari." Selene said, using her nickname for him in hopes of reassuring him.

"Of course not. You did nothing wrong. Hell, from what I gather you did so much for them that they should be worshipping you like a god. Damn, I mean you risked life, sanity, mind, and soul to keep them safe and they do this. What I really want to do right now go over there and give them a very painful piece of my mind." Damien said. Jason, Jake, and Derek voiced their agreement, Jake fiddling with his dagger earring the whole time as though wishing to throw it at those people. And knowing him, none of them would really put it past him. He was just crazy enough to do it.

"Thanks you guys." Yugi said, tears once again coming to his eyes though this time they were tears of happiness.

"Don't mention it Yugi." They each said, or at least something along those lines.

And with that the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period.

~*~*~*~*~

It had been nearly three months since the five new students had arrived. Yami and everyone else still ignored the tri-haired hikari, but now Yugi still had someone to talk to. He didn't normally talk about what was bothering him, but each of his five new friends, especially Selene, seemed to have the ability to get anyone to confess anything with just a few well chosen words. It was now November and the day before Yugi's sixteenth birthday, though he didn't expect anything from his new friends, as he had never mentioned when his birthday was, or his old, as they were still forgetting about him.

It was that night, however that would start a chain of events that would turn everything in Yugi's life upside down. Yami came to him that night, it seems that he noticed how little Yugi was home now a days, tough he didn't know that it was because he was usually staying over at Selene, Damien, Derek, Jason, and Jack's apartment.

"Yugi," Yami called from outside his hikari's door, "can I come in."

`Oh no. Why now?' Yugi thought, but out loud he said, "Come in."

Yami walked in and sat on the bed where he could get a good view of is hikari who was working on his homework at the desk.

"Did you need something Yami?" Yugi asked, all the while praying that Yami would just leave. He had been a little uncomfortable around him since Yami had started to hang out with Yugi's old friends and started to ignore him. There was another reason that Yugi was uncomfortable around him, but only he knew that one. He hadn't even told Selene.

"I was just wondering where you've been lately." Yami said, studying the emotions on his hikari's face. For some odd reason, to him, he was unable to decipher any of them.

"At a friend's house," Yugi said cryptically. `Great. Just great. After ignoring me for nine months he suddenly decides to pay attention and give me the third degree about why I haven't been at home alone as much. He doesn't even notice that he's ignored me for the past nine months.'

"Which friend? Because Jonouchi, Honda, Anzu, Ryou, and Bakura don't know where you go either." Yami said. He and Bakura had been on speaking terms ever since Ryou and Bakura had gotten together because Bakura always wanted to be around his hikari and his hikari also wanted to be around his friends occasionally too.

"Do you assume that just because I'm a little shy I can't make any new friends?" Yugi asked, trying to divert his yami's attention from his friend's name.

"No, I didn't mean that. I was just wondering why you haven't hung out with us lately." Yami said. He was still trying to figure out exactly what his hikari was thinking. Though he hid it well, he was shocked when not only could he not read Yugi's face but he also couldn't pick up anything from the link the two of them shared.

"Maybe because I was tired of being ignored." Yugi said. He put down the pencil and turned to face Yami who, to say the least, was shocked by what Yugi had just said.

"What do you mean ignored?" He asked.

"It's nothing." Yugi said, turning back to his desk and to his homework.

"Yugi." Yami started, but Yugi interrupted him.

"I said that it's nothing." Yugi said. He started to pretend to work hoping all the while that Yami would just leave.

Yami sighed as he saw that he wasn't going to get anything out of Yugi today. He stood up and walked to the door, but before he left he sent a message through the link that they shared. //I wish you would just tell me what was wrong Hikari.//

Yugi waited until he heard Yami shut the door to his room before he picked up the pillow from his bed, buried his face in it, and cried like he hadn't since the day he'd met Selene, Damien, and them. Talking to Yami, the one he'd realized he'd fallen in love with, and not telling him everything had cost him a lot. But it had also given him hope that maybe, just maybe, Yami might start noticing him and how he'd been ignoring him.

The next day, his sixteenth birthday, however proved all his hopes for naught as Yami and them had, yet again, completely forgotten about him. But unlike before it was just finally too much. They had forgotten about him on his special day. When he got home to an empty house that afternoon he went upstairs and started packing a large backpack, as he knew Yami wouldn't be home until at least dinner time which was in three to four hours, with some clothes, money, and his grandfather's original dueling deck he also took off his Millennium Puzzle so Yami couldn't follow him when he realized that Yugi had left. He picked up the backpack and slung it onto his back before heading over to his real friend's apartment.

When he reached their apartment 20 minutes later he was about to knock on the door it was suddenly opened and there stood Selene. She smiled down at him and said, "Hello Hikari. I was just about-" but she was interrupted when Yugi dropped his backpack and threw his arms around her much as he had the day that she'd come back, crying all the while.

"Yugi, what's wrong?" Selene asked. She certainly hadn't been expecting this.

"I can't take it anymore." Yugi said, though he didn't elaborate just yet.

Selene, sensing that Yugi wasn't ready to talk about it just yet, didn't push any farther. When Yugi's tears were under control a couple minutes later she tilted his head back and said, "Don't know what exactly has you upset, but I've got something that might cheer you up." It was only then that Yugi heard what sounded like some people hurrying to put something together in the kitchen.

Selene poked her head in the kitchen and said something that was muffled by the door before turning back to Yugi and gesturing for him to open the door.

Yugi looked at her, confused, before doing just that and gasping in surprise. In front of him stood Damien, Jason, Jake, and Derek all of whom were standing slightly in front of a cake and a small pile of presents with a banner hanging that read `Happy Birthday Hikari' and was obviously homemade. Each of them was wearing a huge grin and, turning back to Selene, he saw that she too was grinning that huge grin.

"I was about to come get you for your surprise party Hikari. Happy sixteenth birthday!" she said, still grinning.

"Yep, happy 16th Hikari! And may many more years come!" Jake shouted.

"Dimwit, it's `and for many more years to come.'" Derek said with a derisive yet playful snort.

"He gets the idea you guys," Jason interrupted before either one could commence in the brawl that usually followed Derek calling Jake a dimwit.

"Yeah, don't start another brawl here. It took long enough to get the cake right in the first place. We really don't want to go through that again." Damien said. Selene snickered at this. It had taken the boys nearly 15 tries to get it right, mainly because they refused to let her help. She was in charge of decorations and everything like that.

All of the sudden Yugi burst into tears of joy and threw himself at the nearest person, Jake since Selene had stayed at the door when he had entered the kitchen and Jake had been moved away since he and Derek nearly started fighting. Jason, Derek, Damien, and Selene soon joined in the embrace.

"I don't know how to thank you all enough. You've done so much for me." Yugi said, his voice slightly muffled from being in the very center of the very large hug.

"You don't need to thank us. Just have fun." Selene said, and they commenced to do just that.

It wasn't until around seven that they finally ran out of things to do, Yugi had arrived around four, and just plopped down onto the couch and the three armchairs.

"Hey Yugi," Jason suddenly said, having spotted Yugi's abandoned backpack, "what is your backpack doing here for?"

Yugi sobered immediately and Selene suddenly remembered how upset he had been when he'd arrived.

"I'm running away from them," Yugi said in a tone that brooked no arguments, no that any one of them would have argued with him anyway. None of them thought that he should have to live in a house where he was almost constantly ignored.

"Then come with us," Derek said, and Yugi looked at him slightly confused.

"What do you mean come with you? You're not going anywhere are you?" Yugi asked, worried that his friends were going to leave him alone.

"Not without you we weren't." Selene said. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

"What do you mean? I think I missed something here." Yugi said, thoroughly confused by now.

"Jason, you better explain this, either you or Selene. Anybody else's explanation will just probably just get him even more thoroughly confused." Damien said, voicing the opinion of the other four who actually knew what was going on.

"Okay," Jason said, "let's start at the beginning. The five of us," here he gestured to himself, Selene, Damien, Derek, and Jake, "are part of a group that call themselves the Venator or huntsmen in English."

Selene picked up here, "We are, basically, a group of thieves. Only we're not like most thieves. We're more the Robin Hood/Saint Tail type. Basically we steal back what has been illegally or unfairly taken and give it back to its original owners. We also steal from people who have too much and yet still complain about not having enough and making life hell for the people not as fortunate as them in the process."

Yugi's attention was completely focused on his friends as they explained exactly what they were.

"That's how we all met." Derek said. "We each joined the group because we ran away, were abandoned, or something along those lines. Though out of all of us, Selene here has been in it the longest. About two years more than us."

"I was found by one of its members shortly after I ran away from home. As I had no where else to go and I liked the idea of trying to help punish those that hurt others I joined." Selene said.

"I remember reading once that you had run away from home, and I never did see an article about you being found." Yugi said.

"Yup. According to legitimate police records I'm missing and assumed dead. The records up at the school have a ton of made up information on it. Does for all of us, though the names are real enough." Jake said, deciding to add his two cents.

"We all also got the symbol imprinted on us after we were completely sure we wanted to do this." Damien said while pulling down his collar to reveal a crescent moon wrapped around a sun with rays coming off the whole thing imprinted just below his right collar bone (for any of those who have seen the covers of the T*Witches books, it's basically what Cam's and Alex's necklaces would look like when attached together.) Selene, Jake, Jason, and Derek each tugged at their shirts to reveal the same mark.

"You don't have to decide now, and even if you don't want to do the actual thieving you can be part of the group who gets all the information. Either way, none of us are leaving you here." Selene said and Yugi nodded.

"Thanks you guys. I'd want to come with you anyway. When are we leaving?" Yugi asked.

"Well, we can leave tomorrow." Jason said.

"Tomorrow?!?! You mean you were going to leave anyway?" Yugi said.

"Actually we didn't know when we were going to leave because the group, which I might add is rather rich itself, lent us one of the private jets. We can leave whenever we're ready. I just thought the sooner the better because who knows how long it'll take them to realize exactly where you've gone." Selene said.

"Oh. Well, that's okay." Yugi said, then he yawned.

"I guess we better get to bed," Selene said, "we have a long day tomorrow. Good night all."

Everyone except Jake got up.

"Yugi, you take my bed. I'll be fine on the couch." He said. Yugi was about to argue when he looked in Jake's eyes and saw that there was no way in hell he was going to convince the EXTREMELY stubborn young man to let him sleep on the couch.

As the apartment fell silent one figure was still awake.

`Tomorrow before we leave I will confront his "friends" about what happened and leave them to stew over it for the rest of their lives.' Selene thought before turning over and falling into a light sleep.

TBC…..

AN: So what did you think? Please review, I'll appreciate any and all reviews sent my way.

Also next chapter is that night when Yami comes home and doesn't find Yugi there and it'll probably be a song fic. chapter, just warning you now. Either that chapter or the next will have Selene confronting them, it all depends on the length of the chapter.

Thanks all and have a good day!