Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Gi Oh.

(A.N: This is based loosely on a piece I wrote in my last English exam: I can't remember the original hugely well but here's the fic. Hope you enjoy.)

Wasted
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

"You stupid boy," his father hisses at him and he hangs his head in shame, turning away so he doesn't have to see his father's furey. Tears come into his eyes but it isn't from shame; his head hurts so badly, but he supposes he should have been used to that by then.

"You stupid, stupid boy," his father says again, disappointment even more clearly audible in his voice than he ever remeberes. "Why did you do it? Why? I thought I'd raised you to have more sense than that!"

His voice grows louder as he speaks and the boy flinches away, wanting so badly to go back to sleep and rid himself of his hangover, but of course he knows he can't.

"Why did you do it, Ryou?"

The boy, Ryou, simply stares down at the floor. He doesn't hear what his father's saying any longer; he just continues staring as though he was capable of nothing else and lets his thoughts wander back to why he is in such a mess now and how the entire situation started.

---

When Ryou first moved to Domino he had had no friends; after all, England was a long way from Japan, wasn't it? Still it wasn't long until he met Jou: he was a street-punk of a kid and fought in a highschool gang even though he was only in junior high, the same age as Ryou himself. At first Ryou presumed that Jou and his friends would either want nothing to do with him or pick on him: they did at first but after Ryou fought back they stopped; he was no where near as weak as he'd let them think… in fact Jou himself was the only one who could beat him. That's when Jou first took him under his wing. That's when all the trouble really began.

It wasn't so much the fights that bothered Ryou as the other things they would do. Ryou didn't want to drink so much as they did, nor had he ever planned to start smoking… but of course he did in the end. They wouldn't accept him if he didn't, would they? After all they were his friends and he couldn't afford to loose them, could he?

Still the thing that bothered him most was Jou… or rather Jou's attitude towards him; he seemed to think of Ryou as something other than a human… a plaything, perhaps, that could be picked up and disgarded at will. Of course Ryou complied with that; he had to, even if it meant disgracing himself by becoming the object of his 'friend's lust.

In the end it was all of these three put together that had lead to his father catching him, figuring out what his son really did in his spare time. His room had been in a state of utter disarray with beer bottles and cigarette ends all over the floor in total chaos, and Jou had been sitting on top of him, his tongue down Ryou's throat.

Needless to say his father had been mad then but of course he hadn't shown it, not until this morning…

---

Ryou returns to the present time, his eyes no longer so misted over. A realisation had come to him; he isn't proving anything by hanging round with this group of 'friends' who seek to do nothing but use him: and he isn't just failing his father by acting like this; he's failing himself. He isn't achieving anything by getting so high and wasted so often: in fact it isn't just his body but his life he's wasting. He knows he has to get out of it some way or other, even if it means leaving Jou and the others far behind him… in fact he thinks that that will be for the best.

He looks up as his father leaves his room in bitter disappointment and closes the door behind him. It's then that Ryou really realises; there is no way to get out of there: he's locked into a closed room, a prison cell, with no way to escape, not even if he tries at all…