A Christmas Secret

Joyful giggles permeated the apartment. Three youths sat near the Christmas tree with a myriad of gifts, wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows spread out before them. Their eyes sparkled in the firelight as they conversed and wrapped gifts for their other friends.

A petite youth rose to his feet holding a shiny red ribbon in his hand. The youth had raven black hair tipped in violet with blonde bangs as bright as the sun's rays framing his cherubic features. His amethyst eyes focused on his albino friend. Yugi giggled while wrapping the long wavy silver tresses of the albino into the red ribbon he held; tying a perfect bow with the ribbon.

"Aw Ryou, you look pretty like that," Yugi smiled down at his friend. Warm milk chocolate eyes returned Yugi's enthusiastic smile.

"And festive!" the third friend piped up, "but you are not quite done yet," Malik smirked. The youth had sun kissed mocha colored skin with blonde hair that fell around his shoulders. His lilac eyes searched through the scattered items in front of him before growing wide when they landed on the needed object. His sun kissed hand reached out to grab the scissors.

Milk chocolate eyes enlarged; almost covering the entirety of Ryou's pale features. Ryou frantically waved his hands protectively in front of him as he scooted back, "No! You are not cutting my hair!"

"What?" Malik eyed him confused. He glanced down at the scissors, "No. I wasn't going to cut your hair silly. Come here." He grabbed the end of the ribbons and ran them across the blade forcing the ends to curl into a delicate spiral. "There, now you look amazing."

Yugi giggled again, "He's right, Ryou. You look good like that. The red provides an amazing contrast to your creamy skin and warm eyes."

A pink blush stained Ryou's cheeks, "Thank you," he whispered, "We should really to work on this wrapping. We have a lot to do and at this rate, we will be done by next Christmas."

"Will you at least keep the ribbon on for a while?" Malik begged folding his hands in front of him. Ryou nodded, the spiral ribbon curls falling over his shoulders.

"Yes!" Yugi cheered rocking backwards slightly too far. He lost his balance and landed on his back. He burst into another fit of giggles before sitting up to return to his wrapping.

"Whose idea was it to give Yugi eggnog?" Ryou raised a silver eyebrow at Malik accusatorily. The blonde Egyptian shrugged innocently. "Uh huh...why do I not believe you?"

Malik shrugged again, "I don't know. Why do you not believe me?" A grin passed over the coral lips; a hint of mischief shinning in lilac pools.

"Because usually it is your fault," Ryou giggled throwing a wadded up wrapping paper ball at the Egyptian who, in turn, caught it.

Three pairs of eyes watched the three youths happily wrapping gifts from the opposite side of the room. The owner of pointed coffee colored eyes sat back in his armchair taking a swig of spiked eggnog.

"I don't understand how those three could get this excited about Christmas. It is not even Christmas yet; they are only wrapping," Bakura grunted. Bakura's appearance was amazingly similar to Ryou. He had pale skin stretched tightly over a muscular figure. His long silver hair flowing further down his back than Ryou's and formed two horn shaped spikes in the front. His sharp coffee colored eyes glanced down into the glass holding his eggnog. He mindlessly made a circular motion with the glass mixing the nutmeg and cinnamon into the liquid.

"I have no clue either. They always get insanely excited over the littlest things during this time of year," Marik crossed his arms as he observed the three hikaris. Marik looked almost exactly like Malik save a few distinct differences. Marik's blonde hair was longer and spiked randomly around his head in an organized chaotic way. His pointed eyes were a dark lilac while Malik's were a light lilac color.