Chapter Twenty-Five
I Was Just Thinking

Bakura awoke the next morning wondering which of them had most influenced the end of the dream. He suspected it had been him. He also wondered if Ryou had noticed his presence yet, or if he believed that he was the one causing his dreams to take such a…physical turn. The utter ridiculousness of the notion struck him as incredibly funny. Ryou. Have sex dreams! Ha! That'll be the day! Bakura sat up and went to the window, almost expecting Marik to be standing there, impatiently tapping his toe as he waited to be let in. But then he remembered where his…boyfriend had gone. This really shouldn't bother me as much as it does. I don't LIKE him. Nonetheless, he tried and failed to come up with a reason Ishizu would have demanded that her brother return home immediately. From Marik's expression, he gathered that it couldn't be anything good.

But it had certainly led to something that was nothing if not good. Things may have gone the same whether she had called or not, but Bakura hadn't had to worry about Marik returning. His mind had been fully invested in those long few moments he'd spent in Ryou's bedroom last night. More had been accomplished then than they'd been able to get through in nearly a full week. It's only been a week, Bakura mused, and I've already stirred up this much trouble. He chuckled. I'm not bored anymore. Something burst through a door in his mind. It's about time! With a grumble, Bakura thought, Ra damn it, not you again. He pushed it back and proceeded to consider what had happened between Ryou and himself.

Bakura hadn't expected to reveal anything to Ryou just yet, much less to kiss him. But something inside him had tipped over and caught him on fire, burning down every façade he'd built in a blazing moment of unbridled passion. Not that he regretted what he'd done. On the contrary, he was sort of…proud of himself. He was surprised by why, because it had nothing to do with the fact that he now had two boys on strings. He'd done something…good, rather than something bad. Good because he'd admitted to reciprocating Ryou's feelings. Good because he didn't intend to take it back. He didn't doubt that Ryou had read into every honest emotion he'd fed into the kiss, heard every word without Bakura having to say one. "Of course I care about you, you idiot. Of course I like you. I can't believe you tried to convince yourself that this would never happen. You're so innocent…" But he knew that he'd have to say everything without all of the hormonal subtext. That's…manageable. I guess. Manageable or not, it had to happen at some point, and better sooner rather than later, before Ryou had time to twist everything in his mind and convince himself that it had been nothing more than Bakura taking a break. Or perhaps even his own imagination.

It was hard for Bakura to see Ryou being able to pull that off. Even he couldn't possibly convince himself that the kiss had never happened. There was no denying the warmth of their touching lips, the fervent desire that passed between them. There was no forgetting their racing hearts, beating together in harmony. No blocking out how close they had gotten to actually… He allowed his mind to trail off for a moment. Actually what? Having sex? I think he may have protested that. Maybe. But, began the other voice, did he protest when you took off his shirt? Unbuttoned his jeans? He's not THAT innocent. He banged his head against the window. That's what bothers me. Bakura was starting to feel a lot like his dream-self. I think reality is a whole lot more complicated than Ryou's dream. In the dream, it was just him and Ryou. No Marik. No father. No friends. The only person to be pleased was Bakura. Nobody else would care about—would even notice—a change in the boy, as there no doubt would be. Welcome to the real world, Ryou. It's inhabited by trillions of people, and some of them happen to know you. He hit his head against the window again.

Bakura didn't want to have to consider any of the other people who were an undeniable part of Ryou's life. He wanted to focus on just the two of them, on how much a part of each the other was. He wanted to learn how to keep Ryou happy. Gah, did I really just think that? Of course I did. And it had just occurred to him why. Feeling Ryou's pain had been no illusion: they were still connected, even if only by a few fraying threads. The moment Ryou first touched the Ring, they had become intertwined. But on Sunday they had torn themselves apart; it was unnatural. Ryou had only been vaguely infatuated with Bakura when they still shared a body. But once they separated, he began to feel a pull to his other half, a sudden desperate need for them to be together again—what he had interpreted as love. Bakura had tried to ignore the feeling in every way he could, the most shameful of all being Marik. But no matter what he did, there was no way to escape it, and he didn't think he could stand himself if he did manage to escape it. When he had asked for his own body, he had asked to split one person into two. The longer they stayed apart, the weaker the threads connecting them would become. Bakura knew that if they broke, both of them would be left with an emptiness that they could never refill. Ra, I REALLY messed us up. But perhaps it was for the best. Could Ryou have withstood a lifetime of my shadow? Whatever the case, he had been selfish. Bakura punched the wall.

Ryou bolted upright in his bed when a heavy thump broke through his sleep. He groaned and looked at his clock. 5:50. He had a little time to think before starting his morning routine. There was only one thing on the boy's mind: the night before. Ryou had been…shocked more than anything. After everything he'd seen him do with Marik, Bakura had turned around and kissed Ryou. The whole thing was infused with unspoken messages, everything that Ryou couldn't see before. Or rather, everything that Ryou hadn't allowed himself to accept. Bakura had been toying with both Marik and him, but the way he played was different for each. Bakura had convinced Marik that he liked him, even though that wasn't truly the case. He'd convinced Ryou that he didn't like him, and that was most certainly not the case. Why did you have to hurt me? Because he was bored, of course. It seemed that last night had been the final straw, and Bakura had gotten tired of the game, so he'd started a new one. Or maybe this is just an extension of Confuse the Ryou. It was possible, of course. Ryou didn't want it to be. Whether Bakura honestly cared back or not, Ryou loved him. How did I even get to this point? the boy wondered.

Saturday night, after he first saw Bakura, he began dreaming. That first dream was sort of romantic, but it could have been written off as trying on a new feeling with the only person his mind could think of. It was mostly about Bakura being protective of him.

The next afternoon, Ryou and Bakura split apart into two separate bodies, and Ryou all but begged Bakura to stay because he couldn't stand the thought of being alone. Bakura left the house with Marik sometime that night.

Ryou woke up the next morning to find Bakura's note. After school he and his friends were chased around by his fangirls. He walked home that night, terrified of what the growing dark had in store for him now that Bakura's aura no longer overshadowed him. Bakura ended up coming home three hours late and told the story of Marik's and his "date". Marik broke in and Bakura dragged him outside, where Ryou saw them kissing. He went to bed deeply upset. The dream moved on, and there was no overlooking the strong romantic overtones. Ryou awakened in the middle of the night and discovered Marik and Bakura making out in the living room. This time he went to bed crying; he decided then to stop liking Bakura.

Of course, Bakura wouldn't allow it to be that simple. In the morning, Bakura admitted that he and Marik were dating. Despite his words, he continued his subtle advances, entirely breaking Ryou's resolve to forget him. Ryou spent the entire school day drawing instead of taking notes. At the end of the day, Yugi invited him to spend the night on Thursday, and Ryou had accepted. When Marik left, Bakura kissed him right in front of Ryou, then proceeded to look at the top picture of the "notes", which he recognized as his horse Lazuli. He handed the notes back and gave Ryou a glass of water. Ryou spent several hours turning his drawings into a full storyline before falling asleep. He remembered waking up and falling asleep again sometime in the middle of the night. The dream progressed, and the underlying sexual tension grew a lot stronger.

Ryou woke up at his desk the following morning and found his drawings had been messed with, as well as Bakura's chair right beside him; no doubt as to who had done it lingered in his mind. He went downstairs to find Marik and Bakura sharing a seat, about to kiss. He kept a straight face as he poured himself some water and put two bags of his 'COFFEE' in it before heading upstairs and checking his homework. After that was done, he drank the—ridiculously strong—tea. Ryou couldn't deny that he was jealous, that he truly cared about Bakura, so instead he was going to avoid him until he broke up with Marik. He spent the school day constantly tapping either his hand or his foot from the guarana. When he got home, he found Marik and Bakura asleep on the couch. Because the rest of the afternoon was blank, he assumed that he had passed out at around that time. The next time he woke up it was a little after one in the morning. As he crept downstairs, he could hear some very…interesting sounds coming from the living room. He snuck into the kitchen and pulled down every box of tea except for green, which he figured he would need in the morning. He fell asleep with a small smirk of his own. Bakura would have been proud had he known of the ploy.

He tried to leave early yesterday, but Bakura was already up, and insisted that he drink some tea. Ryou tried to refuse, but Bakura dragged him to the kitchen. Just as he was sat down, the doorbell rang and Bakura went to answer, as it was undoubtedly Marik. Ryou took his chance to pick up the last box of tea and slip away before Bakura could stop him. Throughout the school day, he actually looked forward to the night he was going to spend at Yugi's. It was time away from Bakura and Marik, which he desperately needed. But when they got to the game shop, Grandpa was sick again, so Yugi apologized before sending them all home. So Ryou went home and found Bakura leaning over Marik.

From that point on things became a complete emotional blur. He was very, very depressed. He was very, very scared. He was incredibly, impossibly in love. No matter how much he hated the way Bakura had acted over the past several days, Ryou wasn't going to lie to either of them anymore. He loved Bakura. So just kill me now if it's really so bad, he thought to whatever deity might be watching. He sighed and stretched when nothing happened. Not that he expected anything to. Time to get up, I suppose.

Bakura heard a sigh coming from the other room and looked at the small clock that was sitting on his bedside table. 6:15. Ryou was surely awake by now, and if he wasn't, he needed waking up. He got to his feet and opened his door.

Ryou stepped out of his room just as Bakura did the same. He gasped and felt his face flush. He'd wanted just a little bit of time to mentally prepare himself before the inevitable post-first-kiss encounter took place.

It was Bakura who broke the momentary silence. "You're up a little late."

"I was just thinking."

The other nodded and started downstairs. "Yeah, me too." He paused and waited for Ryou to follow before disappearing into the kitchen.

I almost made this chapter completely silent, but then it would have been nameless as well. Which I kind of think would have been awesome, but...

Anyway, this is the closest you'll ever get to Evil Angel: The Abridged Fanfic. This is kind of filler, but it's also kind of important, so please don't be pissed off and send my ratings plummetting to the ground! Just bear with me, as next chapter will—or rather had best be—more interesting.

So I have a new fic up for those of you who haven't noticed. It's called The Secret Life of a Japanese Teenager, absolutely no relation to The Secret Life of an American Teenager, I swear! I've been mulling over doing a huge fic where I talk about more than three characters, so that's it and thanks to those four of you who have already reviewed. I'm putting up the next chapter here in a few minutes, as I swore I wouldn't update it until I updated this.

Now, review please! I haven't been getting as many reviews as before and it makes me...sad. So review!