TL: Phew, I got this one done in a reasonable amount of time. I'm happy! *chipmunk grin* I'm sorry, once again, for the sloooooww progress my chapters undertake, but it's a pretty short story! Well, short compared to many, and I write pretty long chapters…

Jou: I'm alive!

TL: So from here it's going to get good. I'm known (at least in my own head) for my overly dramatic scenes, but I like to think about how it would look on the screen. There, drama is acceptable.

Jou: Hey there!

TL: So, in this chapter, we will actually start to go somewhere! Not like we've got much of anywhere to go… Oh well. I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh—

Jou: Neither do I! I think.

TL: --And I'd like to dedicate this chapter to the J-pop group Flame, because their music helped me get this bit of writing done! They're all so cute… *sigh* All righty, enjoy Chapter… what was it again? Oh yeah! 4. Heh.

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Ryou's friends only stayed until 8, while the sun was setting. They all had work to do and were expected home by a certain time, so Ryou didn't mind them going. But once the house was left to just him and Bakura again, he began to feel alone once more. He sat at the kitchen table shoving at leftovers with his fork. The cold mac'n'cheese didn't seem to mind being rearranged over and over again for countless minutes, but eventually Bakura decided to make himself known.

What are you doing to that food?

Ryou didn't have an answer. He was just pushing it around, nothing drastic.

"Boy—" Ryou jumped at the sound of Bakura's voice above him. He looked up into the spirit's eyes and blinked. There was something a little different. For once he didn't seem bent on destruction and tormenting Ryou. Whatever he wanted, though, Ryou couldn't guess.

Bakura had thought it over. He had thought it over all day and the previous night. He kept coming upon answers he didn't want to be true, solutions he didn't want to try, and feelings he didn't know he had, and wished he didn't. There were things he knew and didn't want to believe.

All he could think of to do was banish those feelings with something else. He couldn't indulge them. That would be madness. These feelings weren't even considered 'right' in any age, he thought. Something was wrong, and he needed it fixed. The thing to do was eliminate the source.

But for some Ra-damned reason he couldn't bring himself to do that.

Ryou watched Bakura staring down at him for several minutes, then scraped his chair back and got up, breaking eye contact. "I'm going to bed," he mumbled, and shuffled towards the stairs. Bakura didn't try to stop him, just followed the retreating back with his gaze. Ryou was glad when the floor came between them and he no longer felt the twin beams of heat blazing into his shoulder blades. He changed and flopped on the bed, feeling sleepy but restless. He knew he should get to sleep, but something was stopping him. His mind was still moving at the speed of light, trying to decipher everything that was happening to him.

The pain, the torment, the confusion… There was a war raging in this house, several wars. Ryou vs. Bakura, Ryou vs. himself, Bakura vs. his own mind. Ryou wanted more than anything right now to run away from it. Run away from Bakura, from his own feelings and actions that he didn't fully understand. He finally decided that sleep could bring him temporary relief, so he retreated to its dark, cool embrace.

Bakura watched the sleeping boy with tired affection, too weary to brush it off. It barely mattered anymore, not when he was so exhausted… It was too late to be thinking hard. Instead Bakura simply stroked Ryou's hair, gently enough so he wouldn't be disturbed, and prayed the boy was really asleep.

Ryou's breath went in sharply for a moment, then out again softly. Bakura's forehead broke out in a light sweat. Dammit, you scared me! Then he sighed, and retired to his soul room to rest.

"Are you going to school or what?"

Ryou's eyes flickered open and he squinted at Bakura's form looming above him. "Nani?"

Bakura just glared.

Too sleepy to realize what he was doing, Ryou muttered, "But okaasan, I don't feel good." It took him several moments to register his own words, and as he did so his eyes stretched to about the size of dinner plates, give or take a few inches. "Er, sorry, I—I didn't mean to say that, it just slipped out—"

"It's all right," Bakura said tiredly. Ryou wilted where he sat, bewildered as usual by Bakura's actions. He was amazingly unpredictable—one minute he was a psychotic sadist, the next he was a downtrodden motherly figure. Unfortunately, the former was much more likely.

"Bakura… You're scaring me."

"Good," came the blunt reply.

"Not like that." There was an awkward moment of silence, then Ryou flopped back under the blankets. "I still feel pretty tired. I'll take one more day off, all right?"

Ryou decided that the lack of a vocal reply and Bakura stamping off to brood in the kitchen again was a sign that it would indeed be all right.

After lying in bed for an hour or so, Ryou decided he couldn't go back to sleep, and so got up and paced the room slowly. He had problems. He knew it. The biggest problem was his lack of solutions. If he kept running away from his problems, by the time they caught up to him, he'd be too tired to take them on. But he was already tired…

Ryou jumped as his stomach growled unexpectedly, and he made his way to the Great Lair of the Bakura—a.k.a., the kitchen, where aforementioned spirit sat hunched dejectedly over a decimated piece of paper, thoroughly absorbed in his own thoughts.

"Ohayo, Bakura." Ryou pulled a jug of milk from the fridge, shivering at the cold projected from within. Bakura didn't answer. Ryou glanced sideways at him as he mixed cereal and milk together in a bowl. "Daijoubu desu ka?*"

"Yes!" Bakura snapped, glaring at Ryou hotly. There was a silence full of crackling energy, before Ryou opened his mouth. "I'm so—"

"Stop it. I know what you're going to say. 'I'm sorry, Bakura, I'll just leave you alone now.' You're always backing down! That's why I—That's why—"

Ryou stared at him, half in shock and half expectantly.

"That's why I hate you, Ryou!"

Ryou wilted at the words, but left his breakfast and bolted to his room before Bakura could make another move. He made a beeline for his desk, dragging a drawer out and snatching up Bakura's forbidden knife. Tears forming in his eyes and sobs clogging his throat, he sliced the skin in stripes along the outside of his arm. Blinded by tears and numbed by the almost unbearable pain shooting up his arm, he crumpled to the floor and let himself go. He wept with every bit of pain and unrequited love that had built up inside of him, forcing out loud gasps and whimpers into the rug, screaming internally at everyone he was ever angry at. Bakura, for being so cold, himself, for being so weak, Yugi, for getting along so well with his yami, his father, for not being there for him when his life was crumbling in his hands…

Struck with sudden fiery passion and overwhelming hopelessness, he picked up the bloody knife, pressing his arm to his shirt, and walked purposefully down the stairs to lean against the kitchen doorframe and face his troubles eye-to-eye.

"Bakura," he said loudly, focusing on the head of silvery hair that hid his yami's face. "Turn around."

Bakura heard the hoarseness in Ryou's voice, and he seemed to be breathing heavily. He tossed Ryou a look that said, 'Go away, worthless being,' but made note of the boy's appearance. Blood stained his whole right arm and made large deep red blotches on his soft blue pajama shirt. In his weak left hand he grasped Bakura's pocketknife—hadn't he told him to leave that alone? His face glistened with tears, and his eyes—his calm brown eyes were suddenly a turmoil of a million negative feelings.

"You're a wreck," Bakura began, still not turning fully around, but Ryou cut him off.

"It's you. It's your fault." Bakura blinked. "I've tried my best, but I can't change who I am. I know you hate me, and I know I'm not the same as you." Ryou paused to catch his breath. "But—But you wouldn't let me be myself without repercussions. You took your frustration out on me, as if I wasn't even human. As if I were some toy for you to fool around with, never worrying about what I felt.

"You did this!" Ryou unbuttoned his shirt and displayed an array of various scars ad bruises decorating his upper body. "And, you did this." He held up his arms, both bleeding and bandaged. "You, you made me do this. But I…" He stopped for breath again. "I still…" His knees were giving way. So little blood left in his body, and such pain… His mind was whirling… "I love you," he managed to whisper, before falling on the kitchen tile, and slowly losing consciousness.

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*In case you didn't know (and since it wasn't really implied by context), this means something along the lines of, "Are you okay?"

TL: Like I said, sorry about the clichéd-ness of it all… I think it's a very touching scene myself. All right, so to the notes. You notice how Ryou's trains of thought seem to head in different directions every chapter? It's sort of like a rationalization process. He keeps trying to figure it all out, but each reason doesn't seem plausible enough. Trust me, it'll happen. Also, the last chapter was like a representation of how friends can really help you out when you feel like shit. I learned that the hard way, and anyone with friends will tell you the same thing. (Speaking of friends, I miss you, DES! …)

About Flame: I don't really know that much about 'em, but I was in a store called Book Off in New York City and there was a huge wall of J-pop, so I couldn't resist walking away with something. I randomly picked up the box because all four of them are super-hot (I've got a thing for Asians…), and they turned out to be pretty good. So that's the story behind them, as if you really wanted to know.