Hi, I know that I should be working on Cultural Exchange, but this story just struck me. And I keep getting ideas for this that just beg to be written. I just got the manga where Ryou/Bakura comes in and realized that I had no idea what I thought of Bakura and Ryou's "relationship" was. So I wrote this to work it out. Now that I have a better idea, this fic is just plain fun, so I may continue with it if anyone out there likes it still (aka if there is anyone out there I haven't yet offended somehow with this fic)

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Bakura arrived at the home he shared with Ryou. He wanted to pause under the shade of the magnificent oaks casting shadows on the snow in front of it, but even now he could feel Ryou beginning to struggle to wake up.

He entered the home by picking the lock, even though he knew very well where the spare key was despite Ryou's attempts to conceal it from him. His big bushy hair was a perfect place to hide files and pins and all sorts of other lock-pick tools. He kept telling Ryou that he should change the lock because someone would break through the old rickety lock, but he was simply ignored. Maybe if he just kept breaking in himself, Ryou might eventually change it simply to spite him.

He strode up the steps to his 'bedroom'. Bakura kept a room of the apartment as his own for personal use. In it he kept a lump of blankets he called a bed, his few personal possessions and his best treasure/plunder in there. Not his most expensive or money valuable treasures, but his best and most valued treasures. His bedroom was locked at all times. He had no key for it and simply picked it open every single time. He liked to change the lock every now and then, for no real good reason. If he could leave Ryou's body for extended periods of time without having to go back into the Millennium Ring, it would be to this room he wanted to go.

He went to his collection of daggers. Ryou never spoke to him about them or asked him anything about them. Even so, Bakura could tell when Ryou noted with revulsion each new addition to his collection whenever Bakura showed them to him. Neither of them ever talked about it, but both of them knew that when there was a new dagger, a bloody death would be discovered shortly afterwards. In fact, there was only one dagger that was not obtained through bloodstained methods and had never known the copper burn of human blood on its beautiful, shining blade. It was this dagger he went to now, his favorite. It had a longish flat sort of blade of a pale silvery metal shot through with the tiniest veins of gold. The hilt was carved of a jet black stone with tiny inlays of the same pale silver metal as the blade. It sparkled like the night sky when he gazed at it in the moonlight, the time he most liked to just sit there and stare at it for hours on end. His mother had crafted it just for him, back in ancient times, and he could still see her face in it if he looked hard enough. He had preserved it and kept it with him through shadow magic. It had been his only possession during his long wait in the millennium ring, the only thing that kept him any sort of semblance of sane. Now that he had a 'home' again, he returned it to the physical world, and kept it with him when he needed a reminder that he had obligations, a mission to fulfill, a revenge to take, and a rent to pay. A reminder that he couldn't just give in to the grief, the anger, the rage. A reminder of his past, a symbol of his present, and an omen of his future.

It was enough for him, he would get by and carry on.

He always had.

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This may be a bad time to mention this, but I don't think I have gotten a flame yet. I'm so happy. No, that is not an open invitation to start sending me random flames.

I still haven't decided whether it is better to shamelessly beg for reviews or just ignore the issue entirely. Oh well.

Bye, I promise to finish this chapter of Cultural Exchange and A Duelist's Travels soon. Very soon. Hopefully.