Make Yourself
Chapter 14: Quality Time
By: Maiya Asuka

I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, any of its characters, or any of the songs throughout this little FANfic.

"You think you should what?" Seto's blue eyes became sharply colder.

"What?" Bakura asked innocently, not seeing anything wrong with his suggestion.

"You're way too impatient," reasoned Marik. "If you say something now, you'll fuck everything up."

"You don't know that," snapped Bakura, angry with such a pessimistic remark. He glared out the window of his black Mercedes, which Seto drove since he was the only competent man in the party left after the whole boat bash was over. Bakura was sober enough to know what he was talking about--his voice wasn't slurred or anything. He was just too dizzy to be able to drive efficiently.

"Actually, I do, and so do you and the other three men in this car."

Ryou wore Tanak's loose hat and was still blanketed within Kuro's white towel. His head was leaned against the left-back window; he was far beyond fast asleep. As it turned out, he drank much more alchohol as the party dragged on, and now he was only worn out. The frustrated band members didn't even bother to wake him up.

Yami nodded in agreement with Marik's statement, as did Seto.

"Look, you stupid punks," Bakura began harshly. If Seto's eyes had turned colder, Bakura's had become icily frigid. "It's not as if Ryou's in any danger anymore. His parents were taken into custody, meaning that nobody will penalize the poor kid by smacking and kicking him around. He lives with me. What thing of possible negativity could happen? Worst-case scenario, Ryou won't remember the stuff I tell him and things will continue to be the way they are now. But since that's not a negative effect, why not go for it?"

"Correction," Yami replied. "The worst-case scenario is, Ryou will not remember the things you tell him, and then things will get increasingly awkward for the both of you. Then you will screw up everything you two have."

"What do the two of us have right now, anyway?" He sighed, watching the soft breathing of Ryou's dozing form.

"You have a cute boyfriend who loves you to shreds."

"Does he?"

"Of course, you prick!"yelled Marik, intervening. "Hasn't he already demonstrated enough that he loves you with everything he can offer to you? Ungrateful bastard!"

Another sigh from Bakura. "Will you stop fucking shouting already? Maybe I am, but if you were in my shoes, you'd understand. Sure, Ryou might think he loves me, but he doesn't know me at all. He knew me before that wreck, not after it. Knowing that everything we really had has been long dead, it's just depressing, you know. That red sportscar ruined everything."

I'm so sorry for not understanding, Marik thought, but said nothing more.

"So tell me then, Bakura," Seto said after a few moments of silence. "Do you not think that so much crucial information at once will be too much for him? He'll probably go into shock and faint."

"What will you tell him, anyway?" asked Yami. "Just everything at once?"

"Of course not! I might start off by telling him he used to be Tanak's boyfriend, and then see if that triggers any mem--"

It was true. For a long time, before they both became famous, Tanak and Bakura had been best friends. It wasn't until shortly after they had made it to a life of fame, however, that Tanak and Ryou paired up. Ryou had always actually been solely a Sleep fan, but met Tanak through Bakura. His first male crush had been Tanak, and since the shy yet somehow flirtatious feelings were mutual, Tanak and Ryou became "an item." Since both MassoKissed and The Sleep had been hot and fresh new bands, Tanak became more and more absorbed in his work until he had to tell Ryou that he couldn't balance a boyfriend and a band any longer.

However, The Sleep, unlike MassoKissed, was planning on easing and sneaking into the music limelight. Their approach was very slow and gradual, to make one of those "where'd they come from" entrances before hitting international superstardom. Because Bakura had so much more free time than Tanak, he offered to "hang out" with Ryou, who was feeling a bit suckered and lonely. It was about six months later that both of them told each other that they were quite a bit attracted to each other. And that is when Ryou's relationship with Bakura had begun: right at the tail of his relationship with Tanak.

"Right. That is a good way to start off such a significant confession." Yami's sarcasm was evident as he cut Bakura off mid-word. "Sure, go ahead. Tell your boyfriend that he used to belong to another guy, when he obviously loves you so much. For one thing, he is so insecure that he will think you are trying to get rid of him by telling him that. Besides, in most cases, with any other guy, it would not be able to change anything. But Ryou is very shy and introverted, meaning that he will only become uncomfortable when he finds out that Tanak was his boyfriend."

"So fucking what if he does, anyway!" screamed Bakura, narrowing his eyes at Yami. "None of that is any fucking business of yours or Seto's or Marik's or anyone else's! I know him a damn lot better than you rocket scientists, and I happen to know that what Ryou needs more than anything right now is the truth!" The others did not try to interrupt at this point. "Ryou's my boyfriend, not yours. It's my relationship with him, and it's my right to do whatever the hell I please with it!"

He gasped and whipped his head to the left. Thankfully, he had not woken Ryou with his shouting.

"How dare you try to run my love-life. Assholes."

"We don't want you to do something you'll regret and then have you bitch about it all the time, stupid. We were just giving you our advice--"

"I never fucking asked for your advice!"

"It ain't up to us," Marik muttered softly.

"Fine. You know what? I won't try to remind Ryou of anything good we had left to cherish and I won't try to tell the truth to the person I love. Fuck you."

Coincidentally, as Bakura uttered those last two words, they had arrived at their home. He slammed the car door as he got out of the car. He went over to the left side and lifted Ryou (who was having his first. . .second hangover in his life) into his strong arms before retreating to the nearest entrance door.

"Are you serious? You're not coming?" pleaded Marik, tugging on Bakura's arm like a clingy five-year-old.

"Nah. I mean, it might be pretending for you guys, but not for me." He smirked. "Besides, I'm not in the mood after partying all day yesterday on MassoKissed's speedboat. I'm gonna just chill today."

Marik, Yami, and Seto had called up their hairdressers to prepare for a night of clubbing. But this was no ordinary night on the town, oh, no. Their mission was to hit on guys and act like a more-than-proud gay mini-orgy. The more frightened the straight men became, the more satisfaction for the "more-than-proud gay mini-orgy." Marik had thought that Bakura and Ryou would get a kick out of it since they were already obviously gay.

Seto rolled his eyes with a smile. "It's because Bakura isn't interested in doing anything with anyone but Ryou anymore. Isn't that right, 'Kura-kun'?" With Marik on his left and Yami on his right, he put an arm over each of their shoulders and then turned back to look at Bakura with that smart-ass "oops, I forgot you" look. "Anyway, you have fun chilling in the house that you see all the time. We're out to terrorize poor innocent straight homophobic men, so later." The three chuckled under their breath, marveling in the idea of messing with some people.

Was that supposed to be a joke? Bakura wasn't laughing.

The trio anxiously trotted out the door without a second thought of Bakura.

"When the hell did he start acting like such a bastard?" he muttered (even though Seto had been an asshole for quite some time now) sitting down on the nearby sofa.

Suddenly he remembered Ryou. Just waking up after a night of a miserable hangover, Ryou yawned broadly, feeling very well rested. He had slept on the couch all night long--and all day long, as well. "Where are they going?" He rubbed the corner of his eyes.

Bakura narrowed his eyes at the exit as if Seto, Marik, and Yami were still standing in the doorway. "Stupid shit," he answered bitterly. "You feeling okay?"

"Of course. I've been sleeping for about a whole day now, literally." Ryou pointed to the clock that read, "9:00 PM."

"You really were out cold," nodded Bakura, laughing.

His laughter stopped when the two of the look-alikes both heard a loud growling in Ryou's stomach.

Bakura blinked before saying anything. "Eat much?"

"It's because I've been asleep all day," Ryou allowed himself to laugh at himself. It wasn't a difficult thing to do if Bakura was already laughing.

After offering to cook Ryou something, he urged him to pick up the remote control and pick out a movie on Digital Cable for the two of them to watch.

Ryou had no idea what Bakura would like, so Bakura ended up picking out a cheesy-looking soap opera. Swedish people with heavy accents and broken English sobbing for two hours over absolutely nothing was a wonderful idea of comic relief for Bakura.

As it turned out, Passions was a stellar choice. They laughed hysterically the entire time. In fact, most of the scenes were so terribly funny that the bowl of popcorn resting in Ryou's lap fell to the floor, spilling and scattering white dots all across the hard wood floor.

Apparently, there was some massive flood going on (the water level was up to the second story of the houses). Two best friends held onto each other's wrists; one in the water, being pulled away, and another on the porch of a house, trying her best to pull her friend out of the current.

"Let me go! I'll pull you in with me!" the blonde on the television screen shouted at her friend.

"NO! I won't let you go! You're my best friend!"

"Let go of me! Save yourself!"

As the two actresses exchanged the hilariously stale "cheesy" and "heard-them-before" lines. Bakura was laughing so hard that it was almost inaudible, because he could barely breathe.

Another scene included an old woman who was being pulled away in the current of the flood. It was completely obvious that the water was coming from some pump off-screen, or something. It didn't look authentic whatsoever. Not only that, but this old woman found a large piece of wood, onto which she climbed and stood upon. She laughed triumphantly, and the executive producers of Passions were stupid enough to even add the instrumentals to "Wipe-Out!" in the background.

What a lame attempt at humor, and yet effective. Because of how corny it all was, Bakura and Ryou laughed almost completely non-stop, only taming their laughter slightly so they could hear dialogue.

In another scene, a woman and an older man were inside of some builing, in a small room. The woman kept insisting that the man did not leave her, but the man kept saying that he had no interest her, and in fact, had interest in someone else. Oh dear!

"No!"the woman screamed. "I'm not letting you go until you make love to me!"

Bakura and Ryou almost lost it at that point.

The man ignored her and attempted to open the door, almost managing to abandon the woman. However, with his back now turned to her, she turned to a table which had an ice pick resting upon it. Acting quickly, she seized the ice pick, turned around, and stabbed it into the man's back with much ferocity.

As the man groaned and turned around, the woman had a schitzophrenic look on her face. "I told you I'd kill you," she smirked in a rather creepy fashion, her tone soft-spoken and crazy sounding.

Ryou, who had been sitting on Bakura's lap, fell from his current seat and onto the floor. The both of them laughed so hard that tears began to form in their eyes. Bakura could not recall any time that he and his boyfriend had ever laughed together so hard. Not in all the years of their relationship together.

That was enough--almost too much--comic relief for the night. He still chuckled blindly, feeling around for the remote until he stopped the Digital Cable, lifted Ryou back up onto the sofa on the cushion next to himself, and put an arm around his shoulder. "We may not get to spend this much time together for much longer," he whispered in a clearly dismayed tone.

Ryou, still an enthusiastic Sleep fan, remembered what he meant. The Sleep, Massokissed, and some other rock bands were about to go on tour with each other in various countries, and none of them were very close to Japan.

Noticing Ryou's disappointment, Bakura squeezed him around the shoulders softly. "But my birthday is tomorrow. Remember? I've set something up with my buddies and family. You'll be able to come, right?"

"Not as if I have anything else to do," Ryou pointed out, chuckling.

Sorry this was a bit shorter... and yes, I changed my penname again, but I'm too lazy to change the penname on all these chapters all over again... but I am NOT a plagiarizer, as you can say. I was, in fact, previously known as Shounen Squared. Don't hurt me!

Yes... I've been unfortunate enough to actually see that described episode of Passions. Ewwww. Let me tell you all, folks... that is the definition of REAL horror. Ugh. Though at the same time, it was the most hilariously lame thing I have ever had the displeasure to see. Ick...