Chapter 18: The Two Who Did Not Attend the Dueling Tournament
…
Bakura awoke on Saturday, the day of Kame Game Shop's dueling tournament, feeling just as awful as he had for the past week. He was back in his own bed at nights, due mostly to will power. Glancing at the cracked door, assured Ryou was not lurking, he rolled up his sleeve. The newest cuts had mostly healed, but the one cut was still inflamed, almost a month later. He considered completely reopening the wound, but the very site of the cut, puffy, oozing with yellow pus, made him nauseated. His stomach didn't need the help rolling like he was at sea.
He quickly rolled his sleeve back down, and forced himself up. He made his way to the living room, where he could hear Ryou in the dining room declining something or someone on the phone.
"Bakura is still sick," he emphasized to the person on the other end. His countenance expressed how guilty he felt about it. Bakura sat down on the couch, resting his feet on the coffee table out of habit.
"Yeah, but I think I should get him to a doctor. It's been a week." Ryou turned to the wall, with the mentality of a two year old toddler: if I can't see him; he isn't there.
"Who's on the phone," Bakura called out. His insides squirmed, for once, not from the ever present nausea.
Ryou held out a finger and Bakura bristled. He wasn't a child to reprimand. "What? Well I suppose that could work, but…"
"Ryou. Who is on the phone?" Bakura said, louder this time.
"It's Yugi," Ryou said reluctantly. "It's not important."
Bakura was on his feet, and standing over Ryou, and grabbed the phone out of his hands, before he could react. "Pharaoh's brat," he said into the phone.
"B-Bakura?" Yugi asked, voice grainy over the connection.
Bakura leaned backwards, away from Ryou who attempted to wrestle the phone back, and barked orders to Yugi. "Today's your dueling thing, right?" When Yugi answered with an affirmative, Bakura continued, "And you want Ryou's help?" Another "Yes." Bakura took an over large step away from Ryou. "I presume you have a plan for this?"
Yugi chimed in agreement again, explaining his plan fully to Bakura. His stomach dropped at the already laid out plan of attack. Swallowing his pride and the acid that rose in his throat at the thought of Yugi's brilliant idea, Bakura replied, "He'll be there." And he hung up the phone, allowing no time for disagreement from Ryou.
Bakura returned to the couch, gently sitting down, trying to push down the general feelings of sickness away. "Yugi wants you there at noon," he said to Ryou.
"Bakura, you're still sick!" Ryou protested. He leaned in, peering into Bakura's eyes. "You are; you're pale." He placed a hand to Bakura's cheek, whom flinched back at the couch. "And clammy, and you're sweating!"
"It's four hours. I'll be fine for four hours," Bakura said, exasperated. "Besides, Yugi has that covered too." He grimaced, crossing his arms over his body like a shield against the future unpleasantness.
Ryou sat back, and chewed his thumbnail thoughtfully. "He mentioned that to me. I figured you wouldn't be ok with it."
"I'm not," Bakura growled. "Just go."
Ryou caved, "Are you—"
"Yes."
…
Ryou slipped on his tennis shoes, just as the knocking on the door started. Bakura's stomach clenched, and he grimaced into a couch cushion. Ryou tossed him a concerned look, which Bakura waved a hand impatiently in reply.
Ryou answered the door to Yami. He again looked back at Bakura, then met Yami's gaze. "Will you guys be okay?"
Yami smiled, placing his shoes on a shelf and stepping up into the apartment. "We'll be fine. Go on." He gestured to the cracked door. "Yugi needs your support." Ryou sighed, but did finally leave, making sure to inform both of them he had his mobile and to ring for any reason.
Bakura lifted his head long enough to give Ryou a dirty look as the apartment door clicked shut. He lowered his head, fully planning to sleep for the next four hours Yami played babysitter.
Yami sat on the chair, staring at Bakura's lounging form. "You look like shit," he observed.
"I feel like shit too," Bakura spit, sarcasm dripping off every word.
Yami tapped his fingers on the end of the armrest, further infuriating Bakura—not that Yami's presence wasn't enraging enough. "No wonder Ryou insisted on staying home." He laughed, not meanly, but it still made Bakura's blood boil. "You look like a little lost puppy."
"Fuck off," Bakura half moaned. In his state of despair, he missed the concern lacing Yami's eyes.
Yami paused his repetitive finger tapping. "Why did you insist Ryou—"
Bakura cut him off, forcing himself into a cross legged sitting position. "I didn't insist." He glared, "Besides, he would've whined for days…"
Yami smiled. "No he wouldn't've. That was nice of you, you know."
Bakura refused to meet Yami's gaze, and stared at the hallway.
…
"So," Yami's voice broke the silence between the two. Bakura lifted his face from the couch cushion, mood quickly turning homicidal at the intrusion of his fevered thoughts and near comatose state.
"So, what?" Bakura ground out, irritated.
Yami crossed his legs and glanced off to the distance. Bakura followed his look to the hallways where the three bedrooms separated. "It's probably better to talk about something since we're just sitting here."
Bakura suppressed a snort. Sitting quietly with the Pharaoh was bad enough in his opinion, thanks. Besides, talking with Yami usually launched into full blown physical violence, or Yami pandering to him with simpering condescendence. His stomach turned, not from nausea for once in the past week, and he welcomed the small reprieve, until his stomach clenched in queasiness less than a minute later as Yami started in on some mundane talk which held as equal importance as discussing the weather.
He ignored it even as some of Yami's monologue seeped through the layers of nausea and indifference. "School starts back up soon."
No shit. "I'm looking forward to it." The statement would have been considered a positive thought had it not been saturated by sarcasm and practically wrenched from Bakura's teeth.
"You don't need to be so rude," Yami sniffed and missed the grimace as Bakura's stomach reminded him that he was, indeed, still sick.
"Like I'm so thrilled to go back to dealing with Kobayashi every day," Bakura retorted with a reference to their homeroom teacher, male, barely out of university and obviously overcompensating for other things lacking in his life.
Yami frowned. "He's not that bad. If you didn't go out of your way to make him miserable—"
"Me? I?" Bakura asked, incredulous, voice rising with each clipped word. "He's the one who has it out for me!"
Yami crossed his arms, glancing up at the ceiling. Bakura glared at his lap, aware of exactly what the portion of ceiling Yami stared at looked like—boring, bland, and off white; it looked solid until you really examined it, then tiny groove where the paintbrush had once circled the surface appeared.
"Please," he said. That one word, one syllable echoed in Bakura's conscious. Arrogant, placating, phony: just like the Pharaoh—he who is so perfect, so righteous, so—ugh! Bakura seethed.
"I haven't done anything to him!" Bakura exclaimed.
Yami leveled his gaze so his eyes bore into Bakura's, an expression that blatantly revealed Bakura's supposed lying remained affixed to his lips, which frowned disapprovingly. I'm right; you're wrong. Nya nya nya.
"I didn't," Bakura insisted.
Yami decided, finally, to reply verbally, "Then why do you persist on wearing the wrong uniform just to smite him?"
Bakura wanted to shout it wasn't his fault, but that would likely go over as well as trying to explain it to Kobayashi last month had. His lips quirked up in humor at that memory, and Bakura reacted in the same way he had with their teacher: by saying nothing at all.
Yami saw the small grin pasted on Bakura's face and took it to mean Bakura was pleased by his actions. "See?" he asked as he gestured to Bakura, who immediately wiped the grin from existence, scowling at his 'sitter'. "You're going out of your way to make the guy miserable.
I am not! I'm the one who is miserable! Bakura sat in stone silence as Yami continued to press into him, telling him all about his every iniquity. The constant ache in his head silenced as Yami rattled on freaking epithets on his wrongdoings, his wickedness…
"…If you just tried to be more amicable…" Bakura curled his hands into fists from where he sat on the couch, glaring back at the Pharaoh.
"…You have to give respect if you want him to leave you alone, but you're always playing the blame card..." It took all his determination to prevent his lips from curling into a sneer as Yami's monologue returned to the infamous Kobayashi.
"…No one likes you, but you don't try…" His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands and his hand shook. The expanse of skin stretched taut over his knuckles faded to white as he fisted his hands against the dizzying feeling of wanting to cut.
"…Well, you probably already messed up any opportunity you had. I mean, how many chances should you get…" The ceiling and floor separated in his mind's eye and the space in between flooded with images of past cutting session, desire projected in flashes of wrists littered with rows and rows of fresh cuts, of blood dribbling down to meet the floor.
Heat bloomed in a tight knot in his chest. "Excuse me," Bakura forced out.
Yami uncrossed and re-crossed his legs as he leaned further back in the armchair. A grin curved upwards with a smugness that made the warmth unfurl from the nest in his chest and stream outwards, down his arms. "It doesn't matter. There isn't anything you can do about it."
Then I might as well get out now, Bakura thought. He physically had to bite his tongue to keep that thought safely tucked into his mind. He vividly remembered the conversations he'd had with Ryou in early July.
"It doesn't matter, anyway. No one will do anything about it," Ryou had scoffed when Bakura questioned exactly what would happen if he let slip Ryou's eccentric eating behaviors. "They'll just call it a diet-gone-wrong." He had smirked, and concluded—unknowingly answering Bakura's true question—with, "It's not like cutting your wrists or something else suicidal." Another smirk and as an afterthought, "Besides boys don't have eating disorders."
A few weeks and a month ago that conversation had taken place. Well, Bakura remembered, it hadn't exactly been a conversation so much as Bakura faux interrogating Ryou to find out what rights idiot Kobayashi had. After that explanation, Ryou's eyes had pin pointed on him, and Bakura found himself being interrogated.
He smiled wistfully at the change in roles. Now Ryou was the one concerned about him. He had ended that conversation with an abrupt dismissal: "Tch, just seeing where your fucked up eating will lead you."
Yami gazed at Bakura as the other seemed to drown in his thoughts. As he was swallowed more and more under, Bakura's eyes deadened. He pushed himself forward in the armchair and called out to him, "Bakura? Hey Bakura?"
After a moment Bakura blinked back to reality. "It doesn't matter, Pharaoh."
"Obviously it did. What happened?" he asked, actually focusing on Bakura for the first time since he arrived.
Bakura shrugged against the lingering feelings of despair. Everything was shit; life was not fair and he would never win against Pharaoh. Why bother: the thought swirled dangerously in and out of his thoughts, and he reined it back in before he voiced it aloud.
The flashback to last month reminded him that, as a minor, he was subject to inquiry if he made mention of harming himself, and his thoughts were probably self loathing enough to be considered suicidal. To top it off, like fuck he would admit anything to the self-righteous Pharaoh. It was miserable enough to be babysat by him whilst dealing with the physical awfulness of illness.
Yami rested his elbows on his uncrossed knees as he leaned forward, peering into Bakura's eyes. "Did I say something…?" He trailed off, and the concerned softness in his face hardened as if he realized he was talking to Bakura rather than his naïve little host. Partner. Whatever the Pharaoh and his bitch called themselves. The lines of his face remained harsh as he asked a new, less apprehension-fueled question.
"Regardless, you really do need to be more appreciative…" Bakura drowned out the stupidity that threatened to make him feel more shitty and flopped over and resumed lying face down on the couch.
…
An hour of silence passed. Yami started tapping his fingers again, and Bakura gritted his teeth, the rhythmic noise awakening him from the farce of a nap his unintentional dozing off had been. He tossed the remote to Yami, as the illness reared its ugly head. Great.
"Oh, thank you." Yami turned on the television to some loud cooking show. Bakura shuddered as the sounds of banging pots and pans ricocheted in his head, sending aches down his body. Yami stared at the television. Attempting to glean information from Bakura (and likely silently apologize for his accusations earlier), he commented, "It really was considerate of you to force Ryou into leaving."
"Leave me alone," Bakura muttered, refusing to act on the pain radiating in his skull less the Pharaoh caught on to his weaknesses.
Silence descended again, before Bakura threw himself at the mercy of the gods, querying, "Why aren't you participating? Too little recognition?" He smirked.
Yami looked away, uncomfortable. "I wanted to give Yugi a chance to shine." He scratched his bare arm. Bakura noticed he stopped before causing any damage. Something heavy dropped in his stomach.
"How noble," he sneered.
Yami scowled, quickly back pedaling. "It's none of your business anyway." He leaned forward, and ugly smirk on his face. "I'm doing you a favor."
Bakura heard the silent: "so you better be behaved" in Yami's condescending words. His stomach curdled. And the fight, round two opened. He shifted on the couch, lying on his side to alleviate the discomfort. Bakura pressed a hand to his nose, even the leftover aroma of Ryou's breakfast made bile creep up his throat.
Yami peered at Bakura. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," he muttered, before giving up the battle, and running to the toilet by the kitchen, a hand clamped over his mouth. Yami followed at his heels, as he slumped to the floor in front of the toilet, and was violently ill.
…
Bakura rested his pounding head against the cool plastic toilet rim after the heaving gasps quelled. After not eating much for the past week, his throat burned from acid and his stomach cramped as it had nothing to reject. He wiped a fleck of bile from his lips with his sleeve.
Yami touched his arm; Bakura hissed at the pain that flared up at the action. He jerked his arm away, head aching and body trembling. "I'll do it myself," he snapped. Grasping a roll of toilet paper, he cleaned off his face and tossed the used bits into the toilet, flushing as he stood on shaky legs.
He walked away from Yami, who called out after him, and headed to his room. He closed and locked his door, slumping against his bed, letting the liquid in his smarting eyes dribble over. He cried, silently gasping, and feeling all the more ashamed as tears continued to come. He curled into a ball, only half hearing the conversation Yami had outside his closed door. He pressed a hand to his arm, hissing at the unexpected warmth.
…
Yami glanced at Bakura's closed door as he waited for Ryou to pick up his mobile. He had the phone cord stretched out to its limit, standing at the edge of the hallway as he tried to listen to what Bakura was doing. After he locked himself in his room, Yami tried to coax him out to no avail nor scathing retort. Ten minutes passed before Yami, glancing at the time on the clock on the television screen, dialed Ryou's mobile number.
Ryou answered after a couple rings, breathing, "What's wrong?"
Yami squirmed, shifting his weight from on foot to the other as he spoke into the receiver. "He was sick, and now…" He trailed off, waving a hand at Bakura's door as if Ryou could see where he was motioning.
"I'm coming home," Ryou said immediately. Over the phone, Yami could hear Ryou apologizing to whomever he was standing with, possibly Tristan and Tea, and saying his goodbyes. "I'll call Kaiba on my way."
Yami agreed. The plan had been to utilize Kaiba's personal doctor, for ease of treatment without messy paperwork trying to keep Bakura's identity accurate after Ryou returned from the dueling tournament. Yami deduced he was bumping up the visit.
…
Yami slammed a fist on the closed and locked door to Bakura's room, calling out, "Bakura!" He had just hung up with Ryou, returned the phone to the dining room and released his tight grip on the cord. Now, Yami walked back to the hallway, right outside Bakura's bedroom door and started banging.
Silence.
Yami pounded on the door again, this time with more urgency and franticness as he yelled Bakura's name through the door. There was a definite sound of movement and Yami was certain he heard a muttered expletive or two, before Bakura's voice, hoarse and raspy, drifted into the hallway, "For fuck's sake, what?"
Yami frowned, but chose to convey the information from Ryou regardless. "I called Ryou. He's going to call the doctor on his way," he trailed off, leaving the implication that Bakura should make himself presentable silent.
"Good," an acerbic reply was all Yami got.
He cupped an ear and pressed himself against the solid wood door trying to hear the sounds behind. When the minute sounds of choking and suppressed gasping met his ears, he stepped back, knocking on the door once again. "Bakura…Can I come in?"
Yami had one hand resting lightly on the door and he shifted his body weight so he leaned slightly towards the wood, so when the door was violently unlocked and ripped open in one motion, he nearly went flying headfirst into Bakura's room. His attention averted to keeping himself upright, and he missed the small smirk gracing Bakura's lips or the moisture drying on his cheeks.
"What?" Bakura asked. He turned his head away before Yami had a chance to adjust to his loss of balance. "You don't need to worry. I'll be ready for Kaiba's bitch of a doctor."
Yami tried and failed to meet Bakura's gaze as the other kept his head pointedly affixed to the wall above his bed. "His name is Dr. Satou," he offered. "And he'll be coming here."
…
A/N:
This isn't an absolute rule, but toilets in Japan are made with more plastic pieces than toilet that I'm familiar with—that are porcelain (fake or not).
Healthcare in Japan is not something I'm familiar with. I know the basics: they have hospitals and doctors, but the little intricacies, I'm sure I'm going to mess them up in the coming chapter. I imaging Japan is like anywhere else: if you have money, you have access to any kind of medical care your heart desires, so Dr. Satou paying a house visit, since he's Kaiba's personal doctor, is within reason.
So, what do you guys think is wrong with poor Bakura? ^_^
I brought up this idea last chapter, but I thought I would ask again: is there anything you want me to write about? Especially because Bakura and Yami are going to become friendlier fairly soon. The fall arc starts in two chapters, and I'm short on ideas, if anyone wants to offer anything, I'll credit you if I use it (consciously).
