AN: Okay guys, this is as far as I've got with totally completed chapters, the next ones will come at a rate of at least one a week though, okay? =)

Borderline

"You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

-Unknown

07 ; So Glad We Get To Finally Talk

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

They don't allow serrated knives at mealtime.

Too much of a "potential threat".

The only knives patients in Ward 227 are allowed to use are smooth, plastic butter knives. That little fact makes it very hard for Ryou to cut his pancakes at breakfast, so eventually, after at least fifteen minutes of struggling with the knife and finally attacking his meal with his fork, Ryou gives up and just decides on watching everyone else.

He's sitting alone at a table by the buffet.

When Ryou's family went out to eat or when he went to eat with his friends, his favorite places to go were buffets. He just loved how there was so much variety to choose from and how it was all so loose and free and fun. And here, at Rockford, they try to make mealtimes fun but fail miserably because eating isn't that fun with a bunch of guards stalking around watching your every move. And, the food variety isn't all that great, either.

Suddenly, Ryou chuckles as he watches his fellow patients eat.

Yugi is neatly arranging his food into separate, perfect portions not touching one another. Scrambled eggs are in a tiny yellow heap on one side while the sausage is cut into even, small, circular bites on the other, and the bacon is resting nicely on the one last available plate corner up top. Then, once his food is nicely arranged, he wipes off the rim of his orange juice glass a bit, fixes his somehow out-of-place napkin and fork, and smiles contentedly.

The exact opposite of Yugi is Seto, who is sitting across from Yugi and picking at his eggs with a disgusted look on his features. He's already spilled half of his orange juice, a couple pieces of sausage are sprawled around him on the table, and a huge, way-more-than-needed blob of ketchup covers his barely visible bacon. Finally, after one last poke at the scrambled eggs, Seto throws his fork down in frustration and the eggs splatter everywhere along with ketchup.

"Everywhere", of course, meaning mostly Yugi.

Yugi glares at Seto for messing up his breakfast setting and covering him with food, and Seto laughs really loud and leans back in his chair despite the fact that he himself is covered in eggs and ketchup, as well.

Joey is sitting between the two, and wasn't really hit with the bombardment of breakfast food. He's quietly switching looks between the groaning and whining Yugi and the hysterical Seto, all the while mixing his sausage and eggs together in one big pile. Then, he takes a big bite as soon as Seto's shut up and Yugi has sighed in defeat.

Ryou suddenly realizes that Tristan isn't sitting with them.

Curiously, he begins to look around, and oh-so-conveniently, Tristan happens to be scanning the buffet near Ryou right then and there.

He's staring down at the food, with only a cup of coffee in hand. He looks exhausted. Finally, he turns to a guard standing next to the buffet and asks,

"Where's the green jello?"

The guard smiles weakly. "Tristan, you know we don't have green jello right now. It's breakfast time."

Tristan glares. "Even if it wasn't breakfast time, you guys still wouldn't have the fuckin' green jello," he sneers.

Ryou tilts his head.

"Tristan, we'll get it…"

BANG.

Suddenly, the tray of eggs and sausage is sprawled on the floor, its contents all over. Tristan's coffee mug is slammed down on the buffet table and he screams,

"YOU GUYS NEVER HAVE THE `EFFING GREEN JELLO!"

Ryou really, really tries hard not to laugh as Tristan takes the last tray of bacon and tosses that on the ground with a horrible clatter, too, before screeching one more time in fury and frustration and storming off, leaving a mess and many bewildered faces.

There are puppets.

In the corner of the TV room, there's a small cardboard box.

It's filled with puppets.

Some are sock puppets. Some are marionettes. Some are hand puppets. There are bright blue and yellow and orange and red and green and every other color under the sun puppets sitting in that box with big, frightening smiles just waiting to be picked up and played with.

Ryou peers in and shivers.

He hates puppets.

He feels like that's what he was supposed to be. Brought up to be.

A puppet.

A puppet of his parents' wishes and a puppet to be controlled by what his parents taught him and a puppet to society because society was supposed to mold him and establish what he was going to be.

And that's why Ryou tries his hardest to be so unconventional. He doesn't want to be a puppet.

Suddenly, he feels a hands poke at his side and he jumps.

Turning and glaring, he catches sight of Seto Kaiba sitting with a smirk on the couch behind him, cross-legged. His arms are folded in his lap. He tilts his head.

"You know, I have a reoccurring nightmare about one of those puppets."

Ryou is wordless.

"It's that really freaky soldier one with the dark eyes and red feather hat."

Ryou thought that marionette was really creepy, too. But of course, he doesn't say that.

"It cuts my fingers off one by one and then suffocates me."

Ryou blinks.

Seto yawns. He leans back lazily onto the cushions and looks at the ceiling.

"The shrinks try to analyze and help me understand that dream a lot," he says. Then, he shakes his head. "But you can't explain something like that. Not really."

Seto turns and stares at Ryou again.

"You weren't gonna play with them, were you?"

Ryou is quiet at first. Then, he finally mutters,

"No."

Seto smiles.

"Good. Only one person in the ward plays with those things, and he probably wouldn't be too happy if you started using them, too," he explains, and Ryou opens his mouth to ask who Seto is talking about, but Seto cuts him off.

"And, of course, we don't need you getting nightmares, too."

Ryou is told later that afternoon that his first session of therapy is at five o'clock.

So, it is currently 4:50 and Ryou is sitting patiently in a plastic chair across from the couch with Duke standing on one side and Yugi in another chair on the other.

Yugi looks at Ryou.

"Therapy isn't that bad, you know."

Ryou stays still and silent.

"The sooner you open up to them, the faster you get outta here."

Ryou sighs softly, getting annoyed.

"You—"

"Hey, Yugi, I think that's enough," Duke interrupts finally, probably noticing Ryou's rising irritation.

Ryou looks up at him and smiles a little.

Duke doesn't smile back.

Suddenly, Yugi gets up quickly. Without a word to Duke or Ryou, he walks off towards the Art Room.

Footsteps are heard shortly after Yugi's fade.

But, the weird thing is, Seto is sitting down and zoning out to TV, Tristan is in his room, and Joey is playing "Concentration" with himself and a deck of cards absentmindedly so there's no one else to be walking down the hall except—

He's wearing a dark blue t-shirt with black stripes.

His jeans were probably originally black, but have now faded to a dark blue-gray.

He's not wearing shoes, only sock feet.

He's got a bandage wrapped around his upper arm, and a band-aid on his other wrist.

His bangs are falling to one side, covering his eye almost, but leaving the other one perfectly exposed to shine in all its contradictory red-brown glory.

He looks a bit less yellow-pale, but he's still friggin' skinny. He is also fairly tall.

His hair is messy and sticks out in irregular angles.

He walks with a confident stride and a smirk. Like he owns the ward.

And Bakura really just might.

He stops suddenly at Tristan's room's door, which is right near the TV room. He bangs on it and leans against the frame, waiting patiently. Ryou is surprised he doesn't just barge in.

No reply comes from behind the door.

He bangs on the wood again.

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM, Bakura!"

The shout rings from behind the door shortly after the second knock, and obviously Tristan's infamous temper has acted up. It's amazing, Ryou notes, how Tristan seemed to know right away the visitor knocking was Bakura.

Bakura smirks devilishly at the response Tristan gives and doesn't seem angered at all.

"I'm not in your room, Tristan," Bakura sarcastically says, and Ryou thinks Bakura's voice is actually really attractive. Especially since it's not shouting threats at him this time.

"GET THE F—"

"Ah, ah, ah, Tristan. Language," Bakura interrupts mockingly, and his smirk grows.

Finally, a nearby guard who Ryou knows is named Jared lets out a breath of frustration at just the right time, knowing sooner or later it'll get ugly between Bakura and Tristan if he doesn't interfere. "Bakura, come on. Leave him alone," Jared orders.

Bakura doesn't protest but keeps his mischievous grin as he lets the guard grab his arm and pull him away from Tristan's door.

"Hey there, Jared," Bakura casually starts a conversation as if nothing happened when they begin to move into the TV room, smirking even more. " Didn't get a chance to see you last night when I got back. How are things going?"

Jared gets a small smile on his face and tries to hide it.

"Fine," Jared answers politely.

"Aw c'mon, that's not a good enough answer," Bakura prompts coyly, and raises an eyebrow. "You just turned twenty-one, man. That's more than `fine'."

Jared rolls his eyes. "My birthday went great. I ate way too much cake, and I sugar-crashed halfway through my party."

Ryou can't really tell if Jared is joking.

Bakura doesn't seem to care either way and lets out a huge laugh, throwing his head back. "That's great, man," he says, and smiles. "Hey, we'll talk more later, okay? You gotta tell me about the new stuff you scored for presents."

Jared smiles and laughs a little. "All right. Stay outta trouble, you hear?" he warns, and then at Bakura's shrug, accepts the answer and walks off down the hall.

Bakura takes a deep breath in and begins to scan the TV room occupants.

Ryou realizes Duke is gone from his side. To where Duke went, Ryou doesn't know.

The corner of Bakura's mouth turns up a little bit and a playful glint lights up his brown eyes as he catches sight of Seto, who has now gone back to watching TV. Before, he had been watching the whole drama with Bakura and Tristan unfold before it was stopped.

"Kaiba!" Bakura exclaims. "What's up?"

Bakura saunters over then plops down on the sofa, sprawling onto Seto's lap, obviously not caring about personal boundaries. Seto pauses only for a moment, and then looks down at Bakura, and even Ryou can't help but smile a little as he sees the adorable little smug grin the younger boy has plastered on his face as he stares up at Seto.

Bakura folds his arms neatly across his chest. "I'm so much more interesting than the Food Network, aren't I?"

Seto chuckles. "Sure thing, Bakura," he says, and rolls his eyes.

Bakura sits up. His face is but inches away from Seto's, and he sticks out his chin a bit, still with that smug smirk. "So good to be back, Seto. Really."

Seto sighs, flicking Bakura's hair playfully. "Well it's good to have you back, 'Kura."

Ryou tries hard not to smile more at the nickname and tries even harder not to laugh at Seto's apparent happiness at the return of Bakura.

He doesn't really know how anyone could be happy about the return of someone like Bakura.

Then, Bakura scampers off of Seto's lap and then the sofa as soon as he sees Joey across the way, still playing "Concentration", but now with small glances at the two boys on the couch here and there.

"Winning?" Bakura asks, kneeling down to Joey's eye level as soon as he arrives at the table.

Joey smiles a little.

"Yes. It's not that hard of a game to play once you get the hang of it. There's a trick, you know. Do you want to know the trick, Bakura? I'm really good at it. Like, I practice a lot and I've taught a lot of people and it really works," Joey sputters out.

Bakura stares at the man wordlessly.

Suddenly, Joey completely changes gears and blurts,

"Why did you leave, Bakura?"

The tension in the air is suddenly so thick Ryou squirms.

But Bakura, seemingly ever cool, (Psh. Yeah right, Ryou thinks, recalling last night's incident) simply sweetly smiles and answers,

"I got bored."

Joey nods, seemingly understanding (even though Ryou knows he really doesn't understand) and then turns back to his cards.

"I wanna play now. Leave me alone, please," he orders, and Bakura shrugs and stands up.

Ryou's heart starts to pound.

He knew it was coming. And now that it's finally here, he's not sure how he's going to handle it.

Bakura is going to see him and come over. Whether or not Bakura will talk, attack him, or something else he doesn't want to imagine, Ryou is not sure. But he knows the encounter's going to be uncomfortable.

Bakura turns around. Immediately, his dark eyes latch on to Ryou's chocolate colored.

Hostility in the look is only partially present, to Ryou's surprise. A little bit of hostility is there, along with some confusion, far too much confidence, mischievousness, and, believe it or not, curiousness.

The two keep the stare for a good couple minutes, until finally Bakura's face breaks into a tiny, sinister smile that makes Ryou squirm just a little bit.

He starts to walk over.

As soon as he's in front of Ryou, Bakura reaches out and grabs a chair, turning it backwards so that he'll face Ryou and plopping into it. He folds his arms across the top, and leans forward a little so that he's closer to the other boy.

There's a silence, then. It's not so much awkward as it is a competitive, observing kind of silence.

Ryou and Bakura both have egos. Ryou and Bakura both know that the other has an ego, and Ryou and Bakura are officially competing with one another to see who is more worthy of the ego.

Bakura's smirk grows.

"Nice book."

Ryou looks down. He notices the long forgotten novel Stephen King novel sitting next to him, remembering he had brought the book to occupy his time while waiting for therapy. He looks back up, his expression unchanging.

"It was kind of morbid," Bakura says. There's a pause. "I loved it."

Ryou nods oh-so slightly.

Bakura narrows his eyes a bit and takes a deep breath in, relaxing more in the chair, falling back a bit.

"So…you had Sampson yet?"

Ryou raises an eyebrow.

"Who?"

Bakura laughs.

He begins flipping through it sloppily, his eyes quickly scanning the paper. "Mary-Beth Sampson is head therapist here and more importantly works exclusively with us. The `special cases ward'." Bakura takes a bitter breath in and Ryou sees that his mouth twists a little in distaste. "She's even more psycho than us."

Ryou blinks.

Bakura looks up from the novel and freezes, staring at the other boy and waiting for a response he won't get.

"So…" he finally prods after a minute or more of silence. "Do you have the Wicked Witch of the Mental Institution or not?"

Suddenly, Duke appears seemingly out of nowhere and says,

"Bakura, don't talk about Dr. Sampson that way."

Ryou isn't sure if he's thankful to Duke for showing up or annoyed.

Bakura tilts his head back. He smiles at Duke.

"Hey there Devlin old pal," he greets. "You playing tour guide for our new little buddy's visit?"

Duke doesn't crack even a small smile.

"Ryou has Dr. Potts in five minutes," Duke explains, obviously trying to prevent Bakura from going off on another nasty, weird ramble about the other therapist or causing more trouble with another topic.

Bakura snaps his head back to face Ryou. He has that small smirk on again.

"Oh, the balding guy who smells like Death and vomit. You'll have fun with him."

"Bakura!" Duke cries suddenly. "Stop it!"

Bakura rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and spins around in the chair. "Oh what are you gonna do to me Devlin? You, Mr. Laidback-It's-All-Cool?" he challenges. "You aren't tough at all. You don't have the guts to follow through. That's why your lovely little girlfriend dumped you two months ago for the college dean's son who she was cheating on you with for the past year and a half of your ex-relationship anyway," Bakura teases, and Ryou watches emotionless at the scene unfolding before him as he hears Joey gasp a little in the corner. Bakura then smirks, and leans forward closer to Duke. "You won't do a thing, Devlin," he finishes nastily.

All eyes are on the other man.

Duke glares, and Ryou sees from his eyes that he's inwardly seething, but he remains ever calm on the outside and simply sighs heavily.

Bakura raises an eyebrow.

"Hmm, Duke? Why don't you answer me?" he prods on.

Ryou sees Seto and Joey out of the corner of his eye staring at the three of them uneasily, Seto's mouth open a little in shock.

Bakura and Duke stare at each other for a long while, Bakura with a challenging, spiteful look on his face and Duke with a well concealed disgusted and angered look.

Duke finally opens his mouth, but then Jared walks back into the TV room right at that moment and Bakura bends backward and suddenly exclaims,

"Hey, when's my checkup? I've been waiting for like six fucking hours!"

Jared turns.

"It's now," he answers, and walks back out of the room.

Bakura twists his lips thoughtfully. Then, he turns around back to face Ryou.

"Well, I have to go. It's been oh-so lovely chatting with you though," he says, and Ryou warily nods in acknowledgment. He pats the top of the chair a couple times and stands up, twisting the seat around and placing it back where it was before. Then, he turns to Duke and gives the older man a cocky smirk.

"See ya later, Duke," he suavely says, and Duke swallows.

But before he leaves the room completely, he turns around again and pauses, staring at Ryou wordlessly.

Ryou shifts in his seat.

"What?" he finally asks, getting a bit annoyed.

Bakura nods his head once.

"Hey, don't worry, okay? You'll graduate to Miss Mary-Beth Sampson soon enough. You'll go so friggin' crazy here they won't have a choice but to put you in the most advanced, hardcore therapy," he says, and then smiles. "It'll be fun. Promise."

Then, he turns on his heel and walks out without another word.

Thus ended Ryou's first real encounter with Bakura.

Oooooh, reviewsssss =)