AN: Where on earth did all these reviews come from? I got a ton in like, a week.
It makes me happy =)
Thankyou all.
Also I APOLOGIZE for the lack of update last week but I can assure you it was 100% not my fault, there was an error on the site which wouldn't let me upload ANYTHING. Anyway, as a way of saying sorry I'm gonna upload two chapters to make up for it. The next one should be on tomorrow =)
Borderline
"In these matters, the only certainty is that nothing is certain."
-Pliny the Elder
09 ; Go Figure
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.
Ever since Ryou discovered that Bakura was the only one who played with the puppets in the ward and was the one that Seto had forewarned him about earlier when Ryou had first looked at the toys, he couldn't take his eyes off of the boy every time he was in the TV room playing with that same gray sock puppet.
The way Bakura is in his own little world when he's with that thing, mumbling nonsense in that goofy little voice and talking to himself fascinates Ryou.
He secretly wishes he could have as much nerve as Bakura to talk to himself or lose himself in his imagination like that so easily.
But Ryou is a coward.
A confused coward.
He swallows.
And, he thinks, he's starting to really hate himself, because, officially, Ryou considers himself really messed up.
At first, he hated Bakura. He was terrified of Bakura. Bakura was the enemy.
But now, Bakura's a fascination.
A sort of enigma that Ryou longs to figure out and befriend and just learn from. Because Bakura is what Ryou wants.
He wants Bakura's absolute acceptance of "crazy". He wants to be okay with and love the fact that he's "crazy" like Bakura does and is.
Not to say he wants to be as crazy as Bakura, by any means, but just be that he's okay with his own level of crazy.
Ryou's personal "crazy".
Duke enters the room suddenly, breaks Ryou out of his thoughts, and walks up to Yugi, carrying a tray of pills. He holds out a cup to the small boy.
"Take these, Yugi," Duke instructs.
Yugi reaches forward.
"No Yugi, don't take them!" Bakura cries suddenly in that little puppet voice, reaching over with his puppet-covered hand in protest and smirking as Duke sighs, frustrated, and Yugi squirms uneasily before hesitantly downing the medicine.
Bakura pouts.
He makes the little puppet's head shake in disapproval, and says in the high, playful voice,
"Poor, poor Yugi. Now he's all drugged up."
Duke angrily hurries over to Bakura's side, and holds out the pills for Bakura to take.
"Swallow," he says, using a much harsher tone with Bakura than he did with Yugi.
Bakura narrows his eyes a bit, still smirking, but grabs the pills nonetheless. He tosses them in his mouth without a word of protest, to Ryou's surprise, and in a moment, Duke says,
"Lemme see."
Bakura opens his mouth wide, making a childish, over-exaggerated "ahhh" sound, and rolling his tongue out to show that the pills are gone.
Duke nods in approval, and then moves on to Joey.
Ryou stares at Bakura, half expecting the boy to gag up the pills in a split second.
But nothing happens. Bakura just keeps mumbling to himself in that weird voice with that weird puppet, not paying attention to anything or anyone else.
Next thing he knows, Duke is at his side, offering Ryou a cup full of nasty black and blue medication.
Ryou twists his lips as he looks down at them. "What are these?" he asks, kind of disgusted.
Duke sighs. "Just take them."
Ryou scrunches up his nose.
"Ryou," Duke urges, his tone becoming a little more harsh.
Then, it happens.
Behind Duke, Bakura is staring intently at Ryou, a devious spark in his eye. When he finally catches his look, Ryou is a bit confused at first as to why Bakura is staring at him in such a way until Bakura opens his mouth and…
…There they are.
Three shiny, blue, yellow, and black pills are resting on Bakura's tongue, un-swallowed.
Bakura reaches up with his right hand and grabs the pills off of his tongue, sticking them in his sweat pant's pocket. He smirks at Ryou, and Ryou knows what he needs to do.
He quickly grabs the pills from Duke and stuffs them in his mouth, taking a moment to cleverly maneuver them to the side of his cheek before opening his mouth and showing Duke that it's "empty".
As Duke walks away, satisfied, Ryou looks back at Bakura.
The other boy's expression is emotionless, still watching Ryou, waiting.
Then Ryou reaches up, and slips the pills out into his fingers. He flashes them to Bakura for a split-second so that the boy can see, and then immediately, both of their faces break into pleased, mutually amused grins.
Ryou is in the corner, sitting in a royal blue armchair cross-legged, switching his attention from his upset father to his therapist Dr Potts and then to the small, brightly wrapped bag of gummi bears his father brought him as a little surprise gift. He smirks to himself.
His father then speaks up.
"So, what's this `borderline' business you mentioned over the phone?" he starts.
Ryou's head flies up, his heart beginning to pound.
Dr. Potts gives a quick, uneasy glance at his patient upon noticing Ryou's anxious reaction, but then he swallows and once again turns to the boy's father.
"Um, well, that had to do with Ryou's diagnosis."
Ryou's eyes widen. Never before, in the past week and a half of seeing Dr. Potts every other day, has the older man once mentioned Ryou's "diagnosis".
Ryou's father nods.
"Well, go on."
Dr. Potts sighs heavily. "Well, Mr. Bakura…I don't really know how to say this nicely but…your son is a borderline sociopath," the doctor explains, his voice quieting towards the end.
Ryou's father's jaw drops.
Ryou's eyes widen to the size of cup saucers, and, speaking for the first time in the past half an hour, he cries out,
"What? Sociopath? What? A sociopath is, like, psycho. I'm not psycho!"
Ryou's father lets out a small cry.
Dr. Potts takes a breath in. "Well, Ryou, it's not an official diagnosis." He pauses. "I-I mean, technically it is—"
Another small cry from Ryou's father.
"…Bu-but he's not a complete sociopath! He's a borderline sociopath. He's not officially `psychopathic' or anything. He just has some symptoms of the condition and we plan on addressing them before they get any worse and he does become an official threat to society," the therapist hastily finishes.
Ryou inwardly smirks despite himself. "Threat to society"—he kind of likes the sound of that in a sick sort of way. But, regardless of how cool the diagnosis sounds, it still is a bit overwhelming.
"What? So, I'm not, like, officially a complete psycho? I'm only, like, halfway there?" he asks.
Dr. Potts nods. "Yes. We'll be working with you in therapy as best we can to fix these problems before they become any worse."
Mr. Bakura finally quiets and takes a deep, shaky breath in, slowly lifting her head from her hands. "When will my son be out of here?"
Dr. Potts swallows. "Well, unfortunately—"
A thought pops into Ryou's mind suddenly, and, being Ryou, he wastes no time in spurting it out with a smirk on his face. He looks directly at his father, and nonchalantly asks,
"Is the sociopath thing genetic?"
"Ryou!" comes his father's sharp reply.
Dr. Potts stares for a moment at the son and father, but then he shakes his head. "No. No, anti-social personality disorder is not usually genetic."
Ryou nods thoughtfully, and once again looks down at and begins to fiddle with the bag of candy.
His father sighs, irritated immensely. "Look, I just want to know how long my son is going to be in this place," he says harshly, narrowing his gaze a little bit at the doctor. "The people back home who love and care about him are going to be wondering—"
Ryou throws down the bag of candy he was messing with, suddenly furious at his father's words.
"You see, Dr. Potts, the real problem here is that my father's are having a little `summer community party crisis'. He wants to play Mr. Perfect Host, and, well, unfortunately, he can't do that with his son in a mental hospital," Ryou exclaims, cutting in angrily, leaning forward in his seat towards his dather at the end of the sentence for emphasis.
Mr. Bakura's eyes widen in anger at their son's outburst.
"Ryou Bakura—" his father starts, eyes blaring, but the doctor interrupts him.
"Unfortunately, Sir, economics and therapy are nothing alike. The length of Ryou's stay depends on how quickly he opens up to me and other therapists, how well he behaves in the ward and with other patients, and, of course, how long it takes us to determine if he's `cured', so to speak, or not," the therapist explains, surprisingly keeping his cool in such an otherwise awkward situation.
Ryou smirks. His father shakes his head, overwhelmed.
"Thank you for coming in today to speak with me," Dr. Potts finally says, and there's a pause before Ryou adds,
"And thank you for the candy. I will so enjoy it."
Ryou is racing down the hall, looking for one person and one person only.
Then he spots him. The other white-haired boy is smirking to himself, leaning lazily against the wall near Ryou and Yugi's room, arms behind his head. As soon as he spots Ryou approaching, he straightens up and his smirk grows.
"Well lookie here," he says.
Ryou comes to a dead-stop in front of him.
"I'm a borderline sociopath," he reveals after a moment of silence.
Bakura stares wordlessly.
Ryou gulps.
Then, Bakura's face breaks into a devilish smile.
"Welcome to the club."
"You knew, didn't you, Duke?"
Ryou is in the cramped bathroom. More specifically, he's in the bath. He's also looking into the mirror, watching Duke's reflection as it stares back at him.
Duke purses his lips together for a moment, and then sighs heavily. He shrugs.
"I never really knew, Ryou. I just kind of suspected."
Ryou glares at Duke's reflection.
"We all kind of wondered. You're kind of rude and speak your mind and are sort of reckless like Bakura is. Yugi and I suspected it first. Then, Seto and Joey. Tristan never really said anything," Duke continues truthfully.
Ryou swallows. Now, he knows why he got all those weird looks from Yugi, Duke, and Seto when he first arrived; they were trying to determine whether or not he was another psycho.
"But, Ryou, keep in mind—you're not a total sociopath. Bakura is an official, full-fledged sociopath. You don't have to get his point," Duke adds, trying to shed some light on a dark situation.
Ryou narrows his gaze and suddenly snaps,
"Don't go there. Just don't bring him into this."
Duke blinks, surprised. But he nods nonetheless.
There's a silence. Then, Ryou smirks.
"Do people normally watch you in the bath, Duke?" he asks wryly, changing the subject cleverly.
Duke smiles knowingly. He sighs. "Sorry Ryou, it's the rules. I have to make sure you don't try to drown yourself or whatever." he explains, only half-mockingly.
Ryou ignores what Duke said. "That doesn't answer my question. Do people ever watch you bathe?"
Duke's smile turns to a smirk. "I had two brothers and one bathroom upstairs. What do you think?"
Ryou stares, all seriousness, at Duke.
"I think you should have locked the door."
Once again I'm so sorry for the late update! They've fixed the uploading error thing so it should be all good from now on =)