AN: Hey everyone! Thanks for understanding about the late update.

I've had a couple people ask about what to expect from future chapters so I'll just say there's gonna be yaoi and violence in the later chapters =)

Yeah, you're probably going to notice that I'm incorporating a lot of music and things into this, I just thought it would be something I could write about more accurately being a musician and all =)

Anyway, here's a new chapter. I'm super ill with what may or may not be the plague at the moment (actually it's more like the 'flu, but still) so I decided to upload this early. Hope you all enjoy—this part was fun to write.

Borderline

"Misfortune reveals true friends."

-Aristotle

11 ; "Best Friends" Means…

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

Bakura is twirling around.

He's making Ryou dizzy, actually.

Ever since the TV room got a new office chair with wheels, it's unofficially been claimed "Bakura's Chair", and no one goes in Bakura's Chair, except the boy. He spins and spins in that black chair and doesn't say a word and doesn't get nauseous.

It's really weird.

But entertaining, nonetheless, and as Ryou sits in that same old plastic chair of his, he watches his new friend fly about with a smile on his face.

But meanwhile, in the corner, a certain Yugi Mutou sits in another blue plastic chair, bitterly staring at Bakura and Ryou from across the room.

And then, on the couch, a Seto Kaiba is groaning in annoyance at the two.

Mr. Joey Wheeler is just sitting there quietly, playing with a corner of Kaiba's jacket, but it's obvious that he's a bit aggravated.

And Tristan…well, Tristan hasn't left his room for two days as far as any of the boys know.

Everyone in Ward 227 has figured out that in the past two weeks, Ryou and Bakura have become rather close.

And it drives everyone friggin' insane.

Now, that's saying something, considering the boys' already unstable mental conditions. But in their opinions, one sociopath was enough. Now, they pretty much have two.

The two boys eat together (Well, Ryou eats. Bakura just sits there and either stares blankly out the window or blabbers on about some weird, random topic), stay up way past their curfew secretly together, make fun of the DVDs that the TV room has together, chatter loudly and rudely about everything and everyone together, or, sometimes, they even disappear into the Art Room for a half an hour, playing different instruments together.

Those times are Ryou's favorites.

He and Bakura play duets on the piano, and Bakura sometimes picks up the accordion.

But there's one instrument Ryou has yet to see Bakura play.

Guitar.

And Ryou really wants to see him play guitar, because according to Bakura himself, guitar was his "thing". He'd been playing guitar for seven or eight years, and he adored it. So, naturally, Ryou wanted even a little performance.

However, no such luck so far, and Ryou was afraid to push it. He was still on shaky ground with the older boy, and didn't want to blow the good relationship he had going.

Suddenly, the office chair stops spinning, and Ryou blinks in surprise as Bakura sits there in front of him, clutching the sides of the chair, smirking.

"Let's play with the puppets," he says, his eyes almost exploding with mischievous excitement.

Then, the older boy flies up, dashes over to the puppet box, and tosses Ryou one of the toys. Ryou catches it clumsily, and looks at it.

It's a puppy dog hand puppet.

He smiles to himself.

But before he can move, a chair is heard quickly and angrily scraping the tiled floor, and all of a sudden, Yugi is marching out of the TV room, furious.

And at Yugi's upset exit, Seto smirks a little and laughs bitterly, giving a side glare to Ryou while Joey simply averts his gaze from anyone else' s and goes back to messing with his friend's jacket.

Ryou swallows uneasily, because, deep in his heart, he has a feeling he knows what Yugi is so ticked off about.

But Bakura pops out of the puppet box, raises an eyebrow, tilts his head, and truly, innocently, asks,

"What's with him?"

Ryou quietly closes the door to his and Yugi's room.

After he'd finished playing a fifteen-minute game of puppets with Bakura (complete with creepy high voices and a morbid plot concerning mass murder and a load of black humor), Bakura had to go off to therapy.

So, Ryou decided, since he was alone, he'd go and talk to Yugi.

It's not to say that he cares what Yugi thinks or feels, really, because honestly, he doesn't. It's just that he's curious to find out the real reason for Yugi's attitude.

When Ryou finds him, the small boy is sitting on his own bed to the left, headphones on, bopping his head to a beat and re-arranging his CDs again.

Ryou walks over, and, to get his roommate's attention, unplugs Yugi's headphones from his portable CD player. Immediately, Yugi's head flies up. The boy's already irritated expression darkens even more as he spots Ryou in front of him.

He pulls off his headphones and snaps,

"What?"

Ryou backs up and lazily leans against the desk in the center of the room, crossing his arms with an unemotional look.

"So what's your problem?" Ryou asks.

Yugi narrows his gaze.

"You know," he says in response.

Ryou laughs and shakes his head.

"No, Yugi, I don't."

Yugi suddenly flies up at the reply, taking Ryou only a bit by surprise when he storms over to the other boy.

"Bakura let you play with the effing puppets!" he says, his tone bitter and full of hatred and disbelief, "The puppets. Before today, he'd never let a soul so much as look at them! Not even me! His best effing friend!" Yugi cries.

Ryou stares, un-fazed by Yugi's sudden hysterics. He shrugs. "Sorry to tell you, Yugi, but Bakura doesn't really consider you his `best effing friend' anymore," he reveals.

Yugi's eyes start to blare as soon as the words leave Ryou's lips.

"What is so friggin' special about you? Huh?" Yugi asks suddenly, shaking, with his voice strained in a desperate attempt to control himself.

A moment later, he loses that control.

"WHAT. MAKES. HIM. WANT. YOU?"

Ryou's eyes widen, because now Yugi is screaming.

The normally angelic, quiet, multicoloured-haired boy is bright red with anger and is utterly beside himself with rage, shouting at his roommate.

"WHY? WHY?" Yugi repeats in fury.

"Because you're not Yugi Mutou anymore."

Ryou and Yugi's heads both snap over at the voice, and Ryou feels a rush of joy and relief to see Bakura standing in the doorway, his fists clenched death white and his eyes narrowed at Yugi.

Yugi gets over his initial shock of seeing Bakura in the room, and shakes his head. Disgusted and confused, he spits out,

"What?"

Bakura moves forward into the room, and pulls Ryou back into the hallway with him. This angers Yugi even more, and his cheeks flush a darker red.

"Because the Yugi Mutou that was my `best effing friend' would stay my best effing friend, even if I'm a fucking sociopath," Bakura sneers back, his tone filled with feelings of anger and resentment and betrayal that had piled up year after year.

And as Ryou lets himself be pretty much dragged by Bakura down the hallway away from the room, and as Ryou hears Yugi screech in fury and hears what he thinks are several CDs breaking, he knows that's the end of that.

Tristan comes out of his room one day.

It was really random.

6:30 in the evening, right before the boys all went down to dinner (Tristan normally ate in his room), Tristan Taylor stepped out of his private bedroom.

Ryou was sitting in the chair.

Bakura was lying on the sofa, playing and talking to himself with the puppet.

Yugi was in the far corner again, playing "Go Fish" with Joey on a table.

Seto was idly tracing circles on the same table that Joey and Yugi were playing the card game on.

But as soon as Tristan stepped out into the hallway, not giving any attention whatsoever to any of his ward-mates and relaxingly slipping his hands into his pockets, looking down the hallway as if expecting someone, everyone's heads shot up.

Then, a new figure, clad in a black jacket, a graphic t-shirt, and torn blue jeans appears down the hallway. He's got long-ish brown hair, a couple piercings, and a beard.

He reaches Tristan, and the two share a quick hug.

Suddenly, Ryou hears Seto mutter not-so-happily,

"Andy."

Joey's eyes widen.

The man now revealed to be Andy looks behind Tristan, and Tristan looks behind, too. At first, Tristan rolls his eyes and Andy gives a smile to everyone in the TV room, but then, as soon as they both catch sight of the glares and/or shocked looks Seto and Joey are giving them, they uneasily walk away from the room and farther down the hall, talking.

Ryou tilts his head curiously.

Obviously, Andy is known by a few people in the ward.

But, as soon as Tristan and Andy walk away, Seto scoffs and Joey sighs and looks down shyly, and they don't pay any more attention to them.

But Ryou and Bakura both do.

Ryou's eyes widen and Bakura's eyes narrow suspiciously as Andy and Tristan talk a little more, giving secret little looks to the side and looking like they're conversing in hushed tones. Finally, Andy smiles, as does Tristan, and the two shake hands. But, if you looked close enough, you'd see that Andy slipped something into Tristan's hand before Tristan tucked the article away in his pocket and Andy began walking away towards the exit.

Ryou twists his lips in confusion.

Tristan begins walking back to his room, averting his gaze from the people in the TV room. Once he's finally disappeared again, Ryou gives a look around the room.

As far as he can see, no one else has seen what he just saw except maybe Bakura. But even Bakura's not making any move to do anything, so…

…He stands up.

He stands up and walks over to Tristan's room.

Now, if Ryou had been paying attention to anyone as he walked to Tristan's doorway, he would have earned a few shocked and disgusted looks from every boy except Bakura.

But ever since the little fallout the other day, Seto and Joey have followed Yugi's lead and completely shut off communication with Bakura and Ryou. The guards all noticed it. The psychiatrists noticed it.

But no one did anything.

So, officially, no one spoke to Bakura and Ryou.

Ryou arrives at Tristan's doorway and knocks once on the door.

"Bakura, LEAVE," Tristan screams, and Ryou resists the urge to chuckle.

"It's—it's not Bakura. It's Ryou," he replies, taking a breath in, suddenly feeling flutters of nervousness, and swallows.

There's a silence, and Ryou's about to walk away when,

"Come in."

Ryou blinks, but opens up and steps through the door.

Meanwhile, Bakura watches his new best friend walk into Tristan Taylor's bedroom with a very displeased look, and figures he'll just have to go and join them.

So...probably a lot more frequent updates since I'm ill, which is good...for you guys, anyway xD