Adult-FanFiction.org : Yu-Gi-OH

Powerless	By : Ochodre Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Het - Male/Female Views: 2661 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh!, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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I am hanging on to

Every word you say

And even if you don't wanna speak tonight

That's all right, all right with me
'Cause I want nothing more than

To sit outside your door and

Listen to you breathing

That's where I want to be...

~Lifehouse, 'Breathing'
Ryou stared at the door. He hated waiting.
He quickly shook himself and tried to return his attention to his book. He was not waiting, he reminded himself. He was reading. But his shoulders slumped in defeat as he realized he had been re-reading the same paragraph for the past ten minutes. He sighed, closing the book and setting it aside. Ryou's eyes wandered back to the door, then at the clock.
Bakura had been gone for exactly three hours and fifteen minutes.
Ryou was slightly disturbed that he had been keeping track of the time so closely. He couldn't help it, he argued internally; after all, whenever Bakura was gone, he could be off causing trouble, or getting himself into trouble. And Ryou had the nagging suspicion his darker-half-turned-roommate was doing the latter.
Granted, Bakura couldn't cause as much trouble as he could when he was incorporeal. But even though he was now only human and no longer an evil spirit fueled by darkness and hate, Bakura was still a thief and a miscreant at heart. And he still hated the Pharaoh and all his 'annoying cheerleaders', as Bakura affectionately labeled Yugi's friends.
Ryou mulled over the past as he sank back into the couch. If he hated them so much, Ryou didn't really understand what kept his strange twin in Domino. He knew that Bakura did have an odd attachment to the Millennium Items and the other artifacts in the Domino Museum that he would explain to no one, though the Pharaoh seemed to understand. Maybe it was because he needed a place to sleep and Ryou was the only person who'd tolerate his presence. Heck, he even tried to help him acclimate to the modern world. He kept the apartment clean, did all the chores and cooked all the meals. All things he had done when he was alone, but now he felt strangely like an under appreciated housewife.
He closed his eyes. He wasn't really complaining. Bakura had lost his terrifying edge, his cruel, sadistic, manipulative streak. He was still a menace and an antisocial smart-mouth, but he no longer gave Ryou nightmares. He had even begun to translate the real meaning of some of Bakura's outbursts; tossing idle threats and insults was the thief's way of making friendly conversation, and informing Ryou just how much his food tasted like some manner of animal excrement was how he said he was hungry.
Ryou always just smiled and tried to ignore the verbal assault, partly since he knew Bakura didn't mean it, partly since his cool silence and happy expression would make the thief more infuriated than any retort. It stung, but it was attention, at least. He would take being called a spineless pretty-boy over the suffocating solitude he had endured before he moved to Domino any day.
Ryou had called his father and said that a friend was having family problems and asked to move in with him for an indefinite period of time. His father had no problem with it, once he was assured that Ryou's mysterious new roommate was not actually some girl he had met, something which Bakura's voice in the background had loudly and angrily confirmed. And if his father ever came home, well, Bakura would just have to leave or wear a hat to cover up the white hair that was disturbingly similar to Ryou's own. Aside from their hair, there was no mistaking them, either in looks or personality.
They were like night and day... dark and light.
Ryou smiled faintly. Even if they were no longer two halves of the same soul, he still liked the analogy. And though he would never admit it, to anyone, barely even to himself, he admired the thief.
Maybe a little more than he should have.
So every time Bakura disappeared, some part of Ryou was afraid he would not come back, like his father disappeared for months after walking out the door, like his mother and sister had disappeared forever one fateful day, like any friend he ever made before coming to Domino...
The sound of a door flying open broke the silence. Ryou jumped in surprise, snapping his head upwards at the sound. No sooner had he looked up than had the door to his apartment slammed again, and a streak of blue and white cut across living room, making a b-line for the hall.
"Bakura?" He asked stupidly, sitting up and watching his roommate stride very angrily and quickly to the other side of the apartment. A flash of white hair was visible to Ryou for a brief moment, before it disappeared into the bathroom. Ryou arrived at the door just in time to hear it lock, and he frowned. Bakura seemed angry, actually angry, not just the snappish irritation that he always wore. Hesitantly, Ryou set his ear to the door.
There was an eerie silence. The only sound the was thief catching his breath, presumably exhausted by storming the entire way home. A minute hadn't passed before he let out a strangely high-pitched, frustrated sound, accompanied by a loud thump. It was followed by repeated, increasingly frantic thuds, until there was finally the crack of broken glass.
Panicked, Ryou started jangling the doorknob. "Bakura, what are you doing in there?!"
"Go away!" Bakura shrieked from the other side of the door.
Ryou blinked.
Shrieked?
"Is something wrong with your voice?" Ryou wondered worriedly. He hadn't gotten a good look at Bakura, and suddenly imagined the thief being horribly injured in a fight or an accident --
Silence.
"Go. Away." The voice behind the door was slightly muffled, forced to its lowest octave. It was Bakura's voice, but it sounded strange, different somehow.
Ryou tried to think of some way to calm Bakura down, but he soon sighed in defeat. There would be no reasoning with the thief if he was in a mood. All he could do was hope that something serious hadn't happened, and that Bakura was just overreacting. He backed away from the bathroom wordlessly, heading towards the kitchen to make himself some coffee.
Whatever was going on, he had a feeling it would last all night, so he might as well consider sleep a lost cause.
---
It was a long time before Ryou heard the bathroom door open. He lifted his head up from the homework he had been doing halfheartedly, but another door slammed before he so much as caught a glimpse of the other boy. Frowning, he decided to use the opportunity to investigate the damage done in the bathroom, steeling himself against the blood he expected to find.
But there was none. He examined the floor. There was glass scattered over the sink and some on the floor, but most of it was still clinging to the of the frame of the medicine cabinet door, arranged in a spiral shatter. The door was half open, and a package of wrap-bandages had been opened. A little cardboard cylinder was all that remained.
Dread rose in the back of Ryou's mind. What kind of injury did Bakura have that would require an entire roll of bandages? He quickly scanned the room, puzzled when he saw no blood, not even bloodied tissues in the trash bin. Almost sick with anxiety, he left the bathroom and headed for Bakura's room.
It used to be his father's bedroom, but it was so impersonal and unused that Ryou saw no reason Bakura couldn't sleep there. He respected the thief's space, and never went in the room, not even to clean it, lest he displace something and face Bakura's wrath. But right now, he had to know what happened.
He knocked on the door, since it was also locked. "Bakura? I know you're hurt, please, let me see, we might have to take you to the hospital --"
"I said go away!" An angry, nearly screeching voice exploded from somewhere behind the door, before quickly becoming quiet again, "I'm... fine."
Ryou sighed and closed his eyes. "Well, do you want anything to eat, at least?"
"Just leave me alone!" That odd voice snarled, familiar and yet distinctly different from anything Ryou had heard before. "I'm in no mood to deal with you, you worthless little idiot!"
Ryou sank back, slightly hurt. Who was he kidding? Of course it got to him when Bakura insulted him. But at least it indicated that Bakura was well enough to fling insults and curses. Maybe that meant whatever happened wasn't that serious. Maybe the thief had just taken a sudden liking to bandages.
It was odd, though, because the previous times Bakura had come home after a scuffle, he refused to be treated at all, telling him that medicine was for weaklings like Ryou. Luckily, it seemed Bakura had been gifted with a durable body to compliment his reckless attitude, but it made Ryou's nerves fray. He didn't even know why he was so concerned with the thief's health. It wasn't something he wanted to think about.
"You can't stay in there forever, you know," Ryou told the door, and winced at the sound of what sounded like something breakable being thrown at it.
As always, Ryou was defeated by Bakura's stubbornness and his own instincts for self-preservation. He trudged into the kitchen and turned the oven on. Maybe making an impromptu dinner at - what was it, almost 1am? - would draw Bakura out of his room. He knew the thief hadn't had supper, so he must be hungry. At the very least, it'd hopefully distract Ryou from his thoughts.
But his hope was in vain. Something about his roommate's behavior was bothering him. Bakura didn't... well, sulk unless he suffered some sort of humiliating defeat. He had brooded for days after the Pharaoh had finally bested him, becoming confrontational and standoffish to the point of being dangerous. It had been only recently, months after the fact, that Bakura had become what Ryou would consider amicable. That is, snapping at Ryou and biting off his head instead of flat-out ignoring him.
Ryou set the pot of rice on the stove, trying to ignore the ethereal hand that seemed to be squeezing his heart painfully. He had worked hard to get Bakura's attention. The insults hurt, but at least someone was talking to him. With all their adventures over and all tournaments won, Yugi and his tight-knit group of friends had become minor celebrities, something that only brought them further away from Ryou. Bakura's attitude towards them didn't help. He would never be 'one of them'.
He was as ignored in school as ever, unless Yugi noticed and felt sorry for him, and pointed out that Ryou had shared in some of their unbelievable battles. A few people would turn to him and ask eager questions, and he couldn't answer, claming up under the attention. When they got bored of trying to draw him out of his shell, they went back to interrogating Yugi or one of his friends.
Ryou idly stirred the rice as his train of thought slowly chugged down random tracks in his mind, like it always did when he was in the kitchen. Or most anywhere else, for that matter. With little external stimuli, he had long ago taken up the habit of getting lost in his own thoughts, something that was easier now that he was alone in his head.
When he thought about it, he almost missed having another presence there, but he was glad Bakura had changed. Even he could not miss the nightmare force that had haunted him during that time. But at least, then, he felt like he had a purpose, like he was needed, needed to protect Yugi and everyone else from his dark side. Instead of saving anyone, though, he had usually ended up the proverbial damsel in distress, always fainting, going missing, getting stabbed, ending up in the hospital...
He was alone because he was a useless burden that had to be carried by anyone that met him. He was nice, polite, shy, sensitive, painfully alone. In other words, boring. And weak.
He swallowed as he came upon that revelation, his stirring hand becoming still. Bakura had called him the same plenty of times, but now he knew how true those words were. Just for once, he wanted to do something other than be the victim, but his quiet, unassertive nature all but doomed him to the role of Poor Pitiful Ryou.
Ryou furrowed his brow and fought back the stinging pain in the corner of his eyes, stirring a little more aggressively. Was he really that bad? Did Bakura just vocalize what everyone else really thought of him?
Maybe the whole reason he got so worked up over Bakura's well-being was that he desperately wanted to live out his fantasy that someone, in some small way, needed him.
He put the plate he had gotten for himself away, and took some Tupperware instead.
He wasn't hungry anymore, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about making Bakura breakfast in the morning.
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Powerless