Paradocs: Another one of my one-shots. Inspired by some fanart I saw recently, plus just that very vague thing we call a muse.
This is slightly AU (Alternate Universe), and, yes, some of my usual shounen-ai/yaoi. I'm not sure which yet; this is kinda an in-progress thing, so, yeah, count on a four-shot, actually.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned herein. Yet.

Ryou buttoned up the white shirt he was going to wear to school today. It was similar to a dress shirt, but with short sleeves, to make it more bearable to wear under the required high school uniform. The weather forecast called for sunshine and warm temperatures today, and it was springtime. About time he started wearing cooler clothes; he'd nearly suffocated the other day when he'd worn a sweater under his blue high-necked jacket! Even without the blazer on, it had been too warm for his tastes, and he wasn't in the habit of taking off his shirt in public, even if there was a coat on over it.

The white-haired boy smiled at that memory as his fingers nimbly fastened the top button. Smoothing the collar down so it didn't stick up, the teen slid his jacket on, closing it up just as neatly as he had his shirt. That accomplished, he quickly ran his long, slim digits through his wild, shoulder-length hair, in his daily attempt to make it look a little less like he'd just gotten out of bed. Ryou had long since given up trying to brush it out so that it didn't stick up at random angles on his head; a half-hour later, it'd be just as messy as it had been before he'd dealt with it. Besides, he thought that his long, white hair, with its constant wild appearance, made his tall, thin body look a little less ridiculous. Mind, it had earned him a few catcalls at school, and the gym teacher and some of the more jockish of the boys called him a girl, but Ryou didn't really care about them. As long as he was happy with his appearance, what did it matter? Still untangling the ends of his mane, he turned to look at the floor-length mirror he kept in his room, and stopped.

In the reflection, he saw himself... but it was different. The boy who stared at him from the cold glass was just a little taller, his hair a little more wild. His eyes were a different shade of Ryou's own chocolate-brown ones, just a little darker; he looked thinner, harder, sharper. The boy rubbed his eyes, wondering if the light was just playing with him. I knew I shouldn't've stayed up so late studying for math... He looked back at his reflection, and sighed in relief. He waved to the perfect mirror-image of his appearance, as if to bid it farewell, grabbed his bookbag off the floor, and walked out the door towards school.

Had Ryou looked behind him as he left that morning, he would have seen the boy of the first reflection wave him "goodbye" as the door clicked shut.

"Hey, Bakura! Catch!"

The boy looked up from his book just in time to have a bright green apple hit his pale forehead. The boy who'd thrown it, a tall, well-built blonde, swore under his breath as he and the gaggle of friends around him ran to where Ryou sat, holding the fruit and rubbing the spot where it had hit him. He looked up at the group as they reached him and smiled. The blonde flushed bright red, attempting to stammer out an apology.

"Look man, I'm sorry, 's just that, well--"

"Oh, I don't mind," the white-haired boy said calmly. "I was actually starting to get a little hungry. You wouldn't mind if I kept this, would you?" He gestured towards the apple. Jounouchi's face grew an ever deeper red.

"Uh, yeah, sure," he said, backing away. "Um, yeah, just... enjoy!" He finished, beckoning for his friends to follow him. All of them walked off immediately, save the shortest, whose hair was also the most wild and cartoonish.

"Jou didn't mean to hit you," Yuugi said apologetically. "He was just playing around, that's a--"

"Yuugi," Ryou interrupted calmly, standing up and shutting his book. He was far taller than the other boy, though that was hardly saying much. He was taller than quite a few people at school. "I'm fine, really."

The violet-eyed boy didn't look quite convinced. "Are you sure? 'Cuz, if you want, I could--"

"Yuugi," the brown-eyed boy sighed in exasperation. "I'm fine. If I wasn't, you'd know." Ryou put on a smile, to further press the point that he was alright. "Okay?"

The short teen hesitated, then nodded, beaming brightly. "Alright, Ryou! See you in math later!" He practically bounced back to his waiting friends as Ryou looked on, standing straight with his book clutched to his chest almost protectively. Anzu, a fairly pretty and popular girl, bent down slightly to talk with Yuugi, while Jounouchi and his best friend, Honda, joked loudly; Ryou made a point of tuning them out. He was more interested in what Yuugi and Anzu were saying about him.

Ryou wasn't paranoid; of that he was quite certain. But he was curious, like any other teenager might be, when he thought he was being discussed. He was a bit of a loner, after all, and that, combined with the fact that at least half of the girls in the school had asked him out since he'd arrived (and quietly refused each of those requests), meant that he was a hot topic for the school gossips. Any slight change of his behavior, and the whispers increased tenfold for a month, at the very least.

Catching Anzu's critical brown eyes accidentally, the boy turned away, grabbing the apple hastily and, jamming it into his pocket, walked off towards the main building. He didn't really want the apple, but if he hadn't been so sweet and forgiving to Jounouchi back there, the gossips would've had a field day. After all, how could sweet, quiet little Bakura Ryou get angry with anyone? It would mean the world was coming to an end. Besides, Ryou was willing enough to keep up the facade, for their sakes and his own. It didn't hurt them, and it meant that he was pretty much left alone. He only had to respond when he was spoken to, and that was easy enough. It gave the girls their fantasies, after all, and he was pretty sure that those fantasy-versions of himself were better company.

The door's latch clicked familiarly as Ryou unlocked it, glad to be back in his small apartment and away from the whisperings of high school. The math exam had gone well enough; he hadn't finished first, but he'd finished, and he was confident that he'd done as well as Seto Kaiba on it.

Or at least, that was what he hoped. He needed a good score on this test to improve his grade in the class and keep his grades at a solid 4.0 this term. Anything less, and his dreams of getting into a good university after graduation would be destroyed. With a sigh, Ryou took off his school jacket, arranging it neatly on its hanger in the closet. He closed the door to the outside with his foot, then shoved his shoes off his feet. He started in towards the kitchen, intending to get himself something to eat, and stopped just in front of the mirror. He didn't expect to see anything strange there, like he had this morning. It had just been a trick of the light then, a mirage created by his sleep-deprived mind. Logic simply didn't allow things like that to happen, except in stories, and even then, those things never happened to quiet students like him. All the same, Ryou couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when the glass showed only his reflection. The teen grimaced at the sight. Here was a boy, rail-thin and pale as a sheet, with a face that seemed more fitting on a girl than on his body, with its flat chest and obviously boyish traits. Not even the baggy pants he wore with his uniform could hide that. He sighed, turning away from the looking glass and headed towards the kitchen. He could really use a bite to eat around now.

"Satsuma or apple?" Ryou mused, weighing the small orange in one hand and the green apple from school in the other. Both were tasty enough, in their own way, but the satsuma's sweet-and-tangy flavor always left Ryou wanting more. Apples, though, took a while to eat, and they tended to drip their juices all over the place. The most mess a satsuma could make was by leaving its peel lying around, but even then, it smelt rather nice. He put the apple back in the fruit drawer of his refrigerator, closed it, and walked back out towards the living room, peeling his snack as he went.

"I would've taken the apple, personally," a cool voice said. Ryou stopped peeling the orange and looked around the room, surprised. He'd shut the door behind him when he'd come in, no one had followed him home, and he hadn't heard the door open again; the windows were all too high up for anyone to climb in, and anyway, they were shut and locked tight. After a frantic moment in which his heart had thudded against his ribs like a bass drum, Ryou sighed and ruffled his hair. He was imagining things again, that was all. He'd just have to get more sleep tonight, that was all. He sat down in the wooden chair by his desk, refocusing his attention on the issue at hand: extracting his satsuma from its orange-colored outer covering. That accomplished, he neatly tossed it into the wastebasket next to his desk and tore off a section of the fruit, popping it into his mouth and chewing with a sense of satisfaction. It was perfectly ripe, not too juicy and just sweet enough to make him want more. He went to grab another piece of it.

"Apples are just so much more filling, that's all," the voice mused, almost as if it were talking to Ryou. The boy froze as the voice continued. "A little more satisfying, too, since they crunch when you bite into them. The juice is a negligible downside to it, I think, less so than the problem with those little satsumas of yours. You need more of those to fill you up, much less satisfy you."

Ryou blinked, his heart pounding furiously. "Who are you?" He ventured, his voice coming out almost a squeak. The voice laughed, not cruelly, but as if it were genuinely amused, even glad that he'd asked that.

"Take a look in the mirror," it said simply. Ryou hesitated, then stood and faced his reflection.

But it wasn't his reflection he saw there. It was different, altered and distorted from what he recognized as himself, but still the same, essentially.

It was what he'd seen that morning. The figure in the mirror smiled, the expression looking almost predatory on his sharp-angled face. Ryou swallowed hard.

"You're..." He struggled to find words and keep his voice from shaking at the same time. The figure nodded, as if acknowledging whatever he was thinking. Finally, Ryou found what he was trying to say.

"You're my reflection?"

The almost-mirror-version's smile widened as he shook his head, the more-spike-like hair bouncing slightly at the motion. "Not quite. I'm in the mirror, but I'm not. If that makes any sense...?" He fixed his dark eyes on Ryou's incredulous face, and sighed. "No, I suppose it doesn't." The figure ran his fingers through his snowy hair, a gesture eeriely similar to what Ryou'd done that morning. "How to explain....." it mused as Ryou looked on, silently fascinated by this. Either he was dreaming, or he'd simply gone mad; that was what logic told him.

Could I touch him, though? If you can touch something, it's real, another part of him reasoned, prompting Ryou to wonder the same thing. Could he touch this figure, this distorted reflection of himself? It was still standing there in the mirror, thinking, with the tip of his pink tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth just the slightest bit. Ryou stepped closer to the mirror, and the reflection's attention swiveled back to him, dark brown eyes fixed on his face. Ryou cleared his throat before he spoke. This was unnerving, to say the least.

"Could I... Could I touch you?" He asked, voice clear and calm in the silent apartment. The reflection nodded, smiling.

"'Course you can. See?" He put his hand up, palm facing Ryou, pressing it against where Ryou assumed the glass was. Slowly, the boy put up his own hand, pressing it against the glass. It was cold, slick, and hard, but it felt fragile, as if just a little more pressure would shatter it into a million pieces.

Ryou sighed, leaning his forehead against the mirror. He couldn't touch this person after all. It was just his imagination, daydreams brought on by living alone--

The sudden feeling of skin against his hand made him look up. There was the reflection's hand, touching his as though the glass of the mirror had melted away! The reflection twined his fingers with Ryou's, stepping just a little closer to Ryou. With his free hand, he grabbed Ryou's other hand, gently, so gently, and brought it up to his face so that Ryou could touch it. The reflection smiled again.

"I'm real," he said in that cool voice. "You can feel me, can't you? Touch my skin, hear my voice, see my face?" He squeezed the hand he held against his face, just enough to send a little twinge of pain, mild, mild pain, through Ryou's fingers. "Did you feel that? Do you see this?" He dropped the other hand and brought it around Ryou's back, pulled the suddenly-tensed Ryou closer to him, so close that the boy had to tilt his head up to look him in the face.

Ryou stared at that face, fixated on it. He felt himself relax a little, letting himself be held there by those arms. After a moment of pure silence, where neither he nor the mirror-him spoke but just stood there, looking at each other's faces, Ryou felt himself nod, heard himself speak.

"Do you have a name?" he asked. It only seemed right for this other person to have a name, something he could be called. The figure dropped the second hand, putting the now-free hand behind Ryou's back with the other; the first stayed where it was in the small of his back, the second placing itself between his shoulderblades. He smiled.

"Bakura," he answered, in a voice as whispery-quiet as could be, leaning down so that his forehead touched Ryou's. "You can call me Bakura, Ryou." Bakura half-closed his eyes, the expression on his face looking almost dreamlike. Ryou felt himself pressing his body closer to Bakura almost unconsciously. The arms tightened their grip around him, the hands gliding towards the poles of his body, the upper hand moving to the back of his neck, the lower hand further down so it was just above his waist.

Bakura kissed Ryou then, right on the lips. It was a soft kiss, a chaste kiss, the sort that only happened in the movies, when things were perfect and people were happy and never alone. Ryou touched his lips hesitantly with one hand as Bakura drew his lips away, loosening the arms that held them together. He let go of Ryou entirely, stepping backwards towards where the mirror had been just minutes before. Ryou stepped forward to follow him, but Bakura stopped him, holding his chin and tilting it upward so they saw eye to eye again.

"Until tomorrow, Ryou," Bakura said, kissing Ryou on the lips again, this kiss more warm and longer than the first. "I'll be back tomorrow for you, if you'll have me." With that, he dropped his hand, stepping backward into the frame. Ryou stood there and nodded as he saw the glass return to the mirror, saw his own reflection and not the face of the figure who'd held him only minutes before.

He would wait for tomorrow, then. If that was what would bring Bakura back from the mirror to this room again, he would do that in a heartbeat. Anything, if it would give him that company, even if only for a few brief moments.