Disclaimer: I'd like everyone to know something very important. This information may amaze and astound you, so please, listen closely: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, Mother Goose, or Warner Bros. Cartoon characters mentioned.

I know, I know; all of you are very surprised, eh?


"Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, typing a fiction work. He had written a page, when the lawyers, they came, and dragged little Horner to court." –Ego-chan on the reason we have disclaimers, people.


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Then Comes the Accordion Sound
Ryou Bakura's POV

  "Seto? Seto!"


  I can't find you anymore because there is nothing to find.


  "Ryou, my reputation is at stake. I've found someone else."


  And I wasn't listening either. Not till it was just too late.


  "Seto? Seto!"


  By then, you were gone. Now I live in my head, wondering what I did because this can never be your fault. I watch the television, but I don't watch it. I think about other things. While those little cartoons run around moronically after their dreams and goals I try to relate myself to something, anything.

  I don't have people here in my room, just these American animations. If I watch long enough, I can compare myself to everything they represent. You never liked this, but I don't have to worry about it.

  You're not here to judge me.


  So now I can reflect, make wishes and avoid your name. Maybe if I analyze everything it will help.


  No, it will not. Nothing will do. I can't forget you at all. I can just watch some wolf-coyote thing fall down a cliff and hit the ground.


  Then comes the accordion sound.


  I smile at this pathetically. It is a sign of hope for the little canine on the screen. He rises to continue his endless hunt for that bird creature. The actions are entirely third grade, but I still love it all like I was five. I never told you I watched such simple episodes when things get too complex. I do and it usually helps.


  Usually.


  Now I'm just making wishes on the animations. I need to connect myself to something because I've been sundered from you. I've chosen an interesting obsession, haven't I?


  Too bad I can't make all of this real and accepted. I want everything to be like these childhood shows. I want to see all of this simplified.


  I wish this world were like innocent cartoons, where one could get slammed over and over and bounce right back up. Where others could hammer you into the ground with their little mallets and you could just crawl out of your hole, okay save for an extremely temporary red swell like Mt. Everest on the peak of your head. I want a world where you can keep running right over those cliffs and hope you can make it if you only don't look down once and realize just how far Earth is below you. If you do plummet, you can always bet that you'll make an indention right in the shape of your body and lift up with a pretty accordion number.


  I wish the outcome of all my falls were so predictable, at least then I'd know what to expect.

  But now I get the lovely chance to descend without the slightest notion of where I will land. I can't really agree with the fact that I appreciate the offer at Originality. If millions hadn't already done this in thousands of those seemingly "plot less" romance movies, I would be feeling greatly alone right about now.

  It's a good thing I'm a strong person.


  Actually, no, I'm not strong. I'm pathetically weak. I can't survive well under changes.


  But you still found it okay to leave and I'm bothered by it.


  If this is some crazy little American cartoon, I don't get your joke. I usually ignore and look away from things detrimental to my mood, but this is just too big to avoid. You didn't exactly turn and walk away, you sort of snuck out of the mood. You fell out of your emotions almost as quick as you fell in and pulled me down with you.


  And now I'm trying to resurface only to see there is no water. I blindly dived head first off the diving board into a dry cement pool of false beliefs. My head has split open and there's no person here to help. I'm stuck taking care of myself and frankly, I really don't know how. You ran off with my first aid kit and my emotional support. You took everything when this stared, when I trusted you. I remember.


  You tied a blind over my eyes and told me it was going to be okay, I wouldn't trip under your all-knowing guidance. You said things, whispered ideas into my mind and convince me they were my dreams, that I should try them, one by one, and if it was good the first time, I should keep at it.


  Nothing was really that much greater the second or third try and I got bored.

  You were fine though, you smiled, I sensed it if I didn't quite see. You just carried me for a little while then set me down and told me what to do next.


  This was to improve me. I had the beauty to be with you, but I lacked the foresight and motivation to really do much. I had intelligence but you died to see how I left it lying about pointlessly in small comments and theoretical examinations I usually gave up after a good night's sleep. I drugged my mind, left any goals that tried to warm in my mental fire out in the cold. You hated my potential to do so much and response by completing so little.


  But I really just needed you there. I needed you to keep me from killing myself with an idiot's carelessness. I compared life to cartoons and little fancy plots to the stories I never fully tried to write. You couldn't believe it when you saw what I did with my little motivation. I wrote things, dreamed up sagas with everything mathematically, if not ethically, correct. I drew bright little illustrations to go with these. They were everywhere after we got in a fight, little pictures over there, some paragraphs under the bed.


  You scowled; you admonished my creativity. You sighed, and cried, and told me you tried so very hard. You said I could do so much more, but you knew I couldn't. I was a child and you had already been forced to grow up at a very early age. I loved your stamina to succeed in so much. I could believe in a way that you were something a little more than human.


  You inspired my epics. You brought on with your presence those little things you hated so much. I just wanted to put you to words really.

  Did you even bother to read my stumbling attempts? I hated you at times but I loved you forever.


  I still do and I almost despise myself for doing so. I could follow you to the nonexistent corners of the world if only you'd come back and lead me again. I would try harder to be what you want if you'd only not go away.


  But that one great Evil rose out of the Hell of an outside world. It consumed you and pulled you away. Was she a goddess to match the king of the world? Was I something human, too mortal to even warn before you just, well, "up and" left? I don't appreciate or understand this.


  How very rude. Here I can now chalk you up next to my plans to catch some blasted cartoon creature. I gather together my arsenal of Acme supplies and pray for once they can work.


  I'll catch the roadrunner first. Then I'll go after you.


  That little desert poultry "meep, meeping" throughout my mind: It is my lost sanity. I may have to get it back before I can confront you and your Hera of the financial Mt. Olympus.

  I won't be famous; there will be no tragic plays and poems on my vain ego trip of a quest. From what I've conceived, the people outside, the people who write those things, they are part of the multitude that turned you against me.


  They all had this big problem with us. We where the greatest bite of information and contemplation to chew over since those immortal gods walked among their people. Everyone knew and everyone wanted to learn more. You couldn't turn around without bumping into one of those long curious noses. I actually think I broke a few. It wasn't my fault, they should all have known better. I'm really, really clumsy.


  You should have shut up about how much of a klutz I prove to be in moments calling for impeccable grace. Maybe then I wouldn't have written that poem about bad dancers you found and tore with a few scoffs at my immaturity.


  I just nodded. I never said much. When everyone else came over I hid in my bottomless tunnel while you and your associates in crime against me tried to get stories out of my mind. Your one friend, the businessman from Beijing, he liked my works. For a while you stopped criticizing what I did with my precious intellect. But, when I started to obsess over what I was doing, ignoring even you believe it or not, you grew frustrated. Once I paid attention to your mood it was okay.


  And then you let more people over and they all grabbed their guns and went hunting for "wabbits": my ideas. You did try to find a profit in what I did since I couldn't possibly run things if you went down. No, all you had financially went to family members. You wanted to make sure I could take care of myself sans your cash inflow.


  I'm an idiot, so as you see, everything was fine by me. Everything was nice and comfortable till suddenly, (ta da!) you were just gone. I still tried to walk with the misconception you'd be there. I don't know when I had to run, but all the feelings sped up as I realized you had been taken away. I ran till I flew right over the edge of that cliff your absence left in my path.

  I would have kept going but I looked down like the moron I tend to be.


  I saw the ground and tried to sprint back to land, but it was too late. I defied gravity and prayed a few seconds in a pathetically hilarious murmur before the wind began to whistle with my descent. It was all terribly stupid, how I had lived with you there behind me. I repeated the same things over and over. With you I was restrained, freed, and disappointed; restrained, freed, and disappointed; so on and so forth. Like Sisyphus and his wonderful rock rolling sans the highlight of being a Greed myth, I repeated the same actions, kept you entertained for a long time. But finally, you got tired and moved away. I was too easy; you wanted something else for a while, a challenge. Does she provide that?


  I am not too very proud to admit that I do miss you. I'd confess this if you'd let me, you know. I'd try harder to strain my mind to politics and machinery, the laws and the technology advancements. Those happen to be your best suit. Maybe if we had more in common you could come back?


  But I just keep falling as I realize even more you may never return. The ground pulls up to embrace me all too soon. It pulls me down into it and I know I'm losing everything. I have made a comical hole in the shape of my animated mind with all its false realities.


  I sit up, folded and bruised. I wait for the music.


  Then comes the accordion sound.


  Or not.


  I'll have no musical number playing till I see exactly what mood I'm in. No accordion, that is the sound of hope in the fact that I'm a buoyant soul, a flimsy little cartoon character laughing so everyone else will smile and getting over my mistakes.


  As you could maybe see, I can't come up with such funny, happy music. I lift myself and there's some especially sorrowful requiem echoing all around. I wonder if you chose this to mock me. No, people think you're cold hearted, but you're not that cruel. You know what goes too far with me. You could hate everything about my ways and still show enough tact to know what not to do.


  No, I think she did this. It's her fault and now she has summoned a Hellish orchestra to playing as my reality meets my fantasy world.


  But I'm not going to do anything to her. She's not entirely guilty, I mean, you had to fall in love with her to actually leave me here, right? You had to stop caring somewhere, but I could never notice. I was stupid and blind folded, I could not see.


  I wonder if I'll be remembered. I wonder just how long you and her will last. For all I know, the both of you could just end up happily ever after. But, if for some reason you don't, I guess I'll always be here. You were just so good when you had me that I can't break away.


  Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I do love you. I don't feel like I could get over it anytime soon. I really don't. My nature has just caused me to become so dependant on you and ignore everything con to our relationship.

  I really thought it could last forever, that it would go on till our final hours.


  Well, this just proves to show which one of us was the actual brains in the outfit.


  And now I'm going to climb back up again and try to at least see the popularity cage that has twined its bars about you. I'm some idiot dirty feline trying to catch a glimpse of something delicious. You are the socially accepted face in the cage and no one will ever let me near you again. You might just feel that strange longing for freedom everyone else seems to have forgotten around you.


  So I can't come close. I can't ruin your respectable status with all that I am. Your people look down at things like me, the submissive commonwealth of your little kingdoms. No, you have to keep with confident well-bred financial supports, not quiet, self-pitying peasant creatures.


  Creatures such as myself that will not forget you.


  When you see me again, on the street or in your dreams, don't you dare say my name. Let the accordion play it's solo in your 'happiness' you never used to value before. She might hear you. Even a whisper while you're dozing could severely arch some brows. Don't do it. If you see me, run before I can know you're there. You're supposed to prove to the world you're like everyone else. Ignore the ugly little things you once loved.


  The simple mind is easily amused by simple things. The complex mind is amused by the simplicity of things.


  Keep it that way. Don't try to find me, though I'll be waiting for you here. You don't want all this again and I have to look after you as well as myself. I can't survive another fall when the accordion is serenading your pleasant descent into her arms. Think of yourself and think about me if you ponder coming back to my open door. I know you equal pain, even though you're all I think about. You know I equal boredom and ignorance. We have to pretend "us" did not exist.


  We should, but I can't stop thinking about you and how you ran such a betrayal into my role-playing childish world. Don't you dare come back and hurt me again because I might just let you.


  Actually, I will let you. I know this now. I know so much and I don't want anymore, I wish this pain in my heart would stop. It's killing me as I watch the television.

  I don't know how to make it go away except to suffer more with you. You don't care though; you're gone. I'm supposed to cover over your memory with pictures of little cartoon characters, happy faces, and sweet things. But I can't hide the obvious heartache and the curiously tormenting antics of my stomach as it keeps dropping out of existence. I wish it were not so, that all these things would stop with some amazing magical formula to freeze time. They cannot though. I do not believe in magic anymore. All I can trust is one thing and that is the cold, stale fact you have forsaken me.


  I hope you're happy with her. It seems the accordion playing enjoys the both of you a lot more than it does me. Now every time I will see you, I'll hear that background music that's never been with me. I can see it all in my mind now.


  You walk by and….


  …Then comes the accordion sound.



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There, to compensate for my few updates this week…er…month….

~Ling no Yong~