Only An Allusion

Author's Note: If you get the pun in the title of this story—congratulations!—this is the story for you. If not, and you clicked on this because you were curious or intrigued or perhaps in a drunken state, don't fret. This will be a fun story for you, too.

I hope this first chapter goes over well… I don't have a particularly fond relationship with the first chapters of any of my stories. Although, I found writing the beginning of this story really enjoyable, so I have high hopes.

Happy reading.

Chapter 1

Ryou took up the massive stack of papers and tapped them on the table again, the pile steadily straightening. Just do it, she coached herself. Just call him. You can do it, Ryou. She put down the papers with some reluctance and picked up the phone to occupy her now idle hands. Don't pick up, don't pick up, don't pick up, Ryou chanted in her head as she dialed the number and let it ring.

"Hello?"

"Uh, yes, hello. Could I talk to Mr. Kanto?"

There was some rustling on the other end before: "I'm sorry, but it seems he retired over a year ago."

"Oh…" Ryou pulled her knees up to her chest in her office chair and mumbled, "I thought that'd be the case. See, I'm Ryou Bakura. I published a book with this company a few years ago. Mr. Kanto was my editor, and… Well, to be quite candid, I just finished another book." She glanced at the pile of papers lying in front of her on the desk.

"Ryou Bakura… Ryou—Ah, here you are! Your last book sold pretty well, huh?"

Ryou felt her face heat up. "Er, I suppose."

"Well, Miss Bakura, we would be happy to set you up with the editor who replaced Kanto."

"That's not necessary," Ryou refuted, her tone hurried. "I was really only comfortable with Mr. Kanto editing my work. I'll…" She trailed off for a moment, biting her lower lip. "I'll just edit it myself," Ryou finally finished.

"Normally I would let you go, Miss Bakura, but you're missing a fantastic opportunity if you don't let our new editor at your work. The man is a literary genius."

"He is?" Ryou squeaked. She cleared her throat and said quietly, "I just don't know…"

There was an unusually long pause prior to the secretary informing Ryou, "Actually, he had a rescheduling of an appointment, so I can get you a time with him tomorrow at two."

"T-tomorrow?" That seemed all too soon. "Um…"

"You won't regret it if you put your new book into his hands."

Ryou thought about this. At last, she whispered, "Can't I email him, or perhaps—?"

There was some arguing on the other side before a British-accented male growled into the phone, "God damn it, be there or don't be there. My time is very valuable, and I would appreciate it if you refrained from using it on such foolishness. If you don't intend on being serious about your work, don't bother calling again and taking up anymore precious hours of the workday. If you don't show up tomorrow, don't assume you'll get another chance. Good day."

The line went dead, a familiar buzzing subsequent to his little speech.

Ryou swallowed several times before the moisture returned to her mouth. She finally set the phone back down on the receiver and put her hand directly atop the title page of her new novel. Should I go? she wondered briefly but immediately shook her head. Am I crazy? There's not a single chance that I would be able to work with someone that hot-tempered. No chance. None. Yet, Ryou still felt the words of the replacement editor's secretary echoing in her head. Did she speak the truth? Would Ryou really miss the opportunity of a lifetime if she didn't go?

With her hand still caressing the first page of her story, Ryou swiped the papers up into her arms and thought casually, One meeting wouldn't cause any harm, right? Right. She looked up at the clock on her office wall. Some tea and then it's off to bed, Ryou decided, stashing the manuscript in her desk.

-transition-

Ryou walked up to the publications building in downtown Domino City with the copy of her novel awkwardly held in her arms like a fidgety toddler. Her previous editor's office was on the twelfth floor, so that's where she assumed his replacement would be.

She rode the elevator up and found the desk of the assistant she believed she had talked to the day before. "Hello, I'm Ryou Bakura," Ryou introduced as she approached the woman behind the desk.

"Oh, you showed?" The blonde secretary's words gave the impression that she was surprised, but her expression was doing a horrible job of convincing Ryou that this was the case. It did, however, make the author a little suspicious. "Go on ahead then."

Ryou didn't need further direction; the new editor had occupied the same office that her old editor did. No time like the present, she resolved as she opened the door and closed it behind her.

The first thing she noticed was a copy of her first novel on the editor's desk. The next was the editor himself, a lean, relatively young man with shocking white hair and a malicious glare. When she had walked in, the mystery editor had glanced up from his work, studying her from behind his reading glasses.

"You're Ryou Bakura, yes?" he asked in the British accent she had heard earlier on the phone. While this time his tone was more nonchalant, it still retained a certain sharpness.

Ryou nodded, rendered helpless and completely tongue-tied.

"I'm Bakura Akefia." Bakura stood up and offered a hand. When Ryou proved to be frozen in place, his arm retracted back to his side. "Have a seat," he commanded more than offered, his manner no longer patient.

His first name is my last… Ryou thought as she sat across from him, but she wanted to slap herself for letting this be her first judgment about the man. Focus, Ryou. He is going to critique your writing. You need to focus on why you're here. She cleared her throat. "You… um… you read my book?"

"Hmm?" Bakura glimpsed at the novel on his desk as though it was his first time noticing it. "Yes, that's right. I read it last night in preparation for this meeting and to familiarize myself with your work."

"You read it all in one sitting?" Ryou squeaked. She didn't even know if that was possible. Her first book was a little more than five hundred pages with pretty finite-sized text. The vocabulary wasn't exactly basic either… Ryou doubted Bakura had actually read it, word for word, all in one night. He must have skimmed it, the writer thought, disappointed.

Bakura examined Ryou for a moment inquisitively, as if trying to read her inner thoughts. "'Changing my nature seemed superfluous at the time, but it became more vital than I realized when my life began to take a malignant turn into the role I was meant to inherit.'" He cast off his glasses and tucked them into the collar of his shirt. "I believe that's from your book's twenty-second chapter, yes? Page four hundred thirty-one?"

Ryou felt her jaw drop. He lightly pushed it back in place with the back of her hand and sank lower into her seat.

"Now that we've established that I'm competent enough to be your editor, a fact of which I was already aware of—" By this time, Bakura's tone of voice had capsized into a pool of acid, each overly-articulate word directly aimed at Ryou with deadly accuracy. "—we can finally move onto what you came here to accomplish today." When Ryou made no acknowledgement to Bakura's proposal, he hissed, "Nod your head if you heard me."

Ryou did, frantically.

Bakura sighed and held out his hand expectantly. Ryou looked at it, puzzled. "The manuscript," Bakura growled brusquely. "For your new novel."

"Oh, of course," Ryou said hurriedly, somewhat reluctantly depositing the papers into Bakura's hand.

Bakura inspected the first page, his eyes following a similar pattern as he read the title, summary, and dedication quickly but thoroughly.

"Who is this person you've dedicated it to?" Bakura asked, pointing to the foreign name.

"Amane? She's my sister who passed away when she was a child," Ryou informed softly, wishing she still had the manuscript in her possession so that she could hug it to her chest.

"You dedicated your last book to her as well," Bakura observed, comparing the two books side by side; one new, finished, complete and the other striped down to its simplest form; liberated, clean, and free.

"Um, yes." Ryou didn't further explain or give any indication that she was going to. I barely know him… He can't expect me to talk about something so painful when I've only know him a total of five minutes, she thought with her gaze adverted to the floor.

Bakura drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment, noting every breath took and every flinch made by Ryou. "Very well," he announced finally. The editor pointed to the new novel manuscript and told her, "I'll be reading this tonight and will get back to you sometime tomorrow."

Ryou almost inquired if that could really be done, but since this book was a bit shorter than her first, (which he had no problem conquering in one night), she gulped down her words and nodded. "Thank you for taking the time to make my book a success." With that, she stood up and headed towards the door, using the lull in conversation as an excuse to depart. After all, Bakura didn't utter a single word to tell her to stay nor leave; why shouldn't she leave?

However, when Ryou gripped the doorknob, she glanced back at the white-haired man who was already indulged in Ryou's first chapter.

Feeling the need to ask, Ryou questioned, "Did you, uh, like my book? You know… The first one."

Bakura looked up, pushing the sliding reading glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He gave an amused smirk and picked up the copy of Ryou's first novel. "Catch," he told her, and Ryou did. As there was apparently nothing else to say, Bakura went back to reading. Ryou tucked the book under her arm and headed out the door, confused beyond belief.

He gave it back to me… Is that supposed to be symbolic? Does that mean he didn't like it? Oh, Lord, I hope that's not the case.

These and many other worried thoughts troubled Ryou as she sat in a subway seat on the way home.

And finally, not being able to take it anymore, Ryou took out her book and opened it to the first page, desperate for at least one clue.

She found more than one.

Ryou was surprised to see that her entire book was filed with red scribbles—notes she supposed, from Bakura. The title page had a single note, or rather, a time in the right corner.

5:14 PM.

That must be the time he started reading it, Ryou thought, and as she suspected, she found that another time was written on the very last page: 2:08 AM. He really stayed up that late just to finish my book? She flipped through the novel at random and found nearly every page was filled with notes in the margins. And annotate it apparently…

The page after the title page was for dedication. For Amane Bakura. Ryou recalled typing it as she read it, like it was friend from her past giving her a hug. Next to her dedication, Bakura had written in red: Be sure to ask who this is.

Ryou momentarily wondered why he found this so imperative but dismissed it as she moved onto the first chapter.

She soon discovered Bakura did, in fact, enjoy reading her book.

Ryou's first book consisted of a tale about a medieval land plagued with problematic creatures. The main character was princess of the kingdom, and when she received the crown from her parents whom had irresponsibly done nothing to stop the rampaging beasts, the girl went undercover as an everyday civilian to drive them out of the area using a special ability only royals possessed.

Bakura didn't seem to care for the plot much, most of his notes towards the beginning only pointing out literary devises:

Metaphor. Juxtaposition. Simile. Simile. Was this line written in iambic pentameter on purpose? Metaphor. Synecdoche (impressive). Simile. Simile.

But when the protagonist faced the first creature, Bakura had become noticeably more interested:

Badassery, the editor had written next to the description of the first monster. Ryou wasn't surprised by this. She had worked tirelessly on describing the creatures, and the first one was unquestionably her favorite.

It was a shadow beast, a mismangled failed experiment by one of the sorcerers of the land. By itself, the pitiful being was hardly a threat, but with the help of power-hungry darkness that had invaded the country, it became quite the formidable foe and began terrorizing a poor river village.

Bakura also seemed to like how Ryou's main character had defeated it:

I halfway expected it to be destroyed by light. I'm glad it was instead exorcised from the land with fire. It has been long-considered cliché for light to always prevail over darkness.

Ryou nodded in agreement upon reading this note next to the excerpt. She had thought so too, and because the writer had wanted to be more original, she had gone with something not so obvious.

Throughout the book from that point on, the protagonist's fire abilities became one of the main focuses. The princess even announced to one of her advisors (who was closer to her than the average advisor): "I shall burn the evil out of this land, and when everything is finally brought down to the cinders and ashes, I will remain, prepared to bring it back up to the glory it once was."

Kind of an anti-hero, Bakura had inscribed besides the line. I like it.

When the main antagonist was introduced in disguise as a harmless side character a chapter later, Bakura saw the plot twist a mile away:

I know that guy isn't telling Rusa—the princess's name—everything he knows. I'm predicting some deception. And when Bakura's prediction came into play a few chapters later, he scribbled a good-humored "called it" on the side of the page.

"Excuse me?"

Ryou looked up from the book, completely in a daze. She had completely put out of her mind where she was, even to the point where she had momentarily forgotten that there were other people in the world besides her and Bakura. "Er, yes, can I help you?"

The little girl whom had interrupted her was perhaps in high school but no older than that. She stared at Ryou with wide, glassy eyes. "Yes, actually. Is that Enama's Sacrifice you're reading?"

Ryou smiled. Her first book had sold well, but mostly only around the area; people in other regions probably had no idea it existed. At one point though, it had been very popular among Domino City's highschoolers and middleschoolers. Seldom did it get mentioned nowadays, being that its popularity had diminished, but most teenagers in the city still at least knew of it. "Yes, it is. Do you like this book?"

"Only a lot," the girl answered eagerly. "I read it even before everyone else started to like it. I introduced a lot of my friends to it."

"That's great," Ryou said honestly. After all, even though she had never planned on writing more, she still appreciated the fans she had made through her book. Ryou leaned in about an inch closer to the girl and divulged, "Between you and me, I heard the author has wrote a sequel that is going to come out soon."

"Really?" The highschooler's expression brightened immensely before it became confused. "Wait, but I thought the author had written at the end of it that Rusa's life had been cut short, that her story could not be continued…"

Ryou's lips became a pale pink flat line. "While that may be true, that doesn't mean someone else can't come along and spread her legacy, right?"

"I guess not."

Suddenly, the subway intercom blared out Ryou's stop. "I got to go. But look out for that sequel, okay?" The writer closed her book and stood up with some disinclination. "See ya."

The girl nodded and waved after Ryou as she stepped off the subway.

When she arrived home, Ryou changed into some loose-fitting clothes and curled up on her sofa to finish reading all of Bakura's notes. She didn't get far though, as she fell asleep soon after beginning, the book lying on top of Ryou's chest, rising and falling with her gentle breathing. It was left on the page where Rusa's makes her most crucial decision, when she makes the verdict no one thought she was capable of making.

Author's Note: Thinking the name "Kanto" sounded familiar to myself, I googled it. And—what do you know?—it's the name of the first region in Pokémon. My brain just likes to screw around with me, doesn't it?

Is it good so far? I already have this story completely planned out (which feels really awesome), so I hope you'll enjoy every bit of it.

Review please.