The Thief had been silent all day. It worried Ryou; even when the Thief wasn't trying to take control of him, he usually had a plenty of remarks to make throughout the course of a day. There hadn't even been a snicker when Yuugi had fallen on his face during gym class. The Thief just wasn't there today.
It was because of the screaming match they'd had last night. They'd been fighting for a week, since Duelist Kingdom, but it had really come to a head last night and regrettable things may have been said. Ryou felt lonely without the Thief's constant presence pressing on his mind.
He'd had study-hall after school and then Yuugi and Jounochi had dragged him out for sickeningly greasy fast-food. Ryou stared blankly out the window, letting their chattering fade into a background hum as he picked at his french-fries.
'Hey! Hey!'
Ryou blinked, noticing that fingers were snapping loudly a few inches from his nose. The fingers belonged to Jounochi, who was giving him an annoyed look. 'What's up, Bakura? You're totally spaced out.'
Ryou focused on the other two boys at the table, almost feeling startled that they were still there. Or rather, that he was still here. What time was it? 'I... Sorry,' Ryou mumbled. 'I guess I'm tired.'
'Are you sure?' Yuugi looked worried. 'You've been kind of out of it today.'
When wasn't he 'out of it'? Half his waking hours he was being distracted by his 'imaginary friend' and only half paying attention to the outside world. Now on the one day that the Thief was totally absent, he'd paid even less attention because he was busy worrying. Ryou shook his head. 'I've just been thinking a lot... About what happened on the island,' he said quietly, it was a half-truth.
Yuugi nodded, his expression understanding but still worried. 'How have you been feeling? Since Honda-kun threw that pendant away? Have there been any side-effects or anything?'
Ryou managed not to laugh at that. He didn't tell them that he had also tried dropping it into Tokyo Bay, tying it to an ema rack in the shrine at Mt. Fuji, mailing it to back to Egypt, and made countless smaller attempts to get rid of the unholy thing. They didn't need to know that. If they knew it was hanging right there, under his jacket, at this very moment... it's not like they could do anything about it, so why worry them?
Ryou had stopped trying to get rid of it a long time ago. He wasn't even sure he wanted to anymore.
'I'm fine,' Ryou said, shaking his head again. 'It's just strange to come to terms with.'
Yuugi gave him a soft, understanding smile. 'Yeah, I know.' He nodded. 'You know you can talk to me about it, right?'
Ryou nodded, even though it wasn't true.
'And y'know I'm next to useless with this voodoo stuff, but I'm here for you if you need me,' Jounochi added with a lopsided grin and patted Ryou's shoulder.
'Thank you,' Ryou sighed.
...
It was hard to concentrate on his homework. It probably took him twice as long as it should have. He'd spent fifteen minutes just staring blankly at his English workbook, trying to remember past-tense form. He reviewed his history text, because Yamada-sensei liked to spring pop-quizzes on them at random intervals, and he pushed his way through half of his math problems before giving up and getting ready for bed.
He closed his eyes on his dark bedroom and opened them again in his soul-room. He turned his head, looking around the comfortable room with its clean tatami floor and numerous piles of neatly stacked books, checking to make sure that he was indeed the only one in the room. The Thief wasn't there. Ryou sighed and walked toward the door, clenching his teeth in a subconsciously nervous way.
He pulled the door open and the hazy sunlight from his room illuminated the patch of hallway outside and the other door just beyond. Ryou glanced down and picked a book off the top of the nearest stack, Domestication of Plants in the Old World, and stepped out into the hallway, sliding the door shut behind him.
The door across from his was thick, smoke-hardened wood boards held together with tarnished bronze. There were dozens of locks and bolts adorning it, but adornment was all they really were, because they gave way when Ryou heaved at the handle, using the weight of his body to swing the heavy door open.
With the door open, he could hear the Thief mumbling inside the dark room, as well as peripheral skittering and slithering sounds of vermin hiding in the sandstone walls. Ryou stepped inside and eased the door slowly back, wedging the book into the jam before it could close all the way.
He stood up and shivered. The sandstone under his bare feet was freezing. It sucked every ounce of heat out of his toes, leaving him numb after a few steps.
The funny thing about this being a soul-room, and inside of his head, was that he was at the same time aware that the room was pitch-black and yet he was able to see every detail without hindrance. He hugged the wall as he descended the narrow steps toward the room's floor. Maybe this wasn't real, but he always worried about falling and breaking his neck; the steps were barely a foot wide and there wasn't any railing.
At the bottom of the stairs, he paused a moment to just look at his Thief, crouched in the dark corner, mumbling to himself. He was chewing on the knuckles of his right hand and drawing in the sand of the floor with his left index finger. His hair was blocking his face from view, but Ryou imagined that he was wearing that wide-eyed, semi-catatonic look as he rocked back and forth in place. He was hobbled and a thick bronze collar was locked around his neck, chaining him to the wall behind him.
Ryou sighed and shook his head. He hated this room. He knew that the Thief did too, but he couldn't truly escape it either. 'Hey,' Ryou whispered, kneeling down next to the Thief. The Thief didn't notice, continuing to rock back and forth and mumble incoherently.
Ryou leaned over to see what he was drawing in the sand. It looked like a tally, which he was constantly scribbling out and starting over again as he mumbled. His finger was red and chafed from the sand; he'd been at this for hours.
'Thief,' Ryou whispered, putting a hand gently on his shoulder.
The Thief jerked back violently at the touch and scrambled back, the chain around his neck rattling as he moved. 'I didn't! You can't prove it!' he snapped in a dry, cracked voice.
'Shhhh,' Ryou soothed, catching his hand and stroking it softly.
The Thief panted raggedly for a few moments, staring at him with wide, hysterical eyes, before recognition slowly played across his features. 'R-Ryou,' he sighed, half-collapsing against him, violent tremors snaking through his body.
'Shhhh.' Ryou ran his fingers rhythmically through the Thief's hair and held him tightly. 'We're going to get out of here, okay?' he whispered.
'N-n- th-the door's locked,' the Thief said, shaking his head.
'It's okay, I tricked the guards.' Ryou put his hands on the bronze collar and felt the latch slide back, obediently unlocking for him. He pulled it away from the Thief's neck and set it on the ground.
The Thief started to giggle, the sound intermingled with dry hiccups. 'Y-yes, Ryou! You're such a clever boy!' he said, pressing his face against Ryou's neck and laughing soundlessly.
Ryou gave the hobble a tug and it fell away, freeing the Thief's ankles, and then he stood up slowly, pulling the Thief up with him. 'Come on,' he whispered. 'Let's hurry.'
'Yesss!' the Thief nodded frantically and followed Ryou back up the steps. Ryou kept tight hold of his Thief's hand as he pulled him towards the little platform in front of the entrance and then leaned his shoulder against the heavy wood to push the door open. He could hear the Thief's breath coming in ragged, erratic bursts as he pulled him across the hall and into the golden afternoon light of his tatami room.
The Thief was laughing again, in that broken, insane way, apparently gleeful at their escape. Ryou slid the door shut and lead him over to the pile of cushions in the corner, settling them down into the amorphous softness and pulling his Thief close to him. The Thief collapsed into him and burrowed his face into Ryou's shoulder.
Ryou just held him and stroked his hair, waiting as the Thief's trembling began to wane and his breathing calm. 'Now see, what would you have even done with Mokuba's body? You can't manage on your own at all.'
'Y-you said you w-wanted me t-to leave y-you alone,' the Thief mumbled against his neck.
Ryou sighed softly. 'I was mad at you,' he said after a while. 'I didn't mean it, so don't go shopping for new bodies.' He sank his nose into the Thief's hair and sighed again. 'Somebody has to look after you.'
...
About halfway through writing the second scene there, I started thinking 'Man, I should watch The Cell again...' I wonder if Netflix has it on instant-play...
Hey! Let's get some comments up in here! Come on you guys! Respond! Say something!
Oh, Glossary; I mentioned an ema rack back when I was going through ways Ryou's tried to get rid of the ring. Ema are small wooden plaques that you write prayers on and leave hanging from a rack in a Shinto shrine. *shrug* I figured if he's dealing with a spirit he'd have tried to see if Shinto could help, and I decided tying it to a tree or an ema rack in a major shrine or holy area felt the most logical...
I made several references to things being made of bronze, if that confused you, dark-Bakura's frame of reference is in the Bronze-Age, everything utilitarian is bound to be bronze.