This has been sitting on my computer forever. Luckily, it's finished XD. Thought someone out there might be interested a little so I'm posting it.
Spyder doesn't own.
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Prologue
He was gone.
Ryou didn't think he'd ever get used to that fact.
Or get used to the feeling of being incomplete.
But he'd have to, there was no way his other half was ever going to return to him, not now that the Shadow Realm had been sealed and the spirits had returned to their time.
It was better this way, Ryou kept telling himself. He belonged in the 'now' while Bakura belonged in the 'then'. Still…thinking that couldn't stop him from missing the thief. Bakura had been Ryou's only family since Ryou's only other living relative was somewhere in Egypt doing God knows what. Making friends had never been easy for the shy boy either, and the spirit of the long dead robber had surprisingly grown into the role of Ryou's best friend.
But that wasn't his only role.
Ryou had given the spirit his heart – and if he could have, he would have given his body. As it was, they already shared a soul, but they shared much, much more. Ryou wasn't sure if anyone would understand the relationship they'd had, and he wasn't about to go asking for people's thoughts.
Everyone who knew of Bakura's existence thought he was an abusive lunatic. A little 'odd' and rough around the edges, but abusive? No, never. And despite what one would think after meeting the brash tomb robber, Bakura had been one hell of a comforter…at least, for someone without a physical form.
It would have been surprising to learn that the tomb robber could be very romantic. Within the power-hungry soul there lay something more. While everyone else seemed to forget, Ryou always remembered that the spirit had been human once too. A human, who by the time he'd turned ten, had witnessed his entire village being slaughtered, been caught and turned into a slave and had killed his first and last master for raping him. All humans had feelings.
Ryou was the only one to know these secrets, whispered to him in the dead of night when he couldn't sleep. And it made it all the more easy to forgive the spirit for possessing him and adding to his extensive board game collection, by finding a simple red rose waiting for him on his nightstand.
Bakura may have been gone, but his spirit – so to speak – would live forever within the heart of the boy, until the next lifetime.
He was gone.
But not forgotten.