This is my submission for MagicRinger's OC contest, starring Yume, Ryo, Bakura AND Akefia! I accept the love triangle challenge and added to it, typing it with a jammed finger. Mwahahaha! One-shot; told with the three main characters' POVs in third person. Anyways, without further ado,

It Will Always Be Algedonic

Yume's gaze flickered back and forth between the ring resting in the palm of her hand and the white dress hanging on the back of her closet door. The silver band embedded with a single, simple, yet shimmering diamond felt warm against her skin as she gently rolled in back and forth. All of her friends commented on how absolutely wonderful it was when they saw it nestled at the back of her finger, but she could see in their eyes how plain it seemed to them. She understood why they had not been completely awestruck, but it was more than enough for her. Ryo had spent every last spare cent and then some to pay for it. And then there was the dress: the most wonderful gift her mother had ever placed in her hands. It fit her body perfectly with every slight curve and swirled around her legs in a comfortable froth of pearl silk when she so much as turned around to answer a voice behind her. It was absolutely stunning making her feel like the most cliché butterfly princess, and a happy one at that.

Tomorrow, Yume would be married to Ryo Bakura.

More accurately, she would be married to Ryo and Bakura.

She dropped her head to her desk, ignoring the loud thump and sudden pain. She loved Ryo more than anything else in the world. She loved the way he smiled at her when she practically blew up the kitchen trying to make dinner; how he turned little moments like feeding ducks at the park pond into a romantic getaway from reality; his gentle touch when he teased the spaghetti strap of her nightgown in the warm summer evenings. And yet somehow he also carried inside of him the one creature she would give anything but Ryo to destroy, which was precisely the problem. When Ryo and Yume had decided to officially become a "couple" she had learned to tolerate Bakura in order to keep Ryo. As time passed on, he kept more to himself than anything else, seeming to accept the fact that Yume and Ryo were going to live happily ever after without him, but she knew better than that. He was biding his time until the exact moment to take what he believed to be his. That was the part that inflamed her most. She could have a happily ever after if he would just leave them alone!

Sliding the engagement ring back on her finger and sliding the dress back into the closet, she wandered out of the bedroom into the living room of the small apartment the three of them shared. To her utter disgust, Bakura sat on the couch, watching a rather horrible scene from Saw and crushing pieces of popcorn between his terribly white teeth.

"Hey beautiful," he said with practically no emotion in his voice. "You can have Ryo back when the movie's over."

"I want him back now, Bakura!" she practically screamed back.

He showed no sign of hearing her and continued to watch his grim appalling movie. She wanted to puke for both the amount of blood squirting across the screen and the fact that she couldn't smack Bakura on the head with a frying pan without giving her fiancé a concussion. Yume stormed to the kitchen and began yanking out leftover Chinese take-out and shoving it in the microwave, grumbling to herself about how she'd like to stick it somewhere else.

"Relax, will ya? After tomorrow he's all yours."

Yume dropped one of the plastic plates with a yelp. She hadn't heard Bakura walk in. She hated him even more when he scared her like that.

"I have nothing to say to you other than fuck off," she growled. Swearing usually wasn't her thing, but Bakura was the exception, as he was to so many other things.

He growled back from the back of his throat, but in a sadistically playful way. In one swift motion, he was at her side with a cold hand resting lightly on her neck.

"Oh, you know I'd love to, if you were waiting for me again."

She batted his hand away.

"You know that wasn't you! You know that was me and Ryo and you had to be a bastard and get involved!"

He let out a loud laugh, making her jump.

"And you know that's a lie! Whose name were you moaning? I'm pretty sure it went along the lines of 'Bakura! Bakuuuuuraaaaa!'"

"Shut up!" Yume cried, clasping her hands over her ears, close to tears. That night had been a horrible mistake. It was supposed to be her and Ryo. It should have been her and Ryo. It was meant to be special, but then Bakura took that away from them.

"That wasn't the first time, you know," he continued on cruelly. "Thousands of years ago it was about the same thing, only you had different hair and didn't have half a mind to file charges for statutory rape."

"I am NOT Amunet and you are NOT Akefia!" Yume shrieked, dropping to her knees. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? Tomorrow was going to be the greatest day of her life, so why couldn't he just leave her alone and let her have her 24 hours of happiness! He kept bringing up their past lives, but that didn't control who she was. How could it be true anyway? How could anything that ever was or will be a part of her love anything that is Bakura? Without any control whatsoever, Yume buried her face in her arms and burst into tears.

"Oh my God! Oh my God, Yume, talk to me! Tell me what's wrong!"

Sweet heaven, he gave him back to her!

Before she could even channel one emotion, Yume threw herself into Ryo's arms. He held her in a deep embrace and lightly stroked her hair, rocking gently back and forth.

"What did he do to you?" Ryo whispered softly, and then wiped some of the tears off her cheeks with his shirt.

Yume nestled her head into his warm neck, breathing in comfort with every shallow breath slowly coming back under control.

"It doesn't matter," she whispered back. "You're here with me now, and that all that matters."

"Why don't you get some sleep?" Ryo suggested, picking Yume up in a bridal style position in his arms. "You have a very big day tomorrow."

"We," she reminded him. "We have a big day tomorrow. Come with me?"

Ryo smiled softly.

"I'll be there. I need to have a chat with someone first."

….

"How dare you summon me here like a dog!" Bakura hissed, glaring down at Ryo with murder in his eyes.

"This is my soul room. My body. My head. My heart. I can do whatever I damn well please!" he retorted, fighting the intimidation of Bakura's extra few inches of height. "You can keep on screwing with me all you want. You've been doing it for years. But don't you dare touch Yume!"

Bakura raised his hand and brought it down with a sharp slam to Ryo's face, making him stumble back off his feet. He then bent down and pulled Ryo back up by the back of his hair.

"You think you can take what's mine, boy? She fell for me and I took her centuries ago. Even if she doesn't remember, I do."

Ryo felt a warmth trickle down his chin. Realizing it was blood dripping from his mouth, he spit it in Bakura's direction.

"If you love her so much then why do you torment her?"

"Love?" Bakura asked with mock perplexity and feigned shock. "My dear, sweet Ryo, you are very much confused. You think I love her? I simply enjoy her loving me and the… privileges that come with it. Tell me Ryo, have you ever made love under the Egyptian sky with the most beautiful thing in the desert? Have youever made a woman writhe in pleasure and beg you for more? Have you ever made Yume shout you name the way she shouted mine?"

Even though Ryo wanted to scream at him to just stop, he let him go on, because there was something creeping into his yami's eyes as he continued to talk about Akefia's supposed exploits with Amunet. Something that had never been there before, but something he recognized.

"You're a really bad liar," Ryo said with a smug grin. "You really do love her from the very depths of that thing that can barely be called a heart. Amunet really loved you back, so now you can't stand the fact that Yume doesn't love you now, so you want to force her into loving you."

"Why you little toad!" Bakura shouted in rage. "You!... You!... You!..."

Ryo smiled triumphantly. Even though it would come back to him eventually, he had one little victory.

…..

Bakura clenched his hands into fists as he watched Ryo quietly slide into bed next to Yume, who slightly opened her eyes to slide her slender fingers over his pale face. He kissed her gently on the neck and she returned it with a kiss on his lips. Without the stomach to watch them innocently caress each other, he retreated back into his own soul room. Once he made sure that Ryo would never be able to get in even if his life depended on it, he slammed both his fists into the stone floor and screamed out at the top of his lungs "AMUNET!" After his voice cracked, he covered his face with his hands. His little traitor hikari had to go and fall in love with Yume. How? Bakura had honestly loved him, but then he went and took away from him the single thing he had been looking for: the most beautiful thing in the desert and all the world. Amunet incarnate. It crushed him that she could not remember her past life and all the passion they had shared. The Akefia inside him shouted and howled and snarled and tore at his chest until the Thief King clawed his way out his chest and took a physical form.

"How did you let this happen?" he yelled in fury to his light-skinned self. "I trusted you! I helped you! I gave you all the strength you needed! What was my one request? Bring Amunet's current body back to us! How did you let that damned hikari of yours get in the way? You should have found another host years ago and slit his throat!"

"Enough!" Bakura hissed, guiltily noticing the similarities between the conversations. "You think I don't care about her too? The truth is, even though I hate to admit it and will NEVER show it, is that I love Ryo as much as I fucking hate him. He is a part of me and I am a part of him. Now I will torment both of them until the days we die and I will win her over for a second time, but there is only so much I can do. You love her; I love her; but most importantly and annoyingly, Ryo loves her. She loves him more than anything, and since we are practically one in the same, that means she loves a bit of us too."
Akefia exhaled in frustration, gripping a fistful of white hair, but hissed contemptuously, "We give them one day head's start."

…

All Bakura could think of when he saw Yume and Ryo at the altar with their lips clasped together was, it should have been me.

Akefia, on the other hand, steamed, it was me.

The End?

Hoped you liked it! More importantly, I hope Moe liked it! Who knows, maybe with her permission I'll write more.

To Moe,

I know that little twist at the end was probably not what you would have put in, but it was a bit of a "creative license" (*shot* I hate those words…) moment. Please don't kill me. It was for dramatic effect .

-TW10