A.N.: This story is based on 'Harrison Bergeron' by Kurt Vonnegut. I don't own it, though I loved this story and thought it would make a great Yu-Gi-Oh fan fiction. I also don't own the song 'Say Goodnight, Not Goodbye'
The pairings are:
Seto (age 25) x Serenity (age 22)
Y. Bakura (age 25) x Tea (age 24)
Don't like it? Don't read!
Anyone else mentioned is about 25.
A few changes I made: Y. Bakura is not anyone's son. He's just a friend. The Handicapper General is not a female. Everyone is about the same age.
I narn heria!
Tea shuffled around backstage. The bag at her neck, filled with lead balls, weighed heavily upon her shoulders. The weights at her legs kept her to the floor easily, halting her grace as if it was nonexistent. She adjusted the mask that she wore. Is was ghastly and deformed, hiding her beautiful face. For that was what it was meant to do. Everyone in the world wore bags, weights, masks, and other handicaps. It was the government's effort to bring equality to the people. And it worked. Almost too much.
Tea thought that maybe life would be more interesting if everyone was different. The sound of a group of fireworks sounded of in her head, scattering all her thoughts. Every twenty seconds, some loud noise would blast from her mental handicap, keeping her from using her intelligence unfairly.
The dancer sighed. It was her time to go on. With just as much skill as her fellow dancers, she half leaped upon the stage.
You know, she thought, perhaps dancers shouldn't be handicapped.
She winced as a car alarm went of in her head.
Across town, two people flinched. They were sitting on the couch in their home watching the unspectacular dance. The brown haired man shared a meaningful glance with the red-headed lady, but they couldn't remember what about. With a shrug, they turned back to the T.V..
"The dancers are good," said Serenity, the red-head.
"No better than anyone else," said Seto. He studied his wife. Her hair was cut short in a normal, boring way. She wore a mask, a mental handicap, and a few weights on her neck and ankles.
Seto himself wore many handicaps. His weights were larger, and they were on her wrists as well as his ankles and neck. His eyebrows were shaved off to ruin his handsome face. The mental handicap that Seto wore was larger and louder. A pair of slightly wavy glasses sat on the bridge of his nose. He looked, in effect, completely ridiculous.
Seto watched the dancers twirl around the stage. He was almost asleep when an announcer came on for an emergency new report.
The announcer, Joey Wheeler, had a speech impediment. After trying to spurt out "Ladies and gentlemen. . . and Kaiba," for more than a minute, he finally handed off the report to a nearby dancer.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said the dancer, Tea. Her voice was light and musical, which was a very unfair voice to use. She quickly apologized, tuning her voice down to something completely ordinary.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she said in a dull monotone. "The notorious criminal, Bakura, has escaped from jail. He is very strong and extremely intelligent. If you see him, do not approach him. I repeat: Do not approach him. He is extremely dangerous!"
A picture of Bakura flashed on the screen. He probably had once been very handsome. Like Seto, both his eyebrows were shaved off. But that was the only similarity. He wore huge earphones for his mental handicap, having outgrown the small hearing aid type devices worn by most people.
Sheets of metal draped over his body and his head, making him look like a robotic nun. Large, think, wavy glasses covered his eyes, giving him a constant headache. His sharp, vampiric teeth might have been white once, but a constant diet of decaf coffee had stained them a horrible yellow, and some of them had been painted black.
Only his eyes hadn't changed. They were cold. Not a twinkle of light was to be found. But there was hope. Hope that the world could shift from the controlling spiral that it found itself in.
"Is that. . . Bakura?" said Serenity.
"It is! I would recognize him anywhere!" shouted Seto.
A piercing wail ripped through Seto's and Serenity's minds. They instinctively clapped their hands over their ears, as did Tea on the screen, though they did not see. When the siren stopped, it was replaced by screams of people. Seto looked up to see that the picture of Bakura had been removed, replaced with a real, grinning, insane Bakura. He backed away to reveal his full self, handicaps and all.
"I am Pharaoh!" he screamed to the screen. "I am Pharaoh! I shall rule these pitiful mortals, who obviously cannot simply watch out for themselves! Here! I shall prove to you that I alone can rule! I shall be Pharaoh!"
He tore of the metal plates one by one as if they were paper. He grabbed the headphones and neck brace and threw them against the wall. He was a very impressive sight, standing there without all the layers of metal. Ra himself would have cowered before the man, such was his presence and aura of confidence and superiority.
"Now!" he yelled, pointing to the dancers huddling fearfully in a group. "Which one of you shall rule by my side? Who shall be my Queen, and share the world with me?"
All the dancers but one shook their heads fearfully. Tea strode foreword, head held high. Bakura studied Tea for a moment, then realization flashed in his crimson eyes. He took here hand.
"It's you, " he whispered, " You remembered, all through these years. You waited for me."
Tea nodded. It was the one memory that not even the handicaps couldn't remove.
Tea leaned against Bakura, who was leaning against a tree. It was slightly uncomfortable, due to Bakura's large handicaps and Tea's neck brace. But they didn't much care.
"Bakura?"
"Mmmm?" he mumbled, eyes closed, enjoying the gentle breeze on his face.
"Will it always be like this?"
Bakura opened his eyes. He leaned down and kissed Tea on the top of her head.
"Things will change," he said. "As long as you wait for me, things will change."
Tea was brought back to reality with the feeling of his lips on hers. It was short and sweet. It brought back even more memories of times spent together. So lost was she in her memories that she didn't even notice when he removed her handicaps.
"And now, we dance." said Bakura. He shouted towards the cowering musicians for music. It was jerky and annoying. Bakura rolled his eyes and marched over to the conductor. He whispered forcefully in his ear his song of choice. The man hurredly complied. Bakura nodded, smiled, and strode back over to Tea. As the first chords of the song started, he gently took her hands.
Say goodnight, not goodbye
You will never leave my heart behind
Like the path, of a star
I'll be anywhere you are
He lead her in a waltz around the studio's stage. They both knew that they were on live T.V. in front of twenty million people, but neither of them cared.
You are everything you ought to be
So just let your heart reach out to me
I'll be right, by your side
Say goodnight, not goodbye
Tea put her head on his shoulder. She sighed in contentment. She had waited for so long for him to return. It was almost a dream come true.
You are everything you ought to be
So just let your heart reach out to me
Keep my life, in your eyes
Say goodnight, not goodbye
It was at that moment that Yami Muoto, U.S. Handicapper General, and his squad burst through the doors into the station. He took three seconds to analyze the situation, then drew upon the shadows and suffocated both in darkness. It was a quick and painless death. He shouted at the musicians and dancers to put on their handicaps before they met with the same fate.
The T.V. screen went blank. Seto and Serenity stared at the screen. Serenity was crying and they were both in shock. A powerful blast of noise, like a toned down version of a jet taking off, ripped through their minds. When they could think again, Seto and Serenity looked at each other.
"Why are you crying?" Seto asked. Serenity racked her mind for answers.
"I don't know," she finally answered, "I think there was something sad on television."
Seto nodded, accepting this explanation.
"Just forget the sad things," he said.
"I always do," said Serenity.
Say goodnight, not goodbye.
A/N: Sad, no? Not all stories have a happy ending. Rate and Review, please!