Happy People

Summary: A conversation between Bakura Ryou and himself makes Kaiba Seto see him in a new light. Kaiba can't give him love, but he can give him something close. Euroshipping for Computerfreak101's contest.

WARNING: Very slight Ryou/Kaiba, which means boy/boy pairings, in other words, homosexuality. Don't like it? Don't read it. Set a year or so after the Ceremonial Duel.

Kaiba Seto knew very little about Bakura Ryou, and he didn't really care. All he knew that he was one of Yuugi's little cheerleaders, and that he was seventeen like himself. He had also had one of those 'items' that had caused Kaiba such discomfort, and he had been there at the sending off of the...Pharaoh...

And he was young, and beautiful, Kaiba supposed, because that was what he had heard.

And that was where Kaiba stopped. That was the only place that he would allow his mind to wander for this Bakura Ryou. Because he was unimportant.

Unimportant, until that one night at the park.

The auburn haired boy often wandered Domino Park at night, because the Park was a very nice place. It was quiet and always empty, at least it was at night, and night was all the young man cared about.

And one night, he took a walk. He took a walk because he couldn't sleep, and it was nice and cold outside, and smelled like rain. The nighttime, where everything was gray and so very quiet, was always a good time to walk and not think. He didn't want to think, because when he thought, thoughts often went to less-than-pleasant topics.

He sat down quietly on a marble bench, big enough for two people. But nobody else ever came, until that night.

That night, there was a glow next to him.

Bakura Ryou glowed.

Of course, Bakura was so white, that he would glow in the dark, it figured. Lips the color of a newborn baby's skin graced him with a small smile. (Bakura was always smiling.)

"Could I sit here?" The words were soft but crisp, like rustling paper to an ancient book.

A book that was so beautifully bound that nobody ever bothered to look inside, because that tome could never be as beautiful as it was outside, and inside there could only be ugly, ugly, ugly disappointment and gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching horror.

Kaiba didn't nod, he didn't say anything, hoping it would drive the other away.

He was tired, after all. He just wanted a bit of peace from the corporate life. A bit of peace from the thirteen year old, just-barely-teenager he had at home.

But the boy sat down anyway, bathing the place with his imaginary glow.

Portable moonlight.

Kaiba sighed, bothered. "Why are you here?"

Big brown eyes turned to him, lips kept smiling softly. "I guess I wanted to get away from my apartment for a while. Today wasn't a very good day."

Kaiba didn't ask, because just from his stupid question, he had learned something about another human being who was not Mokuba.

So they sat in silence, a kind of silence that was so tense it felt stifling, but eventually just became normal. Kaiba simply pretended that the other seventeen year old wasn't there, that only a statue was sitting beside him and nothing more.

But he wouldn't have used the word pretend, because he didn't pretend anymore. He simply twisted things to fit his own world of sharp corners and two-dimensional outlines. The outlines were Other People who were not himself or his brother.

There was a time when he pretended.

But that time was long gone.

And eventually, he had to look to his seat companion, wondering if the other boy was ever going to just go away.

But tears had started to run down the face of the other, making it glow less and look more gray, and that was when Kaiba noticed the sadness in his eyes.

"What do you think a happy person is, Kaiba-kun?"

The taller boy could not answer the question, and he didn't want to, and he felt that the boy had no right to intrude on his personal space by asking something like that. For Kaiba had never truly thought of those enigmas that were happy people.

"I don't think there's such thing. Nobody can just be happy, really."

Kaiba got up, but the other just kept on talking, faster now that the person who 'accompanied' him was leaving.

"What is happiness anymore? Everybody is happy once, but then things happen to change that. It's the way of life. The way of everything. Things happen, things change. Nothing ever stays right. Why don't things stay right?"

"What do you mean?" They are the first words that Kaiba spoke in this 'conversation'.

He doesn't really like Bakura, he thought. But, after all, how could he not like somebody whom he did not know?

"Things were right for me once, but all that changed when Amane and mother died. But mostly Amane. I loved her."

The smaller boy looked into Kaiba's eyes, seeing the question hidden in them.

"Amane was my sister. She's gone, though."

This made Kaiba sit down next to him, because he didn't know how it would be to lose a sibling. He didn't know what he would do if he lost Mokuba. It was some twisted guilt that made him stay next to Bakura as the white-haired boy talked, his words punctuated by sobs.

"She was sweet and beautiful, and...too young to leave me. She was seven, and I...I was ten. She'd be Mokuba's age now. She...she...she...I loved her, I never wanted her to leave!"

Then what he said almost made Kaiba hit him.

"You're lucky, Kaiba Seto. Very lucky."

How dare he! How dare he say that! How dare this boy that Seto had barely even know come out and say that he thought Kaiba was lucky!

"I'm far from lucky."

"But you have luck that I never had. You have your brother. That's what matters, that's what makes you lucky. You have your family, no matter how small it is! My family is gone."

"Everybody?"

"Everybody is gone, in all the ways that matter."

He didn't ask.

"I'm gone."

Kaiba gave a derisive snort. "Gone? Who am I talking to then? A spirit?"

"If I'm not gone already, I'm leaving. There's nothing to keep me tethered to the world, nobody."

"Your friends?"

"They aren't enough! That sounds so selfish, but they aren't!"

Suddenly Kaiba knew what the boy wanted, he knew what he wanted because he wanted it for himself.

"I wish I could be a happy person. Don't you sometimes?"

It was so simple, but so far away.

"Happy people would have no problems in life. They would just glide through on ice skates and strawberry sorbet."

He wanted love.

"But everybody must want something. But it would be so nice, so nice to be a happy person for just one minute."

So did Kaiba.

But Kaiba didn't know how to give that, he didn't, because he was all knife edges and sharp corners, and everybody who tried to get close enough would just be sliced away.

So he gave the best he could.

He gave a kiss.

"Are you happy enough now?"

Bakura Ryou wanted what Kaiba Seto wanted. He wanted somebody to mend his broken heart, he wanted somebody to take away the pain, no matter how twisted and broken and fractured it was, he wanted love.

And he was desperate, even though he could never truly get it. He wanted somebody to touch, to make him feel as though he had a place in the world.

And if he needed a mechanism for that, if he needed a living machine, well...

A machine was alive enough, after all.

-The End-