Crazy by LittleMissHippie
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!
A/N: This is my first time writing a Yu-Gi-Oh! story so… just keep that in mind.
This could not be Ryou Bakura.
Ryou was Ryou—he was the type of guy everyone wanted to be around. He was kind; he was soft. He would not do this. He was not doing this.
"Ryou," Téa said quietly, as if she was afraid. (Because Ryou was scaring her and Ryou was not supposed to be scary.) "You have to stop."
"But Téa," the white haired boy responded slowly. "I don't know what you mean."
"Put the knife down, man," Tristan commanded. "Just put it down."
"Slowly," Joey added.
"I don't know if I can do that, Tristan," Ryou said, his attention focused on his brown haired friend. "I'm not sure I can trust you… any of you."
"Of course you can trust us, Ryou!" Yugi said while sounding absolutely shocked. "How could you think that? We're your friends."
Ryou glanced at Yugi, who was tied to a chair in front of him. Ryou's knife was dangerously close to Yugi's neck.
Then he laughed.
"My friends?" he spat, sounding very unlike the Ryou Bakura they knew and loved. "Friends don't accuse their friends of being crazy. Friends don't trick their friends into going to a psychiatrist because they think they need mental help. Does that sound very friendly to you?" His voice was slowly getting angrier—not a loud anger, but a quiet one. A scary anger. "Well, Yugi? Does it?"
"It's because we care, Ryou—!"
He laughed again. Téa looked even more frightened. Tristan stiffened. Joey glared at the distance separating him from the crazy boy in front of him, wishing he was close enough to stop him before he had a chance to hurt Yugi.
"You care? That's really funny, Yugi. I really didn't get that impression but if you say so..." His words trailed off as the knife edged closer and closer to the shorter boy's neck.
"Ryou, stop it!"
"You don't want to do this…"
"Think about what you're doing, man!"
Ryou's laughter grew louder as his demeanor shifted before the eyes of his friends. His features were sharper now. He looked different. He looked evil.
This is not Ryou Bakura. This cannot be Ryou Bakura.
His knife finally made contact with Yugi's skin.
Téa screamed.
Ryou was afraid.
He didn't want to be like Bakura. (He told himself over and over again, "I am not Bakura, we are not the same—") Bakura was evil. Bakura was bad. Bakura was a thief. Bakura was everything Ryou was not and he wanted it to stay that way. Because if Ryou was Bakura—and the thought alone was enough to scare him—who would be Ryou? He could never really find the answer to this particular question—
—and that was enough to scare him.
He woke up—just like any other night—screaming.
"Did you have the nightmare again, Bakura?" the voices murmured. "Did you kill?"
"Shut up!" he yelled, his eyes closed and his hands covering his ears. "Just shut up!"
"Are you scared, Bakura?" the voices continued.
"Shut up!" he continued to shout. "I am not Bakura! I will never be like him!"
"You're just like him," the voices murmured inside his mind. "Just. Like. Him."
Ryou just wanted to wake up. He would give anything to just wake up—to realize this was all just a dream, and he was just regular Ryou. He didn't want to be—
"Crazy. You're crazy!" The voices sounded like they were laughing at him now. "But he was too. You're just like him!"
"I'm not crazy," Ryou said to himself. He was about to start crying, but he was not crazy.
"The nightmare is right, Bakura," the voices said. "You'll become just like him. You already are. You will kill, just like him. And you'll think it's all funny, just like he did."
"You're wrong!" Ryou yelled. "You're wrong."
The voices just laughed in response.
"Are you family?"
A group of teenagers stood in front of a nurse in the Domino City Hospital. "Well, actually—" the shortest one began before being cut off by the girl standing next to him.
"Yeah. We're his cousins," Téa replied. "Could you please show us to his room?"
The nurse looked doubtfully at Téa. "No, I'm afraid I can't do that. But I can show you to a doctor, and they could possibly help—"
A man dressed in a white coat inserted himself into their circle. "I'm sorry, but did you say you were cousins of Ryou Bakura?"
Tristan nodded. "Could you help us get to his room?"
"Of course," the doctor responded. "Follow me; I'll explain what happened on our way over. By the way, I'm Doctor Haku."
"Thank you," Yugi said and the doctor nodded in response.
"We're lucky we found him," Doctor Haku started. "If a neighbor hadn't called 911… well, we don't know what would've happened."
"What?" Joey asked, looking confused. "Why'd they call 911?"
The doctor glanced down at his clipboard. "They heard yelling. They didn't know why Mr. Ryou Bakura would be yelling at three o'clock in the morning, so they called 911."
"That doesn't sound like Ryou," Tristan said. "I've never heard him yell at three o'clock in the morning."
"Do you know why he was yelling?" Yugi asked the doctor.
"No," Doctor Haku replied. "He was passed out from blood loss—and probably pain—when our emergency vehicles arrived on the scene."
"Blood loss?" Téa shrieked.
"Yes," the doctor answered. "He was found with a severe wound on his neck. Most likely inflicted with the knife we found in his hand."
"In his hand…?" Yugi asked. "Does that mean…?"
"But Ryou wouldn't have…" Tristan said.
"He didn't," Téa said firmly. "I don't believe it."
Joey looked shocked—but grim. He stayed silent.
"We're assuming he was trying to kill himself," Doctor Haku continued. "And he would've succeeded, if we hadn't gotten there in time. Or if the cut had been any deeper. Or—"
"We get it," Joey interrupted. "We're lucky he's alive."
"I can't believe…" Téa muttered to herself. "But Ryou wasn't suicidal."
"We can ask Mr. Ryou Bakura all about it at a later time. For now, would you like to visit his room?"
Tristan nodded. They had arrived outside of Room 217, the room Ryou was currently residing in. Doctor Haku silently pushed open the door. "I'll wait outside."
"Oh, Ryou," Téa murmured.
"He really tried to do it," Yugi said, disbelief filling his voice. "He really tried to…"
"…kill himself," Joey finished. "Wow."
"Jeez," Tristan said. "I never even saw this coming."
"None of us did, Tristan." Yugi was staring at the long mark on Ryou's neck, as if Ryou had tried to behead himself. "None of us did."
A week later, the same group of teenagers was back visiting their friend.
This time—for the first time—Ryou was awake.
"Ryou!" Téa said when she saw him. She smiled. "It's so great, seeing you awake again."
"Hey, man," Tristan said rather awkwardly. He stood near the wall, away from Ryou's hospital bed.
"I have your schoolwork," Yugi said, carrying a backpack full of copied notes and textbooks. "You haven't missed much, actually."
Joey stared at Ryou carefully as if looking for something. "I don't get it," he said flatly.
Ryou directed his attention toward his blond friend. "Pardon?"
"Why did you try to kill yourself?" he asked.
"Oh my god, Joey! You can't just—" Téa interrupted, shocked at her friend's bluntness.
"I… don't know," Ryou answered. His friends looked at him, their faces full of shock—no one expected him to answer—and confusion. "I can't remember anything," he clarified. "Not after—" The nightmare, he almost said. Instead, he continued, "Not after I fell asleep that night."
"Isn't that kind of weird though?" Joey asked. "Shouldn't you remember?"
"I think so," Ryou answered. "But I don't."
"Well then," Joey said. "Imagine that." The topic was dimissed.
Ryou listened to his friends' converse around him until visiting hours were over.
"You're such a liar," the voices murmured. "You remember exactly what happened. You were scared. You couldn't accept the truth. So, you took the easy way out. You tried to kill yourself."
For once, Ryou didn't argue. He let the voices talk—what was the point in arguing anyway? It wasn't like they would leave.
"And you know what?" the voices continued to murmur.
Ryou decided it would be best to just accepted his fate—
"Bakura did the exact same thing."
—he was just like Bakura.
I don't even know where that came from. (I haven't even watched Yu-Gi-Oh! in forever.)
But thanks for reading—please review!
~LMH