Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, I never have, I never will.
He's just a reminder of what they want to forget, a bookmark in the page they never want to remember. Because when they look at him, he knows they see the other him, the one who occupied his body for evil purposes. He was helpless to stop it, and he hopes they realize that: the ring wouldn't leave no matter how far he or someone else threw it, and the spirit knew his weaknesses, threatened him if he ever tried to regain a modicum of control over his life, his body. They know he doesn't have that spirit residing in him, but they don't like the memories, and no matter how they might try, they can't separate Ryou from that spirit who looked almost the same. He hates that he's afraid, combing his hair immaculately so that his white locks don't spring up like his, being as polite as ever.
He's lonely, really: he wants to move, but can only remain stationary and watch everyone's lives separate, gradually feeding away from him, and it's pointless to even try and stop it. They don't trust him anymore. He doesn't trust himself: too often he's found himself suppressing kleptomania, the sudden desire to steal things, and he knows that it's part of him that was left behind. Too often he's found himself biting back harsher responses than he would have ever thought of before.
Yet he can't quite bring himself to hate that spirit. For all the things he's left behind for Ryou to deal with, he can't quite wish him to the seventh circle of hell, because while he was here, Ryou at least had something. He had someone remarking at him, noticing him, getting him noticed. He wants attention, and it was all he ever wanted, to not be alone, but now he's gone again, there's nothing. No attention, no real friends, and only the occasional passing empty smile at him. He's almost completely numb, but it still hurts so much.
He lives life like a ghost, making no impact. He has no dreams, passed through and out of school with decent grades, getting a worthless job. The kind of person that's pleasant enough but has no depth, no interest behind a skin deep smile, and everyone soon gets bored. He remembers once wanting to go to university, get further education, go somewhere other than here. He'd wanted to travel, see places he couldn't comprehend yet, and instead here he remains, in the one city he hates so much, and wants to get away from.
The furthest he ever travels is to here, a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea, with the city to the background. There's no bench up here, so he sits with his legs dangling over the cliff, disregarding the fence and sign a few metres back saying 'Please do not pass this fence, the rocks may be unstable and may fall without warning.' he ignores it, because if they do fall, and he goes with them, no one would miss him.
He's thought about it before, and the various ways he could do it – throwing himself of this outcrop onto the rocks and sea below being one of them – but he doesn't think he would ever actually do it. Despite his manner nowadays, somewhere he still holds hope for tomorrow, and he knows that his optimism is strange, but he lets it continue. He still has a semblance of a normal life, even though it hurts and no one truly cares, so he doesn't really care to stop living it. He often ignores the sharp laugh in his mind that tells him it wouldn't take much now to tip the scales and to complete the actions of his thoughts.
It's cold: he's cold, because it's the end of autumn, with trees beginning to lose their leaves and fill the streets with piles of browned mess. There's quite a wind, a strong breeze, and it might snow in a couple of week's time. The breeze is floating off the ocean in front of him, which is a deep navy, nearly black and it's past dusk, the powerful colours of the sunset having died down to a mere watered down brush of the vivid pinks and oranges of moments ago. He's not so far away from the city, its cars and sirens still audible above the waves crashing against the bottom of the cliff and the wind moaning in his ears. A few stars are peeking out, pinpricks against the murky black of the sky, the moon currently hides behind a cloud, one of several huge behemoths that are travelling across the sky, and he sees that more are coming. Perhaps, he thinks, there'll be a storm. He likes storms, since they make it impossible to think about other things. Whether he feels fear or exhilaration depends entirely on his mood, but they both make him forget.
Bored, but not wanting to go back home to the apartment that will forever remain empty and cold, he leans forward and begins wiggling small pieces of rock from the top of the cliff, letting the dirt get under his fingernails and watching as each rock falls, tumbling, into the sea – currently at high tide, so it washes against the base of the outcrop – with a significant splash. Maybe, if he continues, he may become the reason for needing a fence.
However, after a few minutes, he is stopped by the sound of footsteps and a simple call of 'Bakura!'. Suppressing a shudder at that name, the name he now hates, since that spirit had taken and tainted it, he turns around with his usual empty smile in place to greet Yugi.
"Good evening, Yugi! How are you?" Yugi takes to ignoring his question in favour of looking mildly worried for him and looking at the fence with its accompanying sign.
"Bakura, you shouldn't do that, should you?" Ryou narrows his eyes slightly in confusion, wondering at which particular act of his Yugi is referring to. He raised a thin white eyebrow, and questions it vocally.
"Shouldn't do what exactly, may I ask?" The shorter man remains behind the fence, perhaps deliberating whether to stay there or join Ryou on the cliff. He looks slightly torn.
"Sit there, it says not to… Unless you were…?" After taking a moment to translate the half-question, he laughs quietly, before shaking his head. Yugi looks a tad offended to be laughed at, but quickly hides it.
"No, nothing like that. I just enjoy sitting here. Also, it's highly unlikely that the cliff will collapse right now, so it should be fairly safe. Sit down if you wish." Looking once more at the sign, he climbs over the fence – with a little more difficulty than Ryou due to his below average height: he's grown since they were at school, but he hasn't caught up with everyone else, no one expected him to – and seats himself about half a metre away from the edge, obviously uncomfortable with the drop being so close. Ryou decides to distract him with small talk.
"What brings you up here today then, Yugi?"
"Otogi told me that this was a good spot to relax and watch the stars. I guess he's right, even if there's too many clouds in the way." Ryou can't help but smile at Yugi's frown, as he glares at the giant objects.
"How is Otogi doing nowadays? I haven't heard from him, but I suppose you have?"
"He's fine – better than! He's released a new game, which is doing well here and in America. Apparently, he came back for a rest, but I think it might have had something to do with Honda…" He laughs slightly. "How about you? I haven't seen you around Domino much, how have you been?" Ryou looks away from Yugi, and points his view back over the ocean. He doesn't really think 'Lonely, empty, and cold' is an acceptable answer, so of course, he lies with a smile on his face.
"I'm doing well. Nothing interesting, just work like usual." He feels more than sees Yugi's questioning glance, and quickly adds, "It's an office job."
"I thought you… I thought you wanted to do something with games, like reviewing them?" Ryou can hear the hesitation there, as if it's something he doesn't want to hear. It's not that he doesn't want to hear it, it's just one of the many questions he asks himself each day, before he sleeps, 'Why didn't you do what you wanted?'.
"He rather killed my interest in them." Ryou can't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice, and clenches his hand, feeling the pain as his fingernails dig into his palm.
"Oh. That's a shame."
"Yes, indeed."
A long moment of silence stretches in between them, and Ryou has no desire to break it. The sky is almost completely black by now, and more stars can be seen despite the ever-increasing amount of clouds. The wind has picked up slightly, throwing his and Yugi's hair around even more, and the sea from here sounds like it's growling, reaching up the cliff to try and get to them.
Yugi takes a sharp intake of breath, warning Ryou of his intent to speak.
"Bakura… Are-"
"Please don't call me that. Ryou will be a lot better. Please?" To offset his harsh tone, he turns and smiles sheepishly at Yugi, who raises an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"I ha- dislike it, quite a lot. Sorry." Yugi pauses for a moment, before continuing his original enquiry.
"Ok, then, Ryou. Are you really alright? Sorry for prying but… you don't seem it. You seem like you've given up…" Ryou thinks about it, and what he can answer, while exhaling into the sky, watching as his breath becomes a temporary cloud.
"Maybe I have…" He's fed up of being ignored, but doesn't want to just use Yugi's hospitality, so leaves it up to the shorter man whether he asks further. Subconsciously, he knows that Yugi will ask, because his kind nature makes him like that.
"How so? And why?"
"Well, even since… he left, I feel like you haven't trusted me. Not," he adds, hastily, "Not you specifically, but your group: Mazaki, Honda, Jounouchi. Why wouldn't you? He was a homicidal thief, I wouldn't trust him with a piece of paper. At least the differences between you and Atem were more obvious, as long as you looked hard enough. I'm still him in your eyes…" He barks a short, sharp, bitter laugh. "I can't have any bad hair days because of him!" Yugi places a hand on his shoulder, and comforting as it is, Ryou can't stop himself continuing.
"He's left, but he's still there. He left me things, like the nightmares he used to have, and his thieving ability. Without meaning to, I've become more like him. I think things that were normal for him. I keep looking into security systems of banks and shops for no reason, testing how easy it would be to steal from them. I walk almost silently. I swear more, and think bad things about other people, like the snide remarks he'd make! I'm beginning to find myself wondering if I'm just his reincarnation, or whether maybe he hasn't left, maybe he's guiding my hand and I just can't feel him…" Ryou pauses, leaning slightly towards the warmth of Yugi's hand, since unlike him, Yugi is properly dressed for such weather, with a coat instead of just a thin jacket.
"Atem left you with things, didn't he? Except he gave you nice stuff. Like more courage, and strength. Pride in yourself." He sighs, and returns to watching the clouds, avoiding looking at Yugi. Ryou hears him mutter 'Could have given me some height,' before shuffling closer to Ryou, and warily putting his arms around him.
"He did leave me things, yes. But other things, I built upon while I was under his protection. Like the ability to trust people – I trust you. I know he's gone. But really, and forgive me for asking, do you? You sound like maybe you're looking for things you do that are like him: he will have left his mark, but some of those things you've had from before he was around – you've always been quiet, and able to get around quietly. I know you can't help it, but don't let him hold you back." Ryou can't bring himself to say much more than 'You think?' and lean on Yugi, thinking about those words. Was he looking for it, had he been making it all up? Perhaps, he thinks with more than a little irony, he had been left with some paranoia as well.
He begins closing his eyes, to fully relax, but a large splash brings him back to reality, and he feels Yugi jump beside him. It seems that Yugi catches on to what had happened quicker than him, as he quickly drags Ryou to the fence before he can say or do anything. A few moments later, a small amount of the ground near them moved, and disappeared out of sight, down into the maw of the black sea below. It isn't quite where they'd been sitting, but it's slightly too close for comfort, and they have watch it with suspicion, alert for if there's another sign of movement. Several minutes pass before Yugi relaxes his grip on Ryou's arm, and some more until he gently pulls Ryou over the fence to sit on the ground further back, a safe distance away from the edge.
"Were you really not thinking about jumping?" Ryou glances at him, but Yugi holds his gaze steady: he's not as innocent as he once was – something else Atem left with him – and it seems strange for Ryou to be sitting there, right on the edge. Anyone who had lived in Domino for more than a year knew not to stray past this fence, since the outcrop wasn't stable, and had retreated quite some distance in living memory. Ryou is a smart person, Yugi knows, and he knows about this cliff.
"I might have thought about it… I was hoping more than actually doing it myself, the cliff would do it for me. Somehow, I wondered when the cliff would tire of me and crumble and take me, but… you stopped it from doing so. I'm not sure whether I would have moved by instinct or not."
"Why?"
"Why? It's so lonely. It's so pathetic: I had all these dreams and hopes and ambitions, then he came and took them all. I feel like he stole my soul. But I've got hope, no matter how strange that sounds. I didn't want to do it myself, so instead I took chances. If the gods decided they wanted me, I'd already be dead." Yugi listens, shocked slightly. It's not like he hadn't considered it for a while himself, after Atem left, but he threw himself at life instead and got through it. He hadn't really stopped to think that Ryou might have felt similar, since he'd lost someone who used him.
"Took chances?" Ryou gives him a confused look, wondering why he wants to know, but replies regardless.
"Like sitting on that cliff, you take a chance that it might crumble and take you with it. Not looking when you cross roads, things like that. Stupid things. I did it in the hopes that if it did happen, it wouldn't look like I was committing suicide – it would just look like an accident." He looks down, ashamed that he'd done them, and that Yugi had managed to coax it out of him without much effort. He half expects the shorter man to be annoyed with him, but instead, he sees an out-stretched hand, and meets Yugi's gaze for an answer.
"Promise me that you'll stop?" Ryou looks down at the offered hand, and back up to his eyes.
"Stop?" he echoes, rather meekly in his surprise.
"Stop taking chances like that. Promise me that if you ever feel bad, you'll come to me? Even if you didn't want to discuss it, I'm quite happy to spend time with you, Ryou. Well, truthfully, I've wanted to spend time with you anyway, but every time I went to your apartment, you weren't in, so I presumed you were busy… So, promise me?" Ryou nods, and takes the hand, shaking it swiftly. However, instead of retracting his hand at the end of the handshake, Yugi merely switches it so it was in a more comfortable handhold, and stands up, grinning down at Ryou.
"Would you like to come over for a drink? Have you had dinner?" Ryou smiles, and stands up as well, using Yugi's hand as an extra support, before answering the questions.
"Yes, that would be nice. I haven't had dinner yet actually, I forgot… I came straight up here from work, after changing. Thank you."
They begin the walk down from the outcrop together, hands still entwined, leaving behind a little less cliff and taking with them a memory, and the promise of things to come.
Wow, such a bad ending. ^ ^; I hope you liked it anyway.
In truth, I've only watched 'Season Zero' and up to episode 50 of Duel Monsters, so if the characterisation/plot details are wrong, that's probably why. Feel free to mention it, along with any other improvements/comments, and thank you for reading!
Oh, and the title just means 'Bookmarks' in French. No real link or creativity... It might have been 'falaises', which means 'cliffs', which was even less imaginative...