Disclaimer: Meticulously not mine.
A/N: For Frenzied Panda, who requested Ryou Bakura and the prompt 'dishevelled'. This one turned out a lot longer than I expected, since I usually find writing about him really difficult.
Learning Curve
© Scribbler, September 2008.
We acquire the strength we have overcome. Ralph Waldo Emerson
It isn't really a memorial in the traditional sense. It's not made of stone, it isn't big or obtrusive, and it's certainly not official – not like those benches with little gold plaques, which often pop up when somebody has died. You definitely couldn't have a bench here, anyway, even if you could afford it. A sharp blind corner on a lonely Yorkshire road is a place for twenty miles an hour and razor-sharp attention, not sitting to watch the world go by.
And if good road sense doesn't already dictate that drivers take care here, the small pile of tattered flowers and wreaths do the trick.
They approach the mini memorial from behind, crossing through a field Ryou assures them is safe allowed according to the Countryside Code. He should know, since this was his stomping ground before he came to Domino. It's still a little weird too think that he wasn't born in Japan. He speaks Japanese completely fluently and with virtually no accent, save for a predilection to something put emphasis on the wrong vowel sounds in people's names. Certainly, nothing in his voice or behaviour could tell you he spent his first fourteen years in England, with only holidays in Japan to visit his father's relatives. It was more than a little strange the first time they heard him talk in English outside the classroom. He hates speaking up in lessons, and so, like so many things to do with Ryou, they never even suspected there was more below the surface than there first appeared.
The field has a well-worn path down the edge that ramblers and hikers have trodden smooth, though recent rainfall has made it muddy. When they finally reach the road, all their shoes bear a pale reddish-brown residue. They clamber over the quaint little wooden stile one by one and stick close to the hedge even though it's prickly, since whenever a car whooshes past the current of air tries to drag them into the road.
It looks so sad, is the only thing Anzu can think when she looks at the old flowers. They must have been there for months. Probably Ryou was the last one to replace them. Nobody else would, and they've been left to moulder. You'd hardly know what they were if the plastic wreath of fake white lilies wasn't there as well.
Ryou unties them, but it's cold and his ungloved fingers are soon numb. She steps forward, but before she can help him Yuugi is already there, his smaller hands making short work of the knots. The old bouquet falls to the floor, gooey black and brown and dead, and Anzu feels another wave of sadness, even though she didn't know Ryou when he lost his mother and little sister.
"It was icy," Ryou explained when he first told them he was going back to England for the anniversary of their deaths. He went every year, though his father pretended he didn't hear when Ryou suggested they go together. "And it was a dark night. Clouds covered the moon, and there were no street lights here at the time. Too far out in the country. The council wouldn't pay for one, even though it's a nasty bend. They said the money was better spent elsewhere …" He shook his head, dispelling the gory details. In the same instant Anzu's heart went out to him, she felt the pull of everyone else's doing the same.
Given how they'd neglected Ryou when he was still just 'Bakura' to them, and how much he'd suffered under the Millennium Ring because they'd failed to notice there was anything wrong, it seemed a crime to let him go on his own. There were attempts at protest, but Ryou relented easily – almost gratefully – when Jounouchi leaned sideways on his shoulder and pressed a hand over his mouth.
"What good is having a friend with his own private jet if you don't get to take advantage every now and then? Right, Otogi?"
"Whatever, mutt," Otogi replied. He didn't really get to know Ryou until after the Millennium Items were gone, so his guilt over what happened is limited, but he likes the soft-spoken boy well enough. He's also sufficiently familiar with grief to make few complaints about commissioning fuel and time off from his work schedule, just so he can spend a rainy, cold weekend in rainy, cold England.
"You don't have to come," Ryou has said all along. "Really, it's fine. I'm used to doing this sort of thing alone."
At which point one of them usually replies with, "That's kind of the point, Ryou," or words to that effect.
And so here they are, watching him crouch by a wooden post shoved deep into the earth. They went with him to the cemetery as well this morning, when the day wasn't quite so grey and dreary. Neither Mrs. Bakura nor Ryou's sister were cremated, which Anzu finds odd, but apparently it's not unusual to bury bodies on this side of the world. She was nervous and fidgety as Ryou knelt beside the graves, murmuring and clasping his hands in prayer. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself blurting, "You're religious?" Sometimes it's embarrassing how little they know about each other considering how much they've all been through together – Ryou in particular. None of them can quite get over the feeling that they failed him in some way by calling him their friend, and yet not noticing all the things that pointed out something was very, very wrong with him.
Ryou ties a fresh bunch of flowers to the post, first with wire, and then with a ribbon to cover the metal and pretty it up. It's bright pink, just a shade lighter than the petals above. When he steps back he stares at it with an unreadable expression.
He's never talked much about his family. They know his father is pretty disinterested in him, preferring to spend his life on digs in other countries and pretend he never had a wife or daughter. Mr. Bakura thinks sending a cheque every month to cover Ryou's rent and amenities is adequate parenting for his one remaining child. Until recently they know that Ryou's mother is dead, that she was killed in a car accident, and that the same accident also claimed the life of his only sibling, a younger sister called Amane. Thus completes the sum total of their knowledge about the Bakura family and Ryou's place in it.
At least until today.
"She loved pink," Ryou says quietly, still staring at the ribbon. He's always been soft-spoken, but now he's virtually inaudible. The biting wind whipping at their hair and clothes doesn't help. "Amane, I mean. She wasn't a real girly-girl. A bit of a tomboy, actually. But she still loved pink. She would've been so embarrassed if any of her school friends knew about it, but she had a collection of hair ribbons that she never wore, all in different shades of pink. I gave her new ones for birthdays and Christmases. She'd punch me in the shoulder and tell me I was terrible for being so soppy, but she never tried to give them back." He smiles thinly, his reddened fingers a tangled clasp in front of him. "I think Mum was pleased every time I added to her collection. She loved us both for who we were, but in her heart she really wished Amane would let her buy dresses with puffball sleeves and swooshy skirts that wouldn't just get left in the wardrobe until she grew out of them."
It's Jounouchi who steps forward; Jounouchi who throws an arm around Ryou's shoulders and half-hugs, half shakes him in that awkward way of boys who want to look manly and can't quite reconcile that with anything deeper. Despite the awkwardness, it has to be Jounouchi who does it. He's the one with his own younger sister, after all. He's the one who understands most of all how Ryou's emotional stew-pot must be bubbling right now. If anything were ever to happen to Shizuka, Jounouchi would be inconsolable.
Ryou doesn't reciprocate the gesture, but neither does he shrug it off. He's been different since Egypt. Or maybe this is how he's always been, and they never realised it because all their knowledge of him was informed by the evil spirit controlling his body and thoughts.
Something hard and spiky jumps in Anzu's stomach. Shame is like a cluster bomb, constantly detonating inside her.
But no; the sweet, caring, slightly greedy boy standing before them now has always been peeping through the cracks, even when he had a hunk of blood-soaked metal around his neck. Ryou is Ryou, unique and complete, though many parts of him are still undiscovered. He's still Ryou, which is why they've started calling him that instead of Bakura.
He smiled the first time they called him that; a tiny smile, so full of gratitude and strange understanding that guilt ripped through Anzu like a fishing hook, embedded in the top of her back and then yanked along her spine, laying her shivering vertebrae open to the air. It's the same guilt that once plagued her about how badly she treated Yuugi when they were kids, and he thought of her as his best friend even though she still left him to be a lonely bullied gamer because hanging with him made her look bad in front of her clique.
None of them can imagine being anywhere else today. Their families protested, but they were each so firm and mature about why they wanted to go that their parents stared at them, in their different houses in opposing ends of town, and wondered where this gangly adult had come from when they were expecting a moody teenager. Even Jounouchi's father, glaring at his son, had to admit that Jounouchi has grown up while his old man reclined on the couch in a drunken stupor. Possibly Jounouchi has grown up more than his 'old man' ever will.
"She was ten. When she died, I mean. I was twelve." Ryou's voice winds around them like ivy, choking but innocuous. He's never stood out. Despite the hair, the mysteriousness, the addiction to sugar and his million and one other quirks, he's always managed to fade into the background until they made a concerted effort to drag him into their fold.
A lump rises in Anzu's throat. She focuses on the flowers and keeps her eyes so wide to stop herself crying that they start to water anyway from the cold air. Beside her, she hears Yuugi sniff.
Ryou has never looked so unkempt when he's not fighting for his life or soul, but his expression is one of strange serenity. "Right up until the end, every night she slept with part of her receiver blanket twisted around her arm and pushed into her ear. She put it under her bed in the morning, but we all knew. It was my ammunition against her if we were having an argument. And we did argue. I'm not perfect, and neither was she. We used to drive each other up the wall; proper screaming matches and everything. Once, I splintered a doorframe because I slammed the door so hard. Dad went ballistic. Hard to believe, eh?"
It was. Very. Still, nobody said so.
"But I still loved her," Ryou went on. "Very much. She was my baby sister. She didn't like big dogs, or radio where people were just talking to each other with no music. She hated Brussels sprouts, even when Mum tried to make them sound more appetising by calling them 'Fairy Cabbages', because she didn't like cabbage either. She once beat up the school bully, who was twice her size, and then couldn't understand why she got into trouble for it. When she was ill she liked to watch my old Super-Ted videos from when I was really young, even though she was too old for them and she'd seen them all before. She used to lie sideways on the sofa with her head propped up by all the cushions in the sitting room. We always knew she was feeling better when she started hanging upside down off the back to watch instead; with her legs hooked over the cushions and her head virtually on the floor. You'd walk in and she'd say, 'Hey, watch out for my head, Bigfoot, or I'll bite your toes off'. She could hold a handstand for a whole minute without support, she danced whenever her favourite song was used in a television advert, and she ate … she ate Cheerios every morning for breakfast, and made our mum so cross by trying to eat them one at a t-time, so she'd be late for school a-and miss less … miss her lesso … I'm sorry."
"It's all right, man," Jounouchi says. He hasn't removed his arm. It doesn't look like he's going to, either. "It's okay."
For once, Anzu feels absurdly proud of the big knucklehead.
It takes a long while. By the time Ryou speaks again, they're all frozen and Anzu can't feel her toes in her furry boots even when she wiggles them. They're suspended in a moment, not sure what to do next. What started as friends supporting a friend gradually changes, feeling more and more intrusive as Ryou turns his own thoughts over in his mind and doesn't share them. The insight he's given into his life before they met seems to widen the gulf between them, not narrow it as it should.
That is, until he finally sighs, closes his eyes with a murmur, and then reopens them to smile at everyone.
"Thank you," is all he says. All he needs to say, really. His eyes are clearer than they've been in a long, long time, untroubled by grief or someone else's thoughts weighing him down like lead on his synapses. The real Ryou Bakura looks back at them, everything he needs to say encased in those two small, unoriginal words.
Oh nutbunnies, I really am going to cry. Anzu sniffs noisily, her nose already a lovely cherry red from the cold. It's started to drizzle, a fine rain so light it's practically mist, but when she wipes her face she realised her gloves are soaking and her hair is covered in globules of water. "We should get out of this wet before we catch pneumonia."
Ryou nods, looks once more at the flowers, and then turns with Jounouchi's arm still around him. He seems in no hurry to break the contact until they get to the stile and it's either let go or go into a complicated gymnastics display to cross it together.
"I do mean it, everyone," he says when they've all climbed over and started walking back through the muddy field. "Thank you for coming with me today. I didn't realise it was going to be so difficult. This is the first time I've come back to England since I lost the Millennium Ring." He shivers, and even though it's cold and wet, nobody is under any illusion that these are the reasons his skin is crawling.
They don't talk about it, but they've been watching over him like a squadron of mother hens since Egypt. After all, they thought they'd gotten rid of the Ring before, but it found him again and crushed him into submission – and they hadn't noticed. No way are they risking the loss of one of their own, not again. And besides, Ryou shrugs off their worries with claims that he's fine, but they know he has scars from his experiences. Not just the circle of welts on his chest, but other wounds, the kind that don't heal easily or alone.
"I thought I was going to blub like a baby, especially here, but you guys have made it … easier."
"That's what friends are for, right?" says Yuugi, in that oh-so-sincere way of his.
Ryou doesn't reply for a long moment. They're into another field and winding their way back towards the canal, near to where Otogi parked their rental car – a step down from his usual glamorous limo because the only thing big enough to handle both the narrow, winding roads and all of them is a minivan.
"I still think about them both. A lot," Ryou admits. "But it doesn't … it doesn't hurt all the time, like it used to. The Spirit, it used to … to say it would erase my memories of them if I tried to fight back. I was scared for myself, but I was so much more frightened that I'd forget all about them."
"Ryou …" Honda says awkwardly.
He shakes his head. "Other times it would make me think about them too much. I think … I think it was a way to keep me subdued. It made me think that I should've died as well. I was too ill to go with them that night. My dad stayed home to look after me, but both of us should've gone to my grandmother's with Mum and Amane. I should have been in that car –"
"No, you shouldn't," Anzu interrupts. "You can't ever think that, Ryou. You must never, ever think you should've died."
He blinks at the vehemence in her voice. Everyone does. Even Anzu is a little startled. She doesn't usually use her bossy voice unless someone is doing something stupid, and while Ryou suggesting he should have died is the height of stupidity, this is hardly the moment for her to get all assertive.
As ever, it's Yuugi who smoothes things over. Anzu looks at him gratefully. "You're alive, Ryou. You've suffered, but you can't torture yourself over the past. You have a future waiting for you."
"One without that damn Spirit," Honda puts in.
Yuugi nods. "So now's the time to start really living."
"After all," Jounouchi adds, showing another bit of startling insight, "you've got us now. And we'd be mighty pissed if we lost you after you survived all that other scary crap. Okay, buddy?" He whacks Ryou on the back, making him stumble forward and half submerge himself in a hedge. "Whoops."
"Jounouchi!" Anzu cries.
Ryou's feet skid out of under him in the mud, and he ploughs further into the hedge, and then slides down, raking his entire front with prickles and twigs. His bobble hat comes off and dangles as if hooked on a peg in the school cloakroom. Finally, he comes to rest in a shallow puddle of brownish water, his feet wonky in front of him and his backside sinking further into the muck.
"… Ow …"
Otogi shakes his head. "Trust you, Jounouchi. It's bad enough the rest of you guys sound like you fell in a barrel of reject Hallmark cards, without you maiming the guy you're trying to make feel better."
"Hey," Honda retorts on Jounouchi's behalf, "back off, man."
"Shit, Ryou, are you okay?"
Ryou stares at Jounouchi, face all scratched with red lines. Then, impossibly, he starts to laugh. Great big belly laughs, which surge up from inside him, until his criss-crossed face is scrunched up and tears have gathered in the corners of his eyes – not tears of sadness or grief, but of happiness.
"I'm so clumsy," he laughs. "Always have been. And I guess I always will be. I was the only one to get run over by that fake boulder in Duellist Kingdom, remember? I suppose I should just be grateful there aren't any cowpats in this field, otherwise I probably would've ended up facedown in one."
It's impossible not to laugh too. Something in the air splits, sizzling. Anzu thinks it might be the tension burning off like morning mist. Sitting in a muddy field, in a country they've never been before, on a tragic anniversary, in horrible weather, cold and wet and dirty, they all laugh like they've never been happier.
"Come on," Ryou snorts, getting to his feet with Otogi and Honda's help. "Let's go back to the hotel. I'll treat you all to some stereotypical English fare – cream teas and hot buttered crumpets with jam. You can't come to England without trying them."
"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Jounouchi grins. "Lead on, MacDuff."
"Jounouchi, that's from Macbeth," says Anzu.
"Yeah. So?"
She rolls her eyes. "Didn't you pay attention in class? It's a play about Scotland. We're in England."
"Quit pissing on my bonfire, Anzu. My boy Ryou here is paying for food, and I get to eat it. That's all I need to know."
Actually, it isn't. There's a lot they need to know – about Ryou, about each other, about life without Yami … about everything, really.
But the rest can wait until later.
Anzu glances back over her shoulder, but she can't see the road anymore. Even the stile is just a brownish-grey smudge through the drizzle. We'll take better care of him from now on, she promises, partly to herself and partly to the other important women in Ryou's life. We didn't do such a great job so far, but we'll do better. Just bear with us, okay? We're still learning, and kind of making this up as we go along.
"Anzu!" Yuugi calls. "Aren't you coming?"
"Sure I am." Slipping and skidding a little, Anzu hurries to catch up with her friends. "You think I want to stay outside in this? I thought all the stories about England being rainy were just stories. I am so glad I picked New York instead of the Royal Ballet. I'd drown before I even made it into the chorus."
Fin.