Wow, I bet you're as surprised as I am.

I found this in an old abandoned folder of oneshots and stuff. So no, I guess it's not 'new'. The document claims I wrote it sometime back in 2011. I vaguely remember writing this. It's an idea I remember thinking about for a couple of days.

So I figured that I might as well put it up. What's wrong with that, right? Some people may even enjoy it. I think it's rather good. Not romantic. Phew boy, not romantic at all.

"Just fill out the form here dear, and I'll sign you off as a witness... Ryou? Ryou Bakura?"

Ryou, who had been staring at the chipped varnish of the clerk's counter winced as though he had been physically struck, and looked up. His hands were balled into fists in front of the clerk, trembling visibly.

"O-Okay." Ryou dipped his head in a soft nod, taking the sheet that was pushed across the scratching and graffiti. He took the leaky blue biro without a word. He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes. He collected himself, before parting his lids and staring down at the double-spaced paragraph.

"This change of name deed... lately known as Ryou Bakura, a British citizen under section 37(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981... entirely renounce relinquish and abandon the use of my said former name of old name... take and use... new name in full in substitution for my former name of old name in full..."

Ryou screwed his eyes shut tight again as the pen fell lax, finding the legal terms and complicated wording frightening. The clerk had filled in the details for him, and seeing his name printed in a foreign hand sent a spasm of fear through his chest. A small, strangled sound came from his throat, an involuntary whimper. He didn't want to do this. It was his name, it was written on his letters, scrawled beside his number on the wall of his apartment building. It was stamped on his driver's licence, his passport, his library membership, his work I.D...

So what?

What were a few scraps of paper, a row of block lettering scrawled in marker, a handful of plastic cards? What were they to Ryou, when in return he was reminded, every single day, of Him?

He steeled himself. Opened his eyes, and smacked his lips in an attempt to banish the sour taste of bile from his mouth. Without even looking at the rest of the fineprint, he wrote his new name in a trembling hand. He would keep his first name, and take a simple, unassuming surname. No one called him by his first name anymore. It was the second, that...

Ryou looked away whilst he signed his birthname on the contract. It was lopsided, trailing below the line towards his last name, but it was still legally binding.

"There." He pushed the paper across the varnish without any expression. He didn't feel triumphant. This wasn't a victory. It was conceding defeat. It was five years, five years since He left and yet even the mention of His name sent Ryou into fits, spasms, illness. Seeing His name on paper caused nausea to rise in his stomach. If someone said it, he would have to close his eyes and try to focus on something, anything else. He'd tried hypnotherapy, meditation, drugs.

All he could do now was wipe the slate completely, and get rid of His name forever.

The clerk was talking, but Ryou wasn't listening. There was a card pressed into his hand, and he caught something about coming back in a week after the legal work had changed so he could get his passport updated and fly back to Japan, but it sounded fuzzy, indistinct.

No, it was a victory. Ryou wasn't bent in defeat, conceding to the memory of Him. He was cleansing. Purifying. He was removing the last vestigial trace of Him.

Because no one would utter the name Bakura ever again.

Fin.

Oddly fitting, really.

I'm done with this account. For Good. There's no point in me saying 'maybe sometime in the future...'. I'm deluding myself. I've tried, several times. I have three different fics up with one introductory chapter, and nothing else. And they were going to be good. I was excited about them. But when I tried to write, I just felt burnt out. It was a struggle to write the same characters, again and again and again. The different situations didn't help much. There's only so much you can do with the same set of characters before everything becomes boring and stale.

But hey. I clocked up close to a million words on this account. That's not bad. Most of it's crap, I'll freely admit. I started when I was fourteen, when it was rebellious to stay up until (gasp) 1AM writing fanfiction and I used to have to save my stuff on to floppy disks because the house only had one computer. Good times. Now I'm a graduate student with my own place and a boyfriend and a job and all that stuff that makes you responsible. I don't watch anime or read fanfiction anymore. Not really into the whole yaoi thing anymore, either. I'm an entirely different person to the awkward, lonely girl who started 'Control' seven years ago. I thought briefly about deleting the account. There's a lot of stuff on there that is so embarrassing that I just don't want anyone to see it, ever. But that's cheating really, isn't it? Besides, I still get the odd review every week or so, and it makes me smile. Gah, sorry for the rambling. I guess because it's just been a pretty significant part of my life for a long time, it's hard to let go, so if I keep talking, then it gets dragged out, just a little bit longer. Time to shut up and move on. Sorry for making you read such a long rant.

Peace out, folks. It's been a lot of fun.

- Lana