A Phone Call Away
A/N: Just kind of popped out of a plot-bunny hole in the ground and whispered to be written. Should probably be updating my other stories, but I just don't have any material. Except for Sound the Bugle, but I just updated that anyway.
Summery: Bakura wonders about how close a simple machine can make you, no matter the distance, be it by hand or heart. Shortfic, Tendershipping Ryou/Bakura.
Disclaimer: I own a telephone.. But it's not the one in the story. I don't own the Yu-Gi-Oh characters, but that'd be nice. Hey, Christmas is in two days.
The door had slammed with a resounding thud two hours ago yesterday. 26 hours ago. We did it again. Well, I did it again. Why do I have to make him so angry? What is wrong with me that I cannot just cherish silently his happy little smiles? Why do I always have to spit out some mean, unnecessary remark? Why do I always have to start the arguments? Why me? Just, why?
I turn away from the door, so still and silent. Staring at the doorknob does not make it turn. Pacing in the room will not make him come home. I know he will. He always does. But not happy.
I turn my glare to the creamy colored telephone. We still have what the boy calls an old model, but to me it is still fascinating. I do not show him this, of course, but when he is not home, and I get to answer, it does not matter to me that it has a short, curly cord attached to it, or that we do not have call waiting. Someone else's voice is coming through a tiny speaker from so many miles away. From anywhere. Sometimes it is my little one, and I hide my delighted grin from my voice. I expect to look up and see the person talking to me, but it never happens.
"Only a phone call away," is what some people say. "If you ever need me, I'm only a phone call away." "If he ever hurts you, we're only a phone call away." "If you ever want to get rid of him, you know how easy it is. Just pick up and dial, we'll be right over."
They do not think I can hear them, but I can. Omote pretends not to notice how angry they make me, or how it feels when they twist the proverbial knife, because I pretend not to feel it. I make the mistake of, one time, raising my hand to the boy in anger, and they never let me forget it. Or him, either. I was not even going to hit him, they just walked on in like they owned the place and saw me, and assumed the obvious.
Jounouchi, of all people, seemed to be the most angry, next to the King of Games himself. Like the idiot had never hurt anyone before. And the Pharaoh, pure sacrificial lamb that he is, seemed personally insulted that I would "dare harm a hair on his friend's head." The littler one just seemed pitying to my light, putting a comforting arm around his shoulder. I had begged his silently to tell them that they were wrong, but, as you may assume, it was in the middle of a very serious argument, and he was furious with me. He played meek and sad, and they lapped it up.
Since then, he has tried to convince them of their misconception, but to no avail. I never hit him, he's told them, but they shake their heads and think to themselves about how he must just be trying to cover for me, like he is afraid of me or something.
Really, he isn't. Not usually. Once, though, a very long time ago, he was afraid. Oh, he was terrified. He thought I was going to kill him, and I thought I was honestly thought I was going to kill him, too. This was just after he had defied me in the middle of my first Shadow Game with the Pharaoh's current incarnation. I broke thing, I screamed, I swore, I even pulled a knife out of my sleeve and threatened him with it.
But I did not touch him. Did not touch him once. That was what I was afraid to do. To touch him would make him real, and to have him be real to me would make it possible to sympathize with him. I just could not hurt him. I did not know why then, but I think I may know now. His eyes.
The boy had always had beautiful eyes. Beautiful. Green, hazelish, expressive, honest, understanding. Even to me. Especially to me. I still do not know why he would not hate me, no matter what I did. But that night he looked at me without any of the emotion he had at any other time I had been mad at him. They were stark, straight green, and the only expression in them was fear. At that one moment he had stopped trying to understand, stopped trying to be compassionate, and stopped caring at all for anything. For that one particular moment I turned an angel into nothing more than an animal that can already hear it's own death cry.
I ripped apart some foliage, threw some harmless articles at him, and mentally threw him into his soul room. All of this took place inside of my own soul room, because at the time I had no physical body of my own. But what happens to the mind affects the body. If I had killed his soul there, his body would have died.
Now, after another screaming fit, he had stormed out of the house, slamming the door so hard it rattled the furniture. I continue to stare at the phone.
Hikari, my light, I am sorry.
I sit down on the sofa grudgingly next to the device. A phone call away.
There is no one to see the slight lapse in strength that is my draping my torso over the arm of the couch, my arms resting on the coffee table.
Ryou, wherever you are, please call.
Please, I am so sorry. You have never been away so long without any hint of where you are. I am… I am worried, Omote.
I rest my head of my arms and sigh into the soft material of the couch.
Please, koishii.
I am only a phone call away.
Written in about 10-15 minutes. Nothing special, but not long enough to really waste anyone's time if they took two minutes to read it. Just a thought-fic, really. I think I'll write Ryou's end, too. Maybe I'll do that now and post it later. Please review, constructive criticism welcomed.