"Less than thirty seconds, Yadonushi," the spirit of the Millennium Ring reminded the despairing teen. "I'd say it's not a bad time for you to stand."

Ryou swallowed hard, his heart beating so hard he could almost hear it. He stood slowly, carefully, his limbs moving of their accord, as if Bakura were acting as his puppeteer. Looking down at how small the people on the ground looked made the teen's mouth go dry. He was so afraid, he could scarcely breathe.

He didn't want to do this. Yes, his life sucked and he hated himself, but he wasn't ready to die. The only reason he'd agreed to this bet at all was because he was sure that someone would have noticed him by now.

And he wanted to be noticed. He wanted someone to care enough to give him a reason to stay when everything always seemed to be going wrong for him. He couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel; maybe he just needed someone to show it to him.

Meanwhile, Bakura was unconcerned about what would happen now. He'd already planned for this. He wouldn't let Ryou fall, but neither would he let the teen walk away from this. Ryou's body would finally be his, and his alone.

"Five, four, three..."

"Wait!" Ryou gasped as he looked down and saw emergency response vehicles arriving in front of the building. He sighed with relief, and leaned back a bit, about to step back onto the roof, then stiffened as realization settled in. He couldn't just back off the ledge now; what would he tell them? "Oh, sorry for troubling you, I changed my mind"?

"Why do you care what they think of you, Yadonushi?" Bakura scoffed. "They already think you're screwed up in the head. You can't get much worse than that."

"Maybe I should go back inside and find somewhere to hide..." Ryou mused aloud, becoming increasingly agitated. He was already upset before the police and ambulance had appeared, but now he was even more so. "All of this was such a mistake," he groaned, beginning to hyperventilate as he continued to hold his balance on the narrow ledge. "I should never have listened to you, not about any of it. Why did I ever listen to you at all?" he fretted, emergency respondents rushing to the top of the skyscraper, intending to save Ryou from himself.

"What's going to happen to me when they get here?" he asked, turning his head slightly to look at the ghost beside him.

"They'll put you in a straight-jacket and send you to the loony bin," Bakura answered sarcastically. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"But they will, though, won't they?" Ryou began to wring his hands in front of him. His brain was frozen, and he couldn't think. All he knew was that there was no good way out of this situation.

"If you don't want their resources to be wasted, we could always give them a reason to cart you off to the hospital." Bakura's crimson eyes glinted cruelly at his host. Ryou didn't know what he had in mind, but he was too afraid of too many things to fight back when Bakura rushed him and sent Ryou into blackness.

When the pair of police officers and paramedics emerged onto the roof, Bakura was acting as Ryou, pathetic eyes wide with innocence and despair as he looked over his shoulder at the newcomers. The officers had their guns drawn, since they didn't know what kind of situation they were walking into.

"Put your hands where we can see them," one of them ordered, his voice calm and authoritative. Bakura put both small hands in the air, revealing that he was unarmed. The officers exchanged a look, nodded slightly, and holstered their fire-arms.

"You don't want to do this," one of them said slowly, taking another step forward. "How do you think your father would feel if he came home to find you'd died?" Since Kaiba had given them his name, they'd been able to look him up and learn about his situation.

"If he cared about me at all, he'd be home," Bakura whined, voice high and quivering with the threat of tears as he lowered his hands to his sides. "He doesn't care, though, does he?" He looked back out over the edge. "That's why he's not home."

"What about your friends, Ryou? What would they think?"

"My friends?" Bakura made his eyes water by tapping into Ryou's reservoir of negative emotions and all the sad thoughts that swirled there provided him with more to say. "I'm invisible to them. They always seem to forget about me..."

"Just step down and we can figure this out. This isn't the only solution to your problems. At least let us try to help you, and if our methods fail, you can always come back, but give us a chance to help you."

Bakura bit his bottom lip, giving his tearful face an anxious look. "It's too late for that he whispered, shaking his head a little. He swayed backwards, and someone rushed forward to catch him before he fell. They carefully lowered him to the ground, and in doing so, an empty bottle of cough syrup fell out of the front pocket of his hoodie.


Kaiba watched for a few moments as the ambulance drive away with its sirens blaring, then looked down at his cell again, scrolled to the bottom of his contacts, and pushed call.

"Hello?"

"Yugi, you should learn to take better care of your own." Kaiba turned back to his desk as he sat down again.

"Kaiba? What do you mean?" Yugi was confused for more reasons than one.

"I mean that you should pay more attention to your friends so they don't try to kill themselves and end up at the hospital." Kaiba's reply was cool and disdainful, entirely dispassionate.

"Wait, what?! Who? How do you—?!" Yugi's initial reaction was total and utter panic.

"If you can't figure out who it is, then you have no right to lecture me on friendship ever again." He hung up and resumed the work with which he'd been occupied before the dramatic disruption.


Author Notes: Don't ask, because I don't even know... O_O