Warning: uh… you'll see, but I don't think you'll like it.
Disclamer: don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.
Chapter six, Unnecessary Suffering
The two sleeping teens are awoken by the sound of the doorbell ringing. Groaning, Bakura checks the clock on the wall, with some difficulty because it is still dark outside. The clock reads 3:46 am. The doorbell rings again and Bakura grumbles that he'll get it. Ryou nods and yawns sleepily. Bakura gets up and pulls on a pair of boxers and drapes a dressing gown over his shoulders. He walks downstairs, realizing that the storm has passed and all is silent. Apart from the insistent ringing of the doorbell. Wrenching the door open he is greeted with the sight of an angry looking spiky-haired teen. "Hey, Y-"
Ryou is startled when the sound of a gunshot shatters the calm atmosphere. With lightning fast speed Ryou pulls on a pair of boxers and sprints to the top of the stairs, to see Bakura fall to the floor, blood spurting from his chest. "BAKURA!!!" Ryou screams, his voice piercing the silence. He catches sight of tri-coloured hair, before he kneels beside his lover. A high pitched laugh echoes around the hallway. With wide eyes, Ryou looks up to find himself staring at Yugi, the teen who he's been friends with ever since he can remember. "You stole Yami from me, so I've stolen Bakura from you!" He sneers. He lets the gun in his hand drop to the floor. He then turns on his heel and walks off into the quickly thickening mist.
"R…you," Bakura manages to whisper. His hikari's head snaps towards him, tears scattering from his cheeks. "Oh my god Bakura! Don't worry, I'll phone an ambulance!" he says, getting up and taking the phone from its cradle. He hastily dials 999 and states his needs and where he lives. He is now sobbing uncontrollably and manages to put the phone back after many attempts due to his violently shaking hands. He then collapses beside his yami, stroking his hair softly. They just stare into each others eyes, Bakura's blood flowing from his wound and soaking into the carpet.
The siren from the ambulance and a police car gets louder until they halt. The flashing lights come in though the still open doorway, partially blinding Ryou. Bakura breathes out deeply. "I'm…sor…ry," he says softly. "Kura! Don't leave me! I need you, please don't die!" Ryou cries, clutching the teen's head to his chest. "I… love… you," the dying teen says, taking in the image of his beloved hikari for the last time before shutting his eyes, a smile playing lightly on his lips. "KURA! KURA! PLEASE KURA WAKE UP!" Ryou screams, attempting to fight against the police officer who has had to hold him back. A group of paramedics enter and check on Bakura. "He's still alive," one of them announce. Ryou doesn't hear this over his screams and wails for his lover. He is taken upstairs and then is asked to put on some clothes and then they come back downstairs. The policeman then leads him outside and guides him into the police car. Ryou stops crying and stares at his bloody hands. He watches the paramedics wheel out Bakura's still body. Ryou looks away and chokes back a sob. The journey to the hospital took what seemed like hours for Ryou, although it was only ten minutes.
Sitting in the reception room, Ryou stares blankly at the floor, seeing nothing. A police man walks over to him and asks a few questions, but the albino can't hear him. All he hears is Bakura's last words. Sighing, the police man walks away. Ryou just continues staring, attempting to lock himself away in the fantasy that Bakura is alive and well, and that they grow old together and live out their lives in happiness. A smile forms on his lips. A person taps his shoulder and his smile fades as the harsh reality of it all comes crashing back.
He looks up to the person and realizes that it's a doctor. "Your friend is alive, but he's in a coma. He's unable to move or speak or do anything. Would you like to see him?" Ryou nods slowly, so his yami is alive, but what use is that when he can not do a thing? He follows the doctor through busy corridors until they stop at a dark room.
Ryou cries out when he sees his dark hooked up to all sorts of machines, wires everywhere. He walks over to the bed and places a hand on the comatose teen's own, it's freezing cold. Ryou pulls a chair from the corner to Bakura's bedside and sits down on it, his eyes glued to his lover's face. He sits like that for a few hours, waiting for a sign of life from the still teen, but none comes. Still, Ryou is determined to wait for his lover's awakening. The door opens and closes quietly behind Ryou but he doesn't turn to see who it is. A tanned hand rests of the albinos shoulder. "Hey… are you alright?" Marik asks, again in his sober mindset.
"I feel just peachy. My best friend just shot my lover and now he's in a god-damn coma. I mean, AM I MEANT TO FEEL ALRIGHT?!" Ryou shouts, turning on the older teen, his eyes shining. Marik looks down. "You know, you're not the only person in Bakura's life. We had a relationship before-"
"I don't care! I only just got him and now he's gone, you've had him for so long, I mean how the fucking hell is that fair?! He's just lying there, unable to do anything. He can't even breathe without a machine! He… He…" Ryou breaks down, his entire body shaking as he sobs. Marik paces over to his friend's hikari and envelopes him in a hug. The smaller teen continues crying into the other's shirt.
The door opens and Joey's head pokes in but is hastily withdrawn when he sees the state the two teens are in. Marik has also given in to tears now; the cruel reality of the world that he has tried to avoid over the past few months with drugs is seeping in with frightening speed. They remain like this for what seems like an eternity, before Marik pulls away and wipes the tears from his face. "I'm going to get stoned now," he says blankly, pulling open the door.
"Don't be a coward Marik." Ryou says softly, realizing Marik's intentions.
"Well, I'm sorry that I can't cope with this as well as you can. If that makes me a coward, then so be it." Marik says hollowly, closing the door quietly behind him. Ryou collapses back into the chair and continues watching his yami.
People enter the room and try to get some answers, but Ryou utters not a single syllable. Each person leaves without an ounce of information. Ryou only leaves Bakura's room to go to the bathroom and to get food; Marik comes in to give him money. The Yugi-tachi (apart from Yami and Yugi) often come in to see the two albinos but Ryou acts as if they are invisible, and they have soon stopped trying to cheer him up from his spiraling depression. Then during one of Marik's brief visits, he says, "Ryou… Yugi's dead. He shot himself just after he was found guilty." Then he left, leaving Ryou feeling a mixture of anger and sadness. But mostly anger. "That fucking coward, killing himself before he could get punished. Fucking bastard. WHY MUST EVERYTHING INVOLVING ME TURN OUT LIKE SHIT?!" he screams, pulling his hair in frustration.
After about a week the same routine, Ryou feels something at the back of his mind, as if a person is whispering to him. Then it clicks. Their mind link/Ryou… Ryou… Are you there?/ Bakura's voice is distant at first but soon it is as if he was standing right next to Ryou, which he is, in a way. //KURA! Oh god! Please wake up I need you!//
/Ryou… I'm sorry but my body has passed it's time, my soul cannot return to it now. Please Ryou, you must kill my body so my soul can be set free/
//NO! I will never kill you! How can you ask that of me?!//
/Please Ryou, if you love me, you will let go/ Bakura says through their mind link, his voice beginning to get quieter. /My strength is fading Ryou, please, just let me go/
//Kura, I'm begging you, don't make me do it!//
/Please Ryou. I hope you know that I love you always and forever. I'm sorry to make you do this but I can't think of any other way/
//Bakura! You can't do this to me!//
/I love you Ryou… Goodbye/ And then he was gone.
//Kura? KURA?!// "KURA COME BACK! I NEVER GOT TO SAY GOODBYE! I DIDN'T TELL YOU I LOVE YOU!! PLEASE COME BACK TO ME! I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE! PLEASE KURA COME BACK!! Come back…please… Kura…" he finishes, falling back into his seat before bursting into a fit of tears. A few people peek in nervously to see what the noise was about but leave when they realize nothing major happened, or so they thought. Bakura's words swim through Ryou's mind, reminding him of what his yami wants.
After a few hours of attempting to contact Bakura again, Ryou gives up, realizing there is only one open option. He waits for one of the doctors to come in to check up on Bakura's state before he proposes the option he'd been dreading to say. "What would you say to shutting off his life support?" he asks quietly.
The doctor turns to him and says, " Well, he would die of course. He may wake up, you know."
Ryou shakes his head sadly and says the sentence that had been haunting him for the past few hours, "No, he will never wake up, ever." The doctor nods and leaves the room. Ryou waits in silence and then hears a series of loud footsteps approaching the room. All the Yugi-Tachi (We cant really call them that now that Yugi is dead!) burst into the room, shouting at Ryou for making the decision without their consent.
"It's what Bakura wants," Ryou says softly, squeezing his yami's hand.
"And you know that how?" Tristan asks, wrapping his arms around Duke's waist (Yay! They're together now! But in an ugly, weird sort of way…).
"He told me." The albino says, his voice barely a whisper.
"Really? And how'd he do that?" Duke asks. Ryou decides that this conversation is over and stays silent. "Ryou, Bakura may have done many bad things to you, but killing him isn't an option," Mai says.
"You know nothing! Kura and I loved each other! I don't want to do this but he asked me to and there is no way in hell that you guys are going to stop me freeing Kura's spirit so just get out now!" Ryou shouts at them all. They all leave the distraught teen before a group of doctors enter the room. "Are you sure that you want to do this?" one of the men in white coats asks. Ryou nods, begging to sob.
He twines his fingers in Bakura's own and rests his head on his yami's chest, listening to the dull thud of the comatose boy's heart. One of the doctors step forwards and presses the off switch on the life support machine. The familiar beeping and whirring halts suddenly, leaving the room in silence. One of the doctors glances up at the clock and states, "Time of death: 3:46 am, October 2nd."
Ryou hears Bakura's heart slow to a stop and leans up to place a soft kiss on his lover's forehead, and whispers, "Goodbye." He then leaves the room to be embraced by a crying Marik. "You did it. It's what he would have wanted," Marik says into the shorter boy's hair.
Ryou nods and sobs, "Yeah, but it doesn't make it hurt any less."
On the day of Bakura's funeral the sun is shining happily, oblivious to the suffering Ryou is going through. As Bakura's friends are Ryou's friends, Ryou invited everyone he knew to the funeral. During the service Ryou had to hold on to Marik to stop himself collapsing. At the end, when people are invited to pay their respects to Bakura, Ryou and Marik go up first. Ryou bursts out into tears when he sees Bakura's peaceful form in the open coffin, dressed in a black suit. Ryou commits the picture to memory and etches it into his brain, so as not to forget his first love. As Ryou lies a single lily of the valley on the coffin, he whispers, "I love you and I always will, Bakura, my one and only." As Marik leads him away to the car to go to the crematorium, he realizes something:
Had Bakura refused to get the door and just let the annoyance leave, there would never have been the need for a funeral, or a court, or a witness, or a lawyer, or the hundreds of tears that Ryou shed as Bakura's life support machine was turned off. Choking back a sob, Ryou looks back to his lover's coffin, surrounded by a few mourners.
In the deep recesses of Ryou's mind, he hears Bakura's voice, softer than the breath of a mouse, whispering, thank-you.
I apologize again and again for this chapter… I didn't plan to do it… I just felt a little angsty and I wanted to upset someone… and since Ryou and Bakura were having such a nice time, I wanted to ruin it… hahahahaha…. Hmmmmm… lol I cried so much when I was writing this chapter… okay…. Gods, I need to have a good time to rethink my sanity. thank you for reading. over and out.