The chapter title is symbolic. There is no "life" shipping for YGO.

This chapter might be hard on deathshippers. EMOTIONALLY, I mean. Or it might not be. I don't know.

The point is, brace yourselves. Stuff is about to get crazy!

How crazy?

Melvin crazy.

And by that, I mean insane.

I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!, YGOTAS, Hetalia, the fanfiction site, Bakura's hair, the British language, Slenderman (the game or the abridged version), or any of the character/trademarks in those.

R&R

ENJOY~!

"How loud are they?" Melvin suddenly asked.

Ryou was supposed to be turning off the computer, but he had stopped to look at a dent on the wall by the door. He turned his head to look at Melvin. "What was that?"

"How loud are they?" Melvin repeated.

"What do you mean?" Ryou asked as he turned around.

Melvin was on Marik's bed, looking bored. "Marik and Bakura. How loud are they when they do 'it'? Because if I'm going to be staying here I really don't want to be kept up tonight."

Ryou blushed and averted his gaze. "Uh... W-well I'd really rather not tell you. I don't like talking about that. And..." his blush faded a bit and he looked at Melvin again. "And wouldn't you know? You are Marik's other half, after all?"

"I don't pay attention to certain parts of his life. I didn't even know he had an evil council until he asked me if I took over during one because Florence had some dream about it."

"Oh... And why would you assume that they are even...doing that tonight?"

"I just implied it from what Marik said to Florence earlier about not giving him 'it' if he didn't shut the frig up."

Ryou's face was confused for a moment. Then he laughed lightly. "Oh I think you misunderstood. He wasn't talking about sex. He was talking about allowing Bakura to have raw steak for breakfast, which he rarely does anymore. He only does it on special occasions, and I assume he's going to let Bakura have it tomorrow morning."

"Oh how lovely," Melvin said sarcastically. "I get to watch Florence tear violently into a bloody part of an uncooked dead animal. How exciting."

Ryou sighed. "Melvin, are you bored or something?" he asked as he went back to examining the wall.

"Yes," Melvin automatically replied. "And what are you even looking at?"

"There's a dent here on the wall," Ryou told him. "I can't figure out why it's here or what made it. It doesn't look like anyone punched the wall... The wall isn't even cracked or broken, just dented. Odd..."

"Yeah, I bet it's really exciting," Melvin said with a roll of his eyes.

"This was here before I got here, so I assume that it happened in the first story of the trilogy."

"Ah huh," Melvin said boredom. "Is the wall really more interesting than me?"

Ryou turned around again. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you were trying to get my attention. I just haven't noticed this before."

"Lovely." Melvin's face had been neutral with boredom the entire time. But now it changed to a thoughtful grin. "Hm...I wonder how loud you would be," he said thoughtfully.

Ryou blinked in confusion. "What?"

"You heard me. And I wonder if you'd be a talker like Bakura or a moaner like Marik."

Ryou blushed furiously. "Wh-... Why are you even talking about that?"

Melvin's grin transformed into a smirk. "I guess we'll find out eventually, won't we?"

Ryou suddenly stopped blushing and his eyes widened.

Oh no... Ryou thought. He's thinking about that sort of thing already. Why so soon? He cringed. I think it's time to end this before it goes to far and before someone gets hurt. Emotionally or physically...

"M-Melvin..." Ryou stuttered.

Melvin looked up, his gaze having briefly moved to the dent on the wall Ryou had been looking at. After examining Ryou's face, he became confused at the mix of emotions on it. Guilt. Nervousness. Shame. More guilt. Melvin frowned. "What's wrong?" he asked the British hikari.

Ryou wouldn't meet his gaze. He stared at the floor the entire time and kept scratching the back of his neck. "I have something to...ask...uh... No wait, tell... Uh... Well uh... I have to talk to you about something..."

"What? Tell me already."

Ryou cringed and looked really uncomfortable. "I... I..." he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Y-y-y-you do know that I n-n-never actually...s-s-s-said that I...L-L-Like you like that...r-r-right?"

Ryou opened an eye.

Melvin was still regarding him with total confusion. "Yes," he replied simply. "You never did admit it. I've been waiting for you to. Patiently."

"Yeah um...about that... I'm not going to."

Melvin's eyes widened. "What?" he asked in an even tone.

"I'm not gay."

And Melvin's face was all like: B/ and he asked, "It's a little late to say that, isn't it?"

And so Ryou's face went all: ( -_-') and he mumbled, "I-I know..." Ryou felt a little bit better now that he had gotten it out. But there was still more to tell...

Melvin folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "Like...really late. We're like frigging 18 chapters in and you just now admit this?"

"Hey! I shouldn't have to!" Ryou cried in a slightly offended tone. "We already established long ago that I am not gay! Everyone knows it! I said it in the previous fanfic! How can you accuse me of not admitting it because I admitted it so many times in the past! Even on the show! How many times have I said 'I'm not gay, I'm just British'?!"

"Well guess what!" Melvin shouted. The next thing Ryou knew, he was lying down on the bed from the waist up, his hands were pinned above his head by his wrists, and Melvin was leaning over him with a hurt and upset look in his eyes, but an angry look on his face. "I wasn't here for that!" he continued, his volume making Ryou cringe. "I was never here when you said that! Even on the show! What does that mean, then?! Have you been leading me on this whole entire time?!"

Ryou's lip trembled. "N-n-no! I s-s-swear..."

"Well then what the hell have you been doing and saying for the past couple of hours? With me!" The hurt in his eyes transformed into more anger.

Ryou had a feeling that things were taking a dangerous turn for him. He had to talk his way out if it before Melvin retaliated...physically. "I w-w-wasn't...really leading you on! I was being honest th-th-the whole time."

"When you hid behind me?" Melvin challenged.

"I was simply hiding from Bakura. And you were willing to hide me...so..."

"That moan. Don't think I forgot that."

"Purely physical," Ryou said with a straight face. "I wasn't so sure at that moment, but now I know it's the truth."

"You defended me and begged for them to let me stay."

"I didn't think it was right for them to turn you away. They didn't want me here either, but they accepted me anyway. That felt good. Even though I wasn't wanted, they let me stay. Sure, Aqua had to convince them, but I wanted the same to happen for you. Even though Marik loathes you and Bakura despises you... Or is it the other way around?"

"It flip-flops."

"Oh. But anyway, I wanted you to stay...just because. You might be on the bad side, but at least you're still one of those people who defends the ones you care about, no matter what side they're on. I like that. I consider you a good...uh...friend."

"Oh, so now I'm being friend zoned, am I?" Melvin asked as he stood up.

Ryou stood up as well and turned his back to the wall. "N-no that's not how it—"

"Well, since there isn't going to be the shipping part of it, I suppose we can just make the death part of it happen."

Ryou gasped and his eyes widened. "Wh-wha...t?"

All of a sudden, Melvin stood up and took a step towards Ryou. He pushed the Brit backwards, hard, knocking him into the wall next to the door.

"OW!" Ryou cried out. He rubbed his back where it had hit the wall. "Bloody hell... Melvin...what was that..." His knees went weak and bent a little.

Melvin ran up to him and held his arm over Ryou's neck. He made Ryou stand up straight by pulling him up by his chin. He held his free arm out behind him.

The Millenium Rod flew from its spot on Marik's dresser straight into Melvin's hand. Keeping Ryou in place with his arm, Melvin removed the bottom half of the Rod, revealing the blade underneath.

Ryou yelped in terror. This escalated fairly bloody quickly... he thought with an internal laugh, so as to not lose his mind so quickly. Which is probably what had just happened to Melvin. Then again, he was already insane...

I should have seen this coming. Then again, I sort of did.

With the same hand that held the Millenium Rod, Melvin removed the Millenium Ring from around Ryou's neck. He let both the Ring and the bottom half of the Rod drop to the floor. The Millenium Ring bounced on the carpet and landed right next to the door. The bottom half of the Millenium Rod rolled away, and stopped at one of the legs of Marik's bed.

"What are you—" Ryou began. He stopped short when Melvin removed his arm and held the blade of the Rod up to his neck without letting the metal touch his skin. Ryou could still feel the coldness of it, though. His eyes and pupils widened.

"M..." Ryou tried to say. "Why?"

"You know why it's called deathshipping, right?" Melvin asked. His voice was cold and emotionless. His eyes were just as cold, but not as emotionless. However, Ryou couldn't quite tell what emotion they were holding.

Ryou gulped and nodded as much as he could.

"Well, I totally could have murdered you by now. But I didn't. Why? Because I actually cared. And why would an evil cold-hearted psychopathic imaginary friend actually care about someone in such a way? Because I thought I could have fun making you like me back, and continue to like me. Heh. I guess I was wrong. It turns out that you were just toying with me the whole time. Interesting. You learned how to lie from Bakura, but you always knew how to roleplay."

Melvin moved the arm that held the Rod and held his arm up against Ryou's neck. With that same hand, he held the Rod and pointed it at Ryou's chest. He loosened his grip on it slightly. He put his other hand on the head of the Rod. If you picture it right, you know exactly what Melvin has set up here. Ready to ram the Rod into Ryou's chest at any time.

"And it's a shame. That role player side of you could have been fun to play with, if you know what I mean."

Ryou was terrified to the point of being unable to think coherently or even cry for help.

There was only one action he was capable of in the state he was in.

As his emergency defense mechanism, he went into his special Ryou Bakura emergency mercy mode: his mega-super-special-bloody-smashing-brilliant-shini ng-ace-creampuff-powered-awesome-kawaii-desu-ne-üb er-mega-kawaii-cute mode.

His mouth opened in a small o, his pupils went wide and began sparkling, his eyes lost their helpless and terrified look gained an innocent and pleading one and turned the prettiest shade of chocolate-brown possible in existence, his hair became ten times fluffier and twenty times softer than his yami's hair was, he tilted his head to the side ever so slightly that it was barely noticeable, and he began blinking in rapid and rhythmic intervals. He locked gazes with Melvin.

The yami felt himself unable to look away. He was caught in the inescapable black-hole-like trap that was the face of Ryou Bakura. It was, in a single word, adorable. If you wanted to add another word, you could say it was mesmerizing. If you still needed more adjectives to describe it, here's another one:

irresistible

It seemed like time had stopped, with Melvin frozen in place as his mind went crazy(er than usual) trying to come up with an idea of how to react of even if he should react at all, and Ryou completely motionless as his will battled with his fear so he could keep up his too-cute-to-kill face in order to save his life and buy him maybe a few more minutes of existence.

And what do you know?

It did save his life!

A moment later, the door slammed open and Marik and Bakura burst in.

I don't know if anyone noticed, but I've been purposefully avoiding Ryou's POV ever since the end of chapter 10. The idea was that you don't know how Ryou TRULY felt about Melvin or deathshipping from then until now. Basically, deathshipping was NEVER two-sided in this fanfic.

SORRY TO DISAPPOINT, DEATHSHIPPPERS,

But it gets better. Trust me. Things get better.

See you next chapter!

BYEEEEEEEEEEEE~!