The next morning, Yugi and Jounouchi did not play Duel Monsters during homeroom. Instead, they sat at their desks in silence. Anzu and Honda sat at their desks as well, quietly waiting. Otogi entered the classroom and said "Good morning" to everybody, and they all briefly said "Good morning" back before they ignored him and sat in silence again.
Otogi was confused. It wasn't normal for the Gang to act like this. Usually they were very lively. He sat down at his desk and whispered to Honda, "Why's everyone so quiet today?"
Honda was about to reply, but then Ryou walked into the room.
"Good morning Ryou," Otogi greeted.
Ryou stared at the floor and muttered a tired, "Good morning Ryuji."
"Good morning Bakura," said Yugi.
Ryou pretended not to notice Yugi at all and walked straight ahead. He kept walking until he was at the very back of the classroom, where he found an empty seat in an isolated corner and sat down with his head face down against the desk.
"Did something happen?" Otogi asked.
"Bakura's mad at us," said Yugi.
"Why?"
"We killed the Ring Spirit."
Otogi blanked for a moment, but then it dawned on him. "Oh right, I forgot the whole 'find the Pharaoh's lost name' adventure was yesterday. How'd that go by the way? Sorry I couldn't make it."
"It's okay. We did find Other Me's name, which is Atem by the way. And we stopped the Evil Bakura from taking over the world, but in order to do so we had to kill him. And now the Good Bakura is mad at us because apparently he was friends with the Evil Bakura," said Yugi.
"Oh, well that's unfortunate," said Otogi.
"I don't believe it's possible they could've been friends," Jounouchi said disdainfully. "Have you seen what the Evil Bakura is like? There's no way he can be capable of friendship. And even if he was, there's no way the Good Bakura would ever want to be friends with him."
"I think the Evil Bakura was just pretending to be friends so that the Good Bakura would let him possess him. And now the Good Bakura thinks their friendship was real, when it really wasn't," Anzu said.
"Or maybe it was just Stockholm syndrome," said Honda. "They might've had a relationship, but I don't believe the Evil Bakura could be anything other than abusive. And Ryou is just that kind of idiot who would start to care about his own abuser."
"I wonder if Ryou's under some kind of mind control again?" Anzu wondered.
"Can we really be sure that this is the Ryou we know? What if he's still being possessed?" Honda said.
"I think there's definitely been some brainwashing involved," Jounouchi speculated.
"Guys! Slow down! You're overthinking it!" Yugi interjected, and everyone immediately became quiet. "I don't think we should jump to conclusions. Maybe there was more going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. If Bakura's mad at us, we must've done something wrong."
Anzu nodded. "Yugi's right. We're never going to figure out how to fix things if we keep speculating."
"How are we supposed to figure him out? Bakura barely ever speaks to us about his personal life," Jounouchi said.
"He called us ableist assholes. I've never heard him swear before," Honda said.
While the Main Gang was busy talking to one another, Otogi watched Ryou sitting miserably by himself in the back of the classroom and felt a sense of responsibility.
"Maybe I can talk to him? He doesn't seem to be mad at me. He said 'good morning' to me," Otogi said.
Yugi nodded. "I agree. You should go sit next to him and keep him company. He might be mad at us, but we're not going to abandon him. I don't feel comfortable leaving him all alone."
"Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid," said Honda.
"Keep us updated about his well-being," said Yugi.
"Alright, I'll talk to you guys later." Otogi waved them farewell and went to the back of the classroom, where he paused.
Ryou's head was facedown against the desk, and his eyes were hidden behind his arms, so he didn't notice when Otogi approached him.
"Hey," Otogi said.
Ryou turned a little bit to the side to glance up.
"Can I sit here?" Otogi asked, pointing to the empty seat beside him.
Ryou nodded briefly before covering his face with his arms again. Otogi sat down, and they were both silent for the rest of the morning until class started.
Ryou spent the entire week avoiding everybody except for Otogi the bystander. Otogi was the only member of the group who hadn't participated in the Memory World Shadow Game, therefore he couldn't be blamed for the Ring Spirit's death. For a whole week, Ryou made Otogi's life absolutely miserable.
During home economics, Otogi was trying to cook something, and Ryou was standing and watching. Suddenly Ryou shouted, "You're doing it wrong!" and shoved Otogi out of the way with so much force that he lost balance and fell to the ground.
"Ow! Hey!" Otogi exclaimed. He got up again and stood at the edge of the table, waiting for Ryou to apologize. Several moments passed and Ryou didn't even look up.
"Aren't you going to apologize for shoving me to the ground?" Otogi asked eventually.
Ryou acted as if he didn't hear anything. For the next ten minutes, he continued to be so focused on cooking that he paid no attention to anything else.
"Do you want me to help?" Otogi asked at last.
Ryou glanced up briefly to glare and hiss. For the rest of the class, he did all the work on his own, and he inevitably made a few mistakes which got them a bad grade.
"This is all your fault!" Ryou said after receiving their grade.
"What do you mean it's my fault? You refused to let me do anything!" Otogi said.
"Well you could've tried harder!" Ryou spat.
Otogi didn't respond.
Every day after school, Otogi went to Ryou's home to help take care of the housework. Otogi cooked meals, did cleaning, helped Ryou with his homework, and slept over. He waited on Ryou hand and foot, tending to his every need. At first Otogi did it because he was worried and wanted to help out a friend, but as the days went by it started to feel like an obligation. It really made him wonder why he was still doing it, because it wasn't like Ryou was being appreciative. Not in the slightest. In fact, Ryou had started expecting it.
Otogi entered Ryou's bedroom, carrying a plate of food he just cooked for supper. Ryou was lying on the bed, moping.
"Here, you should eat something," Otogi said, placing the plate on the edge of the bed.
Ryou took the food and gulped it down in about fifteen minutes. "If you had started cooking the moment we got home, I could've eaten sooner," he said moodily.
"Yeah. Sorry," Otogi said meekly.
Ryou put the empty plate back down on the bed, and Otogi sighed because he knew he would have to clean up. He took the plate back to the kitchen and placed it in the sink, and then he did all the dishes. Once he was finished he went back to Ryou's bedroom.
Ryou was under the covers, crying softly. Otogi asked, "Are you okay?"
The blankets on the bed moved a little bit, but otherwise Ryou didn't respond.
"Alright, if you need anything I'll be in the kitchen," Otogi said.
"Wait," Ryou said, waving his hand in order to beckon his friend to come lie on the bed with him. Otogi did as asked; he lay down on the bed, and Ryou clung to him while crying.
During the weekend, Otogi helped Ryou with grocery shopping. The went to Evon Mart, which was the most popular grocery store in Domino City. It also happened to be a twenty minute walk from Ryou's apartment.
Ryou tended to wander off by himself, which caused Otogi a lot of anxiety. But other than that the shopping trip went smoothly. It was after they finished shopping and went home that the trouble started.
They were walking home and getting very close to arriving at Ryou's apartment when Otogi took out a small tub of ice cream and began eating it.
"Where'd you get that?" Ryou asked.
"From the store," Otogi answered.
"You got ice cream without me!?" Ryou said angrily.
"I didn't know you wanted any." Otogi offered the tub of ice cream to Ryou. "Here, you can have it."
"I don't like this kind. I want the chocolate one. Let's go back to the store."
Otogi pointed to Ryou's apartment complex which was just down the block. "But we're almost home!"
"I WANT ICE CREAM!" Ryou yelled.
Otogi grimaced. Geez, this was so unreasonable. "The store is a twenty minute walk away! Can't we go somewhere closer by?"
"NO! IT HAS TO BE FROM EVON MART!"
"Okay! Okay! Fine! Can we at least put these grocery bags away first?"
Ryou complied. They went into his apartment and set all the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. Then they began walking back to Evon Mart, which would take twenty minutes to get there and another twenty minutes to walk back home.
"It's your fault we had to walk back to the store!" Ryou said irritatedly.
"Okay, yes, it's my fault," Otogi agreed, for he had completely lost the will to argue.
"If you had asked me if I wanted ice cream from the start, we wouldn't have had to walk all the way back!"
"Yes, you're right. I'm sorry." At this point, Otogi was on there verge of tears.
"How's Bakura? How's he doing?" Yugi asked during homeroom one morning.
"He's been…" Otogi rubbed his eyes tiredly. "He's not fun to hang out with at all. He's been horrible all week. He's always angry about something, and he constantly criticizes me for everything I do. Nothing I do is ever good enough for him. But I can't leave him alone because I'm afraid he's going to do something self-destructive. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm exhausted."
Otogi rested his head against the desk, taking the opportunity to rest. Yugi, Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda lounged about around him, some sitting down and some standing.
"Has he said anything about us?" Honda asked.
Otogi shook his head. "He still doesn't want to talk to you guys. I tried to bring it up a few times, and he just tells me to shut up. I've never seen Ryou act like this before. Didn't know he had it in him." He let out an exhausted sigh. "Every day there's always something wrong with me. My breathing is too loud, the way I walk is weird, I'm not tending to his needs fast enough. I try the best I can and it's never good enough! I'm just one person. He wants more from me than I'm capable of providing."
Everyone became quiet. A couple of seconds later Ryou entered the classroom, glared briefly at Yugi and the rest of the Main Gang, and then gave Otogi a look a disapproval as if to say, why are you sitting with them? Then Ryou went to the back of the classroom and sat in his isolated seat in the corner again.
"Do you have any advice for me, Yugi? What do I do?" Otogi pleaded desperately.
Yugi shrugged. "Stick it out for another week."
"Another week?" Otogi echoed.
"Right now Bakura's going through a rough patch, and he needs a friend more than anything else. If you stay by his side for another week he might start to get better," Yugi said.
Otogi's eyes were downcast, but he nodded. "Alright, I'll do it."
"Good luck," said Anzu.
"Thanks," said Otogi, and then he got up and went to the back of the classroom to sit next to Ryou.
Another week passed and Ryou did not get better. If anything, he seemed to be getting worse.
Otogi almost never went home anymore. He practically lived at Ryou's house, doing all the chores and comforting Ryou when he was upset. And Ryou was pretty much always upset. His insults started getting more cruel, and his meltdowns more violent. One time, one of his meltdowns got extreme enough that he kicked a hole in his bedroom door, and Otogi had to patch it up.
Yugi and the rest of the Main Gang didn't have any good advice to offer, but they did what they could to offer Otogi emotional support. They texted him while he was at Ryou's house, and spoke to him at school whenever Ryou wasn't around. It didn't make the ordeal any less exhausting, but it gave Otogi just enough moral support to keep going.
Needless to say, Ryou's ability to pay attention in class was almost null. He constantly had his head face down against his desk, either sleeping or crying softly in the middle of class. Most of the time the teachers ignored him since he always sat in the back of the classroom, but eventually one teacher noticed.
"Bakura! Are you sleeping in class? That's very disrespectful," Mr. Takeda said irritatedly.
When Ryou didn't respond, Mr. Takeda went to the back of the classroom and slammed his book against Ryou's desk to demand attention.
"Wake up Bakura! Lift up your head!" Mr. Takeda demanded.
Reluctantly Ryou lifted his head, revealing a tear-stained face that was red and swollen from crying.
Mr. Takeda's eyes softened. "Are you alright?" he asked.
Ryou sniffed and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Someone very important to me died very recently."
"I think you should go home. You won't be able to pay attention in class when you're like this," Mr. Takada said.
Ryou gathered his belongings into his bag and stood up to leave. When he got to the front of the classroom, he tripped over nothing and fell to the ground, and half of the contents of his bag fell out, scattering everywhere. Instead of getting up right away, he continued to lie still with his face against the floor for several seconds.
"Bakura! Are you okay?!" Jounouchi shouted.
Upon hearing Jounouchi's voice, Ryou disorientedly picked himself up from the floor and ran towards the door.
"Wait, you forgot your bag!" said an unknown classmate.
Ryou turned around, hastily stuffed all his belongings back into his bag, forced it to close, and turned to leave again. While he was running out of the room he bumped into a small bookcase which caused a pile of books to fall over. He didn't seem to notice that he had knocked over those books, for he was too focused on trying to leave as soon as possible. He quickly disappeared down the hallway out of sight.
Once he was gone, the entire room became deadly silent for a long drawn-out moment.
Then Yugi stood up and said, "Sensei, I'll clean up the books."
"Me too. I'll help," Jounouchi said, also standing up.
"Thank you, young men," Mr. Takeda said.
Half of all the students in the entire classroom stood up as well, wanting to offer their help.
"Everyone sit down! I don't need this many people getting up! Mutou-san and Jounouchi-san are enough for the job," said Mr. Takada.
The students got seated, the teacher went back to teaching, and Yugi and Jounouchi went to pick up the fallen books. While they were cleaning up, Jounouchi said, "This has gone on long enough. We need to do something about Bakura."
"But what do we do? He refuses to talk to anyone except Otogi," said Yugi.
"Then we'll put him in a situation where he has no choice but to talk to us whether he likes it or not," Jounouchi said decisively.
Ryou stayed home from school for the next two days, and then on the third day he came back. He still wasn't able to focus in class, so Otogi took notes for both of them, just as he had been doing for the past two and a half weeks.
At the end of the school day Otogi suggested that the visit the school roof before heading home, because the view was nice and the fresh air would do them some good. Ryou wasn't really feeling up for it, but he noticed that Otogi looked very tired and sad. Ryou eventually said yes, because he felt bad about making Otogi put up with his constant irritability.
They went to the roof and stood in front of the fence, enjoying the view and feeling the breeze blowing through their hair. Because Ryou's back was turned against the door, he didn't notice when Yugi arrived on the rooftop, followed by Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda.
Ryou had been staring out the fence in a trance, but he was beginning to grow bored. "When do you want to go home?" he asked.
But Otogi didn't answer.
"Ryuji? When do you…" Ryou turned around and for the first time noticed he was surrounded by the very people he had been trying to avoid for the past two and a half weeks. Yugi, Anzu, Jounouchi, and Honda formed a semi-circle surrounding him, keeping him trapped against the fence. Otogi was standing in the semi-circle as well, looking apologetic and guilty.
"Sorry," Otogi mouthed.
"You tricked me!" Ryou gasped, an expression of betrayal and anger directed at Otogi. Then he turned to Yugi and the others and shouted, "Go away! I don't want to talk to any of you!"
"You can't avoid us forever, Ryou! If you push us all away you're not going to have any friends left!" Jounouchi said.
"I don't care! I don't need friends! Go away!" Ryou shouted.
"Why don't you tell us what's wrong so that we can fix things," Anzu pleaded, trying to be patient.
"I already told you what's wrong! You killed my best friend!" said Ryou.
"Oh come on, do you really expect us to believe he was your friend? We saved you from him!" Honda interjected.
"That's exactly what I mean! You don't even believe you did anything wrong! You won't listen to anything I say, so what's the point in talking to you guys?" Tears started to streak down Ryou's cheeks. He leaned back against his fence and lowered his head so that his hair covered his face. He refused to look any of them in the eyes.
"Bakura, even if you try to push us away, we're still your friends. And even if we don't always see eye-to-eye, we won't give up on you," Atem said. "Perhaps we can find a solution acceptable to both sides."
"Yugi?" Ryou looked up and recognized Atem's facial expression at first glance. "Wait, you're not Yugi, you're Atem. I don't want to talk to you! I want Yugi! I demand that you let me speak to Yugi right this instant!"
Atem was initially taken aback, but then nodded and complied. "Very well," he said. The Millennium Puzzle glowed, and Yugi opened his eyes.
"What did you want to say to me, Bakura?" asked Yugi.
"You've known for more than a year that I was friends with the Ring Spirit, and yet you never did anything. You didn't out us, but you didn't make any attempt to help us either. Why didn't you do anything?" Ryou demanded.
"Well…" Yugi paused to think of a good answer. "I couldn't be sure of what was actually happening, or what it was you wanted. You're very secretive. I thought it'd be best to wait for you to tell us when the time was right."
"Alright fine, I can accept that, but what made you think that killing the Ring Spirit was justifiable?" Ryou asked.
"What did he expect us to do?" Jounouchi interrupted. "It was the end of the world, and…"
"What did you expect us to think? He was acting like a crazy and maniacal…" Honda began to say at the same time.
"Shut up! This doesn't concern you! This is between me and Yugi!" Ryou hissed. He turned to look Yugi dead in the eyes, demanding an explanation. "Tell me Yugi, what made you think killing him was justifiable?"
Yugi bit his lip. He was aware that whatever answer he provided wasn't going to be satisfying enough for Ryou to accept, but he needed to provide an answer. "I did the best I could given the circumstances. I was under a lot of pressure."
"How so?" asked Ryou.
"Jounouchi, Honda, and Anzu were all watching me. If they weren't there, perhaps I would've tried to find a way to save the world without killing the Ring Spirit, but I didn't want them to think I was a pushover," Yugi replied.
"So what you're saying is that you care more about the appearance of being good rather than what's actually good," Ryou stated. "You care too much about your public image to challenge the status quo. That makes you weak and pathetic."
Jounouchi, Honda, and Anzu started to yell over each other in an attempt to come to Yugi's defense, but their voices were drowned out by Ryou's voice.
"You are a coward, Yugi! You are a weak and pathetic coward! Killing the villain is the coward's way out!" Ryou shouted. "And Atem too! If you're listening to this, Atem, you're not great either! You always want to make yourself out to be the hero! You want to classify everyone in your narrow categories of heroes and villains, as if you can't do anything wrong just because you were assigned the role of the chosen one! Well guess what? This time, you're not getting away with it. Regardless of what the circumstances were, and regardless of your intentions, you still killed my best friend, and I'm never going to forgive you!"
"My God, Bakura!" Anzu gasped.
"Aren't you going a little too far? I mean, the Ring Spirit did try to kill all of us," Jounouchi said shakily.
"Yes, I acknowledge that he did try to kill all of you. But the thing is, Kaiba and Mokuba tried to kill you and you forgave them. Malik tried to kill you and you forgave him. Ryuji tried to make you age fifty years, and Jounouchi and Honda bullied you. So why did you redeem all these people but not my Yami?"
Ryou's voice broke at the end of his speech. He held himself and sobbed uncontrollably, unable to get anymore words out. Yugi struggled to come up with something to say, but there was nothing left to say.
About two minutes passed without any words being said. Everyone awkwardly stood where they were as Ryou cried uncontrollably for about two minutes.
Eventually Ryou decided he didn't want to be here anymore, so he walked up to Otogi and said, "Get out of my way."
Otogi didn't move.
"OUT OF MY WAY, RYUJI! YOU'RE A TRAITOR! GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Ryou spoke with the full range of his diaphragm, as if he were commanding the attention of a theater audience. They were on a rooftop with a breeze blowing so his voice didn't project quite as much as it would've had they been indoors, but still the sheer volume in Ryou's voice scared Otogi so much that he backed out of the way as quickly as he could.
Moving his way past all his ex-friends, Ryou walked straight to the door and left.
Ryou spent an entire week avoiding everyone including Otogi, who was no longer a bystander. Like it or not he was in too deep.
"This is why I didn't want to get involved," Otogi sighed, resting his head in his palm while sitting at his desk. "Friendship is messy. There's always so much unnecessary drama, and I hate it."
Yugi, Anzu, Honda, and Jounouchi lounged about around Otogi, some sitting down and some standing. Every morning was very awkward now. Ryou always sat alone in the back of the classroom, avoiding everybody. He didn't allow Otogi to sit with him anymore.
"So Yugi, Is it true what Ryou said that you knew he was friends with the Evil Bakura for over a year?" Jounouchi asked.
Yugi did a half-shrug half-nod. "Somewhat. I had a hunch that he was the one who stole the Millennium Ring back from me after Malik gave it to me. And it turns out I was right."
"Poor Ryou. He's been stuck with the Millennium Ring for so long that he doesn't know how to live without it. It must be a very bad case of Stockholm syndrome," Anzu said.
"He's an idiot if you ask me," Honda muttered. "No matter how many times we save him, he puts himself into danger again. It's like he has no sense of self-preservation."
"No offense, but it sounds like you have a savior complex," Otogi muttered.
"What did you say?" Honda said offendedly.
"Why did you automatically assume he wanted to be saved without asking for his opinion first?" Otogi asked.
"It's just a fact of life, Ryuji. Strong men have to protect the weak. You know I have a sister…" Jounouchi began.
"There you go again with your sister. Every time you talk about her you make it be more about yourself than about her. How well do you even know her? You barely interacted with her at all since your parents got divorced when you were kids!" Otogi spat out.
"Hey!" Jounouchi got up, positioned himself in front of Otogi's desk and glared at him. "What makes you think you have any right? You think it's easy being her elder brother? I bet you have hidden motives. You just want to me to move aside so you can have access to her, am I right?"
Otogi shook his head annoyedly. "No, I was never romantically interested in Shizuka. Never was, never will be. I only acted the way I did because I wanted to keep Honda away from her! He's no good! He's a creep!"
"Hey!" Honda got up, positioned himself next to Jounouchi and glared at Otogi. "I had good intentions! I wanted to protect her. If she doesn't end up with me, someone else might get to her first."
"First of all, no one cares about your intentions. You made her feel uncomfortable," Otogi said, folding his arms. "And second, you're not the first creep who's tried to groom her into giving you a relationship. Lots of men target her because she's quiet, and they think that makes her easier to manipulate."
"Wait, what? They have?!" Jounouchi said angrily. "How do you know?"
"She told me," said Otogi.
"Why would she tell you instead of me? I'm her brother!" Jounouchi said with a tinge of heartbreak.
"That's because I actually talk to her like a normal person rather than making assumptions about her on the sole basis of gender," Otogi said, his voice dripping with venom. "Not all men are trash, but all women have trauma as a result of being targeted by trashy men. There are enough creeps out there ruining everyone's lives. You want to become one of them? You guys are still high schoolers so there's hope for you, but if you choose to keep going down the path of toxic masculinity then there's not much I can say. Those types of people never do anything meaningful with their lives. Look how Jounouchi's father turned out. Do you really want to end up like him? Old, broke and alone with nothing but his addictions for company? That's what happens to men who never make any effort to get to know a woman's perspective. They grow up to be abusers or losers, or a combination of both."
"I'm not like my father," Jounouchi said defensively. "I care about Shizuka, and I want to keep her safe."
"That's nice and all, but your over-protectiveness is not entirely well-meaning. Is it really about keeping her safe, or are you trying to use her as justification to make yourself out to the be hero? You have a very strong sense of entitlement. It's like you want her to be the victim just so you can be the savior. And the way you treat Shizuka is very similar to the way you treat Ryou. Calling it Stockholm syndrome is rather reductive. You guys have admitted multiple times that you don't really understand him. Why do you keep making assumptions about him without his input? Don't talk about him without him. You're going to misconstrue everything."
At the end of his speech, Otogi took a deep breath. This amount of talking had emotionally drained him. He had been waiting to tell Jounouchi and Honda about this for quite a while, and today he finally got his chance.
"When you put it that way, I get your point," Anzu said. She had been at the receiving end of male savioritism many times, so she understood. "We should let Ryou advocate for himself."
"I don't know about you, but this friend group is like a found-family to me, a substitute for the lack of a supportive family I have at home. You didn't bother to take the time to get to know Ryou's perspective and look where that got us. You tore our family apart," Otogi said.
"Alright! Alright! We get it!" Jounouchi said tiredly.
"But what do we do now? The damage is already done. What if it's too late to fix our mistakes?" Anzu said.
There was a moment of dead silence. No one had a good answer to this question.
Then the bell rang, signaling the beginning of class, and they all went to their seats in preparation for the lesson.
This wasn't a story about the triumph of good over evil. This story had no heroes. Everyone was either a villain, a victim, or a bystander.
Ryou was finally able to see how deeply flawed each and every one of his friends were. The reason it ended like this was due to a combination of everyone's short-comings. Because Yugi wasn't open-minded enough, because the rest of the Main Gang had a toxic moral superiority complex, because Malik was too much of a coward to challenge the status quo a second time, because Ryou was too naive and trusting, and because the Ring Spirit was a dirty, dirty liar. Everyone was to blame in some way.
Every time Ryou made friends with people, something bad happened and the fallout was disastrous. This wasn't even the first time. It had happened before, and each time it happened it inflicted lasting emotional pain, making it all the more difficult to open up again. He was so sick and tired of everyone taking advantage of him. He was sick and tired of always being the victim. It made him want to become the perpetrator for once, just to see what it's like.
It didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to end like this. Why did here always have to be a loser in every story? Why did there have to be a villain who was meant to be defeated so that the so-called "heroes" could have a semblance of "winning?" It did not result in victory. All it brought was the loss of valuable human life, and it caused relationships between friends and family to be ripped apart. Everybody, including the villain, needs to win in order to achieve true victory, otherwise can we really call ourselves heroes?
The were no winners in this story: no victory, no achievements, no gain. Everyone loss something at the end: the loss of life, the loss of friendship, the loss of innocence. This was a story of tragedy.
At the end of the school day, when all of the other students had already gone home, Ryou stayed behind. He didn't have any serious reason for staying behind. He just didn't feel like making the walk home quite yet, so he procrastinated by pacing around the classroom, picking up random objects, mouthing words quietly to himself, stimming, and being lost in his own private world. Sometimes he stared out the window, sometimes he stared straight ahead at nothing. There wasn't any real meaning behind what he did except that he just felt like it.
On a whim he sat down at a random desk in the center of the room and rocked back and forth. Then he stopped rocking and shook his legs. Then he stopped shaking his legs and bounced up and down. He did whatever he wanted at any given moment, and it was pure impulse. He didn't put much thought into it. Most of the time his self-consciousness prevented him from fully letting loose like this when others were watching. It was only when he was alone that he could fully be himself.
His daydreaming was disrupted by the sound of the door opening. He halted everything he was doing and became on guard. Otogi entered the room, shut the door behind him, and awkwardly made his way towards the center of the room.
"Go away. You took their side," Ryou muttered, eyes cast downwards to the floor.
"Look, I'm sorry I set you up. I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry. But even if you try to push me away, I'm not going to leave you alone because you don't have any friends left. I know what it's like to be alone and have no one to support you. I'm staying by your side whether you like it or not."
There was a moment of silence. Otogi continued to stand around awkwardly, and Ryou continued to stare down at the floor. Eventually Ryou nodded and said, "You can stay."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Otogi sat down at a nearby chair and relaxed.
"I guess you're right. I don't really want to be alone right now," Ryou said.
"Everyone's been so worried about you. We're not entirely sure how to help you. You're a very mysterious person," said Otogi.
Ryou just shrugged.
"Can you really blame them for assuming the worst? Especially from Atem's perspective, it looked a lot like you were suffering. The Ring Spirit said so himself that he made you build the tabletop for the Memory World game."
"He told Atem that?" Ryou questioned.
"Mm-hmm"
"He deliberately worded it in a way to make himself sound more abusive just so Atem would hate him sounds like something he would do. He omits important details to deliberately mislead people." Ryou shook his head. "It is technically the truth. He did make me build it. It was his idea to have me build a diorama of Ancient Egypt for the museum's exhibition, and I thought it was a fantastic idea which is why I agreed to it."
"To be fair on Atem and the others, they don't know anything about your personal life because you hardly ever open up."
"That's because they don't make me feel safe enough to open up. They pass judgement very quickly. As much as they claim to be passionate about being supportive friends, they're not very accepting of people who are different."
"If you want, you could open up to me. I won't pass judgment. What really happened between you and the Ring Spirit? What's your side of the story?"
Ryou paused before providing an answer. Where to even begin? "Well, it started off exactly the way you've been lead to believe. He was my persecutor. He did things that hurt me, which caused me to reject him. Eventually he figured out that if he wanted my help, he needed to treat me with more kindness and respect, and that's what he did. He reached out to me, and we became friends. I think that at first, the friendship was one-sided. He had hidden motives. He pretended to care for the sake of his own personal gain. But over time, I made progress with him. I got him to open up to me, and the friendship did become real at some point. But it wasn't enough, was it? Despite all the progress we made, he still betrayed me at the end."
"So it sounds like you saw a different side of him that no one else got to see. You saw a kinder, friendlier side," Otogi observed.
"Technically I wasn't the only one who saw this side of him. Yugi saw a little of it too, which is why I'm so mad at him! He didn't make any attempt to redeem the Ring Spirit at all! It's laziness! He's redeemed worse villains before, so why treat this one any different? They weren't able to see past their biases to realize that the Ring Spirit did not need to be defeated. He just needed help," Ryou sighed. "I don't think Yugi and Atem are as good as people as they think they are. They could've done a whole lot better."
Otogi nodded along.
"I recently found out I'm autistic and ADHD, which explains why I don't really fit in with Yugi's group. I'm always an outsider no matter what I do."
"I guess I don't really fit in with them either. They're a bunch of cis people. You're cis too but you're GNC so you understand a little more."
"What's GNC?"
"Gender-nonconforming."
"Oh."
They both became silent. Ryou put his head down against his arms to rest. Over the past week he skipped half his meals, neglected his schoolwork, overslept, and had over 60 meltdowns. He was exhausted beyond belief.
"Why didn't you tell anyone sooner that you made friends with the Ring Spirit? It's been over a year," Otogi said.
Ryou shrugged. "I don't know. There was never a good opportunity. Yugi and the others are so terrified of the Millennium Ring that they freak out just by looking at it. It felt like I had no choice but to hide."
"Don't blame yourself. I think it's partially the Main Gang's fault for not making you feel safe enough to confide in them, and partially the Ring Spirit's fault for not making an effort to reach out to them."
"He did reach out to them though. At least, he did so with the regular Yugi."
Otogi shut his eyes and covered his eyes with his hand. "Oh yeah, the DDM game...I wanted to forget about that."
"Not just the DDM game. The night before Memory World happened, someone stole Yugi's God Cards and the Spirit stole them back for him. He did manage to convince the regular Yugi for the most part."
"That would've been the perfect time to tell everyone. If you already had Yugi on your side, it'd be easier to convince the others. Yugi's basically the leader of the group. Everyone listens to him."
Ryou nodded sorrowfully. "Yeah, now that you mention it I should've told everyone that day. I had a window of opportunity to tell everyone and I didn't take it. If I had just stayed behind and told everybody the truth instead of running away, maybe the Spirit's death could've been avoided. Oh dear, why did this happen?"
There was a sneeze: a faint and muffled sneeze that couldn't have come from inside the room.
"What was that?" said Ryou.
Ryou and Otogi both turned to look at the classroom door, and through the window they could see the top of Yugi's spiky hair. They both stood up.
"Oh shit! They're coming! Run!" said someone on the other side of the door. There was the sound of feet scampering around and then a loud "OOF!" and a thud. When Ryou opened the door, Jounouchi and Honda were lying on the floor in a tangled mess of limbs, and Yugi and Anzu were watching the scene, sweat-dropping with concern.
Ryou looked at the Main Gang, then turned to glare at Otogi suspiciously. "Did you know that they were listening the whole time?"
"I had no idea! I swear I thought I was alone!" Otogi panicked.
"He really didn't know. We saw him stalking you, so we stalked him," said Anzu.
"Bakura…I thought about what you said, and…I think you have a point. I could've done better," Yugi said.
Ryou crossed his arms and humphed.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," Yugi said.
"Yeah, me too. I jumped to conclusions really quickly," Jounouchi said.
"Same with me," said Honda.
"Will you give us a second chance to make it up to you?" Anzu asked. "Please?"
There was a moment of silence. Everyone stared at Ryou expectantly, not daring to move.
Eventually, Ryou nodded and said, "Alright."
Everyone cheered. "HURRAY!"
"Thank goodness that ordeal is over," Anzu sighed with relief.
"What do you say we celebrate with a trip to Burger World?" Jounouchi said, putting his arms around Yugi's neck.
"I'm in!" said Yugi.
Everybody began walking out the school together, laughing and bickering just like they used to.
"By the way, I don't want you guys treating me any different now that you know I'm autistic. Just act the same way as you always have," Ryou said.
"That explains a lot. Now that you mentioned it, everything makes sense now," Honda said.
Jounouchi nodded, deep in thought. "Back then, just now, you called us cis people. Does that mean you're biologically a girl?" he asked Otogi.
"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you! I knew you'd act like an idiot! Don't ask rude questions!" Otogi said.
"But how is that rude? I don't understand," said Anzu.
"You have to say 'assigned female at birth,' or afab for short! Don't talk about biology because it makes me dysphoric!" said Otogi.
"Dysphoric? What does that mean?" Honda asked.
"It's the distressful feeling I get when my gender identity doesn't match my assigned gender. It's an awful feeling and I'd rather avoid it if I can," Otogi explained.
"Oh. Sorry," Jounouchi said.
"It's okay, it's okay." Otogi calmed down and reminded himself to be more patient with people who were genuinely trying to learn.
Yugi looked at his wonderful group of friends and relished in the liveliness of it. It felt good to be a group again.
"By the way, Bakura, we have a ticket saved for you in case you want to go on the trip to Egypt with us. Would you like to come?" Anzu asked.
Ryou nodded. "Yes, I'd love to." Secretly he wasn't fully ready to forgive everyone - at least not yet - but he wanted to go to Egypt because he wanted to talk to Malik.