#destinyboards

                Over the next few days, Ryou went on with business as normal. He spent too many nights up late, focused on his computer or his games, with the music just loud enough to avoid his neighbors’ complaints. He went to and from school and work each day. He saw his friends ( and definitely didn’t tell hem about his talk with the Spirit ). And he noticed nothing out of the ordinary around the apartment while he was home.

                His cat seemed a little more hyperactive than usual, constantly crawling up onto his lap the second he sat down, but that wasn’t exactly weird.

@destinyboards

Ryou’s breath caught as the blade was pressed against his flesh again, mind racing. He’d approached this particular mirror under the assumption that he was, in fact, a mirror. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two had occurred when he'd tried to keep his panic under control by mouthing off. Now he found himself at a bit of a crossroads on how to proceed. There was the rational way, and then there was--

“S’funny,” he began, voice low as he tried his damnedest to modify his terrified grimace into more of a caustic grin, though the expression failed to meet his eyes. The malice seething from the other was nearly tangible. “I mean, I’ve never known you to be so... to the point before.” 

So apparently he was going three for three. Wonderful.

In all honesty, he had no idea what he was dealing with. He’d never actually encountered the Spirit in any real capacity while he had the Ring--their contact had been limited to a low, silky voice in the back of his mind insisting that it was good now, that it wanted to help his friends, if only the landlord would assist it...

“You really don't remember me, do you?" [destinyboards]”

“Bakura, I definitely remember you.  You stole the real Bakura’s body to play your demented games.”

Yami pointed at the other spirit over the space between them, teeth gritted between words.  He hadn’t expected to ever see the other Bakura again, the real Bakura must have been manipulated into putting the ring back on, he thought.  

It was a strange and complicated feeling, sharing your body with that of another being. Of course he would love nothing more than to have himself back, to hear only his thoughts and to experience his own dreams instead of the nightmares that Bakura's consciousness created, but there was absolutely no denying that the idea of the spirit finally leaving him made him feel..scared. He had shared his body with the ancient for so long that he no longer remembered what it was like to be his own person, and as if like a bird ready to leave the nest for the first time and venture out on it’s own, there was hesitation. There was an entire world out there which he would have to battle alone. Situations he would have to deal with alone. Emotions he would have to sort through..a l o n e. That prospect was more terrifying than anything else he had ever experienced.

Since his “departure,” Bakura hadn’t entirely expected anyone to try to reach out to him. But, sitting across from Ryou, he supposed he wasn’t surprised. If anyone was going to reach out to him, it made sense that it would be him. After all, out of everyone who knew him, Ryou was the only one who really knew how to use one of these damned things.

After staring at his former host for a few moments, he moved the planchette over the word yes, intending to ask what Ryou wanted. He wasn’t certain that the boy would catch his meaning, but at least the kid would know he was there.

                   Maybe it was silly [ read as: foolish, dangerous, something his friends would have a heart attack over if they knew ] for him to be contacting the spirit like this. He didn’t exactly have a plan either. Ryou had simply seen the case for his ouija board sticking out from under his bed and gotten the idea in his head that maybe he should try it. He wasn’t even sure it would work. Was the Spirit gone for good? In the afterlife? In the shadows? How long distance would this board let him call if that was the case? But it was worth a shot. The Spirit had plagued him for so long... but he’d also been part of him too. 

     It wasn’t uncommon for Yugi to think he was hearing voices in the midst of the night’s silence nowadays. There was something about being alone in the dark that made him uneasy. When he was younger, he would find himself unable to fall asleep without the company of a nightlight, but ever finding the Millennium Puzzle in the depths of the store’s basement, he’d felt a little better about the darkness. Even before he completed the puzzle, he hadn’t felt quite so alone in the darkness with that box sitting beside his bed on his desk.

These past few months though, that overwhelming loneliness that he remembered from his childhood had begun to escort him through the night once more. Sometimes he questioned why he could still be afraid of such a childish thing. He knew, why, though. It was because now he really WAS alone in the dark. He still had his other friends, sure. He had Jou and Anzu and Honda and Ryou... He loved and appreciated their company, of course he did, but with Atem gone, it felt like a piece of him was missing; a piece he’d never get back.

He rolled over in his bed, throwing his blanket loosely over his head as he gripped the puzzle that lay beside him with a single hand. It felt almost wrong to have it back after having accepted that it, that Atem, was gone, but he couldn’t abandon the artifact. He owed the pharaoh that much, at least. And he wasn’t REALLY gone, right? Not as long as he remembered him! But the more he told himself that, the cheesier it sounded. Memories of him would never be quite the same as having his other self with him.

The muffled voice that seemed to emanate from the darkness didn’t disappear as it normally did, nor did the anxious nagging in his head. Perhaps he was just tired, but that didn’t make him feel much better; it didn’t console him as he failed to convince himself that he was all right. Logically, he knew that it was just his anxiety making him hear things that weren’t really there, but that didn’t stop him from peeking his face out from under the covers to speak out into the darkness that surrounded him.