Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 

1. Host

In which Ryou becomes aware of a dark presence

The first time he hears him is in his head.

He’s standing in the bathroom just before a shower, steam billowing in the small space as he undresses methodically. His mind is quiet, untroubled, uneventful -- the day has passed like most usually do, a brief thought of homework here and a sidenote to some chores -- and he likes it this way. There’s safety in routine, even if it’s a dysfunctional and unhealthy one, even if they both know it, but it’s safe and unsurprising, and he likes it this way. Still, he spots a new surprise as he strips off his pants. The bathroom mirror doesn’t lie, but he’s wishing it does.

He’s thirteen, and freak changes like this to his body aren’t exactly enough to throw his world off kilter, but he still doesn’t like it. It seems like just yesterday his puberty had finally started settling in, only to buck back and hit him with something new just for kicks. His voice still breaks occasionally, and he was pretty pissed at first, having hoped his soft and high voice would grow deeper and more masculine. If it is deeper (as his dad had claimed over the telephone), he can’t tell, because that soft and gentle quality is so like his mother’s (as his dad had said, then claimed he was busy), and he hated it.

Now, he creeps closer toward the mirror, as if moving too fast will startle it. His reflection bears a fascinated and slightly disgusted look. Once his face borders the mirror (flushed from the curling heat, reds twining down white, pale neck in asymmetrical patterns), he pauses, eyes straining through the fog.

At first, he’s examining the expanse of forehead hidden behind shaggy bangs, confused and a little dejected at the angry red bumps that seem to have sprouted from the night, then a flicker in the corner of the mirror startles him into complete stillness.

There’s the flicker again, and did his reflection just smile?

Why, you’re just a kid.

Ryou bolts from the mirror like a deer finally overcoming blindness and refuses to open his eyes -- there’s a sudden feeling around him, like the steam has become heavy and black, and the safe blackness of the inside of his eyelids is abruptly dazzling and painful and he opens his eyes to avoid becoming a deer again --

But there’s nothing in the mirror, just his scared, naked self.

He doesn’t breathe as he waits for -- for something, for the voice to sound again, clear like a bell, but there’s nothing, only the ringing vibrations of it reverberating and permeating into the recesses of his mind. The shower is still beating down behind him, and he unfreezes himself from his spot against the sink, taking one deep breath, two deep breaths, three deep breaths (like Cameron had taught him), anything to unhear that voice. But it lingers, echoing there in the back of his head, over and over and over and over until it’s thinned and watered down and just far away enough that Ryou can convince himself it was his own voice.

He takes a few more deep breaths and turns back to the shower.

Then, as he’s so good at doing, he locks the memory in those recesses of his mind and throws away the key.

Chapter Text

 

2. Imperishable

In which Ryou receives a relic and a reminder

When he’s fourteen, his father changes his life in a few different ways: 1) he celebrates his birthday for the first time in five years, and 2) gives him a present that cuts him from the cloth of destiny with its five razor points.

The Ring looks as though it’s seen better days, but Ryou doesn’t wonder on what those better days were, nor does he wish for them, because the Ring is beautiful and enticing with grains of sand still clinging desperately to it and nicks in the intricate geometry. It still glimmers faintly under scuffs and scrapes and Ryou becomes hopelessly obsessed with it, begging his dad with a soft, gentle voice so like his mother’s to translate what he can.

And he does, and Ryou repeats the words to himself every night before he falls asleep: O my mother Nut, spread yourself over me, so that I may be placed among the imperishable stars and may never die.

One night he hears someone repeat the words back, and never says it again.

He often distracts himself with games. Ryou loves games. There’s something about losing yourself, he thinks, that is so rewarding, and while he knows why, he doesn’t think about that. Like his relationship with his father, he knows , but chooses to stay ignorant, because it’s easier, and even though a part of his mind that sounds suspiciously like his mother tries to worm the word ‘unhealthy’ into his subconscious, he doesn’t let himself dwell on it. He doesn’t let himself dwell on her, or on Amane, or even on his father, because these people are gone and he knows this and he knows if he submits to it, if he lets these facts pull him under, he’ll drown, so he doesn’t. He has his father’s stubborn streak, he likes to think, but deep down he knows he doesn’t actually know his father well enough to know if he has a stubborn streak; it’s just a phrase he read once, in some romantic novel of his, and he knows that despite his best efforts to paint his life with a rosy swipes of pretty narratives, a splash of water would bring it all dripping down, thinned, weak, transparent.

So he avoids water at all costs and plays games instead.

RPGs entice him for these reasons, and Monster World is a particular favorite. The characters and stories fill up some empty vault inside of him, a room in which he dreams of romantic things, of devilish rogues with unadmitted morals in dashing capes, of fierce women in long, lacy dresses, of bright and timeless dragons and magic. He dreams of slaying Greek monsters and Japanese oni , of being a hero, an icon, where his little sister sits by his side with a crown on her head because Amane would have been the perfect queen, he knows it, with some handsome king at her side; he dreams of unconditional love and security, of a family that asks him how he is and presses doting kisses to his forehead, that return his letters when they fall silent on the floor; and he dreams of friends, friends that will want to play these games with him forever, friends that will fill up his lonely room of letters with sparkling laughter and love.

He dreams, and he plays Monster World, and when he’s fifteen, his friends (school acquaintances, really, but they’re nice and open and seem willing to be his friends) start falling into comas and not waking up.

Chapter Text

 

3. Dream

In which Ryou sees a familiar face in the shadows

The first time he sees him is in a dream.

Or, rather, a drug-induced nap, but, you know, semantics.

It’s his first night in Domino City, and he hoped his long day would bring him a heavy sleep, but he has no such luck. His mind is spinning with excitement, though it’s crippled by wariness. He’s met many new people today, but something about the short boy with brightly colored hair is holding his attention, and while he wants to believe it’s thrill at hearing that someone is just as passionate about games as he is, there’s a knot in his stomach and a pyramid in his head that makes him avoid dinner and a shower, instead retiring straight to his room and sitting up in his bed, thinking. When he can’t stop thinking, about the boy, his new ‘friends’ who he won’t really let close to him to avoid whatever the hell kind of curse he has on him, about his new classes, and worrying himself into an oblivion, he does what he always does to smooth the roaring waves of his mind and gets high. It’s an unfortunate habit a classmate from his last transfer had taught him, and despite the subconscious inklings of guilt, it helps him sleep, so he lets it.

The dream is long and slow, languid and easy. He remembers the world settling around him, disbelieving haze clouding his eyes until details are skewed and everything shimmers the rusty, worn gold of his Ring. His feet move endlessly, with the world turning around him like a hamster on a wheel, until he can’t feel his feet anymore and his vision stops spinning.

He doesn’t know why he keeps moving forward, just that he’s supposed to.

At the end of the -- world? Hallway? Room? Ryou isn’t sure and can’t turn his head to tell -- is a stone arch. Behind it lies a hallway of more stone, and below that, in the valley of wherever he is, suddenly Ryou can see a sprawling labyrinth. He barely casts it a glance, however, because the stone archway holds two flickering torches and one tall, human-shaped shadow.

Ryou searches his body to see if he’s supposed to be afraid, but all he finds is surging curiosity like hot coals in his abdominal cavity, glowing and pulsing as he comes closer. He still can’t feel his feet, but the dream doesn’t mind, and he isn’t sure if the entrance flew to meet him or he to it, but it doesn’t matter, because now the figure in the firelight is close enough to touch and Ryou’s insides burn to ash.

The shadow isn’t much taller than himself, though Ryou can’t really be sure (again); he just knows he has to look up to see the stranger’s face -- which is obscured by a heavy fringe of hair, but shadows seem to crawl down his face like lithe panthers, hungry and brave.

His hair is just as pale as Ryou’s, but more silver, strands catching and gleaming bright orange like a spider’s web in a sunset, gossamer and multi-faceted. His skin is just as pale as Ryou’s, but greyer, and he feels almost transparent in the dream’s utter contempt for traditional senses. And in his hands he clutches a gold ring, just like Ryou’s, but his hands are skeletally thin and white as bone and blood is dripping in between his fingers and down the spines of the Ring.

Ryou knows he has to brave those last few inches of eyesight, he has to look up and into his eyes, he has to see --

Later, when he wakes up, the high still clinging to him on the fringes of his mind, he’ll wonder if what he saw really qualified as eyes. He will also wonder what his dealer laced his weed with, and try to forget the whole thing, swearing off smoking for at least a month.

It lasts for about a week.

But it isn’t until several weeks later that the dream calls him again. This time, he feels more alert, the dreamy haze more of a sleep crust in his peripherals than blinding lights; this time, as he approaches the figure, he’s relieved to see no blood in twitching bone-white hands, but the Ring’s gone too. Immediately he feels it under his shirt like usual, yet he’s (almost) sure it hasn’t been there the whole time. As he notices it, his attention slicing through the waiting breath of the dream, it grows ice cold against chest, and the chill seeps through his paper-thin sternum like an icy poker.

Instantly he drops his gaze, scrambling to pull his shirt away from his chest. He remembers gasping, the sound thick and round in the darkness, plummeting to the ground and bursting open like a fat water balloon.

The spikes of the Ring are turned into him, and they’re piercing, pushing, intrusive, shredding his skin underneath their needlish points, ripping as easily as the paper he’s colored as. This pain is a distant thing, almost petty, centralized to a point far away from him, but he feels blood trickle across his ribs and down his abdomen. The Ring pushes deeper, as if trying to imbed itself beneath his muscle, weave into the fibers, and he feels more blood leak out in response, but there’s no red in his sight. He gapes, a pregnant breath drawn in to -- to scream, to sigh, to laugh, he doesn’t know -- but it’s stopped by a throaty chuckle that he recognizes with a cold twinge deep in his belly that could have been primal, pointed fear or raw, sticky wonder.

There, below the eyes that had so eluded him before, is a mouth curled in a smile; and if the rosebud curve of his lips is the spine of the Ring his teeth are the points; but ah, here is where his pain had disappeared to -- there’s blood flowing between them, heavy and syrupy, drooling to the floor, almost too thick to drip, and the shadow’s rosy mouth blooms splits wider, wider, into a grin cruel and hungry and inhuman and there’s nothing but those eyes and teeth sparkling like rubies --

There’s his face, his own FACE --

Ryou wakes and doesn’t go back to sleep.

Chapter Text

4. Behind the Curtain

In which Ryou receives a purpose

The fainting spells start when he’s sixteen, and his father doesn't believe him.

He attributes it to grief, to Ryou's “freakish” obsession with the Ring, to his natural fascination with the occult – but mostly to grief, choosing his words with great care to avoid saying any of the forbidden ones in this household, and leaving little room for Ryou to try and explain himself any further.

So he doesn’t, keeping the scowl off his face with extreme effort out of habit, and hangs up the phone before his father finishes his usual excuse-ridden goodbye.

His father doesn’t want to hear him, and he doesn’t want to hear his father.

The next few weeks are spent mostly on the internet -- dark, sketchy websites that look like they were built in the early 90’s, sites that promise him connections with spirits, links on how to draw summoning circles and protection spells -- but none of it’s in relation to visions and ancient Egyptian relics, so for the most part, he just stares at the Ring, curled up under his blanket, breathing out half-memorized Egyptian spells in probably offensively bad pronunciation.

He doesn’t want to believe that the Ring is evil, or even malevolent in any way, but the fear in his dreams (visions) flashes through him like bolts of electricity when he brings it too close to his heart so he keeps it away, studying, observing, waiting.

He doesn’t really know what he’s waiting for, but the jig is up, and the Ring has to do something soon. He knows now. He doesn’t know what he knows, but whatever it is, he’s sure of it, and he feels it; he’s staring down that darkened entrance to that labyrinth, and he’s ready to enter. It feels momentous, even in its simplicity: sitting, wrapped up in a duvet that still kind of smells like his mother, higher than a kite, not even wearing a shirt; still, he feels like he’s on the brink, on the cusp of greatness -- there’s something behind that curtain and it might be destiny and it might be death but either way he needs to rip off the veil, and soon, too, or he’s going to go crazy wondering --

Fine, fine! Just shut up for one bloody second!

Ryou chokes on his own spit and doubles over on his bed, coughing sporadically, beating on his chest to help his already overused and abused lungs, mind ringing with coughs and that voice --

Get a hold of yourself, kid, the voice says into his head, irritatedly, as though it’s a casual and even rude thing to be conversing with and startled by a subexist voice. For a second, though, Ryou thinks he hears a note of concern enter the voice’s sharp undertones --

Then he feels a swift solid contact on his back, wide and large, an icy needle piercing through his ribcage, like he had just been punched by a ghost.

Slowly, as his spine uncurls from his ribs, throat finally working out the knots, he’s pretty sure he just has been.

He’s slow to look up, as if at the end of his big dramatic moment he’ll have a big dramatic stanger, waiting there, and his life will suddenly be different; he won’t just be the weird creepy kid with the weird white hair in the back of the class, pouring over Wiccan scriptures between his textbooks, sending people into comas --

But there’s nothing, just throaty, unreal chuckles that are doing weird things to Ryou’s stomach. As he’s trying to rationalize the goosebumps on his chest with a casualty that screams denial, he remembers his near nakedness and hastily wraps the duvet closer on his shoulders, because even if he can’t see a presence, he can definitely feel him -- or it, he supposes -- in the ringing silence of the room, a column of cold that prickles at his ribcage like another impending coughing fit.

It seems that whatever -- whoever -- is haunting him has no real flare for drama, because there’s no big reveal on his part, no broken objects or bloody dolls, and Ryou’s  almost worried that he’s disappointed, but before he can decide burning curiosity flares up like a fire swallowing a paper airplane.

Who are you? he tries, tentatively, in his head.

Why are you trying to cover up, yadonushi? Like I don’t already know your body in and out?

The hands clutching the duvet go slack from their tense grip on its corners. Wha-- There’s a leer in the voice, and if he had a face, Ryou imagines he would be smirking. Yadonushi? Landlord? What do you mean?

Abruptly the world glows a bright gold, and there’s the strangest feeling he’s ever felt, as though his body is being sucked up into a vat by a plastic straw and it doesn’t really hurt to be so spineless, and then he’s floating, blindly, even though he can feel his eyes blinking rapidly and tears pooling in the edges as though from a sharp wind. He can’t feel his body, he realizes in a second, and in the next, he screams, a howling, pitiful sound that reminds him too much of --

It isn’t a chuckle anymore, it’s an all out laugh. Relax, yadonushi. I know it’s new for you, but it’s not so new for me, so do keep it down.

Ryou gasps for breath in whatever void he’s in, but his voice is mute now, and he feels a hazy space just above where his head should be.

I’ve been using your body for the past few weeks, but we’re going to be together for a little while, so you’d be much more useful to me cooperative.

After a second of befuddled silence as Ryou tries to understand what that means (and to pretend the ominous tone was just his imagination), a weight is lifted from his eyes and there! There’s his body, sitting...below him? It doesn’t respond when he tries to lift a hand, but he feels it all the same, like a puppet being yanked by strings. He feels thin, and turns his attention away from the physical body below him to see his feet hovering a few centimeters off the ground, and he can see the ground through his feet.

He almost wants to faint, but he’s guessing he probably can’t.

He can’t dwell on this for very long, however, because now his body -- his physical body -- is moving and he can’t feel it, it’s moving and his own head is rising to meet his technically nonexistent gaze --

But it’s not really him. His face has somehow warped, shifted into one that he’s never seen before. The eyes are sharper, narrower, framed by thick dark lashes that are a far cry from Ryou’s white ones; his nose is broader, stronger; and his lips are fuller, giving a once pale Anglo face a more exotic, Eastern tinge, and Ryou would be lying through his (technically nonexistent) teeth if he said he didn’t look more handsome that way. Still, it is his face, just contorted enough that he feels disturbed right down to his (technically nonexistent) bones. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, then those eyes catch his -- his eyes, except not at all, pure glittering black in a sea of white -- and then there’s a wicked grin on suddenly full lips and Ryou feels faint again for all the wrong reasons.

Who are you? He demands, quietly amazed that his voice can still tremble in this spirit form, and sequentially, his own thoughts.

The grin grows wider, and brilliant white canines make their debut. Ryou finds himself fascinated by the way they glisten against a pink mouth. “Don’t lie to me, kid. You’re not as stupid as you look. You know exactly who I am.” He’s right, Ryou knows, but he’s almost too distracted as he listens in blatant fascination to his own voice transformed into the deep and masculine drawl he always wanted.

You’re who’s been haunting me since I was thirteen, he says finally, drawing his eyes away from his possessed body’s mouth with embarrassing difficulty. And you’re somehow related to the Ring my father gave me.

“Bingo,” says his body, not even glancing back up at Ryou. He examines his -- their? it’s? -- nails idly with a bored look. “Surprised it took you this long.”

Took me this long to what? With some surprise Ryou finds he can physically voice his words, though he’s not sure if anyone but he and the ghost (he’s not sure what to call it, but as it’s been haunting Ryou, he decides ‘ghost’ is appropriate) can hear them.

“To meet me,” the ghost says simply, glancing at his host under long, dark lashes. Abruptly he stands up, duvet pooling to the floor in a heap of pink cotton and red memories, and crosses the room in a few long strides.

What are you doing? Ryou asks, voice laced with apprehension, but his transparent body moves along with his physical one with no effort on his part, pulled by some gossamer string like the world’s most pagan balloon.

“Nothing I haven’t done before,” the spirit replies cryptically, digging through his drawers for a shirt like he’s done it his whole life. He pulls one a simple one, a pair of jeans following not long after, and a jacket for the rain outside. His trainers are pushed on and then he’s out the door, and Ryou’s mind flurries in a panic that unknowingly spills over into the spirit’s headspace, because he growls at him to shut up as he shoves a long white mane of hair into a hood.

No! Ryou yells, as loud as he can in his insubstantial form. The spirit doesn’t slow, and isn’t getting any weird looks, so he assumes he can’t be seen or heard, and Ryou discovers the equally terrifying and awesome sensation of rain falling through him. What are you doing?! This is my body, you can’t just --

I can’t? Says the voice, back in his head, and that leer is also back, hooking into his brain like a cheshire cat’s grin. I’ve been doing it for weeks now, right under your nose. He’s taller than Ryou, and his sneakers slap the wet ground thickly, a heavy noise underlying the drizzling rain.

How? There are a million questions buzzing in Ryou’s head, but he can’t keep a hold of them, slipping through his fingers like they’re made of honey.

I’m showing you, is all the spirit says in return, and suddenly Ryou’s plunged in darkness again, and his last thought before he faints is you bastard--

When he wakes, he’s in Yuugi Mutou’s house/grandfather’s game shop, and to his utter bewilderment, Anzu Mazaki is standing in front of him, blue eyes huge and bright in a manner that is so cheerful he instantly doubts it. She’s offering something to him, an inverted pyramid looped with a worn-looking lace, and the eyeball on the front seems to blink with glossiness. A nervous glance to his left reveals Yuugi Mutou, nearly curtained by Anzu in his height. He’s smiling, but as he meets Ryou’s look, he sees apprehension shift to suspicion in violet eyes. His smile flickers a little, and Ryou thinks he sees him twitch.

You asked to see his necklace, remember? The voice slithers into his ear, and Ryou has no trouble seeing full lips trace the ghostly vowels. Take it, yadonushi.

Ryou could refuse. He could yell that he doesn’t know how he got here, that he blacked out, that he’s hearing voices. But both he and the Spirit know he won’t: it’s been a long time since Ryou had a semblance of friendship, and he’s not about to jeopardize that for anything.

So he puts an answering (suspicious, flickering) smile on his face to Anzu, mumbles a polite “thank you,” and lets her slip the pyramid into his fingers.

It’s so cool against his skin he wonders if he’s feverish. Up close, the eye shines with a wetness that makes him feel slightly sick, but he refuses to take his gaze off of it lest it move. The Ring has somehow found its way back underneath his shirt, and as Ryou’s palms move gently over the small ridges in the pyramid, (a puzzle, he realizes) it suddenly twitches against his chest.

He remembers abruptly that his Ring has the same eye (slightly suspicious that he hadn’t remembered it earlier). With the thought to show Yuugi his own golden-eyed necklace, he reaches for the cord he’s looped through it, and begins to pull it over his neck --

A piercing pain is suddenly snapping through his sternum, and he has to be dreaming, this is the dream, his dream, and he goes to cry out in pain when an invisible hand muffles the noise, and Ryou has a brief second of shock before the voice is back. Shh, kid.

Make it stop, Ryou grits out, feeling very lucky that his shaggy hair is obscuring his face, grimaced in effort to avoid screaming. He feels the blood again, but this time, he knows it’s real, feels it beginning to trickle down his ribs, slowly and smoothly, caressing each intercostal muscle, like a lover’s soft touch.

Then don’t take it off, got it? The pressure is finally relieved, after what feels like an eternity, and the points of the ring (sharp enough to break skin, but dull enough to leave bruises too) slip out of his chest, and he hears a slight whistle through the Spirit’s bony fingers as he takes a gasp of air to steady himself.

The puzzle is still clutched tightly in his grasp, fingerprints erased with the indentions of its spine, and he’s a split second too late to realize how wild his eyes must look as he jerks his gaze to Yuugi’s.

“Where did you get this?” He tries his best to sound casual, but even Anzu looks concerned, and the straining in his voice shifts Yuugi’s expression to anxious. He raises an eyebrow below golden bangs, but his eyes are still narrowed.

“My grandfather gave it to me,” he says after a second. Yuugi sounds wary, but he looks concerned, and Ryou’s already feeling utterly confused by the whole thing, so the conflicting expressions add to his growing helplessness with a rising wave of frustration. He wants answers, and he’s not going to get them from Yuugi Mutou.

So he forces a rather genuine-looking smile and hands it back to Anzu. “That’s really neat. Thanks for showing me!” The girl takes back the object, casting a bewildered glance to Yuugi, who sends a puzzled one her way. “Sorry to surprise you like this! Thanks again for letting me by.” He’s rushing through some bullshit explanation, already pulling his trainers back on, one arm in his jacket. “Well I’ll see you lot at school tomorrow, have a good night! Goodbye!” His last sight before the door slams in the wind is Yuugi’s tilted head, rather like a perplexed puppy, but the fingers curled possessively around the sharp lines of the pyramid are anything but innocent.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, not bothering to pull up his jacket hood. Why did you take me here? he demands, wincing as the wind sticks and lifts his shirt to his bleeding chest. Why did you -- the Ring -- stab me? Why did you show me Yuugi’s necklace? How can any of this --

Suddenly, Ryou’s brought to a sharp halt as the Spirit materializes in front of him, transparent and ghostly, just as Ryou had been when he’d lost control of his body. The rain is pounding down harder now, and Ryou is dripping wet, the long curves of his hair plastered to his head, water sticking to his eyelashes in a desperate plea before the plunge. He can barely see the smoky figure before him, and he’s not sure if the strobing opacity of the Spirit is caused by him or the beads of rain on his peripherals as he squints, but he doesn’t care in his desperation. He wants answers, he wants an explanation, and most of all, he wants to go home.

I will answer all your questions, yadonushi, the spirit says out loud, and his voice weaves through the downpour like needles, physical and tangible and yet impossibly thin. He hears it with his mind and his ears, and a part of him wants to scream, but the Spirit smiles at him, and his brain sort of fizzles, because this is just too bizarre. His dad’s right, he’s lost it, he’s looney --

I always pay my rent one way or another. The smile from the ghost isn’t anywhere near as cruel as before, biting and sharp, and while it’s small and still tilted with a tinge of a smirk, Ryou feels (feels, somehow, through his head) a genuineness that soothes the fleeting tides of panic. He’s not sure how, because the Spirit’s tone is still sarcastic, but he feels comforted regardless. Well, not comforted, but a little less terrified.

He doesn’t know if he can shield these thoughts from the Spirit or not, but he hopes so fervently, because he’s still struck into stillness from his sudden appearance. Regardless, the ghost continues. That, yadonushi, was the Millennium Puzzle, and you’re going to help me get it.

Did he say ‘a little less terrified’? He meant ‘a lot more terrified.’

Chapter Text

5. Landlord

In which Ryou begins to learn about them both

In all honesty, Ryou finds himself not as disturbed by the Spirit as much as he probably should be.

There’s a lingering comfort in his presence, in the constant cushion of him on the edges of his mind. The first few weeks have been strange, of course, with Ryou taking extra care to undress behind a towel before his showers (occasionally with a teasing noise in his ear), but he’s slowly grown comfortable with the dim whisper that is the Spirit’s being in the distance of his conscious, far enough away that he can’t pick out any distinct words unless the Spirit chooses to share them. He doesn’t ask, because while the Spirit seems quiet, Ryou’s chest still stings under hot water.

Yet for the most part, once Ryou gets the hang of how communication between them works, the Spirit keeps to himself, disappearing and reappearing at will, apparently taking pleasure in leaving Ryou to wonder when he’ll next appear. The change in the air is subtle when he does, but Ryou never fails to notice it; it’s as if a string from his mind to his nerves is pulled taut when the Spirit manifests from his soul room, a fleeting scent of rain in his nose, a thick, cloudy air that somehow feels both cold and empty, like touching a finger to a black hole to test the temperature. It became bit of a game, much to Ryou’s surprise, and he would turn a corner to find his ghostly roommate leaning against it, nose to nose, chest to chest, and at first Ryou would startle, flushed, and the Spirit would laugh, skimming a transparent finger along the curve of his cheek until he grew bored of Ryou’s fright and vanish with a taunt. But slowly, as Ryou grew more and more familiar to the feeling of the Other on his soul, or at his back, his fear bloomed into curiosity, and he began to look forward to when the Spirit choose to appear, and even more so when he actually spoke.

And so the game begins.

It’s a typical Tuesday night, and Ryou’s rolled into a ball on his sofa, staring intently at the ghost-hunting show he’s been marathoning. With his own personal ghost not giving much away in terms of answers, he’d turned to tv in hopes of anything, really, but when that fell through, he started watching the obviously scripted shows for fun. Per usual, he has the temperature turned low, the ceiling fan on high, and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He often falls asleep here, homework spread on the coffee table before him, maybe littered with crumbs or stains but always flawless. It’s always right, it has to be, because his father expects that from him, and it’s the least he can do to try and make him proud. In fact, it’s all he really has.

Well, that, and his Spirit friend.

The lazy orchestral sound effect is swelling from the show as the “investigators” review their shaky-cam footage, and right at the climax (an “unexplained figure phenomenon” walking across the screen), the violins chirping and flutes trilling, the cast exclaiming in terror, an actual ghost emerges from the tv a la Poltergeist, and Ryou merely yawns.

Though friend is a relative term , Ryou thinks (careful to keep the thought within his own mind). He watches as the Spirit gathers visibility, filling out a long transparent form, face materializing with a hint of dissatisfaction on his features as Ryou stares through him at the show. But under the blanket, Ryou’s heart is hammering, the still-glossy-pink circles on his chest throbbing as he observes the ghost in his peripherals, fighting to keep his breath steady. He wants to catch him off-guard, maybe finally force some answers out of him instead of snarky quips in deflection, or, at the least, just one actual conversation.

The Spirit still flickers when he appears, but in the dimness of the room lit only by bright blue-white light static from the tv, it isn’t too noticeable. He takes a second to cock his head at Ryou, then disappears, leaving the boy with a swell of disappointment that floods over their link into the Spirit’s head. There’s a grumble, and for a second Ryou thinks he’ll reappear, but as the show goes to commercial what he gets is a whisper in his ear and the scent of rain.

It’s difficult, the Spirit says, voice even, if a little reluctant, and Ryou startles at hearing him at all. The last time they’d spoke had been nearly a week ago, and he’d nearly forgotten how normal the ghost sounded. He’s afraid to answer, afraid to break the spell of the Spirit’s aura, for lack of a better term, but he does anyway, because his curiosity is burning him from the inside out.

“To manifest?” Ryou asks, wrestling away the vestiges of earnestness in his tone. He thinks he succeeds, but there’s that knowing smugness in their shared headspace before the Spirit replies.

Yes. My power isn’t what it used to be. He sounds solemn, and Ryou sits up on the couch, muting the long-forgotten show with impatience. This is the closest he’s been yet to actual answers.

“Why?”

Slight exasperation, but it doesn’t seem directed at him. I don’t know. I’m working on it. The momentary lapse in superiority is immediately glossed over, and Ryou feels a surge of endearment? No, maybe sympathy toward him, much to his surprise (and worry). He carefully stashes that feeling away, shielding it from their link.

“Why are you here?” His heart is pounding, burning with anticipation, and his patience is rewarded.

I told you, yadonushi. I want the Millennium Puzzle.

Ryou gives an exasperated sigh of his own. He feels their link color with a kind of vain humor, and not for the first time, he’s astonished by how easily he can pick out emotions from their complex crossroads. “I remember. I want to know why you want it.”

There are events that were set in motion thousands of years before you were born, host, the Spirit says, and his voice sounds even, sure, just as contemptuous as Ryou recognizes from his daydreams but something about the answer feels empty. It’s not just the ambiguity that bothers him, but something more, like when his novels have a cop-out ending that leaves him dissatisfied; not because of the lackluster quality, but rather because it offends him on a personal level that they would be cheap enough to try to pull a fast one on him. (Sometimes he even realizes he’s being narcissistic as all hell but he thinks he justifies it well enough.)

A brief breath of clarity reminds him that maybe he should be careful in his thoughts, try to keep these feelings from the Spirit, but his sense of entitlement wins out and he presses the feeling through their link.

His luck has to be running out soon, because the Spirit elaborates with only minimal grumbling.  I am a result of those events, just like the Puzzle, the Ring, and you and your little friend who pretend to own them. It’s been a long time in the Ring. Even I can’t remember every day from the last three thousand years.

“You were trapped in the Ring for three thousand years?” Ryou blurts, and for the first time, he feels a real impatience flare up from the Spirit, who displays his displeasure by suddenly appearing over by the window, back turned to his host. He has an ill-tempered set to his shoulders, arms crossed, and Ryou feels meek and a little afraid as he stares at the night sky through him. The ghost is still taller than him, the added inches making him skeletal, and in the dim light of the waning moon and the flickering greens and greys of the tv he’s barely there, a forgotten ghost with a forgotten past.

For the most part, he snarls, and Ryou submits with a quiet noise. The Spirit seems to untense for a moment, but he doesn’t turn around as he continues, I tried a few different hosts, but believe me, they weren't up to my standards. Ryou shrinks a little at the sardonic remark, but can't help but wonder what makes him different. He almost asks but bites his tongue, because the Spirit’s still a little bristled and he's not a complete idiot.

The Spirit must have sensed that, because his long arms fall to his sides with a huff. My memories have become a mystery to me. I have brief flashes of things that must have happened, but they're jumbled, out of sequence.

He turns around, and there’s no hint of vulnerability in his eyes, no trace of sadness or confusion. His dark, dark eyes are cold as they come, hard, flawless, practically blood diamonds in their inhumanity. Ryou lowers his gaze as he searches their link for anything, but there’s nothing, not even the raw ferocity he’d felt as he’d first held the Millennium Puzzle.

But it doesn't matter. The ghost waits for Ryou to meet his gaze again, and the host prides himself for holding it evenly enough. I don't need them. I know I need the Millennium Puzzle, and that is enough to sustain me.

“But you don’t know why you need it?” Ryou blinks a few times to ready himself for the intensity of his stare, but to his surprise, it doesn’t come.

The Spirit is faltering, not in tone or expression but in the vulnerability of their minds, and Ryou sees a crack in the marble -- his face never betrays him, his eyes are shards of obsidian, his body is a Renaissance statue; and Ryou meets his eyes, and they both see it, they both feel it -- Ryou could latch onto this like a leech, a dagger finding the chink in the armor, sucking and stabbing until it’s dry and dead, but then --

But then it would be over.

Ryou feels it within him, the everlasting wave of fantasy that threatens to overtake him with each passing day, to swallow him under and feed his body to the fishes. He feels it swelling, his grip on reality only tangible under his nails like splinters, and part of him begs to be released into the current, where he can float on, because it’s so exhausting to swim against the tides, and, really, what would the harm in getting some rest be?

To claim his advantage would acknowledge the reality of it, and he’s too tired for that. So, so tired.

I have a plan, yadonushi, comes that voice, and when did he get so close? Trust in me, and I swear to protect you. There’s a pressure on his shoulder, some sort of mockery of a supportive friend, and Ryou drags his gaze to the three thousand year old spirit at his side and realizes he believes him. Help me, and I won’t let any harm come to you.

The Spirit is pulling on his mind, and his vision is suspended, and there’s a smile on his lips but he’s not sure whose lips they are --

He lets the waves break over him, and surrenders to the arms of the ocean.