Chapter Text
Bakura sighs when he sees the guards outside the mortuary. It won’t stop him or his kagune but it’s an extra step and he just wants to go home so he can finish painting. His friends are coming over tomorrow for a game and he promised Yuugi he’d redo his figure after Jounouchi sat on it.
Also this means that people are aware of him so he’s going to have to move his feeding ground to a further district. But he hadn’t wanted to make the trek tonight. It was sloppy and lazy of him, really. Bakura has already stolen a corpse from this particular mortuary.
He slips his mask on, making sure it’s on tight, then speeds forward before either of them realize what’s going on. A blow from his kagune knocks them both down, and he slams the door shut behind him, locking them out of the building. Bakura doesn’t intend to kill them and it takes more effort to immobilize them but this is the life he’s chosen.
There’s a woman in the room, keeping the corpse company, and she screams at seeing his kagune and kakugan. Bakura lets it flare out a little larger and she starts begging for her life. He can’t stop his mind from thinking about how she’s related to the deceased but he fights the thought.
The corpse is lying there ready for Bakura. He swallows his guilt at seeing it dressed from the wake, the white kimono always inspiring a deep gnawing sensation completely unrelated to when he’s last eaten. Bakura rips an arm off and bites into it, quickly chewing so he can sate the worst of his hunger. He hasn’t been starved in years but he stretches his feeding times thin.
After a few bites Bakura turns to ripping the body apart as quickly as possible. The guards won’t stay down for long but Bakura only needs a few seconds to pry the limbs off. The woman is pleading now for him to leave the corpse alone but Bakura ignores her.
He’s busy with work and friends. For a ghoul he has a relatively active social life masquerading as a human. He can make plenty of plausible excuses but he’d rather be with his friends than creeping around homes in the middle of the night.
As it is he’s going to be exhausted at work tomorrow and though he’s only a cashier at the local Burger World it’s still something he has to get out of bed for. In truth he’s thankful for the job since his paperwork is sketchy at best. Anzu had recommended him though she quit a few weeks later. Bakura didn’t have an issue with customers pawing at him and he’s gotten really good at fake eating the french fries.
His friends insist he can do better and that it’s a temporary job but Bakura just shrugs at them. He can’t attend university like they can but he can’t exactly explain that’s because he’s part ghoul. It’s easier to cite money and let them keep trying to encourage him. Bakura shakes his head; his friends are the best but they don’t ever need to know what Bakura truly is.
The limbs go into his lined freezer bag which then gets shoved into a duffel bag. Bakura doesn’t look like he works out but no one questions him. At least no one has stopped to interrogate him yet. He looks at the woman who is sobbing now and the door slams open as the guards manage to unlock it.
“I’m sorry,” Bakura murmurs.
He meets the guards head-on, dodging the useless bullets and striking them once more to the ground with his kagune so he can make his escape, well aware that the police and CCG will be here soon enough. If he’s truly unlucky then the doves will already be in the area and he’ll probably die tonight.
His trip back home is uneventful and he throws himself onto his couch for a few minutes to relax even as he knows he’ll have to clean up before his friends come over tomorrow. It’s only because he’s half ghoul that he even has the necessary strength and speed. But meat will only keep for so long and he forces himself to get up so he can properly store his meal.
The best part of the body is the middle but Bakura causes enough harm by stealing body parts. And this is more than enough to feed him for a while.
Four episodes of TwinBee later, Bakura shuts his CD player off and takes a notepad with him to what he likes to refer to as his quiet corner and what Honda calls his sad spot. His mother and sister had been killed by the CCG long ago. He doesn’t know the exact date since he’d run for days, trying to keep ahead of CCG agents. Bakura sits in front of their photo and lingers over the letter to his sister. Amane had never grown old enough to truly understand their world. Though Bakura is not sure that he comprehends it at times either. But he lives, and they are dead, and so it goes.
Bakura seals up the letter then lights a match and burns it. The ashes are thrown into the trash once they are done smouldering. No one taught him to write and burn letters but for Bakura it feels right. Amane is dead and gone from him. He has no family. His father left once he realized what he had married and while Bakura isn’t certain that he’s the reason his mother and sister are dead, he wouldn’t be surprised otherwise. Harboring a ghoul is treason and he can’t even imagine the penalty for falling in love with one, let alone bearing half breed children.
Bakura gets up before his thoughts can turn towards what-ifs. Honda is going to join their next tabletop game and Ryou is absolutely committed to making it the best one yet. Yuugi has already gone through his next campaign, adding in notes and suggestions, but Bakura’s only skimmed the edits.
He turns the radio on this time to drown out the silence in the empty apartment and sets out all his notes on the floor. Honda has never joined them before but Jounouchi and Anzu finally have convinced him to try a round. They’re only going to have one chance to draw him into the game and Yuugi is just as determined as he is to keep Honda interested.
He spends far too much time writing and consulting his rule books and in the end only gets around three hours of sleep before he has to head to work. Bakura yawns his way out of his apartment and runs into someone just outside his door.
“Sorry,” Bakura mumbles, then stops as he realizes he has just encountered a ghoul. But the stranger being a ghoul isn’t the most shocking part once Bakura gets a proper look at him.
Bakura had a sister. He has never had a brother. But this ghoul looks so much like him and Bakura can’t tear his eyes away, even as the ghoul’s kagune flares out and slams him back into the door. It’s forceful enough that the unlocked door swings backwards, hinges flying off, and Bakura is pushed into his apartment and up against the wall. That eerily similar face closes in and presses right up to his.
“You’re Bakura Ryou,” the ghoul says and he doesn’t ask.
“Y-yes,” Bakura says, out of breath and pained. The pressure around his waist and chest lessens fractionally so he can speak clearly. “I don’t know you.”
“I didn’t even know you existed so that doesn’t surprise me,” the ghoul says. “You can call me Bakura. I’ll call you Ryou.”
Ryou doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t think I like you,” the ghoul called Bakura says. “You seem weak.”
“Then let me go,” Ryou says and Bakura laughs. His face is too close to Ryou’s but he has no way to escape and even leaning back as far as he can only gives him another centimeter of distance.
“You don’t seem curious about me.”
“I need to get to work. I don’t have time to be curious,” Ryou says.
Bakura’s grin vanishes. His kagune tightens and Ryou can’t help a harsh cough as his throat is squeezed. Bakura presses his face right up to Ryou, his breath reeking of human blood. In a perverse way Ryou is glad he recently fed because otherwise the smell would be enough to rile his hunger.
“You go to ‘work’. You have ‘friends’. You aren’t a ghoul, you’re a bastard of a traitor to your own race, and I’m not done talking to you yet.” Bakura lets go of him, retracting his kagune, and Ryou’s hand flies to his throat to massage it. He’s going to have bruises all over and people are definitely going to ask questions. Ryou eyes Bakura’s kagune and his unmistakable ghoul eyes burning in rage.
“There are plenty of ghouls who have jobs,” Ryou says though he hasn’t met that many other ghouls. HIs mother had kept him away from other people since neither ghouls nor humans would look kindly upon a human-ghoul hybrid. Ryou glances at the door but no one has noticed the disturbance.
“And they’re stupid but they all die eventually. Someone reports them to the CCG and then that’s the end of it. I don’t have to lift a finger to help that process,” Bakura says. “Ask me something.”
“What?” Ryou blinks at him.
“Ask me why we look alike, why we share a family name. It’s written all over your face. Go on.”
Ryou looks at him carefully but doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Bakura does look like him but he’s all ghoul. There’s an obvious answer but Ryou doesn’t care about this stranger who has appeared from nowhere.
“I have to go-” Ryou tries to say but before he can take more than a step Bakura throws him down to the ground, pinning him and snarling a laugh in his face. Ryou doesn’t cry out as he hits the floor but it’s a near thing.
“I’m not done with you, little brother,” Bakura says and Ryou shuts his eyes because he does not want to hear this. He’s not surprised when Bakura hit him across the face. “Look at me.”
Ryou glares at Bakura. He has to actively keep his kakugan from manifesting; Ryou doesn’t fight other ghouls and he’s weak. Bakura seems to use his kagune without hesitation and as if it’s a third limb. He has the experience and practice that Ryou lacks.
“I heard our mother fell in love with a human and I had to see for myself if it was true,” Bakura says. He smirks a little and his fingertips brush Ryou’s cheek. “She deserved to die then, that fool.”
“Shut up,” Ryou says, shivering in disgust at Bakura’s touch and he fights his kakugan back. Bakura is goading him but he’s not going to sit back and listen to him insult his family. “You don’t know anything about-”
“Our mother did me one favor and left me with actual ghouls before running off to play human.” Bakura isn’t smiling. “I rather think you’re the one who doesn’t know anything. You didn’t even recognize the scent of a ghoul on your doorstep. You’re worse than an infant, you filthy half human.”
“Then leave. If I disgust you so much then go away. I like my life, all things considered. I don’t need you.” Ryou doesn’t struggle against Bakura and he stares into his dark eyes. The last time he saw a kakugan activated it was his mother’s as she told him to run. Bakura doesn’t have their mother’s eyes though and Ryou counts that as a blessing; he wouldn’t be able to bear his cruel look if that were the case.
“Oh but you do,” Bakura murmurs. “You don’t even know how wrong this is for you. How do you get your food, little brother? I doubt you kill people. No, I can see that our dearly departed mother has ruined you, and I’ll do the right thing for my family. You’ll learn how to live like a real ghoul ought to.”
Ryou is about to protest again when Bakura’s kagune pierces through his shoulder. Instead he screams in pain, especially as Bakura begins to dig past his bones and insides so his kagune goes all the way through and gouges the floor. Bakura pulls his kagune out but stays on top of Ryou as he thrashes around.
Ryou’s kagune shoots out as he tries to defend himself but even though they’re so close Bakura still reacts in time to pin his limb to the ground. All Ryou can do is endure as he bleeds. When he finally stops spasming, Bakura gets up, and hauls Ryou to his feet. He throws Ryou over his shoulder and although that causes another wave of bright agony, Ryou has no energy left to fight.
“Let’s go see the world you were robbed of,” Bakura says in a cheerful tone and that hateful voice is the last thing Ryou hears before his vision is overcome by blinding white light and he passes out.