Rien de Rien- Angstshipping
Title: Rien de Rien
Summary: A chance meeting in a Paris café, quiet chats in winding streets...it's the stuff romances are made of. But Ryou has freedom, and Malik has purpose and sacrifices must be made along the way. Post-canon, Angstshipping, for contest.
Rating: T
A/N: Please note that every second scene is a flashback (They're marked with the time at which they occurred, so hopefully it's not too confusing). Also, just to be clear, Ryou speaks Japanese and English (limited French). Malik speaks Japanese, English, and is more fluent in French.
==o==
Restaurant Perraudin is a popular hangout for Parisian students and backpackers alike. Located at the heart of Paris's Latin Quarter, a hungry but frugal tourist can get his fill of a hearty meal and the ambiance of a French café without emptying his wallet.
~
The tablecloths were checkered, the chairs were wicker, the day's specials were written in chalk on a free-standing blackboard, and Ryou Bakura was hungry.
He was sitting at one of the outdoor tables at Restaurant Perraudin, watching the Parisian pedestrians pass by. Well-dressed elderly couples walked hand in hand next to students from the Sorbonne, clutching book-bags in one hand and cigarettes in the other. Small dogs yapped at the end of their leashes, and tourists of all stripes took in the sights and sounds of Paris's Latin Quarter.
Ryou found this all very interesting, although not quite as interesting as the plate full of éclairs he was about to tuck into.
A cream puff by any other name still tasted as sweet.
He plucked the first one off the plate, savoring the moist, buttery feel in his fingers. He raised it to his lips and was about to bite into it, when suddenly-
"Ryou?"
How odd, he thought, biting into his éclair; for a second there, he'd thought he'd heard his name. And with appropriate Japanese pronunciation, too. It had been a while since-
"Bakura Ryou?"
OK, that was definitely Japanese. He whirled around, looking for the source of the voice. Who could possibly know his name here? Had he dropped his wallet or something? Not from one of the other tables...not one of the waiters...
From the passing throng of pedestrians, halfway between a German tourist and a tiny daschund, Malik Ishtar stepped out of the crowd.
Ryou dropped his éclair.
Dressed all in black, with his hair tied back in a ponytail and a bag slung over one arm, Malik could easily have been mistaken for a foreign student studying at the Sorbonne, had Ryou not known him. But Ryou did know him. And he knew Ryou. And now he was stepping up onto the curb, making his way into the café's outdoor patio. He put a hand on Ryou's table, and pulled up an empty chair.
"It's nice to see you here," Malik said smoothly. "What brings you to France?"
Ryou just tried not to gape.
Taking advantage of Ryou's temporary speechlessness, Malik plucked an éclair off Ryou's plate and popped it into his mouth. In the time it took Malik to finish his stolen pastry, Ryou found his voice again.
"I'm...backpacking around Europe," Ryou said hesitantly.
"Shouldn't you be at university by now?" Malik's tone was oddly relaxed and conversational for someone who'd just run into an acquaintance from a country six thousand miles away, in a foreign city of several million people.
"I'm taking a year off," Ryou said. Still, it was a relief to be able to speak Japanese again; he'd mostly been getting by on the English he'd learned at high school, which, while good, hadn't prepared him at all for French, German, and Spanish accents. The very slight Arabic accent to Malik's Japanese was practically a relief, by comparison.
"Oh?" Malik poked at another éclair, pushing it absently toward Ryou. "You seem like the studious type. Why the sudden need for a break?"
"Y-yeah..." Ryou started; this was getting awfully intrusive awfully quickly, but there wasn't really a polite way to tell Malik that. "After...everything that happened last year...with the Spirit...you know. Now that he's gone, I wanted to sort of...make the most of my freedom. I-I sort of have a lot of bad memories back in Domino, and I wanted to leave them behind for a while. See the world." He laughed lightly at himself, and blushed, such a serious declaration in response to a simple question about his vacation. But when he looked up, Malik's smile was not at all mocking.
H-he had kind of a nice smile, actually.
Ryou fidgeted a little and picked up another éclair, just to occupy his hands while he waited for Malik to respond.
"Well, I wish I could say I was making a trip here for the same reasons," Malik said. "Sounds fun. But I'm here on business."
Business? That sounded...interesting. But before Ryou could work up the nerve to ask, Malik was speaking again.
"But it just so happens that I've given myself the day off, and I was looking for someone to share it with. Got any plans for the afternoon?"
"I...I was going to see the catacombs," Ryou said, still marveling at how utterly unsurprised Malik seemed about the incredibly unlikely coincidence of meeting each other here. "I-it's a bit of a walk from here, though, haha..." He trailed off, not sure how he felt about Malik inviting himself along...especially-he looked back up at Malik's face-now that he was no longer smiling.
The silence was filled with the chatter of the cafe and the bustle of pedestrians going past.
"I'll come along to the catacombs," Malik said at length. The bright smoothness in his voice had abruptly vanished. "I've never been."
==o==
6 months ago: Egypt, on the yacht to the Ceremonial Duel
The boat rocked just slightly beneath Ryou as he ate in the kitchen below deck. The waves were soothingly gentle despite the yacht's speed, the surface of his water glass just barely rippling with the motor's vibration. The effect would have been calming, uplifting, Ryou supposed, if it were physically possible to uplift his mood any further.
The Spirit was dead. Ryou was free. At this point, not even a spontaneous tidal wave crashing into the boat could wash the smile off his face.
He grinned even more at this thought, and twirled another fork-full of pasta. The slap of the waves on the hull, the clink of his fork on the china, and the distant cries of the seabirds on the Nile all sang, "Free, free, free!"
He couldn't remember ever having felt this...happy.
Abruptly, there was a creak on the staircase to his left, and he turned towards it. Slowly, tentatively, Malik Ishtar was descending the stairs.
Ryou's smile cracked just a hairbreadth as Malik stepped off the bottom stair and made his way across the floor to the table.
"H-hey," Malik said softly.
"Hey," Ryou replied. He turned his sunny smile toward Malik, whose eyes flicked up to meet it, then hurriedly dropped back down again. "You're Malik Ishtar," Ryou prompted.
"I-I am." Malik replied. "That's right; we've never been properly introduced, have we..." He faltered, eyes flitting from dish to dish, but then seemed to fight through his indecision.
"You seem...happy?" Malik said at length.
"I am," said Ryou. "God I am."
Malik finally looked up, meeting Ryou's gaze. In Malik's eyes, there was so much regret that Ryou could almost drown in it.
"Are you alright?" Ryou asked.
There was a long awkward silence, filled only the waves outside and the creak of the ceiling as Ryou's friends moved around above-deck.
And then, Malik started to laugh. And laugh. And it was hollow and bitter and mirthless and broken, and then, abruptly, it stopped.
"I'm sorry," Malik said. "It's just so ironic. You asking if I'm alright."
"Y-you're not," Ryou began, uncomfortable with his own forwardness but continuing nonetheless. He had a knack for understanding people, and just sometimes, it could be put to good use. "You...you hate yourself."
"Very perceptive. There's a reason for that." Malik exhaled slowly. "God, I'm so stupid. I came down here thinking I could apologize for what I did to you. That you would just forgive me, forgive me for-"
"I forgive you."
Malik's head shot up like he'd been punched in the chin. His eyes were wide, and he was speechless.
"Yuugi told me what you did, Malik. From the gang of counterfeiters, to the army of mind-slaves, to using my body in your quest to kill the Pharaoh. And maybe before, I would've been angry about that. Hated you, even, for what you did to the people around you. To my friends. To me. But something happened today."
Malik blinked at him. Ryou went on.
"The Spirit is gone. That means I'm free. That means I can move on with my life. And that's what I'm going to do-move on from the past and start fresh." He drew in a breath. "So I forgive you for what you did. I'm leaving the past behind, moving forward with a clean slate, and I suggest you do the same." He smiled up at Malik. And fleetingly, Malik smiled back at him.
And just then, Ryou was simply flooded with a feeling of unfettered joy, hope for his own freedom, hope for Malik's, the feeling of limitless potential and possibility and opportunity just ready to be seized. The feeling was so sudden and so intense that it was almost frightening. Little by little, though, it subsided, and Malik sat down across from him, folding his arms on the table.
"You're free too, Malik," Ryou said softly. He reached across the table and put his hand over Malik's. Malik didn't pull away.
"Almost," said Malik. He squeezed Ryou's hand then withdrew his own, looking away, contemplative. "When that hole in the ground is sealed forever...when the last tombkeeper comes up into the sunlight...then I'll be free. Then I'll have repented." He paused, and repeated, "Then I'll be free."
He stood.
"Goodnight Ryou," he said, the tremor suddenly gone from his voice. "Enjoy your meal." He turned and departed up the stairs, leaving as abruptly as he'd come.
At the time, Ryou had though that he'd never speak to Malik again.
==o==
The Catacombs of Paris are an underground ossuary, a huge repository for human skeletal remains. If you can handle 130 steep, winding steps, you'll find yourself amidst the disarticulated skeletons of six million Parisians. With piles of skulls to your right and towers of femurs to your left, this cramped limestone graveyard is rich in history, but not for claustrophobic, nor the faint of heart.
~
Malik grabbed hold of Ryou's hand as they descended the precarious spiral staircase that led down to the catacombs. It was a logical move, Ryou told himself- they didn't want to get separated amongst the crowd of other tourists packed into the tight space, and the stairs were a bit harrowing. It didn't quite explain why Malik's fingers, interlaced with his own, lingered for a full minute after they'd stepped down onto the limestone floor, but they were soon drawn away, and Ryou was able to concentrate on the vague skeletal outlines that gradually became clearer as his eyes accommodated to the darkness.
The first thing he noticed was how orderly the bones were, packed into stratified rows: a layer of femurs, a row of skulls, individual vertebrae lined up horizontally beneath them. It was almost artistic, in a macabre way. It was unequivocally fascinating.
At the front of their tour group, a guide was speaking English, giving the history of the structure, but Ryou found the information only mildly interesting. He preferred to imagine the history of the people themselves, the seven hundred years of death, the six million souls enmeshed within these walls of bones, the feeling of the graveyard. Once each skull had borne a face, a name, a life. Now they were all but identical, regimented rows blending in with their neighbors, preserved but...forgotten.
He thought of what it might take to remember a person beyond their death, and their children's deaths, and their children's children's. A thousand year legacy.
He looked at Malik.
Malik's eyes were fixed on something above them, lips pursed into a thin line.
"Are you okay with this?" Ryou whispered.
"I'm fine," Malik whispered back, hurriedly. "Just trying to read..." He gestured up at a carving in the wall.
"You can read French?"
"Yeah. Handy in North Africa and all," Malik said, not looking away from the carving. He squinted. "There's a sentence written there. Believe..." he translated, haltingly, and squinted harder. "Believe that each day is, for you, the last. Well that's an appalling philosophy." He laughed lightly, and grabbed Ryou's hand again, pulling him along to catch up with the advancing tour group.
"You think so?" Ryou asked, trying to take in the contours of each bone pile as they power-walked past.
"Of course. What room is there for goals if you'll die tomorrow? How can your life ever have a purpose if you live each day like it's your last?"
"On the other hand," Ryou said, smiling; he loved debates like these. He was surprised and how easy talking to Malik was becoming; the shyness he'd felt at the cafe was now almost completely gone. "What purpose is there in purpose if you die with your goals unfulfilled?" He went on, almost dreamily, eyes lost amidst the stacks of bones. "After all, one day we'll all be piles of bones, the same as these. Why not make happiness itself the goal, so that if today is your last day, it'll be a happy one?"
Malik paused, staring at a grinning skull.
"Happiness is always the ultimate goal," he murmured eventually. "But it's not always attainable in a day. There are...things...sacrifices...regrets...and you have to overcome them along the way."
Ryou remembered the night before the ceremonial duel, the murmured conversation below deck, and the depth of the guilt in Malik's eyes.
"You don't think that devoting your entire being to a single goal can...I don't know...cloud your judgment in other areas?" Ryou asked gently.
"No. Well...yes. But-" Malik cut himself off, and seemed to be directing all of his attention at a strata of vertebrae.
"Care to...elaborate?" Ryou asked at length. They were hanging far to the back of the tour group now, a murmured conversation amidst the skeletons.
"It...depends on the goal," Malik began, faltering a bit in the struggle to condense his life's philosophy into a few short sentences. "Obviously, you should do your utmost not to do lasting harm on your way. But if your purpose is rooted in justice, and serves the greater good...The goal is of most importance. If moral missteps can be corrected...the ends justify the means."
Malik looked behind them, back in the direction of the carving. "Although I suppose if I were to die today, at the very least, I'd be working toward something that matters more than anything else."
"And what's..." Ryou began, hesitantly. He was surprised that Malik was divulging to Ryou such personal information as his private philosophy, and even more surprised that-he looked down-their hands were still intertwined. "What's that?"
"My people," Malik said simply.
"Rishid and Ishizu?"
"No, no...there are other tombkeepers. A hundred and fifty of them."
Ryou started; he hadn't known that before, although he supposed it made sense. A picture of Malik's life for the past six months started to form in Ryou's mind.
"Is that why this..."- he gestured at the skulls surrounding them- "doesn't bother you?"
"Yeah. I've had to go back underground since I saw you last, Ryou. The tombkeepers have been a close-knit society for 3000 years, and they have no desire to give that up upon moving above-ground. Given that next-door housing for 150 people has proved impossible to find, the only option that remains is to build it myself," he said. "Ourselves," he corrected, but didn't exactly sound sincere.
"Is that why you're in France? Something you need for the tombkeepers?" Ryou asked, and immediately blushed at his own forwardness.
"Something like that," Malik replied.
Ryou didn't press the issue. The tour was ending anyway. He simply allowed himself to be pulled back up the stairs, back into the sunlight, by their still-interlocked hands.
==o==
One year ago: Domino City, the day after the Battle City finals
Malik leapt off his motorcycle and broke into a run, down the winding alleyways almost too narrow to navigate, towards the back-entrance of the magic shop. It was the shop where he'd tried to trap and kill the pharaoh, saw him in half like a macabre magician's trick, at the hands of his own mind-controlled magician, Pandora. And now it was Pandora he'd killed.
The magician had considered suicide twice before: once when his mother had died, and then again a year later, when his lover had followed her. And Malik, in his murderous rage at his servant's failure, had pushed those memories to the forefront of his mind.
Pandora had probably killed himself by now, anyway.
Still, Malik ran.
He and his siblings hadn't even been sailing for ten minutes when Malik demanded they turn the boat around, away from Egypt, and sail back to Domino harbor. From there, he sped off without a word, leaving his flabbergasted siblings behind. Well. He could explain later.
He already had his father's life on his hands. He wouldn't have another.
Malik skidded to a halt on the front step of the shop, and wrenched the door open.
Silence.
Malik cursed, and tore past the bare shelves, barely able to see where he was going as ran past them in the dark room. He sprinted down the staircase to the trap-room, the basement below.
It was pitch black, except for the glint of an extinguished light-bulb in the center of the room. Slowly, cautiously...fearfully, if he were completely honest, he edged towards it. The idea that at any point he might brush run into the knees of a body suspended from a noose, or slip in a pool of blood, or trip over a corpse, a body he'd killed in the stupid blindness of his revenge...was almost more than he could bear.
Suddenly something glinted next to his foot, a shimmer; he looked down towards it but bent too far, his foot was on the edge of a shallow precipice he hadn't seen; it shifted beneath him; he tried to catch himself, but it was too late, he was falling-
Malik screamed as the saw blade sliced into his calf.
He moaned and winced, pressing a hand to it to stop the slow ooze of blood down his ankle. It was a shallow cut, but uneven and messy; it would need stitches...but not yet.
He still needed to find out if there was another murder to his name.
Slowly, agonizingly, he forced himself to stand, trying as best he could to ignore the slow, steady drip of blood down his ankle, and walked to the center of the room. To the light bulb. Putting his weight on his one good leg, he reached as high as he could and screwed it in.
Light glinted off the saw-blades and filled the room. And huddled in the corner, next to the same blade on which Malik had fallen, was a shaking form. Pandora.
Shaking, but alive.
Malik was never certain if it was the pain in his leg, or the sheer relief, that made him collapse to the floor then. Pandora was alive. Motionless, but alive. He likely hadn't had anything to eat or drink since Malik had left him here, more than a day before...but he was alive.
And Malik didn't have another murder to his name.
Pandora looked up at Malik. His eyes were hollow and red-rimmed and empty, not fearful, nor sad, nor lost, just...flat. Dead. And Malik realized that for all intents and purposes, he might have killed him after all.
And then...
The feeling of connection, like a wire from mind to mind, and transmitted through, feelings of despair so intense they were almost tangible, almost a physical thing, almost something Malik could grab hold of in his hand...grab...and twist...
"Forget them," Malik heard his own voice say, low and guttural and pained, from his position crouched on the floor. "Move on. Live your life. Forget them. Don't kill yourself. F-forget..." He droned on and on, hardly conscious of what he was doing, just knowing he needed to do it, needed to save this life, needed him to forget what Malik had done to him.
And then suddenly, as if nothing had happened, Pandora stood. Nodded. Left the room.
And Malik sank the rest of the way down to the floor.
Under the now much-too-bright light, he thought about emotion and connection and power he didn't deserve but hoped he could control. He felt the tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and the blood from his cut begin to saturate his sock, and the cool concrete floor under his cheek. He thought about purpose, and repentance, and if purpose was ever penance enough. He thought about his family and his people. He thought about his power.
He stood, shaking only slightly, and went to find Rishid and Ishizu, to continue his trip toward home.
==o==
Le Jules Verne is an elegant restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, 125 meters (394 feet) above the ground. Boasting a celebrity chef, a Michelin star, the best of French cuisine, and a fabulous view, dinner at Le Jules Verne can be pricy, but it's worth every penny. For a romantic dinner for two overlooking the Paris skyline, Le Jules Verne is the best a traveler could hope for.
~
Ryou couldn't think of anything quite as beautiful as the sunset over the Seine river .
He was watching the orange glow sink gradually lower in the sky, orange ripples spreading ever farther over the water, as the buildings of the Paris skyline fell gradually further into shadow.
He smiled across the table at Malik. Malik smiled back.
Ryou blushed and buried his face in his à la carte menu, and then balked at the prices. Malik really was being extraordinarily generous, treating him to a meal here; he couldn't even have dreamed of affording this on his backpacker's budget. Going back to the cramped youth hostel was going to be hard after an evening spent in luxury.
After they'd left the catacombs, they'd taken a long walk down Paris's winding streets, chatting aimlessly about life and France and travel, listening to the greengrocers at the side of the road yell out the prices of fresh vegetables, watching bicyclists speed past them. It had been a long time since Ryou had been able to talk to someone this...freely. It was as if he hadn't noticed how harrowing the language barrier had been until it was removed, how isolated, almost lonely he'd felt on his travels.
"Freedom can be lonely sometimes," Malik had said.
It wasn't just the language barrier. It was also just...Malik. He knew what Ryou was escaping back in Domino, the reason his craving for freedom was so strong. He knew what it meant to want to leave the past a thousand miles behind. It was nice to talk to someone who, on so many levels, understood.
As they'd walked, Ryou had become so immersed in the ambiance of it all, and in Malik's companionship, that he hadn't even noticed that Malik was leading him toward the Eiffel Tower until they were just a few blocks away.
They'd gone to the top. And Malik had put his arm around Ryou's shoulder.
And now they were at a romantic, expensive restaurant at a table for two, and Ryou was starting to wonder where things were going from here.
His train of thought was interrupted, however, when Malik started speaking to the busboy.
"Could you ask that Jean be our waiter this evening, please?" he asked. He also murmured something in quick French that Ryou couldn't quite understand, and after a short back-and-forth, finished with a short nod and "Merci."
The busboy scuttled off, looking a bit bewildered, but Malik seemed satisfied. He turned back to Ryou.
"Any thoughts as to what you'd like?" he asked, thumbing through his own menu.
"Not yet," Ryou said.
"Not worried about the price, are you?"
Ryou looked down at the tablecloth.
"Don't worry about it, Ryou, please. You like steak, right?"
"How did you-"
"Remember the feast you laid out for yourself on the yacht to the ceremonial duel? I remember that steak...featured. Well, I remember that just about everything but the kitchen sink featured, but I distinctly recall a steak being there."
Ryou blushed and looked down; he really had eaten an embarrassing amount that night. But then again, the spirit hadn't exactly been treating his body to haute cuisine for the greater part of his possession. He looked back up again. Actually, when he put it that way...he deserved this. A wonderful meal with a wonderful view with a wonderful companion.
"I love steak," he said, smiling.
"Then it looks like it's the Tournedos de Boeuf for you," Malik replied with a smile of his own.
They chatted a bit as they waited for the waiter to come and take their orders, but also sat in companionable silence, taking in the view over Paris, absorbing the ambiance of the restaurant itself. The other diners were far better dressed than Ryou, but Malik had spoken with the hostess, and it seemed that Ryou's attire wouldn't be a problem. Malik seemed to know people here, Ryou thought vaguely, but then pushed it aside. Far more interesting was the feel of the deep plum plush seats, the contrasting white of the tablecloths and napkins, and the pattern on the bottom side of the china, like vines creeping across the undersides of the plates.
At last, the waiter approached. He was middle aged and thin, drawn and tired looking, and as he drew closer to the table, the nervous energy that seemed to radiate all around him only increased.
"Jean!" Malik called out, smiling.
"Monsieur Ishtar," Jean replied lowly bowing his head. He shifted to English. "I see you brought a friend with you this evening."
"Yes, Jean, this is Bakura Ryou. He's an old friend from Japan." Ryou couldn't help but notice the unnerving way Malik was staring into Jean's eyes, intense and unblinking, like a snake readying to strike. Ryou didn't know quite what was going on here, but he had enough people-sense to...want to stay out of it.
But just as Ryou started to hunch down in his chair, hoping that his role in the conversation could end there, Jean turned to him.
"You are an associate of…Malik's?" Jean asked. It sounded like a struggle to call Malik by his first name.
"An...associate?" Ryou asked hesitantly; this situation was really uncomfortable; he could hardly understand Jean's English through his French accent, and the feeling of having no idea what was going on between Malik and Jean, no control over what was going on in general...was starting to unnerve him a little.
Fortunately, Malik came to his rescue.
"No no, Ryou's a friend." Malik said, smiling like a cat. He picked up his empty butter-knife and traced a circle on the table. "In fact..." he said, now staring as intently at the knife as he had been at Jean, "he's about your son's age, isn't he?"
Jean murmured something urgently to Malik in French. Ryou only caught a few words he knew, but one of them was "l'argent." Money.
But then Malik waved his hand and Jean immediately fell silent, looking cowed.
"Anglais," said Malik sharply. "Pour l'invité"
Jean nodded.
"Y-yes," he said in English. "M-my son is eighteen, Ryou. He...he was also an associate of Monsieur...of Malik's. But he's living on his own now. I haven't heard from him in some time."
"I'm...I'm sorry," said Ryou sincerely, not sure of why he was being told this, or how to respond.
"You'd do anything to help your son if he were in danger, wouldn't you Jean," Malik said, meeting his eyes again. His tone was low and even and unlike any he'd used in his conversations with Ryou. He sounded...dangerous.
"Of course," said Jean, bowing his head.
"Jean used to be a stock-broker you know," Malik said. "A very wealthy man." He seemed to be speaking to Ryou but he never took his eyes away from Jean's. "He couldn't handle the pressure, though, poor man, after his son ran away. Used his connections to get a well-paying waiter's position...and here he is. He's wealthy enough not to work, of course. He just needs something to occupy his mind between the monthly letters from his son. Where was the last one from?"
"New York," Jean said quietly.
Ryou noticed that Jean was visibly shaking, his head bowed, his fists clenched.
And then suddenly, he straightened up again, as if on a spring, as if someone had flipped a switch.
"Welcome to Le Jules Verne," said Jean brightly. "I will be your waiter this evening. May I take your order?"
Malik smiled, and finally tore his eyes away from Jean's, looking across to Ryou again. Ryou was too flustered to speak, and was incredibly glad when Malik ordered for him, a showy display of fast French. Jean left the table, his exit far less nervous than his entrance.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," Malik said at length, switching back to Japanese, much to Ryou's relief. "Unfortunately, Jean's involved in the...business I need to attend to here in France."
"Why did you insist that he speak English?" Ryou asked, still reeling a bit from it all.
"I..." Malik said, haltingly. He looked into Ryou's eyes. "I wanted you to understand."
"Why?" Ryou asked, baffled. Malik's conversation with Jean had seemed shady, to say the least; it seemed like the kind of thing better kept private.
"I...I like you." Malik said. He hesitated, and then added, "A lot. I've really enjoyed our time together today, and I hope we can continue to correspond when I go back to Egypt and you return to Japan. And I wanted you to know...who I am. Who I can be."
"I...I see," Ryou said, unsure of whether to be flattered or frightened by this information.
"I'm...I'm deeply sorry for what I did to you in Battle City, Ryou," Malik said. "I know I've said it before but...it bears repeating. I hurt you more than I hurt almost anyone else. And I will never, never hurt anyone in that way again."
Ryou nodded. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out how Malik expected him to respond.
"It's important that you know though...if we're going to be..."-he paused as if trying to find the word- "friends. It's important that you know that my quest to bring the tombkeepers above ground at last is of the utmost importance to me. More important than anything else, than any law, than any friend. You'll have to know that sometimes I'll speak to people the way I spoke to Jean, try to get things from people the way I tried to get the money from Jean-"
"That's what you were doing?" Ryou asked, cutting him off.
"Yes. I...oh God, I might as well admit this. Lucky no one else in here looks like they speak Japanese, ha..."
Malik trailed off, and Ryou gave him a sharp look.
"Jean...he worked for the Ghouls. I have a large number of bank accounts in Jean's name, filled with the money I earned in the Ghouls' counterfeit ring. You know how it goes, sixteen years old, too young to start an account of my own, Swiss banks with limited oversight, find a wealthy stock-broker on the down-and-out..."
"I'm sure I don't know how that goes," Ryou said lowly.
Malik laughed humorlessly.
"Yeah. The Ishtars are well-off, as you can probably see from my restaurant selection, just from Ishizu's government job. But we don't have the kind of money it takes to build homes for a hundred and fifty tombkeepers. So I need Jean to wire the money from his accounts into my own." He looked up into Ryou's eyes again. "And I must get them above ground."
Malik sat back in his chair, exhaling.
"You can get up and leave if you'd like," he said. "I'm sure I've appalled you. I've practically appalled myself."
Ryou leaned forward, and put his chin in his hands, staring down at the table, thinking. Malik had just unloaded his soul onto him, a soul weighed down with some deeds of rather questionable morality even after his supposed redemption. He contemplated just standing up and walking out, back to the youth hostel, out of Malik's life forever. But something pulled at him to stay.
"You must really trust me," Ryou said at length. "To tell me all that."
Malik smiled tentatively. "You're a...wonderful person. And I respect whatever decision you make."
Ryou smiled back at him.
"Your people are more important to you than anything else. You've made that clear."
Malik winced, as if expecting him to get up and walk out with that, but his face fell into a confused expression when Ryou suddenly went on.
"Do you know what's most important to me?"
Malik looked bewildered.
"Freedom." Ryou smiled kindly at him. "And you're entitled to it too. And the way I see it, you won't have it until your people are free. Until they live in the sun."
Malik nodded, and his voice was hushed when he went on. "It's the only good that can come of my stupid plot for revenge. And...so...it's my only way to real...redemption."
"I've already told you I forgive you," Ryou said kindly. "But if that's what it will take for you to forgive yourself, I guess...if you're not...hurting anyone..."- here he met Malik's eyes- "I'll support you."
Malik's face burst into the sunniest grin that Ryou had ever seen grace it. He looked like he could have thrown his arms around Ryou, if their entirely too-formal setting would've allowed it. He settled for bowing his head and whispering, "Thank you."
They sat in companionable silence, looking around the room, looking at each other...smiling. Their food came, brought out by an entirely-calmer-looking Jean, and was every bit as delicious as Ryou's guidebook had promised. As they ate, their conversations once again became easy and light, the brunt of the confessions passed, now able to chat unburdened. Beyond the guilt and regret and crime and forgiveness...Malik was a joy to be around.
As they left, descending the restaurant's private elevator out of the Eiffel Tower, Malik put his arm around Ryou's shoulders once more, and huddled close. As they stepped outside, a light breeze caught Ryou's hair, throwing it into Malik's face, and Malik laughed. And turned to face him.
He tucked a strand behind Ryou's ear, lowered his arm to his shoulder, and met his eyes.
They kissed at the base of the Eiffel Tower, and Ryou felt freer than he ever had before.
==o==
6 months ago: Egypt, on the yacht to the Ceremonial Duel
The feelings of happiness and calm and above all freedom were tangible before Malik even saw Ryou's face; sharp as knives, they cut through the ceiling and reached Malik above-deck, like hooks they cut into his skin and pulled him down.
(But no, it wasn't a compulsion, this power; it was a choice. The choice to put his people's freedom above all else. The knowledge that, only by bringing them into the sunlight, could he repent.)
He descended the stairs.
And there was Ryou, a feast laid out before him, basking in the glow of his own freedom, celebrating the demise of his captor, with a pure joy that only one totally innocent of his captor's actions could possess. Ryou's darkness was a murderer. Ryou's darkness was dead. And Ryou was free now to take his life in any direction he chose.
(Malik's darkness was a murderer too, of course; Malik's darkness, too, was dead, but Malik could no more celebrate that death than his own. They were one and the same, he and his darkness, separated only by a gulf of lessons learned filled with power misused, and a deep, deep fissure of regret.)
But Malik would use his power correctly this time. Use it to repent. Use it to free his people. (Of course, do no lasting harm, of course; he was past that now, he was good; he'd make his siblings proud his people proud his family proud his father...)
It was a slippery slope of rationalization piled on rationalization, a precarious stack slick with guilt and crumbling in on itself on the edges, and the worst part of it all was that Malik knew that.
He walked to the table.
"You're Malik Ishtar," prompted Ryou.
I wish I wasn't, Malik thought.
But the joy from the table and the connection he felt to Ryou's mind was stronger than anything he'd experienced before (why shouldn't it be; there was space for two minds there; Malik had just carved farther into what had been carved before and it was a testament to Ryou's strength of spirit that he hadn't just been...hollowed out) and the joy was hitting him like a wall and sticking to him like glue, and it was almost painful, this much happiness, but in the end, Malik deserved for this to be painful.
He reached with his mind...grabbed...and twisted.
You'll take a journey around the world, Ryou. And in six months, you'll meet me in Paris.
==o==
The Hôtel Ritz is a palatial hotel in the heart of Paris. Outside, it is a masterpiece of classical architecture. Inside, you'll sleep under a down quilt, on the finest of linen sheets, surrounded by furnishings of museum-caliber antiques. The Ritz's reputation as Europe's finest hotel is well-earned.
~
Ryou woke to the sound of a murmured voice in French, and hazily, on the edge of sleep, tried to ignore it. He nestled his head deep into the down pillow and sighed, wrapped in comfort. Malik had insisted that Ryou not return to his "flea-bag of a youth-hostel," and had invited him back to his own hotel. After weeks of bunk-beds, Ryou wasn't prepared for the outright palace that was the Hôtel Ritz; the degree of luxury was almost startling.
Nor was he prepared for Malik shyly kissing him goodnight after offering to lend him a pair of pajamas. They'd shared the large, soft bed in the center of the room in a mostly-platonic sense, although Ryou had preferred to shift his body close to Malik's, rather than pull the quilt across them. Malik had seemed pleased by this and had turned, smiling to face Ryou, and put an arm underneath his head.
But now, Ryou noticed, shifting, it was cold. Malik was no longer beside him. And that voice was still speaking-Ryou listened closer-it was Malik's. He sat up in bed. Malik was across the room, sitting at a desk facing away from him, spitting rapid, angry French into a cell phone.
Ryou eased himself back down into the bed; he was happy enough to know about Malik's business dealings in the abstract, but he really didn't want to get involved with them.
The conversation must have ended, because Malik mumbled something that sounded like a curse in any language, and flipped the cell phone closed. He dropped it to the desk, and put his head in his hands.
"I'm so sorry, Ryou," he whispered, not turning.
"I-it's alright," Ryou said hesitantly from the bed. "These beds are so comfortable, I'm sure I can get back to sleep..."
Malik turned, surprised. Apparently he hadn't known that Ryou was awake.
"I-is there anything you needed?" Ryou asked.
"I-" Malik started, and then stood up, and closed his eyes. He pushed the chair he'd been sitting in to the middle of the room, and stepped away. "Sit in the chair, Ryou."
"W-why?" Ryou asked.
"Just do it," Malik said hoarsely, somewhere between a command and a plea. "Please, Ryou, just sit in the chair."
Hesitantly, Ryou stood, immediately missing the warm comfort of the linen sheets and soft bed, stepping into the cold uncertainty of the middle of the room. Tentatively, he lowered himself into the chair and looked up at Malik, questioning.
"Alright," Malik said shakily. "Now, I'm...Whatever happens next, I need you to remember that I'm not going to hurt you." He seemed to be failing to keep his voice even; it fell back into hoarse pleading when he said, "For me, Ryou. A-and...for the tombkeepers. Please don't move."
Ryou nodded.
He heard Malik rifling through a desk drawer, but didn't turn around. He felt something very wrong about this whole situation, but at the moment...he didn't want to know. He heard Malik's footsteps coming back across the hardwood floor. He felt something cold press up against his temple.
Malik had a gun to his head.
"Don't scream," Malik hissed, and Ryou found that following instructions was suddenly very easy in the given situation. "Put your hands behind your back."
Ryou did so, and heard the quiet click of the gun being set down on the table. Still, even a gun a few feet a way guaranteed worlds of cooperation. He didn't even struggle as he felt Malik binding his wrists together with duct tape, nor a few seconds later, when he felt Malik binding his torso to the chair.
Malik moved to stand in front of him, a mouth-sized piece of duct tape torn off the roll. He leaned over, about to press it to Ryou's lips-
And then his arms fell to his sides.
"I can't do it," he whispered. "I hope this is enough."
"What are you doing?" Ryou almost-sobbed. He twisted against the duct tape, uncomfortable on his skin, and tried not to breathe too loudly, so that he'd be able to hear the quiet scrape of metal on wood if Malik picked the gun up again.
"I'm so sorry," Malik whispered. He reached into his pocket, and Ryou winced in fear of what might come out.
To his utter surprise, Malik withdrew a cell phone. He took a step back, drew it level with Ryou's face, and took a picture.
He walked in a circle around Ryou, taking pictures from all angles, and Ryou tried hard not to think of a predator circling its prey. He picked the gun off the desk and pressed it to Ryou's head again, and Ryou cringed at the feeling of the cold metal as Malik snapped another picture with his other hand. He set the gun back down on the desk.
"It's not loaded," he whispered.
"What are you doing?" Ryou asked again. "Why are you doing this?"
Malik walked behind Ryou and turned the chair around to face the desk. There was another scrape of wood as Malik opened another drawer, and pulled out a laptop. He turned it on and turned back to Ryou, leaning on the desk and staring above Ryou's head.
"Because you were Plan B," Malik said. His face was filled with so much disgust and self-loathing that despite all logic, Ryou almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
"Jean wouldn't wire me the money," Malik continued. "And you don't understand, Ryou, I need that money. It's the only way the tombkeepers will ever be able to live together above-ground." He winced. "You're...sort of...Jean's extra incentive."
"You took me hostage?" Ryou cried, and Malik's eyes widened in fear, too loud. He reached for the gun again, and Ryou instinctively quieted. Malik could just as easily deceive him about the gun being loaded as he could in the catacombs. As he had when they chatted easily on the streets. As he had when they'd kissed at the foot of the Eiffel Tower-
Ryou blinked back the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He was not going to cry for Malik. That was a photo opportunity he wouldn't allow Malik to have.
"I took you hostage," Malik confirmed, pressing the buttons on his cell phone. "I'm sending the pictures to Jean right now, saying I'll release you if he wires me the money I need." He turned away, no longer able to meet Ryou's eyes.
But Ryou wouldn't back down so easily.
"Why me?" Ryou demanded, voice cracking, but pressing on nonetheless. "Jean barely knows me! Why not just grab a Parisian off the street? Why go through the tourist ruse and the benefactor ruse and the friendship and the seduction and why?" His voice cracked again; now he really was crying. And God damn it, Malik took a picture. And Ryou felt the distinct prickle of loathing begin to form around his stomach.
But Malik had turned away again, wasn't even looking at him anymore, was dialing his phone and looking at his laptop and speaking in a low voice that sounded almost inhuman.
"You care about your son, Jean. You care about Ryou. Wire me the money, Jean. Wire me the money for your son. Wire me the money for Ryou. They'll be alright. They'll be fine. Wire me the money, Jean..."
His voice went on and on, droning into the phone, and Ryou knew an incantation when he heard one.
All of a sudden, numbers flashed across the screen of Malik's laptop, and Malik threw a hand in the air, and let out a slow exhale of breath.
"Yes," he whispered. "It's done."
"You have your money then," Ryou said coldly. "And power."
Malik turned around, startled.
"I'm not stupid, Malik. How is it that you can still mind-control?"
Malik hung his head in shame. He raised a hand from his side and then dropped it again. "I," he began, faltering. "I can only control people I've controlled before. A-and it's much more difficult; I can't take full control anymore. I only...grab hold of emotions, twist them, couple them to a single command. That's what I did to Jean at the restaurant. I coupled his fear of me to a desire to protect you, intertwined the idea of you and the idea of his son in his mind. Then when I sent him the pictures, I coupled his fear for your safety to the command to wire me the money. And not to call the police."
"You did it to me," Ryou whispered, in horrified realization. "It wasn't a coincidence that we ran into each other today, was it."
"It...wasn't. I used you Ryou. Again." He bent over Ryou, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "I picked up on your happiness on the ship back from Egypt and twisted it, commanded you to come to France, a country far from home, where you didn't speak the language, where you'd be starved for friendly, Japanese-speaking companionship. And I am so, so, sorry. Please...please, don't think that the talking and the friendship and the kiss was nothing but a ruse. You're a wonderful person, Ryou, and if it weren't for my duty to my family-"
Ryou spat in his face.
"That's what I think of your duty to your family," he hissed. "And if you think that using people's minds as stepping stones on the road to your grand goals counts as working towards your redemption...then you're even stupider and weaker than I guessed."
"I'm...I'm so sorry. I didn't expect-" Malik started, but Ryou had no interest in hearing what he had to say.
"This may come as a surprise to you, Malik, but I don't like being used," Ryou spat. "I got rather tired of it when the Spirit of the Ring started using my body to try to kill my friends."
"You're angry," Malik observed.
"Of course I'm angry."
"Then you won't mind me telling you why, of all the people in Paris, I took you as my hostage."
Ryou was silent.
"I've controlled you before, Ryou; you realized that," Malik's voice was suddenly slow and measured. "And I can control you again. Any strong emotion you feel...happiness, grief, anger...I can couple it to a command. I used you, because I could command you to forget."
Ryou's anger surged like bile, he bit back a scream only because Malik didn't deserve to see him lose control. "What?"
"Forget," Malik hissed and the smooth, even tone of his voice was far more frightening than the gun had been. "Forget the last hour. Forget it ever happened. Curl back in the warm bed, and tomorrow we'll see the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, if you forget. Forget, and none of this will have ever happened. Forget, and remember that you were falling in love with me. Forget..."
Ryou slumped forward in his chair, unconscious.
Malik grabbed an exacto knife from his bed and cut through the duct tape over the fabric of Ryou's borrowed pajamas. It was a testament to the depth of Malik's control that Ryou didn't move, didn't even flinch, as Malik ripped the duct tape off from around the chair and buried it in the waste basket, under an old newspaper. Malik scooped Ryou up in his arms and carried the unconscious boy back to the bed.
He lay down beside him, and Ryou nestled into his chest.
Malik cursed himself for his own weakness as he put his arms around him, and when Ryou cuddled closer, and he felt like crying. But why fight. Once a purpose-crazed manipulator, always a purpose-crazed manipulator. He'd resigned himself to a life of guilt a year ago. Convenient, that.
Closing his eyes, he wondered if he'd be able to sleep at night with this fresh new batch of guilt. He wondered if it was kinder to let Ryou remember, or to force him to forget. He wondered how exactly he'd be able to live with himself.
He wondered if the tombkeepers were worth this.
==o==
A/N: GIANT thanks to Yllimilly for being the best source for Paris-research and France-info that I could ask for. Also thanks to Anreyla, Fiver, and Sefina, for characterization discussion. All guidebook-esque section headers are my own writing, although all of the places Malik and Ryou visit are real. The saying Malik reads off the wall of the catacombs is really inscribed there.
The title, 'Rien de Rien,' means 'Nothing of Nothing.' It is the first line in Edith Piaf's song, 'Je ne regrette rien,' or I regret nothing (obviously used ironically here)