The pier smells like rot and salt water. The boards creak under Bakura's feet, warped from years of exposure, some of them soft enough that he can feel them give slightly when he puts his weight down. It's late - past midnight, maybe closer to two - and the fog has rolled in thick off the water.
No one comes here anymore. Not since the fishing company went under, not since the city decided it wasn't worth maintaining. The whole structure should probably be condemned. Yellow tape, warning signs, the usual acknowledgment that something's dangerous without actually doing anything about it. But now the tape's long gone, torn away by wind or vandals or time, and the pier is still here. Still standing. Still useful, if you know what to use it for.
Bakura stops halfway down with his hands in his pockets, black trench coat trailing behind him, looking out at the water. It's black tonight, reflecting nothing. The kind of dark that swallows sound and makes the lapping of waves against the warped posts feel muffled and distant.
There's a boat at the end of the pier. Small thing, tethered to a post with rope that looks like it should've rotted through years ago but is hanging on by barely a thread. The boat's empty, looks like it's been empty for a long time.
He takes another step forward. The board under his foot makes a sound that's not quite a crack but close enough to be concerning. He shifts his weight carefully, tests it. The wood holds, but barely. He can feel how close it is to giving way entirely.
The host's body doesn't like it here. Ryou's instincts are screaming at him to turn around, to go back to solid ground, to stop walking on boards that might give way any second and send him into water that's too cold and too dark and too deep.
He keeps walking, each step deliberate, each board assessed before he commits his weight to it. The fog gets thicker the further out he goes, until he can barely see the shore behind him. Just grey and black and the faint lights of the city somewhere in the distance, diffused and softened and hardly visible.
When he reaches the boat, it rocks slightly -- a lazy, uneven motion that suggests the water beneath is deeper than it looks. He peers inside. Empty, like he thought. Nothing but some old fishing line tangled in the bottom, a tackle box rusted shut, and the smell of seaweed and stagnant water.
Behind him, a board creaks. Not under his feet. Behind him.
Bakura goes very still. He doesn't turn around immediately, just listens. The fog plays tricks with sound, makes it hard to tell distance, makes everything feel simultaneously too close and impossibly far away. The creak could've come from back near the shore. Could've come from right behind him. Could be nothing at all... just the pier settling, wood expanding and contracting with the temperature change. But he doesn't think it's nothing.
He turns slowly, deliberately. Peers back through the fog toward the source of the sound. Can't see much through the grey - just the vague shapes of the pier posts, just the warped boards disappearing into darkness, just nothing and nothing and nothing.
"Dangerous place for a walk," he finally says. His voice carries strangely in the fog, sounds closer and flatter than it should. "Boards are rotted through in places. Wouldn't want to fall through."
