[Ryou listens...and he's comforted by Atem's words. After the night he'd had which had effectively yo-yo'd from terrible, to halfway decent, then back to awful and finally, finally equalizing to the point where he felt he could leave Yugi's house and not have to worry about everything that had happened half as much...somehow, being told that Elias was wrong after all comforts him.

Atem knows who Ryou Bakura is. He knows that Ryou doesn't want to be out of his own control, and that for how hard it is for him to maintain himself in a position of said control...that Ryou wants to be seen as someone dependable and strong.

He's not yet, but he's trying, he's trying so hard to be someone better than he'd ever been before this point. Failure meets him at every crossroads...but he can't give up.]

The choices of people I care about...they are their own. I don't agree with things that everyone does...but I still care deeply about them, and I'll support them.

...The gods are monsters though. Both of them...they crawl into our heads, make everything hurt until all we can do is comply and...and I just don't want that to be who I am.

I don't want the gods to dictate me. You're right...they exist to divide us, to split the soldiers on the board and make us all fight.

[Ryou finally straightens up and looks Atem in the eye again.]

It may sound contrived...but right now, you're the friend that I need and want by my side the most.

...I'm sorry I didn't tell you any of this before, but I thought I was protecting you by not doing so. That was my mistake. I'm sorry, Atem. Sometimes my choices are not the best. But the human still inside of us isn't meant to be a perfect creature, no more than what we turn into. Right?

[Maybe that's of no comfort to Atem, since he's very much unsettled by who he is right now. Ryou should have dealt with this more tactfully.

For the moment, he just leans in and softly kisses Atem's cheek, lingering for a few moments longer than usual.]