When they ran into each other on the streets in late autumn, she'd delivered a slap to his face that left his cheek red and stinging. When he'd stared at her in bewilderment and laid his hand on his cheek, she bristled and stared at him accusingly, jabbing her nail into his chest and growling, "That was for using the Orichalcos on me."
He'd expected her to huff and walk away after that, but instead she readjusted her purse on her shoulder and demanded that they go get drinks. He could have said no, could have walked away and wished her a good life, but something stopped him from doing that and compelled him to follow her. Perhaps it was some kind of morbid curiosity, a desire to see how things would play out. He didn't know.
She downed shots like the seasoned partier he imagined she was, while he stuck to one beer. Her face flushed, she told him to loosen up and stop being so uptight and live a little bit. Raphael declined, having no desire to explain to her why he wasn't careless with alcohol.
They didn't talk much that first evening. By the time Mai had had enough, Raphael pulled out his phone and told her he was going to call her a cab, but before he could do so, Mai yelled for him to stop.
"Give me your number."
"What? Really? Why?"
"Because we have a lot to talk about."
Despite a rocky start, Mai and Raphael continued to hang out over drinks and light meals, filling time by trading stories of what they'd been up to since everyone went their separate ways. Topics remained pleasant and never probed deeper than asking the other which museums and national landmarks the other had been to, whether either one had picked up dueling in their offtime. Mai had, Raphael hadn't. It was left at that.
Eventually the topic of Doma came back up, and since they both felt more comfortable around each other, Raphael felt okay with giving Mai a brief summary of why he'd joined Dartz and served him so faithfully all those years, as well as giving her a rundown of how it all ended.
It was that night, when they had that revealing conversation, that Mai grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down for a rough kiss. "Take me home," she said breathlessly when she pulled away.
For some reason he couldn't say no.
"Mai?"
"Mm?" she said, not moving from where she lay with her head and a hand on Raphael's chest.
"Why me?"
She lifted her head from his chest to look at him. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean," he said bluntly, brushing back some of her hair that had fallen in front of her face when she'd moved.
Mai rolled onto her side so it was easier to talk while maintaining eye contact. She looked to the side, biting the inside of her cheek, remaining silent for a few moments. She looked back up into his eyes and whispered, "You're not them."
"Jounouchi and Valon?"
Mai cast her eyes down, ashamed. "Things aren't…complicated with you."
"You slapped me when we ran into each other." That had to mean that she resented the way their duel had ended. He couldn't blame her, of course. He couldn't have blamed her if she wanted to rage at him still.
It was the least that he deserved.
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. She looked back up at him, wrinkling her nose. "But we're past that now, aren't we?"
That was good to know.
"True," Raphael conceded.
"You're not going to tell me you're what I need," Mai continued.
"Right."
"And I don't have to feel guilty when I look at you."
They looked at each other in the dark of Raphael's room, their only light coming from the moon that shone its light through the window. Raphael said nothing, just nodded at her, then laid his head back down on his pillow.
Uncomplicated. Raphael turned the word around in his mind. It was good to know what it was that Mai expected of him, the role he was to play throughout this. It was a role he knew intimately from his time under Dartz; if he wasn't enforcing Dartz's will, he was serving as a warm body for someone else. It was one of the first lessons he'd learned before joining Dartz.
And he could be Mai's warm body.
Uncomplicated. Mai didn't need to know more than what he'd told her once they'd actually acknowledged Doma: his family was dead, he'd been stranded on an island, and then he'd started working for Dartz. Who worked for Doma and didn't have a story to tell?
She didn't need to know that Dartz had orchestrated Raphael's greatest traumas, from the ship sinking to digging up his siblings' graves with his bare hands. She didn't need to know that this knowledge had ripped away the brief moment of peace Raphael had known after his second duel against the Pharaoh, that it forced him to grieve for his family anew, had teared away at old wounds and created new ones. She didn't need to know that Raphael was meant to be food for the beast, along with the countless souls he'd personally delivered to Leviathan.
She didn't need to know that his entire life, once Dartz had started meddling in it, had amounted to a cosmic joke.
He feared what would happen if he even tried to translate the roiling storm raging within his mind and chest. He wasn't sure if it would even come out in words.
Healing, Raphael had learned, wasn't linear. Those five stages of grief came to him in waves, jumping about as they pleased. Profound misery and all-encompassing angering liked to visit him most. Just when he thought he'd finally reached acceptance and was starting to move on, one day a stranger would pass by, and he could swear he could smell his mother's favorite perfume, and that was that.
They'd both been fortunate that Mai had found him in this rather blank state of being. It was made it easy to keep things uncomplicated.
Mai stared at the ceiling in quiet contemplation alongside him for a few minutes and then, without a word, she quietly put her clothes back on and left.
He didn't ask her to stay.
It continued on like that; they would go out, and then Mai would go home with him, but wouldn't stay for the night. That was the order of things for the next few months, until one night the minutes of lying in bed stretched on longer than they ever had before, making Raphael wonder if Mai was staying for the night.
He turned onto his side and looked at her. "Are you sleeping over?"
She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. Mai's hand felt cool and soft. He liked feeling the weight of it. "Are you okay with that?" she asked softly.
"Of course."
Secretly he was glad.
"What do you want for breakfast?"
Mai looked up from zipping her boot. "I don't do breakfast."
Raphael cocked his head at her. "Do you mean you won't eat with someone the morning after, or you don't eat breakfast at all?"
"I don't eat it all that often," she said simply, returning to pulling up the zipper on her left boot.
Raphael balked at her. "It's important to eat in the morning, Mai," he replied, then chose to leave it at that so he didn't launch into a lecture.
She shrugged, then started putting on her other boot. "I'm usually not hungry, and I have more time in the morning because of it."
He quirked an eyebrow up at her, but said nothing else on the matter. "Let me walk you out?" he asked when she finished with her boots and stood up.
"My, what a gentleman," she said in an exaggerated purr, grabbing her purse. She snickered, then looked at him and nodded.
Before she walked out the door, she spun on her toe and flung her arms up so she could grab him by the back of the neck and pull him down to her level so she could kiss him. She smiled at him when she pulled away, then cleared her throat and smoothed down her jeans, which had temporarily replaced the skirts on account of the colder weather. "Thank you for letting me stay over."
He returned her smile. "You were always welcome to."
She smirked at him and gave him a playful push, then turned and left.
He closed the door and walked to the kitchen, determined to get her to have breakfast with him someday.
Now that Mai felt more secure in sleeping over at Raphael's house, she started coming over earlier in the day, usually for dinner. One afternoon she found his hoodie on the couch while he was making their meal. She joined him in the kitchen, resting against the counter and staring at him until he gave her his attention.
She smiled impishly at him and held up her hands to show how the long sleeves completely engulfed them. In fact, the whole jacket looked like it had swallowed her whole with how it hanged off her. She chuckled, flapping her hands, causing the cloth that dangled from her arms flap with her.
"Look!" she squealed. "It's so big!"
"Maybe that's because it's supposed to fit me," he quipped, smirking at her.
She was so cute.
His eyes widened subtly as he realized the weight that thought carried.
Oh no.
Oblivious to what he was thinking, Mai's smile grew, and she rolled one sleeve up to free a hand so she could slowly slide the zipper up into place. Raphael stared at the final result. It had to be the only ill-fitting piece of clothing he'd seen Mai wear in all the time they'd known each other, and she'd never looked better to him.
Oh no.
Mai continued to grin as she pulled the hood on, which she could slide down to her eyebrows if she wanted to, but it wouldn't stay because of her thick mane of hair. In fact, it could barely stay on. Pleased, Mai shuffled off to wait for him in the living room.
Raphael watched her, trying to swallow the lump in his throat as he watched her enjoy herself.
"Things aren't complicated with you."
He looked back down at the food he was preparing. "Oh no," he whispered under his breath. "Oh no."