Author's Note: This is something new for me, and it took a lot of convincing from my friends to post this. I know most people don't normally read Character/OC fics (myself included, usually), so if you're reading this, I super duper appreciate it.

The OC that I created for Bakura is named Noriyuki, Nori, for short. As with most OC's, she is kinda based on me, but not really. Mostly not, she's a lot cooler. Anyway, I hope you give her a shot. Bakura did :)

Their love story is a different one, I hope you want to follow it.

Bakura rolled over onto his stomach, and his hair fell in a way that would have tickled his nose, were he not fast asleep. His heavy, unconscious breaths choreographed a dance for the white strands, waving them back, and forth, and back. His eyelids fluttered as he searched for a dream.

A quiet boy, in a quiet room.

For now.

Unbeknownst to him, a girl - one he knew quite well - lingered outside his house, debating the best way to climb the tree that led to his window. She'd done it before, but it was a task that required a bit of strategy.

Once she'd found her starting place, she began her ascent. Scaling the old oak and shimmying over to his window wasn't the hard part. The hard part was waking him up.

She enjoyed the challenge. Since she figured one day he'd simply be able to sense her coming, trying to wake him was her favorite part of her late-night excursions.

It was easy that night. Bakura woke when a cold breeze from his open window dashed into his face. As he rose from his pillow and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he failed to notice the girl sitting on his windowsill.

She smiled at his lack of perception. She leaned against the side of the window and crossed her arms, and having one leg hanging outside, swung it like a pendulum. Maybe her favorite part was watching Bakura wake up. He looked so sweet and innocent when he was half-asleep.

His brown eyes looked black in the dark she noted, as he looked up at her, finally.

"Nori?"

"Who else?"

She noticed that he was wearing that same hoodie again. He'd taken to wearing it to bed after the first few times she'd walked - or rather - climbed in on him, and he'd been shirtless. It was just black, nothing particularly special, but she'd never seen him wear it outside of these surreptitious meetings.

Nori also noticed that his hood strings were uneven as he stretched.

Bakura cracked his neck, giving that loud wet popping sound that was notorious for grossing people out, but not Nori. Even when others did it, she found it satisfying. Clearly still half-out of it, he looked up at her and asked, "How'd you sneak out two nights in a row?"

That one sentence was like a direct hit to the stomach. No more information was needed to confirm her suspicions. Bakura had been missing for the past two days, and now she officially knew why.

Her pendulum rested lightly against the side of the house, and she forced herself to make eye contact with him, "Bakura...I haven't seen you in two days."

His deep chocolate eyes flickered in confusion, "What? But I just saw you last night. You were here."

"I was here; two days ago. You've been missing."

Bakura put on a sickened expression as he caught on to what she meant. He swung his bare feet over the edge of the bed until they brushed upon the floor, clutching his sheets very tightly between his fingers. "I have?" he asked, as though she would deny it, maybe even lie to him, so he wouldn't have to face it.

But Nori couldn't do that. She couldn't lie to him. Especially about this. She just hung her head.

Bakura sighed, "Okay."

There was a few seconds of silence, then Bakura got up. Nori watched as he crossed to his bedroom door and grabbed his shoes.

"What're you-?"

"Let's go."

"What?"

Bakura calmly crossed back to his bed and began fitting his feet into his shoes, "Let's go, get out of here."

Nori brought both her legs inside the house and cocked her head at him. If she suggested that, he'd be trying to convince her to stay back at the house, "Go where?"

He made final adjustments to his shoes, then stood, looking at her with those eyes of his, "I don't care. Wherever you want to go."

There was something in his stare, something intense and soft at the same time, something that both excited and scared her. For a moment, she said nothing. But in the end, she straddled the windowsill once more, and reached out her hand.

"Come on."

The pair returned to the ground via the tree and took to the street. Hand in hand they strolled down the sidewalk, in the dark were it not for the street lamps. Nori had a destination in mind, and occasionally tugged Bakura in a new direction, but for the most part, they just...went. Neither said much, lost in their own thoughts.

Nori knew where Bakura was. And he wasn't alone. He never was. He was trying to conjure up a memory, however vague, from the past two days. He wanted to know what his body had been used for.

She did, too. But if she were honest with herself, she was afraid to know. Afraid that Bakura's hands had a body count, afraid of the horrible things that could have been done by or to him.

Were he any other person, she'd assume his occasional absences were due to illness, or perhaps family stuff. Many others did. But not her. She didn't, because she knew. She knew about the darkness inside him. Even a few hours without him was dangerous.

It was these thoughts that plagued her as she stepped out into the street to cross it, as tires screeched and a horn blared a warning. These thoughts that didn't shield her from the fear as she was yanked backwards just fractions of seconds from becoming roadkill.

Bakura pulled her very close as the night-roaming car continued to break, screaming to a stop. Her heart raced faster than the car had been speeding and she buried herself in Bakura's black hoodie, hearing her own blood pulse through her ears, and his heart. His was galloping as well, but somehow, combined with the overwhelming scent of him, she found it calming.

She also heard the car's door slam shut. Footsteps sped toward them and a voice cried out, "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you! Are you alright?"

Nori couldn't seem to form the makings of an answer. Her voice was still confused. All she could manage was a nod.

"She's fine," Bakura answered for her, "Just a little startled."

That was a grievous understatement.

The driver of the car sighed, "I'm just glad I didn't hit her. Is there anything I can do? Do you need a ride?"

"Do we need a ride, Nori?" Bakura murmured into the top of her head.

She shook, "No."

"We're good," Bakura relayed, "We can walk. How about you keep a better eye on the road, and I keep her off of it?"

"Fair enough, I suppose," the driver said, "Though I wish I could do more," there was a slight scuffing sound, "I need to get back home. You two stay safe."

"Will do."

Nori didn't breathe until the purr of the engine could no longer be heard.

Bakura - having both arms around her - gave her a slight squeeze, "It's alright, Nori. You're safe."

She didn't respond. She wasn't sure what had her so rattled. Sure, she just faced the very real threat of injury or death, but Bakura saved her. She hadn't been hurt. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

Bakura pressed his lips to the top of her head once again, she could feel his warm breaths on her scalp, "We can go back now, if you want."

Did she want to go back? No. Did she want to keep going? Not particularly. What she wanted, what she wanted was to stay right where she was. Swaddled closely in Bakura's arms. Some part of her even wanted to keep the lingering fear, because along with it came this sense of being protected.

But then she remembered that those arms didn't always belong to him.

She pushed herself away slightly, just enough to look up at him properly. She was still shaky, but she told herself to get over it, "Let's keep going. I still want to take you where I had in mind."

He didn't take his hands from her back, and now that she'd pulled away there was slight pressure where his fingers rested. It was such a little thing, but somehow it made her feel just all the more real.

"Where is that?"

She managed to crack a smile, "You'll see."

Nori had planned to lead Bakura to the docks before the car incident, and that's where she took him. The crashing waters beating against the man-made outcroppings was a welcome sound to her, repetitive yet random, with loud swishes and quiet drips.

It was - kind of - where they first met, three years ago. It was a very short encounter, but it...sparked something.

Nori was fourteen. She'd begun her habit of sneaking out of the house at night, and had wandered aimlessly up and down streets until she found herself not on a street at all, but standing out on a dock. She felt the ocean breeze tug her hair in all directions and filled her lungs with it. She didn't want to go home. Home was fights and disappointment and emptiness. Maybe she would stowaway on a boat and head off somewhere new...

Behind her came the scuffing of shoes, the tap tap tap of a pebble skidding on the pavement. She turned and saw who she pegged as a very peculiar boy, with white hair probably twice as long as hers. He looked just like she felt: lost, hurting. She found herself staring.

At length, he stopped. For another length, neither moved; though Nori did spit a couple of windblown hairs from her mouth. Then he looked at her. Just for a moment, but even from a distance, Nori read those brown eyes like a line from her favorite book:

"I understand."

Over the years, she learned that he did more than understand. He made things better, despite his own - much worse - problems. He was always willing to lend an ear, or a shoulder, or both arms. Not to mention the many late hours she took from him. She would do the same, if he'd let her.

But he wasn't the easiest person to get to know.

They stood on that same dock, hand in hand once more. Nori had recovered from her near-death experience, but was still lost in the past.

Bakura watched her. He remembered that night, too. He remembered seeing her, standing all alone. Somehow he knew that she felt just as isolated as she looked out there on that lonely, empty dock. The same way he felt. When he saw her in school the following fall, there was no other option but to approach her.

And there they stood, together in all their lonesome.

Nori eventually tuned back in to the present, and found those understanding brown eyes looking at her once again. She blushed and pretended she hadn't noticed, but it was too late.

Bakura chuckled, "What?"

"Nothing," she replied, entirely too quickly, "I just..."

What was she doing? It was just Bakura. He looked at her a lot, occupational hazard of being friends, why was she so bothered by it this time?

He gave her hand a squeeze before letting go and walking to the edge of the dock, where he then sat. She joined him, of course. It was a pretty precarious spot to sit, in reality. If you fell, you'd be easily swallowed by the waves, and even if you were a good swimmer, the easiest way out was thirty feet away through those constantly convulsing waves.

"Bakura..."

"Hm?"

"What were you doing out here?"

Bakura looked up at the stars, though she very much doubted he was seeing them, "I'd just come back after being, well, gone, for a week. I was trying to think of what to tell my parents."

Nori hugged her knees to her chest, "I was trying to get away from my parents. They had a really bad fight that night, and I didn't want to be there anymore, so I snuck out."

"Is that what's happened when you sneak over to my house?"

"Sometimes."

Bakura looked at her like he was seeing something new, something he hadn't discovered before. She couldn't really blame him. She had pretty much kept quiet about her parents, to him, and to everyone else. A few of her other friends knew, but that was about it.

Nori buried her head in her legs. She didn't want to think about her parents. She didn't want to think about the past. She didn't want to think. Between her parents fighting and Bakura...leaving, she...

She felt his hand on her back, and her mind flashed to the almost-accident. If Bakura hadn't pulled her away, she probably would have died. At the moment, that prospect didn't really bother her. She wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. She wouldn't have to keep running away, she wouldn't have to...

No, she couldn't think like that.

Somewhere along that line of thought, she must have started crying, because warm tears were now rolling down her cheeks, instantly becoming cold due to the breeze from the ocean. She hoped Bakura couldn't see, but that was in vain and she knew it. He could see. He could always see.

Nori closed her eyes and soon felt him wiping away her tears. She didn't even know what she was crying about, not really. Him, her parents, the accident. Heck, she could've been crying over the B she got on her last math test for all she knew. But what she did know, was that Bakura's touch was as gentle as his eyes, and that she didn't want him to stop.

"It's alright, Nori..." he murmured beside her, "You don't have to cry..."

This, of course, just made her tears flow faster. She tried to stop, she hated crying, but the next thing she knew her face was soaked and she was gasping for air. Bakura cradled her like a blanket fresh from the dryer.

"Shh... It's okay..."

Her heart screamed protests, but her mouth and mind didn't know why. Why wasn't it okay? Why couldn't it be okay? Why did she want to shove Bakura and scream that it was absolutely NOT okay?

She had no right to feel this way, he'd just come back from...

Nori sobbed all the more.

Bakura led her away from the edge of the water, to a stack of crates suitable for sitting. He sat her down and hugged her properly. She gripped his shirt in her hands as she cried.

"Nori, you're alright, I promise," he murmured softly, "And if you're not, I'll stay right here until you are. You're not alone..."

Her next sob was ripped from her core; she felt her insides convulse she set free her hardest cry. He held her close and let her. She felt wonderful and terrible as she was cradled closer to him, heard his heart in her ears. His. No one else's.

Did anyone even read this? I hope so. If you did, I'd really like to hear what you thought.

I've got two more stories after this, which will come soon. Others will come as I write them, but I just have the two more finished right now.

Aaannnyyyway, read ya later! :)