Hi guys, this is fic no. 5 for my Valentine's Day drabbles. I realize Valentine's Day has been and gone, but with couples like these, every day's Valentine's Day!

So this is dedicated to the wonderful Acerbus (AcerbusEquinomin56 on ffnet) who's an avid tendershipper (and has some beautiful tenderfics which I'd highly recommend).

Note: This could also be called gemshipping, just because of the way I chose to describe "Yami" Bakura. I simply wanted to give him the agency of the body he originally had in the Millennium World arc of the manga.

Word count: 1,528

Enjoy!

- Kissing in the Rain & Duel Monsters -

- An Exchange -

- Dedicated to Acerbus Equinomin -

He preferred it when it rained, was, in fact, fond of this gentle, plodding drizzle that seemed to slow down the world so that it turned at the same, dazed pace at which he now lived his life.

He stood under the shop's awning, his vision and focus blurring. His gaze tried to zero in on individual raindrops, watching their determined swoop and crash against the pavement, a million mini catastrophes. On a certain scale they would be earth-shattering.

He exhaled, scoffing. On a certain scale, anything could be earth-shattering.

On a certain Bakura Sr. might be considered a good father. But on his certain scale, Ryou was sure that wasn't the case.

He slipped his fingers in under the opening of his jacket, tracing the circle of the amulet that hung secretly against his chest.

It was by far the most fascinating thing his father had sent him, but Ryou had to wonder as he pressed himself closer to the window to avoid the slanting raindrops, how many fascinating items made up for mediocre fatherhood?

His fingers moved down, tracing the shape of the amulet, the pendants that hung in angry icicles from the bottom of the golden circlet. His skin prickled at their warning sharpness.

He'd practically memorised the shape of it, seeing with his fingers the way the amulet hung quietly, menacingly, under his jacket, even while his eyes were completely preoccupied with the man across the road.

The slouching stranger was propped against the shop opposite, simmering with sullen resentment against the rain. Under the hood, Ryou could see possible flashes of a scar, white scratches that were hard to miss against the dark brown of the man's skin.

"Ouch!" Ryou yanked his hand out, sucking on his finger. He'd cut himself against the amulet. It wasn't the first time, but he found it hard to resist tracing the sharp edges time and time again, found it hard to heed his own warnings.

The amulet seemed to sigh against his chest. He'd written to his father about it – surely it had a past. He could practically feel it throbbing with history, feel it pulse with something more than just his blood.

Except his father never kept it up for long. He'd humour Ryou at first, but then quickly lose interest, quickly move onto new curiosities, leaving Ryou's queries floating in transit.

Well, he'd have to try, anyway. The letter was already waiting in his pocket. He'd take any answers his father gave him. As he always had.

He pulled his hood up, though it did little to stop the rain from getting into his eyes, and stepped onto the road when suddenly he was yanked backwards.

There was the sound of squealing tires through the chatter of the rain, and a concerned voice yelled, "Watch it, you moron. Do you wanna die?" before the van screeched off.

"What he said," the figure next to him said.

The man's fingers were still wrapped around his arm and Ryou could feel his blood leaping against their firm grip. It was the man he'd been staring at.

"You're meant to look both ways before you cross, remember?" Ryou couldn't quite see the colour of the man's eyes, shadowed as they were by the bleached silver hair that hung in jagged lines. "Didn't anybody teach you that?" His tone was gruff. He sounded as if he was resentful of having had to save somebody.

The thought pulled a small laugh out of Ryou.

The man frowned.

"Yeah, sorry, I just – I guess my mind was elsewhere," Ryou said. For some reason he wanted to reach out and trace the frown away, and then trace the more permanent mark on the man's left cheek.

The man's eyes dropped to Ryou's chest, staying there, until Ryou realized that his jacket had fallen open. He tugged his arm out of the man's grip to pull his jacket close around him.

"Yeah, so thank you." He crossed his arms.

"So thank you?" The man lifted an eyebrow, and something like a smile seemed to hover around his mouth. "That's how you thank people who've saved your life?" His eyes were brown, Ryou realised, brown and somehow warm, belying the harsh planes of his face.

"I . . . yeah," Ryou murmured, "I mean, it's not like it's a regular occurrence. I'm not sure how it's supposed to go." He gave a slow shrug.

The man snorted, his eyes still fixed on Ryou's face, which Ryou found pleasantly unsettling. Or unsettlingly pleasant. He wasn't sure. Maybe he should move closer, see if the feeling increased.

"Right," the man said, his voice making Ryou's thoughts evaporate like candle smoke. "Don't get killed, then." And with that he turned and left.

Ryou nodded at his retreating back, yelling out another thank you that he wasn't sure made it to their destination through the rain.

He crossed the street, carefully this time, before making his way to the post office. He pressed his fingers to his face, wondering at its warmth. His heart was no longer pumping. The adrenalin of an almost-collision had been replaced by the adrenalin of an almost-something-else.

Ryou almost longed to turn around and splash back after the man but realized that it would be ridiculous. The exchange would just be a small interesting blip on an otherwise banal day. He posted the letter and turned back around, somehow feeling that he'd just let his fingers brush past something that they could have held onto a little while longer.

His eyes squinted through the rain, hoping to see the hooded figure, before a sigh slipped from his mouth, its sound thankfully hidden under the hush of the rain. Maybe he'd get started on the research on the amulet as soon as he got home. Nothing to occupy one's mind like research.

The thought put a little spring back into his step, and he tipped his head back, happy for the raindrops to land on his face as he walked.

"Rain, rain, don't go away," he murmured. "I'd rather that you were here to – "

"Stay" was what he'd been about to say but there was no breath left in his lungs for that. And he found that it was largely to do with the fact that he'd just been tackled to the ground, with a distinctly solid, heavy human on top of him.

Ryou squinted against the raindrops before the figure above him grunted and lifted its head, effectively obscuring the droplets. It was the stranger from earlier.

Ryou felt his breath hitch.

The stranger loomed over him, staring.

"I um – I'm pretty sure the road was clear this time," Ryou said, mesmerised by the slow arching drip of raindrops that ran down the man's hair.

The man chuckled, the suddenness of the laughter making the lines of his face shift from the blank stare to a grin that was a little blinding.

"No," he agreed, "you did well this time."

Ryou stared, intrigued by the way the scar on the man's cheek curved under the smile.

And then gasped when the man pulled out a knife.

"But it still isn't your lucky day." The knife moved closer to Ryou's throat – he felt a tugging, his eyes still held by the stranger's, and then he felt the lanyard around his neck loosen.

"Sorry, kid, but this is mine." The man grabbed the amulet and shifted to shove it into the depths of his jacket.

Ryou felt no urgency. Maybe it was the fact that he felt himself to be so thoroughly at a disadvantage. Or maybe it was the curve of the knife in the man's hand. Except it was the curve of the man's lips that seemed to demand most of his attention.

"Actually," Ryou said, as if he was used to carrying on conversations lying outside in the rain, while his back grew progressively wetter, "I'm pretty sure it's mine."

The man just scoffed, and make as if to get up, when he paused, a small frown between his brows. "Actually," he murmured, "there was something else I wanted."

And Ryou felt the man's lips meet his, and suddenly it didn't matter that the entire back of him was getting soaked through, or that the man had just held a knife to his throat. Because he was suddenly experiencing the absolute perfection of receiving exactly what he'd longed for.

It was a contradictory kiss, pressed gently against Ryou's lips when the rest of the man had Ryou trapped very firmly against the ground; a leisurely, relishing sort of kiss when Ryou could feel the length of the man tensed and ready for immediate flight; a painfully familiar, strangely comforting kiss when Ryou didn't know this man at all.

When the man pulled away he had a small smile to accompany the small frown. "Mm," he said. And then the smile slashed into a grin. "Tasty."

And then he was gone and Ryou was left to gasp under the pelting droplets and seriously question himself about why it seemed that the stolen kiss more than made up for the stolen amulet.

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