All a Song and Dance

An LLS Production

The tempo of life is very undecided, I think.

Just a month ago the return of three men from the afterlife like certain people should have shocked me. However, when one was living with every exposure to the wondrous, it becomes very normal, the tempo of my life continuing smooth and uninterrupted around the block formed by the very event itself.

I say this, because the other half of my soul, my darkness, the Nameless Pharaoh of the Shadows who goes by Yami this day, regularly borrows books from the library to save the trouble of buying books he is unfamiliar with. Books of almost any subject under the sun would find its way in the Game Shop one way or another, even if the Shop's actual owner does not read them. I say this, because here I am, holding a music glossary. I am quite sure that there is no musical bones in my body, so what a book on the language of music is doing anywhere near me is unusual in itself. Of course, the sole reason it is here is because my darkness randomly chooses a shelf and then reads whatever books he finds interesting on it.

Interesting it is, to a point. Boredom, thus drives yours truly to peruse what turned out to be quite a simple guide around terminology, and from there I began to consider the tempo that the beat of our lives is run by.

Yami, of course, must be maestoso. Stately, dignified, no fool he. I suppose I could add misterioso to that descriptor, but that is a term I find rather applicable to almost every yami. Yami lives con brio as well; he is spirited, in a way that makes me wonder sometimes how do I call him the other half of my soul.

Of course, when considering Yami, one must consider Bakura as well. Ryou's yami is definitely con fuoco; blowing hot with rage one moment and then the flames are banked in embers, and the reign of destruction is one of no mean size. Bakura is fire, and like fire one day he shall burn out, but Yami says that is unlikely, because Bakura is a stubborn idiot who likes to wager against fate and win.

To sum up the yami, Malik... is difficult to describe. Marik's yami is a chaotic piece of work, discordant and messed up in a way hardly recognisable as music. Scherzando... a playful term, I suppose, although I doubt that Malik was so playful before Battle City. Agitato is a useful term to ascribe to him as well, I guess. As I had mentioned, Marik's yami is difficult to epitomise in few words.

Marik himself is also very difficult to describe in words. The best I can find is bruscamente; brusquely. Vivace... yes, that would be good as well. He lives life vicariously, making up for a lifetime spent trapped in the shackles of ages towards duties borne through millennia.

Ryou... yes, Ryou can only be an aria to Bakura's fuoco. He lives his life sotto, I think, but sometimes the sotto vace grows to a level of con amore with Bakura, and grazioso in everything else he deals with. I suppose a measure of grace is needed to put up with Bakura, as Yami swears.

My friends themselves have different tempos; Jounochi lives his with Mai, con brio with the occasional moderato, I think. One suppose that pursuing an older woman should take a slower route, but Mai Kujaku herself lives in molto allegro, vivace, grazioso ; that is to say, a free spirit by choice. They suit each other, I believe, if only one of them would slow down.

Kaiba lives on animato; animated. Bruscamente is also an adequate descriptor, on hindsight; he lives his life with a single goal in mind that is yet to be achieved, and by choice he appears only briefly, but that one moment enough to redefine something.

Anzu is like Mai, I think; allegro grazioso, she pursues her own life and I wish her well for it. She would be happy if she allows herself, but she remains unhappy in New York, I think, by some accident. She has lived so all her life, and perhaps, pessimistically speaking, it would avail her nothing more than a starry end. What an end it would be, I consider.

Jii Chan... Jii Chan lived his life comodo, comfortably at his own pace. To live like that would be quite a dream, but I suppose it a rare one.

"And what about yourself?" a voice whispers in my ear.

I freeze only slightly, shivering as the borrower of the book licks the soft cone of my earlobe, and his warm breath on my ear reminds me of other things, more earthy and beautiful and utterly...

"I can think of nothing," I answer.

"I certainly disagree," he murmurs back, his hands slipping around my waist. "Dolce?"

I scowl at him as he, very nicely, lean to slip down to my knees. "I am not sweet, thank you very much."

"I would disagree on that count, but I suppose you have a point," he agrees. I bite back my retort as his cheek rubs against my inner thigh. "Semplicemente, then?"

"My life is never simple with you around," I laugh, the sound coming out as a half-gasp as the first wetness starts to appear in my shorts. He chuckles in that velvet voice of his like silk-covered steel, and part of me just wishes for him to stop torturing me.

"Ah, that I must agree with you, then," he murmurs. "You are a cantabile, my hikari, my omote, my heart. You are the voice of the song that gives meaning to an otherwise empty string of words, and always I follow behind you."

There was heat. There was sound. There was... us. All there was.

I lay back, regaining my breath as my Yami does something that by all rights should be illegal to me and my body aches for him and we are complete once more.

"Cantabile," I murmur with him.

Yami laughs, the sound amused and heartwarming, because I know it is only for me, and he makes love to me in a music that is both simple and profound.

That... does not sound too bad.

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