Title: common ground
Author: Lily
Series: Yuugioh
Characters/Pairings: Bakura/Anzu
Anzu can tell that Bakura misses him from the way his fingers sometimes ghost around an invisible ring hanging on his neck; always absentmindedly, always with a detached carelessness. Probably doesn't even understand why, except that the spirit had been his voice, his other me, his never be alone. And maybe that was enough of a reason after all.
Bakura grieves the way he did everything else in life-- silently, folding in on himself so as to not bother anyone else. The wrong kind of mourning. But then again, who was she to talk when she falls asleep with long ago Pharaohs in her head, salt streaking her cheeks, heart thudding in her stomach, in her chest and making her brain jostle, emotions scattering painful and sharp all over the place?
When Anzu was twelve her father left a bitter impression on her when he dropped her mother for a different woman.
She wants to believe in love-- the tangible, touchable, visible kind because it meant it was real. Love that hurt, love that healed, love that made her weak-kneed and loose-lipped and a total dizzying mess. She wants true love, brutal, warm, painful, honest; love that sent her heartstrings twanging, movie-perfect love, with bruising kisses and abrasive grips and hands everywhere.
"My sister Amane." Bakura says in reference to the small photo he always carried around of a little girl that Anzu had curiously spotted in his wallet. She knows without asking (hair fell in his face, hiding his eyes and shadowing his features) that Amane is dead.
If Anzu had made a list of people she knew who she thought would most likely get into a fistfight, Bakura's name would've been below even Yuugi's. And yet, there he was-- nose bloody, crusted and dried brown dribbling over his upper lip, a bruise blossoming over his left cheekbone, and lip split open. Anzu sat down next to him in the only other vacant chair outside the principal's office.
Bakura remained silent.
She leaned over and rested her hand lightly on his blue uniform sleeved arm. His forearms were slim and she could feel the muscles shifting beneath her fingertips as his fingers clenched and unclenched, and finally he met her gaze, his eyes resoundingly dark.
"Come on, what happened?"
Across the room sat a blonde Anzu recognized as someone who'd been hounding her earlier that morning for a date, his face a swollen mess of bruises.
"…He called you a slut."
Bakura Ryou lashing out at anyone was on par with Kaiba giving Jounouchi a hug, because Bakura was aloof and quiet and he never let his emotions get the better of him. Bakura losing his cool over something as insignificant as some idiot calling her a slut signified change, and if Bakura-- one of the steadfast rocks in the middle of the waterfall that was her life-- changed, she had almost nothing left to hold onto.
Anzu keeps every single letter she gets from her father-- bound together, chronologically, with a thick rubber band-- even when he sends her birthday cards in September instead of August. But today she throws out the wedding invitation he and her soon-to-be stepmother sent her, along with the other useless mail.
The same afternoon, she gets her rejection letter from Julliard and Anzu rips the paper in pieces and throws them away as well, eyes stinging in frustration.
It was raining.
Cold and soaking in her school uniform, Anzu could have seeked refuge under the awning of a nearby manga shop but she liked the cool dampness of raindrops on her body. Tilting her head back carefully, Anzu revelled in the feel of water on her face. Her bangs were soon plastered to her forehead, and she swept them out of the way with flourish, closing her eyes and spreading her arms. There were only a few other people around, rushing by with their black umbrellas and Anzu was just another crazy teenager roaming the streets because she had nothing better to do.
A familiar cloth of an umbrella suddenly appeared, shielding her from the rainfall. Bakura was standing in front of her, holding his umbrella over her as if he had always been there.
"Hi." He greets softly, regarding her carefully.
"Hello." She says back, shivering and reaching up to press her lips against his.
Hello hello hello. Hello rain. Hello sky. Hello change.
There was ringing in her ears, and her head felt fuzzy and it was like the time back in elementary school when she climbed the ten-foot wire fence that wrapped around the schoolyard just because it scared her-- that stupid fence and she wanted to see if she could do it and Yuugi had cried and cried because he thought she was going to fall off and break her neck and she'd never done something so reckless again because making Yuugi cry was just plain wrong.
He kissed her back and somehow they make it to his apartment.
Hands scaling her hips and waist, she found herself pushed back and braced against the wall, and his mouth is bruisingly on hers and she had never expected to be pushed against a wall and kissed until her lips were swollen by a boy who was as emotionally a wreck as her… Had never thought about this moment between the two of them, how it would all work out, but that was okay, sometimes things changed, just go with it, that was life, c'est la vie, his breath was warm and his lips rough, and her elbows were resting on his shoulders and her fingers were tangled in his silky hair; the perfect shade of snowy white.
It was grey and rainy outside as they slowly staggered into his room, and rain-scented air swirled around the apartment through one of the windows he'd left open earlier, and Anzu lay back in his bed with Bakura on top of her, warm and solid, with the muscles of his back shifting beneath her fingertips.
They are vulnerable, jaded teenagers tripping on their feet through life, feeling around awkwardly for things that felt right.
Maybe this felt right.