Only Sometimes
Marik x Bakura OneShot.
There's a difference between living vicariously through someone and living unethically through yourself. Personally, I've constantly found myself struggling to find a middle ground. I have always had this sick need, this selfish repulsiveness about myself that seems to deter a plethora of people that come in and out of my life.
Do I care?
Fuck no.
I've never cared for connection; I've never been one who craves compassion or belonging. No, I lost that part of myself far too long ago. I've become the definition of solidarity, in a sense, a shell of the person that I once was. No, a fucking illusion of the person I was. That sounds more accurate, and a lot more vulgar.
It's all a game. It's always been a game to me. Shadow games or not, they're all the same. Life is a game. I make people my pawns, my lovely little chess pieces that I will quite willingly sacrifice to get me whatever the hell I want. I bask in it. I breathe in the pain and spit it out on their faces. Life is too short to worry about the miniscule details, the feelings, the reactions… it's all just a fucking game.
Damn right.
Looking back on it now, I never would have pictured myself like this. Thought I would have ended up in Egypt forever. One person can only take so much, though, and I pushed myself to the goddamn edge—shrieking with excitement as I plummeted down.
This was the life I wanted.
This was the life I worked for.
This was the mother fucking dream, wasn't it?
Still, through this endless convincing, I constantly come back to one person. Despite everything I had been through, the connections I failed to make, the people I failed to allow into my life; he found his way there all the same. I guess you could say he was the only true connection I ever had. The only person who seemed to get me for me, and still see through me like a sheet of glass. Our last conversation, our last real conversation, I will never forget.
"Do you like what you've made yourself out to be?"
Yes.
"What is that, exactly?"
Yes, what was it?
"A goddamn lunatic, Marik. Straight out of the asylum."
Why the hell did he care?
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I did.
"Lies."
They were.
"Then tell me, Bakura, what am I?"
What am I?
"You're hunting the God Cards, searching for the Millennium items, manipulating people and killing dozens more. Haven't you ever thought that's a little fucked up?"
No.
Sometimes.
"What does it matter to you? You're just the same as I am. You're a filthy little stable boy, the 'Thief King'? Please, everything you do drives me up the fucking wall."
Only sometimes.
"I don't care what you think of me. Your strategies involve nothing but straight out deception. Don't you think that's going to backfire and smack you right in the face?"
It did.
"Fuck off, Bakura."
He did.
And after the finals and my departure to Egypt, I never saw him again.
Sometimes, I wish our last words had been a bit sweeter. Only sometimes.