Disclaimer: If I owned Yugioh, there'd be a lot more Bakura.
Malik thinks he hides himself, but he brands his own body more than scars ever could. The cargo khakis below the golden chains, the bracelets gleaming above a motorcycle clutch, the father's earrings, the smooth-heeled boots, the kohl around eyes still glazed with wonder as the sun rises in the morning. He wears his heritage with reckless calculation – his legs Western, his arms Egyptian, his heart god-knows-what and his loyalties who-knows-where. He rolls in purple as if the Phoenicians have just sailed to the Pharaoh's palace; his hair reflects the sun even as his skin absorbs it.
What are you? Ryou wants to ask when he wanders into the bathroom and sees a tiny stick of kohl resting next to aftershave, when he comes home to find Malik arguing on the phone with some curator or another – that's our heritage and we're taking it back! - while motorcycle keys fiddle between manicured fingers. Koshary for dinner, cake for dessert – what are you?
I'm everything, laughs Malik bitterly, but despite the venom his eyes shine – eyes belonging nowhere. I'm more than this world I've inherited. I speak English to my patrons and a dead language to my sister. In meetings I jot memos in an alphabet it costs thousands a year to learn. My home was lit by candlelight and I want a cell phone for my birthday. I'm an alien from another time, a relic from another place, and I'm going to have it all or live trying – live, mind you, because the only thing I'll never allow myself to do is die. I'm everything, everything, and what are you?
Ryou looks at Malik, sees the restlessness of being nothing and too much, but he bites it back and shrugs. I'm me, he says, I've found my place. I'm me.
Dumb answer, says Malik, and in his embrace Ryou can smell grease and spice and sweetened oil. You're like everything else, you're supposed to say you're mine.
Ryou wonders if Malik doesn't see the divide or if he's wrapped himself in a glinting violet-gold dream to stay ambitious just a little longer. And maybe Malik's right, maybe he is everything, the past and the present and the East and the West and the heritage and the innovation, the tradition and the freedom.
And maybe he's spiraling ahead in his own roiling way, water on fire, honed to a burning icicle by the conviction in his mind. But Malik's right, Ryou is his, so he'll let Malik cling to him, to the stability and normalcy, and let him play at being everything even when Ryou can see him splitting apart. With Ryou in his arms, Malik becomes everything, and the divide of countless oceans and three thousand years can be harmonized, at least another night.