He never looked, never saw.

(It was too ugly to look at, all of it)

He went through motions, went through his cheap imitation of life, and did not see.

Did not notice the gaze levelled at him, and the feelings within.

If he had, maybe...

"You never look me in the eyes." And he smirked, because he knew why.

He never backs down from a challenge.

He looks down, sideways, into his eyes, and he knows then, he knows.

Love and hate and pain and bloodlust mixed up in his eyes, and it's all a reflection of the world.

The world he never looks at, the world he hates.

(Such an ugly world)

With knives and words, the world is driven into him, he is thrown into the world, and he cannot wait to leave it. He knows it will be soon.

The blood is red with memories of more blood, recursive nightmare, and the pain turned to the true numb he had always wanted, always tried to pretend he had.

Bakura would never let him experience it for long. He did not possess mercy.

It does not end suddenly. He bleeds out onto the cold floor, with colder blood, and the numb is also on the floor running in rivulets through invisible cracks.

(One day, all the cracks will join together and be visible and shatter the floor into a million jagged shards, tinged with a crimson that will never come out completely)

Without the numb what is he, what does he have?

(Feeling, so much feeling, and he cannot stand it)

(So much feeling all at once, and his body cannot stand it any more than his mind)

"Look at me," Bakura hisses, his eyes and his words matching.

And he does.

Instead of love and pain and hate and bloodlust all he sees is red.

Was it worth it, this vision, this true sight he cannot remember ever having before, this view that sees and brings only death?

The red is all he can see now, his eyes becoming a burning world and he wants it with an intensity he didn't know he could have.

And he knows he would live this pain, this feeling, this death creeping black tendrils through the blood to a heart that matches it, over a million times, if only to see that burning world once more.

(Such an ugly world, but burning, it is beautiful)