Throwing around damp color that stains something awful has to be one of the best pastimes known to humans. So I let Kaiba and Malik get a chance. Throw in a little-well, maybe a lot of angst, and you get something like this. Everything belongs to me…except Malik, Kaiba, Isis, Mokuba, Yuugi, Gozaburo Kaiba, Malik's late father (I forget his name), Domino City, the idea of dueling, and…*sigh* you get the idea.

:^^^*^^^:

"Paint your soul." That's what the teacher had said as she handed out brushes and the medium-sized canvases. "Just find a place of quiet, and paint. It doesn't have to look like anything in particular, just your feelings." Malik pondered her words as he stared at his own canvas. It seemed so pure, so white, so unblemished. He almost dared not touch it with color.

With a sigh, he stuffed the things into a gym bag and tossed them onto the back of his motorcycle. He knew the teacher would have had a fit if she had seen how irreverently he treated them, but he didn't really care. "I'm going out, Isis," he yelled towards the back of the house as he drove off.

He had picked a spot the day before, and it didn't disappoint him now. It was a calm, quiet area at the edge of a park overlooking a smooth-flowing river. The place was empty-or so it seemed initially. He had just opened his bag when he realized that someone else had gotten there first. He turned to look straight into the icy blue eyes of Seto Kaiba. They stared at each other for a while, each daring the other to back down and move somewhere else, but neither yielded. Finally Malik simply shrugged and went on setting up. Kaiba shot him another cold glance and also returned to his work. Malik had just finished squeezing out the colors he wanted onto his palette when Kaiba finally spoke.

"That's too much black."

Malik glared at him. "What does it matter to you? It's my paint, not yours."

"You know the teacher said to avoid black like the plague. It's too strong a color."

Malik smirked. "Ha! Black actually isn't a color."

"What do you refer to it as, then?"

The smile disappeared. "A…a color."

"Hn."

"I'll use it anyways," said Malik sulkily. "It's my choice."

"Hn."

Malik first painted the canvas half black and half white. He squinted at it for a while and then repainted one side so that the canvas was half black and half gray. On the black side, he made his strokes jumbled and jagged, harsh to the eye. The other side was still jumbled, but the strokes were a little smoother, just not all in the same direction.

"Why did you choose acrylics?" asked Seto finally.
"Why did you choose oils?" shot back Malik.

Seto shrugged. "They're better, of course. They don't dry as quickly-a trait that allows you to blend colors better."

"Or repair mistakes."

"Exactly."

"And that's why I didn't want oil. It's not realistic."

"Explain."

"When you put something on, it changes the painting forever. You can try painting over it or adding something else, but it'll pretty much stay that way. When something happens to you, that's what goes on in your soul. It alters you permanently. You can try to cover it up, but it'll always be there."

Seto felt a pang of some unidentified feeling stab through his heart. Unable to come up with a comment, he remained silent.

Malik took a small cup of red paint and slowly tipped it so that the paint ran down the center of his canvas in little rivulets. "Did you ever look at blood?" he asked softly.

"Yeah…I guess."

"No, I mean really look at blood. The way it flows, bubbles, then crusts over and turns dull… Did you ever look at the color, that brilliant crimson, and how it spreads hot over broken skin? Have you seen how it spatters on the floor or walls or on people nearby?"

Seto closed his eyes. "There…there was blood when he died."

"Who?"

"The man the papers called my father," said Seto bitterly. "He just adopted us, though. He was never my father."

Malik saw grief in the other boy's eyes despite his angry words. "There was blood when my father died too. Only, he was my real father," he added softly.

Seto bit his lip. "I killed him," he whispered. "At least, he was by the window, and so was I, and then he was on the ground far, far below. When I looked down, his dead eyes still screamed murder. I killed my father."

Malik sighed, a forgotten pain rising fresh within him. "As did I. It was my dark half, really, but still I feel the hurt." He looked back at his painting. "Have you ever tasted blood? Have you known the metallic sweet bitterness splashed into your mouth? It makes you sick if you swallow too much."

Seto toyed with his brush. "I don't know… Yet, I understand what you mean." He flicked a melancholy blue about the edges of his painting. "Have you ever known tears, the salty taste of sadness when they slide down your cheeks?"

"Yeah, and it's hardest when they're not your tears, when they're from the eyes of one you love."

"Mokuba," murmured Seto.

Malik's eyes took on a faraway look. "For me…when my sister cried…she didn't much, really…but when she did…" He paused. "I once loved Isis as a little brother should…back when I was innocent."

A smile twitched at Seto's mouth. "You were innocent?"

Malik looked a little annoyed, but added a touch of cheerful orange to his canvas. "I was. And so were you, I know."

"Maybe so."

"Innocent enough to cry. Everyone does at one point or another."

Seto was silent. "I know. I never loved him, but I cried when I remembered his broken body lying below…when no one was there to see my feelings."

"I cried the instant I realized my father was dead." He gave a short laugh. "I used to be open with my feelings."

"Sometimes I wonder if it's better that way. I couldn't imagine letting people know how I feel. I've hidden for so long. Yet Mokuba seems so much happier and he never hides anything."

"Sort of like…that other kid."

"Yuugi?"

"Yeah."

"I know…"

"I don't get it."

"Me neither."

Silence.

"I think that's the first time I've heard Seto Kaiba admit he didn't know something."

"Hn."

More silence. For a while, there was nothing but the soft sound of brushes on canvas.

"Yet life goes on," put in Seto quietly.

Malik nodded. "It does. You never die when you want to."

"Yet you never really want to die. There's always that will to survive deep down within."

"I know."

"It…"

"It hurts sometimes."

"Yeah…you tear yourself to pieces inside."

"Sometimes literally when you've already got two of you inside to start with."

Seto almost laughed. "I had forgotten about that."

"I never will."

"I'm sure you won't. I have experiences that stick too."

"Like what?"

"Like having my soul locked away. It doesn't hurt at all, and that's what's scary. There's such a lack of pain that it just feels wrong."

"At least where's there's pain, you're alive."

"Right."

"I never thought about it that way."

"You sure think about it a lot when your life energy is trapped in a piece of cardboard."

Malik snorted.
"It's not funny."

"I know, it's just…you have a very interesting way of putting things."

"I always do well when we have to write poetry."

"You do well in everything at school."

"True…"

Both turned their focuses back to their work.

*

The teacher collected the paintings on Monday and hung them up on Tuesday. In the middle, side by side, were Malik Ishtar and Seto Kaiba's paintings. Both were predominately dark, though Malik's was more of a half-and-half design. His work grew lighter, ending with a small strip of hopeful brightness on the right edge. Seto's had a center of light, like the gleam at the end of a long shadowed tunnel. On Malik's canvas, the crimson dripped down the center, while it came in jagged, broken glass-like streaks on Seto's. Both had flecks of cold, heartbreaking blue and few bright colors. Side by side they hung, silent for eternity, yet speaking of perpetual paradoxes to anyone who might stop and listen with their eyes.

R&R