Chapter 12
1. Tire Swing- Kimya Dawson
2. Gangsta - tUnE-yArDs
3. My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark - Fall Out Boy
4. Miss Jackson -Panic! at the Disco featuring Lolo
5. Try to Understand -Allison Weiss
It was December 23rd. Amane was waiting at a table in a rather upscale restaurant, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. She had a lunch meeting with Seto Kaiba. He had been forced to reschedule a few times for various reasons, most of which seemed to be deemed "personal" by his receptionist, but they had rescheduled their awkward meeting for a favor he didn't really owe her for today.
He was five minutes late. Amane frowned. She was meant to go to the museum with Ryou to meet with their father to go to lunch in three hours, and she had hoped to fit in some last minute Christmas shopping between the meeting and then. It was rapidly looking like she would be scrambling to buy things on Christmas Eve.
She checked her phone, wondering belatedly if she'd received another message telling her Kaiba would reschedule (probably for the New Year this time), but saw that she hadn't gotten any new messages since she last checked. Strange. She and Malik texted pretty frequently, and it was already 1:00pm. She decided to text him again, just a quick hello. Nothing terribly weighty. Just seeing how he was. The text read: "HOPE YOU'RE NOT DEAD." In all caps. Because she was cool like that.
She looked up to see that Kaiba had indeed decided to actually attend their lunch meeting. She stood awkwardly, formally shaking his hand before resuming her seat. "Nice to see you again," She said, before feeling as if she had totally put her foot in her mouth. It wasn't as if meeting someone in the emergency room was a good thing to remind them of.
He didn't smile or return the pleasantry. Once their order was placed with a very fidgety waitress, Kaiba focused his gaze on Amane. "Let's get right to it. You helped to save my brother, and I owe you. Name your price."
She frowned. "Woah, again, I really do not want your money." Amane tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, narrowing her eyes. "I'm not interested in being bought off."
"Then what is it that you want? You took this meeting after all."
"Anyone ever tell you that you take things too seriously?" Amane said, shaking her head. Kaiba had the sense to look scandalized, but she carried on. "What I want isn't something I'm sure you can help me with, honestly, but I thought you might have a better idea as to how I can do it." She took a deep breath. "I want to be able to stay in Domino, but I entered on a tourist visa. I've got about a month and a half before I really need to deal with that. I'd like to get a job and stay here. I'm sure you have many employees who have made international move to work for you with an army of lawyers and peeons at your disposal, and I would simply request any assistance you might offer in the process."
"That's it? You want legal advice?"
"Well, also a job. But I'm not really expecting you to just give me one. I'm hardly qualified for anything terribly advanced. I can't have a job without the proper documents though..."
Kaiba nodded. "I'll see what I can do."
Amane was inspecting her make up in the mirror of the bathroom in a restaurant. Ryou was probably pissed that she was taking so long to get back to the table, because it meant he was alone with their father. She had noticed that their reunion had been a bit stiff. Rather awkward. Neither of them seemed willing to address it, and Amane found herself paralyzed with how to handle the situation.
She smiled when she felt her phone vibrate. She hoped it was Malik; it was so strange that she hadn't heard from him all day, and she really wanted to see if he had any level headed wisdom for her about solving this uncomfortable radio silence between her Dad and Ryou. Pulling out the phone, Amane was unhappy to see it was an unlisted number. She typically ignored these calls, but anything was better than forcing communication between the two men sitting in uncomfortable silence over Thai food, so she flipped open the phone. "Hello?"
"Looks like you've got a bit of a record."
"Excuse me?" Amane growled. "Who the fuck is this?"
"You forgot to mention the possession and distribution of narcotics charges when you asked for help earlier."
"You've background checked me? I just left like three hours ago." Kaiba. Jesus, he was annoying. "And what of it, anyway?"
"Well, assuming that you're clean now... I might have something for you after all."
Amane caught her own wide eyed look in the mirror. "I'm listening."
"My little brother has been indulging in some habits that I'm not particularly fond of. Naturally, I can't possibly get involved the situation without it going public. However, I think I can pay someone to take care of it for me."
"What exactly do you mean?"
"If you agree to pay off his...suppliers for me, I can insure that your visa can be extended."
"How?"
"Don't ask if you don't really want to know."
Amane bit her lip, weighing her options. "When?"
"Tonight, if you can. You'll get a text with instructions."
The bell above the door tinkled as Ryou stepped into the Game Shop. It was a bit like sinking into a warm bath; the Kame Game shop was like a second home, a place where he and his friends had wasted many hours over the years, and it was undeniably warmer than the freezing December air outside.
"Sorry, we're closed... Oh!" Atemu brightened when he turned to see it was Ryou. "Hello Ryou. How are you?"
Ryou smiled wanly. He wasn't great, that much was certain. That gnawing, clawing, detail that in the history of what-the-hell-happened-while-the-Thief ran-around-with-my-body a village had been destroyed on the Pharaoh's order was eating him alive "I'm alright. How are you, Atemu?"
The former Pharaoh twisted his mouth, his brow creasing. "I've... been better, honestly."
"Trouble in paradise?" Ryou joked, because Anzu and Atemu never fought. Ever. It was like a rule that they were always, without fail, blissfully happy (much to everyone's annoyance). But there were rumblings of discontent between the pair lately.
"Something like that."
"Is Yuugi around?"
Atemu shook his head, looking troubled. There seemed to be a permanent crease between his eyes. "He's... out."
Ryou toyed with the hem of his shirt. "...Drinking?"
Atemu narrowed his eyes, fixing Ryou with an unpleasant glare. "Not sure. He didn't say before he left."
"I'm worried about him," Ryou said softly. "We... had a stupid fight, and now he won't return my calls. He's either been ditching class or avoiding me in class. I didn't even see him at our final. I feel really badly that I upset him. I just want to apologise. And I... There is something that I really need to speak with him about."
"What about?" Atemu led them to the small living room just off the back of the shop. They each took a seat on the sofa.
"Just..." Ryou frowned, supposing that Atemu could provide just as good of an answer as Yuugi would have. He was around for a while after Bakura had disappeared following Memory World. He hadn't said anything either, but he might have known something but just forgot to mention it in all the insanity. "...I have a question. About what you found out in Memory World, when I wasn't there. Well... actually it's about what happened before the first time you fought Bakura that might have been... skipped over in Memory World. Yuugi and the others filled me in on what I missed, but... I think they forgot something important."
"And what is that?"
Ryou sighed. "Nobody said anything about Kul Elna."
Atemu blanched. "How do you know about it, then? You haven't spoken with Bakura have you?" The question sounded accusatory.
"What does Bakura have to do with it?" Ryou narrowed his eyes. "And no, I haven't spoken with him. My father is an Egyptologist, and they are digging up Kul Elna these days. He told me that records they've found indicate that everyone in the village was murdered on the Pharaoh's orders. But... does it have something to do with Bakura? And... forgive me for asking this, but I have to know: did you really call for the murder of a whole village?"
"I did not!" Atemu said, his voice loud and commanding in a way that recalled many memories of Duels from Duelist Kingdom and beyond "... but my uncle did, in my father's name. That is how the Items were first created. A sacrifice of 99 souls..." Atemu explained how the birth of the Items came about. How Kul Elna was sacrificed, because the souls in the village were "evil." Ryou listened, horrified and amazed all at once."It was a village of thieve and tomb robbers. Nearly everyone was destroyed..."
"Nearly everyone?"
"Bakura escaped. Kul Elna was his village. That's why he sought revenge on me; he wished to avenge his... people."
Ryou felt like he'd socked in the stomach. His head swam with this overload of information. It hadn't been senseless. An image of Bakura's whole plot seemed to snap into alignment in his brain. It hadn't been sociopathic or greed driven or any of the things Ryou had come to believe. It was to avenge the dead. "And... no one told me?"
"What happened in Kul Elna was a tragedy, certainly. A terrible tragedy. The deaths were... regrettable. But Bakura was led astray by darkness in his pursuit of revenge. I believe, though I might not be correct, that Yuugi in the others were trying to protect you when they chose not to tell you about it. If it were me, I would have made the same choice. You had been through a great trauma, Ryou, and empathizing with the Thief would have only confused and hurt you more. Losing your other half was never going to be easy, but knowing might have made it worse. It would have been much too dangerous to allow that to be a possibility."
Ryou stared at him, horrified. "Empathy is dangerous?" He pushed a hand through his hair, disbelieving and stunned. "I am the last person on earth who would ever defend him, but really? It would be dangerous to empathize with someone who lost everything because your uncle thought he didn't much care for Kul Elna? I hate Bakura, but feeling something about that loss isn't exactly work. It's human."
"This is precisely why they wouldn't have told you then!" Atemu insisted. "Look at how easily you've changed sides-"
"Seriously?" Ryou yelped. "I'm not changing sides. There are no sides here. I'm just upset that the guy who took over my body and held me hostage might have had a legitimate reason to go after you in the first place! I'm upset that none of the Dream Team thought that I deserved to be let in on that little tidbit! I'm upset that it happened at all!"
"Please, try not to be angry with me because of something Yuugi did."
Ryou started. "You're just going to let him take the fall for that, then? What about Jou, and Honda, and Ootogi? What about Malik? What about Anzu? They all knew. Why didn't any of them tell me?" He was on his feet; he was shouting. Gods, he was so blindingly angry. "And what about you? You've been back for over a year now! Why didn't you tell me then?"
Atemu faltered. "I thought it better you didn't know."
"That's not fair."
"I didn't want you falling back in with Bakura, I-"
"I was never 'in' with him!" Ryou cried. "It wasn't like it was with you and Yuugi! We didn't share anything. Most of the time I was locked away in my own mind, with no control or idea what was even happening. Have you assumed all along that I was helping him?"
Atemu looked uncomfortable. "I thought, perhaps-"
"Not every light ends up as someone's 'aibou,' Pharaoh," Ryou spat. "Not that it matters much now. In fact, when was the last time you and Yuugi even talked?"
Atemu's eyes flashed. "That's none of your business."
"Let me guess: He's a little miffed that you are going to New York with Anzu?" Ryou smiled angelically. The former Pharaoh took a step back, obviously frightened. "What a lovely undertaking for you, Pharaoh. Tell me, where was your consideration for him then? He's your best friend, isn't he? Your partner? Tell me, what kind of friend doesn't even notice that he's going out with the person his best friend has been in love with for years?"
"That's not fair, he never-"
"Of course it isn't fair! But that doesn't make it okay. You can't just expect him to be okay with everything you do anymore. You're not the hero who waltzes in and saves everyone when you're breaking his heart!"
"That's enough!" Atemu thundered. "You cannot speak to me like this!"
But Ryou was fuming, words spilling from his lips now that his anger was ignited. "You know, I can almost see why Yuugi would have said he hates you now. The way you treat him? Without some big plot to save the world, you're just like everyone else who used to walk all over him. What's worse is that you actually think you're being his friend! Gods, at least for the most part Bakura leaves me alone."
"Shut up!" Atemu shouted, leaping to his feet. He shoved Ryou to the ground, breathing heavily as he stood above him. He started to say something, probably an empty apology for losing his temper, but Ryou didn't hear anything but the blood rushing to his head.
Ryou saw red.
He got up and pounced on the Pharaoh, tackling him to the floor and landing a punch to the jaw and another right in Atemu's teeth. The former Pharaoh tried to shove him off, hitting him across the face as he did and Ryou's fist just kept making contact and Atemu was pulling at his hair grabbing at his throat scratching at his arms until Ryou came back to himself and scrambled off of him. Atemu's lip was bleeding, and his cheek and lips looked a little swollen. "I'm... Sorry, I..." He turned and ran, mind a mess, ran and ran until he was in South Domino not far from the Thief's apartment with a million and one questions for the former Spirit of the Ring.
"Malik!" Amane pounded on his door, nevermind that it was 10:45 at night. He buried his head deeper into his pillow. Nope. He didn't see people today. Just... nope. Not today. Today was a horror movie on repeat. Nope. Just going to nope right out of this one. Amane could deal with her own shit for another few hours. Amane was a big girl. She could be someone else's problem today. "Malik, are you okay? Look, I can see your lights are on! I'm worried. Are you upset with me or something?"
The walls in this place were thin. He could hear her exasperated sigh. He heard her slide down the door, leather of her jacket a whisper over the cheap wood. Half of him wanted to see how her head was leaned back, white hair static clinging to the door knob, knobby knees up around her ears. Her eyes were probably closed in frustration; maybe she was rubbing her temples. She probably looked incredibly pissed off and just as pretty.
"I'm probably about to do something stupid," She said, imploringly. Malik lifted his head, but the rest of his muscles protested. They knew better. "Also... Something's up with Ryou. I thought it was just Dad being around, but he's been twitchy. Can't just be that. Dad mentioned something about some village in Egypt, and Ryou rushed off to talk to Yuugi. So, I'm thinking that this is something might know about. And you two are friends, so if you could... Call him? Or text him. Or something...?"
Malik frowned, having a feeling he knew exactly what Ryou was asking Yuugi about. He resolved to ask tomorrow to confirm his suspicions. He wanted Egypt far from his mind tonight.
"Seriously, you're okay, right? I'm not afraid to break the damn door down."
He snorted. She couldn't do that. He kept it deadbolted, chain on, all four locks closed and then a chair shoved under the handle for good measure. He took no risks today. Today the darkness needed to stay the fuck away from him.
"...Okay, I'm going. I hope you're alright."
"Hey!"
Bakura turned; Ryou was rushing after him, looking furious. It was such a strange image, an angry Ryou marching after him in the swirling snow. Bakura turned back around, choosing not to engage. This had been going on for several blocks now. He was vaguely curious how the other boy had found him, but not enough to ask. He wasn't feeling up to a confrontation at the moment. Something was telling him not to get involved. He liked to listen to those feelings now. They were normally trustworthy feelings.
"I need to talk to you!" Ryou was saying, still trailing behind him. Bakura's brow wrinkled; since when did Ryou need anything from him? Whatever the matter was, it could not be good. "Jesus, will you just listen to me? I want to ask you... something."
Ignore him. Ignore him.
Ryou let out some kind of frustrated noise, halfway between a whimper and a growl. "Why didn't you tell me about Kul Elna?"
Bakura froze. Oh gods no.
"I am talking to you!" Ryou cried, catching up to him. Bakura did not look at him. He had this strange trepidation about what he would find, and he couldn't force himself to look. He could not look. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to see what it meant to have Ryou know. He was never supposed to let Ryou know, he was supposed to protect him from that, somehow someway he wasn't supposed to let him know about that horror. Ryou grabbed his shoulder and forcibly turned him so they were facing each other. Bakura shoved him off immediately, continuing his journey back to his apartment, refusing to participate in this conversation."Don't you dare walk away from me! You owe me an explanation!"
"And how do you figure that?" Bakura rounded on him, a fury erupted in him that he hadn't felt in a very long time. He had grabbed Ryou by the collar and shoved him roughly against the brick of the nearest building, hand raised as if to strikes and then and... and why had he done that? He released Ryou quickly, hating the way fear flashed in those brown eyes. Gods, this was a mess. He took a step back. Ryou stared at him. They were only inches apart. Their breaths were visible in the freezing air, mingling due to their proximity. Bakura was still debating his motivations in his physical handling of Ryou; he'd never done that to him, not on his own at least. He'd grabbed, he'd dragged, but he had never done that. This shoving, hurting, intentional thing before. Not since he'd been back. Not since he'd been without Zorc. He'd almost hit him. Almost. Wasn't he meant to be better than this now? "How do you figure I owe you anything?"
Ryou shook his head, looking a bit frightened. Bakura hoped he hadn't hit it on the wall. "I-I-I... You stole my body, and you ne-never said anything... Never told me what it was all for! You never mentioned that you were going after the Pharaoh because your whole village was wiped out in his name!" He looked defiant and scared and ah there it was... Ryou was pitying him under the streetlight.
"Perhaps I thought it wasn't any of your damn business."
"Like hell it wasn't! It became my business the second you came into my life. You owed me that... You should have at least told me. I might have he-" He stopped short, out of breath, unable to keep speaking.
"What? You might have what, hikari?" He said it spitefully, angrily, furiously. He threw the name he knew Ryou hated back in his face because he was angry that he knew, he was never supposed to know. It was Bakura's secret, his shame, his tragedy, and Ryou had no right to know. Ryou's eyes were downcast then. Ashamed. He was ashamed of what he had been about to say, but Bakura knew the answer all the same. He might have helped. "Who told you?" The fire in him had simply gone out. As fast as it had been lit, it was out, smoke, gone. Cold. Bakura's voice was cool.
"Does it matter?" Ryou sighed, because of course he knew it mattered. "My father... This exhibition he's brought to town. They've found the Items, which is... a disaster, I thought they'd been destroyed or laid to rest or..." He shifted, clenched his fists, frowned. "They know. My father and the researchers... They know about the... About what happened in Kul Elna. They've uncovered some sort of document about the massacre... They've found the ruins."
Bakura nodded. He felt disoriented. He stared at the space between their feet. They had been standing awfully close, but he couldn't make his feet move. He hadn't wanted this to happen, but now that that it had it was almost a relief. Ryou knew... and he seemed to understand, at least a little. Even if it was pity, it was... It was something. He couldn't move away though. Something was gluing him to the spot, keeping him there. He couldn't - "Is that blood?" A fat, dark drop had landed on the white of Ryou's sneaker, colors muted in the dark, but definitely blood. "Are you bleeding?"
"Oh..." Ryou held up his left hand; blood was indeed dripping from his knuckles. Not a lot. Just a thin line that dripped off the clenched fist. But definitely blood. "I guess I am."
"How did you manage that...?"
Ryou looked suddenly bashful, head ducked, biting his lip. "It's a long story."
Bakura rolled his eyes. He nodded his head toward his place. "Come on then."
"What? Why?"
"Because you're not walking around in the dark dripping blood all over Domino."
The black car came to a stop outside of Ryou's building. Amane cast a wary eye around the dark street, but no one was out and out at this time of night. She pulled her jacket closer to her body and hurried inside the car. The driver took off without a word. He handed two unmarked white envelopes back to her.
"The top one is yours."
Amane nodded, aware he couldn't see her, and pocketed the top envelope. She opened the second envelope, counting the bills wordlessly, eye going wide at the amount. This Kaiba guy clearly had deep pockets, and he wasn't afraid to throw some money at this problem.
The car slowed outside of a highrise. Amane swallowed hard, checking her text with instructions again. "Here goes."
Bakura turned toward his building. Ryou followed soundlessly. When, after a few minutes, they reached Bakura's door, Ryou lingered, brow furrowed. "I'm not going to murder you," Bakura said as he unlocked the door. Ryou still hesitated, clearly missing the joke. "Or maim you or sacrifice you to any demons. I won't force you to commit any crimes. I won't force you to do anything. Seriously. You came all the way here; I'm sure you have about a thousand questions. I'm not answering them in the hall."
Ryou followed him inside, looking supremely uncomfortable once the lights were flicked on. He took his jacket off, gingerly trying to keep his bleeding hand from bloodying his things. Bakura supposed his confrontation plan hadn't extended past the yelling. He removed his own jacket, then held out a hand to Ryou in the most exasperated way possible. "Let me see your hand."
"It's fine, really," Ryou mumbled, holding it to his chest. It looked painful and swollen. Blood dripped onto his cardigan.
"You just really enjoy being difficult, don't you?" Bakura said, annoyed. He reached out and grabbed Ryou's wrist, his right, the uninjured hand, and began tugging him toward the bathroom. Ryou let himself be led, not even protesting as Bakura sat him down on the toilet seat and demanded he look at it. Ryou held it out awkwardly, revealing that his knuckles were huge and swollen, and that there were cuts on three of the raised ridges. Bruises were starting to form near his first finger."Who'd you hit?" He asked, conversationally, dropping Ryou's wrist and scavenging in his medicine cabinet for peroxide and bandages before setting them on the countertop. Always prepared, this thief was.
"You won't believe me."
Bakura rolled his eyes. He found a clean face cloth and got it wet under the faucet in the sink. He wrung it out, and knelt before Ryou, still looking bemused. Carefully taking the hand, he began to wipe the blood away gently."Try me."
Ryou wore a strange, half proud smile as he said, "Atemu."
Bakura looked up sharply, face wrinkled skeptically. "You're joking."
"Told you that you wouldn't believe me." Ryou was frowning, watching Bakura's movements like a deer who was acutely aware of a hunter in the meadow. Skittish.
Bakura smirked, shaking his head as he ran the cloth between Ryou's fingers to wipe away the blood. He'd seen mothers do that with their children in restaurants when they made a mess of themselves with condiments. Very strange variation on a theme. This certainly wasn't ketchup. He grabbed the bottle of peroxide and poured a small amount over the scraped knuckles.
Ryou hissed in pain. "Ouch."
"Sorry." He wiped away the bubbling peroxide. He poured more on, ignoring the whine of pain that Ryou tried not to make. For his own good, Bakura thought sourly. He wiped the bubbling mess away again. It looked like the bleeding had stopped. It had probably stopped before. The cuts weren't very deep, but Ryou might have reopened them by moving his hand too much. "Why'd you hit him?" Bakura asked at length, reaching for the bandages. He set Ryou's hand on Ryou's knee while he opened each bandage.
"After my father told me about the... about Kul Elna-" Bakura's hand convulsed involuntarily, forming a tight fist for a brief second over the paper packaging, crushing it into a ball . It was like taking a bullet, every time Ryou said it. Ryou definitely noticed, but kept speaking "-I went to talk to Yuugi and the others. They had done their best to fill me in on what I'd missed while you were off playing in Memory World, but um... They left that part out. I wanted to know why they hadn't told me."
Bakura frowned, but said nothing. He thought he knew exactly why nobody mentioned it, but he didn't think Ryou would care much for his answer. Heaven forbid that Yuugi and the Dream Team hadn't wanted him to think badly of the precious Pharaoh. Heaven forbid the truth make Bakura sound human. He put the first plaster on Ryou's busted first knuckle.
"I thought that maybe, somehow, they didn't know. Or maybe I'd hoped... Either way, I went looking for Yuugi, but I got Atemu." Ryou shook his head. "So I asked what the hell had happened, and how it was that nobody had even told me. He got defensive, like I had accused him of something. It was like he was trying to justify it.. He wasn't defending it, exactly, but he was trying to say that it was a village of evil people and that it was regrettable. That was the word he used. Regrettable. Losing your phone is regrettable, but genocide...? Anyway I... I got angry."
Bakura didn't look up. He put the second bandage on the second cut. He knew he couldn't meet Ryou's eye about now.
"He started saying that... that empathizing with you was 'dangerous,' and then I just got really angry."
"So you hit him?" That was certainly different.
"Don't flatter yourself," Ryou snapped. Those defenses shot right back up. "I wasn't like... defending you. I hit him because he said something about my fight with Yuugi too. He said I had no right to say anything about how they weren't speaking, and that obviously I'd been hanging around you and your dark influence or some other horseshit."
"The Pharaoh and his light aren't speaking?"
"No, they've had a fight because Atemu is supposed to be going to New York with Anzu... Which, incidentally, is why Yuugi told me that he hates Atemu and spurred that whole fight we had in the first place. I threw it back in Atemu's face and, he... shoved me. Called me a liar. So I hit him. Twice. He hit me back. So I hit him again and ran off."
Bakura looked up sharply, inspecting Ryou for further damage. There was a small mark on his cheek. "He did what?"
Ryou rolled his eyes. "He pushed me. And hit me back, but only after I hit him first. It's fine."
"He touched you?" And then his rage from earlier was back. Bakura was on his feet, bloody rag still in hand, poised to bolt. "That son of a bitch has no right-"
"And you do?" Ryou stood too, crossing his arms over his chest. "Or was I meant to take that lovely shove into a wall earlier to be your idea of a hug?" Bakura chose not to respond, instead flinging the bloody rag into the kitchen sink and hurriedly grabbing his jacket. Ryou was following him. "Where the hell are you going?"
"I just have a few words I'd like to say to the Pharaoh," Bakura said through clenched teeth. "Stay here."
"Um, no. I might have just gotten royally pissed off at him, but he's still my friend. You're not going over there."
"He hit you."
"I hit him first!"
"I don't care, he can't just-" He was at the door, and Ryou had closed a hand around his wrist, wrenching him back. He bodily blocked the door, spreading his arms out wide as if to say that to get through the door, Bakura would have to get through him. Bakura was fully confident that he could do exactly that, prepared to do it even, but then Ryou was shoving him back, motor-mouthing so fast that he felt like his head was spinning. "I'm not your fucking property! You cannot lose your mind and go kick his ass just because we had a fight!"
"What?!" Bakura shouted, trying to twist his arm away, get around the skinny other kid without hurting or shoving him. "I don't think you're my property! He just can't-"
"Stop! Just stop it! Are you ever going to tell me about Kul Elna?" Ryou demanded, shoving him against the wall. Bakura dropped the jacket to the floor, trying to fend off the grabbing and grasping hands with which Ryou was assaulting him and losing his grip. His light was angry again, incredibly angry, and violently so. Bakura tried to push him off, but Ryou grabbed his left hand and pinned him by the wrist to the wall, and while he was struggling, Ryou kept babbling, managing to get the other wrist and pin that to the wall. Bakura stared at him, wide eyed, struggling but trapped as Ryou carried on, "I want to know. I want to hear it from you. You promised... you said you'd answer my questions if I came here, so now you have to tell me. What exactly happened? Why did it happen? Whose orders? How old were you? Did you have any family? What happened to them? Did you-"
"Stop," Bakura said weakly. "Please, just... stop." He couldn't keep up; his head was swimming much like it had those weeks ago when he'd been struck down with a sudden bout of humanity known as illness. Specifically, the flu and a concussion. Malik had eventually dragged him to the doctor when he still wasn't right several days after the incident with his knife, which now was tucked away in his sock drawer rather than on his person like it usually was. He couldn't look at it now. His head dropped warily, and Ryou paused, face all twisted like he was confused by the words.
"You can punch the Pharaoh in the mouth another night," Ryou said sourly. His face was far too close to Bakura's for comfort, a little blurry so close up.
Bakura shook his head experimentally. It did nothing to free him of the dizziness that had been brought on by the rapid fire questions Ryou was aiming at him. "Will you get off me?" He muttered, trying to twist his arms free. Ryou had an iron grip.
"Will you tell me, then?"
"No."
"Then I guess we're staying here."
"Gods, you are such a brat-"
"Why don't I get to know?" Ryou persisted, digging his fingers painfully into Bakura's wrists. His head snapped up to look at Ryou. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then Bakura tried to twist away. Ryou was prepared; his thin fingers only pressed harder, holding him fast against the wall. "Yuugi and Atemu, they know. And Malik knows. They all know, but I don't get to? We shared a mind-"
"You happily remind me often that taking over someone's body doesn't count as sharing," Bakura spat.
Ryou let out a frustrated growl, grabbing the trapped wrists and slammed them against the wall. Bakura, despite his best efforts, flinched. "Will you just tell me?"
Bakura looked away, seething that he couldn't seem to escape. His heart was hammering very loudly in his chest. He stopped struggling. Ryou still held his wrists fast. This was... awful. Ugly. It wasn't supposed to happen period, but it definitely wasn't supposed to happen like this. There couldn't be any understanding, any clarify in a moment so thick with emotion.
"Please, Bakura?"
Bakura looked up, eyes guarded, feeling stupid. He literally did not know when, if ever, Ryou had used his name. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"Care to narrow that down a bit?"
Ryou sighed. "How old were you?"
Bakura faltered. He wasn't positive how old he had been anymore. That was... jarring, to say the least. At the time he had probably known to the day exactly how old he was. "...I was eight. Maybe nine. When it... happened."
"Eight or nine?" Ryou repeated. He looked horrified.
"I can't remember exactly." God, it was just shameful to admit that with so much uncertainty.
"What happened to your family?" Ryou asked, still looking horrified. "Were they all...?"
"Yes." He didn't really want to hear the end of the question; it already brought pain images of his toddling little sister and his mother to the front of his mind. He didn't want to think of them now.
"And everyone else? Neighbors, friends...? Didn't anyone else...?"
"No. Just me." They locked eyes; Bakura daring him to comment, to express pity or anger or compassion by holding his gaze. Ryou just looked back. He looked, perhaps, a bit shocked. It was highly uncomfortable for Bakura, to have that reaction so up close and personal. He just wanted some space from it, physical distance at the very least. He tried to twist his wrists away again, but even in his distracted state, Ryou held firm. How people so often underestimated this kid was beginning to befuddle Bakura. "Will you let me go now?"
"Oh... right." Ryou let go of his wrists and took a step back. He was chewing his lip. "Sorry." Bakura rubbed his wrists irritably, bending to pick up his dropped jacket and fling it over a chair. His wrists were starting to bruise. Fantastic. He noticed Ryou's eyes on him the whole time as he stomped off to the living room. Ryou was following close behind, still chewing on his lip. "So that was why... The whole thing, the games and duels and challenges? Flying to Egypt, stealing the Items? You wanted to avenge your village."
He nodded once, throwing himself onto the sofa irritably. "Didn't go very well, obviously." He was joking about this now, apparently. That was a thing he was doing.
Ryou didn't smile. "And... Zorc? Who was Zorc?"
"A demon."
Ryou stared.
Bakura rolled his eyes, elaborating. "I made a deal with him. He'd help me get revenge if I collected the Items for him. He sort of... took over after I was sealed away in the Ring."
"H-he was in the Ring with you?" Ryou said faintly, his injured hand going to press flat against his chest where the Ring once rested. He took a seat beside Bakura, clearly overwhelmed enough not to mind the proximity. Bakura thought it was kind of... funny. "But I... How... Shouldn't I have known?" He was cradling his injured hand awkwardly to his chest now.
Bakura shrugged. "We were the same then, me and him. It was hard for me to tell us apart, so it probably makes sense that you couldn't either." He stood up, heading for the kitchen.
"Wait! Where are you going?" Ryou was on his feet. "I still have questions!"
"You should ice that hand." Bakura said quietly, staring into his freezer for something he could use as a makeshift ice pack. In the back was an unopened bag of frozen peas that might have belonged to the previous tenant for all Bakura knew about them. In honesty, he could probably blame Malik. Or thank him, just in this instance. He walked back to the living room, handing the bag to Ryou, who was sitting on the sofa, expression contorted and confused. "Here."
Ryou started. "Thank you." He pressed the bag to his swollen knuckles. "Can I ask you something?"
"I thought that was what we were doing." He threw himself down on the lumpy sofa, forcing a casualness to his actions that he did not feel. He felt tense, like all of his muscles were contracting at once, rejecting his mind's insistence that he relax.
Ryou rolled his eyes. "Could you... Could you tell me about your family?"
Bakura's defenses shot straight up. His eyes narrowed. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up. "Why?"
Ryou's face twisted, somewhere between a frown and a thoughtful look. "You went on a three thousand year revenge plot because they were killed. Clearly you must have...?"
"Must have what, hikari?" There it was again, stupid word stupidly trying to stupidly piss stupid Ryou off. But Bakura felt ready to grind his teeth down to dull nubs out of anxiety. He could not wait for this conversation to end.
"You must have loved them."
It went so quiet in the room that Bakura wondered for a second if he had gone deaf. It seemed that neither of them were capable of breathing in that instant. The clock's ticking fade away, the rhythmic dripping of the leaky faucet in the kitchen seemed to have missed a beat.
"That is, if you were ever capable of that."
Bakura opened and closed his mouth, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him. He wasn't sure that love had been on his mind when he set out for revenge. At least, not that he could recall. He'd been a child when the mess began, surely he must have had some shred of innocence left in him at eight or nine years old to know that he had loved his sister and mother and their village and that was why he wanted to kill the people who killed them. "Yes." The word came out hoarse. Yes he loved them. Yes, he'd loved them fiercely. Yes, he'd loved them with an almost insane fanaticism because he had been a child when they were ripped away from them and their faces had faded over time but that feeling, that protective loving jaded hurt ruined feeling that he'd failed them he'd failed and they had died and he just wanted them back never went away. Never faded as a feeling, but it warped and twisted and became hate toward the Pharaoh toward those who had destroyed those he loved. "I did."
Ryou was looking at him strangely. "Did you have... siblings, then? Or parents?"
"I had a sister. And a mother. My father had already died by the time..." It wasn't until this moment that Bakura even remembered having a father. His death hadn't been one that needed avenging; he had gotten sick. He had died. Bakura had thought about him in the time that elapsed between then and now. Thousands of years clearly didn't help keep the memory up to date. "He died before the massacre."
"Who...Who looked after you? After it happened?"
Bakura shook his head.
"Oh." Ryou suddenly sounded congested. "That's terrible."
Bakura shrugged.
