I was sitting next to the window and staring at the street below. I'd spent the last three days staring at the damn street. I'd pushed the coffee table in our suite next to the window just so I could be comfortable as I sat and watched.

I felt Marik slip behind me, wrapping his arms around me and leaning close.

"Sorry," I muttered, leaning back into his embrace and closing my eyes.

I knew what I was doing. I spent the last six month moping about Marik, and now that I had him, I was moping about Ryou and Kek. None of them deserved that, but I didn't know how to turn it off. The problem with losing everything when you're little is that you get greedy. You want to hold onto everything. You never wanted to feel the sting of loss again, but that's all I've known. Loss of my village in life, loss of my vengeance while in the Ring, and loss of one love or another since I'd been back. There was no getting around it. No matter what choice I made… I'd be hurt, and whoever I left behind would be too.

"I love you," Marik whispered.

"Same." I twisted in his arm so that the side of my face pressed against his chest, relaxing as he held me.

I allowed myself to dissolve in his arms, not thinking, only soaking in the scent of his cologne and the warmth of his body. I'm sure I would have reached true zen in such a state- finally became a good person, and find the solution to all my problems and the problems of life in general- but someone knocked on the door about five seconds before that could happen.

"Could you get that, Bakura?" Marik withdrew his arms.

As much as I wanted to whimper and bury myself deeper against him, I only grunted and trudged towards the door. Once I swung it open, no one was there. I blinked for a moment and then a splash of color caught my eye near the bottom of my vision. Looking down, I saw a bouquet wider as I was broad.

"You asshole," I whispered. The words were harsh but I couldn't keep the affection out of my voice or the smile off my face as I bent down and balanced the huge bundle in my arms.

"Lilac, of course, mixed in with poppies, red dahlias, and those maroon ones are calla lilies," Marik explained.

"I wanted to buy you some first."

But everything has been a tornado and I couldn't decide on what was the perfect mix.

"Well, be quicker next time." Marik winked. "You have to stay on your A game if you want to romance me."

"Sounds like a challenge." I wasn't inhaling the flowers. I absolutely wasn't. Neither was I brushing the smooth surface of a calla lilly against my scarred cheek. I was doing none of those things. Only a lovesick fool would do any of that. "I love challenges."

"Hmmm, I know. It's one of your more endearing qualities."

Our eyes caught from across the room and we both grinned at each other. A poppy brushed against my bottom lip, tickling it, and my eyes fluttered closed. After a few deep breaths I looked at Marik again.

"Want to go for a walk?"

"Being outside sounds good." Marik stood up and strolled over to me.

He covered my hands with his own, a thousand flowers between us, but his eyes were still brighter than all of them. I wanted to lean over and kiss him, but the bouquet was in the way, so I set it down on the table beside us and allowed my arms to slip around him. Our lips brushed and my soul felt like it was blooming, brighter and more lush than an entire garden of flowers. We stumbled to the bed beside us and tangled our fingers into each other's hair.

"I love you," I whispered.

"Same." Marik smiled so broadly that it broke our kiss.

We used the natural break to stand up. I made sure the key card for the hotel room was in my wallet before we left and we started down the street. I kept bumping my hip against Marik's leg. I liked the little grin that would sneak on his face each time I did it.

"It's nice here." Marik looked up at the sky. "It's always too hot in Luxor. I don't mind so much when I'm in a hut working on a project, but I always thought it'd be nice to have somewhere to go in between jobs that wasn't-"

"A desert?" I snorted.

"Exactly."

"Yeah, I don't miss living in a time before air conditioning, and Domino really does have lucky weather. I was going to miss it when we moved to Osaka- before you showed up."

"Move to Osaka?" Marik tilted his head in my direction as he asked the question.

"Yeah." I shrugged. Not sure I felt like telling the entire story.

"Why were you going to move?"

I sighed. Damn. So much for not telling the entire story.

"It hurt. Everything in this town reminded me of Battle City, which reminded me of you. I had to leave. I was going to go to the states, but Ryou and Kek suggested we all move out of Domino together." I stared at the lines in the sidewalk as our feet traveled over them. "At least Kek doesn't have to leave his gym now. He and Ryou can both keep their friends. I didn't like the idea of dragging them away like that."

"Gods." Marik crossed his arms over his chest, thoughtful. "Friends. Hm. I don't even have friends, not really. Friendly acquaintances, perhaps."

"I was hoping that at least…" I shook my head, jamming my hands into my pockets. "It doesn't matter though."

"You were hoping that I'd get along with them." Marik sighed, reading my thoughts.

"I can't change how I feel. I can chose who I'm with, but I can't change how I feel." I was afraid to look at Marik at that moment, but I needed to, so I forced my head to raise up. "I… need to make sure you're okay with that."

Marik was watching me, but then straightened his head. "Look. The pier."

Of course we ended up at the pier. I hadn't intended to, maybe Marik did, but I had a feeling our feet just took us here on their own. To the beginning.

"Let's sit down," Marik suggested.

I nodded my head. It was a proper place to talk. That's why we came here the first time- to talk in private. To plan a murder, threaten each other with murder, take over and destroy the world respectively. What the fuck. It seemed so ridiculous now, like we were stuck in a cartoon or something. Not anymore, now life was just… life. But hell, I'd take a card game right now over the feeling that I was getting pulled apart in three directions.

"I get it," Marik said, his hair shifting in the breeze. His lips twisted upward, not quite a grin, but not a smirk either. He toyed with the wooden post beside him. "It's funny when I think about it. So much hatred… it used to radiate from you like heat, although your hands always felt like ice. Now your hands are warm and you love too many people."

"Not too many." I shook my head.

"That's fair." Marik rested his hand on my knee. "Not too many, and if you're worried about if it bothers me or not- it doesn't, so don't worry."

"Clearly it does bother you, Marik."

"No." Marik shook his head. "It doesn't bother me that you fell in love with them. Is it weird that I'm not jealous at all? I keep expecting to get angry over that, and my emotions are a mess right now, because it's confusing, but it's not jealousy."

I chuckled as I thought about it. "I get jealous over food and treasure, not lovers. It's like… even when they used to sneak off to the shower I never felt left out because I knew I was welcomed. I never had to ask with them, just join. Ryou didn't get it, at first. That he could just join in, and it was making him sad. I could tell- you know, former-headspace-buddy-privilege and all. That's why I kissed him. It was permission. It's easier with an action than fumbling over words."

I looked out at the sea, but I saw them more than the water. That first time it'd been all three of us in Ryou's bed together. "But once I saw Ryou and Kek kiss, I thought maybe it'd be better if I just backed away. They didn't let me. They both grabbed my wrist at the same time, and that's when I knew it wouldn't be them and me, but us."

"That's sweet." Marik was smiling, genuinely.

It was a relief because I wasn't sure what I would have done had he gotten upset over the story. I wanted to have the sort of relationship with Marik were we could tell each other everything, but everything meant this too.

"Playing Monster World was fun. I wouldn't mind trying to finish out the quest before we left."

"I don't want you to just to cheer me up." I bit the inside of the cheek. Hating the next words that left my mouth. "Talk to Kek this weekend and then let's get out of here."

"It's been a few days. I'm over it now."

I started at the wooden slats below us. "When I saw you in the kitchen, you didn't even realize you'd walked through a puddle full of broken glass, Marik. I don't ever want to see you that out of it again. Nothing's worth doing that to you."

"You're going to have to see it again, Bakura, and I need you to be okay with that like you need me to be okay with how you feel about the others, because I don't want to hide it from you when it happens."

Marik said it in such a general way that it concerned me, and I wasn't sure how to react.

"What do you mean?"

"Kek isn't part of me anymore, but I still have a dissociative disorder. It's not always bad things, it's any time I'm overwhelmed." He kept shaking his head, as if to deny to issue. "I try to hide it when I can. I don't think Ishizu even realizes- Rishid notices."

I flung my arms around Marik, holding him as close as I could while sitting beside him. I felt stupid. Of course he still had problems. It's not like banishing Kek fixed his childhood, and Kek didn't mentally check out like Marik had in the kitchen, but I knew he still struggled with his emotions, why should Marik be different?

"Then what do I do? When it happens?"

"Speak slowly. Hearing's hard when I'm half out of it, and if we're in a crowd, try to get me somewhere quiet. Like I said, being overstimulated sets me off sometimes."

"Okay." I sat so that I was behind Marik, spreading out my legs on either side of him. He positioned himself so that his legs dangled over the edge of the pier, making it easier for me to sit behind him and rest my chin on his shoulder. I held his stomach with both my hands, watching the waves break up the sun's reflection. "Is this okay? Does it bother your back?"

"Your chest feels good against my back, but maybe move your chin? The sun disk area is one of the bad spots."

"Okay." I felt stupid repeating myself, but I wanted he to know that I heard him while I figured out how to move. I ended up resting my forehead against the back of Marik's hair. "Better?"

"Better." Marik found my hands and squeezed them. "Hey Bakura?"

"Hmm?"

"This isn't what I expected, none of this is, but I'm glad this is how it ended up. I like you this way. I like how you pay attention to details and actually give a fuck about how I'm feeling."

"Heh, this is nicer than last time we came to the pier. I should have held you then. We could have skipped the dramatic tournament and sat here the entire time."

I should have, but I never would have. Vengeance was the only thing I was good for back then, and Marik wasn't really any better. Didn't stop me from drinking in the moment. I nuzzled his hair with the tip of my nose and grinned as an idea came to me.

"Hey, Marik?"

"Hmm?"

"When I look in your eyes I think of fields of coriander blooms that existed thousands of years ago. I don't really remember what the fuck it is to be human, but you're one of the few things in this world that remind me of when I did know. Would you like to go out on a date with me tonight?"

"Holy shit, Bakura." Marik resituated so he could kneel between my legs face me. His skin glowed, both from the sunlight and from emotion.

I shrugged, smiling myself. Marik's smile was contagious. "That's what I should have said the first time we met but I couldn't because the timing was all wrong."

"And now?" Marik's grin widened a little.

"Now I think the timing is perfect."

"I agree." Marik brushed our noses together. "I'll pick you up at your hotel room at five."

He pecked my cheek, stood up, and walked away.

"Where are you going?" I stood up so I could follow.

"There's some things I want. Don't worry, I told you I'll pick you up at five!" With a wave Marik left me to walk home in my own, but I hardly noticed how long it took. My stomach was in knots and my palms began sweating. I laughed at myself. Guess I was more excited about going on a date than I thought I'd be.