I had the perfect blend of casual and hot-as-fuck going for me. Old, ripped jeans I'd bought at a thrift store when I first started making my own money. Dark tank and hoodie. Silver studded earrings and choker. Extra, extra eyeliner done not-quite like Marik's kohl, but close enough to look damn good on me.
The point of all this, of course, was to make Bakura suffer. At least a little. That fucker needed to pine. Bonus points if I can get Marik to suffer a little and pine a bit as well.
I'd been looking forward to this night for two weeks since Bakura said he wanted to go. Not just because I was going to get to hang out with Bakura- something I missed doing far more than I ever would have guessed I would- but because Marik and Ryou were going to be together while we were gone. Life since he'd gotten to Domino had been nothing but rapids, but (even after hitting some huge rocks) it didn't seem like any of our oars had snapped, maybe we'd get through all this without our little raft sinking? I knew Marik well enough to know that he'd have no problem taking to first flight back to Luxor if that's where he wanted to be. The fact that he was still in Domino, and still coming over to visit, meant something. It was a matter of waiting on Marik to figure that out.
We just had one slight problem. Ryou was currently curled up in my lap. Asleep. They were supposed to be here in 15 minutes and Ryou hadn't even managed to brush his hair let alone change into clothes. He was currently wearing pajamas. Not a matching set, mind you. He had on flannel bottoms and a stripped top and giant Pikachu slippers. Which wasn't the point. I didn't care what clothes Ryou had on. The point was that it showed how tired Ryou was, and I hated that he let his manager work him that much. It pissed me off in a dangerous way.
"Ryou," I whispered into his hair.
"Hmph."
"Ryou."
"Just ten more and I'll get ready."
"I don't have to go," I said. I wanted to go. I'd been looking forward to the fight, but I was also willing to tell Bakura and Marik to go home so Ryou and I could just go to bed. He clearly needed it.
"No way." Ryou yawned, trying to wake himself up.
"It's okay. We can just stay in tonight."
"I am staying in tonight." Ryou yawned again and stretched his arms up over his head. "I'm just going to be watching a movie. It's not like you have to stay and guard me."
"I'm worried about you in general. You've been working way too much."
"This happens all the time."
"Not anymore it doesn't. I've been trying to sit back and let you run your own life, but look at you? You're completely out of it. If you text me Monday and say you're staying late. I will walk into the store and physically carry you away."
"Okay, okay. I promise I'll get off on time Monday." Ryou laughed. "I just feel so bad when they ask me to stay that I always agree."
"You can't carry the entire store on your back."
Ryou hummed in agreement, but then rested his head back on my chest and dozed again. I sat there for a few minutes, kissing the crown of his head and petting his hair. I imagined how he'd look, when he was old. There weren't any photos of his family that I could see around the house. He kept them in albums in the closet, and I never asked to see them because I got the sense that they made him sad.
Growing older frightened me. Not because I feared death- I'd seen the gods- and not because I was worried about being old. I just didn't want to see him when I looked in the mirror years from now. Maybe I'd cut my hair and dye it pink like Rory's, or have Bakura braid it into rows all the time. I hoped, by the time we were that age, Ryou's face was crinkled with laugh lines around his eyes and not worry creases on his brow. I wanted him to be happy.
I had to let go of my precious, sleeping bundle when Marik and Bakura knocked on the door.
Damn if they didn't play the hot-as-fuck game as good as I did.
Marik wore his new coat. It wasn't cold enough outside to warrant fur. He did it because he looked good in it. His hair feathered down to the fur collar. The colors blended in together like an ombre of fall leaves descending down a mountainside. He wore extra gold, and a thick layer of kohl. Bakura looked no less grand though, like me, he went a more casual route. He had on his red hoodie and blue jeans that screamed I'm an unrepentant bottom- please reward me for it.
Those jeans were going to be the death of me after a few sake bombs.
"Here. Let me." I took Marik's coat off, winking at him as I stored it in the closet.
"Is… Ryou asleep?" Marik laughed as he stared at the couch.
"Uh, yeah." I scratched the back of my head. "He insisted we didn't cancel, though. He's more excited for tonight than he looks."
"That's right, and I'm not sleeping." Ryou jumped up, trying to claw the little tendrils of hair away from his face, but they fell back down the moment he lowered his hand.
"You look like a ghoul." Marik laughed, then his face dropped. "I meant the zombie kind."
"I knew what you meant." Ryou flung his arms around me, standing on his tiptoes to kiss me goodbye. "You two have fun. Don't worry, I'll keep Marik from getting into trouble."
"Me? It's Bakura who gets into trouble." Marik grinned, pressing their noses together for a moment.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Bakura grinned, his nose wrinkling.
"Come on, you nerd. Let's go." I dragged him out of the apartment and outside.
"See you two later!" He called over his shoulder as we left.
We walked with our arms linked, something that would have made Ryou nervous, but Bakura didn't give a Set-damn. I waited until we were down the block before talking.
"Do you think it'll go well? Between them?"
"Yeah. You ever hear Marik ramble? Because he's been doing that a lot this week. It's wrong, and by wrong an mean adorable."
"Because he's excited? Or stressed?" I looked at Bakura as we walked.
"Both. Mostly excited. It's funny, but I think Ryou being cranky from work and less polite around Marik actually won Marik over."
"Of course. Of course it would." I laughed. "Damn, I came from an idiot."
"An idiot with good tastes- you both like me." Bakura winked.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. you do look good tonight. Marik looked good, too."
"Ryou… doesn't." Bakura frowned.
"He's working way too much. He comes home, eats, and sits in front of the TV for thirty minutes before falling asleep in my lap."
"I think I'm going to do something about that." Bakura frowned.
"Yeah? What dark scheme do you have in mind?" I bumped him with my hip. "I want to help."
"I'll let you know later. Tonight, let's have fun."
We went to our normal place. Kyubi was flirting with the server when we showed up. She was leaning close to him and giggling- she seemed to actually enjoy the attention, but the moment Bakura and I sat down her eyes shifted to us, and I hid behind a menu to try and get her to stop it. Bakura just laughed and shot her with his finger like he didn't realize she was flirting, although his never-ending string of puns got her to wander off quick enough.
"You guys are bad for business." Kyubi shook his head and sighed.
"I was trying to be your wingman. Bitches love puns."
"Damn, Bakura, you're worse at flirting with women than I am." Kyubi snorted as he sipped his crown and coke.
"Maybe so." Bakura smirked, proud of himself for his lack of skill in the female flirting department.
"That's why Ryou won't let you dual-class, you know that, right? You'd be a horrible bard."
"Maybe so," Bakura repeated with the same tone and the same facetious smirk.
I shook my head and turned my gaze up toward the television. They were showing clips of the fighters from earlier matches. The other guys started filtering in. We got a few pitchers to pass around, and enough salty, greasy food to put Bakura snuggly in the center of cloud nine.
I could almost recite our conversations from memory before each person spoke. Workouts, meal prep, how we all new the fight was going to go- we all knew our pick for who should win wasn't going to. We were hoping to at least see a good fight out of it.
"Let's play a drinking game," Gakuya said right before the match.
Several people agreed and a pen appeared from somewhere as the guys started scribbling rules down on a napkin. A drink every time there's a hit below the belt, a drink for blood, a drink at the end of each round-
"A drink every time Floyd wants a hug." Bakura snorted.
It was added to the list along with finishing a glass for a knockout and dumping the pitchers on Kyubi's head if Mayweather somehow lost.
Kyubi didn't look concerned at that last rule.
For good reason. The fight went pretty much as expected. Plenty of drinks, but no pictures were dumped and we didn't even get to chug our drinks. The fight was decided, as they often were, by the score cards.
I was still wildly drunk by the end of it. So when someone suggested the sake bombs that had been our tradition after fights, I probably should have passed, but Bakura slammed his hands on the table and screamed hell the fuck yes, so the next thing I knew we were all screaming
ichi, ni, san- sake, sake, sake!
and pounding the table like an angry mob. The shot glasses dropped into our beer and fizzed. I grabbed mine and started chugging like my honor as a duelist, a boxer, and a drinker depended on it, gasping for breath as I slammed the empty glass back down to the table.
"Again!" Bakura shouted.
"Fuck yeah, Bakura can drink!" Kyubi punched him in the shoulder.
Bakura's tiny ass could not drink. He was a cheap date, but fuck it. 3,000 years old was old enough to have two sake bombs even after all the fighting match beer. We signaled the waitress, set up our second round, pounded the table, and chugged until the glasses were beerless glasses of foam. The guys were bragging, and bitching about the fight although we had known how it was going to end, and then it was all over and time for our drunk asses to stumble home.
After telling everyone we'd see them later, Bakura and I made our shaky way out the door and started down the street. It was a bit of a long walk, but a pleasant one that we never minded making when sloshed all to hell. We had our arms locked again, leaning heavy against one another. Bakura sang.
"That's… fucking beautiful, Bakura." I said. The song haunted me somehow. It took awhile for my brain, floating in a vat of beer, to catch on that I somehow knew the song. "It's… a lullabye."
"Rishid sang it to Marik when he was a kid?" Bakura looked up at the stars above us, grinning. "So I learned it to sing to him."
"Fuck. Romantic you was such a good idea? I'm glad you became like that, even if it was too late for us."
"I fucked up. I was a fucking moron. I shouldn't have been so guarded before." Bakura rested his head on my shoulder. "Maybe it's not too late."
Instead of thinking about his last statement, I concentrated on keeping us on the sidewalk. Really didn't want to have to call Ryou and Marik to come pick us up because we twisted an ankle walking home drunk. Although I kinda giggled at the thought because… I couldn't remember my own train of thought. I was fucking wasted. Like, there's probably a moral here. Don't drink kids! But honestly? I was just in a good mood to be alive at that moment. And I was happy to be beside Bakura. And it didn't even matter who was what, or the labels, or if we could kiss or not- though it was a slight agony that we couldn't- but that was still all right, because we were swaying beneath the stars together and laughing, and it was good to be drunk and swaying beneath stars with him while laughing.
"I hope the gods are fucking watching. They better be fucking watching!" I shouted up to the stars, to the Duat, to Nut.
"Watching what? Our crappy attempt at walking?" Bakura laughed.
"No. This-" I slammed Bakura against the brick of a store front.
His breath caught as he hit the wall. His gray eyes flashed brightly, like the moon, as he stared at me. I grinned at him, and caressed his face. His bottom lip trembled, begging to be sucked, begging to be sucked, but I was drunk- not senseless. I leaned in, pressing our foreheads together, and just… existed like that. Existed with him, pressed together, like that first night. I just wanted to be close. No, I needed it.
"I love you," Bakura whispered.
"I always knew that. We always knew that. Just like you know that we love you."
"I love you!" Bakura snaked his arms around him, clinging to me. I sighed and combed my fingers through his hair.
Yeah, the gods better be fucking watching. Those voyeuristic sons of bitches. A whole world full of love stories, but none were quite like mine. Or maybe they all were, and the movies got it wrong. I threaded my arm beneath Bakura's and we finished the walk home.
"Hey Bakura?"
"Yeah?"
"Sing it again, that song."
And Bakura sang.