Freedom
By: Neko-chan
A/N: ::Has decided to fill ff.net up with Yami Malik/Malik fics:: ^_^
WARNING: Shounen-ai! Yami Malik/Malik. Malik POV.
DISCLAIMER: *waves watch in front of readers' faces* You are getting sleepy; very sleepy... Your eyes are closing... You are signing the contract that gives Neko-chan full legal and copyrights of Yu-Gi-Oh!...
What's the difference between love and hate?
It's times like this, with the wind in my face and the black pavement spinning away before, under, and after me--it's times like this that I wonder. When you get down to it, is there really a difference between the two?
I hate him, I really do. ...or do I really _love_ him? He's the ebony to my dark-light and he knows me in so many ways--ways that no one else has understood, nor will they ever understand. Even I can't understand myself at times. One moment, I'm happy and then the next I'm filled with uncontrollable rage, shaking with the need to hurt and destroy and cause pain. Hurt something, anything, it doesn't matter at all to me.
Lash out at something and make it feel the same pain that I have buried deep within me.
Only he understands me when I'm like this. Only he will take the abuse, holding me in his arms while I thrash and scream and bite, doing anything in my power to hurt--to hurt HIM. But he takes the abuse, never fighting back, a confused expression in his eyes as each blow lands. When I'm finally done, the picks me up and lays me on our bed, turning off the light and becoming something darker than the shadows surrounding me. It's times like these that I don't know whether I hate him or love him. It's times like these that he confuses me so much. He's a mixture of insanity and cruelty; yet he reacts to almost anything with childlike delight, shining brightly with his own dark-light. Yes, he confuses me so often because he's so full of contradictions--none of them right, yet all of them fitting perfectly with his character.
No, I don't understand him at all.
And I know that I never will, no matter how much I love OR hate him. He'll always be an enigma, a puzzle that even Yuugi can't solve. What to do with this puzzle? Because, like it or not, he belongs to me.
The motorcycle under me roars even louder; our speed increases and we seem to fly over the road, racing the untouchable wind. Another roar--and we outrace the wind, going faster than a thought, seeming to sail right past this world.
I can feel a smile tug at my lips and I lean forward, wrapping my arms more securely around my yami. He knows me better than anyone else--love for speed, for the open air. Once upon a time, he had looked down upon me and said something I will never forget: "Hikari-pretty is like a caged bird. Darkness can kill, but it would never cage pretty bird."
I still don't really know what he meant--but I think I'm beginning to understand just a little bit as the wind blows through my hair, whipping it around my face, and a sense of freedom swells within me. Maybe... Just maybe...
We've become like the elementals: Bound to the earth, yet free with the knowledge that we could never be caged. No matter how hard anyone tries, they would never be able to cage us. They would have to catch us first.
The world spins away under me and just becomes a blur; unreal and surreal. Was there even a world to begin with? I don't know if I can answer that--not right now, maybe not ever--but I'm content. Right now, I'm free and not even the wind can catch me.
"Yami?" I yell over the screaming of the wind. I can feel him question back, our link filled with his curiosity. He steps harder on the gas and we race even further away from the world. /Faster. Go faster./
He laughs at that, a sadistic and evil sound. I hate his laugh... But I love his purring as we make love between sweat-soaked sheets. Love and hatred, pain and pleasure. Such a fine line between them all that I can't tell the difference anymore--and I no longer care.
We are passing the world on by and I smile as we do so.
Things left far behind--duties, responsibilities, revenge, and family honor. Things that mean nothing to me--all that matters now is the firm waist I've wrapped my arms around, the solid back I mold myself to. I melt into him and we become one; something made of nothing and everything at once. Death, darkness, blood, dark-light, pain, pleasure--we are all of these things and yet nothing at all. We're free... Free from everything.
. . . .
Yami was wrong, though. The Darkness may kill the pretty bird, but the Darkness' gilded cage is more binding than anything else ever possibly imagined. And the pretty bird no longer cares about this fact because it's happy where it is: Captured with clipped wings.
Freedom? With the Darkness so intoxicating, what choice does the pretty bird have but to submit to it? Freedom doesn't matter to the pretty bird now because of the fact that it was seduced. The pretty bird no longer cares at all because the Darkness has become its world; the Darkness is the only thing that matters. Even now, the world begins to slip away from the pretty bird and fades to pastel colors lost in the background.
Something has finally caught this pretty bird--and though its freedom is lost forever, the Darkness has become more important. Love? Hate? What do these matter if desire overcomes them both?
I tilt back my head and laugh and I know that something deep within me has finally snapped and broken into a million little pieces. But I'm with my yami so it doesn't matter. No, it never did.
Yami turns his head slightly and grins back--even now it's slightly off-kilter. Something was off about his smile and it wasn't until you raise your eyes to meet his gaze that you finally learn what that _something_ was.
Yes, I love my yami.
But I hate him, too.
This is my corrupt, mutilated, and twisted freedom. After all, when a pretty bird has its wings clipped, the only thing it can do is run away. Run far, far away, loving and hating the Darkness that runs with it, matching it pace for pace until they both succumb to the inevitable.
Pretty bird likes gilded cages.