By Rhapsody and Sky-Pirate-Tat
Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.
"Yami, what do you think?" Honda asked his friend's dark. "Should you really go?"
"No!" Anzu said immediately.
Joun folded his arms and closed his eyes, trying to look wise (it didn't work). "Let Yami and Yugi decide for themselves. Jealousy is an ugly thing, Anzu."
"What?!?" Anzu exploded. "I am NOT jealous!!!" She knocked Joun over his head. He fell to the ground, stunned, dropping Yugi, but luckily at this moment the small boy came to.
"Wha?" he began groggily. "What was… that?"
"You mean, who was that?" Honda asked.
"No, what…"
"That was Kikai Bakura… Isn't she… great?" Yami remarked, his head in the clouds.
"No, she was scary," Yugi replied sincerely.
"Scary!?" Yami repeated angrily, grabbing his light by the shoulders. "You're crazy! We're going to that convention so I can show you!"
"But--!" Yugi protested, but Yami returned to his Puzzle without another word.
The day of the convention dawned bright and clear. Yami spent an hour in Yugi's bathroom trying to look nice, or at least not as forbidding. When asked, he claimed he wanted to make a good impression on all the other yamis, but if Yugi listened carefully against the door he could hear Yami humming an Egyptian love song and saying "Kikai" every so often in an unusually happy tone. Yugi was starting to worry.
Yami only had a true body if he was using Yugi's (then why was he in the bathroom? who knows), and Yugi was beginning to suspect that Yami liked Kikai. (The thought made him shiver.) If Yami liked Kikai then he would spend a lot of time with the girl, a frightening prospect to Yugi. He unhappily imagined a future scene…
((Yugi's thought-bubble)) Yami in his body dressed in a sharp blue suit, watching a black-veiled Kikai walk down the aisle of the church… Yami repeatedly telling him, It's just for the rest of your life…
Abruptly Yugi's thought-bubble popped. His eyes were wide and frightened.
No, he mouthed, unable to find his voice. Not her…
With shaking hand he locked himself in the closet. Yami couldn't go to the convention without him, and therefore Yami couldn't see Kikai, he wouldn't fall in love with Kikai, and he wouldn't marry Kikai…
If it were that sort of door then Yugi would have swallowed the key.
It was ten a.m. and Ryou Bakura was sleeping in. Yami Bakura was amusing himself with planning his moves at the yami convention the pair would attend later and Ryou was having an unsettling dream about parrots. When the phone rang he bolted upright.
"No crackers for Polly!" he yelled before he could stop himself. Then he realized it was the phone. He picked it up.
"Ryou here."
"HELLO?!!! HELLO?! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME????" came a yell in his ear. It sounded like…
"Yami Yuugi? Is that you?"
"CAN YOU HEAR ME???"
"I can hear fine!" Ryou snapped back. "Why are you calling?"
"Well," Yami began in a more normal tone, "I was going to walk but I thought that the wind would muss my hair and I just fixed it and I realized that I didn't know where you lived anyway…"
He paused for a breath.
"And then I had to figure out how to use this contraption… RYOU, ARE YOU STILL THERE???"
"Yes!" Ryou cut in. "Why did you want to talk to me?"
"It's little Yugi, he's locked himself in the closet…
"What???"
"He keeps mumbling something about Kikai and he refuses to go to the convention with me. I can't go alone… Could you help me get him out?"
"I'll be right there."
"I'm coming too!" a female voice interjected suddenly.
"Kikai?" Ryou said wonderingly. When had she picked up the phone?
"I've been listening and I want to come too! It'll be just a minute, Yami koibito…"
((Koibito means dear or loved one…))
She hung up and Ryou and Yami were left in a stunned silence.
"She likes me…" Yami breathed finally. He sounded happy.
"Erm…" Ryou began honestly, "actually, she calls everyone koibito…"
But Yami didn't appear to be listening.
"See you in a little while, Ryou," he replied, and hung up.
When the cousins arrived at Yugi's house the scene was just as Yami had described it: the door was locked and Yugi was nowhere in sight. Pressing his ear to the door, Ryou could hear the mumblings and mutterings of the frightened child.
"What caused this?" he asked, ear still to the door. Yami shrugged.
"Kikai Motou…" Yugi mumbled. "Nononononono………"
Ryou sweatdropped and jiggled the doorknob, wondering if perhaps it would be better if Yugi stayed in the closet. The door was indeed locked.
Kikai wrapped her arms around Yami and said sweetly, "You can tell us…"
"I… really don't know," Yami replied, distracted by the little circles she was making with her fingertip on his chest. His face was red. "When I came out of… the bathroom he was like …this. Took me a moment to realize… where he was…"
They spent about an hour trying to convince Yugi to come out, but he was so frightened by something (someone) that it appeared he'd had a nervous breakdown. Kikai pulled uselessly on the knob one last time, then sighed. For the first time she looked serious.
"There's only one thing to do…"
"What's that?" Yami frowned.
"I'm going to let my Light take over. She can convince him…"
Kikai closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were more innocent, somehow. She stood less confidently than before, and her clothes didn't seem to match her personality anymore.
She smoothed her skirt down, leaned toward the door, and said in a considerably softer, nicer tone, "Yugi?"
"Who're you?" Yugi asked, his first coherent sentence in quite a while.
"I'm Kikai… The real Kikai."
The sound of the name seemed to send Yugi into another frightened fit. After his screams died Kikai tried again.
"Please, Yugi, listen to me… Kikai is only…"
She paused and gave Yami a long look. "Um… could you leave the room for a moment?"
Puzzled, Yami did as asked and the girl continued.
"Kikai is only teasing your yami. She doesn't love him, really. You can go to this convention safely… Could you come out now?"
There was a tense silence as the cousins waited. Finally the doorknob turned and Yugi stumbled out, looking a bit worn. He shut the door behind him and collapsed onto the bed.
"Yugi…" Kikai whispered, leaning over him, "I think you're really sweet. I want to see you again when you feel better. Okay? I have to go…"
She shut her eyes and when she opened them again she was back to normal. She wrapped Yugi in a big hug, saying, "No hard feelings, huh? I just like to tease, really…"
"Tease who?" Yami asked as he walked back into the room.
"No one," Kikai responded cheerfully. She let go of Yugi and wrapped her arms around Yami's waist. "No one at all, Yami dear…"
Yugi and Ryou sweatdropped. It looked like they were going to go to the convention…