I can't believe this. I think three thousand years of wandering has finally taken its toll on me. I'm starting to see things.
When he first showed up as just a face in the crowd in a bar in Kyoto, I accepted the chances that we had just happened to be in the same time in the same place, again. But then he started showing up in the strangest of times and places over the next few decades. Like when I made my way back to China, I saw him sitting at a cafe reading a menu; or when I left for Russia, and saw him in a crowd cheering on a sled-dog race; even in India, I saw him on the street humming along to the beat of a drummer. I drew the line when I saw him eating spaghetti at a restaurant in Italy. He's like an apparition. Either he's following me, or I've gone completely insane. And to tell the truth, I think it could be either.
All of the times I've seen him, he's never seen me; that I know of, at least. Every time I see him, he's concentrating on whatever he's doing, and has taken no notice of me. One of the reasons I believe I'm going insane. What's more, every time I turn to leave, but decide to look around my shoulder and talk to him, he's gone. I'm starting to feel my precious sanity slowly slipping away.
But he's never completely not there, either. Once I went back to check an area in a Roman coliseum where I saw him in a tour group, and I found a few stray albino hairs lying in the dirt. I still have those hairs, so I can frequently convince myself that he's not some sort of stalker ghost. I know that can't be possible, since he cannot die, but it's still very possible. Maybe he tried to kill himself magically, but failed somehow? I wouldn't put it past my old rival.
Presently, I'm in London, and there's no sign of him yet. I've started making a game of looking for him now, and I'm not sure if that's entirely sane or not. This time, I've decided that I'm going to talk to him. He's been constantly appearing and disappearing for thirty years now, and we haven't spoken once. It's unnerving, and this time I'm going to break the silence. Providing I can find him, though. Why is it that now, I finally want him to appear, and he's nowhere to be seen?
Wait...
There he is, standing a lineup for a hotdog stand! Well, he does have a tendency to be unpredictable...
"Bakura!" I call, dashing over to him. He doesn't lift his head to look at me. Can't he hear me? "Bakura!"
"Cummon, kids, let's go!" cries a female voice. Oh no... my eyes widen as a whole class of schoolchildren, fifth grade or so, walk right in front of me.
"Bakura!" I yell again, trying to maneuver my way around the children. It's all in vain, though; once I manage to get a clear view of the lineup again, Bakura is gone, without even a gap in the line to show his former presence.
"Excuse me," I ask a man in the line, "Have you seen an albino teen?"
"Blimey, yes! He was standing here right in front of me, and then he just took off! You'd 'ave thought the kid was a ghost, the way he disappeared! Went that way, I believe," he stated, pointing off in the opposite direction.
"Thank you, sir," I say quickly. He was here, and I'm not going crazy!
I run off in the direction the man pointed out, desperately looking through my surroundings with the hope to catch a glimpse of white hair. I keep going further, until I stop at a familiar place. No... no way is he going to get away now...
We're at a subway station, and the crowds are unbelievable. You'd think it'd be hard to spot a single person, but finding Bakura was very easy indeed. I find a lone suitcase to stand on, and spot a messy mop of white hair moving speedily towards one of the trains.
"Bakura, wait!" I cry, pushing my way towards him. I arrive at the platform far too late, though early enough to see the ends of his long black trenchcoat disappear into the train doors, which rapidly shut as the train starts to leave.
"No!" I growl, annoyed at myself for letting him get away.
At least I've proved to myself that he is real, and not just some hallucination cooked up by my melancholy mind. But there's one think I don't get—why does he keep running away? I'm absolutely positive that he heard me; why else would he have fled so quickly? But why did he flee from me? Was it something I had done... or something I hadn't done?
I grumble to myself, ignoring the stares I get from eavesdroppers as a shove my way out of the station. I hear a clap of thunder, and rain starts pouring down. I hear several hundreds of pops all around me, and just like that everyone in London is carrying an umbrella. I watch the bright bobbles of color march by, and start cursing under my breath in the various languages I had picked up over thousands of years.
They all mean the same thing: Curse this bloody rain.
Well? What does everyone think? I'm going to actually have Atem and Bakura talk in the next chapter, just in case anyone is getting bored of this dodgy game. And I might reveal Bakura's motives in the next chapter. But I dunno if I should, so I guess it all depends on what you guys think in your reviews! Ja!