From across the room, Bakura had a fairly decent view of Marik. The boy was sitting at the same table he had been when he first laid eyes on him, and was writing furiously in a large, worn-looking notebook. Bakura could finally see his face—his piercing violet eyes, his tan skin, his interestingly styled eyeliner—and he took the tie to examine him.

The boy looked empty, he decided. That was it. He was completely focused on what he was doing, and there was a lack of anything distinguishable on his face. Bakura would know; he had spent a lot of time with the expressions book during the past few days.

Another thing he had looked into in preparation to find out more about Marik were Souls: what exactly they did, how they were different from Hearts—and, more specifically, how someone would live and act without one. What he had come up with had been interesting. While Hearts were the center of emotion, Souls seemed to be the center of thought. So Bakura, who had been robbed of his emotions, only had thought left; with Marik, it would be the other way around. Theoretically, anyway. At the moment the boy barely looked alive.

After a while with nothing changing, Bakura decided to make something happen. He got up, walked over to Marik's table, and took a seat across from him. He didn't say anything; a few moments later, Marik looked up and stared at him.

All of a sudden, there was the emotion. So many, in fact, that Bakura couldn't figure out what they all were, even with all his time with the facial expressions book.

"...What do you want?" Marik asked after a moment of studying him with those violet eyes.

"Nothing," Bakura answered, deliberately meeting the boy's gaze.

Marik paused for a few moments, something of a stare-down taking place between them. Then, suddenly, something in his face changed.

"Alright," he conceded. "What's your name?"

"Bakura."

"Bakura," the boy repeated. "My name is Marik." He paused. "You're one of the Heartless patients, aren't you?"

He merely nodded. He didn't have much to say on the subject. But, for some reason, Marik smiled.

"Well, you came over here for a reason, Bakura. What was it?" he asked. Bakura had already planned what he would say to him if it came down to conversation.

"A teacher said you didn't have a Soul," he said simply.

Marik's eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment. "...did they?" He quickly snapped back to life. "And basically, you want to know more." Bakura nodded. "Alright, how about this: I'll tell you about my Soul if you answer some questions for me first."

"I can do that," Bakura answered. It seemed like a fair trade, although he couldn't help but wonder what sort of questions Marik would want to ask someone he just met.

Marik grinned and quickly scribbled something down in his notebook. He made sure Bakura couldn't see what he was writing. "Alright. Bakura. Question number one: How do you feel about living without a Heart?"

Bakura just stared at him. The boy's grin didn't waver for a moment. "Okay, stupid question. Number two: How does it physically feel to not have a Heart?" he asked.

"...Wrong," Bakura answered after a moment. That was really the only way he could describe it. Marik nodded and scribbled some more in his notebook.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"A few days," Bakura told him. In truth, it had been four and a half days, but he didn't think the details mattered.

"Okay, so you're pretty new," Marik said thoughtfully, tapping his chin with his pencil. "Anything weird? Like, I don't know... pain, numbness, vision problems, craziness... Stuff like that."

Bakura had already decided that, if it came to it, he wasn't going to tell Marik about the problem with his near colorblindness. He didn't know if he could be trusted with the information. It wasn't hard to come up with a fake answer. "Nothing like that, no," he said. More scribbles in the notebook.

"...I see," Marik said when he was done. "Well, that's sort of disappointing, but. Whatever." He shut his notebook and attached the mechanical pencil to it. Before Bakura could wonder what he meant, he spoke again. "It's almost time for group activities," he observed.

"You were going to tell me about your Soul," Bakura reminded. Marik seemed to be the type of person to let his mind wander, he thought.

"Oh, right! My Soul," the boy remembered. "Well... Okay, my Soul was forcibly removed," he said with a grin.

"...That's it?" Bakura asked after a long pause.

Marik seemed extremely amused. "If you want more information, you have to answer more questions," he said with a teasing grin. Just then a voice over the loudspeaker announced that the group activity would be starting in five minutes. "Are you coming?" he asked.

"...why?" Bakura questioned, uncomprehending. He had never been to one so far.

"Because it's fun," Marik said matter-of-factly. He stood up, grabbing Bakura's sleeve in one hand and his notebook in the other. "Come on, I bet you'll like it!"

Bakura couldn't think of a reason to pull away.

"Hello, class! I'm glad you've all joined us," the teacher at the front greeted, wearing the same smile that every other staff member had. She seemed to be addressing her greeting specifically to certain people, Bakura included. "Today, we're going to be making crafts out of all different kinds of things and painting them. When you're done you can take your creations back to your rooms! I hope you're excited!"

One glance at Marik showed that he obviously was. "Arts and crafts are great," he whispered with a big grin. "It's when they try to make us play games that it gets stupid."

The patients in the room were divided into groups of four, with each group getting their own table and pile of junk. "You can make whatever you'd like," the teacher told them. "Try to use this medium to express whatever it is you're thinking or feeling right now."

Marik attacked the pile of junk viciously, grabbing an odd assortment of things that had absolutely nothing in common that Bakura could tell and putting them into small piles of his own around his space. The boy across from him was much more particular about what he chose, and the person across from Bakura, who just happened to be the snobby-looking guy from the other day, seemed to be picking out anything that looked sharp.

Bakura hung back for a few minutes, not knowing what he should be doing. Before long, however, an idea struck him, and he picked out a box, some extra cardboard, scissors, glue, and some string. Using the scissors he cut the box so that its height was only a couple of inches, then glued some cardboard around the face of it like a frame. Then he turned it over and made some small holes in the side. Cutting two long pieces of string, he knotted one side and stuck the through the holes. Then he cut out two small circles of cardboard and stuck them to the other end of the string.

Pausing for a moment, Bakura glanced around the table. The kid across from Marik looked like he was making a diorama of Ancient Egypt. Everything was very precisely detailed, and Bakura couldn't help but wonder whether he was basing it off of something or making it up as he went along. The snobby guy was making some sort of dragon. He had painted all of his sharp objects one color, something light, and was putting them together on a wire frame that he had shaped.

When his eyes rested on Marik, he had to look twice. The boy had glued together a bunch of his items in what looked like a very precise manner, but Bakura couldn't find any sort of pattern. Then he had drenched it with paint. In fact, Marik himself was practically covered in paint, and was still wielding the paintbrush against his sculpture with zeal.

"...Can I borrow some paint?" Bakura asked, somewhat hesitant to distract the boy lest he cover everyone else with it, too.

"Go ahead," Marik replied, not taking his eyes off his project.

Bakura quickly snatched a couple of paint bottles—what he hoped were black and gray—and a paintbrush, then set to work again. He painted the face inside the frame black, and everything else gray, then waited for everything to dry.

Finally, when everything was safe to touch again, he cut another piece of string and glued it in a straight line across the face of the box, and was done. He stared at it for a little while, waiting for everyone else to finish, before Marik got his attention.

"Woah!" the boy exclaimed, picking up the box. He was still covered in paint, but most of it had dried by then. "This is cool! What's it supposed to be?"

"A Heart monitor," Bakura answered.

Marik froze, looking at the Britt for a few moments before breaking into a huge grin. "That is genius!" he said, looking it over again. "These are the things they put on your head, right?" he asked, his violet eyes sparkling as he held up the circles at the end of the string.

"Chest," Bakura corrected.

"Whatever. This is so cool!" he repeated.

Bakura didn't understand what was so great about it, but didn't ask. "You can have it," he said. "I don't need it."

"Really?" Marik asked, looking doubtful. Bakura nodded. "Well..you can have mine, then. I've already got a bunch of this sort of thing anyway," he said, handing over his sculpture.

"Oh..." Bakura took it, looking it over more carefully now that it was done. He still couldn't figure out what it was he was looking at. Then he remembered that he should probably say something. "Thanks."

Marik smiled. "Don't mention it. Yours is way cooler, anyway."

Bakura walked back to his room slowly, avoiding the other patients around. His attention was almost completely focused on the strange object in his hand. He had never asked Marik what it was supposed to be, but now he couldn't stop thinking about it. No matter what angle he held it at, whether he was concentrating on the shape or the texture, he just couldn't think of anything it resembled. Eventually he came to the conclusion that this was because it didn't resemble anything, and that he should stop thinking about it, but for some reason he was finding that difficult.

He looked up from the object to try to direct his attention on where he was walking when something caught his eye. Staring at it, he was stunned. It was a flowerpot sitting on a little table next to the wall, unremarkable except for one detail: it was purple. Bakura blinked. Definitely purple. That was it; that one solitary, somehow familiar bit of color on a wall of gray. He thought hard, and suddenly remembered where he had seen the color before.

It was the exact same shade of violet as Marik Ishtar's eyes.

Author's Note:

Hello, people. C:

When I read a fic that doesn't have an author's note in any of the chapters I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall when I review, and I don't want any of you feeling that way, so. I've got a couple things I'd like to say:

1) Thank you, everyone who read and especially to those who reviewed, so much! I can't even tell you how happy you've made me. I've gotten the best reviews I've ever gotten on this story, so I really really appreciate it. C:

2) I don't own any of these characters. I generally don't put disclaimers on stories, just because it's obvious that I don't own anything but the idea, but I thought I might as well say that here.

3) Just a fun fact: Whenever I'm trying to figure out whether something is an emotion or not, I think of whether Spock would be able to feel it or not. Now, I know that that's not the best comparison, since Spock is actually half human, but it amuses me to compare Bakura to Spock. |D

This chapter took me a little longer to write just because I was struggling to come up with the crafts scene. I'm so glad I didn't force myself to write it, though, because while I was writing it I came up with a key plot point that will be very important at the end of the story that I never would have thought of otherwise. So, I hope you don't mind if sometimes chapters take a little bit; there isn't a chance in the world that I'll abandon this story, so you don't need to worry about that! I've got basic plans set out for six more chapters, and a basic idea of how it's going to end. But, if NaNoWriMo taught me anything, it's not to plan the ending completely so that you'll have room to change it if you need to!

Thank you again for reading and reviewing, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!