Bakura exited one of the classrooms and took a seat in the nearly empty common room, carrying yet another new book, one on abnormal psychology. It was a long shot, he knew, but he was running out of options. The classes were getting less and less helpful. He needed more sources of reliable information, but had no way of finding them.
Before he was able to make it through the first two pages of the book, Marik seemingly appeared out of nowhere and took a seat next to him, leaning over and getting right to business.
"Are you busy?" he asked quietly, clutching his notebook to his chest with one arm.
"Not really," Bakura replied, shutting his book. He had plenty of time to read it.
Marik nodded, looking relieved, then glanced around the room suspiciously. "Can we go somewhere else?" he asked.
Bakura surveyed the other three people in the room, completely uninterested in what the two of them were doing. "I suppose so," he answered questioningly.
Marik jumped up and grabbed Bakura's arm, pulling him along while watching the others in the room carefully. The two proceeded down an inconspicuous hallway that Bakura hadn't yet explored. As Marik dragged him along he made sure to read as many of the signs by doors as he could. Most of them seemed to be examination rooms, or offices. The hallway ended in a T, but before but before they could get there, Marik had stopped in front of one door in particular, with a little sign that said 'waiting room'. He pushed it open without knocking, peeked inside, and, determining that the coast was clear, he pulled Bakura in and locked the door behind them.
The room was unspectacular for a waiting room. There were chairs lining the walls, a counter, and a coffee table. Marik released Bakura at last and sat down in one of the chairs in front of the coffee table, and Bakura followed. "Okay, first," the dark-skinned boy said, taking out his notebook. He dug in the spiral binding that held it together for a few moments before pulling something out and holding it in front of him. It was a fork. "Tell me what color this is," he demanded.
Bakura stared at it for a few seconds. "Where did you get an orange fork?" he finally asked, wondering if his brain was misinterpreting the color.
Marik grinned. "I have sources," he said mysteriously, placing the fork in Bakura's hand. "Now you can see orange."
"I suppose I can," he answered, puzzling over the fork. It seemed Marik was serious about helping him regain his full eyesight. "What else did you want that we had to come in here for?"
"Well." Marik paused and diverted his eyes, looking skittish for a moment. "A couple of things."
Bakura looked at him expectantly. "Like?"
Marik cleared his throat. "Remember when I told you about my Soul?"
"Yes," Bakura answered immediately, recalling the sparse amount of information Marik had given him when he had asked about it. Namely, just that it had been removed, and because of that he had trouble with self-control.
Marik paused for a moment, diverting his eyes to his hands and back to Bakura before replying. "It's evil."
Bakura blinked. "Excuse me?"
"That's why they removed it," Marik frowned. "They said it was evil, and that I was out of control. I don't really remember much of it."
Bakura mulled over that. He assumed that 'they' were the doctors of this institute. From what he had been told from some of the staff members and the incident with Seto Kaiba, it didn't seem unlikely that something like that would happen. "What makes something evil exactly?"
"That's what I've been trying to figure out," Marik told him, looking frustrated. "Nobody will tell me specifically."
"Have they told you at all what you were doing?" Bakura asked.
"No. For all I know I could have just been making threats," Marik sighed. "This whole place is incredibly suspicious."
"You think there's more going on here," Bakura concluded. Marik had made his distrust of the institute very clear before, and this just gave the man a reason to be suspicious.
"Absolutely," Marik said, resolute. "The staff hides things from me. They avoid my questions and they won't let me go in certain rooms. They won't even tell me when I'll be allowed to leave. I can't remember the last time I've been out of this ward. There's something wrong with this place."
They did some of that to him too, Bakura realized. If he wasn't the only one noticing these things then there was probably a real problem with this place. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked. He could recognize how much trust this was taking. Trusting that he wouldn't rat Marik out, for one.
Marik looked Bakura in the eyes, his expression unreadable. "I need help," he finally admitted. "Nobody else is willing to. The staff is keeping everyone in the dark on purpose and the patients think I'm crazy if they know who I am at all." He paused, swallowing. "You're the only person who's questioning any of this. And you're my only friend."
This suddenly made a lot more sense. Marik didn't talk to very many people, so he didn't have anyone to discuss theories and observations with. Bakura didn't either, but for Marik it was potentially debilitating with a missing Soul. He probably couldn't even trust his own thought process, which would make solving the problems this place presented incredibly difficult. It only made sense that he would seek outside help.
"So?" Marik asked, apparently getting impatient.
"I'll help you," Bakura agreed. In reality, there wasn't a reason for him not to, and maybe now he would be able to make more progress than he had when just asking questions to the staff and reading books that weren't completely relevant to what he was looking for. In addition, he had spent a good amount of time trying to untangle the mysteries of Marik Ishtar and figure out what it all had to do with his own development.
Marik gave a short sigh of relief. "Thank you," he said. "I'll make sure you don't regret it, okay? I'll help you with anything you want, too. I have connections with the staff and some of the doctors, if you need it. And you can ask me any questions you want, too."
"I'll keep that in mind. What were you planning on doing first?" Bakura asked.
Marik thought for a moment. "The best thing to do would probably be to just sit down and share what we both know, since I'm sure there are still things you haven't been telling me."
True. "That's fine." He glanced up at the digital hanging inconspicuously on one of the walls. "Was that it? I have a class in a few minutes."
Suddenly Marik started fidgeting a bit. "Well. That depends."
"On?"
"On whether you can promise me you won't get mad or offended or something," he said sincerely.
Bakura stared at him blankly. "I think you're forgetting something here."
Marik folded his arms and gave Bakura a sour look. "Better to be safe than sorry. And does offence count as an emotion?" Bakura shrugged, and Marik sighed. "Anyway. I guess the other thing I wanted to tell you is that I...might kind of be in love with you."
It was quiet for a few long moments as Marik waited for a response and Bakura tried to come up with one. It took him a while to manage it. "...what?" he asked.
"I'm not completely sure yet," Marik warned, frowning. "But."
"...Does this happen often?" Bakura asked dubiously.
"No. ...Yes." Marik paused, thinking. "It's happened before."
"What did you expect to gain from telling me this?" Bakura questioned.
"Nothing, really. I guess I just wanted to tell somebody. And you're sort of my only friend, remember," Marik answered him, staring at the ground like he was starting to zone out.
"...I see." Bakura could tell that this would take some time to fit into everything else that was going on.
Marik snapped out of his short daze promptly. "Anyway, you should probably go to your class now, right?"
"I suppose."
"Okay, I'll see you later." He paused suddenly, seeming to remember something. "Oh, wait a minute. Do you want to meet my Soul?"
"What?" Bakura asked. It seemed he couldn't recover from one surprise before being bombarded with another.
"It's a yes or no question; I'll explain later. Do you want to meet my Soul?" Marik repeated.
"Erm...yes," Bakura said, more as a question than an answer.
"Alright," Marik said. "Go to your classes and meet me back in the common room at 9:30. Make sure nobody gets suspicious."
Without waiting for an answer he stood from his chair and exited the room, notebook tucked under one arm, leaving Bakura alone again.
A/N: And once again I prove myself utterly incapable of writing long chapters.
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