Chapter 7

It was late, but Nayta had felt the need to meditate. Ever since the incident with the wolves she'd been finding it harder and harder to get any real sleep, but the mental rest she got meditating was a good enough substitute. As usual she was sat in the centre of her shop, for some reason she always felt more relaxed down here than she did in her apartment above. Or at least she did usually; tonight, however, she just couldn't get herself settled.

The sound of a bell tinkering caused her eyes to shoot open. She was certain she'd locked the door to her shop and yet three strangers were now stood just in front of it silently watching her. The trio consisted of two girls and a guy. The taller of the two girls had a bob of ash blonde hair and wore a black waistcoat laced at the front with ribbon, a short black skirt and a pair of over the knee black boots. The other girl was more of a dusty blonde with her hair falling in what looked like flattened tatty dreads to her waist. She was dressed in a strapless black dress with a flared skirt and a pair of black ankle boots. The guy's brown hair was literally cut into a half short, half long style and he wore nothing but a black waistcoat, trousers and boots. All three of them were unified by the waxy, toothless smiles they were wearing and the fact their varying hairstyles completely hid the left sides of their faces.

'It's late and I'm closed,' Nayta rose to her feet, 'I'm sorry if my leaving the door unlocked caused you some kind of confusion, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'

Not one of them said a word. Instead they all continued to stare at her with those waxy smiles pulled across their faces. Smiles made even creepier by the flickering candle light the room was lit with.

'If you're looking for a place to sleep for the night there's an inn a few doors down; but you can't stay here, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.'

Their silence continued as the ash blonde made her way across the shop towards one of the display cases. Her head tilted to the right as she placed her hands against the glass and stared in at the items inside.

'I'm closed right now,' Nayta took several steps towards the girl, 'you need to leave.'

The ash blonde's visible eye lifted to meet with Nayta's. There was something about it which looked strangely young and playful, but at the same time... Nayta shuddered as she watched the girl point towards one of the rings in the display case.

'I'll be more than happy to show you it,' Nayta kept her voice as calm and level as possible, 'tomorrow. I'm closed right now; please leave and come back...'

Before she could finish her sentence, her body became numb and rigid. Against her will she found herself moving behind the counter and reaching for the key to the display case. She then walked back towards where the ash blonde was waiting and got the ring out for her. The girl eagerly took it off her and studied it up close for a few long moments as though she'd never seen anything quite like it before or.

Frozen to the spot, Nayta could do nothing more than watch as the guy slinked his way over to the ash blonde, who was now carefully sliding the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand. As soon as the guy arrived next to her, she reached up, cupped his face with her hands and kissed him lovingly. It was at this point the dusty blonde started exploring the rest of the shop.

The other two watched her intensely as though what she was doing was somehow highly fascinating for them. After a few moments the dusty blonde stopped and pointed towards something on one of the top shelves. The guy's waxy smile twitched wider for a moment, as he led the ash blonde towards the other girl. She then wrapped her arms around the waist of the dusty blonde and waited as the guy retrieved a circular shaped box from the shelf. His visible eye then moved towards the dusty blonde, who simply nodded before all three vanished without a trace.

The second they'd disappeared, Nayta's body was released from whatever holding grip had been controlling it. A shudder moved up and down her spine as she realised not one of her visitors had made a single sound the entire time they'd been there. Combined with the waxy smiles they'd all been wearing, it made the whole situation uncomfortably creepy. Carefully she made her way across the shop towards the door; it was locked. So the bell had been rung purely to get her attention; for some reason Nayta found herself even more uncomfortable with that thought. They clearly could have just taken control of her body whenever they wanted so why alert her to their presence first. What did they have to gain from doing that?

'Creepy,' Nayta shuddered again, 'they were just... so... creepy.'

He began to hum the notes of a fragmented melody as he went over the details of his plan once more. It wasn't going to be easy to pull off, one false move and everyone would know what he was up to before he was ready. But if he got it just right then...

'Stop this... please... I beg you...' even though the voice was screaming at him, it barely registered as noise, 'this isn't right... please... you must know this isn't right...'

The words made him laugh; as if he could stop now? Didn't they know how close he was to getting everything he ever wanted? Power. Respect. Control. Didn't they get how important those things were? Of course they didn't. Everything had always been so easy for them. They'd always had everything, whereas he'd always had nothing.

Well not anymore. Now it was his turn to shine and he would shine, like the brightest star in the heavens. And then... then everyone would bow down to him.

The clock beside Tristan's bed began to buzz loudly. He lashed out at it until it stopped then, groaning loudly, he opened his eyes. He felt as though he'd been awake all night, which he knew for a fact wasn't true. Or at least he didn't think it was true. Yawning, Tristan stretched and pulled himself up into a sitting position. Once he had his eyes scanned the room he was in, everything look familiar and even the muted glow of the face of his digital alarm clock made sense to him.

Tristan stretched again as he pulled himself out of bed and threw on the first assortment of clean clothes he could find. Once dressed he found himself almost bouncing his way down to the kitchen.

'Well you're in a good mood,' Kaiba half glared at him as he watched Tristan swiped a piece of toast off of his plate.

'Ask me what the time is and you'll find out why,' he grinned as he bit into his stolen breakfast. 'So where'd you hide my keys this time?'

'Do you still not remember the conversation we had?'

'I remember not remembering the conversation we had,' he smirked, 'come on Seto, I want to enjoy having a head full of memories for once and I can't think of a better way to celebrate than going for a drive.'

'Your memory lapses are still too unpredictable,' Kaiba folded his arms as a serious expression pulled its way across his face, 'and we agreed until we got a better grip on whatever it is that's wrong with you, you weren't going to ride anymore.'

'The problem with making a deal like that with someone who has memory lapses Seto, is that they're not always going to remember the deal,' Tristan rolled his eyes, 'and when I don't remember that I've agreed to your ridicules no bike rule it just pisses me off. In fact even when I do remember it, it pisses me off. You're so damn controlling.'

'It's for your own good.'

'Like having me committed was for my own good?' Tristan was starting to get angry now.

'Are you saying it wasn't?'

'I'm saying this whole damn relationship between us seems to be about how much you can control my life. Why don't you just go ahead and buy a collar and leash for me, or better yet a cage, then you could really have me locked up.'

'Tristan...'

'I'm going for a walk,' Tristan made his way towards the kitchen door, but as he did Kaiba grabbed hold of his arm.

'Where are you planning to go?'

'That's none of your damn business.'

'Tristan we agreed, I need to have some idea where you are just in case...'

'I'm not your damn prisoner,' Tristan snatched his arm back, 'and I'm not some stupid little kid in need of protecting from the big bad world either. You have to let me live my own life.'

'I'm not trying to stop you...'

'Then why does it feel that way?' Tristan made a noise of anger as he ran his fingers back though his hair. 'Seto I need you to trust me and I need to feel like you trust me. Right now I don't think either is true.'

Kaiba averted his gaze, but said nothing.

'You don't get it, do you? You're the only thing... no matter how much I've forgotten you're the only thing I always have some memory of. I need to be able to trust you, but how can I when I know you don't trust me? But why should that surprise me, it's not as though you actually give a damn about me to begin with.'

'That's not true,' Kaiba gritted his teeth.

'Isn't it? Last I checked controlling the people you care about this much is not a good thing. Either you need to learn to loosen the reigns just a little bit Seto, or I'm going to have to re-evaluate what the hell it is that keeps me here. Because right now...' Tristan turned his head away so Kaiba couldn't see the tears brimming in his eyes, 'right now I'm not sure...' he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

'Tristan...'

'I'm going for a walk and if you have even a miniscule of respect for me you won't ask me where I'm going.'

'Okay.'

'I wish you got it; why don't you get it?' Tristan's voice was little more than a pained whisper.

'Get what?'

'It doesn't matter,' Tristan continued towards the door, 'I'll see you later Seto.'

Téa nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him grinning in at her through her bedroom window. Walking quickly over to open it, she watched as he climbed in off the ladder he'd been stood on.

'Way to make an entrance, huh?' He laughed as he lay breathlessly on her floor.

'Tristan,' Téa wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation, 'what on earth are you doing here?'

'Well Yugi wasn't at his place, so I figured he must be here. But I guess I got that wrong too,' he frowned as he glanced around the room. 'Still, it's been ages since the two of us just hung out together. Why is that?'

'I don't know, probably because you can't seem to stand me half the time,' Téa cocked an eyebrow at him.

Tristan frowned at her for a moment, then shook his head.

'I guess sometimes you can be a little annoying,' Tristan shrugged, 'but you're the one who's always preaching on about the importance of friendship, so why don't we give it another shot?'

'I guess things have been a little better between us lately,' Téa allowed herself to relax a little, 'I mean, I know none of us have actually seen you, but we've managed a few pretty decent phone conversations the last few weeks so I was kind of hoping we were back on track.'

'Maybe,' there was a weird expression on his face, 'but anything could happen, right? Things change all the time and quickly, so what might be true today may not be true tomorrow.'

'Is that your way of telling me you're okay with me today but tomorrow might be a different story?' Téa laughed.

'Who knows,' he shrugged again.

'Well I may not be totally sure what to make of the new Tristan, but I certainly like the bits of the old Tristan I see shining through.'

Her words made the expression on Tristan's face tense and he began pulling at the bottom of his sleeves. Instantly she regretted her own words and tried to find a way of turning the conversation back round without digger herself into a hole.

'So are you up to anything tomorrow?'

'Not that I can think of,' he averted his gaze and continued pulling at the base of his sleeves. 'Didn't you say something about Serenity staying with you the last time we spoke? When's she supposed to be getting here?'

'What do you mean getting here?' Téa cocked an eyebrow at him. 'I saw her off on the train just over an hour ago.

'Great,' he rolled his eyes, 'another thing I got to miss out on.'

'What do you mean miss out on?' Téa felt confused.

'I was hoping to get the chance to catch up with her, I'm sure you guys have told her all kinds of crazy stories about me and I wanted to make sure she heard the truth,' he sighed. 'I'm not saying you guys would flat out lie about it or anything, it's just... well I did used to have a crush on her and I just wanted her to know nothing I've been through is her fault. She's a sensitive kid, you know.'

'I know, but I don't think she thinks she has anything to do with what you've been through anyway and at least you got to see her before she left.'

'I what...?' Tristan stared at her as though she'd suddenly started speaking a different language.

'I said at least you got to see her before she left, even if it was only briefly.'

'But I don't...' his head shivered from side to side. 'When?'

'Two days ago,' Téa found herself staring at him, 'don't you remember?'