"Who are you?"
The words wracked through his head again and again, haunting like ghosts in his memories. Hikari had forgotten? It was inconceivable. But after a few pressing questions, Bakura was starting to suspect that Hikari had forgotten everything, blank slate. He didn't even remember his own name.
He coaxed Hikari out of the attic, and they were now back in Bakura's room. The ghostie looked this way and that, taking everything in with a sense of wonderment.
"It's so nice to be able to talk with someone finally," he babbled on and on, Bakura watching. "And what was your name?"
"Come on. Don't tell me you forgot my name too," Bakura accused.
"Forgot? But we've never met before," Hikari mused. "At least I-" he paused, and the pale silvery color flickered for an instant. "I think-"
Bakura blinked, realization washing over him suddenly. "Wait, come on, try and remember. Think hard. Bakura. Do you remember me? Do you remember what I promised you?"
Hikari flickered again, and the tendrils jerked. "I- I don't-" he mumbled, but he was unsure.
"Think back. You're losing your memories somehow, aren't you? But they were coming back," Bakura said. "So why are they gone again?"
"I don't know," Hikari said. "I swear I've never seen you before, but…" He slowed his bobbing, stilling in the stagnant air. The little wisp glanced at the watery sunlight filtering through the window, and then back up at Bakura. "You seem… familiar to me…"
"That's it, come on. It's there, isn't it? What's your name?" Bakura urged.
Hikari dithered in the air. "You called me Hikari… Didn't you? Hikari… Meaning light…"
Bakura nodded. "Yes, and my name?"
"You told me already. Bakura. It is… You are…" Hikari trailed off. "You are… My friend. Right?" He turned to face Bakura, and there was something frightened in his slow stirring.
"Well, I guess so," Bakura said. "I mean…" Bakura broke off.
He wasn't really big on the whole 'friend' thing. Best he usually had were temporary alliances and such. But things were different with Hikari. It was strange. He didn't despise spending time with the little wisp.
And if the last few days had been any indication, then he had actually kinda missed the little guy. At least, he found himself thinking 'I should tell Hikari' whenever something interesting happened, only to remember that Hikari wasn't speaking to him.
Was that friendship? Then again, did it matter what he thought, when it was about getting Hikari back to normal? Hikari would almost definitely call them friends. That was what was important right now, right?
Bakura nodded. "Yes. We were friends. And I'm terribly offended that you would just forget me like this," he teased, grinning.
Hikari flushed. "I'm so sorry. I'm trying to remember…" Hikari grumbled softly to himself, curling in on himself in that way that seemed like someone pounding their fists against their temples. But of course, Hikari had neither of these things. And so he vaguely curled inwards.
"What did I promise you?" Bakura said.
Hikari moaned unhappily. "I'm trying, I- I can't- I just-"
"What do you want more than anything?" Bakura said, leaning in closer. He let the rust colored masking fall away from his eyes so they would glow with their new red color. "What did I swear we would do?"
"We… Would…" Hikari mumbled, whipping this way and that. He stilled suddenly, his chime-like voice suddenly bursting out into laughter. "I would be free!" he cried out, launching himself against Bakura.
Hikari's body felt slightly denser than air when he embraced Bakura, glowing brightly and laughing like silvery bells. The temperature plunged, but Bakura willing allowed the little wisp to embrace him, enfolding him in the mess of silver tendrils. They trailed against his skin and left prickles of goosebumps in their wake.
"Oh Bakura, Bakura!" he cried joyously. "I remember. I remember you, your promise! Thank you! Thank you." Hikari's voice cracked slightly. If Bakura didn't know better, he'd have suspected that Hikari was sniffling. "You said you found something?"
"You aren't mad at me?" Bakura asked, and Hikari seemed to glare.
"Oh, I'm still furious at you and your stupidity. But this is great news! What have you discovered?"
Bakura shook his head. "No, first, what the hell just happened? Why did you forget everything like that?"
Hikari drew up short, shrugging. "I… I don't know. It just… Got away from me. Same as everything else. But I…" Hikari paused, then looked back at Bakura. "Please. Just hurry. I don't want to stay here any longer. What did you find?"
"I have this book," Bakura said, holding up the Grammaerian. "Combining it with the Compaendium, I figured out two possible ways to get you out of the house. We can try both, and then whatever works best, we can do more tests with. I have a day off soon. We can take a train and wander around," Bakura suggested. Quietly, he muttered, "and make some money…"
Hikari bounced. "Yes, yes! Let's try it! Oh, I can't wait! Thank you so much!" He swayed back and forth through the room, glowing with joy. He paused for one instant. "You have no idea what this means to me, Bakura. I'm so glad you're my friend." Giddy, he couldn't manage to hold still for a second longer.
Bakura half-smiled in spite of himself. "You're welcome, wisp."
He gathered up the posterboard and supplies and got to work very soon after things had calmed down once more, referencing the notes he had made to make sure he was doing everything correctly.
Like Naraki had suggested, the order of the sigils was all-important, but then, so were the references. The star needed a certain number of points, but not all of the lines necessarily needed to bisect the full circle. Only where the sigils needed to reference one another from across the circle. It was tricky but Bakura thought he'd figured out two possible solutions that would work.
The first arrangement called for the removal of one line and the full rearrangement of sigils. The second had a similar ordering to the first, but with two sigils swapped and several more lines dropped. He drew them both up over the span of a few hours, taking a break only for dinner.
His aunt chatted his ear off about this and that going on in the neighborhood, and something interesting too, that one of their neighbors had to say about the house. Bakura tuned in as soon as he noticed where his aunt was headed with this.
"Haunted?" He barked out a cold laugh. "That's crazy. The neighbors have no idea what they're talking about."
Aunt Aiko frowned. "She seemed very insistent…"
Bakura rolled his eyes, shoveling more rice into his mouth. He spoke with his mouth full. "We'd know by now if this place was haunted, wouldn't we? I mean, it's been…" He trailed off, his aunt suddenly giggling a bit.
"You're right," she said, visibly relieved. "It's been a month since we moved in. Something would have happened by now."
Bakura froze, another mouthful of rice halfway between his mouth and his bowl. "A month?" he said, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that his aunt was right. It had been almost a full month since they'd moved in.
Bakura hadn't done anything particularly illegal that whole time. It was a new record. He scowled into his bowl. He'd have to fix that, soon as Hikari was out of the house. He'd test the two arcane circles tonight, and as long as they didn't blow up in his face, he'd be running about tomorrow afternoon.
There were pockets to pick and stores to lift from. He smirked to himself and continued eating.
Later, as night settled over the neighborhood, Bakura snagged the container of salt and the two boards and set up on the porch, all of the lights extinguished. He worked by the light of Hikari, marveling at the convenience of a light only he could see.
He grabbed the first, arranged the ring of salt along the outermost line of the board, and then in quick succession finished each mark on the board. There was a sudden twinge of the shadows, flowing through him and radiating out through the lines of the circle.
Not too bad. He grinned. "I can do this, no problem. Hop in," he said, opening the circle just long enough to let Hikari in. He stepped over the boundary without hesitation.
Bakura wasn't sure what he really expected. Last time, there'd been no flashing lights or signs that anything was actually happening. But this time he had changed a significant amount of the sigils and preparations, and there was no accounting for the changes until he tried.
But there was no need to worry. It worked, actually worked, just as he had expected. He could feel the sap of shadows all the way down to his bones, but it was a manageable drain. He didn't even feel short of breath.
"You've gotten stronger," Hikari commented.
And Hikari was indeed correct, Bakura noticed. He almost missed the way that the spell to disguise his eyes was something so simple, so easy to maintain that he scarcely noticed it anymore. But the flexing of shadows was becoming drastically easier the more that he pushed himself.
"Naraki was good for something after all. Now, let's try the other," he said.
The process for setup was the same. This time, however, well…
It blew up in his face. Literally. Hikari hadn't even had time to get inside of it before the whole thing consumed itself in a burst of fire. Bakura had laughed, but Hikari was freaking out.
"They're just eyebrows," Bakura laughed. "They'll grow back! Haha, that was great!"
"Failure isn't a laughing matter!" Hikari worried.
"Lesson learned, don't take too many shortcuts," Bakura said, but Hikari shook his head savagely.
"Magic isn't like everything else. Failure isn't a lesson learned. It's a chance of death. You can't mess around with this stuff!"
Bakura smirked. "Glad to see you back to your old self."
Hikari huffed, but glowed a little brighter in spite of himself. "Well, we know what works. How long do you think you can sustain it?"
"Not sure," Bakura said. "Kinda wanted to test it out on Sunday when there's no pressure to be anywhere. You free then?" he asked with a wink.
"Well, I'll have to clear out my very busy schedule," Hikari said with a giggle.
"I'll have to figure out how to make it more portable of course… Hmm…" He couldn't very well carry around a giant posterboard marked up with arcane nonsense. Oh don't mind me, just taking my invisible friend out for a walk. He can't leave the circle though…
No, it wouldn't go over well. He eyed Hikari. "How small of a container can you fit into?"
In class, as he sat in his desk, he played with a few designs that seemed possible.
One of them, the most likely of the collection, involved a glued down salt ring and marks on the bottom of a bottle. It would be tricky getting the marks small enough, but Bakura wanted to give it a shot.
His first model of the design involved drawing directly onto the bottle, but as he worked more into the intricacies of the project, he realized this wouldn't work out so well. The ridged bottoms of the bottles would make marking them up almost impossible at that scale.
His next idea involved glueing a marked up piece of paper to the bottom of the bottle. But this would be too permanent. Bakura needed something he could attach and remove easily as necessary. Something adhesive but replaceable. Sticky tack or chewed gum would work nicely. Pliable, moldable, and in the case of sticky tack, reusable.
There was that problem neatly solved. Maybe in the coming days, he could see if it was possible to print the circles off a computer if he drew them with a vector art program and save time on drawing them over again and again.
The fourth iteration of the plan needed to address the salt issue. There was no way to get Hikari inside if the salt was glued in place. Toying with this idea took up most of the afternoon, but before class let out, he thought he might have settled it with a little circular pouch he could fit around the bottle. Pinch the salt out of the way so Hikari could slip inside, and then let it settle into place.
He drummed his pencil against the desk, reveling in his minor victory, when he felt a tap on the shoulder. He casually tugged a worksheet over the top of his sketches. There weren't but a smattering of small runes dotting the page, but it was better not to let Yugi see anything.
"Motou," he said. "The fuck do you want?"
"Well if you're going to be like that, nevermind then," Yugi said.
Bakura's eye twitched. He wasn't going to be baited into Yugi's stupid game.
He waited, counting down silently from five. He barely reached 2 before the tapping returned.
"Okay, fine," Yugi said. "Do you like games?"
"Nope," Bakura lied.
"Oh come on, everyone loves games. I know you're lying to me," Yugi said. "Come on, admit it."
"Yes, I enjoy them. What of it?" Bakura growled. He turned a bit in the desk, unsurprised to see Yugi grinning widely.
"My grandpa is hosting a big gaming tournament at his shop on Sunday afternoon. It's going to be great! And if you aren't doing anything-"
"I'll be busy," Bakura said without waiting for him to finish. Sunday was when he'd be 'shopping' with Hikari and running diagnostic tests on the new designs for the arcane circle. "Tempting as it is," he snorted sarcastically.
Yugi's smile wavered. "Well, if you feel like dropping by, we'll have board games, card games, even Duel Monsters and Monster World tables. Whenever is fine, but I would really appreciate you showing up. There's going to be a great turnout this year."
The smile was back, with all the childish glee that it entailed. His eyes were purple, but Bakura was still distrustful. He turned back in his seat.
There would be no winning this discussion, Bakura could already tell. Even with no intentions of ever setting foot anywhere near that damn shadowwatcher's territory, he still said, "I'll consider it, alright?"
"That's all I ask," Yugi said. He smiled and sat back. Bakura ground his teeth.
Hikari was astounded by the final design, and that was putting things mildly, if you asked Bakura. He was nearly incoherent with shock, babbling and glowing so blindingly bright that Bakura gave up and put on sunglasses.
At least the little wisp was happy, right? He mocked up an initial model of the design, adjusting the manner in which the circle was fastened to the bottle, then adjusting the size of the salt ring. All things that needed to be done with a physical model of the design, rather than a few lines on a piece of paper.
The final result was a shoddy looking piece of garbage that might just work. The redesigning took the better part of two days, so no testing was done until Saturday night. Crunch time.
Things went about as well as expected. There was a slightly more noticeable drain than with the full size poster board version, but that was probably attributed to the scale. At long last, the final test was ready.
He pulled his old backpack on, tucked the bottle into a side pocket so Hikari could watch out the side, and cracked his knuckles with a delirious grin. He hadn't been this excited for something in years.
Bakura had thought long and hard about where to take Hikari, and figured that he should start smaller. There'd be plenty of time to see more exciting places later, and there was no need to overwhelm the thing.
Domino had its own shopping district along the edges of the city proper, smaller than some of the main districts in Japan to be sure, but still respectable enough. The train ride was reasonable, and the weather was nice. It was sure to be busy.
He waved to his aunt as he passed. "Not sure how long I'll be gone. Don't wait up," he called.
"Don't be too late," she called back, but it was a half-hearted effort. She didn't even look up from the fashion magazine her nose was buried in.
Bakura laughed to himself.
"She isn't very attentive," Hikari commented as they stepped through the front door.
Bakura shrugged. "No, but it works to my advantage. Come on, you want to see the train don't you?"
"Yes yes yes!" Hikari said.
Bakura grinned. "Good. Let's head out. First off, neighborhood." He swept out his hands, presenting Hikari with the view of streets lined with houses, all of them penned in by small gates labeled with the names of the residents.
"Wow," Hikari breathed. "This is amazing! What is this that you're walking on? I've seen it from the window, but I can never get close enough."
Bakura puzzled it over for a second. "Wait… do you mean the asphalt?"
"Asphalt… So strange!" Hikari said.
Hikari was marveling at asphalt. Just how long has he been sealed away up in that attic? The house wasn't that old… Bakura cast a measured glance back the way they'd come. No, the house was a bit on the older side, but certainly not as old as Hikari seemed to be.
So what then? More puzzles to figure out. If he could only find the answers, maybe Hikari would be free. And then what mischief Bakura could get into… He grinned to himself.
"So this is a train?" Hikari asked. "It's so big! And there's so many people! You never told me there were this many people," he marveled.
"You never asked," Bakura replied. Someone looked at him funny, so he glared in their direction until they looked away. The stranger busied himself looking out the window.
They must have thought he was crazy, talking to himself. He'd have to work on that next. One problem at a time though.
"What do you think?" he asked, a touch quieter. He tried to keep from moving his lips too much, and it seemed to work a bit better than it had previously.
"It's so shiny!" Hikari said. "How fast are we going? I can't see anything out the windows, it's just a blur."
"Not sure," Bakura muttered. He trailed his eyes over the others on the train. Some of them seemed to be students like him, enjoying the day off classes. Of course, none of them were planning quite the same thing he was for the day.
Nor, of course, did they feel a strange pull on their very being, trying to drag them back to the place they had left.
The shadows seemed to chill him to his bones and call him back. In fact, Bakura felt curiously hyper-aware of exactly where the house was in relation to him, and if he bothered to think about it too much, he probably could have figured out just how fast they were going.
Strange.
He twisted to look at the discarded bottle which held Hikari. The salt ring was still taped near the bottom, the sigil still affixed to the base, and Hikari was jammed inside of the clear plastic. The bottle hadn't budged an inch from the black mesh side pocket it was shoved into. Bakura tapped a fingernail on the bottle. "Sitting comfy in there?"
"Very much so, yes," Hikari replied. "I barely feel the house right now." Bakura nodded.
He was feeling it increasingly the further away they got. Probably a tradeoff. But it was manageable enough, thanks to all of the exercise Bakura had been getting from Naraki's training sessions.
The train began to slow. "See any cops?" Bakura muttered. His eyes traced over the packed train. No uniforms, as far as he could tell.
"No one looks the way you described, as far as I can tell. Why, do you need to speak with one?" Hikari asked. The train began to stop as they neared their destination. Bakura grinned.
"Not in the slightest. If you see one, just let me know."
People began to crowd closer to the doors. Bakura casually leaned in close to a woman with her hair pulled into a tight chignon bun. In the two seconds of brief contact, his hand feathered into her handbag, fishing out a wallet. He retreated back as quickly as he'd begun, the woman none the wiser.
A jacket in his hands hid his new prize, and he surreptitiously stowed the wallet into an internal pocket in the jacket. The doors opened, and they surged out of the train in a wave. The woman combed a strand of hair from her face and walked out, blithely unaware.
Bakura grinned. He still had it. And Hikari hadn't even noticed.
They left the train station, stepping out into the light of the cool but lovely September day. Bakura ducked into a fast food restaurant and made for the bathroom. "What are we doing here?" Hikari asked. "What is this place? A bathroom? It's so dirty and cramped."
Bakura locked himself inside of a stall. "Just taking a quick pit stop," Bakura said, opening it up.
A few credit cards, a small sum of cash. He pocketed the cash without hesitating, then flicked through the credit cards. Chips in all of them. He folded them up. She'd realize soon enough, so he needed to work quick.
"What are you doing?" Hikari asked. He squirmed inside of the bottle, but his position on Bakura's backpack made it difficult for him to see Bakura's hands. Bakura replaced the wallet.
"Just the same old, same old," Bakura said. He stepped out of the bathroom. A camera in the corner caught his eye, and he paused, grinning. This was something new to try. He closed his eyes for a brief moment and muttered a few dark words under his breath.
"Blindness?" Hikari asked. "What are you blinding?"
"That camera over there," Bakura said. The red light still glowed, but Bakura could see a thin veneer of darkness creep over the lens. He would be invisible now. Suddenly this magic thing was looking even better than before.
He made his way up to the fast food counter. "I'll take a…" He eyed the menu. He hadn't been to one of these places in a while. "Number four? Yeah, number four. No pickles. And a number six with fries. And the biggest drink you've got."
He grabbed the first of several cards and used it to pay for the meal.
"Forget my face," he added, flicking his fingers towards the checkout girl's eyes. Her face slackened for a brief moment, and then sharpened again. He walked away and waited for his food.
"Why did you want her to forget you?" Hikari asked.
"It makes my life easier," Bakura replied. He slid into a quiet booth in the corner and pulled the bottle out of the backpack pocket, placing both on the table. "So, any questions?"
"Yes, where are we now? A place for acquiring food?" Hikari asked, turning this way and that within his bottle. He studied the way that the people around them ate.
"You don't know what a restaurant is?" Bakura asked.
Hikari shook his head within the bottle. "Not until now. But wow, that looks extremely convenient. And… you don't even have to prepare it yourself? They just bring it to you? Why don't you and your family always go to a restaurant to eat?"
Bakura smiled patiently. It was like a small child, but not in an annoying way like real kids. Bakura didn't like kids. This was more like… hmm… like a tourist seeing a new world for the first time. Yes, that would be how he would describe Hikari.
The food came around. Someone left the tray on his table and Bakura began to unwrap the first burger eagerly. Through a mouthful of food, he said, "Well, it can get expensive to do it all the time, and my aunt and uncle aren't exactly wealthy."
He slurped at his drink to clear his throat.
"And actually, this isn't even a very nice place to go, really. The food's pretty cheap and greasy, but damn it's delicious."
Hikari hummed. "I wish I could try it." He curled this way and that inside of the bottle, eventually turning to face out the window at the streams of people going by. Bakura studied him, but didn't stop picking at his food.
"Me too," Bakura said. "Kinda sucks that you're stuck inside that bottle."
Hikari's brightness flickered softly. "Well, it isn't so bad. This is still so much better than I ever expected. And hey, we get to see this place at long last."
He glittered wistfully.
"I didn't think I'd ever get to leave that house, and now I'm here. I really like it. So many people. So many new faces. I want to say hello to them all. But… none of them can see or hear me."
He sounded so sad. Bakura's french fries turned to tasteless paste in his mouth. He scowled darkly into his food. Damn that little wisp, making him feel guilty!
Bakura had a long history of not giving a damn about other people. He'd stabbed enough people in the back to lose any trace of trust from anyone else. So how did that little soul manage to make Bakura actually feel bad?
So what if that little soul was trapped inside of Bakura's attic? And that he didn't know what asphalt and restaurants were, or what trains and schools looked like. Bakura didn't care about that. Did he?
He stuffed the last of the burger into his mouth and quickly at the other sandwich. There was only so much time left, and he could feel the strain of magic pulling on him the longer he sat here. As soon as he finished, he tossed the trash and grabbed the bottle and his bag.
Instead of tucking it in the mesh pocket, he carried it in his hands. "Come on, Hikari. Let's see the rest of this place."
They went first to a store that sold gift cards, and Bakura purchased a few with a variety of the credit cards. He was careful to keep the totals low. Too high, and he'd be forced to sign for them, and he didn't want that. After the stack of gift cards were purchased, the cameras disabled in each location, he bought a pair of scissors.
Hikari was confused by all of these strange purchases. "How does all of this work? You show a box a card and the cashier lets you take another card? What purpose does it serve?"
"Just don't mention it to anyone and you'll never need to know," Bakura replied easily. He ducked into another bathroom and went to work on the cards and wallet.
Any minute now, surely, they'd be disabled. He'd gotten what he wanted from them anyway. He cut everything into tiny shreds and then sprinkled a few pieces into each of a dozen different trash cans along the way.
Hikari puzzled over this for a while, but Bakura's vague responses didn't answer many of his questions. When he saw Bakura's shiteating grin, he huffed, finally figuring it all out. "Oooh, you told me you wouldn't do illegal things!"
"This isn't that bad," Bakura replied. "No one's getting hurt, and I only took, like, 10,000 yen. And really, credit card fraud is like, minimal. Keep the totals low, be a minor like I am, and the worst you'll get is a fine. Generally speaking," Bakura added with a cough.
Hikari flashed irritably. "It's stealing with a weird name, and worse, you're using your magic to help you!"
Bakura rolled his eyes. "I can do it without magic. In fact, next time, I just might. It's too easy now that I have the shadows. It's like cheat codes. Fun for a few minutes and then all the thrill is gone and you're just bored."
Hikari made a little irritated noise. "You do it for the challenge?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Bakura said. "I've got a cushy life now. Haven't needed to steal in a while. So now I can do it for fun."
Hikari looked disgusted. "That's wrong, Bakura. These people worked hard for what they have, and you just take it from them. That's unacceptable."
"What's unacceptable is that people can watch a child starving on the streets, beaten black and blue, and not feel the slightest hint of guilt. No desire to throw even a cent their way. Because they 'worked hard' for that money. People are always greedy, Hikari. They show it in different ways, and for different things, but what I'm doing is not as wrong as you like to think."
Bakura narrowed his eyes.
"There comes a time in your life where things get so bad, so desperate, that your choices are to steal or die. And when that choice comes, you learn to take everything you can get your hands on, because the alternative is a shallow grave under a bridge. I won't be like that, Hikari. I refuse."
Hikari fell silent. Bakura was panting softly, stirred into a slight frenzy. Hikari's glow fluttered hesitantly.
"I still don't like it," Hikari said. "You might have lived a life that I can't even begin to understand, but that doesn't mean that things like this are acceptable here, now. If you got in trouble, if you were arrested…"
"I won't, I'm better than that," Bakura said.
Hikari lashed inside the bottle, brightening to blinding levels once more. "But you're not perfect! It's still possible. And Bakura, you're my first friend in forever. I couldn't bear to lose you. And not just because I'd start forgetting again, either. Bakura…"
He flickered and softened and began to pale.
"Bakura, please don't do this."
"I…" Bakura trailed off. Even without a face, Hikari stared up at him with what seemed like widened, innocent eyes. "Hikari, this is who I am. It's a part of me. It would be like telling a bird not to fly. It's all I've ever known."
"You can learn something new," Hikari pleaded. "You're learning magic. Use it to help people!"
Bakura turned away. "We can talk about this later. Let's keep shopping, alright?"
Hikari dimmed, looking disappointed.
"Hey, and if anything catches your eye, let me know. Let's… not ruin this trip out like this."
Hikari hummed gently in agreement. They walked along, and for a while, Hikari took in the sights mostly silently. Sometimes he would ooh or ahh, or ask what something was, but he didn't seem as inclined to look closer at things.
At least, not until they passed a brightly colored shop with large music notes decorating the storefront.
"What is that?" Hikari asked. "At your three o'clock," he added. Bakura looked to the right.
"Music store," Bakura said. "They've got all different kinds. Want to see?"
Hikari made eager affirmative noises. "Yes yes!"
"Alright." Bakura stepped inside.
He hadn't been in a music shop in ages. Honestly, he had thought that digital music had killed all the stores. But it seemed that this place was still clinging to life, probably through sales of vinyls and expensive headphone sets.
Headphones lined one of the walls, allowing customers to sample some of the music. Bakura moved a pair of headphones and set the bottle on the counter between the earpieces. He turned the music on and grabbed a pair for himself.
Hikari's light brightened and pulsed in time with the music. "This… This is music?" he gasped. His voice was louder than normal. "I've never heard anything like this!" He wriggled within the bottle. Bakura winced.
The shadows lanced through him, tugging painfully at his chest. The drawing sensation was beginning to grow painful. Hikari jostled within the plastic bottle.
"I can't just hear it, I can feel it too!" Hikari marveled.
"Like that?" Bakura asked. Hikari bounced around. Bakura checked the title of the track and grabbed the disc from the shelf. He looked left and then right. No one was watching. The only camera pointed at the door.
Bakura slid the disc into his jacket pocket with a dull smile.
A good enough end to the day. Not particularly busy, but eventful enough to get back into the swing of things. He grabbed the bottle from the counter and replaced it in the backpack.
"Are we leaving so soon?" Hikari asked, crestfallen.
"Can't you feel the draw?" Bakura asked. He kneaded his chest. The tightness came and went. The strain was growing more difficult to bear. Soon it would snap, and Bakura had a bad feeling there'd be some nasty recoil.
Hikari sighed. "I do. It's fine. Can… can we…?" he trailed off nervously.
"What?" Bakura asked, stepping back out into the sunlight. He angled himself toward the train station.
"Could we do this again sometime?" Hikari asked.
A little smile cracked across Bakura's face. "Yeah, that'd be fun."
Bakura keep his hands to himself on the train. He still had the gift cards and the cash, and it was more than he'd owned since getting here. How had he lasted this long?
This place was making him soft. But… He looked at the softly glowing bottle. Hikari was buzzing within, humming and flickering with ethereal light. Well, he'd just been a bit distracted is all.
Sorry for posting this twice! My bad, guys. Messed up a bit, but it's all good now.