-10-

Bakura jiggled his leg in anticipation as he waited for Malik to finish with his shower. When he finally heard the water turn off, he got up and walked to the bathroom door, giving it a tap and asking, "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Malik called through the door.

Bakura swung the door open. Malik's back was to him, but the mirror he was standing in front of allowed Bakura to see Malik's eyes widen when he caught sight of Bakura's reflection behind him.

Malik froze in the motion of combing what was left of his hair and slowly turned around to get a better look at Bakura.

Malik raised an eyebrow. "Bakura, what are you wearing?"

"Who's Bakura? I have no ren. I'm the Thief King."

Bakura watched as Malik's eyes raked over his body, taking in the blood red robe draped over his shoulders, open to reveal his bare chest and the royal purple shenti which was the only other item of clothing he wore.

Malik let out a nervous little laugh as he set his brush down on the counter. "The Thief King? Really?"

"Surely you've heard of me." Bakura gave him a haughty look.

Malik pretended to think, putting a finger to his lips. "Come to think of it, I have read about you in my studies."

Bakura couldn't help smiling as he saw that Malik was going along with his game. "I'm not surprised they've written about me. What do the scrolls about me say?"

"They say you're a really bad guy. An infamous criminal. The scourge of the land. You steal from the dead, no matter how well guarded...and worse...you've defied the Pharaoh."

"All true," Bakura said, a glint of pride in his eyes. "You must be afraid of me, then."

Malik looked away for a moment, and Bakura thought he saw a blush beginning to color his cheeks.

But then Malik turned back and smirked at him. "Don't flatter yourself. You're not that scary."

"But I am. Maybe you're just brave." Bakura looked around the bathroom, pretending as if he were seeing it for the first time. "I've never been here before. What is this place?" He wanted to let Malik decide exactly how their game would go, what the time and place would be.

"This is…" Malik paused. "This is where I grew up. Because my family serves the Pharaoh, I'm not allowed to leave this tomb."

Bakura approached him, reaching out to let his fingers trail over his cheek as he gave him a hungry smile. "You're much too pretty to be locked up in a place like this."

Malik shoved his hand away. "I didn't say you could touch me!" he spat, though Bakura could see he was trying hard not to smile.

Bakura got the message to try another tactic. "You've got some real fire in you. You seem much too strong to be the type to bow down and kiss the Pharaoh's feet."

"Shut up!" Malik exclaimed.

"It was a compliment," Bakura said. "Are you disgusted by me, then? For all the evil things I've done?"

"No, I…" Malik gave him an uncharacteristically shy smile. "I've always kind of...admired the way you stood up to the Pharaoh. The way I wish I could."

Bakura grinned. Malik had admitted to him once before that he had looked up to the Thief King as a child—that was why Bakura had thought he'd like this game—but it was no less flattering to hear it the second time.

"You can," Bakura said. "You can leave with me right now."

Malik looked down. "I...shouldn't."

"Are you sure you're not afraid?"

"Of you?" Malik scoffed. "No. You're not fearsome at all. And you're much shorter than I expected."

Bakura scowled at him, putting his hands on his hips. "You brat."

"You should go," Malik said quietly. "I'll get in trouble."

"You know…" Bakura put his hand in the pocket of his robe. "I had a dream that in another life, I promised you a surprise. So I made something for you."

Malik looked up with interest. "What is it?"

"Well...it has gold...and jewels…"

Malik gave him a sardonic smile. "Made it? Or stole it?"

"Both." When Malik gave him a confused look, Bakura said, "I told you it's a surprise. If you want to find out what it is, leave with me, and I'll give it to you."

Malik leaned back against the counter. "Think you can buy me that easily with gold and jewels, do you?"

"No. I think you deserve to be free. And you're much too smart and too tough to throw your life away down here. You should see the sun."

Malik pretended to deliberate for a moment, then put on his most arrogant look and said, "You're right. I deserve much better than this. All of my amazing talents are really being wasted down here."

"Then come with me."

"Alright. But don't think I owe you anything! I'm only leaving because I want to."

"Of course." Bakura pulled his robe off with flair. "If we're going outside, you should put some clothes on." He walked to Malik, still naked after his shower, and wrapped the robe around his shoulders.

He saw Malik shiver a little as he reached for his hand and led him out of the bathroom and to their bedroom. He flicked the light off before they entered, leaving the bedside lamp and the glowing stars painted on the ceiling as the only sources of light.

Bakura went to the bed and lay on his back, looking up at the softly glowing stars, and Malik mimicked him.

"Being outside underneath the sky is nice," Malik said, gazing at the painted sky on the ceiling.

"I thought you'd like it." Bakura turned to him with a smile.

Then Bakura, quick as a cat, reached into the pocket of the robe Malik was now wearing and withdrew something.

Bakura held the item up for Malik to see and watched Malik's eyes, shining in the bit of light permeating the dark, as he took in the sight.

It was a circlet made of twisted golden wire, the metal wrapped around itself again and again, and then wrapped around a sparkling yellow gemstone which had tines of the metal radiating outwards from it so that it resembled the sun.

For a moment, everything in the room seemed brighter, as if the lights had been turned on again, and Bakura could swear he saw the gemstone sun reflecting the brightness that wasn't really there.

"It's an anklet," Bakura offered. "Someone like you should have beautiful, expensive things. I can tell just by looking at you."

"You made this?" Malik breathed.

"Yeah. I stole the gold wire and the fire opal from—uh, tombs—and then I made this with them." Bakura slid down the bed to take Malik's ankle in his hands. "It gets really boring, you know, when you're all by yourself out in the desert all the time. I've seen a lot of jewelry in my life—the tombs always have it—and I got curious about how stuff like this was made. Turns out it's not too hard to make wire wrapped jewelry. So I decided to teach myself. I've made a lot of these pieces. It passes the time when you're alone every day."

Bakura slipped the golden circlet onto Malik's ankle. "But I made this piece especially for you." He bent down to give a little kiss to the top of Malik's foot. "And I'm not alone anymore."

He looked up and met Malik's eyes, and Malik suddenly reached down to grab him roughly by his shoulders, pulling him up until they were face to face. An instant later Malik slid his hands to the back of his head and pulled him down to slam their lips together.

Malik kissed him hard, and Bakura kissed back just the same until Malik's fingers loosened in his hair and he drew back a bit.

"I hoped you'd come," Malik whispered against his mouth.

"Did you?" Bakura said, his voice hushed to match Malik's.

"Yes," Malik sighed. "Ever since I read about you when I was little...I imagined you coming to rescue me…and now you're here..."

Malik had never told him that before. "Oh," he breathed. Things seemed suddenly bright again, and everything seemed somehow a little more solid. It gave Bakura an oddly pleasant vertigo for a second as he waited for the sensation to pass.

Malik gazed up at him. Bakura was too overwhelmed to think of anything to say, so he kissed him again instead, softer and sweeter this time.

-11-

Bakura heard a loud bang behind him, followed by the sound of sloshing, and he looked up from the book he was reading at the table, twisting around in his seat to see what the hell Malik was doing.

He saw Malik standing there, hands on his hips, tapping his foot in front of the two large buckets of soapy water he'd just slammed down onto the floor in front of him.

"We are cleaning the apartment today," Malik said firmly.

"By we, I'm sure you mean you."

Malik gritted his teeth. "Bakura, I do all the housework. You can't even be arsed to clean up after yourself, let alone do actual chores. The absolute least you can do is help me with spring cleaning once a year."

"Why the fuck don't you just hire a maid? I'm sure you have the money for it."

"That's stupid. This apartment only has four rooms. It's not enough work to bother hiring anyone."

"If it's barely any work, you don't really need my help, do you?" Bakura smirked at him.

Malik clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes. "I can promise you that you won't get one second of peace until you help me."

Bakura sighed and finally set down The Hellbound Heart. "Gods, fine. Bastard. Let's get this over with, then."

Malik brightened considerably at Bakura's acquiescence. "Alright. First we're going to scrub the tile." Malik indicated the large yellow sponges in the buckets of soapy water. "You can take the bathroom and I'll take the kitchen."

"We seriously have to get down on our hands and knees and scrub? Why the hell can't you just use a mop?"

"We've lived here how long and you're not aware that we don't have a mop?" Malik gave him a condescending look. "We have never had a mop."

"Well why the hell not?"

Malik shrugged. "I just didn't see the point when we have such a small amount of tile. The kitchen is tiny and the bathroom is even smaller. It'll barely take any time to scrub down the floors. And by the way, you ought to be thanking me for giving you the smaller room."

Bakura let out a long-suffering sigh, looking up at the ceiling in exasperation. "Fine. But I swear to Set you'd better not complain about the job I do."

"I won't, as long as you even attempt to try. Seriously, Bakura, there are like three square meters of floor in there. It will take you less than ten minutes. You probably could have already been done by now if you'd just started instead of wasting time arguing. So just actually do a good job, alright?"

"Hand me the damn bucket." Bakura scowled and held out his hands.

Malik gave him a satisfied smile and bent to pick up the bucket and give it to Bakura.

Bakura's posture dipped a little as he grabbed the handle of the heavy bucket, then he trudged off to the bathroom.

He actually did do a decent job, not wanting to hear Malik whine about it. And he had to admit to himself that Malik was right—it really didn't take very long. When he was through, he dumped the bucket of dirty water into the tub. Then he got an idea and put the bucket under the bathtub faucet, filling it again.

When he came back to the kitchen, Malik was still on his hands and knees, ass in the air as he scrubbed at the kitchen floor. It looked like he was almost done.

Malik turned when he heard Bakura let out a chuckle, and immediately got a face full of water as Bakura dumped the entire bucket onto his head.

Malik screamed in surprise and then tried to stand up, but the floor was so slippery his feet slid out from under him, and he would have gone crashing to the floor had Bakura not reached out to grab him by the arms and steady him.

Bakura laughed hysterically as Malik gave him a murderous glare through a curtain of wet hair.

Once Bakura finally got a hold of himself, he said, "Relax, it was clean water. I refilled the bucket when I was done. So I didn't actually mess up your nice clean kitchen floor. And I did do a good job in the bathroom, by the way."

Malik found his feet and snatched his arms away from Bakura's grip. "I will kill you. You're dead."

Bakura just snickered, but before he knew it, Malik had bent down and grabbed the sponge from his bucket.

"Wait—"

Malik flung the sponge directly at his head. It slapped Bakura in the side of his face, soaking his hair on that side and splashing water all over his shirt before it slid down to the floor.

"You'll pay for that." Bakura quickly picked the sponge up and whipped it back at Malik, who tried to dodge it at the last second, but still got smacked in the shoulder.

Malik laughed and aimed a kick at his own bucket of water, knocking it over so that it spilled water all over Bakura's socked feet.

Bakura glanced around, looking for something else he could use. But Malik had caught the sponge he'd thrown at him, and suddenly he was standing over him, wringing it out right over his head, soaking the rest of his hair.

Bakura reached up in an attempt to grab the sponge from him, but Malik held it out of his reach and then tossed it away. Bakura tried to dart off to go get it, but Malik blocked him with his body. Bakura faked left, then right, then finally managed to dodge Malik and go racing off. Malik gave chase, and only a few seconds later Malik was on him, and he tackled Bakura to the floor long before he could get to the place across the room where the sponge had landed.

Bakura struggled to get up, but Malik shifted his weight onto him, holding him down, his wet hair dripping onto Bakura's face.

"You're going to be really sorry," Malik said, an evil glint in his eye.

Bakura gave him a falsely sweet, Ryou-like look. "I am sorry. Let me up."

"No," Malik said, smiling.

"I wasn't lying. I did do a good job with the bathroom."

"You're going to wipe up every bit of this water from the floor."

"Fine, fine. It won't even take that long. Go get me some towels." Bakura gave him a wide-eyed, entreating stare.

"Not yet." The look on Malik's face suddenly turned sultry, and he reached down to grab the hem of Bakura's soaked T-shirt.

Bakura smiled and raised his arms, letting Malik strip the shirt from his body.

But as soon as the shirt was off, Malik's eyes narrowed, his smile widening into an evil grin.

Bakura realized he'd been tricked and tried to squirm away, but Malik was heavier and stronger, and it was no use.

Malik leaned on top of him with all his weight, one arm across his chest holding him down. He slipped his other hand between their bodies, trailing his fingers lightly over Bakura's stomach.

"Malik—Malik please—"

But Malik just smirked at him as his fingers began dancing over his exposed stomach.

Bakura couldn't hold in his laughter as Malik began tickling him. As Malik continued he thrashed wildly, struggling to get away, but Malik was too strong and Bakura couldn't budge him.

After a minute, Malik stopped to let Bakura catch his breath. Bakura looked up at him, face flushed, trying to stifle the last of his giggles.

Secretly Bakura liked this kind of affectionate play, but he would never admit it out loud. "Alright, you got me back. You can get off of me now."

"I don't think so," Malik said, still with that wicked smile on his face. "You got my outfit wet."

With that Malik began tickling him again, and Bakura squirmed and laughed as he pushed against Malik's shoulders and tried to shove him away.

It went on longer this time, until Bakura was gasping for breath, and Bakura was beginning to think Malik would never stop until suddenly the phone rang, and Malik paused.

"You—you'd better get that. It—" Bakura breathed heavily. "It could be your sister."

"She can wait."

"You know how pissed she'll be if you don't answer."

Malik ignored what he'd said. "Lift your arms up."

"What? No!"

"This is what you get for dumping water all over me instead of cleaning like you were supposed to." With that Malik grabbed his wrists and hauled his arms over his head. He used one hand to hold his wrists in place as the other reached down to tickle underneath his arm.

Bakura began thrashing again, shrieking and laughing uncontrollably. He kicked and squirmed, but there was nothing he could do until Malik finally stopped a couple minutes later.

"Damn it, she's calling again."

Bakura hadn't noticed that the phone has quit ringing, but it must have stopped and then started up again.

"You—you have to answer it now." Bakura tried to get his breath.

"I suppose," Malik sighed. "But you're going to dry up that water, and then you're going to help me with the rest of the cleaning with no complaining. Right?"

Bakura gave an emphatic nod. "I promise! Just let me up."

Malik leaned down and stole a quick kiss from Bakura's lips, and then he did let him up, going to get his phone.

Bakura went to get the towels as Malik answered the call. When he came back, Malik looked at him and said, "It's not my sister. It's Ryou."

"Ryou?" Bakura looked surprised.

"Yeah." Malik shrugged. "Yeah, we're fine, Ryou."

"Is there a reason he was calling over and over?" Bakura shot a questioning look at the phone, secretly annoyed that Ryou had interrupted them.

"You know, Ryou, we were kind of busy," Malik said into the phone. "We were right in the middle of spring cleaning. Is there a reason you called again after we didn't answer?"

Malik paused to listen, then turned to Bakura and said, "He says he was worried when we didn't answer."

Bakura rolled his eyes. "That's stupid. Tell him we have things to do and can't always be at his beck and call. If we don't answer the phone it just means we're busy, not that we're dead or something."

"Bakura says the responsibility of cleaning this apartment weighs heavily on him, and he can't possibly stop his work to do something as trite as answer phone calls from friends."

Bakura snickered, and Malik paused to listen again. "We were not having sex!" Malik said into the phone with a laugh.

"We were about to," Bakura grumbled to himself.

But the mood was clearly gone now, and Bakura could see Malik eying the standing water on the floor of the kitchen as he listened to whatever Ryou was saying, so Bakura sighed and brought the towels to the kitchen, getting to work on mopping up the water.

When he was done, he came back to the living room to find that Malik was still on the phone. Malik had stripped off his wet shirt and was sitting on the couch as he talked. Bakura plopped down next to him, tired now from all the exertion of the day.

"He wants us to come over," Malik said, turning to Bakura.

Bakura stretched lazily. "Tell him to come over here."

"He says you should come here." Malik paused, listening to Ryou's response. He turned back to Bakura again. "He says he can't."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" Malik repeated into the phone. Suddenly he pulled the phone away from his ear. "Damn static, I can't even hear what he's saying. Why do we get such garbage reception in this place?"

Bakura shrugged. "Is he coming over or not?"

"No, I guess not," Malik said. "Alright, yeah, once these reception issues start happening there's no point in even trying to talk. I'll call you later. Bye."

"What a pest," Bakura said once Malik had hung up.

"Well, we still have a lot of work to do. Remember what you promised."

Bakura sighed in resignation.

-12-

Malik had just finished clearing up the table after dinner and now sat on the couch, chin in hand, looking bored and a little irritable.

"Hey, Sunshine," Bakura said, and Malik looked up. "I stole more gems and wires so I could make some more of that wire wrapped jewelry. Just for something to do, you know. Do you want me to teach you how to make it?"

Malik shrugged. "I dunno. Is it hard? You know I'm not great at artistic stuff."

"Nah, it's actually really easy. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like—you just wrap the wires around the stones, and then twist them around to make designs if you want, and bend them to make clasps and that sort of thing. It's actually even easier in the modern day than it was when I first alive, since you can use pliers to help bend the wires and wire cutters to get the length you want."

Malik gave another shrug, favoring Bakura with a small smile. "Sure, why not? Sounds like it could be fun."

Bakura smiled back and ran to grab his bag from where he'd set it on the floor. Malik followed him into the kitchen, and Bakura proceeded to dump the bag out onto the table, spilling gemstones of different colors, various sizes of gold and silver wire, and a few small tools across its surface.

"Here, I'll start by making something simple just to show you how it's done."

With that Bakura grabbed an amethyst whose color matched Malik's eyes, then found a piece of golden wire and began twisting it around the stone as Malik watched. He stopped wrapping the stone when there were a couple centimeters of wire left sticking out, and then bent that wire into a hook. "See? Easy." Bakura held up the newly created piece for Malik to examine. "It's an earring. Want to try to make a matching one?"

"Alright." Malik sifted through the stones on the table until he found another amethyst. He didn't bother looking for the right length of wire, instead grabbing a random gold one and using a pair of wire cutters to snip it.

While Malik worked on that, Bakura picked out a blue stone from the pile, deciding he would try to make a scarab design next.

"I love how much easier it is to steal stuff from shops than it was to rob tombs," Bakura mused as he worked.

Malik gave a distracted nod, but didn't otherwise answer, seeming absorbed in getting the earring he was making just right.

"On the other hand, I liked robbing tombs because it was so exciting," Bakura said. "Of course, when you're alone in the desert, you kind of have to make your own entertainment. Anything to break up the monotony."

"Yeah, I was always bored as hell in the tomb." Malik used a pair of pliers to bend the end of the wire he was working with into a hook and then held up the now-finished earring for Bakura to assess. "What do you think?"

"Pretty decent for a first try."

"Maybe I'll make something for my sister next."

"You should," agreed Bakura. "It seems like it's been a really long time since you've seen her. Maybe she'll be less pissed about that if you bring her a gift when you go over."

"What is it with you encouraging me to see Ishizu?" Malik laughed. "You can't even stand her."

Bakura shrugged, staring down at the table in concentration, busy using his bare fingers to twist the wire he was working with. "You do what you want. I just think it's weird that you've gone so long without seeing her. Or Rishid."

"Actually, I'm mad at her."

Malik said it casually, but the bluntness of the statement made Bakura snap his head up and look at Malik. "Really? What happened?"

"Nothing lately." Malik sighed. "I just realized...I mean, lately, for some reason, I've been thinking about how…complicit she was in everything."

Bakura set down the piece he was working on and nodded for him to go on.

"And...maybe it's not fair, because back when I was a kid, it's not like she had a choice about anything...not like any of us did...but even after we got out...and yeah, I know she was basically brainwashed...but still, it's like she thought the whole problem was the fact that I didn't want to follow the rules and the traditions, as if everything would have been just great if I'd only been alright with being caged and controlled for my entire life, giving up my own life to serve some asshole pharaoh, and putting up with how…" Malik had said it all in a rush, as if he'd just been waiting to get it all out, but then he paused and winced before continuing. "How my father treated all of us."

Bakura thought for a moment before responding. "I totally get it. I'd be angry with her about that too. Hell, I am angry with her about that." Bakura shrugged and a bitter smile appeared on his face. "Though, I don't think I can really give you any advice. I'm not exactly an expert on family relations."

"That's fine. I guess it kind of makes me feel better just to say it out loud."

"You know it's okay to feel mad at her, right?" Bakura said, giving Malik an understanding look.

"Yeah. You're the one who taught me that." Malik let out a humorless laugh. "I used to get so pissed at you when you'd talk about how terrible my father was, and how I should hate him."

"I remember." Bakura's lips quirked up. "I think you almost hit me a couple times."

"I felt like it, just a little," Malik admitted. "But I was only pissed at you because you were right."

Bakura was silent, but gave a little nod.

"I always knew it deep down, you know? Otherwise, I wouldn't have even left the tomb...wouldn't have defied everything he wanted of me as soon as he was dead."

"Lucky for me you were strong enough to do that." Bakura gave him an encouraging smile. Malik understandably got maudlin when he thought about his past, and Bakura always hoped he could say something to make him feel a bit better, if only a little.

Malik gave him a small smile in return, but then said, "You know, Sister thought the reason I wore Father's earrings was because I loved and respected him...but...well, I never pointed it out to her, but did she ever notice that my other personality wore them too? And obviously that's not why *he* was wearing them. Really, it was more like a fuck you to my father. Like...I'm the leader of the clan now, I'll do what I want, not what you wanted me to do."

Bakura could see Malik's face clouding further as he went on. He knew Malik still had complicated feelings about his father, guilt and affection wrapped up in the hatred and anger, even if he had accepted that the worthless bastard was largely to blame for his and his siblings' miserable childhoods.

But still, Bakura thought it was getting better for Malik. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him wear those earrings.

"Those amethyst earrings will look better on you anyways," Bakura said. "They're the same color as your eyes, so they match."

Malik gave him a tight smile. "Yeah."

"Maybe you should talk to her about it?" Bakura asked, trying to steer the conversation away from Malik's father. Malik needed to talk about it sometimes, but it was never good for him to dwell on it. "Ishizu, I mean."

"What, like she's going to ever admit she's wrong? About anything?" Malik snorted.

"That is one of the more annoying things about her."

"I really don't think it's even worth it to argue with her about it," Malik said. "I think it's better if I just let it out to you, so I'm not tempted to say anything to her."

Bakura shrugged. "Well...no one ever said your relationship with your family has to be totally perfect, right? It's not like you necessarily have to talk every issue over with her so you can dissect every little thing together until you two agree on all of it."

"You know, you're right. I don't have to try to fix every single thing between us," Malik said. He nodded firmly to himself. "She's my sister and we love each other. That's enough."

"So, are you going to make her something then?" Bakura inclined his head to indicate the jewels and wire in front of them.

"Sure. Might as well. I'm not very good at this yet, but I don't think she'll mind."

"I'm sure she won't."

With that Malik started searching through the pile of stones again, and Bakura went back to working on his scarab piece. A few minutes later, Bakura got up to use the bathroom. As he was on his way back, he saw the lights in their apartment flicker, accompanied by an audible gasp from Malik, and he had the curious idea that he shouldn't have left Malik alone with his thoughts. He began to rush back to the kitchen. The lights went out briefly again, but the flickering stopped just as he reached Malik, who was breathing heavily and glancing around with wide, fearful eyes.

"Alright?" Bakura asked, placing a hand on Malik's shoulder.

"Yeah, I just…" Malik seemed to calm down in Bakura's presence. "Did you see that? It seemed like all the lights in the whole apartment went off for a second."

"Yeah, I saw. Kind of weird for them all to go off at the same time. Is there a storm outside?"

"I don't hear a storm." Malik got up and walked over to the living room window, and Bakura followed.

Malik parted the curtains so they could peer out. Bakura looked and saw that it was pitch black outside, and had a strange sense of deja vu about the last time this had happened, when he'd been looking out of the glass waiting for Malik to get home from work. He and Malik glanced away from the window to give each other a confused look. But when they turned back to the window, they saw that the street lights were now on, illuminating the area. Bakura could now see the parking lot, still and quiet, bathed in the fluorescent light. There was no storm.

"Maybe it was a power surge and it got the streetlights too for a minute," Bakura suggested.

"Yeah, that's probably it," Malik agreed, but he gave a shiver as he let the curtains fall back into place.

They both turned to walk back to the kitchen, but just as they did, a loud crash sounded behind them. Malik jumped, instinctively reaching out to grab Bakura's hand.

Bakura unthinkingly laced their fingers together as he whipped back around, throwing the curtains open.

But nothing had changed outside.

"Sometimes the thunder gets here before the rain," Bakura said, closing the curtains again.

"I know," Malik said, still clutching Bakura's hand. "I just...gods, I hope the power doesn't go out."

"We have candles and flashlights," Bakura assured him.

"Yeah," Malik said. "You know...I think I'll work on that bracelet for Ishizu later. I need to do something more distracting right now. Want to play a video game?"

"Sure," Bakura said. "Just...come here for a second first."

Bakura pulled Malik in by their linked hands, gathering him up in a tight hug. For just a moment the lights in the apartment seemed brighter than ever, and Bakura worried that it might make Malik even more concerned about a possible power outage, but Malik rested his chin on Bakura's head and seemed to relax in his arms.