Chapter 17: Paved with good intentions
Bakura took the topmost Spellbook page in his hands.
Ryou's gaze followed him as he did so. Every ounce of his being screamed distrust, from the way he barely blinked to the slight aggression in his frown.
Bakura tried to ignore him, but he'd lie if he said that it didn't grate on his nerves. What did his host expect him to do? Grab the pages and run? It was ridiculous.
He struggled to focus on the page before him. For a few seconds, he remained caught up in Ryou's silent resentment, until his brain registered the sight before him and his attention shifted.
He looked at the page in his hands. It was a photograph—or maybe a scanned copy—of a paper much older and coarser than this one. Bakura could see neither words nor anything resembling text on it. His first thought was that someone had grabbed a brush and dragged it randomly across the page, because all he saw were swishing black lines that twisted and turned around each other with no discernible pattern or logic.
He turned the page over, but only one side of the paper was printed. He flipped it back around and took a closer look.
Maybe his first assessment about the brush had been wrong, because the markings looked more like inscriptions and less like brush strokes. Not that it changed anything; the medium didn't make any difference.
He turned to the second page of the pile. And then the third one. Same thing everywhere: same incomprehensible scribbling. In some pages the lines were denser and more complicated, sometimes nearly turning into pure black blots.
Ryou was still observing him closely, not missing the tiniest of his movements. Malik, on the other hand, had not approached them; he was standing on the edge of the living room, leaning against the kitchen door, as if ready to jump in there and take cover at any given minute. He kept throwing furtive, wary glances towards the Spellbook, making sure that his gaze would never linger, but it was obvious he was about to vibrate out of his skin with anticipation.
Bakura looked through the pages, all fifteen of them. He saw nothing resembling text, or even a word.
"Is that all?" he asked, going through them once more, just in case he'd missed something.
Malik nodded. "Yes. Fifteen pages. That's what we've got so far."
Bakura paused on the first page again and his face fell.
How on earth was anyone supposed to read this thing? This was no text. These could have been the mad scribbles of a drunken artist, or doodles drawn by a two year old with a brush and some black ink.
"Are those supposed to be words?" he growled.
Ryou raised an eyebrow. "You mean you can't read them?" He didn't sound disappointed or surprised; if anything, he sounded like he had anticipated it.
Bakura decided to ignore him. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the page, just in case he managed to discern something behind the black lines.
Still nothing.
He turned to Malik.
"Is this a joke, Ishtar?"
Malik's forehead scrunched up. "What? No. That's it—that's the Spellbook."
Bakura kept glaring at Malik, half-expecting him to admit that this was a prank played by him and his landlord, to ridicule him. Maybe they wanted to see him confused and out of his depth for a change, just to have a laugh.
"Cut it out," Bakura growled. "This can't be it. This is no text."
Malik eagerness fizzled out and he sighed, shrinking in disappointment. "So you can't read it."
His reaction gave Bakura pause. This didn't seem like a prank. Malik and Ryou were exchanging somber looks, but none of them seemed ready to burst out laughing.
He returned his gaze to the page in his hands, newly perplexed.
Was this actually the Spellbook? He couldn't fathom it.
It didn't look like any kind of script he'd seen in all the long years of his existence. And yet, if he could trust Malik—and Ryou—on it, this was written by him once. Or rather… By a version of him.
It should ring some bells.
And yet it didn't.
He huffed and turned the page upside down. Then he held it against the light, just in case something happened.
A snort caught his attention. He lowered the page and saw Ryou smirking at him.
"What?" Bakura snapped.
Ryou shrugged. "It's okay, you know. You can admit you can't read it and then you can be on your merry way."
"I didn't say I can't read it."
"It doesn't look like you can."
"Just give me a fucking minute! I need to concentrate."
Bakura smoothed the page in front of him with one determined swipe of his hand and tried to focus on it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ryou watching him: he had narrowed his eyes in the way he always did when looking at him, but the smirk was still hovering on the corners of his lips. He seemed certain that Bakura would fail; so certain it was infuriating.
Bakura wished he would stop looking at him. It was hard to concentrate when he could see Ryou's face getting more and more derisive with every passing second.
He huffed and tried to block him out, but he was still acutely aware of his gaze. He wanted to shout at him to cut it out, but he already knew it'd be no use: chances were that Ryou would be even more satisfied to see that he was getting on his nerves like that.
Bakura turned his body as much away from him as he could, pretending to settle more comfortably on the armchair. Just focus, he told himself.
He stared at the page. The page stared back.
He bit the inside of his cheek and kept staring. If he glared at it hard enough, maybe something would reveal itself.
Or maybe Ryou was right; maybe he should just admit he was out of his depth.
At once, he pushed that thought away. Admitting defeat was not in his blood. He would not allow to be outwitted by the last remnant of Zorc. That motherfucker had destroyed enough of his life; he wasn't going to destroy his afterlife, too.
No. Bakura would dig deep if he had to. If there was knowledge lurking in him, he would find it. He would use Zorc's weapons against him and rip that last trace of him to shreds. It would be a nice and proper spit in Zorc's face; the proof that he no longer owned him.
Maybe that was why he was here. Maybe that was the one thing he had to do before being allowed to rest: shout that long-deserved 'fuck you' to the one that had ruined both his life and his death.
This book was the beginning of everything: the reason the Millennium Items found their way into existence. How fitting then, that the start of everything would also be the end.
Bakura had to read this thing. Unlock its secrets, then undo them, then fade along with it into oblivion—as it should have been millennia ago.
He took a deep breath. He tried to forget that Ryou was watching him, or that Malik was hovering on the corner of the living room; he tried to imagine that he was alone and that everything was quiet. Just like the nights in the desert, when all he could hear was the soft swishing of sand as he walked.
He remembered the taste of the night's breeze, the dry smell of it; the smooth slithering of snakes, the crackling of the bugs' wings. His red robe had flapped languidly, while Diabound had shimmered like pearls under the light of the moon. He remembered those nights when the heavens had seemed to crouch above the earth and touch the tips of the hills; those moments when even the ghosts in his head had quieted down.
He looked at the page. He did not try to read it; he simply observed the pattern, choosing a line and following its trail, trying not to lose it among the tens of other lines it crossed. It felt like following a thread in a maze of threads, or a path that threatened to disappear among rocks and weeds. Some of the lines were long and complex enough to take up several inches of the page, while others were tiny, nearly specks. Maybe one could call them symbols: Bakura guessed it was as fitting a word as any.
It was funny that he had compared them to the doodles of a two-year-old, because no child could have ever created this. It was too intricate and sort of… ruthlessly beautiful. The patterns, the placement of the symbols, the sequence of black and white—none of it was coincidental. It had a rhythm, a sort of pulse, like breathing—
Or speech.
The page felt alive in his hands. Something was nested in depths of those markings: something that longed to come out of the paper and manifest itself in any possible way. He could tell that it wanted to speak, like someone who had just found an old friend after years and years of solitude.
He followed the trail of the line he had picked until he reached the bottom right corner, where the symbol curled in on itself and then uncurled again, ending in an acute angle with definitive finality: an undisputed end, unavoidable like a foregone conclusion.
He knew that.
He narrowed his eyes.
All of a sudden, the image of rocky mountains came to his mind. A wild landscape, a jagged line in the horizon. The sun was beating down on the earth, baking the stone and what little greenery crept out from between cracks. Nothing could be heard, not even a bird, but it wasn't quiet: the air was vibrating with noise, even though he couldn't hear a thing.
How did he know that? Was this one of his memories? He couldn't tell. He couldn't place it, neither the landscape nor any events surrounding it. He didn't even know why that image had come to mind all of a sudden; the symbol he had been staring at looked nothing like mountains.
He retraced its trail, but the details of the memory—if it was, indeed, a memory—were fading already, like a dream.
"He got something," Ryou said.
Bakura looked up. Ryou was watching him intently, but his previous, cocky smirk was gone from his face. There was something sharp in his expression; something serious, if not a bit scared.
In the corner of the room, Malik shifted, perking up. "What? Really?"
No one answered him. Bakura stared at his landlord, trying to figure out how the hell he knew. He wasn't aware of his face changing, or of reacting in any way, so how had Ryou realized?
Ryou kept looking at him with a piercing gaze, as if to say that he wouldn't let him get away with anything less than the truth. "You got something," he repeated. "What is it? What did you read?"
Apparently, his landlord was way more perceptive than he gave him credit for.
"I didn't read it," Bakura replied, but he could hear the ambivalence in his voice. "Not… exactly. I—"
He paused. How to explain?
Malik took a step closer, still not quite approaching them. "You recognized something?"
"He did," Ryou said with certainty.
"I—I didn't. No—I mean, it's not—"
"Don't try to deny it."
"Ryou, let him explain—"
"Will you both shut up for a minute?" Bakura snapped. Thankfully, they both closed their mouths—Ryou scowling even more than usual. Bakura huffed and went on. "I didn't exactly read it. But there is something… odd about it."
"Odd?"
"Odd, how?"
"It feels like—" Bakura paused again. He rubbed his eyes, picturing in his mind's eye the flow of the pattern he had followed, the nearly sing-song interchange of black and white on the paper. "It feels like it's trying to tell me something."
Malik took another tentative step forward, his toes reaching the edge of the carpet. "Trying to… Tell you something?"
"Yes. But don't ask how I know," Bakura added, somewhat irritated. "Just… Be quiet and let me concentrate."
For good measure, Bakura shot Ryou a warning glare, as if to say, Don't interrupt me next time. He didn't say it out loud: if Ryou could read him so easily, he shouldn't have trouble translating that look.
As expected, Ryou understood; he returned the glare but did not speak. Instead, he grabbed his messenger bag from the foot of the couch and started pulling out an array of books and notepads.
Good; let him do his thing. Maybe he would leave Bakura alone at last.
"Umm… I'll make some more tea, then," Malik said and disappeared into the kitchen.
Bakura let out a partially relieved sigh and rubbed his temples. His brain was throbbing in his skull.
The page lay on his knees, its shapes calling out to him like an outstretched hand.
He hesitated diving back into it. Now that the spell was broken once, he felt vaguely scared of what had just happened. He realized, all of a sudden, what he was risking: the re-awaking of memories he'd rather keep buried, or visions of an existence that wasn't his. He wasn't so sure he wanted a trip into Zorc's mind.
In fact, it surprised him that this thing felt so alive, even though Zorc was dead. It didn't matter that its master was banished; his powers still lingered in those pages, like a stubborn smudge on this world.
He remembered the words he had once uttered himself, through the lips of his host's body.
You cannot kill me, because I am the darkness.
Were these words still true? Was it impossible to ever truly destroy Zorc? Maybe there were means for him to return; gateways, like this book, that would revive him no matter how many times he was beaten. Maybe he was still living in the deepest shadows, bidding his time.
All the more reason for Bakura to translate these pages, then. If the Spellbook held the secret of Zorc's return, maybe it would also hold the secret of his ultimate destruction. A spell, or a ritual, or something.
Or maybe they had to get their hands on the original copy and burn it to cinders. Maybe that would be enough: bury the secret forever.
He shifted in Malik's yellow armchair and draped his long legs over the armrest. He flipped through the pages again, watching the dance of pitch-black symbols before going back to page one.
He closed his eyes, trying to block everything else out and concentrate again, the way he'd done before. It felt somewhat like entering the fighting cage: the world narrowing down to just him and one opponent, while everything else was left outside the fence.
When he opened his eyes again, he gazed at the page without picking a symbol to follow. He looked at it as a whole, allowing the shapes to imprint on his brain, noticing the harmony—or lack thereof—they created. There were some parts that, inexplicably, felt off, and yet they balanced each other out when looked at as a sum.
Slowly, Bakura realized his breathing had matched the rhythm of the page, the negative spaces marking the pauses in between his inhales and exhales. The moment he noticed it the flow was broken, but he started over, this time consciously going back to the start of the page and trying to copy the pace.
He was glad he didn't have to explain his methods to anyone, because he was certain he would sound stupid. And, honestly, he had no method; he was groping in the dark, doing things that felt right and relying on nothing but instinct.
He kept breathing with the page, every now and then blinking to re-focus his gaze, but no new revelations came. Even the bottom right corner that had given him the vision of those mountains earlier lay silent now, all its secrets closed-off.
He closed his eyes again, covering them with his arm to block out the light. He felt he was missing something. There was something there—something familiar. Something vague and generic that he felt he had forgotten.
He huffed, frustration building up in him. What was he missing? It was as if the answer was dangling right in front of his nose, so close to his face that it ended up being out of his line of vision; near, but impossible to see.
He heard Malik approach and leave two mugs on the coffee table, while Ryou's pencil was scratching away on a piece of paper.
Minutes ticked away. Nobody spoke and Bakura did not, either. The silence was every now and then interrupted by Ryou turning a page or putting a book down, and soon Bakura found himself way more invested in those little sounds than his thoughts about the Spellbook.
He spent ten minutes paying attention to nothing but the whisper of his landlord's pencil before finally admitting that his moment with the Spellbook was gone. He didn't know if there was any point in trying to force it.
Maybe he needed a break.
He sighed and took his tobacco bag out of his pocket.
Malik, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing a game on his phone, looked up at once. "No smoking in here."
Bakura frowned at him, his hand still hovering over the seal of the little plastic bag. "What do you mean, 'no smoking'? You let me smoke last time."
"Last time I took pity on you, because you had a concussion and could barely stand."
"What?"
"If you wanna smoke, you'll have to go outside. And I don't have a balcony, so you'll have to go all the way downstairs and smoke on the sidewalk."
"For fuck's sake—are you kidding?"
"Nope," Malik said serenely.
Bakura turned to Ryou—because he was a smoker too, right? He might be an annoying brat, but he would understand.
Ryou caught his eye and shrugged. "His house, his rules."
"For real?" Bakura bristled. "Don't you want to smoke?"
Ryou's expression turned a few degrees colder, as if that question had crossed some kind of line. "I am free to go outside, if I want to. And so are you."
"Yeah, no, forget about it," Bakura murmured and stuffed his tobacco bag back in his pocket.
A cigarette might help him regain his focus but, fuck it. It was cold outside. He would do without it.
He grabbed the stack of Spellbook pages again but, this time, he was even more out of it. One of his feet bounced up and down in a nervous staccato, and he huffed and puffed as he browsed through the pages.
"Oh, don't be such a baby about it," Malik said and got to his feet. "I'm gonna go wash the dishes. Shout if you need me."
Bakura gave a non-committal grunt without looking at him, still too busy scowling at the pages and at the universe in general.
He waited for Malik to leave before looking up again. Maybe he could attempt to light a cigarette now; if he opened the window, Malik wouldn't realize a thing.
Except that Ryou was still there. There was no way he would back Bakura up; he would go tattling on him before Bakura could even think of taking his lighter out.
He huffed and looked at his landlord. He was currently hunched over a textbook, making notes on a pad he had balanced on one knee. Bakura cocked his head to the side, trying to read the title on the spine of one of his books.
"What is that supposed to be?" he asked, even though he knew he risked getting his head bitten off.
Ryou grimaced in evident irritation, but he deigned to reply. "College work."
Right; Bakura remembered following him to campus one day, back when he had stalked him for a week.
He turned his gaze back to the Spellbook, but a small smirk curled the edge of his mouth. "Aren't you a bit old for college?"
He sensed the spike in Ryou's fury without having to look at him.
"That's none of your business," he bit out.
"Ooh. Touchy," Bakura murmured, his smirk widening.
"Shut the fuck up."
"Language, landlord."
Malik poked his head out of the kitchen. "Is everything alright?" he called. When he noticed Ryou's thunderous expression and Bakura's smirk, he scowled like an angry teacher about to put them on detention.
Bakura lowered his head and pretended to read the Spellbook until Malik disappeared back inside the kitchen.
"So…" he said then, in a voice low enough to not carry to Malik's ears, "college seems to be a sensitive topic. Why?"
"Why do you care?" Ryou hissed, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Bakura shrugged. "Just making small talk."
"You're not here for that. Focus on the Spellbook or get the fuck out."
"That's not very kind."
Ryou opened his mouth to answer, but he seemed to decide against it and glued his gaze back to his book.
"What are you studying, anyway?" Bakura said, trying again to read the spine of his book. He hadn't really thought about it until now, but he realized he had no idea what his landlord's major was.
He angled his head and managed to read the title 'English Syntax And Morphology' . Underneath it was another book that read, 'Literature of the 17 th Century'.
"English?" he asked, taken aback. "So… What? You are going to be an English teacher?"
The look Ryou gave him was murderous. "Is there a problem with that?"
Bakura shrugged, trying to look as indifferent as possible—even though he'd almost given his neck a cramp from angling it so much.
"No. It's just not what I'd expect."
"Well, sorry to disappoint you."
Bakura contemplated him. He guessed it made sense: Ryou had travelled a lot as a child, and he had picked up a couple of foreign languages as a result. Maybe English was a suitable major for him. Still, Bakura would have expected of him something a bit more… adventurous. Maybe following the steps of his father: pursuing a career as an archeologist and inheriting the Museum.
Ryou underlined a sentence on his textbook with so much force that he broke the tip of his pencil. He breathed out an exasperated sigh and set his book aside.
Bakura watched him reach for his bag and search in one of the side pockets. "How come?" he asked.
"How come what?" Ryou said.
"How come you don't work in your father's museum?"
Bakura would have thought it impossible, but Ryou's face darkened even more. "Bold of you to assume I want anything to do with him."
Oh. Now that was interesting.
Bakura cocked his head, observing Ryou's irritation.
So, the relationship between father and son had turned rocky. That was not entirely unexpected, if Bakura were to be honest: he remembered how little Ryou had seen of his father while growing up. In fact, Bakura could count on his fingers the times he'd seen the man—which was too small a number, considering that he had possessed Ryou for the span of almost… eight years. Or maybe even nine. It was hard to tell.
Ryou took another pencil out of his bag and grabbed his textbook again, resting it on his thighs.
The fabric of his jeans was so worn that the weaving had started coming apart in the knees: Bakura could make out the start of what was soon going to be a rip. He once again noticed how skinny his landlord was; how prominent his cheekbones were and how his clothes seemed a tad too big for his frame, as if they had once fit but now he had grown too thin for them.
He was miles away from the posh boy he had once been. He wondered if Ryou's father knew what had become of his son, or if he even cared. From what Bakura remembered of the man, it was possible that he had forgotten he had a son at all.
"So, you two don't talk anymore?" he asked.
"I don't see how this is any of your business," Ryou replied icily.
"Just—"
"Making small talk?" Ryou finished his sentence for him, throwing him a pointed glare. "Don't you have a Spellbook to translate?"
"I'm taking a break."
"Then do it in silence."
"That's boring."
"Well, you are not here to have fun."
Bakura smirked. "I am surprised you even know the word 'fun'. Did you read it in a book?"
Ryou's nostrils flared, and Bakura's smirk couldn't help but widen; getting under his landlord's skin was so easy it was almost pleasant.
"At least I can read," Ryou shot back at him.
"Yeah, I'm sure that comes in handy when you need to read the tags on the clothes you sell."
He realized he'd crossed a line the moment he finished his sentence: Ryou's face spasmed and he jumped to his feet, sending his books and his notepads crashing to the floor.
One of his hands shot out to point at the door. "Shut your mouth or get the fuck out!"
Bakura looked at him and his outstretched hand. Ryou's finger was trembling, but his eyes were spitting fire. The last time Bakura had seen him like that, they had ended up with a knife between them—and that had turned out to be a bit more disturbing than Bakura would like.
He did not have any time to answer because Malik came running out of the kitchen.
"Hey, what—?" He paused and took in the scene in his living room, his face turning serious. "What is going on here?"
"He'll either have to shut his damn mouth, or one of us will have to go," Ryou gritted out.
Malik turned to Bakura with a no-nonsense look on his face. "Bakura?"
The yami lifted his hands in a defensive gesture. "Don't look at me. He started it!"
"Like hell I did," Ryou spat.
"I was just talking—"
"Yeah, talking shit."
"—and you got all pissed—"
"You had no business asking—"
"Alright, both of you shut up!" Malik yelled, loud enough to drawn out their voices. The outburst was so uncharacteristic that Ryou and Bakura both cowered a bit and silence fell at once. Malik looked from one to the other; with all traces of humor gone from his face, he looked rather scary. "We are here to do a job, and I thought you had both agreed to it! You agreed to work together!"
Ryou lowered his gaze to the floor, and Bakura couldn't blame him: withstanding Malik's gaze was not easy.
"You both sat down and agreed to cooperate," Malik went on. "If you can't do that, then we can give up right now. Just leave the Spellbook and go."
Nobody moved. Bakura felt more humiliated than he would care to admit, so he shifted in his seat, avoiding Malik's eyes.
The silence seemed to go on for millennia. Nobody made any attempt to leave, so in the end Malik moved first: he marched to the living room and planted himself on the floor, between the couch and the armchair. "Sit down and let's keep going."
Ryou huffed but he did not retort; he merely threw Bakura a homicidal look and proceeded to gather his books from the floor. When he sat back down on his seat, Malik turned to him.
"If you want to, we can stop for tonight."
Ryou shrugged. "It's not up to me."
Malik turned to Bakura.
Bakura grabbed the stack of Spellbook pages and straightened them on his lap to indicate that he could go on. He was burning with approximately a hundred retorts towards his landlord, but he didn't want Malik to kick him out. Not to mention it was still way too early to go back the Golden Egg. The more time he spent away from that place, the better.
He looked at the Spellbook, but it was like looking at a foreign landscape. Irritation made his fingers shake, and none of the patterns and the shapes on the page made any sense. He was back to square one.
He breathed out loudly and flipped through the pages once again. He found one that was somewhat restful to his eyes and fixed his gaze on it.
"Okay, then," Malik said quietly. He grabbed his laptop, set it on his lap, and started typing away.
Slowly, the room settled back into a calmer mood; not quite peaceful, but the air did not seem to hold the threat of any more outbursts. Ryou went back to studying and taking notes, Malik focused on his laptop, and Bakura pretended he knew what he was doing with the Spellbook.
It was hard; even harder than it had been at first. Now that he was aware of it, it he felt less than inclined to shift through the shit Zorc had left in his brain. He didn't want to give up, though; he wouldn't give his landlord this pleasure. He wanted to make his jaw drop in awe, if possible.
A smirk curled his face. He wondered if Ryou's jaw had dropped when he saw him fighting on Saturday. He hoped it did. It was good to know that he could still inspire awe, even without his shadow powers—especially to his landlord, who seemed to have made it his life's purpose to hate him as much as possible.
Maybe he could ask Malik about it… Discreetly. He wished he could have seen both their reactions; that might make the beating he took worth it. He hadn't known they had been in the crowd, but he couldn't have chosen a better match to show off to them. That finishing move had been one of his best.
He stole a glance towards Ryou. He was deep in studying, or pretending to be; his bangs were hanging in front of his face, hiding his eyes, but Bakura could still see the tense lines of his jaw.
He remembered how Ryou had been subdued throughout their talk in his room; how he'd been awkward and guarded. He had looked like a ghost in the shadows, his white hair messy from his hood, his movements painfully measured. Had he been impressed by Bakura's match, or had he simply been overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the Golden Egg? It had been impossible to tell.
Bakura had once boasted about how he had known Ryou inside out, but right now he had to admit he didn't know as much about his landlord as he thought.
A few seconds passed before Bakura realized that he had subconsciously been following the trail of a symbol, his eyes tracing it again and again as it looped around itself. It was an easy movement: all of its twists and turns made sense. It made some part in the back of his brain feel peaceful, as if the shape had been a soothing whisper.
Somebody had said that to him once. Whatever it was that this symbol—this sentence—said, he had heard it before.
He observed it with a frown, his gaze looping it repeatedly.
Ryou looked up. "What did you say?" he asked.
Bakura raised his head and met his landlord's eyes. "Who? Me?"
Ryou nodded.
"I didn't speak."
"I thought I heard you whisper."
"I didn't speak," Bakura repeated.
"Huh…" Ryou murmured. "I thought I heard you say…" He trailed off, his forehead scrunching up in thoughtfulness. "Must've been my imagination."
"What did you hear me say?" Bakura asked, his interest suddenly piqued.
"I'm not sure. But it sounded… familiar."
Bakura stared at him. "I was looking at something that seemed familiar, but I didn't think I'd spoken out loud."
"Huh." Ryou put his books to the side and got to his feet. He outstretched his arm towards the page, expectant. "May I see it?"
Bakura blinked at his hand. Giving the page to him would mean breaking out of whatever flow he had managed to find, but… Ryou had asked nicely. That in itself was so uncharacteristic that Bakura complied and handed the page over.
Ryou sat back on the couch, frowning at the Spellbook page while Malik visibly cringed and scooted further away from him.
Not having much else of an option, Bakura chose a different page to focus on and set to stare at it.
It was no use. Nothing stood out to him. He kept trying, running his hand through his hair and biting at his lip, until an hour passed and he had to admit he had hit a mental roadblock.
He checked the hour on his phone. "It's nearly ten o'clock."
Malik rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. Any progress?"
"No."
Ryou set his own page down. "Me neither. Even though I'd swear…" He trailed off again and shook his head.
Malik sighed tiredly. "Should we stop here tonight and resume tomorrow, then?"
"Yeah," Bakura said. He still was in no mood to go back to his dank room in the Golden Egg, but he needed rest; he felt as if someone had deep-fried his brain.
"I'll take these," Ryou said, gesturing towards the rest of the Spellbook pages.
Bakura gathered them up and gave them to him, more than glad to be getting rid of them for the time being.
Ryou stacked them carefully, counted them, and then stuffed them in his bag along with his textbooks. "You don't mind if I keep those, right?" He turned to Malik, who shrugged.
"Be my guest. I'm not too fond of having them around, to be honest."
"Good. I'd like to study them a bit more."
Bakura bit back a snort. "Maybe you'll be able to translate them by yourself and get rid of me," he said.
A small, thin smile curled Ryou's lips. "Maybe," he said and went to put on his jacket.
Bakura followed him to the hallway to put on his boots, trying to think of a fitting reply, but Malik interrupted his train of thoughts.
"Guys, do you want me to give you a ride home?"
Both Bakura and Ryou turned to gape at him.
"What—both of us?" Bakura asked.
Malik shrugged. "Yeah. It's kinda late—I could give you a ride."
"How's that gonna work? There's three of us."
Bakura pictured him and his landlord trying to balance on Malik's bike, and he immediately ruled the idea out. They would never both fit on the bike's back seat—and, even if they did, he was certain Ryou would try to tackle him off the bike halfway along their way. He wasn't in the mood for such acrobatics right now.
"Don't worry about it, Malik, I can walk," Ryou murmured, looking just as uncomfortable as Bakura was at the prospect.
"Maybe we could—" Malik started.
"Forget about it," Bakura grumbled. Dangerous balancing acts aside, he didn't like the idea of having Malik drive to the worst parts of the city at this hour. "Take him home if you want," he added, pointing to Ryou.
Ryou cocked his head and contemplated him with narrowed eyes. "Why so generous all of a sudden?"
"Cause it's safer, you idiot," Bakura snapped. "You don't want him to be driving where I live at this hour in the night," he added, pointing a thumb towards Malik.
"I'll be fine," Malik said.
"I said, forget about it," Bakura growled and crouched to lace up his boots, marking the end of the conversation.
"Thanks for the offer, Malik, but I'm gonna walk, too," Ryou said.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, don't worry."
"Okay, then…"
Malik sighed and waited for them to put on their jackets and shoes. Once they were both safely wrapped in plenty of layers, Malik walked them downstairs to the main entrance.
The cold hit Bakura's face the moment they opened the door, snapping him out of whatever warm and cozy state he'd reached while in Malik's apartment. He cursed under his breath and pulled the collar of his jacket a bit higher, thinking that maybe he should also invest in a scarf.
Malik leaned against the doorframe, holding the door open with his foot. "Okay, guys. See you soon."
"Goodnight, Malik," Ryou said.
"Bye, creampuff," Malik smiled at him. "Be careful on your way home, okay?"
"I will."
Bakura simply gave Malik a nod instead of a 'goodnight' and waited until he got back inside. Once they were left alone again, Bakura turned to Ryou, his appetite for teasing returning full force.
"Creampuff?" he repeated with a grin.
Ryou's face, which had softened a bit while talking to Malik, turned back into a stony mask. He dug his hands in his pockets and took off without sparing Bakura another look; he crossed the road and walked away quickly, his breath leaving behind a faint trail of fog.
Bakura lost no time in following him. He reached Ryou with a few wide strides and fell into step about half a foot behind him.
Ryou did not react at first. He kept walking, every now and then readjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder. They had almost reached the end of the block when Ryou whirled around, white hair whipping the air, and glared at Bakura.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Bakura shrugged. "Going home."
"You are following me."
"We just happen to be headed in the same direction."
It was partially true: to reach the Golden Egg, he sort of had to go through Ryou's neighborhood, so they more or less had a common direction. Reaching Ryou's block was only a minor detour.
Okay, maybe not so minor, but still. If he went back to the Golden Egg now, he'd either have to put up with the drunken patrons or sit in his room and tolerate the sounds of the girls next door working. He wasn't looking forward to either of it; he'd like to delay that as much as possible.
Taking the longer way back did not seem like such a bad idea. Sure, it would annoy Ryou, but that was part of the fun—especially now that Malik wasn't here to play referee.
Ryou grit his teeth, but he remained silent for a couple of seconds—probably inwardly calculating Bakura's route to see if what he was saying was true.
"Well, I don't care," he said at last. "Choose another route."
Bakura grinned. "This is the most convenient one."
"Take a cab, then. Or steal one. I don't care, just leave me alone." He turned around and resumed walking, this time a bit faster than before.
Without missing a beat Bakura followed, picking up his pace, too.
Ryou stopped and snapped around again, this time almost causing Bakura to crash into him—which was thankfully avoided thanks to Bakura's newly-sharpened reflexes.
"What the hell do you want from me?" Ryou snarled, his eyes flashing in anger.
Bakura guessed anyone else might have been intimidated by that look, but he was too used to Ryou's hostility to care. He simply shrugged.
"I'm just making sure my landlord reaches his home safe."
"Safe," Ryou repeated in a hiss. "Safe from what?"
"From any danger lurking in these streets."
"The only danger around is you."
Bakura put on his most innocent expression. "Come on, now, landlord. We are allies. And you have the Spellbook in that bag. I've got to make sure that nothing happens to it."
Ryou let out an exasperated grunt and turned on his heel.
"We are not allies," he said through a jaw clenched so hard it had to hurt, walking briskly along the street. "You are just lucky that Malik trusts you."
Bakura fell into pace nearly next to him, but not quite: he remained half a step behind, like a shadow, but still close enough to be able to see his profile. "You trusted me enough to let me read those pages."
Ryou pressed his lips in a sour expression. "We had no other choice."
"I'm pretty sure you did. What about that rich asshole, Seto Kaiba?"
Ryou's expression turned even sourer. For a while, all that could be heard was the rustling of the bag strap against Ryou's jacket and the dull thud of Bakura's boots on the pavement.
"Kaiba does not really know how to deal with such things," Ryou said at last.
"And you think I do? I'm flattered."
A car passed them, its lights momentarily illuminating the distaste on Ryou's face.
"Even scum like you should have the chance to do one useful thing in their lives."
Bakura grinned, even though the thorn stung. "I suppose so."
They crossed a bridge; underneath, the city's river roared, rushing down towards the sea. Ryou was walking so furiously he had started panting a bit, but he didn't pause to catch his breath—and he didn't spare Bakura a single look.
The bag strap kept slipping off his shoulder, pulling him down towards the earth.
"You want some help with that?" Bakura said.
Ryou did not reply. He looped the strap over his other shoulder and kept on his way.
Bakura shrugged. "Suit yourself."
The cold had turned his nose numb and he thought with fondness of the sweet burning of a cigarette. He'd love to light one, but he wasn't sure he could roll one on the go and he doubted Ryou would wait for him.
"So, how's the Pharaoh doing?" he asked instead.
No reply came from Ryou.
"I'm surprised he hasn't tried to track me down yet," Bakura went on. "You've told him I'm back, right?"
Ryou didn't speak. He probably thought that, if he ignored Bakura, he might get bored and leave.
"Is he still as stuck-up and full of himself as ever?"
Ryou just kept walking, looking straight ahead.
"I'll take that as a yes."
He thought he heard a small snort coming from Ryou, but he wasn't sure.
"I bet he'll lose his mind when he finds out I'm helping you with the Spellbook," Bakura said. He smirked, picturing Atem's face, and added that to the list of reasons why he had to translate the book. He could not wait for the moment the Pharaoh would have to admit that Bakura was being a lot more useful than him. It would be glorious.
Ryou did not react in any way.
Bakura scowled. Talking to himself was not fun—and right now, Ryou was about as responsive as a wall.
It was a bit annoying, really. Being ignored was worst than being yelled at.
He huffed. He knew he could rile him if he really tried to, but he didn't know if it was worth it. Ryou no longer had his knife—it was still in Bakura's drawer—but he could always use that heavy bag of his to crack Bakura's skull open.
No, provoking him probably was not worth it. They had almost reached his apartment block, anyway; they had entered streets that Bakura knew well from his days of stalking.
This detour lasted less than he'd hoped for. Now he'd have to suck it up and head back to the Golden Egg—unless he wanted to stay outside and wander aimlessly for a while more.
He didn't like the idea. At least, walking his landlord home had felt like having some sort of goal. Walking around without a destination felt a bit pathetic.
The moment his apartment building came into view, Ryou sped up. Bakura did not bother catching up with him this time; he stood back and watched him walk up to the entrance and unlock it.
Ryou went inside without looking back at him, as if Bakura didn't even exist—as if he hadn't been following him for the last twenty minutes without shutting up. The door slammed shut, loud in the quiet of the street, and Bakura was left alone to glare at his host's apartment building.
He stood there, looking at the edifice as if it had somehow offended him. Then, with a grunt and an irritated grimace, he turned on his heel and made for the Golden Egg.
It was a half hour walk to the Golden Egg, but Bakura somehow managed to make it twice as long, loitering around corners and pausing to smoke despite the cold. When he finally reached the alleys around the club, he picked up his pace, making sure to look haughty and unapproachable.
This was the only part of the city that was this busy at this hour in the night—and it only got busier as the night progressed. Bakura noticed several curious stares directed to him as he approached the club. It made him uncomfortable, even though he knew that simply uttering Ishido's name would be enough to keep everyone away from him.
He entered the Golden Egg through one of the back doors, wishing to avoid as much of the crowd as possible. Unfortunately, he wasn't as lucky: once he set foot on the main corridor, Enki left his post at the entrance and walked up to him, gesturing at him to wait.
Bakura obliged, making sure to look as displeased as possible. Enki was not intimidated by this; he kept one eye on the queue of people on his back and said, "Boss man has a job for you."
"What?" Bakura bristled. "Again?"
Enki shrugged.
Bakura took out his phone. There were no calls from Ishido, not even a text. "He hasn't called me."
"Of course he hasn't. A call means trouble."
"So, what? He just uses you as his messenger?"
Enki didn't seem to mind the sneer. "Sometimes," he replied.
"Whatever. He can call me if he needs me," Bakura said and made to leave.
Enki's huge palm landed on Bakura's shoulder, stopping him. His hold was not aggressive, but it was commanding and strong: Bakura would not be able to break free from it without some serious struggle.
He slowly turned around.
Enki's eyes were on him, tiny and serious. He didn't let go of his shoulder.
"I said. Boss man has a job for you."
"Fine," Bakura gritted out. Enki's hold relaxed, and Bakura shook his shoulder free. "I'll go see what he wants."
"He's downstairs."
Bakura rolled his eyes and left with a huff.
Damn it. All he wanted was to go to his room and rest. It had been a long evening, and he had already socialized more than he could take.
He would have to find a stealthier way to enter the building, to avoid such encounters. Maybe he should try climbing down from the rooftop. Not that it would change much: Ishido would still find a way to get to him, if he really wanted to.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Maybe he should take up Malik's offer and camp on his couch. But no; that would leave him on Malik's debt. At least with Ishido it was a sort of give and take: an exchange of services.
Bakura stormed through the club, gritting his teeth against the loud music as he slipped around the dancing crowd. He glowered at the guards on his way to the underground den, walked past the cage without looking at it and rushed straight to Ishido's private table.
He found him surrounded by bodyguards again, talking to two men in fine suits. Bakura did not bother with pleasantries: he climbed the steps to the little platform and stopped at the edge of the table, across from his 'boss'.
"Mr Bakura!" Ishido exclaimed with a smile that screamed fake. "I see Enki managed to get a hold of you. Lovely, lovely."
"Yeah, lovely," Bakura grumbled. "What do you want?"
"Ever impatient, I see," Ishido said with a laugh. "Would you like to sit down? Have a cigar."
"No, I'm all set."
"Ah. No need to be so frugal, dear Mr Bakura. One should know when to accept what one is being offered." Ishido kept smiling, but his expression seemed to take a colder edge.
Bakura knew a warning sign when he saw one. He pulled up a chair and sat down heavily, keeping his jaw locked to avoid saying anything insulting.
Ishido's smile widened. "Cigar?"
One of the bodyguards held out a box towards him. Bakura took a cigar without looking at it.
"Lovely," Ishido said when Bakura sat back. "You'll find they are of exquisite quality. I import them all the way from Cuba."
Bakura clenched his jaw even harder. He'd much rather have one of his cigarettes than this flashy shit, but Ishido's smirk still had a hint of a warning on its edges, so he took out his lighter and lit the cigar.
The smoke was heavy and thick; softer, in a way, but overwhelming to the point he had to hold back a cough. His eyes watered from the struggle, and Ishido's eyes narrowed in amusement.
Bakura blew out the smoke, hoping this would be enough to satisfy him, and said, "Enki mentioned you have a job for me."
"Yes, yes, Enki was quite right. I do have a job for you," Ishido confirmed. "Last time, your help proved invaluable."
Bakura had to hold back a scoff. What a bunch of shit. Last time, all that he had done was stand by the door while five men bullied a teenager.
He decided not to mention that. "I thought that was a one-time thing," he said instead. "To pay you back for that… favor."
"Yes, indeed. But these gentlemen were impressed by your feats," Ishido waved a hand towards the two men sitting next to him. "In fact, Mr Yamasaki here was just telling me about some… issues he's been having, and I told him I believe you are just the man for the job."
"Impressed by my feats," Bakura repeated acidly. Were they talking about his fights in the cage or about stalling by a doorway, doing nothing? Was Ishido mocking him in his face?
He took a drag from the cigar, but this time the smoke threw him into a coughing fit. The two men by Ishido's side were looking at him with haughty interest, and Bakura had to fight back the urge to fling the ashtray to their faces.
"Yes, they were impressed by your… creativity," Ishido said with a pleasant chuckle. "Mr Yamasaki had the luck to witness your last match, too."
And not just him, Bakura thought, his mind going to Ryou and Malik.
"So what do you want?"
The man to Ishido's right moved in his seat, straightening the lapels of his suit and clearing his throat. "If I'm not mistaken, Mr Ishido mentioned you are a thief?"
Bakura's heart gave a loud thud; he had forgotten he had mentioned that the first time he'd met Ishido. In retrospect, that had been a dumb move. It could get him into serious trouble now.
His face went numb, but he managed to maintain his scowl. "…I was."
"Then I suppose you are familiar with… entering establishments undetected?" the man went on.
Breaking and entering. Bakura hadn't done that in a very long time. Ever since he had woken up in this world, without shadow magic and without Zorc's powers in his side, he hadn't tried something of the sort.
"You could say so," he replied in a low voice. The cigar kept smoking between his fingers, but he made no attempt to take another drag.
"Good. I need someone to collect a large sum of money from an affiliate, but I would prefer it if the exchange took place in said affiliate's personal quarters. You know… To send a message," he added with a small smile. "No violence. I just want you to show up in his room right before he goes to sleep. He will have my money ready. Hopefully."
Bakura ground his teeth. "Show up in his room?"
"Yes," the man replied. "No need to disturb his wife and daughters, either. Make sure to tell him that, too. It'd be a shame if someone upset them."
"I am sure it would," Ishido added with a sympathetic nod.
Bakura didn't speak. He was squeezing the cigar so hard it was a miracle it didn't crumble.
"I am sorry," he ground out at last. "I no longer do this kind of stuff. These days I prefer to earn my bread by fighting in the cage."
"Ah," Ishido shook his head, his smile widening dangerously. "But I already assured Mr Yamasaki that you are the man for the job. You wouldn't want to embarrass me and my team's reputation now, would you, Mr Bakura?"
Bakura glared at him. "This was not part of the deal," he hissed, not caring if he came off as rude.
"Every day is a new opportunity. You should be open to change."
"I think the cage is enough for me, thank you."
"You will be rewarded generously," Yamasaki said. "Much better than what the cage yields—no offense," he added with a nod towards Ishido.
"None taken," Ishido replied.
"I don't care," Bakura said. "Sorry to break it to you, but I am not the man for the job."
"I am afraid that is not for you to decide," Ishido said, all sweet pretense gone. "I am more than aware of what my employees are capable of, and I am the only one in the position to judge which job suits them. Unless you mean to say that I was wrong about you, in which case I will have to remove you from the team and revoke all your… privileges."
Bakura's mouth twisted. Screw the 'team'; he'd much rather walk out of there, never to return. Maybe he could camp on Malik's couch after all, and then translate the fucking Spellbook and get out of this world once and for all.
Ishido's eyes were glinting. This was the closest to angry Bakura had ever seen him—which was more than a little satisfying. Let this fucker be angry; Bakura didn't care.
"Now, now," Yamasaki said. "No need for things to get heated. I am sure Mr Bakura will change his mind once he hears about the reward."
"Ah, but it is not about the reward, dear Yamasaki," Ishido said."It is about paying back kindness with kindness. I am providing roof and protection. The polite thing to do would be for Mr Bakura to offer us his services."
"I already am," Bakura replied. "I am fighting in your cage. That was our agreement."
"Ah, now that you mentioned the cage… Tell me, Mr Bakura. Have even broken your wrist?"
Bakura faltered. What did that have to do with anything?
Ishido's look was positively devilish. "Have you ever experienced it?" he went on. "Terrible pain. And very annoying. Especially if it's on one's dominant hand. Doesn't allow you to use it properly for a very long time. It will be particularly bothersome in your case, since it will impede your performance in the cage. It would be very unlucky—especially since there will be no one to substitute you in your fights, should you be injured in that manner. Ah, truly terrible. I wouldn't wish that on you. Would you, Mr Yamasaki?"
Yamasaki shook his head. "No, definitely not."
"I thought so. See, we have your well-being in mind," Ishido said, grinning at Bakura like a satisfied hyena.
Bakura swallowed. The point couldn't be clearer. He was trapped in doing this fucker's will, wasn't he? He would have to do the job or have his wrist broken—and, after that, he would be forced to fight in the cage with a broken wrist.
This fucker. This twisted, sadistic fucker. He was some of the worst scum Bakura had ever met, both in the modern and the ancient world.
He swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in his throat and turned to Yamasaki. "How much?"
"One hundred thousand yen."
"Three hundred thousand."
"Two."
"Two and a half. Not a yen lower."
Yamasaki nodded. "Deal. I will make sure to get in touch with you to inform you about the specifics of the job."
"Alright, then."
Bakura rose, the legs of his chair scrapping loudly against the floor, and marched away from the table without waiting to be dismissed. He jumped down the steps of the platform and made a beeline for the exit, pushing a random customer out of his way hard enough to make him stumble.
He could feel his blood surging to his head as he rushed past the guards and out of the trapdoor. Then he realized he was still holding the cigar, so he flung it against a wall as hard as he could.
He tackled his way through the writhing crowd of the club and ran up the staircase to the third floor without pausing to take a breath. His heart was racing and his ears were buzzing, and he was not sure if he wanted to drink himself to a coma or simply smash everything around him.
"Hey, good-looking!" the girl from 306 smiled at him, leaning against the frame of her door.
"Fuck off!" Bakura barked loud enough to make her jump.
"Hey!" The redhead from the room across from him shouted. "That wasn't nice!"
"Shut up, will you?"
"What's going on?" Another girl poked her head out of her room.
Bakura huffed, using all his willpower to resist taking his anger out on them, and went in his room, slamming the door behind him as hard as he could.
He kicked the empty can of soda that lay in the middle his carpet and listened at the satisfactory sound it made as it crashed against the wall. Then he went to his tiny fridge and reached for the vodka bottle he kept in there. There were only three sips of alcohol left in it; Bakura emptied it in one and tossed it aside.
He remembered seeing another bottle under his bed stand, so he fell on his knees and searched for it. When he reached it, he picked it up and examined it against the light from the window. Empty, too.
"Fuck," he hissed and threw it to the side; it thudded against the carpet and rolled away.
His pulse was still loud in his ears. His breathing was fast, erratic, and he really felt the need to break something.
He could go for a walk. Get out of there. But fuck this: he had just come back after loitering in the streets for almost two hours. He might as well live on the street and get done with it, if he hated this place so much.
He sat on the carpet, digging his fingers in his hair and squeezing his eyes shut.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He really was at Ishido's mercy, wasn't he? He had no real say to anything; he could haggle over his price, but that was it. He had gotten himself in a maze full of dead ends: no matter which turn he took, the outcome would be the same.
He was a pawn. Again.
He thought he had the control of his situation, but he had just been fooled. Again.
And now he would have to go to some guy's room and use his wife's and daughters'—his family's—safety as leverage to make him comply.
Bakura would never have chosen this. Even at his worst—even as Zorc—he never used such petty means to secure his victory.
He pulled at the roots of his hair until the pain distracted him from his anger.
There was no way out of it. He would have to do it—and he would keep having to do anything Ishido said for as long as he stayed there.
He could leave. He could leave now and never set foot there again. He could go and live on the street, just the way he'd done on his very first night in this world.
But he wasn't gonna do that, was he? Because the streets were cold and harsh, and he'd spent enough days on them as a kid to know that he didn't want to do it again. He'd stay here, because it was fucking warm and safe and because he could hear the rumble of thunder coming from afar. He'd rather spend whatever days he had left on this earth without freezing his ass off in the rain—and without relying on anyone's charity. Even Malik's.
He would stay there, so he would shut up about it already.
It wouldn't be for long, anyway. Chances were that he would be able to read the Spellbook soon. And once he found out why this shit was happening and figured out how to prevent it from ever repeating, he could be on his merry way to the afterlife. And fuck everything else.
It wouldn't be for long, so he would suck it up. Who cared if he did Ishido's dirty jobs? Who cared if this wasn't fair, or noble, or right? The answer was: no one. None of this would matter in the long run.
His price was a matter of pride, but he didn't truly care about money. Maybe he'd leave it to Malik in the end. He wasn't going to leave it to Ishido—that was for sure.
He would figure it out. He would take the money for now… And he would figure it out.
Maybe he would give some of it to Ryou, just to prove to him that he wasn't as inhuman as he believed him to be. Then again, Ryou would probably find a way to twist that into something negative, too—see it as a patronizing act or something.
Fuck him, too, then, he thought sourly.
He was getting sick of Ryou acting like Bakura was the lowliest scum ever—like he was subhuman, more disgusting than the worms that crawled in the mud, not worthy of even a speck of respect.
Ryou had no idea. He had no idea what true scum were. He thought he had the right to judge Bakura, because he had once—
Bakura's thoughts stuttered. An uncomfortable realization hit him, but his brain went on, completing the thought.
…Because he had once used Ryou for his own gain. And because, when Ryou hadn't complied, Bakura had tricked him into it, and threatened him, and—
And forced him to comply by impaling his hand on a pointy prop.
Which was more or less what Ishido had just threatened to do to Bakura. Sure, he had talked about breaking his hand, not impaling it, but—
Details did not really make a difference here.
He stared straight ahead of him, without really seeing anything. His pulse was a dull thud in his ears.
…He'd really done that, hadn't he? What Ishido had threatened to do, Bakura had done first to someone else. 'Comply or get hurt'. 'Comply or your friends will get hurt'. And not just once: he had done it tens of times, in tens of creative ways, over the span of almost ten years.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
He liked to call himself better than Ishido and his band of petty criminals, but he was every bit as bad as them, wasn't he? He was the same sort of scum as the men that swarmed this building. Nothing set him apart from them. Grumbling under his breath about the nasty things he did didn't count. Feeling bad about it didn't count. Feeling sorry for himself certainly didn't fucking count. Only actions did—and so far his actions had been every bit as shitty.
He opened and closed his palm, watching how the scar tissue moved. His previous anger was an echo now: what was left behind was something far quieter and far more unpleasant.
He dug his other hand under his left sleeve, feeling his way up his arm. He found the jagged scar on his bicep and prodded the raised skin with his fingers, tracing its shape.
He remembered this one clearly. He had laughed as he'd sliced up the skin, because it had seemed like such a funny thing to do at the time. It had seemed genius, and also a nice way to mock the Pharaoh and his gang.
It didn't seem genius now; it seemed needlessly brutal. There had been no need to hack at Ryou's arm like that and leave him bleeding.
How much of that had been Zorc, and how much had been him? It was impossible to tell.
He liked saying that he was no longer Zorc, but was he really any different? Ever since he had been resurrected, he had already threatened Ryou once—or maybe even twice. Hell, he'd tried to rile him earlier simply because he'd had nothing better to do.
What did that make him? Did it make him human, or simply a new version of the demon he'd once been?
He dropped his hand. He didn't know what to think. He felt drained. He didn't even have the courage to be angry any more. The time he had spent in Malik's living room already felt like days ago—and he couldn't fathom thinking about the Spellbook now.
He needed a break. From all of this.
His gaze found the empty bottles again. A trip downstairs was out of the question, so he would have to make do without alcohol.
He lifted himself off the floor and climbed in his bed, determined—if nothing else—to get some well-deserved sleep.
The next time Bakura saw his ex-host was the following evening, in Malik's apartment, as they had arranged.
It was already dark when Bakura set out to go to Malik's, the sun having already set an hour ago. It had been raining all day long, and the streets of Domino had turned into small rivers. The city was anything but quiet: full of the sound of rain and thunder, the honks of cars and the swishing of their tires as they drove through pools of water.
Bakura walked, safely hidden under an umbrella, dragging his feet through the small streams that crossed his way. There was a dull, steady pounding right behind his eyes, undoubtedly caused by the lack of proper sleep. Night-time was getting worse for him; his dreams were getting more and more nonsensical and exhausting. Images of Kul Elna were getting merged with memories from being hunted, or imprisoned, or starving—or simply random stressful situations, either made up or real.
The previous night he had dreamed of running on quicksand: he had been trying to get away from something, but his feet had kept sinking as he had gotten more and more panicked. He also remembered vaguely thinking of the Ring and Ishido and—Ryou? It didn't make sense. Then again, he probably shouldn't expect dreams to.
Once he reached Malik's apartment block, he paused outside the entrance and rubbed his eyes. He was feeling a bit brittle around the edges, but he tried not to show it as he rang the doorbell. He only hoped his landlord wouldn't be in an overly aggressive mood today, because he was in no state to argue back.
He climbed the stairs up to the first floor and saw Malik waiting at the door, cheerful and smiling as ever, surrounded by his apartment's warm, bright light. "Hey, welcome!"
Bakura looked past Malik's shoulder, at the other white-haired figure in the room. Ryou was sitting on the couch, looking at Bakura with his eyes narrowed in his favorite frigid expression.
Bakura looked away.
"Awful weather, isn't it?" Malik said.
Bakura shrugged, leaving his umbrella outside and stepping in the apartment. He crouched to take off his boots, practically feeling the aggression in Ryou's gaze burning through his back.
Oh, they were off to a lovely start.
"I was about to make Ryou some coffee," Malik said. "You want some, too?"
"Umm…" Bakura hesitated. Malik's friendliness always caught him off-guard, but this time even more so. He glanced at Ryou, whose face had turned even colder, clearly saying that he didn't think Bakura deserved such civility.
Today Bakura was not as inclined to argue that. But…
Malik had once called this apartment a neutral zone. Maybe Bakura also counted as neutral while he was there. Not good, not bad; just neutral.
"Bakura?" Malik repeated.
"Yeah?"
"Coffee?"
Bakura blinked at him, processing the question. "…Yes," he said at length.
Malik gave him a watchful frown—infused with a healthy dose of concern, because of course—and left to squeeze himself in his tiny kitchen.
Bakura stalled in the hallway. Ryou was still looking at him as if anticipating his next move. The yellow armchair across from him was empty, presumably waiting for him to occupy it.
Bakura walked to it, feeling the air thicken the more he approached his landlord, and sat across from him slowly, so as not to provoke him with sudden movements.
They stared at each other in silence for a few drawn-out seconds. Ryou looked exhausted again, despite his cutting gaze, and his hair was ruffled as if he had run his fingers through them too many times. His bag lay in a heap on the foot of the couch and all his textbooks and notes were already spread around him, taking up the rest of the couch and half of the coffee table.
Bakura did not move. He didn't know what to do.
He guessed he could greet him. He didn't even have to say 'good evening' ; he could just say 'hey' . This was a neutral zone, after all, and 'hey' was as neutral a greeting as it got.
Still, Ryou's look was not at all encouraging, so when Bakura opened his mouth, all that came out was, "Where is the Spellbook?"
Ryou pressed his lips together, as if hearing his yami's voice had sent a jolt of something unpleasant through him, and reached for his bag. "Right here."
He took out the small stack of pages and held them out to him, careful—Bakura noticed—to hold them from the edge. It was not hard to guess that he wanted to avoid touching his yami's hand. It reminded Bakura of another instance, weeks ago, in the Golden Egg: Ishido had held out Bakura's new phone to him, and Bakura had deliberately tried to avoid his fingers as he had reached out, as if a mere touch would have been venomous.
He stared at Ryou's grip now. Was he as repelled and disgusted of him as Bakura was of Ishido?
The comparison made him cringe.
Ryou shook the papers impatiently and Bakura hurried to take them from him—careful not to touch him in the process, since he seemed so appalled at the thought.
Bakura set them on his knees and started flipping through them. Their content was just the way he remembered it: complicated, maddening and incomprehensible.
"Did you have any luck with them?" he asked, making an effort to sound calm and conversational.
He did not look directly at Ryou, but he still noticed how his mouth twitched. "No," he replied. "It seems we'll have to rely on your dark powers, after all."
Bakura decided not to address his scathing tone. "What about that… familiar shape?" he asked, searching through the pages until he located it. It was on page eight; he angled the page towards Ryou, to show him the symbol he was talking about.
"Nothing. The more I looked at it, the more… foreign it got."
Bakura exhaled heavily. "Lovely."
"Guys! Come and help me carry some mugs!" Malik's voice came from the kitchen.
They both stood up, but Ryou gave Bakura a stern look. "I'll go," he said firmly. "You just… stay here."
Bakura scowled. "I'm not going to murder your friend in his kitchen, yadonushi," he said through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, sure," Ryou said and left.
Bakura sat back down with a huff.
Okay, he was a scumbag, but he wasn't that kind of scumbag: he wasn't going to hurt Malik without provocation. No, no, fuck this—he wasn't going to hurt Malik at all. He wasn't some bloodthirsty monster that couldn't control himself.
It was annoying. Annoying and unfair.
Malik walked back into the living room with Ryou in tow, carrying three mugs and a couple of containers.
"Do you want sugar, Bakura?" he asked as he placed everything on the coffee table.
The yami grunted and sat up to grab his mug and a spoon. He stirred in some sugar as Ryou took his seat back among his little forest of textbooks. Malik sat cross-legged on the carpet with his back leaning against the couch, as far away from Bakura and the Spellbook as he could.
The coffee he had made was good; nothing like the murk they served in the Golden Egg's kitchen. It reminded Bakura of the coffee he bought from the coffee shops downtown, albeit without the whipped cream and the marshmallows.
"Thanks," he said, gesturing towards his mug.
Malik beamed at him. "You're welcome."
Ryou glanced up without raising his head, but Bakura was able to discern the look of slight surprise in his eyes. Was even that small display of gratitude so unexpected for him? Surely, it wasn't the first time his landlord heard Bakura utter the word 'thanks'.
…Was it?
Bakura stood still for a while, focusing on nothing, trying to remember if he had ever unironically thanked anyone besides Malik. So much time passed, that Malik frowned at him and said, "Bakura? Is everything alright?"
"Hmm? …Yeah. Yeah."
He lowered his eyes to the Spellbook, but his heart was not really in it. His thoughts kept drifting, and his gaze kept straying left and right.
Ryou was sitting with his nose buried in his textbook, spinning his pen over and over. He seemed to pay no attention to his yami, but Bakura knew it was probably an act. He did not expect Ryou to ever drop his guard while sharing a room with him. Part of Ryou's attention was probably on him and his movements: he could see it in the tension in his shoulders and the lines around his mouth. Bakura couldn't help but wonder if his landlord could get any actual studying done like this: with half of his mind elsewhere, being constantly on guard.
Then again, that was something that Bakura could relate to. He'd spent a whole lifetime glancing over his shoulder, with his fingers never straying too far from the handle of his dagger. Being on guard had become his second nature.
Maybe things were like that for Ryou, too. Maybe after so many years of not knowing when he might lose control of his body, he had also learned to be in a constant state of vigilance.
Bakura shifted in his seat.
It irked him. He wished Ryou would just relax. Bakura wasn't going to suddenly snap and try to sacrifice them to the powers of darkness.
He tried to concentrate on the page he had before him, but Ryou kept being a tense shape in the corner of his eye. Bakura found himself repeatedly glancing towards him: to the tips of his hair, the locked line of his jaw, the twirling pen in his hand.
Hell, watching him made him tense, too. How was he supposed to concentrate?
He put the stack of papers down and got to his feet.
At once, both Ryou and Malik looked up; Ryou nearly rose, too, gripping the edges of his textbook as if it were a weapon.
"What's wrong?" Malik asked.
"Smoke break," Bakura replied shortly. He remembered Malik did not allow smoking in the apartment, but at the moment, that was ideal: he needed to get out of there for five minutes. "I won't be long. I'll be just outside."
He didn't bother lacing his boots; he just put them on as quickly as he could, one hand already reaching for the tobacco bag in his pocket. He didn't look back before opening the door and walking outside.
One of his shoelaces trailed behind him and clattered on the steps as he climbed down the stairs. Outside, the cold was sharp, but the rain was softer than before: just a soothing pitter patter, beautiful in its monotony.
Bakura sat down on the cold steps of the entrance and started rolling a cigarette. Once he was done, he lit it and took a deep drag, staring out at the wavering light of the streetlamps.
Bit by bit, the rain and smoke muffled his nerves. He allowed his head to rest back against the wall and sighed.
It wasn't that he preferred the solitude. He just wanted to breathe some air that wasn't clogged up with hate.
He didn't know why it bothered him that much. He was used to it, after all. He had always known he was the bad guy: the Pharaoh and his cohort had lost no chance to make that clear. It wasn't news; if anything, Bakura had embraced that role. He had taken pride in it, because if fuckers like the Pharaoh hated him, it meant he was doing something right.
The entrance door opened, making Bakura jolt. He relaxed again when he noticed it was just Malik, wrapped in a jacket and a scarf.
"Don't get up," Malik said. He closed the door behind him and sat on the steps, next to him.
Bakura didn't move, but he did pull his legs up closer to him, to give him some space.
Malik gave him a long, calculating look, his eyes piercing even in the half-dark. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?" Bakura asked at once, wondering how much of his discomfort he'd let show.
"Nothing, it's just just… You're kinda fidgety today."
Bakura earned himself a few seconds of silence by taking a drag of smoke. "I'm just having trouble focusing."
"Yeah, I can see that. What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong."
"Come on. You can tell me."
"Why do you care?"
"We've been through this before, Bakura, we are not doing this again. Just tell me."
Bakura rolled his eyes.
"Is it the Spellbook that's troubling you?" Malik pressed on.
"No," Bakura said, and he immediately regretted answering so quickly because now he was left without an alternative reply.
He huffed, staring at his cigarette's burning ash. There was no quick way to explain to Malik what was going on in his head, so he gave the next easiest answer.
"It's Ryou."
"What about him?"
"He keeps looking at me… as if I'm gonna lose it and murder you both," he said, aware that this barely scratched the surface.
Malik sighed. "Yeah, I noticed. But that's not new."
"Well, it's annoying. And distracting. I can't concentrate when he's looking at me like that."
"You could just… ignore him."
"I can't ignore him," Bakura said at once.
"Why?"
"Because he's right!" he said loudly, louder than he meant to; his voice rang in the air around them for a couple of seconds, before the rain muffled everything again.
Damn, he hadn't meant to go there, but the words had found their way out of his mouth anyway. It was ridiculous: all it took was the tiniest bit of prodding from Malik and—
"What do you mean?" Malik said. He was looking puzzled, but there was also a hint of suspicion in his eyes, and that threw a part of Bakura into a fit of sudden panic. He wouldn't stand it if Malik started looking upon him with hate, too.
Then again, maybe he would deserve it. Maybe hate was all Bakura deserved.
His fingers shook, so he tried to cover it up by taking a drag from his cigarette. He didn't know where to begin; it was all a mess with no beginning and no end, no fucking end in sight. He thought of Zorc and Ishido and everything that he himself had done: everything he'd said and done yesterday and the previous week and all the previous years of his existence. All of the things he had done while laughing, because he had always held his head up high. So high. Highest than them all.
"I've always thought I was so much better than others, you know?" he said. "I was the King of Thieves. I wasn't just a petty criminal. I could see past the narrow boxes of good and evil. I did not care about their laws. I was fighting for true justice." He spat the word out, hearing the disgust in his voice.
Malik's look was still steady, albeit a bit uncertain. "You were fighting for justice," he said.
Bakura shook his head. He felt like laughing.
"Do you remember Battle City?" he asked.
Malik physically recoiled, but Bakura went on.
"Do you remember our battle against the Pharaoh? You had me send Ryou out there, to force the Pharaoh to forfeit the match, and I refused. I told you there were ways I liked to win and that I refused to stoop so low, even if it meant defeat." He paused to laugh, even though the grin felt like a snarl on his face. "I thought I was so superior. I had the moral high ground. I had a code of conduct," he shook his head again, feeling his grin wobble and fade into a twist of lips. "As if that made me any better. No. I was just a piece of shit. I have always been as much a piece of shit as anyone else. Always. And that's the truth of it."
He took a quick drag from his cigarette, but his chest felt like bursting so he went off again, barely waiting to see if Malik would say anything.
"And I never cared, up until now. But now I'm back and I have you looking at me as if I'm a changed man. You give me coffee and painkillers and fucking cake, as if everything I've done is erased. But Ryou…" he paused to smirk in the darkness. "Ryou knows. Ryou knows just how much of a piece of shit I am. He knows I'm scum and he keeps reminding me. With every look, he's rubbing it in my face. He's. Rubbing. It. In. Every moment. And the worst part is… I can't argue it. Cause he's right. He's fucking right."
Ryou's face was too vivid in his head, making everything so much worse, but he felt that he deserved that too. He threw the stub of his cigarette in a nearby puddle, but his hands were shaking so badly he missed it by several inches.
Malik was sitting without moving. His face, which had hardened the moment Battle City was mentioned, had frozen in an expression Bakura did not remember ever seeing. He couldn't tell if it was anger, or hurt, or just plain disgust. He expected he'd cuss at him, or simply get up and leave but, when Malikspoke, his voice was strikingly level compared to Bakura's previous snarls.
"No, you can't argue it. But you can change it."
Silence fell for a few seconds as Bakura stared at him. "Change it?" he repeated stupidly, completely thrown off by this reply.
"Yes," Malik said. "You can either keep up this self-pity and this… anger and everything, or you can do something about it."
"Like what?"
"You can do better. You can prove that you are more than a piece of shit. Prove that you are not just an asshole. And if what you see in Ryou's eyes bothers you—because, believe me, I get it—" Malik's voice got both harsher and tremulous at once, "—then change that, too. Prove it to him. Prove him wrong."
He had never seen Malik's face like this, not had he ever heard this harsh ring to his voice. Bakura looked away, scowling at the empty street that stretched before their legs.
Yes, it bothered him. He was tired of being treated like less than human. He was tired of being the boogeyman. And he was tired of having Ryou look at him like he was just as bad as Ishido—or, even worse, just as bad as Zorc.
Prove him wrong.
Yeah, sure, that sounded great in theory, but it would never work.
"As if he'd give me the chance," he murmured.
"That's a risk you'll have to take," Malik replied. "He has every right to deny you the chance. He doesn't owe you one. But that's life. No one ever guarantees you success. So you either give up before you even try, or you suck it up and take a shot."
Bakura lowered his gaze to the toes of his boots.
No, no one had ever guaranteed him success and that had never stopped him. But how the hell was he supposed to prove Ryou wrong? How could he change the opinion of a person who was determined to hate him?
"You've got to earn it, Bakura," Malik added, still in the same harsh tone that made it sound like he was furious. "Do you think everyone welcomed me with open arms when I first moved here? Hint: they didn't. But I showed them I was different. I worked for it."
Bakura clicked his tongue impatiently. "Well, good for you, but I have no idea how to do it."
Malik gave him a stern look. "Lesson number one: don't be a jerk."
Bakura scoffed, but he did not dispute it.
Miraculously, after a few seconds, Malik's face softened and he almost smiled. "If it's any help, I can see that you've changed. Now you just have to show it to everyone else."
Some sort of uneasy knot in Bakura's chest seemed to unwind at that. He looked away, embarrassed to admit that Malik's words had been comforting, but he appreciated his kindness more than he let show.
It was funny. Kindness was the one thing he never felt he really needed. It had never had a place in the grand scheme of his plans; he had considered it a sign of weakness, even.
He did not think Malik was weak for showing him kindness now. If anything, he found him stronger than what he had been… back then.
Damn. He had really gotten it all wrong, hadn't he?
Malik climbed back up to his feet, rubbing his hands to his pants. "I'm going upstairs, my ass is freezing."
"Okay," Bakura murmured. "I'll be up in a minute."
Malik looked down at him and a familiar playful smirk curled his lips. "Are you not done brooding yet?"
"Will you shut up?" Bakura said, trying to kick him in the shins.
Malik dodged his foot with a giggle. "Alright, alright. See you in a minute."
One minute stretched into ten as Bakura rolled another cigarette. The rain pattered ceaselessly around him as he lit it and breathed out a thick cloud of smoke.
Malik's words kept playing in his head. Prove him wrong.
He thought of Ryou, and all his very valid reasons of hating him. He looked at the scar on his palm again, even though by now he knew its shape by heart.
There were things that could never change. And maybe Ryou's hate was like that—just like Bakura's hate for the Pharaoh. It ran too deeply, and had been cemented by too many years of hardship.
No, there were things that would never change, and the past was one of them. But maybe the point was not to change the past. Maybe he could just make the future run a bit smoother.
He could start with the basics. Baby steps.
For now, a good step would be to not piss off Ryou for once. He could try to get through the night without arguing with him, no matter how much he was tempted to.
Bakura would behave. He could do it. He would be a fucking gentleman.
He'd done it once already, after all. Well… Sort of. Back on Saturday, he and Ryou had both sat in his room and, for a blissful few minutes, no one had snapped at the other.
Bakura could picture the scene clearly. Ryou had sat on the edge of Bakura's bed without moving, looking as if he had been trying to will himself away. It had been both unnerving and irritating, just like earlier, so Bakura had offered him a smoke. Ryou had been guarded at first, but afterwards—
He had calmed down. His back, which had been stiff as a board, had relaxed. It had been dark, but Bakura had noticed how his face had softened—and, for a minute or so, Ryou had forgotten to be angry.
And then Bakura had opened his mouth and it had all gone to shit.
He huffed now, grimacing. Maybe Malik was right. Maybe not being a jerk was indeed the first step.
Well. We would have to try it and see.
He finished his second cigarette and aimed for the same puddle as earlier. This time he managed to make the stub land right in the centre and he grinned, satisfied.
He hadn't realized how cold he was until he walked back into Malik's apartment and everything, from his face to joints, thawed. He rubbed his hands together to bring some feeling back into them as he kicked his boots off.
"You should have thought twice before brooding in the cold," Malik said with a smirk.
"Shut up," Bakura murmured, because he did not need Ryou to know that he had been brooding—or that he had been troubled in any way at all.
Ryou did not seem to pay any attention to him; he was underlying something on his textbook with what appeared to be ultimate focus. Bakura was not fooled by that—and, sure enough, once Bakura sat back down, Ryou spoke.
"Next time you feel like brooding, don't take your time. We have a job to do."
Bakura was about to tell him that the reason he hadn't been able to do his job properly in the first place was him, but he held his tongue. After two seconds of struggle and a deep breath, he murmured, "Okay. I'll keep it in mind."
Ryou glanced up at him with a hint of disbelief—or wariness—in his frown. "…Good," he said, a bit uncertain, and returned to his studies.
Bakura sighed. He could consider this a small triumph, right?
Out the corner of his eye, he caught Malik giving him thumbs up, but he pretended not to see him and picked up the Spellbook pages.
He could tell it was a lost cause the moment he set his eyes back on them. The symbols were a mess, to the point where he wondered how he had managed to make the slightest sense of them last time. Or maybe he couldn't concentrate because half his mind was still on his discussion with Malik and the other half was on Ryou, observing him and waiting for a jab he would have to deflect, or ignore, or—impossibly—pay back with politeness.
Ryou was still twirling his pen, sometimes clicking it. His eyes kept tracing the top sentence of his textbook over and over, just like Bakura kept staring at the same spot on the Spellbook. The clicking sound of Ryou's pen irritated him, but he did not speak. It occurred to him that he could ask him nicely to stop, but it wasn't worth the risk.
He had no idea for how long they kept this up, but he knew it must have been at least an hour. Or maybe two. He was making no progress with the Spellbook, but he didn't mind. Every minute he spent in there without an argument felt like a minor achievement. And, frankly, one goal a night was enough. He could not be expected to do everything at once.
All went great up until the moment Ryou put his books now and told them to call it a night because he had an early shift the following day. He gathered all his books while Bakura put the Spellbook pages in a neat stack, careful to avoid specifying just how much progress he'd made with it.
He left them on the coffee table, in front of Ryou. "Are you taking these with you tonight?"
Ryou paused to look at them. "No," he replied at length. "There's no point."
"Ugh, great," Malik sighed. He took the pages, decidedly looking away, and shoved them in a drawer. "I can't wait for the day we'll get rid of them."
"You and everyone else," Bakura murmured.
Up until that moment, things had been pretty easy and straightforward, but as they huddled in the hallway to put on their jackets and shoes, it occurred to Bakura that he had no idea how to proceed from there.
He hadn't thought about the walk home. Yesterday, he had been… a jerk. So, today he could try doing the opposite of that. He could leave Ryou alone. Or—
He could take him home without picking on him. Just walk him home. The way he might do with Malik.
It sounded near impossible, but leaving him alone did not sit well with Bakura, either. Avoiding him would prove nothing. Bakura couldn't just go back to his room and then call it a job well done; that was no different from what he had been doing so far.
He could do it. He would not be a jerk for once. Hell, he'd done hardest things in his life; he would manage to walk his landlord home without having it devolve into a bloodbath.
The hardest part would be to persuade Ryou to go along with it. He wasn't bound to just allow Bakura to accompany him—especially not after yesterday.
Bakura would have to be smooth about it. Very smooth.
He sighed. He was in for a fun ride.
Malik once more accompanied them to the main entrance. Ryou took off at once, but Bakura hesitated, hovering on the threshold and second-guessing the decision he'd made a mere five minutes ago.
Malik gave him a small nudge. Then, to Bakura's horror and dismay, he winked. "Good luck," he smirked and went back inside, closing the door behind him.
Bakura was left alone on the threshold. Ryou was already halfway down the block, his figure getting blurrier and blurrier in the dark and the rain, until he was nothing but a bundle hunched under an umbrella. He was not quite running, but he was obviously walking as fast as he could. If Bakura did not make his mind up quickly, he would lose him.
"Oh, fuck it," he grumbled. He opened his umbrella and went after Ryou.
He had to run for a few feet, holding his umbrella against the direction of the rain and splashing through puddles in his haste.
Ryou heard him, of course; he turned around at once, his eyes blazing and an angry question half-formed on his lips, but Bakura cut across him.
"Save it, landlord. Just keep going. I wanna get out of this rain as soon as possible."
"No, no, no," Ryou shook his head. "I'm not playing your games tonight."
"I'm not playing, either. Let's go." Bakura gestured towards the end of the street and started walking, hoping against hope that Ryou would follow without further arguments.
Ryou got ahead of him with a few strides, cutting his path and glaring daggers at him. "What the hell is your problem? I don't have the Spellbook with me this time!"
"I am aware."
"Then fuck off! You have no business being here."
Bakura let out a weary sigh, resisting the urge to rub a hand over his face. "Look, landlord, it's late, it's raining, and you don't even have your knife on you, so suck it up and let's get going."
Ryou narrowed his eyes. "How do you know about my knife?"
Oh, right. He didn't know that Bakura had picked up his knife and held on to it ever since.
It dawned on him that he had never returned it, the way he had been planning to: it was still in his drawer, back in the Golden Egg, next to his bed.
Oh well. He didn't have to mention that.
"You dropped it on the street, weeks ago. Remember?"
"I remember. I just didn't think you would."
"Yeah, well," Bakura shrugged. "Keep up, will ya?" He beckoned at him to follow, even though he felt that so far he was doing an awful job at not being a jerk.
Ryou followed him, stomping his feet on the wet pavement. "I don't see what my knife has to do with anything."
"Well, how are you going to defend yourself without it?" Bakura grumbled, hoping that Ryou would not take that as an insult.
Ryou scoffed out a laugh. "So—what? You will defend me?" he said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Bakura shrugged. "If it comes down to it."
"Yeah, right," Ryou said, still in the same scathing tone. "Since when do you care so much?"
Bakura huffed. This was not going well—and he couldn't really answer that question truthfully. Not unless he told him about Ishido and his talk with Malik and everything that had been plaguing his mind for the past weeks.
"Would you rather if I didn't?" he said instead.
"I'd rather know why the sudden change of heart."
"Look, landlord," Bakura said, stopping to turn around and look at him. "I don't want to argue with you. I just want to take you home."
This was one of the most honest things he had said so far.
He didn't know if Ryou realized it, or if it was the fatigue in Bakura's voice that did the trick, but he did not talk back; he whirled around with a huff and said, "Hurry up, then, if you want it so badly."
Bakura complied, even though this sounded too good to be true. He wondered if Ryou had some other plan in mind; some way to pay Bakura back.
Oh, well. Bakura would take it. If he had his plans, then Ryou was allowed to have his.
He fell into pace next to him, trying to avoid the puddles as best as he could without stepping too close to Ryou. He glanced at him, wondering what the trap was, but Ryou just walked, staring straight ahead with his lips pinched and his usual scowl on his face.
The rain was getting heavier as more time passed; it splattered all around their legs, drenching them up to the knees despite their umbrellas.
Bakura did not speak: it was safer that way. He stayed close to Ryou, keeping him at the corner of his eye in case he would indeed have to defend him. No one else was crazy enough to go out in this weather so the streets were mostly deserted, but it would do no harm to keep an eye out.
Bakura wondered if he should go back to keeping the knife on him at all times. It might be wiser.
Or maybe he should actually return it to Ryou.
It would not be hard to procure another knife, but he did not like the idea of parting with it. He had held it in his hands so often that, by now, he had memorized all the ridges on its handle and all the curves of its blade. He didn't even mind that it was Ryou's; in fact, it made it a bit more… intriguing. He had wondered more than once how someone like his landlord had ended up carrying such a thing on him. Had Ryou bought it after Bakura's return, specifically to use it against his yami, if need be? Or was it an older acquisition?
Bakura glanced sideways at him.
Ryou was a white shape in the night, walking along with his hair swaying in the chilly wind. The shadows suited him; they turned the sharp lines of his face smoother, with only his cheekbones and the tip of his nose gleaming in the light of the streetlamps.
Ryou caught him looking and snapped at once. "What?"
Bakura looked away. He did not speak; he merely paused at an intersection, waiting for the traffic light.
Ryou looked at him, cocking an eyebrow. "The street is empty."
Indeed, there were no cars as far as Bakura could see, but he pointed towards the signal on the pedestrian crossing. "It's not blue yet."
Ryou scoffed, letting out a puff of fog, and crossed the street without waiting for him.
"Damn it," Bakura murmured under his breath, hurrying to follow him.
When he caught up to Ryou, he noticed he was smirking. He gave Bakura a glance full of scorn and said, "So, the King of Thieves is afraid to break the traffic code?"
"No," he murmured. He had stopped mostly for Ryou's sake—not to mention that, had he crossed while the light was still red, Ryou would have undoubtedly scolded him about it, too. There was no way to win.
He focused on the sound the rain made against his umbrella and the heavy thump of his boots against the pavement.
"I don't need you to defend me, by the way," Ryou said suddenly. "I can handle myself."
Bakura had to hold back a scoff, because last time it had been woefully obvious that Ryou had no idea how to defend himself or even use his knife properly. Somehow, he managed to stay silent; he gripped the handle of his umbrella tighter and kept looking straight ahead.
Instead of putting Ryou at ease, this made him scowl even more. "You are awfully silent today."
Bakura could keep on ignoring him, but he guessed it would do no harm answer that one. A reply would be a show of good faith.
"I'm thinking," he said.
Ryou's brows scrunched so low over his nose that it seemed they would remain stuck there forever. "What are you thinking about?"
His suspicion was getting ridiculous, so Bakura huffed and said, "World domination."
Alarm crossed Ryou's features.
Bakura rolled his eyes. "Come on, landlord. That was a joke."
Ryou's face fell back to its usual scowl. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor."
"Oh, I'm a riot. You should see me at parties."
Ryou made a grimace that clearly said he regretted ever asking and turned decidedly away from him.
Thunder came in to fill the silence. The rain was loud, drowning out all other sounds like a blanket. Water found its way into Bakura's boots somehow, drenching his socks.
He looked at Ryou's old sneakers. They didn't look half as sturdy as Bakura's boots; Ryou's feet were probably swimming in water right now.
Bakura's mouth twisted. Was his landlord really so badly off that he couldn't afford a new pair?
It was still hard to fathom. The image of the old Ryou was too deeply rooted in his brain. He kept expecting to see the posh boy of eleven years ago, wearing Domino High's neat blue blazer and a well-ironed shirt.
He realized he had been staring only when Ryou glanced towards him and their gazes met again. Ryou looked away immediately, only to glance back at him a few seconds later.
It reminded Bakura of Saturday night again: of Ryou in his room, seeming unwilling to look at him but staring nevertheless. Back then, Bakura had guessed that the bruises on his face must have been startling and noticeable, so he hadn't given it much thought, but he wondered what on earth was going on Ryou's mind right now.
Maybe he could ask him about him. Ryou had asked first, after all.
He could take a shot.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
He expected Ryou not to answer, or maybe to snap at him but, surprisingly, Ryou smirked. "World domination."
For a couple of seconds, Bakura blinked. Then he grinned. "If that's the case, I could give you some pointers."
One of Ryou's eyebrows arched. "Didn't you fail?" he said, still smirking in a cheeky way that looked oddly fitting on his face.
"Semantics."
Ryou let out a low, almost inaudible chuckle, as light as a breath. "Right…"
Bakura stared, taken aback by the little sound.
Ryou fumbled with his jacket pocket and took out his pack of cigarettes. It looked like a feat, but somehow he managed to balance everything and light a cigarette without losing his hold on his umbrella or his bag.
He took a drag of smoke and then breathed it out; Bakura's throat itched at the sight.
"Can I ask you something?" Ryou said, rather unexpectedly.
"Uh… Sure."
Ryou held up his cigarette, nodding towards it. "How did you know? Did you figure it out, or…?"
It took a few seconds for Bakura to figure out where Ryou was going with that.
"I didn't know that you smoked, if that's what you're asking," he replied. "But I figured it out pretty quickly. You could say it was coincidence, I guess."
"Huh."
They kept walking in silence for a while—long enough for Bakura to think that the discussion was over—before Ryou spoke again.
"You drink, too." His voice sounded odd; kinda strangled, as if he hadn't meant to say that.
Bakura stared at his profile. The 'too' had sounded like admission that they had that in common. Bakura had never asked about it, and he had never seen Ryou drink, but he had known, deep down; his body's resilience could not by justified by anything else.
"Yeah. Sometimes," he said quietly.
Ryou hummed. "Coincidence, too?"
Bakura watched the glowing tip of his cigarette, red and burning and eye-catching.
"Yes."
He had never wondered about that. How much of it had really been coincidence? That night weeks ago, when Enki had given him his tobacco bag and a drink, would Bakura have accepted had there not been an instinct pushing him towards it?
And how had Ryou ended up to that, of all things? Just like the knife, it was another piece of a puzzle Bakura could not solve. Once, he had boasted that he knew Ryou inside out—well, right now he had to admit that he didn't know shit.
They reached the bridge and crossed it; underneath their feet, the river was loud in the rain, black and foaming as it rushed towards the sea. A flash of thunder lit the dark waters, making both Bakura and Ryou pause.
Bakura turned his gaze towards the sky. Raindrops fell into his eyes, but the sight was worth it. The thunder looked like cracks across the sky; like the heavens were opening up and silver was spilling through.
"Dazzling, isn't it?" he murmured.
He realized what he had said and to whom and he closed his mouth, feeling unreasonably embarrassed. Or maybe it was reasonable; maybe this would give Ryou fuel to mock him. He no longer knew what to expect.
Ryou did not mock him. He was looking at him with a hint of wistfulness in his expression, as if he were wondering something. His expression wasn't friendly, and it definitely wasn't inviting Bakura to ask more about it, but it was a far cry from what he usually saw on Ryou's face.
In the end, Ryou turned on his heel, as if ready to go. "We shouldn't stand here."
Surprisingly, he didn't take off on his own; he seemed to wait for Bakura, if only for a second.
"Yeah," Bakura said, because of course, standing on a bridge in the middle of a thunderstorm was not that safe, but mostly because that split second of Ryou waiting for him was so unexpected that he felt compelled to hurry.
They fall back into pace without speaking; Ryou finished his cigarette and threw away the stub, while Bakura kept peeking at the sky from under his umbrella.
It did not take long for them to reach Ryou's place. When his apartment building came into view, Bakura fell back and let Ryou walk to the door alone. He watched him unlock it, wondering if he should say something.
…Maybe not. He shouldn't push his luck. He had already achieved what he had set out to do.
On the other hand, he had come this far; he might as well go all the way into this 'no longer a jerk' territory and say something.
Not goodnight, though. That crossed a line.
"See you next time," he blurted out. At once he felt like an idiot, because that was just about the second stupidest thing he could have said—and he wasn't even sure he had spoken loud enough to be heard over the rain.
Ryou paused. He turned his head towards Bakura enough for the yami to see his profile, but he stopped before their eyes met. It seemed like he was about to say something, but after a second of deliberation, he walked inside and closed the door.
Bakura didn't mind. Even that smidge of acknowledgement was miles away from last time's complete dismissal.
He turned around and made for the Golden Egg, inwardly debating with himself whether he should call Malik and tell him what had happened. A part of him wanted to share this small success, but another part of him warned him that he would sound stupid if he called Malik just for that. It wasn't like he had done anything groundbreaking. Not to mention that he might jinx it.
In the end, he did not call Malik, but he reached the Golden Egg in a much better mood than what he had left in. He entered through a side-door, avoiding everyone in order to not spoil his good spirits, and climbed the stairs up to the third floor.
The first thing he noticed was his neighbor, the girl from 306, standing at her door and chatting with the redhead from the room across from her. She noticed him, too, and turned to him with a pointed look.
"Hey!"
Bakura paused in his steps and looked at her, uncertain.
"…Hey."
She crossed her arms across her chest. "So, you were an asshole yesterday. I hope you know it."
Oh, right. Bakura had yelled at her.
He looked away.
"…Yeah."
For a while, she did not seem satisfied with his answer, but then she shrugged. "As long as you know it…"
She stuck a thumb towards the room behind her back. A few more of the girls of this floor were huddled inside, dressed in comfy sweats and hoodies—much different from what Bakura was used to seeing them.
"Do you wanna come in?" she said. "It's Mei's birthday. We have booze and snacks."
Bakura blinked. He couldn't get it. Why was she inviting him? He had been an asshole to her, and he had never exchanged a friendly word with any of them. He didn't even know their names; he mostly knew their room numbers.
She kept looking at him with a sort of laid-back expectancy; she did not look too invested into persuading him, but she did not look indifferent, either.
Seeing his hesitation, she added, "It's okay if you don't want to. No pressure."
This was a sort of generosity Bakura did not normally get. It was kindness. A kindness he had not fought for. It made him want to accept their offer, but he was tired; he hadn't had a proper night's sleep in days.
He did not want to seem ungrateful, though. "Maybe some other time," he said.
The girl shrugged. "Sure."
Bakura stood there, looking at her. He felt that he had to say something more. Maybe wish happy birthday to that Mei girl?
Damn, he had no idea who that Mei was. Maybe it was the one with the black hair, from 312.
He should at least make an effort to learn their names.
He looked at the girl from 306, feeling increasingly stupid. "I'm Bakura," he said.
"Yeah, we know," she smirked. After a small pause, she added, "I'm Yuki. And this is Mei, Monica, and Rin." She pointed to the girls behind her, even though Bakura could not really make them out.
He nodded. "Yeah, uuh… Good." He gave them an awkward wave. "See you around, then."
He unlocked his door, inwardly cringing at his inability to have a normal human interaction, and went inside.
The musty odor of mold welcomed him, along with the smell of stale cigarette ash, but for once it did not bother him. He put on a pair of sweats and fell heavily on his bed, his mind buzzing over everything that had happened in the past few hours. Malik. Ryou. The walk to Ryou's place. That unexpected invitation.
He could hear the girls next door chatting loudly and, honestly, it was sort of pleasant. It made the room feel a tad cozier. Not quite like home, or like Malik's apartment, but not as bad as it had been on all the previous nights.
And he had made Ryou chuckle. Yesterday, he would have thought that impossible.
So, was this what it was like to not be hated? Bakura had to admit it wasn't half-bad.
"Okay, Yuugi! Are you ready?" Jounouchi grinned down at pushed a few wet tufts away from his face. He could already see that some of them were lighter, but he could not wait to see the final outcome. It was probably a success, if the look on Atem's face was anything to go by: he was staring at Yuugi with bright eyes and a huge smile.
Yuugi smiled. "Yeah, I'm ready!"
"Alright! Three… Two… One…" Jounouchi turned Yuugi's chair around, until he faced the bathroom mirror. "Ta-daa!"
Yuugi looked at his reflection.
The person in the mirror was… young. A lot younger. It was his eighteen-year-old self, smiling so much that his eyes looked smaller, with blond tufts framing his face. The rest of his hair was still black, sticking out wildly the way they always used to, familiar even though the red tips were missing.
It was him. It was what Yuugi was used to seeing in the mirror.
He smiled even wider. "Hi, me," he said to his reflection.
He could see Atem out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't tell if the Pharaoh was happy or proud or emotional or all of these together; what he knew was that he had rarely seen his face this revealing. He tended to be more reserved, always holding something back, but right now he had a smile that nearly matched Yuugi's.
Looking at him was like looking at the sun; Yuugi wanted to bask in the sight until it warmed the marrow of his bones, but at the same time the emotion he witnessed in Atem's face was so strong that he had to look away.
Jounouchi, on the other hand, was simply beyond himself with joy. He ruffled Yuugi's hair, shouting, "Finally! Fi-nal-ly! Now we're talking!"
"Ow, Jou," Yuugi giggled, trying to simultaneously cover his head and slap Jounouchi's hand away. "Be gentle, it kinda stings."
"How about saying 'Thank you Jou for your invaluable help, I don't know what I'd do without you'?"
Yuugi giggled. It was true; Jounouchi had had plenty of experience with both bleaching and dyeing hair, since he often helped Shizuka and Mai with it.
"Thank you, Jou, for your invaluable help, I don't know what I'd do without you. I guess I'd have gone to a hairdresser," Yuugi said, still giggling.
"Yeah, but it's more fun this way," Jounouchi said and threw his arms wide open, almost knocking over one of the bathroom's shelves. "Come on, we gotta celebrate with snacks and board games!"
"Okay, okay. Help me clean up first, then."
Jounouchi brought a trash bag and they threw away all the hair product bottles, the plastic gloves and the aluminum foil they had used. Yuugi set to clean the sink, while Atem was standing in the corner, seemingly unsure of what to do.
He hadn't done much while Jounouchi had fumbled with Yuugi's hair; he had mostly observed the process, making very few comments and occasionally laughing at Jounouchi's jokes. Yuugi had enjoyed watching him; Atem might have been quiet, but his face had gotten brighter and brighter, washing away all of Yuugi's second thoughts and leaving behind nothing but excitement.
It might be stupid, but he felt like a little kid: just the way he'd felt when he'd ran with his friends to the arcade after school, or when they'd opened the booster packs they had bought with their last money.
When Jounouchi took the bag of trash and left, Yuugi turned to Atem, still smiling so hard that his cheeks had started hurting.
"What do you think?"
Atem did not answer immediately. He stepped closer to Yuugi and ran his fingers through one of his newly blond tufts. He combed it softly, unlike Jounouchi's rough ruffling, so that Yuugi barely felt the pull at the roots of his hair.
Now that he was standing closer, Yuugi could discern the slight shimmer in his eyes; it made his crimson irises look even more striking, like rubies in a pool of light.
Atem's smile became more subtle as he ran his fingers through Yuugi's hair again; he seemed lost in his own thoughts, like he hadn't heard Yuugi's question.
"Other me?"
Atem's eyes found Yuugi's. He was so close that Yuugi was about to look away in a rush awkwardness, but the pull of Atem's gaze was too strong, like a hook behind Yuugi's chest.
He thought that Atem was about to hug him, or maybe step even closer—even though there was not much space left between them—but the impression did not last more than a couple of seconds. Some emotion shifted off Atem's face and he blinked, turning his focus back to the tuft he had been combing. He brushed it behind Yuugi's ear, smiling again.
"It looks great," he said.
Yuugi swallowed. "Oh—um, good," he said with a giggle, even though the weird pulling sensation was not gone from his chest and some part of him was still waiting for Atem to move. "I was worried it might look ridiculous."
Atem's fingers paused behind Yuugi's ear, his expression turning curious. "Why did you think that? It never looked ridiculous on you."
"Yeah, but I'm older now." He searched for Atem's eyes again; he tried to catch his gaze, but Atem was looking at his hair.
"You keep saying that. It's not like you are three thousand years old. You are twenty nine," Atem said with a chuckle that curled right in the centre of Yuugi's chest.
"Yeah, but that's…" Yuugi started, but he trailed off. He forgot what he wanted to say. Atem's touch behind his ear was way too pleasant and sweet.
It did not even occur to Yuugi that he was getting too comfortable with it, until Atem withdrew his hand and took a step away.
"Let's finish cleaning up in here."
Yuugi felt like he had suddenly stumbled back down to earth.
"Yeah… yeah, you're right," he said hastily. He looked behind his shoulder, suddenly nervous about where Jounouchi was, but he was probably still taking out the trash. He sighed out with relief, even though part of him felt ridiculous about it. It wasn't like he had been doing anything… reprehensible, right?
He hurried to scrub the sink clean while Atem took the towels to the laundry basket.
Jounouchi's head popped from around the bathroom door a minute later. "What are you still doing in here? Come on!" he shouted.
It was a bit late, but none of them seemed to care about the hour. Yuugi's newly bleached hair dried while he sat in the living room with Atem and Jounouchi, drinking tea and playing Carcassonne.
Jounouchi was telling jokes about Yuugi's old hair non-stop and, after a while, Yuugi was laughing so hard he could barely place his tiles properly on the board. Atem played along, adding comments on the most unexpected moments and causing Yuugi to laugh even harder. They made him swear he would never dye his head all black again and Yuugi pretended he agreed just to make the teasing stop, even though he was having the time of his life.
He kept twirling one of his blond tufts on his finger, thinking back to the day he had dyed his hair that dull and dreary black. He remembered it all too clear: he had wished to break away from his past and feel like a serious adult who had control of his life.
It had been a stupid decision. As if looking less like Atem would change anything in his marriage or the way Anzu treated him.
Stupid. Stupid.
He felt free of it now. Free of pretending to be something else.
It was oddly grounding, as if he had slipped back in his skin after floating for way too long away from everything that made him himself.
Jounouchi was saying something and Atem was chuckling, and Yuugi laughed along even though he hadn't heard a word because, honestly, it didn't matter. Whatever Jounouchi had said would have probably been funny and fitting and true.
Yuugi reached out for Atem's hand, still laughing, and gave it a little squeeze for no other reason than that he wanted that momentary contact. He wanted an affirmation of his solidity and of the realness of all this.
It still boggled his mind. There were moments, like this one, when everything became too big and too real and too much for his brain to handle, and he felt lightheaded with a happiness he hadn't felt in a while. He wanted everything to last, and with a sweet clench in his heart he realized that it might , that it was possible; that it was already happening.
Of course, there was still the cautious part of his brain that kept whispering that this was all a dream, that this simply couldn't be —so Yuugi reached out for Atem and touched his warm hand and told his brain, See? It's real.
He almost expected that he would look around and see the walls of his old bedroom instead of the wide glass windows and the rooftops of Domino. But, really, this wasn't bad, either.
"Yuugi, it's your turn! Focus!"
"Okay, okay," Yuugi giggled and picked a tile.
His phone buzzed once. A text.
He placed his tile on the board and picked up his phone. He saw Anzu's name flashing on the screen and his stomach dropped at once.
The euphoric fog in his brain cleared. He tried not to show it, but his heart beat madly and his mouth felt dry as he clicked on the text icon. As he read the text, he made an effort to keep his smile because he knew both Jounouchi and Atem could see him. Especially Atem.
From: Anzu
Hey Yuugi. I'm sorry for the way I reacted yesterday. Please call me when you can.
Yuugi read the text twice and then allowed himself to take a breath. That wasn't as bad as he expected. She wanted to talk to him again. That was… good. Right?
He bit his lip, contemplating whether he should call her now. He didn't want to bring their game to a halt but, if he didn't, he'd just keep thinking of and worrying about this text and whatever Anzu wanted to say to him.
"Hey, guys," he said with an apologetic smile. "Short break. I need to make a phone call."
Jounouchi rolled his eyes. "Every time! We can never finish a game without—"
"Sorry, Jou," Yuugi said hastily and got to his feet.
"Yeah, yeah, just be quick."
Atem was looking at Yuugi with a way more curious frown than Jounouchi, so Yuugi flashed him what he hoped to be a reassuring smile and turned his back on him.
He went out to the balcony and closed the door. It was almost unbearably cold out there and he instantly regretted not putting on a jacket, but he needed privacy for this.
He found Anzu's number and hit call. He held the phone to his ear with rapidly freezing fingers, breathing out white puffs of fog.
She replied almost instantly. "Yuugi?"
He exhaled deeply, trying to convince his mad pulse to slow down. "Hi."
"Hi, umm… Thanks for calling me so quickly."
She sounded nervous. Yuugi could relate to that.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Umm… Fine. Better. I had time to… Think things through."
Yuugi made an effort to sound composed. "That's good."
"Yeah. Yeah, I… I'm sorry for reacting like that yesterday."
"No, no don't—don't apologize," he mumbled. "It was understandable. If anything, I am the one who should apologize."
Anzu sighed. "Let's just… both apologize and move on. Now that we both know what's going on…" She trailed off.
"Yes," Yuugi said. "We can talk on even terms." Whatever that meant for them.
"Yes, I… I would like to have a calmer discussion with you. Because I… I still want to talk about us. I want us to… Figure this out."
Yuugi's stomach clenched, because this was promising enough to be alarming. The cautious part of his brain shifted again, pinching him. "Alright. Should we…" He cleared his throat. "Should we arrange a meeting?"
"Will you be free on Saturday?"
That was several days away. He wasn't sure he had this much patience. "I thought you'd want to meet sooner."
"Yeah, I just thought you'd be busy with work."
Yuugi sighed. "I think I can make some time for that."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'll… Move some things around." He wasn't sure if he would have enough free time the following day, because they had an important meeting at work, but maybe he could arrange it. "Let me get back at you, okay?"
"Okay."
"Right. So… I'll text you."
"Okay. Goodnight, Yuugi."
He hesitated for a second. "Goodnight, Anzu," he said, feeling the sentence oddly out of place on his tongue.
He ended the call, suddenly realizing that he was shivering. His hair was still wet and his head felt frozen solid, so he hurried to go back inside.
He sighed in relief the moment he stepped in; never in his life had he been more grateful for the miracle of heated floors. He walked over to the heater and spread his palms in front of it, to allow the warmth to bring some feeling back in his fingers.
"So, who was it, Yuug?" Jounouchi asked.
Both he and Atem were looking at him. There was no point in hiding anything.
"Anzu," he said.
He saw the slightest hint of alarm on Atem's face, but Jounouchi just looked impatient.
"And?"
Yuugi shrugged and gave them a small smile. "She said she wants to talk to me again. She said she had time to think things through."
Atem's expression of alarm did not change. Yuugi hated seeing him worry: that had been the reason he had hidden things from him in the first place.
He approached them and sat back down on his seat, in front of the coffee table and their game of Carcassonne. "Okay. Whose turn is it?"
The other two did not seem to care about the game anymore.
"So, are you going to meet her again?" Atem asked, and Yuugi thought he would do anything to stop hearing these notes of stress in his voice. He wished they could just go back to laughing and playing.
"Yeah. I'll… arrange it. Come on, let's play."
"Did she sound angry?"
Yuugi sighed. "No, not really."
"And what do you think about it?" Jounouchi asked.
"Look, I… I don't know. I'll just wait and see what she has to say," Yuugi replied. He gave them another smile, to ease their concern. "Honestly, things look… hopeful. So don't worry about it."
Jounouchi gave him a weird look.
For a while, it looked like the issue was forgotten and that they would go on with their game as if there had been no intermission, until Jounouchi stood up.
"Hey Yuug, I was telling Atem about that other board game we used to play, but I couldn't remember the title. Will you help me find it?"
"Uuh… What?" Yuugi said, getting to his feet with a bewildered frown.
Jounouchi just beckoned impatiently. "I can't find anything in that closet of yours, you'll have to help me. Come on."
Yuugi turned to Atem, shrugged, and then hurried to follow Jounouchi to the apartment's walk-in closet. It was made for clothes but, naturally, Yuugi had filled every inch of it with board games and boxes full of Duel Monsters cards.
Jounouchi was already inside, but he was not looking at the ceiling-high collection of board games. The moment Yuugi appeared at the threshold, Jounouchi gestured at him to come in and closed the door behind him.
At once, Jounouchi turned to look at him with a sort of austerity Yuugi seldom saw on his face. "Yuug, what the hell are you doing?" he asked in a hushed but serious voice.
Yuugi frowned; his pulse, which had calmed down, started racing again. "What do you mean?" he said, even though part of him knew what Jounouchi was talking about.
"I mean with Anzu. One moment it seems like you are about to break up, and the next you talk about making up with her. What's going on, man? Cause I'm confused as hell."
Yuugi looked away. "I'm… I'm just gonna talk to her."
"Sure, okay, but are you planning to make up with her?"
"What? I mean, I—Of course. She's my wife," Yuugi blurted out.
"Alright, but what about Atem?"
Yuugi's heart gave a loud thud. "What? What about him?" His mind jumped back to that little moment in the bathroom earlier—even though it had been nothing, really, Yuugi was just being ridiculous—but he wondered all of a sudden if Jounouchi had seen, after all, and—
"How is it gonna work if you make up with Anzu?" Jounouchi asked. "I thought you'd said you didn't want all three of you to live together, but what will you say to her if she asks to move back in?"
"Well…" Yuugi hesitated. "I don't know."
Jounouchi huffed. "Don't get me wrong, Yuug, you know I love Anzu, and I wanna see both of you happy, but do you have a plan?"
"Look, I… I don't know yet. I'll work it out."
Jounouchi gave him an uncharacteristically stern look. "When? After Anzu moves back in?"
"No, I—" Yuugi huffed and threw his hands in the air. "I don't know. Right now I'm just trying to remain positive."
"Come on, Yuug, a positive outlook is great, but what is your goal, man? What do you want out of this?"
Yuugi swallowed. He had no idea; he guessed his goal was to keep living with Atem, the way he did now, but also somehow fix his marriage and his relationship with Anzu. He knew these two things did not really add up, at least not in the current arrangement, but…
"I'll figure it out," he repeated, fully aware that it sounded hollow.
Jounouchi did not seem satisfied by this reply.
"Can't help you if I don't know what your plan is."
Yuugi avoided Jounouchi's eyes. He had no plan; his only plan was to hope that the pieces would fall into place eventually because, frankly, he had no idea what he was supposed to do or want. Anzu was a staple of his life, and he did not want to lose her, but so was Atem. By god, so was Atem.
"Alright," Jounouchi went on," say you meet Anzu and she says she wants to move back in—'cause, let me tell you, after talking to her I definitely got the impression that that's what she wants. What are you gonna say to her?"
Yuugi clicked his tongue impatiently, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I don't know. I'll tell her to give it a shot, I guess?"
That was the expected thing, right? She was still his wife. He was still wearing his wedding ring. The right thing to do would be to tell her to move back in.
"I'm not sending Atem away, though," he added, as a reply to both his thoughts and Jounouchi's inquiring gaze.
"Yeah, I thought so. But how's that gonna work, Yuug?"
"I don't know, okay? If it doesn't work out, I'll—I'll see what I'll do then."
"Do you really think that this is the way to go? It could lead to all of you getting hurt."
Yuugi threw his hands in the air. "What else am I supposed to do?"
"Have you talked to Atem?"
"Yeah, I have. He said he does not want to be an obstacle to my happiness, but… I'm not sending him away, Jou. I'm not," he said firmly.
"I get that. I do. But maybe you should consider—"
"I'm not considering it."
"Yeah, but maybe—"
"Guys." A third voice—a deep, somber one—interrupted them, coming from the other side of the closet door. "You know I can hear you, right?"
Both Yuugi and Jounouchi fell silent. Yuugi could feel his pulse in his ears. They looked at each other for a few seconds, until Jounouchi sighed and opened the door.
Atem was standing outside, looking both a bit apologetic and a bit determined. "Sorry, but I couldn't help listening."
"No, we were just…" Yuugi started, but he stopped talking. There was no way to continue that sentence.
He felt that he didn't want to look any of them in the eye right now, but he found his gaze drawn to Atem anyway: he looked troubled again, and stressed out, and Yuugi felt ten times worse than what he had been a minute ago.
What did he have to do to make this stop?
Atem sighed heavily. "I don't want my presence to be a problem," he said. "I told you before, aibou, I am willing to go if that is what—"
Yuugi shook his head. "We already had that discussion."
"Yeah, but we found no solution."
"Guys," Yuugi said sharply, fixing both Jounouchi and Atem with his most determined look. "Stop worrying. I've got this. I'm gonna figure it out."
He walked out of the small, cramped closet, slipping past Jounouchi and Atem and hoping that this would put an end to the conversation. He was not half as certain as his words implied, but he was going to fake it until he made it. He had no other choice.
Atem did not pressure Yuugi into talking further about Anzu and thankfully, Jounouchi did not try to revive the subject, either. Yuugi fell back at ease after a while, even though he did not laugh again for the remainder of the evening.
Honestly, that was all the incentive Atem needed.
He had said he would not interfere—that he would let Yuugi make his own decisions—but by now, it had become obvious that Yuugi could not do that. He was frozen in a spot, like a deer caught in headlights, too confused to take a step forwards or backwards.
Somebody had to take action. Somebody had to clear things up. And, if Yuugi did not have the courage to do it, Atem would do it for him.
Of course, Yuugi would not allow it; he would insist that he had everything under control, despite it being painfully obvious that he did not.
So, Atem waited without saying a word.
After Jounouchi was gone and the board games went back in their boxes, Yuugi sighed and said, "I'm gonna take a shower."
Atem nodded. He waited until he heard the bathroom door close before he jumped into action.
He tiptoed to Yuugi's room and looked around for his phone. Thankfully, Yuugi had left it on his bed, next to his discarded clothes; Atem hastily unlocked it and searched in his contacts for Anzu's number. He copied it with remarkably steady fingers, put Yuugi's phone back where he had found it, and left.
He paused outside the bathroom, to make sure that Yuugi wouldn't come out unexpectedly. When he heard the shower water running, Atem moved; he gripped his phone and rushed outside, to the balcony, making sure to shut the door firmly behind him.
He was so focused on the task before him that he barely felt the cold. He found Anzu's number and, for the barest of seconds, he stared at the small bright digits.
He tapped the call button, brought the phone to his ear and listened to the dialing tone.
After a few seconds, Anzu picked up.
"Hello?"
Atem took a deep breath.
"Anzu. Hi. It's Atem."
.
.
.
.
.
Author's note: Once again, I can't thank you all enough for your support! Knowing that you still read and love this story means the world to me. This chapter was quite long, so I hope it makes up for all the wait. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Until next time, take care of yourselves and of the people around you. I love you all ❤︎
