Chapter 18: Suck it up
Bakura was holding the gun as steady as he could, aiming at the trashcans thirty feet away.
"Keep both your eyes open," Enki said in a mildly bored voice.
Bakura opened his left eye.
"Alright. Now pull the trigger. Lightly."
Bakura did. The recoil was manageable but the noise was loud, even with the suppressor on. There was a crack of air and then a deafening thonk as bullet hit the trashcan on the right; the sound traveled up the alley, bouncing off of the narrow walls.
Enki squinted, trying to make out the target in the weak morning light. "Which one were you aiming at?"
"The middle one," Bakura grunted.
"Hm. Let's go again."
Bakura reloaded the gun. This time he did not hit any of the trashcans; the bullet embedded itself on the wall above them.
"Again."
Bakura fired.
The third time he hit one of trashcans, a window crashed open somewhere overhead and a man leaned halfway out of the window, glaring down at them.
"Oi! What the fuck?"
"Get back inside!" Enki barked back, so loud that Bakura nearly jumped.
The man scrambled back inside at once—either because he'd recognized Enki, or because Enki was really fucking scary when he wanted to.
After the man was gone and the window was closed, Enki reverted back to his usual, blasé self. He nodded towards the trashcans. "Again."
Bakura huffed and took aim. When he managed to hit the trashcan in the middle, Enki made a grimace that might or might not have been impressed.
"Not bad."
"I'm better with a knife."
"Knives won't be of much use when everyone else's got a gun."
"I know that, I'm not an idiot," Bakura snapped.
His hand was shaking. He wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.
"What's wrong?" Enki said.
"Nothing. I'm fine."
Last night he had gone to bed believing that he would sleep like the dead, for a change. Joke had been on him: he had woken up in the middle of the night, with his pillow and his face drenched.
He had dreamed of the Ring: a dark space, a sense of confinement, as if his limbs were stuck to his body and his tongue stapled to the roof of his mouth. He hadn't been able to talk, but he had been able to hear a lot.
He wiped his brow again.
"You need some sleep," Enki said.
"Fuck, no."
He raised the gun and aimed again. He pulled the trigger; one, two, three times. They all hit the target.
Enki made a satisfied face. "You're good."
Bakura twisted his mouth. "I'd rather fight in the cage."
"Nah. The money's not worth it."
"Better take a beating than a bullet."
Enki waved a hand. "Relax. You probably won't take a bullet. And the money's good. Yamasaki pays well."
"I don't care about the money."
"Then why are you here?"
Bakura did not reply to that. He fired at the trashcans until his ears rang with the noise.
"I guess I have nowhere else to go," he murmured at last. Malik would argue if he heard that—but Malik argued about a lot of things, even when he wasn't right.
Enki took out his tobacco bag and rolled a cigarette that looked tiny in his massive, tattooed hands. "What did you do before?"
"You mean, before coming here?"
"Yeah." Enki lit his cigarette and took a hearty drag. "Did you have a job?"
Bakura hesitated. He thought of saying, You wouldn't believe me if I told you; he thought of saying, It's a long story; then, It's none of your fucking business. It might be funny if he said, I was the Lord of Darkness.
"I was a thief," he replied at last.
Enki did not seem surprised. "Hm. Then why are you complaining? This is cleaner than stealing."
Bakura chortled loudly. "Yeah, right."
"It's a job, like any other. You do it, you get your money. End of story. No need to overthink it."
"It's not like I have a choice," Bakura muttered under his breath. "Not if I want my bones intact."
Enki shrugged. "Risks of the job. I had a cousin who worked at a butcher's, you know. Good lad, hardworking. Busted his ass for minimum wage, barely made rent, but it was 'clean work', as you'd have it. Ended up losing his hand when it got caught in the grinder." He shrugged again. "Risks of the job. At least this one pays enough to be worth it. If you think you'd have better luck in retail, or as a waiter, be my guest." He nodded towards the end of the street, as if Bakura would lay down the gun and leave as he were.
Bakura didn't move.
"But you don't," Enki went on, taking another drag from his cigarette. "Cause you know your skills. You know you're good at it, and whether you care about money or not, you know it'd be a waste to spend your days serving fries to some asshole. And that's why you came here. Am I wrong?"
Bakura worked his jaw, glowering at his gun without speaking. The weapon already made much more sense in his hand, his brain having caught up to its delicate temperament without much effort.
He tried to imagine himself doing what his host was doing: working at some store downtown, being stuck in a single spot for six, eight, ten hours a day. Being forced to smile, or else.
No, Enki was right. This was a job—and it just happened to be the only job that suited someone like him.
"So..." Enki said, without waiting for an answer. He finished his cigarette and threw away the stub. "Kobayashi, huh?"
Kobayashi was the man that owed money to Yamasaki; Bakura's target. Bakura was supposed to get into his house on Thursday night, demand the money and leave him with a warning.
Bakura huffed, allowing the change of subject. If he couldn't get out of talking, he might as well talk about something useful instead of just bitching.
"Yeah," he said. He lifted his gun and shot at the trashcans. The noise made his skull throb, but it was satisfying to listen to the bullets hit their target.
"How are you planning to go about it?" Enki asked.
Bakura shot a couple more rounds before replying. "I'm gonna go to his neighborhood today. Scale the surrounding buildings, watch his house for a bit."
"Hmm. Need any help?"
Bakura pursed his lips. His first impulse was to say 'no', but he thought it over. "Got any advice?"
Enki took out his tobacco bag again to roll a new cigarette. "'s far as I know, Kobayashi is not dangerous. He used to be filthy rich, but nowadays that's just an act. He's got a fucking mansion, but don't let that fool you. That house is all he's got left. Soon, he won't have that either. He made a few really bad calls a while ago, and now everyone's after him. He tried to buy protection, but..." He made an airy gesture, shrugging. "Last thing I heard, he was selling everything to make ends meet. Personally, I don't see him getting out of it. Not alive, at least."
Bakura fired at the trashcans, mulling it over for a while.
He did not want to hear about Kobayashi's sob story—the less he knew, the easier it would be—but there were things to gather from it. No money probably meant low security. No guards, that's for sure; maybe just an alarm system.
"I just don't get why they sent me," he said after a while. "I bet they've got better men than me."
Enki puffed out a cloud of smoke. "You should be grateful."
"I'm suspicious."
"You're a natural. Ishido can see that."
Bakura grunted under his breath and kept shooting. He doubted that Ishido had chosen him for his skill. It had crossed his mind that they were setting him up to fail, but he had no idea why they'd do that. What would Ishido gain if Bakura failed? It made no sense.
In the end, Bakura would have to do his job as best as he could. He was the King of Thieves. More people had tried to set him up before and they had failed. So he'd do his job, and if things went south... Well. He would handle it.
Two hours later, shooting practice was over and Bakura was back in his room, doing sit-ups on his dirty carpet when his phone rang. He cursed out loud when he saw that it was Malik, but he answered it anyway.
"I thought I told you not to call me unless absolutely necessary," he snarled in the phone the second he picked it up.
"Yes, hi Bakura," Malik replied. "Spellbook party tonight, my place?"
"I thought you would be working tonight."
"Yeah, change of plans. Reiji wants the weekend off, so he's pulling today's shift. So, eight o'clock?"
Bakura hesitated for a couple of seconds. "I can't. I've got... plans."
"Plans?" He could hear the frown in Malik's voice.
"Yeah. I've gotta work."
"Wait, really? Is it fight night already? Can I come?"
"No, and no," Bakura snarled without thinking, then he inwardly cursed himself for blowing one perfectly fine excuse. "I... I just got stuck with some chores."
"Well, can't you come afterwards?"
Bakura thought about it. He had been planning to stalk Kobayashi at least until midnight, and at least for three days, to see if he could figure out an established pattern in his routine.
"I don't think so," he replied, wishing Malik wouldn't ask more.
"Shoot. Alright, then. Call me if anything changes."
"Okay."
He hung up, wondering what Malik would say if he knew exactly what Bakura was planning to do tonight. He wondered if he'd still insist that Bakura had changed.
He wondered what Ryou would say. He'd probably expect it of him. He'd probably shrug and say 'I knew it'.
He ignored the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach and fell on the floor to do more sit-ups.
Now that the holidays were over, Ryou's shifts at work were always the same: long, boring and tiring. On this particular afternoon he was stationed at the dressing rooms, which meant folding lots and lots of piles of clothes.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to find a posture that would relieve the ache in his back. He did not like thinking that he had grown too old for this, but... He had grown too old for this. At least, after he got his degree, he could go ahead and look for a job as an English teacher. He was not looking forward to teaching English to anyone, but he supposed it would be better than this—at the very least, he would be allowed to sit on a chair instead of stand on his feet for eight hours straight.
His mouth twisted downwards, but he tried to smooth out his expression before one of the customers noticed. He checked his watch: it was nearly time for his break, and then another three and a half hours until quitting time. And, after that, and evening full of joy awaited him.
They had another Spellbook session—that was what he had gotten to call them in his head—at Malik's place. Another wonderful night of keeping an eye on his yami.
He sighed, momentarily forgetting that a whole line of customers could see him.
The truth was that yesterday Bakura had not been as insufferable as usual. Sure, he had tried to pull some annoying shit—namely, following Ryou home again—but, after they had stopped arguing, things had been kind of... bearable. Or maybe Ryou had been too tired to tell. Either way, it had been okay—or as close to okay as it could ever be with them. There had been no knife-pointing, no shouting, and no chokeholds. That should count as progress.
If all went well, perhaps they would keep up this sort of tentative ceasefire up until they finished translating the Spellbook. And then Bakura would leave. Ryou couldn't wait.
He put the pair of pants he was holding—sequin pants, what were these people even thinking?—on a hanger with a small sigh. He'd had enough for now; he was starving and he wanted to sit down for a while. Maybe he could start his break five minutes early.
He found someone to cover for him and rushed upstairs, to the breakroom on the second floor. He had thirty minutes at his disposal: maybe it be enough to both finish his lunch and go outside for a cigarette. The thought was glorious.
Two of his co-workers were already in the breakroom when he arrived; they greeted Ryou with a nod, and he smiled hastily back at them. He went to his locker and took out his phone and his lunch, then proceeded to sit down on the bench as far away from the others as he could without looking rude. They didn't pay him any mind, so Ryou settled a bit more comfortably and focused on his phone.
He found a text from Malik.
From: Malik, 14:18
Study night is cancelled. Bakura can't come, he said he's busy. Wanna come over and hang out anyway?
Ryou frowned at the text. Bakura had said he couldn't come? That was... weird. He had be the one to insist that they meet as often as possible in order to translate the thing. And what exactly did 'busy' mean? They were all busy, thank you very much, but they made time for this; Bakura wasn't special.
Ryou let out an annoyed huff and typed a reply.
To: Malik, 16:32
Thanks, but I'd better go home and study. I've still got to finish that essay.
A minute later, his phone buzzed.
From: Malik, 16:33
Okay, see you on Friday then
Ryou took a bite of his sandwich and chewed at it thoughtfully. He wondered if Bakura's 'busy' meant that he'd have to be at the boxing ring again tonight. He might have told Malik if that was the case.
He tapped the reply box.
To: Malik, 16:36
Do you think he has a fight tonight?
He waited, mildly embarrassed at having showed interest. But it was a fair question, right? Since it affected his plans, too, Ryou had a right to know.
Malik replied quickly.
From: Malik, 16:37
Nope, I already asked him. He just said he's busy
From: Malik, 16:38
Wanna go and check? I wouldn't mind catching a match, even if Bakura's not there
From: Malik, 16:38
;) :D
Ryou bit his lip. He pictured the underground gambling club, with its low lighting and the cage looming in the centre. For a moment, his curiosity pulled at him and he considered the idea, but going back to that dive to look for Bakura seemed a little... petty. How would Ryou justify it, if Bakura saw him there again?
I came because Malik wanted to. I came because I was curious. I came to see if you had a match again tonight. I came to see—
He remembered the way Bakura had moved in the cage the last time, lithe and focused. The yami had always been good with magic, but Ryou had never seen him use his body like that, without any sort of supernatural powers at his aid. It had been unexpectedly... interesting to watch.
Ryou shook his head. This was stupid. Bakura's previous match had been quite the spectacle, sure, but that was not a valid reason to trek back to Domino's worst area. He had better things to do.
To: Malik, 16:44
No, I have homework. Talk to you later
After he finished his sandwich, he climbed out of the window to the small balcony outside. Well, 'balcony' was a very kind definition, since it was more of a tiny rooftop. They weren't really allowed to go there, but they needed someplace to smoke and they weren't allowed to do so in the breakroom, so the managers pretended they didn't know and the employees made sure not to litter with their cigarette stubs.
Ryou leaned with his back against the wall and lit a cigarette. There was no view to enjoy—all he could see were the dirty walls from the surrounding buildings—but he raised his head to look at the small patch of sky overhead as he smoked. When he was done, he steeled himself and went back inside. Three hours and a half until quitting time.
The sun had long set by the time his shift was over. He put on his coat, a scarf and a beanie, and wished those of his coworkers that still had a few hours to go a good remainder of the day. Once he was far enough from the store, he took out another cigarette. His back hurt and his stomach was growling, but the smoke helped mute his hunger.
He didn't know if he was pleased that he wouldn't have to deal with Bakura and the Spellbook tonight, or if he would have preferred it over homework. He wasn't sure which one of these two evils was the lesser one.
He mulled it over as he walked, but it flew out of his mind when a bus drove by with a Domino Museum banner plastered on it side. Ryou did not have enough time to see it properly, but he caught a glimpse of gold and brown hues.
A couple of streets later, he saw the same poster on a bus stop. It sported a picture of a golden coffin, and Ryou recognized it as Tutankhamun's the moment he laid his eyes on it. Underneath the picture it read: Tutankhamun's treasures, for the first time in Domino Museum!
Ryou twisted his nose.
So, his father had finally managed to bring King Tut's relics to Domino. He had been so angry when the Council of Antiquities had allowed the treasure to travel to the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, but not Domino. Father had been ranting about it for years. He must be beside himself with joy now.
Ryou lowered his gaze and picked up his pace. He did not care about Father's stupid exhibitions. He had seen the sarcophagus and all the treasures from up close when he had visited Egypt, anyway. He did not need to go to his father's Museum to see it.
Sure, it would have been nice to see the sarcophagus from up close again, and perhaps even see if he could read the hieroglyphs more easily this time around, but—no. He could test his hieroglyph-reading skills on a photograph, if he was so eager. Which he wasn't. He did not care. He should focus on studying English.
He huffed out the last of his cigarette's smoke and threw away the butt. When he crossed another bus-stop, he resisted checking out the dates of the exhibition.
He reached his apartment tired, cold, and even more grumpy than he'd left that morning. He let his bag drop next to the couch and turned on the TV. There was some kind of documentary about Pompeii on; Ryou decided it was harmless enough, so he let it play. There was not much to gain from it, since he had already read four books on Pompeii, but it was good background noise.
He boiled some water and soaked a packet of dried noodles in a bowl. He checked the fridge for fresh vegetables and immediately changed his mind; he was too tired to peel carrots and dice onions. The packet of dried herbs would do.
The documentary about Pompeii ended and a new one started; Ryou listened to the intro music as he made himself some tea. When he heard the word Egypt, he froze.
Not again. Couldn't he have a minute's peace?
He whirled around, searching for the remote even as he stretched his ears to listen what the documentary's topic was. Probably another tour of the Valley of the Dead. Or the story of Ramses. Or Akhenaten, if they were feeling fancy. Or a million other things. Same old, either way; Ryou would rather never hear of any of that again.
He found the remote and was about to turn the TV off, when the documentary's title flashed across the screen. The Secret of Sennedjem: The tomb of 100 amulets.
...Huh.
He had heard about it a couple of years ago, but he hadn't really researched it. He had been stubborn in his effort to avoid all things Egypt, so he had ignored the articles, even though he had been curious. He was still curious. To a small degree, of course. A teeny tiny degree.
He sat on the arm of the couch with his hot bowl of noodles in his hands, telling himself that he would watch the first five minutes, just to see what the deal was. He had homework to do, anyway. Just five minutes.
He slurped at the broth, looking at the TV with wide eyes. He ended up watching the entire thing.
Anzu could hardly believe it.
She was walking fast, her heels clicking on the pavement tiles. Her heart kept up with the pace, thumping against her rib cage. She took out her phone to check the address for the twentieth time, even though she had memorized the name of the street and the coffee shop; she had been repeating it in her head ever since Atem's phone call.
Atem. Atem. It was still hard to absorb that.
For the last decade or so, Atem had been nothing more than a memory, and yet here she was now, on her way to meet him. It couldn't get crazier than this.
Once upon a time, things like this wouldn't have made her bat an eye. It would have just been one more extraordinary thing in an world of oddities; a drop in the ocean; a typical Tuesday afternoon. She had spent years trying to convince herself that the only magic she would ever experience again would be that of the stage. Funny how little it took for everything to change.
She paused at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the light, and checked her reflection on a nearby shop window. She had been... irrationally nervous while getting ready. She brushed her hair with her fingers again, even thought they were already impeccably made.
It's just Atem, she said to herself, but then again, Atem had never been just Atem. Not before, and definitely not now. So maybe her nervousness was not entirely unwarranted.
He had sounded serious on the phone. Somber. More so than what she remembered him to be—if that was even possible. There had been no warmth in his voice; no indication that this would be a happy reunion.
He had probably talked with Yuugi. Of course he had. And Yuugi would have told him his side of things. That would make things... hard.
She sighed and fixed her scarf, taking care of every stray detail she could find, as if she were about to go on stage before a full house. Her stomach was a knot.
I am going to meet Atem, she thought, but the sentence was oddly devoid of meaning, as if it refused to sink in. It was as if, when she stepped off the plane four days ago, she landed in the Domino of her youth. Her years in America, her career, the ballet company, her marriage—everything—seemed like a fever dream, because now she was Anzu, seventeen years old, going out to spend a day with Atem in Domino.
She had been deeply in love with him, once. Atem was her youth. He was adventure; he was all the crazy things they had lived: the tournaments and the battles and the death traps and all those nights they spent bunking on beaches and ships and blimps with no idea what tomorrow would bring.
She was not in love anymore, but she still loved him, the way she loved all good memories: like the memory of her first recital, or of opening her birthday presents when she was a kid. She cherished them even thought she knew they were—and would remain—things of the past. And she had been okay with that. She had grown to be okay with that.
Except that Atem was no longer a memory. He had come crashing back out of nowhere and now he was waiting for her in a café not five minutes away. And she did not know if she was okay with that.
Ten years ago, this would have been her wildest dream coming true. She was not who she was ten years ago, but she couldn't help feeling sad for the little girl that had gotten her wish a little bit too late.
The light turned blue and she crossed the street.
The café came into view, its sign sporting the name Anzu had repeated in her head so many times already. She had never been there before; she wondered if Atem had. She grew vaguely curious about how he had been spending his time in Domino so far.
Ιt was a quaint little coffee shop with wide glass windows that looked at the street. The black and white stripes on the awning reminded her of the café next to the theater in New York; apparently, this was the day for painful nostalgia.
She forgot all about New York in the next second, when her gaze fell on a familiar head: black hair accentuated by red tips, gold tufts falling around his face. He was sitting at a small table by the window, his back ram-rod straight, his arms folded across his chest. He looked as if he was waiting for his opponent's move, even though the chair across from him was empty.
She realized she would have recognized him even if she hadn't known that he was back. She would have recognized him even if she had ran across him randomly in the street, unsuspecting. She would have known him anywhere.
She hadn't seen that hair in ages, though. Yuugi's weren't like that anymore.
She tried to ignore the pang of emotion in her chest, but she allowed herself to pause at the entrance of the cafe to take a few deep breaths. All she needed was a second; then she straightened her spine and walked up to his table the same way she would walk out on the stage on a premiere night.
Atem spotted her and stood up at once. He did not smile. Everything was just the way she remembered: the set of his shoulders, the shape of his eyes, the way he held his chin just a bit jutted out. The only thing that was new was the bold eyeliner, but the rest... The rest was the Atem she remembered. The realization was accompanied by a feeling of weightlessness, like her stomach was plummeting. Down and down.
They looked at each other, both standing.
This was ridiculous. They weren't opponents.
She tried to smile. "Hello, Atem."
"Anzu," he said. Deep voice, just a touch of roughness in his timbre. Just the way he used to sound.
Everything was so absurd.
There passed a few awkward moments, where she didn't know if she should shake his hand, or hug him, or simply sit down in the chair across from him.
She wanted to hug him, but Atem's look was not remotely welcoming. He was looking at her with the same sharp-cut look she had observed from the outside, waiting for her to take her seat.
Okay, so no hugs. A handshake seemed awfully business-like, so she sat down with no further ado. Atem took a seat when she did, like an old-time gentleman. She laced her fingers under her chin, deciding to ignore the feeling of her stomach free-falling, and stared at him.
He was looking at her through something like Yuugi's face, standing in something like Yuugi's body, while simultaneously being distinctly not Yuugi. His eyes had the color of red wine, and that wasn't like Yuugi at all. His expression was sharp, almost cold. Meant to keep his opponent at a distance. Intimidate. Attack.
It was eerie. He should be wearing leather pants and half a dozen belts and be standing on top of a blimp or in an arena, ten years ago—not sit in a hip Domino cafe, wearing Yuugi's soft knit sweatshirt, with a new smartphone resting next to his hand. To anyone else, nothing would seem amiss, but to Anzu the sight was uncanny. He was the one unchanged spot in the fabric of the present, and it caught her eye like a break in the continuity.
She swallowed. "So... Have you ordered?"
"I was waiting for you," Atem replied, and hearing his voice again sent a shiver down her spine. She wondered if Yuugi had gotten used to it.
They ordered two cups of tea and went back to looking at each other—or, more accurately, staring down each other. His eyes shone scarlet whenever they caught a ray of afternoon light, and he brushed away the blond tuft that kept falling in his eyes with a light flick of his hand.
Her heart felt cut open. She wanted so badly to hug him and squeeze him and say things like 'Welcome back' and 'How did this happen' and 'Tell me everything'. She wanted to laugh and celebrate the way she would for any of her friends. She wanted to tell him 'I missed you, we all missed you, we talked about you all the time, could you hear us?' and then hug him some more, but his expression kept her planted in her seat. It was as if the force of his gaze kept a barrier between them.
Their tea arrived, steamy and fragrant. Anzu barely paid any attention to her cup, or to the comfortable buzz of the café and the movement on the street outside. She was looking at nothing but Atem.
"So... How have you been?" Anzu asked.
"Trying to catch up," Atem replied, deadpan.
Anzu smiled, trying to keep things easy and light. "And how's that going?"
"Some things have changed more than I'd like," he said. He looked down at his teacup, tracing the porcelain rim with his fingertip, and took a sharp inhale. "You're probably wondering why I asked you to meet me."
Oh. Cutting straight to the chase, then.
Anzu straightened her spine and gave him a leveled look. "I was wondering why you didn't tell Yuugi about this." She tried to not make it sound like an accusation.
"I think you know why," Atem said at once, as if he had the reply ready.
She thought of saying that no, that she had no idea, if only to make him explain it out loud and see just how many of her suspicions would be confirmed. But Atem was not dumb, and she disliked the idea of playing dumb with him. Because, the truth was, she understood perfectly.
"...Yeah. I do."
Atem nodded. "Good. I will leave all pleasantries aside and be very straightforward with you."
"Isn't that what you're already doing?" she murmured. She didn't mean to sound bitter, but it hurt to have him across from her, within touching distance, and hear him talk like that.
Atem ignored her comment. He looked at her straight in the eyes and said, "Do you have feelings for me?"
Anzu almost choked on a mouthful of air. "What?"
"I want to know if you have any sort of romantic feelings for me," Atem explained, as if his first question hadn't been clear enough.
She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. It wasn't that she hadn't expected this—it was just too early to dive into that. "For heaven's sake, Atem. It's been more than ten years since the last time I saw you."
"Eleven years, yes. But that does not answer my question."
"Well, it should. Eleven years is a long time."
"Just answer me."
She pressed herself to look at him. "Atem... No. I'm not. I missed you terribly for a long time, but... I moved on."
Something caught painfully in her chest when she said that. She thought of her younger self again, of the girl that would have given anything to be here in this moment. She could still feel a wail of old feelings deep between her ribs, but there was a world of difference between that and being actually in love.
"But you were in love with me. In the past," Atem said it without hesitation, without padding to ease the blow.
Hearing it being put so coldly hurt. Hearing him say it like that—like an accusation—hurt even more.
"Yes... Yes I was." She chuckled. "I was not so subtle about it, was I?"
"For how long have you been in love with me?"
She shook her head without speaking. How was she supposed to know? These things were never clear: you did not wake up one day and stop being in love with someone.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"No, Atem, I don't. It's a process, it's not a switch you can flick."
Atem's expression grew a few degrees colder. "Were you still in love with me when you married Yuugi?"
She sighed wearily. "What is this, Atem? An interrogation?"
"Maybe."
She shook her head. "This is crazy. I meet you after so many years and—"
"The sooner we get this out of the way, the better for all of us."
"The sooner we get what out of the way, Atem?"
His eyes narrowed. "Whatever happened between you and Yuugi."
She stared at him. She could get why he felt this was his business—when you spend so many years inside another person's head, boundaries tend to blur—but he would need to adapt to the new reality sooner rather than later.
"With all due respect, that's for me and Yuugi to sort out," she said, trying to not sound as irked as she felt.
"Not when my name was mentioned," Atem retorted.
Anzu sighed. "Alright, I said something I shouldn't have. Both me and Yuugi said things. That does not make it your responsibility—"
"I want to know why you compared him to me, since you claim you no longer have feelings for me."
This startled Anzu back into silence. She looked at him: the muscles in his jaw stood out, locked around an aggressive set of his mouth. He hadn't touched his tea yet.
Anzu had been here for... what? Fifteen minutes? And yet this already felt like a full-blown battle. She had expected Atem to have questions, of course. She hadn't expected this to be all hugs and rainbows but still, she hadn't come here to fight him.
She let her face fall in her hands in a sigh. "Atem, this is ridiculous. We are friends. Let's not talk to each other like that. Please."
Cause you are here, alive, after so many years, and I can't stand this, she did not add.
Atem did not look like he would budge, but after a few seconds he let out a long breath. The muscles around his jaw relaxed enough to no longer make the veins in his neck pop. "I apologize. I just have many questions."
"I can imagine."
"Things are... not what I expected. Aibou—" he started, but he paused. He seemed to struggle with his thoughts. "I was gone for too long," he ended up saying; there was a note of self-blame in his voice, as if he regretted ever getting his memories back and leaving—or something equally ludicrous.
Anzu's expression softened. "It wasn't your fault."
Atem's head snapped up, the tension around his mouth back in place. "If I'd been here—"
"How did you come back?" she cut across him.
Atem blinked, taken aback by the interruption. "How did I...?"
"Yes. How?" Anzu insisted. She already knew—Yuugi had already told her that Atem's return was a mystery, but she wanted to make a point.
Atem frowned. "I don't know."
"You didn't cause it, somehow?"
"I don't think so. I... I don't know if it would have been possible."
Anzu shrugged. "Then stop blaming yourself for something that was beyond your control."
Atem shook his head, irritated for whatever reason. "You don't understand."
"I understand. You are not responsible for everything that happens to Yuugi. And you are not responsible for—" she swallowed, "—everything I did."
Atem stayed silent for a while, his jaw working. "Aren't I?"
"No, Atem."
For a while, it seemed that this had done the trick: that Atem would relax and maybe stop treating this like a duel, but then something dark shifted in his eyes. "You never answered. Were you in love with me when you married Yuugi?"
She sighed, resisting the urge to hide her face in her hands again. Maybe she had been too optimistic: Atem was never known to back down.
"No, I wasn't," she replied. "No matter what you think of me, I wouldn't marry him if I didn't—"
"But you were still in love with me when you started dating him."
Her voice died in her throat.
She wanted to say no. She wished she would be able to. But it would be a lie. She had started dating Yuugi shortly after Atem's passing; eight months later, to be exact. It had taken longer for her to get over her feelings for Atem.
Tears stung Anzu's eyes. Part of it was anger, part of it was shame, part of it were all the emotions of that time coming back to her. She wiped them away swiftly.
"Yes... Yes, I was."
"Why did you start dating him, if you were in love with me?"
Anzu looked up to find Atem's face even more aggressive than before; angry. She shrugged and the last of her tears went dry. "What was I supposed to do? Keep pining for a dead man for the rest of my life?"
"No, but—"
"It takes time to let go. It always does." She'd said it before: it wasn't a switch she could flick at will. It hadn't been easy for any of them, not just her.
Atem apparently did not agree: his eyes narrowed and his voice dropped a somber octave. "You should have waited, then."
Waited. Waited for what?
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe we all should have. But it's easier to move on when you actually try to, instead of... sit around and wait for the change to happen by itself."
Atem did not look convinced: it was written on every inch of his face. He was looking at her like a judge who knows the defendant is guilty; a no-nonsense look.
She sighed. "Let me put it this way. If it was Yuugi in my place—if Yuugi was in love with someone who... left, what would you advise him to do? As his friend, what would you tell him?"
Atem shifted in his seat. "That's neither here nor—" he murmured, looking away, but Anzu cut across him.
"Just imagine it. And tell me."
Atem huffed. For a while it seemed like he wouldn't answer—like he would keep glowering at his cup indefinitely—but in the end he spoke in a low voice. "I'd tell him to go on with his life. I would tell him to... find someone else. Someone who... makes him happy."
"Exactly," Anzu said. She could feel fresh tears stinging the back of her eyes, but part of the tremor in her hands was anger. "People always say that. They say 'go on with your life, forget about it, move on'. It's what everyone says to their friends. It's what you would say, too. Well, that's what I was trying to do, back then. Yes, I was in love, but I tried to move on. So why does that make me a bad person?"
"I never said you are a bad person."
"You act like I am."
Atem pouted, his gaze fixed on the legs of a nearby table. After too much time passed in silence, Anzu spoke again.
"We all moved on, Atem. It was the only thing we could do."
"But now I am back," he said sharply, his gaze snapping back up to her. "So, what do you plan to do now?"
"Plan?" she repeated. "I don't plan anything. I've barely had time to absorb this—"
"I just think I should make it clear that I am not interested in pursuing any sort of romantic relationship with you."
Anzu threw her hands in the air, looking around as if searching for some sanity to hold on to. "For heaven's sake Atem, I did not expect you to! I am not interested in that, either. I know Yuugi said he feared that, but—"
"So you are not interested in me? At all?"
Anzu couldn't help letting out a weary sigh. This was a mess. This was all a mess.
"I am not indifferent, Atem. You are my friend. You are a friend that came back from the dead, and I'm happy to see you. And I would love it if we could just celebrate instead of talk to each other like this."
"I am trying to make sense of things," Atem replied. "You asked Yuugi for a divorce."
"I did."
"Why, then? Why if not for... me?" He sounded pained.
One of these days, Atem would have to stop thinking he was responsible for everything. And one of these days, Anzu would have to stop making scenes like this in public. They were already attracting plenty of stares from the surrounding tables, what with Atem's snapping tone and her tears.
She wiped her eyes again and took a deep, calming breath. "There were a million other things going on, Atem. Did Yuugi not explain it to you?"
Atem's face fell, even though he visibly tried to hide it. Ever the unwavering knight. "No. Aibou... does not like talking about it. So I don't ask."
Anzu sighed, rolling her eyes up towards the ceiling. "Of course he doesn't. That was part of the problem."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that it's what Yuugi does. Or, at least, that's how he's been for the past years. He... He grew distant. We reached a point where we barely communicated. He—" She sighed, because too much bitterness threatened to show in her voice.
It wouldn't do to start from the end; she had to explain this from the beginning. It was way too messy and, god, she hated it, but it had to be done. Atem was looking at her, nervous underneath all the aggressive lines and the stoic stance, and she had to make an effort. Both for his sake, because he needed to understand, but also for hers. She was tired of being labeled the monster of the group.
She leaned closer to Atem, leaning against the table and lowering her voice into a gentler tone.
"Look. It wasn't always like this. You know Yuugi: he gets passionate with what he loves, and he gives it his all. So, that's what he did after college. He gave it his all, designing games and traveling and promoting his work and... Dueling and everything. But that sort of—snowballed. Success brought more success, but it also demanded more out of him, and he... forgot about the rest, I think. It ate him up."
Atem brows scrunched up so close to each other it seemed his forehead would never smooth out again. "Weren't you happy to see him succeed?"
This had not been the question Anzu had expected. Of everything she'd said, this was what Atem had chosen to focus on?
"I was, but... He stopped being the Yuugi I knew," she replied. "He was so caught up in everything that we barely talked. And we were so far away from each other it just made things worse. We reached a point where we barely knew what was going on in each other's life, and that..." She shook her head, feeling her throat clog up with fresh tears, "—that is not a marriage."
"I don't get why that's his fault."
"I never said it's just his fault."
"You went to America to follow your dreams," Atem said, sharper this time. "So why do you blame him for following his?"
"I would never blame him for something like that! But... We became practically strangers, Atem. We—"
She remembered the third year of her marriage. She remembered being rejected in audition after audition, and never being able to get Yuugi on the phone. She remembered crying in her tiny bathroom in New York, quietly so as not to wake up her roommates, and feeling worn out and alone. She remembered landing a role in a major production and texting him about it, and not receiving a reply for three days—and when the reply did come, it was distracted at best. She remembered visiting Domino and barely seeing him because he was working overtime, as always, until the trip from America to Japan felt less and less like it was worth the trouble.
And when she had confronted Yuugi about it, he had tried to avoid the whole thing. He hadn't even looked her in the eye. He had mumbled excuses. There had been none of the passion people praised him for; none of the courage, or the fearlessness. He had simply looked resigned.
"He insisted everything was fine," Anzu said, her voice coming out thick. "And maybe it was fine for him, but it wasn't fine for me. I was alone, and I was unhappy, and I was tired."
Atem crossed his hands across his chest again: back to his attacking stance. The light that came in through the window made his hair glint, only served to make him look colder, like a hard surface, unyielding; made of rock, or steel. "You knew about the distance. You knew it before you married him."
She nodded. "It all worked out at first. It wasn't always all bad. But then... We talked less and less, and he became more and more distant, so—"
"So you decided to compare him to me."
She could not have imagined a colder voice if she tried. She nearly flinched, as if stung.
"You don't get it. It's—it's not that simple," she murmured, but her cheeks and throat were burning.
"What I get is that you were disappointed by who Yuugi turned out to be." His voice was a dark ripple. She had forgotten how scary he could sound when he wanted to.
She sniffed hard, wiping the corners of her eyes again. She could tell that her voice would be unsteady, but she spoke anyway. "Maybe. I fell in love with a Yuugi that was passionate and bright and confident and—it hurt, because that's what everyone kept seeing, but not me. I saw a Yuugi that tried hard to pretend that everything was fine, even when it wasn't. He looked confident—" he looked like you, she wanted to add, "—but most of the times that was just play-pretend, and he kept ignoring the bigger problems for the sake of acting like he had everything under control. And don't tell me that you haven't seen that, too. That's why it's you sitting here discussing this with me, and not him."
Atem glanced away, his shoulders crawling slightly up towards his ears; he looked caught. That was as good as a confirmation.
"I thought so," Anzu said. "But as you can see, most of the times, avoiding things only makes them worse. And I grew sick of trying to fix it all by myself."
Atem huffed. "But why compare—"
"Because I was tired of hearing everyone say how great he was, how brave and charming, and how just like you! Because that was not who I saw!"
Atem looked at her, silent for a few too long, heavy heartbeats. "So you focused on everything that Yuugi isn't, rather than everything he actually is." He was glowering at her, looking nearly affronted—as if he couldn't believe anyone would ever dare to be unhappy with Yuugi.
Anzu was pressing her lips to hard together her jaw hurt. That was unfair. Yes, she'd been unhappy with who Yuugi was by the end, but that was the point.
Maybe it was useless trying to make him understand. He might be very capable when it came to saving the world from eternal darkness, but he had zero experience with mundane things such as relationships and romance.
"Look, Atem," she said, making an effort to sound calmer. "I love Yuugi and I care about him. But sometimes, things just don't work out the way you thought they would."
"Then why do you want to get back with him?"
She was actually taken aback by that. She recoiled, frowning. "What?"
Atem straightened in his seat, giving the impression that he was a lot taller than he actually was, looking down at her. "From everything you said, I understand that you were very unhappy. So, why did you ask him for a second chance?"
Her breath turned into lead inside her lungs. Atem might look impossibly collected to someone on the outside, but Anzu felt like a butterfly he'd just pinned on a cork board. "He's my husband," she replied, as if she couldn't believe he was asking that.
"So was he the first time around, when you asked for a divorce."
She swallowed. "Yes, but." She huffed again. "I moved back now. We might get to fix things."
Atem narrowed his eyes until there was just a red glint visible. "Is that what you truly want?"
"Why—Why would I ask him for a second chance if I didn't want one?" She sounded outraged, but her face had started feeling hot and prickly.
Atem shrugged, looking unbearably callous. "You left your job and moved cities. Since everything else in your life is changing, I would assume that getting back with Yuugi would be something familiar and safe."
He might as well have slapped her. She almost felt the sting in the rising heat of her face.
She thought of leaving right then and there, or maybe excusing herself and going to the bathroom, or outside for some fresh, cool air. She wanted to get away from him.
She pulled herself together quickly. "I want a second chance," she said, putting as much conviction in her voice as she could. "I care about Yuugi. I love him. I want—I want things to go back to how they were."
"What happened to 'moving on'?"
"I am moving on!" she snapped. "I moved cities and I am working towards changing everything that didn't work before!"
"Are you really moving on or are you desperate to keep something in your life under control?"
She faltered again, out of breath. She was infuriated but, in some part deep inside her, panic was rising.
Desperate to keep something under control.
That was...absurd. She was not—She had everything under control. It wasn't—
She thought of her apartment in New York again. Of her roommates; of all of them, making smoothies in the morning and then rushing off to the studio. It hurt. She was exhausted.
Yuugi... Yuugi had seemed like a respite from that. Like a place where things could be normal again, and familiar, and... just the way she was used to.
Tears stung the back of her eyes and made her throat feel clogged. She blinked rapidly to keep herself in check and said, "Is that why you're here? To see... What? If I'm worthy of Yuugi?"
"I wanted to clear some things up," Atem said and now, after everything, he finally sounded gentler. Not kind, but his tone hadn't been as clipped as before.
"Did you, then? Did you get the answers you wanted?" she asked with no effort to disguise her bitterness.
"I got some answers, but not those I was hoping for."
"What were you hoping for?"
"I was hoping that you would have a clear desire to be with Yuugi. And I wanted to see if my presence would change that." Atem shook his head a bit, as if disappointed, or disagreeing with the thoughts in his head. "But I see that... It's not as simple. So I want to ask one thing of you."
She nearly chuckled. "And what is that?"
The derision in her voice did not seem to deter him. He looked her in the eyes, and something about it was different than what she'd seen so far. The last time Atem had looked like that, someone's life had been in danger—except that Anzu had been on the sidelines, and not standing against him.
Once he was sure he had her full attention, he spoke. "If you are not sure of what you want, or what you feel about Yuugi... Stay away from him. Leave him be. He's been through enough already."
Anzu stared at him. Her hands hovered somewhere above her cup, caught in the middle of some gesture.
...Had he just told her to stay away from Yuugi?
Atem's mouth was a determined line that left no room for misinterpretation. He looked in her eyes with no hint of guilt or shame—as if he hadn't just hugely overstepped his boundaries.
She waited, giving him the chance to rephrase or backtrack, if he wanted to. He didn't.
The sound that left her mouth was close to a chuckle, but not quite. "Excuse me. Did you just tell me to stay away from my husband?" She kept her voice quiet, but she hoped he could hear the anger in it. She was certain he could.
Atem kept looking at her, unfazed. "Yes."
Anger climbed up her throat like sparks. "You have no right—"
"Aibou has a lot on his mind," he cut across her, calm in a way that infuriated her even more. "He is very hurt, and very confused, and now I can finally see why. All I'm asking is to not make things harder for him. If your feelings for him are not clear—"
"You are not the judge of that. You can't—You can't decide if my feelings are clear enough or worthy enough and then pass judgment like some sort of—" King, she wanted to say, but then she remembered he had actually been a king once, so she clamped her mouth down on the word. Was this where this audacity was stemming from? Had he always been this... domineering?
"I am not deciding," he said, still calm. "I am merely offering a suggestion. I care deeply about aibou, and I believe you said you care about him, too. So maybe we can work together and make sure that he will not be hurt again."
Anzu shook her head. "So... What? Are you planning to hunt down anyone who has the potential to hurt him and give them the same warning?" she said, and then she remembered that that was exactly what Atem had done once. She'd thought they'd been over it, but apparently the protective streak was still strong in Atem, and it was irrational. "You can't do that, Atem," she said.
"I can try."
"No, Atem, you can't! It is none of your—"
"Earlier you talked about friends and advice," he cut across her. "You talked about how friends say 'move on' and 'forget about it'. So, if I came to you, as a friend, and told you that I don't know why I want to get back with a person, what would you say to me? What would be your advice? As my friend?"
She blinked at him, feeling heat clog her throat again as her brain provided her with the answer. She'd tell him to wait. She'd tell him to try and figure out his feelings first, before—
She gulped around nothing. "That's unfair."
"On the contrary, it's very fair," he said.
She shook her head. It wasn't as simple. They were married; she was wearing her wedding ring still, it wasn't just a matter of—
"What would be your advice?" Atem insisted.
She glowered at him with eyes that threatened to overflow with tears. She clenched her jaw to keep it from trembling.
He was right. She hated to admit it to herself, but he was right and it—
It hurt. That was the pure, simple truth of it. It hurt in more ways than one.
She'd put all her hopes on that marriage. All her plans about leaving New York and coming back hadn't seemed as scary when she thought of having something concrete and familiar. But maybe that was all it had been: something to occupy herself with in order to forget what her true regret was.
She needed time. She needed time to think.
She looked at Atem. When setting out to meet him an hour ago, she'd thought she'd meet the shining hero of her memories. In her head, he'd been the epitome of wisdom; the pinnacle of strength, of courage and nobility. She could now see how far off the mark she'd been. Atem was strong alright, and he was noble when he wanted to, but he was also uncompromising, often cruel, and self-righteous to a fault. She had no idea if she had never noticed these qualities before, or if her love-struck teenage self had just decided to ignore them.
She had feared she'd feel the old butterflies in her stomach—and wouldn't that add a whole new level of mess—but now she looked at his red eyes and his stern jawline and all she felt was... fatigue. She was tired. She was happy he was back, but he had also carried with him this tenacity and this fiery aggression and... She had grown too old for this. Once upon a time, this Atem might have swept her off her feet but, right now, he wore her out.
She sighed and pushed her chair away from the table. She wanted to be alone.
"I should go."
"Anzu..." Atem started, and she paused. He locked eyes with her, but he no longer looked like he was in the middle of a duel. "Let's... Let's not tell Yuugi about this."
For an absurd reason, she felt like laughing. Telling Yuugi would mean opening the can of worms that this discussion had been, and she couldn't do it twice. Not before she figured her own head out, and certainly not today.
She nodded, and then she paused again. Now that most of the hostility had seeped out of Atem's frame, it was easier to look at him.
She gave him a smile she hoped didn't look too sad. "See you around, Atem."
Atem took the long way back to Yuugi's apartment. He had lots of nervous energy to waste and he wanted to walk it off before seeing Yuugi. He had plenty of time, though. Yuugi wouldn't be off work for at least another hour.
His talk with Anzu had been more enlightening than he'd expected, but it hadn't been easy. Anzu was his friend, and he hadn't enjoyed being so... judgmental towards her. But it had to be done. If he had to choose between protecting Anzu's feelings or Yuugi's, he'd always choose Yuugi.
It hadn't gone badly, anyway. It hadn't been a pleasant conversation, but it seemed to him they reached a mutual understanding. At least, in the end, Anzu seemed to get what Atem had been trying to say to her. She hadn't outwardly agreed with his point, but. She'd understood.
Maybe they'd all have time to calm down and think now. And maybe Atem would get to see Yuugi have some fun without being shadowed by so much trouble.
The sun had set by the time Atem reached the apartment, and the cold in the streets had turned bitter. What had been a clear afternoon had turned into an overcast evening; the air smelled faintly of rain.
Atem took the elevator up to the seventh floor, humming a tune he'd heard on the TV the other day and thinking of dinner. He could order Yuugi's favorite. Or he could order from that place with the vegetarian noodles; Yuugi had liked that, too. Or he could wait for Yuugi and ask him what he fancied tonight. He'd be back in half an hour; Atem could wait.
He waited. Half an hour went by, then one. Atem thought that maybe Yuugi's cab was stuck in traffic, but after one hour and thirty minutes passed, he started getting antsy. He paced across the living room, glancing at his phone repeatedly.
When Yuugi did not answer any of his texts, Atem tried calling him. The phone rang twice and then his call was declined.
Atem froze, staring at his screen. That was weird. Yuugi never—
Atem bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if he should call again. He had to fight the urge to put on his shoes and his coat and get out on the street to look for him—because where would he even look? In the instance that Yuugi was in trouble, in would take Atem hours to scour the city and—
He started pacing again, thinking of warehouses on fire and saw blades approaching trapped legs. But that was crazy. Nobody did this anymore. Except—
He could call Kaiba and see if he had made any progress with the Spellbook. Maybe Kaiba had, and maybe that had inspired the wrath of their unseen enemy, but it could give Atem a possible lead—
He heard the rattle of keys in the lock and stopped his pacing at once. Then Yuugi walked in, and Atem's lungs nearly dropped to his feet in relief.
For a second, he took Yuugi's image in: the dark coat, the work suit, the hair that looked magnificently like his old self's, even though half of it was pulled back in a small bun, and Atem opened his mouth to greet him. He paused at once.
The look on Yuugi's face was... not right. There was no greeting on his lips, nor any sort of smile. He looked at Atem with eyes that seemed like a storm. He made no move to come closer or take off his coat. He kicked the door shut behind him and kept staring at Atem without a single soft line of his face.
He looked furious.
Atem stayed where he was, in the middle of the living room, his bare feet sinking in the plush carpet. He did not dare move a muscle, but somewhere in the back of his mind his brain was hissing, this is bad. You messed up.
You messed up.
Because why else would Yuugi be looking at him like that? This wasn't just anger; it was anger directed at Atem. He'd never seen Yuugi glare quite like this.
Had he talked to Anzu? They had agreed not to tell, but—
Yuugi took of his coat and threw it on the back of an armchair. Then he rubbed his hands on his face. "Okay. Okay." He dropped his hands to look at Atem, licking his bottom lip in an obvious indication of restrained anger. "Care to tell me why you met with Anzu behind my back?"
Atem had to hold back a wince. How had he found out? Had he been wrong to trust Anzu? But she'd said she wouldn't tell, so—
"You weren't exactly hiding," Yuugi explained. "You were in one of Domino's hot spots. Honda and Shizuka saw you; they were out with Miko for a walk."
This time Atem did wince. It wasn't supposed to go this way. He hadn't decided when he would tell Yuugi about his discussion with Anzu, but he had expected he'd at least have the time to consider it before—
"It looks like you didn't expect me to find out," Yuugi said.
"Aibou," Atem said. He paused; he didn't know how to go on. On Yuugi's face he read the worst: anger, suspicion, betrayal.
"Why did you do it?"
Atem hesitated, hating the way the air stuck in his throat. "I... I wanted to clear up a few things. With her."
"Like what?" Yuugi was not shouting, but his voice was so thick with outrage it made Atem's skin crawl.
"I wanted to talk to her about you. And—" He took a breath. "I wanted to see if she still had any feelings for me and... clear that up."
"And why didn't you tell me?" Yuugi licked his bottom lip again. Atem didn't know that Yuugi did that when he was angry. On the other hand, he had never seen Yuugi this angry before. This wasn't the devastated, desperate outburst of weeks ago: this was pure, rightful anger.
Atem huffed. He'd rather dip his hand in oil and stick it in a fire than reply to that, but he couldn't lie to Yuugi when he asked him head on. "I didn't want you to witness it and get hurt... in case she did have feelings for me."
Yuugi hid his face in his palms. He remained like that for a long time, his breaths hissing out from between his fingers. When he finally looked up again, his eyes were red, even though there wasn't the slightest hint of tears there.
"And?" he asked hollowly. There was tension underneath the anger. Fear. He was still afraid of the answer.
"She doesn't," Atem said at once. "She was happy that I'm back, but... that's all."
He expected Yuugi to look relieved, but he turned his back to Atem and took a step away, digging his fingers in his hair. The small bun came undone. He did not fix it.
"I spoke to her," Yuugi said. He turned around again; the simmering fury in his face was terrible. "An hour ago. I called her. Yes, she was as surprised as you are. Apparently, you had agreed to keep me in the dark about this little chat."
It sounded awful when put like this.
"Aibou, it wasn't something—"
"She said you told her to stay away from me."
Atem froze. He could feel the blood leaving his face, because hearing it come out of Yuugi's lips in that tone made it sound horrible—but it was taken out of context, and Yuugi hadn't heard everything that Anzu had said before that, so—
"Aibou, it's not that simple. I only told her that because—"
"You had no right to interfere!" Yuugi shouted. The outburst was sudden, but it seemed like something in the air between them cracked loose, and Atem squared his jaw, too.
"Aibou, you don't know the whole story."
"She told me enough when I asked her."
"Then I guess she told you why I said that," Atem said firmly. "She kept saying how unhappy she was, aibou! And when I asked her why she wanted to get back with you, she had no answer." He realized at once how insensitive that had sounded, but it was too late: Yuugi cringed, looking stricken, and Atem hurried to rephrase. "What I mean is, I got the impression that she... That she was not sure what her feelings were. Towards you. So I told her to stay away until she figures it out."
"And you think that gives you the right?" Yuugi snapped, still furious despite the pained lines around his eyes. "You think that I can't handle things by myself? It's my marriage, and my relationship, and I am the one that decides what to do with my feelings! I don't need you to protect me, and I don't need you to make these decisions for me!"
Atem recoiled. "I didn't try to make any decision—" he started in a low, uncertain voice.
"You think I can't take care of myself," Yuugi said, not shouting this time but still seething. "You think I need you to take care of things for me. I am not a child anymore, Atem!"
Atem winced; he felt his whole face crumple. "I never said—" His voice died. He hadn't meant to insult Yuugi with his actions. He hadn't meant to imply—
That had been the last thing he wanted. Yes, maybe he believed that Yuugi was too emotionally exhausted lately, and yes, maybe he thought that this had impacted the way Yuugi handled things, but truth remained that Atem had just wanted to help. He had just wanted to fix some of the mess he'd caused with his reappearance. He hadn't meant to put this look on Yuugi's face. Nor to make him think that he thought of him as a child.
He cleared his throat. "I... I am sorry if what I did was out of line."
"Out of line?!" Yuugi repeated. For a second, it seemed like he'd shout something more, but he just let out a broken laugh full of disbelief and hid his face in his hands.
He did not speak. The silence went on and on. Yuugi's anger was still palpable in the air, and Atem wanted to somehow fix this, but he was scared of saying more. He wondered if he'd done more damage than he realized.
"Aibou...?"
Yuugi lowered his hands and looked around. He rubbed his eyes and heaved out a sigh.
"Grab your coat."
Atem's stomach dropped. "You... You want me to leave?"
Yuugi walked to the nearby armchair and retrieved his own coat from where he'd thrown it. "No. We are going out for a drink."
It hadn't been the reaction Atem had expected. The anger was understandable, and so was the shouting, but this sudden outing? They had visited small restaurants and the occasional coffee shop, but Yuugi had never said 'let's go out for a drink' before—that was mostly Jounouchi's style. And, with Jounouchi, it usually meant a pub with slow, languid music and too many types of beer. He had no idea if that was what Yuugi had in mind.
They got in a cab and headed downtown. The silence during the ride was tense and thick, and the music from the car's radio didn't do much to lighten it. Yuugi was staring outside the window, decidedly keeping his gaze away from Atem, twisting the hem of his coat in his hands.
The cab driver kept glancing at them, but he must have felt the tension in the air for he did not make any attempts at small talk. Atem was glad: his throat was a knot and he doubted he'd be able to reply if anyone addressed him right now. He kept looking at Yuugi's profile, trying to estimate exactly how angry he'd made him.
He wondered if Jounouchi would take him in, should Yuugi kick him out. Jounouchi was a good friend, but he might not want to get involved in this. Atem wouldn't blame him. And he didn't want to cause any more trouble.
Atem had a sudden vision of himself wondering through Domino, looking for a place to crash, alone. A yami with no host. Was this what it had been like for the Thief when Ryou sent him away? Probably. Atem had no idea what had become of him, but Bakura would probably be very content to find out that Atem would suffer the same fate as him.
His coat felt too hot, the collar of his shirt too tight. He tried to loosen it with his fingers, telling himself not to panic. He can't have messed up that badly. He would make amends if he needed to; he would do anything.
The cab took them to a wide street full of bright signs and shops, not far from where Atem had had tea with Anzu earlier. It was closing time for the stores, but the pubs and bars were slowly filling with people, even though it was just a weekday.
They got off the cab outside a store that had its shutters already down and its lights off. The floor above the store was anything but quiet: Atem could make out the beat of loud music coming off of it, and the wide windows were illuminated by slowly blinking lights. Yuugi beckoned at him to follow.
"Is this where Malik works?" Atem asked.
"No," Yuugi replied shortly. After a small pause, he added, "I'm not in the mood for familiar faces tonight."
A metal staircase snaked up the side of the building, taking them straight to an entrance on the first floor. The inside was dark and loud. A slow, steady beat weaved itself everywhere, seizing even Atem's pulse. Everything in there was illuminated by neon blue and green hues, too soft to count as lights.
Atem blinked and squinted to take a better look at the... Bar? Club? He had no idea what the correct terminology was. There was a bar counter on his left, in any case. The rest of the place was wide and spacious, with windows all around its circumference and a glorious view of the street and the surrounding buildings. The centre of the room was suspiciously empty of tables and chairs, and Atem frowned at it. Was that a dance floor? He really hoped he wouldn't be expected to dance. He had no idea how to. Thankfully, there were no people standing there: most of the patrons were scattered on the tables around the perimeter or standing at the bar.
Yuugi made his way around as if he was familiar with the place. He found a table with a couple of tall stools fairly close to the bar and took a seat. He was still not looking at Atem. He took off his coat, hung it on a small hook underneath the table, and then proceeded to rest his elbows on the table and gaze at nothing in particular.
Atem took the stool across from Yuugi, feeling the music thrum in his veins. He glanced at the bar and the endless shelves of unfamiliar bottles.
"Do you think they serve wine here?" he said—nearly shouted—to Yuugi.
Yuugi did not look at him. For a while it seemed that he wouldn't answer, but then he said, "We are not having wine tonight."
His face was stony, and there was a hard glint in his eyes that Atem was not sure he liked. He beckoned at a waitress and gave her their order but, even though he was shouting in her ear, Atem could not make out a single word.
What would they drink, if not wine? Did Yuugi ever drink anything else, besides soda and the occasional glass of wine or beer? It seemed like such a weird notion. Atem knew Yuugi loved burgers, peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate milkshakes, but it had never occurred to him that he would also enjoy alcohol.
With a small stab of guilt, he reminded himself that Yuugi was not sixteen anymore. Not a kid, as he had said. And there was so much Atem still didn't know about him.
He looked around again. He would have never guessed that Yuugi would bring him in a place like this. Atem had missed out on so much. He felt like a fish out of water all of sudden—like he was the kid that had illegally sneaked into a bar. He tried to swallow the feeling down and appear nonchalant.
The music was too loud for a conversation; Atem didn't know how they were supposed to talk about Anzu in this noise, but maybe that was the point. Maybe Yuugi didn't want to talk. He had said they would go out for drinks—he had never said anything about talking.
Yuugi was pressing his lips together in a way that threw his jaw into harsh angles, and his blond tufts took on all kinds of colors from the diffused lights. At some point he took out his phone, typed a quick text and then nearly slammed it down on the table.
Atem wondered if he should say something to break this tension. If he should apologize again.
He cleared his throat. "Aibou..."
"Don't."
Yuugi's voice was like the crack of a whip. Atem fell silent.
He had no idea what to do. By Ra, fighting off all the three Egyptian God Cards at the same time with nothing but Kuriboh, Pot of Greed and Gagagigo would be a stroll compared to this. And what was Atem supposed to do, if not apologize?
The waitress arrived with a full tray. She left a bottle of some clear liquid on their table, followed by two tiny, empty glasses. Then, oddly enough, she placed an array of small bowls in front of them and left.
Atem frowned at the bowls. He could understand why she had brought them chips, and he guessed the lime slices made sense, but there was also a bowl full of something that was either sugar or salt, and he had no idea what that was for.
Yuugi reached for the bottle, took off the cap and pulled one of the tiny glasses in front of him. He filled it and knocked the drink down in one gulp. Atem thought of objecting—because he hadn't seen Yuugi do that before and, frankly, it set him on edge—but the look on Yuugi's face did not invite disruption.
After Yuugi emptied the tiny glass a second, and then a third time, he slammed it down and closed his eyes. He stayed there without moving, but the lines around his brows were painful to look at.
"Shit," he said. He raised a shaking hand and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. "Shit," he repeated. "I should have known. I should have seen it coming."
Either Atem's ears were getting used to the loud music, or he had gotten better at reading Yuugi's lips, because he made out the words perfectly. He tensed, kicking his foot up and down mostly out of nervousness than a sense of rhythm. He was waiting for the outburst Yuugi was clearly holding back.
No outburst came. Yuugi sighed and seemed to deflate. He gestured towards the bowls in front of them. "Alright. Here's how it's done. We have salt, limes and tequila."
"Aibou—"
"You do this," Yuugi said firmly, as if he hadn't been disrupted. He lifted his hand and, to Atem's surprise, he licked the spot between his thumb and his index finger. He sprinkled some salt on his hand: the crystals stuck on the wet spot, sparkling in the blue and green lights. "You lick the salt, you drink a shot of tequila, then you bite a lime and suck on the juice. Got it?"
Atem blinked at him. "Uh—what?"
"Watch."
Before Atem could say anything more, Yuugi proceeded to demonstrate. He licked the salt off his hand and immediately reached for the shot glass. He knocked back the liquor, took a slice of lime, bit it, and a full-body tremor shook his frame.
"Whoo." Yuugi blinked quickly and shook his head. "Okay. Your turn."
"Uh—" Atem eyed the second shot glass as if it were an enemy's card in attack mode. "I'm not sure about this, aibou."
"It's simple. Salt first, then tequila, then lime. It's like a game."
"A game?" Atem thought about it. He guessed Yuugi was right. There were certain steps, or rules, one could follow. "Alright, then."
He pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and reached for the bowl of salt. He lifted his left hand and licked it, cringing at the oddness of the sensation. "This is so weird, aibou."
"Only at first."
"If you say so." The grains of salt sparkled in neon blue and pink hues on Atem's hand. He looked at them and clenched his shot glass in the other hand. "Okay. Here goes."
He licked his hand: the salt assaulted his tongue with numbing intensity. He reached for his shot glass and emptied it in one gulp, the way Yuugi had done, but the alcohol came as a second shock: it was strong and intense like a slap. He grimaced at the taste, feeling the liquor burn its way down his throat.
Yuugi pushed the bowl of limes towards him, and Atem took a slice because, honestly, how much worse could it get? He bit on the crisp flesh and it exploded in his mouth. The sourness made his eyes stream, but the juice was wonderfully cool and refreshing: it washed away the worse of the liquor's aftertaste, leaving him blinking and reeling from the experience.
"You okay?" he heard Yuugi's voice.
Atem nodded but did not speak; he felt he needed a minute to make sense of what was going on in his mouth. His taste buds were screaming and a bunch of conflicting things were happening on his tongue, but the more time that passed, the less bad this whole thing felt.
He wiped his eyes in time to see Yuugi refilling their glasses. Yuugi glanced up at him; a bit of the harshness in his eyes had melted away, and Atem held on to his violet gaze, cherishing the eye-contact.
"Okay?" Yuugi asked again.
"Yes."
He was even getting used to the steady beat of the bass and the low lighting. He could make out a lot more details now: he could see how all the different colors from the lights glided on Yuugi's skin, dipping in the small lines around his eyes and under his cheekbones.
Yuugi went for a second round of tequila: he sprinkled salt on his hand, licked it, and downed the shot. Atem mimicked him; he went through the steps—the numbness of salt, the burning tequila, the refreshing sourness of the lime—and slammed his shot glass down, blinking rapidly to get a grip.
Damn. The world was full of wonders.
Across from him, Yuugi was fiddling with his empty shot glass, staring at it. The painful frown was back on his face. "So... She said she wasn't happy with me, huh? What else?"
Atem, who had just started to relax, felt his insides tie themselves back into a knot. He didn't want to reply to that. What he'd already said had been cruel enough.
"Aibou... We don't have to do this."
"Yes, we do," Yuugi said fiercely. He looked determined and, by the gods, Atem knew just how much strength Yuugi was hiding, but there was no reason to tell him everything Anzu had said. It would be harsh—and the point had been to protect Yuugi from that. Telling him would defy the whole purpose.
"I don't think it's—"
"I have a bottle of tequila and enough money to buy a second one if I need to. I'm as ready as I'll ever be. So go on. Tell me. What else did she say?"
Atem huffed and tried to deflect. "I already told you."
"She met you and she straight-up told you she was unhappy? Nothing else?"
"No, I—" Atem huffed again. "Alright. I asked her how she felt about me. Why she said that thing... to you. Back then."
Something flickered across Yuugi's face, but it hardened again almost immediately. "And?"
"And she explained to me. She told me how things were between you, what her life was away from home... You know." He didn't want to have to repeat it all. And he doubted Yuugi needed to hear it.
Yuugi nodded once, working his jaw. "I know."
He kept gazing at Atem expectantly, waiting for him to go on. Atem was not sure how to proceed. He gazed at his empty shot glass and the leftover drops of tequila at the bottom.
"She described a very unhappy life," he said, slowly. "So I asked her why she wanted to get back with you... Since she had nothing but complaints."
Yuugi covered his eyes with his hand. "What the hell, Atem," he sighed, sounding exasperated. Bitter.
Atem set his jaw. "It was a fair question."
"And telling her to stay away from me?" Yuugi said, dropping his hand to give him a hard look. "Was that fair, too?"
"She seemed very unsure of what she wanted. I just—"
"I don't care! You had no right to interfere in the first place!" Even in a place as loud as that, Yuugi's voice was sharp enough to attract a few startled glances.
Atem kept his own voice calm and steady. "I felt I had to help. As your friend—"
"As my friend, all you need to do is be there for me! I don't need you to solve my problems for me, and I don't need you to protect me! I told you, I'm not a kid anymore!"
"I know that. But—"
"There is no but," Yuugi cut across him. "They are my problems and my fucked-up marriage. I know what I'm doing—and even if I don't, that's on me. They are my mistakes to make."
Atem huffed. "All I wanted was to take some weight off your shoulders, aibou."
"You don't need you to do that for me," Yuugi replied at once.
"What if I want to?"
"What if I don't want you to?"
Atem closed his mouth. A bit of color had risen to Yuugi's cheeks, visible despite the shadows and all the bizarre lights that hit his skin.
But he couldn't mean that. That was what Atem did: he protected Yuugi. He was the one that got his hands dirty. The one that did whatever needed to be done. Yuugi knew that, and he'd always let him. All those years ago, he'd never—
Years. Years. Gods, where had Atem been? Why hadn't he been here—why hadn't he come earlier? Why now? And if Yuugi didn't need him, if Yuugi did not want to let him fight for him anymore, what was Atem supposed to do?
Yuugi shifted in his seat. Some of the harshness faded off his face as he leaned closer. "Look. I appreciate that you want to... take some weight off my shoulders. But things have changed. I don't need you to fight my bullies for me anymore."
"I thought friends help friends," Atem insisted.
"Yes, and you can help by being there for me, not by trying to fix my problems yourself. You can't just take control of my life and act as you see fit."
Control.
Atem thought back to the Puzzle days: he thought of games with lighters and knives and breaking people's minds without Yuugi knowing. A sort of sickly heat rose in his chest.
"I didn't try to take control," he murmured.
"But that's what you ended up doing. And—you had no right to tell her that. No matter what she said. It was—it was something for me to handle, not you."
Atem stared at him. The feeling in his chest made it feel as if his skin was too tight for him. Shame? Probably. Maybe guilt, too.
He cleared his throat. "I am sorry. I never meant to anger you. I just wanted to help."
"Yeah, well," Yuugi mumbled. He huffed heavily, running his hand through his hair and sending his blond tufts sticking out in all different directions. "I hate this. Please don't make me do this again, okay? Just... Please. Trust that I can handle things myself."
He looked at Atem. Even in the darkness, his violet eyes were piercing, but the eye contact made something in Atem feel less frantic.
"I'm sorry. I will. I do."
Yuugi reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. The alcohol still felt like a kick in Atem's throat, but at least it made the shame in him feel less like a weight pressing down on his lungs.
It was a horrible feeling. He could not remember the last time he'd felt like that. He didn't know if anyone had ever shouted at him like that before; the closest thing he could remember was Shimon admonishing him whenever Atem was being an exceptionally insolent young boy.
He wondered what Shimon would say now. He could almost hear him.
You deserved that, young man.
And he would probably be right. Just as Yuugi was right.
He thought Shimon would really like Yuugi, if he ever met him. He would appreciate the way Yuugi could get through Atem's thick kingly skull.
He sighed, agreeing with the Shimon of his imagination. Yes, he deserved that. He had wronged Yuugi terribly. He should have known better.
He refilled their glasses, spilling some tequila on the table; by Ra, those glasses were really tiny, but they could pack a punch. After a couple of shots and some limes, the edge of Atem's feelings became more fuzzy, rounded.
The place around them was more crowded now: a quick glance confirmed that there were no more empty tables left. Some people were standing with glasses in their hands and the music was turned even further up, to cover the chatter.
Yuugi was looking at his glass, but he did not drink. His shoulders were curled in, closing in on themselves. It made him look tiny.
Atem opened his mouth, ready to blurt out more apologies, but Yuugi beat him to it with a deep sigh and a shake of his head.
"You were right, though. It was a fair question." When Atem frowned, Yuugi explained. "You asked her why she wants to get back with me, right? I asked her something like that, too, a while ago. I should have seen it back then. I should have known." He shook his head again, breathing out a morose laugh. "I guess I did know, deep down. I could see that I'm not what she wants. I haven't been what she wanted for a while now. I just... I didn't want to accept it, I guess. I wanted to hope."
He looked up at Atem with eyes huge in their sadness. He looked devastated and, oddly enough, embarrassed: the hint of a smile on his lips was of the self-deprecating kind, as if Yuugi was laughing at himself.
"There's no shame in hope," Atem said quietly.
Yuugi's smile turned sadder: it made his face twist in all the wrong ways. "Isn't there? We're both guilty. Both me and her." He paused and looked at his glass. He sank further into his own self, his head hanging lower. He did not look up, but Atem was close enough to hear his next words. "I have not been happy, either. Not in a long time. But I kept thinking back to the good times. I held on to them, thinking that, somehow... things would go back to being like that again." He laughed; it was a broken sound. "I'm stupid. All this time I've been holding on to memories that are six, or five years old. If I try hard enough, I can find a few that are four years old, and that's it. No new ones. No recent ones. Nothing good to show for the last few years of marriage. So, you see... I think we were both beating a dead horse long before you came."
He looked up to Atem, who was sitting numb in his place, listening, and Atem didn't know what made his heart catch more painfully: the look on Yuugi's face or what he'd just admitted to.
He didn't get it. He thought he could get Anzu, but he couldn't get this. If both of them were unhappy—
"Then... Why hold on?" he asked.
Yuugi shrugged. "It was easy. We've been together for so long that sometimes it seems that's all I've ever known. After a point it becomes hard to consider something else."
"Yes, but." Atem huffed. He couldn't get this. "You said. You just said you have no good memories. From the past few years."
"Yeah..." The sad smile was back on Yuugi's face. "It wasn't always like that. It was fine, at first. We were good for each other."
"Yes, but when that changed, why didn't you—?"
"You're not supposed to give up so easily, right?" Yuugi said. "Everybody always says that marriage is not always smooth sailing. There are bound to be bumps in the road, and you have to persevere and overcome them. Because this—" he lifted his left hand, showing his wedding ring "—is supposed to be forever. So you persevere. But the question is... At which point do you accept that the road is never getting smoother? How many bumps do you put up with before you admit that... that's just it?"
Yuugi's smile crumbled. He drank his tequila straight, without salt or lime, and slammed glass down a tad too forcefully.
"I am sick of being miserable. And sick of being unhappy."
Atem didn't know what to say. He burned to lean forward and grab Yuugi's hand, but Yuugi's whole body was taut and he didn't look like he wanted to be touched.
Deep, electronic beats filled the silence; somewhere nearby a group of people were laughing, but it seemed like these sounds belonged to a different world. Atem stared, watching the lights hit Yuugi's eyes and slide away.
"I can't make any more excuses," Yuugi said, shaking his head. "I simply can't. We are both holding on out of fear. We want the safety and the stability, but... not each other. We haven't wanted each other in a long time." He spread his palms on the table and looked at his ring. "Damn, it's obvious once you see it. It's so obvious it's sad. I feel so stupid."
He filled their glasses again, and they both drank. Atem could feel it now: there was a buzz in his body, a slight sway in reality, but the pulse in his veins felt more real, somehow.
"You are not stupid, aibou," he said, and thankfully his voice was still coming out steady enough. "You were just optimistic."
"I was desperate."
"No, no—"
"I was so scared when you came back," Yuugi said, and Atem fell silent at once. "I was scared because I already knew I wasn't what she wanted, and I thought that this would be it: the straw that would break the camel's back. And that's so stupid."
"Aibou—"
"No, can't you see? It was already doomed. The minute I started thinking like that, I should have known that it was doomed. I thought you'd be the reason my marriage would fail!" The words stung Atem just as much as it had the first time, and Yuugi must have seen it in his face, for he hurried to lean closer and give him a reassuring look. "I was stupid. I was stupid, Atem, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It was never you. We would have failed whether you showed up or not. I'm sorry."
"Hey." Atem grabbed Yuugi's hand and, when he felt Yuugi return the pressure, something in his stomach flipped. He ignored it. "Don't apologize to me."
"I made you feel responsible. And I probably made you feel guilty for coming back, even though it was out of your control."
"No, you never—"
"I did. Don't lie to me. I did, and it was stupid."
"We both did stupid things," Atem said. He hoped Yuugi could read the apology in his look.
"Yeah, we did. Very stupid." Yuugi propped his head up with his hand and looked up at Atem. "So stupid."
Atem nodded, and he could picture Shimon folding his arms and agreeing with Yuugi, but. If Atem could be stupid together with Yuugi, maybe it wasn't so bad.
"What a pair of idiots, am I right?" he said.
One side of Yuugi's mouth quirked up and, before Atem knew it, they were both laughing. It was reserved and still a bit sad, and maybe the alcohol was mostly to blame, but Atem laughed, looking down at his hands and feeling something tight and horrible inside him unwind. Yuugi's eyes were wet and he wiped them as he laughed, but the smile on his lips was not the weird grimace from before.
"Idiots," Yuugi said, still laughing.
They reached for the salt and sprinkled it on their hands, both somewhat unsteadily. They licked the salt, drank and banged their glasses down, taking a minute to get a grip. They forgot the limes. Atem could feel the music in his bones, and it was nice: it made his blood pump in time with the beat.
"I can't believe it," Yuugi said, hiccupping himself back to partial seriousness. "Why did it it take so long for me to admit it?"
Atem blinked to sober himself up, too; the world was swaying a bit at the edges, but he could focus on Yuugi without difficulty. "Don't beat yourself up, aibou. Maybe you weren't ready to admit it."
"I feel like I've woken up," Yuugi said. He reached up to twirl one of his blond tufts and he looked at it thoughtfully. "I'm—I feel I'm back. Somehow." He let the tuft go: it sprung back into place, glinting neon green in the light that hit it. "It's so weird. It really makes you wonder. Where have I been, all this time? Who even was I?" He looked at Atem with a faint smile on his lips, but his gaze was far away.
The question hit sore spots in Atem, making his own smile fade too, but. But.
"We're both here now," he said. "We're both back." He could remember, in the back of his head, all those times when he'd woken up, literally and figuratively, without knowing who he was: from those first days after Yuugi had completed the Puzzle, to all those days when he didn't even know his own name, and—
He knew. He knew what Yuugi meant. It hadn't been exactly the same for the two of them—of course not, how could it be?—but he knew. He knew the feeling of everything slotting into place; that jolt, like shaking off a bad dream. He knew. But it had all somehow led to this: to sitting in this noisy club, with the music shaking his veins and Yuugi across from him, solid in the soft darkness.
And Atem was lucky. He was so lucky, and he hadn't realized: he was lucky to see this older Yuugi, so lucky to sit across from him and witness this version of him that he never thought he'd see. Good or bad, whatever—they were both back, together, and all the rest was just noise.
He was lucky.
He didn't know what was on his face, but Yuugi looked at him and all the lines around his eyes turned gentle. "Yeah, I guess," he said. "We are both back." His smile was the best thing Atem had ever seen. More glorious than the sun rising over the Great Pyramids or the lilies in the palace gardens.
Yuugi refilled their glasses—sloppily—and raised his. "To being back."
Atem nodded and raised his shot glass in a toast. He wanted to speak, but his throat felt tight, so he just drank, both without feeling the alcohol and feeling everything at once.
"Damn. I'm gonna be a mess at work tomorrow," Yuugi said.
Work. Right. He'd have to go to work.
"What did they say about your hair?" Atem asked, trying to suppress a grimace when he remembered the way Yuugi's hair had looked all black and pulled back tight.
"My colleagues love it. My boss not so much."
A boss. Yuugi having a boss. The notion was absurd.
Atem paused long enough to watch Yuugi down a shot and bite a lime because, honestly, Yuugi's grimaces were delightful to watch, and then he said, "You should be your own boss. With your talent and the knack you have at games—"
"I was, at first," Yuugi said, waving a hand and nearly knocking over the bottle of tequila. "But the money was less. The job at this company is paying good and has all sorts of perks—"
"Do you really care about this sort of thing?"
The question made Yuugi pause. He thought about it for a while, then the same faint smile of before appeared on his lips. "Not anymore, honestly. But I did, back then."
"Why?"
Yuugi shrugged. "You know how it is. You get married, you are expected to get a house and settle down and... That kind of stuff. You need money and... Something stable." He laughed. "Funny how that worked out, huh?" He opened his arms, showcasing himself as if saying, look at me now.
'Funny' wasn't the word Atem would have used, but he could see the irony.
Yuugi shook his head as he refilled their glasses. "I made a mess of it all, huh?"
"You can always change what you don't like, aibou," Atem said, leaning closer to be heard over the music. "You can do whatever you want. You are Yuugi Mutou. The only Yuugi Mutou in the world."
Yuugi laughed, looking pleasantly surprised, and the sparkle in his eyes made Atem's lungs flip. "Yes, you've said that before."
"I mean it. You are one of a kind," Atem said, wondering how on earth could someone have Yuugi beside them and not see that? How could one be with him out of habit, or out of a sense of security, and not because every one of their cells screamed out of a need to be close to him? How could one focus on Yuugi's shortcomings—how, when Atem could find none?
Yuugi's brows did something weird: something between a frown and an incredulous scrunch. He took the shot glass out of Atem's hand. "Do you need some water?"
"I'm not drunk," Atem said at once. Sure, everything swayed when he moved too fast, but this wasn't the alcohol talking. Maybe the alcohol made him lean a bit closer to Yuugi, or look a tad longer in his eyes, but his hands were steady.
Still, Yuugi filled a glass with water for him. Atem drank a shot instead and heard Yuugi giggle, presumably at his ridiculous grimaces.
"Oh, there's something I forgot," Yuugi said, cutting through the sudden wave of haziness.
Atem frowned, feeling a bit out of touch with the muscles of his face. "What?"
"I got you a gift but I never gave it to you."
"A gift?"
"Yes. I had it made specially for you, but.. You know. With everything that happened these last few days, I kinda... forgot." He laughed and leaned on his elbows, swaying a bit as he did so. "I think you'll like it. Remind me to give it to you when we get home."
Things were getting so fuzzy that Atem doubted whether he'd be able to think straight by the time they got home, but he said, "Okay." Then he mulled it over. "You didn't have to get me anything, aibou."
"Oh, shut up," Yuugi said with such an exaggerated eye roll that Atem laughed. "I got you a gift and you will accept it."
"Okay, but—"
Yuugi pointed a warning finger to Atem's face, making him fall silent. "You'll take the gift. And tomorrow, we'll go shopping."
"Shopping?" He couldn't really put his thoughts in order, but somewhere deep inside him something told him that shopping was a bad idea.
Yuugi rolled his eyes, but he smiled, and Atem's heart skipped a beat. "I know what you're going to say, and save it. Just accept you're not going anywhere."
Atem did not argue; it was hard to argue when Yuugi was smiling like that. Right now, he wasn't going anywhere, anyway.
With the air of someone that had won, Yuugi grabbed the bottle again to fill their glasses. "Plus, I want my leather pants back."
Now, this was unfair. "You never even wear them anymore."
"I might wear them now that I'm single again."
"But you are not single. Not yet. I mean—"
"Oh, right." Yuugi put the bottle down. He lifted his left hand and reached for his wedding ring. After a bit of struggle, he took it off and placed it on the table. "There."
Atem froze. The shock cut through the fog of the alcohol like a knife, sobering him up in seconds. The wedding ring glinted in the neon lights, pulling Atem's gaze like gravity.
Yuugi had taken it off. He had—
"Aibou." He hesitated. He wanted to ask if he was sure of what he'd just done. If he was certain.
Maybe Yuugi was too drunk to think straight. Atem looked up: Yuugi took a deep breath in and let in out tremulously. "Yeah, I'm sure," he replied to the question Atem had never said out loud.
He looked sober enough. Atem still didn't move.
"Aibou..." He had no idea what he wanted to say. The ring looked innocuous, sitting there next to the bowl of salt, but Atem felt as if his stomach was plummeting.
"We're out of limes," Yuugi observed. He lifted the bottle. "And almost out of tequila."
"We are out of our minds," Atem murmured.
Yuugi burst out laughing. "Speak for yourself."
Atem shook his head. He looked at Yuugi's left hand, and the ridge the ring had left on his finger. He still felt as if falling.
"I hope you won't regret this in the morning, aibou," he said. And he really did.
"It's the first thing I've done in a while that I'm sure I'm not gonna regret," Yuugi said.
"Still," Atem said. "Don't—"
He paused. Don't what? Wasn't he the one that had just said that Yuugi should change whatever he didn't like? And Yuugi had admitted that he wasn't happy, and—Why was Atem arguing now?
The determination in Yuugi's eyes was irrefutable. But, once they were out of there, away from the trance-like beat of the music and the colorful shadows, would Yuugi change his mind? As a friend, Atem should be the logical one and insist that Yuugi thought about this with a clear head. He wouldn't want to go through watching Yuugi take this back.
"Aibou," he said again, proud at the stability and the firmness in his voice. "Don't make such decisions lightly."
"I did not make it lightly," Yuugi shot back at once, still looking determined, but Atem shook his head.
"Just. Think about it again. With a clear head."
"Atem—"
"I don't want you to do something you'll regret."
Yuugi chuckled. "Didn't we agree that you can't protect me from everything? This is my decision—"
"Just this once," Atem said, hearing the anxiousness in his voice and not wanting to explore where that was coming from, "listen to me."
Yuugi looked in his eyes for a few beats. "I'm not putting it back on," he said.
"Keep it in your pocket, then. Just in case."
Yuugi seemed like he would argue, but eventually he just sighed. "Okay. I'll think it over tomorrow. But I won't change my mind."
"Think it over for a week," Atem said.
"What—?"
"A week," Atem insisted. "And then, if you still haven't changed your mind... You talk to Anzu."
Yuugi's face scrunched in frustration, but he nodded. "Okay. I guess you're right."
He put the ring back in his pocket.
The cab ride home was a mess: Yuugi and Atem both teetered their way down to the street level, grasping at the other's shoulder whenever one of them swayed too much, giggling to the stupidest things. Atem had drunk plenty of water to counter-balance the effects of the alcohol, but the lights of the city swam wildly as he stared out of the cab's window. The quiet felt fuzzy in his ears after the loud music of the bar.
They reached Yuugi's apartment building and nearly collapsed against the walls of the elevator, half-laughing at nothing. He kept saying to Yuugi that he wasn't drunk but, by Osiris, he couldn't remember experiencing something like this before. Maybe he was drunk. He would swear he was walking in a straight line, but the world seemed to slide off-center with every step.
Somehow, through the haze, realization hit him every now and then and he looked at Yuugi's left hand, feeling his heart thud loudly every time he confirmed that the ring was no longer there. But. But. Why was he focusing so much on that?
"I've got a gift for you, come on," Yuugi said once they were inside. The apartment was dark but Yuugi missed the light switch when he tried to flip it and did not try again. They kicked off their shoes somewhere in the hallway and Atem followed Yuugi to his room.
Once he sat down on Yuugi's bed, the world was sent in such a mad spin his stomach lurched. He groaned and took a deep breath.
"You okay?" Yuugi laughed. Atem grunted in reply.
A light went on but, thankfully, it was soft: just the reading lamp on Yuugi's nightstand.
Yuugi dropped next to him and left a box on Atem's thighs. "Here," he said. "For you."
Atem took the box and opened it. Inside was a blue scarab. Lapis lazuli; he'd recognize it anywhere. It was carved masterfully, with skill that even the artisans of Atem's palace would envy.
For a few seconds, his mind went very quiet. The blue of the lapis lazuli felt like a soothing whisper, and his eyes rested easily on the familiar shape. He'd seen hundreds of scarabs like this. Thousands. They were part of his memories, and so they were a part of him.
He knew the meaning. Rebirth.
He lifted it off the box with reverent fingers, and noticed that it was a bracelet. He smiled at the same time that he felt his eyes well up. "Aibou... This is..." His words came out thick and were drowned out quickly, but he barely noticed.
Next to him, Yuugi was smiling. "You want me to help you put it on?"
Atem nodded, and Yuugi tied it around his wrist for him. "Thank you," he said, even though it felt too little to express the weight of the emotion in his chest.
"It's yours. Welcome back," Yuugi said, still smiling with the light of all the stars in the universe.
His. It was his.
It meant rebirth. It was his.
Atem woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and a foul taste in his mouth. He was in Yuugi's bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes—no shoes, thankfully—and apparently he had fallen asleep on top of the covers.
He turned around with a groan and saw Yuugi fast asleep sideways on the bed: he was also still wearing his suit from yesterday, but at least he had made an effort to cover his legs with one edge of the duvet.
Atem rubbed his eyes. His head hurt so bad he wished he could just take it off and throw it in the trash. And the feeling in his throat. Sweet Isis. He needed water, and he needed to never drink tequila again.
He couldn't even remember falling asleep: he remembered lying on Yuugi's bed for 'just a minute, just 'till I feel less dizzy, aibou' and gazing at his bracelet.
His bracelet.
He looked at it with bleary eyes and his soul shivered at seeing the morning light glinting on the lapis lazuli. He stared at it for a while, almost forgetting the horrible feeling in his head and his stomach.
Yesterday felt like a blur of too many feelings and noise, and he felt somewhat winded, but right now, everything was too quiet and still and... right. Yuugi was sleeping next to him with his mouth half-open, and he would probably sport the same headache as Atem once he woke up, but for a while, it all felt right. They were both back.
It was not raining—yet—and Bakura was marginally thankful for that. It was nice not to have to worry about leaving wet footprints everywhere. Tonight, he needed to be discreet.
Well. He wasn't sure if he needed to, but it felt right to him. There was nothing like slithering behind the heads of unsuspecting civilians, barely making a cat's ear flick as he tiptoed by. It was a sort of control he enjoyed having. Being invisible felt like raw power, more so than the gun at his side and the five knives he carried.
Approaching Kobayashi's house was easy. He'd done it enough times already over the past few days, watching and observing the movements of the people who lived there. He already knew what to expect: the nanny left at eight o'clock in the evening, the maid at ten; Kobayashi's wife would spend the night in the living room, typing away on her laptop or talking on the phone, while her two daughters would already be in bed. Kobayashi himself would be home at eleven—or midnight, at worst. No security, no guards: Kobayashi no longer had the resources for this sort of expenses.
Bakura wouldn't even need to pick a lock to get in. The maid always took the trash out right before her shift ended, leaving the kitchen door open: after all, it was only for a minute, just long enough for her to get to the trashcans across the street and back. More than enough time for Bakura to slip in, crawl behind the dining table and upstairs, right behind Mrs Kobayashi's back.
Easy. Easy.
He liked this. He didn't like the shit that got him to this place, or all the shit he'd do afterwards, but this? This felt as right as breathing.
He crouched close to the walls, staying low, aware of every sound in the house and its immediate vicinity. He knew where he had to go: he'd spotted Kobayashi's room from the outside, while staking the house from the roof of a nearby building. His daughters' bedrooms were down the hall, as was his wife's. Kobayashi's room was off-limits for anyone else in the house, even for the maid: he locked the door himself before leaving in the morning and unlocked it when he returned home at night.
Well. No matter. Breaking into places he shouldn't be was Bakura's specialty.
He took out a bob pin and got to working on the lock. Honestly, the internet had been an invaluable resource: he'd found tons of instructive videos on how to pick all kinds of locks, and even disarm alarms. That knowledge, coupled with Bakura's intuitive skill with all sorts of latches and traps, made picking Kobayashi's lock a matter of seconds. Still, Bakura savored the sweet shudder that traveled down his spine when he heard the subtle click and the door swung open.
He got inside, quick and fluid like a draft of air, and closed the door behind him. He locked it again, to make sure Kobayashi wouldn't be alerted to his presence before walking in, and took a look around.
The first thing he did was unlock the window, just in case he would need a quick escape route. Then he scanned the room for hidden weapons or alarm buttons. He did not turn on the light nor used the flashlight he kept in his pocket. The subtler his presence, the better—plus, the illumination from the street was more than enough for his eyes.
It was easy to find all the hiding spots in Kobayashi's room: they attracted Bakura's gaze like beacons. He found three guns, all loaded, and one beautiful knife: he put the guns in his backpack but kept the knife for himself, strapping it next to the one on his calf. He carried Ryou's knife with him, too, but that was well-hidden, to be used only in case of an emergency. He would like to avoid staining it, if possible.
He found small amounts of cash hidden here and there, but they were crumbs compared to the sum Bakura had come to collect. He didn't touch them either. He wasn't there to steal that money. He was there to ask for them, nicely. The guns he'd pilfered were a different matter altogether: it had been a preclusive measure, just in case Kobayashi decided to be brave and fight off the intruder gangster-style. Bakura didn't want to risk taking a bullet for the sake of Yamasaki's stupid money.
Although, he had to admit, Kobayashi would be a massive idiot if he thought he would get away with shooting him. Bakura was just a messenger: if he failed, Yamasaki—or Ishido—would send another. Bakura counted on that to get the job done quickly and cleanly. If Kobayashi knew what was best for him, he would cooperate.
He snooped around a bit more, until he found what he was looking for: the metal door of a safe, hidden behind the liquor cabinet. Bakura could try and pick the lock for shits and giggles, but he reminded himself he was not there to steal. Which, okay. He'd rather just steal the money and leave like a gentleman, than doing what he was about to, but the job description had been clear. So he would do his fucking job.
He found a nice hiding spot and waited.
Kobayashi arrived twenty minutes later. Bakura heard a car's engine, the slam of the front door, then footsteps on the hallway outside. He waited, gripping the gun in his hands, and glued his gaze to the thin strip of light at the base of the door.
Kobayashi unlocked the door and walked in. At a first glance, he looked posh and polished: his neat suit cut clean angles on his body and his leather shoes shone even before he turned on the light. Upon a second inspection though, Bakura saw the cracks: the slight nervous tick in his fingers, the hunted look in his eyes as he locked the door behind him. The man turned the light on, threw the jacket of his suit on his bed, and started fumbling with the knot of his tie. He didn't notice the shadow in the corner.
Bakura walked out of his hiding spot and touched the barrel of his gun to the back of Kobayashi's head.
"Don't make a sound."
Kobayashi froze; even his gasp was cut short, quickly stifled behind his teeth. Bakura could see them both reflected in a mirror on the wall: he could see Kobayashi's eyes, wide-open in terror, and his own black-clad hand holding the gun. He avoided looking at his face.
"Your wife is watching TV downstairs and your daughters are sleeping," Bakura said, keeping his voice carefully quiet, just loud enough for Kobayashi to hear. "Let's try not to disturb them, shall we?"
He could hear Kobayashi's dry swallow. "Who are you?"
"The question is, who am I working for. And the answer would be Yamasaki."
Kobayashi's knees nearly gave away underneath him. Bakura pressed the gun a bit more firmly into the soft flesh at the base of his skull.
"I... I... Please," Kobayashi whispered. "Put... Put the gun away and let's talk about it."
"I am not here to talk," Bakura said. "I am here because you owe three million."
"I—I know, but... Please. If you just give me one more week—"
"I don't think I can do that."
"Please."
The terror in Kobayashi's voice was horrible to hear. Bakura gripped the gun more steadily. He had inspired terror worse than that without flinching; he could do it again.
"I don't get to decide that. I am just the messenger," he said. "And I have to return with either your money or your head. Or your daughters' heads. You decide."
Saying this sort of threat aloud was hard but, once the words were out, they sounded like they belonged on his lips, like his voice was made for it. It made his blood run a few degrees colder—because his voice didn't really sound like that anymore, did it? Not on a daily basis, not when—not when he talked to Malik. Or Enki. Or even Ryou. He would have noticed.
It is a job, his brain whispered to himself. He knew how to do it; he was good at it. That was all.
Kobayashi sniffed, whimpering behind his teeth like a dog. "Please don't hurt them. I need—I need to pay up Minoas, too. If you take that money, I'm done for. Just—just give me one week."
"That doesn't sound like my problem."
"Please, let me—let me call Yamasaki. I'll talk to him."
"Mr Yamasaki is no longer interested in what you have to say. He wants what he is owed. It will be your money or your family's blood. Pick one."
He could feel himself float a few inches behind his body. The tension in his muscles was real, the grip on his gun was solid, but his consciousness was standing just a few degrees off-center, hovering a step back and watching. He felt ghost-like. Pulling the strings in his own body from a distance. Making his voice and his face do that.
He wished the man would just give the damn money.
"Okay," Kobayashi swallowed. "Okay, let me just... Let me just get it."
Bakura took a step back and lowered the gun a few inches. Kobayashi turned around, his gaze flickering to Bakura's face, then to one of of the drawers to his right: the drawer where he had been hiding one of his guns.
"That won't help you," Bakura said. "Open the safe."
Kobayashi obeyed, pushing the back panel of his liquor cardboard out of the way to reveal the safe door. Bakura kept his gun on him, moving to stand between him and the door, blocking the exit.
From that point on, it was more or less smooth sailing: Kobayashi put packs of bills into the bag that Bakura threw to him. Every now and then he looked up with a silent plea in his eyes, only to keep going when he saw the barrel of the gun.
After he was done, he gave the bag to Bakura. "Please," he said again. "Minoas will kill me. He'll have my head."
"It would either be him or Yamasaki," Bakura said, just barely holding back from rolling his eyes and saying, What did you expect? You play with fire, you get burned by it. End of fucking story.
Bakura bound and gagged Kobayashi, just to make sure that he wouldn't alert anyone. The cops could hardly do anything to Ishido and those who worked for him, but Bakura would like to avoid unnecessary trouble.
He left Kobayashi face-down in the centre of his room and left through the window. Climbing down from the second floor was easy; he landed on the ground softly, kept close to the shadows of the fence and climbed over it when he found a blind spot.
It was over. It was fucking over. He had done it.
By the time Bakura hit the back roads, a drizzle had started falling from the sky, light but freezing. He paused at a protected spot to take off his hood and hide his weapons. He secured the backpack with the money on his shoulders and ran a couple more blocks. Once he deemed he was far enough, he hailed at cab and rushed inside, shaking droplets out of his hair.
"28-11, Ebisu 2-chome," he said. That was as close to the Golden Egg as any cab would take him.
The name of the street alone was enough for the driver to frown and give Bakura a long, suspicious look through the rearview mirror, but he drove without saying anything.
The drizzle had turned into rain by the time the cab left him at his destination, and Bakura walked the rest of the way in a brisk pace. He decided to get in the Golden Egg through the main door, because why the hell not? He did not feel like sneaking in through the side doors: he'd done enough sneaking around tonight.
He walked past the small line that had formed outside the Golden Egg, ignoring the startled stares of the people that were waiting. The bouncer gave him a quick glance and let him in at one.
"Yo! Bakura!" another man shouted cheerfully. Bakura returned the greeting with a nod without turning to see who it was. More and more people seemed to recognize him around here, and he wasn't sure if he was pleased about it or uneasy. Bit of both, really.
Enki was not on bouncer duty tonight, but Bakura crossed paths with him on his way downstairs. He gave Bakura a questioning look as he passed, looking markedly less indifferent than usual. Bakura responded with a quick thumbs up and went on his way.
It was fight night in the underground casino, albeit one that Bakura did not have to participate in. He spared the cage a glance, but he recognized none of the fighters. One of them, though, looked worse for wear; worse than what Bakura had looked like on his first night there. The commentator's voice was annoyingly loud; coupled with the cheers and the shouts of the crowd, it created a pandemonium that made Bakura's skull rattle.
He huffed and squeezed his way to the other side of the room, where Ishido's table stood in its remote alcove. He made out his silhouette from afar, sitting at the head of the table as always, overlooking his little dingy kingdom. The single light above the table was not enough to dispel the shadows and the haze from their cigars' smoke, but it was enough for Bakura to count four bodyguards, plus another man sitting close to Ishido. Yamasaki.
They were waiting for him. Good. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Bakura rolled his shoulders back and tilted his chin up as he approached. When he climbed the steps up the platform, all eyes turned to him, the previous conversation dying out.
Yamasaki shuffled in his seat, looking excited and a bit impatient; Ishido was as inscrutable as ever. "Mr Bakura. Right on time," he said, as if he was welcoming him to a tea party.
Bakura did not greet them, knowing it was bold and doing it on purpose. He took the bag off his shoulders and left in on the table, in front of Yamasaki. "Done," he said.
Yamasaki did not speak. He he snapped his fingers to the bodyguard behind him, who hurried to pick up the bag and rummaged inside for a while, counting the packs of money.
"It's all here, sir," he said.
Yamasaki nodded. "Very good, very good. Kobayashi had been a pain in my ass for way too long. Did he cooperate?"
"Eventually," Bakura replied.
"Any casualties?"
"No."
"Did anyone else see you?"
"No."
"Hm. Cleaner than I thought. Not bad for a newbie. I wouldn't mind to see Kobayashi's brains spattered on a wall, but, well." He chuckled. "His other loaners will probably do that tomorrow."
Bakura didn't know if this was supposed to be a joke, or if he was expected to laugh. He said nothing.
Yamasaki reached into the bag and took out three packs of bills. "As promised... Your pay." He left the money on the centre of the table, as if he couldn't be bothered to push them towards Bakura.
Bakura made no move to reach for it, either. Something in Ishido's gaze made him keep still. It had been nothing obvious, but Ishido's eyes seemed to have taken a steely edge, a knife-like quality that hit Bakura like a warning. So he didn't move.
Yamasaki stood up and buttoned his suit. "Well, I should get going. I have more business to attend to. Not as clean ones as this, I'm afraid."
"Alas," Ishido said.
"Thank you, dear friend, for your hospitality. And of course, for lending me your men."
Ishido gave him a measured, very mild smile. "No need to thank me, Yamasaki. My men are always at your disposal."
Bakura wasn't sure he liked that. The cold undertone in Ishido's voice made the skin behind his neck crawl.
"Until next time, then. And have fun," Yamasaki said, nodding towards the cage; the match had just ended and the crowd was cheering like crazy.
Yamasaki left, and Bakura was left alone with Ishido and his three bodyguards. The commentator was shouting something through the speakers, incomprehensible in the racket. The money was still waiting at the centre of the table.
Bakura reached out to take the packs of bills. They were his, after all, for 'a clean job'.
A hand shot out, grabbing Bakura's wrist. There was a sudden shuffle and too many hands on him: before he realized it, one side of his face slammed against the table, hitting the hard surface with a thud that echoed through his skull.
Adrenaline hit him like electricity, making his muscles sing with the instinct to fight run hide, only to realize that he couldn't move: a huge palm was pressing his head down, squishing his nose and half his face against the table. A pulling sensation and a dull pain told him that his left arm was twisted around his back, and an elbow was pressing the back of his neck. His legs had buckled under him, useless and impossible to find their footing, and he couldn't—
He could move his right arm. It was splayed out on the table, held outstretched, pressed against the tabletop so hard that Bakura didn't manage to move it an inch. He saw his fingers curl and uncurl as if they belonged to somebody else, frantic movements coming from some animal part of his brain, and he grunted with the effort to release himself, trying to breathe.
He'd done the job. He'd done nothing wrong. Why the fuck were they—What had—Where was Ishido?
The hand that had pinned him down was strong, but Bakura managed to angle his head enough to look up with one eye.
Ishido had stood up and was walking around the table with slow, deliberately measured steps. He came to a halt at the spot where Yamasaki had been a minute ago and looked down at the money. Slowly, he picked up the packs of bills, one by one, and put them in the pocket of his suit. Then he straightened his jacket again, brushing off imaginary dust.
Bakura could hear nothing but himself, breathing hard through gritted teeth. Even the roar of the crowd was faraway; useless background noise.
Ishido looked down at Bakura's heaving form, and leaned forward slightly, just enough for him to fill Bakura's field of vision. "Never disrespect me in front of my colleagues again," he said in an impossibly quiet voice.
Bakura stared back at him, bewilderment shocking him into a momentary stillness. "What?" he managed to say, lips scraping the wood of the table.
"You heard me. When I give you a job, you take it. No questions asked. No objections."
Bakura's heart dropped to his stomach. Ishido was talking about that little scene a few days ago, when Bakura had said he preferred the cage. It had angered Ishido enough to threaten to break Bakura's hand and—
Bakura's gaze flicked to his right hand. It was still trapped, going rapidly numb from the pressure that was put on it, all splayed out like a freaky exhibit in a museum—or a piece of meat on a butcher's table.
Panic hit him and he writhed again, only to be pushed down harder by the hands that were all over him. No weak points. There were three bodyguards, and he was just one man. Armed, yes, but so were they—and Bakura's weapons were useless right now. Out of reach.
"Do you understand me?" Ishido said.
Bakura swallowed, telling himself to calm down calm down calm down. Ishido wouldn't do it. He needed him. He needed him functional. This was just a display of power. Nothing more.
A game. A game where you lost if you didn't keep your head. So fucking keep it, his brain growled at him.
He took a deep breath.
"Do you understand me?" Ishido repeated. He was waiting.
"...Yes."
Ishido did not move. For one stretched-out, crazy second, Bakura thought they'd break his hand anyway, and his whole body locked up, preparing for the pain. He wouldn't cry out, no matter what. He wouldn't. He wouldn't—
Ishido waved a hand and the bodyguards released him. The pressure was gone as unexpectedly as it'd come, leaving Bakura's legs scrambling for purchase.
As dignified as he could, Bakura straightened up, pretending that he couldn't feel the pain: the swelling along the left side of his face, the gnawing numbness on his right arm, or the bruises forming where his ribs hit the table and where the elbows of the bodyguards pressed too hard.
He brushed his bangs off his face, squaring his shoulders as if this had, indeed, been nothing more than a pleasant tea party. He looked at Ishido.
He had taken Bakura's money. All over a stupid thing—over Bakura saying he didn't want the fucking job. Nevermind that Bakura had done it anyway, nevermind that he had frozen his ass off on a roof for three days, watching that asshole Kobayashi.
"Anything else?" Bakura said, his voice grating his throat like shards of rubble.
"No. Dismissed."
Feeling like it was moving through thick tar, Bakura nodded his head in a not-quite bow and watched the flicker of satisfaction on Ishido's face.
I'll drag you down to the shadows with me when this is over, Bakura thought. Can you see it it my eyes?
This was a fucking game, and he'd keep his head and play it.
.
.
.
.
.
Author's note:
I still haven't decided if there'll be any sexy times in this fic. Probably nothing too explicit, but. Stuff will happen. Definitely. (Eventually)
Thank you all for your comments! They gave me an incredible boost during the long long months of this lockdown. You guys are all amazing! Take care of yourselves and stay safe~
