Chapter 19: Too late to turn back
It was the hangover from hell. The moment Yuugi opened his eyes, he became aware of the nausea that roiled in his stomach, the throbbing in his head and the godawful taste in his mouth. He groaned, thinking he'd give up everything for a glass of water.
Then his gaze fell on Atem and everything else sort of... went away.
The yami was fast asleep next to Yuugi, spread out over the covers, one leg tangled in the blanket and the other hanging halfway out of the bed. His position looked uncomfortable, but his face was serene, eyes closed. The scarab bracelet was still on his wrist, resting inches from his face, as if he'd fallen asleep while gazing at it.
For a second, Yuugi was unable to do anything but stare. He didn't even have the courage to form thoughts. Everything was so quiet. Warm, still, and quiet.
He watched the morning light diffuse along the tips of Atem's eyelashes. Whatever was left from his eyeliner was smudged around his eyes, but he still looked... dazzling. He was so close Yuugi could feel the change in the mattress, the dip in the bed under Atem's weight. He didn't know how they'd both ended up in such awkward positions; Yuugi couldn't even remember falling asleep, let alone—
A half-formed panic hit him and he looked at himself, only to calm down again when he saw they were both still fully clothed. Even that small, sudden movement sent a wave of nausea through him, but Yuugi still deflated in relief, letting his head drop back against the pillow.
It was okay. He was still wearing his suit pants and button-down shirt, and Atem was wearing the same skinny jeans and gray sweater as yesterday, so that was...
Yuugi blushed. He felt embarrassed about the suspicion that had just crossed his mind, but he guessed it was a logical thing to wonder about when you woke up in bed with someone else. Especially after being so drunk. Because... Well. Atem was there, and... People did silly stuff when drunk.
Not that Yuugi wanted to do silly stuff with Atem. No, he just... He'd missed him so much he couldn't get enough of him now. He wanted to burrow closer and see just how warm Atem's new body was, lay his ear against his rib cage and hear the beat of his heart, feel the slow rise and fall of his chest. He wanted to feel that breath against his skin, maybe against his ear, feel the rumble of his voice as Atem spoke to him, and then maybe, just maybe, it would really sink in that Atem was back. Maybe, if he was allowed to feel every inch of Atem's body with his fingertips, maybe it would all sink in. If Yuugi was allowed to lean over and put his lips against Atem's temple, or against his brow, maybe—
The idea made Yuugi's pulse climb up to his throat.
Thank god he didn't try to do any of that last night. It would be so hard to explain. And anyway, he was being stupid. He'd had many sleepovers with Jounouchi and Honda and he'd never worried about things like that, so why would he treat Atem any differently? Atem was his friend, like the rest of the guys, and in any case, Yuugi would never do anything untoward, not even when drunk. Unless—
If last night Atem had decided to lean closer, in that affectionate way of his, perhaps to thank Yuugi for his gift, or to brush a tuft of hair behind his ear as he so often did, and Yuugi had been drunk, with all his defenses down and his impulse cranked up to eleven, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think that perhaps Yuugi would have leaned closer too, just to see if Atem's breath had felt as real as the rest of him, and—
Yuugi's mind came to a blank stop, his heart beating fast.
What the hell was he thinking about? God, this was stupid. This was Atem, he was Yuugi's friend, and anyway, Yuugi was not—
Was he still drunk? Maybe. Half of the tequila must still be in his bloodstream. That was all. He needed a shower and a coffee. A cold shower might help with... Yeah. It would help.
He tried not to wake Atem up as he pushed himself to a sitting position. Then he had to pause, because moving sent the room spinning wildly. He held back a groan for the sake of being quiet, but god, this was awful. Why had he thought that a bottle of tequila was a good idea?
Through the haze of the hangover and his horrible headache and all the very, very stupid thoughts about Atem, somehow he managed to remember about Anzu and—
His gaze fell on his left hand. He stared at the slightly discolored dent his wedding ring had left on his finger and felt all his insides sink to the bottom of his stomach.
He had taken it off. He'd done it.
For a moment, that was too much for his foggy mind to handle. Of course, the ring was still in a pocket somewhere, but still. Looking at the empty spot on his finger Yuugi couldn't help but think, What have I done?
Would he regret it later? Once the last of the alcohol was out his system and the weight of mundane life settled on him again, would he change his mind?
A few days ago he had been thinking about getting back with her, and now...
"Aibou?"
Atem's voice was a mumble, barely a word, but it was enough to thaw Yuugi's limbs. He turned around and saw Atem squinting in the morning light; he looked pale and disoriented, but he was also soft from sleep, disheveled in a way that made Yuugi feel lucky to witness. He was probably one of the very few people who had seen Atem like this.
Yuugi smiled. "Hey."
Atem tried to smile back, but instead he made a grimace. "Ugh, Ra. My head."
"Yeah, I know. Sorry to wake you up."
"No, you didn't. I woke up earlier, but I—I feel terrible," Atem groaned with another grimace, rubbing his temples.
"It's a hangover. Hang on, I might have something for it." Yuugi got up, took a deep breath to settle his stomach and shuffled to the bathroom to rummage in the drug cabinet. He found a box of vitamins and minerals that were supposed to help with hangovers and took it back to the bedroom.
Atem had pushed himself to a sitting position, looking nauseous. Yuugi threw the box at him; it fell on the blanket with a soft rattle.
"Take one of these. And drink plenty of water."
"What about you?"
"I need to get ready for work." He hadn't even checked the time; he was probably late. And he reeked of alcohol. He needed that bath.
He took a clean change of clothes with him and went for a quick shower. The water didn't do much to make him feel better and his stomach turned every time he moved too fast but, by the time he'd brushed his teeth and put on clean clothes, he felt presentable enough. Now all he needed was a strong coffee and a cab, because there was no way he would be able to walk all the way to the company.
When he got out of the bath, he found Atem sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. Yuugi poured a glass of water, eyeing Atem with concern. "Have you ever drunk that much before?"
"I think so...? I'd drank plenty of wine once or twice, when I was... pharaoh. But—" He paused, looking like he might puke, but after a couple of breaths he seemed to regain his control over his stomach. "Wine wasn't as strong as... what we had yesterday."
"Yeah... Sorry about that."
Atem shook his head and, judging by the grimace that crossed his face, he immediately regretted the action.
"Throwing up might make you feel better," Yuugi said as he reached for his briefcase and checked to see if everything was in order. When Atem looked scandalized, Yuugi gave him a wistful grin. "Trust me."
"You do that often?"
Yuugi hesitated. He had never been a heavy drinker, but no one got through college without experiencing a hangover once or twice—not to mention all the rough nights after Anzu had asked him for a divorce.
"No, not too often. But I did go to a few parties during college. And we'd all had to deal with Ryou when he was—" He stopped talking. He wasn't sure if he should say that.
It was too late, though. "When Ryou was what?" Atem asked.
Yuugi winced. "There was a time when Ryou was... not well. He used to drink a lot, among... other things. Anyway," he waved a hand, to show that this wasn't the time to get into that. "It was a long time ago. Fact is, throwing up helps."
Atem made a disgusted face. "Let's hope I won't have to."
"Drink plenty of water and eat something. I need to go. See you in the afternoon."
"Okay, aibou. Make sure to eat something, too."
"I will," Yuugi said, even though his stomach felt incapable of holding anything right now. He could still smell tequila in his breath. Ugh. Horrible.
"Morning, Mutou! Rough night?" Haru at the front desk said the moment Yuugi walked in.
"Umm... Sort of," Yuugi said with a small smile, wondering just how bad he looked. The cab ride had not helped his nausea.
He sealed himself in his office, ordered a chamomile and popped an aspirin for the headache. When lunch-time rolled around, he wasn't feeling like dying anymore; he even felt good enough to attempt eating a sandwich.
Last night's events were a mess in his head, and it all made him feel dazed and more than a little guilty. The evening had been one long series of impulsive actions—and Yuugi did not regret anything of what he'd said or done or decided, but he felt he could have been more... graceful about it.
He picked up his phone and started typing.
To: Other Me, 12:38
How do you feel?
It took a while for the reply to arrive.
From: Other Me, 13:02
I believe Ammit's stomach might be preferable to this.
Yuugi smiled. Well, if Atem could joke, that must mean he was feeling okay enough.
He spent the rest of his workday with his mind halfway elsewhere. He was supposed to review some characters' concept art, but his mind seemed to be in a loop, constantly revolving around Atem: Atem leaning closer, Atem smiling when he saw his gift, Atem licking the salt off his hand before downing a tequila shot, Atem—
The thought of seeing him in the afternoon made Yuugi irrationally nervous. For whatever reason, it all made him feel like a flock of restless butterflies was trapped in his stomach, and he was certain it had nothing to do with the after effects of the tequila.
He was excited and afraid at the same time. It was so absurd.
His phone buzzed and he hurried to take it out of his pocket, expecting to see another text from Atem, but this time it was Jounouchi.
From: Jou, 13:05
Hey Yuug are u free tonight
Yuugi hesitated. He might be feeling nervous about it, but he couldn't wait to go home and spent some more time with his yami. He was thinking that, maybe, they could pick a movie from the huge list Atem had made, and they could make some pop corn and sit close to each other on the couch, which wouldn't be exactly like sleeping next to each other, but—
Yuugi groaned and rubbed his eyes. What was wrong with him? Maybe Jounouchi's presence would bring him back to his senses. Being among more of his friends would be... grounding.
To: Jou, 13:05
Sure, why?
From: Jou, 13:06
Seto says he wants to tell you something. We're both coming over after work
Oh, Jounouchi and Seto Kaiba. He hoped Atem would be up for it. Although, Kaiba tended to be a lot more tame whenever Jounouchi was around.
Yuugi managed to make it to quitting time with only a mild headache. He rode a cab back home, barely resisting the urge to text Atem again. It was much easier when they could just talk in each others' heads.
When he reached his apartment, he found the yami lying on the couch, drinking tea and watching a documentary. He was wearing a pair of sweatpants he must have dug out of some forgotten drawer, and he looked like he needed two days of straight sleep, even though he claimed he felt a lot less miserable than what he had in the morning. The scarab bracelet was still on his wrist, glinting against the pale skin. The sight made Yuugi smile.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," he said. After a second's hesitation, he leaned over and ruffled Atem's hair, which made the yami's face light up and Yuugi's heart to beat faster.
He persuaded himself to disentangle his hand from Atem's hair and padded to his bedroom to take off his work suit. The moment he walked in, he saw that last night's mess was gone. The bed was made, and all the clothes and shoes and gift wrappings they'd left lying around were nowhere to be seen. That was one of Atem's most bizarre habits: he was always tidying after himself, making his bed and straightening the covers with military precision. Yuugi doubted that this was a habit left over from his pharaoh days, and it definitely wasn't a habit Yuugi had instilled on him.
Yuugi wasn't going to complain, of course, but he felt a small twinge of regret that all traces from last night were gone. He almost wished something would have remained as it were, as a reminder. The room seemed too cold otherwise.
Well, Atem was waiting for him in the next room. And, if Yuugi were lucky, they might make a mess again.
He longed for it with all his heart. He wanted messy rooms, game boards and manuals strewn about, fuzzy blankets everywhere, coffee mugs and laughter and warmth. He didn't care about his huge apartment with the glass front and the magnificent view. In this moment, he'd rather be in his colorful room above the Kame Game Shop. Or anywhere else, really. He didn't need much to be happy. He'd be okay even in a small apartment, as long as Atem was there. Their belongings would be crammed together and Atem's bright presence would soak up every inch and every square meter. He wanted that.
He didn't even care about his job with the fancy offices and the big name contracts. He didn't care about working himself to death for a fat salary. So what if he wouldn't be considered successful anymore? What if he turned into a thirty-year old with a failed marriage and a would-be bright career? He never wanted these things anyway. He never wanted heated floors and state-of-the-art kitchen appliances. He could do without a panoramic view of Domino. He didn't care.
He could start dueling again. He could travel. He could even design that game he'd had in the back of his head for years, but never really had the time to work on. He could sell this apartment and rent a tiny one, and see his friends in the evenings.
He'd entertained that idea before, but it had seemed so scary. Just as a divorce had seemed scary. A failed marriage had sounded like the end of the world.
He rubbed his face. Was he out of his mind?
Maybe. It was glorious.
He put a pair of sweatpants on and went back to the living room. Atem was still lounging on the couch, and Yuugi leaned over its back to grin in his face. "Get up, Your Majesty. Jounouchi and Seto are coming over."
Atem's brow scrunched. "Jounouchi and Kaiba? Now?"
"Yup."
"Oh." Atem rubbed his eyes. "I'd... better go wash my face. But I'm afraid I won't be the best company tonight."
"Nonsense, other me. You are always the best company."
Atem seemed flattered, even though he looked away to hide his smile. "Thank you, aibou."
"Will you help me make some tea?"
Atem stood up and immediately had to take a minute to blink and breathe. He still looked pale. He helped by hovering behind Yuugi in the kitchen, as Yuugi steeped tea leaves and looked around for snacks.
Jounouchi arrived twenty minutes later. He rushed in with a huge grin, left his motorcycle helmet on the first empty surface he found and beamed at both Atem and Yuugi's tired faces.
"Whoa, guys, you look like crap!" he shouted. The loud noise made Atem wince and rub his temples.
"Tactful as ever, Jou," Kaiba drawled, walking in and closing the door behind him. He was also holding a helmet, which looked jarring against his leather gloves and his long, posh coat. "But you're not wrong," he added, giving both Atem and Yuugi a once-over. His gaze lingered on Yuugi's hair. "You changed that. Good. It's better that way."
"Thanks." Yuugi ran a hand through his hair, pleasantly taken aback. He couldn't remember the last time he heard Kaiba give anyone a compliment; he must be in a good mood today.
"Yeah, now they look even more like each other. Good luck trying to tell them apart," Jounouchi snickered.
Kaiba snorted as he took off his coat with a languid movement. "Please. Only a stupid person would have trouble telling them apart. Are you stupid, Jounouchi?"
"Don't give me that 'stupid' crap, rich boy. You do realize they have the same body, right?"
"Yes, but they don't look alike. Even a blind person can tell the difference."
"Kaiba, you kept calling me Yuugi the first time you saw me," Atem said, folding his arms across his chest and making valiant efforts to sound as imposing as he usually did, despite the fact that he looked as if he were ready to topple over.
Kaiba looked at him with something like disappointment in the set of his mouth. "It was a joke. For old time's sake." He stared at Atem as if he couldn't believed he'd missed such an obvious display of humor.
"I swear, the only person who can tell when you're joking is Mokuba," Jounouchi said.
Kaiba blinked at him. "You get my jokes, too."
"Huh? I do?"
Kaiba rolled his eyes. "Never mind."
"Hey, uh..." Yuugi said, looking at the two helmets in his hallway. He could get Jounouchi bringing a helmet, but Kaiba? He normally rode his limo everywhere. "You got on Jou's bike?"
"Oh, yeah," Jounouchi said with a grin. "I was at the office and Seto wanted to tag along."
Yuugi tried to imagine Kaiba on a motorcycle, with his arms around Jounouchi's waist and his long coat fluttering behind him, but the image was way too absurd to conjure.
Atem, who looked equally confounded, asked, "Does it... Does it have the shape of a dragon?"
Jounouchi and Yuugi snorted, but Kaiba deadpanned, "No."
"Wow," Yuugi said. "That's a big change, considering that last time you jumped on my balcony from a helicopter."
Kaiba straightened his cashmere turtleneck. "Yes, I was in a hurry. Today I'm incognito." He walked to Yuugi's kitchen and helped himself to a cup of tea from the pot Yuugi had brewed. He leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing one long, lanky leg over the other, and gave both Atem and Yuugi an examining look. "So, what happened to you two?"
"We, uh..." Yuugi took a step closer to Atem, glancing at him sideways. "We drank too much tequila."
Jounouchi glanced from Yuugi to Atem with an expression that seemed way too sly for Yuugi's liking. He knew what it was about: Jounouchi got that look every time he thought he was on to something. Yuugi hurried to put some distance between him and Atem, nervous all of a sudden. He joined Kaiba in the kitchen, pulling up a chair for himself, while Jounouchi climbed on one of the tall stools next to the counter.
Kaiba gestured towards Atem with his cup. "How much is too much tequila? Because the Pharaoh looks like he drank half of Mexico."
"Yes, and I wouldn't recommend it," Atem replied darkly. He sat on a chair next to Yuugi, close enough that Yuugi would bump into him if he moved an inch or two. It was tempting, but Jounouchi was still scrutinizing them with slightly narrowed eyes, and Yuugi didn't like that look. It probably meant that some very uncomfortable questions would come his way later.
He remembered all the weird thoughts of the morning and swallowed. For good measure, he leaned away from Atem instead of towards him, pretending he was stretching his back.
"I hope you didn't go to a party without inviting us," Jounouchi said, even though by the tone of his voice it was obvious he already knew there was no party. His suspicious look did not dwindle in the slightest.
"No, we went to Tarantula."
"Tarantula? Oh man, you should have called!"
Seto scoffed. "If you wanted some real tequila, you should have gone to Maker's Garden."
"Hell, no," Jounouchi waved a hand. "That's for stuck-up rich people who have no idea what fun is."
"Funny way of saying 'people with taste'," Kaiba said serenely, sipping his tea.
"Yeah, yeah. Sure, rich boy. Hey, Yuug?" Jounouchi said.
"Hmm?"
"What happened to your ring?"
Jounouchi's gaze was on Yuugi's left hand, but his face betrayed no surprise. He took a sip from his tea, examining Yuugi with an expression that was way too innocent to be genuine.
Yuugi tried to discreetly hide his hand from Jounouchi's and Kaiba's line of sight. "Yeah, umm... I took it off. But it's still in a pocket... somewhere."
"You mean you did not throw it off a bridge in a bout of tequila-induced craziness?" Jounouchi's curious smirk turned smug. Yuugi was under the impression that he was seeing right through him. He definitely knew more than he let show.
Yuugi sighed. "You talked to Anzu, right?"
Jounouchi's smirk disappeared at once. "Yup, she called me last night." He turned to Atem, pointing a finger at him with a stern look. "Not cool, dude."
Atem lowered his head. "Yes, I'm aware that my behavior was..."
"Shitty?"
"I'd say conceited, but... Your word fits just fine."
Jounouchi shrugged. "As long as you know it."
Yuugi rubbed his eyes, feeling the tell-tale guilty clench in his heart. "How was she?" he asked in a small voice.
"How do you think? She was pretty shaken," Jounouchi replied.
Yuugi winced. He wondered just what 'shaken' meant in this case. Had she cried? He hated the thought. He should have called her today to ask her himself. Married or not, he cared about her.
He looked at his naked ring finger and his guilt doubled. He hadn't even told her... He hadn't even discussed this with her. Thank god Atem had convinced him to keep the ring, or Yuugi would have left it on the table back at Tarantula—or, worse still, he'd have chucked it off a bridge, just like Jounouchi had said. Even if they didn't end up back together... They should have discussed this first.
"So... Is it over between you two?" Jounouchi asked.
Kaiba, who had so far pointedly stayed out of the conversation, murmured, "I think that's none of our business, Jou."
"Oh come on, I'm just—"
"You're just nosy," Kaiba said and set his cup down with decisiveness. "Besides, I didn't come here to listen to your gossip. I have something important to tell you." He sounded stringent as always, but he threw Yuugi a surprisingly understanding glance.
Yuugi was grateful. It wasn't that he was mad at Jounouchi for asking these things... It was just all too fresh and messy.
"What's up, Seto? What do you want to talk to us about?"
Kaiba took out his phone. "I did some more research on your guy. Thomas Blackwood. I found some things I thought you might wanna see."
He gave his phone to Atem and Yuugi. The screen showed an old photograph, grainy and distinctly looking as if it were scanned from a newspaper. In it, two men were standing next to each other, impeccable in their suits and frilly neck ties.
Yuugi squinted at the photo. One of them was clearly Blackwood, at least twenty years younger but with obvious streaks of gray across his hair and deep lines around his features. The other one was very young, fifteen years old at maximum, but he looked oddly... familiar. Silver hair pulled back in a ponytail, thin features, a pair of brown eyes looking out at them through the screen with a clever glint...
"Pegasus?" Atem said. "The young man... That's Pegasus Crawford, right?"
Yuugi had recognized him, too. He was much younger than when they'd met, and he still had both his eyes, but it was definitely him. "What's he doing next to Blackwood?"
Kaiba took his phone back. "Apparently, they knew each other. Which is not weird on its own right. Noble families and rich people all know each other." He waved an airy hand. "But that photo is from an archaeology conference where Blackwood was one of the main speakers. Mokuba managed to find the schedule, and apparently Blackwood made a presentation called 'Occult practices in Ancient Egypt'."
Atem's brows scrunched close to each other. "Blackwood was researching the magic of Ancient Egypt?"
"Not just Ancient Egypt. He seems to be an occult enthusiast. I did my own digging, and I managed to find receipts from several of Blackwood's behind the scenes dealings. Artifacts he's acquired from the black market. All illegal, of course, but he kept a personal log, which I found." He shoved his phone under Yuugi and Atem's noses again, showing a long list of names, places, and figures with too many zeros.
Yuugi didn't need to read everything to understand what it was about; he raised his eyes to look at Kaiba. "He bought occult artifacts?"
Kaiba nodded. "Artifacts and books. Extremely rare books. I wouldn't be surprised if he has the world's most expansive occult library."
"Why would someone care about dark magic this much?" Atem said.
"As a hobby?" Jounouchi said with a shrug.
"Would you spend millions for just a hobby?"
"Hey, I've spent plenty of money for Duel Monsters cards, so who am I to judge? Not to mention rich boy over here and his dragons."
He nodded towards Kaiba, who murmured, "Shut up, Jou."
"Could this be his motive?" Yuugi asked. "Does he want to add another dark magic book in his collection?"
"It seems likely. Even though he no longer advertises his fascination with the occult, some of these dealings were pretty recent, so his passion is still very much alive," Kaiba said.
"And of course, what would be better than the world's most powerful book of dark magic?" Atem murmured.
"Exactly. So, there you have it."
Yuugi blinked at Kaiba. "There we have... what?"
"The solution to your mystery. Billionaire who likes to collect rare books finds the world's rarest book and acts like an excited kid about it. Case closed. You owe me a duel," Kaiba pointed a finger at Atem.
"Hang on, Kaiba," Atem said. "We still haven't found out what he means to do with this book."
"He wants to add it to his collection. There you go. You owe me a duel."
"No, wait. This doesn't explain why he wants to translate it so badly, or why he's so secretive about it—"
"I told you, he's like a kid with the world's shiniest toy. He doesn't want to let other kids play with it."
"The Spellbook is not a simple toy!" Atem raised his voice.
"Other me..." Yuugi placed a soft hand on Atem's shoulder, hoping to placate him. Then he turned to look at Kaiba. "Atem is right, though, Seto. This case is far from closed. We still don't know if Blackwood was the one who brought the yamis back, or why, or if he plans to use the book further—"
Kaiba snorted out a derisive laugh. "Use the book further? So you think he used magic to bring the Pharaoh back? Please."
"Well, I was brought back somehow," Atem said sharply. "Even you can't deny that."
"So, you think an eccentric billionaire read a book and brought you back," Kaiba said, arching an eyebrow.
"Yes, that's exactly what I think."
"Pharaoh, you were the one who told me that the Millennium Spellbook contains the instructions for the creation of the Millennium Items. Is that correct?"
Atem huffed loudly. "Yes. That's what Bakura said back in—"
"Did he say anything about instructions on how to bring people back from the dead?"
"No," Atem said, evidently bristling, "but that doesn't meant there isn't such a spell in there. And it's not unheard of! That's what Pegasus wanted to do—"
"—Back in Duelist Kingdom," Yuugi finished his sentence for him, his eyes going wide. "You're right, other me! And we saw Pegasus with Blackwood in that photograph, which means they knew each other—"
"So, maybe they had discussed these things together," Atem added. "Maybe they were both looking for a way to—"
"Yeah, yeah, time out," Kaiba cut across them, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "I've found photos of Blackwood with at least fifty other billionaires and CEOs. You wanna suspect them, too?"
"They don't have a Spellbook, so no," Atem snapped.
"Whoa, guys, calm down," Jounouchi said, lifting his palms up. "Maybe Seto's right. We've all been focusing on Blackwood on a mere assumption—"
"We have been focusing on Blackwood because he's the one with the Spellbook in his hands!"
"Yes, and the Spellbook could have nothing to do with your return," Kaiba said.
"What are the chances that I came back at the same time that the Spellbook was unearthed?" Atem asked, glaring at him. "This would have to be the world's craziest coincidence!"
"That's why we call it a coincidence. All coincidences are crazy."
Atem shook his head in disbelief.
"Seto..." Yuugi said, quietly and calmly, "you've seen the Spellbook. It made us all dizzy, and you said your computer crashes every time you try to translate it—"
"Exactly," Kaiba said. "I've wasted way too much time and resources on this witch-hunt. And so far I see nothing but an eccentric billionaire with a weird hobby and an unlucky coincidence."
"You can't give up yet, Kaiba! That wasn't our agreement!" Atem said, loudly enough to make Yuugi squeeze his shoulder again and gently pull him back in his seat.
"I did what you asked me to do, Pharaoh," Kaiba snapped back. "I researched Blackwood, I gave you all the info I found about him, and I even hacked his files and got you some of the Spellbook pages—which, by the way, I had not agreed to do. I burnt three of my personal computers trying to translate some doodles, and both me and Mokuba have spent hours trying to dig up everything we can. And so far, the most suspicious thing I've found is a list of rare artifacts he bought in the black market. Big fucking deal! Even my illegal activity is longer than his, and don't get me started on some of the other billionaires I know! From where I am standing, this case is closed."
No one spoke. Atem was quivering under Yuugi's hand, pressing his lips together in a furious line, so Yuugi rubbed a circle over his shoulder blade while trying to come up with some counter-argument to what Kaiba had just said. Jounouchi was staring at the floor, kicking his legs back and forth on his tall stool; from his expression, it seemed that he agreed with Kaiba.
"What about Ishizu?" Yuugi said hesitantly. "Remember when Malik told us they kept her away from the project—"
"They kept the Head of the Department for Public Relations away from a privately funded translation project? Wow, unheard of," Kaiba said, rolling his eyes in such an exaggerated way it was a miracle he didn't get dizzy. "If I were Blackwood, I wouldn't want people I don't trust in my project, either. Especially someone whose department is entirely unrelated to what I'm doing."
Yuugi shut his mouth. He had nothing to reply to that. He had to admit that... everything that Seto was saying made perfect sense.
They didn't know if Blackwood had indeed malicious motives or not, or if he planned to use the book further, or if he had used it in the first place. For all they knew, the man was just trying to translate it. Just that.
That would mean... Atem's return was not connected to the Spellbook, nor to anything Blackwood did. No mission. No saving the world. No quest with a foreseeable end. Just Atem, back, out of the grace of the gods or the devil or the universe or a weird alignment of the stars. Atem without a quest, without any other insane responsibility, free to roam the world with Yuugi and create messy rooms and—
It was too much to handle at once. It was so wonderful Yuugi could not hold back a smile. His chest could burst with joy.
He leaned closer to Atem and looked in his eyes, still smiling and having to try very hard to not take one of Atem's hand in his. "I think you owe him a duel, other me."
Atem's face was dark. He looked at Yuugi as if he couldn't understand the smile on his face. "Aibou, I was brought back and we still don't know why—"
"Maybe there was no reason. Maybe you were simply granted a second chance—"
"By whom?"
"Anubis? Ammit? I don't know, but think about it. It makes sense." Atem opened his mouth again, so this time Yuugi grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "No, think about it!"
It was in Atem's nature to worry about everything, as if the whole world was his responsibility, but this time Yuugi needed him to entertain the opposite. Because, if Atem could see it, too... then there was a possibility that it was true.
"Aibou... I cannot just accept this. I can't."
"You heard Seto. He's been searching for so long—"
"And he gave up," Atem said, harshly and a bit rudely. "How is that an answer, or a satisfactory conclusion?"
"I did not give up, Pharaoh. I never give up," Seto said, sounding angry.
"That's what it looks like to me, Kaiba," Atem said, and oh, Yuugi knew just how quickly this could escalate. Atem's voice was challenging, which made a muscle twitch on Seto's face.
"There's a difference between doing something meaningful and wasting my time!" Seto seethed.
Atem clenched his jaw. "You had agreed to this. Waste of time or not, you should honor our agreement!"
Yuugi was ready to interfere, to hold Atem back or calm Seto down before a full-blown argument exploded in his kitchen, but Seto huffed loudly though his nose and said, "Alright, Pharaoh. Fine. I will prove to you that I'm not just giving up. I'll keep digging for a few more days. Would that satisfy you?"
"Yes," Atem said at once.
"I'm warning you, though. If I haven't found anything by the end of the week, it's over. Next week I'm flying to Dubai and New York, so I'm not going to preoccupy myself with this any longer than necessary. Is that clear?"
"Yes," Atem said. And then, softer, "Thank you, Kaiba."
Seto scoffed. "Let's wish that your Spellbook won't burn another of my computers."
"I hope so."
"Alright then, problem solved!" Jounouchi said cheerfully. "Hey, Yuug! Let's show Seto that new board game you designed!"
"Um..." Yuugi looked at Atem, who still looked troubled and a bit moody, and Seto, who was obviously irritated. "I don't know if—"
"No, please, show me that game," Seto drawled. "I wanna see what is so magnificent about it for you to keep rejecting my offers to work for KaibaCorp."
Yuugi rolled his eyes. Of course Seto would bring that up again. "Are you going to judge every little detail, like last time?"
"Of course I am."
Yuugi sighed. "Fine, let's go."
Seto did indeed judge every little detail of Yuugi's board game, but his comments were lighthearted enough—which meant that, deep down, he considered it a good game. He scoffed only twice and rolled his eyes only once, and both Yuugi and Jounouchi could tell that it wasn't genuine, so they smirked and kept playing.
Thankfully, Yuugi knew the game so well by now that he moved his hands mechanically, not caring whether he won or lost, content to just play and listen to the pleasant babble in his living room. All Seto had said earlier was circling in his head, and he rolled it all over, considering it again and again. He was feeling drunk with possibility.
The thought of no quest. No enemy that had to be beaten. No saving the world.
He couldn't have asked for a better outcome. It sounded like a dream. Too good to be true, even, but so what? They all deserved it, and Atem more than anyone. He'd paid his dues; he'd saved the world more than once. He deserved this.
Kaiba could be right.
Atem didn't look as happy. He was moody and didn't participate in the conversations or the friendly banter. Sure, he was still a bit hungover, but he also seemed to be lost in his own head, his face often darkening, jaw clenching and brows furrowing.
Yuugi smiled at him every now and then, hoping to ease his frown. Atem did not reciprocate.
After Jounouchi and Seto left, Atem crossed his arms, dropping at once all pretense of being remotely okay. He directed his gloomy stare to Yuugi and said, "Do you really believe Kaiba, aibou? Do you really think this case is closed?"
Yuugi took his time folding the game board before replying. "Um... I think it's a possibility."
"And you're willing to accept that? Just like that?"
"Yes," Yuugi said resolutely, closing the board game box and slapping his palms on it. He looked up at Atem's disbelieving face. "Maybe you should just accept it, too."
"How can I? I'm back from the dead without knowing why! I need to know the answer to—"
"Last time, your quest for answers ended with you leaving," Yuugi cut across him. He usually tried not to talk about the Ceremonial Duel, but this time he needed Atem to understand. Yuugi couldn't do the same thing twice. Having answers would be nice, but who was to say that by digging further, they weren't digging Atem's grave? "I think that this time we should just let things lie," he said.
Atem faltered. He looked at the decisiveness in Yuugi's face, but he still couldn't understand it. He still wanted to argue. Yuugi could see it.
"So, we'll just stop thinking about this?" Atem said.
"Yes."
"Aibou... Something or someone gave me a body, and you want to stop thinking about it? You just want to go on pretending that this is normal?"
"I'm not pretending it's normal. I'm deciding it is."
"And you think that's enough?"
"Sometimes, that's all it takes."
Atem shook his head. He looked... disappointed in him, somehow. As if he believed Yuugi was giving up, too.
Yuugi placed his hands on Atem's tightly wound arms. He lowered his voice in a soothing tone. "Other me... You heard Seto. He's looked at it from all possible angles. He searched all he could, even hacked files. And he has experience with this sort of people. He knows how they think."
Atem clicked his tongue impatiently. "Kaiba is also a skeptic. He would reject any and all possibilities of magic taking place, even when it's staring him straight in the face."
"Have you maybe thought that you are doing the exact opposite? You are both stubborn, but—"
"But what?"
"But I think that, this time, Seto's right." Yuugi said. And even if he still wasn't entirely sure now, he would be in a few days, after Seto told them whether he discovered something new or not. Maybe that delay would help Atem make his peace with the idea, too.
Atem let out a heavy exhale. "Aibou, we've been over this. I also want to believe that there is no mission awaiting me. But I want you to understand that I need to be certain first. Otherwise I'll never find peace here."
"Seto said he'll keep researching. So it's fine, right?"
Atem looked at him for a long minute. "I guess so," he said at last. "If he keeps searching and finds nothing, then... I guess I'll trust his verdict. And your hunch. But I need to know that we did all we could and that we didn't just give up."
"Okay. I can understand that."
"Thank you, aibou."
"Say, though, that Seto is indeed right—no, think about it! Say that he's right. What would you do next?" Yuugi gave him a small grin.
One of Atem's brows tilted upwards. He looked down at his body. "I don't know... Shopping, maybe?"
A knock on his door made Bakura snap awake. He jumped to a sitting position, his hands automatically reaching for Ryou's knife as he looked around madly. First he registered the dull, grey light of early morning, then the sweat that made his hair and his t-shirt stick on him. His heart was racing.
The knock sounded again. "Ehm... Mr Diabound?" a hesitant voice said from the other side of his door.
Bakura blinked. Half of his mind was still caught up in his dream—nightmare, he corrected himself—but he managed to focus enough to realize that someone was looking for him, calling him Diabound. Not Bakura.
...In fact, they'd just called him Mr Diabound.
He groaned and left the knife back on his nightstand. This must be some sort of fighting business, and it was too early for that. He glanced at his phone: it was seven in the morning. And he had an unread text from Malik. What the fuck.
He rubbed the grit off his eyes and brushed his sweaty bangs away from his face before opening the door.
"What?" he barked at the person waiting at his threshold. It was a young guy, probably in his late teens. He looked vaguely familiar to Bakura—or maybe he seemed familiar because all the young boys that fought in the cage looked the same to him: buzzed heads, tight muscles, and more ink on their skin than a children's picture book.
"Oh, hey. Hello, Mr Diabound. I'm Taka," the teen said, extending his hand. "I'm also fighting downstairs."
Bakura eyed the teen's hand. He did not shake it. "So?"
The boy—Taka—clenched his hand and let it drop with an awkward half-smile. "Yeah, um... Sorry to wake you up. Aaron sent me to fetch you."
Bakura frowned. Aaron? At this time in the morning? And what was up with that 'Mr Diabound' shit?
"Why?"
"We have a fighters' meeting in half an hour. Aaron wants you there."
"A meeting?"
"Yes, downstairs."
"What's the meeting for?"
Taka arched an eyebrow, evidently thinking Bakura was acting like an idiot on purpose. "You know. The meeting."
"Either explain or get the hell outta here," Bakura grumbled, rubbing his eyes again. It was definitely too early for this. Hell, he hadn't even gotten any proper sleep; he'd kept waking up thanks to those godawful dreams—
"The meeting to arrange the matches," Taka said. "We do it every month."
"Huh. Well, whatever. I'll be down in a few minutes."
"Do you want me to wait for—?"
"I know the way, thanks," Bakura snapped and slammed the door on the teen's face.
He went to the tiny sink to splash some water on his face. Then he fished a relatively clean hoodie from the mess in his room, making a mental note to do some laundry when he came back from the Spellbook session. He'd have to ask the girls where one could wash one's clothes. Or he could ask Malik about it. Or break into Ryou's apartment and use his washing machine, if he still had one.
The thought made him smirk. He probably could break into Ryou's apartment. It might even be fun to do so, just to see if Ryou would notice.
Then again, it would probably be way less fuss to just find a laundry spot somewhere nearby. He didn't want to carry his dirty clothes all the way to Ryou's apartment—that would be stupid.
He tried to comb his hair with his fingers, then gave up and put on his hood.
"'Morning, brooding boy," Yuki called when she saw him. She winked at him, at which he rolled his eyes, feigning more annoyance than he actually felt.
Heh. She reminded him of Malik a lot. As far as people in this shithole went, she wasn't bad.
He made his way downstairs, without bothering to go to the kitchen for a cup of the murk they served instead of coffee. The Golden Egg was empty at this time, of course, and so were the corridors beyond. He only came across one guard, but he didn't even bother to check Bakura.
For once, Ishido was not to be seen anywhere around his joint; it was probably too early in the day for night lords like him. The place was occupied by a small group of men: some had pulled up some chairs and benches, and some were standing with their backs against the chain-link walls of the cage, yawning widely. They were all well-muscled, dressed in sweatpants and tank tops, even though it was January. Bakura recognized some of them, and he also spotted Taka, who waved and shouted, "Hey, Diabound!"
Damn. Apparently, Bakura had gotten himself a fan.
He replied with a curt nod, and Taka just about vibrated out of his skin. That boy was way too enthusiastic for his own good.
Bakura spotted the guy he'd fought on his first match: a guy called something like... Kaito? Whatever. He noticed several other familiar faces, but none of them greeted him so he didn't, either.
Bakura made sure to find a nice empty spot to lean against the cage and took his tobacco bag out, pretending to be so absorbed in his cigarette that he didn't notice the others.
"Diabound! Hey, Diabound!"
Bakura barely resisted the urge to rub a hand over his face. He turned around to find Taka making his way towards him.
"What?" Bakura growled.
"Hey, Diabound, I was just wondering. Who trained you?"
"What?"
"Man, I loved your fights. I was wondering who taught you all that."
"No one," Bakura snapped. He angled his body away from Taka and lit his cigarette, hoping the teen would take the hint and leave him alone.
Unfortunately, Taka simply moved to better face him and kept grinning at him with something like adoring awe. "Self-taught? Man, you must have been through some wild shit. Is that how you got that scar on your hand?"
The boy's gaze was on Bakura's left palm. Bakura immediately hid that hand in his sweatpants' pocket. "That's none of your business."
"Right, sorry. So hey, Bakura—your real name's Bakura, right?"
"Yeah," Bakura grumbled. He was not living this. This could not be real.
"So hey, I was wondering, where do you train? I've never seen you at the gym."
"I train in my room."
"Your room? Really?"
Bakura did not reply. He took a long drag, wondering what on earth he'd done to deserve this at this time in the morning.
When Bakura didn't reply, Taka went on, undeterred. "You know, me and most of the guys train in the gym down the street. You know, Godo's? You should come, too. We are sparring on Tuesdays and Fridays. It's great practice."
Bakura opened his mouth to tell Taka to shut up and leave him alone, but then he thought twice about it.
Training in a gym might actually be a good idea. Better than doing crunches on his carpet every morning. He might even get to practice some kicks and punches on a bag, or get some decent equipment. And Taka mentioned something about sparring.
He jotted the gym address down, just in case, and then finally managed to shake Taka off.
Aaron walked in a minute later, with a cigarette on his lips and looking like he'd already had three coffees and an argument for breakfast.
"Alright, boys, let's get this over with," he said, taking out a clipboard. "You're all here?" He scanned the room, examining them all from head to toes. "Kano, how's the shoulder?"
"Healing," a guy somewhere on Bakura's left replied.
Aaron nodded and took a drag that nearly depleted his cigarette. "No fights for you this week. Ishido wants you ready for the big match."
"Okay, boss."
"Alright, I've got your listings for February. This Thursday we've got Remy paired with Kaito, Taka with a new guy—first timer, should be easy—and Itsuki with Goro." He stopped talking to take a drag and eye them sternly. "Goro, you will win this. Got it?" He pointed to a guy.
"Alright, boss."
Bakura looked at the guy who had talked. 'You will win this'? Was this just a threat or—?
"Moving on," Aaron said and turned back to his clipboard. "On Saturday we've got... Oda with Val. Whatever result is fine. Jubei," he lifted his gaze to one of the guys, "you'll be fighting with a guest from Okayama. You need to let him knock you out. They were adamant about it."
What the hell was going on? Bakura glanced from Aaron to the fighters around him, but they all seemed unperturbed.
"Then we've got Kosuke and Norio. Whatever result is fine," Aaron said and waved his hand. "Then we've got—"
"Wait, hang on a second," Bakura said, taking a step forward. "These matches are rigged?"
Aaron stopped talking and looked at him. A couple of the guys started murmuring and someone chuckled, but Aaron simply looked at Bakura as if he'd just asked the most obvious thing in the world.
"What did you think, son? This isn't the Olympics. We are a business, we gotta make some some profit."
Bakura grit his teeth to avoid snarling at the guy who was still chuckling somewhere to his right. He thought back to his own fights: to that time he almost got his skull smashed in, or when he'd had to keep the bag of Malik's fucking frozen peas on his face to alleviate the throbbing.
"No one ever said anything to me about it," he said through gritted teeth.
Aaron puffed out some smoke and made an unconcerned gesture. "Well, of course not. Not everyone is in on it. Consider yourself promoted."
"Promoted?"
"Yeah. You're part of the business now. Congratulations."
"What the hell does that mean?" Bakura snarled. "You what? You fix all of them?" He could not believe this. He'd fought tooth and nail in that cage. He'd bled. Had that been fucking rigged?
Aaron sighed. "Son, it'd be fucking obvious if we fixed all of the fights. We fix some of them. Just the important ones, to get cash in our pockets—and yours."
Bakura scowled. 'The important ones'. Good to know that the blood he had left on the cage was not deemed important enough.
At least his victories so far had been genuine. That was a small comfort.
"Anyway, you are fighting in two weeks," Aaron went on. "You're paired with Kyo, and you can do however you please—you can even arrange it between you if you want. Moving on—"
Bakura turned around to look at the guy Aaron had pointed at. He'd seen him once or twice on the corridors: he was a slim guy with a scar over one of his eyebrows. Kyo noticed Bakura looking at him and shrugged; Bakura scowled even more and looked at his feet.
He wasn't going to arrange anything with anyone. He hadn't fallen this low yet. And if Kyo wanted to arrange a win, all the worse for him: Bakura wasn't gonna hand him anything easily.
He scowled at the floor for the next couple of minutes, until Aaron put his clipboard down and said, "Any questions?"
"No," Bakura murmured along with the rest.
"Alright. Make sure to put on a good show, boys. See you on Thursday."
Bakura left at once, not wanting to look at the cage or this place or Aaron a minute longer. He ran up the stairs to get ready for their morning Spellbook session and left, impatient to get out of there.
He walked along Domino's freezing streets, but the cold did little to cool him off. He flexed and clenched his fingers, simmering in his own annoyance.
He scoffed at nothing in particular and took out his tobacco bag to roll a cigarette. His face still stung from yesterday's little scuffle with Ishido's men: he could feel the bruise on his cheek as he took a drag.
First Ishido's dirty business, then this. Lovely. What had he been thinking when he'd set foot in this place?
He took long drags, chasing the burn of the smoke as he walked down the street. He didn't really want to go to Malik's right now. He'd rather be alone. He'd rather be away from everyone: Malik, Ryou, Ishido, Enki... Everyone and everything. Away from their demands. Or their expectations.
He threw away the still smoking stub of his cigarette. The afterlife was growing more and more alluring.
Which meant it was a one way street, right? He had to go to Malik's and translate the Spellbook, find out what the fuck had happened and get the hell out of there. He tried to keep that in mind as he rang Malik's doorbell.
"Whoa, that's new," Malik said the moment he opened the door, ogling the bruise on Bakura's left cheekbone. "You had a match and you didn't tell me?"
Bakura walked in, immediately looking around for Ryou, but he hadn't arrived yet: the living room was empty. "No, not a match," he replied gruffly. "And why the hell would I tell you?"
"Cause that's what friends do. They invite their friends to watch them get beaten up," Malik said with a grin.
Friends, Bakura repeated sourly in his mind. Yeah, in Malik's head, Bakura was probably a fully reformed former-bastard, worthy of being his friend. He wondered, not for the first time, what Malik would say if he'd been there last night to see Bakura point a gun to Kobayashi's head.
He decided not to say anything.
"Do you want some coffee?" Malik asked brightly.
"Whatever."
"Hey." Malik's brow furrowed. He actually looked concerned. Damn that Tomb-Keeper. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Bakura turned away, mostly because he couldn't stand to look at that worried look on Malik's face. He walked around the living room, pretending to be observing the various paraphernalia on the shelves, until his gaze actually fell on the telescope next to the window. He approached it, still very aware of Malik's gaze on his back.
"Seriously, though," Malik said. "What happened to your face?"
"Nothing." Bakura examined the telescope, bending over it to take a better look. He had never seen one from up close; it had all sorts of levers and knobs. He put his eye on the small scope, but all he saw was black.
Malik approached and gestured at the front of the telescope. "You gotta take the cap off. But either way, you won't see much in here."
Bakura straightened but kept fiddling with the levers, probably messing up all of Malik's settings. "What do you do with it?"
"What do you think? Stargazing."
"Stargazing?" Bakura repeated. He could get the motorcycles and the stunts and the whole barman shtick, but stargazing? It sounded too... tame for someone like Malik.
"I find it fascinating," Malik said. "There's a whole world up there, and I had no idea up until I was a ten." He looked outside the window, up to the sky, even though it was a dull, cloudy morning. "After I left the tomb and the Ghouls, I've been trying to catch up. There's still so much to learn."
"Huh." Bakura had never thought about it that way. For him, learning how to navigate by the stars had been a necessity, back then. It'd never crossed his mind that someone might want to study the skies for reasons other than survival. Maybe he would have done such trivial things, if he had the time—or if he knew he had a lifetime ahead of him, free to do whatever. Like Malik did.
"I've found the best stargazing spot, just outside the city," Malik went on with a smile. "I could show you sometime. Teach you the basics. It's a great spot; it's so dark you can see the Milky Way."
Bakura looked away, pretending he hadn't heard, or that this hadn't just made his chest feel a few tons heavier. Malik was determined to keep treating him as a friend, as he'd called it, and Bakura just... couldn't.
He tried to focus on something else. He noticed all the lights in the living room were on, even though it was morning. "What's with all the lights?"
"Oh... Um. I just don't like the dark."
Bakura arched an eyebrow. "You just suggested to take me to a place so dark you can see the Milky Way."
Malik's smile was too stiff to be called genuine. "Yeah, I... I don't like the dark when I'm inside. Enclosed spaces, or... You know. I don't mind it as much when I'm outside."
Bakura looked away. Of course, he should have imagined this. It made sense, considering... Malik's past. And perhaps that was why all the shutters in his apartment were wide open.
For the first time, Bakura noticed that Malik's windows had no curtains. At all.
He gestured towards one of the windows. "How do you live like this? Everyone can see you."
"Yeah, I know."
Bakura looked out the window again. He could count at least six different apartments that had a clear line of sight into Malik's living room. "Don't you mind it?"
Malik shrugged. "Not really."
"Not even when you are walking around with no pants on?"
Malik smirked like the cocky bastard that he was. "If it makes them uncomfortable, they are free to look away."
Bakura tried to imagine what it would be like if all his neighbors in the Golden Egg could see him at all times. He cringed; he'd come to really value the merits of four walls and a locked door. "I don't get you, Tomb-Keeper. Don't you care about your privacy?"
Malik gave him a small grin. "Don't let Ryou hear you say that."
"It's not the same," Bakura grumbled, wishing that he hadn't spoken at all.
"Isn't it?" Malik said pleasantly. When Bakura did not answer, Malik grabbed the chance to change the subject again. "Seriously, what happened to you, if not a match?"
Bakura let out a loud huff. He was not going to let it go, was he? "I just got in a bit of a scuffle. Nothing serious. It's all settled now."
Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut, if the alarm on Malik's face was anything to go by. "You shouldn't be in that place. I could help you get another job—"
"Will you drop it?" Bakura snarled. He fell on his usual seat and folded his arms across his chest. They'd had this argument before, for fuck's sake. It was just like Enki had said: there wasn't much else that Bakura could do with his skill set, or anything else that he'd tolerate doing for longer than a day. Couldn't Malik realize that?
Malik opened his mouth to answer, but the doorbell sounded, making him jump. "That must be Ryou."
"Great," Bakura growled, but Malik didn't hear him: he was already at the buzzer, letting Ryou in.
Bakura assumed his best indifferent stance, folding his arms even more tightly around himself and letting his bangs cover most of his face.
Ryou walked in and greeted Malik with a rare soft smile. His eyes were dull and tired, and he was slouching under the weight of his bag; he could probably use a coffee or two, and maybe a sandwich.
When Ryou saw Bakura, he paused for a bit. After a few seconds of hovering in uncertainty, he approached the couch and set his bag down. "Hey," he said neutrally.
Bakura replied with a curt nod. He wasn't gonna try to make any small talk this time. In fact, he wasn't going to try anything. He was just gonna do his job and leave.
Malik went to the kitchen to prepare some coffee, leaving them alone in the living room. Ryou gave Bakura an uncertain glance, and then he started pulling books and notepads out of his bag. He set a huge book on the coffee table and opened it. "You look like crap," he said, not quite looking at Bakura, but glancing up at his bruises once or twice.
"Thanks. You too."
Ryou made an agreeing grimace, as if this had been exactly the sort of comment he'd expected, and Bakura relaxed. For once, he was grateful that Ryou had exactly zero expectations of him.
"So... What happened to your face?" Ryou asked after a while. He didn't sound concerned, just... curious.
"Why are you asking, landlord? You wanna thank whoever did it?"
Ryou's face darkened. "No. I'm not that cruel."
"Not even when it comes to me?"
Ryou considered Bakura's question for a moment. "Hm. I guess you do bring out my worst self."
"What an honor."
So, today none of them would bother to pretend they tolerated the other. Good. It simplified things. That was one weight lifted off Bakura's shoulders; it was almost refreshing.
Bakura leaned towards the coffee table and took the Spellbook pages in his hands. At once his spirits sank even more. He leafed through them, trying to decide where to start from.
Malik arrived with a couple steaming mugs, then he brought another mug for himself and a jar of sugar for Bakura. When Bakura added several spoonfuls of sugar to his cup, Ryou scrunched his nose in disgust.
"Is that coffee or syrup?" he said, holding his own cup of black coffee in his hands.
"Well, we are not all as eager to punish ourselves as you, landlord."
"Fancy way of saying you have no taste buds."
"I inherited your taste buds, so..."
"Guys. Please," Malik said wearily.
Bakura pointedly drank a large sip from his cup and turned his focus back to the Spellbook.
It was annoying. Exasperating. No good. He didn't know where to begin. He didn't like the first page; it was too complicated for his liking. The second page was not better. He tried to find the page that had triggered that small vision the first time, but it didn't ring any bells this time around. He skipped to the last page, just in case.
They finished their coffees and Bakura still hadn't settled on a page. He huffed and started over. Just pick one, for fuck's sake, he told to himself.
After more than one hour of interminable page shuffling, Ryou got to his feet with an impatient huff and extended his hand towards the Spellbook pages. Bakura looked up at him, arching an eyebrow. "What?"
"Just give them to me," Ryou said.
Bakura decided to humor him and handed the pages over.
Ryou perused them carefully, scrunching up his brows and biting his lip. "Here," he said after a couple of minutes. He left a page on Bakura's lap and placed the rest of them on the coffee table. "Try this one."
Bakura frowned. He recognized the page: he'd stared at them long enough to be able to tell them apart on sight. It was page number eight. In fact, it wasn't the first time Ryou showed interest in this particular page, even though there was nothing extraordinary about it. It wasn't one of worst ones—not like page twelve, which was essentially a black blob, nor like page five, which was a messy jumble of lines—but it wasn't one of the most 'harmonious' pages, either.
"Why this one?" he asked.
Ryou shrugged. "You gotta start somewhere, right?"
Bakura glanced at Malik, but he simply raised his hands as if saying, Hey, I'm not involved in this.
Bakura turned to Ryou, contemplating him. Could he trust this hunch? His landlord could be dense a lot of the times, but he had also been proven to be insightful on occasion. They had shared a mind and a soul at some point. Maybe, at some part deep, deep inside them, they were still connected.
Bakura set the page on his thighs and started the usual staring contest with it.
Malik made them some more coffee; at some point, there were sandwiches. Ryou was scratching away with his pencils on various notepads, while Malik was reading a thick book about names and roses. Or something like that.
It was quiet, but not peaceful. Bakura ran his fingers through his hair so many times he was ready to bet his hair had started looking like the Pharaoh's. Or like Malik's ridiculous alter ego. He wasn't sure which was worse.
He stared at the page with admirable determination for at least two hours, until his brain felt like getting a cramp. Maybe coffee wasn't the best drink for this. Maybe some alcohol would be more helpful; if he was relaxed, he might find it easier to foray into the deepest parts of his mind.
Ryou set his book down with a huff. "I gotta leave. My shift starts soon."
Malik looked at Bakura expectantly. "Any progress?"
Bakura didn't reply. He got to his feet and went to put on his boots and jacket.
He heard Ryou murmur, "Great," and his face fell even more. He bit back a retort, if only because he had no energy for a full-blown argument.
Instead of getting better, things seemed to get increasingly worse. Maybe he should give up and simply fling himself off of the roof of the Golden Egg, praying he'd reach the afterlife.
"So. Are you gonna insist to walk me to work this time?" Ryou said in a low murmur as he crouched next to him to put on his worn-out sneakers.
"No," Bakura replied. The only thing that seemed appealing right now was the gym that guy had told Bakura about. The prospect of exhausting himself to the point where even his brain would go numb seemed exceptionally magnificent.
Ryou raised an eyebrow. "How come?"
"If you want me to, you can ask nicely," Bakura said and, as expected, Ryou immediately scowled.
"Of course I don't want you to. I just—"
"Are you trying to find the catch? There's no catch. I just have somewhere else to be," Bakura said shortly. He saw Malik frown; the concern he'd shown before was still there. Bakura might get a phone call from him later, or a text asking again if all was alright. Fucking Tomb-Keeper. "Same time tomorrow?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Cool."
He walked back to the Golden Egg in record time. He didn't know where all this nervous energy was coming from, but he really wanted to punch something. He put on his workout clothes as quickly as he could and left.
The gym Taka had told him about was a few blocks away. He was feeling a bit self-conscious, but he tried not to show it as he walked through the door.
The place was full of men grunting and sweating on the various equipment. Every now and then loud thuds could be heard, or the rattle of heavy chunks of metal hitting each other. A few men gave Bakura the side-eye as he walked past them, but he kept his face schooled in his favorite haughty expression and ignored them. He was the King of Thieves, anyway: those mortal guys might know how to train with dumbbells and weights, but Bakura had learned how to climb burning rocks and to hold his breath underwater long enough to trick the Pharaoh's guards into thinking he'd drowned. He wouldn't allow himself to be intimidated, even though he had no fucking clue how a treadmill worked.
He ventured further into the gym until he spotted a row of boxing bags. Wonderful, amazing heavy bags, next to the equally wonderful and amazing boxing ring.
That part of the gym was the less crowded. One guy was practicing on the heavy bags, and a couple more men were sitting on the bench next to the boxing ring, drinking some kind of milky thing out of a shaker and talking to each other. Bakura recognized them: he'd seen both of them at Ishido's, and one of them had even been at the meeting that morning.
They recognized him too and, surprisingly, they greeted him. Bakura greeted them back and made his way to the bags. He took off his shoes, socks and hoodie, and wrapped his hands with tape. The guy that was practicing next to him had boxing gloves on, and maybe it would be wise for Bakura to ask where he could get a pair, but he decided against it. No one wore gloves in the cage; it would make no sense for him to wear them during practice.
The bags were solid; he pushed one experimentally, and was pleased to find it heavy and sturdy. Oh, those could take a lot of hits.
He grinned and got to work.
Working out was good. It felt good. It was hugely satisfying to hear the loud thud his shins made against the bag as he kicked. Soon he was dripping with sweat, kicking and punching until his heart threatened to burst. It was much better than doing sit-ups in his room; infinitely better.
He grunted and growled, feeling his bangs plaster against his sweaty forehead as he struck the bag. Sparring might have been more useful practice, but the bag was silent and solid and could take as many hits as Bakura could land, and that was exactly what he needed right now.
His knuckles split but he kept punching, nearly savoring the sting each hit brought. He left bloodstains on the bag, and whatever, he'd clean it later; for now it was good to know that he could take it, that he could go on and on despite it. He hit harder, gritting his teeth and reveling in the control he had over his body, his tiredness, his pain, everything. Sweat felt gratifying, and the burn in his muscles was more than welcome. These few feet of the gym were his, and he had absolute control on everything in them, from the heavy bag to his body.
He kept going until he couldn't hit the bag anymore, and then he sat down on the floor, panting hard and creating a pool of sweat around him. His shins throbbed, his knuckles were split and bloody and all his muscles were burning from the exertion, and by the gods, it was glorious. It was better than alcohol. He closed his eyes, feeling his heartbeat everywhere, down to the tips of his fingers. In this moment, he fit his body in just the right way.
He heard an appreciative whistle somewhere overhead and opened his eyes.
The men that had been sitting by the cage earlier were standing close by, looking down at him with a grin.
"Man, we'd heard things about you, but I didn't expect that. You're really good," one of them said.
Bakura propped himself up on his elbows and wiped the sweat from his eyes. "Thanks."
"I'm Gema," the man said. "And this is Val."
"I'm Bakura."
"We know who you are. The Diabound guy, right?"
"Yeah."
"You come here often?"
"First time."
Gema hummed. "Want us to show you the ropes? There's more equipment you can use. And we could introduce to to the owner; Godo is a pal."
Bakura thought of declining, but hell, it wouldn't harm to not be a stuck-up bitch like the Pharaoh for once. And he was still too deep in the post-workout bliss to care.
"Sure."
As it turned out, both Gema and Val were okay. Bakura would have expected them to be aggressive, especially since he was a potential opponent, but they didn't seem to care. In fact, they didn't care about whatever was going on in the cage unless they were in it. Soon, Bakura had learned where they kept the gloves and how to operate the treadmill, and he'd been made aware of the basic etiquette of the place—which consisted mostly of rules about when it was appropriate to use the equipment or the weights someone else had claimed.
They arranged to spar together some time and Bakura left for the Golden Egg, feeling a million times better than what he had before. Hell, he kinda felt guilty for being so harsh towards Malik earlier. All the Tomb-Keeper had done was show some concern and ask about Bakura's well being. Even Ryou hadn't been as annoying as usual, but Bakura had still been an ass. And to think that he'd decided to no longer act like an jerk.
Well, he could make it up to both of them tomorrow. He could do something nice: bring donuts or something. But, for now, sleep. It had been a long fucking day, and tomorrow would be just as long.
He fell to his bed, exhausted. He woke up a few hours later, drenched in sweat and with the echo of ancient fires in his ears.
The next morning, Ryou made his usual trek to Malik's apartment, feeling wary and a little apprehensive.
He couldn't understand Bakura. His behavior the previous day had been... odd. Odder than usual. Not to mention the bruises on his face. Was he getting into fights outside the cage now? Not that Ryou cared, but it would dampen their plans if Bakura was to be found dead in some ditch over some stupid feud.
He couldn't really understand what his yami had gotten himself into, or how. But he'd always been like that, hadn't he? Saturating everything with noise and danger, even the most mundane things. Even when Ryou had been back in high school, Bakura had the ability to turn a regular school night into a jumble of adrenaline, and lights, and rooftops. He recalled buildings sliding under his feet, signs ignored, locks picked, doors trespassed, rain on his skin—
Ryou lit a cigarette with trembling hands. Those were all a blur in his head. Half-remembered images, half-lived. Whenever Bakura hadn't felt like suppressing Ryou's consciousness too rigorously, Ryou would catch glimpses of what his body was doing, and it would all seem like a film playing somewhere far away. But he remembered the feelings and the intensity of it all.
Maybe that was the only way Bakura knew how to exist. Bright like a flame, burning out both himself and everyone around him. Maybe he couldn't keep himself away from anything that was too dangerous and risky for the hands of a mortal man. And maybe that was why Ryou had turned out the way he had.
Ryou looked at one of the alleys across the street. He knew what lay that way. It was a shortcut of sorts. That alley led to more alleys, narrow and winding, spreading among the buildings like veins. If you knew where you were going, you could avoid the main street and save some time, but very few chose to do so. That route wasn't too dangerous during the day, but it could get downright deadly in the nights. There weren't many actual houses in those alleys; instead, here was an abundance of shady dives, half-abandoned apartments, and all sorts of unspecified illegal businesses. It wasn't as bad as the neighborhood Bakura lived in now, but still. The crowd that walked those alleys after dark was better to be avoided.
Ryou knew it well, because he'd walked those alleys often. It had become a sort of habit of his, years ago: back when Bakura had been gone, and the empty space in Ryou's head had been too fresh and scary.
He looked away now, walking past the gaping mouth of the alley.
Maybe he wasn't as different from Bakura as he liked to pretend. He'd also played with fire once. Maybe Bakura had rubbed off on him, or maybe they simply had the same streak of recklessness and destruction; self-destruction or otherwise.
Maybe that was the only way Ryou knew how to exist. Like he was expendable. Nonessential. Whatever harm came to him didn't really matter.
He drew in a puff of smoke so deep that the sizzling in his lungs muffled his thoughts.
There was no point in thinking like that now. Things weren't the same they'd been back then, anyway. And he didn't care if Bakura wanted to gamble his life, inside or outside the cage. It was none of Ryou's business.
He reached Malik's apartment building, put out his cigarette, and rang the doorbell.
"Morning, Ryou!" Malik beamed the moment he opened the door.
"Hey, Malik."
Bakura was already there, sitting in the yellow armchair as usual. Ryou's body went very still for a few seconds, locking up of its own accord, until he ordered his limbs to start moving again.
He was getting better at this. If they kept meeting up this often, he might stop freezing altogether.
"Hey," he said, pretending that everything was under control and that Bakura's presence hadn't just sent his body through a fight-or-flight response.
"Hey," Bakura replied in a gruff voice.
He looked exhausted, but not as tense around the eyes and mouth as he had been the previous day. There were scabs across his knuckles that definitely hadn't been there before, but the bruises on his face seemed to be healing, turning into greenish shades. Overall, he seemed to be in a better mood. He didn't even scowl when Ryou sat across from him.
"You look better," Ryou said, trying the waters.
"Thanks. You don't," Bakura replied. It wasn't the gleeful comment Ryou might expect; it sounded like a light-hearted tease—like the sort of thing Bakura might jokingly say to Malik.
Ryou arched an eyebrow. He really couldn't make any sense of him at all.
"Hey, Ryou! Bakura brought donuts! Do you want one?" Malik said.
"Donuts?" Ryou repeated in a murmur, giving Bakura a suspicious look. He took one from the box Malik left on the coffee table, because he hadn't eaten a proper breakfast before leaving, but he didn't stop eyeing Bakura. He waited until Malik went to the kitchen and then said in a low voice, "So... You're friendly again today?"
"I'm always friendly."
Ryou hummed in a way that showed he couldn't disagree more. Bakura grinned.
"I just had a bad day yesterday. I'm entitled to a bad day."
"Right..."
Did demons have bad days too? It sounded like an awfully human thing.
Ryou kept looking at Bakura through narrowed eyes, until he realized that he was staring and turned his gaze down to his grammar textbook. He should just focus on his homework and stop trying to figure Bakura out. It would be more productive.
They slipped into their usual routine: Bakura started staring at the Spellbook pages, Ryou tried to both keep an eye on his yami and finish his essay, and Malik just lounged around, reading his book or typing in his laptop.
Everything was quiet until a blast of rock music erupted from Malik's phone, making them all jump.
"I gotta take this. It's my agent," Malik said. He picked up his phone and disappeared to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Silence followed his departure, until Malik returned ten minutes later, holding his phone and looking nervous and apologetic. "Um... Guys? I have news."
Bakura set the Spellbook down at the same time that Ryou snapped his textbook shut.
"Bad ones, from the sound of it," Bakura said.
"Well, they're not exactly bad, but..." Malik ran a hand through his hair, an obvious sign that he was uneasy. "I'll have to leave in a few days. I have to go to Tokyo for this movie I'm in."
Bakura scowled. "Tokyo?"
"Yup. We are shooting some additional stunts and scenes and... stuff."
"That's good news," Ryou said. "They're paying well."
"Yeah, it's good news for me, but I won't be here for..." Malik gestured towards the general area of Bakura and the Spellbook.
Ryou glanced at his yami. For a split second, he wondered if they would be able to keep up these sessions without Malik. Just Bakura and him.
No. No. No way. No.
"For how long are you gonna be away?" Ryou asked.
"I don't know. A week, more or less?"
"Then we'll wait for you to come back."
Ryou expected Bakura to argue, but surprisingly, he said, "I agree with landlord. We'll wait for you."
"But, guys..."
"We'll wait 'till you're back, Malik. End of story," Ryou said.
Malik's dissent was written all over his face. He folded his arms across his chest and looked from one to the other. "You realize you don't need me, right? It's not like I do anything substantial. I'm just sitting around—"
"It's just for a week. A few days' break won't make any difference. It's not like we'll halt any significant progress," Ryou said, trying very hard not to give Bakura a pointed look.
Bakura discerned the jab anyway. His face darkened, but he did not retort. He merely turned to Malik. "When are you leaving?"
"Next Monday."
"That's more that a week from now."
"Yeah, but—"
"We have plenty of days until then. We'll keep going until next Monday, and then we'll take a break."
Malik huffed to show his disagreement, but in the end he said, "Okay."
Ryou could understand Malik. They'd already lost a week after Bakura had decided to disappear—and then reappear with bruises and a foul mood—but he'd much rather wait than meet with Bakura all by himself. If the current sessions were jarring, he didn't even want to imagine what it would be like without Malik there.
The break didn't matter much, anyway. They'd made zero progress from the start—and that day was no different.
When the time to leave arrived, Bakura set the pages down and shook his head. Ryou twisted his mouth in disappointment, but he said nothing. The good thing was that, the previous day, Bakura had left him alone. Maybe he'd decided that getting on Ryou's nerves wasn't amusing anymore, or maybe he did indeed have somewhere else to be. Whatever the reason, Ryou hoped this change of heart would last.
Sadly, it didn't. As he left for another thrilling shift at the store, Bakura exited the building right behind him, zipping up his leather jacket.
Ryou blinked at him. "I'm going to work," he said, slowly and clearly.
Bakura shrugged. "Cool. I could use a walk downtown. I could buy some fancy coffee."
Ryou let out the most annoyed huff he could muster and started walking. "Don't you have anywhere else to be today?"
"Nope."
"Of course not. There's no way I'd be so lucky two days in a row."
Bakura smirked, but he didn't say anything. He fell into step next to Ryou, following him all the way to the shopping district. When they got there, Bakura paused outside Ryou's workplace and waved a wand, demonstrating nonchalance of the most annoying quality. "Until tomorrow, then, landlord!"
This was unbelievable. Ryou turned on his heel and walked into the store, fuming in silence.
The next day was one of Ryou's rare days off. Malik still had to go to work in the evening, so they met relatively early in the afternoon and called it a day some time around sunset.
"What's your excuse this time? Do you like the convenience store in my neighborhood?" Ryou gritted out when he noticed his yami being at his heels again.
Bakura gestured vaguely towards the sky. "It's getting dark," he said, as if that explained it.
It didn't explain anything at all.
It was driving Ryou up the walls. Not just seeing Bakura every day, or his nonsensical behavior, or the lack of concrete progress, but also having to see Malik and Bakura interact like two old friends. Sometimes it became... too hard to watch.
The following afternoon, Ryou sat hunched over his endless textbooks, while Malik was sitting on the floor, close to Bakura's armchair, holding a cup of tea in his hands.
"So you said something about a gym?" Malik said, looking up at Bakura with an excited gleam in his eyes.
Bakura nodded. "Yeah. There's a ring and everything. I've been sparring with some dudes. It's pretty cool."
"I can't believe you've been sparring with some dudes, but you still haven't invited me."
"You? What do you know of sparring?"
"Excuse me? Have you seen all these certificates? And I have a black belt in Jujutsu."
"Big deal."
"Stop acting so smug. You know I'd kick your ass."
"You want me to fight you? I'll fight you, Ishtar. But not today."
"Why? You scared?"
"Don't wanna mess up your pretty face before your big shoot, that's all."
"Oh, so thoughtful!"
Ryou was holding his pencil so hard his knuckles had turned white. "I thought we weren't here to chat," he said through gritted teeth, underlining something on his textbook and determinedly keeping his gaze on it.
He felt Malik and Bakura stare at him. He hadn't meant to sound so harsh, or so salty, or so pathetically jealous, but he didn't think he could hear them banter like that for a minute longer without going crazy.
Malik murmured something unintelligible and got to his feet, but Bakura said, "It was just a small break, landlord. You should try it some time."
"A break from what?"
Bakura rustled a Spellbook page. It was the same page Ryou had picked for him days ago, which was... strange. Ryou hadn't expected that his yami would actually take his suggestion, let alone persist this much with it.
Ryou looked away again. "Just concentrate," he murmured.
"Fine."
Ryou knew he was probably a bit unfair. Bakura did indeed try to concentrate: Ryou could see that much. For the next half hour, the yami sat with his gaze glued to the page. He was looking at a specific spot at the top, then at someplace further down. And back. And again.
He had found something troubling, that much was obvious. From the way he was moving, rubbing his eyes and curling his shoulders inwards, Ryou could tell that what he'd encountered was troubling in more ways than one. Maybe a bad memory, or... whatever it was he was tapping into.
And it was still the page Ryou had picked for him. What on earth made Bakura persevere this much with it?
Ryou observed him for half an hour, until curiosity got the better of him. He got to his feet and approached Bakura. He tried not to get too close, but he didn't manage to avoid the scent of his yami's cheap soap, fabric softener, cigarette smoke and... something that reminded Ryou of his high-school days, and sunsets over rooftops, and—
It threw Ryou off track for just a second, before he managed to get a hold of himself and focus on his task.
"What is it now?" Bakura drawled.
"I came to see what was wrong with the page."
"You mean, besides everything?"
Ryou didn't answer. He located the first spot Bakura had been focusing on, then the one further down. He narrowed his eyes until all the other details faded, leaving just the black shapes.
"They are the same," Ryou said.
"What?"
"The pattern. Look. It's overlapped by these symbols, but if you ignore them..." Ryou hesitated for the barest of seconds, then he leaned closer and put his hands over the paper, covering some of the lines. "See?"
He tried not to turn and look Bakura in the eyes, because he was aware of how close he was and... He'd rather not.
"Shit," Bakura breathed. "You're right."
Ryou swallowed, hating the ripple of pride that crawled down his spine. He turned away from the yami and searched among the mess he'd made on the coffee table, picking up books and shuffling pages. He found a blank piece of paper and a pencil and sat cross-legged on the floor. "May I?" he said, indicating the Spellbook page.
Bakura handed it over. Ryou set out to copy the symbol on the clean page, squinting hard to make out the correct lines.
Bakura crouched over his shoulder, nearly breathing on his neck. The proximity made the hairs on Ryou's neck stand on end and his pulse to drop to his stomach. His pencil wavered over the paper.
Distracting. It was distracting.
Ryou took a deep breath. He contemplated telling Bakura to go away, but he could see that, for once, he wasn't trying to get on his nerves on purpose. In fact, he didn't seem to have noticed Ryou's discomfort; he was squinting at the page with a look of utter concentration. "This line is wrong," he said, pointing at Ryou's drawing.
Ryou grabbed an eraser and corrected it.
"And this one," Bakura said. "This belongs to the symbol next to it."
Having Bakura over his head giving directions stirred plenty of unpleasant memories, but the good news was that Ryou knew how to function like that. Once the initial discomfort was gone, he found himself working faster, half the times knowing what Bakura would say seconds before he actually said it. Slowly, erasing and fixing his drawing multiple times, Ryou's symbol started resembling the one on the page.
At some point, Bakura got tired of crouching over Ryou and sat cross-legged on the carpet next to him, close enough to be able to see the page and point out corrections. Ryou wasn't sure if he preferred it. He kept working.
After he was done, he lifted the page and held it so Bakura could see. "Is this it?"
The yami took the page in his hands, staring at the symbol. "Shit..."
"Do you recognize it?"
"Yes," Bakura whispered, sounding miles away. "Yes. I know this."
Ryou's heart beat hard, his mouth going dry in excitement. "You know it?" he repeated, making an effort to sound calm.
"Yes. I've heard it before. I... I know this."
"Heard it? What do you mean, heard it?" Malik said, nearly making Ryou jolt. He had forgotten that Malik was there, too.
"In the Ring," Bakura said. "The shadows. They made no sound, but they talked, all the time."
"The shadows talked to you?" Malik asked. He sounded... scared.
"The shadows. Zorc. Same thing. Talked all the time," Bakura waved a hand, but his voice came out gruff, like he was struggling to get the words out. "For years. Years. I didn't realize how crazy it was until—"
"Until what?"
Bakura gestured towards himself. "Until this. This body. Waking up here. He's gone now and it's... quiet."
Ryou swallowed.
The shadows talked.
Ryou knew. He knew what it meant to have a voice in his head, and he knew just how vast and scary the silence felt after the noise was gone. He remembered the endless, boundless loneliness that came afterwards.
He didn't want to think about it now. He wanted to scramble away, go back to his seat on the couch, or go outside and have a cigarette.
Bakura was rubbing his eyes, looking like he was struggling with whatever was in his head, and Malik was on the verge of freaking out, and no one had noticed that Ryou had frozen between them, his pulse thundering in his ears.
He took a deep breath. He had to keep it together.
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tapped the page to catch Bakura's attention again. "The shadows said... this?" he asked, pointing at the symbol.
Bakura dropped his hand from his eyes. "Yes. It was... Everywhere. In the shadows. All the time. In the back. It was—"
"All the time?" Ryou took the page in his hands. "Repeating itself? The way it does here?"
Instead of answering, Bakura took a sharp inhale and scrunched his eyes shut, looking like he was in sudden pain. "Shit..."
"You okay?" Malik said, half-pushing himself out of his seat.
Bakura took a few deep breaths, loud and hissing in the quiet of the living room. He was gritting his teeth so hard Ryou could see the muscles of his neck. "Him... It was him. It was... Shit."
Panic darted inside Ryou's chest. He looked at the pain in Bakura's face, not knowing what to do. Should they stop?
No. Bakura was onto something. Whatever it was he was doing, or remembering, wasn't pleasant, but he could take it. He was strong; Ryou knew it. He was stronger that this. If he'd only hold on long enough to remember—
"Do you need a break?" Malik said.
"No!" Ryou said sharply, not meaning to sound so harsh, but—couldn't Malik see that they couldn't stop now? Bakura could do it. Ryou was certain of it.
Bakura shook his head. "No, it's... I've got this. I've got this. They were... everywhere. This was them."
Them.
Ryou looked at the Spellbook page again, trying to string Bakura's words into something that made sense. "It was them? You mean the shadows?"
"Yes," Bakura ground out through his clenched jaw. "This was... the darkness. Him."
"Zorc?"
A nod.
Ryou frowned at the page. "Is this Zorc's name, then?"
Bakura slowly turned to stare at him. The whites of his eyes had turned red and bloodshot with all the rubbing, but his expression was one of shock and... alarm?
"Yes..." Bakura said quietly. "Yes. That's it."
For the next few seconds, nothing could be heard. They all looked at the symbol in Ryou's hands, frozen in shock; even Malik seemed unable to look away.
"We've got it. Zorc's name," Ryou murmured. The page in his hands shook, rustling lightly. He couldn't believe it.
Bakura climbed to his feet, his face looking ashen. "I'm going outside for a smoke," he murmured. He was somewhat unsteady on his feet as he went to grab his jacket.
"I'm coming with you," Malik said.
"No. No, just—I need a sec," Bakura said, waving a hand and immediately grabbing the wall to steady himself. He looked so shitty that even Ryou started worrying about whether he'd be able to climb down the stairs in one piece. "I'm fine," Bakura snapped, making an effort to glare both at Ryou and Malik. "I'll be back in five."
He left.
Malik and Ryou turned to look at each other. Ryou was still holding the piece of paper with the symbol and Malik looked both shook and worried out of his mind.
Bakura had actually recognized something. He had remembered. Ryou had no idea how, but hell, half an hour ago he'd been doubting whether there was any point in what they'd been doing, and now—
"Maybe someone should go check on him," Malik said.
Ryou nodded, half his mind still on the page, and half of it on Bakura. Considering how pale he'd looked, maybe someone should go keep an eye on him.
"You go," Malik said.
Ryou jolted. "What? Why me?"
"He's less likely to snap at you."
"Are you kidding? He snaps at me all the time!"
Malik shook his head. "No, no, he's more cautious around you. If I go, he'll tell me to fuck off."
Ryou wanted to laugh at him, but Malik looked so certain and serious about this that Ryou just gaped. "He likes you," he said, hearing just the tiniest note of bitterness in his voice.
"He gets angry when I fuss," Malik said.
Ryou knew exactly what he meant. Malik's concern could get overbearing at times, so yes, Ryou could understand his yami, but... But.
This had always been something between Malik and Ryou. It had been their thing: they'd been best friends for a decade, and they'd taken care of each other and worried about each other and fussed and bickered and... Everything. The fact that Bakura had somehow inserted himself in this, and that by now they were intimate enough for Malik to know what made Bakura angry, or what didn't, was... Too much to take.
Ryou looked away, pretending to be absorbed by the page again. "I'm sure he's fine. He'll just smoke a cigarette and be up in no time."
"Oh, come on, just go and—"
"No," Ryou said firmly, making an inhuman effort not to snap or say something harsher. Or something awful. He kept his head low and his gaze on the page. "I'm sure he's fine," he repeated. Did he sound cold and uncaring? Maybe. He preferred it that way.
Malik relented with a huff and sank back onto the pillows to wait.
Bakura came up ten minutes later, still looking pale and shaken. He nearly recoiled when he set eyes on the Spellbook again, so Malik suggested an even bigger break and made them some tea. It didn't help. Every time Bakura picked up the Spellbook he looked like he was going to be sick, and that threw Malik in such a worried fit that Ryou had to step up and call it a night.
The walk back home was distracted and quiet. Bakura was silent, smoking one cigarette after the other without lifting his gaze from the sidewalk. Ryou did not tell him off for following him this time; if anything, he wanted to make sure Bakura was in a position to walk without keeling over. Just in case.
"Maybe you should take a cab," Ryou suggested.
Bakura's only reply was a grunt, so Ryou didn't speak again. He kept a close eye on him, though, ready to catch him if he fainted.
Momentarily, Ryou entertained the idea of walking Bakura to his... home, or workplace, or whatever, but he ruled that out. It was an entertaining thought, however: the tables turned, etcetera. He wondered if Bakura would accept it, or if he'd throw an irritated fit like Ryou used to do.
In the end, he didn't get to find out. By the time they reached Ryou's place, Bakura looked better: the color was back on his face and his pace had turned brisk and certain. Maybe walking outside in the cold had done the trick—or maybe it was simply his being away from the Spellbook. Either way, he looked like he could handle going back home on his own.
"Tomorrow, then," Ryou said instead of a goodnight.
Bakura nodded and made a gesture that looked like half a wave, leaving a trail of thin cigarette smoke behind.
When he went to Malik's the following evening, after work, Ryou grabbed all fifteen of the Spellbook pages and spread them on the carpet. Then he took a clean notepad and a pencil and sat cross-legged among them. Malik, of course, cringed as far away as possible and hid behind a magazine, but Bakura watched him for a while, arching an eyebrow.
"What are you doing, landlord?"
Ryou did not answer immediately. He squinted at a jumble of lines, trying to tell apart the symbols that composed it. "I am trying to locate Zorc's symbol in the rest of the text."
"Why?"
Ryou considered not replying, but Bakura's question had caught Malik's attention, too, and now they were both looking at him, waiting. "I think it might help."
"Help how?"
"Well..." Ryou hesitated. "I was inspired by the Rosetta Stone."
Malik made an understanding sound, but Bakura said, "The what?"
"The Rosetta Stone was the key to deciphering hieroglyphics," Malik explained.
"I still don't get it."
"Okay, look," Ryou said. "The Rosetta Stone is a stele—a tall stone slab, that is. It has a text inscribed on it, repeated in three languages: ancient Greek, hieroglyphic, and demotic. Two hundred years ago, no one could read the hieroglyphics or the demotic text, but they could read the Greek one. Scholars identified five names in the Greek text, and then they located those names in the demotic text. Since both the demotic and Greek texts were alphabetical, they tried to identify which characters resembled which. So, letter by letter, they reconstructed the alphabet and, from that, they moved to phonetic hieroglyphic characters, by managing to identify the names of pharaoh Ramesses and Thutmose in cartouches they found at Abu Simbel, and then—"
Ryou trailed off, realizing that he was probably speaking too fast for anyone to actually grasp what he was saying. Bakura's face was scrunched up in a confused expression, while Malik was smirking, half-hidden behind his magazine.
"You know a lot about that," Bakura remarked. Ryou couldn't tell if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult.
"Ryou is a walking encyclopedia," Malik said with a clear hint of admiration in his voice. "And his skills in reading hieroglyphics rival mine."
"Yeah, well... I grew up with an archaeologist as a father. And with him in my head," Ryou murmured, pointing at Bakura.
"I couldn't read," Bakura said. "So you definitely didn't pick up that skill from me." That sounded suspiciously like a compliment; Bakura's expression held an inkling of awe, and Ryou's thoughts stammered.
...Had Bakura just praised him? Indirectly and very obliquely, but still...?
It was absurd. Bakura would never do that. He was probably trying to look good in front of Malik. Or to mess with Ryou's head.
Ryou swallowed, looking away. "Anyway," he said loudly, picking back up the symbol he'd drawn. "Two hundred years ago, they translated hieroglyphics starting from a few names. So, I thought I'd take a page off their book and try the same with Zorc's name."
"Yeah, but it's not the same," Malik said. "They had other texts to compare it to. We don't. We only have these fucking scribbles. So, even if you find Zorc's name, what are you gonna do with it?"
"I don't know, but—"
"Malik's right," Bakura said.
"Well, it's all we have so far."
"It is kinda far-fetched, though," Bakura insisted.
"It's a plan."
"A desperate one."
"Well, I gotta get rid of you somehow, don't I?" Ryou snapped.
Bakura closed his mouth. He looked at Ryou coldly for a few seconds, all traces of his previous awe slipping from his face. "Right," he said.
It didn't feel like a win.
It was grueling work, slow and tedious. It was easy to get lost among all the swirling lines and blotches of ink. Ryou rubbed his eyes again and again, now realizing why Bakura huffed and fidgeted so often.
As for Bakura, he took one of the pages and did his own thing—which was staring at it for two hours.
When midnight rolled around, they were all exhausted and bad-tempered. Ryou had managed to locate Zorc's name four more times, but he wasn't all that excited about it. Some part of him knew that Malik and Bakura were right: even if he located all the iterations of Zorc's name in the text, he had no idea what he'd do next. He wouldn't admit that out loud, though. He comforted himself by saying that he'd cross that bridge when he got to it, and tried not to think too much about how stupid his plan sounded, even to himself.
It was raining again. Bakura and Ryou sloshed their way to Ryou's place, each one huddled under his umbrella. Bakura didn't try to give any explanation this time, and Ryou was so exhausted that he just went along with it. They walked slowly, listening to the rumblings of thunder and trying to avoid the streams of rainwater.
"Did you make any progress?" Bakura asked when they were halfway to Ryou's apartment.
Ryou tensed for a second, but he forced himself to relax. "I located Zorc's name four times. What about you?"
"Nothing useful."
"Hm."
Back home, Ryou tried to focus on his English essay, but he ended up drawing Zorc's symbol in the margins of his notebook, looking at it from all possible angles while chewing the cap of his pen in thoughtfulness. He fell asleep with his head on his textbook.
His dreams were getting bizarre. He kept seeing shadows and hearing things that he recognized but couldn't quite place. Not to mention that scenes from his past kept cropping up with increasing frequency. That night, Ryou had seen Amane and his mom, and something he was pretty sure was supposed to be his soul room, even though it was full of dancing shadows. He was trying to get out, or to get somewhere, and someone had kept calling his name.
His shift at the store was more arduous than usual. Ryou kept yawning and rubbing his eyes, and he couldn't get Zorc's symbol out of his head. Or Bakura.
At first he had thought that the hardest part would be seeing Bakura every day. Now, he realized, the hardest part was to keep himself from accepting this as something so natural that didn't even merit any thought. He guessed there was nothing the human mind—or body—couldn't get used to. And that was what worried him. He was getting too used to Bakura's presence and—
He couldn't have that.
The Spellbook was his only way out, so he fixated on that with nearly obsessive focus. And it went well—better than Ryou expected.
Bakura decided to help him locate Zorc's symbol among the rest of the pages, saying that they'd finish faster that way. And he was right. They moved like clockwork around each other, passing notes from hand to hand and discussing the pages. Bakura always knew what page Ryou was looking for, and Ryou could tell when Bakura had found something interesting even before Bakura himself had realized it. Ryou hadn't expected it, but he guessed that was the echo of their shared years, showing through. They'd once shared a head-space. It made sense.
And he couldn't stand it. This was the confirmation that Bakura and he might have managed to come to terms with each other in the past. Maybe they would have never been like Yuugi and Atem, but they could have co-existed in a sort of peace. Maybe they would, if Bakura hadn't been so—
It didn't matter anymore. But it was still a hard pill to swallow.
At least they were making progress. Ryou's plan might prove to be useless and stupid, but for now they were making progress, locating more and more iterations of Zorc's name among the rest of the mumbo-jumbo, and it felt like moving forward. It felt like they were finally doing something right.
"Look," Ryou said, picking up a page. "Look at this. It look's like Zorc's symbol, but there are slight differences. I don't know if they are important or not."
"Let me see," Bakura said. Ryou handed the notepad over to him. "No, they are not important. And this one is wrong."
"What?" Ryou frowned at the symbol Bakura was pointing at. "No, it's not."
"It's not the same as the others."
"Of course it is! Look!" Ryou got to his knees to trace the line with the tip of his pencil. "See this? It's exactly the same."
"No, it's a different symbol. You missed this part," Bakura said, pointing at a line that crept out of the main body of the symbol and curved at a sharp angle before going to merge with the shape next to it.
"...Huh," Ryou said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Malik give him an aw-look-at-you-two-working-together look. When Ryou scowled at him, Malik simply grinned.
"I think it's going well," Malik said later, when Bakura went downstairs to smoke a cigarette.
Ryou scoffed. "Please."
"Oh, come on, Ryou. When you forget to be angry at each other, you actually work together pretty well."
"So what?" Ryou snapped. "He's been inside my head, of course we work well together!"
"That's not what I—"
"That's what it is. Nothing more."
On Thursday morning, Ryou woke up with a stiff spine and a crick in his neck. He'd fallen asleep on the couch again. The TV was still on, forgotten since last night, and his textbook had slid to the floor.
He made himself some coffee and gulped it down while gathering his textbooks from around the apartment. There was no time for a proper breakfast, but he knew from experience that he could go another two or three hours without food, so it would be fine. The caffeine jitters would be awful, but nothing he couldn't handle.
He looked at himself in the mirror and tried not to wince. It seemed like every day he reached new depths of looking like shit. The bags under his eyes were scary, and the hollowness under his cheekbones was getting unnervingly prominent. He promised himself he'd grab a snack after class, right before his shift at the store, and left for college.
That morning's class seemed endless; Ryou had to fight the urge to rest his head on his arms and take a quick nap. He bought a sandwich from the cafeteria before leaving campus, but there was no time to eat it. By the time he reached the store, his hands were shaking and he was feeling lightheaded with hunger. He knew what Mrs Nishimura would say when she saw him, so he rubbed his eyes, trying to look alert and not as sleep-deprived. As if.
He walked in nervously, expecting a thorough dressing down from his boss. To his surprise, Mrs Nishimura simply shot him a disapproving look, but didn't say anything more. Ryou went to his work station, barely able to believe his luck, but his relief didn't last: three hours later, just when his lunch break had started, Mrs Nishimura beckoned at Ryou to follow her to her office.
"Bakura, I've tried to be understanding, but this is getting ridiculous. You can't keep showing up looking like this."
Ryou should have known he wouldn't be this lucky.
He lowered his gaze. He knew his appearance was unacceptable, but he couldn't magically grow another eight hours to his day to get some proper sleep and a meal.
"I'm having—"
"A hard time lately. Yes, that's what you keep saying. But, Bakura, keep your problems away from here, please. In this place we have rules, and everyone must respect them, no matter what is going on outside these walls. While you are in here, I expect you to respect the standards of our brand. I've started wondering whether you fit here or not."
Ryou's head snapped up in alarm. "I—I do. I'll prove it to you." He couldn't lose his job. Not now. Not now not now not—
He needed something to not get utterly fucked up, for a change.
"I need to see actions, Bakura. Not just words. I demand better from you, do you understand me? My patience is getting thin."
Ryou bowed, both grateful and terrified. How was he supposed to do that? He knew he had to do better, but—
"Yes, of course, Mrs Nishimura."
He went to the break room, but his appetite was gone. He forced a few bites down anyway, because fainting would make his position even worse, and got back to work.
By the time his shift ended, he was in no mood for a Spellbook session. He wanted to see no more of Bakura, or of these fucking symbols, or Bakura, or Malik being unbearably friendly to him, or Bakura, or—
When he walked in at Malik's, Bakura gave him a look that could be considered indifferent, but his gaze stalled too long on Ryou's face and then, on his hands.
"What?" Ryou snapped.
"Do you ever eat? Or do you live off of nicotine?" Bakura asked.
"What's it to you?" Ryou forced out, wanting to make Bakura shut up but half-hoping that this would challenge him to answer. Because Ryou really wanted to know why Bakura cared. If Bakura had an answer.
Bakura lifted his hands defensively. "Wow, okay." He turned away from him and grabbed a Spellbook page.
So, no real answer. Just as Ryou thought.
He sat down and picked up his notepad, and spent a few minutes being too irritated at everything to focus.
Later, on his way back home, he glanced at the shady alley again. He had to fight the impulse to walk towards it.
He'd been mugged there once. Twice, technically, but the second time around he'd had nothing of value on him, so the thugs had just given him a beating to make up for the trouble. Really, it hadn't been as bad as it could have. Ryou considered himself lucky—even though, back then, lucky wouldn't be the word he'd have used.
Ryou walked past, digging his hands in his pockets. Bakura was following him without talking. At least, he had the good sense to be quiet.
He tried to catch some sleep. He really tried.
When Malik and Ryou squeezed in the kitchen to make tea, Malik gave him a concerned once-over and asked, "Are you okay?"
Ryou took his time picking tea leaves out of a tin can. "Yeah, I'm great."
"Okay, and now answer truthfully."
Ryou sighed deeply to show his exasperation. "I'm fine, Malik."
"Dude, you reek of smoke."
Ryou shrugged. That wasn't news to him; he'd smoked three cigarettes on his way there.
"How can you both stand it?" Malik went on as he poured boiling water in the teapot. "Especially Bakura. Fighting is heavy on the lungs; if anything, he shouldn't be smoking at all—"
"You worry that much about him, huh?" Ryou snapped. He regretted his tone immediately, so he lowered his head and murmured, "Sorry."
Malik leaned with his hip against his kitchen counter, fixing him with a steady look. "Nah, it's okay. I get it."
Ryou glanced towards the kitchen door and the general direction of Bakura, even though the walls were currently hiding him from view. "This whole thing is driving me insane. We meet every day, as if this is in any way remotely normal—"
"Give it time. You'll get used to it."
"I don't want to get used to it!" Ryou hissed at once. "I don't want to treat this as normal, because it's not!"
Malik gave him a sad look. "Maybe it would be easier if you just—"
"What?"
Malik sighed in a resigned sort of way. "I dunno... He's here now. Maybe it is your chance to... Make peace with each other? While you can?"
Ryou held back a sarcastic laugh. "Please, Malik. Would you make peace with Mariku if he was here?"
Malik looked away, hiding his face from Ryou. "We've been through that before."
"Exactly," Ryou said with finality and took his mug to the living room.
He hoped that one of these days Bakura would give up and not follow him home. He hoped he'd leave him alone, and that Ryou would walk these streets the way he was used to, and pretend that none of this was happening.
It turned out that Bakura was almost as stubborn as Ryou was. He walked out of Malik's right after Ryou, and he even had the gall to gesture towards the street and say, "Shall we?" as if inviting Ryou to a pleasant stroll.
Ryou took off, stomping his feet and curling his palms into fists.
Somehow, Malik had managed to take Saturday off, so they met in the afternoon again, after Ryou's shift.
Outside, the wind was howling, causing the rain to whip against the face of the building. Going downstairs for a smoke was out of the question. Malik had budged and allowed Ryou to smoke in the kitchen, so Ryou was currently standing next to the tiny window, contorted so that he could reach it and puff all the smoke outside. It wasn't the most comfortable he had been, but comfort wasn't high on his list these days.
From the living room came Malik's voice, light and pleasant. Bakura's gruff voice replied something and Malik chuckled.
Ryou's face fell, his jaw muscles turning rigid. He didn't know what bothered him the most: the fact that Malik was so friendly towards Bakura, or the fact that Bakura could talk and joke and banter so easily with Malik?
He could see now why Malik insisted that Bakura was different. However unwillingly, Ryou had to admit that there was something different about him: there seemed to be this whole new side of him that Ryou had never seen.
He took an angry drag, relishing the scorching in his throat. In the living room, Bakura said something again and Malik laughed.
Ryou had spent nine years with the Millennium Ring around his neck. For six of those years, Bakura had been a silent shadow, and for the remaining three... Well.
He looked at the silvery scar on his left palm. He clenched it until his tendons strained against the scar tissue.
At first, it had been easy for Ryou to insist that Bakura was faking everything but, the more time that passed, the less certain he was about that. And he didn't know how to handle it. It was easier to hate Bakura when writing him off as the demon that was capable of nothing but hate and pain and destruction, but—
Malik said something unintelligible and Bakura laughed.
The sound hit Ryou like a slap. It wasn't Bakura's familiar sneer, or the smug chuckle he made every time Ryou said something; it was a legitimate laugh, not too loud, husky and a bit hoarse around the edges, as Bakura's voice always was.
Ryou's fingers stilled with the cigarette halfway to his mouth. Something in him went very numb, but his ears seemed to have stretched, trying to catch every note of the sound. The rest of the world had gone strangely quiet.
Malik said something, and Bakura kept laughing.
Ryou had never heard Bakura laugh before. Not like this. He'd never thought him capable of making such a sound. He'd spent three years with Bakura whispering all sorts of things in his brain, and yet he had never—
Ryou forced himself to down a large cloud of smoke, so thick that his lungs frizzled. His eyes hurt.
It wasn't fair. None of this was.
Ryou threw the stub outside the window and rubbed his face. He didn't want to go back to the living room. He wanted to leave. Go home. He wanted to curl on his bed and cover his head with a blanket until everything was dark and no sounds reached him, and close his eyes and sleep. And sleep. And sleep. No dreams.
He walked out of the kitchen at last. Whatever it was that Malik and Bakura had been talking about, they stopped when Ryou entered the room. Malik frowned slightly when he saw him, so Ryou clenched his teeth a bit more. He didn't dare glance at Bakura. He didn't want to see how different he looked with the traces of laughter still fresh on his face, nor did he want to see his smile turn into a sneer.
Ryou sat down and grabbed the Spellbook pages, determinedly keeping his gaze low, hoping for his hair to hide most of his face. The room had turned deathly silent.
"Please, go on. Don't let me spoil your fun," he said through gritted teeth.
He heard Malik shuffle, probably throwing Bakura a confused look. Ryou had nothing against Malik. Nothing whatsoever. But he couldn't look at him right now, either.
He gripped a pencil, looking at the symbol he'd copied on his notepad even though it all seemed to be a jumble of lines with no sense or meaning.
None of this was fair.
He pretended to fix a line on his drawing, just to seem like he was doing something.
"You should rest, too, landlord. The Spellbook isn't going anywhere," Bakura said. He didn't sound mocking, just... neutral. Maybe even bored. After hearing him laugh and joke with Malik, this tone sounded like an insult.
"You're not going anywhere, either. Not unless I finish this," Ryou spat out, as harshly and coldly as he could. It was so easy to do that he felt almost proud of himself.
Bakura chuckled, but this time it was the jagged, mocking thing Ryou knew all too well, and—better, that was better. Ryou knew how to handle that.
"Hospitable as ever, landlord," Bakura said.
"Hard to be hospitable towards a parasite," Ryou shot back.
Malik gave the world's most tired sigh. "Guys, please."
Bakura scoffed, but at least the silence that followed didn't press on Ryou in the same painful way it did before. They slid back into their usual, quiet despise, and Ryou could almost sigh with relief.
"What's wrong with you?" Bakura asked after they'd left.
Ryou had walked downstairs without even wishing Malik a good night, and Bakura was walking hurriedly next to him now, staring straight at his face. It had stopped raining half an hour ago, but the wind was still strong, every now and then flinging stray droplets of water on them.
Ryou didn't speak. Nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong.
"Don't you have anything better to do? Leave me alone," he said at last.
"We've been through this, landlord. It's—"
"Late, right. And dark and dangerous."
"Well, yeah."
Ryou scoffed out a laugh that felt like a shard of glass in his throat. "Aren't you tired of this charade yet?"
Bakura's brows knit together. "I'm just walking you home."
"Sure. To protect me, right?" Ryou's voice wavered a bit at the edges, and he was almost sure it was because of the anger he struggled to hold back. He was sick of this.
He saw the mouth of the familiar shady alley. It looked even darker at this hour in the night, but Ryou knew that there were lights further in: half-wrecked neon signs and the occasional light bulb hanging from a balcony. Or so things had been the last time. Ryou wondered how much they had changed in the meantime: was this route safer now, or had it turned even more dangerous?
...He could check it out. He had Bakura with him to protect him, right? He had said so.
A hard smirk curled Ryou's mouth. If Bakura wanted to follow him so badly, Ryou would make it interesting for him.
He crossed the street and made for the alley.
"Oi, landlord! Where are you going?"
Ryou just kept walking. When Bakura caught up to him, he'd already entered the shadows of the alley and was marching ahead, swerving to avoid a pair of trashcans.
"Where the hell are you going?"
"Shortcut," Ryou said.
"What?"
"Shortcut," Ryou repeated. He turned to smirk at Bakura. "What? Haven't you discovered this route yet?"
"Is this a joke?" Bakura bristled. "Let's go back."
"You're free to, if you want to."
Further down the alley, the rickety sign of a dive blinked in the darkness. A small group of burly men stood outside, laughing and shouting drunkenly. Ryou remembered that dive, as well as all the other ones along these alleys; fights often broke out in those places, and walking past them meant risking a mugging, a knife in the ribs, or worse.
But nothing would happen this time, right? Because his yami was with him to protect him. Lucky Ryou.
"What the hell?" Bakura hissed. He grabbed Ryou's arm and held him back; his grip was stronger than Ryou had expected.
Ryou turned to look at him. "What? Don't tell me you are afraid."
Bakura's face contorted in something between anger and alarm. He tugged at Ryou's arm, trying to pull him back towards the main street. "Cut the crap, landlord. Come on."
Ryou shook his arm free. "You're free to go wherever you want. I'm going this way." He turned his back to Bakura and resumed walking.
The men outside the pub had noticed them dawdling and were now observing them, murmuring amongst themselves and laughing.
"Shit," Bakura hissed. He caught up to Ryou with two wide strides. "Are you out of your mind?"
Ryou shrugged. "A shortcut is a shortcut."
"Cut the crap, landlord," Bakura said in a low whisper, because they were drawing closer to the group. "Let's turn around. This is dangerous."
"Oh? The King of Thieves is afraid of a couple of mere mortals?"
"You know that's not it!"
The men outside the dive were now unabashedly observing them. Bakura took a step closer to Ryou, their arms almost brushing. The yami's body was tense, as if ready to react at the slightest provocation, and his hand was in his jacket's pocket, probably gripping a knife or some other weapon.
Ryou kept walking, keeping his own shoulders relaxed and his face as indifferent as he could, even though a half-forgotten thrill trickled through his veins. He'd done this many times before: he had walked these streets with his head high and a vast, dark calmness moving his feet.
He was pushing his luck, he knew. Malik would fret if he found out.
Whatever. Ryou would just insist he was taking a shortcut, as he always did. And anyway, if something happened to Ryou, Malik would still have Bakura for company. It would be more than enough. Better, even.
He tried not to let his bitterness show in his face, but he picked up his pace, walking with even more resolve than before.
One of the men whistled at them. "Hiya, lovebirds! Where you going?"
Ryou felt Bakura tense up even more next to him. He took a step closer to Ryou, this time his arm pushing against him, positioning himself like a barrier between Ryou and the group.
"That your girlfriend?" One of them shouted to Bakura. The others laughed rambunctiously.
Bakura's arm spasmed, probably ready to lash out, but he did not bark back any sort of reply. He pushed against Ryou's arm, trying to get him to pick up his pace. "Hurry up," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
Ryou smirked, refusing to follow Bakura's order. "They seem friendly."
The look of outrage on Bakura's face was worth it. "Fuck, landlord, keep going!"
"Oh, don't go!" The men laughed.
"Sweetheart, ditch that asshole! I'll buy you a drink!" someone shouted to Ryou.
Bakura's head snapped around, probably to glare at the group, and the laughter turned louder.
"What's up, tough guy? You want trouble?"
There was the sound of glass smashing: one of them had tossed the bottle he was holding aside and had taken a threatening step towards them.
"Shit," Bakura hissed. He let go of whatever weapon he was holding and grabbed Ryou's wrist, pulling him along and away from the group. "Come on, move it."
Ryou smirked even further, because he knew this would infuriate his yami. The men did not follow them, but they laughed as Bakura and Ryou passed by, yelling insults at them and whistling.
Bakura didn't let go of Ryou's wrist, not even after they were a safe distance away. He held on tightly, his face stormy. "Fuck, landlord. Are you a fucking idiot?"
"What's your problem?"
Bakura's head snapped around so fast his white hair whipped the air. "My problem? What the hell did you come this way for?"
Ryou shrugged. "I come this way sometimes."
"Are you out of your mind?"
"What's it to you?"
Bakura's glower was scorching, his brows low and sharp. "Do you have a fucking death wish? Is that it?"
It was funny that Bakura was so irked by this, when he had done much worse to Ryou: when Bakura had been the one who had left him starving, or bleeding, or alone.
"Don't act like you care," Ryou spat, and anger shook his voice—because this joke was getting old. Real old. Bakura had never been like the Pharaoh, who had always protected and cared about Yuugi, so why the hell was he acting like that now? Why was he insisting that he walked him home to 'protect' him? Just to add insult to injury?
Ryou whirled around and picked up his pace, venturing deeper into the maze of alleys, knowing exactly where the worst of the dives were and where the most 'accidents' happened, half-hoping Bakura would leave him alone and half-wishing that he'd keep up, that he'd see what he'd made of Ryou—cause this was his doing. All of this.
Ryou's fingers were shaking. He lit a cigarette.
His yami didn't know half of it. He didn't know why Ryou had come to know these alleys by heart, or how he'd walked them more than once. He didn't know about the times he'd actually gone into the dingy pubs for a drink. He'd drunk bad quality vodka in stained glasses until he could barely think straight.
Bakura thought he knew who Ryou was, what he could take? Hell no.
He took a furious drag from his cigarette, noticing that his hands still shook and his eyes were stinging, and he was so, so angry he wanted to scream. Or maybe cry.
Bakura grabbed his arm again, and Ryou almost tripped to a halt; his cigarette slipped from his fingers and fizzled out in a puddle. "We can get to the main street from here," Bakura said, nodding towards an alley to their right: at the far end, lights shone like a beacon in the dark.
"Go ahead, then."
"We'll go together!" Bakura tugged at him.
Ryou freed his arm so violently that he made both of them stumble. "Stop acting like you care!" he shouted, and the words ripped at his chest, straight at the base of it, making his voice shake. "Stop acting as if you care if I live or die! Just stop this, okay? Enough! I don't know what game you're playing at, but I don't want your protection, nor your... whatever this is!"
Bakura's look darkened; the shadows on his face turned sharper. "We agreed to work together. I'm just trying to be civil."
"Fuck civil! We'll work together because we have to, but cut the rest of the crap! We are not allies!"
"I was just trying to make this easier for both of us," Bakura said, making a noticeable effort to keep calm.
"Was this one of Malik's bright ideas?" Ryou snapped, because honestly, this sounded exactly like the sort of ridiculous 'make peace with each other' thing Malik would advocate for. Sure enough, Bakura scowled even more, and Ryou let out a laugh. "Yeah, don't bother. I don't know how you managed to get Malik to like you, but don't bother trying it with me."
Bakura's face changed. "I tried to treat you with goodwill," he growled, and Ryou scoffed.
"Is that what that was?"
"Yeah, and it turns out it was a mistake! I've been trying to treat you humanely, and all you've done is treat me like worse than scum!"
"I've been treating you the way you deserve!"
Bakura's face spasmed in fury; he looked scary in that moment, as scary as Ryou remembered him to be in the past, when he was more demon than human. He leaned forward, crowding Ryou and baring his teeth. "You want me to hate you as much as you hate me? Fine, then, landlord. Have it your way."
With one last, disgusted glare at Ryou, Bakura whipped around and left, marching towards the lights of the faraway street.
For a few seconds, Ryou went numb. He wanted to shout at Bakura to stop, and he almost did, taking a deep inhale in and holding it. He nearly screamed that he wasn't done with him; he wanted to run and catch up to him and let out the thousand things that were crammed in his his chest, but all he did was watch Bakura's back, his white ponytail swinging as he walked as fast as he could, shoulders hunched like a feline, away and away.
Ryou was heaving, leaving shaky puffs of fog in the air.
Well, good riddance. Better than keeping up this farce. Better to hate each other and show it than acting like... whatever that was. Better than pretending they could ever be allies, because—
It was too late for that.
"Fuck," Ryou whispered in the dark, covering his eyes with his hands. He pressed his fingertips hard against his eyelids and took deep breaths until the stinging went away.
It was better this way. It was better. Simpler to keep his hate sharp and clear, because he couldn't go through all the pain and the regret of the alternative. He couldn't let Bakura back in and allow to break him again. Hell, Ryou had been careless and it was already happening: he hadn't walked these alleys with the intent of bringing harm upon himself since then, and it was already getting unbearable, already getting too much, already getting too familiar, and—
"Fuck."
It was better this way.
It was too late for anything else.
A loud clatter woke him up. He pushed himself upwards and looked over the couch's back, towards the kitchen.
It was just Grandma Aiko. She had dropped a pan.
"Oh, sorry to wake you up, dear," she said when she saw his head sticking out from behind the couch. She stooped to pick up the pan and her face crumpled in a grimace. She had more wrinkles when she did that.
He got to his feet and walked to the kitchen.
"Do you want eggs, dear?" she asked. She looked up at him over her shoulder. He was taller than her. She was such a tiny woman.
He nodded.
He sat at the table with the funny tablecloth. It had clouds and squirrels on it. It made no sense, because Grandma Aiko had told him that squirrels did not live in the clouds, but he liked it.
"Would you mind taking Fluffy out for her walk today?" she asked, just the way she did every day.
And just like every day, he replied, "Okay."
She smiled. It made his chest feel warm in a way that was not entirely unpleasant.
She left a plate with rice and eggs in front of him. He grabbed his fork.
"What do we say?" she snapped in her creaky little voice. It sounded like she was angry, but she wasn't really. He had learned that by now. She called that 'stern'.
"Thank you," he said.
She gave him another warm smile.
"Your hair is a nightmare again. Did you not use the brush I got you?"
He swallowed his mouthful, because Grandma Aiko always said that this was the right thing to do before speaking. "I did. It broke."
"Good gracious. Again?" She shook her head.
She sat on the table across from him and put one hand over the other, right on top of the squirrels and the clouds. "So... It is decided then? You are leaving to find that young man of yours?"
"Malik. Yes," he said. He set his fork down. His stomach felt tight every time he said his name, and he didn't want to eat any more.
"And you have to go all the way to Domino?"
She had asked before. He didn't mind telling her again. The words came easier every time she asked.
"Yes."
"Oh, well, then, if it can't be helped. Did you get your bus ticket?"
He shook his head. "Not yet."
He didn't have enough money yet. Next week, maybe. He would have enough next week.
There were many wrinkles over Grandma Aiko's eyebrows, more than usual. She called that 'upset'. He knew what that was. It was like anger, but not as pointy.
He didn't like it. Malik had been like that a lot. Upset.
"I will miss you, young man. You know that. And Fluffy will miss you, too."
He did not speak. Thinking about leaving made him upset, too. But he had to. He wanted to find Malik. He wanted to ask him. Everything.
Malik would know. He was the main one.
"You know, I think it's funny you have the same name. Weird, isn't it? Ma-ri-ku." It was a hard word for Grandma Aiko. She still couldn't say Malik's name right.
"Yes," he said. "Funny."
"You won't eat any more? Then take Fluffy out for her walk, please. Thank you. Oh and, Mariku? Buy some milk, too."
"Okay," Mariku said. Grandma Aiko grinned at him.
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Author's note: thank you all for all the support and the comments! Real life has been very demanding, but knowing that people enjoy this story gives me all the boost I need. So, if you liked this chapter or this fic in general, don't be shy, leave a comment and let me know!
Until next time, take care of yourselves and be careful out there
xxx
