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And now I’m back home, in Egypt, and the Pharaoh has the Rod and the Torque and the Ring and the god cards, and I didn’t think I’d ever see Bakura again—but I forgot about his host, the other Bakura. I wanted to forget that Yuugi and his gang would be coming here, some day, and I forgot that Bakura would probably be with them when they did.
I forgot a lot of things, once I got back here. Or I tried.
When we went to pick them up at the airport, and I saw that face, I froze. I knew when Bakura looked over at me that it wasn’t him, but even though I realized the other one was gone, I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding crazily in my throat.
I ignored Bakura the whole way back from the airport. I didn’t have much to say to anyone but Yuugi, since I think his friends are all still a little wary of me, but Bakura I did not even acknowledge. Except for once, when I caught him watching me thoughtfully from the corner of his eye, and I stared at him until he looked away.
As everyone piled out of the Land Rover and untangled their bags from the heap in the back, I saw him hanging around off to one side. He lowered his eyes when I looked in his direction, and I started walking purposefully away from him. If he was waiting to say something to me, he was going to have to wait a damn long time.
I couldn’t avoid him forever. Some of the other Bakura must have worn off on his host, because when I went outside late that night, as I had taken to doing since I came home, he was standing by the door.
“You scared me,” I said, when I noticed him leaning there.
He smiled. “I’ve never scared anyone.”
I just laughed shortly under my breath.
Neither of us said anything, so I pushed my hands into my pockets and took a few more steps in the opposite direction from him. I stared at the moon, pretending Bakura was gone; but after several minutes of silence, I looked at him and asked, “What are you doing out here?” just as he began to say something. I talked over him.
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Not tired? It was a long flight.” Was I chatting with him? I hunched my shoulders and poked the toe of my boot into the sandy dirt.
“It’s not that.” I heard him take a few steps closer to me. “It’s strange to be here. I was thinking about him —the Spirit—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted.
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound particularly surprised that I’d cut him off. I turned to look at him, my eyes narrowed. How much did he actually know? Did he have any idea what the Spirit did with me—that his own body had been used to fuck me?
If he didn’t know, I thought, it might be satisfying to open his eyes.
He was waiting for me to do something. I sighed and pushed both hands into my hair. “Look, Bakura,” I said, my voice nearly catching as I used that name, “I don’t know how much you know, but I should tell you that I don’t want to ever hear anything about that bastard again.”
He laughed softly. “He was kind of a bastard, wasn’t he?”
I stared at him, surprised to hear that gentle-looking kid use that word. “You have no idea,” I muttered.
He shifted, looking at some spot beyond my shoulder. “You… You guys were having sex, right?”
I flinched. “If by ‘having sex,’ you mean Bakura—sorry, the Spirit—figured out a damn good way to get me right where he wanted me, then yeah.”
He nodded, still gazing blankly past me.
“We only really did it once,” I added, like that was supposed to soften what I said. What did I care about making it easier for him to hear?
He didn’t say anything.
“Did he tell you?” I asked after a moment.
Bakura shook his head.
“Then…?”
He finally met my eyes again. “You had another personality, right?”
“You could say that.” My hands fisted in my pockets.
“When it took over, did you know what was going on? I mean, when it was in control of your body, were you still… there , somewhere?”
“No. He pushed me out completely.” I frowned, wondering what Bakura was trying to say.
“Okay. That’s all I really wanted to know.” He gave me a very forced half-smile, and turned to go. “Good night.”
“No, wait a minute, Bakura,” I said, stepping towards him. “Why were you asking?”
He shrugged. “Well, it was the other you that told me what happened, with you and the Spirit.”
“You talked to him?” I asked stupidly.
“No, not really.” He fidgeted, looking down. “It was… it was the reason he gave.”
“For…?”
“You know.”
I felt sick. I reached out and grabbed Bakura’s arms, making him look at me. “For what?”
Bakura pulled himself sharply away from my touch, but smiled. “It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? We each knew the other’s dark halves kind of... intimately, but we’re still almost strangers.” He shrugged with a disturbingly hollow cheerfulness. “Well, good night, Malik-kun.”
I let him go. I waited until I was sure he wasn’t coming back, and then I sank down in the dirt and buried my head in my arms and spent a long time like that, until I could breathe normally again.
Shame—it was something I’d first learned to feel during the Battle City finals, when Rishid was lying unconscious and my dark half had stolen away my body and I realized, finally, just how much I needed my step-brother, and just how terribly I’d used him. And after I learned what shame was, it wouldn’t leave me alone. Every time I saw Yuugi or his friends, or, once I’d gone home, thought about them, there it was again—that tugging, pulling sickness, and nothing could ease it, because I knew how wrong I had been.
It was a different kind of shame, when I thought about Bakura—more of a flushing, guilty shame, laced with denial and a whisper that I had been wrong and a little twinge in my groin that I could never, ever hold back.
And now here was a new shame, every time I looked at Bakura—the other Bakura, the innocent Bakura. The Bakura who should have been innocent, if I could have kept my own flawed demented personality under control. It wasn’t you that did it, I told myself, but it didn’t matter. At the root of it, it was my fault—there was no getting around that. And when I saw Bakura, I wanted to just run away—somewhere far away, impossibly far, because apparently Egypt still wasn’t far enough.
Nowhere would be far enough, but I hid from that thought.
Yuugi and his friends probably assumed I was simply being my old moody, unfriendly self when I stood off to the side, avoiding Bakura. Isis and Rishid, who knew me better, knew something was wrong, but we were all more concerned with the Pharaoh’s ceremonial battle and the final destruction of the Millennium Items.
Bakura knew too. The night after the Pharaoh finally left this world for his own, when we were all just sitting around numb and thoughtful by ourselves, he came outside and found me.
I was sitting in the dirt in nearly the same spot as that other night, and when I saw him coming I didn’t move. He stood next to me for a moment, then knelt and sat too, far enough to keep us separate, near enough that I knew he was waiting to talk to me.
After a long time, he said, “It’s not your fault, Malik-kun.”
The voice he used was so quiet and gentle that for a while I just stared at him, amazed to hear that voice coming out of that body that I still half-expected to house the other.
I looked away and rested my chin on my knees. “I’m so sorry,” I said hoarsely.
“No,” he said. “It’s really not your fault. You don’t have to apologize.”
“But if it weren’t for me—”
“Please,” he interrupted. “Don’t do it.” He sighed. “Do you think I don’t understand what it’s like? I know that wasn’t you.” After a pause, he continued, “That’s why I’m not going to apologize for the Spirit of the Ring, whatever he did to you. I’m sorry it happened, but it’s not my responsibility.”
I glanced over at him; he was smiling slightly, but looked very sure of himself.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he,” I said quietly, speaking to the sky again.
“Yes.”
It had taken the temple crumbling and the artifacts melting away to force me to finally realize that I would never see Bakura again. That finally, after three thousand years, he was really dead.
And as I started to understand his death, I discovered that a strange empty space had opened up in me. I think it was once an expectation, one I never knew I was carrying around with me, that I would be forced to meet him again sooner or later.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked dully.
“Yes, if you want to.”
I waited a long time before continuing to speak. “It’s funny,” I finally said. “I just realized that maybe I was wrong about Bakura—about the Spirit.”
“What do you mean?”
I chuckled bitterly at the back of my throat. “I was sure he had some scheme, to win me over with sex and then betray me when my guard was down, or something like that. But… but he had his chances, and…”
I looked over at Bakura, and he nodded. “He never let me know what he was thinking,” he said, “but I do know that you were the only person he considered a partner in—well, ever. His whole life.” He smiled. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he really cared about you, in his own way.”
“Yeah. In his own way.” I snorted, then smiled unsteadily at Bakura. In the dim moonlight, with his eyes shadowed and his features darkened, he looked so much like the other—but I was being an idiot. I was only seeing what I wanted to be there. “You know, I think I could have—” I stopped myself. “Never mind.”
Bakura just sat there quietly, waiting.
“I would do it again, if I could. There’s not much I wouldn’t do over, if I got the chance.” I shoved both hands into my hair, letting my breath hiss through my teeth. “I’ve never done a damn thing right in my life.”
I heard him crawl towards me, coming to sit right at my side. “That’s not true,” he said.
“What do you know?” I slammed a fist into the ground, scraping my knuckles in the gritty dirt. “I’ve always been too angry or too scared—I fucked up everything with Bakura, and then the things that happened because of me to Yuugi’s friends—to you—”
Bakura reached around me and put his hand on my shoulder, kneading the tensed muscle gently until I loosened my fist and let my arm hang. “Stop,” he said. “It’s over. Everything’s over, now.”
I nodded, staring up at the sky and blinking quickly. He kept his arm around my shoulders as I sat there, afraid to try to use my voice. After a while, I turned to look at him. He was looking away, in the same direction as I had been, his thoughts obviously far away. I twined my fingers into the strand of hair that hung down the side of his neck. His brow furrowed slightly when I did that, but I didn’t care. When he turned to look at me, I kissed him.
He stiffened, and I realized I was probably asking too much of him, but I kept going. He wasn’t resisting, but he wasn’t responding, either; and when I ended the kiss, all I could read in his eyes was pity.
I looked away quickly.
“Malik-kun, I… I’m not into guys,” he said quietly.
“Oh.”
He waited a while. “I’m not him.”
“I know.” I laughed harshly. “Did it again, didn’t I? Fucked up.”
He stood up, and offered me a hand. I ignored him for a minute, until I realized disgustedly how stupid and childish I was being, and then I let him pull me to my feet. When we were both standing he pulled me into a hug. I hesitated a little before putting my arms around him; but then I leaned forward and rested my head against his shoulder and tried to feel safe and unhated.
“I’m glad I got to talk to you a bit, Malik-kun,” Bakura said. He disentangled himself gently and stepped back. “You’re a stronger person than you think you are. The Spirit wouldn’t have loved you if you were anything less.”
He didn’t love me, I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to hear it spoken. He was already walking away, anyway.