#;bakura

It was his usual time to wander around this modern world, mainly to find information on quicker ways to obtain his vengeance and check in if that vessel of the pharaoh was still alive.

Except he wasn't expecting to find some stranger in a costume with a hat far too large. Was he some duel monster card character that's part of some promotion? Bakura is rather proud of his deck, so it isn't like he tunes it all that much to know when new cards release.

"Battle City has been over for some time if you're trying to dress up for theatrics to invite a duelist."

"Hm, feeling sentimental tonight aren't we, Pharaoh?"

There's a smirk on Bakura's face as he says this, but he can't help but feel that Atem is exactly right. They have been a part of each other's existences for so long now that it's hard to fathom a life without it. He once hated Atem, despised him so much that he wanted to kill him for it. Things are...different now, different in a way that Bakura didn't really see coming. This was supposed to just be a physical attraction, but now?

Now it feels more complicated than that. Now it feels like love, and that worries Bakura a little bit. Did he love Ryou? Marik? Maybe in a way that a master loves their dog, but never anything like this.

It's odd. It's exciting. It's terrifying. What does he do about it now?

Bakura lets out a long breath, resting his head against the wall as he stares up at the sky. All of that, and for what? It is still so incredibly jarring for him to have his own body, to be torn apart from his host and to live as his own person for the first time in, well, a long, long time. Some part of him still thirsts for the revenge that was just out of his reach, that he had brushed with his fingertips, but now he just feels tired.

Spent and done. Just as Atem put it.

He doesn't like to admit he was wrong, much less admit that there was no point in trying to destroy anything anymore. He tried it. He failed. There was no trying it again, in the end.

The morning after || Accepting

If there's one thing that Bakura despises, it's vulnerability. He's never been particularly adept at it, even when he was stuck sharing a body. Ryou always tried to get him to open up, but it was all for naught. It's never been worth anything, which is exactly why he said that whatever started happening between him and Atem would stay purely physical.

Yet they say that hate and love often comingle. To hate someone, you must love them in some way, and vice versa. It's the intimacy of it, knowing your own enemy better than you might know yourself. He often fantasized about killing Atem, strangling him until the light left his eyes and that would be that. But now...

Now he has to wonder. Does he hate him as he used to? Or has it morphed into something else?