Promise Me Nothing

Chapter Five: Marik

I dug through my closet, feverishly searching for the package I'd ordered. Originally, it'd been meant to give Bakura if he didn't want to stay with me. But since he didn't need to be bribed, it could be used as a home-warming gift.

Once I'd gotten my hands on the box, I lifted it over my head, trotting out of my room. "'Kura! I have something for you!"

"I told you to leave me alone." Bakura's voice carried from his room, all emo and sullen.

"I'll just leave it by your door." I set down my offering, backing away with satisfaction.

Outside, dark was closing around the city, slowly circling down and activating streetlamps, the residential-area traffic lights preparing to go on blink mode. I opened a window, sticking my face against the screen and breathing in the giddy excitement of night-time air, charged with a kind of unusual buzz. A siren's shrill wail spiraled up and around, then receded from my hearing.

My chest hurt, My heart was aching in the best way, like yearning, but at the same time, fulfillment. This was Domino City, where hopes and dreams were found and lost. Egypt was different-blazingly warm, dull and stifling. There was so much in this world I'd never known from my sparse studying in the tomb.

Water touched over my face, softly falling from the sky. A new thrill jolted through me as I realized that it was obviously raining. Below ground, I'd heard rain overhead. Ishizu had only been able to explain it then; now I was seeing and feeling it myself.

With the sound of Bakura's door opening, I looked to him, smiling. "It's raining out there," I said.

"So? It rains often enough." Bakura crouched by the box I'd set by his door, peeling back industrial-strength tape.

"I never got to see it when I was a kid," I replied, turning my face back against the screen. "It's amazing-water coming out of the sky."

"Oh." Bakura's voice softened, the sound of ripping tape halting. Soon, I heard muted, bare-foot-on-carpet steps, before feeling his hand come to rest on the exposed area of my back. His touch slid up slowly, tracing beside the edges of the scars carved into my being.

I flinched from his hand, drawing away from the rain to dodge the memory of pain instilled within the markings. Bakura caught me by the arm, brown eyes holding steady on me, face set in a less malevolent look than usual. My heart pinched, blood rising to my cheeks.

"Have you opened the box?" I asked, holding still in his gaze, yet not meeting it. "It's a house-warming present."

"What is it?" He let go, my heart unclenching as he headed back to the box.

"It's a surprise." I grinned, bouncing on the balls of my feet and pulling my lower lip back with my teeth.

"Great." Bakura opened the flaps, shut them and shot me a glare. "Marik?"

"Yes, Fluffy?"

"Why the hell is there a cat play-pen in here?"

I was already backing away. "Because you're my kitty-cat, Bakura," I said, holding back a fit of giggles. "Nya!"

On the final word, my laughter burst out, not able to be held back any longer. Bakura was silent, merely rolling his eyes and retreating back to his room.

When I recovered, I went back to the window, a smile stretching my mouth up my face. The slowly quickening droplets of water sobered me, just barely brushing my skin. I let my body relax into the pleasurable taste of a city's night-time rain.