soul_logs | [Open] Taking over the High Scores

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[Open] Taking over the High Scores

Characters: Bakura Ryou & anyone else near, in, or around the arcade
Location: The arcade
Rating: ...N for nerdy?
Time: Feb 17th, afternoon & evening
Description: Uncomfortably familiar weird stuff is starting happen around Bakura in addition to the drama across the hall, so he's avoiding dealing with it by sinking far too many quarters into machines at the arcade.

It had started when he noted that something he had left in the fridge to have for the next day had been missing. He didn't pay it much mind and had just assumed that he had absentmindedly eaten it the night before. But it seemed like it kept happening... And things he was sure he had put away properly were winding up in other places entirely.

Like they had back in Tokyo.

But he wasn't losing any time this time. Sure, he still would lose track of time when he was playing his games, but realizing that it was suddenly 2am and he had finished the game was different than realizing that it was 5pm and he couldn't remember where he'd spent the last 2 hours. Or why he was in a different part of town than he'd started.

Rather than think on it, after finding the drawers in his dresser looking almost as if someone had been searching through them, he'd headed out to the arcade. What better way to avoid a problem than to play games, right?

Of course, the fact that he was still there, packing away high score after high score on his favorite games after the sun was starting to set when there a possibly serial killer lurking out there, was it's own problem, but when had he ever given things like that any consideration?

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Bakura was starting to feel like he was uncovering a pyramid, each layer of soil that was lifted showing even more and more of what was impossible to measure from where he stood.

...or maybe like trying to figure out a plot to an RPG where no one wants to tell you flat out that the person you thought you were there to save is actually the person you were sent to fight. Either way, it was pretty confusing!

"What didn't count? Saying that you wouldn't mind that sort of thing? Did something change so that you would mind...?"

"None of the two days when we couldn't lie count."

It sounded worse when he tried to explain it to someone else, and Mello was reasonably sure Bakura would ask the obvious next question: if what you said was true, why not?

"It would've been all right if we'd got there at our own pace, but this was too much, too fast."

"So maybe... if you went back and talked about it at your own pace... maybe the things that happened too fast could be seen as a first run? Knowing how things went doing it that way... if you go back and try again, still being honest, since you both already know what was said was true, but saying it in a way that isn't too much... maybe that would help?" The slowness of Bakura's suggestion made it far too clear that he was well out of his depth with this sort of thing. While experienced in the practice of pretending things just didn't happen when he couldn't deal with them, he'd never been in the sort of situation being talked about.

It might have been a good way to handle this mess, if it weren't for the twit's damn pride. Mello had guessed by now that Near had taken the easy out he'd offered, and had been kicking himself for suggesting it. But he couldn't take it back without looking weak. No, he was stuck.

"We're not like other people. He especially isn't. Getting close to someone is a liability. It makes you vulnerable. Even if you're partners. He was forced to admit he didn't hate the idea, but it would never work in practice."

Bakura shook his head slightly. "It doesn't matter what sort of person you are, being close to someone..." he hesitated a moment before shaking his head again and pressing on. "Especially in this place, you need other people to be strong. When you have someone you care about, that you're close to-- you can create miracles and do things that should be impossible because of that other person. Having someone supporting you, having someone you want to support... it's the strongest feeling in the world. You can do anything if you have that...."

"Miracles," Mello repeated, flatly.

His expression didn't betray it (he'd learnt to school it to blankness, long ago), but he was struck by you can do anything if you have that more than he liked. He'd thought something not very different, the one time he and Near had managed to let all the barriers between them fall.

And Mello had promised not to let either of them raise those barriers again, but he'd been made a liar, as Near seemed to have a talent for doing. That door was closed; he'd closed it himself, even if Near was the one who'd put the padlock on it.

"There's no such thing as miracles, and it's moronic to need anyone. The only person you can ever count on is yourself."

Bakura shook his head. "I don't think that's the way it is at all. Even if this place is different than back home... I think in a lot of ways, it's the same. Everything here... it's just no good to only count on yourself. A Weapon without a Meister is useless, as is a Meister without a Weapon, and both only reach their greatest potential when they're tightly bonded to another person, right? Those really close bonds... they do create miracles." He paused a moment before giving a soft laugh. "Really, even the resonance alone creates them. Being able to do these fantastic things that normal people can't... isn't that what miracles are?"

Normal people couldn't do half the things Mello could. Still, Bakura had a point. In a few months in Death City, the idea of a human turning into a weapon, even something as harmless-seeming as a Rubik's Cube, had come to seem so ordinary that Mello seldom remembered how bizarre it had sounded when he first heard of the concept.

That didn't mean Bakura was right about everything.

"We're never going to agree about this. You assume being close to someone is inherently valuable. I don't."

"I guess different people will always see things differently," Bakura smiled with a small shrug. "For someone like me... I wouldn't be here if it weren't for other people, so I guess sometimes I forget not everyone's the same way. Sorry."

"Don't apologize."

It could be infuriating, the way Bakura went out of his way to be understanding and conciliatory. Then again, the idea that he was just that way, without conscious effort, was almost worse. It was horribly tempting to poke at him until he was forced to state an opinion without qualifying it.

"If I say what you think is stupid, which it is, in this case, by the way--" Here Mello allowed himself the slightest smirk. "--defend yourself."

"Aaaa..." Bakura faltered, scratching at his cheek a bit awkwardly. "I'm really not good at something like that..." Which wasn't to say that he wouldn't do it if specific subjects dear to his heart came up... but even then, unless it was a friend he was defending, it was pretty rare for him to be able to hold up in an argument, something he was only just starting to get practice with with Ryuzaki....

Mello could only stare. How could you not be good at that? He'd been opinionated as long as he could remember, perfectly able to make his feelings known practically before he could talk. It wasn't as if Bakura didn't believe things, either.

"Maybe you need lessons."

It was a complete coincidence, of course, that this topic was a welcome tangent from the previous one.

Bakura blinked. "Lessons?" he repeated, tone curious. Could that sort of thing be taught...?

"I'm naturally gifted." Mello smirked for real this time. "But there's no reason you couldn't learn."

"Aaa-- if you're sure it wouldn't be a bother... " Or that he could even learn something like that... Not that he wasn't trying! It was just a hard thing to try and do....

"There's really only one lesson. Don't act like you're something you're not, or that you believe something you don't, just because you think it's how people want you to be."

There was a hesitant pause as Bakura scratched at his cheek. "...but that'll make people not like me..." he pointed out.

Mello anticipated this response.

"If people want you to be a wimp with no opinions of your own, do you really care if they don't like you?"

"That isn't..." Bakura protested unhappily. "That isn't how it is...."

"How is it, then? You'd rather be liked than respected." He cocked his head to the side, genuinely curious how someone could become like that to this extent.

"Why? That just lets people know they can take advantage of you."

"They wouldn't do that if they liked me, though... right...?" Bakura countered, voice a touch unsure. He wasn't totally blind to how a lot of his friends treated him.... "Or at least not in a bad way..."

"You overestimate people. They're inherently selfish. If you give them something for nothing, they're going to take it."

Mello considered himself an optimist, in that he'd trained himself to expect the best possible outcome for most things. That didn't mean he was naive when it came to people.

Bakura was quiet a moment. "I don't think that's always the case... even if some people are like that. And even the ones that are, there's still something given in return, even if it may not be clear at first."

After all, with how often Ryuzaki pestered him and took advantage of him and his kitchen, he'd still proven to be a good friend when Bakura had needed one the most. And if someone like Ryuzaki could be like that...

It wasn't a huge leap of logic to guess that L had been availing himself of Bakura's eagerness to please. L's interest in the kid was one of the reasons Mello had decided he shouldn't be dismissed outright, after all. Of course, L's attention was reward enough, Mello felt, even for someone who lacked the context for understanding why.

Like L, Mello liked to think of himself as someone who wouldn't let a debt go unpaid.

"I'm not like that. I don't like taking something for nothing."

Bakura would wonder if people saw parts of Ryuzaki that he didn't if Mello made that known. As it was... while he didn't think poorly of his friend, he didn't often think too highly of him either, considering all the times he had seen him friend doing things like rummaging in the dumpster or wanting to eat raw batter despite the raw eggs in side it...

He smiled warmly at Mello's comment. "I think more people are like that than aren't."

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