Odd Couple

Normally, when he couldn't sleep, he would rise from bed and sit at his desk with a puzzle he had yet to solve. However, in Pegasus' castle, there were no desks, or puzzles, or even a radio to turn on and distract his frazzled mind with. He was too tired to go over strategy again, and more over he desperately needed to sleep if he was going to be able to fight at his best in the morning.

His door creaked open. The light of the main hall poured through the gap, and cast the figure of whoever entered the room in shadow. He shot up and flicked the light on beside his table, in the hopes he could catch them by surprise just as they shut the door.

Kokoro jumped slightly and blinked a time or two, nearly cross eyed. By the look of her, she had been in bed, but unable to sleep – her ponytail was frizzy and loose, the side of her face pink from laying on her arm. After a moment, she acclimated, and turned her focus to him.

“Can't sleep?” She queried as she approached the bed.

He nodded, and without waiting for an invitation she settled down beside him. She pulled her legs up to sit across from him, with a strange look in her eye he couldn't quite comprehend. Her stare seemed almost vacant, as though there was something behind him only she could see. It wasn't the first time she had drifted off like that, but he still wasn't certain what to make of it – she preferred to pretend that it didn't happen, rather than acknowledge it when he asked.

“Me neither.” She smiled blissfully. “I can't relax. There's so much riding on the next couple of days, plus my head.”

“What's the matter?”

She shook her head with a quiet groan. Just as he prepared to demand an answer, she threw herself forward and draped her arms over his shoulders. Her entire body weight landed against his chest with enough force that he fell back – which was apparently her intention, as she settled in right away. She threw her leg over his waist and squeezed his arms into his sides, which forced him into a horribly uncomfortable mockery of his usual sleep position.

“Better.”

“What?” He managed to wriggle one arm free from its prison between his ribs and her breasts, and threw it above his head.

“My head. It's better.” Her voice was sleepy and content, as if she could drift away any moment. “Being with you always makes it better.”

“Kokoro-chan? What are you talking about?”

Her sleepiness – and drunkenness, as she had more than one glass of wine at dinner – left her tongue loose. If he was going to learn about her odd behavior, he stood his best chance in that moment. As he struggled to get comfortable, he tried not to jostle her too much, lest she wake up and realize what he was doing.

“I feel safe.” She murmured. “My head always bothers me when there's someone bad around, and it doesn't stop until it's gone. But when you're around I feel safe, so it stops.”

“Who's bad?” He asked quietly. “Is it Pegasus-san?”

She grunted and shook her head, but at her angle, it did nothing but press her face deeper into his chest. For a moment, he thought she had passed out, until he felt her lips moving through his shirt. Her words were muffled and unclear, and he pulled her hair back slightly in the hopes her head might follow. She turned her cheek like a cat who desired more affection. As he struggled for the best words to use, he heard the voice of the other him in his ear.

“So, he's evil?”

“Mm-hm. Well, kinda. Bakura-kun's alright. It's just that ring. I think it knows, too.”

He paused – the conversation had taken an extremely odd turn. He wondered how many secrets Kokoro could possibly have hidden from him, and why. Of course, he had refused to tell his friends of the spirit in the puzzle, either. Every time he thought about it, he had been filled with fear that they would believe him crazy – did she have the same fear?

“What does it know?”

“That I know. And I don't think it's happy about it.”

“And how do you know that?”

She responded with a gentle snore.

Kokoro was gone when he woke up. He didn't see her for much of the morning, not at breakfast and not even on his way to duel against Mai – though she was there to watch, situated as far from Bakura as one could possibly be. She fled as the duel came to a close, and he wondered if he would ever see her again when he found her in his room. She sat on his bed with her deck arranged before her, almost like she had played solitaire with it.

“Pretty low of you to take advantage of me last night.”

The slight smile on her face sent all the anxiety out of him in one rush of air. He draped his jacket over the nearby armchair and sat down across from her on the bed. Her cards were arranged as if she was in the midst of a duel – against who, he wasn't sure. She stared at her cards for a moment, removed one from play, and calculated battle damage as if it had just been destroyed. He had tried to prepare for his duel the same way, but it was incredibly difficult to imagine an entire separate deck and strategy while also forming another.

“I think of it like a door. Most of the time it's closed, and I forget it's there. Then I'll do something, like get into a duel, and it opens a little, like someone's peering through before undoing the lock. I'll get the feeling I should play a certain trap card even though I don't think I should, or I'll feel like I'm going to draw a specific card. The more danger I'm in, like if I start to loose, the more it opens, and the more of the message I understand.”

She continued to play her one-sided game as she talked. She played Ante, drew Cosmo Queen, and tallied her opponents new life points. He glanced down – her life points were at 1050, and her opponent's at 1000. Whatever deck she envisioned herself up against, they seemed to have a solid defense against her preferred strategy – either they were able to skirt around her ability to funnel attacks at one monster, or her ability to strike directly at life points.

“What happens when it opens all the way?”

“Whatever is on the other side tries to get out.”