knifemonopoly | IC inbox

[Oh, they're going to talk about Ryou, now?

The way Atem's eyes flick up isn't an obvious tell, but all the cobras on his head, which have been low-key agitated over the damage to the cards and the fear for Yugi, stand up straight.

They totally talked. It's in the past, and Atem doesn't plan to make anything of it, but he totally knows. It takes a moment for calm to return, Atem's calm reply takes just a moment too long.]

It is. He's had to live with something terrible, in order to avoid something worse...that's a cruel feeding type. I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

[He's not going to say what living with it has done to Ryou, not until he knows how things stand between the two of them. But it's been hard, anyone who knows Ryou can tell that much.]

[ ...Shit. The Pharaoh's going to duel the Fog with their freedom on the line and he doesn't just have snair, he has mood snair? Marik had been counting on that man's poker face! Curse you, adorable little snakes!

...Maybe they don't know how to duel?

But anyway. Ryou. Marik nods. ]

He's overdue for something good to happen to him. I know....I haven't been that something. Ever.

[ This is not something he wanted to talk about with the Pharaoh so he is very glad he can address it in passing, on the way to a greater goal. ]

If he had someone making him happy, every day - that can't erase the pain. But, like you said. It's better to not be alone.

[ As he closes Ra's book, he gives it the slightest, subtlest caress. ]

[....dark eyebrows, which are probably the last human hair left on him, go up.

Oh. Oh boy. Oh, dear, that's...Atem is probably very well equipped to help with that, actually. He's. He has to, doesn't he?]

....if you feel that way, I'm afraid you've got a long way to go! What you did hurt him very badly. It'll take time. But he's a good guy, and pretty openminded...it's not hopeless!

[ Marik shakes his head. ] If he never wants to forgive me, I'll understand. Of course, I'd like to make amends - but that's selfishness.

[ HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW IS THE PHARAOH SO BRILLIANT AND YET SO DENSE

LET US TRY ANOTHER APPROACH

His hand curls into a fist, his eyelids lower. He has to really sell this. It has to be convincing. He has to...well, he's not sure he's ever fully felt what it looks like Ryou and Atem are refusing to see they could have, but he conjures up the next best thing.

Rishid....Sister....he's trying. He's doing this...for you. ]

If he can just...build up as many good memories as possible, in a place like this....I think that'd be enough for me. Even if I'm not in them.

[ His lashes quiver, ever so slightly. ] There has to be someone who can be his light in the darkness.

[ before marik's own light goes out, motivate the pharaoh, break through the fog, before the darkness closes in again and he can no longer see--

.....SHOOT

HE THOUGHT TOO MUCH ABOUT HIS FAMILY

AND NOW HE HAS MADE HIMSELF SAD

HE IS TOO GOOD ]

[Wow, Marik's really got it bad, huh...

This is a little awkward. Atem knows Ryou likes him, and, he likes Ryou back a lot, but they shouldn't date, not at a time like this...but should Marik be dating Ryou instead? That feels like a recipe for disaster, but also, it's not Atem's call, it's Ryou's.

...

He'll just have to deal with how lonely that makes him feel. Because Marik gets it, right? As long as someone's making good memories, even if they're with Lila Zacharov and not you, that's okay, especially when it's for the best...

He puts a hand on Marik's shoulder.]

I understand. I had someone like that, too...but, if you wait for them to be happy with someone else...even if you're sincerely glad on their behalf, and you know it's for the best, it's a lonely feeling!

You should tell him how you feel. He might not take it the way you're hoping...but I don't think it'll hurt. He really is a good guy!

[ .... ]

......

[ ........ ]

..........

[ ............ ]

..............What?

[With all of the confidence of someone who can count on one hand the number of times they've felt anything remotely resembling doubt:]

You're telling me this because you like him, right?

[ Marik keeps staring. Apparently confirmation he'd interpreted the Pharaoh's words correctly make things worse, not better.

His eyebrows twitch, and for a moment it looks like he might start to lose his temper - his cheeks even flush -

but then he's tempering it down, chuckling. Keep it together. Keep it together-

nope still twitching. ]

...I understand now. So that's the challenge.

[ A little forced keh. ] You're formidable indeed, my Pharaoh!

[ FORMIDABLY DENSE ]

[Man! This is such a mess! How much drama is Atem going to find himself unwillingly caught in?]

It's no challenge! I have no intention of challenging you for Ryou's affections. I know he's got feelings for me, but...it's not something I can pursue.

[He's got to be happy with what he has! It's better this way!

He does not realize the double standard of "if Ryou wants to date someone who's hurt him badly, that's his choice I trust him to make and I'll be there for him if it goes bad" and "I might hurt Ryou if I date him," or that it adds up to, "I'm afraid of being bad at a relationship because it's outside my usual, extremely specialized skill set, and my moral code says hurting someone's feelings is punishable by death/madness/immolation."]

So, if he decides to start seeing you...I won't get in the way! "Pharaoh" or not!

[Still a little weird to have someone around who keeps calling him that.]

Edited 2021-08-12 18:44 (UTC)

That's not....

[ Marik runs a hand through his bangs. Argh. How to play this? Is there anything to gain from rolling with this misunderstanding, so he doesn't have to cop to what he's actually doing (but, ideally, achieve it anyway)? ]

I can't do that! Not when -

[ --Yes. He can do this. He can!

Marik turns to his King, letting his real agitation (at said King's BLOCKHEADEDNESS) add passion and desperation to his words. ]

- Not when you're the only one who can make him happy! His only chance of making it through!!

[ Ryou, it's for the sake of getting you snogged. Deal. ]

So please don't say it's impossible!

[ ...the ~~sogs~~ gods can hear them (?)

this is embarrassing ]

[...........he smells something fishy, and it's not Marik any longer.

What's this really about? Atem wonders. His aspect turns sharper, his snakes attentive.]

The bond between us...it's already the strongest connection I've formed in Ryslig!

Are you saying that's not enough to make him happy?

[It is a god damned honor to be friendzoned by Atem Yugioh, thank you. Then, he plays a second card--]

Besides, if I defeat the Fog, and win us our freedom...then it won't matter, will it? He won't be in such dire straits...he'll be able to be happy without me.

I -

[ He's been made, and yet he hasn't. The Pharaoh is onto him, and yet he isn't. The Pharaoh is a genius, and yet the Pharaoh is an idiot.

Atem Yugioh, do you know what the last consequences were for giving Marik Ishtar a headache? It was not pleasant. For anyone.

He looks down, trying to gather his thoughts. That second blow was strong - but he won't falter. He won't lose again. He will always find a way to turn the situation around. ]

I'm saying you can't defeat her...unless you make him happy. Until you make him happy. That's what...what I'd been hoping to tell you.

[ holy hell it's even the TRUTH sort of ]

I know. Really well. [ From messing around in other people's brains. ] That having something unspoken between people becomes - a distraction. You tell yourself you don't have time, you tell yourself anything, but you keep having to tell yourself, and every moment you spend telling yourself is another moment you're defeating yourself.

On the other hand, having made incredible, precious memories with someone - feeling free - don't you see if you don't act on this, she wins? She'll have kept you from something that could have made you both happy. If the world had ended in that vortex, with you and Ryou having never said anything -

[ "Rishid, I'll be heading to the dark soon" -

Huh. Weird. Why the hell is he thinking of that now? Stupid. ]

If the people who run this game want us to be unhappy, then be the King of Games and grab your joy!!

[He can't defeat the Fog until he starts dating Ryou? An eyebrow goes up again in doubt! Oh, he can't wait to hear how Marik sells this one.

...

A distraction?

...

...that might actually be worth considering. The snakes lower a little, thoughtful rather than combative.

Is he distracted? Is he expending more energy acting like things between him and Ryou are just friendship, even though that's clearly not true, than he would if they just--?

It's funny. The advice Marik is giving isn't bad. It's not too far off from advice Atem has given -- you shouldn't deny yourself good things, not here, because having things that make you happy makes this place easier to bear.

But is Atem going to take his own advice? When, in this case, it comes with the risk of, god forbid, messing up?

(Why is Marik so invested? What was that pause -- who didn't HE tell, until it was too late?)

...]

It's possible I'm distracted.

[He admits it. It's taking energy to be careful around Ryou. Even when that's added to the equation, and it takes some of the guilt of being-happy-while-Yugi-is-changing away...there's still the fact that...]

But I'm serious when I say I can't pursue it! It really is better if I don't -- and it's precisely because we've been each other's support the last few months. If our relationship changes, and I hurt him...or, worse, we have a falling-out...! This place is hard enough on him without something like that happening.

[A beat.]

The truth is, I won't make a very good boyfriend...

[...that he has no idea what he's doing.]

That doesn't matter. [ The dismissal is immediate. He's....almost....maybe.....halfway? Making progress? WHY IS GETTING THE PHARAOH TO KISS A BOY HARDER THAN GETTING THE PHARAOH TO DIE AN AGONIZING AND SYMBOLIC DEATH, AND EVEN THEN HE FAILED AT THAT LIKE A HALF DOZEN TIMES. IT STILL WAS EASIER ]

Listen, he thinks he's not worthy of you. You hemming and hawing? Hurting him! Already! The absolute best thing you can do for Ryslig, and for Ryou Bakura, is to grab him in your - coils -

[ or arms but lbr Ryou is probably more into snek ]

- look him dead in the eyes, and confess!! Anything less is wasting the cards in your hand. It's cowardice.

[ It's also wasting this totally amazing speech he's been giving you which is like. Twice as heavy an offense. "Be the King of Games" was supposed to work, dammit. ]

The Pharaoh I've dueled gained strength the more he cared, the more he showed he cared, for the people he loved. You are absolutely, obnoxiously unstoppable when it's for someone else. You beat me. With friendship.

[ Dun dun DUNNNN. ]

So don't you see that love can take down a God?

...and as for sucking at being a boyfriend, I have you covered there, too. Call me before dates. I'll get you ready.

[Hold the fuck up.]

Not wor--!?

[That can't be, that can't be what's happening, after everything Atem's said, after everything he's done, taking the time to help Ryou, coming to Ryou when he needs something, Ryou can't possibly think--!

....

...yes, he can, can't he. If Atem is hurting Ryou already by letting Ryou think things between them won't change from the way they are, then...that changes his calculations...

(snakes move agitatedly, worried. oh no. they've hurt ryou.)

...but that's a matter for another time. Right now, he wants to know something else. Marik's talking like this is for Ryslig, for taking down the Fog God....but he sure was shady about it! And that last bit...it sends Atem back on the offense.]

Oh? And you're some kind of dating expert?

[ you know that tone of voice you pull when you are so utterly sure of yourself that it has never even occurred to you to have it occur to you that you might be full of it, atem? that one? are you familiar?

imagine that, but flat. self-explanatory. ]

I'm an everything expert.

[ Marik has somehow ended up the sassy gay frenemy.

But it's cool! It's fine! It's nothing he can't handle! Especially when he finally, FINALLY, maybe, broke through to this ridiculously bullheaded man! Did Marik's ancestors carve mighty statues of their Pharaohs out of stone to symbolize the object of which their rulers' heads were constructed?? Yet he was raised to serve this Pharaoh! Surely he can overcome this last obstacle and unite all the pieces of his plan -

fuel the Pharaoh with what he needs to awaken his powers -

save everyone from their terrible fate -

rejoin his family -

win his bet with Ryou Bakura, ensuring the boy's happiness and thus good graces -

even if this doesn't work (although it totally will), get to be able to point to Ryou and Atem at parties and say "I DID THAT" - ]

It...it has to be you, all right? For Ryslig, and for Ryou. Nothing's won by staying in darkness.

[ He wants this. He wants them together. He wants to see what kind of power that unleashes, he wants....he wants proof that...

that what he'd been told is still true, even though freedom has been yanked cruelly away from him at the last second....

What do you want, Marik Ishtar? Everything. ]

Only by seeking the light.

[An everything expert. Uh huh. Atem is very, very unsure that this guy, who has given Atem the impression that he's an enthusiastic but not particularly effective planner, who likes to take the results and say, "I meant to do that!"...is going to have helpful advice for dating. Especially when Atem's concerns have to do with things like putting the month's trouble first, putting Yugi first, as well as not realizing what's normal and expected in a romance...he'd have no idea what to ask!

And...Marik really likes light metaphors...but it's not like Atem can really talk. For him, "hearts" are just as important. So let's explore that a minute, since as far as Atem's concerned, he's received new information about Ryou that he'll consider on his own, and the discussion is closed.]

In many ways, the darkness is what I'm used to. The powers and knowledge of darkness...that was what I awakened to, when Yugi solved the Millennium Puzzle. I used its magic to punish those who trespassed in his soul. Even here -- my usual form can't tolerate direct sunlight!

But there are other kinds of darkness...like not knowing who you are, and not being able to tell the people you know the truth. Dispelling that darkness...it couldn't have happened if Yugi hadn't come here. I'd have stayed in it until I won this game and returned home, or lost and disappeared...

...what is darkness, to you? And what is light?

[So that he can understand Marik better, and also be on the same page as far as these metaphors go.]

[ Gods, is this punishment for letting You degrade in the ocean? This, now? When he finally had the upper hand?

Marik's shoulders stiffen as his back tenses. He forces his posture to behave, but a shadow crosses his face all the same. What is....it's - the light is everything, how does he even - and what's the Pharaoh mean by "usual form", anyway -

No, there's no weaseling out of this, is there. Though - if he doesn't even know how much room he has to try...

Is this his sacrifice to escape? This Marik Ishtar he's built, who served the Pharaoh loyally? But that Marik Ishtar has been crumbling, bit by bit. He had no foundation. The real Marik Ishtar is scarred.

The real Marik Ishtar is so sick of sacrifices. What's the light? That. ]

Ryou told you....some things about me.

How much?

[...]

That you worked with the spirit of the Millennium Ring to gain the trust of my friends, and to win the God Cards in a Duel Monsters tournament called Battle City. I know the deal was to trade your Millennium Rod for the God Card the Ring-Spirit would win from me, and I know about the two types of control Ryou was under, as well as the circumstances of his release.

That's all...

[He really doesn't know much about his own future.

He needs to do something about that. He needs to talk to Yugi...he's operating at too much of a disadvantage with people from his future coming in.]

I told you my family served you. That we protected your secrets and awaited your return. Everything I said was true, but -

[ Marik shrugs off his vest. If he's going to do this, he may as well go all out. He may as well lay all his cards, as it were, on the table. The Pharaoh needs to know that Marik Ishtar does not mention the light, well, lightly. And he'll do anything to create the perfect conditions for reawakening the Pharaoh's power.

To that end... ]

We did it - like this.

[ OFF GOES THE SHIRT!

With the practiced ease of someone who has done this a lot! He doesn't even yank a lobe getting an earring caught or something!

Marik Ishtar is a shitty Tombkeeper!!!!

anyway, here is his tragic back story

behold. ]

[By taking their shirts off? Wait, Atem thought Marik liked Ryou, where the hell is this going, please tell him this isn't about to turn into extra weird cult stuff, that is a hard "no" from him--

--but all of that flies right out the window when Atem sees the scars. His eyes go wide, and he lets out an honest to god gasp. (The snakes all hiss at once.) That's not a tattoo. He knows what tattoos look like. This is something else.]

Those are--!

[Not "the Egyptian God Cards." Not "words I can read," although he can, they form in his mind even as he looks at them.]

...those are burns, aren't they.

[It's not said like a question. Receiving those...that must have hurt a lot...he knows what it feels like, now, to experience something like that.]

[ The part of Marik's brain that delights in drama ~~so, all of Marik's brain~~ enjoys that hiss. He has even managed to affect the Pharaoh's hair...!

But he has a story to tell, one he's told himself countless times, told anyone who will listen (and those he has made to listen), a story that's supposed to be a secret yet he cannot contain. ]

Heated incisions. So the secret of how to reclaim his lost memories would be available to the Nameless Pharaoh, upon his return.

For three thousand years, the eldest son of the Ishtar family has borne this secret. And, to protect it and the two Millennium Items entrusted to us, been forbidden contact with the outside world. Beneath the ground. For countless generations....

[ A more self-reflective person might marvel at the mix of grim pride and disgust which that destiny still sparks within himself. Marik likes the idea of being part of something grand and all-sweeping, having something that elevates him and sets him apart. Makes him special.

But the particulars of the one to which fate assigned him.... ]

You ask me what the light is. For eleven years, I only knew darkness.

[Those words, those pictures -- they were carved in with a hot knife, in his name. For three thousand years -- how many people were scarred in this way? How many endured this suffering, for the sake of Atem's memories? And, they were forbidden contact with the outside world, they lived underground? All of them? Even the children...

Mouth dry, he asks--]

Was this done under my orders? Or -- my family's?

[Is this another sin committed by the royal family of Egypt, another atrocity Atem must shoulder the burden of, must make amends for? If it is, Atem will take it on himself, it's only right, but how many more people is he going to encounter who were wronged in such terrible ways?]

It was done for your sake.

[ It's...never occurred to Marik until just this moment that those aren't the same thing. That the nameless Pharaoh might not be the root cause of the tradition, even if he were to be the benefactor. Had any of the sacred texts indicated....?

"Rishid, tell me. Who do I hate for this?"

No. No, it was just... ]

It was fate.

[ Everything was. Wasn't it? Even his own rebellion had been needed, to make him fated to end the Tombkeepers' long service in the dark....But then, whose fate had it been to cast them into the darkness?

Didn't it all have to happen? If it didn't....

If it didn't, then that sniveling child he'd been at age nine had been right. "They say the pain is so bad you scream for a month! Why do I have to go through it? I don't wanna!"

Except that can't be. It can't. It has to have meant something! Or else, he...

Father.... ]

[For your sake. That doesn't give him his answer. And Marik brings up fate -- is that true? Is fate an impartial force at work, guiding circumstance and action, so that no one individual's choices can be faulted for what happened? Fate might be what brought the Millennium Puzzle to Yugi, but...

...but for something like this...

No. Somebody must have decided that this should happen. Someone must have given the order to shut a family away in the dark for three thousand years, to scar the oldest male child, to hide them from everything and everyone...!]

...why?

[Why was that done?]

Why are my memories so important? What about them makes them matter more than--! Than your family's happiness? Why was such a terrible thing done, just to ensure that I would remember...?

[Who...? Who deserves to be punished for this? is one question in Atem's head, but the other...the other is, what is locked in my memories? To go to such extreme measures...is there some secret he knows, that he absolutely must get back? Or...was this simply done because he was a king, and because a family of tombkeepers was considered an acceptable price for the memories of a ruler? The idea makes him feel sick, it's precisely that sort of abuse of the weak by the powerful that used to bring the other Yugi out, to show the people who think they're untouchable that they're anything but. He, his family, they've all been complicit in terrible injustice, one crime after another. Even if there is a vitally important secret in Atem's memories, that's no excuse for this, for choosing a method of preserving the secret that's this needlessly cruel.

It's wrong, it's wrong it's wrong ḭ̶͑t̶̠͊'̴͖̇s̵̭̀ ̶͆ͅ w̷̼̿̊̽̊r̴̡̞̯͊̈͠o̴̞͌̅́͑͐ǹ̸̗͉͙͖͗͜͝ğ̴̦̔ ]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, PLAYER1. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 10.11.0.0.01 * PLAYER1 has joined 10.11.0.0.01 <PLAYER1>** If you're looking for someone you knew as Yugi before June, you've found him! It's Atem, leave a message.

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behold, the fabled "takahashi villain cut-in reaction panel"

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