Promise Me Nothing

Chapter Twelve: Bakura

I spent the next half-hour poking around the flat, acquainting myself with the place. We’d certainly have to invest some time in cleaning things up soon. At 10.15, I stuck my head into Marik’s room, rapping my knuckles against the doorframe. “Marik?”

“Yea?” He looked up from his mobile, hair falling to one side, sticking to his cheeks. A lump stuck in my throat.

“It’s a quarter past ten now. What time are we leaving?”

“What—oh yea!” Marik’s phone dropped out of his hands, mouth gaping overdramatically. “We need to leave right now.”

“It’s open till five, Marik; there’s no reason to hurry.” I trailed him as he quickly grabbed his keys and put his shoes on, grabbing his motorbike helmet whilst jabbing his Rod into a belt loop.

“Shush, Bakura. Here.” Marik tossed me the spare helmet, which I managed not to drop.

I shook my head, following Marik out the door. “Like I said, no need to hurry at all. We can just follow the speeding limit, like normal human beings.”

“But what if they run out of fro-yo? What then?” Marik whisked around, to walk backward, shoving open the door, breezes rushing into to pull his hair around. Walking nackward caused him to nearly trip over the doorstop. “Meant to do that,” he muttered, though went to walking normally, leading me to his bike.

We sat together on the bike, me crammed cosily behind my flatmate as he struggled to start it up. It took two kicks, four “friggin’ start!”s and one barely human growl, but the bike finally started and we were on our way toward the heart of the city.

I clung to Marik, burying my face in his back as the wind hissed through my clothing and hair, as if trying to pull me apart. In honesty, I couldn’t say I cared for frozen yogurt, or going on a motorbike ride. But our bodies touching like this, feeling his heartbeat under my hands—this was why I was here.

Over thirty minutes later, the bike slid into a parking space, leaving marks on the asphalt. Clutching Marik’s midsection, my teeth grit, wondering if we could have possibly chosen a closer frozen yogurt place. Marik pulled out his mobile, one leg propping up the bike. A little noise of disappointment followed his checking the time. I looked over his shoulder, seeing the clock displaying 10.57

“How’s that possible?” Marik said, pocketing his phone with a huff. “I went 95 kilometres the whole way.”

“Trust me, I know,” I said, my stomach flipping over. I chanced a light hug by deepening my grip on his torso, pulling our bodies even closer together.

Leaning his head back, Marik let his head rest atop mine. “There’s no point going in now. It won’t be fresh fro-yo anymore. Health food is best fresh, you know.”

“Health food. Yes, certainly.” I was positive no one but Marik would call frozen, sugar-crusted, whipped cream- and fudge-covered yogurt a health food. “Since we’re already out, do you want to go get those kebabs?”

“Yea, that sounds good.” Marik straightened, kicking up his foot, starting the motorbike. “To Kebabs!”

This drive was shorter, less than ten minutes lost to sharp winds and my skin against his. We were going too fast for city driving, but Marik could handle his bike deftly past the dangers caused by his own speed.

By a shot of luck, we discovered that this Kebabs’ employees were all named Steve, just as in their Egyptian counterpart, which allowed Marik to control them with his Rod.

When we walked out, Marik had two kebabs sticking out of his mouth, three more in his right hand, Millennium Rod in his left. He grinned at me, shifting the sticks form his mouth to his hand. “Where to next, ‘Kura?”

“Well—”

“Oh, I need new socks,” he said, glancing at his feet menacingly. “We can go to that new clothes store; I bet they’ll have fancy socks.”

”Fancy socks? The bloody hell do you need ‘fancy socks’ for?”

“To make people jealous, of course! How many people do you know that have fancy socks?”

“While we’re there,” I said, shaking away the thought of glittery, sparkling socks, ”we’ll get some real clothes.”

“Yea, your clothes are pretty dated.” Marik pulled a piece of grilled pineapple off his kebab stick using his teeth.

“No, for you.”

“Oh.” The Egyptian paused mid-chew, looking slightly sick all of a sudden.