capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO: Bakura and Keith
WHERE: Central Park chess tables
WHEN: Wednesday afternoon
SUMMARY: Bakura is playing chess with the senior citizens in the park. Keith spots, observes, then cuts in. Awkward.
FORMAT: Para to start, whatever after.

Bakura's walk home from work had been something that resembled a comic strip than the normal straight cross through the park. First he had been spotted by one of the regular customers from Ryoko's and stopped for a chat. Then, after nearly gotten beaned upside the head by the ball a group of young children had been tossing around, he had seen the usual group at the chess tables and gotten flagged down to arbitrate Hashimoto and Takahashi's daily heated argument. Which was of course how he was now playing his third game.

So far, a very good day.

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But that window of could-be-hope was gone now. Keith was back to being the stern-faced statue of a human being that he so often appeared to be. Expressionless, he picked up his fallen queen from the pile of taken pieces and rolled the piece slowly in his palm. "Even if I took this queen to a table with no board on it, there would be no point in moving her like a knight. She wasn't made to move that way."

He put the queen back down and looked up to meet Bakura's gaze. "Your move."

Bakura hesitated a moment. It was a clear dismissal, but he couldn't let it go. Not yet. "..but that's not how people are. They aren't game pieces... they can change."

He looked down at the board after that before making his move, that slight nervous feeling returning. He understood hiding away, he did it himself so often... but not to the extent Keith had mastered it. There wasn't even a surface persona as much as... a lack that seemed suddenly so much starker after that breif moment.

Keith did not respond. Bakura's question was, to him, merely bait that he knew better than to take. The Mu and their allies could claim all they liked about the virtue of the human spirit, but he'd seen the way it worked, and he knew the way it was.

He moved the pawn that had once been next to the queen, clearing up a path between one of his bishops and Bakura's king. "Check." And that was all; no response to Bakura's hopeful statement whatsoever.

Bakura really should have expected that. Like when Kaiba when he declared conversations over, there was no hope for it. It was either change subject or be hung up on. Or in this case, stonewalled, which really amounted to the same thing.

"Sorry," he said softly as he debated his next move. He always opened his mouth and said too much or just the wrong thing. You really would think he would have learned by now.

Bakura's apology earned no words from his opponent. Instead, Keith merely glanced up from the board to flick a gaze of contempt over him, the single subtle expression encompassing everything he thought about the philosophy Bakura offered and, worse, his weak attempt to apologize for it.

No words were needed.

Bakura nearly flinched at that, rather starkly aware that he had not only put his foot in his mouth, but done it in such a spectacular fashion that he might never recover from it. And when they had been having an almost normal conversation too! Aaaa, he was no good at things like this!

"Check..." he said softly, moving his piece, keeping his eyes low.

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