"I may be," Bakura answered, and despite that the words could have sounded any mixture of smug, arrogant and mocking, they were none of the above. They were as contemplative as Solomon's own. "But maybe that'll serve you better than it does for me."

Solomon's observations on the thief weren't off them mark, either. But Bakura was used to looking at the world through the lens of putting something -- someone, someones -- in primary focus, and that changed the way one did things. Not usually to the extents that Bakura went to, of course, but his situation was unique. It still gave him the context for accepting that some things would always come first, above his own needs. It was, in a way, rather a shame that Solomon was an only child; this would surely have been an easier concept for him to grasp if he still had living relatives.

"Let me know when you get the revelation that this isn't because you've done something wrong," the thief said idly, returning to his repair work. "And I'll spar with you a little. If you tried it now, you'd end up slicing your own ear off."