A/N So I had a random plot bunny. I'm not usually a Jounouchi fan mostly because Puppyshipping annoys the crap out of me but I was thinking about Orleanna from The Poisonwood Bible (which is an amazing book that I don't own the rights to) and I started thinking about Jou's mom. He's really the only character we see a mother figure for - as Mrs. Mouto doesn't seem to do much other than clean and accompany Jii-chan to the hospital. I see her as regretful but adamant in her decision to leave her son behind despite her ex-husband being an abusive alcoholic. Anyway, this is exactly 532 words. Enjoy and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I do not own the writes to Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of its affiliate series/universes.
My ex-husband is in jail now. He was sentenced to death for the murder of our son, twenty-three-year-old Katsuya Jounouchi.
The investigator told me that he was drunk; that it wasn't my fault. My only son just visited home at the wrong time. Just said the wrong words. I can't believe that; not now with my daughter, Shizuka, sobbing her heart out. She's standing with some of Katsuya's friends, most of whom I've never met. I never realized he knew so many people from so many places. Three archeologists, the head of Egypt's Department of Antiquities and her two brothers who are high-ranking duelists, Kaiba Seto and his brother Mokuba, the twins Yami and Yugi Mouto who've been in the news a lot recently for their co-Championships in Duel Monsters, a dancer from New York named Anzu, the inventor of Dungeon Dice Monsters, and an up-and-coming lawyer called Honda.
Then of course, there's that girl. The tall blonde who Shizuka is holding on to for dear life and vice versa. They call her Mai. Shizuka tells me that Katsuya was saving up to buy an engagement ring for her. I've never even heard of her before. Was I really such a bad mother to him that I didn't even know he was dating?
Now I think that leaving him with his father was a mistake. At first it was because of the judge's ruling. He found my income too low to support my two children and myself and their father was earning too little to pay any kind of child support. I admit that I could have taken another job on the weekends but something held me back. Three years later when I was promoted I was making enough but I couldn't do it. I liked having just Shizuka and Katsuya already had a criminal record by that time. I convinced myself that he would be a bad influence when in my heart I knew he would have cleaned up just to see his baby sister on a daily basis.
When he left Hirutani's gang, I considered inviting him to live with us again. It was then that I realized why I had been avoiding him. I was afraid of him; what if he turned out to be like his father? What kind of habits had he picked up while living in that trashed, little apartment on the bad side of Domino? In retrospect, anything he had suffered through was mostly my fault. Would it have hurt so much to take care of him, shape him into a respectable man?
But as I listen to the Mouto boys give a eulogy, the taller biting his lip to hold back tears and the younger leaning on his brother while weeping, I realize that had I taken my son with me, he never would have made such amazing friends, never would have met Mai nor Yugi nor Yami nor Honda…
I cannot say that I did my son a service by leaving him with my ex-husband but I can say that my rejection, though a horrible thing in practice, ultimately made my son more successful, more upstanding, than anything I could have taught him.
A/N I wrote all that with an enormous migraine. You know what makes migraines better? Why, reviews and constructive criticism of course!