Domino City Limits
Title: Dull
Rating: K
Summary: The reasoning behind Jounouchi's blond hair.
Author's Note: Hi there! I have a few short Yu-Gi-Oh! fan fics that I wrote for various prompts on Tumblr for various reasons. I thought I would compile them all together into a neat little story.
This story was originally published on Tumblr in response to a prompt from AllisonWalker's Yu-Gi-Oh! writing prompt Tumblr blog. She's Kaiba-s-Giant-Dick on Tumblr and she's lovely and her stories are great, check out her writing!
He looks exactly like his mother.
Same brown hair. Same bright grin. Same eyes that can't seem to decide between grey or brown.
And that's the problem. He doesn't want to be reminded of her.
After she leaves and takes Shizuka with her, he cleans the house for days. It would probably be the first, last, and only time he would clean the small apartment that seemed that much smaller after they left. It's easier because his dad is out. He doesn't see his dad for days until he comes home one night reeking of booze and regret.
Jounouchi throws away ever picture she's in, shredding some just because he can't get them in the trash fast enough. He bikes down to the library and throws her cookbooks and novels into the donation box. He scrubs for hours at the door frame where she marked how tall her children have grown. (Jounouchi - March 1990, 153 cm takes the longest to scrub away, the neat cursive refusing to disappear.)
He lifts some hair dye from a drugstore far from his house. The instructions are confusing at first but he gets through them. And then…
Blond. A uniform, dark blond. He doesn't know why he chose that stupid dirty yellow color. Deep down he supposes it's because the golden color is brighter than anything else in his life.
His dad doesn't notice, probably wouldn't notice if the roof of the apartment caved in. He keeps a cap on at school for awhile until a teacher tells him to take it off. The kid three rows in front of him laughs. Jounouchi spends detention icing his bruised knuckles and getting an earful from the vice principal.
He looks in the mirror that night and sees his bruised eye, dirty cheeks, and the blond hair. The blond hair that looks nothing like his mother's. It's better that way. She didn't want anything to do with him. She left him. She doesn't love him. And if he tells himself enough times, he thinks he can think the same of her.