A/N: You shall all be converted to my evil ways :)! Well, I'm going to try and convert you at any rate. I'm going to try very hard to keep everyone in character. It might be difficult, seeing as how I normally try and ignore Kaiba, but I will make an honest attempt.

I am going to begin at the end of the story, tell the story as a memory, and hopefully end up where I began. If Kaiba seems a bit OOC in the beginning, it is because that is the point I want him to end up at, so that he isn't really. I'm planning on around twenty chapters, maybe less. Hopefully less, 'cause that's a lot, lol. This also takes place after the end of the series so, no Yamis or items. Very sad.

By way of explanation about the title: This story was partially inspired by the poem "Ode to a Nightingale" by the romantic poet Keats. It is to tribute this that I gave this story the title that I did.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I merely twist them.

Warnings: This is a stubbornshipping (Honda x Kaiba) fic the only one I know of. That means it is Yaoi. Don't like it? Don't read it.

Dedications: To Love Alchemist, simply because she's the best Yu-Gi-Oh Yaoi writer I can find.

Authoress: JKJ

Title: The Love of a Nightingale

Prologue: The End of all Things

"Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one,

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more."

"Tears, Idle Tears", Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dark charcoal clouds hung low over Domino City, covering everything in an eerie dark light. It had been raining earlier, though at the moment it had seemed to subside, and everything was glistening and wet, its colors brighter.

The grass in the city's graveyard was a brighter green than usual, its many headstone glistening ebony and the trees looking like twisted hands reaching heavenward to welcome the tears of the angels.

A handful of figures cloaked in black could be seen making their way away from the last of a funeral. A boy with red and black hair and purple eyes watching his feet, a brown haired girl beside him with blue eyes full of tears, and a white haired boy with a sad face all were among the group walking away from the slick black coffin. There remained by the open grave only three figures.

They stood with one on the left side of the grave and two on the right. The one on the left was a blond boy with amber eyes that looked almost dejected as he stared at the casket. He looked at the reflection he saw there, a mirror of himself right down the hands in the pockets of the worn suit he was wearing, for only a moment before he looked across the wreath of blue flowers to the other two funeral attendees.

They stood hand in hand, one shorter than the other, and anyone looking at them could tell immediately that they were brothers despite their obvious physical differences. The younger of the two, with long black hair and tear filled grey eyes, wasn't looking at the coffin. He was looking away, after the others who had just parted their company. Beside him stood his brother, a tall brunette who was currently using his bangs to hide his cobalt eyes so that no one could see the pain there.

They remained in silence, all three standing as still as the headstones around them, before the brunette spoke.

"Mokuba, go wait in the car."

"Niisama," the younger boy whispered, "are you sure?"

A slight nod and the grey eyed boy turned and walked away. He looked back over his shoulder once, and his eyes meet with the amber ones of the boy across from his brother. The blond sent him a weak smile which Mokuba returned before he continued on toward the limo waiting at the graveyard entrance.

Neither of the two remaining spoke right away. It seemed that both had lost something dear, but didn't know how to express to the other that they understood. Finally the blond spoke, even though he didn't look over the casket again.

"Jerk," he said in an almost teasing tone. Blue eyes looked up through bangs, and an almost smile played upon pale lips.

"Puppy," was the reply, though it lacked malice or anger. The two taunts seemed more to be a ritual between the two boys, as common as saying hello to anyone else.

The blond sighed and ran a hand through his hair, sad eyes resting on the casket. "You," he whispered across the black coffin, "were perhaps the only person who loved him more than I did."

To that the brunette did not respond right away. Cerulean eyes looked sadly upon the coffin, and one strong looking hand clenched by his side. The other male didn't watch him, instead looking at his feet. Suddenly, he began to laugh softly.

"What?" The brunette asked with only a slight resentment in his voice.

"Who would have thought it," the blond answered in an almost sad voice, "you and me mourning the loss of the same person? I always thought our hate would be to strong for that."

A corner of the brunette's mouth did twitch, although he didn't laugh. In a soft voice he said, "he did."

The blond boy didn't answer, though he smiled slightly to himself. "He always believed there was some good in you."

"I'm glad of that," the brunette whispered. Nothing else was said between the two, and after a few minutes the blond walked around the coffin and toward the exit. He paused as he passed the other male, laying a hand on his shoulder that expressed their mutual grief, before walking away. His hands remained in his pockets and he didn't look back.

The brown haired boy remained, emotionless eyes staring at the casket as rain once again began to drizzle down. The wind began to blow and dark strands moved across the young man's forehead as he whispered, "you left to soon, my own. I need you still."

He didn't cry, he never had, but inside he yearned for the only one who had ever seen him as human. The only one he had ever truly loved. He looked up at the stormy sky, allowing the drops to land on his face.

"It's fitting," he whispered to the sky, closing his eyes, "that it is raining now, here at the end of all things, when it was raining at the beginning." He allowed his mind to slip away, back to when it began. Back to before all this mess of being in love started. Back to before he'd found the key to his heart.