Summary: Prison, Rintama High, America. Three places Jounouchi never went in his life. Or one life, at least.
Rating: NC-17 (will post an edited version of the offending chapter here)
Pairings: Kaiba/Jounouchi.
Type: Multi-part, DF.
Disclaimer: Yuugiou is the sole property of Takahashi Kazuki, Shōnen Jump (Japan and America), VIZ Media, Konami, and those bastards at 4Kids who dubbed all the joy out of it for stupid Americans.
Suggested Listening: ZZ Top.
Notes: Happy Valentine's day. Have some barely romantic, seasonally inappropriate fanfiction to celebrate. In the immortal words of Calvin's dad, it builds character.
Anybody who gets both ZZ Top references and the Fiona Apple one also gets a cookie. READY STEADY GO. (--you don't have to recognize that one.)
Waiting for the Bus
Part 1
"-Jounouchi, Katsuya.-"
The guy mispronounced his name, mangling all the vowels obscenely. Jounouchi stood up anyway. His legs were stiff and cold from hours sitting motionless on his bunk, his fingers freezing, but none of this showed through as he moved; he'd had more than enough time by now to get used to masking whatever discomfort he might be feeling. Wouldn't have made it very long if he hadn't.
Jounouchi had gotten better at a lot of things designed to keep his ass out of trouble these last few years. Or thought he had, at least.
The guard was short and a bit fat, all soft edges over substantial muscle, the kind of guy you could only really get on the head in a close situation. He stared inscrutably at Jounouchi for a few seconds, sniffed once, so loudly that it echoed around the concrete walls, then nodded and unlocked the cell door, sliding it open for the blond.
"-Ready to get out, I bet,-" he remarked as they walked, leading while Jounouchi followed. Their feet were moving almost in time, the twin sound of boots thudding on metal grating.
"-No, sir,-" Jounouchi replied promptly, working his teeth around the accent he still had trouble covering. Four years in America and he still hadn't quite worked out the trick of it, for all his effort. "-Easier to get food here.-"
"-Funny guy.-" The guard said it like this didn't quite meet his approval, which in Jounouchi's experience was usually the case. Prison staff didn't like dealing with funny prisoners. He tried not to be one specifically because of this--but hell, he was getting out. He could crack a joke or two.
"-No, sir,-" he said again, feeling his chest abruptly expand as it really settled in: yes, he was getting out. He was getting out, and nothing was going to put him back in again, goddamnit. "-Not really. I had three months to think that.-"
-
He could have gotten a bus pretty much anywhere on his release, so long as that anywhere matched one of the numbers on a highly specific route. There was enough cash back in his pocket now to go wherever he wanted independently, of course, but the prison itself would have done it for him for free if he'd just asked, and he wasn't a picky guy. He could rock any number on a map given enough time.
Only Jounouchi wasn't looking to move around again just yet. Portland was as good as anything else, and he didn't have much to get back to on the outside besides his old job at one of the sushi bars near Chinatown. The owner was a friend of his, and he'd already visited a couple times these last few weeks to assure Jounouchi that he'd have work for as long as he needed after his release.
Jounouchi bit his lip on a grin, yanking the sweater he hadn't worn in exactly three months over his head to hide it completely. The front penitentiary gate was finally behind him, shutting as he stood out in the cold and breathed the mid-autumn air; sharp breaths that manifested in sad grey clouds, each fading as soon as it appeared. It wasn't even evening yet, but already it was uncomfortably chilly, the frost early this year. It had been midsummer when he'd gone in.
Good thing he'd been wearing a sweater the day they picked him up.
Rounding his lips on a threadbare whistle, Jounouchi stuffed his hands into his pockets and made his way down the street, trying to shake off the strangeness of losing an entire season of his life so unexpectedly. He didn't doubt it would take a while to get over it. He supposed it was oddly fortunate, then, that all he had in the whole world right now was time.
-
He hit a grocery store first, where he counted out his money inside one of the men's bathroom stalls and determined that he had eighty seven dollars and two dimes to last the next few days. He'd be able to start up again at his friend's bar tomorrow, but pay only got dished out Sunday mornings, and it wasn't even Monday night yet.
So he'd have to make things stretch a little. No problem. Jounouchi was good at that. It was kind of a pain in the ass that they'd let him out a day earlier than expected, but Samura--that was his friend--didn't sleep much. Hopefully he wouldn't care when Jounouchi showed up tonight instead. (Samura lived in the room directly above his bar, which was where Jounouchi was going to be staying until he could find a new place. The guy'd even been nice enough to get what few possessions Jounouchi had out of his apartment before the lease had lapsed, so those were waiting for him too.)
Stepping out of the stall, Jounouchi went over to the mirror and inspected himself.
To the uninformed he figured he wouldn't look much different from any guy walking down the street: too-big sweater over a T-shirt, carpenter jeans, boots, wallet on a chain. His hair was a bit longer than he usually kept it, but he sure as hell didn't look like he'd just gotten out of jail, even to himself.
It was fucking surreal.
Sighing, Jounouchi smacked the tap and leaned down to wash his face--but it was an older water-saving faucet model, so he kept having to hit it, and the water never got past lukewarm. He thought about washing with soap for good measure, but when he pressed the dispenser nothing came out.
The paper towels when he got to them were reprocessed brown, rough and barely absorbent. Each one stunk as he scrubbed it over his face, so strong that the smell lingered on his skin, under his nose, moving with him even as he left the bathroom for the store proper, his shoes squeaking on the tiles.
Back in the store, moving under a bizarre host of Halloween decorations (it was only six days away, he realized with a jolt), including a fake spider which dropped alarmingly into his hair, he bought a day-old baguette from the sales rack and a package of sliced turkey, which he immediately took outside to eat, sitting on the closest public bench he could find in the weak sunlight and people-watching for the first time in months.
At first he mixed the food up, but after a few minutes turned his attention to decimating the bread alone, then slowed down to enjoy each turkey slice, rolling them into little flutes and chewing methodically from one end to the other.
He was on the last one when a lady passed, walking a husky who was within seconds totally absorbed by his hand. Grinning, Jounouchi tossed the slice to the dog, and watched as it was snapped out of the air with perfect precision.
"-Eat up, buddy,-" he laughed, wiping his hands down on his pants.
"-Hey,-" the lady said loudly, startling him.
Jounouchi looked up and found her glaring, her free hand balled into a fist. "-Hey,-" she said again, "-you shouldn't just do that. He's in training right now.-"
"-Oh,-" Jounouchi said lamely, embarrassed. "-Sorry.-"
"-You can't let a dog get used to begging, particularly from strangers,-" she went on, as though he hadn't apologized at all. "-I mean, d'you have any idea how important it is that he get consistent training? I---"
"-Okay, okay,-" Jounouchi interrupted defensively, getting up off the bench and moving a few steps in the opposite direction, blushing. "-Got it. I just--was just sharing.-"
She continued to glare, but didn't say anything else, apparently realizing that he'd gotten the message. After a few seconds more she turned and began to walk again, looking vaguely embarrassed now by her behavior, if unwilling to say anything by way of apology. The dog, however, stared back for as long as he was in sight, tail wagging, clear blue eyes wide and alert.
"-Bye, buddy,-" Jounouchi said quietly, waving one hand after him, and watched until he was gone.
-
It was around eight o'clock, after several hours spent wandering without direction through the city, just for the sake of being outside, that Jounouchi at last found himself getting close to Chinatown. His first thought upon noticing this was to go to Samura's now, even though it was a bit earlier than he'd intended, but just before he got over the Willamette he passed another bar he was familiar with (not a sushi place, but an actual gaijin dive), and decided to stop in and say hello to the owner before he tracked Samura down.
Jounouchi wasn't much of a bar-goer, but this place actually sold decent sake thanks to its proximity to the Asian markets, and the owner was a good enough guy. White, as was most of the clientele, but that was fine. Jounouchi had met a lot of white people he actually liked since coming to the States, which had been something of a surprise at first. He hadn't quite realized how stereotyped his thinking had been before his arrival. Not that the people here didn't have their own really bizarre stereotypes for him. Fair, as they liked to say, was only fair.
The place when he stepped in was maybe half full, testament to the hour, though all the bar seats were taken except one. Jounouchi ended up going for that, wanting to talk to the bartender, not a waitress.
It was a nice enough establishment, smoke-free except for a little section in the back, and clean within limits. A fake black cat, hissing, frozen in the act of arching its back, sat at the end of the bar farthest from him, its eyes directed toward the door, where it could watch the people as they came in. The end of Sharp Dressed Man was playing on the jukebox (currently wearing a witch's hat), tinny, but still instantly recognizable.
A patch of the bar was slightly sticky against his sleeve when he leaned an elbow on it, but he'd almost been expecting that. Wouldn't've been a full day if he hadn't managed to get something on his shirt.
Fortunately the bartender tonight was the guy he recognized (there were two of them), though he couldn't quite remember his name. "-Hey,-" said Jounouchi once he'd been noticed. "-Tom here?-"
"-Sure is,-" the bartender said. "-Want something to drink while I grab him?-"
"-Ah,-" Jounouchi hesitated, frowning. Normally he wouldn't, wasn't really a fan of drinking without reason, particularly when he couldn't really afford it--but what the hell. Tonight was special. And besides, he was freezing. "-Sure. Hot sake.-"
"-Middle grade okay?-"
Jounouchi grinned teasingly at him, unable to let that one go. "-You mean honjozo-shu?-"
The bartender laughed, taking it in stride. "-Yeah, that. Lemme grab it for you.-"
"-Thanks,-" Jounouchi murmured, peeling his sleeve off the bar and inspecting it critically as the man went away. The last chords of Sharp Dressed Man faded and were replaced by Dancing in the Dark. He couldn't help rolling his eyes a little at that; seemed like this damn song played in every bar on the West coast.
"You're Japanese."
Startled, Jounouchi looked up, his right arm still hiked up next to his chin for examination.
It was the guy on the stool to his right who'd spoken. He was maybe Jounouchi's age, maybe a little older, but either way, definitely not thirty just yet; brunet, blue-eyed, clean shaven, handsome of a type, and freakishly tall, with over half a foot on Jounouchi, even sitting. Nicely dressed. Too nice for a regular at this place, so probably a businessman on a special trip. Celebrating something, perhaps, or lamenting something else. He was drinking what looked like brandy, but might just as easily have been a dark whiskey. Jounouchi wasn't exactly an expert.
"So're you," he replied at last, frowning. It felt nice to speak normally again after so many months of not being able to, but he had no idea who the hell this guy was. "How'd you guess? I mean--" He pointed here at his hair, illustrative. Most everybody got thrown off by it.
Oddly, the man had remained completely expressionless since Jounouchi first looked at him, and continued to stay so even as he responded: "I have yet to hear a Westerner actually say sake correctly, let alone name one of the grades."
"Oh," said Jounouchi, bemused. Absently he returned his arm to the bar. "Well. Lucky us. You just move here or something?"
"No," the stranger said flatly, taking a precise sip of his drink, which had sweated a series of rough, interlocking rings into his coaster. "Business."
Well, score one for Jounouchi. Trying not to grin, the blond glanced away, and found the bartender returning with his tokkuri and choko. "-Suge!-" he said, watching as they were set down. "-Thank you.-"
"-Sure thing. One of the girls should be getting Tom right now.-"
Jounouchi picked up the little ceramic flask by the neck with his fingertips and poured, watching tiny wisps of steam peel away from the surface of the traditional cup with a smile. "-Great.-"
The bartender retreated. Jounouchi took a deep breath and knocked back the first cup, shuddering as it went down.
"Is that any good?"
Surprised to be addressed a second time by the taciturn businessman, Jounouchi eyed him curiously, keeping half an eye on his cup as he poured again. "'S okay. They've got junmai too if you like that shit better. I never had it, though; kinda pricey for me. Why?" He grinned before he could stifle the urge, leaning in toward the stranger a little, feeling more like himself in this second than he had in three months: "Bad day or something?"
The stranger turned straight again, draining his glass without so much as flinching and raising one hand in the bartender's direction. "Or something," he replied simply. "I'm trusting you on this."
"Shit," Jounouchi snorted, wrinkling his nose, and limited himself to sipping this time. "Don't do that. You'll make me feel like an asshole if it turns out crappy."
He got no response for that beyond a very slight twitch of the stranger's mouth that might have been a smile if he'd let it go, but then again might have been nothing more than a twitch. Jounouchi found himself staring, perplexed; the more he looked, the more familiar the stranger seemed, until he became quite certain that he'd seen the guy before.
"You live in Domino ever?" he found himself asking, cup half-raised to his mouth.
This finally got a reaction from the stranger, who had just finished making his second order. Eyes wide, he turned to face Jounouchi fully for the first time. "I was born there," he said.
"No shit!" Jounouchi couldn't stifle a grin, pleased. Two points for him, then. "I moved there when I was ten. Went to Domino Middle School 'n everything."
Within seconds the brunet's expression had sharpened, turning bright and intense, as though he was just now trying to place Jounouchi as well. "Did you go to Domino High?"
"Nah," Jounouchi replied, lifting his cup for another sip. "I went to--"
--and then it occurred to him that he was talking to somebody who would actually know how bad Rintama's reputation was if he admitted that that was where he'd gone; that it had been his last option after the year of correctional schooling he'd been forced into halfway through his last year of Middle School; that he'd gotten the hell out of Domino as soon as he'd graduated, escaping from the gang and his family and losing himself in a different life.
"--somewhere else," he finished lamely. One of the stranger's eyebrows twitched, clearly expressing that he'd noted the painfully obvious omission, but thankfully he didn't pursue the topic.
Jounouchi cleared his throat, pouring his third cup and sipping from it carefully. "Anyway. I'm Jounouchi Katsuya."
The stranger set down his own cup (when had the bartender come back, anyway?), reaching into his back pocket and producing a business card, which he offered with both hands. "Kaiba Seto. Thank you for the sake recommendation. I'll pay for your drink."
Oh, cool. "Thanks," Jounouchi mumbled, receiving the card with both hands on instinct alone--god, he'd been here too long if that kind of thing was taking him by surprise--but why was that name so familiar? Kaiba...Kaiba...
One of his fists slammed into the bar when inspiration finally struck; not hard enough to make anything rattle, but plenty to startle Kaiba. "Kaiba Seto!" he cried, and almost pointed.
"Yes," Kaiba said slowly, staring at him.
"I used to see you on TV!" Jounouchi was laughing now, unable to help himself. "That's why you looked so familiar! Yeah, I saw you sometimes on the game network--you know that's like, one of the only channels I've ever seen probation officers watch? Well, that and the news, but I saw you around way more. Go figure. Lotta games with some kid with crazy hair--uh, Mutou, right?"
Kaiba's expression was again inscrutable, though not because he didn't have one. Jounouchi simply had no idea what to call it. "Probation officers?" he said.
Oh. Oh, oops. Jounouchi could feel his neck and ears going red. "Uh. I was in a program for a while when I was a kid. Stupid stuff." And then, because his only defense at this point was rapid topic change, "Look, was that you or not? 'Cause I'll feel really stupid if it wasn't."
"It was me," Kaiba murmured, expression beginning to smooth out again. "In another life."
Huh. Jounouchi polished off his third cup and poured a fourth--second to last from the feel of the flask. Good. Five was about his limit. "You don't play anymore?"
"Not often," Kaiba replied, and took a long, shallow sip.
Jounouchi thought about this for a few seconds, considering. More information was flooding back into his head--it had been such an awfully long time, he'd almost forgotten--filling out his picture of the businessman. "But you still make games, right? I mean, your company?"
Kaiba glanced at him again. "I d--"
"-Joey!-"
Jounouchi turned toward the sound of the voice, grinning automatically, despite his frustration at having Kaiba's answer interrupted. "-Hey, Tom.-"
Tom Taylor was a guy who had spent a lot of his life living down his name--or, as was more accurate to say for his adulthood, a lot of time living it up. The bar itself was called Taylor's Thimble, and fuck anybody who thought it was stupid. Jounouchi had actually heard the guy say that to people who made fun of it within earshot, and had even watched people--mostly tourists--get thrown out for calling it queer. Of course, it helped that the owner was a giant: six feet three inches to Jounouchi's five six. They'd met through Samura a year and a half ago, right after Jounouchi first moved to Portland, and had gotten along pretty well ever since.
Tom thumped one enormous hand into his shoulder, grinning. "-Shit, man,-" he swore enthusiastically. "-I thought you were getting out tomorrow!-"
"-So did I,-" Jounouchi laughed. "-They said was--uh, it was easier to do today. Lucky me, yeah?-"
"-Hell yeah,-" Tom agreed, folding his arms and looming unconsciously. "-They get the guy who fucked you over yet?-"
"-Not yet,-" Jounouchi scowled, fingering his now simply hot flask absently. "-They won't. But good enough I'm out.-"
"-Bet it feels nice to have the heat off,-" Tom sympathized. "-Fuck. We all knew you didn't do anything.-"
"-Me too,-" Jounouchi said shortly.
-
Tom chatted for a few more minutes, catching him up on some of the most recent changes he'd missed during his time on the inside, then ordered him another tokkuri on the house--despite his protests--and went back to work.
Jounouchi considered getting up and leaving before it could arrive, reluctant to drink two (he didn't want to show up at Samura's shitfaced, for crying out loud), but in the end he decided against it. It wasn't even nine yet, and of course he didn't have to drive; so long as he took it slow and got some water to fill in the corners, he probably wouldn't have a problem. Probably.
"It's strange. You don't look like a criminal to me."
God, he was still there? Jounouchi turned, and--yes, that was Kaiba, still staring, still nursing his cup in one long-fingered hand.
"That's 'cause I'm not," he snorted, finishing off his first flask at last. "I just have shit luck. You don't look much like a billionaire."
"Oh?" Kaiba said mildly, leaning both of his elbows on the bar now. "And what precisely do I look like?"
"Tired," Jounouchi answered instantly, and then couldn't figure out why that was the first thing he'd thought of. Sure, Kaiba had a nice set of bags under his eyes, but who didn't who actually worked for a living?
Kaiba also looked slightly taken aback, remaining silent as the bartender returned with the imposing second tokkuri. Jounouchi frowned, staring at it, and rubbed one hand across his forehead, finding a fine layer of sweat.
So much for being cold. "So what the hell do I look like, then?" he muttered, letting his hand drop to rest in his lap.
"Like you've been here too long."
Jounouchi couldn't stifle a grin at that. "Guess it shows, huh? That I don't drink a whole lot?"
Kaiba stared at him without blinking, lips slightly pursed. "That wasn't what I meant."
It took a minute for Jounouchi to figure that one out. Not that he felt much better once he had. "Guess that shows, too," he mumbled, picking up the empty tokkuri and passing it back and forth between his hands. "Well. Four years is kind of a while. Don't got much to go back to in Japan, though."
He half expected Kaiba to try offering sympathy, as most people did when he was forced to reveal this particular fact. But the businessman was silent, and Jounouchi, oddly enough, was relieved.
"Look," he said finally, pointing at the second flask and turning toward Kaiba, trying to ignore the way things shook alarmingly when he did. Looked like he'd gone through the other stuff too fast. "You wanna split that? I can't drink it all myself. I'll die."
"How dramatic," Kaiba murmured, but reached for the tokkuri even as he did, and even waited for Jounouchi to retrieve his first cup and hold it out before pouring for both of them with a perfectly steady hand. It was sort of amazing, actually. "Kanpai."
"Kanpai," Jounouchi replied, grinning, and raised the warm cup in the air.
-
"-I,-" Jounouchi announced loudly in English, his cheek pillowed on one of his arms, "-am twenty-seven this January.-"
Kaiba had no response for this, but somebody a few stools down tittered suspiciously. Jounouchi ignored her, fascinated instead by the way Kaiba was smiling. What was odd about it was that it wasn't really like a smile; sure, it involved him turning the corners of his mouth up, but it wasn't friendly. It was kind of dark, and kind of sarcastic, and kind of derisive all in one, but still amused. Jounouchi had really never seen anything like it.
"Twenty-seven," he repeated, returning to Japanese to better stretch out the syllables, testing them. "I've been here since I was twenty-three. And you know what? I haven't done one damn thing in all that time except get thrown in prison for shit I didn't even do."
"What did you do?" Kaiba asked curiously.
"I didn't do anything!" Jounouchi shouted into his arm. "I got totally screwed!"
"No," Kaiba said carefully, holding up the flask; Jounouchi quickly drained what was left in his cup, then held it out to be refilled, unable to believe there was so much sake in one little tokkuri. It felt like he'd been drinking forever. What time was it, even? "I mean, what happened? What did you do?"
"I bought a car," Jounouchi said miserably, and hid his face in his arm.
For a moment all Jounouchi could hear was the faint background murmur of the bar, which had begun to pick up, people laughing and glass clinking and footsteps. Underneath it all the jukebox was playing Simon and Garfunkel's A Hazy Shade of Winter.
"I love this song," he mumbled, not looking up.
"Wait," Kaiba said slowly. "You got arrested for buying a car?" And then, "This is the original, you know."
"What, somebody covered it?" Jounouchi lifted his face at last to squint at Kaiba, whose outline wasn't behaving itself in the slightest. "And the fucking car was stolen. The asshole I bought it from stole it and sold it to me. I actually gave him money!"
He buried his face in his arm once more, suddenly furious all over again. He had really been trying to get over it, but three months wasn't nearly enough. Three years, maybe. "Anyway. Guy never filed the report of sale I filled out for him, right? Well, I didn't fucking know, so I take the damn title in the next day to get it transferred, and guess what? It's not signed."
Jounouchi paused here to knock back the cup Kaiba had just poured for him, wetting his throat. "Okay. No problem. Kind of a pain in the ass, but. You know. Whatever. So I go to city hall to figure out if I can get it done without having to track the original guy down, and the next thing I know they've got a stolen vehicle flag, and I'm in fucking court. Come to find the asshole I bought it from skipped town, and of course they dig up this record I've got from ten thousand years ago, plus the fact that I'm here on a Visa, so obviously it's me dicking around and lying about everything, and I gotta be the one who stole it in the first place."
Again, for a long moment following his tirade Jounouchi could hear nothing but the sounds of the bar, strangely distant. Then Kaiba said quietly, "Then how did you get out?"
"Act of divinity," Jounouchi sighed, closing his eyes. "The asshole's old landlady showed up last week with the report of sale I filled out, right before they could finish working out whether they were gonna deport me or not. Had no idea about anything, 'cause I never knew the guy's name, so they couldn't really look for him. But she tried to file it, and that goes and re-opens the case, and all of a sudden they've got the right name and it's sorry, get on with your life, man. They wouldn't even pay me back what I put out for the fucking car."
A third moment of silence passed before Kaiba asked with soft incredulity, "You bought a car from a third party whose name you didn't even know?"
"Friend of a friend of a friend," Jounouchi mumbled, opening his eyes back up. "I know. Real stupid. 'm good at that."
Kaiba was turning his cup around in one hand slowly, staring at it. "I think you're very lucky," he murmured at last. "You could have been in for much longer."
"I know," Jounouchi moaned, grabbing his hair. "That's the real shit part. Like, I lost all that fucking money--but I got out so fast. Only not so fast. You ever been in prison?"
Kaiba just stared at him.
Jounouchi snorted quietly. "'Course not. Stupid question. Well, it's a fucking long time. Quarter of a year. And 'm gonna be twenty-seven."
"At least they'll strike it from your record," Kaiba offered neutrally.
...okay, that was a point. "At least," he agreed, frowning. Then he rolled his head back in Kaiba's direction, scratching at one of his shoulders after an itch. "So what happened to you, anyway? Like, what's wrong with your day that you gotta come get pissed at a bar 'n waste time talkin' to an idiot like me?"
"I'm not drunk," Kaiba murmured, frowning, and set his cup down on his coaster--or tried to. The rim missed the mark by almost two inches. Kaiba's frown deepened.
"We," Jounouchi said with delicate precision, trying not to laugh, "are totally wasted, man. Dare you to stand up."
"Nothing was wrong with my day," Kaiba said with dignity, picking his cup back up and emptying it. "Everything went perfectly."
"Goddamnit," Jounouchi mumbled, having just remembered Samura, and his original plan to drop in on the guy tonight. When exactly had he gotten so damn hammered, anyway? Why was he telling his sob story to this weird billionaire when he could be getting some real food and sleep? What the hell was going on? "What time is it?"
Kaiba pulled up his suit jacket sleeve, peering down at a sleek, skinny silver watch. "Nine thirty-two."
"Goddamnit," Jounouchi said again, picking up the tokkuri and waiting for Kaiba to hold out his cup. "What the hell've we been talking about for an hour?"
Kaiba promptly did so, blinking. "Your incarceration," he said after a moment, watching as Jounouchi poured the last of the sake. "And my day. Which was fine."
"And?"
Another moment. "...I have no idea."
"Great." Jounouchi chewed absently on his sleeve for a few seconds, trying to work out his next plan of action. "So if your day was so awesome," he asked while he was at it, discomfited by the silence, "what're you doin' here?"
"What?"
"Why are you here?" Jounouchi said loudly, lifting himself up a little on his elbows.
Kaiba shot him a vaguely disdainful glare. "I'm not deaf. I'm here because everything went perfectly."
--wait, what? Jounouchi shook his head, sure that he was missing something in that. "Nothing's wrong, so you're--getting drunk off your ass?"
"No," Kaiba said, scowling. "Because nothing is good, and nothing is bad, and nothing is anything except on time. I'm here because nothing is anything."
Jounouchi snorted into his sleeve at that. "Sounds like 'n existential crisis to me, man."
"Crisis?" Kaiba murmured, staring at the white tokkuri now and frowning. "There's no crisis. Why would you say that?" And then, softer, "I'm an extremely successful person."
"Sure," Jounouchi agreed, abruptly feeling sorry for the guy. Obviously he was having some real issues. "Sorry. I shouldn't talk about it."
"No," Kaiba said sharply, turning to stare at him. "Talk about it. Please."
Uncertain of what to say to that, Jounouchi stared back silently, mouth dry again.
Abruptly Kaiba said, "You don't care who I am, do you?" His eyes were oddly wide, the strange blue of them enhanced by the bar's lighting. Jounouchi thought of the husky from earlier that day, and startled himself with the comparison.
"I dunno what you mean," he said quietly, shaking his head, then wishing he hadn't.
"I mean you're not intimidated by me," Kaiba elaborated.
Perplexed, Jounouchi swallowed thickly. Black Hole Sun was playing on the jukebox now, which was fucking weird. He had thought it was all seventies and eighties stuff. "Hell no," he said, frowning. "You think I should be?"
"I'm glad you're not," Kaiba muttered, almost too soft to hear. His expression shifted slightly, his eyebrows going up just a fraction. "What are you doing tonight?"
...whoa.
Whoa. Hold on a second. Jounouchi blinked a few times, trying to figure out whether he was so far gone he was seeing things. Hearing things. Whatever. "Sittin' in a bar and drinking," he said at last, slowly. Testing. "And. Uh. Being picked up? Man, are you picking me up?"
"I could not be," Kaiba replied elusively, eyes still wide. "It depends entirely on how humiliated I'm about to be."
Okay, this just kept getting stupider. "Hang on. Man. Kaiba. Man. We--we talked about me just getting out of prison, right?"
"Correct," Kaiba said.
"How about me being a total waste of life?"
"We hadn't gotten there yet."
"We're there now," Jounouchi said firmly. "So. So now what d'you say?"
Kaiba was silent for a few seconds. Then he licked his lips. "What is the waste of life doing tonight?"
Huh.
Jounouchi thought about this for a long moment, attempting to absorb it. Distantly he was glad for all the alcohol he'd just drunk, which made this attempt much easier. Also it was probably the reason he was getting propositioned in the first place, but whatever. Somebody he'd seen on TV eleven years ago was hitting on him. And he was even pretty good looking. That was kind of cool, wasn't it?
Except it was also totally bizarre. Jounouchi thought about this for another moment. He thought about the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago he'd been sleeping like shit in a prison cell and counting the minutes until he got out. He thought about the fact that he hadn't been in a relationship with anybody, male or female or famous, for more than a year.
Then Jounouchi cleared his throat, sitting up slowly. "Let's take a walk."
Kaiba looked perplexed at this, but after a moment nodded, reaching into his jacket pocket for a skinny black wallet. "Alright. I'll pay."
Jounouchi was glaring instantly, pointing one finger threateningly in his face. "You pay for you. I pay for you. I mean me. Damnit. Got it?"
Kaiba looked even more perplexed. "I said I'd pay. Earlier. I said it."
"For advice," Jounouchi shot back. Goddamnit. He wasn't going to get bought. He wasn't necessarily going to do anything more than take a walk with a weird businessman, but he sure as fuck wasn't going to get bought.
At first Kaiba looked like he really wanted to protest this, but eventually gave up the inclination, nodding again and turning to wave down the bartender.
Jounouchi, meanwhile, took his first good look around in a while, and found that the bar was almost entirely full. Also Tom was over in the corner by the door which led to the stairs, which in turn led up to the bathrooms and his office.
Okay, that was great. "-Tom!-" he shouted, waving.
A quarter of the bar turned to look at him, Tom included. For a second the proprietor just stared and grinned, then promptly turned away from the door he'd just opened and made his way over, looking thoroughly amused for some totally unquantifiable reason. "-Had enough, Joey?-"
"-I have had enough,-" Jounouchi agreed firmly, pulling some likely-looking bills from his wallet and tossing a squinting glance at Kaiba. "-How much did we drink?-"
"-Apparently too much,-" Tom said obnoxiously, holding up one hand to stop him from waving the bills in his face. "-Save it. You can pay me later, okay? I know where you work.-"
That sounded like a fantastic idea, because if there was one thing Jounouchi was not up for in this instant, it was math. He put the bills and his wallet back, nodding in satisfaction, then began to get carefully off of his stool, which was definitely several feet farther from the ground than it had been when he'd first sat down.
"-You are so drunk, Joey,-" Tom remarked, watching him casually.
"-Really?-" Jounouchi mumbled, sarcastic, and finally found his feet, where he swayed for a few seconds, readjusting. Fuck. He really was, wasn't he? "-I don't do this again. Hey. Look. Call Samura, please? Tell him I got out?-"
"-Sure,-" Tom said, starting to frown now. "-But aren't you headed there now? You want me to have one of the girls give you a ride?-"
Jounouchi frowned, shaking his head. The room spun unsettlingly. "-No, no. No, I go--I'll go tomorrow. Got to keep this sad guy company.-" He pointed at Kaiba here, who stared at Tom silently for a few seconds before dipping his head in greeting.
Tom stared back. "-That's...nice of you.-" It was at this point that Jounouchi noticed how Kaiba wasn't much shorter than the foreigner. Then he couldn't imagine why he'd noticed, and promptly forgot it. "-You sure?-"
"-Sure, sure,-" Jounouchi stressed, waving one hand at him, well aware that his grammar was going to hell in a hand basket and failing to care in the slightest. "-Turn out that we grew up in the same place. Crazy. We talk about it forever. 'Night, Tom.-"
Tom thumped him on the shoulder again, which almost--but not quite--sent him straight into the bar. "-Okay, blondie. Take it easy.-"
"-Sure,-" Jounouchi said again, and turned at last to head outside, walking carefully through the ocean the air had turned into, listening to the jukebox in the background (Walk on the Wild Side, now. Of course), and to Kaiba's surprisingly soft footsteps as he followed close behind.
So he'd been able to stand up after all. Go figure.
-
Out on the sidewalk Jounouchi was actually shocked by how cold it had gotten, sucking in a sharp breath and shoving his hands into his pockets, blinking furiously. "Shit," he hissed quietly, knowing somehow that Kaiba would be close enough to hear it.
Sure enough, when he turned Kaiba was standing only a few feet away, staring down at him silently. At some point he'd put on a coat; a nice button down thing, smooth black wool and straight, clean lines.
Shit. He really was a billionaire.
Kaiba frowned vaguely, pushing his own hands into his pockets. "You're quite short."
"You got a problem with that?" Jounouchi flexed his hands defensively within his pockets and wondered if this, of all ridiculous things, was going to be what put an end to this most ridiculous of situations.
But all Kaiba said was, "No," unmoving and expressionless. "You were slouching inside. I couldn't tell. Where are we walking?"
Where were they walking? "-Holladay,-" Jounouchi said after a minute of thought, frowning. "'S a park. Got a water fountain."
"Alright," Kaiba said softly.
So they started walking.
-
The cold was somewhat sobering, though not nearly enough to clear out his head. Not to get it as clear as it needed to be, at least.
What the hell was he doing?
"Look," he started a few blocks from the park, scowling. Traffic wasn't exactly agonizing for a Monday evening, but the sea of moving headlights was still dizzying, disorienting. "I don't get why you're askin'. I mean, askin' me."
"I can't explain it either," Kaiba replied, still walking a respectful foot or so behind him. "I just wanted to ask."
"So you did," Jounouchi reflected, trying to decide whether this made sense of not.
"So I did," Kaiba affirmed.
"Well, that's--great." Jounouchi wiggled his fingers in an attempt to warm them, wishing desperately that he had something to cover his neck. "So you do this a lot?"
"Never in my whole life."
Interesting. Jounouchi paused at a crosswalk, turning back to watch Kaiba. Then he laughed a little, ruefully. "Me neither."
The brunet shifted from one foot to the other, then moved forward at last to stand next to him, pressing the button for the walk and looking away to watch the light. Like Jounouchi probably should have done. Oops. "It was just a question. It creates no obligation."
God, who talked like that anymore? And drunk, too. Jounouchi frowned, pulling his hands from his pockets and tucking them under his armpits instead. "I know. You think 'm stupid?"
Two unnervingly blue eyes turned in a perfect arc, pinning him to the spot. "I don't know yet. Are you?"
Jounouchi stared, frozen. Then a grin worked its way onto his face, all resignation and quiet, self-deprecating amusement. "Kinda."
Kaiba's mouth pursed faintly. "Then that makes two of us."
In Jounouchi's peripheral vision, the walk light changed.
-
The park was quiet, but not uninhabited, the soft glow of the antique globe lamps diffusing through the late evening, inviting. There were jack-o-lanterns, real carved pumpkins, clustered around the gate, lit from within by weakly flickering candles, seeming to watch them as they moved. A few small families and a half-dozen couples passed by them as Jounouchi led the way toward the public bathrooms, where he knew the water fountain was.
Upon finding it, Jounouchi immediately braced himself against the stone rim, closed and opened his eyes, took a deep breath, then stabbed the heel of one hand against the button and made a face.
"I'm so gonna regret this," he mumbled. Then he stuck his face in the frigid stream of water and moved it around, holding his breath.
Sure enough, for about three seconds he was absolutely certain his eyes were going to pop right out of his head. Then everything went sort of pleasantly numb, and he withdrew, dripping, to rub his hands vigorously across his cheeks and eyelids. The rest of the water got brushed back into his hair, his scalp tingling at the cold.
Kaiba was staring unashamedly when he finally turned back around, mouth open the tiniest bit.
"What?" Jounouchi said, sniffing to clear water from his nose.
"You could have done that back at the bar."
"Nope," Jounouchi replied firmly, shaking his head. "Needed to walk a bit first."
And then he was, without warning, extremely light headed, so much so that he almost sagged right to the ground. It was the edge of the water fountain that saved him, resting just high enough on the wall for him to grab onto before he could go all the way over.
Kaiba looked almost hilariously alarmed, moving toward him with one hand extended uncertainly. "Are you alright?"
"Awesome," Jounouchi gritted, squeezing his eyes shut. "Brain ache. You ever eat ice cream too fast?"
"No," Kaiba said.
Jounouchi snorted, somehow not surprised by this. He did seem like an everything in moderation kind of guy--which was probably why he was the one standing straight and composed instead of hanging off a water fountain in a public park for dear life.
Boy, that sounded sad. Jounouchi began to blink furiously, trying to bring everything back into focus. "Try it sometime."
Kaiba was biting one of his lips doubtfully. "I should get you home."
This was, for some reason, extremely disappointing. Jounouchi straightened up carefully, unable to stifle a frown. "Don't do that. Just gimme a minute."
Lowering his hand, Kaiba tucked it back into his pocket, shaking his head gently. "No, I really should."
No good. Jounouchi sighed, feeling oddly defeated, and leaned slowly back against the bathroom wall, tilting his head up to stare at the sky. It had hazed over partially in the last few hours, soft red clouds sitting low above the buildings. Five particularly enormous cumuli were drifting silently overhead, one half-obscuring the moon.
"How old are you, anyway?" he heard himself ask from far away, curious.
Kaiba's fancy shoes scratched softly against the cement, the tall man shifting again from foot to foot. "Twenty-seven."
Jounouchi grinned at that, pleased. Three points for him. Time for a fucking wish. "Same as I'll be."
"Today was my birthday."
Looking away from what was visible of the moon, Jounouchi blinked at Kaiba, and Kaiba's flat, serious face, for several seconds. He could remember it more clearly now, brief flashes of him emblazoned on a variety of cheap screens. He didn't look much different. Better dressed, more mature, but fundamentally the same face. The wind picked up, tossing some of his bangs into his eyes. "Happy birthday."
Kaiba's mouth tilted into an awkward, bitter smile. "If you say so."
"Good day for both of us," Jounouchi continued.
The smile got a little less awkward. "If you say so."
"Okay," Jounouchi said, so soft that the words were nearly lost in the rising wind. "Let's do it. Where're you staying?"
For a long second Kaiba looked indescribably torn between doing the moral, upstanding thing, or the the thing he was obviously much more interested in. Then he lifted one hand and pointed over his shoulder. "Right there."
Confused, Jounouchi looked in the direction he was indicating.
At first all he saw were trees; then he got less stupid and looked up, and over the tree line saw the neat edges of a high-end hotel he passed all the time, the kind of thing he'd never noticed in anything but passing. It was always the park he was headed for. "You're kidding."
"The DoubleTree," Kaiba elaborated simply, unmoving. "Satisfactory meeting rooms."
"Okay," Jounouchi said again, too far out of his body by this point to even get worked up over the unreal number of coincidences going down tonight. "Okay, lead the way."
He pushed himself off of the wall as he said it, took one step, and was granted precisely two seconds--plus a great view of Kaiba's startled expression--to think of how extreme his embarrassment was going to be in the morning before his legs disappeared from underneath him. He was unconscious long before he ever made it to the ground.
end part one