A/N: So here it is, the long awaited sequel to Escalation. Although reading Escalation would certainly broaden the context of this fic, Devotion can be totally read as a standalone.
Chapter 1: first verse
The gang is waiting for him outside the school. He limps over to them, wearing a paper-thin smile and trying his hardest not to put too much weight on his right leg. Mai is with them, cascades of blond hair gleaming in the sunlight and those big, amethyst eyes that have left him flustered so many times before flashing coyly at him. Her blood red lips pull up at the corners in a friendly smirk. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on, and he is not the only one to notice this, for almost every boy walking out the school gates barely manage not to kiss the floor the moment they catch the powerful sight her figure makes as she stands there, with his group of friends, arms crossed and confident like no one has the right to be.
"Well, look who's finally decided to show up!" Mai says jokingly, shrugging her bare shoulders. Katsuya hears Otogi and Honda laughing from where they stand behind her, but the ruckus feels far away, muted, saturated by the surprise of her presence and his own boiling thoughts.
"I didn't know you were coming," He comments softly, and he knows it's not like him at all to act so meek. He wishes he could cross the space between them and hold her in his arms without the feeling of nausea building under his skin. He wishes he could touch her and not see darkness seeping from his fingertips, coiling around her bright frame. More than anything, he wishes life was simpler, easier. I wish I wasn't such a fuck up.
She doesn't say anything, the happy face she maintains suddenly seems to be sprinkled with doses of weariness, as she eyes the noticeable space between them with hooded concern.
"Kaiba-kun!" Yugi suddenly exclaims, waving his arms in the air. He chokes on unspeakable words and less conceivable emotions, and he can't look at Mai anymore, can't look at anyone. Katsuya shivers despite the temperature, his right leg chilled to the bone, his frenzied stare breaking through fabric to glare accusingly at the palpitating purplish line above his knee.
He remembers hot spit, a hot tongue, and heat lashing in his belly. He remembers the pain and the pleasure, and his shame for feeling both.
He shouldn't turn around, shouldn't look, shouldn't give consent to his madness, but he is doing it anyway.
Kaiba denies any notion of normalcy. He is a pale, shadowed figure against a backdrop of sunshine that never dares reach him. Covered in shadows, he stands before the entrance. He looks unhealthy, thinner- a sad composition about a face of hollowed eyes and cheeks, bloodless mouth, eye bags like dark rimmed tears circling his eye sockets, and a skin tone that would suit a dead body like a glove. He's worn that look for the past couple of months, since the leaves turned red and the air cut cheekbones and noses in a mixture of dry coldness and tampered heat. Still, Katsuya aches to trace the visible veins beneath the stretches of Kaiba's hands.
He finds a blue smoldering gaze and loses his grip on reality, falls into a pool of fire and electrifying touches, feels the ground shatter under his feet with the invisible caress of fingers biting into the back of his knee, feels a throbbing hunger in the salivating wound that has not healed.
And, Kaiba smiles.
Flashes, in Katsuya's wavering vision- he can only see hints of burgundy coloration on the tip of Kaiba's canines. See them sinking into soft, yearning flesh.
His throat burns as he swallows down the immediate instinct to ask him why he didn't come to class today.
"Seriously, Yugi? We see each other every other day of the week. Do try not to be so dramatic all the time."
He sounds like calm thunder, like energy compressed in freezing water, quietly threatening those around him and reminding them of what comes after the rumblings in the skies cease their warnings. Katsuya struggles not to get rolled over by his voice, fights to not just simply get struck by lightning.
But then Kaiba's narrowed pupils finally focus on Mai and something in Kaiba's expression changes, he looks at Katsuya again before his gaze settles on the distance, the centimeters between the two friends. Darkness falls like a veil over his sharp features, the same darkness Katsuya knows to be sizzling about the joints of his fingers and the underside of his palms. He sneers, and he couldn't look less like Mai, could not look more like the man that got on his knees in front of Katsuya-unknown and dangerous but also familiar in the ruthless ways he assumed- and stole, with no hesitation or care, the rationality he had been carefully cultivating ever since he became friends with Yugi.
There was no meaning anymore in punches and violence. No need to encounter pleasure in the seediest of actions, in the crack of knuckles meeting his cheekbone, or in the bruising grasp of Kaiba's hurtful hands around his arms, curled over one shoulder, grabbing harshly at his hair, digging under his chin, in him holding his leg while he examined it silently /putting on that disquieting mask of sanity that makes Katsuya want to get on his hands and knees and act exactly like the animal he is often compared to./
He is supposed to be beyond those things now. Or so he used to think, before he opened his eyes this morning only to realize that yesterday had, indeed, happened. His wound remains unhealed but it doesn't remain unclaimed, and that knowledge, beating at the back of his consciousness, awakens longings of the most terrifying nature.
Anzu coughs, doing a poor job at masking the discomforting atmosphere in which awkwardness builds its reign. Honda starts to mutter things under his breath that sound suspiciously like curses dedicated to Kaiba's entire ancestry; Otogi is throwing dices in the air absentmindedly, ignoring Kaiba's presence as best as he can. Mai merely shifts a bit, unable to show weakness even in the company of friends. Yugi is the sole exception to the uncomfortable behavior of the lot; he acts as if Kaiba's constant sarcastic dismissals can't affect him anymore.
He pouts, childish eyes widening like saucers. Asks, "Did something happen? Are you okay? You don't look… healthy."
Katsuya considers it a bit ironical, that he has been watching the brunet's slow transformation from solid and certain to willowy smoke for several months, the demands and questions have been resting on his tongue for just an equally as long time, and yet the one to give voice to those concerns is Yugi, who has only just recently come to see the deterioration developing in Kaiba. It isn't fair.
Kaiba doesn't bother with an answer. He has retreated to his universe of orderly chaos, where he is more maddeningly unknowable than he usually is in plain daylight, where his commands are absolute, and where he becomes most unreachable, untouchable, like a walking, breathing figment of imagination. As fast as he appeared, he turns his back on them, no apologies or assurances to spare, and walks past the gates without one last glance in their direction.
Katsuya's hands tremble by his sides. He wonders what his friends would think of him if they knew he wanted to be the dust in the wake of the billowing hems of a trench coat.
"Do you believe in anything?"
Kaiba looks up from the thick tome being held delicately in his hands. His eye bags are swollen, (they are of a strong red coloration, like he has sprayed the skin beneath his eyes with dark wine-Katsuya would be a liar if he claimed he did not want to smudge the color over with his thumbs) and his cheeks are crisscrossed in the thin, intricate paths of turquoise veins. "What kind of nonsensical question is that?"
"Well," Katsuya starts, smiling at Kaiba's numb face, "I was just thinking-Is the mighty Seto Kaiba capable of believing in anything other than wads of cash?"
Kaiba huffs. There are faint freckles embedded on the curve of his sharp cheekbones. Katsuya has never noticed before. He has some of his own, but those are from constant exposure to the sun and from being outdoors more than he is indoors. Kaiba's must be due to his silvery skin; he remembers overhearing a conversation once about pale people and how prone they were to the appearance of spots on their shoulders or cheeks.
"You are seriously asking me this." The brunet says in a deadpan tone.
In the background, the tamed music of conversation can be heard. Yugi and Anzu are engrossed with their respective lunches, occasionally running commentaries by each other, they sit less than a meter away from his spot next to Kaiba under the shade of a tree, and Otogi and Honda are arguing about something that Katsuya really hopes has absolutely nothing to do with his little sister.
Usually, Kaiba functions as the sole strange, new fixture to their band of misfits. He is with them, though not quite, choosing to linger at the margins of the group. He watches, observes, rarely engages them directly. It is still an upgrade from how he used to be at the start of their rocky relationship, but that doesn't mean Kaiba will ever stop being who he is, and therefore he is distant and secretly supportive, elusive and intrusive, cruel and kind without meaning to be.
Today, Katsuya decided to join him on his lonesome parade. He didn't bring lunch, didn't have money to buy one, didn't want to leech off his friends or engage in the usual chatter, and so he sat by the person he always failed to put a label to. As of now, none of his friends have commented on his sitting choice.
He pulls at the ends of his scruffy, dirty blond fringe. Ought to get a haircut soon. "Yeah, dude. But, I already know how much you hate anything related to magic or destiny or mystic mumbo jumbo and all that jazz. I'm talking about the religious angle. Are you a devoted kind of guy, Kaiba?"
"As in, do I believe in God? Is that what you want to know, Mutt?" Kaiba is smiling. The eerie reaction forces Katsuya's heart to fracture for one horribly long second.
A bland smile has not the right to be as bone shattering as it is. The other teen has the type of face that is designed for movie stars, for billboards, and commercials and movies, and literally anything that needs the representation of an awfully pretty bone structure and defined features.
Somehow, in possession of looks anyone would kill for, Kaiba manages to give beauty a grotesque manifestation.
/The heart stutters, not out of fear, but because it wants to get burned by unholy fire contained by unholy smiles./
"Okay. One, fuck you. Two, fuck you again. And third, of course, duh, that is what I've been trying to say for the past couple minutes, you absolute dick!"
"If only your speech was as well developed as your ability to spill insults."
"Could you stop being unbearable for just two seconds and-"
"To put an end to your pathetic whimpering, dog, no, I do not believe in God or anything of the sort. There's your answer. Now go bark at trees or whatever it is you do with your time."
"Oh. Okay."
"What? Too complicated an answer for you?"
"No, I just didn't expect you to be so straightforward with me."
Kaiba shrugs, closing the book in his hands. His attention has been redirected elsewhere.
"But…why?" Katsuya wonders, unable to help himself. "Why don't you believe?"
"Don't I have the right not to? Is it an obligation now? Do I have to tell you everything?"
"Don't be a drama queen. It's fine. If you don't want to tell me, that is."
Two protrusions appear on the sides of Kaiba's mouth as his grin widens. Dimples. Nice. Katsuya thanks his lucky stars for the fact that he is sat on his bum and not standing on his traitorous, noodle-like legs.
His not-enemy lets out a drowned sigh before whispering: "How could I possibly believe in God?"
And it's the way he brings a particular brand of life to a common and simple sentence such as that, that is what has Katsuya pierced on the edge of imperishable blue. It's what cannot be expressed in words, what should be in place of the loaded question, that Katsuya truly feels rumbling throughout the bruised, imperfect form of his battered body. He sees the shadows, the gauntness and the thrumming dispassion return to Kaiba's visage, and he knows himself to be reflected in every single one of his flawed shapes and contours. In the twist of a tormented smirk, in the sudden lack of human condition-those are the places where he can be found.
Kaiba continues, quietly, almost afraid that his twitching sentences may tear the fragile fabric of shared reality they have created for themselves, "I can only believe in myself. In what I can control. In what can astound me, impress me; ignite what otherwise remains undisturbed. This life I lead… it's all beginning to blur. The victories, the defeats, the living drum of blood rushing to my ears. I'm afraid that I- that I'm forgetting, Jounouchi, what those things felt like." He pauses, digging flickering fire, worn out intent into Katsuya's passive demeanor. The more he talks, the more he becomes the phantom of a sullen, decayed youth. He becomes the lost ones, the obliterated, the ones that have lived and expired too fast. "Every day I lose what they made me feel. I lose them, behind the filter that separates experience from emotion. But something I can never forget is challenge."
Challenge. Katsuya repeats the letters and intonation with the soundlessness of a funeral. Challenge, his lips form the unit, and the notion feels eternal, as absolute as the feelings Kaiba claims he cannot sustain any longer.
It's almost an invitation to share the numerous fire being set in his head.
Do you know what challenge means, bonkotsu?
"There is a certain desperation," the brunet says slowly, just as inconspicuous as tears being shed under the onslaught of rain, "a type of truthful compromise, a need to be acknowledged and a deep seated fear of rejection that comes along with a challenge. Such a myriad of complex states given birth from a premise so simple and yet-" Teeth are bones too. He always forgets, but every time he is inhaling the same air as Kaiba's that is one of the first thoughts to emerge back to the surface. He ponders that now, Kaiba seeming almost manic by his side, both of his expensively clad feet planted firm at the center of the bridge between apathy and psychosis as they usually are nowadays, and Katsuya is entranced, has regressed to a lonely ten year old, bitter for wanting what the stores sell in the good side of town.
"Well, as you can see, that is something I can definitely devote myself to."
Yes. Of course.
Challenge.
Katsuya's throat convulses with the unwanted and compulsive and unhelpful reaction of a beggar.
The sensation of real challenge:
/Punishing fingers around his wrist, his knees dragging across the muddy earth. His nightmares filled with the whispers of mocking laughter. The pressure of failure forcing the skin near his heart to cave, and still he continues to stand, to be bewitched by dark stares, he moves because he was compelled by a lashing tongue. The first time hurt like nothing ever had, but it was also because there was not a thing in the world that could ever evoke an extreme sensation within him, that it felt so sinfully good. That he couldn't get it out of his head. That to recreate the event in his mind was all he needed to be fully satiated, to stop the thirst from leaving him dry. He lived for the humiliation and the knowledge that there existed a pact that established the rules of the game. That no matter the scathing comments and jeers, He would always say 'yes'. He believed in that consistency, he understood the perfection and the craft of the twisted bond he communed at every chance he got. His worship could have never been gained by anything or anyone other than the one that made him want to crawl./
"What about you, Mutt?" Kaiba asks, and there is no light to be seen in him. "What do you believe in?"
He swallows his awed breathlessness.
"I… Yeah. Me too, Kaiba. Me too."
They are cramped into a booth in a restaurant nearby Kame Game Shop, sharing all manners of anecdotes and silly stories, when Anzu, who had been too focused reading the day's news to be included in the conversation, suddenly lets out a bone chilling gasp that freezes the blood of every single occupant of the table. Her right hand flies to her mouth, her eyes do a great impression of popping out of their sockets. At the same time, the newspaper plummets to the table with the swiftness of a dead fly.
Katsuya flinches, his mind travelling across many unlikeable situations involving newspapers. He doesn't even feel the comforting weight of Mai's hand on the tense line of his shoulder. Color has fled from the woman's cheeks, and without it, her face looks like an unfinished painting a child forgot to fill in its entirety, only bothering with defining the outlines.
Next to Anzu, Ryou barely manages not to drop his cup of tea. Yugi is pallid on her other side, holding the necklace he never takes off like a lifeline. Otogi would seem nonchalant if it weren't for the pasty tone his complexion has gained in the lapse of a few seconds.
"What on Earth was that?!" Honda exclaims, displaying the possible early symptoms of a heart attack.
Anzu shakes her head, blue eyes shimmering, getting glassier. She pushes the newspaper to the center of the table with a repulsion she can't hide, and when their eager gazes fall on the headlines, an ominous silence absorbs anything any of them might have said right then. The air in Katsuya's lungs escapes out his chest so fast he ends up breathing through the gap between his upper and lower teeth to keep himself from choking.
Unintentionally, Mai's nails bite into his skin.
No one moves for a while, but Katsuya is the first to snap out of his own reverie. Since the rest seem incapable of action, he stretches his arm out and, with clinical spontaneity-his face a mask of tranquility-, he pulls the paper towards his side of the table. Traces the bold black letters with a sweat covered thumb. Reads, voice dead, "This past evening, the mutilated body of a sixteen year old girl was found in an abandoned warehouse near the outskirts of Domino. The police have identified the victim as Mika Sakurai, a high school student of X-School who her parents had reported as missing one month ago. The discovery was reported by a young couple who was passing by the area and decided to take refuge in the building after being surprised by a sudden electric storm…"
That is how the world changes on a slightly chilly August afternoon- at the precise moment the individual that will later be widely known as The Eleonora Killer makes his disruptive entrance straight into the life of a city unprepared for tragedy.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading and don't forget to leave me some nutritious reviews :D!