Disclaimer: Unquestionably not mine.

A/N: Yet another one from the As Deep as the Sky that got out of hand. The idea of that ficlet collection is you put your music play-list on random and have to write a fanfic based on whatever song pops up, but you only have the duration of that song in which to write it. Since I didn't follow the rules and spent far longer than just four minutes on this one, it gets its own space to breathe.

ObNit: Hirutani is a genuine character from the original manga and Toei-animated series fan-named 'Season 0', though we didn't get much backstory about him personally other than he was the boss of Jounouchi's old gang and wanted to punish him for leaving. This is my two pennies about the time prior to what we see in canon.

The Ballad of Hirutani

© Scribbler, August 2008.

Well I'm a no goodnick lower middle class brat,

Back-packed and I don't give a shit about nothing.

You be standing on the corner talking all that kafuffin,

But you don't make sense from all the gas you be huffin'.


'Cause if the egg don't stain you'll be ringing off the hook –

You're on the hit list wanted in the telephone book!

I like songs with distortion, to drink in proportion;

The doctor said my mom should have had an abortion.

-- From Fat Lip by Sum 41

At twelve, Hirutani made his first kill.

It wasn't anything special, just a mouse his mom's cat had brought in that wasn't quite dead yet. It lay on the kitchen floor, trembling and staring around with its shiny little black eyes. His mom would've scooped it into a container and thrown it out into the garden. She was compassionate like that – except when it came to his dad, of course.

Bitch, Hirutani thought, then raised his boot and crunched it down. He didn't feel anything except satisfaction when his mom had to clean up the mess.

At thirteen he moved on to bigger things – bigger thrills, bigger spills … and bigger kills. He already had a crew by then. Guys like him always did. What he lacked in charisma he made up for with his own volatile brand of persuasiveness, plus a knack for picking kids who'd see him as their saviour from obscurity. His crew followed him like goslings who'd imprinted him as their parent, but Hirutani was anything but motherly. It was part of why they stuck around. He was a fantastic friend, but even at thirteen he was a bad enemy.

His dad gave him a flick-knife for his birthday because his mom hated them, and made him promise not to tell her where he got it in case they took away his visiting rights. Hirutani soon became an expert at using it, though his dad still refused to let him ride along on any jobs.

His mom screamed when she found what was left of her stupid cat. Hirutani made sure he had an alibi and dumped the body in next door's garden, where their dog played with it like a chew-toy. Nobody had to know it was already dead when the dog got hold of it. His mom cried for days.

Hirutani laughed himself to sleep every night for a week.

At fourteen he met Katsuya Jounouchi, another kid whose mom was a bitch. Unlike Hirutani, however, Jounouchi's mom hadn't fought to keep custody of him against his will. Jounouchi lived with his pop the way Hirutani desperately wanted to, but Jounouchi hated it there. It was all back-to-front, but Jounouchi still sizzled with hot resentment against his mother that made Hirutani notice him, and had fists like socks full of damp sand that he wasn't afraid to use. Hirutani offered him a place in his crew after he beat up a school bully so badly he stayed home for a fortnight, and nobody was dumb enough to decline an offer from Hirutani.

Eventually Jounouchi progressed to become his right-hand man. He had a vicious streak when pushed enough, which Hirutani expertly nurtured. Plus his dad had enough booze lying around his apartment that he never noticed when Hirutani asked Jounouchi to hook them up with some. He wasn't gracious about any of it, and refused to drink even when there was too much for them to finish, but he jumped when Hirutani said jump, and that was enough.

But there was a guy who always seemed in the background when Jounouchi was around. He hung around like a bad smell. Apparently he'd been Jounouchi's pal, or as close as, before Hirutani invited him into his gang. The guy was one of those clean-cut goody-two-shoes who always volunteered for cleaning duty when it wasn't even his turn, and looked at Hirutani like something he'd scraped off his shoe whenever they met in the hall.

Hirutani hated him on sight.

Once or twice Hirutani saw Jounouchi talking to the guy, but when quizzed on it he just shrugged and muttered, "Someone I used to know."

"Used to?"

"Got a big nose and can't keep it out of my business."

Hirutani nodded and patted Jounouchi on the back like they were best buddies. Jounouchi didn't shrug him off, but he didn't take his hands out of his pockets, either.

"You want me to make him step off?"

"No," Jounouchi said a little too quickly. "I already took care of it."

Hirutani remembered that when he was smoking out of the second floor boys' bathroom window and overheard Jounouchi shouting at the guy on the ground below.

"Just walk away, man."

"Butt out of my business, Honda."

"They're bad news. You know that. Why won't you just tell Hirutani to take a hike?"

"Maybe because I don't want to?"

"Bullshit. You're lying. He's scared you into being loyal to him. That's it, isn't it? Isn't it?"

"Do yourself a favour, Honda, and just stay out of my life from now on."

"Like I can do that when I have to patch you up after you've been out with him and his bunch of losers, fighting with other gangs and getting yourself so banged up you're seeing double for two days?"

"Fuck off, man. That's all I came out here to say. Just fuck off and stay out of my life or you'll be sorry."

"I'm not scared of him."

Jounouchi paused, and Hirutani paused too, listening for his reply.

"You should be," Jounouchi said eventually.

Hirutani heard his footsteps leaving, and when he looked down he saw the guy his second in command 'used to know' punching the wall in frustration. It made Hirutani smile and flick the cigarette butt out of the window. It slipped down his collar, burning his neck and back, but when the guy looked up, Hirutani was gone.

At fifteen, the night after the whole gang was picked up by the police for trying to torch a convenience store, the guy confronted Hirutani at school. He was holding a mop and bucket, and Hirutani wanted to laugh in his face when he demanded that Jounouchi be ejected from the gang 'or else'.

"Or else what?"

"Or else you'll be sorry."

"I'm really scared. Honest." Hirutani smiled his dangerous smile and kicked over the bucket. Sudsy water slopped everywhere, washing up against their feet, but neither boy acknowledged it. This guy had cojones. Too bad for him. "What are you gonna do, janitor?"

Jounouchi's old friend narrowed his eyes and whispered, "My dad's a police officer. He'd really appreciate a tip on the stuff your father is up to these days. He's infamous down at the station. They'd just love an excuse to bring him in."

Hirutani was always bragging about how much his dad got away with. Sometimes he'd made it all up, but sometimes not. His schoolmates rarely believed him, but not this guy, it seemed. Hirutani frowned, musing that a cop father explained why this Honda guy was so holier-than-thou, and said he'd think about it.

"Don't just think about it – do it," insisted the other boy. "Jounouchi's had enough go wrong in his life without you getting him a criminal record as well."

He wasn't doing much insisting when Hirutani jumped him on the way home from school. He came to in the abandoned warehouse where the gang made their headquarters, hands strung above his head and feet weighed to the floor with old rusty chains. He wasn't doing much talking at all then. Hirutani's punch had knocked out two of his teeth, and the gag finished what the swollen jaw started. One by one the rest of his crew arrived, surprised to see what their leader had brought them. One or two recognised the school 'janitor' and jeered in his face. This was a new game for them – they felt big, looking down at someone who'd looked down on them for so long. Their boss knew what they liked.

When Jounouchi arrived, however, breathing hard in the warehouse doorway, he was horrified.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded, moving to untie Honda until Hirutani stood in his way.

"Teaching him a lesson. Nobody gets in our way without consequences. You know that."

"He's not in your way."

"You dissing the boss-man's word, Jounouchi?" asked Daz, a disgusting little squirt who nonetheless knew his way around an air rifle.

Jounouchi didn't answer. Coupled with his conversation outside the bathroom window, this threw some doubt on his loyalty for Hirutani. Suddenly this wasn't just a game of punishing the outsider who'd been stupid enough to get involved.

"Better idea," Hirutani said, bringing out his flick-knife and handing it over. "You do it. He likes using his big mouth. Make it bigger."

Jounouchi refused, as Hirutani had suspected he would. Hirutani held out the knife point first, and then flipped it carelessly so he was holding the flat of the blade.

"Do it or neither of you are leaving. No room for rebels in my crew, Jounouchi." He nodded at Daz and Tadeko, who closed the gap behind Jounouchi, enclosing him in a ring.

Jounouchi looked between the knife, Hirutani's face, and the trussed-up Honda. His eyes darted to the other guys he'd thought of as friends, but who weren't looking at him in such a friendly way anymore. He swallowed and took the knife, to the tune of muffled yelping and frantically clanking chains. "Your way or the high way, bro?"

Hirutani smiled. He felt like he had when he raised his boot over the mouse. The anticipation was far more intoxicating than what he'd felt afterwards. "Always has been, bro."

Jounouchi pointed the knife at him in a threatening manner. "Let Honda go. He has nothing to do with us, or this, or anything."

Hirutani sighed and shook his head. Maybe Daz would make a better second. At least he hadn't had any inconvenient friends before Hirutani offered him kudos and protection in his crew. "He threatened my pops."

"Your pops threatens himself all the time whenever he pulls his stupid shit. He deserves to get caught."

"Walking a dangerous line there, bro," Hirutani said softly, eyes narrowed.

Jounouchi's face was stony. "I'm not your bro."

"And this guy is?" Hirutani jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Jounouchi never took his eyes off Hirutani's face. He wasn't that stupid. "Always has been."

"You been moonlighting on us, Jounouchi? Keeping secrets? Not a hundred percent loyal to the gang?"

"I never asked to join your crew, Hirutani."

"You never asked to leave, either."

"I'm not asking now. I'm telling you. I've had it with you and this whole stinking pile of shit. Honda and I are walking out of here together, and you're not going to stop us."

"He means a lot to you, doesn't he?" Hirutani murmured, so soft he was barely audible.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Daz snickered.

"He's a better friend than any of you guys ever were. You would've sold me out any time you needed to protect yourselves, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?"

Hirutani shrugged.

"Honda has always been looking out for me. I can count on him to watch my back."

"I'll bet," said Daz. "Especially the back of your head. It's the only part of you he sees while he's -"

It devolved from there. There was a reason even Hirutani respected Jounouchi's fists, but five against one was good odds. Hirutani stood back and let his boys surge forward en masse.

Jounouchi threw off those odds, however, by not fighting. Instead he clambered over the crates to cut the rope binding that Honda guy's wrists, then covering for him while he unwrapped the chains from his legs. When he was free, they all learned that Jounouchi's old friend wasn't too bad a fighter either.

It was useless, though. Hirutani and the rest of the crew were between the two boys and the door, and they were used to attacking as a group. Many drunkards sleeping on park benches could attest to it. Within minutes Jounouchi and Honda had gone under, and the sound of raucous laughter rose out of the patchy corrugated iron in the roof.

They would've killed Jounouchi and Honda through sheer numbers if the cops hadn't showed up. Evidently Honda's dad had called Jounouchi's place when his son didn't come home, and suddenly Jounouchi's memory of a conversation between two girls who'd heard the exchange between Honda and Hirutani struck a chord inside him. Jounouchi wasn't completely stupid, even if he did have the self-preservation instincts of a pacifist piranha with a bleeding wound.

The cop with the pointy brown hair had not been forgiving when he and his partner burst in on Hirutani right after he broke Jounouchi's wrist to get his beloved knife back. The gravel biting into the cuts on Hirutani's cheek hurt like hell; his blood sour like rancid milk and betrayal.

"Who sold out who, Jounouchi?" Daz yapped as he was pushed into another car. "Traitor!"

Sitting in the back of the squad car, however, Hirutani was less than repentant. He watched Jounouchi and his new-old pal as he was taken away, his dad's flick-knife confiscated and his record poised to work against him. Despite everything, he still felt like he was the boot and Jounouchi was the mouse on his kitchen floor. You couldn't get rid of guys like Hirutani that easily, and he knew it. Sure, at the very least he'd have to do time in juvie and move schools when he got out, but he'd be back.

"I'll get you on the go-around, Katsuya Jounouchi," he muttered in a phoney falsetto, smiling the dangerous smile that said something not very funny had nonetheless amused him. "And your little doggie too."

Fin.