Lottery Ticket
by Cryptographic DeLurk
..
AN: This fic is established JouMai, developing JouKai - both of these relationships are endgame. Trying not to be too cliché despite using cliché number one – Joey working at Kaiba Corp. Slow burn, swathes and swathes of gen, family drama, phone calls, and class warfare. References to Honda/Otogi/Serenity, and Anzu/Yuugi in the background. Trying to stick too much content into one fic.
And, yessir, you did see me use a mix of dub and sub names up there. There is a method to my madness, but my mind is a confusing mess of various canons, ygotas, wikia articles, fanfic, meta, and personal ideas. So the version of canon I'm following is whatever-the-hell-version-I-feel-like-at-any-particular-moment. Please just go with it.
Also, I looked up information on the Japanese Lottery and, while I discovered that they definitely have Lotto scratchers, I didn't see anything that indicated they were specifically sold in convenience stores. It seems like there are specific Takara-kuji Lottery booths were you can buy tickets and scratchers, but I don't know if they can be bought anywhere else. For the sake of this fic, though, all the convenience stores in Domino City sell them. Again, please just go with it.
Or, yanno, don't go with it. But you've been warned that this is a very please-just-go-with-it fic.
So, without further ado, Read & Relax. And Don't Drink & Drive.
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Chapter 1: Hangover, Mimosa
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The flashing red symbols were the first thing he saw, when his eyes blinked open. He squinted, trying to place the wetness on his cheek, the feel of whatever was sliding against his skin, and the light throb in his forehead. And then the symbols focussed, revealing flashing red numbers of the clock on the nightstand.
Man, I hate hotels, Joey thought.
Oh, they were a great place to fall asleep. The rooms were comfortable and clean, and they sure as hell never forgot to pay the electric bill and had the power shut off.
But for all that the pillows were fluffy, and the comforter was warm, and the sheets were probably fifty thousand thread-count Egyptian cotton or whatever… For all that the space itself (to say nothing of the companionship) was superior to Joey's hole-in-the-wall apartment…
Hotels were uncomfortable. It was just how they were. And Joey found himself momentarily wishing that his eyes had blinked open to puzzle pieces, strewn over Yuugi's bedroom floor at the Kame Game Shop, or even his father's broken sake bottles. Anything to escape the split second of vulnerability that came with not recognising where you were.
The moment passed.
Joey yawned and wiped the drool off his cheek. He glanced briefly over his shoulder, long enough to determine Mai wasn't there, before turning back to the clock.
He could hear the shower running. He pulled the sheets higher up over his shoulder and rubbed his crotch idly with one hand. He'd woken up hard.
He blinked at the clock. And the clock blinked back. 8:26.
When it changed to 8:27 he decided to do something.
He pulled the sheets around himself, as he sat up. He felt vaguely self-conscious about his nudity.
Don't be stupid. Whaddaya have to be modest about?
He shrugged off the sheets as he stood and walked over to the bathroom door. He hesitated only briefly before opening it.
"Hey, Mai…" he began, peering his head in through the door.
"Hmm?" Mai hummed at him. Only her silhouette was visible on this side of the shower door.
"Uh-"
Don't start talking shop talk first thing, he had to remind himself.
He caught his hand halfway to his crotch again.
"Mornin', Mai," he chirped.
"Good morning," she agreed. She paused a moment, basking in the steam of the shower, before she continued. "Sorry I didn't wake you. I thought I'd let you sleep a bit longer."
"No prob," Joey said, although he would've preferred if Mai had woken him with a kiss, of one kind or another. The thought made him blush.
"But, uh- I have to be at work by noon," he added quickly, in an attempt to stay on topic.
"I'll drop you off," Mai assured. "It may have to be a bit early, though. I have to be at the airport by twelve thirty."
"Sounds good," Joey agreed. "So, uh-"
Mai slid open the shower door. The water from the showerhead ran down her hair and over her skin. Joey watched it fall down her figure. He appreciated the way the sun-kissed quality of her skin faded pale and then back again as his eyes passed down her collarbone, over her breasts, then to her navel. The way her hair curled over the nape of her neck and up over her shoulder… The way her flesh sagged only enough to give it a tangible bearing and weight…
Damn, it was a nice expanse of skin.
Mai raised an eyebrow at him.
"Morning wood?" she asked rhetorically. "C'mon. Get in. I'll help you wash off," she said, trying to sound flippant.
"Thought you'd never ask," Joey lied, as he bolted the rest of the way into the bathroom and grabbed the complementary bar of soap off the sink.
…
They ended up dawdling in the shower, long after they finished fooling around. They washed each other's hair and, afterwards, they pretended the hairdryers were guns and had an armed standoff while they were drying off. Joey ran his hand through Mai's damp hair, and wondered if he had played similar games with Serenity after their baths when they were little.
By the time Mai gathered her things and they had moved down to the lobby, it was nearly ten o'clock. Mai returned the key card and settled the bill at the counter, and Joey stood to the side and hoped they hadn't been hit with a late check-out fee or something. These hotels were ruthless, and never hesitated before piling on extra expenses.
Extra expenses Mai would end up paying for.
Joey frowned. Well, it wasn't as if he could invite her over to his place, with his father hanging around. And it wasn't as if he could tell Mai to stay somewhere cheaper.
Or to stay at all.
"Let's go!" Mai had apparently finished her business at the counter. She adjusted her Gucci sunglasses, perched atop her forehead, and grabbed Joey's hand, wheeling him along behind her along with her luggage.
It was ten o' five when Mai pulled her convertible out of the hotel's parking structure. Joey sat in the passenger seat and fiddled with the radio. He couldn't find anything interesting, and ended up turning it off.
"Ugh, my head hurts," he groaned, shaking his head. "I think I have a hangover."
"You had two glasses of wine, Joey," Mai laughed. "You don't have a hangover."
"I could have a hangover," Joey pouted, crossing his arms. "I've got no experience drinking. My tolerance could be really low." I'm not like my father.
Without looking away from the road, Mai reached over and pulled Joey's hand out. She laid it lightly over her own hand, as she laid it over the gear shift.
"You're not like your father," she reassured. "But you don't have a hangover."
Joey relaxed.
"Come get breakfast with me!" Mai announced, flipping her turning signal and changing lanes at the last minute.
"Uh, Mai, it's already ten fifteen. I gotta get to work," Joey protested weakly.
"Just really quick." Mai drove a couple of blocks down towards the seafront, and swung into a driveway with valet parking. "It's my last day in town~ Don't make me get breakfast by myself~" she pouted.
The place was unbelievably fancy, and the head waiter guy gave Joey's scruffy jeans and shoes a critical look, before Mai shuffled under his arm and gave the maître d' a pointed look, at which point they were led to a secluded corner of the restaurant, with an ocean view.
Joey looked at the menu and cringed. All the dishes had names in English. (Or French. He wasn't sure.) But he could understand the prices just fine. A single order would cost as much as a full day's work at the warehouse.
Mai snickered when she saw his expression, and reached across the table to cover the prices on his menu with her hand.
"Don't worry about it, Joey. Since I dragged you here, I've got you covered. Order whatever you like."
Joey frowned. "Isn't the guy supposed to be the one saying stuff like this?" he protested. "I remember when I first met you, you'd hardly shut up about the prize money at Duellist Kingdom, and snagging some rich guy to foot your bills."
Mai propped her elbow up on the table and tapped her fingernails against her cheek.
"Well, I guess you've got a completely different appeal," she said, smiling wryly.
"Oh yeah?" Joey said, allowing himself to smirk back at her. "What's that?"
"Oh, I don't know," Mai announced, shaking her head. "Youth. Energy. Something like that."
Joey couldn't help feel a little put out by that, but the waiter came to take their order before it could become an issue.
Mai ended up ordering for him. French toast with some kind of berries, and something that tasted like a better version of orange soda. It was, quite frankly, exactly to his taste, and it bothered him a little that Mai knew him so well.
He took another drink of the orange soda and swished it around in his mouth.
"It should take the edge off your hangover," Mai said. She had ordered an identical drink for herself, and took a sip.
Joey swallowed.
"I thought you said I didn't have a hangover," he protested, as he set the glass down on the table.
"You probably don't," Mai agreed. She downed half her drink and poured the rest in Joey's glass.
"Hey, why aren't you drinking all of yours?" he asked, suspiciously.
"Because I'm driving," Mai said, without further explanation. She shuffled the omelette back and forth on her plate with her fork, before abandoning it to rifle through her purse.
"You got your deck with you?" Joey asked. "Is it all ready to go?"
"Of course! Everything's ready to go. I am a professional after all!" Mai said, drawing the cards out and pulling them from their holder. "But I'll probably end up rearranging things another fifty times before the first match." She smiled.
"Yeah," Joey laughed. "Stop trying to take Dramatic Rescue out of your deck. Ya know you always switch it back in at the last moment."
"It makes the rescue even more dramatic, when I know I almost switched it out for another card," Mai joked.
They flipped through the cards and talked strategy and, when they finally made it back to the car, it was past eleven and traffic was completely stalled.
"Shit," Mai cursed, as she adjusted her sunglasses on her forehead and leaned back into the driver's seat. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard and bit her lip, but said nothing more.
Joey followed her eyes to the clock, and then glanced out at the traffic in the oncoming intersection. Cars were inching along in all four directions. Work started at noon.
They might be able to make it in time, but the airport was in the opposite direction. If she dropped him off, it was more than likely she wouldn't make her flight in time.
"Hey," Joey said, in a tone he meant to be comforting, "why don't you drop me off on the next block, Mai. I can take the metro. Or call a cab."
Mai huffed. "Don't be silly, Jou," she protested. "I told you I'd drive you to work. And, besides, it was my fault we got held up."
There was a tremor of doubt in her voice though, that made it easy for Joey to say what he said next.
"If I hurry, I can probably still make it on time," he lied. And when Mai looked at him, unsure, he smiled. "C'mon, Mai, you've got a tournament to go win! Ya don't have time to be worrying about anythin' else."
Mai hesitated, but she drove her car across the intersection and pulled over to the sidewalk.
"Take care of yourself while I'm gone," Mai said, leaning across the divide towards the passenger seat, to kiss Joey on the cheek. "And remember I'm going to visit my parents afterwards," she grumbled, "so I won't get to drop by again for a while even after they announce the tournament winner…"
"Don't sweat it, Mai," Joey said, undoing his seatbelt and turning towards her. "Have fun in Australia. I know you'll do good in the tournament! And I'm sure you're more than a match for anything your folks can throw at you."
"New Zealand, not Australia," Mai corrected absently.
She paused, before leaning forward again, to kiss him on the lips this time.
Joey leaned back into her, and momentarily forgot to be properly embarrassed by such a public display of affection. Mai had that effect on him.
Mai broke away from him first. She patted his forearm awkwardly and smirked, as she gestured to the door.
I'll miss you, Joey thought. But he didn't want to sound desperate, so instead he just opened his door and climbed out onto the sidewalk.
"See you later, Joey!" Mai called, as she flipped her turning signal and inched her car out towards the street.
"See you when you get back!" Joey called back. He lifted an arm to wave her off, but she didn't look back at him as she pulled out into the too slow traffic.
Joey watched her go, and then finally allowed himself to sigh.
He hunched his shoulders and pulled his cellphone out from pants pockets, scrolling through the contacts until he found his supervisor's number.
Damn, his head hurt.
He sighed again, pinching his forehead in his fingers, before pressing dial.
She picked up after only two rings.
"Yoooooko-chaaan," Joey trilled, laughing nervously.
"Save it," Youko replied. "It's still forty minutes before your shift, so the fact that you're bugging me now can only mean one thing."
"Eh, heh~" Joey felt himself wilt. "Something came up, and my ride had to bail on me-"
"I said save it," Youko snapped. "How late are you going to be this time?"
"Er… depends on where I am, and how quickly I can find the metro connection." Joey looked around. He knew he was on the coast, somewhere considerably north of the wharf district, in the more hoity-toity part of town, but the details of where eluded him.
A mother and daughter passed him on the street, all dolled up in fancy sundresses, and Joey doubted they had ever stooped to taking the metro in their life.
"You know what, Jou? Just forget it," Youko said. "I've got enough to deal with today without worrying about your face." The phone shifted, and Joey could hear the sound of rattling boards on the other side of the line.
"…I'll see if I can get Daisuke to cover your shift," Youko continued. "But this is the last time, okay?! I'm sick of the excuses and the last minute emergencies. If you're late even one more time, you can go find a job somewhere else!"
"Thanks, Youko-chan! I owe ya one!" Joey beamed into the phone, and Youko offered him only the curtest of replies before cutting the call.
Joey sighed again, as he shoved his phone back into his pocket.
Great, his job was now a ticking time bomb. Last minute emergencies were practically a staple of life.
Still, he'd lost… six thousand yen… maybe… by skipping out on work today. Where it would have cost Mai a hundred thousand yen to book another plane ticket, at the very least. And there was even more money at stake in the tournament, itself. She couldn't afford to risk arriving late.
And Joey could… apparently…
Joey had once fostered dreams of becoming a pro-duellist, before that fell through.
Mai had told him it was about skill, but not just about skill. You had to have a face that would sell trading cards. And bath products. And the packaged sweets they sold in bulk at the supermarket.
Joey had responded that it wasn't her face that was doing the selling, and let his gaze drop pointedly to her behind.
Mai had slapped him hard on the shoulder for that. And Joey had slapped her back, quite a bit softer. And it went back and forth and back and forth, until their play fight turned into gropes and kisses.
There was more to pro-duelling than that, but Joey didn't like to think about it. He somehow felt angry and betrayed, but none of it was Mai's fault.
He didn't like to think about it.
Instead, he focussed on getting back home.
Lacking the familiarity needed to orient himself to the local metro lines, he traced his way southwest to the industrial district. The blue line zigzagged its way through the factories, and Joey was more than familiar with it, between all the times he'd been forced there searching to drag his absent father back home, and the times he'd once gone willingly to prowl the streets with Hirutani.
Right now though, he was stuck in the beach city promenades, curving along between shoppers and tourists, in front of boutiques and art galleries. And Joey tried increasingly to ignore just how shabby his clothes were and just how sloppy his gait was.
His headache, or hangover or whatever, hadn't subsided – its dull pulsing a constant pressure on his temple. So, by the time he'd made it halfway to where he intended to catch the metro, near the southeastern tip of the financial district, he was glad to see a familiar fixture in the form of a local Family Mart.
Already, it was nothing like any Family Mart Joey had ever graced with his presence. There was a fountain and a tiled walkway in its courtyard. And its security cameras were so well-hidden, it took Joey several passes to locate them under the building's awning, hidden behind an exotic selection of hanging green plants.
The inside of the store was coloured in a soft bronze, immaculately clean, and unusually spacious – with long, wide aisles. A quick survey of the merchandise in its front display revealed an unusually large selection of souvenir chocolate. But, otherwise, it was the same old crap Joey was used to seeing, only at double the price – for no discernible reason except that the people here would pay double the price.
Joey shook his head, but he let his feet carry him further inside. The soft purr and cold breeze of the air conditioner was a welcome change from the dry heat of the sun. And the aisles were arranged in the same comforting way as usual so, without even really thinking about it, Joey made his way halfway down the third aisle to where the painkillers were located.
He flipped his hand over the selection and unhooked an individually packed dose of aspirin. The tablets fit easily against his palm, and the price was ridiculously inflated, but not so high that Joey couldn't pay it.
From there, Joey skipped around to the snacks in isle two. He considered the chewy melon candy and a bag of crab-flavoured chips, before he came around to the Pocky. He was flitting between original, choco-banana, and almond – intentionally dragging out the decision process and prolonging his time under the cool force of the AC – when he glanced over the partition of lined goods into the next isle.
He looked back down and decided suddenly on choco-banana, before it hit him, and his eyes shot back up again – diagonally across to the next isle.
Joey remembered the last time he had seen Kaiba, glancing briefly away from his friends to the back of the assembly hall during graduation, where Kaiba sat in his school uniform, legs crossed. He had refused to give a speech despite having the highest grades in their year. And then there were those times Kaiba's image had been caught on the television screen, as part of some bid for publicity or news report, and had floated by in the periphery of Joey's vision as he attended to business far more pressing. But Kaiba's appearances there had seemed fake and unreal, and had left so little an impression on Joey as to be non-existent.
But Kaiba was, right here, right now, on the first aisle of Family Mart, strictly studying the selection of energy drinks from the look of things. And his presence struck Joey with an amount of familiarity and nostalgia and poorly-conceptualised dislike that seemed nothing if not significant. Kaiba looked exactly the same as Joey remembered, right down to the stiff box-like haircut and the dark overlarge trench coat, as if he had stepped out of Joey's mind's eye rather than out of anywhere real. His skin was as deathly pale, his eyes as bright and cold, and his features as fine and pristine. And he had the same scrawny and freakishly tall build, which made Joey realise Kaiba couldn't have been exactly the same. Because Joey had grown a fair number of centimetres in the last few years, and Kaiba still loomed unacceptably higher, like a statue – unbalanced and ready to topple.
And it was strange that Kaiba was here. It was weird. But the kind of weird Joey was familiar with. A kind of weird and not-quite-fortuitous coincidence, one of many that had blossomed around his life after he had befriended Yuugi.
I should go say hi.
Joey hesitated. Because it was Kaiba.
He shuffled briefly as he plucked the choco-banana Pocky off the shelf.
What the hell, he decided. We were in Egypt together. We saved the world together.
Joey ran up to the front of aisle two, and then ducked around the corner, sliding up next to Kaiba.
"Hey, Kai-"
"Don't call me by name." Kaiba cut him off before he had even finished his greeting. He didn't even look at Joey, only continued perusing the energy drinks.
"Eh? What's the big deal?" Joey deflated.
"We're in public," Kaiba explained, "and my name is rather recognisable."
Joey looked around. There were no more than three other people in the store, all of which were congregated around the cash register.
"Paranoid much, moneybags?" Joey snickered. "Anyhow, is that any way to greet an old pal?"
Kaiba frowned at the energy drinks. He picked one off the rack and squinted at the label.
Joey watched him, as the silence dragged out for a long moment. Kaiba slid the drink back onto the rack. He still hadn't looked at Joey, and Joey was beginning to wonder if Kaiba hadn't recognised him at all.
And then Kaiba finally spit out a response.
"What do you want, Wheeler?"
Joey felt himself relax.
What did he want?
A driver's licence. His own apartment. For Mai to stay in Domino City with him. For Yuugi to be less busy with studying all the time. For Honda and his sister to get along. For Anzu to return his calls at a decent hour instead of in the middle of the work day or the middle of the night.
What did he want from Kaiba? …Nothing.
"Uh…" Joey looked down at his hands for answers. "I want an aspirin and a box of Pocky?"
"Fine!" Kaiba swiped the tablets and the Pocky out of his hands. "If I buy these for you, you'll go away! Right, Wheeler?!"
"The hell?!" Joey protested. He shoved against Kaiba's shin with his foot and pried the items back out of his hands.
For the first time since they had run into each other, Kaiba blinked, and his eyes actually focussed on Joey.
"I don't need you to pay for them, moneybags!" Joey protested. "I came in here to get them myself! Why else would I be in a convenience store?!"
Kaiba tensed and looked away. The movement was a little too stiff.
"What?! You think I only came over here to bother you?! Or to get you to pay for my stuff?!" Joey frowned, aware that he was talking at least partly to Mai.
Kaiba's left eye twitched, almost imperceptibly. He didn't say anything, only raised his hand to hover over the energy drinks once more.
It occurred to Joey that Kaiba probably really had thought that – that Joey was only there to bum money and cause trouble. And it would have been insulting, if it hadn't been so depressingly pathetic.
Joey groaned. He wanted to leave, but he suddenly felt exhausted. His feet were stuck.
"It's been four years since I last saw ya. Five since we said anything more than greetings."
"Well, I'd hate to break our record," Kaiba snipped.
Joey rolled his eyes at that. His head hurt.
"I just didn't think I'd run in to you here, Kai-"
Kaiba cut him off with a glare.
Right, no names.
Kaiba seemed uninclined to say more. And Joey waited impatiently, before he threw his hands up in frustration.
"What are you even doing here?!" he exclaimed. "I mean, I'm never over here in this part of town- And the one day I am I run into you. In a convenience store! Don't ya have servants and stuff to send off for this kind of stuff?!" He crossed his arms behind his head.
Still, Kaiba said nothing – seemingly content to ignore Joey indefinitely in favour of the energy drinks.
I should just leave, Joey thought. Kaiba's as much of a jerk as always.
And he really did, or he started to anyway. He turned and walked towards the register.
But, in a moment of weakness or, more likely, perception, he turned back around and looked, not at Kaiba's face, but at his hand, hovering uneasily over the drinks and-
"Uh, Kaiba? Are you shaking?" Joey asked. He grinned half-heartedly, like he expected it to be some kind of joke.
Kaiba's hand snapped into a fist immediately. He thrust his arm down to his side and turned quickly to glare at Joey, before turning even more quickly away again.
Joey scrunched his eyebrows incredulously.
"Why am I here?" Kaiba murmured.
"Uh, I dunno," Joey volunteered. "It sure looks like you want an energy drink."
"Shut up, you!" Kaiba snapped at Joey. "Idiot!" he added, before continuing his murmurs, addressing himself. "You literally don't have time to be here. Your time is worth too much to be spent in this godforsaken hole in the ground with these morons."
Joey huffed, exasperated. "Don't start with that snobby rich guy too-good-for-everyone act, again."
"I'm not being egotistical," Kaiba protested, turning to Joey, more calmly this time. "It's a simple fact. My time is worth near a million yen per hour. I can't afford to spend it here."
"Then why are you here?" Joey asked again.
For a moment, silence sat between them.
And then Kaiba grit his teeth and clutched the side of his face with one hand. Joey watches as Kaiba's eyes bulged, and it suddenly occurred to him what was happening.
Kaiba was having some kind of mental break, in a fucking Family Mart, over what kind of energy drink he wanted.
And it was surprisingly unpleasant to watch.
"Aw, geez…"
Joey scanned the shelf and selected one of the bottles.
"Lipovitan-D, okay?" he asked, waving it up to Kaiba's face. "Best to go with the classic, right? You're not going to break out in hives on me, are you?"
Kaiba looked at him, blank faced.
Joey sighed, frustrated that he'd have to make this sudden act of altruism more explicit.
"Look, just- Just go take a couple of breaths of fresh air. I'll get you your damn energy drink."
Kaiba stared at him with the same look of incomprehension, but Joey had to turn away and walk up to the counter before he changed his mind.
He had no idea how to explain the fact that, unlike a night at a fancy hotel or French toast and sparkly orange juice at a seaside restaurant, an energy drink at Family Mart was actually within his budget. And that was somehow meaningful.
"Hey! How's it going'?" Joey said, waving at the cashier, as he dropped his items roughly on the counter.
"Not bad, not bad…" was the soft reply. Joey watched the cashier rung up the items. His hair was brushed back flat under his cap, and his apron was neatly folded. His gestures were inoffensive, and his words – polite. But, all the same, something about him, perhaps the time and thought and care he put into every movement, indicated to Joey that he lived closer to Joey's part of town, and wasn't just the bored, aimless son of a high-class businessman.
"Your total comes to 1638 yen."
"Sure. Sure," Joey agreed, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He flipped through it, pausing briefly over his metro pass, to find a lone thousand yen bill. Without pausing, he went to unzip the change pocket, and upturned over the counter. He flipped quickly through the coins and-
"Shit-" Joey cursed softly. He was short. "Hey, man, how much was that aspirin?"
He picked up the box of Pocky to stare at the label – 550 yen.
"640 yen," the cashier said, reading the price of the aspirin off from his monitor.
Joey's headache still persisted, no doubt aided by Kaiba's sudden appearance.
But, between food and medicine…
"Cut it," Joey said, brushing the aspirin tablets away with his hand. "Just the other two."
The cashier obediently scanned the aspirin again, removing it from the total. With only 966 yen left to pay…
Joey's eye caught on the lottery scratchers under the glass counter.
He glanced down at the change on the counter. He isolated a group of fifty yen coins, dragging them across the counter with his fingers. He had enough for two of the hundred yen scratchers.
…And it would serve Kaiba right to have to wait a few minutes for him.
"Hey, add in a couple of those-" Joey said, pointing to the stack of paper tickets under the counter. "The red and pink stripped ones."
The scratchers proudly advertised: Win 5000000 Today!
"Might win enough to buy back my aspirin," Joey grinned, aware of the self-deprecation inherent in every word.
The cashier smiled back. "Just don't go in expecting the grand prize."
He ripped the tickets off from the stack and slid them across the counter to Joey. And Joey forked over his cash, to get the rest of the items rung up.
He grabbed a stray five yen coin lying on the counter, and got to work scratching away the carbon film coating the tickets.
You needed to reveal three matching amounts to have a winning ticket. The first scratcher revealed no matches whatsoever and, just when the second ticket seemed to promise some success with two matching circles of one thousand yen, the final circle revealed an uncomplimentary five thousand yen.
"No luck?" the cashier asked, leaning over the counter to study Joey's tickets.
"No luck," Joey agreed. He pushed the spent scratchers back across the counter, accepted his plastic bag, gathered up the change on the counter, and waved as he walked off.
Kaiba wasn't in the aisles anymore, and Joey realised he must have left.
Giant waste of time and money- he thought uncharitably.
But he looked side to side, as the automatic doors parted in front of him exiting the store, and startled.
Kaiba was standing to the left of the exit, leaning against the side of the building, with crossed arms and an ugly expression.
And it occurred to Joey that Kaiba must have actually listened to his advice, and gone outside for fresh air, and that was even more startling.
"Here you go, moneybags," Joey said. He dug through his bag, passing over the Pocky for the Lipovitan, and tossed the bottle over to Kaiba with a small flick of his wrist.
Kaiba caught it deftly in his hand, and stared at it – like Joey had tossed over something completely foreign to him, like one of Honda's fancy car wrenches.
Or tossed him a shovel and told him to dig.
"Savour it, Kaiba," Joey teased. "Don't drink it all at once!"
Kaiba frowned. "It's essentially a shot, Wheeler. You're supposed to drink it all at once," he said, proving he did, in fact, know what to do with it.
"Yeah, you'll be fine," Joey said, reassuring himself more than Kaiba. He gave a quick thumbs-up before turning to go. "See you around!" he called, completely aware that he wouldn't be running into Kaiba again anytime soon if he could help it.
"Hold on a minute, Wheeler," Kaiba protested, stiffly.
Against his better judgement, Joey looked back over his shoulder.
"Today, you have quite clearly demonstrated," Kaiba began magnanimously, "that your time is far less valuable and far more dispensable than mine."
Joey bristled. "Wanna try sayin' that again, asshole?!" He waved his fist threateningly at Kaiba.
"I'm not finished," Kaiba cut in. He took one last look at the Lipovitan-D before stashing it in one of his trench coat pockets. From another pocket he drew out a plastic cardholder and a pen. "You have also demonstrated the bare minimum of competence required for a gofer," he pulled a card out of its plastic sheet and signed it with a flourish, before walking forward to shove it into Joey's plastic shopping bag. "If you're interested in getting a job instead of just mooching endlessly off society, feel free to drop by the Kaiba Corp offices sometime in the next week for an interview. Security should allow you in with that card."
Joey looked incredulously at Kaiba.
"…Mutt," Kaiba added belatedly, for good measure, before stalking off.
Joey realised suddenly that he couldn't let all this pass without comment.
"Hey! Jerkass!" he shouted after Kaiba. "What makes you think I don't already have a job?!"
Joey could head Kaiba snort, even though he didn't bother to look back.
"It's the middle of a workday, and you're bumming around a convenience store. You do the math, Wheeler," he said. His trench coat fluttered behind him, as he rounded the corner and disappeared.
Joey snorted.
Kaiba always had to have the last word, but the joke was on him. By that logic, Kaiba didn't have a job either.
Not to mention Joey did have a job. A crummy job at a warehouse that he was liable to lose at any moment. But it was a job.
Joey dug through the plastic bag again and retrieved the card Kaiba had left for him. It seemed just about as generic as business cards went – plain blue and white, with the Kaiba Corp logo in the corner, the company motto at the bottom, and basic contact information, including an address and customer service phone number. The only thing that made it stand out was Kaiba Seto's signature slanting across it.
And it felt wrong to just throw it out, and his head still hurt, so Joey did what he figured just about anybody would do in his situation:
He fished his wallet out of his back pocket once more, shoved the card inside, and forgot about it for as long as he could afford.
.
.