Ashes doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh!
Part I
Chapter
One
Jounouchi groaned as he woke up; it was a sound Kaiba was accustomed to about as much as he was used to Jounouchi running for the bathroom before he even realized he was in Kaiba's bed. Kaiba glanced over at him just long enough to see Jounouchi's eyes snap open before he groaned, "Goddamn it! Every time I convince myself that waking up next to you was just a nightmare, I do it again!" With that he tossed his comforter off onto Kaiba, taking his sheet and wrapping it around his waist. Kaiba tossed the green abomination he called a blanket to the floor; he hated the damn thing – it was tattered, it's stuffing showing in sections where the fabric was thin, and it was stained and faded where the blanket was whole. With that aside Kaiba shifted onto his left side, looking at Jounouchi as the blond stood with his back to the bed, tying his sheet around his waist. "You do realize that I still don't remember sex with you, right?" Kaiba rolled his eyes, watched as Jounouchi's hasty tie job failed and sheet fell to the ground.
"After two months, that excuse is wearing a little thin," Kaiba retorted as Jounouchi tried to tie the sheet again. As though he really had anything left to hide.
"Yeah, well…" He took a deep breath; his shoulders moved with the motion, and he ran a hand through his already bed-muddled hair, muttering to himself. "Last night, last night… old slasher flick, pepperoni pizza… Whiskey." He exaggerated the last word, like the name of an old friend that he didn't particularly like. Finally he looked over his shoulder at Kaiba. "How was I?"
"Boring as usual," Kaiba assured him, lying on his back. "Though I'll give you credit; for an alcoholic, you keep it up pretty well."
"Hey, fuck you." He paused, and laughed slightly. "Yeah, my dad has told me on three different occasions that my family's men are amazingly resistant to whiskey dick."
A family of alcoholics – Kaiba decided not to tell him that he shouldn't have been proud of that particular immunity. "Because I really want to know about your family's dicks," Kaiba grumbled.
"You seem to be pretty fond of mine."
"Trust me, you like mine a lot more."
Jounouchi intoned, "I must love it when you talk dirty. Ugh, I'm taking a shower." Kaiba didn't really think it was the last he'd hear out of Jounouchi, and he was right – within minute, Jounouchi was yelling out to him again: "You're out of mouth-wash!" Kaiba just smirked. Maybe it was abnormal not to be bothered that the person he was sleeping with was so eager to wash away his taste. "Anyway, is today business as usual?"
Kaiba nodded, then yelled loud enough so that Jounouchi would hear him: "Yes." The shower started up after that, and within minutes steam was rolling out of the bathroom; it was almost like Jounouchi wanted to purge himself. He didn't know if such hot showers were normal for Jounouchi, though; he'd never asked. Besides, Kaiba always used more soap after sleeping with him as well.
---
The strange thing about 'business as usual' with Jounouchi was that for an utterly unusual arrangement as it was, "business" was right on target. Their morning-afters were always the same – they showered individually, Jounouchi went to "his room," which was little more than a glorified guest room where his leftover clothes from last time were kept, and they got dressed. If there was time, they ate breakfast with Mokuba – luckily, it didn't happen often; it left a pit in Kaiba's stomach to lie to his brother, even if he wasn't doing it with words. He always found it hard to eat then.
If it was a weekday, they went to Kaiba Corporation for a bit; Jounouchi would hang out with the advisors and hit on Kaiba's assistant until he got bored and went home. If it was a weekend, they sometimes went out and did something, though Kaiba avoided it at all costs. It was no secret that they were 'together'. Being public was all part of the ruse, another term of their contract.
"Is a contract legal and binding if I was drunk?" Jounouchi asked out of the blue, tapping his toe on the limo floor. Kaiba looked out the window – Kaiba Corporation was too far away for his comfort, and he didn't want to rehash the issue of the contract with Jounouchi again; he'd already done it a million times. "Can't I protest that I was taken advantage of or something?"
"Trust me, you weren't," Kaiba said, fixating on traffic. "You've reaped the benefits of the contract while sober, therefore you were knowledgeable of the contract and it's stipulations – "
Jounouchi laughed bitterly, his foot coming down hard against the floor. "My god, you sure do know how to cover your ass."
"Don't say it like you're some sort of victim. If I had my way, we wouldn't be here right now." Kaiba crossed his arms over his chest, wishing the traffic would clear so they could arrive that much faster.
"Yeah – which goes perfectly with the fact that you're the reason we're here to start with," Jounouchi grumbled, slumping down in his seat. If he had pulled this sort of tantrum at home, they would've gotten into a fight, hands down; they'd left a decent path of destruction in the mansion a few times – but home and work were two different places. However, that didn't mean that Kaiba didn't want to knock the whine right out of Jounouchi – it was like sharing his adult life with a toddler. He settled for glaring.
It got old fast; he looked away, paused, and then looked at Jounouchi again – looking for his curiosity instead of his anger. Even if he didn't like the situation, and wasn't overly fond of the blond, he didn't spend close to six months faking a pretty relationship without being able to perceive little things – like when Jounouchi was deep in thought, or when he was upset about something more than Kaiba. Jounouchi treated Kaiba like an inconvenience most days; on the whole he generally didn't seem to care nearly as much as he did when he was sober. Right then the blond was frowning, foot tapping out an agitated rhythm on the limousine floor. Luckily, the car came to a stop before Kaiba looked too far into it, and Jounouchi reached for the door handle; Kaiba caught his wrist before he got it. Jounouchi glared at him, but didn't fight. "What?"
"Smile like you mean it," Kaiba said sternly.
In return Jounouchi rolled his eyes and smiled like he was so well known for. "Don't I always?" He wrenched his arm from Kaiba's grip, exiting the car with surprising grace.
It was docile for a Monday morning; the only obstacle they ran into was a reporter in the lobby that had "accidentally" gotten his appointment time wrong and had shown up two hours early. He tried to get Jounouchi to say something about Kaiba Corporation's new releases; if better reporters hadn't tried the same trick to delve into Kaiba and Jounouchi's personal life, they might have fallen for it. Instead, Kaiba told the man that he would meet him – alone – in two hours, and until then he could entertain himself as he saw fit.
"You're not even that interesting," Jounouchi grumbled as the elevator doors slid shut, separating them from the reporter. "There's a ton of cooler people in this building alone that he could stalk… Like Yuumi. Is she working today?"
"Figure it out yourself; I have better things to do than keep track of your girlfriend," Kaiba said, waving a hand in Jounouchi's direction. Yuumi – the girl in bookkeeping that Jounouchi was not-so-secretly enamored with. She was the first person he went to when he arrived at Kaiba Corporation, even before the "damage report" with his public relations agent – and Jounouchi seemed plenty interested in Nori as well.
"Yeah, yeah…" Distracted. Kaiba looked at Jounouchi with a raised eyebrow, earning a return glare from the blond. "What?" he snapped.
"Nothing," The doors opened; they stepped out together, but Jounouchi made a sharp left into the bookkeeping office, where as Kaiba went straight down the hall to his office. Instead of empty workspace, Kaiba was greeted with the sight of his two advisors and Nori sitting there. They looked up from their conversation as he entered, and public relations didn't waste a beat.
"You!" Nori scolded, standing and following Kaiba as he went to his desk. "You need to take your boy out," she told him, wagging her finger at him as he sat down. "Numbers are down; up to 38 of the census thinks you and pretty boy are a fraud."
"We are a fraud."
The younger advisor piped up, "But they don't need to know that. We need to orchestrate something, and ASAP."
Kaiba sifted through some papers in his inbox as his computer booted up. "Isn't that Nori's job? It's a shame that my advisors don't know when to draw the line of their meddling. And as long as we're still in the rumor mill, we're getting publicity. I know as well as you do that there is no such thing as bad publicity." He rose his gaze to level it with Seiji's. The man sighed. "Anyway, whatever the problem is, take it up with Jounouchi. He's made himself scarce lately."
"Yeah," Nori drawled. "Not that I blame him. Where is he?"
Kaiba glanced up at her long enough to say, "Guess," before turning to his monitor.
"Yuumi again," she said, uttering the name like a curse as she stood and stormed out of the room.
Rolling his eyes, Kaiba grumbled, "Do I run a company or a soap opera?" He set to looking at the newest statistics in research and development. He never bothered to keep up with census, or polls, or any of the things that he had spent the past seven months listening to Nori scold him about.
"Well – " the youngest advisor started, but Seiji interrupted.
"It's your own damn fault," he said, stern as a father punishing his son. "This is not what we told you to do, and yet here we are. You made your bed, Seto-sama; lay in it. If you're lucky, the release of the new system will be a bold success, and we can drop your boyfriend like the bad news he is."
Two months. Kaiba Corporation's future had branched not just to the park, no longer to duel monsters, but into video games. The hope was that the system would be loved, and they would spend god only knew how long releasing games, signing contracts with second- and third-party developers, and releasing new systems. From there, they would have enough money to open another Kaiba Land… If it all worked out, things would be back to normal, and the charade of a relationship would be over.
"Alright, alright, I'm here!" Jounouchi snapped, storming into the office not even a second before Nori and flopping down next in the armchair at the end of the coffee table. "What lame plan do you guys have this time to keep things running smoothly?"
"First off, stop risking exposure by fucking around on company property," Nori scolded; Kaiba smirked, watching as Seiji turned away from the display, face twisted into a grimace of irritation and disgust. The headache that was slowly coiling under his eyes was worth seeing the old man irritated – it was the least he deserved. "Now, you need to start spending more time with the boss here; people are starting to think you two are a fraud."
"We are a fraud."
"That's – !"
"Irrelevant," Seiji interrupted, facing the two arguing adults. "You're under a binding agreement to act as Seto-sama's partner, and we expect no less of you until that contract is revoked. We're reaching a critical point right now – the release of the system is coming by the end of this quarter, and publicity is high; we don't have time for you to be messing around, either of you." Seiji looked pointed at Kaiba, who didn't respond to the admonition. "Nori, I leave this in your hands; I have work to be done." With that he left the room, his lackey on his heels; the door clicked shut, and Nori took a seat, frowning.
"He's crankier than usual," she muttered under her breath, leaning forward and picking up a folder that had until then been unnoticed by Kaiba. "So you have a full schedule coming up, boss; there's publicity dates, interviews… I think we should include Jounouchi in some of this – it'll really help boost your image as a happy couple." Jounouchi snorted, covering his mouth as he yawned, and Kaiba rolled his eyes, continuing with his work. "I'm serious! Anyway, there's an interview today; Jounouchi, why don't you – "
"No," Kaiba said smoothly, ignoring the scathing look Nori gave him. "He doesn't know anything about the system, and I won't have him there for eye candy."
"Fine," Nori snapped. "But you have the press dinner in before the end of next month to do the final unveiling of all the little secrets and quirks of the console, and I want him there – suited, cute, and playing up his corporate wife role for all it's worth."
Until then, Jounouchi had been lounging back with his feet against the edge of the coffee table; the words weren't even out of Nori's mouth before he snapped up, the coffee table skidding forward with the force of the motion; the potted plant on the end slid precariously close to the edge. "Don't say that."
"Say what?"
Even Kaiba had to admit to himself that he was impressed with the glare Jounouchi gave her. "'Wife'. I'm no one's wife," Jounouchi spat the word, "and certainly not his."
She let out an exaggeratedly sigh, saying, "Jounouchi, it's just a figure of – "
"I don't care. I'll be there if you come up with a better figure of speech."
"Fine, fine," she said, waving her hand at him and turning to Kaiba. "You've got a little less than two months, boys, so keep your noses clean until then. And for god's sake, boss, try not to look too tortured during the interview today." She was gone as quickly as the other two, leaving just Kaiba and Jounouchi; for a while, the only sound in the room was the methodically clicking of keys as Kaiba worked, his occasional mutter over whatever he was reading.
"How long is this supposed to take?" Jounouchi asked; he sounded just a little tired, and more than annoyed.
"What, the dinner? Probably a couple hours. If you can't behave long enough – "
"That's not what I meant." Jounouchi kicked the edge of the table as though that would better convey his frustration, and the potted plant clattered to the floor; Kaiba somehow found it easier to look at that than Jounouchi. "This, this bullshit contract of ours – how long does it last?"
"A year, I think," Kaiba said; the following shouting was enough to alert the entire floor that Jounouchi was unhappy, and more than enough to push the dull ache in Kaiba's head to a strong throbbing pain. Wincing slightly as Jounouchi listed off his protests, Kaiba opened the top drawer of his desk and fished out a bottle of aspirin. Kaiba shrugged as he tossed back two pills, swallowing them dry. "Would you shut up?" he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard over Jounouchi's tirade. "I'm well aware you're upset; shouting about it isn't going to change anything. If you're done, go somewhere where you're wanted."
Jounouchi stood, cracking his knuckles before jamming his hands in his pockets. "Don't fucking call me," he seethed.
"I wasn't planning to," Kaiba muttered to the blond's back as the door slammed shut. He pulled up the clock on his desktop, looking at the numbers under the words "The Sylph."
One month, three weeks, five days.
-end chapter one-
notes
The shakiest part of the plot -- the contract! I'd had this bit written for a long time, and decided I really had to ask someone about the legality of a contract signed under the influence. I decided to hash this part out with my boyfriend one day because his dad was a lawyer, and it actually got run by good ol' JP one day, who told us that the contract was legal if Jounouchi got the benefits from the contract -- then he would be bound to obey it. I mentioned that, but I felt like I had to clarify that.
