I went to the back of the auction stage to collect my friends and Kaiba; I quickly escaped and started walking towards my house which is also down here in the underworld. I hope they don't mind staying down here, the underworld isn't exactly filled with trees and flowers down here everything is dead.
"Joey, where are we going?" asked Yugi, distracting me from my thoughts. He was currently helping Tea hold Kaiba up.
"Don't talk to me right now," I responded. I can't be seen being nice to them; down here, humans are slaves. You scream and beat them, not have nice conversations with them full of "how do you do's" and "good day's."
Eventually, I saw the gate of my house in the underworld. I walked faster and everyone matched my pace, though Yugi and Tea had a little trouble keeping up with Kaiba since Kaiba couldn't walk on his own Yugi and Tea had to carry him.
I slid open the dark black gate and unlocked the door to let everyone inside my house, cringing a little when I see how miserable and in pain they all look. All because of my kind…
I hadn't even realized it before, but I was scared before then. Scared that a fellow shinigami would come up to us and stop us, maybe even hurt or kill them, or reveal that I'm one of their kind as well… When everyone came in the house, though, I felt relieved, since here we're safe. At least, for now we are.
I closed all the curtains and quickly went to the kitchen to get everyone something to eat and drink. Fortunately, it was right next to the living room so I wouldn't have to walk far – I'm exhausted after dealing with all of this crap.
Tea and Yugi laid Kaiba on the couch and took a seat next to him, looking around my house and trying to absorb their current situation. I'm sure it must be a lot to take in… I wonder if they even realize they're in the underworld. I mean they could've just assumed that the shinigami burned everything down or something who knows what they're thinking, they at least seen something when they were being transported to the underworld but their captors could've just knocked them out to make it easier to bring them down here.
"Joey!"
I stopped pouring the drinks and turned around to see Mokuba crying next to his brother.
"He's bleeding!"
I put the glass I was holding down and ran upstairs to find a first-aid kit while Tea used a shirt that was on the couch and applied pressure to the wound. I opened the closet door, which was to the right of the stairs, and grabbed the first-aid supplies that were on the top shelf and ran back down. Mokuba was talking to Kaiba, making sure he stayed awake and Yugi was trying not to pass out from seeing all the blood. Tea took the blood soaked shirt off and I saw the wound. It was a very deep cut it must have reopened somehow, because he didn't have it before. He's going to need stitches… I wish we could go to the hospital, but we can't because, according to everyone in the underworld, humans aren't people so they don't need a doctor. They're idiots – even animals go to a hospital for devil's sake!
"Does it hurt?" I asked while I cleaned my hands with alcohol, soon getting a needle and some thread out and sterilizing them as well. I was in a gang before, and applying stitches is one of the many things I learned there. Who knew that would come in handy so many years later?
"It feels numb," said Kaiba. He didn't look at me, he just kept looking at Mokuba.
Once I got everything ready, I said to him, "This will hurt like hell."
"I'm not going to ask what you're going to do, but, whatever it is, you better do it right and fast."
"Yugi, Tea, hold him down."
They complied and held Kaiba down. I really wish Mokuba wasn't there, but no matter what I told him he wasn't going to leave, so I gave up and started applying the stitches as fast as I could. Kaiba kept screaming and howling with pain, so Mokuba put a cloth in his mouth to block it out. I could tell he was suffering while watching this… why did he stay to watch? No matter; I was almost done anyways.
"Yugi, go get some towels," I ordered as I tied up the last stitch. "If you go up the stairs and open the closet on the right, they should be on the middle shelf."
Yugi ran up the stairs and came back down as soon as I finished.
Ugh… Everything hurts! What the hell happened?
"Kaiba, you up yet?" a familiar, annoying voice reached my ears. I couldn't recognize it, though…
"Where's my coffee!" I snapped at him anyways. I vaguely remembered wanting coffee before blacking out.
"I'm not your maid! Make your own coffee!"
I finally looked up, the pain surging as I did so, and saw a blond dog standing beside me.
"How cute, the mutt came to wake up his master."
"I'm not a dog, Kaiba!" he replied with a glare. "I came to give you some water and painkillers."
"Put it in my mouth," I said, opening my mouth wide.
"Go fuck yourself."
"I'd rather fuck you," I replied, smiling.
"That's not going to happen. By the way, don't I deserve a thank you?"
"Why?" I don't remember him doing anything for me.
"I saved your life! You would've bled to death if I hadn't sewn you up."
I froze up after hearing him. "… That wasn't a dream?"
"No, it wasn't."
"… I'm going to need those painkillers," I told him, holding out my hand.
"Here," said Joey, handing me a pill. I put it in my mouth and swallowed it down with the water he gave me with some difficulty, since it seemed like my throat was as dry as sandpaper.
"Be careful not to rip out your stitches," said Joey.
"Oh, really?" I started sarcastically. "I was thinking of ripping them so I could go through the fun experience of being sewn back together again."
"Fine, rip them out. But when I stitch you back up, don't scream like a little girl like you did yesterday."
"Whatever."
"Seto!"
"Mokuba, are you ok? Has the mutt been taking care of you?"
"Joey has taken good care of me," Mokuba said with just a hint of disapproval. He soon brightened as he asked enthusiastically, "Are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich!"
"A sandwich is the only thing you can make," I told him. When he frowned sadly, though, I sighed and relented. "Go make me a sandwich, then."
Mokuba nodded and ran into the kitchen, trying to find where the bread and lunchmeat was.
"What's going on here?" I whispered to Joey.
"It's complicated, I only know part of the story," whispered Joey back.
"What are those bird people?"
"They're called shinigami."
"Grim reapers?"
"Yes."
"We're surrounded by them, aren't we?"
"Yes."
"What else do you know?"
"Um... They don't like humans."
"No shit, Sherlock!" I almost yelled, finding it a little odd that he said "humans" instead of "us," or something of the like. "There's obviously something you don't want me to know."
"Here you go, Seto!" Mokuba cheerily interrupted, walking up to me and handing me a turkey sandwich.
"Thanks." I take the sandwich from him, but look at Joey out of the corner of my eye. He looked a little shady to me…
"So, I guess we're going to be staying here for a while," said Mokuba brightly.
"Kaiba is going to have to learn to do things for himself," Joey said with a pointed look at me.
"I can do stuff," I grumbled.
What? I'm not lying!
"You guys can go to sleep if you want," he then told us, shrugging. "It's like, seven something in the morning and everyone else is asleep. I'm going to go do... Something."
Well, that wasn't suspicious at all. He's a terrible liar.
How am I going to tell them that I'm a shinigami? That I'm part of a species that's beaten, killed, abused, and devil-knows-what-else to humans? I have to tell them soon, because they're bound to find out eventually and it'd be better if they heard it from me instead of someone or something else.
… I just hope they don't hate me for what I am.
