Notes: This is the edited version (missing about 1,400 words, I think?). Was going to post the uncut on LJ, but changed my mind, because that is totally my prerogative. So AO3 is the place to be: h t t p : / / a r c h i v e o f o u r o w n . o r g / w o r k s / 6 5 8 7 4 / c h a p t e r s / 8 7 9 3 6
Waiting for the Bus
Part 3
"Samura," Jounouchi growled forcefully, and barely managed to slow his hand down before he could throw the teapot into the others. "I don't. Want. To talk about it. Okay? Is that okay?"
"No," Samura growled back, slapping a stack of the freshly printed menus into his now-free hand. "Go put those in the holder."
Done on soft yellow paper this time, the new spread was of autumn flowers on a riverbank, confined mostly to the lower left corner--spider chrysanthemum, begonia, a few small hibiscus, and a thumbnail moon up in the right corner, balancing. It wasn't the best sumi-e Jounouchi had ever seen, but neither was it even close to the worst. "Samura, why don't you just do this for a living?"
"Because it is sushi I breathe for," Samura explained tartly, following him into the bar proper. "And flattery won't get you anywhere, Jou. What did you say to Kaiba-san that made him leave so quickly?"
Jounouchi groaned, pulling the old menus out of the holder and refilling it with the new ones. "Why won't you believe that he just had work to do?"
"Because I've been working with you for more than a year," Samura replied shortly, beginning to rearrange his knives on the counter, "and I've never met anyone else who's quite so good at sticking his foot into his mouth. I wasn't even gone an hour!"
"Forty minutes," Jounouchi said, going back into the kitchen to collect Kaiba's dishes from the drying rack, raising his voice to shout through the noren. "Forty minutes, Samura! He spent twenty minutes eating, left, and twenty minutes later you showed up! That's it! That's all!"
"Then what are you so mad about?" Samura shouted back.
"I'm mad that nobody will leave me the hell alone!" Jounouchi slammed a cup down onto the stack as he yelled this, frustrated. His head was pounding again, a steady ache spread between his temples. "Goddamnit, why does it always have to be my fault? Isn't it possible that I was the one being logical? I mean, I know I'm stupid, but don't I ever get to work on improving that? Excuse me for not wanting to be the guy who spends his whole life fucking everything up!"
Jounouchi lost his grip on the last dish with this, heard it shatter on the stones long before he could even watch it fall, let alone make a grab for it.
The sushi plate, of course--Kaiba's plate. Jounouchi buried his hands in his hair, staring miserably down at the ruined maple leaf pattern spread across the pieces. "Shit."
He could only stand immobile for so long, however, and after a few seconds knelt silently to clean it up. Samura's head appeared through the noren as he moved, peering, assessing the situation. Then the older man came in and knelt as well, helping.
"Sorry," Jounouchi muttered, unable to look at him. "Take it outta my pay."
Samura was shaking his head. "I should have made you take the day off. Go up and get some more sleep, Jounouchi."
This was very nearly the last thing Jounouchi wanted to hear. "I can work," he protested, collecting the last of the big pieces.
Samura held out his hands expectantly, silent, until Jounouchi finally dropped what he had picked up into them, the pieces clinking gently against what Samura had collected himself. "Get the broom."
Jounouchi got the broom.
Samura, the pieces already thrown away, collected it from him, and began to sweep the smaller fragments carefully up. "I'm not angry," he said over the dry sound of the bristles as they passed across the stone. "I've been meaning to replace this pattern anyway. But I think you need a little more time than you're going to admit on your own."
"Samura--" Jounouchi began, watching him unhappily; but there was no way to finish that sentence. Obviously he was right. He hadn't broken anything since his first week of work, and hadn't gotten mad like that...well, ever. He just didn't make a habit of getting so worked up about things anymore. "I'm really sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Samura snorted, handing the broom back. "Just get yourself sorted out. It's not far past four now; I'll call Chio-chan and have her send one of her sons over to fill in. Those damn kids never do anything useful on their own."
"Right," Jounouchi said quietly. He finished replacing the broom, and reached up to pull the ladder down from the ceiling.
"Jounouchi."
Jounouchi paused, hands on the bottom step. Samura hesitated for a few seconds.
"Make certain you get some dinner," he said at last, and was halfway through the noren before he turned back to add, "And don't get stupid about it. I've broken dozens of dishes in my time."
Jounouchi was tempted to remind him that it wasn't really the dish that was the problem, but managed not to. No point in stating the obvious.
-
As far as adult time-outs went, this one almost--but not quite--took the cake for most frustrating.
The real bitch was not being able to get out of the bar. Strictly speaking, he was in no way confined to the upper room, but his conscience wouldn't allow him to wander around just for the hell of it; he'd get in the way of Chio's kid, whichever one it was this week, and going out past Samura definitely wasn't an option (of course he could get out through the back door in the kitchen if he really needed; he just wasn't that desperate yet). Eventually he'd have to emerge for dinner, but that was still a long way off, and would be on Samura's terms when it happened. He found himself missing his apartment more now than he ever had in prison.
So Jounouchi brooded. On the futon he'd never put away, on the floor sitting seiza, by the window lounging like a regular bum; Jounouchi sat and considered, and when that got too painful he sat and thought of nothing, until his concentration could solidify again. He thought endlessly of what it was to be a coward, where the line between caution and fear could realistically be drawn. For several years now he had been trying harder and harder to avoid complications. He found that the older he got, the more he liked simple things, and couldn't see anything wrong with that.
Except sometimes he still remembered the thrill of risking his life pointlessly, remembered what it had felt like to be recognized for his bravery; and then he would realize that he couldn't remember anymore what it had been like to live fearlessly. Not that he had been without worry as a teenager or even a young man; in his experience there were always things to worry about. He just couldn't recall how it was that he'd ever put them out of his mind.
Kaiba had called him a coward.
Kaiba had called him a coward, and the more Jounouchi thought about it, the more he believed--once the instinctual, violent denial had passed--that he was probably right.
Jounouchi tried to remember when this had happened.
It was nearly eight thirty before he decided, sitting by the window again and flipping restlessly through one of Samura's old Shounen Jumps, that it must have happened just after he turned twenty-three; and if not that early February, then eight years before it, with the first fire, and his extremely public, court-documented break with Hirutani. It was a toss-up between the two, really.
Jounouchi closed the Shounen Jump, frowning.
It wasn't like the dates weren't memorable, or that he didn't think of them often. He had simply never considered the possibility that they might ultimately lead him to become the kind of person he couldn't have any respect for--if that was what was actually happening here. If he wasn't just getting played for a sissy moron.
This, however, was in and of itself another dilemma. Was it a sissy, moronic thing to avoid starting what was categorically a doomed relationship for no reason other than a bizarre gut feeling that it might be one of the best things he'd ever do in his life? Or was it actually just prudent, a final confirmation that he had at last gotten over being a kid for good?
Jounouchi wondered what he would have done differently ten years ago, and within seconds knew with perfect clarity: he would never have said no at any point, would have tried, consequences be damned, and if it had gone badly, oh well. If it hadn't, he would have smuggled himself onto a plane and followed Kaiba all the way back to Japan.
Jounouchi couldn't decide which was stupider: chasing someone around the world with only the skeleton of a hope for company, or not even having the balls to try.
-
"Jounouchi."
Samura was shaking his shoulder through the quilt, strong fingers clamped tight. Jounouchi felt his eyes snap open, urged on by a strange, instant wakefulness that only happened to him rarely. No disorientation, no gummy eyes; just sudden consciousness, and an awareness of the passage of time.
"What time is it?"
"Nine thirty," Samura said, letting go of him and standing up. The room was dark, but lit in blue spots by the top of a neon sign visible over one of the buildings out back. "Come get some food."
"I'm not hungry," said Jounouchi, truthfully, and sat up, frowning at his knees. "You're good with words, right?"
Samura knelt, watching him silently, and didn't respond.
Yes, then. Jounouchi rubbed one hand across the back of his neck, considering. "What's a coward?"
"A creature that shows ignoble fear in the face of crisis, pain, difficulty, or revelation," replied Samura instantly, as though he'd been waiting all day to say it.
Jounouchi turned the frown on him, perplexed. "Revelation?"
"You asked me," Samura shrugged, now standing and moving toward the ladder, "not a dictionary. I think men run from anything, good or bad, that presents itself as challenging. Those men are cowards. I'll keep some noodles downstairs in the refrigerator for you. Stock's in the pot on the stove."
"Oh," Jounouchi murmured, watching the top of his head disappear. "Thanks."
He wasn't entirely sure that had helped.
-
At ten Jounouchi took another shower, put the same jeans back on, and found a fresh sweater in his bag of clothes to finish it off; orange with brown stripes, which he figured fit the season pretty well. Samura took one look at it when he made his way back up into the attic room and snorted loudly, but Jounouchi merely graced this with a peace sign and found a fresh volume of Shounen Jump, flipping through it for the One Piece chapters.
Around ten thirty Jounouchi finished the chapters and went to rest on his futon, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. Samura was doing something that looked distressingly financial, sitting at the kotatsu and stabbing methodically at a calculator, small glasses perched on the end of his nose.
It was nearly eleven o'clock before Jounouchi finally stood up, took one look at Samura (who had finished with the calculator and put the kotatsu away, busy now laying out his futon for the night), and announced loudly, "I gotta go. Probably won't get back until about nine tomorrow, so keep your shirt on. You can fire me if I'm late."
Then Jounouchi did exactly that, jogging over to the ladder and climbing down without another word. Maybe Samura said something to stop him, or maybe he just sat there watching--either way, Jounouchi wasn't paying attention. In the kitchen he grabbed his coat off the hook by the back door, pulled on his sneakers, and took off, careful to lock up again as he left.
All down Couch Street he swore at himself, volubly and with tremendous conviction. He swore going past the 24 Hour Church of Elvis, where fake cobwebs had been stretched between the guitars, and as he turned down the block by the Vegetarian House, and as he went under the Chinatown gate onto Burnside. He took a break from swearing as he crossed over the bridge, needing both the breath and the time to come up with a fresh selection of descriptors. Then he started up again on Grand Avenue, and threw himself into the work in earnest once that finally branched into Lloyd Boulevard.
Finally he arrived at Ninth Avenue, with the top of the DoubleTree just barely visible over the nearby buildings, and couldn't decide whether it would be smarter to turn here or continue on to Eleventh, having absolutely no clue which side the damn entrance was on. Obviously he had to stop swearing while he worked this out.
In the end he chose to continue on, partially because it would let him get a look at the park before he got down to the nitty gritty of fucking his life up one more time, and partially just for the hell of it.
Fortunately for him, the lobby wasn't hard to find. He'd picked the right side of the building by sheer dumb luck, and was able to cut across the front loading zone without interruption, going through the polished doors and between the bellhops and staring in unadulterated awe around the lobby--which was, in turned out, not so much a hotel lobby as an airport lobby in design. He could even see a fucking restaurant in the distance, and a floor plan on one wall, like people had actually gotten lost before.
And there, close to the front desk, was the elevator. Jounouchi made for it instantly, relieved that he hadn't had to waste time searching between public bathrooms and eight thousand coffee shops to find it.
Getting by the front desk, however, turned out to be a little more difficult than he had anticipated.
"-Welcome back, sir,-" the clerk chirped as soon as he drew near, obviously mistaking him for someone else (for example, someone who was actually staying there). Something in a napkin was promptly offered. "-Would you like your warm cookie?-"
Jounouchi stopped walking, agog.
"-Ano. No?-" God, why didn't any of the places he'd ever stayed ask that? He could smell it now, too; sugar and soft chocolate and butter.
The clerk blinked openly, put off by either his tone or his accent, or possibly both. Recognizing this only now as a prime opportunity to prevent himself from having to run around all fourteen floors like an idiot trying to match the room number, Jounouchi grinned apologetically and made his way toward her.
"-Sorry, I--I'm not staying here. Is a friend I'm visit. Ing. Ano.-" He fished out the note at this point, barely managing to keep his prison dispatch from opening up at the same time. Because that would have been really helpful. "-This is eleventh floor, right?-"
She took a cautious look at the note, then finally relaxed a little, apparently coming to the decision with this bit of evidence that he wasn't actually crazy. "-Yes, sir. It's an executive suite. I believe you'll find it right at the end of the hall. Would you like me to call in advance and let your host know you've arrived?-"
Of course it was a suite. Because obviously billionaires couldn't be expected to stay in normal rooms like the rest of them. Jounouchi shook his head, setting the sarcasm aside for a moment, and pointed one finger at his nose expressively, grinning. "-No, no. I'm surprise. Thanks!-"
Jounouchi then set off toward the elevator, got halfway there, and turned right back around, too curious to let it go. "-You really give those cookie to everyone staying?-"
The clerk began to smile, staring at him in something bordering on amused disbelief. Jounouchi noticed a tiny pumpkin with a silly, painted face sitting next to the bell by her hand, staring at him. "-Yes, we do.-"
Jounouchi considered this for a moment, trying not to stare back at the pumpkin. "-Good policy.-"
The woman's smile got a little wider. "-We have a lot of them, you know.-"
-
So it was that Jounouchi got onto the elevator with a cookie of his own, which he was able to enjoy between floors one and eleven uninterrupted. He was licking his fingers by the time the doors slid open, completely silent.
The hall was lit to a degree that stopped just short of being physically painful, and thickly carpeted, so much so that his feet made practically no sound as he searched for suite 03.
As it turned out, the clerk had been wrong; there were five suites in this section of the hall, putting 03 on the left side, right between 01 (next to the elevator) and 05 (which Jounouchi suspected was the one she'd actually been thinking of). All the doors were pale wood, with elegant brass numbers differentiating them.
He stood in front of 03 for almost a minute before he could force himself to take a deep, bracing breath, and lift one fist. This was almost immediately returned to his side, but--Jounouchi knew, knew with an uncanny, internal clarity, that there was no other way to understand what he had become than through this single action. This would decide it all.
He began to pound on the door with sharp, measured force.
It opened on the fifth blow, and for one long, long second Jounouchi was positive that it was going to be someone else; the wrong person, or some other guy Kaiba had picked up after his refusal.
But it was just Kaiba, scowling, hair damp from a recent shower. In his right hand was a thick book, his trigger finger sandwiched inside, marking a page.
"Jounouchi," he said, unfriendly expression melting into open surprise. His arms were bare, and his feet as well, the fancy clothes of the last two days discarded for a simple blue tank top and black pajama bottoms. Looked like he'd been about to go to sleep.
Well, it was nearly midnight. "God," Jounouchi breathed, grinning, and rolled his eyes. He was relieved on so many levels, and scared, and suddenly, completely alive with energy. "You know, for a second there I totally thought you were gonna be someone else?"
He stepped inside then, before Kaiba could respond, and shut the heavy door after himself, toeing his sneakers off.
"Jounouchi," Kaiba said again, frowning, and, turning to face him, locked the door with his free hand (to all appearances out of sheer habit--he wasn't even looking when he did it). "What are you--?"
"Hang on," Jounouchi interrupted, holding one hand up.
Kaiba held on.
Perfect. Smiling, Jounouchi grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down to a normal height, waited the split second it took for him to open his mouth in protest, then kissed him.
The word for this one was definitely not peaceful.
From a thousand miles away he heard Kaiba's book hitting the floor, right before two very large, very warm hands closed around his wrists, pulling them away and down, forcing him back until he ran into the door. It hurt--one of his shoulders was definitely not coming out of this unbruised--but that wasn't a big deal. That didn't matter at all. Kaiba pulled away and pushed immediately back, pressing his mouth farther open, warm and overwhelming, tongue sliding against his lower lip, his teeth, his own tongue.
Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, Jounouchi opened his eyes briefly, and god, Kaiba was tall. There was a light on somewhere overhead, but he could barely tell, most of it blocked out by the businessman's body. Jounouchi twisted gently where he stood, trying to get his jacket off, but it got stuck at his wrists, bunched around Kaiba's hands.
Finally things began to calm down a bit, Kaiba drawing away, at first only a fraction, then another, then at last straightening completely to stare down at him, eyes slightly less than half-open. His breathing was shallow, but quiet.
Jounouchi blinked slowly, staring back. He could feel his back expanding against the door every time he took a breath, and his bottom lip swelling a little, the sting of something bitten.
Then Kaiba was smirking; only the barest hint of an expression. "Did you actually steal a cookie from the desk?"
...okay, that was just unfair. "No," Jounouchi panted, frowning. He began to rotate his hands pointedly. "The clerk offered. You really think I'd do that?"
"I don't know." Kaiba held on tighter, stilling him. "Would you?"
Jounouchi began to grin in spite of himself, trying to take off his socks with just his feet and failing spectacularly. "Depends on how hungry I am. Are we gonna do this with my coat on or what?"
Kaiba stilled abruptly, the smirk fading.
"The question, I think," he murmured seriously, "is are we going to do this at all." And speaking in a softer voice, as though just coming out of his own haze, "What are you doing here?"
"Proving something," Jounouchi replied, just as quiet, scalp prickling.
Kaiba swallowed. Jounouchi could actually see his Adam's apple bob with the motion, up and down. "You should leave."
Oh, nice try. Jounouchi pressed his back to the door harder, digging his feet in. "Throw me out, then."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I deal in electronics, not morals." Kaiba's tone was sharp, almost angry. "I don't make a business of saving people from their own bad decisions. I just point them out. Hadn't you considered that what I said earlier--that I was manipulating you?"
Jounouchi swallowed, but forced himself to nod. It had been one of his primary doubts. "Sure." And then, turning the trick back around on its maker: "Were you?"
Kaiba went utterly silent, still.
Two seconds passed, then three, and finally, fractionally, he shook his head. "No. I wanted to. I thought I was, but it was just the truth. I am a coward."
"I'm not," said Jounouchi, low but firm. "Can I take my coat off now?"
Kaiba hesitated, blinked. Then he let go of his wrists.
The coat dropped to the floor, half on top of one of his shoes. Jounouchi reached down and pulled his socks off, then leaned around Kaiba to take a look at the room proper, curious.
The walls were a uniform, tasteful beige, unremarkable. From his vantage point he could see a table with six chairs, a bowl of fruit and a bottle of aspirin, a chaise by an enormous double set of windows, each with straight, sheer drapes, a couch and coffee table set, a miniature refrigerator, and a large television in an entertainment center. A door in one set of windows led out to a little balcony, while two others in the walls hinted at the locations of bathroom and bedroom. All the upholstery was shockingly pale, like the walls, but the molding and wood frames were black, fashionably stark.
"Damn," he said, laughing at it all. Was that actually a decorative sword in the middle of the coffee table? And in the trash can next to the entertainment center--oh, more Halloween decorations. Of course. Looked like Kaiba wasn't a holiday person, either. "You know, I've never seen a suite before. What d'you do with two whole rooms?"
"Remarkably little," said Kaiba. "When there's sunlight I read by the window. When there isn't I read by the lamp."
"Not a TV guy," Jounouchi stated experimentally, smiling.
"Not even when I was on it," Kaiba replied, unsmiling.
Jounouchi tried not to let the tone of this comment drag down the gradually returning mood, but it was difficult. "So will we kill ourselves trying to get to the bed if I turn the light off?"
Kaiba frowned. "Doubtfully. The windows let in a considerable amount of ambient light."
"Cool." Jounouchi double checked that all the drapes were open, which they were, and clicked his teeth together a few times, considering the merits of both scenarios. Then he groped one hand along the wall until he found the switch, flipped it, and watched the room fall into total, if fleeting darkness.
Kaiba was back on him in seconds, as though cued by the change. Hands pushed up his shirt, a mouth recapturing his and kissing relentlessly until Jounouchi, head spinning, allowed his lips to part, deepening it. Damp bangs brushed against his forehead, shockingly cool after so much heat. His shirt was being hiked up his torso, two pinkies dragging agonizingly up his sides.
Holy shit. Jounouchi turned his face away quickly, and wasn't surprised when Kaiba used the opportunity to pull the sweater up higher, trying to get it off. "Okay--ah--" Rough cloth scraped past his nose and mouth, and Jounouchi, as much out of self-defense as desire, lifted his arms, letting it slide over his head smoothly. "Kaiba."
Kaiba's hands were mapping down his body, touching--it seemed--every inch of exposed skin. "Yes?"
Jounouchi swallowed thickly, growing more aware with every second of his body, every inch of it, from the prickling of skin along his legs to the small gathering of sweat in his lower back to the tell-tale swell that would soon be an erection. "I dunno which way I'm going."
One of Kaiba's hands dropped to his wrist again, gentler now. He began to walk, half turned away. Jounouchi followed carefully, his eyes adjusting. Kaiba was no more than a defined shadow towering over him, diffused blue and red and green and white from the advertisements mottling his skin, reflecting off his eyes. For a second he appeared to be made of light, and for another to be physically painted.
They reached the door in the far wall (his second guess--good that he'd asked, then), and Jounouchi, glancing through as Kaiba opened it, saw an immaculately made king bed with pale sheets and approximately three hundred pillows clustered at the top. Pleased to have his bearings, Jounouchi shook his hand free and went immediately to the window on the left side of the room, peering out to assess the view.
It was, in a word, spectacular, provided one went for the whole glory-of-the-urban-sprawl thing. Jounouchi did, and felt his chest tighten up just a little, a grin tugging at his mouth.
Even as a little kid he'd liked tall buildings. Spending so much of his life living like an ant in alleys, moving through a specific range of streets, it was a pleasure--a wonder--to get an opportunity to look down like this; like a bird, or a god. Like things would start to make an enlightened kind of sense if only he could get enough distance to look at everything together. It wasn't a feeling that he'd ever really been able to put into words, but it was persistent. A reliable wonder.
Kaiba stepped up behind him. He didn't go quite so far as to press their bodies together, but one of his hands did lift to wrap around Jounouchi's bent elbow, following the line of his arm down to his hand where it pressed against the glass. Then his head dipped, lips touching his back softly at the join between his neck and shoulder, where the muscle curved most obviously.
Sighing quietly, Jounouchi turned--and caught his own face staring at him around Kaiba's shoulder, pale and smiling faintly. His arms broke out instantly in goose bumps, every cell in his skin tingling.
Frowning, Kaiba turned to look as well, leaving his hand wrapped around Jounouchi's. "The closet?"
"It's a mirror," Jounouchi said, half a statement of the obvious and half an attempt to calm himself, watching the mouth of his reflection move in time with the words. "Shit. Scared me for a second."
"You must believe in doppelgängers, then," Kaiba murmured, turning back toward him. Jounouchi met the stare, but in his peripheral vision he could still see Kaiba's back in the mirror, long and smooth, the blue tank top bellowing ever-so-slightly in and out with his sides as he breathed, a second skin.
"No," said Jounouchi, frowning. "Just ghosts. And I hate those damn closets."
"They're efficient," Kaiba replied reasonably, turning him until his back faced the window. "And they make the room look bigger."
Jounouchi almost said they made it look like a cheap brothel, too, but managed to stop himself at the last second. Talk about mood killers. "They freak me out."
Kaiba's mouth twitched, his face drawing closer. "Don't look, then," he murmured, and kissed him.
-
"So help me out here," Jounouchi said, staring up at the ceiling. "Would you say this is a one night stand, or does that only count for literally one night? I mean, we've known each other for two now."
The lights outside never turned off or changed, the phosphorescent spread of colors continuing to provide exactly the right amount needed for them to see comfortably. Jounouchi lay on his back on top of the covers, staring up at the ceiling and enjoying the coolness of the air as it began to register again. What noises he could hear from outside, from the street so many floors below them, were soft and muffled, TV sounds from a faraway room. Everything was quiet and comfortable, climate-controlled, the inoffensive smell of the sheets and the carpet layered over with the smells of sweat and skin.
Kaiba was beside him, also above the covers, but on his side rather than his back, which was currently facing the eerie, cheap closet. He was thinking very visibly, one warm arm stretched across Jounouchi's stomach, his palm and fingers occasionally moving slowly, stroking.
"I would say," he began finally, carefully, "that it is. A one night stand just means a casual sexual encounter where there exists no immediate expectation of a long-term romantic relationship being formed. There's no time limit that I'm aware of."
Jounouchi listened to the soft other-world traffic, saying nothing, and wondered what exactly he was feeling right now.
Quietly, Kaiba said, "That has to be it, I suppose." He sounded resigned, and slightly frustrated, and slightly bitter, and slightly melancholy.
Jounouchi tipped his head, looking fully out the window. It was raining again, but only a little, more spit than an actual shower. "Guess so."
Kaiba sighed, but his hand didn't leave Jounouchi's side. Abruptly he said, "You won't consider going back to Japan."
The lights vanished as Jounouchi closed his eyes, thinking. He'd known the question would be posed eventually, though if asked, he couldn't have said which of them he'd been expecting it to come from. Now that it was out in the open, he gave himself as much time as he needed, knowing Kaiba would wait, that everything would wait, would wait until it couldn't. He could hear the rain getting louder.
"I don't know you," he said finally, declarative. It felt like it needed to be said. "I get you, but I don't know you, and you really don't know me for shit. Think about it. You ask me to go back--hell, say we put everything on the table and you ask me to go back with you, because everything's turning out so weird and easy here: what do I think?"
"That I'm using you," Kaiba said immediately. Ruefully, Jounouchi thought of how he wasn't the only one here who got someone. "That you would go back and have nothing, and even if you only started out asking for small things, you would eventually become dependant on me."
"Right," Jounouchi murmured, digging one of his big toes into the mattress. "I'd be going back for you, because you asked. But I don't know you. I only got so much self-respect left, and that would be the end of a lot of it right there. I'd need my own reason. And fuck, even if I said my reason was you, that I had to follow you, what would you think?"
Kaiba's answer was less immediate this time, and considerably more reluctant, unhappy. "I would start out believing you."
"But eventually you'd start to wonder, right?" Jounouchi prompted, letting the room flicker back into his vision, and breathed deeply, turning to stare into Kaiba's strange eyes. "If maybe I did it just 'cause of who I saw on TV when I was a kid. And say I'm right, and the thing you think's so awesome about me right now is how much I don't give a fuck how many parts of the world you own--that'd go away, and I'd be another asshole just like everybody else."
It hurt to say all of it, but Jounouchi made his mouth move, made the words, as awkward as they were, press together into sentences and points. He wasn't a kid. He knew the way things worked.
"It's very cynical," Kaiba said softly, still staring, still rubbing the skin of his palm against his side.
Jounouchi shrugged. "It's realistic. It's the way things fucking go."
"But it could work."
Even after everything that had just been said, Jounouchi couldn't shake the tiny surge of hope which that statement prompted, the resonating belief. He said, "That's right. It could."
"And you aren't a coward."
"But you are." Jounouchi said it softly, trying to take the sting out of the words.
Kaiba stared at him, mouth closed. Then he closed his eyes as well, conceding the point, and didn't say anything else for a long time. The conversation slipped away, and the space it left behind was filled, inexorably, with the rain, quiet and insistent.
Later, ten minutes or half an hour, Kaiba said, "Do you think it's possible for people to truly change?"
"Sure," Jounouchi said lightly, and turned on one of the bedside lamps, then lifted his hands into the light to make shadow puppets on the ceiling. "Look at me. I used to bitch about everything. Now I just give people shit sometimes. It's a whole new me, man."
In his peripheral vision he caught Kaiba smiling faintly, apparently amused by this. "The Buddhists say we're always different, that every second of every day we change shape. It makes sense on a biological level; cells are always dividing and rearranging and replenishing. But on a metaphysical level, they argue, the principle holds, that every new thought and every breath creates a new person, slightly different from the person who existed before."
And Kaiba quoted, precisely: "Insight into change teaches us to embrace our experiences without clinging to them--to get the most out of them in the present moment by fully appreciating their intensity, in full knowledge that we will soon have to let them go to embrace whatever comes next."
"Well," Jounouchi said, forming a cat, "I never met a Buddhist I didn't like. Sounds good to me."
Kaiba sat up slowly, his arm finally lifting away. One of his knees bent, his two free hands lifting to wrap around his shin, leaning forward to stare into the distance. "But even thinking that, I've only ever become a more concentrated version of the person I started as. I was not an admirable young man. I remain deplorable as a man. In many ways I've only gotten worse."
Jounouchi made a dog's head, made it pant, tongue waggling, ears bobbing. "Maybe you're doing something wrong, then," he suggested, and held his hands closer to the light so that the head on the ceiling got bigger, smiling. "Check it out."
Kaiba looked up, taking in the grey shape. Finally he said, "An Akita."
"No, no," Jounouchi protested, trying to make the muzzle longer. "It's a husky, see?"
"Oh," Kaiba said faintly. He sounded like he was smiling. "Of course. How stupid of me."
"'S okay," Jounouchi shrugged, and dropped his hands. Yawned. "Fuck, I'm tired."
"We should sleep," Kaiba murmured, and without waiting for him to respond reached over and flicked the lamp back off. They began to shift with the same thought in mind, working to get the covers over themselves, and Jounouchi's legs still felt weak when he moved them, trembling faintly. He was also still uncomfortably slippery, slippery between his legs and inside, the feeling so pervasive that he wasn't surprised he hadn't remembered it. The sensation was pretty much impossible to describe, even to himself, and so impossible to hold on to.
There was one awkward moment when they finally worked everything out, a moment where their elbows were touching under the sheets, and they were both wondering whether it would be too strange to sleep dispassionately, without touching one another. Then they shuffled together, tangled up, and the awkwardness dissipated.
Softly Kaiba said into the curve of his shoulder, "I'm here for four more days. I'd like to see you again."
"I wanna have sex with you again," Jounouchi said bluntly, and laughed. He suspected Kaiba wanted to laugh as well, but wasn't willing to risk creating more awkwardness by doing so, or perhaps just wasn't sure where to start. "Sure. Why not? Come by Samura's place again when you can. He'll shit a brick."
"He was quite...effusive."
Jounouchi doubted effusive was the word he'd really wanted to use. "He's something, anyway. But he's a real good boss. Good friend. I make his life a waking hell, keep him on his toes. It works out pretty well."
A moment, and then Kaiba said, sounding amused, "You mock your employer as a matter of course. Your parents didn't pray very hard for your good sense as a boy, did they?"
Jounouchi grinned, eyes tearing up as he fought off the urge to yawn again. "Sure didn't."
And they left it at that, until Jounouchi, needing to say it, murmured, "It's not fair. I had that whole damn speech, and it still feels..."
"Perfect," Kaiba supplied softly. "I know."
Within the next few moments they were both asleep.
-
Once Jounouchi woke up, still more or less in the same position as when he'd first gone under, and stared at himself in the mirror over Kaiba's neck for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. He looked pale, and satisfied, and scared, and determined.
He went back to sleep.
end part three
