Definitions: "getting wings" – being injected with heroin for the first time.
xxxxxxx
At the sound of the front door opening, Anzu gave up making sense of her chemistry notes and went into the front hall.
Her mother was kicking off her pumps in the entranceway, face drawn and tired. Kaiba was standing behind her in the doorway, grim and dangerously skinny in his black suit. He had Mokuba hoisted up on one hip, the boy fast asleep and with his head resting on Kaiba's shoulder.
Yoshiko rubbed her temples, and Anzu's father said, "Let's get you some aspirin."
"But – " Yoshiko began to protest, gesturing towards Kaiba and Mokuba.
"It's fine," Kaiba said. "I'll put him to bed." And he began to walk fully into the apartment and towards Mokuba's room. Yoshiko just nodded and let her husband guide her into the kitchen.
Anzu wasn't really surprised that Kaiba knew where Mokuba's room was; after all, he had been in the apartment before.
Still, concern for Mokuba compelled her to say, "He's been sleeping with me."
It came out louder than she had intended, and she flushed at the way he just raised an eyebrow. But he stopped in front of (what he obviously knew to be) her bedroom door and pushed it open.
"He's not sleeping well," she told him, fluttering her hands in a way she knew was reminiscent of her mother and hating herself for doing so. Then, "He used to sleep with you, didn't he?"
Kaiba put Mokuba down on Anzu's bed. Nodded as he bent over and brushed the hair out of Mokuba's face.
"Are you…" Anzu swallowed. Continued, "…are you all right?"
Kaiba turned around, loosened his tie, and Anzu was suddenly far too conscious of the fact that they were in her bedroom. With her stuffed animal collection and that pink bra of hers that really shouldn't be hanging over the back of her desk chair.
She swallowed. Hard. Then asked, "So…what did they decide?"
She knew it couldn't be anything good: both Kaiba and her mother had been far too sober when they returned. But it couldn't be anything too bad as Yoshiko had let him into the apartment. Unless….this was meant to be Kaiba's goodbye to Mokuba.
Kaiba pulled off his tie entirely. "Mokuba stays here for a six month trial period. The Inoues and I will alternate weekend custody."
It was, she knew, surprisingly better than what they all had feared, but not good enough.
Especially not for Kaiba Seto.
And she didn't like it to admit it, but she knew that look in his eyes. That look of desperation veiled over with studious indifference that she had first seen at Duelist Kingdom and then had become reacquainted with in the digital world. And she knew – beyond a shadow of a doubt – exactly how he was going to spend his evening.
He began to move towards the doorway of her bedroom.
"Where are you going?"
"Where do you think?"
Well, she thought, at least he wasn't denying it.
And even though she knew that when he was in this state, he couldn't be reasoned with, she tried. "Don't give me that. Look at Mokuba-kun! This isn't the end of the world!"
"Whoever said it was?"
She hated it when he did that. When he answered question with questions.
"I'll tell my mother," she threatened because, after all, it was the one threat that had worked in the past.
"Tell her. Hell, tell the whole damn world. It's not as if it matters anymore, does it?"
And still he had that expression.
"Kaiba-kun – "
"Later," he said as he began to push past her.
And she grabbed his arm as he passed her by. "I'm going with you."
She actually expected him to hit her because never in her memory had she ever seen him tolerate the touch of another when he wasn't the one who initiated the contact. Which he never did.
And his free arm did pull back, hand balled into a fist.
But he didn't hit her, and his posture, so stiff, sagged back into that slouch she was becoming quite familiar with.
He finally shrugged. "Do what you want."
And that's how she came to be in the shadier sections of Domino, shivering in the cool spring night air despite Kaiba's suit jacket about her shoulders.
"Here," he said, stopping in front of one of the indistinguishable, grimy, little bars. And in a mocking act of gallantry, he added, "After you."
The bar wasn't much better lit than the street, so it wasn't as if she had to let her eyes adjust. Behind her, Kaiba gave her a little push towards the bar.
No one asked their ages; in fact, no one really asked them anything.
The bartender, when he noticed two more (decidedly under-aged) patrons brought over a shot of something for Kaiba. Looked at Anzu and raised an eyebrow.
"Get her a Coke, would you?" Kaiba said.
"Going vanilla tonight, huh, Inoue?"
"Just get it."
Osaka-ben. All of it. And going by his mother's family name. Just another piece of the puzzle that was Kaiba Seto. Anzu watched him knock back the shot, and the bartender brought him another along with her Coke.
"I get off in an hour," the bartender said.
Kaiba nodded absently.
Anzu sipped at her Coke. It tasted all right. A little flat maybe, but she'd had worse in her day.
"Feel free to bring Vanilla Girl," the bartender continued.
Two Cokes and a short walk later, Anzu found herself in an old warehouse with strategically placed spotlights and blaring music.
It smelled of pot, piss, and puke.
She'd always thought that the parties Kaiba went to were white tie affairs, all evening gowns and expensive champagne.
"God, what awful music," Kaiba said, voice and step still firm despite the impressive number of shots he'd put away.
The bartender laughed, and Anzu found herself in agreement with Kaiba. "It's Kaede's new band," the bartender said. "She's burnt a cd or something."
"God," Kaiba said again.
And then both he and the bartender were melting off into the edges of the crowd.
She knew she looked stupid, standing there all alone at a party she clearly didn't belong at.
She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. Slid her feet into first position, then second and was about to go into third when the bartender was back at her elbow.
"Here," he said. "Snagged us some drinks." Anzu took one of the plastic cups from him.
"Where's K – Inoue-kun?" she asked, remembering just in time that Kaiba (for whatever reason) wasn't using his legal name.
"Eh," the bartender told her with a casual jerk of his thumb. She looked over in the direction. Wished she hadn't. "So," he began, "How'd you two meet?"
Well, Anzu really wanted to say. Would you believe he kidnapped my best friend's grandfather over a card game? But aloud all she said was, "First day of first year."
"Huh," the bartender said as he took a sip from his glass. "Never figured Inoue'd still be in school. He's classic drop-out material."
Which was true, but Anzu still found herself clamping down on the instinct to defend Kaiba.
"So…" Anzu said, for lack of anything better to say. "How do you know him?"
"Eh," the bartender said again. "Friend of a friend, y'know."
Drugs, Anzu's mind filled in the blanks. Looked over the bartender with fresh eyes. Saw the gauntness in the cheeks, the way his hands shook. Just like Kaiba.
And then Kaiba was back, face flushed and a looseness in his bones. His face, which had been drawn tight like her mother's, was relaxed now, eyes heavy lidded and mouth soft.
"Did you get her a Coke?" Kaiba asked, far more coherent than he ought to be and with a suspicious glance at the cup in Anzu's hand.
The bartender made a face. "Jesus, Inoue. She might be a schoolgirl, but she's not a freakin' two-year old." He turned to Anzu. "You're not one, are you?"
"I'm older than Inoue-kun," Anzu said, answering the bartender's question but staring Kaiba straight in the eye.
Raised the cup to her lips.
Drank.
She wasn't exactly a stranger to alcohol. She'd had the occasional cup of sake at New Years, wine when her father took her to one of his business dinners, ouzo on last year's family vacation to Crete, and beer that Jounouchi had boosted from his father.
But she wasn't used to it, either, and she sure as hell wasn't used to gulping at it like water.
The bartender laughed and slapped her on the back. "She's a big girl, Inoue."
Kaiba narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
After the first cup, the taste began to bother her less. And suddenly the party didn't seem so bad. She found out the bartender's name was Yamada Etsuo, and he took great pleasure in introducing her to everyone they met as "Inoue's girlfriend."
She'd corrected him in the beginning, but pretty soon it mattered less and less, and it wasn't like Kaiba had done much to dissuade what Yamada was saying, anyway.
Of course, it was entirely probable that Kaiba was even more fucked up than she was at the moment.
"So…ever thought about getting wings like your boyfriend here?" someone asked her. "First time's on the house."
And she'd been smiling and nodding for so long, tongue too thick for coherent sentences for some time now, that she just continued nodding and smiling.
"No," Kaiba said for her, pushing himself into both the conversation and between Anzu and the man who'd asked her the question. His voice was a tad too sharp and a tad too dangerous.
"Oh-kay," the man said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "No wings. I get it. Vanilla Girl stays vanilla."
(And Anzu distantly wondered if Kaiba or the bartender had told the man that's what her name actually was.)
But Kaiba was pulling her along behind him, away from the man and his confusing words. "Can't let you out of my sight for a moment," she heard him mutter under his breath.
He sank onto some sort of couch-futon fusion that hardly looked clean, and Anzu, already unsteady on her feet, almost fell on top of him, and if he weren't still holding onto her, she would have. Instead, she wound up half-sitting, half-straddling his lap.
"I'm a big girl," she reminded him, proud of the way she forced her words not to slur. "It was my choice to come."
"And it's my choice to watch you." He ran his free hand through his hair. "Shit, your mother would kill me if I let you shoot up."
"You do," she reminded him because it was one of the few things still clear and unmuddled in her mind and not because she actually had any intention of going near something that could fuck up her system so badly.
"I'm a junkie," he hissed, self-disgust evident in his voice. "That's what junkies do." His face was right next to hers, lashes incredibly long and cheekbones sharp as knives, and if she hadn't been so drunk, she probably would've jerked away because close proximity to Kaiba Seto had not been on the agenda for the evening.
But she was drunk (or at least that was the excuse she told herself), and so this time it was Mazaki Anzu and not Kaiba Seto that leant forward those few millimeters and pressed her lips to his.
He still tasted like ouzo, and it just wasn't fair, and she might have even gasped it aloud when he lightly bit her lip to make her open her mouth and let him in.
It was just like before except, of course, it wasn't. It was better, somehow, what with the way his hands were now curled about her hips urging her to move right there, on his lap.
And she could feel him right there, her thighs squeezing tight around his, and oh God how she wanted.
And she was no longer kissing him but burying her face into his shoulder and she heard her voice – broken and gasping and sounding utterly foreign to her own ears – choke out a strangled, "K-kaiba-kun," before her world contracted.
