"Oh, he just does this type of thing sometimes." Mokuba shrugged. "I've gotten used to it."

It had been about fifteen minutes since Seto's disappearance, muttering something under his breath about preparing dessert and retreating quickly down the hall towards the kitchen. It had been about five minutes since Yuugi, insisting that he could find the bathroom on his own, had gone to find him.

"Hey," Jounouchi lowered his voice and gestured towards the two empty chairs, "suspicious, right? You think they're making out somewhere?"

Mokuba scrunched his face and giggled. "Ew, I'd be very surprised."

"More surprising things have happened."

Mokuba rolled his eyes. "I don't think that's relevant here…"

"What are you two whispering about over there?" Shizuka asked, leaning against Jounouchi's shoulder. "It's not polite."

"Nothing, nothing," Jounouchi tried to brush her aside. "It's just a rule, you know? Two people at a party both disappear around the same time for a long time—we're allowed to make certain assumptions…"

"Katsuya!" She cried in mock horror, playfully slapping him on the arm. "Dueling each other is more likely."

"Eh—but Kaiba doesn't duel any more, remember? And you know he's got to fill that deep, dark hole in his life with something—"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Jounouchi," Anzu snapped. "Let's change the subject. Now."

"Kaiba has retired from dueling?" Isis asked, voice low and cool.

"Yeah, effectively," Mokuba replied. "He gave all his cards to Yuugi's grandfather."

"How—do you know why, exactly?"

Mokuba shrugged. "Not really. He said there was no point in having them anymore."

Isis' expression stiffened slightly, but she did not reply.

"Enough about Kaiba!" Shizuka announced. She turned to Mokuba, eyes bright and smile blossoming. "What can we do around here for fun while we wait for dessert?"

"Here? Huh, basically nothing. The Kaiba mansion really isn't the best place to go to have fun, if you know what I mean. All the fun we had here growing up we had to work pretty hard to make for ourselves. Gozaburo didn't have any patience for games and hobbies, and no sense of humor." He paused. "There is one place that might be cool, though. I haven't been there in ages so maybe it's not as cool as I remember it—it probably won't seem as amazing now as it did then, but when we were little it was basically the best thing ever. I only hope Seto hasn't deactivated it."

"What is it?"

"Well," Mokuba explained. "Everything associated with Kaiba Corp has always had really tight security, especially this place. The whole house is wired, there are these video intercoms installed in pretty much every room," he gestured towards the room's far wall, where a small, thin monitor was mounted on the wall. "Gozaburo used them to spy on us, among other things, but we found a way to covertly hack into the system and they kind of built a game around it—like a virtual world embedded in ours." He shook his head in an attempt to reorganize his dusty memories. "It's kind of hard to explain—it'd be easier if I just show you. C'mon, we can only turn it on from the computer room."

Mokuba continued trying to explain as they abandoned the bright light and sparkling fixtures of the dining room and descended into the crypt of the Kaiba mansion. His words rushed out and tripped over each other in their excitement to finally be freed from his memory and rush about in the open air. His voice provided enough warmth and light to compensate for the icy gloom that otherwise would have engulfed them.

"It was a big secret, of course," he prattled. "But I don't think Seto would mind me showing you now. He was so proud of it when they built it—he showed me how to use it even though he really shouldn't have. They could have gotten into so much trouble…"

They were walking down a narrow hall lined with rusty pipes and cobwebs. The flickering lights sent sharp shadows racing along the walls. Mokuba, however, was too enchanted to notice that he should have been scared. He paused in front of a thick iron door, wiped the dust and cobwebs off the security key pad—and after a deep metallic click confirmed that he did in fact still remember the passcode—heaved the door open with a heavy groan.

Entering the computer room was like stepping inside the brain of an aged dragon rendered in silicon and copper. The walls were coated in banks of flickering lights, multicolored veins of wire, and wheezing dust-chocked fans. Despite the toll that years of neglect had taken, every fixture resonated with a cool, calm, and thoughtful intelligence that was immune to fatigue and famine and had not closed its eyes since the day it was born.

"Back when this room was built computers were still really big, and really expensive. Gozaburo bought two—one for his office, and this one for here. They were some of the most powerful privately owned computers when we got them." Mokuba spoke over his shoulder as he rummaged through a series of file boxes stacked in the far corner. "Yes! I knew he hadn't gotten down here yet."

He dragged one of the boxes back to the terminal and began rifling through its contents—an extensive collection of neatly labeled floppy disks. "This one was mainly used for monitoring the security systems of the house, but eventually Gozaburo started letting them use it to study—to build models and stuff I guess. They wrote a ton of these programs—adventure games and stuff. But this one was the best!" He presented the object of his search to the curious circle of onlookers—a bundle of three black floppy disks bound together by a rubber band and labeled with a neatly printed list of numbers:

38 84 22 95 87 39 60 42 11 82 42 84 41 40 87 18 42 22 12 11 41

"I don't get it. What is it?" Jounouchi asked as he strained to read the numbers in the semidarkness.

"They called it Hiruko. It's an adventure game. Set in this house. Let me show you!" Mokuba bounded over to the seat in front of the terminal, punched a series of keys on the keyboard, and the primary monitor sprung to live with a jagged spark of static electricity.

"This is the security system," Mokuba explained. The display was split into twelve panels, each recording a room in the mansion or one of the gardens and balconies. "Now," Mokuba bit his lower lip and scrunched his brows, "assuming that the files aren't corrupted," he delicately unwrapped the disks and placed them into the slots near the base of the computer, "it should work!"

The monitor flickered black for a moment then sprung back to life with a weighty jolt. Overlaid on the screen were three transparent figures, all roughly in the form of a heavily pixelated young child.

"Who do you want to be?" Mokuba asked, fingers already flickering over the keys.

"Uh, the left one?" Jounouchi guessed.

"Ha okay." The figure Jounouchi had chosen was briefly highlighted, then all three disappeared.

"Our first task is to figure out where he is."

"How do we do that?"

"We have to make him reveal himself," Mokuba drawled with a roll of his eyes, as if this should have been entirely self-evident. "You can't just have your characters appear in a place like this. They need to know that it's safe first, that they can trust you."

"So how do we get him to come out?"

"Answering questions." Mokuba began conversing with the keyboard again, becoming so engrossed in the swirling lines of coded messages that sprinted across the screen that he seemed to momentarily forget the presence of his guests. "Almost done…" he murmured. "They came up with a lot of different codes, and the one you're supposed to use gets chosen randomly at the start of the program. It's hard to remember them all…"

As Mokuba and the machine continued their encrypted conversation, the images on the monitor slowly began to change. With each question answered correctly, some of the panels would increase in size while others shrunk into the background. Gradually, and with many sighs that alternated between triumphant and deeply aggravated from Mokuba, an image of the library—shrouded in the dusty semidarkness of the evening—completely dominated the monitor.

"Got it!" He exclaimed. "Now we have to choose a weapon." Three images appeared on top of their view of the library—all executed in the same crude and simplistic style of the character avatars—but just distinguishable as a sword, a rifle, and a book.

"They all have special abilities, but they have weaknesses too—so it's important to choose carefully."

Jounouchi leaned closer to the monitor, carefully scrutinizing each of the images in turn. "Which would you choose, Mokuba?"

"This time—the sword." The image of the sword was briefly highlighted, then all three vanished.

It took a moment for them to realize that anything had changed. Staring at a nearly static image of the library, Jounouchi was about to remark that this was the most boring computer game he had ever seen when a ghostly figure—pale and fragile and thin as dying smoke—slowly coagulated into one of the many chairs that lined the large table in the center of the room, neck arched over a thick, leather-bound book splayed open before him on the table.

Jounouchi's initial instinct was to retract in horror, verify that Mokuba had indeed been correct in claiming that the library was haunted, run from the Kaiba mansion, and never come back. However, there was something in the image of the little boy reading the book that caught his breath and froze his fear. Perhaps it was his thin fingers that seemed to tremble as they turned the page; the small, defeated slope in his shoulders; or his eyes, overly large, dark, and tumultuous, that seemed to both absorb the darkness that surrounded him and rage sharply—defiantly—against it. The boy may have had a body of steam, smoke, and mist, but he had a soul as loud and fierce as fire and a mind as sharp and clear as the icy winter sun.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Mokuba asked, noticing the transfixed expressions surrounding him.

"You and Kaiba made this? When you were little kids?"

"Well, I wasn't really involved that much," Mokuba conceded sheepishly. "It was mostly Seto and—"

"What is going on here?" A sharp, bludgeoning voice shattered the enchanted veil that had embraced them with a brusque and unforgiving thrust. Jounouchi was suddenly aware of the cold, musty air, the throbbing of the computer's fans, the aggressive force of the floor against his feet and the stifling weight of his own skin.

"What—what are you doing with that?" Kaiba asked again, voice as flat and brittle as splintering ice. "Get away from that thing!" He rushed towards the computer, roughly shoving his guests from his path, and began ripping and tearing at its many exposed wires—creating a flurry of angry sparks that bit at his arms and shoulders.

"Nii-sama!" Mokuba cried. "Please stop! I'm sorry! I thought it would be fun! I didn't think you would mind if I showed them—"

"No." His tone was cold, but his voice smelled of burning copper and melting plastic. "Just—" He turned to his guests and blanched, closed his eyes, and swallowed deeply. His fingers didn't stop twitching on the exposed wires. "Just don't do it again." He poured all his resolve into keeping his voice low and stable, leaving nothing to prevent his jaw from trembling as he spoke.

And as suddenly as he had swept into the room, he was gone—as if having dissipated into the darkness around them.

"I don't understand…" Mokuba murmured. "He always loved this."

"Look," Isis gestured towards the half-forgotten monitor, on which the panels depicting the various rooms in the mansion had reappeared and Kaiba could be seen tracing a path out the front door and down the front walk. "Do you think he'll be alright?"

"I have no idea…"

"I'll go find him," Jounouchi volunteered. "Don't worry, Mokuba—he'll be fine."

For the first time he could remember, Jounouchi was grateful that Kaiba was affluent and vain enough to drive a luxury sports car. Those needlessly sharp, elegant edges, the violent rumble of the engine, and hostile glare of the headlights were all he needed to distinguish Kaiba's escape pod from the slow, soft, nondescript cars that wafted through Domino's nighttime streets.

He was, however, still incredibly ungrateful that Kaiba was one of the most reckless drivers that he had ever encountered. Every turn was followed by the slamming and squealing of brakes and the irate curses of disgruntled pedestrians. He turned the streets into a tangled, heaving mess that Jounouchi was loath to unwind—a process made all the more difficult by the fact that, rather than retreating into the dark and serenity of the countryside as Jounouchi had anticipated, Kaiba was burrowing into the heart of Domino's congested suburban district.

The streets grew tight and narrow, and Jounouchi was so focused on chasing Kaiba's shadowy footprints through the web-like cacophony of light and sound that he didn't notice making four right turns in a row.

Kaiba's vehicle screeched to a halt, giving Jounouchi just enough space to brake behind him. Jounouchi stepped out of his car to approach him, and was thrust roughly over the hood—the cold heavy fang of a gun pressed tightly against his skull.

"What. Are. You. Doing. Idiot!" Kaiba demanded between gritted teeth and labored breaths, grinding Jounouchi's face deeper into the metal. "If it's my life that you're after, you might want to work a little harder at going unnoticed."

"Wha—" Jounouchi flayed under Kaiba's grasp. "I'm not trying to kill you, jerk! And by the way, you seemed to be doing a pretty good job of trying to get that done yourself!"

At the sound of his voice, the grip of the gun lessened slightly, and Jounouchi found enough room in his ribcage to breathe. "Just get off me, will you?" He grumbled. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Jounouchi sighed in relief as he felt Kaiba step away, the piercing anger in his body seeming to dissipate into a dull throb of exhaustion. "You were following me," he offered as an explanation. "It would have been unwise to underestimate the magnitude of the situation."

"Yeah, sure, sure," Jounouchi grumbled as he rubbed the bruise forming on the back of his head. "I guess I should have expected you'd—"

Jounouchi had turned back to Kaiba, expecting to see in his face something between a demeaning sneer and cold indifference. The sight he was met with in its stead set his blood on fire and wiped his mind clear of all but one loud, fluorescent thought.

Kaiba was still pointing the gun at his chest, but his wrists were weak and his fingers were trembling. A thin sheen of sweat coated his face and dripped down his chest. His shoulders were shaking, his knees about to buckle. And his eyes. Jounouchi had seen that look in Kaiba's eyes before, and the effect was as potent—as enrapturing and repulsive—as ever.

"You shouldn't have followed me," he spat.

"And done what instead? Left Mokuba there in that house he hates with no idea where you'd gone or whether you're alive or dead? That was real responsible of you, you know?"

Kaiba staggered a few steps back and rubbed his temples. "Mokuba…" he groaned, shaking his head. "Of course…" He dragged his fingers across his face and sighed, wincing slightly. He fumbled in the folds of his coat for a pen and small pad of paper. "Take him here." He handed Jounouchi a hastily scrawled address and turned away in disgust. "Please."

"Thanks for taking me home, Jounouchi." Mokuba's steps were slow and heavy on the stairs, his eyes and voice bleak. "I'm sorry things got so…weird."

"Don't worry about it, kid." Jounouchi tried to sound cheerful enough for both of them. 'You…actually live here?"

They were standing near the center of the Domino suburbs, not far from where Seto had accosted Jounouchi with his gun. But despite the clamor of the streets and intersections that surrounded them, the building they entered encircled them in the soft and gentle arms of warm unadulterated silence. The walls looked as thin as cardboard, the carpeting in the lobby and on the stairs was wearing thin, but stepping over the threshold felt to Jounouchi like entering a fortress—a bastion against the all the hard, dirty creatures that hid between the cracks in the sidewalks and lurked under everyone's shoes.

Jounouchi didn't notice that he was following Mokuba up the stairs, and Mokuba—absorbed in his gray and rocky thoughts—did not notice that he had been followed until he reached the front door.

It was here that the first indication that something more spectacular than a balding middle-aged salary man or bug-eyed hikikomori lurked behind the apartment door manifested itself—a small silver panel and intercom placed where the doorbell should have been.

"Seto's kind of a freak about security," Mokuba explained as he activated the panel, revealing a small computer screen buzzing with figures that Jounouchi couldn't read. "The standard is like…a retina or finger scan or something, but he wouldn't have that. He was afraid that someone might incapacitate one of us and gouge out our eyes or something." Mokuba punched a few figures into the panel, then sighed and turned it off, flicking on the intercom instead. "Nii-sama," he spoke softly, "can you come let me in?"

"Is there a problem with the door?" Kaiba's voice sounded, if possible, gruffer over the metallic static of the intercom than in person.

"No."

After a few moments they heard the muffle of footsteps and the unfurling of an elaborate configuration of deadbolts and padlocks.

Mokuba blew past his brother without speaking, pausing only to take off his shoes before burrowing deep into the heart of the apartment. Kaiba frowned as he heard the door to their bedroom slam.

Jounouchi tried to look anywhere but Kaiba's face.

"Thank you."

"Oh, uh, no problem! Anything to help out Mokuba here. Wait, your—" Kaiba had been about to close the door on him when impulse propelled Jounouchi's hand forward, gently grazing the charred and swollen skin of Kaiba's knuckles. "Your hands?"

"It's fine," he replied stiffly, still attempting to shut the door.

"No way! That looks awful. You should…see a doctor or something. Or at least put something on it."

Kaiba snatched his injured hand against his chest. "I don't have anything. It's nothing. Go away."

"Psh." Jounouchi shouldered his way through the doorway, ignoring Kaiba's indignant protests. "Lucky for you, I always come prepared. Where's your kitchen? C'mon."

"You are not welcome here," Kaiba seethed from the threshold. "Leave. Now."

Jounouchi shrugged off his demands. "In a minute. Trust me: if you get an infection you're going to regret it." He washed his hands and rifled through the drawers next to the kitchen sink, eventually finding a tea towel and running it under cold water. "Come over here."

Kaiba was still standing in the doorway looking pale and mortally disgraced, so Jounouchi rolled his eyes and sauntered back in his direction. "Such a drama queen," he murmured.

"I am not," Kaiba fumed.

"Oh, yeah? Then give me your hand."

Kaiba's lips twisted. "And how am I supposed to trust that you know what you're doing?"

"I've done this kind of stuff tons of times before. C'mon, stop being such a baby."

Kaiba grimaced and sighed sourly, but gingerly extended his hands in Jounouchi's general direction. "Just be quick about it."

"Yes, your highness," Jounouchi muttered, eliciting a small smirk from Kaiba.

Once their words ceased everything else suddenly should out in sharp relief. Jounouchi was suddenly aware of the soft, feathery, slightly stuffy air in the apartment—the way it was sweet and sticky like boiling rice. The comforting closeness of the walls. The simple and slightly scruffy furniture. Every sound felt muted and far away. Every sensation was gently blurred and tempered—except for the feeling of Seto's warm, welted palm between his fingers, the lighting-sharp tremors the shot through his arm when he prodded the skin a little too roughly, the force of his scrutiny—so cold and intense that Jounouchi wondered whether he hadn't really been shot after all.

"Huh, and all these years I thought that you were incapable of feeling pain," Jounouchi mused. He fumbled in his pocket, extracting a tube of first-aid ointment and a roll of white cotton. Seto's brow raised.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Huh?"

"I know your little friends are probably all blustering with curiosity. I'm not going to answer any of your questions."

"That's fine." Jounouchi had been careful to avoid making eye contact, but the sorrowful sternness in Kaiba's voice caused him to lose his resolve. And there was that look again—now rendered all the more powerful by their closeness, the contact of their skin, and the fact that Kaiba's eyes were grotesquely magnified.

Jounouchi failed to stifle his laughter. "What is that?" He asked, pointing towards the bridge of Kaiba's nose.

"My face, idiot."

Jounouchi laughed. "No—what's that on it. You look insane."

"I have hyperopia," Seto replied flatly. "It's really not that hilarious."

"You look like an insect," Jounouchi snickered. "I can see why you go with the contacts."

Jounouchi started as Seto savagely pulled his hands away, ignoring the fact that Jounouchi was still tying the bandages. "You can leave now," he snapped.

Jounouchi gave him a mock bow. "Of course, sir ," he drawled, doing a poor job of stomping out his laughter. "You're welcome, too."

"Whatever," Kaiba sneered, gesturing Jounouchi towards the door.

By the time Jounouchi's eyes met Kaiba's again, his expression had changed dramatically—his eyes as cold and closed as the door that slammed in Jounouchi's face a few moments later.

"Did everything go okay?" Yuugi whispered.

Jounouchi had just stumbled into his bedroom, guided to his futon at the foot of Yuugi's bed by the vague smears of street light that clung to the walls and carpet.

"Eh, could have been worse—all things considered. They're both safe, at least."

"Oh, that's good." Yuugi sighed and leaned back against his pillows, trying to take full advantage of the thin icy breeze offered by the air conditioner. "What do you think happened back there?"

"No idea. He wouldn't tell me."

Yuugi nodded. "Jou-kun—"

"What is it?"

"Do you miss him—Atem?" His voice was small and soft. "We used to stay up like talking all the time on nights like this—it feels weird for it to be so quiet." His voice began to tremble slightly. "Sometimes I'm afraid I'll forget him, and then it will be like he never existed at all…"

"Don't talk that way!" Jounouchi exclaimed. "Of course I miss him, we all do. But he's not completely gone, though. Not really…"

Yuugi nodded. "I know he said that he would always be in my heart." He sighed. "But what if my heart changes? What if…someday there isn't room for him anymore?"

"Then you make room, Yugi."

For a few minutes they listened to the rumble of the fan, exploring the slopes and hillsides of their own thoughts.

"Doesn't it just feel like—" Yuugi bit down on his words, realizing that his thoughts had not caught up with his mouth. "Like we were all on a planet together—we might have all been looking in different directions and been in different locations, but ultimately we were all going the same way. And now we're kind of—floating—" He shook his head. "I don't know how to explain it."

"That's okay, I think I know what you're talking about." He paused. The air had suddenly become warmer, thicker, and heavy with trepidation. His thoughts were too large for his own head—too close and too solid to exist solely in his heart. His pulse quickened and he was suddenly uncomfortably aware of every tremor and shift in his voice as he spoke. "Hey, Yuugi—you like Kaiba?"

The question did not strike Yuugi with the same brutal force that it did Jounouchi. "Yeah, of course."

"No, I mean—" he sighed. "Never mind."

"Jou-kun…" Yuugi was sitting up in bed now, eyes larger and filled with more stars than the light-polluted sky above them. He smiled. One of those smiles they exchanged when they stumbled upon one of his dad's old magazines and snuck off to pour over the tantalizing, tawdry, beautiful photos on the roof during lunch as they licked the grease off their fingers.

"Don't look at me like that!" Jounouchi exclaimed as he tossed his pillow in the direction of Yuugi's face, forgetting for a moment that Shizuka was asleep in the next room. "It's not like that."

"Of course," Yuugi leaned back in bed, still smirking. "What is it like, then?"

"I don't know."

"Are you in love with him?" He giggled.

"No! Why would you even suggest that? Well…I don't think so. How—how can you tell?"

Yuugi shrugged. "I think it's different for every situation. It feels different each time, with each person."

Jounouchi nodded, chewing on his bottom lip.

He had seen many different colors of love. There was the glittery, artificial glow of love in the movies and on tv—more brilliant than anything that could weather the weight of reality. He had watched Yuugi fall in love with Anzu—a soft, warm, peachy hue the color of a summer sunrise that promised a day full of life and possibility. He had watched Yuugi fall in love with the spirit inside himself—a different kind of love, he supposed, but deep and rich in its own right. The love between them had been a lower, darker shade, something he had to squint closely at to distinguish from black, but as warm and solid as smoldering coals. He wanted to ask, wanted to know, what it felt like to let the ground dissolve under your feet, to let your love color the world, knowing that nothing would ever again look quite the same—not quite the way it was intended to look—but infinitely more beautiful.

He imagined that was what falling in love felt like.

That was not how it had it felt to him.

Jounouchi still had not grown accustomed to the dry air of California. Even surrounded by sea, the air seemed thin, rough, and empty—especially at night when the winds picked up. And all the dirt. And dark. Pegasus' island, he had decided, had to be the darkest place he had been since the womb. And at least in the womb there hadn't been anyone hiding in the shadows waiting to rob him of his star chips.

The darkness did offer some nice advantages, though. Jounouchi had been gathering firewood for half an hour, and had spent nearly half that time gazing up at the lush milky carpet of stars. He had never realized that his sky was so bare—that there was so much more to be seen, so many more stories to be told. He was soaring through the world of Achilles and Orion, swimming in a heavenly cityscape of gold and silver.

He didn't notice that he had been followed until he was slammed chest first into a tree.

"Where is he?!" A cold, savage voice heaved down the back of his neck. The barrel of a gun was shoved under his chin, pointing directly into his skull.

"I don't know what you're talking about I just—"

"Where is he?!" He was shoved again, though with slightly less force than before.

"I don't know who you're talking—"

"Bullshit! Mokuba! Kaiba Mokuba! I know your boss has him. Take me there. Now! Or I'll blow your fucking brains out!"

Jounouchi began to struggle against his captor in earnest. "Whoa, man! I don't know what you're talking about! I don't work for Pegasus!"

Jounouchi was surprised, and somewhat disappointed, by how easy it was to free himself from the intruder's grasp. He had certainly been caught off guard, but once the initial shock wore off, the grip that clenched him was remarkably light, the body that wielded it thin, frail, and timorous. It didn't take him much effort to send the man spiraling towards the ground.

"Hah! That'll show you for sneaking up on me," he announced as he turned to face his assailant, whom he had rendered a crumpled, dark, heaving mess on the ground. "Wanna face me like a man, punk?"

"I can imagine no greater indignity," the creature muttered as it staggered to its feet, supporting the majority of its weight on low-hanging branches.

"Big words coming from a guy who can barely stand."

"I can stand, idiot," the voice groaned between labored breaths.

A wave of nausea suddenly struck him. He knew the owner of that voice. There was only one person he knew who could be so repulsively proud while rendered so utterly helpless.

"Kaiba..?" He asked, not sure if he should take a tentative step forward or go sprinting in the opposite direction. "But you—you're supposed to be dead!"

"I'm aware."

Once Jounouchi knew what he was supposed to see, the dark and indistinct shapes of his anonymous assailant resolved easily into the thin, flailing limbs of Seto Kaiba.

Kaiba looked like he had just crawled out of the jaws of death. His arms and legs trembled violently, his chest fluttered and his breath was ragged, thick, and sour. His cheeks were hollowed, skin wan and coated in a thick film of sweat. His scalp, once wreathed in hair that Jounouchi had thought a particularly ridiculous shade of brilliant lime green, now reflected the blistering rays of the moon and the gentle sparkle of the stars. He seemed to be swimming in his own clothes. A hospital tag dangled from his wrist.

The gun was still pointed at Jounouchi's chest, directly at his blustering heart.

Kaiba stumbled forward, inhaling sharply with every step. "You." He seethed as he squinted into Jounouchi's face. "Of course, it had to be you, make-inu," he growled.

"Hey, I'm not too excited to see you, either!" Jounouchi retorted. "You're lucky I don't make those things they printed about you in the papers come true."

Kaiba scoffed. "Why don't you, then?"

It was then that Jounouchi saw his eyes. The eyes that were holding his body together through sheer force of will. The eyes that would not close and would not rest until they met Mokuba's again. The eyes that had laughed through Armageddon but cried at the abrupt ending of a beautiful dream.

With every word and every gesture Kaiba shoved Jounouchi away, but his eyes seemed to plead for something that their owner could not articulate and refused to acknowledge In his eyes Jounouchi saw the one expression that he never would have imagined Kaiba capable of possessing.

Fear, all-encompassing and absolute. The fear that had drowned Jounouchi's heart the day Shizuka moved away, the day his father had bolted the shudders and decided to drink his own darkness, the first day he woke up in the hospital.

The realization flooded Jounouchi with a feeling that was too bitter to be love, too soft to be hate, and too cold to be desire. But the three fleeting, almost half feelings, cobbled out of themselves something that was somehow all three and nothing at all.

"Jou-kun! Is everything alright? We heard yelling." Yuugi, Anzu, and Bakura rushed into the clearing, eyes wide with fear.

"I told you we shouldn't have split up. It's way too dangerous to be wandering around here alone."

"Guys, relax—I'm fine." Jounouchi tried to chuckle but struggled to find his voice.

"What happened—" Yuugi took a step forward and froze. "Kaiba…?" His voice trembled but his face flooded with relief, and for a moment it looked that Yuugi might rush forward to embrace him. "You're alive!"

"It would appear so."

"Oh—Oh that's so good!" He effused, chest rising in the triumph of absolution.

"Don't get carried away," Jounouchi grumpled. "He's the same murderous asshole as always."

"I have your deck." Yuugi fumbled in his pocket and approached Kaiba tentatively, as if afraid that he would dissolve into pixelated dust like one of his digitally-rendered duel monsters. "I guess I have you to thank for helping me out in that duel back there."

"It was trivial," Kaiba grunted, struggling to keep his fingers from trembling as he slipped his deck back into his pocket. "I'll be expecting a call from your lawyer."

"Huh? Why? I don't think I have one…"

"I imagine you want to seek restitution for the damages suffered by you and your," he gestured towards Jounouchi, Anzu, and Bakura, "friends."

"I don't care about those things, Kaiba-kun. I'm just glad to see that you're alive!" Yuugi ignored Jounouchi's irritated grunt and Anzu's indignant glare as he continued. "You're heading towards Pegasus' castle too, right? You should stay with us! Though you'll need some star chips, of course…"

Kaiba scoffed and bristled. "I'm not interested in competing in your little tournament. And I'm not going to waste my time dueling a bunch of amateurs before I get to Pegasus. Have fun with your games."

"That's not fair!" Anzu protested as he turned to leave. "This is about more than a game for Yuugi and Jounouchi, too. You're not the only one who thinks that they have something worth fighting for. And—and Yuugi has been a mess of grief—"

"Yuugi's emotions are not my responsibility."

"You let him go for weeks thinking that he had killed you!"

"He did." Jounouchi was the only one close enough to Kaiba to see how he swayed slightly as he spoke. He wondered how much it would take to knock him over. "You think your reasons for fighting matter? That the honor of your cause compels your victory?" He sneered. "Allow me to enlighten you: Good intentions are worth nothing if you don't have the talent to actualize them. Victory isn't awarded according to who can garner the most sympathy.

And if you expect any part of this tournament to be fair then you don't know Pegasus at all. He's not just an expert at duel monsters, he created it. He designed the entire system and he engineered it to give himself every possible advantage. He shows no remorse, no mercy, and he certainly isn't fair. Clinging to those pitiful illusions will only hold you back."

Kaiba's voice had regained its strength, but his eyes were wide, and even burrowed in his pockets his hands were visibly shaking.

"Just give it a rest, rich-boy," Jounouchi snapped. "You're clearly not in a position to go wandering around the woods by yourself in the middle of the night, so just swallow your pride for the night and we'll help you find your brother in the morning."

Kaiba's face turned—if possible—a shade paler. He rounded on Jounouchi sharply, nearly stumbling over his feet and collapsing against him in the process. "I don't recall asking for your advice, make-inu," he hissed, then laughed—a low, velvety ruffle that made Jounouchi's ears burn. "Don't tell me that you're a competitor in this tournament. Well, Pegasus may be the expert on duel monsters, but clearly his ability to identify talented duelists leaves much to be desired. I can't believe he would be so desperate for participants that he would stoop to inviting the most pathetic creature on the face of the planet."

Jounouchi snarled. "Oh yeah? You wanna face me and see for yourself how pathetic I am?"

Kaiba smirked as much as he could under his grimace. "I'd love to, but it's unnecessary. Your worthlessness is written all over your face."

Jounouchi rushed at him, though whether it was to embrace or destroy him he couldn't be sure. Kaiba barely managed to step out his path, causing Jounouchi to go sprawling across the forest floor. The last glimpse Jounouchi had caught of him, he had been smirking down on him, leaning heavily against a tree, his veneer of smugness doing a poor job of concealing the mounting anxiety that cast his features in a sharp, grisly radiance.

"You're pathetic," someone had said. He wasn't sure who.

Over time, the wretched embarrassment of the memory had faded, but the confluence of emotions it had created in him remained. From the inky forests of Duelist Kingdom to the sprawling desert sands of ancient Egypt, those feelings had ridden with him like a parasite, lurking just underneath the surface of his skin, never fully existing but never going away. He had taken them out occasionally, when there had been a quiet moment in between battles, as stealthily as if he were a thief rifling through the contents of his own mind. He replayed the scene with the same sweet, shameful pleasure with which he tried to sneak peeks under the girls' skirts at school or on the bus, the same ravenous hunger that inundated him when he poured over car catalogs and restaurant menus, the same tender pain that pierced him when he looked at his sister's photograph.

That had been the state of things until their final day in Egypt, when Jounouchi had seen that look again. For the first time since their arrival the sky had been clear. The world felt blazing and painfully bright, as if it had been stripped of all its shadows.

Kaiba's countenance had been stern and stoic, but as they watched the coronation of his namesake, his eyes burned with a defiant, hollow helplessness that pulled a trigger in Jounouchi's heart. The wall he had built around his artless, undeveloped feelings began to crumble—freeing them to chase each other around the inside of his skull. What had once been a trickle was suddenly a tsunami, bearing down upon and preparing to destroy him with the force of a single, mesmerizing, abhorrent thought: the only thing that now stood between him and the object of this desire was its own infuriating stubbornness and sense of agency.

A/N:

Many thank you's to those who reviewed the previous chapter. As I said in my response to one commentator, this is the first time I've attempted to write a true multi-chapter, continuous story, and constructive criticism is very valuable to me. If you have any thoughts about how things are progressing so far, please do not hesitate to share them : )

The title for this chapter comes from the song Elastic Heart by Sia