Warning: Violence, knives, and brief mention of a car crash.
Some weird people had been hanging around outside their school gate. They changed, from day to day, but they all looked more or less the same - too young to be parents, and wiry and angry, and they would comb their stares through the crowd of students that passed them morning and night as though hunting for somebody. Kaiba wasn't an idiot - they'd started showing up just about at the same time as Jounouchi had disappeared, and so it made sense that they were looking for him. Jounouchi had been missing for nearly a month, but they hadn't let up, despite the fact that he evidently didn't show his face here any more.
Kaiba missed him. Kaiba missed him so much that he was even less able to sleep than normal, and he'd stare at Jounouchi's empty seat in class for the whole day without taking in a single word that his teachers were saying, and he'd stare out of his study window at night for hours as though he were expecting to see a sudden blonde-haired tough guy emerge out of the darkness. He'd tried to go looking for Jounouchi; he'd sent his carer's staff to hunt him down, but each time they'd all returned empty-handed and increasingly hopeless.
Jounouchi's friends had been equally useless - apparently Jounouchi "always" pulled disappearing acts, and it was best to "just sit tight" and hope that he'd come around again. Kaiba found it strange how he'd gone from being indifferent towards and a little jealous of Jounouchi, to being the only person in the world who seemed to actually give a shit about him. He'd even gone to the police and given them a description of him, but Kaiba hadn't seen even a shadow of an indication that the police force were actually making an effort to find him. Why were people so happy to let Jounouchi fall through the cracks?
Now Kaiba was awake at around half one on a Wednesday morning, bristling over the desk in his study and lurking in the lowlight that the moon cast through the huge window opposite him. He was the most powerful eighteen year old in the city, and he was used to getting what he wanted, and fast. Now all he wanted was to know that Jounouchi was safe, but nobody had heard from him in weeks. He might not even have been alive at all, and it was fraying Kaiba's mind at the seams.
His hands were clasped on the desk in front of him, atop a mess of scattered papers and schoolwork, and he stared listlessly out of the window, down at the garden below. In the distance he could see the river snaking through, and he remembered how Jounouchi had loved to lie by it and stretch out like a contented cat. He knew now that he should've made his move while he still could, to keep Jounouchi safe… to let him know that he cared.
He cared. It was such a terrifying thing, to care about somebody. He'd only ever been warm to Mokuba, who he knew would never leave him, and now to care for somebody else felt as though he were rolling over to reveal his vulnerable parts and hinging on a perhaps unwise trust that he wouldn't get hurt. But he wasn't a fool. He couldn't attribute all of his feelings for Jounouchi to simply 'caring about him'.
"Big brother, was that Jounouchi your friend?"
"Yes… a friend."
"Is that… all?"
Even Mokuba had noticed.
Suddenly the phone rang, and Kaiba jumped, then slammed his hand down on the receiver faster than he'd ever moved in his life.
Calm down.
"Kaiba residence, Seto speaking," Kaiba said dully. The other line was silent.
They sat in quiet for another few minutes. Kaiba could hear the other person breathing, which was a little creepy.
"Can I help you?" he eventually said.
"I fucking miss you, man," Jounouchi said back, familiar even through the crackle. Kaiba's eyes widened.
"Jounouchi? Where are you? Are you safe?"
Jounouchi laughed gruffly, and it was possibly the most relieving thing Kaiba had ever heard.
"I'm alright, don't worry," he said, but Kaiba wasn't satisfied.
"But where are you?"
"Listen, don't worry about that -"
"Why did you call me?" he interrupted, but he already knew he wasn't going to get a straight answer - Jounouchi wasn't the kind to admit that he needed help, and it was frustrating.
"Well… I just wanted to… hear you. You know. I'm glad you're still awake."
"Are you staying with someone? Where are you?"
"I'm on my own - I don't want you to come looking for me, I'm safe where I'm at," Jounouchi said back. Kaiba withheld a sigh. Jounouchi's definition of safe was… interesting.
"What happened? Have you run away?"
"If I tell you, you're just gonna worry about me," Jounouchi joked, and Kaiba smirked.
"Don't flatter yourself," he shot back, but it was more than obvious he wasn't being serious.
"You know it's true!"
Of course it was true.
"There have been people looking for you, you know. They're staking out the gates at school," Kaiba said. A brief pause followed.
"I can't come back, Kaiba," Jounouchi said, but Kaiba had already guessed that much.
"Are you in trouble?"
"Stop worrying about me!"
"Jounouchi, I'm not kidding around here," Kaiba snapped - as quietly as possible, to avoid waking anyone. "Do you need help?"
"I'm doing alright for now. Don't worry about me," Jounouchi replied, and there was a weird softness in his voice. Kaiba didn't like people trying to reassure him.
"If you need me, you can always call," Kaiba said, resigned. Jounouchi would never ask for his help.
"I know. But I already owe you."
"You don't owe me anything. Are you sure you're okay?" Kaiba pushed.
"I'm fine, really."
"You say that a lot, Jounouchi, but it never seems to actually be true," Kaiba said shortly, and Jounouchi went quiet for a second. Kaiba could just about pick out the sound of a car pulling up where Jounouchi was.
"Jounouchi?"
"Uh, I gotta go, I'll talk to you later -"
The line went dead, beeping in his ear. Defeated, Kaiba slumped forwards onto his desk.
"Damn it," he choked, and then jabbed the number for call return, shaking as he held the receiver to his ear again.
Last call ended at 01:47. Unable to retrieve incoming number. Unable to place a call back.
Kaiba slammed down the phone, and held his head in his hands.
Jounouchi thumped down the receiver so fast that he accidentally punched the side of the telephone booth, painfully cracking all of his knuckles. Hand stinging, he burst out of the booth and took off running down the street, footsteps pounding desperately against the pavement. There was no use running from a car though, and he could see even now that he was well within the unearthly glow of its headlights - he took a quick right down an alley and kept running, kicking over trashcans to deter anyone who might be following them. He heard a car door slam. Someone shouted something and now there were people hot on his tail.
They're going to kill me.
He didn't want to die. His heart beat so fast that it was hammering against his ribcage, like it wanted to break out; his lungs were burning but he couldn't stop so he kept taking deep and desperate breaths and didn't stop running even as his stomach lurched and he felt sick. There were heavy footsteps after him and ragged breaths that weren't his own - don't stop, don't stop. His burning legs carried him on through another alleyway, past someone's garden fence; a light flicked on in the house but he'd already long gone, cutting across a kids' playground.
He could hear footsteps behind him even as he approached the outskirts of the village, where his feet took him unthinkingly over paving stones and out onto an open road. He was on autopilot, and the mission was to survive.
"You can't run forever, kid!" someone hollered after him, and this steeled his resolve. He could if he had to; he swung left, then, sprinting across the road in the path of an oncoming car. It swerved violently, ploughing into one of the people who were after him with a sickening crunch, but he didn't have time to stop or care as he vanished into scrubby woodland at the side of the road.
As he sprinted through the trees he grabbed the iron pipe from his satchel - good thing he'd had the presence of mind to bring it - and held it firm in his right hand. How had they found him? They must've known he'd travel by foot and so wouldn't have been able to go far. Damn it. It was quieter here in the forest, too late for even the birds to be singing, and the only sound was his desperate panting and frantic footfalls splashing through the murk. The moonlight rippled over his skin, shattered by the tangle of branches that looked infinitely more sinister at night than they ever had during the day.
Now his pursuers had caught up to him again, and he was really, really in trouble. He dared to throw his gaze over his shoulder for half a second - two men, neither of them had guns, but they were both bigger than him. He nimbly dodged a tree, managing to avoid running into it at the last second, and dived down a slippery slope, tumbling for some thirty feet into a brook at the bottom. He leapt from it like a spooked bird and kept up running, but within minutes they were on him again… his legs were cramping. He couldn't go on. He'd have to stand and fight.
He whipped around, scowling and panting, flooding his burning lungs with precious painful air. The two that were after him were approaching him slowly; they were in a forest clearing, and the moon stared down on them, a vicarious observer.
"What's say - we - get this - over with," Jounouchi struggled, holding a stitch in his side with his left hand. His other hand tightened its grip on the iron pipe as he eyed up the two men. No guns… but now they were both holding flick knives. Fuck. Fuck.
"You're a good runner, kid," the guy on the left said, stepping forward, blade-first.
"Thanks," Jounouchi spat, eyeing them both. "What do you want?"
"You dead, mostly," the other guy said, and Jounouchi nodded.
"You're - not - the first," he replied, with a sick and twisted grin at them. If they thought he'd be an easy target, they were stupid and wrong - Jounouchi had fended off guys twice his size, people with machetes, and he'd grown up on learning to avoid his own father. He was wiry, lean and merciless. He swung the pipe dangerously in front of him, leaning forwards onto the balls of his feet.
"Remember Kenshin?" one of them said, and Jounouchi shook his head. "He's the guy you and Matsuo murdered, you heartless bastard. Did you know you made his kid an orphan?"
Jounouchi snorted. "Did you know he beat his kid?"
Neither of them had anything to say to this; the three of them stood still in the moonlight, like three ferocious beasts bristling before a face off. Jounouchi kept his eye trained firmly on the blade of the guy closest to him - he was fucking terrified of knives, ever since his dad had nearly sliced him open with a kitchen knife. Suddenly he remembered that Kaiba had seen that scar, and he felt a lump rise in his throat. He couldn't die. He had unfinished business with Kaiba… things he still had to say.
One of the guys sprinted at him and Jounouchi swung the pipe like a baseball bat, expertly undercutting him right in his twisted face. Three of his teeth shattered and before the guy could react, Jounouchi lifted the pipe above his head and swung it down hard; it cracked hard against the guy's skull and left him unconscious, sprawled on the ground… but he didn't have time to react effectively to the knife that suddenly hurtled towards him.
He managed to throw his arm between the knife and his abdomen, and was rewarded with an excruciatingly painful gash up his forearm as the knife ripped right through his jacket. Jounouchi clutched the pipe a little harder in his spurting fist and thwacked it against the guy's kneecap, the momentum and force breaking it on impact. The guy gave a howl of pain and too collapsed; Jounouchi booted him hard in the side of the head and he was then silent.
Get the fuck out of here.
Still clutching the pipe, Jounouchi took off running.