Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh.
Title: Endearment and Enmity
Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall
Summary: When you're literally married to the person you despise.
Warnings: Homosexual relationships, vulgar words and adult situations.
Author's Note: I don't know why I wrote this.
Chapter 23: Scars
"Too bad you didn't drink a little more, maybe then you could have at least blacked out."
Jonouchi woke up with a gasp and a pounding heart, sitting up fast and rapidly flailing his arms around as if to fight a long-gone threat. His awareness come back to him when his arms were grabbed at the wrists to stop his movements.
"Calm down." Seto told him simply, still holding his wrists to stop him from hitting anything.
Jonouchi took in a deep inhale and long exhale "I'm calm." He promised; the CEO's eyes bored into his own for confirmation, before releasing him. Jonouchi placed his arms down on his lap and looked around; they were at the hotel room that Seto had reserved for their anniversary "What happened?"
"A business associate of mine attempted to pressure you into drinking," Seto began, and Jonouchi felt his skin prick as he started the remember "then he spilled a drink on you, and you had a bizarre episode."
"..." Jonouchi looked down at his hands.
"You remember, don't you?"
"I..." His memory cut off when the absinthe had spilled, but he had a pretty good idea what happened afterwards. Nothing in the world triggered him the same way the stench of absinthe did, just thinking about it made him grip the blanket over his lap to keep him tethered to reality.
"This isn't going to be a painless talk," Seto told him, but his voice was soft as he did; he stayed firmly seated on the chair next to the bed "but before you could hurt anyone, Honda managed to subdue you."
Jonouchi nodded.
"And then he told me why."
Jonouchi could almost feel the pallor in his face; he looked away and in return Seto shoved a bottle of water into one of his hands. At this point, Seto knew that gulping liquid down was one of his biggest nervous/anxious habits. Without saying anything he popped the lid off and swallowed at least half of the water in one swig.
"Y-yeah my dad was a real bad drunk and-"
"And so were you." Seto wasn't going to entertain his tendency to deflect this time.
Jonouchi gritted his teeth in remembrance. That was something none of his friends but Honda knew, how back in the day he had been on a path to become the same type of monster his father was. He couldn't confirm out loud, so he just nodded his head ever so slightly.
"And he told me… something traumatic happened, the very last time that you drank." Even the gentleness in Seto's tone couldn't stop the memories Jonouchi was trying so desperately to keep away from flooding into his brain.
"I-I think I should head home..."
"Oh come on Jonouchi, it was just four shots. It's a party! Besides, what do you really have to go home to anyways?"
He took in a deep drink of water to stop the memory from continuing. His heart was racing again, and he could feel his chest twisting in a mixture of pain and sorrow.
"What did he tell you, exactly?" Jonouchi asked, much more sombre. Honda and himself had never talked about what happened that night, but he did know that Honda had always at least suspected what Hirutani had done.
Seto said nothing, and his silence was enough of an answer for Jonouchi.
"Did he tell you Hirutani got me drunk one night?"
"Yes."
His vision was getting a little blurry now, but he managed to focus on a strange bottle Hirutani had pulled out. And when he popped the top of the bottle off, Jonouchi squished his nose at the cloyingly sweet smell that came from it "Urgh, what is that?"
"It's called absinthe. It'll get you fucked up. Now pick up that shot glass, we're not done here."
Jonouchi polished off the little that remained in the bottle and tossed the plastic bottle into the nearby trash can. "He did, get me drunk I mean. I didn't think too much of it, other than that the whole gang was there, and I was the most junior person there. It felt good at first, I thought I was so cool, a grown up. Should have known how dumb I really was, because they- the gang, they sure as hell did."
"You weren't being dumb." Jonouchi almost glared over at the nearly monotoned attempt at consoling from Seto, but the brunet continued "Don't give me that look; you were young and you didn't know any better."
Why was Kaiba trying to be the voice of solace? Didn't he know that Jonouchi had been trying to tell himself that for years and it was all for naught?
Seto continued "Just because you made a mistake, it doesn't justify someone else hurting you."
"And what would you know about that?" Jonouchi snapped - the dark flash across his spouse's eyes made him regret that retort right away.
Seto stood up from his chair.
"Seto, I didn't-" Jonouchi started, but stopped mid-sentence when Seto unbuttoned and tossed off his shirt in a few rapid, but fluid motions. Jonouchi's heart dropped when he saw the state of the brunet's chest, it was littered with scars. They were smooth, and they were thin, but they were numerous. There wasn't a single inch of skin on his torso that didn't have scars.
And Jonouchi, with his medical knowledge and experience, recognized it as superficial scarring; the type of wounds that had caused them weren't enough to cause heavy bleeding or damage the underlying tissue, but enough to cause a lot of pain at the time. It was very reminiscent of the idea of death by a thousand cuts, except the intention had been suffering instead of death.
For a second, they just stared at each other. Seto's gaze was mostly blank like it usually was, but there was an almost reservedness to his expression, Jonouchi's mouth was twitching downward, he knew the last thing his spouse wanted was pity, but he couldn't help feeling it.
"I didn't go through exactly what you did, but I do know what it's like to be harmed by someone you thought you could trust." Seto told him simply, but seriously.
Jonouchi's mouth went dry as he found himself unable to come up with a verbal response. He had scars too, mostly on his arms and back both from his gang past and abusive father. He even had a prominent one on the back of his head from the one time he didn't dodge a bottle his father threw at him in time; it was because of this scar that even as an adult, he kept his hair as a mop.
Shakily, Jonouchi got off of the bed, standing at about an arm's length from Seto now, having to wretch his eyes up from the scars to Seto's face. "I'm sorry..." He said, his voice choked.
"You didn't do this." Seto explained, his own eyes dropping down to look over the scars across his chest. "We didn't go through the same things, Katsuya, I don't know exactly what you went through, and you don't know everything I did; but you can't pretend I'm ignorant."
"I don't think you're ignorant." Jonouchi tried to excuse, putting his hands up defensively "It's just… I was fucked up before we even met."
"So was I."
"I know..." Jonouchi sighed, meeting his eyes sadly. A few tears started building in his own brown ones "Every day I try to ignore it, because it's in the past, it isn't me anymore. Everything that happened… it ended years ago. There's no going back from here. And I know that, and I thought that the only thing standing in my way was time to heal. But I've accomplished almost everything I've set out to do, my life is… it's fine now. Everything is okay now."
Jonouchi felt like he was rambling at this point, but Seto kept silently nodding along to indicate he was listening.
"It's just that… I'll be minding my own business, nothing will be happening, I'll get the briefest moment of peace, of time to reflect. And the minute I'm left alone to my thoughts, my mind goes back to then. I can't forget what happened, and no matter what I hear about past trauma, no matter how much I try to convince myself I'm past it, I'm just not over it. And it pisses me off because I always hear how much time heals… but it really doesn't, does it?"
Seto waited a moment to make sure he was done "Healing isn't supposed to mean you forget about what happened," he started "just that you accept it, and move on with your life."
"And you did?"
Seto's eyes almost seemed to dull for a brief moment "I never did." He informed him flatly, there was sad edge to his words. "Not a day goes by when I don't think about what Gozaburo put my brother and myself through. That I don't remember how close I was to being just as much, if not more, of a monster as him. I know what you mean when you say you feel like you're not over it."
A hush fell across them.
Some tears managed to snake their way down to curve of Jonouchi's cheek, and when he felt one drip off of his jaw, a contradictory smile twitched his lips up. It was sad and bitter smile, one of resignation. "Oh, Seto," he said, with a slight hiccup as he closed the distance between him and his spouse to wrap his arms over him a tight embrace, hiding his face against the other man's bare shoulder "you seem to always know what I need to hear, even while still confusing the hell out of me." He said.
He felt Seto's arms wrap around him to return the embrace. It should have been awkward since the brunet wasn't wearing a shirt, but it was surprisingly natural for the subdued atmosphere.
"Both of us were just fucked up kids, weren't we…?" Jonouchi remarked, looking up slightly from Seto's shoulder to gaze unfocused to the wall. "Now we're just normal, functioning adults trying to ignore the skeletons in the closet."
Seto nodded.
"I don't think I'm ready to unpack that closet though..." He trailed off, pulling away from his spouse and picking up the discarded shirt to hand to him.
"We don't have to," Seto replied, slipping his arms through the sleeves "that doesn't mean we can't dust off the skeletons."
"You're really confusing sometimes, Seto."
"But, is it what you needed to hear?"
"Somehow..."
In a shadow cast by a bright, but otherwise unremarkable soul, the figure of a boy was huddled up, hugging his knees. The boy was young, fourteen at least, and fifteen at most, his hair was blonde and shaggy, with the hair at the back of his head soaked in blood and running sluggishly down his neck, and he wore a shabby black middle school uniform. He had some cuts and scrapes on both his uniform and his skin, with his knuckles and palms in particular wrapped in bandages not unlike a boxer or avid weightlifter.
He wasn't all that was encased in the shadow, he sat alone in what appeared to be a mostly empty alley, surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol scattered about, a messy pile of poker cards and chips, some tangled yo-yo's, and a broken picture frame containing a photo of a family of four that was split in the middle.
He looked up when the light changed; another soul nearby; it too was bright, but there was something different about it, it looked new on a surface level but it was also somewhat battered. It was an old soul, one that had been through many lives and era's in time, experiencing all of life's hardships and joys, yet continuing to perpetuate through reincarnation after reincarnation.
The shadow this soul cast was expansive, and dark, and the boy could barely make out what he saw strewn about the darkness.
Compared to his own dark space, this space was much more orderly and neat. It appeared to be a bedroom, or study of sorts. There was a shelf containing a set of seemingly unrelated, but still neatly placed objects; a golden scepter placed horizontally on a holder like a decorative sword, a pyramid shaped pendant on a golden chain hanging off of a necklace stand, two halves of a broken figurine of a dragon with glowing blue eyes, and a chess game that was seemingly frozen at the end.
There was a bed, almost untouched with how neatly made it was. Next to the bed there was an empty wheelchair. There were couches that appeared more used, and a table that was a little less organized than the rest of the room; there was a Capsule Monster Chess game with splatters of red blood on the board and the pieces, and a strange puppet in the shape of a brown-haired human.
The boy rubbed his eyes as he stood up from his position, looking curiously at the dark room, considering if he should approach or not.
He cautiously walked to where the two shadows overlapped.
In the darkness he could make out another shape; another boy approaching him.
This boy was around the same late-middle-school age, wearing a similar school uniform except it was white. His hair was brown and neatly styled, his eyes were blue, but very dull and tired, as he had dark circles under his eyes that were unusual for someone so young, as if he hadn't slept in days.
Uncomfortably, he had what appeared to be a dog collar around his neck, and his white uniform did nothing but accentuate the thin red gashes that appeared to be faintly bleeding through.
The two looked at each other; they didn't need words to know right away what they had in common.
"Did someone hurt you too?" The blond boy asked, rubbing the back of his blood-matted hair, smearing the bandages wrapped around his knuckles in the process.
Mutely, the brown haired boy nodded, looking down slightly at him with those tired, blank blue eyes.
"Did you hurt other people too?"
There was hesitation, but the brunet nodded. The blond sniffed, and looked up, slowly, he pointed up to the two souls whose very light had created them, but also rejected them.
"Are you the unwanted part too?" He asked.
Finally, the brunet spoke up "Yes..." He replied, his voice was sad. His voice was as young, scared and inexperienced as his own.
Sniffling again, the blond boy crouched down until he was sitting, and turned his back to the other boy, facing his own dark alleyway. "My father hurts me, and my mother hurts me, and Hirutani hurts me..." He trailed off, straightening his back more when the felt the other boy mirror his movements, until the two were sitting back-to-back, leaning on each other. "I think, though, mostly I hurt me..."
"I thought I what I did would help me and my brother," the brunet replied vaguely "but I sold us out to a monster. And I became a monster, too. And… I didn't care that I was a monster." There was a slight sniffle, but it was so quiet it could barely be heard "Sometimes, I wonder if I can really feel, or if I just think that I do..."
Bitterly, the blond boy chuckled "I feel too much, and you feel too little… that's funny, isn't it?"
Monotone, the other boy replied "Ironic, is the word you're thinking of." As he stared out into the shadow of his soul room.
The blond boy continued leaning against the other boy, but placed one hand to the ground for additional support.
Some time passed, could have been minutes, could have been days or months or years, time was a much more nebulous concept when it came to souls, but eventually the blond punk felt the other boy place his own hand over his, and interlace their fingers slightly, best he could when they were facing opposite directions.
The blond smiled.
"Do you want to talk about it?" The brunet asked.
"Not all at once..."
The brunet looked up at the soul that initiated the shadow of which he existed in "We have time."
To be continued…
Authors note: Well that was something… *Ahem* So here we have again, a lot to unpack here. Mostly in Jonouchi and Kaiba's approach to their respective traumas.
Jonouchi took all of his trauma and shut it into a dark corner of his mind, trying to pretend none of it even happened. If you remember, Jonouchi was originally a bully even after he stopped involving himself with gangs, but then seemingly abandoned this persona as soon as he befriended Yugi. Kaiba, on the other hand, once let his trauma consume him, and he at one point almost became his tormentor (i.e. Gozaburo) and to this day has the tendency to flagrantly disregard other people.
Basically; Jonouchi has the tendency to 'forget' the past ever happened, Kaiba has the tendency to live in the past.
Neither of these methods are healthy, obviously, but maybe together they can find a way to heal. Maybe ground each other more into the present
And that leads to the thing about the 'souls' and the shadows of the souls. You can take this scene as you want, but it isn't a real, tangible, event like with millenium items and soul rooms. It's more of a symbolic thing, the shadows being the parts of themselves that give them the most shame, along with the places and items that bring them the most shame. However, they've essentially abandoned their younger selves, who they see as the shameful versions of themselves.