The laboratory was another bleached room. White tiles, steel tables, white-seated steel stools. It was windowless and huge, low-ceilinged, crammed with projects either sleeping or abandoned. One table over-spilled with wires and circuit boards, another housed a scale model of a plane with wings like the Blue Eyes, another was coated in blueprints. On the other side of the room were chemical projects: messes of tubes, beakers, microscopes, weird heavy machines whose purpose was alien to Jounouchi. He stopped to examine the model plane and twanged its plastic tail fin. It echoed loud and satisfying in the long room. He did it again.

'Everything in here is confidential,' said Kaiba. He was already halfway to a desk. 'I would have you sign an NDA but it's not as if you have any idea what you're looking at.'

Jounouchi realised he had bent the tail fin and tried to bend it back. 'I know this plane is probably made of shitty mid range polyethylene instead of some decent polypropylene.'

Kaiba looked over, surprised, and then washed the expression away and seated himself at the desk. 'The material with which we make our concept models is hardly high stakes information.'

'It still makes it look like you have low standards for your products.' The fin snapped off. Jounouchi shrugged and balanced it awkwardly atop the plane's body.

'Try not to break anything else while I'm working.' Kaiba was busying himself doing something complicated and boring with a pipette, slides, small beakers, and a microscope. Jounouchi glanced about for something to do. The whole room looked like a rocket ship and he felt so much like he had wandered abruptly into a science fiction film that he could almost forget why he was here.

'Hey Kaiba, what's your WiFi password?'

Kaiba did not look up from the microscope. 'kc793gpo190, no capitals.'

'Wow, that's real catchy and memorable.' Jounouchi swivelled on his stool as he input the characters. He glanced up at Kaiba, back to his phone, and then on a whim searched wiki kaiba seto. 'You ever read your wikipedia article, Kaiba?'

There was a pause that suggested Kaiba was far more engrossed in putting small amounts of cocaine onto slides than he ever could be in Jounouchi. 'No.'

Jounouchi began to skim read. 'Kaiba Seto is a Japanese business magnate, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. He is the CEO of Kaiba Corporation and its subsidiary bodies. Forbes magazine estimated his net worth as...' Jounouchi indulged in a false, exaggerated yawn that only he was party to and scrolled down. 'Early life. Kaiba was adopted at age ten, along with his younger brother Kaiba Mokuba, by then-CEO of Kaiba Corporation, Kaiba Gozaburo.' The name was highlighted as a link.

"Kaiba Gozaburo" didn't mean a great deal to Jounouchi. He thought back to what Sugata had said about CEOs committing suicide. That was what had happened to Kaiba Gozaburo, right? Just before they first got to know Kaiba. There was a weird contradiction, Jounouchi felt, between one's social tie to the parent of a schoolmate and to a corporate celebrity. Like most kids, Jounouchi didn't know much about his classmates' parents outside of those of his immediate circle. He knew Yuugi's mother and Honda's family, but not Anzu's because she had never invited them to her house. No boys allowed, came the phantom rule of a mother he'd never met. He had imagined Anzu Sr as a strict, prim woman in grey cardigans and ankle-length skirts, a small silver Christian cross in the hollow of her throat. What did Kaiba Gozaburo mean to him?

The guy had to be an asshole, that much was certain. Mokuba and Seto had both made little secret of their dislike of him. Jounouchi felt his way around the associations he had with the name. Some rich powerful old asshole in a suit. In his mind he gave the ghost parent small round glasses and cutting cheek bones, a thin body in a grey pinstripe suit, a black tie tight beneath the chin. The conjuration was somewhere between a dentist and a vampire. This seemed right. Someone kind of like Kaiba, but older and grey and sallow and emptier. The fragments of his imagination continually flashed silver as though someone were holding a scalpel.

Jounouchi clicked the link.

The photo was sort of what he expected, sort of not. It was a publicity still. The man was posed serenely in an oxblood leather chair, his legs crossed, his expression mild. He wasn't the kind of man who smiled for photos, Jounouchi could tell; this mildness was the best it would get. The broadness of his jaw and shoulders advertised authority, and the cut of his sideburns and moustache spoke of the deliberate cultivation of that aesthetic. The man was built solid and cold, like a prison. He was no Takeda.

Out of some strange childish idleness, Jounouchi wondered what it would be like to see this man and his own father fight it out. His dad had brawled plenty and this man probably spent his days sedentary and bored, but Jounouchi still knew - with a strange twinge of embarrassment - that his dad would get knocked down into the dirt. When his dad beat up on him in the later years, Jounouchi let him do it out of embarrassment more than anything else. He could have stopped him. It didn't hurt any more. But that was all the power his dad had in the world, it seemed, and Jounouchi had had so much pity for him in those last few years when he started to lose his teeth and would piss himself in public...

He shook off this train of thought. It was stupid. He wasn't a kid any more. He looked up to Kaiba, feeling oddly guilty for entertaining those thoughts and wondering if Kaiba could somehow tell, but he seemed totally immersed whatever was on the other end of the microscope.

Jounouchi looked back to the screen. The link glowed, tempting him with knowledge that Kaiba probably didn't want him to have. Jounouchi pressed it.

The article was long. 1. Early life 2. Military career 2.1 Rise 2.2. September coup 2.3. Controversy 3. Life in China 4. Kaiba Corporation... and so 's eyes glazed over all the sub-headings beneath that one, some of them comprehensible (Founding, International expansion), others less so (Gulf war profiteering, Accusations of insider trading). He scrolled aimlessly until he reached Death.

The paragraph was short and heavily referenced.

On August 23rd, Kaiba jumped from the 78th floor of the Kaiba Corporation headquarters. There were eleven witnesses, including the then-fifteen-year-old Kaiba Seto. The death was ruled a suicide. The head of Kaiba Corporation's legal department, Ouka Chikuzen, said of the incident, 'It was sudden to us, but I think it was a decision he made before entering that room. He always had a flair for the dramatic.' Kaiba Seto has never spoken publicly about the events of his father's death.

'It's pure.'

Jounouchi looked up. Kaiba was folding the microscope back into itself.

'It's not cut with anything? Nothing at all? Not even baby powder or something?'

'Nothing. Your source is apparently a good one.'

'God.' Jounouchi raked his hands through his hair. He felt both better and worse. So he wasn't responsible. A woman might still be dead. He hated himself for the bits of relief that floated through him. 'I hate ODs. I hate people doing that to themselves.'

Kaiba said nothing to this. Jounouchi took a breath.

'I never dealt meth, okay? Do you believe me?'

'That's how your father died,' said Kaiba neutrally, as though they were discussing the weather.

Jounouchi wondered if Kaiba somehow knew what page he had just been reading. 'Yeah, and I didn't sell it to him. You think I'm the only dealer in Domino or something?'

At this, the mild jab at Kaiba's intelligence, he relented. He shrugged one shoulder. 'It was a reasonable assumption.'

'What, you think selling meth to your dad so he kills himself is a reasonable thing to do? You're so fucked, Kaiba.'

Kaiba's gaze remained steady and blank. And Jounouchi realised it wasn't meant to be a slight against him; it wasn't that Kaiba thought Jounouchi was some heartless asshole who wanted his own father dead, but that causing your own parent to OD probably wasn't all that out of left field for him. Projecting.

'You overreact,' said Kaiba in that airy voice as though none of this was of any interest to him at all, as though he regularly invited high school acquaintances into his company laboratory to test cocaine. 'Methamphetamines are not so chemically different to cocaine. You needn't be so superior about them. Your moral condemnation of the former is more a result of cultural conditioning than chemistry.'

Again, Jounouchi rolled around the idea of punching Kaiba in the face. 'You're so fucking insufferable, Kaiba.'

'And you're uneducated, which I find insufferable. I would have thought you'd care at least enough about what you were selling to look it up on the internet.'

'Great.' Jounouchi rubbed his eyes. He felt like they were buried underground in here and it didn't matter if it was day or night. 'You're an asshole and I'm dumb. We've progressed so much since high school, huh?'

'The more things change.'

They stood for a moment, neither saying anything, neither wanting anything, the circumstances having once again reached their natural conclusion. Jounouchi should say thank you and good night and go home, and sleep, and probably never speak to him again. Kaiba should go home to Mokuba - where was Mokuba? - and they shouldn't speak to one another again. They had nothing in common. There was no incentive. They should go back to their lives.

'You got any alcohol around here?'

Kaiba looked at him with disgust. 'Don't you want to go home? It's two AM.'

'Don't you want to go home?' Jounouchi retorted immediately, and he knew the answer for Kaiba was as cement a no as it was from him. 'Besides, we never go to watch Yuugi's duel together. Don't you want my opinion on his play tactics?'

He hadn't said this expecting Kaiba to agree, it was more of a jibe at Kaiba's endless weird fixation on Yuugi and Duel Monsters, but Kaiba's response was immediate.

'Alright. Since you're here.' He headed suddenly for the door and Jounouchi scrambled to follow, feeling like Kaiba wasn't even fully aware of his presence as the door auto locked behind them. Kaiba's eyes went briefly to that elsewhere to which they kept travelling. 'I suggest conference room C. It has the best A/V facilities. Follow the signs. I'll join you shortly.'

Jounouchi watched him leave. Everything was weird and nonsensical about the moments passing him by. 'And can I get a drink?'

'Yes, Jounouchi,' said Kaiba with exhausted indulgence.

Jounouchi pushed his luck like the arcade machines pushed yen coins off the ledge. 'And something to eat?' he called after him.

Kaiba turned, rolled his eyes, then tossed a keyring at Jounouchi, who failed to catch it. 'Stock cupboard two.'

'God, he just... he fucking loves Magical Hats, doesn't he?'

Jounouchi snorted into his glass of whiskey. The whiskey bottle had the image of a sailboat on the side and looked so expensive he could pay his rent with it. Kaiba hadn't objected to his choice, and nor had he objected when Jounouchi poured two glasses. In front of them, a projector threw massive images of Yuugi against the wall as he played against some nobody from a tournament years ago. Yuugi's huge, gentle eyes were set firm and the picture quality was wrinkled like silk.

'It's a predictable move.'

'Every time with the hats! Fucking... magician themed deck.' Jounouchi's face scrunched in concentration. 'Hey Kaiba, Kaiba, if the magicians were magicians in Ancient Egypt, what type of magicians were they? Were they, like, priests or sorcerers or something? Like, what did it mean to be a magician?' His frown corkscrewed even further. 'Did like... did Pegasus base Magical Hats on some real Ancient Egyptian hats?'

'Please shut up. You're drunk.'

Jounouchi knew he was drunk. He had been hard drinking more nights than not this week, and he could feel his body hating him for it in a way it never used to when he was in high school. He was going to end up like his father. He was going to die alone in his own vomit. But Kaiba was drunk too. It was a different kind of drunk, very different. Kaiba was not a loquacious drunk. He spoke less and retreated further into himself, and his words came thick and unclear.

The opponent attacked Yuugi's hats, destroying an empty one.

'God! They never get the right one. What are the odds, huh?'

'Two thirds, you absolute moron.'

Jounouchi wagged his finger. 'Nah, look, it's two thirds the first time he plays it. But every time he plays the card, it gets a bit more. Eventually someone has to get the right one.'

'That's not how probability-' Kaiba began, then cut himself off. He stared up at the massive image of Yuugi against the wall. The room flickered with electric light, blue and purple, and Kaiba's face looked like he was underwater.

'Hey man,' said Jounouchi, still thinking about the creation of the card, 'How well did you know Pegasus? Did you work with him before the whole... you know... child abduction thing?'

'Not well.' Kaiba drank a mouthful. 'I didn't like him even before he kidnapped my little brother.'

Jounouchi snorted. 'Go-o-od. What a massive queer.'

There was a brief silence that Jounouchi was too drunk to notice. 'He had a wife,' said Kaiba, his voice in slightly more control than before. 'She died.'

'Oh yeah, I know, but like... you know what I mean. Besides, it's not like getting married means you love your wife. Look at my parents.' He laughed once, short and ugly. 'Hey Kaiba, was your foster father married?'

'Jounouchi, if what comes out of your mouth isn't related to the duel, I don't want to hear it.'

'I'm just asking! God, why are you such an asshole all the time? My parents fucking hated each other. I get why. Like, I get why my mother hated my dad. He was fucking reprehensible. I'm glad he's dead. Are you glad your father is dead?'

Kaiba said nothing. He stared at Yuugi, the Yuugi who wasn't there. He clutched his whiskey with knuckles like glass shards.

'Anyway,' Jounouchi went on, 'You watched him kill himself, right? I read that. That must've been weird. Was it weird?' He didn't wait for an answer. He unscrewed the bottle for what must have been the dozenth time. He didn't feel sick, not yet, and he wanted to barrel on down this black, slick hole. 'I was the one who found my dad, after he died. I came home, and I was late because I'd worked until seven AM and then gone straight to my boss, and then I was on the way back, and I was too wired to sleep so I went to a cafe. I stayed there about an hour and then I went home. I went up the stairs, I unlocked the door, and I could... We had a really small apartment, right? So I could see him from the door. Just his feet, sticking out of the bathroom.' He drank to punctuate the memory. 'I knew he was dead, like, instantly. Or maybe that's retroactive. Confirmation bias. If it turned out he was just passed out, I wouldn't have known...' He cut himself off, ran a hand over his face. Kaiba wasn't watching Yuugi any more. He was watching Jounouchi, but his face was empty, ghoulish. 'Whatever. He was lying in the bathroom. He'd had a stroke. He'd taken all the meth I had and then drunk a half bottle of whiskey, and he'd had a stroke. His face was all fucked up. You know, loose on one side. Yeah. So I called 119 and they came and they took him away. I don't remember anything after finding him, to be honest. It's all just... I reconstruct it from what I know must have happened. I called them, they came, they must have spoken to me but I don't remember what they said.'

He shrugged, just to have something to do with his shoulders, then refilled his already-full glass. He let the whiskey spill over the table and the floor, just for the sake of wasting it. He didn't look up at Kaiba. 'So. Your dad jumped out a window, huh? What did the body look like after? Must've been grim.'

'What does it matter?' The response was too quick, like recoiling from an insect that meant you no harm.

'It doesn't. I guess. Or maybe it does to you. Maybe that's why you don't want to talk about it.'

'I don't wish to discuss the death of my foster father because it has no relevance to my life any more. I'm past that. I moved on.' His eyes flicked away, then back. 'It was over a decade ago. Your... loss... was more recent.' He said 'loss' like it was a foreign word he was liable to mispronounce. Like it wasn't a part of his vocabulary.

'What about your bio parents?'

He hadn't expected any kind of strong emotional response from Kaiba on that point. Kaiba showcased certain emotions - anger, pride, victory, horror - but Jounouchi was sure the delicate, orange-pulp inside of Kaiba's childhood feelings were buried and locked away somewhere he would never see. He was surprised at Kaiba's response: a sudden roll of his eyes, a violent shrug of his shoulder, a hissing exhale.

'We are not discussing this. This isn't group therapy. I am not here to share anything with you.'

'Then why are you here?'

Obsidian wrath curled Kaiba's lip. He pointed savagely to the projected images: Yuugi's victorious face, fading into the past; statistics that no longer mattered; cheering crowds long dispersed.

'For this. To learn. To improve. To understand.'

'Understand what?'

'The game, you half-wit. Duel Monsters. That's what it's always about. That's...' There was a tremor to his voice, wavered by a sharper degree of intoxication than he had intended to hone. He steadied himself. 'You might not care anymore, Jounouchi, but I have not lost sight of what matters.'

The electric images hummed and its lights quavered. The nighttime traffic could just be heard winding around the buildings in the street below, like cats. Jounouchi looked through the huge windows. Yeah, he could understand why someone would want to throw themselves out of one of those. It would be funny to do it, just to see the look on Kaiba's face.

He stood. 'I'm going home.'

Right then, more than anything, he wanted Mai. He wanted to feel the way she had made him feel, all good and warm and important and loved. He was a selfish prick. She knew that, he knew that, his father knew it.

'Then go. You clearly have nothing of value to offer.'

Kaiba turned back to the screen. He picked up the remote and pressed some buttons, navigating to the next duel, to the next long forgotten victory, to the next triviality. Jounouchi couldn't be certain if he was only pretending to be engrossed in the duels, or if Kaiba had genuinely lost interest in him so quickly.

'You're an asshole.'

Kaiba laughed once, short and dry, and made no other reaction.

And Jounouchi left.

The corridor was a flat dead grey sea. He hated office buildings. He hated his apartment. He walked to the elevators and hit the button. The doors slid open immediately; nobody else was in the building to summon them. Inside the light was harsh and yellow, and Jounouchi considered the elevator and what lay beyond it: the lobby, the street, the subway, his shitty apartment, a night and a morning in that bed and then hoping for Takeda to call in the afternoon... Maybe he could steal a laptop on the way out and pawn it, get enough money for cigarettes...

The doors slid closed. Jounouchi took a hard left down the hall, then a right, then a left, and then he chose whatever doors and offices and corridors presented themselves to him at random. He navigated by blind chance.

And then, suddenly, there she was. He was at an open office door, and there she was. The receptionist from downstairs. Still here, at four in the morning, clutching some files and slotting them into a cabinet. What were the chances?

'Two thirds, you absolute moron.'

Nah. Close to zero, surely, that she'd still be here and by pure luck be on the same floor that he was. Impossible luck.

She stayed because she wanted to see you. She likes you.

What was her name? He couldn't read her name-tag from this distance. She was younger than him. Twenty, maybe. Her shirt didn't fit right, it was designed for someone a size smaller than her. The placket stretched unattractively, making these little open mouths between the buttons. From the right angle he would probably be able to see her bra.

He hooked his fingers into his belt loops and strolled into the room. He was full of alcohol and emptiness and wet tar. 'Still here?' He grinned his best puppy dog smile. She looked up, startled, then smiled. Her teeth were too big. She bowed to greet him.

'Jounouchi-san! I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in. I was working late.'

Jounouchi stopped to rest against the filing cabinet, thinking of Mai, smelling this girl's cheap perfume. He wiggled his eyebrows at her. 'Kaiba doesn't let you home at a normal hour?'

'Oh, Kaiba-sama is very generous. We have very good employment benefits.' She said this like it was practised. 'I just like to work late. There's always a lot to do.' She smiled and clasped her hands in front of her.

Jounouchi wondered what would be the shortest number of exchanges they could have before he could get her to open his legs. He was too drunk. He used to have to beg for it from Mai, near the end. It made him hate himself. It made him hate her. There was nothing good inside him any more.

'You don't have a boyfriend to get back to?'

She looked down and smiled and blushed all at once.

She's too young, Jounouchi thought. She was like Shizuka. He pushed that thought from his mind. She had to be at least eighteen, and that was fine. Being eighteen didn't feel so very long ago. He remembered how bright the sun had been on summer lunch breaks at school and the dusty smell in the air.

'Ah, no. I... no, I mean, there's... I don't, no.'

Jounouchi smiled at her like he smiled for Takeda. And he told her how pretty she was, and he said it again, and she blushed a lot, and he said he'd love to take her out some time, and she agreed, and he said it was like they were on a date already, and the rest of it was all a pointless, boring blur until he had her on the desk, her skirt hiked up, and she was making these little high-pitched keening sounds into his ear that helped him stay hard, though he couldn't cum. Occasionally he looked at the security camera and he knew, just as he knew that his dad was dead from the first moment he opened the apartment door, that Kaiba was watching them.