Short chapter, apologies. Hit a bit of a roadblock so I figured I'd post what I have and see where I go from there.

Content warning for brief nonconsensual sexual references.

After Jounouchi left the bathroom, Kaiba lay on the floor for a while and felt the blood drip slow and warm from his nose to his chin. It felt like honey. The room smelled of bleach and sewage, closest here near the floor, and he knew he couldn't stay there for long. Kaiba clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and pushed himself to his feet. He had a nine AM product meeting.

He moved to the sink. Kaiba watched the drain and it watched him back. He had been here before. He was so well acquainted with that wet black eye, the boundary between fresh sweet drinking water and waste. Down there it was dirt and slime. He envisioned his finger, long and pale, slipping down into that hole, transgressing it, getting the wet filth under his nails and putting it to his mouth and getting it inside of him. A thousand scenes of washing his own blood into sink drains linked up together in his head. It all mixed together, down there. In the pipes and the underground he and the dirt were one together, and they always would be.

The bathroom door opened and Kaiba could make out the familiar shoe-tapping even over the siren scream of the music. He turned the tap and held his hands under it indifferently, watching the drain, feeling Tanner watching him.

'Whoa! What happened to your pretty face? Did you and your boyfriend have a fight?' Tanner stood behind him and grabbed his shoulders in the way you'd grab a younger brother or a prize lamb. 'Would you not let him put it in you tonight?' His laughter filled Kaiba's ears with hot coals. Kaiba washed his hands in cool water.

Tanner released him and went to the urinal. Kaiba washed his hands and listened to him piss.

'Don't take it too hard, you'll get another loverboy. Not like you've ever had trouble getting it. Fuck me, do you remember that party in, where was it, Hong Kong, with the little pink-haired chink? I remember – god! – your dad kept asking her where she was going to apply to college while her face was in his balls.' The urinal flushed. Kaiba washed his hands. Tanner's shadow loomed at the sink beside him. 'He keeps saying, "Are you going to apply to Harvard? Are you interested in the philosophy of economics? Have you ever read Shenzee?" All the while he's got his dick so deep down her throat the bitch can't breathe. She had this tiny pussy.' Tanner grabbed Kaiba's shoulder again and put one dirty hand in front of his face, a hand he hadn't washed, and mimed something with his closed fist.

Kaiba turned off the tap. 'Shen Buhai.'

'What?'

'It was Shen Buhai. He asked her if she had read Shen Buhai.'

'You got a weird fucking memory, Seto.' Tanner wavered at the sink, his fly still undone, the ugly slump of his cock in his hand. Kaiba stared at the drain. 'Your dad cracked me up. He was a fucking one-of-a-kind. I miss him.'

Kaiba looked at the drain and he remembered Alcatraz, he remembered standing atop the glittering white terrible spine of that building and the wind screaming around them, and he remembered the taste of victory flirting with his tongue like rice paper just about to melt. He remembered being terrible and magnificent, and he remembered that pink-haired girl, and that she had been sixteen years old, and that after the men had done with her she had sat on the floor and stared at nothing for forty-seven minutes. And later that night in the car his father had turned to him and asked if he read Shen Buhai and he had said, with relief, that he had. And his father had said to him, 'Turn to look at me. Tilt your head back.' And Kaiba had, and his father had spat on his face. And then he had said, 'Remember how close you are to being thrown back into that gutter I found you in.' And they had not spoken for the rest of the evening.

He was still looking at the drain. Tanner had left. He hadn't noticed his departure.

He took out his cell and quick-dialled a familiar number. It rang eight times, eight long times too many. There was a click and then several more seconds of silence as someone in a dark, warm room woke themselves and cleared their throat and tried to make themselves presentable.

'Kaiba-sama?' Kaoru's voice was sleepy and thick.

'Come pick me up.'

The sound of a shifting body, rustling sheets. A deep voice in the background, unfamiliar: 'Just hang up on him.'

'It's my night off, Kaiba-sama. Sawaki should pick you up.'

'Don't be ridiculous. You were off yesterday.'

'Yesterday I was working with Mokuba. And I'm working with him tomorrow as well; my shift starts in…' The pause of checking a bedside clock. Kaiba pictured the dark, comfortable room, the two bodies in bed, naked shoulders in the dark, the warmth of it all. 'Four hours.'

Again, the voice in the background. 'Tell him to go fuck himself and go back to sleep.'

Kaiba breathed in sharply. 'I've been working since five AM and you're going to whine at me for having to start your shift four hours early? Do you think I would ever tolerate this kind of thing? Come pick me up if you expect to still have a job tomorrow.'

He hung up. He wouldn't have to listen to that ugly, lazy voice in the background any more. He would fire Kaoru if he didn't show up, like he'd fired Isono and a dozen other lazy idiots who let their personal lives corrupt their careers. He didn't care if he had to fire Kaoru; he would only care about having to expend the effort to make a second phone call to Sawaki. Which he was confident he wouldn't have to do, because Kaoru was loyal. Kaoru would come.

He washed his face calmly. Something burned inside him, something familiar. He thought once, briefly, about Jounouchi and the flash of his fist in the reddish dark of the club bathrooms, and the pulsing beat outside, and those women… All of them so familiar to him. Creatures that he had always been so close to. That sense – constant, nauseating – that it would only take one wrong turn for Tanner or his associates or… or someone to slide from one of those women to him.

But he wasn't like that. He never would be. He was Kaiba Seto. He was glorious and triumphant, and he didn't belong in these places. He was here on business, and that was all.

He left the bathroom and walked stiffly to the group of familiar men, ignoring their tattoos and their glimmering teeth. Tanner gestured welcome to the open seat he had left.

'I'm leaving now. We can smooth out the final details via email.'

Tanner contorted his face into a mocking pout. 'Oh, Seto, don't sulk because you had a little tiff. Come on, sit down. I'll buy you a pretty drink.'

Men snickered. The sound chafed at the edges of him. He wanted, for just a moment, to grab Tanner by the throat and push him against the wall and hiss into his face how worthless and disgusting and pathetic he was. But he did none of these things. He nodded once in curt parting, then turned on his heel. He could hear them whispering about him. He knew the kinds of thing they said about him. They were so old and tired and yellowed, and yet the same comments kept coming, year after year, and it could be so wearing at times…

When Kaiba exited the club, Kaoru was there; prompt, faithful. He leaned against the Bentley, dark glasses obscuring tired eyes, his face unshaven, his tie lopsided. He opened the car door for Kaiba who entered without comment and didn't speak to him for the entirety of the journey.

Kaiba was driven through the night streets in silence. It was better this way, in the dark and the undisturbed bowels of the early pre-morning. He would sleep at work for a few hours and then it was meetings, presentations, the boring glory of this whole corporate empire business that had come so easily to him since he had been a child. How many of his colleagues, rivals, had come to power the way he had? Through the back door, by crawling through sewage and hatred? It didn't matter. It didn't matter where any of them had come from. He was the only one that mattered in the glittering high rise world of money and technology. Everything came too easily. The only challenge was to consume and to keep consuming, to eat up all the land and the money and the power that could be had. And then…

A thick, lingering drop of blood slid down over his lips and, from a long-buried instinct, he unfolded his handkerchief, wiped it away, refolded it to hide the blood, and replaced it. It was an ancient, familiar series of actions to him, and ones he thought he had forgotten.

He wet his lips and let the iron taste into him and closed his eyes, and he thought of the beating dark red heart of the club bathroom, and he thought of that duel with Yuugi at Alcatraz that had beaten him into the dirt, and some untrustworthy leviathan stirred inside him and then he stopped thinking about it at all.

The money smelled like salt and metal. Six neat stacks, 600,000 total, short and fat like heavy coffins. Jounouchi picked one up and fanned it under his nose. It smelled of possibility. He replaced it on his stained bedsheets and breathed in and out. It was nearly five PM. Sunlight and shadows roved over the wall like stray dogs. Freedom was laid out before him in rubber bands and he could go anywhere, fly away, cross the seas. Sink or swim. It felt that very special way that graduating high school felt like, that one golden space between one life and the next. All his friends had bridged that gap, and he had not. Now he had another chance.

But he had debts to pay first. Takeda was waiting somewhere, turning in his sarcophagus, and if Jounouchi tried to run away then he would not run far. Takeda would come after him; Takeda had dogs Jounouchi had never met. Or if not Takeda's dogs, then those of whoever it was that Takeda reported to – that dangerous, enticing question mark. Someone further up the chain. Someone who might be interested in him now, now that he associated with the likes of Kaiba and Tanner. Another road of possibilities, paved with knives. If he ran then men would find him and drag him back to this town and drown him in the dock, and this time Kaiba wouldn't be there to drop a key down to him.

Jounouchi split one stack in half and made two neat graveyards. 250 for Takeda. 350 to take home. Still enough to fly.

He didn't check on Sugata, who would be waking up soon to begin his night shift staring blankly at a rabbit-eared TV in the 7-11. He didn't need to dress, because he hadn't taken off his boots and jacket since he got in. He had come home, slept, woken, and now he was ready to go again. He was a creature of the outside now. He took the yellowed tile stairs down two at a time and pushed into the street, and then he could feel the cold night air on his face and knew that tonight, perhaps, he would find a way out of this life.

He walked straight down the street to the metro, hands in his pockets, collar turned up, feeling like every person he passed was staring at him.

His veins felt cold as he buzzed through the underground. He stared down anyone who dared glance at the black circles under his eye, the sweat threading his hair, the blood on his knuckles. Women stayed away from him. He felt fetid, infectious. He had beaten Kaiba's face in and he had expected catharsis. He expected to feed on the blood he shed and swell like the moon. Instead, he felt nothing. It wasn't like beating up a high school bully. It was like breaking the face of a sad, friendless stranger.

The sun had set by the time he emerged from the underground again. Jounouchi paced the familiar route to the warehouse and it felt like a dream, like this was the last time he would ever come here. This time, there were no dogs watching him. He knocked on the door and this time offered no jaw-aching smile to the door man and he was admitted entrance without question.

Takeda was there, as Jounouchi knew he would be, sat in the middle of the empty room on those awful campfire chairs, other men sat beside him. Takeda looked more shrivelled, more dry, more mothlike than Jounouchi remembered. The man sucked his lips in at Jounouchi and hissed like a roach. He wore a glittering snakeskin jacket that he couldn't afford and Jounouchi felt, suddenly, a stab of covetousness.

'Jounouchi.' Takeda's voice had none of its usual acrid warmth. He was bitter and empty. Death was wasting away. 'You don't call, you don't write.'

'I've been working.' Jounouchi didn't sit. Kenji was there, his eyes black and bitter. Grasshopper was gone. Jounouchi wasn't going to ask what had happened to him. Someone else was there in his place: heavyset, all fat and muscle, but not enough to hide that he was only in his teens. The kid didn't look up at all when Jounouchi entered. There was absolutely nothing behind his eyes. Already a lost cause.

'Oh really? Has it really been very busy? You've just been too busy to take my calls?' Takeda licked his yellow teeth and snapped papery fingers in Jounouchi's direction. 'Well, you owe me two hundred thousand, and you can call it another twenty thousand on top of that for your tardiness and disrespect.'

Jounouchi breathed out slowly. It was like the light had shifted. Takeda had been impressive to him once, in a sick kind of way, in the way he stood for the promise of a life that could bring him money and progress and some kind of way out. And for a while he was death, waiting for Jounouchi, whispering secrets in his ear. Now he was just an old man. Jounouchi wanted his jacket.

'How about you don't charge a late fee?' Jounouchi removed the envelope from his pocket. 'How about you give me a full 20% commission, and I give you the personal cell phone number of Kaiba Seto.'

Kenji laughed and said something vulgar under his breath. Takeda's eyes glittered like beetles.

'Getting big for your boots, Jounouchi.'

'And I'll toss in the personal cell for Mickey Tanner too, the CEO of ProgTech.' Jounouchi might have once shrugged here to punctuate his disinterest, but his shoulders stayed immovable like metal. 'If you just want the full payment and the late fee instead, then that's your call.'

Takeda snarled. Jounouchi counted his missing teeth. 'Can't say I appreciate the lip, boy.'

'Take it or leave it.'

Takeda said nothing for a moment. One hand groped inside his jacket pocket and Jounouchi's eyes dropped down to watch the way the bone of his ankle strained against the sock, and the way his tendons shook as he moved. Takeda removed a boiled sweet from his pocket and sequestered it between the abscess of his lips. He sucked loudly.

'What if I have Buto over there beat the shit out of you?' His eyes widened with the promise of mad excitement. Jounouchi looked to the doorman. His arms were big and meaty, but Jounouchi had knuckles like razor blades and could break a rabbit's neck between his teeth.

'Try it,' he said. 'Do you want your 200 and the cell numbers or not?'

Takeda looked to Buto, considered, sucked the sweet in his mouth. It sounded like bad sex. Takeda cracked it between his teeth.

'Where's my little star gone, huh? Who's this big grown up boy I see before me?'

Jounouchi watched him without humour, without anything. The words fell through him into a well and made no sound as they fell beneath the water.

And then Takeda shrugged, spat, and snapped his fingers again. 'Pay up, then. 200 and the numbers.'

Jounouchi obliged. He had written Kaiba's number on the back of Tanner's card, and he liked having sealed those two monsters together like that. They belonged together.

'Fair warning, Kaiba won't speak to you. He won't buy from you either.'

'Don't need him to, kid, don't need him to,' said Takeda, putting those skeletal old spectacles to his bleary eyes. He held the card before him like he was verifying an ancient artefact. 'This will do me nicely.' Those grey eyes stared at Jounouchi over the frames. 'You want another job, kiddo?'

'No. I'm leaving town.'

'Something happen to you, kid?' Takeda stared at him and Jounouchi almost felt something other than nothing for a second. 'Something bad go down? Because I can deal with it. If some big nasty did you wrong, I can get them hurt. I can call someone special. I can call anyone. I've got a lot of numbers kid.' Saying this, he reached down to the tattered brown briefcase beside him, lifted it to his pinpoint knees, clicked it open, and produced an honest-to-god rolodex in faded yellow plastic, teeming with cards, and slotted Kaiba's number inside it. Like a soul into hell.

'No,' said Jounouchi. 'I'm good. But thank you,' he added, 'for the offer.'

They shared a strange look with one another, some kind of equality, some kind of weird, diseased thing in common. And then they shook hands, and Jounouchi left, and on the way back home he bought a shiny, exquisite mustard snakeskin jacket.