General content warning for violence, sexual violence, and potentially upsetting themes for the rest of the story.

Jounouchi was going to see Yuugi, and then everything was going to be okay.

He walked along the harbour, bright bursts of cafes and shops to his right, the grey water to his left. There were dead things among the foam. The cafe Yuugi had chosen was crowded with people and colour and lights, green hanging plants, cute kitsch paintings on the walls, soft piano music drifting out of speakers. Every table was crowded with teenagers and young people on dates and hang outs and secret, thrilling meetings.

Jounouchi opened the door and stepped inside and felt the heat hit him from the overcranked A/C. He felt like a shark in a fish tank. Something too old and too cold inside to be here, something with too many teeth stretched in a vacant smile. A girl gave him a glance and her eyes lingered. He was wearing his now-favourite snakeskin jacket, alongside ¥50,000 jeans and bottle green brogues. He met the girl's eyes and held them, and then she dropped her gaze, blushing. From discomfort or bashfulness, he didn't know. He found he didn't care.

'Jounouchi-kun!'

And for a moment he was seventeen again. It all dropped away, years falling like dominos into the sea, and he broke into a big, joyful grin at spotting Yuugi. He half-ran across the cafe, disturbing a flurry of napkins, and the two threw themselves into a tight embrace. Yuugi smelled of sweet lime boba.

'Wow!' Yuugi said, once they had parted enough to examine each other, their hands still gripping one another's forearms. 'You look... You look great! Wow, you look so different!'

Yuugi was, to his surprise, much the same. He still wore that black tank top style, those black pants, and though his wrists hung with more jewellery and there was now red eyeshadow around his eyeliner, he was still very much the same Yuugi he had known as a teenager.

'You look the same, man! But great, I mean.' Jounouchi couldn't stop smiling. 'Damn, it's so good to see you.'

They held one another's gaze for a moment, each waiting for time to catch back up to the present, and then they took their seats. Jounouchi ordered a black coffee while Yuugi sipped on a large fruit smoothie.

They talked rapidly and deeply first about Yuugi's life: his tournament successes, his minor fame in America, his plans to go into game development once the tournament circuit money died down, the girl he had been seeing, the countries he had visited, the travels he had taken, the places he had been. It was easy. It was like no time had passed at all. Jounouchi felt warm inside like he had been lying in the sun for long, lazy, perfect hours. They talked for almost an hour, the conversation quick and familiar, until every avenue had been run up and down and Yuugi was flushed with the exertion of story-telling. He took a large, rejuvenating sip of his smoothie.

'So, Jounouchi,' he said, licking green and pink fruit traces from his lips. 'What about you? What have you been up to?'

'Oh, me?' Jounouchi laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. And then he didn't know what to say. 'I, ah, broke up with Mai, as you probably heard.' Yuugi nodded sympathetically and waited for Jounouchi to say more, but that was a dead topic to him. God, had it been a year already? 'My dad died.'

Yuugi's face dropped into shock. 'Oh my God, Jounouchi-kun. I didn't know-'

'It's fine,' Jounouchi said sharply. Seeing the pity and sorrow bubble up in Yuugi's face made him feel nauseous. 'It was ages ago now. I don't even think about it anymore.' And that was true. He didn't think about it at all. He thought about other things, now. 'I moved out after then. Uh, then moved out again. Got a new place now.'

'Oh?' Yuugi didn't push further than that. Jounouchi knew why. New place for Jounouchi Katsuya meant another sublet, another mouldering spare couch, another hole. That's what it used to mean. He was a different person now.

And Yuugi still thinks you're that loser from high school. Jounouchi ripped open a packet of sugar and dumped it into his coffee. He doesn't know how fucking awesome you are now. He doesn't know cool you are. He doesn't know that you've gone all rotten inside.

And then he couldn't hold back any more. 'Oh yeah, I moved into the central district... Into a high rise. It's a one bed, nothing too fancy.' An obvious lie. 'Good view of the city. Can even see KaibaCorp. from up there.'

Yuugi's big eyes widened. 'Wow! You must be doing well for yourself.' His eyes flicked to Jounouchi's watch, which Jounouchi realised was a heavy Grand Seiko and cost more than he used to earn in two months.

'Oh, you know, I'm getting by.' He reclined in his chair and knitted his fingers behind his head, partially to hide the watch. He felt embarrassed by himself and he didn't know why. 'Just trying to take it easy, y'know.'

'What are you doing for work?'

'This and that,' he said, trying to keep his tone light. 'Running favours, mostly. Doing a bit of PA work.'

Yuugi waited for more explanation, but none more was forthcoming. Jounouchi swallowed a large mouthful of sweet coffee and felt like his tongue was awfully large inside his mouth. He coughed and laughed and threw himself on the one distraction he knew was guaranteed to work.

'Hey, guess who I ran into a few months ago? Kaiba!'

This, Yuugi was interested in. His eyebrows twitched and he leaned forwards. 'Oh really? Wow. How is he?'

Jounouchi snorted. He stared up at a dangling azalea. 'Totally fucking insane, Yuugi. Absolute loser, same as ever. Full on weirdo.'

He knew immediately he had said the wrong thing. The gloss fell from Yuugi's face and he got all quiet.

'That's a shame,' Yuugi said. 'I had hoped he would be doing better, after so long. I haven't spoken to him since high school. I thought...' He silenced himself. 'Oh well. I'd like to check in on him, but... It's not like he likes to entertain visitors, huh?'

Jounouchi remembered himself sleeping on the couch in Kaiba's office, pushing his way through the KaibaCorp., halls, inviting himself to do whatever he wanted. And that secretary... what was her name...

'Nah, he wouldn't want to see you anyway.' The lie came easily, but he didn't know where it came from. 'He's all up about his new social media gaming blah blah blah. Trust me, dude is a lost cause.'

'No one is a lost cause,' said Yuugi immediately, his voice a hard, smooth stone. 'It's never too late for anyone.'

Jounouchi rocked on his chair, chewing the inside of his mouth. The girl from before was looking at him. He looked back at her once again and he didn't smile. He just held that stare, meeting first her eyes and then cataloguing the rest of her. Her mouth was large and the lips soft and big; her breasts were unspectacular; her legs, long and athletic beneath a plaid skirt, were very good. She was cute. But just cute. He considered her and then he considered one of the higher range hookers he sometimes sprang for, weighing possibilities.

'Do you mind?'

This voice, another girl's, came from someone else at the table. This one was ugly, mousy, obviously bookish and dressed like a church girl. He realised then that there was a whole group of them, all staring at him, all of them disgusted. The girl he had been appraising turned away, folding her arms over the chest he had been gazing at. Shame punched him in the stomach.

'Uh, I'm sorry,' he managed. Yuugi glanced around, confused.

'So gross,' muttered the mousy girl to her friend. 'Some guys are such creeps.'

The shame punched hard, but the entitlement punched harder. He was not a creep. He was not gross. Not any more. He was better than that. He had risen to the top.

He leaned over, past Yuugi, and stared the ugly girl in the eye. 'Wow, sorry that no one is interested in you. Maybe dress less like a poor, fat spinster, yeah? Give it a shot.'

'Fucking asshole,' spat the girl.

'I am so sorry for my friend.' Yuugi cut in, surprising Jounouchi, who had forgotten he was there. 'That was totally out of line. Please, on his behalf, I apologise profusely.'

The girls said nothing more, none of them mollified, but none of them wanting to get into it with Yuugi. Yuugi, who shone like warm gold and made you feel like you could be the best person you had ever been, if only you tried.

When Yuugi turned back to him, his eyes were full of shock.

'Jounouchi-kun! You can't talk to girls like that. I thought you'd grown out of that kind of thing.'

'I... I don't know what came over me. I don't know where that came from.' Liar, he thought. He knew exactly where that came from. That was a dozen nights with Tanner and god knows how many other nights with other men who talked like that all the time. That was the poison in him, frothing out of his mouth. He stood abruptly. His whole body was too hot. 'I should get going. I have an appointment.' This, at least, was true. 'Meeting with the new boss. Gotta get there on time.'

Yuugi blinked at him. 'Oh. Oh, okay.' He stood too, awkward and uncomfortable, suddenly far away. They were an ocean apart once again. He hugged Jounouchi quickly and stiffly. 'It was really good to see you, Jounouchi-kun,' he said. 'Don't be a stranger, okay? I'll be in China next week, but I'll be back in Japan for the Summer. We could hang out.'

'Yeah, I'd like that,' said Jounouchi, and this too felt like a lie. He wanted nothing else more in the world to hang out in Yuugi's bedroom at the Game Shop, reading comics, complaining about girls, watching Yuugi study his Duel Monsters deck. But he had to go somewhere else. He had obligations to another world.

He made swift progress walking along the harbour. It was startling how rapidly the lovely, Christmassy lights of the cafes and cake shops and gift stores on the quayside shapeshifted into fish mongers, then packing houses, then warehouses, and then it was the industrial side of the harbour. You could slide so quickly from the beautiful to the ugly, in this and in all things.

He hadn't been given an exact address. A text on his phone from one of the numbers in Takeda's rolodex: 9pm, harbour, meat packing. You'll be picked up. It wasn't a good area to be in at night, and he had no idea who to look for. But once he rounded the last big warehouse in his way, he spotted the pick up immediately. He had expected a small, dirty car, its windshield blackened, some scarred gangster waiting to drive him to god knows where. But though there was indeed a car, it was bright white, gleaming, freshly washed and waxed and gorgeous; a true angel of a car, sleek, a pair of folded feather wings.

And there was a woman leaning against the car. Beautiful, equally stunning, blonde and immaterial. She shimmered. It was Mai.

No. No, it wasn't Mai. It was someone else.

Of course it isn't Mai. Mai is gone. You fucked up everything with Mai and now she's gone forever. You worthless piece of shit.

Up close, the resemblance wasn't that strong. She was beautiful, sure, but harder edged, her features angular, her eyes huge and fixed on him like camera lenses. Her features were mixed, ambiguously Eurasian, and heavily, exotically made up: huge lashes, gleaming lips, and a small spade tattoo under one eye. She wore white to match the car: a white leather jacket, a white blouse, white pants, white solid heels. As he approached, what he had at first taken for an elaborate necklace revealed itself to be a cascade of tattoos over her open chest. She put the tip of a soft purple vape to her lips and took it away, exhaling into the night.

'Well, hello there,' she said. 'Jounouchi-chan.' She licked her lips, which were bright, bright red.

'Hey,' he said stupidly. 'Ah, nice to meet you. What an awesome car.' He grinned and stuck out his hand. She didn't even look at it. 'So, uh, I didn't get your name.'

She did not offer it. Her eyes roved all over him as though she were reading some secret hieroglyphs etched over every inch of his skin and clothes. There was something of a Queen Ant about her. 'Look at you. So snappy.' She reached out and rubbed the lapel of his jacket between her forefinger and thumb. 'Brand new wardrobe, huh?'

'Uh, yeah. I mean, pretty new.' He shifted back, trying to loose his lapel from her fingers, but she gripped it hard. The nails were iridescent, acid green and infested with rhinestones.

She tilted her platinum blonde head and set those bright lips in a pout. 'Don't want people to know that you used to be poor, huh?'

Jounouchi frowned at this and rolled a few answers around his head, but there was no lie worth bothering with. 'Well, yeah,' he said, finally.

A sudden gentle rain of sympathy fell through the woman's features. 'It's okay, honey. You're just trying your best.' And then the sympathy evaporated and there was concrete beneath. She had turned the emotion on and off like a tap. And then she smiled again: big and bright and wide. Her left upper canine bore a ruby. 'Lets get you to the boss.'

They walked rather than taking the car. He struggled to keep up. It wasn't that she walked fast, but her strides were massive and elk-like, eating up the asphalt beneath her. This was not a part of town he would have wanted to take a girl to at night, or even during the day. Eyes watched them from small groups of strangers, teenagers or drunks or the homeless, Jounouchi didn't know. At some point, someone started following them.

'Is, uh, is it safe for you to be walking out here?' he said, jogging to level with the woman.

She looked at him as though he spoke an alien language. 'Why wouldn't it be?'

He chose not to answer this.

She led him deeper into the mausoleums of warehouses, making sharp turns down unlikely alleyways where he had to swerve to keep up. He started to suspect they were going in circles. Though the night was was still young, the cold was starting to bite hard at Jounouchi's neck. The dark was hostile out here, unlit by streetlamps, uninterrupted by shop warmth. It was like a forest, empty and dead, rotten trunks pressing down on him.

And then, finally, they came to a tall, broken-windowed, long-abandoned old tenement block. Jounouchi was sure they had passed it several times, but he was freezing cold and disorientated and he liked his escort less and less. She removed a keyring from a coat pocket and waved a fob at the door. It looked far too ancient to recognise such technology, but something inside clicked. She pushed the door open. And Jounouchi followed.

Inside, it was pitch dark. He could see nothing except a blinking, yellow light behind a corridor bend, somewhere up ahead. He was suddenly very aware how close the woman was to him.

'I'm going to search you now,' she said. Her breath was sweet and carcinogenic. He could see her lashes flicker in and out of existence with the yellow light. Her eyes were black.

'Sure, go ahead,' Jounouchi started, but she had already began sliding her hands over his chest, back, legs, and arms. She never stopped staring at him.

'Alright,' she said when finished. 'But try anything naughty, and I will fucking murder you, okay? I will cut on you until you don't exist any more. Okay?'

Jounouchi nodded silently.

She marched off again, rounding the corner, and Jounouchi again tried to keep up. Here was another elevator. He thought suddenly of the elevator he had ridden at KaibaCorp., all the way up to Kaiba's private office, and Kaiba's big bodyguard, Kaoru. He looked askance at his new escort, this woman, this creature. He wished right now more than anything that Kaoru was with him. He wished he was going to see Kaiba instead.

The elevator dinged and the doors wrenched themselves open. The woman stepped in and Jounouchi, thinking of the clean, chemical smell of Kaiba's office, hesitated.

'Is something the matter?' said the woman, but it wasn't a question. She stared at him dully, indifferent, her eyes empty and fishlike.

He shook his head and followed her in. The doors closed their mouth behind them.

He could see her better in here. He studied her askance. With the cosmetics it was impossible to guess her age, but she was full and solid; all grown, a woman and not a girl. His eyes dropped to her chest. He had assumed the tattoos were yakuza, but now he could see them in the light he wasn't so sure. Dragons and waves and yellow flowers, Cyrillic letters, and delicate calligraphy. There was, he spotted now, a swastika nestled among the patterns.

So this was what it meant to climb the foodchain. This wasn't petty drug pushing any more, shifting a little coke, catching some crumbs off the big boys' table. These were the big leagues: international smuggling, human trafficking, real high numbers of the dead and gutters filled with blood. This was, no matter how you looked at it, real fucking bad, immoral shit. This was a terrible idea.

The elevator climbed inevitably up the throat of the building. There was, bizarrely, music in here. Upbeat, American, the speaker warped like it was having a stroke. The woman, ignoring him like he had never existed, sang along under her breath.

'Her name was Lola... She was a showgirl...'

The elevator cables yowled and the car crunched to a stop. The woman continued to sing a few flat bars and then trailed off, though her fingernails still drummed out a rhythm on the wall, the beat completely off. The doors opened.

Inside the elevator was poverty and dirt. On the other side of the threshold was money. A long corridor, everything smelling of spice, the carpets and walls dark and soft. Silky lights illuminated paintings on each wall: oils, watercolours; oceans, fields, naked women. Golden frames, signed photographs. Stolen art.

The woman walked down the corridor and Jounouchi, like a spaniel, followed. There were no windows. If there were, he might have jumped out of one. Every step he took led him closer to something terrible, the minotaur, his destiny. There was a grave at the end of this hall, if he walked long enough along it. The carpets were the thickest he had ever walked in his life. He was sinking comfortably into molasses.

At the end of the corridor were two suits of muscle, guarding a vast wooden double door. The woman patted one of them on the shoulder but neither gave any reaction. Then she pushed open the door, and then Jounouchi was face to face with his new boss.

'Jounouchi Katsuya. Please, come in. Lets take a look at you.'

This room at least had a window. The ocean was black beyond it, the tiny lights of distant ships the only signs that the rest of the world still existed. You couldn't even see the shore; it was just the room and the window and the water.

Maybe I never caught that key, Jounouchi thought, his memories dragged back into the past. Maybe I drowned in that harbour. I duelled Yuugi and then I drowned, or I'm still drowning, and I'm just gonna keep falling into the water forever.

The room was dark, featureless people crowded in the corners, all of them watching him. And in the middle of the room was a single bright light and beneath it — absurdly, laughably — was an honest to god throne, elevated on velvet steps, utterly ridiculous but completely real. Other people, men and women, stood about it at the foot. Here, the boss sat. He was utterly unremarkable. He might have been fifty or seventy, slightly built, his skin smooth, his balding hair neatly kept. He wore a dark, beautiful, tasteful suit. He looked up at Jounouchi pleasantly through round, silver-framed glasses.

Jounouchi forced a rictus grin onto his features and he played the one tune he had. 'Hey there, nice to meet you, boss.' His voice was fun, fun, fun, that joyful timbre he had always employed with Takeda. Takeda had loved it. Everybody had. The new boss studied him like he were an unpleasant but mildly interesting insect.

'Come closer and let me see you,' said the boss, and Jounouchi did as he was bade. He felt every pair of eyes in the room watching him. 'Closer,' said the boss again, and Jounouchi stepped closer still. 'Closer, closer,' said the man once again, and Jounouchi edged forwards until he could have reached out and touched him. He could see his own face reflected in the man's glasses.

'Do you know why you're here, Jounouchi?'

'Because Takeda kicked it?' said Jounouchi stupidly, and he heard a few snaps of disdainful laughter from the corners.

The boss considered for a moment, then recognition chimed in his eyes. 'Oh, Takeda. He was nothing. I had not even heard the man's name until yesterday.' The man's voice was smooth and syrupy, musical and sotto voce, its accent something Jounouchi could not place. 'You are here because you have somehow contrived to become the personal dealer of Michael Tanner and Seto Kaiba. Two men in the top fifty wealthiest in the world. Now how did that happen?'

Jounouchi felt like he had glanced down to find an anchor attached to his ankle. Oh, how long had that been there?

'I'm here because of Kaiba?' he said dully. Of course. Of course.

'Oh yes,' murmured the man. 'He and Tanner both. Michael and I go very far back. And Seto I know deeply. And little Jounouchi Katsuya, a nothing street rat with some limited renown as a duellist, has become both of their confidantes. Remarkable, yes?'

Jounouchi clenched his jaw until he felt like his teeth would shatter. 'Yeah. Remarkable.' Of course it was all Kaiba's fault. Impossible wealth he had never known, and power, and women, and sex, and the constant feeling of his lungs being about to collapse, and it was all because of Kaiba. He had spoken to Kaiba at a party, and through Kaiba he met Tanner, and now he was getting promoted into absolutely god knew what. He had accomplished nothing, really. He had known Kaiba, and that was all.

Jounouchi wanted to kill him.

'I am very interested in you maintaining your position,' said the new boss, oblivious to Jounouchi's quiet fury, his words soft like the feet of a cat. 'And this is why you have been given such preferential treatment. But you are new to this environment, so allow me to make a few points clear to you.' He cleared his throat softly. 'Speak to the police, and you will die. Speak of me, or any part of our operation to anybody ever, and you will die. It will be very slow. I will do lots of things to your body. I will do things to the outside and to the inside.' All this was said very pleasantly. Jounouchi swallowed but did not feel terror. He felt only white, choking rage at Kaiba's existence in this sorry fucking plane of hell.

'You got it,' he said. 'Lips are sealed. Zipped shut. Won't say a word.'

The boss regarded him, a little smile playing on his lips, his fingers tented. 'Of course not. All you need to do is keep doing what you have been. Keep close to your new friends. And you wait until it's time for you to be useful to me. Do this, and all the money in the world is yours.'

'Great,' said Jounouchi. He could feel himself sweating. He wanted to put his fist through Kaiba's face.

'Excellent,' said the boss. His gaze switched to look over Jounouchi's shoulder. 'Katya?'

The woman who had escorted him stepped forwards. She slipped an arm through Jounouchi's and he jolted with nausea and repulsion and anger and, inevitably, a spike of sexual heat to feel her breasts pressed against him. He hated himself.

'Katya here is very good at playing shepherd,' said the boss. 'Never lets a lamb out of her sight. She will keep an eye on you.'

'I'll make sure he behaves,' said Katya.

'Lovely.' The boss rubbed his hands delicately together and wet his lips. 'Then we're done here.'

'I'll take him back to the apartment,' said Katya.

'Back to my apartment?' Jounouchi couldn't help but vomit out the stupid joke. 'But we've only just met!' And immediately he hated himself for how facile and embarrassing he continued to be. The boss leaned forwards in his throne — a fucking throne, my god — and waved a finger back and forth, admonishing.

'Not your apartment, Jounouchi. Every coin you spend comes from my industry. You own nothing, except what I rent to you. And I own you.'

Jounouchi took in a deep breath. Katya's fingernails were digging into his skin. 'I got it, boss,' he said.

'Wonderful.' The boss fluttered his fingers in soft dismissal. 'Then we are done. You will be called on when you are needed again.'

Jounouchi was given no opportunity to ask questions, to voice displeasure, to do anything but let himself be steered back around to the elevator by Katya. She led him neatly, never letting go of his arm, not even when the doors closed, or as they descended, or as she led him through the dark warehouses back to the car. This time, the journey took only minutes. She had, of course, been only toying with him before.

Katya drove him home. Jounouchi sat beside her and watched the bright road markings rush past them in the dark. Sometimes she touched his knee, even when he crossed it to keep it away from her. He felt a little carsick as they rushed at 100mph speeds through the black night. Katya didn't wear a seatbelt.

'Tell me,' Katya said over the roar of the engine, one hand trailing her vape out the window. 'You and Tanner. Does he fuck you?'

Jounouchi looked at her with exhaustion and disgust. 'What the fuck? No.'

'Just curious.' She shrugged. 'Never sure about that one. He is immune to my charms. And I like to know your preferences.' She flashed a grin at him, taking her eyes off the road, and they began to veer out of their lane.

'Please, we're going to hit something,' said Jounouchi, covering his face with his hand on instinct as a truck screamed its horn at them, pulling out of the way.

'Oh, don't be such a pussy,' she said, and then took both hands off the wheel. Jounouchi felt his heart hammering against his chest. The car continued to drift, now into the next lane. The traffic was sparse in at this time but every vehicle sliding past them was metal death, the engines shrill and keening through the endless seething night.

God, what if I die like this? He thought, unable to think of anything in that moment but Kaiba's receptionist, whoever she had been. Her shy glances. Her pink mouth. Kaiba's cold blue eyes.

Katya took the wheel again and cruised them back into the correct lane. She laughed like a merry child. 'Wow, you're real uptight! We'll have to do something about that.'

Jounouchi let himself slump in the seat and watched the claws of skyscrapers climb higher above the horizon. He lived up there, now. He wished more than anything that he could go back to Sugata's shithole spare bedroom, or even to his dad's old place. Even if the rotting corpse had still been on the floor he would have preferred it to where they were going now. But the highway morphed inevitably into downtown, and office buildings became restaurants, and soon they were outside the tall apartment block in which his ridiculous luxury home now resided.

Katya shut off the car engine. She turned to stare at him. Her eyes were large, almost golden-green, like a praying mantis.

'Thanks for the ride,' Jounouchi said awkwardly. Katya stared at him. He opened the door, and then Katya got out of the car as well.

'Let's go up,' she said brightly, her eyes shining. Jounouchi's eyes dropped to her patchwork tattoos and her breasts. He quickly looked away. He didn't event want to be seen with this woman. Katya wound her arms around his own and gripped him like a snake. 'I want a coffee. Make me a coffee, Jounouchi-chan.'

And so they walked in. Aside from the doorman, who gave them only the briefest of perturbed glances, they did not encounter anyone. Jounouchi stuffed his hands in his pockets and said nothing as they rode up the elevator in silence. Katya hummed a gentle song that he did not recognise.

At his apartment door, Jounouchi tried once again to pry himself free, but Katya was not having it.

'Well, this is me,' he said awkwardly.

'Invite me in for a coffee,' said Katya, leaning against the wall beside the door. She rested her pretty, cold face in her hands.

'I should really get to sleep...' Jounouchi began, but this was not a conversation he was allowed to win.

His skin prickling, he let her inside the apartment.

Katya immediately began to search the place. Jounouchi stood, hands still in his pockets, neck hunched, furious with himself and with her and with the entire stupid apartment. He had so few possessions there was nothing of interest to find, but Katya went through everything. She flicked through every magazine and unread book, she examined the back of the fridge as well as everything inside it, she pulled out his underwear drawer and upended it, she yanked out the couch cushions, she spilled open his duffel bag of cash, she emptied out his Duel Monsters cards onto the floor, she opened up the smoke detector. She found the single pornographic magazine he kept under his bed and tossed that onto the coffee table. Then she dismantled the bedding, then she emptied out the cutlery. She was haphazard and yet thorough. Jounouchi had no idea what she was looking for.

Eventually, she seemed sated. 'Okay!' she said, her voice a high chime. 'You seem good.' She walked past him with purpose and Jounouchi assumed she was going for the door, but instead she settled herself on the one intact, cushionless chair, rested her feet on the coffee table, and opened up the porn mag. 'Wow, you have vanilla tastes,' she said, flicking through.

'Yeah, I'm boring that way,' said Jounouchi, uncomfortable and tired and desperate to be alone. 'Can I... do you need something else?'

Katya glanced up from the magazine and her eyes flashed. 'Are you trying to get rid of me?'

'I just... I'd like to get some sleep. If that's okay.'

A big smile spread over her face. 'You need permission? You like asking women permission for things?'

It was at this point, with her sprawled in the chair, that Jounouchi saw the little silver gun on her hip. This should not have been a surprise, and yet it was. He felt like he would throw up if he didn't get her out of the apartment.

'I'm gonna go to bed,' he said, firmly but pleasantly. 'You can hang out if you want.'

'I know I can.' The smile remained, but there was no light in her eyes. 'I can do whatever I want.'

Jounouchi stood there, awkward and unsure, wishing more than anything in the world that he had a bedroom door. But open plan was in, and so there was nowhere for him to go to be alone, except the bathroom. He shrugged widely and then turned to climb the steps to his bedroom, but before he reached the bed he realised Katya had followed him.

'So exciting to have someone so new and young in the pack,' she said. She was very close to him and her breath smelled like glacial mint. 'Do you find it exciting working for him? I find it exciting.'

Her hand, the nails sharp, was suddenly on his crotch. Jounouchi took a step back unconsciously and she took a step closer, and a moment later he was pressed up against the wall.

'Hey, can you cut it out?' he said. 'I really just want to sleep.'

She didn't. She unzipped him quickly and Jounouchi felt a sudden rush of anxiety, and then he felt really nothing at all. He stood there perfectly impassive as she molested him, and they both waited inevitably for him to get hard. Jounouchi looked out of his bedroom window and saw the distant, gleaming tip of the Kaiba Corporation building.

'That's a good boy,' said Katya, her breath hot, and she pushed him to the stripped mattress. It was not a rough push. She just needed him lying down. From there, she climbed on top of him, and Jounouchi made one lame attempt to scoot away. She unzipped her own pants and had them off in moments, and then she was astride him, skin on skin. 'You're going to love working for us.' She settled atop him, hesitating, then slapped him once across the face. The shock made his thoughts lurch back into his body and he felt horribly, intensely aware of this woman against him, on him, enveloping him, burning him.

'You're going to have such a swell time,' she said, her voice strained a little, her hips making uneven, sharp jumps. 'We'll all be really nice to you.' She slapped him again and he winced, tried to get away again, then gave it up. Katya grabbed his wrist and pressed his palm against her chest. 'You like my tits?'

That is the stupidest fucking question, Jounouchi thought, and then she slapped him again.

'Yeah,' he muttered, and he kept his hand there, and he tried to wait it out. He tried to pretend she was Mai. He tried to tell himself that he liked it. Perhaps he did like it. He felt a bit of pleasure, sometimes, and maybe it was selfish to make it all about himself. He had never been good at sex, he knew that, so maybe it was good that it wasn't about what he wanted. The black fire in his chest and the incredible pressure in his eardrums didn't matter. That was just what it felt like not to be a selfish piece of shit.

Sometimes she slapped him, sometimes she told him he was doing a good job, but it only got really bad when she started to choke him. He started to struggle for real then, but there just wasn't much fight left in him. He heard her groan out a long, ugly orgasm into his ears, and he felt her twitch around him, and he started to shiver as he waited her to finish and leave.

But she didn't leave. She climbed off him and she went into the lounge and then she made several phone calls. She remained half naked, wandering around, chattering into the phone in Russian and English that Jounouchi could not follow. He lay there and waited and smelt the fumes of her vape. He wondered if he locked himself in the bathroom whether she might shoot out the lock.

Some time later she came back to him. She grinned that luminous, horrible grin. 'Hey, you wanna go again?' And then she laughed. 'I'm kidding, baby boy. You did good.' She slapped his face gently, affectionately. She dressed, humming to herself that same song, and Jounouchi felt every sound she made cut through him like glass until she opened the apartment door. 'I'll see you around, yeah?' And then the door closed. Silence settled over the apartment like ash.

Jounouchi took a shower. It was hot and safe in there. He could stay there forever in the golden flecks of water. He could become wet and tiny and flow down the drain, down into the underneath, never to be seen again. He got out dripping and didn't bother with a towel. Katya had thrown them all onto the floor and he didn't want to touch them.

He walked wet and naked around his apartment, examining this object and then that. Another boy walked past him, through the mirror, with fingerprint marks around his neck. He walked over his spilled Duel Monsters cards, which stuck to and peeled against his heels, to pick up a bottle vodka that cost... Oh, he had no idea. He took a swig, then frowned, then drank three deep draughts. He set the bottle back down.

An imagined voice sounded in his head. 'So you're an alcoholic now too? Pathetic.'

'Shut up, Kaiba,' he told no one in particular, and then he located his phone.

He had two messages. One was from Yuugi. One was from Tanner.

He ignored the one from Yuugi.

Tanner had left a voicemail, as he was wont to do. Jounouchi held the phone to his ear and listened to the recordings of a vibrant, horrible, rainbow party stream into his skull. He pictured women, the ones that Tanner always had around him, the ones that did everything they were told. He pictured that girl from the cafe and he pictured calling her a cunt, and her smiling at him all shy at him like the receptionist. Then he pictured Kaiba, watching Tanner get sucked off by some nothing chick. He pictured his fingers around Kaiba's neck. Images rattled through his head like a slide projector on overdrive.

'Hey there, Jo-Jo, just calling to see if you are around today to visit us down at the Shibazakura Club downtown... Could really use you, if you get my drift...' And then there were seventeen long seconds of distant shouting as Tanner forgot to end the voice message, talking to invisible someones.

Jounouchi, standing naked in his trashed apartment, texted back. Be there asap.

He stood for a moment, looking at nothing, remembering nothing. He picked up the bottle of vodka, drank from it again, then threw it against the wall where it exploded into snowflakes of glass. And then he dressed in a brand new shirt and jeans and a leather jacket that Katya hadn't touched, and he took a stack of bills from the pile Katya had emptied, and he headed back into the screaming, blistering city.