Started: 7/16/04 Finished: 8/23/04
I got the game on the 23th of July. It's a burned copy...! Jeez! Anyway, I also beat the game at 1AM the next day. Since I can't read Japanese, I got a bad ending. I made Jou cry! I didn't MEAN to! And then when I went to KaibaCorp the next two days, the Pharaoh (Yami, of course) came and started talking to me with all this evil music playing. It was sooo creepy, I slept lightly! Jeez, and I only lasted 17 days out of 20, so it's not THAT bad...
A few days ago, I made Kaiba's hair turn GREEN in that game on my second file! Wahahahaha!
Love Through a Portrait
by Kurohi Tatsaki
Chapter 3 - Rough Draft
Chopsticks clicked against the table as the handler set them down and leaned back in his seat. "Damn, that was good!" He patted his belly appreciatively. I could get used to this! He grinned and looked to Mokuba. "Hey, Mokuba, I'll play ya a round in Duel Monsters now, or you can watch me draw Kaiba - if he wants that, anyway - and then we can play. What'll it be?"
"You draw good. I wanna watch!" he chirped.
Jou looked to the older Kaiba, whom looked a bit uncomfortable. He replied, "You can watch him as he draws the Blue-Eyes, okay Mokuba?"
The younger Kaiba smiled. "Okay! I'll see you both in half an hour!"
The blonde glanced at the clock. He had one and a half hours before he had to make a break for it. "Half an hour should be suitable. You go ahead and choose the location, Kaiba. I don't really care where." With that, he pulled his papers and pencil out from the floor where he had set them. He followed the brunette down another hallway until a right turn was made immediately, and he followed. Kaiba opened a door of the double doors and pressed on.
Jou gasped slightly at the extravagant garden surrounding them. The ground was lined cement tiles that had jewels embedded in them. A few of the tiles contained dragons in some sort of pattern. The shrubs were evenly cut, and the few trees that stood out towered over three times his height. Dark-colored flowers adorned the walls and ground, and a tall fountain portraying a Blue-Eyes White Dragon stood, spewing water from its jaws. Its wings were spread out majestically, and Jou knew that he needed to capture such a piece in his drawing somehow. He knew now that the final piece would change. "Sugee, Kaiba..."
"Aa." He stopped by a fountain and looked at it for a moment before turning around to see Jou. He had seated himself along the stone by the hedges and was eyeing him critically for a moment. He then started to sketch the pose that Kaiba was in: Arms crossed in front of his chest and resting against each other, one hand tucked down. His aura emitted power, and with the dragon behind him, Jou felt himself at a loss of adjectives to describe his feelings toward such a presentation.
He finished with Kaiba fairly quickly and started up on the fountain behind him, starting out with the dragon's head and working his way down. He soon finished and he stood up, snagging another page from behind the first. He approached the fountain and looked up at the magnificent dragon, his eyes wide in awe. He soon got to work on its face, marking it with intricate detail.
Kaiba watched him intently as the pencil flew over the paper, and before he knew it, Jou was looking back at him, his eyes moving slightly. "Nani?" he asked, one of his eyebrows arching.
Jou blinked out of whatever stupor he had brought himself into and the pencil graced the paper again, glancing back at him on occasion. When he finished, Kaiba sidled up next to the other teen. It was a near-perfect depiction of his earlier curiosity. The drawing stopped at his shoulders.
"You should be a professional," he commented tonelessly.
The blonde jolted and looked up, - since he was a few inches shorter than Kaiba - curious as well as wary. "H-Hontou ni?"
Seto nodded once. "Consider it."
Jou smiled when he realized that the other boy might be serious. "I will." He blinked as Seto shuffled slightly closer, and he looked up at him a bit more. Warm honey-brown eyes met ice-blue ones, and he didn't know what to think. His heart beat faster and it was everything he could do not to go with the flow. "K-Kaiba...?"
Kiss him! C'mon, you know you wanna... Suddenly, Seto turned around, walked over to a stone bench, and sat down on it, legs elegantly crossed at the ankles. His head tilted slightly up at him at a cocky angle, and his hands clasped loosely together.
Once again, the blonde got back to work, if only to calm himself.
Seto watched back, his mask in place. He watched the puppy as he made not-so-meaningless marks on the page, his arm moving with his hand. He knew that that hand was retracing lines and occasionally erasing others. And sometimes, Jou would look up for a brief period to reinforce his depiction.
A young teen ran outside to the duo and stopped at the blonde. "Hey, Jou! How's it coming!" Amazing! They haven't killed each other yet!
The honey-eyed boy looked up at the younger Kaiba before grinning from his spot on the Blue-Eyes fountain. "Smoothly. Just give me a sec, and then I can tune up my sketches of the BEWD."
Mokuba Kaiba nodded once. "'kay!" He paused. "Wait, didn't you say that you would draw the Blue-Eyes while I was around! You big MEANIE!"
Jou frowned. "I can't help it if I go with the flow of my drawings." His eyes warmed. "If anything, the drawings are the boss, and I'm merely following their grace, depicting them on mediums to the best - or worst - of my abilities... And, if anything, the subject is higher than me, because even though I'm drawing it, him, or her, it is so because without it, I usually can't draw worth shit. I can only draw what I see..." He shook his head. "...Never mind. Got lost for a bit. Let's go try with the Blue-Eyes."
Kaiba stretched lithely and casually leaned back against the stone, watching the puppy interact with his brother. The both looked so happy, and Jou's eyes were glowing a dark amber in the fading sunlight. Also, what he said... He said that he was beneath me... Interesting...
"...So, here, since I made a mistake, I just draw OVER the mistake like this..." His hand flew over the previous line, taking the tip of lead with it. "...see? So that I know what NOT to do!"
"Yeah, I see it! Is that what all artists do?"
"Depends on their style, but, yeah, most of them do that. Including me, of course," Jou replied, grinning, as he continued drawing the Blue-Eyes fountain. It was nearly finished by the time the other blue-eyed child touched his shoulder.
"Yeah... Hey, can I talk to you a minute? In private?"
Jou blinked. "What for?"
"It's personal. C'mon!" With that, he started to drag the blonde toward a deeper part of the garden.
"Ch-chotto, chotto!" With that, Jounouchi set his sketches down and was promptly dragged again. "I can WALK y'know!" he pouted.
Seto arched one slender eyebrow before looking down to the papers and pencil. Kneeling near them, he picked them up, and slowly rifled through them. The first few were the ones he had drawn today - he even dated them, too - and as he skimmed through the blank sheets, he came to several other sketches. The first one was of Jou and Shizuka as children playing in the sand, their faces alight with joy, as Jou continued to work on the sand castle with Shizuka trying to copy him. The next sketch showed Jou standing in front of his Red-Eyes, drawing a card. It was dated from a week ago. The next drawing... was Kaiba! In the sketch, he was absently looking out the window at school, and it was dated as a drawing from yesterday.
Another sketch was Kaiba perched atop a slightly-flawed Blue-Eyes, the creature looking as menacing as ever, and off to one side, the writing "Kaiba-san and his Blue-Eyes" was written. Kaiba was smirking, as usual, in the picture, and holding up two more Blue-Eyes, a Polymerization card, and his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon fusion card in his left hand, his duel disk nowhere to be found. Must be another jibe or something at the fact I used to be a High Priest 3000 years ago...
A few other sketches were of Kaiba yelling at Jou or of his other friends. Mai was in one picture – a group shot – that must have been drawn from a picture. And then... there was one more picture.
It was Jou again, covered in bruises, and looking pissed. He was sitting down on a carpet, his chin resting atop his right knee while the other leg lay folded and flat to the ground. His hands held his upright leg. A comment at the bottom read, "The one time I got into a fistfight with Kaiba. I know not to fight him like that, so nowadays, I duel with him instead. I won't admit it to his face but... hey, what am I writing? Someone could be looking at this for all I know! Not cool..."
Seto chuckled. Oh, how right he is...
At that moment, with Mokuba...
Deep in the garden, Mokuba stopped abruptly and turned to the blonde. "Jou-kun... Do you like my oniisama?"
"Why would you say that?" asked Jou, blushing. "He's all but killed me in the past, and been a real jerk." Though, his "I am more powerful than you" streak is quite appealing.
"I'd say that because you're blushing whenever I talk about him," the young Kaiba retorted, grinning.
No duh! The blonde frowned. "Ooooi..." he grumbled. I wouldn't use the "L" word just yet, but, yeah, I like him... "...but... yeah, I like your brother," he finished, glancing at the ground.
"Is that why you want to draw him and then perhaps paint it later?"
Pausing a second, Jou nodded once. "Aa." Come to think of it, I've liked him for a while now... ever since I started doodling him... no, that can't be right... I must have liked him from the beginning, but didn't know it... "I think, though, that I'll just focus on Kaiba and his Blue-Eyes as the actual project, and do the other one in my spare time. Something like that. I'm waiting for some inspiration to come and knock me upside the head." He smiled at the thought. Only problem is that most of the time Inspiration's a real bitch and either doesn't come or comes at the worst times.
The younger brother chuckled. "Okay, okay! Let's go back. I'm sure my oniisan is waiting for us to come back."
"Yeah." I wonder if he looked at my pictures...? Man, if he did, he must think I'm some kinda stalker...! Ohh, man!
"Jou, are you okay?"
Honey eyes blinked at dark sapphire. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine."
They walked back, and Jou noticed the CEO set the pictures down and stare at them strangely for a moment, and he stopped in his tracks. After a moment, Seto looked up, his face indifferent, and Jou managed to move again. He walked over to the pictures and bent over, scooping them up at small bunches at a time. His hand rested on the final one with him beat up, and he hesitated, staring down at it. I didn't know I still had this here... How'd it get there...? I thought I'd sent it under my bed...?
"Jounouchi? Daijoubu?"
He blinked out of his stupor, grabbed the picture and righted himself. He nodded after a moment. "...Aa." He paused again and turned to Kaiba after glancing at his watch. He had fifteen minutes to get home. "...Can I please get a ride home? I can't be late..." He frowned slightly at this, but fixed his expression a moment later.
Kaiba nodded and started walking inside, but hesitated at the door. He looked over his shoulder, remembering that he had to go on a business trip on the weekend and was expected to bring a friend. Bring Jounouchi...? "...Jounouchi?"
"Yeah?"
The billionaire took a breath. "Would you like to come with me on a business trip this weekend? I know it'll be boring most of the time, but you won't have to do much during the actual party." He spat the word party and frowned a moment. "However, since it'll be Sunday by then, we should return early.
Obviously confused, the blonde asked, "What about Saturday?"
Reclaiming his sense of security, he replied curtly, "I'll be giving you the rundown about the /party's/ contents at the hotel we'll be staying in."
Jou nodded once. "M'kay. I'll go. But I really need to get home now...!" He sounded urgent and a little panicked.
Frowning, Kaiba asked, "Dou shita?"
The blonde shook his head and gave a weak grin. "Curfew."
The taller boy's eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he didn't do anything else other than drive the pup home.
Sugee (taken from "sugoi") cool/awesome
