Film

By Katsuya Kaiba

One Shot Series: Katsuya Jounouchi 3.0

"Really? You won't come tonight?" Yuugi gazed up at him with wide eyes and upturned eyebrows, and it took everything inside of Jounouchi to stand firm against the tried and true method that Yuugi would only ever use as a last resort.

"Really. I just can't. You know I want to, Yuugi, but I promised Seto…you know."

Yuugi looked back down and absorbed the truth, but he lost his sad expression after a moment and replaced it with one of lukewarm understanding.

"It's all right…everyone else will be there, and we'll have fun. But it won't be the same without you."

Jounouchi grinned at Yuugi, knowing full well that it was the truth. Jounouchi did want to go, and in all honesty he rather missed spending the night at Yuugi's house with all of his friends. But now there was Seto, and Jounouchi couldn't stand the thought of spending his spare moments away from him. He knew that he would have fun if he went to Yuugi's, but he also knew that he would spend the entire evening thinking about what Seto was doing and wishing that he himself were there, doing whatever it was with him.

"Where are you going now?" School had let out a few minutes earlier, and Jounouchi was idly killing time as he talked with Yuugi in front of the building.

"I'm going over to Seto's. It's not a long walk, and he didn't bother to come into school today, so I can't catch a ride." Jounouchi looked up the sky and frowned, mostly to himself. "In fact…I should probably get going. He'll come home early from work today."

Jounouchi turned to say goodbye to his friend, but Yuugi stepped forward and stood at Jounouchi's side.

"I'll walk with you. I need to get something from there."

The two boys walked side by side in silence, until Jounouchi's mind clicked and then replayed the very last thing that he had heard.

"Wait…you need something from Seto's house? What is it?"

"Remember that history project that the teacher forced Seto to participate in? Seto was in my group, and he still has the video that we made. I wanted to borrow it and show everyone tonight." Yuugi laughed to himself at the memory. "It's so funny…especially Seto's part…we made him dress up as Princess Onishirona…"

Yuugi's sentence dissolved into a fit of giggling, and then Jounouchi began to recollect the events that Yuugi spoke of with a growing grin.

Jounouchi remembered something, vaguely, when Seto had come home awfully late one evening. Jounouchi had been waiting at Seto's house for a while, and when Seto finally arrived, he'd immediately run up the stairs and hid himself in the bathroom for a very long time. Jounouchi had some suspicions, especially since he'd noticed Seto's cheeks being much more pink than they normally were, but Seto had dashed up the stairs so quickly that Jounouchi hadn't even had the chance to say hello. Realization dawned on him just then, and he burst into laughter alongside Yuugi, who was still giggling from before.

"Is that what happened? Seto refused to tell me what you all were doing, and I never got to see the finished product since you guys are in a different class than I am." Jounouchi ran a hand through his hair and looked down at his friend. "How did you get him to do that?"

Yuugi shrugged his shoulders and looked back up at Jounouchi.

"It was the last part left. Seto was late, and we all chose our parts without him there. By the time he arrived…it was the only part that hadn't been taken. He had to; the teacher said she'd give him an F for the class if he didn't participate."

Jounouchi shook his head and began to feel embarrassed for Seto…in a way. In a way that still allotted plenty of room for amusement. Yuugi quieted down, and the two of them fell into a comfortable silence as they walked.

"So," Yuugi broke the quiet once more, in a softer tone. "What's so special about tonight? You mentioned it last week…didn't you?"

Jounouchi nodded his head and thought of the day that he was in, a day that had been in the back of his mind, lurking ominously for quite some time. Six months…six months was a long time, and yet it seemed as though it could have been hours.

"Today…Seto and I have been together for six months."

Jounouchi continued to walk while looking at the ground beneath his feet, and he didn't see the small smile that pulled at the corners of his friend's mouth.

"Wow…it's really been that long? I'm so happy for you, Jou."

Jounouchi glanced over and caught Yuugi's smile, and he felt his lips responding in the same manner. It was nice, wasn't it? Perhaps it wasn't such a long time, but it meant something to Jounouchi, and he wasn't quite sure what it was. To spend an amount of time such as that with one person, and to still not be able to stand it when they were not around…

Jounouchi couldn't help but feel that something was sneaking up on him, something that he didn't want to say just yet, for fear of startling it and scaring it away for good.

"Yeah…I don't know why, but I guess I like him okay…" Jounouchi passed Yuugi a dry smile, and Yuugi laughed aloud.

They walked around a street corner and Seto's house fell into sight, and Jounouchi noted that Seto's car wasn't in the driveway.

Not yet, Jounouchi thought, but Seto had promised that since he was skipping school to go into work, he would be home earlier than usual.

Yuugi followed Jounouchi up the front steps and into the house, and then Jounouchi led him into a room just around the corner from the front door.

"He gave you a key?"

Jounouchi answered with a sly grin, and then pointed over to a desk that sat in the far corner of the small room, surrounded by filing cabinets and shelves lined with textbooks and stacks of old papers.

"Seto's school stuff," he said and smirked.

Jounouchi snickered quietly, and Yuugi looked all around, noticing that Seto really liked to hang on to his old homework.

"I keep telling him that he doesn't need to keep any of this stuff, but…I guess he's just so used to filing everything away. It makes him feel prepared, or something…I don't really get it."

Jounouchi stepped forward and Yuugi followed him across the bare wooden floor, coming up to the desk and watching as Jounouchi began pulling open the drawers, one by one.

"It would be in here, if he didn't destroy the thing…here it is!" Jounouchi stood up proudly and waved the unmarked video in his hand.

Yuugi smiled gratefully and reached up to grab it, but Jounouchi held it up out of his reach and gave Yuugi a sudden look of seriousness.

"Okay…I don't really care if you borrow this, but please…bring it back with you tomorrow and give it to me in first period. And tell everyone else not to say anything about it to him…if he finds out that I let you borrow this, he'll kill me…promise?"

Yuugi let his hands fall to his sides, and he gave Jounouchi his best look of starving innocence.

"I promise."

Jounouchi smiled and tossed the video to Yuugi, who caught it and unzipped his backpack, shoving the tape inside the bag.

"Thanks, Jou. I wish that you could watch this with us, but I know that you'll be happier here with Seto tonight. Have fun."

Yuugi walked back to the front door, followed by Jounouchi, and he turned and waved goodbye to his friend as he set off for his own home. It was too bad that Jounouchi couldn't come, he thought, but he wasn't upset with his friend at all for it. Yuugi knew that Jounouchi loved Seto, although he wasn't positive if Jounouchi himself knew it yet, or even if Seto saw it. Still…it was going to be much more quiet without Jounouchi around, and there would be for too much food that most likely wouldn't get eaten.

"Okay…everyone sit down here. I have something that you've gotta see."

Yuugi ran across the living room floor, video in hand, and he sat down excitedly right in front of the television. He shoved the cassette into the VCR, and then turned to make sure that everyone was watching.

Honda sat on the floor a few feet behind Yuugi, grinning madly, because he had been one of the participants in the infamous history project, and therefore knew exactly what it was that Yuugi wanted everyone to see.

In truth, it had been Honda's idea in the first place, for while Yuugi had been asking Honda and the three other students in the group to wait for Seto to arrive so they could begin filming their project, Honda had been quietly considering the fact that there were five boys and no girls in their group. Honda had also considered the fact that there was one female role in the particular historical event that that their group had been chosen to act out, and Honda had decided that it was not going to be him. Bringing up this fact to the rest of the group had spawned a sudden disinterest in waiting for Seto, and they had all silently agreed that Seto could choose his own part as soon as he arrived. In the meantime, however, they also decided that the group members that were present should probably begin choosing roles for themselves.

Seto had been on his own from that point on, and Honda had to muffle a laugh at the memory of the result.

Behind where Honda sat was Yuugi's couch, and both Anzu and Ryou sat on it side by side, looking slightly confused due to Yuugi's refusal to explain anything about the tape to them, insisting that they instead ought to view the footage for themselves.

Everyone sat quietly then and watched Yuugi intently, who was already laughing under his breath at the memory of Seto all dressed up and looking so shockingly pretty. It actually hadn't been the absolute worst thing that could have happened, and Yuugi had been somewhat surprised at how convincing Seto had been.

He couldn't wait to show everybody.

Yuugi's hand paused over the play button, and he looked back at his friends once again, this time with a more serious expression.

"Okay, you guys have to promise that you won't tell Seto that I borrowed this tape back from him…and you definitely can't tell him that you saw him like this. Right?"

Anzu and Ryou nodded silently, and Honda sat up from his sprawled position on the floor to give Yuugi the thumbs up. Smiling, Yuugi turned back to the VCR and pressed the play button, scooting back on the carpet just a bit so he could see the television screen a bit better.

"I wish Jou was here," Honda spoke absentmindedly as the four of them waited for the tape to begin playing. "This is just the sort of thing that he would love," he mused thoughtfully, "especially since it's Kaiba who…"

Honda's voice trailed off into an uncertain silence, and no one asked him to finish his sentence. No one even remembered that Honda had been speaking, because the tape had started up suddenly and everyone in the room was far too distracted to notice.

Anzu let out a small scream and her hand shot up to cover her eyes, while Ryou squinted at the screen for a moment before his eyes grew wide, and a flush erupted and spread quickly over his face. He looked down at Honda, who was looking at Yuugi. Yuugi wasn't looking at anything but the television screen, and he blinked in disbelief and then reached out to the VCR and pressed the stop button as quickly as he could, but it wasn't quick enough. The video shut off, and the film was replaced by the blue standby screen, to the relief of everyone involved.

Yuugi's living room fell into a deathly silent pallor, until Honda began making a strange noise behind his hand. Both Anzu and Ryou stared at him, wondering what was the matter, and then Yuugi finally noticed what was going on behind him, and he, too, turned to look at Honda, who sheepishly took his hand from his mouth and tried to put on a straight face. It worked for a moment, but as soon as the moment was over Honda looked down at the carpet and started laughing again nervously.

"Hey, Yuugi…I can't remember filming that. Are you sure that you borrowed the right tape from Seto?"

Yuugi spoke quietly, unsure of what to do or say just then.

"I didn't borrow it from Seto, I borrowed it from Jou. He took it out of Seto's desk, but…he didn't check it to see if it was the right one."

Honda started chuckling to himself again, and finally Anzu got fed up with him and threw one of the couch cushions at his head, aiming perfectly. Honda turned to glare at her, but she only glared right back.

"This isn't funny, Honda."

Honda threw his hands up in the air with a wry smile, feigning defeat.

"I know…it's just…I was just thinking about how we're going to tell him."

Yuugi glanced over at the couch and saw that no one agreed with Honda's plan.

"Tell who? Jou? Are you kidding? I'm not telling him anything." Anzu frowned at Honda, and instead of replying Honda looked over at Yuugi and gave him a questioning look.

"Yuugi? Aren't we gonna tell Jou?"

Yuugi stared at Honda, still shocked over what he'd seen, but still aware enough to shake his head emphatically.

"No way. No one tells Jou…okay? I'll just give this back to him tomorrow like we promised, and then no one will ever know. See? It's perfect."

Honda frowned at Yuugi, confused about something.

"But then how will we get the real tape? I wanted to see it again."

Anzu scoffed loudly, and Yuugi smiled and picked up the couch cushion and used it to beat Honda in the head a few times, giggling nervously.

"Hey, I'm just easin' the tension," Honda grinned and turned to point at Anzu and Ryou on the couch. "But you should have seen the looks on your guys' faces…" Honda's laughter started up once more, and this time Yuugi laughed alongside him, feeling an odd sort of dread about the following morning.

Jounouchi and Seto arrived at school together the following morning, and the two of them walked quietly into their first class just minutes before the final bell was due to ring. Seto sat down in his desk across the room, and Jounouchi took his own seat right between Honda and Yuugi and smiled cheerfully at the two of them.

Honda immediately began to laugh to himself, and Yuugi shot him a glare past Jounouchi as he leaned over and reached furtively into his backpack, checking to see if Seto was watching.

"Here, Jou…thanks for letting me borrow this."

Yuugi handed the videotape to Jounouchi with an empty smile, and Jounouchi reached out and took it, grinning at Yuugi slightly as he searched his friend's face, wondering what was off about it. After Jounouchi's hand was safely around the tape, Yuugi immediately looked away and stared at the front of the classroom, glancing over occasionally to give Honda a worried glare, to which Honda would only reply with more muffled laughter.

Jounouchi stared at Honda and then turned to look at Yuugi, who refused to meet his eyes, and after a few more seconds of pure confusion Jounouchi finally turned to Honda again and spoke.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?"

Honda quieted down at Jounouchi's outburst, and he looked over and grinned at both Yuugi and Jounouchi.

"Nothing…but seriously, you should watch that tape. Yuugi said that you didn't even know about it until yesterday. I think you'll find it…interesting."

Honda finished speaking quickly as the teacher stepped up to the front of the classroom, and Jounouchi nodded slowly at Honda, knowing that his friend was trying to tell him something. He just wasn't sure what it was. He made up his mind to watch the tape that day before Seto came home from work, and then as soon as he was finished he would simply hide the tape in Seto's desk where he had taken it from in the first place.

Jounouchi's eyes flickered in Seto's direction and he smiled, finding Seto immersed in something on the screen of his laptop. Seto didn't usually come home until evening, and Jounouchi would have plenty of time after being dropped off at Seto's house to watch the video, although he felt a bit apprehensive about the way that Honda and Yuugi had been acting. Especially Yuugi.

Jounouchi wondered if it was really all that important for him to watch some school project of Seto's from last semester, but he trusted in what Honda had eluded to and decided that he would watch it the moment he got home.

Maybe it really was as funny as Yuugi said it was.

Jounouchi strode casually into the living room in Seto's home and dumped his backpack on the couch, unzipping the side pocket and pulling out the returned videotape, flipping it over idly in his hands as he approached the television against the wall. He leaned over and stuck the cassette inside the VCR and then laid himself across the couch lazily, digging the remote out from beneath it's usual cushion and turning the television to the correct station. He pointed the remote towards the VCR and pressed the play button, feeling strangely curious about what his two friends had been going on about earlier that morning.

Come to think of it, Jounouchi mused as he fixed his eyes on the screen and waited for the film to play, no one had really had any eyes for him that day. The only direct eye contact he'd gotten from anyone had been from Seto.

He blinked once at the screen, then again, trying to focus his eyes and finding himself unable to do so. His heartbeat quickened and he inhaled sharply, sitting up from the couch slowly and pulling himself into a somewhat standing position.

It couldn't be…

He took a step forward, then another, and finally he walked blindly across the room towards the screen and looked behind him instinctively, making sure that he was alone and that Mokuba hadn't walked in or anything.

No one was there, and Jounouchi brought his eyes back to the television and watched silently, unsure of what might come out if he tried to speak or react. It was unmistakable, and he had a pretty good idea of what had happened, but he couldn't believe that Seto would take the tape out of the system and hide it like that.

Seto had a lot of explaining to do, Jounouchi decided.

He felt that he should be mad, he should be furious, in fact, but he was far too shocked and confused to feel much of anything at the moment.

And then the truth of the matter hit him, and he realized that he had just gotten this very tape back…

…which meant that he had lent it out.

Jounouchi dropped the remote and it fell to the carpet, and he ran the rest of the way to the VCR, shutting the entire system off and leaving the video inside the player. He sat himself down on the carpet cross-legged and thought, thought of the way that Yuugi had looked at him that morning, the way that Honda had been laughing. Honda would laugh.

And then he thought of one other thing, a memory of something that Yuugi had said to him.

"Remember that history project that the teacher forced Seto to participate in? Seto was in my group, and he still has the video that we made. I wanted to borrow it and show everyone tonight…"

That meant that all of Jounouchi's friends had seen this tape.

Jounouchi wanted to scream. Mostly at Seto. He wanted to march down to Seto's office right in that instant and demand an explanation, even though he knew that there really weren't a whole lot of options as far as motivation was concerned. But he had let Yuugi take that video, and he hadn't even checked to be sure that it was the one that Yuugi had asked for. Jounouchi knew that it was at least partially his own fault, but even though that was true, it still remained to be seen what Seto might have to say for himself, and Jounouchi couldn't wait to hear it.

Seto returned home around the same time that normally did each evening, and as usual Jounouchi was waiting for him in the living room, but as Seto approached the room and saw that Jounouchi was standing in the center impatiently, arms crossed and glaring furiously, Seto began to wonder if there wasn't anywhere else that he needed to be right then. He knew that whatever it was that had Jounouchi so hostile, it was most likely his fault, although it still remained to be seen whether he would be proven guilty or not.

Seto stepped into the living room cautiously, feeling something awfully heavy bearing down on his chest, and he paused just a few feet shy of Jounouchi himself.

"Jounouchi…"

"Seto."

Jounouchi suddenly regarded Seto with an amused grin, and Seto frowned, wondering what Jounouchi was up to. He took another step forward but Jounouchi countered it by stepping backwards, and then he turned around completely and walked towards the television, flipping it on and leaning down to press a few buttons on the VCR.

Seto watched him as he did so, not saying anything at all for fear of incriminating himself before it was absolutely necessary. He hadn't the slightest clue what he'd done to make Jounouchi so upset, but he wanted to hurry up and find out so that he could remember not to do it again.

"Jounouchi, I-"

Seto's voice quit in mid-sentence when Jounouchi held his hand up for silence and pointed to the television screen. Seto's eyes followed Jounouchi's lead, and then widened considerably as he realized what it was that he had done, or rather, what he'd filmed.

He glanced back at Jounouchi, who was staring at Seto's face intently and waiting for a reaction, and Seto shut his eyes briefly and racked his brain for something, anything at all that sounded plausible.

Upon seeing that Seto was not going to speak right away, Jounouchi leaned back down and shut the tape off, then stood up silently and folded his arms over his chest, awaiting an explanation.

Seto didn't say a word, and instead he stared back at Jounouchi, too tired and thrown off to come up with anything reasonable. Jounouchi decided that he was finished waiting, and he walked over to the couch as he spoke, and Seto followed him and sat down in the space beside him.

"You took the security tape out of the system…didn't you?"

Jounouchi's voice didn't sound angry, and Seto looked up slightly when he noticed the tone. It wasn't angry, just exasperated and a little stressed out, which Seto could deal with. He'd screwed up countless times in the past, and he'd learned that there wasn't too much that he couldn't repair. This mess, however, he knew was going to be a bit trickier than most to extricate himself from.

Seto sat back on the couch and grinned at Jounouchi, for a reason that he couldn't fathom.

When Jounouchi saw Seto's response, Jounouchi wanted to explode at him, but he knew that if he did, he might spill the secret that his friends had seen the tape, and Jounouchi had already decided a long time ago that Seto simply wasn't going to find that part out. Ever. So instead of screaming, Jounouchi also leaned back into the couch and took a deep breath, watching Seto's face the entire time.

Seto began to feel that he should say something, although everything that he could think of to say would either be highly inappropriate or just plain mean, and while normally it wouldn't concern him so much, he knew that he was already walking across a very thin layer of ice, and would most likely continue to do so for the remainder of the evening.

So he remained silent instead, and waited for Jounouchi to begin yelling at him, or screaming, or maybe to throw something at him. Whatever it was that Jounouchi would do so that he could stop being mad and go back to being Jounouchi, which was who Seto had come home to see in the first place, and had been very disappointed to find that he wasn't there. Jounouchi took another breath and turned to face Seto fully, and Seto braced himself for the onslaught, but it never came.

Jounouchi tried to yell, he honestly did, but he knew from the start that he wasn't going to. He wasn't even all that upset. He had been a little disturbed by it, at first, but that had been almost completely due to the fact that his friends had seen the tape, and he found that what Seto had done himself wasn't really such a terrible thing.

Perhaps it was even…well…no. It was really, really weird, and just a little disconcerting, but it certainly wasn't something that Jounouchi would have put past Seto, and Jounouchi stared at him as hard as he could and tried to get angry, to no avail.

So he shut his eyes and laughed instead, silently at first and then it grew louder with each passing moment, and he opened his eyes and saw Seto's wildly confused stare, and he laughed even harder.

He laughed because all of his friends would always look at Seto and see the video in their minds, and Seto would never know. He most likely wouldn't even notice, to be honest, and Jounouchi laughed at that, as well. He laughed at the thought of Seto, dressed up as a princess, and the realization that he never, ever wanted Seto to leave, or be somewhere that Jounouchi wasn't, for as long as it took for him to die. Then Jounouchi leaned over and fell onto Seto's chest and laughed, so hard that tears fell from his eyes and Seto stiffened underneath him in distress.

It took a few minutes, but Jounouchi was able to finally calm himself down, and when he did he lifted his eyes and looked inside of Seto's, finding a deep and slightly frightened confusion there.

"You're sick…you know that?"

Jounouchi spoke sternly, but he was smiling so widely that it didn't even matter, and Seto smirked back, silently hoping that Jounouchi wasn't going to confiscate his videotape.

Seto wondered how Jounouchi had found it, because he himself had thought that he'd lost it, and it had made Seto feel strangely sad to have lost that tape in particular. That had been the very first time he had ever done that sort of thing with Jounouchi, and while he had never actually watched the tape himself, he felt that it was thekind of thing that people kept around when they wanted to remember something fondly.

AN: note how I never said what it was that was on that tape. But you all thought it was...what?