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Jounouchi
Some things just have to be reconciled with and put away. The fact that Mokuba probably wouldn't speak to me ever again was just one of those things. Actually, I was lucky that anyone was talking to me – Shizuka mostly. True, she was pissed, but I couldn't blame her. In her shoes, I would've been ticked off too. At least the shouting hadn't lasted; talk about twisting the knife in my back, to hear my baby sister so mad at me… I had to put on a nice face for her; there was no reason to be mad at her. I couldn't make myself do it. I sighed and swished my pan around, watching vegetables sizzle as they skidded across the skillet.
"Hey, Jounouchi," the guy up front called back, "that kid is here for you!"
I raised my eyebrow and leaned back enough to look past the front counter. Sure enough, there was Mokuba, arms crossed over his chest, scowling like he didn't want to be there. His school bag was hoisted over his shoulder – odd considering they were supposed to be on break. Knowing my luck, the drama had convinced him to deal with enemies the old-fashioned way; sneaking poison into their food. I wouldn't put it past him to carry his whole stash into a store, if he was mad enough. "Hey, can you take over here?" I asked my coworker; she nodded, taking the frying pan from my hands and shooing me off. I went out front, striding straight to a table in the corner; I wasn't going to leave allowance for a big scene right at the cash register. Mokuba followed, sitting across from me.
"Need something?" I couldn't help being short; I liked the kid, but he kissed my sister – and damn it, I had to be mad at someone for that!
At least he wasn't pulling the punches either, starting straight in with, "Why are you so stupid? Just because you were pissed at me didn't mean you had to mess with Niisama."
"Is that was this is about?" I asked, leaning down onto the table. "Forget about it; it wasn't a big deal. Guys fight all the time – "
"Not guys like Niisama!" He swung his bag up on the table, taking out a newspaper and shoving it towards me, making me sit up so I could look at it. There was an article circled – something about the fight, about Kaiba and impulse control… "See what this has done?"
"So? The guy got into a fight, and now people don't think he's perfect – it's not like it matters."
Mokuba looked like he was going to bust a vein as he held his voice in check, low and creepily slow. "Part of Niisama's job is putting on a good face to associate to Kaiba Corp, and this is bad. He's actually getting scolded at work for this. Even if it's small to someone like you, it's a big deal in business."
I leaned down on the paper, purposefully not looking at it – hell, I kind of did it just to see Mokuba turn that much redder. "It's not like I pity him – if you remember, he hit me first."
"You provoked him! How would you like to be in his position?"
"About as much as I'd like seeing my boyfriend kissing my sister," I retorted, glaring at him from the pillow of my arms. I'd been waiting for that, I really had; all I wanted was the opening to let him know exactly how I felt about that. If I got the chance, he wouldn't hear the end of it.
"Don't drag that into this – that's not even on the same level. What you did was – "
"You're not going to make me pity him," I said, sitting up straight. "You can sit here and try all afternoon, but this is the guy who took my baby sister and tried to use her against me – "
"Which he obviously didn't do a very good job of."
I glared and continued, " – a girl you seem to give a damn about, and you expect me to feel bad because he looks a little bad? News flash, kid – he is bad."
Mokuba looked down, his hands falling to his lap; after a second he said through gritted teeth: "All I want you to do is apologize." I could see his shoulders shaking, and guessed that he had some pretty tight fists under the table. "That's all."
"Well, I'm not. He's more likely to suck my dick than I am to apologize."
Mokuba stood from his chair so quickly that he nearly knocked it over. "Go to hell, Jounouchi. You can be just as stubborn as you want, but Niisama doesn't let things like this sit – you're going to have to face it eventually, whether you want to or not. And he's already pissed off; I wouldn't want to be in your shoes if he has to come to you."
He left after that – good thing the front door couldn't slam, or I bet he would've shaken the walls. I stormed back into the kitchen. Getting mixed up with the Kaiba family was bad news; if I didn't know she'd just get mad at me again, I'd consider telling Shizuka to keep herself away from it. For me… the best I could do was hope that I was killed in some freak accident in the kitchen, because I knew one thing for sure: Mokuba was right. Kaiba's reputation wasn't something to be messed with, and I wasn't going to get his praise for making him look bad.
Mokuba
We had to talk. It wasn't as though we would avoid each other forever… but I hadn't picked up the phone to call Shizuka, and she hadn't called me either. It wasn't the sort of conversation I wanted to have over the phone anyway; it seemed perfectly natural to go to her house… Why I got so nervous at the front door, I wasn't sure. I didn't want to explain myself to her mother, not when she had such glowing praise for Niisama. He wasn't something I was ready to live up to.
So instead I went to the open kitchen window to scope out the scene. Luckily, it was just Shizuka riffling through the refrigerator and mumbling to herself. I leaned in against the windowsill and said, "Hey!" She jumped, looking over to window and backing away at the same time… I grinned, making her stop in her tracks, sighing and glaring at the same time. "Did I scare you?"
"Yes!" She propped herself against the refrigerator, smiling at me. "I've never been visited through my kitchen window."
I felt like a complete dork, but it was a nice kind of dorkiness, mostly because it was making her smile, and it was making me smile worse. After our last meeting... well, smiling was a great change. "I didn't want to ring the doorbell, in case your mom was home."
"So you'd risk scaring her in the kitchen?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest. "Boys are too impulsive."
"No," I protested. This was no time to lose my dignity; I had something to prove here. What… I'd probably figure that out later. "I made sure it was you first. Anyway, sorry I haven't called; I've been busy."
"Yeah…" She fidgeted and looked up at the ceiling. "Me too. How are things with you and Seto?"
"Same as always," I said, smile unrelenting.
"Good. If it had turned out that this came between you guys…"
I hadn't expected that – I didn't think she'd even realized that it was possible. I probably should have let her know that it really wasn't; something this small wasn't able to put a big rift between Niisama and me. As far as we were concerned, things with Shizuka were hashed out. "So about… uh… the kissing thing…" I laughed nervously, scratching the back of my head. "How are we? I mean, are we… anything?" I couldn't help but hope she had all the right answers – I sure didn't.
"I…" she blushed and looked down at the floor, wiggling her toes. "I liked it…" she admitted, her words dragging slightly, as though she was having a hard time saying them.
"Me too."
"That's good, but – "
I groaned, slapping my hand over my eyes and leaning down some. "There's a but? Damn, and I was beginning to think this was going to be simple."
I could resist a small laughed before finishing, "But I can't help feeling guilty about everything… Like we've thrown off Seto and Oniichan, then skip off into the sunset… Shouldn't we at least apologize?"
That. Him. I didn't want to deal with him. I had no reason to. He was an asshole; he wasn't even going to take responsibility for what he'd done. "Why? Haven't you ever heard? What goes around comes around."
"Yeah, but that doesn't make it right. You said that things are fine with you and Seto, and Oniichan and I are fine… It bugs me – yeah, we'd talked about revenge, but from what Oniichan told me, you guys are really angry at each other; people aren't some petty game." She shifted, looking at me and worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "I want to talk to Seto first, and I wish you'd just get along with Oniichan. You don't have to like him – "
"Of course I like him," I grunted, shifting on my perch; my hair fell in front of my face, and I didn't bother to move it. "I dated him, didn't I? I just can't forgive him for not even feeling the least bit sorry that he got Niisama in trouble." I looked up to see her crossing her arms like she was cold. "People are saying all sorts of bad things about Niisama again, and I hate that. I hate that he can't understand how much that bothers me to see how much it bothers Niisama."
"I'll make a deal with you," she said firmly, looking me in the eye. "I'll talk to Seto, you'll talk to Oniichan, and once we get that sorted out, we'll work on talking to each other."
I heaved a sigh – a highly overdramatic one, but I felt it was warranted – and nodded. It was going to be a lot of work to make things work with her, but I bet it'd be worth it. "That's an ultimatum, not a deal, but fine. So I'll see you later?" She was cute as she stepped forward, leaning down to kiss my cheek before I left.
It sucked to just leave, but I smiled and waved and left like a responsible prospective boyfriend. I'd live up to my side of this 'deal,' and then I'd come back to 'skip off into the sunset.'
notes
There's an overload of underlining in this chapter. I just noticed as I had to do the HTML, lol. But anyway – as you may have noticed, done by July was a noble but foolish goal, lol. My life, however, is neither important to the story nor interesting, so we'll skip the gory details and say that we'll try our damnedest, but I give up on promises on when I'll get this done, haha. Just know it'll get done, eh? I don't give up without a fight.
Anyway, elsahir is my pagan love god – right up there with ebay. I was actually very concerned with this chapter, especially Mokuba's POV, because it changed from Shizuka's, and I wasn't sure if that was the right move. She approved, and has as always come out as a bad ass beta. Much love goin' on here.