Wow! Whoo and behold the suckiness that is the short sucky chapter. The Accomplice would have made it longer, but it just kind of ended on The Accomplice. Sorry.
Oh, and The Accomplice doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh!
Oh, and thanks Lady Psychic for reviewing The Accomplice.The Accomplice thinks you're real nice. Oh yeah, it shall be very interesting. By the way, The Accomplice enjoyed your use of the word shall. It was very refreshing. And The Accomplice also thanks you for telling The Accomplice of The Accomplice's run-on words. The Accomplice hasn't a clue what in blazes The Accomplice was thinking. The Accomplice thinks The Accomplice fixed that pretty good. The Accomplice blames FF; it's screwy.
Notice the rating went up. The Accomplice is not gonna put another warning in there, because you should be like, 'Oh, look, the rating!' and not like 'Oh, yeah, I gonna be stupid and not infer this story might get graphic!' So yeah.
Anyway, thanks for your time again. And review. Please?
Surrender
Chapter 2
"The Prelude of Chapter 3 That is Entitled"
Two Paper Bags
Jou grumbled as he tried to forced open the door to his building. It got stuck a lot, usually on cold days when you wanted to get inside as quickly as possible, but today it didn't annoy Katsuya as much as it usually did; he'd stumbled into a good mood. On the way out of detention he'd taken a quick look through the trash for something edible so he wouldn't go entirely unfed for the weekend. Low and behold, he'd found two lunches sitting untouched atop the receptacles without even having to pick through anything nasty.
The blonde sighed happily as the stubborn door finally budged and he stepped inside the building, clutching the paper-bag lunch he hadn't yet devoured protectively. It wasn't a very fancy affair – the entrance led to a concrete staircase that stank of urine and led down to the basement, where there was a coin-operated washer and dryer. Upstairs were the tenants' apartments and higher then that the roof, where some hopeless people tried to catch a stray breeze on sweltering city days. He lived on the fourth story with his father in a three-room dwelling with his Dad. The landlord lived on the first floor.
Speaking of the landlord, here she came now…
"Jounouchi!" she cried in her cat-screech voice, tying her faded blue bathrobe around her waste as she came out onto the landing, orange flip-flops protecting her from the questionable contents of the mucky puddles. "Jounouchi!" she said again, as if he hadn't heard her the first time.
"Hi, Nagano-san," said Katsuya, confused. Nagano Keiko hardly ever stopped to chat with her tenants. She was a pretty woman in her late forties, though Jou thought her cheaply died blonde hair was an offset to her natural good looks. Usually when he saw here she was heavily made up with a lot of black gunk around her eyes and big, chunky earrings. But now her straw-like hair was sopping wet and drooped shapelessly around her face and there was no make-up improving her complexion.
"I was just in the shower when I heard you come in," she told him. "Just wanted to let you know that you don't live here anymore."
Jounouchi stared, uncomprehending. "W-what?" he finally managed.
"Yeah, sorry," the woman told him. "But I really can't afford to keep you guys any longer. That's two months now I haven't gotten your rent, not to mention all the other times you've missed payment." She shrugged.
The befuddled blonde was still staring. After a few seconds pause, he blurted, "Bud Dad told me he paid it! And last month too! And he paid you back all the times he missed, and it wasn't that many, he said–"
"Well your Dad's a goddamn liar," Nagano told him. "I guess he went and pissed all the money away in some bar somewhere, cuz' I certainly didn't get it. These people, I swear, they just keep tellin' themselves that everythin's gonna be Okay, and then…" she shook her head in either disgust or sympathy.
Jounouchi felt the first stirrings of anger at his father's incompetence, but the urgency of the situation at hand and his never-failing reserve of family loyalty, as always, quickly crushed and ill-will he was feeling towards Jounouchi Sr.
"Listen, it's November," he pleaded with his landlord, "And if you kick us out now we got the whole winter on the streets. Just let us stay a little longer. I'll straighten him out, I swear."
"Sorry," she shrugged. "I been losin' money with you two for too long. But listen. If you two manage to get all thecash from all the times you didn't pay me and you get it to me in two weeks, I'll hold the apartment for you. Not that it's ever gonna happen,a course; you owe me too much. But just for my conscience's sake…"
Jou's fists clenched behind his back. She was right; they'd never make that. "Please, you gotta give us another chance…"
Nagano sighed again and absently brushed her fingers through her hair, slicing through the tangles with long red nails. She shook her head. "Real' sorry about this. You don't have to go back up there; your Dad took everything when he left. He said meet him at that coffee place down near the stone bridge, you know the one–"
"Yeah I know it," Jou muttered, dazed. He backed out of the chipped doorframe and was halfway down the street, running on autopilot, when he crashed into a telephone pole and harsh reality returned, along with a lump on the head.Staring up at the darkening city, the boy tried in vain to fight off a hopelessness so consuming he thought it would eat him alive and spit up his bones, if they managed to survive.
Something wet hit his face. At first he thought he might be crying. Then he realized it had started to rain.
