Toughshipping (Bandit Keith x Jonouchi)
They never would have been able to guess at how alike they really were. But to the trained eye, or rather, to an eye that could see far beyond human capabilities, it was obvious that the similarities were just as staggering as the differences.
"Bandit" Keith Howard sat at one side of the table, practically sprawled back against his chair in the epitome of ease. But his soul roiled inside of him, a thick mass of black, slimy stuff that bubbled with barely constrained rage, a trashy substance that materialized in the form of casual swears.
Katsuya Jonouchi sat at the other side, shoulders rising and falling a little too quickly after his run to find the card he needed to participate in the game. He, on the other hand, sat straight and tall, brown eyes hard and determined. His grip on his cards was tight, but not tense. Within him, his soul crackled and burned, a white-hot fire that burned the hottest blue at its center. That flame crackled all through him, but only really visible in his burning eyes.
Threads grew from each of them, trailing off into the distant past. Unlike their souls, their black, sometimes rotted and fraying threads were very similar.
Keith's threads led back to a smoggy American city, where he escaped the confines of an apartment with an alcoholic father to stalk the streets, smoking cigarettes and picking fights. They led to brief moments of happiness, watching a pretty girl from afar, then to terrible nights arguing and fighting with a drunken father until finally, freedom, in the form of a sports scholarship. But old habits died hard, and competitiveness deepened into obsession, and the scholarship was lost when cheating and steroid use was discovered. Darkness overtook him, sending him downwards into a spiral of alcohol and brawls that left him battered, sprawling in an alleyway in a drunken mess thinking only of revenge.
Jonouchi's threads led backwards to brief days of happiness until a messy divorce, where he, too, spent his nights avoiding strikes from an alcoholic father and escaping into the city alleyways, picking fights, getting into trouble, smoking and drinking and brawling because nothing really mattered, and there was no point in reaching any higher. He could have fallen into the same spiral as Keith, just as easily, or even more easily. Why, then, the difference in their souls? Surely the distance of age could not mean so much. Perhaps Jonouchi could still follow that path.
But he would not. His threads had turned golden towards the ends, strong and straight.
Why, then? Why the difference?
One let it all go. The other saw what he was missing, and decided to grab it and never let go.
Perhaps if Keith had also had a friend to stand up for him, or someone to fight for, he would not have fallen. But he ignored the hands offered him. He thought he could fight on his own. Jonouchi knew those hands, the ones with the smiley face drawn across them, were the only things holding him from the edge.
And he decided to grab them.
A/N: Really, I can see Keith having a similar childhood to Jonouchi. Jonouchi lives alone with his alcoholic father and gets into fights all the time, and Keith is an alcoholic and a thug. Still, it all comes down to the choices and the chances, I guess. And on that cliché note, we'll continue on: next is Tornshipping (Yami no Bakura x Ryo x Marik). :D I'm gonna like this one.
