Ashes doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

Part II
Chapter Eight

"All right, you weasels," a voice barked over the radio on the dashboard of taxi #74; it was gravelly, shaped by too many years of smoking and shouting over the transistor. "Which of you is closest to the Ramada?"

The driver, his feet up on his passenger seat, knees bent in allowance for the stick shift, reached over to his transmitter. He didn't look up from the magazine on his knees but paused in chewing his gum long enough to answer, "I'm two blocks away."

"Good – you've got three minutes to get there. You fuck this one up, and I will kill you personally."

"Aw, you're still sore that I beat your ass at poker last night. Tell your wife I said hi."

"Off your ass, Jounouchi," the dispatcher grumbled, and the connection went dead, quickly replaced by the crackle of men exchanging jokes; one driver resumed reading some death poetry, and the radio stayed bizarrely quiet for it. Jounouchi tossed his magazine to the floor on the passenger side of the car. Turning the engine on and straightening in his seat, he glanced back into traffic; it was late in the morning, but the cars still came like rush hour. Jounouchi had to wait for the light behind him to turn red before he pulled out.

Luckily his fare was waiting outside of the Ramada: a young man with a bag hanging over his shoulders. He had darker skin, like he'd spent the first half of the summer getting a good tan, and black hair cropped short and messy. He was well dressed and looked a lot like business, but couldn't have been older than twenty. Pulling up to the curve in front of the doors of the Ramada, Jounouchi rolled down the passenger side window and asked, "Lookin' for a cab, kid?"

"Yeah!" With a wide smile the kid got into the front seat, careful not step on Jounouchi's magazine when he noticed it; he picked it up before placing his bag at his feet. "EGM?"

Jounouchi nodded. "Good to keep up with my English. Where to?"

"National Center of Sciences, please."

"What are you doing there?"

The kid chuckled. "One of the Hitotsubashi University schools is in the building. I've got to decide if I want to go there."

"Ah. On our way, then." As Jounouchi watched traffic he could hear the kid skimming the pages of his magazine. It didn't take long for the kid to pipe up.

"The Sylph, huh? What do you think of the re-release?"

"I don't."

"Oh? I like that they didn't give it some shitty name, like Sylph-Squared. The new design and logo is enough, especially when you consider they released this in record time, comparatively. And the graphics – wow. Video games really are budding." A few more page flips, and the kid persisted: "You really don't have an opinion?"

Jounouchi laughed. "I drive a cab in Tokyo; I don't have enough money to get into video games."

"I'm sorry." The drive went in silence for a while, but it didn't last. "Why'd you move to Tokyo, if the money isn't good?"

Jounouchi looked at the cars around him while they waited at a red light. "Change in scenery. I wasn't doing very well in the place I grew up." The light still red, Jounouchi looked at his passenger. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about the face, the build – the kid was familiar. "You got a name?"

"M... Morimoto. Morimoto Kenji." He held a hand out, and Jounouchi shook it with a smile.

"Good to meet you, Morimoto. You must come from a good family, going to Hitotsubashi – it's a business school, right?"

"Yeah. You can call me Kenji, you know."

Jounouchi laughed. "Alright, Kenji. Is your father proud?"

Kenji nodded. "It's not that I need it, and he knows that. I'm good in the family business, it's just that I want to throw the education card at people who doubt my ability." Kenji's smirk was more familiar than anything else. "And your name?"

"Jounouchi. Just how old are you?" The drive was going smoothly; they'd be at their destination in no time.

"Seventeen."

"Ambitious; I'm twenty-two, with no education beyond secondary, but I'm a damn good driver."

Kenji laughed, setting the magazine on the dashboard as the building loomed in front of them. "That you are. I'm going to be in and out of Tokyo for the rest of summer – I hope I catch you again."

"Likewise."

They said their goodbyes once they arrived at the building, and even as Kenji walked away Jounouchi tried to place why the kid was familiar and the name wasn't.

--

"So, how are you?"

Jounouchi fiddled with the keys to his apartment – a slightly run-down one-room deal on the third floor – and looked the girl up and down. "Just fine, thanks." She was a well-built woman, petite with long dark hair and perky breasts, with lots of creamy tan skin exposed as she leaned against his wall by his door.

"Up for a good time?"

Shaking his head, Jounouchi sighed and asked, "Are you really a hooker, or just homeless?"

After a second her shoulders dropped a bit, and she replied sharply, "A girl's gotta eat."

"Come on in; I'll make you some dinner." After a while in Tokyo, Jounouchi had come to realize that most of the young girls hooking in his area were merely homeless girls who couldn't find anything better. In a way, he had related – he always found himself talking with them as though he'd been in their shoes.

After all, he'd been a whore once.

He had quickly decided that if he came across a girl who needed some help, he'd give them a hand – and this one was no exception. Once she had eaten and was asleep on the couch – a runaway, it turned out, not even twenty – Jounouchi went to his own bed. He had attempted to make his apartment look classier than it was, using a folding partition decorated in traditional drags to make the boundary between the "bedroom" and the "living room." There was a short bit of counter separating the small kitchen from the rest of the room; the bathroom was the only separate room in the entire apartment. The walls were painted an sort of greyish-blue, faded with years and wear.

In the bedroom there was a twin sized bed with drawers underneath for his clothes, and a nightstand for his alarm clock and a lamp; beside the clock was a rumpled pack of cigarettes. In the nightstand's single drawer were all sorts of knick knacks, a couple broken watches, notes, letters – and below it all, a necklace and a picture. The picture was one of those tabloid deals of Kaiba, Mokuba, and himself, torn out of the paper, and the necklace was a simple ball chain with a red-gemmed lizard charm on it. He'd gotten it from Mokuba ages ago.

"I couldn't find a dragon," the kid, then almost fifteen, had admitted shyly, "but I figured it was the closest living relative. Think of it as a thank you for dealing with Niisama."

Guiltily Jounouchi had taken the gift, but never worn it – he never felt like he'd earned it. It should have been burnt two years ago, but he hadn't had the heart. Instead, it had stayed in his pocket the entire bus ride to Tokyo.

Those were the only two reminders of his time with Kaiba that Jounouchi brought with him to Tokyo – and he tended to avoid them whenever he could. Tonight, though... Tonight he sat on his bed with the dim light of his bedside lamp, and held the necklace up so it glimmered.

"Weird," he said at last, letting it slide over his palm and back into the drawer. He wasn't sure what had him so nostalgic, or why, but he didn't like it. He'd been surviving just fine without missing Domino.

--

What Jounouchi liked best about Tokyo was how fast everything was. The summer came and went pretty quickly; he had, once or twice, thought of the Morimoto kid and wondered if he'd started school, but once the season changed to fall he'd all but forgotten it. That was what Tokyo was; you made friends, you had a good ride, and then you moved on. No ties. No obligations.

In was mid-September when the dispatcher came up over the radio: "Jounouchi, I've got a request for you." Jounouchi waited until his current fare – luckily gathering her shopping bags from the backseat – left before answering.

"What kind of request?"

"Over at the international airport; Soren is closer, but they're demanding you specifically. They need to get to the Ramada, apparently."

"That's going to be nearly half an hour!" Jounouchi protested.

"I know, but they're willing to wait. American Airlines terminal."

Shrugging and counting his blessings – a habit that had helped him through a lot of times in Tokyo – Jounouchi replied, "Fine by me." He fought traffic like a pro and recognized the Morimoto kid on sight; he was waiting at the American Airlines terminal with two bags and a smile.

And behind him a man that Jounouchi had never expected to see again, tall and pale and aloof. Suddenly that recognizable smirk, the similarities in the build... "Mokuba," Jounouchi breathed, waiting for Kaiba to notice him as the two collected their suitcases and briefcases – the kid really was business now. "You little shit."

"Hey, Jounouchi," Mokuba said once they'd put their bags in the truck and got into the backseat. Mokuba's smile didn't falter. "This is my brother; he wants to look at my school and get out town during the re-release."

And looking at the kid now, how had he not noticed it was Mokuba? Sure, his hair was shorter, and his features had sharpened some, but he was so definably Mokuba.

Kaiba stayed silent in the backseat, and Jounouchi reciprocated the act. The sudden memory of whiskey filled his mouth, and it made him want to gag. With surprisingly steady hands he popped a piece of gum in his mouth, trying to overpower the memory. God, he'd never wished more that he could smoke on duty.

"How's Tokyo been without me?" Mokuba asked cheekily; a glance in the rear view mirror revealed he was grinning from ear to ear and leaning back in the seat.

"Significantly less surprising," Jounouchi said as nonchalantly as he could. If he said so, he pulled it off quite well.

Mokuba just laughed. "Good."

Try as he might, Jounouchi couldn't think of anything to say, nothing so casual that he could write Kaiba's presence off. It didn't help that Kaiba was so stoic; it used to be that he thought it was fun to mess with Kaiba, but that was in the past. All that Jounouchi wanted to do was say something, anything to ensure that he wasn't just living out some nightmare.

He turned the radio on; even Mokuba couldn't talk through the drone of radio hosts in the morning. Kaiba got out his laptop and mumbled to Mokuba about their agenda.

When they arrived Mokuba was out the door in a heartbeat; Jounouchi popped the trunk while Kaiba put away his computer. Just as Kaiba was finishing Jounouchi realized that he was probably looking at his last chance to say anything – and it seemed wrong to say nothing.

"So..." He licked his lips, trying to ignore the dryness in his throat. "Any new contract affairs?"

Kaiba left the cab and slammed the door behind him; Jounouchi figured he was leaving without answering – a good response, considering the tactless opener – but he leaned into the open passenger window just before Jounouchi pulled away. "You haven't touched the business section of the paper in years, have you?"

It had always been something Kaiba insisted on, and not a habit Jounouchi retained. He shook his head, and Kaiba smirked, standing. His words came back into the car as he walked away.

"We're still one of the biggest business scandals in Japan."

-end chapter eight-

notes
Thank you to purkledragon. 3 3 This chapter was a mess! (To be fair, it still is, but in a way I kinda need it to be, lol.)

When I lived in Madison, my roommate was dating a cab driver -- there's some really interesting characters driving cabs! He told us this one story where one dispatcher read Japanese death poetry over the radio one day, and the image is so weirdly charming that I couldn't resist borrowing it.

Now, for Tokyo! I've always liked working with Domino, because I fudge around the details, but Tokyo -- ooooh, the playing field changes. I know there's a Ramada in Tokyo, because I stayed there overnight before our flight to Misawa (or to some area where we caught a shuttle -- I can't remember, it was years ago) but beyond that, I never got to see Tokyo. So, in advance I'm going to apologize if I make any really bad geography errors in this part. ..;; I've tried to research the big things, and make the rest as good as possible.

Mokuba & graduate school: I know you're supposed to be an undergrad before you hit graduate school, but in this case, with Mokuba's experience in KC and Kaiba's influence, I don't imagine getting him in graduate school, provided he knew what he had to, would be a problem. ; Hitotsubashi is a real university in Tokyo, and it sounds pretty nice from what I can tell on their website, so I went with that.

Anyway, I've got a hot date tonight (okay, okay, so I'm taking my boyfriend to Pirates and then a diner), so I'm off like a prom dress.