Chapter Ten
"Way to bail last night."
In his surprise Jounouchi dropped the bag of potato chips he'd spent three minutes choosing; Mokuba was behind him holding a large ice cream sandwich and a plastic bag that was tied shut. "Sorry," he said, smiling sheepishly at the indignant teen behind him. "Here, I'll get your ice cream."
Mokuba laughed and handed it to him. "Don't have to ask me twice. Anyway, it wasn't a big deal; Niisama was in a pretty bad mood the rest of the night. Up for a walk?"
And just like that Jounouchi found himself walking with Mokuba from the Circle K and heading back to his apartment. "Isn't this a little bit of a walk from your hotel?" Jounouchi asked as Mokuba bit a sizable chunk of his ice cream.
"Well, yes, but the fresh air never killed anyone." Jounouchi gave him a pointed look, and Mokuba amended, "Okay, Tokyo's fresh air might have killed a couple people, but you know what I mean. And... I was looking for you. Your cab company did not want to tell me where you lived, but I did manage to get an area out of them."
Jounouchi would have to remember to thank them for their little favors. "You came down here just to scold me for not sticking out dinner?"
"Of course not." Mokuba held up the plastic bag and explained, "It's not like we're the only people you left in Domino. Do you know how many phone calls we got in the first month you were missing? Honda damn near got a search warrant, he was so convinced that Niisama had you killed. When I told Otogi that I found you, it was just like that first month; I've got a lot of letters for you."
"Why didn't you just give them my phone number?"
Mokuba gave him a very level look and said, "I can tell when someone doesn't want to be found, Jounouchi. If I'd said, 'Wow, look at you – don't you recognize me?' in your cab last summer, you'd have bailed."
"I..." Jounouchi couldn't say that he wouldn't have. He liked Tokyo, yes, but he liked his peace more. "Did you come here looking for me?"
"No, but it doesn't mean you weren't missed. Why don't we go to your apartment to sort this mess out?"
It was hardly a three minute walk, and once inside they sat on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, the contents of the bag emptied out onto the floor. Jounouchi picked up a pink envelope gingerly as Mokuba looked around.
"This is a bit of a dump."
"It's home."
Mokuba nodded and looked at the pictures on the coffee table; there was one of Shizuka, and one of the gang at graduation. "I remember that," Mokuba said, indicating the graduation picture. "Everyone was happy."
"The whole world ahead of us," Jounouchi mumbled. He'd told Kaiba that once too. He opened the pink envelope; it was from Yuumi.
I had no trouble finding a new job. I hope Tokyo is alright for you, Jounouchi.
There were others; he recognized Honda's messy writing immediately, and after picking through the pile he found Yuugi, Anzu, Otogi, and even one from Mai; it was an actual letter, marked as forwarded from his father's apartment to Kaiba's.
He didn't remember ever formally changing his address.
"I'll do this later," he said, meaning he'd do it when he was alone. Everyone there had reasons to be angry as hell at him, and if that was how it was going to go, then he didn't want to deal with it in front of Mokuba.
"I'm sorry," Mokuba said, and Jounouchi looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "You know, for dumping Niisama on you like that."
Jounouchi set the letters on his coffee table. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, lying, dragging him into your cab, dinner. But it's not like I didn't know."
That caught Jounouchi's attention; he didn't move, caught in an eye-lock with Mokuba – and he felt the most overwhelming sense of guilt and relief he ever had.
He still played dumb. "You knew what?"
"About you and Niisama, how it worked. You guys acted like I didn't have eyes and ears in the company structure."
"He didn't want you to know."
Mokuba nodded. "I know. It was exciting and all, before I realized it was phony. Hell, it was even more real than Niisama's girlfriend before you. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember them fighting in the office. They always fought in the office; she could never find Niisama anywhere else. She once demanded to know why he couldn't care about her the way he cared about me, and he cleared his throat and told her to get some sleep, and make sure to eat breakfast in the morning. He always mocked the hell out of her, but you... He humored you. You were the first fake he paid any real attention to. The first one he really needed, I guess."
It was a dull sort of shock in the stomach, hearing that – he'd never noticed Kaiba in any tabloids, never knew he had girlfriends. He sighed ruefully. He could handle not being the first fake relationship, but needed? "You're a bit off, Mokuba, but thanks for the compliment."
Mokuba turned away sharply, his silence punctuated as though Jounouchi was supposed to notice how tense it was. Slowly, very slowly, Mokuba spoke. "No one ever told you about why we needed the publicity, did they?"
"No."
With a chuckle Mokuba looked at him. "Kaiba Corporation was going to tank. We weren't just losing money, but we were losing money fast. After DOMA, after the Grand Prix, the business world thought that Niisama was a buffoon, and other companies started cashing in on the gaming industry. There must be a hundred clones of Duel Monsters by now – but what did it matter?
"The video game frontier was a good one, people were definitely interested, and the research was good, but the money didn't come as fast as it went. The general public only cared when Niisama was doing something outrageous; they didn't care what good things we were doing for kids. It was all about who was making the headlines, and headlines aren't made on good deeds." Mokuba crossed his arms over his chest the way Jounouchi had noticed Kaiba doing when he got frustrated. "Seiji naturally made the jump that we had to get a woman, start something that people couldn't pull their eyes away from. Tabloids love following a romance, and you made it juicier than Seiji had imagined. Let's face it; you helped carry Kaiba Corporation to the Sylph. We aren't back where we were yet, but we're close. Niisama couldn't have done that without you."
"You'll have to forgive me if I'm not exactly consoled," Jounouchi snapped. What good did Mokuba think that was going to do him? He balled his hands into fists, looking at the floor. It should have been flattering to know that he had helped, but it was accompanied with the knowledge that Kaiba owed him.
Since they were fifteen and he'd strutted into their classroom like he owned the place, Kaiba had been Jounouchi's ideal image of a rival. Christ, he'd knocked Yuugi over the head with a briefcase – for a card! He was snotty, rich, and had an entitlement complex bigger than Japan.
It had reminded Jounouchi that he had tossed Yuugi's treasure because he thought the kid was a sissy. For as much as Kaiba was Jounouchi's opposite, they sometimes ran parallel – it was what made hating him so interesting. Having that man owe him felt too much like losing his strong image of Kaiba, and it made his stomach churn. Even when they'd been together, he'd held to that image of a strong rival.
"It was..." Mokuba floundered, cracked his knuckles. Jounouchi leaned over and got his half-empty pack of cigarettes off the coffee table, flicking his light twice before lighting up.
"Niisama has problems with life."
"Really? I hadn't noticed."
"Beyond that," Mokuba insisted. Jounouchi leaned back a little bit, just to get a good look at the kid. For all he'd changed, he was still just the kid brother of Kaiba – chatty, eager to make people see a side of his brother that wasn't accessible to the public. "It's all business to him now, because seeing life as a game got too complicated. Business is easy: come out on top, no matter what. When you fail, bam! You're dead. But consider a lengthy RPG – a princess, a bad guy, a kingdom to save. His bad guy is dead, his..." Mokuba made a face, "...princess is safe, and he's finally restored the kingdom. Now the princess is moving on, there's no more conflict – what's left to do?"
"At the end of the game, it's always happily ever after. If Kaiba's been the good guy, he wins," Jounouchi added, taking a drag. "We know better than that."
"Exactly. Niisama's never been a hero, and happily ever after isn't good enough; there's no clear cut objective to it. It leaves him with no conflict." Mokuba stood, stretching to the ceiling and giving Jounouchi a sense of just how tall he'd gotten, and just how old he was. Older than Kaiba had been when he became CEO, when he'd met Yuugi. "I liked you because you gave Niisama the daily competition he needed, and you didn't always let him win. A side-quest, if you will. It was fun because he didn't realize there was no way for him to win, not completely. I know it wasn't always good for you, Jounouchi, but I'm willing to bet it wasn't always bad."
-end chapter ten-
Notes
Thank you to purkle for the beta. :D I know there's a joke about the Circle K, but I don't know what it is -- I feel very out of the loop. D Either way, not much left to say. I've always written Mokuba very chatty. Then again, he's usually the one divulging all the personal information.
Minor inconsistency: I've always been sort of unsure about DOOM versus DOMA -- I've heard both, and was never sure if there was actually a difference. Earlier in the story I used DOOM, and it was brought to my attention by my beta that DOMA was the subbed version. Thus, to be consistent with naming, I made the switch here.
Updates for the rest of the story are going to be a lot more sporadic, and probably further apart. If you don't really care why, then consider this the end of the notes. D If you're curious, continue forth.
One of my classes demands that I read a novel every other week; three years ago this would have been child's play, but I don't read nearly as much as I used to anymore, and thus I'm struggling a little. I just plowed through Pride & Prejudice done last week, and next week is going to the Handmaid's Tale. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's going to slow me down.