Ashes doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

Chapter Fourteen

Taking the cab back to Tokyo hadn't been such a big deal, once the money was handed over. Jounouchi had said his goodbyes there while Honda waited in the van, then headed to his apartment. Halfway up the stairs he realized he was going to miss the place, with it's dirty walls and squeaky ceilings. Even while Honda was complaining about what a dump it was, Jounouchi was remembering how many people he'd fed.

What a different person he had become.

"Finally!" The landlady was waiting in front of the door, hunched and frowning. "You're more than an hour late, boy, and I've got a lot to do today! Now, to talk about the terms of your lease..." Her rant went on for about ten minutes: what crummy shape the place was in -- "It was like this when I got here!" Jounouchi had petitioned to no avail -- and how much she wanted in compensation for his breaking the lease. He told her to go choke.

"One month's rent," Honda broke in, smiling at the short woman. "We all know you'll have another person in this apartment in that time, so consider it something of a sublease. And we'll make sure everything is clean before we go."

"Well, if you promise..." Jounouchi cut her the check without arguing, and she kissed Honda's cheek goodbye. Once she was gone he turned to his friend with a simple, "What the hell was that?"

Honda was laughing at him. "You gotta to learn how to handle people better."

"I was a taxi driver -- handling people well wasn't a requirement."

From there it'd been back to Domino -- into the old apartment he'd signed for last week. The apartment he grew up in still had the worn carpet and burn stains on the kitchen counters. The landlord, ever benevolent and lazy, said there hadn't been time to fix it up since Jounouchi's old man died, and no one else wanted it as it was. The old guy wasn't even sure who had picked up his dad's belongings.

"It's a lot nicer than I thought," Honda said as he looked around the empty living room. "No offense, man, but it looks a lot nicer with just your dad's crap gone."

Jounouchi snorted, touching the walls; it was weird for it to be so quiet. "It's a nice place; my mom used to keep it immaculate. The landlord is going to pay for supplies if I do the labor, and I bet with enough scrubbing we could get the kitchen looking manageable. Maybe we can con Anzu into helping."

"Keep dreaming -- just because her room was neater than yours doesn't mean she'll want to clean." The two men stood silent for a moment, and Honda cleared his throat, sitting on a relatively clean patch of carpet. "So, I've... uh, been meaning to ask, this isn't going to be a repeat performance, is it? You're not just gonna shack up with Kaiba and ditch us again, because damn. That was..." Honda coughed, looking up at the window as laughing kids passed outside the door. "We were sure he'd had you offed until your dad told me you'd packed up and disappeared."

Jounouchi shook his head, plopping down where his favorite chair had once been. "Nah. The guy gave me a couple shiners, but he didn't kill me. He doesn't have it in him. And what were you doing talking to my dad?"

Honda looked suddenly awkward, eyes turned elsewhere. "We talked, once, while he was in the hospital. Look, I don't want to open old wounds -- "

"No, go on," Jounouchi demanded, intent. "I didn't even know he was in the hospital -- who paid for it?"

"I started to. Payments were a bitch, and one day I got a call from the hospital telling me that the remainder of the bill had been paid off by an 'anonymous benefactor.' But when I talked to your dad, he was... sober."

"Nothing more sober than squaring off with death."

"I guess. But we talked for a little while; he told me a lot about your sister, and he wanted... He wanted to see you, towards the end there."

Jounouchi shook his head, leaning down to rub his temples. "Let me guess -- he was sorry."

Honda nodded. "He knew full and well that you were turning out just like him, and he was sorry for not stopping you. He said, 'Misery loves company, and I was glad my boy cared enough to be mine.' It was fucked up, Jounouchi. I didn't even know what was going on until your dad clued me in."

In one motion Jounouchi pushed his hair back from his face, looking Honda in the eye. "Thanks for being there for him."

"Don't mention it." The room fell silent again, but outside the kids were still playing, kicking a ball up and down the landing outside the doors while a couple floors up a mother shouted down for them to stop disturbing the neighbors. Honda stretched his feet out and laid back on the floor. "So speaking of Kaiba, are you guys still...?"

"I dunno," Jounouchi admitted; he stretched his arms up, yawning. "I told him that I'd wait for a little bit, but if he's not going to come to me then I'm not going to give him a second thought." Honda craned his head up long enough to give Jounouchi a pointed look, and Jounouchi knew exactly what it meant. They both knew exactly how likely Kaiba was to make the effort to go to Jounouchi's place. The silence grew too thick this time, and Honda jumped up, rotating back and forth to pop his back.

"Alright, let's get this thing worth living in."

--

Once the boxes and ratty furniture had been moved in Jounouchi walked down to the closest convenience store for something to eat, and he finally buckled under the curiosity, stopping by the local secondhand store and picking up a Sylph console and a couple games pretty cheap. Armed with his dinner of rice and tea, he sat on the floor of his apartment to give it a whirl.

And he was hooked; he should have known that Kaiba would spare no expense to become the best. He had started with an original RPG that he had vaguely remembered Mokuba talking about over dinners way-back-when, built around the standard save-the-world and get-the-girl story that teenage boys emptied their pockets for. The story wasn't anything terribly new or edgy, but it was addictive, and the graphics were top-notch.

Much to Jounouchi's surprise, the characters bore no resemblance to the Domino crew. With as much of their lives that sometimes followed the save-the-world and get-the-girl storyline, he would have expected Kaiba to parallel the heroes and villains of Domino City. Instead, the hero was tall and sure, the villain was... well, Jounouchi wasn't far enough to know who the villain was, but he was sure it wouldn't resemble Malik or Zork. The closest thing was the damsel in distress -- a blonde junkie.

"I thought you didn't play."

Jounouchi hadn't even heard his door open, but he kept his cool well enough. "I changed my mind."

"You do that a lot."

"Not so often. Did you create this game?"

Kaiba sat on the couch, choosing an open spot between a precarious tower of boxes and a pile of clothes. "Parts of it. I suggested the plot, the time period."

For a moment Jounouchi considering pausing the game, but decided against it. He didn't need to look Kaiba in the eyes; he still remembered what they were like. "The characters?"

"Mostly the developers. I think they polled a lot of the nearby staff regarding some of the them." Kaiba sat back and crossed his legs; Jounouchi could feel himself being watched, and tried not to buckle. "You're not very good at this game -- you don't explore enough."

"You're too analytical," Jounouchi grumbled, pausing the game after all. It was no good to play with performance anxiety. "What are you doing here, Kaiba?"

"I was invited."

"I... Point. Why did you come?"

Kaiba cracked his knuckles, seemingly unaffected as he examined his nails. "You're awfully eager to know if I want to hop in bed with you again -- was it that good?"

"It's not -- "

"Like that, I know. You're more wrong than right, but I can't blame mediocrity for failure. We're not in love -- that's true, and I'm impressed that you had your wits about you long enough to notice. I'd even go so far as to say that you're almost right about us being... rivals, of a sort."

With a grim smile Jounouchi interjected, "Sounds like I'm more right than wrong."

"I'm not afraid of you surpassing me," Kaiba continued as though Jounouchi had never spoken at all. "You've got so far to go, I doubt you'll live long enough. I don't keep you around to keep you down. Above all, I want to see you at your best. It makes beating you worth the effort."

"Ah..." Jounouchi heaved a sigh and leaned back, curling his toes as he thought. "You're too vague, you know. I barely know what the hell you want from me."

"I know."

Jounouchi rolled his eyes. "Wise ass. I won't live with you again."

"I didn't ask you to. I haven't even accepted your offer."

"You wouldn't be here if you hadn't already decided to," Jounouchi retorted. "I know you, Kaiba. Not well, maybe, but well enough." They held each other's glares for a moment, and Jounouchi knew he had won -- of course he had won. What exactly his victory would mean he couldn't be sure, but it was his nonetheless.

Kaiba finally spoke. "Let's try to keep you out of the press this time."

-end chapter fourteen-