Chapter Seven: Subject To Change
"Insurance Wheeler," Kaiba held an open palm sideways.
"What?"
Kaiba glanced to see his hand empty. "Health insurance-" he prompted his hand again, "You do have health insurance don't you?"
Joey's ears felt hot, was he supposed to?
"Silly me," Kaiba sighed, pulling out a slender, black wallet. "I should have known better than to even ask," he conclusively rolled his eyes before completing the necessary paperwork with diligence and efficiency.
"Sit." Kaiba turned, pointing to a chair. "Stay," he said again, and then continued towards the exit.
"Hey!" Joey stood back up, "You're not even gonna wait for me?"
Kaiba stopped, clearly annoyed, "Do I look like a babysitter?"
"Well, this was your idea," Joey's eyes rolled, "So, maybe you should stay, and I'll leave."
"This is your appointment, not mine," Kaiba shrugged simply. "Now grow up and sit down, you're embarrassing yourself."
Joey's entire face burned red as he watched Kaiba's back disappear into the hallway. After pushing his sleeves up, he was about to follow when his name came from the other direction.
"Mr. Wheeler?"
The boy paused, still seriously contemplating leaving, but then something that Kaiba had said struck him. "What are you complaining about? It's a win/win. Neither of us will be at risk for future complications."
"Mr. Wheeler?" The secretary asked a second time.
Joey forced himself to turn around. "Yeah, sorry. That's me."
He followed the woman as she led him through another doorway to the side of her desk, and down a hallway with six doorways. Joey's pulse quickened with each footstep, and Serenity's words beat in unison with Seto's. "Joey…have you thought about going to see to someone?" Although he felt nauseous and uneasy, Joey passed the mahogany name plaque, on the fifth door that read: Doctor Nguyen. I guess its not a total waste to make sure, he decided, growing less hostile towards participating. But I'm only doing it for my sister, to hell with Kaiba.
After adjusting a first time, Joey began continuously to fidget against the jade armchair, squeaking as he tried to occupy the space. All the while, his eyes fell around the room, which was aligned with bookshelves that matched the mahogany on the door. The shelves seemed suffocated from end to end with alternating bindings; and yet, the weight didn't sink the boards downward. Something about the sense of balance made Joey's breathing easier.
He expected there to be a prominent desk facing him as a bisector between patient and professional, something like he imagined Kaiba would have in his office to isolate him from the undeserving. Yet, there was only another armchair adjacent to where he sat, almost identically positioned with a small coffee table to the side of it. The atmosphere had a curious effect, both reassuring and bothering his expectancy.
At that moment, the door hinges creaked open, and Joey was drawn to a middle-aged gentleman with chestnut colored hair, and watery, wild-blue eyes. He shuffled into the room quietly, and took a seat in the empty chair. Then, after neatly placing one leg over his other, he folded his fingers politely on his lap, and smiled in Joey's direction. The boy was about to start drawing unpleasant parallels between the doctor and Kaiba when his ears picked up on a curiously familiar vernacular.
"Good'ay Mate," The man initiated energetically, "Th'name is Doc-tah Nguyen. And who mi'ght-chu be?"
Joey's first instinct was to burst out laughing, unable to stop picturing Valon across from him, ready to engage Joey about his thoughts and feelings. I wonder if Alistair and Rafael are down the hall? Joey thought humorously, but he answered respectively, and a little rigid. "Uhm, I'm Joey."
"Ver'y well Joey! Nice t'ah make your acquaintance, see ya' here for a cognitive analysis?"
"If that's what it says," Joey rolled his shoulders.
"Well, is it, or isn't it? Don't wan'a put ya' through the wrong ring-ah," he said lightheartedly.
"I mean, I guess so," he offered with as little conviction as the first response.
"C'mon now mate, there's no need'tah be embarrassed—I'm start'en tah guess this is'ah someone else's idea?"
Joey glanced upward, slightly shocked that the man could know that from spending all but thirty seconds with him. "Yeah, how'd you know?"
The Aussie released another pleasant chuckle that continued to diffuse the tension. "Trus'me it's not uncommon to see mate. I'mean who honestly jumps at tha' opportunity to spend an'hour with a total strange-ah?"
Joey smiled, "I guess ya' got me doc.—who?"
"Far less than you think," he smiled again before reaching to retrieve a black, leather with a clean legal pad inside. "It's very natural to feel unreceptively towards therapeutic console, especially at the request of anoth-ah person. Sometimes," his hands moved theatrically about, "We feel threatened or offended by the idea of therapy, which causes us to assume it's a matter of incompetence or inability."
"Yeah," Joey agreed sheepishly with out thinking, "That's kinda exactly how it feels."
"Well, don't let it friend! The upside to not knowing me is that you have the freedom to speak openly, knowing whatever you tell me wont ever backfire, and strictly confidential."
"Y'mean you can't tell anyone?" Joey thought reflexively to Kaiba.
"That's right. Not one person. No, exceptions."
A sudden easiness melted Joey into his seat, "So, where do we start?"
Yet, there is an old saying about confidentiality, and although the boys remained emotionally estranged, they were far from dead. So nothing was truly secure, and neither of them was safe.
Under any other circumstances this would have been mindless, it should be mindless, he argued against himself, but the truth was, it was consuming him. So, like everything else in his life—he buried it. Kaiba tried everything and anything to suffocate the sound of that awful thumping, but it was inescapable; every key his fingers fell upon played the palpitations perfectly, and even when he couldn't hear it, he could feel it beating against the rhythm of his own.
Joey, on the other hand, had never really acquired such an ability—his thoughts were automatic. Even if his visit with Doctor Nyugen had eased his mind, it was only a temporary solution, and it brought out the darkest of his thoughts once the session subsided. For the first time since Joey left home, that agonizing silence left over from Tristan's unresponsiveness ate away at him, the heartfelt words from Tea felt like a stone in his chest, the tremor in Yugi's tone shook his frame, and remembering Serenity made him cry uncontrollably. He never even told her—he never even said goodbye—not until it was already too late, and he was miles away. What kind of person leaves their baby sister all alone?
Joey sniffled, trying not to make a scene as he made his way down to the park bench he'd begun to visit religiously. I just left her, he collapsed into the cold, metal arms on either side that extended too far to embrace him. Just like Mai, it's happening all over again. But the rhythmic currents already joined the repetitions in his chest, and both the currents and cardiac collisions numbed him.
Staring straight ahead, he cast his thoughts in bottles, watching the waves toss them about, but they bobbed up and down, never sinking. The delicate colored glass sealed air-tight secrets, and the buoyancy kept them afloat. Each vessel contained a memory, a personalized scroll for each and every person he'd ever lost; but ironically, the only person he wished to cast away, was himself.
However, it was the glimmering reflections of scintillating shades of blue that refused to let Joey disappear, and even though it swallowed the rhythm of his heart, Joey wanted it to stay that way forever. Confusing and conflicting, the notion made no sense, but it surrounded the boy, it subdued his senses, and it spiraled one particular memory endlessly. Just like the peaceful misery of Lake Michigan's meandering measures, it was a motion he couldn't refuse.
It was almost identical to the steady strides that sang every syllable Kaiba couldn't bring himself to speak; the sounds unsettled him, but at the same time they were constant—they were calming. However, the subject was insulting, so the piece itself was choppy, and Kaiba played off pace. No matter how precisely he attempted to perfect it, this was simply something he couldn't define.
It had only been a week, but something, somewhere on the shadowy seafloor of his sunken, cerulean eyes was cracking. It was too unfamiliar for Kaiba to address, he'd already gone as far as to call the doctor's office, but felt powerless with how effortlessly the receptionist refused him. His name didn't mean anything here, but deep down he knew it never belonged to him anyways; and suddenly, that crack became a cavern, hollow, hidden, and hard to navigate. Kaiba continued blindly to find closure—but whether it was direct or vicarious, the truth was confidential, and the absence made the boy's skin feel cold. Bright, fluid auras of brilliant aquamarine froze into icicles—transparent, but sharp; sturdy, but waiting to break.
"Have you thought about just calling him?" Mokuba inquired blatantly.
"What? Why would I do that?"
"Ohh, I don't know."
"You know I don't like when you talk sarcastically to me," the brunette scoffed in order to avoid the subject.
"No," the younger Kaiba stated, "You just don't like admitting that you're starting to care."
Their conversation didn't last that much longer, but it ended on a good note; which was more than Kaiba could say for his overactive thoughts—thoughts which began to isolate any direct connection between Joey and himself. If they were estranged, then it discredited any emotional investment, and kept it from manifesting into something it wasn't.
"I hate him," Kaiba spoke allowed, balling his fingers into an unconfident fist, repeating the statement of malice as if it were a mantra; the words, however, fell flat under every echo which, although eloquent, were completely empty. And as the ice began to melt against the rounded, hazel halos, Kaiba slammed the lid shut, casting another cold front that froze sight and sound within the arctic frost.
Inhaling until the air filled his frame, Joey felt an equally icy aftertaste in the breeze. The sky was burning out, and the scattered shards of light were fracturing, casting a thin shadowy veil over the reflective surface. Why this? His eyes narrowed into delicate semi-circles, "Why you," the next words fluttered unexpectedly into the atmosphere, and Joey's anxieties were almost arousing, "I don't even like you," he swallowed his heartbeat, but he felt Kaiba so differently now, and Joey took an unprecedented chance.
-.-.-.-.-
Thanks for the reviews you guys :D, my apologies for the delay-lol its been a rough couple of weeks-and I was just recently diagnosed with a bipolar [type 2] disorder-haha, kind of explains the dramatic extremes my story has been flip-flopping between lately! In light of this though, i've had to stop taking one of my medications, which was a stimulant, because it was making it worse-so it's sort of hard to gather my thoughts naturally again. However, I hope it doesn't take away from the writing too much-although its a tad disorganized.