5: Reconnaissance Into Unknown Territory

Jounouchi's workroom was marginally tidier, but only by virtue of there not being enough free space to make a mess. It was packed from floor to ceiling with kit boxes, cans of acrylic, enamel, and lacquer paint in every color of the rainbow, sketch books, and other modeling supplies. A worktable was shoved up against a wall, its surface clear except for a row of motorbike models perched in the edge.

"You're a plamo geek." It seemed obvious, but Kaiba felt it bore mentioning out loud.

"No shit, you just noticed that?" Jounouchi wagged his eyebrows briefly before furrowing them in concentration. "Now where did I put them? I think I last worked on them on Saturday."

He wandered over to a precarious looking stack of books and papers and started thumbing through its contents. The stack, which stood taller than Jounouchi, swayed like a compromised Jenga tower. Kaiba swiftly crossed the room and planted a hand against it to keep it from toppling onto him.

"Hm, thanks," Jounouchi muttered distractedly as he continued to search through the pile.

They stood in comfortable silence for a minute, broken only by the sound of rustling paper. Kaiba straightened as he caught a sudden shift in Jounouchi's body language. The deep breath and tensing shoulders seemed almost wary, and it made Kaiba leery in turn.

Without looking up, he asked, "Hey, Kaiba, why do you want to be Meijin?"

Kaiba clenched his jaw and his body tensed. "That's an intensely personal question, wouldn't you say, Jounouchi?"

"Not really. I like models, so I became a builder, and I work at PPSE because I like Gunplas the most. I was curious, that's all. Sorry if I hit a nerve." Jounouchi bowed his head. Then he stood, clutching a wad of sketch pages in his hand. "Here."

Kaiba snatched the offered pages, careful not to touch Jounouchi's hands. He stalked over to the other side of the tiny room and busied himself with the sketches. Jounouchi sighed, but he left Kaiba alone as he began tidying up. As Kaiba flipped through the sketches, his anger quickly drained away and left him feeling hollowed out. He tried to concentrate on the drawings instead— as usual, Jounouchi had some good ideas like including the weapons backpack and reinforcing the docking for the core fighter. But as the silence dragged on, Kaiba grew more and more disconcerted. Jounouchi wasn't a quiet person by nature, and for him to be reduced to this reserved state inside his own home...

And Jounouchi wasn't wrong. His question wasn't out of order or even strange to begin with. It wasn't his fault that it struck a raw nerve for Kaiba. How would Kaiba begin to explain his complicated home situation, especially without giving who his family was? But at the same time, he could feel the builder sulking from across the room. "Jounouchi."

Upon hearing his name, Jounouchi froze in the middle of rearranging a shelf of paints.

"I shouldn't have snapped at you," Kaiba held his breath until a response came.

"It's fine. I won't ask again." His shoulders remained stiff though.

It didn't seem right and Kaiba wanted to offer an olive branch of sorts. He took a deep breath and began, "As you probably know, Yuugi and I are from the same hometown. His family owns a hobby shop in Domino. When I was ten, I ran away from home with my little brother."

Kaiba grimaced as he thought of his younger self. Jounouchi turned to face him once again, cautiously optimistic and nonjudgmental. He leaned back against the shelf and tilted an ear toward Kaiba, indicating for him to go on. The action emboldened Kaiba.

"I'm not going to tell you why we ran away," he shot a pointed look at Jounouchi, who rolled his eyes in return. "All you need to know is that it was a stupid thing that stupid children did. It was naive, but I thought everything would be fine as long as Mokuba was with me. To make a long story short, we wandered around the city for the better half of the day and ended up in front of the Turtle Hobby Shop when Mokuba finally couldn't walk any further. Yuugi was a middle school student at the time, and he was the one that found us outside the shop that day. He tried to convince me to tell him how to contact our parents, but I refused. Eventually, he settled for getting us inside and out of the cold. I... was a less than gracious guest."

Jounouchi smirked. "You mean you were a brat."

"Yes, but I recognized he was right. Mokuba was tired and hungry, and I'd caused him to suffer that way." Old anger resurfaced, but he pushed it down. "Yuugi and his grandfather fed us and let us stay the night. I woke up the next morning and found Mokuba gone. I had overslept. Mokuba was downstairs in the shop with Yuugi, who was giving a Gunpla demonstration to some of the neighborhood kids. It was the first time that either of us had heard about Gundams or Gunplas."

Jounouchi interrupted to boggle, "Wait, even if this was nine years ago, you'd never seen Gunplas before?"

"Our father was strict," was the only explanation Kaiba was willing to give at this point. "Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?"

Jounouchi zipped his mouth with a grin.

"Mokuba was entranced. He was five and his new friend had just shown him a flying toy robot. I, on the other hand, was less than impressed. But you know how Yuugi is— he has a way with people." It was childish, but he had felt so betrayed when Mokuba latched so easily onto Yuugi.

Jounouchi nodded to himself. He probably thought he knew where the story was going. "Yuugi got you to try too, and you haven't looked back since."

Kaiba redirected his attention back to the sketches. Jounouchi was smiling so fondly that his eyes seemed to glow. It wasn't surprising that he'd misinterpreted the story in the most positive light. Kaiba's affinity for Gunpla battling was rooted in more than a child's wide-eyed wonderment. Taking rein of that Gunpla had been the first time he felt in control of anything in his life, when every aspect of it and his future was decided by his father. As he grew older, he gravitated back to that sensation time and time again when he couldn't find it anywhere else in his home or school life. His father's disapproval of the hobby had been icing on the proverbial cake.

Kaiba would let Jounouchi think better of him for a while longer.

-x-x-x-

In the end, he stayed and had dinner with Jounouchi and his sister. The meal was a standard home-cooked affair, simple but filling. Despite the siblings' best collective effort to include him, Kaiba felt out of place. But most of all, he was jealous of how often Jounouchi got to see his own sibling. The time between instances where he saw Mokuba in person measured in months now.

Later, Jounouchi stopped him in the door on his way out. "Tonight was fun," he said as warm and inviting as ever.

Kaiba forced his hands to remain at his side and nodded mutely. Social convention dictated that he should thank Jounouchi for his hospitality, but he had spent so much of his life trying to ignore what-was-done. All he could squeeze out was a curt "I'll see you at work tomorrow."

Jounouchi's smile deflated somewhat.

His solitary trip back to his apartment acted as a counterpoint to the rest of his noisy day. Compared to Jounouchi's place, his apartment was sterile and barely lived-in. He hadn't even chosen his own furniture, having left it up to Yuugi or whomever at the company made the final arrangements. Unable to stomach the sight of the living room that looked like it had been ripped from the pages of a furniture catalog, Kaiba headed toward the bedroom.

He left the lights off and fell straight into bed. The alarm clock on his nightstand glowed the dark. Turning his head, he stared at the time, thumbing the phone in his pocket and weighing his options. As much as he tried to deny it, he had been lonely since moving to Shizuoka. It was partly why he had thrown himself into his work so hard. He'd told himself it was because he could concentrate without any distractions, but...

He fished out his phone and called the first number on his speed-dial.

"Nii-sama?" a surprisingly perky voice answered on the other end. "Is everything okay?"

Kaiba's mouth went dry, and he stared out into the empty darkness of his bedroom. He cleared his throat. "Everything's fine. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Mokuba groaned. "Sakuragi-sensei gave us this pain-in-the-ass assignment. Half the class is still up and working on it."

He exhaled, sinking into the mattress as the tension rolled off in waves. "Do you need help?"

"Nah, I'm already on the last problem. Yamato didn't start until earlier today. He's going to be up all night," Mokuba cackled.

Yamato— Kaiba racked his brain— that was Mokuba's current roommate. He listened to the faint sounds of graphite scratching against paper being carried over the phone line. It was a familiar sound in more ways than one. Whenever he and Jounouchi reviewed test data together, Jounouchi doodled to fill the lulls in their interactions. He and a sketchbook were never far from one another.

"Are you sure everything's okay, Nii-sama? You seem off today."

"I'm tired."

I'm lonely, but not as much as I should be.

"Because of work?"

"Yes."

Mokuba sucked in a deep breath, but his next words were barely above a whisper. "I spoke with Okaa-sama last week. She hopes you're doing well. She would be happy if you called her sometime."

Kaiba couldn't promise anything. Talking to his mother ultimately put her in a difficult position. She would feel honor-bound to report to her husband. In the end, it wouldn't do him, Mokuba, or their mother any good. Radio silence was working well so far.

"We'll see," he said at last.

Mokuba must have understood. He quickly shifted the conversation to less contentious grounds. He regaled Kaiba with stories about his friends at boarding school, and Kaiba shared bits and pieces about his work at PPSE. Several times, he came close to mentioning Jounouchi by name before the words dried up. If Mokuba noticed the gaps, he chose not to point it out. They talked for close to an hour before Kaiba told his brother to go to bed. It was a school night.

"Nii-sama, I'm rooting for you. Even if you don't win the whole tournament, you're still the number one fighter in my book." Mokuba's words grew soft as sleepiness crept up on him.

Nine years ago, a jolt of electricity raced up his arms as soon as he gripped the control orbs for the first time. The sensation confused him then, but now he could pin it down as anticipation. He didn't beat Yuugi in that first battle, but the older boy had praised his potential and control skills. Afterwards, Mokuba stared up with mouth agape and eyes as wide of saucers. "You're amazing, Nii-sama," he gushed. In that moment, he had felt bigger than his ten-year-old body could contain.

He was older now, and the stakes were all the more higher. Neither Mokuba's admiration nor Yuugi's praise sufficed enough anymore. The World Championship would take place in four months, and Kaiba would finally make his debut. He needed not only to impress, but to win. Winning was the only acceptable outcome.