12. 3a.m. – Busted
Jounouchi didn't sleep much these days. Partly it was because his dad had taken to slumping on the sofa instead of making it all the way to his own bed. Hebereke's thunderous snores shook the whole apartment, preventing sleep that didn't come out of a pill bottle.
Mostly, however, it was Jounouchi's own brain.
He kept turning things over and over in his head, looking at them from different angles, picking them apart and putting them back together again in different shapes to see whether, if he'd done something different, things might've been different.
Naturally, Mai occupied a large part of these thoughts. His friends were mostly okay from their experiences with Doma. Even Yuugi was doing fine, and he had a repentant Yami to deal with. Mai, on the other hand … Jounouchi hadn't seen her since he duelled her, and that was hardly the best way to remember the woman he was now pretty sure he'd fallen in love with.
Weird how he'd fought against even being her friend to begin with, and now, with her gone who knew where, his heart had forced its way to the back of his ribcage, hopped on the spinal elevator, and was knocking against his brain stem yelling, "You idiot! You're only noticing this now? Do you ignore me on purpose, just to piss me off, or are you really that stupid?"
He turned over, but sleep wasn't coming tonight either. Finally he got up, dragged on a pair of jeans and yesterday's shirt (which was actually this week's shirt) and picked up his dad's keys. Hebereke wouldn't notice the car had moved when he got up in the morning.
Jounouchi drove to the richer part of town, parked, got out, stood on the sidewalk and looked up at a window that had remained dark for almost a month now. This was the kind of area where phone booths weren't just for drunks to pee in, and he'd kept back some coins. He always kept back some coins these days.
The connection clicked and whirred. "Hi there, this is the fabulous Mai. I'm not at home right now, but leave me a message, and if you're cute I'll get back to you." A long beep sounded, but he didn't bother leaving a message.
She still wasn't back.
Jounouchi hung up and thrust his hands into his pockets. It was cold out, but he stayed there for half an hour, until a curtain in the apartment below Mai's twitched. Then he went home to his snoring father and a bed that heralded no sleep.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. "Where are you? I need to you to come home so I can apologise."
His eyes were still open when the sun rose.