Adult-FanFiction.org : Yu-Gi-OH

Joey	By : AlectoPerdita Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2971 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh and characters are the intellectual property of Takahashi Kazuki, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No money is made from this fan effort.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
Joey
By Alecto Perdita
Track 11 - The Sound of Silence
Rating: PG-13
Posted: July 31, 2010
Warning(s): Shonen-ai, cheesy melodrama, & Kaijou
Email: alecto . perdita (at) gmail . com
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh is the intellectual property of Takahashi Kazuki, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. All situations, opinions and characters not belonging to Takahashi Kazuki are the intellectual property of Alecto Perdita.
A moment ago, I had been floating along next to Yugi and an unconscious Kaiba in the river of captured souls and the next moment, I'm staring at a metal ceiling overhead. My back was screaming in a way that told me I must have spent the night on a park bench or something. I sat up- joints popping as I stretched my body out. Looking around, I realized I was sitting inside of some military vehicle like the ones in movies.
"Hello?" My words echoed through the hollow metal interior.
Two men in dark suits and sunglasses came rushing up the ramp at the end of the vehicle. It took me a moment, but I recognized them both as employees of Kaiba from Battle City.
"Jounouchi-san, you're awake!" Isono, the only one I actually knew the name of the two, exclaimed.
The other man lifted a walkie talkie to his mouth, static crackling loudly as he opened the channel. "Seto-sama, Jounouchi-san is awake!"
There was only more static coming from the other end. Out of frustration, the man smacked the gadget hard against his palm and tried again without further luck.
Isono was staring out one of the windows at the tossing sea and darkened sky. "It must be the storm, some type of electromagnetic interference."
I could hear thunder rumble in the distance. The ever decreasing gap between thunder and lightning told me the storm was coming our way. I grabbed my Duel Disk sitting on the bench next to me- its panels lighting up as I strapped it back on my arm. I wasn't going to sit around and wait to see what happened. I needed to know if Kaiba and Yugi were okay. After all, I had seen them along with Pegasus and Mai and the other captured souls before the light and the voice booming in my head had pulled me back into my body.
"Return to us, chosen Duelists." A trio of familiar voices had called.
As I reached the bottom of the ramp, the gang emerged from under the darkness of the temple. Honda, Yugi, and Anzu were trying to juggle an unconscious Raphael between them. Kaiba, the arrogant ass, was strolling along beyond them and not bothering to lend a hand.
"Yugi, you're okay!" I waited until Kaiba's men relieved them of their human burden before grabbing the shorter body in a firm but manly embrace.
"Jounouchi, you bastard, you had us so fucking worried!" Honda took hold of both me and Yugi, and soon Anzu joined in on the group hug.
Kaiba showed no outward signs of having experienced anything out of the ordinary. But the way Mokuba stood ever so closer to his brother than usual told me that I hadn't imagined Kaiba's presence in that other strange world; that his soul had been captured like mine and Yugi before the light pulled all of us back.
I looked to the soulless body of Raphael and frowned. "We're the only ones that made it back, huh? Mai and the others are still stuck in that weird place."
"But Yami defeated Dartz." Honda furrowed his brows in deep concentration.
I was about to say something encouraging when the ground beneath us started to shake. Yugi was thrown back and Anzu had reached out to steady him, somehow managing to keep her balance in two-inch platform heels. The waters around the island began to churn and toss even more than before as a loud and low rumble filled the air. I stared in amazement as a spot of stone rose out of the ocean some hundreds of yards in front of us. The rock rose higher in the air, instead revealing itself to be a stone steeple seated on an entire landmass. Water poured over the tiered walls of concentric circles like great waterfalls.
"What is that?" Mokuba stared at it with wide eyes.
"Could it be Atlantis?" Yugi's attention, like the rest of ours, was completely focused on the floating island still raising into the sky. "The dark god that Dartz worshiped must still be alive. Then everyone's souls..."
I narrowed my eyes in determination. It wasn't just Mai and Varon that were in danger- I had seen the multitudes of souls trapped in that other world with my own eyes. "We need to stop Dartz, his god, whatever- we need to help those people."
"The only way we're going to settle this is by going there." Kaiba announced.
"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Honda yelled.
"We could try taking the helicopter there." Mokuba suggested.
"Wait," Yugi interrupted us before we could move toward the vehicle. "There may be a faster way to get there. Dartz disappeared into that portal. We should be able to get there through it too. I'm going."
"But Yugi," Anzu's hands tightened their grip around Yugi's shoulder. "It took us so long to get everyone back. What if we were never his match to begin with?"
"We have to do this. We can't just turn our back on everyone else who needs us."
It was times like this that I always wondered who was really the braver of the two: Yugi or Yami. My chest swelled with pride for my friend and his determination. "And I'm going too." I moved closer to Yugi.
"Seto-sama," Isono called as he hung in the doorway of the cockpit with the pilot's headset still pressed against one ear. "I've just received news that a massive tidal wave will wipe out most cities on the East coast in just an hour."
I could see Kaiba watching the scene unfolding with his ever critical gaze. What was going through that head of his? Was he considering cutting his losses and backing out now? Kaiba had never been one to give up, but never has our situation been this dire before. My eyes fell on Mokuba at his side- the one thing I could tell was worth more than winning to Kaiba. His eyes met mine and I felt stupid for having doubted his resolve for even a second. Kaiba never gave up, and if he needed to pluck down the fucking moon, he would do it.
"What are you idiots waiting for? We're wasting time." He turned with a violent swing of his white trenchcoat.
I smiled to myself, breaking into a jog to keep up with the taller boy's longer stride. "I told you the white one was much better."
"Quiet, bonkatsu, I never asked for your fashion advice." He snapped.
Behind us, I could hear Anzu telling Mokuba to let us go and have faith that we would succeed. The words Yugi then exchanged with Anzu quickly became lost to us as we made our way further into the darkness of the temple. Despite all the wind and waves roaring outside, the inside of the temple was completely silent, save the sound of our footsteps. The air was completely stale and heavy, as if it was still the very air from the day the temple was first built.
Hugging my arms around myself, I commented to no one in particular, "This place is creepy as hell."
Kaiba continued on ahead and I followed, assuming he would lead us to where we needed to be. Looking back into the darkness behind us, I strained to hear any signs of Yugi approaching. I couldn't hear anything and just hoped he would join us sooner, rather than later.
And I needed to talk to fill the eerie silence. "I never figured my first trip to America would be like this. At least we didn't have to pay to come over here, though Pegasus sure owes us a real vacation after dragging us into all this. Uh, so how's the amusement park coming?"
"You never shut up." It was a quiet sort of observation.
"So sue me, I'm a people person." I shrugged but was happy with another voice to combat the quiet.
We came to a stop at the center of a circular stone chamber. Its wall, ceiling, and floor were completely covered in full-bodied portraits of people of all age, gender, and time. A shimmering blue portal stood at the center of the room. I shivered as the torches crackled in the background.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"These are all the souls that Dartz and his men captured."
"But there are so many! Was I up there somewhere?" I took a step closer to the wall behind the portal, squinting because I think I see the images of Mai and Varon on the wall.
Kaiba grabbed my arm and directed me to another portion of the wall. He pointed to an empty square and said "You were there."
I looked up at him in surprise. My heart was racing because he had yet to let go of my arm. The warmth that rushed through my body and my face must have been evident. I gestured wildly to the stone walls and tried to distract myself from the implications. "How the hell did you find me in all of that?"
Kaiba ignored my question, as he always did at his own damn convenience. "Why didn't you call me when things started to go bad?"
"I don't know about you, but there aren't exactly payphones in the middle of the desert and we don't exactly have satellite phones like some people. You seemed perfectly happy running off and doing your own thing anyway."
I tried to loosen myself from his grip and instead just moved it down onto my hand. I marveled at how soft and smooth his hand was in comparison to mine. As my thumb rubbed over his, I think that's when Kaiba finally noticed he was still holding my hand. But he didn't immediately let go as we both stared down at our intertwined hands, waiting for one of us to break away first. When Yugi came into the room, we both let go of each other abruptly. Yugi didn't say anything, but I knew he had seen us. I can't say if I was glad or disappointed that his reappearance had cut the moment short.
-x-x-x-
Rebecca thanked the housekeeper for the cup of coffee. The woman simply bowed in return and sleepily shuffled off to return to her bed. If the Kaibas didn't always have to get the most expensive and convoluted gizmos, she wouldn't have had to wake the poor woman in the middle of the night. It was at least very good coffee.
The clock told her it was almost approaching two in the morning. There was still no sign of Seto. She glared down at her mug- at least someone in the household had a good evening. Her time in Japan was almost up. She had a lot to get done once she got back to the lab and a presentation to prepare for the upcoming Human Factors and Ergonomics Society conference.
Arguing with Mokuba was a regular enough occurrence, she just wished it wasn't always over the same damn subject. He just had no idea how hard it had been to get a post-doc position at the same university her grandfather had tenure at. She would have been a much better fit with Carnegie Mellon or the MIT Media Lab; the University of Cambridge wasn't particularly famous for its robotics or human-computer interaction program. She wanted to be with her grandpa, especially after the recent passing of Mutou Sugoroku...
"You don't have to choose. If only you would just stop being stubborn and take Nii-sama's job offer, you'd have more than enough money to help your grandfather retire comfortably to Japan." Mokuba had said.
"Has it occurred to you that my grandfather doesn't want to retire? He loves his research! And I don't want to give up mine either! I'm making a difference in my work." She snapped in return and the rest of the evening was shot to hell from that point on.
So wrapped up in her frustration with her boyfriend, she didn't notice the brother of said boyfriend enter the kitchen. She almost dropped her mug of coffee when he asked, "What are you still doing up so late?"
"Jesus, Seto, don't you make noise before entering a room?" She took a big gulp of her drink, as if it would help calm her already agitated nerves. "You're real late. I'm assuming your not-date went well then."
"I wouldn't know. The bonkatsu never showed for our appointment." His words were curt and short, but full of enough ice to freeze the entire mansion.
Seto in his destroy-all-human mode a la Terminator, as she dubbed it, was a chilling if not also terrifying sight. She didn't like to guess what had gone on between him and the blond man in the past, but she had heard her fair share of stories from the others. She maneuvered around the steel topped kitchen island to stand next to her boyfriend's brother, but moved cautiously as she knew anything was capable of setting off Seto at the moment. He stood completely rigid against the backdrop of pans and other cookware hanging over the island, as if daring the world to do him further wrong.
"Where were you all night then?" She took a cautious sniff of the air, searching for the telltale scent of alcohol.
"I was at the office all night." He snapped.
She stared up at him with eyes widening in surprise. "Are you serious? Most people go out and get drunk after being stood up. They don't go back to their office to work."
He glared down at her and folded his arms over his chest. "I'm not most people."
She placed a tentative hand on his forearm and breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't immediately throw her hand off. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Seto stared blankly at the tiled floor for moment that seemed to drag on. "No, I'm going to bed."
She watched him go with a slight sigh. She set the half-filled mug on the counter-top and decided to go see if Mokuba was willing to be less of an ass. There would be time to hunt and skin Jounouchi tomorrow.
-x-x-x-
Kaiba was hard at work when Sophia barged into her office, huffing and puffing and trying to make herself look big and intimidating. It was a bit like a cat. Right, he was supposed to be hard at work, trying to ignore the sting of Jounouchi's betrayal last night. Sachiko was busy bowing and apologizing for having failed to keep the other woman from entering. He stopped Sachiko and told her to go back outside.
"Where is he?" She demanded.
"I have no idea." He said, and he was telling the truth.
Her expression was becoming more and more panicked by the second. Perhaps he had been wrong when he had thought her to be of sturdier stock. "But he said he was having dinner with him last night. You must know where he is."
"He never showed up." The feeling of abandonment was returning in full despite his best efforts. "Have you asked the others?"
"Yugi's called everyone and no one's seen him." She started pacing back and forth across his office.
He couldn't contain the bitterness welling up inside of him anymore. "Maybe he ran off again, wouldn't be the first time." He finished with a dark mutter.
"No," she snapped. "Katsuya wouldn't do that."
He raised his gaze to challenge her. "And I suppose you know better."
Her defiant expression reminded him all too much of the blond's. "In fact, I do."
The sound of her cellphone ringing broke the tension of their stand-off. She pulled out the tiny device and he watched as the relief washed over her face. He turned back to his computer screen- it must be Jounouchi.
"I'm going to have your skin for the scare you gave me and everyone else!" She screamed into the receiver.
Kaiba's senses perked. The desperate relief that had been there just seconds ago was gone again. The terse silence that followed reminded him of those few seconds of terror that his former employees always seemed to have just before he fired them.
The fear was absent from her face though and all Kaiba could make out was fury. "Wait, how do I know he's still okay? Hello? Hello?"
It appeared that the person on the other end, who was probably not Jounouchi, had hung up. She ripped the phone away from her ears and stared at its screen; her hands shaking and knuckles white.
Perhaps that fear he had detected before had been entirely his own...
"They say they have Katsuya and that I should be ready to hand over two million US dollars if I ever want to see him again."
-x-x-x-
For Jounouchi, the world came into being with a wave of pain and darkness. He shivered at the cold cement pressed against his cheek and the chilly April air nipping his bare feet. He tried to sit up, only to find his hands had been bound behind his back. Testing the strength of the bounds though, it didn't appear he would be getting out of them without someone's help. After a few moments of rolling about, he managed to move himself into an upright sitting position. He could still feel the cold bleeding through his pants.
It looked like he was in a warehouse of some sort. He could see the fading light of the day through the broken windows lining the walls. And his father... his father was nowhere in sight.
Jounouchi glared at his bare feet. They, whoever they were, had taken his shoes. But he wasn't going to let that stop him. He lurched forward, trying to compensate for the shift in his center of gravity. As he rose slowly to his feet though, one of his captors emerged around a stack of boxes to his left and shoved Jounouchi back to the ground. A fist across his jaw sent him reeling back and gasping in pain.
"You're not going anywhere."
It took three long blinks to clear his vision. His gaze was automatically drawn to the man standing at the back of his group. "Friends in low places as usual, huh, dad?"
A swift kick to his stomach made it hard for him to smirk at the father he hadn't seen in twelve years. A hand reached out and grabbed his hair, pulling his face up to meet the partially obscured gaze of one of his captor. He wanted to laugh. Everything was just so goddamn scripted, like something out of the dramas he used to work as a stunt double on.
"Maybe we should cut out his tongue first." Jounouchi Tanaka suggested.
"No," the apparent leader of the three masked men snarled and his grip loosened. "We need him in one piece, otherwise we can kiss our paycheck goodbye."
"Really, you're even holding me for ransom?" Jounouchi snorted. "You guys are really playing it by the books."
He received another kick for his troubles. Jounouchi could already hear Kaiba berating him in his head: You idiot, just wait for your chance. Compared to him, Kaiba was the kind of man that played it safe.
He ignored the pain in his scalp as stands of hair tangled between his captor's fingers were torn loose. They had made the mistake of not binding his feet as well. His body remembered even though he had hadn't practiced in years.
"Shit!" One of his captors moved back as Jounouchi landed on his feet perfectly.
Tanaka made no move to help his accomplices and perhaps seemed entertained by Jounouchi's attempt to resist.
The odds were not in his favor even if his hands weren't tied together. Two of the men pulled out knives and he soon realized his option was to surrender or die. They could still easily negotiate a ransom and get it if he was killed at this point.
"Okay, I give. I promise I won't make anymore trouble." Jounouchi lowered himself back onto the cold ground.
"Good," the leader snarled. "Now tie his feet too and lock him in one of the back offices."
-x-x-x-
The board conference room down the hall from Kaiba's office transformed into a war room within half an hour of that first call. Shizuka had received a similar phone call from Jounouchi's number, so both she and Honda were pounding on his office door before long. Because Kaiba Seto was clearly the man to dump all of your problems on.
"We need to call the police right now." Shizuka told the group.
"No," Sophia shook her head adamantly. "They said explicitly not to do that. I am not going to risk Katsuya's life for the help of some incompetent cops."
The two women glared at each other across the length of the table. It looked like neither of them were going to back down from their position.
"Isn't there the bigger issue of the money? Two million US dollars is a lot of money. We can always worry about catching the bastards after Jounouchi is safe and sound." Honda was fidgeting with his cellphone.
Sophia glared down at her iPhone before making a few swipes across its screen. "They've severely overestimated Katsuya's worth. He barely got a hundred thousand for his latest role. That's the cost of media inflation, I guess. I'm afraid with this short of a notice, we're looking at two hundred and fifty thousand from me and Katsuya. If we can buy about another week, I may be able to borrow up to a million."
Shizuka just stared down at the table. "I have all of one million three hundred thousand yen in saving (2)."
Kaiba knew Honda and Shizuka had already sunk a fair amount of money into their wedding.
"Fuck," Sophia cursed loudly. "We can't even raise a half a million."
"They'll call back." Honda glanced over at the large clock hanging on the wall. "We can try and negotiate with them then, convince them to let us pay what's within our means."
The others stopped to watch him when he finally stood to reach the conference phone at the head of the table. Kaiba dialed the extension for his brother's office.
"Mokuba speaking." His younger brother chirped brightly.
"Mokuba, I need Ito here within the hour with two million American dollars from my personal account prepped under contingency JMP. Tell him to liquidate holdings if he needs to do so to get the amount now." He knew he had more than enough in to cover the amount, but a large portion of it was probably tied up in his portfolio at the moment.
"Wait, Nii-sama, contingency JMP? What's going on-"
He disconnected the call before Mokuba could ask any additional questions. All at once, the others jumped on him.
"Kaiba, I don't need your help."
"Kaiba-san, that's far too much. I can't possibly let you do that after everything you've done for us so far."
"Enough!" He roared, causing the other three to back up in surprise. "Honda is right. We should just do as they ask right now and have the money ready. We can bring the police in later. You," he pointed at Sophia. "Come with me. I'm taking you to Mokuba to sort out the money. Then Honda and I will see if there's anything we can do to track Jounouchi down while we wait for the kidnappers to call again."
She thankfully followed him out of the room without further argument. He waited until they were alone in the elevator, where he pushed the stop button and brought the box to a screeching halt. As he cornered her at one end of the elevator, she raised her fists and tried to give off the impression she was trained. But he knew better, she had no formal martial art training- she was a brawler just like Jounouchi.
"Is this your doing?" He had neither the time nor inclination to bother with subtlety.
She narrowed her eyes as evidence of her anger and indignation. "Are you suggesting I did this to Katsuya? I will kick your ass from here to LA even if you two are an item now."
"Whether it's directly or indirectly a consequence of your actions, I don't care. Given your past, I can't take any chances."
"Ran a background check on me, did ya? That was all in the past, I was young and stupid." She folded her arms over her chest.
"Yet the Hong Kong police named you as a person of interest in an embezzlement investigation just six years ago."
"And I was cleared of all suspicion." But she had broken their shared gaze as she spoken.
He slammed a fist into the wall next to her head and watched with satisfaction as her eyes widened ever so slightly. "If you take even a step out of line, I will remove you from the picture entirely. You will not put Jounouchi in any further danger by indebting him to certain types of people."
"Crystal clear," she snapped. "But don't you dare underestimate me, Kaiba Seto."
-x-x-x-
Kaiba didn't have to fire his account manager, for the harried man was escorted into the building by his security team with a briefcase full of money. Ito had long learned to stop asking questions about sudden and last-minute requests. The briefcase and its content were immediately sent down to his R&D department for prep. Upon returning to the "war room," he found that Mokuba and Malik had joined the party. Someone had requested a whiteboard in the room and Honda and Sophia were working out the timeline around Jounouchi's kidnapping.
"When did you get to the restaurant?" Honda looked over at him with a dry erase marker poised over the board.
"Six forty-five." Kaiba grumbled in return.
Ten minutes later, they were joined by the addition of Bakura and Rebecca. Had Anzu not been so close to her due date, Kaiba had no doubt that she, Yugi, and the Pharaoh would also be here. They instead settled for video-conferencing in through Skype. He hoped that Jounouchi appreciated the fact the entire group had just put their life on hold for him.
At the end of the workday, the kidnappers had yet to call again, but they had the beginning of a plan. Rebecca managed to wire both Shizuka's and Sophia's phone to help track the origin of a call with Kaiba Corp communications satellite, but in the meanwhile, she was trying to locate Jounouchi's cellphone itself. Bakura, armed with notes from a forensics psychologist he knew, was coaching the two women on what to say when the kidnappers finally did call again. Malik was scouring the internet for any news or sighting of Jounouchi to confirm that the blond had really been taken and wasn't just playing hooky somewhere.
He and Honda were currently staring at the white board and the large red circle around the half an hour between 6:30 and 7PM last night.
"It's the most likely time, if he never made it to the restaurant. Which means he was either taken outside of the hotel, en route, or outside of the restaurant. We should call both the restaurant and the hotel to see if anyone saw anything." Honda tapped the marker against the board.
When Kaiba opened his mouth to speak, Mokuba chose that moment to barge in the conference room. He was waving a small stack of papers as he declared, "I got it, I have the information on Jounouchi's taxi driver from last night."
"How did you do that?"
"I just asked nicely." Mokuba spread the papers across the tabletop. "Anyway, Maruyama Jun is the name of the driver that took Jounouchi's request. He started working for the taxi company just two weeks ago and guess who didn't come in for their shift today? I had our guys pull what information they could. And I managed to hack the LoJack network with the tracking information I got from the operator and found where his cab is."
Kaiba immediately snatched page with a map printout. "Honda, you're coming with me!"
-x-x-x-
Jounouchi supposed he should be grateful for the fact they didn't also gag him. His stomach growled loudly- he had lost track of time since they put him in the office with no windows, but he guessed it must be dinnertime again and he hadn't eaten lunch, breakfast, or dinner the previous night.
"At this rate, I'm going to die of hunger before you guys get your money!" He shouted to the empty room.
He flexed his hands tied in front of him. They had at least changed the arrangement of his hands so that he could make use of the bucket stashed in the corner of the room to relieve himself. Not the most ideal of situations, but at least he was stuck wetting himself. Sighing, he leaned back against the wall they first propped him up against hours ago.
With nothing better to do to pass the time, he settled on reciting lines.
"O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigor, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Even till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how (1)."
Shakespeare was not his strong suit. He was not a classically trained as an actor, but this little monologue was what had impressed the executive producer of Touch the Moon and landed him his first major role. Figures he would owe the start of his career to that bastard Kaiba, sorta...
One of the masked men, who looked like the driver from the shape, strolled into the room with Chinese takeout containers. He was followed by the leader with a cellphone pressed against one ear and a boxy device pressed against the phone's microphone. The words that sounded were completely different from the voice he had heard earlier- a voice changer. "We will text you the location and time of the drop-off tomorrow. Remember, if you call the police, we will terminate him. You may speak to him now."
The driver took the phone offered and held it up against Jounouchi's ear, refusing to let him hold the device itself. "If you say too much..." The threat didn't need to be completed.
"Hello?"
"Katsuya, are you okay?" Sophie's voice came over the line.
"I'm okay for now. They're even going to feed me, I think." He eyed the food hungrily. "So how much am I worth anyway?"
"Two million dollars apparently."
He whistled. The only time he ever had that much money on his person was the prize money from Duelist Kingdom that he had used to pay for Shizuka's surgery. He had nowhere near that much now and wasn't sure he ever would.
"Onii-chan, we'll get you back." Shizuka's voice made his heart constrict painfully. "Kaiba-san-"
His captor took the phone away before he could hear the rest of the sentence. Yet the very mention of Kaiba Seto sparked a flame of rebellion in his belly. He tried to stand despite his bound feet. "I'm in a warehouse, I think it's-"
He was cut off by a swift kick in the gut.
The leader was back on the phone with the voice changer. "Remember, be ready with the money and don't try anything funny." He hung up and handed the phone to the driver. "Now get rid of that and don't just throw it into the ocean."
The driver placed the food on the floor before heading to the door. The leader squatted down and grabbed Jounouchi by the hair. "Oh, you're going to pay for that little outburst of yours."
-x-x-x-
The coordinates from the anti-theft device for the cab led Kaiba and Honda to an alleyway about half-a-mile away from Jounouchi's hotel. The green vehicle was abandoned with its doors unlocked and its keys still in the ignition. Kaiba wrenched open the door and slid into the driver's seat- Honda did the same in the front passenger seat. The two men stared forward at the brick wall that rendered the alley a dead-end, both minds racing to absorb every detail and pick up on any clue. Honda pulled down the employee ID for the taxi company that was pinned to the dashboard.
"This is the car, Maruyama Jun. I should see if any of my police contacts can do me a favor and run him through the system. In the meanwhile, we have a photo to start looking for one of the culprits." Honda pocketed the card in his coat jacket and pulled out his cellphone instead.
Kaiba quickly tuned out the conversation next to him. He doubted the police could give them more information on top of what Kaiba's security people had pulled, but he knew the attempt would at least make Honda feel useful. The cab had been left behind, probably because the kidnappers knew about the anti-theft system built in. The question now was where did they take Jounouchi to? The other building in the surrounding area were mostly stores and smaller office buildings, none of which were very good locations for holding a hostage. The area got too much foot traffic during the day and was still pretty busy during the evening hours before the shops closed.
He looked in the rear-view mirror and watched as the cars passed on the main road beyond the alley. The light of the setting sun glinted off the shiny surface of the something sitting in the backseat. He twisted around in the driver's seat and plucked the cellphone off the seat. Kaiba flipped the device over in his hand and found it mostly intact other than for some superficial scratches that came from daily wear and tear.
Honda watched as Kaiba turned on the phone. The seconds it took for the device to power on seemed like an eternity, especially with the Red Eyes Black Dragon phone charm swinging on the phone like a pendulum. On the home screen, a message alerted him to thirty missed calls. Scrolling through the call history, he spotted the outgoing calls to Sophia and Shizuka at the top of the list and then the long string of missed calls from himself, Sophia, Yugi, and Honda.
"This is Jounouchi's cellphone." Honda said what they both already knew. "I guess we can tell Rebecca to stop looking for it then."
Kaiba climbed out of the vehicle and slammed the car door- the loud sound resonating off the surrounding brick walls. He looked down at the cellphone clutched between his fingers that was filled to the brim with missed call notifications, unread text messages, and unheard voicemails.
"Damn it, Jounouchi!"
With a growl of frustration, he slammed his fists on top of the car. Kaiba was rewarded only with sore hands, a new crack etched across the screen of Jounouchi's phone, and just the smallest smidgen of satisfaction. It hardly seemed worth the effort.
"What do we do now?" Honda asked.
Kaiba, for all his genius, was at a loss.
...To Be Continued...
In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash
Of a neon light that split the night
And touched the sound of silence
- "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel
(1) An monologue by the character of Angelo from the Shakespearean play, Measure for Measure, the play that was being studied in this story's prequel, Red As Fire.
(2) That translates into roughly $15000 American dollars.
So originally this chapter was meant to end at another point. But as my usual Thursday posting date came and went, it seemed the chapter would reach at least 10,000 words before I got to that predetermined point. So rather than make everyone wait an extra week, I decided to divide the chapter into two instead. On the bright side, that means an additional flashback scene overall and you get a chapter before next Thursday!
It does amuse me that when it comes down to actually interacting with each other, Sophie and Kaiba don't get along. My feelings toward Sophie as a character is very ambiguous. She makes a lot of decisions that I feel are actually illogical and would not make myself given the choice. But I do have a soft spot for her considering what I do have scripted out as her background. I've been dropping some hints here and there, but I don't plan to crowd this story with too much about her past.
Thank you to everyone that have been reviewing so far. You all make my day brighter!
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Joey