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In The Name Of Love	By : Rroselavy Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 15410 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh!, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 20
- 21
- 22
Title: In The Name Of Love (21/25)
Author: Rroselavy
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Jou/Ryou (briefly), Malik/Ryou, Kaiba/Jou, Mokuba/Shizuka, Yami/Yugi, Honda/Otogi
Beta: Akuchan
Spoilers: None, AU
Disclaimer: I do not own or profit in any way from Yu-gi-oh!
Summary: For eight years he has scrupulously avoided the brunet, but now with the impending marriage of their siblings, Jounouchi Katsuya and Kaiba Seto are forced to come to terms with the feelings they've secreted away since adolescence.
A/N: Sorry dear readers for the long delay between updates ... Thank you Wicabeth, kitkattcassy, LazySnake, Anon, Queen of Anime (Of course I will read your fic! Type it up and email me ...), nextvictim, fire_lilly, maggiemay, Luca, LilyChan, and ChibiRinni, I really appreciate the feedback. No remember, if you kill the author, you won't get to read how this ends ... *ducks*
CHAPTER 21
"Why d'ya do it, Set?" Jounouchi stood in Kaiba's office door, hands on hips, eyes blazing.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the blond so angry; probably not since they were in high school. He felt a cold chill from the memories of their verbal assaults that had at times degenerated into physical ones. He looked over his lover's shoulders and saw his secretaries casting furtive glances in his direction and he realized it wouldn't do to air whatever dirty laundry Jou had-the press would have a field day with a lover's quarrel.
"Katsuya, come in and close the door."
"I'm fine right where I am, okay? Just answer my question." The blond replied obstinately.
"Please, then lower your voice," Kaiba hissed, his own indignation rising. He couldn't think of anything he'd done to warrant Jounouchi's ire. He'd neither missed a special occasion, nor had he made any plans without discussing them with him.
"Why?" Jounouchi deliberately got louder. "Ya don't want your employees ta know you don't trust yah ~boyfriend~ to take care of himself?" Now all eyes were on the blond.
"Come in and close the door. Then we'll discuss whatever it is you think I've done." Kaiba said through gritted teeth.
As Jounouchi complied, slamming the door violently, he launched into a tirade. "Ya know, I gotta hand it to ya, I never ~thought~ you'd sink ~this~ low. Ya couldn't leave well enough alone, could ya? You had to go meddling in ~my~ business." He accused.
Kaiba was at a complete loss. He thought Jounouchi had surely gone off the deep end. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He said flatly and calmly, hoping to diffuse his hotheaded lover.
Jounouchi snorted. "You. Have. No. Idea. Lemme refresh yah memory, genius. Does the adoption ring any bells?"
Kaiba blanched. He'd assumed when his lawyer had approached him about Jou's adoption petition, he'd done so with the blond's tacit approval. He'd never thought to clear his actions with Jounouchi, choosing instead to work behind the scenes, but to hedge his bets, he'd garnered assurances all around that his little tip of the balance to Jounouchi's favor would never be revealed. His eye twitched angrily. Someone's head was going to roll, but before that he needed to get his lover to understand why he did what he did. It had been such a meaningless gesture on his behalf, a few thousand dollars endowment into the orphanage's coffers. It had been done through a subsidiary company, his brain worked feverishly, trying to figure out how Jounouchi made the connection. As he worked on it, he decided the best tactic was to elicit all the information he could from Jounouchi before showing his own hand.
"Yes, what about it?" He said evenly, though the hair stood up on the back of his neck. "I thought you were on your way to pick up Aiko and bring her home."
"Yah, I just left Tanaka's office after signing the papers. I was in a great mood-this was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life." He said bitterly. "But yah know what I overhear as I'm leaving? His secretary is on the pipe telling her girlfriend or boyfriend or husband-doesn't matter-but I overhear her say that 'Kaiba Seto bought his boyfriend a daughter.' Care ta explain that to me?"
Kaiba's eyes darkened in anger and he swore to himself that the woman would never hold another job. "I thought that Tanaka had informed you about the negotiations." He lied.
"Oh don't bullshit me. D'ya really think I'm that stupid? What'm I, just a fuckin' boytoy to you?"
"You asked Tanaka to speed things up ... remember, Katsuya?"
"Oh, don't pin this back on me! That didn't include ~you~ getting involved. You knew that I needed to do this on my own. I needed ta prove to myself that I could. God, you sat there and listened to me go on and on about how important this was to me, how I felt that I'd finally left all the stupid things I did as a kid behind. Did ya have a nice laugh at my expense?"
Kaiba felt his blood boiling. "Fine, Katsuya! You want the truth," he thundered. "Here it is. There was no way in hell you were getting custody of Aiko with ~your~ background." He slammed his hands down hard on his desk.
"What the hell are ya talking about?" Jou's voice wavered uncertainly.
"'You can take the boy out of the streets, but you'll never take the streets out of the boy.'" Kaiba mocked. "Her family's lawyer managed to pay someone off and get your juvenile records." He waited for his words to sink in, and glimpsed the abject horror in his lover's face before he set his jaw in denial.
"You're lying!" Jounouchi spat. "~You~ didn't think I could do it, did'ja. You had to ~help~ because you still think of me as 'third rate' don'cha?" He glanced down at his wrist and looked at the time. And it hit him, it had been staring him in the face all along. His eyes slitted dangerously. "What else have ya bought me? My doctoral degree? Is that why ya had the watch already engraved? Yeah right. You knew I could do it 'cause ya paid for it."
"Is that a question?" Kaiba asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Yah, it is. Answer it."
"No."
"No, what? 'No,' ya didn't, or 'no' ya won't?"
Kaiba crossed his arms defiantly. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response. If you think I'm that manipulative-that I think that little of you-then we've nothing more to discuss." He settled back down at his desk and began to read his email, ignoring the fuming blond in his office.
"So what, you're dismissing me?"
He glanced up at Jounouchi, still trying to maintain his calm demeanor, although he wanted more than anything to avenge himself-to humiliate the other man, to inflict as much damage as did the wild accusations he'd hurled at him. But he loved Jounouchi, he reminded himself, and he didn't want to cross that line. "I think it would be best for both of us if you just leave. We can talk more when you've cooled off."
The blond refused to be mollified. "No, we finish this here and now. Or-"
"Or what, Katsuya?"
"Just tell me why." Jounouchi said softly. He felt his anger draining away, and in its place crept in the feelings of low self-esteem that he'd fought for years to put behind him. Kaiba's words had cut to the bone. He realized hopelessly that no matter how much distance he put between who he was then and who he'd become, he'd never truly escape.
"I'm done explaining. You figure it out."
"That's it? That's all I'm gonna get?" Jou pressed in resignation.
"I want you to leave. Now." Kaiba said, and feeling a tidal flood of anger, he closed his eyes and attempted to breathe evenly. He wished with all his heart the blond would just let it go for the moment, so they could both regroup and look at the situation more objectively.
"Why? Can't you just admit you were wrong?"
"I don't need this drama right now, Jounouchi." Kaiba said tensely.
Jou bristled at the formal use of his surname. "You wanna talk about drama ~Kaiba~? You're a veritable minefield of ~drama~." The CEO glared at the blond. "What, you think it's a picnic walking around on eggshells all the fucking time? Never knowing when I'm gonna say something that's gonna set you off?"
"That's it!" Kaiba bellowed. His eyes narrowed to slits as he sized up the blond. There was absolutely no way he could allow him to get away with further assaults on his character. "We're done. If you think that I would be so manipulative, then ~you've~ been lying all along. ~You~ haven't been able to get past what happened when we were kids. I've told you things that I've never told anyone," he hissed, "and you use them the first chance you get as an opportunity to hurt me. I've sorely misjudged you. I believed you when you told me you loved me, but I can see now we were both fooling ourselves."
"We're through?" Jounouchi exclaimed incredulously. "Lemme get this straight, you'd rather dump me than admit you were wrong?" Jounouchi tried desperately to understand how the argument had so suddenly spiraled out of control, how Kaiba would be so ready to walk away from what they had.
"This isn't about being right or wrong, Katsuya. This is about you not trusting me. This is about you thinking there was something sinister behind my motives."
"What're you talking about? I never said anything like that-"
"Not in so many words. But the fact that you would accuse me of such heinous things ..." He sighed in resignation. "You're right. I should have told you what I was doing to ~help~ you. But would you have forgiven me if you didn't get custody of Aiko and found out that I could of helped in some way, but I refused? I can live with your unreasonableness, but not with the fact that you think me capable of such things. Just go now. I can't do this anymore. It's finished." He felt tears threaten to fall and his treasonous heart contracted from his words. He looked up to see tears falling freely from Jounouchi's eyes. The blond shook his head.
"You don't mean it ... you can't mean it." He said. Kaiba only stared back at him stoicly. "I don't care what you say, it can't be over." Jounouchi repeated to himself. "Set-I'm-"
"What, you're ~sorry~?" He sneered. "Please, don't patronize me. You came here spoiling for a fight. Enjoy the fruits of your labors." He said coldly.
"So that's it. We have one blowout and you're bailing?" Jounouchi felt his own anger rise to his defense.
"This isn't a numbers game. You've shown me that you will never fully trust me. I refuse to live like that, always second-guessing my actions where you are concerned, living in fear that they may be misconstrued in some way."
"You always were a cold-hearted prick." Jounouchi spat. He didn't see the pain flash in the brunet's eyes from his stinging remark. "I shouldn't be surprised that you'd pull the plug like this." He was thinking now about their living arrangements, how impossibly difficult it was going to be to find an apartment in the two weeks he had before Aiko began school and he started in his new position.
"And you always spoke before giving a thought to the repercussions." As if he were reading the blond's mind, he continued. "You can pick up your things from my place at your leisure. I'll make sure to stay out of your way." He said acidly.
"Fine, asshole. Have a nice life." Jounouchi cursed as he spun and left the brunet's office. He didn't bother to close the door behind him.
* * *
He'd driven around aimlessly for a couple of hours and had finally calmed down. He wasn't ready to face Aiko yet, to tell her that their plans had changed. He was still mad at the brunet for that, but he'd lost all his anger about the other things. Kaiba had been right. It had been his own fears and insecurities that had caused him to lash out in the way that he did.
He knew deep in his heart that the brunet hadn't been manipulative; he'd truly wanted to help him realize his dream of becoming Aiko's father. He'd gone about it wrongheaded and classically Kaiba-ish, but his heart was in the right place. Jounouchi scoffed at the notion that he'd floated-that Kaiba had actually had a hand in his being awarded his doctoral degree-that was ridiculous. But now he had to figure out what to do about convincing the brunet that he'd seen the error in his ways. It was easy to analyze exactly why the brunet had come to the conclusion that he needed to end their romance-a failed relationship reinforced his own fears that he would spend his life alone. Jounouchi was not about to let that happen without a serious fight.
He needed a cup of coffee to calm his nerves. He needed to call Seto, if only to hear his voicemail. He needed the comfort of his lover's baritone voice-he refused to think in terms of exes-he would even weather another argument. He knew they could get beyond this. It would take work, but he knew in his gut that they both believed it was worth it. Spying a coffee shop, he pulled the car over in the first parking space he came upon and soon found himself nursing a latte, staring at his cell phone on the worn Formica table in front of him, gathering up the nerve to dial the telephone number that had become so familiar to him in the past months. It couldn't be over, he convinced himself. They had worked too hard for this, put too much of themselves on the line to make the relationship work just to call it quits. He had to get through to Seto and set things straight.
He took a deep breath and hit his call history to find Kaiba's number, and pressed 'send.' He smiled to himself, thinking about how irksome the brunet found it that he'd never managed to set up an address book for the phone. He couldn't understand how Jounouchi could just rely on his ten-call history, or his memorization skills. It was one of the myriad idiosyncrasies that they overlooked in each other. For his part, it was beyond him that Kaiba required his clothing to be arranged in his closets by color and then in order of shade, from lightest to dark. He found that level of organization rather anal.
As Kaiba's telephone rang, Jounouchi sensed, no he knew, that something was amiss in his environment. He glanced at the customers around him, trying to pinpoint the source of his malaise, his eyes landing on two young men who'd walked in seconds before. His street sense told him immediately that they were up to no good. They were both hunched into long raincoats, despite the weather being sunny and warm, and their eyes darted about nervously appraising the other patrons.
He was delivered into Kaiba's voicemail, and after the terse greeting, he managed to say, "Set, I was wrong about everything, and ... and now I have to go-" He said hurriedly and hung up the phone quickly as all hell broke loose.
"Okay everyone, listen up an no one gets hurt!" Jounouchi heard the woman in the booth behind him cry out in terror as both kids-he imagined they weren't older than fifteen-pulled out what looked to be semi-automatic pistols from within the recesses of their coats "Everybody SHUT UP AND LISTEN!"
Jou could sense the agitation in the young assailant's voice, and knew immediately that he was nervous. He waved the gun about wildly, while his partner swung his from patron to patron. When it trained on him, he held his breath, but noticed that the kid wasn't holding it steady, the muzzle was shaking all over the place, he hazarded a glance up toward the boy's face, the fear he saw there confirmed his suspicions; the kid was terrified. All in all, that was a bad thing, Jounouchi thought. Their nervousness would mean that if either of them felt threatened, they would probably do something stupid.
"Take all your valuables off and out of your pockets and leave them in front of you." The more composed one continued. Jounouchi lowered his eyes, and drank in descriptions of them as he removed his watch and laid it next to his cell phone. They both had slight builds that were covered in the raincoats and nondescript jeans. The one in charge was about four centimeters taller than his accomplice-Jounouchi estimated that he stood at 170 centimeters. Rather short, but size really didn't matter when it was backed up with a piece. His hair was cut in a razor-shag, and the ends had been bleached blond. The other kid's unkempt hair was black, and it looked as if it were growing out of a child's haircut. He couldn't see any scars or tattoos on either of them, but there wasn't too much skin available for viewing. He imagined they were gang initiates, and this was a test-nothing else could account for a brazen armed robbery in broad daylight.
He took his keys and wallet from his pockets and laid them on the table. His heart was beating madly in his chest and he focused on remaining as calm and compliant as possible. He didn't want to be singled out as a threat. He concentrated on his surroundings. The shop had been near-deserted. Besides the girl who'd served him, who was now cowering behind the counter, there was an older man, probably in his thirties, a blue-collar worker, Jou surmised by his dress, and the woman behind him along with a toddler boy. He and the other man locked eyes, and Jou read into that gesture that he was prepared to act if Jounouchi did.
The boy behind him, sensing the tension in the air, began to cry loudly.
"Shut that fucking brat up now!" The one in charge ordered to his accomplice. The other boy strode towards the terrified woman, his gun carelessly aimed. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out of the booth forcefully.
"Please don't hurt my baby," Jou heard her sob softly. They were right next to him, and keeping his eyes averted, he glanced at her trembling body.
With his mother no longer next to him, the boy began to keen in earnest. Jounouchi willed the boy quiet, knowing it was futile. The poor child was in a full-blown tantrum.
"Just let them go," Jounouchi barked harshly. Immediately the butt end of the pistol smashed against the side of his face. Before he fully recovered, he was staring intimately into the muzzle.
"Wanna die, motherfucker?" The boy hissed, as he grabbed Jou's valuables and dropped them into a sack. Jou shook his head slowly and deliberately. It dawned on him that this could have an ugly ending. He vowed to himself that if he made it out of this situation alive, he would make amends to his parents, and to Kaiba. He wanted to live if only to set everything right.
He was vaguely aware that the leader had taken up residence at the door, and now the other male patron was between him and Jou. The accomplice had ordered the young mother to collect the money out of the cash register. As she reluctantly moved away from her son, the boy's screams grew louder still. "That's it! I've had enough of this!" The younger boy cried. Jounouchi heard the safety click off the gun as the boy swung it around toward the toddler. Without thinking, the blond launched himself at the boy. As they clattered to the floor together, he heard the gun spray a couple of rounds, and prayed they missed their target. Then, as if in slow motion, as he struggled for control of the gun, he heard several more shots ring out. The accomplice went still, and Jounouchi realized that the boy had been hit by at least one of the bullets that had been aimed their way, he looked up to see the other male patron wrestling the gun out of the hand the other boy's grasp. He rolled off the accomplice, thanking his lucky stars that he was unhurt, but suddenly he felt a burning sensation course through his back and chest. He found it was becoming incredibly difficult to breathe, and as he rubbed his hand across his chest to find the source of the burning sensation, he was mildly surprised to feel wetness there. With some trepidation he raised his hand to his face, only to see it drenched in his own blood. He closed his eyes, suddenly inconsolable that there were so many things that he'd left unsaid. He hoped that Aiko would be able to find her way in life.
He opened his eyes again, but his vision was dimming. The woman whose boy he'd defended was crouched next to him, she was holding his hand in hers, it felt warm and full of life. "Arigato," she wept over and over, then asked, "Is there anyone I should call?" His breaths were coming in shallow gasps, and he felt he couldn't get enough oxygen. He heard the distant whine of sirens, and slowly made the connection that they were drawing near.
He gripped her hand, and she bent her head to bring her ear close to his mouth. "Domino University Hospital," he managed to whisper before his world went black.
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In The Name Of Love