Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ A Shutter Chance ❯ Chance 2 ( Chapter 2 )

A Shutter Chance
Author: Nekocin
Warnings: Major Out of Character, some potty mouthing, some Outside Characters.
Pairing: Kaiba+Jounouchi
Additional notes: see previous chapter.
Author's notes: I've mentioned in the previous chapter that I would write where my own ideas actually were—to be honest, they're all mixed up with the elements of manga. Anyone who's read this manga about a Photography romance will probably know what I'm actually talking about. But from chapter 3, the story will get its own course. My deepest apologies to those who'd found some faults in my works. 

~Chance 2: Kaiba Side~

~ X ~ Suiyoubi - Wednesday ~ X ~ 22:01 PM 

The same night I called JK Field Studio.

"Hello, JK Field Studio-," I got Mazaki on the line, sounding as cheerful as anyone who had a very nice day. 

"Hello, Mazaki-san—Shouldn't you go home now? It's already past your working hours," Ironically, why did I bother calling when I knew he close his studio up at 10 PM? Simple, I'd a feeling he was still at work, considering how broken-hearted he was when his Panda-Honey was—broken; Jounouchi could mope all day if he wanted.

"Ah, Kaiba-san! Yes, we are about to go home-," She answered instantly.

"Can you pass the phone to Jounouchi for me?" I cut her off.

"Sure. Hold on a second-" ("Katsuya! Your phone. It's from Kaiba-san") She called out in the background. Some soft sniffles approached—

"—Yes?" I heard Jounouchi's depressed voice between the occasional sniffles from the other line of the horn.

My lips twitched ruefully. "Are you doing all right, Jounouchi?" 

"Yeah—no, I'm not. I'm in a very bad mood! Whaddya want?!" Jounouchi raged through the phone, pissed off and depressed at the same time.

I couldn't stop the smirk from appearing. "That doesn't sound so good-," Jounouchi's probably rolling his eyes now. "This will be hard to ask—,"

"So shoot me for being curious," He countered. I found my smirk widening--that's why I asked for his help first, he's so reliable like a puppy that will do anything for its master. I wondered where that comparison came from. It's not really like Jounouchi to be submissive to someone, no matter how scary or gigantic said person looked.

"The meeting is tomorrow. Since the projector is broken it leaves me no choice but to have the slides be printed quickly. Can you do them tonight and bring the large-sized prints tomorrow, at my office by 1 PM?" I requested.

"WHAT?!" I winced, as he seemed to have snapped out of his depression, temporarily. There's a muffled thud in the background as if his chair has fallen down when he pushed it back.

"YOU WANT LARGE-SIZED PRINTS BY 1 PM TOMORROW?" He shouted from the other line both incredulously and angrily. "What the hell? Didn't you say you wanted slides instead? I delivered those already, DIDN'T I?!"

Yes, that's actually true but-

"Our projector is broken. I cannot use the slides at the meeting when the projector is broken," I pointed out the obvious reason. 

"That's not my business! Go buy a new one!" He snapped.

"I need those pictures for tomorrow's meeting. No matter what," 

"No can do! All the printing shops are closed! And I'm going home anyway!" 
He could be such a stubborn little bastard when I needed his help the most. 

"Just look through the slides or something. It's a bit small if you do this though," Jounouchi continued stubbornly, mumbling incoherent curses into my ear.

"Jounouchi—can you develop them in the studio's dark room for me—?" I pursued as I felt myself gritting my teeth to keep my impatience from surfacing. My head was already throbbing annoyingly.

"—Didn't I say that I'm in a very bad mood right now?" Jounouchi's voice came out low and dark through the line. He's mad. Really, really mad.

"Yes. I understand. I'm not supposed to mix work and personal requests-" I sighed while massaging my forehead slowly. 

"SHUT UP!" He exploded. "I hate being ordered around the most! Go wash your face, take a shit first and -then- try calling again!" 

BAM! 

I pulled away and winced. Ow. My eardrums.

Damn, he hung up on me. Damn, he didn't want to comply. Damn, the meeting--
Of all those other days, why did the projector break today?

What should I do? It's--looking down at my watch—already 22:30. Everyone must have gone home from work by now.

How am I supposed to lead the meeting?

~ X ~ Mokuyoubi - Thursday ~ X ~

12:55 AM

"I see—I'm sorry for bothering you during such a busy time," I ended one of my many emergency calls. As soon as I'd put the phone back on the cradle, Mai approached me with an apologetic look on her face. 

"Kaiba-sama, I've asked the office downstairs. They said they don't have a projector," Mai said.

"I see—I tried to call a number of offices. But none of them had one either. I guess we can't use the slides—and the meeting is going to start soon,"
I sighed as I turned to look at the clock that was hanging against the far wall. 

Mai looked helplessly at me, clenching her hands into fists uncharacteristically by her sides as she frowned her forehead. She'd run out of ideas too-

"We can enlarge them as color copies, right?" She quipped hopefully. 

-Or maybe not. Color copies? That didn't seem such a bad idea. It's not like the members of the meeting to notice the differences between color copies and developed pictures.

"I suppose that will probably d-," 

The telephone on my desk rang. I offered Mai a quick 'excuse me' and picked up.

"Yes?"

"This is Kaitou from the reception. A person from JK Field is here to see you," Somehow I found myself feeling relieved about my situation when I heard that. Perhaps hearing the name of Jounouchi's work studio had calmed me down even if for a moment.

~ X ~

Mazaki was standing awkwardly near the entrance of my private office, smiling and short out of breath. I concluded she must have run up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. 

"Kaiba-san!" She greeted me with flushed cheeks when she saw me approaching. "Thank god I'm on time!"

"Mazaki-san. Is there something the matter?" I wondered out loud. Surprisingly, my voice didn't break even if I was on the edge of losing face.

Mazaki beamed and passed a large manila envelop into my hands. "This is from Katsuya," 

I raised my eyebrows. 

What? 

Curious as to what exactly was so important to send Mazaki running to me, I slid the envelope open.

"He said I've to deliver this as fast as possible," Mazaki explained eagerly. She was probably trying to calm down the adrenaline rush in her veins. "He even wanted me to burst in and hand this to you if the meeting has already started,"

What's so important to do such a thing?

I pulled out the first paper I felt and looked-

A pair of luscious gray eyes stared back at me. I stared back at it, surprised. It's Kasumi—the selfish model from yesterday-
These were the prints I'd asked him to do the night before.

"Jou-Jounouchi--did these?" I found myself asking incredulously as I slid out another print.

Mazaki gave me an affirmative smile. "Yes, it seems like he's spent all night developing them. And now he's snoring loudly on the sofa," 
She chuckled affectionately, "Even though he said that he was bad at printing--they came out quite beautifully," 

He—he—he did these. He-he'd complied. He'd developed them.
Sliding the prints back into the manila folder, I stared at the folder. It's a relief I hadn't been wrong about his character. I felt as if a weight had lifted, when I recalled Jounouchi giving me an earful about not wanting to do the prints in the middle of the night. 

He's—so sweet.

"Uhm—Kaiba-san—," Mazaki dropped her gaze when I looked back at her. It seemed she's calmed down a bit. 

"I-I know Katsuya is always yelling about something—but he's a good person," She shared shyly and looked up at me immediately, with sudden gathered courage. "He's just a little short-tempered and shy—,"

I turned my attention on the envelop in my hands. "—I know—" 

Permitting myself to smirk and smile at the same time, I straightened.
"Actually, I've known him longer than you, Mazaki-san," 

And I left it at that with Mazaki's confused eyes following my back. 
It's time for my meeting.

~ X ~

"Shall we start now? The projector was broken last night. So I had to rush to have the pictures printed out instead-," I spoke up as soon as I'd closed the door to the Conference room behind me and pulled out all the print-outs from the envelope.
"-Which is why there's only enough for one per person. I'm sorry for the inconv-,"

I stared. 

I was staring down at the first print yet again for the second time of the day.

It was a print of a close up of Jounouchi's smug face, seen from atop when he held up the camera. Not only did his smug face capture my undivided attention, it's the sheer stupidity as well. The picture had his smug face on it looking at me—with pen-scratches that indicated hair growing out of his ears and nose. There was also a message:

~Additional fee: 30,000 yen.

How's your injury?

         &nbs p;            & nbsp; Katsuya~

Something uncontrollable rumbled from my chest up to my throat, ready to burst out- 
I immediately faced away from the members of the meeting and suppressed my snickering with a hand clamping over my mouth. "MMPHHT-,"

"Kaiba-san, is there something wrong?" One of the younger members of the meeting interrupted cautiously.

I froze my lips from smiling widely as I turned round to face the meeting again. "Nothing's wrong. So anyways, this picture is-," I assured and immediately crumpled the silly picture into my pocket. 

I should be proud of my quick transformation in looks. I could easily slid an indifferent face on without anyone knowing what exactly I've been thinking at the moment. But I wasn't. Instead, I was actually plotting—

That ass! He could be so unreasonable! 

~ X ~

13:00 PM

Finally, the meeting ended. I received positive reactions about the picture commercial ideas from some of the members, which was actually thanks to Jounouchi. 

"You managed to get 30 prints in one night—that's just like you, Kaiba-san, to do everything fast," A voice, I recognized as Morimoto-sempai's, spoke up cynically. 

I paused in gathering the prints in one pile and looked up at Morimoto-sempai. He was hiding something from me—

"I would like to know your secret," Morimoto-sempai continued. He smirked as he looked at me through his glasses. 
"While we're at it, I would like you to teach me how to be successful at my work—you know, as a sempai—," He mocked.

He and another colleague left the Conference room to have a snack afterwards. I couldn't tell if he was actually joking or insulting me. But I bet it's the latter for his beady eyes were eyeing me with hostility again. 

Sitting back and then slouching in my seat, I threw the prints messily on the table. There's something missing. Something very bad will happen if I don't find out what that something is, soon. Dammit. What was it again? 

Bitterness?

-If you have time to be sarcastic, why don't you do some work instead!-

I slid a cigarette between my lips as I leaned my forehead on my palm. Reaching into my pockets, I fished out my lighter and-

-there's something attached to the damn metal. 

My lighter was already dropped from my hand when I took one look at the crumpled picture. 

I couldn't help at seeing the same silly picture before the meeting, but burst out laughing—only to suppress it behind my hand in time. I found myself shaking from uncontrollable laughter and tried to turn the laughter into—at least—decent chuckles.

"What a silly idiot—" I murmured to myself as I continued to snicker at the silly picture for the moment. Indulging myself when looking at his silly pictures always seem to make me want to smile at him whenever I went to see him.

~ X ~

21:35 PM

When I got to JK Field Studio, Mazaki was the only one tending the closing business and was about to sent off the lighting technicians to their homes. Jounouchi was nowhere in sight.

"He went out drinking with this model as soon as they finished the shoot," Mazaki explained as she gathered a tray of empty mugs into her possession. 

"That's very mean of him, leaving you here to work while he's off making himself drunk," I commented lightly in the air.

Mazaki shook her head and looked down at the empty mugs with a sad and yet affectionate look on her face. That's a very odd face coming from her; she was usually very eager whenever she mentioned Jounouchi, her boss. "It's actually okay, because today he-,"

Unfortunately, her elaboration was cut off when the phone rang.

What's up with all the interruptions today?

I watched her put down her tray hastily and answered the phone. Mazaki seemed to be listening to someone at the other line and slowly the sad look on her face darkened. 

"Sorry for to trouble you. Yes. I'll take him home then," She let out an unconscious sigh and bid the caller a good evening, before placing the horn back on its cradle.

"What's wrong?" I wondered curiously as Mazaki turned to look apologetically at me.

"Someone from the bar called. It seems that he's too drunk to go home by himself. His date already went home though—," She explained fondly with her hands still on the phone.

He'd already made himself drunk. 

I sighed mentally. The idiot.

"Why don't you just leave him by himself? It's not as if he cannot manage by himself," Jounouchi may not look it, but he was truly someone who could take on everything if he put his heart into it. Everything; even if he was drunk.

Jounouchi's secretary's face fell slightly as she dropped her eyes to look at the phone under her fingers. 

"That's true, but—he seemed to be very depressed today. I can't leave him alone—,"

Something seemed quite off about Jounouchi being depressed. Sure everyone had their moments—but he wouldn't be so unreasonable to drink the night away when he had his moments. Instead Jounouchi would avoid everyone except me, and would continuously bother me with the pet names he'd given me so far. 

At least that's what I figured when straying around in the background while he wasn't looking. It's actually almost as if he was saying—if he were depressed he was going to make use someone else's anger to make reality go away. Most times he would vent his depressions out while bugging me.

"Did something happen?" I found myself wondering. 

Mazaki looked both alarmed and speechlessly at me as if I’d said something out of a blue. She reached for a pile of magazines and pulled out one of them with careful hands. She then flipped it open to a desired page and placed her fingers on one of the articles.

"Here. It's a Photography Magazine that was released today—an influential Photographer named Jiku, was unreasonably critical towards Katsuya's photos-," 

I picked up the magazine and looked down at the pointed article.

"Katsuya laughed it off and said he didn't care. But as I thought—"

Indeed the article was about Jiku's opinion of Jounouchi's pictures.

~The photographs that Jounouchi Katsuya takes are far too influenced by foreign photographers, which makes them not even the slightest original at all. They are all poorly taken and serve nothing but to lower the standard of Modern Photography...~

Ch' the bastard. 

I felt a sudden wave of anger and disgust that I even threw the magazine aside without reading the rest of the article. I didn't have to read the rest of the dreadful piece for I knew what exactly could be mentioned there. 

"Jounouchi used to work at Jiku's studio as an assistant—," I opted to unveil the mystery why exactly Jounouchi would feel so depressed of such a one-man comment article. It's not like Jounouchi to listen to whatever others had to say about his work as long as it was approved. He knew what he was doing.

"Huh? Really?! I've never heard of that before," Mazaki exclaimed in surprise even if it's unintentional.

"On the fifth day of work, he had a big fight with Jiku. Bad enough that he resigned, and since then he has been treated harshly—,"

"A fight—?! After five days?!" It looked as if she was about to ask why there was a fight with that questioning look in her blue eyes.

"Yes. I was the source of the fight," I beat her to the answer. It didn't matter if she knew something about our past because it wasn't as if we'd swore an oath to never talk about it anyways. Past was past, as he would say. But even so, the past was truly a cruel thing when it's following us everywhere we went. 

"Oh well—I drove here today, so I'll go pick him up. What's the name of the bar?" I turned round ready to leave the studio.

~ X ~ 

Bastille Bar - 22:01 PM 

At this kind of hour the bar should've been filled with costumers, but I was quite taken aback that this one had none. Only Jounouchi was around. He was piteously crumpled against the bar counter and didn't even looked up when I approached him. 

"Damniz. I haze everyonezzz—," I heard him mutter through his drunken state, his words slurring.

"Jounouchi. Come on. I'll take you home," I leaned over and grabbed his arms. He looked startled up at me with glassy, unfocused brown eyes.

"Eh? Anzu-chan?—" He squinted at me as I pulled him back on his feet-

"You sound like an old man!" Suddenly Jounouchi burst out coupled with drunken chortles and leaned heavily against me. 

I glared. An old man? Who's he calling an old man?

He continued to laugh in my ear as I tried to keep him in balance. "You sound just like Seth-chan though. Hahahahaha—,"

"Shut up," I hardened my face and then turned to look at the nervous bartender, who was watching us with some pity.

"Sorry for causing you any troubles," I said stiffly to him. 

The bartender waved it off nervously and wished us a good evening. 

~ X ~

After a strenuous activity of carrying Jounouchi up to the parking lot and putting him next to the driver's seat, I couldn't remember having lifted another human weight in my life before that made me this exhausted. 

Damn you, Jounouchi. How much did he weigh?

I took my seat behind the wheels and sighed as I looked over at Jounouchi. He was slowly drifting off to sleep, drooling-

"Your seatbelt, Jounouchi!" I pointed out exasperatedly as his head lulled to the sides indicating that he wanted to lie down and yet did not want to. 

"Seatbelt? Huh? Whazzat?" He mumbled incoherently. I sighed again. 

I should have known that it was no use talking to a drunk about safety rules. 
Leaning over him, I reached for the seat belt at his side and pulled the metal across his chest.

The metal clicked as it made contact with the slot.

Jounouchi was suddenly staring up at me with delirious brown eyes—in wonder and amazement. He dropped his eyes and looked over my shoulder without a word as I pulled away. 

I slid the ignition key into the slot and turned it. The ride down the street was unusually quiet. I guess he'd probably fallen asleep.

"—Seth-chan—," 

Or maybe not. 

Even in his drunken mind Jounouchi would call me by that hideous name. Usually when he used that one it ensued that he was teasing me or he was using it without noticing it. However, in this case he used it to get my attention, to get my undivided attention.

"Do you like my photos?" He asked me softly. 

Should I be honest or shouldn't I be? Thinking back about the article, I should be most likely honest in my answer. He was already depressed.

"Yes, I do. I wouldn't ask you to do my projects otherwise,"

Jounouchi suddenly laughed and slapped a friendly hand on my shoulder. "It's only you—Seth-chan—who understands my photos," 
I heard him let out another strained laugh with tinges of sad undertones in it. 

"That's not true. Everybody waits in line for you to take their photos," 

His grip on my arm got tighter and then loosened as if he wanted me to say the opposite. 

"They're just following the trend. But when they read about what Jiku said—my photos will be soon—forgotten," I heard his breath hitch slightly. 

He suddenly chuckled lightly. "Oh well, I'm the kind of person people hate anyway. I snap easily and yell all the time—," He continued flippantly. 
"Only you, Seth-chan can say things bluntly to me. That takes a lot of guts,"

I pointedly stared at the street in front of me as I listened to him spout sentimental stuff he'd sworn never to use when I was near. I feel bad—somehow. Or maybe it's  just pity. 

"Seth-chan—," He wanted my undivided attention again as he spoke up softly.

"Do you like m-?" me? 

As if a thunderbolt had struck me I went rigid and looked up in shock at Jounouchi. Did he just—? "Jou-,"

Click. 

Red light. Shit, almost forgot I was on the driveway. 

I swerved the car to the sidelines and slammed the brakes instantly, almost sending myself around like a rag doll if it hadn't been for the seatbelt that kept me in place. Though Jounouchi hadn't much luck for he'd bumped into me as soon as I'd swerved.

What was I thinking? Using 60 KM per mile while holding a conversation with a drunk.

Jounouchi hadn't taken his time to get back to his side of the seat because he was still leaning against my arm. 

"Hey, you okay?" I looked down at him to see what's the matter. 

He was drooling. Snoring. ASLEEP. 

Idiot! 
I cursed in my thoughts and turned my eyes away. I wasn't sure whom I was cursing—either him or myself, probably the former. 

"Troublesome guy," I muttered under my breath as I felt my lips twitching. 
Although he's a pretty face when he's all quiet like this, his strong face says not to mess around with him even when he's sleeping. Nothing had changed at all. Nothing had changed even after five years.

I remembered that day, five years ago, as if it had happened not too long ago; on that dreadful day. The day when we began our separate ways, when we started building our friendship-

Jounouchi suddenly mumbled a few more incoherent words, bringing me back to the present. 

If a few more years had gone by, he would probably never change. It's for the better. Even so -looking down at his sleeping face- I would always be watching -I couldn't resist the temptation.

I leaned over to his face and brushed my lips against his temple.

~I've always been watching you~

-- END CHANCE 2: KAIBA SIDE -- 

TheNekoTalks:

Jiku is the pink-long-haired guy who made me think of Pegasus first when I saw him. :shudders: The guy sure is a weird one even if he's a genius like Kaiba.
Writing Kaiba like this is a bit hard; I've been too engrossed with his complexities in the anime series that they are preventing me from writing an even more out of character CEO. I believe Jounouchi's the only one who fit the original manga character. (When I first read the manga, the photographer mentioned in the manga made me think of Jounouchi immediately. They both have a lot of things in common like for example their attitude or temper.)
Last note: Even though I love Jounouchi to pieces, I'm slowly falling in love with Malik :heart heart heart: <333333 Specially thanks to that story "Tis the season" by Spider Webb (even though the end of the story make me feel conflicted inside—).

I like to thank those who'd reviewed the previous chapter:
-Kumori Sakusha formerly Saelbu (I'm glad you like-slash-love this. Thank you for reviewing. You've been reviewing some of my stories here and there; SANKYUU~!)
-Killian (I've tried not to write the first chapter with some fresh little things thrown in; I guess the previous chapter came out all right. I still think I'd made him Out of Character. :shifty eyes: Thank you for reviewing)
-Little Midnight (:3 I'm glad you love this with all your SJ fangirl heart. I :heart: this pairing too and since I can't seem to find good SJ stories with plot or at least some interesting writing styles, I've decided to write another AU to explore their relationship even if it's a bit subtle. Thank you for reviewing)
-Crosshunt-c (I'm glad you like-slash-love this too. Thank you for reviewing. Just like Kumori :points at the above text: you've been reviewing some of my other stories here and there. Sankyuu!)
-PanDora (:chuckles: I'm glad you like-slash-love it and didn't want it to end too soon. I hope at least I'm not over-doing the SJ friendship-slash-relationship, but I :pout: like subtleties in certain affaires. Thank you for reviewing)
-Lil-Riter (I'm glad you like-slash-love it. :3 Writing Jou come up with witty comments is cool and actually difficult, because -we're not used to such clever wittiness coming from him-. I guess I got fed up with all those clichés. It's so wonderful to defy clichés—Anyways, thank you for reviewing)

Thank you for reading!!! I apologize for the long notes!

:smiley face:cin