Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ A Shutter Chance ❯ Chance 4 ( Chapter 5 )

A Shutter Chance
Author: Nekocin
Warnings: OoC, not-so-appropriate words
Pairings: Mild Kaiba+Jounouchi
Additional notes: slight shounen ai.
Side note: I've just noticed a plot hole. Plugged it; changed a few sentences of the previous chapter, but not too much to change the whole story. Just read on.

~Chance 4: Jounouchi Side~

I kicked the door to my office open once I got back from the interview session and slammed it closed as has as I could, making the wall pictures rattle and the loud bang echo in the office.

It hadn't gone well as I had planned.

"ARGH!" I screamed in frustration and anger, scratched my head till my hair lost its perfect, slicked appearance and viciously tugged off my black tie. 

I wasn't quite prepared for it—for Jiku's downright lethal attack. 

I kicked the chair, which was reserved for visitors, across the office and slammed my fist in a random wall. 

Dammit! Dammit! DAMN IT ALL!

While breathing harshly through my mouth, I took off my jacket and slid down tiredly on my swivel chair. As if out of habit I turned the key of the first drawer on my right, slid a hand inside and dug between the many memo sheets I had kept in there.

I recall it was hidden in there somewhere—Ah! 

Quickly pulling the box out, I could not help but smile ruefully. I'd stopped using it months ago, vowed never again to pollute my lungs—and yet—

With trembling fingers, I shook one out from the small box and dug my hand back into the drawer to seek out the lighter.

"Dammit!" I cursed, pulling out the metal lighter, and flicked on the fire, lighting the end of the cigarette. I took a long drag, closed my eyes and willed my hands to stop shaking. That damn bastard! 

I savagely squashed the cigarette butt on my desk, adding another black spot to my collection of many black spots on its surface. I threw out the content of my cigarette box and began smoking the remaining cigarettes one by one—halfway to the middle before squashing them in the middle of my collection. 

A half hour later I found myself wasting away at Bastille Bar, ordering a very daring drink on my behalf before everything went black and hazy afterwards.

-- X --

When I woke up I found myself, yet again, in Kaiba's guestroom (with all that fancy stuff dressed in nostalgic midnight blue colors it's not hard to figure out whose house it belonged to), and evil sledgehammers decided that my head need some hard banging if I dared to step out of bed. Evil little buggers!

Groaning, I cradled my head and curled up.

"If this is one of your routines—to get drunk—I advise you not to go to bars without supervision," An echoing boom-boom voice pierced through the pounding headache within me, encouraging the throbbing mercilessly. "I thought you only drink light alcohol, Jounouchi," 

It was Kaiba.

"Shut up," I found myself murmuring, curling up further.

Could he not see that I am in so much pain? 

It felt as if a fucking soccer tournament was being held up there with my head in the spotlight as a sort of soccer ball within the field.

"Jounouchi, you are such a spoiled pet, you know?" Kaiba sighed somewhere above me—I wasn't sure—forced my arms away from cradling my head and handed me a cool glass of water and a pill.

"Am not!" I protested, pinching my eyes closed as I took in the medicine and drank up the cool water. 

"Yes, you are. Every time you get drunk I have to take care of you as if you are a little bird whose wings got broken." One side of the bed sagged slowly, indicating that Kaiba had sat down.

I glared at his straight-from-wood-cut face at last, while the throbbing resided slowly.

"Not true. Just for two-," I paused and flicked my eyes to my folded hands on my lap, recounting. "-no—three nights. The first time was 3 years ago, I think. The 2nd was last week and this is the 3rd time!" I pointed out. For some reason my voice cracked in the middle of my speech before I trailed off. 

Long fingers raked slowly through my hair and smoothed down the strands, which probably stood on odd ends in, I dare say, a motherly way. This was getting so sickening sweet for some reason I was surprised I hadn't thrown up in his face yet.

"Bastard," I accused and looked away from my hands. "Have I ever told you, you are such a bastard?" 

"Yes—all the time," Kaiba said calmly.

I snorted.

"That's good." And I leaned away from his long fingers to curl up under the midnight blue guilt. I wasn't sure what the point behind our conversation was, but I suppose it had something to do with either my bad interview or with his work—or maybe it was just one bad dream.

The long fingers returned running through my hair, slowly tempting me to go back to sleep. 

Was the medicine a sleeping drug?

—He really has a strange fetish for my hair—

I plunged into the darkness and slept away.

~ X ~ Flashback ~ X ~ 

As soon as I'd entered a sort of set up living room which was specially furnished to give off the artistic mood (the sheer whiteness in background with majestically-draped mocha-colored canopies and large photo-framed prints of one of my earlier works and a large comfortable sofa made of, I believe, Italian leather.). I felt the air tensing and thinning away. 

I found myself glaring coolly over at him, at Jiku.

"Oh my god, Jounouchi-sama is here!" someone suddenly screams in delight, making me break eye contact with my former boss and look down at a shorter woman, who's blushing and grinning excitedly.

"Uhm-," I raised a hand.

"Jounouchi-sama looks so handsome in person!"

"—hey—," My hand stopped mid-air.

"Yeah and you have such great taste in fashion. Oooh! I would kill just to find out how he could look so sexy in some clothes," some of the female crew members started surrounding me.

"Jounouchi-sama probably looks handsome in everything! I bet he even looks sexy in the morning," Yeah right.

I chuckled politely and felt my face heat up. "Good morning," I flashed them one of my famous candid smiles, warily and the women loved it—they swooned in response and thrust paper sheets and pens to my chest for autographs.

"You know, Jounouchi-sama, I've admired you ever since you first shot that strange dark picture of Kaiba-san—it is such a beautiful picture I've turned the corner of my living room where the picture is hung into a sanctuary," 

"Your work is wonderfully marvelous. And you mentioned you've always wanted to take shots of Ishizu—I'm her biggest fan if you must know—and I'm looking forward to the day you take her pictures,"

"Sign this for my daughter please. She simply adores your pictures 'a portrait of a great family' with all those cute puppies snuggled together. So cute! You know, my daughter is only five and she thinks of you as a great man! It's very rare to see her so interested in pictures. She's vowed to marry you one day!"

"Don't worry about defaming, Jounouchi-sama. I'm quite acquainted with the higher ups so—," the women babbled all at once and had me cornered in a corner in no time. It felt familiar—it felt like the other time when I had been Jiku’s Assistant.

Even though they didn't mean to act so straightforward towards me, I felt powerless and irritated at the same time. 
My eyes twitched.
I hadn't had a good night sleep the night before. Lacking sleep would make me one of the most unapproachable men in the art world for I would lash out uncontrollably on the next best person, who was unfortunate enough to cross my path, and do something which I would regret afterwards. 

In truth, I'm a real monster when I'm deprived from my sleep. 

"Ahem-ladies," 

The women paused and looked over their shoulders at the one who interrupted them suddenly. It was some guy in a plain black suit with not-so-plain looks; piercing emerald eyes were staring right back at me. Emerald eyes, which were brought out beautifully by the kajol, were looking at me. Calculating. Cautiously.

I had never seen anyone with such beautiful green eyes before.

"I'm hurt. You have all left me for another eye-candy," the guy said dramatically and posed—an elegant flick of a hand on his chest as if he was truly hurt. The women all gasped and swarmed around him instantly, abandoning my side.

"We're sorry, Otogi. We didn't mean to hurt you," 

"We didn't mean to leave you within the claws of those wolves," What wolves?

"Please forgive us, Otogi. It's just that the new eye candy here is just too irresistible to ignore," Eye candy—what?

"Yes, yes. And he is such a gentleman, giving my daughter a sample of his autograph—but we still love you the most, Otogi," I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, yes, you are still our number one—even if we find the eye candy very delicious," There's something sinister hearing women talk like that. 

I raised my eyebrows and quirked up a nervous smile when all five (the four women and one guy) turned eerily-glittering eyes at me, giving off an impression that they were predators of the wild that had decided to turn me into their prey. That's really sinister.

"Uhm—," I braced myself.

"Oh, how rude of me. I'm Otogi Ryuuji, one of Candid Lenses freelance reporters," He offered me a hand and smiled charmingly. The predatory look vanished.

"Jounouchi Katsuya, nice to meet you," His hand lingered far longer than it was supposed to be. Let go.

"I hope we'll work well together," 

His smile widened into a smirk. I was wrong. His predatory look didn't vanish, it was merely pausing and waiting for the right moment to appear.

"So shall we begin?"

- X -

Fifteen minutes into the interview I was already having a problem with keeping my voice from cracking when I answered the questions in the best of my ability. Both Otogi and Jiku were irritating me openly. 

Otogi with his awful trick questions and Jiku with his constant egoistic criticism. If both weren't contradicting each other most of the time during the interview I would have suspected that they were out to get me, squashing me publicly till I'd lost my pride and dignity to show my face around again. 

And it did look as if I wasn't making any progress in the interview as those two ganged up against me, pressuring me with their merciless probing and pressing the talk session further when they'd smelled my fear—my fear for being crushed. 

Otogi was an awful man. I wouldn't want him to be my opponent. The guy somehow knew how my mind worked and trapped me with, as mentioned above, his trick questions. Questions concerning my pictures' qualities, Jiku's elements within my work, computer manipulations within my pictures—questions that shouldn't really concern a mere freelance reporter like Otogi when he was both questioning one of the best photographers Jiku and I, because that's how the Photograph world went. 

People in this world should know what kind of styles photographers use. The styles are all the same and yet different in certain aspects like background colors, lighting coordination and graphic manipulations. 

For example some like contrast backgrounds, others like single theme backgrounds and then there is another group who like anything as long as it is unique for everyone's eyes. All three groups are after one thing: trying to make eye-catching pictures, if not, trying to capture -the- right moments on film for future references.

Lighting coordination and graphic manipulation have the same purposes too. They strive to make the picture look perfect under certain tones of light, certain overlapping with their background and mathematical congruent –uhm, to make the picture look logic. 

Every Photograph reporter should know these. Otogi didn't seem to know much of these, but he kept on pressuring me with unnecessary and unbiased questions where he spoke of some artist telling me one thing or another that held no importance in my talk session with Jiku. And even though he knew he was talking nonsensical stuff, he always seemed to ask the right sort of question to make me re-think of my answers. 

Oh, I dislike that guy. I really dislike him.

Jiku—feh, he’s the worst. That guy must have sensed how poor Otogi's knowledge was of concerning our subject for he kept sending him sarcastic looks and comments. Sadly, he didn't pay his attention solely on the reporter; he gave me 'special' treatment to go along with his sarcasm towards Otogi. 

He would flick questions back into Otogi's face and rephrase them in certain sentence orders to make the reporter lose his track of thoughts and promptly forget whatever he was actually trying to ask Jiku. And when he noticed Otogi needed time to recover, Jiku would target me with subtle insults about my pictures, about my low life and then about what happened 3 years ago. 

Fucking bastard! I know better than him about taking quality pictures. I know better than him that my life is most certainly not low, just because I'm not born wealthy like Kaiba. And I know better than him that 3 years ago, at that time, he needed the thrashing I gave him. 

After the interview, I left the studio with a pounding headache and a restless chest without saying much of a good bye to anyone on my way.

~ X ~ End Flashback ~ X ~ 

~ X ~ Kayoubi - Tuesday ~ X ~ 

"Give me lighting there! Hurry! Hurry!" I ordered loudly and pointed to the background, the one with the pretty autumn colored theme I had always wanted to use. "Move that plastic chair over there! —Are the electric fans ready?"

Two days after my interview I did nothing but preparing myself for the worst of publicity, while trying to improve my shootings. I hadn't told my crew about anything regarding my interview with Jiku and yet all of them seemed to know what had happened; they gave me sympathetic looks when I entered the studio. 

No one had asked how it went. Not even Anzu, who is curious by nature. She would have pried the information from my lips by now.

"Is she done yet? I still have a half hour to spare before I'm off!" I reminded the crew as they scurried around to get the background setting ready, before my last shoot came to an end.

"She is almost ready!" Someone called.

"Ryou-kun is applying the last touches to her hair!" Another shouted.

"She has accidentally broken the hair clasp, so Ryou-kun has decided to keep her hair up with thirty-something pins and added some glitters and the silver comb as a replacement," Another added.

I sighed and turned to Anzu, rubbing my temples to suppress my rising irritation.

"Better file another complaint to her manager about her excessive clumsiness, Anzu. God! How many things did she damage today?"

Anzu looked up sympathetically at me and showed her notebook which she had been carrying the whole morning. She had set up a list of damaged properties, which were, I suppose, unintentionally done by today's youngest model—a fifteenth-year-old newbie Kisara.

Kisara had knocked over a few of our lighting equipments, a few of our background walls, tore the zooms of our dresses while taking her positions, kicked one of my costume assistants by the shins while she had Kisara dressed up—the list went on and on. Already up to number fifty.

I blinked. That many? "That is really a lot," 

Anzu shrugged.  

"It couldn't be helped. She is still new to this world. Working as a model at such a young age is pretty awkward, but not uncommon—she is after all still within her puberty period," she pointed out. "You had been in that age before, right? It hadn't been always that easy, right?"

"I can't recall anything from the time I'd been a fifteenth-year-old. How does that relate to her clumsiness? I'm merely doing my job as a Photographer," I pointed out.

"—do you want to talk about it?" Huh?

"About what?" I wondered blankly.

"—you know, that thing. It has been bothering you these last few days,"

"I don't know what you are talking about. Be a bit more concrete with your words, Anzu,"

"—Katsuya—," she spoke up warningly.

"What?"

Anzu gave me an exasperated look and whacked me with her notebook. 

I winced. "Ow! What did you do that for? You could have given me a concussion like that,"

"Serves you right," She puffed her cheeks angrily and stabbed me with her pen. "Katsuya! Did you think that you are the only one frustrating here?" 

"Anzu, wha-?"
She glared viciously at me. So I shut up.

I had no idea why she was angry. It was very rare for her to lose her temper, especially when directed to me. (Usually she would tease me mercilessly about my idiocy.) 

She has always been the calm and levelheaded one of us both. For her to suddenly be angry with me probably meant I had said something very, very stupid which had triggered her anger—somehow.

"You idiot! You have been working everyone to exhaustion these last two days—even if you did shorten out working hours-," 

Where is she getting at?

"-you have retaken about 72 pictures because they weren't good enough for -you-. I understand you need to improve your skills, but you don't have to be such a—a—jerk while you are at it!" Anzu seethed as her eyes flashed dangerously, revealing her rising anger. And she stomped her feet to emphasize it. 

I only responded by blinking stupidly at her fierce face, gaping while Anzu ranted in my face, fisted her hands, stomped her feet, threw her notebook to the floor and then stomped on it instead. 

Uhm—wow. I never knew she could be so violent—well, there was this one time when she punched me in the face when I asked her if she was getting fat.

"-all you mentioned before, I can deal with them. But when it comes to this, you are being insensitive!" Anzu deepened her voice dangerously, effectively snapping me back to reality in the process, and jabbed a finger to my chest.

"This? Who are you calling insensitive?" I wondered aloud.

"Which brings me back to my actual point! You are not the only one suffering here!" 
What the-? 

I narrowed my eyes and glared. "What do you know about me? You are only my assistant,"

A hurt look crossed her face before it was replaced by yet another angry one. 
"I know enough," she held up her chin indignantly. "I know enough even if I'm just a mere assistant to you," 

"Oh yeah? Tell me something I don't know!"

Anzu was silent for a while, inwardly cursing me perhaps. 

"—I used to admire you for your drive and probably even for your outspoken nmature, the way you take no shit from everyone. But now I see that you are not really worth my admirations. You are just too immature!" She suddenly accused in a quiet but angry voice. 

"I don't know what Kaiba-san sees in you," With that said she walked away.

I didn't know what to make of our fight, in fact, I have no clue why she was angry with me in the first place.
Anzu's patience just snapped. Women are strange creatures.

But it gave her no right to question what Kaiba saw in me. My lips automatically curled up in fury.

Actually what does he see in me anyways?

Everyone in the studio stared at me with silent judging eyes, automatically accusing me as the bad party in the fight. Just like that—everybody, even those whom I'd generously hired when they had no job, sympathized with Anzu. They choose the opposite party over me, because their boss was being immature in front of them--and if not immature, masochistic then.

Which angered me further.

"Fine! Take her side!" I glared pointedly at my crew, while impatiently crossing my arms over my chest. "Is there anyone else who would like to direct their anger to me? If so, please step up and I would advise you to resign. Anyone?" 

My crew members looked nervously at each other.

"No one? Good! Now, get back to work! I'm already behind schedule!" I shouted. 

The crew immediately scurried around as if they had never done so before, even Kisara took her place, surprisingly without stepping and falling over her own high heels.

I'd immediately left the studio when it was 10:30 for Chocolate Break the coffee shop Kaiba had chosen to meet. When I got there I regretted running like a fool to make it on time in front of the shop. He hadn't even arrived. Not after a second. Not after a minute. Not after fifteen minutes, or...

GRRR-! He'll pay!! I'll make sure he'll pay!

11:15 AM

I looked impatiently at him while tapping my right foot angrily on the pavement with clenched hands before crossing my arms in front of my chest. 

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" 

After Kisara's shooting, I was supposed to meet up with Kaiba about Ishizu-chan's presentation. He made me wait for over a half hour in front of that coffee shop, making me look like some crazed psycho out to kill innocent bystanders. I swear the owner of the shop was ready to call the police, seeing as he kept giving me looks.

The bastard Kaiba looked nonchalantly back at me and handed over a box wrapped in plain Lila-colored paper to me.

I sighed and dropped my reprimanding glare.

Kaiba always brings along something for me to make up for the lost time. Sometimes little stuff like a candle bowl with dolphin doodles round the glass or big stuff like a stupid rice-cooker (as if I couldn't afford one on my own), which is still in perfect shape at home till this day. 

Just don't ask why Kaiba is always late whenever we have an appointment outside either my studio or his office, because the answer is too complicated for me to understand. I had once suspected that the bastard secretly enjoys annoying me by being supposedly late and making me wait. Kaiba wasn't known for his lateness streak, he was rather know for the opposite, being painfully early. 

That damn horrible moneybags.

And he probably even enjoys giving me presents. How very suspicious.
After shaking the box once to guess what was inside, I eyed Kaiba suspiciously. 

"Are you trying to buy me for a favour? Because it is really working well," I pointed nonchalantly at the present.

He arched his eyebrows amusedly at me. "Is that so?" Did I speak Latin? Because I'm very sure I had never learned the language to read much less talk it. 

"Yes, it is. No one in their right mind would buy gifts when they're late—especially when they are -always- late," Why the fuck is he smirking? What's so funny?

"So you say I'm not in my right mind?" Damn right!

"Yeah—so, are you?"

"Am I what?" Is he playing with me?

I glared pointedly. "Are you trying to buy me?" That came out weird.

He looked thoughtful. "—maybe—," What the fuck? 

And he smirked to make it effectively suspicious before walking past me and pushing open the glassed door to Chocolate Break, mock bowing. "After you,"

I snorted, rolling my eyes at him and roughly pushing him ahead of me as we entered. I could feel his smirk widening. Loser, trying to be a wise guy, eh?

"Welcome to Chocolate Break coffee shop. Please enjoy your stay," came the automatic chime once we stepped on the entrance's welcome carpet.

- X -

"I heard you and Mazaki had a fight," He spoke up after sipping his coffee with care. 

I looked up from my own cup, my eyebrows raised. "Hm? How did you know?"

"Let me rephrase that—I overheard you had a fight," 

I stared at him. "Oh, you came over," Wanna talk about it?

He nodded before sliding a hand into his coat's inner pockets and pulled out a folder. 

"Ishizu's contract,"

"How did it go," I asked him as nonchalantly as I could. But my stomach fluttered with anticipation. Ishizu-chaaaan~!! 

He looked away and pushed the folder within my reach. "Our deal is settled. Ishizu wants to work with you and-" 

Forget nonchalance. I couldn't suppress my happiness and ("Kyaa~!") uncharacteristically, fan-gi—uhm, fan-boyed, fisting my hands out of happiness and hugging the folder. "When shall we start? When shall we start working together? When? When?" 

I couldn't believe my last few days were spent without much thought about her!

It's so cool to finally work with Ishizu-chan! She's my ideal model! Ever since I stepped into the photographing world, she has been the Unreachable in my eyes—the perfect model. With her piercing azure eyes she could hypnotize her audience, her smooth tan skin could make any clothing look sensual, her soft but strong feminine voice could lull her fans into ecstasy.

Ishizu-chaaaa~n!

"So, so, when exactly?" My questions were met with silence. 

Annoyed, I glared at Kaiba across the table. The bastard was just sitting there with an indifferent look on his face, staring outside the window to the building across the street as if it's the most awed thing he'd ever seen, while sipping his cup -again- with care.

"Kaiba, are you trying to piss me off?!"

He put down his cup and then looked at me with the most darkest eyes I eyes I had ever seen him giving me. 

"What exactly are we to each other?"

—What exactly are we to each other?—

His words echoed in my ears—

—what exactly are we to each other? — 

—we -are- friends, right? Right? Why is he suddenly asking me that now?

-- END CHANCE 4: JOUNOUCHI SIDE -- 

1) Bird... pffft. lol. Do you know how hard it was not to throw a puppy-slash-dog remark in there? I decided not to go into that one just yet, so I used bird after a Digimon Frontier song called "Oreta tsubasa de—With Broken Wings" by Suzumura Kenichi (a lovely song sung with an equally lovely voice). There is a small mention of a dog in the song though... lol.
2) "-sama" is used here in the way how some fans show their devotion to certain celebrities. 
3) I admit I've watched the series in no particular good order, first seeing Battle City and then Pharaoh's Memories, then turning back to the Duel Monsters and back to Battle City. :sweatdrops: Otogi—I disliked how he teased Jounouchi; no one is allowed to tease him like that, no one except Kaiba :throws a fit: (Though, I admit Jounouchi was so cute in that dog costume Otogi had forced him into. lol.) I'm surprised I've given him such a nice role. But anyways, with his intro I'd like to say that Jounouchi's world is not so easy as it looks, there are always obstacles along the way.
4) kajol – it's a sort of black eye liner. I heard it's a good trademark, which probably sounds stupid to add in here but it's really not. The other reason why I used kajol is that "Kajol" is the name of one of my favorite Hindi actresses. Go look her up (if you're interested) under the movies "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai", "Kabbhi Kushi Kabbhi Gham", "Dushman".
5) Forget the photograph technicalities. :sweatdrops: 
6) I know it's a stupid reason, but I'm going for it. There has to be something to make the levelheaded Anzu angry; she couldn't take on the strain Jounouchi is putting everyone of the crew into and was sort of trying to coax him into telling her that he was having some problems. (I still like Anzu; even after watching the whole series. She doesn't ALWAYS preach about friendship. Oh well, I'll just shut up before everyone misunderstands me) the way she got angry is actually to confuse anyone who's taking a look within Jounouchi's mind, by the way.
7) I can finally turn over the tables and work on the interludes, on how they have become such good friends and on how their friendship has taken a different turn instead of staying platonic. We'll just see how further I'll let them dance around each other.

TheNekoTalks:

:cowers: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not updating this. I'm sorry. I had writer's block (used up the time trying to break it but instead got a sudden desire to do fanart. You can view most of them on my website that is half done) and school had become hectic (I was within my 3rd semester and my grades were falling). I'm sorry!! 
School's now over for me, but that doesn't mean I'll be updating regularly since I really don't have internet at home and since my dad is going to China this year, doubling my share of work in the family business and cutting all my chances to go to a once a week cyber. :cries: I'm sorry for that too. But I'll try to update whenever I can and probably load up several chapters instead of one. In the mean time of my absence, I'll probably draw some fanarts and perfect my sites (please take a look if any of you have time. Of course it's still a bit under construction seeing that some links are not up yet, but it's still okay to take a look, right? I've another site set up, it's an SJ dedication site. I'm just wondering if anyone is interested...)
The other thing that kept me from updating is that my computer on which I type all my documents shuts down at odd times that it's unpredictable when it's going to let me type down everything. The machine is an old one and I asked my parents to buy a new one for me with all those new neat stuff like built in cd burner, built in dvcd player, installed mp3 player and stuff like that.

I like to thank:

Lil - Riter - :3 Thanks! I apologize for being late with the update. I understand—school has become hectic (since 3rd semester has begun) for me too—so don't worry about it. I hate doing school assignments, especially the ones where I should work in groups. Not that I have problems with working together—it's just that sometimes my partners are so—ARGH!—that I feel inclined to work alone. Thank you for reading and still reviewing!!

mandapandabug - Jiku is the guy with the long pink hair, some -what'sit- rival to Seto when he went to some kind of dinner party, who developed his first virus when he was 13-something. (I don't know what his English name is in the dub) 'Jiku', because it's used in the subtitles (I'm pretty sure that's not really his name, oh what the heck! the name 'Jiku' sounds so evil in my ears). Hmmm—then find something interesting to do n.n (I, for example, do a lot of stuff like drawing fanart, writing fanfiction, reading novels and such—but besides those I swim since I'm part of this swimming organization) and sorry, I don't mean to offend you.
Lately my free time has been limited to a few hours since 3rd semester is hectic at school, I'll try to read them after all my tests.
Ack! Sorry for confusing you! I'll re-edit this as soon as I can and be more specific. Sadly, I've never seen the show... Thank you for offering (I've noticed that—read over most of other YGO stories where the author or authoress has mentioned your name for inspiring them to go on with the idea). I've a sort of writer's block and a sort of "free time's block". It would be nice to get some help at least (this is getting so stressful). 
Don't worry about it. I'm not disappointed with your review. :3 I love each and every response I get either from oneshots or epics. I apologize for the lateness of the previous chapter, like mentioned above—my computer decided to crash whenever it wants. (GRRR!!) :3 I'll try to keep you happy as happier as you can be. Thank you for reading and still reviewing!!!

PanDora - Thank you. I'm sorry for making you wait. It's become a bit hectic in my daily life. Uh... Bakura wasn't supposed to appear that soon, but I'm glad I did! (Really? Now I want to hunt down those doujinshi pictures for my sister—she loves that pairing to pieces, especially Ryou). Oooh! I love those pictures too! Jou is so cute when he's drawn as a kid, while Seto is creepy-looking in his High Priest clothes... :happy sigh: (I was thinking about writing a fanfiction based on those pictures... would be interesting to experiment, won't you say so too?). I'm glad you sympathize with Kaiba—Jou was supposed to be a bit mean in his thinking about Kaiba, but I rather like this soft version better (friends don't usually think bad stuff about friends). 
Oh, the drama—I'm trying to be a bit dramatic on their dilemma (not that I'm dramatic enough). LOL. I guess it sounds cheesy and yet perhaps you're right about that one. The power of their Love. :poses: LOL. :D Thank you for reading and reviewing!!! 

Thank you for reading!!! I apologize for the long ending section!

.:Nekocin:.