Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Walking a Thin Line ❯ Where an Eidolon named NIGHT ( Chapter 3 )

Walking a Thin Line

A Realm of Villainy PWP with a twist

Co-authored by Ishtar Griffin

Where An Eidolon Named NIGHT

(Three)

The fact of the matter is that just
as males have their way of talking, females have them as well. As it stands,
men think women speak another language altogether, and they don't understand
it. It'd be quite dangerous if there actually were a female who could translate
this "foreign language". The reality is we all speak the same language, but not
in speech. Body language. Men can't understand what women are saying, but they
can translate body language just fine. So Seto knew that there was something
wrong with his normally happy girlfriend. She was being too…pouty. If he didn't
know any better, he'd swear she was taking lessons from Mai.

"You wear your heart on your
sleeve," he noted as they sat across from each other. It was a nice restaurant,
quiet, quaint. The minimalist décor was designed for maximum conversation. It
low hum of pleasant voices was everywhere, and they sat in the lower left
corner of it-the Kaiba's private table for over 10 years.

"…I just don't have anything to
say, that's all," Serenity assured him hastily. Then she smiled, and the CEO
could tell it was fake, but he let it slide.

He watched her closely as she poked
at the tomatoes in her salad. She was brooding. Her normally light, cheerful
eyes were dark and full of thought. She wasn't satisfied. Seto Kaiba had been
with enough women to read them well-he could, quite literally, write the book.
He wanted to know who she thought she was fooling.

"Seto."

"…Yeah."

She sighed, put her fork down, and
rolled her eyes. Actually rolled her innocent little eyes. Like she was tired.
Normally Seto would've tensed-braced himself for what was about to come. But
tonight wasn't really a normal night, and this wasn't really a normal dinner.
So this wasn't really about to be a normal conversation.

" How old are
you Seto Kaiba?"

She asked as if she were
questioning him in front of a higher court-intrigued only slightly, he answered
her. "I'm 17."

"…I'll be 16 in two weeks," she
reported evenly.

"I remember." He'd met her on her
birthday.

He had a feeling he knew exactly
where this was going, and an even more dreaded feeling that this was going to
get uglier than any other time they'd ever discussed it.

"Know what I want for my birthday?"

Seto nodded. "I know what you
want," he assured her. "But I can't give it to you."

"Why not?"

"…Because you don't love me."

There. He'd said it. The reason why
he didn't want to sleep with her. She didn't love him. Not only that, but she'd
probably never love him.

"What does that have to do with
anything?" Her face flushed, and in a rare moment he knew that his little angel
was about to lose her temper. And he'd let her. He wasn't about to calm her
down, or tell her to be quiet. Let her rant, let her rave. Let her embarrass
herself. She wasn't the first woman to yell at him at this table, and she
wouldn't be the last. This much he knew. This much he'd come to terms with.

"…I promised that I wouldn't," he
explained calmly. "Not unless we both loved each other. That's the problem. I
love you, but you don't love me."

"…So you expect me to believe that
you've been holding out especially for me."

"Why would you believe anything
else?" He leaned forward, intrigued by her accusation. When he wanted to, Seto
could be just as cold and calculating as he was gentle with his girlfriend.
This was one of those moments.

She rolled her eyes again, and
tried her best to keep calm. "…I'm not accusing you of anything," she assured
him in her sweet little way. "I just don't think that it's possible that you've
held out for this long."

"You think I'm doing something
behind your back," he translated smoothly. "You think I'm cheating on you."
She'd already said it, of course. And it hurt. How could she possibly think
otherwise? He'd hardly even looked at a woman since they'd been together.

"I think I'm frustrated."

"So frustrated that you'd doubt my
feelings for you."

She stared at him, startled. Very,
very rarely did Seto get angry enough to accuse her of anything. His eyes were
filmed, sapphires coated with tears, anger, sorrow and bitterness. All from one
little sentence. She suddenly didn't want to fight anymore.

"…I'm sorry," she apologized
softly. "You know I'd never…"

"But you just did Rin." He motioned
for the waiter to come over, and asked for the bill very politely. Then they
left, and he took her home. She tried to talk to him, but all she got was
monosyllabic answers. And when she got out the car, and asked where he was
going, he just told her that he'd see her later. If she didn't know any better
(and apparently she didn't) she could've sworn she heard his voice break before
the limo pulled off.

****

It was after 12:00 at night. At the
Dog Pound, that meant that Saturday morning was officially Hangover morning,
and anything in a skirt looked good, especially with pompoms. Even Malik drank
with the best of them, although he seldom got drunk. Usually it was Ryou that
suffered more than any of them, and the more he drank, the more laughs they
got.

This night-or morning, or however
you looked at it-was no exception. Ryou pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels
(registered trademark), Malik pulled out the wine and Bakura pulled out the
Arbor Mists. Really, he just liked saying "Now that deserves an Arbor Mist."
He'd drink to anything.

The TV sported scrambled porn-it
was fun to watch, because you had to decipher it. The phone was off the hook-no
interruptions-and the room was a mess of salty snacks and empty containers. The
moaning from the television, and the squinting and drinking were only adding to
their high spirits.

"…Is that a nipple?" Malik queried,
his eyes little slits of periwinkle as he lay beneath his yami.

"I bet 5 bucks that's a nipple,"
Ryou offered, swigging freely on his bottle of whiskey.

"…3 says it's not a nipple," Bakura
challenged.

"Then what is it?"

"…An elbow."

Ryou burst into tipsy laughter.
"How the hell can you confuse a nipple with an elbow??" he wanted to know.

Malik, who had the best eyesight
out of the three of them, snorted. "It's a nipple," he reported, resulting in
Ryou reaching for his wallet.

"Pay up you squiffy wank," Bakura
ordered, drinking freely from his Arbor Mist.

Ryou opened his wallet, and
squinted at the contents, or the lack thereof. Around him his friends continued
to examine the scrambled porn, hollering out the names of random body parts and
bet prices. He sighed. His wallet was empty. "Oh Bakura…"

"Lemme guess. You're broke."

"Like Yami's love life," he grinned
innocently.

"…Then you must walk around nude
for a total of 20 minutes."

Yami Malik, who was asleep on top
of his aibou, was suddenly wide awake and grinning madly, his beautifully
psychotic eyes watching Ryou quite intricately.

Ryou's eyes crossed in disbelief.
"Oh come on!!" he whined. "The room is drafty-shrinkage!!"

Bakura arched an eyebrow. "Your
pants aren't even off yet."

"How come I can't just whack off
like I did last time?!"

Bakura raised his other eyebrow.
"That wasn't me."

"Really?" Ryou smiled, his cheeks
rosy. "Then who was it?"

All eyes fell on Yami Malik, who
only smiled, the way the Cheshire Cat does when he knows something, but won't
tell. Bakura wrinkled his nose, and pulled his aibou down on the floor, losing
himself in his scrambled porn. Ryou giggled happily, pointing out that they'd
seen this porn already, and nestled up to his yami. In 6 seconds he was slumped
over in Bakura's lap, knocked out and drooling, and Bakura was rolling his
eyes, praying that tonight his hikari didn't have a wet dream.

****

The back door was always open.

Seto hadn't been to the dog pound
in a long, long time. He hadn't conversed with a real male in an even longer
time. He was in tears-his eyes were red, swollen and puffy. He'd walked halfway
across town-from his mansion to Ryou's house. And on early Saturday morning,
the bedroom was the mess he'd always remembered seeing it.

Ryou was stretched out across the
floor, snoring loudly. Scrambled porn was on the television, salty snacks and
liquor was everywhere and Malik was…butt naked. He widened his swollen eyes.
Butt bald naked. As the day he was born.

He didn't quite remember that part.

At one point in his life he could
honestly say he enjoyed the fellowship of these two. He entered their club on a
dare that he couldn't be a normal teenager for 24 hours. The wager was the
rarest card from each of their dueling decks. He should've known better than to
make a bet with a murderer and a thief. At the end of the 24 hours, they kicked
his ass.

He came back the next week.

"…Someone's been crying…"

The recent taunt snapped him out of
his thoughts.

Ryou's hair was wild around his
normally innocent face, his eyes dark and teaming with mischievousness.

Seto snorted, picked up a half
empty bottle of Arbor Mist, and swigged. It always tasted like Kool-aid to him,
not even real liquor.

"Come come rich dick," he prodded,
pulling the fully clothed CEO down on the floor. "Tell Bakura-kun all about
it."

"…You are drunk as hell," he noted,
wrinkling his nose at the smell of liquor lingering around the young boy.

"Am I?" he grinned wickedly. "Then
you'll have no problem talking with me-in 6 hours I won't remember a thing you
said."

Seto lingered on this thought for a
moment. Deciding that it was, in fact, very true, he consented.

"…My girlfriend accused me of
cheating."

"On her, or on your company?"
Bakura mused.

Seto smirked, rolling his puffy
sapphire eyes. He'd had a hella night, and he wasn't in the mood for sarcasm.
"Don't fuck with me Ryou," he warned, doing his best to glare.

"You've been crying," the younger
boy observed. "So I know you haven't cheated on her-men don't cry over women
unless they actually giva shit." Here he snatched the bottle and guzzled a bit,
earning a curious gaze from the older boy. "Lemme guess," he drawled in his
surprisingly clear English accent. "She don't love you, butcha love her to
damnation, hell and back."

"…You read my fucking mind."

"Then take my advise: find another
bitch to fuck."

"Serenity's not a bitch," he hissed
in warning.

"…Really? All females are bitches.
You find one that ain't, and that deserves a gods fucking Arbor Mist."

Seto would've hit him, but
reconsidered. And reconsidered some more. And decided that he wouldn't feel it
for another six hours, so he swung on him.

Bakura knew Seto could fight-when
they kicked his ass the first time, him and Yami Malik walked away with more
than just cuts and bruises. He was skinny, but had a mean right hook, and when
it connected with his jaw this particular morning, he wanted to send his ass
straight to the Shadow Realm. Instead he just laughed it off-boys will be boys
and all that shit. "You ever consider boxing you spineless prick," he wanted to
know.

"…I haven't considered anything,"
he confessed morbidly. "Besides the fact that she doesn't love me."

"First loves bite ass," he noted,
feeling his cheek start to swell. "And if you're lucky, you're on of the few
men in life that get to take that literally."

Seto only frowned, and rolled his
eyes. The strain from the ache caused him to groan, and he rubbed his temples
to accommodate the throbbing that pounded his temple.

"…Was she a good piece of ass?"
Bakura wanted to know.

"…I haven't fucked her."

"You must've enjoyed tossing off
then," the young boy grinned. "Probably know all the new tricks of the trade."

"Screw you."

"I'm not that fucking drunk."

Seto sighed, snatching the nearly
empty bottle of comfort from his acquaintance. "What the fuck do you know about
love you British bastard?" he demanded coldly, taking a drink. "You've been
with as many girls as I have."

"…You'd be surprised," he responded
just as coldly. "I know love shitbox. I know the look. It's in the eyes-I've
learned to read between the lines. The girl I loved taught me how." He paused,
watching Seto finish off the bottle. "I know you loved Serenity," he offered
evenly. "But she ain't what you need. She ain't mature enough."

"How the brutal living fuck would you know?!" Seto snapped
almost violently.

"…What'd you argue about?" he
wanted to know. "You haven't fucked her-she's upset. You've been going out a
year, so she accused you of cheating, like men can't hold out that long." He
blew a terrible raspberry, causing Seto to wipe the side of his face with his
sleeve. "The thing is men only act like pigs. We're just as strong as women are
when it comes to love and matters of the heart. We just don't like to let them
know that. So you…you incredibly undernourished fucktard, need to do one of two
things: screw the girl's brains out, or stick to your guns and wait for her to
come around."

"…I can hold out," Seto assured
him.

"Really now?" Bakura grinned, as if
Seto's statement was his own triumph. "I should've known…Want some help
whacking off? I've got a friend who's bi curious."

"…Fuck you."

Bakura laughed brashly. "I may be a
bit too tight. I know you've heard it all before, but…There's other women you
know. Ones who understand how you feel, what you're going through."

"…You want me to cheat."

"I don't ever want to see your face
looking like that again." Bakura glared at the younger boy. "Real men don't cry
you pussy. Not for any reason. And if she makes you cry Seto, then dammit, she
ain't worth the shit you slipped in to meet her."

"…That sounds so girlish," Seto
protested half-heartedly.

"But it's true!" the Brit snapped.
"They tell themselves that, they tell each other, now I'm telling you. She
makes you cry, she ain't worth it. She ain't no good. I don't care what the
bleeding living fuck she's done for you. I don't. Find somebody else, cause
this one obviously don't get it." Bakura reached under the bed then, and pulled
out a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Tentatively, so as not to spill any,
he poured some into the empty Arbor Mist bottle, and handed it to Seto. "Men
only hold out for women and remain faithful to them for one reason, and one
reason only," he announced. "If we ain't puttin' our cocks in 'em, but we're
takin' care of 'em in every other way possible, and they can always verify our
alibis, if they're always legit, and we remember the little things-if we give
up shit just to make em happy-then we must really love 'em. Any girl who don't
get that don't deserve a real man."

Seto nodded knowingly. He'd drink
to that.