Only Almost Here

Title: Only Almost Here
Rating: R
Author: SummerStars – but y’all know I like Lell better.
Betaed by: Whistle down the Wind – thanks again sweetie

Warnings: A lot more alcohol use – an illegal alcohol at that. 0o

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~Shizuka~

According to common belief, sleep will cure all ills. Anger, fear, sickness – sleep will banish all those away. It’s what everyone says.

Feh – everyone was wrong.

I woke up just as angry as when I had gone to sleep. The winter air had chilled my skin, but not my emotions apparently. Waking up to an empty house did not improve my mood – so Oniichan had got plastered last night and stayed over. That rankled me somewhat. He hadn’t rung to tell me he would be staying, like he had said. How do I know he hadn’t been a fool and gone driving and was now a bloody mess against the windscreen of some car?

I winced, screwing my eyes up against the bright morning light which was filtering through my window and laying a blazing path across my eyes, just to be annoying. And now I was worrying – was Oniichan in a ditch somewhere? Was he hurt? Was he out somewhere, lost in the big, dangerous city?

Now I was obsessing like I mentioned yesterday.

It was with some effort I roused myself, actually dredging up the energy to drag myself out of my unusually comfortable bed. I was bone tired and pissed off as hell – a far cry from my usual cheerful self. I may not be as bouncy as someone like Anzu, but, according to my brother, I’m a horribly optimistic person in the morning.

It’s not my fault he treats every morning like he’s a bear in the middle of hibernation.

But this morning, even if it was late morning, I was cranky and apparently as bad looking as I felt. Looking at myself in the mirror, I pulled a face. Tired eyes, skin made all the more pale by my tangled auburn hair which, by the way, reeked of smoke. I glared at my reflection and she glared back, her face clearly still annoyed at the events of last night.

Kaiba.

Instantly, the girl in the mirror’s eyes gained a defensive quality. I could cope with people insulting me – when I had to wear those terrible bifocal glasses in Junior High I had had a lot of those. But when that arrogant, self centred, up himself CEO brought my brother into this, my friend. I guess I just lost it. Things have changed in three years – it’s hard to be the person everyone thinks I am, the sweet girl from back then.

The act just slips every now and then I guess.

“I’ll get over it,” I told the red haired girl in the mirror. “I’m not mad, really. Just…tired I guess.”

The girl looked sceptical and I could see she was only thinking one thing.

I’m sure many people indulge in those charms extensively…How can a sparrow like you compare to a peacock like her?

I smiled grimly and she returned the expression. No-one gets away with suggesting that Mai might be easy, not even rich corporate presidents who could probably snap me like a twig. I faltered, but the girl in the mirror egged me on. It’s about time someone talked him down and he wouldn’t expect it from the Mutt’s sister.

A streamer of red hair fell into my face and I winced as cigarette smoke stink filled my nostrils.

Shower first, killing Kaiba next.

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“ID?”

I fumbled in my pockets as the black clad security man looked impassively down at me. Finally producing my bus pass, I handed it to him, used to the scanning procedure by now.

My little card was dwarfed in the giant’s hand as he inspected it closely – no mater that he saw me regularly about once a week, he still treated me as if I were about to try and assassinate Kaiba…okay, maybe I was this time, but I wasn’t about to let him into that.

“Gate pass?”

Reaching into my shirt, I pulled out the little key card Mokuba had given to me, pulling it and its long chain off from around my neck and handing it to him, accompanying it with a smile.

Which he ignored.

“Clean,” the man who had been running a handheld scanner over my body said, straightening up and stowing the scanner at his belt hook. The security man sniffed, but handed my gate pass back with a blank face.

“You know the drill.”

And I did – every time I visited, I had to go through security procedures which were more suspicious than those at airports. Resisting the urge to shiver I nodded and the giant gave a low mutter into his collar microphone. The sleek gate opened smoothly, baring the long drive up towards the mansion itself.

“What, no taxi service?” I joked, weakly and he gave me a look which shut me up.

“You may pass.”

I ducked my head and walked through, keeping my shoulders hunched so I didn’t wince when the gates closed with an ominous hiss behind me. I always got the feel of being locked in when that happened…

The trudge up towards the main house allowed my anger to reaffirm itself – the lengthy wait I had been forced to endure just to get into the Kaiba grounds had only increased my irritation with the man. Was he paranoid or did he just enjoy wasting his guest’s time? Meanwhile, my anger was happily simmering inside my chest.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Except I was hardly a woman and I hadn’t exactly been scorned, just insulted. Still angry though, definitely angry.

I was panting slightly by the time I reached the large set of doors and I just looked at them, trying to catch my breath. I was choosing a good time to have cold feet - perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea. I didn’t even know what I was going to stay? Did I need a plan? What would I do if he just laughed at me like a silly school girl?

I must have been suffering from oxygen deprivation because I think I started hallucinating – I could see one big pair of blue eyes appearing in the shiny metal those doors were made of and they held the same mocking expression that had haunted my dreams last night. Kaiba had the most striking eyes I had ever seen, but he twisted them with the warped emotions he filled them with.

Screw finding a plan.

I stalked up towards the doors and pressed the button of the entrance intercom system, probably a trifle harder than I needed to.

“Hello?”

Haha, even with all his money, Kaiba couldn’t afford an intercom system which didn’t crackle.

“Now listen here you self centred, up yourself excuse for a man,” I snapped, the words just spilling forth from my mouth as soon as my brain came up with them. Hadn’t I just gotten into trouble for this yesterday? “I don’t care how much money you have or how many flashy cars you own or the fact that every bus I see has your face plastered on the side, you had no right to say what you said.” Not pausing, not giving him time to answer back, I kept my finger steadfastly on the talk button. I was warming to my rant – I was picking up the pace and I was surprised how easily the words came to me.

Three years living with my brother really showed, huh?

“Who gave you the power to make a judgement on me? On someone you don’t even know? You don’t know me and you don’t know my brother who, by the way, is a better person than you will ever be! You don’t know Mai and…you know what? It doesn’t matter what you said, I don’t care. Why? Because you, Kaiba, you are a selfish prick!”

Finally running out of breath, I lapsed into silence, unsure of exactly what I had just said, but knowing at least that it couldn’t have been pleasant. There was a pause on the other end, only broken by static before I heard someone clear their throat.

“Uh…do you normally greet everyone like that?” a familiar voice said and I winced. “A simple hello would have done, Shizuka.”

I groaned softly, letting me head fall forwards until my brow made contact with the smooth metal of the door.

“Oh…hey Mokuba…” I mumbled and I distinctly heard the little (or not so little) tyke laugh down the intercom system. How embarrassing? Lifting my head, I let it fall forwards again, gently hitting my forehead against the door. The rhythmic thumping actually seemed to make sense at this point, maybe if I did this long enough I’d forget I ever came here.

“Hey to you too – let me just buzz you in. Oh and stop hitting your head against the door, it’s not good for you.”

I blinked.

“How did you know I was banging my head?” I asked, bemused.

“Video cameras,” he said gaily down the phone before I heard the buzz and felt the doors click slightly under the weight of my head.

“Cocky…” I mumbled under my breath as I let myself in, running a nervous hand through my still wet hair. The entrance hall was as cold as I remembered it, all marble and metal with no trace of carpet. But then again, I’d seen it too many times and my mind was more occupied with what I was going to say to explain myself.

“Morning, Shizuka,” a cheerful voice said and I turned to see a very perky Mokuba strolling towards me in some kind of sports gear – soccer I think, judging by the silky white shirt and short combo he was sporting as well as the fact his long hair was tied back tremulously. The kid seemed completely unconcerned at what I had been ranting at him about.

“Hey there Mokuba,” I said with a sigh as I smiled tiredly at him, clearly skittish as I sidled from one foot to the next. My initial anger had been used up in that outburst and it hadn’t even been to Kaiba – what a waste of words. “You heading out to practice?”

He nodded, his loose ponytail bobbing behind his head as he walked over to me. “Coach needed a reserve for the high school team so he called me in.”

“Playing for the big shots, huh?” I asked, amused by his excitement despite my anxiety. Maybe Kaiba wasn’t home?

“I just hope we win quickly,” Mokuba said, a trace of the classic Kaiba arrogance showing for a moment. “Yuugi’s coming over later and I want to have time to be able to shower.”

This left me frowning slightly – I had always thought that one guy didn’t care about how another smelt, but perhaps our resident King of Games had a more sensitive nose than other men.

My black haired friend must have seen the question in my eyes and he made an odd head movement that could have been a nod, a shake of the head or none of the above – whatever it was, its meaning was unfathomable at least to me. Mokuba could be a cryptic one – there were times when you suddenly became aware that the same genius Kaiba displayed so proudly was equally present in his younger brother, but the elder Kaiba coupled it with the steely will and soaring ambition to act upon it. Perhaps as some sort of support to Kaiba, Mokuba seemed to lack that driving force and there were times when he just seemed to be a typical fifteen year old, but perhaps minus some of the gawkiness his age group normally shared.

But what I had come to understand was that there was a brilliant mind beneath that boyish exterior – sharp, intelligent, fine as a silver blade and more than a trifle sad. There were a times when I sensed that he knew exactly what he had been through, understanding what no kid his age should have to. It was only odd moments, times when you caught a slight twist of his lips midsmile or the tiny haunted look which sometimes inhabited his cloud coloured eyes.

Mokuba was suddenly looking curiously at me and I flushed, ashamed to have been caught staring, but his gaze seemed to be going past me.

“Heads up,” a cool voice called and I froze, feeling something whistle past my ear, landing neatly in the hands Mokuba had raised to catch it. The black and white panda checks of a soccer ball greeted my eyes and I turned, nearly jumping out of my questionable skin at the sight of one casually dressed Kaiba.

I did just say casually dressed and I did just say Kaiba.

By casual, I mean black trousers and a flowing blue shirt – was it silk? Because it certainly had an odd sheen that shimmered as he moved, but he didn’t seem like the kind to go for something as obviously sleazy as satin. Maybe it was coal silk…

God, I was such a girl, already concentrating on clothes when the guy who I had tipped, no, poured my drink over the day before was looking at me with an odd expression before turning his gaze towards his brother who was idly bouncing the soccer ball on alternate knees.

“Good luck, kiddo,” he said and it almost sounded as if he had actual /emotion/ in his voice, preposterous as it sounds…well, at least an emotion which wasn’t designed to maim, cripple or kill someone in close proximity.

“Don’t need luck,” Mokuba said amusedly as he flicked the ball up onto the smooth plane of his chest before letting it roll back down towards his knees without missing a beat. “We’re gonna win anyway.”

“Going to win,” Kaiba corrected and I watched as Mokuba rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

“Fine, we are going to win,” the younger Kaiba said, emphasising his corrected speech and earning a satisfied nod from his blue eyed brother.

“Good,” was the only answer as Kaiba folded his arms, still not looking my way. Was he ignoring me? I was certainly feeling out of place by now, standing there awkwardly as I intruded on an obvious family moment…wait, I was mad at Kaiba. I didn’t give a shitake mushroom. Okay, maybe I felt slightly guilty for Mokuba, but he hardly seemed to mind.

Huh, so it’s true – you can ramble even if it is just you thinking.

“I Yuugi gets here before I get back, just send him up to my room – he knows the drill.”

So Yuugi knows the way to Mokuba’s bedroom? Was he here that often? I came pretty much every week and there were still times when I got lost in the trek up to Mokuba’s room, or to be correct rooms – lucky guy has his own suite which, when laid out, is probably larger than my flat.

Kaiba raised one fine brow and looked at Mokuba with something resembling chastisement. The younger Kaiba merely grinned and shrugged innocently as he carried on bouncing that ball with clear skill. Now I was confused, bemused, losing the plot – you take your pick.

Having missed whatever had passed between the two siblings, I was in the dark, but blinked when Mokuba turned towards me.

“I’ll see you later,” he said cheerfully, patting my shoulder, kissing my cheek and lolloping away all in quick succession.

“Nooo!” I said, a trifle loudly and frantically, wincing as two pairs of eyes turned immediately towards me: one grey, one deep, unending blue. The comment had started out as something along the lines of ‘Nooooo, don’t leave me alone with your crazed, power hungry brother who is likely to turn into some sort of vampire lord and suck the blood from my weakly struggling body before tossing it out for his Dobermans to eat before I can blink twice.' But looking at those friendly grey eyes, I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t admit I was afraid of the one person who meant most to my friend, even though only the Lord knew why. “Uh…” I fumbled for some words, still feeling about three inches tall under the scrutiny of two Kaibas. “I mean, no, I probably won’t be here when you get back.”

If I had my way, I’d be gone as soon as he was.

Mokuba, looking vaguely amused and somewhat knowing, (wait, what did Mokuba know that I didn’t? Were the rumours about a crocodile pit true?) nodded, grinning at me with all of his boyish charm. “Whatever you say, Shizuka – maybe at school on Monday then.” In a swish of white silk, black hair and that black and white ball, the teenager was gone, leaving me alone with his older brother.

His older brother who I severely pissed off last night.

His older brother who I was severely pissed off with myself and intended to murder/torture/make some sort of pointed, barbed rant to.

His older brother who just happened to be Kaiba.

Can you blame me for being too scared to look at him?

I may not have been able to look at him, but I was all too aware of the icy gaze currently boring into my back and I was a nail’s length from panicking. I’d lost my nerve and my guts from before seemed to have disappeared completely. How could I escape this? Maybe if I just left now it wouldn’t give his ninjas time to slice me into sushi…

“So let’s hear it then.” Kaiba’s voice was dry, but still carried that mocking edge which always got under my skin.

“Huh?” I mentally cursed myself for sounding like a yokel compared to this well spoken genius of a man and I turned slightly, my gaze still fleeting around desperately for some sort of escape route.

“Why exactly you think I’m wrong,” was his amused answer – he found this funny? Then again, he was the type to find humour in someone who was just about ready to have a cardiac arrest.

“Oh…that…” I dredged hopelessly through my mind which suddenly seemed to have the volume of the sieve – for the life of me I could not pull out any of the words that had flowed when I had fumed into the intercom system.

So, not only had I wasted my words, I had lost them as well. Was I a natural blonde? No, that was being prejudiced – look at Mai! She was blonde and she was the smartest person I knew…

“Well?” Did he have to look so smug? As if he knew exactly what I was thinking as he raised that God forsaken eyebrow of his. It didn’t help that I could suddenly feel a wetness seeping through the back of my down vest – I hadn’t had the sense to dry my hair and the dampness was slowly accumulating at the end.

Shit. I didn’t swear often, even mentally, but this just seemed an appropriate time to do so.

The eyebrow raised even further and suddenly, without explanation, the brown haired CEO turned sharply on his heel and stalked off down one of those corridors I had never had chance to explore, leaving me looking confused. Where had he gone? Was that a cue for me to leave?

My answer came in the form of a towel shooting out of the doorway and flying towards me. I squeaked girlishly and tried to catch it, naturally fumbling and dropping it to the floor as I looked at it blankly, not understanding.

“Dry yourself off, you look a mess and I won’t have you dripping on my floors.” So he wasn’t being nice…

“Last time I checked, they were Mokuba’s floors as well,” I shot back peevishly, holding the towel loosely in my fingers as I tried to sound stubborn. “Maybe he wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you want him to slip and break his neck?” My face must have betrayed my thoughts because Kaiba smirked. “Didn’t think so.”

I sneered half heartedly as I began to roughly towel off the ends of my hair, wincing as I pulled the roots slightly too hard, not that our perfect gentleman over there made any move to help me.

“You going to start your tirade any time soon?” he asked cattily, standing there and looking so unconcerned and sleek while I was damp and angsty. Wonder who made the better picture…

“How do you know I even came for that?” I retorted, probably looking a fool as my too pale face peered out from the folds of the towel. “I could have come to see Mokuba for all you know.”

Ha, take that you smug git!

“Then why are you still here?”

Damn. I glared at him annoyedly, that smirk on his face infuriating me to no end – it must have been hormones or something because it normally took a lot to even make me aware there was something to be angry about. “We can solve that,” I said shortly as I turned towards the door, utterly prepared to walk out of this house with my head held high and my nose in the air.

At least until I got past the gate when I would run like a scared rabbit back home and sleep for the rest of the weekend.

“You owe me, girl,” a ringing voice said and I stopped in my tracks, turning to face Kaiba with a disbelieving look.

“I owe you?” was my incredulous response, my voice squeaking pathetically in my outrage. “I owe /you/?” He was too much…did he honestly believe his own crap?

The smug smile was repeated and how I hated it…

“You were the one who decided to throw your drink over me,” he said, voice tempestuous with self satisfaction.

“But you provoked me!” I nearly cried, towel slipping from my head to my shoulders. “You started it.”

“What you did counted as physical assault,” he said firmly and I quailed under his icy gaze. “You owe me.” I shivered, a sense of foreboding sending chills down my already damp spine.

“You started it,” I said again, but this time with less conviction as I automatically looked away from his blindingly blue eyes.

“And I’ll finish it.” Kaiba stared at me with the same look a cat gives to a cornered mouse. “You challenged me yesterday and I don’t back down from one such as that.”

Challenge? I was confused, sifting through my anger blurred memories of yesterday. When had I challenged him? My mind suddenly froze. Oh fuck…that last shot, that last defiant gulp of a fiery liquid which had burnt my throat and lined my stomach with liquid flame. The shot he had returned with that mocking sip of his beer.

That challenge.

“Oh…” I said weakly, shrinking in on myself as my confidence waned. “That.”

“That exactly,” was the crisp reply as once more Kaiba turned away, striding off and expecting me to follow. “At least this way, perhaps you can conjure up the courage to continue that little rant you were supposed to be giving me.”

He was such an ass…but, like the good little girl I was, I trailed after him.

I hate me sometimes.

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Me and my dumb mouth – what had I gotten myself into this time.

I eyed the table before me suspiciously, spirits not exactly lightened by the sight of some bottle of an ominously and oddly green liquid, as well as two crystal shot glasses. The fact the bottle seemed dusty and the label was undeniably missing which wasn’t doing anything to reassure me as I looked up towards the (predictably) smirking Kaiba.

“And this is for what exactly?” I asked finally, not having gained any information from his brilliant poker face. Poker, why couldn’t he have used poker instead? Poker didn’t include scary green drinks.

“Let us just say that your way of challenging me inspired this,” Kaiba said dryly, once again subtly twisting things so that they were /my/ fault. “This is your chance.”

“My chance?” A slight, dark flicker crossed his face as he looked at me with something resembling annoyance.

“Do you always ask this many questions?” he said and I shrugged noncommittally, still waiting for him to answer. The silence lengthened as we both stared at each other forcefully, my own arms crossed defensively over my chest as if by doing so I could erect some sort of barrier to keep him away from me.

Finally he shifted his weight slightly, breaking the spell of silence that had been cast on both of us as he gestured towards the twisting, green filled bottle. “Absinth,” he said by way of explanation. “I doubt you’ve heard of it.”

I hadn’t.

“This is the Green Fairy,” Kaiba explained, picking up the bottle and letting it hang, cradled in both his hands. “It’s triple distilled – that’s about as strong as alcohol can get.” I must have blanched because he smirked again and carried on in a slow, steady tone of voice certainly chosen to intimidate me. “I saw your charming jacket last night – Mokuba certainly liked it and I thought the drink was appropriate. Absinth was very popular among Bohemian artists – they enjoyed the hallucinations it sometimes brought…”

Again with the making it my fault…he was blaming my dress sense this time.

“Although…” At this point he paused, fixing me with the full force of his eyes and I have to admit I reeled, actually taking a step backwards. “It is banned in the USA since it’s considered too potent…”

I gulped and looked at the bottle with new appreciation and then the shot glasses. Were we really going to drink this Green Fairy stuff? And what was that about being illegal?

“Kaiba,” I finally ventured, my voice sounding braver than I felt. “Where exactly are you going with this?”

The brunette nodded towards a chair by the table, clearly meaning for me to sit. I paused; probably a trifle too long since his brows snapped together in a V-shape and I hurriedly did so, resting my hands awkwardly on my thighs. Only when I had done so did he too sit down, taking the chair opposite me with the absinth bottle firmly placed between us.

“This, girl, is what we call Truth,” he said simply as he poured about a half measure of the green stuff into the rather tiny shot glass. It didn’t look that much…maybe I could handle this.

“And what might Truth be?” I asked warily, watching the liquid settle in the clear crystal shot glass.

“Truth is exactly what you want it to be,” he said cryptically and I sent him a frustrated glare – he was always so cryptic, it was infuriating really. “It’s quite simple actually. Whatever the other person says about you, if there’s even the barest hint that it might be true, you have to take a sip of absinth.”

“That’s it?”

“I deliberately picked a game even a dog could understand.”

There went that smart assed tongue again – now, I’ll let you in on something and I’m the first to admit this; the Jounouchi’s were not the brightest crayons in the box. I won’t deny it – neither my brother nor I were what you would call brilliant intellectually. We weren’t stupid by any means, but we were only passing average when it came to things concerning mental agility. There was no way I could compare with the genius of Kaiba or Mokuba, not when it came to a battle of words. That was proven by my existing encounters with the elder Kaiba brother – he literally ran circles around me.

So we don’t have the ‘smarts’, so what? What Jounouchi’s have is spirit – we will not be cowed and we will not back down. But then again…for several years I was a Kawai and not a Jounouchi…The spirit was more present in Oniichan, but I could still grasp it if I needed to and I did, I needed to if I wanted to survive a different type of battle with Kaiba.

I growled lightly, unthinkingly backing up his dog comment, my eyes narrowing slightly.

“You first,” was all I said as I took the shot glass he slid across to me.

“Fine.” Arching one fine eyebrow, Kaiba swirled the contents of his glass thoughtfully, looking remarkably unfazed considering what a potent substance he held in his hand. “You think the Mutt is perfect.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but stopped, indecisive all of a sudden. Did I? Did I have such a childish view? I closed my mouth regretfully, seeing triumph spark momentarily in his eyes when he knew he was right.

I thought Oniichan was more perfect than me, that was for sure.

Reluctantly, I took a sip of the absinth. And immediately, I burned alive. The soft green liquid turned to burning acid in my mouth as my eyes began to water, a sudden cough sending the sip down my throat where the sting of liqueur only increased. Gasping for air, I hunched over myself, trying to make the pain go away as it seemed to systematically peel the lining of my throat off with red hot irons.

And Kaiba just watched.

“I think I know why this stuff is illegal…” I said, voice cracking as I straightened up, wiping away the moisture that had collected at the corners of my eyes. Struggling to regain composure and dignity, I glared at the absinth – people drank this for fun? This was when I started to get second thoughts…

“Your turn, girl.”

Second thoughts got blown out of the window at that point as I turned my glare on the CEO, receiving the same in return as I licked my suddenly dry lips.

“You’re cruel,” I said dryly and watched as he shrugged, that by now familiar smirk on his face.

“And proud of it,” was Kaiba’s comment before he coolly sipped at the green beverage, the only sign of his discomfort being a slight tightening of his jaw as he swallowed. He’d clearly had more practice than I had…

Well, that had hardly worked – I called him cruel and not only did he not bat an eyelid, he agreed with me. This was one of those times where I wished I /had/ been born with soaring intellect.

The click of Kaiba replacing the glass on the table brought me back to attention, warily watching him as I waited for his next ‘Truth.’

“You’re jealous of the blonde, of Mai,” was his comment and I narrowed my eyes slightly at him – this brought back too many bad memories reminiscent of those which had plagued me last night, but sadly, it was a no-brainer. What girl isn’t jealous of my beautiful Mai? Eyeing the drink warily, I sipped it again and once again, I felt my throat being branded irrevocably by the liquid sliding lightning hot down it. This time, my coughs lasted longer and I felt the warmth hit my belly, making it roil uncomfortably.

How much alcohol did it take to kill a person?

I shifted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling all too hot in the room, a prickling sensation along my spine indicating that I was starting to break out in a sweat under my far too insulated down vest. If I concentrated hard, I could feel the faint haze that was beginning to cross my vision as the potent alcohol started to take effect.

And it scared me.

“I don’t want to play anymore…” I said suddenly, looking at Kaiba with a small amount of fear in my eyes. “I don’t like this…”

“But you started this, Shizuka.” The use of my name made me blink and I bit my lip, feeling unsure, undecided…. “But what else could I have expected from the Mutt’s sister? You and your brother both, you’re cowards.”

In a way I knew he was trying to goad me, that he had chosen those words deliberately to try and make me angry, to draw me into a reaction. I knew that, but I still fell head first into his web of words and power, slamming my now empty glass down and waiting for him to fill it again with the emerald poison.

“You smother Mokuba!” Turnabout was fair play – he had pulled my brother into this, I would do the same to him and I knew I had struck a nerve when his expression darkened slightly, his lips going thinner in his angled face, made all the more sharp by the effect of the absinth.

“And what makes you believe that?” Kaibas asked tersely, his fingers drumming a brief rhythm on the tabletop before he halted himself, the noise clearly annoying him as much as it was I.

“What does he want to be when he grows up?” I challenged, still trying to rid my mouth of the overwhelmingly strong taste of the drink.

Kaiba scoffed. “That’s easy, he’s going to be the Vice President of Kaiba corp…”

“No, that’s what you’ve decided he’ll be. What does he really want to be?” When silence greeted my words, I returned the smirk he had given me so often triumphantly. “You smother him Kaiba, you won’t let him be what he really is.”

Whether it was to shut me up or because he actually found some truth in those words, Kaiba downed the rest of his shot. He must have been over ambitious because his eyes closed suddenly and he winced, coughing discreetly though I heard him clear his throat repeatedly. I giggled slightly, the high pitched noise sounding alien even to my ears before I caught a hold of myself. Was this what that cursed Green Fairy did to you? Made you unrecognisable even to yourself?

Feeling decidedly odd, I blinked owlishly, trying to regain control over what the seemingly small amount of the drink had done to me. All I could do now was wait for his response and pray to God that I didn’t have to drink of the liquid-which-burns again.

It was a strange sensation – I was loosing my sense of my own body. Even looking at the pale hands resting loosely on the table, I could feel no connection between me and them. I could make them move if I wanted to, but what I couldn’t see was how they were with me, how something as strange and alien as a five pronged appendage could ever belong to me. Contrary to the growing separation between me and my body, courtesy of the blessed Green Fairy, my mind seemed to be growing sharper, my eyes taking in new detail, the likes of which I had never seen before. Objects jumped out at me in stark relief, new lines and new angles suddenly all the more visible to my wide eyed vision.

But there was still a part of me which knew I was drunk and knew I had to stay focused. It was this part of my consciousness which made me look up at Kaiba and straighten my back as I waited.

Bring it on.

I’m sure Kaiba was cheating somehow, even though he’d drunk just as much as I had. Comparative to body size…aww, to hell with that, my brain was too frazzled to even think about the effects of alcohol on a smaller body mass as compared to the tall frame of the brunette opposite me who seemed to be taking his time coming up with an appropriately torturous point.

“You like having the two idiots fighting over you,” he said curtly, a rasp entering his normally smooth voice thanks to the added alcohol burn. I froze, a creeping stillness edging up upon me. This was an unexpected attack from an unexpected angle.

“You think I enjoy an inconvenience like that?” I asked hazily, feeling nails dig into that hand which was a part of me, yet still so distant from me.

“So why haven’t you come straight out and said that you aren’t interested?” Kaiba’s voice was mocking again – why did he bother asking these questions when he clearly knew the answers or at least thought he did?

“I don’t want to disappoint them…” Again, this was all too close to home for comfort. Perhaps a small part of me /did/ like it, the base instinct a female had to want to be desired. Two guys, older guys, butting heads over little old me…maybe it was flattering.

I was suddenly aware of my body standing up, palms digging into the table edge as my hands gripped it like a lifeline. “I don’t want to play anymore, Kaiba, just let me go home!” Even to my own ears, I sounded like a lost child pleading with a stranger to find her parents. “This isn’t fair!”

“Sit down girl.” Even under the effects of a good shot of absinth, strong and mind altering as it was, Kaiba still had his dominating presence and I wavered, unsure of what to do. Then again, it wasn’t a good idea to make Kaiba repeat himself so I sat down, distantly feeling one of my knees bang against the chair leg, but the pain was disconnected, barely even pain at all.

I was scared. Simple as that – one tiny shot of this absinth and already I felt like I was loosing my mind. [1] I even felt the urge to cry, but that in itself would be losing and I couldn’t bear to let Kaiba win, even at this twisted game. People often seem surprised if I break out of my shell, get competitive or do something rash – what else would they expect? I’m related to Oniichan after all and we’d have to have something in common…people just don’t seem to understand how close we really are.

“It’s not hard,” Kaiba carried on; gaze forceful as he nodded to the shot glass on the table. “You either drink or you don’t.”

I drank and I burned as judgement in the form of the deadly green drink seared my stomach and my soul.

Was that his aim? To make me see my faults so exposed and lit up that I wanted to shrink away from myself? He was right…he was cruel and proud of it. And as much as I hated him for being like that, I was beginning to hate myself for what I was starting to see in me.

Or was that just the absinth talking?

“I hate you, you know?” I mumbled, embarrassed to hear the slur my words had taken on. Oniichan was going to kill me if he found me like this, probably Mai as well. I wanted to kill myself – after Otousan…after that I’d never wanted to touch alcohol in my life and here I was with a type that was not only deadly potent, but supposedly hallucinogenic as well.

“I get that a lot.” For the life of me, I couldn’t find any hint of regret in his voice – probably a good thing since I doubt Kaiba would have appreciated the pity I would have probably felt for him.

Grumbling incoherently under my breath, I racked my brains for something to say, something to get to him as much as his comments had gotten to me.

“You’re selfish,” I said finally, looking up towards him stubbornly.

He frowned, actually contesting that. “No,” was his point blank answer. “I know I’m not selfish, not when everything I do is for him.”

There was no need to elaborate on exactly who the ‘him’ was, but there was more to it than that. This had been something that had been plaguing my mind for a while.

“I know that,” I said in a hopefully dismissive tone, “But can you honestly say that your intent is pure? The question is Kaiba, why is it so important to do everything for Mokuba?”

Even now, I remember the look on his face clearly. For that one moment, our roles had been reversed and I had the upper hand, it was me who had been controlling this situation. His expression, something akin to bitter realisation and a burning hatred that wasn’t directed at me. I think it was the first time I saw his true feelings at any one point in time, even if it wasn’t pleasant and the sheer force rolling off him sank me into fear even more. So Kaiba drank and the moment was over, putting him back in charge and leaving me with triumph, but an unanswered question.

I never did get an answer to that question as he looked at me balefully – even he was starting to look the worse for wear. Apparently even geniuses succumb to absinth at some point.

“You know what, girl?” he asked and his tone was dangerous. Drink may have dulled my perceptions and my speech, but it only made him sharper. Razor sharp. “You think the world is simple – support your dog of a brother and life will be perfect.” Simple? I almost laughed at that, but his gaze had me transfixed. “You’re flawed, just like everyone else and it’s people like you who sicken me. You’re a naïve, little girl, who still has some deluded idea that this world and the people who are in it are either good or bad. You’re wrong and you’re too much of an innocent to understand that.”

I flinched. I couldn’t help myself. His words were so harsh, so grating in his voice that they hurt me. I knew it was Kaiba getting at me viciously, but he clearly meant those words and that hurt. Was that how he saw me? I’d never heard so much emotion in his voice and I wish I never had. He sounded…he sounded as if he wanted to tear me apart, as if he was still stinging from whatever he had realised at my last truth and wanted to make me pay.

My eyes fell to the tabletop and I willed my hands to stop trembling. They didn’t. “That’s what everyone says…” I frowned, even in my haze of pain and confusion those words sounded familiar and I had a rough image of blonde hair and violet eyes; of clinging close to a soft female body for comfort when I was down. I’d said those same words to Mai and now to Kaiba, but what did they even mean to me?

“Are they right? Is what everyone says true?” I looked up and I got caught in his eyes. They really were so blue and right now, all their intensity was fixed on me and his gaze burnt as much as the absinth had. Not that I could look away as I shivered, the alcohol burn in my stomach intensifying out of fear.

“I don’t know.” And it was true – what was innocence in the first place and was it me? How was I supposed to know? He was the genius here, not me.

“You clearly need help deciding, little girl,” was the growled answer and I flinched as the fire in those beautiful, /terrible/ eyes burned all the hotter.

In the moments that followed, my hate for him intensified as a hot, absinth tasting mouth landed on mine, a searing touch being placed on my back. All was hazy, flashing images and waves of sensation and I know that I hated him for this whole cruel game.

But I hated myself more because, even with my own resolve, my body gave in to the Green Fairy – hallucinations, perhaps this was one? Then again – there was a question to be answered. Was I the innocent everyone thought me to be? Sweet Shizuka, naïve and trusting and oh so dedicated to her big brother. Was that really me?

The answer lay in the forgotten bottle of green poison and the heated mouth on mine as a soul searing fire ran through my body, as if I had been struck by lightening. Wasn’t fire supposed to burn away the dross and leave only the pure truth behind?

Fire was the purger of souls and can you blame me for wanting to know the truth?

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~Falls~ I think I went overboard on this chapter….really overboard and I still didn’t fit in everything my written plan said was supposed to go in it. ~Winces~ Again, my beta and I had heated arguments over exactly how and where it should end and I know several people out there are shaking their heads. Only chapter three and they kissed, I know, but there is a point to taking it this fast – hopefully, that will become clear in later chapters. I suppose I’ve just been interested in purity and purification recently and I’ve been analysing as much of Shizuka’s character as possible. Judging from my notes…she’s one confused little girl still and Jou really doesn’t know all that much about her. His last memories of her were from when she was a little girl, so I think that explains why he’s so protective of her. In my opinion, Shizuka’s changed, a lot, but she’s torn between being the perfect sister Jou remembers and the confused teenager she is…

I’m rambling and my beta says to shut up.

Tokushu: I love you! Thanks for pointing out such a heinous mistake. ~Burns with shame~ It has been duly corrected. I’m glad you like it so far – I quite like this plot line because it gives me a chance to really dissect Shizuka and touch on some deeper points than I normally do in some of my other stories. ^^ Thanks again.

[1] A note on absinth – first of all, blame its insertion on one Limpet666 and her hilarious Pegasus portrayal. I know it may seem odd how wired they both get from two shots of the stuff, but absinth is deadly. Literally – one shot can get you drunk, not to mention seeing things that weren’t there and that was pure absinth Kaiba and Shizuka were drinking. Even diluted with water, it’s still about as strong as a shot of whiskey or scotch. I was a good little author and did my research to make sure they were getting appropriately drunk for the amount they drank. ^^

Lell – Putting off schoolwork to do this instead (Lazy gal…)