Too Much

Chapter 3 – A Blue-Eyed Complication

Joey woke up feeling marginally better. He took a cold shower, which soothed his recent injuries and scrounged in the kitchen for something to eat, picking from his very limited selection. Joey decided not to take any meds that morning. He was in a considerable amount of pain and his body was defiantly craving some but after yesterday he couldn’t take any chances of being discovered. On Joey’s way to school he decided to swing by Yugi’s and let him know he was all right. As Joey rounded a corner he spotted the whole gang at the Game Shop.

“Hey,” Joey called as he took a few quick strides to meet them.

“Hey Joey!” Yugi exclaimed joyously, clearly relieved by Joey’s upbeat demeanor. “I was worried about you. Where did you go after Chemistry? And what did the Professor want with you?”

“Oh – uh – it was nothin’, he wanted ta talk about my marks s’all, and I had an appointment” Joey quickly lied unconvincingly. Yugi was not fooled but thought better than to push the subject since he didn’t want to ruin his friends good mood.

“How’s your deck comin’ along, Yug?” Joey said, changing the subject quickly.

“I’m getting some really rare cards” Yugi piped up excitedly, “Ever since Gramps returned to his regular self, the Game Shops been doing great and we’ve been getting some really cool cards”

“Dat’s great!” Joey replied.

“Speaking of cards, I’d like you to have this one” Yugi said, handing Joey a card.

“The Red-Eyes Black Chick? Not for nothin’ Yug, but why would I want a little baby red eyes when I have a more powerful red-eyes black dragon in my deck?”

“If you use this card then it makes your red-eyes black dragon very easy to summon,” Yugi explained patiently.

“Ah, you’re right. Thanks Yug, you’re always lookin’ out for me,” Joey replied fondly, ruffling the small boys hair with his hand.

The gang versed in conversation until they reached the school. It was actually a decent morning for once, just like how it used to be. As they stepped into homeroom, the professor handed Joey a folded piece of paper. He scanned the paper quickly, then scrunched it up and threw it in the trash. It was a notice from the school counselor asking to excuse Joey from class. His teacher must have reported Joey’s behavior he exhibited yesterday and now they want to investigate. Well Joey Wheeler is not going to tell them anything without a fight. Joey sat down gingerly in his seat; the pain in his backside was very painful, especially since he hadn’t taken any medication. It actually felt nice for a change to be completely sober but he knew it wouldn’t last for long. He knew how badly the withdrawal could be.

The rest of the day progressed like a usual day. As the final bell rung, Joey and the others were planning on going to the Game Shop to check out their new inventory. As they were exiting the school, talking openly about all the cards they wanted, Joey’s expression turned sour as he saw the obstruction in his way. Kaiba.

“Hey loser, if you think getting a couple new cards from the Game Shop is going to make you a better duelist, you’re sadly mistaken,” Kaiba said in his deep smug voice.

“Oh yea tough guy, I placed second in the duelist kingdom tournament, and where were you? Oh yea, you were a tradin' card,” Joey responded, getting easily worked up by Kaiba’s taunting.

Kaiba’s smug voice turned icy, “Someone needs to train you mutt! Teach you some respect when speaking to your superiors.”

“Well I’ll keep ‘dat in mind next time I speak with someone of ‘dat description”

Kaiba took a deep breath and regained his cool “You’re just an amateur whose been riding on the coattails of Yugi’s victories. You’re an amateur duelist, and probably an amateur at everything else in your life too while I have known nothing but success.”

“Yea, until Yugi here wiped the floor with ya in a card game” Joey replied in an undertone, knowing that mentioning Yugi’s defeats over Kaiba was a sure way to piss him off.

“That’s just like you mutt, using Yugi’s victories to fight your battles once again.” Kaiba replied darkly.

“Oh yea, I’ll take you on right now, get your cards out!”

“Oh please Wheeler, it would be a complete waste of my time to duel you, being a CEO of a company means my time is far more important than yours and cannot be wasted on having a card game with a 3rd rate hack of a duelist,” Kaiba sneered.

“You snobby…” Joey started as he bounded towards Kaiba, prepared to punch him in his arrogant face, despite his clear disadvantage with his pre-existing injuries. Joey managed to get a punch to the side of Kaiba’s head before receiving a powerful blow to the nose, hearing the crack as the bone gave out under Kaiba’s fist, blood spurting everywhere from the impact. Joey stumbled a few steps back as he felt the blood flow out of his nose and down his face. His whole face throbbed with considerable pain stemming from his nose.

“UHH, Dat basdard broke by dose!” Joey yelled out, his speech critically impaired from his recent injury. Kaiba, who was momentarily stunned at the sight of the blond covered in his own blood, did not expect the sudden attack. Joey had tackled Seto to the ground and was punching every part of him he could. In Seto’s attempt to get the crazed mutt off of him he had grabbed at his clothing, causing his shirt to twist and become pulled up over his head. Seto stopped struggling at once as he saw the bruises that littered the blond’s back, each in a peculiar shape, as if he was hit with something deliberately. Joey, remembering his injuries, sprang up off of Seto and pulled his shirt down as quickly as he could but he knew the damage was already done.

“That’s enough!” Intervened a much older and mature Yugi than the one that was there moments before, his body clearly taken over by the spirit of the millennium puzzle. His voice was stern and filled with anger.

Kaiba stood up and brushed himself off, quickly replacing his shocked, pity filled face with his regular cold look.

The air was filled with an awkward silence where no one knew what to say or do after seeing what lied on Joey’s back.

Kaiba recovered first, “Later dweebs” He said coldly, taking a few strides down the sidewalk as his limo pulled up a little down the street. Roland, Kaiba’s bodyguard, came running towards the group to assess the situation. He saw a slightly ruffled Seto with specks of blood on his uniform and another very bloody, injured teen. Roland ran up to the boy “I’m very sorry sir, you will be compensated for the treatment of your injuries dealt by Mr. Kaiba”

“I do dot deed his fuckid’ cash” Joey sneered, glaring at the brunette, internally cursing himself about how stupid his voice sounded in front of his biggest enemy. The blood continued streaming from his rapidly swelling nose and dark bruises started to appear around his eyes due to his broken nose.

“With black eyes like that you’re starting to resemble a dog more and more all the time … I think I’ll call you Spot” Kaiba taunted, exerting even more cruelness, making up for the moment he lost his cover and actually felt bad for the mutt.

Joey sprung for attack again but this time his buddies had a good hold of him. Kaiba looked at the situation and gave a smug laugh while shaking his head before getting into the back of the limo.

Roland quickly strode over to Joey, holding out what looked like a business card. “Here’s my card, if you change your mind about your injuries then call this number and I will make sure the legal department at Kaiba Corp covers the expenses.” He then entered the limo and it drove down the street.

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital Joey!” cried a hysterical Yugi, back to his young innocent self.

“Id’s alrighd, I’b okay” Joey said through the blood.

“No its not! If it’s about the money, I can pay or we can call gramps and he-”

“No!” Joey quickly said, interrupting the small boy, then continued with a lighter tone. “I could dot do dat to ya Yug, I feel fibe”

“Well… at least come to the Game Shop and Gramps can help fix you up” Yugi suggested. After a moment of consideration, Joey agreed as he watched his blood drip onto the sidewalk.

After the short, silent walk, the group entered to the Game Shop. Grandpa was not surprised about Joey’s nose, seeing as he had seen the boy with many other injuries in his day and knew of Joey’s temper. The group remained quiet as grandpa did his work. He cleaned the blood off of Joey’s face with a damp cloth and tried to assess the damage.

“I can’t tell for sure how bad you’re nose is until all this swelling goes down. All I can do is give you this.” Grandpa handed Joey an icepack and instructed him to leave it on his nose.

“And keep you’re head up!” he added. Grandpa shook his head as he looked at Joey’s mangled face. “Now back in my day if we couldn’t solve our problems with card games, we didn’t resort to punching our opponents, we had more civilized methods. We would simply-”

And that’s when Joey stopped listening and his mind strayed back to his own problems. Joey loved Grandpa, and sometimes felt like he was the closest thing he had to a father, but man did that guy have some boring stories.

That son of a bitch Kaiba! Now thanks to him everyone has seen the marks he had on his back and Joey didn’t know how to even begin to explain what they were from. This is all Kaiba’s fault. If that rich, snobby jerk wanted to make his life even more difficult and hopeless, well then he succeeded all right. Joey was typically a good fighter, hence why the street thug gang kept him around. Joey couldn't see why everytime him and Kaiba fought, he always came out the loser. Joey looked down at his uniform. Ugh, totally covered in blood, and this was his only uniform too. It would take him forever to try and scrub the blood out of it. Fear filled his body as he thought about going home. What would his dad say if he saw this? He would surely get punished for fighting … and taunted for losing. He knew he shouldn’t have risen to Kaiba’s bait but it was his fault, wasn’t it?

“-and then all our differences would be gone and our problems would be solved.” Joey heard Grandpa finish.

“Now lets take a look at that nose,” Grandpa said, pulling the icepack away. “Hmm, there’s nothing much else I can do for it. I’d say go to the hospital for this one”

“Yea. Righd” Joey muttered.