Waking up the next Morning...

Jou woke suddenly from his dream, only to realize that it wasn’t a dream, but the events that had happened the nights prior. Jou silently found his way to the bathroom, to take a shower before school. He took off his bandages, before entering the shower to clean himself up and take care of the slight problem from his vivid ‘dream’.

Jou finished getting ready and left for school, he was still limping a bit from falling on his ankle, but attempted to hide it as he meet his friends before class. They smiled with him, joking about the party a bit. Most of them too drunk to remember when Jou himself had left, let alone with whom. Jou avoided the subject, glad for now that their teacher had entered commanding attention.

As class dragged on forever and a day, Jou thought about whether or not he’d ever get his stuff from Kaiba. Sure it had only been a day, but with some of the habits of the Kaiba brothers, he just wasn’t sure. Jou barely caught that the teacher had dismissed the class, but hurriedly packed up his stuff and head out with the gang.

They lead themselves out to the front of the school, talking about meaningless things, allowing Jou’s mind to wander. He felt his mind beginning to imagine Kaiba pulling up in front of them, but was shocked when that turned out to be real, not just his imagination. It was another of the fancy cars that Kaiba owned, this one a nice convertible style, luxurious by the fact it only had two seats.

“Come on Jou,” Kaiba said curtly, giving no explanation per usual, barely giving a glance to the gang as a whole. Jou, hoping that Kaiba had found his stuff jumped in the car with no qualms.

“Wait a minute, why are you going with this bastard, Jou?” Honda questioned, knowing how much Jou usually hated the guy.
“Don’t worry about it, Honda. Just something small. See you guys later.” Jou said as Kaiba sped off the car.

Kaiba laughed, making Jou question his sanity, but calmly waited for the self righteous Kaiba to explain himself, as he seemed to have a habit of doing. “They’re so confused, And I’m proud that even a loyal dog like you would not tell them about what happened.”

Jou growled a little at the comment, “First off I’m not a dog…” Jou said loudly before lowering his voice, “And even so, I guess you could say I’m being loyal to a bigger promise,” He finished, as he started blushing. Jou realized after it had come out his mouth that he was both admitting to being the loyal dog, and he was putting Kaiba over his friends. He looked out the side of the car hoping that Kaiba was paying more attention to the road them him.

Kaiba eyed Jou, but let it go. “The bag at your feet has your clothes,” He said in his normal stoic tones. Jou quickly found the bag searching though it, sighing in relief as he pulled out the keys that he’d been afraid of losing.

“Thanks,” He said as he held the keys close to him. He would have been in big trouble if they’d been lost. “Ohh, did you want you’re clothes back?” He questioned as the car got close to his apartment.

“That would be assumed,” Kaiba said as he rolled his eyes at the other.

“Just trying to be polite” Jou muttered under his breath. ”Wait here, I’ll be right back with them.”

Jou hobbled up the stairs, them giving him the most trouble with his still hurt ankle. He wandered into his apartment, dumping his clothes on the bed then shoved Kaiba’s back into the bag. Jou found his way back down stairs giving the bag back to Kaiba. “Thanks” Kaiba said as he somewhat waved to Jou, and left.

Jou stumbled back to the bottom of the stairs sitting on the lowest step, ankle hurting quite a bit from the few trips already on the stairs. His problems having not gone unnoticed by Kaiba.

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Drifting out of class with the waves of other students, Jou noted a goodbye to his friends as they broke off to other classes. Jou slowly found his way around the city. There wasn’t much to see, but a few things still held interest even as he grew older. Coming across the park, Jou felt dizzy hobbling to a bench to rest in one of his favorite parts of town. Sitting there Jou began to think about what had been going on. It had been a little more than a week since he’s twisted his ankle at Kaiba’s. The pain as he walked had lessened, but hadn’t gone away. He hadn’t done anything to take care of it, everything was as usual, but Jou had hoped it would go away regardless.

Jou laid his head back, looking up at the sky. A beautiful blue, few clouds in sight, it made him happy to relax and just watch the sky. It wasn’t until he felt someone sit next to him that he was snapped out of his trance. He jerked, sitting upright to see who was there. Kaiba looked at Jou, with a smirk, as Jou stared back surprised to see Kaiba away from his work in the middle of the day. Jou’s sight blurred and he felt light headed, laying his head back again to relieve some of the pain. He couldn’t deal with delusions right now, and this had to be one. Kaiba was silent for the most part, which made Jou wonder if it proved it was a dream, or actually lead to believe it was Kaiba himself, considering the teen genius’ silence in most situations.

“You don’t look so great,” Kaiba commented as he glanced at Jou. Jou ignored the comment, realizing it wasn’t a dream or delusion as he relaxed in the sun. At least he wasn’t seeing things, even if he felt horrible. Kaiba looked at Jou once again noticing his flushed face. The only time Kaiba had seen Jou like that was when they would fight, but there was a sense of pity on the boy’s face that made it out of place. Kaiba put the back of his hand up to Jou’s forehead, feeling the warmth. Jou ignored the hand, rolling to the side to avoid it. Before he could get too far, Kaiba grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back into a sitting position.

Kaiba was worried, Jou could barely see it on Kaiba’s face, but it was there. Kaiba grabbed Jou’s pant leg and pulled it up until he could see the swollen ankle. The ankle was sized larger than it should, even through the wrapping. Kaiba even went as far as to unwrap and pull down the bandage so he could see the ankle better, but found the area to have some discoloration to it. It was somewhere in the colorization of a bruise that was starting to heal, but still hurts like hell.

“Jou, what happened?” Kaiba asked, actual concern in his voice. Looking Jou straight in the face, expecting a real answer.

“You know what happened, why do you care?” Jou muttered back, instantly.

“You’re hurting yourself by not taking care of it.” Kaiba said sternly, “It’s partially my fault,” he finished, as if he were trying to apologize. Jou almost reveled in the fact that he got an apology from a Kaiba, but it wasn’t worth it. “Come on,” Kaiba said as he picked up Jou. Jou wanted to fight back, but he felt his strength gone and instead drifted to sleep.

Kaiba looked down to see the sleeping Jou, which worried him of how long the boy had been feeling this way. It was unhealthy, and no matter how tough he always acted, it was new to see that something so simple could affect him so hard.


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AN: Thank you Ecstatically_Yours for your wonderful reviews, I was just deciding where to cut the chapters at before continuing.
Thanks all for reading!