Fixation

Chapter 6


Two weeks later, at seven in the morning, Jou leaned over his cracked bathroom sink, carefully swishing out the pair of boxers he’d worn to bed that night. Wet dreams were great, but the aftermath was a pain, especially when you didn’t own a washing machine and only owned enough briefs to see you threw the week. Every night it was the same dream, Kaiba pinning him down and forcing his cock inside Jou’s body right there on the floor of the boy’s bathroom. Just the memory of the dream was enough to make Jou harden inside the nearly clean pair of jeans that he’d pulled on so he wouldn’t be naked as he waited for his underwear to dry. Jou didn’t regret telling Kaiba no, but his subconscious seemed determined to force him to imagine saying yes as often as possible.

Jou tossed his wet underwear into his room and decided to make an actual breakfast for once. He dug through the cabinets and the small fridge but didn’t find anything fresh. He would have to go shopping after school today. Jou got out a small bowl and began rinsing a cup of rice, swishing the rice through ice cold tap water with his right hand. He set the rice to soak, made himself a single cup of coffee, and laid down on the ragged couch that they’d inherited from an old junkie down the hall. He tried to doze off, but he caught himself thinking about Kaiba every time he relaxed.

Jou heard a groan from behind his dad’s bedroom door. He heard the tinkling of glass, the shuffling of garbage, and then the door opened. His dad, already dressed for the day by virtue of having never undressed the night before, staggered out and sat down on the couch just passed Jou’s feet.

“Morning,” his dad muttered, burying his head in his hands.

“Yeah. You want a cup of coffee?” Jou asked, standing up.

“We got a new coffee maker?”

“No,” said Jou, getting out a second coffee cup. He set the kettle on to boil, placed the same filter he’d used directly into the cup and added a scoop of fresh coffee. A minute later he handed his dad the steaming cup. “It don’t have a fancy programmable timer, but it tastes alright.”

With shaking hands, Jou’s dad took a tentative sip, murmured a pleasant surprise, and took a deep drink. “That’s not bad at all. Tastes better than that old piece of crap used to make, anyway. Thank you, boy.”

“Thought you might like it.”

His dad drained the coffee as efficiently as he usually drained a beer. Hands still shaking, he set the cup on the floor. “And you’ve got rice going… What’s the occasion?”

Jou shrugged. “I was just up early, is all.”

His dad nodded, then looked up at him, his expression serious. “Well, I’m glad you’re awake. We gotta talk.”

“What’s up?” Jou asked, carefully lingering near the counter and pretending to watch the rice soak.

“I sent a letter to your grandfather…”

“Grandpa Joe?” Jou asked, vaguely remembering fishing with the old man when Jou was a young boy in America.

“Yup. I been writing to him every now and again. Told him you got your grades up, found a decent job and all that. I know that you’ve written off leaving here, Katsuya, but I think you’re going to have to reconsider. Since you’re about to turn eighteen, you’re not going to be able to keep your duel citizenship much longer. You’ve got to choose, you know, which country you want to live in…”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were born in New Jersey, Katsuya. If you stay here when you come of age, well, that’s it, you’re a Japanese citizen, plain and simple. If you go back to the States you can elect to be a citizen there. I was talking to my ol’ man about it and he said he’d be willing to put up with you for a few years, and that, being an American, you’d probably be able to get financial aid to go to school over there. Grants and student loans and shit… Stuff you already said you can’t qualify for here…”

“Dad, only smart rich kids go to school in America,” Jou said simply. “People like Anzu and Seto. Not me…”

“Will you shut up and listen!” His dad brought both of his hands to his temples, his whole body trembling. “I’m saying that I think you’d have a better shot if you left Domino, and Japan. I ain’t never given you anything worthwhile and I know it. But maybe, well, maybe you can make something of yourself if you can get out of all this crap,” his dad motioned to the apartment around them.

“And what’s going to happen to you?” Jou asked, recognizing the self-destructive look in his dad’s eyes.

“Nothing that ain’t gonna happen anyway. And no, don’t look at me like that,” his dad shook his head. “If I had the courage to do it right, I’d have been dead years ago. Sometimes I think I’ve always been too much of a coward to actually face the world—except through the bottom of a bottle… But you know damn well that I’m sick. This ain’t a cold. It is not going to go away.”

“Dad, I’ve been doing some reading… If you don’t stress your liver any more, there’s no reason…” Jou couldn’t bring himself to say it. That was a damn big if, given his dad’s temperament. And it wasn’t going to matter. The damage to his dad’s liver was already done. Going without alcohol now might buy him a few months, maybe even a year if he had excellent medical care. He didn’t have the will power to go without alcohol.

“No, Jou. This isn’t about me. I talked that boss o’yours. He thinks you ought to go, too. Even said he’d recommend you to a good school.”

Jou let his head drop and stared at the filthy floor. He couldn’t look at his dad’s orange tinted skin and sallow eyes any more. The tremors were getting worse, and his dad could hardly keep down solid food. Jou wanted to throw up himself. He couldn’t believe that his dad was sitting on the couch dying and telling Jou to abandon him and run off to school in America. He could never do it.

“Look, I know I ain’t the only thing keeping you here, and that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I know, I know, Shizuka’ll be fine.”

“I meant this Seto guy you’ve fallen for.”

Jou dropped his coffee cup. Half a cup of dark coffee spilled over the floor, but the cup bounced off his foot and rolled away instead of shattering.

“You know about that?”

“You’ve talked in your sleep since you were three years old, do you think there’s much in your life I don’t know about?”

“Shit,” Jou had to remind himself to breath as he began backing towards the door.

“God damn it, Katsuya, just relax. I ain’t mad.”

“You’re not? You’re not upset about me being… well, you know?”

“A fag? No, I ain’t upset about that. After a while, I kind of figured you’d turn out that way. You’re almost eighteen years old, Katsuya. A woman with a rack like that Valentine chick hanging all over you should have had you blubbering like an idiot. Hell, seeing her on TV with you had me blubbering like an idiot. You didn’t even seem to look at her twice. It got kinda obvious, after a while. I am furious about who you’ve decided to fall in love with, though.”

“I am not in love with Kaiba!”

Jou’s dad lowered his shaking hands and glared at him. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I… Look, it’s just a thing. It’s not serious.”

“It better not be. I’d never be able to forgive myself… Katsuya… Come here, will you?”

Jou hesitated for a moment, then sat on the couch beside his father. Up close, Jou could see the smaller muscle tremors that were the signs that his father was right in the middle of the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.

“You know, I was afraid of this with your sister. I sure as hell never thought I’d have to deal with it for you. But the fact of the matter is, I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve put you through.”

“I know, Pops.”

“No, you don’t… I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a shitty father, but I don’t want to see you end up with someone… with someone like me. Out of all the people you’ve grown up with, you had to go and fall for the one person who is going to end up just like me. He’s the only other person in your life you’ve ever let knock you around. Damn it, Katsuya, it ain’t supposed to be like that! You deserve better than me for a dad and you sure as hell deserve better than him! I… I want you to go back to the States, boy. And get away from that rich prick. I don’t care if you end up with a boy or a girl, but I want you to end up with somebody who’s going to care about you and treat you decent.”

“Dad,” Jou tried to fight down the blush that was raising though his cheeks and straight to his ears. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is? Can we talk about football or something?”

His dad chuckled and shook his head. “I’m too fucking cold… I’m going to go back to bed…”

“Alright. I’m going over to Yug’s house after work, but I’ll bring back a few slices of pizza.”

His dad groaned at the mention of food, shook his head, and staggered back into his dark cave of a bedroom.

When the rice was cooked, Jou packed half of it up for his dad, ate the other half, and hurried out to catch the bus. He wasn’t really worried about food, since Techni or Sakura always made sure he ate something while he was working. He had to take three different buses to reach the affluent section of town where the Nakamura’s home was located, just three blocks down from the Kaiba mansion. He let himself in through a side gate and set his bag down on the back patio. Glass and ceramic tiles were stacked on pallets near the patio, along with what was left of the piping and plastic lining Jou had used to create the huge coy pond that now dominated the back yard. The pond had taken him a long time to finish, since he did everything except the excavation himself. He had even laid the terribly expensive imported river rock himself, forming an artful waterfall just off the patio. The water lilies were already starting to grow and would bloom in the summer heat. He had replaced their European-style hedges with low maintenance bamboo and planted nearly mature cherry trees in the curves of the pond. He had built raised flower beds in curving yin-yang patters on either side of the pond. He’d spent the last two months hand-laying triangle shaped tile along the walkways in between the flower beds, crating patterns of interwoven white and black dragons against a red terracotta background.

It had taken him a year’s worth of effort, and the help of a few professional contractors, but Jou had managed to transform Sakura’s plain lawn into a perfect, and low maintenance, Chinese-style garden. He had never dreamed of being able to create something so calming and tranquil, since the only soil he had access to in his own home was the inch thick layer of filth that he had once tried to scrape out from behind the mini-fridge. He always loved hanging out in the park, but he’d never had the chance to plant something and watch it grow before. He had never even had a medium to express himself artistically, either. Unfortunately, it was also a lot of work and it was taking forever. He plugged in a handheld jigsaw and started cutting the larger tiles into the small triangles he needed to finish the last few feet of walkway.

The back door of the house opened and Sakura emerged, dressed in a simple kimono. A housekeeper followed her with a tray of rice balls and a silver coffee pot. The housekeeper sat the tray down, bowed low, and back away, disappearing into the house.

Jou released the trigger on the saw. “Good morning,” he said, once the power tool was quiet.

“Good morning, Katsuya-kun. Have you eaten?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jou nodded.

“Well, that’s too bad. I’m afraid that Ryoko made far too much food this morning, and I was going to try making sourdough bread this afternoon. It feels wrong to start baking when there’s still food left over.”

“Sourdough?”

She tilted her head to the side and grinned. “It’s bread made from a sustained culture of wild yeast. Commercial yeast has only been used in baking for approximately a hundred and fifty years, and prior to that bakers raised their own yeast cultures. Believe it or not, there is a legend that American pioneers were sustained almost exclusively by sourdough. I’ve synthesized the most common elements of thirty-four different recipes and I’m interested in seeing the result.”

Jou nodded. Around Sakura’s fifth attempt at chocolate chip cookies, she decided that trial and error was an inefficient approach to learning how to book. Since then, she read every recipe she could find for a given “experiment” and then approached the kitchen like a chemist working in a lab, deducing which ingredients and techniques were necessary and which were just extras. Jou only understood some of the more rudimentary things she explained about the cooking or baking processes, but he enjoyed tasting the results all the same.

“I can always eat a bit more,” said Jou, setting aside the freshly cut pieces of tile.

“I was hoping you would be able to help me.” Sakura clasped her hands together, then stood and poured him a cup of coffee. Jou had a hard time shaking off the urge to sit down and keep his mouth shut when she offered him coffee.

“Sit, eat,” she said, motioning to the small chair opposite her own.

“Will the Doc be joining us this morning?”

“He will,” Sakura said brightly. “I told him that the walkway was almost done and he was very excited. He’s making photocopies of something for you, but he didn’t want to tell me what it was.”

“Oh,” Jou blushed and looked down at the table. “It’s no secret or anything. Just some articles from a medical journal—stuff I couldn’t find from the library at school or down town.”

“I know it shouldn’t surprise me that you read things like that, but I still think it’s an impressive level of dedication, given your age.”

“It’s nothing,” said Jou simply. “This,” he motioned to the garden, “Is a lot more fun than pouring over articles and dictionaries all day.”

“Is it?” she asked, the expression on her face told him that the idea was completely contrary to everything she held dear.

He shrugged, “Everybody has their strengths…”

“That’s very true.” Sakura’s eyes were fixed on his hands. He followed her gaze and remembered that he was wearing Kaiba’s watch. He was very careful not to flinch or hide his wrist. If he did either, it would just make her suspicious. If he didn’t move, she might just assume that he and Kaiba had somehow ended up with similar looking watches.

He took a sip of his coffee, savoring the flavor. After the crap he’d had at home, it was exquisite. That was the one vice that he’d picked up working for the Nakamuras. And it was one Jou really couldn’t afford to maintain. Sakura-san always brought home the best, imported coffee that money could buy.

It was Sakura who suggested he give up the drip style coffee maker and just set the filter over the cup. She had an expensive plastic cone with a gold-plated filter for making coffee the same way. It did make the cheap coffee taste better, but it was still nothing compared to hers.

“Hey, thanks again for the tip about the coffee. Even my old man liked the stuff I made this morning.”

“Glad to help. You know, Katsuya, I started making coffee this way when I was a student. I was brought up by my grandmother, and we didn’t have much money. I went to school on a scholarship. I didn’t have the money for a coffee pot or the space to keep one...” She smiled sadly and set her coffee cup down, wrapping both of her hands around the thin china. “When Tenchi proposed, his mother stopped by my little apartment by surprise. I offered her coffee because I didn’t have any tea. Can you imagine? A traditional home-maker, who had only seen western-style coffee pots in the store windows, standing in an eight square foot apartment in a full kimono watching me bastardize coffee… She was so polite that I almost thought it wouldn’t matter. That night, Tenchi’s father informed him that his mother had decided to forbid him from marrying me. She didn’t want her eldest son marrying a low class gold digger.”

She drained her coffee and set the cup on the table. “I finished school, I learned how to dress, how to act, how to seem upper class so well that no one ever guessed that I was a scholarship girl from a ruined family. When I turned thirty-five, I ran into Tenchi’s father at a business party. It was a party Kaiba Seto hosted, to celebrate my promotion to Senior Vice President and Head of Accounting, so of course, I had made sure I looked my best. Tenchi’s father asked when I was going to settle down and marry his son. And, would you believe that it was Kaiba Seto who came to my rescue? He took my arm, laughed like Nakamura-san had made a joke, and said that his son was lucky to win the attention of a woman of my caliber, but that he shouldn’t get too hopeful about me marrying into a lower class.”

“Kaiba said that? I bet he knew you were from a poor home, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Sakura confirmed. “He also knew that Tenchi’s mother thought I wasn’t good enough for her son. Nakamura-san was outraged. He said that I was nothing but a poor bookworm who had probably slept my way up the corporate ladder. Kaiba-sama laughed louder, and said that Nakamura-san should recall that his host had started as nothing more than a low class orphan. He looked at Nakamura-san like he was filth and said that he had previously thought that the Nakamura family was honorable enough to place themselves above such petty gossip.” Sakura looked down at her wedding ring, a soft smile lighting up her features. “We finally eloped three days later. Kaiba Seto was one of our witnesses. He was one of the only guests. The gesture meant so much to me that I gave him a watch just like that as a thank you present.”

Jou dropped his wrist beneath the table, blushing.

“I was pretty sure it was one of a kind.”

“Yeah, he ah… He loaned it to me, because I was always running late…”

Sakura-san’s mouth opened in a silent “ah.” She smiled at him, a familiar and mischievous glint in her eyes. “About two weeks ago, on Friday, by any chance? He was in a good mood that day. It was creepy. He was also asking what time it was every thirty seconds.”

Jou ducked his head low, turning his gaze towards the yard. He couldn’t help how much he was already blushing. Seeing the smirk on Sakura-san’s face would just make it worse.

“So,” Jou took a deep breath. He fumbled with the metal watch, twisting it around on his wrist. It was just a bit too big for him. “I thought you didn’t like Kaiba. It almost sounds like you two were friends, and if you gave him ‘dis…”

“Oh, I never said I don’t like him. He’s an annoying, arrogant brat. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s a good person and a dear friend.”

“I… ah… I guess I shouldn’t say anything about him then. I know I say things I shouldn’t...”

“I’ve heard his little brother say far worse about him than you have. Do me a favor, though?”

“Sure?”

“Take that off while you’re working. I realize this is not something that you’ve probably had an issue with before, but I paid sixty thousand for that watch. Not really the type of thing you should wear when working with power tools.”

“Is that all? My friend Honda spent about that much on his watch… This looks nicer, though. I figured it had to be worth more.”

“You’re cute, Katsuya-kun. I meant dollars, not yen. It is a custom made platinum and titanium Cartier.”

“Oh shit!” Jou unclasped the watch as quickly as he could and set it on the table gently, scooting back a few inches, as though it might explode.

Sakura-san laughed out loud. “I can’t believe the look on your face!”

“What? Were you joking?”

“No, not about the watch!” She kept laughing. “You look like you’re worried that it’ll burn you or something!”

“Well, it’s expensive. I’m not the best when it comes to dealing with nice things.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Kaiba-sama wouldn’t have loaned it to you if he didn’t trust you to take care of it. Besides, you made my whole week easier.”

“Glad I could help, I guess.”

“So, Katsuya-kun, have you thought about where you’re going to college? You can’t be thinking about doing chores for the rest of your life, after all.”

He shook his head. He had been expecting something like this, after his dad mentioned talking to his boss.

“Have you considered studying medicine?”

“My grades aren’t high enough to become a doctor. I don’t think I’d be able to stay interested in it, anyway.”

“I thought not. Tenchi was hoping to persuade you, but I just don’t see you having the patience to put up with the years of busy work and red tape he had to wade through as a student. I think you’d be better suited to political science, personally.”

Jou tried to keep his laughter calm and polite, but he only barely managed it. “I’m flattered that you think I could manage, Sakura-san, but I’ll never be able to get into college.”

‘You think so? You don’t give yourself enough credit, Katsuya. Don’t you remember those placement tests that Tenchi had you take?”

Jou couldn’t very well forget them. Early in the school year, he had taken not only the traditional placement tests, but an American one as well. Each one had lasted six hours—he’d wasted three perfectly good Saturdays on them. He listed the Nakamura’s address, since Sakura had warned him that test results could easily get lost in the mail in a neighborhood like his. He had been very pointedly avoiding thinking about those tests ever since. The results had probably been buried in a pile of junk mail in Doctor Nakamura’s home office for months. Jou didn’t want to see just how bad had scored now that he couldn’t blame the test results on bad eyes.

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t have a decent chance, considering how you did.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sakura tilted her head to the side, considering his expression for a moment. After a moment, she nodded, although more to herself than to Jou. “Excuse me for a moment, wont you?”

Jou had learned to recognize that face. “No, no, whatever it is, please don’t shout at him! He doesn’t deserve it!”

“Oh, he does, Katsuya-kun. But I’m not going to shout at him. One day I’m sure you’ll learn that sometimes being quietly disappointed can be much more damaging than shouting. I’ll be back in a moment. Please eat more, I’ll have wasted sixteen dollars worth of Russian flour if I can’t start that sourdough bread today…”

“Alright.”

A full ten minutes later, Doctor Nakamura, with a half-eaten rice ball clenched in his teeth and a stack of large envelopes nearly a foot high held in both arms, was ushered out of the house with his wife right behind him. Sakura took the rice ball out of her husband’s mouth, set it on a dainty plate, and set a place for him beside her.

“I was going to get around to it,” Doctor Nakamura hissed quietly. “Good morning, Katsuya. Toxicology comparisons for you,” he handed Jou a thin stack of photocopied medical articles. “Your dad’s results are on the bottom.”

“Thank you,” Jou took them solomly. “Did you look at them?”

“Yes. Not that I had to, given the presentation of symptoms. And really, you might as well not bother. You can guess the prognosis as accurately as I can from the symptoms. If you can persuade him to come into the clinic…”

“I’ve tried.”

“The next few months aren’t going to be easy, Katsuya,” Nakamura looked glum. “If he wont go to the hospital… there is nothing pleasant about what you’re going to have to deal with to take care of him... The rest of this is yours too.”

“Mine?”

“I’m afraid so,” Doctor Nakamura set the huge stack of envelopes down on the table.

Jou picked up the first couple inches and flipped through the envelopes. They were all from major universities, most of them were in Japanese and many were in English. Jou opened the top one and pulled out a thick stack of papers. It was in English and it took him a moment to shift his brain into the right frame of mind to translate it. “…like to invite you to apply… What?”

Doctor Nakamura, chewing on another rice ball, sorted through the stack of enveloped and pulled three from near the bottom of the pile. These three had already been opened. “You said you didn’t want to know, but I was curious.”

“What’s the damage?” Jou asked, pulled the results of the Japanese placement tests out first. Nakamura said nothing while Jou glanced at the chart that recorded his scores. “That’s…” Jou looked up at Doctor Nakamura suspiciously. “That’s close to…”

“I told you to work harder in math,” Doctor Nakamura shook his head sadly.

“But this says…” Jou unfolded the chart, “This says I only missed six math questions!”

“Exactly. Since you missed one question on all of the other sections combined, I’d say that math is definitely your weak area.”

“But this is impossible! I’ve always gotten horrible grades in math.”

“How have your grades been since your surgery?”

“Well, that’s different. I’ve had someone breathing down my neck about homework this whole time…” Jou looked at Sakura meaningfully, then at the other test results. Both of the other test results were similar. Jou had scored in the 99th percentile on both of the Japanese college placement tests, and in the 95th percentile on the American ACTs. “But this…”

“Would have been slightly better if you had spent a bit more time studying math,” Doctor Nakamura repeated, with a smile on his face. “I went by your place and mentioned it to your dad, but I think he might have forgotten to tell you about it.”

“He didn’t exactly forget.” Jou realized that his old man hadn’t forgotten at all, he had just put off talking to Jou about it until he heard back from Jou’s grandfather. His father knew that he would be able to get into an American school and wanted to give Jou a chance to go. “I might really be able to go to college…”

“Yes. Which means, since I have no idea how to set tile, I expect that walkway to be finished before you leave Domino.”

“Haven’t you looked at it recently? I think I’ve only got a couple more weekends of work left, and that’s with filling up the flowerbeds.”

“I know. But you’re going to need time to look through these brochures, type applications and essays, and get all of the paperwork together. I think that should be your priority at the moment. A lot of these have application deadlines, if I recall. Feel free to have things sent here if you need to.”

Jou kept flipped through the envelopes from universities, stunned by all of the colleges that apparently wanted him to apply. “Am I supposed to apply to all of these?”

“Here, I’ll sort, you cut tile,” Sakura offered, setting her coffee cup down demurely.

Jou thought about his father, trembling on the couch of their small apartment, too sick to eat or take in more than a few sips of coffee. He was the only one his dad had in the world. He could not go to school. “No, don’t go to any trouble. I’m probably not going to bother. I think I need a break from school. Maybe I’ll take a year or two off, look for some full time work around Domino and save up a bit of money.”

Sakura’s eyes darted down to the small stack of toxicology reports that her husband had given Jou. Jou didn’t need to explain. He had long ago learned that Sakura was much smarter than Jou, her husband, and Kaiba combined. She knew why he couldn’t go and her eyes communicated everything that she didn’t dare say. Of course, it was only proper that a young man take care of his parents in their old age, or if they were ill. Most men, however, didn’t have to face the burden to taking care of their parents until they were much older, until they had finished their education, had successful careers, and families of their own. After everything Jou had been through growing up, to shoulder such a burden when he wasn’t even an adult was something that Sakura found remarkable and tragic. She knew his pride allowed no other options, so she didn’t argue that it was unfair or try to persuade him that he was throwing his life away. Jou could read all of it in her eyes without the older woman having to say a word.

Jou focused on work, devoting every bit of energy and attention to completing the detailed moasic as perfectly as possible. He spent two hours cutting two inch pieces of tile and mixing mortar. By the time he was done, Sakura had reduced the overwhelming stack of envelopes down to six and disappeared back into the house. Jou laid out the tile for a two-foot section of walkway, using small toothpicks to mark the borders of the design. Six hours later he had worked his way to the last segment of the design—a simple infinity symbol. He cut the rest of the tile he’d need, then sat down at the table where Sakura had left the envelopes. They had all been opened and the one on top was for a small private college in Domino. Sakura had circled the name of the city in the return address. Maybe, Jou thought, pulling out the envelopes contents, he could go to school and still take care of his dad.

He was already fairly familiar with the application process, since he’d been watching Yugi, Honda, and Anzu work their way through the whole process for the last month. He shoved the envelopes and the test scores into his backpack, popped into the house to say goodbye, and then headed back to the bus stop. He’d been saying no to movie night at Yugi’s for nearly a month now and he was determined to spend at least a bit of time with his friends before they all went their separate ways, even if Jou himself was going nowhere.