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Coda Four: Prodigal

Jounouchi linked his hands behind his head and yawned. It was bumblefuck in the morning and someone was trying to knock his door down. At least, that's what it sounded like. Who the hell could be it at this hour? In this neighbourhood, that was a loaded question. Either someone was dead, dying, or had passed out at the bottom of the stairwell and needed help getting up to their apartment. The local kids all knew Jounouchi was the one to call on with that sort of problem, since he never said no or told them to go away, but it often meant nights of broken sleep.

This time, however, it didn't sound like any local kids. It didn't sound like kids at all.

"Are you sure this is the right address?"

"Have I ever steered you wrong?"

"Constantly. So many times, in fact, I'm not even sure why I keep double-teaming with you."

"Because I'm so wonderful and caring and generous, and you needed someone to take you under her wing while you rediscovered your love of Duel Monsters so you could finally go off and take on the European Championship like you planned?"

"I … you … that's totally beside the point! And you're not wonderful and caring and generous. You recognised me from that damn cruise ship and knew my skills could save any duel you screwed up with your stupid risk-taking."

Jounouchi shook his head, still fuggy with sleep. What the hell? The voices outside his apartment were female and sounded a hairsbreadth away from an all-out catfight. While this would usually please, or at least intrigue him, bumblefuck in the morning was bumblefuck in the morning.

He shot an anxious glance at his father's door, but all was silent – in a manner of speaking. The snoring was a litmus test. While it was going on, his father was safely out of the picture. He had downed an entire bottle of something – Jounouchi no longer took any notice of labels – before bed, so maybe Jounouchi would get lucky and the old man would be out of it until lunchtime tomorrow. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Yow! That's my hair!"

"Oh grow up."

"Me grow up? Look who's talking!"

"Yeah, the mature one."

"Only in years, old hag."

"Why you little –"

"Yow!"

"I can't believe I came with you. What was I thinking? Catharsis my ass. You're just carting the world's biggest pity party around to the guests instead of inviting them to your place."

"Oh shut up. Can I help it if our train was late? I didn't even realise where we were until … look, it took me this long to remember the way to this apartment; I was not going to risk forgetting it again just so we could make it to the hotel quicker, even if we do have that charity duel tomorrow. Otogi will understand – like he understood when I asked him not to say we were coming to Domino – and you can catch up on your jetlag later. I … I need to do this, Vivian."

Vivian? Jounouchi blinked. No wonder one of those voices sounded familiar: Vivian Wong, the psycho stalker who had practically eviscerated Rebecca and Anzu in a grudge match for Yuugi at Kaiba Corp Grand Prix. Not to mention that stunt she'd pulled with Grandpa Mutou. And the rest. That woman was scary. Jounouchi backed away from the door like the handle was made of barbed wire.

"Please try to understand," the other voice went on, not quite pleading, but not far off either. Something about it chimed in Jounouchi, but the unfamiliar tone and his own sleepiness and fear of Vivian sent his thoughts skittering away.

Vivian sighed. "Don't I always? It's a good thing I like you enough to consider you a friend. Of course, the moment your game starts to slide, you are gone from my life, sister." The mocking note in her voice belayed the seriousness of her words.

"Thanks, hon."

"Don't call me hon."

"Okay. Viv."

"Are you trying to bleed?"

The distant chime turned into a bell over his head. Shock rocketed through Jounouchi like ice water. He was instantly, irrefutably awake. That 'hon' did it, slotting a face and voice together in his brain. He cursed himself for not figuring it out sooner, made it to the door in record time, wrenched it open … and stopped dead.

Stupid, stupid, stupid –

Typical. Months and months of waiting to see her again, and not only did she turn up in the early hours, when he looked like he'd just crawled out of the primordial soup, but every single word he'd wanted to say vanished from his mind. Whoosh. Just like that: total blank canvas.

Aw crap, was his mouth open? Had he drooled while he was asleep?

Mai stared back with confusion and dawning realisation, one fist raised as if to knock.

Beside her, Vivian raised an eyebrow. "You?" She looked at Mai. "I thought you said you were looking for some boy you met when you were a kid."

"I was. I am." Mai's eyes got wider and wider. "Oh my …"

"So the kid moved out and this loser lives here now instead?" Vivian snorted. "Talk about a small world! I guess you won't be surprising him tomorrow at the charity duel after all."

Charity duel? Yes, Jounouchi remembered something about that. Yuugi was headlining and Otogi's company bankrolling it. Jounouchi was also on the list of attractions, but some way below his best friend's, just above 'and other mystery guest stars you don't want to miss'. He had agreed to attend, despite his wounded ego, after Anzu held forth about the nobility of raising money for hostels to help teenage runaways. That and because Seto Kaiba refused to compete, and making that guy look like the arrogant asshole he was struck Jounouchi as Never A Bad Thing.

Jounouchi's mouth was as wet as a desert, but he still managed to croak, "Mai?"

Vivian elbowed her. "He's talking to you," she stage whispered.

Mai didn't react. "I never saw it before," she murmured. "You never said anything. You didn't say who you were." She scrunched up her face. "It is you, isn't it, Katsuya?"

Jounouchi reeled. His reply was automatic. "Hey, nobody calls me that 'cept my mom." Then he frowned. He had never told Mai his first name. "How did you know –?"

"It is you," she breathed, like he'd just admitted he was secretly a superhero. "I never knew … I never recognised you. You were there, right beside me all that time. You never said anything …" Her voice dropped to a stunned whisper. "You really have been there for me all along, just like you said."

"Say what? What the hell are you talking about?" He winced. "Wait, that is … so not what I wanted to say when I pictured this happening. Damn it."

Vivian looked between the two of them like a spectator at a Ping-Pong match. She grinned. "I smell a story of epic proportions here." She grabbed Jounouchi and yanked him out of the apartment and shut the door behind him.

"Hey!" he protested. "I don't have my key!"

"I also hear the garglings of a pissed daddy who has no place in it," Vivian went on blithely, ignoring him as if he hadn't spoken. "C'mon, kiddies. I spotted an all-night café down the street. It's time you two had a good long –" She waggled her eyebrows.

As fairy godmothers went, Vivian Wong wouldn't have even made Jounouchi's shortlist. She wouldn't have even been a candidate for the shortlist.

"Viv!" Mai snapped. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"What? What? I was going to saytalk. A good long talk."

"Yeah right."

Vivian waggled her eyebrows again. "Can I help it if you're perverted?"

Mai sighed, turned to Jounouchi – and bowed. "Before we go any further, I have to say this: I'm sorry."

"Bwuh?"

"Great response there, bucko," Vivian muttered. "Really heart-warming. I'm welling up. Truly."

Jounouchi scowled at her. "Mai, you already apologised in your letter –"

"I'm not apologising for that or … I am, or I will be, but this is for something else. Something I did a long time ago."

"Huh?"

Vivian rolled her eyes. "Café. Coffee. Now. Then you talk, and I don't let either of your walk out of there until you've ironed out every little wrinkle there is between you. And I sense there may be some you weren't even aware of until now." She tapped her chin. "Lots of coffee." She chuckled and gave herself a little thumb's up. "And then a happy ending, if I have anything to do with it. I never imagined I'd be getting brownie points with Yuugi when I agreed to do this. Luckyyyyyy!" She squealed and held her upturned fists under her chin, evidently trying to look cute. She just looked scarier than ever, Jounouchi thought.

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" he said.

"You don't remember?" Mai looked panicked.

"I remember you, Mai," he hastily assured her. Malik had once used his magic to erase her friends from her memory, so God knew what she was thinking about him and his memory right now. They had a habit of coming back to each other damaged and broken, after all. "How the hell could I ever forget you?" How could I forget the woman I fell in love with despite spending more time apart from her than I ever did with her?

Waitasecond – love? Bad word. Too heavy duty. Stay away from the mucho serioso stuff until you figure out what's going on here.

Vivian slung an arm around his shoulders before he could stop her. "Aw, he's all flummoxed. It's quite sweet, actually. Très adorable."

"Your French accent stinks, Viv."

"Whereas lover-boy's pits just plain stink." She waved a hand under her nose. "Pee-yu! Ever hear of deodorant?"

Jounouchi was mortified. And confused. Extremely confused. He slipped out from Vivian's grasp and formed his hands into a T shape. "Back up. Timeout. Whatever. Just stop, okay. This is all too much – you both being here, now, after all this time, without any warning … Look, I think I'm entitled to a little processing time. And possibly some freaking out time." He watched Vivian warily. "Not to mention, what the heck am I supposed to not have remembered this time?"

Mai's face registered hurt, but it was gone in an instant, replaced not with her usual bravado, but with resolve and a trace of fear and hesitancy. Jounouchi stared. She managed to look beautiful through it all, but he had never seen that particular mix of emotions in her before. Not like that. She had always hidden her frailties, and any time he had caught a glimpse had been accidental. Now she looked … both older and younger somehow. He couldn't explain it, but there was something different about her whole demeanour, as if she had finally made peace with herself, like her letter had promised she would before she came back to him.

Hope flared in Jounouchi. He tried to temper it with realism, but it was like one of those trick birthday cake candles that keep relighting no matter how man times you blew them out.

"A long time ago," Mai said, "you helped a stupid rich girl who had run away from home with no plan or place to go. She sat out in the rain." She pointed. "Under that streetlight, and you went to help her."

Jounouchi looked and tried to remember. It was harder than Mai realised. His memories of a childhood with Shizuka were crystal, and his years as a two-bit bully under Hirutani, but the middle segment was a morass of half-remembered fragments and shifting images that felt like dreams, but may not have been. There were pieces missing, too. Whole stretches of time were just gone.

He didn't talk much about the accident that had wiped clean parts of his mind. Likewise, he didn't talk about the time in which he had made the transition from loving big brother to a thug who liked to smash faces. Things had happened then that screwed up his head even more than it was already screwed up. The accident had messed up his recall and place on the learning curve, but he had continued a steady decline into forgetting who he really was, instead forging a new identity as a gangbanger, and deeper, into someone more sinister. It wasn't until Honda dragged him away from Hirutani, and Yuugi dragged him into realty, that Jounouchi realised he was turning into his father and finally took steps to fix himself. If anyone could understand Mai's quest to be a better person, it was him.

"You helped that girl, and when your father threatened her you told her to run away, which she did." Mai fixed him with a pointed look. "Something she has always regretted. Think hard, Jounouchi. Try and remember."

Jounouchi searched his memories until sweat prickled his brow … and suddenly he found something. Just a sliver – more an impression and an actually memory – which slipped away from him like he was trying to grab a single fish from a massive, constantly moving shoal. It was something to do with a broken umbrella and wet hair.

No, not wet hair. Wet … scalp? He had covered his head because … it was cold and he'd needed … a hat? He'd had no hair, that was it! And he'd had no hair because … because he had been shaved at the hospital.

Was he remembering this right? It felt right, but he wasn't exactly known for his ability to make good decisions in a hurry off the duelling field. He dug deeper, hoping for something more concrete.

"You don't even know me," he mumbled.

"What did you just say?" Mai asked.

Jounouchi rubbed his head. "I dunno. Sounded right." He raised his gaze. "Does that mean something to you?" he asked hopefully.

She nodded. "It really is you. I can't believe it. It was you all along …"

"Oh-kaaaaay" Vivian stepped between them. "Much as it paaaains me to interrupt this Hallmark Movie of the Week moment, I was serious about the java, kiddies. A concrete walkway in this," she curled her lip, "evocative part of town is no place for the kind of tête-à-tête you two are in for."

Jounouchi looked at the apartment door, frowned, and turned back to the two women. "All right," he said at last. "You so owe me some explanations, Mai."

"More than you could ever know," she said softly. Jounouchi resisted the urge to boggle at this new, subdued version of her.

"Huh?"

Vivian rubbed her hands, then pressed one to each of their backs, steering them away. It didn't seem to matter – or even occur to her – that Jounouchi was barefoot and in his pyjamas. It didn't occur to him either. He only had eyes for Mai, and the way the combination of silvery moonlight and yellow light from streetlamp bounced off her hair in such a familiar way.

"I always thought it w-was dumb, i-in movies. The part where the k-kid blubs and s-says about … about never saying … about never telling the people she loves that … that she … cheesy as hell, b-but … but it's not."

Vivian's grin was brighter than any streetlight. She giggled at some private joke. "Trust me, hon, you ain't heard nothing yet."

Fin.

A/N: And that's it (properly this time), folks. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feedback is very much appreciated!