Mirror in Mirror

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Chapter 5

"What's this?"

Eight pairs of eyes stared directly at Kaiba when he dropped each letter in front of their face. He kept his face blank, eyes focusing only on Yami and Yugi, trying to make himself seem as natural as possible.

"Those are the invitations, Mutou," Kaiba answered dryly. Everytime he used 'Mutou' to talk with Yugi and Yami, he meant both of them. "My birthday is this weekend, and Mokuba asked me to throw a party. You guys are invited," he said monotone.

Immediately, many mouths in the group gasped. Yami and Yugi looked at each other to make sure they didn't hear wrong. Honda and Anzu did the same, and then looked at the others suspiciously. Ryou looked at Bakura, while the thief stared directly at Kaiba like he was crazy. Only Joey couldn't understand why everyone reacted that way. He looked at Jounouchi, and saw that the identical blond was reading the invitation. Joey was the only one in the group who didn't have an invitation.

"You invited us to your house?!" Jounouchi frowned as he finished reading the letter, and then looked up at the brunet. Kaiba nodded and said, keeping his voice uninterested, "It's Mokuba who invited you guys. I just simply can't refuse him."

"Figured," Jounouchi shrugged sarcastically, before his eyes dropped on Joey. "Why he doesn't have any invitation?" he asked.

Kaiba glanced at Joey hatefully and looked back at Jounouchi, arms crossed. "I don't want a dog in my house."

"What?!" Joey shouted and stood up. "I'm not a dog, bastard!"

"In my eyes, you are," Kaiba replied coldly; he didn't bother to look at Joey when he said this. He saw Jounouchi snort and stare at him disbelievingly. He then shoved the invitation in his hand to Kaiba's chest. "Then, I guess you don't want a bonkotsu in your house either. Well, to make you satisfied, I won't go too. Happy?!"

Kaiba's eyes widened for a second. He didn't expect this. He just didn't want Joey to come, so he didn't invite him. But he forgot that Jounouchi might react this way, since Jounouchi and Joey had looked the same. However, he still could tell them apart from afar, even without talking to any of them. That was why he could drop the invitation correctly in front of Jounouchi and not Joey earlier. But that was not the problem right now. He made the whole party just to have the excuse to get Jounouchi to go to his house, and now just because of this stupid mutt he refused to go. But Kaiba couldn't just take it back. It would be too obvious.

Luckily, before Kaiba could think of something, he heard Yugi speak up timidly. "Uhm Kaiba-kun… Jounouchi-kun and Joey-kun are my friends. I don't want to go without them. If… if you don't want them come, I think I will not come either."

"If my aibou won't go, then I won't either," Yami added sharply.

Normally Kaiba would be pissed if Yami and Yugi threatened him like this, but now he just appreciated them. He faked a glare and growled, trying to sound angry. "Fine! Then the dog—I mean, Wheeler, is invited to come to my party too."

"Thank you, Kaiba-kun," Yugi smiled brightly, while Jounouchi grinned at Joey and winked. Joey smiled nervously. He didn't know if going to Kaiba's house because of his friends' threat was a good idea or not…

Kaiba snorted quietly as the scene; Jounouchi and Joey were too close to each other. He was about to turn away, but Yugi called him back. "Kaiba-kun! Would you like to go to lunch with us today?" The small teen had asked Kaiba that almost every day, and every time Kaiba gave him the same answer, 'no'. But now… Kaiba thought for a moment. Mokuba had told him that he should act friendly with Jounouchi, and to make it work, he had to act friendly around all of Jounouchi's friends too.

"I wouldn't mind," was Kaiba's answer this time, before he walked back to his own seat.

…

Lunch time came, and Joey found himself at the table the group had sat at yesterday. The different thing was this time the group had added one more person, and it was Kaiba. The brunet sat next to Jounouchi on the right, while Joey sat next to Jounouchi on the left. Kaiba was sitting at the right edge, so no one sat next to him on his right side.

Joey looked at Jounouchi worriedly. Since everybody had taken out their food, he saw Jounouchi still sitting still, eyes staring blankly in front of him.

"Hey, Katsuya!" Joey called to Jounouchi, immediately he felt a heated glare shot at him, but he didn't look up to see just who did it. "Where is your lunch?"

Jounouchi blinked and looked back at him, and then laughed sheepishly, "I forgot it at home again. It happened sometime, you know."

"So you don't have anything to eat now?" Joey's eyes widened. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have grabbed it for you too. Was it in the yellow box in the kitchen this morning?" He looked down at his own lunch. "Well, my lunch isn't too much, but I guess we could share."

Jounouchi looked at Joey's lunch box. "No, thank. You hardly feel full with your lunch, I don't want to take any from you. It's my fault that I forgot it, so I deserve to be hungry. This is not the first time. I'm used to it."

"You could share with us, Jounouchi-kun," Yugi suggested. Jounouchi looked up at his best friend, seeing not just only Yugi but all of his friends were looking at him. "Eh, thank you guys. But I can handle some hours without lunch. Don't worry." He knew his friends' lunch was not much and didn't want to take any of their food. Everytime he forgot his lunch, his friends always offered their lunch to him but Jounouchi always refused.

And he blinked in curious surprise when a large box of food was shoved in front of him. He looked up to his right, and saw Kaiba not looking directly at him as he spoke, "You could eat some of my lunch. After all, my lunch is huge. I couldn't eat it all alone."

Jounouchi didn't response, but looked down at the large box in front of him. Kaiba's lunch was far different than any of his friends' lunch. It was three times bigger than his normal lunch, with many rice balls, sushi, dried vegetables, fried eggs and grilled meats. It even had two small transparent boxes of sandwiches and fruits inside the large box. If it was other people, Jounouchi would believe them when they said they couldn't eat it all alone.

But it was Kaiba. And Jounouchi had seen the brunet eat lunch sometimes. If people saw the way Jounouchi eating and told him that he eats too much, it was nothing comparing to Kaiba. Kaiba always ate ALL of his lunch, even though his lunch was always as huge as this one. He made Jounouchi envious many times because he could eat that much very quickly, but still be polite, and he still had the form of a perfect body.

Not to mention, many people thought Kaiba usually starved himself just because he looked slender.

"Is it okay?" Jounouchi asked after moment thinking, "I mean, I know you could eat all of it alone." He looked at Kaiba sheepishly.

"I don't feel like eating so much today, so if you don't eat it, I'm just gonna throw it away anyway," Kaiba replied boringly. Jounouchi then nodded and started to pick up one rice balls in the box. As he took a bite, he saw Kaiba was doing the same thing.

And the rice balls were extremely delicious. Well, after all, it was Kaiba's food.

As Jounouchi was eating, his friends started talking during lunch. He saw Joey putting some letters on the table when the American blond was biting his sandwiches. Anzu was the first one who asked, "What's that, Joey?"

"I don't know…" Joey answered curiously, eyes on those letters. "I saw them in my locker this morning but didn't read it. I just remembered it now." As he said that, he unfolded one letter and read it, then frowned. "I'm not sure if I read it right, but this letter said the sender wants to date me."

"What?!" Honda and Anzu shouted in surprise, while Jounouchi looked at Joey, but his hand grabbed another rice balls from the box. "Let me see!" Honda held his hand out. Joey handed him the letter, then unfolded another one. "I think this one has the same idea too," he said after he read it quickly and gave it to Anzu.

"You only transferred one day and somebody already wants to date you? Lucky huh?" Bakura smirked, mocking.

"I don't know why…" Joey answered honestly. "I never received one in my old high school."

"I think those girls are the one who were admiring Jounouchi," Anzu said and put the letter on the table. "Remember Jounouchi had always received many love letters every day before? But since Jounouchi turned them all down and Joey looks like Jounouchi, they think they might have a chance with Joey."

"Really," Jounouchi frowned deeply. "They want to date me just because I'm a famous duelist and since Yugi has Yami, they can't have any chance with him. When I was still anonymous, I hardly received anything. Remember when Otogi first transferred here? They all looked down on me. And now when they know they can't date me too, they turned to Joey?"

Joey sighed and dropped all the letters on the table; he didn't bother to read the unfolded ones anymore. He didn't understand girls. When he was in America, those girls always stayed away from him because of some rumors that he was a gangster. Strangely, Joey didn't mind not having any girls like him. Right now, when he knew the girls in this school wanted to date him because he looked like Jounouchi, he got a feeling that he could never like any girls anymore.

Joey jolted. Did that make him sound gay?

"You don't seem interesting in them?" Honda said, putting the letter in his hand on the table. "Man, if any of those girls wanted to date me, I'd immediately agree."

"And that's why I refused to let you get close to my sister," Jounouchi glared at Honda, and the brunet snickered. "I'm just kidding."

"Like I believe you," Jounouchi frowned and mumbled, but his voice sank in when Anzu turned to Joey. "Eh, Joey. Is it possible that you might be gay?" she asked, smiling.

"Eh?" Joey cocked his head and looked at Anzu, but didn't answer the question from her.

"Now you said that, I just noticed…" Honda said and looked at Yami, then Yugi and Ryou and Bakura. "We have four guys in our group that are gay. I'm definitely straight and Anzu too. I'm not sure about Jounouchi, Joey or Kaiba." He averted his eyes from each of them.

Kaiba, who stayed silent for the rest of the lunch eating his food, was still focused on the conversation. He was jealous knowing Jounouchi had had many fangirls, and then felt relief when Jounouchi didn't like any of them. He glared at Honda when he asked that question, but didn't say anything particular. Jounouchi was eating Kaiba's food, but he didn't eat too much. As Honda asked him a question, he frowned, "Hey, what do you mean you are not sure about me?!"

"Well, I saw you liked girls before," Honda replied. "But now you refuse going out with any girls that want to date you, so I doubt that you are still straight. Joey, we just knew him since yesterday, I can't say anything. Have you ever had girlfriend before, Joey?" He turned to Joey.

"No… For some reasons they think I'm a gangster, so nobody wanted to get close to me. I think it might have been because of the scars and the injuries I received from my father back then." Joey shrugged while everybody gasped, except Jounouchi and Kaiba. "Besides, I was longing to leave that place, so I didn't want to be attached with anybody."

"Why didn't you… tell the police your father was abusing you?" Jounouchi hesitated a little bit, but still asked. "Isn't America the place where the government always protects the children? At least that was what I have always heard."

"I don't have any other family members aside from my dad, and my ma had taken my sister away. If I told the police, my dad would be arrested for sure and I will be brought into a foster home. That place doesn't have any freedom, and it's no different than a jail." The American blond said, and paused. "No, to be honest, I didn't think about that when I was child, but it would still come out with a bad result anyway."

The group was silent. No one, other than Jounouchi, had known this much about Joey's situation, but this was the first time Jounouchi knew anything further about it. He didn't know what the others were thinking, but Jounouchi understood. He knew what that felt like, when you were hopeless in your own family and you could not do anything other than try to free yourself out of that hellhole. You couldn't just wait for some help but do it yourself. And each person had their own way to escape. Jounouchi joined the gang, trained himself hard so he could deal with his father's punches, and he knew he was very lucky when his father could snap out of the alcohol, like a miracle. Jounouchi had to feel awe when he realized there was not just only one, but many miracles that had come to him, especially after he met Yugi.

But Joey was a different story. He didn't have a friend. He hadn't wanted a friend when he was trying to move away, and that was what Joey had chosen. Joey had to work hard to get away from his father, and bitterly, his father didn't seem to have any hope of waking up from the liquid poison. A father, who had scared his son, caused his son to think about a way to run away when he was just a twelve-year-old child. A father that Joey didn't know how he was doing right now, if he was still drowning in alcohol and didn't even realize that his son would no longer be there next to him.

Joey exchanged looks quickly with Jounouchi and sighed. What was this all about? When did the conversation change and stab directly at his past? He didn't want to think about it right now. He didn't want to think about what his father was doing right now, because it only caused him a deep pain he was trying to avoid…

… That he was a terrible son who abandoned his father.

In Joey's mind when he was still in America, his father was nothing that he could recognize but a monster. And now he felt regretful, wanting to go back to see what his father was doing.

"I'm scared…" Joey mumbled, didn't realize that his voice was loud enough for the whole group to hear. "I don't know if this is a good move or not, running away from my father. I have tried to avoid this, to not think about him… but I couldn't. Everytime I don't have anything to do, I will think about him, wondering what he is doing at that moment. I… I somehow hope that he could snap out of his drunken state and search for me and apologize… But I'm afraid that he is angry too, and would suddenly appear at my new house one day in future, wants to drag me back to punish me harder…"

He gasped slightly when he felt a pair of arms wrapped firmly around his neck, and the embrace was familiar. Joey looked up at the blond who was holding him tightly; hesitating a little bit before he wrapped his arms back around Jounouchi.

And he was appreciating that Jounouchi or his other friends didn't say anything, because no word was the most comfortable way to make him calm down at that moment.

Kaiba kept his face emotionless and continued eating his food. After knowing faintly about Joey's state, he couldn't bring himself to feel jealous when he saw Jounouchi was hugging the American blond. He didn't feel as if he hated Joey anymore. He was even surprised when he found out that he was thinking that he wanted to help the American blond if he could.

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TBC