A.N.: Hey, look, a nifty disclaimer has already been added! Useful. I don't really like this chapter, but this is all first draft stuff anyway. Maybe if I just finish it, I'll be able to revise it all into something decent. I've added an Alternate Universe warning because there are so many original characters now, and this was meant to be set after Yu-Gi-Oh ends. It has ended now, but I haven't seen the show or read the books up to that point, and now there's that GX series about which I know even less. All comments will be valued and possibly used during revision, if it ever happens.

Shojun studied the stones at his feet. Father had never brought him along on business, so Shojun did not know why he had done so today. Father had been so unusually nice to him all morning. With Mother no longer around to protect him, Shojun assumed Father would send him to live with relatives any day now. Maybe Father valued him more than he thought. Shojun looked up quickly when he heard his name. "Sixteen, you say?"

Shojun stood up straight and smiled as the man look him over. Toyoshima, Shojun thought. I wonder when he's going to invite us in. From what little Shojun had heard, the men were making some kind of trade. It seemed a little strange to conduct business on a porch, even if it was outside a mansion. "He's small for sixteen."

Father nodded.

"Yes, he has his mother's build."

Toyoshima chuckled.

"But not her spirit, I hope."

"Oh, no, Shojun is very submissive. With proper motivation, he could be made to do anything."

Shojun forced himself not to cower when Toyoshima looked at him again. He felt oddly like a fish in the market. Toyoshima smiled and handed a check to Father.

"Welcome to my household, Shojun."

"Wh-what?"

Shojun looked around, but Father was already leaving. "I don't understand."

Toyoshima put his arm around Shojun's shoulders.

"Come along and I'll explain it to you."

Toyoshima opened the door. All Shojun could see was hands. Hands in the darkness, grabbing at him. When Toyoshima pushed him in, he screamed.

Shojun, Toyoshima's right hand man for much of nineteen years since Shojun had been sold to him, awoke in a chair outside of Toyoshima's bedroom. The only sounds were Toyoshima's grunts and the bed's rhythmic groans. The new boy could be dead for all anyone in the mansion knew or cared. Toyoshima would finish up regardless. When the noises stopped, Shojun stood and prepared to grab the doorknob. "Shojun!"

Shojun entered the room, eyes lowered.

"Yes, sir?"

Toyoshima rolled off the bed and walked toward the bathroom.

"Get him dressed and send him home."

"Yes, sir."

Shojun swept his eyes over the boy on the bed. Jounouchi had been quite handsome. Now, he was only another empty shell soon to be discarded. Someone like that could be desperate. There should have been guards posted nearby. There would have been, a few years ago. Shojun filed the thought away for later. "Sit up, Jounouchi. Time to go."

Shojun grasped Jounouchi's shoulders and pulled him up. "Come on, go find your clothes."

Jounouchi blinked.

"My—? Oh."

He pushed himself off the bed, grimacing, and began to collect his clothes from around the room. Shojun allowed Jounouchi to lean on him for support as he dressed, then led him through the labyrinth of hallways to a plain car waiting for them outside. Shojun handed Jounouchi's address to the driver and leaned against the window. Jounouchi followed, curling up in the opposite corner when the door was shut. He stared out the window, silently, until the car turned onto his street. "Why?" Jounouchi murmured. "Why do you help him? How much do you get paid to do this?"

Shojun looked at him and sighed.

"He doesn't pay me. He owns me."

Jounouchi sat up a little.

"No. That's—he can't do that."

"Why not? There's a thriving international slave trade funded by people like Toyoshima. They're taken right off the streets every day to be chained to a farm or a bed."

"But that's illegal!"

Shojun smiled.

"What, like murder and rape?"

Jounouchi leaned back in his seat.

"So you were kidnapped and sold to Toyoshima."

Shojun shook his head.

"One of those businessmen who flock around him is my father. He sold me to Toyoshima. He probably thought I'd be passed around and used to an early death like most sex slaves."

"How come you weren't?"

Shojun looked away.

"He liked me. Said he saw himself in me. I got my own bedroom. I have a business degree. I'm his heir now, so long as he dies of natural causes."

The car stopped in front of Jounouchi's building.

"Do you think he'll die soon?"

Shojun thought of Toyoshima's creaking joints, weakening heart, and cabinet full of medications. His fatty diet of western foods, his increasing forgetfulness. Carelessness. If no one else had noticed, they would soon, and this world was harsh. Heir or not, Shojun had to take his place before someone else did. He leaned over Jounouchi and opened his door.

"No, not him. He's invincible."