Title: Our Hero
Word Count: 735
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for the YGO Rare Pair request meme, prompt “Babbleshipping (Jounouchi x Kisara); "Back alley"”
Jounouchi Katsuya just can't leave a girl in trouble alone, but when he gets a load of who he's rescued he begins to have second thoughts.
"You're Kaiba's chick, aren't you?" he asks bluntly, cracking his knuckles as all around him thugs moan and grimace on the ground; she nods, her eyes wide and uncomprehending - but she's learned the name "Kaiba", that's good enough for her.
"Kaiba," she repeats simply, stepping forward; Jounouchi takes her hand and leads her away, groaning inwardly. Great. Her, of all the girls in the city. Kaiba's random girlfriend who'd popped up in Egypt outta nowhere - time paradox or whatever...
...goddamnit, just because he has a crapton of money and some kinda ancient Egyptian magical past, Kaiba gets all the good stuff....
Jounouchi sighs; other guys' girls are off-limits, especially to a true duelist, and Seto Kaiba's girl even more so because that might get Jounouchi killed. (Though - heh - the look on Kaiba's face beforehand might be worth it...oh, dammit, no.) He'll just take her back to KaibaCorp, get yelled at and probably blamed for leading her away in the first place, stroll out with a little reward money if he's really lucky and his head on the right way if he's mildly so, end of story. Not exactly how he'd intended to spend his evening, but well. There'd been four of them ganging up on one, lost, foreign girl. Nobody worth their salt would have stood for that.
The girl follows pretty obediently, clinging to his hand and looking up at him with wide eyes that for just a second - no, half a second, really, barely any time at all - remind him of Shizuka. Something about being kinda lost, kinda unsure of herself, but totally trusting that now he was there, everything was gonna be okay....
...aw, hell. Jounouchi scratches the back of his head awkwardly. "You hurt any?" he asks, continuing to lead her along the road, wondering if Kaiba would pay if he called a taxi. It's a long way back to KaibaCorp, and he hasn't got bus fare for two.
She blinks, looks down, maybe trying to remember what the words mean, and Jounouchi kicks himself for not remembering the language barrier. If Kaiba's gonna let her wander around the city at night, then he better make teaching her Japanese a priority! Jeez, what kinda boyfriend is he, anyway? A self-centered jerk boyfriend just like he's a self-centered jerk duelist. That just figures. And it isn't fair to the girl, who far as Jounouchi can tell is crazy about him.
Crazy about Kaiba...but now looking kind of gratefully at him, too.
Laughing nervously, Jounouchi tries miming with his free hand instead, shooting her a thumbs-up. "You o-kay?" he asks slowly, his mouth stretching into a big grin; she blinks, nods, smiles back, and dammit she has a nice smile; Jounouchi clutches her hand a little tighter and realizes that in spite of his best intentions he's going straight to hell. And that's just the torture before Seto Kaiba has him killed. One look at this and he'll be opening up Death-T all over again....
"Ahhh, I don't know why I bother," Jounouchi groans aloud, walking a little faster; the girl stumbles along and he instantly feels bad, slows his pace. "Who's the dog here, huh? Not the guy who leaves his girl in the lurch like that...."
"Kaiba," the girl responds, and for a moment Jounouchi thinks he's been understood; but then she's looking backwards, turning around, rushing the other direction so that now she's dragging Jounouchi behind her, waving at a car - a long, low, sleek black car - cruising the streets. "Kaiba!"
Well, thinks Jounouchi as he runs, as the car slows to a halt and the mirrored window rolls down, maybe she just knows the car. Hey, maybe it's Mokuba! He can probably get the kid to give him a ride home - pull up in a limousine, won't that give his old man a shock....
"Kisara!" comes a voice from within the limo, panicked, tight: then, calmer, yet even tighter, "Hm. You."
Aw, shit, thinks Jounouchi, not without an additional twinge as the girl rushes to get into the car, though the grateful look she gives him over her shoulder sets his heart pounding anew. This sure is the price for being a nice guy.