Chapter 5

"I won't be here next week." BB told them. "Or the week after."

"What's up?" Ken asked.

"Hatman-sama is taking me away. It's a thing for his office."

"Oh." Ken nodded as if he understood; in truth, Ken had also figured out that BB was Hatman. "Well, can't be helped. I'll do a couple with Itchy and Scratchy."

As BB was leaving for the night, he stopped and kissed Jou deeply. "May I come over to see you tomorrow night?"

"If I said no, would it stop you?"

"Probably not."

"Then I kinda gotta say yes, don't I?"

"Do you miss me?" Seto asked Jou while they were lying in afterglow, in Jou's bed. "When I go halfway around the globe to make more money than God, do you miss having me to relieve you?"

"I miss you when I don't see you. In doesn't matter why you're gone."

"Katsuya." Seto kissed him. "My life has been a series of obligations. Even now, very little I do is out of my own personal desire to do something. Do you know why I am here?"

"Not a fucking clue." Jou smirked. "I been trying to figure that out for months."

"Because I love you. I have never loved anyone. Anything. My brother, perhaps, if that's truly love and not familial obligation. But you I love. I treasure. I worship. The time I've spent with you has been the happiest time of my life."

"Seto -"

Kaiba kissed him. "I adore it when you call me that. I need you to listen for a moment longer. When I return from this director's meeting, I have an appointment with the Emperor. I suspect that word has gotten to him regarding Rie. I know what I will petition him to do, but his options range from taking no action to having me commit seppuku."

"What?"

"Be calm. It is unlikely that he will ask me to spill my own blood in the Imperial Palace. But there is some possibility that I could be imprisoned."

"WHAT!"

"In the event that happens, I would be unable to contact you. So I wanted to tell you now how much I cherish you; how much these past few months have meant to me. If I go to my death, at least I will go with you in my heart."

"It's been all anyone's talked about for three days!" Otogi snickered. "You'd think he was the anti-christ!"

"Well, I mean, come on!" Yugi was a bit more sympathic. "I would never have dreamed that Kaiba would cheat on his wife!"

It was all over the media - how Kaiba was the father of his wife's cousin's unborn child. No one in Kaiba Manor was available for comment, but the prevailing belief was that no sane woman would leave a man who was that good looking and had that much money. Still, Kaiba was being vilified nonetheless.

"What about you, Jou?" Honda asked. "The Post said he was rutting like a 'dog in heat'. You gotta be enjoying that one."

"I'm just tired of hearing about it." Jou deferred. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Of course!" Yugi replied airily. "How's BB?" There were several frustrated sighs around the table. "Sorry, Jou." Yugi apologized. "But it's obvious that he hasn't been around for a while and - although no one wants to say anything - we are all worried about you."

"Yug, if he wanted to discuss it, he'd have said something." Honda threw a french fry at the man. "You said you'd be cool."

"I lied." Yugi shrugged.

"It's cool." Jou smiled sadly. "BB had to go home, he didn't know when he'd be back, he can't call from where he is."

"Oh, I hate going out to the provinces!" Otogi exclaimed. "It's like going back to the stone age."

"I'm ok." Jou said. "I know he loves me, he knows I love him. Besides, Laiko's got enough footage to do a whole other tape without us." He chuckled.

"I'd been meaning to ask you how those were doing." Yami commented. "Do you have a fan club we can join yet?"

Jou felt a bit of heat in his cheeks. "They've been ok. We can't keep them in stock at the store; but we expected that. Ichiro's collecting phone numbers these days! But Hatman knew a distributor with access to one of the cable channels so we got some airplay and now they sell pretty well online too."

"See, 'Togi?" Honda crowed. "I told you we shoulda watched 'Katsuya at School'!"

Jou nearly choked; he didn't realize that his original tapes were part of the release. "No you shouldn't!" He felt his face heat up considerably. "Seriously, don't."

"It's kind of obsessive." Yugi observed. "It is pretty clearly you and Kaiba. But it's damn hot. What did BB think when he saw it?" This time it was Jou who did the spit-take. "What? I saw the video. I like sex. Why do you guys act like I'm some kind of innocent? I'm just as perverted as the rest of you!"

Yami laughed. "True, but I'll wager none of them shout 'oh my goodness' at the height of crisis."

"YAAMII!" But it was too late and the table was already engulfed with laugher.

Kaiba and a very pregnant Yoko appeared together at KaibaLand's annual Children's Day festival. A thousand photos of them showed a very affectionate couple enjoying themselves.

"We could do a couple of pregos." Ken said when he caught Jou staring at a shot of Kaiba kissing Yoko's stomach. "I have a friend who's knocked up and could use the money."

"Yeah." Jou sighed. "If she wants to."

The door opened and Jou's eyes snapped to it before returning to the newspaper. It wasn't BB. It wasn't Hatman. It hadn't been for months.

It was over. Jou knew that. He'd known that it couldn't last forever. But he was having a hard time letting go. It seemed like the more time passed, the more he missed Seto.

BB. Jou reminded himself. The more he missed BottomBoy and the unrelenting sex. They never had a relationship. They weren't a couple. They were sex friends. Sex fiends. Kaiba was insatiable. And like his screen name implied, he loved being Jou's bottom. Not that he wouldn't seme occasionally, but most of the time, he'd even beg for Jou to top.

Fuck me, Katsuya. Take me hard. Mark me like you own me. Deeper, baby, you feel so good.

It was the sex he missed, Jou tried to convince himself, not love. The love was an illusion.

"Uh, Boss?" Ken pulled Jou out of his sulk. "Isn't that your phone?"

"Oh. Right." He answered it. "Jounouchi."

"Miss me?" The words were light but the tone was positively smug.

"Kai- uh ... hey, uh, dude." Jou felt a sudden panic - was this BB or Seto? Could he talk? Was he coming in? "Ken, take over." Jou raced for the office. "Where are you? When can I see you?" Mentally Jou slapped himself. Cool, real cool.

"Berlin." Kaiba chuckled. "You can see me now if you can get to the hotel."

"Why are you calling me from Berlin?"

"Because it's the first time I've been able to call you from anywhere. Yoko isn't with me this trip."

"I see you two patched things up. You gonna try this marriage thing for real now?"

"Why on Earth would we do that?"

"You two been real cute in front of the cameras lately."

Kaiba's laughter was as smug as his voice. "You're jealous! How utterably delightful!"

"I am not jealous." Jou lied.

"You are!" Kaiba's voice slipped into BB's tones. "Now I feel special."

"Asshole."

"For you, always." He blew a kiss into the phone. "Did I tell you when the Emperor insisted that Yoko and I wed?" He didn't wait for a response. "When we were twelve. We had a Shinto service at the Palace when we were twelve. Marrying Yoko is like marrying my sister. For me, this is about breeding. And believe me, if I could breed with you, I would have already."

Hatman came back to the store. He followed his standard routine as if he hadn't missed a day.

Jou watched him silently take his videos and go down to the booths as if in a dream. Was it his imagination? Was it someone who just looked like 'Hatman'? Was it -?

"Uh, Boss?" Ichiro spoke first. "Shouldn't you go ask him about that new deal?"

The new deal with a distributor who had seen one of the store's tapes and wanted to carry them nationwide.

"Yeah." Jou nodded slowly. A business deal. He could go discuss an impersonal, ordinary business deal. Kaiba could turn off his feelings; Jou could manage to do the same.

But as soon as Jou opened the door to room nine, Kaiba crushed him against the wall with an impassioned kiss.

"What took you so long?" He panted. "I've been dying without you!"

Jou pushed him away. "We got a new distribution offer." Keep it just business.

"Lovely! More people will get to see you fuck me!" He moaned. "Why aren't you fucking me now?"

"Cut it out, Kaiba." It didn't seem possible, but the man had actually gotten sexier while he was gone.

"Cut it out! Have you gone mad?" Kaiba began removing Jou's belt and opening his pants. "I signed a million-dollar contract I know is worthless simply to end the negation a day early. I couldn't stand it any longer! I hate Germany!" He dropped to his knees and began kissing Jou's exposed cock. "Nothing but blond men reminding me of you." He sighed and sucked Jou into his mouth.

Jou's resolve melted. "You're drivin' me crazy, Seto!" He ran his fingers through the long black wig. "I don't know what to do any more."

Seto stopped sucking and said something in German.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Fuck my ass until it bleeds. You said you didn't know what to do. I thought perhaps another language would make it clearer. Alternatively, I could draw you a map."

Jou didn't need a map or further instructions in any language.

Hatman began coming in every day again. BB came in to shoot every three days.

"Hey boss, level with me." Ken asked one morning. "You know who BB and Hatman really are, right?"

"I think I know." Jou said cautiously. "Why?"

"Well, see Hatman keeps saying that he wants footage with more mess, but BB doesn't want to shoot with anyone but you. So if you could get to him during the day, maybe one of you could pre-load the other?" Ken looked a bit sheepish, like he didn't know how Jou would take the suggestion. "He's due in tonight."

Jou considered the idea. On the nights he came in as both Hatman and BB, he usually didn't have time for much on the first visit. Like he was running between events. Or...

Or maybe he could call him. He did have a phone number - Seto had called him and Jou'd saved the number.