Jounouchi:

This was both the end and the beginning.

It was the end because tonight was the last time he would just lie there and let himself be used as a plaything by someone who was supposed to watch his back.  It was the beginning because in the morning he would be far from this side of town, safe inside the confines of Domino High School.

Still, that did not mean that he would be accepted.  Despite his high marks on the entrance exam, he knew he would have to struggle to pay for his education, struggle to keep his grades from being too high or too low.  It would not pay to be noticed; hell, it had cost him dearly when Hirutani "noticed" him.

He pulled himself to his feet, checking to make sure that his clothing wasn't too torn or bloodied.  His father would notice if it was and then would either fuss over him (if the old man was sober) or yell at him about dripping blood on the carpet (if he? already hit the bottle for the night).  Finding nothing conspicuous, he limped out of the ?lub where the gang spent most of their down time and turned towards home.

But before he did, Jounouchi Katsuya turned his gaze towards the sky.  He? always found some small solace in the stars; sometimes he wished he was a star, far away from the pain and the hell that he lived in daily.  And in this end of town, the streetlights weren't as plentiful and the twinkling light of the stars could be seen almost as clearly as outside the city limits.

"Wish I may, wish I might," the teen murmured to himself as he caught sight of a shooting star.  Mentally he made the same wish he had every night for almost two years: Let me find a friend who doesn't care what's happened before now.  Let me find someone to love me for me and not for my worth... because I'm not worth much of anything now.

Heaving a sigh far too weary for a boy of fifteen-going-on-sixteen, the blond began his long walk home.

23 March 2005

And... Jounouchi's prologue...  It's got a little more length to it, but we couldn't do any more on either without giving away major plot points for the rest of the story.