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He stands outside the door of the old coffee shop on the side of the empty road, on the morning of the best and worst day in his life. The pink dawn light casts the surroundings in a soft glow, yet he cannot help contemplate the storm that may come.
The door chimes open behind him and a flutter of blue fabric dances briefly in his periphery, as Joey struggles to put himself back into his jacket. He looks dishevelled, like he has been dragged through a hedge backwards and then some.
But settled beneath the all-nighter eyes and caffeine-induced grin is a degree of warmth that he had, until this point, yet to see in the other man in all their nine years of acquaintance, if such a word were even appropriate anymore.
Doubt struggles with all its might to grasp onto the fraying edges of his conscious mind. He had been sure, the night previous, that this had been the right thing to do. He and Joey no longer possess the antagonistic roles of snarling teenagers they so dutifully filled as schoolboys years ago. They are, if he were being modest, on rather more friendly terms. Yet this little snippet of insight does very little to appease the disturbance in his head. It must be showing on his face, because Joey has suddenly stepped into his vision, lines of exasperation creasing his forehead.
“Y’know, if I knew you were goin’ to be this antsy about it afterwards, I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place,” Joey sighs.
“I’m not antsy,” Seto says, “It was just a big decision for me. You should respect that I may be feeling a bit fragile about it right now.”
“All right, okay, you got it.”
Seto can no more summon a response than he can simply watch his future investment walk away from him, down the street, towards the centre of town. He grips his briefcase and casts long strides to catch up with the man, shaking off the chill in the air that threatens to settle between the layers of his coat. He looks at Joey from his peripheral again, and gives into the exasperation he feels bubbling beneath his skin.
“Really, did you not deign to even look in the mirror this morning? You look like a disgrace.”
Joey gives him the side-eye, then a friendly wink: “This face doesn’t need a mirror to know it looks-”
“Awful,” Seto intercepts. “And I was talking about your hair, not your face, you vain man.” He brings a hand up to Joey’s ragged head of hair, briefly attempting to right the wrong before giving up. The hair is as stubborn as the head it grows on, and there is no chance that Seto is putting down his briefcase to use both hands to solve the issue.
“Well,” Joey starts, grinning at the pavement, “whose fault is it that I was kept up all night?”
“Entirely your own. Correct me if I’m wrong – which I’m not, so don’t bother – but you made the proposition in the first place.”
“Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t think it was gonna take all night to get everything straight.”
“Obviously. I told you I knew better than you, and I said it would take a while, yet you still insisted on doing everything in one night.”
“Come on Seto,” Joey pauses briefly to look both ways before crossing the road. Seto finds it bemusing – there has been, and will be, no one driving through this part of down for a good couple of hours. “Don’t play that card. You know I have a lot ‘a experience too. Mine’s just of the more hands on kind.”
“Hn.” It is the closest Seto will give to acknowledgement. He has yet to shake the persistent feeling in his gut though, that something might possibly go awry. He no longer feels as convinced in the pure rightness of his actions as he did about twelve hours ago, despite all of the faith he has in Joey. And Joey, for all his klutz he pays close attention to those he cares for, and he has not failed to notice. He pauses mid-stride, so that Seto has no choice but to turn back and face him.
“Look, Seto, trust me. It’s going to be okay.”
He struggles to hold back the derisive snort. “Really. You go and personally put your company’s reputation on the line for a duelist who sells himself on luck, and then come and tell me how you feel.”
Seto begins to cringe before the last words have passed his lips, seeing the frown settle over Joey’s eyes. Fortunately, however, Joey has come to learn that Seto’s bark – at least for those as lucky as him – is far worse than his bite. Seto glances down at their feet, the shadows reaching off towards the line of shops nestled along the roadside, before looking back up at Joey.
“…Sorry.”
“Yep.”
“I’m… I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Yep.”
“I…” Seto pauses, looks at Joey, and feels the same discomfort he always feels when he is forced to acknowledge he has done something hurtful. Unsurprisingly, it is usually Joey who forces Seto to see that he has done something hurtful, and more still, it was Joey who taught him how to genuinely apologise in the first place. Not that those lessons are coming back to him at this very moment. Seto shifts a little in place, and clears his throat.
After a few moments, Joey shrugs, a ‘what more can I do’ lift of the shoulders, before walking on past Seto, leaving him to trail once more. It’s a few minutes before he breaches the quiet that has settled over them.
“Look, Seto, I appreciate that you’re taking a risk with me.” Seto glances up from tracking the cracks in the pavement to look at the duelist. Joey looks, for want of a better word, nervous. It is peculiar, he thinks, how he has been slowly building his repertoire of Joey’s expressions. This is a new one – his modest yet enthusiastic confidence revealed no weaknesses the day previously, when Joey had suggested, perhaps somewhat absurdly, that Seto could perhaps benefit from sponsoring the duelist.
The duelist who had, astoundingly, managed to flunk his rankings for the past year and a half.
The dawn chorus is beginning. Seto can hear it, little pips and trills of sounds bursting from the trees and houses around them. The dawn is taking on a blue hint, the sky coming into play.
“I haven’t been on top form this past year – but you saw my last duel. I’m better now, it’s all good.”
Prior to Joey’s nosedive, Seto and he had overcome their differences. Joey thinks they both grew up a little; Seto blames the decrease in antagonistic behaviour towards each other on boredom. There was no point anymore: school was finished, people were going their separate ways. Half of the group had left Domino City, leaving Seto and Joey to bump into each other again and again in the local duelling circuits.
“I know we’re good now, but y’know, I was a bit worried,” Joey shrugged again, hands fisted in the pockets of worn jeans, “Okay, I was more than worried. That y’wouldn’t say yes, that I’d be working in the coffee shop under my apartment for the rest of my life, tryin’ ta pay tournament fees that I jus’ can’t afford.”
And was it not strange to think, that over one of the lowest points of Joey’s life, Seto had forged out of him a close friend. A good friend. Something more than an acquaintance.
Perhaps forged was the wrong word. It felt natural, an organic process: a natural occurrence that swept them both up and tossed them out here.
On this road side, in the pink light of the rising sun, amongst the dawn chorus, together.
“I’m really greatful, Seto. An’ don’t go taking that lightly. This opportunity means the world to me.”
Seto smiles.
“Don’t be too grateful. I would have come along with the offer at some point or another anyway.”
Because that is what friends do for each other, if they can, he thinks. That is what they have been trying to teach him, all these years. And if things go awry, if the storm comes and sweeps them away, then Seto will stand by Joey.
Seeing the look on Joey’s face, the warmth in his smile reaching up towards his eyes like the sun towards the middle of the sky, cements it; the thought that he will do anything for this man next to him.
Yes, Seto thinks. This is, potentially, the best day of his life.