Summary:  Valentine's Day.  Love is in the air... and what kind of big brother would Joey be if he didn't keep an eye on his sweet, innocent sister?  Of course, he'll need help.  Seto/Joey... eventually.  Follow-up to "To Seto, From Joey".  Post Dungeon Dice Monsters AU in which Serenity recovered her eyesight earlier than expected.

Author's notes:  Yes, it's a sequel to... a story not very many people wanted a sequel to.  Oh well.  You don't have to read "To Seto, From Joey", but it might help.

Warnings:  Occasional language.  Occasional shounen-ai. 

Disclaimers:  I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.  Takuma Fudou is a name I borrowed from "GetBackers" because I couldn't think of one myself.  And remember, kids, don't use dice as projectile weapons.  Poor Joey was not harmed in the making of this fic.

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Operation: Valentine

Chapter One:  Mind Your Own Business

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So… Valentine's Day.

Don't get me wrong, okay? Anything that makes school any less boring is cool with me.  I mean, dragging my butt outta bed every morning just to plop down at a desk and listen to some boring teacher go on and on about some stupid thing like math while Duke Devlin bounces dice off my skull gets kinda old after awhile.  Ping, ping, ping, and then I'm the one that gets in trouble for makin' a scene because the girls always side with Dice-boy.

Duke, Duke, he's our man! He makes me puke like no one can!

Yeah, yeah, I still haven't gotten over that dog thing.  Shut up.

Another die bounces off the back of my head.  I turn around.  "Stop it already!" I hiss.  Duke just pulls the 'innocent student' act.

"Mr. Wheeler," growls the teacher, "please stop disrupting the class."

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."  I pick up my pencil and pretend to take notes until the teacher stops looking at me.  I turn around to give Duke a dirty look, moving just fast enough to catch a die in the forehead.  Tristan thwaps Duke in the arm before he can launch another one.  I growl under my breath and go back to pretending to take notes.  Yuugi gives me a sympathetic look.

It's just not fair, ya know, how all the single girls in the whole school drool all over that dice guy.  I mean, what's a guy supposed to do?  I know all's fair in love and war, and if you've got it, flaunt it.  And boy does he flaunt it.

What that means, of course, is that I can't get a valentine for Valentine's Day on Saturday.  One day left to go, but who wants scruffy everyday Joey Wheeler when there's a groupie magnet two desks down?  Sure, I could look around outside the school.  I'd get with Mai, but she just disappears to wherever the hot older chicks go whenever she's done dueling.  Too bad, 'cause I really think we've got a thing going.

I know I'm making a big thing outta nothing.  It's just a stupid day, after all.  You don't need a valentine, not even Mai Valentine, to make it through Valentine's Day.  You can spend it alone if that's what you want.  It's just a day.  It's not like I needed anyone last year, or the year before that.  Or the one before that.

But that's not what's wrecking the day o' love for me. Oh no.

The problem is... Duke Devlin's tryin' to get with my little sister.

And so is Tristan.

They're fighting over her like she's some kinda trophy!  Look, I know little Serenity's all grown up and stuff, but jeez, I can't think of her like that!  I'd beat some sense into those turkeys, but the last time I did that, sis was so not happy with me.  "Please, Joey, it's okay, I can take care of myself, really!" she said.  Fine.  I guess I can be a teensy tiny bit overprotective, so I promised to back off.

My sister doesn't need me to take care of her.

It hurts.

The bell rings and I head for the door.

"Joey, is everything okay?"  Yuugi looks at me, all worried.  "You look a little down."

I grin at him.  "Couldn't be better!"  I throw an arm over his shoulder.  "So," I stage-whisper, "got a hot date lined up for tonight?"

He blushes.  "Joey!"

I'm about to follow up when I get whapped in the back of the head with a textbook.  "OW!"

Tea glares at me while I rub my poor head.  "That," she says, "is none of your business, you pervert!"  She grabs Yuugi and drags him away.  Definitely an item.  The guy's gonna have the best Valentine's Day ever.

We all head for our next class.  The teacher of this one is some kind of wrinkly, freaky, no-humour old guy.  He's got control issues.  It's like he thinks that if he loosens up for even a second the whole class will rebel and chuck him out the window or something.  Scary man.  Detentions at the drop of a hat, and I should know.

We all settle down at our desks and get ready to do the learning thing. The whole gang's in this class: Yuugi and Tea in the desks beside me, Duke and Tristan behind me, Bakura near the front, and Kaiba way, way in the back.  The teacher, Mr. "The Finger" Fudou isn't here yet.  There's still some conversations going on and I accidentally on purpose listen in on Duke and Tristan's.

"Well, I'm going on a date with her!"  Duke.

"Huh..?  But she said she'd go out with me!"  Tristan.

Pause.

"...Really?  No kidding?"

What can I say, I get bored real easy.  I turn around and watch the show.

"No kidding!  Look, I even wrote it down."  Tristan fishes around in his jacket and pulls out a piece of paper.  "Hot date, Valentine's Day, 5PM.  Read 'em and weep."

Duke frowns.  "Eh, I guess Serenity forgot she already promised one of us."

What an airhead...  waitaminute, Serenity?!

"I guess so... or maybe..."

My sister?!  Are they talkin' about my sister?!

"...You don't think..?"

"Both of us-"

"-AT THE SAME TIME?!!"

I so did not want to hear that.  Both at the same time my ass!  Fuck backing off!  I leap over the desks and grab'em both by the front of their shirts.  "WHAT THE HELL KINDA GIRL DO YOU THINK SERENITY IS, HUH?!" 

And that's when the teacher decides to walk in.

I freeze, a moron in each hand.  The class is dead silent.

The bell rings.

Mr. Fudou looms over me, veins popping out all over his face, and points, no, jabs at me with his Finger.  "DETENTION!" he hollers to the whole world.

Aww, man, I just had one yesterday!  "But-"

The Finger doesn't let up.  "DETENTION!"

This has got to be a record.  The class hasn't been going ten seconds and I've already got detention.  He hates me, I swear.

Some guy way in the back snorts at the stupidity of it all.  The sound almost echoes in the too-quiet classroom.

And The Finger swings over to Seto Kaiba.  "YOU TOO!"

Kaiba's eyes widen, then narrow.  "Listen, Fudou, I am-"

"I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE!" he shrieks.  After a few deep breaths, Mr. Fudou calms down a little.  "You both have a detention.  I'll decide on the rest of your punishment after class," he bites out.

Ha, take that, Kaiba!  I smirk at the stuck-up, rich snob.

He glares back at me with a look that says, I will make you suffer, slowly and painfully, Joseph Wheeler, and I will enjoy it.

And my smirk drops off as I realize I'm gonna be valentine-less, in detention, with a pissed Kaiba, while my little sis does threesomes, the day before Valentine's Day.  And if this detention's gonna be like any of my other ones with The Finger...

I spend the rest of the class quietly thumping my desk with my forehead.  Who knows, maybe if I give myself a concussion I can leave early.

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TBC...