A/N: sorry for such a long delay and awful start! Hope you enjoy this new chapter!
Mokuba was barely able to control his excitement as the night of his sleepover dawned on him. He found it hard to contain himself the entire week, especially with his brother spending all his time on his laptop. Mokuba didn't know what his brother found in that small piece of silver and black hardware so amusing to him. The boy decided to browse around the computer, just to keep himself busy before the guests arrived.
"Hey! Maybe I can talk to Jason in the mean time! I think I remember his IM name," Mokuba reminded himself, hastily logging on his brother's screen name automatically. He was sad Jason couldn't join his sleepover, for he caught a bad case of the flu during the week. At least Mokuba could talk to his friend and try to cheer him up. He scrolled up and down his brother's buddy list. He sighed, nothing but boring business men and employees were found on that mile long list except for one he did not recognize.
"Who's this?" Mokuba tried to click for a bio or profile of the person before he heard his brother coming his way. He turned and caught sight of Kaiba entering the small home office. "Hey Seto, who's ArtCat?"
"What?" his brother growled and stepped over with a glare. "Give me that!" He snatched the wireless mouse from his little brother's hand just as the doorbell rang below them.
"I'll get it!" Mokuba yelled and sprinted down the hall before running down the stairs three at a time. He grinned at the guests at the door, "Come on in guys!"
"Hey Mokuba!" Yugi cheerfully greeted the boy, "Uh, are you sure you're brother's okay with the idea we're over here?"
"Not at all. But don't mind me, I'm on my way out." Kaiba smoothly put in as he passed them in the hall. He had his briefcase in hand, read to put together a brand new deck with some of the new cards he had acquired recently. He watched the group follow Mokuba deeper into the house and frowned. Kaiba opened the front door and was welcomed by a blast of frigid autumn air. He briskly walked out, ignoring his driver's request to take him to his destination. Quite frankly, Kaiba felt like walking.
The brunette teenager walked all the way into town ignoring the people around him. He was too agitated by the thought of his rivals staying in his own home. Mokuba knew how he felt about Yugi's little club. Kaiba sighed in disgust and rounded the corner where one of the town's bookshops lay. He peered into the window and saw only a handful of people browsing the shelves and sitting in the little café in the front. He decided it would be better than going anywhere else, judging by the fact he was too stressed to go to work, where more problems would be dumped upon him.
Kaiba found himself a small table in the far back and sat down glaring at the people who had been staring since he came inside. He opened his briefcase, blocking him from everyone's view and started to flip through his collection.
"Yes I understand sir…. Of course... N-no I'll get to it...You really don't have to…." Adeline nervously spoke to her uncle over the phone while trying to balance a small stack of books in her hand at the same time. "I know when it is…Yes but-… ok, ok. I'll take care of it…"
She sighed and closed the phone walking to an empty table to set her books and bag on. She looked down and saw she was missing one of the books she was going to get. Adeline figured she must have dropped it and turned around to backtrack her way around the shelves to find it.
Kaiba looked over at the other people around him. Many of the people were working on laptops, reading the newspaper, or watching the television, and thankfully none were staring anymore. He wondered how trashed his home would be once he returned. Or if any of those kids had taken one fateful step into his office. He growled at the thought of them rummaging through his personal documents and business papers. He noticed a lone stack of books and a familiar messenger bag lying neatly on a nearby table.
He realized why it was so familiar. The little Blue Eyes keychain was the one that had belonged to that lost girl a little while ago. Kaiba studied the bag carefully and noticed something else that he had not remembered, or seen before. There was a little patch sewn on the side of the front bearing a familiar nickname: ArtCat.
Kaiba wove through the labyrinth of bookshelves in a brisk walk. He thought back on the conversations he had over the past week or so with the person whose screen name happened to be ArtCat. He had to find out if this was the same person, before his own curiosity ate away at him. He roughly turned a corner just as a couple people came into his view.
Adeline felt herself fall in slow motion, tripping over someone's sneaker, she hadn't seen the boy move his leg as she hurried by. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her muscles tense to take on the shock of her fall. But she didn't hit the ground. Instead, her cheek brushed against a cool, soft fabric as two hands firmly caught her.
"Well Wheeler, you certainly have a way of sweeping ladies off their feet," came a voice above Adeline's head. She dared not open her eyes for a few moments.
"Hey!" came a higher boy's voice, agitated at the apparent insult. "No one invited you."
"I don't need an invitation to come here," the deeper voice said again, "Although, it's hard to tell why you're here, mutt, I didn't even know you could read."
"Kaiba he didn't mean to!" cried another voice. "We only came because we needed to buy the next book in the ghost story series we're reading with Mokuba."
Kaiba…The name finally came to mind. She had heard it before and not realized who the person really was. She was standing right in front of the very person whom her uncle wished for her to meet to deliver his message. His dangerous message. Though she didn't know the whole story, the facts she did know were not to her liking. She opened her eyes and blinked before realizing she was staring at the white fabric of a coat. She timidly raised her gaze high enough to look up at hard-faced teenager with sharp blue eyes and messy brunette hair. She felt herself blush out of her embarrassing act but didn't realize how much she was staring at him.
"Go away, mutt, before I have to call the dog catcher to remove you from my sight." The brunette sternly said to a blonde boy standing a couple feet away half dressed in his pajamas like the shorter boy next to him.
"Why you-" the boy gritted his teeth and glared back before a spiky-haired kid pulled on his sleeve and urged him to leave with him. The brunette watched them leave and grunted with satisfaction. He then threw his gaze down to Adeline, who was immediately snapped out of her stupor.
"M-merci," was all she managed to get out. She felt him push her away a little but kept his hands locked on her shoulders as he looked her in the eye and said something in English she was able to understand.
"Are you ArtCat? From the internet?" he asked with the same cold tone.
"My nickname is ArtCat, yes." She told him in English that melted with her accent. "Why?"
"You should be more careful," he said as he regained his posture and walked back to his table in silence. He packed up his cards back into their place in his briefcase and went out. He had to go home and think. He'd even settle for a place in the backyard, he'd even kick everyone else out of the house if he had to.
Kaiba did end up gaining a frosty seat out in the gardens behind his house. The bench was far from cozy or comfortable, but he could get a clear view of the moon and stars, as well as their reflections in the tiny pond below him. Kaiba recalled what the girl had looked like, revising his memory from the first time he had seen her. Her eyes were not gray, but a very pale blue that looked gray from the side. She had straight red hair no different from the first encounter. But earlier he got a glimpse of a galaxy of freckles that ran across her cheeks. It bugged him how he kept thinking on this "ArtCat" person he had come to meet. He felt as though he should really be concentrating on another form of work or how to clean up the mess the idiot guests inside were making. But every time he tried to do something else, more questions would flood his mind. So many he had no idea what to do except think and try to reorganize his thoughts.
Kaiba looked down and studied the Blue Eyes card he held in his hand carefully and silently asked it his own questions the little card would answer in his mind. It was the perfect way to keep busy in the cold night as Mokuba's party raged on inside with multiple pillow wars and sugar highs.