Coel: ah a new story
Heva: yeah. I've worked really hard on this one and it's almost completely finished just needs the last two chapters written and a few more checks before I can upload it all. However I'm pretty certain that I don't need to change anything about this first chapter.
Coel: anything else you need to say before we get on with the story?
Heva: a thank you to melodyz07 because she has been so amazing helping me with this story. It wouldn't have been uploaded without her help so anyone who really enjoys this story say thanks to her as well, she really deserves it for putting up with my disorganisation and inability to stick to my own deadlines.
Coel: thank you melodyz07 for keeping heva busy with this story. It means she has had less time to get on my nerves.
Heva: You're so caring, coel. Do you want to do the disclaimer and warnings?
Coel: heva doesn't own yugioh or its characters, she does however own the OCs that show up. There are no pairings with OCs and the yugioh characters, only friendships.
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Wednesday – five days before work experience
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"Joey do you seriously have no offers?" Tristan asked his friend who was looking seriously fed up.
"None, all the places I asked said no," Joey complained, putting his head on his desk and hitting the surface with his fists. This habit seemed to have become common place when things went wrong for him.
"You know, there's always the chance Kaiba might let you spend the week at his company," Yuugi suggested quietly. He looked a bit scared at suggesting it and rightfully so as Joey looked ready to kill at the mere suggestion of him spending any sort of extra time with Kaiba. "All I'm saying, Joey, is that I'm sure Kaiba could get someone in his office to look after you for a week, you'd probably not even see him during the entire time."
"He's right, you might as well try," Tea pointed out, quick to agree with Yuugi, even after Yami had left she still seemed to be intent on treating Yuugi as if he was the most important person in the world, much like the pharaoh had.
"Fine."
--
Seto was sat on his own, reading, when he heard the approaching footsteps. He'd heard most of the conversation due to the mutt's loud voice. It was almost impossible not to hear him and Seto was sure that everyone now knew that the pup had no work experience placement for next week. He'd left it a bit late to start applying to places and everywhere either already had a student or was unable to offer him a place. Seto was well aware that it was a distinct possibility someone in their school would end up asking him if he could possibly let them work at his office. He'd almost predicted it would be the mutt after hearing a conversation last week between Joey and Tristan, both had loud voices which were barely miss-able if you were sat in the same room as them, with your music turned up or not.
As he heard Joey stop in front of his desk Seto paused his music and made a show of putting his book down on the desk and pull out the headphones to show he was listening.
"Listen moneybags, I don't want to do this but I've not got much choice. Can I do my work experience at your company? You can arrange me to be with a department and never see me whilst I'm there, so it'll be like I'm not even there to you…" Joey paused unsure how to proceed with convincing Seto to arrange it.
"Fine," Seto replied, before putting his headphones back in and picking up his book again.
"All I was asking for was … wait a moment did you just say yes?"
"No, I said fine but it amounts to the same thing. If you want a placement at my office for a week I'm sure I could arrange something for you." Seto switched his music back on to show that he wasn't going to talk to Joey any more, he could still hear him if he decided to talk, but it had proven to be an effective conversation finisher in the past. It worked this time as well as Joey walked back to his group of friends, and left Seto to continue reading.
--
The day passed slowly for Joey. He had maths first with Yuugi and Duke which was fun, most of the time. When he had no reason to dread the next week it was good, but today he was preoccupied with the possibility of an entire week living a nightmare.
"Joey, are you still there?" Yuugi was asking as he waved his hand in front of Joey's face. Joey jumped as he felt someone hit him on the back of the head.
"What was that for?" he growled as he turned to find Duke standing behind him.
"You didn't seem to be responding to anything else and I want to go to break." Duke shrugged as he picked up his bag and moved towards the door. Joey glanced around the room to see that everyone else had already left, including the teacher.
"Are you that worried about this work experience with Kaiba?" Yuugi asked as Joey put his books into his bag. It was just like Yuugi to know what was wrong without being told, but Joey guessed it wasn't hard to work out what was wrong with him.
"I guess so," Joey told him as he stood up to leave for break. He stretched to relieve the tension in his muscles from sitting down for too long, two hours of maths was just excessive punishment.
The two walked towards the courtyard where Ryou, Tea, Tristan and Duke would already be. Joey found his mind wandering back to next week's torture but tried to repel it. He didn't need any of those kind of images right now, especially when he was about to meet with his friends. Admitting that he found Kaiba attractive was not on his list of embarrassing secrets to reveal right now, getting caught with a hard on due to imagining said jerk and a rather different kind of torture to what next week would actually be like was even worse. The thought involving Kaiba, his desk and some form of restraint for the blue eyed CEO was going to be thought about in more detail later, but right now was not appropriate.
They found the group sat at one of the picnic tables, watching a group of boys throw what was originally a rugby ball but had been deflated and ripped several times. Tea was watching them with rather a lot of interest while the others chatted about their lessons that morning and what they had planned for next week. Ryou was actually talking quite animatedly about how he had got a placement at a vets in town and had already been given a schedule of what he would be doing whilst there. The small albino had lost all signs of nervousness as he'd been talking and was appearing to have scared Duke with his new attitude. Duke was hiding behind Tristan as the talk about how great being a vet was continued. Yuugi hurried over to sit down as Joey followed at a slower pace. There was only ten minutes of break left so Joey choked down his crisps, and the remains of Yuugi's sandwiches, and avoided Tea's healthy yoghurt that was offered. It had become well established that Joey would eat what his friends didn't want from their lunch, unless it was healthy.
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The next lesson was physics, which Joey had with Kaiba. It was in physics that he'd first started really looking at Kaiba. He'd noticed the feminine appearance he had; the thin waist and hips, the long legs and rather delicate hands, the soft looking cheeks and his eyes. Those eyes that you could get lost in if only given the chance, that could be as cold as ice one minute and alive with fire the next, that were such a piercing blue colour. Joey had come to the conclusion that Kaiba knew his eyes held power and used them to gain it, his glare was the main source of this idea and Joey had been on the receiving end of it many times.
"Do you think that you would mind joining us, Joey?" the teacher was asking him as he drifted into his thoughts of feeling that soft skin against his own.
"Sorry," he responded, startled out of his thoughts and realising that the rest of the class was watching him. He was quite thankful that physics was unpopular this year and only seven other people were present to see him blush and try to cover his rather obvious problem. The annoying thing was that with only seven other people there the entire class would start asking him questions as soon as the teacher gave them the chance.
"Now that Joey has returned to the lesson I want you all to start the worksheets I've handed out while I go and photocopy some things." The teacher didn't wait for any kind of response and walked out leaving the class alone in the lab. Predictably the two girls, the only two in the whole year taking physics, started chatting about something or other. Well one started talking about what their new puppy had been up to recently while the other calmly listened as they started filling in the worksheet. Kaiba was filling in the worksheet quietly, before pulling his reading book out from under the desk and continuing to read. One of the other boys had turned around to tell the girl to shut up before entering a verbal battle with her. The other three boys were helping the argument on both sides, usually Joey would have joined in but he was watching Kaiba again. The stool he was sat on allowed Joey to see him without the back of a chair blocking the view, and he wasn't allowed to wear his jacket in the lab so that was out of the way too.
"So who were you day dreaming about Joey?" the loud girl was asking as she grinned at him. He couldn't help the slight blush that stained his cheeks as the entire class, except Kaiba, stared at him whilst waiting for the answer.
"Just a rather great girl that I saw recently," he told them. Hopefully they'd assume he was talking about Mai as most of the school had concluded that him and Mai were meant to be. It had even prevented a couple of relationships in the past. The looks on most of the group's faces, including the nods between the guys, showed they'd taken the bait.
"You and Mai would make such a cute couple," the girl was saying with a sigh, "you're just so perfect together." Her silent friend just smiled slightly at the girl next to her as the loud mouth leaned forward on her desk. "I wish that I had someone who would care about me like that." She sighed again and put her head on the desk while her friend patted her on the back gently. Joey tried to hide a smile at the way the quiet girl was acting, it was all so obvious to him now.
--
The end of the lesson came about swiftly as the teacher got fed up of the guys and loud girl arguing. Kaiba had just read his book, ignoring the paper and folders that were thrown across the lab. Joey had joined in with the paper throwing, and managed to 'accidentally' hit Kaiba on the back of the head with a paper plane. He'd been surprised when Kaiba had turned round and thrown it straight back at him before returning to his book. The silent girl had just laughed at the entire scenario, refusing to join in as she was catching up on homework for another lesson. When a piece of paper hit her desk she happily threw it back at whoever the culprit was but she never really joined in.
Joey packed away his folder as quickly as he could; unfortunately a lot of his work had been used as ammo so was on the floor around the room. The rest of the class was doing the same, apart from Kaiba who had left almost straight away. The quiet member of the class was helping clear up the mess, handing work back to its respective owners. Eventually it was just Joey and her left in the room as the others had managed to retrieve their work. She placed a hand on his arm as he was about to leave.
"You should ask him out," she said quietly.
"What are you talking about?"
"Seto, you should ask him out."
"How did you find out?" Joey asked, he was surprised that he wasn't angry someone had noticed, but he was pretty certain this girl wouldn't say anything to anyone else.
"You just look at him in that way," she said with a shrug. "When you drifted off into dream land you were staring at him." The slight smile on her lips showed that she found it rather entertaining.
"Even if I ask him out he'd never say yes, he's probably straight anyway, and he hates me," Joey told her with a sigh. He'd never let himself entertain the possibility that Kaiba would agree to anything with him, it would never happen.
"What makes you sure he hates you?" she put her head on one side, the way some dogs do when they don't understand the command they were just given, it looked slightly cute Joey decided.
"The way he acts towards me," was his answer, but for some reason it just wasn't a convincing explanation when he said it out loud.
"You act the same way towards him. Just think about it Joey, and by the way he is most definitely not straight," she told him with a smile as she turned around and began to walk away.
"You know you should ask your friend out too," he said as she walked towards the door. The girl sighed before turning back to him, a sad expression on her face.
"She's straight, she likes guys a lot and I don't want to ruin my friendship with her by confessing." With that said she turned back round and walked away from the classroom. Joey just watched her leave before also leaving the now tidy classroom.
--
"How was physics?" Tristan asked as they sat in the canteen.
"Fine, we got let out early and I ended up chatting to that Georgie girl; you know the one, short, hair in a ponytail, doesn't wear colourful clothes, very quiet."
"Do you mean the maths freak?" Duke asked as he started eating his sandwiches.
"It's not nice calling her a freak," Ryou complained as he tucked into a slice of chocolate cake.
"I heard that she beat Kaiba on a maths test and if that's true she is officially a maths freak," Duke reiterated.
"She's only friends with guys as well," Tea told them as she ate the yoghurt Joey had declined earlier. The entire group just stared at her due to her comment.
"So are you," Tristan pointed out.
"I'm not, I have female friends as well," Tea complained.
"So does Georgie," Joey told them, "she sits with, I've forgotten her name, anyway she sits with the other girl in my physics class, and they're friends."
"What did you chat about?" Yuugi asked wanting to stop Tea's rant about how she did have female friends.
"Just stuff," Joey said quietly, munching Tristan's cold pizza slowly whilst considering what he should say. "She was talking about relationships and friends, general stuff," he said hoping that they'd loose interest.
"Like she knows anything about relationships," Tea complained. "I expect she's never had a boyfriend in her life." Joey considered telling them that Georgie probably hadn't because she wasn't inclined that way, but decided against it as the topic of conversation had changed as Tea told them about her latest crush on one of the guys who'd been playing catch earlier. Joey glanced around the canteen, trying to spot where Kaiba had got to. He saw Georgie first; she was walking towards a group of boys who were standing together. They were the highly intelligent group, IQs off the charts, and he spotted Kaiba talking to one of them before the group welcomed Georgie and began walking out of the canteen. A smile flickered across his face as he thought that she was probably right about him not being straight if she was in his group of friends. Kaiba and friends, that was an odd combination. He'd always thought of Kaiba as a loner, but it seemed as though the loners had formed a group.
"Joey? Joey? Joey?" Yuugi was asking as he waved his hand in front of his friend's face yet again.
"Sorry, just zoned out for a moment there," Joey apologised as he turned back to the group.
"We noticed," Tristan told him, concern for his friend showing in his voice.
"Are you ok, Joey? You keep drifting off today," Yuugi said as he lifted a hand up to check Joey's temperature.
"I feel a little ill."
"Maybe you should go home," Duke suggested.
"I might as well, I haven't been able to focus on work all day," Joey mumbled as Yuugi and Tristan stood up to take him to the office to sign out and go home.
--
Joey lay on the sofa, the TV on quietly in the background. He couldn't help but think of Kaiba, both spread out over a desk in front of him but also just spending time with him when they weren't fighting. A rather predictable show was on TV, as Joey had been unable to find anything decent to watch, and he felt drawn to the screen as one of the actors spoke those same words as Georgie earlier.
"You should ask him out."
The girl who spoke on screen was a hair dresser talking to a client. She was your average bit part character who helps get the main couple together by prompting them into action. 'Maybe that's what Georgie was trying to do for me and Kaiba?' Joey thought as the scene on the show changed to the restaurant where the main guy was with his partner that he was going to break up with. The predictable plot was starting to irritate him so Joey switched off the TV and decided to try and look through his old magazines.
The magazines were all duel monsters ones that he'd got from Yuugi's grandpa, and a lot of them had good pictures of Kaiba. He blushed at the memory of the time he'd spent looking at one particular picture of Kaiba in one of the recent editions. It was with an interview Kaiba had done with Pegasus about the 'creation of the game as we know it today'. The picture showed Kaiba leaning against his desk in just his shirt and trousers. His top few buttons were undone and the pale flesh was visible. Joey had wanted so much to be in a position with Kaiba leaning like that against his desk before Joey pushed him back against the wooden surface and, ahem, took away his innocence.
He'd never really worried about his obsession with his rival, especially after he'd noticed how many other people did the same, until he'd had the fantasies when Kaiba hadn't consented to what was happening. When he started imaging raping the guy, Joey started to feel rather disgusted with his own imagination. However the self loathing was easier to cope with in his own head than the new thoughts of actually dating Kaiba.
'Seto, you should ask him out.'
What would it be like spending time with Seto, in a boyfriend way? He knew what it would be like to spend time with him otherwise.
--
Seto leant back against the tree towards the end of lunch. He was having a good day so far. His friends were chatting about the impossibility of free will and time travel due to the paradox such an idea created. One of them was explaining the idea of time travel being a sound theory as it is simply travelling across another dimension, while another outlined the concept of free will. The one talking about free will started talking about psychology and was immediately drowned out with shouts of how psychology was an unreal science. Seto sighed as the debate continued, it was fairly normal for this to occur and he would be left alone if he didn't want to join in.
He wasn't sure what had happened in physics earlier. The mutt had zoned out whilst staring at him, and although the pup may have fooled the rest of the group when he said that he was thinking of Mai, Seto wasn't convinced. The pause before answering, and the fact that Seto knew exactly where he'd been staring, caused a lot of doubt to be present in his mind.
"Do you want me to pick up Mokuba again?" Georgie was asking him as Seto stared into nothingness. He turned to look at her as soon as he registered her voice.
"If it's no bother."
"It's fine, just pick him up whenever you finish work." Georgie smiled at him before returning to her drawing. Seto pulled his book out of his bag and started reading again, hoping to keep the mutt out of his head for the rest of lunch.
--
Seto stopped the car outside a row of terraced houses that evening. He hurried up a driveway and rang the doorbell. It was cold and Seto had left his coat at home so was impatient to get going so that he could warm up. His teeth were beginning to chatter as he heard the dogs barking inside due to the doorbell alerting them to a visitor. Yells of 'shut up' and 'get out of the way so I can answer the door' were coming from inside. Georgie opened the door whilst holding back the two dogs that were trying to barge their way out of the house.
"Hi, Seto. Come in and I'll get you a coffee, you look frozen. Mind the dogs, just push them out the way. Mokuba's watching a film with my mum, I'm not sure why." Seto managed to squeeze past the dogs in the hallway and followed Georgie through to the kitchen. He could hear laughter from the next room which he assumed was the living room where Mokuba and Georgie's mum would be watching the film. He'd only been inside the house a handful of times, but he'd picked Mokuba up from here regularly, so it was still uncomfortable standing watching Georgie make coffee.
"Thanks for looking after Mokuba again," he said to break the silence as he glanced around the room. There were childish pictures up on the cupboard doors and the fridge, and Seto recognised Mokuba's attempt at a signature on a few of the more recent ones.
"There's no problem. Mum loves having a boy to look after, she always wanted a son, and Mokuba's always really well behaved. He's got some drawings to show you that he's really proud of, so be nice, and he's done all his homework. He's had a snack but I know you guys usually eat late like us so he hasn't had dinner yet." Georgie handed him a cup of coffee and Seto glanced at the design on the front. It had a picture of a dog lying on a bed with the words 'why be ambitious when you can be lazy?' written across it. The dogs started barking again as the doorbell was rung.
"Sorry about this, it's like Piccadilly junction here tonight." Georgie put her mug down on the side and made her way back to the front door. Seto just watched her disappear and tried to work out what her odd phrase meant, probably that it was busy and lots of people had turned up. Sometimes her use of British phrases confused him, especially when she translated them wrong, but you had to make some allowances for her as she'd only been in Japan for a few months.
"Brandy, Millie, get in the kitchen. Sorry about this Seto I'm going to have to shut the door, the vicar just turned up to drop off some stuff and we need to keep the dogs out the way so I'm going to have to shut them in here."
"That's fine," Seto said as the two dogs were forced into the room and Georgie shut the door. The younger dog, a black labrador, sat down in front of him and began whining, while the older one, a border collie, just curled up in a corner. Seto glared at the dog but it seemed unfazed, in fact it inched closer and placed a paw on his foot.
"Go away," he told it as he took another sip of his coffee. The dog looked away briefly, before lifting a paw and gently scratching at Seto's leg.
"Leave me alone," Seto tried again with a bit more menace. Again the dog seemed unaffected, in fact she jumped up, nearly spilling Seto's coffee, and began licking his hand. Mokuba walked in from the living room at that moment and started laughing at the image of his brother being 'viciously attacked' by the puppy.
"Millie, leave Seto alone," Mokuba told the dog who immediately turned and ran over to him. "You can wash your hands in the sink," he told his older brother as he continued laughing. "Has the vicar turned up with the new hymn books?" Mokuba asked as he pointed to the shut door from the kitchen to the hallway.
"I think so."
"Georgie's mum said he would be. Yes she did, yes she did."
"Mokuba stop talking like that to the dog, it can't understand you anyway."
"Her name is Millie, and can we get a dog?"
"No."
"But Seto they are so wonderful and I'm sure you'd love Millie if you just gave her a chance."
"That doesn't matter, it is still a no. They need feeding and walking and lots of time and they chew things, so it would almost be like having another you around the house."
"They grow out of chewing things," Mokuba argued as he hugged Millie, unfazed by his brother's comparison.
"They still chew things, including books and wires which is not something I want happening at home." (Heva: My friend's puppy ate the back cover of her physics text book and she's now got to buy a new one to replace it. Also my brother fed his homework diary to our dog which I think is an ingenious way to get out of your homework.)
Georgie pushed open the door again and Millie escaped into the hallway that now had stacks of books and boxes with unknown contents.
"We ought to get going, thanks for the coffee," Seto said, rather impatient to leave the dog hair coated house.
"I'll go grab my stuff," Mokuba said as he ran back into the living room.
"Whenever you need someone to look after Mokuba feel free to call, if I'm not here my mum is bound to be able to look after him. I guess I'm never going to be able to persuade you to hang around here for a while though."
"Sorry, no chance," Seto replied with a slight smile.
"You and mutts just don't get along," Georgie teased, the double meaning obvious to them both.
"It appears not."
"I spoke to him at the end of physics and guess who he was day dreaming about." It wasn't a question and Seto didn't need to ask who she was referring to. "He likes you, Seto, I don't know if it's just physical attraction or what though so I wouldn't get your hopes up too high."
"My hopes have never been high as far as Joey's concerned. Thanks for trying to help me out," Seto smiled again and Georgie grinned back before hugging him. Mokuba walked back in to see the two of them and had to do a double take.
"Are you two going to start dating or something?" he asked in a way that suggested he was very supportive of the idea.
"Who wants to tell him?" Georgie asked, hands on hips as she looked back and forth between the two.
"I'll tell him on the way home. See you tomorrow, Georgie."
"Bye, Seto, bye, Mokuba."
--
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Heva: so what do you think?
Coel: are you asking me or the readers?
Heva: the readers, why would I ask you?
Coel: that's why I was confused, I don't know why you'd ask me.
Heva: I really don't understand you sometimes coel. Please review and I'll try to get the second chapter out later this week once I've finished making final changes to it.
Date 16/08/08