Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ A Perfect Match ❯ A different person ( Prologue )

Disclaimer-I own nothing but the plot.

If you don't like yaoi so don't read. I will not accept flames though constructive, I repeat, constructive criticism is wanted.

IMPORTANT - I have decided to write some fanfics whose plots or pairings etc. have been sent in by the readers, if there's a story or pairing you've always wanted but can't seem to find send it in to me before February, 2005 and I'll do my best to write it. No bar on anime, pairing (yaoi, yuri or het) alright? For FF.net, it's ok if it isn't an anime.

I'm new but don't be easy on me for that, I want to know exactly where I'm going wrong.

Now On With The Story-

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"Oh great! As if it wasn't enough that I'm gay, I just had to be in love with Seto-I-hate-all-humans-Kaiba".In a small bedroom in a nice apartment, this could be heard if you listened closely enough. `But really is he so bad, I mean he loves Mokuba doesn't he? There has to be some good in the guy if he's willing to die for his brother. And really with those blue eyes that seem to look into you, and I would die if he gave me a smile a proper one that is. What am I saying, it's like asking a rock to smile at you, especially if it's me who asks, I really don't know why he hates me so.' Our narrator mused about this

"What am I thinking? I DON'T LIKE HIM!' He shook his head and was about to continue his rant when, "Who don't you like, Joey?" Joey fell off his bed where he had been sitting.

"No one Tea, absolutely no… wait a second what are you doing here anyway?" He demanded from his place on the floor

Tea sighed and shook her head, "Don't you remember Joey? We made a deal two days ago that I would come over to your house in order to finish our history project. ", She continued quickly before Joey could start a lecture about how much he hated the project "Mr. Wheeler called you from outside but you didn't answer so he asked me to come on in. Anyway who is it that you `hate' so much?" She said this with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

"I told ya. Its no one ok? Knock it off Tea and let's", he gulped before making the ultimate sacrifice, "st…start on our history project"

"No way, Joey. Stop trying to change the subject! Who is mystery guy?"

Joey nearly cried, even him asking to start working hadn't stopped her, "There is no mystery guy Tea, why do…"

Tea interrupted him at this point, "Is it Kaiba?" she asked him sitting down on the bed.

Joey looked at her, stunned speechless. Tea continued in a pleased manner, "So I was right! That explains a lot."

It was Tea's turn to be interrupted, "Like what? To me it makes my whole stupid problem a lot more complicated" Joey sat down beside her in a huff. It was obvious that he had thought about this and his conclusions of it were not happy ones.

"What exactly is your problem Joey? I doubt you loved him from the start."

"No actually I didn't… wait a second! Who said I loved him?" was the stubborn reply

"I did!" exclaimed Tea experasted, "And your diary as well," she added smugly

"You read my DIARY?" he screamed, looking quite close to falling off the bed again

"Yes, well. That's not the point. The point is that you love Seto Kaiba and you seem to have a problem with him. C'mon Joey at least talk to me about it, that'll help. It does"

"Fine, my problem is that every time I try to be civil or make a truce he starts to insult me again and he seems to come up with more colorful ones every time" Joey added the last part sourly, "Though he never loses the mutt one"

"Actually Joey you know what? Kaiba hasn't called you `mutt' since some time, almost since Battle City. He calls you `pup' which is actually more of an endearence than an insult. And about the colorful insults," Tea had to try very hard to keep a straight face at this, "Maybe he feels that you are getting bored with him and that's why he tries to keep you uh… entertained? Or not." She added when she saw the convulsions on Joey's face

"Is this Kaiba we're talkin' about Tea? The Seto Kaiba? Does he actually think about anything else except his brother, his company and himself?" Joey replied and muttered under his breath, "In that order"

Tea rubbed her forehead; she could see that this was going to be a long chat. "And I'm assuming that you like him that way? Since even in love you're under no illusions about his character?"

"If you put it that way… why does he assume that I'm an ignoramus though?" He grumbled

"Same reason he can ask himself why you consider him cold-hearted, maybe" Tea said with an inward whoop; she knew she was getting through to Joey. "For all you know he might be doing that this very minute!" she added getting excited

"Fat chance" replied Joey in a glum voice which reminded Tea that Kaiba was really not like most people, you couldn't say what he was thinking at the best of times and she was hardly the best authority on him, `Come to think of it, who is the best authority on him? Oh, of course.MOKUBA! He'll do anything for his brother's happiness as well. I know he tried to get him to be nicer. Let's see what we can do about this mess'

"Cheer up, Joey. It's not the end of the world; it's not even the end of your love life"

"But I love HIM, him and no one else."

"And for all we know he might love YOU, so we are going to find out whether he does or not." Tea finished firmly

Joey looked as if he would like to debate the point but he left it with a half-shrug

Then Tea added smiling, "Let's start on our history project shall we? Since you so kindly offered?"

"Tea, this is plain torture."

"And you're going to have to go through with it" Tea said in a sing-song voice, teasing him

"Not funny"

"Nope, only the truth"

"Whatever"

"Come ON Joey," She said "The faster we finish the more time we'll have to talk about your problem"

"Oh joy to the world" Joey replied sarcastically

Tea looked at him in surprise, "What?" he asked after a minute losing his patience

"It's just that you seem to have been well, reading, perhaps?" she suggested

"Well, yeah I kinda got angry with Kaiba thinking I knew nothing so…" He left the rest of the sentence hanging, he looked embarrassed

"That's um… nice" said Tea still in shock, "You did it to prove Kaiba wrong? Or were you just trying to understand him a little better?"

"Neither, or maybe both. I don't really understand it myself, and after the first few books I started to actually like it and I started reading for the sake of reading and not to do anything"

"Doesn't answer my question though"

"But this is all you're going to get until I understand myself"

"I understand" She said `Though I don't like it' she added silently to herself

The same day, a mere few blocks away:-

"Listen, I really need to get in. I'll fail my class if I don't get this damned project finished" exclaimed a pretty blonde with pinkish eyes

"Sorry miss, no one's allowed in. It's Mr. Kaiba's orders", the secretary explained "And if you don't mind would you please stop screaming so loud? You're disturbing the office workers"

"Yes I would mind! Tell Kaiba to get his ass out here, NOW." replied the blonde

"I'm here. Would you mind telling me what this is about?" came a cool voice from behind her

Mai, for that was the name of the blonde, jumped in surprise and turned around to find herself looking at Seto Kaiba, she was taken aback but that didn't stop her, "No, that I wouldn't mind Kaiba"

"Then please step inside my office" Seto indicated his office

Mai first sight of the office made her raise her eyebrow, `He's so rich you'd think he lived in the lap of luxury, but this place looks like a normal office albeit one where meetings are frequent. Maybe he isn't such a brat? I have to find out, this looks intriguing.'

"Now," said Seto after offering Mai a seat, "May I ask why exactly you deemed it necessary to come here and attempt to make everyone here lose their hearing?"

"I deemed it necessary because we have a history project to do. Together. Which counts as half of our grade marks. We'll both fail but good if we don't get this done. We would have to get full marks in everything else to pass and, while I don't doubt that you can do it, I'm pretty sure I can't."

"Have you finished? Taken a good deep breath? Yes?" When Mai nodded "This is the project we have to hand in on Thursday, right?" When Mai nodded again, "So we have to fix up a time to do it."

"Actually," Mai cut in, "We do need to do a bit of research work and…"

"That's already done, I did it. I was just waiting for you to call me about it." Seto answered

"WHAT??? But why didn't you call me?" screamed Mai

"If you would allow me to keep my eardrums then I'll answer you." Mai glared at him balefully, not that it had any effect, "We had decided after the project was set that since you had a busy week, you would call me and tell me when you were free, meanwhile I would do the research work. When you didn't call I assumed that you weren't free at all though I was surprised, why didn't you call by the way?" explained Seto calmly

Mai stared at him stunned, `Uh oh!' she thought "Um… actually the thing is" she began when Seto took the burden off her shoulders

"You forgot?"

"Kind of"

"Why am I not surprised?" he said, more to himself than to Mai, "Anyway, now that you remember, when are you free?"

"Right now" Mai suggested tentatively "If it's alright with you that is" she added hastily

`He's probably mad already; I can't impose on his office time.'

"No, that's perfectly fine, but I have some work left to do that'll take about fifteen minutes, if you can start on the project, after I've finished we'll go over to my house and finish it" Seto said

`I'm getting more astonished by the minute, most because he hasn't kicked me out yet'

Mai mused

"Alright" was all she said aloud

After this followed a productive ten minutes of silence broken only by the clicking of a computer's keyboard being used and the scratching of pen upon paper. Mai suddenly spoke up, "You've changed you know" She didn't know how else to get out of him the information of why he had changed

The sound of the keyboard paused, "Why would you think so? Do you think you even knew me well enough to judge me right now?"

"There didn't seem a lot of you to figure out" replied Mai, only half knowing how callous that sounded

"No, it didn't did it? Leave it anyway"

"No I won't, your just trying to change the subject!"

"And if I am?"

"If you are, why are you?"

"You just said, I quote `There didn't seem a lot of you to figure out' so figure out the answer to that"

"That was past tense, I've changed my mind"

"And if I don't want to tell you?" The sound of the keyboard resumed

"You have to give me marks for persistence" replied the incorrigible girl

"Of course, Miss Mai Valentine gets full marks for effort and none for actual information" countered Seto

Mai felt rather than saw the amusement radiating from him

"Is there any chance of us finishing this before midnight?"

"Not likely but we really don't have to finish it today, anyway I'm finished here so pack up there and we'll go to my house" said Seto

Sometime, approximately half an hour and seven minutes later, they were sitting in Seto's living room. Mai had tried but she couldn't get back to the easy indifference they had reached, back at Kaiba Corps. Even though Seto was civil enough he didn't really say anything unnecessary. "We need color pencils to finish this drawing Kaiba."

"I'm busy here, there are some in my room, it's on the right hand side on the third floor as soon as you reach the top of the stairs" Seto replied a bit absent mindedly as he was trying to check a piece of tricky information

Mai walked to the stairs, `This place is pretty cool. So is Kaiba, icy in fact' she laughed slightly, as she reached the top of the stairs, `There it is' she ran to the room not noticing anything. She went in and her gaze at once fell on the chest of drawers across the room beside the bed. Apart from that she had eyes for nothing else, she opened the top drawer and found what she wanted but she also saw something else, `Why it's his diary' she thought surprised, curiously she set down the pack of color pencils and opened the book to a random page. At once the most amazing words she had ever seen leapt up to her eyes, ~I love the pup; I really do even though he'll never know. He wouldn't understand, he's probably after that blonde from the Tournament,'~ Mai shook her head, `Me? Stupid Kaiba.' ~I would give anything to be with him, which is why I always fight with him. He thinks I'm so cold, will he ever know how much I hide, `Oh tell me why, do we build castles in the sky? Please tell me why, all the castles way up high!'~ `He listens to that type of songs? Maybe he's different from all we thought of him. What a mistake we made when we thought he didn't care. This is all I need to know, I must help him, I'm sure he needs it.' Thinking this Mai carefully put away the book, took up the pack of color pencils and made her way downstairs.

Once she was beside Seto she didn't know how to broach the subject, she felt so guilty.

She set the pencils down beside their project and tried to say something, "Kaiba?"

"Yes?"

"Uh… Kaiba"

"Still here"

"Kaiba"

"I'm all ears; just spit it out already, contrary to popular expectations I'm not going to eat you if it's something I don't like." He said losing patience though he said it quietly

"After encouragement like that who wouldn't be tempted," she joked, "Kaiba, do you like…

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Alright so I'm evil, *shrugs* anyway, I don't know Mai very well, and I'm sorry if Seto is too OOC, but I want to try him out like this. Don't worry he won't give in to Yugi-tachhi too easily. Anyway I don't think Tea is bad so she will play a major part in my story though I'm NOT going to pair her up with anyone, especially not Yami.

I'm not someone who writes only for the sake of writing so if I don't get reviews telling me to go on, then I'll abandon the story, even though I don't really want to.