Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Arubaito ❯ Solution ( Chapter 10 )

Ch 10 (Solution)

 

Disclaimer: Characters, worlds, people, games, and everything else is owned by and copyrighted Kazuki Takahashi. This is a non-for-profit fan work with no particular personal gain in mind. I own the writing and nothing else.

 

Review Replys:

 

Black Angel Reaper - Hell, you're a nerd just by watching and reading fiction associated with an anime about card games.

 

Dragonlady222 - As is it similar to mine, soapie's have never exactly thrilled me.

 

Gabou - I don't think I could write a fan fic that had character bashing. So I'm glad I haven't accidentally managed to imply that or anything, cheers.

 

Aknkkskd - lol. Ah… Niita for some people is a person hard to like - it's just what she does.

 

JoeysGal - Cheers! -randomly glomps- I can't say she's like any of my friends when they're drunk… most of them are either depressive or apologetic drunks. Also quite amusing though…

 

Passing Reader - goobe… hehe… good thing to be really, pleasantly surprised… a whole lot better than disappointedly surprised. Or irritatingly surprised. Although... Chocolate!Surprise is good too… Anyways, enjoy~

 

***

 

What was with sunlight, anyway? You were trying to sleep and it shone in your face like a giant ray of disturbance. Roosters might have appreciated the wake up call, but humans were not like roosters. Largely because they were taller, not covered in feathers, prone to contemplation of matters more serious than where the food was, and a large percentage of them did not get up at the crack of dawn. Certain humans, particularly those of the class `student', liked to continue to remain in a state of dormant slumber until well after the crack of dawn. Some continued in this fashion right through until the afternoon and sometimes even the evening. However this state of blissful unawareness could be hindered by the harsh intrusion of sunlight. Particularly if one had forgotten to close ones curtains upon going to bed the night before. There were few methods the lethargic individual could adopt to combat the invasion of space. The most commonly used was to simply, as now awake, close the curtains of the window currently streaming the sunlight, and then fall back onto ones bed and resume the sleep process. The second, although less commonly adopted but a favourite of chemistry students, was to work on creating a giant laser that could ultimately be used to destroy the very sun itself, resulting in a massive temperature drop causing humans to live in environmentally-modified enclosed land spaces, burning through fuel to regulate heating and cooling at a rate never before seen by man, after many years of which the Earth's natural resources will have been spent, leaving us to simply freeze to death or go insane from the ever-present darkness that will shroud the planet in the sun's absence, climactically seeing a sorry end to the human race, erased from existence completely, with no one left to remember them.

So it was probably a good thing that most people just bothered to get up and close their curtains.

It actually hadn't crossed Katsuya's mind to do either of these things. That morning, after the sun woke him up in a most unpleasant manor, he had first tried to make it go away by throwing a pillow at his window, and after finding that this had very little effect, simply pulled his covers up over his face, essentially stopping the light from keeping him up. This was actually working remarkably well until another legendary interrupter of sleep came to harass him.

The phone rang.

This was fine, he could handle one phone call. The key was patience; you simply had to wait for the caller to stop and realize you `weren't home'. They stopped. Katsuya went back to sleep.

Then they called again. And again. And then a little while later, again. He couldn't quite tell how regularly the caller was ringing; he kept falling asleep again every time they stopped. After what felt like the fiftieth time being awoken that morning, he had finally had enough, and got up to grab the phone and put it next to his bed so the next time it rang he could tell the person to sod off and stop calling.

Then he went back to sleep.

The phone rang, it was an annoying tone that Honda had changed it to at some point the last time he was here, and Katsuya didn't know how to change it back. He awoke again, waited for a few rings wondering why it sounded so loud when it was in the other room, then realized he'd moved it and extricated an arm slowly from under the covers to reach out and grab it, pressing the talk button then moving it to his ear.

“Hello?” He said blearily, not even sure if it sounded right.

“Not that I care, but where the hell are you?” A woman's voice… he thought… came through the phone sounding mightily pissed off. Although, he thought dimly, it was the kind of pissed off that sounded more like it stemmed from the actual task of calling him than from the reason for the conversation. Which narrowed down the possibilities of the ID of the caller, and he took a guess at who he supposed it might have been.

“Sasaki? Wha… I'm at home, obviously.” He tried to understand the question. Obviously he was at home; she had called his home number. He was still yet to get a mobile, that was somewhere in the middle of his to-do list. Things like `eating', `rent' and `arcade games' came above it.

“Yes, but you're not supposed to be. Can we guess why?” Now that she had his ear, she was beginning to enjoy sending him his wake-up call.

To say that `it hit him like a tonne of bricks' wasn't exactly accurate. Katsuya took a little while to wake up in the morning so even this sudden realization wasn't enough to really shake him. It, therefore, was probably more comparable to being hit by a tonne of softened pillows; it nudged him back to reality, but only slightly.

Oh shit, it's Saturday. I'm meant to be at work.

“I… um…” Giving his best attempt at thinking fast with a sleep-induced brain blockage, Jou considered his options: there was

1) Apologize and rush to work. He looked at the digital clock by his bed, gasped, and decided this probably wasn't going to help very much.

2) Pretend he was an answering machine. Although, that might backfire since he'd already addressed her specifically.

3) Pretend he was his twin brother… uh… Yugi… and apologize for Katsuya's outrageous behavior. Actually, that sounded less believable than number two, and also, if Kaiba was told about it, he knew he didn't have a twin brother, and he knew who Yugi was.

Which left

4) Lie.

“…I just got back from the doctor's, was just about to call you.”

“You certainly sound like you're on drugs.” Sasaki muttered, referring to how out of it he came across. That was a sleep-thing, and for once he was glad of it.

“Yeah, they gave me some painkillers. Got this really bad…stomach…thing…”

“Right.” She said cynically. Clearly, she did not believe him. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have believed him either.

He coughed for good measure.

She probably rolled her eyes.

“I'll let Kaiba-san know, and you'd better be well again by Tuesday.” He had wanted to interrupt her and shout “No don't tell him!!” but that would have raised some questions and she would have been obliged to let him know anyway. Plus, judging from what time it was, and the level to which the sun had risen, Kaiba was probably well aware that he wasn't at work. And upon hearing that Katsuya was sick with “some stomach thing” would probably further speculate the illegitimacy of this, and draw his own conclusions based on what went on last night.

Which wouldn't exactly be far from the truth.

“Uh…Yeah, lots of rest and stuff… I should be.” Sasaki then sniffed a goodbye and hung up; Katsuya did the same on his end. He let the phone drop out of his hand and fall the short distance to the floor, then lent his head back and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Fuck.

This was not a good way to start the day. Nor was it a good response to what happened yesterday. He hadn't exactly been sure what he would have done at work that day, but not going at all seemed like the biggest cop out imaginable. He had little doubt that Kaiba would view it as a pathetic attempt to escape a confrontation. What he wanted to desperately explain was that it hadn't been his fault for doing that, he had just accidentally over slept due to his over-taxed brain, which felt worn out from thinking so much. Although, since there was nothing he could do about it now, he should probably try to think of the situation in a different light. Pathetic or not, this was a handy excuse for not seeing the CEO that day. And he supposed he should welcome any excuse he got. Katsuya had no idea what it was going to be like next time they met, but what annoyed him the most was that now he was actually worrying about it. Never before, not even when they had been at each others throats had he ever been nervous or hesitant about bumping into Kaiba. He had always been more than ready to throw a punch if it came to that, and lately, since they had begun to be on better terms, he had found he had become almost entirely comfortable in the others presence.

And then Kaiba had to go and do… that… and now he wasn't. Now he was worried this meant something and that he would have to reach some sort of conclusion and actually act on it. Honestly, how could anyone possibly expect anyone to do such a thing? Working out their feelings and all… it was just crazy! Although he supposed if someone pressed the point he would have been willing to put forward that kissing men was not on his agenda and he didn't like Kaiba one bit.

Unfortunately, given the opportunity to dwell on it a little more, he started to doubt that conclusion. There was a tiny part of him, tiny part of him, that thought that maybe kissing boys wasn't so bad, and that actually, Kaiba wasn't so bad himself…

Damn contemplation!

But then there was also the case of what the hell it was that Kaiba himself was thinking right now. Or at the time for that matter. To Katsuya, it felt like the gesture was completely out of the blue. Sure, they had been getting along better recently but did that automatically follow onto relationship type stuff?! …He didn't think so.

So why then? Why had Kaiba suddenly flipped like that?

Wait… was it called flipping? He thought that referred more to if Kaiba had suddenly stabbed him rather than kissed him, but he supposed they actually might have been equally as unexpected outcomes for the evening. Katsuya certainly hadn't seen it coming. He didn't think he'd done anything especially inviting to make Kaiba do that, aside from kinda checking him out in the elevator, but he was pretty sure the CEO had missed him doing that. (Probably a good thing, now). As far as he was aware he hadn't been flirting or anything.

Just how did you come on to a guy anyway? Chicks tended to shove their breasts in a mans face, so were you meant to shove your ass in a mans face likewise?

Oh. Ew. Ow. Bad images.

Katsuya pressed a palm to his forehead, willing his brain to simply shut down and stop thinking.

He now had a headache too.

Right. First things first, get painkillers. Then, he would have to work out what to do today, and how much less food he would have to buy next week to compensate for the money he wouldn't be getting for not going into work this fine Saturday.

…

Independent living was overrated.

 

***

 

The small amount of snow that had appeared on Friday had melted to puddles and more was yet to join it. Instead it had begun to rain again, bucketing at night time and drizzling during the day. Most people stayed indoors that Sunday, the city outside was muddy and wet, and no one wanted to challenge it. Trips to pick up extra groceries were canceled, heaters were pulled out again and set up in living rooms, children watched an excess of television, and people spent the day with their families, unwilling to venture out into the weather.

Seto was more than happy to stay home too. Even if his house was big enough to encompass four tennis courts, it was still his home. And that was where many people were most comfortable. He had a few office type rooms in his mansion, but this one was by far his favourite. It was lined with bookcases, filled with books that he had picked. Many of the books in the house had belonged to his step-father, and were mostly educational non-fiction thick editions with print tiny enough to warrant a magnifying glass. Needless to say the CEO had been forced to read a great number of them during the years his adopted parent had been alive. But the ones in this study, they weren't like that. There was a lot of non-fiction, but they were topics the Kaiba brothers enjoyed reading. There were many novels too; classics, thrillers, science fiction, books in other languages with a great number by English authors. There were comics, art books, visual diaries and even game guides. On one wall there was a large television, and surrounding it were a least a few hundred DVDs. Underneath were Mokuba's favourite games, and the consoles needed to operate them. This room, although they referred to it as `Seto's Study', was just as much his younger brothers'. That was another reason he liked this room so much. It might have been the smallest study, but it was cozy. The books that towered above the occupants were welcoming rather than imposing. The chairs and couches were all comfortable, and the desk was untidy. It didn't have the same clinical feel that came with some of the other rooms of the house. He defiantly knew why this was his favourite.

This afternoon both brothers were in there. Mokuba was stretched out along the couch, reading a manga he had picked up the other day. Seto was seated at his desk, his computer open but not in front of him, instead his hands occupied with reports and documents related to Yahada's transfer. His eyes weren't on them however; they had trailed blankly over to where the light crept into the room. Through his window the world looked like a dulled watercolor, splashed with too much grey. The world appeared as foggy as he felt his mind was, and he wanted to invest in windscreen wipers.

He wasn't upset. And he wasn't going to mourn over it or spontaneously burst into tears. Rather, what he had done had simply made matters a lot worse than they really needed to be right now. It was important to see that his replacement at Shichi Corporation got settled in properly, and that he returned to his job with the problem finally fixed and out of the way. It was important to get on with life as he had been looking forward to doing for months, not to hurl more complications at it than he already had.

Jonouchi was a complication. Seto was pretty sure the incident was a one-time thing. And if it wasn't, that next time Jou stood under some snow and he happened to be around at the time, he was positive he would be able to control himself. He'd just gotten a little too caught up in the moment. Yes, this was his own fault but he accepted this, and was now moving on. It was interesting that the boy hadn't shown up at work yesterday, and he certainly didn't buy the illness story for a second. He assumed instead that his assistants absence was related to what had happened on Friday night, and although Seto wasn't exactly in a position to blame him, (part of him was reeling from the fact that he had kissed another person of the same gender), it was nonetheless bad form not to come to work because of personal issues. Be they with your own boss or not.

He was still a little worried that the whole `workplace relationship' thing would come back to haunt him. If Jonouchi decided he'd been taken advantage of and felt the need to tell someone about it, he would be in very deep shit. He was just going to have to work out something extremely eloquent to say to him next time they met, that hopefully would help the whole thing to simply blow over. Because that's what needed to happen, really. That's what was best. He wouldn't deny to himself that he was beginning to like Jou more than he ever had before, but he also wouldn't deny that that wasn't right. He couldn't, and shouldn't do it.

“Nii-sama? You seem quiet today…” This wasn't a statement that just anybody could make. Seto wasn't exactly a talkative person even during the best of times, so to say that he was today speaking even less was an assumption to be made only by those who knew him best.

He turned slowly, gaze re-focusing and his mind drawn back from the depths of thought with a hard tug. His eyes finally settled on his younger brother, comic discarded, obviously finished, atop his feet. “Mmm,” was all he could think to reply with.

“So, what's up?” Mokuba pressed, mouth dangerously close to a frown.

“Just…” Seto searched for a reason for his silent contemplation other than what he was mainly concerned with, “…work.” He concluded, noticing the papers he was still holding.

“Oh.” The younger Kaiba said, glancing at what his brother was reading, but realizing he was a bit too far away to make it out. “What's the problem? I thought you were just about to let Yahada take over, shouldn't you be relaxed?”

“I'm not worried about that.” Seto shook his head slightly, “I was thinking about what to do with Niita.” That wasn't exactly a complete lie; he had been wondering lately what the heck to do with her.

Mokuba made a thoughtful noise; he had met the PA very briefly on maybe two occasions, so he didn't really know her. But he had heard stories. Almost every one of them had been retold by an irritated Seto so the kinds of tales they were, were quite obvious. He wasn't exactly sure if he believed she was as useless as his brother made her out to be, but she certainly didn't seem to be winning any favors with the head of the company in any case.

“Are you going to fire her then?” he asked.

Seto gave a noncommittal shrug, “She needs to go. It was just unfortunate that she had to be the one hired whilst I was in the middle of a company crisis that demanded more attention than the issue of the capability of my personal assistant; but now that that's almost over, I can't keep working with someone as irritatingly inconsistent as she is.”

Mokuba nodded, it made sense to him, and he had never before objected to his brother's business decisions. Seto had always been a lot better with that sort of thing than he was. “But if you fire her, who are you going to hire instead?”

“I'll have more time to set up interviews after I stop having to travel to Shichi every other day.” He hadn't planned anything specifically; to be honest the most serious speculating he'd done regarding Niita's future had taken place in the last five minutes.

“What about Jou?”

“What about Jou?” Seto countered defensively. Mokuba lowered his head a little and next spoke slightly timidly.

“Well, isn't he a good assistant?”

The brunet stared. Unfortunately, that was true. One of the reasons he liked Jonouchi more in the first place was that for once in his life he had proved to be good at something. He learnt quickly, followed instructions efficiently, didn't complain or argue any more than their normal banter, and was certainly more reliable than Niita. True enough, they didn't exactly have the same job. Her duties were different to his, so even if he did take over from her he would still have a lot to learn. Seto knew, however, that the blond would do this, and learn it well. He had already shown that he could.

If only Friday night hadn't happened then such a decision wouldn't seem like Seto had seriously suggestive ulterior motives in mind. Just what would Jou think if he suggested he switch jobs and go back with him to his other office? And since when did he care what other people thought he was thinking about things? And since when had he begun to think of him as `Jou' half the time? He wasn't about to actually call him that, he didn't think anyway, but wasn't thinking it just as bad? They weren't that familiar!

This was all getting a bit too crazy.

Then, there was another matter involved as well; “Yes, but he can't work full time. Niita could.”

Mokuba nodded and looked thoughtful again for a moment. Then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and used his hands to gesture and emphasize his hypothesis. “Okay well, what about this, and hear me out. You say Niita doesn't do a very good job, right? You say she doesn't do her work quick enough and wastes time, right? So, for arguments sake, say she only uses about half her time on the job productively. That means that for half the time she's spending there, she's not doing anything. Jou is a good worker, you say. Or, hey no, don't give me that face, I know you think it. You don't need to say it. Anyway, so Jou is a good worker yes? He doesn't waste time. So if you compared them, in the time it took Niita to do X amount of work, Jou would have already done twice X amount of work. And, you are surviving these last busy months with a PA that only works for half the hours she's paid for, so it's maybe safe to conclude, for the purposes of the argument, that you don't actually need someone there to assistant for half of the working hours. Especially now that after Yahada starts you will be a lot less busy anyway. Therefore Jou who, in this theory, works twice as fast as Niita, could do the job, in which you only need half the hours to be worked. Thus, equaling out what is already taking place and utilizing only the time that is actually needed, and the worker that is available. Do you see?”

Kaiba's had a weird way of making sense.

“Yes. You think I only need someone to work part time, so Jonouchi would be perfect.”

Mokuba nodded and smiled, “Yep, exactly.” He looked at Seto with the attention of a defendant watching a jury waiting for a verdict.

“It's an interesting theory. I can't exactly disagree with your logic, but I think it will still take some time to iron out all the other problems involved.” He received an inquisitive look but refused to elaborate on what these might be.

“For now, thank you for supplying me with your thoughts.”

“Anytime, Nii-sama.”

Seto nodded, letting at least traces of the appreciation show on his face. “I suppose we shall just have to wait and see what the week brings.”

 

***

 

Katsuya was determined to actually make it to work on Tuesday, so much so that he arrived extremely early to his shift. A first on many accounts. Sasaki was reluctantly impressed, and did her best not to show it. He was also determined to spend as little time as possible in Kaiba's presence. He was being so cautious about seeing him again that he actually paused outside the CEO's office door and stood silently still, listening for signs of life inside. Once he couldn't hear anything, he took the plunge and opened the door, slightly hesitantly, and peered inside. Kaiba hadn't been there, and so Katsuya rushed inside, grabbed the entire contents of his out-box, and raced out of the room.

The rest of the mid afternoon was spent keeping out of Kaiba's way. When the brunet entered a room he found an exit. He was so used to the job now that he knew many of the routine tasks he had to do, and so, with the help of the early start, made sure he did them before the CEO had a chance to remind him to get them done. This effectively cut off much unnecessary conversation (he considered) and allowed for further avoiding of the issue.

The fact that he hadn't gone to work on Saturday, and was worried about what Kaiba would say when they next met, was behind why he felt he needed to do all or any of this. He also wasn't quite ready to face what had happened on Friday night. He'd thought more about that too, but was still as confused and unsure as he had been in the immediate reflection. So he felt that simply avoiding the matter, or in this case the act of having a conversation with his boss, would work as a kind of band aid solution until he could work out what he was going to say when or if the event occurred.

Seto didn't share this opinion.

He was more than slightly irritated that Jonouchi had decided high tail it out of the room as soon as he saw him. Was that what this had come down to? They were meant to simply ignore each other and hope that everything just went away? Well, that really wasn't good enough. The CEO needed some sort of verbal closure on this or he was going to have a really hard time deciding whether or not he wanted to transfer Jou's position. Having Niita as a PA was bad enough, but having a mute blond answering his phone was going to be taking a gigantic leap backwards. Likely off a cliff and into an ocean made of sulfuric acid.

So he was going to have to somehow initiate a conversation. He was in the middle of pondering how he might go about this, whilst looking through one of the bookshelves for old records, when the boy walked in to drop some files on his desk. Upon seeing him the blond quickly looked the other way then made to leave again.

“Stop.” For lack of better planning Seto found himself saying the first thing that popped into his brain, and was half-surprised to find that Jonouchi actually did. The boy turned, wearing a guarded expression.

“What?” He said shortly.

“Stop acting like an immature school girl.” Seto elaborated. Well, at least it worked at getting a reaction from the blond.

“Immature school girl!?” Katsuya looked shocked, then quickly turned to anger. “I am not immature.”

“Oh really? Then why are you jumping every time you see me and pretending I don't exist? Wouldn't you say that was rather a childish way of handling the situation?”

“No. Wait... I mean, I'm not doing that!” Jou looked slightly frustrated with himself.

Seto smirked. He was winning again, and apparently easily.

“I see. You certainly sound thoroughly convincing.”

Katsuya glared, and muttered something that to Seto sounded a bit like `fuck you', but he chose to ignore it. Clearly this wasn't going anywhere. He realized that Jou was still ignoring him; apparently simply dishing insults wasn't going to work this time. The blond head was turned to the side avoiding looking at him and he kept shuffling, obviously eager to race out the door and away from the CEO. He was going to have to try a different approach.

“Hey, if you can't even look me in the eye, how do you expect us to keep working together!?”

Jonouchi turned, slowly and reluctantly, and faced him. He didn't look angry and wasn't glaring. He didn't seem as explosively defiant as he did when facing an opponent in a duel, but he had accepted Seto's challenge, that much was clear.

It was the first step to moving forward, to putting things back on track. Apparently, however, it didn't need to be snowing for him to feel like kissing Jou again. Just seeing him looking back with such an honest expression made him want to fall apart.

Damnit.

So Seto looked away.

The CEO cleared his throat and took a few steps towards his desk, speaking as he walked. “Just forget about the whole incident.” He said it in a rather detached and airy kind of way, like he was instructing Jonouchi to forget about a broken toy or a lost blanket. He also didn't need to specify just what exactly it was the conversation had now switched to.

When Kaiba turned around Katsuya folded him arms, “Gladly. But I find it interesting that you assume I haven't already moved past it.”

Seto almost glared, but that would have implied that he cared; “You have been ignoring me all day.”

“That's because I don't like you.”

“Well, that's well established.”

Katsuya narrowed his eyes.

“Still not speaking? You see, this is what's childish.”

“What the hell do you want me to say!?” Katsuya erupted suddenly, louder than he might have wanted to be.

Seto wasn't sure how to answer, he knew what he wanted to say but knew he couldn't say it. However Jou didn't give him much time to come up with anything, “That I'm angry with you? Demand an apology? Ha… You wouldn't give one anyway and I don't really want one. In my life, you don't walk around regretting things that have happened, you can't, it's not functional. If they're not good things, you just have to accept them, and then go right past them.”

Seto was a little confused as to why the blond had suddenly taken it upon himself to impart a personal wisdom, but it seemed like it was something Jou felt he had to do. He might have wondered whether the boy was subtly trying to hint that he didn't exactly regret what had happened and that now there was only the future to look towards and events would develop of their own accord, however since the CEO was both himself trying to find a way to move past what was going on between them, he wasn't paying attention to subtleties.

He paused before replying, “It's not going to happen again.”

Katsuya wanted to shrug, but he didn't; “Good.”

“Just…” Just go back to being normal. Whatever, however, you describe normal. Even if it isn't the normal that it had become, even if it's the old normal, the one where we hate each other and you're a pathetic mutt. Yeah, just go back to being that. That should fix things.

“Just what?”

“…do your job.”

“Yeah… right.” Katsuya had had enough. He left, wondering what the heck that whole conversation had been about. At the same time though, he felt a kind of tension lift. It was almost like they'd had it out. Now they really could move on. Well, maybe. The conversation hadn't exactly been what one could describe as `conclusive'. But he did feel as though he could lighten up a little bit now. He hoped Kaiba felt the same way.

Uh... wait. No, he didn't hope that. That would have been verging on, if not falling into, sympathy. He was confused enough as it was concerning just how much he liked the brunet, and starting to actually care about the feelings of the other was certainly not going to tip the situation in a way that was good for his general well being and mental health. But he thought that if things went back to normal that would be good too. He found he didn't like ignoring Kaiba, walking on tiptoe past his office was not something he thought he could bother with forever. And the guy did seem okay again. Katsuya hadn't gotten the impression that he was about to be pinned to a wall and ravished, so he supposed that was also a blessing. Hey, maybe things could go back to the way they had been without incident.

That would… probably… be best.

 

***

 

It felt like every other week things had to work at `going back to normal'. Tips in the balance of traditional relationships between affluent brunet's and penniless blond's had reached an all time high. It was getting harder and harder to right them again. It was like when one played an RPG and is confronted with a typical “scale” problem in a random generic dungeon. You have to work out how many of some object is needed be placed on one side of the scale to bring the players character up high enough to reach the next platform. Of course, even if you can work this out, there is still the issue of jumping from the scale to the platform and if you miss you fall back down to the bottom and have to start all over again.

This was a perfectly fine analogy to use in this situation. Whenever their relationship became balanced, or steady enough, or in a place where it felt comfortable, something jumped, missed, and landed two floors down on its arse. Then it became the task of the relationship to walk back up the floors, destroying the monsters that had re-spawned, re-lighting the spheres to open the door to jump over the quick sand to fight the mini-boss to get the item to make it past the locked door to get back and re-solve the scale puzzle to finally get them level enough to be in the right place. The place you'd been in before. Already.

It had happened after they'd spent nearly the whole night in the closet and it was happening again now. Luckily, they'd already made the trek once and so knew the path. Reconciling was easier this time, although Seto had to stop and wonder about this, seeing as the incident that had started it was in some ways a lot more confronting than the last one had been. Maybe Jonouchi had simply decided that he'd been off his nut and it wasn't going to happen again, like he had said it wouldn't.

And he was doing his best to make sure that it didn't, but the problem with suddenly realizing that you maybe kinda like someone is that you then spent every moment with them trying to work out the extent of these new found feelings, and whether they actually hold any substance at all. Looking at Jou made him wonder whether he liked looking at Jou; and so on. He couldn't not think about his assistant in a way that had nothing to do with how fast he processed invoices, and this was simply the result of what had happened a week earlier.

Now that the boy was speaking to him again, even getting close to the friendly kind of way it had been, he had to work a lot harder at ignoring all of those other feelings and getting on with running his company. He actually wasn't doing a bad job of it too; Seto had always been quite good at showing people a face that his audience wanted to see. He knew how to ignore distractions, and to focus on the task at hand. This was absolutely not different. So despite the fact that working with Jonouchi forced him to think once again about how he might have been feeling, on no accounts did he let Jou know that. Or anyone else for that matter.

But regardless of all this, Seto was in high spirits. Well, as high as they got for someone who had never so much as shouted a “woohoo” in his life. He felt he'd done enough teaching and that Yahada was finally equipped enough to order his own name plate and have someone nail it to Nobita's old door. They'd discussed it, and decided that it wasn't essential to wait, and so he could start on Monday. That meant he only had one more day to spend at Shichi Corporation and then, finally, he could move back here permanently, hopefully seeing the back side of the other office for the last time.

This decision led him right back to the other decision he'd sworn he would make regarding Niita's termination. It had been a busy week with all the preparation and set-up he'd had to finalize to do with the change over, involving many quick decisions and many opportunities to once again prove why he was head of the billion dollar company and not some old man in an ugly grey suit. Getting Niita out of the way felt like something that simply should be tied up along with everything else.

He was still contemplating when and what to tell her, and also still considering Mokuba's suggestion about Jonouchi, that afternoon. Yahada was in his office, as he had been quite frequently that week, and they were taking a kind of break from the discussion to have a drink. Niita herself had managed, he imagined, to literally sniff out the tea from wherever she had been off to, and had scurried back to interrupt shortly after it had been poured. It was some sort of extremely expensive something from Kyoto; Seto never really did pay attention to those kinds of things. He had people that bought him formalities for a reason. He could recognize, of course, whether a wine had cost one thousand yen or ten thousand yen, but he wouldn't exactly call himself a connoisseur. It had a lot to do with not caring about what they drank or ate, as long as he managed to close the deal.

Niita had taken a seat next to Yahada, and was offering him a refill before he'd hardly touched what was already in his cup. She had been fawning over him all week, but Seto had decided not to care enough to be annoyed by it. It was obvious to even the cleaning staff, who didn't actually work normal office hours, that Seto's PA preferred dealing with Yahada a whole lot more than she did her current boss. They argued, he was constantly annoyed with her, and she frequently ignored his tempers and any suggestions that she considered to be wrong.

He had no idea how Yahada put up with her. Or even how her own mother did. But throughout the whole week the new CEO had only smiled politely and thanked her for going out of her way to do things for him. Which she certainly had been. When Seto had asked her to photocopy a report, she had gone down the road to buy Yahada a coffee. When he had reminded her that he needed that draft by 10, she had flown downstairs to collect and then deliver Yahada's mail.

And so on and so forth.

“Don't you have somewhere else you could procrastinate?” Seto asked without much enthusiasm, placing his cup on the small table between the lounges. He'd found that, after making the decision to get rid of her, he was no longer as irritated by her constant presence. She'd made an egg explode in the microwave on Wednesday and he hadn't batted an eyelid. Naturally, he was yet to tell her of this decision, but the knowledge that it would happen sustained him.

“Don't worry, I've got it covered, your calls are going to voicemail.” She replied dismissively.

“Of course.” Seto said with just the amount of sarcasm needed to show that he hadn't really expected a different answer.

“So this is your last day?” Niita continued despairingly, returning her attention to Yahada. She pouted like a child being denied a sweet.

“Well, no. I'm still working for Kaiba Corporation.” Yahada explained although of course that was quite obvious.

She tugged on his shirt sleeve, “But you won't be working here, will you?” Niita had been one of the last employees to get wind of the official date of the transfer. Whether this was because of her inability to notice even a post-it on the end of her nose, or that the rest of the staff felt it was better to be saved her loud and verbal dismay over the matter for as long as possible remained to be seen.

“No…” The taller man conceded, his tone indicating a slight wariness of what the answer could lead to.

She crossed her arms and gave a little `humph' of annoyance, but smiled at him nonetheless. “Well, I hope it all goes well for you.”

Obviously relieved that she hadn't stoned him to death immediately, Yahada smiled back; “Thank you. I have confidence in myself and Kaiba-san's decisions; I think the move will be fine.”

She gave Seto a quick sidelong look that seemed to imply she didn't exactly have as much faith as he did in what the CEO could accomplish, and that trusting in his decisions wasn't top of the list of her priorities. The look she turned back to Yahada with was strikingly dissimilar. “Well, I have confidence in you too. I'm sure you'll do fine.”

Now happily sipping tea, the both of them began to chat a little more generally about the changes that would take place beginning next week. Seto wasn't interested in taking part in the conversation at all, so chose to remain quiet and thoughtful instead.

The solution to his problem was more obvious than a clown on a stealth mission. Niita could clearly be useful as long as she wanted to be, she and Kaiba just had conflicting personalities. She liked Yahada, so worked better when she was around him, and he seemed to… well… if it wasn't `like' then it was tolerance in any case. He knew however, that Jonouchi got along with Yahada too (not that this was surprising - the man was extremely agreeable), so if he didn't change anything things would still work out fine over at Shichi. But Seto needed to get rid of Niita. This was not negotiable.

…

Honestly his current plan was downright generous.

Tuning back in when Yahada suddenly stood up, he heard him say; “I need to finish packing the rest of the things in my office, so if you'll excuse me?”

Seto waved a hand indicating that he was free to do so and Niita said a smiling and yet somehow melancholy goodbye. No sooner had he closed the door than she made to leave as well, however for once the CEO actually halted her in the process.

“Wait,” She turned, expression curious, and stopped.

“Yes?” It was not that she never accepted the tasks that he asked of her, it was just that she didn't always choose to do them, or with much haste.

“Niita, how would you like to work with Yahada on a more permanent basis?”

 

***

 

Shichi Corporation's new CEO had actually looked happy when Seto mentioned that he could take Niita with him. For the life of him Kaiba couldn't work out why, but didn't spend too much time dwelling on it. Mokuba had also been happy that his idea had been taken on board by his older brother. Jonouchi was in fact the only person yet to know of the change in plans.

He didn't see it as that great of an issue, in fact it flew out of his mind for most of Saturday, until finally around the close of the day he realized that if it was all to work out properly Jou would be required to turn up at a different office next shift, and wouldn't be able to do this if someone didn't tell him he needed to. So Seto called him in, in an attempt to explain the situation.

Katsuya was still slightly on edge around Kaiba, but the rest of the week hadn't been too bad. He took a seat across from the taller man and folded his arms automatically. He was wearing a slight frown, unsure of what to make of the situation. The other boy looked so serious he really had no idea what to expect. Well, best let him speak and get it over and done with.

Seto clasped his hands together in front of him on the desk. It was an extremely business-like gesture, Katsuya thought.

Without further invitation, the brunet plunged right on into the issue; “Starting next week Yahada will be taking over this job that I've been filling in for, for the last few months.”

“Uh… okay?” Katsuya had been vaguely aware of this plan but this was the first he'd heard of anything specific. Let alone that it was going to happen next week.

“Which means I won't be here anymore.” Seto waved a hand in emphasis, feeling the sudden need to explain this incase the mutt wasn't capable of coming to that conclusion. “More to the point, Niita, my ever so agreeable assistant over at head office, is going to leave with him. So I'm arranging to have you transferred, and to take over her old job.”

Katsuya took a moment to let this sink in. So Kaiba was asking him to change jobs from one office to another. Whether this decision had anything to do with motives associated with the `snow incident' he couldn't tell; possibly not, knowing how business-like the CEO was. He realized, however, that this was his opportunity to not find out. If he stayed with Kaiba and worked as his official PA, he'd never be able to put this whole mess behind him. But if he declined and stayed here, he would be able to avoid the brunet on a more regular basis. Say, for the rest of his life.

Reaching that decision Katsuya said; “Actually Kaiba, I'd rather not. Uh… if it's all the same to you.”

It occurred to Seto that he hadn't ever considered that Jonouchi would say no. So much so that technically he hadn't even phrased it as a question. He was somewhat at a loss for words.

“Well… then… you're fired.”

“What!?”

“It's that job or no job. Niita's transferring here; I think she and Yahada will get along better. I've already told her so your current job is technically already taken.”

“You can't just fire me like that, that's bull shit!”

Seto cast him a warning glare. “I can do whatever I want to. I hardly think I'm being unreasonable, I am offering you another job after all. But you seem to have turned it down.”

Katsuya's rebuttal was lost on his tongue, his mouth gaping stupidly with nothing to say as he realized Kaiba was right. He had just turned down the only job now available to him.

“I… um…” His eyes seemed to rove of themselves, looking everywhere but at the man in front of him, “When does Niita start here?”

“Same time as Yahada. Next Monday.”

“Oh.”

“So I guess you should start looking in the help wanted section.” Seto himself recognized that this sounded a little too cold, but he couldn't really reconsider the phrasing now.

“Yeah,” Katsuya stood up, and then muttered something about it being five o'clock. He suddenly realized that if he stayed for much longer, he was going to end up punching Kaiba in the face. Just whose fault was this anyway? Kaiba's for not asking him first, or his for not accepting it? Or did blame lie with both parties?

This was insane. What a bastard, after all my hard work and suddenly my job's just gone, like that?!

Although, a deep cynical part of himself suggested, you got your wish didn't you? Now you won't have to see him at all, not even the slightest chance.

He kindly told that part to shut the fuck up.

It being five o'clock meant that he was finished for the day, and being Saturday, this was his last day. Ever. Working here. On Monday Niita would start and so would that Western cross breed Yahada, and Kaiba would go back to what he'd normally been doing before he'd ever needed to fill in for Nobita. Katsuya would go back to being unemployed. Life would be as it was, as possibly it should have been.

“Don't leave anything of yours behind, or Niita will have a reason to call me next week to find out where to send it.” Seto found that even right now he couldn't stop, insults and backlash rolled off his tongue before he even had a chance to analyze its composition.

Katsuya stopped at the door. Well, he was fired now wasn't he? “You really are a selfish bastard.” The only thing he seemed to care about was avoiding a phone call from his annoying ex-assistant.

The part of him that knew deep down he really hadn't wanted Jonouchi to say no, that hadn't expected him to either and therefore was shocked, surprised, and for some reason even a little hurt when he did; hurt even more when he was berated with such a contemptuous tone. He knew before all of this, if this had been three months earlier and he'd fired Jou on the first day he wouldn't have thought twice about it.

Damn relationship development, damn it to hell!

“You say that like it's surprising.” The CEO looked back down at his desk, trying to give off the aura of someone wanting to get back to work. Rather than someone only pretending to want to get back to work.

“It was.”

Seto's eyes widened and he was unable to stop himself from looking up. But Jonouchi, he found, had predictably already left. He might not have realized what he'd said at all, or perhaps he did and didn't want to wait for an answer.

Either way, it just added fuel to the fire blocking Seto from concentrating on anything even remotely constructive for the next few hours.

Now, it seemed, he was going to have to look for a new assistant all over again.

 

***

 

A/N: I'm not quite sure about this one, it probably could have used a bit more fleshing out, or is that just me over-reacting as normal? Well, I just wanted to get another chapter out before I go back to uni next week. Coz that'll mean less writing time for story, so the next update may take a little longer. I apologize in advance. Many bows and cookies and pleads for reviews are involved. Swift updates compensate for stunted, choppy, sucky chapter development, right?

Until next time~