Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Behind Blue Eyes: Seto's Story ❯ Day Three: Stalker ( Chapter 12 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: kiokukaiba 
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 08.14.2007 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 321 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 08.14.2007 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 321 | Status: Work In Progress
Behind Blue Eyes: Seto’s Story
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Disclaimer: I don’t own Yuugiou. . . but don’t you wish I did? Then again. . . you wouldn’t get too many new episodes very often. . .
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Recap:
I glanced up from my book, and found the explanation to the butterflies in my stomach. Katsuya came towards me, a pizza in hand and a smile on his face. I really. . . I really like his smile.
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Have you ever started smiling like a dumbass and not realized it until you had already been seen? Well, that really doesn’t happen to me very often, but it did at just that moment, and I did my best to avert my attention back to my novel. Why was I so happy anyways? It’s not like I enjoyed his companionship or anything. I had plenty of people around me. I had Mokuba and Isono and. . . and. . . well, I don’t remember their names off the top of my head, but they work for me.
I glanced back up at him when he came to stand by me. He looked kind of sad or disappointed. “I take it that your previous class didn’t go so well?” I eyed him as he sat down. He had one of those small boxed pizzas in his hand and dropped it to the table. I don’t know if my ears were deceiving me or if it really made the nasty ‘plop’ noise, but the small amount of grease that splattered from it was enough to make my face scrunch up.
“No! I’m in a great mood! I was just thinking about things, that’s all.” He grinned at me and ripped open the tiny red box, taking a dramatic whiff of it’s sickening aroma.
“That’s disgusting.” I informed him, laying down my book and turning my face away so that I could un-wrinkle my nose. I scooped up another bit of my yogurt, “That isn’t healthy, you know.”
“Neither is only eating a yogurt.” He had a point, I guess. He sloppily bit into that cheesy mess, smacking his lips on purpose just to gross me out. “What are you reading?” He asked, taking another bite but chewing more quietly this time.
“This?” I lay my left hand on top of it, “Just your average novel. A romance novel. I’ve already read the thing about five times.” Yeah, more like five million times, but he didn’t need to know that. I slurped up some of my blueberry yogurt, “Even with a library of my own, it’s still difficult to find a good read.” There we go, change the subject a little, get a conversation going.
“Let’s see it.” He reached for it, but I quickly slid it away.
“Your hands are greasy.” And they were.
“Only my left hand.” He insisted, reaching for it yet again. I pulled it to my chest in an attempt to protect it, but he had no problem going after it. “Geez, Kaiba! You act like you’re reading smut or something.” Okay, so right about then I had one of those near-death experiences. How in the hell could he have guessed that. . . not that I really was reading smut or anything. . . I wasn’t. It wasn’t that graphic. . . was I blushing? Ah shit. “Oh. . . my. . . God. . . no way, Seto. You’re reading porn!” I covered his mouth instantly.
“Shh!” A few students glanced over and cocked their heads at us, “You’re drawing unnecessary attention.” I ripped my hand away from his face when he decided to lick it. Nasty!
“So tell me, Seto. . . it is gay smut?” He grinned, scooting dangerously close to me.
“New subject.” I managed to fight off a newly-approaching blush, finishing my yogurt off and laying the spoon on the table. I should’ve brought two yogurts.
“Yeah, fine, whatever. . .” He munched on his pizza for a bit, and a part of me wanted a little piece of it. . . “Hey Kaiba?” He asked, interrupting my concentration on the greasy pool left by his pizza, “What were you writing this morning in Ms. Asuka’s class?”
I rolled my eyes, “The note to you that I wound up eating, you dumbass.” How could he have already forgotten that?
“No, I mean while she was checking homework.” He finished off his pizza and shoved the box aside to dispose of later.
He must have seen me drawing. “Oh. . . it’s nothing, really.” I looked into my yogurt cup, hoping that perhaps there was a small bit left that I had missed. . . but there wasn’t. “I just write things sometimes.” I lied, not willing to tell him that I had been drawing a picture.
“Can I see?”
“No.”
“I bet you’re a great writer!”
“You don’t have the money to bet on anything right now.” I smirked, trying to change the subject again.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, I am.” I stood, still holding my book tightly even though he had already figured out what it was. . . or. . . oh fuck it. I was reading a little romance novel that just happened to have a gay couple having sex in it. Are you happy now? I tossed out my yogurt cup, “Throw away that greasy cardboard and let’s go outside. It’s too noisy in here.” It really was too noisy. That was what I hated most about school. I had to sit and try to do work or read while ignorant teenagers babbled endlessly about absolute nonsense. How was somebody supposed to learn while surrounded by complete stupidity? . . . not that any of these poorly-paid teachers could possibly teach me anything that I don’t already know. During Gozaburo’s lifetime I was taught by the best.
I left the cafeteria, followed by Jounouchi at my heels like a puppy after it’s master. Normally he would have said something akin to “I’m not taking orders from some rich brat!” but he didn’t do that this time. . . why not? He really had been acting odd lately.
It was so much quieter outside. The wind blew softly and it wasn’t chilly at all. I always went outside when the weather was nice. There was one particular tree in the schoolyard that was larger than the others, and I had chosen it as my place for relaxation. Typically I would read (or in most cases, re-read) a novel, or look over the documents of a possible client, but today I would have a companion with me. Well, perhaps he couldn’t be called a companion, but perhaps. . . well, perhaps he could. . . couldn’t? Could? Hell, who the fuck cares? The fact is, he was there with me under the tree on that particular day, and that was very different from my routine, different from my norm.
I stopped when we arrived and sucked in a breath of fresh air, only to have the wind knocked out of me when a certain dumb blond ran into my back.
“What the hell, Jounouchi?!” I yelled, glaring at him while recovering from a near-loss of balance. His hand had wound its way around my wrist during that instant. I pulled it away quickly, “What are you doing?!”
“Sorry! I was trying to keep you from falling!” He rubbed at the back of his head. My only reaction was to roll my eyes and turn away. Sure, he made mistakes, but it was getting ridiculous. “I was daydreaming.” He admitted, and that cleared things up a bit.
“About what?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me. He daydreamed a lot, as I had come to notice, but I don’t recall him telling me what consumed his thoughts so frequently.
“Oh, it’s nothing, really.” He said, clearly mocking my answer to him from our previous conversation. I rolled my eyes again instead of smacking him on the back of the head like I wanted to.
I sat down beneath the tree, just as I did on most days.
“You’re sitting in dirt.” The genius pointed out, apparently thinking that I was careless enough to sit in a pile of filth.
I tried my best to keep my cool. “No, there’s grass here. I come here a lot when the weather is nice. I can’t stand all that noise.” I sat there for a moment, letting the wind caress my skin. It felt wonderful. Jounouchi just stared at me as though I were some sort of spectacle. . . or was he daydreaming yet again? “You daydream a lot.”
“I thought we had already established that.” He was right, we had. The brown-eyed teen took a seat next to me, a bit too close to me. The wind tossed his messy golden hair against his face and against the trunk of the tree. He had nice earthy tones to his coloring. His eyes were brown like tree trunks. . . isn’t there a more beautiful way to describe brown? What are some things that are brown? Tree trunks, dirt, shit. . . how about chocolate? Okay, his eyes were like chocolate and his hair. . . his hair was golden like. . . like the sun. Hey, I knew that reading Mokuba’s manga would pay off some day. . . look, when you read as much as I do, you get to looking for other material. (AN: Hair like the sun. . . it’s from Saiyuki.)
“I guess.” I muttered, remember that I was supposed to be having a conversation. “I daydream sometimes.” Of course now all I could think of was how bad of a combination chocolate and the sun were. . . I needed some better comparisons. Why the hell did I need to compare his coloring to something? What am I, a fucking poet?
“What do you dream about?”
Dream or daydream? Such a wide variety. . . “Lots of things.” Now that I thought about it, I daydreamed a lot during class or during my work, even at night while I lie awake. “Mostly about how things would be different had different situations occurred in my life. Like what kind of person I would be had my original parents not died. . . or what kind of person I would be if I had let Gozaburo live. . . or if I had went ahead and befriended you and Yuugi and the others. . .” Okay, so that last part was meant to have been voiced on the inside, not the outside. Maybe he would drop it and pretend that it was never brought up.
A part of me kind of wanted to join their little group, but I really didn’t want to. I mean, it would be kind of nice to have someone to talk to just for the hell of it, or to go out to eat with, or to go catch a movie that looks decent. Someone other than Mokuba to share my pool with or share my ideas for inventions with. I had created so many different games, and yet I had no one to play against. . . even Mokuba would rather play with his friends. I never really got to have friends when I was younger. . . but I was at the top now, and as they say, ‘it’s always lonely at the top’.
“You’re a good person, Seto. You shouldn’t worry about who you could have been, but who you can be. You can change whatever makes you unhappy, and become the person that you want to be. These past few days, I’ve learned so much about you, some good and some bad. . . but I’m beginning to understand what made you who you are today. I had always thought that you were an asshole because you thought you were better than everyone else. . . and maybe that was the reason in the beginning. . . but in the end, I think that it was your hatred for the fact that we have friends and you don’t that made you act like an ass towards us.”
No way, that wasn’t the reason at all! I’m only an ass to them because I don’t want. . . I don’t need. . . I’m not allowed to have friends. Gozaburo always told me that they get in the way, and they do. They only die and cause grief. Satoshi. . . Satoshi was one of the few friends I had managed to gain during my life with Kaiba Gozaburo, but in the end, he had to die. He was in the way of my studies, and he had to be eliminated. . . did he have to be? Was he really in the way? What should I say in reply to Jounouchi’s accusation? “You make it sound like I’m some kind of pitiful loser.”
He leaned closer and I looked down to make sure that we weren’t touching. “That’s not what I meant.” He assured me, “Anyways, you need to just work on showing people how you really are.”
“So that corporate men can walk all over me? There’s no way in hell! Right now, CEO’s shiver when they hear the name ‘Kaiba’. I am at the top of the corporate world and I plan to stay on my little perch for the remainder of my career.” It’s always lonely at the top.
“Seto? This probably isn’t the best place to discuss it, but,” He paused for a second, giving me time to brace for what I knew was coming, “This morning, you said something about your fathers’ business associates. You never finished your sentence, but I think that you were about to say. . .” He looked around, making sure that the coast was clear of anyone who may happen to overhear him, “I think that you were about to say that you let them. . . that you let your fathers’ business associates fu- have their way with you.” Though he tried to reword it, the effect was still the same.
Yeah, they fucked me. Just say it, they screwed my fucking brains out. And I let them, I let them do that to me.
I tightened my lips, narrowing my eyes as a warning, “You’re right; this isn’t the place to be discussing this. Perhaps I’ll discuss it when we go to your house. Or maybe not. That is definitely something that is extremely complicated.” No, I would certainly find a way to make him forget about it.
“You aren’t a slut.” I faced him abruptly when he said that, but he wasn’t looking at me at all. He looked so serious. “No matter what may have happened in your past, you aren’t a slut.” I closed my eyes, trying so hard not to smile. . . but I couldn’t help it.
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We had sat there like that, for the remainder of lunch, discussing such subjects as our previous class period and how much each academic sucked.
Third period came quickly, unlike other days where lunch seemed to drag on longer than English class. Then again, I’d rather be doing nothing than doing nothing while listening to some dipshit woman who thought she was intelligent.
My third period was History. Holy shit did I hate History. What on Earth could possibly be more boring than sitting in a room and practically living the History Channel? On top of that, just when things couldn’t seem more awful, the teacher was an old man with a monotone voice that spoke veeeerrrryyyyyyyyy sloooooowwwwwwlyyyyy. It was hell in a 20 X 20 room (I counted the square foot tiles on the ceiling and therefore knew the rooms measurements. That’s how boring it was.).
Normally I managed to stay awake, but today I either dosed off or stared into space for an hour and a half. . . and the bell to release me rang before I even thought about it.
Fourth block came around, which meant that it was actually time for something that posed a small challenge for at least a couple seconds. Did I skip to fourth block that quickly? It’s not that it was important or anything, just more interesting. I don’t know why, though, I really don’t.
“Everyone take out your homework!” Our math teacher, Mrs. Kaori, chimed. She was better looking than Ms. Asuka, which was probably why Kaori was married and Asuka was not. She began making her rounds. I stared at Jounouchi, who more-than-enthusiastically whipped out the homework I helped him with and slammed it on his desk. He was so much more different when he was surrounded only by the wind. . .
That’s when the idea hit me. I pulled out the drawing I had begun earlier. I knew what I wanted the picture to be. Doing my best to remember the way Jou had looked under the tree, I began to sketch.
“Great work, Mr. Jounouchi!” She cooed as she came by the blond’s desk, startling me from my work, “Mr. Kaiba helped you, I presume?”
“Yeah. I like having a hot tutor.”
“Can it, you filthy mutt.” I knew he was joking. . . I think he was joking, so I went along with it. Then it occurred to me, “Wait a second. . . how did you know I was staying at his house?”
Mrs. Kaori chuckled a bit, a blush coming to her face, “The fact that you and Mr. Jounouchi got paired up for the final senior project is a hot topic around the school. You two are always at each others’ throats.”
“I don’t see why students feel the need to gossip about it. It’s no big deal, really. We are both man enough to put our differences aside for the sake of our final grades.” I folded my arms and snuck a peek at Katsuya before closing my eyes. Really though, it shouldn’t be such a huge deal, whether we fight a lot or not. There were plenty of people in our school that argued on a daily basis. I could hear the puppy sigh. I folded up the picture and jammed it back into my bag. I wouldn’t be finishing that today.
“Alright, students! As usual, we’ll go over the answers out loud in class, and if you have any questions about how to work the problem, I’ll be happy to walk you through it up here on the overhead!” She stepped to the switches on the wall, darkening to room, and then turned on that wretched machine with the irritating hum and the faint light.
I couldn’t have Jou writing notes to me again this time, especially with news and gossip floating around about our staying together for the week. I decided to throw a note of my own. It read: Hey mutt, pay attention today. The last thing I need is for you to fail with the only excuse of ‘I was messing with Kaiba’. Got it? It made enough sense that even a dumbass like Jou would understand.
I tossed it at him, but towards his legs so that it wouldn’t be sailing at Mrs. Kaori’s eye level. The last thing I needed was to have to eat yet another note. I was already on the bad side of two of my teachers. He felt it hit his leg and much to my appreciation, he inconspicuously retrieved it and read the contents, then balled it up and shoved it into his bookbag. Not once did the blond look back at me. So he was listening. . . good.
As Mrs. Kaori solved simple math problems for the brain-dead losers in the class, I allowed for my mind to wander. . . to wander back to that morning. The way that Jou had spoken to me. . . he seemed so strong then, and so huge. His words rang out in my head like there wasn’t anything else in the world that I should hear other than his voice. He yelled at me more fiercely than I had ever heard from him, and for once in my time with him, I couldn’t read his emotions. Was it anger? Though he yelled at me with his brows knit together and his body in motion with what seemed like wild rage, I couldn’t say for sure that he was angry. It was more like. . .
. . . like sadness. Sometimes, if people get really upset, they get wild and start yelling, and sometimes do crazy things. If someone gets upset enough, they can even go so far as to murder the source of all of their sadness. . . all of my sadness. You took my one friend away from me, and then set me up with some god damned business man’s son that was a fucking pedophile! You sick as son of a bitch!
I could hear my desk rattle as I shook with a new-found anger. . . and then I calmed myself. This wasn’t about Gozaburo, not now. This was about Jounouchi. He said that I wasn’t a slut, he said that the past didn’t matter, he said that I can change who I am and become who I want to be. . . he said so many things, and I couldn’t help but hear them and accept them as solid truths. His word almost seemed like the word of. . . I’d say God, but would that sound any good coming from someone like me? No, there was no place in my heart for a God. . . however, Jounouchi seemed to be filling in some void in that small heart that I have.
I was staring accidentally at the back of the blond’s fluffy golden head when he sighed rather loudly, causing me to snap out of my daze and our teacher to falter in her lecture.
Mrs. Kaori didn’t bother to call him out, “Well then, if that’s all of your questions, we’ll begin today’s lesson!” She clasped her hands together in that same annoying manner that Ms. Asuka does, and shut off the overhead, turning on those gleaming lights.
And like Katsuya, I tried my best to pay attention.
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The school bell rang and Jounouchi, like the rest of the antsy teenagers, flew out the door. I was a bit disappointed, but then my hopes jumped back up when I saw him lingering just outside the door. Deciding to annoy him a bit, I took my sweet time packing up my belongings. It’s not like I had anywhere to be or anything. I packed my bag and stood up very slowly, expecting to find Jou staring at me, eagerly waiting to go home. Instead, I could see him standing with that group of friends of his, chatting away. He looked kind of. . . pissed?
I listened closely.
“He’s really not such a bad guy once you get to know him.” Jou was talking about me. “I can totally see what Mokuba has been preaching to us about all along. In the end, Seto’s a great person, deep down.”
Honda looked skeptical, “Yeah, deep down. . . deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. . .”
“Look, I’m not going if you all won’t let Seto come.” Jou was going somewhere? He wanted me to go with him? Where? Why?
“Calm down, Jou! Kaiba can come! Since when did you start openly calling him Seto?” Yuugi seemed a bit surprised at his friends sudden anger. He probably wanted Jou to go to his house
“. . . deep down.” Honda finished.
I decided it was the perfect moment to make my entrance, “I like how you all talk about me when you think I can’t hear you. I don’t want to go to Yuugi’s house, Jounouchi. I’ll stay at your house and do work on my laptop; you can go play with your little friends.” Yes, I could do my thing and he could do his. That was how it always had been and always should be. They didn’t want me around anyways. . .
“I don’t want you staying home alone.” He looked me dead in the eyes and was completely serious again. I wasn’t sure if I liked this serious Katsuya very much.
“I’m not a child, I can stay home alone.”
“Someone could break in and hurt you.” True, but. . .
“So what? I could just kick their ass.” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him with the same intensity. Who the hell did he think he was?
“Let me try that again, with a bit of different emphasis. . . someone could breaking in and hurt you.” Oh. . . he was worried that Saki would hurt me again? Jou was worried. . . no harm in that, I suppose. But Saki wouldn’t know which apartment I was in, and there was no way of him knowing that I was home and Jou was away.
“Whatever,” I tried to sound irritated, but was actually kind of. . . happy? Touched? “If you’re going to be so annoying and stubborn about it, I might as well. I’ll just bring my laptop and do my work while you play with your friends.” I smirked and he appeared to be happy again. Much better.
“Well then, it’s settled.” Anzu always had to rear her ugly head, “We’ll all go to Yuugi’s place!” She bounded down the hallways, with the rest of us in a non-enthusiastic pace behind her. . . well, except Yuugi, who bounced along right with her.
The sun was warm and the breeze was perfect as we took our first few steps outside. No, the air wasn’t quite right. My body felt cold. . . and then I saw the source. I froze, midstep, and Jounouchi ran into me just like earlier. This time, however, I didn’t lose my balance. I couldn’t do anything.
“Seto? What’s wrong?”
Can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t think. Saki. Saki is here. Why are you looking at me like that? Why won’t you hold me, Saki? Hold me just like you used to. They won’t touch me if you’re with me. Protect me again. Protect me from them. Say such sweet things to me, just like you always did.
Saki, if I can’t have you, I don’t want anyone.
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Disclaimer: I don’t own Yuugiou. . . but don’t you wish I did? Then again. . . you wouldn’t get too many new episodes very often. . .
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Recap:
I glanced up from my book, and found the explanation to the butterflies in my stomach. Katsuya came towards me, a pizza in hand and a smile on his face. I really. . . I really like his smile.
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Have you ever started smiling like a dumbass and not realized it until you had already been seen? Well, that really doesn’t happen to me very often, but it did at just that moment, and I did my best to avert my attention back to my novel. Why was I so happy anyways? It’s not like I enjoyed his companionship or anything. I had plenty of people around me. I had Mokuba and Isono and. . . and. . . well, I don’t remember their names off the top of my head, but they work for me.
I glanced back up at him when he came to stand by me. He looked kind of sad or disappointed. “I take it that your previous class didn’t go so well?” I eyed him as he sat down. He had one of those small boxed pizzas in his hand and dropped it to the table. I don’t know if my ears were deceiving me or if it really made the nasty ‘plop’ noise, but the small amount of grease that splattered from it was enough to make my face scrunch up.
“No! I’m in a great mood! I was just thinking about things, that’s all.” He grinned at me and ripped open the tiny red box, taking a dramatic whiff of it’s sickening aroma.
“That’s disgusting.” I informed him, laying down my book and turning my face away so that I could un-wrinkle my nose. I scooped up another bit of my yogurt, “That isn’t healthy, you know.”
“Neither is only eating a yogurt.” He had a point, I guess. He sloppily bit into that cheesy mess, smacking his lips on purpose just to gross me out. “What are you reading?” He asked, taking another bite but chewing more quietly this time.
“This?” I lay my left hand on top of it, “Just your average novel. A romance novel. I’ve already read the thing about five times.” Yeah, more like five million times, but he didn’t need to know that. I slurped up some of my blueberry yogurt, “Even with a library of my own, it’s still difficult to find a good read.” There we go, change the subject a little, get a conversation going.
“Let’s see it.” He reached for it, but I quickly slid it away.
“Your hands are greasy.” And they were.
“Only my left hand.” He insisted, reaching for it yet again. I pulled it to my chest in an attempt to protect it, but he had no problem going after it. “Geez, Kaiba! You act like you’re reading smut or something.” Okay, so right about then I had one of those near-death experiences. How in the hell could he have guessed that. . . not that I really was reading smut or anything. . . I wasn’t. It wasn’t that graphic. . . was I blushing? Ah shit. “Oh. . . my. . . God. . . no way, Seto. You’re reading porn!” I covered his mouth instantly.
“Shh!” A few students glanced over and cocked their heads at us, “You’re drawing unnecessary attention.” I ripped my hand away from his face when he decided to lick it. Nasty!
“So tell me, Seto. . . it is gay smut?” He grinned, scooting dangerously close to me.
“New subject.” I managed to fight off a newly-approaching blush, finishing my yogurt off and laying the spoon on the table. I should’ve brought two yogurts.
“Yeah, fine, whatever. . .” He munched on his pizza for a bit, and a part of me wanted a little piece of it. . . “Hey Kaiba?” He asked, interrupting my concentration on the greasy pool left by his pizza, “What were you writing this morning in Ms. Asuka’s class?”
I rolled my eyes, “The note to you that I wound up eating, you dumbass.” How could he have already forgotten that?
“No, I mean while she was checking homework.” He finished off his pizza and shoved the box aside to dispose of later.
He must have seen me drawing. “Oh. . . it’s nothing, really.” I looked into my yogurt cup, hoping that perhaps there was a small bit left that I had missed. . . but there wasn’t. “I just write things sometimes.” I lied, not willing to tell him that I had been drawing a picture.
“Can I see?”
“No.”
“I bet you’re a great writer!”
“You don’t have the money to bet on anything right now.” I smirked, trying to change the subject again.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, I am.” I stood, still holding my book tightly even though he had already figured out what it was. . . or. . . oh fuck it. I was reading a little romance novel that just happened to have a gay couple having sex in it. Are you happy now? I tossed out my yogurt cup, “Throw away that greasy cardboard and let’s go outside. It’s too noisy in here.” It really was too noisy. That was what I hated most about school. I had to sit and try to do work or read while ignorant teenagers babbled endlessly about absolute nonsense. How was somebody supposed to learn while surrounded by complete stupidity? . . . not that any of these poorly-paid teachers could possibly teach me anything that I don’t already know. During Gozaburo’s lifetime I was taught by the best.
I left the cafeteria, followed by Jounouchi at my heels like a puppy after it’s master. Normally he would have said something akin to “I’m not taking orders from some rich brat!” but he didn’t do that this time. . . why not? He really had been acting odd lately.
It was so much quieter outside. The wind blew softly and it wasn’t chilly at all. I always went outside when the weather was nice. There was one particular tree in the schoolyard that was larger than the others, and I had chosen it as my place for relaxation. Typically I would read (or in most cases, re-read) a novel, or look over the documents of a possible client, but today I would have a companion with me. Well, perhaps he couldn’t be called a companion, but perhaps. . . well, perhaps he could. . . couldn’t? Could? Hell, who the fuck cares? The fact is, he was there with me under the tree on that particular day, and that was very different from my routine, different from my norm.
I stopped when we arrived and sucked in a breath of fresh air, only to have the wind knocked out of me when a certain dumb blond ran into my back.
“What the hell, Jounouchi?!” I yelled, glaring at him while recovering from a near-loss of balance. His hand had wound its way around my wrist during that instant. I pulled it away quickly, “What are you doing?!”
“Sorry! I was trying to keep you from falling!” He rubbed at the back of his head. My only reaction was to roll my eyes and turn away. Sure, he made mistakes, but it was getting ridiculous. “I was daydreaming.” He admitted, and that cleared things up a bit.
“About what?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me. He daydreamed a lot, as I had come to notice, but I don’t recall him telling me what consumed his thoughts so frequently.
“Oh, it’s nothing, really.” He said, clearly mocking my answer to him from our previous conversation. I rolled my eyes again instead of smacking him on the back of the head like I wanted to.
I sat down beneath the tree, just as I did on most days.
“You’re sitting in dirt.” The genius pointed out, apparently thinking that I was careless enough to sit in a pile of filth.
I tried my best to keep my cool. “No, there’s grass here. I come here a lot when the weather is nice. I can’t stand all that noise.” I sat there for a moment, letting the wind caress my skin. It felt wonderful. Jounouchi just stared at me as though I were some sort of spectacle. . . or was he daydreaming yet again? “You daydream a lot.”
“I thought we had already established that.” He was right, we had. The brown-eyed teen took a seat next to me, a bit too close to me. The wind tossed his messy golden hair against his face and against the trunk of the tree. He had nice earthy tones to his coloring. His eyes were brown like tree trunks. . . isn’t there a more beautiful way to describe brown? What are some things that are brown? Tree trunks, dirt, shit. . . how about chocolate? Okay, his eyes were like chocolate and his hair. . . his hair was golden like. . . like the sun. Hey, I knew that reading Mokuba’s manga would pay off some day. . . look, when you read as much as I do, you get to looking for other material. (AN: Hair like the sun. . . it’s from Saiyuki.)
“I guess.” I muttered, remember that I was supposed to be having a conversation. “I daydream sometimes.” Of course now all I could think of was how bad of a combination chocolate and the sun were. . . I needed some better comparisons. Why the hell did I need to compare his coloring to something? What am I, a fucking poet?
“What do you dream about?”
Dream or daydream? Such a wide variety. . . “Lots of things.” Now that I thought about it, I daydreamed a lot during class or during my work, even at night while I lie awake. “Mostly about how things would be different had different situations occurred in my life. Like what kind of person I would be had my original parents not died. . . or what kind of person I would be if I had let Gozaburo live. . . or if I had went ahead and befriended you and Yuugi and the others. . .” Okay, so that last part was meant to have been voiced on the inside, not the outside. Maybe he would drop it and pretend that it was never brought up.
A part of me kind of wanted to join their little group, but I really didn’t want to. I mean, it would be kind of nice to have someone to talk to just for the hell of it, or to go out to eat with, or to go catch a movie that looks decent. Someone other than Mokuba to share my pool with or share my ideas for inventions with. I had created so many different games, and yet I had no one to play against. . . even Mokuba would rather play with his friends. I never really got to have friends when I was younger. . . but I was at the top now, and as they say, ‘it’s always lonely at the top’.
“You’re a good person, Seto. You shouldn’t worry about who you could have been, but who you can be. You can change whatever makes you unhappy, and become the person that you want to be. These past few days, I’ve learned so much about you, some good and some bad. . . but I’m beginning to understand what made you who you are today. I had always thought that you were an asshole because you thought you were better than everyone else. . . and maybe that was the reason in the beginning. . . but in the end, I think that it was your hatred for the fact that we have friends and you don’t that made you act like an ass towards us.”
No way, that wasn’t the reason at all! I’m only an ass to them because I don’t want. . . I don’t need. . . I’m not allowed to have friends. Gozaburo always told me that they get in the way, and they do. They only die and cause grief. Satoshi. . . Satoshi was one of the few friends I had managed to gain during my life with Kaiba Gozaburo, but in the end, he had to die. He was in the way of my studies, and he had to be eliminated. . . did he have to be? Was he really in the way? What should I say in reply to Jounouchi’s accusation? “You make it sound like I’m some kind of pitiful loser.”
He leaned closer and I looked down to make sure that we weren’t touching. “That’s not what I meant.” He assured me, “Anyways, you need to just work on showing people how you really are.”
“So that corporate men can walk all over me? There’s no way in hell! Right now, CEO’s shiver when they hear the name ‘Kaiba’. I am at the top of the corporate world and I plan to stay on my little perch for the remainder of my career.” It’s always lonely at the top.
“Seto? This probably isn’t the best place to discuss it, but,” He paused for a second, giving me time to brace for what I knew was coming, “This morning, you said something about your fathers’ business associates. You never finished your sentence, but I think that you were about to say. . .” He looked around, making sure that the coast was clear of anyone who may happen to overhear him, “I think that you were about to say that you let them. . . that you let your fathers’ business associates fu- have their way with you.” Though he tried to reword it, the effect was still the same.
Yeah, they fucked me. Just say it, they screwed my fucking brains out. And I let them, I let them do that to me.
I tightened my lips, narrowing my eyes as a warning, “You’re right; this isn’t the place to be discussing this. Perhaps I’ll discuss it when we go to your house. Or maybe not. That is definitely something that is extremely complicated.” No, I would certainly find a way to make him forget about it.
“You aren’t a slut.” I faced him abruptly when he said that, but he wasn’t looking at me at all. He looked so serious. “No matter what may have happened in your past, you aren’t a slut.” I closed my eyes, trying so hard not to smile. . . but I couldn’t help it.
- - -
We had sat there like that, for the remainder of lunch, discussing such subjects as our previous class period and how much each academic sucked.
Third period came quickly, unlike other days where lunch seemed to drag on longer than English class. Then again, I’d rather be doing nothing than doing nothing while listening to some dipshit woman who thought she was intelligent.
My third period was History. Holy shit did I hate History. What on Earth could possibly be more boring than sitting in a room and practically living the History Channel? On top of that, just when things couldn’t seem more awful, the teacher was an old man with a monotone voice that spoke veeeerrrryyyyyyyyy sloooooowwwwwwlyyyyy. It was hell in a 20 X 20 room (I counted the square foot tiles on the ceiling and therefore knew the rooms measurements. That’s how boring it was.).
Normally I managed to stay awake, but today I either dosed off or stared into space for an hour and a half. . . and the bell to release me rang before I even thought about it.
Fourth block came around, which meant that it was actually time for something that posed a small challenge for at least a couple seconds. Did I skip to fourth block that quickly? It’s not that it was important or anything, just more interesting. I don’t know why, though, I really don’t.
“Everyone take out your homework!” Our math teacher, Mrs. Kaori, chimed. She was better looking than Ms. Asuka, which was probably why Kaori was married and Asuka was not. She began making her rounds. I stared at Jounouchi, who more-than-enthusiastically whipped out the homework I helped him with and slammed it on his desk. He was so much more different when he was surrounded only by the wind. . .
That’s when the idea hit me. I pulled out the drawing I had begun earlier. I knew what I wanted the picture to be. Doing my best to remember the way Jou had looked under the tree, I began to sketch.
“Great work, Mr. Jounouchi!” She cooed as she came by the blond’s desk, startling me from my work, “Mr. Kaiba helped you, I presume?”
“Yeah. I like having a hot tutor.”
“Can it, you filthy mutt.” I knew he was joking. . . I think he was joking, so I went along with it. Then it occurred to me, “Wait a second. . . how did you know I was staying at his house?”
Mrs. Kaori chuckled a bit, a blush coming to her face, “The fact that you and Mr. Jounouchi got paired up for the final senior project is a hot topic around the school. You two are always at each others’ throats.”
“I don’t see why students feel the need to gossip about it. It’s no big deal, really. We are both man enough to put our differences aside for the sake of our final grades.” I folded my arms and snuck a peek at Katsuya before closing my eyes. Really though, it shouldn’t be such a huge deal, whether we fight a lot or not. There were plenty of people in our school that argued on a daily basis. I could hear the puppy sigh. I folded up the picture and jammed it back into my bag. I wouldn’t be finishing that today.
“Alright, students! As usual, we’ll go over the answers out loud in class, and if you have any questions about how to work the problem, I’ll be happy to walk you through it up here on the overhead!” She stepped to the switches on the wall, darkening to room, and then turned on that wretched machine with the irritating hum and the faint light.
I couldn’t have Jou writing notes to me again this time, especially with news and gossip floating around about our staying together for the week. I decided to throw a note of my own. It read: Hey mutt, pay attention today. The last thing I need is for you to fail with the only excuse of ‘I was messing with Kaiba’. Got it? It made enough sense that even a dumbass like Jou would understand.
I tossed it at him, but towards his legs so that it wouldn’t be sailing at Mrs. Kaori’s eye level. The last thing I needed was to have to eat yet another note. I was already on the bad side of two of my teachers. He felt it hit his leg and much to my appreciation, he inconspicuously retrieved it and read the contents, then balled it up and shoved it into his bookbag. Not once did the blond look back at me. So he was listening. . . good.
As Mrs. Kaori solved simple math problems for the brain-dead losers in the class, I allowed for my mind to wander. . . to wander back to that morning. The way that Jou had spoken to me. . . he seemed so strong then, and so huge. His words rang out in my head like there wasn’t anything else in the world that I should hear other than his voice. He yelled at me more fiercely than I had ever heard from him, and for once in my time with him, I couldn’t read his emotions. Was it anger? Though he yelled at me with his brows knit together and his body in motion with what seemed like wild rage, I couldn’t say for sure that he was angry. It was more like. . .
. . . like sadness. Sometimes, if people get really upset, they get wild and start yelling, and sometimes do crazy things. If someone gets upset enough, they can even go so far as to murder the source of all of their sadness. . . all of my sadness. You took my one friend away from me, and then set me up with some god damned business man’s son that was a fucking pedophile! You sick as son of a bitch!
I could hear my desk rattle as I shook with a new-found anger. . . and then I calmed myself. This wasn’t about Gozaburo, not now. This was about Jounouchi. He said that I wasn’t a slut, he said that the past didn’t matter, he said that I can change who I am and become who I want to be. . . he said so many things, and I couldn’t help but hear them and accept them as solid truths. His word almost seemed like the word of. . . I’d say God, but would that sound any good coming from someone like me? No, there was no place in my heart for a God. . . however, Jounouchi seemed to be filling in some void in that small heart that I have.
I was staring accidentally at the back of the blond’s fluffy golden head when he sighed rather loudly, causing me to snap out of my daze and our teacher to falter in her lecture.
Mrs. Kaori didn’t bother to call him out, “Well then, if that’s all of your questions, we’ll begin today’s lesson!” She clasped her hands together in that same annoying manner that Ms. Asuka does, and shut off the overhead, turning on those gleaming lights.
And like Katsuya, I tried my best to pay attention.
- - -
The school bell rang and Jounouchi, like the rest of the antsy teenagers, flew out the door. I was a bit disappointed, but then my hopes jumped back up when I saw him lingering just outside the door. Deciding to annoy him a bit, I took my sweet time packing up my belongings. It’s not like I had anywhere to be or anything. I packed my bag and stood up very slowly, expecting to find Jou staring at me, eagerly waiting to go home. Instead, I could see him standing with that group of friends of his, chatting away. He looked kind of. . . pissed?
I listened closely.
“He’s really not such a bad guy once you get to know him.” Jou was talking about me. “I can totally see what Mokuba has been preaching to us about all along. In the end, Seto’s a great person, deep down.”
Honda looked skeptical, “Yeah, deep down. . . deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. . .”
“Look, I’m not going if you all won’t let Seto come.” Jou was going somewhere? He wanted me to go with him? Where? Why?
“Calm down, Jou! Kaiba can come! Since when did you start openly calling him Seto?” Yuugi seemed a bit surprised at his friends sudden anger. He probably wanted Jou to go to his house
“. . . deep down.” Honda finished.
I decided it was the perfect moment to make my entrance, “I like how you all talk about me when you think I can’t hear you. I don’t want to go to Yuugi’s house, Jounouchi. I’ll stay at your house and do work on my laptop; you can go play with your little friends.” Yes, I could do my thing and he could do his. That was how it always had been and always should be. They didn’t want me around anyways. . .
“I don’t want you staying home alone.” He looked me dead in the eyes and was completely serious again. I wasn’t sure if I liked this serious Katsuya very much.
“I’m not a child, I can stay home alone.”
“Someone could break in and hurt you.” True, but. . .
“So what? I could just kick their ass.” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him with the same intensity. Who the hell did he think he was?
“Let me try that again, with a bit of different emphasis. . . someone could breaking in and hurt you.” Oh. . . he was worried that Saki would hurt me again? Jou was worried. . . no harm in that, I suppose. But Saki wouldn’t know which apartment I was in, and there was no way of him knowing that I was home and Jou was away.
“Whatever,” I tried to sound irritated, but was actually kind of. . . happy? Touched? “If you’re going to be so annoying and stubborn about it, I might as well. I’ll just bring my laptop and do my work while you play with your friends.” I smirked and he appeared to be happy again. Much better.
“Well then, it’s settled.” Anzu always had to rear her ugly head, “We’ll all go to Yuugi’s place!” She bounded down the hallways, with the rest of us in a non-enthusiastic pace behind her. . . well, except Yuugi, who bounced along right with her.
The sun was warm and the breeze was perfect as we took our first few steps outside. No, the air wasn’t quite right. My body felt cold. . . and then I saw the source. I froze, midstep, and Jounouchi ran into me just like earlier. This time, however, I didn’t lose my balance. I couldn’t do anything.
“Seto? What’s wrong?”
Can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t think. Saki. Saki is here. Why are you looking at me like that? Why won’t you hold me, Saki? Hold me just like you used to. They won’t touch me if you’re with me. Protect me again. Protect me from them. Say such sweet things to me, just like you always did.
Saki, if I can’t have you, I don’t want anyone.
- - -