Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Velvet and Sequins ❯ Relating to matters of Jackals and Foxes ( Chapter 3 )

Velvet and Sequins3: Relating to matters of Jackals and Foxes.

"Nephytys gave birth to a son called Anpu, or Anubis, and that his father was, according to some, Set; from another point of view he was the son of Ra. The animal which was at once the type and symbol of the god was the jackal, and this fact seems to prove that in primitive times Anubis was merely the jackal god, and that he was associated with the dead because the jackal was generally seen prowling about the tombs."
-Online Description of Anubis

Sorry about the DBZ reference. I was tired when I wrote that part and the mental image just would not leave me. So I went with what I had. Hee hee oranges.

Kaiba Corp 30 minutes before Yugi and Yami arrived~

Kaiba surveyed himself in a full-length mirror and sighed heavily. He didn't like attending the masquerade ball in the first place. An event his brother had made him start. "It wouldn't completely kill you to host one event a year to raise the morale of your overworked, fearful, and did I mention overworked staff." had been the argument, which after several repetitions had finally worn Kaiba down into hosting the "Fucking masked ball!" as Kaiba had called it when he finally snapped.

The outfit he was being forced to wear however was making him dislike the event even more.
He had no one to blame for the outfit however except himself. That was one of the biggest reasons he was so damn pissy about it. He knew better than to drink. He knew even doubly more important that he shouldn't drink with his little brother. He was apparently a much more jovial individual when he was piss drunk. Mokuba was also apparently very good at coercing favors from his big brother, written down in contract form and signed by said brother whenever Kaiba got piss drunk.

Said costume was the result of Kaiba's latest slip--up. Mokuba, knowing his brother's penchant for all things Egyptian (not too mention working with Yugi to get Yami and Kaiba hooked up together) had duped him into agreeing to dress as an Egyptian god. A white waist-cloth, heavily decorated with gold thread, gold wrist bands, gold upper arm bracelets, gold calf bands, a large necklace, sandals, and a very elaborate mask in the shape of Anubis' head comprised the whole of his costume.

He had spent nearly a week threatening, arguing, looking for loopholes, making promises and generally trying to get out of the contract. Mokuba, unfortunately for him, could be almost ridiculously stubborn when he wanted to be, and Mokuba had held firm.

He scowled at his reflection, taking little satisfaction in the narrowed, heavily outlined eyes, or grim scowl that reflected back at him.

"I like it."

His brooding was interrupted by his little brother entering the room. One eyebrow lifted slightly at his brother's appearance. Mokuba had followed his brother's example, gaining a lot of height once puberty set in, his height nearly rivaling his brother's. His wild hair had been grown out to one length and was generally worn in a thick ponytail down his back. For the ball however he had the most stunningly ridiculous looking outfit (in Kaiba's opinion) on. He had somehow managed to dye his hair a bright gold color, his eyebrows were gone, either by make up or shaving Kaiba wasn't sure and he had a bright orange martial artist gi on.

"Mokuba…what the hell are you supposed to be?" Kaiba asked.

Mokuba snapped a black eye mask on over his eyes and grinned widely. "Super Saiyan 3 Goku" He turned in a circle displaying his outfit to his brother, "What do you think?"

Kaiba had to restrain the laughter that suddenly wanted to bubble up. His brother looked entirely too ridiculous. He pasted his most dignified look on his face and straightened, "I think you look like an orange with legs."

"That good huh?" Mokuba asked grinning widely. He grabbed Kaiba's arm and began ushering him out of the room. "Time to make your grand entrance." he said.

As they headed down the stairs to the huge ballroom Mokuba pushed him towards one of the side door entrances. Kaiba gave his younger brother a confused look, he had been sure Mokuba had been planning on embarrassing the hell out of him by actually making him make a huge entrance. Mokuba merely grinned, "I'm feeling nice, now get down there before I start feeling mean."

Kaiba gave his brother a withering look that did his costume justice then headed to the small door neatly concealed in the wall. Carefully he pushed it open and quietly slipped through making sure not to knock his mask on the door as he passed it. He turned to shut the door and a small gasping squeak from behind him caused him to turn quickly fearing that one of his employees had recognized him or somehow media personnel had gotten in, some disaster of that kind.

What greeted him however was a rather fetching woman dressed in a rather scant amount of clothes, not that she looked like she had anything to hide. She was openly staring at him, wide gold eyes traveling down his body taking an almost unhealthy amount of time doing so. Figuring he should make his exit before she physically jumped him, he said, "Ah…excuse me. Didn't mean to startle you miss." As he made to slip past her, she apparently collected her senses, a small hand touching his arm while a silky voice nearly purred, "Please, won't you have a drink with a lonely lady?"

Kaiba would have groaned but he figured it was safer to be tucked in a corner with a good looking woman, alcohol, and a ready escape door, than to be on the huge floor surrounded by people and noise.

And not nearly enough alcohol to make him happy enough to endure it.

He surveyed the woman slowly as he ordered a drink from the bar. She was petite, but there was something about her. An unconscious aura of confidence and calm that almost seemed to pull Kaiba towards her. The feeling was akin to something he felt when he was dueling...he mentally shook his head dispelling the train of thought before it started. There was no way he was going to add more misery to his evening by contemplating madness.

He took his drink from the barman and took a sip, or rather he tried to take a sip. The glass ended up clinking against the mouth of his mask causing him to growl unconsciously as he added yet one more complaint to his list of "Things I really fucking hate about this damn ball"

A tapping on the nose of his costume drew his attention however and he was greeted with a straw being held out to him by a the woman who was now giggling at his expense. Nodding slightly in a thank you he took the straw into his mouth and proceeded to sip his drink while contemplating the woman in front of him. Something about her was drawing more of his attention than he expected.

Because of this, Kaiba felt the need to find out who his mysterious drinking partner was, whether she worked for him or if she was a guest of an employee. His guess was an employee. Why would any of his employees' guests be standing all alone?

What exactly do you do for a living?" he asked, wanting if nothing else to get a better idea of what section this woman worked in.

Her lips curled in a smile which Kaiba could only call mischievous. "Why do you ask I wonder?" she queried slowly taking a sip from her drink, golden eyes focused intently on Kaiba's face. "Do you perhaps want to know if I am an employee. Do you want to know if any of those below you will know be talking about how truly.........delicious you look without a shirt on? Is that what you wanted to know, hrmm? Setooooooooo?"

Kaiba stared down at the woman, disbelief at not only how she had talked to him, but also the fact that she had had the nerve to address him by his first name reflected in his gaze. He slowly took another drink as he racked his brain to figure out who the hell he was talking to. She gave him another grin and sipped from her glass, finishing off her drink.

Yami smirked to himself. ~Let the torture of Kaiba begin!~ he thought to himself. He motioned to the bartender for a refill of his drink. He watched Kaiba fight himself, knowing that Kaiba desperately wanted to use his authority to find out who the hell he was talking to, but for some reason he was holding back.

It was about that moment that Kaiba's gaze was suddenly diverted. Yami watched in confusion as Kaiba's eyes widened suddenly in what could only be called alarm, as his whole body stiffened and a strangled pained noise made its way from his throat.

Curiosity piqued he turned as well, following Kaiba's stunned gaze.

And promptly froze.

"No fucking way." he mumbled to himself, taking in the scene before him.

Yugi and Mokuba were on stage, grinning like fools and whispering conspiratorially with the band. Yami desperately began to wish his Aibou had chosen a different costume. He could almost feel the moment when Kaiba put two and two together and the figurative light bulb went off in the brunette's head. Kaiba stared down at the smaller woman, her back clearly stiffened in alarm, anger, annoyance? He wasn't sure, but he was sure about one thing. He could feel himself regaining the upper hand thanks to his brother and Yugi.

"Yugi is your date hmmm?" Kaiba murmured in his ear. Yami nearly shivered and cast a look to his left where Kaiba was peering at him intently. Collecting himself, he allowed a slow smile to cross his features.

"Yugi brought me here. But we aren't exactly what you would call a couple." he said. Slowly he turned while taking a sip from his drink while try to recoup.

"What would you call Yugi?" Kaiba asked, still wanting to know just who the hell he was talking to.

Yami smirked, "I would call him very dear to me."

Kaiba was about to answer when suddenly the lights all went out except for the stage lights.

"Duh-Duh Duh-Duh Duh da..." Suddenly Mokuba came sliding onto the stage. His clothing was changed, much to Kaiba's horror. He was now clad in only a white dress shirt, socks, and sunshades and carrying a microphone. Before Yami could start laughing, his turn at horror came.

"Duh-Duh Duh-Duh Duh da..." Yugi came sliding onto the stage as well, clad in the same outfit as Mokuba except he had somehow gotten his sunshades on over his fox mask. His mouth dropped open slightly as the two began singing "Old Time Rock and Roll".

"Sweet merciful Ra." he mumbled to himself.

They watched as the two danced around and sang, generally making asses of themselves and enjoying every moment of it while the women in the audience screamed their approval. His attention was diverted from the spectacle when Kaiba apparently lost all pretext of having patience. He was sure that most of that blame could be placed on the fact that Kaiba was being publicly embarrassed by his younger and Yugi…something the two of them had made a tradition of during the ball…their streak of pranks had officially begun.

"Who are you?"

The cocky smile was once more back on Yami's face as he tilted his head up to eye Kaiba, "Why is it so important you know who I am?"

"It just is." Kaiba answered, at once mentally smacking himself for coming up with such a weak answer.

Yami eyed him for a moment before giggling, "Well, I guess you are stuck with me for the rest of this evening if you want to know."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
Yugi and Mokuba hadn't stopped laughing for the past 5 minutes.

"Oh my god...oh it hurts so much! Stop laughing asshole! You're making me laugh more!" Yugi managed to gasp out between boughts of laughter as he clutched his stomach which was definitely beginning to ache from laughing while tears streamed down his face.

Mokuba was in a similar condition, weak laughter escaping his lips as he curled in a ball on the floor, "Sorry...I can't help it! They both looked so fucking panicked. It was b..b..beautiful!"

The two finally managed to calm down to weak giggles. "You know what we have to do after the unmasking at midnight right?" Mokuba asked Yugi, a demonic sense of mischief taking him over.

Yugi gave him a quizzical look which soon melted into more laughter as the two planned more embarrassment to heaped upon their unsuspecting yami and brother.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~

Kaiba would have growled, but seeing as she already knew who he was it didn't take a lot of imagination on his part to see headlines.

Man Threatens Guest at Masked Ball. Kaiba Corp a Masked Menace. Man Mauls Maiden.

Mentally slapping himself away from the train of thought he was currently taking, he gave her a benign smile, "I only wish to know who I am addressing. It would seem only fair for me to be able to know you, so that I would be able to avoid any uncomfortable subjects. I would hate to offend any guest of an employee. Especially an employee I value as much as Yugi." he mentally added ~Please buy that.~

To Kaiba's concern her shoulders began to shake as she lowered her head, one hand coming up to her mouth. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment wanting more than anything to escape through the door that beckoned to him from a few feet away. Resisting the urge to slip away, he mentally resigned himself to the fact that Yugi had obviously brought someone who was entirely too emotional. He bent down a little bit to try and look her in the face and somehow offer some apology for whatever he apparently did to upset her.

He was frozen in place however when a very undignified snort escaped from between her fingers. He recoiled slightly. Was she laughing? He bent back down slightly and could hear small giggles escaping as she desperately tried to hold in her laughter. He straightened, a rather pouting frown crossing his features before he managed to erase it.

"You'll…you'll…you'll have to excuse me for laughing." she said between bouts of giggling. "I don't think anyone has ever heard such horribly bad lying coming from you Kaiba."

He stiffened at the comment. True he was once a devious business man, but with time came better business tactics and Kaiba (mostly under the insistance of Mokuba) had worked hard on fixing his reputation to a much more honorable if not still absolutely ruthless image. Feeling himself getting flustered, a feeling he had felt maybe once or twice in his life he directed a glare at his drink, fairly certain at least the drink wouldn't manage to hit on him, insult him and make him feel flustered in the span of 20 minutes.

~What the hell is wrong with me?~ He growled at himself mentally. ~Pull yourself together dammit! It's just one of Yugi's friends, probably trying to get some kind of story to tell the rest of her friends by flirting and being a twit.~ Feeling himself regaining his mental faculties Kaiba settled on a plan of action that was almost guranteed to get rid of the person standing in front of him.

Yami blinked in alarm when Kaiba suddenly leaned down, bringing their faces quite close together. Resisting the twin urges to step back or press his face a little further forward Yami quirked one eyebrow, "Is there something on my face?" he asked innocently.

Kaiba smirked and moved a little closer, "Do you want there to be?" he asked, his voice sliding to a husky whisper.

Yami stared up at him wide eyed. ~Where the hell did THAT come from?~ he mentally blinked.

A purely evil thought crossed his mind and he impulsively went with it.

"Well, since you're offering." he said, and with that stepped forward, one arm hooking behind Kaiba's neck and swiftly pulled the shocked CEO into a kiss. Given it was a little difficult to do around both of their masks but Yami managed.

Kaiba's brain went blank.

It wasn't his first kiss. Not even close. But it was definitely the first time he had been…mouth-mauled and enjoyed it. Whoever the woman was…she definitely knew how to kiss.

Yami stepped back and gave the stunned Kaiba an impish grin before tracing his tongue slowly over his bottom lip and allowing the grin to fade into a leer, "Yummy."

Kaiba blushed at the throaty purr, something in that tone striking a memory. Before he could place it, the woman laughed at his rather stunned expression and headed towards the crowded dance floor.

Kaiba shook himself out of his daze and called out, "Oi! Wait a minute!" He frowned as her laughter trickled back to him. He stood a minute more, drinking his drink before he slammed the plastic cup on the bar with a muffled curse and began to stalk after her.