CHAPTER ONE: TOO MANY PARTIES

Author's Note :D : This is my first Yu-gi-oh! Fanfic and my first fic on this site so please R&R. Now this fic may contain cross over characters from other Yu-gi-oh! series. I will not list it as a crossover though because those characters that I do crossover will probably not serve the same role they do in their Native series. If you don't understand don't worry cause when they do pop in detail later on you probably will understand.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that obviously belongs to the Yu-gi-oh Franchise.

Serenity stared up at the door of her fourth story condo, partly in relief but mostly in dismay. It was nice to know that she was able to make her way up three flights of stairs without getting too winded, but not so great to know what lay on the other side of the door of her destination, so to speak. Her mom had only recently rented them a room here, but the newness of the building was an attraction that was getting rooms rented quickly. Everything in it was nice and new, attractive, and sure not to break anytime soon. Serenity just hadn't felt like using the elevator.

Still though, even with the luxury, she had been very adamant in persuading her mother not to move yet. 'Let's wait a while,' Serenity had said, 'until Jesse gets a little older and a little bigger'. But, nooooo. If it was for the sake of Jesse then they should do it, without even once considering the consequences.

Oh right, Jesse. Serenity's two year old brother. In Serenity's eyes he was the cutest kid she had ever seen, even if he was Jared's. He looked a lot like her older brother, Joey(which means Joey must contain a lot of their mom), but had darker blond hair, and his skin tone was a little darker too. And he had the most gorgeous hazel eyes she had ever seen! Towards his pupil they tend to be a deep green, and then as the color gets farther away from the center they turn to a golden brown. Very pretty. And he was sweet too when he wasn't throwing a temper tantrum.

But as much as she loved Jesse, he was beside the point. Serenity knew the real reason why her mom wanted to move was because her oh so 'wonderful' boyfriend Jared had said they should. God, sometimes she felt like her mother hadn't learned anything from her experiences with Serenity's own father. They weren't even married yet but her mother felt that they were already too far in love to even consider turning back. And of course Jesse had been the result of that.

But so far Jared hadn't turned his back on them yet. When they had first moved in, since her mother would be out working late shifts and Jared would be home early with Jesse, Serenity had often had to spend lonely nights locked up in her room. She didn't hate Jared but she didn't particularly like him. But maybe she was being biased.

Of course he had to have been sweet enough to have a high paying job. Which made her mother even more head-over-heels for him. They worked in the same building, doing different jobs though. Jared was the maintenance manager of the building, while her mother was manager of one of shopping departments. The building itself was a large mall filled with designer clothing stores, as well as your everyday stores. Both her mother and Jared were consequently getting high pay which was also the reason they could have afforded the room in the condominium. But of course Jared couldn't keep coming home early. And as a result they had hired Angelina Hailcliff to babysit Jesse. And Angeline lay on the other side of that door. AND Angelina hated Serenity's guts. How nice.

Sighing, slowly, as deliberately as should could, Serenity pulled out her keys unlocked the door, and crept in.

She could hear the TV blasting which probably meant that if she could just make to the hall she was home free….

Please let her be too busy, please, please please….

"Oh Serenity your home!" she heard the 'surprised' voice call from the living room. "Hey could you take your brother. He hasn't stopped crying all day!"

"Um…But I just came home…" she called back quietly. Although Serenity had almost grown out of her timid attitude, now much bolder than before, she had no desire the irk the Ice Queen, since she had to tolerate her whether or not she liked it.

Angelina sighed loudly.

"Fine." she called back, "Just don't bother me."

"Whatever," Serenity muttered under her breath.

As soon as her foot touched the entrance of the hall she was able to practically glide to her room. Once inside she quickly locked the door behind her.

Swinging her bag onto her bed she rummaged through it finally pulling out a sleek blue Sidekick before seating herself on top of her bed, laptop placed on her legs. Quickly scrolling down her contacts she pressed send.

"Hello?" a voice grumbled form the other side.

"What's the matter Sophie? Still pissed that I refuse to go with you to your late night party?"

"Yes!" she whined, "I don't understand how that stupid babysitter could be holding you back." She growled

"Actually I'm locked in my room right now. Thankfully she hasn't really bothered me much since I got home."

Sophie went silent for a moment, then yelled "WHAT THE HELL IS KEEPING YOU THERE THEN!"

Scowling into the phone she said "Well I do have a mother—"

"Who isn't even home! Ren lissen you never break the rules. I mean come on your so good all the time! And I mean one night wouldn't kill you!"

"Oh come on!" Serenity scoffed, "I'm good!"

"Ok well that's a lie," Sophie muttered, "but look it's just going to be us rich brats there. And after that you have to come hang over by my place. I just gotta go to the party first, drop the gift, have like, ONE, drink, dance a little, and then we'll be gone. Come on I'm your bestie, where's the love?"

Closing her eyes Serenity thought for a moment.

"Ok," she said slowly

"YAY!" Sophie squealed through the phone.

"On one condition," Serenity continued

"What is it? I'll do anything."

"Only one drink."

"Or I'm not going." Serenity threatened

"Fine," Sophie said grudgingly

Serenity had managed to shower and get dressed as quietly as she could before sneaking back out her building to be picked up by Sophie's stretch limo.

"Hey Ren!" she greeted clearly very excited.

"Hey," she said smiling. Her friend looked absolutely stunning, with her dark brown hair curled up and tied like a crown on her head, her gray eyes shining.

Serenity walked up into the limo sighing. See the thing was while she wasn't particularly rich she went to a private school on her mother's orders(funded by Jared, who had money) and therefore had managed to make many friends ranked in with the rich of Domino City.

And besides being rich most of them like to do what a lot of teen s with money liked to do. Have parties, drink, get drunk, and have fun.

Serenity was sure the reason Sophie had suggested, no commanded, she come over this late at night was because she was hoarding a whole bunch of their friends at her house. Just waiting for them to get there so they could start partying.

And Serenity was doing this all against what would have been (if her mother had even known she was going to party) against her mother's will. Serenity had drastically changed since going to private school.

No long did she dress in turtle neck sweaters with knee high stockings. No longer did drinking or cursing for that matter bother her. If Joey say her now he would freak out. Too bad he was always busy with either college of Mai. Serenity barely told him half the things that went on in her life already….

True to her word Sophie had only taken one drink before they were heading to her mansion.

"I'm guessing that we're going to a party at your house?" Serenity asked raising an eyebrow at her friend.

Grinning sheepishly she said "It's only a few of us."

Serenity glared at her.

"No! Honestly it's only a few of us. Me, you, Matthew, Jessica, Kiari, James, Noah, Lizzi, and Renee. That's it I promise!"

Serenity frowned. Sophie had named their closest friends, their 'group'. But knowing her best friend's habit of having giant house parties Serenity highly doubted that she was being honest.

Serenity stared around her dazed for a minute by the amount of people surrounding her. The music was blasting and she was practically going deaf.

"Liar." She hissed under her breath to no one in particular. Well it would have been Sophie, if the girl was anywhere to be found. But two hours had passed and Serenity was halfway between being sane and being totally stoned. She was going to have a hard time finding Sophie.

Finding her footing she managed to make her way over to the large coach of Sophie's humongous living room, practically falling into it and therefore on top of Noah, who had been lounging there drinking up to his head in alcohol. Both of them scrambled into an upright position.

Taking one look at her he commented, "You look pissed."

"Thanks that's exactly what I want to hear right now." She growled sarcastically.

" Aw come on Ren you know I didn't mean it like that," she looked at him. Noah was a cute guy. He had soft aqua green hair and dark eyes. Even though he was 16 he was short and streamline barely passing Serenity's head. For some reason he reminded her of an older version of Noah Kaiba, but he had died in the destruction of Alcatrrez two years ago and Serenity didn't want to hurt Noah's feelings by telling him he looked like a dead guy. Having the same first name as that same dead guy didn't make it any better.

As if that wasn't strange enough, Noah had been adopted into the Kaiba household. Making him Noah Kaiba. In other words, he had the exact same name as the previous Noah. Serenity had tried asking him details about it, and about his childhood, but he always said that his memories were fuzzy. The red headed girl had found his comments funny, like he was trying to hide some truth from her, but had never pushed him beyond that. He also sometimes refused to talk about what it was like living with the Kaiba brothers saying that just because he lived with them didn't mean he could rat out every single detail about them. But to Serenity he seemed distant from the older Kaiba mostly. He would sometimes very freely talk about Mokuba Kaiba's habits, but when it came to Seto Kaiba he mouth was locked, the key thrown away. Come to think of it Seto Kaiba himself never came directly to anything concerning Noah, even when he was in trouble for doing some bad thing or another.

"Serenity? I was only joking." He said, or maybe slurred(she wasn't too sure if she was more drunk or him), pulling her out from her thoughts.

"Yeah I know," she grumbled, "It's just Soph lied to me. There are about a kajillion people at this party," she pouted especially pissed that she felt almost lost in a mansion she been too far more than anyone else in the place right now.

"And I feel way too drunk right now," she tagged on as an out-loud after thought.

He chuckled "You know how she is…but I'm kinda starting to get worried her parents might come home soon."

Looking anxiously at the giant white double doors at the entrance of the mansion Serenity said, "Me too. I was looking for her when I stumbled onto the coach."

"And onto me," Noah said teasingly, a grin stretched across his face.

Serenity was sure that Noah liked her. As in he had a crush on her, probably due to the fact that they were such close friends. She, Noah, and Sophie were all practically connected at the hip. And while she did maybe have a tiny crush on Noah, she wasn't sure that she wanted to go out with him just yet. Sophie used to have crush on him as well. Serenity sometime's wondered if Noah had been oblivious to all of Sophie's advances. But her dark haired friend had quickly gotten over him, settling for the green headed boy as a best friend instead.

Making an attempt to smile she said, "Which was a complete accident."

His smile faltered for a second but was quickly replaced with a superior smirk.

"I don't know it seemed like you wanted to stay on top of me." He said shrugging nonchalantly.

Serenity frowned now. She didn't have time for games. Sophie was nowhere to be found.

"Listen are you going to help me find Sophie or not?"

"Fine, come on." He mumbled getting up off of the couch and stretching, "We better check the kitchen. Just about everyone's in there getting stoned."

She nodded following him, but about halfway to the kitchen he abruptly stopped. Turning around he said "Listen,"

"What?" she asked confused

"How about we just let this go?" he muttered

"What?" she repeated.

"Why do we need to care if Sophie gets in trouble? It was her idea to have her own party."

"Noah—" but before she could even start to scold him he grabbed her hand.

"Let go," she said threateningly. His grip only tightened.

"Come on Renny," he whispered leaning in closely by her ear. His breath was warm and she could smell the heavy scent of alcohol on him.

She flinched when she felt his lips graze her ear. Asking him for help had been a bad idea. Serenity should've realized it but she hadn't thought about how drunk Noah actually was.

Being as gentle as she could she pushed him away.

"Noah you're drunk. Please don't do this. I don't want to stop being friends with you."

Now anger flashed in his eyes.

"Ren how long are you going to keep denying that we have something? I—"

A large slam coming from the direction they had just come in cut him off.

"Oh no" Both teens said knowing all too well what was probably waiting at the entrance of the mansion.

Without another word Serenity began to weave her way through the masses of teens who had huddled together in small groups trying to look innocent. The green haired boy that had just been readily screaming at her was now trailing after her toward the giant white double doors and the two lone figures that now stood in front of them.

"Mr. Rockefeller. Mrs. Rockefeller." Serenity greeted them quietly, now conscious that the heavy scent of alcohol must have been coming off of her.

"Serenity, Noah." Mrs. Rockefeller turned her attention to the crow of teens. "I want everyone out!"

Looking back at Serenity and Noah she said, "Except you two."

"Guys I'm really sorry," Sophie said for about the umpteenth time.

The three of them had sprawled out on Sophie's long couch but Noah had refused to come sit next to Serenity. This had left Sophie in the awkward position of not knowing a thing of what had happened between them, wanting to ask one them, but not being able too.

"It's OK." Serenity assured her though she glanced anxiously toward the kitchen. When everyone had left Mrs. Rockefeller had decided to call over Noah's and Serenity's parents to discuss a plan to reduce, if not, stop the house parties.

Since Noah didn't actually have parents, he didn't have to deal with any fussing adults coming over and scolding him. But surprisingly, instead of the usual representative coming over, Seto Kaiba had came in person. Since she was sure that Noah never talked about his friends, in front of Kaiba at least, she guessed that the brunette had been mildly surprised to see the 'dog's'(Joey) sister listed as one of the troublemakers. Unless of course he had actually cared enough to find out whom Noah's 'bad' girlfriends were. Either way she couldn't tell if he was surprised or if he even really remembered her as Joey's sister.

"I wonder what they're planning to torture us with," Noah mumbled breaking the longstanding silence that had fallen over the three. Serenity looked at him from the other side of Sophie.

"Maybe we'll have to get jobs," Sophie said mockingly.

"Actually that's exactly what you'll have to do."

All three teens jumped, quickly turning around to see three sets of parent. Sophie's father who spoken continued to speak,

"Jobs that will hopefully keep you busy."

"What!" Sophie was the first one to complain.

"And where exactly do you plan on use finding efficient jobs without any experience with smaller jobs?" Serenity shot back bring out her smarter side.

"I've already taken care of that." Another lower voice said.

"Ha!...Wait what?"

Now puzzled, she turned her attention to Kaiba who had spoken.

"See the three of you will be working for me at KaibaCorp. My father originally owed Mr. Rockefeller here, quite an amount of money and while I have been paying him back I will be doing him a big favor by employing you three instead."

"What!" Serenity yelled a bit panicked.

"I knew it," Noah grumbled in the corner of the couch.

"Noooooooooooo!" Sophie let out a loud moan.

Kaiba smirked, "Since tomorrow is a Saturday, I expect to see you by my office at 6 o'clock A.M. There we will settle you shifts for the week and Saturdays."

"Great now we have to work and do homework." Sophie continued to drawl.

Serenity looked at her mother and Jared, but they showed no objections, quite unfortunately.

Well at least they found a way to actually torture us. She groaned internally.

Ok so it may have been a little boring but that's only cause I needed to get a back story down for how she meets Seto over again. It will get more interesting as it continues I promise! As for now please point out any mistakes or things that seem wrong, or any plain advice would be nice :) .