He was forty minutes late. Not the best start, for sure. Brushing imaginary lint off his jacket as he reached for the doorbell, he prayed that she wouldn't be too mad.
Wait, it was Serenity; of course she wouldn't be mad. Ok, he prayed that she wouldn't be quietly irritated. Ah, footsteps, time to turn on the charm.
The apologetic smile quickly slipped from his face, however, when it was Joey's scowl that greeted him instead of Serenity's...not scowl.
"You took your sweet time" he said, eyes narrowed in annoyance.
"Joey! You're being rude" Serenity interrupted, appearing behind her brother, "I'm sure Mokuba couldn't help being late. Right?" She asked, turning to the youngest Kaiba and smiling sweetly.
"R-Right" he stuttered, "Seto insisted on going over my report card right before I was about to leave. He totally did it on purpose. He's probably just jealous that I managed to get a date with such a great girl." He wiggled his eyebrows at Serenity teasingly. She giggled and Joey rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, or Kaiba just likes taking any opportunity to crap up someone's plans. I swear, the jerk probably-" A look from Serenity stopped his rant before it really got started. "Well, you guys have fun, and if you try anything with my sister, I'll ram your kneecaps up your butt. And I won't take them out first."
"Joey!"
"Yeah, yeah, just get back at a reasonable hour." And with that, he closed the door on his sister's pout.
"Wow, Joey sure does have a...colourful imagination, doesn't he?" Mokuba snickered.
"He just gets protective. It's sweet really" Serenity smiled, leading the way down the street.
Oh yeah, he thought, kneecap threats. Adorable.
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Half an hour later they sat in a place called 'Peg's Pizza Palace' studying the menus to find something that sounded edible. How in gods name could KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, AND McDonalds all be shut on the same day? Did no one in this town know how to plan ahead? Morons. And then it had started to rain, forcing them into this godforsaken place. Honestly, you could almost hear the screams of the poor pizzas the so called cooks were manhandling out back. It was creepy.
"What about the seafood surprise?" Serenity suggested, "How bad could that be?"
"Seaweed. Sharks fin. Sea slugs. It could be bad."
"Hm. Ok, what about the pepperoni and ginger? We can just pick the ginger off and hope it hasn't flavoured the pizza too much."
Mokuba sighed and flipped the menu closed, trying to ignore the squishy squelching noise it made. "Yeah, that seems like a good idea."
One half-hearted order later, it was time for the 'idle chatter'.
"So, is your brother planning any more big tournaments?" Serenity asked, poking at the piece of shrivelled lemon in her coke with her straw and watching it as it sank straight to the bottom.
"Nah, I think he's finally realised how immature his burning need to beat Yugi is. Either that, or he's putting a lot more effort into planning his next diabolical scheme. I can't be sure."
"Well, I hope it's the first one" Serenity chuckled, "But if he does throw another tournament, I might consider entering. I've been practising and I think I have a reasonable deck now."
"Cool. Personally, I prefer Capsule Monsters though. It's a better game."
"I've never played it."
"Oh, well, I can teach you some time if you want?"
"Ooo, that sounds fun."
He couldn't help but smile at her chirpiness. It was so nice to be around someone other than his grouch of a brother. Not that he'd change his brother for anything; it was just good to have something different for a little while.
Then the food turned up and he wished he was with his brother, arguing about the state of his bedroom. Anything would have been better than the plate of pizza shaped doom placed in front of him.
Unfortunately, he was absolutely starving. He'd only had a doughnut for breakfast, and it was fast approaching three thirty. His stomach was starting to eat itself. Gulping, he reached for the pizza.
"You're not seriously going to eat that?" Serenity squeaked, recoiling slightly in horror, her own plate banished to the edge of the table.
"No choice. Starving." Mokuba whimpered. Closing his eyes, he raised the de-gingered pizza to his mouth and took a bite. It tasted like wet cardboard with salt on it. Not as bad as he had expected. Serenity wrinkled her nose as he chewed, swallowed, then took another bite.
Ten minutes of silent munching later, the rain finally stopped and Mokuba decided that he wasn't going to be able to eat the remaining half of the pizza slice, no matter how hungry he was. Dropping the money for the food on the table he stood, signalled his intent to Serenity, and then headed for the door. She was by his side in an instant.
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They hit the arcade next and Mokuba learned that he was not very proficient at DDR. Quite the opposite in fact, if his shiny new black eye was anything to go by.
"It doesn't look that bad" Serenity said soothingly as they trudged away from the arcade; her hugging a stuffed koala and him checking his reflection in every puddle they passed. Sniffling, he poked at it.
"Do you mind if we swing by a Pharmacy so I can get something to put on it before it gets any worse?"
"No, not at all. I need to get some tampons anyway."
They both went quiet, then Serenity went an interesting shade of red and babbled an apology, to which Mokuba replied with a babbling assurance that it was ok. After a few rounds of this, they went quiet again and wandered down the street in search of a Pharmacy.
"There." Serenity said, pointing out a small wooden fronted shop nestled between a bank and a nail salon. Mokuba blinked up at the sign over the door.
"That says Apothecary, not Pharmacy..."
"An Apothecary is a Pharmacy silly." Serenity giggled, pushing open the door. A bell jingled somewhere near the back of the gloomy shop.
Mokuba scanned the shelves as they made their way towards the counter. The labels he read certainly didn't belong on anything he'd seen in a Pharmacy before. What the heck were Althea leaves and how in gods name did they help with Bronchitis?
"What?" A voice demanded from behind a rack to Mokuba's left, making him flail in surprise.
"Huh?" He blinked stupidly.
"What do you want?" The voice repeated, wandering around to the front of the rack and revealing the person it was attached to. Bakura. Oh joy.
The British accent with a hint of crazy should have tipped him off really, but hey, he just face-butted a DDR machine; thinking wasn't coming to him all that easily right now.
"Uh...hi, I didn't know you worked here. Or anywhere."
"Shut up Mokuba. Now what do you want?"
Mokuba rolled his eyes then pointed to his damaged one. "Something to stop this getting any worse."
Serenity, who had been silently observing the exchange, raised her hand slightly to get Bakura's attention "And...uh...." she bit her lip, "Do you sell...women's toiletries?"
Bakura blinked at her a few times then turned towards the back of the shop. "MARIK, DO WE SELL JAM RAGS?"
"YES" An irritation filled voice called back.
"...........WHERE ARE THEY?"
"FIND THEM YOURSELF YOU LAZY PRAT."
Snarling, Bakura turned back to Serenity. "They're in here somewhere. Have fun." He then pulled a jar of something labelled in Arabic from a shelf, shoved it at Mokuba, and stormed out the back to engage in some healthy violence.
After dumping the money for what he assumed was something to help with bruises on the counter, Mokuba led the way out of the shop. Serenity couldn't bring herself to look for tampons, or sanitary towels, after being embarrassed twice in quick succession like that.
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They barely made it out of that street when it happened.
Mokuba was overcome with the sudden and all consuming need to crap. Violently, by the feel of it. Goddam doom pizza.
Being half carried by his date to the nearest public bathroom was not how he had seen this ending. Though it was kind of fitting, in an ironic way. This entire date had been getting crappier and crappier; it seemed appropriate for it to end in one explosive crap.
His mood was less than bright as he dropped Serenity back at her door. "Well, this was...great." He said, forcing a big smile onto his face.
"What are you talking about?" She laughed, "It was a terrible first date, but I had fun in a bizarre kind of way."
"So...You don't completely hate me?" He asked hopefully.
"No" she laughed again, "Of course I don't hate you. Just look at it this way, we got all the bad luck out of the way, so everything should go smoothly next time."
A real smile lit up his face at this point. "Next time? You mean you'll go out with me again?"
"If you want to~"
"Of course I want to" he chirped. Grinning, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
Joey, of course, chose that moment to fling the door open. He looked between his sister and her date, the suspicion clear on his face. "I trust everything went...well?"
Mokuba and Serenity looked at each other and then, much to Joey's confusion, started giggling uncontrollably. Until Mokuba's unstable bowel decided to interrupt and he was forced to push past Joey and race for the bathroom.