"Hey Seto, can I borrow your phone?"
Seto Kaiba winced as Katsuya Jounouchi's earsplitting voice pierced through the air, straining to be heard over the blaringly loud television.
"What do you want with it, Katsuya?" Seto growled, not even bothering to look up from his laptop computer.
"I need to make a call, and I lost my cell phone," was the blond's reply.
Seto sighed and rubbed his temples. Every day it was like this. Ever since he moved into the dorms at the Asahikawa Institute for Game Theory he had had to deal with his roommate's forgetfulness, obnoxiously loud voice at the most unholy hours of the night, and general idiocy. A mistake had been made by the mindless bureaucrats of the administration – two, actually, the first being to even let Katsuya into the Institute – and, despite Seto's expressed demands to have his own dorm room, he was placed in a seven meter by seven meter dorm room with none other than Katsuya Jounouchi.
"Katsuya, who could you possibly need to call at two o'clock a.m.?" Seto inquired, thoroughly irked.
Jounouchi growled, much more annoyed at the tone of Seto's question than he should have been. "That's really none of your business, is it?"
"Then no, Katsuya, you may not borrow my phone," Seto replied.
"Fine," Jounouchi spat, "if you really must know, the Asahikawa Medical College is running some experiment, and they're offering 200,000 yen as compensation for time to participants."
"Why don't you just walk down to the veterinary clinic down the street?" Seto asked, suppressing a smirk.
"And what do you mean by that?" Jounouchi nearly yelled.
"Oh, they'd run the same tests as the Asahikawa Medical College, and they'd get the same results: you're not even human at all, just some strange, ugly breed of dog. But if you went to the clinic, you wouldn't have to spend any of your pitifully small paycheck on bus fare."
"I've had it with your attitude, Kaiba!" Jounouchi shouted. "Now are you gonna let me borrow your phone or not?!"
Seto smirked at his roommate's reaction to his tauntings and handed over his cellphone.
--
Three days later, Seto was sitting on his bed, casually skimming through a textbook, when Katsuya walked into their dorm, a fistful of yen in his hand and a bewildered expression on his face.
"I'll probably regret asking this," Seto began, "but how did the experiment go?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, it was pretty weird," Jounouchi replied.
"Do tell," Seto muttered sarcastically, not really intending for his roommate to elaborate on the experiment.
Jounouchi, however, did not pick up on said sarcasm, and continued to speak. "Well, the first hour was alright. They had us wired up to all these brainwave monitors and made us watch a bunch of hardcore porn."
Seto looked up from his homework momentarily. Sure, he was obscenely rich and did not need the money, but what man would say no to being paid to watch porn?
Jounouchi, however, quickly put an end to that line of thought as he described the last hour of the experiment.
"Immediately after that, though, they made us watch an hour long documentary on sea turtle mating habits."
"You know, Katsuya," Seto deadpanned, not quite sure how to react to his roommate's newfound pastime, "next time you need money, you could just ask to borrow some from me. After all, what are masters for, if not to take care of their pets?"
Jounouchi turned to leave at that point, and as he left, Seto heard him mutter, "I'd rather watch sea turtles doin' the nasty than borrow money from you."