A/N: Written for Seto Kaiba's birthday (October 25th). Possibly a liiiiiittle OOC... not sure. :P Written with a certain someone in mind, but no name is given to the girl, so you make the choice. ;)

Seto & Mokuba Kaiba (C) Kazuki Takahashi

-o-

He hated it when people stood up to him.

There were certain individuals who enjoyed rebellion in their underlings, calling it a challenge and dubbing it more fun. Seto Kaiba, on the other hand, ran a company, and his underlings were not supposed to be fun or challenging. They were supposed to make things run smoothly—or be fired.

Things didn't run smoothly when she was around. But then, he could hardly fire her. She didn't even work for him.

At least, not officially, but he saw differently. He saw how much she hated the work, but helped anyway, instead of staying at home and reaping the benefits of his wealth as a hundred thousand other females would have.

Of course, she was still an underling. Perhaps he couldn't fire her because he hadn't hired her, but she was below him.

The fifth time he ran into her on a staircase above him, he irritably vowed to make a rule that he was the only one allowed upstairs. Which was ridiculous, because he had departments on other floors that employees needed to reach.

But again. She made things not be smooth.

He was starting to like wavy.

How was your day? she asked, and he had to stop himself from admitting his newfound dislike of staircases, instead grumbling, It was the same as yours.

She only laughed. Except I didn't fire anybody.

Well, actually, he hadn't either. He'd been too busy trying to get her out of the office—and his head. He hadn't even gotten any work done.

And that was what proved he needed to do something.

Of course, what he needed to do and what that little dark corner of his brain told him he wanted to do seemed to be very different things. The best course of action would have been to order her out of his life, but all he wanted was to lock his office door with them on one side and the rest of the world on the other.

Mokuba was going to be furious.

Well, that was too bad. Seto already was furious. He had better things to do than be influenced by a bunch of chemicals telling him what to do.

Even if some of their orders seemed so very tempting…

It was very, very awkward, when he finally gave in. She came into his office; he happened to be standing near the door, sorting through a file. Hearing the door swing open, he turned, shoving the file back in a drawer so it wouldn't hinder him as he strangled—and/or fired—whoever dared to interrupt his work.

No actual strangulation occurred, although he had to admit that it felt like it. He only caught a glance of her face before something—i.e., his common sense—snapped; grabbing her arms, he yanked her to him, seeking he-didn't-know-what. Until he found it.

The connection was clumsy, inelegant, fueled by his impatience.

And when he broke away, unfathomably, she just started to laugh.