Hey there! I was looking up Yu-Gi-Oh stories with the keyword money on ff dot net. After all, even money and discussions about it show up in the Yu-Gi-Oh universe sometimes. So I decided to write a oneshot about it and contribute to the list of Yu-Gi-Oh stories and oneshots that have the word "money" in them. (There are five pages of them – which means 221 stories so far the last time I checked.)
Anyway, money is a very realistic subject, and it should be learned about with care and discipline. I should know; after all, I try my best to be very fiscally responsible. (So far, I've been doing pretty well.) And through whose eyes would be better to write it from than Seto Kaiba himself?
Why Kaiba? Here's a good reason. Not only is he a genius, but he also knows how to use money – and in a very mature way as well. (And he sometimes has money on the brain. I don't know why, though, no matter how hard I try to figure it out.)
So I cooked this up. Hope you like it! :) This is dedicated to Journey Maker, HelenaHills (aka Kate, one of my best friends on ff dot net), and all those fanfiction writers who like Kaiba as a Vampire (besides myself, that is).
Kaiba: (in a warning tone) Abigail, young lady. Come on. How can you say I "sometimes" have "money on the brain"? I do have hobbies.
Me: Yeah, sure, if you count trying to beat Yugi in a duel just because he beat you the first time counts as a hobby. And I don't think it does. (glares at Kaiba) Cold-hearted snake!
Kaiba: Oh, really, Abigail.
Me: Yes, really.
Disclaimer: Genius Kazuki Takahashi owns Yu-Gi-Oh. The song lyrics I put in here from time to time belong to their respective owners. I own the fanfics I write and/or type up from time to time.
Debit Card Or Credit Card
I am so high, I can hear heaven
I am so high, I can hear heaven
Whoa, but heaven, no, heaven don't hear me
And they say
That a hero could save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as we all fly away
Someone told me
Love would all save us
But how can that be
Look what love gave us
A world full of killing and blood spilling
That world never came
And they say
That a hero could save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as we all fly away
Now that the world isn't ending,
It's love that I'm sending to you
It isn't the love of a hero
And that's why I fear it won't do
And they say
That a hero could save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as we all fly away
And they're watching us (watching us)
Watching us (watch as we all)
Fly away! yeah!
And they're watching us (watching us)
Watching us (watch as we all)
Fly away…yeah, yeah…
Whoa, whoa…
-Chad Kroeger, Hero
It was December 30, 2010. The sky was grey and had a few clouds floating in it. Snow covered the ground. And, to top it all off, there was a chill in the air.
Seto Kaiba, still wearing his pre-Battle City outfit, which included the purple trenchcoat, was in the city of Los Angeles, California. He was leaning against a tree, which happened to be on the property belonging to the parents of a Miss Annabelle Jackson (or ‛Annie', as she preferred to be called sometimes). She was twenty-three years old, and was quite intriguing to some – at least according to the rumors that would catch his ear. He would think them over and then say to himself, she sure has something about her that just... how do I put this... inspires someone, maybe.
And there was something about her – a quality that he thought over – that was compelling as well.
Maybe it was her hair – the color of dark chocolate, like his own. Maybe it was her eyes – azure like his. Only they had something his own eyes didn't, and that was both warmth and compassion. (Also, both warmth and compassion were two things that, deep down, he wished he still had. And, not for the first time, he cursed his late stepfather, Gozaburo, for taking away his innocence and what humanity he had left as a child.)
Kaiba looked up when he heard the screen door opening. His eyes widened as he saw it was her that had stepped out onto the back door and onto the porch. He saw that she was wearing a pink turtleneck covered by a green sweatshirt with a cat face in diamonds on the front, and a pair of black Levis. Covering the sweatshirt was a pink coat with a matching hood, which was lined with what looked like white and grey fur. On her feet were a pair of blue socks covered by a pair of black Mary Janes with a Velcro strap.
He also noticed, as he was watching from afar, that she was wearing purple glasses that had clear glass frames and also had gemstones on the sides of the arms. Kaiba then remembered how he himself sometimes wore glasses. His glasses were red and had clear glass frames, and also had gemstones on the sides of the arms. Usually he wore them whenever he tried to read the fine print on a document or a contract.
But then he saw something that, in his eyes, set her apart from the crowd and definitely made her different. Under her arm, tucked very close and safe as she kept a firm grasp on it, was. . . a wallet!
It was silver fake leather, and had stitching all around it in the shape of diamonds. It also had a snap button flap opening. The interior had an ID viewer, four card pockets, nine card pockets, and coin pocket (on the back). To top it all off, it had a large kiss lock closure.
Intrigued, Kaiba began thinking, the wheels inside his head turning at their own pace. (After all, he had heard that people grow at their own pace, so it was probably true that their minds grew the same way as well – maybe. He wasn't sure, though.)
Immediately Kaiba then made up his mind and began to walk over to where she was sitting.
Sitting on the steps of the back porch of the house she shared with her parents, Annie smiled to herself as she opened her wallet and looked closely at the tens, fives and ones she had put safely in the pockets where the dollars would be, and then the cards in the card pockets. Then after closing her wallet, she then took out her coin purse and counted how many coins there were in it (which at the moment happened to be zero).
"Yep," she said to herself after closing the coin purse and putting it back into her coat pocket, not knowing that a certain someone was watching and listening to her, "The amount of money I have right now is one hundred and ninety-eight dollars. Can you imagine that?"
"Oh, really now," said an all-too-familiar voice which she had heard one too many times before and, she believed, also got on her nerves. "And I take it you definitely are a. . . wealthy young lady, if I'm not mistaken. Or maybe you're just a middle-class woman trying to climb her way to the top of the social ladder."
Annie froze as she heard those words. Whoever it was that was talking to her was probably either suffering from a bad day, or a bully maybe, looking for someone to vent their anger and insecurities out on. She then turned her head. She sucked in her breath as her eyes fell on the brown hair and the ice-cold cobalt eyes that were currently raking her form (as well as making her shiver both inside and outside). Despite wearing her coat, she suddenly felt as though someone had turned the air-conditioning all the way from "hot" to "cold". That was the only way to describe how one would feel when sensing the presence of Seto Kaiba when he came into a room. Or in her case, up to the back porch.
"Se-Seto Kaiba," she said. He smirked, enjoying her reaction as she put her wallet into her shoulder bag (which she had gotten from the Barnes and Noble bookstore one fine summer day a few months ago), took out Queen Bees and Wannabes (the revised and updated version) by Rosalind Wiseman, and then closed her shoulder bag. "How, may I ask, did you... well, you know...?"
She then gave Kaiba a questioning look along with raised eyebrows. For his part, Kaiba simply smiled a secret smile and then replied,
"It's amazing what – or who – you can find on the Internet these days. Let's just say I Googled you, and, in the process, discovered that both your first and last name are kind of famous."
Annie suddenly turned a bit pale, and then turned her eyes downwards, while biting her lower lip. She had heard about that book.
Then, she got that look in her eyes that she usually did when thinking things over – which happened to be most of the time (and doing it quietly too).
"You do have a point there, Kaiba," she replied as she pulled out her silver wallet and opened it. Yep, her money was still there, as she'd hoped it would be. Then, she looked at the slots that held her debit card and her credit card (which her parents had given her for her birthday eight months ago, and which she still hadn't used, preferring to save it for when she really needed it), and grew thoughtful.
"Debit card or credit card? That is the question," she suddenly said to herself as Kaiba walked up and then sat beside her. She turned to him and said, "Personally, I'd go with the debit card. After all, one of the benefits of having a debit card is that debit cards don't have the ‛Buy Now, Pay Later' that credit cards have. Instead it's more along the lines of ‛Buy Now, Pay Now', to be precise.
"However," she went on, "I do have to remember the disadvantages of having a debit card as well. One of them is that the use of a debit card is not usually limited to the existing funds in the account to which it is linked. Most banks allow a certain threshold over the available bank balance, which can cause overdraft fees if the user's transaction does not reflect available balance."
If Kaiba was quite surprised at how she recited all that, he kept it to himself, though. How did she know all that? Most importantly, how is it that she always does her best to be fiscally responsible, especially in these hard times? This is quite a puzzle, or rather a mystery. Now I know how all those detectives feel when they have all those cases on their hands that seem so frustrating, especially when it comes to finding solutions to them as well.
Well, I hope you liked reading this oneshot just as much as I liked writing it (which is to say a lot). After all, being fiscally responsible is very important, especially when it comes to saving money, too.
~Nightcrawlerlover