Clichéd Secrets

Disclaimer: I don't, nor will I ever own Yu-Gi-Oh! No matter how many birthday candles I blow out, or how many times I wish upon a falling star.

A/N: First off. Please review and point out any grammatical mistakes I've made (or horrible story plots or really, any critique) because it's been YEARS since I've last wrote a fanfic. I've just recently been re-watching the series and reading the manga, and I decided I couldn't help myself. Also, I was much more of a math person than an English person. Also, I'm hoping to build this slowly despite the very cliché beginning. I've got sort of a story goal in mind, and I'm HOPING to start getting more unique, even though I feel like eventual Puppyshipping kind of always has to have a similar underlying cause. Thirdly, I'm not really quite sure where in the timeline this is supposed to take. If I decide later, I'll keep you guys updated. And did I mention, PLEASE review. I definitely need reviews (even a single review) otherwise I'll assume that my writing is so horrible that it's not worth reading.

Chapter 1

Joey blinked tiredly and tried to focus on whatever nonsense was coming out of his science teacher's mouth. It wasn't working. He had no idea when he was ever going to need to know about classifications and the genus or species of something in the real world. He sighed, giving up, and went back to doodling in his notebook. Grades didn't matter to him. He knew he didn't have enough money to go to college. His number one priority out of high school was to get a job and move out of the hellhole that was his house.

It was well known that his dad wasn't exactly an upstanding member of the community, but nobody really delved any deeper than that. His friends were maybe slightly more aware of what was going on, but Yugi and Tea were hopelessly naive. Tristen perhaps knew best, but he knew better than to bring it up. It didn't really matter, he had learned from a young age that your problems were exactly that, yours.

Joey was by no means a small guy, and living in the wrong part of town and had made him tough, but his dad worked construction which kept him in shape. His dad's boss was as much of a low life as him, which instantly made them best friends, spending all their money at the strip club and on booze. It also let his dad get away with almost anything at work. He guessed it could be worse. His dad remembered to pay rent and utilities, most of the time anyway.

"Mr. Wheeler!" Joey's head snapped up to find his teacher standing in front of his desk. Joey sheepishly grinned. "Yes Mr. Jenkins?" he asked. "Last I checked, this isn't art class. Now that I have your attention, it looks like I have a volunteer to go up to the board and finish the Punnett square I've started." The teacher looked expectantly at him. Joey sucked in a big breath, plastered a smile on his face, and confidently walked up to the board. He was a firm believer in the phrase "fake it until you make it." He had no idea what the R's stood for, or what he was supposed to put in the boxes, but Joey was no quitter. As the rest of class started to snicker, Joey started his long winded explanation of 4 square.

Seto, who had been sitting at the desk nearest the door, was finishing up a memo to send out to all the managers reminding them that evaluations needed to be completed this week. With the end of the fiscal year coming up, he was swamped with tedious report writing, collecting numbers and get everything ready for the next quarter. School was not something he had time for, however, they had called and told him if he didn't start showing up, they were going to fail him. Seto never failed at anything.

Luckily, he had already learned almost everything he needed to know back when he was about 8. He would have taken up level honors classes, but he didn't need the extra homework. Besides, he was mostly getting his high school degree to appease his shareholders. Image really was everything. Luckily, as long as he turned in his homework, the teachers left him pretty much alone and he was able to multi-task during class time.

He heard the teacher yelling at Wheeler. He wasn't surprised, that mutt was never doing anything right. He briefly looked up to watch him walk up to the board and start explaining something that was utter nonsense. Although most of the class found it amusing, Seto was annoyed at the dog for wasting everybody's time and just how incorrect the information was. Seto wasn't even sure he was talking about biology.

Unable to bite his tongue any longer, he snapped at the blonde "What planet are you even on Wheeler? The rabbit has a 25% chance of having both recessive traits. I'm pretty sure even a dog could figure that out."

"I AM NOT A DOG, KAIBA!" Joey spat back.

"I was actually calling you less intelligent than a dog."

"Do you want to take this outside?!" Joey was never very good about keeping his anger in check.

"Wouldn't be worth my time."

Mr. Jenkins had about enough of this. "Seto, while you might be correct on the Punnett, this is completely inappropriate behavior from both of you. Detention."

"He started it!" Joey exclaimed as the same time Seto stated "Do you know who I am?!"

"I don't care," answering both of them, "you will both report here after school today."

The bell then rang to signal the end of the class period. Neither Joey nor Seto left in a very good mood after that class period.

Joey was sitting with his buddies at lunch.

"I can't believe that guy! I don't know what his problem is! Why does he have to get me in trouble too?"

Joey wasn't horribly upset about having detention. It saved him an hour from going home, but he couldn't stand having it with him. He was such a jerk. Just because he ran a big important company didn't mean he had the right to treat everybody like crap.

Yugi piped up first, "I'm sure he didn't mean it like that Joey, he was probably just having a bad day. Cut him a break." That was Yugi, always seeing the best in people.

"Just think of it this way, at least detention is screwing up his day way more than it's messing with yours!" Tristan chimed in.

Joey hadn't thought of that. Maybe detention wouldn't be so bad if he got to see Kaiba sweat a little.

The rest of the day went without too much incident for Joey. He fell asleep in his last period, but luckily Tristen was in that class with him and woke him up before the teacher was able to notice. He moseyed back to Mr. Jenkins classroom. He was surprised to see that he wasn't the only on in there. Mr. Jenkins must have been in a bad mood, because there were about 4 others in there, including Ryou Bakura. He and Ryou weren't great friends, but he was much better company than Kaiba, so he sat down next to him.

"Hey Bakura! What bring you to detention?"

Ryou blushed. "I'm actually not quite sure, I just remember Mr. Jenkins red in the face and just saying the word detention while pointing at me."

Joey suspected that maybe the spirit of the millennium ring but he didn't say anything. "Oh well, what a jerk." He proceeded to try and small talk with the white haired boy until they were free to go.

Kaiba was more irritated than usual. He had tried talking to the principle, and Mr. Jenkins again, but the both insisted that he would fail if he did not show up for attention. He had spent the last hour and a half reorganizing meetings and ended up having to receive a fair amount of faxes at the library. The librarian looked irked, but he didn't care. He had work to do.

As he strolled into the Biology classroom, he noticed Joey had already sat down. His icy blue eyes pierced his honey amber eyes as he walked in. Joey briefly glanced up to acknowledge his entrance, but went off talking to a white haired boy known as Bakura. Seto knew his name, but wasn't interested enough to know anything about him. Kaiba was mildly taken aback at how many students were in detention, but then again, it didn't really matter.

Kaiba again took the seat by the door, that way if he got a phone call he could easily sneak into the hallway. He had told Roland to hold all his calls for the next hour, but he never knew when an emergency was going to arise. He pulled out his laptop and started working on statistics reports regarding the numbers for the end of the year. About 5 minutes later, Mr. Jenkins walked in, and without saying a word and sat down at his desk. He didn't seem to care what was going on in the rest of the classroom. Why hold detention if there weren't going to be any rules?

Luckily, the hour went by quickly. They were dismissed right as he was finishing his report.

"Good" he thought to himself, "I finished most of the important things, I can go home to Mokuba."

Mokuba meant everything to him, and while he had to keep the company afloat, he tried to spend as much time with him as possible. As he was exiting the classroom, he called up Roland to have him send the driver to the front of the school. Seto soon got into the car and head home. More than likely he would be home by 6, and he wondered if his brother had already had dinner. He hoped not. Kaiba might seem like a hard ass on the outside, but his brother was his one week spot. Even with his busy job...and now school...he liked to at least have 1 meal with him per day. Gave them a chance to catch up what was going on with his life. As much as he hated to admit it, Mokuba was growing up, and he liked to hear what was going either at his school, or in his personal life.

Mokuba didn't have the same social problems that Seto had. Seto may be a loner, with no one to trust other than his brother or Roland, but his brother had even managed to make friends with Yugi and the gang. Even though Yugi had decided he was friends with Kaiba much earlier, Kaiba could not forgive Yugi Motou for beating him at his favorite game.

"Seto!" The younger Kaiba brother greeted him enthusiastically as he entered the main hall to his mansion. "How was school?" He said sarcastically.

Seto rolled his eyes. "I can't believe they are making me do this. I already learned this stuff. The things I do for our shareholders." He said condescendingly. Mokuba nodded in agreement, and but eagerly interjected "I ordered pizza if you're hungry!" just as Seto's stomach started to grumble.

Seto decided to put his thoughts about his business aside and followed Mokuba into the kitchen to heat up leftovers.

Joey took the long way home. He was hoping his father would be gone by the time he got home. As he approached his apartment, he found no such luck. His dad's beaten down truck was sitting in the parking lot.

"Great" he thought to himself. "Looks like I've got a long night ahead of me."

Joey cautiously walked in the front door. His dad appeared to be watching some sort of game on the T.V. Joey was fairly certain his father must be already drunk.

"What took you so long?!" his father asked, obviously annoyed. Joey took on the persona to keep his father complacent. "I'm sorry Dad! Some teacher accused me of something completely bogus! Would you like me to get you another beer?" His father grunted in approval without further conversation.

Joey walked to the back to the kitchen and opened the fridge to grab another beer. He noticed it was the last one left. He knew he'd have to get more to keep his father from getting angry. He popped open the lid and took it to his father. "Hey pops, can I have a $20 to go get you some more beer?" Joey held his breathe, this was always a dangerous question. Luckily, his father seemed to be in a decent mood. He sighed and pulled out his wallet. He grabbed a $20 and thrust it at his son. Joey quickly grabbed it and left the apartment. Luckily only a few streets down there was a gas station that didn't ask too many questions.

About 30 minutes later, Joey strolled back to his apartment. As soon as he opened the front door, he knew something was wrong. He couldn't hear the T.V. in the background. As he took a couple steps into the apartment he heard his father's voice.

"Where the hell have you been boy?" His voice was slightly slurred, indicating his intoxication level.

Hoping to smooth the whole thing over, Joey quickly replied with a smile, "Just went to grab you more beer Dad! Here, let me open one for you!" Joey's smile quickly faded as soon as he set eyes on his father. His pops seemed to be too far gone to reason with.

"It's too late for that! You are worthless. I have work in the morning! Don't you know I needed this a half an hour ago? You are nothing more than a piece of shit your good for nothing mother left me with. You don't even appreciate this roof over our head, or the food we are able to eat!"

"No, dad, I didn't mean..."

"Don't interrupt me!" Joey's father said. Outraged, he smacked Joey hard across the cheek.

Joey rubbed his cheek, hoping this was as bad as it was going to get, but not holding his breath.

"You waste of space. Put the beer in the fridge. I don't want to see or hear a peep from you until after I've left in the morning. I don't know why you keep insisting going on with your miserable life. No wonder you mother left us, it's because you couldn't deal with YOU!" his words cutting like a blade.

Joey quickly strode over to the fridge, shoved the beer in there and quickly locked himself into this room. As he stripped his day clothes to get into bed, he let one lonely tear slowly roll down his cheek.

OK. There's chapter one. As I pleaded before. Please please please R and R (and seriously, don't be afraid to tell me what the heck is wrong with it, it's literally been YEARS). Hope you were able to enjoy it. And it may be cliché for a few more chapters, but hopefully it'll get better real quick.