Time together
On the third day in the human world Mimi was still as clueless as she was at the start of her exams. She already had needed more time than a normal exam case was supposed to need but at least she knew that she didn't have that time limit due to the fact that it would have been hopeless in that case. And by now she knew why. The two of them where hardly talking to each other and tied up in their own life with hardly any connection. At least no connection that she could see so far. The only times they even acknowledged each other was when they were fighting and insulting each other. She hoped that by watching them another few days she might find a common interest.
Unfortunately though, she didn't only tend to get late, she also tended to let herself get sidetracked. Sometime during that third day she started to follow the cute couple more than Joey and Seto. Yami and Yugi where just so cute together and she loved watching them cuddle and listen to their silent discussions. Luckily, it this case it turned out to be an advantage.
"Yugi?" The taller one thought and took a deep breath to smell more of the smaller ones sweet strawberry scent. He just loved the new shampoo he had gotten him for his birthday.
"What is it?" the smaller one answered in his thoughts.
"Do you think Joey will show up today for the new booster packs?" The taller one asked and Mimi as well as Yugi could feel his worry. He was sure that something was up with Joey lately, something he refused to let them know about. It was so typical for him to try and manage everything alone first and only let his friends help once they found out and offered their help. He would never just come to them and ask.
"I hope so." Yugi replied in his thoughts only. "I put some aside for him and want to give them to him for free. He'll never buy them himself."
"I know. Like mentioned yesterday, he's broke again. I mean he never seemed to have much, but lately he never seems to have any money on him." Yami thought, "But we can't do much, not unless he confides in us. I mean how else are we supposed to figure out what's up with him? We can't just follow him around, he'd be pissed if he noticed."
"I don't know." Came Yugi's thought reply. "But at least he can get some great cards from the booster packs, with his luck he might get the best monsters available in it."
Mimi suddenly cheered to herself. Someone might wonder why this helped the little angel, since she knew more or less everything already. About the new booster packs, about Joey being in a though spot and all. But what the little angel didn't know was what a booster pack was! Now she knew that it had to do with cards and monsters. She also had found out before that Seto had a lot to do with cards too, Duel Monster cards. Now she only had to find out what the hell someone did with such cards and maybe she could use that. Maybe it could be a better connection than the fighting, but then again, anything was better than fighting if you want someone to get together right?
She watched them a little longer but eventually they were lost again in their own little world. Mimi was excited about the chance she spotted and went back to the two guys she was supposed to work with and watched them in class. They didn't talk to each other at all. Seto typed on his laptop and Joey talked to Tristan.
"Stupid laptop." Mimi thought. It was way too much of a distraction for Seto. How was he supposed to notice the cute blond guy if his eyes were always glued to that stupid screen? She was thinking about letting it break down for a moment but then she got an even better idea. She filed the cards away in case she would spot a chance to use that connection but for now, she actually thought that since Joey loved to fight and apparently Seto was always up for one too, she would use that. She could at least try to let one good thing come from one of those silly fights.
Joey was standing close to the blackboard, waiting for the teacher, and the sponge that was used to clean it was very close to the two talking teens. She eyed Jay a little who had still no idea of her plan and she hoped that she could manage to pull a little trick, even though he was always around Joey. Her timing would have to be perfect but it definitely was worth a try. At least Tristan's guardian angle wasn't present at the moment. She had seen him already but he wasn't around quite as often as Jay. No surprise, unlike Joey, Tristan managed to survive a lunch break without suffocating on his food, even though he wasn't that much better and also stuffed his food quite a bit.
Mimi created a little breeze that knocked the sponge, that was already on the edge, onto Tristan's shoe. Joey started to laugh while Jay eyed Mimi wearily. He obviously could guess that Mimi was shaming something, but so far he hadn't figured out what.
"This isn't funny." Tristan complained but smiled himself and kicked the sponge right into Joey's face, "But that is." And now Tristan was the one laughing.
"Ya better run." Joey said, grabbing the sponge before it could fall to the ground, and threw it back to Tristan. The brunette ducked and spun out of the way before he picked it back up and threw it back to Joey. It didn't take long until the sponge had flown back and forth a few times, while Tristan and Joey stood further away from each other to make it easier to escape, getting hit with the wet and chalk filled sponge again and enabled them to easily catch the sponge instead. Jay still eyed Mimi while he ensured that Joey didn't trip over a chair or school bag. Mimi on the other side waited for the sponge to go to the right direction before she made sure that Tristan did trip and missed the catch. The sponge flew past his head and right onto Seto's laptop before Jay managed to slightly change the angle.
Seto glared at the wet sponge while Mimi quickly used her awesome angel powers to let one of the water drops get inside of the laptop and coursed a shortcut in the circuit. Seto's voice boomed through the room, "Who threw that thing?"
"He did." Tristan said immediately and pointed at Joey.
"He should have caught it." Joey said and pointed back at Tristan. Both of them still smiled and actually found it hilarious.
"Do you two kindergarteners have any idea of how much this laptop is worth? Or how much data I need to recover or rework from scrap?" Seto asked. His eyes glaring down at Joey who had been the one throwing the sponge. "And all because you stupid mutt wanted to play fetch the ball."
"I'm not a freaking dog." Joey said slightly angered but also still grinning about his own thoughts when he added, "And anyway it would have been fetch the sponge." Joey really didn't understand why Seto was so mad, it wasn't like he did it on purpose. "Just calm down, ya got plenty of money to buy a new one."
"I can't buy it." Seto explained while his voice was getting more quiet again but not in a good way. He sounded even more angry now and threateningly. "I built it myself out of a lot of really expensive parts and it will take a lot of time to make a new one and get all the data on it the way it was."
"Well that's good isn't it, ya built it once, ya can do it again, so chill out." Joey stated still uncaring.
"I wouldn't have to do that if you didn't play around like the idiotic mutt you are." Seto said.
"Whatever," Joey shrugged. "It ain't like I can change that now. And anyway, it wouldn't be broke if ya had made it water proof."
"Make him work for it." Mimi whispered into Seto's ear and Jay glared at her like he would just love to have a physical body to strangle her with his own bare hands. But this would be a great way to force them to spend some time together. Maybe if Seto found out about Joey's dad in the process, he could become his knight in shining armour.
"Whatever?" Seto said even more threateningly angry. "Did you just say whatever? I will teach you the worth of my laptop. You'll repay me for every little cent I need to put in it, and the money I could earn during the time I waste to fix it as well. You will work for it at my company and trust me, I will make sure you will regret this day until the end of your miserable worthless little life."
"And if I refuse to do that?" Joey asked.
"Then I will call the police and make damn sure that you owe me money for the remainder of your useless existence." Seto threatened.
"And how much money is that damned thing worth?" Joey asked, hoping that he could find a way to pay Seto back and certain that Tristan would help, after all he was going along with their game and was as much to blame as he was.
"20.000 dollar at the very least, the time I need to build it not even counting." Seto said still sounding really pissed. "So then you'd owe me about twice that much."
"WHAT? Please tell me ya kidding me." Joey groaned.
"No, this laptop cost that much." Tristan insisted, he had wanted to buy one recently and looked at them in some shops, he even looked at the really expensive ones just for the fun of it. "You're only trying to take advantage of his naivety."
"Hey," Joey complained," I'm not naïve."
"I don't need to do something like that." Seto said, now glaring at Tristan and ignoring Joey's comment on his naivety, "The laptop is customised and was especially programmed to suite my every need to run Kaiba corp. from anywhere on the globe and was build from only the newest and greatest technology on the marked. I even built in everything to create a smaller vision of all the Holograms that my duel disks create, so I can work on them. Don't tell me what it is worth and what not. If you have it to an in-depended professional to see how much it's worth he'll tell you an even higher price. But if you insist we can take this out in court and I will drag you there, if you don't repay me." Seto shifted his glare back to the culprit who had thrown the damned sponge that had broken his laptop.
"What work?" Joey asked, "I mean ya ain't going to make me ya slave or anything."
"Why should I?" Seto said, still glaring at the blond. "I doubt that some measly low life like you could be of any use to me as a slave."
"If I'm no use to ya, then what do ya want me to do?" Joey asked still wearily, but for now ignoring the insult. Seto was definitely pissed enough already, "I don't have the money, so what do ya want me to do to pay ya back?"
"You're going to do some little jobs around my company without getting paid." Seto said, "There are a few things that even a stupid mutt like you should be capable of doing."
"And how long do I have to do that?" Joey asked with resentment. He knew that there was no way out of it and if Seto really dragged him to court his lawyers would tear him apart and Joey knew that it could only get worse.
"That depends on how you work, you moron." Seto answered. "Be at the company at three."
Joey didn't like the arrogant and triumphant smile on the others face and knew that Seto would really make him pay, but not with work, with torture.
"I can help out too." Tristan offered to help his friend. It´d be much easier for Joey if they could go through this together. They might even have some fun messing around the place every now and then until Seto gets so fed up that he'd just kick them out again. "I mean I was involved too."
"Like hell." Seto replied, "I might as well blow up the building myself before I let you two run around in it together."
"But it isn't fair that you only punish him." Tristan insisted "I started it."
"But he threw it, so he's going to pay." Seto decided, "And that's final. Unless you really want to take this to court?" He looked from one to the other a couple of times while both stayed silent. "That's what I thought." Seto said and shifted his gaze towards Joey again, "Today at three or I´ll call my lawyers."
Authors Note: Thanks again to noffermans, ArcherAzzure and dancing elf for the reviews.
Also, there has been no note about what story is the squeal to this one (it's already out so some should be able to guess it at some point.)
And to let you know, I'm starting a poll today because two of my OC (Mimi [angel], Jay [angel] and Rocco [demon]) will be married in a few years. I would like to know what couple you would like to see the most. Mimi and Jay, Mimi and Rocco or Jay and Rocco? So please vote I'm really curious who you would like to see getting together.
Next chapter Jay will tell Mimi the name of the demon (which you already know,) and you'll find out what kind of work Joey will have to do and if Seto actually bothers to annoy him a little...or a lot.
