Wednesday – Third day of work experience

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Heva: Grrr! I'm fed up with my head of sixth form, I swear he's making things up now. After last week's mess up he's changing the rules just so that he can make life difficult for me and my best friend. Well he's picked the wrong people to mess with because I have the majority of the teaching staff on my side and a currently spotless record.

Coel: I have a feeling this will all end in tears. Don't get yourself expelled Heva, it's not worth it.

Heva: I don't think he's stupid enough to expel me and my group of friends. Well unless he hasn't looked at the AS grades, it's not sensible to get rid of the majority of your top students.

Coel: Whilst she's still complaining and plotting her method of revenge I'll start the chapter. Enjoy reading it whilst I try and shut Heva up. Also just to remind anyone who's forgotten she still doesn't own anything even though she did ask for Seto for her birthday.

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Wednesday – Third day of work experience

--

Sleep hadn't improved Seto's mood. Admittedly he was more relaxed now than he had been when he yelled at the electrical team, but that was due to that brief glimpse of Joey last night. If anything he was feeling more frustrated now than when he went to sleep.

As he poured his morning coffee he decided that if the mutt was still in a dismal mood this morning he wasn't going to care.

--

Joey's mood was able to rival Seto's apathy this morning. He'd decided that, however much it hurt to try and move on, it wasn't worth his time to mend things with someone like Seto.

Making himself a mug of hot chocolate he drank it quickly before getting dressed into the clothes Seto had given him.

'No he lent them to me,' Joey thought. 'It's not worth Seto's time and money giving something to someone like me. No, not Seto any more, his name's Kaiba,' he thought bitterly.

--

Seto picked up the phone on his desk, expecting it to be an employee or something connected with his work. The last person he expected it to be was Georgie, and what made things more worrying was that she'd switched back to speaking English between her sobbing.

"Dad got transferred," was the first sentence Seto managed to understand her say.

"Where to?" he asked when her crying calmed down enough to make Seto think she would be able to hear him.

"Back to England. We're leaving on Sunday," she managed to choke out before breaking down in hysterical tears again.

"That's a good thing, isn't it? You get to go home and see all your old friends again," Seto felt like he wasn't trying to convince Georgie that this was for the best, he was trying to convince himself. Somehow over the last couple of months she had been in his life he'd come to depend on her being there to look after Mokuba and himself when they needed it. With her leaving it meant that the stability he'd got used to disappeared as well.

"I don't want to go back to my old friends, I like my new friends," she sobbed down the phone line. "You and Mokuba are great, and I've been so afraid of loosing Kay as a friend ever since I met her. I can't leave, Seto."

"You can come back and visit," Seto suggested, feeling his own emotional walls beginning to break under the strain.

"I don't want to leave," Georgie managed to get out again. Seto heard her mother yelling something in the background in English. "I've got to get off the phone. I have to pack my bags." The phone line went dead and Seto put it back down on his desk.

"I can't loose her."

--

Joey walked over to the now familiar lift. He smiled to the receptionist who grinned back at him while she spoke to someone on the phone. Sara passed him on her way out of the lift and gave him a smile as well. Joey kept his fake smile in place as the lift doors shut behind him. The lift was crowded as people were making their way to their offices or labs for this morning's work. As the lift went higher it got more and more empty, eventually leaving Joey on his own as it reached the top floor.

He stepped out onto the beige carpet and began the short walk to Kaiba's office. As he was about to knock on the door he paused as he thought he heard a sob through the wooden door. He strained his ears to try and hear it again. Giving up he knocked and waited for a reply. There was a brief rustling and the sound of a draw being shut in the desk.

"Come in," was said after a cough when Kaiba cleared his throat. Joey pushed open the door and immediately noticed the slight redness around Kaiba's eyes that showed he'd been crying. If he hadn't been looking for it he probably wouldn't have noticed though.

"Did you have fun yesterday?" Kaiba asked without letting a hint of emotion show in his voice or expression. Joey realised that the mask was back in place; Kaiba was shutting him out completely. His chance was gone and would probably never come back again. The realisation hurt but Joey reminded himself that he was planning to do the same to Kaiba so it shouldn't bother him.

"Yes. Tabatha was very nice and Tau introduced me to a lot of people at lunch who were really fun to talk to." There wasn't a flicker of emotion showing in Kaiba's eyes, they looked almost dead. The usual sparkle had vanished, and Joey felt lost without it. He'd been using Kaiba's eyes to tell his emotions for what felt like years and he'd never seen them look so empty before.

"You were ok with Tau's accent, I hope. Usually people struggle to understand him when they aren't used to it."

"No, it was fine. What accent is it, by the way?" Joey hoped to see some kind of emotion appear now that Tau was the topic of discussion. If they'd had a relationship in the past, there should be something, shouldn't there?

"Italian. Do you want me to take you to see the security team now?"

"Ok," Joey replied. Nothing had shown in Kaiba's eyes through the entire conversation. He'd shut Joey out completely and if Kaiba didn't want Joey, Joey had decided that he didn't want anything to do with Kaiba.

--

It was the second day in a row Seto couldn't focus in the slightest. On Monday he had been able to do some work while watching the films with Joey, and he'd got a large amount done before the mutt had arrived. Yesterday he'd been able to focus in the morning, but seeing Joey so unhappy and quiet when he arrived Seto hadn't been able to work for the rest of the day. Now, not only was Joey being distant, Georgie was leaving as well.

'I'm loosing everyone I care about,' Seto thought miserably as he put his head in his hands. He felt the tears begin to gather at the corners' of his eyes and overflow down his cheeks. 'Just as I see Tsume again I loose everyone else. Mokie won't leave me, will he? Everyone else is.' Seto pulled the draw with his tissues open again and wiped the tears off his cheeks. He needed to get himself together. There was no point in sulking, it wouldn't change anything.

Forcing himself to take a few deep breaths and clear his thoughts he managed to calm himself enough to regain rational thought. It was a technique he'd developed to not give Gozaburo the satisfaction of seeing him loose his nerve at any time. Clearing his mind of the negative thoughts and blocking them off, temporarily, he would have to face them eventually.

Feeling in a better frame of mind he picked up the first few sheets of paperwork he needed to do and pulled a pen towards himself. This was going to be a long day.

--

Joey looked at all the monitors on the wall.

"We can look at every single camera in the entire building from here," the security guard was telling him. "There's also a face recognition system so that any employee can be recognised by the computer, it means that people can be automatically signed in and out of the building without having to use security cards like most places. Of course we still have security cards to access certain areas of the building."

"Am I on the system?" Joey asked, slightly concerned that he'd been recorded onto the system without knowing about it. Thinking back to the contract it had probably been on it somewhere.

"We can check," the security guard said as he began typing on his computer. "You've got a profile from a few years back. According to this you're one of the top ranking duellists, Mr Kaiba was the last person to edit it so he obviously thinks you're worthy of that title."

"He must have made the profile in Battle City," Joey muttered thoughtfully.

"There were a large number of profiles created shortly before that tournament, but yours appears to have been created after Duelist Kingdom. All the quarter finalists from any official tournaments are added to the system so that future champions can be located before they enter the national tournaments. It means that Kaiba Corp can be aware of which duellists are appropriate to invite for future challenges."

It made sense that Kaiba Corp would want to know who would be top of the duelist leader boards before everyone else, purely for advertising purposes. They would know who to bring into tournaments to make the most interesting duels, and most challenging competition for those in the position of international champion. One other thought wouldn't leave him alone though,

'Kaiba thinks I'm worthy to be a top rank duelist?'

--

Seto didn't even hear the knock on his door at midday. The door was opened and shut also without gaining his attention. Sara was surprised by the lack of notice she was receiving, her employer was usually very attentive. The stack of paperwork in his out tray was evidence enough of his unhappiness.

'When something is bothering him that he doesn't want to think about he will work without any kind of attention to what is going on around him. The work will be done very thoroughly and in vast quantities but be warned, he won't stop working for anything unless reminded and it is impossible to continue like that for long before he will need to be forced into taking a break.'

She'd never seen him like this before; in her experience so far he'd always faced his problems and dealt with them as soon as they arose. Another wad of sheets was put on the now unstable pile in the out tray.

Sara coughed and Seto looked up as he was reaching for the next stack of reports he needed to read.

"Yes?" he asked, in a very businesslike manner.

"I came to give you a print out of the information about the meeting on Friday with Pegasus. It's the same as the information on the email I sent you apart from the list of people who are attending the meeting has been altered."

"Thank you," Seto answered, taking the offered sheet and placing it on his laptop keyboard.

"You need to take a break and have lunch," she ventured. Sara had only eaten lunch with Seto a couple of times in the past; first when she was on her first day without the previous secretary there to help her, and again when she had a fall out with one of the receptionists. Seto had asked her why she had got annoyed with the receptionist and sent her a copy of the receptionist shift timetable so that she could avoid the lobby when ever that particular receptionist was on duty.

"I'm not hungry or tired," Seto replied as he began reading the next report.

"Join me for lunch," Sara internally grimaced as she realised how that must have sounded to Seto.

"What do you want, Sara?" Seto asked with a sigh, putting the report down. Now they were getting to what was wrong, Sara hoped.

"To know what has put you in such a bad mood."

"If you must know I got some bad news this morning, that's all. It's nothing to concern yourself with. Stress over the new duel disk system caused me to get annoyed yesterday, which is why I snapped at the electrical team."

"Are you ok now?" Sara asked, hoping he wouldn't lie and remain cooped up in this office.

"I'll be fine, thanks for being concerned though," Seto replied, allowing a slight smile onto his face to try and reassure her.

"That's good." Sara left the office, convinced Seto was alright.

'At least she isn't going to leave me anytime soon,' Seto thought as he watched her go.

--

Joey got home and dropped his bags onto the floor. It felt like the day had sped past in almost no time at all. He'd stopped off at the bank and withdrawn some money before going shopping for food. Pulling a microwave meal out of the nearest bag he went into the kitchen to cook it.

In ten minutes he was sat in front of the television on the sofa, a fork in one hand and a tray with the meal on it in the other. A rerun of one of his favourite episodes of a comedy series was on so it wasn't long before he was laughing. He used to watch this programme with Tristan and then later with his dad. As the adverts came on part way through the programme Joey turned to talk to someone on the sofa next to him and was reminded that he was alone in the apartment.

Standing up to take his tray out to the kitchen he felt the quietness of the apartment around him. No one was there with him. He was alone. His dad had gone away with work and Tristan was probably with their other friends, not thinking about Joey. Hoping one of his friends had decided to call him and ask how his work experience was going, or his dad had rung to say when he'd be back, Joey walked over to where the answer machine was in the hallway. There were no messages.

Joey wandered aimlessly around the apartment after switching off the TV, without someone there to enjoy the programme with it just didn't seem that funny anymore. He spotted the bags of food he'd left in the hallway and carried them through to the kitchen to unpack into the cupboards, fridge and freezer. This took him an hour as he paused to read the label on each item to try and keep his mind occupied. There were a surprising number of food items that contained sulphur dioxide which he was sure wasn't a good thing, but the manufacturers knew more about it than he did so he decided it wasn't worth worrying about.

Walking back into the living room he decided it was time someone cleaned it. After moving all the magazines and other objects from the floor, he got the vacuum cleaner out from the cupboard in the hallway and began to clean the carpet. He then rearranged the furniture so that each seat could see the television and reach the table.

The next room to get a clean was his bedroom, which really needed it. He left his dad's bedroom, the bathroom and kitchen alone, but gave the hallway a quick vacuum.

When he had finished he noticed that it was past eleven at night and decided he ought to try and sleep. He pulled off his borrowed trousers and jacket before changing into his pyjamas.

Switching off his light and snuggling down into his duvet Joey felt sleep take him almost instantly.

--

Seto couldn't sleep. He'd spent all evening helping Georgie and her mum pack up all their belongings into cardboard boxes. Mokuba had spent the entire time crying and yelling about how it was unfair that Georgie and her mum had to leave after such a short time. Seto didn't know how to even begin comforting his younger brother so settled on reminding him that they would visit Georgie regularly.

Part way through the evening Seto had ended up talking with Georgie's mother and suggested they use one of his jets to take their luggage over to England. It would prevent the problem of airport weight limits and stop the dogs having to be checked through the airport system as well.

Georgie's mother had actually hugged him and told him in very broken Japanese that he was a very thoughtful and caring young man. He had tried to persuade her that it was the least he could do after the number of times she had looked after Mokuba for him.

"I never got to make you taste my cooking," Georgie sobbed as she helped Mokuba unravel another sheet of bubble wrap to put around the DVD player before it went into a cardboard box.

"You'll have to cook something when we come and visit you," Mokuba told her in between his tears.

"You can cook us a really spectacular lunch, and give us a guided tour of where you live," Seto agreed.

"Like the one Mokuba gave me of Domino?" Georgie said critically.

"Just like that one," Mokuba replied with a slight smile. He'd taken Georgie round most of the shops before dragging her off to Kaiba Corp where he'd pointed out locations around the city from the roof. It hadn't been a very effective tour, but it hadn't taken long before she found her way around most of the city.

Seto was brought out of his thoughts by a knock on his bedroom door.

"Can't you sleep?" he asked.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" Mokuba asked as he walked over to Seto's bed. Seto sighed and pulled down the duvet so Mokuba to climb in next to him. The mattress shifted with the added weight as Mokuba snuggled up to his brother.

Seto felt his eyelids begin to droop as he felt the warmth of the other body in the bed spread to him. It was so comforting to have someone else curled up next to him.

"Your feet are cold," he murmured, as Mokuba accidently kicked his shin in an effort to get comfortable in Seto's arms.

"Tough," was the muttered reply as Mokuba yawned. It wasn't long before both brothers drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

--

Seto awoke when Mokuba hit him accidentally whilst dreaming. The resultant yelp as Seto woke up in surprise, holding his side where Mokuba's fist had landed, woke Mokuba from his nightmare. Hearing the muffled curse as Seto tried to see if there was a bruise in near pitch blackness, Mokuba tried to find the lamp on the bedside table. Light flooded the scene an instant later as Seto was holding his pyjama shirt up trying to look at a quickly appearing bruise. The purple splodge was marking his pale skin quite badly, but Mokuba knew from past experiences that Seto's bruises always looked far worse than they actually were and faded away after only a few days.

"Sorry," Mokuba mumbled as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.

"It's ok, just the perfect ending to the perfect day. Go back to sleep, Mokie," Seto replied, lowering the shirt and lying back down in the bed.

--

Heva: That chapter seems shorter than the others.

Coel: (shrugs) I think it is the shortest chapter so far, but it's got some important plot points in it.

Heva: Oh well, I hope you still liked it. The next chapter will be up next Friday, unless I get stuck in some form of detention thanks to my head of sixth form. It is possible I have a rehearsal next Friday though for the village pantomime so I may have to upload next Saturday instead. It'll be up next weekend anyway so have a great week.

Date: 26/09/2008