Chapter 8

Seto just arrived at his office, later then usual, since he had been at the bank. He now had a second bank account under the name of Katsuya Jonouchi. He wondered whether Joey would track that one down, once he would notice the money he intended to get over to Joey's account, as soon as he knew Joey had an account. And Ed was keeping an eye out for that and had talked to him and Joey said he would get one but wasn't sure with what bank yet. He never had one before and had no idea about how it worked. His dad had always done everything considering money and spent more than he got on booze and than lost the rest in card games. So all Seto could do now was wait for him to get an account.

"Hello, Mister Kaiba." Seto turned towards the voice. Most of his employees rather ran for the hills than dare getting his attention, so he wondered who had distracted him from his tought. It took him a moment to recognise the brown curly hair. It was Kai, the guy he had seen with Joey on the streets. The guy that had lived with him for some time, the guy that might be Joey's boyfriend. He gave him his most deathly death stare, putting all his fury for him being so close to his little Puppy in it. And what made matters worst, that dude didn't even flinch. Was he brave or just plain dumb? Seto thought as another tought hit him. He had been a runaway, Ed had said and still he had for a while worked at Kaiba corp. and with no references or experiences, hell he hadn't even finished high school, WHY? He looked confused and then said, sounding totally innocent and like he had never seen him before "Are you this new guy, Kai?"

"Yes, that's me, Mister Kaiba, sir." He said with a big smile on his face. What the hell is wrong? Seto thought. He doesn't seam the least bit scared and I look at him with my most ferocious death glare, the women next to him at the reception is already one head shorter, trying to hide half under the desk and he is smiling at me like I just made his whole freaking day. Seto couldn't understand any of it, not why he looked so pleased nor why the hell he had ever been working here, so that he had to hire him back to make his puppy happy. What the hell is going on, but maybe there was a way to find out. He could always ask this Kai a few questions, he didn't seem to be too bright to figure anything out and as long as he was careful, he couldn't tell Joey anything suspicious. "I need to talk to you, be in my office in 30 minutes and don't dare to be late." and with that Seto went off, hearing a "Of course, Mister Kaiba, Sir. Everything you say." Of course everything I say, I'm the boss you idiotic brainless waste of space. Seto thought, while walking on towards the elevator.

25 minutes later Seto sat in his office, in his chair, his huge desk behind him. He was looking out of the window when a knock on the door disturbed him once again. He turned first before asking the person in but it wasn't necessary any more, he had let himself in and it was Kai. " Didn't anyone tell you how it works here? Don't just come in. I might be busy, even when I asked you to come, just wait till I call you, understood?"

"Of course, Mister Kaiba. I'm very sorry, I didn't know."

"There is probably way too much you don't know, I still can't believe that you´re even here. Which is actually why I wanted to talk to you, exactly, why are you here?"

"You asked me to come to your office." Kai said and Seto noticed his confused look. He really was dumb.

"I mean, why do you have this job? You probably know that some stupid private detective connected me and I got a huge amount of money, worth even my while and making me consider hiring you and even doing so, but mind you. I can fire you any time I want to, if you mess up. But what I want to know is, why is some rich guy bothering with you and wasting money and time on you?"

"Well, it's not because of me. He has a thing for a friend of mine and wants to help him out but he refused to leave me hanging with nothing and so he promised him to get me a job, so Katsuya... I meant Joey.. wouldn't worry."

"Joey? Joey Wheeler?"

"Yes, you know him?"

"Unfortunately, yes he was in a few duel monster tournaments and to top it off my little brother considers the Mutt a friend of his."

"Mutt? You call him MUTT?"

"What if?" Seto saw him getting angry and wondered why he was overreacting so much.

"Don't."

"Don't what?" Seto gave him another death glare, worse than the one before. No one told him what to do or what not to do and most certainly not a worthless guy, like that one in front of him.

"Don't call him dog names. He has been trough more than enough as to be tormented by you or anyone else."

"Tormented? Don't be overreacting like that, I called him Mutt as long as I know him and that's what he is. A worthless Mutt like you and you better watch your mouth or you're back on the street where you belong."

"He isn't worthless and I don't care what you call me, I don't even care what you think about him but don't call him that to his face! If I ever hear otherwise, you will regret it, boss or no boss, Job or not. I don't care one way or another, but don't let him hear it. You don't know him like I do, you don't know how his life was and you don't have any idea how bad he can get. He cried for hours once thanks to someone calling him a cute Puppy and he just mumbled "I'm not a dog", while crying. He can't stand it, because someone overdid it and I think I know who by now, so cut it OUT Kat... I mean Joey is a friend of mine and that comes before a dumb job."

"I´m warning you for the last time, watch your mouth! Understood? And now, one more thing before I kick you out of my office and you better make sure that you never get to my attention again after you left this room today. Why have you worked here before? Why have you been hired by someone as a personal secretary when you are clearly incompetent, do you have any idea?"

"That dude found me on the street working as a hooker and thought he can have some cheap fun, if he let's you pay for my hours here and still gets to fuck me, that's why, but I didn't like it. I started to avoid him and got fired for that. Anything else, jerk?"

"No, get the hell out of my office and back to work, before I change my mind and kick you out for good." Seto watched him leave, trying to process every little thing Kai had said. A Puppy comment had freaked him out at some point. The way Kai's face had turned red while saying someone said it, the someone might have been him. He might have called his Puppy with Puppy, and Seto didn't like it but he disliked the freaked out part even more. But why might he have freaked out then? He had reacted just fine the day before in the game shop. At least until he was gone but there might have been something afterwards but if, how was he to find out? Seto thought about that for a moment but then figured, that if he had reacted as bad as this Kai had claimed he did, he would already know. Yami and Yugi had been with him as he had left and they would have wanted to protect Joey from something like that at least as much as Kai seemed to want that, and that meant that Yami would have stormed the building, challenging him to a game and if Yami won, he had to stop calling him that and considering that it was Yami, the odds where against Seto. And Yugi would phone Mokuba, who in return would have phoned him and threatened with never talking to him again, until he apologises to Joey and swears to never do it again. Yes, Seto was sure that that would have happened, if his words had made him break into tears and getting a mental breakdown, including mumbling "I'm not a dog" or such. But what had Kai been going on about, then? Was he simply overreacting? He risked his job in talking like that, and even so he was about as bright as a very deep dark scary cave, even he couldn't be so dumb as to risk his job over something small. Had he just reacted different, because of Mutt instead of Puppy? But then again it would have made more sense to freak over worthless Mutt then cute Puppy. But maybe it wasn't the words, maybe it was the person. Kai hadn't said who it was but he looked guilty with getting all red during that part, so if it had been him it did make sense to freak, if a friend said something like that rather than an enemy. Seto felt like he had been stabbed in the heart. He had known that Joey hated him, but having it more or less confirmed in such a way was different. And it showed that he liked Kai in some way, maybe as friends. Kai had called Joey a friend but who knew what Joey felt or if Kai was playing it down for some reason.

Seto could feel a headache coming. The only good thing about the mess with Kai was, that Seto now knew that if Joey was with Kai, he had a reasonable decent guy with him. Not smart but decent, he had been caring and protective like hell towards Joey. And even Seto had to admit that he had guts to talk back to him like that, even so he had used the full force of his so called death glare. He knew how much all the employees there always feared getting that one and he had gotten it and still talked back. Even his bravest employees, that would dare to give an honest opinion, even if it went against his, would not dare to talk like that after a death glare. Maybe before, when he was in a good mood, but after a death glare the respect would always be very noticeable and no one had ever dared to call him a jerk, okay to be honest everyone did it but never to his face, apart from his Puppy and the rest of the geek squat. And they didn't work for him but where centred around Yami and Yugi, his rivals. The only two persons who could beat him in duel monsters, and in a rivalry it was reasonably normal to call the opponent names.

But apart from that he had another problem, he needed to think about, and fast on top of that. He had gotten officially news about Joey. Or lets say, Seto had gotten news not Joey's secret rich guy, now what to do about Mokuba? If he phoned him right away, it might look like he is eager to talk about it and if he waited too long, he might look like avoiding the topic. When should he phone, how long could he risk to wait until Mokuba might hear it otherwise and how could he hear it? Kai could talk about it to Joey, Joey to Yugi or directly to Mokuba and Yugi might already have been made the same promise, to phone Mokuba when he had news. But for now Kai was at work and so was Joey and that meant for now he should be safe. After careful consideration, about when Mokuba might hear about a friend of Joey's working with him, as well as the fact that he normally wouldn't have enough interest in his employees to even notice and now after this, not the time nor patience to talk it through with a crazy brother that had funny ideas about his love life, Seto decided to just phone Mokuba in the evening, after work. That should be safe. He wouldn't mention the dog thing just yet, maybe at some point he´d let it slip by, but not now since it would look like too much interest, he would just 'forget' about it and just talk about the guy, the guy that had payed for Kai to get the job to please Joey. It might be good to be the one to tell Mokuba that there was a rich guy sponsoring him and wondering who that might be? Since it might be someone, who even doesn't want to piss off after all the detective had been there and talked like he was the boss, so it might have been an act but it could be someone very powerful behind him. That would sound convincing, that would be the businessman, the CEO talking and wanting news on Joey's powerful sponsor, whenever powerful and that way he might stay in the loop on possible progress that might lead towards him. Seto was happy with his plan, it might distract them, unless they figure that he wants them to think just that. But they could at least never be sure about it and so it would confuse them at least.


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