Quick Recap: Mokuba enjoys the rest of his party while Seto watches from the sidelines, excited for cake and presents. Another unfortunate confrontation between Joey and Seto happens at the end of the party and the two have a harsh exchanging of words, at the end of which Joey tries to manipulate Sephy into believing that Seto was completely at fault. After an angry sounding demand at Seto after she breaks the argument up, Mokuba invites Sephy over after the party to play some video games. The ride home is awkward for Seto while Mokuba and Sephy discuss the start of a plan for Mokuba to win over his crush at school, but then Sephy throws the CEO for a seemingly-obvious to everyone but Seto loop when she makes it clear before heading inside for her video game adventure that she had realized all along that Joey was just trying to victimize himself to her.

Disclaimer: We do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! nor do we own the items or settings where this story takes place. All we own is the idea for this nifty little story and our original characters. Please don't sue, as all you will get from us is an empty pizza delivery box and some junk mail.

Title: Clarity
Chapter: Somewhere I Belong
Chapter Written By: Peggi (who made this one a bit longer this time!)

Seto was already about three glasses of whiskey in, reading a book about science, but couldn't really concentrate on what he was reading. He was finally starting to feel himself unwind after his semi-stressful day, but he couldn't get his mind off of what had happened with Joey. He had really meant what he said about realizing that part of the rivalry between the two of them had been his own doing, and while he wasn't necessarily sorry for his actions, he at least understood their not being on good terms. What he didn't understand, though, was why the blonde seemed to go above and beyond to start fights with him. Yes, what he had done to Yugi and his grandfather was cold and cruel, but he'd done far worse things to people in the past, and yet they never reacted the way that this group was. On top of that, this was years ago, and quite frankly, he was tired of the drama. He could even consider tolerating the idiot if he would just make an effort to stop frustrating him. He went out of his way to irritate Seto, and always had.

Then there was this other issue involving the unwanted upstairs house-guest, who had been causing all sorts of confusing and conflicting thoughts and feelings over the past few weeks. It was like a rollercoaster, and he didn't appreciate rollercoasters, metaphorical or otherwise. Uncomfortable, irritating, confusing, obnoxious, mutt-related company was better than no company, but how to go about it was another story entirely. By glass number four, he'd given up on trying to read the book he was obviously not able to pay attention to and tried something a little more relaxing.

It was nearing two in the morning when Seto finally decided to make his way to bed. He sat his book down and stood, stretching, and stumbled his way upstairs. He hadn't realized how late it was, but it had been worth a few less hours of sleep. He thought about taking Mokuba out the following day for some one-on-one time, not that he really had any idea of where he would take him. He just needed to get his mind off of things and maybe spend some quality time with his brother.

He looked through the crack in the door to Mokuba's room, finding his brother fast asleep in his bed, and he closed the door quietly behind him, internally glad that his brother had enjoyed his birthday. He made his way to his room, when he heard a string of obscenities coming from the gaming room. He figured that Sephy would've gone home long ago, but apparently not, judging by her irritated voice.

As he stepped into the room to see what she was still doing there, he saw her sitting with a controller in hand and headset on, eyes glued to the large screen.

"Mother fucker, I swear I will TK your sorry ass if you kick the fucking ladder one more damn time!" clearly, something in the game was not going as well as she'd have liked.

Seto decided to just leave her in peace and not interrupt, mostly to avoid any type of interaction or conversation, and hoped she hadn't noticed him walking into the room in the first place.

"Well, you stay up late," she obviously directed at Seto in a much calmer tone than she'd used in the sentence prior.

He turned back around to face her, but her eyes hadn't left the screen. He was about to say something in return but before he could, another string of hateful comments came out of the girl's mouth, obviously to whoever she was on the game chat with.

"Yeah, try my patience again you stupid little shit!"

"What are you still doing here?" he asked, hearing his own words slur and hoping she could even understand him.

"The kiddo went to bed but I was in the middle of a game so I figured I might as well keep playing for a bit. What time is it, anyway?"

"After two."

She pressed a button and sat the controller and headset down, a look of surprise on her face, "seriously? Damn, sorry, I'll get going then. I didn't realize it was so late. I just got really wrapped up in the game."

"I can see that."

"How about you? Getting into more drunken bar fights?" she had meant it as a joke, but apparently Seto didn't realize that, despite the smile on her face when she said it.

"Now I see the family resemblance," he retorted, leaning against a wall because he was too unsteady to stand up straight.

"Well, that's a little uncalled for. You don't have to be an ass. Can't you take a joke?"

Maybe drunk Seto shouldn't have conversations with people, because apparently he wasn't able to read people or situations as well. Unfortunately, unlike sober Seto, drunk Seto was a bit more cranky and not as held-together, but was equally as combative.

"If that was a joke, your sense of humor is about as shitty as the mutt's."

Sephy stood and took a few steps towards Seto. He stood up, no longer leaning against the wall, and a part of him flashed back to his fight with Joey and had some concern that there might be a fight. He knew he wouldn't be able to restrain even a girl at this point, so he felt very on edge, especially not knowing what she might be about to do.

"Do you need help getting to bed? You look like you're about to pass out," she smiled at him, which really caused him to feel confused. Again.

"I believe we already have been over this. I can take care of myself. I don't need a babysitter."

Sephy just rolled her eyes at him, "yeah, okay Kaiba. Well, have a good night. You threw a really awesome party for Mokuba today. Thanks for letting him invite me."

She just walked past him and started to head downstairs and he stepped out of the room, heading towards his room. As he walked past the stairs, he saw that she was only about halfway down, and, a bit more loudly than he'd really meant to, added one last thing before she left.

"I'm taking Mokuba to the aquarium tomorrow. If you want to come, be here at one."

Seto continued to head to bed, wondering where the hell that had come from, leaving Sephy frozen on the stairs with confusion of her own. Sober Seto would've been proud if he'd noticed the confused look on her face, happy that for once he'd caught her off-guard, since it seemed to be a lot of the other way around. She turned around, watching the brunette head towards where she hoped was his room and not some random closet that he would pass out in, and just quirked an eyebrow. She was half-tempted to follow him and make sure he actually got to his room okay, but thought better of letting her more nurturing instincts kick in, so that she wouldn't risk making him angry.

As she made her way down the rest of the stairs, she was grateful that she would get to spend more time with Mokuba, who she really enjoyed hanging out with. She was a little bit taken aback by the invitation, but assumed it was probably so that Seto wouldn't have to actually participate and Mokuba would have someone to talk to. The entire way home, she forced her mind to piece together any bit of logic it could to the entire day. Actually, the entire few weeks.

Once she was home, she took a Xanax and fought to fall asleep, trying to let all of the conflict in her head go away, but it never did. Between trying to work on the issues she was in Domino City for in the first place, in helping Joey out with his situation with his father, dealing with her own personal demons, managing with the new crisis that Joey himself was going through not to mention the conflict it caused between them because she was befriending - or at least attempting to - someone he very much hated, and trying to find a job to sustain her while she was in Domino, her stress and anxiety was at an all-time high.

The following morning, Mokuba woke up shortly after sunrise and quickly got himself showered and dressed. He walked past the guest room, which clearly hadn't been used, and was a bit disappointed since he'd offered for Sephy to stay over since she had planned to stay up late and play the RPG they'd been on when he went to bed. He was hoping to have someone there to help him with motivational speeches before setting off for his first step in getting Chou's attention, but he already had a plan and had every intention of going through with it anyway. He rushed through his breakfast and left a note for his brother, and then headed out.

He knew that Chou would be at the music store, which, as it so happened, was the same place that the rival boy would be practicing his music at. Just as planned, Chou was there watching when he got there, and he headed straight to the section he knew would get her attention. She saw him heading her way and he simply smiled at her and then began browsing through the music for sale, not paying her any other attention. She instantly became interested, since it happened to be one of her favorite bands.

"You like them too?" she asked, a bit of surprise in her voice.

"Hey, Chou!" he greeted her as she approached him, and he went back to flipping through the music, "I haven't heard much from them, I'm actually here to get a CD for someone else. I just have to try to remember which one she doesn't already have."

"Oh," Chou seemed to be giving a little thought to what he'd just said "well, um, their new one that came out has been pretty hard to get hold of, but they have a couple of copies here. Here, let me show you."

Mokuba moved aside and let Chou flip through the CDs, trying not to grin from ear to ear when he noticed that Kenji, the rival boy, had a bit of an irritated look on his face that Chou had stopped watching him play. This was probably the first time since she'd been going in there to watch him practice that she'd paid attention to anyone or anything else, and Mokuba had to use all the restraint he had to not let it show that he was thrilled with the first step to his plan working out.

"This one!" Chou handed over a CD with a smile on her face, "hopefully she doesn't have it yet. It's really sweet of you to buy this for her. Eighth Wonder is a great album, I got the pre-release of it!"

"Thanks, I really appreciate your help! Hopefully I'll get to listen to it too. I've only heard a couple of their songs. You probably have all of the albums though, huh? I remember you talking about the band in class all the time last year."

Chou giggled a little, "you actually remember that? Yeah, I have all of them up to date so far. They're one of my very favorites. It would be so cool to get to see them in person one day!"

Mokuba was grateful that Sephy at least had heard of one of the bands that Chou liked, otherwise, he'd be totally clueless about how to carry out the conversation from here, "yeah, I heard they have really great energy on stage. Some of their music videos are really funny, too."

Chou just laughed and was about to say something, but Kenji walked up to them and Mokuba decided to take that as his cue to leave.

"Well, thanks for the help!" he waved to Chou, watching the two out of the corner of his eye as he made his purchase.

Just as planned, Kenji tried to get back Chou's attention, which he did, but for a brief second, Mokuba noticed when she looked towards the counter at Mokuba, who pretended to be oblivious. Part one, complete. After a successful first step towards throwing Kenji off track, getting Chou's attention, and potentially sabotaging his rival, Mokuba decided to stop by the arcade and play some games. He knew that Yugi would be there with Ryou, so it would give him some guy-time.

It was nearing 11:30 when Seto finally woke up, a little bit of a hangover headache and cold because he'd kicked the covers off of himself in his sleep at some point. He grabbed the blanket and threw it over himself, grumbling some obscenities as he noticed the time. He remembered vaguely making his way to bed and then had the recollection of the invitation he'd given Sephy, instantly regretting it. He still had to get ready, make sure Mokuba was ready, and be prepared to leave at one. That didn't leave him much time, so he reluctantly got out of bed, aspirin to kill the headache, and got himself ready in what felt like slow-motion.

He expected to find his brother either in his room or playing video games, and was instantly irritated with his brother when he realized that it was 12:30 and there was a note on the table telling him that he'd gone out for a little while. He called his younger sibling and left a voicemail, since apparently he was too preoccupied to answer his phone at the moment, and hoped he would get it and get back home soon. More importantly, he hoped that he'd been irritating enough that Sephy wouldn't even show up. It was a few minutes before one before Mokuba called Seto back, and the older teen was more than irritated when he answered the phone, but Mokuba assured him he'd be heading back right away.

Seto was grateful when it was a few minutes past one and there was no sign of Sephy, so he decided that since he didn't feel like breakfast and Mokuba wasn't there yet, he would have Roland stop somewhere for coffee before he took his brother out. The moment he opened the door, however, that plan completely changed. Apparently, Sephy had been leaning against the door, phone in hand, and the moment he opened it she fell inside. Seto realized he probably could've caught her before she hit the floor, since he did have pretty fast reflexes, but figured he'd let her fall anyway, since she was stupid enough to be leaning against the door in the first place.

"Most people just knock," he probably didn't have to add insult to injury, but couldn't resist anyway.

"Yeah, hi to you too. I was just replying to a text first. Plus, I figured falling on my ass in front of you was a much more flashy entry strategy. I'd say you did that on purpose, but you look a little too hungover to be thinking about plotting against me today. Yet."

He just rolled his eyes at her and offered his hand to help her up, figuring it was the least he could do since he had let her fall, after all. She took it and looked around the room.

"So, where's Mokuba? Is he already in the car?"

Seto was instantly irritated again, remembering his absentee brother, "he went off to see his friends. He'll be here shortly. I was going to go get coffee since I assumed since you were late that you weren't coming, but seeing as how you've decided to show up, we can just wait here for him."

Sephy wanted to argue that she wasn't late, it was only 1:03, and she'd gotten there at the right time but thought it would be rude to reply to a text the moment she walked inside, but thought better of it. She wanted to try and keep the peace as much as possible, so she just followed Seto into the dining room. She sat down, finishing her text, and Seto pulled his phone out and scrolled through emails he'd already read just to try and avoid awkward conversation. He remembered very clearly what had been said the night before, and knew that he'd pushed over a line he'd agreed not to, but didn't quite know how to bring it up. He wasn't used to apologizing for himself or his actions, and wasn't even sure what the proper protocol was, but luckily, it wasn't really brought up. After about 5 minutes of silence, Sephy couldn't seem to sit still, and Seto inwardly mused over the fact that she reminded him of Mokuba. After his growth spurt they were nearly the same height, had the same hair color, and she was sitting in the seat he usually took.

"Soooo," she tried to break the silence "did Mokuba end up going to see Chou this morning?"

Seto didn't even look up from his phone before answering, "I don't keep tabs on my brother at all times."

"Gone before you were awake, huh?" she asked, picking up instantly on his irritation.

He didn't like it when people were able to be inside of his head, "and what makes you think that?"

"Well, the afternoon coffee run you mentioned might've given it away, but judging by the note that's on the end of the table, I'm assuming he left it for when you woke up."

Oh. Right. The note which he'd forgotten to remove from the table, "yes, he left before I was awake. You obviously already knew that, so stop asking me stupid questions you already know the answers to."

"You really don't like me much, do you?" she stated more matter-of-factly than as a question.

"No, not particularly," he really wished she would stop talking and just sit there quietly, but decided to add an afterthought, because he realized that as he'd contemplated before, annoying company was better than no company "but I don't particularly dislike you, either."

If his eyes hadn't been so focused on his phone, he'd have noticed the eye roll at his comment, "well, I think you just don't like not being in control, and you can't be in control if you don't understand a person. Can't say I blame you though. I'm not an easy person to read."

The comment got to him on a semi-personal level, mostly because whether she was easy for other people to read or not, he couldn't. He set his phone down and crossed his arms defiantly, and noticed the smirk on her face immediately.

"You like to have the last word, don't you?"

"True, which is what makes this all so interesting. Obviously, you do too."

"Interesting? You're clearly crazy," it wasn't really meant as an insult.

The closest thing to a sense of humor that Seto really had was instant default to what others would mistake for sarcasm or insults, and he was completely aware of it, as Mokuba had told him many times that while he didn't take offense to some of the things that Seto said, other people definitely did. That was probably why he moved through staff too quickly to be concerned with learning names half of the time. He realized his own comment a little too late, and was instantly prepared for the backlash from it.

"I'm not crazy," she giggled "my mother had me tested."

"It's apparent she should've had you tested again," well, if she could take it he definitely wasn't going to filter anything that came out of his mouth.

"Figures. That was a pop-culture reference. I forgot, you don't partake in the fun that is TV watching."

"I just have better things to do with my time."

"Like practice staring at people and mentally making their head explode? 'Cause that's totally what it looks like you're doing right now to me. I threw another reference in there, by the way."

Seto couldn't have possibly been more grateful that Mokuba walked through the door at that exact moment, and wonder whatever possessed him to think that inviting someone he could hardly hold a conversation with was a good idea. At the same time, this was probably the only other human being besides Mokuba who could actually sit in a room and handle his not-quite socially acceptable way of talking to other people who he didn't need something from, and not instantly be put off by it. At times, it felt like he was arguing with Joey; the constant back-and-forth with sarcasm and occasional insults or pokes and pries at one another. The biggest difference, though, was that unlike a conversation with Joey, everything that Sephy said in response seemed calm and calculated.

"Hi guys, sorry it took me so long! I'm ready when you are!" Mokuba greeted with a big smile on his face.

Sephy was the first to stand and gave Mokuba a quick hug, "I think we're ready. We were just discussing how your brother thinks I'm crazy."

Mokuba gave his brother a dirty look, "just ignore him, he doesn't mean it the way it sounds."

Seto was about to come to his own defense as he walked with them out the door, but Sephy did a good enough job in doing that, "oh, I know. Believe me, I've heard him actually insulting someone before. I'm pretty sure someone just likes to mess with me to see how I'll react, right Kaiba?"

She looked back to him and he just stared back, not allowing his facial expression to change, but something in his head clicked on like a light-bulb. Maybe that was why he was always so confused by her. Did she actually understand him? Everybody else just saw him as some sort of robot, no emotions or thoughts or feelings of his own, and so he reacted to that assumption in every interaction he had with people. From the first time he met her, he'd been under the assumption that she would react to him and view him in the same way that everybody else did. Everybody but his brother, that is. He realized his mistake was viewing this other person as he would anybody else he had come across, when he should've been focusing more on the differences. He should've realized that the moment she didn't try to extort him for money when she first realized who he was after the first time that they met. She had her limits, but overall, it was an entirely new experience. There was a feeling or thought that crossed him, just for a moment, that he couldn't pin-point. It was almost a feeling of near-acceptance and understanding from someone which he hadn't felt in so long that the actual realization was lost on him completely.

As Mokuba and Sephy slipped into the back seat of the car, Sephy added to her earlier statement, "besides, I already know I'm not crazy. My mother had me tested."

Obviously, Mokuba watched the same show, because he began laughing so hard that he started coughing as Seto walked around to the driver's side of the car. Great. Now they had inside jokes he didn't understand, too.

Peggi: Thanks for sticking with me through yet another chapter! I'd asked on a couple of other sites some questions (as I tend to get a lot of responses on those sites) but now I think I'll let my readers here in on some input. As this was originally written by a group of writers and not just me, we already had the entire thing mapped out. The thing of it is, now that it's technically "mine", I'd rather cater to the readers, since this is just as much for the readers as it is for me, if not more for you guys! So, it was established that everyone definitely wants some sort of romantic involvement between Sephy/Seto, but something brought on over time (which was my original plan) to keep him in character as it develops, but I also wanted to know some other things. What/who would you like to see more/less of? I did get a response that a reader wanted more on the Mokuba/his crush area, so I will start covering that as you can see here, as well as more to the friendship between Sephy/Mokuba. So, what would YOU guys like to have me add in here for you? Is there something specific that you've really loved so far that I or we have done that you want more of? Just let me know in a review!

Mokuba: Big thanks to She's a Pistol for her really great review! Seto is so bad at figuring people out sometimes. He can read people like a book usually, but he's just now starting to figure her out! She's a little different, since most people don't get my big brother the way I do! Lucky for him, we'll find out a bit later on that Sephy sees things about people that everyone else might not notice!

Peggi: Yup! And things are about to start getting interesting! So please leave me/us some feedback in the form of a review! Reviews inspire me to update faster!