AN: Well, I never thought I'd do this, but I will talk about some of the wonderful reviews I got from you wonderful people out there. I'm just full of wonder that I'm considered a decent writer shakes head, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't hold her skills in high regard. Anyway!
PinkStarz: You know, when I wrote that, I thought "yeah, work that angle," but then promptly forgot about it until you brought it up. Thanks for reminding me, it's definitely going to come up in the future.
RoseGoddess874: Thank you for the support; I did check out your fics and I might have reviewed one… I kind of forget. But much appreciated!
nkitty29: I love that name! And I'm very grateful for your reviews. Of course Kaiba can feel sorry! It was partly tactics though – if you have a business partner, you gotta keep her sweet, or she might be embarrassing in public, or something!
Walis: No worries, I can announce that Mokuba won't be involved in a triangle. This is strictly SxS, but Mokuba makes many an appearance, mainly in the role of giving up and pushing the two together. Plus, I just like him appearing because I love his character. Got more interacting in the near future between the two, so no worries of them tearing their clothes off snigger. Thank you for your constructive words of wisdom!
B.E.W.DWarriorPrincess: Wow, compliments like that make me want to run and hide with embarrassment! PinkStarz and Walis and so many more are WAY better than I am! Truly! Mokuba will still be around, but not in a love interest capacity. Serenity sees him like a brother, definitely. To quote Rin from FFX - thank you for your patronage!
And now, I present…
Chapter Ten: A Conversation over Lunch
Serenity had awoke the next day with a small sleepy smile plastered on her face, which when she traced the root of it, immediately stopped. She sat up in shock and then looked to the phone, blinking as the morning sun peeked through roughly drawn curtains.
"He apologised to me…" she trailed, her mind going into overdrive at the prospect of Seto Kaiba, domineering corporation owner – and generally all around meany, in Serenity's opinion – had said sorry to her. Her, Serenity Wheeler, Kaiba's enemy's sister. Said. Sorry. To her.
The magnitude of the event made her pause for a moment.
Serenity started giggling, but it quickly turned to full blown laughter. She rolled around her bed, hardly able to breathe from the memory of him nervously apologising to her. She knew she really shouldn't, but she honestly couldn't help herself. She halted when another part of the memory came to the surface.
"Seto, hmm?" she mused aloud, savouring the name. Serenity felt like Kaiba allowing her to use his first name was possibly some attempt on his part for compensation for behaving like a total fool in front of her, but didn't care. This was one step further in actually working together properly on their business project. Serenity had to keep her mind on the business project.
"Yeah… business…" she murmured as she slid out of bed. With a small yawn, she padded over to the dresser and squinted at her bed head.
With a soft sigh she left for the bathroom, Joey never getting up early enough to grab the bathroom first. Serenity gave a small giggle as she heard snores from behind his bedroom door. She never got tired of his morning routine of falling out of bed at the last minute and rushing through getting washed, dressed and grabbing breakfast before falling out of the front door to get to either work or school.
'Silly boy,' Serenity shook her head and shut the bathroom door. She took a quick shower, wanting to hurry to college in the hope of not having to talk to anybody. Today, she felt like being by herself, but knew at lunch she was going to have to talk to her friends. If not, they might get worried about her and start to pry and then… and then everything might come tumbling out and cause all kinds of problems.
It shouldn't be considered, she decided and smoothly left the bathroom and got dressed in a simple pair of jeans adorned with some pink decorative stitching near the top and a pink jumper. She wasn't going to make the same mistake of freezing herself in bad weather again, oh no. She put on some simple pink jewelled studs before shoving all the school things she needed into her satchel and went in search of breakfast. However, she did feel a bit sorry for Joey and rapped on his door, causing him to groan and give a muffled reply that sounded a bit like, "Mime hummin'!" leaving Serenity to shrug and go to make some toast.
After filling her stomach sufficiently, she realised she should start heading to college if she wanted to get there a little early. You never really knew what could happen to hold you up on the way there, so Serenity always thought it was better to arrive early than to end up late.
Joey was a different story. A banging noise followed by some groaning signified her brother's first attempt at getting up, which usually resulted in him slumped on the sofa. A giggle escaped her and her mind briefly wondered what Kaiba was like in the morning compared to her brother. Probably a little more handsome than Joey's dishevelled mess…
'He is handsome…' she thought and then gave a start at what had popped into her head. Her brown eyes widened and her face flushed at the mere thought of considering Kaiba attractive. Her heart pounded from behind her ribs as she placed her hands on her face to cool her warm cheeks.
'Am I crazy!' she berated herself, calming herself before she did something stupid. Hurriedly, she threw her plate in the sink and rushed into her bedroom to pick her satchel up before heading into the living room to find her brother indeed sprawled across the sofa. Her mind seared with her earlier thoughts and she left the flat without a word, only pausing to grab a snug navy jacket.
The wind was gentle and the sky showed only a few strands of light grey clouds drifting along. Serenity hoped today would be better than the last several days. She needed a break from the constant mental trauma she seemed to be suffering since Kaiba had been forced to work with her. Still her mind wondered whether she was really enjoying the experience or not. Serenity had a horrible feeling that she liked some of it.
Serenity ground her teeth at that and forced herself to concentrate on her surroundings; humble buildings that made up the shabby area she lived in interspersed with a rundown park, or some decent shrubbery.
Soon her feet had taken her all the way from where she lived across a few busy roads and along the school run road where cars were crammed along a street in an attempt to get their kids dropped off as close to their school as possible. Serenity though she saw a jet black limo pull up and a dark haired boy exit into the high school, but the crowd of students and vehicles obscured her view from across the street and she gave up in favour of following her own path.
When she arrived, she couldn't see any of the usual gang about and so trailed her way into college, occasionally checking in case Tea or somebody was walking down a corridor. Eventually she made it down to the business corridor and realised she was slowing down, unwilling to go into her own class.
'I am a few minutes early… Maybe it's Mr. Bamako. If he asks me how the two of us are progressing…' she wrinkled her nose and gently shook her head. There would be nothing to say. They needed to make progress, but every time they sat down together, everything fell apart!
With a small frown she turned her head from a wall display and looked to the business class door to see some students file in. So should she really, but if she had to talk to Mr. Bamako about the project…
Her feet leadenly dragged along the floor as she made her way to the door. Just as she reached for the handle, someone approached the door and took the handle themselves. Her eyes widened, her mind so weighed down by her swirling thoughts she hadn't even noticed them. She looked up and brown eyes met cool blue. Of all the people…
"Hello… Seto," she tried out his name, unused it in her mouth. It sounded odd calling him by his first name and she worried he would get angry despite giving her permission. Nothing showed on his face, his eyes unreadable and face akin to stone and he gave her a nod and entered the class.
'Well I suppose that went alright,' she decided and with a small private smile, she followed him. Only a few people were missing and were probably not far from arriving; Mr. Bamako didn't like latecomers. Kaiba took his usual seat near the back while Serenity shuffled ahead and sat herself down. Mr. Bamako didn't look either happy or angry, but the mixed expression he was giving to people put Serenity on edge and she found herself unable to meet his eyes.
A few more students slipped in as the buzzer hailed the beginning of class and Mr. Bamako shuffled a few papers on his desk in a listless manner while the last students took their seats. Serenity felt uncomfortable and had a nasty feeling today was going to be another of a series of bad days.
As if he heard her, Mr. Bamako shifted his eyes to her and gave her a slight nod which she hastily returned, her eyes wide. She knew the expression she wore was clearly worried, but she couldn't seem to mask it; Kaiba must have been some kind of expert to remain so unmoved all the time. Well, except when he got angry – he never minded displaying his anger.
"Today we're going to be working in pairs as we look at a few business situations I've prepared. So pair up!" Mr. Bamako commanded from the front of the class and Serenity's heart leapt before she warily looked around. She hadn't really made any friends in the business class; everyone had seemed really intent on learning and not particularly interested in talking to anyone. Business students were a little more competitive than Serenity could ever hope to be.
Kaiba sat looking blankly at Mr. Bamako, his cold eyes not daring to wander to his business partner, sitting on her own looking rather lost as the students got up and began pairing off.
Kaiba's eyes noted when Serenity nervously stood and to his surprise she turned to make her way to him while the other students threaded around the class to their chosen partners. Kaiba suddenly felt uncomfortable that Serenity would choose him out of the whole business class, but then relaxed slightly with the comforting thought that it was probably just because he was the only person she had even spoken to. Still, he still felt strange, but he remained facially unmoved as she took slightly faltering steps toward him, unsure whether he would accept her or not. It was an indelible peculiarity he couldn't name as she strolled over, one he wasn't sure he wanted to explore further.
Before she reached him though, Mr. Bamako gruffly called her name and her brown eyes widened, locking briefly with Kaiba's until she faced Mr. Bamako. Mr. Bamako gave a small smile while Kaiba scowled, wondering what the man was planning.
"I think you two have had enough of each other and should take a little break for this lesson. Serenity you can go with… Mr. Nichol, if you don't mind," Mr. Bamako directed, his eyes sweeping to a young man sitting next to a girl with short blonde hair. Serenity's eyebrows furrowed with apprehension, but she shuffled over to him.
"And Miss Fisher, if you would join Mr. Kaiba." Mr. Bamako said firmly and the girl gave a huffy sigh and a roll of her grey eyes before getting up and skulking her way to Kaiba, who in turn glared.
Kaiba glanced at Serenity one last time before focusing his attention on the work at hand and ignoring the girl whose name he didn't even know. He tried to stop himself grinding his teeth, but he swore he could see Mr. Bamako watch him with an amused expression which made his blood boil.
People would pay.
Vaughn Nichol was an average height boy of Serenity's age with tousled brown hair that made Serenity want to ruffle it herself. His hazel eyes twinkled welcomingly, his lips twitching into a crooked smile. He was quite handsome, in Serenity's opinion, which didn't help her nerves at all.
She clumsily sat down and found herself face to face with this boy. She flashed a small smile to try and be courteous, but found herself unable to talk. She had to introduce herself before he thought she was thoroughly weird.
"Hi, I'm Serenity Wheeler," she managed in a near whisper. She could feel her face heating up and wished she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.
"Vaughn Nichol. Nice to meet you, Serenity. Well, I guess we should look at these situations," he replied with a crooked smile and Serenity felt a little more comfortable in his presence. He seemed such a nice guy; she realised with a slight jolt that all the time she had spent with Kaiba had likely made her this way.
'Damn you, Kaiba!' she hissed and tentatively returned Vaughn's smile before the two of them focused on their work. Serenity was careful not to hold eye contact. She was being ridiculous, she decided. Kaiba had just starved her of normal human interaction and now it just seemed odd to be talking to others. With that thought in her mind, she busied herself solving the situations, carefully forgetting about Kaiba.
At the end of the lesson, Serenity said a hurried, shy goodbye before getting up and leaving Vaughn. He managed a wave before she practically ran away, heading to Kaiba's desk. The blonde haired girl had also made a suspiciously hasty disappearance.
"Seto, I was wondering if we could meet tonight to continue with the project," she began, but Kaiba ignored her despite her standing a mere few feet from him. He stood, picked up his stout suitcase and left, allowing the door to shut in her face when she attempted to follow.
Serenity became annoyed. Was he being childish? With that thought hovering in her mind, she hauled the door open and rushed after him. Kaiba was swiftly departing, his navy trench coat swirling from its wearer's stiff movement. She knew something was wrong, his shoulders hunching slightly, almost defensively.
With a grimace, Serenity ran after him, her shorter legs barely matching his large strides. Before he managed to turn the corner, she dashed in front of him and he nearly bowled her over. Kaiba grudgingly halted in front of her, a mere hairs breadth away. Serenity gaped, surprised that she wasn't shying away and Kaiba glared down at her. Though he was mad at her, the greedy part of Kaiba that was used to getting his way and the possessiveness tied up with the greed was pleased she had come after him.
He wasn't sure if he should get that feeling of 'mine mine mine' over a human being, especially a girl like Serenity Wheeler. He noticed that she had shut her mouth and schooled her face into an expression of barely contained anger.
"Hey! I was talking to you, you know!" she frowned, her lips pressing together to stop her screaming and turning the whole conversation into a rant at him. Her arms unconsciously crossed as she dared to look up at his face.
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze boring into her chocolate coloured eyes. Unconsciously, they inched closer, but Kaiba stopped himself, his mind hell-bent on making her suffer for ignoring him in favour of Mr. Nichol.
"Noted," he said, his voice coming out huskily. On that note, he straightened and strolled off around the corner, leaving Serenity to blink a few times. Then she saw red and went to run after him only to find he had disappeared.
With a heavy sigh she rubbed her face, the anger draining, wondering what the hell had just happened before gently shaking her head.
A few students jostled past her, but she didn't react. Serenity took in a sharp breath before heading to the cafeteria, hoping her friends would be about. She had not spent enough time around them lately. Kaiba was probably rubbing off onto her or something equally disturbing to her mind.
"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose as she pushed the double doors of the cafeteria open to reveal a mass of students bustling about. She had changed her mind from not wanting to talk to her friends, to desperately wanting their company. They seemed so much more normal than her entire business class. Serenity looked about, spying a flash of blond much like her brother's and smiled, spotting the gang around their usual table. They all seemed to be deep in conversation and she wondered what it could be about.
With a shrug she moved towards the cafeteria area and went to grab some food before she fell over from exhaustion.
Today clearly wasn't her day.
"I hate him," Joey growled, his fair eyebrows knitted together with the conflict their owner was in. He moaned and buried his head in his arms, but kept a hand holding the slice of cold pizza tightly clamped shut. Food, after all, was food and couldn't come under the threat of potentially begin stolen.
"… Part of me wishes I'd jus' said no and been an ass, but when I saw her face light up… hell, I had to give in, didn't I?" Joey lamented and Tristan patted his back.
"Hey, if anything happens, you can count on me to smash his face in without her ever having to connect it to you. Right?" Tristan looked about the table hopefully. Yugi shrugged helplessly, barely able to bench-press his own weight while Tea scowled. She wished Tristan would take his mind of Serenity for two seconds. Then, perhaps she could get a word in…
"Uh, Tristan, isn't that a little extreme? Kaiba hasn't actually done anything wrong so far, has he? It's only a business project." Yugi interjected tentatively and Tristan slouched back into his chair, giving his head a slight shake. Joey meanwhile had lifted his head up and stuffed the slice of pizza morosely into his mouth. It was comforting.
"Ah, don't worry Tris – I'm sure Seren would tell me if Kaiba so much as laid a finger on her," Joey said and sat up, the pizza bolstering him.
"Yeah, course she would. My little sis would let him get away with it!" he exclaimed and happily began tucking into the remainder of his lunch. Yugi eyed Joey with some interest. His friend had a knack of picking his mood up and Yugi was proud of him dealing so well with this new truce he had to take with Kaiba. Yugi decided that as long as Kaiba kept to his corner, Joey would be alright. It looked like they may end up counting on Serenity to do that… and speaking of her…
"Joey, Serenity's coming this way with her lunch," Yugi informed his friend, who immediately sat up straighter with a daft grin on his face. Yugi turned his head to the right only to see Tea. He had been trying to pretend he wasn't sitting next to the girl he liked, but it got a lot harder when you were staring right into those blue eyes of hers.
She faced him, feeling his eyes on her and felt her skin crawl. He was staring again and it made her want to squirm. He looked so… lovelorn when he stared like that and it freaked her out. A sliver of pity forced its way into her mind though; she couldn't help feeling sorry that she couldn't return those feelings.
Yugi hurriedly looked away and realised he hadn't touched his food. He had to say something, anything.
'Talk about Bakura's return, but don't mention Serenity!' Yami-Yugi hissed from a corner of Yugi's mind. With a sigh, he lifted his head and felt it tilt slightly with nerves.
"Guys, I heard that Bakura is back in town," he said lightly in an attempt to make some conversation. Joey grunted, still eating and Tristan looked mildly interested.
"Really? Maybe we should go see him," he said offhandedly. The gang were quite wary of Bakura after the several Millennium Ring incidents they had endured. Still, a friend was a friend.
As Serenity approached, the whole group ceased to talk and began to eat. Some things were better left unsaid.
Serenity, armed with her lunch, cautiously approached the table. She didn't like the deathly silence that had fell as she had come closer and found her eyes unable to look at her friends and brother. All of them seemed intently centred on their food, too much so.
'What were they talking about?' she idly wondered and took a seat near Joey. Conversation dragged and Serenity settled into concentrating on her food. Were they already suspicious of her, though she had done nothing wrong?
Everyone slowly relaxed though and conversation picked up, cheering Serenity up. Her mind was running away with her again. She even managed to laugh a few times, though the events of business had left her feeling peculiar. That Vaughn boy had been far too kind to her and still she ran after Kaiba who had been his usual self – a cold pain in the ass. What did it mean for her? Perhaps he had driven her over the edge and she was truly going mad?
'Best not to reflect,' her mind answered and she felt little comfort from the notion.
The rest of her lunch tasted of cardboard and she found herself wondering if she could corner Kaiba later. But since business was over now, chances are he went straight home to study instead of Serenity's ritual of using the college library to study. It could be the perfect opportunity to make some progress on the stupid project alone, uninterrupted by that complete -
"Miss Wheeler?" the voice of Mr. Bamako came from behind her and Serenity found herself jumping to attention and nearly spilling her lunch everywhere in the process.
"Yes?" she vainly tried to cover up her stupidity, but instead ended up blushing as she moved away from her friends to Mr. Bamako. He looked concerned, most likely because she acted like a madwoman.
"I was wondering if you could come by after lunch before the next class starts and give me a quick update on how you're doing with the project," he sounded strained, as if her behaviour didn't exactly indicate things were going well. Serenity forced a bright smile on her face and nodded, not trusting herself to speak further.
With a similar nod, Mr. Bamako departed and Serenity collapsed back into her chair where the rest of the gang looked on with interest.
"You sure looked uncomfortable, sis. You okay?" Joey questioned and Serenity managed a tight smile in return.
"Sure. I just wish I had more to present to him. I, uh, didn't really bring any of the project with me," she replied with a shift of her shoulders.
'If we actually had any of the damn project,' her mind accused and she resisted the urge to frown or pout. She wouldn't lie, but perhaps she could… twist the truth a little. But that sounded almost… conniving. And Serenity didn't have a conniving bone in her body, not one she knew about, or had ever used. With a twist in her mouth of distaste, Serenity finished her lunch, occasionally participating in the sparse conversation and left after giving her brother a hug.
Shifting her satchel nervously from shoulder to shoulder, Serenity reluctantly returned to the business class. Another class would be in there soon and she didn't want to intrude, so it was probably best to face Mr. Bamako before the end of lunch. Alone.
Serenity found herself nervously licking her lips. She hated confrontation of any kind. They put her on edge. Still her footsteps carried her forward and when she reached the door to the class she only hesitated for a moment before she curtly knocked on the door.
"Come in." Mr. Bamako answered and she entered, closing the door and walking timidly past the empty chairs to Mr. Bamako's desk, which was habitually littered with various stacks of paper.
"Mr. Bamako, I, uh…" she began, but with a gentle wave of his hand, silenced her and rested his eyes tiredly on her.
"No need to say anything. I can guess only a little progress has been made. I think my best two students are still getting to grips with having to work with one another?" he suggested with a wry smile and Serenity sighed and gave a mournful nod.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Bamako, I really try, but Kaiba is so… difficult." Her hands turned to fists at that as her mind flashed to the various occasions where Kaiba had been difficult. Too many moments came to mind, so many she couldn't bring a single time where he hadn't been difficult with her.
Serenity briefly closed her eyes and found herself feeling responsible for their lack of progress. Maybe if she just let him have his way…
"Serenity, it's alright. I expected this to happen, but still… I think it could produce some interesting results. The board would be happy even if you came up with less than your best. You're both gifted students," he told her sincerely and Serenity couldn't believe anyone would call her gifted. She had always felt kind of… plain.
"I… thank you." Serenity found herself lost for words. She never liked to acknowledge that she was anything beyond normal. With a shift of her legs, she turned to go.
"Thanks, sir. I'll do my best," she finished and left the class with a small wave.
With a heavy sigh, unhappy with her conversation, she headed to the library in the hope she could make a little headway on the project herself.
Anything to take her mind off the day.
AN: Well, I once more found that all that I planned for this chapter wouldn't fit, so the second half of this will come to the viewing public in the form of Walking Fine Lines, where Serenity and Kaiba once more have to work on that damn project, but find themselves… well, I'll leave that part there. Apart from there's gonna be a cliff-hanger of sorts. There's a sneak peak for you guys to thank you once more for the reviews. Thanks everyone! Cat Alex