Day success, I got Seto Kaiba to genuinely smile at something I said! But why did I want to make him smile? I guess to prove to myself that he is human, not a computer bent on destroying me and I have a chance of surviving these next couple weeks with my sanity in one piece. His smile fades after a few seconds, as smiles tend to do. We don't say anything for rest of the ride to his mansion, a place I have never actually been before.
The mansion is in a gated community with a large black steel gate that one can't look through. The house is very prison like. We get past the gate without any trouble and I finally get a look at the outside of the mansion. The gardens are well taken care of, the grass mowed and the bushes shaped into puffballs with feet, Kuriboh bush seriously? Here I'm expecting a Blue Eyes bush somewhere on this vast plantation in the middle of a massive city, like that isn't weird or anything. As we drive past I see a few buds on the bushes, if those are rose bushes I might have to puke, and next to the Greek inspired fountain. Two, or more, people had a hand in making the landscape of this house, two very different people. We get to the front door and there is a guy in tailcoat and white gloves waiting for us. Seto gets out of the car, without taking the keys out of the ignition, I follow suit.
"Welcome home sir." The guy bows, seemly unfazed that Seto is still dripping wet and goes to park the car, I expect. The French oak front door opens and Mokuba runs out with a massive smile on his face, and is about to hug Seto before he realizes that wet clothes aren't fun.
"I'd like to hear the story of this. I'll hug you after you're changed. Come on Joey, while Seto is changing and dinner is being made, want the grand tour?" I nod and follow him through the front door, as Seto goes to shower and change. After the grounds the house can't be any worse then the union of classical Greek and Duel Monsters.
The front hall is a grand marble amalgamation of silk rugged staircases with twisting banisters and crystal chandlers. The walls are spotless and floor has the Kaiba Corp logo made in marble tiles. How does someone morally defend this type of expenditure? We move on down the hall, floored with a silk carpet and lined with painted pictures of what I could get random stuff. There were no theme to the pictures, one was a Chinese piece, and another was American. Mokuba disinteresting states the room as we past them, "Parlour, library, living room number one, bathroom, bed room." I glace in them one by one, they are like the front hall, pointlessly grand and luxurious. Truthfully, I prefer the little cabin, comparatively, that I was given to live in. Who needs more then one living room? And a parlour: what's the difference between that and a living room?
Then Mokuba stops in front a door, "Game room, movie theatre, and sundae room." That is something I'm envious of. Who doesn't want a room just for making sundaes? I open the door and see every kid's dream, when your brother is the CEO of the largest gaming company in the world and a genius with technology; I guess this is one of the perks. The room is massive with couches and cushions everywhere, the walls are lined with every game controller that ever existed since the 1970's, yes even the Virtual boy, and a TV that takes an entire wall. Mokuba didn't get the OCD gene from his brother and the high tech toys are thrown all about the floor.
Something bits my jeans; I look down to find a Blue Eyes White Dragon that about a foot and half from tip to tail. When it realizes that I've spotted it, it growls a little until another one comes by, that dragon rubes against my leg and growls at the other. Then they both flap their wings and land on my shoulders. Half of me want to pet them, the other half think that my hands won't have a few fingers if I did.
"What do you think? Seto is thinking of selling them in stores, once he figures out to get them down to a normal price, not a couple thousand each." He says with the other one sitting on his shoulder, nibbling his ear.
They're beautiful creatures to say the least. Every light blue scale is in place and from the looks of it hand made, and polished to a perfect shine. The most amazing thing is that they don't look like they are made of metal, not in the least. The outside looks like a living breathing reptile, an epic one.
"I would buy one, that's for sure. But probably a Red Eyes or a baby dragon. If Seto allows them to be made." He smiles and grabs a controller.
"Right now the KC research lab has a Kuriboh, which is by far the most adorable one that Seto has made up to now. When they do go commercial, I'll be the one that will have to break it to Yugi that he can't get a Dark Magician, people would look funny."
"Their amazing, really amazing. Very life like." I grab a controller.
"Just a rule of thumb, I normally do testing for a lot of Seto's prototypes of new toys. So, if you spot a few toys that you can't find on shelves, don't bother playing with them, they're not worth it. Seto calls it work, I call I get new toys ever couple months. But, I'm not about to correct him; it lets him forgo the guilt of giving me a hundred dollar a week for allowance. But these are by far my favourite since the duel disk." He collapses on to the coach in front of the massive TV. The blues eyes curls up besides him much like a cat would. Guilt, I can't even start to think that Seto Kaiba can ever feel that emotion.
"I don't think I'll have time for lame ones." Really taking in the vast number of toys that Mokuba has. I take a seat next to him, while the blue eyes frolic, yes frolic with each other. Who would have though that Kaiba could ever even made anything that would frolic?
He turns on the TV, "Want to play? I refuse to use any virtual reality games Seto comes up with, after a few minor miss haps. " I press start and start to smash the button into oblivion trying to beat Mokuba at Call of Duty: Duel Monsters edition. Yes, we are duel monsters with guns, the game is on acid and I hope that it is never wide release because it would bomb. But it does satisfy the desire I've always had to killing Nazi zombies with white lighting attack.
Mokuba and I are tied at 2 to 2 when the blue eyes white dragons hops up from our sides and fly over to Seto, who walks into the game room, showered and changed into black pants and black T-shirt. Mokuba puts the controller down and runs to hug his big brother.
"Grand tour?" He playfully smirks, his eyes soften and his shoulders relax.
"The rest of the house is boring, no one cares about the four other living rooms."
I feel kind of guilty; Mokuba can't see his brother all that much and I just took an entire day of his time
"I see Joey has met, Prototype 1, 2 and 3." Seriously, no real name for these guys. I think they deserve it at least a little bit.
"So, when does the red eyes go on shelves?" I know it's stupid, by my pride won't allow me to directly compliment anything Seto does to his face.
"After the Blue eyes."
"Ladies first, I guess." Before that escalates, a servant comes in to tell us that dinner is ready.
The dinning room is again overly large and grand for anyone's actual needs, again in the Greek-duel monster combination that still doesn't work very well. They're conflicting styles first off and the way they place isn't artistic in the least. It looks like someone was going to revamp the house then they got too busy or something. The table can fit everyone I know plus their dogs, cat, parrots and, their dog's friends, without a chair on either end or anyone straddling a leg. There are three placement at the end of table, with three different forks, spoons and knifes.
Seto and Mokuba take a seat next to each other, and I take a seat across from Seto. Almost instantly, our glasses are filled by the guy with white gloves with wine and milk for Mokuba, because none of us old enough to drink. And then a plate with something I can't quite name is put in front of us. The smell is amazing though, I stab it with my fork and take a bit out of it, completely ignoring the knife or what fork I use.
"I seem to remember that table manners exist, unless you want to prove to me that you are in fact a mutt." I smirk at the comment, pay back for that ladies first comment. Back to insulting me I guess. Makes sense, not saying that I deserve to be insulted, once out of the public light or trying to get me to do something he would go right back to insulting. Him in the species of human, don't make me laugh, he's a computer. I had a good day today, and I probably should have more table manners. Mokuba drops his fork and goes under the table to retrieve it. Lets see what happens if I don't reply with a snide comment. Instead I pick up a fork and knife and try to use them properly.
"So, which fork do I actually use? I've always used one in a meal and it works fine by me." I realize in five minutes after that comment that edikat lessons with Seto Kaiba would not sell well, at all. Don't get me started at what Seto has to say when I took a sip of wine and could barely swallow.
I go with Seto to his home office after dinner. The room is as big as my entire apartment with books going around one of the four walls and white boards on two covered in tiny writing and quick sketches. The whites board obviously had been put in without much thought to atheistic of the room, the room is filled with dark woods and darker carpets. But my favourite part is the massive windows looking out on the garden, which brings in much needed light into the room.
Seto takes a seat behind the massive desk, back to the window. He opens the top drawer of the desk and takes out an envelope, with the word "Joseph wheeler" clearly written in his neat little handwriting. I take a seat in the chair closest to him.
"As per our agreement, a thousand dollars" He flings the envelope landing right in front of me, obviously unevenly weighted, and doesn't look like it could even hold ten pieces of paper, because a thousand dollar bills don't exist yet. More money then I've ever had in my bank account ever, a more then a month's salary, is just sitting right in front of me waiting for me to put it my wallet. All for pretending to like Seto Kaiba and not to harm him when he kisses me, since he wasn't insulting me all day, wasn't all that hard. I grab the envelope.
"Thanks, now I can pay Yugi for always paying for lunch." Among other things that I can finally do since I not scraping together rent money or money for cable, not that I could actually afford that, but my father would always drinking the equivalent on my dime because I'm 17 and my bank account has to be connected to his.
I almost drop the envelope when I think that, minus that my palms have started to sweat for a reason I can't grasp. Probably the fact that I have to carry around a thousand dollars in cash for my father not to steal me blind, I might have to invest in a small safe.
"You'll be staying the night tonight. I said that you would never have to sleep with me, but I never said that I didn't want the public to think we did." A smirk I know very well ends up on his face, I glare but say nothing in response. I can't and he knows it.
I walk out the office, and start to rip open the envelope. I get half way through opening when Mokuba walks by, looking spaced out.
"Do you want to break our tie?" He snaps out of his trace,
"Yeah, I'll meet you in the game room in about ten minutes." His voice sound distracted as his eyes travel to the envelope in my hand. He's got to know what's happening, he knows just as well as I do that Seto and I could never actually date each other and if the public wasn't criticizing our every move I wouldn't be here right now.
"I'll see you in ten." I say, running off to the game room, just to be greeted by three robot blue eyes dragon nipping at my ankles in play and flying near my head. They are extremely happy to see me, who would have thought that Seto wouldn't program to attack when spotted. I open the envelopes fully; a debt card falls out, a piece of paper with a pin on it and a checkbook. The debt card is from the Kaiba Bank; something from what I remember is Seto father's creation and has a Red Eyes on the card and my name. I have to wonder if just giving me the cash wouldn't have been easier, but then I realize that he pays people 60K a year to listen to him.
The night goes smoothly, Mokuba and I are up until 2 AM, only stopping because Seto comes in and tells Mokuba to go to bed and since I have lost my gaming partner, I find no reason to stay up. With a Blue Eyes by my side I go to bed in an extremely comfortable king sized bed.
My alarm rings, slam? Nope, no alarm, no snooze button just the fact that I just had a sleep over with my enemy, but no gossip about the hottest girl included. I smile at the image of Seto gossiping about the hottest girls or who he has a crush on, and then cringe at the thought of him having any sort of crush. I shower, change into the outfit that is in the closet, red on black, step out of my room, turn towards the dinning room.
And there is Seto Kaiba in nothing but swim trunks, just what I wanted to see in first thing in the morning. The bright side is that he isn't in a speedo, I might have to put a fork in my eyes literally. Both of us don't move for a couple seconds, enough to completely run my eyes down his body, not that I really cared just that to able to fully grasp the situation.
His hair is plastered to his head, soaking wet, with a towel hung over his shoulder. His eyes sending me rays of pure hate, more intently then I've ever felt before. To but the rays in scale, now is like the electron shell sized compared to the atom's nucleus or a Kuriboh's attack points compared to the attack points of Blue eyes ultimate dragon. My eyes move down, flurries of scars run across his chest, arms and a few on his legs. The scars aren't scars that I got from my many fights with drug dealers, not even close. They're scars of voluntary submission to a unfair punishment, their much too clean for him to have fought back. I can't take my eyes off, I almost feel the need to blush for seeing something that incredibility personal. All of them years old, but the fact that he still has them visible from five feet away means that they were deeper then I would wish on my worst enemy, standing right in front of me. Even the cuts and scraps I got from the place I can't remember are nearly that deep.
"Sorry, I should be getting to breakfast." I turn to go to breakfast.
He doesn't respond.
Who wants a Blue Eyes robot, sounds really cute? =)
Anyway, school started for me today. So, in the coming weeks don't be shocked if my updates aren't as frequent. I'll try once a week. Don't worry I will not forget about this fan fiction, I'm having by far too much fun for me to stop.