Chapter 6: Doing Time

"Nii-sama, I'm gone for a month and you get yourself thrown in jail?! Are you crazy?!"

Seto chuckled because he couldn't resist. It was pretty crazy that he was wearing an inmate jumpsuit, speaking to Mokuba from a landline at the Domino City Detention Center while a police officer monitored his call standing half a foot away. Seto looked over at the gentlemen standing crossed-armed, watching Seto on the phone. There was no change in his facial expression when their eyes met.

"Oh, it's fine. I only did it so I could stop a robbery and I'm sure Isono will have no problem posting bail for me. I'm a first-time offender—they'll be easy on me," Seto used the word 'robbery' but knew it was an exaggerated term considering he only stopped a guy from stealing a kid's backpack.

Regardless, Seto was feeling a little heroic, though he wanted to be subtle about it. He tugged at the sleeves of the jumpsuit and tried adjusting the cuffs on his wrists. The jumpsuit was really great at containing body heat which made wearing it incredibly uncomfortable.

"You're not trying to be some sort of vigilante for Domino City, are you? I know you have a lot of free time with me being gone now, but I have a feeling you wouldn't make a very good Batman. And you do realize hitting a guy with your car is something an insane person would do, right?" Seto switched the receiver to his other ear and huddled towards the wall, lowering his voice so the police officer couldn't hear him as well.

"I know, but I couldn't catch him on foot. I'm not in any shape to be chasing someone down so that's why I had to use my car."

Mokuba laughed, "You got that right. I'm watching the video now… that guy was running pretty fast! You would've never caught him."

Mokuba moved his laptop closer to him and played the video that was included in the online article he was reading on the incident. Someone had taken cell phone footage after Seto hit the thief with his car and shared it with a news outlet. Mokuba watched as Seto got out of the car and took the backpack from the thief's hands. Mokuba leaned forward when he saw Joey come into frame.

"Wait, is that Joey? Oh man, that totally is! Joey was there?!" Mokuba was even more amazed as the video showed Seto and Joey conversing with one another. There wasn't a frown to be found on Seto's face. The video didn't include audio but whatever interaction they had, it didn't appear to be unpleasant, even as Seto was getting arrested, "Did you and Joey work together on this?"

"Oh, it looks like they're kicking me off the phone now. I love you and stay out of trouble," Seto quickly hung up the phone.

Seto wasn't sure why he felt the need to hide the interaction Joey and Seto had from Mokuba. It wasn't like they were suddenly best friends or anything. Joey just happened to be there when Seto stopped a guy from stealing a kid's backpack. The young CEO wanted to forget all of the Joey Wheeler he had to stomach for the last 48 hours and go back to his normal life. Seto let the police officer guide him back to his cell where he would wait until Isono bailed him out.

It didn't take very long, in fact, before Seto's cell was opened once again by the police officer, only this time he was accompanied by Isono. Seto jumped to his feet with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm. There were very few times Isono had seen Seto so clearly overjoyed.

"You're good to go. Your bail has been posted," the officer stated. Isono bowed upon greeting his boss before they both walked out side-by-side. Seto already began to unbutton the top half of the jumpsuit, revealing a plain white shirt underneath. He was just happy to let the contained heat escape at last.

"What took you so long?" Seto asked as they walked through the long hallway into the lobby, "I've been sweating bullets in this ugly, orange thing for the last hour."

"I'm terribly sorry, Master Kaiba. There was a lot of paperwork I had to fill out before they would let you be released. I have copies of all the paperwork right here for you to view later. I also have your personal belongings that they confiscated," Isono said and handed Seto two plastic bags—one that contained the clothes he was wearing and another that contained his locket necklace, wallet, keys, and cell phone.

Seeing the car keys reminded him that there was still the issue of his car to deal with. Seto grabbed the plastic bag that contained his clothes first and searched the hallway for the nearest bathroom. Fortunately there was one close-by.

"How bad is the car? Do we know where it's been towed to?"

"Yes sir. I have that information here as well. I'm not sure how bad the damage is."

Seto walked over to the bathroom, "Can you hold the rest of my things while I change? I'll be right back." Isono nodded while Seto slipped into the bathroom.

He ripped off the jumpsuit, feeling as though he was freeing himself from an oven. He took out the clothes from the bag and tried to ignore the fact that his shirt and pants were covered in wrinkles. Seto buttoned up his shirt first before putting on his pants and securing his belt onto his waist. He patted down his pants which reminded him that he was missing something. Seto burst through the bathroom door.

"Where are my cards?" Seto rushed over to Isono, grabbing the plastic bag out of his hand and emptying the contents of the bag. His locket, phone, wallet, and keys were there but nothing else. "Isono, my deck isn't here. We can't leave until we talk to someone about this." Isono didn't have a chance to respond before Seto stormed away, headed towards the front desk in the lobby. Once he was there, Seto approached the woman dressed in plain, gray attire in her early 30's sitting behind a glass screen.

"Hi there, I was recently an inmate here at this facility and my bail just got posted…" the woman looked disengaged from the conversation completely. Seto ignored her boredom and continued, "I got my personal belongings back but I appear to be missing something that was on my person at the time I was arrested. I had a deck in my pants pocket that doesn't appear to be with the rest of my things."

"Did you say you had a 'deck' in your pocket? Do you mean a deck of cards?" the woman asked, her monotone voice matched her look of disinterest.

Seto tried to maintain his cool. He had just gotten out of jail and didn't want to get thrown back in because the receptionist didn't know what a deck of cards was. His response was, "Yes, a deck of cards. To be more specific, it was a deck of Duel Monsters cards. I had a deck in a box in my pocket at the time of my arrest. It wasn't in the bag with the rest of my personal items."

The woman reached under her desk and Seto became hopeful, for his sake and for her own, that what she was about to pull out was his cards. Instead, she placed a piece of paper in front of him. Seto's eyes stared at the paper before looking back at the woman who continued to be unfaltering in her disinterest.

"You can fill out a lost/stolen report and we'll get back to you about it in three weeks." Isono nervously looked from the woman up to Seto. His boss was going to start fuming and he worried what would happen to the bystanders in the lobby if his rage continued to build. Isono started trying to think of methods to contain Seto's anger level.

Seto slammed his fist down and yelled, "Three weeks?! Do you know who I am?!"

Isono stepped forward, after determining that reasoning with Seto was a good method to start with, and said, "Master Kaiba, I'm sure there's an explanation for this…"

The defiant woman frowned and was not moved by Seto's display of aggression. Instead, she replied with, "Sir, you're going to need to calm down. We'll find your trading cards eventually but you do need to fill out this form."

Seto slammed his fist onto the counter a second time, causing everyone sitting in the lobby to jump from being startled. There was a security guard standing near the door whose attention was also caught by the commotion. He approached Seto at the counter and Isono immediately noticed his approached.

"Master Kaiba, you're going to get yourself thrown back in jail…" Isono whispered, wishing there was a way to get Seto to calm down. He was worried that even the threat of being thrown back in jail wasn't enough to get his boss to stop causing a scene.

"Let me just say this, Hiroko," Seto said, finally addressing the woman by name after reading the name plate on her desk. Seto leaned forward and gave her a brief smile. Isono was at least relieved that his tone was slightly less hostile than it was a moment ago now that he was trying to take the charming approach. "I'm Seto Kaiba and I'm a worldwide champion of Duel Monsters. Now, I can understand if you don't follow Duel Monsters or know much about it, but a duelist without his cards is not much of a duelist at all. Wouldn't you agree?"

Hiroko looked up from her desk, making full eye contact with Seto for the first time and said, "A duel champion, huh? You mean like Duke Devlin? And I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that a guy named Yugi Muto was declared King of Games a couple years ago…"

Seto's pupils dilated and Isono lunged forward to grab Seto, terrified that he was about to destroy everything that was within a foot of his reach. As if the comparison to Duke wasn't enough, the reminder that Yugi had thwarted Seto's attempts to regain his title as King of Games definitely meant someone was going to be harmed. Before Seto could react, someone called his name.

"Is there a Seto Kaiba still in the building? We have something of his!" Another woman dressed in a pants suit ran into the lobby and was holding Seto's deck box. Isono was so relieved he thought he might even feint. "This fell out of the bag with the rest of your personal belongings. We're terribly sorry about that."

"Yes, those are mine, thank you for returning them." Seto walked up and grabbed them, sticking them into his pocket where they belonged. The anger he was about to unleashed disappeared completely and everyone present seemed equally as relieved as Isono was. Seto nodded towards Isono, "Alright, let's go. We're done here."

Isono quickly followed behind as Seto exited the lobby. When they were outside, Isono pointed to the path that would lead them to the parking lot. Seto's eyes narrowed as he spotted a figure standing at the end of the path near the entrance of the parking lot.

"Wheeler," Seto said as he approached Joey, leaning against the chain-linked fence that ran parallel to the path.

Joey's hands were stuffed into his pockets and again, he was dressed very casually in a plain white t-shirt and some dirty, washed out jeans. Seto noticed that the t-shirt didn't have stains on it this time which was nice. Joey's face was void of emotion which made it difficult for Seto to anticipate what was going on.

"Kaiba, it's good to see you got out."

Seto didn't feel like engaging in small talk with Joey. He wanted to be halfway across town by now, heading back to his home office where he could slip back into his normal life. Seto decided to speed up the conversation so they would get right to the point.

"What do you want, Wheeler? Why are you here?"

Joey sighed and took his hands out of his pockets.

"I just came by to say that…" Joey took a deep breath; looking as if he were pained by the words he was about to say next, "I'm sorry for what I said about you the night before, you know, at the bar. And I guess I'm sorry for perceiving you as a jerk back in high school. I thought you were the kinda rich boy that did whatever he wanted because he could get away with it and that you didn't care about anyone other than yourself. Seeing you yesterday changed my perception."

Seto was genuinely surprised by what Joey was saying but his eyes kept looking towards the parking lot, longing for their conversation to be over so he could go home.

"Well, I'm still rich but I suppose it's good to know you don't think I'm heartless. Anyway, I need to be heading home so I'll see you around." Seto walked past Joey with Isono following behind but Joey called out to him before he got too far.

"Wait, Kaiba! Before you go…" Joey caught up with Seto, forcing Seto's attention back to him, "Let me help you out with repairing your car's windshield."

"And why would I let you do that?"

"Because it's the least I can do. You did just get thrown in the slammer for doing a good deed and I promise I can get you a good deal," Joey stated with a smirk. Seto was not amused.

"You have yet to give me a good reason." Seto also wanted to add, "And now you're wasting my time, too" but he didn't. He didn't want to risk the conversation carrying on for much longer by starting a fight with Joey.

"Look man, don't be an ass. Just let me fix your windshield," Joey demanded, getting frustrated.

Seto rolled his eyes; agreeing to Joey's request was apparently going to be the fastest way of getting him to go away. Seto sighed before he replied, "Fine, give me your business card and I'll give you a call when I'm ready to bring it in."

Joey put his hands back into his pockets and looked down.

"Actually, Kaiba… I don't have any business cards," Joey, although somewhat embarrassed, continued, "I can tell you where I work and give you my manager's card, though!" Seto reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slipped out a business card that he handed to Joey.

"Here, you can have my business card. Call me when you're ready to fix my car and I'll bring it over. And I better not have to wait all day to get it done," Seto said with a hint of aggravation. Seto hated a number of activities, but waiting was definitely one of the top five that he hated the most.

"I promise not to make you wait," Joey said with a smile, holding out his hand for Seto to shake. Seto looked down at Joey's hand, remembering the dirt and smudge he had seen on his fingers the night at the bar. Seto settled for putting his hand on Joey's shoulder instead.

"Yep, see you around." Seto then turned away with Isono by his side and the two headed out. Seto had no intention of waiting for Joey to call him to fix his car. He would probably just take the Maserati to the dealership where he bought it and have it fixed by them. Still… Seto thought it was nice of Joey to offer. Perhaps Joey wasn't a complete idiot after all.

-YGO-

A/N: Happy 2018 everyone! I know it's a little late in the month to say happy New Year but given that this is my first update since the New Year began, I felt it necessary to wish everyone a happy new year. I hope you all had a fantastic 2017 year and have a great start to the 2018 year. My 2017 was amazing for so many reasons but getting back into writing and receiving so much positive feedback has really made my heart sore. Although 2018 is looking to be just as hectic and busy, if not even more so than 2017 with everything that will be happening this year, I'm excited to experience the new possibilities and keeping posting chapters to this story. I will maintain the once a month update, as long as time allows for it. I once again want to give a shout out to the darling, Rena Redhead, whom is writing a fabulous story called "Defying Destiny" that everyone should check out if you haven't already. Until next time, thanks for reading!