Chapter 7: Estimated Time of Arrival
"I've never seen a GranTurismo convertible up close! I feel like I've only ever seen them in movies. I've got to say that probably one of my favorite things that they've done with the Maserati is…" Joey continued to prattle on about the various features and capabilities of Seto's car.
Seto closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to contain his burning desire to tell Joey to shut up about the car. Seto wasn't surprised to hear that Joey wasn't used to seeing fancy cars where he worked since his shop wasn't much to look at but Seto didn't exactly enjoy listening to Joey squeal over his car like a fan boy.
The young CEO had considered not taking his car to Joey at all and conveniently ignoring the voicemail Joey left when he called Seto and said it was a good time to bring the car in after two weeks had passed since their last exchange. Seto secretly hoped that Joey would lose his business card, but had no such luck when he heard the voicemail left on his desk phone. He battled back and forth about what sort of lie to tell Joey about the car until he decided to stop being conflicted about it and let it be fixed. After that, Seto told himself, he would never see Joey again.
"Look, I'm gonna need you to just tell me if you can replace the windshield and how long it's going to take. I don't have all day for this."
Joey stopped his rambling and turned back towards Seto, "Oh, yeah, I can definitely replace the windshield. We don't need to order anything—just take out the old one and put in the new one. It shouldn't take longer than an hour or two."
"Can you try and do it in an hour and a half? I have to pick up Mokuba from the train station in two hours and I need to allow time to drive to the other side of the city to get him," Seto said, hoping Joey wouldn't pick up on the desperation in his voice.
Mokuba had been away at college for the past two months and, to Seto, it felt more like two years. This was Mokuba's first time coming home and as much as Seto tried, he couldn't hide how excited he was to finally see his younger brother again. Before he could pick up his brother, however, he needed Joey to fix his car.
"Sure thing, I completely understand. If you want to wait in the lobby, I'll get started on this right away."
Seto uncrossed his arms and relaxed his shoulders. At least Joey was going to get the work done in a reasonable amount of time which would put him on the road to seeing Mokuba that much sooner. Seto turned to leave the shop and wait in the lobby when a big, burly man standing at about Seto's height approached. He seemed angry, but his eyes looked past Seto and were focused on Joey. Seto stopped walking as the man passed, sensing there was going to be a problem.
"Hey man! What's with this bullshit? You replaced my brakes last week but my car is still making those weird noises. I'm a paying customer and I don't like having to come back here because you did shoddy work."
Joey stood up and turned around to face the man, "I replaced your brakes, yes, but if you recall, we recommended that you replace your rotors as well and you didn't take my suggestion. If you have any issues with the service we provided, please take it up with my manager."
The man grabbed a hold of Joey's shoulders, "Listen up, bud. I don't care what your manager says—I paid you good money to fix my car and I'm not leaving until you do what I paid you to do."
A pair of hands appeared between the disgruntled customer and Joey, pushing the two away from each other. Seto then moved himself into the middle, turning his attention towards the angry man, "I'm going to stop you right there and tell you to back off."
The man looked Seto up and down and smirked, deeming Seto a non-threat before he said, "And who are you supposed to be, Mr. Tie Guy?" Seto was puzzled by what he perceived to be an insult.
He then chuckled, straightening his tie, "Actually, I'm thee Mr. Tie Guy, thank you very much. I don't know if you've heard of me, but I'm Seto Kaiba and I basically run this town and everything in it so the last thing you want to do is piss me off."
Joey's eyes shifted from Seto to the disgruntled customer. The man didn't look convinced of Seto's insinuated power, "Is that so? Well, if you are so important, why do you care what happens to a mechanic that does shoddy work?"
"Because that mechanic happens to be doing shoddy work on my vehicle right now and the more we prolong this conversation, the longer I have to be here and I don't like wasting time. So if you have an issue with Wheeler, I suggest you take it up with a manager," Seto said, his eyes never breaking eye contact. Seto accepted the fact that he could never champion in a physical fight, but he would always win a psychological one.
After a long moment of silence, the disgruntled customer grumbled to himself and turned away. Seto looked down at his watch and rolled his eyes. Telling off that customer took way longer than he wanted. When he turned around, Joey was staring at Seto with fascination.
"Wow, thanks Kaiba. You didn't have to do that."
"I did, actually, because I really do have to be somewhere. Will you still be able to get this done in an hour and a half?" Joey tightened the banana containing his hair in response and put on his work gloves. Joey gave Seto a reassuring smile.
"Okay, good. That should give me enough time to get to the train station and pick up…" Seto's words trailed off as his phone started vibrating in his pocket. Seto pulled out his phone and saw Mokuba's name displayed on the screen. Joey turned away from Seto and grabbed his tool box so he could get started on replacing the windshield.
"Mokuba, what's going on? Is everything okay?" Seto asked, holding the phone to the side of his face after picking up the call.
"Yeah, everything's fine. I'm here! Where are you?"
"What do you mean? Are you at the train station already? I thought you weren't going to be there for another two hours."
Joey looked up from his tool box and looked back at Seto.
"Oh, did I not send you my new ticket info? I decided to cancel my other ticket and take an earlier train so I could be in Domino City sooner."
Seto let out a frustrated growl, "And when were you going to tell me that?"
"I'm sorry, Nii-sama! I thought I had sent you the new ticket I got but I guess I forgot. Do you want me to catch a cab back home instead?"
"No, no, it's fine. I'll be right there. Stay put, okay? I'll see you soon." Seto hung up the phone and shoved it back into his pocket.
He loved his younger brother, but Mokuba could be so forgetful when it came to sharing important information sometimes. He hoped that wasn't hindering his grades in school. Seto turned to Joey.
"Younger siblings, am I right? They can be so disorganized. I've lost track of how many times I've had that exact same kind of phone call with Serenity."
Seto looked at his watch and then looked up, "Yeah, sure, anyway… do you think I could drive this car to the train station or do you think I'm going to need to take a cab?"
"Oh, you can't drive this car with the windshield busted up like this. It's not street legal. If you need a car, you can borrow my truck if you want. You'll have to come back here anyway since I have your car."
Seto hesitated to accept Joey's offer immediately. All he wanted was for Joey to fix his car—he didn't suddenly want to owe Joey a favor on top of that. At the same time, Seto felt conflicted when he thought about Mokuba waiting for him at the train station. It was the first night Mokuba was back from college and Seto didn't want to delay seeing his brother.
"…Fine. I'll take your car. Thank you."
Joey took off one of his gloves and reached into his pocket. A key emerged and Joey tossed it to Seto, "It doesn't like going over 60 so be careful. My truck is the black one in the parking lot. I'll see you when you're back."
Seto didn't know how Joey could drive a car that couldn't go over 60, but he didn't take the time to think about it. He just took the key and headed towards the parking lot.
-YGO-
Even though Seto took mostly back roads and detours to avoid traffic, it still took him a half hour to drive to the train station. Thankfully, none of the roads Seto took required him to drive over 60, so he didn't have to discover any issues with Joey's truck. The car itself, however, was exactly as Seto would've expected from Joey's car. It hadn't been washed in a while and the entire floor on the passenger's side was filled with trash. Seto gathered most of the trash when he found a place to park and was waiting for Mokuba to come out from the train station.
"Nii-sama, where's your car? And where did all of that trash come from?" Seto dropped the bag of trash in his hands into the public trashcan he found and twisted around to find Mokuba standing behind him. Seto pulled him into a tight hug and held the teenager up in his arms. Seto immediately placed him back down on his feet when he realized Mokuba weighed a lot more than he remembered.
"Whoa, when was the last time I picked you up? You're so heavy now!"
Mokuba laughed, "Probably when I was a kid. I'm a college student now, Nii-sama! My diet consists mostly of pizza and instant ramen."
Seto laughed and ruffled his brother's hair. It was good to have Mokuba back. Seto had forgotten how much just being in Mokuba's presence could lift his spirits and cause reason to smile once in a while.
"So… where did you say the car was?"
"Oh, yes, the car… so that's an interesting story; Wheeler is actually working on the car I used to hit that guy a couple weeks ago and I didn't know you would be coming early so I just had the tow truck bring the car to Joey's shop and then Joey lent me his car when he saw I was in a bind."
Mokuba pointed to the black pick-up truck to the right of where they were standing, "Is that Joey's truck?"
"Yes… how did you know?"
"Something about it makes me feel like it's the kind of car Joey would drive."
Seto placed his hand on Mokuba's shoulder, gazing at the truck that was at least ten years old and probably hadn't been washed once in that time frame. Mokuba was right—the truck screamed Joey Wheeler from a mile away. The only way it could be more Joey Wheeler than it already was would be if it had a Red-Eyes Black Dragon bumper sticker on it. Seto was thankful it didn't.
"Driving it is exactly what you would imagine, but at least it got me here," Seto looked down and smiled, "It's good to have you home, kid."
"Thanks, Nii-sama. It's good to be back."
The two of them climbed into the truck and Seto started the engine.
"We have to head back to the shop before we go home. Is that cool with you?"
"Sure, that's not a problem," Mokuba said, before turning to Seto, "So… did you and Joey suddenly become best friends since I've been gone?"
Seto nearly veered off the road upon hearing that, "WHAT?! Of course not!"
Seto straightened out the steering wheel and regained his composure as Mokuba went on, "Really? Because it kind of seems like you guys are. I mean, he's fixing your car and letting you drive his car…"
"That was only because he insisted! Believe me, I plan on never seeing Wheeler again after this."
Mokuba playfully shoved Seto and then turned to face forward again. Mokuba didn't know if Seto was telling the truth or not, but he had a feeling he would figure out the state of their friendship or lack thereof when he saw Joey at the car shop.
"So if you haven't been hanging out and becoming best friends with Joey while I've been gone, what have you been doing with your time?"
"Working, what do you expect? I know you think all I do is duel all day, but I do work once in a while," Seto joked, happy to change the subject from Joey to something more interesting.
"That doesn't sound like fun. What do you do on the weekends? Just wait for the week to start again? Do you even leave the house?"
Seto fell silent. He didn't know how to respond to Mokuba's questions… was he supposed to agree? Would Mokuba catch him if he lied instead? Seto gripped the steering wheel and tried to focus on driving.
"Oh, you know. I spend the weekend cleaning up around the house and other regular tasks," Seto said, trying to remember one notable thing he did over a weekend since Mokuba had been gone.
"Nii-sama, I know you have no idea what to do with me being gone but you know what would be a great use of your time? Online dating!"
Seto's eyes went wide, "Dating? Me? Oh please, Mokuba… you know I don't have time for that."
"The way you were talking about your weekend seemed to suggest otherwise. I mean, it's not that crazy of an idea! I'm at college now and honestly, it's a little weird that you haven't dated anyone before. You should really try it! And they make online dating super easy with these apps…" Mokuba took out his smart phone from his pocket and opened up one app.
"You can date people through an app? How does… I mean, aren't you supposed to go out on a date to date someone? I don't get how that works and honestly, I'm not interested. I'm perfectly happy being on my own."
"Oh come on, Nii-sama! You know THAT isn't true. And I bet you'd love it! There's this one dating app called OkDuelist that consists only of people that are duelists. I bet you'd find someone you'd really like on there!"
"You really think I would want to meet other duelists on a platform that wasn't a dueling arena? You're clearly the delusional brother between the two of us," Seto said, rolling his eyes, "Besides, like I said, I'm perfectly happy being on my own. How do you know so much about dating apps anyway? I thought you didn't need to use dating apps in college because you go to those things called 'classes'?"
Mokuba laughed and started rambling about the girls at his college and the friends he had made so far. Seto could hardly keep up with Mokuba as the boy spoke a mile a minute but it still made the older Kaiba smile. Seto enjoyed the sound of Mokuba's voice far more than his own.
As Mokuba continued with his rambles, Seto realized just how happy he was in that moment. It was hard to exactly pinpoint what it was that Seto missed the most about Mokuba because it seemed like he missed everything about having his brother home. However, Seto knew that what he missed the most was his company and the constant conversation. Seto could never tire of hearing his brother's stories and he was grateful to not be shrouded in silence as he had been for the past two months.
-YGO-
A/N: It's HiKari here celebrating Friday with an update! I nearly forgot about posting this chapter because it's been a crazy month. Thankfully the craziness has ended and I'm happy I found some time to edit and update. I'll be honest, I'm not sure about this chapter title but it's all that came to me. If you ever have any suggestions for my titles (or my story in general), please let me know. Constructive criticism is always appreciated and welcomed on my page. In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you have a great weekend!