Chapter 16: Mistakes
Seto paused, trying to fathom the fact that Joey had managed to acquire something Seto never had… a girlfriend. Seto looked down at his phone and ran a quick Google search on Mai Valentine since it had been a couple years since he saw her. He wasn't sure he even remembered what Mai looked like—at the height of his Duel Monsters career, Seto had been so focused on beating Yugi that he never thought about any of the other duelists. The images of Mai took seconds to pop up on his phone and the memories instantly came back to him. He couldn't, however, remember the last time he had seen her. Seto couldn't even remember the last tournament he had seen her in, but he was still trying to wrap his brain around the possibly that Joey could get a girlfriend.
"Hold on, so you're telling me that the two of you were actually boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"Why is it so hard to believe that I could have a girlfriend?!" Joey snapped.
"I know Serenity said you and Mai dated but I wasn't sure. Anyway, so the two of you dated and… I'm guessing it didn't go well?"
Seto scratched his head, trying to imagine Joey and Mai together. He pictured the two of them holding hands, walking around Domino City. Could it really be true that they dated? Did Joey really possess charm that Seto didn't have? Joey's face looked pained from having to recall the experience which indicated that their relationship hadn't been a lie. Or it at least showed that their relationship involved legitimate feelings that had been hurt.
Joey sighed and said, "She and I started dating a little before I graduated from high school and she was fully immersed into her Duel Monsters career. Since the Duelist Kingdom crew disappeared from the Duel Monsters realm, Mai was able to regain her momentum as a top-ranking duelist."
"Who is the Duelist Kingdom crew?"
"That's what Mai referred to us—you know, you, me, Yugi, etc. Once everyone had graduated from high school and found other pursuits, Mai rose in the ranks and became one of the best female duelists in the world. She was so happy, and I was happy for her, too," Joey said, "When I graduated from high school, Mai told me I should join her and jump back into the Duel Monsters game. She said I had what it took to be a top-ranking duelists and, who knows, maybe I did, but I knew I would need to do a lot to establish myself in the field and that the paychecks would be irregular and not very big."
Seto briefly considered remarking that Mai was blatantly lying about Joey having what it took to be a top-ranking duelist, but he was interested in the story and wanted to hear the rest of it. He remained silent as Joey continued, "I also knew the gig with Fumiya wasn't flashy, but I started making good money once I became a mechanic. After about a year or two, Mai stopped asking me about whether I would return to dueling. There are only so many conversations you can have that end the same way, I guess. Around that same time, Mai's dueling career was going well, and she started traveling all over the world for dueling tournaments.
"It was at that point that something shifted in our relationship. Mai was traveling more and my happiness for her success started turning into jealously and anger. For the last several months of our relationship, we weren't seeing each other as much and I became even more angry and more jealous. And then those negative feelings led me to a night of binge drinking where I…" Joey paused and then said, "I cheated on Mai."
Seto knew this was the part where he was supposed to respond with some form of sympathy. Instead, Seto responded with "So you got some drunk girl to kiss you?"
"No, I had sex with another woman."
"You got someone to have sex with you? Alcohol was definitely involved."
"Can I please finish the rest of my story? Geez!" Joey replied.
"Yes, let's move on."
"Anyway, so after it happened, I knew I had to do the right thing and tell Mai. I don't really know what I was expecting from Mai as a response, but it became clear from our last conversation that Mai had been pulling away from me for some time. I think she knew we would break up before I told her what happened, but I don't think she expected me to hurt her so greatly before the time came. That was when we broke up and we haven't spoken since."
Joey turned away from Seto, trying to ignore the familiar feelings of regret and shame that were bubbling up with the retelling of the breakup. These were familiar feelings to Joey—feelings that he commonly tried to bury whenever they came up. This was the first time he was reflecting upon what happened without some form of alcohol in his hand, at the ready to wash away his pain.
"That's pretty terrible, Wheeler, even for you," Seto said, breaking the silence.
"I know… and maybe that's partly why my drinking has gotten so bad lately. There are some nights where I can't stop replaying the mistake I made and the feelings that led me to the worst decision of my life. When everyone moved out of Domino City, I didn't really hear from my friends anymore. It felt like Mai was the only person who truly believed I could be better than I was, besides my sister, and I let my insecurity destroy that relationship. I'm such an idiot…"
"You are an idiot, I can confirm that, but… you do have to give yourself some credit. It sounds like you've reflected on the experience and have taken responsibility for the hurt you inflicted onto Mai. While that doesn't change what happens, I think it's a sign of maturity which I honestly didn't think you had until now."
Joey turned back towards Seto with surprise, "Do you mean that?"
"Yes, I mean it. Despite your drinking sprees, it's clear you've taken time to think about what you did and that… can sometimes be hard. It can be hard to reflect on bad experiences and even harder to admit your fault in those experiences. I think there's hope for you yet… before now, I thought this girlfriend challenge would be a walk in the park for me compared to you. And, let's face it, it still probably will be but at least you can admit that you've grown from your mistakes. Some people never do."
"Wow, that's… actually really nice. Thanks, Kaiba."
"Don't make it weird by thanking me. I was only speaking factually, not trying to make you feel better," Seto responded, "I'll take care of filling out my profile if you help me with crafting the initial messages with those that I match with. I don't need to be handheld but I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm doing when it comes to dating. And you have to create an account too or else the game isn't fair."
Joey smiled, "Deal. And crafting the message is the easy part! Let me reactivate my account and show you."
"Sending messages is the easy part?" Seto asked as Joey became very engaged with his phone. Joey waved Seto over, his eyes never leaving the phone screen. Seto got up and sat next to Joey, peering over his shoulder at his smart phone. Communicating with women in a romantic sense was a subject that Seto was completely unfamiliar with and had never attempted. Seto would never say it out loud with Joey present, but he was intrigued to learn more.
When Seto saw Joey's username, he burst out laughing and said, "Your username is RedEyesKing? Why would you pick that? Red Eyes isn't even a good duel monster."
"Oh please, and TheBlueEyedKnight is better?" Joey snapped back.
"What? I have three copies of Blue Eyes cards, and I have blue eyes. Also, women love knights, don't they? Don't they talk about knights in shining armor?"
"Can we please focus? I thought you wanted my help crafting messages," Joey said, placing his phone on the table in between them so they both had a full-view of the tiny screen, "So when it comes to these messages, it's super easy because you just have to follow three steps and then you've swept them off their feet from within their inbox.
"The first step is to develop a template. You craft the message you're going to send to every lady, and you should use one that has yielded a date or two in the past as the template for success. It's your lucky day because you can use mine! And then the next step is to look through their profile to discover notable attributes about them such as what they list as their favorite hobby or what they're looking for in a partner. The final step is to make sure you update the copy/pasted message, so you don't get their name or attributes mixed up with the person you sent the previous message to. I've made that mistake one too many times, so I don't recommend it."
Seto looked up from the phone to Joey, "Hold on, so what you're saying is that you send the same message over and over again? Just with updated information?"
"Just the initial message. And keep in mind that you'll be sending that initial message to every girl you match with. I always swipe right on every lady I match with and then send them that message. Once you get the lady to start talking to you, you can type whatever you want but who wants to spend all day writing up a unique message for every single person on the dating app? That's way too much work."
"I feel like your method is too shallow, though. Don't you think? Especially if you consider the fact that you're telling me to swipe right on every woman I match with."
"It's not shallow at all; it's just realistic. The fact of the matter is that these ladies get thousands of messages a day from tons of guys so the likelihood of someone writing back is incredibly low."
"If that's the case, wouldn't you not want to be unique in your initial message?"
"I think you're missing the point," Joey said which caused Seto to raise his eyebrows. None of what Joey was saying was making any sense. Seto wondered why any person would respond to a generic message, though he supposed the idea was that Joey's template was unique just enough to get someone to respond back. Still, Seto was skeptical that this would work.
"Think about it this way," Joey began, "You know what it's like when you're looking for a job?"
"You know I've been running Kaiba Corp. since I was a teenager, right?" Seto replied.
"Okay, pretend you weren't a billionaire for a second. Imagine you're a regular person that—"
"A regular person that works as a mechanic? Sure, I can pretend for a second."
Joey rolled his eyes and ignored Seto's response, "So you're a regular person and you're looking for a job. When regular people apply for a job, they have to include a resume and sometimes a cover letter. You might be a mechanic, but not every car shop is the same, right? For example, maybe you want to work at a foreign car shop or a shop that only fixes one type of car. You will have a base resume or cover letter that you edit and adjust for each job so that it looks like you took the time to be unique when that's not actually the case."
"Copy/pasting the same message over and over again doesn't scream romance to me. Are you sure I should compare online dating to looking for a job?"
"Believe me, after one week, it's going to feel like a job. You'll never receive a message from a lady—it's up to you to send the first message and I'm sure even you could admit that casting a wider net gets more results," Joey said, "Just trust me on this. I've gotten plenty of dates from swiping right and using my template. I'll send it to you now so you can start shooting off messages. Maybe by next week we'll actually have some dates lined up!"
Seto looked down at his own phone. When Joey put it that way, it did make sense rationally but Seto was still having a hard time wrapping his head around it. The young CEO had never been one to watch romantic movies or read romance novels, but his knowledge of that genre didn't include men bombarding as many women as possible with the same message over and over again. There was usually more to the story than that, at least that's what Seto thought, though he hadn't viewed the reference material to prove it. Despite Seto's hesitations about Joey's method, he decided to follow through and finish his profile while he waited for Joey to send him the template.
"Alright, just sent the template your way. The other thing I wanted to mention before you start sending off messages is to not be discouraged if no one responds back in the first day or so. They won't all respond and that's why you send a lot of messages so that—"
"Oh, I just got a bunch of messages from women within five minutes of my profile going live. I've also matched with a bunch of women too. What do I do next?"
"What? You're lying!"
Joey snatched Seto's phone out of his hand and turned around to see for himself. Seto hadn't been lying—there were five unread messages in the inbox and several match notifications. Half of the messages read, "Hey cutie!" or "Nice profile picture!" Joey took a deep breath, keeping his back turned to Seto while he remained hunched over the phone in disbelief. Joey didn't want to reveal just how jealous he was… but he couldn't hide his disappointment. Joey couldn't understand how it was possible that Seto, with no prior online dating experience, could receive so many responses within minutes. Joey let his head drop down and closed his eyes, hosting a mental pity party for himself while cradling Seto's phone in his hands.
"Can I have my phone back now, Wheeler?"
"Fine…" Joey turned around to hand Seto back his phone, letting go of the disappointment he felt. This challenge was going to be harder than he thought but Joey was determined not to let this set him back. He was banking on one thing and that was the fact that Seto lacked experience talking to women. Imagining Seto on a date made Joey grin and gave him an idea.
"I just thought of something. How about we try and coordinate dates so that the in-person dates are at the same time and at the same place?"
"What? That's a horrible idea, why would I do that?" Seto replied, his voice soaked in skepticism.
"We could easily lie otherwise about getting dates. And if we conduct the dates at the same time, it ensures that we can fact check that the dates actually occurred, and we can help each other out too if things get too hectic."
"Aren't we in competition with one another? Why would we want to help each other out?"
"Think of it this way, Kaiba," Joey said, putting his arm around Seto, his grin somehow larger than it appeared moments earlier, "If the date isn't going well and you need to get out, you can use me as an excuse. We can come up with a secret code and create a diversion to get out of there before our dates can say anything!"
Seto slipped out from under Joey's arm and shook his head. This whole 'wingman' competition was becoming more and more ridiculous by the second. In that moment, Seto couldn't even remember why he was doing the competition to begin with. He locked his phone and slid it back into his pocket before looking to Joey.
"I think I might pass on this competition. I have no doubts that I would be victorious, but it seems like more work than it's worth."
"Oh Kaiba, don't be so lame! If anything, this would be a good experience for you."
"How so?" Seto asked, his patience for Joey and the stupid competition was quickly running out.
Joey sighed, placing his hand on Seto's shoulder, "Think of it this way, if you get a girlfriend, you might finally be able to give Mokuba the space he needs to grow up. It's okay to love and care for your little brother, but you can't spend your whole life trying to raise him when he's already grown. Besides, girlfriends take up so much time and energy that you won't even have to worry about your brother!"
Joey started chuckling to himself and Seto, again, slipped out of Joey's grip. Seto didn't appreciate how handsy Joey was being with him during this online dating explanation, but the mechanic did have a point. Mokuba was growing up—perhaps one would consider a college student a grown up. Whether Seto liked it or not, he did need to give his brother some space. Maybe this girlfriend experience would finally help Seto to fulfill Mokuba's request.
Seto groaned and responded with, "Fine… we'll be each other's wingman and we'll try to schedule in-person dates at the same time. But you absolutely cannot tell anyone, that includes our siblings, that we're doing this. This is not exactly a problem moment for me."
"That's fine by me," Joey said, flashing another grin, "Let's get started!"
-YGO-
A/N: I checked the calendar and I'm only a week and a half late publishing this chapter. Phew! Believe me, I am quite aware that publishing once a month isn't a lot to ask for but I'm just having a hard time getting back into the groove of things. The world has unfortunately only gotten scarier since the last time I posted, but as I mentioned in the last chapter, writing has always been my favorite coping mechanism. I'm hoping that pushing myself to write will help me get through this pandemic and I hope that this chapter was a welcomed distraction for anyone reading! Stay safe, stay healthy, and looking forward to publishing a new chapter next month.