((Thank you for the inspiration people, and I am SO sorry for being so slow
in writing. BLAME SCHOOL!!! Eheh, it's all the evil teacher's faults for
weighing me down with hours of homework... But I'm gonna try my best to
keep going as best I can. So here (finally) is the next chapter for you.))
The next week, or the next Wednesday to be exact. And of course, it was another gorgeous summer day.
Mokuba had managed to drag Seto to the park and he was running around in a sugar high frenzy, playing tag with another group of kids he'd managed to find.
The older Kaiba had resolutely planted himself on a bench nearby and was setting to the task of rereading one of the books from the house for the five millionth time while keeping one watchful eye on his younger brother.
'It's so easy for him to make friends. Even if he'll probably never talk to them again after this one day... He'll still have made them, met them, played with them.' He chuckled as he watched one of the smaller children trip over her own shoelace and get tagged so that she was stuck frozen on the ground. And Mokuba, with a smile on his face and a daring burst of energy rushed over to free her from this position, but as soon as he tagged her, he himself was met with a hand to his back, adhering him to the spot.
'A pointless game with no logic whatsoever... But he enjoys it, so I let him.'
With a shake of the head and a smirk he sent his gaze back to skim over the streaming lines of words that drawled on about this and that. It all sort of went through his head. He already knew it, and the only reason he was reading the book in the first place was so that he looked like he had something to do.
"Tag! You're it!"
Another young boy jumped away as the girl who had fallen earlier was tagged once again. With a smile she headed after him in a pathetic attempt, as she was much slower than he was.
'What were the rules again? If you're tagged you have to stop moving. If someone else tags you again who is not "it" then you can run again. But how many times do you have to get tagged before you become "it"? Was it two? Three...?'
The girl wasn't doing well at all. Almost everyone was just too fast for her to keep up with. Seto's eyes fell over to Mokuba who was taunting her playfully.
"Hey Christa! Betcha can't catch me!"
She scowled at him and made a dash over that he started running away from with a laugh.
Kaiba smiled. 'Look at him. I know he can run much faster than that... He's letting her catch him. On purpose, but not obviously. That way she won't know and neither will the other kids, and there will be no reason for teasing that he likes a girl.' He chuckled at the thought. 'God forbid. What would he do if he liked a girl?'
"I got it! I got it!"
Seto's eyes averted from Mokuba to see a blonde vault over the bench in an attempt to catch a football that was whizzing over it. His foot however caught onto the back and landed him in an uncomfortable position upside down on the wooden piece of furniture, with the caught item in his hands.
"I got it!"
Joey held the football up triumphantly as he clutched onto the back of the bench with his legs so that he didn't fall on his head. Swinging them over sideways he made an undignified roll onto the ground still clutching the ball under his arm as he looked up from his back at Seto who was mildly glaring at him on the bench still with book in hand.
"Oh hey Kaiba." He stood and brushed the dirt off himself before sitting back down normally on the bench. "Whatcha doin?"
'Perfect. Just perfect. Why is it that every time I'm having even what might be remotely resembling a good day, HE has to show up?' "Reading." Shoving his nose back into the text he tried to prevent any further discussion from the blonde next to him, unsuccessfully.
"What about?" Joey leaned over and read the complex title from the back cover and grinned. "Computers? Dude. You SERIOUSLY need a life."
Seto's gaze narrowed as he cast his icy orbs over at him annoyed. "Did I ASK for your opinion?"
He shrugged. "No. I'm just saying..."
"Well just shut up."
"Why? It's true."
'Do you LIVE to torture me? Is that your purpose in life? To make mine miserable?' Kaiba could only give a low growl. He couldn't give an argument since what Joey was saying sort of was true. He did essentially live for his work, and to do anything else was just routine or Mokuba. "Shut up."
This didn't help one bit however as Joey put his hand on Kaiba's shoulder and grinned. "Hey. I'm just being honest."
"I said... Shut up."
"It's not MY fault you don't have a life."
"Are you hard of hearing? I told you to shut up!" Kaiba slammed the book closed and grabbed Joey's hand off of his shoulder to push his thumb into a particular part of the blonde's wrist to cause him a great deal of pain.
"OwOwOw! Okay! Okay! Let go!" Joey tried squirming away but found it quite impossible.
How much Kaiba just wanted to hold his hand right there forever, but his mind couldn't help but wander to Mokuba and so he released the blonde from his grasp and sat leaning back against the back agitated and also a little guilty for almost losing his temper.
'Stupid conscious.' He glared at Joey. "You can leave now."
"Yeah, yeah..." The blonde stood up and tucked the football under his arm as he clutched at his wrist that was still recovering in pain.
Seto closed his eyes and shook his head before standing and started to walk off. "Tell everyone I said hi."
********************
"Joey! Hey Joey. What took you so long?" Tristan jogged over to his friend and stared at him. "Come on. How long does it take to get a ball?"
"Oh. Heh. Yeah. Sorry." Joey tossed the ball over and started heading back to the group of friends. "Kaiba said to say hi."
The brunette followed after him. "Oh, so that's it. Ran into your buddy, huh?"
"Neh, shut it Trist. Let's just play some ball."
********************
"Seto!" Mokuba's head swung in the direction of where the bench was as he turned away from Christa, his new friend. "Seto?"
There wasn't anybody there. Where had he gone? The young Kaiba glanced around for the familiar brown head, but there was nobody.
"Brother?" He blinked a couple of times and then turned to Christa. "Um. I don't know where he went. Be back in a minute."
Detaching his hand from hers he ran off towards the bench and looked around more. 'Where could he be? He was just here a second ago.' Mokuba's eyes fell to the small gang throwing the football back and forth and he ran over and tugged on the bottom of Tea's shirt.
"Tea? Have you seen Seto?"
She stopped and turned to face him. "Why would I know?"
"Because you were with him the other day. So I figured you two were at least talking. So you haven't seen him, huh?"
"No."
Joey butted in as he tossed the ball to Tristan. "I saw him start walking off that way." He pointed and shrugged. "Not sure where he went though."
"Oh, okay." Mokuba's nodded and ran back over to Christa who was patiently waiting for him back in the tag field where everyone had already left. "Hey. Sorry Christa. I can't come over since I can't find Seto. Could I get your phone number? Then we could get together some other time." He smiled and she nodded.
"Okay. Here you go." Pulling a small little scrap of paper out of her pocket she scribbled on it with a small stub of a pencil she had as well and handed it to him. "Here you go. I gotta go now. Talk to you later!" Waving she ran off leaving Mokuba there all by himself.
The younger Kaiba smiled and shoved the slip into his pocket before running back over to Yugi and the gang and he smiled as he latched himself onto Tea's hand.
"Hey guys!"
Tristan stopped in mid throw and looked down at him. "Hey Mokuba. What are you doing here?"
Idly shrugging his shoulders Mokuba smiled. "Oh, just wondering if I could hang out with you guys this afternoon."
Yugi shrugged. "Sure. I don't see why not."
***********************
A few hours later, after going and dwelling inside the deep inner sanctum of the company headquarters, Seto pushed back his chair from one of the many computers in the whirring room and sighed as he looked down at his watch.
"I probably should be getting back. I have to make Mokuba dinner and-"
His eyes grew wide before he closed them again and shook his head. 'I didn't. Oh please tell me I didn't forget him at the park...' Reaching into his pocket he turned it on, since it had been off while he was typing away by his lonesome, and he punched in his home phone. It rang for a couple of times but no one answered and the perky answering machine picked up with Mokuba's voice. "Hi, you've reached the Kaiba residence. We're not home right now, so please leave a message after the tone and we'll get back to you." And the tone sounded, and Seto hung up.
Shoving the phone once again into his pocket he left everything as was in the room. It was too much of a confused jumble for anyone else in the company to make heads or tails of, their minds were too underdeveloped, and they might even end up deleting all the progress he'd made that day accidentally. But that didn't matter right now. He'd been stupid and made a mistake and he needed to find out where Mokuba had gone.
Kaiba ignored the secretary's fluttered reminders to him about this meeting and that program and any other idea that some imbecile had come up on the way to work that morning while eating his daily doughnut. He just went straight past her and pushed out the double doors to break out into a run in the direction of where the park was.
'He's probably still there. I can't believe I did that. How could I be so-'
A black head appeared in the side of his eye as he dashed past the clear door of the ever-so familiar game shop.
Skidding to a halt he took a few steps back and looked through to see Mokuba leaning against the counter happily munching away at some potato chips.
'What?'
Opening the entrance the small bell jingled and Mokuba turned around to face him. The younger Kaiba immediately jumped off of the stool he had been sitting on and gave his older brother a hug. "Hi Seto!" And then he went back to the counter to stuff more chips in his face.
Kaiba took the necessary steps forward to stand next to his brother and tried to see where the general crew of Yugi was. "Hey Mokuba. What are you doing here?"
The small smiled and didn't even bother looking up, as his tone stayed perfectly happy and not even the slightest bit hurt that he was forgotten in the first place. "Yugi gave me a ride so that I didn't have to stay at the park, and Christa's coming over and we're all gonna have a sleepover."
Seto's gaze fell to him. "Were you planning on telling me?"
Mokuba smiled. "I did. Left a message on your voicemail and also at home. I figured you'd get one of the two."
The older couldn't help but get a slight pang of resentment at his little brother's smug tone. Was Mokuba mocking him? He knew he had been in the wrong on this one, but that didn't give him an exact right to be making fun of him for being slightly absent minded for once in his life.
There was a shrug another chip went into the mouth. "I mean, of course it's fine. Nothing bad happened to me and I didn't want to bother you in your work, since I figured that's where you'd gone. If I screwed up your concentration you might mess up or something. Since you're so easily distracted and all."
Seto clenched his fist tightly and his icy orbs glared at Mokuba. 'Don't you dare. Don't you DARE make fun of me.'
Mokuba felt his brother tensing and jumped down from the stool with the bowl of chips in his arms and he started walking off from behind the house. "I'll see you tomorrow. Yugi's gonna give me a ride over so you don't have to worry about picking me up. I'm sure you're busy anyway. And I don't want to make you forget what you were doing before you noticed I was gone any more than I have to." A fiendish grin crossed his face. "Don't forget to finish those programs you were working on. You don't want to get distracted by us children."
As Mokuba disappeared behind the door Kaiba's body began to shake in hot anger. 'Traitor.. You traitor. You bloody little traitor. You did this to me? You killed me, and now you make fun of me? You're just like Mom and Dad. You're just like Him.' His jaw worked to crush his teeth together as he tersely turned on his heals and jammed the door open. 'Of all the people.. Of anyone to do this to me.. It was yours Mokuba- yours that hurt the most. I've stuck up for you and protected you for all these years, and then just because I forgot you one day out of the countless others you go and turn on me. You filthy bagworm. You miniscule little piece of slime! How dare you cross me like that. How dare you! How DARE you!'
Turning the corner of the block lost in his own boiling inferno he didn't notice as he ran smack dab into somebody. And of all somebodys, it was the one to make his day even better than it had been after progressing from Joey's first interjection... Tea.
((MWAHAHAHAAAA!!! (Yes I'm sugar high) MWAHAHAHAAA!! I AM EVIL!!! ^_^ Don't you all just love me? Leaving you off there. And don't worry.. If any of you are at all confused right now then it will get further explained during the next chapter.. if I can ever get that one out O.o Anyway. Review more now ^^ ))
The next week, or the next Wednesday to be exact. And of course, it was another gorgeous summer day.
Mokuba had managed to drag Seto to the park and he was running around in a sugar high frenzy, playing tag with another group of kids he'd managed to find.
The older Kaiba had resolutely planted himself on a bench nearby and was setting to the task of rereading one of the books from the house for the five millionth time while keeping one watchful eye on his younger brother.
'It's so easy for him to make friends. Even if he'll probably never talk to them again after this one day... He'll still have made them, met them, played with them.' He chuckled as he watched one of the smaller children trip over her own shoelace and get tagged so that she was stuck frozen on the ground. And Mokuba, with a smile on his face and a daring burst of energy rushed over to free her from this position, but as soon as he tagged her, he himself was met with a hand to his back, adhering him to the spot.
'A pointless game with no logic whatsoever... But he enjoys it, so I let him.'
With a shake of the head and a smirk he sent his gaze back to skim over the streaming lines of words that drawled on about this and that. It all sort of went through his head. He already knew it, and the only reason he was reading the book in the first place was so that he looked like he had something to do.
"Tag! You're it!"
Another young boy jumped away as the girl who had fallen earlier was tagged once again. With a smile she headed after him in a pathetic attempt, as she was much slower than he was.
'What were the rules again? If you're tagged you have to stop moving. If someone else tags you again who is not "it" then you can run again. But how many times do you have to get tagged before you become "it"? Was it two? Three...?'
The girl wasn't doing well at all. Almost everyone was just too fast for her to keep up with. Seto's eyes fell over to Mokuba who was taunting her playfully.
"Hey Christa! Betcha can't catch me!"
She scowled at him and made a dash over that he started running away from with a laugh.
Kaiba smiled. 'Look at him. I know he can run much faster than that... He's letting her catch him. On purpose, but not obviously. That way she won't know and neither will the other kids, and there will be no reason for teasing that he likes a girl.' He chuckled at the thought. 'God forbid. What would he do if he liked a girl?'
"I got it! I got it!"
Seto's eyes averted from Mokuba to see a blonde vault over the bench in an attempt to catch a football that was whizzing over it. His foot however caught onto the back and landed him in an uncomfortable position upside down on the wooden piece of furniture, with the caught item in his hands.
"I got it!"
Joey held the football up triumphantly as he clutched onto the back of the bench with his legs so that he didn't fall on his head. Swinging them over sideways he made an undignified roll onto the ground still clutching the ball under his arm as he looked up from his back at Seto who was mildly glaring at him on the bench still with book in hand.
"Oh hey Kaiba." He stood and brushed the dirt off himself before sitting back down normally on the bench. "Whatcha doin?"
'Perfect. Just perfect. Why is it that every time I'm having even what might be remotely resembling a good day, HE has to show up?' "Reading." Shoving his nose back into the text he tried to prevent any further discussion from the blonde next to him, unsuccessfully.
"What about?" Joey leaned over and read the complex title from the back cover and grinned. "Computers? Dude. You SERIOUSLY need a life."
Seto's gaze narrowed as he cast his icy orbs over at him annoyed. "Did I ASK for your opinion?"
He shrugged. "No. I'm just saying..."
"Well just shut up."
"Why? It's true."
'Do you LIVE to torture me? Is that your purpose in life? To make mine miserable?' Kaiba could only give a low growl. He couldn't give an argument since what Joey was saying sort of was true. He did essentially live for his work, and to do anything else was just routine or Mokuba. "Shut up."
This didn't help one bit however as Joey put his hand on Kaiba's shoulder and grinned. "Hey. I'm just being honest."
"I said... Shut up."
"It's not MY fault you don't have a life."
"Are you hard of hearing? I told you to shut up!" Kaiba slammed the book closed and grabbed Joey's hand off of his shoulder to push his thumb into a particular part of the blonde's wrist to cause him a great deal of pain.
"OwOwOw! Okay! Okay! Let go!" Joey tried squirming away but found it quite impossible.
How much Kaiba just wanted to hold his hand right there forever, but his mind couldn't help but wander to Mokuba and so he released the blonde from his grasp and sat leaning back against the back agitated and also a little guilty for almost losing his temper.
'Stupid conscious.' He glared at Joey. "You can leave now."
"Yeah, yeah..." The blonde stood up and tucked the football under his arm as he clutched at his wrist that was still recovering in pain.
Seto closed his eyes and shook his head before standing and started to walk off. "Tell everyone I said hi."
********************
"Joey! Hey Joey. What took you so long?" Tristan jogged over to his friend and stared at him. "Come on. How long does it take to get a ball?"
"Oh. Heh. Yeah. Sorry." Joey tossed the ball over and started heading back to the group of friends. "Kaiba said to say hi."
The brunette followed after him. "Oh, so that's it. Ran into your buddy, huh?"
"Neh, shut it Trist. Let's just play some ball."
********************
"Seto!" Mokuba's head swung in the direction of where the bench was as he turned away from Christa, his new friend. "Seto?"
There wasn't anybody there. Where had he gone? The young Kaiba glanced around for the familiar brown head, but there was nobody.
"Brother?" He blinked a couple of times and then turned to Christa. "Um. I don't know where he went. Be back in a minute."
Detaching his hand from hers he ran off towards the bench and looked around more. 'Where could he be? He was just here a second ago.' Mokuba's eyes fell to the small gang throwing the football back and forth and he ran over and tugged on the bottom of Tea's shirt.
"Tea? Have you seen Seto?"
She stopped and turned to face him. "Why would I know?"
"Because you were with him the other day. So I figured you two were at least talking. So you haven't seen him, huh?"
"No."
Joey butted in as he tossed the ball to Tristan. "I saw him start walking off that way." He pointed and shrugged. "Not sure where he went though."
"Oh, okay." Mokuba's nodded and ran back over to Christa who was patiently waiting for him back in the tag field where everyone had already left. "Hey. Sorry Christa. I can't come over since I can't find Seto. Could I get your phone number? Then we could get together some other time." He smiled and she nodded.
"Okay. Here you go." Pulling a small little scrap of paper out of her pocket she scribbled on it with a small stub of a pencil she had as well and handed it to him. "Here you go. I gotta go now. Talk to you later!" Waving she ran off leaving Mokuba there all by himself.
The younger Kaiba smiled and shoved the slip into his pocket before running back over to Yugi and the gang and he smiled as he latched himself onto Tea's hand.
"Hey guys!"
Tristan stopped in mid throw and looked down at him. "Hey Mokuba. What are you doing here?"
Idly shrugging his shoulders Mokuba smiled. "Oh, just wondering if I could hang out with you guys this afternoon."
Yugi shrugged. "Sure. I don't see why not."
***********************
A few hours later, after going and dwelling inside the deep inner sanctum of the company headquarters, Seto pushed back his chair from one of the many computers in the whirring room and sighed as he looked down at his watch.
"I probably should be getting back. I have to make Mokuba dinner and-"
His eyes grew wide before he closed them again and shook his head. 'I didn't. Oh please tell me I didn't forget him at the park...' Reaching into his pocket he turned it on, since it had been off while he was typing away by his lonesome, and he punched in his home phone. It rang for a couple of times but no one answered and the perky answering machine picked up with Mokuba's voice. "Hi, you've reached the Kaiba residence. We're not home right now, so please leave a message after the tone and we'll get back to you." And the tone sounded, and Seto hung up.
Shoving the phone once again into his pocket he left everything as was in the room. It was too much of a confused jumble for anyone else in the company to make heads or tails of, their minds were too underdeveloped, and they might even end up deleting all the progress he'd made that day accidentally. But that didn't matter right now. He'd been stupid and made a mistake and he needed to find out where Mokuba had gone.
Kaiba ignored the secretary's fluttered reminders to him about this meeting and that program and any other idea that some imbecile had come up on the way to work that morning while eating his daily doughnut. He just went straight past her and pushed out the double doors to break out into a run in the direction of where the park was.
'He's probably still there. I can't believe I did that. How could I be so-'
A black head appeared in the side of his eye as he dashed past the clear door of the ever-so familiar game shop.
Skidding to a halt he took a few steps back and looked through to see Mokuba leaning against the counter happily munching away at some potato chips.
'What?'
Opening the entrance the small bell jingled and Mokuba turned around to face him. The younger Kaiba immediately jumped off of the stool he had been sitting on and gave his older brother a hug. "Hi Seto!" And then he went back to the counter to stuff more chips in his face.
Kaiba took the necessary steps forward to stand next to his brother and tried to see where the general crew of Yugi was. "Hey Mokuba. What are you doing here?"
The small smiled and didn't even bother looking up, as his tone stayed perfectly happy and not even the slightest bit hurt that he was forgotten in the first place. "Yugi gave me a ride so that I didn't have to stay at the park, and Christa's coming over and we're all gonna have a sleepover."
Seto's gaze fell to him. "Were you planning on telling me?"
Mokuba smiled. "I did. Left a message on your voicemail and also at home. I figured you'd get one of the two."
The older couldn't help but get a slight pang of resentment at his little brother's smug tone. Was Mokuba mocking him? He knew he had been in the wrong on this one, but that didn't give him an exact right to be making fun of him for being slightly absent minded for once in his life.
There was a shrug another chip went into the mouth. "I mean, of course it's fine. Nothing bad happened to me and I didn't want to bother you in your work, since I figured that's where you'd gone. If I screwed up your concentration you might mess up or something. Since you're so easily distracted and all."
Seto clenched his fist tightly and his icy orbs glared at Mokuba. 'Don't you dare. Don't you DARE make fun of me.'
Mokuba felt his brother tensing and jumped down from the stool with the bowl of chips in his arms and he started walking off from behind the house. "I'll see you tomorrow. Yugi's gonna give me a ride over so you don't have to worry about picking me up. I'm sure you're busy anyway. And I don't want to make you forget what you were doing before you noticed I was gone any more than I have to." A fiendish grin crossed his face. "Don't forget to finish those programs you were working on. You don't want to get distracted by us children."
As Mokuba disappeared behind the door Kaiba's body began to shake in hot anger. 'Traitor.. You traitor. You bloody little traitor. You did this to me? You killed me, and now you make fun of me? You're just like Mom and Dad. You're just like Him.' His jaw worked to crush his teeth together as he tersely turned on his heals and jammed the door open. 'Of all the people.. Of anyone to do this to me.. It was yours Mokuba- yours that hurt the most. I've stuck up for you and protected you for all these years, and then just because I forgot you one day out of the countless others you go and turn on me. You filthy bagworm. You miniscule little piece of slime! How dare you cross me like that. How dare you! How DARE you!'
Turning the corner of the block lost in his own boiling inferno he didn't notice as he ran smack dab into somebody. And of all somebodys, it was the one to make his day even better than it had been after progressing from Joey's first interjection... Tea.
((MWAHAHAHAAAA!!! (Yes I'm sugar high) MWAHAHAHAAA!! I AM EVIL!!! ^_^ Don't you all just love me? Leaving you off there. And don't worry.. If any of you are at all confused right now then it will get further explained during the next chapter.. if I can ever get that one out O.o Anyway. Review more now ^^ ))
