Chapter 16.
"All right, all right, I'm sorry!" Joey said. "I know I shouldn't have approached her. But it pissed me off to know you were doing this, and it pissed me off to hear you were using one of my friends, like that!"
"So you decided to tell her that we're a couple!!" Kaiba yelled, his anger presently getting the better of him.
Joey looked ashamed, saying, "Well....I didn't mean for it to sound quite that way. But she said some things, and I didn't like it. I thought you were doing it all, but you had to hear what she had to say! She said she was using you, just for the company and stuff you bought her. I wasn't gonna put up with her using you like that....that aint right!"
Kaiba crossed his hands and smiled, saying, "So, you just figured that out, did you? Do you think I care if I lose a couple hundred on her pathetic needs? I spend less money on her than I have in my petty cash. As far as I'm concerned, I'm 'buying' a positive public image."
"Well....I care." Joey pouted.
Kaiba hesitated. For a moment, the thought of Joey caring about him like that, gave him a strange 'good feeling' inside, but that emotion only shown for a moment, and he quickly suppressed it, hiding under his normal cold attitude. He turned away gruffly, over to the fridge and pulled himself out a bottled water. "I'd offer you one, but you already raided my fridge." He pointed out.
Joey gave a sheepish look, then said, "Uh....so is that why you called me over here, was to bitch me out about Mai?"
"Actually, no. What I called you over here for, I'm afraid you're not going to like. Perhaps you should sit down...." He said.
Joey sat down nervously, wondering what this bad news could be, as Kaiba turned back around. But as he did, Kaiba stopped, noticing the game room door was a crack open....he was sure he closed it. Before Kaiba began, he approached the door, and opened it quickly, looking out in the hall, and down either way....nothing. Kaiba then closed the door once again, looking at it to make sure it was closed.
"Something wrong?" Joey asked.
"No." He said simply, and turned back to Joey's direction, saying, "There's some things that were implied between us, that I want to make sure was not wrongly construed."
"Say, what?" Joey said, getting quickly lost from the big words, and business manner.
Kaiba shook his head, saying, "I seem to forget who I'm talking to. I'll be as blunt and as simple as I can. I do not have feelings for you. I don't care about you....you mean nothing to me. Do you comprehend that?"
"What??" Joey snapped, standing up. "You son of a bitch! I can't believe this crap! You told me you wouldn't pull this shit on me, again! So once again, the great Seto Kaiba is still running scared. You know, you're trying so hard to prove you're a man, maybe you should start learning what it really is to 'be' a man!"
Before Joey could say another thing, Kaiba had approached, grabbing Joey by his collar, and slamming him to the wall, knocking a few of the game knickknacks over. "You know what, Mutt....I can actually admit for once that you're right."
"Uh....come again?" Joey asked, expecting when Kaiba attacked someone like that, it's not to agree with them.
"That's right. I haven't been a man, lately....and I've been having to learn exactly what it's like to be one all over again. Infact, I've been struggling with myself over this dilemma for the last month now, and you haven't been helping. But you know what? I'm getting better...." He sneered coldly, his eyes like ice, no sign of feeling in them....nothing but burning contempt. Kaiba dropped Joey, and turned walking towards the duel area, after grabbing his water.
"I....I don't...." Joey stuttered, trying to figure out what he was talking about, and noticed the door was a crack open again, but didn't say anything about it.
"I know I have not mentioned this to you, or anyone. The fact is, I'm not entirely comfortable talking about it, especially with someone who has already tried to exploit and use my present condition against me. But perhaps if I allow you to fully understand the problem, you'll finally go away." Kaiba stated.
"I don't know what you're trying to convince me of, but I already told you once that actions speak louder than words. I saw how you were, Kaiba....you trying to deny it aint gonna work." Joey snapped.
In a cool-collective manner, Kaiba corrected, "'Aint' is not a word." He then turned slightly, looking over at his opponent, and gave a very subtle cold smile. "And as usual, you seemed to have missed everything I have been saying. I was not denying the way I acted, Wheeler. I admit it fully....I lost control. But I am simply trying to explain to you the reasons behind it. You may not understand this Wheeler, but I am actually doing you a favor."
"And how is that?" Joey asked.
"You think there is something between us, when the whole thing is a lie. The machine changed me in ways that no one could possibly understand. Even though I was changed back, something was still left over....some sort of chemical imbalance. One can't expect such drastic changes without some kind of side-effect, after all. Even though outwardly I appeared to be back to normal, inside I was still not quite whole. Wheeler, when I told you that my behavior towards you was not natural, that didn't mean that I had a phobia towards gays. It meant that before this all happened, I didn't have any attraction to you or any man....and after the transformation, I did. That's why it's not normal, because it's not how I was. Does this make any sense to you, at all?" Kaiba asked.
Joey thought long and hard on this. He then looked up, saying, "What your saying is the machine made you care about me, not you. Is that it?"
Kaiba gave a slight smile, amused at the way simpler people come up with their form of saying things. "I suppose that's a very basic way of putting it, that you can better understand."
"Well, I'm still not buying it." Joey said. "Back when you and Yugi fought that first game ever.....you lost, right? That loss changed you, atleast in a way where you stopped being as psycho and sadistic as you used to be...."
"Is....there a point to this, at all?" Kaiba asked.
"Yeah, the point is....that game changed you. But people change because of all sorts of things that happen around them. You didn't struggle to be the scumbag you once were before Yugi zapped you, right? If anything, you seemed to accept it, and move on." Joey said.
Kaiba began to see where Joey was leading with this conversation. "Actually, I didn't simply accept it and move on, and I did lose more than the game that battle. I'm not exactly sure what Yugi did to me, but it took months to recover from that incident, something I do not like being reminded of." He stated coldly. "And you cannot compare that with this. It's like comparing an orange with an apple....there is simply no relation. It's totally different circumstances."
"But the point was that people change due to all sorts of things that happen around them. And maybe these things happened for a reason, you know? After all, you're fighting to be the person that hated me, right? Why? I wanna know what was so attractive to you to hate me than to care about me? Why do you wanna hate me so much??" Joey asked.
Kaiba sighed, shaking his head, "You still don't understand. I doubt I will ever be able to hate you again...."
Kaiba hesitated a moment, wondering if even admitting that much was a mistake, but continued, "But it is wrong for me to feel....attraction towards you. How could you possibly understand? Just try to think about being a man all your life, having everything that made you a man taken away, then after you're finally returned to what you were, still having strange 'women' emotions that do not belong to you, yet still haunting you, never leaving you alone. You can't understand that, can you? Of course you can't, because it's not natural....what happened to me is not normal. And I intend on regaining what I was, whether you like it or not!"
Despite his intense statement to Joey, he kept his voice even, ending it in a cold hiss. His eyes were intense and burned through Joey, as if daring him to try his hardest to sway Kaiba's determination.
Joey was angry, frustrated, and emotionally hurt to see Kaiba shutting him out again, with a new excuse this time. He approached towards Kaiba, who stiffened up, prepared to do whatever it took to keep any advances from Joey at bay. But Joey did not make contact, as he showed him his collar, saying, "You said this had emotional value to you. Was that supposedly a lie, too?"
Kaiba slowly looked over at it, seeming to fight with himself to do so, as if he didn't want to look at it. For a moment, Joey thought he could see the hint of emotion in his eyes, which again was quickly hidden. His jaw clenched, as he answered stiffly, "No. But the sentiment wasn't from me....it belonged to someone that machine created. It was not mine...."
"Liar!" Joey said, and lunged at Kaiba, kissing him deeply.
If Kaiba was caught off-guard, if Gozaburo did not teach him so well....he would not have not been able to resist, and would have gladly given himself to Joey. But Kaiba was indeed determined to break Joey of this and beat him in his own game.
He knew that Joey would advance on him, since he'd done it before, and had been waiting for it. Kaiba did not kiss back, and turned away. As it was, he wanted to really burn it into Joey's mind by pushing him away, and laughing in his face, but just fighting Joey off as he did took too much out of him, and he didn't have the strength to do anything more.
....but still it was enough. Seeing Kaiba turning from him like that, so coldly, it was too much for Joey to take, and it broke his heart. Joey looked at the man, seeming to be chiseled out of stone, and gave up.
Shaking his head, he said, "Fine....have it your way! Who needs you anyway, you lousy creep!"
He then grabbed his left-over coke, splashing that at his suit, saying, "And keep your lousy drink, too....I don't need it!" He then tossed the empty container on the floor, as he stormed out of the door.
Now that Joey was gone, Kaiba could finally let down the wall he had mentally built around his heart to protect him.
He was left trembling, as he dropped his water bottle, finally crumpling down to the floor, still partially damp from the coke thrown at his clothes. Kaiba's fists were clenched, fighting the waves of pain and despair. He felt a few drops in his eyes, threatening to come out, but fought it frantically, refusing to give in to this weakness.
He rubbed the drops from one of his eyes, and looked at it, whispering, "I won...." And for the moment, he wondered if it was all worth it.
Kaiba was so tied up in his own grief, he didn't see the shadow quickly pass the doorway.