Summer Hearts Chapter 1: Away wthe Summer Days, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Anaya's Creator: This is probably going to be a 2 chapter story. Featuring Kaiba and another OC!

Kaiba: What is it with you and OCs?

Anaya's-Creator: Dunno, I guess the stories are just easier to write. On with the fic! Beware of oocness inKaiba's part.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Melinda.

That was the thought that ran through Seto Kaiba's head as he sat back in his leather chair. Around him, three other males sat, one on the floor and two on the couch all with cans of beer in their hands. He lifted his own can and took a swig of the fizzy honeyed beverage, trying to pay attention to what one of the other guys was saying.

"Okay, Kaiba, your turn," said the blonde with coffee colored eyes as he lay on the couch. "How was your first kiss and was she anyone we know? If not, you have to tell us about her and how you got together."

"Like you need to know, mutt," Seto growled.

"Hey! I have a name, Moneybags!" the blonde retorted. "It's Joey Wheeler and it's about time you started calling me that!"

"Whatever. Last I checked it was none of your business whom I've locked lips with."

"Or maybe the Kaiba Corp. C.E.O. doesn't want to tell us because he's never had that pleasure," taunted Duke, a dark haired, emerald-eyed, ear pierced entrepreneur who ran a game shop downtown.

An empty can suddenly went soaring through the air and hit Duke in the side. "You dice-obsessed idiot, of course I've been kissed." Kaiba snarled, his cobalt irises flashing irritably.

"Who was it, some local skank whose drink you spiked?" Joey asked. Clearly, this man had had too much to drink, for no one under any other circumstances would have insulted the Seto Kaiba so lightly.

In that exact instant, the blue-eyed dragon leapt up from his seat and grabbed the amber-eyed male by his collar. "She's worth more than your commanding blonde Amazon that's for sure."

"Okay, okay, cool down, Kaiba; he didn't mean it. Joey's just had a little too much to drink, that's all," interrupted Yugi, a midget with tri-colored hair, as he got up from his seat on the floor to pry Joey from the infuriated C.E.O.'s grasp. He had sun-gold bangs and black hair that defied gravity by standing up from his head in triangles fringed with deep plum. "What was her name?"

Why do I even hang out with these losers? Seto silently asked himself as he sat back down. "Melinda; I don't think any of you would know her."

"That name doesn't recall any memories with me. What did she look like?"

"She's far more stunning thanall the girls you flirt with put together, dice-boy. She's beautiful, shoulder length vivid red hair and intense green eyes. There were a few freckles on her face too."

The three other men gapped. Seto Kaiba, had actually been attracted to a girl with freckles? Wow, what did this guy look for in women?

"How did you meet?" Yugi asked.

"It was last summer in mid-June..."

-0-0-0-0-

The crisp sea air felt good on the C.E.O.'s skin as he sat in the park on a bench near the ocean, typing away at his laptop. It was very refreshing compared to the stifling atmosphere of his office. He was actually kind of glad Mokuba, his teen brother, had convinced him to take the weekend off. He normally worked every day of the week, even on Sundays which happened to be what day it was. A few paces awayMokubastood with one of his hands on his hips and a Frisbee clenched in the other.

"Come on, Seto," the black-haired thirteen year old implored. "You said you'd come to the park and play with me, not sit on a bench doing work the whole time."

"Just give me a few minutes, Mokuba, I'll be done with this in no time and then we'll play Frisbee."

"You always say that, and then next thing I know we've been here for an hour and you're still typing." The teen's indigo eyes glowered at his older sibling.

"Is there a problem here?" asked a new voice.

Seto Kaiba looked up from his laptop and saw a young woman about his age with shoulder length red hair and bright green eyes now standing next to Mokuba, a smile warmer than that very day across her rosy lips as she clutched a sketchbook. She was dressed in a simple loose blue t-shirt and jeans that hid her figure and clashed horribly with her red hair. There was a collection of honey-colored freckles dotted across her cheeks and nose, and he wondered what pictured he would make if he played connect-the-dots with that pencil tucked behind her ear. "It's none of your business, miss," he told her shortly.

"I want to play Frisbee, but my brother won't play with me," Mokuba gushed.

"Well, I could take a break from my sketching and play with you for a bit if you want," she offered.

Mokuba nodded.

She smiled again then placed her notebook on the seat beside Seto and put her pencil and an inch long artist's eraser upon it. "Could you make sure no one takes these while I play with your brother?" she asked.

"Why would..." but Seto was cut of by an abrupt "Thanks," from the woman as she went to go play with Mokuba.

The afternoon passed quickly and soon the sun was setting behind the shimmering sea. "Oh goodness, look how late it's gotten. I should go." The young woman gathered up her things and turned to go.

"Wait!" Mokuba called. "We didn't get your name."

"It's Melinda. What are yours?"

"I'm Mokuba and the workaholic is my brother, Seto."

Melinda smiled again. That friendly smile that for some reason made something stir deep inside his long sheltered heart. "Well, will I see you both here again tomorrow?"

"I don't…" Seto began.

"Sure," Mokuba answered, cutting off his brother.

"All right then, right here, around four o'clock?"

"It's a date!" Mokuba told her.

"It's a date then," And with another bright smile, Melinda left.

I met her on a sunny Sunday afternoon
She hit me with a smile warmer than the days of June
By then I knew she had to be in some way a part of me
She was as beautiful as a flower in bloom, flower in bloom

"Aww, how cute. You met while having a spat with your little brother," Joey said, taking a swig of his beer and then letting out a loud belch.

Yugi got up from his seat again and walked over to his bud and gently pried the can from his fingers. "Okay Joey, I think you've had enough." He turned back to Kaiba. "Did you ever see her again?"

"Of course I did, Yugi—she was my first kiss remember. But it wasn't for a while, the second week in July I think, before we met again and actually hooked up. Mokuba saw her more than I did at first and I have reason to believe he made it his mission to get us together because after he'd come back from the park everyday he'd always talk about her, the things she liked, and her views on public issues and such. Then one day…"

The heat of the sunshine could not compare
To the heat of the passion in times we shared
And then out of the blue the cold winds came
She went away and I'll never be the same
She went away with the summer days
She went away with the summer days

Seto and Mokuba were sitting at a three person table at a local Japanese restaurant. "Mokuba, why did you ask me to look nice if it's just the two of us dining?" the elder sibling asked grumpily.

"You'll see, Seto; have some patience for once in your life," the younger retorted. "Where is she?" he muttered under his breath. Unfortunately, Seto heard.

"Mokuba, did you set me up again?" he demanded. His brother had done things like this before. Just the memories still made him wince. Many women may have had their eyes on him because they envisioned him as a modern-day James Bondwith good looks, money, tons of gadgets, and suave, butSeto Kaibahad all but the latter.

Just in the nick of time, Melinda entered, for some reason looking extremely radiant in the modest long sleeved peach top and brown skirt she was wearing and the front part of her hair drawn back in a French braid. She caught sight of the black haired teen and walked over. "Hello Mokuba, how are you? Sorry I'm late…" She saw the elder Kaiba and raised her eyebrows. "I thought that it would just be the two of us tonight. Had I known, I would have dressed a bit nicer."

"You look lovely as you always do," Mokuba assured her, getting up from his chair so she could sit down.

"Well, aren't you a charmer. But why are there only two chairs though?" she asked.

"Actually, I won't be joining you and my brother tonight. I'm going to the arcade with my friends. See ya!" With a mischievous grin, he dashed out of the restaurant.

"Make sure you're back by your curfew," Seto yelled after him.

"That little devil," Melinda said, giggling softly. "He set us up,"

"No, you think?" he told her rather rudely.

The female rolled her eyes. "So have you ordered dinner yet?"

"No,"

"Then let's do so."

A few minutes after they told the waiter what they wanted, Melinda tried to break the silence that had settled over the table. "Mokuba tells me that you've run Kaiba Corporation since you were sixteen. It must have been stressful, having all that responsibility on your shoulders while you were still in high school."

"You get used to it," he answered shortly.

"I kind of know what that's like. I've been in many plays since high school. It's not as big as running your own company I know, but it's still a huge commitment and can be very over whelming at times."

Seto was silent, feigning apathy.

"I'm with my collage acting troupe now. We're performing Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat all summer. Opening night is in two weeks."

Unable to stop himself, Seto asked "What part are you?"

This sudden response from the male took Melinda by surprise so much she immediately forgot what he had asked. "Excuse me?"

"Are you deaf? I asked you what part you have."

"Oh, I'm the narrator."

Curious, Seto continued the subject. "You must really like acting to have been doing it since high school," he said as their food arrived.

"Of course I do. I hope to make it a career if I can."

Once their meal had been set down, silence settled over their table once more and Seto began to feel a strange and almost blissful calm in Melinda's presence. She was always smiling with that funny and kind of cute expression of hers, he wondered if there was ever a time he wouldn't see it on her face. Unlike many of his other blind dates his brother had set him up with, no flirtatious expressions came out of her mouth nor did she do anything to try and make her the center of his attention. She just sat there completely focused on her food, sometimes twirling her spaghetti around her fork a few extra times as if she was mulling over something.

"Where are you going?" he asked as he paid for their dinner when they had finished. Melinda had started to walk away without him.

"I was going to head home. We're done here, aren't we?"

"Yes, but there's still time before Mokuba's curfew and I wouldn't mind spending some it with you."

Her eyebrows rose, "Really?"

He nodded.

"Well, what would you like to do?"

"Come with me," he took her hand and they began walking. And for the first time, he noticed she was a lot shorter than him, as in at least ten inches shorter—possibly a foot. Wow, this was awkward.

After about fifteen minutes, they came to the docks as the sun had almost finished setting over the horizon. "Beautiful, just as it always is," Melinda whispered, leaning against the fence that ran along the boardwalk as she looked at the setting sun.

"Especially when it gets dark like this so that you can see the stars begin to come out." Seto said as he copied her.

"This was a very enjoyable night, Seto. I'd like to do this again sometime." Melinda said, squeezing his forearm gently.

Darkness unfolded around Seto as the sun descended behind the ocean, but when he turned around to ask Melinda when she was free, she was no where to be seen. Oh crap,he thought. I didn't even get her phone number.

We were inseparable we would spend
Everyday together night after the day would then
The time would come for the sun to leave (sun to leave)
That's the way things had to be (had to be)
And when the sun was gone I looked around and so was she

"So when did you kiss her?" Duke asked. "Doesn't seem like you did that time."

"I'm getting to it," Seto told him then continued on with his story. "It was a few dates later after her first performance. Mokuba had gotten her digits for me; and she and I started spending more evenings together…"

People bustled and jostled impatiently trying to get out of the theatre. For a moment he didn't think she was coming out, but then he saw a flash of scarlet hair and moved towards it, it was her. She had changed since she had been on stage, from a brown skirt and a simple white shirt with peasant sleeves to aged black jeans and a baggy blue t-shirt. That girl had absolutely no fashion sense sometimes.

"Melinda," he shouted, pushing his way through the crowd to her using his free hand.

"Seto Kaiba, to what do I owe this pleasure?" she asked.

"Your wonderful acting tonight," He brought the bouquet of flowers out from behind his back and handed it to her. In it were orange and red tiger lilies and some red roses.

"They're beautiful," she threw her free arm around him and getting up on her tiptoes, kissed his cheek. "I glimpsed you and Mokuba while I was on stage. You looked like you were having fun."

"Trust me, we were," Seto said, hooking his arm around her. "How about we go get some ice cream to celebrate an extraordinary opening night?"

"That's a great idea!" Melinda exclaimed with childish giddiness. "Will your brother be joining us?"

"No, actually, he left already."

"Oh."

Much later, the two of them were walking along a suburban street until they stopped at a small brick townhouse with white trimming and a black iron gate, the house she shared with her sister. "This is where we say goodnight, I guess," Seto told her.

"Yeah, I suppose so,"

Seto reached to her and placed his hand against her cheek, her eyes closing as he wrapped his other arm around her mid back. Slowly and being careful not to crush the flowers in her arms, he stooped down and lightly kissed her, nuzzling her face as he broke away.

"I liked that," she murmured bluntly.

He smirked, "I did too."

"Well, um, good night then,"

"Goodnight." Seto opened the gate for her and Melinda walked up to her front door. She opened it and with one final wave stepped inside.

"And that's pretty much how it happened," Seto concluded. "There, my first kiss and how we got together."

"Are the two of you still together?" Yugi asked.

"She went back to collage at the end of summer with her collage troupe, but she promised to come back; so I guess you could say that we are." Seto glanced at his watch. 12:30. This would be a good time to go, he thought. "Later losers, I should get home." He put his can in the trash bin and pulled on his blue trench coat.

As his limo drove him home, Melinda was the only thing on his mind. This next summertime better come soon, he thought. I don't think I can stand the wait. Before he had met her he was a full time workaholic who spent little time with his brother or any other human; she had changed that. In the time they were together, he not only was with her, but they had gone on several dates when Mokuba had gone with them so he wouldn't feel left out.

Though the summertime is through (the summertime is through)
I can't stop thinking of you (thinking of you)
I can't seem to get you off my mind
All I know is I can't wait until next summertime

When he got home, Seto could see a light on in the window. Great, Mokuba had probably stayed up waiting for him. That kid was supposed to be in bed by now, he had school tomorrow. After hanging up his coat in the front closet, Seto walked into the kitchen and saw not his brother, but someone with flaming red hair and brilliant green eyes. "Melinda," he whispered loud enough that she could hear.

Nodding, she got up from the chair and ran into his outstretched arms.

His mind began buzzing with millions of questions to ask her. How had her year been? Had she met someone else? Was she still loyal to him? But finally he asked, "Why are you here?"

"I had something very important to tell you, Seto."

"Ever heard of something called a telephone? Or perhaps e-mail?"

"I actually have those two things, but this had to be said in person. Seto, I had a heart transplant when I was in high school and my body is now rejecting the transplant. If I don't get a new heart, I won't see next summer."

--Youngstown, "Away with the Summer Days"

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Anaya's Creator: Review people! Reviews would be very nice. I'll update Demon Witch and Code Red sometime soon.