Tornado: Hi people!  I got three more reviews on this story!!!

DT: She's hyper.

Tornado: I don't own Yugioh so on with the fic!!!!

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Sclera's POV

The car ride was silent.  I didn't want to speak, and I suspect that he didn't either.  I stared listlessly out the window, watching the world fly by before my eyes.  He did the same.  Occasionally, I would sneak a glance at him.  He was so handsome as he sat there with his head resting on his hand. I caught myself wondering where all of this attraction had come from.  I had always had a crush on him, but it was just my child naivety.  Now, it seems that I'm drawn to him more than ever before.  My world confuses me. 

It took us about ten minutes to reach the mansion.  It was as beautiful as it had ever been.  The grass was neatly manicured with a long, grey driveway leading up to the white house.  The marble stairs gleamed in the sunlight.  I remembered frolicking across the yard with Mokuba on cool fall days, playing in the leaves.  With that memory, came the one where I was running from my life.  I clearly recalled running down the steps with my backpack full of my belongings, never looking back no matter how much Seto called for me.  That was the only time that I had ever remembered the night that I ran away.  My only recollections were of reasons that I ran and reasons I should have stayed.  I wished that I could go back in time and redo it all.  My life would have been so different.

The limo came to a stop, and Seto helped me out.  He paid no attention to the driver as he escorted me into the main house.  I stood in the foyer, staring around at the navy walls, the marble floors, and the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.  Seto had redecorated since I had gone, but it still captured your imagination.

"Smallest room in the house," he stated from behind me.

"It's enormous."

"You should have seen it when it was painted white.  It looked endless."

I smiled warmly.  The air in the house had changed so much.  Before it had been harsh and forbidding, but now it radiated with taste and hominess.  Mokuba had a good environment to grow up in. 

"Shall we go into the living room to work?" he asked.

"Certainly," I replied.

He led me through a set of arched doorways into the living room.  There was a mixture of blue and white contemporary furniture that was focused around a big screen TV.  The white carpet blended with the walls creating an abyssal look.  The coffee table was a translucent blue glass with silver framing.  The fireplace was also in a white marble, just as it had always been.  I studied it for a few moments before something caught my eye.  On top of the fireplace there was a lone picture frame.  Slowly I proceeded towards it with curiosity.  What I saw in that picture, I could never even believe.

Seto's POV

I watched as Sclera stepped towards the fireplace, staring at the only picture frame on the mantel.  My heart began to beat a bit faster as she approached it, but I couldn't muster the strength to tell her to come back.  Something was retaining me from doing so.  She picked up the frame, and ran her hand over it.

I walked to her side, and also stared down at the picture.  There were seven kids, all crowded together with smiles planted on their faces.  Two boys had neat black hair and brown eyes, another two had sandy hair and brown eyes, and the youngest had a wild, raven mane and stormy eyes.  The final two looked almost exactly alike.  One was a boy and the other was a girl.  Both had auburn brown hair and sapphire eyes.  Their hands were on the youngest child's shoulders, one on the left and one on the right.

"This is picture of my friends, my brother, and me when I was ten years old.  It was the last picture I ever got with all of them," I whispered.

"Who's the girl?  Your twin sister?" she asked.

"No.  We weren't even related.  She was my best friend.  But that's the past," I said heavily, replacing the picture on the mantel.  "She doesn't remember me anymore."

"How do you know?"

"It's been three years since I've seen her; I don't even know if she's alive."

Sclera didn't say anything.  She just stared at me with her beautiful sapphire orbs.  I felt that same lust that I had felt in my daydream well inside of me.  She was so damn beautiful.  She wasn't like the other girls; she wasn't preppy, she wasn't a slut, and she wasn't a Goth.  She fell into her own category.  I quickly turned away from her, and sat down on the sofa.  She soon joined me.

"Sensitive subject?" she asked.

"No.  More like a never healing wound."

"We should probably get working on our project," she whispered.

"Yes.  Let's."

We worked without talking to each other for the majority of the afternoon.  From the way she worked, I could tell that she preferred to be an independent worker.  She rarely spoke except for the rare remark to herself about her "stupid" computer.

"God dammit! That's the third fucking time!  Stupid ass computer!" she randomly screamed.

"Having problems?" I asked.

"Yeah, the damned thing won't let me get on the Internet."

"Let me see," I said, taking the computer from her.

My hand brushed hers as I did so.  It lingered there for a few moments before my mind geared up again, and I withdrew fast.

"Sorry," I whispered.

She laid her hand on mine causing me to stare at her face.  Her eyes were surveying me, scanning my mind for the complete truth of the gesture.  My heart was racing uncomfortably in my throat and my breath quickened.  My lips suddenly crashed into hers.

Sclera's POV

I was astonished when his lips connected with mine.  It all happened so suddenly that I had no chance to thoroughly think the action through.  As an automatic response, I allowed him the access to my mouth.  He deepened our kiss, causing me to lose my balance and lay on the sofa. 

My tongue asked for permission to enter his mouth; he granted it.  I explored his cavity, savoring the coffee taste that it held.  Suddenly the realization dawned on me.  I needed oxygen.  We abruptly broke apart gasping for air.  Seto was lying on top of me with rather wide eyes.  I too noticed that I was surprised by my actions.  It came to me that I was in deep shit.

"Well, this is an awkward situation," Seto gasped.

"Yeah," I replied breathlessly.

He took in our position and removed his weight from me.  I sat up still trying to regain my breath.  He shot a glance my way, allowing it to loiter for several minutes.  I gazed back at him not knowing how to respond.  Both of us attempted to speak numerous times, but came to no avail.  I focused my attention back on the computer, which had started this whole scenario.

"I think that your computer is temporarily out of function," he stated as he saw the heap on the floor.

"Damn!  I had some important files on that thing too.  Thank god for diskettes."

"You're one of the smarter ones."

"My memory was running out anyway.  No biggie; just won't be able to work for a few days.  Oh damn," I answered mono tonally

At first I thought he was going to question, but thought better of it.  For that, I was thankful.  I checked my watch quickly, noting the fact that it was already four thirty.  Something was bothering me though.  I wanted to press for more details.

"I hate to sound like I'm nagging, but I have a few questions," I stated.

"About what?"

"That photo."

"I'd rather not go into this."

"Please, I'll never ask these questions again, or mention anything to anyone," I pleaded.

He was reluctant.  I knew that Seto had always had trust issues.  He was quite the realist in the fact that he believed that anyone would do anything for enough money.  We were the exception to that rule.

"Fine, but if you mention this to anyone, I'll spread a little story about you coming on to me full force.  Deal?"

Typical Seto. "Deal.  First, when you said that the picture was the last that you'd ever gotten of all of them what did you mean?"

"I meant that I hadn't seen or heard from them since I was ten years old.  I'll eliminate a few more questions by explaining why.

"When I was five my mother had died giving birth to my brother, leaving my father and me to tend to a child.  That wasn't a big deal. For the limited time that she was alive, my best friend's mother helped us care for him, but she died in a car crash about two months later.  My friend was devastated by the loss, and all I could do was offer her a shoulder to cry on.  She began to withdraw herself from the world, leaving me to fear the worst.  Thankfully, her twin brother kept talking to her and it made her feel like she was still needed in the world.  The group that you saw in the picture was our "gang" that we used to run.  They played a key role in the reason that I am still in front of you today.

"Everything was going fine for about five years, but one day, our fathers- Lera's and mine- went to work.  It was her birthday, and we had both known that the pair had to work.  The problem was they never returned.  Instead, we got a visit from the local police saying that our fathers had been in a terrible accident, and were in critical condition at the hospital.  To make a long story short, we watched both of our fathers die and that left us with no other parents. 

"My family either refused or couldn't take Mokuba and me in.  Lera had a grandfather that could care for both her and her brother.  I wanted to assure her that I would one day see her once again, but there were no guarantees.  She would have gone too, but her brother was traumatized by the loss even more than she had been at the loss of their mother.  I was sitting in her room when he burst in and began to rant about how she was not part of his family.  The basis for this was the fact that she didn't even slightly resemble any member of either of her families and also the fact that she was retaining her tears.  Another long story short, she ran away, and Mokuba and I went to an orphanage.

"A year later, I was adopted, and Mokuba and I came here.  This is when I met up with Lera again.  She too had been adopted by the vice president of Kaiba Corps, who was also a very good friend of my stepfather, Gozaburo Kaiba, president of Kaiba Corps.

"I also met up with her brother again, and grew to hate him.  It was his fault that his sister was in the situation that she was! It was his fault that…" he stopped.

I didn't need to be told what he was going to say, and I wasn't going to fill it in either.  I lowered my head, remembering all of the horrible nights that I had lived in fear.  I was about to change the subject when he did it for me.

"Damn you, Yugi Moto."

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Tornado: OMG!!!! Can you believe it?!?!?!?!

DT: Will you shut the hell up?!  Damn woman!!!!

Tornado: Sorry.  So what did you think of the chapter?  Quite a twist, huh?  This isn't all there's still a whole lot more that you need to find out. R&R.