A/N: Within a week...kinda. Close. It would've been, if I was happier with the ending. Right now I'm still iffy on it, but I don't want to change anything, so I have to live with it. Now that it's getting to the end of the fic, I can write quicker. Maybe. Anyway...

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own.

Chapter Eight:

How did he get talked into this again?

Seto sat in the back seat of a large van, with his forehead pressed up against the window. He lazily looked outside as trees and highway rushed past them, and wondered again why he was in that car, surrounded by screaming imbeciles that deserve to be taken out to field and shot in the back of the head. Hm, he was getting violent, a clear sign of his patience being pushed to it's limits.

Ah, yes, he remembered how he got dragged into that car. Quite literally dragged.

It was this morning, the doorbell rang and Seto had gotten to it first. He pulled up a big blank on who it could be, never knowing anyone to come to his house in person. Though, now as he reflected on it, it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise.

Standing in his doorway, quite nonchalantly resting on the frame, was Yami and part of his little crew. Behind him, standing against a white van, was Bakura and Marik, and inside Yugi could be seen. Seto would have wondered what they were doing here, but, unfortunately, that would mean he cared. Instead, he did the next best thing to slamming the door shut in their faces, and that was to call Mokuba down.

He started to walk away, back down the hall, but didn't get very far without being interrupted.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Seto turned around to Yami, who was still standing in the doorway. "Mokuba?" He called up.

"What?" He heard from upstairs.

"How long are you going to take?"

"I'll be right there," Mokuba yelled.

"You'll only be out there for a little while, so no, I'm not going to invite you in," Seto said. After getting only two hours of sleep for the last month or so, he was feeling a bit raw.

Yami just rolled his eyes and walked in the door. "I was just trying to be polite, but if you're going to be an ass about it," Yami said.

Seto stood there, waiting for when Mokuba would come running down the stairs and take these people away, all the while, Yami was slowly walking closer.

"Wow, the suit's in jeans, and a t-shirt no less," Yami said.

Seto glanced down at his attire; indeed, he was wearing jeans, and a white t-shirt. He wasn't feeling particularly dressy today, and for once glad that Mokuba made him buy at least a couple of pairs of jeans.

"I don't wear suits on the weekends," Seto said. "Why would I?"

"You just seem like the type of person that would sleep in a three piece," Yami said, smiling.

Seto attempted no answer for this comment, why should he care if one of his "employees" thought of him only in the business sense? Instead, he wondered where Mokuba ran off to, leaving him alone with another person.

"So what are you going to do today, Kaiba?" Yami asked out of the blue.

"Nothing of importance," Seto said. "To..."

"Great," Yami cut in. "Then you're coming with us."

Seto looked at him in shock, but before he could protest, Mokuba came running down the stairs.

"Okay, I'm ready, let's go," Mokuba said, passing Yami and heading out the door.

"You're going to have to make room for your brother, though, he's coming too," Yami said, still looking at Seto smugly.

Mokuba turned around in the door, staring oddly at Seto. "Really?"

"No, I'm not going," Seto said quickly, before Yami could say anything. He started to turn around and head down the hallway, but felt a tug on the collar of his shirt.

Yami pulled him forward so they had switched positions and Yami was in between him and his escape. Yami looked very confident in his approach, and put his hands on his hips. "Don't think you can get out of this that easily," Yami said. "Now, are you going to cooperate, or am I going to have to shove you into the car?"

He readied his stance and put his hands up, as if he really meant to push Seto into the van. Cautiously, Seto took a few steps back, thinking.

Slowly, he exhaled forcibly, and raised his hands in defeat. "Fine, I'll go."

And that was the start to this hellacious afternoon. The entire way to the secluded beach they were apparently taking him to, Seto's hands clenched the arm rests with a force that turned his knuckles white. This was not due to the fact that he was practically being kidnapped, even if he wasn't a kid anymore, which definitely added on to the rage, but also because Bakura was an aggressive driver. Every moment in the car, Seto feared for his life, as Bakura cut off a semi or squeezed into a place Seto wouldn't have believed only seconds before was possible to squeeze into. No one else seemed fazed by this reckless driving though.

Needless to say, Seto was happy to be on firm ground when they arrived.

Or, rather, grainy ground, considering it was a beach. The waves were rather calm, a warm southern breeze rustled their clothes as the sun beat down upon them. It was the perfect day to go to a beach, and unlike Seto, everyone else was well equipped for the outing. Most of them wore shorts and tank tops, a few shirts like Seto's thrown in, flip-flops, general beach attire. Yami even pulled a surf board out of the back of the van.

Without a word to anyone, the group started moving. Seto held back and caught Mokuba away from the others.

"Where are we going?" He asked.

Mokuba looked back at the group and then up to Seto. "Yugi says they usually go to the cliff head, there's good surfing and no one really goes there."

Seeing that Mokuba wanted to head back over to socialize, Seto let him go. At least the beach was going to be empty up there; no whining kids, no rowdy teenagers, no excessive noise. Though, watching the kids in front of him, he had to doubt about all of those exceptions. He wished he had brought his laptop.

Indeed, the base of the cliffs were uninhabited. Seto spied a long tail of rocks going out into the ocean, but large enough to not be covered with water and waves. He decided right then and there that was going to be his place to go if things went out of control. Out into the middle of the ocean, feel the sea spray on his cheeks.

By the time Seto caught up to the others, they had already set up their towels and put the cooler down. Seto didn't have any qualms with sitting on one of their towels, seeing as how he was dragged from his house without being given enough time to pack anything up. He opened the cooler and took out a bottled water, settling on sitting there and staring out into the ocean.

After spacing out for some time, he noticed a bit of migrating. First it was just Marik and Otogi, then Jou, followed by Yugi and Mokuba, both dripping wet, Bakura, and not too long afterward, Yami, carrying his surf board.

Obviously parched, Yami stuck his board in the sand and sat down on the opposite side of the cooler from Seto. He reached into the cooler to get himself something to drink, and didn't try to make conversation to Seto's delight. No, he just opened whatever it was he had gotten out, took a large gulp, then settled down on the sand. That was when everything broke down.

"Holy shit, Kaiba," he heard Yami say. This caught his attention, and everyone else's, and when he turned around to see what the matter was, he found Yami staring intently at his back. He wondered for precisely a millisecond about what Yami had freaked out about, then he remembered. He was wearing a thin white shirt that, due to his position, was very taut against his back, and that didn't help matters much.

The others looked strangely at Yami, who had moved so he was leaning over Seto's back. "What?" Bakura finally broke the ice.

Yami slowly looked up at them and gaped. "Kaiba's got a tattoo," he said, his voice full of astonishment.

The moment it was vocalized, Kaiba changed his position so that he was crouching, facing all of them. "No, no I don't," Seto lied.

"Too late for that, I already saw it," Yami said, smirking. "What is it?" The rest of the crowd looked over at Seto for his answer.

"Nothing," Seto replied. The crowd looked dejected, but Yami continued.

"So you're admitting you have one?" Yami asked innocently.

"I'm not showing you," Seto said, adding on, "nor any of you."

What was meant as a deterrent only acted as a catalyst, because now Bakura wanted to know also, Seto could see it in his eyes.

All it took for the attack was a quick glance from Yami to Bakura, and they had Seto cornered. For being so small, they were very quick. Soon they had Seto pinned on the ground, attempting to take his shirt off. After the initial shock of being knocked on the ground, Seto regained control of the situation and managed to get out from underneath the both of them. Without taking his eyes off of Yami or Bakura, he slowly backed away from all of the activity. Oddly enough, he wasn't pursued.

Yami sat on the beach, wondering why Bakura had held him back. When Seto had walked away from them, and was in the process of climbing the rocks that led into the ocean, Yami whipped his head around to Bakura.

"What'd you do that for?" He asked.

"I think we pushed him a little too far," Bakura replied. Yami didn't believe it for one second, since when was Bakura considerate for other people's feelings?

Yami stood up and glanced out to where Seto had disappeared to. "Some people need to be pushed too far."

This time, Bakura couldn't reach Yami in time to hold him back, and Yami ran down the beach toward the rocks. Even with bare feet, Yami could easily traverse the sharp boulders. After a bit of walking, he came upon Seto, who was facing away from him, staring into the ocean. Yami went over to him and sat down.

There was a bit of a Mexican standoff, neither one wanting to talk first.

"Show me," Yami started very quickly to attempt catching Seto off guard.

"No." It didn't work.

"Show me, please," Yami tried again.

"No." Again, it didn't work.

"It's just a tattoo," Yami said. "Show me."

"No."

Put off, but not necessarily stopped, Yami frowned and looked out at the ocean.

Seto sighed. "Do you want to see my tattoo that bad?"

Yami looked up at him and was shocked at this unexpected remark. "I wonder what you mean by 'that bad,' but yes, I do want to see it," Yami replied.

Seto threw his hands behind his head and pulled his shirt up over his shoulders and head. Yami leaned back and somehow managed to crawl a bit behind Seto to get a better view.

"Wow," Yami said. He lifted his fingers up to run along the spine of the black and blue tinted oriental dragon that wound its way down Seto's spine, expecting to feel some different textures. Just a testament to the skill of the artist who created it, to make it look so real.

Unbeknownst to Yami, when Seto felt Yami's fingertips run down his spine, something unusual happened to his skin; light chicken bumps appeared on his forearms, and the places that had already been touched were burning. There was no explanation Seto could find for his body reacting this way, so he blamed it on having no shirt to protect him from the wind, and possibly getting sunburnt through his shirt before. They were good enough for Seto.

Yami moved again so he was sitting next to Seto. "I really didn't take you for the kind of guy that went out and got tattoos. I mean, jeans and a shirt was shocking enough."

"Shows how much you know about me."

"What's your problem?"

"It's not my problem, it's the rest of the world."

Yami rolled his eyes and stared out at the ocean. The sun was beginning to set on the western horizon, and a strong gust of cold wind off the ocean made Yami shiver.

"It's getting cold, let's go back," Yami said, wrapping his arms around his bare chest.

Seto nodded and stood up, waiting for Yami to do the same, before he walked back across the choppy path to the rest of them. All in all, it hadn't been as worthless a day as he had predicted it would be in the start.

A/N: Please review! And thank you to all of the reviewers, I just noticed I forgot to add that in the last couple of chapters, sorry.