Derek inhaled deeply, and turned to lie on his back, putting his hands behind his head. He stared up at his cream-coloured ceiling, listening to the light rain pitting against the window of his bedroom.
He glanced over his alarm clock; it read 5.30 in the morning.
Derek couldn't sleep; he hadn't really slept well in ages. But more particularly tonight.
He'd received a letter from his Uncle Mokuba earlier that night. Mokuba had to stay in Italy longer. The meeting (to confirm the business deal they needed) had being postponed to the weekend, as the CEO of Alfieri Industrial, had become a grandfather the day the meeting was scheduled.
"It's not fair." Derek screamed in thought, biting his lip. "Why can't something go right, for once?" an angry tear slipped down his cheek. "JUST ONCE!" he shot up out of his bed and threw his pillow across the room, with a lot of force. The pillow landed on the other side of the room, knocking over an old puzzle that hadn't been placed on the bookshelf properly, scattering the pieces all over the floor.
Derek stared at the pieces as they flew across the floor. Breathing heavily. He quietly got out of bed and went over to pick them up. He picked up about five pieces, before realising what puzzle it was.
It was the 500-piece puzzle was of a Blue Eyes White Dragon flying through a moonlight sky with a young boy riding on it's back. Derek remembered why this puzzle was so special to him. His father had given it to him for his fourth birthday, and Derek knew that he'd really put some effort into finding it, as Uncle Mokuba had told him of his dream as a little boy of him and Seto flying away from their stepfather on a Blue Eyes. That was really the only time that Derek had remembered Seto being genuinely caring towards him. He still smiled about it.
He wiped his cheeks of his tears with his pyjama sleeve, lied down on his stomach and began to do the puzzle.
By 6.00am he'd already gotten all the end pieces put together, and was starting to fill it all in. When 7.00am came he had already finished the entire puzzle, and was starting to put it all away before one of the servants came to "wake him up". Not that they needed bother, for Derek was nearly always up when they came.
By quarter to eight he was already down stairs, readily dressed and eating his breakfast, at the long oak table. His father usually wouldn't be there, for he was either at work or in his office working. But surprisedly he was sitting there this morning, in a terrible mood while reading the paper.
He'd snapped at least five different servants in the last three minutes, spat out his coffee all over the tablecloth and was now muttering dangerously to himself about the fall in the stock market, mainly around Kaiba Corp's shares.
Derek was well aware that when Seto was in this kind of mood you keep your head down, shut up and do as you're told. So he ate his breakfast quietly and then went to school in the second limo. He and his father never road in the same limo, Derek never understood why and Seto never bothered to explain. So the silence remained.
IN THE LIMO
"Driver stop!" Derek suddenly demanded, out of the blue.
The Driver complied, and glanced at the young boy in the review mirror, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Of course Sir, may I ask why?"
"I wish to walk the rest of the way to school." Derek said quickly, hoping his newfound confidence wouldn't leave him too soon.
"But S-sir…"
Derek was halfway out of the limo before he stopped and threw the driver a glare. "And I wouldn't tell my father about this, for I know people that can do much worse than to fire you!" And with that he left the car, slammed the door and strolled the rest of the block to school.
AT DOMINO PRIMARY
Derek walked into the classroom, well tiptoed was more like it. And quietly went to his seat. He could hear loud chattering going on all around the classroom, about various topics. Football, the new Barbie that was out, duel monsters, who got into a punch up, moaning about their crap lunches, etc. And basically ignoring him like they usually did. Though it wasn't really their fault, as Mokuba had told him before. Their parents had known Seto as teenagers and well, thought that Derek might be exactly like him.
Derek just sighed and put his head down on his desk, feeling it's cool surface against his forehead.
"Good morning class."
Derek glanced up. In strolled Chloe, her cheeks flushed from the cool morning air.
"Good morning Miss Saberhagan." Chimed the class scrambling for their seats. Ready for the day.
Chloe just chuckled at them, while shuffling some papers on her desk.
"Well, I've got a lot of preparation to do for tonight, so I'm going to make this a "bludge" day. An easy day full of hardly any work." She gave them her famous there's-more-going-on-than-I'm-telling-you smirk.
"What's the catch?" spoke up Daniel.
"If the class doesn't work with minimal level noise, everyone will have to get up and give a 3-minute speech about their drawing you are going to do. Which may count towards tonight's parent-teacher interview discussion." She grinned at them, knowing she'd scared them good. For what kid isn't scared of their parent's moods?
"I'll go get some paper, pencils and crayons." With that she waltzed out the room.
Everyone turned to look at the Bakura's and Malik.
"What?" said Malik, shrugging his shoulders. "We ain't going to do nothing."
"Sure and pigs'll grow wings and fly." Thought Derek quietly to himself.
After Chloe had returned and handed out the required tools, everyone set to work.
"What to draw?" Derek pondered. Miss Saberhagan just said to draw what ever came to mind or that holds some importance. He glanced around, watching everyone else scribbling away; even Malik was doing something, though it looked like doodling.
"Ermm…" Derek groaned, it frustrated him to no end, not being able to come up with any ideas. Suddenly one came to mind. He gave that famous Kaiba smirk, subcontusely and set to work with the pencils and crayons.
Chloe glanced up, her eyes scanning the classroom, before landing on Derek. Who'd finally set to work.
"I wonder what he's drawing." She thought quietly to herself, her eyes flickering from Derek to the interview times in front of her. She'd scanned the names for Derek's guardian/s. though she could find none. She would use her lunch hour to ring him up personally and make a time.
"Finally done." Derek smiled to himself, his drawing was finally done. And it worked to his desired effect and everything.
Then the bell rang, making him leave the picture on his desk. To which a few minutes later Chloe came around and picked up, placing it in her bag. A plan forming in her head.
"Kaiba, Kaiba, Kaiba…. Where are you?"
"Looking for something?" a low, masculine voice cut in.
Chloe's head shot straight up, causing her a hit her head pretty hard on the edge of the vertical file cabinet she was looking in.
"Kisama!"
The male gave a small chuckle, and patted the cabinet "affectionately" on its top.
"Yes old Bessie can be a son of a bitch sometimes, but hey everyone can, even the best of us, ey Chlo?"
"I resent that comment Tsunami…and hey were you just flirting with me?" she stuck out her tongue and then frown comically at him.
Mako Tsunami let out a loud laugh; putting an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her in a sort of embrace.
" You can't tell my wife, but" he made a "shh" gesture, and gave her a big wink.
She just rolled her eyes.
"So what were you looking for?" he sprang back and faced her.
"I was looking for the contact details of Seto Kaiba."
"And why, you of all people, would want to do that?" he gave her a genuine frown. "After what he did, to your family and…"
"I know, you were with me Mako, you were from the start." She gave an aspirated sigh. " But it's for his sons benefit, not anyone else's. You've taught Derek."
"Yer, did pretty good in the self defence course that we did, too."
"You know what he's like. A good boy. Too good for his father, actually."
Mako smirked at that.
"More to the point, I think that if I can make Seto Kaiba notice him, then Derek would have a hell of a lot more self confidence. To try new things, and do things that he already loves. Hell he'd probably be as cocky as you and Ash put together."
"Bite me."
"Where?"
Mako gave her the finger, and with a flick of her arm, reached into the cabinet and pulled out the Kaiba file.
"Here, and good luck." He handed her the file, and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Just don't piss him off, you won't get what you need…or want." He gave her a half smile and then exited the room.
"Hmmmm"
Chloe walked over to the nearest desk with a phone on it and sat down, opening up the file and locating the phone number of the CEO. She picked up the receiver and quickly punched in the number, hoping that Mako had given her the right file.
"What is it?" snapped the voice on the other end.
"Hello, Mr Kaiba? I am your son, Derek's, teacher…"
"I have not the time nor patience for this, so state your business and hang up."
Chloe pursed her lips, wanting to sass him so bad, yet held her temper. "You haven't made a time for the parent-teacher interviews that are tonight."
"That is correct."
"Don't you wish to make a time and hear about your son's progress?" a frown crossed her features, and reflected into her voice.
"No. I have a company to run, and not the time for juvenile things, such as that." His voice was icier than ever.
"Well, gee, aren't you a dotting father then?" sarcasm took over Chloe's voice and made itself known.
"Excuse me?" Seto's voice rose a few notches.
"You heard me." She retorted childishly.
"I don't think you realise what I can do…"
"Oh I think that I have a pretty good idea…" she muttered.
"What?" his voice was icy, and obversely pissed.
"Whom do you think…" a background voice cut through his sentence on his line.
"Look, what ever your name is, I don't care. I'm not coming tonight, and that's final. I have more important things to attend to."
And with that he hung up, abruptly. Chloe listened to the low hum of the beeping, before slamming down the receiver in frustration.
"Baka yaroo." (Stupid bastard))
Alright lets recap on that chapter. Yes a lot of different things happened. Different inspiration times and things. And on that note SORRY THAT I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN FOREVER! But inspiration hadn't stuck, and I had a huge writers block, which I'm just getting over, so sorry.
Couple of notes; Mako's the P.E teacher. Mako and Chloe aren't together, and never were. They are just lifelong friends that have known each other since in nappies and have witnessed each other's life changing moments, blah blah blah. Mako just was spot filler though, so I don't think that I'll put him in again, I don't know.
