On a Tiny Street in the Tiny World of Domino

Kaiba went out after the sun had set. He wore a simple hooded sweatshirt, charcoal gray, with no words or pictures, nothing flashy. His blue jeans were loose around his calves. He looked like a normal teenager, gawky and hunched and in that stage when a boy's thin bones are turning to muscle.

He walked out of the back door of the mansion and out a side gate. The branches of the trees flexed and swayed in a cool, moist wind. Rain was coming.

Even though his sweatshirt and indigo jeans blended in with the bricks and the concrete and the sky, Kaiba felt as if he was wearing neon. He was self-conscious, yet thrilled. As people passed him on the sidewalk and cars drove by without giving him a second glance, the more he congratulated himself on his ability to become invisible. He was a spy on a clandestine mission. He was up to no good, and nobody could stop him. He had done many unethical things and had gotten away with it before, but that was business, and dueling. It had been inevitable, and his triumph had been cool and smug. This was making him feel hot, and giddy. He wasn't used to giddiness. It made him have a dizzy spell and he had to pause and put his hand on the stucco wall of a shop, but he quickly recovered and strode down the street.

To David Seamus, however, who was leaning against the dumpster outside of the Vista Bonita Mexican Restaurant, Kaiba was no spy, or even a millionaire C.E.O., just a long –boned, slouching boy swimming in an oversized sweatshirt and jeans, occasionally breaking a smooth fluid stride with a sudden stiffening of the knees and hips.

The boy approached Seamus, and he wondered if maybe the boy was a run-away, and was going to ask for some spare change or directions for a place to crash. He was expecting a scared young man with darting eyes and skin punctuated by pimples under that hood, and he was expecting a voice that cracked and broke just like the boy's walk. Instead, David Seamus found himself looking up into hard, cold blue eyes set in a marble face.

"Do you know who I am?" The boy asked Seamus. His voice was deep and arrogant, it's smoothness belied by a little grit around the edges. Seamus knew the type.

"No," said Seamus. He was telling the truth. He had no idea who this kid was, and was starting to get a little suspicious.

The boy reached into his pocket. "I need you to do something for me," he handed Seamus a twenty dollar bill. It was thin and the surface was in danger of pilling off into little bills. "If you do what I ask, and don't ask questions, I'll give you twenty more."

Seamus held the bill up to the dome light over the dumpster. He heard the youngster give a hoarse grunt of annoyance, and took his sweet time. When Seamus was satisfied, both with the bill and taking the kid down a peg, he turned and smiled.

"You have yourself a deal," he said. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to go to the store across the street and get me something."

"Alright. And what is that something?"

Kaiba shifted his weight and breathed through his nose. He moved his eyes left to right, then back to the homeless Leprechaun, who was gazing up at him with his eager, cloudy eyes. He had nothing to lose with this drunken bum.

"Condoms," Kaiba said. "I need you to buy me a package of condoms, and then meet me back here. You can also buy whatever you want for yourself with the change."

Seamus gazed at Kaiba for a moment, then burst out laughing, his breath coming in cackling bellows. He covered his hands in his mouth to stifle the laughter, but his shoulders continued to spasm.

"I'm sorry, my boy," he said between snorts, "I'm not laughing at you. This has never happened to me before, and I'm just tickled by the novelty of it." Seamus heard a horrible sound and realized that it was the boy grinding his teeth. "I'll go get it right now."

Kaiba waited. Rain tiptoed across the city. Every thirty seconds or so Kaiba would check his watch. When four minutes and six seconds passed, Seamus came back. He held a paper bag, and was munching a candy bar.

"Here you are, sir," Seamus said, holding out the paper bag. "I got you the extra large." He smiled at Kaiba, rolling chocolate and caramel on his tongue and sucking them down his throat behind his chapped lips.

Kaiba took the bag and tucked it into the pocket of his sweatshirt, then handed Seamus the other twenty dollars. Seamus tucked it into his coat. When he looked back up at Kaiba, his eyes glowed wetly in the dome light. His smile was open and genuine.

"I'm very grateful to you, sir," he said. "People always say that children are becoming more and more spoiled and selfish, but would you believe you're the second young one in a week to be so kind to me?"

"Good for you," Kaiba said. Nothing would nauseate him more, he decided, then hearing the Life and Times of Lucky the Lush Leprechaun. He turned to leave.

"The other one was a young girl," Seamus continued. "She had a very pretty name, rather unusual, like something out of a space movie. Tea, I think."

Kaiba stopped, his back toward Seamus. He knew Seamus was going to keep talking.

"She was as pretty as her name, too. She had shiny brown hair, and big blue eyes. Just a little living doll. Do you know her?"

Kaiba looked over his shoulder at Seamus. "No. I don't know any Teas."

" Oh, I wouldn't be surprised that to know her is to love her. Has a heart of warm toffee pudding. Her smile was absolute sunshine."

"Whatever, old man. I don't know her, and if I did I would find her annoying."

Kaiba stormed away from Seamus, who pensively chewed his candy bar, once, twice, three times.

"Well," he said to himself, "He bought me a week's worth of dinners, but what an asshole.