Chapter 17

It had taken a week or so for all the test results to come back. And then another day or so for every living soul in the world to find out.

Joey got knocked up by Ishtar Isis.

"I'm so jealous!" Yugi moaned over lunch. "I want to have a baby."

"They need to re-test your genome," Ryou teased. "How are you not a girl?"

"Maybe he's really Female Andromorph," Kura teased.

"Yeah," Yugi sighed with a snicker. "I really should have been born DoubleFemale."

"Do you know the genome yet?" Miho, Anzu's girlfriend, squeezed in beside Joey. She'd started sitting with the group. "I hope it's a girl. Baby girls are so cute!"

"It's male." Ishtar and Malik arrived, making space for themselves. "We don't know the sub yet, but you can see the little wee-wee on the sonogram."

"Aw! So why do you get to see the sonogram?" Yugi whined.

"I'm the next Supreme Father." Malik grinned. "So all of Isis' seedlings are my responsibility. Well, when Dad retires, at least." He fished a book of pictures out of his bag and handed it to Yugi. "Joey-niisan is our family now."

"I didn't know you were Hedonist, Joey," Otogi commented.

"Joey?" Honda sounded worried. "You don't look so good, dude."

"I don't want it," Joey said.

The words had been in his head ever since the results came back that Isis was the mother, getting louder and louder. He'd been fucked by a girl and was having her baby.

Maybe if it was really his - if somehow he did turn out to have eggs or his sperm was like an egg or something else weird. Maybe that would be ok. Maybe if he gotten prego with Kaiba. That idea was kinda nice. But this - this - this was just totally fucked up.

And as jacked up as it all was, he might have been able to deal if Kaiba would at least talk to him. But he hadn't come back to school. After the whatever he went to in Spain, the executive had simply vanished.

"I don't want it," Joey repeated.

His friends were acting like boys get pregnant every day. Yugi and Anzu were practically planning play dates. The Ishtars were acting like it was the damn second coming!

Kaiba was acting like Joey never existed.

"I don't want it." This time Joey could feel the tears the rest of the table could already see.

xXxXxXx

"Regarding Kawaii-san, sir?" Finance repeated.

Seto stared at the test results that HR had obtained. Officially, the information was confidential, but one of the perks of being Kaiba was that no information was completely beyond his reach. Not even information he would rather not know.

Kaiba excluded as a biological parent.

A bastard in high school would have been a catastrophe. It would have stained his reputation for life. If it had his eyes and Katsuya's hair, it would spend its life being called German, not Japanese. A negative test result was the best possible outcome.

None of which explained why Seto felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart.

"Sir?"

He closed his eyes and put the test in his desk drawer. Battlefield of Love. HR may be a wiser man than Seto had previously given him credit.

"How is Kawaii's work performance?" he asked.

"She's very skilled. An excellent employee," Finance replied.

"Although, recently, she has begun taking a great deal of vacation," HR pointed out. "She has nearly exhausted her annual leave already. Quite inappropriate for a new employee."

"Americans do not view time off as a crime against humanity," Seto sighed. "And her son is making her life more difficult."

"Still, abuse of leave does qualify as grounds for termination."

Seto shook his head. "I am not responsible for Gozaburo's sins. I will not punish Kawaii for Jounouchi's. Let her know that we understand her situation, but our leave policy stands. And see that no one in the department retaliates against her for trying to be a good mother to a deceitful son."