Listening to:

Death and All His Friends, Coldplay

Cold, Aqualung and Lucy Schwartz

Time Flies, Lykke Li

Tonight you're Perfect, New Politics

*6* Seto *6*

I sat across the table from the Americans known as James and Marcus. James's hair was cut military style and his green eyes held the cold glint that could only come from conquering the corporate world. I could tell he had to do some nasty things the climb up to the position he was in presently. Marcus, on the other hand had long hair that swept past his ears. He sat quietly and waited for James to start speaking. Standard lackey.

My eyes then focused on the one thing that could ruin things for me. Jounouchi the "ghost" sat in a chair in the corner of the room. I could see the mischief in his eyes. Nothing was going to ruin this for me, not even my crazy mind.

I thought of rescheduling until I could figure out why my brain was projecting Jounouchi all over the place but that wasn't my style. If anyone thought something was wrong with me then the vultures would attack. No. it was now or never.

Jounouchi smiled, "Those guys don't look like they want to play with you. Nah, they look like they would kill you if they could get away with it." I glared at him. Fuck. How was it that Jounouchi could get these reactions out of me? I quickly relaxed my face before James or his lackey could see.

"Mr. Kaiba, I am sure you know that there are multiple bids for the plot of land you want to use to build Kaiba Land USA. We have looked over the plans and the layout is perfect."

"Naturally." I thought but kept a straight face while the man spoke.

"There's only one problem." James continued.

"Oh snap." Jounouchi said. "I thought you never made mistakes."

"Shut up!" I blurted out and James stood up.

"Excuse me?"

"Not you…" shit. Who else was in the room other than Marcus and that wouldn't look good either, number one reason being that he hadn't said a word save for "hello" when he walked into the meeting room. "Forgive me. I don't know where that came from. I didn't mean you. Please continue."

"Asking for forgiveness? Whoa, this must be important. Then again I've never been in here watching you business it up before. Maybe this is what you did to get to be CEO; A lot of begging and apologizing."

"The problem is with the fact that your company is based out of Japan. With all that's been happening in America most people are all about American made and American run businesses."

"I don't see the problem. People come from America to spend the day at Kaiba Land. Duel Monsters has never been bigger." I said. This was a bad excuse; he was trying to discourage me. "Nice try James." I thought, "But this is Seto Kaiba you are dealing with."

"While that is true, I just don't think that the amount of money you put down on this place is enough to cover what we will lose if we go with you instead of a local company."

"You want more money?" I asked. Bastards. I was currently the highest bidder.

"This guy is an asshole." Jounouchi said and I had to agree with him. "Build it somewhere else, here. I'll get rid of them for you." He stood and placed his hands on a pitcher of water and began to push it towards the edge of the table. I nearly panicked until I noticed that as he pushed he began to fade and pant. "Damn… why is this so hard?"

I remembered watching something over Mokuba's shoulder one night. Ghosts only had a limited amount of energy and it took a lot to speak and way more to push things. I was glad for it because if Jounouchi was able to push the pitcher over I would have had to kill him again. Suddenly Jounouchi vanished. I took a breath. Finally.

"I won't be bullied gentlemen." I said. "You have my offer and if you decline I will find someone else." I was bluffing but they didn't know that and sure enough they pulled out a contract. "I'll look over this and get back to you. Now if you'll excuse me I have other things to do. Please enjoy your stay in Japan." I said and walked out the door and to the end of the hall with them, where we went our separate ways.

I headed toward my office and I couldn't help but smile. Jounouchi was finally gone and I wasn't crazy.

"Uh, big brother? Why are you making that face, it's creepy." Mokuba said and I turned to him.

"What face? I'm smiling." I said.

"Is that what you want to call it?" he teased.

"Shut up, Mokuba. You aren't happy when I'm feeling bad and you aren't happy when I'm happy. What do you want?"

"Normal you." He said.

"What does that mean?"

"Well I've noticed that you've been really weird since Jonouchi died and I know you didn't get along and I know that it's not just because he's just someone you knew who's gone now, it's deeper than that. Do you miss him?" he asked.

"Hell no." I said but the moment the words left my mouth I felt my heart twitch.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Mokuba said then he walked over and hugged me. His body melted into mine and a let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

It had been so long since anyone had hugged me and we were alone so I basked in it for a moment before taking him by the shoulders and pushing him back. That was when I noticed my shirt was cold and wet from where his face had been. "Mokuba?" he was crying.

"I miss him so much… that day he was supposed to hang out with me at the arcade after school." He said as best he could through his blubbering.

"I'm sorry, Mokuba." Why didn't he tell me he felt this way? I knew they spent time together but I had no idea that they were that close.

"You never liked him so I thought it would be best to keep our friendship a secret."

"You didn't have to do that. Just because I didn't care for him… well that doesn't mean that you had to hide anything from me, you are your own person."

"I see that now, I mean you miss him too." He said and before I could tell him I didn't he reached over and wiped a tear from my cheek.

"This is ridiculous, I don't miss him, one tear doesn't mean anything." I said and turned away. "Like you said when you get used to a person being around and then they are just gone it doesn't matter that you didn't get along its still…its surreal."

"Keep telling yourself that, that's the only reason. I know that you've been seeing him." I looked at him. "Roland told me. He was worried about you so don't get mad at him."

"Well I have an update on that; he disappeared during my meeting with James and Marcus. I haven't seen him since. I think I was just stressed about that meeting and I pictured him to push me into finishing what I started."

"Oh?" Mokuba gave me his trademark smirk. "You needed to picture him in order to do that?"

"Shut up. That's not what I meant."

"Uhuh." He smiled this time and I shook my head. At least he wasn't crying anymore.

"Anyway, I have a contract to read over." He said.

"We got it?"

"Yes." I said. "But I need to be careful with these two." James was up to something and I was glad that Jounouchi was gone because I needed all my brain power to read over the contract.

"Sweet! I know that Kaiba Land will be huge in America. And this means I can take trips there whenever I want."

"I'm glad you feel that way. When you turn eighteen I'm going to let you run that part of the corporation."

"Seriously?" he smiled even bigger this time.

"Yes." I said. "I think you can handle it and I will need some help." I admitted, I was grateful for my brother, the only one I could trust to help me. "I'll be looking over this contract for the rest of the day, why don't you go and see if Yugi and the others will go to the arcade with you. I know for a fact that Yugi needs to get out of the house."

"…are you sure?"

"I don't care." I said. He missed Jounouchi and I wasn't exactly the best person to help him get through that. The nerds were good at that cheering up crap. "Just be back by eight."

"Okay. Thanks!" he hugged me again and bounded down the hall and out of sight. I sighed and glanced down at the contract in my hands. It was going to be a long night but at least it was going to be quiet.