Tuesday – second day of work experience


Heva: here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favourited and alerted this story.

Coel: special thanks to melodyz07 for continuing to put up with heva and the person who Georgie is based on for being so understanding about everything and even prompting heva to update regularly.

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Tuesday – second day of work experience

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Joey woke up early after failing to sleep for very long. He'd got home yesterday and felt too unhappy to eat anything, not that he had anything in the house to eat. After managing to get into his pyjamas between sobs he collapsed on his bed and cried. His emotions had been close to the surface since he'd started feeling unwell and he was pretty confident they would be until he felt better so these emotional outbursts were going to stick around for a while yet.

Joey pulled another tissue out of the packet next to his bed and wiped his eyes free of tears. He didn't feel able to face Kaiba this morning, not after yesterday.

'I nearly kissed him,' Joey thought. 'I nearly felt those beautiful lips against my own. That warm breath was so close I could feel it on my lips. His skin would have been so soft to touch against mine as I explored his mouth with my tongue.' A new wave of tears made their way down his cheeks as he thought about what he nearly did yesterday. Seto hadn't pulled away; in fact he'd turned his head so that Joey could kiss him more easily.

"Why did I stop?" Joey asked the room. "Why couldn't I just close that gap another few centimetres? If I'd done that he might not have spent the night with Tsume!" Joey was yelling at the ceiling as more tears appeared in his eyes.

--

Seto awoke at his usual six o clock and pulled himself out of bed. He got ready slowly and began cooking breakfast for himself and Mokuba. As an apology for leaving him at Georgie's house last night until after nine thirty, not that Mokuba had complained that he'd been able to stay up until a bit after ten o clock, Seto was cooking Mokuba's favourite, unhealthy fried breakfast. Fried eggs, bacon, fried bread with fried mushrooms and a fried tomato to try and masquerade as a balanced meal. It wasn't long before Mokuba appeared in the doorway, the smell of frying food probably alerting him to Seto's cooking.

"You cooked it!" he yelled as he ran over to Seto and threw his arms around his brother's waist in a thank you. Seto was expecting it and managed to not drop the frying pan or spatula.

"Of course I did, what are big brother's for?" Seto asked teasingly. "Why don't you set the table?"

Mokuba rushed around the kitchen pulling plates and a glass out of the cupboards. He poured himself some orange juice before finding knives and forks as Seto began tipping the contents of his frying pan onto the plates. They ate happily and Mokuba had polished off his plate rather quickly, reminding Seto of how Joey finished his food as fast as possible. He was finding himself reminded of the blond more and more recently. Last night Tsume had noticed Seto's far away stare at one point and asked him about it.

'"I was thinking about someone," Seto had replied.

"Anyone I know?" Tsume questioned.

"I doubt it. His name's Joey Wheeler."

"I always suspected you'd turn out queer," Tsume muttered, before smiling. "What's he like? I expect he's a big, strong, well-muscled chap, or are you more into the pretty ones?"

"He's not really either. He's just Joey. Blond hair that's always a mess no matter what he does, but it looked slightly blue today, I'm not sure why; the most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen and he is well-muscled, yes." Seto took a sip of his drink and smiled at Tsume.

"He must have been the guy I walked past on the way into your office. That suit made him look very uncomfortable."

"I know, he's not used to looking smart."

"It showed, SKF, but he did look like a nice guy. I hope the two of you are very happy together."

"Thank you, that means a lot coming from you, Tsume."'

Mokuba put his plate in the sink and hurried over to Seto. He gave him a quick kiss on the cheek in thank you before hurrying away to get ready for school.

--

Joey walked into the lobby wishing he was anywhere but there. Being burnt alive probably would have been preferable to the horrible sense of betrayal Joey currently felt. He had leant towards him yesterday, and then gone with that older man. It wasn't really betrayal, Joey had no real claim on Seto, but that thought didn't stop it hurting.

The lift doors closed behind him and Joey looked at the corner Seto had been lent in yesterday.

On the second floor the lift stopped and a couple more people got in so Joey turned his attention to the floor instead.

"You're the work experience student, Joey Wheeler, aren't you?" one of the new occupants asked him.

"Yes."

"How have you found it so far?"

"Confusing, everywhere looks the same," Joey replied with a fake smile.

"It is a bit disorientating," the second person agreed. "I'm fairly new here as well, even after two weeks I'm still getting lost on the way to the coffee machine."

"I hope you find the experience useful."

"Thanks," Joey said as the two stepped out of the lift when it stopped again. It was barely anytime before the lift was opening again at his stop. He took a deep breath and walked the now familiar corridor to Seto's office.

--

The knock on the door was a welcome break for Seto, as he tried to understand the report he'd been given to read. It was meant to be an explanation of the results obtained about the new duel disk's circuits, but so far it had made no sense.

"Come in," Seto said without looking up from the papers.

"Hi," Joey said quietly as he stepped over the threshold. Seto looked up as he realised it was Joey.

"I can't have managed to irritate you too much then," Seto commented with a slight smile, not having realised Joey wasn't in a good mood yet.

"Well I'm with the CG team today, not you," Joey pointed out.

"I'll take you down to see Tau," Seto agreed, standing up from his desk. He didn't want to leave Joey with someone else when he was like this, but leaving him with Tau might help cheer him up a bit. Tau had always reminded Seto of Joey, with boundless energy and enthusiasm that seemed contagious. Hopefully Joey would cheer up if he spent the day with Tau.

The lift ride was in silence, Seto unwilling to say something for fear of making things worse and Joey wanting to get as far away from Seto as possible.

Seto knocked on Tau's office door and waited until he heard a "Come in." before turning to Joey.

"If you want to see me at any point for any reason just ask someone to ring me and I'll come and see you. I probably won't be in my office much as I've got to sort out a report with some people but if you get really bored you can go and watch some films in there if you want. Ok?" Seto hoped to get some kind of response other than the mumbled "ok" Joey gave him. It really wasn't like Joey to be like this and Seto was getting rather on edge with the strange behaviour. Joey was meant to be lively and bouncy, always complaining that Seto was the moody, loner who didn't know how to have fun.

--

Seto put his head in his hands as he sat at his desk. He'd decided to give this report one more read through before talking to the electrical team who wrote it. That had been the plan anyway. The problem with the plan was Joey.

Seto couldn't focus on the words on the paper in front of him, let alone read them, when the miserable face of the pup kept finding its way to the front of his mind. Every time he tried to force himself to dismiss Joey from his mind he came back, much like Joey did in real life. Seto put him down in duel after duel, but each time Joey reappeared and tried to beat him again. It seemed that even the Joey in his thoughts wanted to do the same thing, except this time without the duelling.

A sigh escaped his lips as he wondered if Kay was right about men being rubbish at relationships. He smiled slightly at the thought that women didn't seem much better, Georgie and Kay were a good example of that. Georgie wouldn't do anything about her own crush, but wouldn't think twice about meddling in Joey and Seto's relationship. Seto peered through his fingers at the screen of his laptop. He needed a distraction from the blond so he might as well. Seto clicked a few keys and brought up the intranet page that the video was on. Someone had thoughtfully added a comment option now and Seto couldn't help glancing through what his subordinates had put. The comments showed both the time when they were added and the name of the person who had added them. Seto glanced through the last few to have been left as the video was loading. One of the employees in the marketing department had asked if anyone knew who Kay was talking about and a couple of people had replied saying they had heard a few rumours that it was someone who went to school with Mr Kaiba. Seto was surprised when he read one comment saying that it was a guy in his physics class and they were both in denial, he then realised that Sara had left that comment and considered telling her that she shouldn't spread rumours about her boss, especially true rumours.

The video finished loading and Seto played it. He found the whole scene more entertaining when he wasn't actually faced with Kay leaning over his desk telling him why he was hopeless without her help. The first comments about the plants and the décor made him smile, they were so typically Kay that he felt happier that at least she was something he could always count on to not change. Maybe it was her unchanging personality that was what attracted Georgie? It would make sense in a way as Georgie was so used to everything changing for her all the time, being moved around with her dad's work, with less than a weeks notice in some cases; constantly having to make new friends, and adjust to new schools, with different languages and customs.

The video ended and Seto stood up from his desk, picking up the poor excuse for a report and left the office.

--

Sara replaced the phone on the desk after finishing talking with one of Pegasus's employees. The man had been a complete waste of her time as far as Sara was concerned, but in jobs like hers you had to deal with that kind of person sometimes. She clicked a few keys on her computer to bring up the email. Out of personal interest she decided to see what rumours were circulating on the intranet with what had become referred to as 'the Kay video'. Surprisingly Seto had added a comment about ten minutes ago.

'I never realised my love life was that interesting but I'm not going to confirm or deny any rumours, unless they get increasingly bizarre, so make of that what you want.'

Sara smiled to herself. Seto probably knew that if he began telling people that the rumours were false he would be called a liar, and if he confirmed them people would begin asking him more personal questions about Joey. She returned to the email and entered the relevant information for the meeting with Pegasus. She sent it to the necessary people and turned to begin her work on sorting through the paperwork to do with the new duel disks.

After a new prototype passed the first set of tests it seemed that suddenly, overnight in some cases it appeared, paperwork needing to be catalogued and filed correctly appeared in vast quantities. Fortunately there was a large group of people responsible for this task, but Sara had found herself in charge of a large section of it this time. It was the same in every office she worked in, the secretaries always ended up doing an unhealthy amount of filing. She needed to get as much of the filing finished by Friday as possible now that she knew she wouldn't be around.

'I wonder if Seto has asked Joey out, yet?' she thought as she began the monotonous task of listing the contents of each folder to be put into storage. 'I doubt he has. They looked happy together at lunch yesterday, and when they were walking around the offices both of them seemed to be so comfortable in each other's company. I hope Tsume didn't spoil it when he turned up. I've never seen Seto look as content as he did yesterday, and the way he reacted when Joey was yawning in the lobby yesterday morning was amusing.' Sara moved the folder she'd just finished detailing into the box by her desk.

'I wonder if Tanya phoned Tsume last night? He seemed a nice chap and it's time Tanya got over her last boyfriend. Maybe she can get Tsume to pick her up when Joey will be around to see him, that would put an end to any jealousy he has about Seto and Tsume.' Sara paused as she glanced over at her computer monitor when it beeped to say she had a new email. She lent over and clicked her mouse.

'Thanks for the message. Is it just us five going, or is Joey joining us? I thought he was around all week so I assume that he is. He seems a nice chap. I just wanted to ask, seeing as you seem to be the leading expert on all this at the moment, is he the one?

'Love and kisses.

'Tau.'

Sara grinned. 'Trust Tau to want to know about Seto's love life,' she thought.

'Yes to both questions about Joey,

'love you too,' she sent back before continuing with recording the folders.

--

Joey moved his hand through the hologram and felt a slight tingle of excitement. He'd never really thought much about how the holograms were produced before. They were just something that always came with duels. He'd always known that Seto had been the one to make the technology that produced the holograms, sound effects and more recently the online duelling systems that allowed people to either duel opponents across the world in their own home or a computer set at various levels of difficulty.

When you really thought about it, Seto had put a lot into the game he was so passionate about.

"Do you have a hologram for every single card?" he asked in amazement as Tabatha changed the hologram in front of him to the Dark Magician.

"Every card that was allowed into the duelling community," she said with a smile. "We never bothered including the illegal cards as there are enough cards to contend with anyway, without including those that will never be played."

"Can you adjust the holographic monsters to do anything you want?"

"You mean animate them? Of course, it would be a rather boring duel if they couldn't move," she said with a slight giggle. The Dark Magician stood next to Joey took a few steps away from him before spinning around with his staff raised to attack. "Do you want a go?" Tabatha asked as Joey watched the moving hologram.

"How do you do it?" he asked.

"Come over here and I'll show you."

--

The holographic dragons flew around the room once before landing back on the ground together. A cheer came from the crowd that had now assembled to watch Joey, with the help of Tabatha, create a holographic display. The dragons he'd decided to use were Red Eyes and Blue Eyes, half hoping that Seto would decide to pay them a visit and see what he was doing. Tabatha had shown him how to use the computer system to make the two pre-programmed creatures interact with each other; and Joey had used that knowledge to first make the dragons fight with each other, then act more friendly, eventually flying around the room together and landing at the end. Tau had turned up though, which was a good point, as Joey was sure Tau would tell Seto all about the holograms.

"Save it, Tabatha, I know someone who can get Seto to watch it later." Joey glanced over his shoulder to see Tau talking quietly to Tabatha, who was nodding in agreement. Tau then walked towards him and hugged him from behind.

"That was great, Joey, you'll make a good computer graphics technician one day. Ever thought of becoming an apprentice?"

"No, but I might consider it if I get to play around with holograms all day."

"Sorry, but there's a little more work to it than that."

"I thought there might be," Joey complained.

"Are you ready for lunch, or do you want to do some more work with Tabatha first?"

"What would I be doing with Tabatha?"

"I've got to upload the holographic information to the some of the new prototype duel disks. It won't be that interesting until I need to have someone help me test them this afternoon," Tabatha informed him.

"Food sounds good then."

"I thought it might," Tau said with a grin. "What time do you want him back?"

"About half one would be good, as it means they should have finished loading the information and be fully charged."

"Ok, we'll see you back then."

--

Lunch with Tau was good fun Joey found. He was introduced to a large number of other people which he'd never remember the names of, but everyone was more than happy to talk to him. They ended up sat at a table with a large group of male employees talking about sports. After Joey was introduced to them he immediately became the centre of attention.

"Tau hasn't been making you do all his dirty work has he?" one of the group asked, Joey had already forgotten his name.

"The very idea of me doing something like that," Tau replied, fake offence obvious in his voice.

"I haven't been with him most of this morning. I was working with Tabatha."

"Sounds the kind of job I want. What do I have to do to work with Tabby for a day, Tau?" another member of the group Joey didn't know the name of asked. Joey mentally numbered them all to try and keep track of who said what to him.

"No one would let you be in a room unattended with any female employees," number four said.

"What else have you done while you've been here?" number two asked, eager to move the conversation away from number three's loose morals.

"Yesterday I was just being shown around by Seto, and introduced to the people I'm going to be working with whilst I'm here."

"Sounds a bit boring," number six commented. "What are you interested in doing for a real job?"

"I really don't know at the moment."

"I want him as an apprentice," Tau said with a grin. "I think he's got real promise, unlike you lot."

"Stop showing off, Tau," number three complained.

"Tau likes reminding us all that he's been privately educated and was an apprentice for a couple of years before becoming a very successful employee here." Number one paused in devouring his lunch to explain.

"And we all know why he rose up the ranks in the company so quickly," number four hinted.

"That had nothing to do with it," Tau argued. "I had a relationship with Seto for a couple of months. It didn't go anywhere but we've been good friends all the time and that means these guys think I've got an unfair advantage over them."

"What subjects are you taking?" number two asked, again eager to keep the conversation moving.

Over the next quarter of an hour Joey became more and more relaxed with the group, joining in a discussion about some of the more recent films out in the cinema and what music was decent. Being the only teenager at the table he had a few jokes about how the youth of today don't respect their elders' wishes to turn their music down aimed at him, but even that was all in good fun.

By half an hour he had completely forgotten about his problems with Seto and Tsume. However when Tau and Joey left the canteen Sara walked past them and stopped Tau to talk to him.

"Mr Kaiba's in a bad mood so if you've got any sense you'll stay out of his way today."

"What's happened?" Tau asked her quickly.

"No one's entirely sure what put him in a bad mood this morning, but the electronics report made it worse. He yelled at the entire electronics team this morning after Stark decided to answer back."

"Doesn't sound good, have you left anything in Seto's office?" Tau asked.

"No."

"That's good, any reason you want to see him today?"

"I wasn't planning to."

"That's a wise decision at the moment," Sara advised.

"Thanks for the warning," Tau replied before leading Joey away to the lifts to return to Tabatha.

--

Seto rubbed the bridge of his nose to try and ease the headache that was forming. No one seemed able to get anything right today. He was worried about Joey so his mind wouldn't focus, making him snappy. To make matters worse the report from the electrical team didn't make a blind bit of sense to anyone. When he'd asked about it Stark had decided to try and get on his nerves making Seto loose his small amount of patience that was left. He'd ordered the team to redo the report and have it on his desk by Thursday morning.

Now he was sat on the roof of the building, trying to make himself calm down enough to return to work without snapping at anyone else today.

'Why does Joey affect me so much? Usually I can control my emotions easily, but seeing Joey unhappy this morning has affected me so much today. I can't even think straight.'

Seto lent back against the wall he was sat against and closed his eyes. A slight breeze was blowing across the roof, causing his hair to be blown across his face gently. It felt like feather light touches of fingers against his cheek.

His imagination added a slight weight against his side. A warm, comforting presence that ran their fingers across his cheek. Running a finger gently across his lips and down to cup his chin. His mouth would be met by another's in a gentle kiss. Two strong arms would be put around his body gently to pull him into a hug.

A sigh left Seto's mouth as he opened his eyes again. If Joey didn't cheer up soon nothing like that would ever happen between them.

--

Joey wanted to go and see Seto again, but he also didn't want to see him again. Things were so confusing. He needed to know what was wrong that made Seto loose his temper. If it was something to do with Tsume last night then Joey should be there to be the knight in shinning armour to protect the damsel in distress. The thought of Seto as a damsel in distress was surprisingly appealing and Joey felt the corners of his mouth turn up slightly as the lift continued climbing.

Tau had offered to come with him to see Seto, but Joey knew he needed to ask the CEO alone about his outburst.

The will to turn back was increasing now. All it would take was one press of the button for another floor and he could back out. His fingers itched to press the button for the ground floor and just forget all this. He could just go home and pretend this never happened. Those words echoed in his mind again.

'Nothing happened.'

It was a complete lie! Something had happened. Joey had nearly kissed him, and Seto had nearly kissed back. Seto had lied to him before, Joey was almost certain of that, but never had he said something that had hurt so much. Even his comment about having slept with other people hadn't felt so completely crushing as those two little words. Then to make things worse, just to add salt to the already stinging wounds, Seto had gone to Tsume. He'd let Joey leave and Tsume had replaced him.

The lift doors opened at the top floor and Joey just stood for a moment, wondering if he really wanted to do this. As the lift doors were about to shut he quickly stepped out and watched the lift leave for another floor. He turned around to face the corridor to Seto's office and took a deep breath to try and steady his nerves.

Dragging his feet on the carpet he slowly made his way to the door and lifted his hand to knock. After a brief hesitation he knocked on the door and waited for the familiar voice to tell him to 'come in'.

When no reply came he knocked again.

Again nothing.

Joey pushed the door open and peered through the gap. The office was empty. Seto wasn't here.

A sigh escaped Joey's lips as he stepped into the office and walked to the windows. It was a beautiful view up here across the city, especially with the sun illuminating the buildings in red as it set. He realised that his breath was fogging up the glass as he watched the scene, and pulled back from the window.

Deciding that leaving was the best option right now he glanced around the room once more and headed for the door.

--

Seto watched the sunset from the roof of the building. He'd always found it beautiful, as the fiery orange spread its rays across the cityscape. Bronze rivers of light flowed towards the horizon and out of sight.

He shivered as the warmth disappeared. His coat was still in the office so he wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to keep as much heat in his body as possible. He really needed a hug right now, a warm comfort that someone else cared he was unhappy and cold. Seto watched the last rays of gold disappear over the horizon as darkness descended around him. He took a few steps towards the edge of the roof so that he could see the road where people were driving their cars home from a busy day of work. A slight smile spread across his lips as he saw a scruff of blond hair illuminated briefly by a lamp post as he left Kaiba Corp to go home.

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Heva: Well what did you think of it?

Coel: I liked the bit about the holographic dragons.

Heva: I liked the end with Seto on the roof the best, reminds me of my creative writing coursework actually but I still think it's a good chapter ending. Anyway tell me what you think, that review button is just down there in the corner waiting to be pressed. Even if you don't want to review thanks for reading it and I hope you enjoyed it.