Chapter 7: Mokuba, the Mastermind
Note: I can't tell you all how much I appreciate and love getting your feedback. I think most of you will enjoy this chapter. If people's motives confuse you, there's a little more clarification in the future, but let me know if you have any questions so I can be sure to address them!
"Oh my god, it's that blonde chick from a while ago. She's staring at you," Rebecca said, dropping her fork with a clatter.
Mokuba looked up, unconcerned – and it wasn't an unusual occurrence that he was getting stared at, anyway – and saw a familiar face batting her eyelashes at him from across the restaurant.
"Oh. Cindy," he said, taking another bite of his pasta.
Rebecca laughed. "Right." Then she paused. "Wait, are you calling her Cindy because you think it's funny, or because you really forgot that her name was Susan?"
"Huh?" Mokuba asked with his mouth full.
"Never mind." Rebecca picked up her fork again and stabbed her own pasta. "I should be with Yuugi right now," she muttered. "So did you ever call her back?"
"Who?" Mokuba asked, chewing with effort.
"Susan. Cindy. Whatever. Did you call her back after you so rudely kicked her out?"
"You kicked her out," Mokuba reminded her.
"Well, I was protecting you from your own poor judgment," Rebecca defended.
"No, I didn't call her," Mokuba frowned.
"That was pretty thoughtless," she said, stabbing another piece of pasta.
"Why would I call her back if it was such poor judgment hooking up with her in the first place?" Mokuba asked, staring at her. Usually Rebecca was the pinnacle of logic, so this was pretty weird of her.
"Well, I don't know. I just think it's mean that you keep using these women and then dropping them," Rebecca said, refusing to meet his eyes. "Susan might be brainless, but she has feelings. Probably."
"Fine. I'll go over and apologize," Mokuba said, half-rising. Rebecca's hand immediately shot out and grabbed his shirt sleeve. "No, no, never mind. Forget I said anything."
"You called me rude, thoughtless, and mean," Mokuba said, sitting back down but giving her a funny look. "So I said I would apologize, and now you don't want me to?"
"We established that I was the rude one, actually," Rebecca said, still not meeting his eyes. "Anyway, she doesn't want an apology from you. I wouldn't want a fake apology, especially if it came through lips that had sucked on another dozen girls since me."
Mokuba grabbed the edge of the table, seeing red. Rebecca had never been particularly subtle, but this unexpected attack was just downright vicious. "Wow, Becky," he said through clenched teeth. "How wonderfully presumptive and judgmental you are."
She finally met his eyes, and he saw that she looked alarmed and upset, which took a little bit of the edge off his anger. "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry," she said, once more dropping her fork with a clatter. "That was really bitchy of me, wasn't it? Never mind, stupid question, it was really bitchy of me. I'm really sorry, Mokuba… I've been stressed lately… I know that's not an excuse." She winced. "You know how your hookups have always bothered me, but you're right and it's none of my business, and I'm going to try never to make a snide remark about it again. I'll try," she added, aware that she was very likely to slip up.
Mokuba took a deep breath, ready to respond angrily, when his phone went off. He let out the breath again and looked at the screen. Anzu was calling. Wonder what she wants, he thought, but put the phone away. She could leave him a message; right now he needed to deal with Rebecca. He'd lost his train of thought, however, and in the end just said "Whatever," and took another big bite of pasta.
"Do you forgive me?" Rebecca pressed. He looked up – now he was going to snap at her – and noticed with astonishment that her blue-green eyes were filling with tears.
"Let's just not talk about it," he said quickly, and then a moment later, in direct conflict with his previous statement, said, "You know I haven't hooked up with anyone since Cindy, right?"
"Wh-what?" Rebecca blinked.
Mokuba rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Becky, how could I? I've been with you pretty much every waking moment."
Her mouth fell open. "You – really haven't been fooling around with other girls?"
"No," he said again patiently.
She fell silent, clearly rearranging her life view in her mind. Mokuba sighed. When she finally spoke, it wasn't what he'd hoped she would say. "I really have been with you every waking moment," she said, frowning at him. "We have all the same classes… we're working on the project for the Game Shop… and making sure that your brother doesn't blow things with Anzu… and look! We're having dinner right now!"
"Very good, Becky," Mokuba said, rolling his eyes again.
"Why am I with you right now?" she demanded. "We're not working on the project and Seto isn't here. So why are we together?"
"Well, you said to me, 'I want Italian food tonight, something with a lot of carbs,' so I said 'how about Antonio's,' and you said 'that sounds good'. Now here we are," Mokuba recounted.
"This was my first free night in two months!" Rebecca exclaimed, standing up. "And I'm not spending it with Yuugi!"
"Forget about Yuugi," Mokuba scowled. He hadn't meant to say that, but it had slipped out.
"I'm going to the Game Shop," Rebecca said, tugging on her jacket haphazardly and scooping up her purse. "I'll catch you later, MK."
"You're going to stick me with the bill?" Mokuba demanded, clutching at excuses to keep her here, with him, where she belonged.
"You're rich, you can afford it," she said, disappearing.
Mokuba slumped back in his seat. Dinner didn't look so good anymore. He speared some pasta, brought it to his lips, and then set it back down on the plate. He craned around, looking for his waiter, but didn't see him. Whatever. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some bills; dinner couldn't have been more than 4000 yen, so he would just leave the money and run-
"Kaiba Mokuba," a sweet voice purred in his ear. He turned around to see Cindy (wait, was that her name?) behind him, one manicured hand on the back of his chair, leaning over to display her cleavage to the best advantage. "You're not eating alone, are you?" she batted her lashes. "I saw that bitchy PR girl of yours run out just now-"
"What?" Mokuba frowned, before remembering Rebecca's lie from two months ago.
"-and I thought you could use some company?" She smiled invitingly at him.
Mokuba sighed. Once, he'd been able to keep his feelings for Rebecca at bay by indulging his physical desires with other women (who only coincidentally looked like her, he told himself). Now, it didn't appear that even that old medication would work. Just as the pasta no longer seemed appetizing, Cindy no longer whetted his appetite.
"Actually, I'm on my way out," he told her, throwing the bills on the table and leaving in a hurry.
Mokuba stomped home to find Seto standing in the living room, arms crossed and smiling smugly.
"Save it, Seto, I'm in a bad mood," Mokuba said, starting for the stairs, noting absently that the door that led to the bedroom suite was firmly closed. He'd really thought that he was getting Rebecca to forget about Yuugi...
"Sorry, Mokuba, but that bad mood's about to get worse, because you just lost our little deal," Seto said unfeelingly.
Mokuba froze with one foot planted on the staircase. "Huh?"
"Anzu told me that she loved me," Seto said, still smug. "So I've won our deal, and soon you'll have to pay up and confess your love for Hopkins. By the way, Anzu and I are over," he added casually.
Mokuba barely processed this last. His head was swimming. Whaaa-? Something had clearly gone wrong.
TWO MONTHS EARLIER:
Standing in the kitchen, Mokuba laid out the terms of the deal. "So if you get Anzu to fall in love with you – and to actually say it – I'll tell Rebecca how I feel about her."
"It's a deal." Seto reached across the counter to shake his hand, and after a moment, Mokuba accepted.
After he got rid of the underwear under the couch, Mokuba headed for the privacy of his room. He lay down on his bed thoughtfully, churning things over in his mind. After half an hour of this he rolled over and grabbed the phone, dialing decisively.
"Hello?" Anzu greeted.
"Hi, Anzu. It's Kaiba Mokuba."
"Oh, hey there," Anzu said, sounding friendly and a little surprised to be hearing from him.
"Look, I've got into a bit of a mess, and I was wondering if you'd be able to help me out…"
Anzu listened carefully to Mokuba's story and couldn't help laughing by the end. "You and Rebecca got Seto to agree to seduce me to get me away from Yuugi so that Rebecca could have him? And then Seto made a deal with you that if I fell in love with him, you would have to tell Rebecca how you felt about her?"
"Pretty much," Mokuba said, not minding that she laughed again. It was a pretty ridiculous situation.
"Well, thanks for the heads-up," she said, and he could tell that she was shaking her head at the other end of the line. "So how am I supposed to help you out? Avoid your older brother's suave advances so that you don't lose the deal?"
"Actually…" Mokuba said hesitantly. "I was thinking something a little more involved. Could I come talk to you about this? Maybe with Yuugi there?"
Two hours later, the three of them met in the back room of the Kame Game Shop. Yuugi looked even more amused than Anzu, but the first thing he said was, "Mokuba, I'm really not interested in Rebecca as anything more than a friend, I promise."
"That's good to know," Mokuba acknowledged, "and I sort of figured that out."
"So Seto will be coming for me, will he?" Anzu asked Mokuba, her eyes sparkling with mirth.
Mokuba laughed. "I think you underestimate my big brother," he told her. "He can act like a jerk, I admit it, but when he wants to he can lay on the charm."
"Will I be able to resist him?" Anzu asked dryly.
"Well, that's my plan, if you're game," Mokuba told her. "I want you to play along. Let him take you on dates and try to flirt with you, but keep your distance. Make lots of trouble. Because if I know Rebecca Hopkins – and I do – she'll want to micromanage everything, since she does think this is her plan. So if she's trying to micromanage your disastrous relationship with Seto, she and I will get to spend a lot of time together."
Anzu raised her eyebrows. "Surely there are better ways of spending time with Rebecca," she said skeptically.
Mokuba grinned. "But can you think of a more entertaining one?" Anzu laughed, and he continued, "Although now that you mention it, I do have other reasons. I want to teach the both of them a lesson about meddling in people's lives… mostly Rebecca," he added honestly. "I don't think either of them has thought enough about the repercussions of manipulating people's emotions." This argument apparently made sense to Anzu and Yuugi, because they were nodding.
"So this would be like a practical joke on them," Anzu said slowly. "A harmless way of giving them what they deserve. I don't know that I fully agree with that, but I understand the sentiment."
"It sounds like something Jounouchi would do," Yuugi said with a sigh.
"Also..." Mokuba said hesitantly. "I think it might be good for my big brother." I think you might be good for my big brother… I really think you two might make a good couple, he thought, but didn't voice it. "He's been dating some real witches, and if he doesn't learn to date someone nice and normal, I might run away to Siberia. Someone has to loosen him up before he and I both go crazy, and I think you'd be good at it."
"By making trouble?" Anzu asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Yes," Mokuba clarified, and she thought about it and shrugged and nodded again.
"So you'll do it?" Mokuba asked eagerly, leaning forward.
"I didn't say that," Anzu said sharply.
At this point, any other girl would have asked "What's in it for me," but Anzu just looked pensive. Mokuba decided to help her along anyway.
"Look at it this way," he said coaxingly. "Seto will take you out to really nice parties and fancy restaurants and get you lots of stuff… he'll be trying his best to make you fall in love with him so he'll do anything you want." Realizing that Anzu wasn't as shallow as Seto's other girlfriends, so Mokuba changed tactics. "You'll have a really nice time while helping a lot of people. You'll help Rebecca see that I'm the right guy for her… you'll help me get the woman I lo-" at the last minute he chickened out and said "the woman I care about, and you'll help Seto realize that he doesn't have to date mean robot women." Yuugi laughed at this last part.
Mokuba looked over at Yuugi. "How do you feel about this?" he asked him. Mokuba was pretty sure that his instincts about Yuugi were right again, but he asked anyway, "This plan wouldn't interfere with anything between you guys, would it?"
"No," Yuugi and Anzu both said immediately. They looked at each other and smiled. "No," Yuugi clarified. In fact, he and Anzu had just gotten their friendship back to the way it used to be. After Atemu had left, it was awkward for several years while they tried to figure out who had a crush on who, and they had only just decided that neither of them really wanted to be with the other.
"Tell her to do it," Mokuba urged Yuugi.
Yuugi tilted his head to the side and smiled at Anzu. "Actually, I think you should do it."
"It would be kind of nice to teach Kaiba Seto a lesson about human decency," she said somewhat dreamily. "Okay, Mokuba, I'll do it."
ONE HOUR BEFORE PRESENT:
Anzu wasn't looking forward to this conversation with Mokuba, but she lucked out, and her phone call went to his voicemail. Taking a deep breath, she left a message that she knew he wasn't going to like.
"Sorry, Mokuba, but your brother was driving me crazy so I needed to end things with him. But here's the thing, I've been watching you moping around about Rebecca for long enough, and I really think you need to just tell her your real feelings, no more messing around. So I decided to tell your brother I loved him so that he would dump me and you would lose the deal. He's gone now, and you have to tell Rebecca that you love her. I really think this will work out for you." She inhaled. "Sorry." Then she hung up, threw her phone in her purse, and left the Kaiba mansion, hopefully forever.
PRESENT TIME:
"Did you hear me, Mokuba?" Seto asked, now starting to get concerned. "I said that Anzu said she loved me."
"Uhh…" Mokuba's hand flew to his phone, with the one missed call and one message. "I've got to check my voicemail," he said, flying up the staircase.