This writing business just gets harder and harder, doesn't it? Nothing worth doing is easy.
Disclaimer: I still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Or pintos.
-O-o-O-o-O-
The brothers Kaiba were on their way to the mall. They were having some difficulty, though, seeing as how they'd never actually visited that mall. Mokuba had only gone that one time because he thought Serenity would be there. When they did manage to find it, some sort of hold-up a few blocks from the mall delayed them further.
They coasted slowly past the mess of twisted metal and generous sprinkling of glass. Two men stood in front of their busted cars, yelling back and forth.
"Where the hell did you learn to drive? Watch the road next time!" One of the men shoved the other backward.
"But it wasn't my fault! The light blinded me!"
"What light?" The first man balled his fists.
"The shiny…"
The brothers could hear the conversation and the punches landing as they cruised into the parking deck. Mokuba twisted and knelt in his seat to get a better look as they rolled away.
"Sit down, Mokuba. Noah's going to try parking," Seto warned.
"Backseat driver," Noah muttered, then promptly rear-ended a hot pink pinto. Luckily, it didn't burst into flames. Also, it was already banged up in the back. One more dent wouldn't make a difference.
"I wonder whose crappy car that was anyway," Seto wondered as they walked (though not in a completely straight line) to the entrance. The paint on the pinto's "Sue Happy" license plate flaked off as they walked by.
The first thing they noticed about the mall was how bright it was. It was as if they decided to turn on every lamp in the department store and put them all in the corridors. The fact that the walls were mostly white and polished to a near reflective quality didn't help much, either. Neither did the fountains filled with what looked like freshly cleaned pennies and all the glass doors of the shops.
"Why does the sun have to be so bright?" Seto shielded his eyes as a hangover started to set in.
"It's not the sun; they've just turned the lights up higher than usual." Mokuba shielded his eyes. "Or we've been spending too much time in darkened computer rooms."
"I'm not having any trouble," Noah remarked. "Maybe you're just sensitive and Seto's just too drunk."
"I'm not—holy crap, is the floor moving?" Seto wobbled a little. Noah grabbed Seto's arm to steady him.
"Wow. We never see you here."
They traced the new voice to Yugi and Joey standing in front of them. They looked surprised, and, when they noticed Seto rocking back and forth, concerned.
"Is he okay?" Yugi asked.
"Oh, yeah, he's fine. RIGHT SETO?" Noah said loudly in Seto's ear.
"I hate you so much right now." That had to be the first time Yugi and Joey had seen Kaiba startled.
"Hate the substance, not the intervener," Noah quipped, then dodged a lazy smack.
"He looks pretty hammered ta me," Joey snickered.
"Shut it, mutt," Seto grumbled.
Mokuba was surprised to be the one to drag his brothers away from Yugi's crew. "We'd really like to stay and talk," he started.
"No, we wouldn't," Seto put in.
"But we have business relating to Kaiba Corp at the other end of the mall," Mokuba finished.
"Okay. Good luck with that," Yugi said, waving as they moved along. "Y'know, Joey, I think Mokuba's brothers might not be quite as bad as they act."
"Yuge, Kaiba's piss-drunk in public and surprisingly less bearable den when he's sober."
Yugi mulled this over. "True, but at least he's not relentlessly stalking me over defeating him."
The brothers Kaiba made their way to the back of the mall, noticing the light getting brighter the closer they advanced. At least, two of them did.
"Okay. I know they want their merchandise to have the best light possible, but this is ridiculous," Mokuba said, shielding his eyes. Seto had tied the sleeves of his trench coat around his head so he could pull the top down like a hood.
"I still don't see what your problem with the lighting is," Noah responded. "To be honest, I think it's a little dark."
Mokuba sighed in frustration. "Are Seto and I the only ones running around blind?"
Seto squinted around. "Everyone else is wearing sunglasses. Hah! Fashion-challenged sheep."
"I'm thinking about joining that flock if this doesn't quit soon," Mokuba said, brushing more of his hair over his face. The rate he was going, he'd soon be fit to reenact scenes from "The Ring." "Noah, you'd better shield your eyes. You might be having a delayed reaction."
"To light?" Noah said. He looked around at all the people wearing huge shades like extras in an eighties film. One of them looked very familiar, and wasn't wearing any glasses at all. He had the same caterpillar eyebrows, thick sharpie line mustache, and slicked back hair as Gozaburo. But there was something different about him. "Hey, that looks like…" He trailed off as he realized the differences.
"What is it?" Mokuba followed Noah's gaze to what could only be described as a brown note. Though there wasn't much brown in what he witnessed.
Gozaburo was sparkling.
Not only was he sparkling, he was no longer wearing the tacky red suit. He'd shucked it off for a pastel pink jacket and pant set straight out of "Miami Vice." Except this was Gozaburo and this image might as well have been ripped from the lesser-known tenth level of hell.
"What're you gawking at?" Seto removed his makeshift hood and sobered up real fast after his question was answered.
They stood that way for a few seconds until a female figure walked up to Gozaburo. The light grew brighter as she approached, though they couldn't make out her features.
"I'm blind!" Seto hollered and fell over. Mokuba clamped his eyes shut. Noah just stood there, trying to make out the details on the woman.
"How can you stare right into it?" Mokuba asked, his face now completely covered by his hair. His question went unanswered as Noah continued to stare blankly at the light.
After a minute that lasted a year, the light receded and eventually disappeared. Mokuba flipped his hair back out of his face. Seto decided he was pretty comfortable, lying on the ground under his trench coat blanket.
"They're gone. Great. Just perfect. Noah, since you're apparently immune to light, what did you see?" Mokuba asked.
Noah's eyes were glassy. He didn't appear to have heard Mokuba. He just stood there, with his mouth open, staring into the spot where Gozaburo and the unidentifiable woman had stood. Seto sat up after remembering that the great Seto Kaiba did not lay on mall floors like the common loon.
Mokuba was about to abandon all hope of getting an answer when Noah turned his head slowly toward him. The dull glaze and blank stare were gone, replaced by dewy-eyes and a Cheshire cat smile.
"I think I'm in love," he responded in a voice that was half-whisper, half-trill.
Mokuba could only stare back with a similar expression to Noah's previous one. Seto dragged himself over to a potted plant and puked. His aim was unimpressive, especially to the janitorial staff.
-O-o-O-
His headache was gone and he was glad they canceled his meeting. Ms. Toilet hadn't showed up, but he wasn't too bothered by that either. Gozaburo wasn't annoyed when he saw Noah staring like a complete idiot where everyone could see and identify him as his blood relative. He wasn't even mad that Seto was committing underage public drunkenness.
He had a new woman in his life and she glittered.
He'd had a lovely stroll with her around the mall, stopping in all the different stores, letting her dress him up in her love…and shiny pink aura. Of course, she'd let him do some dressing too, when they got to Veronica's Discretion.
He didn't even ask her name until a couple hours later when they stopped at the food court. How silly of him.
"My name's Rosemary, but you can call me Rose," she answered in her silky, smooth, sexy, siren-like, smothered-in-heaven-and-adjectives voice.
In seconds, he was holding her hand and walking her to her car. He had glitter gel and powder all over his arm, but he didn't mind. If things went well, it'd remain there for all time.
Even if he had to give up bathing.
-O-o-O-
"I'm driving," Mokuba insisted.
They were heading back to their car. Noah was still in his haze and Seto was still wobbling all over the place.
"You're twelve," Seto said.
"I've been paying attention to your driving. And who else is going to do it? You're kind of plastered and I don't trust Noah to tie his shoes right now."
"I'm not—screw it, I'm drunk as hell," Seto admitted.
Noah did not respond to the jab at his present state of mind; he continued to beam goofily.
They reached their vehicle, noticing that the surrounding cars were gone. Nice. They wouldn't have to worry about collisions or a fiery death, at least not until they left the parking deck. They managed to get home without crashing or being pulled over for having an abnormally short and youthful driver.
"Do you think Gozaburo will be home?" Mokuba asked.
"Do you care?" Seto asked, too tired to think of anything else.
"Not really, nor do I care to see that pink get-up again."
Noah said nothing. He was looking even drunker than Seto.
They got out of the car and saw the pink pinto with the "Sue-Happy" plate parked in their driveway.
"Oh, no. They know we hit them earlier." Mokuba's shoulders sagged.
"Y'know, that car seems really familiar," Seto noted as they went inside.
"Of course it does, Noah rear-ended it earlier."
"No, I saw it somewhere else, but I don't remember where."
They dragged Noah, who was still standing there with that dumb look on his face, into the living room. Gozaburo was nowhere to be found (thankfully), but there was a woman with pink-streaked blonde hair sitting on the couch.
"Is it just me or did it get brighter in here again?" Mokuba wondered.
Noah's head lolled on his neck toward the couch. His eyes suddenly resembled grass in the morning again. "It's her!"
Thankfully, Mokuba and Seto were not blinded again when the woman turned around. And, boy did she ever!
She had to be the most beautiful woman Noah had ever seen. Her blonde hair bore just the slightest rose pink tint and cascaded down her back like Niagara Falls. Her skin was porcelain white like an unsoiled toilet. Her pale pink dress brought out the rose highlights in her hair and her skin reflected the color like a pale blush. Her silver eyes, which were flecked with violet, seemed to radiate a white light from within, like when he opened the door to his fridge late at night to be met with a beacon of nourishment in the dark pit of midnight hunger.
Seto and Mokuba couldn't see the big fuss. So she sparkled and glowed; so did some species of fungus.
"Hello, boys."
Noah nearly swooned. "The melody…be still, my beating vascular organ. Or caudate area."
"I hope I didn't steal anyone's parking spot."
"You can steal a parking spot in my bed," Noah murmured, not completely possessing all of his faculties.
"So it's your car outside? We're really sorry about the-" Mokuba was nudged, hard, by Seto before he could finish.
The woman's brows wrinkled in confusion (but not too much, or she'd get lines), but she seemed not to be bothered too much by it. Something in Seto's hung-over mind clicked the second her brows twitched. He'd seen those brows in that position before. Only, in a more exaggerated fashion. And with more makeup than this model (at least, he figured that's what a female model would look like; perusing fashion magazines was beneath the Great and Mighty Seto Kaiba).
Unfortunately, it clicked back out of place when he looked up. "Er…who are you?" he asked inarticulately.
"My name is Rosemary. Your father decided your previous supervisor wasn't working out, so he's replacing her with me." She drew her hands together on her lap and stood up. "I hope this doesn't inconvenience you in any way."
"Oh, never," Noah breathed. He then fell on his face.
Rosemary looked ever so slightly worried. "Is he all right?"
"Yeah, he just needs to lay down for a while." With that, Mokuba dragged both Seto and Noah up to his room. When they arrived, Mokuba shut the door, turned the lights down low, and the three of them got busy…
…Discussing this new setback, of course.
"How are we going to figure out what that crazy chick is going to do to us now?" Mokuba ranted. "We have no idea where she could be and now we're not going to be seeing her regularly to even be able to get an idea. Our whole plan is thrown off!"
Seto raised an eyebrow. "You actually want her back?"
"What?"
"She's gone and probably not coming back. Why don't we just enjoy the silence?"
"But she's plotting against-"
"And our lawyers will crush her if she tries anything funny. Until then, let's just, like, chill."
Mokuba gave a start. Did Seto just say, "chill?" He shook off the shock. "But I think she's going to do more than just try to mess with our company."
"Like what?"
"Like…unravel the whole fabric of the universe."
Seto snickered. "I hate to break it to you, Mokuba, but that's kind of insane. Where would she get the power?"
"Well…I just had a feeling…"
"That's not a good enough reason." Seto sighed. "Face it; it's back to business as usual."
Noah had managed to fall asleep at the start of their conversation. They decided to leave him and go downstairs: Seto, to get coffee; Mokuba, to figure out how to proceed on his own. They had almost forgotten the young woman on the couch. They remembered when they saw her standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"Hello, boys. I figured I'd make my visit fun for all of us, since I heard your last supervisor wasn't too agreeable."
Mokuba blinked. This would be a welcome diversion. "What did you have in mind?"
The woman reached into her yellow purse and pulled out a deck of Duel Monsters cards. "How about a game?"
-O-o-O-o-O-