Chapter nine: All set for the worst.

When Anzu woke up the next morning she was alone in bed, no wonder, Raven had to leave for work at an early hour. She sighed thinking about the conversation she had with him the day before, she didn't like the idea of stopping talking to Mayli and her brothers, but if that was what Raven wanted then she didn't really have a choice in the matter. There was only one little problem, she was Meyli's bridesmaid and no matter what, she couldn't tell her that she couldn't do it only one week before the wedding. She glanced at the clock, it was 20 pass 9, if she didn't get up she was going to be latefor her training.

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Seto entered his office with a coffee in one hand and a pile of paperwork he had to do in the other, when he raised his eyes he saw his little brother sitting in his office chair, smiling up at him.

"What are you doing here?" Kaiba asked, putting what he was holding on the desk.

"You told me to be here at 8, and it's...9:30." The younger brother said after looking at his watch. "You're late."

"Considering I'm my own boss, I'm the one who decide what time I have to be at the office, therefore, I can't be late." Seto said.

"Why did you make me come this early then?" Mokuba asked, giving the place to his brother.

"Just to bother you." Seto took at small zip of his coffee.

"Great, now, do you have work for me or not?" Mokuba asked, he was beginning to be annoyed.

Seto simply pointed to the rather tall pile of paper he had brough with him.

"You can't be serious." Mokuba said.

"Of course I am, that is all the work you were supposed to do for the last two months." Seto said with a smirk.

Mokuba took the pile and left, saying something about slavery and older brothers

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Anzu sighed as she entered her dressing room, with the crowd asking for her to do one more song over and over again, her show laster 30 minutes over what it was supposed to. She knew Raven wouldn't be happy about it, especially since she couldn't call him to warn him that she was going to be late. She knew his opinion on this, he told her times and times to not sing more song then what she was supposed to If people wanted to hear her more than they should pay for another ticket or get a CD. When she opened the door to leave she let out a surprised yelp.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, his presence here made her feel uneasy, if Raven saw him...

"I just came to see the show, just because I promised you to make it up to you didn't mean that I wouldn't come to see it later." Seto said, smiling lightly.

"Thanks...but I really should go now, I'm late and Raven will get worried if I don't go home right now." Anzu said.

"I can take you home." Seto offered. "It's almost midnight and I know you don't have a car, you can't expect me to let you go home on your own at this hour."

"I'll manage don't worry." Anzu said, walking away.

Seto followed her. "Last time you said that, you ended up in an alley with an old drunk man."

"I said I'll be fine." Anzu said, turning around to look at him.

"Anzu?" Anzu turned around and saw Raven standing behind her. "Kaiba." He said, looking intensly at Seto. "Come on, it's late." He said, taking Anzu's hand and leading her away, leaving Seto behind.

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"So, how was it?" Meyli asked as soon as Seto entered the mansion.

"What are you still doing up?" He asked.

"Couldn't sleep. So? How was it?"

"It was good...except..." Seto trailled off.

"Except what?" Meyli asked.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." Seto said.

"Come on, you know I'm going to worry about it, and beside, you wouldn't have brought it up if it wasn't bothering you."

"It's stupid actually. I feel like Raven doesn't really like me." Seto said.

"Well in that case you aren't the only one who feels like that." Meyli said. "He doesn't look like he likes me that much either. But he just came from America, and we're his fiancé's friends, it's normal that he may feel awkward with us."

"I suppose you are right. He just don't seem to have any problem with the others." Seto said

"Well the others aren't CEO of the biggest company of Japan." Meyli said.

"I suppose not." Seto said with a smile.

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The next day, Anzu was sitting at an outside table of a cafe, silently reading some magazine behind her sunglasses when...

"HI GIRL!"

Anzu almost dropped her glass of iced tea, she hadn't been this scare since...well since ever. "MEYLI! Just wait until I get my hands on you."

Meyli raised a finger to Anzu's face. "I'm pregnant. You can't hit me."

"You will give birth tho this child one day or the other." Anzu said.

"So, wanna go hang out to the mall today? I still have a few things I'd like to buy for the wedding." Meyli said.

"Well...actually I have things to do today, I have some training..." Anzu said. "I'm just on my lunch break."

"Oh...well in that case, mind if I come to see you?"

"...My teacher doesn't like to have people around when I'm training, he says it distract me." Anzu said, she stood up and took her things. "I'm sorry but I have to go, maybe we can go out another day?" Anzu said, already running away.

"Sure..." Meyli said, watching Anzu run away.

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I don't care what she said, she told me she finish practicing everyday at 3 so I'm just going to wait for her to finish. Meyli thought as she entered the studio where Anzu was training. When she entered she saw a group of ballerina training together. She passed beside them and went straight to the teacher. "Can you tell me where Anzu is?" She asked him.

"Anzu? But today is her free day, she didn't come here all day." The teacher answered.

"Oh...sorry to have bothered you then..." Meyli said and left the studio, wondering why would Anzu lie to her on purpose about what she was doing?

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"Well that's strange." Yugi said, sitting back in the leather chair in front of Seto's desk. "If it was only with you it wouldn't really be this weird, considering you haven't been friends for long, but her acting like that with Meyli..."

"I know, I was surprised when she told me about it. I don't know her that much but it doesn't sound like her to lie like that to her friends." Seto said. Meyli had told him about Anzu lying to her the day before. When Yugi came to give him 'support' for all his work, the young CEO told him.

"But maybe we're just making a big deal out of this. Maybe Anzu just wanted to buy a gift for the wedding or something like that, so she didn't want Meyli around." Yugi said.

"You really have a good explanation for everything don't you?" Seto asked, looking around all the piles on his desk for some important papers. "Now, where did I put those..."

Yugi shook his head and grabbed the paper from under the tallest pile before handing it to him. "You know, I always thought that you would have a lot more organisation than this, you are CEO after all. And you know that my perfectly logical explanations are almost never correct, in that case there is probably something wrong with Anzu."

"I'm organised in my mess, Mokuba just had some fun classing my papers this morning, he knows I hate that." Seto said, quickly scanning the contract. "What are you planning to do about Anzu?"

Yugi sighed and laid back in the chair. "I don't know. We have no proof whatsoever that there is something bothering her. I guess, all we can do is wait and hope that she had a really good reason. It's not really of our business now."

"Which close this subject and bring us back to the main purpose of your visit here, which is?" Seto asked.

"The marriage is in less than a week, I just came to make sure you were doing your best man's duty."

"Oh right, you mean taking Joey to get drunk in a nude dancer bar? You know Joey will never go in a 100 meter radius of those places and he barely even drink alcohol." Seto said.

"Which is the reason why I'm here." Yugi said with a grin.

"You have something on your mind, don't you." Seto said with a small smirk.

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Meyli sighed as she sat down on the couch next to Joey. "Is somthing the matter?" He asked her.

"I don't know, tomorrow is the big day so I guess I'm a little bit nervous...and I haven't been able to see Anzu since that day at the cafe, they wont even let me enter the studio while she's practicing, not even with my 'influence'."She said.

Joey kissed her on the cheek. "Don't worry, I'm sure she's ok, she probably just had a lot of stress and her teacher didn't want anything to get in her way."

Meyli smiled slightly and made herself comfortable against his shoulder. They watched the TV for a while until the phone rang. "I'll get it!" Meyli said excitedly, having one of her weird mood swings again. She ran to the kitchen and answered the phone. "Hi!" She almost yelled, still hyper.

"Who was it?" Joey asked when she came back to the living room, about 15 second later.

"It was Yugi, he said he needs to see you right now, it sounded important." She answered.

"Important huh? Well I guess I'm better go...I'll try to come back early but don't wait for me if you're tired." Joey said before leaving.

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On the other side of the city, Yugi hung up the phone with all the guys snickering behind him. "Phase one is a success." He said with a grin. "Is everything ready?" He asked.

"The trap is all set." Mokuba said with a thumb up. "Me and Seto took care of everything."

"Alright, we have about 5 minutes before Joey arrives, we should call Meyli to tell her not to worry.

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When Joey arrived at the game shop about 5 minutes later, it was empty and all the lights were out. "Yugi? Are you there?" He asked. He walked to the back of the store to go see in the house when suddenly...

"All on him!" Mokuba's shouted.

Joey didn't even had the time to move before all the others were on him and dragged him through the dark house to the back door. Lauging they pushed him in a car that was waiting behind the shop and all got in.

"You guys are crazy." Joey yelled. "What was that for?"

"I thought it was obvious." Mokuba said. "We're kidnaping you to get a ransom from Meyli."

"Then why are you two taking part of this plot? You're all working together and Seto makes a lot more money." Joey said.

"I think he just said something intelligent." Seto said, starting the car.

"Seriously, what is this all about?" Joey asked.

"It's your bachelor party." Tristan answered.

"You know I hate those things." Joey said. "There is no way you are going to get me in one of those place."

"That's why we decided to change the rules a little." Seto said with a grin. "Hang on tight guys!" Seto said as he pressed as hard as he could on the accelerator. The car sped away at an excessive speed.

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Anzu was standing in front of the mirror of her dressing room, she had just finish her last show here but that wasn't the reason for her grief. It had been a week since she went to that dinner with her friends and she hadn't seen any of them since then and tomorrow was the wedding. Raven still agreed to let her go, even if he didn't like the idea. After all, she couldn't desist herself the day before the wedding without a really good reason like a car accident or something. She sighed, wondering what she was supposed to do, she couldn't go against Raven's wish but how was she supposed to tell the Kaibas that she couldn't see them anymore. And what would the others think, she had been friend with them for longer but she wasn't there for the past five years, while the Kaibas were there.

"Hi girl!" Anzu jerked around at the voice, Meyli was looking at her as if she was crazy. "Gee, what's wrong with you? I just said hi."

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you coming in." Anzu said, glancing worriedly over Meyli's shoulder to see if Raven was anywhere in sight.

"Wanna go hang out? After all the wedding is tomorrow and lately you have been neglecting your duty as my bride's maid. Joey also got kidnaped by the guys for his bachelor party so it's just you and me..." Meyli said.

"I'm so sorry." Anzu appologised. "I just had so many things to do, I didn't have the time."

"Anzu..." Meyli said, suddenly serious. "You don't have to lie to me. I know you weren't training the other day, I asked your teacher. If you don't want to tell me something it's ok, you don't have to, just don't lie to me."

"I'm sorry, I don't really have anything to say for myself."

"It doesn't matter anymore. Come on, let's go have some fun." Meyli said, grabbing her hand.

"I don't know..." Anzu thought about it for a while, Raven told her not to hang out with them again, but Meyli was by far her best friend, actually she was the only girl that was this close to her, and what Raven didn't know couldn't hurt him, right? "...Alright, let's go!"

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Raven entered the teather by the back door, getting directly to the back stage, he went directly to Anzu's dressing room but found it empty. "Looking for Anzu?" One of the technician asked, all of them knew Raven.

Raven shrugged. "Yea, I finished my work earlier and I hoped to catch her before she left but I guess I'm too late."

"She left about 15 minutes ago with that Kaiba girl." The technician said.

"Are you sure?" Raven asked.

The guy nodded. "Of course I am, everyone know her face around here. I suppose they went out to have fun before the wedding. While you're here, Anzu forgot something in her drawer, would you mind giving it to her?"

"Of course not. Thanks for your help." Raven said, going to the desk now empty desk and opening the drawer. The only thing in it was a white envelop with Anzu's name on it, he took it and something fell out on the floor. He kneeled down and took what looked like pictures, he turned them around to see, thinking it was probably some picture of Anzu and her friends.

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And that's were I stop folks, I don't know if I'll write again, I'm moving away next monday and I have to pack my things...the thought of moving away from my family is kinda hard, though I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun where I'm going. Don't worry, I'll have a computer to myself so I should be able to update more...depending if I have a lot of homework at college...I really have no idea.

By the way L'ANGLAISE you didn't want to edit so you better not comment on the grammar like you did the 8 other chapters yesterday lolll. If you do, then I'll have no choice but to continue to point out your american nationnality with american comment and sex reference in my fic lolll. You have been warned girl, I know where you live lolllll. (tty soon, have fun watching sailor moon loll)