Title: Grave Robber
Summary: Seto wanted to take his secrets to the grave, but when a class project lands him and Joey closer than desired, those secrets become harder to protect than ever. Especially when Joey is discovering the common ground they share.
Contains: Yoai, lemon in random chapters, references to child abuse and molestation, sudden flashbacks, arguments, and occasionally ooc-ness
Pairing: Seto X Joey
Disclaimer: I do not own yu-gi-oh or the characters, I also make no money from the writing of this fanfic.
Author's Note: I enjoy seeing these to argue, but if you squint a little, Seto seems a bit friendly in this chapter. Just a bit though. We can't have the world collapse.
( ) ( ) ( )
Joey made the point to arrive early and simultaneously regretted it and was contented with it. The only thing that caused him to be uneasy was the cold glances that Kaiba's assistant, the woman behind the desk, kept passing him and the raised voices coming from the covered boardroom.
"Is there a reason you keep glarin' at me or is your face stuck that way?" Joey boomed when he could control himself no more. The woman's face pulled into a pinched expression and she produced a glare that rivaled her boss's.
"Though it is unprofessional for me to say so, sir," she spat, leaning over her desk like a monster from a nightmare. "I find you to be a very selfish, insensitive man." Joey blinked through his intense glare. Insensitive? Where did she derive that from? He'd managed to keep himself from knocking Kaiba on his face when the snob kept harassing him the previous day. "Though it is inconvenient for you to drag yourself out of bed at five in the morning, I'd say it's worse that Mr. Kaiba won't be able to—"
"That's enough." The woman's face turned scarlet and she immediately reclined back into her seat. Joey turned his head towards the boardroom's door where Kaiba stood, dressed in white business suit—the one that oddly resembled the colours of the businessman's favorite Duel Monster. Joey scoffed at him. "Wheeler, get in my office." Kaiba barely offered the blonde a glance as he passed through the small lobby towards another room around a corner. After he'd disappeared, Joey stood and watched as three well-dressed men shuffled out of the boardroom and towards the elevator.
They didn't even mumble to one another. Not even as the elevator doors closed.
The meeting must not have gone well.
Kaiba's assistant remained flushed and introverted, staring at her hands which were folded in her lap. The phone on her desk rang, and she answered it just as Joey had gone into her harsh-voiced boss's office.
He barely had time to set his notebook down on Kaiba's messy desk before the man stormed in dramatically and ill-temperedly. Joey stiffened as if he'd been caught doing something wrong, only to find himself gritting his teeth in rage as his notebook was swept up venomously and regarded with hard eyes.
Then tossed back into Joey's fumbling hands.
"Good, you've learned how to get a proposal looked at. Next time have it open to the page you've written on so I don't get fed up flipping through page after page of your first period doodles." Kaiba dropped into his seat and crossed his legs. He leaned forward onto his desk and rested his head atop his laced fingers. "Not bad. I'm impressed." Joey didn't know what to make of the bombarding comments tossed at him in various pitches and tones, so he settled for just scowling.
"Quit tryin' to lecture me, rich boy." Kaiba's lip twitched with either amusement or displeasure—Joey couldn't tell.
"Fine. Let's get down to business. Your idea works—barely—so I'll come up with a few things to improve it." Joey tried to get a word in, but Kaiba talked over him. "After that we can split the work in half, I'll do my part, you do yours, then I'll check over your attempts, and finally we'll put it together and decide on the small things. Sound fair?" Joey stammered a few times and then spit out a response.
"No! That's just so you can do all the work and say I didn't help! I know where this is goin', you think I was born yesterday?" Kaiba snorted and withdrew his hands onto his lap, reclining in his chair.
"Not quite. I'll do most of the work, but just to secure myself a high grade. It would do me no good to say you didn't take part." Joey's eye twitched slightly and Kaiba's lips curled into a smirk and then an abrupt scowl. "The teacher would fail us both and the whole point of me doing the work is so that we don't fail." Joey attempted to speak, but Kaiba talked over him once again.
( ) ( ) ( )
By the hour's end, Kaiba had already drafted a basic outline of topics to be discussed. At least he called it a basic outline. It was practically a report. He'd printed off two copies, assigned Joey the first half of the work and claimed the last half for himself—the part which involved the most attention.
He chased Joey out of his office barely thirty seconds before the clock struck seven. Before Joey even managed to close the door, the phone began to ring in several different tones and bells.
As he passed the assistant who was scowling at him once again, he could no longer hold his tongue.
"What?" He shouted. "You get paid to work over don't you? So why do you keep looking at me like that!" The woman recoiled, but not in surprise, more like disgust.
"Work over? My shift doesn't end until nine, Mr. Wheeler. But if you're wondering why I'm aggravated it's because you're so selfish that you couldn't get up early and because of that Mr. Kaiba won't be able to make it home for dinner!" Joey looked at her with a scrunched face.
What was so important about being home for dinner? There had to be a break room somewhere with a microwave. Throw in a TV dinner and eat at the desk.
It wasn't until he stepped through the front door of his house that he realized the connection.
Home.
Family.
For Kaiba, that meant Mokuba. For Kaiba, that meant the world.
( ) ( ) ( )
If you're wondering why I alternated between calling Seto "Seto" and "Kaiba" in this chapter as compared to the first one, it's because this one is more Jou-centric (he calls Seto "Kaiba") whereas the last one was Seto-centric.
And I promise that the next chapter will have some a-ha romance is possible moments.