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I had assumed, somewhere in the back of my mind, that Joey's departure would bring me relief, but instead it made me antsy. My brain felt dry and jittery. My thoughts kept drifting back to moments of my past. I remembered, at one point, that Wheeler had quite a reputation as a drinker in high school. I never went to the parties, but I heard the stories. This train of thought brought me back to a particularly pungent memory of Gozaburo telling me as a young boy that "a man must know how to hold his liquor". For the next two years he proceeded give me hard liquor with the instruction to "drink up". I always obeyed. I threw up, of course, became woozy to the point where I thought I must pass out, but with time my body learned to keep it down.

He was so afraid, I remember he was always afraid, well paranoid rather. Paranoid about all the rest of the world. He said the best cure for fear was control. Building up something of a tolerance for heavy alcohol was just another way to always be in control. Although to this day I don't care for drink, I make a point to drink in front of formal company, to drink heavily and to not let it cloud my senses. I have no doubt that these other old-timey business men think like Gozaburo.

Gozaburo was quite obsessed with cleanliness. I remember him always checking my fingernails for dirt. He hated the thought of sweat or oils on the body, and so I was frequently ordered to wash my face when it appeared shiny in any way. He also had an acute taste for symmetry and order, especially in a person's appearance. As a boy my natural tendency was to smile with one side of my mouth more than the other. He hated this. I recall sitting in front of a large mirror, I think it might have been in my room, Mokuba was next to me. I would smile in the mirror, trying to make both sides of my mouth go up at the same time, but it never came as easily as it should have. I would ask Mokuba "Is this a good smile?". It was never a very good smile though, and so I opted for a very symmetrical frown instead.

I would wander down these long trails of memory and things that, in a more social context would even be anecdotal until I had exhausted myself. Wheeler did have a way of making my head race. I pondered this for a while one night. I was more objective towards him than I had been before. It made more sense now. Wheeler's life was probably a close match to what my life would have been had I not been adopted by Gozaburo. At the orphanage I was already a lowly member of one of the gangs that ran rampant throughout. It was run by some of the older boys, the ones with ugly mugs that were unadoptable. Myself and some of the other young boys got to tag along with them and gained their protection in exchange for doing their chores and pledging our loyalty. A lot of the time, these boys would turn 18 and, with nowhere else to go and no one to take care of them, the sheltered gangs of the orphanage grew to full-blown gangs of the streets.

I stopped for a moment, how did I know that about Wheeler's past? I tried to remember who had mentioned it to me, was it Mokuba? I assumed it was and put the thought to rest as I slipped into sleep and away from all of my trailing thoughts.

It was two more months before I saw Wheeler again. I had made the assumption that Mokuba kept in contact with him, but I never heard anything of it. It was a Friday night and I was due to attend another investor social event- the kind where all the high powered men bring women that are too young for them and everyone drinks scotch. I hadn't been there for more than an hour when one of my men, Downes it was, introduced me to a woman. The first thing I took note of was here sandy hair, pulled off her face so that just her bangs hung down. The second thing I noticed were here eyes. Set at the wrong angle and just a shade too dark, they nonetheless had the same deer like effect of another acquaintance. As soon as the thought registered with me I felt heat rush to my face. My lips were so chapped. Palms sweaty. She talked. I forgot most of it, aside from making note that her father was one of the company lawyers. She talked and I wandered through images of Wheeler in my mind. I wondered if the embarrassment showed on my face at all. I doubted it, since I was rarely one to become physically flustered, In hindsight, she did not look like Wheeler so much as I initially thought. Like I said, her eyes were wrong. Her hair was neater too and her features were fuzzier, more rounded and of course more womanly. Yet there was something about the brush of freckles on her cheekbones and the curve of her mouth and nose that made me shudder. Panicked I tried to find a part of her that wouldn't remind me of Wheeler. My eyes dropped down to her neck and across her chest, forgetting for a moment how rude I was, yet relieved that her similarities to Wheeler had ended.

She pointedly met my gaze. "Enough small talk already" she purred, "Let's say we get out of here." The next sip from her wine glass was highly suggestive.

I swallowed, feeling a little sick. "I'm sorry madam. I have previous engagements". With that I turned and left the building, not bothering to so much as glance all the important people I had needed to talk to.

When I was out of the building, I decided to hail a cab rather than call my limo. I felt sleazy somehow and the cab seemed more apt to absorb this feeling and string it out of my system. I made my way out to a busier road and by the sidewalk stuck my arm. No one was stopping. Finally one of them pulled up. I opened the door and slid inside, adjusting my coat beneath me. The driver turned back.

"Fancy meeting you here, huh?". Wheeler. I almost gasped out loud.

He was turned backwards to look at me, right arm draped behind the passenger seat.

"Wheeler."

"So, uh, where's your usual ride?". He had already pulled away from the curb.

I lied quickly. "I gave my driver the day off."

"Aww Kaiba, careful now, don't be too generous with those people or they'll think you have a heart"

There was a certain note in Wheeler's voice that made me not want to respond with another attack. He was almost playful. I let myself slump against the backseat and said nothing.

"You're going home, right?" Wheeler interjected.

"Yes."

It was silent except the low hum of a radio station Wheeler had put on. I strained to hear the music, hoping to distract myself.

Wheeler laughed then, awkwardly. "I'm surprised," he coughed a little into his hand "you aint got some girl back there with you. I always thought that was what the mighty Seto Kaiba did on Friday night".

"The mighty Seto Kaiba." I began with heavy sarcasm "likes to look at spreadsheets on Friday nights. Maybe, if he feels so inclined, even a pie chart". I had thought this to be an appropriate way to deflect Wheeler's sudden curiosity about my personal life, but I knew it had backfired when Wheeler exploded into laughter, jerking the wheel haphazardly as he did so.

"Christ Kaiba! You're just…just so…frigid."

I had comebacks, sure. I almost questioned why Wheeler was suddenly so curious anyway. I could have insinuated a great number of things. I even could have replied with a terse dog comment. But instead I gnashed my teeth together until Wheel pulled into the winding Kaiba mansion driveway a few minutes later.

I stepped outside and Wheeler rolled down his window. "Kaiba!" He called out to me as I began walking. I turned to him.
"Hey man, no hard feelings alright? I was just messing, with you being the most popular guy in town and all," he waited, looking genuinely apologetic under the uneven light coming from the cab.

Here was my chance. My chance to put him in his place. My chance to come out on top. "None whatsoever. I should only wonder why my personal life is of such great interest to you in the first place." My delivery, I suspected, had not been as cold as I had meant it to be. It instead came out as a genuine question.

Wheeler, with the black shadows sinking in the angles of his face, looked stoic, but I could tell from the twitch in his mouth and eyes that he was surprised.

"Have a goodnight Kaiba. I'll see you around". He rolled up his window and drove away.

A wise man once said, "If you cannot speak the truth even to yourself, you will grow madder than the most delusional of fools". The truth had grown increasingly hard for me to grasp. I was thinking about Wheeler again, in a way that made me feel a little unstable. I could never understand his ability to stir so much emotion from me. Did I see something of myself in him? Some unnamable piece of my subconscious? Or did I see something that I wanted in him? Like the feeling I had when looking into the eyes of that woman at the party, or when he made me momentarily speechless in his cab.

It was one of the rare occasions when Mokuba and I got the chance to have breakfast together.

Mid-way through buttering some toast, Mokuba said "Joey was asking about you".

I nearly choked on orange juice.

"What business does he have asking about me?"

Mokuba smiled to himself. "He asked me what you thought of him."

My interest, already piqued, shot up even more. "And what did you tell him?"

Mokuba chuckled in a way that made me nervous. "I told him that his dashing good looks drove you crazy, prompting you to insult him at every opportunity".

I knocked the glass or orange juice on the table. Mokuba calmly grabbed some napkins to mop it up.

"You're joking."

Mokuba chuckled more. "Well it's the truth".

I fumed.

"At least, I've deduced it to be the truth."

"What?" I snapped.

"All these years, you always paid so much attention to him, even though he shouldn't have been important. He shows up here years later and you're all out of sorts for weeks! You can't look at him for more than a few seconds before your face turns red." Mokuba was being so matter of fact.

"Mokuba Kaiba that is so inappropriate of you!"

"Seto," he leaned in and put a hand on my shoulder, "People get 'crushes', it's ok, just most people are more mature about it than you."

He pulled his hand away from me smugly. I stood up from the table, yelling curses.

"Oh Seto Seto, you only get this angry when I've embarrassed you, and I can only embarrass you when I confront you with a truth that you don't want to hear." Mokuba then solemnly sipped from his glass of orange juice, got up from the table and took the soggy pile of napkins with him over to the trash.

I remained standing, breathing in an agitated pattern and trying to think straight.

"Wheeler isn't, he's not- he doesn't like" I was at a loss of how to proceed. "Look Mokuba this isn't like a little matchmaking game, Wheeler is a full grown man who likes to chase girls, date girls, do, other things with girls. I just- I just can't believe you would even put an idea like that in his head!"

Mokuba rolled his eyes at me. "I know so much more than you ever give me credit for, Seto".