Kaiba knew something was wrong when he began his day by waking up from bed too late. It was just a small thing, being ten minutes late, but it only escalated throughout that morning, making things crumble until it became an uncontrollable avalanche. He had to rush through his shower without time to properly blow dry and style his hair, and when he went to put on his favorite work suit, he found a stain on the jacket.
How it had gotten there, Kaiba didn't know. It unnerved him at first, but he brushed it aside as he went hastily through his closet, settling on a black dress shirt and his signature black leather pants, since he wasn't planning on seeing anyone of significant importance that day.
Then while running downstairs and waiting to take off in his favorite sports car, his staff informed him that the Ferrari had to be taken in earlier that morning for repairs. Kaiba didn't remember doing anything to wreck his car the night before (he had driven back home sober after dropping Jonouchi off, after all), but apparently his driver had noticed something while taking it out of the garage.
Instead of driving himself, Kaiba had to settle for getting a ride in his Bentley. His personal chauffeur was a quick driver, but that hadn't been in Kaiba's plans. He hadn't been dropped off in front of headquarters since he had turned sixteen. It simply was no longer part of his routine.
Once arriving at Kaiba Corporation, he went through the front doors and was greeted immediately by surprised staff, and he rode the elevator up with several confused members of middle management. He didn't even try acknowledging any of them, and once he was alone, Kaiba reached the top floor where his chief executive office was only to discover that his secretary had called in a personal day because her son was sick.
There was no coffee waiting for him at his desk. It was completely unsatisfactory.
And grumbling through his messy morning, Kaiba knew he had probably verbally abused the assistant secretary, who wasn't as well-versed in his the daily routine, but he didn't care. When the poor just-out-of-college intern arrived with his coffee later, Kaiba heckled him ruthlessly for a good minute about the finer details of using the correct coffee-to-cream ratio he preferred before waving him away.
Nothing went right that morning. His daily progress reports didn't appear until almost eight o'clock, and he didn't have enough time to really prepare for his regular staff meeting.
Coming out of it, Kaiba was well on his way to being completely deplete of patience when he found Jonouchi sitting anxiously on his couch, fiddling with his hands before looking up at Kaiba.
"What are you doing here?"
They just stared at each other for a good few seconds before Jonouchi frowned and looked away, his arms crossing against his chest.
"Yesterday, you told me to show up on time, so here I am. We have a meeting today, remember?"
"Of course," Kaiba replied snippily as he strode across the room to his desk. Actually, he had forgotten, especially with his regular secretary not there to dictate his day. Jonouchi, naturally, didn't need to know any of that—he'd probably derive some cruel sense of schadenfreude from Kaiba's string of inconveniences. Not that Kaiba hadn't been guilty of the reverse.
Settling into his seat, Kaiba threw his meeting handouts on a side pile and quickly scrolled through his email. There was nothing urgent, but one message in particular did remind him of a rather bothersome event for later in the week…
"The testings you did last week," Jonouchi's head snapped forward as Kaiba spoke, "I want a full debriefing on your findings."
"Why? The techs said everything was fine, so why do I need to bother you with the details?" Kaiba could detect a hint of annoyance in Jonouchi's voice, but he chose to dismiss it. He had far too little remaining patience to let something so trivial get to him that early in his work day.
"Because it is my job to know the details and the reason I pay people to discover them for me," Kaiba said. "A Kaiba Land delegation from America is coming later this week, and they'll want to know the results from the upgrade testings, since that park will open with the new software installed. If you don't feel like typing it out, get the intern to work with you. God knows Nakahara needs something to keep him busy…
"I expect the report by close of business today. You can leave it on Eguchi's desk, even though she isn't here today. I'll pick it up later."
"-Why did you kiss me last night?"
Kaiba's hand paused mid-signature. Shit, he'd have to get Nakahara to print the page out again. "This isn't the time or place, Jonouchi."
"Yeah well, don't do it again, then."
He got up and left quickly before Kaiba could add his two cents in. Jonouchi all but slammed the door shut, stalking away loudly, and Kaiba just glowered at his desk for a good minute as he felt his face become unbearably hot.
Kaiba knew Jonouchi was hard-headed, but he'd given him enough credit not to bring up sensitive matters at the workplace. But no, Jonouchi really was lacking in the common sense department, and it made Kaiba a little paranoid to think of other inappropriate opportunities where Jonouchi could theoretically run his big mouth. The last thing Kaiba needed was to have his headquarters swarming with rumors starring its usually-secretive CEO.
He didn't really want to be reminded about the previous night, anyway. Kaiba had filed the incident away as a serious lapse in judgment, culminating from a week's worth of frustration and fatigue. He had been ready to forget about it, and then Jonouchi just had to bring it up.
It wasn't all that unfair, Kaiba conceded. He had surprised Jonouchi last night in the car, and although Jonouchi had seemingly warmed to Kaiba's actions, the fact remained that he had forced himself upon Jonouchi initially. It had only been to prove a point, but something had changed midway—for the both of them—and the whole idea made Kaiba incredibly uncomfortable.
What he'd done wasn't entirely right, either. Despite still feeling slightly bruised from being nearly thrown into his driver-side door last night, Kaiba knew he probably deserved much more than that. He'd be pretty damn upset if some guy just threw himself at him aggressively and he didn't have the space to escape, and Jonouchi was probably still pretty sore about it, but...
But.
It had seemed like, at the time, he'd liked it, too.
And that caused all sorts of unsettling emotions to erupt in Kaiba's gut that he did not want to deal with. He could try lying to himself, saying that his little discovery really didn't matter, but it didn't stop his body from tingling at the memory. That had never happened before, and despite whatever anger he still harbored at Jonouchi for being a bull-headed idiot, the prospect of physical contact with Jonouchi again didn't bother Kaiba. At all. And that thought was just wrong.
Kaiba had never gotten entangled with employees before. He'd been careful. Extremely paranoid, in fact, concerning the kinds of people he decided to take the chance of sleeping with. Most of his partners had lived outside of Japan, where Kaiba wasn't afraid of being discovered by the media. Outside of one disastrous relationship with a semi-successful actress, he'd stayed away from people in his own country.
In America, he'd fooled around and only actually had sex with less than a handful of men. Only one of them had been a one-night stand: a drunken potential investor Kaiba had never seen again after the initial hook-up. His bartender boyfriend, if he could even call him that, didn't even know who Kaiba was. It was incredibly troubling that Kaiba had broken all his carefully laid-out rules for the idiot he'd known and hated since fucking high school...
Jonouchi was too hard-headed to even realize he might be interested in men, and there was no logical reason on earth for Kaiba to even pursue him to find out what would happen. It was a foolish idea.
Still, now that the idea had flickered in the back of his mind, he was sure it wouldn't ever leave.
Perhaps some time apart would cool things down. Kaiba would be busy preparing for and then entertaining the American delegation, so he was sure he could find some menial tasks to shove onto Jonouchi for the rest of the week. And with some distance, whatever silly thoughts that were percolating in his mind would eventually evaporate, and Jonouchi could get over being butthurt about the whole matter.
It wasn't like he enjoyed being grossly unprofessional, and with the contract in place, Kaiba would have to deal directly with Jonouchi for at least the next two years. It made no sense for both of them to be miserable for the whole duration.
Kaiba rested his head on his desk and rolled his pen around, sighing loudly. None of this mess would've ever happened had Mokuba not run away. Had they never gotten into that argument. And while Kaiba wanted his brother back desperately, Kaiba wasn't sure how happy he'd be to finally see him, given all the conundrums that had occurred during his absence.
It was only quarter past ten. Six hours and forty-five more minutes of the regular work day, plus all the additional hours Kaiba ended up working on a daily basis. Sitting back in his chair, Kaiba knew he had to try being productive, or he'd only end up paying for it later. He picked up the phone and got to work.
When the next day came, Kaiba was surprised to find Jonouchi's report sitting neatly in his inbox, all typed out and ready for review. Clearly it wasn't a product of Jonouchi's own writing skills, since he probably had no idea what to do for a business report. Not that he could be blamed, since no one had ever taught him, but that was why Kaiba had thrown his intern at him in the first place. Nakahara was well-versed in that sort of thing and could fill whatever gaps Jonouchi wasn't educated enough to figure out.
Kaiba sat down and read it as he enjoyed his morning coffee. Thankfully, his regular secretary was back, and he relaxed in his large, overstuffed leather chair while facing the giant window behind his desk.
The system updates had worked perfectly. That meant everything should be good to go in California, when the Americans would return home with the software to load onto their own gaming arenas. Kaiba didn't want any screw-ups, and the United States already had a high opinion of Japanese programming capabilities. He didn't want to disappoint their expectations.
Thankfully, the check-ups had been completed appropriately, but no doubt the Americans would want some sort of demonstration. They liked being entertained, and Kaiba usually didn't mind soaking up the positive attention, but for once, he didn't feel like putting on a show. Jonouchi would be the obvious solution to that equation—have him put on some sort of quick Duel—but Kaiba didn't want to deal with him. He had half a mind to give Jonouchi a few days off, just to keep the idiot away until the foreign guests were gone.
Kaiba couldn't have anything go wrong.
There was no one else good enough to showcase the improvements, though. Grumbling, Kaiba sifted through the papers before tossing the stack into his outbox and checking his emails for anything of interest.
He wanted to see the programming updates for himself. Nakahara could show him before lunch; the intern probably knew how to play Duel Monsters well enough without embarrassing himself. Most young people played the game by now, and he wouldn't have landed the internship if he hadn't any modicum of interest in the game.
"Eguchi, get me Nakahara," Kaiba spoke into the speakerphone. A few seconds later, the door to his office opened and closed quickly, his young intern attempting to smooth out the creases in his jacket before standing ramrod straight.
"You called, Kaiba-sama?"
Kaiba pushed away from his desk, standing to pull his own suit jacket back on. "We're taking a little walk to Kaiba Land. Tell Eguchi to reschedule my appointments for the next hour."
Walking the few blocks down to Kaiba Land had been blissfully silent. It was a welcome change from Jonouchi's incessant pestering, and Kaiba had ignored Nakahara's rather obvious nervousness, not bothering to shorten his long strides. He navigated through the park with ease, weaving through the large crowds that were trying to get in a last bit of fun before the seasons officially changed. A few heads had turned in recognition, but Kaiba had ignored those as well—today was not the day he would humor any fanboys or the like. Nakamura, for his part, had kept up decently well.
Finally arriving at the back entrance of the Dueling Arena, Kaiba punched in his security code at a door marked "STAFF ONLY" and made his way through the dimly-lit hallways. They made a pit stop to pick up a lead technician along the way, and they eventually arrived at the only station that should have been unoccupied.
Only it wasn't.
A certain familiar blond was behind one of the platforms, his opponent a kid that couldn't have been older than nine or ten. The Solid Vision holograms had been engaged, and a Duel was in progress. Three other kids—a girl and two boys—were leaning against the railing of the bleachers, chatting excitedly amongst themselves and pointing at the intimidating monsters on the field. A wave of recognition hit Kaiba unexpectedly, the four children reminiscent of another Duelist and his group of cheerleaders from years ago.
Kaiba hovered by the exit, signaling for his companions not to intrude before crossing his arms over his chest and observing the ongoing battle. Jonouchi was clearly just fooling around, letting the kid get in a few attacks and not crushing him entirely. He was laughing loudly and miming exaggerated reactions, much to the delight of his audience.
He wasn't sure if he should feel angry over Jonouchi fooling around with expensive company equipment or charmed by him playing around with the amused children. If Kaiba made a scene and ushered them away, it might leave the wrong kind of impression and he didn't want to scare off his key demographic, but Jonouchi couldn't use his private Dueling Arenas to entertain whatever kids who happened to come his way.
Thankfully, the Duel was almost over. Jonouchi played Time Wizard, and it spun its little dial around rapidly before landing, sending the poor kid's monster into another dimension. With his side of the field open, Jonouchi blew the boy away with Jinzo, and the Duel was over.
Clearing his throat loudly, Kaiba frowned when Jonouchi met his eyes. Jonouchi looked startled at first, and then almost mad. As if he had any right to be, but apparently neither of them had the desire to make a huge scene out of it, because Jonouchi only patted the kid's back and herded them off before Kaiba could say anything.
"It's been working perfectly since the reprogramming," said the lead tech as Kaiba watched Jonouchi walk right out the door before snapping his attention back to reality, "We worked with it for hours, testing all the cards in the playing database. There were barely, if any, glitches at all, and we already fixed the majority of them last night. We can tackle the rest tonight; I don't think they'll stop your plans to send the software over to Kaiba Land California, Kaiba-sama. It's all going according to schedule."
"At least something is going right."
He still made Nakahara play a quick game against the computer, but Kaiba had already seen a preview of what had been going on. The new system was working. His idea had apparently worked, and the upper executives wouldn't have anything to complain about the next day. It would keep the investors happy, having that bit of progress, and hopefully would attract more dueling competitions to Kaiba Land California as news of their advancements came out.
But despite the good news, Jonouchi's dismissal still burned at Kaiba's nerves. While Kaiba wasn't one for accepting bullshit excuses, he had expected Jonouchi to at least have the decency to apologize for his intrusion. Being a KaibaCorp employee, Jonouchi wasn't exactly trespassing, but it was a rather flagrant misuse of his privileges. And his pointedly nasty expression upon exiting was wholly uncalled for, but Kaiba wasn't sure any disciplinary actions were worth the hassle. It would probably only strain their already rocky relationship further, and with the American delegation arriving in only a matter of days, Kaiba didn't need the extra stress.
Besides, Jonouchi's demonstration only proved, however begrudgingly, that Kaiba would need to enlist him for their impending visit. Nakahara's play-through was sufficient for illustrating the software's basic capacities, but it would take an actual professional to showcase its complete potential. And while Jonouchi hadn't been serious in his match against the kid, Kaiba had seen enough to conclude that Jonouchi would be the best person for the task.
Only if the idiot would be cooperative. At this point, Jonouchi was an unpredictable variable. Could Kaiba really trust Jonouchi to behave himself, given his most recent attitude problems? It wouldn't look favorable to Kaiba at all to have an employee he couldn't control, especially in front of the rather brash and forceful Americans. They would probably appreciate Jonouchi's spirit while at the same time look down at Kaiba's leadership. And that was unacceptable.
But he'd gotten himself into this predicament, hadn't he? Kaiba was the one who had suggested the dumb game and had gotten carried away with it. And he'd only exacerbated the problem two nights ago, when he'd practically attacked Jonouchi with his face. Things had been settling into a somewhat comfortable truce before the stupid anniversary party, and Kaiba had fucked things up rather spectacularly.
He cursed his hormones, the alcohol, and Jonouchi's curiosity. But most of all, Kaiba cursed himself for the uncomfortable stirrings Jonouchi elicited in his gut, and for Jonouchi, who still played determinedly oblivious to everything.
As if he wasn't aware of his part in it all...
Kaiba turned away sharply after that to avoid showing his face, pinching hard at the bridge of his nose. Jonouchi had already disappeared and was probably on his way back to Kaiba Corporation to do whatever busy work his assistants had dreamed up for him. They should work on his business skills for formal events, but Jonouchi would mostly likely balk at having so much of it being shoved down his throat at once.
Kaiba just wanted to escape from it all. He could feel himself becoming more and more anxious and drained as he stood there, ignoring what the other two men were discussing as they went through the update reports. Everything had gone according to plan—a rare triumph, indeed—but Kaiba couldn't let the funny feeling growing in his stomach go.
It rolled and coiled like a spring. He felt like throwing up.
Eventually, though, the technician finished his explanation of the reimaging and had to return to his regular duties. Kaiba waved him away, having caught enough of the information from the reports Jonouchi had created the day before.
"Kaiba-sama, the Americans will be tremendously impressed. The new Solid Vision software should be more catered to the player now than ever before. There were minimal glitches."
"It's still not quite good enough," Kaiba mumbled under his breath as he turned to leave the room, "Something is always amiss."
The Americans were in the air, scheduled to arrive in Japan the following day, and the executive office of Kaiba Corporation was a war zone. A cacophony of phone rings, verbal strings of Japanese mixed with English, pinging interoffice message alerts, and general chaos had descended onto headquarters as final itineraries were confirmed and specialized reports generated. It was all-hands-in-the-trenches, and Kaiba knew he was in for another late night followed by an early morning and an even later night.
He still hadn't confirmed with Jonouchi, either. He'd been putting it off, too stressed with his long list of to-dos to want to deal with the moron's infuriating face, but they were quickly closing in on the eleventh hour. Kaiba knew that if he waited too long, Jonouchi would probably get offended by the last-minute notice (well, too late for that, Kaiba supposed) and purposely act uncooperative.
It would be yet another unfortunate circumstance where Kaiba would have to watch over Jonouchi like a hawk. He was still a wildcard when it came to business etiquette, and while Jonouchi was somewhat capable of fumbling through their own social customs, navigating foreign ones was a whole different ballgame. Thankfully, all members of the delegation spoke enough Japanese to get by (albeit with varying levels of horrendous accents), so at least Kaiba wouldn't have to worry about the idiot making an even bigger idiot out of himself on the conversation front.
KaibaCorp's American counterparts were a bit of a wildcard, themselves, truth be told. The way they conducted business was completely different from what Kaiba dealt with on a daily basis, and while Kaiba was no stranger to western tactics, it still felt rather alien. But if there was one universal similarity between business cultures, it was the shared love of parties and drinking.
There would be meetings and presentations, a tour of the grounds (corporate and theme park), and a demonstration of the new software, but Kaiba was loathe to acknowledge that the nights would invariably end in parties of varying states of sobriety. And while he may be able to escape the subsequent ones, there was no way he was getting out of the initial one.
So really, it was like the anniversary party all over again.
Hopefully this time, it wouldn't end up with any part of his or Jonouchi's bodies making any sort of contact. Kaiba's stomach flipped at the thought.
He'd keep Jonouchi at an arm's length. That would be easy enough. Although, Jonouchi would still need babysitting. Pondering that, Kaiba was unsure what exactly to do about the entire situation. Americans weren't as stringent about formalities like the Japanese were, but they could still get offended by the wrong thing, and Jonouchi had the unfortunate tendency to just open his big mouth and say whatever crap he wanted without a damn filter. Someone would have to keep an eye on him.
But if Kaiba did that, he knew he'd get worn out. They could hardly stand to be in each other's presence, and while eventually that would have to be fixed, Kaiba didn't want to do that while dealing with a handful of foreigners. He didn't want to look like he couldn't handle his own employees, but truthfully, he couldn't. Not that particular one.
Kaiba's intern would no doubt be incredibly pleased if he was paired off with Jonouchi to watch over him throughout the entire night, but that wasn't probably a foolproof idea. Nakahara was well-mannered and polite, but he'd never been tested in any kind of situation that included alcohol. Jonouchi could keep up with the best of them, and if Nakahara tried keeping up with him, it might end up disastrous.
The best possible solution would be sticking Isono with Jonouchi. That was the only kind of situation where Kaiba could control him from afar without losing his damn mind. They would still have to spend the majority of the day and night together, but at least this way, they wouldn't have to be all up close and personal about it.
That decided it. Kaiba dialed two, and his personal assistant almost immediately answered. "Yes, Seto-sama?"
"Find Jonouchi," Kaiba instructed as he propped his cell phone between his ear and his shoulder, "and prepare him for our American guests. I'm sending you an email now of all his duties during their stay. I don't care if you have to play chaperone to him, but don't let him out of your sight, and don't let him do anything to embarrass himself or the company."
"Certainly." The line disconnected, and Kaiba tossed his phone haphazardly onto his desk. Rolling up his sleeves, Kaiba stretched his arms forward, popping his knuckles and yawning. He still had a mountain of work to complete before day's end, and the stress of the foreign delegation along with Jonouchi's antics was getting to him. And he still hadn't heard from his brother, but by now, that was expected. Everything seemed to compress with each passing day, and Kaiba could feel the tension mounting all across his body.
Shit, he just really needed a good fuck.
He tried concentrating back on the task at hand. Hopefully, Jonouchi wouldn't give Isono a hard time. If that semi-docile thing he was doing was still going on, then Isono would probably be met with very little resistance. Jonouchi was probably just happy that Kaiba himself wasn't calling him in to discuss the Americans, and that ticked Kaiba off a little. He was probably getting on famously with everyone in his damn staff except for the damn CEO...
There was nothing to be done about it, now.
The Americans were coming. They were going to have the best rooms at the Kaiba Hotel during their stay, and Kaiba planned on taking them to one of the company-owned restaurants in the city and hiring entertainment just for the party to ensure its success. He had even planned on hiring a few geiko from Gion just for the event, since he'd heard that the Americans had a particular fascination with the whole tradition of female entertainers.
It had to be a success. This was the first overseas park Kaiba created, but it wasn't the only foreign expansion he had planned. He wanted another one built in New York City, to attract the American east coast to his parks. Having another park built in Florida would also be good, to compete against the giant Disney theme parks, and then there was the plan for multiple parks in Europe, first Paris, and then maybe if everything happened perfectly, Dubai.
There would be a Kaiba Land in every continent by the time he was done. His dream would come true, and hopefully Mokuba would return to him before then to see it completed. Kaiba didn't want to even consider finishing his lifelong project alone. It was too depressing a thought.
There would be plenty to think about before he'd be done with the day. Kaiba knew he'd be getting absolutely no sleep that night at all.