Here you go!

Great thanks to my beta reader Yugi16dm! Thank you again and again! :3

On with the show!

Chapter 4: Hell is not even close

Joey stormed down the hallway, a not-happy-at-all expression plastered on his face. He glanced at his watch, groaning at the glowing numbers it showed. When he had gotten to Kaiba Corp around thirty minutes ago, the only thing he had been worried about had been how he would cope with Seto Kaiba, aka Mr. Arrogance, for more than two minutes. At the moment, though, he worried more about finding the company's heir in the first place.

Once he'd passed the revolving doors of the entrance hall at five to nine, he had looked for the information desk immediately, only to discover that it was not occupied. He had wanted to turn away and find someone else to ask, but it was then that a girl, looking about twenty-two, opened the door to the booth and sat down on the chair in front of the computer, starting to type away on the keyboard.

"Excuse me," Joey began. "Could you tell… me…?" The girl didn't even flinch. Joey knitted one eyebrow, trying again a little louder. This time, the girl turned her head, raising one index finger.

One minute.

Even though he was already late, he waited patiently as one minute dragged on into becoming two, then three. After a good five minutes, he approached the desk for the third time, hoping the receptionist would notice him. She didn't.

"Sorry, I really don't want to bother, but—"

"Excuse me," the reception said, smiling sweetly at the blond before rushing out of the office. "I'll be right back!"

Joey just stood there for a moment, flabbergasted, before he groaned, turned, and tried to get the information he needed elsewhere.

It didn't take him long to find the elevator, and since he was pretty sure Kaiba's office would be somewhere high up, (that was where all the important people had their workplaces, wasn't it?) he pressed the button beside the door, and waited. It took a little while, but soon the doors opened and Joey walked in, turning to choose the floor he wanted to get out. After some thought (and one or two annoyed glares from the other passengers), Joey finally decided it couldn't hurt to choose the highest one, since it seemed the most reasonable and it was more logical than selecting just a random number.

What Joey hadn't considered, though, was the fact that it also took the most time to get up that high, and when the elevator came to a halt nearly every second floor, he began to get nervous. His watch read 9:15, showing he was already fifteen minutes late and Joey could just picture the look of satisfaction and confirmation on Kaiba's face at his delay.

When the elevator had finally stopped at the second to last floor and the only passenger that had been in the compartment apart from Joey walked out, the blonde was beginning to feel a little calmer again.

This changed immediately when the elevator didn't go up to the next floor, but instead began traveling down again, halting five levels further down. Joey gave the keypad an angry glance, then, as soon as the doors slid open, stormed out, turned a corner, and nearly ran up the staircase until he found himself at a dead end. He opened the door, suppressing the urge to slam it shut, charging down the corridor.

He came to a halt at the door at the end of the passage, a little unsure of what he should do now. The easiest way would be to just go in, but if Joey were to be honest, he felt a little nervous. Kaiba and he had never been very friendly to each other, and the agreement of ignorance toward the other one's presence had only been made so it wouldn't cause too much tension when Yuugi and the others were around. Now that they would have to spend all day alone, with no one keeping them from arguing, he was pretty sure that it would be a very exhausting day. He could just picture the brunet's arrogant expression when he gave him a lecture about being late.

Maybe he should just wait a little while longer. He was late, anyway, so could five more minutes hurt?

On the other hand, he doubted that those five minutes would be of great help anyway. Deep down he knew he just wanted to put off the confrontation with Kaiba as long as possible. Sighing, he made another step towards the door, and knocked.

While he waited for a reaction, he read the sign on the right of the door. 'Seto Kaiba: CEO and head of management', it said. Even his title sounds arrogant, Joey thought, rolling his eyes. The door opened that instant, revealing said CEO, wearing a white shirt and dark blue trousers, hair perfectly combed, looking as it could be bothered by neither rain, wind or hurricane. In other words: he looked like he always did and his expression was not any different.

"Wheeler," he said.

"Kaiba," the blonde answered just as coldly.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, neither wanting to be the first one to look away.

"You're late," Kaiba finally broke the silence, turning away from the blond. He made his way to his desk, his laptop sitting silently on it, and sat down to (Joey assumed) continue his work, pointedly ignoring the blond.

Said blond closed the door, and looked around the room. The floor was a really soft-looking black carpet. There was a white couch with two armchairs in one corner to Joey's right, and on his left some kind of palm tree was giving off a friendly atmosphere (if only just a little). The walls were covered with what seemed like a hundred different certificates, most likely for the company's, or its CEO's, achievements. There was also a second desk that was slightly angled at the right side of the one Kaiba was sitting at. Joey didn't pay too much attention to all of this, though, because his eyes got transfixed on something completely different. At the far end of the room and right behind the desk Kaiba was working at, was a breathtaking view of the whole city through the wall-size glass window.

Without really realizing, Joey walked towards it, gazing down at the skyline that seemed surreal right now. He could even see Domino High from here and was that his flat, there? Oh, and the Card Shop and Black Clown, just over there! How Tristan was doing right now, Joey wondered.

He turned his head in the CEO's direction only to find the brunet looking at him with a blank expression (was there amusement in there?) on his face. When he noticed Joey was eyeing him, the expression changed to an irritated one.

"Don't touch the glass, it'll get smudgy."

"I'm not stupid."

"Aren't you here to work, anyway?" Kaiba changed the subject. "I'm not going to pay you for staring out of the window the whole day."

"I would have done that if you had given me something to do," Joey countered, his voice becoming more agitated with each word.

"I put all your chores on your desk. Finish them and you can go again, "his tone suggested that it would be better for both of them if he finished those tasks as soon as possible. Having no intention to spend more time with Kaiba than was completely necessary, Joey sat down, studying the paper with the list of things he was assigned.

All of the points were pretty easy to do, organizing files, writing some emails… maybe this was not going to be so bad after all.

"Are you just going to read it, or are you actually planning on doing something useful for once?" Kaiba asked from the side.

Or maybe not.

A/N: So, what did you think of Seto's and Joey's first encounter?

For the next chapter, what would you like to read the most: Bakura's day, Ryou's day or Tristan's day?

Also, should next chapter be in Seto's perspective again?

Take care everyone; reviews are, like always, very much appreciated! :DD