A/N: This one is dedicated to MyAibou, who needs some serious cheering up right now. I know this won't even make a dent, babs, but know that you're in my thoughts.

40. Balloons – Dong Bang Shin Ki

Siegfried liked to think he wasn't such a boring workhorse as Seto Kaiba. It was one of the things he vaunted most – that he could get any job done as well as Kaiba Corp's austere CEO, but better, in half the time, and with far more charisma.

Still, even his patience was wearing thin at the constant interruptions.

He stared at the multicoloured balloons currently squeezing into his office ahead of the unfortunate delivery boy. The boy's hat was askew when he finally popped into the room and handed them over. Siegfried stood, wondering what the heck he was supposed to do with to dozen helium-filled balloons shaped like hearts. Perhaps he could scatter them around the building and call it a morale-boosting exercise. Or maybe –

Maybe he could wrap the strings one by one around Vivian Wong's pretty little neck, and then let go to see how far off the ground they'd take her.

"Helloooo!"

Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Siegfried did an admirable job of not flinching when a familiar face burst through the melee of balloons and grinned at him, the tip of her nose barely two inches from his own.

"Do you like my present?"

"They're from you?"

"Who did you think they were from?" She pulled back, but only to jab his nose with the tip of her finger. "Silly boy."

Vivian was a beautiful woman with a zest for life he found refreshing, but her crush on him since the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix was now bordering on infuriating. He could cope with admiration from a distance, but up close and personal was a different matter. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only way Vivian worked. She did nothing by half and threw her whole irrepressible spirit into whatever latest project or whim had caught her attention. She was giving even his melodramatic tendencies a run for their money.

"I would," he deadpanned, "have preferred roses."

"I know, but you have roses everywhere anyhow. I wanted to do something special, and since you refuse to eat chocolate – despite coming from the country that produces the best chocolate in the entire world -"

"A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips."

"And what lovely hips they are, Siegfried darling."

"Please don't call me darling."

"All right, cuddle-bumps."

Siegfried sighed. If Vivian was up here on the fourteenth floor that meant she'd intimidated another secretary into letting her past, and probably frightened the poor girl out of her wits in the process. He suspected he'd have to place another ad in tomorrow's newspaper. This was costing him a fortune in temps.

And yet … somehow he couldn't take the easy option and just tell Vivian to go boil her head and leave him alone.

Leonhart was going to have a field day when he found out his untouchable older brother allowed a grown woman with pigtails call him 'cuddle-bumps' without reprisal.