"Why do you look so familiar?

I could swear that I have seen your face before.

I think I like that you seem sincere.

I think I'd like to get to know you a little bit more."

Who Knows? by Avril Lavigne

III

It was hard to describe it… uncomfortable? Maybe, but Seto could tell there was much more to it than that by the way Kisara was sitting on the other side of the seat, unsure of how to respond to Mokuba's rambling. Mokuba must've caught on because after a while he quieted down. Seto speculated that it was probably the fact that she was in the car with him that was freaking her out. The fact that he was both her classmate and most likely the only person she had really interacted with since she had arrived in Japan two days ago. Now she was sitting in the back seat of his car, most likely wishing she could throw herself out of it as soon as possible. Seto didn't want to acknowledge it, but he was feeling the same way.

"So where are you from? Nii-sama mentioned you were a transfer student." Kisara turned to Mokuba.

"He told you about me?" Seto glared at Mokuba through the rear-view mirror. Things were becoming more and more uneasy by the second… but despite how she felt, Kisara also felt compelled to reply.

"I'm from Cairo, Egypt." Mokuba's eyes grew wide with interest.

"That's so cool! So do you know how to read hieroglyphs and stuff like that?" Kisara laughed. Suddenly the tension in the car was lifted a bit. Watching her through the rear-view mirror out of the corner of his eye while he drove, he could've sworn that was the first time he had seen her smile too. Her face continued to bewilder him.

"No, I don't know how to read hieroglyphs, but that is a common misconception." Mokuba was happy to see that Kisara was relaxing a bit, though he was disappointed he and Kisara were the only ones talking. Seto had remained silent the entire ride and while that was probably best, Mokuba's plan was supposed to result in Kisara and Seto getting to know each other better and potentially falling in love. He got over his disappointment quickly though, as he was curious to hear more about Kisara's story.

"So what made you decide to come to Japan?" There was a shift in Kisara's expression. It was only slightly, but Seto caught onto it immediately.

"I wanted to live with my father for a while. My parents are divorced and even though I love my mom, it's hard not being able to see my dad a lot. I figured I'd come over here to live with him, maybe make up for lost time and such."

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry your parents are divorced."

"It's okay. It's just the way things go sometimes." Seto had begun to slow the car as he looked at each apartment building they passed. He was trying to spot the specific one that Kisara lived in.

"We're close, right?" Seto asked.

"Yeah, it's that building on the corner." Seto drove up a bit further and then came to a stop. Kisara grabbed her things and got out of the car. "Well, thanks for the ride home. I really appreciated it." Kisara turned away to leave and hope to never see Seto again but… something made her turn back around and face him.

"Hey… Seto?"

"Uh… yes?"

"I'll see you tomorrow in English class." Seto nodded.

"See you then." Kisara closed the car door and walked up to her apartment building. Seto and Mokuba waited outside until she got out her keys and was able to go in, just to make sure she made it into the building okay. During that time, Mokuba got out from the back seat and moved up to the passenger seat in the front. The minute Kisara was inside, Seto was off.

"She seems nice. I like her," Mokuba turned Seto way to see his reaction. There was none. If anything, his face carried the expression of being disgruntled or uneasiness as he looked forward, driving the car home. "What's wrong? I like her. That means I approve of her for you."

"It's not that. Kisara is lying and it bothers me. When she first came into my class, she said she moved to Japan because of her sick uncle. Now she's saying it's because her parents are divorced and she's staying with her dad. Something isn't right."

"Whoa, that is weird. I still don't understand, though, why would she lie?"

"The only reason anyone ever lies, because she has something to hide." The fact that people lied because they had something to hide was plainly obvious to Mokuba but he still couldn't understand why his brother was so upset about it.

"Okay, so she's lying about why she's here. Why does it matter? Maybe she just doesn't want to tell the whole world about her life." Seto pulled into the driveway of the Kaiba Mansion and parked the car. He got out along with Mokuba.

"Because I can't trust people who have something to hide and the fact that she lied about why she's here leads me to believe she came here for me." Mokuba stopped walking towards the house and stared at his brother.

"Excuse me?" Seto turned around.

"Think about it Mokuba; she's lying about why she's here, she goes to my school, she tried to intern at my company… she's just another person trying to undermine my control of Kaiba Corp. by building a relationship with me." Seto pulled out his keys and unlocked the door, walking inside. Mokuba ran in after him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think you're taking this way out of proportion. I was the one trying to get her to build a relationship with you! If you remember what happened yesterday, the moment she found out you were a classmate in her class, she ran out of your office like there was no tomorrow!"

"She must've known I would… something her, and she knew you would try and bring us together as a result!" Seto tried to go upstairs to his room but Mokuba grabbed his arm.

"That's not possible, people can't read minds! Not even you had known I was going to try and bring you two together. I think you're looking into this too much. Trust me when I say that's not what's going on, I just know it's not." Seto rolled his eyes.

"Oh, is that so? And how do you know that?" Mokuba grinned.

"Because wouldn't you have been able to tell what she was after the moment you saw her?" Mokuba knew that Seto was stumped because while Seto wasn't able to predict Mokuba's every move or plan, he liked to think that he was able to do that with anything related to business. It was the only good skill his step father had taught him, or rather, advanced. Though it was true that Seto was human, he was also a perfectionist and didn't like to believe he could make mistakes. Thus, Mokuba had him in a position where he would have to agree or admit to making a business mistake.

Seto narrowed his eyes. "You can believe whatever you want to believe, Mokuba. This won't change the fact that I will no longer interact with her for the rest of the school year. Being cautious never hurt anyone." Seto turned around again, this time determined to make it up the stairs to his room. Mokuba was not satisfied at all but he knew there was no way of changing his brother's mind about it. Seto was a guarded person by nature—he never let anyone in, besides Mokuba.

"You know, Nii-sama… not everything is about your company. Just because she didn't tell the whole truth doesn't mean that she's got something hide, it might just mean there isn't a lot she wants to show. Surely someone who is closed off and private like you could understand the desire to keep certain things to yourself." Mokuba left the front hall and walked towards the kitchen, letting the conversation die right then and there. Seto knew why Mokuba had done this, he wanted Seto think about what he had said.

Seto was able to make the choice not to care, however. He had been alone all his life so to lose out on an opportunity to not be alone, Seto was fine with. The only thing he hoped was that she wouldn't try and talk to him ever again.

Though Seto had made the conscious decision to no longer consider giving Kisara the time of day, he found this did not make him automatically revert back to his normal, uncaring-for-anyone-other-than-his-brother self. He found that thoughts of Kisara still slipped into his head randomly and it didn't help that she still sat in front of him in his English class the following day.

Seto tried not to make eye contact as she came closer, pretending to read the English book he opened for the second time that school year. She sat down in her regular seat without saying a word to him, of which Seto was thankful. There wasn't a word shared between them for the whole rest of the class period either. Seto spent the entirety of English class that day trying to figure out what it was that was keeping Kisara in his head. No one had kept his attention for this long, especially not someone who wasn't related to his company in some way. By the end of class, Seto was not even close to figuring out what it was.

His puzzlement plagued him through-out his next class until the bell rang and it was lunch period. Seto gave a sigh a relief; at least then he could focus on his food rather than his thoughts of Kisara. Though he could've focused on his actual class instead of letting his mind wander, paying attention would've been more painful than being puzzled, so lunch period was just what he needed to get his mind off of things.

Seto walked into the normal, noisy cafeteria and headed towards the corner of the room. Though the noise was annoying, students weren't allowed to eat outside of the cafeteria during lunch period. Because of this, Seto had established a table in the corner of the cafeteria where no one other than him sat and he was at least happy with that. A whole period to spend by himself with his thoughts, he couldn't think of anything better…

"Hey," Seto snapped out of his thoughts and looked up. Kisara was standing at the other end of the small table, pulling out a chair for herself and sitting down. Seto narrowed his eyes while he stared at her, he tried not to let his frustration about the fact that lunch period was supposed to be the one point in time where he could be alone get the best of him. "How are you?"

"What are you doing?"

"The teachers keep telling me I'm not allowed to eat outside of the cafeteria and I figured you were a nice enough guy to eat lunch with." The argument sounded reasonable, but Seto wasn't convinced and filled with his own suspicion about her actions.

"We've barely talked in the three days you've been here. How could you know anything about me?"

"I don't need to hear someone say a lot of things for me to figure out whether a person's genuine or not." With that, Kisara opened up her lunch bag and started pulling out a sandwich. Seto looked down at the food in front of him, still not convinced of Kisara's argument. Much to his dismay, when he looked up, the table had grown an additional four people and Seto couldn't have been more annoyed.

"Who's your friend, Kaiba?" The blond one asked, eyeing Kisara like a hawk.

"Joey, why don't you try introducing yourself first before drooling all over her?" The brown-haired girl stated, holding out her hand towards Kisara, "My name's Tea. And that's my idiot friend Joey. And these are my other not-so-idiot friends, Tristan and Yugi. Are you new to this school?"

"Why the hell are you guys here? This is MY table. Go sit at your own table."

"Chill Kaiba, we just wanted to find out the name of your lovely friend," Tristan said, trying to be suave and holding out his hand as well. Kisara raised her eyebrow.

"Um… I'm Kisara," She said, shaking both of their hands. Tea and Tristan sat down beside her.

"No, no, no! This is not how it's going to go. I don't deserve to deal with you people during the only free period of school," Seto said, becoming more and more annoyed with every passing second. He was contemplating leaving for another table, but he wasn't sure if dealing with Yugi and his gang of friends was better or worse than dealing with anyone else that went to his school. It wasn't fantastic that it was hard for Seto to get along with anyone at his school but it wasn't something he could help.

So he did what he felt he was best at… he ignored them, continuing to eat his lunch and pretend he was somewhere else. Kisara sat there silently as they all began to come at her with questions from all angles. They seemed nice but she had been hoping to eat during her lunch period, not answer questions. That was when her eyes glanced over at Seto, who seemed to be so annoyed he almost looked like he was shaking with rage.

"Hey, guys?" The four of them fell silent as Kisara stopped them from their questioning, "I'd love to answer all of your questions right now, but it looks like Seto is rather distressed by your presence. So why don't we do this at another time so Seto can eat in peace?" The four of them stared at her, then at Seto. Seto looked up at Kisara.

"But, Kaiba is always annoyed with our presence," Tristan said, stating the obvious.

"Then we can do this when I'm not eating with Seto. I go to school here so… you'll see me around. I'm sure we can talk then." They were baffled by this response but they could do nothing but heed to her request. Seto watched as each one of them rose from their seat at the table and left, absolutely astonished at what had happened. He had never been able to get Yugi and his friends to leave so quickly so that fact that Kisara had done it so easily surprised him. Seto turned back to stare at Kisara again.

"What was that all about?" Kisara was about to take a bite of her sandwich, which she stopped herself from doing in mid-air.

"What?"

"You didn't have to do that, you know." Kisara lowered her sandwich.

"Well, duh, I know I didn't have to but it was clear that they were annoying you and I didn't want you having a bad lunch period because of me. Besides, I was kind of hoping for a quiet lunch too so now we both win." Kisara went back to eating her lunch and Seto did too. Neither of them said anything to each other for the rest of the period and Seto was happy about it especially because he continued to doubt his previous thoughts about her.

Had Kisara done that because she knew that Seto hated Yugi and his friends? As Mokuba had said, Kisara couldn't read minds and not every detail about him could be found out plainly through research online or in the papers. Just as Kisara had made a remark about him being genuine, Seto started to get a sense that Kisara was the same. He began to wonder if it was her sincerity that made her seem different. Then again, Yugi was one of the most sincere people Seto knew and he hated Yugi's guts.

There had to be something more to Kisara that Seto simply wasn't able to understand.

A/N: So here's that update I'm sure you were all dying to read, up and online a week from posting! Hooray having a set schedule for things! I like it when things go according to schedule, so that's why I express joy in it. Anyway, I'm not sure what else to say about this chapter. There's not much to say since this is only the beginning before all the really good stuff happened! I hope you enjoyed it for what it was and thanks for reading. I'll see you guys next chapter, have a nice day!