Disclaimer: I *does handstand* do not *juggles apples* own Yu-Gi-Oh! *takes bow*

The feeling is pure
And I felt the warmth of your lips
Though the time will go on
And the seasons will change
I'll always think back on our kiss

~ First Kiss, Alexander Rybak

Chapter 10

Teenagers have selective memories at the best of times, and being a Kaiba didn't make Mokuba an exception. The moment he got off the phone with his brother he forgot to tell Alistair anything about Hillary coming to dinner

Instead, Mokuba spent all afternoon fretting about his date that night. Much as Alistair had the day before, Mokuba found himself roaming the halls and running over how he wanted the evening to go. Ideally, she and Seto would hit it off, and he dreamed up scenarios in which she managed to get his brother to smile. But he was worried. As much as he wanted to impress Seto with the amazing girl he'd somehow managed to land, he was afraid that after meeting his brother, Hillary would realize how much better she could do. Seto had always been the impressive one, the smart one, the talented one, and apparently, the handsome one too.

After his third lap around the house, Mokuba had the worst of all the bad thoughts he'd had that day: what if Seto was interested in Hillary? She was smack between their ages. She was gorgeous. She was witty. Could it be possible that now that Mokuba was so close to having something that was just his, Seto would take it from him?

Mokuba tapped his nails on the second floor bannister. No, he decided, that would never happen. Seto would never dream of betraying him that way.

By the time six-thirty rolled around, Mokuba'd changed his shirt four times, finally settling on a black T-shirt with the Time Wizard on the front. At the last minute he also decided to pull his hair back in a ponytail and spray himself with his brother's cologne.

While waiting for Hillary by the main gate, Mokuba tried to lean nonchalantly against one of the white stone pillars while Saito watched on from afar. He managed to maintain his devil may care stance until he heard the sound of a car pulling off the main road, but it turned out to be Seto.

After he'd driven past Mokuba and parked the car, Seto told him that he'd meet him inside and then swept into the house.

The next set of tires to crunch up the gravel path belonged to Hilary's white Prius. Through the windshield he could see that she was biting her lip nervously and he felt a small twinge of pride. He signaled Saito to let her in and the gate opened smoothly. Without taking her eyes off the path, Hillary pulled in before stopping and rolling down her window as the gates closed behind her.

"Where should I park?" she asked, looking around the grounds uncertainly.

"Don't worry about it, Saito will take care of it if you give him the keys." Mokuba gestured towards the bodyguard standing beside the now closed entranceway.

"Oh, ok…" She turned the car off and got out. "Thank you," she said to Saito, handing him the keys before turning to Mokuba. "I like your shirt," she commented, giving him a hug. Behind them, Saito raised an eyebrow at the fluffy pink pom pom Hillary had attached to her kingring.

"Thanks. You look really nice too," Mokuba replied with a smile. Away from work, Hillary's style was what he would consider sophisticated. On this occasion she wore a black and white striped top with a pair of dark pants and had tied her long blonde hair up in a loose bun. How beautiful Hillary was continued to leave Mokuba in awe, and he wanted nothing more than to plant a kiss on her there and then, but knew he had to stay cool.

"What's for dinner?" she asked as they walked towards the mansion, trying her best not to stare. She'd never been to such a fancy house before and was starting to wonder if she was dressed appropriately, though Mokuba only had a T-shirt on.

"Curry. You said it's your favorite, right?"

She nodded, pleased that he'd remembered. All of her friends had laughed when she said she had gone on a date with a fourteen year old, but had quickly changed their tune when she told them just which fourteen year old she was seeing. Then they had told her how lucky she was, and how jealous they were already of all the expensive things he was sure to buy her. And naturally, they had insisted that she repeat every detail of her date tonight, especially if she got to meet Seto, whom the majority of her friends found unfathomably dreamy. Hillary too had always found the older Kaiba very good looking, and would be lying if she said she didn't have a copy of his most recent ad in her locker, but she really did like Mokuba. And even though it had made her friends screech with laughter, she'd admitted that she thought Mokuba was almost just as good looking as his brother.

"Is it just going to be the two of us?" she asked tentatively as she slipped her shoes off in the manor's expansive foyer.

"Oh, no. I hope you don't mind, but Seto was going to join us because I really want him to meet you. Is that ok?" Suddenly Mokuba remembered that he hadn't told Alistair about Hillary coming over, or that he was supposed to stay away. He said a silent prayer in the hopes that Alistair would stay conveniently out of the house until dinner was over.

When the two younger teens arrived, Seto was sitting at the dining table on his cell phone, instructing Roland on how to properly file the fax that had just come in. He looked up and gave the girl a brief once over, never pausing in his conversation. From his quick visual assessment he felt he had been able to determine that she was just some silly teenage girl who probably read fashion magazines and had sleepovers with her girlfriends. Still, etiquette dictated that he be polite even though she was hardly worth his time.

"Dinner will be ready shortly," he said in clipped tones after getting off the phone. "So go ahead and sit."

When she'd first met Mokuba at the food court, it hadn't struck Hillary as strange; Mokuba was just Mokuba. But it was distinctly surreal to be spoken to by Seto Kaiba. After seeing him on television for years and giggling over pictures of him with her friends, she could scarcely comprehend that the young man sitting at the head of the huge dining room table was real. He was just as handsome as on TV, his chestnut hair fashionably overgrown so that it fell across his eyes as he looked down at his phone. He wasn't wearing one of his iconic trench coats, but his simple white suit nonetheless left him looking sexy, powerful, and completely intimidating. Was she really expected to engage in conversation with him?

Mokuba pulled a chair out for her, unaware that his date was more than a little preoccupied.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Seto was furiously attempting to decide how to interact with the girl sitting at the table normally only occupied by himself, his brother, and recently, Alistair. He wanted nothing to do with her, but it was his responsibility to make her feel comfortable to please Mokuba. What did one talk to sixteen year old girls about?

"Mokuba told me that you work in food service," he began finally. "At the Domino mall, I believe?" He set his phone aside as he spoke and leaned forward, his hands clasped in front of him.

"Oh, uh, yes. I'm a cashier mostly," she replied without looking at him, choosing instead to fidget with a piece of hair that had fallen out of her bun. "But I sometimes I make french fries and hamburgers too."

"Fascinating. And how long have you been in that line of work?"

"Not long," she explained, now twisting the strand of hair around her finger. "Just since the beginning of the summer. It's my first job."

Mokuba was spared the necessity of intervening in the painful conversation when Trudy arrived with four steaming plates of curry.

"You must be Hillary!" she said, setting the plates on the table and proceeding to divvy them out. "That's a lovely shirt you've got on."

"Oh, thank you," Hilary answered, grateful to have the silence broken. "And the food smells really good."

"Polite and pretty," Trudy declared cheekily. "Whatever are you doing with this scrawny thing here?"

"Hey!" Mokuba exclaimed, though he knew the comment was meant affectionately.

"Where's Alistair?" Trudy asked, noticing all of a sudden that he wasn't there.

Seto looked up sharply, mentally kicking himself for not telling her that Alistair wouldn't be joining them. "He's not coming," he said curtly, hoping that would be the end of it.

"Why ever not? He's had such a long day what with taking that test and all; he passed you know, with flying colors I shouldn't wonder. Is he taking a nap?"

"He drove up to the mountains," Mokuba explained helpfully. "He wanted to get out of the house I think."

"I don't blame him. The poor thing hardly ever gets out except to read in the garden. I do hope that he'll take a leaf out of your book, Mokuba, and make a few friends instead of just doting on that little cat of his."

"Thank you Trudy, that will be all," Seto snapped, unable to feign indifference any longer. He'd noticed the girl's look of interest, and was unwilling to allow Trudy to continue fanning the flame.

"I'm so sorry." Trudy gave a little hop. "Look at me, prattling away. I'll just go get some drinks, shall I?" With that she bustled off, carrying the empty tray under her arm.

Seto would have been perfectly fine with simply eating in silence, but the girl , it seemed, was determined to make the evening slightly more social.

"It's really nice to finally get to meet you," Hilary said with a warm smile as she daintily settled her napkin into her lap. "Mokuba talks about you all the time."

"Yes, well, he's been talking about you a lot as well." Seto hated how stilted he sounded when he was more than capable of charismatically commanding the attention of an entire arena. He would have greatly preferred that to the utterly alien nature of his present situation. But of course, there was no escape.

Alistair knew he'd be late even as he barreled up the narrow road that led to the Kaiba estate. There was no excuse-he'd had plenty of time to make the return journey, but everything had seemed to hold him up: he'd needed to get gas on the way back, he'd gotten stopped at every red light. Those weren't really the reasons he was running late, though. Once up in the mountains, he'd found it incredibly difficult to find the motivation to come back down. He enjoyed his conversations with Trudy and Mokuba over dinner, that wasn't it. But it could all be so exhausting. While working for Dartz, there had been days when he hadn't spoken to anyone, sometimes several in a row. Granted, there had also been times when he and Raphael and Valon had been stuffed into small surveillance rooms together for weeks. It all left him very unsure whether he liked being around people or not. The mixed emotions were what had really led him to dally. But once he was actually on the road, he discovered that he was rather looking forward to sitting down with who he oddly now considered his two closest friends.

After being let through the gates and parking his bike in the garage (where he wondered briefly whose car was blocking his usual spot), Alistair hurried into the house towards the dining room, expecting to be chastised by Trudy for his tardiness. Instead, he was startled to discover Kaiba sitting at the head of the table while Mokuba's girlfriend occupied his customary spot.

"Sorry I'm late," he said even as Kaiba's scowl informed him that he wasn't welcome. "I got held up." Despite recognizing that Kaiba didn't want him there, Alistair felt he had little choice but to join the table if he wanted to avoid making more of a spectacle of himself. "Curry, huh?" he added as he sat down next to Kaiba. "Smells great."

Seto couldn't decide who he was more annoyed with: Alistair for gatecrashing or himself for not seeing it coming. But now that Alistair was there, he could hardly send him away; that would undoubtedly make it worse. And judging by the look on the girl's face, it was bad enough already.

"How about something to drink?" Trudy had just returned to the dining room with a large pitcher of water and three glasses. "Oh, hello, Alistair, I didn't know you'd be back in time for dinner, I'll be right back with a plate. And next time do remember to wear a shirt with sleeves." The moment she left, awkward silence descended once more upon the room.

One of the attributes that even Dartz had praised Alistair for was his ability to think quickly on his feet. The skill had proven useful when he'd trained as a duelist as well as during the minor missions he, Valon, and Raphael had undertaken, and in the time it took Trudy to return with his dinner, Alistair found himself dusting it off.

"I'm Alistair," he said, casually introducing himself with a relaxed smile. "And don't worry about me getting in the way; I just came to grab a bite, then I'm off." He quickly devoured a mouthful of curry. "Oh, by the way," he added to Kaiba once he'd swallowed. "Henry says he'll only give me a private license until I hit 250 hours, so I guess you're stuck with me a little while longer." He turned to Hillary before Kaiba had a chance to interrupt him. "Kaiba and I are old aviation academy friends. He doesn't like people to know it, but he's really quite a generous guy; he's letting me stay here until I graduate, which isn't as easy for the rest of us as it was for Mr. 'Best at Everything' over there."

Seto wasn't sure what was more infuriating: the fact that Alistair was making him out to be some kind of good old boy who would allow random acquaintances to mooch off of him or the fact that it seemed to work. After Alistair's explanation, the curiosity drained from Hillary's face.

As the meal progressed, Alistair noticed that far from being his usual sulky and ill tempered self, Kaiba actually seemed ill at ease. Hillary being uncomfortable and averting Kaiba's gaze was understandable. Kaiba being seemingly unable to look into her face wasn't. He chalked it up to Kaiba being unused to dealing with laypeople. Still, he couldn't help but feel sorry for him given how pathetic that was. He'd never considered himself a sparkling conversationalist, but he'd lived with Valon long enough to know how to fake it.

He valiantly joined in Mokuba and Hillary's conversation about the progression of the American Duel Monsters Nationals and dragged Seto into it too by asking his opinion.

Having given his opinion on the subject twice already, and knowing that Alistair knew that too, Seto hated the grain of gratitude he felt towards him for seamlessly including him in a discussion he was actually equipped to undertake. Still, despite Alistair's best efforts, Seto found it merciful when Hillary thanked the Kaibas for their hospitality, but indicated she ought to head home after Trudy came to collect what was left of the chocolate mousse that had served as dessert. The second the two younger teens were out of sight, Seto caught Alistair's eye, nodded slightly, and the two slipped upstairs to Alistair's room.

"That was really nice," Hillary said to Mokuba as they put their shoes back on in the foyer. "The food was amazing!"

"Yeah, Trudy's a really good cook; I'm lucky that I'm still so skinny," Mokuba agreed, though he didn't much care to discuss dinner when there was the potential for a kiss instead.

"Your brother's friend was really nice too. It's cool that you guys are letting him stay here."

The invisible question mark was nonetheless palpable, and Mokuba did his best to sidestep it. "Well, like he said: he and Seto go way back, so when Alistair needed somewhere to stay, there was no question about him living with us. That's just the way Seto is."

Hearing the admiration in Mokuba's tone, Hillary couldn't help but smile. On the occasions that she and Mokuba had hung out, he never failed to talk up his brother.

"You really look up to him him, don't you?" she noted.

Mokuba grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. I know it's kind of pathetic since he's my brother, but I do."

"I don't think so," she disagreed, and when he looked up, Mokuba noticed how the light from the setting sun made the gold in her hair shine. "I actually…" She paused as she felt her face flushing. "I really like you, and unless I'm completely delusional, I think you like me too, so I was wondering if, maybe, you'd want to make this an official thing." She looked hopefully up at Mokuba from under her eyelashes.

"Yeah, I'd really like that," he replied, barely able to contain his excitement, but managing to keep his voice serious. When they kissed, he could still taste chocolate on her mouth. It was wonderful.

After they broke apart, they both grinned giddily for a moment before Mokuba led her around the front of the house to the garage, his hand twined around Hillary's.

"I'll text you when I get home," she promised once she was behind the wheel of the car and halfway down the driveway.

"Sounds good!" he replied, waving as she pulled out onto the street.

Still punch-drunk off of his first kiss and having Hillary ask him out, Mokuba failed to question where his brother and Alistair had gone.

During their silent walk to his bedroom, Alistair pondered his recent feelings of sympathy for Kaiba, surprised to find that it didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have to have humanized his arch nemesis. But he supposed Kaiba wasn't really his arch nemesis anymore, if he'd ever really been. So what was he to him? Not a friend certainly. But they were far too intimately involved to be acquaintances.

Kaiba trailed his hand lazily along the bannister with a trained elegance such that Alistair couldn't help but admire how beautiful his hands were, each long, pale finger perfectly manicured. For all his character flaws and his horribly cliched tragic backstory, Kaiba was a more alluring specimen of humanity than anyone deserved to be, and Alistair had to admit that there was a possibility his knee-jerk feelings of dislike towards Kaiba stemmed from jealousy. Why should one person be allowed to have everything desirable in the world all the way down to tapered fingertips?

By the time they reached his bedroom, Alistair had managed to annoy himself by noticing several other minute instances of Kaiba's perfection including, but not limited to, the golden ratio of his proportions. He was so lost in thought that he scarcely noticed that they'd stopped walking until Kaiba reached around him to close the door, the action causing an anticipatory jolt of pleasure in his lower stomach.

"What the hell were you thinking coming to dinner when I specifically told you not to?" Kaiba demanded unexpectedly.

Alistair, who had been expecting something quite different, was completely bewildered."What? What are you talking about?"

Taking in Alistair's apparently genuine confusion, Seto realized what had happened. "Mokuba didn't tell you, did he?"

"No," Alistair shook his head. "But it's ok; I think she believed me. And I have to give credit where credit is due: it was really nice of you to put up with that for him."

The warmth that Seto felt at Alistair's words immediately put him on the offensive. "Yes, about that." Seto crossed his arms and glared directly into Alistair's eyes. "Let me be perfectly clear. We aren't friends. That isn't what's going on here. I'm fulfilling my promise to you by letting you stay here. Everything else is just an extension of that promise. Are we clear?"

Alistair snickered. "I see. Well, you certainly don't cut corners."

"Think whatever you like," Seto snapped, annoyed now that they were standing close enough that Alistair could surely see him blushing. "You're nothing to me other than an occasional form of entertainment."

"Why don't you allow me to entertain you then," Alistair replied with a dangerous smile, sidling up to Kaiba so that they were standing chest to chest, his hands snaking under the the shoulders of Kaiba's suit jacket.

"No," Seto said stonily and with a herculean level of self control.

"Why not?" Alistair pressed, even as he took an obliging step backwards.

Despite instantly missing the warmth of Alistair's body and the promise of what was supposed to have happened, Seto found himself nonetheless saying: "because I'm not your personal sex doll. If you want to fuck something so badly, go to a club."

"You're not serious."

Unclear why he felt so certain that he needed to draw a line after weeks of shameless rendezvousing, Seto answered in the affirmative, his gaze now resting on the door to Alistair's left.

"Why bring me here just to tell me that?" Alistair asked with genuine curiosity. "You could have said all this in the dining room."

Seto didn't appreciate Alistair probing into his motivations when he himself was so unsure what they were. "We aren't doing this again," he said firmly.

"What? Why?"

As Alistair took a startled step forwards, Seto took a step back as though they were partners in an extremely sloppy waltz.

"What right do you think you have to ask me that?"

"Well," Alistair replied with a slight grin. "As one of the participants I just sort of assumed that I-."

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Seto interjected, taking another step back and preparing to walk around Alistair to get to the door. "You don't get to assume anything. You don't know me, and I don't want you to know me. And I definitely have no interest in knowing you, so why don't you do us both a favor and go back to staying out of my way!"

"What, until you're bored again?" Alistair demanded, his confusion giving way to anger. "Because if you don't take that back then we really aren't going to be doing whatever the hell it was we were doing again. And fuck you for acting like I've been following you around like some pathetic horny fangirl when as I recall, you're the one who comes up to my room at night but then doesn't have the guts to follow through."

"I have my reasons," Seto replied through gritted teeth.

"Good for you," Alistair retorted hotly. "And congratulations; I no longer care what they are."

"Good."

They glowered at each other until Sewell emerged from under the bed and rubbed herself against Alistair's legs.

"And keep that cat out of the rest of the house," Seto snapped, moving at last to the door. "It's been getting its fur everywhere."

"As though you're the one cleaning it up," Alistair countered to Kaiba's retreating back, but all he got in reply was the sound of the door closing. "God, I can't stand him," he muttered to Sewell when she looked up at him. She meowed in seeming agreement and he picked her up, petting her head absently as he continued to silently seethe about how loathsome Kaiba was.