Disclaimer: If you break down the word 'fanfiction' I think it becomes pretty clear that it is a story written by a fan of a preexisting work of fiction, not the owner of said source material.

"Romance and all its' strategy

leaves me battling with my pride

But through the insecurity

Some tenderness survives."

~Sometimes When We Touch, Dan Hill

Chapter 24

"I'm sure it will be fine," Ryou said reassuringly on Tuesday morning, forcing a brush through his unruly hair while Alistair griped about the group project his German professor would be announcing that day. Granted, he was grateful that he'd avoided group projects so far, but Alistair was hardly as shy as he was.

"I suck at working with a team," Alistair complained, pausing momentarily to spit in the sink before continuing to brush his teeth. "I was stuck working with Valon and Raphael every day for years and it was awful! Valon never shut up and Raphael always insisted on doing things his way since he was the oldest."

"Good thing you don't have to work with them then, right? And how do you know you don't get to pick your groups?"

"Our professor told us that he's picking to make sure that every group is a mix of skill levels since we're also supposed to help each other study for our first test."

"But you're really good at German so even if no one in your group is willing to pull their weight, even though it would be annoying, at least you'd still be fine."

"You can't know if I'm any good," Alistair pointed out, setting his toothbrush aside and reaching for his comb.

Ryou, having finally worked out all the tangles in his hair, put his brush back on his dresser and began packing his schoolbag.

"Sure I can. Whenever I hear you practicing your vocabulary it always sounds perfect. And didn't you even say that your professor complimented you on how quickly you memorize things?"

"I guess…"

"Anyway, don't you have to get going?" Ryou asked, glancing at the clock. "I thought your class started at ten."

"What time is it?"

"Nine-thirty."

"Dammit! I'm gonna be late!" He tossed his comb carelessly onto his shelf in the bathroom and joined Ryou in the bedroom, pulling on the first shirt he put his hands on and grabbing his German 101 workbook off the top of a stack of books on the desk.

"Will you be here for lunch?" Ryou asked.

"I'm not sure. Personally, I just want to get this stupid project thing over with so I'm going to suggest that we start working on it after class if they have time. If not then I guess I'll come back here. What are we having?"

"Nothing special. I was just going to have some of the leftovers from yesterday. I think there's enough for both of us."

"What about dinner? Should I stop by the store on my way back?"

"Don't worry about it. We have everything I need to make spaghetti for tonight; I'll just go to the store tomorrow since I don't have class."

"Ok. See you later then."

"Bye," Ryou said to Alistair's retreating back, continuing to calmly pack his bag while Sewell snoozed in a patch of sunshine on the bed.

To Alistair's immense relief, he managed to get to class four minutes before it was set to start, having essentially sprinted the entire way there. Wiping a bead of sweat off his face with the back of his hand, he took his usual seat at the back of the classroom and set his workbook on the desk, flipping it open to the homework assignment he'd only just finished that morning and looking over the answers he'd penciled in.

"That's wrong," the girl sitting next to him said. "Number four is in dative, so it's 'dem Tisch, not 'den Tisch'." Had it been anyone else, he would have been surprised and annoyed that anyone would have the audacity to point out his mistake without any kind of prompting, but given that it was Theresa who had spoken he was merely annoyed. Without responding to her, he pulled a pencil out of his backpack and corrected the error.

"You can tell because of 'auf'," she went on to say. "'Auf' puts the article in the dative form because in this case it's indicating position."

"Thanks." He managed to keep his tone even. Theresa was an insufferable know-it-all who, because she'd studied German in high school and spent a semester in Frankfurt, thought she knew German better than everyone else and unfortunately oftentimes did. He found himself hoping against hope that he wouldn't have to share a group with her.

"Guten Morgen," their professor, Dr. Johann Pfeiffer said as he entered the classroom, the door clicking shut behind him, indicating that anyone not already in a seat was late. All thirty members of the class stood up.

"Guten Morgen Professor Pfeiffer," they chorused. After setting his briefcase on his desk, Professor Pfeiffer indicated that they sit back down.

He started class, as always, by asking for the date.

"Es ist der achtundzwanzigsten Oktober," Alistair answered promptly.

"Richtig." Professor Pfeiffer nodded. "Und was haben Sie heute vor?" Alistair wasn't sure how to describe all of the things he planned on doing that day so he tried to formulate something simple.

"Um…Lernen." It was quite true that he was going to be spending much of the afternoon studying for this and his biology class. He was spared the necessity of going into any more detail by the door opening again, causing everyone to look up. Alistair felt his eyes grow wide in surprise when he saw that the person standing in the doorway was Seto, looking for all the world as though suddenly showing up to Alistair's German class was a perfectly normal thing to do.

"Bitte entschuldigen Sie mich, dass ich zu spät bin," Seto, who never passed up an opportunity to make a grand entrance and had in fact planned on coming a few minutes late, apologized insincerely, walking into the classroom, his signature white trench coat filling half the aisle. "Der Verkehr war die Hölle." Professor Pfeiffer was a stickler for punctuality and everyone in the classroom knew it, but they all also knew who Seto Kaiba was, and his reputation, and were interested to see who would be forced to give in to whom. They were also, like Alistair, but for a very different reason, shocked to suddenly have the famous duelist interrupt their class.

"Es macht nichts," Professor Pfeiffer said, waving the apology away and suddenly adopting a very submissive tone. Seto Kaiba was after all paying him a large sum of money to be in the class, though based on his obvious competency with the language, he wasn't sure why the young CEO wanted to join. "Bitte setzen Sie sich hin."

"There's a seat here," a girl named Ann-Marie said rather breathlessly, indicating the chair next to hers. All the other girls in the class eyed her jealously. Seto ignored her and instead sat down next to Alistair as the redhead had known he would. He still wasn't sure how he felt about Seto pulling this little stunt, but he had to admit that it had certainly gotten his attention.

Professor Pfeiffer cleared his throat in an attempt to bring everyone's attention back to the front of the room. Once eighty-percent of the class had turned back around, he began to explain the project which turned out to be a poster depicting a breakdown of the German cases. He'd devised it as a low-pressure form of review and forced group studying so that even the shy students would have the opportunity to mingle with their peers. He was quite proud of his idea and had spent the better part of the previous afternoon figuring out groups.

The German department at Domino University was quite small, but comprised of a team of people who were extremely enthusiastic about bringing the language to the students. It was because of this that Pfeiffer had been reluctant to agree to Seto Kaiba's request to join his class. He felt that randomly adding someone new into the mix a month into the semester would throw off the vibe, particularly because he was certain that Kaiba had an ulterior motive. He didn't have the foggiest idea what it could be, but since Kaiba clearly didn't need the language practice, he knew there must be something else he was hoping to gain.

Still, his 'vibe' hadn't been more important than fattening his bank account so he'd simply have to hope for the best and pray that no one in the department found out about it.

As Professor Pfeiffer began listing off the groups, everyone starting shifting their seats to sit with their partners. When Alistair heard his name, he started to stand up but Seto grabbed his wrist and forced him to sit back down.

"Er wird mein Partner sein," he told Pfeiffer firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument, his hand still wrapped around Alistair's wrist. Pfeiffer pursed his lips, intending to remind the uppity young man just who was in charge, but quickly thought better of it and nodded.

"What are you doing?" Alistair hissed, wrenching his arm out of Seto's grasp.

"I'm improving my German," Seto replied innocently, smirking. Those in the near vicinity and even some that weren't strained to listen in; it wasn't every day that someone as famous as Seto Kaiba took a class at Domino U.

"You know what I mean."

"Do you really want to discuss that here?" Seto asked, inclining his head in the direction of those he could tell even without looking were eavesdropping. Alistair set his jaw. "I thought not. So, how should we design this poster of ours?" His sapphire eyes seemed to be laughing.

Alistair felt horribly conflicted. Objectively, he was angry that Seto had chosen to completely ignore everything he'd told him at Kaiba Land about wanting him to leave him alone, but given that he hadn't completely meant it when he'd said it, a part of him (one part in particular) had rejoiced when the brunette had walked through the door.

"Ours better look the best," he snapped, though he wasn't really vexed.

"Please, nothing I do is subpar."

Were it not for Alistair sitting beside him Seto would have been bored out of his mind. He'd thought that being forced to bear witness to his department heads stumbling through poorly thought out presentations was bad, but two hours of reviewing basic German grammar was far worse. German was the first language he'd learned under Gozaburo's tutelage and he therefore knew it inside and out.

To amuse himself he intermittently answered some of the review questions and watched how everyone in the room hung on his every word even though they probably couldn't understand most of what he said. There was one girl though who clearly thought she was better than everyone else who, during their five minute break, he made a point to knock down a few pegs by pointing out her shortcomings when she walked past him.

"How long have you been studying German?" he asked her. Flustered to have Seto Kaiba address her directly, Theresa tried to compose herself, certain that he was about to pay her a compliment.

"Five years," she answered. "And I spent a semester in Frankfurt in high school," she added proudly.

"I see. With all that background in the language, shouldn't you be in a higher level class?" A flush crept up her cheeks.

"Well I…"

"In the future I suggest you think your lies through more carefully unless your goal is to have them be obvious." With her face bright red and clearly on the verge of tears, Theresa fled the classroom.

Alistair, who would have thought that seeing her squirm like that would be enjoyable couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

"That was mean."

"If you're going to be cocky you had better have the skills to back it up. And don't lie about it when you get caught. It's a valuable life lesson; I did her a favor." Alistair sighed and Seto could tell that that wasn't the kind of action that would impress him. He supposed he should have known that. He stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to apologize. You're right: that was mean." Before Alistair could respond, Seto had gotten up and left the room, leaving the redhead staring after him, even more confused than before. What was Seto playing at?

Seto tracked the girl down to an empty classroom several doors down where she was sitting at a desk and crying. She started when he opened the door and immediately began wiping the tears off her cheeks, wondering why on earth he was there.

"I shouldn't have presumed to say that to you," he started, not sure where to go from there since apologies were far outside his usual frame of reference.

"No, you're right," she replied morosely. "I didn't do all of that; I just thought it would be cool to say that I had. I only had an introduction class over the summer."

"Then why lie?" She shrugged.

"To make myself seem more interesting I guess." She sneered through her tears. Suddenly it completely sank in just who she was talking to. "I can't believe that the first impression you have of me is that I'm a liar," she said, not able to look him in the face.

"Everyone's a liar," he stated, rolling his eyes. "Some people are just better at hiding it. Instead of wasting your time on a stupid lie why don't you come up with a better one? Or take the more lucrative option and actually do something you can brag about. Saying you're the best and actually being the best are two completely different things, and unless you're a really good liar, only actually being the best will get you anywhere.

You are the best in your class, aside from me of course, so don't dishonor your accomplishment by making it out to be more than it is."

"Thank you," she said shakily, sniffing a few more times. "You know, you're not as mean as everyone says you are." She immediately covered her mouth with her hands. "I'm sorry, that was really…" He shrugged.

"There's a reason everyone says that, but I'm working on it. But don't you dare tell anyone that," he added gruffly. She smiled.

"I won't."

"Now pull yourself together or else you'll make us both late. If one person walks in late, particularly if that person is me, it's an entrance, but two people walking in late is just two people walking in late which is pathetic."

"What did you say to her?" Alistair asked curiously after a self-satisfied looking Seto and beaming Theresa had walked back into the room.

"None of your business."

"What, did you kiss her?" Seto smirked.

"Maybe I did. What would you say to that?"

"Nothing," Alistair said quickly, his cheeks beginning to burn. "You can kiss whoever you want."

"Unlike you. You're stuck kissing Bakura." Before Alistair had a chance to reply, Professor Pfeiffer walked back into the room.

Alistair spent the second half of the class trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Seto was sitting next to him in his German class, so close that he occasionally bumped into him while taking notes and was slowly being asphyxiated by his cologne despite only four days ago making the decision to never be this close to the brunette again. And then there was how Seto was behaving. It wasn't out of character exactly; he still sounded like himself, but there was something different about him, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Should we work on this at my place or at yours?" Seto asked after class got out forty-five minutes later as the two walked back through the building together. "Before you answer, let me just remind you that Trudy works for me and would be providing the refreshments."

"I would like to say hi…"Alistair replied slowly, trying to ignore the open stares of the people they passed, reminding himself that it wasn't him they were staring at. How did Seto deal with this?

"Then it's settled. Are you here with your motorcycle?"

"No, I ran here." Seto, unsure whether or not Alistair was being sarcastic chose not to respond. Whether or not Alistair was being sarcastic or not turned out to be the least of his problems; as soon as the two walked out the front doors of the hall, a camera flashed in their faces. Alerted no doubt by the students at the university writing about it online, several members of the paparazzi had set up camp just outside. Alistair glanced at Seto, uncertain what to do.

"There would be three times as many if you and I would have gone public," Seto said, ignoring the cameras and making his way to the waiting limo. "And they would have followed us around. I have enough to deal with without worrying about being photogenic." Alistair snorted as he slid into the seat next to Seto and closed the door, noting that the partition was up. That was when it hit him. Seto, though his tone and demeanor remained the same as always, was displaying a sense of humor and a lightheartedness that Alistair hadn't thought he was capable of. The Seto he had known never would have alluded to being vain or essentially joked about being able to kiss whoever he wanted. The Seto he had known was much more prone to using his wit in a scathing manner than one in which he made fun of himself; he'd taken himself far too seriously for that. What had happened in the month that they'd been apart to cause such a subtle yet profound change in him?

Seto could sense that Alistair was looking at him and chose not to interrupt, instead gazing out the window, appreciating the pleasant role-reversal of their last car ride together.

Since Seto wasn't paying attention, Alistair found himself drinking in the CEO's form with his eyes. He was thinner, Alistair noticed suddenly, particularly in his face, making his cheekbones stand out even more than they had before, and any baby fat that he'd had was gone making him look several years older, but not any less attractive. His gaze shifted downwards to Seto's gauntlet covered wrists and the scars he knew to be underneath. He wondered how fresh they still looked and how Seto felt about them. Was he still suicidal or had he decided that life was worth living after all? Alistair sincerely hoped that it was the latter.

"How are you?" he found himself asking. Seto looked over, his expression neutral, though his right hand curled unconsciously around his left wrist.

"Better." His face suddenly darkened. "It wasn't because of you, you know." He looked Alistair directly in the eye. "I know how you are and I don't want you to feel guilty."

"I did at first. When I first heard that you…that you were in the hospital I felt like it was my fault and that if I had handled things differently you wouldn't have ended up there. I still regret not forcing you to listen to me."

"I wouldn't have," Seto cut in flatly. "I had decided that I knew what had happened and there was nothing you could have said that would have changed my mind. I did this to myself. It's because of my stubbornness that you're coming home with me as my guest instead of as my boyfriend."

"Oh, so now you're willing to call me that." Alistair couldn't help but be annoyed.

"It's a stupid word, but I can't think of a better one. By definition that's what you were."

"What did they do to you while you were in the hospital?" Alistair demanded.

"Nothing. What do you mean?"

"You're different."

"Yeah, well, I've made a few changes."

"Such as?" Seto hesitated before answering.

"I've decided that I want to be happy." In true Seto Kaiba fashion, the statement was very matter-of-fact, but Alistair could see that he really meant it.

"We talked about this: you can't just use me as a means to be happy. That'd be no different than when I used you as a means to channel my rage at my circumstances."

"Don't presume to know what I'm thinking," Seto said, again, his tone very matter-of-fact. There was a momentary pause, then Seto rolled down the partition and instructed Alfred to first take them to Kaiba Corp headquarters before taking them home. The man nodded before glancing in the rearview mirror at Alistair and smiling at him by way of greeting. Alistair smiled back before looking away, his gaze shifting back towards Seto. The brunette was right; he shouldn't presume to know what he was thinking, but if Seto wasn't trying to 'win him back', what was he doing?

"Why are we going to Kaiba Corp?" Alistair asked warily.

"To get supplies for the poster we have to do. I told you: nothing I do is subpar."

"You do realize he's expecting construction paper with a table showing the different cases on it, right?"

"When do I ever do what people expect?" Alistair was tempted to say 'always' but thought better of it. Far be it from him to shatter the delusion.

They arrived at the skyscraper without incident and he and Alistair proceeded to walk through the front doors together; the second time they'd ever done so. Alistair smiled when he realized they were wearing the same clothes they had been that day: Seto had on his signature white trench coat and Alistair, his black one.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kaiba," the receptionist said nervously.

"Call advertising and tell them I'm on my way," he replied shortly.

"Right away!"

"You know 'Mr. Kaiba', we don't need to program a poster; construction paper would really be more—."

"First of all: never call me that again, second: who said anything about programming? I'm going to instruct one of the advertising interns to design something and then I'm going to help you study."

"That's cheating," Alistair said weakly. Seto shrugged.

"It's not worth our time."

"You tried to teach me once before, and the way I remember it, that 'lesson' ended with me throwing a graphing calculator at you."

"Yeah, well, this time the most expensive thing you could throw at me is a pencil so I'm willing to risk it."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Seto stopped dead and Alistair bumped into him, his shoulder connecting painfully with the studs on the brunette's jacket. Eyes watering, he rubbed his arm.

"What?"

"You haven't asked me what I want to do. This is supposed to be a team effort. I know the concept of teamwork is hard for you to grasp, but I happened to have been forced to cooperate with a team of people I didn't even like and I was able to make it work." Seto crossed his arms.

"What, so you're saying you'd rather play around at arts and crafts than actually do something worthwhile?"

"Don't presume to know what I think." Seto smirked.

"Touché."

"You're probably right about making a poster not being the best way to study, but if you're going to tutor me we're laying some ground rules first."

"Such as?"

"If you tell me that something's obvious I'll break your nose." Seto's eyes widened. "If you recall, I nearly did once before—and that was an accident. I'm not like Joey Wheeler; I'll actually bite." Alistair looked far too angry for this to really be about Seto tutoring him, and the brunette tried to figure out what the real source of the redhead's anger was.

"I know you will. I have the scars to prove it." For one horrible moment, Alistair thought he was talking about the scars on his wrists, but then Seto held up his left hand and pointed to three thin, barely perceptible white lines on the back of his hand from when the two had gotten into their first and only fist fight almost exactly a year before.

"Yeah, well, I've gotten stronger since then," Alistair snapped, glaring.

"What's wrong?" Alistair's eyebrows contracted.

"I wasn't supposed to see you again. When I said goodbye to you I meant forever. You had no right to force yourself back into my life!"

"Can we take this somewhere else?" Seto said quietly as the people in the hallway began to stare, indicating a nearby conference room.

"Fine."

As soon as the door was closed, Alistair rounded on Seto again.

"I'm not one of your computer programs that you can just bend to your will!"

"So you want me to leave you alone?" Seto asked calmly. "Because I will if that's what you want; I'm not pathetic enough to stay where I'm not wanted."

"I told you on Friday that I've moved on!"

"That's not the same thing as wanting me to stay away," Seto pointed out. "All you said was that you'd promised Bakura that you'd go back to that apartment that night, and you did; you're under no further obligation to him unless you've since made another promise." Alistair decided against mentioning that he and Ryou weren't even dating anymore for fear that if he said that out loud, he'd have no more excuses as to why he and the brunette still had so much distance between them.

"I haven't. But I refuse to go through our trainwreck of a relationship again. I finally have the opportunity to have a life where I'm in control of my own decisions, where my biggest worries are how I'm going to pay the rent next month and whether or not I passed my calculus test."

"Sounds exciting," Seto said sarcastically.

"I've had more than enough excitement in my life; boring is just what I need right now. I've earned it. I don't want to go back to the sneaking around, the arguing, and the resentment that characterized our relationship even if it was more 'exciting'. Someone told me once to think carefully before calling someone the love of your life, and I have. What we had was far too dysfunctional to be called that."

"That's really what you think?" Seto asked, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. "That we never did anything but argue? I remember it a little differently than that. I have plenty of people around here to argue with; I don't need you for that." He thought back to how he'd been before he'd met Alistair, and to why he'd told the redhead that he was important to him: because he made Seto want to be a better person. The CEO had long since considered Mokuba his moral compass, but Alistair had actually fundamentally changed him so that he felt he eventually wouldn't need a compass anymore. Mokuba rarely balked when his brother did something objectionable, but Alistair had never hesitated to call him out, and had reminded him of the importance of compassion even if he still had trouble displaying it. And moreover, Alistair made humanity seem desirable. He'd never thought that he'd want to hold or be held by anyone, but now he craved the redhead's touch and the heat of his body in bed beside him.

Now that his suicide attempt was almost a month behind him, he could see clearly that perhaps it hadn't just been his past he'd been trying to escape, but also a future without the companionship of someone who loved him in it.

Alistair had also taken the pause in their conversation to reminisce, and he had to admit that he too, upon reflection, couldn't deny that there had been many times where he'd been happy with Seto, but he was very wary of the idea of going back to him. Who was to say he wouldn't just be going back to more of the same? He'd meant what he'd said about not wanting to go through that twice.

"We have to study for German," he said finally. "And I think those people need this room," he added, noting the small crowd of people milling about in the hallway outside. Seto looked over his shoulder and realized that they were indeed holding up what appeared to be a meeting of the marketing department chair and the department's new interns. He didn't like that the conversation was going to end without a solid conclusion, but he also hated wasting time, his or anyone else's, and therefore said:

"You're right. Let's go."

Predictably, the gaggle of interns gawked as Seto and Alistair passed by, too new to the company to be properly intimidated by the powerful young CEO, and two of the girls even had the audacity to giggle after catching each other staring after him and his handsome accomplice.

Author's Note: If you're curious about what Seto says in German it's first: "Sorry that I'm late." Then (literally): "The traffic was Hell" and finally "He'll be my partner."

Second: Alistair, for about the billionth time, isn't a pushover, but he's not as stubborn as Seto either, so I guess we'll see... Besides, it's about time that Seto pursue Alistair instead of the other way around.