Chapter 6

Contract and Curry

Seto yawned as he finished loading his report. He'd been up all night working on papers and the rough draft for the new product. Frinkin' asses. When I find who did this—

The doorbell rang, interrupting his torture fantasy. He groaned when he opened the door. The obnoxious girl stood there dressed in street clothes. It only took one glance to take in her little blue peasant top and a short white skirt. He wasn't impressed. She has nice legs though.

"How did you get in, again?" He growled. "This place's security is lacking."

She stared at him blankly and sniffed. "Did you eat or sleep? Or even shower?"

Seto glared at her, but he sniffed his shirt. The rankness burned his nose. He hadn't changed out of his clothes from last night's party. "I'll change."

"You're going to leave me out here?" She asked as he went to close the door. He growled, but opened it back up and let her in. She sat down at the little table and looked over the papers and blueprints he had strewn about.

"Don't look at those." He gathered them up and pulled out the contract he'd written up. Handing it to her, he let her read over it while he went to take a shower. The cold water woke him up. I need coffee. Once he finished and got dressed, he went back out. She had finished reading it. "You done?"

"I won't sign this," she said flatly.

He froze in the middle of sitting down at the table, his nose twitched in irritation. "What?"

She looked up at him determined. "I won't sign this, not as is. There are a couple things I can't agree to on here."

Seto finally sat down. "What?"

She picked the contract back up and read over it, "Paragraph two clause six, you've written it to sound like you can interrupt my nap time until your work's done. I don't agree with that."

He ticked his tongue, annoyed. She read the fine print, just great.

"Also, paragraph six states that if it's for work you can skip school, but you didn't define what work is. Basically, you're saying you can skip whenever you want. Scratch that."

Seto raised his hand up in defense. "Hold on."

She looked up from the paper and pursed her lips. "What?"

"I really will need to skip school sometimes for work."

"Explain."

She's giving me a chance to state my case? Seto could feel he was being judged, but he held his ground. "There are times I need to return to Domino city. I have projects going on there too. I also need to test the prototype I'm going to be working on and there are certain meetings I can't get out of."

She sat quietly and listened to his reasons. She must have found the reasons sound because she sighed. "Then how about this, I'll give you five days a month to miss school? For half days you'll miss, talk to the teachers in advance and get the homework that day. Four of those five days have to be used on Fridays. I don't have training that day so I won't be as tired."

"What? Five only?" Seto felt his eye twitch. "I won't have enough time—"

"Denki University isn't far from our school. Ask Goda-sensei to allow you to go during his class. He's chill and if you explain the situation to him, he'll let you make up the work in his class later. Also, take into account if you're hiring students, they'll each have their own schedules and they won't be working late into the night like you do. They have to graduate after all," she rambled on, but he listened quietly because everything she said was sound.

"I still won't have enough time to do some of my regular work," Seto tried to explain.

She rolled her eyes. "You're the CEO and you don't have an assistant?"

"I have one," Seto admitted.

"Is that person capable?"

He huffed. "I wouldn't have hired him if he wasn't capable."

"Is he overloaded?"

He thought about her question, he'd hired Inu-san three months ago. He got the feeling that the man would quit soon. Inu-san seemed board. "I don't think he'll be around long."

"Do you give him any work at all? Or do you hog it all to yourself?" She put her head in her hand. Her long hair cascaded down her shoulder and onto the table.

He sighed and pulled out his phone to make a call. The man on the other end picked up, "Kaiba-sama? Did you need something?"

Seto felt like puking because this would mean trusting someone to do their job right and he wasn't sure he trusted anyone but Mokuba. "Inu-san, can you… take over the Academy project for now?"

There was silence on the other end.

"Inu-san?"

"What? Oh, yes… Yes! I can do that." The man sounded elated. He hadn't expected such a reaction. Seto decided not to tell him he was getting this chance because a teenage girl was forcing him to lighten his workload. "Was there anything else you needed, Kaiba-sama?"

"No, that's all. I'll send you the rest of the files for the project tonight."

"You can count on me!"

Seto hung up and resisted the urge to upchuck.

The girl chuckled. "That looked painful for you."

He growled at her, "Was there anything else?"

"Yes, I want you to put in the contract that you'll get proper sleep and meals. If you pass out, then I'm counting it as one of your five days taken." She smirked and handed him the contract. "Also… you only put my family name in the contract."

Seto cringed. He still hadn't learned her first name.

"Your name was spelled wrong too." She pointed out.

Seto scanned over the document. "Where?"

"Here," She pointed to the beginning. "It should be spelled A… M… I—"

"Fine! I still don't know your name!" Seto snapped. "I just know that you're Sakurai-san."

"I see. I guess I'll go home." She stood up and picked up her bag. "When you know my name then we'll talk."

"I'll still be interrupting your nap time, you ok with that?" Seto smirked.

She spun back to him and smiled. "And you'll be without an engineer team, you ok with that?"

The color drained from his face. Before she reached the door, he stood up and grabbed her wrist.

"What, Amin-chan?" She looked up at him and glared. "Do you want me to knock you to the ground again?"

"Tell me your name," he demanded.

Her mouth opened slightly, and he could see her eye twitching. "Buzz off."

Crap. I should have done a background check on her first. She grabbed the tip of one of his fingers and peeled it back. The move was effective and painful. He released her wrist. Frickin', I need that damn team! It felt like someone was stomping on his ego, which made him nauseas.

Her hand was on the doorknob when he spoke up, "Tell me your name… please."

His mouth was burning from the word, but she stopped and turned back to him, smiling. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He wanted to gag, but thought better of it. "So, what's your name?"

"Sakurai Ana," she finally introduced herself.

Ana… Manipulative little… With the drama out of the way, they went back over the contract until they'd come to an agreement for the both of them. Finally, after thirty minutes, they both signed it.

Ana stood up and stretched. "Great, now that that's over with its time for lunch."

"What no it's—" Seto looked over at the clock, it was already noon. When was the last time I ate? A massive rumbling sound emanated from his stomach.

"Amin-chan…" Ana looked at him like he was the most ridiculous creature to walk the earth.

Seto stood up, walked over to his fridge and pulled things out.

Ana started toward the door. "Right… I'm going to go get food and—"

"No. You're not going anywhere. I don't want you running off. You still need to introduce me to the engineer." Seto glared at her over the island and worked on chopping vegetables.

"But I'm hungry," she whined.

"And I'm making food. You can wait a few minutes," he snapped.

"You're making food for me, too?"

"Yes."

Ana stood by the door awkwardly and finally sat back down at the table to wait while he cooked. It didn't take long to get the stock going for the dish he had in mind. He got the rice ready and dumped the vegetables into the pot, after adding various spices and letting it cook he plated it, grabbed spoons and brought it over. He set the dish down in front of her.

"Curry?" She looked at it surprised.

"What? Do you not like curry?"

She shook her head. "No, I like it."

He went to retrieve drinks. All he had was water. He brought the glasses back over. She'd started eating without him, not that it bothered him. Setting the glass in front of her, he paused when he noticed the look on her face. It was the same happy, satisfied look that Mokuba got when he felt like cooking for them. When was the last time I cooked for us? Hetook a bite of the curry and the blast of different spices hit his tongue. Not bad. He ate and watched Ana scarf down the curry. When she finished eating, she downed her drink and sighed contently.

"Was it good?" Seto didn't know why he was asking, he didn't really care to hear her opinion.

"I was worried what you would make at first, but it was delicious." She stood up and stretched.

An insult and a complement, of course. Before he could stop her, she took the plates and washed up.

"Alright, let's go introduce you to my brother." She grabbed her bag and skipped to the door.

"Right." Seto stood up and followed her out. Wait, did she say brother?