Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Check Yes or No ❯ Chapter 2

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

It was no surprise to anyone that Kaiba Seto was absent from school that day, and no one questioned him when he returned the next. He walked stiffly down the hall, his metal briefcase in hand, head held high and making no eye contact with anyone who passed by, just as he always did. He proceeded quickly to his first class of the day. He despised this class, not only because it was a low-level natural sciences class, but also because he shared it with a certain Katsuya Jounouchi. He sat just in front of the blonde mutt, not by choice, of course, but because the students were arranged in alphabetical order. This also met that Hiroto Honda sat just a few seats in front of him, and Seto was quite often caught between Hiroto and Katsuya's whispering antics. It drove him insane at times and had confronted the teacher about moving him away from the blockheads.

"Now, if I let you move where you want, I'll have to do that for everyone else, too," Ms. Setsuko always said. "You are not the start student Kaiba, no matter what you may believe in that little fantasy world you call a mind."

Seto despised this Setsuko more than he despised the mutt. She was just as infuriating, but he could do little about it. She was, after all, an authority figure, and it would not do for Kaiba Seto to draw that sort of attention to himself, end up getting suspended or other such nonsense. And so he was stuck there, between Hiroto and Katsuya, holding back his urges to whirl around and give the blonde a piece of his mind.

However, today Katsuya was not there. His desk sat empty behind Seto, and the brunette found himself glancing behind his shoulder more than once during the class, in case perhaps the other snuck in while he was not paying attention. Katsuya did not show up to school that day, nor the next. As soon as Seto saw the desk empty twice in a row, a strange feeling settled in. He felt a bit panicky almost, and glanced over his shoulder several more times during the class. More than once the student in front of him-- Seto hadn't bothered to find out his name-- turned around to glare at him because of the bouncing motion he was making with his leg. Try as he might, Seto found that he could not concentrate on a word Setsuko was saying, and even missed a question she asked of him directly.

"Kaiba, do you wish spend the afternoon here with me going over this again or are you going to pay attention?" she snapped, rapping his desk with her annoying pointer stick.

Seto did not reply, but imagined where he would like to shove that damn stick.

Setsuko grinned, quite pleased with herself at having caught the CEO off guard, and returned to her rambling about mito-something-or-other. Seto went back to his own thoughts, wondering where on Earth Katsuya could be for two whole days. He knew from overhearing Hiroto and his other friends that Katsuya rarely ever missed school, if ever, and it was making him rather nervous. Nervous? Nervous? Why the hell was it making him nervous? As if it was any of his business… Or even if he cared where Katsuya was. Seto crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, uncharacteristically slouching a bit, but rather perturbed at Katsuya for making him worry like this.

The next day however, Seto was quite surprised and pleased when he walked into the classroom and found Katsuya sitting at his normal desk, his head down on the wood, his eyes closed. It felt like the entire world had lifted off of Seto's shoulders, if only for an instant. He walked to his desk and sat down, rapping his knuckles on Katsuya's desk. The blonde jerked his head up and blinked at him sleepily.

"What's up?" he yawned.

"Where have you been these last few days?" Seto demanded. His tone was cold and harsh as it always was, and as always, it had no effect on the blonde's regard of him.

Katsuya rustled his blonde bangs. "What's it to you? When'd you start caring if was dead or alive?"

Seto drew back. When had he started caring? "I don't," he responded. "I'm just curious."

Katsuya stretched backwards over his seat, his blonde hair falling onto the desk behind him. "Not that it's any of your business," he said before returning to face the brunette. "But my cousin I haven't seen in a while was visiting and I took a couple days off to show him around town."

"Oh." He worried him so much for that? "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Katsuya blinked. "I did," he replied. "Honda and Yugi and Anzu and Bakura… Oh, but you mean why didn't I tell you?" He smirked to himself and did not seem to notice that Seto drew back a bit further. "I didn't think you'd care."

Seto huffed and turned back around. His cheeks felt warm, especially against the cold hand he placed against one to hold his head up. He felt relieved knowing that Katsuya was once again sitting behind him. It made the classroom seem… Complete. Even after noticing that a couple of the girls who sat in the back corner and one of the boys who sat in front where absent, Seto still felt a sense of totality now that Katsuya was back. He of course could not explain why, but it simply seemed to all fit together.

"Psst, Honda!" came Katsuya's whispered voice. Seto shuddered against it.

"What, man?" Hiroto responded, turning slightly around.

"You got some notes for me or something? For the days I was gone?"

"Notes? Who the hell do you think I am?" Hiroto answered, looking at Katsuya as if he had sprouted another head.

"Damn it all, Honda! I told you I was gonna need some!"

Hiroto simply shrugged and said a half-hearted sorry before turning around again. Seto heard Katsuya sigh in exasperation, and put his pride on a shelf.

"I have the notes," he whispered, turning partly around.

"Really? You think I can copy them tonight?" Katsuya asked, his bright brown eyes shining. "I can bring them back tomorrow."

Seto opened his briefcase and pulled out the notebook he had used to copy the last few days' notes down. He offered it to Katsuya and the blonde went to take it from him when he suddenly remembered that drawing he had unconsciously made the other day. He panicked and pulled the notebook from Katsuya's reach.

"Wha--?" Katsuya blinked, confused.

"No, I don't have the notes," Seto lied. "Wrong notebook." He returned it to his briefcase, his heart thudding in his chest. That would have been the worst mistake of his life had he not remembered at the last second.

"Oh," Katsuya said, sounded a bit defeated. "No biggie. I'll get them from someone else I guess."

Seto turned back around and breathed a sigh of relief. He had never done anything so careless before. He could barely hear the Setsuko's lecture over his own beating heart. This was beginning to become irritating. These strange sensations arousing in him were bizarre and unfamiliar. Only Katsuya was able to bring these emotions from him, and in all honesty it pissed him off. However, at the same time he felt grateful to the blonde, for stirring these new sensations. It seemed as if Seto was discovering another part of him that he had not known about before. It was all very confusing to him, being angry yet thankful at the same time, and what to do about it evaded him completely.

After class, Seto made a conscious effort to avoid Katsuya until the end of the day and hurry on to his office right after school. In this he was successful, but the thoughts and images of Katsuya he came up with in his mind followed him everywhere. He went straight to his desk on one of the top floors, saying barely anything to anyone, and uncharacteristically collapsed into his swivel chair. He sighed, finding himself exhausted. The day had worn him out for no particular reason, other than the fact that his mind had spent an unnecessary amount of time dwelling on that blonde mongrel. He was faced with a new problem, now he had to figure out what to do about it.

He sat up straight and placed his briefcase on his desk before folding his hands while resting his elbows on the wood. He placed his chin on his hands and contemplated his newest issue. Katsuya was invading his thoughts and dreams consistently. Now what could be the cause of this? Seto shook his head. Of course the answer was obvious: He was attracted to the mutt. That was simple enough. Now he had to think of why this was. Now what on Earth about Katsuya would he find attractive? His looks, for one. Another was his stubbornness, and Seto had always found the mutt's dimwitted ideas to be amusing.

Seto huffed a bit and adjusted his weight in his chair. So he had identified the problem and the cause of the problem. Now he had to devise a solution. The appropriate thing to do would be to discover Katsuya's own feelings toward Seto. How would Seto go about doing that? Flat out asking him was completely out of the question. Though it was probably the quickest and most painless way to go about it, Seto refused to do so, especially in front of Katsuya's incompetent friends. He did not know Katsuya's phone number, nor his address. He supposed he could find out, but that might take some unnecessary man power.

Just then, the phone rang. It startled Seto at first as it abruptly brought him out of his thought process, but he quickly recovered and picked up the receiver. "Kaiba," he said into it.

"Hi, Seto!" came a young, cheery voice. "You'll never believe what happened!"

"What is it?" he inquired, always glad to hear his brother's voice.

"You remember that letter, right? The one I sent to Jenna? She checked yes!"

"I told you she would," Seto replied. "Now I have to get going, Mokuba. I've got a lot of work to get done."

"Okay Seto! Don't work too hard, okay?"

"All right," Seto replied. "Good bye, Mokuba."

"Bye!"

The brunette hung up the phone and returned to his pondering thoughts. How would he find out exactly what Katsuya thought of him. Then, it came to him.