Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of its contents, and I'm not making any money off this.

If Seto strained his memory hard enough, he could pinpoint the exact moment when he first considered dating.

Well, maybe not exact. It was jumbled around with other such discoveries, such as the fact that Seto really hated his lawn. He really, really did.

Seto could pinpoint the exact moment when his day was officially doomed.

It was when Mokuba waltzed into his office at approximately 9:06, still in his pajamas and yawning every three seconds.

Seto waved his brother away on instinct and continued on with his phone call. Unaffected by the follow-up glare, Mokuba placed his fists on his hips and pouted to the extreme. Seto continued his phone call.

The phone call ended ten minutes later on a disappointing note that would probably cause the person on the other end to be fired come Monday. Seto grumbled about this while rummaging through the papers on his desk, while Mokuba grumbled about Seto.

"You promised you'd take the day off today," he whined with expert practice. "You promised you'd play with me!"

Seto shrugged, having attempted this unrealistic offer many times, and answered his phone, and a more stressful version of the previous call began. Mokuba pouted and gave an ignored warning glare. Seto turned his back to Mokuba and continued his phone call.

That turned out to be a mistake, as Mokuba set off the smoke detector at approximately 10:17 by waving burnt toast in front of it while standing on the kitchen table.

This set of a trail of incessant ringing all throughout the entire mansion. The piercing noise invaded every room, including Seto's office, bedroom, and the basement bathroom. After much fiddling with the device, (with an already severe headache from the discontinued phone calls) Seto deemed it impossible to fix. It seemed to be from a no-name, foreign company that had clearly not thought its design through. Seto left it to the staff (today consisting of only two maids) and retreated to the front lawn.

From there, he planned to head straight for Kaiba Corporation, and would have, too, if Mokuba hadn't immediately attached them at the arm, crowing, "You promised, Seto. You promised me."

That promise had been made in a late-night stupor, but Mokuba was still very difficult to resist. Seto resolved then and there to never make any promises ever again.

And that was how he found himself on his lawn.

He really, really hated his lawn.

Aside from containing absolutely nothing of interest, the grass was cut completely in the wrong length. In all fairness, Seto had never specified to his gardener what length he would like. But honestly, it should've been common sense. The grass was much too long, and thus, indented wherever anyone stepped on it. It looked horrendously messy.

And thus, as he did most things, Seto hated it.

Mokuba disappeared around back with a promise to return shortly. Seto stood there glaring angrily at the ground.

It was approximately fifteen minutes later that the fire department showed up. His staff was clearly made of morons. Seto marched over to send them away, thus saving the obviously incompetent maids the trouble, but Mokuba showed up again and re-latched onto him.

"Let them handle it, Seto. That's what they get paid for."

"I don't have anything better to do now," Seto protested grouchily. Mokuba ignored him and tugged him towards the large, now-open gates.

"Sure you do. You can help me set this up."

'This' was a lemonade stand, which Seto refused to take part in. Mokuba made him stand there, anyway, for 'moral support.' He couldn't help but grumble a small, "It's stupid."

Mokuba stuck out his tongue and ignored Seto.

Seto had absolutely no idea where the plank of wood had come from. Rather than elaborating, Mokuba pulled out a black jiffy marker and began to make his sign.

When he was finished, he held it up to Seto proudly. As usual, there was no praise in his dry, flat tone.

"One, you should've used poster board; it's much more efficient. Two, your 'E' is backwards."

"One, I can't get in the house, dummy. Two, people will be more apt to buy my lemonade if they think I'm too young to spell right."

"That's just stupid."

"Regular people think stupidity's cute."

Seto ignored this comment and continued leaning against the gate. His brother ran off again. A number of firemen made up an incredibly annoying background track, until Mokuba returned with several other planks of wood, one hammer, and fifty or so nails. Seto's questioningly look was left unanswered.

Eventually he just had to ask, "Why are you even doing this? You don't need money—why'd you force me out of work?"

"'Cause I'm secretly out to destroy your life," Mokuba mock replied. Seto-glared at the back of his head. But Seto still flinched every time the hammer came too close to Mokuba's little hands. Seto briefly considered going over and doing the hammering instead, but reasoned that Mokuba was a smart enough child that could handle the situation, and besides, he really wanted no part of this.

The next time Mokuba left and returned, it was with two chairs, a pitcher, juicer, and a freakishly large stack of lemons. One of the maids helped carry it. He set up shop with neat efficiency, and she left.

"Where are you getting all this stuff from?" Seto asked, finally giving in to the enigma that was his little brother. Mokuba turned around in his chair and grinned devilishly.

"Oh, I have my ways."

Seto raised an eyebrow, obviously annoyed. "Well, what are they?"

"Oh, I have my ways," Mokuba repeated.

Seto's deadpanned look could've melted a snowman in the middle of December. He escaped Mokuba's protest with a promise to return quickly and headed over to a group of firemen standing at his door. From the sounds of it, the alarm was still going off. Seto then decided that it wasn't just his staff, but rather, the entirety of Domino City, that was incompetent.

"You haven't fixed it yet?" he demanded, thoroughly annoyed. The closest man shook his head.

"There's something wrong with that one. Bad supplier. ...There's also something wrong with your security system—we think a bug crawled into the circuits and died." The man continued at Seto's complete lack of amusement, "...Plus Johnson accidentally cut the wrong wire while we were trying to remove it, so now some of the lights are going."

Seto's eye twitched. Mentally deciding to have them all fired, he repeated, "My lights are going?"

The man was a cross between apologetic and confused stupidity. "We're doing everything we can."

Seto's eyes narrowed. "Well do more."

As there seemed to be no end to the incompetence of Domino's work force, Seto then stalked off with a silent vow to fire every man currently screwing with his mansion's wiring. At the edge of the gates, he found Mokuba adjusting his sign, sitting on the chair with an oddly professional demeanor. Mokuba was staring off to the side, and Seto irritably followed his gaze.

The fire truck was parked a few meters down. There was a knot of firemen crowded around the end, all dressed in their off-yellow suits. They appeared to be flirting with a young white-haired girl, who looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Seto would've gone over to help her, had he actually cared.

"Why are we staring at them?" he asked Mokuba dully.

Mokuba answered more to himself than Seto, "...Is that Bakura?"

"Who?"

"Ryou Bakura. You know, the quiet one? Sort of one of Yugi's friends?"

"Doesn't ring a bell."

Mokuba turned to him with an annoyed look. "He's a duelists—he's been in all the big tournaments."

The duelist bit balanced off the Yugi bit, and this Bakura character returned to being neutral in Seto's uncaring books. "Nope."

The annoyed look turned incredulity. "Dude, he's probably in half your classes."

Seto raised an eyebrow—the first sign of any interest whatsoever in the conversation thus far. "Did you just call me 'dude'?"

Incredulous look to exasperated sigh, Mokuba rolled his eyes upwards and let his head fall onto his homemade desk. "Just go help him, okay?" Seto opened his mouth to explain that he had no intention of helping any of Yugi's friends, but Mokuba's next words cut him off. "Or I'll use my adorable pouts to make you sell lemonade with me."

The first smirk of the day convinced Seto to head towards the fire truck.

Upon closer inspection, Bakura was, obviously, a boy. The firemen either didn't realize this or didn't care. He was right about the flirting. They were all considerably older than the high school student, too.

Upon closer inspection, Seto did actually recognize Bakura. At least he could remember Bakura being in a few tournaments, if only from the gold ring hanging around his neck, which was certainly an oddity. This fact did nothing to his usual greeting procedures though, which were nonexistent. He flat out ignored Bakura, despite the mumbled, "Good morning, Kaiba," he received himself.

"Don't you all have a job to do?" he asked, or, more accurately, ordered, in the iciest tone imaginable. Several gulps were heard, and the group scuttled off one by one, either muttering apologies or glaring at him, before Seto could verbalize his desire to fire them all.

"Um, thank you," Bakura mumbled, rubbing his bare arm nervously. He was wearing a white-button up shirt with faded blue jeans, and a faint blush painted his cheeks. Seto shrugged and turned, marching instinctively back to Mokuba. Bakura mistakenly decided it would be okay to follow, to Seto's minor dismay and major annoyance.

Mokuba had just finished selling a plastic cup of lemonade to a tall blonde woman when they arrived. He turned to Seto's stalker with a friendly smile. "Good morning, Bakura." For some reason, this sparked suspicion in Seto's mind.

"Good morning, Mokuba," Bakura answered, equally as airily. Seto said good morning to no one, and resumed leaning against the gate's edge. "Why are you selling lemonade?"

"To torture Seto."

Bakura smiled while Seto rolled his eyes. "Sounds like fun."

"That it is, that it is. Want some lemonade?"

"Yes, actually. I was just going for a jog, but I forgot my water bottle." Here he paused, raising his index finger. "Hold on, I might have some money in my pockets." He turned them out, but that revealed only a piece of string and a Witty Phantom card.

"That's a weird card to have in your pocket," Mokuba commented.

"That it is, that it is. ...Unfortunately, I don't think that will get me any lemonade."

"Ah, alas, it won't. However, if you're really thirsty, you can always earn yourself one."

Bakura looked playfully interested. "And how do I do that?"

"Why, manual labour of course."

"Sounds like fun."

"That it does, that it does. Please come around back."

Bakura stepped around the makeshift stand and took the chair clearly intended for Seto. Mokuba got out of his.

"Well, this is perfect timing. I was just about to go get more supplies!"

Seto raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? You've only sold one cup."

Mokuba seemed not to hear this comment. "Don't let Seto steal any lemonade, Bakura." And he took off down the street, to Seto's major confusion and even more major annoyance.

This whole day was one giant mass of annoyance and stupidity.

Bakura confirmed this by slowly turning around, possibly already bored, and moving his gaze from Seto to the lawn. "Wow, your grass is really tall."

Eyes narrowed, Seto's tone went utterly flat. "Why thank you, I hadn't noticed."

Most likely put off by Seto's plain lack of any desire to be friendly, Bakura's tone fell to a barely distinguishable mumble. "...You could make crop circles in that lawn..."

Seto gave him an odd look but didn't comment. Bakura didn't notice, as he was taking that first cup of lemonade. When he was finished, he placed the used plastic cup on the side of the desk. It sat there for a while.

There was an awkward silence in which Bakura continued to stare at his lawn, and Seto continued to hate life in general. It was finally broken by Bakura, who, unfortunately, seemed immune to Seto's death glare. "You can go inside, you know. I won't tell Mokuba."

"Nice of you to offer," Seto replied, looking as though the concept of 'nice' had never been included in his dictionary. "But our residence is currently uninhabitable."

Bakura seemed to take this as a hint that conversation was not welcome, and he turned back around to face the road. Seto, once again, resumed hating everything.

This hating continued for a solid five minutes or so before once again being disrupted by shuffling. Bakura then produced an I-pod from is pocket, put the earpieces in, and set a song. The incident was not discussed. Seto did not ask what Bakura was listening to, because he really didn't care.

A few moments later, Seto deduced that his boredom was reaching lethal proportions. He found himself subconsciously counting cracks in the pavement. He was just about to stalk back to the firemen and yell his head off at them when Bakura turned around.

"I think you'd like this song," he said, with a note of hesitation in his tone. One earbud came off and was offered forward, the rest of the I-pod following.

Seto gave him a very, very flat look of skepticism, obviously reading 'no, I wouldn't.' He still felt the need to share his flair for sarcasm though, and he asked, "Now why would you think that you have any idea what kind of music appeals to me?"

Bakura shrugged. Blushing, he replied quite simply, "I promise it's not pop."

Well, Seto had to give him credit for that. ...Though it still wasn't enough to halt his level glare.

"...It's not rap either."

The glare continued.

Bakura's chocolate eyes averted sideways. His voice lowered to a few decibels, and he murmured quietly, "...You could at least try it."

Seto only snatched the technology provided because: one, he had come to the end of the visible cracks in the road; and two, an hour longer without technology might cause him to explode.

Tugging the earpieces free and tucking them into his ears, Seto clicked the play button. Music immediately erupted into his eardrums, and it wasn't at all what he expected.

Truth be told, Seto wasn't sure what he expected. The song was an original mix of guitar, drums, and piano, obviously remixed with digital sound. The lyrics, when they kicked in, were sung in English, though the singer was clearly European. The lyrics were not particularly impressive, but the music in itself was far above the standard most of Seto's peers tended to listen to.

Bakura produced a small smile, as though he had heard this deduction and agreed. Seto frowned in order to reinstate the fact that he was not a friend.

The three minutes and forty-two seconds the song took to complete were far more interesting than anything Seto had yet faced that day. Bakura held out his hand expectedly after a minute, but Seto didn't return it. He instead waited for the next song to come.

Fortunately, it, too, was neither pop nor rap, as per Seto's tastes.

Unfortunately, it was a very loud heavy metal song sung by a very angry-sounding German.

Seto skipped it, and found himself faced with a Celtic-sounding lullaby. He skipped that, too.

It took seven oddly eclectic tracks covering five different genres of music to come to another like the last one he'd heard. Bakura spoke up four seconds into it.

"Skip a few more times, there's a better one in there, I think."

So Seto did.

Then a little boy wandered up and demanded lemonade. Bakura whipped around in surprise and proceeded to serve the customer.

Seto did not give the I-pod back until Mokuba returned, which was six actual songs and thirteen skips later. Mokuba wasn't holding a single thing.

"The firemen said they're going to be here all day," Mokuba stated cheerfully. "It's a big job. ...I think I'll sit here and sell lemonade for the rest of the day—why don't you two go see a movie?"

Seto said, "No," without any hesitation, at the exact moment Bakura said, "Okay."

This, obviously, was a very stupid idea. Seto had much better things to do than go to a movie with someone he barely knew, like watch the too-tall grass grow or wait for the sky to fall. "I think I'll just go to my office," was what he ended up with.

"But you promised to take the day off!" Mokuba immediately shouted.

"So I could hang out with you. What good is seeing a movie with Bakura going to do?"

"I'll pick one," Bakura interjected, somewhat timidly. "My movie taste is every bit as intriguing as my music taste."

Seto ignored both that statement and Mokuba. Briefcase-less, he started walking in the direction of his parked limousine. Bakura, for some reason, found it again appropriate to follow him. A trip to Kaiba Corp. being much different from a trip across the street, Seto turned around to correct this misguided behaviour. "And just where do thing you're going?"

"To go download interesting music onto your work computer?" Bakura suggested.

Seto stared at him for a good whole minute. This was enough time to notice Mokuba sitting in the distance, 'inconspicuously' watching them. Seto found that fact... odd. ...Kind of like Bakura even being there in the first place, Mokuba wanting to sell lemonade, and needing supplies after one sale.

It took another two minutes for Seto to correctly piece this all together, in which Bakura listened to his I-pod and stared at his worn-out sneakers.

Upon discovering this discovery, Seto's eyes fell to bare slits. Bakura happened to look up just in time to see it.

"What?" he asked.

"This is the lamest set-up ever," Seto replied.

Bakura immediately went a violent shade of red. "I blame Mokuba for everything."

"Understandable," Seto said, still trying to figure out why Mokuba would go so far as to set off the smoke-detector.

Bakura then shrugged, still tomato-like. "At least it was a pretty clever and unique attempt."

"Failed attempt," Seto added.

"Whatever."

Looking back, Seto could pinpoint the exact moment when his resolve to never bother with dating weakened. It obviously took a lot of work after that to complete the decision, but the seed had been planted. It was when he turned around and continued marching towards his limousine, and Bakura mistakenly decided it was okay to follow, humming that particularly good foreign song.

Mokuba was still banned from ever selling lemonade again.