Disclaimer:
No fan fiction writer typically owns what they are fan-ficcing. (May this statement never come to bite me in the...oops, too late! grin)
Author's Notes:
I'm trying to be a good girl for once and post a story as it's written instead of writing the entire thing before posting. Maybe people will offer some good ideas that can help future chapters.
At any rate, I went on a fan fiction reading rampage between Christmas and New Year's. It was amazing when I sat down to analyze the bulk of my reading habits. For Yu-Gi-Oh, I seemed to read a lot of Silentshipping. I've always sworn I would never go that route myself, seeing as Seto Kaiba is my favorite male character and Serenity Wheeler is my favorite female character. I guess those fan fiction authors changed my mind, because I suddenly found myself with this notes file on a Seto/Serenity fic.
I've never been good at listening to myself anyway...
After Hours
Chapter 1
Serenity Wheeler was very proud of herself. After several weeks of begging, she managed to convince her mother to allow her to transfer to Joey's high school. Now she was here, enjoying her first day of class with some help from her brother and his friends. She was starting to make friends of her own, and found to her delight that her class had the last period of the day with the rest of the school. Tea had very thoughtfully found a gym uniform for her and allowed Serenity to stash her things in the brunette's locker while waiting to get her own locker.
The girl quickly tied back her long light brown hair into a ponytail and ran out to join the others. Yugi was the first to see her and waved her over to join them along the wall. The girl grinned as she quickly made her way over to her brother's best friend. "How was your day, Serenity?" the spiky-haired teen inquired.
"It was great! Thanks for asking, Yugi!" The sixteen-year-old smiled and nodded before being pulled into a debate between Joey and Tristan. The younger girl looked around the gym, waving at new friends who glared at her jealously. She blew it off, not quite understanding why they were looking at her so oddly.
Class proceeded with no incident. By the end of it, Serenity was tired and sore. She started following Tea toward the locker room when the girls heard voices raised.
"Look, Wheeler, you play soccer about as well as you duel," Seto Kaiba was trying to intimidate Joey Wheeler.
The blond was in no mood to take it, "Listen here, rich boy! We wouldn't have lost if you'd actually play as part of the team once in a while!"
Kaiba took a step back, trying to get Joey out of his personal space. "Whatever, Wheeler. I'm not one of your little cheerleaders!" With that, he pushed the lanky teen aside and continued on toward the boys' locker room.
Joey growled after him, "Kaiba!" Yugi and Tristan caught up with him. "Man, that guy never changes!"
Serenity looked sympathetically at her brother. She remembered hearing about past run-ins between her brother and the CEO of Kaiba Corp. It always ended the same way, with Seto Kaiba insulting her brother. It was a shame, or so she thought, that Kaiba didn't know the Joey she did. She thought they might not fight as often if he did. She could that some sort of mutual respect might develop, but that seemed impossible given that Kaiba was incapable of respecting a fellow human being.
Grateful to her brother for allowing her to stay with him, Serenity had decided to take on a part-time job to help out with the expenses of an additional person staying in the apartment. She tied on her apron and pulled her hair back into a low ponytail before walking out to the bar. She didn't even like the smell of coffee, but Tea had been kind enough to get this job for her. She couldn't let her friend or her brother down. "Serenity, am I glad you're here! Can you take care of the bean area?" Her supervisor looked completely worn out, possibly even terrified. The girl wasn't sure what could possibly have frightened her supervisor, so she wrote it off as what was probably a long shift.
"Sure!" Making her way over to the drawers that contained various varieties of coffee beans, she heard the cause of the look on her supervisor's face and cringed.
"Just pick up your cocoa, Mokuba." The taller boy drummed his fingertips tersely on the sleeve of his billowing trenchcoat. "I don't have time for this!" Seto Kaiba snarled. When Serenity looked, she realized he was snarling at his cell phone, not his little brother. With a small sigh of relief for the raven-haired boy, she started cleaning the area she'd been asked to address, wishing she could just vanish into the beans themselves. "And what have we here?" Her heart sank as she heard the sneer in the older teen's voice. "Wheeler has his sister working for her room and board."
"Not that you care, Kaiba, but I volunteered to take this job. I don't expect Joey to provide for me when I'm perfectly capable of providing for myself." The CEO's face scrunched up into a rather unattractive scowl. Hoping he'd take the hint, Serenity turned back to her work. It felt like a lifetime passed before she heard a huff, followed by steps moving away from her. The aroma of coffee replaced the air in her lungs as she released the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
When she got home that night, more exhausted than she could ever remember being before, she collapsed on the couch and fell asleep without ever answering Joey's question about how her day went.
A few days later, the Wheeler siblings agreed to meet everyone at the arcade for the afternoon. After a long week of adjusting to a new school and her job, the auburn-haired girl was only too ready to relax. She and Tea claimed one of the dance machines for a while, both girls playing until neither could walk a straight line. They made their way back to the guys, arm in arm, laughing the entire way. Serenity couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun.
As the girls neared their companions, they could hear arguing. One of the voices Serenity recognized as her brother's. The other was deeper with a gruff edge to it. Tea gasped as they came around a row of games, "Kaiba!" Sure enough, the handsome teen had Joey Wheeler drawn into a pointless argument.
The girls joined Yugi and Tristan at the edge of the argument. Yugi was trying to pull Joey away from the fight, while Tristan was egging the blond on. "What happened?" Tea whispered to Yugi.
Serenity only half-heard the younger duelist's response as she watched her brother's face turn nearly the shade of a tomato as he yelled at the billionaire. She couldn't hear what he was saying because Yugi responded, "Kaiba beat him at an air hockey game."
"That caused this?" Tea asked in disbelief. Joey could be short-tempered at times, especially where Seto Kaiba was concerned, but she'd never seen her friend this upset.
"Well," Yugi admitted, "their game went so long that the table actually had a malfunction and stopped working. Kaiba was winning, but you know Joey. He's convinced if the table hadn't died, he'd have won."
"Then why doesn't he just ask for a rematch?" Serenity's small voice drew the eyes of all her companions, even as hers never left her brother.
"Joey's always been a bit hard-headed. He hates losing to Kaiba," Tristan moved closer to the girl, moving himself away from the fight at the same time.
"I know that, Tristan, but can't he just take the easy way around Kaiba for a change?" She blew air between her teeth in frustration.
Yugi watched his best friend in concern as Kaiba stormed off, "He's just never been one to let things go, Serenity."
She watched her older brother stuff his hands in his pockets and shuffle over to them. Oh, no, she thought, Kaiba won again! It was only a matter of moments before his temper would flare again.
Tea was the only one brave enough to approach the volatile duelist, "Is everything all right?"
"Yeah, Tea! Things are great!" Joey stopped beside his sister. "That jerk won't be messin' with me for a while." His friends looked at him in utter surprise. Was it possible Joey actually won his verbal sparring match against Kaiba?
He just grinned. "Come on, let's find something to eat. I'm starvin'!" Happy that their friend was acting like himself, the companions laughed and followed him out of the arcade.