Dear Readers,

For those of you who are unaware, this is the sister story to Dear Mokuba. It is not necessary to have read the other in order to understand this story. However, if you would like to see Mokuba's half of this story, please go look. If not, once the chapters start lining up, I'll refer you over to look at Mokuba's side of the story when they relate.

Also important: Know that this takes place before Seto had the chance to take over KaibaCorp. So Gozaburo is still alive. However, for the plot's sake, I'm placing Seto at seventeen.

Chapter One:

Seto stopped typing to rub at his eyes. He had the vain hope that rubbing them might help him cope with the exhaustion that was attacking his system.

All it actually accomplished was taking seconds away from his work.

The sudden urge to slam his hands against the keys overwhelmed Seto. He repressed the smirk that the mental image nearly brought on. He continued typing while thinking of the responses the men in the security room would have if he began hitting the computer and throwing papers around.

The end result would be unpleasant. It had been a while since Gozaburo had called him up in the late hours of night in response to his shortcomings. Seto had been working harder than normal to avoid those instances, as he was hoping to ask for the weekend off around Thanksgiving. Gozaburo had no interest in the holiday, but Seto hadn't had any time with Mokuba in weeks.

As Seto reconsidered, he realized it had been around three months since the two of them had been given more than a few minutes or a meal together. The last time was Mokuba's birthday. Gozaburo had given Seto half of the day off in exchange for working through his own birthday. It was no choice, really. Celebrating Mokuba's thirteenth birthday was far more important than his seventeenth, which had come and gone without word.

Except from Mokuba, who had stuck a card underneath Seto's pillow. It had been one of the blank-inside cards, and Mokuba filled every inch with small, precise writing.

The door opened, reminding Seto the he was at work and not supposed to be thinking about birthdays and holidays.

"Did you finish editing the progress reports?" Gozaburo asked.

"Yes sir," Seto answered. He turned slightly in his chair to search through a tall stack of folders sitting on the corner of his desk. Seto's fingers ran down the pile until he came across the one Gozaburo was asking for.

He handed it to his adopted father and waited for the man to say something.

They were at KaibaCorp, so anything Gozaburo said or did was being recorded. Seto didn't have to worry over harsh words or the worse option of being hit while their conversation was observed.

"What are you working on now?" Gozaburo asked.

Seto began to type again as he responded, "The designs for the missile launcher you asked for."

"When will that be completed?" Gozaburo said. Seto picked up the small notes of irritation in Gozaburo's tone. The conversation was taking too long.

"Tomorrow," Seto said confidently. Although the program was still a long way from completion, Seto had determined to finish by the time he went to sleep that night. After all, the more work he completed at the start of the week, the better mood Gozaburo would be in towards the end, which was when Seto planned to ask for two days off.

He knew that if Gozaburo agreed, it would be under the condition that he finished several new assignments before that time. Gozaburo's plan would be to give Seto enough work to keep him busy, but not allow enough time for him to finish before the days Seto would request. To counter that method, Seto planned to get his work done quickly, but not tell Gozaburo the exact moment he finished. He intended to hold onto assignments for a few extra hours, giving him time to work ahead on the next.

Seto had become so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice his adopted father leave the room. Not that his departure was of any consequence. Gozaburo had received what he came for.

Then Seto's eyes drifted to a sheet of paper sitting in his printer. His fingers didn't stop moving while he stared at it. Seto sighed, knowing that Gozaburo would have to come back once he realized that Seto had left out the summary of the report. That didn't help his plan to keep Gozaburo in a good mood.

When the door opened again, Seto didn't bother looking up. He assumed that if he appeared deep in work, Gozaburo wouldn't be quite as upset. He did enjoy seeing Seto working.

Seto stopped typing when he realized that he hadn't been addressed yet. He glanced up, expecting to see Gozaburo standing in front of him, but was met with a group of five men forming a line blocking the door.

"Can I help you with something?" Seto asked. He was unsettled by the men. Something about their posture and expressions let on to the fact that they were not employees, and they were not in his office to simply talk.

Seto kept his face blank as the man in the middle produced a gun from behind his back. The gunman laughed before saying, "Why yes you can. Don't move."

The security team had to be watching. Seto was certain that Gozaburo had hired a man whose sole job was to watch him every moment. How did the men enter the building without drawing an alarm?

Perhaps the security guard was away from his desk. Seto decided that was the only option. If anyone had been looking in, the security team would have flooded the room by that point.

Just to be safe, Seto dropped his hand to the underside of the desk where the silent alarm was located. He had used the button once before when an enraged employee became violent over the idea of taking orders from a fifteen year old. That time, it had only been seconds before response arrived.

Seto froze as he heard a distinctive 'click' come from the men. He stared down the barrel of the gun as the man said, "There is no need to alert the security, Mr. Kaiba. We wouldn't want them to interrupt."

After he spoke, the five men began to walk forward, and their action caused Seto to stand.

His mind was spinning. It was apparent that their intentions were less than moral. The gun was a clear sign of that. But their reason for holding him at gunpoint was still a mystery. If they wanted something from Gozaburo, it would make more sense to have the gun trained at the CEO. Or if they wanted to trade Seto's life for a ransom, someone would have to know they were in the building.

A terrifying thought edged its way into Seto's mind. Try as he might, he couldn't shake the idea that just maybe, they were not there to get something from Gozaburo at all. Maybe they were in the building for him.

As they grew closer, Seto finally came to the conclusion that they were trying to kidnap him. There was no other reason for the five men to enter his office.

He cast his eyes towards the camera mounted high up on the wall across from his desk. Someone had to be watching. Someone had to be seeing the five men surrounding him.

A hand grabbed Seto's arm. He understood the need to stall for time, and turned to shake out of the grip. The man sneered as Seto used his opposite hand to claw at the hand on his arm.

Seto managed to pull himself from the man's hold, and when he did so, he noticed that the man with the gun made no threats. If he truly wanted Seto's cooperation, all he would have to do is threaten to shoot. Seto assumed from this that the man had no intentions of harming him. The gun was merely a tool to distract him.

Then he understood. Seto was staring at four men. 'Where is the fifth?' he thought.

Right as he was about to look behind, he felt the cold, piercing sensation of a needle entering the skin at the back of his neck. A small gasp escaped his lips. It wasn't that the needle hurt, it was simply unexpected. The following cool rush the spread underneath his skin let him know that within moments, he would likely be unconscious.

In a last attempt at contacting security, Seto tried for the alarm under his desk. But before he could even reach down, the drug took effect.

His legs lost feeling first, but before he fell, Seto was picked up. He could no longer see anything, but his hearing hadn't faded. The men exchanged a few words as the barrel of the gun was pressed against his head.

Seto could feel the man carrying him begin to walk towards the exit. He couldn't tell how far they had gone before cries of "Don't shoot!" echoed around him.

It was the last thing he heard before he slipped from consciousness.

When Seto awoke, he immediately tried to sit up, but was overcome with a wave of dizziness. He collapsed back down with his eyes closed to fight the spinning that was filling his mind.

He was surprised to find that the surface he was lying on was soft. Even without looking, he could tell that it was a bed, and a comfortable one. The comforter had been pulled around him, which was off-putting.

Seto opened his eyes without trying to sit up again. Evidently, the drug was still lingering in his system.

The walls surrounding him were unfamiliar. He had hoped that while he was unconscious, someone would have stopped the men from taking him. However, upon examining the room, he was doubtful.

He was in a bedroom. From the general feeling of the room, it was in a regular house. The fact that the room didn't seem to be in a KaibaCorp owned facility was what let Seto know that the security staff all needed to be fired. Whoever the men were, they had gotten him out of the building.

Very slowly, Seto sat up. The slower he moved, the less his vision swam. When he was sitting upright, Seto got his first full look of the room. He tried to quickly memorize it all, as he had been trained to do.

The walls were an off shade of white that leaned more towards green than any other color. They were covered in pictures of outdoor scenes that varied from a simple image of a tree to a mountain path. None of the pictures contained faces. Across the room was a bookshelf that towered high and was filled with thick volumes. From where he sat, he couldn't read any of the titles.

Next to the bookshelf was a desk and chair, which unfortunately, didn't come with a computer. It had nothing on its surface, giving off the impression that it was little used.

And then there was the large bed Seto currently laid upon. The blanket that covered him was green. Seto got the earthy theme the room was supposed to emit.

There were two doors. By looking at them, Seto could tell that one lead to either a bathroom or closet and the other would lead to the rest of the house. He guessed that the one that was next to the bookshelf was the exit while the one nearer to the bed was the bathroom or closet.

The only abnormal thing about the room was the lack of a window. That confused him slightly, as most all rooms had a window.

Seto chewed on his lip. He could be in a basement room that was meant to look bright in order to compensate for the absence of natural light.

The door across from Seto opened, confirming his theory that it lead to the rest of the house by revealing the smallest glimpse of a hallway.

He only received a small look at the area outside the bedroom, as a more important sight entered his vision. A man walked into the room, closing the door behind him.

The man was tall. It was the first thing that Seto noticed. Seto knew that he himself was tall for his age, but just looking at the man told Seto that he was several inches shorter. The man appeared to be in his mid-fifties, although the only sign of his age came from his skin, which had several deep wrinkles. The man's perfectly styled hair had streaks of gray running through it. But Seto didn't feel the gray was a sign of his age. The streaks were too perfect to have been completely natural.

"I didn't think you would be awake yet," the man said.

Seto didn't answer. He watched the man slide off a jacket and lay it over the back of the chair.

"What? No clever remark? I was told you were full of those," the man went on.

"Who are you?" Seto asked. The question was all that Seto could think to say. There were no retorts that fit his panic. He had been kidnapped and he got the feeling that this was the man behind his abduction. But, shouldn't he be tied up or restrained in some way?

"I'd love for you to call me 'Daddy,'" the man said. He walked over to stand next to Seto.

Seto fought the urge to scoot over to the other side of the bed. He closed his eyes to keep from glancing at the door. He tried to decide if he could outrun the man standing near to him. He doubted it. Since he was sitting down, he was already at a disadvantage.

When Seto opened his eyes, he saw the man staring down at him. Neither spoke while they examined the other. But the silence must have become too much for the older man, as he lowered himself to kneel on the bed.

Seto leaned back as the man reached towards him. The man gave him a smile and began to loosen the tie still around Seto's neck. Seto was too confused to argue.

"As cute as you look in your work clothes, I doubt that you are very comfortable," he said as he slid the tie from its place.

'As cute?' Seto thought, the words slowly sinking into his mind. The moment he put the few clues together in his mind, he shoved the man's hands away.

"What are you doing?" he spat. He instantly regretted the word choice. That wasn't what he was trying to ask.

"I'm trying to make you more comfortable, Seto. I thought that was obvious," the man said. He shook his head with a laugh as he spoke, irritating Seto.

"You know that Gozaburo won't give you anything," Seto said. He turned his head to the side after speaking. That hadn't been what he meant to say either. He was too shaken to put his thoughts together.

"I don't expect anything from your father," the man said. He put Seto's tie around his own neck, not tying it, just letting it hang loose.

Seto's head turned back and he met his kidnapper's eyes. "I don't understand," Seto admitted.

The man smiled and leaned closer. When Seto arched away once more, the man wrapped his hand around the back of Seto's neck to keep him from moving. Then he quickly closed the distance, pressing his lips against Seto's.

He only held the position for a few moments before dropping his hand from Seto and settling back into a kneeling position on the bed.

Seto was stunned, and thus unable to move at all. If he had been able, he would have lifted a hand to rub against his mouth in a pathetic attempt to remove any traces of the man. But he felt like the drug was back in his system. He just couldn't move.

"I got what I wanted," the man explained.

He stopped breathing. 'No,' was all that Seto could think. It couldn't actually be happening. He had to be dreaming. None of this could be real.

The man crawled back off the bed and ran his hands over his shirt to smooth out the wrinkles. "Since I didn't expect you to be awake yet, I didn't bring you any dinner. I'll go get something now."

When he left the room, Seto heard a quiet 'thud' come from the other side. He knew the sound. The man had flipped a deadbolt into place.

Seto still couldn't move. He stared at the wall in front of him, but didn't really see it. He couldn't get his mind around what had just taken place. Nothing made sense, and Seto's mind was wired to think sensibly. Had he really just been kidnapped?

Finally managing to regain some mobility, Seto scratched the back of his hand. He focused on the small pain until it gently faded. That had felt real. He couldn't feel things that clearly in a dream.

If it was all real, then Seto knew he had to find a way out. He couldn't stay with that man. He'd rather die.

So Seto decided that he would find an escape. And until he did so, he would fight the man with all he had. Now that he had a better idea of what to expect, he would be able to prepare himself for it. He wouldn't be taken off guard again.

And if he couldn't manage to get out on his own, Seto was confident that with all the resources the police had at their disposal, they would be able to find him. It might take time, but they dealt with these situations daily. And with Gozaburo Kaiba searching, as Seto was sure he would be, it couldn't take long.

It couldn't.

The next chapter will be up shortly!

AN: I remember when I started writing fanfiction at like eleven. I thought that Seto Kaiba was the most mature person I had ever heard of, and since he was seventeen, I really wanted to be seventeen. Yet now, as I look back on my time being seventeen, I realize that I was really immature. I've been thinking of the people I know who are seventeen, and they all seemed immature to me too.

So I started writing Seto here, and I realized that I was possibly making him too mature. I understand that he is still under Gozaburo's thumb in his story. But since I haven't set it up so that he has defeated Gozaburo, I still see his character as being sort of broken. Yes, he is insanely intellegent, but he hasn't gained all that self-confidence that he won by taking over KaibaCorp. And we can't forget, when it comes down to it, Seto is still a child. (Yes, I consider teenagers "children") No amount of training can prepare a person to be thrown into this situation.