Chemistry

Title: Chemistry

Author: iChosha

Pairing(s): Seto/Jou

Summary: Seto is back in college to get his MBA. To bulk up his resume he takes on a part time on-campus job. Too bad his superior happens to be the one person he planned on never seeing again.

Author Notes: I haven’t written fic in so long. I feel like everything is jammed up. But I love Seto/Jou, so let’s hope I can make this work! Also, I’m nervous about posting this. So be nice. D:


Chapter One: Extracurricular Activity

Seto padded down the empty hallway, studying an email printout. He had applied for an “on-campus” part time job because it would look good on his already packed resume, or so claimed his adviser. He thought it was pointless. He was here to get his MBA (Masters of Business Association), not screw around in a chemistry lab after hours with a creepy old man who was probably more interested in the chemistry he could create with Seto, than the chemistry in the book.

The printout listed no name, just a room number and when he should start.

The almost unbridled CEO grimaced, without a name he could make no assumptions about this professor except that he was a sick, sick man for making Seto stay working so late when he had more important things to tend to; like preparing for 6am business meetings and spending time with Mokuba. The more he thought about it, the more enraged he became.
He stomped the last few feet to the office door, intent on telling the man just what he thought of him, squashing his ego and then “persuading” him to set up hours Seto deemed convenient.

Clutching his brief case by the handle, he shoved the print out in his school uniform pocket. Although he didn’t have on his intimidating trench coat, he still must have looked vicious as he burst into the office without knocking, anger emanating from his body.

The small room was dark except for a green reading lamp emitting a dim glow. The plush chair was empty with a white lab coat strung over its back. The desk was organized; pens in a cup, papers in stacked, plastic trays, and a large table top calendar with different dates scribbled on. The only thing out of place was a small picture frame that seemed to have fallen off the desk.

There was no one there. Seto felt his temper flair and then calm.

He could wait.

Out of reflex, he picked up the face down frame, feeling a slight curiosity of who might be in the picture. He turned the frame over in his hands and felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

“No way,” his breath hitched for a second and his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest.

It was a picture of Katsuya Jounouchi’s sister, Shizuka, smiling and leaning against a tree. There were bandages over her eyes, so he guessed it was an old photo. He set it on the desk, staring at it as if the picture would give him some horrible disease.

As realization hit him at just what the picture meant, he noticed something was blocking the light from the hallway.

Before he could turn, a familiar but somewhat deeper voice broke the silence.

“Can I help yah?”

A strange chill crawled up Seto’s spine and he turned, emotionless.

“Yes. I’m here for the on-campus job.”

The shorter man smiled and ran a hand through his blond hair. He had the other shoved in his unbuttoned lab coat that hung over a pair of faded jeans and a blue turtleneck.

“I see. Well, you can start by going to the Chem lab down the hall and collect all the metal trays and wash ‘em in the sink.”

Seto nodded and brushed past the man without a word. As he moved down the hall he heard the man start to speak again.

“And one more thing;

what took yah so long, Seto?”

Seto acted like he didn’t hear him and entered the lab.

The color had drained from his face and he felt weak in the knees.
He had planned on never seeing that damn mutt again and now here they were forced to associate with one another, and to make things worse, the dog was his superior!

Seto dropped his case and rushed to the sink, clutching the edge of the counter.

“Jou.” he whispered, before heaving his last meal into the steel basin, a few tears of frustration escaping, running down his face and dripping into the sink.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

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Jou listened to Seto’s reaction from his office doorframe for a moment before shutting the door and enclosing himself in the quiet.

Although small and windowless, Jou loved his office. No unwanted noise ever got in or out and if his door was shut, everyone knew to leave him be.

When he received the request to give a student the on-campus job available in the Chemistry department, he hadn’t thought much of it. After scanning the faxed request, he had set it aside, then hurriedly picked it back up. Something had caught his eye; the name of the student – Kaiba Seto.

Jou had felt his skin prickle and his stomach tighten. He had been unsure of what to do. Should he reject the request or…?

He had decided to accept the request. It meant he would see Seto again, even if it was only one time. There were so many unanswered questions he had and a longing to see the brunet that he didn’t understand. He had told the office to make sure his name was kept off the notification email; he said he wanted it to be a surprise for the student. The secretary had looked at him funny, but he didn’t care. It was none of her business anyways.

After Shizuka had died from complications of another surgery, Jou had pretty much kept to himself. He hardly spoke to Yugi and the gang anymore. He always told them he was busy grading papers, or he had to write up a new lab assignment for his students and couldn’t put it off. It’s not that he didn’t like his friends anymore. He had just stopped caring for the company of other people.

Jou had started to spend more and more time in his office, until he only went home to sleep, letting the rest of each day be dedicated to doing something at work. He loved his students and their will to learn, but that was all he really cared about. The blond smiled, somewhere along the way, he had become just as obsessed with working as Seto.

The day before their high school graduation, the two of them had had one moment together. There was a connection between them as they stood across from each other in that empty classroom, skin on skin, eyes locked.

Jou had entered the room just to get his backpack. There had been so many school activities, he forgot about his stuff and left it there until the end of the day.

He was surprised to find Seto sitting at a desk next to the window, Jou’s backpack in front of him, unopened. He was propped up by his elbow, face turned towards the outside. The sun surrounded his form like a giant halo, making him almost too bright for the blond to look at it.

Jou felt like he was seeing a candid version of Seto; when the mask was gone and it was just a normal person pondering to himself. It was so strange.

He had been unsure of what to do, caught up in staring at the brunet who seemed to be in a trance of his own. But he was sure if he just snatched his stuff of the desk and ran, the CEO would fly after him like a fire breathing dragon and rip him to pieces.

The blond shook his head and snorted at himself, why would Seto get mad at him. It was HIS stuff after all.

He walked up to the desk and put his hand on the bag, clearing his throat.

“Uh, hey, Kaiba. Yah mind if I take mah stuff?”

Seto, broken out of his daze, whipped his eyes up to meet Jou’s. But instead of cold anger, Jou saw something else in those azure orbs. It was the look of urgency.

The CEO sprung up from the desk, grabbing Jou’s wrist, keeping their eyes locked.

He leaned in close, so close their noses almost touched.

“Jou.” Seto paused and the blond’s eyes widened at the use of his first name.

Seeing the shorter man make no move to speak, the brunet started again. “I need –“

He was interrupted as Yugi opened the door, looking for his blond friend.

Seto threw Jou’s arm away from him, stepping back as far as the wall would let him.

“-to tell you what a dumbass dog you are and that you need to stop leaving your shit everywhere.”

Seto shoved Jou’s backpack off the desk as if to emphasize his point.

Jou had watched Seto’s eyes change from bright to dull, urgency to ice, before the brunet left the room like his pants were on fire.
It all happened so fast, he hadn’t even been given a chance to conjure up an insult to throw back at the taller man. He was just left standing there, a confused look on his face and his skin tingling at where the brunet had touched him.

He remembered Yugi looking at him, a question on his lips. But all Jou could do was regain his composure and shrug.

Neither of them had ever brought it up again and Jou never asked what exactly Yugi had seen.

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Jou sat down, letting himself sink into the comfort of his chair and put his head down on the desk, inhaling the smell of old wood, paper and highlighters.

He remembered after that day, even before Shizuka passed away, he started to close himself off from the world. He even skipped his own graduation because he was afraid of what might happen if he ran into the taller man again.

He was still uncertain of what Seto was going to say that day, but he felt like, if that moment had gone on uninterrupted then something wonderful might have happened.

He wanted to know what could have been, so bad, he ached.

Jou had always felt a subtle attraction to his classmate, but he figured it was more of a competitive nature than anything else. No one could get him more fired up over something as simple as an insult than Seto. Whenever they started to fence with words, Jou would feel his body heat up and his adrenaline start to rush.

It was like they were making love with words, rather than their bodies.

Jou sat up, stunned. “Where the hell did that come from?”

He ran his hands through his hair over and over, as if trying to brush out that last thought.

Jou slammed his face into the desk, wondering if he had made a mistake in giving Seto the job.

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In any other situation, Seto would have been appalled at being ordered to clean dishes. But right now, he was almost grateful for the task. The movement of his hands helped to sort out his thoughts, and as he cleaned, he pondered what he should do.

He could just quit, tell them he didn’t connect with the professor and get a job on a different part of the campus.

He shook his head, the violence of the air movement causing soap bubbles to fly across the room. There was no way in hell he would quit. Kaiba Seto was not a quitter and he especially wouldn’t back down just because some stupid mutt caused him a little stress.
No, he would overcome this just like every other hardship he encountered. And, he would come out on top, like always. In fact, he could even use the dog’s empty head as a stage to stand on.

As Seto tried to convince himself, his subconscious wondered back to that day. The day when he had been searching for an empty classroom to sleep in and stumbled upon one that happened to have the mutt’s stuff in it.

After that, even if he hadn’t slept in days, he wouldn’t have been able to close his eyes. Instead, he looked over his shoulder, checking for witnesses and then picked up the bag, hugging it and then quickly setting it down on the desk next to the window.

He sat down and stared it, wanting to open it so bad, but terrified of being found out. If he got caught, then there would be suspicion and everyone would know that the brunet had an interest in a certain blond.

Instead, he sated himself by staring out the window. Imaging Jou coming into the room and seeing Seto sitting there, unable to control himself, the blond would rush over and take Seto’s lips into a passionate, demanding kiss and then they would live together in happiness for the rest of their life.

Seto repeated this daydream over and over in his mind, so blowing it out of proportion, he didn’t notice the object of his desires until he was right next to him, clearing his voice.

“Uh, hey, Kaiba. Yah mind if I take mah stuff?”

Seto had been so surprised, he almost jumped. Instead he looked up into those honey brown eyes and felt that it was now or never. The brunet bolted from his seat, grabbing Jou’s wrist. They were all alone and if he was rejected, he could make the dog swear to never speak of it again.

If he wasn’t… then he would kiss him, kiss him like no one ever had before and make him understand that Jou was his and no one else’s. That’s how it was supposed to be.

It seemed as though they had just stared at each other for hours, noses almost touching, but Seto’s voice had rang out, pulling time back into reality.

“Jou.”

Using the blond’s first name was the first test, if he didn’t reject that, then Seto would feel that he could go on. When no words came, Seto continued, his rapid heartbeat so loud, he was sure Jou could hear it.

“I need – “

The door opened and the short duelist peered around it, calling Jou’s name.

In that instant Seto pushed Jou’s arm away and pressed himself against the wall, already spitting out one of his usual insults.

“-to tell you what a dumbass dog you are and that you need to stop leaving your shit everywhere.”

Seto pushed Jou’s bag off the desk to emphasize his point and to trick Yugi into thinking this was nothing more than a casual interaction between the two.

Even as he did it, he felt his hands itch to reach out and touch Jou’s face, to tell him he was sorry and ask if he could kiss him.

Instead Seto fled. He ran away from the last chance fate would give him and he knew it.

Once he stepped into his limo, that was it. He condemned the whole thing and refused to think about it ever again.

But, he did think about it again. Every day for a week, he kept expecting Jou to come through whatever door he was near and ask to hear what Seto had to say. He wanted the damn mutt to come after him, to give him that second chance. But it never happened.

Seto didn’t even see him at graduation because he didn’t go. He told the school he had an important business meeting he couldn’t miss and to mail his diploma to him. They didn’t argue.

Seto scrubbed the dishes hard and harder, taking out all his pain and rage on them until he felt the current dish he was holding cave in and bend in his hands.

“Oh, shit.”

Great, now a conversation with Jou was inevitable. And how was he going to explain why a soft handed CEO managed to bend a metal tray and almost break it when he was suppose to be washing it.

Maybe he should just shove it in his briefcase and dispose of it later. He doubted the mutt could count, so he probably wouldn’t even notice.

“Having trouble I see?”

Seto spun around, flinging water and soap everywhere.

The two locked eyes for a second, taking in the other’s changed features for the first time.

Both had stayed about the same height, but while Seto had gotten paler, Jou had gotten tanner. Seto wondered why, considering Jou was supposed to be holed up in a lab all the time. In retrospect, the biggest change between them was their clothing; Jou now in a lab coat and Seto in a college uniform. Everything else seemed to be the same, at first glance anyways.

“No. Your trays are just a piece of shit.” Seto snarled, harsher than he’d meant to.

Jou flinched, curling his hand in his pocket. “I won’t argue with yah there. School funding’s priority isn’t exactly pointed towards the Science department.”

Although Jou tried to carry on normal conversation, Seto had seen that flinch and he wondered if Jou remembered.

They fell into silence again, Jou studying the dirty, tiled floor and Seto dripping water. The brunet wondered how much Jou had really changed. Was he still the same mutt from all that time ago? Even his speech had changed. Although Seto could still hear it in some instances; it was almost as if Jou was trying to keep his speech immaculate on purpose.

“So, you actually got your degree before mine…” Seto pointed out, breaking the stillness for both their sakes.

“Yeah.. well after Shizuka died, I moved out of dad’s and worked my way through college. Since I didn’t have anything else tah do…”
Seto’s lips formed a silent “o” and he turned back to the sink, even though all the dishes were already clean. To do something he started to wipe them dry.

They both spoke at the same time, cutting each other off.

“I’m sorry about your sist –“

“You don’t have to dry thos – “

The two fell quiet again, listening to each other breathing.

“Kaiba. You can go on home. I didn’t really have anything for yah to do tonight anyways. …And tell Mokuba I said hi. If you don’t mind.”

Seto nodded without turning around and Jou assumed that meant he was dismissed.

The blond went back to his office, a grim smile on his face. Even though their positions of power had switched, Seto still seemed to be in charge.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

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Author’s Notes: Well. That was intense wasn’t it? xD I don’t have a beta, but I’m pretty good at catching my own mistakes, so I apologize if there are any. And I’m sorry if it’s too wordy. I haven’t wrote fic in quite a while, so I have to slip back into the groove.

Reviews are welcomed, but it won’t kill me if you don’t. Lord knows sometimes I’m too lazy to leave one. :3

Also, if you feel I fail at portraying them. Then don’t read it, k? Every writer’s style and interpretation is different and sometimes writer and reader don’t click. When that happens, there’s no need to get nasty about it. It just means you should go read something else. :D