A Year With You

Jou whistled a happy tune as he made breakfast for every one. All of his friends were still asleep but he didn’t mind. He enjoyed the silence of the morning some times. Recently he hadn’t got much morning alone time because Seto was up before him. Oddly he found him self missing the brunet. He liked to be alone but he and Seto would talk about a billion different things. It had only been three days and already he was finding the brunet a good friend. “Jou I didn’t expect to see you up.” He paused as the person he was just musing over broke his thoughts. “I didn’t expect to see you up. What happened, I thought you would be home early?” The brunet sighed heavily putting the tea kettle on. “The main server decided to crash. It took longer than I thought to get things up and running again but it could have been worse.” He saw the signs of stress along handsome features. Deep circles shadowed blue eyes and normally pristine hair was a mess. “Oh. Well, I’m glad you got everything fixed.” The brunet looked at him questions haunting his eyes with amusement. “What did you think I just stayed at the office to avoid your friends?” He scratched the back of his neck laughing nervously. “Yeah.” Seto shook his head and shrugged. “I thought about it.” He laughed softly leaning on the brunet.

~~~
Yugi lay listening to the sounds of all his friends breathing for a long while. He was comfortable and couldn’t find it in himself to move. He was sure Jou was up but he wasn’t sure where his friend would be. He slowly dragged himself from his dark’s arms determined to find the bathroom before his bladder burst. He paused in the hall as Kaiba came from the kitchen sipping a cup of tea. “Good morning Kaiba.” The brunet nodded once and pointed to a door. “The bathroom is there and Jou is in the kitchen.” He blinked as the brunet moved past him to the two huge double doors of what he could only guess as his office. He swiftly went to the bathroom then washed his hands then headed to the kitchen. “Morning Jou!” His best friend turned and waved at him happily. “Morning Yug’! How did you sleep?” He shrugged sitting at one of the stools at the island. “Does Kaiba ever creep you out?” He asked looking at his friend who stared at him blankly. “No.” Jou chuckled softly handing him a glass of juice. “Why?” He shrugged thinking back to his meeting in the hall. “Well it’s just that he told me what I needed to know with out me even asking.” Jou chuckled draping an arm around him. “Yugi I hate ta tell ya but Kaiba ain’t creepy yur jus’ that easy to perdict.” He pouted slightly but knew it was most likely true.

Jou looked at his best friend and ruffled puffy hair. Big violet eyes looked at him and he smiled. “I didn’t mean it to hurt your feelings Yugi. But if I had to guess you were going to ask him where the bathroom was and where I was.” His best friend nodded and smiled. “Kaiba knows ya well enough to know that you would want ta know where I was. Asking for the bathroom is fairly standard in the morning.” He went back to his waffles that he was making. “Yug’ don’t insult Kaiba any more. You may not like him much but he is my friend. You know I would defend all my friends to death and Kaiba is now one of them. If I have too I will even defend him against you and the others. Just don’t make me choose between him and you guys. He’s been good to me and well he may have a pole shoved up his ass but he kinda grows on you.” He looked to his friend who was grinning like a fool. “I’m happy for you Jou.” He blinked unsure what to say.

Mokuba plodded his way into the kitchen and paused at the awkward silence that hung over Yugi and Jou. “What are you two talking about?” He asked softly and Jou grinned at him. “We are talking about your brother.” He felt his sleepy daze snap as he pulled a Kaiba glare on the two. Jou just smiled ruffling his hair. “Don’t worry I was just telling Yugi what a good friend he has been to me.” He nodded slowly and dragged himself into a stool. He always wondered how his brother could be such a morning person when he wasn’t.

~~~
Seto looked at his empty cup trying to decide if more tea was worth facing Jou’s friends. If it was just Yugi, he could ignore the midget for the most part. If all the others were there as well he’d have a much harder time. He liked Jou’s friends, when they weren‘t talking. They just hurt him deeply. They had made hundreds of offers for him to be their friend but they had shown him very little friendship. They had never once helped him save his brother with out some ulterior motive like freeing Yugi or Yami or some one. Jou was the only one that ever gave him any sort of a straight answer or told him what was really happening. Jou was honest and that was the one reason he took the blond into his home. He slammed his frustration out on his keyboard. Mokuba always wondered why he went though so many. Living most of your life as a workaholic teen billionaire built up a lot of frustration. He growled then sighed setting his head in his hands. He needed more sleep.

Jou chatted happily with all of his friends while they ate. He looked up to ask Seto a question but realized he was not around. He shook his head silently chiding his own forgetfulness. He excused himself and headed to the office. Which Mokuba called ‘The Kaiba Sucking Porthole of Doom.’ He really wondered about that boy. He opened the door finding Seto sitting very still with his head buried in his hands. “Seto are you ok?” The brunet didn’t answer so he moved closer gently resting a hand on a stiff shoulder. “Seto?” Blue eyes so intense he stumbled a step back looked up at him. “I’m fine. What do you want?” He swallowed hard taking a shuffling step forward. “Breakfast is ready do you want some?” The brunet shook his head and he leaned forward looking at his friend. “What’s wrong?” The brunet stood and sighed. “Nothing, I’m just not hungry.” He nodded slowly watching the brunet leave.

Seto headed up the stairs pausing on the second floor then continuing up to the third. He stood in the middle of the hall feeling old childhood fears roll over him. He turned to the left. His breathing changed from slow and calm to a tad bit rapid as it picked up a note of panic. He had placed all of the personal rooms to the right of the house, as far away as they could get form this area. Nothing of his or Mokuba’s went past the second floor because this floor was filled with evil. He paused at a door, being able to picture the small room perfectly even if he hadn’t been inside of it in years. He didn’t open it because it wasn’t the room he was headed to. He moved further down to the two huge doors that took up most of the wall. It was the place of his nightmares and his own personal hell. He was headed to his stepfather’s room.

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To all my readers: I'm so sorry this chapter took so long to finally get out. Sadly my beta reader and I both ran into some hard times, our difficulties are very different but we face the same issue of writing and editing in a timely manner. I sadly do not know when chapter six will be posted. So please stick with me and excuse the long absences between chapters. My beta and I are both trying our best.

Thank you to all my kind reviewers.

I hope every one liked this chapter and please don't kill me for the cliffy.