Too Much

Chapter 6 – Confrontation

Seto Kaiba was laying awake in his king sized bed. He turned over and looked at his clock on his bedside table. It was past 2 o’clock. The clock was a gift from the owner of another successful company that deals with an assortment of electronics. They had done business together, much to the delight of the owner who gave Seto a variety of their latest products. Little did the owner know that Seto would grow to hate that clock. It woke him up every morning with its dreaded alarm and it served to taunt him when he couldn’t sleep by displaying a time much later than Seto hoped it would be when he was exhausted and had school in the morning. If only that business owner knew how much Seto resented him because of his … gift.

The later it got the more he wanted to sleep, but the more he wanted to sleep the harder it was to fall asleep. He rolled back over and stared at the ceiling, while pulling his red silk duvet cover over his half-naked body. Seto was exhausted, but his mind wouldn’t let him sleep. He had been working late that night, again. His work was piling up so he was starting to work later and later to keep up. Mokuba wasn’t happy about it. He’d been thinking about a lot lately, so much he had trouble concentrating on his work, and trouble sleeping.

It all stemmed back to that stupid mutt. If the mutt’s attitude as of late wasn’t alarming, the disturbance that occurred yesterday was particularly unsettling. If Joey was already injured and clearly in pain, why would he attack Seto in the attempt to start another brawl? Especially when Seto always wins their altercations anyway.

“Does he have a death wish!?” Seto said allowed, feeling anger build up in his stomach as he thought of the mutt’s stupidity. As he said this, his anger quickly turned to shock, and then almost fear. What if he does? If the mutt’s life is bad enough, being poor and abused, maybe that is enough to cause someone to think about ending their life. But no, Seto knows how that life is, and he never thought about something so stupid. And the mutt has his gang of annoyances … they wouldn’t let him do that. At this thought, Seto relaxed, but still felt a pang of worry. “What do I care about that dog,” Seto muttered, brooding over the lack of control of his emotions.

Seto didn’t need to feel guilty anymore. He was the one who told the chemistry teacher that Joey needed to see the school counselor, knowing that being so influential, the teacher would probably set up the meeting and Joey would never expect Seto of doing it because Seto got the teacher to do it. It was Seto’s only idea of covering his tracks to make sure that the mutt didn’t know it was him. Joey seemed spaced out lately, kind of like how Seto had been feeling, but Joey seemed too spaced out to just be distracted. Seto could tell that even his friends were uneasy as of late. They weren’t their easy going selves ever since the mutt has been acting strange. It’s not like Seto watched them or anything; he was just extremely perceptive and could tell when something was wrong. It came in handy in the business world and was one of his helpful attributes.

But then the mutt didn’t even bother going to the meeting and the teacher’s attempt of helping Joey was even more pathetic. The following day when Seto saw Joey’s back, he couldn’t ignore that. He told the counselor directly and told her to make sure that Joey attended the next meeting. He may have threatened the counselor with lawyers and legal terms, but it was the only way to see some action because everyone knows the school counselors are useless. Seto justified his actions by thinking that if Joey received help than he wouldn’t feel guilty about breaking his nose. He thought if the mutt got help than Seto wouldn’t think about him anymore.

And who were those sketch characters Joey hung around with sometimes. They went to a different high school, Seto knew that for sure. Joey was usually pretty inconspicuous about meeting up with them, as if he were trying to hide the fact he was associated with them. What Joey didn’t know was that Kaiba had eyes and ears all over the city. Being a businessman, it benefited him to know what was going on. If the reason why Joey was acting strange was linked to this group than Seto wanted to know all about it. Seto always liked to be one step ahead of his enemies and if there is something that is worth knowing, than he wants to know it. The information may come in handy later on. Seto made a mental note to have Joey monitored. Maybe that would put his mind at ease and allow him to stop thinking about him.

Kaiba gave a heavy sigh and slipped out of bed. He took a few steps to his bathroom, wearing nothing but his silk boxers on his tall, lean frame. He walked past the Jacuzzi tub to a large one of a kind cabinet, elegantly adorned and hand painted, and opened it in a resentful, almost angry fashion. He grabbed a pill bottle that was at the back behind his fleet of cologne bottles, each one very expensive and hardly used. He read the label while opening the childproof lid and popped 2 in his mouth. He took a sip of water from the sink and replaced the bottle angrily.

They were only sleeping pills that were prescribed to him a while ago when he was having trouble sleeping for completely different reasons. He still hated taking them. Seto didn’t approve of pills in any form. If civilization a thousand years ago could survive without a pharmacy down the street than so could he. People with as much power as he didn’t need to bow down to a weakness. Having to take pills to fall asleep instead of over coming this challenge made him furious with himself. The fact that he had a weakness he couldn’t deal with himself just disgusted him. He rarely ever took them, hating any type of drug in his system, but he knew he was desperate for sleep and he wouldn’t fall asleep naturally for quite some time. He looked at his clock before crawling back into his bed. It was 3 o’clock. Seto just gave a little grunt of discontent and tried to relax.

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Joey indeed managed to make it home all right from the hospital, even though he was impaired. Joey wasn’t too bad from the shot, seeing as he was used to being on some sort of medication. He felt drowsy and a little bit unsteady but he was still competent. He was still internally celebrating the free painkillers he got. This way he could continue his habit and could avoid the gang for a while. When he arrived at his apartment, his dad was home and lying on the couch like usual, a pile of cheap beer bottles scattered across the floor. When Joey entered the apartment, his father’s head lifted and he peered at Joey with half-lidded eyes.

“Hey, what the hell happened to you?” his father asked with laughter in his voice.

Joey answered simply. “A fight.”

“It doesn’t look like you faired too well. I thought you were a better fighter than that. I guess you don’t take after your old man,” His father laughed again, obviously very drunk. “Don’t let me down kid, we can’t have you embarrassing me by getting beat up.” His father continued, the amusement still in his voice. Joey said nothing as he let out a low sigh and headed in the direction of his room. His father must have been in the happy stages of his drunken stupor but just because he was happy doesn’t mean he wasn’t still an asshole.

His father’s tone turned angry. “Wait a second; did you go to the hospital? Are you spending my money on your stupid face?” he called after Joey.

“No,” replied Joey as he slowly turned around, not wanting to have this conversation. “The bill was sent to the other guy”

“And who may that be?” His father asked, no longer angry but intrigued.

“Kaiba,” Joey snarled, focusing all his anger into spitting out his name.

His dad’s eyes grew wide and a smile spread across his face. “…The Kaiba. My son was knocked out by the Kaiba. Wow kid, you fought with someone famous! Oh wait, we could sue! Yea he has tons of money; he’s what, a billionaire? Yea we can…”

Joey quickly made the few strides to his bedroom and shut the door on his father’s voice that began to rant about the possibilities. Joey hated Kaiba and his father wasn’t even concerned that he had seriously injured his son. His only concerns were how Joey losing the fight would make him look, and what kind of money he can get out of it. His father was always selfish. Joey whipped his backpack off of his back and threw it at the wall out of anger. He collapsed on his mattress and put his head in his hands. Joey was furious. He could take the abuse from anyone at school who felt like taking a jab at him for losing against Kaiba again, but not his own father, the one person he thought should have his back. The next time he fought Kaiba he would destroy him; that would shut him up for good.

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The next few days passed in a blur for Joey. He went to school as usual and attempted to stay focused in class, knowing if he continued to be a poor student it would cause him even more problems. The following day, after his hospital trip, Joey confronted the gang at lunch. He needed to know who ratted him out to the counselor. He went over it a hundred times in his head and he knew that one of them must have done it. Joey really didn’t want to start the conversation, knowing how awkward the whole situation was, but he had to know.

“Alright guys, I got somethin’ to ask ya.” They all looked up at him with avid attention. “Which one of ya talked to the school counselor?” Joey’s question was vague. He couldn’t bring himself to say allowed what they all knew was on his back.

The gang continued to look at him with uneasy faces. Yugi was the first to speak up. “None of us did … right guys?” Joey looked at each of his friends standing in front of him, all of them nodding in agreement.

“Well then … who did?” Joey asked, his voice coming out a bit more angrily than he intended it to, not completely believing what they were trying to sell him.

It was Tea who burst forward, not being able to hold it any longer. “I don’t know but I’m glad they did it!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears. “We’ve all been so worried about you and you don’t tell us anything anymore!” she continued, as tears poured down her face, saying what the rest of the group was thinking. “If you have a problem than you can come to us, we are all there for each other! When Yugi lost his grandpa, we were all there to help him out. So now that you have a problem we want to help.” Tea finished, unable to go on, putting her hands to her face and sobbing as Tristan took her in his arms.

“Yea but guys … ‘dere’s nothing goin’ on,” Joey stated, eyes wide, bewildered at Tea’s sudden display of emotion.

Tristan spoke in a low voice, very seriously. “We know there is man; you don’t need to lie to us, we all saw.”

“No. Ya don’t understand! That’s nothin’.” Joey said, starting to get agitated by his friend’s persistence.

“Don’t tell us that it’s nothing.” Yugi began, stepping forward, tears brimming in his eyes. “You need help and we are here. You have options! You could come live with gramps and me. I know its small but we could make it work!” Yugi exclaimed, losing himself. Joey knew that Yugi wasn’t one to cry. He only saw him do it when his grandpa lost his soul. Yugi was usually so strong. It hurt Joey a lot to see Yugi break like this because of him.

“So just because someone ratted me out you guys are all against me now?” Joey accused, now on the defensive.

“No one ratted you out! Don’t you get it? They were trying to help you because they cared! It should have been us but we were scared that you would snap on us and we believed you when you told us nothing was going on because we trusted you!” Yugi yelled, very uncharacteristically, unable to hold back. Joey looked down at his best friends tear laden face. It was filled with desperation. Joey was so stunned he couldn’t say anything.

Tristan continued where Yugi left off. “You should be thanking whoever told the counselor, whoever it is, is a good person and I agree with them all the way, man. I mean it got your nose fixed didn’t it? If it weren’t for that prick Kaiba you wouldn’t have needed to but don’t you see they did you a favour?”

Joey stood staring at his friends, slack jaw and at a loss. This is not how he expected this conversation to go at all. It then occurred to Joey that all of his friends have been on edge lately, and they were probably thinking these things for a while now. It was because of him they were worrying. Joey realized how easily he brought all of them to such an emotional state; he realized how much they have all been holding in. He knew they cared but they didn’t know they were talking about. It wasn’t up to them to say when Joey needed help and what he needed. It was his life.

“Guys, it’s fine. Jus’ leave it alone.” Joey said finally, in a slow dead voice. He couldn’t stand to look at his friends upset faces anymore knowing that it was because of him they were upset. He hated the fact he was hurting them but his life was just something he didn’t want to talk about with anyone. It was what it was. He just wanted things to go back to normal but if it couldn’t he’d rather distance himself away from his friends so they wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. He wouldn’t make them feel that way anymore, he cared too much about them.

“I’ve got to go…” Joey said quietly, not knowing what to say. Yugi began to protest but Joey was already gone before they could say anything to stop him.


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… Okay not much happened in this chapter... I know. It was really just to check back with Seto, see how he was feeling and address Joey’s friends about the counselor thing. AND Tea needed to make a super special awesome friendship speech because that’s all she’s good for. ^_^ Yea… their little friendship conversation was pretty lammeee… but I feel like it was something they would say and it wouldn’t be right if Joey’s friends weren’t very concerned. But I promise you that next chapter will have Joey/Kaiba interaction!