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“Kaiba-sama, I’m sorry to disturb but there is a phone call for you on line one.”
Blue eyes that were intensely concentrating on the screen in front of them glanced at the intercom phone on the desk. Kaiba Seto’s hands stilled over his laptop keyboard as he registered what was said. The e-mail report he was in the middle of was extremely important, his secretary knew not to disturb him currently unless it was concerning his direct family.
“I’m going to hope this is urgent and not the visual tech department having a meltdown again.”
The brunette took a small amount of pleasure in the fact he didn’t need to see the woman to know she had cringed at his reply. While his husband on many occasions had pointed out he was ‘going soft’ in his old age, sarcastic and snide remarks were still a given, especially at work.
He was the boss after all.
“It is the principal of your son’s school.”
The definitive sound of a ‘click’ that she had cut communication resounded in the room. Seto leaned back slowly in his chair as he blinked once, then twice at the intercom.
His son’s principal?
Picking up the small silver plated frame containing a family of four from his desk the CEO’s gaze lingered on the eldest of two children.
Brown hair and blue eyes so similar to his own stared back at him from the picture, it was often pointed out how much his son looked like a clone of him in his younger years. At the young age of nine his eldest child was growing up far too quickly than either he or his husband could have imagined.
Seto’s insides swelled with pride. Well-behaved, polite, intelligent and reserved. Looks weren’t the only thing he got from his father was how people and business partners described his son. Straight to the point responses to conversation and every move calculated.
Recently however, there had been something very... he pondered the correct word for a moment, different about his son.
Placing the picture back in its place, Seto picked up the handset and opened line one.
“Kaiba Seto, speaking.”
“Kaiba-san, good afternoon.” the clipped voice of the principal, Fujita Midori if he remembered correctly came through the phone. “I’m sorry to disturb you while you are at work however Jōnouchi-san-”
Seto grip on the phone tightened as he growled into the phone cutting the woman off. “Kaiba...”
An awkward silence ensued before an audible cough was heard. “... My apologies.” The woman honestly didn’t sound very apologetic in Seto’s opinion, there was a pause before she continued. “Kaiba-san... is unavailable at the moment.”
Did this woman really just spit his husband’s last name out like it was poison in her mouth? The CEO bit back the snarl that was rising in his throat. Did she have a point? Or were the... Seto mentally scoffed, pleasantries really necessary?
“Is there a problem Fujita-san?”
“There has been an incident between Tatsumi-kun and another student during lunch hour that requires your immediate presence. Please report to reception within the hour and you will be escorted to my office so we can resolve this.”
Seto pulled the phone back and stared at it as the dial tone rang. Did this... this bitch really just speak to him like that and then hang up on him? Placing the handset back into its place he took a deep breath in and then exhaled loudly through his nose, one... two... three... the brunette took a few moments to calm the storm of anger swimming inside.
After finally gathering himself together the CEO opened the communication link with his secretary.
“Nozomi clear my schedule for the day, I’m heading out the office.”
Swiftly saving his e-mail report and closing his laptop, Seto placed everything he needed inside his briefcase and snapped the locks shut. He rounded his desk and grabbed his suit jacket as he headed out the door.
Time to go meet Fujita-san and find out what the hell was going on.
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The receptionist was polite enough Seto mused as she escorted him to the principal’s office.
She tapped on the door twice, a muffled ‘enter’ was heard within before she held it open for him. “Here you are Kaiba-san.”
From the doorway, the first thing the CEO noticed was his son.
Tatsumi’s back was facing him as he sat in his chair in front of the principal. Head bowed forward, brown locks were dishevelled and out of place, his back and shoulders were tense and hunched up in a defeated way.
The second thing he noticed was the smug look Fujita-san wore on her features. The elder woman was probably in her late fiftys if her graying dark hair and slight wrinkles were anything to go by. Seto glared at her as he entered, the look only seemed to amuse her further as he took the empty seat beside his son and placed his briefcase on the floor.
Seto’s glare intensified clearly giving the woman the hint to explain.
“Kaiba-san, thank you for joining us.”
From the corner of his eye, Seto didn’t miss the way his son winced or seemed to sink further in his seat.
“Tatsumi-kun would you like to explain to myself and your father what happened?” The amusement in her voice and the way this woman was looking at his son was seriously starting to piss Seto off. How was anything to do with this situation remotely amusing?
His son didn’t say a word or move from his position and simply shook his head.
“No? Then I shall tell him what I know.” Turning her gaze away from his child, if he was anyone less than Kaiba Seto he would have done a double take. The damned broad was smirking at him. “Tatsumi-kun was caught and had to be restrained from assaulting another student.”
Seto folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. From all the complaining Katsuya had done about their son not showing one single trait from him, it had to be now that it surfaced. Fighting in school, really? The CEO had to refrain from putting his head in his hands, he wouldn’t give this woman the satisfaction.
Still, Seto knew his son and if there was one thing he knew to be true about this situation, it was that there was more to this than what he was being told.
Fujita-san quiet loudly cleared her throat at being ignored and Seto once again opened his eyes to look at the infuriating woman who was clearly not telling him something. “Kaiba-san I’m sure you are well aware that our school has strict rules regarding both verbal and physical altercations. I am hoping that Tatsumi-kun's home... situation is not the cause of this?”
The sweet smile the woman was casting in his direction was vomit inducing. Seto could honestly say he had never so much wanted to take a leaf out of Katsuya’s book as he did right then, she certainly deserved a right hook to the face.
Reasonably looking at the situation however, was Fujita Midori implying what he thought she was? That the fact that Tatsumi had two fathers rather than the mother and father equivalent, that they were unfit parents? The rage inside was becoming almost impossible to hold back.
Homophobic bitch.
Gathering some papers together on what the woman probably thought was case closed and won at the CEO’s silence, she continued her tirade speech. “Kaiba-san I’m afraid I have no other option than to suspend your son furthering pending investigation into hi-”
“Tatsumi.”
It was the first time Seto had spoken since this whole thing began and he was glad the anger he felt at Fujita Midori did not leak into his voice as he addressed his son. His glare was met with one of her own at being interrupted.
Turning to look at his son, face returning to an impassive expression he continued. “Tell me what happened.”
The audible sound of chair legs screeching across the floor filled the small office as Tatsumi stood abruptly. Seto watched his eldest child carefully, he didn’t speak or say anything and stayed like that for what felt like an eternity. Not once did Tatsumi make eye contact with him, choosing to keep his head held low and his eyes covered by his bangs. Slowly his son reached his hand into his trouser pocket, pulled something out and extended it towards him.
Seto reached out to his son and accepted what he was offering.
It was a tiny USB drive.
Quickly and efficiently, before Fujita-san could even register what it was he was doing, Seto had unlocked his briefcase, loaded his laptop up and plugged the USB device in. A series of audio clips were the only things on the drive.
Opening the first one up ready, Seto cast a brief glance once again in the direction of his son. Tatsumi hadn’t moved from his previous standing position, eyes still covered by his bangs and head hung in what Seto could only describe as shame. He was going to get to the bottom of this.
Nobody, and he meant nobody was allowed to treat his son like this.
Fujita Midori, principal of Domino Elementary School slammed her hands down on the table as she rose from her seat. “Kaiba-san, I’d appreciate it if you would stop stal-”
Seto hit play.
“Oi Kaiba you freak! Where’s your mother? Having two fathers isn’t normal!”
Next.
“An abomination is what my father said your fathers are! You’re disgusting Kaiba!”
Next.
“Nobody wants you here, nobody likes you here! You’d do us all a favour if you would just disappear!”
Next.
“Even the teachers think your family is wrong!”
Next.
“Freak! Freak! Freak! Freak! Freak! Freak!”
Seto closed his laptop having heard enough. His heart had already plummeted to his feet after the first audio clip was played. Realisation of the serious situation his son was in had sunk in.
Tatsumi was being bullied.
His beautiful baby boy was being bullied and Seto as his father hadn’t noticed. Casting his iciest glare at the woman who was once again seated across from him, wasn’t it her job to protect his child from things like this? Yet from her clear guilty deer caught in the headlight's expression; the woman knew! She had known what was happening and hadn’t done or said anything to prevent it from happening!
The CEO returned his things to his briefcase before he stood and loomed over his son’s principal even from the other side of her desk. Face an expression of the thunder he felt roaring inside him, he was about to show her just who the damn hell she was dealing with and why he was feared in the business world.
“I didn’t care, father.”
Tatsumi’s quiet whisper broke the tense silence. Seto turned to look at his son once more, vision softening ever so slightly. Tatsumi still hadn’t moved but his small body was shaking on the spot.
“R-really I didn’t. The awful things they said about you and papa and me. I could ignore that; I knew it w-wasn’t true. But...” Suddenly his son had balled his small hands into fists and whirled around to look at Seto straight in the face.
Crystal blue eyes so much like Seto’s own gazed at him filled with so much hurt, that as a father the CEO just wanted to make it all go away in an instant. Within an instant that hurt turned into sheer anger and Seto almost gave away an expression of shock, he had never seen that look on his usually reserved son.
“They started saying things about Aoi!” Tatsumi’s voice rose with every word he spoke until the child was almost shouting. “Dirty, unspeakable things father! So yes, I hit him! I hit Ishikawa! I wouldn’t care even if he was the emperor! Nobody will speak about Aoi like that!”
Seto watched as his son’s chest heaved in and out, gasping for air at his outburst. Tatsumi stared at him, daring Seto to question his defiance... his motive.
The CEO would do no such thing. He understood his son in this moment more than he could ever explain to him in words. It was the only explanation after all. There was only one humanly thing possible that would ever grant such a reaction from his son.
Aoi. Tatsumi’s baby sister.
Everything. It was what Mokuba meant to Seto. It was what Shizuka meant to Katsuya before both Seto and Katsuya had extended that place to each other and their children. Yet as Seto continued to hold his son’s gaze he knew. Seto knew that his blonde-haired blue-eyed daughter held that place solely in Tatsumi’s heart.
Aoi was everything.
Kaiba Seto had never felt so damn proud.
“He admits it!” Fujita was waving her pointed finger at his son from her seat. “Kaiba-san, I am hereby suspending Kaiba Tatsumi until further notice! I will be contacting Social Services requesting an investigation into his home and parental stability!”
Two sets of blue eyes turned to the woman who looked like she had won the lottery. One in complete humiliation and the other in a thunderous rage.
Sparing a glance at his son from the corner of his eye, Tatsumi’s shoulders and head had slumped in defeat, it seemed that anything his son said to this woman went ignored to... Seto mentally growled, ostracise him.
“Tatsumi, wait for me in the hall.” Seto didn't need to look at his son to know he had turned protest, the CEO’s eyes never once left the gloating woman in front of him. “Now.”
Tatsumi high-tailed it out of the office. The boy knew better than to linger when his father used that tone.
Once he knew his son had left and the door was closed, Seto let the evil smirk slip into place as he addressed the woman before him.
She really didn’t know who she was dealing with.
“Fujita-san.”
She furrowed her eyebrows in anger. “How dare you address me in that tone in my office!”
Seto waved her off, this was going to be like a game of chess. “Now about my son.”
All evidence of his smirk was gone. Seto set his face into his usual stony impassive look however blue eyes still swam with the wrath of an ocean. “The board of directors for this school, charming bunch of people. Love children as I’m sure you well know.”
A stiff nod was his only reply. It seems the woman had caught on to his hint to remain quiet. Wise choice however late it was her Pawns were gone.
“At its head sits... Takahashi-san correct?”
And there goes the rooks, she fidgeted in her seat. “H-how...?”
“As I’m sure you are also aware Takahashi-san also owns an orphanage not far from the outskirts of the city.”
The fidgeting stopped, another stiff nod. Goodbye dear brave Knights.
“Now, I am a well-known man Fujita-san, in fact I am often known especially for my charity works that involve orphaned children. I’m assuming you know that myself and my younger brother were both orphaned and then adopted at a young age?”
Eyebrows furrowed in confusion at where the conversation was going but another nod. The Bishops were added to the discarded pile, the game was getting interesting now.
“So, I’m guessing you know I make regular donations to one orphanage in particular. It only seems fair correct? After all the man did look after us when our only other relatives dumped us there when they had used up all our inheritance from our birth parents.”
Down falls the ungraceful Queen from her throne. Dark brown eyes slowly widened as realisation started to kick in.
“Now what do you think Takahashi-san will say when I report to him that the principal of his school not only allowed a child to be bullied, but condoned a child to be bullied knowing it was happening and actively partook in it themselves?” Seto’s smirk was back but it was bordering on psychotic. “I think that’s fair ground for abuse of power and instant dismissal, don’t you?”
“Are you threatening me?!” Fujita Midori stood to her full height and attempted the most fear inducing look she could conjure up.
It was a shame really that Seto could practically smell the fear rolling off her. The game was over only one piece remaining to collect.
“No, Fujita-san." In a move the old bat didn’t see coming Seto had rounded the desk to her side and loomed over her at his full height. Brown eyes that shined with pure unfiltered panic stared up at him. “I’m simply informing you of the consequences of your own actions when you pointed your ancient, medieval ideals at my pride and joy.”
Grabbing his suitcase, Seto paused as he gripped the handle of the door. “Have a good day... Fujita-san.”
He left her gaping at his back
Checkmate.