Family happiness? - More like a disaster!
He slammed his office door with a loud bang. He was glad that he had the stress of the tournament behind him, but somehow he couldn't get what had happened out of his mind.
It was Sunday, but he still had enough to do. So he sat in his large leather armchair and stared at the screen of his PC.
But as hard as he tried to concentrate, he just couldn't get this brat out of his head.
She looked so familiar to him.
He didn't know why he hadn't noticed that before, but he'd seen this face before.
More than once he had tried to convince himself that she had run into him somewhere - completely irrelevant, but something in him spoke against it.
He sat there in his office for hours, typing something on the keyboard every now and then, erasing it and starting again.
And then suddenly everything came back to him ...
Jelana put five plates on the table and with every step her sigh seemed to get louder.
"It has been going on for hours now!" complained Joey, who was already sitting at the table and waiting impatiently for food.
"What are you sighing around here? Don't tell me that yesterday's business is still so bothering you ?!"
Jelana had been completely in thought and therefore winced slightly when Joey spoke to her.
"Um. Oh yesterday's thing ... I'm just worried, what if the guy really takes revenge?" she said, but thought something completely different.
She didn't think Kaiba's ex-coworker would actually take revenge.
What bothered her a lot more was that she hadn't been able to thank Kaiba. At the same time, she was annoyed that this conceited company boss was haunted her head all the time. A vicious circle.
She could still say thank you on Monday. What was it?
After all, it was his tournament and it was his job to see how his staff treated the guests, even if, strictly speaking, she wasn't a guest, but rather an intruder.
"Oh nonsense. If then he'll get to Kaiba anyway and it's not a shame about him!" Joey pushed his way into her thoughts with a broad grin.
Jelana was about to answer something when she was almost run over by a small, plump boy. "Man, Aki watch out." she snapped at him without thinking about it.
Her little brother looked at her with big eyes - she wasn't usually so irritable. Even when she was in a bad mood, she didn't treat others like that.
She closed her eyes for a moment, wanted to come back down.
"T..I'm sorry."
It had been nothing more than a murmur and then she had simply disappeared into the kitchen. Why did she always have to run into situations like this? She grabbed a pot of potatoes and headed back into the living room, where her family, and recently Joey, were sitting.She paused in the doorway for a moment, took a deep breath and smiled. She had enough practice in that. That smile, which covered up all her negative feelings, had saved her from annoying questions many times. It was like a wall that protected them. You can always rely on her smile.
So she put the potatoes on the table with a happy expression and sat between her mother and Joey. However, her gaze fell on the fifth plate and darkened again.
"Where's Takumi?" she asked. Her brother, who was a year older than her, was not in his seat - again.
Her mother's concerned look spoke volumes. "I don't know. Hanging around somewhere again." she said, in a nutshell. It should sound indifferent, but she knew her mother well enough to know that of course she didn’t care where her son was hanging around.
Mrs. Ito quickly changed the subject.
"Strike hard, Joey, so that you become something." she said with a smile.
Jelana tuned out the rest of the conversation. She didn't care.
Much more important was her new concern, which at least pushed Kaiba out of her head or at least pushed him back a little.
Where was her brother hanging around again?
It wasn't the first time that he just didn't come home and nobody knew where he was.
He's been making way too much trouble lately anyway. He had always been the problem child in this family, but since the death of their father he had already done a lot that could no longer pass as a bad youthful prank.
Fights, vandalism, and every now and then he was brought home drunk by the police.
Jelana hadn't really gotten anything down, whereupon Joey also munched her portion. He tried to cheer her up, but since he always had something in his mouth, she didn't really understand what he was saying. Since she wasn't really listening to him anyway, it didn't matter.
She decided to accompany him home after dinner and then look for her brother. Her mother probably wouldn't like that, but she didn't care at the moment. She would surely like it even less if he came home with the police again.
"Thank you, Ms. Ito. The food was really delicious." Joey thanked them as they stood in the hallway.
"No problem, always a pleasure."
Jelana grew impatient and that rarely turned out well for others.
"Yes, yes. As I see you get along great and all that. I'll bring Joey back next time if he has forgotten to buy something to eat and then stands stupidly in front of the fridge on Sunday ... so every Sunday . " she began in a hurry, "but we have to go now." She finished her sentence, which was a little too long, and simply pulled the front door shut behind her after she had pushed Joey out of the door roughly.
"Man, what are you in such a hurry?" he asked confused.Did she want to get rid of him so quickly?
"Oh, I want to stop by the bar where my brother always hangs out. I think he's doing something stupid again."
She could tell him.
"Ok, I'll come with you."
Jelana made big eyes.
"Eh. What? But you don't even know my brother."
"So what? Do you think I'll let you go to a pub like this in the dark? There are a lot of strange characters walking around the streets in the evenings. Besides, it's time I got to know your big brother when I'm already eating my way through with you." . "
Again he put on his big grin. He must have been tireless.
After working on her for a few minutes, she finally agreed. Actually he was right. It was way too dangerous in this Dominos neighborhood. On the other hand, she had grown up here and already knew that ...
They had walked side by side in silence for a while and finally arrived at the pub.
Several drunken men and women sat on the curb.
Why, of all people, did her brother hang around in such areas?
Jelana went a step faster, straight to the front door, when Joey suddenly grabbed her arm.
"I'll go ahead. Stay behind me." he said. This time he didn't grin and his serious expression startled her a little at first - she wouldn't have thought that he had such looks.
She did as she was told and ran after him. It was very tight in the bar, so she held on to the back of his jacket so as not to get lost.
Her eyes wandered over the chaos in this shed: broken beer mugs, belligerent men and revealing women. But what was that?
"There! That's him." she exclaimed angrily.
Her brother was sitting there. In the back of the bar, on his lap, a woman with a curly black mane, who in her opinion was far too old for him. She was very close to him and seemed to give him a small sachet.
Jelana stepped out of Joey's protection and stormed past him to her brother.
"What are you doing here? Are you stupid?" she was so upset that she yelled at him.
Joey had now stepped back behind her and tried to calm her down, which was not that easy.
"What was that she just gave you?" she kept boring.
However, Takumi made no move to give her an answer. He winked at the woman on his lap and indicated that it would be better if she left now.
She got up immediately and stepped past Jelana, of course she did not fail to look her up and down in disgust.
Jelana almost burst the string of her hat. Was he starting to take drugs now?
She freed herself from Joey's grip and rushed towards Takumi, who she immediately grabbed by the arm.
He got up slowly and looked down at her, after all he was quite a bit taller than her. His short black hair stood wild in all directions, which made him look really rowdy."My God. What are you doing here? That's embarrassing. Do you really think I'll let my little sister give me a lecture?"
The bored and indifferent undertone in his voice almost broke her nerves.
"For being the younger of the two of us, I am far more of an adult than you are." she hissed at him.
But she realized that she was getting stuck with it.
Joey, who was standing next to her to be able to intervene in an emergency, saw the despair in her look, which was slowly becoming noticeable.
"Hey, dude. Do both of you a favor and come with me. You can sort it all out at home," he said calmly.
Jelana had suspected that it was a mistake. So Takumi loomed threateningly in front of Joey and then he thundered off:
"What do you want? Who are you anyway?"
"That's a friend of mine now come with me." Jelana hurried to say. Under no circumstances did she want this to escalate.
Indeed, Takuma started moving. Now it was he who was holding his little sister by the arm. But apparently not to protect her like Joey had done before.
He pulled her roughly out of the bar, behind him a raging blond boy who tried to dissuade him from Jelana.
Once outside, Takumi pressed Jelana roughly against one of the stone walls.
"Finally stay out of my life. You just have no idea." he growled at her and pressed her a little tighter against the wall.
Since he was quite muscular, he had a very strong grip and she felt it.
He was standing directly across from her, only now did she notice that he must have had a lot of alcohol.
"You're just worrying us. Besides ..." he didn't let her finish and before she knew it he'd slapped her across the face.
Jelana was perplexed and just stared at him in shock. How could he He wasn't like that. He was never violent when it came to his family.
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