Mokuba had spent the last hour staring at his new purple fabric and holding it against the different items in his room. He decided he'd need new lamp shades to help tie things in. Figuring he'd give his artistic talent a rest, he swiveled the chair he was sitting in around to face his desk and looked at his notes of things to do. His eyes scanned down and rested on getting in touch with Honda. Well, he'd do that right now. Mokuba picked up his cell and punched in the numbers to Rishid's house.

To say that Honda was startled to hear the house phone ringing would be an understatement. He rushed over just in time to prevent his kitten from attacking said phone. Wondering who it could be, since most people either visited in person or called his cell phone, he cautiously picked it up. "Hello?"

Mokuba paused for a moment, trying to figure whose voice it was. It didn't sound like Rishid, but he seemed like the type to pick it up. Oh hell, Mokuba decided he'd just ask. "Uh, Honda? Or is this Rishid?"

He paused for a moment, trying to place the voice. Right, Mokuba. "This is Honda. Did you want to talk to Rishid?"

"No, I want to talk with you. You're available right? Right." Mokuba really didn't care if anyone he talked to was available. When he called, everything should be dropped. Those were the rules of life. "So come on, spit it out, I want to know."

"Er..." Honda tried and failed to figure out what Mokuba was asking. "Um, know what?"

He sighed. Like there were many things he wanted to know. "Your costume. What is it?"

"Oh, that." He carefully sat down and started stroking his kitten's back. "I'm not telling, so there." It was a very immature response, but Honda didn't really care anymore. "Maybe if you had given me a serious suggestion or two, you'd already know."

Mokuba shot up in his chair, hand squeezing the phone in his hand. "Dammit! Just tell me! I tried giving you a helpful suggestion. It's not my fault you didn't take it."

His grip on the phone tightened slightly. "You did? When was that?"

And he decided to offer up his supposed-to-be-insult as a compliment to this guy? "In a LJ comment." Mokuba punctuated each word. "You know, the costume I decided not to go as." He let his grip on the phone ease up. It wasn't his fault that the guy was a few socks short of a full drawer.

"Oh. I didn't realize that was meant as a suggestion, thought you were just rubbing it in that you had such good ideas for yourself." Now that he thought about it, he supposed it made some sense. "Besides, I don't think I'd be able to pull that together in time."

It was nice to know that a minute or two of his time was completely wasted to upload that picture. "Well I do have good ideas for myself. I was just trying to do a bit of charity by passing it along." Mokuba figured it was probably for the best. Honda wouldn't have been able to pull it off. "So what are you going as now?"

"Heh, I'm not going to fall for that, but nice try." Honda moved the phone to his other ear before continuing. "If it makes you feel any better, even if I didn't properly appreciate your act of charity til now, it was a very nice costume idea and I would have considered it if I had realized that was what you meant. Could I keep it in mind for next year?"

Mokuba was about to pop a piece of candy in his mouth, thinking that he'd find out the mystery and should reward himself early, but the idea of candy wasn't very appealing anymore. "Yeah, whatever. But why won't you tell me?" He whined into the phone. "You said you would."

He smiled as he pictured the expression that was probably on Mokuba's face. "No, I said I might be persuaded to, emphasis on might. And anyways, I doubt you're going to this much trouble to find out anyone else's, so why the interest in mine?"

Mokuba rolled his eyes. "Don't try and be flattered or anything. Other people have shared what they're going to be, but you have to go around saying you have one and aren't going to tell. I don't like that, and I want to know. I don't see why other people get to know and I don't."

"By other people, I'm assuming you mean Ryou and Malik. They get to know because the costume was mainly their idea, seeing as how they were with me when I was shopping for costume parts. Would you like to try to guess? I'll tell you if you're getting closer or farther away, and I might even drop a few hints."

"Fine! I'll play your stupid game." He really couldn't begin to think of what Malik and Ryou had suggested. It was probably a pretty lame costume. "So...is it an animal? Or a person?"

Honda smirked. "Person."

Well, that only left the majority of costumes out there. Why the hell did he have to play this game? And, really, why the hell did he even decide to play it? Curiosity really was a curse. "Okay, so a person. Is it from a book or movie or something?" And what about those hints?

"Hm, book? No." He leaned back and let his kitten crawl up his leg. "Movie? Nope. I guess that only leaves the category of something else. You know, you don't have to play this game, I won't hold anything against you if you quit now."

Mokuba Kaiba, quit? Oh, not likely! He'd find out what the hell Honda had as his costume if he had to move some of his protective ninjas to secret-finding mode. "So it must be a real person then. Oh god, unless you're dressing up as some type of angel to match Ryou's costume."

Honda wasn't sure whether to be amused or horrified by that thought. "Me, matching with Ryou? No thanks, I'll leave that to Bakura."

"I think you should give me clues. You said you would, and you're doing a horrible job at it."

Pity Honda hadn't thought to make up some clues in advance. "It's either going to be funny or a huge disaster, but I guess that doesn't count as a hint." He struggled to think of something that wouldn't give it away off the bat. "I had to get something from the toystore as a prop, that's your next hint." He laughed a little at the memory of that.

"The toystore?" That didn't really help much. Mokuba sat down in his chair and began swiveling around, trying to think of what would be useful at a toystore. "I've got it!" He slammed his hand on the desk to stop himself from spinning. "You're going as a baby, right? Am I right?"

That was the breaking point, Honda burst out in laughter at that idea. Once he calmed down a little, he answered, "No, that's pretty far from it."

"Shut up!" Even if he was a wrong, Honda didn't need to laugh at him for it. Besides, it was his hint, and it obviously was a horrible one. What the hell else did they sell? He hadn't been to a toy store in ages. They did sell duel monsters cards, though. "Are you going as a duelist?"

Honda was too busy laughing to answer properly. "Are you--are you gonna try to--try to challenge me to a, a duel or something? That'd be hilarious." He briefly wondered if he should have had that last beer, because it really shouldn't be that funny.

"I don't really duel, though I imagine I'd kick your ass." And what the hell was so damn funny?! "What's your problem? You're acting more of a jerk then usual."

For some reason, that managed to sober him some. "Heh, the sad thing is that you're right, on both accounts. Despite watching people duel pretty frequently, I suck at it. And I am acting like a jerk, guess the alcohol is doing strange things to my brain."

Great, Mokuba thought, now I'm kind of thirsty. "So as an apology, you could just tell me what your costume is. That way you can go back to drinking, and I'll go back to doing my own thing."

"Nah, I think I've had enough for tonight. You can go back to whatever you were doing before you called, if it was really all that important. All I'm planning to do after you hang up is curl up with my kitten and get some sleep, so I don't really care how long we sit here."

"Oh, well..." Mokuba was a little disappointed. It looked as if he really would have to guess the costume. What a bother. "So a real person and a toy store...um, a police officer? A construction worker?"

"Sorry, no and no. What do you take me for, one of the Village People? You're getting farther away."

I wouldn't put it past you, Mokuba sneered to himself. "Okay, maybe I should have asked this first. Would I have any idea who this person is?"

That question took him by surprise. "Well, yeah. It wouldn't be much fun if no one knew who I was dressed as."

This still left Mokuba with no clue, and he found himself pacing around his room. "Alright, how about this. I'll give you an extra day off, paid, if you tell me."

"Right," Honda pulled the phone away and looked at it skeptically. Replacing it to the other ear, he considered whether he should give in or not. "And if I don't tell you? Are you going to threaten to fire me or something?" For some reason, probably the alcohol, that seemed like a great idea, intentionally getting himself fired for acting like a jerk.

"That wasn't something I thought about. If I wanted to fire you I just would, reason or not." Mokuba wrote down on his list of things to do to consider firing Honda. "Are you just embarrassed by your costume? Afraid that someone will call it out as the lame thing it probably is? Or was the best you could do dressing up as some Egyptian?"

Honda started laughing again. "No, I can assure you that I'm not dressing as an Egyptian."

That's it. He reached his limit of trying to figure it out. It was time for his last plan, one he really didn't want to resort to, and one he would deny to no end if anyone questioned him on it, but Mokuba saw no other choice. He took a deep breath to prepare himself. "Would you pretty, pretty please tell me. With a....a...." He felt like he was about to use one of his favorite treats in vain, "cherry on top."

Completely ignorant of Mokuba's sacrifice of pride, Honda shook his head. "No, sorry. Half the fun is in surprising people. It won't be as funny if you already know what it is. After the party, you can bash at it and call it a stupid idea all you want." Honda was getting a little worried by all this build-up to his costume, what if Mokuba really did think it was a dumb idea when he saw it?

"You know what? Fine, I don't want to know. You're nothing but an asshole, anyway, and I'm sure it'll be a horrible costume and you'll look horrible in it!" He even begged--well, sort of--and still he got nothing. Mokuba's grip tightened until he thought he would crush the phone. That would be the third one in as many months. Instead of having to explain to the phone company again about how they should make phones stronger, he pulled it away and covered up the mouth piece, then began stomping his feet on the ground and verbally making his anger known by growling and snarling out a good string of obscenities.

Honda blinked. He wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that whatever Mokuba was doing on the other end of the line was something he should be glad he wasn't seeing. "Honestly, Kaiba..." he trailed off, not sure what to say next.

"I'm done talking with you," Mokuba snapped and slammed his finger down on the 'end call' button. He threw the phone onto the bed and stormed down stairs and into the kitchen, finding a bottle of wine and some left over dessert. Fucking Honda. Who cared about his stupid costume, anyway.

He stared at the phone, then looked over at his cat. "That was, um, different. He's going to kill me when he sees what my costume is, isn't he?" Sighing, he hung up the phone and went to get ready for bed.