Ch. 3 First Kiss
"You guys!" Joey entered, almost screaming, inside the class-room, not noticing that the bell had already rung for five minutes and that Mr. Makino was already in the class-room, with a rather annoyed look on his face.
"Mr. Wheeler," he said in an angry tone "I've had just about enough of you always showing up late to my class."
"But…"
"Be quiet. You have after school- detention. Now seat down."
Joey couldn't protest any longer and went to his seat, in the laughter of the others. However the freshness of the news couldn't put him to rest and willing to share it with the rest of the group, he tore a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote on it Big news. The house of the old witch has two new inhabitants. Talk after class and then passed it on to Tea, Tea to Yugi and Yugi to Tristan. This was indeed great news especially since they had been the talk of the whole neighborhood for the last month. Sure it wasn't nice gossiping about someone, but they were humans nonetheless and curiosity it's just a humanly weakness.
Class ended faster than they anticipated. Usually when one eagerly waits for something, time seems to go on backwards. At the first bell-ring the four teenagers snatched their backpacks without even as much as bothering to put their text-books in, and out they stormed. The weather was pretty cold. It was late November after all. Raging clouds were beginning to invade the sky, clearly a sign of rain. But despite the cold weather the three guys and the girl found shelter under an old tree in the school-yard. Stuff like freezing their butts of or getting a cold were the last thing on their minds.
"Is it true Joey?" Yugi asked through his teeth while trying to fill his langue with air after all the running.
"Yeah. I went by the house this morning and they were there. They've just arrived last night."
"Wait. You have talked to them?" the brown-haired girl asked, somehow not believing his words. Joey was sometimes a daring and over-socially person, but the thought of him going inside that house and meeting the owner was a bit too strange and hard to swallow even coming from him.
"Yeah man. What did you do? You just got into the house like you owned it and had breakfast with them?"
"Shut up Tristan", Joey erupted "it's your damn fault anyway. I just went in to get some evidence and to prove to you that I haven't lied back then. It's just that things had gotten out of hand and well, I kind of said and did something stupid".
Tea filled with anger. Joey could act like such a child sometimes. Who knows what he had done and scared the poor new inhabitants away. "Joey, what did you do?"
"Hey what are you yelling at me for? It was an accident".
Seeing that the fight might oscillate Yugi intertwined "You guys! Stop it." Fortunately his words were enough to put the matter to rest and the subject of the new-comers became the focus of the discussion once again. "So who are they?"
"Well it seems like they're that Amelia chick's relatives: a girl about our age and her mother"
"And how are they like", Tea asked though that was the question on Yugi' s and Tristan's mind, too.
"Well they're ….strange, in a way. I don't know, I can't really explain it. You'll have to meet them in person to know what I mean. I couldn't find out much about them except that they have a whole day of packing in front of them, an aggressive grizzled cat with a name I can't even pronounce, and a beast of a dog that scared me so much I actually was about to wet my pants. I swear if they'd turn out to be witches, it wouldn't surprise me at all"
Whether there actually laid truth behind Joey's words seemed to be of no matter, since the boy's description only fed the other teenagers curiosity even more. "How do they look like? Is the girl cute, 'cause if she is then I'll need to get my game on," Tristan said, an evil smirk forming on his lips.
"Tristan, you pervert", Tea jumped in 'greeting' Tristan with a strong hit on the back of his head, that made Joey laugh. He nevertheless deserved it.
"Actually the girl looks a lot like that chick with white hair that Kaiba's twin and much cooler self saved, back then when we were in Memory World"
"Kisara…", Yugi shouted.
"Yeah…strange, isn't it?"
But strange was not even beginning to describe the situation. Under normal circumstances it would indeed seem strange for a girl to be reincarnated five thousand years later, but then again they weren't normal teenagers and their lives had been, up until now, far from normal. Tea threw Yugi an are-you-thinking-what-I'm-thinking-look and it didn't take them long to come to the agreement to pay the new arrived in town a visit just to show their hospitality.
"Ligeia, honey, have you seen the box with the china?"
If the house seemed ramshackle just a few hours ago, now it looked like in complete chaos. There were clothes scattered all over the kitchen, the hall and the living-room. Thetis was buried under a heavy pile of woolen sweaters struggling to find a way out of that fluffy hell.
"Is that a trick-question? I can't even tell where my feet are. Mom, this place has officially become a danger zone."
Ligeia was trying to find the box with the food they've brought with them. It was pass noon and they've been up for hours. Needless to say that they were starving. Unfortunately neither Ligeia nor her mother was what one would call a 'practical' and 'well-organized' person. They did manage to pack everything before leaving home, which was a first seeing that they would always forget something; however they had labeled the boxes wrong. So it was a big surprise when they had found cat food in the box for books, and some photo albums, that both Ligeia and Marianne were very fond of, in the one labeled 'crap'. Ligeia started looking for the one labeled 'china' though seeing how things had developed since morning, she doubted she would find them there.
"I can't find anything," Ligeia sobbed and threw herself in a pig pile of summer dresses unsuspecting that someone else had lost himself in that chaos. Fortunately Ligeia wasn't that heavy and Charley had gotten out of it with all his bones intact.
"God! it's after three and I'm starving", Marianne was trying to reach the living-room where her daughter was laying half-asleep on the floor "What do you say we go out exploring and try to figure out where is the closest convenient-store before we starve to death?"
Ligeia jumped on her feet like fried with an iron stick "That's the best idea you had all day. By the way why are we unpacking when we're going to start redecorating next week?"
"Well we have no choice until we get accustomed to how things go around here. I don't think we will be able to start next week. It will be December soon and Christmas is coming and I don't think you'll like eating lebkuchen surrounded by dust and paint and wood. It's better if we leave the redecorating part until next year"
The weather outside had gotten colder. It had been raining for the last four hours, but now, as in an act of mercy for the ones who dared to venture outside, it had stopped. The wind was blowing and the depressing atmosphere of late autumn had surrounded the world in a vale of sadness. It was the perfect weather to stay home, drinking a cup of hot chocolate in front of the fire.
As the chilly air hit their faces, they both wrapped their jackets tighter to their chest. With all the chaos they couldn't find a proper late autumn coat to wear so they had to settle for a summer denim jacket and a couple of extra t-shirts.
"We haven't even been here for a day and already we're developing pneumonia", Ligeia stated as another gust hit her face and she let out a small cough.
"I know, but what can I do? By the way, did you take a piece of paper to make the shopping list?"
"Errr …no. Sorry, I forgot"
"No problem. We can improvise", Marianne said while she started inspecting the inside of her jacket in search of a piece of paper. After what seemed like an epic battle, she found an old receipt for a strawberry milk-shake from the year 2004. It was an old but nevertheless very fashionable jacket that Marianne absolutely adored. She actually got into a cat fight over it a couple of years back while living in Singapore. Some crazy lady tried to still it from her, but Marianne didn't go without a fight.
"Well we solved one problem. We have a piece of paper but nothing to write with", Ligeia noticed while coming down the front house steps.
"Hey, look! Isn't that our stalker?"
Marianne said while pointing towards a group of four teenagers approaching their house. They were wearing the uniforms of the Domino High-School. One of the four had blond hair and looked a lot like the boy who trespassed their propriety just a while ago. There were two more guys with him: a very tall brown-haired guy and a very short one, too short for his age, pointy hair guy, who both Ligeia and Marianne found looked really funny. And there was also a very cheerful brown-haired girl. As the group drew nearer and nearer they both realized that the boy with blond hair was indeed Joey.
"Hey, pretty boy," Marianne shouted causing not only Joey to blush but the other group's members as well, "got a pen?"
Work - this one little word could define Seto Kaiba's entire life, his entire existence. If one didn't know any better, one would think he was a machine. But the expression there's more than meets the eye could also be applied in the case of Seto Kaiba. Sure he wasn't you average teenager with his mind trapped between meeting girls and going wild at his favorite rock-band's concert.
But then again he hadn't lived a normal life. His biological parents had died in an accident while he was still very young. And suddenly he found himself at the age of eight with the huge responsibility to look after his baby-brother, Mokuba, as well as after himself. None of their relatives took to heart to provide for him and for Mokuba. They took the money and shipped them to the nearest orphanage. But they couldn't find their place anywhere. It seemed like there was no place for them in the world. It was in that moment that he promised himself and Mokuba that one day he would provide for them and create the life they deserved.
But faith does not lack a macabre sense of humor.
Not long after, when he was about eleven or twelve years old, he and his brother were adopted by a business-man, Gozaburo Kaiba, whose fame lay in the design and selling of war-weapons to the highest better. So they found themselves yet in another home that did not want them. And the real hell began on that day.
Seto was supposed to become the wonder-kid, a genius, perfect in every field. So he was obliged to study day after day and night after night. This Spartan way of education was supposed to make him a successful business-man, which it did. But with a cost. It took away his childhood, but worst of all it took away a part of himself, the part that loved, the part that feared, the part that really lived. And now it was too late to get it back.
Then Gozaburo disappeared and everything should have fallen into place. Except, that didn't happen. Slowly he became the man he always despised. His desire to be the greatest in every field had blinded him and made him loose focus on what was really important: like his promise to Mokuba to create the life they deserved. He wasn't a bad brother, after all Mokuba was the one person he loved more than the entire world and he would do anything for him. But on his ascension to the top he forgot that there's more to a family than a big mansion and a tone of cash.
He failed to acknowledge his duties as an older brother. And so the time he spent with his brother grew less in duration until days went by without as much as a hello between them. Sure, every night he would come home, he would go to his little brother's room to check up on him, but he wouldn't wake him up. Coming home so late at night and leaving for work so early in the morning led no road for surprises when their relationship grew colder due to lack of communication.
Mokuba was the one in pain. He had waited and waited for his brother to come around; he had tried so many times to bring him on the right track, but failed. And now he was feeling more alone than ever. So he withdrew in himself. He broke any type of contact with others, his grades began to sink and he started skipping school. It was a cry for help and Seto realized that. But one night when he wanted to talk to him, he closed the door in his face. Something Mokuba had never done; had never even considered or imagined doing.
But that wasn't the only problem he had to confront. There was another person who was giving him a hard time, who was quarrelling with him because of his choice of life, because of who he had become. It was a year ago that they returned from the Memory World. It was there he had met his other self. Though he would never admit believing in this hocus-pocus, what he had witnessed, what he had felt and endured had been too real for him to just ignore.
And then that girl, Kisara, had come along and changed everything. He tried so hard after that not to change, to continue leaving the way he had until then. And on the surface he had. But inside he was burning. This girl haunted his life. She would visit him night after night. And night after night he had to feel the deep passion and love he had harvested for her, and night after night he had to witness her death and in the same time his whole heart breaking into million pieces.
But last night, it wasn't that vision in white that visited him. No. This vision was wearing dark-blue denim jeans, a black shirt, and a brown trench-coat. And this vision wasn't greeting him from the burning Egyptian sand, but from the Domino City International Airport. And those words that wouldn't show him any rest; those words that tortured him and in the same time gave him hope: I'm home.
He had been through enough adventures in the past three years alongside Yugi and the others to make him think that maybe what he had dreamt hadn't been in fact a dream but a glimpse in her world. And if that was true then that would mean that she was indeed alive here and now and that this was perhaps the only chance to seeing her again.
But tracking her down turned out to be trickier than he first thought. He had managed to look into the airport's security system and to check the video-records from that day. And after five hours of searching, just when he was about to give up and believe that perhaps it really had been just a dream, he had found her. There on his computer screen lay the figure of literally the girl of his dreams exactly as he had seen her. But from there to finding out who she really was, was a long way.
He had asked the head of the security, which had connections not only to the police department, but to other international organizations as well, to find who that girl really was. And leaving the rest of the work to Mr. Takuma, he left towards his little-brother's school hoping that he would find the chance to talk to him.
"So you're Ms. Rose's relatives?" Tea asked, a shred of curiosity in his voice.
"Yes. She was an aunt of ours; a distant relative. We are the only living relatives alive", Ligeia said, a shade of red forming on her checks. She was always nervous when meeting new people, because they'd often have a bad impression of her and never give her the chance to show who she really was. But this girl, Tea, she could tell, was really nice, and maybe, just maybe, this was a chance for her to have some human friends for a chance. And why not? She had promised herself that. This new life …she would be happy.
"I'm…uhmm … sorry for your lost. I never met her in person, but I have heard some great things about her".
"Thanks Tea"
"For what?"
"For lying to me just to make me feel better," Ligeia said with a light and comforting smile to a somewhat confused Tea. But she did lie to her. There were hardly any people, who spoke kind words of Amelia Rose. Most of them knew Amelia only by the definition of witch under which she was so often portrayed. Luckily Tea's grandmother, Yuzuriha, had been one of the few who took fancy to the old silver-haired lady in the red-brick mansion.
"You guys, we're here!", a rather impatient Joey shouted to gain the attention of the party's members, who were lost in the conversation. Domino Promenade was perhaps the largest mall complex on the east coast of Japan. And it had everything one needed; from a grocery store to an auto-dealership; from a theater – stage to an arcade. It was like a city within a city.
"Now I know it's a bit far from where you guys live, this is down-town, but it's the greatest place on earth. Hey let's check out the arcade", Joey said eagerly, almost storming off like a rocket, but stopped in time by Yugi, who suggested that due to the long trip, they should probably go and eat something.
Chinese food was always a good choice: some noodle soup, some dumplings and some spring-roles were the perfect menu. The dinner-conversation, for it was almost six o'clock in the evening, was a perfect way for them to get to know each-other better. That's how Ligeia and Marianne found out that Yugi was the King of the Game, or something like that, that they were all into card games, except for Tea, who, by a twisted turn of fate, ended up being friends with them and sort of toggled along; that Joey had a sweet baby-sister, Serenity, whom Tristan was in love with; that Tea liked dancing and that she really wanted to go to a dancing school and they ,in return, found something about the two mysterious ladies; that Marianne was an anthropologist, and with that occasion Joey found out what an anthropologist is and does, and that she had published a lot of books, which was impressing seeing how young she was; that Ligeia had been home schooled, that they had travelled all over the world, that she liked photography and was studying by herself to become a nutritionist.
It had been a great trip, and seeing that they all lived in the same neighborhood they all went on the same way back. It had been a busy day. Needless to say they were all dead-tired. So they finished their evening with a warm good-night and the invitation on the part of Marianne and Ligeia to a party in the name of their new home and the gang's offer to help them unpack.
The day hadn't been so good for the young CEO. Takuma didn't come out with anything about Kisara yet and the discussion with Mokuba didn't go that well. Seto really felt guilty about the entire situation, he wasn't even disappointed nor upset because of the lack of information. It was all his fault. He had indulged so much in his work, and it started to danger his relationship with his brother. Maybe he should take his brother's advice, take some days off and go on a trip. That would make Mokuba happy.
He decided to go out for a walk and rest his mind for a while. Driving his car could bring him the rest and silence he needed, but the road led him to the east part of Domino, for somehow. It was the neighborhood Yugi and the geek-squad lived in. He was in no mood to talking to them now.
The weather outside seemed wild and tempestuous but it somehow made Seto feel at ease. He decided to get out of the car and take a walk in the neighborhood-park. For some reason he couldn't explain, his steps guided him there.
"Are you going out now? It's gotten dark."
"Yeah. I'm going to take Charley and Thetis for a walk. I won't be long, I promise."
"Ok. But dress up, it's cold outside. And take an umbrella, it looks like it's about to rain," Marianne shouted as Ligeia was heading out of the front door "Okay, mom…"
"Come on, Charley .. Thetis"
Seto Kaiba didn't expect it to be so chilly. He should have taken his trench-coat with him. All that he was wearing was the black turtle-neck blouse and the black jeans and the cold outside started to have an effect on his body, as he felt chills all over it and started sneezing. It had been quite warm inside the car and he seemed to have misjudged the temperature outside it.
Though it wasn't the weather outside that made Seto feel so depressed. He was still upset about Mokuba. But now his thoughts drifted to another person and the image of Kisara in the Domino City International Airport appeared in front of his eyes. He didn't want that. Not now. He needed to focus on Mokuba but somehow she could shake the image Kisara out of his head.
He took a seat on the nearest bench. The park was empty. There was no person in sight and that came to no surprise seeing how dreadful the weather was. A small drop of water fell on top of his head; then another and another. Soon it began pouring, but he didn't mind. He didn't care. The rain begin to pour faster and faster until small pools were slowly beginning to take shape in front of his feet. And small tears were beginning to form in front of his eyes.
"Kisara…" he always regretted not being able to save her and he never forgave herself for that. Regrets had been a great burden for him in the last year and he didn't know how much of it he could endure anymore.
Lost in his train of thoughts he barely noticed that the rain stopped almost instantly and when he raised his eyes he could only distinguish the figure of a woman and a red umbrella being held above his head. And then he heard it, that sweet voice that he had heard thousand times in his dreams, the same mild and soothing voice he had heard the previous night "Here take this", Ligeia said handing her umbrella to the man seating on the bench, not noticing that he was Seto Kaiba "You need it more than I do".
Seto stood up, knees trembling, to take a better look at the girl, to make sure if she indeed was Kisara. Only when they were face-to-face did Ligeia notice that the man standing in front of her was exactly Seto, the one her past self had loved so deeply, the man she was so afraid to face.
"S…Seto", Ligeia barely managed to find the strength to utter his name. Was this real? Was Seto Kaiba seating in front of her, or was it all just a dream?
"Kisara…" no it was no dream. It was real. After five thousand years their paths had crossed once again. Maybe it was faith. Maybe this was their chance to be together forever.
The park went still. No sound could be heard. Rain was pouring over them in a blanket of water but there was no sound. It was like the whole world turned mute. Seto laid his left hand on Ligeia's lower back and pulled her closer towards him. She didn't even twitch. She didn't even protest. Being so close to him, holding her in his arms the way he did felt right. He lifted his right hand to Ligeia's face and lowered his head. Some form of rationality hidden deep inside her mind whispered her that this was not right. Kisara had loved Seth. But she wasn't really Kisara and he wasn't really Seth.
She was Ligeia Carlton, an eighteen year old teenager with a deep passion for photography, and he was Seto Kaiba, owner of the greatest game company in the world. Seto was getting awfully close. She could now feel his breath, the warmth of his body. She could smell his scent, and she was taken in. The whispering voice was led to rest and Ligeia had her first kiss. His lips were so soft, it was mesmerizing. The deeper the kiss, the more right it felt. Until there was no one left in the world, except them.