Chapter 10: He uses every possible way to touch you (your hair, face, thighs, etc.)
"Hey, Kaiba, great party!"
Variations of this remark had been made several times in the past half hour, and Seto wasn't sure if he should be proud of himself or annoyed at the repetitiveness of it all. He was leaning towards annoyed, though Mokuba, clad in a bright red and white faux-fur-lined Santa hat, was doing his best to move the guests past his brother and into the house proper as quickly as possible.
In truth, it was a nice party.
The Kaiba Mansion could never be made up like a gingerbread house with multicolored lights lining the eaves like gumdrops and giant candy canes in the front yard—it was just too big, those kinds of decorations would end up looking ridiculous. Instead, Seto (or, Seto's employees, rather) had stuck to the white lights, lining the eaves with the big ones and threading the smaller ones through the shrubbery to create an effect like fairy lights. The yard was still mostly covered with clean white snow, but this only added to the effect.
Inside, lights lined the windows and twined through the garland that laced its way up the staircase. Mokuba had hung mistletoe in doorways and other, more private locations. A giant tree dominated the living room, decked out in white ribbon, glass and frosted ornaments, more white lights, and candy canes. Stockings hung above a roaring fire. As more guests poured in, they added their gifts to the already gigantic pile at the base of the tree.
Caterers wandered around with platters of hors d'oeuvres and champagne flutes. Two manned a bar that was serving vitamin waters and sodas to the under-aged. Dinner was scheduled to start in another hour.
The last of the guests arrived as the volume spiked over the gentle background music.
"Yugi!" Mokuba called as a service member took the group's coats. "Anzu, Ryou—Honda's already here, come in, make yourselves at home!"
"Where's Jou?" Yugi called over the noise.
"Hiding in the kitchen, I'm sure," Kaiba drawled, walking up to them. "I think I scared him when I said dinner wasn't until seven."
"I'm not hiding."
"Jou!" Anzu yelled. The blonde submitted to being hugged by the three of his friends who had most recently arrived. "Where have you been?!"
"Here, helping this guy decorate. Did you know there are three hundred rooms in this house? Though to be fair, we didn't decorate them all."
"Good thing you didn't. I want to say that number qualifies it as a palace," Yugi replied lightly. "What on earth could two boys need three hundred rooms all to themselves for?"
"There are not three hundred rooms in this house," Kaiba interjected testily.
"Okay, two hundred and ninety-eight."
"There are not—"
"They're just teasing, Kaiba. It's all in the spirit of fun," Ryou interrupted gently.
"Humph. Enjoy the party."
The four friends laughed as Kaiba turned and stalked off. Mokuba apologized and quickly darted off to entertain other guests and generally see to it that the party continued smoothly. Yugi and Ryou spent a moment admiring the decorations.
"C'mon, let's move out of the foyer and find Honda," Jou suggested after a moment of standing around. Anzu agreed readily, and together she and Jou pulled the other two boys after them.
- -
The noise was almost deafening. It started at the basic, quite background music in good holiday cheer, and increased in sound to the people talking throughout the room—two people, three, four, twenty, more, all at once. Above this, the sound of cutlery clanking against china as people took in the buffet. On top of it all, the sound of silver striking crystal rang out clearly just twice.
Quiet fell, though the soft music continued, only to be muted quickly by a household aide.
"I would like to propose a toast," a man called out to the room. He was a Kaiba Corp employee, a higher up, and apparently a man Seto trusted and relied upon greatly. "To the Kaiba brothers, for their continued good health in the new year, good luck in their enterprises, and general happiness in their lives."
"To Seto and Mokuba Kaiba!" the cheer rang out. The brothers smiled to the people nearest them as the guests clinked glasses. Seto excused himself politely and left the room, stepping out into the gardens.
"Did it get too loud for you?" a voice asked, tinged with a hint of laughter.
Seto turned toward the source of the voice. "Mazaki."
"Hey," she said, stepping forward from where she had been leaning against the wall. "How've you been? Seems like we haven't had much of a chance to talk since the blizzard."
"What did you need to talk to me about?"
"Nothing, really." The girl answered lightly, taking no offense from the CEO's testy response. "I'm just in the habit of talking to my friends. It's been a while, so I thought I'd say 'hello.' Is that wrong of me?" she asked, looking up at the elder Kaiba brother.
"No." Seto turned away, considering going for a stroll away from the house and the guests. The party had been his idea, but he wasn't really used to dealing with all of these people like this. A giant corporate meeting was more his style.
"What's up with you and Jou?" Anzu called after him as he began walking away.
He stopped and turned. "What are you talking about?"
"I dunno, it seems like recently something's been going on. You guys were getting along really well, and then there was that hiccup at the ice rink, and then you two up and disappeared together beneath layers of snow…"
"We did not disappear together." And I think most people would call that a little more than a 'hiccup' at the ice rink.
"It seemed like you did."
Kaiba glared at her. "We didn't."
"It's not a bad thing. In fact, I'd say I'm quite happy. For both of you." They stared at each other for a moment, challenging one another. "Humph," Anzu broke the silence. "It's one thing to think you can hide your relationship from the guys, but from me? Seriously, have you met me? Of course I would find out."
Seto considered telling her, rudely, that she hadn't found anything out, and then escaping back into the house. Instead, he nodded.
"When were you going to tell us?" the girl asked, gently, easing off the pressure now that she had won.
"Later tonight, after most of the guests leave, before someone assigns you rooms for the night and we go to sleep off the excitement before revealing 'Secret Santa's in the morning."
"Yeah, thanks for inviting us to spend the night, by the way. I'm looking forward to enjoying your facilities."
"If your conversational skills entail talking to people like that, you've been spending too much time with me."
Anzu smiled, and Seto smirked. They stood for a minute longer, enjoying the quiet, ignoring the cold. Again, Anzu was the one to break the silence. "Are you nervous? About telling people, I mean."
Seto pondered for a moment, interested in knowing the answer for himself, for the moment ignoring the fact that this girl he hardly knew was asking him such personal questions—and ignoring more purposefully that so far, he had answered all of them without complaint.
He was a little nervous, he decided. He had said he was ready that day, weeks ago, to Jou. The boy had replied that he was not, and he reflected and decided to accept the truth of that. He had been given time to come to terms with his feelings, and while he was still shy thinking about his relationship in words, he had no problems with acting on it with his new boyfriend in person.
Unfortunately, while he was in no terms a procrastinator, he did possess and uncanny ability to avoid thinking about things that didn't need his immediate attention. In this case, he may have been a little too thorough in blocking out thoughts of confessing his relationship with another man to a group of people he felt he still hadn't really been accepted by. Honestly, he couldn't help being slightly hesitant.
He paused, wondering why he was nervous of confessing if he wasn't friends with the people he was confessing to. He had no reason to fear them: he had no emotional or fiscal involvement with these people, and certainly wasn't physical with any of them. He continued along this path of thinking. If he wasn't nervous for himself, worried about saving face—his face—then was he nervous for, worried about… Jou?
It made sense. Jou was friends with these people; Jou would suffer if they turned on him because of his new relationship. … It made sense, but it still didn't feel right. It didn't feel like he had reached the conclusion he was looking for.
If he wasn't worried for Jou… maybe he was worried for himself. If he was worried for himself, but didn't see a reason to be, that didn't mean that his worry was unfounded. Instead, it meant that he had overlooked something… he wasn't worried because they weren't his friends, but since he was worried, maybe they were his friends?
He shook his head to himself; the Yugi-tachi were not his friends. They were just the people in his age group that he spent the most time with, that had the closest thing to respect anyone ever got from him, that… he was beginning to like. Whose opinion of himself he was beginning to care about.
"You are nervous," Anzu said. She smiled gently. "They won't turn on you, you know. Yugi will give you best wishes and tell you to treat Jou right, Honda will say the same under threat of pummeling if you don't treat Jou right, Otogi won't care, and Ryou will just be happy and quiet and offer polite congratulations like he always does. There's nothing to worry about. Actually, to be honest, Yugi probably already knows."
"Hm."
"I see I haven't convinced you. Jou will notice, you know. He'll offer to put off telling us to ease your mind. I'm telling you now, as appealing as that offer will sound, you have to tell them. They may not be your friends, but they are Katsuya's, and I'm sure he would appreciate it if you treated them with respect. It's getting cold, I'm going back inside."
She turned to leave, but when she reached the door she looked back. "Kaiba, if you don't tell them tonight, I'll convince him to leave you. You have to choose between facing the friends and keeping the boy and avoiding the friends and loosing probably the one person outside your own family you've ever really cared about." With those parting words, the girl disappeared inside.
Seto stood for a moment, contemplating her words, watching as snow began, once again, to fall. His mind snapped back to his body; he shivered, and turned to go back into the house.
- -
"Seto!" Jou threaded through the crowd to appear at his boyfriend's side. He stood close enough to stroke Seto's side unnoticed as he spoke. "Mokuba was looking for you."
"He probably wants me to go bid safe passage to all of the guests as they leave and pay the caterers. I'll be back soon." Seto was reluctant to turn away, but duty did call.
"Wait!" Jou grabbed his arm. "About tonight."
"What?"
"If you're still not… not ready, to tell people—" The gentle hand stroked his face, once.
"No. We said we'd do it tonight, and we'll do it tonight." The CEO shuddered to think of just what Mazaki would tell his boyfriend to instigate a break-up. He was sure it would be unpleasant for him in more ways than one.
Jou smiled brightly at his words. "Okay, if you're sure." He paused, and then added, "Um, by the way, I'm sure I was mistaken, but did I see you coming in from outside just now?"
"Yeah. I wanted to get some air and some quiet, it was so loud in here. I have to go find Mokuba, I'll be back soon." He walked off, not waiting for a reply, leaving a slightly stunned blonde behind him.
- -
It was nearly 11:30 before everyone left. Seto sighed as the last of the people not spending the night left the mansion to be ushered into a cab and taken home. He had endured multiple-day conferences constituting of days of sitting in meetings for three hours before a fifteen minute break and another three hours to total three, four, or even five days in a row of nine and a half hour work days where the only work completed was diplomacy. He was fairly certain that hosting a six-hour Christmas party wasn't quite the same trial, but it was up there.
He returned with his brother to the living room, where his overnight guests waited for him. Along with the Yugi-tachi, Mokuba had invited four others to spend the night. They planned to crash in sleeping bags in the den, and Mokuba rushed to aid them in setup.
"Kaiba, are we sleeping on the floor too?" Honda asked. He seemed excited.
"I have rooms set up for you," he said, addressing the older teens tiredly. "Though if you'd prefer, I could—"
"He was joking, Kaiba. Individual rooms will be great," Yugi said, smiling.
"Oh. Excellent. Well, then, I've had the extra rooms in my wing prepared for you," he said, turning to walk off in that direction as the group followed him. "I'm in this room," he said, gesturing to a door, "Jou usually sleeps there when he comes over," he pointed to a door across the hall and one door down from his own, "the door next to mine is Mokuba's. The rest of the rooms are open for you. Come get me if you need anything." He leaned back against his door and closed his eyes as the boys ran off to pick rooms.
"You OK? You seem a little… tired," Jou said gently, hugging him around the waist.
"I'm fine. I didn't expect this party business to be so exhausting, is all. A night's rest, I'll be back to my normal self. If that's a good thing or not, I have no idea."
Jou smiled. "Sounds good to me."
"Hey," Mazaki said, walking up. She had laid dibs to the room next door to Yugi's, and was now waiting for him to choose a room. "When are you going to tell them?"
Jounouchi looked back and forth between her and Kaiba, a question in his eyes. "She knows about us," Seto explained. "I just realized, we decided to give out the information but didn't decide who would deliver it. It's a bit late to practice delivering the same words together now."
"It's not that hard. 'Hey guys, we've decided to start dating.' Only six words."
"Jou, that's seven words not counting the contraction. So technically eight." Jou glared at her. "Well it is."
"If Seto is too tired to correct me, I'm too tired to be corrected." He nuzzled Seto's chest.
"Fine," the girl huffed, pretending not to be embarrassed by his show of affection.
"Jou, decision-making time. They're coming back." The two pulled apart to face their friends.
Anzu danced over to Yugi to learn her sleeping arrangements. He had chosen the room on the far side of Jou's.
"I'll tell them, if it's alright by you," the blonde said.
"Sound's good. I'll just go to bed then, if you have everything covered here."
"No!" Jou grabbed the brunette's sleeve. "Stay and lend me moral support." Seto sighed.
The Yugi-tachi gathered around the pair, and before Jou could even open his mouth Yugi was exclaiming. "Kaiba, my whole living room could fit inside that bedroom. It's gigantic. I think that bed'll swallow me! I'm so excited! This is gonna be awesome!"
"Thank you for letting us stay over, really," Ryou said softly. "You're quite kind."
"It's no problem."
Honda yawned. "Okay, I'm totally pooped. I'm going to bed. Night." Otogi nodded and turned to follow.
"Wait a sec," Yugi said. "Jou, didn't you say earlier you had something to tell us?"
"Oh," Honda said, turning back. "Yeah. What's up, man?"
The blonde blushed lightly, but rallied quickly. "Um. I wanted to tell you, uh, that Kaiba and I… we've decided to, um, to date." He blushed more furiously.
"To date… each other?" Honda asked.
Jou glanced up and then away quickly. "Yeah."
"Oh." Honda blinked. "Uh, congratulations." He stood back, looking a little confused.
"Congratulations, Jou!" Yugi yelled, moving in to hug his friend.
"Took you long enough. Is that everything now? Cause I'm tired, I'm going to bed." Otogi turned and disappeared into a room two doors down from Mokuba's.
"Congratulations, both of you. I hope you're happy together," Ryou said softly before disappearing down the hall.
One by one, the friends all left, turning in to their various rooms, until only Honda, Jou, and Seto remained in the hall. Seto yawned and quickly covered his mouth with a hand.
"Hey, listen, Kaiba," Honda started. Seto looked at him. "If you hurt Jou…"
Seto's lips twitched in what could have been a smile. "He's safe with me."
Honda nodded. "Good night, then."
With that, it was just Jou and Kaiba left, standing and leaning in the hallway. Seto yawned again. "Well, that went well, I guess. Good night, Katsuya."
"Yeah." Jou was still gazing down the hall after his friends. He turned to face his boyfriend. "Night, Seto."
The brunette gave a genuine smile and leaned over for a last gentle good night kiss before turning and disappearing into his room. Jou brought a pair of fingers up to his face and brushed his lips lightly, grinning.
- -
"Seto. Seto, wake up." Seto considered that for a moment before disregarding it. He was still tired. "Seto. It's ten o' clock. Everyone's up. Mokuba had breakfast made already; if you don't come now, it'll get cold."
"Let it." Seto rolled over so that his back was to the person talking to him.
"Seto, it's Christmas morning. You have to get up. There are presents to open."
"Go away."
"Seto!"
It took some more cajoling, some pleading, and finally some threatening before Jou managed to get the CEO out of bed. The exact words used were, "I'll kidnap Mokuba. Again."
"I'll do worse than punch you in the face if you do," Seto growled, but acquiesced.
Breakfast was a quiet affair, mostly due to the fact that Mokuba's friends had gone home already and Seto's invitees were still trying to wake up. Mokuba and Jou were the only ones really awake and excited.
"Jou, man, stop bouncing already. You're driving me nuts," Honda growled, shoveling eggs into his mouth. "Eat something or something."
Seto grimaced and looked away, sipping his coffee slowly. He couldn't handle eating solid food so early in the morning. His stomach needed time to warm up.
Jou sat still in response to Honda's outburst, for about twenty seconds. Mokuba was as excited as he was. "Can't we just relocate already?" he whined. "Big brother, please? People who're hungry can take their plates into the den and we can get started!"
Seto's eyebrow twitched involuntarily at his brother's high-pitched request. "Fine," he growled into his coffee, "but I call dibs on a couch."
So it was that Christmas morning breakfast moved to the den. Seto sprawled across one couch with just room enough for Jou to perch at his feet; Yugi and Anzu shared the other couch with Ryou. Otogi and Honda took places on the carpeted floor. And Mokuba… "I'll play Santa's Elf!" Mokuba ran to and fro delivering gifts, all labeled "To ____, From Your Secret Santa".
Anzu started the unwrapping by opening her present, a new DDR pad. "Oh… it'll be weird not feeling the duct tape through my socks anymore," she said. "Thanks, Secret Santa." In Jou's version of this game, Secret Santa's did not reveal themselves until all gifts had been opened.
Yugi went next. He opened a set of Dungeon Dice Monsters complete with multiple expansion packs, and felt he might be able to guess who his Secret Santa was. In the spirit of the game, though, he said only, "Thanks, Secret Santa."
And so it continued on down the line: Ryou was delighted to open a vintage table-top RPG, Honda stared stunned at a top hat he had been joking about buying for more than two months, Otogi excited to get drawing with his new do-it-yourself henna kit. Mokuba actually squealed when he opened his present: the latest Sims expansion pack. Jounouchi opened his present: a collection of Duel Monsters booster packs.
"It's your turn now, big brother," Mokuba said. "Open your present."
Seto frowned at the wrapping for a moment before carefully slitting the tape, despite a chorus of "just rip it already!" Out of the wrapping came a box, and in the box was a layer of tissue paper, and under the layer of tissue paper was a pair of…
"Slippers?" Seto pulled them out of the box and set them on the floor next to him, then noticed there was more in the box. "And a blanket?"
"It does get cold in here," Mokuba offered.
His brother looked over at him. "Are you my Secret Santa, then?"
"No," the raven-haired boy shook his head, "I was Anzu's."
"I was Ryou's," Anzu said when everyone looked at her.
"I bought the top hat for Honda," came Ryou's voice.
Honda shrugged. "I got henna for Otogi."
"I was paired with Yugi."
"As if we couldn't guess that," Honda replied. "Yugi, did you get slippers for Kaiba?"
"Nope," the short boy shook his head. "I got cards for Jou. He was Kaiba's Secret Santa."
"Well," Seto said, moving to give the blonde a tiny peck on the cheek, "thank you for a very thoughtful gift."
- -
With some dawdling after the revealing of the Secret Santa's, Seto eventually found himself sharing the room—and the couch—only with Jou. Mokuba had gone upstairs to begin on his new expansion pack, and the others… Seto didn't particularly care where the others had gone.
Seto wiggled a toe, and smiled as the slipper bent around his foot. They were nice slippers. His new blanket was draped over the side of the couch—he had decided wearing it would be a bit too warm, with a cuddly Jou snuggled up next to him.
"Do you like your new slippers, then?" the blonde asked.
"I do."
"I almost got you a puppy, you know, since you told me earlier you don't hate them. Puppies turned out to be really expensive, though."
"It's alright," Seto said, ruffling his boyfriend's hair, "I already have one."
- -
FIN.
- -
A/N: Well, color me astonished. I don't believe I have ever encountered such kind reviewers; not a one of you gave me a "God damn you update already you whore why are you so slow?!" even though this chapter is six days short of exactly five months late. Sorry if you're not exactly in the Christmas spirit anymore. By the way, though I didn't actually say so this chapter, if you don't remember, Seto is Mokuba's Secret Santa. That was established back in Chapter 3.
Honestly, I can't believe I ever finished at all. It is a first for me, and no doubt about it. I would like to thank everyone who has followed this fic from start to finish (myself included) for a wonderful time, and please look forward to the next story—which still, I might add, has no name.
Anyway, summer's almost here—I have seventeen days left of school before I can more thoroughly devote myself to the writing of these stories. I probably won't get the first chapter of the next story out before then, but I suppose we can all hope.
I also had an idea for a different story (not the companion piece to this one). Since I'm a little bored of SoF (I've actually been working on this chapter, intermittently, for the past month) that one might take precedence.
If any of you are planning to attend Fanime this weekend, please feel free to say "hello"—I'll be there on Sunday, and be identifiable as the one with the top hat and the cape and the mask and the flock of Sailor Scouts. I hope to see you all there, as it promises, as always, to be a great deal of fun. (I was nervous to mention this, but last year I got glomped by two random strangers whose only warning was a shout of "MISTY!!" and also stalked by a ninja girl and asked to take pictures with several different people I had never met before. Since I'm basically setting myself up to be attacked by cosplaying, I might as well invite people who have some background knowledge of me to attack me as well as all of those random strangers.)