Chapter 12 – Protector
Kaiba hadn't come back to class all day. Rumors were flying around like wildfire on a windy day; all of his fan-girls were either crying or worried that the CEO had been kidnapped or killed. After all, Death was the only thing they could think of to hold the CEO back from school. Most of the intelligent kids in Tea's class, however, just figured he had business to attend to at work or thought school was finally boring enough for him to quit early. After all, it was his senior year. That still didn't stop their interest in what was going on, though. Kaiba always had perfect attendance, but it looked like there was indeed a first for everything.
To say that Tea was worried would be the understatement of the century. She had seen what had happened, the pained expression on Kaiba's face and how he couldn't even push himself up off the ground. But as she thought about it, she realized that the fall couldn't have done that much damage. Sure falling on a cold, tile floor would hurt, but she had fallen plenty of times and seen the boys fall in heaps during gym or just chasing each other around, and they would have a headache but get up and move on. The way Kaiba reacted…it was as if a truck ran him over. She had decided to go check on him at the nurse's office during lunch to see if he was feeling any better, but the nurse gave her a vague reply, stating that he had become ill and had to go home.
Now she was sitting in fifth block, the last five minutes passing by as if it were five years. She wanted to talk to Joey about what had happened, but Yugi and Tristan were called into Mrs. Asuka's office during lunch, and Joey never went to lunch without those two. She couldn't find him anywhere in the cafeteria and wondered if Mrs. Asuka called him in as well. At least she wasn't being involved in this mess.
"I'm going to kill him for doing that," she thought, remembering the incident. "I'm sure Yugi and Tristan want to as well for making them skip lunch like that. The idiot! What was he thinking? It was as if Joey just snapped and attacked him! Maybe we shouldn't have made fun of him so much…he seemed to take it rather personally. But hey, if Joey is going to say remarks like that, of course Kaiba's going to react. He knows that. If only I could have done something…"
Groaning, Tea glanced up at the clock to see that only two minutes had passed since she last checked it. "Come on, move. I have to head over to his place. I have to see if he's feeling okay. After all, it was partially my fault that the whole thing occurred this morning. If I would have just said something to stop Joey, maybe the whole thing could have been avoided. But then again, Kaiba would have probably killed me for saying anything about it. Still, it would have been better than him getting his skull bashed into the floor."
Sighing, Tea leaned back in her chair and thought, "I'll go over to his place, as I'm sure he wouldn't be at KaibaCorp right now. I'll make sure he's fine and then head over to the orphanage. Oh shoot…I forgot about that. Maybe I should call Jade up and tell her I'll be late. But…what will she think of Kaiba's injury? She'll probably do the job for Yugi, Tristan, and I of killing Joey where he stands. She seems to be pretty close to him…" The scene in the limo flashed before her eyes briefly, and she frowned at the memory. "He said he didn't help her when she first started out. I wonder why…"
The last bell of the day rang, and everyone, including Tea, bolted out of their seats and headed toward the door. She quickly went to her locker, put her books away, and headed out of the school onto the courtyard. The moment she reached the sidewalk, she took a left towards the Kaiba mansion, pulled out her phone, and quickly dialed Jade's number, which she had received on her first day of work. Pressing her pink cell phone up to her ear, she waited for it to ring twice before a familiar voice said, "Hello, Domino City Orphanage. This is Jade speaking. How can I help you today?"
"Hello Jade," she replied. "This is Tea."
"Oh, hey Tea. What's up?"
"I just wanted to let you know that I'll be coming in late today. I have to go visit somebody and-"
"That somebody wouldn't happen to be Seto, would it?" she asked mockingly. Tea gasped as she heard a door close through the phone line, indicating Jade had moved to another room. "Mokuba called me this morning to tell me that Seto was taken home. You don't happen to know what the hell happened, do you?"
Tea's eyes widened at the tone in Jade's voice. From the way it sounded, she was extremely pissed at the news. "Yeah, I know what happened," she answered once she crossed the street, her voice dropping in tone and volume. "Joey, one of my friends-"
"-The one that's always picking fights with Seto?"
"Yeah. Well, he was in a bad mood today and didn't like the fact that Set…I mean, Kaiba didn't want to fight with him. So Joey body slammed him to the ground, and Kaiba hit his head pretty hard. This happened before school even started."
"Okay, first off, you can call him Seto around me," Jade corrected. "I don't like it when people call him 'Kaiba', especially since that's not even his real name. Second off, you tell Seto when you visit him that I told him not to go to school today."
Tea blinked in surprise as she quickly crossed another street. "Why wasn't he supposed to go to school today?"
"Because he wasn't feeling good last night. And…oh shit. Did you see him go to the nurse's office?"
"No. I just went and told the nurse to expect him. Mrs. Asuka, our teacher, took him there. I went to check up on him at lunch only to find out that he had left to go home."
"Did the nurse say anything about his head?"
"Actually, no. She said that he was ill and had to leave, which didn't really make much sense until now."
"Did she say whether or not she gave him any medicine?"
"Medicine? No, she didn't say anything about that. Why? Is he allergic to some medication?"
"No, but that's the reason he's sick." Tea's eyebrows knit together as she heard Jade let out a defeated sigh. "I know he's going to hate me for this, but this is serious. I'll call the nurse up and ask if she gave him anything."
"Why would medication worsen his condition?" Tea asked as she turned the corner into Kaiba's neighborhood, which only consisted of his house and maybe two others. Since the mansions plus the land bought with them were huge pieces of property, it only took two or three to make up an entire neighborhood.
"Maybe you should ask him that," she said. "Or maybe…on second thought, maybe I should tell you. After all, he'll probably never tell anyone openly about his medicine."
"Seto's medicated?"
"Yeah, for anti-depression. It's not that big of a deal anymore, but for awhile he was having a rough time and needed a lot of medication just to keep him moving. He just switched prescriptions two days ago, and the new stuff's making him really sick, which was why I told him to skip school today. But no, he had to be a perfectionist, and now look what happened. I'm going to kick his ass for this."
Tea wanted to chuckle at her comment but couldn't. "That would explain why the fall hurt him so badly," she thought. "He wasn't feeling well, and a bash to the head was probably enough to just send him over the edge. But how long has he been treated for anti-depression? I mean, he's not the happiest guy in the world, but he's medicated?" "Do you know if he'll get any better?"
"Hopefully, otherwise he'll have to switch again. But this is supposed to be his last bottle; the doctors say he's good enough now that he only has to take it periodically. Plus his visits to the orphanage have increased slightly, and I think that's really helping him out. You've seen first-hand how much he changes in front of those kids. Whether he'll admit it or not, that's another story. Stubborn asshole. But let's keep this conversation just between the two of us. He isn't very open about his use of medicine, especially since he never trusted doctors. He's about as happy that this is his last bottle as Mokuba and I are. I just wanted to tell you so that, for future references, you can be aware of it."
"No problem." A sudden silence fell over the two before Tea said, "You seemed really worried about him there."
"Of course I am!" Jade exclaimed. "I've watched over that brat since he first came to the orphanage all those years ago! Of course I'm going to be worried when he misses school for the first time in his life. I'd go and visit him, but I can't bring the kids along and can't leave them alone."
"I have to admit, I'm surprised that you two have been friends for so long," Tea commented, seeing the large Kaiba mansion in the distance.
"Many would be. He and Mokuba were kind of outsiders at the orphanage, though, and even though he watched over Mokuba, there was nobody really protecting him. I felt bad for the little kid…well, little at the time, anyways…and decided to befriend him. After all, I was the owner's daughter and a haughty teenager at the time, so nobody would have messed with me. It saved his ass on numerous occasions."
"Oh, so are you his guardian?"
Jade burst out laughing and said, "Nah, more like a protector. I let him make his own decisions; I just beat the crap out of those who didn't treat him well when he was smaller. Now, however, I think he can look after himself. I'm just friends, nothing more and nothing less."
"Okay, well, I'm at his house right now," Tea replied as she began walking up his driveway. She could tell it was his mansion by the two dragon statues on the brick wall that went down the entire sidewalk to keep outsiders, well, out.
"Alright, I'll let you go. Thanks for telling me what happened; Mokuba really wasn't that sure of what had gone down. And don't forget to remind Seto what I told him about going to school!"
Tea chuckled and said, "No problem. And thank you for the information as well. See you later."
"Bye." Hearing the phone line go dead, Tea walked up the rest of the driveway onto the small, concrete platform leading to his front door. She had to admit the outside was rather nice. A long driveway led up to the front, bushes and flowers lining up along the path. She could see inside several of the windows to see expensive furniture inside, yet no lights were on. Was he even home? Ringing the doorbell, she waited a few seconds before hearing the locks be undone. The door slowly opened to reveal the younger Kaiba brother, Mokuba, in a pair of jeans, green t-shirt, and his black hair hanging loosely like always.
"Tea?" he greeted, his eyes widening in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to check up on your brother after what happened today," she answered. "Is he here?"
"Y-Yeah, he's here. I don't know if he'll like any visitors, though, especially since he just woke up. I'll let him know you're here, though. Come on in." Moving out of the way, Mokuba waited until she was inside the main foyer when he shut the door and ran upstairs, presumably to fetch his older brother.
"Those two…maybe they aren't as different as we all thought they were," she thought, smiling inwardly. "I mean, the energy Set…uh, forget it. Seto, that's his name from now everywhere except school. I'm tired of switching back and forth. But Mokuba's energy and his energy at the orphanage aren't really that different. I suppose Mokuba does more for him than-"
A sudden sound interrupted her thoughts, and she looked down in surprise at her phone, which was still in her hand from the previous conversation. Looking at the caller ID, she smirked in recognition and thought, "Now you can explain why you did that to him, Joey," she said, flipping the phone open to answer.
