Chapter 14 – Notes and Letters

"And so, class, what we see in this character is something that is common with people even in today's society," the teacher stated as several students took down notes. "In fact, many people believe this book to be a guide to human emotions and reactions, especially to their pasts."

Tea sighed and placed her pencil next to the notebook to wipe the sleep from her eyes. They had been reading a book on philosophy for the past week, and even though she enjoyed the course, she didn't like learning about it at nine in the morning. That was a bit early for her mind to comprehend what others wanted her to comprehend, especially when they wrote the book as though it was for college-level professors rather than high school students. Picking her pencil back up, she stole a glance across the room to see Seto Kaiba hovering over his notebook, seemingly writing down the notes. She knew better, however; she had passed his desk more than once to see the thousands of drawings in his notebooks. Good drawings, but definitely not anywhere near notes. She couldn't blame him, though, since he probably knew more about the subject than the teacher did.

The school had all but thrown a party at the return of the CEO. He hadn't died nor had he been kidnapped. Everything was okay in the world once more; the planets were realigned. The fan-girls still had him to drool over, and the rest of the students still had somebody to talk about when they were bored with their own lives. Everything was back to normal…at least on the surface, anyway.

Tea couldn't explain yesterday's conversation. It seemed so distorted, now that she thought about it. It had gone from Joey apologizing to Seto all the way to the point where she had been crying for bringing up his medication. How did it get that far? How did the conversation get out of hand like that? Once again she had acted like a fool, but why was it that she acted only that way around Seto? She wanted to strangle him when he said he would rather be hated than liked. What would make somebody think that?!

"And so, you can see how this character the author has portrayed for us came to be who she was," the teacher continued, oblivious to Tea's daydreaming. "All her life she was ignored, and it's all she knew how to do. The boy, on the other hand, was loved all his life, and that's all he knew as well. Now most of you have been shown, at least hopefully, a number of emotions, and you all know what and when to use them for. But imagine being loved by everybody or feared by everybody all your life? Do you think that would change your views on the world? How? This is what your next assignment will be about."

The teacher grabbed a nearby folder on her desk and, taking out a large stack of papers, began to pass out the packets for the next assignment. Several students groaned in response to yet another large project, yet most just kept quiet, not wanting to fight a futile battle. Tea was one of the latter as she received her packet and passed the rest back the row. "There is a list of emotions you may choose from," the teacher began to explain once everyone had a packet. "I want you to do exactly what the author of this book did; I want you to create a character that was only exposed to one particular emotion. From this, I want you to write a story about the character coming in contact with another, preferably opposite, emotion and how that would affect them. Would they be scared or welcome it with open arms? That's your next assignment, which will be due in two weeks. All the requirements are written into this packet, but if you have any questions, you may ask me any time. Also, it should be noted that this does not have to follow a particular plot. It can be just a character's emotions towards something, like a journal entry. You may even write it in a poem format, as long as it's long and descriptive enough."

As soon as the teacher finished, the bell rang, signaling the beginning of lunch. Tea placed the packet in her brown backpack before heading out of the classroom towards her locker. "Geez, what to write about?" she thought. "I mean, there are so many emotions out there, it would be kind of hard to single one out. Usually one is associated with many others…after all, happiness can be put with ten other emotions. I guess she wants us to be really specific."

Walking up to her locker, Tea placed her hand on the combination lock and went to move it when something caught her eye. Glancing down, she saw a white envelope taped to her locker door. No name or signature was placed on the outside, and she slowly pulled it off the locker and checked the front and back. Nothing. "Now what the hell is this?" Sighing, she opened her locker up, quickly picked out the only book she needed in the afternoon, closed her locker door, and went into the cafeteria, hoping she wouldn't bump into Seto after yesterday's event.

Sitting down at the table her friends always sat at, Tea looked up to see them at the very end of the long lunch line. "Maybe I can see what this is…" Opening the envelope up, she saw that it contained a single paper that was folded neatly. Turning it around, she was surprised to see a long, typed letter. Eyeing her friends one last time, she shrugged her shoulders and decided to read it.

Dear Tea:

I just wanted to thank you once again for visiting me yesterday. I understand why you were confused by my reaction to what occurred, and I just want to make sure you don't take it too personally, especially since you seem to have a habit of doing so. There is no need to worry about me. What is normal for me may be different from you. This is the way I want others to perceive me, and that's my business. I just figured that, since you have been kind when I have not been, I should enlighten you on some things.

You know that I had a bad childhood. Noa's world brought some light to that for you all. Well, some things happened around my early teenage years that I still have yet to recover from. What they were are none of your concern, I can assure you, but I want you to know that I will deal with them in my own way. They relate to my whole philosophy on the outside world, so if you thought my attitudes relate to my past, you are indeed correct and slightly more intelligent than I originally gave you credit for. You cannot change what happened, so do not dare even try. There are simply reasons that I am the way I am around those kids compared to those at school and work, and maybe if you're lucky, you will learn about them in time. Or maybe not.

I also wanted to apologize for yelling at you like that yesterday. I understand now that you were only trying to help, as you always are, and I guess that upset me. I don't like relying on others for help, and I felt as though you were pushing that onto me. From now on, keep in mind how I am about trusting others. I still want you to ask questions if you find it necessary, but please don't question the answers I give you. You should be thankful I'm even bothering to answer them in the first place.

Sorry this is so long. I didn't mean to ramble like this. I simply wanted to thank you for your visit and tell you that I am appreciative of your company. I only wanted to assure you that I'm this way for a certain reason that you cannot change, and I don't want you worrying about it. I'm not a child. Worry about yourself, okay? See you at work on Friday; I plan to visit twice this week.

Sincerely: Kaiba

P.S. The bottle you shoved in my face was pain relief pills, not anti-depressants, and I have plenty of bottles of pain relievers left.

Tea couldn't believe what she had just read. Seto Kaiba had basically confessed his emotions to her about his past and his feelings about her helping him out. "It's not a romantic type of confession, but it's still something," she thought in bewilderment, rereading several lines of the note. "So he doesn't want my help. Fair enough. I'm actually happy he wrote me this. I probably would have taken it upon myself to help him since, as he says, that's how I am. Alright, Seto. You took the time out to write this up. I guess I have no choice but to honor it."

Smiling, she folded it back up and placed it in her backpack. "For someone who said he has trouble with emotions, he sure wrote that out damn well," she thought as her friends soon came over to the table, all with lunches and drinks in their hands.

"So Tea, how are you doing?" Yugi asked, smiling over at her.

"Yeah, you haven't been sitting with us lately," Tristan pointed out as he opened up a chocolate milk bottle. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing really. I've just had a lot of drama from this job at the orphanage."

"Hey, Tea…how did you get to Kaiba's house yesterday?" Joey asked, eyeing her suspiciously. Everyone's eyes widened at this, and Tea swallowed the lump that suddenly formed in her throat.

"Why were you at Kaiba's house yesterday?" Tristan rephrased.

"Oh, um… Well, I felt bad for not being able to help him up yesterday after Joey hit him, so I went over to his house to apologize for Joey. He wouldn't take it except from Joey himself, so when Joey called me, I handed the phone over to Kaiba and let him explain it to Kaiba himself."

"Yeah, what a great experience that was," Joey stated sarcastically. "Fucken asshole. I try to say sorry to him, and all he does is bash me."

"I find it hard to believe that he's that hateful to everyone," Yugi explained as he took a bite out of his sandwich. "I mean, I've seen his nice side once, and it was almost too nice. Somebody can't be that much a jerk to everyone yet be so nice."

"He's still an asshole," Joey protested. "But whatever. If that's what he wanted to be, let him go. He'll regret it someday, don't you worry."

Tristan nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, I don't know where I would be without you guys. We've been together through and through, and that includes all those rough times with insane lunatics. Imagine if Yugi here didn't have us around! He would be all alone in this world!"

Everyone laughed at this, and Tea took a sip of her juice before a thought entered her head. "Jade…Seto's 'protector'…is that how those two think of each other? I wonder if they're as close to each other as we are…" Frowning, she shook her head and thought, "I really need to stop thinking about him."

"Uh, Tea…are you alright?" Yugi asked, noticing his friend's sudden distress.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Just had a random thought there."

"Random thoughts suck," Joey commented, taking another bite out of his pizza.

"You would know," Tristan countered, making the group burst out laughing again. Tea smirked and wandered where she would be without these guys before taking a sip of her drink. "Where would I be without anybody in my life…?"