Chapter 29: Sprezzatura

Ryuuji, Ryou and Seto sat around a table like the beginning of a bad joke, where one of them would be a coward, another would be the "blond", and the third would crack wise. A week had passed since Ryuuji and Seto had let their adoring fanbase down utterly by proving they were not an item. Even the press seemed incapable of dealing with the sudden turn of events, as the usual questions about how each party felt and would move on following the rupture of an amorous relationship didn't exactly apply to the current situation. There had never been any relationship to speak of. Instead, inquisitive reporters wishing to know about the two's romantic lives were left asking tactless questions about if they were seeing anyone special right now, and once given a resolved "no", had nothing much further to tack on to that line of questioning.

At first, Ryou had been surprised at Seto's invitation to the fundraiser dinner event, as well as the suggestion that Ryou wear the neatly pressed trousers and shirt, untouched in Ryou's closet where Ryou'd left them for weeks, that had been Ryou's uniform during their undercover tournament days. Those clothes were more expensive than whatever else Ryou probably owned, and they were business casual enough to make him inconspicuous in Seto's presence.

The dressing advice had concerned Ryou. The dinner seemed way bigger a deal than Seto was letting on, but the only person Ryou was able to ask was Seto himself, and Seto had just shrugged and told him to ready at six.

Not sure how to look formal and dignified and make it look easy, Ryou had gone for an expression such as one might wear to a funeral: resolute, distant, and with the vague impression that he was counting in his head softly the entire time in order to sustain the appearance of cool unflappability. He tried this expression out in his bathroom mirror and thought it gave him a decorous air suitable for an occasion that require not just any pressed trousers and button up shirt, but the most expensive trousers and button up shirt in his apartment. The need for such clothes suggested, in Ryou's mind, that he was going to be rubbing shoulders with people who could probably tell the difference in quality. People, indeed, who took such a difference very personally.

Ryou kept the faintly funereal expression in place as he put on his heavy watch at the door, shuffled through the contents of his wallet for no discernable reason because like hell he was going to pay anything, and quarreled with the dimensions of his hair reflected back to him in the elevator mirror before realizing he hadn't hit the button for the vestibule hard enough for the elevator to realize he'd wanted it to go anywhere. A neighbor who witnessed him passing through the hall smiled kindly and then looked away, inferring from the solemn look on his face that someone dear to Ryou had most certainly died. Why he remained half dressed for the funeral service so late in the evening was anyone's guess, but it wasn't the time or place to inquire.

It was raining outside, and Ryou held aloft a bright green umbrella that couldn't totally prevent his shoes from getting wet. He called Seto's secretary and asked when the car would arrive, and the secretary told him that it was almost there. A moment later, the car turned the corner and came down the street. Ryou hurried to hop in through the rain, as though if he went fast enough, he could run between the droplets.

Seto wasn't in the car, but Ryou didn't see that at first. He didn't see it until Ryuuji put an arm around his shoulders and nearly caused Ryou to leap out of his skin from shock. Upon seeing it was Ryuuji, he relaxed more.

"Are you okay?" asked Ryuuji, laughing and knowing perfectly well why Ryou had jumped. Ryou knew better than to lie and make it worse.

"I uh, thought you were Seto, and that creeped me out."

"I'm going to tell Kaiba you said that, and I'll warn him to never carelessly embrace you for anything, least you go into shock and become totally catatonic," said Ryuuji. His arm on Ryou's shoulders was heavy now, not going anywhere.

"If Seto put an arm around anyone's shoulders, whether mine or anyone else's, I really think I'd collapse in shock," agreed Ryou as he checked his sleeves for marks of water. The fabric was pale, and any wetness would be obvious against it. "Speaking of a shock, why are you in Seto's car instead of Seto?"

"Ugh, dinner," said Ryuuji, adjusting the collar of his shirt with a bitter expression. Ryou noticed then that Ryuuji wasn't dressed in his usual, flamboyant manner. There weren't nearly so many colors and acute angles as what Ryou had come to expect from Ryuuji. Ryuuji's normally high piled hair, one of literally the biggest statements in Ryuuji's daily appearance, was almost completely back now, and it made him look older, more demure, like a hip 30-something who made coffees with weird devices that looked like they'd come from a science lab. It was the kind of guy who you suspected probably only feigned tasting the difference between the brews from each device by throwing out a convoluted smokescreen of superfluous adjectives referring to physical properties coffee didn't even possess, but which made each cup sound like little, individual sound bites of poetry. Ryou wondered which Ryuuji might be the most insufferable. He decided the older one, because the older one also looked like he couldn't take a joke, but could only ever make them at the expense of everyone around him.

"Why…are you dressed?" asked Ryou. Ryuuji glanced down at his loose, urban-cool suit as though only just realizing he had it on. It might've not been the vanguard of fashion, but it definitely still managed to look like the kind of suit a pirate would assemble from the darkest toned pieces of his plundered wardrobe. Whatever the vest was upholstered in, it seemed heavy, like weighty damask. It was like the kind of thing you'd hang for curtains. Ryou reached out to prod the impressions in the fabric curiously, and Ryuuji laughed at him.

"I can't possibly show up undressed," said Ryuuji, intentionally misunderstanding Ryou.

"Will I start having to look weird like you and Seto eventually?" asked Ryou after he was done surveying the vest. "I'm not sure I can pull off anything really trendy."

"No, I think you'll look way more mysterious if you just dress like an office clerk all the time like right now," said Ryuuji. "People will ask each other who's the good-natured, put together, affably normal looking young man in the background of Seto's photos? What's the connection? Where did he come from? He's absolutely adorable with his sleeves rolled up a quarter of the way."

Ryou looked at his sleeves, which were completely down. "Is that a hint?" he asked.

"You're not wearing a jacket, are you? Or a tie…."

"Was I supposed to?"

"You look like you just got off work and chucked that shit in the car to forget about it."

"I think that was kind of the idea of these clothes, actually," said Ryou. "Will I need a tie? I didn't get it back last time Seto's people returned this stuff from the cleaners, but I didn't say anything because I didn't notice until two weeks later."

Ryuuji leaned back away from Ryou and eyed him up and down critically. He had Ryou button and unbutton the top of the shirt, roll his sleeves to three different lengths, and stand as far as he could in the cramped back seat. After the entire performance was complete, Ryuuji shook his head regretfully.

"Yeah, you need something to break up all this paleness going on up top," said Ryuuji, gesturing to the paleness. "Pale hair, pale shirt, pale face. If I hadn't walked home with you from school in full daylight before, I'd think the sun never touched you. You look like one of those artic whales."

Ryou wasn't sure if this was an insult, or just a super weird observation on Ryuuji's part.

"I'm sure Seto will scrounge up a tie for you if he thinks it's necessary," said Ryuuji, handing back the watch he'd had Ryou take off and put back on three times. "In any case, what you can do now is roll up your sleeves. People like rolled up sleeves. Makes you look like you're working hard, and by extension, like you're important, especially if you're hanging out around Seto Kaiba. They might think someone's got a new personal assistant."

Ryou did as he was asked, though Ryuuji made him undo the fold and then showed him a way Ryuuji considered better. Ryou had to admit it was much more breathable, but he was afraid it might look too casual. Ryuuji shrugged and said it was a casual dinner, which baffled Ryou, considering the veritable costume of an outfit Ryuuji wore. Seto, it seemed, agreed with Ryou.

"Your torso looks like a cushion on an old woman's sofa," said Seto as soon as Ryuuji appeared in the event hall lobby. This was Seto's way of being taken back by Ryuuji's fashion decision for the evening. "I said business-casual, not musical theater."

"I feel quite casually businesslike in this," said Ryuuji airily. "And what do you know about old women? There's always so many men around you it seems like it's on purpose."

Seto knew better than to encourage Ryuuji with a defensive comment. He turned to Ryou instead.

"You don't have a tie," he said flatly. Ryou nodded regretfully and shrugged. Seto motioned for an assistant to come forward and said something in his ear discreetly. A few minutes later, the assistant pressed a small box into Ryou's hands. Ryou didn't even open it. He didn't need to. He just stared at it stupidly, stunned at how quickly a tie had been procured at the last minute. This was witchcraft. There was no other way. With a prompting tsk from Seto, Ryou came back to and quickly excused himself to the restroom the put the tie on.

What Ryou had taken for an event hall was, the assistant escorting Ryou told him, actually a private club frequented by the most powerful executives in the country. Ryou wished he hadn't so innocently asked about the artwork on the walls then, because he hadn't wanted to know how exclusive an opportunity it was to even be allowed inside the place. He wasn't all that surprised when the bathroom itself turned out to have multiple rooms, with the actual toilet area proceeded by what Ryou could only call a powder room, except men didn't power their noses. Ryou made some stupid, vaguely humorous and lighthearted, fish-out-of-water comment on it, and the assistant replied, with zero humor, that the room has been converted from a women's washroom, which explained the superfluous lounge. Mr. Kaiba had ordered Ryou brought all the way here to this less-used room so that no-one would walk in on Ryou putting his tie on. Such a sight might give the impression Ryou was unprepared and careless, and Mr. Kaiba wasn't sure Ryou wanted to be known for that kind of thing.

"This will only take a moment; you don't have to wait," said Ryou, a bit shy now that he'd been put directly in his place. It was lucky he hadn't made the joking comment that had crossed his mind about how far away the bathroom had been as they were walking. Quickly, Ryou crossed the small lounge to set the box on a counter in front of a lit vanity mirror. The assistant departed with a curt nod.

Once the man was gone, Ryou threw up his collar and put on the tie. The knot wasn't perfectly even, but he told himself that this maybe added to its charm. Some knots just weren't inherently symmetrical no matter what you did, right? Wasn't that the thing? And anyway, Ryou'd never learned more than just the one way to tie a tie. He knew there were others, and looking at his reflection in the mirror, evaluating his taut and far too fussed over work, he wondered how many knots someone like Seto Kaiba had to know, and if certain circumstances called for different ones. Whatever knot Ryou's father had taught him when he was thirteen probably wasn't classy enough for a private club. But…a knot was a knot right? Who beyond the vestiary aesthetes of the world could really be said to be able to tell the difference between them all?

The cardboard box the tie had been handed to Ryou in didn't seem particularly remarkable, so Ryou threw it away before leaving the bathroom lounge. He automatically turned to the right, went back up a flight of stairs he remembered, and then paused. The hallway he'd stepped out into didn't seem familiar enough. He remembered he'd been more focused on the artwork they'd passed, and looked around for a painting of an athletic brown horse strutting dramatically within a pastoral setting. He saw that there were two paintings that fit this nebulous description, and both were hung on the same sides of virtually identical doorways. Obviously it wasn't the same painting done twice, and looking between them, Ryou saw that the equine protagonists had very different body shapes. Unfortunately, Ryou know absolutely nothing about the body shapes of horses, and therefore hadn't noted those kinds of fine details when he'd first glanced at the painting.

This was great. This was awesome. Ryou was lost in a private club he wasn't even a member of and suspected he might not be allowed to just wander aimlessly through at his own discretion. On the bright side, he was certain whatever trouble he might get into Seto would be able to resolve in three words. But, that wasn't going to prevent the hard time people would give Ryou until they discovered that Ryou hadn't been bullshitting when he'd told them who he was friends with.

Ryou was about to choose a hallway at random, but heard his name called up to him from down the stairs. He looked down to see Seto on the lower landing, watching him.

"I figured you'd forget how to find your way when Rossi got back and you weren't with him," said Seto. "Get down here; we'll take another way back so we come out near the ballroom instead of the lobby."

Ryou hurried down the stairs again, leaving the twin, proudly prancing steeds to stand vigil over their respective passageways alone. Seto's eyes never left him, but he wasn't looking at Ryou's face. His gaze rested someplace lower.

"The tie's a mess."

"Well, I don't know fancy knots," said Ryou defensively. "This is how my dad ties them. I see you have a nice indentation in yours, which I guess is classy and casual for you, but casually cool tie tying is a science I haven't mastered."

Without even asking, Seto reached out for Ryou. Ryou instinctively pulled back a little. "Let me," said Seto, inviting himself already. He grumble a little when he realized the knot Ryou had done wasn't the kind of knot you could undo easily by tugging up on the tail. "I used to tie Mokuba's ties on visitor days. I mean, not very well back then, but the point is I'm used to doing this for someone else. Lift your chin."

Seto ordered Ryou to hold his hair out of the way, too, and then proceeded to lift Ryou's collar so he could to get the tie around. With precision and deftness of hand, he wrapped and wove the ends together into an even, perfect knot. Occasionally in the fulfillment of this operation, particularly in the raising and lowering of the collar, his warm hands brushed Ryou's jaw and exposed neck, and Ryou felt the hairs rise to gooseflesh on his arms. Seto finished the knot and smoothed the collar back down with a deliberate firmness that almost pushed Ryou into a heap on the ground, because Ryou's knees had decided they couldn't bear to support him anymore.

Seto rested both hands on Ryou's shoulders and automatically supported Ryou when Ryou stumbled. Seto didn't comment on this sudden weakness, just looked Ryou in the face.

Seto felt an impulse then, one that was strong enough to spur him forward as it came to him along with the sudden memory of what Ryuuji had told him about his feelings for Ryou. He leaned down to kiss Ryou quickly and gently on the lips. Ryou didn't make any move, as he was too stunned and hadn't processed what was happening. The whole thing was over and done with so quickly, Ryou had trouble believing it once Seto'd pulled back. He looked up at Seto to see Seto staring at him with an expression that gave nothing away. Ryou began to wonder if maybe he'd just hallucinated.

"Was that…a joke?" asked Ryou, entirely unsure what could possibly have been the humor behind it. He'd have been able to see this kind of thing being a joke if, for example. Ryuuji had done it. But Seto didn't have that kind of humor. Seto was hardly humorous at all outside scathing retorts in the heat of battle and sarcasm. Seto's humor was an attack, a lessening of the other person to demonstrate his immense superiority over them. It was not abstract or ridiculous in any way.

This kiss, therefore, had probably not been a joke.

"I wanted to see what might happen."

Now Ryou knew the kiss had not been a joke. He wondered just what the heck it had been, though.

"Uh, well, I don't think testing this kind of thing out is going to keep us friends for very long," said Ryou flatly, hating the words even as they tumbled from his mouth so graceless and eerily calm.

Ryou felt oddly cold now. He could feel everything inside him closing up, erecting a wall between them so he could detach himself from the situation and react to it with polite, forgiving understanding and not a spontaneous surge of overflowing emotion that couldn't be controlled. This was because Ryou had learned long ago that in an environment where he had control over nothing, the only thing he could do was try to keep control of his reaction to it and come to terms with events as quickly as possible.

"Good point," said Seto. The sudden impulse had left him, and he wished to take everything back. That was impossible, though, so he took the generous escape Ryou offered him. "Follow me. We need to get back."

Silently, Seto led Ryou through the myriad halls, Ryou distantly observing the paintings, potted plants, and decorative hall furniture that they passed without truly seeing a single thing. Without processing a single thing because the only thought his mind gravitated towards was one Ryou was not yet ready to face.

Seto had just...

They were going to dinner to see and sit with Ryuuji, who was dressed like either a boardroom genie or a pirate. They were going to have dull conversations about recent and prospective weather phenomena, about the food, about how chess was so good for young people to learn, so much better and nobler than monster card games and every board game that wasn't Monopoly.

For some reason Seto had...

Seto and Ryou would hardly have a chance to look at each other because everyone was going to want to talk to Seto or Ryuuji, and those who lost the bid of vying for the businessmen's attentions might settle with a few impersonal comments directed at Ryou in order to to justify their continued presence in Ryuuji and Seto's vicinity until a new opening appeared. Ryou, in turn, would forget all of their names.

Why had Seto...

Ryuuji would noticed Ryou was bored and, being bored himself, would invent some stupid game to pass the time. Seto would roll his eyes at them the few times he hazarded to look over. Ryuuji would probably be stacking grains of broken rice with total concentration like the people who stacked improbably balanced towers of stones near rivers and along the rocky coasts of the sea. Ryou would give in and begin to assist Ryuuji, filling his bread plate with tiny cairns of various food particles because Ryou didn't have the skills or the steadiness of hand to match Ryuuji's careful work.

Seto...

Then, the dinner would be over, and with any luck, Ryou would be sent home with Ryuuji in the same car. Seto would stay behind at the club in one of the members' rooms because it was late, and he paid dues for that sort of privilege. Once their ways had been sufficiently parted, Ryou would never speak to Seto ever again for the rest of his life. Indeed, their failed friendship experiment (for had it ever been real?) was already in its death throes. That was how it would be. That was how it would end. It would be so quiet.

But, Ryou was wrong.


Note:
Time: While we're here, I'd like to bring up the concept of time in this fic, as in, it has become kind of an inside joke with myself that this is a "fic out of time" or whatever. Originally, I was going to make it fit super well into a set period of months, and also happen at a very specific time in the YuGiOh continuity, but then…UGH no. Now, I just add weeks and months on to it haphazardly, figuring if I'm not going to base this on how long a school year really takes, then I'll just commit to having things take place over a ridiculous period that might not even be feasible if you add the weeks and months all up.

Let Me Just Take a Moment:
There's this weird thing where, whenever I write kissing scenes, I suddenly feel as if I'm 12 and have never kiss anyone in my entire fucking life. Ugh. I feel like I'm way out of my element, and a voice inside me is like "holy shit, [author's name redacted], you kiss a person every fucking day before work, after work, and before you go the fuck to sleep, making that three kisses a day minimum of varying intensity, and yet you don't fucking know how to write that shit?" And I'm like "ugh, shut up, I'm not romantic in my old age, and I no longer remember how a super crucial first kiss feels at 17 years old. The kisses I preform now are waaaaay just perfunctory gestures…."

Thank-you's and responses:
Aniki-xvi
(I'm not a super serious person, so no worries about insulting this work with such little things! Also, I must say, if big damn businessman Seto Kaiba knows anything, it's definitely how to invest, amiright? Hurhurhurrrr. But thank you so much for reviewing! I now look forward to it, like you look forward to this fic, I guess), James Birdsong (thanks, dude), Ryou VeRua (oh wow, thanks for such a long and generous review! Humor is my favorite thing to write, so it makes me happy to know how funny you find my jokes. As for my formula, it may be that this fic is secretly just all about me trying to figure out how Seto Kaiba would ever come to the point to date anyone, much less Ryou in particular. Even the chess focus is from the fact that I came at the story with the goal of strong-arming Seto into a romance. Once you get Seto sorted, the euroshipping basically writes itself, really.)