Author's Notes: Y'all...y'all. You don't know how hard it was for me to keep this from being a smut chapter.
X
"Ho-ly shit!" Marie sat up in bed, bumping her head against the ceiling as she did so. She untangled a pair of wrinkled jeans from the clutter on her floor and hopped around as she tried to wriggle them over her rubber duckie panties.
"God damn, what the fuck, oh my god."
The dingy ceiling light sputtered to life with a flick of her finger. She grabbed her cell phone off her desk and attempted to dial as she pulled a wooly brown sweater over her head. The neighbors below her shouted and banged on their ceiling, inquiring as to whether or not she knew just what time it was and why the hell she was stomping around anyway. She grabbed the remote for her TV and turned the volume down low. The voices of Spongebob and Patrick fell silent as they gestured mutely to a very unimpressed-seeming Squidward. Ryo didn't pick up on the first ring, and so she tried again, and again.
"Oh, come on," she muttered as she dug around in a pile of receipts that had been gathered within the hollowed-out back of an orange porcelain chicken. She found her keys and stuffed them in the back pocket of her jeans as she texted the numbers '911' to Ryo.
This caught his attention and he answered on the third ring.
"What's the sitch," he said. He was whispering. There was a slight edge to his voice that made her think that he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. There was probably a new man in his life who was woefully oblivious to the others.
"Clean up on aisle What the Fuck," she said. She stumbled into the garage and pulled an old biker's jacket over her shoulders. The car lit up and gave a merry chirp as she pressed a button on her keychain. "Crazy shit is going down, Ryo. I just realized it."
"What, at…" there was a pause as Ryo checked the time, "eleven o' five on a Saturday? My hours for handling your existential crises end at seven pm."
"Not an existential crisis," she said quickly. She turned her key in the ignition and her car gave an uninterested grumble. She yanked it again and again but to no avail. The car had no intention of starting any time soon. "Damn," she said, punching the wheel and subsequently honking the horn. "Who's idea was it to go street racing in this honky little thing, anyway?!"
"Starts with 'isn't' and ends with 'it obvious?' Marie, sweetie, I'm a little short on time. What's going on?"
"Okay, okay." There was only one other option. She'd have to take the bike. She rushed to the wall of bicycles and unhooked hers. "I need Kaiba's home address," she said as she wiggled her helmet into place. "This is a non-negotiable matter."
"You what?! You're out of your damn mind. Goodbye-"
"No, no, no, no," she said. The crinkling garage door began to lift. She sped out from underneath it and skidded into a sharp turn at the edge of the street. The phone was cradled between her shoulder and cheek, making it somewhat hard to maneuver at such a high speed. "You know I wouldn't ask unless it was mission-critical."
"The only thing critical to you nowadays is getting up in Kaiba's space. Don't think I haven't noticed."
"Rude," she swerved around a couple just about to cross the street. They cried out in alarm and proclaimed her to be the male offspring of a female dog. She wasn't sure where, exactly, she was going, but she knew the general gist.
"Tell me, Ryo. What would you do if you had the power to stop something terrible from happening right before it does? If you knew a secret that could change everything. I'm talking about our livelihoods, here."
"Our livelihoods, well. It's obvi, isn't it?" He hissed. "I'd do what had to be done."
"That's why I need his address. I tried his work phone but it's out of commission."
"That's 'cuz he changes his number every few weeks. Fangirls always seem to get their hands on it...don't they, honey?"
She didn't like the way that he said 'fangirls.' There was an accusatory tone to it. "I'm guessing you don't have it," she spat back with a little more fire than had been intended.
"I may be his personal assistant but I'm definitely not good enough for him to give his personal cell number to," he chuckled. "If that's the case, then I guess what goes around...comes around. The answer that you seek is 2128 Eagle Lane, apartment four. Keycode to the gate is 9736."
"Thanks. You're a saint."
"I'm about to become a sinner if you don't tell me what's going on," a gruff voice sounded out on the other end of the line and Ryo responded in an impatient tone. There was a sound like he was moving away from a verbal altercation and then silence.
"Hey, where are you, anyway?" She asked.
"Working. What the hell else would I be doing?"
Eagle Lane wasn't that far away from her apartment. She had passed it many times on the way to work. She wanted to ask what he was doing working so late into the night. It was highly unlikely that Kaiba required a coffee fix at 11:10 pm. Then again, you never knew with Seto.
"Listen," she said as she approached the gated community. "I found out something, something that I wasn't supposed to. And I know what I have to do to make it right." She typed the code into the small metal box and the gate slid open before her. She pedaled into the courtyard and picked up speed as she passed the softly gurgling fountain.
"You can make it right all you want but I implore you to spare me the riddles."
"Okay, right," she said. "Remember that time when we saw Mizumi in the karaoke bar? I went into the bathroom and hid in the supply closet - don't ask me why, it just happened. Mizumi came in and met up with this shady woman in a pinstripe skirt-"
"-pinstripe is shady in this blustery economy."
"Listen, will you? This isn't a joke," she was speeding past the neat rows of luxury apartments, keeping a steady eye out for 2128. "They exchanged something. Information for money, I think. Something about blueprints and prototypes. I didn't think much about it. But then when I was leaving Kaiba's office the other day, I heard him talking to one of his goons about a mole in the company. And then it clicked a few minutes ago. Ryo...Mizumi is the mole in KaibaCorps!"
She had expected him to gasp or cry out in surprise or maybe even applaud her for her brave detective work. She had not expected him to fall suddenly silent. "Hello," she said timidly.
"Marie...what are you about to do?"
"I have to tell Seto. ASAP. Tonight. Right now. He's on the verge of launching something but so are his competitors. But now they have access to his technology, thanks to Mega Tits, and I'll bet your sweet ass they're going to try and launch first-"
"Don't."
"Excuse me, what?"
"Don't do it."
"Ryo, you're not making any sense. Wouldn't you-"
"No, I wouldn't. Listen to me, Marie, and listen well. You'd do best to remember that you're still fresh meat, honey. And what's worse is that you're in a dog-eat-dog corporation. You go sticking your head into business that has nothing to do with you and you will get it torn off. You have no idea what you're dealing with. People like Sara and I have been here long enough to see merry do-gooders trumped up on morals lose everything to silly mistakes-"
"It's not a silly-"
"No, it is. You're being rash based on what you thought you heard in a karaoke bathroom, of all places! The last thing that you want is for Mizumi to find out that you've been spreading lies behind her back. Or for Kaiba to think that you're the mole and you're just deflecting blame. You're an ant trying to topple an entire kingdom. Two kingdoms, in fact, that are at war with each other. Don't you understand how crazy that is?!"
"I mean-"
"-you mean well. But you're doing no good. Hun, sweetie-pie, haven't you ever heard that snitches get stitches?"
There was an ominous ring to his voice that she had never heard before. It sent shivers up and down her spine. He was right. Maybe she didn't know what she was doing, maybe she was being naive and brash and silly and stupid. Maybe she was trying to save the world despite knowing nothing about how it worked. After all, what was she? A kid, as Kaiba had called her, working in the comfort of her little office deleting scary messages from keyboard warriors. It was hardly the work of a Super Woman.
"Okay," she said. "You're right. I-"
The wheel on her bike caught on something and sent her flying over the handles. There was a frightened yelp and the sound of scampering as she tumbled into a nearby bush. Her phone hit the ground and shattered into a bunch of small pieces.
"No, no, no," she said as she pushed herself gingerly off of the ground. Her pants were torn at the knee and blood was beginning to creep across the gritty fabric. "Nooooo," she cradled her knee in her hand and blew gingerly on it. Her bike lay on its side a few feet away from her, its wheel spinning pathetically in the air. She was about to crawl towards it and retrieve her phone when suddenly a shadow began to move from the corner of her eye.
She turned and saw a large dog with short fur trotting away. It was some sort of pit bull, judging by its long, muscled body and stout face. It looked back and cast her a nervous look that broke her heart. It tried to run but stumbled. Its paw had been injured, judging by the way it wobbled to keep weight off of it.
"Come 'ere, you," she said in a strained voice. She shuffled forward on her hands and knees and held her palm out. The dog took one look at it and licked its jowls anxiously. "Hey, no, come 'ere. Don't be scared. It's okay."
She wrapped her arms around its quivering body and lifted it. It was heavy, so heavy that her knees bent and she had to shuffle her feet beneath its weight. The dog gave a panicked wriggle and whine before falling still in her arms. She began to cry as she walked towards the nearest house, her tears making the dog's tan fur jump and twitch.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she repeated over and over again as she climbed up the steps to the nearest house. She lifted the golden handle in the middle of the door frame and gave three loud knocks. "I'm gonna buy you so many bones and squeaky toys and give you all the kisses and let you chase all the squirrels and-"
The door opened. The man looked down at her with a suspicious gaze made all the stormier by the dull light pouring in from above the staircase. Then he noticed the dog and a small crease formed between his eyebrows
"Oh," she said in a small voice, glancing at the plaque above the doorway. 2128. "It's you."
"Hey, big bro. Who's at the door-" Mokuba ran down the staircase and stopped short next to Kaiba when he noticed Marie standing there with the shivering dog. "Oh no, what happened?"
"I couldn't stop. He just ran out in front of me and-" she broke down beneath a fresh wave of tears and buried her nose in the dog's fur. There was a damp and earthy smell to it, like a puppy's fur, and she felt all the more awful. Of all places to end up, it was just her luck that she ended up at the apartment of the one man in the world who would probably turn away a crying woman and an injured dog. The dog was whining along with her as if the sound of her crying was causing it pain.
"Seto," Mokuba said in a quiet voice. "Isn't that-"
The weight of the dog shifted in her arms. For a brief moment, Seto was close enough to her for her to smell the detergent on his clothes. His warm breath washed across her neck as he pushed his arms between hers. He lifted the dog in one heave, turned away wordlessly, and climbed the stairs with it nestled in his arms. She watched his shoulders and then his back disappear as he took the stairs carefully, one by one, disappearing behind the hallway overhang. She had never seen him move so slowly before. His bare feet were the last thing to go before he reached the top of the staircase, made a right, and disappeared.
"Well," Mokuba said and she looked back down at him, somewhat confused. Seeing Kaiba in a pair of casual black lounge pants and a loose grey t-shirt had been somewhat alarming. It had never crossed her mind that Kaiba wore anything other than his intimidating work ensemble. Along that note, it was strange to think that he lived in a luxury apartment and not in his office. Mokuba was saying something.
"-are you gonna come inside? If you stay standing out here, you'll probably catch a cold."
"No, I...I'm just gonna go. My bike-" she turned and saw that her bike was still laying on its side, poking partly out of the bushes. Even in the dusty light of the streetlamps, she could tell that the pedals and handlebar were fucked.
"You're bleeding. Are you hurt?"
"Um…" her knee was throbbing. It was starting to swell and turn a rough shade of pink beneath the torn fabric. "I guess I am."
"Come on in, we'll get you fixed up in no time," Mokuba said, standing aside to make room for her past the door. "Don't worry about the bike. There's a guy in town who specializes in bike repairs. He can have it done in an hour or two, tops. I'll have the chauffeur drive it down while you wait here. Don't be shy. We don't bite."
This did not line up with the image that she had of Seto Kaiba biting off the heads of unassuming peasants in her head. Like Saturn devouring his son.
She found herself struck by a sudden sense of shyness as she followed Mokuba up the stairs. But once she reached the top she gasped at the sight that greeted her.
She had been expecting bleakness, emptiness: something like bright white walls with the furniture still covered in plastic. A home unlived in with designer shoes lining the corners and dust gathering on the windowsills. But the Kaiba household was surprisingly cozy. Warm mahogany accents spread across the modest studio space. Before her lay a modern kitchen strung through with pots and pans. A large tiled counter framed by several black bar stools separated the small carpeted foyer from the kitchen. On the counter was an array of ceramic black and brown dishes filled with colorful vegetables, thin slabs of glinting pink salmon, and still-steaming rice. Something was boiling on the stovetop beyond. The gentle sound of bubbling and the enticing savory smell made her stomach rumble. To the left, branching off from the kitchen, was a large sitting room with old-fashioned furniture overlooked by three giant window panels that took up the entirety of the wall. A chess set sat abandoned on the single wooden table, its pieces scattered strategically across the board. Someone had been in the middle of a game just as she had arrived.
Bu the thing that surprised her most was the ceiling-to-wall mahogany bookcase with a rolling ladder set right in its midst. To the right of the kitchen, a set of black wire stairs curved gracefully onto the small second-story landing leading to a hallway housing two doors on opposite ends and one smackdab in the middle. It was from this middle door that she heard the sound of a shower handle creaking and water splashing into a tub. Steam began to waft from beneath the door, carrying with it the scent of warm mist and soap.
"Pretty cool, isn't it," Mokuba said from behind her. "This entire studio was an abandoned storage space when Seto found it. He built everything, from the bookcase to the stairwell. Even the parts in the kitchen."
There was no mistaking the pride in the younger brother's voice. She tried to imagine Seto swinging a hammer with nails between his lips but the image didn't stick. If what Mokuba said was true, Kaiba was not only a master of innovation but stylish execution as well. The entire space gave off the impression that the person who built it actually gave a damn about where they rested their head at night. If the princess lived in a castle, then the prince lived in a Vanity Fair-worthy treehouse-inspired mahogany-paneled loft.
"Swanky," she said, wiping the remnants of her tears away with the back of her hand. A fire crackled from within a jagged stone fireplace on the opposite side of the sitting room. There was a cushy black couch set in front of it, with an indent in the middle. She wondered if that's where Kaiba sat in the evening, book in hand, legs crossed, lazily bouncing his heel. Music was playing from the record player beneath the window.
"Neil Diamond?" She asked.
"Yep!" Mokuba said happily as he rummaged through the kitchen counters. "He's Seto's weakness. Just...don't tell him I told you. Here we go! Go ahead, take a seat!"
She settled onto one of the barstools and lifted her leg. Her injury looked pretty gnarly but Mokuba didn't seem to mind. He was an exceedingly gracious host for someone so young. He lifted her leg, balanced her heel on his knee, and after a quick apology, began to snip away the fabric around her knee.
"You're Marie, aren't you? Our social media manager?"
"Hallelujah, amen. Finally, somebody knows who the hell I am around here."
Mokuba smiled as he dotted an alcohol pad around her bruise. She hissed at the stinging sensation and grabbed her leg. The shower knob gave another tenuous squeak. Humidity hung around the house. It made her sweater hot and clammy but she didn't mind. Something about it all was comfortable and strangely nostalgic.
"'Course I do," Mokuba said. "I thought the post that you made for the Emporium sale was hilarious. I just wish I was there during your coin toss match with Seto."
So he told Mokuba about it, she thought. She found this news deviously delicious. She also got the sense that Mokuba wasn't overly fond of Mizumi's decision to fire Sara, but he was too polite to say it. He stuffed the used pads in a little plastic bag then pulled a row of gauze out of the roll.
"By the way," he said before tearing a strip of gauze off between his teeth. "I forgot to thank you for catching Laika and bringing her here."
"Laika?"
"The Pit Bull Terrier. Seto's had a soft spot for her for the longest time. There used to be this gang that ran a dogfighting ring around the corner from the house. This was way back when Seto had first taken control of Kaiba Corps. All the neighbors knew about it by the time we moved in but they were too scared to go up against the gang. When Seto found out about it he..." Mokuba paused and wrapped the strip around her knee thoughtfully. "...he went out and found them. I don't know what happened because he didn't allow me to go with him but I remember being so scared. I thought they'd…"
"Right…" she said.
"...but when he came back, he was bleeding everywhere and covered in terrible bruises. And he was carrying Laika. She was mild-mannered but they were going to train her as a fighting dog. They had her running on treadmills at all hours of the day to break her."
"Jesus!"
"I know. I don't know what he did or said to the gang, but that night they released all of their dogs onto the street. I guess to get rid of the proof. But Laika was the only one that he was able to catch. That week he pulled the legal team off of the major projects in KaibaCorps and sent them after the gang. That's when the people at KC started hating him. They thought he was a hot-head who didn't have his priorities straight. It didn't help that he was still young at the time."
"Did they catch the gang?"
"All except for one guy. Kaiba's still searching for him to this day. He can sure hold a grudge." Mokuba gave a soft laugh. "But he'll catch 'im. I believe in my big brother. Laika stayed with us for a few days. But she didn't trust people, not after what had been done to her. She escaped one night and never came back. We've seen her around but she's skittish. We haven't been able to catch her. Until now, that is, thanks to you."
"Wow," she said, sitting back. Mokuba had wrapped her knee with expert medical precision. She lifted her leg off of his knee and swung it back and forth, testing it. She was thinking of all of the gossip that she had heard about Kaiba - that he was insane, a criminal with OCD and playboy tendencies, a megalomaniac with a tiny dick. But these stories seemed grossly exaggerated now that she was here, listening to Mokuba quietly recount a story that made Kaiba seem so...human. The shower upstairs gave another squeak and then fell silent.
"I guess I was wrong about him," she said, wriggling her toes along the tile.
"Yeah, I just wish more people realized it. He's really not a bad guy, Seto. He has a heart bigger than most." Mokuba suddenly yawned and stretched his tiny arms above his head. "Anyway, I'm going to go see about your bicycle. The guy who does the repairs is located pretty far into the city so I probably won't be back for a while."
He stood up and she quickly stood up with him. "You don't have to-"
"It's fine," he said, shrugging on a puffy Winter jacket. "You stay here and rest your leg. Keep an eye on Seto until I get back, alright?"
He gave her a cheery wave. And with that, he was out the door.
She stood in the middle of the foyer. The apartment suddenly seemed so overwhelmingly large. Neil Diamond was still playing faintly in the background, calling out for a woman named Caroline who must have been very sweet. She wandered into the sitting room and ran her finger along the spines of the books. Joan of Arc: The Maid of Orleans, Pride and Innovation: The Story of Amelia Earhart, Cecilia Payne-Gasposchkin and Her Marvelous Contributions to Science, Being Bessie Coleman. The pages of this last one had become ruffled with repeated use. She pulled it out of its place and opened it to a random page. There were highlight marks and neat, slanted notes taking up space in the margins. She found this amusing. Of course, Kaiba would be enthralled by a daredevil pilot who enjoyed flirting with death.
She smiled as she read a heavily highlighted line, cracked ribs and a broken leg did not stop Coleman from taking to the skies once again, this time on her own dime.
"I cracked my collarbone in the middle of a stunt once," came Seto's voice from behind her. She jumped and whirled around. He was standing in the foyer, wringing his bloodied hands on a towel. Laika limped up behind him, whimpering in irritation as she stopped to nibble at her bandaged paw. Her fur was still wet and sparkling clean. He must have given her a bath. The dog's tail gave a thump and subsequently knocked a hairbrush off of one of the side tables. Marie watched it fall to the ground, noticing, as she did, the bright yellow blonde strands of hair woven through it. She was immediately reminded of the woman who had let her into his office the other day.
He pressed the lever on a silver trashcan with his foot and dropped the towel unceremoniously inside. The front of his pants were soaked through and he was very, very shirtless. The sight of him took Marie's breath away.
"The people around me wanted to take me to the hospital," he continued in a bored voice. "But I thought to myself, 'what would ol' Bessie do if she were standing in my shoes?' She'd probably laugh and tell those people to fuck off, then do the stunt again. You wanna know something, Marie? That's exactly what I did."
Don't look at his bulge, don't look at his bulge, don't look at his- aw, crap I looked, Marie thought to herself as he walked around the counter. He stopped before the stove and lifted the lid off of one of the pots. Steam went rushing up to meet him, enveloping his face and causing his shoulders to glisten. He dipped a small silver spoon beneath the water and stirred it around, before placing the lid back with a satisfying 'clunk.'
"You look surprised," he said as he lifted the lid off of a different pan.
She was, actually. She was surprised about every little damn thing that had transpired since the day that she had raced him in the street. For one, wasn't a man like Seto Kaiba supposed to have maids running around at his beck and call? Where were the butlers and chefs and cleaning staff? Where were his architects and busybodies and security guards? It wasn't the fact that he was a man cooking in his own kitchen. Her own father had been one hell of a chef. It was her assumption that billion-dollar company owners lived and breathed their work with little time to do anything else in between. But there he was: shirtless, spoon in hand, looking very much at home in his homey environment.
She pressed the book back into its place with one finger and walked towards the kitchen. "It's just that...I haven't seen a lot of female groundbreakers given their due diligence in male-dominated fields," she said as she settled herself onto a barstool once again.
He smirked, his eyes steady on his work with the pot. "It's a shame, isn't it? So much badassery has gone unnoticed throughout history. To think what we might've learned if we had paid attention to what was right in front of our noses."
He lifted the spoon from the pot and carried it carefully towards the counter. He held it out to her - not so much an offer, but a demand - and she wished that she was brave enough to let him place it in her mouth. Instead, she took the spoon and placed it shyly in her mouth. It was a broth of sorts, laced heavily with hints of garlic, red pepper, and green onion.
"That's good," she said in surprise.
"Should be," he said, somewhat snarkily. "I made it. I like powerful women, the type who could rip your head right off your shoulders with a swipe of their finger. There was this matron back in the orphanage where Mokuba and I grew up. A lot of kids thought that she was a hard-ass but that's only because they were punks who didn't know how to brace themselves against the back of her hand. She admired the ones who knew how to speak up for themselves, like me and a few others. I guess you could say we reminded her of herself when she was young. Every Sunday when the other caretakers were at church, she'd open every single window in the orphanage and play Neil Diamond so loud that the ground shook. It was her version of church," this was obviously a fond memory as he was smiling, so small that she almost missed it. "After that, she'd sit us down and tell us stories about famous women in history. There was always something about the way that she told those stories, like she'd been there herself. She'd give us Moon Pies and remind us that those with scars knew more about the world than their peers ever would. They knew about the secrets and the darkness, and that gave them an advantage."
"Do you have scars," she said, her eyes sweeping across the unblemished skin along his lower back. She was thinking about what Mokuba had told her, that Seto had confronted the dogfighting gang and had gotten beaten to shit because of it. He gave her a blank look over his shoulder.
"Haven't you heard? I'm a Bosnian war refugee orphan," he said simply. "What do you think?"
"I think the only thing that I know about you is that you may possibly be insane."
"What gave you that idea?"
"For starters, you built an elevator into space..."
"Yeah, so? I fail to see your point."
He slid his hands into a pair of oven mitts and carried the pot over to the counter. If only the papers could see him now, she thought to herself as he set it carefully onto a metal holder. Truly, there was nothing more attractive than a shirtless man wearing frilly red oven mitts. Laika sniffed the air and thumped her tail in anticipation. Kaiba maneuvered a sliver of beef around his chopsticks and tossed it down to her. His smile had disappeared, but there was something loving about the way that he watched the dog slobber around the treat. He leaned his elbows on the countertop, the chopsticks held thoughtfully in front of him. She looked down at the spread of thinly chopped veggies and glistening slivers of meat all in their little dishes and realized that he had been working on creating a hotpot spread. And since there had been no one else there when she arrived, he must have made it for him and Mokuba alone. This made her heart swell with warmth and admiration.
"Jesus jumpin' Christ," she said, pushing herself away from the counter. She slid her hands across her face and moaned. "My head is spinning."
"That tends to happen around me." He picked up another sliver of meat and stuck it in the steaming broth. She watched, entranced, as the chopsticks twirled lazily around the pot, clinking softly.
"Pump the brakes on that narcissism, Kaiba. I put you in your place once before, remember?"
He found this exceedingly funny, for some reason. He threw his head back and did the Lunatic Laugh that she had seen on the screens around the city. Laika lifted her head and howled along with him. "I gotta say, Marie, you've got balls. So why is your head spinning?"
"Because!" She said. She began to spin around on the barstool, ticking the reasons off on her finger. "This is major What the Fuck territory for me. Because these three years that I've been here I've been led to believe that you're this untouchable, lunatic God with a vendetta against every living organism on the planet and you build elevators into space and jump out of buildings and crack your collarbone and laugh about it but then you're here in this tiny renovated birdhouse lookin' loft tending to a puppy rescued from a fighting ring and cooking fucking hot pot dinners for you and your younger brother and-"
Her revolution brought her around to face him and he stuck his chopsticks in her open mouth. The tenderized meat immediately melted on her tongue and her eyes watered at its tangy-sweet chili taste. "Holy-" she sputtered as she swallowed and coughed at the sudden punch of spice. "That's so good. Jeez, you're one helluva cook, aren't you?"
He shrugged, wiped the spoon clean with a fresh towel. "You didn't have to tell me, I already know. But you didn't just come here to stroke my ego, did you?"
"I-"
He was standing in front of her, close enough that she could just barely make out the lakes of crystal blue that cut through his irises. She could smell the strange mix of freshly chopped onion, spicy ginger, and wet dog fur rising off of him. By all accounts, it should have smelled weird but it didn't, not then. Beads of condensation rolled from around his neck and onto his chest, where a gold-lined pendant in the shape of a duel card rested. Slightly above it was a silver chain looped twice around his neck with a single key dangling from it. She had that feeling again, like she wanted to reach out and give it a good yank.
It was impossible for him to not know what she was thinking. They were both adults, the house was empty. By the accounts of all of the romance novels that she had read the setting was just right.
It's time to Fifty Shades of Grey this bitch, is what Ryo would have said if he were there. She reached out, pressed the tip of her forefinger against his chest, testing him. And when he showed no signs of stopping her she slid it down, slowly, to the rim of his pants. Say it say it say it say it, she thought to herself.
"Do I have the option of stroking anything else...sir?"
There. She said it.
"Keep trying me and see what happens."
It was the hottest invitation that she had ever received to a hookup.
She would have jumped him then and there had she not suddenly remembered the fact that she was wearing a very unsightly pair of rubber duckie panties. This immediately reminded her of the hairbrush that Laika had knocked off the side table, the perfect blonde assistant, all the warnings that she had received reminding her that he was a playboy, harem holder, master of mind games and…
Mizumi.
"Fucking fuck," she hissed, balling her fists together and squeezing them next to her head. She had completely forgotten why she had come in the first place.
"That was the idea," Seto said, his tone so dry that it could have sucked up the water in every major ocean.
"No - I mean, yes, god yes but I-grrrrr. Look, could you maybe put a shirt on? Your smooth, hairless headlight bright pecs are distracting me, I can't think straight. Go! Go!"
He sighed and retrieved a black sweatshirt from his room. He climbed back down the stairs, unfurling it over his torso. The shirt was loose enough that it hid everything except for his chest still slightly visible beneath the v-neck collar.
"Better?" He asked, taking a seat on the couch in the sitting room.
"No, but it serves its purpose." She walked over and stood with her back to the fireplace, her hands braced against her lower back against the heat. She felt like a student, about to rat out another. A snitch, as Ryo had so aptly put it, who was bound to get stitches. Was she making the right choice in doing this? She didn't know, but she had already started digging her grave. There was no other thing to do but lie in it.
Kaiba tented his fingers. It was obvious that their liaison had become purely business professional.
"I heard you talking to one of your henchmen on that day I asked you to give Sara her job back," she started, as bravely as she could. "Sorry. But I was listening at the door."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"Lis-ten. I heard you talking about a mole who was leaking company secrets. And I...think I know who that mole is."
"Go on."
"Well, there's no other way to put it, sir, so here it is: I think it's Mizumi."
She had been expecting him to freak out, maybe spring up like a snake with its tail trodden on or go raging about the house. But he did none of that. Laika came up, rested her head across his feet, and yawned loudly. Unbeknownst to the two adults, she had found her way onto the kitchen counter and eaten everything in sight. Kaiba had begun to scratch the fingers on his left hand. She had seen him do that once before, in his office when she had proposed their little game of coin toss. He was holding something back.
"I...I was in the bathroom at a karaoke bar," she continued. "Hiding in the supply cabinet. And I heard Mizumi come in. She had this exchange with this other woman and I...think it had to do with some blueprints that she had taken from the company."
"I see," he said, in a voice that ever so slightly implied the opposite of the statement. "Why were you in the supply closet?"
Her eyebrows jumped. "I don't think that's the biggest issue at hand, si-"
"-Seto."
"-Seto. She's selling your secrets for cash. Doesn't that matter to you at all?"
"I'll be the judge of what matters and what doesn't," he reached down and scratched Laika on the top of her head. "I wonder, though, why you're bringing this up to me now. Would I be correct in assuming that maybe you're the mole in the company and you're trying to deflect suspicion?"
It was eerie. Ryo had said the exact same thing, damn near word for word. "There's no way in hell I would have been able to get my hands on papers of that magnitude, Kai-... I mean, Seto. Have you seen my security clearance?"
"I've had vending machine maintenance men make impressive attempts on my company secrets. Your argument is invalid."
"And your logic is flawed. It's useless picking at someone like me when I just told you who your mole is, clear as day."
"I'll think about it," was all that he said. He averted his eyes to the corner of the room, lost in thought about something that she couldn't discern. The matter was cut, dried, and closed. She had done her best, and she could live with that.
"I think I'm gonna wait outside for Mokuba to return my bike."
"Don't be ridiculous. It's raining."
She looked out the window and saw that this was, indeed, true.
"I know but...it's hot and stuffy in here and-" and you make me feel like I'm gonna explode and I want you so badly but everything's confusing and I'm not sure that I can handle or what's going to happen if I open this can of worms, "-and I need a rain shower anyway."
"Fine, your choice," he said. He stood up - god, he was so tall - and made his way back into the kitchen, a full six foot one to her five foot four. Laika looked up at him with sleepy eyes then rested her head back down on her paws with an unimpressed groan. "But if you change your mind about anything-"
Yes, yes, yes, Jesus Christ, take me to your bedroom.
"-well, you know where to find me. Don't you?"
"Alright." She stood up and slunk down the staircase, out the door, and onto the blustering coldness of his porch. The yellow light flashed on and she sat with her chin in her hands, staring into the misty grey night and wondering just where she had messed up.
X
Ending Notes: I'd like to think that Seto is a feminist, in his own way.