Song Choice For This Chapter: The Sweetest Taboo - Sade

X

"There's a quiet storm, and it never felt like this before.

There's a quiet storm that is you. There's a quiet storm

And it never felt this hot before...giving me something that's taboo

(Sometimes I think you're just too good for me)."

X

"And then she said, 'enjoy your gusto before he takes it from you.' "

"Wow. That's harsh."

"I know. She made it sound like he's some sort of serial killer out to steal my organs. Ever read Silence of the Lambs?"

Tea pulled a face and then gave a twirl that made the screen explode in neon emojis. Marie's version of the twirl wasn't nearly as graceful, but she was willing to bet that she'd be able to catch up to Tea's fifty-point lead.

Eventually.

"Mmmm...cannibalism and murder aren't really my sort of thing," Tea said, putting her hands on her hips and giving a little wriggle.

"Neither are they Seto's! Although the gossip magazines might disagree." Marie couldn't take it anymore. Either her lungs would lose the ability to take in oxygen or her legs would seize up on her. She gave a mighty huff and shuffled towards the ice cream on her kitchen counter like a woman dying of starvation. Tea gave an excited whoop as she beat her highest score on Dance Dance Revolution. Again.

"See, that's not fair," Marie called over the music, pointing an accusatory spoon at Tea. "You're classically trained in dance! I'm just an average two-left-feet sorta klutz! Tea? TEA! Hello?"

But Tea wasn't listening, engrossed as she was in her dance routine. Marie sighed and dumped the entire contents of the ice cream carton in the blender. She added a splash of milk, several cookie crumbles, and a cup full of coffee before turning it on. Tea jumped at the sound of the churning blender and looked back at Marie in surprise. Marie turned the blender off and held it up victoriously.

"Down to divvy up the calories?"

"Yes, please! You know, the best part of being an adult is getting to have ice cream whenever you want."

"Requiem for a childhood," Marie said before taking a sip of her concoction. Tea lifted the bottom of her shirt and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. Her stomach was smooth and flat as a guitar string.

"Rowr," Marie purred, wiping ice cream from her upper lip. "Yugi sure is a lucky guy."

"What?" Tea exclaimed.

"What?" Marie teased.

"Hey, don't what my what!"

"Wait...what?!" Marie laughed. "Sorry. I just get this feeling that you're into five-foot-two guys with violet irises and punk rock hair. He was just the first one to come to mind."

There was a loud knock on the door. Startled, Marie ducked behind her counter as Tea lept up and sprinted across the living room.

"I got it," she sang and Marie checked her watch. 7:00. Seto wasn't due for another fifteen minutes.

"I'm not here," she hissed. "Whoever it is, tell them you're just a figment of their imagination living in my house."

Tea laughed and opened the door. Marie tried to listen in as best as she could, but the music from her tv was still playing and all she could hear was the muffled sound of another woman's voice.

"No, she's not here right now," she heard Tea say. And then, "Me? No. She wanted me to tell you that I'm just a figment of your imagination...huh? Okay, bye then!"

The door closed and Marie peeked her head over the counter. "The feds?" She asked sheepishly. Her dealings with KaibaCorps hadn't exactly erred on the side of saintliness. Tea shook her head and held out a manila envelope.

"Just some lady. She said this was for you."

Marie glanced at the envelope and then shook her head. "Unless it feels like it's stuffed with wads of cash, you can toss it. I already have way too much junk mail sitting around as it is."

"Maybe it's a check from KaibaCorps?" Tea held the bag to her ear and shook it lightly. "It smells kinda weird."

"You can open it."

Tea sat on the couch and slid her finger beneath the envelope's flap. Marie watched with disinterest as she turned it upside down and shook the contents into her hand. "It's a sympathy card. Like, for a funeral, I think. It has a picture of a bouquet of white flowers. Hold on, it says…" Tea opened the tiny black card and read it over. "Don't be a coward and play by the book. If things go wrong, you know where to look." Tea held the card to her nose and sniffed it. "I think it's been sprayed with cologne."

"Perfume ads are getting weird these days," Marie said, before throwing her head back and swallowing what was left of the milkshake. All she could smell was coffee and vanilla ice cream and she liked it that way.

"There's a number at the bottom, written in ink. Maybe we should call it?"

"Nah. Well, you can call it if you want to. I gotta get dressed. If I'm not ready by the time Seto gets here, he'll probably blow a gasket….if he has any left to blow. Where's the stuff?"

"By the door."

Marie picked up the bag of clothing as Tea dialed the number on her cellphone. She reached in and unfolded a beautiful blue ball gown that glittered as if the rays of the setting sun had been stitched into the fabric. Marie held it up to her body and flushed it around her ankles. The only time that she had ever worn something so fancy was in High School for prom. She was glad that Tea had decided to loan it to her for the dinner party with the KC shareholders. If she hadn't, Marie might have been inclined to go in a pair of jeans and a cardigan sweater.

"Hello?" Tea said into her cellphone as Marie slipped her clothes off. "Hi. Yes, my name is Marie Tonette. I was given a card with your phone number on it…"

The dress fit well enough, if a little tight. Though they were the exact same height, Tea was lithe where Marie was plumpy. Luckily, the wraparound sash seemed to smooth over her love handles. She examined herself in the mirror by the door, feeling very much like a clumsy Cinderella who had had a little too much to drink before the evening ball.

"Oh...thank you," Tea said. She sounded confused as she listened to the other person on the line. "I'll remember that, I guess. Hey, Marie-" Tea put down her phone, turned around, and gasped. "Wow! You look fantastic!"

"I look like I'm drowning."

"Well, my friend, drowning never looked so good." Tea stood up and pulled Marie into a hug. "You're going to have so much fun. Be careful. I've heard that high corporate dinner parties can be wild."

"Cocaine and strippers in the bathroom," she said then, seeing Tea blush, she added, "I mean champagne and bitters. I just hope that Seto knows how to choose his battles."

"I'm sure he does. C'mon, let's get you downstairs."

They walked out of the apartment, closed the door, and took the stairs arm-in-arm. Marie wobbled with every step in her low-heel shoes. Already, she began to dream of the moment when she took them off and swapped them out for the sneakers in her purse.

"Hey, Tea. I've been meaning to ask you," she said as they sat down on the stairs leading up to her porch. "You went to school with Seto, right? What was he like back then?"

"Mmm," Tea thought for a moment. "It's kind of hard to say."

Marie got the sense that she was holding something back. Tea was polite, she had come to realize, infallibly so. She'd never heard her speak a bad word about anybody.

"He was quiet," she continued as she spun Marie's hair into a tight bun. "He kept to himself mostly, but he was good at applying himself when necessary. Everybody thought that he was a jerk who was too good for his britches...that, or maybe he was a bit challenged. But I never felt that way about him. He always struck me as someone who had a lot of things going on in his personal life. Sometimes when I looked at him I got this feeling, like there were all these invisible, grown-up cogs turning in his mind."

"Makes sense. He was already on the verge of taking control of KaibaCorps at the age of sixteen. That kind of pressure will do things to a kid."

"Mmhm," Tea said, biting the corner of her bottom lip. "I used to try and talk to him. I felt bad because Tristan and Joey had a habit of teasing him to his face. I wanted him to know that I didn't think that way about him just because my friends did. And I remember there was this one day where he and I were paired up to do a project. I walked up to his desk, and he looked up at me and I noticed these dark circles around his eyes, like he hadn't slept in years. I thought to myself, 'that's not fair. No kid should ever look like that. Not at such a young age.' The project went well. He was actually very kind to me. I guess he could tell that I didn't think badly of him - he even laughed at one of my jokes! I said, 'Hey, Seto! Is it solipsistic in here, or is it just me?'" Tea threw her head back and laughed at this.

"I don't get it," Marie said flatly.

"He did. Makes sense that he would, considering-" Tea caught herself quickly and shook her head. "Anyway, we never really spoke again after that. But sometimes, every once in a while, he'd give me a little half-smile from across the room."

There was a mechanical swish as a limousine approached from further down the road. They both paused and watched as it made its way towards them. Having recognized the slick KC logos from a distance, the people on the street pulled out their phones and began to run to catch up with the limousine. Tea put her chin in her hands, a faraway look in her eyes.

"But...I used to worry about him back then," she said distractedly as Marie stood up. "I still do, sometimes. I see his face all around the city on TVs and magazines and it's like I don't even recognize him anymore. He's so...tall and skinny! But I also have this feeling, too, like something was lost between him reading books in the back of the class and him changing the world from his office in the sky."

"Like his youth was plucked right out of his hands."

"Yeah. He's like what happens when you open a bottle of soda beneath the ocean. The sugar flows out-"

"-and the salty water rushes in to replace it."

"Mmhm." She stood up and flashed Marie a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Be careful," she whispered as the limousine pulled to a stop in front of him.

The door opened and Seto stepped out. Like a clamoring wave, the people on the street surrounded him with flashing cameras and a barrage of questions.

"Mr. Kaiba, sir, is it true that you work with the Illuminati?!"

"Mr. Kaiba! Mr. Kaiba! What is your stance on global warming?!"

"Sir! Sir! Is it true that you were orphaned at a young age?"

Kaiba ignored them. He looked over at Tea as the two women approached. For a brief and traitorous moment, Marie felt a twinge of jealousy. Marie had only worked for KaibaCorps for four years, and only one of them had been spent in direct contact with Seto. Seto and Tea, however, had known each other for much longer than that.

"Gardner," he said, cordially enough and Tea gave a slight bow.

"Seto," she said back. "Look at Marie! Doesn't she look so pretty? Gosh, I could just marry her!"

Seto looked back down at Marie. Lights were flashing all around them as they stared at each other. At that moment, Marie could feel the heavy tug of the bun in her hair and the stiffness of her smile which was slowly melting away. Come on, come on, say something, she thought to herself as he held her eye. Please be the good guy and prove Sara wrong.

He looked away, tossed his head at the crowd, and said, "Don't you all have something better to do than stand around asking stupid questions? If I hear the shutter of even one more camera, I'll have my people find each and every one of you and make your life a living hell. This is not a request. And I'm not in the mood to be tested."

The people in the crowd gasped and seemed to take a step back as one. Seto held his arm out and Marie took it, shaking. "Come on," he said under his breath. "I don't want to be late on account of these slack-jawed lickspittles."

"Have fun, Marie!" Tea said, jumping up and down as Marie slid into the limousine. "Tell me all about it when you get back, okay?"

"'K," Marie said weakly before Seto slammed the door between them.

X

They rode in silence in the back of the KC limousine. Their chauffeur was impeccably well trained: he kept his eyes forward and his expression neutral as if the awkward tension unfolding in the backseat didn't even bother him.

Marie, for her part, kept a hot gaze trained on Kaiba as she held on tight to the grab handle. She swept her eyes back and forth between his neck and his forehead, wondering which spot was the most vulnerable. If she aimed right, she could pierce right through his skin with the low heel of her boot.

As always, Kaiba seemed unaffected by the world around him. He had his arms and legs crossed, his shoulders confidently straight, and his eyes forward. It seemed to her as if he was thinking about something else entirely. She could have almost believed that she was just an invisible little ghost sitting beside him.

She cleared her throat and he looked back down at her.

"Well, well, well," he said with an infuriating upturn to his lips. "If looks could kill, I'd be-"

"Stop," she said, squeezing the handle harder. "Just stop."

"Wasn't under the impression that I was doing anything worth stopping."

"Seto," she said, in no mood to engage in another verbal sparring match. Not then. "Back there, on the porch at my apartment. Tea asked you a question and you didn't even bother answering it." He said nothing and she took a deep breath in, steadying herself. God, she wished she could unclasp her bun. She felt like it was on the verge of snapping her neck. "All those people standing there, watching with their cameras out, while I waited for you to answer. I felt so stupid - and don't you dare even joke about that."

He was quiet for a long time, simply staring out the window. Screw it all, she was two seconds from jumping out of the limousine and hightailing it back home to the comfort of her glace au cafe and evening Adult Swim reruns. Once, she had found his silence intriguing. Now, as the days passed, it became harder and harder to bear. Or maybe she was just losing patience with him.

"Marie," he said, closing his eyes. "I see the way that you're holding onto the door handle. Just know this: if you jump out, I will jump out after you and chase you all the way back to your little sub rate apartment."

"Are you threatening me?" She asked in a high-pitched voice. Oh, that was it. She was totally lobbing a high heel at his forehead, consequences be damned.

"Is that how I make you feel?"

"There's a general consensus about the matter that you might be a little surprised to hear."

Kaiba shook his head. His shoulders hunched for a brief second, and she immediately looked at his hands. She had learned, long ago, that when he scratched incessantly at the back of his hands, he was holding something back. But he wasn't doing it. His hands remained nestled comfortably in the crook of his arms.

"They're going to try and shred you to pieces."

"Who?" She asked, taken aback. Her mind immediately jumped to Arronaxx, but he shook his head again.

"The media. Those creepy crawling paparazzi freaks and the gossip tabloids. Want to know about one of the hardest parts of this job? It's seeing myself proclaimed as a saint one week and then a devil worshiper the next, all thanks to low lives with too much time and not enough space in their camera. Gozaburo, my adoptive father, prepared me to balance books and do away with those who didn't align themselves with my purpose. But he never taught me a thing about having every fiber of my being trawled through by greedy media punks. Now that I've made you my Personal Advisor, I've essentially sentenced you to death, or worse, damnation by delirium for drama."

"I know that. I'm not scared of what they'll try and do to me."

"I know, Marie, and that's why I stand by my decision. I know you can handle it. You'll probably laugh at every cheap, sensationalized name that they'll try and make stick. But," his hand tightened around the handle above the door, "what I can't handle is the thought of what they'll try and make you out to be if they caught even the faintest hint of our more...personal business."

Marie understood exactly what he was saying. How many times had she seen it happen before? A high-profile woman wasn't allowed the luxury of both a brain and a heart. She could either be a cold, destructive warlord or a bleeding heart damsel. There was no room in the narrative to be both at the same time.

"I saw it happen to Mizumi," Seto continued and Marie surreptitiously gagged at the sound of the woman's name. "The media loved her until they somehow found out that I proposed to her. She went from being a role model for girls all over the world to a conniving, fork-tongued temptress in the eyes of the tabloids. So imagine what they'll say if I showed even a speck of a damn about you."

"They'll call me the world's sluttiest slut." By chance, she looked up and caught the chauffeur's eye. He was quick to look away, but not before Marie saw the flicker of detestation on his brow. She had a feeling she knew exactly where he stood on the matter.

"If I hear even one motor-mouthed journalist call you that name, I might just shut down the entire city. Hell, I'll shut down the whole entire world. And I don't care if you can handle it or not. I'm not going to let them paint you in that light."

She reached out, grabbed his wrist, and pulled his hand away from the handle before he could break it or his fingers. She pressed their hands in his lap and shifted in her seat until she was facing him.

"Hey," she said. He turned to look at her, and she couldn't help but smile. She had never gotten over how handsome he was. Or, at least, how handsome she found him. One day, maybe, their honeymoon phase would end. But that point was far, far away from the moment. A small smile crossed his lips, and he reached out to undo her bun. The feeling of her hair escaping its tight entrapment and flushing around her shoulders was beyond euphoric, and she sighed.

"There she is," he said, his voice uncommonly warm and kind. "But if you still want me to answer Tea's question then no, I don't think you're pretty. Pretty is for obnoxiously bright flowers or a sunset in a badly written romance novel. You're more…" he paused, laughed a little. Was it her imagination or did he suddenly seem struck by shyness? "Well, I don't think I have the right words to describe you, Marie."

Suddenly, like a snake slithering through the foliage, Sara's words echoed through her head: he's playing you for a fucking fool...he's wearing his good-guy facade and he's wearing it well.

Marie snatched her hands back and leaned as far away from him as she could, feeling for all the world as if she had just been punched in the chest.

"Is it just me or is it really hot in here?" She squealed, jabbing at the buttons beneath the window. "How the...what the fu…how do you-"

Seto sighed and leaned over her. "Good grief, let me do it."

By chance, and for some wholly inexplicable reason, Marie leaned over and sniffed him. She was reminded of the manila envelope that Tea had opened in her living room but, for the world of her, she just couldn't figure out why. He leaned back over and fixed her with an annoyed look.

"Remind me never to compliment you again," he said, the chilly snarkiness slipping back into his voice. "You look like you just got roundhouse kicked to the back of the head."

"Sorry, I just- STOP FUCKING LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT, YOU MUSTACHIOED CRETIN!" She bellowed at the chauffeur. The man averted his eyes, a small smile still playing around his lips.