Song Choice for this Chapter: Sway - Micheal Buble

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"I can hear the sound of violins long before it begins. Make me thrill as only you know how, sway me smooth...sway me now."

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Author's Note: I could not, in good faith, write this sequel without giving Seto a chance to let loose with his inner diva. Shame it's one of the last moments where he and Marie will be truly happy, depending on how you look at it.

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Seto took her hand and dutifully spun her around, twice. Her revolutions brought her to face him again and she kissed him, her back arching against his hand as he held her aloft. With no paparazzi and no flashing cameras, she was free to do whatever she wanted and she took full advantage of the moment.

He was what she liked to think of as a professional kisser: an expert at it, but refined and subtle. He had a habit of conducting all of his intimate liaisons with an expert professionalism that made her weak. She pulled back and simply smiled into his face, taking in every hall light-lit angle and gentle curve.

The Seto Kaiba, she thought to herself with glee, kissing me in my hallway?! He was so hot, way too hot to handle, and she'd never get used to it. He could live to be one hundred years old and she'd still cherish his looks like a fine, vintage wine. All of her friends had expressed a lack of interest in his looks, the consensus being that he looked like a too-tall schoolboy in vulgar designer clothes (and also that he had giant jug ears.) But they had never seen him up close, never felt the warmth of his hold and tension in his grasp.

"Soooo," she said while doing a drum-roll on his shoulders. "What're you gonna do now that you have me alone?"

He snickered. "I'm going to take my time and do exactly what I want."

"And what about what I want?"

Kaiba itched his fingers along his upper arm, watching her with the smallest hint of a smile still on his face. Suddenly he chuckled and placed a swift kiss on her cheek. Luckily, the camera placed in the corner of the first story hallway had long since gone dead. The scrutiny of others would never have allowed for such a tender moment. "As of this night, I think you'll be pleased to find that we're on the same page."

"You really think you're the same kind of bad as me?"

This, for whatever reason, made him throw his head back and laugh. "Coming from a girl who gets aroused by tiramisu?" He brushed his fingers along the bottom of his eyes as he grinned. "Trust me, Marie, you would not survive the things that I do in my downtime"

She fanned herself and frowned, not really sure if it was the heat that was making her blush or his incessant teasing. "Nothing wrong with getting excited by dessert," she muttered under her breath. "It's called food play, you fuckin' line shooter. And it's a form of art."

"Art's not really my sort of thing."

"Then maybe you should let me teach you a few things about it," she leaned forward, bit her bottom lip, and whispered in his ear, "daddy." His grip momentarily tightened on her waist and he gave a soft, hungry moan. "Oooh, there he is."

"Whenever you're ready to stop dancing around the matter..."

She laughed quietly and would have teased his enigmatic allure had Laika not suddenly lunged forward and sniffed her neighbor's door. The dog growled low in her throat, the hackles along her back rising in stiff spikes.

"Laika, what's the matter with you?" Marie asked, giving a brief tug on the leash. She could hear her neighbor's bickering back and forth, presumably over the answer to some late-night game show. Laika gave a nervous scratch at the door and whined, her ears laid flat upon her head as she snuffled around. "Weird…"

"She has a knack for reading people," Kaiba said, ruffling the dog's ears appreciatively. "Your neighbors must be Grade-A assholes."

"You have no idea," Marie said. She remembered that she still owed them a bottle of wine and suddenly felt a pressing need to leave the space. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They climbed the staircase to her apartment. If Marie was embarrassed to introduce Kaiba to her modest space, she was too drunk to realize it. She turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, revealing the shadowy space lit only by the green glow of her bubbling fish tank. She flicked the light on and watched with some trepidation as he took in the panties strung upon the laundry line by the window, the Celtic Warrior curtains, and dirty dishes piled up in the sink. Her space was nothing like Seto's with his designer ceramic pots and warm mahogany accents.

"Thoughts, comments, concerns about my living space, Kaiba-sir?" She asked as she walked towards the kitchen, shrugging the dress off of her shoulders.

He shrugged, eyeing her Y Tu Mama Tambien poster with a purposefully blank gaze. "I'll give it a one out of ten."

"And what's the one glaring, redeeming quality?"

"It's not a cardboard box."

"O-kay." That comment was enough to earn him a spot in the dog house, for sure. Still singing under her breath, she wandered into her room and slipped into a pair of biker shorts and an overly large t-shirt with a faded blue Care Bear stamped across it. When she came back out, she found Seto perusing her music CDs while Laika sniffed restlessly at her floor. All at once, a crushing migraine hit her and she stumbled into her kitchen, metally willing herself not to throw up. A wise man once said that a cure for any early-onset hangover was a concoction of gin, egg yolk, hot sauce, and pepper. And at that point, she was willing to try anything.

"God damn," she said as she cracked an egg against the rim of a glass cup. "Here's to hoping that mysterious little briefcase of yours is filled with Tylenol and-"

She was cut off by the sound of several Marimba horns blaring from her stereo, loud enough to make her scream. She recognized the intro: it was the beginning of Sway, an old classic song that she loved. Seto must have accidentally bumped into her stereo and turned it on.

She looked up from her glass, more than ready to tease his clumsiness, but the sight that greeted her made the egg drop from her hands.

It was Seto.

He was swaying his hips side-to-side, slowly, curiously. He ran his hands up his thigh and then turned around with his eyes closed. As she watched with a slack jaw, he made his way towards her, his boots sliding smoothly against her carpet.

"No." She gulped. "You're not gonna-"

But he did. He took it there, and he took it fast.

"When marimba rhythms start to play, dance with me, make me sway," he started in a quiet voice as if he was testing his range. "Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore...hold me close...sway me more…"

He leaped onto her coffee table, his arms thrust out in the air as he continued to glide his hips side-to-side, his movements slow and calculating and, somehow, perfect.

"Like a flower bending in the breeze-" he bent back with a steady roll of his hips. "-bend with me, sway with ease. When we dance you have a way with me, stay with me...sway with me. Other dancers may be on the floor. Dear, but my eyes will see only you...only you have that magic technique….when we sway I grow weak!"

Seto could sing! Seto could actually sing! Though she wasn't sure why this surprised her. He was insufferably good at everything, so of course, singing wouldn't be an exception. His voice was almost annoyingly grandiose - like that of an over-exuberant college student singing in a musical - but justified in the way that it rolled seamlessly between the higher and lower notes.

But, at the end of the day, both his singing and dancing style were so captivating that all Marie could do was stare as he sauntered around her coffee table, his eyes closed and brows creased as if he was studying every single note in his head. He reached back, slid his shirt away from his shoulders with one hand, and then leaped off of her table.

"I could hear the sound of violins long before it began," he said, his eyes opened and on her now as spun the shirt around his finger. "Make me thrill as only you know how...sway me smooth, sway me now."

There was a lull in the lyrics as the music played. Kaiba did a flamboyant twirl with his fingers in the air, then slid them contemplatively along the slides of his abdomen. She was entranced by the fluid motions of his skinny hips, and the thoughtful frown that he maintained even while his body rolled and rocked like a peaceful tide. She simply couldn't believe her luck: there he was - the grand, multi-billionaire dollar KC president singing along to Sway in her tiny apartment. The glow from the kitchen light lit his face in an angelic hue of pale yellow as he reached down and pulled her towards him. Before she could even speak, he slid his arms around her and pulled her into his chest.

"Other dancers may be on the floor," he warned. "Dear, but my eyes will see only you. Only you have that magic technique...when we sway I grow weak-"

"Seto-" she cried but he ignored her and eased her into a fluid dip. He pulled her up, took one look at her blushing and sweaty cheeks, and grinned.

"I can hear the sound of violins, long before, it begins," he sang, lowering his pitch and falling a beat behind the lyrics. He brushed a wayward strand of hair away from his face and then rested his arms upon her shoulders, his eyes locked on hers. "Make me thrill as only you know how…sway me smooth…sway me now."

He fell quiet as the music continued to play around them, simply rocking her in time to the rhythm. She wanted to cry, or maybe it was just the alcohol still coursing through her veins. She immediately recognized the magnitude and mortality of the moment: never again, she somehow knew, would he ever sing and dance like he had for her.

His face fell, effortlessly slipping back into its disconcertingly businesslike professional expression, and yet she knew it wasn't because she had done anything wrong.

"Something on your mind?" He asked. Somewhere behind them, Laika gave a pitiful moan and set her head between her paws, her tail thumping restlessly against the floor.

"It's nothing, I just-" Damnit, she was crying. Why couldn't she just keep her stupid emotions at bay? "I have this feeling. Like, one of these days we're going to say goodbye to each other for the last time and not even know it. And I just can't-" she gave an ugly snort and buried her snotty nose against his chest, feeling wholly and absolutely at a loss as to what she was supposed to feel. There was a myriad of emotions coursing through her, and somewhere within them all, love and distrust were battling it out. He sighed and massaged his fingers along her shoulders.

"I'm not going anywhere, Marie. Consider it a KaibaCorps patented promise. And I don't break patented KaibaCorps promises." He spun her around one last time - slowly - and then pulled her back into his chest. "You know…" he muttered against her shoulder, his breath ruffling the sweaty hair hanging around her neck. "I like to think that I have a way with crowds and effortlessly influencing the minds of the masses. In fact, I know that I do. But seeing you up there on stage at the karaoke bar, making all of those people dance and scream their little hearts out...huh. Well. If I was garish enough to wear a crown, I'd take it off and hand it to you."

"Shut up," she said and then immediately regretted it. "I mean, please shut your mouth before I start crying again."

"Would you rather I do something else with my mouth?"

"Well-"

There was a thump on her floor as her neighbors banged on their ceiling, presumably annoyed by all of the noise. Laika immediately jumped up and began to bark as their muffled voices traveled through the thin walls and into Marie's apartment.

"Easy, girl, easy! Chill! What is going on with you tonight?" Marie asked. She made a move towards her but Laika immediately backed away, a frantic look in her normally serene golden eyes. Seto moved away from Marie and quickly pulled his shirt over his shoulders, a stormy expression slipping onto his face.

"Are your neighbors normally so rude?" He asked as he turned the door handle.

"Yeah. But it's nothing, really… wait, Seto, what are you about to do?!"

"Give them a piece of my mind, no payment necessary. Laika, come."

"Wait!"

She hurried after him as he took the stairs two by two, Laika close by his side. Before she could stop him, he was already in the hallway and knocking at the neighbor's door. Back at the karaoke bar, after Sara had delivered her harrowing warnings about Seto, Marie had felt as if she was standing on a precipice overlooking danger. Now, she had that feeling again but she just couldn't figure out why.

The door to her neighbor's apartment opened and a woman with large purple curlers in her hair peeked out. "Oh my," she said, eyeing Kaiba's sweat-drenched shirt and large silver KC belt with delight. "Honey, did we order a stripper again? Is it our anniversary?" she called back to her husband.

A few things happened at once. There was a flurry of movement as her husband appeared at the door. Then, there was a gasp and suddenly a fat man in his pajamas barreled out. Seto's head snapped to the side as the man launched himself into the hallway and immediately collided with the opposite wall.

"YOU!" Seto cried and immediately Laika began to bark madly, the sound of it deafening Marie and making her cover her ears. Seto grabbed Laika by the collar and hauled her back as spittle swung from the dog's jaws, her claws scrabbling madly at the linoleum floor as she attempted to gain traction. This was the first time that Marie had ever seen the male occupant of the house below her, and her first impression wasn't that great. He was a heavy-set man with beady eyes and a receding hairline. He sat crumpled against the wall as he stared up at Kaiba, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Well, well, well," he said as he scooted backward, his eyes shifting nervously to Laika. "Hello again, Seto Kaiba."

"Spare me your pathetic attempts at familiarity," Kaiba said as he strained to maintain his grip on the barking pit bull. "I've waited much too long to serve you a fistful of karmic presents."

"Seto-" Marie tried, but she wasn't exactly sure what was going on. It seemed as if Seto and the man knew each other, and they weren't exactly on good terms judging by the angry look in Seto's eye. "Hey-"

"Let me guess," the man said with an ugly snicker, "you're here to avenge all of those poor, poor puppies in my fighting ring?"

"Damn straight," Seto hissed.

She didn't like where this was going, not at all. Kaiba looked as if he was about ready to kill the man. She moved up and snapped her fingers in Seto's face, desperate to find any way to wipe the murderous expression that had twisted itself along his face. "Hey, hey, hey! Look at me!"

In response to this, he simply shoved her away. The female neighbor came up and put her shaking hands on Marie's shoulders. "What's going on?" She asked in a trembling voice. Marie shook her head.

"I don't know-"

"-you're mistaken," the man was saying to Seto. "It's in a dog's inherent nature to stalk, hunt, and attack. I was simply giving them an outlet."

"It's in my inherent nature to have Laika here shred you to ribbons," Kaiba said, his grip tightening on Laika's collar. "You're simply giving me an outlet to do it."

"Seto, please, calm down," Marie begged him. She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. His muscles were tight beneath her palm, as were his fingers as he held Laika back. It felt as if he was winding himself up, on the verge of pouncing. Sensing this, Laika fell quiet and began to slowly lower her belly to the ground, her dilated pupils fixated on the man cowering against the wall. Marie knew, then, that Seto intended to let Laika attack. And why? She did not know. All she knew was that something terrible was on the verge of happening.

"Heyheyheyheyhey! Seto! SETO! SETO! SETO, PLEASE, just look at me-" she screamed at the top of her lungs, pummeling his shoulders. The man laughed.

"Look at you, Seto," he said, his voice high with fear and disdain. "You're just like that dog there - a bitch. Or maybe you've been neutered. Because it looks like you just don't have the balls to-"

Marie had to do something, and fast. She could see by the widening of Seto's eyes that he intended to let Laika go and maul the man. That, or he would do it himself. Never before had she felt so frightened of him - but looking into his face, she realized that he was capable and willing to orchestrate irrevocable violence.

Laika gave one last warning snarl. Her tail twitched once, twice. Her hackles rippled, her gums bared pink and spit-slickened above her curved canine teeth. Seto's jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth, his blue eyes zoned in on the man before him. She saw, as if in slow-motion, as his fingers began to uncurl from Laika's collar and knew that she had to act, and quick.

So she slung her hand over her shoulder, gathered all of the force that she could…

...and slapped Seto with the back of her hand, all five rings intact.

His head snapped back and he collided with the wall behind him. His hand slid away from the dog's collar. Without hesitation, Laika leaped forward as her neighbor jumped up and began to run. Suddenly weak, Marie covered her mouth and fell to her knees as she listened to the sound of her neighbor yelping in pain and begging Seto for mercy.