No one but he had noticed that the lights were flickering and it was starting to drove him nuts. Not even the plastic chair that had been tormenting his back for weeks was as irritating as this flickering.
She certainly hadn't noticed the flickering either, or she would have made it obvious. As obvious as her annoyed eye roll when he would sit still for too long. Or the low, exasperated groan as she sat up every ten minutes because the chair was too uncomfortable for her.
Seto was finally able to raise his eyes after what felt like ages but she was already gone. He was not surprised at the tightening of his chest, of not being able to catch a glimpse of her.
For already many times he had witnessed feelings foreign to him in her presence and every time had been one too many.
He hated not knowing what was going on, what was going on with himself above all. He couldn't fathom why, next to her, he was losing his never wavering control that he had built through years of hard work.
Almost daily, Seto cursed the course instructor who was responsible for this whole mess. He was the culprit for why Seto Kaiba had been sitting in that obsolete library for weeks, unwillingly spending a lot of time with Mazaki.
At first.
Because he had to be that honest and admit it, at least to himself: for weeks now, it wasn't the instructor's fault why Seto was still spending so much time with her, but his own. Many times she had offered him to continue alone, but he had always refused and declined, pointing out absurd reasons why it wouldn't work without him.
Because even he could think that far: he wanted to spend time with her. He wanted to see her, he wanted to hear her voice. Fucking hell, he even wanted to touch her, and that was exactly one of the few feelings towards her that he could properly categorize.
Lust.
He was lusting after her like a teenager lusting after disgusting porn magazines. He was lusting after her like a virgin. Yet Seto, at 24, was neither a teenager and definitely not a virgin.
Seto was cold, callous and ruthless. Seto didn't get sweaty palms, he didn't let himself be interrupted, and Seto sure as hell wasn't going to be muzzled and left on a cheap plastic chair.
He was Seto Kaiba.
He was Seto fucking Kaiba!
And who was she?
Mazaki.
The instructor had managed to choose her, of all people, as his project partner. Her, the dwarf's cheerleader, the former waitress in his amusement park. She was nothing, she was a nobody.
And yet she had managed to become someone. The waitress had actually managed to attend her dream school in the States and come back. She had made it so far, as to open her own dance school here. And no, he had never asked about her God damn career, she just talked like a waterfall sometimes and he listened like a complete moron. To be honest he would have assumed that she was doomed to spend her life working in one of his places.
Until a few weeks ago, he had assumed he would never see her again. He had never given her the slightest thought. She had ended up as one of the least important people in his life in some dusty corner of his brain.
Until the state instituted a mandatory course for all those who ran a business with increased sales or other aspects. She had to take the course because her students were minors. And he, because basically all aspects applied to his imperium.
And Seto Kaiba also bowed to the law and attended this course, which had to be done through public government institutions. He, the multi-billionaire, had to attend the course just like the old woman over 60 who owned a convenience store and could not avoid it as an exception. And as luck would have it, Mazaki was also taking part in his course, and the kind-hearted course instructor had thought, why not put two people who attended school together and already knew each other as partners for a course project.
Seto sighed.
She wasn't a liar and he wasn't a hypocrite.
She was right.
He had been throwing furtive glances at her, sitting with her in this God-forsaken room for weeks, seemingly continuing to work on the project they had in fact completed weeks ago. Sometimes he secretly worked on other projects for KC on his laptop while sitting in front of her instead of going to his office. And he did that simply because he wanted to be in her company and be able to have a conversation with her every now and then.
He packed his bag and left the room with the flickering light a few minutes later after her as well.
Actually, if this were another person, he would never again dignify her with a single glance, declare the project finished and continue to enjoy his life as if she did not exist. But he had stopped the ignoring phase already a few weeks ago in vain because it simply didn't work.
Because Anzu did exist, impossible for him to ignore her. There were feelings and there were unspoken truths.
And maybe he was a hypocrite after all.
On his way to his office, he resolved to stop being one and to send her a message. Somehow he knew that after her statement today, she would not come to the library to meet him.
He somehow had to sort out whatever was going on between the two of them.