Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, though I do adore both Seto and Marik

Author's Note: I would like to dedicate this chapter especially to Caorann fridh Bronach, who's friendly emails helped encourage and inspire me, and who wrote a truly brilliant romance herself. I hope that you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter eight: Alien emotions

Yugi moaned quietly as he crept through the front door of the Kame's Game shop, silently praying that his grandfather was already asleep.

He didn't particularly feel like making small-talk with anyone, including even his other half, who he could feel gazing questioningly at him from the corners of his mind.

Please, mou hitori no boku, I don't feel like speaking...

Yami remained in place, still staring rather hard at the boy before giving a curt nod and withdrawing deeper into the fragments of Yugi's mind.

The short teen sighed openly, for once regretting Yami's presence, and tiptoed silently to his room.

"Back so soon, Yugi?"

Yugi jumped, jerking his head towards the direction of the voice with wide-eyes. Grandpa Moto stood before him, his blue nightcap lopsided, and a strange glimmer in his large, purple eyes.

"Grandpa...did I wake you up?" Yugi asked politely, still fiddling nervously with the doorknob to his room.

Solomon shook his head, apparently blind to his's grandson's anxiousness to leave the hallway.

"Oh, no", he replied, " I was just wondering how your night had went." He was staring almost expectantly at the teen, his grin held firmly in place.

Yugi's heart sank. Why was it that nearly everyone had known that he was going to ask Tea to the dance except Tea herself?

"Oh, it was fine, Grandpa." Yugi answered assuredly. He mustered a false yawn and pretended to blink sleepily. "I'm a bit tired though, I think I'll go to sleep."

He didn't wait for a reply as he swung his bedroom door open and retreated inside, closing it almost instantly behind him.

A tense knot in the teen's stomach contracted sightly-he really wasn't tired at all.

Yugi slumped down into a chair by his bed and frowned, confused and hurt thoughts still spiraling around his head.

Aibou, are you certain you don't wish to talk?

Yami's tense voiced echoed throughout the boy's mind, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat before retorting.

Yes, I'm fine. Yugi replied in a cheerful voice that failed miserably. Unable to ignore Yami's anxious stare, he added: I'm sure that Tea has reasons behind her actions.

As if that sealed the matter, the short teen refused to say anything more, pulling his knees up to his chest and pressing his head flat against them, knocking the rest of his dim room out of sight.

Of course there were reasons behind Tea's actions, Yugi knew that. In fact, Yugi was almost entirely sure that he knew what the reasons were. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he wasn't so blind not to see that it made sense a girl wouldn't want to go to a dance with the shortest boy in school-especially when she knew he had an alter ego that was so much stronger and braver than he.

Okay, it's not as bad as you think. It can't possibly be as bad as you think...

Tea stopped pacing and dropped onto her bed, sighing loudly and holding her head in her hands.

Her mind was the home of a thousand confused, frantic thoughts, all jabbing at her brain painfully and snickering snidely at her discomfort. Desperately, Tea tried to grasp the little bit of sense she had left, but it seemed literally impossible, lost in the hazed depths of her mind.

The brunette exhaled slowly, rubbing her temples as she tried fruitlessly to empty her frantically moving brain.

Alright, so what if she had developed a slight feeling for the CEO? It was only to be expected. After all, she had read his most private thoughts. It was probably nothing more than some sort of weird faze. It'd wear off in no time...

But what if it didn't?

Tea's painfully thudding heart skipped a beat. She couldn't deny that the diary had shown parts of Kaiba that she had thought non-existent, but that didn't mean that she could ever possibly love-

The girl choked. Why was she even thinking this? Immediately, she snatched up the little pink phone from her bag, fumbling as she began to dial Yugi's phone number.

So what if she had thought about Kaiba non-stop all week? So what if she, in an almost begrudging way, pitied him for his rough childhood? It was natural she felt bad-she was a good person! It didn't mean she was developing any sort of feelings...

Tea stopped midway, thumb wavering over the last number before frowning and pressing down on the 'end' button instead. Calling Yugi just to prove herself wrong was ridiculous idea, especially when she didn't even know what to say to him.

Allowing the phone to drop from her sweaty hands, Tea fell back on the bed for the second time, thinking hard.

But the only thought that entered her mind was how pathetically hopeless this entire situation seemed. Who could she possibly console in that wouldn't completely flip out on her? For sure, she no one she knew would take the news lightly.

Before a single person could pop into her head, she heard her doorbell ring from downstairs.

Tea sprang to her feet, leaving her stomach behind her, and practically jogged downstairs.

Could it be Yugi...?

Tea's question was answered immediately. In the doorway stood the much taller, and extremely agitated, Mai Valentine.

The blonde found her clutching the banister and shot her a ugly glare, causing Tea's insides to squirm uncomfortably.

"Well, hello, Mai." Mrs. Gardner greeted obliviously. "Tea's in her room."

"I...I'm right here." Tea voiced weakly, clambering down the stairs and giving the two a faded smile.

"Hey." Mai retorted in a deep, hearty tone that wasn't her own, "do you have a moment?"

Suppressing a moan, the brunette nodded. She led Mai up to her room, feeling very much like she were walking to her death, and shut the door behind them.

Her heart seemed to be giving off painful jerks instead of beating, and Tea couldn't help but feel rather sick to her stomach.

She knew it was stupid to be this upset, but the thought didn't help falter her nerves. She had never seriously gotten into an argument with her friends before, at least not one as big as this.

"Listen, I can explain." she blurted out instantly, holding up her hands as if in some form of defense.

"Really?" Mai replied sarcastically, making the knot in Tea's stomach pull tighter, "a reason for breaking that boy's heart? Do tell."

Tea clamped her eyes shut, trying desperately to block the scene from her vision, while searching frantically for the right way to explain...

"I didn't mean to." Her voice quavered slightly, but she continued nonetheless. "It-it just caught me off guard. And...oh, I just couldn't!"

Tea's hand flew to her mouth, barricading the sobs that longed to break free. She wanted to look brave and confident like Mai, but she could physically feel herself falling apart.

"Why?" Mai shrieked, her trembling hands clenching her hips as her purple eyes flashed angrily. "Why couldn't you? Yugi has to be about the sweetest boy on the planet! And you broke his fragile little heart for what-yourself?"

The brunette shook her head wildly, tears now streaming forcefully down her face. "It-wasn't-my-fault!" she gasped, finally releasing her hand from her mouth. "It was his! Blame him!"

Mai looked horrified. "Yugi-"

"Not him!" Tea wailed, cutting the blonde off immediately. She collapsed onto the bouncy mattress behind her, bawling emphatically into her knees.

"I don't know why I feel this way." she wept breathlessly, her body shivering compulsively between sobs. "I don't know why this happened."

The room was silent for a moment, and then Tea heard Mai's high heels tapping lightly across the floor towards her. A hand, or rather someone's fingertips, brushed the girl's shoulder sympathetically.

"Who is it?" Mai's voice asked softly. "Joey? Tristan? Who?"

Tea blinked her eyes open, her knees barring her sight from seeing anything more than darkness.

It was just like her nightmare. She could feel her life shattering all around her, yet all she could do was sit, huddled, and cry...

Mai's tone sounded almost regretful, but as for what she was saying, Tea hadn't the slightest clue. The moaning wind from her dream had returned, creating an echoing barrier between her and any other sound.

Schooldays were beginning to melt away into nothing, flying passed students eyes and creating a thick excitement that was constantly lingering in the air.

One, Seto Kaiba, however, only rolled his eyes at his own peers gratitude. He knew for a fact that Christmas break was good for one thing only-the need to hear teachers drone on about something he already knew was temporarily eliminated.

Still, the last three mandatory days were continuing to hover annoyingly over his head, and though Seto had a strong temptation to skive them, Mokuba firmly kept him from doing so.

But school's waste of time was not the only problem that the last few days were posing. Three more days of school also meant three more days of Tea Gardner, the girl who now knew his deepest thoughts and fears.

Seto still cringed mentally whenever he merely thought of the words he had written-or the fact that Yugi's number one cheerleader now knew them-but he was absolutely determined to erase the entries completely from his memory.

Seto Hashishima was dead. And he was never coming back.

The CEO found that ignoring the brunette was the easiest way to go about things, and it nearly always worked. Nearly.

He couldn't help but noticed that she was constantly shooting him quick glances all throughout the days, and wether they were loathsome or simply apprehensive, Seto couldn't tell, though neither sounded very appeasing.

And that alone was probably what had provoked his actions that Wednesday, sitting impatiently in his English class, as the teacher yakked on and on about poetry, a subject that he had always rendered rather useless.

It was literally impossible to ignore Gardner constantly peering at him from over her Shakespearian novel. The girl's blue eyes burned irritably into the back of his head until he could no longer stand it.

"What?" He hissed across the room, glaring rheumatically at the shocked brunette. Looking, as always, offended by his rude attitude, Tea whipped her head back over to the teacher, though her glassy eyes gave her away from truly listening to him.

"Mr. Kaiba!" The teacher screeched, a man with exceedingly curly hair and large, round glasses. "What do you think you are doing? Speaking in the middle of my class!"

A light mummer of suppressed snickers filled the room-it was extremely rare to see Seto being told off by a teacher. He normally stayed mute throughout all of the classes, answering in cold, curt responses if he had absolutely no other choice.

"You too Miss Gardner!" The teacher scolded when he noticed the brunette's satisfied smirk. "If I'm not mistaken, you haven't been paying a ounce of attention in my class! Get out the both of you! You'll just have to make up the work later!"

Seto seriously longed to retort, but for once held his tongue as he exited. Now, so close to Christmas break, was definitely not a time to receive detention, especially in a country like Japan, where teachers were revered.

"Nice going, Gardner." He shot the moment the two were out of the classroom. "I'll waste valuable time deciphering Shakspere's works at home."

"Oh, and it was my fault." Tea replied through gritted teeth. "I'm not so happy about making up work either, Kaiba!"

Seto chose to ignore her as he leaned his head against the hard stone wall, eyes focused on the clock as it's hands ticked menacingly slower and slower into reaching it's goal.

A strange, twisting feeling had taken over Tea's gut by the time the school bell had finally rung, and she found it very hard to concentrate on what Joey was saying as they passed through the school's open doors.

"...reckon he was just bluffin' with you, Tea. He didn't even give us work! Too close to Christmas, ya know. It's really stupid, they should just forget about having classes altogether..."

Yugi and the gang, like true friends, hadn't completely disowned Tea for her actions. In fact, they were rather good-natured to her. But even so, Tea could tell that their smiles were rather half-forced most of the time, and that many probably felt like voicing a lot of the things that Mai had.

But Yugi had to be worse of all. He had remained just as sweet as always, but there was something rather broken about him, and the warm glimmer that his eyes always held seemed to be fading. It made looking Yugi in the eye a very difficult task.

There were so times that would have made the perfect opportunities for Tea to speak up and tell her friend everything-only she didn't know what "everything" was. Both sleepless nights and countless ignored classes were still unable to explain what this weird emotion was, or wether it real or not.

Part of her was still prone to say that it was nothing at all, just a surreal dream or faze that would eventually wear off altogether.

And yet...

Deep down within the fragments of her soul, she couldn't help but hear a tiny, unbiased voice ring throughout he mind. A voice that was quite capable of believing that Kaiba may seriously have another side to him, and that maybe, just maybe, this feeling was possible-

The brunette mentally shook herself. Probably due to a heavy influence from Joey, the very thought of it being possible still made her cringe slightly.

"Ow!"

Someone had just rammed forcefully into her shoulder, and a sharp pain was beginning to ache dully within it, though the young man's blue trench coat continued to flutter in the breeze as he walked onward, never caring enough to even look back.

An abnormal, wild hatred suddenly flamed up inside of her, and Tea had a very abrupt, rather vicious temptation to smack Kaiba until every tiny inch of him was sore.

Grinding her teeth angrily, the brunette whipped her head back over to her friends, hands already clenched in fists.

"I'll be right back, guys."

Yugi simply stared questioningly, but Joey gave a louder response.

"Ya gonna tell Kaiba off? Isn't that what ya always tell me not ta do?"

The throbbing rage inside of her only seemed to flare up higher at Joey's words, and she found that her trembling body could only give a jerking nod.

"Do you not wantme to tell him off?" She finally spoke, waiting expectantly for the answer she knew was coming.

Joey shook his head right away, the first real smile cracking across his frost-bitten face since Saturday. "Come on, Yug, we gotta see this!"

But Yugi only gave a faint ghost of a smile before responding. "No, that's alright, Joey, Grandpa's waiting for me at home..."

Joey's smile melted off his face like ice on a warm winter's day. Edging towards her, Tea noticed that the blonde's brown eyes, for once, appeared very serious.

"That's the fifth time he's used that excuse this week, Tea. Sumthin's wrong."

The brunette's hateful anger slowly died away before being replaced with a new emotion: guilt. This was Joey's way of saying that she had really hurt his best friend's feelings.

"I-I know." Her vocal cords must have tightened up, it seemed impossible to push a sound through them. "I need to talk to him."

To her surprise, Joey was shaking his head. "Nah, let me talk ta him first. Ya...ya sorta crushed him."

Releasing a short gasp, the girl nodded, squeezing her eyes shut firmly. "O...kay." she murmured softly. "I have to get home-I-I'll see you."

Tea turned around before he even had a chance to respond. Throat burning, she quickened her pace as she strode down the street, eyes averted to the ground, who's snow was beginning to become streaked with mud and dirt.

Now feeling throughly depressed, the girl tore her gaze from the ugly ground to find that she had turned in the same direction as Kaiba. If she walked fast enough, she could still catch up with him...

As the same tense irritation struck her once more, Tea began to jog down the block, hoping desperately that she didn't slip on the icy sidewalk.

"Hey Kaiba! Wait!"

As if he hadn't heard her, Kaiba kept on walking, eyes focused completely on the elementary school that growing larger in the distance.

He must be going to pick up Mokuba. Tea thought, as she stomped through piles of rotten snow. That's weird. She added to herself curiously. Why can't he just get a worker to pick Mokuba up for him?

The brunette called out to the CEO once more, now entirely enraged at his lack of attention, and still battling uselessly against the large heaps of blackish snow.

"Kaiba-please-listen to me!"

Tea almost stumbled over her own feet when she saw him coming to a halt.

The girl opened her mouth, ready to spout out an entire speech on what a truly horrible person Kaiba was when he turned around.

As if by some invisible force, all her brutal motives seem to wash away instantly, leaving her mind blank and harmless.

His eyes were so cold, like icy lakes frozen from the chilled winter air.

But then, a tiny voice whispered in her ear, all frozen lakes melt in spring...

Her heart gave a strange, abnormal flutter.

No lake was originally frozen. It was winter's harsh force that made it that way, and spring's gentle touch that changed it back...

"What do you want?"

Tea almost gasped, snapping rather unpleasantly back into consciousness and blushing slightly. What had she just been thinking?

"Uhh..." Tea started weakly, tugging on a strand of hair uncomfortably. She was suddenly at a complete loss of what to say.

Kaiba stony glare, if possible, got stonier.

"I don't have all day to stand around and watch you gibber. I've got places to be and reports to write. If you have to say something, say it."

If Tea had been feeling quite like herself, she probably would have wondered why Kaiba was even giving her a chance to speak, but she wasn't.

In fact, Tea had no idea who or what she felt like. Her tongue was limp and heavy in her mouth, and she seemed to slur over the words that she so wanted to say.

If only his eyes weren't so deep and alluring, then maybe she could answer...

Kaiba let out a irritated sigh, and with a swish of his coat, he had already turned to leave when Tea finally realized what she needed to say.

"I want to help you."

She never thought that she had said something so utterly wrong yet at right in her entire life.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this, it's really getting close to the end! (About time too, since I'm still writing about Christmas in February. lol.) Please remember to read and review, but no flames!