When Serenity walked up to the patio at 2:55, her heart skipped a beat - but she also had to resist the urge to groan: Kaiba was already there, leaning up against the wall, holding two drinks. There had been a reason she made the effort to get there five minutes early: she had wanted to beat him so she could be the one waiting, casual and nonchalant, when he walked up.

So much for that idea.

Well, she could still feel out the situation for the length of time it took him to notice that she had arrived.

First of all, the patio was empty other than Kaiba himself, which Serenity found far from disappointing. She didn't feel like dealing with the pointing and whispers that would no doubt ensue if other patrons figured out the identity of the person with whom she was sharing an afternoon cup of coffee. Also, though she didn't really know exactly what they were going to discuss, she already had the feeling that it wouldn't be the kind of thing where she would welcome eavesdroppers.

As she approached, it occurred to her that Kaiba must not be working that day - at least not in the office - because he was very much dressed down, at least on his standards. He simply wore black slacks with a matching button down, accentuated by a dark brown leather jacket and a simple scarf. It was classy in an effortless kind of way that suited him.

As she stepped through the patio gate, he looked up, and their eyes connected.

"You're early," he observed.

"You are too."

"In my world, early is on time and on time is late," he said smoothly, holding out the larger of the two cups. "They told me this was your order."

Serenity lifted the cup to her lips, and immediately smelled cinnamon syrup, espresso, and steamed milk. Sure enough, it was the signature concoction she always claimed as her one free drink at the end of each shift: the cinnamon bun latté. Marianne must have been paying more attention than Serenity realized.

Suddenly, she realized the other implication of that.

"So you've basically told my co-workers that we're meeting," Serenity observed, taking a seat at one of the patio tables.

Kaiba moved toward the seat across from her, casually taking a sip of his own drink as he sat down.

"You all have cameras in the dining room and behind the bar as well as two here on the patio," he replied. "So I didn't realize it was a secret."

"It's not. I mean, I guess. I'm just going to hear about it tomorrow, is all."

Kaiba raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Well, yeah," Serenity replied, laughing a little. "What, did you not realize you're kind of a celebrity here? They're all going to want to know what you're like and what we talked about and why we met up."

"Surely nobody cares that much."

"You'd be surprised."

A moment of silence passed between them, but Serenity was overflowing with too many questions to allow it to linger for long.

"Truth be told," she admitted, "I would kind of like to know myself why we're meeting up."

Kaiba looked up from his drink, his expression almost a little surprised.

"Is 'because I wanted to sit and have a cup of coffee with you' not reason enough for you?"

"Well it kind of raises more questions than it answers," Serenity replied. "For example, why?"

"...because I wanted to," Kaiba said, giving her a look like she was out of her mind. "What, now are you asking why I wanted to?"

Serenity paused.

"Well, maybe."

"That's a shame, because I really don't have an answer. I suppose I just felt like it."

Serenity nodded slowly and thought about all of that for a moment. She could already tell everything about this meeting was going to be unorthodox, absurd, and completely contrary to every social guideline she had ever been taught in regard to interacting with the opposite sex - or anyone at all, for that matter.

"But there still had to be a reason it was me and not one of the other girls who works here," Serenity finally pointed out. "I mean, Marianne dresses better and has a better sense of humor. And I think Karin's smarter, she's always helping Ben with his homework. So why me?"

Kaiba laughed out loud.

"What, you think I just went out into the world desperately in search of a pretty face take out for a cup of coffee?" he demanded. "It's not like I'm trying to pick someone out of a lineup to fulfill a particular role. I don't have time for that kind of relationship anyway. I just had the desire to look at your face and listen to you talk for the length of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. So… talk."

"Talk?"

Serenity realized that this was feeling more and more like an out-of-body experience.

"Yes. Talk. Tell me about what you like to do and what it's like to make coffee all day and where you got that ugly scarf."

Serenity felt her jaw drop.

"This is an imitation Burberry scarf, thank you very much," she snapped.

"A poor imitation. But now we're getting somewhere."

"...I got it at a mall kiosk," Serenity admitted, suddenly unable to resist the urge to chuckle, though she wasn't sure why.

Surprising her, Kaiba chuckled too. For the second time in ten minutes, he had actually laughed.

"That sounds about right," he said.

"Well then, where did you buy your scarf?" Serenity demanded. "Does the great Seto Kaiba not lower himself to the level of a humble mall kiosk?"

"I don't shop at all," Kaiba replied. "And it's not because I'm 'great' - your word, not mine, by the way - it's simply because I don't have the time."

"So other people shop for you?"

"On the rare occasion that I buy prèt-à-porter - that is, off the rack - yes. But most things I wear are custom-made."

"Ah," Serenity replied. "What was that you said a minute ago? 'Sounds about right'?"

Kaiba raised an eyebrow, and a hint of some kind of emotion seemed to twinkle in his eye.

"Touché."

"Also, I'm a little offended that you assumed I wouldn't know what 'prèt-à-porter,' means," Serenity mentioned off-hand.

"What?" Kaiba demanded. "Did you know?"

"Absolutely not. But I was offended by the assumption."

Serenity was stunning herself with how bold and sarcastic she was being, and she could tell by his expression that she was surprising Kaiba, too. She wasn't entirely sure where this version of herself was coming from. Maybe something about the way he threw out all the rules of ordinary social engagement had opened the door for her to play the role of someone different. Someone a little more impetuous.

Truth be told, she felt like she was behaving more like Mai than herself… except that Mai would have accepted death before confessing to shopping at a mall kiosk.

"So why do you always get your coffee here?" Serenity finally asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "There have got to be fancier places, and they're probably closer to where you work."

"This is the only place in town that both uses certified fair-trade coffee and doesn't water it down until it's absolutely undrinkable. Also, I can tell that you don't leave pots of coffee sitting around on hotplates all morning - either you sell enough that it stays fresh or you're willing to dump it when it gets bitter."

Serenity nodded, acknowledging all of this to be true. She remembered very well the first time that Karin had sniffed a pot of coffee and then ordered her to pour it down the drain. Her memories of growing up in a home that couldn't afford to waste anything had immediately leapt to the surface and made the task more than a little difficult.

"If you're that picky about coffee, why don't you brew your own?" she asked.

Kaiba scoffed.

"If I don't have time to shop for clothes, what makes you think I have time to brew coffee?"

A quick response leapt into Serenity's mind:

"Your time is so precious… yet you found enough of it to get a cup of coffee with me because you 'just felt like it.'"

She bit her tongue, though.

She wasn't that bold.


Serenity kicked off her shoes and closed the door behind her, taking a deep breath of evergreen air freshener, instant mac n' cheese, and lemony dish detergent.

It was good to be home.

She had taken an hour or two to run a few errands following her 'outing' with Kaiba. Even in her own mind, she intentionally avoided the word 'date,' because nothing about it seemed like it had been romantic in any way, shape or form. Truth be told, it hadn't seemed like a meeting of friends, either.

Kaiba had managed, by a miracle of sheer stubbornness, to engineer a social interaction that resembled nothing Serenity had ever shared with anyone else up to that point.

Well, it had been mildly pleasant, at least. Unexpectedly so. Given the chance, she would probably agree to do it again.

"I'm home," she called down the hall, "and I grabbed some groceries. We were almost out of milk."

"Thanks for looking out, sis," Joey called back. "It's my week to buy groceries, though. I'll pay you back."

"Don't worry about it, it's just milk and toilet paper."

Serenity put down her purse and started to take a seat at the kitchen table, but she paused when she saw a yellow post-it note at her place with a note in her brother's handwriting.

"Package came 4 you sis - left it on your bed."

Clearly Joey had left the note thinking that he might be asleep by the time she got home, which, given the strangeness of his sleep schedule, had certainly been a considerate thing to do.

But she didn't remember ordering anything any time recently.

Walking down the hallway to her room, Serenity leaned in the door and turned on the light. Sure enough, in the middle of her unmade bed atop the wrinkled floral sheets sat a small parcel wrapped neatly in brown shipping paper and tied with a length of twine. She picked it up and turned it over, only to see her own name and correct address handwritten in black ink so neat that it almost looked like a font.

However, she immediately noticed - and realized that Joey must have failed to notice - that there weren't any postage stamps or stickers anywhere on the box.

Though Serenity knew in the back of her mind that it could be dangerous to open something so suspicious, her curiosity got the best of her. Pulling off the twine and tearing off the paper, she was surprised to see a box embossed with the logo of the fanciest department store in town.

When she opened it, out fell an unmistakably genuine cashmere Burberry scarf.

As Serenity bent down to pick it up, she saw a note that must have been wrapped up with it. She angled her head to read the quickly-scrawled black ink:

"Not from a mall kiosk. Same time next week?"