Kisara was curled up on a sofa in the Kaibas' den, absentmindedly browsing the internet, with Mokuba next to her. Downstairs, dozens of workers were setting up the annual KaibaCorp black and white ball, a holiday party for all the employees of KaibaCorp's Domino headquarters, which was scheduled to start in a little less than six hours. Roland was supervising the transformation of the downstairs living room into an elaborate ballroom while Kisara and Mokuba hid from the action upstairs. Seto had disappeared to his bedroom as soon as the first workers arrived, and hadn't emerged since.
"Seto hates the black and white ball," Mokuba said suddenly. He had skimmed the top off of some of the caterer's appetizers, and was munching on a miniature spinach quiche.
Kisara blinked, startled by Mokuba's sudden declaration. "Yeah?"
Mokuba nodded grimly. "Seto hates crowds, and he hates talking to people he doesn't know. I bet Seto wouldn't show up at all, but the board says that it's bad for morale."
Kisara nodded slowly. "That makes sense," she said finally.
Mokuba fidgeted, looking uncomfortable. "The doctor gave him pills, because he gets really upset sometimes when he has to be around so many people. He gets really quiet, and then really stiff, and then he starts getting really irritable."
Kisara felt a pang of sympathy. Mokuba's mouth was tight; it was clear that talking about his brother's weaknesses made him feel uncomfortable. She extended her arm to Mokuba, gently resting her hand on the boy's shoulder.
"It's okay. I won't tell anybody," she said solemnly.
Mokuba glanced at her for a split second before looking away. "It's...not just that," he said hesitantly.
Kisara's stomach twisted, but she tried her best to sound calm. "What is it?"
Mokuba looked a little sheepish. "Seto's medicine is downstairs in the cabinet above the coffee machine," he said finally. "He's not going to go get it because there's already a lot of people here."
Kisara sighed. "You want me to go get it."
The boy's eyes lit up, and he nodded at her. "Yeah, that's right. You're the best, Kisara."
She rolled her eyes. "You know, I don't want to do it, either."
Mokuba grinned. "You're the best, Kisara."
Anxiously, Kisara glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was brushed, braided, and wound into a loose updo at the nape of her neck; silver tendrils were gently loosened and curled to frame her face. Her dark blue eyes were accented with a shimmery, smudgy charcoal-colored eyeliner, and her cheeks were highlighted with a peachy color that brought a delicate warmth to her pale skin. The weekend before, realizing that black tie probably meant looking like an adult, and thus wearing lipstick, Kisara had brooded over lipstick colors at a department store until one of the sales representatives, recognizing a helpless soul when they saw one, directed her towards a shimmery sort of soft-rose color. The same representative had helped Kisara pick a dress, a conservatively knee-length and high-cut number in a lacy white fabric, cinched at the waist with an intricately beaded royal-blue belt that tied into a large bow in the back. Spending increasing amounts of time with the Kaiba brothers meant eating less like a broke twenty-two year old girl and more like a teenage boy; the extra weight she was carrying gave her a soft, gentle appearance. Kisara was almost hypnotized by her reflection; she barely recognized the elegant figure staring back at her.
Kisara gulped as she sized up Seto in his formal wear. His crisply tailored black suit made him look even lankier and broader-shouldered than he already was; his blue tie matched perfectly with the bow on Kisara's dress, drawing out the unnaturally bright color of his eyes. She noticed with a smile that his Duel Monsters card-shaped locket was tucked into his dress shirt, leaving just a glimpse of the well-worn leather cord visible. He looked every bit the part of the handsome young high-tech CEO—Kisara had almost forgotten, in the haze of late-night work binges and exasperating hours of resolving merge conflicts that constituted the past week leading up to finals, how disarmingly handsome her boyfriend was.
"You look amazing," Kisara said, wrapping her arm around Seto's.
Seto's eyes narrowed. "Don't patronize me, Kisara."
Kisara frowned. "I'm not trying to. I just..." She gulped. "You're really handsome. It kinda makes me nervous."
Hesitantly, Seto wrapped his arm around Kisara's waist, tugging her towards his side. She leaned her head against his chest and felt a soft peck his lips against the top of her head. She stared at the neatly polished couple in the mirror in amazement. She had never been to a high school prom, but this was how she imagined it must have felt for everyone else: she felt both very pretty and very anxious. Kisara leaned her weight forwards, balancing on her tiptoes to give Seto a kiss on the cheek.
"It's only a couple of hours," she rationalized, tracing the curve of Seto's jaw with one finger.
Seto's mouth was pulled into a grim line. "There's going to be a lot of eyes on you," he said, apparently oblivious to Kisara's gentle gesture.
She sighed, pecking his cheek again. "I know. I'm kind of terrified. But, I think I can handle it."
Seto turned to look at her. His head tilted, much in the way that she had seen him study a particularly vexing line of code, and she felt as if he were deconstructing her on the spot. "You're a personal guest of the company CEO," he said slowly, as if he weren't sure she understood her position.
"I'm a twenty-two year old computer science student. If I weren't your personal guest"-the words sounded awkward, almost insulting, in how impersonal they felt-"I would probably be sucking up to these people, trying to get an unpaid internship. Goodness forbid anyone thought I was qualified to hire me for a job."
Seto straightened his tie and pushed his shoulders back slightly, and with those slight adjustments to his appearance, he suddenly looked confident again. Kisara marveled at how practiced his familiar stiff posture was; she could hardly fathom the amount of stress it took for him to make it through a single day. "It's not an interview, Kisara. You don't need to astonish them with your breakthrough research in systems theory." He turned his head towards her, and she watched as an almost intangibly slight, but genuine smile stretched across his lips. "That would be too easy for you. These people want to know what you're like as a personal guest of Seto Kaiba."
Having never been to a black-tie work gala for a company worth billions of dollars, Kisara couldn't be quite sure what normal decorations would look like, but she was willing to guess that typical ornamentation would emnot/em include a four foot-tall ice sculpture of a Blue Eyes White Dragon. And yet, she found herself eye-to-eye with a Blue Eyes as she filled a goblet with punch. A shiver passed through her spine as she stared into the blank, elaborately carved eyes of the dragon; since Seto had first shown her the card early on in their relationship, she felt an almost magnetic attraction to the mythical beast. She wasn't sure if an ice bar—open bar, at that—illuminated with a LED display that glowed in shades from turquoise to violet was standard fare for work parties, either—but she was enjoying it to its fullest.
Refilling her punch glass gave Kisara a welcome opportunity to step away from the table where she and Seto had planted themselves; she should have been able to predict it, but Seto was magnetic, attracting what Kisara estimated to be three new people for every one that drifted away to enjoy the gala elsewhere. None of the people who flocked to Seto in hordes had much to say to them other than the kind of small talk that Kisara knew Seto dreaded: thank you so much, what a lovely party, what a great year at Kaiba Corp it was congratulations sir. As Seto had accurately predicted, Kisara found herself more the recipient of curious stares than any questions; so far, most of her time at the gala had been spent giving what she hoped to be cool and dignified smiles to KaibaCorp employees who stole glances at her in between stiff, formal exchanges with Seto.
Kisara drained a long sip from her glass, admiring the hypnotizing lights behind the bar as they pulsed from a bright cyan to a more gentle shade of sky blue. The bartender, a spiky-haired boy with smooth, copper skin that appeared to glow from within, winked as her gaze passed over him, and Kisara felt her heart skip a beat before she looked away awkwardly. She wasn't plain looking, per se, but didn't tend to flaunt her looks on an average day; the extra attention she was receiving in her fancy, well-fitted attire, on top of the attention she was receiving by virtue of being the mysterious Mr. Kaiba's Girlfriend, was overwhelming. The whole scene—the gently glowing lights, the elegant clothing, the smell of alcohol and hors d'oeuvres, the soft music that gently muffled the chatter of hundreds of people to a distant, muffled buzz—started to overwhelm her. Her head felt like it was spinning, and was about to lean her palm against a table when she was startled by the feeling of a tap on her shoulder.
"Ahh! You scared me!" Kisara found herself face-to-face with Mokuba, who was standing behind her.
Mokuba looked sheepish; Kisara wasn't sure if she was imagining the smell of punch on the boy's breath. "Seto's outside, in the lemon grove," he said softly, leaning close to Kisara as if he were sharing a critical secret.
Remembering Mokuba's words earlier about Seto and his difficulty with crowds, Kisara felt her heart jump, and suddenly the world jumped back into focus. "Is he alright?" she asked, feeling her lips purse with concern.
"He's alright," Mokuba nodded. "He made his appearances, and the employees are happy. I think he wants you to join him."
Kisara nodded gratefully, watching as Mokuba disappeared into the crowd. The younger boy appeared to be enjoying the attention he was receiving, delightedly shaking the hand of a middle-aged woman who was appeared to be staking out the young vice president, but he glanced over his shoulder to give Kisara a final, encouraging nod. Kisara smiled back, stopping to grab her full punch glass before slipping into the hallway. She gave the security guard posted by the back-door to the kitchen a quick smile and a nod before slipping past him, and into the freezing-cold night.
The Kaibas' yard was huge; the lemon grove lay in the distance past a rock garden covered in a layer of snow that glistened in the moonlight. Kisara shivered. In her haste to escape the gala in search of Seto, she had forgotten to take a jacket along with her. She shuddered, quickening her pace as much as she would dare without risking slipping on the slippery, coarse snow. The snow in the rock garden was hard-packed by the footsteps of the dozens of workers who had traveled between the kitchen and the backyard to set up for the gala, but at the edge of the garden, a single set of footsteps led off into the trees.
Seto Kaiba was wrapped in a fur-lined coat that Kisara desperately wanted to claim for herself and bury her face into. He turned as he heard her approach, taking a few steps towards her. She felt both embarrassed and relieved as she saw him remove his coat and wrap it around her bare shoulders.
"Good God, Kisara. You could have stopped for a jacket." Seto's voice was stern and patronizing in a way that made Kisara feel indignant, but she was too cold to protest.
"Mokuba said you wanted me here. I came," she responded. She took a step towards him, scrunching the sleeve of his coat up so she could grasp his hand. "You doing okay?"
Seto's smile was uncharacteristically soft. "I'll be alright," he said, giving her hand a quick pulse. "Come on, walk with me." The pair set off on a wayward path through the frozen lemon trees.