Chapter 15 – Shots

"Come on, Marcus, pass us the ball already!" Luke exclaimed, waving his arms frantically in the air and trying to get Marcus's attention. Tea chuckled as she watched Marcus throw it to Caterina, who was standing right behind Luke to the right, and run away as Luke groaned in anger. "Oh, come on! That's not fair!"

"Hey, let's behave over there!" Jade scolded but was unable to hide the smile on her face. Walking up next to Tea she asked, "So, how was he doing today?"

"Who? Seto?"

"No, your imaginary friend. Yes, Seto."

"He was okay. He said he's coming over tomorrow again."

"He's visiting twice in one week?" she asked skeptically, her eyebrows knitting together slightly. "What's that all about?"

"I don't know. He…he wrote me a note about it."

"He wrote you a note?" she repeated slowly, as if trying to comprehend a difficult mathematical equation.

Blushing slightly, Tea shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, he left me one on my locker. We had a…kind of an argument yesterday, and he wrote me a note apologizing about the whole thing. He also wrote that he was visiting Friday."

"That's…really odd." Shaking her head, she said, "Whatever. To each is own…I guess. How was his head?"

"It looked a little better from what I could tell. I could see that the black and blue mark had subsided a bit."

"That's good to hear. The last thing he needs is a scar on his head." Tea chuckled and nodded in agreement. "So what was your argument about?"

"Oh…um…well, uh…can we not discuss that?" she asked, glancing over at her before turning her attention to the kids. "That was just a bad ordeal, and I'd rather move on than talk about it."

"What did he do? Yell at you?"

"Let's just say that, even though he did, I think I deserved it."

Jade sighed and replied, "Alright. I'll let it slide. But just tell me this: what was the argument about? You don't have to tell me what you or he said; I just want to know what you guys were discussing."

Tea wanted to ask her if that was any of her business to begin with, but remembering how she basically thought of Seto as a little brother, she figured it would be a bad thing to say. "I already pissed off Seto, so it would probably be in my best interest to stay on everyone else's good side at this point." "I just felt bad about not being able to help him when my friend attacked him," Tea explained. "But then I began to think about how easier it would be if Seto was nicer to everyone to explain his ways, and when I questioned him about it, he said he enjoyed being hated rather than liked. I kinda lost it there and let him have it."

"What did he say?!" Jade shouted in surprise, grabbing a few kids' attentions in the process. "Go back to playing!" she ordered, eyeing the kids quickly before her gaze returned to Tea.

"He said…that he would rather be hated than understood by society."

Jade just stood there, looking at her in complete awe, before letting her shoulders slowly slump forward, her head hanging. "It seems he still has his past riding on his back…" she commented, turning her body to face the kids.

"Excuse me?"

"Seto…he didn't have a good past at all. In fact, I think he would have been better off if he had stayed in this orphanage. I wanted to believe that he was finally letting go of it, especially since the doctors say his anti-depression medication isn't doing its job anymore, but rather he's doing it. Now I see that it was just false. Dammit…" She whispered her curse as she looked up to watch the kids, who had since continued their game of ball.

"Might I ask what happened that made him think that way?" Tea questioned.

"No. Definitely not without Seto's permission." Jade's eyes narrowed as she shook her head, almost violently, in response.

"But if—"

"What happened back then was horrible, and I am in no position to tell that to anybody. If you want that information, you'll need to ask Seto himself. And if what you said he said was true, he won't be doing that anytime soon." Sighing, Tea reluctantly nodded in understanding. "But…" she added, a small smile forming on her lips. "I am happy you care that much about him. I think he needs somebody like that; somebody who he doesn't consider family treating him well. Who knows? Maybe you're just what he needs?"

"Which is?"

"A girlfriend."

Before Tea could reply to the outrageous response, a sudden gunshot sounded in the area. The kids immediately stopped their game, the ball falling to the ground, as Jade's eyes widened in shock. "Inside now!" she screamed, pointing towards the doorway into the orphanage. All of the children ran to the door and inside the orphanage, and Jade turned to look at Tea. "Make sure nobody's outside, alright? I'm going to go in and calm them down."

Completely thrown off guard, Tea did the only thing she could, so she frisked the playground to make sure everyone was inside. When she was sure that nobody was left, she ran inside to see the kids huddled around the living room area. A few were shaking out of fright, but most seemed rather bored, as if this was a daily routine for them. Jade, who was kneeling beside a crying Lacy, looked up and frowned at her. "Was there anyone outside?"

"Not that I could tell," Tea answered, walking over to the group of kids. They all looked so depressed suddenly that it made her heart sink into her stomach. "Wh-what was that all about?"

"Just the local mob," Jade explained. "There aren't that many shootings around here anymore, but whenever there is one, that means something big is happening. So when we hear a gunshot sound, we make sure that the kids are inside safely. We don't need any of them to be hit by stray bullets."

The fact that this was a bad area for mobs never really sank into until that moment. "We have to bring them inside for their safety…" she thought bitterly, tears beginning to form at the edges of her eyes. "All they want to do is play with each other, having nobody else in their lives, yet they have to be on constant vigilance because the adults in the world are fighting over stupid things like territory and money. How…how sad is that?"

"Is…is anybody doing anything about this?" Tea asked, trying to make it sound as though she wasn't going to suddenly break down.

"Well, the police do their best, but Domino City's forces aren't exactly top-rated officers. We are in the best position in this part of town, however, in that we're away from where most of the mob activity occurs. We still come inside, though, just to be safe."

"So nobody is doing anything about this?"

"What can they do? As long as nobody gets hurt here, the police can't really do much about the situation save go after the guys on their own."

"But…"

"Although, you may be happy to hear, Seto's trying his best to move us."

"Move you?"

"Yep. He wants to move us," she repeated. "He wants to move the orphanage to the northern part of town, away from all the mob activity and what-not. Have you seen the construction site near the park up there?" Tea nodded her head, remembering Joey complain about his path for biking being marked off and eventually taken away. "That's where the new orphanage will be. I've wanted to move this place for awhile now, ever since I noticed the mob activity starting up around here, but we never had the funds to do so."

"And Seto's building this himself?"

"Well, not by himself, but he's paying for it fully. He said that he had a lot to owe me and thought this would do it."

"What does he have to owe you for?"

"None of your concern."

Tea rolled her eyes at the response, receiving a chuckle from Jade. "These two and their secrets!" she thought as Jade walked around to make sure all the kids were okay. "Anything relating to Seto's past seems to be in confidential files. What is it that happened to make them so secretive of his past? Sure, I know Gozaburo was a total jerk to him, but there seems to be something else that happened. And from the way Jade was talking, it happened after he was at the orphanage, so it must have occurred while he was living with Gozaburo. Interesting… I wonder if Mokuba may know anything about it?"

"Does the public know about Seto funding this place?"

"What do you think? Of course not. That would be giving away his secret that he often visits here. That's why your news about him visiting twice a week surprised me so much. If he visits here more than twice a week, I'm afraid people may start noticing."

"I take it you don't want the public to know about this as much as he doesn't?"

"I don't really care, but I do agree with him on one thing. Even though some publicity would be nice, these kids couldn't handle the paparazzi and all that chaos that seems to follow Seto. If news were to spread that he visits this place for the kids, his past would get leaked out, these kids would be harassed, I would be harassed…it would be just too much. No, he's done this for a long time, and so far so good."

"So how is he hiding his identity when it comes to building an orphanage?"

"When you see a building being constructed, do you question who is in charge of its construction?" Tea's silence answered her question. "Exactly. He's been really quiet about the whole operation, so nobody knows about it."

"Do you know when it will be done?"

"Hopefully soon. However, being the realist that I am, I'm guessing between a year or two."

"Oh…I see."

"And as long as you keep your mouth shut about it, it will stay that way," Jade added, pointing her finger at Tea. "You got that? We've trusted you with a lot of information thus far; don't disappoint us now."

Remembering how she had yelled at Seto over his medication, something that was supposed to be a secret, she slowly nodded her head and said, "Okay. I won't."

"Good. Now, it sounds like the action has died off, but I'm going to keep these kids inside for the rest of the day just in case something else happens. If you want to go home, you're free. I don't like workers sticking around after something happens. They tend to be stuck here all night since the police block off roads and do all sorts of stuff."

Nodding her head in understanding, Tea quickly grabbed her things and took one last look at the kids before heading off, wondering what kind of secrets were locked inside both Jade and Seto's heads and how she was going to pry them out.