You make me wish I was dead.
Friday could not have come fast enough. Ren had dumped her last two hundred into motel fees, rent at the storage facility where her entire life lived while she was in the motel, and gas for the Vespa. Needless to say, she was ready for a rent-free lifestyle.
Kaiba had ordered a moving service to transport all of her things to the manor, which had been a kind gesture, but backhandedly insulting. He had ordered three trucks. Her entire life fit inside of one.
But she wouldn't complain! She had been given an incredible gift. "Dealing with Seto Kaiba" would look amazing on her résumé, and she was being paid a lavish amount to do so. Despite how much of an asshole he was, she would have to keep her trap shut if she wanted to continue living in the thorny lap of luxury. All things considered… he had been pretty generous. She could live with a viper if it helped her get closer to the life she wanted.
The moving service made quick work of the moving process, and after an hour, Ren was alone in her spacious new home, left to unpack before Mokuba needed to be picked up from school.
She was astounded by the amount of space she had been given; her shared apartment with Emi might have fit inside the one room. There was a broad set of picture windows spanning the entire length of the back wall, overlooking the hills down to the city, and flooding the entire room with natural light. An enormous walk-in closet opened to her immediate right, and her own bathroom was to the left of that. The sheer amount of space was completely overwhelming, and she set straight to work opening drawers and cabinets, searching out all of the different nooks and crannies that would make her little room charming. She would need to acquire a bit more furniture for the space, but what she did have filled the room pretty well. A large four-poster bed was butted up against the left wall, and she quickly threw her bedding onto it, all black with a blue chevron-printed accent blanket, and set up her base of operations. She posted up on the bed from there, unpacking trinkets and clothing and putting them in their new homes. Her desk she set up on the adjacent wall, with her laptop and all of her photography equipment. She lined up her six lenses along the back of the desk, and set her prized Nikon at the forefront, gazing at it fondly. It had cost her an arm and a leg, but she was so thrilled to have it. She had saved and saved for nearly a year, but the D800 was the perfect fit for her. Professional, hardy, small framed, adaptive… it was like she had bought herself in camera form.
She couldn't wait to have time to shoot again. It felt like an eternity since the last time she had gone out on her own just to take pictures. There wasn't any one thing she preferred to photograph. It was just the way that she got to experience the world from behind a lens that she truly loved. There was just something about the way the lens saw the world. It was like she could remove herself from whatever problems or issues she was dealing with and see the world differently. With a new perspective. And damn, had that camera shown her some beautiful things. Things she never would have given a second glance before photography. It was never anything as overdone and basic as her morning coffee, but things that she had never slowed down to appreciate before, like the dew on the morning grass, hit by the sun rising over the Kaiba estate. The urban tumbleweed of trash and hair that sometimes rolled through Domino late the night before the street sweepers came out. And people.
Boy, did Ren love to take pictures of people. Everyone had little things about them that only surfaced in photographs. She loved the charm of crows-feet, those little laugh lines you get in the corners of your eyes that show you've really been living. The light flush that creeps across your cheeks after you've been out in the cold for a while, the real, true color of people's eyes when they're hit just right by the sun. Unreal! Ren couldn't wait to photograph Mokuba, if he would let her. The kid had the most stunning violet eyes, and she wanted nothing more than to capture every aspect of them. In some lights they leaned more grey and steely, but in the right light they just shone in the deepest shade of warm violet. She really wanted to get in there and check them out, but it was entirely too early in their nanny/nanny-ee relationship for her to start being a complete creep. But it was getting there. She was certain they would really be getting to look like a couple of freaks soon enough.
She had the same kind of preoccupation with Kaiba's eyes too, though for completely different reasons. His were goddamn scary. Aggressively, piercingly blue, with icy highlights and deep, dark shadows, and Ren was almost convinced that he was able to suck all of his poorly performing employees into them. They were terrifyingly beautiful, and Ren wanted nothing to do with them. Would they be an interesting addition to a study on eyes on different types of assholes? Yes! But the effort she would have to go to to get him to agree to get up in his face with a camera was more trouble than it was worth. That, and he might decide to bite her face off if she got too close to him.
"Are you more or less settled in?" Ren nearly shot the book in her hand across the room, fumbling it in her hands and sending it thudding onto her bare foot. She swore loudly, whipping her head around to the doorframe. Kaiba stood in the doorway; briefcase in hand and coat slung over one arm. He was home already?
"Jeez!" she exclaimed, heaving a sigh. She was almost convinced a serial killer might have broken in, but really, this wasn't much better. "Sorry. Yeah. It's getting there, but at least everything is in the room."
"That's good—"
"Hey, Kaiba." Ren cut him off, setting the book back onto the bed. "I just want to say thanks again. This room is really too much. You didn't have to do any of this."
"I know."
Ren set her jaw, her eyebrows knit in a tight line. He could have at least said 'you're welcome'.
"But my brother wanted me to. And it will be easier having you here all the time. It'll save you some money, too, not having to pay rent while we're travelling."
"Yeah, that is a good point. All that time I spent out of the country, paying rent on my—What do you mean, 'travelling'?"
"Duel Dynasty is in three days in Tokyo, and Mokuba will be attending with me. You'll be coming along to look after him," he said, as if the entire arrangement was completely obvious.
Ren spluttered, jaw dropping. "The fuck is Duel Dynasty!?"
He looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "The world championship of Duel Monsters." She could almost feel the 'duh' he wanted to throw in there at the end. "I will be collecting my title back, and you will be there to make sure that none of the shady people who creep out of the woodwork at these things to kidnap my brother, kidnap my brother."
"Kidna- What!? I can't have a little notice? No!"
Kaiba raised an eyebrow, looking down his nose at her. "You know, if you don't like your job—"
"It's fine!" She exclaimed, holding up a hand in protest. "It's fine! It's fine. I've got it." She turned back to the bed and began repacking a duffel bag. "Duel Dynasty, here I come."