Climate Change - Seto´s POV
He doesn’t know whether he loves her.
And not knowing something he’d like to know is one of the things that make Kaiba Seto absolutely furious.
So he chose to tell himself it has to be love, that makes the whole thing easier, for, though he would have preferred to call it a transitory passion in any other case, love at least gives him some sort of an excuse for not speaking to Mokuba any more. A bad, fucked up sort of excuse, but he has learned to live with second bests.
Like being adopted by the most influential man he could find as opposed to living with his parents.
Like producing toys instead of ever having had a childhood himself.
But deep down inside, he still doesn’t know.
After all, he doesn’t even recall her favorite food, so he carefully avoids taking her out for dinner, and leaves that – much as he hates it – to Mokuba, who always will remember random stuff like that.
He doesn’t feel little butterflies inside his stomach every time they meet, never has.
He doesn’t blush when he sees her.
He doesn’t want to tell her how he couldn’t live without her any more.
And he most certainly doesn’t want everyone to know that this is true, nonetheless.
But, oh, he does remember how perfectly sparkling her eyes get whenever she shouts at him.
He does feel his stomach turn into a hard lump inside him every time he sees her, and that’s not the only thing about him that will turn hard at a mere glance of hers.
He does like to see her blush because of him, even if it is in anger.
He does know life without her would be desolate, after all this time, and he so wants her to admit she feels the same about him, even if it would mean to hear that she feels the same way about Mokuba, too.
And most of all, he wants all the world to know that she is his girl.
Only his.
Which, of course, she is less than any other girl he ever had, though she is probably the one that cares most about him. He’s not blind, he knows that most of the others either fell for his looks or his money, some for both, and the few of them that really believed they cared simply didn’t know him well enough to do so.
And even while he still regarded her as Yuugis annoying cheerleader, he was perfectly aware that Anzu knew him a great deal better than any living person, except for Mokuba, Isono and Yuugi – he could have listed Katsuya and the other moron, too, but he doesn’t count sidekicks and their sidekicks. Nor does he count psychics that might or might not have read his mind using weird antique items.
Thing is, Anzu wouldn’t be his girl even if she were, she’s too much of a personality herself, though she is good at hiding it. Just because she chose to stand by her friends come what may, and to sort out other peoples lives, she doesn’t depend on them to have one.
He never met a girl – or any person at all – who was capable of releasing such an enormous amount of small talk in so short a time, while being that clever, witty and actually funny.
Who even knew that small talk could be funny?
He didn’t.
Not before he tried to date Anzu.
Tried to, because you couldn’t really call it a date. He went through the whole program he could come up with to impress her, but she just wouldn’t change her attitude of polite, even sincere, interest and friendliness into something else, something more.
Normally, he has them pining for more after a short coffee break at Starbucks, for her, even a whole dinner (no candles, it was still afternoon, and it being their first date, he didn’t have to know her favorite dishes) and a spectacular sunset viewed from the gigantic panorama window of his office on top of Kaiba Corporation Tower wouldn’t do.
Oh, she would tell him it was a wonderful meal they had had, and that she loved that view of Domino. But she didn’t imply that that made him any greater in her eyes, and to be honest, he had to admit she was right. This wasn’t the way he would really want to impress a girl, showing off his fortune and his company. But then, he didn’t know any other way, and why couldn’t she just see that he was trying to make it nice for both of them?
And then, he actually tried to kiss her. He rarely kissed, except when he already had someone pushed against the next best flat surface, ready to be taken. He wouldn’t even call that a real kiss. It’s part of the sex, somehow. With Anzu, he wanted to share something different, true, even – and he had been rejected.
Rejected, at least, was how he felt, though she was gentle enough. She simply put her hand – soft, warm fingers, shiny nails that didn´t require any polish – on his chest and said “No.”, in a tone so firm, yet so unbelievably soft, it almost sounded like she had said the opposite.
Then, she grabbed her purse and walked out of the door, not without pausing to thank him again for the splendid evening she had had, and bid him a good night.
“Take care.”
Take care?
He never did anything else in his life, for heavens sake.
Took care of himself, of his company, and, most of all, of Mokuba.
Now, for the first time, he wants nothing but lose himself in some happy moment.
Just to find, once more, that happiness is not for him.
For a transitory passion, this is getting way to serious.
