[fic] Foster Care IX
Obviously, this follows all that's come before.
Seto/Anzu. R. And I don't own.
Anzu stood and watched as her mother wrung her hands and paced a hole in the floor. Her father read his newspaper with much more violence than necessary.
“I’m sorry,” Anzu said. “I thought it was a good idea at the time.”
Yoshiko looked about as awful as Anzu felt. “I know you did,” she said. “But we were so worried. We didn’t know where you had gone and with Kaiba-kun the way he is - “
“Nothing happened,” Anzu interrupted because the sooner she started convincing everyone else, the sooner she could convince herself. “He looked out for me.”
“Well,” Yoshiko said. Anzu waited for her mother to finish her thought, but Yoshiko never did. Anzu was left with the disquieting realization that her mother was - for perhaps the first time in her thirty-four years - at a loss for words.
Yoshiko decided soon afterwards that she needed to go to the grocery store, and Anzu was left alone with her father.
“You usually call,” her father said as he stood up from the kitchen table. His tone was mild enough, but Anzu felt the weight of guilt settle deep into her stomach.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Your mother was in hysterics,” he continued as he opened a lower cabinet and pulled out a saucepan.
“I meant to call,” Anzu said. Because she had meant to…before the alcohol, before the making out, and definitely before the passing out. She watched as her father got milk out of the fridge and cocoa powder out of the pantry.
“I know you did,” he said. Then, “I also know you didn’t stay the night at Yugi’s.”
The room was quiet except for her father making hot chocolate, and Anzu swallowed. Hard. “That - that story wasn’t my idea,” she said. “Kaiba-kun must have told Yugi to say that.”
“So where were you?”
There were some people Anzu just couldn’t lie to, and Mazaki Kennosuke was one of them. So she took a deep breath and told him about the hotel. And the reason they had needed it.
“That was incredibly stupid of you,” her father told her bluntly when she finished.
It wasn’t like Anzu had expected her father to say anything different, but it still stung. “I know,” she said.
“And since I know you know, and - more importantly - I know you, I’m confident that we’ll never have to have this conversation again,” her father continued, and Anzu tried not to look as guilty as she felt.
He handed her a mug of hot chocolate. “So next time you feel the need to stop that boy from doing something stupid, remember to call home and beware of bartenders bearing drinks.” Then he smiled at her. “And perhaps the Ides of March,” he added consideringly.
“Not Greeks bearing gifts?” she managed to say, as if she hadn’t a care in the world and as if she still wasn’t remembering Kaiba’s palm cupping her breast.
He pretended to consider. “No, it’s definitely the Ides.”
“But Dad, it’s June.” She tried to smile in her Dad-you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think-you-are-but-I-love-you-anyway smile she’d perfected about a month after her mother had started dating him, but her lips were shaking.
“Don’t speak nonsense,” her father said, mock-scolding. He turned a tad more serious. “And off to bed with you now. You had a very eventful evening last night, and I’m sure you want to get rid of those circles under your eyes before your erstwhile drinking partner shows up for dinner.”
“Kaiba-kun?” she asked. “But there’s the restraining order.”
Her father made a vague hand gesture. “Your mother will tell you all about it,” he said. “In detail until you’d rather not hear about it anymore.” He gave her a playful swat on the back. “Off you go.”
Anzu went.
***
Later, long after the dance party in her head had packed up (dj and all) and gone home, she felt almost well enough to actually face the day.
Well, face the day safe in the confines of her own home. She got out of her nice, warm bed, palmed three ibuprofen from her mother’s medicine cabinet, and then padded back out to the kitchen, empty hot chocolate mug in hand.
Her father had left a note for her, taped to the microwave. His handwriting so messy only years of practice made it readable. His boss had called and had wanted him to go golfing, but he had his cell, so if she felt really horrible, he’d come home in an instant. At some point, her mother had also returned home from grocery shopping, and she had added her own note: there was a small crisis at one of the centers, and she wouldn’t be home until at least five o’clock, so would Anzu mind terribly starting dinner? There was a smiley-face next to Yoshiko’s addition to Kennosuke’s note, so Anzu decided perhaps her death wasn’t quite as imminent as she feared.
Anzu looked at the clock: it was half-past one.
She washed the mug on auto-pilot, setting it aside to dry and waiting for the drugs to kick in. When they did, and the dull ache became an equally dull but fading memory, she decided she might be able to look at the contents of the fridge without wanting to beat feet back to the toilet.
Anzu was really the only member of her family that liked to cook. Her mother hated it, had always hated it, and only cooked because she worked less hours than Anzu’s father. Kennosuke didn’t really mind cooking, but his idea of “cooking” consisted of hot chocolate and over-easy eggs, and so, early in life, Anzu had learned that if she wished to eat the dishes she had tasted at her schoolfellows’ homes, she would have to cook them herself.
***
It was half-past four when she heard the front door open.
“I’m in the kitchen,” she yelled as she turned off the Kitchen Aid, lowering the mixing-bowl lever, and raising the bowl off and out of its holder.
She knew her mother was still at work as her mother was incredibly accurate at estimating time, but her father’s game would surely be over by now, as Nakamori-san, her father’s boss, never played a full eighteen holes on the weekends. So when Kaiba, Mokuba tight at his side, entered the kitchen, she almost dropped the mixing bowl.
He looked much the same as he had when she’d last seen him: tall, thin as a whip, and far too handsome for his own good.
“Hi,” said Mokuba, practically bouncing with excitement. Then, “Can I lick the spoon?”
The words sort of swirled hazily around her. She heard them, of course, but they sounded as if they were asked to a different person, a person who had it all together and wasn’t blushing like a freak in her pajamas and whose mouth wasn’t tingling in remembrance.
“When I’m done,” she managed to say, the linoleum feeling suddenly alien under her bare feet. She was a stranger in her own home, her own life, and she could feel his eyes on her as she turned back around to her greased cookie sheets and her preheated oven.
Mokuba, though, wasn’t to be deterred. It seemed that one day in the company of his brother had returned all his brash boldness that had been missing the last few weeks and months, and so he came up and stood next to her, generally making a nuisance of himself until she gave him the spoon and let him drop the cookie dough, spoonful by heaping spoonful, onto the cookie sheet. She even pretended not to see when he licked his fingers.
But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel Kaiba’s presence.
“Would you like something to drink?” she heard herself asking, her manners at least not failing her. “Dad said you’re staying for dinner, but that won’t be until Mom gets back, and if you’re both hungry I’m sure we’ve got something for snacks - ” She was already tugging open the refrigerator door, now that Mokuba had taken over the cookie-making duties. “ -- we’ve got pop and tea and milk and -- ”
It only took Kaiba four steps to cross the kitchen floor.
And just like that, he was suddenly in her personal space, reaching around her and pulling out the carafe of ice water. “Water’s fine,” he said, and she thought of the way the water had felt as it had spilled down her back that morning. She shivered, nipples suddenly (embarrassingly) hard.
“Hey, Anzu, how long do these have to bake for?” Mokuba asked, and she turned back towards the stove. He had cookie dough on one cheek and her mother’s hot mitts on his hands.
“Whoa, let me do that,” Anzu said, shutting the fridge and ducking under Kaiba’s arm, even though she was reasonably sure Mokuba had been around ovens before. Or at least knew enough about ovens to know that the burns were very painful. Kaiba seemed to consider helping, but as she took the cookie sheet from Mokuba and slid it into the oven, he seemed to realize she had it under control. She wasn’t sure if she liked him looking at her or not or if he was even looking at her and not Mokuba or if she was just an idiot for having such stupid thoughts.
“I’m going to pack,” Mokuba announced to the kitchen-at-large. He added, unnecessarily, “For my overnight stay with Nii-sama.”
Kaiba was in the process of taking Anzu’s hot chocolate mug from the drying rack and pouring himself a cup of water. “Wash your face,” was all he said, not bothering to turn around.
Mokuba swiped at the cookie dough with his fingers and gave one of those huge grins Anzu hadn’t seen since before the whole mess had started. “Yeah, sure,” he said, in that voice boys used when they had no intention of doing any such thing. “Call me when the cookies are done.”
The kitchen was silent. Kaiba seemed to be more than preoccupied with drinking his water, still and serene and as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Anzu couldn’t stand it, so she started to wipe up the mess Mokuba had made of the counter and then, to keep from focusing on the trembling in her fingers and legs and the way she wanted him to touch her, she started dropping the dough onto the next cookie sheet.
“Did you get into a lot of trouble?” Kaiba asked.
She had been wanting (wishing) for him to say something - anything - but still, when he said it, she dropped the spoon onto the floor with a clatter. “No, no,” she said, bending down and picking it up and pretending she dropped things all the time and not because she was nervous and he had surprised her. “Mom’s still rattled though.”
Kaiba didn’t say anything, but she saw, even from her new vantage point of the floor, the way his shoulders tensed.
“Um…not that Mom’s blaming you or anything,” she hastened to add. “Or, um, if she is she’s not going to take it out on you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She felt, maybe, she should get up and go to him. Put her hand on his arm and tell him everything would be fine. Except that would be a lie, and she wasn’t sure she could that.
“And so this is the part where you pat my arm and tell me everything will be fine?” he asked, sarcastic but without that bitter edge his voice was so inclined to take.
“No,” she said. She couldn’t touch him like that anymore, like she touched the other boys. And maybe she never could. “I can’t.”
He turned then, and she saw the hurt blooming in his eyes before the blue turned flat and empty. Because, of course, she had always taken great pains to treat him like everyone else, and she realized - with a start - that he had grown used to that. Grown comfortable with it. And perhaps even grown to like it.
It was odd, and it brought that horrible feeling back to the pit of Anzu’s stomach that had nothing whatsoever to do with the vestiges of her hangover. That all this time, she had been trying and trying and had never noticed that he considered them something like friends after all. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that they were friends, and that was why she couldn’t do it. Because he needed someone who could pat his arm and lie to him and not think about last night and this morning and want it all again. He needed someone who wasn’t her. Because she was stupid, and last night was stupid, and this morning was definitely stupid. And now she couldn’t even get close to him without remembering and wanting. And she thought - hoped - that he felt the same way, but this wasn't the time or the place to figure all that out. And there was no way she could articulate that all into words without sounding completely crazy. And so she just looked up at him and thought about how stupid the word stupid really was and hoped he somehow (magically) understood.
“Huh,” was all he said.
Seto/Anzu. R. And I don't own.
Anzu stood and watched as her mother wrung her hands and paced a hole in the floor. Her father read his newspaper with much more violence than necessary.
“I’m sorry,” Anzu said. “I thought it was a good idea at the time.”
Yoshiko looked about as awful as Anzu felt. “I know you did,” she said. “But we were so worried. We didn’t know where you had gone and with Kaiba-kun the way he is - “
“Nothing happened,” Anzu interrupted because the sooner she started convincing everyone else, the sooner she could convince herself. “He looked out for me.”
“Well,” Yoshiko said. Anzu waited for her mother to finish her thought, but Yoshiko never did. Anzu was left with the disquieting realization that her mother was - for perhaps the first time in her thirty-four years - at a loss for words.
Yoshiko decided soon afterwards that she needed to go to the grocery store, and Anzu was left alone with her father.
“You usually call,” her father said as he stood up from the kitchen table. His tone was mild enough, but Anzu felt the weight of guilt settle deep into her stomach.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Your mother was in hysterics,” he continued as he opened a lower cabinet and pulled out a saucepan.
“I meant to call,” Anzu said. Because she had meant to…before the alcohol, before the making out, and definitely before the passing out. She watched as her father got milk out of the fridge and cocoa powder out of the pantry.
“I know you did,” he said. Then, “I also know you didn’t stay the night at Yugi’s.”
The room was quiet except for her father making hot chocolate, and Anzu swallowed. Hard. “That - that story wasn’t my idea,” she said. “Kaiba-kun must have told Yugi to say that.”
“So where were you?”
There were some people Anzu just couldn’t lie to, and Mazaki Kennosuke was one of them. So she took a deep breath and told him about the hotel. And the reason they had needed it.
“That was incredibly stupid of you,” her father told her bluntly when she finished.
It wasn’t like Anzu had expected her father to say anything different, but it still stung. “I know,” she said.
“And since I know you know, and - more importantly - I know you, I’m confident that we’ll never have to have this conversation again,” her father continued, and Anzu tried not to look as guilty as she felt.
He handed her a mug of hot chocolate. “So next time you feel the need to stop that boy from doing something stupid, remember to call home and beware of bartenders bearing drinks.” Then he smiled at her. “And perhaps the Ides of March,” he added consideringly.
“Not Greeks bearing gifts?” she managed to say, as if she hadn’t a care in the world and as if she still wasn’t remembering Kaiba’s palm cupping her breast.
He pretended to consider. “No, it’s definitely the Ides.”
“But Dad, it’s June.” She tried to smile in her Dad-you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think-you-are-but-I-love-you-anyway smile she’d perfected about a month after her mother had started dating him, but her lips were shaking.
“Don’t speak nonsense,” her father said, mock-scolding. He turned a tad more serious. “And off to bed with you now. You had a very eventful evening last night, and I’m sure you want to get rid of those circles under your eyes before your erstwhile drinking partner shows up for dinner.”
“Kaiba-kun?” she asked. “But there’s the restraining order.”
Her father made a vague hand gesture. “Your mother will tell you all about it,” he said. “In detail until you’d rather not hear about it anymore.” He gave her a playful swat on the back. “Off you go.”
Anzu went.
***
Later, long after the dance party in her head had packed up (dj and all) and gone home, she felt almost well enough to actually face the day.
Well, face the day safe in the confines of her own home. She got out of her nice, warm bed, palmed three ibuprofen from her mother’s medicine cabinet, and then padded back out to the kitchen, empty hot chocolate mug in hand.
Her father had left a note for her, taped to the microwave. His handwriting so messy only years of practice made it readable. His boss had called and had wanted him to go golfing, but he had his cell, so if she felt really horrible, he’d come home in an instant. At some point, her mother had also returned home from grocery shopping, and she had added her own note: there was a small crisis at one of the centers, and she wouldn’t be home until at least five o’clock, so would Anzu mind terribly starting dinner? There was a smiley-face next to Yoshiko’s addition to Kennosuke’s note, so Anzu decided perhaps her death wasn’t quite as imminent as she feared.
Anzu looked at the clock: it was half-past one.
She washed the mug on auto-pilot, setting it aside to dry and waiting for the drugs to kick in. When they did, and the dull ache became an equally dull but fading memory, she decided she might be able to look at the contents of the fridge without wanting to beat feet back to the toilet.
Anzu was really the only member of her family that liked to cook. Her mother hated it, had always hated it, and only cooked because she worked less hours than Anzu’s father. Kennosuke didn’t really mind cooking, but his idea of “cooking” consisted of hot chocolate and over-easy eggs, and so, early in life, Anzu had learned that if she wished to eat the dishes she had tasted at her schoolfellows’ homes, she would have to cook them herself.
***
It was half-past four when she heard the front door open.
“I’m in the kitchen,” she yelled as she turned off the Kitchen Aid, lowering the mixing-bowl lever, and raising the bowl off and out of its holder.
She knew her mother was still at work as her mother was incredibly accurate at estimating time, but her father’s game would surely be over by now, as Nakamori-san, her father’s boss, never played a full eighteen holes on the weekends. So when Kaiba, Mokuba tight at his side, entered the kitchen, she almost dropped the mixing bowl.
He looked much the same as he had when she’d last seen him: tall, thin as a whip, and far too handsome for his own good.
“Hi,” said Mokuba, practically bouncing with excitement. Then, “Can I lick the spoon?”
The words sort of swirled hazily around her. She heard them, of course, but they sounded as if they were asked to a different person, a person who had it all together and wasn’t blushing like a freak in her pajamas and whose mouth wasn’t tingling in remembrance.
“When I’m done,” she managed to say, the linoleum feeling suddenly alien under her bare feet. She was a stranger in her own home, her own life, and she could feel his eyes on her as she turned back around to her greased cookie sheets and her preheated oven.
Mokuba, though, wasn’t to be deterred. It seemed that one day in the company of his brother had returned all his brash boldness that had been missing the last few weeks and months, and so he came up and stood next to her, generally making a nuisance of himself until she gave him the spoon and let him drop the cookie dough, spoonful by heaping spoonful, onto the cookie sheet. She even pretended not to see when he licked his fingers.
But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel Kaiba’s presence.
“Would you like something to drink?” she heard herself asking, her manners at least not failing her. “Dad said you’re staying for dinner, but that won’t be until Mom gets back, and if you’re both hungry I’m sure we’ve got something for snacks - ” She was already tugging open the refrigerator door, now that Mokuba had taken over the cookie-making duties. “ -- we’ve got pop and tea and milk and -- ”
It only took Kaiba four steps to cross the kitchen floor.
And just like that, he was suddenly in her personal space, reaching around her and pulling out the carafe of ice water. “Water’s fine,” he said, and she thought of the way the water had felt as it had spilled down her back that morning. She shivered, nipples suddenly (embarrassingly) hard.
“Hey, Anzu, how long do these have to bake for?” Mokuba asked, and she turned back towards the stove. He had cookie dough on one cheek and her mother’s hot mitts on his hands.
“Whoa, let me do that,” Anzu said, shutting the fridge and ducking under Kaiba’s arm, even though she was reasonably sure Mokuba had been around ovens before. Or at least knew enough about ovens to know that the burns were very painful. Kaiba seemed to consider helping, but as she took the cookie sheet from Mokuba and slid it into the oven, he seemed to realize she had it under control. She wasn’t sure if she liked him looking at her or not or if he was even looking at her and not Mokuba or if she was just an idiot for having such stupid thoughts.
“I’m going to pack,” Mokuba announced to the kitchen-at-large. He added, unnecessarily, “For my overnight stay with Nii-sama.”
Kaiba was in the process of taking Anzu’s hot chocolate mug from the drying rack and pouring himself a cup of water. “Wash your face,” was all he said, not bothering to turn around.
Mokuba swiped at the cookie dough with his fingers and gave one of those huge grins Anzu hadn’t seen since before the whole mess had started. “Yeah, sure,” he said, in that voice boys used when they had no intention of doing any such thing. “Call me when the cookies are done.”
The kitchen was silent. Kaiba seemed to be more than preoccupied with drinking his water, still and serene and as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Anzu couldn’t stand it, so she started to wipe up the mess Mokuba had made of the counter and then, to keep from focusing on the trembling in her fingers and legs and the way she wanted him to touch her, she started dropping the dough onto the next cookie sheet.
“Did you get into a lot of trouble?” Kaiba asked.
She had been wanting (wishing) for him to say something - anything - but still, when he said it, she dropped the spoon onto the floor with a clatter. “No, no,” she said, bending down and picking it up and pretending she dropped things all the time and not because she was nervous and he had surprised her. “Mom’s still rattled though.”
Kaiba didn’t say anything, but she saw, even from her new vantage point of the floor, the way his shoulders tensed.
“Um…not that Mom’s blaming you or anything,” she hastened to add. “Or, um, if she is she’s not going to take it out on you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She felt, maybe, she should get up and go to him. Put her hand on his arm and tell him everything would be fine. Except that would be a lie, and she wasn’t sure she could that.
“And so this is the part where you pat my arm and tell me everything will be fine?” he asked, sarcastic but without that bitter edge his voice was so inclined to take.
“No,” she said. She couldn’t touch him like that anymore, like she touched the other boys. And maybe she never could. “I can’t.”
He turned then, and she saw the hurt blooming in his eyes before the blue turned flat and empty. Because, of course, she had always taken great pains to treat him like everyone else, and she realized - with a start - that he had grown used to that. Grown comfortable with it. And perhaps even grown to like it.
It was odd, and it brought that horrible feeling back to the pit of Anzu’s stomach that had nothing whatsoever to do with the vestiges of her hangover. That all this time, she had been trying and trying and had never noticed that he considered them something like friends after all. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that they were friends, and that was why she couldn’t do it. Because he needed someone who could pat his arm and lie to him and not think about last night and this morning and want it all again. He needed someone who wasn’t her. Because she was stupid, and last night was stupid, and this morning was definitely stupid. And now she couldn’t even get close to him without remembering and wanting. And she thought - hoped - that he felt the same way, but this wasn't the time or the place to figure all that out. And there was no way she could articulate that all into words without sounding completely crazy. And so she just looked up at him and thought about how stupid the word stupid really was and hoped he somehow (magically) understood.
“Huh,” was all he said.