Chapter 5: Rumination

posted: 4/17/10

ISF: Yeah, I guess I lied about posting more during Christmas break. Oh well. But anyways, here's the latest chapter.

o o o o o

It was rather early for Seto Kaiba to be leaving work, but none of his employees complained, as they were too busy scurrying out of his way as their superior strode down his halls. Too many times, slow people had been bowled over by an unimpassioned Seto.

Seto had already notified his chauffer that he was going home, and he stepped into the backseat without so much as a word, ruminating silently. He was too busy thinking to care about much.

All that was on his mind was getting to Tea. Confronting her.

He wondered for a moment what her past was like. Was it anything like his? His own memories sent a shiver down his back, though he gave no outward indication of it.

Secretly, he felt slightly guilty about opening her old wounds. He knew personally what that was like. But he gave himself a mental shake and a surly attitude took the place of his guilt. It had happened years ago, he recited gruffly in his head, and surely the woman had gotten over it by now. But yet . . .

His cold intellect growled at the pangs of his conscience. Never mind that the only reason he had much of a reason to live was for Mokuba's sake. Never mind that she did not seem to have much of anything to live for, judging by the infrequency she made reference to her old high school trio.

I guess that was the reason why she didn't go back to Japan, he thought to himself.

o o o o o

Tea wiped her eyes briskly before returning to clothes folding. She tried to busy herself with her work, but her attempts were, for the most part, unsuccessful. As soon as she got into the swing of things, it seemed that her stupid tears started up again.

It was hard to ignore the memories. It was hard to forget things sometimes.

A five-year-old child walked towards a man seated at a desk, doing paperwork. He was clad in a business suit, despite the late hour. The child rubbed at her sleepy eyes before tugging at his shirt.

"Da — um, Father, I did what you asked me to do," she said, holding out a stack of papers. He took them from her hands without a break in his work.

"Don't tug on my shirt," her father said flatly, still facing away from his daughter. He continued his work with one hand, and with his free hand he riffled mechanically through the stack of papers. They were forms, all filled out in impossibly neat handwriting for a child.

"They're illegible." He tossed the stack back at his daughter, hitting her in the chest. Papers fluttered to the ground. "Do them over."

Face scrunched up as she tried not to cry in exhaustion, she began to slowly pick up the papers.

"Where is that disk that I gave you? The auto-detection of altitude for the Kaiba Corporation missiles?"

Hands shaking slightly, she pulled a CD case from her pocket and placed it into her father's open hand. He slid it into a disk drive and skimmed through the coding on the computer monitor from the corner of his eyes.

He did not see an imperfection in the child's program.

She was a true child genius. Employees six times her age had failed to produce work of such caliber.

He inconspicuously saved the program onto his hard drive, then popped the CD out.

"This is absolute garbage," he said slowly and meticulously. Tears formed in the corners of the girl's eyes. "I knew you would disappoint me again."

With one hand, and still ceaselessly focused on his paperwork, he bent the disk until it snapped in half, then threw the pieces behind him. Wailing, the girl ran out of the room. The man poured himself a glass of liquor and drank it in one long gulp.

Tea sniffed her tears back. She had finished folding Mokuba's clothes and was in the middle of vacuuming. Her father. She had worked harder than any person, let alone a young child, should have, studying endlessly, designing programs and coding just for her father to look at her with a pleased face, instead of that of a drunken workaholic who cared about nothing but work and money after Tea's mother had passed away.

Yes, Tea Gardner was an actual child prodigy, a genius at mathematics. None of her classmates would have guessed, with the way that she laughed good-naturedly when she was handed back math tests she intentionally failed. She hated math now, honestly loathed it, because every time she saw an equation she remembered the days she spent working at a computer that was bigger than her at age five.

She had felt a plethora of overwhelming emotions at her father's funeral. Anger. Previously buried hatred at him for treating her so cruelly. But, curiously enough, she had not shed one single tear for him. Even when she was at his funeral, in the front row, staring at the coffin that she knew held her father's mangled corpse, she felt no sadness for him. She then spent two long years in an orphanage before being taken in by her foster parents, who gave her at least a home and good food, if not the love and acceptance adoptive parents would have.

And now, here she was. Anzu Mazaki, the child prodigy and former heiress to the Mazaki fortune, working as a maid to Seto Kaiba and as a nanny to Mokuba Kaiba. The irony was tickling. Tenshi Mazaki would have disowned her, but Momoko, her mother, probably would not have minded, from what Tea could remember of her. All smiles and soft hands and the warm smell of homemade pastries, despite having married a millionaire.

Tea was absolutely certain that her mother would have loved her, no matter what.

She remembered feeling sad at her funeral. That was the day that her father had begun to drink, surround himself in his work, and became abusive.

The only people Tea had was when she was in high school, when she made good friends with Yugi, Joey, and Tristan. But thanks to what happened senior year, she did not even have them. Tea rubbed her leg, which had begun to ache, and continued her work. She really was all alone now.

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ISF: Yeah. Short, I know. Not really in the mood for writing reviewer comments at the moment, but thanks for all those whose reviewed for Chapter 4. A special shout out to MiladyPrincess, who reminded me that some people are still actually reading my fan fiction, and I shouldn't forget about you guys. :) Until next time.

ISF