Assumptions
Summary: A series of suppositions and assumptions leads Kaiba to make the biggest mistake of his life.. [One-sided Seto-Téa][One-shot; may grow longer, depending]
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. I'd like to, but sadly I don't.
Author's Note: I'm not sure about how plausible this is, but it popped into my mind after reading "A Wheeler Wedding", and watching Kaiba lose his scowl at the ceremony. And then, I began to wonder- if there had been a Seto/Anzu pairing, how would he have felt about the matter?
"I'm getting married, Seto." Her features, flushed with the exertion of pride and joy, their lovely, delicate structure seeming all the more porcelain-fragile as she spoke. Eyes of translucent lapis lazuli gazed at him, shimmering with the quietly restrained elation that had ever been her manner. How ironic could it be that she was so beautiful in a moment when he was too distracted to see it?
"I see." How distant his voice sounded- as though a thousand miles away from its speaker. He was uncertain as to how he appeared to her- certainly he didn't feel anywhere near normal. But then again, he supposed that he should have seen this particular setting coming; she had been chattering about him for months, with a steadily mounting giddiness that he had formerly left alone, uncomprehending.
He understood it only too well now.
She went on as though she hadn't noticed his distraction- and perhaps she hadn't- her smile growing all the wider as she spoke. "He's been so sweet these past few months- he's been waiting on me forever to notice that he loved me, he said.." She whirled carelessly, a spinning dance upon the pavement that caused the passersby to give her odd looks, but to make no comment. It was as though they, too, sensed the ecstatic joy that pulsed within her heart, and were disinclined to shatter it- as disinclined as Seto himself.
Pausing, she glanced down at him. "Isn't that sweet?" She inquired.
"Sweet, of course." He answered blankly. And the fact that I've been waiting for years means absolutely nothing, I suppose.
He heard her chattering on and on about the wedding arrangements, but his hearing functions had thankfully shut down, leaving him to run on auto-pilot while he contemplated her news.
Married!
Ethereal, fleeting Téa Gardner, married!
He had never thought of her as the married type- had never thought of anyone in "their group" as the type to be tied down. An informal arrangement, yes, but there was something so terribly.. permanent about a marriage. For all that divorces were often employed in these present days, there was still some sacrosanct quality left to a marriage..
And she would be joined in it- to another man. To the Mutt.
Briefly, he wondered, tapered fingers drumming absentmindedly against the laptop that he had brought to their old meeting place, how Yugi felt upon the matter. And whether he, Seto, would have been less thunderstruck by her statement, had it been his old rival that she had agreed to marry.
To some extent, he almost wished that she would come to her senses and marry Yugi. For from the multiple losses that he had suffered at the younger duelist's hands, there had arisen a grudging respect- an outlook that proclaimed him Seto's equal.
Wheeler, on the other hand, had never gained such a respect.
"..had to come and tell you here, because it felt right." Her words abruptly tore through his mind, and he glanced up, to notice that she was beaming down at him attentively. "You know, since we've been meeting here all that time.."
Ah.. she was referring to the first time that they had met here- at this particular corner. The school had set a ridiculous monthly assignment- to walk around the city and to write a poem, or piece of prose, upon the thoughts that rose through their mind during that jaunt.
Naturally, Fate would have it that he collided into the young brunette at the first opportunity.
They had jumped apart immediately, glared at each other, made a few snide remarks- he had, at least- and rapidly departed each other's company. And the next day, during their literature class, had discovered that the both of them had come up for the precise same third line for their 'city poems'.
It was far from being the auspicious beginning that most relationships commenced with.
As though to make matters worse, they began to encounter one another in a variety of crashes- all over the city, but most of all over the corner where they had first 'met'.
After the first five times that this 'accident' occurred, it began to be more humorous an event than anything- and an event that was expected, almost anticipated, on his part. And the words exchanged at such encounters began to be less antagonistic, more of a passing greeting. And when they met, the meetings would take longer.
He began to derive an odd pleasure from her company- she was so unlike him so as to utterly fascinate him. Her odd cheerfulness, the buoyancy of her manner- it served to uplift his day with a sleek pleasure that he could not derive from his company's rises and falls in stocks. And he began to realize that for all the dedication he put into KaibaCorp, the sole manner in which it could- and would- reward his devotion was with money, of which he possessed such a quantity so that it was entirely meaningless to him.
And so, portion by portion, he began to scrupulously transfer his attentions to Téa, but in such a slow fashion that she never noticed. He began to leave a single dark-chocolate truffle in her locker every day, as a standing joke between them- she had accused him of being like dark chocolate once, "bitter but rich, and an acquired taste"- but had never told her of it, assuming that she had known who had sent them to her. (Had Wheeler had the nerve to take credit for those? He wondered, fragments of acrimony permeating his thoughts. Or had he merely forbidden Téa to eat them?) And on her birthday, he spent hours poring over a profile that he had gathered of her, to select for her the perfect gift.
After they had left high school, she had kept in touch with him- a sign that he had taken all too hopefully- and had written him every week while they went to their separate universities.
And always, she had signed her letters Love, Téa.
How he had agonized over those letters, particularly their conclusion, poring over them over and over, in search of some clue as to why he felt so torn by their words.. made so sleepless by their content. Téa didn't say things that she didn't mean- he knew that well enough, having spent sufficient time in her company to have realized this. But did that mean that her 'love' was more than platonic?
It had been Mokuba who had given him the final connection- lent him the realization that he had fallen in love.
"Either that," his younger sibling had stated, with a brow raise that looked much like his own, "or you have a dangerously stalker-like obsession that'll send you to the nearest therapist."
How he wished, now, that it had only been the latter.
Realizing that the inundation of speech had been given a pause for him to speak, he smiled forcedly at the brunette. "I'm happy for you." He said, in a cool, disinterested voice that sounded horribly unlike his own. Out of courtesy, he asked another question. "When's the wedding?"
Her joy-saturated gaze had begun to waver, as though uncertain of him. "Three weeks from now." She said at last, but no longer was there that charming, vivid note in her voice. "Seto.. are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He responded brusquely, but her announcement had delivered a new shock to his veins. Three weeks..
"Oh, good.." She chose to take his words at face-value, rather than interpreting the tone that he had delivered them with. "I was wondering.. would you like to be best man? Please?" The beseeching air had returned to her eyes, and there was a loving profundity to her gaze that told him he could not refuse her.
She was getting married, and he was still unable to deny her a single request.
"Why?" He could not prevent a sardonic, cutting edge from entering his voice. "Did the mu—Wheeler request me? He didn't seem like the type."
"No.. he wanted Yugi to be present." And now there was a fleeting, pained element to her gaze. "He.. he didn't notice that.." She didn't need to finish the phrase- he had already grasped the concept, and that comprehension was within his steady gaze.
He didn't notice that Yugi was in love with Téa. But Téa, with only the best of intentions in her heart, had wanted to spare Yugi that trial.. unknowingly setting his burden onto the back of one with the same dilemma.
Now. His mind urged him. Tell her, before she gets married and all is lost. Tell her that you love her, that you always have..
And perhaps he might have, if he hadn't seen the look in her eyes as she continued onwards, to speak of the mutt and his saccharine appeal in dealing with her. He had seen that drifting expression within his own gaze all too often to mistake it for anything else other than love. And who was he to interfere in her love?
Wheeler had better be worth this..
"Yes." He said abruptly.
"Yes, what?" The silence between them had stretched to such a length that it seemed as though all conversation between them had turned obsolete..
"Yes, I'll be best man. That's what you were asking for, wasn't it?"
"Oh.." And she flung her arms around him, burying her face in the nape of his neck. He stiffened instinctively, but unlike the other times that she had given him her spontaneous embraces, he did not relax again. The sole desire within his mind now was searing its mark into his thoughts- to get away from her and her unconscious cruelty. "Thank you.." She breathed. "You don't know how much this means to me."
But I do.. and that's what makes it worse.
Author's Note: I know I ended on a bit of an awkward note- I've never been particularly good with endings. I also loathe the potentiality of this one-shot- like my other one (which, unsurprisingly, is also Seto/ Téa-centric), it has the potential to turn into a full-fledged novel, but I'm not sure if I want it to turn into one.
Again, tell me what you think..