Folgen Sie Ihrem Traum Chapter 6 (Seto/Téa, #10)
Title: Folgen Sie Ihrem Traum (Follow Your Dream) Chapter 6: The First Dance
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: Seto Kaiba/Téa Gardner (non-Kingdom Hearts claim)
Prompt: 10; Joker [you're not very funny]
Warnings: PG13
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except for Aurus and the dancers), and the story is
This chapter will be cross-posted to 30_nights, 30_hugs, and http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4336463/6/
“Come on, Téa,” she ordered herself. “You can’t lose it now; you have to find some way to warn Kaiba before Keith gets to him first…”
“I’m heading to my room,” Keith grumbled. “If anyone asks for me, send them up there.”
“As you wish, Sir.”
“Great-he has accomplices…” thought Téa, as Keith headed for the elevators. “And if they show up, then Kaiba’s really in trouble…” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. “Should I follow Keith and find out where he’s staying? …No; I can’t risk him seeing me…”
That was when she remembered the handheld computer.
“Kaiba, something’s up,” she typed. “I think that your quarry is on to you; I just saw Bandit Keith in the lobby. I think he’s after you; he was trying to figure out where someone’s room was.”
She sent the message, and received a reply almost immediately.
“Very hilarious.” Even his emails were blatantly sardonic.
“I can’t believe him!” Téa exclaimed, startling the concierge. She didn’t even notice the patronizing look he gave her as she sent another message.
“I’m telling you the truth; I saw him with my own eyes!”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Why would I lie!?”
But this time, there was no reply. She was worried for a second; what if Keith had somehow found him? Her fears were eventually proved to be groundless, for she finally received a message.
“Top floor, grand balcony, now,” came the reply.
After making sure that Keith was nowhere near the elevators anymore, Téa took one to the top floor, determined to get there before Seto changed his mind and decided not to meet after all. She ignored the pain in her ears from the quick increase in height; she knew what Bandit Keith could be capable of. And after nearly going mad from the spell of the Millennium Rod, he was liable to do anything.
She made her way to the balcony. Seto was standing there, his back to her, but he obviously heard her footsteps as she approached.
“I am not amused, Gardner,” he said.
“Amused!?” she repeated, in disbelief. “Do you honestly think that my warning about Keith has some kind of benefit for me?”
Seto didn’t want to voice his reply: that maybe she was trying to win his favor, so that he would be grateful and more open to the prospect of a relationship. What was she thinking?
“It’s just the opposite, Kaiba,” she went on. “If he finds out that I’m spying on him… well, I don’t want to know what’s going to happen! Do you realize the risk I’m putting myself in? I’m trying to help because I care about you; and face it-I’m one of the few people who do!”
“Are you going to go into the speeches again…?”
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point,” she replied, bitterly. “You never even listen. But I’m not so heartless that I wouldn’t help, and that’s why I’m here. Kaiba, Bandit Keith is very dangerous. Yugi told me all about how he had gone crazy while under Marik’s control. He--”
“I’m very well aware of Keith’s madness,” Seto replied. “I did face him once when he tried to kidnap Mokuba several months ago. I put Keith in his place, and he vowed revenge.”
“Well, unless you do something, he’s going to follow through with that vow,” Téa warned. “You need to get out of here, Kaiba.”
“Seto Kaiba doesn’t run.”
“If Seto Kaiba doesn’t run, he isn’t going to be here for very long!” she retorted. “Why aren’t you concerned!?”
“My major concern, Gardner, is for my younger brother. Since Mokuba is in Domino, and you claim that Keith is here, I don’t have to worry. I am concerned for my company, but now that I know what I’m dealing with, I know that can handle it with very little effort.”
“What about me?” she asked, in a small voice. “You aren’t concerned about me?”
“Stay out of Keith’s way,” he advised (in Téa’s opinion, dodging the question altogether). “Just stay with your new little group of friends; I’m sure you’ll be fine with them around to look after you.”
He hadn’t realized that he had struck a deep nerve. Téa tried not to let it on; his back was still to her, so he did not see her silent tears. And she was beginning to regret ever having feelings for him. It was the apathy of the other dancers that was upsetting her; Seto Kaiba was as apathetic as they were, and this was with some knowledge of her feelings. Perhaps it would be best to just forget about him.
Slowly, she backed away. He must not have been prepared for her to leave so soon, because he turned at the sound of her footsteps, and was surprised to see her in tears.
“What’s gotten into you?” he asked.
“I don’t have a ‘new little group of friends,’ Kaiba,” she said. “Aurus is the only one who’s even bothering to make me feel welcome. The rest of them are acting just like you!”
Seto’s eyes moved slightly; he had heard and had processed the comment, but was choosing not to reply to it. He had been forcefully reminded of his days at the orphanage, when he and Mokuba had often felt ignored and unwelcome.
“You just don’t get it,” she went on. “You just don’t understand what other people think and feel, do you?! I thought that things were changing between us, Kaiba. I thought that we were finally beginning to understand each other on some level, but I guess I was wrong. I warned you about Bandit Keith because I care about you; I care about you very deeply. I thought you knew that; I thought you knew about how I felt about you. But you don’t know, and you really don’t seem to care, either. You don’t care about anyone else outside your own little world, and you don’t let anyone in. Goodness only knows why I was stupid enough to…” She trailed off. There was no point, besides getting everything off of her chest; he probably wasn’t going to listen to her anyway.
He didn’t say a word. His face remained emotionless in the moonlight.
“I always considered you as a friend, even though you never would admit to having friends,” she said. “I haven’t forgotten how you lent me your trenchcoat to ensure that I wasn’t bitten by the venomous spiders when we were trapped in that cellar. That trenchcoat-lending person is my friend. He’s the one I have feelings for. He’s the one I wanted to see. He’s the one I wanted to warn. And it seems that I was too late; he’s been permanently suffocated by selfishness.”
It was a mystery in its own right as to how Seto Kaiba could stay so silent and still in a situation such as this. One would have thought that Téa was speaking to a marble sculpture, as the moonlight gave his skin a white glow.
“I tried to stop this from happening, but my friend is gone,” Téa said, coldly. “All that’s left is Gozaburo’s stepson.”
Everything fell apart at those words: all of their past amiable meetings, the half-hearted greetings, whatever feelings there had been… Everything vanished into oblivion as Téa spoke those forbidden words. It was as though the flawless marble sculpture had suddenly shattered.
“Have fun teaching Keith a lesson all on your own,” said Téa. “I’ll stay out of your way, and that, I’m sure, is the way you’d prefer it to be.”
She turned and walked away as the young man’s anger began to increase.
“Gardner, I demand that you take that back!”
She turned back, surveying him with slight satisfaction. She was the marble sculpture now, standing serenely as though she were Joan of Arc, glaring at those who were about to sentence her.
“I’ll take it back when I know that my friend still alive.” She replied.
“Gardner, I’m serious!” Seto countered.
“That makes two of us,” she said, coolly.
She turned to go, but Seto seized her arm.
“Gardner, you are not leaving until you take it back,” he said. “No one can associate me with Gozaburo!”
“I thought you didn’t care about what anyone else thought, Kaiba,” she said. “Why does my opinion matter?”
She caught him off-guard. Not even he could explain why her opinion mattered. In the days of Duelist Kingdom, her opinion hadn’t mattered at all. So why should now be any different?
He didn’t know; he was uncharacteristically lost, and his eyes were betraying him. And Téa realized, upon seeing them, that he was still searching for answers. And that could only mean one thing…
“He is still alive, isn’t he?” she asked, her expression softening as well. “In that case, Kaiba, I do take it back. I’m sorry.”
He said nothing, but he did release her arm.
“He’s just in a coma,” she went on. “You know, Kaiba, if he ever wakes up, you should have a long talk with him. Maybe you’ll realize one day that your strategy of going at everything alone isn’t all that great. But until then, I hope that you defeat Bandit Keith. I am worried about what he’s going to do to you and him. After all, if you go… so does he.”
“Your colleagues are coming back,” he said, as he glanced over the balcony, pretending not to hear her (though she knew very well that he had done so). “You’d better get back before they think you’ve gone missing.”
“I’ll be busy from tomorrow onwards; we’ll be practicing nonstop, and then we’re leaving right after our performance to our next destination… in Buenos Aires,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “So… I probably won’t be seeing you again for a while… not until I go back to Domino, at least, so I’ll be staying out of your way, right? I hope you solve the case, and that nothing happens to you… or him.”
Suddenly, she remembered how, at her send-off, she had hugged each of her friends goodbye. Before she could second-guess herself (and before Seto could protest), she had hugged him for but a moment, and let go before he could have said or done anything.
“What--!?” he began.
“That was for him,” she explained. “I always hug my friends goodbye.”
With that, she retreated to her room, leaving behind a very perplexed and bothered CEO.
***************************
Téa had felt some sort of closure with that hug. She had, after all, said mostly everything that she had wanted to say. She hadn’t been able to fully say that she was in love with him, but, at this point, it didn’t seem as though it would have mattered. Perhaps somewhere along the line (months or even years into the future), she would tell him.
She found it difficult to think about anything else besides dancing for the next few days. Since she was the new arrival, the others tended to be overly critical of her. The “not one mistake” policy loomed over her head like a thundercloud, but she practiced uncomplainingly.
Seto Kaiba, in the meantime, was trying to track down the whereabouts of Bandit Keith. But he was annoyed that the phone signal that Mokuba had traced did not seem to be leading him to the card shark; he was instead being led all over Tokyo. He knew that Téa had spoken the truth, for he had caught a glimpse of the thief. And he was determined that Keith would not be let off easy for stealing his money, and then trying to frame him.
And Téa, as she had promised, was staying out of his way. He hadn’t seen her since she gave him the hug, the memory of which still perplexed him to no end. But with his search going nowhere, he realized that on the night of the performance, he had no better place to be.
Téa was more nervous than she had ever been before as she peered into the audience from behind the curtain. The place was filled, but that didn’t concern her. She was troubled by the thought of making a mistake, which would undoubtedly end her career in a heartbeat.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aurus whispered to her.
And she tried not to do so, as the show began. She launched herself into the stylized strides, steps, leaps, and pirouettes, sneaking glances at her colleagues and the audience, seeking feedback.
“Were you holding out on us all this time!?” Aurus asked out of the corner of his mouth, visibly impressed.
She smiled in reply, but her expression soon changed to that of astounded surprised when she saw a familiar trenchcoat in the audience.
“He came!” she thought to herself.
Unfortunately, her joy was quickly eclipsed by worry as she soon realized that he wasn’t the only one who had come; in the other end of the audience, malice etched into his face, was Keith.
She didn’t bother to wonder whether Seto had tracked Keith here, or if he had arrived out of his own free will. The situation still stood that the two were dangerously close to each other. And it would only be a matter of time until one of them noticed it, signaling disaster.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: Seto Kaiba/Téa Gardner (non-Kingdom Hearts claim)
Prompt: 10; Joker [you're not very funny]
Warnings: PG13
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except for Aurus and the dancers), and the story is
This chapter will be cross-posted to 30_nights, 30_hugs, and http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4336463/6/
“Come on, Téa,” she ordered herself. “You can’t lose it now; you have to find some way to warn Kaiba before Keith gets to him first…”
“I’m heading to my room,” Keith grumbled. “If anyone asks for me, send them up there.”
“As you wish, Sir.”
“Great-he has accomplices…” thought Téa, as Keith headed for the elevators. “And if they show up, then Kaiba’s really in trouble…” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. “Should I follow Keith and find out where he’s staying? …No; I can’t risk him seeing me…”
That was when she remembered the handheld computer.
“Kaiba, something’s up,” she typed. “I think that your quarry is on to you; I just saw Bandit Keith in the lobby. I think he’s after you; he was trying to figure out where someone’s room was.”
She sent the message, and received a reply almost immediately.
“Very hilarious.” Even his emails were blatantly sardonic.
“I can’t believe him!” Téa exclaimed, startling the concierge. She didn’t even notice the patronizing look he gave her as she sent another message.
“I’m telling you the truth; I saw him with my own eyes!”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Why would I lie!?”
But this time, there was no reply. She was worried for a second; what if Keith had somehow found him? Her fears were eventually proved to be groundless, for she finally received a message.
“Top floor, grand balcony, now,” came the reply.
After making sure that Keith was nowhere near the elevators anymore, Téa took one to the top floor, determined to get there before Seto changed his mind and decided not to meet after all. She ignored the pain in her ears from the quick increase in height; she knew what Bandit Keith could be capable of. And after nearly going mad from the spell of the Millennium Rod, he was liable to do anything.
She made her way to the balcony. Seto was standing there, his back to her, but he obviously heard her footsteps as she approached.
“I am not amused, Gardner,” he said.
“Amused!?” she repeated, in disbelief. “Do you honestly think that my warning about Keith has some kind of benefit for me?”
Seto didn’t want to voice his reply: that maybe she was trying to win his favor, so that he would be grateful and more open to the prospect of a relationship. What was she thinking?
“It’s just the opposite, Kaiba,” she went on. “If he finds out that I’m spying on him… well, I don’t want to know what’s going to happen! Do you realize the risk I’m putting myself in? I’m trying to help because I care about you; and face it-I’m one of the few people who do!”
“Are you going to go into the speeches again…?”
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point,” she replied, bitterly. “You never even listen. But I’m not so heartless that I wouldn’t help, and that’s why I’m here. Kaiba, Bandit Keith is very dangerous. Yugi told me all about how he had gone crazy while under Marik’s control. He--”
“I’m very well aware of Keith’s madness,” Seto replied. “I did face him once when he tried to kidnap Mokuba several months ago. I put Keith in his place, and he vowed revenge.”
“Well, unless you do something, he’s going to follow through with that vow,” Téa warned. “You need to get out of here, Kaiba.”
“Seto Kaiba doesn’t run.”
“If Seto Kaiba doesn’t run, he isn’t going to be here for very long!” she retorted. “Why aren’t you concerned!?”
“My major concern, Gardner, is for my younger brother. Since Mokuba is in Domino, and you claim that Keith is here, I don’t have to worry. I am concerned for my company, but now that I know what I’m dealing with, I know that can handle it with very little effort.”
“What about me?” she asked, in a small voice. “You aren’t concerned about me?”
“Stay out of Keith’s way,” he advised (in Téa’s opinion, dodging the question altogether). “Just stay with your new little group of friends; I’m sure you’ll be fine with them around to look after you.”
He hadn’t realized that he had struck a deep nerve. Téa tried not to let it on; his back was still to her, so he did not see her silent tears. And she was beginning to regret ever having feelings for him. It was the apathy of the other dancers that was upsetting her; Seto Kaiba was as apathetic as they were, and this was with some knowledge of her feelings. Perhaps it would be best to just forget about him.
Slowly, she backed away. He must not have been prepared for her to leave so soon, because he turned at the sound of her footsteps, and was surprised to see her in tears.
“What’s gotten into you?” he asked.
“I don’t have a ‘new little group of friends,’ Kaiba,” she said. “Aurus is the only one who’s even bothering to make me feel welcome. The rest of them are acting just like you!”
Seto’s eyes moved slightly; he had heard and had processed the comment, but was choosing not to reply to it. He had been forcefully reminded of his days at the orphanage, when he and Mokuba had often felt ignored and unwelcome.
“You just don’t get it,” she went on. “You just don’t understand what other people think and feel, do you?! I thought that things were changing between us, Kaiba. I thought that we were finally beginning to understand each other on some level, but I guess I was wrong. I warned you about Bandit Keith because I care about you; I care about you very deeply. I thought you knew that; I thought you knew about how I felt about you. But you don’t know, and you really don’t seem to care, either. You don’t care about anyone else outside your own little world, and you don’t let anyone in. Goodness only knows why I was stupid enough to…” She trailed off. There was no point, besides getting everything off of her chest; he probably wasn’t going to listen to her anyway.
He didn’t say a word. His face remained emotionless in the moonlight.
“I always considered you as a friend, even though you never would admit to having friends,” she said. “I haven’t forgotten how you lent me your trenchcoat to ensure that I wasn’t bitten by the venomous spiders when we were trapped in that cellar. That trenchcoat-lending person is my friend. He’s the one I have feelings for. He’s the one I wanted to see. He’s the one I wanted to warn. And it seems that I was too late; he’s been permanently suffocated by selfishness.”
It was a mystery in its own right as to how Seto Kaiba could stay so silent and still in a situation such as this. One would have thought that Téa was speaking to a marble sculpture, as the moonlight gave his skin a white glow.
“I tried to stop this from happening, but my friend is gone,” Téa said, coldly. “All that’s left is Gozaburo’s stepson.”
Everything fell apart at those words: all of their past amiable meetings, the half-hearted greetings, whatever feelings there had been… Everything vanished into oblivion as Téa spoke those forbidden words. It was as though the flawless marble sculpture had suddenly shattered.
“Have fun teaching Keith a lesson all on your own,” said Téa. “I’ll stay out of your way, and that, I’m sure, is the way you’d prefer it to be.”
She turned and walked away as the young man’s anger began to increase.
“Gardner, I demand that you take that back!”
She turned back, surveying him with slight satisfaction. She was the marble sculpture now, standing serenely as though she were Joan of Arc, glaring at those who were about to sentence her.
“I’ll take it back when I know that my friend still alive.” She replied.
“Gardner, I’m serious!” Seto countered.
“That makes two of us,” she said, coolly.
She turned to go, but Seto seized her arm.
“Gardner, you are not leaving until you take it back,” he said. “No one can associate me with Gozaburo!”
“I thought you didn’t care about what anyone else thought, Kaiba,” she said. “Why does my opinion matter?”
She caught him off-guard. Not even he could explain why her opinion mattered. In the days of Duelist Kingdom, her opinion hadn’t mattered at all. So why should now be any different?
He didn’t know; he was uncharacteristically lost, and his eyes were betraying him. And Téa realized, upon seeing them, that he was still searching for answers. And that could only mean one thing…
“He is still alive, isn’t he?” she asked, her expression softening as well. “In that case, Kaiba, I do take it back. I’m sorry.”
He said nothing, but he did release her arm.
“He’s just in a coma,” she went on. “You know, Kaiba, if he ever wakes up, you should have a long talk with him. Maybe you’ll realize one day that your strategy of going at everything alone isn’t all that great. But until then, I hope that you defeat Bandit Keith. I am worried about what he’s going to do to you and him. After all, if you go… so does he.”
“Your colleagues are coming back,” he said, as he glanced over the balcony, pretending not to hear her (though she knew very well that he had done so). “You’d better get back before they think you’ve gone missing.”
“I’ll be busy from tomorrow onwards; we’ll be practicing nonstop, and then we’re leaving right after our performance to our next destination… in Buenos Aires,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “So… I probably won’t be seeing you again for a while… not until I go back to Domino, at least, so I’ll be staying out of your way, right? I hope you solve the case, and that nothing happens to you… or him.”
Suddenly, she remembered how, at her send-off, she had hugged each of her friends goodbye. Before she could second-guess herself (and before Seto could protest), she had hugged him for but a moment, and let go before he could have said or done anything.
“What--!?” he began.
“That was for him,” she explained. “I always hug my friends goodbye.”
With that, she retreated to her room, leaving behind a very perplexed and bothered CEO.
***************************
Téa had felt some sort of closure with that hug. She had, after all, said mostly everything that she had wanted to say. She hadn’t been able to fully say that she was in love with him, but, at this point, it didn’t seem as though it would have mattered. Perhaps somewhere along the line (months or even years into the future), she would tell him.
She found it difficult to think about anything else besides dancing for the next few days. Since she was the new arrival, the others tended to be overly critical of her. The “not one mistake” policy loomed over her head like a thundercloud, but she practiced uncomplainingly.
Seto Kaiba, in the meantime, was trying to track down the whereabouts of Bandit Keith. But he was annoyed that the phone signal that Mokuba had traced did not seem to be leading him to the card shark; he was instead being led all over Tokyo. He knew that Téa had spoken the truth, for he had caught a glimpse of the thief. And he was determined that Keith would not be let off easy for stealing his money, and then trying to frame him.
And Téa, as she had promised, was staying out of his way. He hadn’t seen her since she gave him the hug, the memory of which still perplexed him to no end. But with his search going nowhere, he realized that on the night of the performance, he had no better place to be.
Téa was more nervous than she had ever been before as she peered into the audience from behind the curtain. The place was filled, but that didn’t concern her. She was troubled by the thought of making a mistake, which would undoubtedly end her career in a heartbeat.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aurus whispered to her.
And she tried not to do so, as the show began. She launched herself into the stylized strides, steps, leaps, and pirouettes, sneaking glances at her colleagues and the audience, seeking feedback.
“Were you holding out on us all this time!?” Aurus asked out of the corner of his mouth, visibly impressed.
She smiled in reply, but her expression soon changed to that of astounded surprised when she saw a familiar trenchcoat in the audience.
“He came!” she thought to herself.
Unfortunately, her joy was quickly eclipsed by worry as she soon realized that he wasn’t the only one who had come; in the other end of the audience, malice etched into his face, was Keith.
She didn’t bother to wonder whether Seto had tracked Keith here, or if he had arrived out of his own free will. The situation still stood that the two were dangerously close to each other. And it would only be a matter of time until one of them noticed it, signaling disaster.