[Funny how my favorite shirt smells more like you than me.]
Kaiba lingered in the foyer for longer than was strictly necessary, taking his time shedding his duster and feigning interest in the sight of his driver carrying in the luggage.
While he could have asked the man to bring the bags up to his private rooms, or hunted down one of the servants to do it, it seemed like more effort than it was really worth.
He'd packed light, after all, having long since amassed another wardrobe that remained in his private suite at the hotel in KaibaLand California. Considering how often he traveled back and forth, it made sense to remove the inconvenience of packing enough clothes to sustain himself for indeterminate amounts of time, then unpacking them quickly so as to avoid wrinkles, only to repack everything again at a moment's notice.
There was also the glaring fact that it was going on two in the morning and everyone - with the exception of himself, his driver, and the sleepy-eyed guard at the gate - was asleep. His driver, who’d been given no forewarning of his return to Domino, had been among the others until receiving the call to come to the airport, so demanding that he pack-mule it up a few flights of stairs as well was a little much.
Kaiba usually wasn’t so spontaneous, and he really hadn’t planned to return for another day or two, but somewhere between the terse conversation he had with Mokuba the day before and the phone call he had with Shizuka that same evening, he’d changed his mind.
He’d decided he wanted to go home.
Now that he was home, he wanted to go to bed.
Of course he wanted to have a talk with Mokuba as well. Or he needed to, rather. Wanting implied that he was looking forward to it, and he wasn’t. How could he look forward to it, when he didn’t know where to begin or how to fix things? In hindsight, yes, he shouldn’t have run from the issue and hidden out in States under the pretense of working, but what was done was done and he couldn’t change that.
Fortunately, the fact that the lights were off in the family room, the gaming room, and dimmed significantly in the kitchen, he could safely assume Mokuba had gone to bed for the night. A bit of a blessing in disguise, that. He had missed Mokuba, no doubt about it. He wanted to see him, and to talk with him. But he would rather wait to prod the proverbial elephant in the room until after he’d had some rest.
And right now, he could think of nothing more inviting than the thought of crawling into bed with his cat and his... girlfriend (he was still getting used to that) and putting in a good eight hours.
Nodding a goodnight as his driver straightened up from a bow, Kaiba waited until the front door closed again, then took up his luggage; the obligatory suitcase and briefcase, and an oversized shopping bag which currently doubled as a place to stuff the extra odds and ends for easy transport.
Heading up the stairs and down a few hallways, he was tempted, briefly, as he passed by the door to Mokuba’s rooms, to check in on the boy. But a second of hesitation led him to think twice about it. Better not to push his luck and risk waking him.
He continued on.
When he reached his own door, there was a wait while he shuffled objects from one hand to the other, eventually having to admit defeat and set the suitcase on the floor to gain entry. Once inside, he set the briefcase on the armchair near the window and the suitcase beside the closet door, peering over at the form on the bed as he did.
She was sprawled out in the middle. In his usual spot, he noted, with the cat curled up next to her head on his pillow. The latter was watching him with glowing eyes, purring softly and absently kneading a few stray locks of Shizuka’s hair into the pillowcase.
He shot the cat a significant look, the one typically reserved for when he was on the phone with work and she wouldn’t shut up, hoping the animal would have the sense not to wake her bedmate before he had the privilege of doing it himself.
The cat blinked owlishly at him, but kept her silence, and Kaiba came around the opposite side of the bed. He set the shopping bag down and climbed into bed over the top of the covers, moving quietly and carefully as he swept the hair away from Shizuka’s neck.
And because he figured he could get away with it before she woke, he leaned in, mouth hovering over the side of her throat, and inhaled, savoring the familiar scent there.
For a short time anyway, before his arm came around her waist and he jostled her deliberately. Going in for the kill as it were. He tasted the skin at her jugular, and the skin at the top of her shoulder - bared by the shirt that was too big for her - then endeavored from there to investigate the expanse in between.
[Tag, Shizuka]
While he could have asked the man to bring the bags up to his private rooms, or hunted down one of the servants to do it, it seemed like more effort than it was really worth.
He'd packed light, after all, having long since amassed another wardrobe that remained in his private suite at the hotel in KaibaLand California. Considering how often he traveled back and forth, it made sense to remove the inconvenience of packing enough clothes to sustain himself for indeterminate amounts of time, then unpacking them quickly so as to avoid wrinkles, only to repack everything again at a moment's notice.
There was also the glaring fact that it was going on two in the morning and everyone - with the exception of himself, his driver, and the sleepy-eyed guard at the gate - was asleep. His driver, who’d been given no forewarning of his return to Domino, had been among the others until receiving the call to come to the airport, so demanding that he pack-mule it up a few flights of stairs as well was a little much.
Kaiba usually wasn’t so spontaneous, and he really hadn’t planned to return for another day or two, but somewhere between the terse conversation he had with Mokuba the day before and the phone call he had with Shizuka that same evening, he’d changed his mind.
He’d decided he wanted to go home.
Now that he was home, he wanted to go to bed.
Of course he wanted to have a talk with Mokuba as well. Or he needed to, rather. Wanting implied that he was looking forward to it, and he wasn’t. How could he look forward to it, when he didn’t know where to begin or how to fix things? In hindsight, yes, he shouldn’t have run from the issue and hidden out in States under the pretense of working, but what was done was done and he couldn’t change that.
Fortunately, the fact that the lights were off in the family room, the gaming room, and dimmed significantly in the kitchen, he could safely assume Mokuba had gone to bed for the night. A bit of a blessing in disguise, that. He had missed Mokuba, no doubt about it. He wanted to see him, and to talk with him. But he would rather wait to prod the proverbial elephant in the room until after he’d had some rest.
And right now, he could think of nothing more inviting than the thought of crawling into bed with his cat and his... girlfriend (he was still getting used to that) and putting in a good eight hours.
Nodding a goodnight as his driver straightened up from a bow, Kaiba waited until the front door closed again, then took up his luggage; the obligatory suitcase and briefcase, and an oversized shopping bag which currently doubled as a place to stuff the extra odds and ends for easy transport.
Heading up the stairs and down a few hallways, he was tempted, briefly, as he passed by the door to Mokuba’s rooms, to check in on the boy. But a second of hesitation led him to think twice about it. Better not to push his luck and risk waking him.
He continued on.
When he reached his own door, there was a wait while he shuffled objects from one hand to the other, eventually having to admit defeat and set the suitcase on the floor to gain entry. Once inside, he set the briefcase on the armchair near the window and the suitcase beside the closet door, peering over at the form on the bed as he did.
She was sprawled out in the middle. In his usual spot, he noted, with the cat curled up next to her head on his pillow. The latter was watching him with glowing eyes, purring softly and absently kneading a few stray locks of Shizuka’s hair into the pillowcase.
He shot the cat a significant look, the one typically reserved for when he was on the phone with work and she wouldn’t shut up, hoping the animal would have the sense not to wake her bedmate before he had the privilege of doing it himself.
The cat blinked owlishly at him, but kept her silence, and Kaiba came around the opposite side of the bed. He set the shopping bag down and climbed into bed over the top of the covers, moving quietly and carefully as he swept the hair away from Shizuka’s neck.
And because he figured he could get away with it before she woke, he leaned in, mouth hovering over the side of her throat, and inhaled, savoring the familiar scent there.
For a short time anyway, before his arm came around her waist and he jostled her deliberately. Going in for the kill as it were. He tasted the skin at her jugular, and the skin at the top of her shoulder - bared by the shirt that was too big for her - then endeavored from there to investigate the expanse in between.
[Tag, Shizuka]