A Christmas Carol with Kaiba

Kisara

Shaking the thought off, he carefully dialed the number his secretary had sent him and listened to the ringing on the other end. Each bring was offset by a heavy pound of his heart. What would he say? No, Seto never wondered that. He never had to. He always knew what to say, and she would be no exception.

But it was her answering machine that answered.

"Hiya! Sorry I missed your call, I'm probably caught up somewhere in my stupid hair or forgot my phone was on vibrate for the millionth time. Just leave me your name and number and I'll get back with you!"

At the beep in his ear, his mind went completely blank. Mouth dry, hands suddenly clammy, he hung up. For a long moment he just stared at his garage hall, feeling the winter air sinking in through the open garage door. It felt surreal, the cold, and for a moment he couldn't tell the difference between Jack Frost's bite in reality and in the strange vision from the night before.

Then, with a hot flash, he remembered the petal touch of her lips and redialed the number.

This time, when her mailbox intro came to him, his stomach had withered into something akin to a prune, but his diaphragm still worked all right, and he managed to push enough air up for words.

"Kisara, I am calling to invite you over for Christmas dinner. I don't expect you to be there, but it would be...beyond what I..." God damn it, say it man, "what I deserve if you were. Either way, there'll be tapioca on the table. Dinner's at six. Don't worry about dressing nice, it's just Mokuba and I." And, unable to think of any sort of closing to that, and already red in the face with humiliation, he hung up and proceeded to slam his face into the top of his sports car.

Gawd, how many times did he hesitate? Stutter? And was that an 'um' he heard? No, he was just being paranoid. Gozaburo had knocked out any 'um' from him by the time he was ten.

It took him a full fifteen minutes before he felt presentable enough to start walking towards the door, but then he remembered, hand on the door, that he hadn't even bothered to buy anyone, let alone Mokuba, Christmas presents. Even the worst of Scrooge's had Christmas presents, right? Coal, even. Damnit, how could he have forgotten about the whole point!

Cursing loudly, he slipped back into the Porsche and zipped away.

He returned three hours later with a grumbling stomach and an armful of wrapped presents to find the inside of his mansion transformed. Pine and holly tinsel wrapped every banister, wreaths on the doors, bells in the corners, and that monster of a tree glittering like a god unto its own in the window.

On finding himself gawking, he snapped his jaw closed with a click. Where were those three?

"Oh, hey Kaiba."

Walking towards him, with a Santa hat awkwardly squashed over his crazy hair, came Yugi. Seto couldn't understand how the guy couldn't look as awkward as Seto himself felt. Hadn't the kid been a shy, anti-social geek? And that hair. 

"Do you need any help with those?"

"I can handle it," Seto said, adjusting his hands on one of the gifts. "Where's Mokuba?"

His rival's face cracked in a smile no one would have expected his face to be capable of. "Oh, they're just putting up some last minute decorations in a hall back there. Something with white berries."

Delicious smells filled the house to the brim and Seto felt his stomach grumble. He looked at his watch: 5:23.

"Dinner should be soon." He hefted up a box he thought he could feel slipping. "Could you—"

The box dropped. Yugi shot forward and caught it by the tips of his fingers, unsettling his Santa hat.

"Go fetch them? Yeah, and do you want these under the tree?"