Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Seto Kaiba's Perfect Match ❯ Accidental Declaration of Love ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

At first, I was shocked. Then the realization set in. "HeyI won!" Kaiba's cool composure deserted him at last, and his face showed his shock, his dark blue eyes wide and his lips parted slightly. My heart almost melted completely----Kaiba looked so---so sweet. I had to resist the urge to go "Awww.".
I walked over to him and extended my hand to help him up. "Sorry 'bout that. Guess I didn't know my own strength, huh?" I laughed nervously, trying to ease the tension I knew would be there, but Kaiba stayed stubbornly silent, instead raising himself to a seated position without my help. My heart quivered a bit within me----I was beginning to be afraid that I had really angered him.
"Dude, that was an awesome duel. I do believe luck is with me today, otherwise you probably would have kicked my ass," I said brightly, trying to cover the fact that his silence was increasingly getting to my confidence. He had taken up a defensive posture by this time, his knees up and supporting his crossed arms.
"Damn! That chick is awesome!" cried someone in the crowd. "She beat Kaiba like that!" He accompanied his outburst with a snap of his fingers.
"Man, Kaiba's not even talking," somebody else said. I was glad someone was voicing my fears. "Maybe he's too pissed off about a girl beating him."
"Hey, now," I said, turning around. "Girls are equal to guys in every way. We're not less than or greater than----we are exactly equal. You had to notice that in our duel." I turned back to Kaiba and kneeled in front of him.
"Hey, seriously, open up to me," I said, more quietly. "I know that was a pretty shocking duel. If it's any consolation, I was pretty shocked too."
"It's not," Kaiba finally said, his tone that of a spoiled child. Dang it, even his bad attitude was sexy. Damn female hormones.
"Listen, I'm sorry if anything I said upset you too much," I said soothingly.
"Hmmph." He turned his face slightly away from me.
"Kaiba, as hard as it is to believe, I understand how you must be feeling right now."
"Oh, really?" He rolled his eyes. "How could you understand? You won, after all."
"But I've lost before. And so have you," I reminded him. Not a good move on my part.
"Do you have to say that?" He almost sounded hurt, and his blue eyes stared into my brown eyes coldly.
"Oh, gosh," I said, realizing my verbal blunder. "I'm sorry. I was just attempting to equalize our situations. Call it my Sagittarian bluntness making life wonderful again." The bitterness in my voice was becoming less subtle by the minute. "You know, Kaiba, you are a great duelist, though I probably don't have to tell your over-inflated ego that." The crowd, while diminished from a few minutes before, still had enough people to gasp at my comment.
Kaiba gritted his teeth. "How dare you?"
"Do I speak lies?" I boldly challenged him. "Think about it." He stayed quiet. Instinctively, and without realizing it, I put my hand gently on his shoulder.
"Kaiba, I'm sorry, but you need to be shocked out of yourself a bit. There are other people in this world, unfortunately, and sometimes they're going to best you. True greatness is not measured by the number of wins, but the number of losses from which one has bounced back." I thought a minute. "Damn, do I need to take my own advice or what?" I laughed at myself, realizing my inadvertent hypocrisy.
"What?" Kaiba looked a bit confused at my dialogue with myself.
"Oh, sorry," I apologized quickly. "I was just thinking that I needed to take my own advice before I went counseling others. You see, I have the same trouble you do----the inability to deal with the fact that I'm not a perfect human. 'Perfect human' is an oxymoron anyway." I paused. "I hate when I fail, because it makes me feel like the world, or my world of people, looks at me differently. It makes me feel like my perfect image is shattered, and I feel so unprotected without it. I bet you can relate, can't you?" Kaiba wouldn't look me in the eyes anymore, choosing instead to look at a point far distant.
"I know you're struggling with it, but it's really OK to lose. Hell, would we know how great winning was if that's all we ever did? We need to know the bad in order to appreciate the good." I stopped for a second and grinned. "Wow, I'm so smart!" I giggled, and Kaiba laughed a little. Inside my mind, I had a minor squealing fit.
"You do make an---interesting argument," Kaiba said begrudgingly.
"I'm glad a man of your logic and intellect sees it that way," I said kindly. "I've not been known for my philosophical debate skill." He finally looked into my eyes again, and the calm, gentle expression within those deep blue orbs showed me the true Seto Kaiba for a second.
"Oh, sweetheart," I said quietly, without thinking. Whoops.

"Holy shit!" cried someone in the crowd. "She called----she called him---" The crowd went absolutely silent. I bit my lip, afraid of what was going to happen next. Kaiba looked more shocked than he did when I beat him.
"Did---did you just call me 'sweetheart'?" Kaiba asked, in disbelief.
"Yeah, I think I did," I said sheepishly. I smiled nervously. "I--is that OK? Because you are." Completely unsure of what I was doing mentally, I decided to let my heart guide me for a second, and I moved and kissed him gently on the cheek. Of course, that created even more of a stir.
"Awwww---" I heard a couple of voices say. "That's so sweet!"
Kaiba had that same shocked look on his face. I grinned.
"Was it good for you?" I said, and my humor dispelled the heaviness of the moment.
"Uh----no one's ever done that to me before," he said, his voice tinged with----did I detect a hint of shyness?
"Well, you had it coming," I said jokingly. "I knew I'd find you in there somewhere ."

After the crowd broke up, I got up and went over to Yugi and the rest of the group, who were still on the bench, resting. Kaiba seemed to be lost in his own world, and so I quietly left.
"Wow, that was a truly awesome duel, Robin," Tea said. "Not to mention---uh, what you did to him after you beat him." She smiled a little. "That took some guts."
"Yeah," Yugi added, looking proud of me. "I----I swear I saw a side of Kaiba come out that I've never seen before. Especially when you kissed him."
"I didn't really mean to call him sweetheart at first, but I guess I was thinking it so hard that it slipped out. I have a tendency to do that," I said, a little embarrassed.
"Damn, you whipped his ass," Joey chimed in. "You called out your own Blue-Eyes and beat him like nothing, man." He seemed to want to divert the conversation away from my actions after the duel.
"I think I got really lucky and drew my best cards. Trust me, I know from experience----when I don't draw the right card at the right time, I can be the worst duelist you've ever seen. Thank God that didn't happen today." Then I had the thought of what had happened, and I grinned big.
"Aw, he looked so sweet," I said to myself quietly as my face flushed a vibrant pink again.
I thought I heard Tristan mutter, "Lucky Kaiba."

Frankly, I didn't see how I was going to sleep much that night. I had way too much nervous energy to sleep. My brain was running herself to death, going about 150 miles an hour and not looking like she was going to slow down any time soon, and my heart was beating about that fast. As I tried to settle down and sleep, vague half-worries came to me, such as the fear that I had been too bold, and the fear that I had not been bold enough. I worried myself awake for about half an hour, then finally my incessant questions let my mind rest.

I woke gently to the rosy light of dawn filtering into my room. For some reason, I had the urge to just hop out of bed and go kick as much ass in the tournament as I could. I knew what this energetic feeling was from experience----it was the natural high I got from taking a chance. "Boy, did I ever take a chance," I thought to myself. "It seems to have worked, too." I trailed off in my mind, an image of Kaiba's face appearing to me. He had looked as if it were the first time anyone had shown him any kindness at all. Perhaps it was.

I left for the tournament a little later than I had the previous morning, taking time instead to try to breathe for a minute, since I was still a bit nervous about possibly seeing him again. I hadn't seen Kaiba since our duel and---well, I didn't know how a night of thought had affected his perception of me.

Just as the previous morning, Yugi, Tea, Joey and Tristan were all waiting for me nearby. "Hey, 'sup?" I said cheerfully.
"Not much, just chillin'," Joey said, lazily stretching one arm. "How's Kaiba's new girlfriend doing this morning?"
"What the fuck----" I said quickly. Then I realized he was talking about me. "Ha ha ha! I don't know about that, but hey! I can hope!" I looked around, and to my surprise, didn't see any duelists wandering around. I checked my watch. "Hey, shouldn't there be some duelists about at this time in the morning?"
"You know, come to think of it," Tea said thoughtfully, "I haven't seen one duelist the whole time we've been out here. Have you guys?" she asked the rest of the group. They all shook their heads.
"Wonder where everyone is?" I asked, puzzled.

We cruised around for a little while, but still didn't bump into anyone. Then my sharp ears picked up a familiar and very sexy voice coming from nearby.
"Hold on! I hear Sexy Man!" I cried, and took off in the direction of Kaiba's voice.
"Whoa! Follow the running chick!" I heard Joey cry, and they all followed me to where his voice was coming from, which was Domino Square. Like the night before last, Kaiba was on the big screens, and seemed to be addressing everyone in the tournament.
"Gosh, I hope we haven't missed much," I said through breathing hard. I hoped I hadn't missed much of hearing Kaiba talk. His voice gave me shivers, and definitely of the good kind.
"As I had hoped, my tournament is going very well, according to the research I did yesterday," Kaiba said, again smiling slightly. I could have suggested another kind of research on another, ahem, very exciting topic at that moment, but I just smiled to myself and kept watching.
"I got the opportunity to duel only one of you, however, since I was busy for most of the day with maintenance of the tournament."
"So that's why we didn't see him until late yesterday," I said to myself.
"I'm sure if you've talked with anyone in the tournament about my duel, you already know the outcome. Therefore, I will not mention it." He looked as if he were trying to disguise how he felt inside. "However, I must request that the duelist I faced yesterday report to KaibaCorp's main office as soon as possible. I have a matter to discuss with her."
"Oh, I got a matter to discuss with him, too," I thought to myself, and laughed a quiet version of my naughty laugh. The crowd murmured a bit at his announcement.
"With that, I leave you to your dueling. Good luck." The TV screens went off, and the crowd began to disperse.
"Holy crap," I said, as I sat down to rest a minute. "Wonder what he wants to see me about?"
"Probably wants a repeat of yesterday," Joey said, smiling teasingly. "Or maybe he just wants to tell you thank you."
"Hah! Kaiba, expressing gratitude?" Tristan said scornfully. "Not likely."
"Well, Robin did give him a pretty nice gift," Tea said, starting to giggle. "Who's to say he didn't like it?"
"That's what I'm saying, girl!" I said, high-fiving her. "And there's more where that came from, if you catch my drift."
"Hey, I gotta warn ya," Joey said with a laugh, "don't be too rough with him, all right? He's probably not used to a---forceful girl like you."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure I'm gentle," I said, and winked to convey the double entendre. The whole group started laughing.

A group of younger kids came up to me then.
"Hey, are you the girl that beat Kaiba yesterday?" one of them, a young girl, asked.
"Um----yeah," I said honestly.
"Wow, that's so cool," one of the little guys said. "We heard you beat him good."
"Yeah, and then kissed him," the first young girl said, giggling. "You have a crush on him?" I nodded shyly in response. They all giggled.
"We talked to his brother Mokuba this morning," said another little boy. "He said Kaiba was up most of the night working on something in his lab."
"Do you think he likes you back?" asked another little girl.
"I don't know," I said, "but I hope he does."