7 Things

[High Priest Ali]

(I think this is the perfect Azure song. In case you don't know, Azureshipping is the pairing between Kaiba and Tea, which I actually support. XD Well, Kris said she'd help me make an Azure RP, so here we go!)

Sleep, for some, is a reprieve. A sanctum where we are safe from that which troubles us in our waking lives.
But, for some, it is a peircing reminder of what we have to wake up to...

==========================================================

Seto was still asleep long after the digital alarm sounded its wakeup call. By 9:30 he was still buried in bed, clad only his jeans from the day before. He was sure what woke him was the mail truck.
He opened one icy blue eye to look at the clock. 9:44...
"Dammit!" he barked, scrambling out of bed. School started more than an hour ago.
What a great day this was going to be.

==========================================================

"Each group will design and conduct an experiment..."
Seto yawned and unconsciously began to tune the professor out. He was too tired to deal with this right now. Work at night, school during the day. This morning was the first three hours of sleep he'd gotten in twice as many days.
"Seto?"
"Huh?" Seto looked up at the sound of his name. Raku-sensei looked angry.
"I'll bet you can't tell me who your lab partner is?" he said.
"As long as it isn't Wheeler, I really don't care." Seto answered just as pseudohappily as the professor had.
Joey glared at him amongst the laughter of the rest of the class, but Seto pretended not to notice.
"No," Raku-sensei said, "You and Miss Gardner are going to work together on this one."

[Royal Vizier Kris]

Does a broken heart continue to beat?

If it shattered into pieces, scattered far and wide, fragments so small and many, it's hard to determine which pieces goes where. Will a broken heart ever heal?

==========

Four scores, and seven years ago...
Ask not what your country can do for you...
Humpty dumpty sat on a wall...

Letting out the softest sigh, yet one that carried with it all of the frustrations she felt the for the moment, Tea's porcelain blue eyes glared angrily at the paper with the first few lines completely scratched out, as though she'd thought better of using such sentences to start the introduction to her paper. Mentally, she was sifting through the other overused sentences she could use, and trying as best as she could to stuff those to the furthest corners of her mind for the time being. Surely something would come along and just hit her. Just some brilliant idea she could come up with. It was just a matter of what idea it would be, and whether it would hit her in time for her next class. Probably not.

Still frustrated, she crumbled the now scratched up paper and set it back down on her desk, deciding it would be better to throw it away later on in the period. Instead, she sat, her elbow propped up on the table, chin resting in hand. Her free hand was lightly tapping against the mahogany black table top in front of her. Just loud enough that the sound would barely carry through the room, though perhaps not loud enough that it would act as a distraction. Though, as it seemed, the Professor seemed rather entertained with enlightening the class on their up and coming project.

For this one of course, just like the ones in the passed, he would assign the partners. And just like usual, when she was not paired with Yugi, she would end up doing all of the work as her partner seemed to mysteriously come down with some illness that prevented them from doing a project. Or they were simply allergic to projects and had not turned in a completed project in years. Though it seemed to be the latter of the two. Regardless though, just like all other times Mr. Raku would pair Tea off with someone who would do very little and leave her with the rest.

'As though I don't have enough to deal with.' Tea thought acidly as the Professor proceeded to rattle of partners.

Silently though, she did her best to remain just the least bit intrigued by the groups that the professor called out, while all the while bringing her gaze away from the professor to gaze around the room, almost slipping off into her own daydream. How nice it would be, for once in the year to get paired with someone she knew would willingly help with every aspect of the project; instead of simply dumping the work load completely onto her and adding a lot more things to her every so growing long list of things to do in a weeks time. It would be so helpful to actually have something of the sort. Though, she doubted very much so whether she'd be that lucky tis time.

"Tea Gardner and Seto Kaiba."

Her head snapped back to Mr. Raku as he read the two names, and slowly her gaze shifted to Kaiba as he seemed to be slipping into an almost comatose state before being brought back to the attention by the professor. Slowly, she blinked, trying to make sure she'd heard him right. And it was only when she'd heard the professor call out her name again that she knew she'd heard it.

==========

"Outta everyone in the class," Joey was saying as the group walked down the street - heading in the direction of Kaiba Mansion - "You get paired with him."

Tea shrugged, indifferent to the idea at the moment, her thoughts wandering somewhere else though entirely. It wasn't too much of a big deal to her, at least not now. Though, perhaps by the time she reached Kaiba's house, the full weight of what was about to happen would set in. Until then though, she was pleasantly content.

"Earth to Tea!" this time, it was Tristan who spoke, as he waved a hand in front of her eyes. "You okay?"

Blinking out of her daze, Tea nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." she turned her gaze toward the mansion across the street, having been unable to realize they had arrived already. "Well, I'll see you guys later..." she muttered as she started off.

"Yeah, see ya tomorrow!" Joey called after her.

And even as she went across the street and rang the doorbell, Tea could feel the eyes of the others on her back, as though they were watching her walk to her death sentence. Or else watching her walk to her doom. Either one worked for this event. Shaking the thoughts from her head, she rang the doorbell again and waited for the answer that was sure to come.

"Welcome, Miss Gardner."

It wasn't who she'd expected, but then again nothing with Kaiba was what she'd expected.

"Mr. Kaiba is right through here," the butler motioned into the mansion, and when Tea stepped through the threshold, he closed the door behind her before proceeding to walk her through the hallway. "First door to your left," he said politely.

"Thanks," Tea said with a smile. She stepped forward toward the door, paused, and realized it was closed. Thinking it best not to intrude without notice, she knocked on Kaiba's door and waited for a reply. Or else an invitation into the room.

[High Priest Ali]

To sleep, perchance to dream. ~Shakespeare

Never sleep, lest you be plagued by nightmares. ~Me

==========================================================

Tea stood for a moment when no reply came, pondering, deciding. Mokuba made her mind up for her.
"He's probly asleep," the younger Kaiba told her as he passed behind her toward the stairs.
"What?" she hadn't quite heard him.
"He's been real busy a lot lately, and he's never home, so when he is, he tries to sleep as much as he can." Mokuba explained, a little too quickly, but he got the point across. "He won't get mad if you go in. Wake him up anyway, I need help with my trig homework." And the boy disappeared up the staircase.

Tea stood for a few more seconds, then shrugged and entered the room. Mokuba was right. Seto was curled up on top of the bed, still in his school uniform, fast asleep. Tea regretted having to wake him up, so she stood in with her back against the closed door for a time just gazing at his room.

Not what she was expecting, as usual. Kaiba's bedroom looked like any normal teenager lived here; clothes strewn on the floor, video games in one corner of the room, backpack slung over the chair at the desk, pictures on a dresser, a bookshelf. The only thing that set it apart as his room of course were some of the book titles, granted Tea did have a cousin who read a lot of Shakespeare too. But it was the picture on the dresser that caught her eye and would not let her look away.

She recognized Seto as the little boy with piercing blue eyes, and even as a baby, Mokuba's mop of black hair made him instantly noticable. But she didn't know the people in the background, the man and the woman. They were unfamiliar to her, and yet, she felt she knew...

The picture was drawing her closer, but before she could pick it up and get a better look, Kaiba stirred and looked up at her, confused at first but then slightly irritated.
"Damn..." he muttered, sitting up, "I'm sorry, I totally forgot..."

[Royal Vizier Kris]

A voice from within the room caught Tea off guard, and she spun away from the picture in time to find Kaiba sitting up in bed. Shock read plain as day on her face for a moment, but finally she shrugged in response. In a way, she felt bad for Kaiba. The way Mokuba put it made a lot of sense the more she thought about it. Kaiba worked day in and day out. Both in school and running a big corporation. The latter in which took up all day and then some. Though, she couldn't even come close to knowing where Kaiba was coming from and understanding how he felt with the stress of both jobs, Tea did at least feel bad for him. Even at his age, Kaiba was doing more than what any normal teen should have been doing at the time.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Tea said softly as she walked away from the picture. Even still, as she turned her back to the picture in question, the image of it was still fresh on her mind. She couldn't shake the unknown two people out of her mind. Though, part of her wasn't so sure Kaiba would willingly talk about that just yet. If anything, they needed to get to work before any questions popped up. Storing the question to the back of her mind for the time being, Tea settled down in the desk across the room, setting her backpack down and withdrawing a textbook and a few scraps of paper in order to get started with. Her blue eyes turned back toward Kaiba, "So I was thinking about the project earlier and...Well, I thought we'd work out the details of it together." if only for the fact that she barely knew where to begin. "We may have to do some research before we begin...But if we started today, we could get that done by tomorrow...And then after that-"

Her words trailed off as she recalled seeing Mokuba in the hallway just a few minutes previously. "Though," she started, "Your brother needs help with his Trig homework. So, you could do that before we get started on the actual project..." her gaze turned back toward the papers that she'd laid out and organized on the desk. The researching part shouldn't be so horrid. It was everything else that Tea wasn't especially looking forward to. Of course, it would probably be so much easier with the research done and out of the way first.

Her gaze finally turned back to Kaiba, as though waiting for his reply in the entire matter. One way or another, it wouldn't matter so long as they could get some work done before the afternoon was up. Short of that, she didn't so much care where they started or when they really started. That much was up to Kaiba if he chose to contribute something.

[High Priest Ali]

"I, uh..." Seto ran his fingers through his hair distractedly, then frowned, as if remembering something. "What'd you say about Mokuba..?"
"He needs help with his trig." Tea repeated.
"Oh, God..." Seto sighed, "I can't do that right now...did he go upstairs?"
"Yeah..." Tea said.
"He's probably already started then..." Seto muttered as he lay so he could face her instead. For a minute Tea thought about telling him to sit up. If he fell asleep, she'd kill him. She finally got a pertner who knew what they were doing, and she was not going let him slack off and stick her with all the work.

"I can't come up with anything decent," Tea stated, "I don't suppose you have any bright ideas?"
"I was thinking we could just do a volcano like back in grade school..." he smiled, surprising Tea, not only by the expression but by the fact that he remembered their only other partnership in history.
In the fifth grade, their science teacher stuck them together. They'd fought for 3 days, and halfassed the entire project the night before it was due. And somehow, miraculously, still got an A.
But why did Kaiba remember that when she'd almost forgotten?

"I don't know..." Tea said skeptically, "You don't think that seems...childish?"
Kaiba shrugged. "I don't have any other ideas..." he said and closed his eyes.
Again, Tea had the urge to snap at him about staying awake, but she stayed quiet. For now.
"Well, we have to think of something..." Tea said. She stared at him when he didn't answer.
"Kaiba." she said sharply.
"Yeah?"
"What'd I just say?"
"Well, we have to think of something..." he mimicked her previous sentence fawlessly, right down to the tone.
Smart ass...fine, he could keep his eyes closed.

==========================================================

Tea stirred and opened her eyes. She blinked, confused at first. Then remembered.
They'd been brainstorming. She'd moved to the floor beside the bed to talk to Kaiba better. He must have fallen asleep again. And sometime after, she had too.

She looked up. Seto was still curled on the bed, fast asleep. One arm was stretched across the bed. Tea realized her arm was too.
She was holding his hand.
Pulling her fingers away, she wondered when and why she'd done that. She remembered him drifting off. She'd been angry at first, but then the thoughts of what he must go through every day stimmied her rage. She got bored thinking of projects herself, and as she'd watched him...

Sitting up, she looked at the clock. Silently freaked out. Checked again.
"Kaiba, wake up." she said.
Seto blinked, roused, and stared at her a moment. Then remembered.
"Shit..." he growled, his voice gruffer from sleep. He sat up and sighed. "I am so sorry, Tea."
"It's OK, it's not your fault." she told him gathering her stuff quickly, "I fell asleep too."
"What time is it?" Seto asked.
"8:30," Tea said, "My mom and dad are gonna freak."
"You need a ride? Roland can-"
"I'll be fine, thanks." Tea smiled and headed for the door. "Do me a favor?" she asked before she left.
Seto cocked his head, waiting for her request.
"Sleep tonight so you'll stay awake tomorrow?"

(God, have really not been on here in a year? XD)