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In the mirror the brown, bare skin of Isis’s neck gaped out from her burgundy cape gown, and Isis nearly fled the restroom, nearly fled the gala altogether. She had not brought a scarf or shawl or cover-up—purposefully, for she refused to be ruled by her anxiety tonight. She must get used to feeling adrift. She’d been naïve to think she’d be grounded (underground) forever.
Isis washed her hands three times, until her breathing stayed. Each automated whirr of the soap dispenser cut through the muffled strains of the quintet, the murmurs and laughs of socialites. So did each jagged rip of paper towels.
She paused before the door and gathered in a final breath; she resisted the compulsion to touch her collarbone, and stepped back out into the cloying warmth of the hall.
The gala was an international affair, an exhibition and solicitation in one: Come and see what the Museum of Modern Egypt has to offer! While you’re here, please consider a donation! If you are already a supporter, we thank you! Your patronage is deeply appreciated!
Modern, because Isis could not bring herself to look at pharaohs and tombs any longer. Museum, because Isis fell back—because Isis had no ideas of her own. Including, as it were, no idea what to say to the men who now addressed her.
“Aren’t you looking beautiful tonight?” one was saying, one of average height and weight and feature, apparently American by his accent. “Care to join us for a drink?”
His companion, somehow even more hopelessly average in every way, said, “We’d certainly be more inclined to donate if you did!”
If this man spoke in jest, he was not funny. If his friend laughed to lighten the mood, the light did not reach Isis's umbrous center, her forbidden core. She raised her chin, standing taller than them both in gilded heels just one inch high; and in lieu of manners or even words she turned on those heels and left them with her shadow.
Like a teenager would do, a rebellious child. Isis stalked back the way she came, plunging back into the narrow corridor. She was caught—flailing in an invisible net—and getting nowhere.
A chasm of time rang vast and hollow between now and when the speeches began. At the very least, the bathroom here was spacious and luxurious. She could wait there, and she might avoid a measure of guilt and disgust. Her hand lay against the door, but as she began to push she heard,
“Isis?”
She looked to her right. There with his own fist curled against the men’s bathroom door stood Seto Kaiba.
No, surely not.
“Seto?” she said, incredulous. It was him, and it wasn’t. His hair was shorter; his jaw was heavier. She had known him by voice these past four years; she had not seen him since the tournament, for he had not come to Egypt that day—she had not handed him a shovel, as she had to all the rest, and ordered him to dig his dear friend’s grave—
“What are you doing here?” she asked, restraining herself. She spoke in Japanese, an attempt to distract her feverish thoughts with the effort of translation. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“Well, here I am,” he said.
“I can see that,” she said. “You failed to mention you’d changed your mind when we were last in touch.”
He crossed his arms. “I assumed you’d read the guest list.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Not the final draft, evidently. Did you RSVP this morning?”
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
Sounds of the party wafted through the corridor. The two of them lingered there by the bathroom doors, searching each other for the next cue, the right thing to say; she in her gown, he in his white tuxedo jacket and black trousers. Reminiscent, yet again, of the blinding young man at Alcatraz—and yet surprisingly unlike him.
“You look older,” she told him.
“I am older,” he said.
Right then, a severe old woman appeared at Isis's side.
“Excuse me,” she huffed in English—another American—brandishing a pocketbook pockmarked with pearls. “You’re blocking the restroom.”
“I’m sorry,” said Isis, stumbling back from the door on trembling heels till her back was against the opposite wall. She felt flush with embarrassment, with heat from the hall. Before she could stop herself, she grasped at her naked neck, once, twice. Nothing. She laced her fingers behind her back and pressed herself against them, smashing them into the wall.
All this had been very subtle, she hoped. But Seto’s look told her the opposite. He crossed the corridor in two strides and folded himself against the wall beside her, mimicking her posture, hands behind his back.
“I’m bored,” he said, blowing his bangs from his eyes with a short puff of air. “Not even modern history does it for me, I guess.”
“As long as you continue to support the museum,” said Isis, controlling her breathing, “I’m sure no one would mind if you left early.”
“You wanna get outta here?”
Isis frowned. “...I work here,” she said weakly. “I ought to be here.”
Seto’s demeanor erupted from nonchalance into piercing intensity. He swung to stand before her, face to face, eye to eye. Four eyes in total—all blue, none gold. This was the Seto she knew. He said, enunciating,
“Do you want to be here?”
Isis felt her hands twitch as the ghost passed over her neck. She shouldn’t leave, but she longed to leave. She longed to go home.
“No,” she said, inundated with sudden relief at her confession. “No, I want to leave.”
Seto drew an arc with his head, toward the dark end of the corridor. One alien green light flickered and spurted overhead: EXIT.
“Then let’s go.”
The night air was freezing but freeing, and their brisk pace did its part to warm her, as did Seto’s overcoat. Her initial shock upon seeing him had eased into a pleasant tingling now; they spoke of business and brothers as naturally as ever. The city around them glowed, still loud and pulsing at this late hour, its brazen noise obscuring the stars.
It took Seto a half-hour to finally ask, “Where’re we going?”
Isis deflected with, “Are you hungry?”
“I’m not deciding for you,” said Seto. “If you’re hungry, say ‘I wanna eat.’ ”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
He looked taken aback at first. Then he smirked. “...I wanna eat.”
She smirked back. “Then we shall eat.”
The pair of them were surely a sight, in line at a sleepy McDonald’s in their formal wear, solemnly claiming their milkshakes and fries and sweeping from the restaurant as though from a stage. They were acting, after all. Isis could sense in Seto a kindred desire to stuff their faces with fries under cover of darkness, in deep quiet and comfort, without a soul around to watch. Indeed, the second they stepped off the main street and onto Isis's street, he was already eating his.
“I trust that you know where we’re going this time?” he asked, licking salt from his thumb.
“Our house is just ahead.”
Isis was suddenly nervous. She had been so at ease with him that she’d forgotten whether such a thing was appropriate—inviting a man into her house, to be alone with her. Her brothers would not be home. Did Seto find her unseemly, this invitation untoward? She couldn’t tell how he felt. He looked forward as they walked, scarfing down another haystack of fries.
‘If you’re hungry, say…’
“Is that okay with you?” she asked.
Seto wiped his soiled hand on his costly trousers. “Sure,” he said, confused. “Should it not be?”
Of course he was fine with it. Japan had its own set of standards, of expectations and manners, that she’d only ever seen him hurl out the idiomatic window.
“Rishid and Malik are out,” she added.
“I know,” said Seto. “They go out most Fridays, right?” Of course he’d remember such a detail.
Just then a violent roar ripped through the night. Isis jumped.
“Speaking of brothers,” said Seto over another roar, moving his snacks to one hand and fishing into his pocket.
“Is your ringtone the Blue-Eyes White Dragon?” said Isis.
He shot her a look—Is that a problem?—and answered his phone on speaker.
“It’s four in the morning,” he said by way of greeting. “Go to bed.”
“It’s SATURDAY morning.” Mokuba’s voice—deeper, raspier, no less energetic. “My homework’s done. I’m eighty percent through this game and I gotta ask you something.”
“Make it quick.”
“Wait—isn’t it like nine there? Aren’t you at the gala thing?”
“I went to McDonald’s with Isis instead.”
“Isis?! Is that where you are now? Is Isis there?”
Isis blushed. “Hello, Mokuba,” she said into the proffered speaker.
“Hi! How are you? How’s Malik? How’s Rishid?”
This child (teenager now) plowed through social barriers with enviable panache. He must’ve inherited the bulk of such grace, as Malik had in her family. Isis cleared her throat in search of an answer, but Seto drew the phone back.
“What’s your question?” he asked.
“I don’t wanna interrupt you and Isis or whatever,” said Mokuba, and Isis plainly saw his impish smile through his words. “You guys enjoy your evening! I’ll google it—”
“Just ask it,” Seto cut in flatly, steamrolling any innuendo.
“Okay, so I’m only like three stages from the final boss, but…”
Mokuba described his incomprehensible quandary as they walked, and soon they stopped before the iron gate of a looming townhouse.
“This is our house,” whispered Isis. Seto glanced up at it and nodded, still listening to his brother.
“...and I have no clue if I’m like supposed to go collect them all? Or if I even need them for the final boss fight? But then why would they give me the option? What did you do when you got to this part?”
“I got them all,” said Seto behind her while she dug in her handbag for her keys. “I wanted to see what each character did. But I don’t think you need every last one of them...”
At last she managed to unlock the gate. She led Seto past the measly herb garden she attempted to tend, the sad little window box that coughed up the dusty remains of last season’s flowers. She shoved her key into the deadbolt and let out a small groan, remembering the dishes she’d left in the sink, the heap of laundry on the upstairs landing. She had not planned on visitors this evening, Seto Kaiba least of all. Then again, he was quite preoccupied.
Seto stayed on the line with Mokuba all through setting his food on the coffee table, removing his shoes, and falling from his great height onto the couch with an unceremonious fwump. Make yourself at home, then! Meanwhile, Isis absconded to their kitchen and scanned their fridge for something, anything. The only drinks on offer belonged to Malik—she had not gone to the store, either! So she filled two glasses with ice water and hastened back to the living room.
“...if you junction your elemental magic to his elemental attack stat, you’ll gain an advantage—”
“Okay, but then what should I junction when I’m up against Gargantua?”
“Gargantua’s different—who’s in your party again?”
“It’s Squall, Selphie, and Rinoa…”
Isis set the glasses beside their food and sat down beside Seto, drawing her legs up and burrowing into the woolen black coat she still wore. She felt at once completely out of line and altogether at home, overtaken by an inexplicable sense of comfort, of safety, that Seto’s presence stirred in her. She was beyond relieved to be here, to be home, wrapped in the arms...no, the coat...of one who cared for her...
Minutes trickled by. Isis settled into the depths of Seto’s voice like an anchor settling into the seabed. Seto noticed her nodding head and deftly switched off the speaker phone. He continued advising in muted tones.
“Once you’re fighting him that’ll make more sense…no...That’s just one guy’s strategy, that doesn’t mean it’s a good one…What else does it say?...no...”
...
“Okay...Text me a picture when you do...alright...yeah, I will. I’m pretty jet lagged...mm. Love you, too...bye.”
*BEEP*
Seto tossed his phone onto the coffee table. “Thirty-five minutes,” he grumbled, not without affection. “Twenty questions for the price of one.” He flopped his head back against the cushion and closed his eyes. “...Nice house,” he added.
“Mm,” hummed Isis, very nearly unconscious. She was dimly aware that her head lay against his shoulder.
“Can you refreeze milkshakes...?”
“...mm…”
Seto opened an eye, struck by a groggy thought. “What time do your brothers get home?”
“...morning…”
He hummed, satisfied, and closed his eye.
At five in the morning, Isis jolted awake. Her spasm woke Seto, too. They had scarcely moved; Isis's neck burned with stiffness, and she desperately needed the bathroom. Seto swore and rubbed his own neck, extracting himself from a vortex of cushions.
“What’s wrong?” he mumbled.
Isis realized what woke her—she could hear the loud voices, the jangle of keys that signified her brothers’ arrival. A match-strike of adrenaline flared in her stomach.
“Upstairs!” she cried, staggering around the coffee table and bolting up the narrow staircase. Seto snatched his shoes and scrambled to follow. They dove into her room on the third floor just as the front door creaked on its hinges.
“What is this?” Malik’s slurred Arabic carried up to them. “McDonald’s? Did we leave this here?”
“You must have…” Rishid’s exhausted baritone.
“Ugh, Isis will kill me…”
“Shit,” hissed Seto close to her ear, crouching just behind her in the dark. “The food. I forgot to grab it—”
“It’s okay. He thinks he left it there,” hissed Isis.
“Is he that drunk?”
“And forgetful to begin with.”
“Rishid,” called Malik, “you want a milkshake?”
“I’m going to bed,” said Rishid, his voice abruptly closer now—his bedroom was directly below them.
“Suit yourself…”
Isis and Seto held their breath, listening, waiting. The water pressure lurched on and off; the television blared. When Isis heard Rishid’s door shut for certain, she rose to her feet.
“You take the restroom,” she whispered. “I’ll check on Malik.” They crept to the second floor landing together, and like an apparition Seto phased into the bathroom, quiet as the dead.
Isis tip-toed to the first floor and confirmed her suspicion: Malik lay fast asleep where she and Seto had been mere minutes before, boots propped on the arm of the couch, a pile of cold fries tumbling from his half-opened hand. The flickering television set everything aglow, including Isis's heart. Here was her baby brother, home and safe.
She found the remote and switched off the television. Malik still wore his coat; he wouldn’t need a blanket. Isis knew it’d end up on the floor, anyway. So she settled for sliding his boots off and unfastening his hazardous earrings, laying them gently on the coffee table. She watched him a moment but did not linger, for her bladder could bear it no longer.
Seto was finished in the bathroom, thank God. And by the time Isis had scoured away her ancient makeup and had hung up Seto’s coat and her dress (together on the same hanger, and hopelessly wrinkled), the first light of dawn was beginning to leak through the curtains.
Seto sat on the floor against her bed, leaning, dozing again. His clothes lay folded upon her vanity; he wore only his trousers. Isis laid the hanging clothes over her chair. A pigeon cooed outside her window. All was blue, and cold, and still.
“Seto,” she murmured, cupping her hand against his cheek. “Come to bed.”
He stirred and blinked up at her. “...’s that okay with you?”
In response, Isis leaned down and kissed him—softly, silently, like the dawn. His cold hand found and caressed her collarbone, swept back into her hair. Another bird alighted on the sill and began its mild song.
Isis pulled away, and drew Seto by the hand into her bed.
Seto shielded his eyes against the aggressive sunshine. It was stuffy as actual hell in this attic-room. He was afraid of what time it was, but it was futile to deny the inevitable...He patted the mattress and found his phone.
11:46 AM. Earlier than he thought. He had an update from Isono and three new messages from Mokuba:
MOKUBA [10:21 AM]: WHO KICKS ASS?!?!?!
MOKUBA [10:21 AM]: [PHOTO_011725]
MOKUBA [10:24 AM]: OK im going to sleep now. hope egypt mcds has a bfast menu 😇
Seto typed back slowly with his left thumb.
SETO [11:47 AM]: You do! 🏆
SETO [11:47 AM]: I think it’s too late for breakfast
He hit ‘send’ before he registered Mokuba’s insinuation. Oh, well. He locked his phone and laid it by the pillow. The battery was low, and his charger was at the hotel. Not here, at Isis’s house. In Isis’s bedroom.
They had not kissed a second time. Had they kissed at all? It wouldn’t be the first time he had dreamt of a kiss, of many kisses, hidden among reeds, gilded in the royal blue-gold of dawn...
...but Isis was tangible. Isis was here. Isis's head lay against his chest, rising and falling along with his breathing. Her blue-black hair pooled in the crevices between his neck and shoulders. Isis—his business associate. His fellow duelist. A person he trusted...a confidante.
The only one he’d told about those dreams.
His head and neck ached. He felt dehydrated. He halfheartedly took inventory...in the past thirty hours, he’d eaten one cheese ball at the gala...and an extra-large order of french fries. Did the Ishtars have coffee? Cereal?
“Isis?” he said, prodding her upper arm. She snorted and slept on. A puddle of drool mingled with her hair. Delightful. Seto gripped the edge of the bed and maneuvered out from under her, sliding to the floor with a graceless thud. Isis rolled to her other side, tugging the sheets over her head. Wasn’t she melting?! Seto suppressed a smile, though he had no idea whom he hid it from.
He made his deft descent, pausing here and there to admire the occasional feature of the house. By day, the interior was colorful, eclectic, an amalgamation of antique fixtures and modern taste. He knew they’d purchased the house from an antique collector; he knew the old man had left a few less treasured pieces behind—a pair of inlaid end tables, a handmade Kazak rug. It wasn’t to Seto’s taste, and he wouldn’t have thought it would be to the Ishtars’, either. But what did he know? Maybe they kept antiques around to remind them of how far they’d come.
The laundry on the second floor landing amused him, piled high outside Rishid’s closed door. Once again, Seto concealed a smile from no one. He knew that if Isis had planned on last night, she would’ve washed and folded it. He was glad she trusted him enough to have him over, anyway. Mess and all.
At the gala, he had noticed her as soon as he’d arrived, a cutting figure in her cape and gown. He’d tried to intercept her; instead he’d watched her decamp to the bathroom three times, each time for a longer interval. Was she ill? Was she upset? He’d trailed her the fourth time, and when she’d backed into the wall—when she’d grasped at her strong neck with trembling, pinching fingers—Seto had known.
She’d told him one night, a dark night entrenched in heavy rain, a night spent reliving the tombs and the tunnels and the Pharaoh...she’d told him she longed for the day when she’d know what to do on her own. The day she would finally make her own decisions, she’d said in tears, with confidence. Not out of fear.
That night, he had been too caught up in his own grief to tell her the truth—that no one made every (or any) decision with confidence. That everyone was, and always would be, afraid. Instead, he’d listened. I know, he’d said. I understand. He’d never had a tauk that showed him visions of the future. He invented his own visions. He clung to them all on his own.
Seto passed the empty living room and reached the kitchen, a bright and airy space chock full of fruit décor. There was a coffee maker, along with another antique: a copper coffee pot upon a silver tray. He set to work with the supplies he could find. Would Isis want coffee? Would she rather sleep for longer? Well, he’d bring her a cup and drink it himself if she turned him down…
While he waited for it to brew, he hunched over the sink and downed several glasses of water. His head now pulsed with pain. He wondered if there was ibuprofen somewhere in the cabinets, or maybe in the bathroom. Maybe neither, maybe someplace else. He’d ask Isis—
A toilet flushed and a hallway door opened, pouring steam—and into the kitchen strode Malik.
Both men froze. Malik's hair was wet; a towel draped over his bare shoulders. Heavy bags hung under his bugging eyes.
“What the fu—” he choked out. “Kaiba?! What are you doing here?!”
Seto figured honesty was the best policy. “Looking for drugs,” he said.
“The hell is that supposed to mean?!”
“I have a headache.”
“Wha…” Malik rubbed his temples, squinting with confusion. No doubt he had his own headache. “How did you...how did you get in?!”
“Isis let me in,” said Seto. He filled another glass.
Malik’s mouth hung open. “Isis let you…” He marched out of the kitchen to the foot of the stairs, shouting in Arabic, “ISIS!! SETO KAIBA IS IN OUR HOUSE!!” and so on. Seto’s Arabic was mediocre on a good day, and he’d been taught Standard, not Egyptian. In any case, he knew rudeness when he heard it.
Seto winced. His head throbbed. “Look, Malik,” he said loudly. “Isis invited me. And nothing happened—”
Malik cut him off. “I don’t care about that,” he groaned. “I’m mad at her.”
Seto bristled. “Mad at her?”
“Yeah, mad at her!” Malik shook out his sandy hair and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. “For not telling me you guys were a thing!”
It was Seto’s turn at incredulity. He stared at the long-suffering Malik. A thing…?! No, they weren’t a...were they?! They’d kissed, but that didn’t mean...necessarily—
Before Seto could respond, the back door opened, and Rishid walked into the kitchen. Sunshine and birdsong tumbled through the open door behind him. He bore several overstuffed packages full of pastries and produce; he brought the bags to the table and set them down slowly, looking between Seto and Malik.
“...Good thing I overdid it at the market,” he said at length. “We have a guest.” He inclined his head toward Seto, who managed a jerky nod in return. “Seto Kaiba. It’s been a long time.”
“You’re not even gonna ask why he’s here?” Malik dragged his feet to the table and rummaged through the bags. He held up a qatayef wrapped in foggy wax paper. “Can I have this?”
“Of course. I got them for you,” said Rishid. He pulled out a chair and picked through the bags for a pastry of his own. Malik sank into the adjacent chair. Rishid went on between bites, “I needn’t ask, Malik. I heard your shouting from the street. Isis invited him.”
Malik slapped the table with his free hand, crumpling the orange-blossom tablecloth. “Exactly, Isis invited him! I don’t get it. Do you get it?! Why is he here?! Since when are she and Kaiba dating?!”
“I’m not sure,” said Rishid. Both brothers fixed their eyes on Seto. Seto swallowed. Malik’s jaunty attitude was one thing to face; Rishid’s solemn intensity, quite another.
“It’s—it’s not hard to understand,” said Seto. “We met at a museum event last night—and we came back here afterward, but we didn’t—we’re not—”
He trailed off then, for there was Isis—slouching on the threshold, tugging back her matted hair, scowling at Malik in all her disheveled glory. She wore Seto’s tuxedo shirt over her black slip. Seto blinked and realized that he loved her.
“Malik,” rumbled Isis, “It is my house as well as yours. And I am an adult. It is none of your business whom I invite over. Let alone the entire neighborhood’s.”
“But it is my business!” said Malik. “You’re my sister! I need to protect you from guys who might—”
“Might what?”
“...take advantage of you,” Malik mumbled, shrinking from Isis’s baleful look. She took slow, dramatic, barefooted steps toward him. Where was all this grit at the gala last night?
“You think I would allow Seto Kaiba to take advantage of me?” she snarled. “Then you neither know nor respect me.”
“Sister—”
“You do not consider that I am a grown woman, a strong woman, who does not require her baby brother’s permission to invite a man into her room.”
“C’mon, Isis—”
Seto glanced at Rishid, who munched on a handful of dates and appeared entirely unphased, if not a little entertained.
“You lack a fundamental understanding of respect and courtesy, and most of all you lack tact.”
“Isis, for God’s sake!” Malik shielded himself from Isis’s jabbing finger with his qatayef. She did not relent.
“If you continue to impose your insolence upon me, I will have to consider finding you another place to live—”
“I just wanna know how long you’ve been dating!!”
Isis paused, curling her finger into a fist. She tossed her loose ponytail over one shoulder and regarded Seto plainly, more beautiful than ever without makeup, without fear or pretense or inhibition. With his eyes he told her thus.
“Seto,” she said. “Are we dating?”
Seto smirked—no, smiled. This one was bright and defiant, like Isis. This one was for the brothers and the world to see.
“ ‘Are you hungry?’ ” he asked her.
In an instant, Isis closed the distance between them and kissed him.
“I’m starving,” she said, pulling back, face glowing, eyes shining.
“You have morning breath,” he said. She tugged his hair. “Ow!” Seto’s hands found her waist, a teasing contour beneath soft fabric, and they shared another, slower kiss.
Malik wrinkled his nose at this display and turned to Rishid to commiserate. Rishid offered him the bag of dates.
“Did I just do that?” said Malik. “Are they that clueless?” He gnawed crossly on a date. “...Does Mokuba know? I’m texting him…”
While Malik fussed with his phone, Rishid watched with filial fondness as Seto poured a mug of coffee for Isis; watched Isis accept it and lean into Seto, nuzzling her nose into his neck. He exhaled, a low hum of approval.
“My sister,” he said, and she turned to him, inquiring. “I know decisions trouble you. But you make them well.”
Isis gazed at him a moment. Then she melted into beaming gratitude. She handed Seto her mug, rushed to Rishid and bent to embrace him.
Malik glanced at Seto with that goading insouciance to which only little brothers were privy.
“Sent Mokuba a pic,” he said.
Seto frowned. “What pic?” he scoffed. “He’s asleep.”
Malik shrugged. “He responded already.”
“What’d he say, then?!”
Malik handed his phone to Seto and lay his head on the table. “Like he’s not surprised. Like he knew.” He sighed. “I don’t get it...I’m always the last one to know...”
KAIBA MOKUBA [12:13 PM]: 💛❤️💛❤️💛 I’M LOVIN’ IT 💛❤️💛❤️💛
END