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KaibaCorp looks intimidating on the outside.
Shizuka knows it. Truth be told, she has known it since she first started living in Domino again with his brother. But the vague notion of This building looks so serious is a completely different matter on what she’s feeling now, when she’s coming there to start her first day of work.
She knows she shouldn’t be nervous. Mokuba has told her way too many times that she’s perfect for the job, that it had been Seto’s idea to hire her because she was the most qualified, and that his brother would in no way show her any favoritism in choosing her over anyone, and Shizuka knows that Seto would never do something like that, but still, anxiety is not always rational.
She worries that her new colleagues won’t see it like that. They probably know that she and Mokuba are long friends, that they had been since their brothers had participated at Battle City ten years ago, and that they’ve taken their degree together abroad. They will think she’s being chosen because of that, and not for her expertise, and she doesn’t know if she can accept that kind of assumption going around in her work environment. She’s too timid to confront anyone directly, and at the same time not confident enough to let that kind of reputation go off her back.
Mokuba has tried to reassure her, but she still worries. Everyone knows how close she and Mokuba are, almost as much as their brothers are at odds.
Shizuka supposes that it couldn’t have gone in any other way. Experiencing something so strange and so traumatic at such a young age - he was ten, and she was almost thirteen - and having two older brothers involved in such a dangerous situation would have brought many people together, not to mention the fact that Shizuka and Mokuba’s personalities are so similar that they got on like a house on fire since the first moment they started talking.
Moreover, studying together in another country had for sure brought them closer. Mokuba had been her rock, from helping her study - even if, with a degree in economics, he knew very little about advanced program coding - to be there for her when seeing the world became at times too much. In reverse, she had helped him cope with memories of Noah, of Gozaburo and even of Seto, who had been sometimes too emotionally distant from his brother to not leave a scar in his heart.
Plus, the strange sensation of living in another country, with a new language and a new culture, had for sure brought them to experience many adventures together.
That’s why she now can say, without any doubt, that Mokuba is her brother just as much as Jono is. Jono that, after initially reacting badly to the idea that she was friends with a Kaiba, had tried to see Mokuba for who he really is. At first he had taken a liking to the boy only for his sister’ sake but, in time, he’d started to appreciate him for who he was, a quiet and good boy with a kind heart.
Seto’s reaction to her, on the other hand, had been way different.
Shizuka had had a crush on him even since Battle City. Mokuba had noticed it, of course he had, and had started to tease her mercilessly as soon as everything went back to normal, much to her grimace. She’d tried many times to make him stop, but Mokuba, she suspects, never will.
It’s a crush that, to this day, she still has, and she fears that, in the years, it has become more than just that. She often reasons within herself that it’s impossible to not be a little in love with Seto Kaiba, the abused boy who raised himself to be one of the most powerful people in Japan, and who converted a military company within a few years into the most popular games company on the market. He’s like a Byonesian hero, all dark and mysterious and tragic, a cold personality because his life has always been hard. She’s never told Mokuba any of that, of course, because he teases her enough just as it is, without her absurd reveries.
Mokuba also tried, at least at the beginning of their friendship, to include Seto in their outings. Mostly to tease her, but also because she wanted Seto to have a relationship with her best friend like he was starting to have it with Jono. But Seto was always busy, or absent, so Shizuka can say that she had very few conversations with Seto during that time, and almost never alone.
They began to have some kind of relationship only later, when Mokuba insisted that part of Shizuka's university was to be funded by them. She still remembers the interview she had with Seto, the way he focused all his attention on her - and she still remembers how excited that made her, despite feeling ridiculous because of that - and agreed to the request of Mokuba under the promise that Shizuka would do her best, and that sooner or later in her career she would come to work in KaibaCorp, or, alternatively, that she would return the loan.
Seto had, on that occasion, really been focused on her, on her desire to study and on what she really was willing to do, and after agreeing - decreeing that You are definitely better than that idiot of your brother - he also decided to start a KaibaCorp project to give scholarships to talented young people without economic resources, of which Shizuka had been the first candidate.
Only because of that she could afford to study abroad, and later to specialize in Japan. Seto had monitored her progress closely and repeatedly even complimented her - which, Mokuba told her, he had never seen him do with anyone else - but their relationship never went beyond that.
Still, she muses, it was really big for Seto Kaiba to be involved in someone else’s life as much as he was in hers, even if only academically. She knows that she shouldn’t want more, than that is more than enough, but still, there’s no reasoning with matters of heart.
And today it will be the same, she thinks now, because Seto had asked her to report her first day as soon as he’d known she’d been chosen for the job. She's glad that he’s interested, of course she is, but she wants him to be interested in her day because he’s interested in her, not in the job.
God, I’m pathetic.
Her only consolation is that Mokuba doesn’t know how much her feelings run deep. He’s seen her being with other boys when they were abroad, and generally she doesn’t talk about Seto at all, so he probably thinks that her crush is a matter of the past. Oh, how I would like it to be.
Still, feelings aside, she will report her first day as best as she can. The job of a game programmer is one of the most prestigious in the company, and she can’t wait to start digging her teeth in whatever game is being created now.
She didn’t want to give her colleagues the impression that they were going to work with a noob - which she technically is, but in her university she’d already programmed many little games, so it’s not like she’s starting from scratch - ans she knew that her appearance doesn’t usually inspire confidence in her abilities.That’s why, yesterday, she’d gone to the hairdresser in order to change her hair. Far from the bangs she had when she was still an early teen, now she wears all her hair long and straight, a toned red who’s inherited by her mother.
She wanted maybe to try a bob, or a look that wiould show professionalism, but upon seeing her reflection on the glass she immediately knew what she wanted. It’s a picture of her she’d seen many times when looking at the mirror, and she thinks it comes from a dream she’d had when she was a baby. Wherever it comes from, she thought that now was the right time to try it, only because the new job represents a change in her life.
“Make it all ice white,” she said to the hairdresser, not sure it was the definition she was looking for, but not finding any other way to describe it.
It took awhile for her to explain to the hairdresser what she meant by it, and having no picture to show him made it all the more complicated. But in the end they kind of reached an understanding, and the end result, when Shizuka looked in the mirror, was a Yes! that echoed in her head, because the color was perfect.
She couldn't help but look at her hair and see how gorgeous it was; she runned her fingers through them and their light seemed almost like that of a waterfall. She felt like that color was more her own than the natural one she has. As if it was made especially for her.
In the picture she’s seen since she was a baby, she sees herself with this hair. Shizuka used to think that the woman was her grown self, a sweet but confident girl with white hair and big, blue eyes. Now she knows that it’s probably just her fervent imagination that tricked her - she can’t change her dark green eyes color as easily as her hair - but still, seeing a resemblance to that picture yesterday inspired in her a confidence that she doesn’t usually feel in herself.
It made her more confident for her first job, confidence that is starting to go down now that she’s in front of the building.
There’s nothing to be nervous about, she tries to reassure herself. I’m good. I’ll do a good job. I can do this. Go on Shizuka, let them see what you’re capable of.
You’re the strength of a dragon, Mokuba had told her once, during one of her worst cases of anxiety, and Shizuka can almost feel it now, the steel in her that roars to go and make a god job.
So it’s with a healthy dose of bravery that she enters the building.
By the time she’ll go out that day, she will know there’s more to life than what she knows now.