-

Disclaimer: Assiduously not mine.

A/N: This thing has been in the works since late 2008. I've been writing it, on and off, since then and finally finished it when it was roughly ninety-five percent longer than when the idea began. Owing to how long this fic has been on my books, feedback is not only appreciated, it's longed for, hankered after and craved from the bottom of my cynical little heart.

A Song I Think I Heard Before

© Scribbler, April 2010.

1. Orphan

Mai had never felt such an intense desire to run away. It was almost embarrassing. She was tough. She was independent. She was used to taking care of herself. Her parents rarely took an interest; they seemed to view her as a fashion accessory, appeaseable with money and expensive, often inappropriate gifts. She'd developed a hard exterior to compensate. Beyond the odd photo opportunity or glossy magazine interview, she perplexed her parents, as a Rubik's Cube might perplex an intelligent but distracted and impatient child. She suspected they'd only had her because it was the done thing: marry your childhood sweetheart, make your first million, set up a nice home, and have a child. That was the semi-romantic option. The other explanation involved celebrations of that first million and a lot of margaritas.

But that was all incidental, because now her parents were dead, and even those slightly perplexed, chemically whitened, photo-ready smiles no longer came Mai's way. Did teeth burn? She didn't know. The conflagration of their car wreck hadn't left much behind, at any rate. Now her mother and father's siblings were sucking the money out of the estate, and the life out of Mai herself. They were discussing probate, wills, inheritance tax, bequests, executors, and lots of other things Mai, at twelve, couldn't understand. What she did understand was that they had her trust fund in their crosshairs, but the normally feisty Mai … really couldn't be bothered to fight for her rights.

For weeks since the funeral it had been nothing but raised voices and strangers traipsing the mansion halls. She felt like she didn't belong in her own home anymore. It wasn't her imagination that her aunts and uncles wished she'd died too. It would have made everything much more convenient – for them. They had no love for a girl they saw as too snobby to associate with them until now, and until her parents' deaths Mai had known them only as faces at family gatherings and names in unflattering stories of the past. Her parents both came from ordinary backgrounds, which her mother called 'common' and her father called 'let's change the subject'. Mai's world had always been wealthy, but when they did talk to their daughter it was usually to remind her how lucky she was, how they'd had none of her advantages growing up, and how their parasitical families were repeating the lives of their parents before them: lazy, crooked and, more of than not, flat broke thanks to some harebrained money-making scheme gone wrong.

Once, she walked into the kitchen to find Auntie Mimi and Uncle Kai deep in conversation. Her mother's sister and brother-in law stopped the moment Mai appeared, pushing around the rice in their bowls without taking a bite. Mai fetched a bag of cookies as fast as she could, not looking at either of them. As the door clicked shut behind her she heard them start up again.

"God, what a surly little cow."

"Cow? Black sheep, more like. Doesn't take after her mother in the slightest."

"You reckon? I always thought they looked like two peas in a pod."

"Well, yes, they look alike, but at least Eiga would have said hello."

Mai resisted the urge to snort. Her mother hated her sister, but it was true: she would never have shown it. Mai's mother was an excellent hostess, an excellent party-goer, an excellent beauty and, if reviewers were to be believed, an excellent actress. Mai had watched some of her films, but they were all boring political dramas and stories about refugees, where her mother's face was carefully streaked with dirt and she talked about war zones and peace treaties. Mai preferred chick flicks, but couldn't tell anyone this, since it wasn't the done thing for Eiga Yutaka's daughter to watch such trash. When interviewers asked Mai what her favourite film was, she was duty-bound to name one of her mother's.

"You're a real Mummy's girl, aren't you?" the interviewers would simper, at which point Eiga would hug her daughter close and Mai would get the full effect of her new perfume line. "I'll bet you want to be an actress too, someday, right?"

Mai would simper right back at them, say she wasn't yet sure what she wanted to do with her life, and then listen with a fixed smile as they chattered on about her following in her father's footsteps instead. He worked in law and had several university degrees under his belt. Mai was expected to excel in her studies as well as charm every insincere reporter she met. With the genes her parents had provided, Mai was supposed to be excellent at everything.

Eiga Yutaka wasn't just excellent, she was Excellent. From the determined straight line of her teeth to the pristine hem of her designer skirt, she exuded confidence and the kind of dignity that made allies of even hard-hearted directors. Mai shared her blonde hair, but had none of her sociability. Mai found it hard to conceal her less attractive emotions with smiles. A hard smirk was usually what masked things she didn't want to show. Her mother could make friends in an instant and forget them in less. Mai never even got as far as that first instant. What was the point, when she was home-schooled and they rarely stayed in one place long enough for her to make friends some other way?

Well, at least they hadn't had any roots until her father insisted on buying a mansion here and installing his daughter in it 'for security'. Mai knew it was actually because his legal practice was a great favourite of Kaiba Corp. He wanted to impress them by committing to a mortgage in the same area Gozaburo Kaiba kept his HQ. Mai was a bargaining chip, like a human wax seal, to mark the place as her father's even when he wasn't around. There had even been talk of introducing her to the Kaiba progeny – probably her father wanting to dig even deeper in the Kaibas' good graces. She could just see him offering her up as a suitable wife someday, like a sacrifice to the gods of commerce. Nobody could ever accuse her father of not planning ahead, even if his thinking was more backward than forward.

He had ruffled Mai's hair like she was some little kid right up to the night he died. She was nearly a teenager, but his brain had somehow remained at the stage where she was a child. He looked more confused than ever when she had a tantrum about something and yelled her age like a weapon.

"You can't treat me like this. I'm twelve years old! I'm practically a teenager already. Why can't I go to the party with you? This is so unfair!"

She remembered the look he'd given her, when she stood in the hall stamping her foot, demanding to be taken along. She was always left behind. It hurt. Other parents took their kids to charity functions. There was even a little anteroom reserved for them – like a grown up crèche, which would have been so embarrassing, except that it was better than being left at home like a pet. It had been raining outside, the thrum against the window providing a soundtrack to her memories like a clip from a horror movie.

"It'll be very boring," her father had said helplessly. "And it'll end in the small hours –"

"So? God, I practically live on my own. Staying up late to go to a party? So not the drama."

Her phrasing had left him stumped, so he'd done what he always did: mumbled into his moustache and excused himself as fast as he could. He could pull off legal miracles against the toughest men and women on the planet, but his own daughter had him running scared because he had no idea how to deal with her. He didn't even try.Mai had been left, once again, feeling bitter and wondering at the abnormality of her outburst. She rarely yelled at her parents, though they gave her good cause. Dutiful daughters didn't yell at Mommy and Daddy.

Then again, dutiful Mommies and Daddies didn't abandon their daughters to pitch off an embankment and helter-skelter their Bentleys so the gas tank ruptured and consumed them in a ball of flame so big it could be seen three miles away.

If she had gone with them, would she have died too?

Did it hurt to burn to death, or did the crash kill them before the flames had a chance?

Should she feel guilty about yelling at her dad, or blanking her mother in frustration as they left, when they would be dead only hours later?

The thing was, the halls of the mansion had seemed empty even before their car skidded on the wet road. Mai's entire childhood had been a study in emotional self-sufficiency. She'd learned how to glare at the world until it backed down and strut like a winner even if victory was hollow with nobody there to share it.

At first she thought that if she made a success of herself her parents would sit up and take notice, but of course she was wrong. They were too busy taking cell-phone calls, checking make-up, grumbling about work, chatting flirtily with the help – basically anything other than paying attention to her. Other people told her she was talented, pretty, clever, whatever they thought she wanted to hear, but it never rang true. Those people were either obliged to compliment her because they were paid to, or because they'd noticed her surname. Nouveau riche some said. Absolutely stinking loaded and not afraid to show it off, more like.

Eventually Mai figured out everyone who complimented her actually wanted something, and the only person she should try to please was herself. If she could make herself happy, that was all that really mattered. Like so many other things in her life, if she didn't take care of it, nobody else would. She could take care of herself.

But she couldn't make herself happy after the funerals. She tried. She put on her favourite designer clothes – the ones her mother brought back from Paris as a gift when Mai hadn't even begun to develop the chest to fill them. She always felt like a princess anyway, and could spend hours looking at them in the mirror, pouting and flicking her hair just so.

But not this time. This time she stared into the mirror and saw her mother's face. She got very close, so she could see individual pores and the burgeoning bags under her eyes. She had her father's eyes, and something of his hard jaw, but those similarities were dwarfed by her mother's blonde hair. Mai's was cut into an identical bob, ending halfway down an equally identical long neck, and straightened to within an inch of its life, just like Eiga Yutaka's. Mai was practically her mother in miniature.

For one crazy moment Mai considered shaving all her hair off to erase the resemblance, but then thought better of it. She loved her hair. It was a shield from the world when she wanted a private moment in a public place, and brushing it rhythmically was a nice distraction from thoughts that rattled in her brain like broken glass. Plus, she didn't want to say goodbye to her mother in all ways. Maybe they hadn't been the best parents, but Eiga and Tomi Yutaka had been hers, and they had been taken from her before she was ready.

The morass of grief and guilt threatened to consume her, and no pretty clothes could keep it back.

Taking a different approach, Mai got out the gaming cards she'd discovered she was pretty good at – originally a ploy to show her father she could multiply large figures in her head and develop complicated strategies on a moment's notice. One of his other clients, Industrial Illusions, distributed them, so she'd showing off her skills would endear her to her workaholic father. Wrong again, but the satisfaction of winning usually gave Mai a buzz and made her feel good about herself. She went downstairs and played the butler, the cook, and even the cook's talented nephew, but even beating them all didn't make her feel better

"This is stupid," she snapped when she beat the cook's nephew three times in a row. "I hate this stupid game." She didn't mean it, but frustration made her toss down the cards and stalk out. Lesser girls might have gone off to cry, but Mai spent an hour just walking in the grounds trying to work off the turmoil bubbling inside her.

The walls were high and topped with barbed wire. The mansion felt like a prison sometimes. Idly, Mai poked about in the bushes at the far end of the Sunken Rose Garden, which her father had commissioned but never once walked in. the bushes were thick with thorns and offered no way out. There were gates stationed at intervals in the wall, the largest of which was ornate black metal shaped into curls and twists like a choppy sea. Mai's fingers fitted through easily, but all she could see beyond was the long driveway, neatly trimmed on either side and studded with lights like an airstrip to guide cars when they arrived home after dark. Mai turned her face away and caught sight of a figure in an upstairs window of the mansion, but it a trice it was gone, and she thought no more of it.

When she returned to the kitchen the cards she had thrown down were gone. The cook's nephew had taken them. He must have thought she didn't want them and couldn't pass up such an expensive deck. She thought about making him give them back, but decided collecting a new set of cards would give her something to do other than think about … things she really didn't want to think about.

Later, she found that not all her old cards were gone. One had stuck to the sole of her shoe, wedging itself in the groove between sole and heel. It was muddy from her trek through the grounds, but had stuck with her as if with its own sense of tenacity. Harpy Lady had sharp claws and an expression of supreme self-confidence that bordered on arrogance. Most importantly she had wings she could use to get herself the hell out of there whenever she damn well wanted.

Mai stared at the card. Then she tucked it into her pocket. She took inexplicable comfort from knowing it was there when she found Uncle Kai arguing with her father's brother, Uncle Teki, about which boarding school to send her to.

"I'm not going to boarding school," she said primly. "I have a tutor."

"We'll … discuss it later," said Uncle Teki, shooting Uncle Kai a pointed look. "No need to get ahead of ourselves."

Why not? she thought. Seems to me you already have.

They had practically moved in already. Mai suspected their ratty rented apartments were full of other families by now, or soon would be. Her aunts and uncles had looked at the mansion with greedy eyes from then moment they arrived, and pulled open the doors with grasping hands. It would have suited them for her to be someplace else so they could go through everything and make the most of their good fortune.

Mai left her uncles arguing over who they should send into town for more beer. There was a football game on TV tonight and they wanted to watch it on the biggest screen in the lounge. Upstairs her aunts were going through one of the spare rooms, mentally valuing everything while eying each other like rival lionesses over a single piece of prey.

Mai threw herself down on her bed, staring at the ceiling and fighting back the urge to go back downstairs, jab the button to open the front gates and just leave them all to it. Sure, she was tough, but even tough girls had their breaking point.

It was hard to describe the pain of loss when you couldn't quantify exactly what you'd lost. Mai found it difficult to put words to her connection with her parents, and so found it even more difficult to settle on one form of grief. She found herself watching old episodes of TV shows where characters had died, trying to figure out how the reactions of those left behind compared with her own. The only thing she learned was that death was horrible for those it happened to, but in a lot of ways it was worse for those it touched without taking. Grief didn't have a specific form or timescale, no matter what anyone said about seven stages.

One thing she did learn was that her parents had been right all along: their brothers and sisters were leeches. Sharing chromosomes didn't mean you had to like people. Mai was still a minor, so custody was an issue – mainly who didn't want responsibility for her even in exchange for the large cash sums available.

"It's too difficult for us," Aunt Mimi snapped, drawing closer to Uncle Kai. Their wedding bands clinked as they held hands. "We can't become her legal guardians."

"Why?" Uncle Teki demanded. His hands were spread on the tabletop. He raised one just to thump it down as a fist. "It's just putting your name on a few documents."

"We have responsibilities – commitments." She sneered the word. "Something you wouldn't know about, with the way you laze around all day."

"Hey, I can't help it if I can't work. I'm sick. I've got a bad back."

"Have you had it for twenty years?"

"Why you cheeky bit–"

"Regardless of your 'bad back', our commitments can't be cast aside because of a … a …" She searched for the right word.

Burden? Lurking outside the room again, Mai eavesdropped like crazy. She heard more that way. Like anybody was going to tell her anything she actually needed to know?

"A dependant," Aunt Mimi finished.

"But you'd be quite happy to take any money that's on offer," Aunt Riko accused. "Don't even bother denying it, Mimi. I've seen the way you look at this house. I'm surprised you haven't already taken the silverware to a pawn shop."

Aunt Mimi's tone could have cleaved diamonds. "Unlike you, I have standards."

"But not enough to take responsibility for your own sister's daughter."

"I don't see you rushing to take her either. I did see you looking up antique bureau prices on eBay the other day. A bit big to smuggle out under your sweater, Riko. Although …" Aunt Mimi left the rest of the insult unsaid. Where she had a ribcage like a toast rack, Aunt Riko carted around more blubber than an entire pod of whales.

"Hateful cow," Aunt Riko spat, beginning the next round of their ongoing squabble. However much Mai's parents had disliked their siblings, her aunts and uncles loathed each other more.

Mai retreated to her bedroom and did all the things that usually calmed her, but when she finally fell asleep on top of her bedspread her dreams were darker and more disturbing than ever.

To Be Continued …

Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs

"So? God, I practically live on my own. Staying up late to go to a party? So not the drama."

-- Sidefling to Disney's Kim Possible.

-