Author Notes: Written as a request. WARNING: Contains pedophilia (kind of; nothing too hardcore), non-/dub-con, underage drinking, anxiety, and angst.

Splash!

The sound of the eleven-year-old child entering the water echoed repeatedly in the empty room, the sound waves behaving much like the water's waves, emanating out to the edges of the room before folding back on themselves and bumping into each other, obscuring the sound as it began to fade, the vibrations weakening the farther they went.

The sound of the younger Kaiba gasping for air echoed just the same, the sound going out and coming back without an answer, eventually fading in futility, just like everything else in his life.

"Seto, where are you going?"

"I don't know who I am anymore. Take care, kid."

"But Seto—!"

Silence.

The conversation he'd had with his brother earlier that day echoed in his head, making Mokuba strike out against the water with more force than usual as he swam down the lane towards the opposite end of the pool. He knew that his brother loved him, but sometimes it was hard to tell, especially when he never said the words out loud. He would follow his only family to the ends of the earth if he was asked to, but that didn't mean he believed that Seto was perfect. He knew that the KaibaCorp president was an incredibly flawed human being.

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

With each hard blow to the surface of the water, Mokuba could feel his muscles extending, stretching, growing stronger. One day, he'd be strong enough to protect himself, to prove his independence and show that he didn't need to be protected. Maybe Seto wouldn't be so hard and cold if he hadn't taken so much upon his shoulders at such a young age. Maybe if he'd let Mokuba share in Gozaburo's beatings…

When he came to the far wall, he flipped underwater and pushed off of the wall with his feet, gliding through the water in a sleek streak of black and peach before he surfaced and began to stroke again. In order to prevent drag, his hair was tied back into a tight bun and he wore only a small black speedo. Being able to move quickly through the water was important to him, since he felt so powerless everywhere else. Too much happened beyond his control and without his consent that made him feel so impotent. Seto Kaiba was a leech who absorbed as much power into himself as he could possibly get, rendering his little brother—and everyone else around him—entirely helpless. He was doing to Mokuba exactly what had been done to him.

Kick, kick, kick.

The grey-eyed child was more like his elder brother than most people might think. No, he wasn't a diamond like Seto: brilliant, unbreakable, frigid, prismatic. He could turn a pittance to a fortune, multiplying the money as a crystal multiplied and scattered white light into rainbows. He was Rumpelstiltskin: everything he touched turned to gold, but he was too greedy for power to share any of it. Diamonds and gold… precious things paired with a precious person. Mokuba loved Seto, he really did, but he resented him too. Maybe it was only the foolish resentment of a precocious, barely-pubescent adolescent, but it was still well-grounded.

He wasn't a diamond like Seto, but he was coal. If Seto were willing to apply a little pressure on him, offer him a bit of responsibility, he could handle it and make a name for himself in his own right instead of borrowing his brother's fame and fortune. He didn't have the parasitic need to control everything in his life, but he needed to control something. He needed his life to be his own.

Mokuba reached the far wall and repeated the flip-turn, pushing off even harder with his feet against the smooth concrete. With each armful of water he pushed out of his way, he felt better. It wasn't his fault that Seto protected him so stubbornly, insisting that everything fall on his own head: every time Gozaburo raised his fist, every time a gun was raised and pointed his way, every burden that came with being an older brother, functional father, former orphan, and corporation president. He repeated his laps with increasing speed, his thoughts drifting away from him in the water like the vibrations he sent shuddering through the water.

Beep, beep, beep!

He finished his current lap and came to a halt at the edge, his small hands latching onto the ledge of the pool. He pushed the button on his waterproof digital watch to turn the alarm off.

"Master Mokuba, I brought you another towel, just in case you forgot again." The feminine voice that spoke was music to his ears. He looked up and smiled before hauling himself out of the water, sending another disruptive set of waves through the chlorinated water.

"Thank you, Suki." His voice was congenial and filled with relief as he accepted the towel from her. She was no older than his own brother, but you never could have guessed it. She was petite and youthful, not much taller than Mokuba himself, which made him feel more comfortable around her. She felt like less of his superior and more of a peer, but maybe that was also induced by the fact that she was an employee of the Kaiba family and he was a member of it.

"Anything for you, Master Mokuba," she answered with a bright smile.

"You don't have to call me 'Master,' I've told you that before," he reminded as he started to dry himself off and tied the towel around his waist. She simply nodded and picked up the towel that he had brought with him to the pool.

"Would you like me to dry your hair for you?" she asked, and he nodded, pulling the elastic hair-tie out of his raven tresses before sitting on the starting block and facing the water as she dropped the open towel onto his head and began to rub it rigorously.

"How's the speedo working for you?"

"Much better than my trunks. Thank you again. It was very thoughtful of you to get it for me."

"Well, I figured someone would need to get it for you. Your brother certainly wasn't going to."

Mokuba couldn't argue with that: it was true, since Seto didn't even know that Mokuba liked to swim. He'd never cared enough to ask.

"He's… out of town right now."

"Ah, so that's why you couldn't sleep tonight."

"Yeah…"

She knew from experience that Mokuba only came to swim this late at night when his young mind was too troubled with tumultuous anxiety. Nothing caused him more anxiety than when his brother left. He was already distant enough when they lived in the same house, but when he left on business or did anything like that—Seto had no idea how much it distressed his little brother.

"I still think you should talk to someone about your anxiety, Mokuba," she said quietly after a brief lapse in their conversation.

"No, I can't do that," he answered hastily. "If I talk to a therapist, Seto will get the bill for it, so he'll find out that I'm talking to a therapist, and then he'll want to know why I'm talking to a therapist, and if he finds out that I have separation anxiety, he'll feel obligated to tote me around on his business trips, which would annoy him because he'd certainly find me to be bothersome after a while, and I… I don't want him to be any more annoyed with me than he already is…"

"Well…" Suki sighed, sounding defeated. "At least let me give you something that will help you relax so you can get some sleep." She lifted the towel from his head, his hair mostly dry now, although it smelled strongly of the pool chemicals. Mokuba stood and they left the pool, her hand on his shoulder as she guided him to the basement.

"I've never been down here before," he commented nervously.

"Of course not, silly. This is Gozaburo's old wine cellar."

Mokuba stiffened at the sound of his step-father's name, half expecting his ghost to appear and punish him.

"Your brother never touches it, never bothers with it at all. He won't miss one bottle out of hundreds."

He didn't know that he should have stopped her, and perhaps that was Seto's fault for not teaching Mokuba pertinent life lessons. Was he blind to his younger brother's growth and age? Was he ignorant of the true passage of time? Perhaps.

Suki uncorked the bottle, poured the nearly-black liquid into two glasses and they shared the bottle of Chateau Margaux together. Glass after glass, they drank, the two lightweights becoming increasingly intoxicated with each sip. They laughed and talked, and Mokuba found himself more relaxed than he had been in a long time. Eventually, the bottle was emptied, and they were both more than merely tipsy as they sat giggling on a towel on the floor. They were both flushed and merry, and neither were thinking clearly, which must be why Suki kissed him and why Mokuba let her.

He should have said no then and there. A little nagging voice in the distant corners of his mind whispered to him that he should stop this before things got out of hand. Yet… he didn't. He was intrigued, curious. Things became a bit of a blur as they continued to kiss, female arms embracing the younger male possessively. He didn't know when or how Suki's clothes came off, but the next thing he knew, they were laying together on the towel, Suki's bright lips at the tender skin of his throat. He gasped as he felt her bite him, wriggling beneath her weight.

"Suki… Ah!" Her fingernails gathered his blood as she marked him with scratches.

"Sh, it's okay. You want this." Her sweet voice had turned syrupy and seductive, like the kind of candy so potent in sugar parents claimed it would rot your teeth. And what child could resist such temptation? They would never truly believe it could harm them until they saw it with their own eyes.

"I don't think…"

She silenced him with another kiss, but as she reached to pull down his speedo, he made one last attempt to stop this.

"No, I can't—"

"Do you always want to be treated like a child, Mokuba?" she whispered with a slur. "Or do you want to be a man?"

"I want to be a man," he answered meekly.

"Then let me give you what you want." She stripped him of his small swimsuit and pressed herself against him. He certainly wouldn't have allowed any such thing if he were sober. Mokuba scrabbled against the floor and reached for her shoulders to push her off, but she grabbed his arms and pinned them by his head, her grip tight enough to leave marks.

Pale sunlight drizzled into his room between the cracks in the curtains as he discovered the state of his body. His memory was a wide, white, wine-flavored blank that told him nothing of how he acquired the scratches or the bruises. The last thing he remembered of last night was swimming, and Suki drying his hair.

He buried himself under his blankets as he started to cry, the muffled sobs echoing into his bedroom, which felt just as empty as the indoor pool, just as empty as his heart, just as empty as his life.

Soon enough, though, he slid out from under the covers and dashed over to his closet, pulling on some clothes to remove the gross, itchy feeling that crawled across his skin. As he crept back to bed, he heard a knock on his door and a servant calling his name. He froze, then dashed over to the door and locked it before scurrying back to bed and hiding himself under piles of fabric.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted, much to the servant's dismay.

"Master Mokuba—"

"I don't feel well!"

"I'll send for the doctor." The sound of the servant's footsteps rapidly receding matched the pace of Mokuba's heart as panic set in. He didn't want to see a doctor. He didn't want to see anybody. Another rush of shoes outside his door as people approached and a buzz of concerned voices as they discovered the door to be locked. Someone rushed off to get the keys, and Mokuba couldn't think of anything to do that would effectively remove him from this situation. He couldn't escape through the window. Where would he go, after all? They were miles from anything, and they'd catch him long before he got close to any sort of refuge. He heard the door open and the rustling whispers that accompanied the entrance of several servants.

"Master Mokuba, what's wrong?" his nanny asked. She was a kind old lady who'd taken care of Mokuba ever since they'd been adopted, and while he liked her and thought better of her than other adults, he didn't trust her much more than he trusted any given servant in the house.

"I don't feel well—"

"We've brought the doctor—"

"Go away!" He held the blankets firmly in place as someone tried to pull them off of him. "I just want to be left alone to sleep."

More whispering followed that statement as they ceased trying to uncover him, and Mokuba strained his ears to hear what they were saying.

"Alright, we'll leave you alone, for now. Would you like us to bring you breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry."

It was a lie. Mokuba just felt so anxious and agitated that he doubted he'd be able to hold down anything he tried to eat.

In the end, they left him alone, as he requested, but he knew that his behavior would be reported to his brother sooner or later. He couldn't hide the truth forever.

Maybe that would be enough to make Seto come home. Mokuba couldn't help but cry at the prospect.

"Please, Seto," he whispered to himself among the sheets and tears and emptiness. "Please fix this somehow."