After The Fall
A loud, repetitive jarring sound startled the younger Kaiba brother out of his sleep, and it took a moment for him to register the sound as a cell phone vibrating on a hard surface. He glanced around his room until his tired eyes fell upon the lit screen of his brother's phone sitting on the dresser, and with a tired yawn, he kicked the covers off his body and padded over to the object just as its backlight switched off. A quick review of the screen revealed to Mokuba that it was the automated system calling from the company to confirm some upgrade Seto had put in progress and wasn't important at the moment, but the battery was nearly dead and needed to be plugged in. The screen also divulged that it was around three in the morning, meaning Seto was most likely asleep, but Mokuba knew where he plugged in his phone and could easily get in and out without waking him.
That said, he couldn't help but to be surprised when he opened the door as silently as possible only to be frozen in place for a moment by a pair of blue eyes shining at him in the dark. Finally, Mokuba frowned at walked over to his desk, speaking over his shoulder as he plugged the phone into its charger.
"Why are you awake?"
A few more seconds of silence passed as Seto rolled over to his other side to watch Mokuba. "Why are you up right now?"
Mokuba smiled and went over to sit on his brother's bedside. "You left your phone in my room and it went off."
"I always have it on silent…"
"Which is kind of pointless when it still vibrates on my dresser," Mokuba said with a wry smile. "But it was just the system upgrade confirmation, and I only came to plug it in because it was nearly out of power."
Seto nodded and rolled onto his back, switching his gaze to the ceiling. "Thanks."
There was another pause, and this one was a little thicker than the previous. Seto continued to stare at the ceiling above him while Mokuba waited for an answer, one he knew his brother wasn't going to give.
"Seto…what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Mokuba raised an eyebrow, debating on whether or not to say what he wanted. Then he remembered he was the only one who could say it, and went for it.
"Oh. I thought maybe you were still upset about losing your own tournament, and since it was broadcast on pretty much every channel in the country, that would make things even worse."
Seto closed his eyes, draped his arm over them, and let out a frustrated huff. "Mokuba…not now."
The younger boy rolled his eyes and flopped onto his stomach, peering intently over at his big brother. "You can talk to me, Seto, I'm always here…I'm always on your side."
There was a long moment of nothing in which Mokuba suspected his brother was trying to feign sleep, but finally the elder Kaiba removed his arm from his face and gave Mokuba a slightly frosty look.
"That's odd, seeing as you were on essentially on Yugi's side last week."
"He wasn't wrong," Mokuba insisted with a frown, "but he also doesn't understand why you are the way you are. I do. But Battle City is over, all of this will blow over soon enough, and we're working on Kaiba Land…"
His brother didn't respond and simply turned his head away, which Mokuba understood meant there was something else bothering him. The little Kaiba clambered over his brother's body and flopped down on the other side in order to face him, much to Seto's chagrin. "Seriously, what's wrong? I'm worried about you."
Seto let out a long sigh and finally looked directly up at the kid.
"Yes, Mokuba, I'm struggling right now. And it doesn't have anything to do with losing…well, a little, but that's not the main issue. The stuff Yugi had the nerve to say to me on that tower, like his opinions mean anything at all-"
"Seto, calm down," Mokuba interjected as soon as his brother's increasingly poisonous and aggressive voice also rose in volume enough to where even he was scared. After most of the fire left his eyes, Mokuba tentatively reached out and gently pushed back his bangs. At the first touch, Seto indubitably stiffened, but relaxed after a few more seconds of having his hair stroked.
"You're a good person. I know that. Yugi knows that. Even his friends know that. But the things we went through…the things you went through…it would be really weird if you didn't have the sharp edges. But again, he wasn't wrong, Seto."
"Do you wish I wasn't like this?"
The question was sudden. Mokuba massaged his brother's scalp for a moment as he considered that, focusing on how interestingly prickly the place where the hair protruded from his head felt before responding.
"Sometimes I wish that you were more like you were before Gozaburo. But I don't think it's right of me to want that either. You're not bad. I just…I don't think it would hurt you to maybe relax a little, at least around Yugi and his friends. They aren't out to get you. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
That answer was so quick it caught Mokuba off guard, and he didn't know whether to feel frustrated or to laugh. Instead, he frowned and looked at his brother curiously. "Then why do you treat them like enemies?"
"You mean besides the fact that they are?"
"Seto."
The elder brother rolled his eyes and gave a half shrug, but didn't say anything else. Mokuba continued to stroke his brother's hair wordlessly, thinking about everything that had happened. Seeing Gozaburo, meet Noah, watching Yugi and Joey duel to (what was supposed to be) death, observing so many people get hurt in other duels…overall, witnessing so many improbable events was what lead Mokuba to believe and trust Yugi when he talked about larger powers being at work and such.
And even though he understood why his big brother was uncomfortable letting people close to him, he didn't understand the whole resistance to see what was right in front of him. But before he could ask, the soft snoring that started filling the room snapped Mokuba out of his thoughts. He continued to run his hand through Seto's hair, feeling slightly smug that he had been able to lull his brother into rest. Even though attempting to speak things through with him hadn't helped much at all, the care and affection Mokuba offered seemed to have eased him to some degree, even if Seto never said anything.
After noting that actions were indeed stronger than words, Mokuba sighed slipped off the bed to head to his own room, but before he managed to leave, he caught a glance of the alarm clock beside Seto's bed, which told him that it was almost four in the morning. That meant his brother would be waking up in only an hour. Instead of going to his own room, Mokuba climbed back up onto the elder brother's bed and shoved himself right up beside his sleeping brother.
Even if Seto felt like his little brother had sided with the opponent at the end of Battle City, Mokuba could at least show him that at the end of the day, he'd be on his side, no matter what.