Title: New Addition
Author: Raykushi
Disclaimer: Rights to Yu-Gi-Oh belong to Kazuki Takahashi and others. This is a fan piece only and no monetary gain comes from its publication.
Summary: Young Seto is not impressed with the new addition to the family...
Warnings/Pairings: none
Word count: 972
New Addition
They probably thought he didn't hear them when they talked at night.
The small downtown apartment had only one bedroom, and Seto slept very lightly on his small futon in the corner. So lightly that even a big truck rumbling by on the street below would wake him. He'd open his eyes, watch the slide of headlights across the faded wallpaper, comforted by his ability to identify the sound. Strange noises were unnerving to the introspective five-year-old.
Sometimes they talked about things that were over his head; he didn't always grasp the topics of finances or work schedules, but he always understood when they talked about him. His father would comfort his mother, saying that some little kids just had a serious expression, it didn't mean anything was wrong, and didn't he get good grades in school? His mother would worry he was going to be jealous of the new baby when it was born.
How foolish was that! Jealous of a tiny baby? Seto already knew little babies couldn't do anything for themselves. They couldn't go to school, they couldn't put on their own shoes, they couldn't play outside by themselves. If anything, the baby would grow up and be jealous of him. Seto was "advanced for his age," everyone said so.
~.~.~
It took two days for his mother to come home from the hospital. She walked into the small apartment slowly, a blue blanket cradled in her arms.
His father sat him on the couch and his mother sat next to him. Seto looked at the baby. It looked more like a girl's doll than a real person. The skin was too red. The head was misshapen. The little bit of black hair on top looked plastered on. Seto didn't like it.
"Would you like to hold him?" She arranged the baby-it was heavy-in Seto's lap, but it didn't do anything. It didn't move any part, or open its eyes. It didn't even cry.
"You looked just like this when you came home," his mother said, with a tired smile. Seto didn't believe her.
~.~.~
Seto didn't look up from his magazine when his mother said she was going downstairs to check the mail. He was very focused on the word puzzle in the book.
Minutes ticked by as he worked on the puzzle. He only looked up some time later, when the baby started to cry. (Seto always thought of it as "the baby" because it was the exact same as the lady's cat who lived downstairs on the first floor... There was no point calling something by name if it never responded to it.)
His mother had been gone a long time, he realized now. Sometimes she met Fukamori-san in the hallway in front of the mailboxes and they started talking.
The baby kept crying.
With a sigh Seto got up and walked into the bedroom. The futons that belonged to him and his parents were rolled up and put away. The baby was nestled in a cocoon of blankets and pillows in the center of the tatami mats on the floor.
Seto walked up to the nest and looked down at the wailing baby. It had gotten more energetic since coming home from the hospital. It couldn't roll over or crawl yet, but it waved its arms in the air and its legs kicked back and forth. Its mouth was opened wide and Seto had to hold his hands over his ears because it was more screaming now than crying. What did his mother do to make it stop?
Seto kneeled next to the bed made of blankets and picked up the baby. He held it up to his face. "Mokuba, stop crying," he said in his most serious voice, the voice that made adults look at him in concern.
The baby stopped crying.
He huffed and he sobbed and whimpered, but then trailed off and grew quiet. He opened his eyes and looked for the source of this new voice. His eyes were very blue, just like Seto's. Seto had heard that all babies had blue eyes, though. The same was true for kittens, Fukamori-san said so when the lady's cat downstairs had a litter in the hallway and Seto saw them.
Seto put the baby back down in the pillows, fixed the blankets back into cocoon-shape, and left the bedroom. Now that the crying had stopped, he had a puzzle to finish in his magazine. But he had barely entered the front room when the baby started crying again. Seto sighed and walked back into the bedroom. Mokuba was crying with his eyes open now, and stopped when Seto approached.
Seto frowned. He looked back to the doorway. He walked toward the door. The baby started to cry.
Seto made a decision. He trotted back to the front room, got his pencils and his puzzle book. He went to the bedroom and sat down next to the bed. The baby quieted and watched him as his pencil scratched across the paper, finishing one puzzle and starting to work on a maze.
Their mother returned to the little apartment building, growing worried when she didn't see Seto in the front room, only realizing now that she had been gossiping for a lot longer than she meant to. She slipped out of her shoes and didn't even bother to put on her house slippers as she padded across the room to the bedroom.
Seto looked up and frowned when he found his mother standing in the doorway. "'Ka-san, why are you crying? Did someone tease you?" He was just beginning to experience teasing from the older kids who lived next door.
She smiled and shook her head. "You're a good boy, Seto."
Seto frowned thoughtfully and glanced at Mokuba. "Thank you," he said solemnly.