When he reflects on the day he received the phone call, he remembers typing one hundred and forty strokes of kanji before his fingers abruptly left the keys behind. The phone on his desk was laying off the hook, but his feet were too far along towards private limousine that was parked out front the company. Kaiba Seto could feel his heart beating against his rib cage, under his palm while his eyes narrowed in the slight chance that he'd calm his sudden nerves. In his twenty-five years that he'd been living his own life, he'd never felt the thread of nervousness around his heart. It made the blood under his skin feel twice as hot, raging to compliment the rise and fall of his pulse. Seto had always been sure of every decision he'd made, a pleasurable outcome, or a less than favorable outcome, however this time the cards weren't all in his hand. They were in god's, his wife.
Seto hadn't pictured himself married - though the pull of the draw had smiled in his favor, his road had upturned to meet his footsteps a little better, and she understood. She came to trust him, she came to take his hand and help rise him up. Seto was a little softer these days, and this situation at hand was going to draw the sensitivity out of him a little bit more.
She'd gone into labor while she was at work at the museum, her stubbornness and dedication having her behind a desk, doing last minute paper work before she'd quivered with the pen flinching between her fingers. Her last line had been left unfinished, but her gaze had been as calm as the spring weather filtering in through the open window.
"Call my husband." She'd said without a waver in her expression.
When Seto arrived, the hospital walls seemed smaller, the voices seemed louder, and everything was racing through his head at once. It was enough to pale the skin of his face - but his eyes remained sharp. Seto wasn't a man that enjoyed losing control in anything in his life, and he mustered up the voice to sternly voice words that would stay with him that day.
"Kaiba Seto. My wife has been in labor for fifteen minutes. Where is she?"
* * *
He was born later that night. Around twilight, when traffic had slowed and Mutou Yuugi had arrived to join Malik and Rishid Ishtar in the waiting room. Mokuba had been there for hours himself, the young vice president running on the course of aderealine and brewed hot tea. Seto's head was dizzy, he couldn't remember walking, nor could he re-call anything but the feel of his fingers wrapped in his wife's hand, and the birth of his newborn son. Mokuba's smile was immensely radiant at the idea of becoming an uncle, more so - the look on Seto's face he'd never seen before. Bewilderment, and the concept of joy that often filled a new parent to the brim. Seto was bursting at his seems, but in his own discreet way that wouldn't give too much of his character away.
"It's a boy." He announced, eyebrows knit while eyes reflected nothing but ounces of pride.
Kaiba Aya had the most distinctive skin complexion. A mixture of ivory and bronzes that meshed and made him seem like the sands in Egypt reflected during the early evening hours. His hair, a full head of brown hair gave way to deep set eyes that were rich turquoise. When Seto saw him and held him in his arms, his pulse hadn't slowed for a second. His life was going to be filled with the dreams that Seto had fought for, along with his own newborn road that he and he alone would continue to follow. His son was going to be like them - a leader, somebody that would come to shape his own life and nothing more.
"Seto?"
The voice was soft, and a rustle of hospital bed sheets told him that Isis had woken.
"There's no need to speak." He urged. "This is a new road for all three of us."