Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh!
This story is un-betaed
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
Where…where am I?
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
W...What's that noise?
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
Why is it so dark? How did I get here? What-oh. Oh.
That's right...I died.
But what is this place? Heaven? Hell?
How am I conscious?
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
There was a dense, heavy pulse that throbbed steadily around me, enveloping my senses as questions desperately raced through my mind. I couldn't feel anything except a warmth that seemed to wrap around me like a silk blanket. It was as if I were drifting in space, suspended in nothingness. Weightless and unmoving.
It made me...tired...?
No! I snapped myself out of the daze that started to settle on my mind and forced myself to focus on the matter at hand.
Okay, what's the last thing you remember?
For a sluggish second, I came up blank. Retracting my steps, before my mind filled with slideshows of red and black and my body throbbed in a faint memory of pain.
Ah, how could I forget?
I had died by being violently hit by a drunk, speeding blue car. My internal organs and bones getting crunched and squished under heavy, foul-smelling tires as blood splattered across the sidewalk, painting the earth a brilliant, vermilion red. Then, with a gasping breath that filled my mouth with the taste of copper, my sight had faded to this darkness, a relief from the terrifying pain.
I tried to close my eyes before realizing that I couldn't feel them as well. Inwardly sighing, I tried to push the memory to the back of my head instead.
Sure, I was sad that I had passed away. Surprised at how fast my life went past, how it just took one moment to end it. But what else could I do? I was dead, gone, non-existent.
As for my family...I would rather not think about that. How they'd act upon hearing that I had passed away, the way my friends would cry and how my cat would look for me in the evenings when it was time for her food.
It was all in the past, and it would be better for me if I just pretended it never happened.
So, trying to drown my thoughts, I turned to other subjects. Like the environment around me.
Maybe this is how the afterlife really is? If so, then it's a bit disappointing, and pretty boring. I mean, couldn't life of at least given us something to do once we were gone? Like maybe throw a big, colorful rave party and invite all the cool peeps like George Washington or something? Even though I'm not that big of a party person, it would of been at least something.
For what seemed like forever, I floated in that weird pressing darkness. Spending my time either 'sleeping', being bored out of my mind or reflecting on a bunch of things from fruit cakes to the cure for cancer. I'm not sure how long I was in that timeless place. It could of been long years or mere minutes-just that one day, one sweet glorious day, I was finally, FINALLY released from that dark, sense-numbing prison of nothingness.
It started with a sudden movement in my 'orb', as I called it. I had perked up slightly before a couple of tense, stretched moments passed and I started to sadly pushed it off as some weird accident when I suddenly couldn't breathe. My mind whirled into overdrive as I realized that I needed air and my hands instantly tried to flail around, although to no avail.
The rest of my body tried to struggle, but it was soon enveloped in the same tight, slimy, thing that squeezed my face so tightly I thought I was about to die again-except this time via suffocation. For a split second, I comprehended that I could feel before my mind returned to its frantic panicking.
Something strong and slightly dusty-feeling wrapped around my head, gently pulling me as more things grabbed the rest of my body that slowly slid out of the constricting object. Shrill screams rang in the air as a soft object rubbed all over my face...and I could finally breathe again!
In a few seconds, my strangely high-pitched voice joined the other one in shouting our sore lungs out. I was moved and freezing cold air whipped mercilessly at my body, making my cries louder, because goddamn it this was traumatizing! What the hell just happened?! Where was I!?
My eyes snapped open(when did they close in the first place) and then instantly squeezed shut again at the blinding white lights and alarming weird blurry blue things that loomed above me. Something slightly ticklish moved over me, like the one that cleaned my face and wiped my body down before I was snugly wrapped up in a thin cloth. Strong, sturdy objects(arms, I think) moved me before a shadow covered my face, and I slowly let my eyes open as I realized the thing holding me was blocking the lights from shining in my strangely sensitive eyes.
Slowly the world came into focus.
It was a person, a woman around her early thirties who looked like she'd just ran the mile.
The first thing I noticed were her eyes-an electrifying icy blue framed by long, thick black eyelashes that made them pop even more. Her skin was tanned and messy dark hair rested on her head, the ends tickling my cheek as she cradled me to her chest.
A thin sheen of sweat covered her face and a couple drops of the salty liquid rolled down the side of her face as she flashed me a weak, yet brilliant smile.
Her head slowly moved away, turning to face something else and I was angled towards another face that slowly cleared up.
This time it was a man with soft-looking brown hair that brushed the tip of his dark, intense blue-purple eyes. He was paler than the woman and in his arms was young boy who looked a lot like the man, except with shorter hair and eyes like the woman. A look of wide-eyed look of fascination painted across his face as the man whispered softly to him before leaning down to kiss the woman on the forehead.
"彼女は美しいです" He whispered, and I realized through my the haze of my garbled mind that they were speaking in a different language.
The sound was remotely Asian, maybe Chinese? But it had sort of a different tone to it.
The woman replied in a soft, raspy voice and I was carefully handed over to the man. He gently rocked his arms and hummed a soft tune as, against my wishes, I found my eyes closing.
In a few seconds, I was sound asleep.
The next few days passed in a blur as I realized that I had somehow gotten reborn-REBORN-and was now a baby again. At least it explained a lot of things, like my lack of motor control, how I have no control over my bladder, the frequent sleeps(which I spent sixty percent and more of my time doing), the constant need for food(...milk), and my messed up sight(although it wasn't that bad as I had glasses in my past life).
Just let me say, theres a reason you don't remember your childhood. It's freaking embarrassing.
And gross.
Two words. Diapers and breastfeeding.
Awkward...
But other than that, I actually made a few accomplishments! Like learning my name, for example, although it wasn't really that hard with how often it was repeated.
They called me Risako.
Nice, isn't it? I thought it had a pleasant ring to it but I wasn't sure if I liked it better than my old name.
Anyway, along with that, I was also slowly learning their language. My new mother was 'Kaa-chan'(mom in their language), and my new father was 'Tou-san'(dad). In a way, I was glad that I wouldn't have to call them 'mom' and 'dad' as that brought up too many memories. It also helped simulate my brain in the mundane schedule of a baby.
Everything was nice and all, but it was a bit difficult for me to grasp the fact that I was reborn. That I would never see my friends again, my old family. I never expected to miss them this much-but then again, you know what they say.
You never know what you have until you loose it.
Eventually, though, the feeling of loss crept away. I got used to my new life and decided that what was in the past would stay in the past. I had a new life now, and I would have to live in the present. From that day on, I made sure to make as little trouble as I could for Kaa-chan and Tou-san.
I think they appreciated it.
In this life, I also had an adorable big brother, Seto. Of course, he was technically older than me, so I'm not sure if I'm really allowed to call him 'adorable', but he was!
The name also ringed a small bell somewhere in my memories, but I just couldn't place a mental finger on it. Anyway, the point was, Seto was amazing and charming and the cutest little kid I had ever seen. I absolutely adored him.
Seto wasn't obnoxious. In fact he was quieter than most children I've encountered, which was nice to my new baby ears. He didn't do the nasty things like other kids his age-such as dribbling drool and food everywhere, and he would also play games with me. When met with my bumbling behaviors, he kept gentle and mostly patient. Of course, at such a great toddler, I quickly found myself getting attached.
Life continued on pretty good. At around five months, I said my first word.
Kaa-chan was playing with me in the living room as Seto arranged some building blocks(which he loved to do, something that I will never understand) nearby and I had just been lost in the nice, peaceful moment when,
"K-K…"
The aforementioned mother was on me in a second and trying to be encouraging by saying the words out loud. Seto had momentarily stopped playing and was watching me with interest.
"K…Kaa. Kaa-c-chwa." I struggled, trying to force my clumsy, heavy tongue to form the foreign sounds.
"K-Kaa-chan~."
I mentally fist pumped. Yes! Got it!
My mother cooed happily at me with her pretty, expressive eyesand kissed my cheek, chatting excitedly. When father had come home that night, I greeted him with a happy "Tou-san!" and he instantly dropped his bag in surprise.
With a happy cheer, he lifted me up and gently spun me across the room as I screamed in delight. He and Kaa-chan exchanged happy words and I was kissed on the forehead. Even Seto joined the love fest somewhere in between and we had a especially delicious dinner that night(well, to me at least, since mother finally allowed me some of the real food).
By seven months I could sit upright, crawl, and gain enough control over my arms to slap them all over Seto's carefully built buildings, demolishing the blocks with glee as he angrily puffed up his(adorable baby chipmunk) cheeks at me while I giggled hysterically. Then he would redo the building somewhere else before I crawled over to bring it down again. It became a bit of a game, to see how fast Seto could build a building and if I could knock it over before he finished.
My big brother was smart for his age.
No, I'm not being biased just because he was my sibling! He was literally a prodigy!
Seto already knew how to write complete sentences, with perfect grammar at age two! It was a bit degrading as I couldn't even say my first phrase yet and I was mentally older than him by fourteen years.
Nine months came and went, and I could walk. After many hard, wobbly days of supporting myself along the soft yet sturdy couch to strengthen my leg muscles, I managed to slowly toddle over to a dumbfounded Seto who quickly ran off to tell Kaa-chan after a few seconds of shocked staring.
Then came my first birthday which was surprisingly just the family instead of a huge party as I was expecting from my previous experience in life. But I got a couple new toys and even managed to savor bit of cake, so it was pretty amazing! My cake was an ice-cream one(much to the delight of my STILL TEETHING GODDAMIT mouth), so…yeah.
I also received the first proper look at my new body in the mirror. Something that had been bugging me for a while as I knew nothing about how I looked except for the fact that I had the same mousy brown hair as Tou-san and Seto.
Held back from my face in a ponytail with two thin sky blue clips was in fact brown hair-except it a certain messiness different from my brother that foretold a future of fluffiness like Kaa-chan's. My skin was tawny like her too, along with the delicate female facial structure and slightly chapped, tiny pink petals that were my baby lips.
Unfortunately, I had father's eyes.
Not that his eyes were bad or anything, it was just that I was desperately hoping that I could of inherited mother's. They were a bright and vivid shade that had always amazed me, but I guess you loose some and you win some, right?
Tou-san's eyes weren't terrible, in fact they were quite a lovely shade of dark indigo. I wasn't too disappointed.
All in all, I was…pretty. Overtaking the appearance of my previous body by a mile, in fact. It felt nice to say the least.
Now in my second year of life, I was fine-tuning all my newly re-gained skills along with learning more of the foreign language that was spoken everywhere around me. To my surprise, it was Japanese, the language of the otaku(which I once was once upon a time). But that year also came with an unexpected surprise.
A few days after my first birthday, Kaa-chan revealed the news that she was pregnant again with a hesitant yet beaming smile. We had all been surprised, but quickly recovered and thrown a small celebration.
From then on, Kaa-chan's belly started to swell. Although it was only by her fifth month that it was fairly obvious she was with a child, which meant that our new addition to the family was going to be slightly smaller than normal. A downside was that for the next nine months since the announcement, we had to deal with a overly-hormonal Kaa-chan who had mood swings every few hours(if not minutes).
As if she wasn't temperamental enough when she was normal.
A few months in, we found out that the child was gonna be a boy. Then, the tension started to build. The anxious wait every night, wondering when she would have the child until finally one night Seto and I were suddenly taken out of our bed, blanket and all, before getting set in the back of the car with an urgently conversing mother and father in the front.
I had just frowned, a little irritated from being woken up, and rested my head on my brother's shoulder, letting the comfort of his warmth and the soft swaying of the car lull me back to rest. Seto laid his head on mine and in a flash, we were back asleep.
After a while, the car stopped and the side door was wrenched open before we were carried by a unsteady Tou-san into the blindingly white hospital. It took a split second for Kaa-chan to huff out what was wrong before she was rushed down the hallway and away from sight as Seto and I were set down on the waiting chairs.
We half-listened and half-slept as Tou-chan softly explained to us that mother was having our baby brother right now.
Even from where we were, if I strained my ears hard enough and everything was silent, I could faintly hear Kaa-chan screaming and cursing through the walls. It honestly scared me, and I felt my heart gave a sharp, uncomfortable twinge.
How much pain must she be in?
I scooted a little closer to Seto and after a moment, I dozed off again into a light sleep. It was the distressed mummers of my father that woke me up after what seemed like a minute.
Rubbing my eyes and getting out a silent yawn, I slowly slid down from my seat and clumsily walked over to tug on the worn blue jeans that he wore.
"Tou-chwan? What wrong?" I mumbled my baby talk sleepily as he gently bent down to picked me up and cradled me to his chest, an equally tired and confused Seto in his other arm.
"Your...Kaa-san. Gone. She's gone."
What?
His voice wavered, clouded thickly with a strange emotion I couldn't describe.
She was gone?
What did he mean she was-the words seem to hit me like a ton of bricks while my brother just tilted his head, confused.
"Where did she go? When will she come back?" Seto asked, sleep weighing down his voice.
"She-she's never coming back, Seto."
No. No way. There was no fucking way-I had just seen her about half an hour ago! Perfectly alive!
There must of been some sort of mistake. Tou-san probably just mixed up his words. There was no way Kaa-san was dead.
A nurse led us through the doors in a condeming silence, as I strained to see Kaa-san, sitting brightly in her hospital bed and waiting for us. To hear her lively voice croon over our new sibling, because she loved us too much to ever leave.
Right?
There was nothing.
The room was empty.
My lips trembled.
Must be the wrong room.
One of the other nurses moved up to us, a small blue bundle cradled delicately in her arms.
Not a word came from her mouth as she handed it to Tou-san, who crouched down to let us see. Shifting the blanket, I heard him let out a choked gasp as he saw his youngest child's face.
In a moment, as I leaned over to see, I understood why.
My new baby brother…looked exactly like Kaa-chan.
With fluffy tufts of black peeking out from his blanket, he was the first one with mother's hair color, although his skin was pale like father's, and his eyes…as if on que, they fluttered open and I was torn between relief and disappointment.
He had Tou-san's eyes.
That night, no one shed a single tear.
The drive home was silent as we went home. Without Kaa-san.
Seto held Mokuba, cradling him protectively as we didn't have the time to put in the car seat beforehand.
When we got home, there was a sort of solemn silence. Tou-san didn't say a word, and there was an immense pressure in the air that prevent any of our lips from peeling open.
Seto and I went to bed.
The moment I was sure Tou-san had gone to bed, I left. Slipping out and silently closing the door behind me, I instantly found Seto's room across the hall. Softly entering, I crossed the comfortable cream colored carpet to his bed. As I stood there, Seto turned to face me.
"Risa?" He asked in a questioning tone.
"Seto... can I sleep with you?"
"Ok."
He scooted over as I snuck under the covers. The bed was already warm because of Seto, something I was grateful for as I curled up next to him with cold toes. It took a couple minutes before I fell asleep, taking comfort in the presence of my big brother.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I awoke to father's sobs in the room next to ours and listened to it for a while. The heart-wrenching gasps and ragged breaths before burying my head in the covers and shuffling closer to Seto.
Kaa-san...couldn't be dead...
It wasn't until I saw the body resting peacefully in her casket that my delusions crashed down around me.
After that, life was more empty.
Now, you see, Tou-san was the one that made the money in the family. The source of income, almost rarely home with his job, slaving away to make enough money to support his family. But now with Mokuba to take care of, he wasn't able to go to work.
Luckily, his boss was sympathetic and allowed him a 6 month paid break, but no more than that.
So, everyday, father taught us how to take care of Mokuba.
When to feed him, how to change diapers, what he could and couldn't eat, etc. We didn't have enough money for a baby sitter since originally, Tou-san's job was barely enough to support three people comfortably. That was himself, Kaa-chan, and Seto. But then I came and he worked longer hours, and now Mokuba was here. Although mother is gone now, the money is still strained.
I have a feeling that somewhere in his heart, Tou-san half blamed Mokuba for Kaa-chan's death. It made him treat the clueless baby a bit coldly, whether he knew it or not. I think Seto noticed something too and he too started started to distance himself a bit from Mokuba. If anything, it was because he caught on a bit to Tou-san's example and knew that somehow, our brother was responsible for the reason his mother was gone, although it wasn't really Mokuba's fault.
He didn't exactly ask to be born, did he?
Six months came and went surprisingly fast, and Tou-san was gone.
At first, we struggled a little with our duties, especially with our clumsy young bodies, but with Seto's genius and my past experiences we managed to make it work. Eventually, a sort of routine was made.
As for food, well, it was a good thing I knew how to cook.
But then, Tou-san started to come home later and later. More tired every day.
It started from just a minute or so, and before we knew it, changed to long, pressuring hours. Throwing himself into his work in hopes of numbing the pain that came with his wife's death, and leaving Seto and I to slowly raise Mokuba ourselves.
We tried to be normal, me teaching him and Seto how to do basic math and a bit of history seeing as I never learned the complicated Kana-Kanji thing, while Seto taught us the Japanese that he knew and the words he would write. Which was surprisingly a lot.
Thank you for smart brothers!
A year came and went, then another. Mokie(a nickname Seto came up with on a whim) turned out to be a gentle and quite spirit much like father(it still befuddled me how he and Kaa-chan got together with their clashing personalities-I guess the whole opposites attract thing really does exists), who was a cuddly little ball of fluff except for the times that he got mad. And then Kaa-san's temper came out.
I shivered a little at the memories of his major tantrums, and was glad that he was much less spoiled than other kids.
During that time, when all of us were still in the early stages of growing up, I tried to tie us three together. These days, it was really just the three of us, and I felt a sort of fear. We had to be there for each other, because we were family and I never wanted to experience being alone again.
My plans and hopes weren't exactly satisfied as Seto's side was looser than Mokuba and I, but it was getting there. I was reassured for the time being.
Mokie had his first and second birthday with just the three of us(Seto and I had ours too) and Tou-san sent a little card with some money, although he didn't bother showing up at all.
Not even calling to wish us Happy Birthday.
Honestly though, I wasn't surprised. He hadn't bothered to show his face in over a month. Hasn't even come home in three weeks.
And the 'present' he gave just went to show that it had been so long since he last spent time with us that he'd forgotten our personalities and gotten us a generic gift. Sighing, I just slipped in the cash into our supply jar. We were running low on eggs anyway.
Within these two years, Mokuba managed to take his first step, speak his first words('Risa' first, to my delight *cough*braggingrights*cough cough*, shortly followed by a gurgled 'Seto'), and it was a third through the second year when we received the news of our father's hospitalization.
I had seen it coming for a while now, and as we stared blankly at the sunken, deprived face of the lifeless corpse that used to be our father, I could only felt a surge of anger in my chest that quickly mixed with a dark undertone of the bitter, sour tang of sadness(the only parental figure I had left was gone now. And we were to fend for ourselves), pain(Although he might of lost connection with us in the past few years, I can still remember a time when he was one of the people closest to me), regret(I wish I had gotten a chance to tell him how much he means to me-to us), and guilt(if only I had stopped him, helped him recover).
But he would leave us when we had just let go of our mother?
Did he not remember that he had three children to take care of? THE OLDEST OF WHICH WAS 7?! But he actually brought on his own death, knowing, KNOWING that we were unable to take care of ourselves!
Did he not think we didn't mourn as well? It was our mother, of course we had our fucking sad moments! But he completely ditched us! Threw away his life instead of recovering-not even leaving a goddamn will or note or anything!
It was as if to him, we didn't exist, didn't matter.
Despicable.
Hatred almost overwhelmed me, and I swore that day to never, EVER become that sad excuse for a parent. That I would keep Seto and Mokuba safe-that only the strongest of forces would pry them from my cold, unwilling, dead hands. And even then, I would fight my hardest.
Unlike this pathetic dead figure, I would protect what was most important to me.
Steeling my resolve, I briskly swept my brothers out of the suffocating white room to spend the final nights inside our house.
A couple days later, we attended a dreary funeral where random people who I had never seen before whispered behind their hands at the 'poor orphan children' and our so-called 'relatives' robbed us of everything in our will(except for all that cash I could find and stuff in my pillow case) before we were promptly thrown in the orphanage.
The whole time, I barely managed to reign in my temper and had to stop Seto from going into a frenzy more than once. There would be time to deal with this, we just had to wait. It was best to plan ahead before making any moves.
It didn't matter anyway. At least we were still alive and together, and those trash called family members would get what they deserve one day.
The young caretaker looked tired and weary as she accepted us in the orphanage and showed us to our room, something the size of a walk in closet at the most. We had to share the tiny room, which was honest to god frustrating. At least we were already used to each other's habits, and knew how to keep the others from being annoyed.
I placed the sheets I had taken from Seto's bed on top of the white one that was already laid down, and Seto placed the pillow he was holding onto it. Maybe it wasn't the best, or the most comfortable, but it was more than most of the kids here got.
I stuffed the money inside of the mattress, making sure it was in a safe place as Seto handed me the clothes crammed inside of his messenger bag. I folded them and placed the large pile on the small wooden drawer along the wall. My sketchbook and a collection of regular and colored pencils was placed with Seto's favorite chessboard on the ground.
All our other precious belongings were placed along the room.
And so began the next few years of our life.
Thank you for reading the first chapter, I'll be rewriting the second one a bit(having already fixed this one up).
Everything's un-betaed, so please, I BEG YOU, to tell me if anything's wrong.
Edit: So I've moved the story to this account, and it's where all the updates will be. The original copy will still be on the other account just for memories, but Risako now belongs under 'crumpledpaper'