Title: A Child

Summary: Seto hated one thing more than anything: being treated like a child. However, even more than that, he hated to be punished like one. Gozaburo Kaiba and Seto during his youth.

A/N: Probably the worst fic I've ever written. It's unorganized, truly, and strange. Don't leave comments saying so. I know.

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He had been surprised the first time Gozaburo did this. He'd always thought that the man would find himself too high of status to be known for it. Like many things, though, Seto had learned a lot about Gozaburo that destroyed his original opinion of the man. The only idea that had remained, and intensified, was the Gozaburo was a cruel man. Much crueler than Seto had previously anticipated. He had wanted to save Mokuba from a life without a family, but, in the process, he had signed himself up for torture upon torture to protect that chance.

The first time his new step father slapped him across the face, Seto had not at all been surprised. It was expected, and he had provoked it. It was a simple experiment, one that tested Gozaburo's waters. He had to see what his punishments were. He'd learned a lot of them and what caused them. Talking back got him smacked, defiance lost him food, rudeness lost him sleep, rage and failure to complete work brought his brother's shelter and safety into question…but any combination of those things brought out this…

He learned the first time not to shout back at Gozaburo in a rage when he'd been insulted after being grabbed by the hair and drug to his room. He expected to get yelled at, but wondered why he would be scolded in a different location. He was naïve back then. Gozaburo was through yelling. He was to be punished and was to learn from his lesson.

When Gozaburo first undid his belt, Seto's hand instinctively covered his mouth. There had been times at the orphanage when the older boys, too many for him to fight, had made him their captive. The headmaster of the orphanage hadn't reprimanded them, hadn't even removed them from the premises. He told Seto not to talk about it. (And Seto only talked about it because they'd been caught.) Gozaburo, on the other hand, had other intentions. His humored laugh and simultaneous look of disgust confirmed that.

He had been shoved over the bed and beaten with a belt. It was more humiliating than it was painful, but it certainly had been painful enough. Gozaburo didn't hold back and he didn't cease until Seto's body defied him and a sob was forced out. Even more humiliating than being beaten like a child, and treated like a child, and crying like a child, was to be drug back into the dining hall to resume his meal in front of the servants…the tears still present…just like a child. The time after that it had taken longer for the tears to fall, and Seto could tell that Gozaburo hadn't liked that.

It didn't show on his face, it reflected in his actions. After completely humiliating him during a dinner party, Seto had reacted the only way he'd known how. He fought back, he denied the accusations of his immaturity because he couldn't stand the mutters that he was, after all, just a child. He wasn't a child! He was just stuck in a child's body! He was smarter than all of them combined! He knew more, he was more experienced! He knew what would make others happy and how to cater to those needs. How to make them possible and how to accomplish those tasks without wasting time and money in the process! He wasn't a child.

He wasn't a child.

But Gozaburo still treated him like one.

That time he'd been taken to his room, drug by the arm rather than by the hair because they were in public. Gozaburo was always on his best behavior in public. He was shoved into his room and the door had been slammed and Gozaburo's belt had been removed. Seto stood defiantly, his eyes saying that no tears would fall, no matter how bad it hurt, no matter what bruises were left, and no matter how humiliating the punishment was.

He wanted to stand tall, even though he was short in stature at the time. He wanted to appear powerful as he stood before the man that was grooming him to be so. He wanted to look like an adult, but Gozaburo saw through that. He saw through the wisdom in Seto's blue eyes and saw his age stamped on his brain like a scarlet letter. Twelve. A child's age. Despite the knowledge, Seto held fast to his feelings of maturity and strength.

Then he'd been order to remove his pants. His cheek burned as he was forced to do as he was told. The only alternative was to be struck within hearing distance of the party. No one would find it unsettling that the defiant child had been spanked, but Seto would know that they would simply think "what an obstinate child. Look at what he's reduced Kaiba Gozaburo to after he's gone through so much trouble to adopt him. What an ungrateful child." He endured the punishment with one less layer, making the pain worse and the humiliation excruciating.

His first sob came even quicker than it had the first time he'd been spanked by his step father. He hated himself for it. But this time, one sob wasn't what Gozaburo was waiting for. Seto didn't know what it was as the thick leather cracked against his flesh repeatedly. He could feel his skin splitting in places before it was over. It was as if, by breaking his flesh, Gozaburo was attempting to break his will. As if reducing him to sobs was the same as reducing him to the state of adolescence. It was an uphill battle because Seto was not a child. He just looked like one. He just…cried like one when he was hurt.

It ended when he sank to his knees on the floor, sobbing in pain and humiliation. It ended when he pleaded for it to stop, something he'd never before done, and refused to do again. It ended when Seto's brain shouted "You are a child, and that's why this is happening!" Gozaburo left him to gather himself, and when Seto returned to the party, dry eyed but still flushed, scantly concealed smirks met him.

He'd cried himself to sleep that night, but not from pain or degradation. It was the last time he would ever allow himself to cry again, but it had nothing to do with a belt or a beating. It was everything. Everything that was closing in on him. He accepted all he had repressed and let it slide past the membranes of his eyes for the first and final time. All of his stress, all of his worry, all of his longing and his loneliness. All of his pain and his fears as well as his uncertainties. He cried his last tear of childishness, and when he awoke, he was ten years older.

At least that's how he felt. Because at age twenty…

He wasn't a child! He wasn't to be looked at like one! He wasn't to be punished like one! He said that once and Gozaburo had replied that Mokuba would be taking his punishments from that moment forward. "After all," he had said, "you say Mokuba needs his childhood."

And thus, he'd been subjected to this. His pants and boxers had both been stripped of him and Gozaburo was cracking the belt tauntingly from behind where Seto rested bent at the middle. He kept trying to tell himself that Gozaburo wasn't looking, and that he had nothing to be looking at. Nothing was truly exposed to him. Just his upper thighs. There was nothing to be so ashamed of. A child would be ashamed, but as a man he was to be unfazed.

And yet he still felt disgusted, and part of him, his tear ducts at least, were panicking. His heart was racing and each time that Gozaburo would experimentally crack his belt, Seto felt like gagging. It wasn't the eminent pain, it was the exposure…the humiliation…the torment. Being treated like a child. He wasn't a child and the thought made him sick.

"Spread your legs." Seto jerked. His cheek burned darker and he dared not disobey, but was too ashamed to submit. Why? Why would he have to? To humiliate him. To degrade him. There was no other reason. If he was a man now, which he was sure Gozaburo had picked up on, that was the only way to break him. "Or would you prefer to have Mokuba accept this punishment on your behalf?"

"Shut up," Seto hissed, and did as he was told. He heard the sound of the belt as it cut through the air and heard the jingling of its metal before it collided painfully with his body. He inhaled sharply and lurched forward over the bed.

"Spread them farther," Gozaburo ordered. Seto didn't obey. There was no reason. He didn't need to expose that much. It was wrong. It was disgusting. It was against all that he stood for. His step father's hands moved to each of his inner thighs and pressed them outward. Truthfully, he saw nothing worth seeing or that he hadn't seen before, but to Seto he was seeing everything. Gozaburo knew that, that's why it was fun.

After that, the strikes came in rapid succession. The leather cracked against his flesh firmly and, sometimes, to change things up a bit, the buckle would bite into his flesh. He started beating harder when he realized that Seto refused to cry. He'd heard the dry sobs echo in the midst of gasps, but nothing that signaled him to stop. It didn't matter if Seto had decided that he was going to start imitating the personality of adulthood. It didn't matter! There was only room for one man in the house, and that was him! Gozaburo Kaiba! There wasn't room for another. There just room enough for a man and two children.

He wasn't a child, Seto reminded himself. He wasn't, and because of that he couldn't cry. Only children cried when they were spanked. There was no reason for an adult to cry. His body was stupid for trying. The body of a child was defying him and betraying him. If only the body grew with the mind, then they would all have to silence their accusations.

The belt collided with him one last time, leaving a darkening strip of red on already bruising flesh. Seto wasn't foolish enough to think it was over. The belt had not been dropped to the ground, nor had it made the sounds of being replaced. There was more to come. Gozaburo was just resting. That was alright with Seto. He would rest as well; gather his straying mind and stability. He breathed heavily and waited.

"Stand up!" He barked. Instantly, Seto straightened. It was as if an invisible cord had been tugged. He sounded angrier than before. I'm not breaking, Seto thought. And he doesn't like that. "Face me." Seto glared at him defiantly. His eyes locking with his step father's. He did not move to cover himself, Seto didn't like it, but Gozaburo liked it even less. The vulnerability and exposure did not have the effect that he'd been planning.

He had to do something. He had to make it look like he'd expected Seto to change so quickly. He had to react. He reacted in the only way he could think. If he was fighting a man, but morphing that man into a child…

The belt was raised and Seto barely had time to flinch before it smashed across his face. It shifted his attention. It was the worst mistake of the night besides challenging the man. The belt was recoiled and then sprung again, this time lashing out lower. It struck against Seto's member harshly, the pain it brought more intense than the pain in his face or backside.

Gozaburo watched as Seto's face widened in both shock and pain before the boy sank to his knees, touching himself in a way that almost looked like masturbation. There weren't tears, but that was to be expected. He was competing with man locked within the form of a child. He used the greatest weakness in the man's body against him.

He wondered what his next tactic would be.

He could think of none.

Gozaburo dared not leave threat about Mokuba's safety. When Seto's eyes locked with his, and that childish mouth hissed in a child's voice for him to get out, he listened. He could think of no further tortures for the child, the man, that didn't defy what he stood for. He was positive that Seto could think of something to do to him.

A/N: I don't know about this one. It's like a fetish fic, I guess. I needed to write something that wasn't for a grade and wasn't straight lemons. It's odd, no rape this time. What's the matter with me? What do you think? It's a bit different, isn't it?