Jessica: This is not good...and I don't mean the fic.  I've barely begun this and already I have a gray blob of a writer's block.

Malik: *unhelpfully* Maybe you should plan it out.

Jessica: That was pointless.  I already did.  And I came up with one single idea – a gray blob of a writer's block.

Malik: ???

Kaiba: You lost me there.

Jessica: For a CEO of a huge hologram technology business, you sure are –

Kaiba: Don't finish it.  My fans will flame you. ^_^

Jessica: Good.  That means my writer's block too.  *kicks aforesaid block…er…blob*

Kaiba: *tactfully changes subject for no reason (so why tactfully?)*  You sure owe me for this fic.

Okay, SCREW THE TACTFULLY!

Jessica: *picks up hammer* You may be adored by your fans, but you can't escape me!

Malik: *picks up popcorn* Ooh, this should be good…*begins to watch chase from atop of the writer's blob*

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            If I Had Only Known

            For years I have felt guilty.  About Mokuba.  About my rash decisions that led to my eventual despair.  About everything.

            But why?  It was not my fault.  Nothing was.  They keep telling me that.  Yeah, yeah.  Sure.  If I had only known what would happen!  If I had only known that Mokuba would be stabbed dead at a party, I would never have let him go.  If I had buckled down and told Mokuba that he had already gone to more parties than I could ever count, that he had to do his homework…

            But – how different would I be, then, from our stepfather?

            I had opened my mouth, ready to say, "No, Mokuba.  You cannot go. - " and insert the stupid, lame, reasons why not – and then, inexplicably, I had thought of Gozaburo Kaiba.  Gozaburo Kaiba, the stepfather I always hated and who always controlled Mokuba and I as if we were pawns on a chessboard.  I had thought of my dead stepfather and relented.  So, the decided "no" became a "yes".

            "Sure, Mokuba, you can go.  Have fun, kid."

            Oh, if I could only change that to a "No, Mokuba, you'll be stabbed dead and I will be left alone to fend for myself in this world…"

            But then, Mokuba would stare at me oddly and think I was losing my mind (with good reason, too).  And he would go back to his room, and still find a way to go to his party. 

            So, was his death meant to be?

            I never will know.

            It was a Friday when he told me about this party.  "Hey, Seto," he said, perching himself on the edge of my desk as he always liked to do, though he was in high school.  "Hey, there's a party at the bar.  The guys wanted me to come.  It's in a couple of hours, and I was wondering if I could go."

            Trust Mokuba to leave it for the last minute.  He knew I would be annoyed, but he also knew (from years of experience) that I would be too busy to resist.  He knew that I would say "yes" and the expected permission would always come.  Of course, he would bug me until I relented anyway, so he always got what he wanted.  The "yes" that granted him permission to do anything he wanted, to soar free of boundaries, to spiral into the sky, into his idea of heaven and fun.

            Okay, Mokuba.

            Sure, kid.

            Yeah, fine, whatever.

            Of course.  Have fun.

            Why not?  Why not say "no" when there was a deliriously joyful "yes" that could be said?  I had never heard many "yes" 's in my younger years.  It was all "no" 's, the ones I hated so.  Perhaps I was making it up to myself.

            Okay.

            Sure.

            Yeah.

            Why not?

            Of course!

            They came like water, rolling off my tongue just as easily.  It was just a couple of words.  A couple of words that would lead to Mokuba's death.  And my despair.

            "Sure, Mokuba.  You can go.  Have fun, kid."

            I smiled at him and pushed him off my desk. 

            Oh, if I could only change that answer!

            I would suddenly say, "No, Mokuba - " and tell him a stupid reason why. 

            But I didn't.  And he left with a casual wave.  "Bye, Seto."  With that, he walked out through the door, closing it shut behind him.  And I looked up from my laptop screen and shuddered.

            It was as if he had gone through a door I had never realized existed, and had shut it, leaving me behind.  It was as if he had gone through a door that I could never follow through.  One that was only for him, and not for me.

            I cursed myself for being so superstitious.  It was just an ordinary office door.  If it was not fancier than most, it was plain, normal, and definitely not a gateway to some unknown world that Mokuba, but not I, could go into.

            Instead of contemplating all the possible things that could happen to Mokuba, I began to work on my new duel disk design.  It was complex and would require a lot of money and time.  Fortunately, I had both.  Had.

            It was late at night when I called it quits.  I was tired, my design was all worked out, and I was ready for sleep. 

            Then the telephone rang.

            It was a man's voice, pressing and hurried.  "Sorry to call you like this, Mr. Kaiba," the unknown speaker said.  "Your brother was stabbed by a psychopath in the bar.  We think he's dead.  He's at the hospital right now."

            I could hardly bring myself to answer.  "Dead? Mokuba? But – why?"  I stammered, hoping this was not true.  "But – why?"

            "We don't know, Mr. Kaiba.  We're awfully sorry this had to happen.  Your brother…he's the most decent guy I know."  The caller's voice broke.   "And he was having a soda, and suddenly…this guy taps him on the shoulder.  And Mokuba…he spins around in his chair.  And the guy…threw the knife."

            I was too stunned to reply to this tidbit of information.  "Who? Who? WHO?" I asked urgently when I got my voice back.  "Who did this?"

            "None of us ever saw him before.  But he was…different.  He was masked but all of us saw that he was weird."

            I hung up.  Weird and different gave me no sense of who this murderer was. 

            And "the hospital" could've meant any hospital.  But I knew instinctively which one it was.  The only hospital us Kaiba brothers went to was the most expensive but careful and professional there was.  Mokuba's friends surely would know that and send him there.

            It was a false hope I gave myself.  For when I arrived, nobody had seen Mokuba or his friends.  I cursed my stupidity; the hospital was many miles away from the bar Mokuba and his friends haunted; it was far from Domino City in fact.  No, I had no choice but to try the closest one from the bar.  Even though it was cheap, hardly professional…hardly a place for Mokuba to go to.

            I leapt into my limo and screamed directions to the chauffeur.  He went slowly and carefully, and normally I would not have minded.  But today I was different.  I was a different man altogether, for in the face of danger I was but a scared boy with no knowledge of what would loom around the corner.  "Go faster, fool! My brother may be dying!" I screamed.

            Kaiba Corp chauffeurs are all obedient and quick at the wheel.  This one was no different.  "Yes, Mr. Kaiba.  Right away, sir."

            The limo sped up with a pace I had not thought possible.  I sat back, breathing hard.  Mokuba! Mokuba! I screamed silently in my head.  Don't die! I'm coming!

            I exited the limo with as much speed as I could muster and thanked the chauffeur before racing inside the hospital.

            I really did not wish to be there.  The hospital was as un-professional as a hospital can get and filled with drunks who had been injured at the bar.  It was also impersonal, as if the doctors didn't care if their patients lived or died.  However, they were quick, I had to admit that.  They led me straight to Mokuba.

            I was filled with horror as I saw my brother on the bed.  I could not believe it was him!  His face was drained of all color and deathly pale.  Blood stained a bandage wrapped around his stomach.  The white blanket seemed dark against his skin.  I tried to convince myself it was that the blanket was dirty.  That was not the case.  My brother was dying, and nothing I could do would prevent his death.

            I could barely see his face.  Respirators covered his mouth and nose, his breathing was shallow.  His black hair was fanned out behind him.  Slowly all the life was ebbing away from him, and I could not bear to watch.  However, I forced myself to look into the closed eyes.  They were closed off from me and I felt a longing to gaze into their depths once more.

            Mokuba.

            "Mokuba!" I whispered frantically.  "Mokuba, are you in there?"

            "There's no use," said the doctor by his bed.  "Kaiba, I think he's just about gone."

            I wanted to scream at the doctor until I saw that he was truly sorry.  Not because of my wealth, or my fame.  He was sorry because he cared, and I granted him that.

            Are you in there, Mokuba? Are you in there?

            His chest fell up and down with his shallow breathing.  I found myself breathing with him.

            In…

            Out…

            In…

            Out.  Out in a frightening rattle.

            I waited for him to breathe in again.  I choked and hacked, and my lungs were dying for oxygen.  But I saw that my brother was dead.  I had heard his last breath.  His death rattle echoed in my ears.

            I breathed in.  I forced myself to, and with the oxygen came tears.

            I, Seto Kaiba, cried that night.  I cried as I had never before.  All the tears I had not shed during my hard childhood came flowing down my face as I wept that night.  I hit the nearby furniture with my fist until it bled.  I touched the still, cold hand and the white, pallid face and stared at the peaceful face and cried as if I would never stop. 

            "Goodbye," I choked.  "Goodbye, Mokuba."

            The doctor swiftly exited the room and left me to my tears.  I was alone in the world.  Mokuba and I had never even gotten to say a real goodbye.  It seemed that I suddenly went from the cold, hard Kaiba to vulnerable, helpless Seto.  My childhood vows never to cry were thrown away that day as tears poured down my cheeks relentlessly and I hugged the lifeless form that was my brother.

            I tore the respirators off of Mokuba's face.  He would not need them anymore.

            I threw the blankets off his limp body.  I could not bear to see their fresh whiteness, their cleanliness, their brightness in comparison to Mokuba.  My brother. 

            I shook him and shouted at him, hoping to give a jolt to his heart.  No, he remained still.

            I stared at the bandages that covered his wound. 

            And then I realized how terrible this sudden death made me feel.  How terrible it felt to lose a loved one.  Oh, I had scoffed at the movies that had shown these scenes of death.  And I was experiencing one right now.

            Mokuba had been flawed, I knew that.  He had been a C student who struggled to climb up to a B-, where I was a straight A honor roll scholar.  I had been taught by Gozaburo, and Mokuba had been taught by unworthy teachers who knew absolutely nothing about what they taught.

            But Mokuba was my brother.  He was the one who could understand everything I told him.  The one person who could win me over by smiling at me.

            As cried, I thought about him, which made me cry more.  Finally I gathered myself together and picked up his body.  Then I carried him (I refused to call him an it) into the limo and ordered the chauffeur to drive home.

            He did not question my tearstained face, nor my hands that were bloodied from hitting furniture and carrying Mokuba's body.  I was glad of that and tipped him well.

            I laid Mokuba's body on a couch and went up the many flights of our house into my bedroom.  I refused to believe that Mokuba was dead.  I thought about his body as a "he" and still referred to the house as "ours".  But in my heart I knew Mokuba would not come back.

            I washed the blood from my hands and cleansed my cuts.  But I knew that the one wound that I could not heal that night was the one in my heart.

            I readied for sleep, refusing to think about Mokuba's body lying downstairs.

            As I stared at the ceiling, thinking thoughts about Mokuba and his flawed yet faultless character, I suddenly had one thought.

            Who could've killed my brother?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Jessica: Ok, I know, this sort of is like Lois Duncan's Who Killed My Daughter?  But it's kind of different…if you know what I mean…

Whew! It's 2000+ words and five pages long!  Hope you guys liked it!

Kaiba: I hope you're still not going to chase me.

Jessica: Which reminds me…

~*~*~*~*~
A/N-Kaiba is not my favorite character by far, but he is the only one who fits the personality I wanted to portray.  I couldn't do Yugi/his grandfather or Joey and Serenity or Isis and Malik.  Their characters don't seem right.  So I chose Mokuba and Kaiba.