Silence.
That word had so many connotations, so many meanings to someone. Seto Kaiba was no different. He had experienced so many types of silence in his life, and all were different. Some were good, others awful. So many memories were associated with silence. So many different emotions were tied to it.
There was the silence he had experienced with his parents, and his incredibly young baby brother. It was a comforting one, that he experienced in the last hour before he went to bed at night, before stories were read and babies were already asleep. They had that one hour, where they spent doing quiet activities in the same room. At the age of five, he had been drawn to puzzles, things that needed solving. But later on, when he discovered duel monsters about two years later, he spent it strategizing and organizing his cards. His mother had tended to the houseplants or read in that time, and his father had generally read the paper, doing it in that time, rather than in the mornings when he didn't have time before work. Those were peaceful, full of love, and connectedness.
The next silence he had come into contact with was the sad, sorrowful silence of his parents' funeral at the age of ten. The service had been small, and no one had offered him, or his brother who had been five at the time, any words of comfort. The silence was painful and cloyingly sweet with the promise of what should have been, and the lives they could have led with their parents leading the way. Mokuba had cried that day, but even his tears, which typically bordered on the dramatic, were quiet ones. Seto hadn't had any words to comfort his brother with, not knowing what to say, and knowing what he could say were just empty platitudes.
The subsequent silence that came was from his Aunt and Uncle, who ignored himself and Mokuba for the most part, unless he displeased them, in which he took a beating, but even that was done in quiet. No words saying what he had done wrong, just bruises that spoke louder than words could. They had never touched Mokuba, not that he would have ever allowed that, but it was not for lack of trying.
Then there was the silence of the orphanage. The silence only came in the throes of the night. During the day, everything was loud with the hustle and bustle of children, and families looking to adopt. And earlier in the night, the sounds of orphans weeping because they were not picked for a family and had to spend another day in that rat hole. The silence came in the darkest part of the night, when Seto lay awake many a time to watch over his little brother, protecting him from nightmares. The crying of the children had long since ceased, and the nightmares that plagued other children did not make them cry or scream, because they knew nobody else would come to comfort them. Only Mokuba had that person, and there was no need to cry or scream, because Seto was always sharing a bed with him, his comforting arms only a turn away. He never had to break the silence.
The oppressive silence of Gozaburo's Manor followed. The silence that came with the hours upon hours of lessons and homework heaped upon him as Gozaburo educated him. The forced silence between him and his brother from barely being able to talk. His own silence by choice about the physical and mental abuse he suffered under his stepfather, for fear of being sent back to the orphanage and not being able to give his brother the best life he could. And the silence he endured, the fear that he had suffered, had ended up being for something when he had at last taken over Kaiba Corp.
The relatively short silence of employees who did not respect him soon ended, and for a long time, there was no silence. And then… there came his silence after his defeat of Yugi Moto. It had broken him. One might have expected him to scream, or yell, or cry, but he did not. He left, took a sort of vacation to sort through everything, and he had done it all with silence. He had not told a soul where he was going, because he did not know himself. He had left a note to his brother, telling him that he would be back once he found himself again, unable to bear speaking. And so, he had gone, and eventually, he had found what he was looking for.
The silence after was chilling and dark. The silence of having his soul taken away, living with the infinite cold, the blackness and fog. He could never speak, never move his mouth, so he was forced into silence, but his thoughts were anything but quiet. They were loud, so loud sometimes that he thought they might shatter the silence, but they never did. No sound ever reached his ears, nothing but the sound of silence. For a long time, he thought it may remain that way, until finally, a sound had broken through- the sound of clinking metal, when he opened his eyes he found himself in a dungeon, and that sound was the sound of rattling chains. His soul was finally free.
The vast majority of those silences were awful, the kind that break your spirit. It might have, if it were not for the good ones that inevitably followed. A few came from before his soul was taken, but most came after.
There was the silence in the morning, when the manor he called home was still quiet. The quiet that came before the maids and the butlers began their days serving his brother and himself. He enjoyed that time, when no one else was awake, because it gave him time to think by himself in a comfortable space, without the demands of everyone weighing him down.
There was the silence when he was organizing and strategizing his duel monster's cards. That silence when he was preparing for a duel, where he thought everything through, planning for every possible outcome or combination of cards he could get to get the maximum amount of damage from his opponent. The silence was comfortable and so peaceful.
The silence after winning a duel, when the holograms had faded and he had been declared the winner. The silence there was pungent with his superiority, with his skill, his ego. Those silences fueled his fire, his passion for the game, and his need to be the best. They showed him that he was still at the top.
Then there was the silence after a long day at work, where he could finally rest. That feeling of accomplishment after getting everything on his to do list checked off. He always knew that there would be more to do the next day, but in those times he preferred to enjoy the present. Those few times when he could relax, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee, and maybe a good book.
The silence of a room full of shocked investors never failed to comfort him. Seeing the looks on their faces after they realize that a teenage boy was more skilled in business and in technology than most of them made him gleeful. He enjoyed that silence, that affirmation that he was in the correct position in life. He loved the way that he could make them all go quiet. It was fantastic and powerful.
But there was the greatest silence of all of them, the ones that meant the most to him, were during moments with his brother. The silence when Mokuba sat in his office, doing homework or playing a game while he worked. The quiet hush that occurred when he went to check on Mokuba during the night when he could not sleep himself, and was assured that he was okay and sleeping peacefully. The soundless moments during dinner when they had entire conversations without speaking. The noiseless times when Mokuba would crawl into his bed at night, after a nightmare, never making a peep, just wrapping himself around his brother. And the peaceful mornings when Mokuba crawled into his bed on a day off just to be close to him. And the final one was the utter stillness when he held his brother in a hug, in a cuddle, in any affectionate gesture. In those moments, time stilled, peace flooded him, and for however long it lasted, it was like the worst silences had never happened in the first place.
Yes, Seto Kaiba had experienced much, but he had learned to appreciate the sound of silence.