The Balcony
Summary: Mokuba can't help but look at the padlock shutting the giant glass door that leads to the balcony, while he waits for his brother to get off work, and he watches the rain fall. Mokuba introspective piece, kind of a companion to 'Stuff of Dreams', but you don't have to read that to read this.
Nii-san's always been paranoid.
Mokuba muses silently as he sits, legs tucked under him, staring out of the big glass doors that are locked. They're always locked.
He doesn't want anyone to fall.
Seto didn't change the office Gozaburo had once had. He thought that it would cause too much confusion about the employees.
But he had added the padlock, and thrown away the key. Mokuba didn't know where the key was. But he often sits in Seto's office and stares out into the balcony.
It's a pretty view.
He wonders if there's still blood on the ground from where Gozaburo fell, from where blood gushed out of his head. He wonders if Seto remembers like Mokuba does, of the way his head had hit the ground and blood had spattered all over the ground.
It's ruined forever, that view.
Mokuba remembers how Seto looked, down, silently, his thin form shaking uncontrollably, face twisted as if he didn't know whether to scream or cry. He ended up not doing either.
He just turned from the balcony and walked away.
His steps had been controlled.
I caught him looking down, leaning over the balcony with some sort of childish curiosity lots of times.
But later Seto had snapped into action, ordered a heavy duty padlock.
"Why are you doing this, big brother?"
"The wind is getting really strong. I don't want the doors to blow open."
"Are you sure that's it?"
Seto sighed, looking almost sadly out the glass door.
"Yes. I'm sure. Don't worry."
The child may have only been nine years old, but he was perceptive enough to know the wind wouldn't open those heavy glass doors, padlock or not.
When the rain fell, the droplets of water would run down the door.
Mokuba would smile, because he liked the way it looked, his reflection dripping, distorted against the rain.
I guess it washes the blood away.
Sometimes, when he can't sleep, he'll put on a dark coat and head outside to the park, where he'll sit on a marble bench and pull his coat closer to him.
Seto prefers it when it drizzles, but I like it when it rains buckets and thunder roars.
He always closes his eyes, letting his eyelashes be weighed down by the water.
I don't think I'll do that now. Seto should be off work soon.
So he watches the rain fall, and when it begins to stop, just beginning to be a light drizzle of water, he feels a hand on his arm.
It is gentle and thin and hard, and he knows who's it is.
"Hi, nii-sama."
"Hi. Let's go home."
So Mokuba walks along with his brother and a brilliant smile paints his face as he sees a rainbow.
He wonders if there are fairies in the rainbow that make it, but he shakes the silly thoughts away.
But not completely.
Because Kaiba Mokuba may not have time for miracles...
...But he's still young, and he sure has time for dreams.