Disclaimer: All characters mentioned herein belong to Kazuke Takahashi.
A/N: Warnings: OOC-ness. And ohmanitsa MOKUBA fic...by me... O.o I'm scared, too....
Fall
There's a feel to autumn. It's not a dead feeling; it's not empty, either. At least, not always. It's almost as if the world is thinking as it readies itself quietly for winter.
For me autumn means jogging and ripened smells and laughter over steaming cinnamon apple cider. Discount donuts for dinner, old spooky movies, piano lessons and guitar music.
You know, my brother never bothered to learn the piano.
Well, that's not true. He took lessons as an obligation when we were younger, and as soon as he was able, he dropped out. But he made me take lessons later on, so I think he regretted it.
Leaves skitter across the asphalt, and the sound reminds me of dried potato crisps. I'm standing outside my apartment, waiting for a car to pass, and only just realized that it passed by me several minutes ago.
I tug my stocking hat lower over my ears and start off jogging. Partway up the street I almost trip as I stop, fast.
They haven't cleaned up the blood.
There was a gang fight at the corner of Main and Brown, where I usually go jogging, and no one's bothered to clean up after it. Well, I suppose, with as underpaid as the city servicemen are, why should they? They didn't spill any blood.
I can't believe I'm living here. My brother would worry himself sick if he knew what it was like here. Or, a more likely scenario, he'd stage a drug house and tip the cops off, to scare away all the true gangsters.
I jam my gloved hands into my coat pockets and walk away. I really don't feel like jogging, anyway, it's just become such a habit and I don't have any homework to do.
I've considered getting a job to fill these empty spaces in my life. 'Empty' is the wrong word. My day is filled with school, food, study, and philosophy. If you want to call it 'philosophy'. I call it thoughtless rambling. Plato I am not.
Besides, I have no reason to go to work. As far as money goes, I'm set until I graduate, compliments of something my brother set up after my stepfather died. I don't know how far the money extends. Something to ask my lawyer next time I get a chance.
I wonder if my brother would call me a slacker.
People always comment on how close the two of us were when I was a kid, but I really don't know him that well. No one does. We were close without really knowing anything intimate about the other. I know his hobbies, and some of the nasty details of his past, and he knows as much about me as he had time to piece together (or listen to). There's no telling how much he knows, then; could be as simple as "my brother likes dogs" to the things I wouldn't dream of whispering to anyone.
It doesn't matter, anyway. Not only would he never divulge any of our family secrets to anyone, no matter what, he has no one to tell it to in the first place. ...Neither do I. Not even my brother.
I have friends. I just don't want to talk about my childhood with them. That's what a journal is for, right? A journal, and that thing that lives between my ears and behind my eyes. Sometimes called a brain...as my brother would say, I'm one of the few people left in this world who actually has one. You'd be amazed how right he is in that. As nice as some people can be, there are still lots of humans running around with no one "behind the wheel", so to speak.
At school, even now, I get a lot of questions. From my teachers but also from my peers; you'd think Kaiba would be a common enough name. I doubt that Oscar Meier's descendants have to put up with "Hey, you're the hotdog man's kid, aren't you?" But somehow they always jump to that conclusion, with me, even at this tiny college in the middle of the worst city I could find. It's not like I make a secret over being Seto Kaiba's little brother; everyone else makes a big deal over it.
I guess they didn't think that I'd be so scruffy looking. Whereas Seto is cool and clean-cut, my hair's ragged still, my razor is dull, and my clothes attract all the moths in the city, and it shows. To think I could've stayed to learn the trade of KaibaCorp, and remained a well-dressed billionaire. But I didn't.
...In truth, I'm not even sure why I left. It wasn't to "discover myself", whatever that means. I'm born being who I am, and that's the end of it. I can even live, happily, being no one other than Mokuba Kaiba. Isn't that odd, in this world? Where people are obsessed with death and pain...?
I've spent long nights in empty, cold study halls pondering that question. Where am I? Easily answered. Why am I here? To study. But why aren't I at home with Seto? ...I don't know. So don't ask.
Did you know about the scandal my brother was involved in when he was fifteen? Maybe not. Well, how he got KaibaCorp is a shady business.
At the orphanage, I was always trying to make friends with the bigger kids, and Seto was always bailing me out when they tried to use me as a football. He was smaller than most of them, too, but he was vicious after our parents died, and so no one picked on him.
Then we were adopted. And a few years later, the original Kaiba of KaibaCorp died. Well, he took a plunge out of a window. That's never been defined as an accident or...or something more. Surely a fifteen year old kid--"brat" I think they called him in the tabloids--wouldn't murder his own benefactor? But surely someone as powerful as Master Kaiba wouldn't kill himself?
Some things aren't meant to be delved into by little brothers, and I knew it. I kept my mouth shut about the whole business and was just glad that we were free.
The stress of running a company and going to high school six days a week began to wear on him. Add a younger brother to the mix--no matter how much said little brother tried to be self-sufficient--and you've got "nervous breakdown" spelled out.
So when, exactly, did "it" happen? When did he snap?
I'm ashamed to admit that I never noticed anything amiss. I might've tried to seek help, if there had been anyone I trusted besides Seto at the time. But there wasn't, so it wouldn't have been any help if I hadn't been so ignorant.
I only knew something had gone wrong the day he left me.
That day I went into his office after hearing that he'd gathered all three Blue Eyes White Dragon cards. And after hearing the rumor that he'd destroyed some old man's card. And, finally, that my brother had been defeated.
My brother, who had never been bested in anything. My brother could do whatever he set his mind to, and do it better than anyone else. I still believe that.
Or at least I'd like to.
I guess I don't...anymore.