Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.
Warnings/Notes: For an incredible friend, Bellamy Taft. You are the warmest, most genuinely thoughtful person I've ever met. I have learned and grown so much from your creativity, love, and support. You inspire me every day.
Reference to adult situations and themes of a predatory sexual nature.
Boy
There are few places more humid than Japan in July. Their orphanage, too close and too far from the beach, bleeds the dampness. It seeps through the crevices of their small room, crawling along the corners of the ceiling where the walls reach up to meet it. For the third time that month, Seto lifts the corner of the bottom bunk mattress and feels the moisture, deciding. The side Mokuba's laying on, moaning and feverish, snagging at memories too painful to fully unearth, is drier.
"I'm sorry, Mokie, I promise you won't feel bad forever." Hopefully just tonight.
He drops to hands and knees, scrubbing at vomit with the tattered remains of a towel. Mokuba didn't have more than the mealy remains of an apple Seto had been saving, but it was enough. He steadies his stomach and brings the rag to the sink to wet it again, forcing pieces down the drain.
He is cut out for children, but only his own.
When the boy across from him misses his bucket, Seto doesn't wipe up the mess. Crawling in beside Mokuba, he puts him on his lap, smooths his sweaty bangs from his forehead, and hums a lullaby.
An oath with a melody.
He will get them out of here.
When the next morning brings mold on his blinds – the bleach won't keep it at bay, he knows – Seto carries Mokuba into the common room to watch TV.
"Niisama? The sun…is not even…'wake."
"I know, Mokie, go back to sleep for a while. I'll be right here."
He watches the chess championship with the volume off, rocking Mokuba against his chest to keep him content. Every time he coughs, Seto envisions mold spores spreading like wildfire through his lungs.
It's not the home's fault, he knows. Domino is not the booming metropolis his parents hoped to find when they first moved, most people are blue collar workers like their father used to be. They go to work with calloused hands and still flinch, as if scarred, when their fingers come away from their mailbox.
People here are lucky to pay their own bills. Who's really thinking about the many too-old orphans on the outskirts of the city, wearing torn garments patched with mismatched thread? Not many have the money to eradicate mold from a poorly constructed building, let alone make sure it doesn't find a way in again.
But some people, like Kaiba, can be swayed with the proper incentive. Seto tests the name on his tongue and likes the way it tastes.
He will be ready for this man, with enough money to save them all but barely enough interest to choose one.
Two.
It will be them.
It has to be them.
He is twelve years old and does not understand why Kaiba calls him 'boy.'
The first time Seto corrects him, it is not with contempt. Gozaburo likes to be called sir, respected like an army general with nothing at his fingertips but Diamon's switch, and for many years, Set does just that.
"I'm so tired, if I could just—"
The snap of the pointer on the desk cuts him short. He knows better than to break the silence again. From his desk a few feet away, Kaiba sips at his scotch to get it down before the ice melts, picking out casualties from news articles like most people scan comics in the Sunday paper. There is no sadness on his face.
Seto doesn't know if Gozaburo feels anything but powerful and hungry. He only knows the glint in the man's eye when night has mostly fallen and thin streams of moonlight through the window leave Seto desperately hunched over the desk to see his own writing. They do not use food for nourishment here, Kaibas are cut from tougher cloth and if Seto wants to earn the right to be one, he will give up what he doesn't need.
He may not know much, but for once it is more than Kaiba.
Mokuba will not be the thread to fray loose.
He is thirteen years old when he finally says it.
"I'm not going to give you anything, least of all a name you haven't earned."
"You forget I'm carrying yours."
Gozaburo looks across the table where Seto, finally, finally, can see Mokuba.
He knows better than to eat the food.
"Don't be a fool. You're carrying the fancy of my sponsors. You're a pretty face, and at the rate you're going, that's all you'll ever be."
He shoves his chair back against the outlandishly expensive rug, wrinkling it but paying no mind – except when Mokuba winces – "Then let me prove it!" He demands, "Stop flooding me with busy work and let me prove it!"
The ice in Gozaburo's glass shifts.
"Go put your nose in a book." He says evenly.
"But—"
"Now, Seto."
He doesn't notice until he's halfway gone, mourning the lost hour with Mokuba that would be their only contact this week. Slowly, his trembling fist uncurls.
It will be them.
It has to be them.
He is fourteen years old, not standing on solid ground, foundering for everything from attention to adequacy, and losing what matters most.
This house breathes Mokuba's terror and nothing haunts him more than the dulling sympathy he feels every time he catches a glimpse of it. His instincts used to be sharp, throwing boys out of sandboxes when they dared to take his toy, fighting off droves of older children with nothing but the adrenaline of protecting his baby.
And now?
Now he's not sure who he is anymore.
He has lost the sense of ever being a Yagami, and despite Gozaburo's increasing demands, he is not yet a Kaiba.
He sleeps an hour or two at night, in between emails and without closing his eyes. Sometimes he's in front of a screen of code pressing zeros with hasty fingers, leaving several hundred lines before his brain catches back up. His body has grown thinner, hips jutting out even as his shoulders broaden, less like a boy but not quite a man.
He does not know what it will take to feel like he belongs here.
Despite the pain and the desperation to best his father – only the best is enough – he wonders if he is even supposed to.
It is one week before his fifteenth birthday and Gozaburo calls him to the study.
"I've got a job for you, boy." He says, and opens a briefcase with enough money to take mold out of the dictionary.
Seto he does not think of the orphanage, hasn't for a long time, because it had to be them, and it was.
He is fifteen years old and knows too much. The way his father grips his shoulder with more than firmness. The way sponsor's eyes dance over him, sharp teeth peeking out behind well-painted lips, when they remark at how much he has grown.
He has bested Kaiba, and in doing so, learned his place.
You're a pretty face…that's all you'll ever be.
When the guests clear out and the music fades, Gozaburo's voice echoes across the too-empty room.
"Follow me."
No.
Gozaburo has been training – breaking – more than just his body. Seto is too thin and wiry to fight back, and subconsciously, has lost the will to. His feet follow while his mind reels in terror.
Knowing what's next.
The bedroom door closes and pale streams of moonlight illuminate that one spot on the mattress.
"Open the closet, boy."
Seto does as he's told.
He has earned a name and learned from the mistake of letting it be given.
Gozabruo takes it back in anger at first, then resignation, hands brutal but softening.
He thinks of the suitcase and the money.
Of his father hurtling toward the ground out a top story window, making contact with a sickening thud.
The victory has given him everything but freedom, and sometimes when he closes his eyes to sleep in the master bedroom – he is the master of this house now – all he can think is: it had to be us.
When he is sixteen years old, he goes back to the beginning.
To the orphanage he let be forgotten. Tearing it down to build it up again.
To the amusement park he dreamed of when they still played in the sand.
To the brother he abandoned when he needed him most, and the nightmares they should have left in the dust of Kaiba Mansion.
Why haven't they left Kaiba Mansion?
Despite the scars, and he carries them well, hidden under belts and behind laptop screens, his life has meaning again.
His past haunts him enough, why does he have to see his face here?
Here, in the wake of his own success. In the ashes of the emblem he rejected despite the compulsion to be a Kaiba.
To be the best.
To be enough.
His stepfather's face hasn't aged.
He does not wear sadness, nor remorse, just the smugness of power he has dreamed up in a server. He hates that he asks himself how satisfying it can be to feel that in a place where there is no feeling at all. Hates that he knows, deep down, too well.
The child who takes his brother, greedy and desperate, gives him back.
It is only then that Seto listens to his story. Looks him in the face.
Knows.
This boy who has supposed to take his body, who suffered endless loneliness here and resents him for the life he did not get to live, is screaming.
It should have been me.
Seto thanks a god he does not believe in that it wasn't.