It was nothing. Mokuba had the flu. Picked it up from school like most kids his age did. We did what everyone knew you did with the flu, he stayed home in bed and drank plenty of water, juice and soup.
He got worse, reporting a tingling feeling in his hand. I instantly hired a doctor who deemed it necessary to run tests to see what could possibly be wrong with a fifteen year old boy who just two weeks prior had seemed perfectly healthy and now could barely move his arm.
The worse he got the more I worried. He drank and ate as much as he could, which was little, especially with his mobility slowly decreasing with seemingly no explanation.
"I'm sorry, Seto," he apologized upon my missing a third day of work.
"Don't be sorry. Get better. The company can do without me for now," I insisted, wiping away the sweat. "That's why boards of directors and supervisors exist after all."
He tried to protest, but instead coughed violently. I sat him up a bit to keep him from choking. Until the doctor came back with news on what was causing my brother to be so sick there was little I could do.
The doctor came back with tests, my money paid for the results to arrive as quickly as possible which was something at least. The results however left much to be desired.
"I have no explanation," Doctor Watashi sighed. "His symptoms seem similar to Tetanus in some ways, but you say in the past few weeks there has been no way he could have contracted it."
I nodded, had he been abducted there would have been a possibility, but we kept him updated on shots as a precaution.
"Is there anything else that has happened recently that could be the cause?"
"I have an idea." The doctor and I turned sharply, I had thought Mokuba was asleep and had asked about the results in the hall outside his room, not wanting to take the doctor away from my brother's side in case something happened.
"You might know what caused your illness?" Watashi asked, rushing into the room.
"Why didn't you say something earlier?" I demanded, he could have been cured right away had we known instead of wasting time with tests.
"I forgot about it," Mokuba admitted. "It was something so small I forgot all about it until I heard you say Tetanus."
"Did you step on a nail or-"
Mokuba shook his head weakly. "No, nothing like that. There was a dog. A stray..."
Watashi's eyes widened and met mine. I could see the fear in them and knew this new development meant something bad, and judging by the look on his face possibly fatal.
I couldn't live without my brother.