Glass
"So tell me, how have things been? You haven't been so talkative recently."
"Mokuba went back to his room."
"Yes, I had noticed that. But those beds are so small."
"I guess it means he's used to the idea of me being here."
"Have you gotten used to that idea yet?"
"It's only been a few months."
"It's funny, before you you would've said, 'It's already been three months.'"
"We're a month away from our anniversary. I'm sure that'll be quite a big day for you."
"How so?"
"Do you really think anyone is going to come for us after a year?"
"I didn't think anyone would come for you after a week."
"So how long is this it? It has to be frustrating to constantly make the rounds."
"That's actually what I'm here about. Okay, I'm here because it's your time slot, but also I'm adding this other thing onto it."
Seto leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. Something new hadn't entered their routine since the duel with Yugi a month before, and that hadn't even been a fixture, just a one-time event. So he let his interest show, especially since it was something he cared about.
"Let's get Little Mokuba out here, shall we?"
Pegasus turned from his spot on the couch and shouted for Mokuba to join them. He walked out of his room a moment later, peeking down the hall before heading into the living room, sitting on the far end of the couch.
"I have something for you both."
He looked up to one of the cameras on the wall and waved, and a few seconds later, the door opened. Croquet brought in a box, closed, so they couldn't see what was inside of it.
Seto didn't understand how anything in the box would relate to Pegasus not needing to visit everyone so often. But his interest was still high and Seto tracked the box's movements to Pegasus's lap and watched at the lid was opened.
"I'm not going to lock the door anymore," he said.
"What?" Mokuba and Seto asked, their words almost simultaneous and sounding like an echo.
"Feel free to come and go as you please."
He brought his hand out of the box and set two black bracelets on the coffee table. They were thick and each had a green light glowing from the top. "But you have to wear these when you go out."
"What are they?" Seto asked.
"Tracking devices. They don't lock on and they won't shock you. So don't worry about that. It just lets us know where you are. And-" he said, exchanging the box for a band. "The light will turn red if you go somewhere you're not supposed to. The dungeons, my wing, security rooms, that sort of thing. You will have access to my office if I'm in there so if you need anything, you can just drop by."
"If we go somewhere that's red and don't backtrack?" Seto asked.
"Expect a visit from the guards. They'll take the bands until I feel you're ready for them again."
"You're serious?" Mokuba asked. He picked up the one on the table and fit it on his wrist, then fumbled for the clasp a second before popping it off.
"I am. You won't have access to anyone else's room, but once I trust them with the bands, you can meet up in the library or the kitchen or wherever. Oh, and you'll start restocking your own kitchen now. Or using mine. Either way is peachy."
Pegasus held the band out to Seto. "Show the camera that you're wearing it before you leave."
Seto took it. "You kept me in that cage for eight months before moving me up here. Now less than half that time later you're letting me wander your home?"
"Sure. You're not going to try anything, are you Seto?"
"No."
"Marvelous. Then I have nothing to worry about. You have three seconds with the red light, by the way. So keep an eye on it if you're not sure."
The rain outside picked up, drawing Mokuba's gaze over to the window. It hadn't stopped raining since the night before and Mokuba spent too long staring out the window at it.
"So if I want to walk out in the middle of the night?" Seto said.
"Just show your wrist to the camera."
So there would always been someone watching or Pegasus just wanted them to think that. But either way, he was letting them leave the room. Giving them limited movement around the castle.
It hadn't even been a year.
"Why?" Seto asked. Like Mokuba had done, he tested the band to make sure he could get it on and off easily.
"This is your home now. You're not supposed to feel like a prisoner forever."
"What if we fall asleep in the library?" Mokuba asked.
"Keep the band on."
"Do you still want us in here during the time slots?" Seto asked.
Pegasus shrugged. "I'll come to you. Just try not to be in the shower."
Seto shook his head. Pegasus would have to let that go eventually.
"Are you going to give us a tour?" Mokuba asked.
"No, I think you would enjoy exploring much more. Get a feel for the place on your own. Keep an eye on the light though. I really don't want to take them away for an accident."
"Why today?" Seto asked. He put the band back on the table to give Pegasus his attention. Something wasn't adding up or there was a piece of information Seto didn't have in order to understand. Pegasus didn't make decisions like this lightly. Nothing significant had happened in the past month that Seto could attribute to this decision.
"Do you want them or not?"
"Of course," Seto said.
"Then say thank you like a normal person and stop trying to talk me out of this gift."
"Fine," Seto said. And Mokuba added the, "Thank you."
"Very well. It's time for me to carry on with my Sunday morning. You two don't get into any trouble."
Pegasus stood with the box and handed it to Croquet. They left the room together, and both Seto and Mokuba waited in silence to listen for the locks.
They never came.
"He's serious," Mokuba said. He snapped the band on and off again. "He's actually serious."
"Did you do something that would make him-"
"No? I can't think of anything."
They didn't get up for several minutes, like they were waiting for Pegasus to come back in and reveal it was all a joke. But the room stayed quiet and Pegasus didn't come back. The lights on the band remained green. The door stayed unlocked.
"Want to go?" Mokuba asked.
"And I'm the one taking risks."
"Oh please," Mokuba said, getting to his feet and putting on the band. "He knew we'd go immediately. Come on."
Seto stood up as well, holding the band and staring down at it. Was it some sort of test? Would leaving now prove some unknown point to Pegasus? It might have been too great of a risk to take immediately.
"He might think we don't want them if we don't use them," Mokuba said, "I'm going. You coming or what?"
After clasping the band on his wrist, Seto said, "Shoes first."
Mokuba grinned and ran back to his bedroom. All of his things had finished migrating over the day before, so Seto's floor was clean and Mokuba's now a mess.
Mokuba had moved. That was what had changed.
"Hurry up, Seto!"
Seto put on his shoes and met Mokuba in the hallway. He had tied back his hair again and Seto had to ask, giving the ponytail a slight tug, "Do you just want me to cut it?"
"Then it'd just hang everywhere and I couldn't pull it back when I wanted to."
"It's still doing that now."
"But to a lesser extent."
"Let me know."
"Sure. But let's go explore a castle."
Mokuba held his wrist up to the camera and gestured to it like he was trying to sell it on an infomercial. Seto gave a halfhearted effort to show his to the camera since he knew they could see it without him having to hold it up.
Mokuba opened the door and the light stayed green. He looked up to Seto with a perfectly bright expression, happier than Seto had seen him in some time. He walked ahead, keeping his wrist up and focus on the light, while Seto hung back to close the door. The locks got a brief examination before he moved on, past a guard stationed by the elevator.
Stretching out his wrist toward the elevator doors, Mokuba said, "Light says go."
"You don't want to look around up here first?" Seto asked.
"Nah. Up here's dull. Let's go down."
Seto surrendered and followed, keeping an eye on his own light to be safe. Mokuba pressed the button for the main floor, which Seto assumed was because it was the lowest they could safely go. Pegasus had to know better than cutting off an entire floor. They wouldn't be able to get back up before the light turned red for three seconds.
"You have an idea of where we're going?"
"I do. Kitchen's probably down here anyway."
"Anyway?" Seto said, "You have somewhere else in mind?"
"Yeah. Hold on, that hallway's red. Don't go that way."
Mokuba followed the light through a dining room and into the kitchen. "That was easy," he said, lowering his arm for likely the same reason as Seto. Pegasus mentioned the kitchen being one of the rooms they could go to. So he assumed that the entire space would be in the green zone, but he still checked every few seconds, to be sure.
"Look at all this, Seto." Mokuba had opened up the refrigerator, one the same size that they had back at their own home, but this one was stocked full, half produce, half dairy. Mokuba pulled out some of the shelves to find a few unopened packages of bacon, sausage, chicken, and the like.
"Can we restock our fridge with all of this?"
"He might argue you taking it all," Seto said, "Besides, ours is about half this size."
"We could at least take all the sausage. Maybe the bacon."
"You'll have a heart attack at eighteen if you try eating like that. Our kitchen is fully stocked right now."
"Fine, but we're coming back for half of this stuff."
Mokuba checked inside the pantry before lifting his wrist again to head out into a hallway. The light stayed green until they got close to an open staircase heading down, which prompted them to turn back the way they had come. Mokuba didn't want to go back to the kitchen. He pushed ahead and into the room where the hall dead-ended.
The library spanned two floors. It was twice the size of the one Seto had built back home and more tightly packed. The castle didn't offer many windows, casting a shadow over the majority of the room that the overhead lighting couldn't overcome. They moved down the shelves, coming across sitting areas every few rows. Some of the household staff sat on the couches, glancing up when Seto and Mokuba passed and quickly turning their faces down.
"This looks like a movie set," Mokuba said. Being ignored by the staff didn't seem to bother him. He kept smiling and heading down toward the far corner. "We're going to spend so much time in here. Hide and seek! We can absolutely play hide and seek in here."
"Or," Seto said, pausing to think of something a touch less humiliating they could do to pass the time. "Scavenger hunt. It would take days to find the right book."
"That's better. We should find something to act like prizes."
"I guarantee you if you mention it to Pegasus, he'll make up prizes and play right along."
They did a lap of the library to make sure it was all within their limits, then moved on. Another door from the hallway opened into the entryway. There weren't any guards around and the light on the bands stayed green.
Mokuba headed toward the large double doors and Seto jogged to catch up with him. "What are you doing?"
"It's raining. If I can open the door, I can hear it."
The doors would be too heavy to open manually, and Mokuba must have realized the same thing. He went to the wall beside them first, where a series of light switches grabbed his attention. He flipped them all before hmming and then went to the other side.
"There."
He pressed the button and both doors groaned outwards. Mokuba reached out his hand, past the line where the doors rested closed, and waited.
It stayed green.
He turned to Seto. "It's green."
"I can see that."
"Check yours."
Seto held out his arm into the rain and waited. It didn't change. Maybe they just had some leeway so they wouldn't accidentally set it off?
Mokuba stepped out into the rain a few feet, then a few more. After a couple rounds of walking and pausing to wait on the light, he stood in the middle of the stone balcony, hands and face lifted to the rain.
It drenched him within seconds.
"Come on, Seto!"
"No thank you."
"Don't be chicken! It's just water!"
"It's going outside. He couldn't have meant for us to do this."
Seto looked back behind him, waiting for a guard to come move them back into an approved area. This must have been an oversight in the programming. No one came. There was a camera on the ceiling pointing to the door. Maybe no one really was watching?
Mokuba ran to the stairs and stepped back a moment later. "We can't go down!" he shouted over the rain. "It's green up here."
He ran back to the door and grabbed Seto's arm, ignoring his protesting, and tugged him into the rain. Seto turned his head down like that would protect him from the drops, but they rolled down his face in a moment. At least he didn't have the glasses to worry about anymore.
"It's February," Seto said, "Island or not, it's too cold to be out here."
"It's not that bad," Mokuba said. He cupped his hands together to collect the rain. "What's the worst that happens? I get sick?"
"You get sick and Pegasus takes the bracelets back. Let's go back in."
Mokuba tossed the handful of water at Seto, which there was no point in dodging since he was already soaked. The splatters hit him almost unnoticed with the heavy fall of the rain.
"We've already gone out. If he's going to get us in trouble, then there's nothing going inside will do."
"Where's your caution?" Seto asked, "I can't risk saying the wrong thing but you can run outside unsupervised?"
"It's raining! It's been almost two years since I've gotten a chance to stand out in the rain. And Pegasus allowed it!"
Seto tried to wipe the water from his face only to have more roll down. He checked his band again, still convinced that it had to be a mistake. It was the first day with the tracking devices and they were allowed to go outside just like that? Being able to wander around the castle already seemed like too much. If Seto was initially meant to spend two years in a dungeon, eleven months was too soon to be letting him out. In the early weeks, every extra day had seemed too long. These mind games shouldn't have taken hold so soon.
"It's going to be fine," Mokuba said. "He isn't going to make a mistake like this. It's fine."
Seto turned to look over to the side of the balcony where he had dueled Yugi, standing on the edge for the kid standing two feet from him. They had made it through that challenge. They would make it through this one too
And Mokuba was right. They were already drenched. They had already gone outside.
A few more minutes wouldn't make things any worse.
Mokuba dropped to the ground and spread out on his back, closing his eyes to let the rain hit his face. It had been raining long enough that the stone was covered in half an inch of water, deep enough it had already oozed through Seto's shoes. Even though he was thoroughly drenched, Seto didn't sit in the puddle. He stood over Mokuba, shaking the hair from his eyes before pushing it back altogether.
He shivered a little and tried to guess the temperature. Maybe somewhere in the sixties. Definitely cold enough to get them both sick if they stayed out much longer.
Seto spent the remainder of their time outside waiting for Pegasus or a group of guards to arrive. It took longer than he expected before the inevitable, "Brothers Kaiba!" came from the open doors.
Mokuba lifted his head and Seto glanced back to see Pegasus holding two towels. "You'll catch a cold!"
Seto offered Mokuba a hand a pulled him to his feet, sending a few drops of the splash it created up Seto's legs. Mokuba just grinned at it and held his palms up as they walked to the door. Mokuba shivered once they were out of the rain, in the air conditioning.
Pegasus handed them both a towel. "Playing in the rain in February. Honestly, you two."
"You live on an island! It's hardly cold." Mokuba said.
Seto patted his face dry before running the towel over his hair. His wet clothes were more noticeable now that they were inside, clinging to his arms and chest. The towel ended up just as soaked as Seto.
"This is a true shame," Pegasus said, and Seto braced for Pegasus's actual response to the venture outside, to them taking advantage of the tracking devices and leniency so soon.
Crossing his arms, Pegasus finished, "This rug was expensive."
That was it?
"Just buy a new one with the KaibaCorp money you're raking in," Mokuba said. He moved the towel across his shoulders while keeping his bright expression, regardless of the shivering.
"You're entirely too generous, Little Mokuba." Pegasus eyed the puddle forming at their feet for a moment before stepping over to the button on the wall to close the doors. While they closed, Mokuba stared out at the rain until it was shut off from his sight.
"Now, we need to get you two hooligans warmed up. Croquet's built a fire in the sitting room and prepared cocoa and coffee."
He had known they were out there and didn't come immediately. They took a risk and he didn't make any sort of retaliation? No, something else must have been coming, stricter boundaries, less time out of their room, removal of the tracking devices entirely, something.
Pegasus showed them to the sitting room and pointed out the couch nearest to the fireplace, where a pile of towels waited for them in addition to the ones already laid out to protect the cushions. Mokuba and Seto sat on the couch, taking a few towels each. Seto used his for their purpose while Mokuba used them like a blanket.
"Coffee-" Pegasus handed Seto a mug from a tray set up, "-Cocoa-" and a mug was handed to Mokuba, "-And a glass of wine for me because I didn't go gallivanting out in the elements."
"Maybe you should have," Mokuba said. He took a sip, followed by a too-large shiver. "It was fun."
"That well may be, but now we need to get to the consequences portion of the evening."
There it was.
Pegasus sat on the couch opposite them and set his glass on the coffee table between. A hand gestured for Croquet to bring something over, but it was in another box so Seto couldn't see anything more than colors on the surface. Mokuba tensed beside him, still sipping at the cocoa like acting unaffected would lessen any punishment Pegasus would lay out.
"You two are not allowed to leave this room," Pegasus said, taking the box from Croquet, ratting the contents, "Until one of you beats me at a game of Connect Four!"
He pulled the game from the box and slammed it onto the coffee table, nearly knocking over his wine. "And let me tell you, I'm positively astounding at lining up four of these little tokens."
Mokuba grinned, clearly relieved, and put down his mug. "You're on."
"I'm always red, so you'll have to be black."
They got started and Seto stared down at the steady green light on the tracking device. Pegasus hadn't cared. They were allowed to go outside. He gave them more freedom than Seto ever expected to receive from him and didn't care when they abused it right off.
The claustrophobia hadn't faded.
They were still trapped.
Pegasus was just getting better at hiding it.
Thanks for reading! Sorry I didn't get around to any of the review responses in the last chapter. I'll definitely make time for them from here on out!
Also, thank you to all my anonymous reviewers! Your feedback is always appreciated.
You can expect an update on Wednesday, July 20th.
