Chapter 43, Piece 34 * * * * * * * *

Anzu and I had a fairly strict daily routine. I liked that. I liked the order and predictability of it. Everything was scheduled.

My old schedule was the only record I had of what my life was like before the accident. It gave me the overall where and what. But nothing gave me the who and why.

That's part of why I wanted an assistant. I wanted someone to record not only the objective parts of my life, but also the subjective parts. To judge by what I found in my room, it seemed as if I had no life outside of the corporate office. I had no pictures of friends, no emails on non-business topics.

And no vague hint that I had ever had a boyfriend.

And it would have been a boyfriend. Flirting with my American doctor had been partly an exercise in language use - and mostly a dare from my associate reeducation patients. Most of them longed to do depraved things to her nubile naked body. I found in fairly short order that I had no interest in her whatsoever. At first, I was concerned that there was an undiagnosed physical trauma.

Then the male massage therapist returned from his vacation and I discovered that all of my 'equipment' was in working order. He was tall, sandy blonde, and originally from Queens, New York. And according to my libido, far more interesting than my doctor.

Once we returned home to Japan, I found my taste in men to be surprisingly selective. Tall, fair haired, self assured, but not arrogant. Men who knew what they wanted but who cared about the means as well as the ends. In my old life, I should have been surrounded by such men.

Now, I was surrounded by glorified babysitters. It was true that I needed to re-acclimate myself to the business world, but I really had far more interest in recreating myself. Roland and Sato clearly meant well - and appeared to even care about 'Kaiba-sama' as a person. But, I was getting tired of their parental-style guidance.

Anzu, on the other hand, was exactly what I needed. She cared about 'Seto'; not that she liked me, but she was more interested in what I wanted than what anyone else wanted for me.

'Which didn't mean she was nice to me', I thought, as she fairly banged on my bedroom door.

"Seto! If your lazy ass is still in that bed, I swear I will have Roland-san put you in the car butt naked!"

"I'm up!" I shouted back, getting out of bed. "I'll be down shortly." She had not made good on that threat. Yet.

After a brief breakfast, we went to one of the KaibaCorp manufacturing plants. After reviewing the company on paper, I decided to visit every company facility in person. I wanted to meet every employee, see how everything was done. At the end of each tour, we closed the location early for the day, took an all staff photo in front of the building, and then held a reception for the staff someplace with a full bar. The visits had the dual effect of improving company morale and vastly improving my knowledge of what we did and how we did it.

"I have to admit," Anzu commented as we drove through the next nameless suburban business district. "I had no idea how big KaibaCorp was! How did you manage all this and do homework?"

I laughed. "I have no idea either. My brilliance astounds even me."

"So I guess you were always an egomaniac." She rolled her eyes.

She said something else, but I wasn't listening. My entire attention was on a sign on the side of the building we were passing.

The building was the length of the block, two-story, retail on the ground level and windowless above. The sign that had captured my attention was blue and white, and read 'Lawson Station' in English.

'Lawson' was a name; 'station' was a stopping place like a building where you catch a train.

They were the first words I'd learned in English. But the sign was too high...

"Stop the car!" I said, suddenly frantic. "Driver! Stop! Now!" We were still in motion, but I opened the door.

"Seto!" Anzu shrieked as I got out in traffic.

I heard the horns and the swearing drivers, but they were irrelevant. In order for the sign to be in the right position, I had to go up. There was a dilapidated six-story building across from the sign and I suddenly knew where I was.

Papa's office.

Anytime school was out, and Papa had to work, he brought Mokie and I in to work with him. We rode the train, and had lunch at the noodle bar on the retail level. If Papa had to work late, we had dinner there too.

There was a receptionist where I entered, but I ignored her, went up the stairs, and through the right door on the right floor.

And found the wrong office.

"No. No, this is wrong." I looked around and realized that they had remodeled. All the windows were inside offices. It used to be one bright room with cubicles.

Someone grabbed my arm, but I shoved them off. The noise around me seemed irrelevant as I opened each office door until I found the window overlooking the sign. Papa's desk had been in the line in front of that window; that's how Mokie and I would find him again when we went to the bathroom.

The man at the desk was yelling, but I ignored it. "Do you know my Papa?" I asked instead.

He stopped yelling and looked at me as if I were insane. "What?"

"Do you know my Papa?" I repeated. "He works here. Worked here." I took the man's arm and pulled him into the main room.

The ceiling tile. There was a large, gross water stain on the tile above Papa's desk. I looked up, found it, and went there. The cubicles had been replaced by a copier and some file cabinets.

"Papa worked here. Right here." I took a couple steps over. "And the man with the green pens worked here. And the mean woman." I paused, lost for a moment. "Here. If we came down the wrong aisle, she told us to be quiet."

"Seto, calm down!" Anzu said. Anzu should not be in Papa's office.

"He worked here," I repeated, moving back to the stain and the files. "The carpet is different and you took away his desk, but he worked here."

"Ok, son, ok." The man I dragged from the office held my shoulders. "Take it easy. What's your papa's name?"

"Kaiba Gozaburo," I said. Then I shook my head. "No! Not him! No! Papa was - was -" Nothing. My mind was blank. Or, more accurately, it was a jumbled mess with so many fragments that everything was lost in a black hole.

Mama. What did Mama call Papa? "Ken-chan," I said finally, weakly.

"You got a family name?" I shook my head. "Ok, ok. Anybody remember a 'Ken-anything' working here?" He asked aloud.

"Kensaku, maybe?" A woman asked. "Hishigomi Kensaku. He retired a few years ago. But, I don't think he was married."

"Hishigomi." The man nodded. "But he was kind of short. I don't think he'd be your old man."

I shook my head. "Papa could touch the ceiling."

"Definitely not Hishigomi, then."

"How long ago was it?" Someone behind me asked.

"Around 16 years ago," Anzu answered for me. She put her hands on my shoulders. "Right, Seto? Your papa passed away when you were 10, right?"

I nodded. Papa didn't work anywhere; Papa was dead.

"That's your answer, son," the man said. "This company wasn't here then. You have the right place, but there's nothing here for you now."