Chapter Four: Happy Valentine's Day

"What do want from us?" screamed the brunet in a fear-strangled tone. "What? What is it? I need to know!"

"God damn it, Set!" shouted the other teenager, his voice gripped by the terror of the moment, "I just want you to be okay, got that?"

"Tell me!"

"Tell ya what?"

"Just tell me already!"

"The fuck are you talkin' 'bout?" the blond asked, trying to make some sense out of an illogical reaction. Somewhere, somehow, the amber-eyed boy comprehended that there was no rhyme or reason as to what was going on. He just knew it. In his heart of hearts, he understood the one aspect that he refused to explore before. His acquaintance was more than just a little unwell. Gathering a shaken supply of wits, Jou clamped his hands over Kaiba's cheeks and forced him to look up. "C'mon, snap outta it! Ya can't freak out every time someone touches ya!"

"Say it!" demanded Seto. Desperation echoed in the chords of his voice, held his mind hostage, drove him to claw at the bedposts with untamed anxiety. It was as if he was fighting some unseen monster, a terrible creature that was responsible for wreaking havoc and chaos on his soul since the hour he was conceived. "Say why you do this to us!"

Gazing at his friend with glistening eyes, Wheeler dropped his limbs and knelt beside the bed, his heart weighing heavily in his chest. "I--" he stuttered, unable to mask the helplessness he felt, "I don't know what you--what you want from me. You know I'd do anything' for ya, but this--you're just--"

"Not what you wanted."

Blinking. Joey widened his shiny orbs, pained by what he heard. " Excuse me?"

"You don't love me."

Katsuya started to shake his head. "That's not true, ya know that's not--"

"What you desired for a child, I know." interrupted the brunet, lost and confused, twisted in the torment of his speech. Staring at the blond emptily, he added, "Mokuba, either."

Jonouchi narrowed his hazel orbs, honing in on the last comment made. "Wait a sec…how's ya brother involved in all a this?"

"Remember what you did to him?"

"What?"

"How could you forget?"

"Forget what? The hell are ya accusing' me of?"

Seto stared off into the distance, watching the wall like the story of his life was playing there, haunting him with memories he was forced to recall. His lips moved, but now words fell from them, at least none that Wheeler could hear.

"Speak ta me!" cried Katsuya, frightened by his comrade's incoherent mumbling. "If you're talkin', I can't hear ya!" Kaiba squeezed his eye shut. His mouth still rambled in its drunken slur, forming the dialogue of a substance abuser, or perhaps someone continuously tortured by his past-- "What was that?" questioned the amber-eyed boy, clearly disturbed. Set couldn't have said that. There was no possible way that he could even believe what he just blurted out--

"You had intercourse with him." repeated the brunet sadly. He was teetering dangerously on the verge of tears, but was capable of holding them inside. Fixing the blond with a watery look, his bottom lip trembled as he spoke, the words falling from his tongue like a busted dam. "You--you took him in front of me, in our favorite room in the house, right there by the window. All those stuffed animals, those blood-stained toys that we never played with again…"

Swallowing down the sickening taste in his throat, the honey-haired male sniffled back his heartache, sadness, the glorious madness that threatened to consume him whole. "Who--who did this to you?"

"You did, Daddy Dearest." answered Seto brokenly. A tear trickled down his cheek, sliding over the contours of his visage.

Katsuya wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Cold sweat washed his forehead, plunged his emotions into subzero waves or horror, allowed him to tap into a realm where only nightmares rampaged through the spirits of defenseless children. With trepidation lunging at him from forsaken innocence, he inquired, "When was--how did this all happen?"

Silently, Kaiba bowed his head. "I--I don't--" He felt the pressure of a gentle finger keeping him from burying his chin against his chest, the unavoidable question clawing at him through the false boundaries of kindness. "No, don't make me…"

"I have to know." Jou whispered softly, flicking more drops from his friend's face. "You've gotta get it out."

"But it--it hurts to recall that."

Sapphire eyes shifted to a pair of hazel ones, distraught and hellishly aware. In those twin vortexes of agony and remorse, Joey saw more than just a troubled and struggling teen. There was a little boy sitting in the shadows of a beautiful bedroom, hiding away from the world, disappearing from himself to escape into his mind.

/That's it…/ the blond realized, bitter sorrow biting at his immortal soul, /that was it all along. Set…he really is battling a beast, but not the normal kind a Halloween creature. This is more than that. It's a fight for his sanity, for the sake of his kid sibling and himself, just a whole huge war waged between him and what occurred years ago. And out of everything, more than anything else, he wants one thing. Freedom. Liberty from his childhood. Independence from the chains bindin' him to his history. A free will to come and go from town ta city without lookin' over his shoulder an' bein' scared that his dad's gonna strap a leash on him and drag him to hell. The very thing that I take for granted is something that he has spent his whole life searchin' for. I wanna be there for him. I wanna help him get what he's always wanted to. Most of all…I wanna show him what love is. If only I could give him that all by myself. If only I could…/

"Please?" asked Joey tenderly. "I can't help ya if I don't know what's wrong."

He watched the brunet intently, the bold, brash businessman of a multi-million dollar tech industry, reduce himself to shaking. Whatever happened to the computer genius that never ceased to be a formidable opponent, someone so analytical and methodical that he was always at the top of his game?

Just when Katsuya was about to admit defeat, the blue-eyed male revealed, "On that day…"

"What day? Which one?"

"The one where people get flowers and candy, cards and gifts to show their affection to one another."

The blond had to swallow to keep himself from vomiting. A sacred holiday that is used for giving a warm "I love you" on had been turned into a fear festival.

/No wonder he didn't wanna tell me 'bout that time, / thought Jonouchi forlornly, directing his attention to the sheets, /the month a February went from a celebration of emotions to shattering any happiness he might a had. Damn it, damn it anyways…/

"Happy Valentine's Day." spat Jou bitterly, cradling the broken child in his arms stripped of pride and dignity.

Resting Seto's head in his grasp, Katsuya let a tear slide across his face as he watched a petal fall from a rose in a nearby vase.