Hi!!!!!!!!!! Ah-em sorry, I'm sorry I haven't updated any of my fics in a while, but I've been busy. The computer I usually use, my personal lap-top died and so I have to use someone else's comp, which let me tell you is not fun. But before I start ranting let me tell you all some very important facts first. This is a duet fic that I, Epiphany Under Moonlight, am doing with lily22. We decided we'd like to explore Kaiba's little world for a while and maybe destroy some stuff while we're there. Therefore we make up Moon-and Lilies. Cute huh? Also the first chapter belongs to me and the next is going to be all HER. Review because it's nice and helpful and it makes our self-esteem rise. No joke. Also pray for me I've got a bunch of tests before Christmas break which may keep me from updating. Damn.
Also before I start on the fic, let me explain the title a little. I figure that while Mokuba hasn't lived the most sheltered life he really doesn't have many trustworthy experiences he can look back on when it comes to people, what with Pegasus, Gozaburo, the Big Five (it's a wonder the kids not a raving lunatic) so because of what happens, Seto sorta hides him away from the general public, thus the "Last to Leave Part", but where Seto has become anti-social and outwardly callous towards people, Mokuba is going to have a healthy relationship with everyone he meets, he's even going to get a boyfriend. Yes you heard right, nothing to serious but Yaoi-dislikers beware. Now this brings us to the "First to Arrive part", and this of course is going to breed conflict in the Kaiba house, thus the whole plot of this fic. Please Read on and review.
Cold blue eyes slowly followed printed word after word as the young man sitting in the black leather chair of his private office finally came to the end.
As he read the long drawn-out conclusion that oozed with sickening cheerfulness he raised an eyebrow and his eyes flashed as he grumbled, annoyed at the overbearing ness of it all.
The ridiculousness of it all.
Once the text was done he gracefully threw the sheets of paper onto a corner of his desk with a quick flick of the wrist, and with another he swept the equally ornate envelope in the same direction before turning back to his keyboard and resuming his work.
...
If he had lived a different life he would have been shouting for joy, jumping up and down, acting like a fool and pretending that one simple sentence promised him anything in life.
...Hah.
That was a dream and he hadn't lived the life of a dreamer, he knew better.
The only thing life ever promised was a quick swift kick in the teeth if you even thought for one second that anyone was going to save you.
That you were ever in anyone's grace.
No. Anywhere he would ever go, anything he would ever do, all of it would be nothing if he didn't know.
It would be smoke, mirrors, shadow, and trick-light if he didn't have complete control over it all and show everyone.
That if he couldn't contain it, force it, keep it in a death vise until it faded and past knowing that there was no way it would ever screw him over...
Again...
Then every success might as well have been a failure, every piece of work as good as a cheat.
Every tear and sweat and drop of blood might as well have been stupid childishness, and joy, and laughter, and hope if he didn't prove that he was the best.
And he was.
He was, and he would always be.
And no matter how long, how much effort it took, how much he might stand to lose he would prove again and again that he deserved it all.
...
And though he no longer had any faith, it being lost in the first youthly moment of betrayal, he willingly used the Lord's name because he too knew that Seto Kaiba deserved everything that he'd fought for.
...lost for.
...
And yes he had lost.
More times then he would have liked to admit he had lost, some things not so important, things that he could live without, but something that made others gaze at him in anger and pity as though he was...
No.
He was okay.
Better than okay actually, that lying trivial word, he was Seto Kaiba.
A boy who's name was well-known and not easily forgotten.
Or whose reputation could be succeeded.
Teenage billionaire, owner and entrepreneur, famous and world-renowned.
He had lived the life he had lived, and he was still living it, still facing down the past hiding in moments of forgetfulness, still hearing the cruel laugh in the quiet moments of present.
But he was living, something that had deeply frightened him as he lay in his bed at night as a child, staring at the moonlit ceiling, and perhaps though living he was not existing as vibrantly as others, but hell.
It didn't matter how you played the game, it was whether or not you walked away in shame or glory and in the end he was the victor and they...
Nothing.
Because through all the hell and the battles and the shame and loss it was only the conclusion that mattered.
Only the victor that was rewarded.
And he had come to a fact that infallibly proved to be true.
Life was a bitch.
A Rose Madder, that waited and watched and preyed on the weak, and finally caught them.
And once caught it ripped them to shreds, devoured them, threw what was left to the winds and cackled as other weak ones trembled and shivered in fear.
He knew.
He had tasted fear, not the kind that killed, the kind that scarred absolutely with the roses with poisoned thorns, but its sister and from it he had become the person he was now.
Strong, iron-willed, successful.
...
The person he would always be.
...And that person...
Had just been accepted to an exceptional university.
...
Also before I start on the fic, let me explain the title a little. I figure that while Mokuba hasn't lived the most sheltered life he really doesn't have many trustworthy experiences he can look back on when it comes to people, what with Pegasus, Gozaburo, the Big Five (it's a wonder the kids not a raving lunatic) so because of what happens, Seto sorta hides him away from the general public, thus the "Last to Leave Part", but where Seto has become anti-social and outwardly callous towards people, Mokuba is going to have a healthy relationship with everyone he meets, he's even going to get a boyfriend. Yes you heard right, nothing to serious but Yaoi-dislikers beware. Now this brings us to the "First to Arrive part", and this of course is going to breed conflict in the Kaiba house, thus the whole plot of this fic. Please Read on and review.
Cold blue eyes slowly followed printed word after word as the young man sitting in the black leather chair of his private office finally came to the end.
As he read the long drawn-out conclusion that oozed with sickening cheerfulness he raised an eyebrow and his eyes flashed as he grumbled, annoyed at the overbearing ness of it all.
The ridiculousness of it all.
Once the text was done he gracefully threw the sheets of paper onto a corner of his desk with a quick flick of the wrist, and with another he swept the equally ornate envelope in the same direction before turning back to his keyboard and resuming his work.
...
If he had lived a different life he would have been shouting for joy, jumping up and down, acting like a fool and pretending that one simple sentence promised him anything in life.
...Hah.
That was a dream and he hadn't lived the life of a dreamer, he knew better.
The only thing life ever promised was a quick swift kick in the teeth if you even thought for one second that anyone was going to save you.
That you were ever in anyone's grace.
No. Anywhere he would ever go, anything he would ever do, all of it would be nothing if he didn't know.
It would be smoke, mirrors, shadow, and trick-light if he didn't have complete control over it all and show everyone.
That if he couldn't contain it, force it, keep it in a death vise until it faded and past knowing that there was no way it would ever screw him over...
Again...
Then every success might as well have been a failure, every piece of work as good as a cheat.
Every tear and sweat and drop of blood might as well have been stupid childishness, and joy, and laughter, and hope if he didn't prove that he was the best.
And he was.
He was, and he would always be.
And no matter how long, how much effort it took, how much he might stand to lose he would prove again and again that he deserved it all.
...
And though he no longer had any faith, it being lost in the first youthly moment of betrayal, he willingly used the Lord's name because he too knew that Seto Kaiba deserved everything that he'd fought for.
...lost for.
...
And yes he had lost.
More times then he would have liked to admit he had lost, some things not so important, things that he could live without, but something that made others gaze at him in anger and pity as though he was...
No.
He was okay.
Better than okay actually, that lying trivial word, he was Seto Kaiba.
A boy who's name was well-known and not easily forgotten.
Or whose reputation could be succeeded.
Teenage billionaire, owner and entrepreneur, famous and world-renowned.
He had lived the life he had lived, and he was still living it, still facing down the past hiding in moments of forgetfulness, still hearing the cruel laugh in the quiet moments of present.
But he was living, something that had deeply frightened him as he lay in his bed at night as a child, staring at the moonlit ceiling, and perhaps though living he was not existing as vibrantly as others, but hell.
It didn't matter how you played the game, it was whether or not you walked away in shame or glory and in the end he was the victor and they...
Nothing.
Because through all the hell and the battles and the shame and loss it was only the conclusion that mattered.
Only the victor that was rewarded.
And he had come to a fact that infallibly proved to be true.
Life was a bitch.
A Rose Madder, that waited and watched and preyed on the weak, and finally caught them.
And once caught it ripped them to shreds, devoured them, threw what was left to the winds and cackled as other weak ones trembled and shivered in fear.
He knew.
He had tasted fear, not the kind that killed, the kind that scarred absolutely with the roses with poisoned thorns, but its sister and from it he had become the person he was now.
Strong, iron-willed, successful.
...
The person he would always be.
...And that person...
Had just been accepted to an exceptional university.
...