Lost Boys
**
The clock in the hall was chiming one in the afternoon. Seto removed the pillow he was holding over his head and tossed it across the room, stretching and trying to decide whether or not he was going to get up at all that day. He certainly didn't want to. But the business man in him refused to let him spent all day lazing about in bed, so in the end he reluctantly got up, practically having to drag himself to the adjoining bathroom to get cleaned up.
He mechanically went through the routine of brushing his hair and brushing his teeth. Seto's gaze fixed on his own hollow-eyed stare in the mirror, and only after his morning rituals did he stand back to survey himself, as he did every morning, to make sure he looked presentable.
He'd forgotten to put on a robe that morning. It's not like there was anyone around to see him, but the truth was, Seto didn't much care to see himself. It had taken him a long time to be able to look in the mirror without flinching. And he still refused to wear clothing that bared any skin from the neck down.
The reason for that was clearly highlighted in the bright lights of the bathroom. Dozens of thin, long scars striped all over his skin, back and front, almost perfect parallel lines across his flesh. To make him strong, his adoptive father had said. To make him learn. To make him behave, to make him listen, and most importantly, to make him grow up long before he was meant to. After the first few times, Seto had stopped crying when he was beaten. Oh yes, he had learned those lessons.
And he'd never been scarred where he couldn't cover it up. He allowed no one to view the scars. No one was to know what he had gone through to become the way he was. Not even Mokuba. Especially not Mokuba. There was only one person in the world he had shared his secret with.
Yugi.
**
Seto and Yugi had been dating for nearly half a year by that point, and it was assumed by everyone that knew them that the two had been sleeping together. Yugi still blushed whenever the subject was mentioned, and he always evaded answering directly. Seto was more direct, informing anyone that asked that it was none of their damned business. But the truth was, the two had not gone so far yet. And it wasn't that they didn't want to.
Seto was scared. He'd never admit it aloud, but he was. Yugi didn't know about the scars that Seto hid, and Seto wasn't sure how he would react. The stripes on his chest and back weren't pretty, and he had kept his secret for so long… to show it to anyone was almost unthinkable.
But it had been getting increasingly harder to push Yugi away. That hurt look in Yugi's bright eyes when Seto gently pushed him back was unbearable. Seto had never been so happy as when he was with Yugi, and finally he was tired of his secret coming between them.
So he had stopped pushing Yugi away. And things were so pleasant then, he'd almost forgotten his fears, until he let Yugi tug off his shirt, and his diminutive boyfriend's gasp of surprise quickly reminded him of them.
There was silence. Seto couldn't look at Yugi. Yugi couldn't look away from the long stripes marring his boyfriend's skin.
But Yugi never asked about them. He didn't need to; he knew just enough of Seto's past to be able to figure out exactly where all of these had come from. Seto stiffened when he felt Yugi's fingers trace along each slightly puckered line over his chest, his touch soon followed by a rain of soft kisses along those hated scars.
Seto had stared at Yugi in shock. And Yugi had smiled at him, and pulled off his own shirt.
Yugi's scars were nothing like the neat and orderly stripes on Seto. His were in violent disarray all over his front and back, jagged and wild, two or three that looked vaguely like cigarette burns, and nearly two dozen in a large cluster that looked like a smattering of star bursts.
Seto was shocked. Hadn't Yugi's life always been so… perfect? He had talent and friends, and real family, even if it was only his grandfather. Seto had never expected to see anything like this on Yugi. "Who did this to you? Surely not your parents, or grandfather…"
"No!" Yugi had laughed softly. "No, no it wasn't them. It's just… well, I've always been smaller than everyone, and weaker. And even Téa used to tell me I was too nice. The perfect target, you know? So I got picked on. And some were meaner than others." He touched the puckered star-shaped scars on his side. "These were from Joey."
"Puppy?!"
"Don't call him that!" Yugi whapped Seto's shoulder lightly. "But… yeah, it was him. He didn't know he did it though! Before we were friends, he used to pick on me too, just like everyone else did. And once Joey pushed me down on the sidewalk, and I landed on something sharp… broken glass, I guess. I didn't even realize how bad it was until much later, after my jacket got ruined with the blood. Don't tell him, okay? He doesn't know about these."
And that had been the end of Seto's unfounded fears. He could trust Yugi with his secrets, and he knew Yugi would trust him with his, in return. That night they spent hours exploring every scar that crossed their skin, and when they knew each other's body as well as they knew their own, they made love for the first time, and fell asleep curled in each other's arms.
**
That was not the right sort of thing to reminisce about at the moment, Seto decided. He felt even worse now. Forget trying to get anything accomplished for the day; he was going back to bed. He crawled back under the covers, grabbed another pillow, and buried his face in it.
"Oh for heaven's sake, will you quit moping? You'll never get anything done at this rate!" an exasperated female voice snapped at him. Seto sat up and whirled about so fast he nearly fell out of the bed.
A woman sat at the foot of the bed, her ice blue eyes glaring at him. She had hair so white it almost glowed, but she didn't look terribly old. A white dragon tail peeked out from under the hem of her skirt.
"Who are you?" Seto demanded. "How did you get in here?"
"Come now, don't tell me you don't recognize one of your own beloved Blue Eyes White Dragons?" the girl teased.
"You don't look like a dragon."
"That's because your room is no where near large enough for me in dragon form. I'd probably accidentally squish you, and considering I'm supposed to be your guardian, what a fine mess I'd be in then!" She grinned at him. "I'm Midori. I believe you met one of my brothers a while back when you went to Egypt looking for the Pharaoh?"
Seto shook his head slowly. "You're not real. I'm dreaming."
Midori huffed in annoyance, getting up and walking over to him, and whacking him upside the head.
"Ow!"
"That feel real enough?" Midori demanded. "Honestly, considering you've been trapped in the shadow realm, talked with two guardian duel monsters from another dimension, and associate with your boyfriend's previous incarnation on a regular basis, I would have thought you'd be more used to the existence of magic."
Seto chose to ignore all that, focusing in on the important point. "Yugi's not my boyfriend anymore. He broke up with me."
"Wrong!" Midori informed him cheerfully. "You broke up with him."
"What?" Seto stared at her. "…I wouldn't… I couldn't…"
"You did." She patted his head like he was a little child. "But it's not your fault. You misinterpreted what you saw, came to the conclusion that he dumped you, and in doing so, accidentally dumped him instead."
"You mean… he still wants to be with me?" Hope flared anew.
"Well…" Midori frowned faintly. "That's where things get complicated. Things are getting drastic very quickly, and we guardians are having to take a more… direct approach than we'd normally be allowed to do. And we're not taking any chances with you, Seto Kaiba. You're a hair's breadth from doing something stupid, so I'm taking you where I can keep an eye on you."
Seto glared at her. "I never do anything stupid."
Midori snorted. "Right, Mr. Genius. Then explain to me why it was a smart idea to underestimate Yugi's loyalty to you?"
He couldn't answer that one.
Midori smirked at him, heading for the door. "Change out of your pajamas and meet me downstairs in five minutes."
Why does all the weirdest crap always happen to me? Seto sighed as Midori closed the door behind her, and he once again got out of bed, moving to the closet to get dressed.
**
There was a swirling vortex in the living room, slightly to the left of the coffee table. Midori was standing beside it as she waited for Kaiba to come down.
"Right on time," Midori murmured as he walked over, eyeing the portal suspiciously. "You ready to go?"
"What's in there?" Seto demanded, not moving too close to the black and sapphire portal.
"The shadow realm, of course," Midori replied. "Or part of it. Our current base of operations. It's pretty hectic in there right now, so stay close to me and try not to get stepped on." She smirked at him and stepped through the portal, disappearing into its sapphire light.
Kaiba almost decided to go back upstairs to bed. But finally he sighed, and stepped through the portal after the Blue Eyes White Dragon.
Midori had not been kidding when she said it was hectic in there. The room was massive, one huge wall covered by a large mirror. And the room was filled with duel monsters. There were two other Blue Eyes White Dragons in one corner, where Midori was heading. There was a fourth Blue Eyes in another corner, talking seriously with the Dark Magician. What seemed to be a three-foot-tall version of Obelisk the Tormenter was running around by the mirror wall, bawling, while a Red Eyes Black Dragon snapped at him to shut up. The Mystical Elf stood by the mirror as well, staring into it sadly. The huge form of Exodia the Forbidden One took up all of another corner, and he waved to Seto as he came in.
Kaiba carefully stepped past the creepy giant form of Exodia, hurrying to catch up with Midori, who had transformed into her dragon form. It was a wonder all these people (and monsters) could fit in this room and still have the space to move around, but somehow they managed.
"These are my brothers, and your other two guardians, Gin and Kin," Midori introduced Seto to the two Blue Eyes she was talking with. "The one over there with the Dark Magician is my other brother, Shiroi. I think you may have already met him too, but he's Bakura's guardian." She sighed. "Bakura's gonna be needing a guardian pretty soon here…"
"What is all of this?" Seto demanded. "Why are all these people here? What's going on?"
Midori shook her head, ignoring the questions and calling out over the crowd. "Has Yugi's guardian been found?"
The Dark Magician looked up from where he was talking with Shiroi, shaking his head. "Not yet. But we're looking; it won't be much longer now."
"You see," one of the other Blue Eyes said to Seto (Gin or Kin; he couldn't tell the difference between them), "we've come up against a rather messy situation. It's very complicated, and involves many people, which is why there are so many guardians here."
"Except Yugi's," said the other Blue Eyes (probably Kin, but again, Seto couldn't tell). "Nobody can seem to find him."
Seto frowned, thinking about that. "Yugi only has one? I have three, and I remember Bakura said something about Yami having eight. Why does Yugi only get one?"
"Most people only get one," Midori said. "But you're right, as the reincarnation of the Pharaoh Yami, Yugi should have received all eight of Yami's guardians when Yami died. And therein lies the problem."
"What problem?" Seto demanded. "Yami's dead, Yugi gets the guardians. Let them fix whatever mess is going on."
Midori reshaped herself into human form, calmly whapping Seto on the head again. "It's a complicated tale. But…" she looked around the chaos of the room. "I supposed we have time for the moment.
"In Ancient Egypt, it was believed that people did not have one soul, but two. The two souls were identical, but one was the life soul, and the other was the ghost soul, which walked in the realm of dreams. Whenever people saw themselves in a dream, they were really seeing their ghost soul. The two souls were supposed to go together always. When a person died, their true soul went to the underworld, and their ghost soul remained with the body, to lead the true soul back when it was time to be reincarnated.
"However, when the Pharoah Yami died, his soul was sealed within the Millennium Puzzle. But not both souls. The ghost soul was separated from the true soul, and wandered the earth, lost and uncertain. In the end, the ghost soul was reincarnated, instead of the true soul. The ghost soul became Yugi. Ghost souls are not supposed to act as the true soul, and that's what makes Yugi smaller than Yami, weaker, and less confident. If it weren't for the Millennium Puzzle keeping the souls separate, Yugi would not exist at all.
And, to answer your question, the guardians are bound to protect the true soul, which is Yami. Since Yugi shouldn't exist, he shouldn't get a guardian at all, but we think the same fluke that created him may have provided him a guardian as well. We just need to find him."
That was all a little much to process for Seto, genius though he was. He'd been told a few times he was supposed to be the reincarnation of the high priest, but whatever knowledge he had processed of all this magical nonsense, he certainly couldn't remember any of it.
"Midori!" the Red Eyes Black Dragon called from over by the mirror. "You better get over here quick! We have a big problem! Has Yugi's guardian been found yet?"
"Not yet," Midori replied, hurrying over. She'd told Seto to stay close to her, and he was curious anyway, so he followed her over.
The Red Eyes swore. "Well, whoever Yugi's guardian is, when we find him, I'm gonna chomp him in half for letting this happen." She looked back at the mirror, scowling. "You're certain Hansha can't do anything about this?"
"You know the Dark Magician can only protect his own charge, and that means Yami, not Yugi. What's the matter?" Midori pushed past the Red Eyes to get a look at the mirror. She let off a fluent stream of curses even worse than the Red Eyes'.
Whatever was in that mirror, it had something to do with Yugi, and Seto wanted to see. He wedged past the black dragon, moving over to stand next to the Mystical Elf, who was shaking her head sadly.
It seemed this was not so much a mirror, as a window into the realm of mortals. It took Seto a moment to really register what he was seeing, playing out before him as if on a huge video screen.
Yugi, caught up in a tangle of limbs with Ryou, the two of them gasping and kissing and clinging to one another like their life depended on it. The twisted bed sheet obscured the lower parts of their bodies, but it did not take a genius to figure out what they were doing. And Seto was a genius, so he could probably figure out quite a bit more than that. Ryou's hands clutched at Yugi's chest, his fingers trailing over the smattering of star-burst scars dotting along Yugi's side.
And Seto Kaiba, CEO of KaibaCorp, former number-one duelist of the world, and possibly one of the smartest teenagers in the known universe, did something he will deny fervently should you ever ask him about it.
He fainted.
**