Chapter two! Whee!

Thanks to Funky Egyptian, xAdenx, and AGalWivAGunblade for reviewing. And no, no incest. Sorry if I dissapointed you, AGalWivAGunblade.

Chapter Two

It finally hit home. Three hours after I snapped at Mokuba, I realized it. Not Mokuba's decoded message about the "point," of course. But something entirely else altogether.

I had a headache.

Possibly not what I hoped to have thought. I don't even know what I hoped to have thought. But that's what I did think. I was actually going for something more insightful, maybe a sudden revelation to what Mokuba had been ranting about. But that didn't come. The fact that I had a headache did. A dull, skull splitting headache.

I didn't have that much work left anyways, so how about call it a day and go home? How about apologizing to Mokuba?

(-)

Mokuba hurriedly continued tying the sheets from his bed together like a long chain. His eyes were read and dried out, but he had a fierce look in his eyes that said it all. He was determined to run away from the mansion. He didn't want to end up like Seto. He realized that today. Like Gozubora had bled into Seto, the behavior would probably bleed into him. He didn't want that. Not at all.

(-)

I decided to drive myself home. I needed to think, and I contemplated best while driving my own car. As I drove, I didn't notice the short kid that practically ran at the sight of my car. I was actually surprised a little bit to see someone that wasn't a worker so near to the Mansion. What did my little brother mean? What point had I missed?

(-)

"I can't believe he missed the entire point," Mokuba said outloud to himself as he trudged down the street. "It's so simple! Only a few years ago, he would've gotten it. A few years ago, he would've gotten that I needed him near me. He would've understood that I needed him to be my brother. Not a parent. A brother." He trudged some more. For a twelve year-old, he was a real trudger. And he'd trudged into an alley.

"Hey kid," a gruff, drunk, voice said from behind him.

(-)

I walked from the parking garage back to the mansion itself. I looked up at the distasteful building, and spat on the ground in front of it. I took a deep breath of the fresh, free air outside the repulsive so-called house. The only thing inside it I could really stand at all was Mokuba. I should apologize to him, I thought. So I continued my walk inside.

(-)

Mokuba, bruised and beaten, hugged the wall of the alley. The drunk had beaten him pretty badly, somehow having thought him to be his own kid. When the drunk had realized that Mokuba wasn't his, he'd kicked him one last time and left, muttering something incoherent about where his son could be, and where in the hell he was. The drunk was gone, but Mokuba was still scared. What if there were more people like him? Worse than two Gozuboras, but better than three. "Seto," he murmured, "I may have made a mistake." With that, the rain fell. Mokuba sat in the rain, feeling the cold seep into his bones. He closed his eyes...

(-)

Cue thunder and lightning, I thought as I reached Mokuba's door. I tried opening it. "Mok?" I called out. The door was locked, and Mokuba didn't make a sound. I jiggled the door. It didn't come open. "Mokuba! Are you there!" The hair on the back of my neck rose. Something wasn't right. And then I had the most brilliant idea. I took the key from my key ring and unlocked the door. It worked.

"Mokuba?" I called out questioningly as I entered the room. My headache had disappeared as soon as the panic had set in. Sure enough, all the sheets on the bed had been tied together and let out the window as a ladder. I ran to it and looked out. "Mokuba!" I yelled. I knew it was useless. I knew who that boy that had run past me earlier was. I turned around and headed out the door. I was going to find Mokuba. I noticed a little paper on the bed. I read it.

Seto: I'm sorry. I had to go. I was too afraid to stay. I knew that every day we've come to this horrible place that you were changing everyday. Everyday you got colder and more distant. Not until you snapped at me that I realized how much that you changed. Where was the Seto that had told me he was afraid of the dark when he was my age? Where was the Seto that had told me about his plans for building a park where orphans got in free? I was afraid that he was gone. I was afraid that the Mokuba that had heard those things would leave to. So that's why I'm leaving you now, Seto.

Mokuba.

Angrily I crumpled the paper in my hand. I am not like Gozubora. I am NOT like Gozubora... I continued that mantra for a little bit, but then threw the note into the trash can next to my brother's desk. I headed out the door. Hang on Mokuba, I thought, breaking my mantra. I'm coming for you.

I walked as fast as I could down the stairs, out the door, and to the nearest car.

I am NOTHING like Gozubora.