So, last chapter was a success? I hope! It was so much fun to write, so uplifting and nice and all. Response to some of my reviewers, (thanks to ALL who reviewed, by the way):
Lady Moofin: Oh, I'm so happy you like this story so much! It so nice to receive such a wonderful review...please read this chapter, and I hope that it measures up to all your expectations of a perfect story!
CaptainInuyahsa777: Guessing? No guessing allowed! Just Kidding, I tried to use some techniques of foreshadowing...I'm glad it worked out for you! Skipping piano lessons? Like, who doesn't do that?
DarkDementedBunny: Yay, a fellow vegetarian! So wonderful! Unfortunately, I'm only a semi because my parents think that a little chicken is good for a child of 13....oh well. Thank you for reading my opinion and understanding it for what it was, (an opinion/fact, not an insult to all meat-eaters)! That was my wish for it! And, of course, Seto is a vegetarian. All the writers know he is, they just forgot to mention it in their scripts! But it fits him too perfectly to just be a fantasy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind if someone put it up for sale in some Century 21 advertisement...no...that would be pretty cool...
Chapter 12: The Gravedigger
It's sort of funny how you remember so little of what happened before a major event in your life. The details only start coming back to you after quite some time.
That's exactly how it is with me. I can remember things of that day now and only now sitting here telling you this story. Like how wisps Serenity's hair had fallen on my face while we were sleeping in my bed and when I woke up they tickled my face like little pieces of silk drawn back an forth over my nose.
I smiled at this feeling, and then removed her hair, wishing to turn over and hold her. She was still asleep. I lightly placed my cheek on hers and kissed it before getting up and deciding to make some breakfast for her, (I told you that Lock had taught me how to cook a meal, right?).
Remembering all of the night before, the events of which had put me in a rather good mood, I stood up and got dressed. I smiled again, listening to the sound of birds harmlessly chirping outside my window. I cold feel the rays of sunlight streaming into my bedroom and filling up the wide room that had once frightened me with its vastness. I wasn't afraid of it anymore. On days like these, and even nights of pure serene darkness and distant noises, who wouldn't want to stand next to the window and think of all that was happening in the world beyond?
Alright, so I had gotten a little philosophical since first blinded. I couldn't help it. Though I had once scoffed at this lifestyle, now that I found myself living it, my opinion of it had changed.
I walked down the stairs, (all fourteen of them, I knew inevitably), and into my kitchen. Such a nice place it was. I reached into the coldness of my refrigerator and felt around for the right ingredients. I knew what I would make.
While preparing the oven and beginning the cooking processes I thought of Lock. Should I tell him about Serenity? Certainly not all of what had happened last night, but should I at least let him know that someone was important to me, finally? Out of everyone in my world, Lock was the only person who hadn't pitied me when I was blinded—and I'm including myself. I owed him little, though. We had a different sort of friendship almost. I smiled thinking of the logic I once had that if someone did me a favor I owed him some sort of debt. Life didn't work like that. Things happened that you didn't deserve and people did things for you that you couldn't repay. And, in truth, half the time Yugi did favors for me that I never repaid!
It was about an hour later that Serenity woke up. I heard her walking around my room upstairs. Just in time. I had just finished my meal for her. In fact, maybe I would eat as well. (I already told you that I never really ate, but did I mention that sometimes I could go days without food before I realized I was actually hungry? Another little memento of my childhood.)
I stopped suddenly, as a thought made itself known. My breakfast was a vegan breakfast. That was all I knew how to make! Never had I tried or even had the desire to cook something using any sort of animal products, but what if Serenity didn't like that?
She was walking down the stairs. It was too late to change it. What happened would happen, no way to alter it now.
"Hey, Seto," she said, casually strolling in, as if she had lived here all her life. That was fine by me. "Aww....you made breakfast! That was my idea!" She walked over to my side and we shared a brief kiss.
"Wait....how exactly did you make breakfast?" Of course, she still didn't believe.
"I'm Seto Kaiba. I can make breakfast." What else was there to explain?
She giggled. "Silly me for doubting. What did you make?"
"French toast. But...no real eggs...you know the artificial ones? And I use soy butter and soy milk only." Well, out with it.
"Of course. I had almost forgotten you were a vegan. Seto, you know, your being a vegetarian...that's very romantic..." How wrong was I about her opinion of me? Normally, I hated being wrong, (that, I can say with some certainty, will never change), but this time I really didn't mind at all.
Just as we were sitting down, Mokuba came in. "Hi, you guys! Serenity, you slept over!"
"Hi, Mokuba. Yes I did spend the night. It just...sort of happened." We weren't going to tell Mokuba exactly how it happened, he was too young to understand, but we were planning to tell him about our new relationship. We weren't afraid. We loved each other. People could take it as it was, (we had talked about it briefly the night before).
"Seto, did you make that cardboard French toast again?" Mokuba asked. Why did he have to say it? Serenity could have just found out for herself...
"Cardboard?" she asked.
"Mokuba thinks that the soy and artificial milk make the food taste like cardboard," I explained. "This is not true."
"Yes it is! I'm making my own breakfast, ok?"
"Fine."
By the time we had all finished breakfast, during which no conversation had been held, thankfully, and Serenity made no signs that the food tasted like wood. I was happy for this.
Quite unfairly, Mokuba reminded us of something that she and I had incidentally forgotten the night before. "Hey, Serenity, how's Joey doing?"
"...He's fine....OH!!" She said, remembering as soon as I did.
"Shit..." I swore.
"We forgot to call Joey and tell him where I was!" Her statement was directed at me, I could tell.
"Oh, no! Call him, right now!" Mokuba ran for the portable phone.
"Oh, no, oh, no! He'll think someone kidnapped me or something...he's always jumping to conclusions...how could I have forgotten about my big brother? Stupid!" I moved close to her and swept up her hair in my hands.
"You're not stupid," I said to her neck. "You just forgot. So did I."
"...Are you comfortable with him knowing about us, Seto?"
"I don't care. He can throw the world's best fit, but that would be all he can do." This was true. One more thing, though, was that I didn't really care at all how Wheeler felt. But I left this out to Serenity.
Mokuba returned with the phone. "Here," he said. And she dialed the number. I can say that there was some suspense while she was calling him up. I just wanted to hear Wheeler scream at the top of his lungs, but I'm sure Serenity and Mokuba felt differently.
With my accelerated hearing, I heard every word on both sides of the phone:
"Hello?" Wheeler, he sounded frantic.
"Joey?" Serenity.
"Yeah....Serenity?!"
"Hi, Joey."
"Serenity? Where were you? I've been looking for you all over this town, and so have the police!"
"The police?"
"Yeah! Where were you?" So, Wheeler had been the least bit interested in his sister's fate.
"Umm....I was at Kaiba's house. Err...his mansion."
"WHAT?!?! Did he kidnap you?"
"No! I asked him if I could go with him."
"WHY?!?!"
"I just...needed to talk to him about something."
"And did you talk it over?"
"Yep! Very, humanely, too, Joey."
"Wait...all that happened was talking, right?"
"Well...no...."
"WHAT????!?!???!?!?!?!??!"
"Joey....we love each other, Seto and me."
"What??? He's using you, Serenity!"
"NO! We really do love each other. I swear it!"
"Serenity! You're talking crazy!"
"Joey...please understand...please..."
"Serenity, I forbid this!"
"Really?" She sounded hurt. How badly would this affect her? Hopefully not a lot.
"Definitely!"
"Well. I'm sorry, Joey, but you can't stop me from seeing him."
"What?"
"You can throw the grandest fit, I don't care. That'll be all you can do." She used my words.
"Serenity....stop, now..."
"I'm sorry Joey, but I have to do this. Seto is...so misunderstood by you...and everyone. But not me. He's very important to me, Joey. If you can't understand that....it hurts but, that's too bad."
"Serenity!"
"Goodbye Joey. And tell the police that no one kidnapped me." She hung up.
Serenity sat there for a few moments, and then she began to cry.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"He just doesn't understand...."
"Well, give him a chance," Mokuba said this. (Ok, who thought I broke down and actually told Serenity to give her brother a chance? Ha!)
"What do you mean, Mokuba?"
"Well, you didn't really give much time to accept it, you know? You were just like, 'This is how it is—deal with it!'. I think he needs more time. But eventually he will accept you guys. I'm sure. He's not the kind of person to not forgive you."
"You're right, I didn't really give him much of a chance.....I'll call him back."
"No, Serenity!" I rushed these words out in haste. I knew that Mokuba was right in his analysis of the situation, Wheeler would calm down eventually. But, immediately following, he would be royally pissed off. For the better of Serenity I told her not to call him back, (right....).
"So....you guys are like....boyfriend and girlfriend now?" Shit! I had forgotten about how Mokuba was going to handle it.
"Yep. We definitely are, Mokuba." Serenity could be brave with Mokuba...but not Wheeler. I guess it was the same thing. We could be brave with outsiders, but not when it came to our family. Why was that?
No matter what Serenity felt after that, she didn't tell me anything about it. She wasn't going to go home, obviously, but I had decided to tell Lock about us, (it would be interesting, to say the very least, to hear his reaction), so I left her at my mansion with Mokuba, with a lavish kiss and the promise of my return home as soon as possible.
Maybe I shouldn't have gone. Maybe I should have just stayed home and been with Serenity rather than go out and lay witness to what would happen next. Think whatever you want. But I'm still glad I was the one who went, and not somebody else.
I set out for the Domino clock tower like any other day. I was filled with anticipation regarding what I would tell Lock. Would he even understand? Yes...he would.
There were many people there that Sunday. It was amazing. You could barely move with everyone around you. There were so many crowds, all of them saying the same thing, "This is the last day of the tournament! I wonder who that blind guy will say the winner is." I hadn't known that that was the last day of the tournament. Strange how Lock had just not mentioned it...whatever, I didn't care. Yugi was going to win anyway. That was obvious, even to me.
As a side effect of the amount of people standing around waiting for Lock to make his speech were so great, it was hard for me to find my way. I couldn't feel it. I bumped into about a thousand people with my cane, (none of them enjoyed it much, but what can I say? They should have just moved when they saw me coming), and got turned around many times.
Finally breaking free of the hordes of people, I had no idea where I was. I was dizzy from being pushed and shoved in all different directions and had lost all my bearings. I was nervous again. Where was I? Was I near Lock's home? Was I in the opposite direction? Nothing felt familiar, the ground, the way the wind blew, the way the sunlight hit....nothing. I was lost.
Just as I was about to go up to one of the people in the crowds, when someone I recognized passed by me, (I knew her by her smell).
"Lola!" I yelled at her.
"Why....Mr. Kaiba! Wha-what are you doing here?"
"....Don't you know?" I asked. After all, she was the one who had read me the note inviting me to this tournament and setting all of the events that transpired afterwards in motion.
"Well...yes, I....yes, I mean, obviously...are you here for the tournament?"
"Yeah....but I'm looking for Lock right now. Have you seen him?"
"Sir, you're looking for Lock?" she asked. How stupid she could be.
"You know what I meant. Now, have you seen him?"
"That gentleman, with the long greasy hair and the dirty clothes and the boots with the chains on them and all that....no sir! I mean, I try not to, sir, I have to say...." Did I mention she was annoying as well?
"Do you know where he lives?"
"No! Err, why would I, sir?"
"Well I do. He lives in a boarding house—a brick one, huge with an enormous lower floor....where is it?" Lock lived on the enormous lower floor and he kept his candy-shop and all other five of his rooms there. In all truth, it was very big for an unmarried blind man with a strange, grueling profession, (though....I'm no one to talk...). No one had ever really live in the rooms upstairs from him, but sometimes a few teenage bachelors came and went, he said. So he left the upstairs rooms alone.
"I don't know sir....there are a lot of brick buildings this way...I really don't know sir!"
"Ok. Well help me find it. Or I'll dock your pay." I added that last part for security.
"Yes, sir, right away, sir! Which way shall we go?"
"You tell me, fool! Where is the nearest brick building?"
"Oh..oh...oh.oh.....right here sir!" She walked straight ahead of me and I almost lost her. I didn't, though, and we stood in front of Lock's house together.
I knew it was Lock's house because I felt it. The ground underneath me was concrete, yet strands of grass stuck up randomly and unruly. The sunlight shined at such an angle and the wind blew just right. I knew where I was.
"This is it, Lola. We may go."
"Err, well, how can you tell, sir?"
"I just know."
"Fine! I mean...right, sir! Whatever you say sir! Thank you sir!" She dashed away. I thought about how I really should have been thanking her. After all, as much as I hated to admit it, I had relied on her and she had not let me down. Yet, I did not feel like I was indebted to her. Trusting people was becoming easier.
I walked into the home of my friend, the heat nearly blowing me over. I smiled at first, but then stopped. Something wasn't right. It was never, ever hot in Lock's house. The air conditioner was always on full blast, he liked it like that. The feeling of awkwardness—that heavy rock of suspicion that landed in your stomach something was amiss—had come over me.
Needing, (and wanting), to stay calm, I dismissed the heat with a mistake or something by Lock. Maybe he just got really cold or something and put the heat on to reassure himself. However unlike lock that was, it could happen. There were plenty of reasons why this could be, of course, it wasn't an impossibility.
But the feeling in my stomach did not go away. I continued down the hallway I knew so well, all the while the heat becoming more and more intense, more unbearable, all the while my suspicion growing and multiplying into fear.
I was extremely shaken by the time I got into Lock's room—the dark room. It was so hot in there—the hottest it ever was in that home.
"Lock?" I called into the room. I knew he was there. I smelled his smell and the dirt from a hard days work. But....there was also another smell.....that I cannot describe. And the silence was unnatural and an echo of what was to come.
How can I describe how I felt while I was screaming into that room, "Lock, you answer me right now!" and calling his name up and down to heaven and hell? I don't think you'll understand it if I try.
I dropped my cane—his cane—and walked into the dark room. I crashed into the couch and bruised my leg, but I didn't even notice. I ran to the spot where he usually sat—one arm out in front of me, like in the beginning—but I did not make it all the way there. I tripped over something cold and hard...and dirty.
I knew what I would find as my hand ran over the thing lying half on the floor, half on the air condition monitor, (right on the heat button making it hotter and hotter). I guess I knew it from the time I first walked into the house. But I hadn't prepared for it in the slightest.
After pulling myself together a little bit, I was able to call an ambulance, (I knew how to dial the phone from memorization of the button placements, and 911 was an easy number, anyway), and Mokuba and Serenity. It was difficult to talk to Mokuba and Serenity and explain to them, calmly, what I couldn't accept to hear. Luckily, the ambulance came pretty quickly and I could cut off the line with merely the order that they come to where I was.
I don't know if I'll ever imagine the horror all the duelists must have felt watching the ambulance arrive at Lock's house and take him away. Sad? Horrified? Shocked? Angry? Disappointed? The only thing I know is how I felt—a mixture of all the above mentioned emotions and more.
Serenity and Mokuba came almost immediately after the ambulance. I waited for them, choosing not to ride in the noisy, busy vehicle, but to walk with my love and my little brother. We did not walk slowly to the hospital, (ironically the same one I lost my sigh in), sometimes we almost ran, and we did not talk much. What was there to say or do besides run to the hospital where we all knew what awaited?
In the waiting room of St. Gerard Mercy Hospital, we were all still silent. Serenity had her head on my shoulder and Mokuba sobbed softly. I just stared into the blackness in front of me, not wishing to face what would happen next.
I'm pretty sure it took a grand total of about 20 minutes before the doctors came to talk to the three of us and tell us what happened.
The doctor had a strong feminine voice that slammed down on us as she told us things we already knew. "....Massive heart attack....four hours without help and in a state of unconsciousness...too late...." Those words, "too late", were hardest of all on us. I don't know why. We already knew that.
I think now of Lock's profession, grave digging. He had to dig the final resting place six feet under ground for millions of people who had past on. He dealt with death every day of his life, but never truly felt it. As hard as it was to believe, millions of people depended on him to do their dirty work—literally—for them, and handle their dead.
What happens when the gravedigger dies?