Chapter 7

No words were spoken, but there were endless amounts of dialogue going on.

Gozaburo's face never turned from straight ahead where he sat in the front of the limousine.

Truly, the front. The arrogant chess master had gone immediately to the front seat after his defeat, choosing to sit next to a servant instead of his newly-adopted sons. And once there, he refused to speak to us or even look back at us. I was certain the affluent man knew I was watching because he never gave me the satisfaction of seeing him glance back in the review mirror. And I watched him the entire trip.

Oh, yes, the competition had indeed started.

In the ranks of competitors, too many were worth nothing of the valuable seconds I gave to read their names. But here, Gozaburo, and as much as I detested him, Yugi, were the only couple I knew would ever battle me with everything they had. Their very souls, even. That was what I wanted.

My entire life had been and would continue to be a battle for survival as I shouldered and pushed my way through the ranks of cold, heartless crowds with no glances back to see if my push toppled them or even staggered them. And as I dragged my brother along with me, assessing always what was needed to rise a little higher, I learned not to waste time with imbeciles whose skills were not what made them what they were but instead that biased luck.

To beat me, someone had to put into the gambit a collection of effort and determination that would equal what I had had to put forth ever since my birth. To nothing else would I ever allow defeat.

And yet…I still made my greatest mistake ever.

Shutting the car door, she wondered why the sound did not slam her to the hard dusty ground. In such a lifeless, frozen area, anything that brought attention seemed shocking enough to send out ripples that would forever change the world.

Ms. Dojinschi's ripples traveled far off ahead to the orphanage, their trembling movements and filaments of sounds strung as crystallized strands of the finest, most fragile substance echoing in the ears of countless boys. And that substance they not only heard resounding in their ears but also felt pattering frantically in their hearts was what they feared the most: hope.

"Are you here to adopt a child?" Mr. Guy asked of the approaching woman. Not only had she managed to snag his attention, but every child within sight of her, except one, was staring with their deep, dark eyes that reflected their cold and yet yearning view of the world. Not the teacher, not the surroundings did they reflect, but an internal camera of their very souls.

Ms. Dojinschi stopped and nodded, slightly uneasy now that she was finally here. "I…would like to see, yes."

Dojinschi had been planning on adopting a child for some time, the convenience of it in the present situation enough to make her completely uncomfortable, as if fate were leading her by a string to a certain road. She had no doubt Kaiba Mokuba was on that road. After what she had learned of his predicament, it seemed like something else was controlling her destiny to find her old student and at least talk with him.

So, to prepare for the orphanage, the teacher had gone to the hospital first. No one allowed her to see Kaiba Seto, of course, but she had stuck around long enough to walk by the door multiple times, trying to glance in. When that failed, she was about to give up once more before fate decided to astound her yet again.

Like Yugi before, a nurse was walking him down the hallway to keep his legs semi-functional. The astounded woman had stopped and stared, despite the nurse's scowl and how she shoved the rolling wall along in a different way to block the teacher's view of the spellbound CEO. But what Ms. Dojinschi had seen was enough.

Shaking her head free of the memories, giving a little shiver as the unnerving images, feeling like ice, passed out of her skin once more, the teacher cast her eyes around Mr. Guy's orphanage.

Nothing was so extravagant or so dismal to catch her utter attention, but a certain head of shiny black hair did make her eyes pause in their survey of the place.

Over in a nearby sandbox, hardly able to believe his eyes, sat Mokuba. His teacher was here. Despite how little sense it truly made, all the young Kaiba could think of was one thing. Could her presence mean…?

Yet, in spite of his sudden thoughts, or probably because of them, Mokuba sat rigidly with no movement where he was, quiescent enough to be a rabbit waiting for the predator to pass by. His heart was beating just as quickly as a rabbit's as well.

"What about these children?" she asked as Mr. Guy was leading her around. One short, delicate finger pointed to Mokuba in the sandbox. As usual, Jumi was sitting with him. They were making sand castles, or so they both claimed.

"Look at mine, oniichan!" Jumi proudly displayed his big pile of sand, which was all it was: a pile. Then, in a finishing flourish, he added a small indent to the top of the mound.

Mokuba looked up from where he had forced himself to add windows to his easternmost tower and gave a small smile. "That's neat, Jumi."

So enthralled, the younger boy did not notice the approaching two adults. In fact, it had been his very two midnight blue eyes that were the only ones not caught in the Medusa's gaze of the arrival of the potential-parent.

Suddenly, a voice near him was saying, "This is Mokuba and Jumi. I'm…sorry to say that Mokuba is not yet able to be adopted." Mr. Guy's voice could hardly have been any less insinuating. A small bit of a smile played at the edges of his mouth as he put a thumb and forefinger on either side of it, stroking a goatee had he had one.

The teacher feigned ignorance of anything she suspected or knew. Not even on seeing Mokuba did Dojinschi give any reaction to his presence. With such a man as Mr. Guy, it was not difficult to be pretending stupidity. She was a woman, and that was enough to do the job. "What do you mean?"

Mr. Guy pulled her off to the side with a sideways smirk at the young Kaiba. Then he spoke in a hardly-discernible slower voice, "He's awaiting a month-long trial to see if his brother ever goes back into his right…mind. Don't worry; return in a couple of weeks, and I'm positive you'll be able to adopt him." Whether that information was to be private or not, the orphanage owner had a perverse enjoyment spilling the news to everyone he possibly could.

She shook her head, still looking over at the sandbox, pretending to ignore Mr. Guy's slimy, yet gleeful tone. "Poor Mokuba." Then, Dojinschi walked over to the two boys, wondering if destiny had wanted her to do this as well…

Ever since he had heard the nearby voices, Jumi had gone oddly silent and still. Now, with the teacher bending down to both of them, he wriggled behind his older brother and clutched at the striped shirt, burying his face into Mokuba's back. Blinking, Mokuba wasn't certain what to do.

"Hello, my name is Kaede." She looked curiously and then mournfully at the hiding Jumi, but Dojinschi transferred her gaze to Mokuba's gray eyes. One of her hands was absently playing with the sand castle and adding little twigs for flags.

Taken aback by being introduced to his teacher by her first name, Mokuba concluded she had a reason to keep her true relation to him private. "Say 'hi' to…Kaede, Jumi." But the boy would not even look up. With an apologetic look, Mokuba put an arm awkwardly over Jumi's back adding, "It's okay, Jumi." Then he gave a small shrug at his teacher.

The teacher's brown eyes drew Mokuba into their heavy depths, and she whispered, "I went to see your brother the other day."

Mokuba's arm over Jumi stiffened, resembling more a dead tree's creaking, dry limb than that of a young human's. Still, her dark eyes held his, but not at all like a mother held a child—it seemed more like how quicksand slowly drew one down into it, choking off all cries as Mokuba awaited what dreadful news she would inflict upon his hoping ears.

"He was…unresponsive, Mokuba. And I hardly had a glance of him. They keep him well hidden." Kaede Dojinschi hesitated, breaking eye contact and thus the binding Mokuba suffered under her liquid chocolate conveyors of emotion. "Is there anything I can do?"

Anything she could do…

Wanting to laugh or cry or do both at once, Mokuba turned back to Jumi slightly, his face steady. "I doubt it." He pretended to be trying to turn Jumi around to avoid thinking about how thick his voice sounded in the brittle air.

"I thought you were here to investigate adoptable children, not socialize with the ones off limits." With another of his timely pauses, Mr. Guy amended softly, sinisterly, "For now, of course."

With Mr. Guy trying to get Dojinschi to look at more "worthwhile" orphans, she merely gave a small smile to Mokuba before letting the man lead her away.

For a few moments, Mokuba stayed as stiffened and tense as he had been before, but with one deep, shuddering breath, his body sagged. With a slight burning behind his eyes, the boy stared fixedly at the ground, waiting to regain control of his raging emotions.

Jumi peeked his head out from where it had been implanted in the young Kaiba's back as if he had been trying to become an ostrich and Mokuba's back was the sandy ground.

"Is she gone?" he whispered.

"Yes, it's all right. She's gone." Then, softly, ignoring all other suffocating thoughts, Mokuba continued, "Why didn't you want to even look at her?"

The boy was silently crushing his castle and running his fingers through the heavy sand. Tiny grains clung to his flesh to later sprinkle down like bits of cinnamon to his clothing that had been clean that morning. Jumi gave no answer.

"Because he's a spineless twerp, that's why. Haven't you wondered what he's still doing here? But I prefer him over you, Kaiba." Such a bossy voice full of utter detestation could only mean one person because Mr. Guy always sounded falsely pleasant. It sounded like Sven was talking about a scent of rotten eggs mixed with a skunk's spray. "And I want to know what she was doing chatting to you, oh most honorable richie. What, were you planning a legal deal in which she agrees to adopt you if you pay her?"

Sven put his hands on his hips and glared down at Mokuba. Then, with a swiftness that was unfathomable to one so rooted, deep as a dandelion stalk, Mokuba was jerked to his feet by the stronger, older boy.

"I want you on your feet! No excuses for being unable to stand up to a pathetic poor boy. I don't want to look down on you, and I don't want you to look down on me; here, we're equal, and it will be because we are equal that I will appreciate whipping you down all the more."

Why does that sound like something my brother would have said long before…?

Jumi was clutching his shirt once more, and as much as Mokuba wanted to try to attack the fifteen-year-old, it would not have been prudent. Thoughts already jerked back painfully to his brother, Mokuba remembered how Seto had only ever fought other bullies when Mokuba himself was in danger or when he was absent. Or, rather, when Seto thought he had been absent. Trying to separate a Celtic knot into the beginning and ending was impossible, which exactly portrayed the two brothers.

In a taunting voice, much like a younger person would do when he discovered another person's note from a sweetheart, Sven jibed, "What's the matter, Kaiba? How can anything in your life be wrong? Or do you admit that your perfect life isn't quite so perfect, that money doesn't equal happiness? I'm not surprised. I'm just surprised it took you so long to figure it out." With a sneer, Sven turned slightly as if he was about to wind up with a baseball bat to take a swing at the fast pitch, only Mokuba's face was going to be the baseball.

However, he turned immediately into Mr. Guy.

"I thought I told you to keep sweeping," he said in a sinisterly soft voice. It wasn't accusing at all, but the tone was creepy in itself.

"I-uh, well…" Gulping, Sven backed away, helplessly groping for the broom he had left thirty feet in the other direction.

"Next time, don't leave your job." Mr. Guy's eyes never left Sven.

Mokuba had been slowly backing away to leave all of this behind, wondering which was worse: being beaten up by Sven or being in Mr. Guy's debt. What he hated the most was that he had just been thinking how Seto always saved him from bullies…

When Mr. Guy turned back to him, the man's face cleared any confusion Mokuba held over the matter of which predicament was worse. "And you, Kaiba, make certain you stay indoors from now on. I don't want prospective…parents seeing you until they can adopt you." Then, with a final smile to put an adequate end to his slimy voice, the man headed back indoors.

And Mokuba stood for a long time, ignoring the nervous Jumi as the young Kaiba's thoughts swirled in a typhoon, past and present mixing together to form a jumbled salad in which the character of "nii-sama" was difficult to discern from "intimidating" and "cruel."

As she drove home, the images and memories from her brief stay at the orphanage became every person that walked down the street. The biker who cast a glance back at her had a mournful face full of memories that it never should have seen. The trees blowing gently in the wind, leaves rustling, became the whispers of the boys as they stared at her, hardly daring to move. The changing-to-red signal lights reminded her of the heavy gate she had gone through to go back to her life, her world, her place. Such heavy gates for such tiny boys with small dreams and hopes.

Kaede Dojinschi could not understand why such heavy gates were needed in the orphanage where the boys had already been imprisoned within themselves.

She would go back. Soon, but not too soon. The scars on her spirit, though already healing, would remain for a long time after her visit, and the deep pit in her stomach left her feeling ill for several days.

Such a heavy, tall gate…

Yes, I had defeated Gozaburo. But the man still held my esteem. We were so very alike. But what mostly made him stand out from the hypocritical crowd was that he had taken responsibility. Did he not stick to his word, silently accepting two parentless children to come into his great mansion and live off the dregs of his feasting table? He had done even more than that. Gozaburo was going to educate me. I was worth his time. Unlike the orphanage that had merely dragged us in and suffered our presence, Gozaburo was going to go through the trouble of straightening out my mind. And as many philosophes of the Enlightenment thought, the utter delicate beauty of endeavoring to find more meaning and reason in the world was a priceless gift.

Still, it was more than that. How could I ever have stumbled so far off from my rambling path to commit my worst error ever?

Mokuba had me to look up to and lean on in times of strife. I was his to seek solace in and to remove all cares from his young brow. And I? I had to be the one who was always strong, always on top, always one step ahead of the bullies, always ready for anything, always optimistic, always encouraging, always aiding, always…

Once, when a raging fever and influenza had gone through the orphanage, Mokuba had fallen sick, shivering and sweating throughout the night as he tossed and turned, seeing images that made him whimper occasionally.

There at his bedside, as the world spun about me and my own eyes longed to rest, my own stomach clenched and reviled whatever it had clutched within its sharp hands, I learned what it meant to stick to my promise, my oath, my binding.

During that night, after Mokuba had retched up yet again, nothing left in his quivering stomach that it could protest against, he looked up at me with his violet-gray eyes, bags under them casting them in a darker light.

Croaking out in his young voice, my little brother asked, "Are you all right, Seto?"

Never was there a pause or hesitation as I immediately replied to my brother, my little sibling who was asking after my own health as he was so ill, so sick and still taking more and more of my energy from me as I tried to hide the fever in my face and dull eyes and help him through this raging illness, "Of course I'm all right. Now get back in bed."

Being a man was difficult. And now, however I regret it, there was an intense longing to be appreciated for who I was. Not as a parent up to whom Mokuba looked, but as an individual with talents and needs of my own.

Being a parent at the age of ten was finally wearing on me.

Yet, stubborn, dogged fool that I was, I would never have given in but for Kaiba Gozaburo. Here at last was a place I could rest and where I did not have to worry about Mokuba. I didn't have to be the parent for one slight rest, just a brief moment to catch my breath…because now I had one of my own.

Not "niisama," but…perhaps "oniichan." My brother could have a different father now. And…so could I.

What an idiot I was.