Ma Proie
Chapter 2
A Funny Way to Start Off Your Morning
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh (Kazuki Takahashi), the love song from "Titanic", Pok'emon, or any other stuff that I don't own. I own the plot, I own the scenes, I OWN THE CUTENESS! HYA! (pumps fist) Bow before me and review! GENUFLECT, I SAY! …Ok, maybe I should let you read now. (Ryou: That would be best.) Shut up.
Note: In the last chapter, I mentioned days and times for Ryou baby-sitting Mokuba. Well, just forget it. That's right. Scratch that. I never really took those into account while I was writing this or any of the other chapters, and I actually inserted that into Chapter 1 at the last second. Henceforth, all you need to know is that Ryou is baby-sitting Mokuba. Who cares when? Who cares when he gets to go home? And who the heck cares about Britney Spears' breasts enough to interview her about them on the news? By the way, Britney Spears applauds you, Lohan. Hm, Lohan, sounds like Rohan… Legolas, sounds like Pegasus… what was I doing again? Oh yah. Mokuba. Ryou. Cuteness. Waff. - (The authoress claims no responsibility for any cults formed within the time frame of the posting of the first chapter and the posting of this one. She also swears she didn't eat pizza, but nobody believes her.)
"Mokuba," Ryou whispered. He leaned on his tippy-toes over the sleeping boy. Ryou was standing in the middle of Mokuba's bedroom, regarding the youngest Kaiba adoringly. He wished he could just watch him sleep for awhile…
/I never imagined that such a rich guy would have such a frilly bed./
"You shut up."
/And it's only a twin, too. I would've thought the hyper brat would roll around in his sleep./
"Whatever…
"Mokuba…" Ryou, again, tried to wake him up.
"Every night in mind dreams, I see you, I feeeeeeel you!" Mokuba sang quietly in his sleep, hugging his pillow as if it was a large teddy bear.
Ryou stepped back, a rather large blue sweat drop clinging to the back of his head. "That was weird," he opted to voice aloud, hopeful that maybe Mokuba would hear him and wake up… although Mokuba did look really cute as he slept. The petite preteen's dark hair fell in front of his face, shading his eyes and giving him a zebra effect. His beautiful silver eyes were closed in quiet repose, and he breathed slowly, his chest rising and falling and… what was Ryou doing? Ryou blinked and shook his head. Mokuba still hadn't woken up.
"I'll just… forget that I was staring at him," Ryou muttered to himself. "Oh, Mokubaaa… Get out of bed you little shit!" Ryou said sweetly.
"Hmmmm?" Mokuba hummed in his sleep, letting out a yawn. "Just five more minutes, mommy…"
"I hate to be the one to break this to you, Mokuba, but your mother is and has been dead for several years. These things happen, though, and with a little therapy – ok, a lot of therapy, we can fix you up good as new."
/Death is fun. Trust me, I should know. I've tried it./
"Er…"
/Multiple times, too. Maybe you could try it with me sometime/ mou hitori no Bakura offered hopefully. Ryou rolled his eyes, regarding the comment with distaste. "I'm going to ignore that..."
/Fine, suit yourself. But therapy is fun too. Remember that time I set your psychologist on fire.../ Ryou sweat dropped.
"Is that what happened...I didn't remember a thing… ah, ok, it all makes sense now. That might be why he called me a Nazi."
/Heck yeah. That was AWESOME! You would look pretty cool with a swastika on your back. Like Malik's tattoo on his back, only I couldn't reach back there to do it. Maybe Malik or Odion would do it for you, but I doubt they would./
Ryou face faulted. "Oh... That's just a shame..."
Mokuba stuck his tongue out at him in his sleep. "Nyaah… Shut up, Set-oh!" Mokuba 'oofed' as he fell off of the bed. Then the little Kaiba seemingly deflated as he sighed and then started snoring all over again.
Ryou, despite the vow he had made two seconds ago, stopped and stared blankly at the lackadaisical preteen collapsed on the floor. And stared. And wondered if he could choose Mokuba as a subject for his still-life project in art class. He certainly wasn't moving very much.
Ryou then reached for a toy light saber that was conveniently lying around after being dropped off by the Plot Hole Fairy. Jedi Ryou then tentatively reached out and poked Mokuba with the toy in the cheek. The younger boy didn't even stir.
Ryou sighed exasperatedly. "This is getting ridiculous."
/So curse about it./
"No." Ryou marched right up to the semi-conscious, adorable boy and yelled right in his ear: "MOKUBA! GET THE HECK UP!"
Mokuba wrapped himself around Ryou's leg. "Five more minutes I said… Shut up Seto… You stupid… Zzzz…"
"O.O Ummm…"
/Well, this is different/ the other Ryou mused. /So what do you do when the child molests the pedophile/
"I'M NOT A CHILD MOLESTOR!" Ryou screamed, throwing a pillow at the wall where his more demonic self was located in ghostly form.
"I should hope not."
The voice was steely, precise, and militating. Ryou's blood ran cold and he stayed very, very still, only moving his head slowly from side to side in an attempt to locate the source of the stentorian evil. That evil was known as Seto Kaiba. Ryou could tell because he could hear coffee (as far as the CEO was concerned, the fluid of life) percolating in the background. A/N: My dad is laughing at me right now.
"Uhh…"
"You do know that you sound rather unintelligent when you do that," Kaiba stated from over the intercom. Ryou sweat dropped.
"I know," the dispirited boy admitted. "It's a… bad habit of mine."
"Well," Kaiba's voice commanded swiftly, "I want you to get rid of it."
"Uhhh…"
/He he he. Stupid./
Ryou could hear Kaiba smack himself across the face. "Oi. Look, I just wanted to tell you to press the button on his alarm clock."
"Oh… Arigatou gozaimasu. But, which one, Kaiba-sama?" Ryou curiously inspected Mokuba's alarm clock. He couldn't tell what color it was, because it had been wrapped with denim fabric (quite creatively) and it had holes for all of the little buttons, and another hole to display the time. The numbers 11:01 shone brightly on the clock's dark surface.
"Did he make that himself?" Ryou asked softly. "Wow, that's neat."
/Who cares/ the other Ryou demanded.
"Oh, you shut up."
"What did you say to me?" Kaiba demanded gruffly.
"Eep! Nothing."
Kaiba sighed. "I'm sorry; bad morning. The person I sent out to get donuts brought me back the wrong kind, and I have a meeting today with people I don't care about. Just press the blue button and he'll wake up. Then feed him breakfast and do whatever you want until 4. I have to go to that meeting I spoke about, but at 12 I'll be back and working in the home office… but I'm there if you need anything. My office is right next to the den."
"Gotcha," Ryou confirmed. "Alright, so I press the blue one—"
"Yes, and oh, and beware the doomsday device," Kaiba soothsaid before promptly turning the intercom "off".
"What?" Ryou yelped in bewilderment. As the white-haired boy's fingers literally brushed against the desired button, bells rattled and sirens wailed. "Warning," a stentorian woman's voice warned. "Self-destruction sequence activated."
The noise was so loud that the entire hallway rumbled from the alarm clocks thunder. Ryou flew back into the wall. "Woof!"
/Woof/
"Don't ask," Ryou informed, sweat dropping about fifteen times at the sight of the destruction going on before him. And all of this noise was before Mokuba woke up and started screaming.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Mokuba screamed, slapping the alarm clock with both hands. Apparently it wasn't as easy to turn off as it was the opposite, Ryou noticed.
The younger Kaiba brother looked like a baker trying to flatten a lump of dough, because just as a baker uses a rolling pin to flatten out dough and the larynxes of different breeds of squirrels, so Mokuba was using his hands now. Never trust a bakery, kids, or Homeric similes, for they shall smite thee.
"Mokuba!" Ryou cried. "Leave that squirrel alone!" Ryou ran slowly, cueing the cheesy action scene as Ryou ran slowly towards Mokuba and forced the poor animal out of his grip. The alarm then went off.
"….Hi," Ryou said. And then: "So who is this?" Ryou held up the squirrel by the scruff of his neck.
"That's Furk," Mokuba told him. Mokuba titled his head, looking at Ryou curiously with ferrous silver eyes. "He's a flying squirrel."
"…Furk," said Ryou doubtfully. Mokuba nodded, never taking his eyes off of Ryou.
"That's right; Furk."
"Furk?"
"Furk."
"Furk… That's similar to another four-letter word…"
"I said it was Furk!" Mokuba snapped. The silver-eyed boy than came to the shocking realization that Ryou Bakura was in his room. "AAAAH!"
"What?" asked Ryou.
"GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" Mokuba screamed stridently. He shoved Ryou into the hallway, looking absolutely horrified.
"Aww! But you look so cute in your silk jammies!" Ryou shouted, his teasing way of vociferating the sudden ejection. Mokuba shouts were only muffled slightly by the thick wooden door that he had slammed in Ryou's face, and the pale British boy could hear Mokuba call him a jerk quite clearly. Ryou looked down at the flying squirrel, who was still cradled in his hands.
"He's so cute," he confided, caressing Furk's ears. Furk chittered in response.
1-1-1
"How do you like your cereal, Mokuba?" Ryou asked, poking around the dusty cabinet with his pointer finger. The boxes looked like they were past their expiration date, but Mokuba had informed him that that was the cereal cabinet. Ryou wondered just how often the Kaibas ate cereal.
"Saignante, monsieur," Mokuba said. He was watching Ryou trying to locate a box of cereal that was not past its expiration date. Mokuba wondered if they even had any.
"Ha ha!" Ryou laughed bitterly. "Nice try, but I take French class at high school."
"Where else would you take it?" Mokuba wondered.
Ryou sweat dropped and pondered this for a moment. "…I don't know. Anyway, so yeah. If you want your cereal like that you're going to have to talk to my Millennium Ring about it."
Mokuba's eyebrows raised, and his large silver eyes flicker in surprise. His Millennium Ring? Did he mean the spirit inside of it? He probably did… Mokuba shrugged.
"Ah ben. Je n'soignerais pas. Peut-être t'oublieras."
Ryou sweat dropped. "Uhh… yes?" Mokuba smiled.
/You're an idiot./
"Well you don't have to be so smirky about it!" Ryou brooded. Mokuba immediately apologized. "N-No, not you… you're always very sweet."
"Huh?" Mokuba's eyes widened.
"Uhh, nothing," Ryou lied. Mokuba's face fell.
"Oh."
Maybe I'm just hearing things…
/Smooth/ the other Ryou mused. Ryou winced in embarrassment.
"So how do you like your cereal…?" Ryou inquired again.
"Bleeding…"
"Gotcha." Ryou turned to fish through the refrigerator for milk that wasn't expired. Did these people ever eat?
"You don't like your milk warm do you?" Ryou asked. "My sister likes warm milk."
/Your sister is such a moron./
"My sister is not a moron!" Ryou argued.
Mokuba yawned cutely. "I never said she was, Ryou-sama."
The older boy visibly winced. "Don't call me that."
"Okay." Mokuba cradled his hand in his palm and smiled, admiring Ryou as he glared down the forsaken refrigerator. He was over the whole waking-up incident, and feeling a lot more awake, too. Henceforth, he was a lot more aware of the situation that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, at least for him. He tensed up, finding it hard to relax.
Ryou Bakura was in his house.
How much of a miracle was that? Ryou Bakura was his baby-sitter, and he'd be seeing him nearly every day for quite some while! Yahoo!
Or at least, you'd think that is what Mokuba would be thinking.
Of course, this wasn't all fun and games for little Mokuba. The poor boy was nearly driven over the edge with questions. How should he act? What should he say? If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
"I have a very sweet little sister," Ryou was saying, "but she's kind of quirky."
"Oh."
How much time does Ryou spend washing his hair? I wonder…
Meanwhile the awkward silence that had settled abruptly over them was causing Ryou to itch all over. "I'll just get you the milk then… Uh…"
"Miruku ja nai," Mokuba remembered.
Ryou fell over. "Why didn't you tell me you didn't have milk!"
"I just remembered," Mokuba admitted. He turned around and snickered loudly before turning back to face Ryou with a sad puppy face. "Sorry."
"No, no, that's okay." Ryou stood up, full of contempt for the dairy services of Japan. When he shut the fridge, the little light inside turned off, and the frozen turkeys and packs of Dr. Pepper waited patiently in the grayness.
1-1-1
"Bakura," Mokuba spoke, reluctant to break the uncomfortable silence. He had been staring at his new sitter for the past 15 minutes, not including the 20 minutes it had taken them to walk to his room. The vice-president of KaibaCorp really supposed that he ought to move it a little closer to the office, but he was all settled in already. Besides, that, he really liked the view from his window.
The view outside this window was a wide, open plain. The side-yard was covered in a lithe layer of pristine flakes. When Mokuba had been younger, and him and his nii-sama still lived at the orphanage, he would try to count the snowflakes. Even though he knew it was futile, Seto would try and help him, too. They would have so much fun…
The white plain was a nice change from the view outside of his regular window. Outside of the clean glass, huge oak trees could be seen swirling. The leaves brushed up against Mokuba's window, creating a near wall. The trees were huge, and their sturdy, leafy branches were entwined, so that Mokuba could climb out the window and go romp around the entire yard, come back, and never touch the ground. When he had been younger, he had just loved doing that. And while he still did, Seto thought it was very foolish of him.
Mokuba hated to admit that his precious nii-sama had changed growing up, and it was all because of Gozaburo. This had given Mokuba the impression that growing up sucked. …Well, he was right about that, actually, but Ryou could act like such a child… That was probably why Mokuba liked him so much. Ryou and Seto were near polar opposites.
Anyway, for all the wonderful outside views in the world, Mokuba thought the view inside his bedroom was pretty breathtaking, too. Ryou' chocolate eyes danced as he held the sleek, black Xbox controller in his palm, skirring it with him hands. Furk was up on his hind legs, sniffing Ryou's hands, and it was easy to see that a giggle lurked just beyond Ryou's slightly trembling lips. Ryou could make Mokuba's face flush just by being there. (This is arguably why Mokuba was sitting on the dresser; other theories include that Ryou had bad breath.)
"Bakura." Mokuba said it louder this time, unsure if his previous sentence had sufficiently drawn the distracted sitter's attention. He also added a bit of a stern tint to his voice, though that was unintentional and came from years of living with the infamously militative Seto Kaiba.
"Oh, sorry," Ryou apologized in a lavish British accent. "Your squirrel's very cute." For a moment, Ryou didn't regard Mokuba, as he was too busy scratching the area behind Furk's ear. But then Ryou looked up and smiled dazzlingly at Mokuba. His face positively glowed as he set down the Xbox control and picked up Furk. "What is it, Mokuba?"
"Do you… oh crap."
"Huh?" Ryou blinked in surprise, and then regarded Mokuba a bit more closely with shiny, glassy brown eyes
Mokuba's poor mind was racing.
What do I do? What am I even supposed to frickin' say? Why do I have zero social skills when I'm around him?
…Oh, wait. I always have social zero skills.
Sometimes I wished I hated everyone like Seto. I bet he doesn't have to worry about this… in fact, I'm sure of it.
…Hell, Seto doesn't care about anything! –Except Kisara, his dueling deck, being #1, the company, and me. 0,0 That's a pretty narrow list.
"Uh… Um…" Poor Mokuba was left in quandary. The vice-prez frantically looked around his room for something to talk about. He saw an old picture of his step-brother, and a feasible idea sparked.
"Do you ever think about the virtual world?" Mokuba said in a nebulous voice. Ryou's smile fell, and he blinked owlishly at Mokuba (which was so cute, you must admit, that Mokuba blushed terribly and looked like a cherry, but Ryou thought he was just embarrassed) quite a few times before opening his mouth to speak, his hand still doing 50 mph behind Furk's ear all the while.
Ryou sweat dropped. "I wasn't there… I was passed out on the blimp," Ryou pointed out. "But I've heard very little about it. Why don't you fill me in on the subject? We have a large amount of time."
Mokuba gave a sideways glance towards Noah's picture. 'Thank you, Noah,' he mouthed, and then he said, "Well, okay. After all of the finalists had been decided, the blimp suddenly went on autopilot and we couldn't get it back…"
1-1-1
"Yugi, Seto and I managed to get on the blimp just in time. Seto threw me on there. You should've seen Tristan's face… Eh?"
The white-haired bishounen and the flying squirrel were curled up on the ground, sleeping. Mokuba picked up a pair of socks and threw it at Ryou. "Ryou no baka, nete imasu ka?" T: Ryou, you idiot, are you sleeping?
"Huh?" Ryou sat up. "Oh… sorry." Ryou smiled. He hugged his knees and gazed curiously up at Mokuba, who swayed restlessly from side to side on the dresser.
"So how does it end, Mokuba?" Ryou inquired.
"We rode away into the sunset and psycho Marik laughed his head off. The end." Mokuba hopped off the dresser. "You do realize I spent a half an hour telling you all of this? Some sitter you are."
Ryou smiled sheepishly. "Ahe…"
Mokuba felt a pang of guilt for making Ryou feel bad. "Um, it doesn't matter," he placated. "Hey… where's Furk?"
Ryou's eyes widened.
/You dumbbell. You forgot about the rat, didn't you/
"It's not a rat, it's a flying squirrel," Ryou corrected, climbing to his feet.
"We need to find him," Mokuba stated. "Otherwise… he's gone forever…"
"What makes you think that?" Ryou inquired, scratching the side of his nose.
"My maid likes to kill my animals," Mokuba said bluntly.
"O.O You're kidding."
"Nope." Mokuba sashayed out the door. "So let's go!"
"Why?"
Mokuba turned around, his eyes glowing red.
"You must fear her…" Mokuba shuddered.
"Who? Who must I fear?" inquired Ryou. "Lisa Ann Walters?"
"No…"
"There's somebody worse than the Bobbinator?" Ryou exclaimed, shocked. "Oh my god! Wait… you don't mean…" Ryou shuddered. "Lois Griffin, do you?"
"- You're an idiot…"
"That's my game. "
"I was talking about my maid…"
"Oh."
Pause.
"O.O OH MY GOD!"
Ryou ran around in little circles squawking. Mokuba raised a chary eye.
1-1-1
4:03 PM
Kaiba Household
North Corner of Hallway
Quarry still missing
"I think he's in there." Mokuba pointed to yet ANOTHER bedroom. "I left cheese in there for the rats. He might've wanted to get a piece of it."
"o.o You're messy, Mokuba."
"You know you love it. Now, I'm gonna go in there and flush him out. You stay out here and be ready to grab him, okay? Bakura?" Mokuba straightened up, casting a cursory glance at his friend. "Umm, why are you blushing?"
"Oh… no… reason…" Ryou gave him a smile. "Go ahead, yeah, you go ahead, and I'll wait for you to flush him out."
'It's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just—'
/Aw, you know he meant it. He WANTS you/
Ryou rolled his eyes dramatically. 'It's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor it's just humor…'
/Baka./
"Alright here he comes!" yelled Mokuba. Unfortunately, Ryou was already preoccupied singing.
"I need to be with you / to live / to breathe / you're taking over meeeeeeee!" Ryou sang badly. Mokuba cringed. Furk stopped and cringed. Ryou leaned over and scooped him up.
"That was simple enough," stated Ryou. "So what now?"
Furk bit him.
"Owch! I'm bleeding!" Ryou cried obviously.
"Bakura are you alright?" cried Mokuba, concerned, as he ran out of the guest bedroom. It was inopportune. Mokuba slammed into the doorframe and passed out.
Then, there he was. The other Ryou. Grimacing, griping, and just generally pissed off that a snot-nosed kid had passed out on him like that.
"Ryou" snarled and shoved little Mokuba off of him benevolently. Mokuba's spine hit the doorframe in just that way, the way that sent a pins needles phenomena to cascade through his vertebrae.
"Get off of me you little brat!" This new Ryou stood up and dusted himself off, grunting in dissatisfaction. "You got your clothes dirty, Ryou."
/I'm sorry./
"Sorry isn't good enough!" the crazy Bakura yelled. "CLOTHES MUST BE CLEAN! SHRIEK!" Let it be known that he narrated the word shriek.
/Eh, sorry./
"Baka..."
Then, without even attempting to dulcify the damage done when push came to shove, mou hitori no Bakura got up and strutted into the bathroom, leaving Mokuba with two big swirligigs for eyes.
1-1-1
Ryou felt depressed, knowing that Mokuba was even greener than Miho Nosaka was at school, as she was a whole two years his junior. People had started slanderous stories when she had started hanging out with him all the time – "as friends," he kept saying, even though the fact was he really just wanted her to go away and for the stories to stop. But here was Mokuba, nearly twelve years old and probably naïf to all sorts of blue stuff.
…Then again, he did play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
…And, he hadn't said anything about having a crush on any girls... but, Mokuba wasn't open to talking about his innermost feelings so without inhibition, much to Ryou's chagrin. He would have really loved to know if Mokuba liked someone… or if that someone could quite possibly be him. But what were the chances, that Mokuba wouldn't like some girlishly outgoing schoolmate more than he would like a sixteen-year-old, diffident guy?
…He did have this secret superpower for attracting older men, though, Ryou mused. First Pegasus, then Noa, and who knows what sort of insidious tortures Gozaburo subjected him to?
/That's sick./
"I'm joking."
…Did Seto Kaiba even have a girlfriend? Ryou knew that a lot of the same girls who liked him, at school adored Seto Kaiba at school as well, but he didn't think he was going with someone. Then again, with Seto being so "devastatingly handsome" as one girl had put it, he could probably just send off a resume to NAFE and get a fax for a blind date the next day.
Ryou had fun imagining this for a bit, trying to forget that Bakura was licking a red, sticky substance off of his fingers.
1-1-1
Now, for those among the readers who believe that Ryou is incredibly laid-back about the whole sadomasochism thing, read the next paragraph. It's the next part of the story, anyway. :P
1-1-1
Five minutes had passed. Ryou hadn't felt a thing himself, locked up in his soul room like a caged bird... but he had been more like a sleeping bird. He didn't have a time sense when he was in his soul room, so he had just slept. He felt a little foggy - How how he gotten to bleeding in the first place- but he knew he was bleeding and that blood loss was bad. He had learned this from experience. .
"And this was supposed to be my first single... Doo doo doo, doo doo doo." Ryou hummed the next few bars, digging through the skimpy itinerary of first aid items in the cabinet under the sink. His blasé 'tude confused the bejabbers out of most people, but Ryou had been accustomed to psychical abuse since he was young – and not always from his lord and master of the ring.