Is the sun too busy getting wasted to rise?

Thin beams of sunshine slowly poured themselves through the slats in Mokuba's blinds. He stared outside, at their origin, longingly, trying to will the sun to come up.

"Come on, hurry up…"

Finally, half of the sun smiled at him, the other half still caught underneath the horizon. Mokuba smiled grimly. He wasn't waiting any more.

Getting up and heading down the hall, he made his way towards the computer room.

"Jeez! That is one loooong hallway."

Don't I know it, brudda. Anyway, Seto was sitting at the computer, his back stiff, his eyes perpetually trained on the monitor. Images from the screen reflected hauntingly in his eyes, dancing and mixing with his irises.

"NIISAMA!"

Seto jumped at least two feet into the air. "Mokuba," he said, clutching at his breast, (I meant heart, you dummy,) "you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Must I cardiac arrest you to keep you from working?" Mokuba sighed. Making his way over to the computer, he saved everything that was up before telling the computer to shut down.

"Hey! What the—"

"Go to sleep, Seto!" Mokuba commanded. "It's not fair that you should get to have all the fun when I'm sleeping."

"Sorry," Seto teased, "but I can't help it. 'Fun' is attracted to me like a magnet."

"The only reason a magnet would be attracted to you is if you wore the white trench coat will all of the shiny buckles," Mokuba threw back. Seto's smile faded.

"Fine," he groaned. He got up slowly, the boots making the only sound in the room against the floor. "I'll go. I'll get some sleep."

"Good." Mokie grinned largely.

"…Tonight. It's almost time for me to go to work now." Seto pulled down one eyelid and stuck out his tongue. "Be-daaaaaaa!"

Mokuba pouted.

1-1-1

That afternoon, which Mokuba enjoyed "sorta," being in the company of Ryou, wasn't a highly unusual day. There were, however, highly unusual shades of pink that tinted both boys' faces when they weren't looking at each other, that they (highly unusually) never saw on the face of the other.

Other than thinking of Ryou, Mokuba's thoughts kept straying to his elder brother, and whether he was getting enough sleep to be deemed healthy. Mokuba desperately wished that Seto would actually ask for his help, a dream upon a dream. Maybe someday he would actually use those words… "Mokuba, I need your help."

Ryou, who was coming down with strep throat, sat a few feet away from Mokuba in precaution, his selfishness for Mokuba's presence overpowering his concern for Mokuba's health. In any case, Ryou had decided, a strep throat would be a GREAT excuse for Mokuba not to go to school, and keeping Mokuba at home was like helping an old lady across the street. Mokuba HATED, absolutely abhorred and detested and HATED, school. This Ryou had found out.

Anyway, so the late morning found the two of them in the crusher's bedroom. Furk was napping because he had suddenly remembered that his species was nocturnal, Mokuba was trying to induce a seizure from playing too many video games, and Ryou was trying to figure out whether Dracula was a sex fiend or a demon.

"What are you reading, Bakurasan?" asked Mokuba, who was sitting as close as he could to Ryou without it being suspiciously close.

"Dracula," Ryou said, "by Bram Stoker."

Mokuba looked interested. "Really?"

"Yes. See, look. It even says right here, it's a Barnes & Noble classic." Ryou smiled as he showed it to Mokuba. "Barnes & Noble is such a good store. It's banging."

"I'll give you a dollar if you say that again."

"Don't make fun of me," Ryou snapped authoritatively. After all, he was the babysitter, and he didn't want his choice of words to be made fun of.

"Fine." Mokuba smiled to himself, though. "It's simply smashing, after all."

"Oh behave!" Ryou quoted, flipping the page and grousing to himself under his breath. "So what game are you playing?"

"Grand Theft Auto 3."

"Are you serious? I thought you were joking when you said you had that game. You know, like Pegasus claims he's straight, but we all know…" Ryou let his voice trail off. Then he said something else, but Mokuba's laughter cut Ryou off.

"No way! I get whatever games I want. And that's so true. Pegasus probably is gay."

"Did he try to molest you on Duelist Kingdom?"

"No, but… maybe he wanted Seto."

The two boys duly cracked up, although Ryou couldn't help but worry at how spoiled Mokuba sounded when he said that he was allowed to play whatever games he fancied. He sounded more spoiled than Dudley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone—or Philosopher's Stone, whatever.

"So… your house." Ryou decided to change the subject from Pegasus to Mokuba's immense opulence. "You're not exactly a cabin-born kid, huh?"

"People aren't really born in cabins," Mokuba said, though he sounded unsure, and added, "are they?"

" I was born in a cabin," Ryou told him proudly.

"No way."

"Yes way! I even got to go back there once! It was almost completely submerged by what I can only call a rampant field of kudzu. My mother said, 'See Ryou, you were born there!' and I was like, 'Where!' all bewildered and such, and she took my arm and made me point to this wall of green and said, 'Can you see through that window?' and I was all like, 'What window?'"

"Lol."

"I'll give you a dollar if you say that."

"Ryou…!" Mokuba laughed.

"You're so gullible. Why would I be born in a cabin? And my mother wouldn't of…" Ryou's face darkened, and he suddenly seemed a lot older than anybody Mokuba could possibly date without the other person being ass-hauled to jail for pedophilia. "Well, let's just say that wasn't my mother's style…"

1-1-1

"I don't think milk helps a sore throat, Ryou," Mokuba advised worriedly. Ryou cast a treacly, albeit haggard smile in Mokuba's direction, glad that at least one person was concerned for his health. Malik, the fool, he couldn't even figure out what was wrong with him—heck, Malik didn't even know what the thermostat was for!

"Oh well," Ryou said, pouring some milk anyway. Hey, it was free milk. Sorta.

"Are you still learning about samurai and shogun and such?" Ryou asked, stirring cocoa powder into his milk.

"Yeah," Mokuba answered. "We're still learning about it. I think I'm starting to actually appreciate it now. The whole shogun-emperor set-up was actually pretty ingenious, and it's like—why are you staring at me?"

Ryou tore his chocolate brown eyes away, his hair hiding his effusive blush. "I wasn't," he lied.

Mokuba's gray eyes remained trained on Ryou nonetheless, animatedly bubbling with something that Ryou didn't quite get, but it looked an awful lot like pride, and/or excitement.

"Oh! The cleaning woman's coming later today… I think you know her," Mokuba said.

"Dun, dun, duuuuuuun," said Ryou.

1-1-1

It was later.

1-1-1

It was a bit after later now. Mokuba was somewhere. We won't tell you where. Hah.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."

Ryou looked up from his book, bewildered. With wild eyes he looked frantically both ways. Seeing nothing to indicate the whereabouts of the mysterious ululator, he shrugged and went back to his reading.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."

Ryou jumped a foot in the air. He had been startled like a curled-up cat reposing in the sunshine when suddenly a little kid comes up and blows a foghorn right in the cat's ear in a largely cartoonish fashion. The crappy couch's decrepit legs splintered with a deafening crack before they broke completely. The sofa sunk to the floor."

"O.O … . … >.>" Ryou got up and sat on another couch. "He'll never know…"

"I'll never know what?" Mokuba asked as he limped into the room. Ryou recoiled in horror.

"Uh, nothing!"

"Oh. Ok." Mokuba ran over towards him.

…except he fell over…

…and hit his nose.

"-.-' Ah. Shiitake mushrooms." Mokuba cursed as he clambered to his feet. He used two fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose. Drawing them way a second later, he found that they were red.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow," he chanted. Ryou regarded him with a thunderstruck gaze.

"Mokuba, are you alright?" he enquired.

"Ryou!" Mokuba ran and glomped him in a friendly way. "Guess what?"

"Um… dunno," said Ryou, who had to grapple and hug Mokuba back to keep from falling over. This resulted in a scene that looked really… strange. Unfortunately for Ryou, Isis came in just then.

"oO"

"Oo Isis?" Ryou creid… cride… cried! Yes, that's it. Let me try this again.

"Oo Isis?" Ryou cried. "What are you doing here? I thought that Malik said that you had made like a bird and gone to Egypt for the winter." Ryou's eyes had buggered out. Isis looked at him calmly, though a huge frown stained her face.

"I am not a bird, Bakura," she said slowly, in that mystique tone of hers. "I do not 'fly South' for the winter. And I came back because I wanted to plant a carjack up my brother's…" Isis' eyes flickered towards Mokuba. Despite the smaller one's protests, Ryou firmly clamped his hands over Mokuba's ears.

"Arshehole," Isis finished. Ryou was put off by the serious and lady-like way she said this. She even had her hands clasped in front of her, and she gazed at him expectantly. What was he supposed to say back? "Yes, Ishizu, of course, I agree with you in full! Malik is an—"

Mokuba flailed, ending Ryou's hypothetical thinking. "Hey! Leggo my Eggo!" he shouted. Ryou sweat dropped. So did Ishizu, who asked if Ryou was molesting him.

Ryou face faulted. ". An Eggo is a breakfast waffle, Isis," Ryou said, his eyes two blood-red slits.

"Speaking of waffles, I'm hungry," Mokuba complained. "I think we have Reeses Cups in the fridge."

"What have you been teaching this kid?"

"That's a type of candy!"

Ryou huffed and started pushing Mokuba towards the door. "Want to play Monopoly?" he asked Mokuba.

"Oh, now you're taking him away to play kinky sex games?" Ishizu demanded hotly. Ryou face-faulted.

"Where the heck do you get this bloody stuff!"

Blood?

"Arrrrg…!"

1-1-1

It was a bit after that. Mokuba opened the door to his room to see Isis belligerently strangling his pet flying squirrel with a vacuum cord.

"Furk!" he cried, charging forward. He immediately became immeshed in the really, really long cord. "Helllllllp!"

". Mokuba, I'm trying to vacuum here," Isis warmed him.

"What you're trying to do is kill my pet squirrel!" Mokuba countered. His feet were still all tangled up in the vacuuming cord. Furk chittered nervously.

Isis glared, contempt glowing in her eyes like a red-hot ember. "And for what," she spat, "possible reason would I do that?"

"You've done it before!"

"When?" Isis demanded incredulously.

"Remember Ducky?"

"Who's Ducky?" Ryou asked, entering the room. "Oh. Hello again, Ishizu. Are you ducky?"

Ishizu brandished the vacuum with one-handed. "Stop calling me a bird!" she decried.

"Don't you remember Ducky?" Mokuba queried again.

"No."

"Whatever…" Mokuba took Furk and exited the room, grumbling to himself. Ryou skipped behind him.

…Yes, he skipped.

1-1-1

"So why is Isis working in your house?" Ryou inquired in a bored tone. His elbow was propped up on the table, as he supported his head with his fist. He was wearily watching Mokuba shove pieces of chocolate down his mouth. "I thought she'd be working hard running the Domino museum or something, not cleaning your house."

Mokuba merely shrugged and shoved another gob of chocolate down his throat. "Well, you'd have to ask Seto about why, but all I know is that one day she just… showed up, and offered to clean our house." Mokuba swallowed. He reached for another piece of candy but Ryou beat him to it.

Ryou sweat dropped. "You are gonna be sooo hyper…"

"Buthyperisgood!"

Ryou sweat dropped again. "Right," he answered, not quite as chipper as when he had woken up. His morning walk to Kaiba's Winter Manse had been haunted by stories told to him by the other him while he walked. There was a particularly catchy but gruesome one, involving a horse's skull which had somehow been manipulated to castrate a man. His other self was quite the raconteur, actually, but that wasn't exactly a good thing all the time.

Ryou slumped, desperately wishing that he could flush his Millennium Ring down the toilet.

Just try it. I'll clog the toilet to bring about your unhygienic demise! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

"You're a nut."

A cashew?

"Pardon?"

It's fun being insane.

"I would imagine," Ryou answered to the thin air. Mokuba, always the chocoholic, had found some chocolate milk and was now slurping it loudly. However, other than that he was still disinclined to interrupt the ramblings of his baby-sitter-cum-crush, seeing as Ryou usually ended up saying funny and embarrassing himself.

Would you really?

"Yep."

Innnteresting.

"Shut up."

NEVER! Besides, technically I can't talk.

"I have a headache now…"

Of course you do! Just think of how hard-to-handle your little molestee, Mokuba, is going to be once all of that sugar is pumped into his blood! Child molester.

"Do child molesters get free medical?" Ryou inquired wearily.

"O.O" went Mokuba.

"…" Ryou held up a stick that resembled one of those things in MIB. " FLASH! "

"…Hva?"

Ryou reached over and pushed Mokuba onto the floor. The poor boy hit his head.

Mokuba sat up. "Um… what just happened."

Ryou smiled weakly to himself. "Hey! Are you alright?"

"Uhm… I think so…"

Ow! What the heck?

"You fell," Ryou said.

"Oh. I see." Mokuba stood up. "Uhm… so, what do you want to do?"

"Uh… do you want to play more video games or something?" Ryou shifted uncomfortably.

"Sure…"

Who says my host can't be manipulative?

1-1-1

"So, you're taking time off of work?" Ryou asked Mokuba. The two boys were kind of just sitting Indian-style in Mokuba's room without doing anything. Ryou was scratching Furk's head.

"Uh-huh."

"How come?"

"School won't let me work," Mokuba said sadly. "It means I'm just not part of the quorum anymore." Mokuba sighed. "We had plenty of altercations with the Board of Education, but Seto said, and I quote, 'the SOBs wouldn't lower themselves no matter what commination we threw at them'. And we did throw a lot at them.

"I guess they just think that I'm some naif, and that there's no way that I should be helping my big brother to run a company right now, while I'm twelve. But I've been helping him for nearly two years, and I don't see what the big deal is. I get good grades."

I'll bet you do, Ryou thought. He nodded, listening to Mokuba although he didn't understand half the words he said. Altercations? What? Comminations? What? Condoms? What? I mean…

Mokuba clenched his fist. "They think that the number of philomaths in our school district is degenerating, so they're making an example out of me. But they're just picking on me. There's no reason for them to send me into hermitage from my work!" Mokuba clenched his fist.

"Then why did they do it, really?" Ryou asked. Mokuba seemed really angry, really grown up. "I mean, besides all of that BS they told you."
"…" Mokuba blushed.

Ryou smiled at him and shoved his shoulder lightly. "Come on! …Tell me."

"…I'm tweeeeeeeeeeeelve," Mokuba wailed. Ryou blinked in surprise. Mokuba looked about ready to cry.

"I…"

"Ryou?"

"Yes?"

"I'm twelve."

Don't I know it, Ryou thought sadly.

"Nii-sama said that he… he's going to do something to boost my spirits… but I asked him about it yesterday, and he said that he already did, and it was up to me." Mokuba shook his head. "I don't know what that means. I thought he was going to take me somewhere, or buy me something."

"Maybe it's some kind of riddle," Ryou suggested. Mokuba shook his head, no.

"If nii-sama wants to tell me something, he's really straightforward about it." Mokuba sighed. "Unless he's making fun of me, and knowing how upset I am about having to take leave from work, I don't think he would. Really, I can't countenance not knowing what he's up to. It drives me up the wall, you know what I mean? Do your relatives do that to you too?"
"…I live away from them, remember?" Ryou reminded him. "But, heh, my sister was always telling me what she was up to, so no, they didn't. She'd rub it in my face that she had more friends than me. But that was because of… the spirit." Ryou frowned.

Mokuba looked at him curiously. "What did the spirit do?" he asked.

"He turnedall of my friends into dolls," Ryou said quietly. "He turned them into dolls, and somehow I didn't even know it. I used them on my RPG board, I commented about them, and I didn't even realize that they were them. It makes me feel horribly dumb, even now, when they're all awake and all alright."

Ryou expected his other self to throw in his two cents à la taunting, but his mind was eerily silent. Ryou sighed.

"…Hug," Mokuba said. Ryou started at him.

"What did you just say?" he asked conf00zledly.

"Hug?" Mokuba repeatedly hopefully. "You look like you need one."

Ryou smiled weakly at Mokuba. "Thanks."

I wish I could really hug him. Just… move… over… a bit…!

Damn, he's getting up!

I wish he would really hug me, Ryou thought on the flip side.

"Hey, actually, I think it's time for me to leave soon… so, I better get a head start…"

Ryou reached out tentatively with one hand. Mokuba blinked.

What's he doing?

Ryou ruffled Mokuba's hair. Mokie scowled.

"Ja mata ne," Ryou said softly. He turned and left.

Mokuba groaned loudly in frustration! Exclamation point! EXCLAMATION POINT(s)!

DAMN IT! How is it possible for Ryou to like me, or for me to even think about making Ryou like me, if he treats me like such a kid! I mean, hair ruffling! Really, now!

"Maybe I'll just go outside and tell him that I don't want him treating me like a kid," Mokuba murmured.

…Or that I like him.

…Oh, YEAH, like I'm REALLY gonna tell him that. He'll hate me. …Won't he?

Mokuba opened the door. It slid open with that obnoxious creaking noise that the doors in Resident Evil games have championed. He stepped outside.

1-1-1

Ryou stared intently at the moon. The short winter day had seemingly ended extra early, and the moon was already halfway in the sky. From his vantage point, the moon had seemingly tucked itself in-between two branches of the charred tree, like a nickel held between two fingers of a giddy child. The tree was the same one Mokuba had said had been struck by lightning, which was believable upon looking at the tree's moribund appearance. At any rate, the moon was a glorious silver discus, and the sight was truly beautiful.

"Bakurasan?"

1-1-1

Mokuba blushed. Ryou looked so cute there. His body was illuminated by the moonlight, his eyes wide like a deer caught in a pair of headlights, a pink blush lushly spread over his features.

"Yeah?" his crush called softly. Mokuba averted his gaze to the snow, where his blush was less likely to be noticed. The snow flurries never cared if you blushed, they had their own affairs.

"Uhm, how come you're still here?"

And, for another matter, how come when I'm around you, everything that pops out of my mouth sounds stupid? Is that what love is supposed to be like? I never even feel this dumb around nii-sama… And hoo boy, does he have his ways of making a person feel retarded, not to mention unfit to live! Geez… "Mokuba, I said to cut the GREEN WIRE! You cut the BLACK one! What is WRONG with you!" Gomen, nii-sama… Geez…

Wait, why did I even come OUT here?

Ryou shifted uncomfortably on the ledge. "I wasn't ready to leave yet," he said nebulously. "I… can't see the moon from Malik's apartment. The moon would be behind the complex tonight, and he only has windows that peek out in front of it, I mean the complex… of the apartment."

"Oh." Mokuba took a few shuffling steps forward. A gentle wind blew in from the west—what were those called again? Oh, zephyrs—and played a soothing susurration in his ears. The mingling susurrus sounded almost like a lullabye, and they created a potion that oozed in-between the gaps of their silence.

Ryou was staring at the moon again. "The moon is quite lovely this time of night, isn't it?"

Mokuba nodded and, summoning up his courage, went and sat down over to Ryou. His heart fluttered nervously as he took in the pulchritude of the moon. But that was just that: pulchritude, with no inner beauty to speak of. Not like Ryou.

End of chapter?

…Nah, I'll give you just one more little scene.

1-1-1

Later that night! Ryou was watching Seinfeld on television.

"Your hair is soft," Malik murmured soporifically.

" Like a koala bear!" Ryou cheered.

Malik shook his head gently. "Like a pillow… Zzz…"

Ryou looked surprised. "Aw, heck no!" Too late. Malik was already sawing logs—and quite noisily!

Ryou slumped. "Aw crap." Inwardly, Ryou could hear mou hitori no kare's flittering, raucous laughter, like a gong being struck inside the pit of his stomach.

It's too bad that little Mokuba isn't here to drive him away! mou hitori no Ryou leered.

Ryou groaned and slouched some more.