Smile, Waverley, Smile

[Tell me what to swallow by Crystal Castles]

Author: Lissy Doll

Rating: PG 13

Note: Each chapter title is named after a song that inspired me during the process of writing the chapter. Feel free to take a listen.

Disclaimer: I hold no creative rights to the Yu-Gi-Oh series.

Since the year 1990, a main public health concern of the Japanese Government was the rapid increase of suicide rates. Suicide rates in Japan had instantaneously increased in the face of global financial crisis and are mainly prevalent amongst men. In the year 2004 alone around 78 suicide cases were reported, amongst that number one was filed under the name Gozaburo Kaiba.

Seto was 16 when his adopted father had thrown himself out of the 48th floor of his office building in the middle of the bustling Domino City Financial and Banking District. The man had hoisted his body over the ledge of the giant gliding windows overlooking the panoramic view of the city and stood there for no more than 5 minutes. No one was aware of this until an unimportant, low-level accountant had decided to open the window of his office, one floor below, to sneak a cigarette break. Lighting up a Marlboro Red and taking a deep inhale, the low-level accountant looked up to see the soles of a pair of expensive Italian loafers situated directly above his eye line peeking over the ledge. The low-level accountant promptly fell off his seat and his dangling cigarette left a burn mark on his oxford polo from where the burning ashes of the cigarette landed. Needless to say, before the man could even run for security or any types of help, a falling blur of red had already made its descent to the hard concrete 46 floors below.

Seto was 16 and he was in the middle of a physics test when the principal came into his classroom to escort him to the main office. Ironically the question he was in the middle of answering was this:

An apple after having fallen from rest on a tree branch, under the influence of gravity, for 6 seconds crashes through a horizontal glass table, thereby losing 2/3 of its velocity. If it then reaches the ground in 2 seconds, find the height of the plate of the glass table above the ground?

When he had heard the news, sitting there in the principal's office on some cheap yellow plastic chairs with a horrid stripe pattern on it, the only thing he could think of was this:

An overbearing, failing businessman jumps out of a window, under the influence of gravity, from 48 stories above the ground, but meets with wind resistance, thereby losing 2/3 of his velocity. How many seconds did it take for him to splatter his intestines and crushed bones all over the sidewalk?

Being a firm believer in the philosophical school of thought 'What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger,' Seto merely nodded his head politely and asked that he can return to the classroom to finish his exam before taking the day off to grieve the loss of the head of the household. The principal was incredibly sympathetic and was very moved by the strong, young man in front of him. Even in the face of such potent adversity as death, Kaiba Seto remained as strong-willed as ever.

Seto sighed as he shifted through the paperwork on his oak desk. He was still nursing a massive hang over from the previous night and the niggling feeling that had been present since the conversation he had with Yami was being just as persistent as his pounding headache. Eyeing the requisition forms on his desk, Seto fought the urge to turn to pyromania as a solution to his problems. Administration really wasn't his thing, which really had put into perspective how wrong of a profession he had chosen for himself, but being the CEO and majority shareholder of his company allowed him to do whatever he wanted with technological development, that is when he wasn't filling out paperwork or sitting through mundane business meetings.

A soft yawn reached Seto's ear as he looked up from the forms in his hands. Pushing his glasses further up the perch of his nose, he noted his baby brother standing at the door in the middle of a giant yawn. "Mmm, morning big brother. How was the party last night?" Mokuba asked, his big, granite-gray eyes watering around the edge from the remnants of sleep. Seto smiled softly at the endearing sight of his brother, 14 years old, and still wearing footie pajamas.

"It was the usual affair." Seto replied, getting up out of his seat and ushering his brother towards the kitchen.

"What was it for, big brother?"

"The Iwamoto's unveiled their hidden progeny. Some kid named Yami. Apparently he's going to be the next heir to Iwamoto Robotics." Seto said as he rifled through the refrigerator for food. "You want pancakes, Mokie?"

"Yum! I'm down like a clown for some pancakes," Mokuba exclaimed. Seto made a face at the expression as he closed the fridge doors and set the ingredients down on the counter.

"Why do kids these days speak like that?" Seto wondered with mild disgust.

Mokuba merely guffawed at his brother, "You're not that much older than me, big brother! Besides back in your days you guys had weird sayings too."

"Excuse me, little man, but I would never be caught dead saying something as silly as that." Seto said as he cracked an egg open over the yellow mixer bowl.

"I bet if you said something like that, you'll definitely make Shizuka laugh! Speaking of which, are you going to take me to visit her today? You wouldn't let me go to that party last night so this is the least you could do, big brother." Seto rolled his eyes, knowing full well that the puppy-dog pout was already in place and ready to be deployed faster than a heat-seeking missile.

"Yeah, keep your footie pajamas on. I'll take you to see Shizuka. And I didn't take you because the last party you went to you decided it would be funny to put ex-lax in people's drinks."

"That's because it was funny. You laughed." Mokuba said pointedly.

Seto tried to suppress his smile, "Don't be a smartass. Or I'll ground you again."

Yami laid stock still on his back. The sunlight was hurting his eyes, but he couldn't find the strength to turn away from the bright, warm glow. Staring up at the canopy of his bed he idly wondered if he had to make an appearance down at the breakfast table, not that he cared about missing any 'quality family time' or anything. Closing his wine red eyes slowly, Yami turned to his right and slid off the bed, falling onto the plush carpet floor. Not really feeling the urge to move right away, Yami lay there with his face pressed up against the floor for a minute before pushing himself upwards towards his trunk.

Lifting open the late 19th century Louis Vuitton vintage travel trunk, Yami rummaged around for his CD wallet case. Looking down at the fading LV insignia printed all over the trunk's available surfaces, Yami took note of the different travel stickers posted on the lid. When he was younger he had wondered if his mother had really visited all of those places and whether or not the trunk had actually accompanied her on her trips to those foreign lands. His favorite sticker, the one that he used to frequently run his tiny fingers over when he laid down on his cot at night in the drafty monastery, was a painted imitation of the Venice canals. On it the words 'Hotel De La Gare & Germania Venezia' was printed in yellow Castellar script.

Sighing to himself, Yami flipped through the CD wallet for the right music to alleviate the malaise that had settled over him since last night. The reality still had not set in, and Yami was trying his best to resist the idea that there really were no other options then to consent to being the Iwamoto heir. It would seem that he had been pluck from neglection to just be placed into forced attention.

Walking over to the stereo system, he gingerly slipped the CD into the player and went to flop back down onto the bed. The soft guitar melody of 'Casimir Pulaski Day' crawled out of the speakers and towards Yami's attentive ears. As Sufjan Steven's melancholic voice sang about getting bone cancer, bible study groups, and crying fathers, Yami closed his eyes to the world and tried to stop the shaking in his right leg. When Yami was 16 the monks had received a letter from his father's secretary, otherwise known as his mother. The letter requested that he should be pushed through pre-calculus as quickly as possible and be taught university-level calculus before the end of fall. Whenever he had a test during that time, the stress of comprehending higher-level math had caused him to develop a nervous twitch in his right leg, which, consequently developed into a psychosomatic syndrome that was triggered when he was unnerved by something. Now, at the age of 21, he had better control over it, but it still shook when he was alone and thinking about the cause of the distress.

"On the floor at the great divide, with my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied, I am crying in the bathroom…" Sufjan Stevens's voice washed over Yami. "Oh the glory, when he took our place, but he took my shoulders and he shook my face. And he takes and he takes and he takes…"

As the last refrain of the song slowly disappeared into the airwaves, and the sound of the bedroom door slowly creaking open caused Yami to jerk out of his thoughts and opened his eyes in surprised. "Anzu… is there something you needed?" Yami asked, surprise still evident on his face as he sat up to face the girl. Anzu shook her head lightly, causing her short hair to swish from side to side. Smiling softly, she walked towards his bed and gently sat down on the edge near Yami's left foot.

"I was just wondering if you were going to come down to breakfast," she asked him, her gentle smile still intact. Unaccustomed to this silent Anzu, Yami simply shook his head indicating his disinterest in coming out of his bedroom. "Well, papa and Ms. Isis were waiting for you. I told them I would come up here to get you," she continued.

"Tell them I'm not hungry," Yam said as he lay back down, crossing his arms over his eyes.

After a moment of pure silence, Anzu shifted to lie down next to Yami's still figure. Placing her arms on the side of her body she looked directly up at the canopy of the bed. The song 'Chicago' began to play and Sufjan Stevens was singing about making mistakes, falling in love, and crying in a van with friends. The soft smile on Anzu's face faded with the lyrics of the song. "We went to Chicago when Shizuka was 6 and I was 7. Shizuka still had her sight then. Our father was still married to our mother and that was before the stomach cancer had eaten away at her happiness and life. She took us to Buckingham Fountain and gave each of us a quarter to throw in. She said it wasn't the Trevi Fountain, but we could still make a wish. I had wished for a romance like in 'Roman Holiday.' In retrospect, it seemed incredibly silly. Then she took us for a ride on the subway. I think she knew that this was going to be the last time she was ever really happy," Anzu said softly.

Yami could feel the slow, creeping warmth of the sunlight on his cheeks. He continued to lay there in silence. Anzu turned to her right side and gazed at Yami's still figure. Her electric blue eyes dulled to a soft baby blue as she rested her cheek onto her palm. Tentatively, she reached out her left hand to touch the material of Yami's white t-shirt. Shyly gripping the edge of the shirttail sticking out from his blue, acid wash jeans, Anzu answered Yami's silence, "She died two years ago."

"I think the little tragedies," her tiny voice said, "are what makes us who we are. When I was 12, I desperately wanted my mother to look at me, but she was too busy trying to regain my father's affection. One afternoon, out of sheer boredom and childish spite, I snuck into her washroom and rifled through her medicine cabinet. I took a handful of Phenobarbital, Demerol, Vicodin, Lexapro, Dexedrine, and God knows what other Amphetamines. To me, it had all looked like a handful of colorful candies waiting for me to shove into my mouth. My mother was going to love me after this, I had thought to myself. Half an hour of seizing and choking on saliva, a bumpy ride in a wailing ambulance, and 10 minutes of having my stomach pumped later, I realized, I was back to square one. Either I had to take more drugs or do something more drastic. Like kill myself." After what felt like an eternity of pure silence, Anzu released her grip on Yami's shirt and sat up with her back to him. Her straight Geisha bangs covered her eyes as a small smile slowly made its way to her pale face, "I shall tell them you decided to forego breakfast."

As the door closed with a gentle click, Yami felt another warmth creeping down his face. His arms blocked his eyes from the sun but were doing nothing to prevent the steady stream of salty tears that ran down from the edge of his eyes.

When Seto was 16, he developed a fascination with numbers, percentages, and statistics. More specifically, he became engrossed in the measurement of lives: the happiness, the sadness, the deaths, and the living. When Shizuka and Anzu's mother killed herself, no longer able to bear looking in the mirror due to the result of chemotherapy and the pain of having to endure a cheating husband and a killing disease, Seto had told Anzu, "The Cabinet Office has a panel of experts drafting an outline of measures that aim to cut suicides by 20 percent by 2016 to around 25,000 a year, with the inclusion of bolstering mental health support services."

Seto's fascination was not suicide or even death for that matter. No, not that at all. As Matthew Modine once said, "The dead knows only one thing: it is better to be alive." And alive Seto was.

Seto's fascination was the numbers. After all, being the young heir apparent to a multi-billion dollar, transnational conglomerate configured the way he thought of people into being merely data. Well, that was how he had thought of life and people until Shizuka had slapped him right across the face for saying something that cold and insensitive to Anzu.

It could be said, by close associates of the Iwamoto Family and the nosy busybodies of the upper crust, that Shizuka was Seto's saving grace. But Anzu knows better. Anzu knows that while Shizuka did her best to melt the steel cold, hard exterior of Seto's façade, Seto was still just as jaded and bitter deep down. Anzu could never figure out Seto, and Shizuka once said that to do something like that was to have the power to unravel all the complex emotions and thoughts human beings harbored in the deep recess of their minds.

Seto pulled the car into a slow stop and pushed the gearshift into park. As Mokuba clambered out of the car with his hands wrapped carefully around his jacket, Seto had a sneaking suspicion that the younger Kaiba was up to no good, as he usually was. Running over the threshold of the manor and straight through the open doors, Mokuba ignored the stiff, stern looking man holding the door open. Seto nodded to the butler as he followed Mokuba's ascension up the winding stairs. The butler cleared his throat pointedly before calling out, "Miss Shizuka is in the gardens out back." Seto slowed mid-step and nodded again in thanks before calling Mokuba back down the stairs.

Turning back around, Seto caught sight of a spiky-haired individual sitting on a stone bench under the apple tree through the bay window on the second landing. The individual had headphones snapped on over unruly hair and completely covering his ears, whilst wholly engrossed in a book. From where he was standing, Seto could not make out the title, but a smirk began to form on Seto's face as he turned away to walk back down the stairs. Once again, Mokuba rushed past Seto and towards the gardens in the back of the manor.

After picking his way through the halls of the spacious manor, Seto emerged out into the sunshine. Instead of following Mokuba's slowly fading footsteps down the stone steps towards the rose garden, Seto made his way over the lone figure hunched over a book. "A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami Haruki," Seto mused out loud as he looked at the peculiar book cover displaying a sheep's backside with a prominent black star on it. The reader of the book clutched the book closer to his face as he shoulders tensed up in what was most likely anger. Not bothering to lower the book to even acknowledge the smirking CEO, the individual continued to read. "Is it any good?" Seto goaded.

No response came from behind the book. Smirking wider, Seto plucked the book from the hands gripping tightly onto it. Holding the book away from its reader, Seto looked at the aggravated face of one angry Yami. Headphones still sitting on his head, Yami pretended like he couldn't hear the CEO over his music, but both party knew that the volume was not nearly loud enough to drown out Seto's voice, for if it really were the case, Yami would not look so annoyed at Seto.

Rolling his eyes, Yami lowered the headphones down to the column of his neck. "It's good," Yami said simply. Seto raised one eyebrow in amusement.

"You know, you do seem like the type to read this sort of literature. I bet you like Jack Kerouac, Ryu Murakami, and Thomas Pynchon too, don't you?" Seto said teasingly.

Yami puffed out a sigh of annoyance and reached for his pack of cigarette that was sitting beside him on the bench. Lighting up the Camel Crush he gestured at Seto, "And you seem like one of those snobby assholes that only reads Fyodor Dostoevsky, Somerset Maugham, and Marcel Proust." An ironic smile made its way to Yami's irritated face. "What do you want, Kaiba? I thought you find me ignorant."

Seto's smirk grew into a lazy smile as he placed the book precariously on top of Yami's spiky head, "Oh I do," he assured the shorter man, "But I also find you to be a fascinating source of amusement."

"Asshole." Yami said with narrowed eyes as he grabbed the book before it could fall off its perch on his head.

"You would like Chuck Palahniuk. He's into that whole disaffected youth immersed in the antipathy and anarchy scene you seem so proud of labeling yourself with." Smirking wider Seto grabbed Yami's cigarette before any protestation could make its way to the irate man's lips and took a quick inhale before handing it back. "What are you listening to?" Seto asked good-naturedly as he exhaled.

"Something that doesn't grate on my nerves like the sound of your voice does," Yami bit back.

Laughing at the unbidden animosity, Seto asked again, "What is it called? Genre. Artist. Song name. Etcetera."

"Punk. The Stalin. That's like casting pearls before swine. Etcetera," Yami deadpanned.

Seto smiled but before he could supply a witty retort Mokuba had come bounding back and had ran smack dabbed into Seto's side, causing him to stumble a two-steps back. "Ok, Seto, I'm ready to go!" Mokuba said with his arms still wrapped around Seto's waist area.

Looking down at his brother, Seto nodded, "Where's Shizuka?"

"She's keeping Anzu company, while Anzu tends to the rose bushes," Mokuba said as he released Seto from his grip. Looking curiously at a wide-eyed Yami, whose cigarette was burning down to the butt, Mokuba asked with a point of his index finger, "Who's that?"

"Don't point. It's rude, Mokuba," Seto chastised, "That's Iwamoto Yami. Shizuka and Anzu's brother."

Mokuba nodded before breaking out into a huge grin, "Hiya! I'm Kaiba Mokuba, nice to meet you." Mokuba waved his hand vigorously in front of Yami's face. Yami, never given the chance to interact with other children when he was young, did not know what to do in such a situation and weakly smiled before slowly waving back at the enthusiastic young man.

Noting the deer-in-the-headlights expression that had settled on Yami's face, Seto took advantage of the situation, "Mokuba, why don't you keep Yami company while I go say bye to Shizuka." Smirking at the alarmed look that crossed Yami's face, Seto walked off before the shorter man could protest.

Plopping down on the stone bench next to Shizuka, Seto waved at Anzu who looked up from her rose bush with the same perpetual smile on her face. Anzu shifted her sun hat forward to block out the light before continuing with her work digging up the weeds that had grown in a chokehold around the rose bush. From where he sat on the bench, Seto can see the sharp glint of sunlight reflecting off of the water droplets on the crimson red roses. Leaning back against the brick wall, Seto's eyes shifted to the side to catch glimpse of Shizuka's gentle face. Smiling genteelly at Seto, Shizuka said, "Did you have a good conversation, dearest?"

A small snort escaped from Seto's amused face, "Why, yes, it was quite lovely," Seto drawled.

Shifting his powder-blue eyes over to assess Shizuka's smiling face, Seto asked, "How did you know?"

"The scent of nicotine and tobacco," Shizuka answered knowingly, with the same smile firmly intact.

Humming thoughtfully, Shizuka swung her long legs up onto the stone bench and folded them elegantly together. "Mokuba brought me a little kitty," she continued, "He said it is snow white with these gorgeous hazel green eyes."

Quirking an eyebrow in interest, Seto noticed a tiny little white ball of fluff batting away at invisible dust particles near Anzu's legs. "So, that's what he was hiding in his jacket in the car," Seto said with quiet contemplation. "What have you named the cat?" Seto inquired, an amused curiosity settling in his voice.

"Macavity," Shizuka said declaratively.

"Like the T.S. Eliot poem?"

"Exactly like the T.S. Eliot poem," She nodded her head in affirmation.

"He's going to get beaten up on the playground by the other little kitties," Seto said teasingly.

"He shall defend himself with the grace and honor befitting the Iwamoto name," Shizuka replied knowingly, nodding her head with an added emphasis.

Laughing at Shizuka's conviction and belief in the little fluff ball, Seto leaned his shoulder back against the brick wall, allowing relaxation to wash over his tense shoulders. Closing his eyes and allowing the soft breeze to cool against his hot skin, Seto felt at ease despite the large amount of paperwork that awaited his return at home. Sitting there on the stone bench next to Shizuka, Seto felt that this was what summer should always feel like: it should feel like light and air filled with the lingering scent of roses.

Shizuka's lilting laughter snapped Seto out of his reverie. Cracking open his eyes, Seto's gaze landed on a small white kitty nuzzling itself against Shizuka's crossed legs. Petting the little kitty softly on the head, Shizuka looked up towards Seto's direction. Her soft brown eyes squinting at him as though the sunlight could reach through the veil of blindness and touch her where her non-existent sight should be. "Holland sounds like a very sad place. Or maybe it is just a very sad word. The word itself is melancholic. Elongation of the 'l' sound and the unstress 'and' makes it feel like a breath of cold air you accidentally inhale on a winter's day," she said out of nowhere.

Smiling at her expected intervals of randomness, Seto merely inclined to agree with her, "Something like that."

When Seto had first met Shizuka, the both of them were but 13 years old; too young of an age to recognize a long-lasting friendship in the making, but old enough to know when a close bond was inevitable. At that time, Shizuka had been diagnosed with acute Leber optic atrophy or simply known as LHON, while Anzu was still trying to reach her goal of consuming the myriad of rainbow colored pills she found in the medicine cabinet. Shizuka, through some cosmic stroke of misfortune had been the only one to inherit the mitochondrial defect from their mother.

The doctors, top specialists from John Hopkins and various other medical facilities around the country, had all come to one conclusion: Shizuka would never be able to utilize her eyesight again for as long she lives.

It wouldn't be until Anzu had grown up to be 19 years of age and Shizuka, long since losing her vision and in the process of forgetting what it felt like to be able to physically see, that Anzu finally stabilized herself into a semblance of functionality. But Shizuka didn't need sight to be able to see that no matter what the doctors insisted or their father tried to ignore, Anzu wasn't getting any better, especially not by keeping up false pretense.

"Also all that ice and snow and coldness dwindling into the darkness of oblivion. How does life survive in such a desolate place?"

Seto looked up at the clear, baby blue skies before getting up to stand on his feet. Gently touching Shizuka's cheek, Seto smiled as he looked into her dull eyes, void of light and warmth, "Life is stubborn like that. Given the chance and the sunlight, it'll persevere."