may 27, 2004
-V-
chapter 06
e m o t i o n
"Dammit, where is that driver?!" yelled Kaiba in frustration, a little louder than necessary.
"He's taking Miss Serenity home, like you ordered," replied Miro from the other room.
"Fuck this, I'll just drive myself," snarled Kaiba. Ten minutes later, he was speeding down the road in his Ferrari, disregarding all the other honking drivers, his mind focused on only one thing. Get. To. Mokuba.
"And please hurry. If you don't, it will probably be too late for you to say goodbye."
"Hurry…"
"Too late…"
"Say goodbye…"
Kaiba sped on towards his destination.
-V-
The sliding doors of the hospital were forced open, and a figure in a black trench coat raced through the lobby, heading for room 10622. For not the first time, unfortunate patients were shoved out of the way as the blur sped down the hall.
Kaiba sprinted, running into people and objects hapless enough to be in his way. "MOVE OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!" he shouted, scaring doctors and patients alike.
From down the hall, he could see the large Yamato and the petite Dr. Takenouchi standing outside Mokuba's room. They appeared to be in deep conversation, and then Yamato wrapped the doctor in a large, enveloping hug. At Kaiba's clangorous approach, they pulled apart rather quickly. But Kaiba didn't notice this. What he did notice was that the doctor, so stone-like and unemotional, had tears coursing down her cheeks, and her eyes were extremely bloodshot. It was this omen that told Kaiba all he needed to know.
"Let me in," he said quietly.
"Mr. Kaiba," said Takenouchi in a tremulous voice, "I'm not sure—"
"Let me in," said Kaiba more assertively.
"But you see, the hospital—"
"What don't you understand?" shouted Kaiba, whose voice reverberated through the nearly empty hall. "LET ME IN THE FUCKING ROOM!"
Yamato stared down at Kaiba. "You don't talk to her that way!"
"I'll TALK to her any fucking WAY I WANT! Let me in the goddamn room, or I'll kick your ass!" This statement, comical because of its impossibility, was dead serious coming from the raging CEO.
"Just let him in, Matt," said Takenouchi softly. "He'll have to go in sooner or later…" Yamato moved aside, leaving the door free for Kaiba to pass through.
But Kaiba wasn't so sure he wanted to get into that room anymore. While outside, he could still cling to the idealistic hope that Mokuba would be okay. But once he passed through that door, and saw the truth with his own eyes, he would be forced to realize that life didn't always have a happy ending, and that sometimes the most innocent were punished in the most horrible ways for no discernible reason. Kaiba knew that the world was harsh and unrelenting in its cruelty, but he had so naïvely hoped that it would be benevolent enough to give him and Mokuba a happy ending.
I should have known that it wouldn't be all okay, he thought bitterly, stepping through that fateful door.
The first thing he noticed was the silence. None of the usual machines were humming and whirring. There wasn't the buzz or clank of some device fulfilling its purpose. But what was most significantly missing was the beep beep beep of the heart monitor telling Kaiba that his brother's heart still beat. It was this particular ominous silence that was so pressing in the tomb-quiet room.
The second thing Kaiba noticed was how spacious the room was. The lack of life-support machinery gave the room much more floorspace, making the hospital bed and its unfortunate inhabitant look especially small.
Kaiba tiptoed over to the bed, as if he were afraid of waking his brother. "Mokuba?" he asked tentatively, and fearfully. "Mokuba, are you asleep?"
Takenouchi was overcome with another bout of crying, and Yamato had to lead her away from the room.
Kaiba sat in a chair next to Mokuba's bed. He took Mokuba's hand in his, and found it unnaturally cold and limp. He held the hand to his heart, trying to warm it, willing life into it.
"Mokuba," he said, "now is the time when you're supposed to open your eyes, and say, 'Seto, you came to say goodbye!' You're supposed to wake up so we can say our farewells one last time."
Mokuba's eyes remained closed, and his lungs remained devoid of the breath it took to speak.
"It's like in all the stories I once told you," he continued, his voice catching in his throat. "The hero comes to visit the dying character, and the character miraculously comes to life and says, 'I knew you would be here for me. I knew you would say goodbye.' And then the hero reassures the character that everything's going to be fine, and because the hero loves the character, the character recovers, and everything is fine. And the ending is always happy."
Mokuba remained unmoving.
"Mokuba, I love you more than any hero in any story ever loved another character. Ever since you were born, I've loved you more than anything else in my life. All those hours I spent working, I should have been spending time with you, showing you how special you are to me. I should have spent every precious second with you, because now I realize that we can never recover the time we lost. And now that we have no more time… I've realized what a bad brother I've been."
He paused, hoping with all his heart that he would see some sign of life from his brother. But none came.
"Oh God, Mokuba, OH GOD, PLEASE! I'm asking you with every fiber of my heart! PLEASE, PLEASE wake up! I need to be able to say goodbye to you! I need to tell you that I love you, and I need you to tell me that you love me too!" His voice was husky with despondency, and he bowed his head, Mokuba's hand on his lap.
"Goodbye, Mokuba. I'll love you forever."
Several tears fell from his deep blue eyes onto the limp, lifeless hand.
Several more followed.
I have learned to cry. I have broken the emotional barrier that surrounded my heart, and I have learned how to feel again. But what a price it has come at…
-V-
It was a clear, warm night. Rain would have been more appropriate weather, rain and wind and a chill in the air, but no one had informed the weather gods of this. And so it was an unusually pleasant night for that time of the year.
At a particularly high cliff overlooking the ocean, a dark blue Ferrari was parked. Several feet away stood a young man in a black trench coat.
If any onlookers had been present, they would have seen the young man walk to the very edge of the cliff. Then they would have seen him pull from his pocket two objects.
Kaiba glanced down at the locket and silver whistle in his hand for a moment, and then threw them. They seemed to hang in the air, suspended, for a moment, before they fell, down and down, spinning around and around through the night sky, until they finally landed with a splash in the turbid ocean water.
As the objects plunged, Kaiba felt a part of him plunge with them. He felt a part of him sink down, deeper and deeper, in the crushing black ocean water.
Kaiba might have taken that fateful plunge himself. He might have thrown himself off the cliff, and spun and spun until he hit the water. Then he would have sunk below the surface, deeper and deeper into the inky blackness, until the breath burst from his throat and the saltwater entered his lungs. Then he would have been lost to the world that caused his so much pain, and suffering, and turmoil. Kaiba might have taken the plunge to end his pain.
But he didn't.
-V-
The clock in the car read 3:30 am by the time he pulled it into the garage. Kaiba sincerely hoped that all the hired staff had gone to bed; he didn't feel like answering questions, or explaining why he had run out so quickly. He didn't feel like being with anyone at the moment.
Or did he? Instead of taking the staircase to his bedroom, as usual, he found his feet carrying him through the meandering halls to the nursery.
As he walked into the room, he was met, not with the sounds of peaceful breathing, as he expected, but with the sounds of crying. This surprised Kaiba, who had seen nothing but excellent behavior from Rei all night.
He considered going to Miro and telling her that Rei was fussing, but of all the people in the mansion, Miro was the person he wanted to talk to the least. She would be full of nosy questions, and Kaiba was not in the mood to be interrogated.
He went over to the crib, and carefully picked up Rei. Her cries stopped, and she looked up at him, her jet black hair accenting her beautiful, wide, sapphire-blue eyes. She was only a week old, but Kaiba felt as if she was looking past his own blue eyes and into his soul, with a gaze reminiscent to that of her mother's.
Look at you, Daddy Seto, sneered that voice inside his head. You have just been at the hospital to say farewell to your dead brother, and already you're ignoring him so that you can moon over this little charity case! He was your own flesh and blood, and you're ignoring him in favor of this nobody?! It's sickening.
Kaiba thought about this, and then reached a conclusion that he had not considered before. There's nothing more I can do for Mokuba. But Rei needs me. And I need her.
She reached out one tiny fist, and grabbed a handful of Kaiba's trench coat. She settled down in his arms, wiggling around until she was comfortable. Then, with a contented sigh, she closed her eyes and proceeded to fall asleep.
She looked so peaceful in his arms that Kaiba didn't want to disturb her by removing her. Instead, he sat down on the bed in the far corner of the room, his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him.
He pulled the peaceful bundle closer, thinking. My brother, you have passed on to a better place. There is nothing more I can do for you. I will join you someday, I promise. But I can not yet. There is more I must do in this lifetime. I tried to show you love and kindness, Mokie, but it was not enough. I have learned from my mistakes of the past, and I have learned just how important it is to show the ones you love how much they mean to you, and just how special they are.
He stopped for a minute, then said softly, "Rei, I will show you how special you are to me. I will never let anything bad happen to you. And I mean that with all my heart." He had failed once, but the proud Kaiba blood coursing through his veins made him determined to protect the baby he had grown so attached to so quickly.
Ten minutes' time found both Kaiba and Rei fast asleep. Kaiba had slid down, and was now lying on the bed, holding Rei protectively to his chest, as if to shield her from the cruelty of the world. Rei slept soundly, knowing that she was well protected from any harm that could befall her. Blue-eyed father and blue-eyed daughter lay there, brought together by tragedy and turmoil. But in their respective dreamlands, their terrors were banished, and they slept on serenely through the night.
-V-
END OF PART I
-V-