Chapter Twenty-Seven: More Questions, No Answers
Quickly, so they wouldn't think something strange, I continued, "But how do you know that one"—I jerked my thumb at Bakura—"didn't return and finish his business when my brother and I were separate again?"
"I don't. But I trust him."
"Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't. Trust doesn't get you anywhere."
"Then I'm afraid that maybe what Joey said makes sense. If trust means nothing, how can we even trust that you had nothing to do with your brother's disappearance?" Hands tightly squeezed at my sides, I whirled around at Yugi's words. But I did not stride away, not yet.
The gang of geeks was never helpful. I couldn't figure out why I bothered at all with the lowing herds. They all thought I had done it, had driven my brother away or had some hand in getting rid of him. If they believed that, obviously, I had been completely flawed to think I should ask them anything involving thought.
But if I weren't involved in some way with what happened and all my servants had gone through lie detector tests and passed, it fell to the gang to know something. Anything at all that would give me a lead.
Somewhere, one of them held some sort of answer in the far-away, seldom reached areas of the mind. I just had to threaten or pry them hard enough to have them in my grasp.
"Um, guys?" This quaking voice sounded more pathetic than Yugi's. "Why don't you just tell him what you know? It's his brother we're talking about here. Why would he ever do anything to hurt Mokuba?"
Wheeler rounded on his sister, and for a moment, I wondered if he had ever hit her. But thinking like that made as much sense as the gang assuming I had killed my brother. At least I had the decency to believe otherwise. Wheeler said, "Don't ya go standin' up for him!"
"She stands up for everyone, man," Tristan muttered, looking no happier about what he said than Joey did.
"Think about it! Kaiba wouldn't do what you claimed no matter what, Joey! Would you ever think of harming me? Hmm? I didn't think so! Then how could you claim it of Kaiba?" She crossed her arms, furrowed brows almost comical on her face.
"He ain't human, sis, so don't bodda tryin' to make dings make sense for him."
"No, I'm beyond human. Or maybe you're so far from human that even were I human it'd be so high above you that you can't recognize it."
An ugly shade of purple-red crossed Wheeler's furious face, but I turned my back to him after appreciating that he had even figured out what I meant (or he naturally assumed everything from my mouth represented an insult, which it did). Instead, I focused on Yugi, my next suspect.
"You claim my brother found you after whatever happened with Bakura," I said, firmly ignoring the scuffling and furious protests behind me. "What exactly happened then?" My attempts to keep secret my lost memory appeared pathetic at best, but I had to know what had happened to my brother.
"I've told you before, but I'll do so again if you really want, even though you were there," Yugi said gently, and that softness of his tone irked me more than Wheeler struggling to attack me in the background. The short punk pitied me.
"I'll let Yami take over, though, because he was the one out during the whole thing."
Oh, wouldn't that just be great? Someone I hated even more than Yugi himself and Wheeler; my one competitor who had ever bested me. Pegasus might have won to me, but that cheap victory never counted, using cards never released or used so I had no chance. But if the other Yugi knew something of my brother, I was willing to suffer through the experience.
The heavy Puzzle dangling—more like weighing down his head as would an anchor—from his neck shone once, and the Yugi before me somehow appeared the same and different. It wasn't that he had changed how he looked. The variable involved his stance—a little straighter, more confident. His violet eyes, when they found mine, weren't filled with pity at all, but a nameless determination and grit that echoed my whole system of living. And that proved why I hated him so: not only had he beaten me fair and square, but he had too much similarity to me.
"You wanted something, Kaiba?" My name on his tongue sounded like a curse.
Smirking, I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall. Behind me, where I had no vision but had still acutely attuned to what was happening, Wheeler had finally ceased trying to murder me and those around him had released him. So I focused all my attention on the figure before me, one foot holding all his weight as he, too, crossed his arms.
"I want to know what really happened the night my brother vanished."
His smirk mirrored mine. Or maybe mine mirrored his. Surely this spirit, ancient being would have been better to have been mine than Yugi's. But that thought swiftly drained out of my mind. I hardly believed in this magic nonsense.
"Me? Why would I know a thing, Kaiba? You were the last I saw with him."
Something about his face seemed untrustworthy. But then, had I been looking at myself, I wouldn't have trusted my own words.
"Well, what did you notice? Any strange sounds, odd-appearing people, anything out of the ordinary? Or is aiding kidnappers such a common experience for you that everything was completely average?" I added derisively. The other Yugi continued to smirk at me.
"You might learn more if you showed some respect to those you were questioning instead of just rudely making us all seem guilty! It's enough to make me suspect that what Joey says is right; you probably had more with Mokuba's disappearance than we did!" Téa's hands were back in their customary place at her hips; her angry eyes returned to their usual place in life, which involved poring into face as if she could somehow make it more to her liking with enough pep talks and glares.
"Don't you dare say that! Don't even say his name!"
Never should I have come here. No matter that I hadn't even gotten to asking about the vanishing shop; I wouldn't bother asking that now. These people may have hidden answers somewhere with them, but to dig them out required so much pain…far better it would be for me to try the repression therapy. Far less demeaning than going to my enemies for aid, anyway. Today I had merely given them satisfaction.
The Seto Kaiba that people had known and feared continued to slip away a little more each moment that Mokuba remained gone.
Whirling, coat flapping behind me nearly in its own breeze, I advanced to the door.
"No way any kidnappas woulda got in dere, Kaiba, unless yer security was lackin'. No madda what, even if ya claim dat he was kidnapped, somehow, it's all yer fault."
And even as the others shushed him and I left them behind, his words never left my soul, for such words I knew well already. Those words whispered to me in the darkness of night when I woke up screaming from another pleasant dream that again ripped itself free from my reality.
No matter what, it was all my fault.
Dr. Tseusaki appeared too happy to see me. My mood instantly worsened. Most times, if others seemed happy, it spread like contagion. Always, the opposite seemed true for me. Only when everyone else was properly bitter and resentful of things could I show any easy glee.
"I'm so glad you decided to seek answers this way. You read through the packet? Do you have any questions?"
"You would be. Yes. No."
The doctor looked at me until he realized how I had answered, and then the customary smile showed once more on his face. "Have you decided on a doctor or wish to be given data on those available to do the therapy?"
Trifles…a bunch of crap. I wanted to cut to the chase and just have my answers instead of circling around answering pointless questions that meant little in the long run.
"You can. And let's get it started."
"You wish to do it today?"
Grunting, I sat back farther in my chair. What kind of moron was this psychiatrist? Did psychiatry only require vomited answers and little else? Surely, I wouldn't want a man like this doling out my medication.
"Obviously I want to do it today considering I just said so. Why else would I bother wasting my voice if I said something deplorably useless?"
Without another comment, Dr. Tseusaki leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his cruelly short strands. In fact, they protruded so little his hand found it impossible to run through his hair. Most likely, he had just been feeling the top of the stiff bristles. Mokuba would have had something to say about that.
His eyes scanned the packets giving the doctor permission to send me through painstakingly embarrassing exercises to get back something that had had no right to wholly abandon me. Finally, he finished checking over everything so he could not be sued later as he no doubt rightly feared. Then, the psychiatrist folded his hands and looked at me, eyes not the least bit narrowed. At last, he rose.
"Very well, Mr. Kaiba. If you would follow me."
So, they did these torture sessions in different rooms. I paced after my doctor, aware that it seemed I truly led simply because the man walked with a mincing crawl that begged, "Please, let me suck up to you." Mainly, I felt surprised he didn't slither on the ground in an attempt to move without a backbone, considering the man didn't have one.
The room he opened didn't have the padded walls, floor, and ceiling I expected. Instead, a soothing blue wallpaper and a comfortable chair for both doctor and patient rested within. Obviously, Tseusaki thought we'd be here for a long time finding answers.
"Take a seat, Mr. Kaiba." He gestured to both the chairs and only settled himself in one after I chose the one nearest to me. He held his clipboard with plenty of paper, and I wondered how many notes my mind would reward him with.
"Okay, there are different ways to do this, but the standard way is probably best. I just want you to relax in your chair and open your mind. Stay awake, and yet, let your consciousness drift away slowly." His voice took on a maddeningly soothing sound, trying to be convincing and like cool water running smoothly over stones; yet, the sound annoyed me so much I couldn't do as he asked.
As I shifted position, listening to him advising me quietly how to breathe deeply, the weight of my locket necklace banished all the sarcasm and disgust from my mind. Instead, I focused completely on how desperately I wanted to know where he was and what happened, when he'd be back and how he fared, and if he hated me or if he'd forgive me for my lapse in security…
Focusing on letting my attention drift, the usual horrors that lived behind my eyelids I thrust away in my determination to make this work, to finally discover some sort of truth.
"Breathe in…breathe out…let the room fade away from you and relax. Your limbs should feel heavy. Everything is completely relaxed…"
At least there was none of that pathetic "Let your eyes follow the swinging pendulum…you are getting very sleepy" nonsense. So, things could have been worse.
My body began responding to what Tseusaki said. Or maybe the feeling of resting beneath a pile of sand came from having been so long tense. Relaxing… this new feeling felt foreign—almost spell-like. Leaden weights rested on my limbs and even my heartbeat turned sluggish and seemed to be saving up its energy for a later date. As my breaths turned deeper and I felt asleep but awake at the same time, the doctor's voice came at me from a distance as through a fog.
The questioning and visualizing to help retrieve my faded memory began.