Replaceshipping (Gozaburo x Noa x Seto)
I thought it would be good enough. I thought having him here with me would be enough to heal the hole in my chest. But it wasn't. I could not hold him anymore. There was nothing to reassure me that he was still there. Being with him just made me feel colder and colder.
And I started to hate him.
I hated him for dying, for existing, for creating these feelings in my chest that I could not squelch. It was affecting my work, my stocks, my life. I couldn't survive like this.
So I wasn't too upset when that boy beat me in chess. I was almost glad to bring him home. But he wasn't Noa. That much was clear in the first few days. He couldn't replace Noa, and he couldn't get rid of that hate or the hurt.
It became relieving to take out my anger on him.
I knew from the second he looked at me that he did a double-take. I looked like someone he knew, or somehow reminded him of it. I knew I could use that to my advantage – the chess match plan was perfect against someone like him.
This was for Mokuba, I told myself. He needed a better life, and we needed to stay together. If I could use this man for that end, I would. He couldn't replace the life we had once had, but it would have to do.
So I thought then. But I had only brought us into hell.
He seemed to delight in tormenting me. Sometimes mentally, sometimes physically, sometimes even emotionally. I hated him. I couldn't believe how much I hated him – and that hate changed me.
The worst part of it, it almost seemed to be personal, the way he would torment me. Like I had done something to him, and he was taking his revenge. It was probably whoever I reminded him of. So I hated that person too, for bringing that man's hate down on me.
I didn't understand it. Father seemed so cold and distant. Had it happened overnight? Or was it so slowly that I hadn't noticed?
I knew about the boy my age that my father had adopted. He never told me personally, which hurt, because that meant he was hiding it from me. But I knew the boy from when he logged onto the Internet. I could see his passage through the web, and it didn't take long for me to track him to my own home and identify him.
Why had father adopted him? Was he trying to replace me?
The more I thought about it, as years passed and my father visited less and less, I started to hate that boy. I hated him for taking my father from me. I hated him for being smarter, able to grow up, for being real.
But secretly, in my heart, I knew I didn't really hate him. I knew that really, my hate was only for myself...for allowing myself to be replaced.
A/N: Oh, how sad. :( Next is Rendershipping (Pegasus x Seto x Jonouchi).
