Chapter Twenty

Aunt Moriko was waiting for them at the kitchen table when they came down. There was a spread of bacon, eggs, and oven-fried potatoes in front of her. She looked at them over the rim of her coffee mug, eyes glittering with mirth.

"I assume you had fun," she said.

Seto cleared his throat and eased into one of the seats.

"You left my potatoes in the oven," she said to Kisa. "Count yer blessin's they didn't catch fire."

"You're the one who asked me to watch them." Kisa went to the coffee pot and poured them both a mug. "Can't help it if I get, uh… distracted."

"Surely. I wanted to catch the neighbors before they left for work." Aunt Moriko lowered her mug. "They left the door unlocked, so you're welcome to go in and look around. Just don't touch anythin. They leaving me liable if anythin gets broke or stolen."

Kisa handed Seto one of the mugs. "If you still want to."

Seto didn't think it was so much that he wanted to anymore. He needed to. He needed to walk those rooms one more time, look in on where he'd once been, witness whatever marks were left that he'd made in that house and, perhaps, let it leave one last mark on him.

"How is Mokuba?" he asked.

"He'll be right as rain after a little more sleep," Aunt Moriko said. "Poor thing just has a little sinus inflammation, nothin serious. Cryin tends to muck up the works. I'd recommend you wait for him, but I'd rather you finish up what yer doin and lock that house up sooner rather than later."

"I would like to make a stop in town as well."

"Sure." Kisa dropped into her seat and started piling food onto both their plates. "Where're we going?"

"To their graves."

Kisa had been reaching over to spoon eggs out of a dish. He drew her hand back. "You sure?"

"I am."

Aunt Moriko gestured with her coffee cup. "Now that I would wait on Mokuba for."

Seto stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the little yellow house. Children waited in front of houses for their long yellow school buses. The wind brought with it the sounds of boat motors and the calls of fishermen. It was colder that morning. Seto pulled his jacket tighter around him and put his hands in his pockets.

Kisa slipped her arm through his. "Ready?"

He nodded, unable to speak. His throat felt gummed up, tight. She must have felt his tension. She slipped her hand down his arm and into his pocket to thread their fingers together.

Seto's shoes could have been filled with lead for how heavy they felt. He forced them forward, down the path, up the two small steps, and onto the porch. The doorknob turned easily in his hand and he pushed inside.

"Dad! I'm home!"

In his memory, the entryway was a hallway, not unlike in Kisa's house, with the living room on one side and the dining room on the other. Now, nearly the entire first floor was open, with the stairs rising just to the left framed by elegant sweeping banisters. There was a large break in the wall leading into the kitchen where the doorway had been widened. Seto let go of Kisa's hand to go over to it, stand in the doorway, and run his hand along the molding.

His heart dropped. The markings were gone.

His mother's kitchen, which used to be bright pale pink, the cabinets adorned with little painted flowers, had become dim and modern. The carpets where he had spent his weekends and after-school evenings doing homework or playing with Mokuba had been replaced by polished hardwood. Seto made his way to the stairs and looked up them, into the darkness of the second floor. He put his hand on the banister's head.

"You want me to go up with you?" Kisa asked.

"I don't know if there's a point. This isn't their house anymore, it hasn't been for a long time."

"Just a quick look around. They can't've changed everything."

Seto was sure he would have gone up anyway, but Kisa's encouragement helped push him there.

The upstairs had not been changed all too much, at least in layout. Seto's bedroom was still where it used to be, but the door had been replaced and the intricate mural had been painted over with a soft eggshell. It was a craft room now, with a sewing machine by the window and piles of fabric in square shelving along one wall. Neither Mokuba's nor their parent's rooms looked anything like how he remembered them either.

In the master bedroom was a small thin door, open, revealing a steep staircase leading into the spire. Seto climbed up, both hands on the walls, and through the hatch into what had once been his father's office. It was a storage room now, with boxes of holiday decorations piled along the circular walls, but the old built-in desk was still there. It curved with the wall, holes drilled into it at the right locations to feed wires through.

Seto stepped up to it, let his fingers brush the dusty surface, and closed his eyes.

"You cheated!"

"I did not."

"Mr. M!" Kisa twisted in her chair to look behind her, to where Seto's father sat at his desk. "Seto's cheating!"

Rain lashed at the single window beside their table, where the chess set lived. Mokuba was laying on the floor, scribbling into a coloring book with crayons.

Shin'ichi swiveled his chair around to face them. He looked tired. The bags under his eyes were not as dark as they'd been before Mokuba started sleeping through the night, but they were still there. Back then Seto did not know how hard his father worked, or how much he must have worried about everything. Still, his father smiled. Shin'ichi put his hands on his knees and pushed to his feet.

"Let's see…" He put his hands in his pockets and walked over to lean over the chessboard. After a few moments, he nodded. "Looks fair to me." He put a hand atop Kisa's head. "It's hard to win if you just play offensively."

"It's cause you don't plan," Seto said.

Kisa stuck her tongue out at him, then crossed her arms and slumped in her chair. "I hate this game. I wanna play something else."

Shin'ichi chuckled. "Here."

He moved to stand behind her, leaned over with a hand on the back of her chair. He picked up one of her black pieces and moved it.

"That's not fair." Seto answered the move, his mind recalibrating to his father's play style. "I can't beat you, dad."

Shin'ichi picked up one of Kisa's knights. "Then we'll play something else."

Seto raised a brow. "With chess pieces?"

"Sure. We'll be the evil dragon knights. We've kidnapped the princess." Shin'ichi put a hand on Kisa's shoulder. "You can play the brave white knight and all his forces."

Seto flushed. "Pretend is for babies."

Kisa was all but glowing with excitement. "That sounds fun!"

Mokuba clambered up off the floor, a crayon in each hand, and sidled up to the table. "Can I play too?"

"Sure." Shin'ichi knelt next to him. "You can be Seto's squire."

"What's a sky-er?"

Seto tossed his head. "It means you have to do what I say."

Mokuba pouted. "That's no fun."

Kisa and Shin'ichi laughed, deep and hearty. Seto's cheeks burned, but watching Kisa laugh almost seemed worth the embarrassment.

"I wanna be a castle!" Mokuba said.

Shin'ichi plucked the two white castles off the board and handed them over. Mokuba's crayons clattered to the floor.

Kisa picked up her black knight. "Come on. It'll be fun." She pitched her voice lower, filled it with gravel, and bucked the piece as if it were speaking. "You can't stop me, foolish knight!"

Seto looked at his father.

Shin'ichi watched him, smiling still, one of his brows raised just like Seto could do. "It's not always about winning, Seto. Sometimes you have to relax and just enjoy the game."

"...Okay." Seto picked up a white knight and locked eyes with Kisa. "You're going down."

She laughed. "Whatever, nerd." Their pieces clacked together across the board. "Bring it."

Kisa was still there at the bottom of the stairs when Seto came back down. The concern creasing her brow melted away and she smiled. "You find what you were looking for?"

"My father's office is the only thing that looks anything like it used to."

"The guys probably didn't wanna lug that desk down the stairs. Lord knows I've nearly broken my neck running up and down them plenty of times." She wrapped an arm around his waist when he reached the bottom. "You okay?"

"Better now." Seto took one last look around the ground floor, at the unfamiliar rooms. "I can't help but think Ayaka was trying to erase all traces of us."

Kisa's fingers caressed up his spine. "I'm glad she didn't."

Seto touched her face, framed her ear, and kissed her. "Me too."

Mokuba was up and scarfing down as much food as Aunt Moriko could pile on his plate when they returned. Seto told him where they were planning on going next and he went quiet. He stared down at his food while Aunt Moriko fetched Seto another cup of coffee.

"I wanna go," Mokuba said. "Can we get flowers for them?"

"That was the idea," said Seto.

"There's a florist in town," Aunt Moriko crossed to the sink to start on the dishes. "They have a source with a warehouse, so they got a lot of out-of-season blooms. Where you thinkin?"

"Irises. Purple ones."

She whipped around to look at him, hands dripping soapy water onto the floor. Her eyes went misty. "Noriko'll love them. They were always her favorite."

"How'd you know that?" Mokuba asked.

"I didn't." Seto thrust a thumb over his shoulder. "There used to be irises in the garden."

Aunt Moriko sniffed and turned back to her washing. "Mokuba, you finish up now and wash yer face. You need to look good for your mama."

The church was small, no more than a chapel with just enough seating for ten. The graveyard behind it was fenced in by metal bars topped with coned points. With most of the neighborhood children in school, there was a serene calm to the neighborhood. A lawnmower was running on the next street over. Seagulls cried overhead. They weaved through the irregular lines of headstones, most old and weather-worn, a few barely readable.

In the middle of the graveyard, two wide tombstones stood side by side. Seto's feet led him to one. Its face was adorned with engraved flowers. The stone had aged and faded over the last ten years, but it was well taken care of. The grass around it was free of weeds and a dozen steadily wilting roses sat in the stone urn attached to the base. The stone read:

'Shin'ichi Miyazaki. Beloved father, husband, and friend. April 25, 1972 - June 4, 2008.'

'Noriko Miyazaki. A beautiful soul forever remembered. September 10, 1974 - July 31, 2001.'

Below their names was a single line of text: 'Together Forever.'

Kisa squeezed Seto's hand before going over to the other headstone. She knelt in the grass before it and laid the dozen roses she bought in the grass. She spoke low to the stone, barely louder than a whisper.

"Hi, mom," she said. "Hi, dad. You won't believe who I found."

Mokuba stared at her, then at the vase of irises tucked in Seto's arm. "Can I do it?"

Seto handed him the vase. Mokuba knelt and placed it next to their mother's name. He stayed there for a long, quiet moment. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the photo from the night before. It was already wrinkled, as if he'd spent the last twelve or so hours handling it.

"We should say something, right?" he asked. "That's what she's doing."

"What do you want to say?" Seto asked.

"Uh… I guess…" Mokuba rubbed a thumb across the picture. He swallowed and his voice went thick with emotion. "I… I love you, mom. I wish- I wish you'd been around long enough so I could say it to you."

Seto looked away, that telltale burning prickling behind his eyes.

"You gonna say anything?" Mokuba asked.

He knew he should, but what could he say? Did he even deserve to say anything at all? He had forgotten they had even existed, not to mention there were things in his past that he was not proud of. Should he try to justify his actions? Should he apologize?

Seto took a long breath and turned back to the stone. He closed his eyes, listened to the cry of the seagulls and the crash of distant waves.

"Mother, father," he said, "I'm home."

That night they all went to the first show of Miku's play. A musical, as it turned out. It was a cringe-worthy display. Teenagers frolicked about the stage in a high school rendition of Grease. Miku played a good Rizzo. With time and practice, she could almost sing as well as Kisa.

Seto learned on the walk back that that was the plan. After graduation Miku, wants to move out to Domino, live with Kisa, and someday become a big movie star. Listening to her talk about it was almost as enthralling as listening to Kisa talk about her tattoos.

The next morning Seto woke up to realize he had gone over a day without checking his email. At breakfast, his R&D department called and he had to excuse himself upstairs to Kisa's room with his laptop to remote into the office. Not since that weekend after Germany had Seto gone so long without working. It was a strange feeling.

A few hours later he returned downstairs to find the contents of the box of their belongings strewn over the kitchen table. Kisa was struggling to plug in an old VHS player into the television in the living room while Aunt Moriko busied herself with lunch. Mokuba, Miku, and Rin were all gathered on the couch, looking over the photo album and chatting.

There had been a layer of tapes at the bottom of the box. More memories of adolescent years clicked into place as Seto watched the home movies play across the screen. Birthdays, soccer games, school events, and some other random moments that would have meant nothing to anyone else.

They meant everything to Seto.

His father teaching him how to play chess for the first time. His mother, exhausted from working all night, scooping a two-year-old Seto to hug and kiss.

Her voice.

"Seto, tell your daddy to stop pointing that thing in her face." This was followed by a high-pitched and messily pronounced, "Stop it, daddy!", from just out of frame.

"Who's mommy's little man?"

"Seto, sweetie."

"Mommy loves you, Seto."

After a while, Seto closed his eyes and just listened. He wanted to commit her voice to memory so he would never forget it again.

It was late when Aunt Moriko rounded up the teenagers and sent them to bed. She followed the girls up the stairs, giving orders as she went. Mokuba headed through the kitchen and into the basement. Seto and Kisa followed, carrying the piles of tapes to the table to store them away.

"You want Aunt Moriko to ship all this?" Kisa layered the tapes on their sides. "I don't know if it'd be smart to put them on the plane with us."

"That would be for the best." Seto held his family's photo album in his hands one more time before laying it over the tapes. "With as much packing material as I can buy."

"We should have enough time to go to the shipping store before we leave tomorrow." Once everything was stored away, she folded the flaps. "It's been nice having you back, you know?" She leaned on the box, arms crossed over the top. "You'll come back with me for Christmas right? After the concert?"

"The office will be closed for an extended weekend anyway. It's difficult to work when every other business is closed."

Kisa grinned. "Bet you've tried."

"More than tried. I spent the first few years rebuilding Kaiba Corporation from the ground up. During that time I couldn't take time off, even if I wanted to."

"I think you said something like that a while back. What was it before?"

"Gozaburo was a military contractor, specialized in training software and espionage."

"Fancy."

"He sold his technology to rival countries."

Kisa cringed. "Oof."

"I didn't discover how deep the web went until I took over. Everything I found, I handed over to the authorities."

"Hence, the restructure." She shook her head. "No wonder you're so obsessed with work. You don't talk about him much. Your adoptive father, I mean."

"Gozaburo doesn't deserve much thought. He adopted us out of necessity, not because he wanted children. He was old and his health was failing, but he had no heirs of his own."

"Is he why you haven't been sleeping well?"

Seto looked away. "Partially."

"You wanna talk about it?" She jerked her head towards the back door. "We can sit outside. Aunt Moriko'll understand."

"Another time."

Her smile was gentle, understanding. "Okay."

They heard Aunt Moriko returning before they saw her, footsteps thudding down the stairs and muttering to herself. She turned down the hall towards them. "They won't be up till noon. Hard-headed little- just like their daddy."

She had an old black shoebox in her hands. Its corners were worn and peeling. When she entered the light, Seto could see that the box had been painted black. Thick streak marks were dried into the paint.

"What're you doing?" Kisa's tone was sharp and panicked. Seto didn't miss the flick of her eyes in his direction.

"I figured since you're both here," Aunt Moriko said, "it'd be a good time to give them to him."

"You went through my things?"

Aunt Moriko gave a beleaguered sigh and set the box on the table next to Seto's. "Kisa, dear, don't try and play the horrified teenager thing with me. I dealt too much with it already. I only figured, since he was finally here, that you might wanna share them."

Kisa pulled the shoebox toward her. "I'm not doing this."

"What is that, exactly?" Seto asked.

Kisa opened her mouth, but Aunt Moriko answered first. "Letters that Kisa wrote you. None of em got to you, obviously, but-"

"Aunt Moriko," Kisa said, "you can't make me-"

"I want to see them," Seto said.

Kisa's eyes were pleading. "Seto…"

He leaned on the table. "If they are mine, I want them."

He wanted to know her. All of her.

Kisa clenched her jaw, stared, eyes darting across his face. She snatched up the box, rounded the table, and jammed it into his midsection, blowing the air from his lungs.

"Fine," she said. "Read them."

She stepped away and Seto had to scramble for the box before it fell. She strode to the sliding glass door and jammed it open.

"Where're you going?" Aunt Moriko asked.

"Outside. I can't be in here while he reads them." Kisa stepped out and turned to close the door. "Just… You might not like what you read. You might not wanna be with me anymore."

The chill of the night blew through the open door, sending the hairs on his arms standing on end. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head and slammed the door behind her. Seto and Aunt Moriko watched her shadow descend the steps and disappear into the dark.

Aunt Moriko heaved a heavy sigh. "I'll put the kettle on. It's gonna be another long night."