"—twice implying I should go on a world trip with him," Seto said, and took a drag of his cigarette. He and Ryou were out on Ryou's patio, early in the morning Saturday. Seto held an ice pack to his jaw, soothing a new bruise.
"If Gozaburo is already under scrutiny, would he let you skip future galas?"
"After how many passes Crawford made?"
Too many more and Seto wouldn't have a choice or a right to deflect. Seto had never seen or heard anyone call Crawford by his given name, and the prospect of being forced to loomed over him. The fear of Crawford's idea of a relationship was even more oppressing.
"We could pack a bag and run," Ryou said.
"I can't kidnap Mokuba."
In six years, Mokuba would legally be allowed to move out. After having made it a decade, another six years felt like a downhill run. As long as he kept the whip away from Mokuba, he could hold out.
"Maybe he isn't really looking to advance things with you," Ryou said. "He's had every opportunity."
"He could be biding his time."
"Gozaburo should be careful, or those bruises will attract attention he doesn't want."
Gozaburo normally avoided Seto's face. Eventually, it would have to stop. Seto was twenty-four, and only allowed it to keep the blows from Mokuba. And when Mokuba turned eighteen, they would move out, maybe even out of Japan.
Ideally, to a country Crawford had no control over.
"He should be grateful I don't fight back."
"You should. At least once."
Seto imagined it too often. Breaking the crop. Shredding the collar. Grabbing the whip and giving Gozaburo as many scars as he'd given Seto. Gozaburo would get a decade's worth at once. Maybe it would be Seto's final act under Gozaburo's roof.
"It isn't worth it," Seto said, and took another drag of his cigarette, glancing over his shoulder to the traffic below. Ryou's apartment overlooked the highway that cut through the city center, and the noise from the street below was always overwhelming. But sometimes, Seto wondered if he might like it more than the relentless quiet that filled the mansion. The maids were afraid to whisper, and anything louder than footsteps was punished.
"What will you do?" Ryou asked.
"Keep hoping he lets me avoid his advances. Focus on grad school."
"And play sick during any future galas?"
Seto smirked and put out his cigarette in the ashtray Ryou kept on the table for his visits. The ice pack was mostly just getting Seto's face wet at that point, so he tossed it beside the ashtray.
"And that."
Ryou's downstairs neighbor had their TV turned up loudly, and the dull, throbbing pulse of the bass distracted Seto for a few moments. If he had tried raising Mokuba on his own, he might have ended up in a place like this. It was simple and common and didn't involve thwarting advances from a power-hungry politician.
That put it mildly.
Seto nearly lit another cigarette. When he started smoking, he swore to limit himself to two a day. Five years later, he only slipped once. What was the problem in slipping twice in five years?
"Let's get inside," Ryou said. "I'll make tea and we'll rant about your father for a least half an hour."
"Tea isn't nearly strong enough."
"Even if I drank, it's eight in the morning."
"And?"
Ryou slid open the patio door, and held it until Seto went inside. Ryou's apartment was small and spotlessly clean. The sparse furniture was secondhand and small enough to leave plenty of room to walk around. He had covered the couch with a sheet, neatly tucked in to look like a slipcover. The walls were the same flat gray the apartments painted them for new residents, and Ryou didn't hang anything on them. The only semblance of clutter was on his desk, where he left dozens of handwritten letters scattered on top.
A knock shook the front door, and Seto glanced at Ryou. "Expecting company?"
"You're the only person who drops by without notice," he said, but went to the door. Ryou leaned down slightly to check through the peephole, then stepped back. Looked to Seto. Shook his head. Before Seto could ask who was there, Ryou opened the door with heavy movements, saying, "What are you doing here, Bakura?"
Bakura breezed past him, a newspaper tucked under his arm and a bag slung over his shoulder. Glancing around the apartment with a disinterested gaze, Bakura crossed the room and made himself comfortable on the couch. When he propped his feet on the coffee table, his heel clipped a stack of coasters, knocking them to the floor.
"Bakura?"
"I can't visit my cousin?"
"Advanced notice would be nice."
Bakura chewed on his thumbnail and looked Seto over. "You're all over the news, Yagami."
Seto hadn't seen or heard from Bakura in years. The three of them had gone to school together, but after graduation, Bakura decided to move back to Wales to finish his education. That was the story, at least. The more likely story was that Bakura rambled around Europe, stealing to get by, doing anything other than what he was meant to.
"It's Kaiba, and I'm sure the weekend cycle will find a new subject."
"More interesting than an attempt on the life of the great and powerful wizard? Was he a good dancer?"
"You haven't lost your charm."
"Be nice or get out," Ryou said, then stepped over to the kitchen to put on a kettle. "Why are you in Japan?"
"Work assigned me here a while. Happy coincidence."
"I don't have a guest bed."
"I've got a hotel room. Here I was thinking you'd be glad to see me."
"You've been off the grid for six years," Seto said. "You couldn't have been expecting a warmer greeting."
Ryou kept his back to the living room, shoulders tense. Seto considered offering to help, but then decided his efforts were better spent distracting Bakura. If Mokuba disappeared for six years, never said a word, and then showed up out of the blue, Seto would need a few minutes to process.
"Isn't that a given with family?" Bakura asked.
"Not when you're essentially presumed dead."
Bakura scoffed. "It's not like either of you made much effort."
The kettle clanged against the counter.
"You didn't reply to a single message," Seto said.
"Let's leave the past in the past. I'll be here a while."
"What work is so important you were sent to a foreign country for an extended duration?"
"Nothing you'd care about, I'd guess."
"And why's that?" Ryou asked, back still turned.
"It's an office job. I'm hardly interested by it."
"A job you don't like kept you so busy you couldn't reply to a text?"
Bakura tossed the newspaper on the coffee table, and a picture of Pegasus holding Seto was facing up. Seto reached over to flip it.
"You've been keeping busy too," Bakura said, gesturing to the paper. "How'd you catch the eye of Crawford himself?"
"Miserable luck and timing."
Last year, Gozaburo called Seto to the government office building to work out scheduling plans for the next week. While they were quietly arguing over Seto's insistence he wouldn't be available every night that week, Crawford showed up unannounced. It would have been rude for Seto to walk out, and he had tried to step out of the way, but Crawford pressed for Seto to introduce himself. One handshake had seemingly started it all, and led to six meetings after that, twice in locations Seto never expected. Crawford toured the campus once, specifically the engineering department.
"What, you don't want to marry into that sort of power?"
"I don't appreciate being teased."
"Who's teasing? What a story that'd make. Orphan adopted by Hokkaidō's governor, wins over Pegasus Crawford a few years later."
"It won't happen."
"Not even if it let you get Mokuba away from your father?"
"From Gozaburo to the most renowned murderer in the world? I think there's a cliché for that exact scenario."
Ryou brought over two mugs with tea. One of them had the logo for a local hardware store, and the other was plain blue and chipped. They had gotten all his mugs one weekend when Ryou decided to teach Mokuba how to thrift.
"Careful, Yagami. Words like that will get you executed."
"It's Kaiba."
Seto and Ryou remained standing. Neither of the mugs had been for Bakura, but now that Bakura was here, Seto didn't have an appetite, even for tea. He couldn't see the picture on the paper, but was overtly aware of it. It didn't feel like there was any way to go back to how things had been before.
"So he finally grew on you?"
"It's my legal name."
Bakura scoffed. "Kaiba is a way of life. You saying you're more him than your parents?"
"Bakura."
"It's fine," Seto said, and took a sip of his tea. "I haven't cared about his opinion in years."
Maybe at one point he had, back in upper secondary, but Bakura had dropped off their radar when he moved, then never said anything until today. He lost his right to walk in and throw insults.
"You both were always too soft."
Ryou put down his mug. "You were the only family I had left."
He didn't stay to let Bakura explain the various ways he had been soft throughout their childhood. He left them in the living room, and managed not to slam the bedroom door when he closed it.
"Still soft," Bakura said, and took Ryou's abandoned tea.
"Why bother coming here?"
"Work sent me back. Why wouldn't I visit?"
"You should have called. Even an hour's notice."
"Why are you offended? I didn't know you would be here."
Seto sat on the armchair with Ryou's grandmother's quilt draped on the back. As much as he didn't care to humor Bakura's appearance, after being beaten last night, he didn't care to go home. Fuguta would keep an eye on Mokuba.
"Ryou won't tell you the truth. What you did was fucked up."
"I told him exactly where I'd be and what I'd be doing. I completed my degree. Started working."
"And none of that let you send a short message every so often?"
"That's right."
"Care to expand?" Seto said. "Explain your major?" What your work entails?"
Bakura held the mug against his chin. He stared at Seto for a minute, as if sizing him up, then his lip twitched, amused, before he took a sip.
"Your story is much more interesting. Dating Crawford himself?"
"We aren't dating."
"Seems like he wants to be. Imagine all the stories he could tell you."
"I'm not interested in him or his stories."
Or interested in talking more about this, especially to Bakura. He read the articles in the news while having his coffee that morning, and then pulled up all the other articles on it he had been able to find. Mostly, they read the same. Most presses were run by the same umbrella corporation, and their stories were identical. They danced, and when the shooting started, Crawford bravely protected Seto from the onslaught of bullets. Crawford used his body as a shield.
Seto didn't remember it so poetically.
But none of the stories gave any attention to the shooter. He wasn't named. Neither was his country. All of the focus had been on Seto.
"Why not?" Bakura asked. "You'd probably be one of the only people in the world who could hear them."
"I'm fine not knowing more about the people he's killed."
The last execution came and went without any fanfare. The notification had gone out to everyone's phone, and Seto opened, muted, and set it aside. They all were the same. The sentence was read and Pegasus fired the gun.
Seto didn't look to see how many family members the gunman had. After watching his parents die in the crash, he couldn't watch more families die.
He realized Bakura hadn't said anything more. Seto looked up, and found Bakura looking back.
"You never know what could happen if those stories ended up in the right hands."
Seto raised an eyebrow. "Tell me about your work."
"Couldn't if I wanted to."
Carrying on the conversation was a mistake, and Seto wasn't looking to add any more conflict into his life. Whatever Bakura came here for, Seto wanted no part of it. He stood.
"You should go."
"And you should think about the good you could do. You know sitting passive is wrong."
"Leave before Ryou comes out."
Seto left Bakura in the living room, and knocked on the bedroom door before stepping in.
"I told him to get out."
Ryou sat against his headboard, knees pulled in. He opened his eyes to roll them toward the ceiling, and shook his head.
"Six years. Six years and he comes back with insults."
"Want to smoke?" Seto asked, and leaned against the wall by the door.
It got Ryou's expression to lighten for a moment. He stretched out his legs.
"He couldn't even play nice for fifteen minutes."
"Apparently six years hasn't changed much."
"Did he say how long he would be here?"
"Didn't get around to it."
Or to a description of his work, but Seto caught the general idea. When Bakura came in with the paper, Seto should have realized. Who read a physical paper?
"I haven't heard him leave," Ryou said.
"He'll get bored when we don't come out."
"Only if he actually has a hotel room."
"His bag isn't big enough. He has a room."
Although, Seto didn't remember him carrying a bag before. Even in school, if Bakura bothered to bring anything to class, he carried it. Usually a single book he never opened.
How had he graduated a four-year program? What degree was even needed for that line of work?
They glanced toward the bedroom door when they heard the front slam closed. They waited quietly, listening. After a few seconds, Seto decided Bakura actually left.
"You don't have to open the door for him," Seto said.
"We both know I will."
"Come to the aquarium with Mokuba and me tomorrow. He's convinced he can get one of the turtles to recognize him."
Ryou nodded. "We'll do it. Pretend like neither of us have any personal drama."
"At least if Bakura acts out, you can take that bat to his head."
"We'll plot ways to make Crawford look ridiculous in the press."
"We'll need to enlist Mokuba for that."
Ryou stood and opened the door. "I'll make more tea. No reason for you to go home for a few hours."
"Six years."
"Six years," Ryou echoed, and Seto went to the kitchen with him.
Thanks for reading and reviewing!
You can expect an update the first weekend of October.
This chapter was drafted with intheshadowofsignificance.
