Disclaimer: Legal stuff in previous chapters. I'm too lazy to rewrite it.
Warnings: Slight OCness, Seto cooking. Implied Seto/Yami.
Mokuba was already downstairs when he got up. Yami was still asleep – why couldn't his brother have been as well? He turned on the coffee pot, waiting for a suitable cup to brew while he watched Mokuba devour a bowl of Cheerios. Why was this so hard?
Speaking in general was never difficult. He barked at employees, circle-spoke board members, gave speeches – so where were the words he needed to connect with his brother?
Oblivious to Seto's inner battle, Mokuba polished off the last of his cereal. Only then, did the teen look up and see him. Seto supposed Mokuba was surprised to see him, if only a little Well, he did know how to move quietly.
"Morning," Mokuba greeted, a tad too enthusiastic.
He nodded a response, still tongue-tied as to the best way to begin this. In the end, Seto retrieved his morning cup of coffee and stared into the liquid until Mokuba's voice woke him from his stupor.
"Nii-sama?" Mokuba was waving hand in front of his face. "Is there something wrong?"
If anyone else asked me that, I wouldn't bother answering, Seto mused. To Mokuba though… "I think we need to talk." Damn, but the way he said it made him sound like a disapproving parent.
Apparently, Mokuba thought so as well because he frowned. "What about?"
"Do you remembering asking me for a brother?" He was half-hoping Mokuba wouldn't and that his whole worry was completely unfounded.
The black-haired teen nodded slowly. "Did something happen?" he asked seriously.
Seto shook his head as Yami wandered in. "I just wanted to know if you still wanted to go through with it," he said, rather lamely in his own opinion.
Mokuba looked slightly uneasy.
"Go through with what?" Yami inquired. He was leaning against the kitchen countertop, his hair wet and hanging down for the most part, except for those crazy blond bangs, which stubbornly refused to obey gravity.
"Nii-sama wanted to know if I still wanted a younger brother," Mokuba put in quickly. "And I do," the teen added, casting a wary glance Seto's way.
He blinked and looked down. I should have expected it. He is as much a Kaiba as I am, no matter how different he may seem to others. So why did an icy cold descend over him when he thought about it?
He could feel Yami's eyes burning into him and looked up to meet that violet gaze. What do you want me to do? He wanted to ask, to yell. Breeding – rearing – always won out. He was a Kaiba as much as Mokuba; there was no asking for help
Instead, Seto nodded briefly. He opened his mouth to speak, willing his voice not to crack, not to display any sort of emotion whatsoever. "I have an appointment on the thirteenth of July to visit the orphanage," he told both sets of eyes, one blue-grey, one violet. To his own ears, his voice sounded deadpan.
The kitchen echoed silence.
"Are we going together?" his brother asked.
Seto nodded. "The three of us," he added. "It's a Friday so you don't have to miss work, Yami."
"What about school?" Yami asked, coming forward to sit down at the table.
Seto shrugged. "I'll call in for Mokuba. He can take it as a sick day. It's not like he'll fall behind – right?"
The teen snorted. "I could teach some of those classes."
He nodded. "Good. Then in three weeks, we can go."
'In three weeks we can go'. Damn. If only calendars and schedules couldn't be influenced by so many random occurrences.
In the past two days, Mokuba had developed a particularly violent strain of mononucleosis. Seto had taken him to the hospital, and the doctors were quite adamant about non-activity at least for a few weeks. Unfortunately, Seto could not reschedule the projects lumped around the 13th, and Mokuba had expressly asked him not to put it off until October – which was when he was next free.
He still could have gone with Yami, except the ex-spirit's job hours had shifted to compensate for a sick friend and he no longer had Fridays free.
I don't want to do this alone, he realized, slowly making his way up the stairs towards Mokuba's bedroom. He had considered canceling, or even dragging Mokuba down there despite the doctor's orders. He couldn't, though.
Gently Seto knocked on Mokuba's door.
"Yeah?" The voice that answered him was weak and sounded sick, not like his brother's strong, self-assured voice at all.
He pushed the door open. Mokuba was still in his PJ's despite it being almost noon. "You feeling better?" he asked, walking over to the teen's bedside.
Mokuba grimaced. "I don't like being sick. I wish I could go."
He nodded.
Mokuba glared at him. "You are going, aren't you?" the teen demanded, sounding more like his old self.
Again, Seto nodded.
His brother sighed and sank back into the pillows. "Just make sure it's someone like us," he said softly.
How will I know?
Mokuba answered his silent question. "It'll be in his eyes; it's the look of someone with nothing left to lose. A broken-winged bird. You'll know." He smiled shakily up at Seto. "I'm tired again," the young teen whispered.
Seto nodded, backing up out of the room while his brother sank into sleep again. It was nearly time to go, then.
He made a quick trip to his home office and phoned the orphanage. The receptionist seemed appalled at his stoic demeanor, and kept insisting he stay longer than his proposed fifteen minutes.
"Fifteen is all I'll need," he said again, and this time when she began to protest, he simply hung up.
Going back in the gates was possibly the hardest moment of his life. He'd thought he'd been freed of the place once and for all when he and Mokuba had left. Old habits die hard, he thought cynically. It was still difficult to keep from shrinking away from the iron fence.
The next fifteen minutes were packed with movement. At the end, he was left with a small, dark-haired boy, staring out of wide eyes the same charcoal black of the iron fence they were leaving behind.
Seto gazed carelessly out the window as the limo pulled away. After a tense moment of silence, he looked back to the boy. "What's your name?" He figured he ought to know.
"Natsuki," the boy whispered, looking down, away from the bright blue eyes.
Hope. It's fitting.
Introductions would have to wait until dinner Seto decided. Until then… He was rather at a loss as to what to do with this child. Could he expect any amount of self-sufficiency from him? Quickly the CEP tried to think back to when he and Mokuba had first come here. How self-sufficient had they been at the start? No matter how he pummeled his poor brain, it simply did not feel like rewarding him with an answer to that.
Belatedly, he realized the boy was still watching him and the silence was lengthening to an uncomfortable level.
What does he need to know? A room… He needs a room.
"Follow me," he commanded, a bit imperiously. Seto led the boy up the major staircase, down to the hallway that contained the majority of guest rooms.
"Go ahead – pick one," he urged when the strange boy did nothing at first but watch him. Gods, but those eyes. They were near dead.
He shivered as the child walked slowly by him to peer into each room, finally selecting one decorated with surgical precision of an operating room.
Is that what we might have been?
Dinner came. Seto had prepared the meal himself, taking special care to make it look presentable. He was glad he had time to get everything ready. He'd discovered – purely by accident – that he could cook. Now, Seto know and accepted that he was no culinary genius and also that he couldn't prepare half the exotic dishes Yami could, but with a solid recipe and time, he could create a perfectly acceptable family dinner.
The setup was proving slightly tricky, however. He was used to three place settings and having four threw off where all the actual plates of food went. No longer did the table seem to resemble a well-played duel disk in Seto's mind. Instead it seemed to be in complete disarray, which irked him to no end.
Yami came home halfway through his quest to make the table look presentable.
"Stupid, fucking, round plates!" Seto growled, staring at the table.
"Uh, Seto? What exactly are you doing?"
Seto spun around to see Yami watching him with a strange expression on his face. He said nothing to the violet-eyed duelist, simply turning back around to prod the vegetable dish slightly to the left. It still didn't look right, but –
"Nii-sama?"
He looked up to see Mokuba, dressed at last, brushing sleep out of blue-grey eyes.
"Nii-sama – " Mokuba seemed hesitant, peering around the kitchen. "Where is he?"
Seto didn't have to ask who his brother was talking about. "Right behind you."
Mokuba turned.
The two boys came face-to-face for the first time. Somehow Seto had expected something huge to happen. Instead, they simply looked at each other, staring until Seto's own eyes hurt from their lack of blinking.
"Mokuba, this is Natsuki. Natsuki, this is my brother Mokuba." Yami moved up beside him. "And this is my boyfriend, Yami Mutou." He said it as a dare, waiting for something – rejection of the implication or…something.
The boy didn't look like the revelation startled him one way or another. He didn't say anything but bowed politely to both Mokuba and Yami.
Dinner was a quiet affair, and afterwards Mokuba tottered upstairs, followed closely by Natsuki. Yami and Seto watched them disappear then chose to retire as well. Seto made a quick stop in Mokuba's room first.
"Nii-sama?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you. I feel like we have a chance to be a family again. A real one, I mean."
Family. Again.
Author's Note: I'm considering just calling this chapter fini, but that's only because I have some other projects I'd like to work on and they won't get done if I keep on with this. I'll admit it's been addicting to say the least. On the list of other things to do is certainly get a sequel up for this. Ideas are welcome... Or, I could just continue this, but it would be put on hold until after I got up a sequel I've been promising my Time Travel readers. Either way it's a wait...
--I know things don't quite match up between this and BWB, but that's to be expected. I think it's the first time I've ever heard of someone writing a full fic from a oneshot inspiration.
--For anyone who hasn't read BWB, 'Natsuki' means hope in Japanese. It seemed...suitable.
--So, OWARI or NOT?