Rape Me
WARNING: RAPE IS SHOWN IN THIS CHAPTER (GOUZABUROU/SETO).
Michiro-Chan: Just for the sake of being polite, I'll respond to those people who've taken time out of their tiring schedules to send me reviews and comment on the quality (or lack thereof) of my story. Thank you tons for all your support. Question, though--would anyone have a problem with me inserting a chapter with lyrics? If anyone has any song suggestions they'd like to give me, just give it to me in your review! I love hearing ideas from my audience!
Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction. The title was adopted by Nirvana's "Rape Me"--I don't own that either. Although I do really love that song… (whistle, whistle)
Song Disclaimer: "Be My Love" was composed by Brodszky, and sung by Carreras. The brief piece of the lyrics I inserted into this chapter are not mine. Sorry in advance to those of you who hate opera.
To RoseGoddess874: Your review is much appreciated and yes, it is very sad. (I didn't make you cry, did I?) I never understood why I was bold enough to write this fan fiction, but I always felt Seto's powerful resolve and unseen insecurities could cause him to actually be a very susceptible person to this type of disorder, despite the fact hundreds would probably disagree with me. I really hope I can make Seto-kun work it all out in the end. I'll try to read your fan fiction and be sure to leave plenty of reviews sometime soon. (bow) Arigatou gozaimasu! (bow) Tasukerarimasen! (bow) Gando desu! (bow) Saiko desu!
To Tak (BlueAngel0104): Thank you eternally for sending THREE reviews! That's so generous of you! It really makes me glad that you support this story so much, and your encouragement to the elaborate, complex language I had used earlier really made me feel thrilled I created something someone could in all honesty say they were pleased with. Your knowledgeable interpretation of my writing surprised me. It's always worthy of note to hear the viewpoints on my approach to these characters directly from my audience. Tell me, am I doing okay so far? I'd like to tell you your review truly made my day… (nikko) domou arigatou gozaimasu!
To Nimtril: Thank you for your review, and I appreciate the fact you sent me a faultfinding, critical review, and on account of your critique, maybe I can make this fan fiction a little better than before (not that it may have been even good to start off with (giggle)). The language was a little scary, and I can completely understand if anybody had trouble with it. I'll try to keep it simpler from now on. Thank you again!
To Chibi-Nezumi: Thank you so much for your kind review! I never realized that I grasped the moral fiber of the condition so well to a wonderful reader like you! As for the question of me ever having it…? I apologize if it's hurtful in anyway, but I feel I have to laugh out loud toward that question, because no, I have never come even close to having it. Dieting is extremely stressful…it's a nightmare to keep up with, it never seems worth continuing when you don't make any progress, and poor children shouldn't be on all these diets moreover! However…does my style of writing make it seem I know way too much about it for my own good? 00
To Darkinyron: I'm surrounded by such kind commentators… (to the point of tears) thank you, and ceaseless appreciation for your approval on my story! It makes me feel so much less inadequate to hear from my reviewers! Soshite, daijoubu, daijoubu… ("Well then, it's all right, all right…") I modified the story so you can read it much more easily. Because Tak is a very devoted reviewer and appreciates my detailed style, I may transition to that grace from one chapter to another, but I'll try to avoid any extremes for the sake of my audience's sanity. I don't know if you'll ever read this story again, but-- (bows) yoroshiku onegaishimasu!
To Spazishness: Aww, that is just much too sweet for my ears. God, honestly, I'm blushing here! That's so kind of you to leave something like that in your review! But anyway, I'm positive if you dig up a little harder, you'll definitely find some other much better written fan fictions on this website--somewhere…? All the same, still: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING! Your support will be forever remembered! I assume you won't be reviewing or reading this story again anytime soon, so in view of that…hm? Yokatta!
Thank you again, everybody, for your reviews.
Love,
Michiro-Chan
XXX
"If you're too busy always judging people, you never have time to learn how to love them."
XXX
I remember the very first day I met the boy. Lugged to my headquarters by that old fogey. He explained to me briefly that he'd reared the child as his own for his company's means. I'd hardly a care for my firm at the time…1992…I was so puerile and unripe to business. Freshly twenty-one, that is to say, to the point Mr. Kaiba felt groundless holding professional conversation with a CEO of such a young age. It all seemed like only a part of a foolish, wounding mystery I dubbed as time as Cynthia'd just passed away and my brainchild of "Duel Monsters" had recently spanned nationwide as a success in America. The industry earned billions because of it, and other nations were beginning to trade the design. The concept was beginning to spread universally and became a global export. From that point on, I worked with an audience of children most of the time, and other adults seemed to slowly slip away from any of my concern. I only wished to delight these eager children…this innocent-eyed clutch of infancy I'd long forgotten, which reminded me of…
…Cynthia.
I was only seventeen when her casket'd been closed shut that day, the tears tracing milky tracks along my face even paler than the flesh of her corpse.
As soon as I'd set my gaze on the twelve-year-old, I was astounded by the finery of his features. Had he truly been an orphan? It reminded of when I'd first waylaid my first and final love in that ballroom fourteen years ago, the daughter of my father's friend. We'd waltzed beneath the moon upon that open balcony to the refrain of the grand choir.
"Ave Maria," they hymned so harmoniously, in a pitch I'd never thought highly of before; so unappreciative of the many oeuvres I watched on occasion. So timid I'd been when lifting my trembling hand in bid of her lovely one, with hungry eyes and a quaking form. I was raised by a wealthy family--my father being a businessman in Las Vegas--and was commonly forced to attend these long, tiresome festivities following the operas, as the social elites would have parties every night.
The night I'd caught sight of the little girl decked out in the frilled, cherry-pink and periwinkle taffeta ball gown, copious locks of rippling, wheat-like hair scattering from the tie of her matching ribbon, I experienced love at first sight. Long, hoary socks trimmed with lace at the hem--raised up past her childish knees--and ordinary, glossed, black tap dress shoes toddlers often wore while toddling to morning mass, strapped on her childish feet. Her striking face met my own with a deep smile when I proposed a dance. My cheek reddened that night…never as it had before.
Just the same, I remember him so well at first glance. A buttery tone of whitish gorgonzola for his engagingly delicate flesh and the hue of crimson-ruby wine for the spice of his soft, shimmering lips. The curls of his pampered mane were a milieu of wholesome, banded, beautiful mahogany…a breath and a whisper of cinnamon noshed into the timbered, gingery reddish-brown swill. Those sheared, tidy bangs spattered onto his soft brow in the fashion of a bride's veil, a jamboree of russet locks shrouding the carroty, girlish lashes of his pale yellow lids. But those vast, cerulean eyes brimmed with a pain I couldn't even begin to describe. I could tell the boy was miserable from the start, though he hid it very well.
He had a small, annoyingly slender stature--somewhat pinched-looking but still mildly healthy. He dressed wealthily in only the best clothes, this event being a broad-spectrum Japanese fashion of a dark navy pinstripe children's suit and pink bow tie, Bermuda shorts reaching only a bit above the kneecap and creased once at the hem, while donning fringed, brown penny loafers with white knickerbockers.
His mouth was fed only gourmet, bon vivant, hors d'ouevres, and the luxury cuisines of handpicked pastry-cooks and chefs. Yet, he only ate like a tiny little bird with the worst appetite imagineable. He would watch Pavarotti and other world-class performances in the gilded, curtained opera houses, completely ignorant to the magic of it all as he sat in the verandas sporting that bored-to-tears expression. The symposiums--magnum opus; tour de force--he attended of only the supreme orchestrations I merely dreamt of hearing, were it not for the miserable silence I picked up on when listening to the tragic works…the preteen was almost as spoiled as Noa.
I'll never forget the reply I received when I'd asked Gouzaburou with some surprise to my tone, "Who's this magnificent child?"
The crabby businessman rolled his eyes and countered with a gruff, "Seto. My son."
Seto. What a simple yet lovely given name. I only knew so much of Japanese at the time. While I could hold a good chat in the language, I still couldn't fairly conceive the culture. In what I'd known, I often heard "Seto" used as a girl's name, but it sounded even more divine on this child.
An even tinier, more gorgeous child accompanied the boy, the tyke's name being Mokuba. Mokuba was about five years younger than Seto, and clutched onto the boy like static cling. I never understood why the sweet, little eight-year-old was so attached to that horror of a brother, in view of the fact that I could never seem to separate the two.
Messier curls of long length--down to the hip to be exact--and dazzling ebony in color that showed a rainbow of piebald colors beneath natural daylight like the summery stains of oil that dappled most parking lots. He was shorter and plumper, wearing an elementary schoolboy's seifuku and a ribboned sun-hat. Warmer, healthier looking, and skin tone honeyed with a golden-brown Seto absolutely lacked, his longer, darker lashes framed colossal smoldered-gray eyes and were surrounded by coal-black tassels that slopped onto his brow much the way his brother's did. The two looked nothing alike, but you could see a bit of a similarity if you looked closely.
The blemish of high-maintenance or self-indulgence didn't taint Seto's eyes, even if he was given only the best by Gouzaburou. He didn't take it for granted. The KaibaCorp president informed me that he pressed the boy to study a great deal and hardly allowed the poor thing to play with toys. So, I presented little Seto with his first Duel Monsters trading card. One of my personal favorites: Soul Tiger. I have always been such a youngster at heart, but when I presented the card to the poor thing after the cold-hearted brute left for the moment, it'd been the first time I'd seen a Japanese boy refuse a toy from me.
He shook his head lightly and pushed the card from my hands, frowning, "I'm too old to play with toys."
Rattled by the wisecrack, after the long business discussion with Mr. Kaiba when he'd returned, I requested the man to loan me Seto for an overnight stay at my manor. Gouzaburou had his suspicions to start with, but soon enough, Seto and Mokuba were due to stay in California for another week, delaying their intentions to return overseas to Japan anytime soon.
As beautiful as Kaiba-boy was, I came to find that he was the only tot capable of misusing such cherubim beauty.
But for the first time, I realized that in the face of all the children I'd seen throughout my career, high-spirited and jaunty youngsters, this one bitter, sour, almost vinegary son to Kaiba Gouzaburou made my heart beat faster. A crime I'd never dreamt of acting upon, for legal and personal reasons--
A devil in white…
…I was in love with Kaiba Seto.
XXX
"Kaiba-boy, have you ever modeled?"
The child maintained his soulless gaze. "I'm the heir to Kaiba Corporation…what would make you think that I'd--?"
Pegasus chuckled at the enticing glimmer of the boy's eyes as he countered the young man's few-and-far-between question. "--Modeling for a painting, I meant to ask."
The chorus of Brodszky's "Be My Love" spontaneously sounded in his mind's ear, while the hoary-haired American gazed directly into the atrocious blue of Seto's stare. Romantic vibes swept Pegasus' senses as he forced back a grimace. Sounds of opera reiterated within his ears, only him hearing it, which took him by coy surprise, as he'd lost a passion for opera ever since Cynthia had left this cold terra firma.
The vibrato of her beautiful voice conveyed such magnificent sounds among the gorgeous fragrances of the earth and the chorus of the divine wind. They didn't have a care in the world for the German-trimmed Cuckoo clock plunked in the billiard room and ticking away their ill-starred youth during the early hours of those wonderful afternoons. The pair would always lay on the flourished lilac and lily-dappled pastures in their spare time, gibbering on and on for hours about secret dreams.
Spreading out the checkered tablecloth for a picnic to propping up the canvas at one fell swoop for the artist to capture his beloved's beauty in a portrait over its chalky face by use of his acrylics and oils--it was all a dream in itself. Their minds would be drifting in anything that passed the time and spared them of even the least inkling of it all ever coming to a throbbing finish.
Such a clear memory…as a matter of fact, he could hear Carreras himself singing the overture right then--standing alone as one of the few works he'd ever enjoyed in English--
…Be my love, for no one else can end this yearning
This feeling you alone create
Just feel my arms, the way you've filled my dreams
The dreams that you've inspired with every sweet desire…
…And before long, that mellow baritone gracefully rung with his significant other's enchanting solo, which swished into a loving duet as he coupled her singsong soprano with a sweet tenor, sealing every lover with a reunion of supple lips…
…Be my love, and with your kiss the sun be burning
A kiss is all I need to seal my fate
And hand in hand, we'll find the promised land…
A dry retort broke off the memory: "No."
The child didn't have one romantic cell in his sneering body. Pegasus found a startling attraction to the twelve-year-old's lack of naïveté.
All world-weariness to the boy's tone sent off the batty business tycoon into a fit of laughter. "…I see your father's reputation certainly precedes him." One hand was rested on the scarlet cloth of his bent elbow, while his bronzed hand had taken a thoughtful place on his chin. The lace of his soft undershirt fluttering past the embroidered sleeve flailed as he mulled over the situation.
Seto looked somewhat spitting mad. "That man is anything but a father."
"Yes, it doesn't take a good judge of character to see that Mr. Kaiba is an absolute vandal," he agreed, hoping to create a damned diplomatic air between them. "--I suppose the tyrant's a legal guardian and nothing more."
His eyes narrowed and pale stare straggled off other ways as he murmured, "Hardly legal." Pegasus saw the preteen's hand clench as he snarled this statement, and couldn't exactly conceive how he should've caught the gist--he sensed its two meanings.
Conversation with the headstrong lad wasn't exactly difficult…it was more like toe-curling; cringe-making; agonizing.
Alas, Pegasus dared to cross further boundaries. "You're too serious, d'you realize that, Kaiba-boy? If you have such hard feelings in relation to the man, I'd think a clever youth such as yourself would understand that exchanging ill will with him would only make you, sooner or later, become exactly like him."
At last, the blank, banal face formed into a scowl. "…!"
"I can imagine it now! By the time you're sixteen, you'll be a spitting image of the bully if you keep up that crabby play-act. The tyrannical, fascist, overworking, unreasonable entrepreneur…"
"How dare you compare me with that snake! That bastard and I are nothing alike--!"
He chuckled, while curling a forefinger to his puckered mouth. "Oh?"
…Skin fabled as white as the alabaster unicorn's, with cheeks tinted and pearled, as May morning on the lips of a rose…
"This isn't a laughing matter, old man."
…Somehow, the velvety blend of beige and bluish-purple for the child's features struck a delicate chord within Pegasus' remembrance of those prairies of all stately cerulean, white, and mauve lilacs, the deep crimson lilies mottled hither and thither while his palm peacefully grasped his lover's, Cynthia's--shared warmth strewing between the woven members of their hands. Gentle winds had tempted them to rise and fall with the rhythm of the lush, tall grasses and kinking wild flowers…
"You certainly speak high-and-mightily for a boy that's not even a teenager quite yet."
The calmest response followed, arrogance hidden beneath its coolness--as if the boy deemed himself to be the winner of this perky squabble. "Age doesn't always matter when it comes to brains. A man could grow up to be an out-and-out idiot while some kid-genius could be taught to recite the theory of relativity like Einstein himself."
…Child, I do believe I've seen you before…
"Kaiba-boy, your seriousness is just a laugh."
…In the very face of a Cherokee rose. Such a seemingly delicate thing, doling out your seeds abroad to yonder lands, your children sowed into the depths of its foreign soils and expected to prosper just as well.
"I'm just a source of amusement for you now?" He growled, "it isn't funny."
Pegasus eased his palms down to his thighs, slanting his dolly head and signaling toward the boy's tiny range. "You're a grouchy little thing now, aren't you?"
The cupid-like mug was crumpled up in anger and his dainty arms were stiffly crossed. "Don't patronize me."
"Oh, lighten up for God's sake. What's wrong with having a bit of fun? Honestly, you have absolutely no sense of humor." The male's golden eyes strayed off in swift study of the pebble-dashed, Victorian cut ceiling and as his gaze swerved down to the squared trim of the fanciful walls, the dozens of paintings hung over their midst sent his mind back to its original intentions. "So Kaiba-boy, would you be up for modeling for a portrait?"
He still sounded quite irritated. "Why a portrait of me?"
"But of course, Seto-dear, why would any decent painter not want the portrait of such a lovable face like yours?"
He cringed and snarled, "No."
"Please, Kaiba-boy…your modesty is only making you even cuter."
"Pegasus--"
Unexpectedly, the magnate's heavy brow lifted in delight, while his lips arched into a smirk. "Well, there's only one approach left to this, Kaiba-boy, and I realize it's challenging you to something so your pride won't let you have the option of turning it down." He lightened a fairly bronzed, handsome hand toward the porcelain schoolboy and continued, "I propose a duel."
Seto pondered it deeply. "Dueru Monsutaazu--?"
"The one and only. What d'you think?" Pegasus gazed on, pending a child's approval to a man's request.
"You win, you get to paint me, and if I win…?"
He smiled, "Anything your little heart desires. You've played the game before, haven't you?"
Pegasus couldn't help but notice the twelve-year-old's colorless face flush poppy-red as he nearly forced a response, "…A bit. But I'm sure it won't be difficult to pick up. It's only a card game."
The young adult faked a pout. "Ahh, but it's much more than a simple card game, Kaiba-boy. I haven't become a billionaire by coming up with a worthless idea, you know. I'm sure you'll like it as much as I have--once you've caught on, that is. And certainly being that as clever as you are, I'm positive you'll pick it up in no time."
Pegasus' flattery seemed to add a bit of edge to Seto's voice--not to mention a modest amount of hot air to his ego. "all right then. I'll play your cheap little card game. Just don't go easy on me because I'm a beginner in your screwy charade, Pegasus. You could end up losing because of it." Every word was dispatched as if he were taken in a petty battle of wits.
He began treading away, with the little one impatiently at his heels. "You certainly have a bit of confidence in yourself, Kaiba-boy." And just upon the verge of which the boy was about to object, the unflawed Romanic structure of the American's nose veered slowly to one side, and a blaze of gold glimmered through the satiny curtain of his silvery mane as he turned his head sharply back toward Seto. "…A little admiration on my part for that."
Admittedly, Seto didn't care much for the man, yet in his current faulty frame of mind, he couldn't help but relish his presence. The boy could hardly contain the inner-grin that harrowed his moral fiber. 'It's strange, but I get a kinda' comfortable feeling when I'm around you. I don't have the least respect for you, let alone care for you in anyway, but still…that doesn't change the fact that it's--even a little--amusing. Attacking your dignity, that is.'
(A/N: Oh…that's the epitome of romance, right there. )
At that point in time, the two were a peculiar pair. A childish sophist and a sophisticated child…a living irony in itself.
XXX
"Nii-sama--you're not eating."
Both Kaiba brothers had been seated adjacent to one another around one of the many spherical tables of the manor, and Mokuba had taken heed, once again, of his sibling's customary, non-existent craving to eat. The brunet merely arranged his plateful of vegetables with a steady fork, enclosed within sparing fingers, and taking no notice of his brother's hushed indication, released the utensil with a clatter onto his china dish, and grimaced toward the minor, hands clasped. Mokuba's lips tightened into a thin line, eyes guarded on him, giving him the anguished expression a mother would give their boisterous child.
Meticulously pushing back his seat, he rose and nonchalantly began treading away, hands within pockets. "I'm going to headquarters. I don't know what time I'll come back, so I suggest you not wait--"
"Nii-sama." The resonance of a second wooden chair sliding against mahogany floor sounded. The adolescent quickly faltered at his brother's timid call, but refused to turn around toward him again. "I don't want you to think I haven't noticed, but I'm not sure I want to believe it."
Seto still didn't turn. "You're--you're not eating…an' you look--" Resolving in not uttering a candid response, he instead attempted at softening the terrible truth that'd been growing too powerful to ignore. "You look thin." Mokuba acknowledged that the rendering scarcely even qualified for his sibling's present condition, but felt somewhat assured with his tentative words. "A little bit too much…if you ate a little more, I'm sure you'd look healthier. But, it's almost as if you're…you're--as if ya want--" He lost eye contact with the elder's backside while lost in his sentence. Mokuba's throat tautened as he made an effort to maintain his tone of voice…as dithering as it was.
The tenor that followed his suggestive comment was irritable. But he noticed it wasn't his own shrill, perturbed intonation. "Speak up if you have something to say, Mokuba." Before the youthful boy could have even glimpsed it, the teenage CEO had already verged on his heel, and stood facing his terrified little brother. The oceanic orbs for eyes were only more reticent with the gingery brows that creased over both.
Mokuba trembled at his cold stare. "I didn't mean to hurt you, nii-sama. I'm just--scared, nii-sama. So scared…" A husky breath escaped his mouth as unintentionally a delinquent may flee a prison. "Couldja finish half--? I mean, before you go work again." His sneaker-clad foot hobbled restively as he stammered. "Ya gotta eat, nii-sama. You barely ever have anything--"
A condescending tone sounded itself. "Who's the older sibling here, Mokuba? Who's taken care of both of us for a full seven years?" Silence was the only tongue that wagged following this powerful inquiry. "I'm taking care of myself. And I don't need the likes of anyone to patronize me--which includes you, Mokuba. I'm your elder brother. Whether or not you respect that, you could have the courtesy to pretend. If I choose to skip out on dinner, that's my decision, and you don't object. Understand?"
"Nii-sama, you're gonna starve to death if you don't start eating soon--please understand, I--I just care about you, and I don't want anything to happen to you…" the ebony-haired twelve-year-old managed to stifle through his upcoming sobs.
The reverberation from his punctuated tone was like a cutting knife. "Mokuba, don't be silly. The last thing I'll experience is death from losing my appetite during one meal." He saw the child quiver with denial of his rather cool assurance. "Otouto, look…"
"That's a lie and you know it." Those spacious, sea-gray twin crystals, usually glimmering with compassion, astonished the elder to be now almost-enraged. Though tears maimed his now-pained visage, the anger in his youthful voice took Seto back one step. "You've never been the same. Sometimes I think the big brother I used to know is never gonna come back, nii-sama. It's always the same now--you stopped smiling and laughing, and you shut out everybody from your life. Then machines just took over your life…and you don't even notice it, but…your obsession is killing you, nii-sama. Not just for real, but you're dying by the day and you don't even see it. Why've both of us stopped speaking to each other as just friends…? As family. We say we're brothers; we say we're close; but...things've changed. If our love was something you could touch, it'd be broken…and I've been afraid that no one could ever fix it."
…Could God Himself have been speaking through this child?
Seto descended to one knee, opening gracious, pleading arms toward a distressed, younger sibling. "Mokuba--" he murmured repentantly, beckoning the child to tread within that embrace. He didn't mean to make Mokuba cry--honestly, he didn't.
Elfin fingers bronzed in the slightest galloped along the bare, bony panel of their possessor's eldest kindred's wrist, wistful eyes coveting the quench of an annoyingly abstract happiness his fountain had long run dry of. Something that could not be purchased through even volts worth of gold, something that was graced in being intangible--untouchable--something the trimmings of olive-ish, plump feelers could not trace their impish, lamblike hillocks along its celestial midst, and forever confine it wantonly as its own--
"Nii-sama," the nearly metallic pitch whispered. He voiced fear, the dither of the phantasmal will-o'-the-wisp, the tone of a spectral ghost child left to linger outside the very bounds of heaven's gates, and cling onto those grandeur, gilded columns while relishing the too bitter savor of purgatory.
And as little brother dared to step within his elder's confines, uncertain palms tentatively cast through a red mahogany, desiccated mane--the noble lion hath fallen--even as tears painted Mokuba's crestfallen features. The final bits of screws and pieces of tarnished, corroding steel were trailing its pieces in a band along his brother's weary, scrambled path…the parts to a once so stable fortress finally devoid of its stronghold, slowly buckling down to mere rubble and pending its terminal collapse. Seto's beautiful hair was growing thin--now not the entrancingly trimmed locks that very well could have suited the crowns of archangels.
"Nii-sama," the child repeated, tarry, shaggy head inclining against the withering rampart of his brother's chest as Mokuba's fragile form finally gave way. Heavily drawn breath was too soon torn into the unstable gasps of sobs.
Seto grimaced in the least, maintaining most of his lacking compassion, while grasping his younger brother with faltering forearms.
'…Kami, Mokuba. Nakanai de--douka wakatte.'
Mokuba was moaning something unintelligible which Seto strained himself to hear. When he finally understood, his entire body congealed. "…What do I hafta' do for you to stop, nii-sama…!" Warm breath mingled with the barrier of his torso. On the verge of literally screaming-- "D'you want me to starve myself, too…?" The chill didn't thaw in the least. Seto only continued fondling his brother's neglected head and proscribed the horrifying sounds, agonizing in the child's words, and on tenterhooks to the plea of him to just stop. Somehow he'd become lost for reproachful words. This time, he just couldn't seem to tell Mokuba he'd already gotten his fill of thoughts. He just couldn't finish scolding him today. "I'd--I'd do it…I'd do anything as long as you promised to stop--! P--promised to…n--never do it…again…!"
And the youngster wasn't throwing around words just to get what he wanted, too. He knew very well of that.
The twelve-year-old towed his cranium back to cheekily hail his brother's, with tears and mucus irrigating the tiny, unquestioning mug. The glare of tears streaking those ruddy, sodden cheeks petrified Seto then and there. He'd never known how to react when he received that stare…yes…being scared, a long time ago, and seeing Mokuba greet him with the same exact grieving, grotesque yet, somehow, scenic tears--
And afresh, there was the exemplar of a sixteen-year-old multi-billionaire business tycoon denying the tattered, heartfelt photograph of no more than the vulnerable, benevolent, long-lost piece to an older brother pinkie-promising a beloved to linger by their side forever.
XXX
The creak of an opening door gradually welcomed the undreamt-of ember of a subtle light from outside the entry to his overcast, unlit bedroom. The teen's dark head immediately jolted back, though the unidentified silhouette raised its hands dismissively in a gesture of crisp declaration to a truce-Seto narrowed his cold eyes and barred his canines toward that ambiguous indication of the relenting "white flag"…he knew only one idiot who would wave it so quickly for all to see…
The lock clacked shut as he closed the door again. "Cool it, Kaiba. It's me." The blonde's tone seemed to surprisingly calm the CEO, though his voice suggested none of this relief.
"I'm well awareof that, dolt."
The auburn-haired adolescent shortly toyed with the hem of his elaborate curtains, though hesitated toward his childish diversions, and slumped back onto the lavishness of his mattress, darkened tresses straggling generously along his always over-embellished furniture cushioning. Eyes wistfully trailing other ways toward the drawn tapestry over his windowpane, as if ensnared within a thirst to gape through a shielded answer. His expression slowly contorted into one of resentment, apprehensive toward the realization his life of luxury being lived all in vain.
Not a glimmer of light filtered throughout his drapery. 'Already night.'
Shuffling of clumsy footsteps onto his carpeting caused his face to only furrow further, and he gave off a rather infantile breath out from his mouth and nostrils at the clamor of shaken approach.
The boy's icy baritone almost trimmed the blonde's inner string of security in two-an uncertainty of whether relief or unease should've overtaken his response. Jounouchi decided to do the same as Kaiba: he would rest a deft mask of emotionless-ness in suppression of his sensitive, commonly quick-tempered behavior. Although unlike the Kaiba Corporation president, he knew it would be much more difficult for him to keep it up for long.
"Just come in, mutt. I'm no fan of these little surprise visits of yours, but I suppose I should've expected it."
The fair-haired sixteen-year-old drew nearer toward the hostile elder Kaiba, flicker of fear concealed within the inception of his mind as he conceived the attractive form of the brunet's mane of reddish-brown locks spilling onto his opulent, yet ethereal bedspread.
He tried keeping his inflection laissez-faire, and succeeded somehow, yet the inevitable, untold tremble of fate devoured his last syllable. "No light? Why d'you got the curtains pulled over the windows, Kai--ba?" Jounouchi inhaled rather noisily, the agonizing tension of screaming silence casting over their sudden equanimity.
Fettering the tawny-eyed male, an unexpected rustle of a stirring bulk over fabric and creaking spring of a mattress caused him to twitch in the shoulder lawlessly, and glimpse toward the manifestly weary figure caped in the darkness, brandishing a nodding hand to their bent, weary head. Jounouchi's eyeshot had not yet adjusted to the shadows, so he merely anticipated Kaiba's expectantly callous reply.
As he'd hoped, the voice he'd received drove out to be even colder than he'd expected--that familiar resonance so very sweet to his now mutiny-fearing sense of hearing. "Why are you here?"
Jounouchi decided cynicism would win over this cold-blooded bastard, as nothing else would work out better. His hands slithered into his pockets, as he felt beside himself perceiving his tone emitted from his "outside self's" lips. "I don't know…maybe it's 'cause you've fallen victim to something that's only seemed to've been an issue with paranoid thirteen-year-old girls?"
There was a long pause following this…or at least it seemed long. Time was so easier said than done to guess without a pendulum swinging directly before one's stare.
"But of course. Not only do you have that revoltingly modish appearance the media forces under their thumb upon young 'uns of this day and age, but you can play the diplomat as well. Your gaudy take on helping others never fails to render me speechless, pup. Your duplicitous, incongruous sense of complacency requiring that you have that ineffectual appeal to help others you don't even like for the mere sake of sculpting yourself into a facsimile of vulgar flawlessness to everybody else…the honorable, well-disposed romantic. I don't need it…I don't need you and your swindling pity, mangy mutt. Get out of my house. Take you and your idealistic smut out of here."
"Whoa there. You're throwing around words that even you prob'ly don't know, Kaiba. I really want to help you--surprising enough as it sounds even to me." Jounouchi perched onto the bed in his routinely caustic manner, and continued to speak in a shockingly composed air. "I don't know--I guess I just think that even an ungrateful prick like you doesn't deserve to starve himself to death out of self-pity. Ya…ya got a lot to offer for the world, I guess. And even though you got that god-given power to take it all away forever, I think you shouldn't--I mean, it's not right…your brother."
Seto restrained the urge to pitch the flea-bag off from his blanketing. "It's not self-pity." His nostrils nearly flared while regaining poise. "There you go again…always jabbering on and on about illusion--abstract things, and such…I'm too visual for that kind of wordplay, idiot…because it doesn't exist." His tone subsided to almost a longing timbre of that so-called "illusion". But as quick as he was to fall, his anger returned yet again. "But anyway, you have no right to drag my brother into it, Jounouchi! He's my family--you don't decide what's best for him; that decision is--! Is…" He wanted to say "Mokuba's", but well aware of the fact of that being an utter lie, he automatically knew he should've finished it off with an unsavory "mine." The decision was always his, regardless, but he didn't want to enter the risk of sounding callous toward his only relative, so he merely wavered and became lost for any further words.
"Yours, right? That's how ya finish the sentence, Kaiba--" Jounouchi pended the boy's retort, though heard none come. "No use denying something everybody knows is true."
Seto's tone struggled to seem intimidating, though it sadly emerged as a mere rasp from his throat--hardly even a reprehensive sound. "Don't say it like that."
"Eh?"
"Are you deaf? DON'T SAY IT LIKE THAT!"
"Kaiba, chill! I'm just trying to be--"
"It's not my concern. Leave, now…leave." His hand gestured hostilely toward the shut door, though a numbness little by little cast over his senses once more, and his mouth grew into a desolate tract…a heavy feeling formed in the pit of the loathsome, barren, ravenous, saclike digestive organ of his inner recesses, while releasing a gasp and relapsing onto the mattress again. Brightness that shouldn't have existed was flashing a dazzling light before his eyes and ravaging his feeble, susceptible senses--
"Kaiba…Kaiba…Kaiba? You okay?"
His quivering hand rose to a tepid temple. "Of course I'm fine, pathetic dog. I don't need your pity--"
Jounouchi voiced genuine alarm. "Ya don't look so fine, Kaiba. You sure ya might not pass out or something--?"
The Prussian-eyed teen endeavored successfully at rising again. "Positive, bungling asshole…agh--" He throttled back groans of pain result of the great agony produced via the non-existent ingredients of his famished, hollow stomach. Only acid cutting away at his innards as opposed to the food that would never be placed within it.
"Kaiba, don't tell me you hurled back up all the chocolate you ate earlier…"
Seto staggered onto foot, and approached the entryway, hand still flourished to his throbbing forehead. "Fine. I won't tell you then…"
Jounouchi clambered back onto the ground again, and drove a petulant conquest in beating Kaiba to the door. "Hey. This is your health we're talking 'bout, man. Don't you understand that if you keep doing what you've been doing for the past three months, you're going to DIE because of it! Huh! D'you get that! KAIBA! You're not invincible. And if you keep this up, you're going to drive yourself into a hospital…an early grave, for Christ's sake-and you're going to leave behind your brother once that's happened. The kid's already terrified…you need to stop this."
His gaze swerved toward the ground. It was always so very simple to wander toward the ground… "I…can't."
"Why's that, Kaiba? An' here I thought that Kaiba Seto could do anything--"
He snorted, "Whatever. It's my decision whether I want it or not. And your opinion is definitely not going to sway my own, so just…just leave, Jounouchi. I don't want to hear your voice anymore." In any case, he was too weak to argue too much about the subject.
The blond just couldn't contain the urge to steal away with livid words. "This isn't a GAME ANYMORE, IGNORANT BASTARD! THIS IS YOUR LIFE! Realize that, selfish moron--" Jounouchi frowned in sudden reflection. "I don't know why you're doing this, but it seems like you have another explanation for it than any other reason a teenage girl would screw up their life in going along with it for…why then, Kaiba? I mean, you--eating disorder? I don't see the connection here."
Seto surfaced his watery tomb in order to counter the boy's testimonial. He was slowly plummeting down…down…down beneath the undertow. "You have no right to know the answer to that, Jounouchi. As for the bathroom incident--" His eyes blazed, and his throat formed words that gave an impression of resultant disorientation. "Rape me."
The opposing Domino freshman formed an astounded expression. "What?" he rasped. "You awright, Kaiba?"
"Of course I am, you ingrate."
"Then--"
"I only made a statement. Seeing as its rhetoric's left you speechless, I'm guessing that you can't handle what I have to offer. After all," he smirked. "You were the one who set these little relations first."
"But…? You're a masochist--!"
His appearance grew introspective, countering Jounouchi's incredulity with a composed, "No."
It seemed more than unconvincing to the blond.
"I mean, I'm bein' serious here. You really--?"
Seto's breath caught short at that moment…
…Bony, tiny fists grasped compellingly onto the tarnished, blood and semen-spattered fabrics of their owner's tainted cot, while suppressing the great pain he felt from the untold misery, choked within a distress beyond words. Tears he ventured a vast struggle to withhold were now filtering from his waterlogged, gingery lashes…along his stippled complexion, every pore gapping open, dithering, and releasing both a cold and uncomfortably tepid sweat on all sides of his infantile, skeletal form.
'I hate this…I hate this…! Why do you have to do this to me, fucking bastard…!'
…An interlude of too soon bordering upon the beginning. And so easily polluted. A pallid, tattered little rag doll just awaiting the morbid hour when their joints of stitching would be no more than further undone by the delinquent, horrendous, disposed hands of their ghastly holder--day by the passing day. A hostage to fortune; a scapegoat left to forage alone, unaccompanied by his long-bearded shepherd if not his fellow sheep…
…The preteen's already fragile, trodden throat slowly began emerging as a mere spacious discoloration when burly, clanging shackles were fettered rigidly about it by a callous, vicious hand. His sobs were strangled…each breath, menacing the next to be his last, was managed to be drawn in erratically by the maimed child…and had he the desire to cry, in any case, the rectangular, metal hinges of the chains smothered what he had left of an ability to scream. He wouldn't have screamed anyway.
Every limb was dappled or swollen with yellowed, ample bruises on such ashen, lilied, delicate features--some cloudless enough, while others just beginning to come into view--and his stomach urged its host to plainly heave out its precious, warm contents. Seto tried his best not to throw up…Gouzaburou would have hysterics and instigate the poor boy's nausea all the more if he let his meal brim over from his trembling, clenching mouth. Every susceptible nerve slowly began to lose its fiery, sharp touch…bringing with it, a disastrous veil of numbness that taunted his sudden sensibility to emotional pain forevermore…
The child's expansive, devastatingly miserable eyes were hardly opened at this time. A single shackle suspended far above and behind his head clasped both his wrists together; lifting fine, pale arms behind a wearily bent mass of russet, bloody hair. His face was hidden out of great shame. Seto's naked, trampled form was seated upon his lower legs, naked torso bent forward as far as he could reach--even with the husky manacles plucked around his collar--allowing his wounded cheek to rest lithely against his tiny, ivory thighs. The way they seemed to plump up by the bulk of his body sitting down made him feel he wasn't inert quite yet.
Another pinioning moan coaxed him to give in to death's stunning anesthetic, but he managed to struggle against its overtaking specter. He felt weary…starved…drained of every shard of happiness he'd ever see again…as if he were dancing upon the very lip of death--holding back from its crest for reasons unknown.
Hardly even a tap of a weathered fingertip on his knotted shoulder blade, and his skull immediately perked up from the pillow of his thigh, jerking toward the holder of that coarse…brawny…intimidating touch.
He narrowed his eyes and snarled in the rather odd demeanor of a furious pit bull, while tugging away from Gouzaburou's looming, sallow gaze. The older man merely chuckled, and wrung the chain another time around his sturdy palm as Seto's head was immediately wrenched back, and the eleven-year-old's canines gnashed forcefully regarding the livid pain of cinder steel crushing in his Adam's apple.
The whisper tingled his moderately spent senses. "Seto…did you honestly think you could get away?"
Seto didn't respond. He only quivered uncontrollably, and curled up his buttery--white limbs in futile attempt to protect the chaste, shut out, blushing region of his too, too thin figure, still containing the impulse to vomit. Needless to say, this did not go unnoticed by Gouzaburou, but the CEO decided to goad the child in the interim.
An avid, graceful hand stroked the boy's knitted brow, casting gently yet wickedly to his forehead, wherein he drew back the tresses of reddish-brown--fondling a gorgeously formed widow's peak. Seto was frightened stiff, and though he tried with all of him to jerk away from the sadist's reach, the attempt was wasted. He hated showing fear; he knew Gouzaburou relished every moment of it.
While the maddeningly slender youth made an effort not to pant in deeply, the child prodigy felt his elbow make subtle contact with a scoured, yet well-muscled chest, and grimaced in now acknowledging the fact that Gouzaburou was not clothed. Agreed, he intended to rape the middle-schooler, yet again. Seto couldn't stand it anymore.
He was blinded by brackish, thick, copious tears he'd made such a failed attempt to suppress--lone a bleary apparition his eyes picked up on…and the awkward clamor of his obfuscator of a tutor began chiding him on the domain, in his run-together Osaka accent, within his mind's ear, "No! This is not what your eyes see…it is what your brain sees, foolish boy…!" which sequentially followed with a heated debate, and a bit of cursing-beneath-your-breath lampoon. He was, in any case, still a child.
Seto'd been taught scrupulously by his anatomy professor many a time that it wasn't an epitome extract of a real-life picture, but a protocol the brain deciphers into eyesight…he'd memorized the formula, though didn't really have whichever care for sifting through his mind for the methodical raison d'être as to why his vision was vague now. Now he was being raped; spared of both the luxury and horror of sight, and it didn't really matter anymore whether or not he knew why.
…Though his subconscious still finally hit on it: "The total aggregate of light contacting the retinas equaling the illumination multiplied by the mimicked surface light, with varying degrees of transparency given…" It all translated into utter crap in his mind.
The blue-eyed grandeur of sheer art was grappled against the mattress, framework rasping as they flitted across its soft plane...the precious virgin Mary of his inner sanctum enveloping him within a withering, fragile embrace...serenading the cozy, redundant tales of woodland sprites, the woven bands of lovers, the forever pixilated image of entrancing seraphs plaiting a tiara of violets for his so undeserving head--
'I do have enemies…and he laughs at me today. I can't let him have that privelege…!'
"Kaiba? Kaiba!"
'I have to stay strong…for you, Mokuba. I can't cry anymore…I can't be a coward; and I won't let emotion make me a coward anymore…!"
XXX