One time Seto dislocated his shoulder. Gozaburo said it was because he fell out of a tree and landed on it, but Mokuba always had a sneaking suspicion that he was lying. Seto never told him what happened.

He did come to his room late that night. Mokuba can still remember how his face had looked illuminated by the hallway light; white as a sheet, sweating and half crazed, like a feral animal in pain. His shoulder hung at an impossible angle. Mokuba remembered thinking that once he'd gotten used to seeing it like that he'd like to touch it to see if it felt any different from a regular shoulder.

Hide me, his brother whispered, and instantly he had become deathly afraid. Back then he'd had a roomy closet, easily big enough to sit in comfortably. Wordlessly he'd led him to it and Seto awkwardly squished himself into a messy corner, attempting to cover himself with a blanket using his good arm. Mokuba threw the sheet over his head. "Why are you hiding? What's going on?" he whispered.

"Don't worry. Just be quiet and everything will be alright, okay?" Even in his moment of need, Seto was still the one doing the comforting.

Mokuba had closed the door and jumped into his bed, securely covering himself with blankets but remaining very much awake.

Two hours went by with nothing happening. Mokuba's nerves had started to calm when his door opened and his lights flipped on, briefly blinding him. Mokuba sat up and hazily met the eyes of the pediatrician who had taken care of Seto and Mokuba's illnesses and injuries since their adoption. For a weighted moment they stared into each other's eyes. Mokuba could see the surprise in the doctor's face and he was sure that he could clearly see the guilt and fear in his own. Because of this, years after he understood it hadn't been his fault, he would continue to blame himself that his brother had ever been found.

Another man, probably an orderly, came in and without a word began searching the room, looking under the bed, behind the furniture.

"Where's your bother, Mokuba?" the doctor asked gently.

"He's not here," he'd replied, far too loud. The orderly opened his closet door and peered inside. For one glorious moment it looked as though he was about to turn around and continue his search elsewhere, but then he paused, walked in and cleanly lifted the sheet from Seto's head. Boo.

"Come on kid, come with us," said the orderly in what he must have thought was a soothing voice. Seto hadn't moved. "We're not gonna hurt ya," the man said, trying to pull him up by the good arm. Swiftly and with alarming precision Seto sank his teeth into the man's hand. He yelped, and with a growl grabbed his arm again and wrenched him to his feet.

"Seto, calm down."

"Jordan, get in here and help me before he hurts himself."

They had to drag his older brother from out of the closet, kicking and writhing like a fish out of water all the way. Mokuba watched cowering on his bed, his childish fear and confusion leaving him paralyzed, whispering I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, even though no one was listening. Seto grabbed onto the closet's doorway and they'd almost had to break his fingers to get him to let go.

"This will be over before you know it Seto, and if you keep fighting like this it'll only make it take longer," said the doctor, earning a wild kick in the shin. "Goddamn it!" he snarled.

With a final tug they wrenched his good hand off and half carried him out the door. Mokuba stood up mechanically, preparing to follow, but then froze. As he stared out into the hall, he saw that Gozaburo had been standing there half hidden in the shadows the entire time, looking on. If guilty wasn't the word to describe the look on his aging face, there was at least a defined heaviness there that wasn't usually present. Suddenly he seemed to sense that someone was observing at him and looked up. Spotting Mokuba, he wordlessly strode over to his door and closed it, clicking the lock on the outside of it firmly into place.

It was a testament to Seto's stoicism that he had barely made a sound during the entire fight, but safely out of Mokuba's sight and on his way to certain pain his warbling scream filled the mansion, reverberating off the walls. Mokuba had never once heard him yell before and the noise was more than enough to shake him out of his petrified state.

"Leave him alone! LEAVE HIM ALONE!" he screamed, jumping out of bed and pounding on the door. He knew his brother was going to die and he attacked his door for all it was worth, but he was only eight and too weak to break out. He must have screamed and kicked for at least a half an hour before he finally fell to the floor spent and sobbing, eventually fading from consciousness on the soft beige carpet.

But Seto didn't die. They hadn't been trying to hurt him, they just wanted to fix him. The next time he saw his brother his shoulder was back where it belonged. Through this, Mokuba learned that sometimes you'd rather suffer through the awkwardness and handicap of a wound than face certain pain trying to make it right.

He knows that for this reason, he'll be fine if Seto doesn't speak of the conversation again, but after about twenty minutes his brother enters his room with a plate in his hand.

"I brought you some pizza. They had some at the meeting, I thought you'd like it."

It is clearly meant to be a peace offering and Mokuba gives him an exasperated look. His brother is smarter than this and he expected, if anything at all, at least a more creative attempt at getting back into his good graces.

"Well, if you don't eat it I will," Seto grumbles. He places the plate on the nightstand and sits on the bed. "What were you doing in my office?"

"Hanging out," is all Mokuba can manage to say. He doesn't feel like talking right now.

Seto appears to have run out of things to say too because there's an awkward silence. This is such bullshit. All of this is such bullshit, Mokuba thinks. He's of course referring to the situation at hand, but he's sure it could also refer to the past few years. When Seto decided that he didn't need him anymore. When he decided that the changes in his brother were none of his business.

"When did this happen? When did it get so hard for us to talk? We used to hang out all the time and now…" he trails off because he doesn't need to finish the thought. Instead he looks at Seto, who is now hunched over, hand supporting his chin, thinking.

"Do you know?" he asks. Seto blinks and then shakes his head, admitting that he agrees with what is being said and therefore further depressing his little brother.

"I'm sorry," mutters Mokuba, hating how pitiful his voice sounds, "if I've been annoying or a bother."

Seto shakes his head again. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"Then why do you act like it?"

The question finally makes Seto look at him, brow furrowed once again. "I don't act like it."

"Yes, you do. You do it all the time; I've been keeping track." As soon as it's out of his mouth he regrets saying the last part.

"What are you talking about? What have I done?"

"You always act like you're mad at me or something. You yell all the time about stuff that shouldn't even matter."

"That's not about you, that's just the way I talk," Seto protests. Mokuba stares at him. "…That's not good enough, is it?" Seto says. He sighs and goes back to staring at the opposite wall. "You shouldn't take the things I say seriously, Mokuba."

"You shouldn't say them at all." Mokuba counters.

"No, I shouldn't," Seto agrees. He looks back at him. "I've been careless, haven't I?"

Mokuba gives a wary nod.

"I would hate for you to think," Seto says slowly, this openness a foreign concept to him "that anything I do that seems cruel has anything to do with you."

Mokuba rolls onto his side so that he now faces his brother. "Why do you act like that anyways? What are you so mad at?"

Seto looks like this question has sent him off into his own world; almost as if he has just realized that his phone is missing and now he's trying to remember where he left it. Mokuba knows better than to ever expect to get an answer now so he keeps talking. "You know you don't have to act like that around me. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"You sound like Yugi," Seto sneers, but then he catches himself and says, "I know that. Once again, it's not your fault. I'm not tryingto upset you."

"You don't seem to be trying to prevent it from happening either," Mokuba growls.

Seto buries his faces in his hands and lets out a tired sigh. Mokuba waits for him to collect himself.

Finally he looks up. "Listen, you know I… love you." His face twists slightly at the last phrase as if it hurts him to say so. "And if I don't say it as much as I should it's because I think it's a given, not because I don't mean it."

"Then why'd you make that face?"

"Because this is hard for me," he snaps, finally unable to keep his agitation from bleeding into his voice, "and if you haven't realized, I'm not the kind of person who just walks around saying this stuff."

Mokuba turns onto his side away from his brother. "It's not that fucking hard," he tells him, coldly. A voice meant to freeze off whatever tie is between them. "Don't make it out like you're a victim, because you're not."

This seems like a good final word and he makes a mental note to congratulate himself on it later. Right now he simply waits for the depression in his bed where Seto is sitting to relax, as it will when his brother stands up to leave; the signal that he has won this terrible argument. But instead of this he feels a hand grip his shoulder bracingly. He recoils instinctively, but it, rather annoyingly, stays where it is.

"Come on," Seto says, his voice unnervingly different in its softness. He squeezes his shoulder tighter. "You know you're the only person I really care about; I don't give anyone half as much thought as I give you, you know that, right?"

Mokuba bites his lip. This is what he's wanted to hear for a long time, and what really hurts is that he has to listen to it right when he's in the middle of learning not to care that he'll never hear it directed at him. The shift in gears makes his chest ache.

"You know what?" Seto asks gently, "We need to calm down so we can actually talk about this without making it worse. I know you haven't eaten yet; I'll call out for pizza and that DVD you wanted to see. And we'll work from there, alright?"

This request suddenly makes Mokuba laugh.

"What?" his brother asks warily.

He looks over his shoulder and grins shyly, "Nothing. It's just funny how you always solve stuff by buying something."

"I don't…" his brother's face freezes suddenly. "Fuck, how did that happen?"

"Never mind," says Mokuba quickly, "I like pizza."

"Yeah, I know." He stands up. "Come on, let's go."

They spend the rest of the night in a state of silent calm and acceptance that comes after any release of emotion. The pizza is cold when it arrives and the movie is kind of stupid, but it doesn't matter. Mokuba has forgotten how enjoyable it is to just sit there with someone, not doing anything but not necessarily ignoring each other either. But as two in the morning comes and goes, according to the digital clock on the DVD player, Mokuba suddenly remembers that they had been planning to continue their conversation. He doesn't really want to bring up the painful topic again at this point, but there is still a sense of openness lingering around in the air that he bitterly admits will fade by tomorrow, and he wants to get as much out of it as possible.

"Seto?"

His brother turns and he finds he must struggle to think of something to say.

"…Do you remember when you dislocated your shoulder?"

He nods.

"How did that happen? I never found out."

Seto slowly places his plastic plate onto the side of the couch, crosses his legs and leans back. "Well, let's see," he says tightly, staring up at the ceiling as he conjures up the memory.

"I think that happened back when I was studying geometry. My tutor gave me this huge list of problems to do that might have taken me, what, two hours to complete? I already understood what he wanted me to work on and I couldn't see the point in doing all that just to prove it. So instead I went to bed early since I was so tired. That must have been one of the first times I rebelled against what they told me to do." He pauses for a moment, savoring this discovery. "I was almost asleep when Gozaburo came in and told me to get up and finish what I was supposed to. I didn't move, we started fighting and, well, he pulled my arm a little too hard." He straightens his head so his eyes are facing the T.V.

"I don't think he was trying to do what happened," he admits grudgingly, "but he didn't seem too depressed with the results."

"Damn," says Mokuba quietly. "I didn't know that. What did he do next?"

"Left the room. Didn't say a fucking word, just left me on the bed."

"And that's when you came to my room?"

"After I'd stopped shaking so much, yes." Seto's voice is a mechanical monotone as he reveals this, as if he's repeating the latest Kaiba Corp stock price. But Mokuba, who has lived with him for all his life, can hear the rage just barely accenting his words, an energized and twisted mutation of his shame and helplessness.

"Which reminds me," Seto sighs, his voice suddenly heavy as lead, "I never apologized for bringing you into that mess. I shouldn't have burdened you with my own problem like that."

"No, I wanted to help," says Mokuba quickly. He attempts to catch his brother's eyes, but they're now starting unseeingly at the wooden table in front of him.

"Thanks, but there's no way you could have. You were too young."

And once again, his words sting. Not because he thinks Seto sees him as worthless and too weak to be of service, but because he is right. He couldn't have helped and what's more, he can't help him now. Despite loving each other more than anyone else ever had and never being physically far apart, they are vastly separated. Unseen between them is a canyon full of differences ranging from age to experiences to role models to conflicting emotions. And Mokuba's devotion and protection does not reach far enough across to touch his brother, who he now realizes has always, in one way or another, stood alone. All he can do is watch as he either continues to withstand blow after blow or at long last, crumble to pieces and blow away un-mourned by anyone except the one who couldn't save him.

And, because it's the most he can offer, this is what he'll do.

"Well, just because I'm younger than you doesn't mean I can't help in some way."

But Seto shakes his head. "There was nothing you could have done. And it was stupid of me to think that you should have to try. It's not right that you should be bothered with my issues."

"You're always up in my shit, why can't I be up in yours?"

The stupid phrasing achieves the desired effect; Kaiba finally looks at him, mouth twisted slightly with disgust.

"Is that how kids talk these days?"

"My point is-"

"Because if you say that one more time, I'm taking you out of public school."

"Listen; just because I'm younger than you doesn't mean I can't at least give support or whatever. What, you think I'm not tough enough to handle it?"

"It's not a matter of not being strong enough; it's a matter of not making you deal with things you shouldn't have to worry about."

"Well, what if I want to worry about it? I'd rather stick around when you're in trouble than just sit in the dark."

Seto bites his lip, turns his head slightly, then turns back to look at his brother.

"Fine; the next time KaibaCorp is about to take a nosedive, and the next time all my chief executives decide to simultaneously quite, and the next time I'm informed by the geek patrol that the next card game played is going to decide the fate of the planet, I'll give you a ring. Does that sound nice?" he asks sarcastically.

"Yep," says Mokuba happily. Then he gives an exaggerated stretch and lies down on the couch, his head resting on Seto's thigh. His brother flinches at the unauthorized display of affection, but as Mokuba falls into a heavy sleep next to him he gradually un-stiffens and relaxes deep into the couch.