Chapter 12: Playing Catch Up

They had been back at the house for less than an hour, but Kaiba was still stewing on his problem. Sometimes Kaiba thought he could feel his tail flicking in agitation, despite being back in his human form. It was a disconcerting feeling and one that led him to feel even more irritable than he already was, which was saying something. It was gnawing at him that he had lied to his brother, especially because his brother was trying so hard to seem okay with Kaiba having abandoned all of his normal forms of communication while he was away. He never failed to call in and check on Mokuba daily when he was overseas and Kaiba swore he could see the question in his younger brother's eyes. But could he really tell him the truth?

Decision made, Kaiba went to Mokuba's room and knocked on his open door, waiting until his brother granted him permission to enter before doing so and sitting on the edge of his bed. Waiting until Mokuba sat down next to him, Kaiba tried to figure out how to start. Unaccustomed to how to approach the conversation, Kaiba started off with, "We need to talk," and tried not to wince at how terrible it sounded.

"Am I in trouble?" Mokuba asked in a worried tone, although he couldn't think of anything he had done to be so.

"Why would you be in trouble?" Kaiba wanted to know, finding it a strange assumption.

"I don't know," Mokuba said with a shrug as he tried to figure out what was going on with his older brother.

"I guess it's more I need to tell you something rather than talk," Kaiba rephrased his original statement, knowing that most of the talking had to be done on his end, much as that was repugnant to him.

Instantly looking worried, Mokuba asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Why do you keep assuming the worst?" Kaiba wanted to know, finding it a strange new habit. "I thought hanging out with the Yuugi-tachi was supposed to make you an eternal optimist or something."

Laughing at that, Mokuba agreed, "Something like that. But seriously, does this have anything to do with the trip to America?"

"It does," Kaiba confirmed, "in a manner of speaking."

"I don't follow," Mokuba said, confused by the latter part of Kaiba's statement.

"I….I wasn't in America," Kaiba forced himself to say, knowing that it was important to be honest with his brother, even if it meant he never trusted him again.

Furrowing his brow in confusion, Mokuba asked, "Why not?"

"Because I was here," Kaiba answered, although that only served to cause the crease in Mokuba's brow to deepen.

"Then why would you tell me you were in America? And why did you never contact me?" Mokuba questioned, not understanding what had happened.

"To answer your first question, it was because I felt I couldn't tell you the truth at the time," Kaiba started to reply, holding up his hand when his brother started to interrupt. "To answer your other question, it was because I couldn't."

"But you sent me the email telling me you were in America," Mokuba said without understanding, trying to make sense of what his brother was trying to explain.

"I had that sent to you from my phone, but anything beyond that was…complicated," Kaiba said after trying to settle on the right word.

"Complicated how?" Mokuba questioned, finding it strange. "And who sent it to me if you didn't? Isono?"

Holding back a sigh at how difficult the conversation was, Kaiba replied, "No, it wasn't Isono. It was Yami."

"Yami? But that doesn't make any sense!" Mokuba exclaimed, the facts not lining up right for him. "How did he get access to your phone and why would he send me that email?"

"Because I requested that he do so," Kaiba answered, although it was hardly a satisfactory response.

"Why?"

"I was…indisposed at the time," Kaiba explained, even though it wasn't much of an explanation. "It was the only viable option at the time."

"Nii-sama, you're not making any sense. What happened?"

Forcing himself to take a steadying breath, Kaiba could only hope that his brother wouldn't respond too badly to the truth. "I wasn't myself," Kaiba started to explain, but Mokuba cut him off quickly with another question.

"What does that mean? And what does it have to do with Yami?" Mokuba wanted to know, trying to connect the pieces of the puzzle together. "He didn't say anything about this when I was at his house the other day."

"That's because I asked him not to," Kaiba told him brother, feeling the need to put Yami in the clear with his brother as a result of helping him out in a bad situation. "You shouldn't blame him for not saying anything."

"About what?" Mokuba asked, getting frustrated with his brother awkwardly dodging the real subject.

"My situation," Kaiba replied, coming closer to the truth of the matter. "Yami was helping me—"

Interrupting his brother, Mokuba impatiently asked, "With what?"

"There was an…accident, I guess you could call it," Kaiba tried to explain, wanting to answer his brother's question and yet finding it hard to talk about all at the same time.

"An accident? Were you okay? Are you okay?" Mokuba nervously asked, although he still couldn't connect Yami to the problem yet.

"I'm fine now," Kaiba reassured his brother, feeling bad for worrying him.. "But at the time, I…wasn't. Well, I wasn't hurt, but I wasn't okay, either."

"What does that mean?" Mokuba asked, still feeling worried for his older brother.

"I…I had a run in with Isis," Kaiba replied, getting closer to the real story and feeling all the more nervous for it. He wouldn't blame his brother for not believing the truth; hell, he wouldn't believe it if someone told him and he had lived it! "She used her powers to punish me."

"Punish you? For what? And how did she use her powers against you?" Mokuba asked rapid fire.

"Apparently she didn't like my attitude," Kaiba dryly replied, having more than gotten the hint over the course of his punishment. "As to how she used her powers against me, she enchanted me into a different form."

"She can do that?" Mokuba asked in confusion, having had no clue that she was that powerful. "And what did she turn you into?"

"A kitten," Kaiba finally answered after taking a moment to compose himself.

The dots were starting to connect for Mokuba, but he still couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Wait, you're saying that tiny little white kitten Yami was looking after for Isis was you?" Mokuba asked in disbelief.

Nodding miserably, Kaiba confirmed, "Yeah, that was me."

"But how did…? Why did…? How did you…? And Yami…?" Mokuba kept trying to ask, but his words were failing him when he needed them most.

"Yami agreed to take care of me until I returned to normal," Kaiba told him, blatantly ignoring all the reasons why Yami had done so. Especially the ones that involved them naked together in the same bed while they—no, that thought had to stop right there and then. It startled Kaiba, but he did his best not to let it show and worry his younger brother even more. "I am…grateful. But I didn't want you to know the truth and worry."

"I was worried anyway," Mokuba pointed out, smiling sadly at the flaw in his brother's logic. "You're never too busy to call me and I was worried about you."

Looking down at his hands as he clenched them into fists, Kaiba tried to explain himself, "I just didn't want you to see me like that."

"I saw you anyway," Mokuba once again reasoned against his brother's flawed logic.

"But you didn't realize I was so powerless," Kaiba growled in his frustration, never wanting to look weak in front of his younger brother who had always looked up to him.

"Nii-sama," Mokuba said as he forced his brother to look up at him once more, "the fact that you're back to normal shows me how powerful you really are."

It was comforting to hear, but he still felt ridiculous weak to have been caught in such a situation. "Still," Kaiba insisted, needing his brother to understand, "I shouldn't have lied to you—well, had Yami lie to you—and for that I'm sorry. I just didn't see any other way when I was in that position—"

Interrupting his older brother, Mokuba reassured him, "It's okay, nii-sama. I get why you didn't want me to see you like that."

"You do?" Kaiba asked with a hint of hopefulness in his eyes.

"I don't think a younger brother is supposed to find his older brother adorable," Mokuba teased with a laugh. "I guess I should apologize for rubbing my face all over your fur, huh?"

"I didn't mind," Kaiba told him and hoped his cheeks didn't look as heated as they felt. "I was just glad to see that you were okay with my own eyes."

"You were cute," Mokuba said with a laugh and Kaiba knew his ears would have been flattened back if he were still a kitten.

"So Yami kept insisting," Kaiba muttered, although he felt a weird feeling in his stomach when he realized that the former pharaoh still harbored that thought about his human body, too.

Laughing again at the very idea of it, Mokuba commented, "I'm shocked you don't want to kill him for what he must have done to you when you were like that."

"He was….good to me," Kaiba hesitantly said, even though it cost him dearly to admit to it out loud. "He knew it was me and he treated me with respect and dignity…for the most part."

"You mean up until he remembered you were a kitten and had to pet you?" Mokuba guessed, having seen enough of their interactions that day to assume such a thing.

Nodding, Kaiba confirmed, "Precisely. It was annoying."

"You seemed to enjoy it," Mokuba teased and once again Kaiba felt the heat return to his cheeks. "He even got you to purr."

"I was at an unfair disadvantage," Kaiba insisted, less than amused that his brother had figured out such a thing. "I—"

Waving it away, Mokuba told him, "Relax, I'm only kidding. So what was it like being a kitten?"

"Boring," Kaiba immediately answered, having spent a great deal of time in that state of mind. "And gross."

Mokuba couldn't help but laugh at the thought of his clean freak brother being trapped in a kitten form. "I can't imagine you taking a kitten bath."

"That's because I didn't," Kaiba said, ignoring the few times he had accidentally caught himself licking his paw and running it over his face.

"How did you manage to avoid that?" Mokuba wanted to know, finding it hard to believe that a kitten could resist such a thing.

Averting his eyes, Kaiba muttered, "I made him give me human baths."

Snickering at that, Mokuba could only imagine the scene. "I thought kittens hated water," Mokuba pointed out, finding it odd that Kaiba could overcome such an aversion and yet not at all.

"I'm human," Kaiba insisted, "so why would I hate water?"

"I just wasn't sure how much of your instincts were human and how much were kitten when you were in that form," Mokuba said with a shrug before grinning. "You know, seeing as you licked me and all."

Holding his head in his hands, Kaiba groaned, "I'm never going to live this down, am I?"

"You'll be fine," Mokuba promised, "as long as none of those kitty instincts crossed over when you returned to your human form."

"Haha," Kaiba replied without humor as he looked up once more.

"I'm glad you're okay," Mokuba said, turning serious. "How did you return to your human form, anyway?"

"The enchantment wore off," Kaiba explained, figuring it was close enough to the truth that he didn't need to feel bad about the answer.

"So that's why you came down from Yami's room," Mokuba realized, connecting further pieces of the puzzle together.

Nodding in confirmation, Kaiba replied, "It had just happened," and tried not to think about everything else that had just happened.

"I'm glad you're back to normal," Mokuba warmly said as he leaned over and hugged his older brother. He smiled when his brother returned the hug and nestled into the embrace. "I just wish you hadn't felt the need to hide it from me."

"I know, I'm sorry," Kaiba apologized, still feeling terrible about it.

"I mean, I only got to see you once," Mokuba continued in a light tone, alerting Kaiba to the fact that he was more disappointed about that fact. "I could have played with kitten you more if I had known."

The image of his brother dangling string in front of him and Kaiba pouncing on it was quick to come to mind and he shook his head to clear himself of the image as Mokuba sat back down on the bed. "I didn't like being trapped in that form," Kaiba insisted.

"Who knew you made such a cute kitten?" Mokuba teased with a laugh, finding it hard to believe that his older brother had been reduced to such a tiny size. "Shouldn't you have been a big cat or something?"

"I assume she was adding insult to injury," Kaiba told him, knowing it was just the type of thing that Isis would do.

"Man, remind me not to piss her off," Mokuba said with another laugh. "She'll probably turn me into a puppy or something. Oh man, she could have turned you into a puppy!"

"Being a cat was the…preferred alternative," Kaiba admitted, even though he hated doing so.

"I can imagine," Mokuba commented, seeing a whole list of reasons why being a cat was better than being a dog for his older brother. "Still, it's lucky that Yami agreed to take care of you."

Finding it an odd statement, Kaiba asked, "What makes you say that?"

Shrugging, Mokuba hesitantly replied, "Because you're actually friends?"

"You think we're friends?" Kaiba asked, curious about his brother's perspective on the situation.

"I know you are," Mokuba said as he rolled his eyes at his brother's dense reaction and yet not surprised in the least. "He's the only person you actually tolerate besides me."

"What makes you say that?"

Internally laughing at having to actually explain it to his brother, Mokuba pointed out, "He's the only one you willingly spend any of your free time with besides me. That's what friends do."

"Yeah, but he's my rival," Kaiba argued.

"But he's also your friend," Mokuba countered. "You can be both, you know."

"I guess," Kaiba conceded with a shrug.

Smiling kindly at his brother, Mokuba told him, "It's a good thing, nii-sama."

"If you say so," Kaiba said with a faint smile at his brother. "But I should probably let you get back to your homework."

Hugging his brother one more time, Mokuba agree, "Okay. Thanks for telling me, nii-sama," and watched as Kaiba left after a few more words.

Kaiba started to head back to his room, feeling an immense feeling of relief at Mokuba's reaction. He couldn't stop turning his brother's words about Yami in his mind, but he did his best to push them out of his mind for the moment.


A/N: I'm so glad that everyone enjoyed last week's update! There's still a LOT of fun ahead, so I hope that you continue to enjoy it!

NEXT CHAPTER:

It was humiliating to have to admit that it wasn't all bad as a kitten and that was largely because of Yami, which was even worse

The next update will go up on Sunday, September 7th and until then, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!