"Twist of Fate" focused almost entirely on Seto's grief over the loss of Mokuba, and his slow, plodding recovery. A distinct point of interest toward the end of the story was the idea that full recovery, indeed even partial recovery, from that loss is impossible for him. I had this idea in my head when I first started writing it, and so it didn't take me long to decide that I couldn't let it stay that way. I had to figure out a way for Mokuba to come back. Since I was...oh, about 14 or so when Twist was written, the best I could come up with was, "It's a dream!"
The thing about dreams is that they're easily, and quickly, forgotten. Any psychological ramifications from Mokuba's death would be pushed under the rug. Seto wouldn't have to deal with them for long, and would easily be able to ignore them even if they popped up from time to time. This time around, though, it wasn't a dream. Seto attended his brother's funeral, delivered his brother's eulogy, watched his brother's coffin lowered into the ground. Yami may have "saved the day," as he is wont to do...but that doesn't change what happened to Seto's mind.
That is the focus on this section. Seto has proven himself to be quite adept at handling himself at all times with pride and determination.
Some times are...harder than others.
PART FOUR:
Backlash
33.
She woke in a raw panic.
Roland Ackerman was in the room when Akiko opened her eyes and all but sprang to her feet, pale and terrified. "What time is it?" she demanded. Roland made to smooth his thin mustache in a not-so-subtle way of hiding his sudden grin.
"Some minutes before noon," he said. The rising star of the Kaiba family staff— the "house favorite"—could not have looked more mortified if he had said that her grandmother had had a stroke and was in intensive care. Roland added, "Master Kaiba and Young Master Mokuba are both still sleeping, themselves. I doubt you have to worry." He frowned curiously. "...Did you know about this...scheme Master Kaiba set in motion, by the way?"
Akiko visibly calmed, though she couldn't hide all of the anxiety flooding her with adrenaline, and shook her head. "Not in the slightest, Mister Ackerman. I very nearly slammed the door in Bocchan's face. I thought it was...some kind of...prank..."
Roland raised an eyebrow. "I probably would have thought the same thing. If I were to venture a guess, Master Kaiba is going to be particularly distracted now that the young master is back home. I wonder if he will inform us of his plan to handle the public, once it leaks that the funeral was a hoax."
"Bocchan's popularity will soar once that information does come out," Akiko said with a grin. "Have you seen some of the tributes and videos and...events held in his honor since this happened? Think how relieved all those people will be."
"That would depend entirely on how the information is received. If Master Kaiba makes a preemptive strike, and the explanation is directly from him, I'd venture to agree with you. If the news leaks from some other source, I'm thinking they'll be outraged."
"You think so?"
"I do. He's already gotten plenty of bad press over his, ah...performance at the young master's funeral. I doubt he cares, but...well, anyway. I can see you're wanting to make up for lost time. I'll take my leave. Could you mention to Master Kaiba that I would like to speak with him, once he wakes?"
"Of course."
Roland smiled, nodded, and left.
Akiko quickly began sorting through her various duties, cursing herself for sleeping so accursedly late. She might have rationalized the behavior by telling herself that Yugi Mutou's visit to the mansion kept her awake until about five in the morning, and in light of that noon wasn't so bad. But she worked for the Kaiba family, and she had learned by her master's example that such thinking was needlessly weak and destructive, and she shuddered at the thought of going to Seto-sama with such an excuse.
The only reason panic hadn't quite set in was because of what Roland had said; as long as she had things relatively in order by the time Seto-sama woke up, the day was not lost.
She wasn't sure if it was unconscious or not that her work—largely habitual, and she wouldn't remember half if any of it by the next day—eventually led her to Seto-sama's bedchamber. It wasn't often that she needed to visit this room. The man who had inherited the Kaiba legacy was nothing if not organized, and his personal space was a perfect reflection of that. The previous day was the first time she had had to clean this particular room in some four months, and it had been the dirtiest she had ever seen it (any other single, teenage male would have considered it perfectly clean).
Bocchan had been true to his word; he had spent the night there. He lay huddled next to his elder brother, one arm draped lazily across Seto-sama's middle and using Seto-sama's shoulder as a pillow. A protective arm was wrapped around the young Kaiba; Seto-sama kept his other folded behind his head. Akiko knew that he kept a spare gun underneath his pillow, and for a long time she had wondered if this wasn't a bit...paranoid.
After the events of the past two weeks, she now understood.
Seto-sama trusted no one to watch his back (or his brother's) while he slept.
Bocchan looked contented, peaceful, reunited with his hero. Akiko couldn't help but grin. The boy wore forest green pajamas, the collar of his shirt was skewed, and one leg popped out from underneath the comforter, revealing one bare foot. He was smiling just slightly.
Seto-sama was in stark contrast to his heir, but of course this was no surprise. He lay flat on his back, his blue bedclothes almost looked straight enough to have been ironed (while he'd been wearing them), and his face was—while peaceful and free of worry compared to his usual glare—a statuesque picture of nothingness.
He looked like nothing so much as a bodyguard, even while unconscious.
Akiko wished she had a camera.
And at the same time, she was glad she didn't.
She shut the door softly behind her, and went back to work with the grin still on her face.
All was right with the world again.
34.
He woke in a haze.
He couldn't remember waking up so fundamentally tired in years. It brought him back to memories he had thought were buried forever; as he forced himself to rise, he half-expected Diamun, Gozaburo's most efficient henchman, to stalk into the room with his switch and his ridiculous glasses to inform Seto that his laziness would cost him.
But Diamun was not here.
Diamun had been fired years ago, and had died not long after that. The ancient demon had always seemed a part of the mansion, like he had materialized into existence during its construction, and without it, age had finally caught up with him.
Seto blinked, rubbed his eyes, and wondered just how far gone he was, to be entertaining such idiotic fantasies. He swung his legs out from beneath the covers of his bed and stumbled to his feet, grimacing as a sharp, lancing pain arced its way through his head. He walked over to his closet, removed a suit, grabbed a pair of shoes, then made his way over to his dresser for socks and a tie. He had no conscious idea what he was picking out
It wasn't until he'd showered, shaved, combed through his hair, brushed his teeth and dressed, that he even remembered why he was bothering with this old routine in the first place. Why he cared the faintest bit what he looked like. Once the memory fully formed itself in his mind, he nearly ripped off the bathroom door as he threw himself back into his bedchamber.
Mokuba lay on one side of his brother's bed, a leg hanging over the edge, tangled in sheets and comforter to the point that it would take a pair of shears or a machete to extract him. Seto stared, breath coming in haggard little gasps as he forced his heart rate to slow down, and nearly fell to his knees with relief. He hung his head low, sounding for a moment like a drowning man.
His entire body was shaking.
He barely managed to keep from stumbling as he made his way over to the armchair in one corner of the room. Mokuba mumbled in his sleep, turned around so that Seto could see his face, half-obscured by his mass of ebony hair. An image flashed into Seto's mind: that same face, meticulously sculpted and presented for the grave; that same hair, washed clean and combed perfectly in preparation for an eternity in the unrelenting dampness of the earth.
Anyone else probably would have forced the macabre memory away; anyone else would have tried their level best to forget it.
Seto Kaiba...was not anyone else.
He held on, forced it forward in as clear a picture as his twisted, machine-like mind could create. It was painful; his stomach twisted in upon itself, his headache intensified, the air he pulled into his lungs was heavy and thick, and his eyes burned. But he forced himself to remember his brother's corpse just the same.
The minutes inched past, and silence settled around him like a smothering blanket.
Eventually, the utter lack of ambient sound in the room—which made every miniscule tick, swish, creak, scratch and sigh that did enter his ears echo in his head like a loudspeaker—threatened to drive him insane. He normally thrived on absolute quiet like this, normally kept his personal space absolutely free of anything that could possibly offend absolute quiet like this.
But...his life wasn't normal right now, and neither was his mind.
He reached over to the tiny remote that controlled the sound system set up throughout the room—Seto still wasn't sure why he'd installed it, but thought perhaps it was to spite the chamber's former occupant—and clicked a few buttons.
The same music that had once played in the now-abandoned bedroom on the third floor began to permeate through the bedroom he had once thought to be abandoned on the second. He wondered if Yoshimi had taken the disc from out of his old "haunt" and replaced it here. He wondered if he had taken the disc and replaced it here, and didn't remember doing it because his grip on his own memory was so shaky that he could barely remember his own name half the time.
He realized he didn't care.
Mokuba's eyes fluttered open, and he sat up.
Seto gave no reaction when the boy mumbled a quiet, groggy, "Morning, Niisama."
Seto didn't even know that Mokuba was there anymore.
35.
On the first morning of his new life, Mokuba woke up feeling ten times more tired than when he'd gone to sleep.
His head hurt. His whole body hurt. His mouth was dry and it took him a while before he could actually open his eyes. He didn't know what time it was, or why he wasn't just going back to sleep—unless the house was on fire, no way anybody would blame him for sleeping in...right?—but he sat up anyway. Maybe it was because his brother'd taught him that way. Maybe it was because he wanted to go to the game room and do something fun, and try to forget about the man who killed him.
Maybe it was because of the music.
He had no idea.
When Mokuba did manage to wrest his eyelids apart, at first he wasn't sure what he was seeing, or what he was hearing. He noticed a shape in front of him that vaguely resembled...what he thought a person should look like. It took several monumentally confusing seconds before he remembered that he was in his brother's room.
So he said, out of sheer habit, "Morning, Niisama."
He didn't get Seto's usual reply. Okay, so, "Morning, kid," wasn't exactly the most intricately composed greeting in the history of language, but it was nice to hear. Seto never said that to other people. It was special. Seto had lots of little names for his brother, depending on his mood. Mokuba sometimes wondered if Seto used them to make up for the fact that he never called him "Mokie" anymore, which had always been Mokuba's favorite.
So instead, Seto called him things like "kid," or "kiddo," or "imp," and it wasn't really about the names but about the way he said them. That's what made them special, and it was just one of the innumerable reasons Mokuba called him, "Niisama," even though he was probably the only person in the world with permission to use his real name.
While he waited, the young Kaiba finally began to understand what he was hearing.
Music.
...He knew it was music already, but he still stopped and wondered when he thought about it, because Seto didn't really listen to music a lot. He liked solitude, and quiet. On the rare occasions he did want to spice things up a little, he listened to classical stuff; piano and violin and things like that. Sometimes he played on the piano he kept in the front parlor. Mokuba always liked that.
Seto had never, in all the years Mokuba had known him, listened to this.
At first, before he really registered that he could see clearly, he wondered maybe if Seto had done this for him. Maybe Seto just thought his brother would like to wake up listening to his favorite band, maybe he would get breakfast in bed or something like that (he doubted it; this was Seto's bed, after all, and the day he let Mokuba eat here was the day Mokuba shaved his hair off and made a coat out of it), and Seto just wanted to...
But he never finished that thought.
Just as one song finished and the next started, Mokuba finally paid attention to what his brother looked like. He was dressed in his usual pristinely ironed suit. He'd picked a tan one today, and his shirt was black. His tie was black, too, and it took a second for Mokuba to see it. Seto's hair was perfectly combed, his face clean-shaven (unlike the night—morning—before, when he'd had a distinct five-o-clock shadow that would have reminded Mokuba of his father, from the handful of pictures he had seen of his biological parents, if he'd bothered to think about it). Everything looked just like it should in the morning.
Except...
Oh, God.
"Niisama!" Mokuba cried, breathless like he'd just been punched in the stomach, as he tore himself away from the sheets strangling his legs and all but threw himself onto the floor in a mad rush for his brother.
Seto looked distracted sometimes. Every so often, his eyes would glaze over and you could tell that he wasn't paying attention to what was going on. It was rare, and almost every time Mokuba had seen it, it had been here, in this room, because Seto kept a stranglehold on his life, and he often simply refused to let himself lose focus anywhere but here, his personal sanctuary.
This wasn't like that.
Not even close.
Mokuba could only think of one time he'd ever seen Seto's eyes like this. Not glazed, but like glass. His face wasn't just blank, it was...slack. He'd let go, completely, and not because he'd wanted to let go. This...this...
...Was just like the first time Yugi beat Seto at Magic & Wizards. The first time he'd used that weird...magic, or whatever it was, like Pegasus Crawford used.
Seto wasn't just lost in his own thoughts.
He was gone.
Mokuba forced himself to stop from barreling into his sibling's prone, almost comatose form, and bit his lip to keep from crying. This couldn't be. Not again. Seto had been through too much of this...this...
Wait.
Seto always said, never jump to conclusions; sneak up on them, take them by surprise.
Maybe...maybe this wasn't...
The black-haired boy took several deep, steadying breaths, and began to inspect his brother's face, and especially his eyes, more closely. There was a tiny little smear of blood just behind his left ear, from shaving. His jaw was tight, not slack, but Mokuba wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. He wasn't sure at all.
Now that he was closer, Mokuba realized that Seto's bright cobalt eyes weren't blank at all; they were just as vibrant as ever. They just...weren't aware. Seto could still see, he was still conscious, he just...
His thin eyebrows were quavering, a distinct crease furrowing his brow in something between anger and...pain. Sadness of the deepest order, that's what this was. Deep, cutting, wrenching grief. Mokuba's lower lip began quivering, and he all but chomped down on it. He could feel tears forming, burning his eyes. He knew where that grief, that pain, came from. He knew what to...what to blame for it. Who to blame for it.
He dared to put a shaking hand on his brother's shoulder.
"...Nii...sama?"
It was like a switch had been thrown. Like he'd pressed a button beneath Seto's jacket. The elder Kaiba's face snapped upward, his eyes cleared, and it was like...like a computer turning on. Mokuba twitched, and as nice as it was to see the slack wrongness leave his brother's body, this was somehow more frightening. Nobody could switch emotions this quickly. This wasn't right. This wasn't healthy, and it wasn't natural.
Seto turned to face his brother, and a smile rose on his thin lips. Mokuba didn't trust it. The realization hit the black-haired boy like a speeding train that for the first time in his life, Mokuba was scared of his big brother's face. Of his eyes.
Of him.
"Hey," Seto said. His voice almost sounded natural. Like a recording. Seto's eyebrows furrowed again, this time in concern, and he reached out a hand. Mokuba had to clench his fists to keep from flinching away from that hand as it brushed a few strands of hair from his face. "Are you feeling well, Mokuba?" he asked.
His voice was too low. Too slow. He sounded groggy, slow-motion, and it seemed like his lips were moving too precisely. Like this was all some kind of act. But Mokuba knew that it wasn't. Seto never put on masks. Not when they were together. When they were together, Seto finally took his masks off. He was finally himself, and Mokuba had always loved those times, had always cherished those times, because Seto just...looked like himself. He looked right.
But this...this was horribly, irrevocably wrong.
"Mokuba?" Seto repeated, and there was the first inkling of honesty in his tone now. It was concern. Of course it was. Seto had always been able to see right through his brother's mood. Mokuba could hide things from other people, mostly because he was a kid and nobody ever really paid too much attention to him, but not from Seto. Not from Niisama.
"I'm...I..." Mokuba began, stumbling over the words like his tongue had literally been tied into a knot. "I'm...hungry," he finally blurted out, even though he wasn't. On the contrary, he felt sick, and thought that just the sight of food would make him throw up.
But anything was better than...this.
Anything was better than that mechanical, habitual, fake smile.
Seto blinked, surprised by this answer, but eventually he nodded. "Of course. You're shaking, Mokuba. Are you cold? Are you still tired? Get back in bed, little brother. You need to let your body rest. I'll have Yoshimi bring you something. Go, go. It's okay."
Slowly, flatly, Mokuba thought that he should shave his head and make a coat. But the joke wasn't funny. He didn't feel like laughing. He wanted to cry, and when he climbed woodenly onto his brother's bed and watched Seto tuck the covers around him with all the emotion of a battery-operated action figure, it took every bit of control that he had (which wasn't much right now, but surprisingly, it was enough) not to cry.
This wasn't right.
He didn't want this.
In the back of his mind, he heard a whisper of a thought, that if this was what life was going to be like after a miracle, then he didn't want miracles. If this was what a miracle did to his big brother, then miracles be damned. If this was what he had to look forward to every day, he wanted to go back to Vinewood Terrace Cemetery, and just go back to...nothing.
As Seto walked over to the door, Mokuba realized that he didn't want to cry anymore.
He was too scared to cry.
36.
Some part of Seto knew, as he left his bedroom to find Yoshimi, that this wasn't working. That what he was trying to do wasn't going to fly.
Mokuba could see right through it.
And not only could he see through it, but he didn't trust it. And some part of Seto knew that if Mokuba didn't trust him, then it didn't matter what he was trying to do. It didn't matter what he thought he should do. If Mokuba didn't trust him, then whatever this was...was wrong. End of story.
He dropped the facade. He found Yoshimi feverishly dusting one of the bookshelves in the library, and he said, "Mokuba is hungry." He had a feeling that this had been a lie, but on the off-chance that it wasn't, he didn't intend to have his brother want for anything right now.
...Hn.
Ironic.
"Will you and Bocchan be coming to the dining room?" Yoshimi asked immediately, breaking his train of thought and bringing him back to reality. "Or would you like me to bring something up to him?"
"Do that. He's tired, and he seems to have been through a lot in the past few days. I want him resting. Have Connolly make him French toast and sausage."
"Ah..." Yoshimi said with a conspiratorial twinkle in her eye. "His very favorite. At once, Seto-sama. And should I have Connolly make up something for you, as well?"
"...An apple," Seto said eventually. He wasn't particularly hungry, but seeing Mokuba's face as he'd tucked him in had woken the young executive enough to remember that he hadn't been taking care of himself lately, and he couldn't trust his body to tell him what it needed right now. It was too used to running on nothing, and his mind was too used to letting it run on nothing.
It was time to take back control.
Yoshimi didn't ask if he was sure. She didn't ask if he wanted anything else. She knew better. She'd been around him long enough to know that what he said was what he meant, and what he requested was what he wanted.
"Of course, Seto-sama," Yoshimi said, bowed, and left the room.
Seto turned around as she passed him, and stopped in the doorway. He contemplated which direction he should go. He wondered if he should go back to his room, and risk making Mokuba uncomfortable again.
But then he realized that the idea of leaving him alone, of being separated from him for any length of time, wasn't only abhorrent. It was terrifying. Fear welled up in him like a sickness, and his heart raced as he all but blurred down the hallway toward the stairs.
He cursed Yugi Mutou and his goddamned games.
This had all been planned.
This had all been orchestrated.
And the bastard was probably laughing about it.
37.
"Do you like driving people crazy?"
Yugi wasn't sure what made him ask the question. He had been telling himself for months now that Yami wouldn't answer things like that. He'd known for months now that Yami didn't like answering what he considered obvious inquiries. And he certainly didn't like holding his host's hand when it came to figuring things like this out.
Yami continued: "You were the one, the one for me. Now that you're gone, it's hard to see. So much of me has gone away. There's no need to stay another day. But someone's got to pay."
Yugi sighed, shook his head, and turned back to his desk. "I'll take that as a yes," he mumbled. "Did you bring Mokuba back to Kaiba like that just so you could claim that they have the same birthday? Don't you think you could have done it a bit more...I don't know, subtly? Eased him into it a bit more? You scared the daylights out of him, you know. He looked ready to kill. What would that have solved?"
"The real question, Aibou," said Yami, slowly and contemplatively, "is what wasting time worrying about it, and questioning my motives, is going to solve. My motives shouldn't matter to anyone but me. Is Kaiba going to care, once he gets over his initial shock, why I brought his brother back? Not for long. He's going to care that he has a reason to live again. He's going to care that an innocent boy has a chance to live again."
"And you...don't care about that at all. Do you?"
Yami shrugged. "I don't suppose I do. It's interesting to contemplate, I suppose. If you're asking if I relate to it, or if I understand it personally...no. Not really. I've never understood the depths of sacrifice to which each Kaiba aspires for the other. But then, that's not exactly important, now, is it? If Kaiba goes insane, well...that's a pity. But there's a very real chance that all he needs is to remember himself. To remember just how pathetically he clings to Mokuba for validation."
"Wow. You're a regular philanthropist, aren't you?"
Yami smirked. "What was that phrase? Your mother said it once. 'Honesty is the best policy.' Well, that may or may not be true, but you want to be careful about that idea, nonetheless. I am honest. Far more honest than anyone else you know, I daresay."
"Most people would consider that a good thing."
"Most people are dishonest."
Yami always had an answer, no matter the question; he always had a response, no matter the statement. Social interaction was the greatest of games to this ancient adrenaline junkie, and he thrived on confusing the hell out of people. Yugi often found that it was easier to indulge him than it was to ignore him, and so he was often wrapped up in the gambler's web.
Did that make Yami a spider?
And was Yugi, then, an insect?
Yugi saw the wicked smile rising on his partner's face and knew that he'd hit the mark.
"I don't regret what we did to bring Mokuba back," Yugi said, "but you had to know that reuniting them the way you did was going to be hard. On both of them. You could have eased them into it."
"No, I don't think I could have. What was the first thing Mokuba thought about when he was reborn? His brother. Do you honestly think that boy would have let us ease him into anything? If we'd built a prison cell to keep him away from Kaiba, he would have picked up a spoon and dug through the walls. And if he had no spoon, if he had no tools at all, he would have bitten off a fingernail and used it to dig through the walls. And if he had no fingernails, he would wait for them to grow back. The gods themselves would be hard-pressed to keep those two apart. As evidenced by the fact that even Death failed at it."
"Because of you. Not them."
"Don't be so sure, Aibou."
Yugi felt a shudder ripple through him, wondering if Yami meant what he thought Yami meant. The grin was gone, and the spirit simply raised an expectant eyebrow, and Yugi knew that it was true.
"It...could have failed?"
"Very easily."
Yugi shot to his feet. Sudden fury pounded through his blood, and he felt like he was going to explode. "Are you kidding me? After what we put into that ritual, after you guilt-tripped everybody into making that sacrifice, we might have ended up with nothing?"
Yami's face didn't even twitch. Something about the haughty indignation there reminded Yugi that this man had once ruled over an entire country as a living god. When the spirit spoke, it sounded like ice taken audible form: "And would you have had me admit that to them, to you, beforehand? Would you have made this sacrifice, would you have taken the risk, if you'd known it to be a risk? I do not consider the feelings of others to take precedence over necessary actions."
"You...you...I can't believe you would...!"
"If Kaiba had come to me, I would have told him. Do you know why?"
"Because...because he would have done it anyway. Because it wouldn't have mattered to him if there was a chance at failure. Any price would have been worth it to Kaiba...just for the chance that it would work."
"...No."
Yugi blinked, and the haze of anger was lifted in favor of confusion. "What?"
"I would have been honest with Kaiba because he deserves it. Because he has earned it. You need to understand something, Yugi. I do not trust your friends in these matters. Their hatred of Kaiba clouds their minds and obstructs their vision, and if I must manipulate them in order to keep Kaiba sane and halfway healthy, then that is a small price to pay."
"...That makes no sense. Kaiba's more valuable to you than...than...?"
"Believe what you will. It makes no difference to me if you understand or approve. My goal has been achieved, and so has yours, might I add. Does the might-have-been matter so much to you? You may want to rethink that. It leads to nothing good."
And with that, it was apparent that Yami believed the conversation to be over.
He disappeared.
38.
"Well, well...someone's hungry today."
In response to Akiko's observation, Mokuba made a grunting noise that wasn't quite a word as he jabbed a piece of sausage and topped it with a strip of toast, and dipped it into the pool of syrup on his plate. Now that food was in front of him, he was famished. Confronted with his favorite morning meal, any sense of sickness had gone away. The entire world consisted of Mokuba, the fork in his hand, and this beautiful, heavenly, otherworldly...
"I realize that you're hungry and that you enjoy that particular meal," came a sudden voice, more familiar than any other, intruding on his little world and making reality come back with all the suddenness of a lightning strike, "but you could at least act as though I've taught you table manners."
Mokuba looked up, looking like nothing so much as a cornered rodent when the lights come on, and stared at the man standing behind Akiko. The man with the ghost of a smirk on his face and his hands in his pockets; the man he idolized.
He almost let out a sigh of relief.
He almost thought he'd imagined the rest of this morning.
He almost let himself believe that his Niisama was back.
But there was still something wrong. There was still something that Seto couldn't hide. Not from Mokuba, who had spent so many years of his young life studying his elder sibling's face. Not from Mokuba, who had spent so many years paying such close attention to his elder sibling's moods. There were certain things that Seto just couldn't hide.
But one thing Seto had always been able to hide was pain.
Another was fear.
And so to see what looked like both stamped into his eyes was almost enough to send the boy diving under the bed to hide. This wasn't right. It still wasn't right. It was almost right; Seto had come close, so very, very close.
But his eyes...
His eyes were still...
"Yes, Niisama," Mokuba mumbled, after he'd swallowed. "Sorry, Niisama."
Seto nodded. "It's okay, kid. Just slow it down a bit, before you choke."
Mokuba nodded. Turned his eyes away.
A knife stabbed through his heart as he realized he couldn't look at his brother.
His hunger was suddenly gone. He ate a bite of sawdust-coated cardboard and tried to keep from crying. Nobody spoke; even Akiko seemed to have noticed that something was wrong. The admonition was hardly out of character for Seto, and usually Mokuba wasn't affected by such things. He took it very seriously when his brother was actually upset with him, but something as tame as telling him to eat more slowly shouldn't have done anything to dampen the black-haired boy's mood.
"...When you're finished," Seto said slowly, "if you're ready, I need to speak with you. Take your time, Mokuba. We don't have much time, but we have enough. Take...take it easy."
And Seto left.
Another knife shot through Mokuba's entire body, propelled by the relief he felt.
No.
No, he...he didn't...
He didn't want this.
39.
Yugi sometimes wondered how Yami always seemed to know what was going to happen before it did. Could he just...read the future? Was he some kind of prophet? Yugi couldn't tell anymore, and was starting to think that it didn't matter.
He sat in his soul room, idly twisting and turning a Rubik's Cube in his hands as his partner took over. In the beginning, Yami would wait until his host met some kind of danger before taking control of the body they shared. As they both grew more comfortable with the situation in which they found themselves, though, he started doing it more often.
But he never did it for the hell of it. He never did it for fun.
There was always a reason.
At 2:37 on the afternoon following Mokuba Kaiba's resurrection, the Turtle Game Shop's phone rang, and for the first time Yami reached over and answered it. He didn't bother with Yugi's usual greeting. He already knew it wasn't a customer.
"A most pleasant afternoon to you, little one," Yami said, and Yugi knew that the gambler was leaning on the glass-topped counter on the shop's ground floor, flipping through a magazine without looking at it, even though he couldn't see anything through his own eyes. He could feel Yami moving his body, could feel each shift, twist, and twitch.
It still made him dizzy, even after the multitude of times it had happened. Yugi closed his eyes and stopped moving, and it almost felt like he was in control again.
Almost.
"...Yugi?" came a small, frightened, quivering voice from the other line.
Yugi felt his lips curve into Yami's familiar smirk. "Close enough," he purred. "You sound frightened, young Kaiba. Is something the matter?" Anyone else would have heard the same cocky, self-assured, pseudo-narcissistic tone of voice the ancient spirit always used. Yugi heard differently. He heard the concern masquerading as idle interest.
He almost thought he heard...doubt.
"It's Niisama," Mokuba said softly, on the verge of tears.
"Is your brother not well?" Yami asked.
"I...I don't think so."
"Well," the ancient king said, clearing his throat and setting his magazine aside, "you must understand. You were...gone...for twelve days. Your brother was bound to be affected. It will take him time to readjust. You should already know this. After all, who knows the great Seto Kaiba better than you?"
"It's not the same," Mokuba protested, and Yugi could hear, plain as day, the desperation in the boy's tone. "He...he tried to...he's trying to hide it. He's...hurt, Yugi, and he's trying to pretend like he isn't. Niisama...N-Niisama...doesn't trust me."
Yugi felt laughter rising up in Yami's throat, and he felt the spirit force it back down. "Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. You are one of perhaps five people your brother does trust. And of those five, you are most assuredly at the top of the list." Yami was being...nice. Yugi felt a shock of superstitious fear go up his spine at the very thought. "Understand, Mokuba, that right now your Niisama is going through...something of a rough patch, if you take my meaning. He isn't sure what to make of the reality in which he finds himself."
"...What do you mean?"
"I mean, little one, that what I did for you is, according to your brother's every belief system, entirely impossible. Your return home, after all this...well. He is having a hard time believing that it's true. Tell me, when you woke up this morning, when you first spoke to him. Was he...too nice? Was he unnaturally nice?"
Yugi almost heard the disbelief in Mokuba's silence.
Yami smirked again. "I thought so. And allow me to venture another guess. He left the room. And when you saw him next, he was...almost back to his old self. He was self-assured, in control, even a touch...waspish? But not quite there yet. Am I right?"
Another length of silence.
When Mokuba spoke next, it was with fear, suspicion, but most of all...hope.
"His eyes...his eyes aren't right. He looked...like he did when...when you did that thing. That...crush thing."
"Mind crush," Yami murmured. "Such a theatrical name. I do wonder where I came up with it. Hm. In any case, I thought so. Listen to me, Mokuba. Your brother is straining to return himself to normal. Imagine something for me, will you? Imagine that you and he are on a boat. In the middle of the ocean."
Yugi wasn't sure where the gambler was going with this.
"O...kay?"
Apparently Mokuba wasn't, either.
"And imagine that you fell overboard. You fell. You sank. He couldn't reach you before you disappeared. So, off he drifts, listless, restless, with nothing to focus his energy. He sees the person who pushed you overboard, still on the boat, but he can't find the strength to swim."
Yugi drew in a deep, steadying breath. Yami didn't.
The feeling was...frightening.
"Now, imagine that I have pulled you from the water, and back onto the boat. He sees you. He cannot believe that you are there. He saw you vanish. But now, the one who threw you into the ocean in the first place is suddenly a threat again. So now your brother must swim. Swim for his life. For your life. Right now, he is thrashing, flailing, drowning, trying to remember how."
Mokuba did not respond.
"Give him time, youngling," Yami said, surprisingly gently. "He will remember. In time, he will remember. For now, just...toss out a rope, and see if he will take hold. See if he will allow himself the help."
"...He won't. He'll think he's being a burden on me."
"Possibly. But it doesn't hurt to throw out the rope, anyway. Just in case. Remember, Mokuba: you are the only one whose help he may accept. Just that is an honor. Just that puts you above the rest of us. Stay at his side. He will remember."
Almost twenty seconds went by. No one spoke.
A soft click announced that Mokuba had hung up.
Yami sighed.
He pulled back, and left it to Yugi to set the shop's phone back onto its cradle.
40.
Mokuba walked through the hallway on the second floor of the Kaiba Estate, mulling over what Yugi had told him. Or...whoever he was. He wondered if it could really be that simple. Would Seto come back? If he was given enough time, would he go back to normal?
Mokuba wasn't sure. Yugi knew Seto well, better than almost anyone, but he hadn't seen the look in Seto's eyes. The...blank, desolate despair. Yugi didn't know Seto like Mokuba knew him. It couldn't be that simple. It just couldn't be.
Seto wasn't just sad. He wasn't just scared. He wasn't just angry.
Seto was dying.
Twelve days was too long. He was still breathing, he was still walking and talking and thinking, but he was dying just the same. And Mokuba didn't know if there was any force strong enough to pull him back from the brink.
The young Kaiba stopped suddenly, and found himself staring at the closed door to his brother's bedchamber. He blinked, stumbled back a step, and wasn't sure what to think. He hadn't intended to come here.
Or maybe he had.
Drawing in a deep breath, Mokuba opened the door and stepped inside.
Seto was standing at the foot of his bed, hands clasped behind his back, looking straight ahead at nothing. Mokuba felt a pang of guilt when he remembered that he hadn't seen his brother since breakfast two hours ago. Seto made no visible reaction to the intrusion. Mokuba may as well been a puff of dust.
Or, so he thought.
Until Seto spoke, in a tone fit to freeze the blood.
"...Did Yugi help you?"
He didn't look at Mokuba, and no emotion crossed his face. The boy almost thought he'd imagined it, that his ears were playing tricks on him, but that was absurd. He'd seen his brother's lips move.
Mokuba turned his head away, looking down at the floor, feeling suddenly ashamed.
He said, "I don't know."
"Hm," said Seto. Still, no emotion. "I see. So, then, that phone call amounted to nothing."
It sounded like there should have been accusation in his tone. But there wasn't.
"...Pretty much," Mokuba said, nervously wiping his hands on his shirt.
Something resembling a scoff escaped Seto's lips, and he turned his head away. "I keep close track of this mansion's security, and know with absolute certainty that our phone lines are clean. I cannot say the same of the Mutou family." He finally turned to look at Mokuba, and Mokuba wished he hadn't. "No one outside of this estate, aside from Yugi's band of minions, knows that you are even alive. As far as the vast majority of the human population is concerned, you are dead."
"But...but I'm not dead. Not anymore."
Seto closed his eyes and sighed. "Clearly. And it will have to be dealt with. I would have liked, however, to handle the information more delicately. There are any number of people who will be overjoyed to know that you are back among them. Those same people will be incensed if I do not deliver them that information promptly. I had hoped to come up with a proper strategy beforehand. Now it seems I must...act quickly."
Was Seto angry?
Mokuba could usually tell when his brother was in a bad mod, but right now, he could barely tell if Seto was in any discernible mood at all. His voice was too flat, too level. Not calm, but...empty.
"I'm...I'm sorry, Niisama," the black-haired boy stammered, feeling his face go hot with embarrassment. "I didn't...I didn't think..."
"Clearly," Seto said again, under his breath.
Mokuba flinched, lowered his eyes. He couldn't remember the last time Seto had been flippant with him. The worst part about it was that he still didn't hear anything in Seto's voice. Even irritation wasn't coming through.
"I was scared," Mokuba blurted out, even though he'd had every intention of slipping silently out of the room. He looked up, and saw Seto was still watching him. "I...I'm still scared. Niisama, you...you're not...you're not you."
At last, emotion.
Seto was surprised. Confused.
He did not speak.
Mokuba continued. "I know it...it...hurt."
"What hurt?" Seto asked, deadpan, even though he knew the answer. He had to know the answer. Didn't he?
"Me. When I...died."
Seto turned his eyes away. "You're here now. That doesn't matter anymore."
"Yes, it does. Niisama, you aren't acting like..."
No. That wasn't true. He was acting like himself.
The key word being, "acting."
"You're trying to pretend it didn't happen," Mokuba said, and Seto again looked surprised. But he didn't look like he wanted to admit it. He kept his eyes averted. "You're trying to pretend nothing's wrong, but...but this is wrong. I know I...hurt you, Niisama. I should have listened to you. I should have followed the rules. But...but I didn't. And I hurt you."
"No," Seto said. "No, Mokuba. You didn't hurt me. You don't have to worry about me. I'm sorry I snapped at you. It won't happen again. I need to figure out what we're going to do about...this. Excuse me." He made to leave the room. "I need to discuss this with—"
Mokuba didn't move.
Seto stopped two steps in front of his younger sibling, looking almost puzzled. He crossed his arms, shifted his stance. "Mokuba. Move, please. We don't have time."
"...Why do you always do this?" Mokuba asked, and he could hear the tears in his own voice. He looked up at Seto and blinked them back as they burned the backs of his eyes. "Why is it...why is it always about...me?"
Seto blinked. "What?"
"Why are you saying sorry? Why aren't you mad at me for breaking the rules? Why...why are you...pretending like you're okay? I know you're not, Niisama. I can tell."
"I'm fine."
"No!" It came out almost like a scream, and Mokuba shut his eyes as he finally began to cry. "No, you're not! You're doing it again!"
"Doing what, exactly?"
"You're faking! I know you're faking!"
"I'm not faking anything, Mokuba. I have no idea what you're talking about."
Mokuba opened his eyes again and stared up into Seto's eyes. They were completely dry. Dry, and bloodshot. He said, without thinking, "...Do you think I'm stupid?"
Those bloodshot cobalt eyes widened, and Seto's mouth opened with them. He faltered back a step. "What? Of course not. Why would you say th—"
"Don't you trust me?"
"Y...Yes, of course I do. You know I do."
"Then stop lying to me!"
It came out like a whip-crack, and Seto retreated another step. "Mokuba...what the hell's gotten into you? I'm not lying. You know I wouldn't lie to you. I've never lied to you."
"Yeah...sure."
Mokuba lowered his gaze again, and so he didn't see it when Seto all but collapsed to his knees, and when he grabbed his shoulders, the boy let out a squeak of surprise. It felt like he'd swallowed his throat. Seto was looking him straight in the eye, and Mokuba could finally read the emotion in them. The shields had come down.
Seto wasn't dying anymore.
He was terrified.
"Mokuba, I'm not lying to you," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Whatever I did to upset you, I'm sorry. You have to believe me, Mokuba. I'm sorry. You...you must be tired. Are you hungry? Do you want to play a game? What can I do, Mokuba? What can I do to convince you?"
"...I...I want..."
Seto looked like a convict begging to escape execution. Like a starving man waiting for table scraps. The fear in his eyes wasn't rational. His breath was short and shallow, he was shaking, and his hands were gripping Mokuba's shoulders so tightly that it felt like his arms would dislocate.
"You're hurting me, Niisama."
Seto shot back, letting go of his brother like his hands had caught fire. "I'm sorry," he gasped, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. Are you okay? I'm so sorry, Mokuba, I didn't mean to—"
Seto cut off his own sentence as if just realizing how hysterical he sounded. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and gathered himself.
"I know," Mokuba whispered. "You...you never mean it. I know, Niisama."
He didn't know what he was saying. He didn't know why he was talking to Seto like this. He didn't want to do it. Every fiber of muscle, every synapse in his brain, every drop of blood and strand of DNA in his body wanted nothing more than to comfort his brother. But somehow, the floodgates had been opened.
He couldn't stop himself.
"You never mean to hurt me," he repeated. "Ever...ever since I was born, you always thought of me, you always tried to protect me from everything. You never complain, you never say anything about how hard it is to take care of me. You never admit it when you're hurting. You just...pretend it isn't real. Don't you...don't you know, it hurts me, too?"
Seto stared at his brother for a moment, then lowered his gaze to the floor.
"...I don't pretend," he said. "I don't admit when I'm hurting because it doesn't matter. There is nothing to be done for it, Mokuba. The world isn't going to change at my whim. The man who...who killed you...isn't going to change, just because I admit that it...that he..."
Seto's lips curled in a snarl of abject rage.
His eyes lost their fear.
He stood, smoothly, to his feet.
"He isn't going to change. There is nothing to be done for it."
He slipped to the side and strode through the doorway.
Mokuba turned back to watch him.
Seto stopped, but didn't look back.
"Blood...for blood," the elder Kaiba said cryptically, and continued down the hall, fists tightly clenched at his sides..
Mokuba remained on the floor, and cried.
41.
When she entered Mokuba's room, he didn't look up. He kept his face buried in his pillow and pretended to be asleep. He wasn't crying anymore; not openly. Tears still fell from his eyes, but he'd managed to control the sobbing. He was almost entirely silent now.
But that didn't stop Yoshimi Akiko from sensing something was wrong.
He knew it was her. No one else would have come into the room without knocking. He could hear her sorting through the mess of clothes and toys on the floor. She said, "If you aren't careful, Bocchan, you're going to need climbing equipment to make it out of here before long."
Her tone was light enough. But he could tell that she knew.
She always knew.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. "It seems Seto-sama isn't himself. Or maybe he's too much like himself. You know he has to find the person who wants to hurt you, Bocchan. You're in danger."
Mokuba sniffled. "...He won't...he won't...stop."
"No, he won't," Akiko replied gently, patting the black-haired boy's shoulder. "I know, it's scary sometimes. Seto-sama was...trained this way. Mister Ackerman says that he was quite a different person when he first became a Kaiba. Is that true, Bocchan?"
Mokuba turned his head, opened his eyes, and stared at his desk, on the other side of the room. He said, "...Kind of."
"I suppose Seto-sama has always had a...take-charge personality. Isn't that right?"
"Y-Yeah."
"I was hired after the old Kaiba-sama died. I never met him." Akiko chuckled. "I probably wouldn't have been hired if not for that. I hear his standards put even Seto-sama's to shame. I wonder if that's why Seto-sama acts the way he does, sometimes."
"...Otousa—Gozaburo...ruined him."
Mokuba berated himself. Gozaburo had never been a father. He'd been a prison warden, a slave-driver. He didn't deserve a title. He never had.
"I don't know," Akiko said. "Ruined is such a strong way of putting it, don't you think? Seto-sama is still very much his own person. How else can you explain what the Kaiba Corporation has become? I don't know about you, but I don't think...ahem...Gozaburo would have been caught dead running a video-game studio."
Mokuba almost smiled.
The idea was ludicrous.
"You'd have my bet on that," came a new voice from the doorway.
It was Roland Ackerman.
Mokuba finally sat up, turned around.
Roland wasn't wearing his sunglasses. He had his arms crossed, and he was looking straight at Mokuba. A twitch of a smile rose on the man's lips. "Seems Master Kaiba hasn't quite switched gears just yet," he said.
Mokuba knew he couldn't tell them the truth. He couldn't explain why Seto was acting like he was. They would never believe him, for one. And for two, Seto would probably explode if Mokuba were to tell anyone.
So he said, "He hasn't been sleeping...has he?"
Roland barked a short laugh, cut it off. "Ahem. Pardon. No, not particularly well. Even for him. Master Kaiba has been searching for the threat against your life quite diligently. Give him some time, young master. He'll come around."
Yugi said the same thing.
Mokuba still didn't quite believe it.
"This...this person..." Mokuba said after a long moment of silence, "...what if...what if Niisama can't find him?"
Akiko and Roland glanced at each other.
"If there is one thing I know about your brother," Roland said, "it is that once he sets his mind to a task, God Himself cannot stop him. Properly motivated, Master Kaiba is nothing short of a force of nature."
Akiko smiled and nodded. "You don't have to worry, Bocchan."
Mokuba let out a shaky breath. He turned his eyes from Akiko to Roland and back again. "...Did...did Niisama send you to check on me?"
"Not in so many words," Roland said. "We have been working for your brother long enough to know when he is in a foul mood, and when that foul mood has to do with you."
Akiko smiled. "Seto-sama worries for you."
Mokuba almost laughed. "Niisama's always worried about me."
Roland did laugh. Quietly.
"Like father, like son," he murmured.
Mokuba blinked. "Huh?"
Roland turned away, showing his back. "We all know that Master Gozaburo was no father to you," he said. He glanced over his shoulder. "And you know better than any of us how seriously Master Kaiba takes his responsibility to you. Try to remember, he's handling things the only way he knows how."
Akiko stood up, still smiling down on her young charge. "I told your friends to be patient with him. You need to be patient, too. He needs you, more than anyone else, to be patient."
Mokuba had a feeling that Roland and Akiko had planned this speech. Perhaps even rehearsed it. But he knew they were sincere, and he knew they were right. So he nodded, wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve, and offered the slightest of smiles.
They left the room, and Mokuba sat there.
And with a jolt that felt like a lightning storm inside his body, he remembered.
42.
As night fell, Seto was once again standing at the foot of his bed.
This time, though, his back was turned. He faced the wall, and his hands were in his pockets. He didn't react when Mokuba entered the room. After a few moments of tense silence had passed, he broke it by saying, "...I won't have him worrying about this. See to it that he is comfortable, and leave him be. Let him rest."
Mokuba cleared his throat. "...Niisama."
Seto did not flinch. He lowered his head. "Mokuba," he murmured. "I might have known." He turned to face his sibling with an expression unlike anything Mokuba had ever seen. He looked weary, old beyond his years, his face taut with worry and remorse.
Mokuba blinked back tears. He had cried enough for one day. He tried a smile.
Seto offered a facsimile of his usual smirk in return. "Are you feeling better?"
"A little."
Seto drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You have always been the one person on this earth able to see through me at every turn. I should have known better than to deceive you." He removed his hands from his pockets, made to cross them over his chest, then stopped and let them fall at his sides. "You are my family. The only part of my family still alive. I don't know what Yugi did to make that true, and truth be told, I would rather be left in the dark."
"...Me, too."
"Sometime during the past twelve days, I forgot why I fight for you. I forgot why I have made the choices, walked the path, that I have. I let myself forget just what you mean to me, and it seems as though I am beginning to remember."
Mokuba wasn't sure what to make of this. He frowned, confused. "Niisama?"
Seto stepped in front of his brother and knelt down again. He did not grip Mokuba's shoulders this time. "You have stood at my side, faithfully, ever since you were old enough to stand at all. Every choice I've made, every mistake, every victory, you have been with me. I owe the life I have made, the legacy that I have built, all to you."
Mokuba knew that he was blushing. He lowered his gaze and fidgeted.
"When you...died...when I stood at the edge of your grave and watched you being lowered into the ground beside our mother, I...broke." Mokuba looked up again, and his eyes locked with his brother's. "Yugi mentioned to me once, something you said to him. You said, 'Without Niisama, I have no reason to live.' The converse is true, as well, Mokuba. I tried to hold on, I tried to move forward, to seek retribution for you. I tried with everything I had to exact payment for what was done to you. But I...I could not. There was not enough in me to fight any longer."
Seto lowered his gaze, and Mokuba thought he looked like a knight kneeling before his king, awaiting judgment for some unforgivable sin. The boy tried to lift his arms, tried to comfort his still-grieving sibling, but he couldn't move.
"I...I always...cursed our father," Seto continued, "for abandoning us. For abandoning you. I told myself that he was unforgivably weak. I told myself that he was wrong, that he should be damned for leaving us behind simply because Mother was gone. I did not realize just what he felt, I never could understand what could hurt so badly that he would leave us."
He looked up again.
"I understand him now."
"Niisama..."
Seto finally lifted his arms, and laid his hands gently on Mokuba's shoulders. "I love you, Mokuba. More than power, more than glory, more than money and certainly more than my own life. I am quite literally nothing without you. I said once that the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was the embodiment of my strength, of my pride, of my very soul. I was wrong."
Seto blinked away a tear of his own.
"It's you, little brother. Not some dragon on a laminated slip of paper. You."
Mokuba wanted to speak, but couldn't.
"You were right, Mokuba. Your death hurt me in a way that I could never explain. Without you, I lost everything. I lost the will to fight. I lost the strength to fight. And instead of being honest with you, now that you have returned to me, I pushed you away."
He lowered his hands again, and leaned back.
"This...ritual." He grimaced as if the very word caused him physical pain. "It goes against everything I've ever believed. My entire life, I have built myself upon a foundation of science. Cold, hard, irrefutable fact. Magic...the very concept of magic...well...you know my feelings on the subject. And that...that is the crux of my problem, Mokuba. Why this is so difficult for me. According to every belief I have ever held, you should not be here. You died, and that means it was over. There was no coming back, no second, third, fourth chances. Your life ended. Every fiber of me is screaming that that is the truth, that that is what I must face."
Mokuba bit his lower lip.
"And yet..." Seto continued, "...here you are. Here you stand, returned to me. My...my raison d'être, as Yugi calls you. You're here, you're breathing, talking, walking, eating, sleeping...you're alive. Even though you have already died once. And...and it...it's taking me longer than I had anticipated...to reconcile that." Seto drew in a steadying breath. "I want to," he admitted. "I want to throw every damned thing I've ever believed to the wayside, to just accept this as reality, to just let it...be. But there is a part of me. A small part. It won't let go. It's telling me that this...everything...is just an illusion. That your being here in front of me is just my mind's last feeble attempt to save me from insanity. It's telling me that if I give in...if I let this take over..."
A violent shudder went down his entire body.
"...Please, Mokuba. Give me time. Be patient with me, as you always have. Be patient...and forgive me. It won't be long before I...acclimate to the situation. I promise...I'll be able to accept it. Soon."
Mokuba still couldn't speak.
He could only nod, as he realized just what he was hearing.
His brother was laying every defense he'd ever had, every shield he'd ever created, aside. Seto was scared, hurt, confused, depressed, and for the first time he wasn't doing anything to fight any of it. For the first time, Mokuba was seeing the boy his brother had been, before the world forced him into manhood far too early.
The young Kaiba berated himself. Of course Seto would feel this way. He should have known better than anyone that rituals, magic, resurrections, would all be impossible for Seto to believe. What reason had he ever had to believe in miracles? When had life ever given him one?
And here he was, the one person in all the world that Seto actually trusted without question, trying to force him into it.
Mokuba realized. He had to fix this.
He didn't think. He couldn't afford to think. Not now. He simply did what came natural.
He threw himself into his big brother's arms and held on like his life depended on it.
Seto sat, stunned, for a few seconds; then his arms reached up, around, and his hands rested on Mokuba's back. There was something different about his embrace this time. This time, it was real. This time, Seto believed it. Mokuba could tell.
He didn't say anything. He knew that if he tried, it would only feed Seto's fear that this was an illusion, because he was sure that Seto expected him to speak, to say something, anything. He somehow knew that the only way to prove that he was real, prove that he was alive again, was to defy expectations.
Eventually, a short eternity later, Mokuba pulled out of the hug, even though he didn't want to, and decided to try something. He said, "...Niisama? I...I was...wondering. Something."
"Yes? What is it, Mokuba?" So gentle. So gentle that it sounded like a different person.
Embarrassment heated Mokuba's face again, and he very nearly ran from the room.
But he knew he couldn't do that. He forced himself to continue: "...Well...I was...dead. For real. Like you said. But Yugi...brought me back. So doesn't that mean...that I was...born again?"
Seto blinked, frowned. "...I suppose."
"Well...doesn't that mean...doesn't it mean that we...have the same birthday now?"
Seto's eyes widened. He didn't speak.
"So...if it's my birthday, too...then...do you think we could...you know...do something? To celebrate? Together?"
The silence that followed was thick enough to strangle. Mokuba bit his lower lip again, playing with his shirt and cursing himself for saying something so stupid. What was he doing? Seto had important things to do. He didn't have time to play around and blow out birthday candles and eat cake! He wished he could take it all back, wished he could just leave the room and forget he ever made such an idiot of himself.
He turned, made to leave.
Seto gripped his wrist and held him in place.
And pulled him into another hug that threatened to choke the very life out of him. Mokuba felt tears spring from his eyes again, and he surrendered to it because it was the only thing he could do, and all thoughts of foolishness, of idiocy, all thoughts of the man who killed him and the steps Seto would have to take to find him, every single thought except one fled Mokuba's mind as he realized the only thing that was important right now:
Seto was laughing.
END.