A/N: sorry for the lateness, I was out getting some errands.
Leave Out All The Rest
Chapter Three
"No…how much did you hear?" Téa protested with a venomous hiss, trying to yank her hand out of Seto's iron-like grip.
"Enough to want to find out what you were talking about with that punk!" Seto said, tightening his hold slightly and leading the way to the gym. He was so furious right now, since he didn't understand a single thing of what he'd just overheard.
"It's none of your…business!" she said angrily, scowling heavily and hissing out the last part of what she was saying. Seto ignored her and opened the gym's door and pushed her inside the spacious gym. "Seto, I'm serious, what the hell's wrong with you?"
"What the hell were you two talking about? Why were you even speaking to him? Don't you know how dangerous that brat is? He could very easily…"
"I could very easily punch you right now," Téa interrupted him with narrowed blue eyes much like his own. Seto frowned and was going to say something else when Téa once again interrupted with a sneer on her pretty features, "Who the hell do you think you are? What's your problem whether I speak to Yami or not?"
"Téa, that boy is…"
"You didn't even speak to that boy more than one time, so don't even give yourself the right to speak one word about him in a bad way!" she interrupted for the third time.
"Téa, I want to know what you two were talking about." Seto said, feeling angrier and more frustrated by the moment, not only by the fact that he didn't know anything about why Téa was jumping to defend Yami like that and what both of them were talking about, but also by the fact that it was the first time in his life that he got interrupted three times in less than five minutes.
"And I told you that it's none of your business." Téa repeated coldly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"Just…what were you asking him, just tell me?"
"I was asking why he missed two more days of school in addition to the three he was suspended for." Téa said coldly and turned on her heels, trying to leave the gym.
"Why's he in trouble because he got detention, what did he mean?" Seto insisted, desperate now.
"Jeez, why would I tell you? So you could use it to humiliate him? Dream on," Téa said and left him in the gym, standing motionless, aggravated and desperate to find out her and Yami's secret.
Over the next two days, Seto was officially declared insomniac. He just couldn't get any sleep; too many thoughts of a certain, crimson-eyed problem, who dropped the law-breaking façade when no one was around to become a harmless person, dominated his every thought.
He decided to become Yami's unseen shadow, tailing him everywhere without the other teenager knowing. He even knew that his drug-dealer was Bakura, not any other dealer in their school.
He also noticed things that he would never have noticed before; noticed that when Yami came down from the heroin's high, he'd withdraw into himself totally, ignoring the entire world. He also noticed that when Yami got like that, the only thing to get him out of this state was a person bumping into him by mistake. Which brought up a lot of questions as well, as Seto would see a flash of unbearable pain, followed by a hollow, lifeless and dull expression, as if Yami was trying to separate himself from his body or something.
"Mr. Kaiba, please pay attention." Seto snapped out of his thoughts of and staring at Yami, who, to his irritation, was staring right at him with a raised eyebrow.
Seto looked away after giving Yami a brief glare. He focused his attention on the lesson, trying to avoid being scolded again.
The next day, Seto walked into school, only to have Téa breathlessly running up to him and saying, "Mr. Paul wants us to start organizing whatever needs to be organized for those environmentalists coming next week."
Seto frowned in confusion, "Wasn't the environment-club supposed to present the whole thing? The Student Council offered their help then and they said they will handle the event?!"
"Seto, you know Mr. Paul; he keeps everything till the last minute before he puts it onto people's shoulders. Those dorks told him that they were going to leave us with the responsibility of the setting up of everything about a week ago. He's informing us only now!"
"So what are we going to do about it?" Seto asked, running a hand through his hair.
"We'll delegate people, let's meet up with the rest of the prefect body and we'll see what happens." She said, walking with him into the building.
"Okay, go call the girls for a meeting, I'll get the boys."
Within an hour, they had a plan running and the badge-holders were already running around Domino High as they're often seen. Seto got distracted for the next couple of days, then got back to thinking of Yami after a certain incident.
He had been walking down the corridor leading to the photocopier when he saw Téa standing with Yami in a corner. He was handing her a large plastic bag, and was saying in a low voice, "I did it."
Seto, with an awful sense of déjà vu overwhelming him, hid in an empty janitor's closet, where he could clearly see both Yami and Téa from where he stood, but they couldn't.
Téa was taking out a collection of charts and pictures and such from the bag and was smiling widely as she browsed quickly through them. Seto's eyes left Téa's features to rest on Yami's nervous ones and he frowned deeply when he saw that the exotic crimson eyes weren't rimmed by the usual, dark kohl, but were instead red-rimmed and dulled over.
His attention was driven away from Yami when Téa spoke, "How did you manage to get it done?"
"It's okay, I managed; no big deal." Yami mumbled in a low voice, looking down at his studded, metal-soled boots, shrugging uncertainly.
Seto frowned even more when he saw the brightening-up of Yami's eyes, but not of happiness, but of tears. Téa, obviously, noticed as well. She put the work, which Seto now realized was the content of the entire school's display boards, back into the bag and tapped her index finger under Yami's chin to make him look up into her eyes. "What's wrong?"
"I don't wanna bother you with it."
"I wanna be bothered with it."
"No, Téa…please, I feel so whiny and irritating when I keep rambling about it."
"Yami, you don't speak about it unless I force it out of you. You don't 'keep rambling' about it!" she said gently and Seto ached to know what 'it' was. God, he wanted answers. And he wanted them now!
"Téa, please…" Yami whimpered out and tried to dodge her.
But to Seto's surprise, Téa placed a hand on Yami's shoulder and pushed him back into the wall, pinning him there. "Stay there!" she hissed firmly, and Seto was amazed to see that the person who gave all teachers hell as they tried to get him to obey the simplest of commands, was now standing quiet and subdued in front of Téa just because she told him to. "Yes, now talk."
"Téa…he…he killed Chixo…"
Seto's frown turned confused, while Téa gasped loudly. Yami had his head down, his spiky bangs falling into his eyes, but Seto's sharp, attentive eyes caught the crystalline tears sliding down the curve of Yami's sharp jaw line and falling down to break into a million of tiny droplets on the floor.
Seto couldn't believe it; who the hell was Chixo? And why the hell was Yami crying his heart out over whoever it is? And who killed Chixo? And who the hell is Chixo!
"He did what!" Téa said in disbelief.
"I woke up today morning to…oh God…she was lying there, all bloody…and God, Téa, he killed her! Her fur was all red, all the white turned red…" Yami was hysterically sobbing, his hands shaking frantically as he tried to brush away his tears.
Seto felt his own eyes pricking at the whole situation and although he didn't know what fucking species Chixo was, but it still touched him so much, seeing Yami like that.
"Oh Yami…" Téa was saying in a low voice that Seto barely heard, then she dropped the bag and wrapped her arms around Yami, hugging him tightly.
But, again, Seto was astonished to see Yami pushing her away gently, saying, "Don't, anyone might see you. And what would Michael think?"
"Yami, I don't give a shit…he killed her?"
"I give a shit, I don't want people to see you with me," Yami interrupted her, stepping away from the comfort Seto was sure he needed so badly at the moment. He wiped his face away with determination and said, "Go put those up." He said, pointing to the bag which lay forgotten on the floor. "And remember, not a word to anyone."
And with that, he walked away, leaving her with tears coursing down her face in torrents and Seto with another tremendous pile of questions above the ones he already had.
At the end of that day, Seto waited till his duties were over and went searching the school for Téa. He thankfully found her beside the main display board, putting up a very colorful display about Global Warming.
He stood in silence beside the board and crossed his arms in front of his chest, leaning against the wall and watched her in silence, wondering how he was going to get the answers he wanted out of her.
"What do you want, Seto?" she asked tiredly, pushing onto the trigger of the stapler and attaching a picture onto the board. "Why aren't you at work?"
"I finished everything in advance so I'd have today off." Seto answered her distractedly. There was silence except for the resounding sound of the stapler for the next minute, before he gathered up his guts to ask, "What's Chixo?"
She froze.
Seto stayed silent and watched as she turned to face him, her blue eyes narrowing, "Why do you insist on eavesdropping? And why are you following me anyway?"
"I'm not following you, I'm following Yami. And trust me, today it was by mistake that I stumbled on both of you. Hell, last time too was a mistake." Seto answered her calmly, praying that she'd tell him something to work with. Anything! "And I insist on 'accidentally' eavesdropping because I want to know if Yami is as bratty and attention-seeking as he shows."
"Don't speak of him like that!" Téa said in a venomous, irritated, low-toned voice.
"Why?"
"Because you don't know anything about him."
"Then tell me. I want to know, I want to hear about it." Seto said uncrossing his arms and shrugging.
"Why?" it was Téa's turn to ask that, as she dropped the stapler and crossed her arms defiantly in front of her.
"Because what I heard the other day and from what I heard today, my whole idea of Yami started collapsing. And I want to know whether he is as bad as I think he is or not." Seto answered her truthfully. He wanted to help Yami, if he needed help. For some strange reason and some strange feeling (which was not pity), he felt that he was now responsible for helping Yami if he needed help.
"People think they know so much about others, while in reality, they just…they're all blind." Téa said suddenly after a while in which she stared into his eyes searchingly. She grabbed something from the bag lying beside the wall and stapled it on. Seto was silent, watching the different items on display.
Téa obviously saw his looks, so she sighed and said, "Yami made all of this." And she waved her hand around, indicating the board they stood beside and the one across the corridor from it, and every other in that corridor. Seto looked at her disbelievingly, so she laughed bitterly and nodded, saying, "All of it."
"If he's so good at this, then why can't he just stop being such a disobedient brat? I mean, if he can do something as fantastic as this, then why can't he just behave properly? Whatever problem he's having…"
"God… will you listen to how shallow you are?" Téa interrupted him with contempt and shook her head disgustedly.
"What is so shallow about what I'm saying, Téa?" Seto defended himself heatedly.
"As I said, people think they know everything about others. And you're just like everyone else. You're so fucking blind; you wouldn't be able to see a foot in front of you." Téa said, once again shaking her head.
Seto stared at her in shock; Téa never cussed! To see her do so now, because of Yami, it meant that with every single bad remark he made about the boy, he was screwing up royally!
"You think you know everything about Yami, don't you? Oh, look at the ruffian. How unruly of him. Look at the wrong uniform, look at how irritating and impolite he is…isn't this how you think, Seto?" Téa asked him with narrowed eyes.
Seto blushed heavily and avoided her eyes. "Téa, you have to admit that this is how he acts. He's the one pushing everyone into thinking that of him."
"If you knew Yami as I know him, you'd understand that he is not to be blamed for anything he does." She said calmly, putting the finishing touches to the board and stepping back to admire the final effect. Seto thought about her words, as she gathered the things she needed for the next display board. "You want to know what's up with Yami, right? Why he's so defiant and uncontrollable and unruly?" she asked as he followed her to the next display, which she started on immediately.
He nodded, "I…you're right…I don't know Yami to…judge him. I wanna know…"
"Okay, it's all summed-up in five questions, Seto, answer them and you'll get yourself the reason Yami's the way he is in school," Téa said with a shrug, dragging a chair so she could stand on it. "Could you hand me the heading?"
Seto gave it to her and asked, "So what is the first one?"
"Why does Yami live with his father?" she asked, and took the next part of the heading from him.
Seto shrugged at the weird question and tried to search for anything to drive Yami into law-breaking like that, then said, "For any reason anyone would live with their father? He's the only child, his parents got divorced and his father won the custody battle."
Téa laughed mirthlessly, and said, "No, Seto, it's not as simple as that. Yami wasn't an only child." Seto frowned and stayed silent, quenching his desperation to know what the past-tense use was for. "Yami lives with his dad because his mom killed herself when he was nine after killing his twin brother, Yugi. Both incidents in front of him."
Halfway through Téa's words, Seto's mouth dropped open in shock. "What!"
She looked down at him and shrugged, "Yeah, shocking isn't it?"
"Why would she kill her own…"
"Yeah, well, you see, Yugi was trying to stop her from using Yami as an ashtray for her cigarettes and anything else that could be lit. She was fucked in the head. A lunatic that for some weird reason passed along as a mother for two boys." Téa said the last part with a hiss, putting out her anger into pulling the trigger of the stapler repeatedly, the loud sound resounding in the corridor.
Seto was so confused now. "Téa, what…"
"Okay, she was abusive. Here, you wanted it bluntly," she interrupted him with a calm voice, not even looking at him to see the lost, shocked look on his handsome features. "Yami and Yugi were both her stress-relief, stress from what don't ask me. But Yami was just…I don't know… a bit of a magnet for her wrath. He liked to mess around a lot."
"That's no reason…"
"Duh, Seto, I know that it isn't a reason to kill her son!" she interrupted him, stapling a couple more things. "Yugi tried to stop her, as I already told you, she didn't like getting interrupted, so she stabbed him, while Yami watched, begging her to do it to him instead." She then laughed bitterly and said, "And every single time she drove the knife into Yugi's body, she'd tell Yami that it was his entire fault that that was taking place. Last thing the woman said to her living child was, 'It is all because of you.'"
Seto was speechless. Something really huge blocked his throat and disgust made him dizzy.
"Oh don't look as if you're about to faint yet, Seto, this is just the tip of the iceberg." Téa snapped him out of his thoughts and he looked up at her as she asked, "Okay, question two, why's Yami left-handed?"
"Huh? There's a reason for that too?" Seto blurted out.
"Of course there is." Téa said with a calm grin, getting down from the chair to move onto the lower part of the board. "Yami has severe schizophrenia attacks…"
"Why won't he get treatment?"
Téa laughed mirthlessly again and shook her head, bitterness in her pretty blue eyes, "His dad won't pay the bills for the medication."
"Won't or can't?"
"Won't. Yami's father is really, really rich," she said with a shrug. "Which takes us back to why Yami is left-handed. Once, when he was eleven, he came back from school and was taking a shower, when he had an attack. His dad was downstairs, improving his social life and getting high with his friends at that time. Yami tried to overcome the attack by just repeating, 'no, no, no,' again and again, but this time, it sort of didn't work; the louder he got, the louder the voices in his head telling him horrible things got. After a while, he had screamed his throat hoarse and cried his eyes out, before he drove his hand into the glass shower cabinet, breaking the whole thing along with the bones in his right hand, then he collapsed. I found him the next day unconscious and bleeding in the bathroom, when I sneaked through his window to check on him when he didn't answer the phone."
Seto swallowed back his nausea at what he'd just heard; his guilt was already killing him inside. He bit his lip thoughtfully for a moment before a thought occurred to him, "What about social services?"
"Those morons are just as blind as everyone else. A simple lie, had them shrugging the whole incident off," Téa said with a shrug. "My parents actually offered to pay for the therapy bills, but Yami wouldn't accept no matter what. Slowly, he taught himself how to use his left hand, since the right one's activity was inhibited dramatically. Fucking boring process, but to him, writing and keeping up in class was way more important than hours and hours of boredom."
Seto felt as if he was hit over the head. What he was hearing made him feel like such an asshole. He couldn't believe how guilty he felt now because…just five minutes ago he was convinced that Yami cared about studies and education as much as he cared about a cockroach in the pipes underground.
"Okay, next question, Why's Yami an addict?" Seto stared at her with raised eyebrows, not trusting himself to talk, never mind trying to answer such a thing. "You must have thought that Yami became an addict when he was just 'experimenting new things' as most teenagers fall into the trap drugs weave around them, right?"
Seto blushed and nodded, before hanging his head down in shame.
Téa turned away from him and said, "Well, you're wrong. His dad's also behind the drug issue."
"So both his parents are lunatic?"
"Yep! Basically putting it." Téa affirmed, turning to him and dusting her hands from the glitter that clung to them. "Yami was coming back from school when he was thirteen; he accidentally walked in on his dad and his friends in one of their drug-sessions. They thought it would be fun to see how he'd look like under the influence of drugs. This led to that and after two days, in which his dad's friends stayed at their house, Yami became an addict because his dad held him down while his friend injected him with heroin until they were sure he's a junkie."
"That's…he's his own son for fuck's sake!" Seto hissed in anger, forgetting the common courtesy that a male should never cuss in front of a female.
"As I said earlier, and will say now, this is just the tip of the iceberg; you noticed for sure that Yami missed two days of school after the three he was suspended for, right?" when Seto nodded, she continued, "Well, each time Yami misses school, it's because his dad gets tired of beating the crap out of him, and ties him up to a bed, or any piece of furniture with a pair of rusty handcuffs and withholds the heroin from him. I guess we learnt in Bio that heroin has the worst withdrawal symptoms of all drugs, right?" Téa said with a shrug.
She sighed and gathered up her things to drop them into the Student Council's office, while saying, "His dad keeps him tied up like that until Yami's just a crying, shivering, feverish mess, pleading for the drug. By the time the asshole is bored of that and finally unties him so he could go inject himself with anything to relieve the pain, no matter how much the amount is, Yami would be so damn tired, he usually stays in bed for two or three days after it."
"What the hell is stopping him from informing the police! How can he stand this fucking shit!" Seto burst out angrily. God this was so…inhuman.
"You think it's so simple, just walk up to someone and say that your own flesh and blood treated you like shit?"
"Anything is better than that crap."
"No, Seto, no…" Téa said fervently. "Just…let me carry on and you'll understand why Yami can't just go to the police and tell them everything."
"Once I know everything to this crap, it stops! I'll make sure of that!" Seto yelled in anger.
Téa looked at him in surprise in her blue eyes. "Why do you care so much?"
"Can't I just care?" Seto retaliated defensively with a raised eyebrow, sitting in a chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest while placing one leg over the other.
She stared at him for while longer, then nodded to herself in realization at the anger and utter disgust in his blue eyes, along with another indecipherable expression.
"You have to get him to trust you first, Seto. Before you can help him, and when you realize that what you feel for him is not just pity, you'll have to work harder to get what you want from him."
"What does that mean?"
"Forget it, Seto, now onto the next question, why does Yami wear chokers?"
"I thought they were just for fashion." Seto mumbled, running a hand through his hair.
"No, the one that's for fashion is the uniform," Téa said with a sad smile. "The chokers are to hide bite marks…or what lovers would wish to call love-bites and hickeys."
Seto stared at her blankly, "You kinda lost me in the middle. What are you talking about?"
"When his mom killed herself, someone had to cover up for her duties during the night…" Téa said in a low voice.
Only complete self-control and coordination helped Seto fight the urge to throw up. "Oh God…" he said in revulsion, getting up to try and compose himself further.
"That answers why he is always so distracted and unfocused at doing anything except rambling in his notebook in classes, Seto. Imagine, having to come to school, with not only pains of withdrawal, or weakness induced by the drugs, but also bearing the pains and humiliation and disgust of getting violated in one of the most animalistic and inhuman ways ever? Do you think he'd be able to even stay conscious never mind take part in classes?"
"I understand." Seto said abruptly, his anger barely in check.
"No one can fully understand. Hell, Seto, even I don't fully understand shit. He never tells me full details of what happens, he just says stuff like, dad withheld the drugs from me, he never says since when. He says, dad invited friends over yesterday…what the fuck does that mean and why would he be extra weak and extra wretched about it? He says, dad got mad yesterday, fine, I understand that that means a good, full-hearted pounding, but where is he hurt? Is the pain too much? Why does he come to school…God I'm just too helpless about this whole thing," she said the last part with an angry hiss and hit the wall with her open palm in anger while closing her eyes and letting some tears escape and cascade down her face.
"Some businessmen are pedophiles you know…" Seto commented in a quiet tone. For some reason he assumed Yami's father was a businessman. It only just fit. Seto had been in the field and had seen some of his stepfather's partners earlier too. Some of them were either complete drug junkies or they took a sick interest in children. Téa's story just had the whole thing coming to his mind.
"Oh fuck," she said in horror, her hand rising to her mouth with a sickened expression in her tearful blue eyes. "You think?"
"I am sure." He said, swallowing down with difficulty. She sat down in a chair opposite to his and stayed silent for a bit, so he asked with barely contained anger and disgust and eagerness, "Last question?"
"Why…Why is Yami always in full-sleeves?"
"I used to…think he wears them to…piss Mr. Anderson off?" Seto said, hating himself for thinking like that before. Téa's lips curled and she shook her head so he quickly tried to amend, "Does he wear them to hide bruises?"
"No, this time, the reason is Yami himself not his father." Téa explained and Seto looked at her with a confused frown. "Yami cuts… cuts so deep everyday that he knocks himself out before his dad would walk into his room at night."
"Shit, isn't it enough that he can very easily kill himself with an overdose…God! I can't believe how blind I was!" Téa raised an eyebrow at that, but sat silently, rocking the chair back and forth. Seto was pacing up and down the room like a trapped lion. She'd never seen her friend so angry. He turned to her and asked, "Alright, fine then who is Chixo?"
Téa's eyes filled with tears and she took a deep breath, before saying, "She was Yami's cat. A white, adorable Persian cat that anyone could fall in love with. She was the only friend he had at home aside from the furniture…hell even the furniture sometimes acts as an enemy to him."
"And he killed her?" Seto repeated.
"Yes, as you must have heard today, he must have slaughtered her throat with a knife or something and thought it would be really funny to place it beside him on the bed so it would be the first thing he saw in the morning when he woke up." Téa said in a low voice, shaking her head.
Seto sat once again, this time in a seat beside her and breathed out in an exasperated way, feeling truly and for the first time, how very dumbly he had jumped to a wrong and fatal conclusion. "This is…horrible." He could only comment with that.
"Horrible…wow, nice, neat way of putting it, Seto." Téa sarcastically said, turning her head towards him. He looked at her, so she shook her head and asked, "Do you know that the reason Michael and I hooked up is Yami?"
"I guessed it would be something like that, but I have no idea how."
"Well, remember when Yami was following me around the other day and Michael almost beat him up to a bloody pulp?" Seto nodded. "Well, he had planned all that. His fool-proof plan was to get Michael to feel jealous if he saw him flirting with me."
Seto blinked and it all suddenly made sense to him. He snorted out a laugh and shook his head bitterly in wonder.
Téa then spoke again, "And remember the cafeteria incident? When you caught him locking the door?" Seto frowned and nodded again, "That was also a part of his plan because, I don't think you or anyone else noticed that there were two people still inside the cafeteria…" he stared at her questioningly so she giggled a little and resumed, "I was in there with Michael. Yami's plan was to get us both locked together alone somewhere."
"That is just…" Seto rolled his eyes, but couldn't help the grin that tugged on the corners of his lips at the completely creative idea Yami came up with to empty a school's cafeteria of all people in it.
Téa laughed a little and then sighed, and her smile turned bitter and she mumbled, "He's so loving and caring…he just…doesn't deserve all of that. And the worst thing about this is that…I don't know if you've seen today but he doesn't allow anyone, not even me, to show him love or any good feelings ever."
"But…why?" Seto wondered.
"He doesn't like girls."
"Oh he's gay?" Seto asked in realization. She nodded, so he added, "So? It's not like you wanna be his girlfriend, right?"
"No, I don't, but…you do not know how horrible his father is, Seto." She said in a whisper and he stared at her in silence, wondering if there is anymore atrocities and heartlessness being committed against Yami, and she blinked and raised her eyes after she had been keeping them fixed on her lap and explained, "He took him once to a tattooist once. And he got him a tattoo; the word 'WHORE' written in old English script, between his shoulder blades and on the sides of it, large, angel wings."
Seto could actually feel his breakfast trying to leave through his mouth and he closed his eyes when they darkened at what Téa was saying.
But obviously Téa was just not done yet. "At home, Yami isn't called by his name. Slut, freak, bitch, creep are some of his names at home. And on top of that at night, at the times when the fucking bastard realizes that Yami couldn't knock himself out that night, he'd make sure that while he's fucking him, he'd tell him he's stupid or that he is hideous or that he was now secondhand goods and that no one would ever even want to look at him…just one big nightmare." She paused a little then asked, "You think he'd take a girlfriend or a boyfriend after hearing such things at such a time? Hell, if I were in his place…"
"I'd bury myself alive," Seto resumed for her in a whisper, placing his head in his hands.
"Yes, you're getting it now."
Silence hung over them for a bit, before Seto asked, "How long have you been friends?"
"Well, Yugi and I were the closest friends ever, but then when…" she snorted and laughed bitterly and said, "Listen to this: 'a burglar broke into the Motou Mansion and killed him and his mom and injured Yami' as the story goes, and when Yugi died, I made sure to stick to Yami although he had been distant from me and his brother's friends. He was always the kid who sat in the corner speaking to imaginary friends while others played together. I couldn't bear the thought that he was now alone without his twin brother, so I stayed beside him."
Seto swallowed and was silent again for a bit then he looked at her and said, "I am glad that you were helping him so far."
She blinked and stared at her hands where a tear landed and she muttered, "He doesn't deserve this Seto…"
"I know, Téa…and now, you're not the only one who will be helping him."