CW: Self-harm

Disclaimer: It's 2018, I think we all know that anyone posting on this site doesn't own their source material, which for me, is Yu-Gi-Oh!. So there you have it.

"I'm where I want to be

and who I want to be

and doing all i ever said I would

And yet I feel I haven't won at all."

~Where I Want to Be

-Chapter 14-

The Drawing Room

If given a choice, Seto would have sunken into the oblivion of sleep, not driven off to work. But as he pulled off the freeway into downtown and approached the menacing Kaiba Corporation skyscraper, he had to admit that the prospect of solving one of his invention's hardware shortcomings was a welcome distraction.

By the time he'd parked his car and boarded the elevator to the development floor, he felt more or less back to normal, even if the ignomity of the photoshoot remained in the back of his thoughts.

He joined his brother and the hardware development manager in the lab. The VR pod team were scrambling to cool the system back down after what had clearly been another unsuccessful attempt. Largely ignoring the manager's blathering rundown of what had gone wrong, Seto crossed to the computer and quickly took in the stats on the screen.

"It just requires too much energy to keep it running indefinitely while making sure it doesn't overheat," the manager was saying.

"But it can be done," Seto murmured, thinking of the pods that Noah had developed from the virtual world. He'd initially been jealous of how smoothly his step-brother's system had operated compared with his, and had immediately begun production on his own version after Battle City had ended. His initial design had been all well and good, but he hadn't been able to make it feel real as the virtual world had. Eventually, though, he'd succeeded in reproducing the same level of software; now all he had to do was get the hardware to catch up.

"I saw your picture," Mokuba said casually as Seto sat down at the computer to decide the team's next move. "On PictureThis. It already has a ton of likes."

"I don't want to talk about that," Seto replied blandly, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. "Anyway, you can go home if you want; I can handle this. Unless you wanted to stay," he added, glancing briefly in Mokuba's direction. "I could use another set of eyes." He hoped that working together might salve his brother's jealousy.

"No, it's ok," Mokuba replied so innocuously that Seto wasn't sure what he really felt. "I have a ton of homework."

"How about dinner?" Seto asked, his gaze still trained ahead even though he wasn't really absorbing anything he was reading. "I can come home early and we could play something after. We haven't done that in months."

Admittedly, he'd expected that to work. Expected Mokuba to smile and give him a hug- two things Seto really needed from his brother. But as with the day before, Mokuba defied his expectations.

"No thanks. I have a date with Hillary tonight and then I'm going to stay at a friend's. Maybe some other time. And before you say anything, Saito's coming with me, so it's fine. Anyway, I'm gonna get going; I told Alfred I'd be downstairs five minutes ago. See ya, bro!" Mokuba punched him lightly in the shoulder before taking his leave.

After his brother had gone, Seto continued to stare at the VR pod design, looking so focussed that his employees dared not interrupt. But Seto was actually nursing the stab wound to his heart inflicted whether knowingly or not by Mokuba. He'd thought that blood was thicker than water but evidently, he'd been wrong.

It shouldn't have mattered. It was just one night. Seto absently flipped to the next page of the design and pretended to scrutinize the headset layout. Or was it? Was this the start of a chronically decaying level of closeness? In a few months time would Mokuba not speak to him at all? Would he be left with nothing but the characters in his virtual world to talk to? Doomed to cut all ties to humanity as Noah and Gozaburo had?

Yugi's girlfriend, Téa Gardner had predicted as much years before at Duelist Kingdom.

"You've spent so much time with your machines, you've forgotten what being human is about! Yugi has a heart, Kaiba. Yugi has us. And what about you, Seto Kaiba? What do you have at the end of the day?"

Apparently, not much.

Even after everyone had left, Trudy hadn't let up grumbling about how inconvenient it all had been, and how having had the house cleaned before the event instead of after had been, in her opinion, an 'utter waste.'

"You know, I certainly don't need help making this place presentable to guests, and those cleaners, they're always moving things about," she told Alistair, who'd offered to help her clean up. "But after it's all over, their services would actually be useful!" She gave the surface of the table a forceful wipe of her cleaning rag. "Because they're always so messy, these people, aren't they?" she continued, directing Alistair to sweep a broken swatch of makeup into the trash can he was holding. "Who, for instance, was raised by such animals that they wouldn't think to actually use the coasters right in front of them for their glass?"

"Ummm…"

"Oh, I'm not talking about you, dear," she added kindly. "You didn't know. And you use them now, don't you? So all is forgiven."

By the time they'd cleaned the dining room to Trudy's standards, Alistair, though he was happy to help, wasn't sure how much longer he could listen to her many complaints.

"And to cap it all, I'm going to have to change the sheets all over again!" she said, preparing to mount the stairs to tidy in Kaiba's bedroom. "Isobel is a sweet girl, and I know she's had a rough day, but you'd think she'd know not to use brand new sheets!"

Alistair had no idea why that might be the case, but wasn't interested enough to ask. Instead, he took a different tack.

"Hey, Trudy," he began. "Do you have any errands in the city I could run for you? Obviously you're really busy so…"

"Actually," she replied, oblivious to how desperate he was to leave. "That'd be quite nice. I forgot to give George a shopping list when he went out earlier. You really wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all. If you have a backpack I can put them in, I'll head out right now."

"I don't know about a backpack," she said, but I have a shopping bag."

"I can't take that on my motorcycle, though."

"Your motorcycle...Oh, you know what." She rested the sheets she'd been carrying against her hip. "You'll have to see if that's finished. I rather lost track…"

"Finished?"

"Did no one tell you? Seto had some mechanic person come here to fix whatever was wrong with it. But it's been a few hours, so maybe it's ready. I really have no idea."

While he was making his way to the kitchen to collect Trudy's shopping list, Alistair was still letting it sink in. Kaiba had not only remembered that his motorcycle had been scratched, but had gone out of his way to have it fixed. Granted, it was months later, and granted, if it had really been bothering him, Alistair would have had it fixed himself, but it was thoughtful in a way he would have thought Kaiba incapable of. Why had he done it? It seemed so out of character for the man Alistair had berated for not thanking his driver. For the man who had claimed that gratitude was shown through paychecks. Was that what the gesture was: gratitude? For what?

He absently tucked the shopping list Trudy had left on her kitchen table into his back pocket.

When they'd been sitting together on the floor, Alistair had been sorely tempted to ask why Kaiba had wanted him to watch the photo shoot that morning. Kaiba being not indifferent to him having been there but seemingly thankful for it deepened the mystery, though in a way that made him feel oddly cheerful.

Kaiba had thought, naively, that working would help him throw off the feelings of worthlessness that had been gradually sinking deeper and deeper into the trenches of his worst thoughts. Design was something he was indisputably talented at and should have therefore lifted his spirits, but it didn't. Without his brother's support, what did the technological progress really matter? Who did he have to celebrate with, the sycophants trying to slide their way into his good graces? So who cared whether he finished the VR pod if all he got for it was a momentary glimmer of satisfaction from having solved the puzzle? Afterwards he'd just go home to a house full of ghosts.

The dreary line of thinking followed him out to his car and onto the highway.

In a few years, Mokuba may not only have become indifferent to him emotionally, he wouldn't even need him. He'd move out and either go to college or in some other way pursue his own goals. Not that Seto knew what they were, though Mokuba's girlfriend and his new group of friends probably did.

Then again, what use was he to his brother now? He had no advice to give him about anything that didn't revolve around Duel Monsters or programming or business: things Mokuba seemingly cared little about.

The only positive thing about Mokuba pulling away was that it meant he only had to weather a few more years, and then he'd finally be done. Done with Kaiba Corporation. Done with the long hours of tedious emails, of exhausting meetings and boring events, with always worrying that some faceless business rival would emerge and take away the one last pillar of his reputation left standing after his horribly public downfall at Battle City. Done with everyone expecting so much of him. Done with everything.

He wished it could be different. He wished that he could make friends and fall in love like Mokuba could, but he'd forfeited his right to those things when he'd chosen to fight so that of the two of them, his brother would be the one to have the opportunity to be normal.

Around him everything seemed to move dizzyingly fast and he found himself pushing harder on the gas pedal, desperate to catch up, his Porsche streaking past and around the other cars on the highway.

Finally, he was pulling into his garage, his headlight's illuminating a wall of George's tools that hadn't fit in the garden shed, and Trudy and George's Nissan. What the light did not reveal, however, was Alistair's red motorcycle. Had Alistair left too? The thought was enough to get Seto's attention and for a moment, he was able to stop thinking about Mokuba.

No, maybe he hadn't. Maybe the mechanic had found something else wrong with the bike and taken it back to his shop.

Suddenly, Seto found himself clinging to the idea. Grasping onto the notion that for whatever reason, Alistair might actually and inexplicably care about him. Why else would he have quietly sat with him earlier that day with such seeming understanding and sympathy?

He gripped the steering wheel. It was a childish hope. Alistair didn't care. How could he? Alistair thought he was just like his stepfather, who Seto was sure no one found sympathetic. Alistair was out partying with his friends.

Finally, he got out of the car, the garage once more swathed in shadows, and entered the house.

Somehow it was even more dejecting that Alistair could do that than that Mokuba could. Alistair had grown up in the middle of a civil war that had claimed his entire family only to spend the rest of his adolescence working for a lunatic who thought he was the second coming of Moses. But even he could apparently move past every horrible thing that had ever happened to and around him. Seto couldn't help being jealous of that, and he hated him for it, but it drew him to Alistair too.

As he reached the top of the second floor stairs where the creative director had stroked his leg in what he was sure she'd thought was a display of saucy flirtation, he walked on quickly to shake off the creeping feeling the memory induced.

Seto had decided to go to bed, but was unsurprised when he overshot his bedroom and ended up standing in front of Alistair's door.

He imagined himself opening the door. Alistair would be lying on the bed with a book, his cat no doubt skulking nearby. Alistair would look up when he walked in, but wouldn't say anything because he would know that wasn't what Seto wanted.

He'd go to Alistair and sit beside him as they'd been that morning, but instead of just sitting there, he would lay across Alistair's lap, not caring that it was weak, not to mention childish; it would be worth it to finally be touched by someone that didn't make him feel cold. And Alistair understood; he'd reached for Seto when he'd been scared. This would just make them even.

Tomorrow, they would both pretend that it had never happened, and Alistair would know better than to ever bring it up. But now, tonight, Seto needed it.

He realized that he'd been staring blankly at the closed door while he fantasized, but the realization didn't spur him to open it.

The Alistair in his imagination had given him what he wanted without question, but what if the real Alistair laughed at him? Rejected him outright? Or what if, as his missing motorcycle suggested, he wasn't there at all?

In a moment of nervous impatience, he finally opened the door.

The beam of light from the hallway cut across the bed. Alistair's cat meowed before laying its head back on its paws and staring at Seto with suspicious yellow eyes. Disappointment lapped at his heels, but he managed to stay ahead of it a moment longer. Alistair could have gone to the library downstairs, could be with Trudy in the kitchen, out for a moonlit stroll in the garden- any number of things.

It wasn't any of those things though, he knew. This time, his imagination showed him Alistair lying in bed, not with him, but with some college student vaguely reminiscent of Wheeler. And Alistair would be sighing in pleasure, his hands threaded into this other person's hair as they kissed along his neck. And then…

Seto slammed his palm angrily against the wall. The cat yowled and dove off the bed.

The cold wood of the wall paneling seemed to absorb not only his disappointment and jealousy, but everything else too.

Had he really expected Alistair to be there waiting for him? How naive. And even if he had been, he wouldn't have given him what he wanted. And even if he had, it wouldn't have been worth having to wonder if Alistair would eventually use it against him.

Seto turned away from the door and walked back down the hallway. He knew what he was about to do was stupid and that he'd regret it immediately afterwards, but it was comforting and he needed it.

Dreamlike, the world before him melted from one location to another until he was standing in the entrance to the drawing room.

Habitually, he flicked the light on. He thought briefly about turning it back off, but it was too much effort. Besides, who would notice? Mokuba was with his friends, Trudy was likely asleep with her husband, and Alistair was off in the city, curled around some faceless stranger.

The drawing room was a lifeless space, largely untouched since Gozaburo's death almost seven years past. An unused grand piano was set artfully off to the side and stiff black couches had been grouped around a sharp black coffee table before an empty black grate.

Only two personal effects indicated it was anything but a depressing showroom. Above the mantelpiece hung a large wedding portrait of Gozaburo and his wife, Asami. Even on her wedding day, Asami's smile seemed strained, possibly due to the grip her husband had on her waist, so forceful, his fingers had sunken into the fabric of her dress. Gozaburo's own smile was one more of triumph than of happiness.

It was such a hideous photograph, Seto had never understood why his step-father had displayed it. It only remained all these years later because Seto so seldom came to that part of the house it almost never occurred to him to tell Trudy to have it taken down.

On the opposite wall hung an object that made him feel none of the revulsion of the portrait. It was a violin, finely carved, but with the small scratches and dings of frequent use. Before Gozaburo, before the orphanage, before his aunt and uncle had stolen his inheritance, and even before Mokuba had been born, the violin had produced beautiful music under his mother's practiced fingers. The memories were hazy and blurred like reflections in choppy water, but if he concentrated, Seto could remember her sitting in their living room on a green sofa, tuning the strings. He couldn't actually picture her playing, but he could remember her metronome swinging steadily back and forth.

He approached the instrument, gently running his fingertips across the smooth surface before carefully taking it down so he could bring it to his nose and inhale the nostalgic scent of rosin and wood. He closed his eyes, the violin still flush against his face. His parents would weep if they could see what had become of their son. But I had to. I have to, he thought. For Mokuba. It was never about me.

Reluctantly, he propped the violin back up against the wall before going to sit heavily on one of the sofas. Just as the smell of rosin had been embedded into the violin, the stench of cigar smoke clung to the leather. Seto ignored it, and stared grimly at the coffee table drawer. The drawer was like a time capsule, filled with a yellowed newspaper, a rumpled copy of Forbes magazine, and several sheafs of his stepfather's notes and business cards. Nestled amongst the papers was a pen knife and a small sharpening stone. Unlike the other items, Gozaburo had not placed them there, though at one time, they had belonged to him.

When the cleaners had come to empty Gozaburo's closet, Seto had impulsively taken them and placed them in the drawing room. It had seemed logical. He'd always used it before, so if he ever had need again, it made sense that it be that knife. And twice, he had needed it. Once, after having failed to save Mokuba from Pegasus, instead having his brother rescued by Yugi. Most recently, he'd needed it after his defeat at Battle City, fresh from his encounter with Gozaburo's ghost, and still burning with shame at once again having Yugi step in and save Mokuba.

Now though, he felt no shame when he pulled the knife into his hand because for once, his pilgrimage to this room wasn't about failure or fear or pain. It was about nothing.

He was nothing. He wasn't the top-ranked duelist anymore, the company he'd fought so hard to win had slid down so far that it had been reduced to sleazy advertising to maintain forward momentum, and his brother, the one he'd done it all for, resented him for it. Would Mokuba even appreciate that Seto had finally made good on his promise to open KaibaLand, or would his jealousy cloud his ability to focus on anything but what it had taken to get there?

Seto pushed his sleeve up and flicked the knife open, the blade reflecting his own tired face. He doubted it needed to be sharpened. Instead, he trailed it contemplatively along his palm. The cold metal against the skin of his wrist caused goosebumps to rise on his arms. He traced each scar with the tip of the blade before setting it vertically on the vein running lengthwise up his arm.

It wouldn't be easy, he knew, perhaps not even possible to do with this knife. He'd end up in the hospital which would be worse. Sighing softly, he repositioned the blade horizontally on his wrist, noting that with this cut he'd have run out of space almost to his forearm.

The initial sting of slicing into his skin was accompanied by the first drop of blood blooming against the metal before flowing up the blade to break against his hand.

The sound of someone calling his name ripped into his tunnel vision and startled him so badly he dropped the knife. It landed heavily on the carpet with a soft thud. He locked eyes with Alistair, whose horrified shock was surely mirrored on his own face.

Alistair had arrived back at the estate much later than he'd intended. The repairs to his motorcycle had taken longer to complete than he'd expected, and by the time he'd gotten to the city, bought a backpack, and finished Trudy's shopping, he'd realized that rush hour traffic would absurdly stretch out the already hour-long commute. Deciding that at that point he'd be better off staying in town for dinner, he'd called Trudy in defeat. Luckily, nothing he'd bought was perishable, so he'd gone to the library to pick up new books before eating a leisurely meal at a local pizzeria.

When he finally made it back, he'd been surprised to see Kaiba's red Porsche already in the garage.

Trudy had retired for the evening, so he'd put away the groceries, realizing only as he found himself straightening up the the spice rack that he was dragging his feet going upstairs. Thanks of some kind were in order for having gotten his bike fixed, but Kaiba had been in such a strange mood that day that Alistair was reluctant to seek him out.

Unexpectedly, Sewell greeted him at the top of the stairs.

"How'd you get out?" he asked her curiously, reaching down to scratch behind her ears. Looking past her down the hall, he could see that his door had been left open, though he was certain he'd closed it. He assumed Trudy must have accidentally left it ajar when she'd come to change the bed sheets or something, and thought no more of it.

Herding Sewell back into the room turned out to be harder than he'd expected. She seemed to sense that her freedom was about to be encroached upon because she leapt over his outstretched arms and ran towards Mokuba's room across the interior balcony.

"Sewell," he hissed. "Come here!"

Even though his demand that the cat stay sequestered in Alistair's room was wholly senseless, it was Kaiba's house and like it or not, Alistair was forced to play by his rules or risk getting Sewell kicked out altogether.

Sewell, of course, didn't understand the stakes and chose instead to enjoy the as of late rare opportunity to roam around. Alistair soon realized that far from sensing his urgency, she thought of him chasing her as a game. No sooner would he get within arm's reach then she'd dart around him and bound off in the opposite direction. Finally, though, he cornered her between the balustrade and the wall.

"Gotcha," he whispered triumphantly, reaching down to grab her, but she was just slippery enough that the only part of her he got a strong hold on was her tail. She screeched loudly and he immediately let her go only to groan as she disappeared down the left wing stairs. He quickly chased after her, trying to recall if there was a room nearby he could trap her in long enough to catch her. If she went into the ballroom he'd be forced to wait her out. Similarly, the drawing room didn't have any doors. He thought there might be a guest room or a bathroom, though.

He was distracted from his plan when, upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, he saw that the light in the drawing room was on.

Who…?

His question was answered almost immediately. One more, much more careful, step forward revealed Kaiba sitting on the couch, staring intently at something on his wrist. In his right hand he held a small penknife.

All at once, the shocking realization hit him like an unexpected wave of water. He froze in place as Sewell snuck behind him and back up the stairs.

"Kaiba," he murmured, momentarily unable to raise his voice above a whisper. "Kaiba!" he tried again.

Kaiba jumped and dropped the knife.

Adrenaline forced Seto to his feet even as he felt his entire body trembling and nausea twisted his stomach.

"What are you doing here?" Seto demanded, hastily yanking his sleeve down and wishing he could trade his panic in for anger more quickly. Alistair had seen. No one was supposed to know! He was supposed to have been alone!

"I...I just…," Alistair stammered. "I wasn't trying to…" He steadied himself against the doorway. "But Kaiba, you shouldn't- ."

"Shouldn't what?" Seto snapped, anger flaring up at last. "Whatever you think you saw, whatever you think you know, you don't know anything! And it's none of your business so just- ." He stopped himself short of saying 'go away' because once he left, Alistair would be free to come to his own conclusions and that couldn't be allowed. "What are you doing here?" he repeated, crossing his arms.

"I was looking for you," Alistair said, choosing under the circumstances to avoid mentioning Sewell. And it wasn't even completely untrue.

"Well?" Seto prompted him, narrowing his eyes in a show that he was far more under control than was remotely true. His heart was racing painfully quickly and he had to ball his hands into finsts to keep them steady, but Alistair need not know that. "I assume you were looking for me because you want something, so what is it?" He found that he was crossing the room, though he didn't remember deciding to do so, his humiliation-fueled wrath forcing him into action. "Do you want more money?" he fumbled in his back pocket for his wallet. "Take it." He threw it forcibly against Alistair's chest.

Alistair winced as Kaiba's wallet bounced off of him and landed at his feet, but he was still unable to move, leaving him to stare in shocked astonishment into Kaiba's face, warped into a feral expression that failed to completely hide the fear that lay behind it.

"I don't want-," he started, but Kaiba cut him off.

"Then what? Do you want sex? I'd have thought you'd be satisfied by now, or did your plans fall through? Or after spying on me today did you think you'd one-up all those women by having me yourself?"

"I...my plans?"

But Seto wasn't listening. "Because let me tell you something, Alistair: I'm not going to be 'had' by anyone, do I make myself clear? Those women may think that that picture entitles them to me, and you might think that those few incidents between us entitles you to me, but they don't!" He forcibly jabbed his thumb against his own chest. "I belong to me, and that's it! You can have a roof over your head at my expense, and you can get your pilot's license at my expense, but that's all you get. And in return you're going to get out of my life forever. That's the agreement we have. Understood?"

"Ok, but- ."

"So you are going to go back upstairs and forget about what you think you saw or I swear that I will kill you."

The murderous glint mingled with the fear in Kaiba's eyes frightened Alistair enough that he finally took a step backwards.

"I got it," Alistair said softly. "But the reason I was looking for you was because I wanted to thank you for getting my bike fixed, that's all."

Seto's instinct was to scoff at such a notion. But the part of him that had warmed when Alistair had sat beside him in the hallway chose to believe that what Alistair said, that the sincerity in those grey eyes was genuine. It was almost more painful. Like the Grinch's heart growing three sizes, he thought absurdly before he could stop himself.

"Yeah, well, it looks cheap riding around on a damaged motorcycle like you were," he replied finally, relieved to hear that he was able to use even a brittle imitation of his usual cold nonchalance.

There was a long silence before Alistair dared to venture a comment, each word chosen very carefully.

"I promise I won't say anything about...this. And I won't pretend to understand, because I don't, but I'm sorry you feel like it's what you need to do. But if it's about this morning, they definitely aren't worth this. Not that it's any of my business, like you said," he added quickly. "Anyway." He backed further into the hallway. "I'm...I'm gonna go. And you…," he forced himself to look into Kaiba's face instead of slightly over his shoulder. "Take care of yourself."

Seto watched as Alistair tripped his way back upstairs, and heard the annoying meowing of his cat. Only once Alistair's footsteps had trailed off did Seto move again, first retrieving his wallet and stuffing it back in his pocket, then sitting down heavily on the couch and allowing himself to breathe out some of the tension straining his muscles. Finally, he reached down to pick up the knife, its open blade now reflecting the ceiling, and thought about what Alistair had said.

Was he really as sympathetic as he'd seemed? It was possible he really had just wanted to thank him for the motorcycle, gratitude being well within the DOMA member's code of honor. And Alistair, unlike Yugi or any of his brainless friends, actually understood what fear was. What loss was. But Alistair had also been known to sit on a moral high horse. Was he even now sneering at how poor little rich kid Seto Kaiba was sad about having to get his picture taken? However, since making his 'did daddy not get you the right colored pony' comment when he'd first arrived at the house, Alistair had made no such follow-up insults, so maybe he had realized that that wasn't who he was.

Seto flicked the knife blade shut. He knew that in the grand scheme of life, what one insignificant person thought of him was irrelevant. But it would require him to lack all semblance of self-awareness to say that Alistair was just another bitter cynic.

He set the knife back in the drawer and clasped his wrist. Though his sleeve hid the feeling of the scars, he imagined he could feel them. Had seeing him like this made Alistair think about him differently? Did it make him view him as piteous and weak? Most likely. Was that better than ruthless and cold? He wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure how exactly he wanted Alistair to see him, and was fearful of what it meant that he cared. He squeezed his wrist tighter, grimacing as the added pressure caused the fabric of his shirt to rub painfully into his newest cut.

Alistair paced around his room. It went against everything he'd thought he'd known about Kaiba to see him like that. After that morning, should he have known? Could he have prevented this? Had he done enough? Should he have stayed? Should he tell Mokuba? Trudy?

After his fourth lap, Alistair collapsed onto his bed. Sewell, tired by her outing, was already asleep on the pillow, but stirred briefly when he lay down beside her.

He had promised Kaiba not to reveal what he'd seen, but wasn't it his moral obligation? Granted, telling Mokuba would do nothing but upset him since the fifteen year old could hardly be expected to intervene. Telling Trudy would have made sense if she weren't on Kaibas payroll. Kaiba seemed to accept her mothering, but she had no real authority over him, and when she inevitably confronted him about it, he'd likely fire her to get her off his back, and it would be an ugly situation that would help no one. And Kaiba likely hadn't been aiming to actually kill himself, and was therefore in no immediate danger. Then again, Kaiba had never, as far as Alistair knew, placed a particularly high value on his life.

At Duelist Kingdom, he'd threatened to jump to his death off the top of the castle if Yugi didn't throw the duel. It was the first and only time while working for Dartz that Alistair's hatred of Kaiba had faltered.

Yugi's friends had seemed to think that Kaiba's motivation had been obsessive pride, but Alistair had known it was about Mokuba. Kaiba had needed to win in order to follow Pegasus' twisted instructions for how to get his brother back. Alistair would have done the same for Mikey; he assumed any older sibling would have, and so he had understood.

Still, in retrospect, that had been only one of many times Kaiba had risked his life, even when the stakes had been much lower. Kaiba had always seemed so cocky, though, so sure of himself, that it seemed upside down for him to be depressed.

And what about? Alistair wondered, tapping his foot against the mattress. How was it that the man who seemingly had it all was so unhappy? He'd lost his family, it was true, but Alistair couldn't see how that could translate to the self-loathing Kaiba clearly suffered from. And the photoshoot that morning had, for some reason, exacerbated it.

Alistair rolled over and stared vacantly at the bedside table.

What puzzled him even more than anything was why Kaiba had wanted him to observe what a struggle it had been for him to do it. It had made him wonder if maybe Kaiba was coming to think of him as someone he could relax around, and he'd liked the implication. Now though, he wasn't sure what it had meant.

Returning to lying on his back, Alistair realized he was fixating on the wrong point, and tried to refocus.

Since he couldn't tell anyone, did that mean it was up to him? Trying to stop Kaiba from doing what he wanted was a daunting task. And who was he to do anything? Hadn't working for Dartz just been a structured means of flirting with suicide? Make the world a better place or die trying? Even after it had all been over, he'd considered throwing himself out of Kaiba's jet on the way back to Domino. He'd thought at the time that he'd been serious, but now he could see what a waste of his life that would have been in a world that had never been as black and white as Dartz had made it seem.

Then again, for all that he'd been suckered into that simplistic view of the world, he'd never really taken it to heart the way Raphael and Dartz himself seemingly had. Not really. DOMA had been a band-aid more than anything else, and his hatred of the Kaiba family a distraction from the pain of what lay beneath. It was pain he knew he needed to confront if he wanted to be able to sleep soundly, but he was so relieved to finally have a break from the strain of salving it with anger only to feel it pulsing dulling underneath. His life as it was now was so blissfully mundane that he was as of yet unwilling to go through the agony of drowning in the sorrow of everything he'd lost in order to finally cleanse his soul of it.

Is that what had happened to Kaiba? What had happened to Kaiba?

Out of a sudden morbid curiosity, he reached for his phone and with a moment's hesitation, pulled up Kaiba's PictureThis profile.

In just a day, the picture had garnered a staggering amount of traffic, and just looking at it, it was easy to see why.

The image revealed none of the angst and discomfort that Alistair knew Kaiba had really been feeling. In fact, it was such a convincing performance that Alistair wondered if even those that had been there had known how he'd really felt. That cocky smirk that only Kaiba had ever been able to pull off successfully was stretched predictably across his face. It was a look with one interpretation: 'you wish you could be me, but you and I both know you never will.'

A single drop of water poised to fall clung to a lock of hair hanging just over his bare shoulder where another had been frozen running down his chiseled torso. His soaked shirt clung attractively to every muscle of his lean frame such that Alistair doubted anyone would stop to question why he'd worn a dress shirt into the pool behind him as the caption implied. By all accounts it was everything that Alistair was sure the photographer had been aiming for: it oozed sex and confidence and opulence while promising nothing.

It didn't really look like Kaiba. Sure, that was his Duel Monsters card necklace, and his monogrammed belt buckle, and even his face, but Seto Kaiba wasn't sexy. That is, he was sexy because he had never tried to be. This was hot in a very desperate sort of way that helped Alistair understand why Kaiba had hated it. But desperate or not, it had hit its mark which, for Kaiba's sake, Alistair hoped wouldn't result in him having to do this again, though if anything, it would ensure that he did. At least, if he continued to insist that it was a part of his job.

Still staring at the picture, Alistair couldn't understand why, now less even than before, why Kaiba would have agreed to this. He'd never shied away from shutting down ideas he didn't like in the past. Alistair had seen him telling Tanaka in particular many times that he wanted nothing to do with social media. What had changed? It almost seemed as though Kaiba no longer cared. But that wasn't true, or he wouldn't be cutting himself, would he? So what was it?

Even though it caused him to brush up uncomfortably against the feelings he was trying to ignore, Alistair contemplated what it was that he'd really wanted when he'd been at his lowest. When he hadn't really cared what happened to him anymore.

It had been soon after Valon had started courting Mai Valentine. He had never liked Valon, so it shouldn't have mattered, but he'd felt betrayed. He and Raphael and Valon were supposed to have been united by their mutual loneliness. Of course, neither of them had actually been alone all that time, slipping off on occasion (or in Valon's case, quite regularly) to pretend that one night stands were as good as a real companion, but he hadn't begrudged them that because he knew that they knew it wasn't really real. Mai had been real, though, or at least, Valon had wanted her to be. And that, Alistair had taken umbrage at. Perhaps for Kaiba it was the same, though he had reacted with sadness rather than anger. And it would explain why he had seemed so insecure around Mokuba's girlfriend.

Alistair sat up and set his phone aside, the bed dipping slightly as he prepared to stand up. He wasn't tired yet, so he got down on the floor to work out for a bit, hoping that the activity would help him think of a way to productively solve the problem for both of them.