Disclaimer: Plot twist: I do in fact own Yu-Gi-Oh! *nose instantly grows to Pinocchio-esque proportions due to extremeness of lie.*

"Lost and so alone
Born but never known
Left all on their own

We'll never hear a name
They carry all the blame
Too young to break the chains."

~Forgotten Children, Tokio Hotel

Chapter 23

The next few days signified an uncomfortable transition period in Alistair and Ryou's relationship. One often went to kiss the other before remembering that that was no longer appropriate. For the most part they avoided touching each other at all, though aside from these momentarily awkward occurrences, their interactions remained as they'd always been: comfortable. They were both infinitely relieved that it appeared as though their friendship had survived even when their romance had not.

Alistair had worried that sharing a bed would ultimately be problematic, but it wasn't, although he did miss being able to fall asleep with his arms wrapped around Ryou's slight frame. They filled the time they would have spent having sex exchanging words, and the stories they told each other of their respective pasts, some happy, some sad, further served to strengthen their bond as close friends. These late night conversations caused Alistair to regret that he did not love Ryou. He didn't understand no matter how much he tried to decode his own feelings why, despite everything, such a large part of him still yearned for Seto who by all accounts wasn't nearly as deserving of his love as Ryou was.

For his part, Ryou did his best not to mourn. He kept repeating to himself what he'd told Alistair the night they'd broken up: a friend is good enough for me. And more than I ever thought I'd have.

During his lunch break on Monday afternoon, two days after his conversation with Alistair in the Kaiba Land hanger, Seto sat at his desk with a cup of coffee at hand, reading off of his computer screen. Had his secretary Valarie or anyone else walked in they wouldn't have noticed anything unusual in his behavior; Seto often worked through his 'breaks'. What they didn't know was that Seto wasn't in fact working.

While tossing and turning all of Friday night he'd come to the realization that Alistair had been completely right; as things stood now there was very little reason why the two of them should be together; he'd learned nothing in their time apart. Granted, for all but seven hours of that time he'd still thought the redhead a saboteur, but that in and of itself, as Alistair had pointed out, was telling.

Seto had made a promise to himself while brushing his teeth Saturday morning: he was going to carefully evaluate whether or not his and Alistair's differences were insurmountable. If, by Tuesday morning, he determined that the only thing that had bound them together was circumstance and that a reunification would only lead to more arguments and slammed doors he would abort his plan.

The first time they'd come together Seto had offered Alistair a roof over his head and in return Alistair had offered him everything he thought he'd never have. It had been an unfair trade and he couldn't believe that the redhead had made it. This time though, Seto knew better. A place to stay and scraps of tenderness would not be enough. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me as the saying goes.

And so, he'd thought long and hard about what he possibly had to offer that would be equal in worth to what Alistair had to offer him. He'd even gone as far as to discuss the matter with Dr. Coleman that day, careful at first not to reveal too much.

Dr. Coleman, no fool, had easily seen past his flimsy attempts at being casual but hadn't called him out on it, choosing instead to play along.

"You can correct me if I'm wrong," she'd begun after listening to Seto's longwinded economical metaphor. "You almost certainly know more about opportunity cost and trade than I do, but it seems to me that in the scenario you described, the vendor would be foolish to sign the agreement based on an empty promise alone."

"The supplier fully intends to provide the product; they just need some form of collateral."

"As I said: business is not my area of expertise."

"What if I substituted people for the vendor and the supplier?"

"That might help me understand what you mean," she'd agreed. She was fascinated by the way Seto Kaiba went about manipulating their discussions. He always seemed to come with some topic in mind but was unwilling to bring it up himself, preferring to lead her to it so that she would have to be the one to voice it at which time he'd act as though it had been her idea from the start. She could easily see how he had been able to make it in the business world.

"Let's say that there are two people and person A has something that person B wants, but person B doesn't have anything of equal value to offer for it; what should they do?"

"Well that depends. I imagine that there could be some kind of negotiation and a little bit of back and forth, but ultimately person B might have to come to terms with living without what it is that person A has."

"What if what person B wants isn't a thing?" Seto had asked carefully. "What if it's something else?"

"Like what?" He'd paused before answering, aware that she would easily see past his façade and hoping that she wouldn't try to force him to go into more detail than he wanted to because then he'd have to backtrack which would be a waste of time—and he hated wasting time.

"Like…" He'd started to say 'friendship' but stopped himself given that part of the reason he was even here in the first place was denying what Alistair was to him. "Like love." Dr. Coleman, who'd been expecting something more along the lines of 'friendship', had been taken aback but quickly recovered herself.

"And are you saying that person B has nothing to offer or that they think they have nothing to offer?"

"They think they have nothing to offer," he'd clarified. For the first time she'd seen in his face that he was actually imploring her for help.

"And you want to know if it's possible for them to find something?"

"No. I want to know if there's a way to know if person B does or doesn't have something to offer person A."

"Definitively?"

"Yes."

"No. At least, not that I know of. That's something they'd have to figure out together. A good start might be asking if person A can perhaps see something in person B that person B cannot see in themselves."

"He can. But he never really told person B what that was. And now it matters more than ever. I have to know what it was that he saw!" He'd risen from his chair before he'd quite realized what he was doing. She'd known better than to ask who 'he' was, but she was starting to think that 'he' and the person Seto had referred to in his suicide note, the one he'd claimed had not been the reason he'd attempted to take his own life, were one and the same.

"Sit," she'd said. It wasn't quite a command, but Seto nonetheless glowered before sitting back down and crossing his arms. "You like to control things, but perhaps, and this is only a suggestion, but perhaps you might want to consider relinquishing just a fraction of that control."

"Why? So I can watch the world crumble to dust?" he'd snapped, not appreciating her changing the topic so abruptly. He didn't want to talk about control; he wanted to talk about Alistair.

"I don't know about all that, but if you do, you might find time to figure out what it is that you're looking for. This quality that 'he' saw in you."

"I don't want some bullshit answer like that; I want you to give me some meditation technique or a drug or, I don't know, a self-help book or something. If I wanted generic advice I would have bought a fortune cookie."

"My advice can only be as precise as the story I have to go with it." Chagrined, he'd realized she wanted him to reveal what he was really talking about instead of hiding behind metaphors and manipulation tactics.

"There's someone I care about who I pushed away. I thought that they did something they didn't do which I was too angry to see at the time."

"And now you want to apologize?"

"No, I did that. I want to change so that he'll see that I meant it." He'd never been so open during one of their sessions before and they'd both been shocked by his sudden willingness to share.

For the remainder of the hour Dr. Coleman had tried to help Seto sort out the best way to tackle his sudden desire to make himself a better person, though she'd cautioned him against making 'his' opinion the ultimate deciding factor in whether or not he'd succeeded.

It was one of her pieces of advice that had led to him spending his lunch break reading Black Beauty. He could easily see why Alistair liked the book so much and with which characters the redhead undoubtedly identified. He couldn't say that he found it to be a thrilling read, but he did smile at the glimmers of Alistair he saw in the story.

As his eyes drank in the words on his screen he reflected on how much more settled he felt now than he had just two days before. He'd finally finished reflecting and decided that yes, there was a chance that he could offer something to Alistair of equal value to what Alistair had offered him if, and only if he was willing to accept that he wasn't perfect, that he was going to suck at being altruistic, at least at first. He'd come to the conclusion, after hours of over-analyzing the events of the past year, that much of what they'd disagreed on stemmed from his unwillingness to care about other people. A lack of compassion seemed to be a deal-breaker where Alistair was concerned.

Seto couldn't force himself to be compassionate, but he could force himself to stare into the faces of those less fortunate than he was which had brought him to the Domino City slums Saturday evening.

He'd gone without telling anyone that that was where he was going. Roland would have advised against it, as would Saito and Kanzo on the grounds that for someone in his position that could be dangerous, but Seto had never been one to allow his actions to be dictated by anyone else and so after parking his car as far away from the slums as possible, he'd walked through downtown, watching with mild interest as the upscale shops turned first into clubs and bars, and then into liqueur stores and gas stations.

Seto Kaiba wasn't a man who scared easily, but as he'd turned off the main drag and began walking down the narrow street that led to the soup kitchen he was intent on visiting, dilapidated apartment buildings looming over him, he'd found himself completely ill at ease. He'd been acutely aware of his flashy purple trench coat and the weight of his wallet in his pocket. He'd wished he had a knife or a pistol after realizing he was hunching his shoulders slightly as though bracing for an attack.

A small group of middle school-aged kids with a football emerged from one of the buildings and began kicking it back and forth in the middle of the street, laughing uproariously as they did so. They caught sight of him as he passed and the ball rolled under a rusty car parked at the curb, completely forgotten. He saw them looking and stopped walking. Their eyes widened as they realized that it really was Seto Kaiba standing across the street from them.

"Hey!" one of the boys had called, waving. Seto hesitated before walking across the street to join them, unsure of what to say. As it turned out, he didn't have to think of anything. Once they got over their initial shock, the kids crowded around him, asking him when the next tournament would be and if he'd beat Yugi in it, and whether or not they could see his Blue Eyes White Dragons. He told them that he didn't know when the next tournament would be, but that Yugi had better hope that it wasn't for quite some time given that his days as champion were numbered. They'd whooped with delight and told him that he was way cooler anyway, though he couldn't help but wonder if they wouldn't have said the same thing to Yugi had he been the one to take a stroll down their street.

"Do any of you duel?" he'd asked curiously. They'd exchanged glances.

"I want to," a girl said finally. "I have a few cards, but not enough for a deck." The others nodded in agreement and it occurred to him that they might not be able to afford cards let alone a duel disk.

"I watch all of the matches though!" a boy had put in.

"Who's your favorite duelist?" He supposed it was a bit of a loaded question, but he was curious.

"Well, you're really cool, but I also like Joey Wheeler," someone had said and there was a murmur of agreement. "My older brother went to elementary school with him and his sister, and plus, he's really nice. One time I went to the store while he was working and he gave me one of his cards and an autograph." This was the second time Seto had heard someone praise Wheeler and call him their favorite duelist. No one appeared to be under the delusion that Wheeler was anything but mediocre when it came to Duel Monsters, but they seemed to like his relatability. These kids saw him as a local hero; someone who had managed, against all odds, to make it. Although it sounded as though Wheeler hadn't made it enough to rise above his initial socioeconomic bracket.

"Hey James, Malika wants you!" a young girls' voice called from a second floor balcony.

"Tell her I'll be there in a minute!" James had called back, embarrassedly fiddling with the bridge of his black and red baseball cap. The girl reappeared a moment later.

"She says to come here right now! It's your turn to make dinner and I'm hungry!"

"Just make it yourself!" he'd yelled. "And stop being a pest!"

"I'm not a pest!" Crying, she'd retreated back into the house.

"Is that your sister," Seto had asked.

"Ugh! Yes. She's always bothering me because our older sister's too lazy to look after her like she's supposed to."

"Where are your parents?" The boy, James, looked at the ground.

"I never knew my dad and my mom's always working." His brow creasing in concern, Seto regarded the young boy.

"As an older brother it's your job to look out for your younger sibling," he'd said firmly, all five kids hanging on his every word. "Family means putting their needs before yours because no one else will."

"But then who looks out for you?" One of the girls asked glumly. "I don't have any older siblings to do that for me." He paused. He'd never thought about that. Suddenly he had an epiphany of sorts. "That's what friends are for," he'd added slowly.

Before leaving, he'd gotten all of their addresses and promised to send them each free season passes to Kaiba Land that would be valid for the rest of that season as well as the next.

"Just promise that you'll take your siblings with you," he'd told them. "Even if you think they're annoying, know that someday you'll be glad to have someone in your corner."

He didn't make it to the soup kitchen that night, but he nonetheless felt surprisingly good about the way the evening had panned out. But even though at the time offering free passes to Kaiba Land had seemed generous, the more he thought about the kids on his walk back to his car, the more he wished he'd had something more to offer them. A couple of trips to an amusement park would be a drop in the bucket compared to what he felt they'd really need in order to improve their lot.

It was tragic to know that he'd just looked into the faces of children who would grow up in a system that scorned them, that told them that they'd never amount to anything and would probably end up in jail, children who would grow up without choices, that would grow into browbeaten adults working paycheck to paycheck, who would drag themselves home and watch Duel Monsters tournaments on TV in an attempt to escape for an hour or two into the glamorous lives of duelists with nothing better to do than play cards against each other.

He'd thought back to his own performance in the Battle City Tournament and was ashamed by his display of poor sportsmanship. If his biggest problem in life was not winning a championship Duel Monsters title, then he was a lucky man.

He couldn't save the world, he knew that. He probably couldn't even save all of the children in Domino which was a depressing enough thought in and of itself. For the first time in years he'd felt helpless, powerless. He put a lot of money into the Domino orphanage, but was that enough? What about the kids who weren't orphans? Was he just supposed to forget about them and pat himself on the back for meeting his yearly generosity quota?

He hadn't slept well that night either and had wished that Alistair had been there. The redhead would surely have had some idea of what could be done.

Sunday had rolled around and brought with it more meetings. The pressure was on to finish the virtual reality pods and he'd spent the rest of the day in the lab tinkering with the design. Ultimately he'd gone home dissatisfied with what he'd accomplished that day. It didn't help that he kept thinking about the kids he'd met and how it wouldn't matter to them if he completed this project or not since they would never be able to afford to buy one.

Mokuba had been concerned by his brother's bad mood and had asked what was wrong. Seto had briefly described what had happened on Saturday, ending with:

"What good is inventing something if the ones I really want to have it can't buy it?"

"Maybe we should come up with something more affordable," Mokuba had suggested. "It might not be top of the line, but then everyone could enjoy our technology."

"Yes, but what?" They'd sat in silence at the dining room table for a time, but neither of them could come up with anything.

By Monday morning, Seto had decided to shelve the matter for a few days; the shareholders were becoming restless again and he wouldn't be any use to anyone if his company went belly-up, so he threw himself into finishing the pods and spent most of the morning hooked up to the mainframe, testing the latest level they'd added to the adventure game he was planning on releasing alongside the pod. It would be a first for Kaiba Corp and he wanted it to be a success.

He'd begged off of working through lunch in favor of taking a well-deserved break from the constant chattering of the virtual reality pod team and reading the book that Alistair had always sung the praises of.

After completing the tenth chapter he sat back in his chair and briefly closed his eyes. He'd learned a lot in the last few days, much of which left him reeling, but two things had been made crystal clear: one, he no longer planned to avoid looking at things just because he wouldn't always like what he saw, and two, he wanted one final chance to convince Alistair that he'd changed and that he wouldn't let him down again.

Author's Note: I think Seto going on a journey of sorts in order to realize not only his own self worth but also to gain a better understanding of the world is good for him, and ultimately for Alistair too should the two get back together.