There's a bit of cleanup left after such a big to-do. I can't just jump right back into the self-contained shenanigans. Not in good faith, anyway. Regardless, this does mean that I'm headed back into a more traditional format. I think this little collection has strayed from its roots, and it's time to bring it back around.

Just. Gotta establish a couple things first.

You know how it is.


.


"Are you sure you're prepared for this?"

Seto slipped a bookmark into his paperback to keep track of his place. He glanced up. "I've given plenty of KC Directs at this point, Roland. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing by now." He set his book aside, stood, and adjusted his jacket.

Roland rolled his eyes. "You know I'm not talking about a press release, sir."

"The question you've asked is irrelevant, Roland. Whether I felt prepared or not wouldn't change my answer, nor would it change my approach." He frowned. "You think I'm that shallow? You think I can't put the past aside and provide for him properly? You wound me."

"That's . . . that's not what I mean," Roland said. "Just because you've managed this well with one brother doesn't mean that adding a second to your home won't come with complications. Especially considering what Young Master Noa has dealt with. He spent what amounts to half his life in solitary confinement. That's a torture technique, sir."

Seto crossed his arms. "Noa," he said, "is a member of my family. His place in my home is not a negotiation. More to the point, he is a victim of Gozaburo Kaiba." Roland tried to remember the last time he'd heard Seto say that name. "Whether he complicates things or not, I'm not going to cast him out from his home. And before you say that you weren't suggesting that, I'd like to know what you think my alternative is. What, pray tell, would you suggest I do if I decided I couldn't handle him?"

Roland drew in a steadying breath. He knew that he had to be careful. "I was not suggesting an alternative. I am merely checking in with you, sir, to ensure that you are not stretching yourself too thin. What resources will you need to provide for him? Have you spoken to Miss Yoshimi? Have you considered bringing in other professionals?"

The flames in Seto's eyes abated. "I have, actually." He gestured. "For the time being, until we are able to locate a specialist, Yoshimi will be meeting with Mokuba and Noa both, once per week. I wondered how Noa would react to the arrangement, whether he would resist the notion of speaking to a therapist. He was quite enthusiastic about it."

"Oh?" Roland's eyebrows raised. "Perhaps he is relieved to see new leadership at work in his old home. I highly doubt his father would have ever suggested such a thing."

Seto shook his head. "Never. He would have recommended ritual suicide before therapy."

"Have you considered speaking to a therapist, sir?"

Seto grunted. "If I find someone I can trust to believe me when I talk about the various apocalypses I have watched unfold, I will consider it. Until then, no. I have not."

"What of Young Master Noa's place here?" Roland gestured at the office they stood in. "How will that be handled?"

"We'll find a place for him," Seto said. "If I were to venture a guess, he will either wish to entrench himself in engineering or else keep himself as far away as possible from it."

"His genius isn't a smokescreen, is it?"

Seto smirked. "He's brilliant. I hesitate to consider just how much I would funnel into recruiting him. But more than that, he is a child. While he is older than I, strictly in a numerical sense, we cannot pretend that ten years of torture, as you so eloquently mentioned, provided him with a proper environment."

"Education?" Roland wondered.

"Home-schooling," Seto said. "After so much time spent in isolation, how do you think he'd handle spending eight hours a day with hundreds of grade-schoolers? Or, if we consider his intellect absent his maturity and place him at a collegiate level, hundreds of idiot adults?"

Roland hummed. "You make a fair point, sir."

"I'm half-convinced I ought to forge a few degrees for him and be done with it," Seto muttered. It was hard to tell if he was joking; Roland thought, with more than a little confidence, that he wasn't. "The only reason I haven't considered it seriously is because it would impress on him a need to use them."

"You don't want him jumping headfirst into the workforce," Roland guessed.

"You know he would," Seto said. "It's what Mokuba did. It's what I did. Every example he's ever had of what life means, what a man is supposed to do, involves building a career as soon as possible. He already feels like he's fallen behind."

"What are you going to encourage, if not . . . that?"

Seto looked affronted. "I'm going to encourage him to live, Roland. Any chance at a real childhood was stolen from him. What else am I going to do, except encourage him to take it back? I want him to play videogames with Mokuba. I want him to learn how to ride a skateboard. I want him to explore this city and find a favorite bakery, a favorite fast food restaurant. I want him to get into jigsaw puzzles, or origami, or coin collecting, or something that doesn't involve our name. He deserves that."

Roland smiled, with a bit more sentimentality than perhaps he'd intended. There was no need for him to say "You deserved it, too" because it was written on his face. Seto very clearly saw it, and it very clearly annoyed him, because he rolled his eyes and stomped back to his desk.

He sat down in a huff.

"As I recall," Roland said after a time, "you've never had anything particularly nice to say about Young Master Noa. Yet, here you are, his advocate. I wonder what's changed."

"Every child needs an advocate," Seto said shortly, "no matter what I might think of them, personally. And given the nature of this entire situation, I don't see how Noa's advocate should be anyone but me. I took on every responsibility beholden to the Kaiba name, when I took over as its patriarch. That includes this, whether I like it or not."

"But you do like it. Let us not mince words here, sir. You aren't doing this in spite of your feelings toward Young Master Noa. You're doing this because it's in your nature. Having another child who depends on you, particularly as Young Master Mokuba gains a more established and pronounced sense of independence . . . is a balm to you. Isn't it?"

Seto quirked an eyebrow. "Are you volunteering to be my therapist, Roland?"

"That," said Roland, "depends entirely on whether or not it involves a pay raise."

Seto chuckled. "Uh-huh."

Roland sighed, shook his head. "This is a good thing," he said. "You're growing, sir. I don't know that the Master Kaiba from a few years ago would have been quite this dedicated to carving out space for someone who'd wronged him, child or not, victim of violence or not."

"Hm," said Seto. "That sounds more like an indictment of the man I used to be, rather than praise for the man I am."

"Regardless of which it happens to be," Roland said, "I find myself quite proud of you."

"Okay, that's quite enough." Seto gestured dismissively. "Don't you have work to do?"

Roland bowed and turned toward the door. "Of course, sir."

He didn't miss the way Seto's face was going red.