Akiko was one of those characters, like Detective McKinley, who just kind of popped up. She started out as just a face with a name, but as time went on she seemed to become integral to my understanding of the Kaiba dynamic. It took me a little while to even get used to the idea that Seto and Mokuba would have a house staff; but once I realized the truth of that, I realized that I needed to get to know some of them. Travis and Connolly, driver and chef, showed up first; then Clinton, head of the cleaning crew.

The odd part about Akiko is that I'm not sure what her role is. I guess it depends on the story. In "Cemetery Dance," when I first came up with the face with a name, she was a maid. Now…well. Now she's a bit different. This chapter goes into what she thinks of herself, so maybe I should just let her do the talking.


Yoshimi Akiko wasn't the sort of person to take her work home with her.

Or so she'd thought.

The truth of it was, she wasn't sure what sort of person she was anymore. But recently, she was apparently the sort of person to make a good impression on Seto Kaiba which, if his reputation was to be believed (and she thought it was), wasn't easy.

It had started out simply enough. She'd been hired to work at the Domino Children's Home after a three-month internship there (two months earlier than any of the other recruits from her child development course at Westbridge Community College), and it had seemed like a dream.

She'd grown to know the people there, respect the people there. They'd become like a second family. But she hadn't ever brought them home. When those in her personal life asked about it, she'd told them, but that had seemed to be the end of it. She wasn't sure why, but the discussion just didn't come up all that often. She loved it there, loved working with the children there, and wouldn't have traded any of it for the world. But she'd definitely had two lives back then.

Something changed.

When Seto Kaiba had asked after a private tutor for his younger brother, he hadn't pursued specialists, doctors and professors and cutting-edge theorists. He'd gone to Kristine. Big Kristine, who didn't spend a single moment of her time not improving the lives of her city's orphans.

He'd asked her: when one of the children had a problem, and all else failed, who stepped in? Who was the best? Who would Kristine Hathaway trust with her own child?

For some reason she would never understand, Big Kristine hadn't spared a moment of hesitation before telling him that he was looking for Yoshimi Akiko; the young student that tended to go by Yoshi. Akiko couldn't for the life of her understand why she'd been recommended to one of the most critical, demanding employers in the country. But after a while he'd come to her. And she had accepted his offer.

She didn't know much about Seto Kaiba, even after working under his employ for a stretch, but she'd known enough even then to realize that when this man offered you a job, the only real option was to take it.

Now she was back, after two weeks in the house where she'd grown up, after spending two weeks caring for a woman she'd thought far too stubborn to ever die, and Akiko realized that the Kaiba Estate felt more like home than that old house ever had.

It felt more like home than the Children's Home, more like home than the apartment she'd rented before Seto's offer. She still wasn't the sort of person to take work home with her.

She was apparently the sort of person to bring home to her work.

It probably had to do entirely with the little black-haired, violet-eyed boy who was the reason for her paycheck every two weeks. So far as the rest of the staff—except Roland Ackerman, majordomo to the reigning king of Domino City's upper class—knew, Yoshimi Akiko earned that paycheck by being Mokuba's private tutor. She was there to help the eleven-year-old wunderkind if his schoolwork happened to cause him trouble.

Of course, since he'd left the isolation of home-schooling and begun to attend East Rivers Middle, she hadn't felt like there was much to do on that front anymore. She'd started back at the Children's Home during the hours when her charge was left in the care of Joanna Lorwell and her capable colleagues.

But just because she was a tutor in the strictest sense of the word didn't mean that that was the full extent of her job.

She tended to think of herself as a modern-day Jane Eyre: the governess to a rich man's ward. The way Seto put it, her job was to "watch him." The way Roland said it, her job was to "tend to him."

The way everyone else would have said it, if they'd honestly known, her job was to keep the poor boy sane. She had no delusions as to what she was to Mokuba Kaiba. She was a friend—or at least she thought she was slowly becoming one—and she was the young heir's favorite amongst the house staff. But as far as keeping him sane went…

That was, had been, and always would be, Niisama's job.

The thing was, Seto had other jobs to complete, other duties to which he had to tend, much as he might have liked to be at his brother's side at all times. In fact, Akiko had reason to believe that if he had stayed at Mokuba's beck and call for any longer than the month or so just after Siegfried von Schroeder, neither of them would have ever recovered. Mokuba needed to see that his brother was strong enough to take back his life, so that he could take back his own.

Akiko's job, as far as she thought of it, was to distract Mokuba and keep him in a halfway-decent mood until Seto came home.

That had become steadily easier as time went on, and today her assignment was to look after one of the fundamental reasons for that. Roland Ackerman had told her personally that she would be the face of the estate today.

"I think he'll have a better chance of lightening Young Master Mokuba's mood than any of the rest of us," he'd said, speaking of Connor Brinkley. "I want you to keep an eye on them both. You see anything, tell me immediately. Understand?"

Akiko had nodded. "Yes, sir."

She didn't usually work Saturdays, as Seto usually made a point to stay home. She hadn't expected to start back at work until Monday. She didn't know what had Mokuba in a bad mood today, but she knew that when Mokuba was in a bad mood, Seto was downright murderous, especially these days, and that that would lead into a spiral that would eventually lead to some measure of explosion. Any chance of cutting it off was one she was willing to take.

Connor was a handsome boy, with an open face and an honest smile. Just the sort of person Mokuba would befriend, and of whom Seto would approve. When Akiko greeted him and his mother, she bowed. "Welcome, Missus Brinkley, Master Brinkley." He bowed back, unsure if he should or not. Enid smiled.

Akiko usually wasn't so absurdly formal, but something about the nature of this place; something about the clean-cut, dark, almost severe suit she was expected to wear while working in this place, brought out the rigid tradition in her.

Connor blushed at the title.

"My name is Yoshimi Akiko," she said to Enid, who shook her hand. "I'll be looking after everything until Seto-sama comes home."

"…sama…" Connor murmured thoughtfully.

"Thank you," Enid said. She was looking around the parlor. "This is…an amazing house."

Akiko laughed. "It is, isn't it?"

"Where's Mokuba?" Connor asked suddenly.

"Bocchan is in his room," Akiko said, and smiled at the blank look they both gave her. "It means 'young master,'" she explained.

"Oh," Connor said. "Cool."

"I'll show you." Akiko looked at Enid. "Would you like something to drink? A light snack, maybe? Connolly can rustle up almost anything."

The woman blinked, surprised. "Oh. Oh, no. Thank you. I have to head out to run some errands." She looked at her son. "Behave yourself for Miss…Yoshimi?"

"Akiko is fine."

"I will, Mom," Connor said in that distracted singsong voice that all children seem to cultivate in specific response to their parents. Enid leaned down and kissed the boy's cheek. Connor accepted this with resigned embarrassment, gave his mother a quick, almost nonexistent peck in return.

Akiko's smile widened.

"Come with me," she said. "I'll show you to the game room."

Once she had the young Brinkley situated, and made one final offer to have the chef make up a snack for his mother, Akiko went up to the second floor, stepped into the doorway of the younger Kaiba's bedroom, and found Mokuba sitting at one end of his bed, staring at a tiny photograph in his hands. He didn't look frightened, or in shock. Akiko thought that if there were anything she would call him right now, it was confused.

Wistful.

She stood there silently for a moment, thinking that he must be in a strange mood not to have noticed her yet. While he was nowhere near as constantly vigilant as his brother, Mokuba didn't "space out" as a rule. Even in the safety of his own bedroom.

Akiko watched him for a short while longer, unable to reconcile what Roland had told her about the day so far; he didn't look hurt, or sad, or…well…anything. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Mokuba was beginning to adopt his brother's strategy for stress.

Shut all emotions down.

In light of that, Akiko's brow furrowed in concern. Now that she thought about it, that was exactly what Mokuba looked like right now: his brother. He had that nothing-else-is-happening level of focus that Seto tended to get when he hit the right stride behind his desk; the I-don't-care-unless-the-house-is-burning approach to his surroundings.

He was focused, every fiber was focused, on that little photograph.

And whatever thoughts that sprang from it.

Akiko eventually gave a little knock on the doorframe.

Mokuba didn't flinch, as she'd expected him to do. He simply raised his gaze from the picture up to the door. The flinch came when he saw her; he'd been expecting someone else. His brother, maybe. But a smile rose on his lips, as bright and vibrant as she'd ever seen it.

"Bocchan," Akiko offered, giving a smile of her own. "How've you been?"

"Okay," he said. "Kind of a…crazy weekend, but…you know. Okay."

"So I've heard," Akiko said. She saw that he'd put his hand, and the picture in it, on the side of the bed where she couldn't see it. She wondered if he realized what he was doing, but again decided not to press. One of the first things she'd discovered about dealing with the Kaiba brothers was the importance of knowing when to face the storm and when to find shelter.

Something about the atmosphere right now told her to back off.

"It's been a little while," Akiko said.

"Yeah," Mokuba agreed. "How's your mom?"

"Not the woman I remember," Akiko said, "but…content. I think she'll be okay." Truth be told, Akiko didn't think Yoshimi Kaoru was ever going to be okay again, and she wondered if she hadn't made a mistake in leaving when she had, but she knew—the same way she knew not to ask about the photograph—that telling that to Mokuba was a bad idea. "So what has Bocchan been up to? Hm?"

Mokuba shrugged. "…Stuff. You missed Niisama's birthday."

"I know. I would have sent a card," Akiko said, still wondering why Mokuba had decided to divulge that particular secret, "if I'd thought Seto-sama would actually read it." Mokuba gave a little chuckle that was almost natural. "I trust you got him something nice?"

It should have been an innocuous question.

It should have been safe.

But Mokuba went white, and his entire body stiffened.

Akiko blinked. "…Ahem. Well…never mind about that." She didn't like the suddenly squeaky sound of her own voice, and she liked the way Mokuba's mouth was working like he was choking on something even less. She said, "I actually came up here to tell you that you have a guest."

Mokuba regained enough of his composure to figure out a reply.

He said, sounding scared, "…C-Could you tell them to come back another time?"

Akiko frowned thoughtfully, deciding to try a gamble. "…Well, I could…his mother might still be out on the grounds, heading for her car…but he seemed so excited to finally see the house. It'd be a shame to send him away so soon."

Confusion banished the haunted look on the young Kaiba's face.

She pressed on.

"I'll just tell Master Brinkley you're not feeling well."

She made to leave.

"Wait! Kiko! Hold on!"


Do you know which little photograph Mokuba has? I bet you do. But, if you don't, the core "Paved with Good Intentions" should have a clue for you. It's not something I just threw in there; it has some significance. I'm not sure why I'm being so mysterious about it, but I suppose I'll just roll with it for now.

See you next time, everyone.