Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet yourself, when you were younger (or older)? Have you ever wondered whether you'd be annoyed by yourself, or intimidated by yourself, or just generally put off by yourself?
If anyone has reason to be put off by himself, it's Seto. But this chapter, more than anything, shows not only the reason why that is true, but also the reason why it shouldn't be. I know this is strange to say, feels paradoxical and such, but that's part of Seto's charm. Sort of.
Basically, what I'm getting at is, if you've been wondering how Seto and Sotaro—being two sides of the same coin—interact with each other, this chapter is for you. I also take the opportunity to dig a bit into Yuki's personality, because it's one of the first chances I've really had to do so.
Now, then. With that said . . .
"Mister Kaiba."
Seto was getting a late start—it was 6:53 in the morning, which should have been early, but time moved differently on the Kaiba Estate—and was gathering things on his way out the door. His level of "disorganization" would have been unrecognizable to most people; he looked like any corporate businessman on the way to the office. The only clue that he was late, and something resembling scrambling, was the fact that his eyes seemed somehow brighter and angrier than usual.
That, and the fact that his tie was hanging across his shoulders, undone.
Yuki set down her coffee and watched apprehensively as her son approached their host. Sotaro had a serious look on his little face, and Seto didn't look at him immediately. He was on his phone, saying: ". . . That's why it's called an 'executive summary.' It's to summarize the information for the executives. Professional writing is efficiency. The rest of the report exists purely in the event that something in the summary is fu—"
"Mister Kaiba," Sotaro repeated, more loudly.
"No, that's why we give a best practices guide to every new intern on their first day. Besides, if I come personally into his performance review, the first thing he's going to do is either ask me for a damned autograph or wonder why the police haven't shown—"
"Seto."
The elder Kaiba stopped, blinked, and said, "Hold on a moment." He looked down at his seven-year-old counterpart and raised an eyebrow. ". . . Yes?" he asked in a voice that would have sent most children running; Sotaro didn't give an inch.
"Mokuba isn't feeling well," the boy said softly. "He has a fever, and he's been throwing up. I got a trash can from the bathroom for him, put it by his bed in case he needs it. I found some tea in one of the cabinets to help his stomach, but I'm not allowed to turn on the stove by myself. I thought you would want to do it."
Yuki watched the man's face. Seto's eyes widened slightly, and the inklings of a smile actually twitched on his lips. He said, over the phone, "Change of plans. Call Aarden and let her know I'll be working from home today. See if she or Douglass can sit in for the review. Fine. Good."
He terminated the call, set his briefcase back down against the wall, and started punching in numbers for another call as he strode in the direction of the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder at Sotaro. "Thank you," he said, quickly but not rudely.
Sotaro nodded. "You're welcome." He looked at his mother and smiled, looking entirely too satisfied for his own good. Yuki returned the smile, trying to fit what she had just seen into the growing puzzle of her current situation. Did this event run counter to Seto Kaiba's usual behavior, or illuminate it?
Yuki decided she needed more information, and stood up after finishing her drink. She walked almost nonchalantly to the kitchen, smiling again when she saw the tea kettle on a lit burner on the stovetop, just beginning to steam up. Seto had discarded his jacket and tie, which were tossed over the back of a chair in the dining room. As he was rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, Yuki said, "Do you need help with anything?"
Seto glanced up at her, considering. For a wonder, he wasn't wearing a scowl. He said, "If you could check on Mokuba and ask him if he has any particular request for lunch—he may not, considering—I would appreciate it."
"Sure."
"Thank you."
Seto drew out a chef's knife from a block on the counter, tested the edge with his thumb, and rustled a sharpener out of a drawer. A wood cutting board was already on the countertop in front of him.
From a doorway on the opposite side of the room, Yuki saw a young man with dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, sporting a stylishly groomed beard, and dressed in khakis and a sweater, sweep his way through the kitchen. "Au revoir," he said with a casual wave, without looking back at Seto. "Sure you don't need anything? I can put a call in to the grocer."
"No. Thank you."
The young man, evidently Seto's chef—Connolly—tipped an invisible hat to Yuki and left the room. Yuki took her leave next, heading into the adjacent hallway toward the stairs. As she made the trek to Mokuba's bedroom on the second floor, she reflected on what she had just witnessed.
She had expected him to snap at Sotaro, to ignore him, to put a call in to Akiko and head out to work anyway. Instead, he had actually smiled—as much as a man like him could—canceled his plans, and now he was preparing to cook? Was he taking advantage of the excuse of his brother's illness to take a day off? No. That didn't sound like him. But then, why was he being so pleasant? Pleasant, at least, compared to his previous behavior.
Sotaro had already made it back to the young Kaiba's sanctuary by the time Yuki reached the open doorway. Mokuba was hunched over on the side of his bed, pulling on his shoes. Sotaro was saying, "You need to lie down!"
". . . Can't," Mokuba mumbled, not looking up at the younger boy, his face hidden by the tangled mass of his hair. "Have to—have to . . . turn in . . . a report. Worth too much. I can't skip it."
Yuki crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. She said, "I'm not sure where it is, exactly, that you think you're going." Mokuba started to protest, but Yuki cut him off: "Unless the schools here have radically changed their policies in the past decade, they don't like students coming to class sick."
Mokuba raised his head, looked blearily at Yuki, and shook his head. "I-I can't. I need—I need . . ."
"To lie back down," Yuki said.
Mokuba finally managed to set his shoes straight, and he threw himself into a standing position. Standing there, swaying, he looked like a drunken college student at the end of a party, insisting that he was okay to drive.
Sotaro seemed to calculate something, then reached over and gave Mokuba a light push back toward the bed. The young Kaiba teetered, and fell backward with a grunt. "Even if you figured out how to get down the stairs," Sotaro said reasonably, "you wouldn't make it to the door before your brother found out. I don't think he'd want you going out like that."
Sometimes, Yuki forgot that her son was only seven years old. When he was comfortable with someone, and managed to get a handle on his usual shyness, he tended to act far older than his age. He was acting like that now, looking like nothing so much as a stern, but caring . . .
Father.
Mokuba shook his head again. "You don't . . . know . . . my brother," he managed.
Sotaro put on a sardonic, exasperated face, at which Yuki had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, and said, "I think I do."
Yuki felt a presence sweep up behind her, and glanced at Seto Kaiba as he appeared beside her in the doorway, carrying a mug of hot tea in his right hand. He closed his eyes, sighed, and said:
"I'm not sure where it is, exactly, that you think you're going."
Yuki blinked, and both Sotaro and Mokuba turned to stare at him.
"Niisama . . ." Mokuba said after he'd recovered, "I have to—have to . . . turn in my . . . biology report. I can't . . . miss it."
"Unfortunately, you're going to miss it," Seto said. "While I appreciate your dedication to your schoolwork, I can tell at a glance that you're in no shape to be going anywhere. I want you to clean yourself up, if you can, and get back into bed. This is not a negotiation. I will bring your report to your instructor myself."
"Niisama . . . you don't know my biology teacher."
Seto put on an expression that was patently identical to the one Sotaro had been wearing just moments before. Again, Yuki had to fight the urge to laugh. "Did you forget just who I am? I can handle myself just fine. I'm a big boy. Now, this discussion is over. Shoes off. Let's go."
"But Mister Nielson said—"
"Mokuba. You are not leaving this house. Don't make me say it again."
The black-haired boy clamped his mouth shut, eyes widening slightly. Looking sheepish, he reached down and started pulling off his shoes. ". . . Yes, Niisama."
As if his body were rebelling against him just to prove the point, Mokuba quickly succumbed to a fit of coughing, which ended in him upending the contents of his stomach into the small trash bin that Sotaro had placed on the floor.
Seto swept into the room, set the tea down on the end table, and leaned over his brother's trembling body as he retched and heaved, putting a hand on Mokuba's back. "Breathe," Seto whispered, in a gentle tone of voice that neither Yuki nor Sotaro ever would have expected from him. "C'mon, kiddo, just breathe." He continued in this vein until Mokuba finally toppled back against his pillows and stared unseeingly at the ceiling. Seto wiped the hair from his face. "Now. Are you going to stay in bed?"
". . . Yes, Niisama," Mokuba mumbled again. "Report's over there." He gestured vaguely in the direction of his desk.
Seto drew in a deep breath, shook his head again, and turned around. He scanned the desk behind him, plucked up a black folder, and made for the door. He looked at Yuki. "Apparently I have an errand to run," he said. "I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on him. Yoshimi will be here in an hour or so." Yuki nodded. Seto turned over his shoulder. "Feel better?" he asked.
"No," Mokuba replied, tossing an arm over his eyes.
"Any idea what you might like for lunch?" Yuki asked, remembering why she was here in the first place.
"Chicken," Mokuba said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm but no small amount of conviction. "Shells. Spicy."
Yuki glanced at Seto; he nodded without a word and left the room.
Yuki stepped over to Mokuba's desk chair and sat down, musing. Sotaro stood off near one corner of the room, still and silent. Yuki said to him, "Where's Dad? He wasn't here when I woke up."
"Father said he went with Mister Roland for some kind of training," Sotaro answered promptly. "He said he wouldn't be back for a while."
Yuki nodded. She might have known. Kohaku had never been one for idle hands. Mokuba started coughing again, and she glanced over. "Your brother brought you some tea for your stomach," she said to Mokuba. "Might help with that cough, too. Would you like some?"
Mokuba managed a nod.
As Yuki was reaching over for the mug, something fell off the table onto the floor. She handed the tea to Mokuba—who struggled to a sitting position and held it like a sacred relic—and reached down.
It was a locket, rectangular, painted to look like one of the cards that Sotaro had won from Yugi Mutou. Magic & Wizards, she remembered. It had popped open, and Yuki saw that it held a small photograph.
Her son stared up at her, smiling, from within the frame.
Yuki's mouth hung open slightly.
Glancing over at Mokuba, she saw that he was looking at her, sipping gingerly. He said, "Niisama," answering her unspoken question. "When he was my age." He coughed again, recovered, and gulped down more tea.
Yuki looked back down at the picture, then up at her child, then back to the picture. There was no question that they were one and the same. For the first time, something resembling certainty slammed against her head and forced her to really understand where, and when, she was.
Sotaro approached to take a look for himself.
Yuki heard Mokuba's brother out in the hallway, and she looked up almost in anticipation. He passed by the doorway, wearing a black leather trench coat over his shirt, holding his phone to his ear.
". . . That's odd, considering I didn't ask for your permission," he was saying. "I am pointedly not sorry to inform you that my brother's health is more important than your policy. I'm entirely aware how often Mokuba has been absent." He proceeded to rail off a sequence of dates; five in total.
He'd stopped walking, obviously so that Mokuba could hear him, and Yuki couldn't help but grin.
Sotaro was studying the elder Kaiba again.
"We've reached the part of this conversation where I am morally obligated to inform you that I will be pursuing legal action if you don't change your tone," Seto said after a fair amount of silence. "I will be in your classroom at eight o'clock, I will turn in Mokuba's report personally, you will grade it fairly, and the quarter will continue as planned. I trust that you understand me."
Seto lowered the phone, terminated the call, and slipped the device into his pocket. He glanced at his brother.
". . . I'm not going to be taking Mister Nielson's class much longer, am I?" Mokuba asked, trying to keep his face neutral.
Seto tilted his head slightly. "I have no idea what you mean."
