A family relationship is confusing. Even the most functional, well-adjusted clan on the face of the planet has its issues, and the Kaiba family is most certainly not well-adjusted. It is, for the most part, functional. That is, at least, until you throw a third spoke onto the wheel. Noa breaks things downs and builds them back up until they're entirely unrecognizable. What once was a pair of siblings whose lives revolve around comfortable routine is now a triumvirate.
In other words...shit's about to get real.
Verse One.
"How are you feeling?"
Noa looked over at Jay with a bright smile. "I'm fine," he said, jumping up from his bed and walking around it. He held out a hand and turned it this way and that, looking at it as though it were some foreign artifact. "Do you know…" he said, "…there's just something more…whole about…this?" He gestured around himself. "It's like…like how you can tell you're dreaming? When you're asleep, and things are happening, and you know they're not real because…because you can feel it?"
Jay wasn't entirely sure he understood what the light-haired Kaiba was talking about, but he nodded, anyway. "Enjoying yourself, then?" he asked, and Noa nodded vigorously, looking like nothing so much as a little boy opening Christmas presents. "Well, that's fine. That's just fine. Ah…if you don't mind, Kaiba-shachou sent me in here to check on you. Make sure things are…running properly, you know."
"Kaiba-shachou…" Noa repeated, looking curious. "My father preferred to be called 'Kaiba-sama,' you know. He used to tell me that it reminded people of their place in his business, and how it was through him that they had work. That it was he who had given them a livelihood, and there was a certain respect to be given according to that."
Jay raised an eyebrow. "Well, I suppose you could say that that, perhaps, is why your stepbrother prefers not to hear it." Noa's face twitched, and a sudden flare of anger met his bright blue eyes, several shades lighter than Seto's but no less fierce; it vanished within seconds. "As I hear it told," Jay continued quickly, "they did…didn't get along all that—all that well. And so…well…ahem. Anyway. Yes. Kaiba-shachou sent me. And, uh…well, let's get to it, then."
Noa went through the motions of a check-up without so much as a word. If Jay were to hazard a guess, he would have said it was because he was too mesmerized by the movements of his new body, still too caught up in the fact that he could feel his limbs moving, to speak. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking, and he just didn't want to admit that he'd offended the man. Jay found that he rather liked Noa. It was clear that he had his stepbrother's intellect—or nearly, anyway—and yet most certainly did not have Seto's cold, overbearing, mechanical demeanor.
Which was rather ironic, considering that it was Noa, and not Seto, who had been a machine for so many years; and depending on one's definition still was now.
As they were finishing up, and Noa was buttoning his shirt, the now-middle Kaiba brother said, "Do you think…it's as simple as Seto says?" Jay frowned, confused. "Do you think that he did it just because…well, I mean, I've spoken to the rest of the team, you know. I wanted to thank them all. And…what I've heard, about how you all did this…it must have been brutal. Six months? I guess that's record time, considering what the project was, and all, but…still. And there must have been a lot of money poured into it. The—the prosthetic limbs, the synthetic musculature, the…well, all of it."
Jay mulled this over. "Kaiba-shachou headed the project. Most of the processes and implements that went into it were directly from him. I wondered, as we were working on it all, how long he spent on his own, working it out, before he called us in."
"How…long has it been?" Noa asked. "Since…"
"Since you first met?" Jay asked. Noa nodded. "I believe Mister Ackerman said…thirteen or fourteen months."
"Ackerman?" Noa echoed. "Roland Ackerman?"
Jay nodded. "He is Kaiba-shachou's personal assistant."
"Huh. Seto doesn't seem to me like the sort of man to tolerate a personal assistant."
Jay chuckled. "You know…I thought the same thing."
"Well…do you think that…he did all this, spent a year bringing me back…just because Mokuba asked him to do it?"
"One of the most often-asked questions amongst the team was why we were doing it. Why was he funding such an impossible experiment? Because you must admit, it sounds way too farfetched in concept to work."
Noa smirked. "I'm not sure I believe it yet."
Jay smiled. "He never answered any of us. No matter how many times we asked, he never said a word. I thought, when you asked him, that he'd ignore it. Just like he ignored us. But…if you want to know my opinion…that's about the only answer that makes any kind of sense."
Noa chuckled. "I guess you're right about that."
The door to the room opened with a jolt and bounced against the wall.
"Don't…do that," came Seto Kaiba's voice, exasperated but not entirely reprimanding. He sounded amused, Jay realized, and he turned around to look. He'd never heard such lightness in the man's voice. He quickly discovered why.
Jumping on the balls of his feet, looking far too excited to be human, the heir to the Kaiba fortune hopped into the room. Mokuba was dressed in faded blue-jeans and a red t-shirt—one reason hardly any Kaiba-Corp employee ever bothered to call him Kaiba-fukushachou, although strictly speaking they should have, was because he never looked the part—and a black backpack was slung over his shoulder; it looked as though he had come to the hospital straight from school.
"Noa!" The boy's grey-violet eyes were riveted on his stepbrother.
Noa stared back at him.
A soft, awestruck smile spread on his face, and he let out a breathless little chuckle.
"Mokuba."
Verse Two.
"You're awake!"
Noa's smile spread to its widest yet (he seemed to have done nothing but smile ever since his awakening), and he lifted his arms out to his sides. "That's what they tell me," he said. The affection shining in his eyes was one step below worshipping. Mokuba, for his part, looked almost as rapturous as Noa did, and Jay found himself entirely unsurprised by this.
Glancing back at Seto, the doctor saw that he had—as was his habit—drawn his face into something resembling neutrality, but there was still some anger seeping its way into it by way of his eyes. He was most certainly not pleased, and why should he be? Jay found himself feeling sorry for the man who had been his employer for the last six months. It was clear as day that Seto Kaiba didn't trust anyone, and here was a former enemy standing before him.
And Mokuba looked like he couldn't have possibly been happier.
Why did you do it? Jay found himself wondering again, now that he saw the three Kaiba brothers together. Why would you make yourself an outsider in your own family? Why would you cast yourself out like this?
Then he thought of Seto's answer, Mokuba wanted you, and sighed.
The man really was a wreck.
"That's…what they tell me," Noa repeated. His eyes were bright, attentive, and never stayed in one place for long. It seemed like he was committing every nuance of his stepbrother's appearance—from the shape of his nose to the particular folds of his shirt to the brand of shoes he wore—to memory. Like he thought the boy might vanish and wanted to keep him locked in his mind forever. He was still thinking like a machine, Jay realized.
"How does it feel?" Mokuba asked, after the silence had gone on just a bit too long.
Noa laughed. "I couldn't describe it if I tried. There aren't words for it."
"When can he come home, Niisama?" the boy asked, turning to look at his brother. A spasm of disgusted surprise crossed Seto's face just long enough for Jay and—he felt sure—Noa to catch it. Mokuba didn't.
"…A…few days," the eldest Kaiba finally answered, forcing the words out of his mouth.
"Are you okay, Niisama?"
Seto took a moment to answer. "…Yes. I'm fine."
Mokuba clearly knew that his elder brother was lying; that much was clear in the expression on his face. One black eyebrow was cocked, his mouth was set in a skeptical frown. But when it was clear that Seto had no intention of expanding upon this answer, the boy turned back to Noa, who was now watching Seto with keen interest. But not, Jay noticed, with anything even remotely resembling hostility.
He has to know Kaiba-shachou doesn't want him to come home with them, Jay thought. If it's this obvious to me, then it has to be even more obvious to him.
Mokuba probably knew this as well, but was either in denial or was convinced that his brother would come around given enough time. Jay thought it more likely to be the latter. The young Kaiba heir was no fool, and knew Seto's moods and thoughts better than anyone; yes, he knew that Seto had lied; he knew the exact reason why Seto had hesitated. He knew, but he hoped. That, Jay suspected, was what marked the most crucial difference between Mokuba and just about everyone else.
Mokuba still held out hope that his brother was human.
And yet, despite knowing full well that he wasn't wanted, Noa didn't seem the faintest bit surprised, disappointed, crestfallen, or even guilty as he stared at his elder stepbrother. He looked intrigued. He looked as if he'd found something in this man that he hadn't expected to find, but wasn't displeased to find it.
He looked like he had found something familiar.
He said, "…Thank you."
Seto blinked, honestly surprised. "What?"
"I thank you," Noa repeated in earnest, even bowing his head a little. "For…everything. There are no adequate words for what you've done for me, and unquestionably there is no way for me to possibly repay you. I know, I know," he held up his hands, lips curving into an amused smirk, "you didn't do it for me. Still, you did it. You and your team. And so I thank you."
Mokuba was beaming now, delighted that, for Noa at least, the hatchet had been buried.
One look at Seto's face, however, wiped anything resembling pleasure from the black-haired boy's entire being. Seto didn't look impressed, or grateful, at his stepbrother's thanks. He still looked surprised, but it wasn't good surprise. It was the kind of surprise you would expect someone to have when offered a gift, only to find that it had been dumped in garbage first.
Seto looked insulted.
He scoffed. "Don't thank me," he snapped scathingly. He turned his back and stalked to the door. "Keep an eye on him, both of you. Make sure nothing's malfunctioning. I want this entire experiment done and over. I've spent too much time and money on it already."
He left.
Mokuba looked as if he'd just watched Santa Claus die of a heart attack. His mouth hung open, eyes wide with shocked betrayal. He whirled back to face Noa, the words of an apology already on his lips. Jay closed his eyes, thinking that he should have expected this. Clearly, there was no love for Noa Kaiba in his stepbrother's heart. There was no love for anyone in Seto Kaiba's heart, except perhaps Mokuba…and Jay was beginning to doubt even that.
His head snapped up in shock, causing pain to shoot from his neck down his spine, when Noa finally responded.
By throwing back his head and laughing.
Verse Three.
Mokuba stared, openmouthed. "I…wha…Noa? What's so…?"
Noa fell back onto his bed and rocked backward a bit, howling fit to burst. "Oh, the look on your face! You of all people should be used to that by now!" He gathered enough composure to look his young sibling in the eye again, and a grin split his face. "You didn't think he would welcome me with open arms, did you? I turned you both to stone!"
"But…that was…that wasn't…"
"Don't worry," Noa insisted, still grinning and still with a chuckle in his throat as he held his hands up in front of him. "You don't have to apologize or explain. Mokuba, I'm serious. It doesn't bother me. I expected it. If you want to know the truth, I wanted it. Somebody needs to hold me accountable for the—ahem—things that I did. I would expect no less from my father's chosen."
Was there a trace of bitterness in Noa's voice now? Jay honestly wasn't sure. Where Seto's anger was a bright, blinding signal flare, what might have been Noa's anger was the flickering, hypnotic twist and swirl of a torch. Was it there, was it not there? It was impossible to tell. But Jay thought he'd seen it, and it made sense; Seto had taken Noa's place. Even though Gozaburo had kept his son alive, for lack of a better term, the father Noa worshipped had still replaced him with another boy.
And now, wasn't there proof in Noa's own body that Gozaburo had made the correct choice? That Seto was Kaiba Gozaburo's "proper" successor? Surely, Jay thought, there would be jealousy there. Of course. Obviously.
And yet…not so obviously.
Noa's might-be-might-not-be anger was wiped off his face in an instant as he flashed another dazzling grin and hopped back onto his bed, pulling his new legs to him, crossing them over each other and tucking them beneath himself. "So!" he declared brightly, "Tell me, Mokuba. Come over here and tell me: what have I missed?"
Mokuba still couldn't quite rid himself of the dismay on his face, but he smiled in that oddly accommodating way that he had, and he stepped over closer to the bed and pulled up the chair. He began to speak, of things Jay didn't understand and people Jay didn't know, and all of a sudden he realized that he shouldn't be here. This was wrong. He was trespassing, and hadn't he done his job already, anyway? Didn't he have anything better to do than eavesdrop on a private conversation that clearly only made sense to the pair involved in it?
Noa was positively enraptured, not so much listening as absorbing his stepbrother's every word, and Mokuba—ever the performer—slipped into a flowing narrative with the ease of a born storyteller. There was something more to Mokuba's tale than the usual embellishments of prepubescent boyhood; that bright, fantastical point of view that made even the simplest activity a thrilling, rollicking adventure; even though he didn't know half of what the black-haired boy was talking about, Jay found himself listening much more carefully than he'd expected.
Small wonder Seto often sent his little brother to conventions as a Kaiba-Corp spokesperson.
He'd been born for it.
Every once in a while Noa would interject, but not often. He was simply reveling in the experience of hearing, of engaging, of being, and there was just no room for anything else. He wasn't actually listening to Mokuba's words so much as he was listening to Mokuba's voice, too giddy to really pay attention, too full of energy and too full of excitement.
And who could blame him?
Jay began the long, arduous trek toward the door, remembering what he had decided only moments before. It wasn't right for him to be a part of this; it wasn't right for him to intrude on it. Much as he liked Mokuba Kaiba, and as much as he thought he liked Noa (certainly more than he did the man who looked so much like him), he had nothing to add to this experience.
He gripped the door handle, turned it, and left the room.
He thought maybe it was time to go home; he had spent much more time in a hotel room over the past six months than he ever had in his life, and while the room had been very nice (it was owned by Kaiba-Corp, and Kaiba-Corp only provided the best), it had also been…somehow sterile.
Like its owner, he thought.
Yes…exactly like its owner.
Verse Four.
As he talked, Mokuba Kaiba tried to understand how his stepbrother must be feeling.
He remembered the Noa he had met the previous year. Not the psychopathic sadist who had tried to kill him, but the lost, lonely little boy who'd sacrificed himself to save him. He remembered their solemn, quiet goodbye, when Noa had thanked him for treating him like family. The man sitting in front of him now was an entirely different person, didn't even have the same hair color, but somehow he could still see that old Noa—that ten-year-old child dressed in white—in this Noa's nineteen-year-old face.
Noa was so happy that he was legitimately explosive. Light seemed to actually shine in his eyes, and the wide grin on his face was infectious. Mokuba couldn't help but smile himself, even though he was still upset with Seto for his less-than-hospitable welcome. Admittedly, like Noa had said, he'd never expected Seto to give him a bear hug and spin him around the room, but Mokuba hadn't expected him to actually call Noa a waste of time and money straight to his face, either.
"You still live in my old house?" Noa asked, bouncing energetically on his hospital bed. Mokuba nodded. "You've redecorated, I'm assuming? I hope? Otousama was kind of a minimalist. I think he bought one piece of art that I can remember, and he put it up somewhere in the basement." He laughed. "Actually, I think it was my mother who made him buy that. Must have been."
"Niisama hired somebody to decorate," Mokuba said. "He told me it just made things simpler when reporters and people like that show up for interviews or whatever. They won't ask questions about it if he just shows them what they expect."
Noa raised an eyebrow. "…Huh. Smart."
"He, um…he sleeps in your father's old room," Mokuba said. Noa frowned curiously at this, but said nothing. "I sleep in Niisama's old room. I think there's…well, actually, I don't know how many more bedrooms there are, but I bet you could just pick one."
"Why would he…sleep in Otousama's bedchamber?" Noa asked, more to himself than to his stepbrother. "If Doctor Jay is right, and I'm positive he is, Seto liked Otousama about as much as blonde women liked H. H. Holmes." Mokuba gave Noa a confused look, but he waved it off. "I would have thought he would detest anything even remotely connected to my father. To tell the truth, I'm surprised he didn't have the entire house demolished."
Mokuba shrugged. "Me too. But he didn't. Who's H. H. Holmes?"
Noa smirked, looking so much like Seto that it made Mokuba blink. "Nobody. Never mind. So…how old are you, exactly, Mokuba?"
"Eleven."
"Does Seto hire private tutors for you? Or do you go to school?"
"Niisama says I need to learn how to socialize, it's important for anything I want to do when I'm older. He doesn't want me learning from home. I go to school." Noa looked surprised by this. "It makes sense, when you think about it," Mokuba added, suddenly defensive, thinking that Noa's surprise meant disapproval. "I mean…if all I ever did was listen to tutors at home…I think I'd go crazy."
Noa shrugged. "I suppose that does make sense. Otousama was of the opinion that I would learn social skills quickly enough after my academic studies were finished, but…Seto seems to have a good idea. I suppose that is the ultimate purpose of the school system, isn't it?"
He leaned back, pulling his folded legs with him, looking like a lopsided statue for a moment before tossing himself forward again. He chuckled, amused. "This is just fun, you know? How can people be unhappy here? It's…transcendent. What year is it?" He asked this suddenly, with a widening of his eyes as if he'd just thought of the question.
"Two-thousand-seven," Mokuba answered, smiling.
Noa exhaled heavily, chuckling again. "Is that right…? Well, now, I've catching up to do, haven't I? You know what we should do, Mokuba? I think you and I should go find some restaurant to invade. I haven't eaten in…well…I'm famished. Do you think my new body actually ingests food? I wonder if my taste buds work the same way. I hope so. If not, we have some more work ahead of us. Well…not you. You've done more than enough. I think I'll try my hand at it, if they don't work."
Noa was beginning to ramble in his excitement, and Mokuba let him. He wondered if this was how Seto felt when he got fully onboard with a tangent, if he didn't even hear half the words after a moment and just let his mind drift. It was a nice feeling, and he hoped Seto did feel this way sometimes. He deserved to.
Mokuba remembered vaguely that he was supposed to be upset with his brother right now, but around Noa—still in the afterglow of his miraculous rebirth—he found it impossible to be upset with anything. His good mood was permeating the entire room, and as Noa began to rail off the various foods he wanted to try now that he could really taste them again, Mokuba found that he was hungry.
He wondered if Seto would mind.
"…this one place, it served Korean barbeque, I think. The short ribs were amazing. Good chicken, too. I wonder if it's still in business. Do you think? We should find out. Do we still have a driver? Listen to me—we. You. Seto. Whatever. Randall Stone, I think was ours. I liked him. I wonder if he's still around. Is he still around? Do you know him? No, I can see you don't. So anyway…"
Mokuba suddenly began to laugh. He couldn't help it.
Noa stopped talking and stared. The expression on his face only made it worse. He cocked his head, looking like nothing so much as a curious bird, and the black-haired boy doubled over. Noa didn't bother to ask what was funny, and later Mokuba would think that he probably knew.
Noa was quite intuitive, especially when it came to self-analysis.
It was like he'd been built for it.
END.
H.H. Holmes is an alias of Herman Webster Mudgett, one of the United States' first serial killers in the modern sense of the word, born in 1861 and hanged in 1896. His victims were primarily woman with blonde hair.
People who hate Seto tend to bank on the idea that he's a dick, at least in my experience. Selfish, arrogant, mean-spirited. As a kid, I didn't really see those parts of his personality. More to the point, I didn't want to see them. He was the misunderstood protector; the noble demon, if you will. And I made excuses for him.
I no longer do that. There's no reason to do it. Yeah, the guy's a stone-cold bastard. I admit it. I embrace it. I find it fascinating. Would I want to meet this guy? Well...okay, fine, let's be honest, yes. I would. But would I want to be around him on a constant basis? Probably not. He's not "buddy" material.
But he's interesting. Maybe he's a shonen cliché, maybe his character archetype has been done to death and there's a version of him in every anime and every manga and any number of other series. Not my problem. I like this bastard. And apparently, so does Noa.
And hopefully, so do you.
