Sometimes, I wonder about how often I seem to delight in making Seto cry.

In my defense, it's usually good for him.

… Don't look at me.

.

Mokuba had a bedroom of his own, but he preferred to spend his time in Seto's; having anticipated this, Seto chose to have his room adjacent to Mokuba's, so that it would be a simple affair for Mokuba to find his way to his brother without any difficulty.

The actual difficulty was convincing Mokuba to leave if Seto happened to need privacy for whatever reason. Mokuba didn't seem to understand that his bedroom belonged to him, and that he could go back to it whenever he pleased. When Seto asked for his brother to leave him for a time, Mokuba would often amble out into the hall and just sit there.

One day, the youngest member of the Kaiba family found that Seto's door was locked; and, quite confident that he knew precisely what this meant, Mokuba immediately marched down the hall and made the arduous journey down the stairs to the ground floor. Anyone watching him would have struggled to figure out where it was that Mokuba thought he was going; wherever it was, he was headed there with a sense of iron-wrought purpose that would have put Gozaburo, more than anyone else, in that observer's mind. He and Seto had yet to be adopted, officially, but that didn't mean they weren't adapting to life in Kaiba Manor.

This sequence of events led to Seto coming home from school that afternoon and having no rightful idea where his brother could be. He realized too late that he'd locked his door; he had to enter Mokuba's room and open a "secret" door connecting to his, which was usually blocked by a dresser. Thankfully, Mokuba didn't have much to his name yet, certainly not enough to fill a dresser, and so it was easy enough to move.

Once his own door was unlocked and open, and his key was safely in his pocket again, Seto realized that Mokuba hadn't been sleeping, or playing, or anything, in his own space.

The dawning horror that Seto didn't know where his brother was took a while to catch up to him, and the panic that came afterward was also slow in coming, but it ramped up in intensity with each step he took. By the time he made it to the stairs, Seto was nearly hyperventilating.

He was getting ready to start screaming Mokuba's name and ripping open every door in the building when Mio—one of the few members on staff with medical training, making her a de facto nurse, even though her primary job was tending to the back gardens—found him.

"Ah!" she called. "Bocchan! Amaya-sama sent me to look for you. She said you would be home soon."

"H-Huh?" Seto looked up at Mio and stared at her like he didn't know what species she was.

Mio smiled down at him. "You must be looking for your brother," she guessed. "Follow me, Bocchan. It's all right."

Seto did as asked, following Mio through the house and out to her domain. He remembered the last time he'd come out here, when Amaya sat him down to talk about Giichi . . . who, Seto realized slowly, he hadn't seen since that fateful day. In some distant part of his mind, he wondered where the unfortunate little man had gone.

Mokuba was sitting on the same bench where Seto himself had seated, back on that day. The young Kaiba was watching, eyes as wide as soup plates, while Noa drew designs on the walkway with colored chalk. Amaya was standing nearby, watching the boys go through whatever ritual it was that occupied them. She was holding a small parasol against one shoulder to block the afternoon sun from her delicate skin.

"Here we are," said Mio, putting a hand on Seto's shoulder.

Seto realized, all at once, how wrapped up in his own panic he'd been; his entire body seemed to unravel, and he very nearly collapsed on the concrete. He turned to look up at Mio and gave her a shaky little smile. "T-Thank you, Miss Nishihara," he said, with a shaky little bow of his head. "I must have locked my door when I left this morning. Mokie couldn't get in."

Mio nodded sagely. "He came into the kitchen when he couldn't find you. Noa-sama was still eating breakfast, so he decided to . . ." here she smiled ". . . be Mister Brother. I think he must be teaching Mokuba-sama some basic geometry."

Seto turned, watched his brothers for a while, and found himself stunned.

He wasn't sure what he was feeling, as he watched. He didn't know what he should do, or what he should think. Ten thousand different thoughts and emotions rolled through him at once; before he knew it, he was crying.

"Bocchan? Bocchan, what's the matter?!" Mio was on one knee with an arm wrapped around Seto's thin frame. This caught the attention of the others. Noa sat up from where he'd been hunched over his work; Mokuba gasped and did a happy little dance.

Amaya seemed to vanish from where she'd been keeping watch; she reappeared an instant later in front of Seto. "Thank you, Nishihara," she said, settling herself. "Seto. Seto, darling, look at me." He did, eventually. After inspecting him for a moment, Amaya graced him with a smile and tucked him into a hug. "There we are," she said. "It's all right. You were worried about your brother, weren't you?"

"I brought him to you as soon as he came home, Mistress," said Mio, looking scandalized.

"I'm sure." Amaya nodded, stroking back Seto's hair. "It's all right. Just a delayed reaction, I think. Come with me, darling. Come on. Let's sit you down." She guided Seto to sit beside Mokuba, who immediately clambered into his brother's lap; when Nii'tama was crying, that meant something important happened, and it was Mokuba's job to be involved . . . somehow.

Seto held his brother to him and struggled to regain control of himself.

Noa pushed himself to his feet and leaned on his cane. "What . . . what happened?"

"It's . . . it's ifne," Seto said, wiping at his eyes with the heel of one hand. "I'm fine. I'm fine. It's just . . ." He forced himself to breathe deeply; he sniffed, took the kerchief Amaya offered him, and blew his nose. "It's just . . . I never . . . it's never—before, when Mokie got lost or scared or anything . . . nobody would help him."

Mio, stepping gingerly to stand beside Amaya, put a hand to her mouth. "Oh," she murmured. "Oh, Bocchan. You . . . aren't used to having anyone else look after your brother, are you?"

"Not since . . . Papa," Seto said. "But he was always so busy."

Amaya's gaze softened, and she smiled as she knelt down and stroked Seto's hair again. "Well," she said, "we're often busy here, ourselves. But you needn't worry about that anymore. Not here. You and Mokuba will be Kaibas soon, and there will be plenty of time for you to learn what that means. For now, know this at least: your days of forging ahead with only yourselves to count on . . . they end here. Do you understand?"

Seto looked up and nodded.

". . . Yes, Hahaue," he said.