Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Urgency of Life ❯ A Sense of Urgency ( Chapter 11 )

A Sense of Urgency

A Seto/Joey one-shot by subaruxkamui4ever

AN: Well, I just couldn't keep away. I found this on my laptop, and decided to finish the ending and then just post it as a oneshot, it does not, I repeat, DOES NOT continue from the epilogue. This takes place about a month after Joey is kidnapped by Seto, and it includes both Seto asking Joey to move in to his own room, and then Joey's first experience with Seto's darker self, you remember him…right? He's crazy, I tell ya what. This is just something I wanted to touch on since it seems a bit unclear in the story. Joey talks about it briefly but I guess it seems vague, or something. Well, if you really liked The Urgency of Life, then Happy Birthday! Or Valentine's Day, or whatever….

falling…….

falling and it is so unreal……how you and I have lived like we have……

A month…..and you aren't who you were…..or perhaps I'm someone new…..

It doesn't matter. You gave me a place to stay that I wanted to return to at the end of the day, and anything I could want to have….I'm sorry that I never asked you for what I truly wanted, but I was too afraid……we were so close, and I wanted you to stay here, with me….

And then, after a month of passing the lazy time away doing absolutely nothing but what we wanted to, I still stayed the nights in the room you gave me, it was next to yours and you watched me closely from there if you felt something amiss, and things were the same until this one day. For some reason, even though this is all over, I still think of this day so often….I think of you constantly with every waking moment, but this day is caught in my memory as of recent times that I still spend here idly, wasting the years away until we can be free.

It changed us so much, it was such a short time yet after it was spent, we were new and unfamiliar to one another, and it was the best feeling, to have more of you to discover, and more of me to show you, to let you see me even closer than before. As close as your room would allow, and your bed was ours now. You asked me, and I smiled, so real and full, so sobering and cleansing, I felt like for one still and stolen second, I wasn't being eaten away by addiction, and you weren't forcing yourself to watch. It's a nice memory…..

"Joey…hey. How much longer before you can come out of there?" Seto asked from just behind the bathroom door that was one of the two doors that divided our rooms, and I cracked a grin at his attempts to mask impatience with concern. Of course he felt both, but he knew that I would only find it upsetting if he showed actual signs that he was beginning to suffer from the loss of control he felt at my terrible and life threatening habit. I just couldn't quit, not just yet. There wasn't really any reason to quit, if it had really come down to considering what would be gained, which wasn't a whole lot. Regardless of the amazing distance that we had closed between us in the mere month that left our sight since my kidnapping, I still fully believed that I would never have what I wanted, what I wanted for him to want. I was so tired from Love, it drained the life out of me, and with no one to return my love it just left me and was not returned, and I was left doubly empty. I tried to fill myself up with drugs and Seto's friendship, but neither one was the real need and want, and therefore neither would be the cure. So instead of confronting the endlessness and inevitable end that I was drawing to the both of us, it was clouded and hidden in my drugged and lonely state.

And through all of it, Seto had been so very patient and cooperative with my demands and unhealthy lifestyle. I was astounded, to say the least. After the time I spent just looking at him from farther outfield, trying to instigate fights and duels, running after him whenever he tried to leave without acknowledging my presence and always ending up humiliated…. He was never that person in this place, with just me around. No one and nothing he needed to control was pressuring him, and I saw how I had been pushing him into a corner in front of the eyes of others, a corner that he feared and despised, forced to act out against me because I was simply relentless. But those days were gone, we were bridging that awful emptiness that I had pushed in between us, believing falsely that in the absence of Love, Hate would have to do. It was much better than nothing, feeling indifference for me would have driven my mind off the edge so long ago. But the edge was unnecessary, and I was overreacting, as usual.

But unbeknownst to me at that moment, Seto had another living inside him, parasitic and insatiable it was but still so necessary for his remaining scraps of sanity. The person he had to be when in direct contact with a threat or a challenge, or a situation and time that he needed to conquer, that person was not Seto. This person had been the same one that took Kaiba Corp. and saved Seto long ago, so many times when he was just a small and confused child, and grew to understand the world in rapidly worsening conditions. All around him, things did nothing but fall apart, indefinitely and to the worst extent possible. Not one, but both parents lost, one at a time and far apart so that mourning for one was nearly finished and at rest, and then just when he felt he might be able to stand up, he was knocked right back down, and this time for good. There was no one left to care for him now, and no one to lend a hand to lift him up once more. So he stayed down indefinitely, truly defeated. But not before sending someone in his place, someone that was stronger then a small and shattered boy could ever hope to be. Someone who looked just like Seto because he used Seto's body, and while Seto laid within himself and tried to heal from the second blow, the other Seto took care of things topside.

This person that Seto invited inside at a last and desperate grasp at the remaining shards of his life, was not a person at all, but the shadows around him. Neither positive nor negative, shadows by nature are the results of a nearby light, and are necessary for life to be driven unending. Without the shadows, light would not begin and it would not end, and there could never be a balance, instead just a blinding and oppressively infinite light that would only destroy what it tried to create. It would be futile and imperfect because it would be timeless perfection. The shadows are what you make of them, they lie in wait and offer their darkness to the fallen and nearly lost, the ones who need to rest in the night and wait for the light to return to them. Seto took himself into the shadows and their cover, and he filled the broken heart he had with the shadows trying replace the missing puzzle pieces that were taken along with his family. Unfortunately, shadows cannot fill places, only make them hidden, and Seto's heart became hidden from the light, and instead of healing he grew to need the shadows. What was intentionally supposed to be a place to rest and heal before returning to light was not quite understood by a Seto so very young that he should not have had to do either one. Life does not favor by age, however, and Seto did not release his heart from the shadows. For what?, he thought, there was no purpose, they had taken care of him, he was so successful and together when it all happened, the end result being the confident and Master Seto in charge. He had allowed the darkness to show him the power and fulfilling nature of dominance and it was something that filled his heart, if only temporarily. He sought it out madly, in every confrontation, asserting himself and nearly overly so, intending to crush all as opposed to merely defeat the one. Why just win when you can have it all, the title and the power relevant in the pursuit? Why then, after sharing everything with the comforting and supporting darkness within, why was it suddenly just ripped from his hands without warning, shocking and polluting his weak and fragile heart with a blinding light that managed to not only cleanse him of his established way of life, but very literally and life threateningly broke his entire heart puzzle, every piece was scattered and lost in the dark recesses of his soul. What could possess a person to do this, no one even knew Seto well enough to make a judgment upon him such as this, and upon only two aggressive encounters this uninvited shadow of a person had sealed Seto's fate as though he thought that he was Fate itself. It was that dead and lingering ruler of Men from long ago, still disruptively marching onward in his never ending pursuit of getting his righteous way, and finishing his all-important tasks and carelessly handled affairs here amongst the living, no matter who dared to get in his way. It was so hypocritical of a dark soul such as he, filled with shadows himself and yet his purpose here was always deemed worthy by the Fate that so often was the demise of Seto himself. He was merely a tool, someone who had all the opportunities that the Pharaoh needed, and Seto was only being selfish and `not a good friend' just because he wouldn't fall on his knees and give everything he had to help the self-important spirit that had ruined the remainder of his life. Forced Seto to rebuild a heart puzzle without enough pieces with which to do so, and then taunting him for the seemingly pitiful results, which were still admirable, it was so very admirable that he was still sane. But it left emotional places empty, and this is where the other comes to life and into the real world.

Inside Seto the unfulfilled urge to control his life was still very much alive, since this was the way he had trained his heart to function. Fill it with the dominance, the power of control, the satisfaction of unwilling submission before him, fill it if only for just hours, and his heart still cried out for more. But with no shadow to execute the necessary actions, he found himself to be just Seto, the broken boy who missed his parents and waited for them to return, still the same miserable and shattered child from all those years of hiding in the dark. And now the child was the CEO of the largest gaming company in the entire world, and had millions of dollars, millions of employees, and even millions more enemies. No amount of vacationing or searching for himself in a quiet cottage would ever do any good. His soul needed an answer, and yesterday was far too late. He simply caved into the need, losing control when it was overwhelming, thinking initially that he had been just falling to the floor and losing consciousness, since he was alone the first few times his mind blanked out and he realized that he had been gone for awhile. Always for seconds, perhaps minutes, and sometimes extending to a quarter of an hour, never remembering a thing, but feeling much more alive afterwards. As if it was a twelve hour nap he awoke from, and not a momentary lapse of reality. And then, the next time he dueled with that dead Egyptian sprit that haunted the small boy from Seto's school, he found that it had happened again, but upon returning to the waking moment and the events surrounding he found that he had continued his duel in his own absence. Seto had not lost his strategic plan for victory and had actually already executed it, it was finished, and he was in the lead. Everyone was staring at him, though, and he felt slightly shorter of breath but dismissed it, since nothing bad had come of it. Accepting it, and ignoring it, finding it unstoppable and refreshing, he let it be like the shadows before it, and went on. It didn't matter what anyone thought of him anyway. Or so had been the case, until he kidnapped me, and took me to live with him.

He found me, in his own opinion, to be stuck in a unsavory situation, a lonely and attention starved boy who was lining the cracks of his unsealed heart with Speed and unrequited Love, two destructive addictions that were, if nothing else, a quickly effective end to an unfortunate existence. Perhaps he was only curious in the things that might drive someone so happy as I seemed, to such a depressing and unhappy lifestyle. He moved me into his house the very day he found out, and ever since that moment I've lived in this room that connects to his, a bathroom in between that we share, and is left open, he watches me all the time. But today, I had shut the door, because he had been watching perhaps too much. Having someone watch you as you tear your body apart slowly with drug abuse is uncomfortable, and while he gave me any sort of support I asked for, the constant gaze I was under was feeling heavier by the day. Today I began to feel the pressure on my lungs as I tried to breath through my mouth, my nose was filled to the brain with a foul smelling chemical, burning and rotting the inside of my head in a rush of excitement and capability. He could hear me where he stood just a few feet away, and he didn't speak for awhile. He didn't want to make me talk while I was so very preoccupied, and he knew by now how long before I would be far more than just willing to speak with him. I would most likely tell him my life's story, all over again for the `last time, I swear!,' or whatever else I had to say that would take longer than an hour to tell in full. I couldn't help it at all, I was drugged and he knew it. Seto never made me stop, he never told me to go away or to act normal. He never judged the strange things I did or said, and he never used them against me later or laughed at the way I had been. It wasn't a joking matter to him. When Seto had first brought me here, he told me of his intentions right away. He meant to break me of this habit….somehow. But this reason that I hold this day, and the few that followed, so vividly in my memory is not because of my addiction. It is because of Seto's. His hearts uncontrollable lust for power was the unbreakable habit that shook the boundaries of my mental image of Seto, and I came to understand him more, and in the process, I found I loved him deeper still.

Perhaps this one day neither of us fell. This day stood up and pushed onto the next, which fell in turn on the next, until the last day of that week fell into the darkness, and showed me the depths of Seto and his emptiness inside. At least for a pooling of moments in silence….

I heard knocking on the same door, nearly ten minutes after the first time that Seto had announced himself.

"How about now? I know that you're done at least for the moment….can I come in?" I nodded my head in a daze, a slightly hazy moment that only lasts for a minute or so. Then, after hearing him huff in annoyance at being ignored (indeed, how dare I?), I noticed that my nodding had not been heard. Stuttering in awareness, I called him in. "Wh-a….w…..what, huh? Oh, yeah…..open it." I waved my hand over dramatically at the door itself, which opened far too slowly for my liking. Peeking around the door, he saw at once my motioning and swung it open the rest of the way, entering with the stature and air of a person who was in moments going to attempt the unforgivable and succeed, or die trying. A solemn and silent gaze rested calmly across his features and the inexplicable posture that he held his frame in was less confrontational today. Instead his stance was reminiscent of an empty and open question, a compelling but not at all demanding placement of shoulders and hips that reflected an honest need for an honest answer. And in the state of mind I fell into when influenced such as I now was, it would be impossible for me to not be completely honest. He had not planned this and wasn't taking advantage of my induced state of mind, I was always like this, and he would be very hard pressed to find a less intoxicated moment alone with me, if it existed anymore. He stood very close and was not much further than two or three feet, but seemed much farther because I still sat at the table in my room, while he stood before me. It was evident in his presence itself that something was to happen and he was just going to work his way to it from here. He could hide most anything in manner of feelings and unexposed fears, but when he wanted something there was no place for it to hide on him, and he wanted something from me. Not very well able to ask me outright since he was, after all, Seto Kaiba, but since we had been staying so close for what seemed like forever, I knew that he wouldn't want anything but an answer from me, in regards to whatever it was that he had been stricken with a desperate need to know.

"How do you feel today…?" Seto asked as nonchalant as anyone could ever make their voice sound, but in a very intense and unyielding way, he seemed to draw the answers from my eyes before I could ever think of the answer on my own. To which I, having watched him the entire time and saw him trying to stay undetected, immediately turned my head to the floor and giggled out loud, for just a moment and then turned to look back up at him with a sheepishly knowing grin. He waited without breaking face at all, and was motionless in pursuit of my response. I then felt sort of sorry for laughing at him, but sometimes he was far too…much of a character to live within the confines of everyday life. The way he stood, the things he said and the words he used to express them, the overdramatic gestures that accompanied every forcefully spoken sentence…He was engrossed with his own agenda and purposes to a fault, and it was sometimes funny to see such a intense and attention grabbing persona try to be casual while retaining the same crazed look about him. He wasn't a very convincingly relaxed person, but he tried to be anyway for my sake, because if he had come at me with all the force and drive of the way he felt about asking me, I would most likely have ran off in terror. I looked down a moment so I could think without his gaze pressuring my answer, and I felt great, of course, never better in fact. "I feel just fine, thank you." I replied with an ending that left no room for doubt, he would take it as finished and continue. His mouth left it's station for a second and turned upwards at the very edges in a slight grin, and then he left to deadly serious silence afterwards. I was watching as he stayed where he was and appeared confident as the constant running of phrases and possibilities ran through his mind and under his eyes I could see them, after spending much of my time with him there wasn't so much to learn about him, and I stayed silent for the moment, watching. He resolved himself in silence suddenly and decided to be out and done with it, laying it at my feet and moving backwards mentally, for me to consider in patient thought.

"Well, I came to ask you about this room, and if it still suits you. It is much farther than I had originally thought from my own, and while I know that you would still come in here and use this room a lot for other things, I thought that since you and I, well, we've been spending time in the same rooms most of the time, anyway…..I was thinking that we might as well have this, this…..to save time, we should just…." I blinked at him and just looked blankly towards him for a second. Who was this boy? This was not at all someone I knew, and it most definitely wasn't who I lived with then, at least, it sure didn't seem like him. This boy was nervous, and somewhat losing his nerve in the moment. That never was allowed by my Seto, Seto Kaiba that I knew, and had beforehand been slightly in fear of, deep down. The idea of his moment as this nervously rambling type was ridiculous, and if I mentioned it later I'm sure he would have been very displeased with himself, something I wanted to avoid at all costs, so I never did mention it. But I sure did think about it when he wasn't around, and even now I can laugh at loud at things, moments in time such as this, which really happened and were particular to Seto and I, alone. But here he was, at that time together, and the sentence in question was still unfinished, trailing off in a path that led to unexpressed feelings and inescapable truths that had brought him in here this way. Never confessing them, of course, but they were behind his actions, which were slowly becoming less foggy, but the clear intent of Seto was still invisible as of yet. I spoke to save him from his own broken sentence, and I smiled happily at him seeing the intentions behind it, whatever they were, they were meant for me to take and keep to myself if I wished. I did take them from him and he became silent in detecting my response to his attempts at showing a feeling out loud, waiting for me to return or deny the strained efforts. "No, this room is great, I don't want to cause you more trouble for just my sake." Speaking so that he wouldn't have to, I took the moment to feel around the emotions that I picked up from him seconds ago, and it seemed that he wanted me to see that he was worried about me, very much so, and I could feel the intensity of the fears that were a constant weight for him to bear.

Seto's feelings acted the way I had imagined that emotions spawned by Seto Kaiba might feel, and they played the part accordingly, hesitantly and slowly inching forward into ambiguous affection, but sidestepping in the shadows surrounding larger patches of sunny emotions, and instead hiding in the elusive nature of obsession and stalking. However it was in his mind, it was more attractive to me this way than if he had abandoned his true nature in the efforts and become someone else, a happy and light person I did not love or know. The obsessive darkness was far better suited to him in the first place, and he wore it quite well, his chaotic and randomly striking nature was the ultimate carrier for such intense and romantically misplaced affections that were, in contrast to affection, very aggressive and dominating. Thinking of him in a slightly maniacal and calculatingly sinister fashion was the way Seto Kaiba was meant to be thought of, and by far the most influential visualization that I had kept secretly inside and never let out of my sight. Especially when he reflected this less controlled and more intimidating persona on the outside and in full exposure to all, delighting in the attention that was an automatic inevitability in his case. However, the extent to which it was laced into his heart and his emotional expression was dangerous to both he and I, and I had not seen that it had been this deeply inflicting. I found out, after this day and later in that week, that he was far more afflicted with this raging desire for control than I thought possible, extending into his platonic and, unbeknownst to both Seto and I, his romantic relationships and was his unfortunate but his natural and subconsciously most effective means of expressing himself.

After smiling at him to take his mind off the moment as he fumbled with his voice, I found myself smiling once more after the shared moment had ended. It was another similar happy grin, but in a deeper and more thoughtful way that a smile of Randomly Occurring Happiness would be, as opposed to a simple happy smile, and after I felt it inside me I knew it was the same feeling of light and connection he felt, in unison we felt it alone, together. We had felt each other on some other level, it struck us both in the same second, but we said nothing. He saw both of the smiles, and felt my exact match for his feelings at the same time as I had, and was satisfied thus far. He really had a whole lot of nothing to go on, and decided to just let himself do whatever, taking his hints from me and my responses. Never before had he allowed himself this much vulnerability and openness to failure as in these seconds with me, but he thought that he might be winning so far, and he'd certainly had enough of that addictive experience to know success when he saw it, and he did see it, plain in my eyes. In a way, this underlying and non-verbalized way of connecting to each other was far better suited to our particular purposes, especially when considering how strange and uniquely our comfortable level of relations had evolved. Not at all were either of us the sort to declare Love out loud, noisily and unappreciatively, and showing off to the passers-by. We had no standards or guidelines set to bar us from anything we may want in the future, and we each trusted the other to do what they wished to do, and right then, he wished to ask me if I would accept an offer from him. He slightly lowered his line of sight until it no longer saw me from down through his nose, but in a less haughty and more equalizing manner, which was nicely executed on his part, and I felt nearly pride at his newfound acceptance of me and my place with him in his house. And even though when he spoke his tone was a little quiet and unfriendly, it was more reassuring that way, for if it had been anything else it might not have been Seto.

Evidently, Seto was one for the final plunge, rather than the timid tiptoe around…

"Joey, do you want to stay here with me forever… move in for good, and share my room with me?"

A silence that rang all around us was not uncomfortable, just shocking in the first few moments as the sound of the words came together slowly in my mind, and formed the phrase I had just heard aloud. He felt the silence approach, and finding it to be probably a negative reaction, he tried filling it with explanatory reasoning and losing the slightly insane expression to a more pensive one, concerned. "It's much more practical this way, if you consider all the options. We'll save time…and sleep, since you stay up all hours anyway to follow me around, now you can just follow me to bed, and perhaps even fall asleep in it once in awhile. You don't have to say anything now, because I have to say something else before you agree…that is, if you are going to agree. See….I have this thing…..uh-"

I stood up in the pending doom of another of Seto's failed attempts to explain away the fact that he was becoming rather obvious as to his underlying thoughts and feelings in his asking, and he was losing more of the inhibitions that had kept him away from this place initially as well. I put my index finger to his mouth and the softly pressing placement was enough to stop his sentence for the moment. Maybe there was something in him that was like what I had inside me, for him. I knew that he liked to have me around, he wanted me to share a room with him, but I was far too close to the desires of my best kept and most wished for fantasies, and I wouldn't do anything that might jeopardize the very fragile and extremely breakable nature of our slowly developing relationship. As I was lifting the finger away, he remained silent and waited for the response to his request, patiently and in the same moment almost with a visible burning that lit him from within. I soundlessly waited and watched this Seto, who was capable of being silenced in such a submissive manner, by someone so insignificant and unmoving as I.

Defying the obvious attempt to torture my unprepared mind for a sight as such and it's seemingly impossibly open promising of things to come, I instead remained silent for an extra empty second to retain composure. Then I spoke, lifting his burden of anticipation and replacing it with a calm and settling sort of satisfaction that he was unfamiliar with, the sort of relief one might feel when finally handed the very thing desired for so very painfully long, but given freely without having to steal it away from another, unused and new. A quiet acceptance, followed by a peaceful feeling, and Seto was restlessly confused with the pleasantness of the emotions he was receiving from his clear and successful win. It seemed as though he was still waiting for an answer, perhaps it needed to be spoken aloud, this sort of moment could stand to be finalized.

"Of course I want to! So you swear, I'll never have to live anywhere else, ever again? And you won't throw me out?"

He shook his head slowly in agreement, and wore a quiet and still expression, pensive but halting with the threat of taking the happiness from my face, he couldn't do it, he couldn't tell me….

I could. I wanted this mess over with, as soon as possible. "Unless there's something that is very important that you should tell me first, before I accept. Important enough to make me wait another second after waiting as long as I have already….." I looked at him without mentally pushing or pulling, just expectantly interested in a chance to show him how I could help him, as he had helped me. He hesitated, and I heard his breathing pause as he drew in air to fill his lungs to capacity, and silently releasing the worry in his sigh, expelling some, but not all of the fear in his mind. Something that he could not put to rest and now was of dire importance to he and I both was in his mouth and waiting to be released. He was staring at me, and now that I was so much more matched to his face in my standing, he and I were watching each other evenly, he in discomfort and I in confusion. I began to think that maybe he was hiding something from me, had been, and now that he had come to admit this much to me he was stuck in one place, wanting for me to know, but terrified that I would be afraid, or upset, or for whatever reason. He had thought I might not accept it, and now I was dying to know what it could be. I wasn't going to leave, I knew that and he did as well, somewhere inside, or at least I hoped he knew. I never really said it, so, maybe it wasn't as obvious as I had once imagined. Well, he would know before this was all over, if it really was as big as I was imagining it might be at this point. I was terribly excited and wanted to know it and have it out, so I took an edging step to him, small and hesitant as if he might dash away like a wild animal. He wasn't so afraid, but he was thinking only of my response, how much rode on my acceptance of him as he was, as he couldn't help but be, and I saw it reflected in the deep shine in his eyes.

"Only one thing, but it's not the sort of thing that I'd want for you to be bothered with. Even so, I just feel as if I should tell you, so that I'm never an unwilling source of pain or fear for you. If you know, then perhaps you won't be afraid, I wouldn't ask you to stay with me if I thought you would be hurt somehow." He stopped momentarily, the plunge was just below him, hesitating for a swiftly stolen second that seemed to almost not even happen, a strange sort of smile broke out across his face and it was not unlike a look of possession of Seto by a kind and loving soul momentarily, but I saw it clearly in that second, and it was his smile. A warm and unregretful smile that felt the lifting of countless pounds worth of hiding something inside where I couldn't see, a task that was becoming more and more difficult by the day. But now, I would know, and even if I ran away from him, the shame and paranoia would be gone for good. He was free of a thing, for the first time in his life, and he had freed his own self.

"I have this thing inside me…..it's almost like there's someone else in here, along with me…..but not Seto. Another person entirely. I don't mean all the time, but there are times…every now and then…when I wake up, and I haven't even gone to sleep. And it will be later….I'll see the time and then I'll see it again a second later, and ten minutes will be gone. And I never remember anything, I never feel it coming, and I don't know how to trigger it. But I don't know what I say or do while I'm gone, but it's not me inside. It's not my feelings or my words….I can't do a thing to stop it, but it's not dangerous at all. I wouldn't ever put you in the way of danger. Do you believe me?"

Well, I had thought he was insane for a very long time before I knew any of this, but in all honesty he had explained away some of the things I had seen and pegged him for in the very beginning. His moods when in the presence of a challenging adversary in either verbal or physical confrontation, I had seen him in action in these types of situations, before we had become friends, and I had thought him rather obviously mentally `lost at sea'. I hadn't ever been able to pinpoint what it was that tipped me off so assuredly, but it was most likely what he had just described to me now: the mood shift that would possess him so suddenly and cause him to laugh madly at nothing at all or to speak utter nonsense that was nothing but madness and dominance personified, in a moment of unadulterated intensity that was his shadow self in the flesh for a quickly spent second. And then just as quickly as it gripped him it would die in his throat, and he hadn't heard or felt a thing. I didn't say to him then that I had just always assumed he was crazy, since he seemed to be riding the entire acceptance or denial of the invitation on my first and true reaction. I blinked calmly and then without warning, I jumped suddenly so that he would not have time to escape, and I grabbed him in a tight and clingy hold with my arms flung around him in a blind second that he couldn't escape from, let alone return. He didn't try to, and just stood as he was, and allowed me free reign for a little while, accepting my approval and taking the motion to mean that I was sure that `he was not crazy'. I let him think what he would, and just held on for the longest minute ever that I can remember being able to hold still, even while being so un-sober. He also never moved or thought to break the contact that either of us watched so carefully, so as not to abuse or overuse the newly acquired level of comfort. Instead, we just stayed in that place for a very long and pleasant moment, and we were both very glad to be done with the ordeal itself, and could now get on with the actual moving-in result that had been the whole purpose of this torturous and draw-out exposing of emotions.

And then in a strange and swiftly strangling moment, it was gone and he was pulling away, and I followed with my eyes to watch him, as I thought he might go back to his room. Our room, now, I thought with a grin that wasn't very noticeable to anyone but me. There would be no words from Seto, I guessed for perhaps quite awhile. I followed him in returned silence, as he turned to the bathroom and walked right through into the newly appointed place for me to live in. He picked up where he had last left off as though it had been a mere silence between friends, and with this new time and new place to belong, we would always be near one another, as long as we were both there and willing. And provided Seto was not at work or some other boring and relentlessly fun-ending responsibility that he was required to be in attendance for, and really too often. But otherwise, he and I spent the waking and sleeping moments in a state of being together that was broken only for the most crucial and briefest of moments. After a nearly spent week of this never-snapping thread of forever that he held me with, I lay awake beside him as he slept one night, and I thought about how amazing and seemingly infinitely blessed he must have been with his patience, to be able to be with me around the clock, and to see my face and hear my voice in a unstoppable and eternal circle that closed in on his life and work, and his personality surely. Was he truly not ill with the notion of my presence yet? If not, how much longer could he hold out? I never considered the possibility that his feelings were the same as mine, and the idea hadn't even crossed his mind, too full of simply me to be bothered with other notions. No, that couldn't be right……could it? I would have to find out, somehow, and I lifted my head which had been just previously aligned perfectly with his, on the same pillow and in the same way, only opposite so that we faced one another, and I watched his face to see the level of depth he slept at. He was still heavily dreaming, and I just couldn't wake him for such a hurtful reason, and instead decided to push the investigation back until he had woken more thoroughly. This was by far the bast tactic, I assumed, when asking a terrible load of emotionally saturated questions that were rooted in fear and lost amounts of sleep that grew to be quite large. Lying in the lonely night was a very bad area for thinking up questions, but it was so long ago, and I was so foolish still, but he was never angry with me for doubting him.

When he awoke many hours afterwards, I was so paranoid with the ideas of his losing interest in my presence, they had grown all night long, and were now so large and deeply set in worry that they all were impossible to even understand at that point. When Seto's eyes opened, they settled on me at once, and taking it in he smiled at his newfound and still-exiting ability to be able to see me first, before anything else could be seen in waking. Then afterwards, he shut his eyes once again and shifted slightly back into the pillow underneath our heads. He left his eyes shut but he didn't fall back into sleeping as of yet, but rather rested a few moments more before facing the real world outside of us. I waited and watched curiously at what he might do, I had never seen him wake up before this week, and I was even able to be distracted from sorrow to be taken again by curiosity as Seto woke up, in a very strange way. Which, all in all, I saw countless times afterwards, but on this waking it was still newer and still caught my attention at this time.

His eyelids were shut and then open at the same instant, and it seemed as though they had never been closed at all, of course they to could not open so fast, it would be a shock to gravity, even to time and space. Right after he was up he was also very nearly across the room, and all this before I could even call out to him. How did he find the will to throw himself at the world like that, and even with that iron force, how about the energy? If I ever even went to sleep at all, it was a brand new and even deeper cycle of addiction that had to be broken before I could even think about moving my body an inch in any direction. But now he was gone for real and the room was warm in his absence. I called to him to hear where he had gone to, although I knew inside that the cold presence was in the bathroom for a shower. I followed quickly and quietly opened the bathroom door, peering around it and searching for Seto. Finding him on the far side, in front of the mirror and none too happy with the reflection that menacingly loomed in response, I watched him with a grin, as he glared at the less-than-immaculate aura of both Seto Kaiba and his reflection upon awakening, still far too sleepy to notice the damage I saw, and I suppressed the laughter that nearly shot out across the bathroom. The mere sight of Seto as his disheveled and sleepy eyed state was bringing tears to my eyes, but the hair that had been slept upon…..

He turned for a moment and scowled at me in an awful way that was awfully funny in the same moment, and he finally heard me as the air escaped my throat at last, and my formerly hidden amusement was exposed, I couldn't help it any longer, laughing out loud at his desperation to stamp out the small but infuriating hair-rebellion just above his eyes. He was already losing this battle as soon as it began, pulling down on the strands of hair that used to fall across his eyes, but now fell slightly upwards, directly upwards as a matter of fact, to the ceiling, most likely with spite for the meticulous mind that lay within the hair above. He grumbled in a very frightening sort of way, already furious at the audacity of his own living, breathing body revolting against him so soon after waking. Quitting while he was still in his right mind, he let his hand fall to the bathroom sink and used the two hands placed beneath him to hold himself upright as he tried to wake up fully.

"Seto!….it's not so bad….Seto…? Heeey?" Silence followed for a still and thankfully single backed up moment, where his thought still came in motionless slides of sleepiness, and then a raspy kind sound came from out of the very place where Seto stood, but when I turned as fast as I could to see what had happened. Only Seto was there, just as before, and he was looking at me with annoyed attention, as if I had been the one to bother him. I thought quickly, staring at him emptyhanded for a few confusing and unsettling moments until one moment later, a frighteningly demonic voice came out of Seto and I recognized it immediately with a red face, drifting from the opposite end of the bathroom to where I still stood listening. It was the same sound that had unnerved me moments ago, it was Seto's voice….how frightening.

"…..Huh?" Seto clearly did not get it at all.

Not the morning sort, as I had recently come to discover, although everyone was `not the morning sort' to me then, because I was not the sleeping sort, and couldn't really identify with a tired anything. Even so, his alternate a.m.voice was a horribly death-tolling sound, especially since he was still incapable of hearing it's sound outside his head and luckily immune to himself in an audible sense.

After taking a few moments to right the wrongs in his appearance, Seto emerged from the bathroom and stood before me as I tried with all of my efforts not giggle directly in is face. But then, as I gazed at his expression which held patience for me still, even in this early hour, I remember the troubles of the night before, and the words that I felt slipped from my mouth almost unintentionally.

"Seto, aren't you tired of me by now? I've been trailing behind you constantly ever since I moved into this room with you…don't you hate me by now?"

I never wanted for him to agree with what I feared, but I asked him anyway, hoping that he could dissolve my fears with just a few well placed assurances and thus make the entire problem obsolete. However, as the words passed from my lips and into his mind, the entirety of his look shifted slightly, revealing nothing yet hinting at so much more within. Perhaps it was the weight that my worries held, or maybe he was just simply upset that I had received that impression in the first place. But no matter what it was that triggered it, Seto was gone, and here was someone I did not recognize. Fearing that what was transpiring was the very thing that Seto has forewarned about earlier that week, I tentatively reached out to him and spoke softly, begging him to quiet my whispering fears for the worst.

"Seto…? Did I say something wrong?"

He shocked me completely by slapping the hand I extended to him right out of his view and gave me a sickeningly sweet smirk, it was terrifying and intriguing to see but I knew that this was not a good place for me to be at the moment. I brought the hand that he had struck up to my chest, and I looked at him with a very injured expression, not wanting to anger him further but not knowing the first thing about this new and seemingly unsatisfied Seto. It was as if the pain that he had caused me moments ago brought him a strange satisfaction, and I froze where I was, hoping that maybe if I didn't move or speak, he would leave me and Seto alone. I was so afraid at that moment, but also I felt anger, a distaste for this other being that took hold of the boy that I loved and forced him to do things that I was sure the real Seto would never do. He had no right to control Seto and I lashed out at him verbally, intent on making it absolutely clear that his presence was unwanted.

"You aren't Seto, and you never will be! He hates you so much and now I do as well. Just leave him alone!" I yelled in his face so loud that my voice cracked and wavered slightly on the last few notes of rage I sent in his direction. He never moved at all, never flinched or raised an eyebrow at a word I had said, choosing instead to remain aloof and amused at my presence, and it seemed as if he hadn't heard a single word. Without any warning at all, he was suddenly within inches of my face, and I nearly fell over backwards in the rush of it all, seeing him move so quickly threw my own sense of balance into a tangled mess. He spoke quickly and precisely, meaning every single word of the statement, in a calculated move that I was sure was intended to drive me away from his host.

"You don't belong here with us. Leave, and never come back."

With those words in the air between us, he left me behind, walking purposefully out the door and shutting it quietly behind him, as if nothing at all had just happened. One tear trailed slowly across my cheek and fell from my chin, soundlessly making its mark on the carpet below my bare feet. I closed my eyes and held back a nearly audible sob, and I spoke to no one, because Seto was not there.

"I can never leave you now. You know as well as I do that I love you far too much. Don't you see it…?"

AN: And that is the last journey into this world. I hope that it helped explain a bit more of why things happened as they did, or maybe it was just a lot of fun to see Seto in the morning….hehe. You think he just wakes up like that? I think not….