Title: Summer of ‘69
Author: bnomiko
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Yami + Seto, Noa + Mokuba, Jou + Mai, Yugi + Anzu, Malik + Ryou, Rafael + Valon + Amelda
Spoilers: none
Warnings: swearing
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi. Getting Back to Nothing is a film by Tim Burstall. "You May Be Right" is performed and recorded by Billy Joel. This is a not-for-profit fanwork and I do not own any of these characters.
Summary: "I may be crazy, But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for"
Status: 8 / ?
Archived at: http://www.phenixsol.com/Miko/FF/

* * *

Summer of '69

Ch. 6: Getting Back to Nothing

* * *

You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
Turn out the lights, don't try to save me
You may be wrong, for all I know,
But you may be right

- "You May Be Right", Billy Joel

* * *

With Jou now out of the tournament, Yugi and Anzu began thinking it would be nice of them to go cheer on Rebecca since her duel with Leon was still in progress. And if they hurried, they could probably catch the tail end of her match. After all, despite the problems Rebecca was causing, she was still a friend, and they wanted to lend her their support.

But when they brought up the idea to Jou as they exited the dueling site, he was too busy replaying his loss in his head to consider it. "Man, I’m so pissed!" he groused. "I can’t believe that guy beat me."

"But you did really well, Jou. You got all the way to the semifinals. And Sieg had a lot of really rare, powerful cards," Yugi pointed out.

"Yeah, but I *really* wanted ta beat him. I dunno man, there’s just somethin’ creepy about that guy… he gets under my skin," Jou answered, shivering for emphasis.

"Well, I’m proud of you even if you didn’t win, Onii-san," Shizuka said. "You tried your best, you never gave up, and even when there were flames shooting up from the ground, you kept your cool and stayed focused."

"Hmm…" Mai turned to Mokuba as he ran over to join them after announcing and recording the match results. "Mokuba, you might want to talk to your brother about cutting back on the flamethrowers in the Volcanic Pit. It’s a bit much."

Mokuba flushed slightly. "It’s not supposed to be like that at all. We have this same attraction in the original KaibaLand, so we know how it’s supposed to be done. We might’ve gotten hacked again. But I’m not sure how, since Sieg was here, dueling."

"Speakin’ of the slimeball, where’d he go?"

Everyone looked around, but sure enough, Sieg had vanished while they were talking, even though he’d been right behind them as they left the Volcanic Pit attraction.

"Well, he’s probably headed back to the waiting room. And the security team should be tracking him regardless," Mokuba said, though he sounded a bit unsure about it.

Jou snorted. "Tell ya what, kid. I’ll go find the jerk and keep an eye on him for ya myself."

"We’ll come with you too," Mai offered, gesturing to her sister-in-law and herself. Sensing her husband’s impending protest, she added, "What? I know how you are. Someone’s got to keep on eye on you... we don’t want you to start anything with that guy."

While Jou sputtered in mock indignation, Mokuba considered the offer, then gave them a nod. If the pink-haired man were heading back to the waiting room, it’d be easy enough for the three of them to pretend that they just happened to end up there as well. And Jou could definitely handle himself if a problem did arise. "Thanks… but please be careful."

"Eh, don’t sweat it," Jou answered, thumbing his nose.

Mokuba nodded again as Jou, Mai and Shizuka went to leave, then glanced at the nearby results screen before turning to Yugi and Anzu. "Okay, I guess I’ll run you two over then. But we better hurry… Rebecca’s duel could be over any minute now."

* * *

Sure enough, when Jou’s group got back to the duelists’ waiting room, Sieg was already there. He was engaged in some sort of hushed conversation with Vivian when they walked in, but as soon as he spotted them, the slightest hint of a smirk crossed his face, and he terminated the conversation abruptly before leaving the room. A few security officers slid out of the room after him.

Jou and Mai exchanged quick looks, then parted ways. Jou warily tailed the security officers, while Mai and Shizuka walked over and grabbed a seat on the plush sofa across from where Vivian now perused a fashion magazine with feigned interest. They didn’t say anything to one another or to Vivian, but after a minute, the Chinese woman peered at them from behind the magazine.

"Is he gone?" she whispered.

Shizuka blinked at Vivian, surprised that she had initiated conversation with them. "Who?"

"Sieg Lloyd."

"He’s gone," Mai assured her even as she tried to get a better read on Vivian. Was she involved somehow and just playing innocent since she’d been caught talking to him? Or was she being sincere?

"Oh, good. He was giving me the creeps. Definitely not my type," Viv sniffed.

"Right. You like them short and spiky-haired, or tall, brunette and billionaire-ish," Mai joked, though there was considerable truth in that statement.

A smile played across Vivian’s lips. "Well, what can I say? Yugi Mutou’s so shy and sweet, and such a great duelist too! And Seto Kaiba is one of the most famous faces in all of Duel Monsters, plus he’s loaded! It really is such a shame that he swings the other way. Maybe I should go after Pegasus Crawford next…" She paused, then grew a bit more serious. "So why aren’t you in this tournament? Is it because you’re retired, and that’s that?"

The blonde smirked, glancing in the direction Jou had disappeared to. "Why do you ask?"

"As much as I love dueling men, I’ll admit that I admire women duelists even more. Well, some of them. Not little brats like that Hopkins girl. But I’ve always wanted the opportunity to duel you and your deck of Harpies."

Mai found herself agreeing with the sentiment. While she had no problem dueling either sex, there was something admirable about women who dueled, mostly because they were still a rare breed despite the widespread popularity of the game. "Well, we could have a duel right here, right now," she said lightly, though she was quite serious about it. Maybe dueling Vivian would help her figure the woman out, once and for all.

"Really?"

"Sure, why not?" Mai reached for her purse, fishing out her well-worn deck. Like any true duelist, she was always ready to go at a moment’s notice.

A genuine grin broke across Vivian’s face, and she held up her deck in response. Why not duel? She was always up for a good challenge.

* * *

Mokuba’s concerns turned out to be well justified, for by the time his group arrived at Miniatureland, site of Rebecca and Leon’s duel, Rebecca was down to only 100 life points. At least she had a powerful dragon card on her side of the field, so she still stood a chance of winning, but things weren’t looking great for her at the moment.

"Hey Rebecca!" Yugi called loudly over the din of the assembled crowd.

The blonde teen spun around at the sound of his voice, instantly perking up. "Yugi! I knew you’d make it! Now that you’re here, I can’t possibly lose! All right then…" Her confidence now bolstered, she spun around to face Leon once again. "Diamond Head Dragon, attack his Globerman! Next, I’ll set this card face down, and end my turn."

Despite being down to 900 life points, Leon smiled as he drew his next card. "That was a nice move. But I think this duel is about to come to an end. I’ll play this Gold Moon Coin magic card. It means I’ll have to hand over every card in my hand, but I can draw an equal amount of cards in return." He walked over, and handed her a single card.

"Huh… I don’t get it," said Rebecca, looking at the Spinning Wheel Spindle card Leon just handed her. "You could have used this to destroy my monster, so why didn’t you use it?"

Leon returned to his side of the duel arena, drew one card, and then explained, "Because if you had summoned a monster with more than 900 attack points in the next turn, you could’ve beaten me. So I thought I’d try something different… and now I play One Hundred Year Awakening. This lets me sacrifice my Curse of Thorns to summon Thorn Princess. She’s only got 400 attack points, but her special ability allows me to control one of your monsters."

"Oh no!" Rebecca gasped as her dragon turned to face her. It had 3400 attack points, and she had only a sliver of life points left…

"Diamond Head Dragon, wipe out the rest of her life points!"

Rebecca winced as her life points ticked down to zero, then stood there with her head hanging in shame. She’d been so sure that she’d win, especially since Yugi had managed to show up after all. And now she lost while he was watching!

Leon walked over to shake hands, but seeing how upset the his opponent was, he ended up saying instead, "Rebecca, I’m sorry."

She raised her head a little to look at him as if gauging his sincerity, then offered him her hand to shake. "Don’t apologize, you won fair and square."

Within moments, the two duelists were joined by Yugi, Anzu, Sugoroku, Professor Hopkins, Mokuba and Noa. While Noa announced and recorded the official results, Yugi told the pair, "Wow, that was a great duel! Well, best of luck in the finals tomorrow, Leon… I’d love to duel against you. You’re very talented."

While Leon flushed at the compliment from the man he idolized, Rebecca took the opportunity to launch herself at Yugi, wrapping her arms around his neck and crying, "But… I wanted to duel you tomorrow! Oh… if only you’d gotten here sooner, Yugi, I’d have won for sure!"

Yugi tried to think of something to say. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Rebecca; that wasn’t it at all. But Jou was his best friend, and he had needed his support more during his duel. He wasn’t sure if Rebecca would understand that, though. So with a sympathetic look in Anzu’s direction, he awkwardly patted the blonde on the back and said kindly, "I know. We tried to get here as fast as we could. But you still did very well…"

"And the crowd loved you, Rebecca," her grandfather told her. "They still do. I can still hear fans chanting your name."

With a small sniffle, Rebecca loosened her grip on Yugi and managed to drum up a smile and wave for her fans. Her grandfather was right... they were sticking by her even though she had lost. And she appreciated it. Besides, maybe losing wasn’t all bad… she was hugging Yugi and there wasn’t a thing Anzu could do about it without looking like a total jerk!

But… it wasn’t Anzu that ended her fun. After a tolerant few seconds, Yugi reached up and gently pulled Rebecca’s arm off from where she had placed it around his shoulders.

Oh, fine, he’s going to be like THAT about it… It’s probably ‘cause Anzu’s standing right there, Rebecca thought to herself. Well, I’ll just need to keep reminding Yugi what he’s missing out on by staying with Anzu… Spotting Mokuba just a few feet away, she went over to him and grabbed for his hand, but this time, Mokuba abruptly pulled away.

"Rebecca… look, just stop it, okay?" The black-haired teen was a bit tired of being randomly pawed at. Maybe Rebecca was just playful that way, and too immature to realize he wasn’t comfortable with it. Maybe she did like him; he wasn’t sure. But he could see the jealousy burning in Noa’s eyes, and he knew if he didn’t do something quick, Noa certainly would. And he probably would be a lot meaner about it.

"But I…" Rebecca began, seemingly confused, then she did a 180 and spat out, "Well, ‘scuse me for having cooties!"

Anzu decided enough was enough; it was time for her to intervene before Noa went ballistic. Stepping in between the two, she said, "Rebecca, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Why?"

"Because. We haven’t really had a chance to talk since this tournament’s begun."

"Sure we have…" Rebecca began arguing back, but Anzu shook her head.

"Not just the two of us girls." She suddenly smiled at Yugi, then told Rebecca, "Come on, let’s take a walk. Maybe we can get some ice cream or something. And the guys can go off and talk about their boring guy things and we’ll catch up with them later."

Rebecca wrinkled her nose. She’d rather be with Yugi and her grandfather, but Professor Hopkins was nodding at Anzu as if that were a great idea, so reluctantly, she agreed to go. She knew it was just a ploy to get her away from Yugi but if nothing else, it meant that at the same time, Anzu couldn’t be with Yugi either, so that made her feel a little better about it.

* * *

The two girls ended up going for ice cream at a small shop a short distance away. Rebecca secretly hoped that the chocolate peanut butter concoction Anzu was downing would make her fat, but it’d take a lot of ice cream and a lot of time for that to happen. And she didn’t want to wait.

"So what’s the deal?" Rebecca finally asked as she dug into her vanilla frozen yogurt. "You didn’t really bring me here for girl talk…"

Anzu shook her head. No point in lying; Rebecca was too smart for that. "What you’re doing is unfair to Mokuba. If Yugi is the one you’re interested in, why play games with Mokuba?"

"Why does it matter to you? Mokuba’s not your boyfriend."

"But Yugi is. And besides, Mokuba’s a friend of ours. And you’re confusing him with the way you’ve been acting. He doesn’t know how to tell you that he’s not interested," Anzu explained. Though she hadn’t even spoken to the youngest Kaiba on the matter, she figured she was probably accurate in her estimation.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes. "Why even mention Mokuba? I know the truth… you’re just trying to keep me away from Yugi."

"I’m not trying to keep you from Yugi. Well… I mean, I’m glad you’re friends. But you’re going to have to accept the fact that he’s my boyfriend."

"You’re just dating. Things can change," Rebecca haughtily replied.

The brunette shrugged, though deep down she disagreed. But Rebecca was still young and idealistic. Though, Anzu did remember a time when she harbored feelings for someone who didn’t return them… "Yes, I guess things CAN change. But not always. And even if they do, they don’t always go as you might hope. You know, Rebecca… a few years ago, I really liked Yami…"

Rebecca instantly jumped on that. "Yami? Not Yugi?"

"Mm. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Yugi, he was just… I thought of him as a really good friend, and that’s it. But Yami, even though he was still a spirit back then… he was exciting, and different. In my eyes, he was like a modern day knight in shining armor. When he got his own body, I told myself, ‘Finally… I have a real chance with him.’ It didn’t happen, of course."

"Didn’t make your move soon enough? I guess that’s to be expected; you’re not a duelist after all."

Despite the insult, Anzu gave Rebecca a slight smile. "It wasn’t that. I didn’t know he was gay. I guess I never had a chance at all."

Rebecca quietly considered that for a moment. Curious, she had to ask, "So… he never told you? And I bet Yugi knew, but he didn’t tell you either?"

"It wasn’t Yugi’s right to tell me… maybe Yami didn’t want us to know. But you know how I found out?" The brunette dancer grinned as she thought back to that night over two years ago. "Kaiba was in front of the shop in a brand new Ferrari. We all thought he was there to challenge Yami to a duel. And at the time, Jou was sure that Yami had found himself a girlfriend. I didn’t really believe it… I didn’t want to. I thought for sure I still had a chance with him. But then Yami came outside with a duffel bag and Kaiba told him, and I quote, ‘I’m going to run out of underwear if you keep borrowing mine.’ And then Yami got in the car and they drove away…"

Rebecca could sympathize with that. "Boy, that sucks…"

"I was really upset at first. I mean, that whole time, I liked him… and I didn’t even know he wasn’t interested in girls. It almost felt like… he had let me down, by not telling me that. Why didn’t he just say something? But then again, I guess it wasn’t something that would’ve been easy to explain. And he didn’t know how we’d all react. Maybe he was right. I mean, I got upset, Jou flipped out… and it took Yugi to remind us that Yami hadn’t changed, it was only how we were seeing him that changed."

"Well, that’s too bad for you and all, but what does your story have to do with Yugi? You had no chance with Yami, so you went after him instead?"

"It’s not like that. I mean, when Yugi finally asked me out, I did wonder if maybe that would happen. That I’d look at him and only think of Yami. And our first date was a quadruple date, so Yami was there with us. But I didn’t think about him the entire time, and I realized that somewhere along the way, I had figured out for myself that Yami wasn’t the one for me." Anzu giggled. "It ended up being a fun first date, even though Kaiba handcuffed Yugi and I together. I had a great time."

Rebecca gave her the oddest look, then thought otherwise about asking about *that* little detail.

"It’s okay if you like Yugi. After all, I still have a bit of a crush on Yami. He was the first guy I fell for," Anzu admitted. "But you can’t always expect a guy you like to like you back in the same way. Sometimes, the best you can do is be their friend."

"But that’s not what I want!"

"If you really care about him, you’ll want him to be happy, even if it means you can’t be with him. Even if that isn’t what you want for yourself."

Rebecca stood up, stomping her foot. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear at all! "That’s stupid. You brought me over here to tell me that? You can’t tell me who to like, and you can’t keep me away from Yugi!"

"But isn’t it up to Yugi who he wants to be with? Maybe… have you asked him how he feels?"

Her hands clenching into small fists, Rebecca shouted, "Maybe I *would*, but you’re always around, so when would I have the chance to talk to him about that?" Then before Anzu could say another word, she turned and stormed off.

Who does Anzu think she is, saying that she knows exactly what Yugi wants? It wasn’t her business anyway. Not really. But she did bring up a good point, and so Rebecca decided that she’d go find Yugi and tell him exactly how she felt. One way or another, she was going to resolve things between the two of them, and Anzu could just butt out.

* * *

Noa wondered if anything would change after Anzu had her talk with Rebecca. The young blonde duelist was stubborn as hell. But at least Anzu was keeping her word to him, though he wasn’t sure if he ought to ask her how things went afterwards. He didn’t want to show too much interest in the matter after all; it’d look suspicious. But at the same time, he definitely wasn’t going to be leaving Mokuba anywhere near Rebecca for the remainder of the tournament if he could help it.

But that was only one of the things on his mind. They still had a tournament to run, and he and Mokuba needed to report back to Seto. It had been a long day, and with the hacker was still running amok, Seto probably hadn’t taken a single break the entire time. Mokuba suggested that they bring him something to eat, so they stopped by a little café in the new retail center and ordered him a sandwich, though convincing him to eat it would be another matter. Yami could probably do it. But when they arrived at Seto’s office, Yami was asleep on the sofa…

"What?" Seto asked irritably, after having been stared at for a second too long.

"And here we were, thinking you’d been working this whole time," Noa drawled, waggling his brows and tossing his head in the direction of the sofa.

Mokuba rolled his eyes at the insinuation and jabbed his boyfriend in the ribs, then set the styrofoam container down on the desk. "We brought you something to eat, okay?"

Seto ignored the food and gave the green-haired teen an odd look instead. What the…? "What’s that supposed to mean? I *have* been working this entire time!"

Noa looked slightly confused and embarrassed. "Then why is Yami… I thought you guys… had fooled around or something..."

"And why would you think that?" Seto asked testily.

"Dunno, that’s what you usually do," Noa mumbled.

"It’s just not like Yami to be taking a nap, that’s all," Mokuba explained. "Especially at a time like this."

"He’s not really napping," Seto grumbled. He rubbed at his forehead. He didn’t want to be so snappish, but… he couldn’t help it. Even with Yami’s help, he was starting to feel tired and moody once again. Perhaps he’d feel better if he borrowed a bit more energy, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Who knows what sort of effect that would have on Yami?

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Noa abruptly asked, and when Seto gave him a questioning look, he pointed out, "You said something about not knowing how it’d affect Yami…"

Seto simply grunted, though he was cursing himself on the inside. He hadn’t realized he’d said that out loud, and now both his brothers were looking at him expectantly, awaiting a response.

Apparently he was taking too long, because Noa suddenly frowned and said, "Does this have something to do with your mind link?" The teenager turned to look at Yami, then swung back around, concern in his eyes. "Seto?"

"Don’t worry about it; we know what we’re doing," the brunette grumbled, though he wasn’t as sure as he claimed to be.

"Then why is he unconscious?" Noa demanded, worry evident in his voice.

Before Seto could even formulate a response, Mokuba asked, "What are you trying to say? You know Nii-sama wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt Yami!"

"I’m not saying he’d do it on purpose..."

"He wouldn’t. EVER!" Mokuba adamantly argued back.

"But even you have to admit, this isn’t normal. I’m… I’m just worried about Yami." Noa looked over at his big brother, who was now staring distractedly at his sleeping lover. "Tell me you’re positive that this isn’t harming him, and I’ll drop it."

Seto wanted to answer Noa, wanted to assure him that he was positive Yami would be fine… but the doubt that had been niggling at him crawled back to the forefront of his thoughts and lodged itself there. "He said… he’d be fine," he ended up responding, but it was less an answer and more an attempt at self-reassurance than anything else.

"He’d do anything for you, you know," Noa pointed out, not willing to let the matter go. But even though he knew Mokuba was unhappy with what he was doing, he had to say it. Neither the tournament nor the opening of the theme park should have taken precedence over Yami’s well being…

"But Yami would know better than to do anything stupid. He’d know how Seto would feel about that," Mokuba insisted. "And I’d even bet they’ve done things like this before."

Seto nodded once, though he only partially agreed with that statement. He now realized that Yami had been right; they had borrowed energy from each other before, though at the time he didn’t even know what to call it or how to describe it… but it wasn’t quite the same this time. He’d never been so depleted before. And no matter what he had tried – though of course that precluded sleep – nothing seemed to help. Without Yami’s help, he might have passed out by the time Mokuba and Noa stopped by to check on him. But… was Noa right? Of course Yami would do anything for him… and it was possible that in his zeal to be helpful, Yami had overestimated himself… He did have a bit of an ego. Seto was feeling uneasy just thinking about it. Yami shouldn’t have just passed out like that. He shouldn’t have been roused by a nightmare to the point of falling off the sofa. Where was the balancing of energy that he had talked about? It seemed to only be going one way. Could that end up harming him later on? Yami had been disoriented and nauseous earlier…

Suddenly really and truly worried about what harm he was doing to his boyfriend, and with Yami no longer able to convince him otherwise, Seto decided that that was he was no longer willing to take the risk. Kaiba Corp.’s problems were his to deal with… he refused to make Yami pay the price for his company’s woes. He wasn’t sure how he was going to cope with another lost night of sleep… but he’d manage. He always had before.

Carefully concentrating on the link he shared with Yami, Seto isolated the feed of energy, visualizing it as something like a running garden hose, and slowly clamped down on it, shutting off the flow. It felt like he was draining much of the energy out of himself in the process, but he told his body to just suck it up and deal. Surely he must’ve taken in enough energy during the last few hours to keep him going for a while longer. And the tournament would be over the next day. Just one more day… then Siegfried would be gone, and he could get some rest. Maybe even take a day off, or two if he really needed it. That’d be enough to make up for everything.

With a sigh, he turned back to his brothers. "Don’t worry about Yami. He’ll wake up soon, I think."

He thought Noa would’ve been relieved by that. But the green-haired teen just turned his concern towards him instead, asking, "But what about you?"

"What about me?" Damn, he was already feeling a bit drowsy…

"Are you going to be okay?"

Seto merely grunted before turning back to his computer, unsure of what to tell him. He wasn’t even sure why Noa was worried about him. Why did he care? Or was that not it at all? Was he really thinking that he couldn’t handle Siegfried because the German had managed to hack the system again? Well, that wasn’t true at all. Now that Seto knew who he was, Siegfried’s luck had run out. He wasn’t going to get away with it again. Seto would take care of that personally.

Seeing that his brother was back on the computer as if nothing had happened, Mokuba hesitantly reminded him of what they had told him earlier that day in hopes that they could still salvage the conversation. "Nii-sama, you know Noa and I will help you in any way we can…"

"No, I’ve got it all under control," the young billionaire bit out. I can do this myself. I don’t need to rely on anyone else.

But despite what Seto thought, Noa really did care. He hadn’t intended for his words to sound so harsh, but he’d been worried about Yami. That didn’t mean that he wanted Seto to suffer instead. But he had already said too much, and Seto was clearly indicating the conversation was over, the stubborn idiot. All he could do was helplessly look at Mokuba, who looked as worried and confused as he.

"At least eat your sandwich…" Noa said softly, almost afraid that Seto was just going to throw it at him, just to spite him. But after a tense moment, Seto reached out for the container and began eating the contents.

Well, at least he was being reasonable about that. And Noa figured that was it… Seto was just going to sit there and work and pretend that they weren’t there, staring at the back of his head. But then the brunette picked up his phone and called for a limo to take his brothers and Yami back to the duplex, and both Noa and Mokuba realized… Seto wasn’t even planning on going home that evening.

Mokuba tried to argue against it because he knew that meant that his big brother wasn’t planning on getting any rest whatsoever. He even went as far as saying that that he’d refuse to leave unless Seto went with them too, but Seto refused to budge.

Then, as if pulling a trap card on them, Seto told his brothers, "I need you to keep an eye on Yami and make sure he’s be okay. Sometimes he has a hard time sleeping if I’m awake, and that sofa is no place for him to be sleeping, anyway."

"Then you should be coming with us, and getting some rest too," Mokuba reasoned.

"I wouldn’t be able to sleep, even if I tried. There’s a lot to do… I can’t even stop thinking about it long enough to take a break." Then, a little more gently, he added, "I’d really feel a lot better if you two did this for me. I know I can trust you to look after him."

"Of course," Noa replied, though he had no intention of doing only that. Yami’s well being would be his top priority, but there was no reason he couldn’t remotely sneak in a little side work on the computer systems as well. "But Seto, what about you?"

The young CEO rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Look, I’ll even take a day off after this is all over, if it makes you feel better."

"You mean that?" Mokuba asked. It wasn’t what he was originally hoping for, but, well… it was better than nothing. He just hoped it would be enough. Despite what Seto thought, he wasn’t some sort of superman; a human body had minimum requirements that needed to be met, and no amount of willpower could overcome that.

"Yes, I promise."

Mokuba looked at Noa, who merely shrugged, then at Yami, and finally, nodded reluctantly at his big brother. He still wasn’t happy with it, but he was willing to give up the fight if it at least resulted in taking one small weight off Seto’s shoulders. "All right."

Satisfied with that small victory, Seto smiled slightly, turned back around, and got back to work.

* * *

TBC

Author’s Notes:

March 6, 2007