Human

Revised: 7/29/09

InsaneShadowFan: Christ, it's been a while. I really should be updating my other fics, huh? But since it's been so long, and because I wanted to try and develop this idea that I had into a one-shot, I figured it could wait. Read and Enjoy, friends.

o o o o o

The streets were empty, save for the litter that the cold wind blew across the roads, and the few neon lights that flickered hopefully in an attempt to attract customers to a 24-hour convenience store. It was three o'clock a.m. in Domino City, and there was a steady, dreary drizzle that cast the block with a gloomy sort of haze. And it was through this haze that Seto Kaiba strode briskly through, clad in his rain-proof black trench coat (a la custom Giorgio Armani), with one hand grasping the handle of his umbrella, the other tightly holding his leather briefcase. The deadline to an important project was in two days, forcing Kaiba to work overtime, and despite his younger brother's insistence that Seto should take a limousine home at such a late hour, Kaiba preferred to walk home. Any potential muggings or attacks were easily managed by the pistol he kept handy on his person at all times.

It was at one particular intersection, the 4th and Main Street junction, that Kaiba, waiting at a pedestrian crossing (despite the fact that absolutely no cars were on the road) heard a faint sound somewhere around his feet. Looking down, he saw that a fast food bag was stuck in the gutter. Nothing out of the usual, thought Kaiba stiffly, glancing at the light, which seemed to be taking an obnoxiously long time to change considering the lack of traffic at the time. Incompetent engineers. He could do a better job designing the traffic light system. Anybodycould do a better job.

The fast food bag made the sound again. But this time it was louder, distinguishable.

Sighing, Kaiba crouched down and lifted the bag to uncover a stray kitten struggling to remove its paw from the metal guard on the gutter. Setting down his briefcase, he worked carefully, his pale, long fingers deftly extracting the kitten's paw. The animal looked up at Kaiba and made a small, strangled noise that sounded more like a cough than a mew.

The kitten looked to be about six weeks, but was probably older; lack of food and shelter most likely had stunted its growth. Its long fur was black and matted and wet, sticking to it frame and causing it to look even frailer and more skeletal, but its eyes were clear, bright, and a deep, perceptive blue. Kaiba stared at its matted fur for a while before making a sound that sounded as close to a chuckle as Kaiba was ever likely to make in his lifetime.

"Your hair is as bad as Mokuba's," he said, presumably to the cat. The kitten mewed again weakly, and shivered.

"You are filthy, do you know that?" Kaiba said disdainfully to the little animal. "You are a gutter rat, a stray. And don't look at me like that," he implored, for when Kaiba had said the words "gutter rat", the kitten cocked its head to the side, as if to say, Who, me?

The red NO WALKING light finally switched to green. Kaiba stood up and straightened his raincoat, and began to cross the street. He felt the begging eyes of the cat burning into his back. "There is no way that I am taking you home. You are positively filthy."

He stood in the middle of the road. The kitten stared on.

"As if I would take you home. As if I, Seto Kaiba, one of the richest men in Japan, could possibly be expected to show an ounce of human decency and take a stray home."

And yet still he stood.

The cat made another strangled meow.

As if straining against the chains of his own typically heartless disposition, Kaiba slowly turned around and bent to pick up the kitten. It was positively tiny, almost weightless. Across the street was an outdoor patio to a restaurant, closed, of course, and Kaiba, cradling the kitten in an almost motherly way against his chest, strode over to one table. He sat the kitten on the tabletop and positioned his umbrella to protect it from the drizzle, leaving him exposed to the mist. Setting his briefcase down and snapping it open, he putted out what looked to be the remnants of his lunch.

"I suppose that the very least I could do is give you what little I have to eat," Kaiba drawled in an attempt to sound apathetic. The kitten's lifted its nose up hopefully, nuzzling it against the mashed paper bag.

"Yes. A brown bag. Not exactly what one would expect a world-famous CEO to use to carry his lunch," Kaiba said lightly. "Mokuba packs them for me. My brother. Although I don't suppose you understand a word of what I am trying to say to you." The kitten, still pawing weakly at the lunch bag, ignored him. With a long sigh, as if the effort to open a paper bag and extract its contents were simply too much exertion on his part, Kaiba reached into the mashed up bag and pulled out the uneaten part of his sandwich and a small container of half and half.

"You're lucky, cat. He made me tuna fish." Kaiba pulled apart the bread and set it open faced in front of the kitten, who began to nibble on a corner, and then pulled off the covering to the half and half. "I don't know why he always puts half and half in my lunches for my coffee," Kaiba grumbled, "since he of all people should know I only drink black." He pushed the cream toward the cat and then crossed his arms and looked off into the hazy distance, waiting for the stray to finish its meal.

"Then again, I don't know why Mokuba insists on making coffee to put in my thermos. Odious stuff, really. thirteen-year-old boys don't make good coffee."

The kitten began lapping at the half and half, beginning to gain some newfound strength.

"I've been taking care of my brother for nearly ten years," Seto mused, his usual surly expression unchanged in spite of this reminiscence. "About a week from today will be the day that my biological father died."

From the corner of his saw Seto saw the kitten looking at him with its eyes. They were round and looked almost like cut sapphires. He returned the stare, face as blank as always.

"I don't really remember my biological father well. Which is quite strange, considering the fact that I was eight years old when he died, and apparently Mokuba remembers him quite well. He was...nearly four, I think." Seto unconsciously bounced the trading card locket containing his brother's photograph in the palm of his hand. "He's told me a few times about our biological father. But I suppose it is understandable," Seto's lip curled horribly. "My stepfather left a fairly permanent imprint on me in the matter of father figures."

"Mew?" The kitten, for the first time that night made a proper meowing sound. She was almost quizzical.

"My stepfather. Gozaburo Kaiba. He was a bad man. And that is all you are getting out of me, cat." With one cool stare, the kitten hastily resumed its supper, leaving Seto free to continue about his birth father.

"How unusual that my younger brother is the one to tell me about him. Mokuba says that is whom I inherit my looks from, that I am his spitting image. And I tell him that he resembles our birth mother." Seto's curled lip began to relax. "I remember her. Strange that I can remember her after all these years."

As if in remembrance, he closed his eyes.

"Like a photograph. I can see her imprinted in my mind to this day. She had blue eyes. My father had green eyes. So I suppose I inherited her eyes." Kaiba opened his, and turned to face the windows of the silent restaurant. He stared at his reflection. He looked almost hungry.

"She had kind eyes. She had beautiful blue eyes."

The muscles in his neck twitched, and a flash of anger--or was it longing?--flared through his glittering, glass impression.

"But I see nothing."

His hands, clenched into fists, shook very slightly.

"All I see is Gozaburo's likeness." He swallowed.

"I am my stepfather's son. I am a Kaiba. I am the most powerful man in this city, and arguably the most powerful, successful man in the country. I have the potential to have everything. But I have nothing."

His cold facade showed a slight hint at his true emotions. He glared, almost miserably, into the rain.

"I don't desire the world. I don't want to be all-powerful. Everybody thinks that I have to be the greatest person in the world. I would have kept the Kaiba company as a weapons company if I wanted to be that strong.

"I have only ever wanted to be the best at what I am good at."

The kitten, finishing up the last bit of tuna fish, glanced up at Kaiba in between laps. He didn't notice.

"Even when I was beaten by Yugi Moto, still I did not care. I could have easily disposed of him in some other way if that were the case. I could have been Japan's best duelist by default. I am not above such a measure. I knew that he would forfeit if I had threatened to kill myself at Duelist Kingdom. Foolish, softhearted boy," he sneered.

"But at the end of the day, even though I defeated him, the so-called King of Games...." Seto swallowed, his head tilted down, his wet hair covering his eyes, his voice lowered to a mumble, "...looked at me with disgust..."

"Meow?"

"Lost the game...but he has somebody that would stand beside him, at the end of the day..."

"Mew...."

Lower than a whisper, Kaiba only mouthed out words so softly, as is reciting words that he knew very well, and would most likely remember for the rest of his life. A sliver of moonlight shone through the storm clouds across Kaiba's face. It made him look almost sad.

"what do you have at the end of the day, tell me, tell me--"

He stared upwards at the grey sky through his sopping bangs.

"I have all that I need." He snapped his briefcase shut. "I have not forgotten what it is to be human." He picked up his umbrella.

"I may not have a heart. But I will beat him fairly. One day. Do you hear me?" He whispered, almost as if begging for her to hear. He heard the mewing of the stray kitten, not wanting the kind stranger to leave him. He picked it up gently, carefully shielding it from the rain with his coat.

"Hm. You're a female cat." Kaiba began his walk home again in the moonlight, accompanied on the journey this time around. "I think I can come up with a good name for you, then."

o o o o o

End