Silver Jubilee

WARNING: YAOI IS SHOWN IN THIS CHAPTER (JOUNOUCHI/SETO) AND MORE RAPE (GOUZABUROU/SETO). READERS ARE REMINDED THAT SETO IS NOT AT A HEALTHY WEIGHT, THEREFORE THE YAOI MAY BE OFFENSIVE.

!!!THANK YOU!!! OVER 2000 HITS!!!

Finally! The time has come, my readers, for the yaoi you've all been waiting for. Read what you see above--you must NOT forget that Seto-sama has lost THIRTY-FIVE pounds here. He's not all muscle and chiseled flesh--Jou however... Take Seto's regular weight of one hundred and forty-three and do the math: he's only one hundred and eight pounds and he's 6'1". Not a good combination. Let's face it people, his body isn't quite the typical fangirl's match of "hott," EMACIATED is more like it. Nevertheless, I will stay true to his ED and describe him as is. But for those of you who are into that...well, enjoy, I guess. I'm the sicko writing it, so don't feel bad that you're enjoying it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuugi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction.

Song Disclaimer: "Making Of A Cyborg" is still Kenji Kawai's piece of work--not mine.

XXX

"…Donna ni ii kudemo…kawaii kutemo…suki ni naranai hoka ii yo. Ato de nakita kunai darou."

(No matter how good they are…no matter how cute they are…it's best if you don't fall in love. If later, you don't want to cry.)

XXX

Kaiba Seto stood alone at the midst of the empty men's locker room, anticipating that the personal fitness instructor could just say, "Track…" for God's sake, "Track…" and if by happenstance, the old-timer did happen to utter "Pool," the CEO fully knew he'd be royally screwed. The stringent coach did not accept a put-on "stomachache"--or a real one, for that matter--and any signed doctor's note brandished before the brute's weathered hand would immediately be torn into shreds and disposed of into the nearest trash bin.

The last thing the Kaiba Corporation president needed was for the entire student body to spread word round that the well-to-do golden boy of the school was actually susceptible to an eating disorder, and would freely flaunt such a disgusting form for all underclassmen to see. Apart from that, he was always such a weak swimmer. Even when his body was strong…his breath-taking was always so erratic beneath and above the water. However, Jounouchi, along with his feeble-minded comrade, Honda, both always excelled in the sport--as expected.

Seto had observed the teen so many times before, as he'd observed most everyone lately: taut, bronzed flesh stiff over chiseled muscle…yet, he maintained a slim, willowy appearance somehow. He'd rest a weary chin on his fist, and glimpse over the disarray of diversely formed undergraduates, voyeuristic to some point. Thin; too muscled; scrawny; fair enough; an atypical fat one here and there; not up to par on his vision of the norm…a white forefinger would sum up even a girl's waistline he judged to be slighter than his own, and he'd brandish self-conscious hands to his stomach sulkily. So strange…he'd never had such a forced judgment upon people by their supposed weight. He generally really didn't give a damn.

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter. Jounouchi...was it so wrong? So wrong to gaze toward the long, trim limbs that fluttered with lean muscle as he treaded, the washboard flat of his stomach that still displayed a rather pleasing twist of taunting tissue that managed to play its way onto his picture-perfect torso when he'd crook forward sequentially to pick up a stray towel, a set of goggles, whatever--he wasn't really concerned, as he only lingered alone at the end of the bench of chattering students, always watching everyone else with greenish eyes…the boy's sun-stained tresses twirling along his glistening, blithe, smiling expression--so cheerful seeming with both Yuugi and Honda at his sides. A reddish pink, well noshed tone of complexion, features forever undiluted of blemishes and undesired excess oil that routinely spilled onto a newly blossomed teen.

Three months before, at that time, Seto was a bit under his everyday weight of 65 kilos by way of another one of his accidental food shortages via his drawn out, wild urges to work for hours on end, fueled only by pints of the black coffee he always took as. He, accordingly, felt very uncomfortable attending PE swimming with about five pounds staved off of his wiry frame, and had full intentions of regaining the weight. Seto was fully aware of the fact that any person at the prime of their youth came to a point where even a little amount like three pounds was just too much to shake off. In the end, he never had put on those five extra pounds.

It seemed so long ago…when the world only revolved around him, and his stupid company, and he'd no care for whatever he was while he was running it, because it was his. And he'd let no one take it away from him. So possessive…so materialistic…so unthinkingly superficial.

6'1"--186 centimeters…143 pounds under the terms of the American measurement system. He was always infuriatingly slim--the figure of his torso beng so comparable to the stringy boon of a female beauty pageant frontrunner, along with the help of his pretty face...he'd always been the unicorn string-bean--as much as he used to hate admitting, even for his young age; his lanky limbs being 'spider legs' as Mokuba used to call them; a registered trademark of graceful outward appearance the media would highly recommend a boy of such height to toy around with for a decent career in professional modeling; the type of gawky aesthetic a physician would frown upon and demand the customary 'ten-pound little weight gain' while scrawling his unintelligible signature onto his manila, ink-laid loose-leaf, spurning the click-out of his tacky pen against his clipboard.

Without a doubt, Seto never really had the time or the obligation to pack on a few extra pounds, as much as Mokuba and his servants used to pressure him on the subject. Everybody seemed to sort of give up on him after awhile.

But now…he was a bit over Mazaki's depth, and she came up about 21 centimeters short of him. Despite this, he was well aware of females functioning on a framework of adipose tissue--a.k.a. natural body fat--as follows, blubber had lighter density than muscle, and women could reach remarkably lesser depths of weight as opposed to males when they rid of this fatty matter. Men operated on muscle, and required more food for both development and sustenance for the avaricious glucose substances and glands within the muscles.

Ha…he, not even in the slightest, had the ravenous appetite of a growing boy. He was already becoming a human skeleton. And to think he used to think Yuugi scrawny--he certainly beat the little windbag to the self-styled trophy.

Fingering that once nourished, yet uncomfortably thin aspect of his moon-pale midsection, gaze constantly knitted upon that one person he always seemed to secretly favor. The manner those horrible evenings swept along where the young billionaire was psychosexually blinded at the confrontment of his mirror before the showers he secretly wished to be spells of spattering blood unto his loathsome flesh. A naked, ethereal entity drawing against his own, consumed with such hideousness that it became almost unrecognizable and neglected as his own. Why did he suddenly seem so gruesome? Why did he even recognize his phsycial flaws let alone care about them in the first place...so out of the blue?

The delusionally bulky portions of fat plaguing his front were mercilessly tweaked in his thumb and forefinger and firmly told to vanish, but just festered...festered along the cast-iron flat of his torso like a fucking tumor, like fucking sarcoma. The growth of malignant cells reading the withering melanin like the adipose of his stature reading his self-hate of innumerable losses to Mutou. And like those whimsically colossal thighs...like the fleshy, flabby underarms...the reaping potbelly...the stocky joints...the gruesomely rotund backside...he had to get rid of it...but how?

For one of the first times he'd asked in his life--following all those years of tempering against constant hunger, downing gourmet meals only because he was finally being allowed to eat for once--why should I eat this? Why should I force down these calories, empty or not, fattening or toning? Why should I toss in these entrees and manage to come back for indigestible seconds? Why should I listen to Mokuba when I run accidental starving sprees and allow myself to be forced into settling down and grounding my molars for a meaningless hour and a half? Why, food interrupts my work, doesn't it? It's the reason I can't be perfect...

'I spent my childhood with a reasonably strong body. It's always like that for the unlucky ones. Six foot one or taller, that doesn't change the fact that I've gained nearly twice the weight of what I'd been before within not even two years...it's not normal! It's...sick...'

Just the same, he knew that he'd need to cut the generous meals to banish it from his once so fanciful form, the same one that sent the charm of chocolate boxes all sniveling in shame, left to tend to their rustic, lonely pantries. The very reason why all the board had even given the fourteen-year-old the time of day and allowed the boy to the deceive the quintuplet and overthrow its posessor...a vision to behold, such a delicate, delicate facade, and so delectably small of a physique clothed in white that grasped a glamorously gaunt torso, the only hands that ever would dare to, about three quarters to the 5'5" frame being sensuous, girly leg. The boyishly short yet leggy types that made even his male PE teacher give off heat while donning the buttock-clamping spandex that cut off just a smidgen over the curve of his buttocks. Hell, the feinted innocence to his lily-white mug had won all five of them over at first glance, the very contrast of the one or two moles that sweetly specked his whitish facial features saving the young teen about four weeks of prior persuasion. Young master Kaiba-sama knew how desperately each wed, distinguished, decorous businessman--the coppertop with the Calvin Klein glasses in his late twenties to the old fogey weilding the manchester cane--wanted to touch him.

Just hold the little seducee captive and rotate in deflowering that undoubtedly adorably tiny entrance of his. Watching the writhing, threadlike, naked form handcuffed at the purpling wrists, shuddering with a delicious lick of the chops. That pretty face of his would be mashed cheek first onto the ground, bare ass high and trampled blue-and-black, bent on quivering knees like the fallen little beast he would soon become. That so often sullen expression etched over the little boy's face would suddenly twist into pure fear, and the world would be graced with beauty at its highest. Just moving from one over to the next--such a raw, thin little tuchis--and taking him again, again, again, and AGAIN to the id's unbroken delight...

And so far from his victorious youthful years. Either way, he knew he couldn't beat Yuugi because he wasn't physically perfected. Once he'd starve himself into skeletal oblivion, only then would he gain the wit to wipe the floor with him. Only then would asceticism be hammered into his head and would allow him the kiss of loving Lady Luck.

He needed to taste the saliva of perfection again, salivate gold that glittered again as it used to...his abominating loss to that kid that took his title as a gamer of all gamers...the commemorative inscription of his town of Kaiba Seto being practically reared into the bediademed place of Kaiba majesty. And the way such a small fry could take it away so easily!

'All you have to regret is being born into the wrong age band, toots. After all, obesity was considered attractive only about, oh, twenty generations before you, am I right?'

Obesity...obesity...wasn't that 30 above average weight? He'd remembered making calculations before. Hadn't he been underweight last time he checked?

So, if he was honestly as heavy as his cerebral roommate gave the impression of him being insanely so why was it that when his head maid had interrupted one of his late afternoon, nearly epileptic fits of scarred nakedness before the mirror he'd distinctly heard a gasp shaped somewhat like a sob and the deafening clatter of china, silver platters, and his never-to-be-eaten-supper crash against ivory marble? It wasn't the disfigurement of his body--

Why, she'd seen those scars more times than he could count...each time she'd changed his clothes and dressed him in that classic, heavenly white trimmed with angelic gold...each time noticing more wounds and deeper, half-healed gashes as he stripped off his pajamas shamelessly. She'd even been bold enough to trace one or two with the heel of her hand during his early adolescence of tyranny beneath Gouzaburou's thumb. That same buttress had been the one glancing toward him soberly every cockcrow, addressing him with a tone of pure profession and managing to only brush his nude trunk as she buttoned up his uniform with such an indifferent expression. Any other servant that'd ever changed him had been unable to contain the looks of horror as they uncovered his months to years worth of nightly rapes and beatings and had either taken ways with Mr. Kaiba by the next morning or had never volunteered to do such a task ever again. It'd been one of the main reasons why she was head buttress.

But now, Melody once so often self-assured, once so familiar with his nude state...she recognized his every angular curve, memorized every one of his characteristic ticks, memorized the site to each and every mole over each and every rangy crook, she'd been the one to notice the increasing frustration in dressing him with every inch that was thrown on to his already towering form, it was her that'd observed the fade of his flesh from hearty pink to the bleached manila of a China doll...so why was it that when he'd coolly swerved back his gaze--eyes as steady as unrippling pools--and fell upon hers, he'd seen tears and a deathly pale hand clasped over her trembling mouth?

How could it be that when he'd murmured with nearly childlike eyes, "Is something wrong, Merodi-san?" golden-green orbs had expanded to the roundness of tea saucers and bulged from white, pearled sockets, narrow shoulders slackening to a point it seemed their use had been forgotten, and he'd seen a womanish form tearing off into the foyer with wails so clumsily produced, as if toads themselves had been escaping her throat? When had it occurred to him that the more bones or tendons that jutted out morbidly from his frame, the more he began to notice how repulsively fat he exactly was? Why had it suddenly gone so beyond him to appreciate his figure? Why was it that thinness seemed suddenly so unattainable?

'Seto-sama is...he's...!'

So no, of course not, she was horrified because of his obvious weight gain. That was it. She noticed how little disrespect he had for himself. Yes, that nasty weight gain that'd swept along during his fifteenth and plagued him in cackling perpetuity. The little kitchen wench had uncovered his ultimate secret of his capitalist tax-attorney flabbiness. If, by some fluke, it happened to be a result of his scrawniness, then her concern would be useless because he was driving blindly forward.

Hm. Why was it that wrists he thought were once even too thin, seemed suddenly so--

Tracing his defined, single chin, and misconstruing a soft double to be present, the following week in horror to uncover a flabby third, and the next an ever terrifying fourth...

'Throw away the scales! Throw away the scales! We can't allow it--!'

--thick? How had his weight stayed the same, yet his reflection had hot-air ballooned at midsection like a stumpy fun-house mirror?

"Sixty five," he'd spent hours gazing lifelessly down at the milky, naked hems of his toes in wondrous confusion, muttering again and again as he'd stood on that ever milkier balance, "sixty five." Was he not wondrous fair anymore? The scales seemed to literally sag beneath him. His toes would curl over the scale and that alien whisper he'd hardly even recognized would return again: "sixty five."

Even when clocks hit the minute, his eyes caught it as if by fate his eyes had had a predetermined encounter with the taunting numerals. No. This wasn't right. It couldn't be.

"...Sixty four."

That seemed a bit more desirable, a bit more trim. But just a tad bit more could never hurt, right?

"Sixty one."

An awful lot. He was even beginning to notice the furthered protrusion of sinew through flesh; the faint tupac formed over his stomach had shriveled and mashed into two knots just above viciously bulging hips. But not up to par on his expectations. Just for justification, he'd lose the kilo he'd missed to have a constant frame...

"Fifty eight--"

More mangled tendons, more shafts of bone were distended from the soles of his curling feet while his eyes were much too blind to notice it...but they'd narrowed and:

"Fifty seven...?!"

Things were moving too slowly. They'd need speeding up, because he absolutely needed that full guarantee he'd see it continue going down--

'By any means necesarry.'

Goddamit...! Why did mere aesthetic have to maneuver him to such a nadir...damn it all! Why did he even care?! He couldn't even sit down to eat a meal anymore without visions of his own dystopia embarking and crashing against the shore of his mind with incurably ill soldiers, unpreserved, larvae-infested rations, and an odor of vomit--all pervasive, unextinguishable, cheesy.

'Is it so hard to conceive, my little elephant? Easy enough: JUST DON'T EAT ANYMORE.'

One thing was certain of it all: without those scales, the morning, post-lunchtime (although calling it this made no sense, seeing as he never actually ate lunch), and evening inspections, unable to see whether he was a living creature with the decrease of the number or a despot with the dormance or increase of it, he was absolutely nothing. Padlocking himself inside the restroom for weight check and purging was not uncommon, and on days he thought no employees were wandering about tending to house-keeping, a dash about the mansion of squeezing door knob to door knob as a casual exercise only meant he'd been one or two ounces over expectations. He'd been taking it a step too far, he'd found out, soon confronted by a trembling Melody.

"Merodi-san, is there something you'd need to discuss with me?"

"Oh, of course not, Kaiba-sama. You've just seemed somewhat...distant. This is all I'm concerned for."

"You're imagining things."

"Perhaps. But, if I may ask, is there possibly something you'd need to discuss with me?"

"What...?"

"Your eating patterns--they've seemed...disproportionate, if you will..."

"...!!!"

"When I say this like I do, I only seek out your best interest, Kaiba-sama."

"Make it your best interest to shut up from here on in if you'd like to keep your job...!"

"Y--yes, Kaiba-sama."

Melody dressed him up so somberly now--as if his mere nudeness could've ravished her youthfulness as brutally as Gouzaburou himself that evening--nerves rattling and much too petrified to even graze a subtle fingertip against the few stitches of his bloated ribs, most veiled with flesh, others clear as crystal over his wasted upper-half. She wondered so intensely how he couldn't see it. Skeletal yet astonishingly strong. Anyone with non-psychopathic eyes could see he was still somewhat healthy--in a peak condition very few anorexics could ever hope to maintain with their illness--yet maddeningly thin...looking at it long enough could drive someone to an even more severe fate.

'Speed it up, speed it up, m'boy. If your hunger can't pay the toll, then your sweat, your blood, your waste, your urine, and your tears will. So run...

...Run...

...Run, child--run, run, run, until it all goes away.'

And run he did. Everything he did was encircled about that physically taxing morning, midday, and evening gallop up and down the stairwell, no less than fifty times about. And if he were hesitate to just take a single breath amid an interval, so help him God--he would sprint the fifty all over again, insomnia blighting him if he weren't to carry out each and every dash along each and every last rung like a breeding case of OCD. He didn't even ride his limousine to school or work anymore. Instead, despite the confusion that came from his chauffer, he raced against the automobiles that darted past him and found himself winning for the most part.

All things that are often healthy and mistakenly taken in excess can eventually be harmful, of course. The head-honcho of KaibaCorp would've obviously been aware of this. But whether or not he was healthy didn't really bother him, he just wanted to release every last ounce of excess that sullied his willowy, enchanting form by also doing it all in excess--whether it was through retching bouts of bile or blood, laxative- or diuretic-overdoses, raves of exercise, heavy perspiration or even heavier urination, intoxicating dehydration that rattled his every last nerve with a natural buzz, or through his ever darling self-induced starvation. Little did he realize, the invented excess weight was not only canceled out by the very real exercise, but it was ravaging his already lean frame.

Sipping the needless pints of H2O even as his bones clinged, clanged, and clattered against one another with fatigue while a sweat-slicked tank top slung from his creaking frame, the material rippling with each gory cough that managed to heave past that awful lump in his throat. His neck, practically a needlecraft of bulging arteries over the other and the guttural cry inward being in vain, denied of any oxygen to grant him a lungful and the struggle for breath being nearly asthmatic. The silhouette beneath the jersey was dark and ominously ridged with black, shrouded knobs of malnutrition, every mushrooming pore flooded by its own typhoon.

He was training to a point it where it was as good as alcoholic. The three hour all-out sprints were leading him to a point where he gagged on vomit even on unhurried walks through KaibaCorp, where the patella he watched jut in and out from the non-existent, leathery skin of his knee cap was left thumping with pain, where the tattered soles of his sneakers were peeling away from the uppers and absent-mindedly un-replaced.

Every strike of dawn--never a second past 5 AM--a craned, brunet head, stringy and saturated with sweat would be at the Domino parkside, doubled over and sometimes even producing terrible retching noises of dry vomiting while one bony hand grasped the cinder railing of the cement stairway. Glimmering strands of adhesive bile would skim along his lower lip and splatter the asphalt as a bubbling puddle of spit, his every nerve flaming in exhaustion. At times, he'd become flustered with last night's weight-check, and because of it, would force four skeletal digits past his jaws and pry out every bacteria, every microbe, every ball of chewing gum swallowed in hopes to cover any rank breath from his intestines. Never solid food. Now and then, laxatives and diuretics would only deliver half of what he'd expected into his sewage system, and crude as it was, rectum stinging, stained and all, he'd impale it over his entire hand, writhe his knuckles around, and the bowel movement would drag on to his contentment. He was pushing what was left of his body to a breaking point. At the rate he was moving at, he might as well toss out a liver or crap out a kidney. Either way, he wouldn't mind if he shitted out a few vitals as long as he saw his weight go down the next morning.

...And while the bleeding fingers of ruby-red and vaporous white streaked the morning sky, a jogger's backside would confront any pedestrian who dared approach or even take a joyride at such an ungodly hour, eventually startling them off by the first tracks of bulging backbone more than faintly traceable through the sagging, less thin material of the jogger's running uniform. Then it would be found...that this scraggily, gangly boy of roughly sixteen, only a knot of bones and cloth, was once Kaiba Seto.

Something his very mother would deny was her own son...

He smirked. 'Hn. At least I can beat Yuugi in something.'

So this was the result, was it? A trickle of water spilled coaxingly onto the sink's corroded, cinder drain, and Seto felt his throat tauten as a sallow thumb was flourished to a temple concealed in wispy hair. He hated watching his reflection…it was so difficult to gaze directly into those bug-like, insipid, little eyeballs distended through flimsy eyelids and bulging brows. Regardless, he looked up again.

A little side show freak of nature captured in the windswept looking glass…a hunger strike gone absolutely haywire--abnormal leanness suppressed through ocular illusion…color-coding and an oversized uniform that once had suited him to a "T"…his all-time favorite: layers. Dressing in two pair of pants could bulk up his waist to manifest even his old size sometimes. He hated hiding it, but he knew taking the matter casually would cause someone to uncover his sick secret.

Going against about an Encyclopedia's worth of his ethics, he steadily slithered up the hem of his school uniform jacket upward along his abdomen, and surveyed the tiny, white range of pure flesh over bone and about a paper-thin layer of muscle. He could count the few tooths of his spine distended through his stomach, even...

Immediately too horror-struck to maintain his stare, he quickly smoothed out the swell of his top with a wavering, bony palm, and heaved in a deep sigh.

Yes, he'd certainly guaranteed it--he would be fucked if that ineffectual excuse for a public servant told the class to have a pool day. Damn Mr. Kurita.

Seto's body slid down to the ground, back leaned against frigid linoleum. His eyes meandered off elsewhere…a sudden, unsavory interest in the vividness of fluorescent lighting emanated from the ceiling.

'Whatever. It doesn't matter if they see me with these shapeless rags off my pathetic excuse for a body…at least they'll know it then. I'll no longer be the walking enigma…I've already gained the reputation of it for years, anyway. I'll be uncovered as the sickening, hellish president of Kaiba Corporation…ha. They were bound to figure it out eventually. I shouldn't sulk. I was prone to it, right? I was the one who didn't follow the doctor's orders, huh? I was the one who starved themselves into the anorexia nervosa vicinity, no? Of course I know I'm disgusting. Naturally I know I shouldn't be the way I am.'

The brunet brushed back several strands of desiccated, flimsy hair from his lashes, and his gaze returned once again toward the same plane he'd been contemplating earlier. The teen staggered to his feet again, treaded off, and settled down onto a bench facing directly toward the wooden compartment, which contained his PE attire. He offered the clothing a rather peculiar, wistful glance.

Torn between indecision of whether his class was holding a session of swimming or track, Seto figured it would be moronic to make an assumption and change on the spot. He'd just wait until Yuugi, whatever one of his groupies, or whichever next sideshow freak entered the locker room and find out from their own loud outbursts of dismay…

'The sensation gives you a balance to life that relaxes the nerves--instead of warning you not to break temptation and binge before you collapse--that you've been actually doing something as it should be for once…you've been using your body for the right reasons. You suddenly notice, 'I have better self-discipline than everyone else. See, I'm thinner than everybody originally wanted me to be…so, why should I bother stopping? I mean, it couldn't hurt to shake off another twenty kilos--parsee. Hey, world! I'm thinner than you ever wanted me to be. So, I'm going to keep laughing and smiling and I'll even malnourish myself if I have to, dreaming the pain as only your deliberate adversity--a device of hunger from my weakness put over my head to tempt me into eating so I can be strained down to everybody else's pathetic level, become part of your universal group of needless slaves, and fall beneath your stratum! It'll always be the reason I'm stronger, more resilient, and more healthy than you'll ever be.' It comes to the point that you're blowing dry, inward raspberries with your fat, dehydrated tongue at all who may be against it. The point where you're forced to stand over others, for the opportune reason that if you do sit down, the hinged little wishbone of a pelvis you've got has no ass attached to its back.'

Footsteps…were they footsteps? Or was it only a specter produced out of his own mad longing for someone to finally appear?

'The paranoia that forms from your constant isolation and caution with the disorder causes distrust between you and what may have been your friends. When people tell you to gain weight, you take it as a threat or jealousy. For many, they may see it as that party's jealousy of their thinness, while others may even see it as a hearing from their so-called gods. Either one is stupid enough to me. But before you can take time to notice it…through all those hunger strikes and the little eight-mile runs you do in private that leave you breathless for hours on end…the undertow clutches you beneath the surface of atmosphere, and you're winded. You can't reach the surface anymore. You're not waving anymore with the tide--you're drowning underneath it.'

Seto at long last surrendered to his world-weariness, and brandished jaded hands to his school slippers, deciding that whichever activity they were going to end up doing, he'd have to change his shoes either way. Both creamy blue and white fabricated shoes were lobbed into his cubbyhole with a clunk, and he began exchanging socks.

'Anorexia can really drive you into lunacy if every fiber doesn't follow out perfectly. He promises you friends; good health; the whole fucking package, basically. But I'm not in it for any of those…I could care less really, about my cholesterol or my heart condition, actually. I'm in it for the sense of satisfaction. Self-satisfaction. The sanctuary with who you've become…'

His heart began throbbing now, and a taut sensation formed in the pit of his stomach. He really was concerned if they were, in fact, having pool…despite the fact that Seto usually viewed anyone else's opinion as a zero compared to his inference, he didn't want everyone to see Kaiba Seto at his worst. Even if he did threaten Kurita and easily manage to have class take course by his own means, which he could very well do, he was also well aware of the suspicion that would be left behind due to his objection in the first place. After all, he'd always upheld a good reputation at Domino.

'It started out by mistake. But soon…it became a way of life for me. Because the way society is made out to be these days, you can easily observe an explicit chat between petty, stupid humans mentioning how they need to go on the salt-free diet that'll never happen, and the guilt trips that plague your mind as you eavesdrop. 'Am I doing this right?' 'But of course you are! You eat only about a wisp of what they do, and your waist is about half the width of their thigh.' 'Feh! Don't be delusional, little Orson. Dieting like that gives fatties like you the chance to become conscientious for once, to be finally redeemed from your repulsive ways--' 'Aren't you already watching your weight?' 'Ahh, but that's not enough. You'll have to cut your nutritional regime in about half to get results. Low-calorie, sugarless, fat-free, carb-free, and salt-free now, my fleshy friend…' 'It's inhuman, but I guess it sounds sensible if you're desperate to lose weight.' 'And in your case…we can definitely make it beyond sensible.''

'I know it's slow suicide. But if there would be any remote way I'd choose to die, it would be through illness. Where I would suffer one or two years--because of that illness. I would have the beauty sucked out of my body, just to fulfill the illusion of hypothetical perfection. Not because I wanted to be thin to a point of hospitalization, but because I wanted to show resistance to mortality. Where my own tenaciousness would work against me. Like Gouzaburou said the first night he'd deflowered me, 'A pretty little death for a pretty little boy.' The control I once thought I had over the only changeable aspect to my life would choke every atom of oxygen satiating my vitals, and I'd float away, become one with...no. I'm being selfish. I can't think like that. I still have to protect my little brother...I can't think like that...'

The trundle of various feet moving at once echoed directly outside the boy's locker room; a muffled pair in particular which caught his prompt notice.

"Awright! We got track for today--!"

"I thought you liked pool, Jounouchi…?"

"S'all right, but the chlorine really messes with my hair…"

Seto's expression knotted into an immediate scowl at hearing that recognizable voice, taking an oath to himself that he would wipe down the floor with Katsuya and that rumpled tangle of blond hair. He sighed with great relief, noticing the lumbering sound of the old locker room door being heaved open by numerous struggling undergraduates, others scuffling into the locker room in pursuit of them. The russet-haired teen released a deep growl, while snatching his PE clothing, and making a quick trip to the bathroom to change.

"Kaiba? What're you doin' here so damn early?"

Seto could really care less who had the nerve or the stupidity enough to yell out such a dense question to much less, the cold-hearted president of Kaiba Corporation, so he let the Neanderthal off with a tiny retort. "That's none of your concern."

"Geez, just asking--"

"Yeah, whatever. Out of the way, punk."

But as he sauntered off toward the stalls, he couldn't help but also see the troubled expression on Jounouchi's face as the amber-eyed wretch momentarily glimpsed back toward him.

'What'd I already tell you last night, Jounouchi? Don't pity me, pup.'

XXX

'What's wrong with Kaiba-kun--? Is he sick? Is this what Jounouchi-kun was hinting at yesterday morning…?'

Together Yuugi, Jounouchi, and Ryou toddled out onto track grounds along with their less than pleased classmates, the erratic-haired, stunted adolescent detecting the fact that the teen who usually soared over the remainder of the freshmen Domino high municipal-looked unwell, decrepit…far too fatigued to tidy up his posture and keep his chin lifted as he usually did.

Apart from that, over the lattice of differently shaped and colored limbs kept bare by participants dressed in the required track shorts, Kaiba's generally attractive, soft-whitish, agile legs had been reduced to a matter nearly as brittle as straw; which stood out tremendously from the bunch. Not to mention his arms were the same as well…his entire body, for that matter. His clothing safely hid most of it--the PE attire was so gargantuan on him, it hung like a formless tablecloth over his paltry frame--but other students were beginning to stare out of alarm.

Mr. Kurita rounded up the last of the dawdling students, clutching his attendance booklet, and wearing another one of his conventional, humdrum frowns of disapproval.

A cluster of prattling girls discussed the significant affair of which boy had the longest, most attractive legs, while others merely exchanged remarks on how "stubby" they looked in their female sprinter shorts (more like underwear, if you ask me). Others were too caught up in humorous debate of how ludicrous the PE instructor's haircut was. The male portion of the class contrasted bicep-sizes, or explicitly commented on the ladies, when Mr. Kurita angrily interrupted the outbreak of conversation, and began taking usual tally of the number of students present.

"Everyone just shut up while I take attendance, and shout out 'present' when I call your name."

Seto couldn't help but notice he was receiving several strange glimpses from his fellow contemporaries. The CEO used to gather quite a few starry-eyed peeks from girls during personal fitness or common school hours; and he'd adapted to overhearing trill, trifling tones hissing to one another, "God, he's got such an awesome pair of legs--!" or "Why does he have to be such a grouch? I mean, with good looks like that…" or "His skin always looks so soft and healthy," and the list went on. He never really cared for any of them, and now that he was picking up on distressed, pensive glances, it didn't really change his position on the affair. Yes, it was a luxury to have girls comment on his undeniably tangible beauty, but it wasn't really of any value to him either way.

The concentration of the female crowd shifted to Bakura, as it usually did with each period he shared with the exchange student. This natural phenomenon had a tendency to anger the gentlemen of their group, though Kaiba could really care less, as he'd never had interest in capturing a female's attention. Above and beyond, throughout the entire course of his lifetime, he'd never been fascinated by a woman's company in anyway. A gorgeous and even busty girl wasn't really much of a turn-on for him, as the events of last evening would justify that very well.

"Kaiba--?" The voice began faltering, and the flat-capped brute lowered his clipboard in marvel of what he took in after gazing up. "Eh, kid? Where've you been the last three months?"

His contemptuous stare hardened yet. "That's for me to know and for you not to question. That is, unless you don't value your career or degree as a physical education teacher, I have an arrangement that can be personally made..."

The class grew hushed, some disgusted by Seto-sama taking full advantage of his place as practically the legal owner of Domino City, while others, amused by the frightened expression that appeared on Kurita's mug once the reply had been executed. Either way, the president of KaibaCorp wouldn't have it.

XXX

...Just there for the taking. Wasn't it meant to be the other way around? He'd been the one who'd been insane enough to ask the schmuck to pocket another broken piece of his innocence--again. Even if the boy was slightly cute, the guy was hardly a noble's concubine.

Then again, he had spent most of his childhood living practically as one, so...

For a small eternity of silence, the rustle of the schoolboy's uniform along a set of strapping shoulders told Kaiba Seto that he'd been turned down. Amber turned to him almost…shyly?

"No, Kaiba--ya don't understand how it works."

His fists kept easing as the fairer of the two shook his generously shaggy head of moppy gold. Despite the pain in his throat, he refused to let his own say-so to be left unheard.

"These kind a' things are 'bout commitment," the ex-Osaka big-boy-on-the-boulevard said so softly, the taller teen could've sworn golden feathers had been migrant along that wagging tongue of his. The tawny eyes he'd been so used to rivaling refused to meet his own this time. His poppy-red limbs swung in a shrug as he continued, "Love. Trust. Fidelity. Deep stuff like that. If we don't even got friendship, what makes ya think I'd be ready t' get in the sack wit' yas?"

The untidy, brassy swarm of curls slopping along Jou's ruddy temple left the other shivering. Everything'd gotten colder for a second. This boy wasn't taking orders--

The notorious frown line of his naturally heavy brow grew faint. "I don't understand, do I?" Even with the softness resurfacing to his appearance, the change didn't stay for very long.

He finally grasped the hems of Jou's undershirt and crushed against the other into a cavernous lip lock--all breathing coarsened--mouths expanding for the other's entrance. The fiery tongues of their mouths weaved as one flaming brace--the first, slightly unsavory and just as nastily dry as the badland their vocal ammunition had been dispatched over, the other, flogging with its significant other's pined moisture and jaunty in delivery--pale and reddish cheek ebbing or flowing with the constant flux of their oral festivities along the heaving lengths of the pulp within their partner's mouth.

…The brunet wasn't nearly as nimble with his schnozz as he'd been in the company of Jou just hours before…he couldn't've made out with many boys in his day--either he'd been taken for a ride, or the kid caught on fast.

Kaiba's tongue, as much as its texture had him thinking of hardware sandpaper, was noticeably long, Jounouchi happened to notice while reddening in the face, not to mention quite adept in what its bearer was demanding it to do. Scrapping past incisors, lacing past the bile of the fallow flesh beneath his mate's adrenaline-ridden tongue, scouring so gracefully over every notched pane of tender tissue past the bounds of his lips, and probing every twist of pinkish gum or sleight of teeth.

The blond's oral caresses, however, struck its brisk chords backside to the CEO's front teeth, heaving a lulled pathway along the bony composition back and forth.

They relished one another's flesh, until the embedding of mouths pressed together harder yet with a swish of wet reddish-pink and a swirl and dip of their randomized dance. One's lip atop the other's, as the fusion of mouths began to slowly chill to chaste, the two merely exhaled searing, nearing breath against the other's stiffening mouths, a turn-by-turn of the withered white-rose petals of Seto's lips expanding over Jounou's cherry, voluptuous ones tempting prideful Jounouchi to reclaim the stolen property, leading the KaibaCorp president to maliciously pinch it back--going on until the pattern braked to silence.
The repetitive process continued until only pants issued from their unsettled nostrils, where the pair's ruddy mouths parted chastely once again, the fists clamped onto the other's hair releasing the back of the other boy's head.

The taller teen allowed one breath to escape him prior to nestling his temple-full of gingery hair against Katsuya's garish, honey-colored one and began to grow heavy-lidded. The whitish glow of the moon past the drapery did not lift the power of his somewhat drunken expression, Jounouchi noticed. The nightlight played upon alabaster skin, drawing the dreary depth of his bulging cheekbones to a skeleton-manifesting state beneath the white-hot brilliance.
He looked so frail and even sad…as if he could collapse then and there…

...teru tsuki...

Their sweet breath continued to mingle at their hair's breadth apart, when blue collided with crimson, husking, "--Then teach me if I don't know."

The boy's features only hardened, strongly opposing the tremor of his insides. "What makes you think that I would keep quiet even when you raped my little brother? Either way, you're still leaving yourself vulnerable to allegation, because I would testify with living proof and have your ass arrested so fast, your reaction time wouldn't even--"

"D'you honestly think a little twelve-year-old boy such as yourself could ever come even near of outwitting the founder of Kaiba Corporation? Awfully confident for such a little, little boy." Seto knitted his brow, clearly showing the CEO he still wished to challenge this statement. Maw expanding into a blood-curdling grin, he murmured, "First, I'd create a motive. The motive of this situation, I'd believe, would be clinical depression or schizophrenia resulting from the strain of the seminaries. Thus, self-destructive behavior would be expected from the victim--and I'd have a doctor and psychologist paid off to ensure that the physicals would say so, along with all other employees. Secondly, in the adoption field, following the 30-day home study, espousal doesn't follow the harsh parental conduct of foster care. And lastly, whatever the case may be, the law is on my side. Law enforcement could really give a damn for two sodomized minors, and if either of you may get fluky enough, at most, you'd be shipped back to that orphanage like a pair of disowned, whimpering Daschunds."

"You're disgusting! The only reason you adopted us was for--!"

"Because I needed a good fuck with a few young bodies? Because I'm a pedophile just aching to get some bedtime with a pretty little boy who knows how to keep his mouth shut?" Gouzaburou sniggered. "Maybe, but a pretty face alone doesn't satisfy me--you're an arrogant, weak, little boy full of too much pride, you know. If I gave you the options of telling me eye-to-eye that you were a worthless piece of waste to being beaten, you'd pick a beating over the other in a heartbeat. Even with your oversized ego, your high standards force you to push yourself past your own boundaries and because of that, Seto, you and I know very well that a preteen of your recent health collapse just at the end of your move into adolescence...severe sleep deprivation...isolation...and depression...--well, let's just say you won't be able to put up a good fight anymore. At least, not until either of us is put out of our misery."

"YOU'RE WRONG! You're wrong...! Wrong..."

"Am I?"

Seto felt a weathered palm slink to the jet-black material of his trousers,--stomach clenching--viciously clutch the nestled flesh of between the boy's thighs, slither up to his throbbing pelvis and wander the length of his nearly angular hips, sashay along his pulsing abdomen and along the crests of his floating ribs, and felt the fingertips dance elegantly along the small of his chest in desire of reaching the destination of his top collar button. One forearm was seized and twisted roughly behind the twelve-year-old, making the least struggle only a waste of energy and more of a pleasure to Gouzaburou feeling the boy writhe within his maniacal grasp.

"LET GO OF ME--!" he hissed through the curl of his upper lip.

"I told you, Kaiba. S'not like that--!"

"Take off your shirt," he rasped, eyes blandly-traced and the stain of puce over his typically feathery lower lids amplified by the ashy skin tone and silvery flow of moonlight.

Acknowledging the worst to come with the fleeting glimpse toward the material that hung from the somewhat sociopathic boy's torso like a flag from a pole on an unwindy day, Jou retreated in their tango of indecision. He wasn't about to allow any unpleasant images to meet him eye-to-eye.

Jou was anything but a heavy guy and he knew, but this new frighteningly thin Kaiba had to weigh at least twenty pounds less than him and was about four inches taller and just inviting a strip session...what tha' fuck was he on...!? What made the guy think in any remote way that he, Jounouchi Katsuya of all people, would be interested in seeing how a living carcass looked like?

There was something wrong with him...he seemed batty enough, but--he had some morbid interest for one reason or another--

Succeeding in his first task, his hand shifted on to unfasten the second, the third, the fourth...this process continuing until the little one's snowy naval and the taut throbbing muscle surrounding it was exposed, along with the raised, glimmering hilt of the schoolboy's belt buckle.

"I had to forgo that luscious, healthy spark to your looks in order to put you in your place, but I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. Force you to study and fill that unused brain of yours with knowledge to develop you into my heir, and do it to a point that you'd become shiftless bones just for the taking. To tell you the truth, I loved those girly little curves you had to your body, however, if you still refuse, I can give you a choice, and keep my options open. After all, victims with a bit more flesh to their frame--like that little brother of yours--are always good fun..."

"I TOLD YOU TO LET GO OF ME, YOU DISGUSTING--!" Again, he wriggled, trying with all he was worth to break his arms free from the man's vice-like grip, only this time, Gouzaburou's throttlehold strengthened, completely crushing his upper limb, and wrenching back so that a stomach-turning crack was heard…SNAP. The link between his carpals and ulna had been torn apart from the pressure forced on his wrist, leaving a nasty, settling bruise and unbearable paroxysms of pain.

He shuddered and winced…but he wouldn't scream…he wouldn't let himself just part his lips and wail the pathetic war cry…not in front of this manhandling bastard…not the likes of him…

"So, what is it? By midnight, you'll already be thirteen. Such a special birthday, indeed." While his chin was nestled onto the youngster's shoulder, the tip of his nose dared to delve into the sweet fragrances of his child's handsome shock of russet hair and sniff ever so lightly--peppermint, ginger, cinnamon--left so thrilled, still. His freed hand reached up and began fondling the definition of the lad's moony cheekbone and to his pleasure, could feel Seto's jaw twitching through the vaguely sloping, nimble chasm of the seventh-grader's cheek his forefinger teased. "…D'you think you can cum for me--son?"

His stomach muscles tamped firmly for a second time, so firmly, that spells of neon-colored lights began to smother his eyeshot and devastate his limp metabolism. He couldn't get worked up like this or he would black out…their pediatrician'd said himself, he'd a weak heart after all-- "Stop it…enough!"

...toyomu nari.