I paced the infirmiry nervously. Tomorrow I would have to go back to the room and face Seto. I wanted to, I loved him of course, but my shadowed exsistence didn't quite seem to fit in with him. I gotten quite used to being alone, I had no confidence.

I didn't want to be a nuisance, like a tattoo, too hard to erase. My heart was already cracking with the insanity of my old man...that was no longer here to cause anymore trouble. A weight had lifted from me once I realized. Just now. I had avenged my sister and mother already.

I opened my mouth to speak.

No words could escape my lips. I chocked, I coughed I tried to force them out but the reality was all too real: I had actually forgotten how to talk.

I frowned to the floor. I always took everything for granted. The fact people would baby me when I acted foolish. When I wouldn't eat, people cared enough to try and force me. When I wouldn't talk, people tried to beckon my to speak. People I didn't even KNOW. I feel so stupid.

I opened my mouth determined and screamed, voice cracking and weezing as though a clot of sand sat in the was of my vocal chords. Within seconds nurses, administrators and unfortanetly Seto, came rushing into the room with frantic looks on their face and as they looked around the white heaven-mimicking design of the room.

I wondered if they realized that the scream came from me. After all, I was the only one in here. I couldn't seem to get the crazy grin off my face as they stared at me with confusion. Of course I'd never admit to it if they asked me who it was.

Then I realized I just screwed myself over because now I had to face Seto hours earlier than I had wanted. "Was that you?!" Isis asked with eyes still big from sudden shock. I shook my head no but a chesire grin was still fitted on my face.

Seto knit his brows- seemingly becoming a mute like me for the moment we were all now stuck in. I tilted my head to the side. I tilted my head to the other side. I eyed Seto momentarily. Then I figured now was as good as time as any.

"I love you" I said with the most overly scratchy disgusting sandpaper-y forced voice I've ever heard and damn did it sound like hell, but it was mine and it seemed to get the point of across. Of course it wouldn't sound like mint right off that bat without years of practice.

Isis lead the others out of the room carefully and shut the double doors without a word leaving me and Seto alone. My eyes narrowed from the pain in my throat. Seto pulled me into a gentle embrace and kiss the top of my head. "I love you too..." He replied.

After a moment of the quiet affections, the brunette spoke up once more. "Your voice is beautiful.." He commented and I laughed silently, which may have just felt like a strange jitter but I wasn't used to using my voice with everything just yet.

"If you like hearing what a cat's tounge would sound like if it were it's own individual person." I joked shutting my mouth and cringing at the pain every word played on my throat. "Shh, don't say anything else, so many words after so much of their absence might end in a fatality of your vocal chords." Seto teased.

We didn't leave the infirmy that night, making use of the many beds (and spacious floor) all the while keeping the door locked and our voices quiet, though that part seemed to be more trouble for Seto than myself.

We only awoke when the morning light fell softly through the thin curtained windows. "You know...I know you were the little boy in my past Joseph Wheeler. I just fell angry with you when I saw you being kissed by lips that weren't mine. I don't even know who that other guy was.." Seto admitted.

I looked at him for a moment.

"You're weird." I replied.

"WHATT!?" Kaiba protested.

I wont be selfish anymore and try to make the world revolve around me and my problems anymore. I'll eat, I'll speak, I wont run away, I'll try to fit in, and I'll try to not cause problems. I wont be selfish and tell Seto he cant love me because of who I am.

Actually I lied, who I am sucks, I'm being selfish on the last part, because I love this man more than anything I've known, and he gave me not just my voice...

...but color in this dull grey world I've been stuck in...and now I have the reason to live.

"We're starting a band, I'll be the drummer and you can be the singing guitarist." Seto declared.

"Huh!?"

Pawprints: I know it's been forever, and I've come back to this story many times...there are so many retarded mistakes and errors that I couldn't stand reading it again...but I finally did and I had no idea what I was thinking when I originally wrote this and it seemed like it came out of someone else's head..

So sorry if this ending isn't satisfactory...