Author's note:

This is my English translation of the story I had written in Hungarian, my mother tongue. Special thanks to Hero Beater and Fluffy Pillow for helping me every step of the way.

SIX MONTHS LATER

Seto still rises at dawn but no longer has to creep in the hallway like a shadow and conquer the staircase leading down to the kitchen in small, painstakingly careful steps. His walk is calm, his shoulders straight in the early morning silence just barely tinged with birdsong, and he sets the table for breakfast as though it were a dance. The coffee maker purrs contentedly in the background, seeping freshly percolated, strong coffee into the cup below.

The floor creeks, the railing cries and Mokuba appears a moment later, still in pajamas but very much awake and cheerful. He sniffs the air and demands coffee, acting like he's upset he cannot have any, but he can hardly contain his good mood: his grin is so wide it makes the scar under his eye look wrinkled. Seto musses his hair.

"What would you like for breakfast?" comes the question, no longer once a week but every single morning, early enough to make any wish come true. They had tried eating in the kitchen, the garden, the balcony and in bed, and sometimes, they went to a small breakfast place or hopped over to a nearby bakery. Seto waits patiently. Mokuba doesn't take long.

"Pancakes!" he replies happily and immediately dashes to the fridge for eggs, milk and butter, while Seto looks for the tin of premixed dry ingredients in the cupboard.

He fries up a neat stack of small, thick pancakes as Mokuba conjures up all the eligible toppings in the house: honey, maple syrup, jam, a jar of peanut butter and who knows what else is put on the table while Seto divides their breakfast between two plates. Mokuba's share is twice as big as his, but no longer out of necessity. Seto's stomach expands slowly, that's all.

They eat slowly and silently. Their mouths are full and both are staring dreamily at the green outside world beyond the glass wall of the kitchen. It's a beautiful March day: windy, sunny, enticing, and so they dress up, Mokuba putting on jeans and a hoodie and Seto, a form-fitting striped suit. Mokuba's backpack is heavy, his lunch box full. Seto now wraps his sandwiches in the comic supplement and packs himself several small packets of high-calorie snacks – oily nuts, dried fruits –, these having replaced all those bottles of vitamins that had nursed both of them back to proper health.

They walk together to the gate where Mokuba hugs his Ani-chan as tight as he can manage, and then jogs, runs, leaps and dashes to school like a true young parkour champion. Seto walks or rides his bicycle – the local headquarters of Industrial Illusions isn't very far. He has a ton of e-mails and meetings waiting, but has since caught the rhythm of the place, the moods of his superior and the most effective ways of conducting his business.

He only breaks rhythm when, sitting by his desk, he takes out his locket for just a moment to muse over the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. He closes his eyes, imagining Nii-sama sitting at his own desk just like him, only his locket has nothing of theirs – he might not even remember his two brothers who have kept and treasured everything he had left behind, putting all his things in the guestroom as though he could still return someday.

Ani-chan's eyes brim with tears and across a thousand other dimensions, in a far, far away world, Kaiba's heart jolts fiercely for the brother he had lost.

THE END