Don't Forget To Remember Me

Reflections

Seto Kaiba was dreaming again, but it wasn't one of his recurring dreams. It was different this time. It was just him and Priest Set, facing each other in what felt like a formless black void. After their visit to Egypt, he'd remembered how the ancient priest had helped him to reassemble the pieces of his shattered heart when Yami Yugi had punished him with the penalty game, so he had a new respect for him that he'd not had the first time they met.

"How did you make the pain go away?" Seto asked quietly. He didn't have to specify what he was talking about; the priest already knew every aspect of Seto's heart and soul, and as disturbing as that was, it also meant that they could cut the crap and get right to business. "How did you move on?"

"I didn't," came the tart reply from the tanned priest, who strode forward until he was less than an arm's length away from his reincarnation. "You, however, cannot follow in my footsteps."

"Why not?" Seto demanded resentfully, sounding a bit more like the arrogant child he'd been at their first encounter.

"Because you've spent your whole life alone like this, and you have much more time ahead of you and many more prospects than I ever did," he answered with a wry smile of amusement. "Have some fun, Kaiba. Go to a party, meet a girl, enjoy yourself."

"You don't get it, do you!" Seto yelled at the priest in frustration, unshed tears blurring his vision. "It's not about that at all!"

Set smiled at him sadly. "Oh, I do get it, but I think you need to consider the other aspect as well. You'll never move forward if you keep looking back."

Seto felt his gut wrench as the priest revealed to him that he'd been so changed as to live in opposition to his nominal life motto: to move forward and never look back, to be concerned only with the future and not with the past. It made him feel even lower than he already did. "Great pep talk, this is really helping," he snapped at him, sounding sarcastic and snide as he raked his hand through his hair in a nervous habit.

"Don't do that," the priest retorted with a frown. He couldn't have the CEO relapsing back into his old habits and attitudes, not after he'd made so much progress. "You're not like that anymore, Seto. You're just too tired and sad to be angry anymore."

"This is why I preferred being angry to being sad. At least I can harness anger and use it constructively as an impetus for action. Sadness doesn't do anybody any good," Seto sneered, angry with himself and his own weakness more than anything else.

"That may be so, but your pride and anger were hurting your younger brother, not just your relationship with him," the priest retorted. "Mokuba's a good kid. If you'd stayed the way you were, you could have turned him into someone just like you, or worse, like Gozaburo."

Seto growled at the mention of his step-father's name. "Why can't that damned tyrant get out of my life for good? He's been dead for so long, you'd think I'd be free of him by now."

Set chuckled. "You still have much to learn, young Seto," he said sagely. "And until you learn from those memories, they won't leave you alone."

"Is that why you're here? To help me learn those lessons too?" Seto asked, the animosity in his voice ebbing, though not retreating completely.

"You're on your own now, Kaiba. You're not a child anymore. I'm here merely to tell you that you have more lessons to learn so that you can figure them out for yourself. Good luck." The ancient priest lay a hand on Seto's shoulder as he stepped forward, pressing a brief, chaste kiss to his reincarnation's forehead.

The dream faded and swirled into a sapphire blue haze before Seto awoke. He still felt frustrated, still felt lonely, still felt sad. He rolled onto his side, searching with his eyes for his brother. He spotted him, then reached out with his long arms and tugged him into a warm embrace.

He knew they wouldn't be able to do this forever. Mokuba would grow up, become a moody teenager, go through a rebellious phase and whatnot. He'd probably go to college, unless he chose to follow in Seto's footsteps as CEO of KaibaCorp, in which case he'd be learning from his brother everything he knew, but that was unlikely. Even at his young age, Mokuba was clearly not quite of the same bent as his brother and was unlikely to change.

Seto found himself displeased to think of the future and what it held because all he could foresee with certainty was that he'd lose his only family, and then he really would be all alone. On the one hand, if Mokuba was gone, it made it more logistically feasible to have the occasional one-night stand. On the other hand, one-night stands weren't what Seto wanted; he wanted Kisara, and that was impossible. So now he was back at square one: inevitably alone for the rest of his life.

Maybe Mokuba would have a family of his own one day. That would be nice. If Seto could keep a good bond with his brother, he'd get to see that family too, watch his brother's children grow and make lives for themselves. It was the best alternative Seto could hope for, and the thought was somewhat comforting. But only somewhat.