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Best Left Forgotten	By : Ykarzel Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3871 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh!, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Ykarzel�s Constant Chatter: *sigh* This
entire thing is a gamble. It�s a gamble
in clich�s, a gamble in time, a gamble in plot. But it knocked on my mind�s door, look up at
me, cold, wet, and sad, and I couldn�t help but bring it inside.

Dedication: This one is for Sonja and My Pup, for how much
they go through hell for me every time a little bunny bites. This time, they will not work, only enjoy. I
love you both.

Best Left Forgotten

Chapter One

"You hold the answers deep within your own mind. Consciously,
you've forgotten it. That's the way the human mind works. Whenever something is
too unpleasant, to shameful for us to entertain, we
reject it. We erase it from our memories.
But the imprint is always there� Nothing is ever really forgotten."
- Original Author Unknown

The moment he heard about the accident � he always had ways
of knowing these things � he was out of the office and in his car.

He drove strictly the speed limit, despite his desperate
need to reach his brother. He nearly ran
inside the building when he arrived; rushing toward the office he knew to be
the principal�s.

He burst inside, startling the woman at her desk. She recognized him instantly. �Mister Kaiba-� she began, but he cut her
off.

�I want to see him, now.�
His voice left no room for questions.

She didn�t try to ask any.
She nodded slowly, but then moved quickly. She led him out of the room with quick
steps. Seto had interacted with her in
the past, and so far, she had his respect.

They made their way down the hall as quickly as possible
without running. When they reached a
classroom door, Seto had to refrain from pushing her out of the way.

The class fell silent when their principal unexpectedly
walked in. When Seto followed behind
her, Mokuba sat up.

He didn�t trust himself to speak in front of a room of
children � not when bad news about their beloved student teacher rested on his
lips. He gestured with his eyes towards
the door. Mokuba didn�t need any more
instruction than that. With a scrape of
his chair that broke the silence and caused several of his classmates to gasp,
he jumped from his chair and nearly bolted for the door. He knew something was wrong; the carefully
trained eyes of a sibling could see it in the minute details of Seto�s face.

The moment the door was shut on the rest of the class,
Mokuba turned on his brother. �What�s
wrong?� It wasn�t what he wanted to
ask. Who�s
hurt?, for some reason, felt more
important.

Seto looked significantly at the principal, who actually did
manage to look respectfully disinterested.
�I�ll tell you when we get to the car.�

Mokuba didn�t try to argue.
He matched his brother�s stride by taking two steps for Seto�s one. When they reached the car, Mokuba climbed
into the passenger�s seat. Seto was
pulling out of the school before he�d even managed to get his belt on.

�There�s been an accident,� Seto said quietly.

�What kind?� Mokuba asked, determined to remain as calm as
his brother.

�Automobile.�

The two brothers shared a moment as both were reminded of a
different day, a different accident, which had changed their lives forever.

�Who?� Mokuba asked, even though a
good part of him didn�t want to know. Most of him didn�t want to know.

�Jounouchi.�

The name hung in the air, making everything seem heavy.

�That�s not possible,� Mokuba stated, his words seeming
small in the thick tension.

�I�m sorry, Mokuba.�

�Jou�s a good driver!� Mokuba defended. �He takes me home whenever he�s here to
teach! He�s a really good driver,
Seto! He always looks both ways!�

�Calm down Mokuba,� Seto cut into his brother�s ramblings.

�That�s easy for you to say!� Mokuba all but shouted,
breaking the choking tension in the air.
�You don�t like him!�

Seto didn�t answer that, and silence deflated Mokuba�s
anger. �Sorry,� he said glumly.

Seto didn�t respond to the apology either. He continued as if the outburst hadn�t
happened. �I don�t have any details
yet. I came for you as soon as I found
out.� His driving was calmer, now that
Mokuba was with him. His fear of his
brother hearing the news without his big brother present was now gone.

�Thank you,� Mokuba spoke into the thoughtful silence that
had overcome them. �I know you and Jou
don�t get along, but, thanks for remembering that he�s my friend.�

Seto allowed a moment for that statement to pass too. �Don�t tell anybody at your school
tomorrow. I�m sure the teachers will
know by that point, but the students should not unless Jounouchi wants them
to.�

Mokuba nodded. �But,
do you think he�ll come back to our class when he gets better?�

�I don�t know, Mokuba.�

The rest of the drive passed in silence, with a slight interruption
of Mokuba�s principal calling the boy�s cell phone to ask if he�d be
returning. That was another reason Seto
liked her; she was thorough. He doubted
many principals kept students� cell numbers on record.

Mokuba didn�t question how Seto knew where to go when they
reached the hospital. When they walked
into the ER waiting room, three faces snapped to attention. He watched as disappointment crossed their features,
and he assumed they were waiting for the doctor.

Yugi was there, along with his grandfather and Honda. The latter covered in dirt, having probably
come directly from work. Seto wondered
where the remainder of the pep squad was, and realized with surprise that the
rest were gone. School had pulled them
to different parts of the world. Still,
the most noticeable absence was any of Jounouchi�s family.

Yugi jumped from his chair once he had recovered from the
disappointment of not seeing the doctor.
No words passed between them, just Yugi grabbing Mokuba in a hard hug.

Already uncomfortable, Seto retreated to a corner and sat
down.

�We don�t know anything yet,� Yugi said softly. �Only that Jou ran a red light and was broad-sided
from the left.�

�But,� Mokuba protested.
�Yugi, he�d never� He�s always so careful.�

Yugi shook his head.
�That�s how you see him drive,
Mokuba, because when you�re in the car with him, he�s most worried about
you. When it�s just him, if he�s worried
about something else, driving will be far away from his mind. That�s just the way his condition works.�

Honda cleared his throat loudly and gestured towards
Seto. Seto didn�t look at them, but he
saw it out of the corner of his eye.
Yugi stopped talking, and Mokuba held his head. Anger flooded Seto. What did he
have to do with it? And what condition?

The next two hours stretched into days as they waited. The tension was getting to Seto, and his mind
was spinning in circles, analyzing what Yugi had said before Honda had told him
to stop. The wait was interrupted only
twice.

One was the arrival of Shizuka and Ryou. At first Seto was surprised to see the two
come in together, until he faintly remembered hearing that Ryou was attending
school right near Shizuka�s home.

The other was the belated arrival of Jounouchi�s father, who
glanced around the room, eyes lingering on his daughter, and sat down with
Yugi�s grandfather, the two speaking quietly.

Seto checked his watch, and stilled his tapping foot. His brother hadn�t spoken to him since they�d
arrived, and the tension in the room was beginning to wear his nerves to a
thin, taunt line.

Just when he thought he�d jump at one more sniffle from
Yugi, the doctor walked into the room.

Everything happened all at once. Seto had been so stuck in the tedious act of
waiting, that the sudden action caught him unprepared. He caught the word �stable� from the doctor�s
mouth, and from then on all he would remember of the night would be in
fragments.

He would remember Yugi�s grandfather calmly insisting that
he had been Jounouchi�s legal guardian for two years, which made Yugi and him
family as much as Jounouchi�s father and sister. He would remember thinking that though he
knew Jounouchi had lived with Yugi for two years before he turned eighteen, he had not known that the old man actually had
custody.

He would remember Mokuba running into Honda�s mud-caked lap
rather than his own, and Ryou pacing slowly back and forth when the four of
them were left alone.

He would remember ending up in a small, crowded hospital
room, with various machines beeping, Jounouchi on a bed with a white bandage
around his head. The words �brain damage� and �familiar faces� floating through
the room, spoken in hushed whispers by doctors to the worried group. Whispers that floated but still carried a
weight that settled between the shoulders and pressed down.

His brother was suddenly clinging to his waist, and all the
movement stopped. The small, crowded
room was again in a state of waiting.
After a moment or two, Seto�s brain finally caught up.

There were only two chairs in the room; Yugi�s grandfather
was in one and Jou�s sister in the other.
The rest stood in a kind of semi-circle around the broken figure on the
bed. Yugi was still sniffling, Seto
noticed, and so was Shizuka. Mokuba had
his face hidden.

They were often joined by a doctor or a nurse, who would
check the various beeping machines, and stand amongst them for a moment,
looking like they belonged more than Seto did.
He felt outside of the group, among them but not a part of them. As if he had come upon them by chance and
stayed by mistake.

And they waited. They
waited for an hour � for two. Those who
were standing slowly slumped against walls or on window sills; even to the
floor. Seto leaned against the closest
wall, but only because Mokuba had fallen asleep against him. He had one arm protectively around his
brother.

He noticed that it was dark out, and the clock on a far wall
read one thirty. Mokuba
has school tomorrow, his mind managed, but neither his heart nor his body
had the will to follow up on the thought.

As the night carried on, Ryou fell asleep, as did Shizuka,
and Yugi�s grandfather. Only Yugi,
Honda, Jounouchi�s father, and Seto remained attentive. Their eyes stayed glued to the figure on the
bed, though Seto sensed that was to avoid looking at each other as much as it
was to watch for him to wake.

The following hour was filled with false alarms. Movement or broken murmurs from the direction
of the bed would result in stiffened spines and held breath, but sleep would
once again claim Jounouchi in peace and the four would slowly relax again.

Slowly, dawn crept into the single window in the room,
though it was half blocked by Ryou asleep in the sill.

There was a loud groan from the bed, followed by a hand that
swung to collide with a white bandage.

�Jou?� came a question, though Seto
was unsure from whom.

A grunt of a reply came from the bed, and suddenly everybody
was moving at once.

Seto stayed glued to the wall, even when Mokuba woke and peeled
off of him. The movement was quick, and
again everything was still. As if
lifting a weight from the room, or the thick soup from the air, Jounouchi�s
eyelids opened.

His sister, still sitting in the chair beside his bed, was
the first thing he saw. �Sis?�

Part of the room was deadly quiet, while the other half was
in furious activity. From somewhere that
seemed far away, Seto heard somebody calling for the doctor.

�Jou,� she said softly, carefully moving his hand away from
his head and stroking his hair away from the bandage. �How do you feel?�

He groaned in response, his broken body attempting to shift
and failing. �What happened?�

�You were in an accident,� she said softly. They were still waiting, hearts in their
mouths, for the bomb to fall.

�Yea?� the blonde croaked, sounding heavily drugged. A nurse had made it into the room and gently
pushed Shizuka to sit back.

�Do you know who you are, Mr. Jounouchi?�

His eyes suddenly flew shut, as if they�d just noticed the
florescent lights above him. �Dumb
question,� he joked, and across the room, worried faces cracked half smiles.

�Just answer me,� the nurse said softly.

� �Ahm
Jounouchi,� came the groggy, yet still annoyed reply.

�Do you know what day it is?�

�Not a fucking clue,� Jounouchi answered,
his voice stronger this time and his hand flying towards his head again. The nurse caught the hand and pushed it back
down to his side.

�Do you know how old you are?� she asked patiently.

�Fifteen,� came Jounouchi�s reply,
already stronger in voice and conviction.

Silence, unlike any they�d experienced so far, fell across
the room. There was no more shifting, no
more sniffling, only the soft, steady beat of the
heart monitor, which Seto imagined suddenly sped up.

Jounouchi�s eyes came open again, the sudden stillness
making him curious. Once opened, he
blinked several times, looking at the faces around the room.

Under any other circumstance, Seto supposed, Jou�s reply
would have been humorous. �That�s the
wrong answer, isn�t it?�

Again, a flurry of activity. Seto�s mind was lost in it, and the next
thing he knew, he was sitting in a hard plastic chair again.

Mokuba wasn�t with him, and he glanced around quickly. He located him instantly, standing beside
Honda and Yugi, talking to the doctor.
They were exchanging hurried conversation, but it was too quiet to
hear. There were tears streaming
silently down Yugi�s face, and even as Seto was watching, Yugi, Honda and his
brother turned to look at him.

Meeting Seto�s eyes seemed to make up Honda�s mind about
something. He walked away from the
doctor, and Yugi followed him hurriedly.

Mokuba met his eyes, and seemed to apologize, but stayed on
the other side of the room.

�Kaiba,� Honda started, his voice heated, until Yugi�s broke
in, cool and calm despite his previous sniffles. It was one of those uncomfortable times, the
first in years after they�d given up their past-time of dueling, when another
person seemed to shine from Yugi�s eyes.

�Honda, don�t.�

Honda�s mouth snapped shut, and he turned to stare incredulously
at his friend. �But you�� he was again
cut off by Yugi, and if his head hadn�t already been swimming, Seto would have
been impressed.

�Not like that. Let
me.�

He was being talked about, Seto realized all at once, and he
came to himself slightly more, pushing through a night of shock and sleeping
awake.

�Kaiba,� Yugi began, �we feel that, unless circumstances
change, you shouldn�t make yourself known to Jou.�

Seto knew he was staring blankly, but even as he beat away
the last of the fog that clouded his brain he could not make sense of what Yugi
had said. It showed on his face.

For all his confidence, reluctance passed across the other
Yugi�s face. His cheeks still gleamed
wetly from the fallen tears, but somehow Seto felt the pair eyes he was looking
into would never cry.

�You are not supposed to know, and I wouldn�t tell you now,
if I didn�t think you would ignore our request otherwise.�

Lost. His head was clear now, and turning with the
same efficiency it took to run his company, but he was still lost.

�Early in high school, Jou developed GAD. Are you familiar?� Seto shook his head, feeling stupid. �General Anxiety Disorder,� Yugi explained. �Jou began to worry constantly, about
everything.�

�But mostly you,� Honda spoke up, glaring. A cool purple gaze from Yugi silenced him
again.

�It�s true,� he went on softly. �You were often the focus of his
anxiety. Not the cause of it, that was
beyond us, beyond Jou himself. That was
a sickness. But you were the focus, to
obsession.�

Seto�s mouth was dry.
Condition.
GAD. Obsession. �The last year? Even after school?� he asked, demanded,
pleaded.

Yugi nodded slowly.
�Even when you were no longer in his life, you were a constant. He would worry about what you would think if
you were there. Worry that you would
judge him, that he wasn�t good enough.�

If he hadn�t been sitting in the chair already, he would
have fallen into it. He hadn�t known.

�So this time you can just stay out of it.� Honda�s voice was harsh, and instead of
trying to stop him, Yugi simply stepped in front of him.

�I�m not sure how much you�ve heard, Kaiba,� Yugi said,
watching the normally stolid face curiously.
Seto realized his shock was probably showing, but couldn�t figure out
how to hide it. �Jou remembers very
little of the last five years. He
remembers Honda, of course, and his family.�
Yugi paused for a moment. Despite
their clear confidence, and calm understanding, sadness passed over his
eyes. For a moment, they were the soft
baby purples that had been streaming silent tears only minutes before. �His memory of them goes far back. I, however, and in turn you, are mostly
missing from his memory.�

Seto�s mouth, if possible, lost more moisture. Even in face of what he had just learned, his
mind was repeating the letters GAD
over and over again. �Mostly?�
The word cracked when it fell from his lips.
It was the first time he�d spoke since the car with Mokuba. That felt like a year ago.

�He seemed to remember me slightly, with prompting. Not actual memories, just an
awareness, something that told him I spoke the truth when I said I was
his friend.�

�So we don�t need you prompting him.�

Honda�s voice had lost its heat, and Yugi allowed him to
step past. Still, there was a cold knife
under his voice. Yugi did not think Seto
was the cause of Jounouchi�s condition, but Honda did.

�The doctor was just telling us. His memory is gone from before the GAD
started. We have no idea how it will be
affected. He also said that Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder�� Honda faded away, and shook his head as if to
banish bad thoughts. �We don�t know,� he
said, as if that fact was all that one needed to
know. �And so we don�t-� he quelled his
voice noticeably, eyeing Yugi, not wanting to be stopped again. �We don�t want you around him.�

Seto nodded, but it was as if somebody else had moved his
head. He was completely withdrawn inside
his mind. He was finally finishing a
puzzle; a puzzle that was so incomplete he still didn�t know what the picture
was of. And he�d just been handed the
missing pieces.
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