A Dozen Red Roses

It was two days before Valentines Day when Seto received the first gift.

Seto had always been accustomed to getting Valentines, to having girls drool over him, and to brushing them off. Of course, most of that had stopped after he’d graduated high school, save the occasional ill-fated attempt to waylay him during the two years he’d spent doing six years’ worth of college. Certainly he wasn’t accustomed to walking into his office to find his desk being violated by… something.

He wasn’t even certain what it was. Cautiously, he walked around and inspected it. One thing was certain; it was blue. That was, admittedly, a nice change; normally, he got bucketfuls of Pink on and around Valentines. So, the blue was a nice touch, but… it was fluffy. Very, very fluffy.

Seto wasn’t a big fan of fluff. Metal was much more his style… you know, the smooth, hard, cold, bright metal, not soft and fluffy and pastel. Though, this… thing… wasn’t actually pastel. It was more a sky blue.

When he finally got around to his seat and sat down in contemplation of the interloper, he was graced with a face-on view of a very fluffy…. Blue Eyes White Dragon.

He probably should have guessed from the color.

Why was it that every time someone saw anything that had anything to do with his precious dragons, they felt compelled to deliver it to him, usually with flowers or chocolates (he hated chocolates!) or a gushy poem or, God forbid, in person, with starry eyes and a fierce blush. Did they think that just because he liked the powerhouse dragon, he would love them for giving him something that was more like Pegasus’ cartoon mockery thereof?

The stress was giving him a stomach ache.

People were idiots. Plain and simple. Why in the world would he want, let alone cherish, a representation of something he loved in its exact opposite form? Fluffy and cute… maybe he should start delivering all of these stupid things to Duelists’ Kingdom and hope he could bury Pegasus in a mountain of them and he’d never be heard of again. He could picture the news reports now… Old Frilly Wannabe Suffocated by Own Monstrosities. It would be accompanied, of course, by a picture of Pegasus’ shiny white shoes sticking out from under them all like the wicked witch of the east under Dorothy’s house…

Well… that mental picture had actually made him feel a little better. Not too much, mind, being as there was still a fluffy Blue Eyes staring him in the face, but a little.

With a sigh, he picked the thing up by a few of the little tufts of hair sticking up from its head, holding it gingerly between his forefinger and thumb, and helped it hover over his desk until it was above the trashcan, where he let it go and watched with a certain satisfaction as it plummeted toward its inevitable doom. He’d really expected more of this secretary… but of course, now that he season for love and cloying sweetness was here, she was just like the rest of the female population of the Earth. Honestly, though, she should have known better; she and Mokuba were the only ones who had access to his office, so she had either placed it here herself, or allowed someone she should have known he’d have no interest in ever seeing do so. He hoped he wouldn’t have to fire her too.

Putting the thing from his mind, he started on his work on the computer that occupied the space directly behind where the Blue Eyes plushie had been.

**

It was the day before Valentines Day when Seto received the second gift. He wasn’t sure, of course, that it was from the same source… but the fact that the dozen red roses were sitting exactly where the blue Eyes had been the day before seemed to indicate as much.

He vaguely considered calling the police; it seemed he had a stalker.

They weren’t even original, whoever it was that was giving him these things. Roses and stuffed animals…? How cliché. It was obvious that this was just some new, boring fangirl/boy (it did happen occasionally) who was so desperately, madly in love with him, they were just going to kill themselves if he didn’t shower them with love and affection, discard his icy mask that he showed everyone else and let the real him, the caring, loving, gentle, feeling side of him out just for them…

People made him sick – there, he was really having a stomach ache because of them already. Gah… Did no one have a brain anymore? Honestly. The only person who got to see that side of him (it really was there… well, sorta) was Mokuba. These crazy wackos didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. Anyone with a brain would have realized that by now. Not a single one of them had anything about them that made them special and deserving of his attention – let alone love.

It seemed like a shame to throw away such pretty flowers though, didn’t it?

Oh well. Into the trash.

**

It was the night before Valentines Day when Seto was taken to the hospital.

He had collapsed soon after coming home to relieve the stress that was making him feel positively ill, pale and sweaty. As it turned out, the stomach ache hadn’t, in fact, been caused by the idiocy of those around him, but rather by appendicitis.

Go figure.

**

It was the evening of Valentines Day when Mokuba came to visit him. He’d wanted to stay with him, but Seto had irritably told him he was fine and made him go to school.

Mokuba smiled at him as he pushed open the door. No longer was this the little mop-headed runt who had dutifully followed Seto around; Mokuba had finally hit his growth spurt, while Seto really hadn’t grown since high school, and they were now of approximately equal heights. Well, Seto liked to fool himself into thinking so, though the fact was Mokuba was at least an inch taller. The mop-headedness, however, hadn’t changed; the same full black hair adorned his head, though it now was tied back at the base of his neck.

“How are you feeling, nii-sama?” he asked, shutting the door behind him. Seto offered him a scowl and turned his attention back to his laptop.

Mokuba smiled indulgently at his attitude and sat beside him. “Seto, you’re sick. You know there’s no reason for you to be working.” Gently, he reached forward to pry back the laptop, prepared for Seto to defend it like a mother bear with her cub.

Seto glared at him, and finally relinquished the machine. He knew there was no reason for him to be working; KaibaCorp. didn’t always need him right there. Doing nothing was boring, though…

“Fine,” he said shortly, as though making a great sacrifice for Mokuba’s happiness. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Mokuba carefully saved Seto’s worked and shut down the computer before he answered. “There’s a TV for a reason, nii-sama,” he told him. Seto’s snort went completely ignored as he put the laptop away, and stood up to turn on the object in question. “A little mindless entertainment will do wonders for your recuperation.”

Seto crossed his arms and glared at the box on the wall before him. “Really,” he said dryly. The first thing that had materialized before his eyes was a picture of the ambulance that had delivered him.

Mokuba glanced up at it, then smiled in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he said, and flipped the channel. And, it being Valentines Day, lo, what should they behold but a sappy movie. Exactly what Seto wanted to be doing with a nice Tuesday evening.

Mokuba didn’t change it again, though, much to Seto’s chagrin. Instead, the younger of the two came back to his chair and propped his long legs up on the side of his brother’s sickbed, grinning cheekily at the glare he received for his actions. “Just watch it,” Mokuba coaxed. “It won’t kill you. I promise.” Seto rolled his eyes but leaned back on the uncomfortable bed, bereft of anything more interesting to attend to.

Seto, excruciatingly slowly, got drawn into the movie. Some guy had the hots for some chick, so he left her anonymous presents… sounded hauntingly familiar. It was the case of a stalker gone awry… Seto would very much have preferred someone after his life. He could deal with people who wanted to kill him.

In the end, a poem won the girl’s heart… aww, how sappy… and unrealistic. Right – like anyone fell for poems. What an asinine concept. If he found out who had directed this little flick, he’d pay someone to shoot them… not necessarily kill that person, of course, but shoot them in the knee or something. Nothing this retarded should ever have been allowed to come into existence.

He never noticed that Mokuba’s eyes barely left his face.

“Mindless was the right word for it,” he told his little brother with a snort, sitting away from the bed to stretch his back unobtrusively. “I can feel my neurons melting.”

Mokuba offered him a smile and got up to change the channel, wondering to himself why the hospital couldn’t be bothered to give Seto Kaiba a remote. “It wasn’t that bad, nii-sama. You’re just not in the right mood to appreciate it.”

Seto gave him – what else? – a snort. “What is the right mood to appreciate something like this? Sedated? High?”

“It’s probably not in pain and annoyed,” Mokuba told him. Cops came on the set. Mokuba glanced at him, and Seto didn’t immediately glare, which was about as close to an acceptance as Mokuba figured he was going to get. He sat down again, this time on the edge of Seto’s bed.

“Have you done your homework?” Seto asked him immediately.

“Finished it at school,” Mokuba told him brightly. Seto only nodded. Mokuba was used to the response and wasn’t at all bothered; instead, he smiled a little and wrapped his arms around his brother’s shoulders.

Seto glanced back at him, eyebrows furrowed in slight confusion. “What are you-”

Mokuba gave him a grin. “You’re the one that’s sick now,” he told his brother, not letting him loose. “So I get to hold you like you used to do for me.”

Seto opened his mouth to protest, then gave in and closed it, settling back against his little brother’s chest with an almost invisible smile. Of course, were anyone else to accuse him of such an _expression, he would have them penniless and homeless within hours.

Seto fell asleep before Cops was even over. Mokuba was glad to see it, even if he was just falling asleep out of boredom. It was close to eleven o’clock, and he had to go home himself soon, but he’d wanted to make sure that Seto got some rest. He didn’t sleep enough.

“Happy Valentines Day,” he said quietly and placed a gentle kiss on his brother’s cheek, siding away from him and laying him down on the bed.

**

It was the day after Valentines Day when Seto woke up.

That made sense, of course, since he had fallen asleep on the night of Valentines Day.

He felt pretty okay, all things considered. Maybe some pain meds would be of service, but then again, it was only surgery. What kind of wimp would he be to take pain meds after something that minor?

He sat up and stretched a little with a wince. Riiiiight… stitches on the stomach. Probably better not to stretch.

While he was considering this life lesson, he noticed something on the table by his bed that hadn’t been there before. There was a small box, plain in all respects, about the size of a jewelry box, but cardboard. Curious, he grabbed it for inspection, much as he had inspected the fuzzy blue dragon. Probably a present from a nurse who couldn’t even take the time to wrap it properly.

He gingerly opened it, and frowned in slight confusion when he pulled out a piece of paper, folded into eights or so.

He unfolded it to reveal the words written there in a neat hand.


Nii-sama,

I gave you a dragon.
You threw it away.
That’s okay;
I knew you would.
You didn’t understand.

I gave you thirteen roses.
The last you didn’t see.
It doesn’t bother me.
To you there were a dozen.
I knew there would be.

I rescued the dragon;
Now it belongs to me again.
It belonged to me then.
It doesn’t belong in the trash,
No matter what you think.

I let the roses stay.
It doesn’t matter what happened then.
Just so long as you saw them.
Even if you didn’t know what you saw.
They truly are yours.

You are the dragon.
You try to be strong and bare your teeth,
But underneath…
You’re soft and warm and need protection.
You’re my dragon now.

I am the roses.
I’ll let you do whatever you want to me,
As long as you love me.
And the thirteenth rose,
Is for the love you didn’t see…

I’m giving you a ring.
If you want to accept me, wear it.
If not…
It’s all right.
I can bear it.

**


It was after school that day when Mokuba nervously pushed open the door to Seto’s hospital room.

Seto smiled up at him. Mokuba saw the ring on his finger, bearing the miniature dragon entwined with the roses, and smiled in relief.