Chapter 36: Spring

"Hey, Nii-sama! Let me see your phone." Mokuba bound into my office with all the excitement of a child half his age. And with no concern for the meeting I was having with the Marketing Dept.

I looked at my brother, more amused than annoyed. "You do see that I am in the middle of something here, yes?" He shrugged. "It's on the desk. Continue, Gorou."

"Yes, uh, well we found that 61% of users..."

"Ok dude, I switched it. Send me the signal." Mokuba's voice cut over my new section head's and I waved him quiet again as I turned to watch my brother. He was on my desk phone and watching the screen on a new handset. "Ok, I've got a signal. Hang on a sec. Hey big bro, what's your password?"

"Really?"

He looked at me and grinned. "No. I didn't think you'd actually tell me." He walked over and handed me the unit he was working on. "Just enter it here." I typed and handed it back. He returned to my desk. "Dude? Call me." A moment later, the unit rang and he answered it. "Awesome! Ok. Seto's in a meeting so I gotta run. I'll call you from Noah's office next." He hung up and returned the new unit to me. "Ok, you're all set."

"A new phone?" I looked it over quickly. It was black, but with a good texture and a good size and weight. In the upper left corner was the Kaiba dragon. "Ours?"

"Yeah. I got tired of my old phone and thought I'd try designing a new one. The phone's through KaibaTech, the battery's new from KaibaEnergy. 22 hours of talk time and like a month of stand-by. Plus a bunch of the standard Smartphone shit - you know camera, high speed processor, video player, internet, email."

"Etcetera."

"Right. I uploaded all the data from your old old phone - the one you had at the condo - when I was testing data transfer. We can move your current stuff when you're done with these guys."

"I thought that phone's memory was wiped."

"It was." He shrugged with a grin. "I recovered it."

I wasn't sure if I was proud of him or unnerved. "Maybe you being on another continent will be a good thing." I commented.

He laughed. "I didn't read anything! Honest! Not even the e-mails from Joey." He teased. I tried to keep the pained expression off my face and he stopped laughing. "Sorry, Nii-sama, I..."

I tried to smile again. "You know, eventually you'll have a relationship that lasts long enough for me to tease you about. As it stands now, we'd need a new division to track them all."

He blushed faintly. "There haven't been that many."

"Close." I put the phone down. "I'll call you when we're done. Now go annoy Noah so I can get some work done."

"Cool. I'll e-mail you the specs as well." He promised as he left.

It was several hours later when I had a moment to actually play with my new 'toy'. Mokuba had set it up with every personal and professional networking account he knew of and I had to spend the first half hour entering passwords to set up links. Then I spent some time personalizing layouts, icons, and quick links. The contacts list I noticed included virtually my entire high school class. I spent some time deleting names I would never contact again.

Until I reached "Puppy".

Joey's old number. Of course, it could not still be active. He'd been in the US for almost a year and a half. One year, five months and two weeks. Or so. In any case, he had undoubtedly blocked my number. I certainly wouldn't accept a call from him.

I decided not to delete the number. In case he ever did call, I would know who it was and I could ignore or cancel it without answering.

I put the phone away and went back to productive work. When Mokuba came by at the end of the day, I gave him a temporary password and let him add the data from my current phone. It was an impressive bit of technology and I praised him for it.

"I am very impressed with this."

"It wasn't that hard, really. A lot of this is standard so it was mostly just putting the parts and the software into the frame."

"Still. Very good work. When do we roll out the product line?"

"Ha! Never." He smirked. "The three I made cost a load. They're not cost effective unless we enter the telecom industry and that just looked like a mess to me."

"Three - you, Noah and myself?"

"Yeah." He looked a little sheepish. "I know it's supposed to be just you and me, but it seemed kind of wrong to leave him out."

I nodded. "Yes. He's almost like having another brother."

"I suppose I should take that as a complement?" Noah asked from my doorway.

"Hardly. I'm trying to get rid of this one not add another."

"Yeah, I don't need to be youngest of three." Mokuba added. "Although, you'd have to be a nicer big bro."

"I'm nice." I protested.

"I see." Noah came in a sat next to Mokuba. "And how long have you been suffering under these delusions of nice-ness?"

"I point out that I haven't killed either of you."

"Oh well, that's certainly proof of nice." Noah chuckled. "Or the current high costs of hit men."

"I'm sure I could get a two-for-one price deal."

"How?" Mokuba snickered as he put my two phones down and took the two Noah was carrying. "Pay him a bonus?"

"Of course not." I joined the two of them on my couch. "That would defeat the purpose of the cut price." They both agreed. "I'd be nice and let him have me for a night."

"Cost effective." Noah agreed. "But what if he doesn't want you?"

I smiled thinly. "No one's said 'no' yet."

"Wow, we really are a bunch of sick twisted freaks." Mokuba shook his head. Noah and I laughed; my cousin knew more details about the truth than my brother did. "Here." Mokuba handed Noah and I our handsets. "Everything should be up to date. Oh, and something else - they're as water-resistant as we could make them and you can't turn the GPS signal off. Tamura says with that, if you keep the phone on you at all times, none of us can get snatched again."

The thought sobered us all. Another time I failed him; he should never have been in France in the first place. If I hadn't been so intent on my own selfish needs...

"Nii-sama?" Mokuba shook my leg gently. "You can't blame yourself for everything that's happened to me. I knew that fucker was a sicko. I should have dealt with him in the first place."

"You wouldn't have been there in the first place if I weren't so stubborn." I reminded him.

"And neither of you would have been in that position if Uncle hadn't been an evil asshole using children against each other!" Noah snapped. "And, for the record, he wouldn't have adopted either of you in the first place if I had been good enough to be his heir; he wouldn't have needed anyone else."

Mokuba and I both looked at Noah. It was the first time he'd ever said anything about his position in the family.

"You don't know that." Mokuba said quietly. "He wasn't like -"

"He told Mother." Noah talked over my brother. "He didn't know I was awake. He told her I was too soft to be his son. That he'd rather adopt an outsider than adopt me as his heir."

There was a moment of silence before Mokuba spoke again. "He wasn't good at telling people how he felt, but he wouldn't have included you in his will if he didn't love you, Noah. Look, I know he was harder on you guys than he was on me. But I got to know him, kind of. He really did love you." Mokuba wiped his eyes. "I know he did."

I looked at Noah. My cousin sighed and shook his head. I put my hand on Mokuba's shoulder. "I think you must have known him better than anyone, brother. I'll trust your judgment. I'm sure time will give us all some perspective." An idea occurred to me and rather than analyze it, I simply went with it. "And I think it is us three now. No more cousins, just the sons of the House of Kaiba. I could, as Head of the House, legally adopt you both."

Noah laughed honestly. "And I call you 'Dad' from now on? Not on your life!" He put his hands on both of our shoulders. "No, I'll admit that when you first showed up, I was a bit jealous. OK, a lot jealous. But that's long gone. You two have always been more like brothers to me." He smiled. "I like that title though. Sons of the House of Kaiba."

"I think Dad would have liked it, too." Mokuba brightened some. "We should put that in a kanji and use it on stuff that's just for us."

"Like the new phones?" I offered.

"Yeah. And memos and stuff."

"Should be easy enough." Noah agreed. "I'll work up something and order notepads."

"Hey, I'm starved!" Mokuba stood up suddenly and stretched. "Since no one seems to notice we're all missing, why don't we sneak out, grab some take-out somewhere and go catch a movie."

I shook my head. "I can't; I..." I stopped. "Have we ever gone to the movies together?"

"Of course." Noah frowned in thought. "We must have." We all thought about it for a few minutes. Finally, Noah shrugged. "Fine. What's playing? I don't want to see anything mushy. I've had my fill of romance for the last month."

"I thought I saw a bunch of girl's numbers in your contacts!" Mokuba teased.

"Hey! What happened to privacy?"

"I should point out that you were the fool who gave your cell phone to a 13-year-old." I chuckled. "Find something I don't have to think about. If we're going escape, let's truly escape."

We each made the necessary calls to clear our evenings and got out of the building before anyone managed to stop us. We stopped at a sushi bar Noah knew and then went to a martial arts comedy that was actually very entertaining. Afterward, Mokuba suggested a bubble tea bar with karaoke - which the two of them indulged in while I refrained.

We made it home before dawn, but not much before.

Pharaoh was waiting in my room when I arrived. "Where have you been?" He demanded. His tone was decidedly possessive.

"Excuse me?"

"Where have you been? It's four am, and you have ignored my calls. I am not in the habit of accepting such treatment. I will allow, however, that with the park opening so soon, there may have been an extenuating circumstance. I am therefore giving you an opportunity to explain yourself."

"I don't think I need to -" I started, outraged and then suddenly realized why he was so upset. "We had plans for this evening, didn't we?"

"Yugi and Mai send their regards." He answered dryly.