Rock Bottom: Season Zero

Flinch

By the time they got home, Seto was still fairly wet from the driving rain, but he was appreciably less soaked than he would have been without the umbrella. It was late enough that their father was still out, but also late enough that Seto put Mokuba to bed as soon as they got home. Then he sat down at the kitchen table to do his calculus homework after swallowing three acetaminophen pills. There were at least two times that he almost fell asleep at the table, but he jerked himself awake and forced himself to complete the assignment. It was well after one in the morning when he did and could finally put his school things away for the night.

As he changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants to sleep in, he hissed at the sting of rough cotton rubbing against the fresh welts on his back. Mr. Kaiba was the only one of his customers to be so... extreme in his preferences; unfortunately, he'd been the one requesting someone of Seto's coloring, so it was impossible for Seto to be free of him. He flopped onto the mattress on the floor next to his bed.

Mokuba had been sleeping with Seto in his room for years, not out of necessity, but because he was too scared to sleep alone. However, they were both growing to be too big for Seto's twin bed, so last week Seto had finally gotten around to dragging the mattress from Mokuba's bed into his own room and setting it up on the floor for himself. Mokuba had protested to having his older brother on the floor, but Seto had insisted that his limbs were too long for him to feel comfortable in the bed anyways. He shivered a little as he pulled the blankets over himself, the rain pounding against the window more gently now. He closed his eyes and was asleep within seconds. He was tired enough that it took no effort for him to sleep.

The next morning, Seto woke up at 5:30 sharp, not because of an alarm, but because of the internal clock he'd drilled to perfection with the use of sheer willpower. He'd only gotten four hours of sleep, but that was normal for him. He groaned in pain as he sat up, reaching for the medicine bottle under his mattress and dry swallowing three more pills before he stood and showered.

He went about his routine of getting ready for the day as he called to mind everything he had to do: his English paper was due today, so he'd have to stop by the school library before class to print it out; he had a test in economics, but he knew he would ace that easily; he had five clients scheduled for later, so he'd let Ryou know that he'd pick up Mokuba a little later than usual tonight. Nothing out of the ordinary in any other classes, and all of the homework due today was completed. He woke up Mokuba and made sure his brother was getting ready for school before he went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Breakfast was the biggest meal of the day for Seto. He was usually too busy at lunch to eat more than a protein bar, and his dinner was whatever he could grab for himself while he was walking en route to the next client, assuming he was even in the mood to eat. Oftentimes, his business stole away his appetite entirely. Even so, he always made sure that Mokuba had enough money to buy a decent lunch at the cafeteria, and on weekdays he ate dinner with the Bakuras, which meant that he was eating well enough that Seto didn't have to worry about his health. Seto was plating scrambled eggs and toast for the two of them when Mokuba entered the kitchen, still yawning a bit.

"You missed a spot," Seto said with a faint smile as he smoothed down a rebellious lock of his little brother's hair. Mokuba just grinned and gave his brother a hug before accepting the plate of food. They sat across each other at the small table as they ate breakfast.

"Don't we usually leave for school later than this?"

"Yes, but I need to get to school a little bit earlier today, so we need to leave earlier."

"How was work last night?" Mokuba, like everybody else, believed that Seto worked as a bartender at a seedy joint downtown called The Underground. That was actually the last job Seto'd had, but he'd been fired for getting into a fistfight with one of the customers. Granted, the man had been drunk, but he'd also been making physical advances on one of the female customers who'd asked him several times to stop, and that was something Seto just wouldn't stand for.