Work Text:
A month after the trip to Egypt and that ceremonial last battle, Yugi and his friends were walking in downtown Domino City. While the others window shopped, Anzu exclaiming over a handbag in the window she pronounced “cute” and Jonouchi and Honda agreeing enthusiastically while eyeballing the sales girl inside, Yugi looked around, marvelling how different the city looked when it wasn’t consumed with a city wide duel competition. Things had finally quieted down after the rollercoaster the previous year had been.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yugi spotted a familiar trench coat with a brightly colored, bouncing satellite circling around it, and waved.
“Hi Yugi!” shouted Mokuba, who ran over to the group, Kaiba following at a staid pace behind him.
“Hi Mokuba. Hi Kaiba,” Yugi returned once they were within earshot of a more normal volume of voice.
“Hey, glad you’re back, kid,” said Jonouchi. Mokuba stuck his tongue out in response.
Greetings went all around, with Kaiba acknowledging them with a nod, or an arched eyebrow, and Mokuba peppering them with questions about how they were doing while the others asked about his time in America. Eventually, the other Yugi’s memory world and the trip to Egypt came out, and they settled into storytelling mode. Mokuba was a rapt audience, encouraging Jonouchi and Honda’s exaggerating tendencies with interjections of “cool!” and “neat!” and “wow,” despite Anzu trying to rein them into a more accurate description of events.
Yugi watched Kaiba, having relived in his head those events countless times since. He hadn’t seen Kaiba since Alcatraz, outside of the occasional news story, and it was jarring when his mind kept on superimposing the priest of the other Yugi’s memories in his place. (He wondered if Kaiba and his brother too had changed as much as Yugi had, if the explosion had propelled them to a new phase of their life). Kaiba had a blank, unreadable expression on his face, even when Kisara and the Blue Eyes White Dragon came up. He only startled when the other Yugi’s decision to leave came up, with a twitch in the forehead and eyes that Yugi might have otherwise missed had he not been watching him.
“He’s really gone?” asked Mokuba when they finished. “Awww, I wish I had been there to say goodbye.”
At that, Anzu frowned, guiltily Yugi assumed, though he might have just been reading into her face his own feelings. In those last moments when they said goodbye to the other Yugi, it had seemed like all his friends and the people who had taken part in his story had been there to see its ending. He had pictured Kaiba and Mokuba standing slightly apart from the group but still with them in the desert, only of course in reality, they were somewhere on the other side of the planet, making their long cherished dreams come true.
Before Yugi could gather his thoughts together into something coherent, Kaiba cut in: “As fascinating as it is to hear about euthanasia, we really need to be going.”
“But big brother…” pleaded Mokuba.
“Come on,” said Kaiba, and he turned around and walked away, coat swishing improbably in Kaiba’s wake.
“Bye guys,” blurted out Mokuba, who then scurried after him.
Jonouchi and Honda groused about rudeness. “Would it hurt him to have a little sympathy? Some of us lost a good friend,” grumbled Jonouchi.
“I think that’s the problem,” Anzu murmured to Yugi.
Before he could say anything back, Miho came by, and Anzu went over to greet her and Jonouchi nudged an embarrassed Honda closer and closer to Miho, and somehow the moment had passed and Kaiba and his brother were out of everyone’s minds.
--
Late that night, Yugi lay under his blankets, alone in his head aside from his own thoughts (still a curious and lonely feeling) and unable to sleep. He wondered if, for all Kaiba’s perpetual insistence that he needed no one besides his brother, Kaiba was lonely too. Yugi thought back to the days before he met his other self, and of that sinking feeling he got when he realized yet again, that the people around him that he considered his friends thought of him as a convenient joke, and truly it was just Anzu and him.
It bothered him that Kaiba might feel the same way, that Kaiba might have finally listened to their offers of friendship, only to decided that those offers were empty after all.
Yugi went downstairs to rummage in the Game Shop’s storage area and stuffed some games in his bag.
--
In broad daylight, standing in the classroom after school ended while his classmates chattered, Yugi started second-guessing himself. Kaiba was no emotionally needy child, and it was silly to project his own worries and insecurities on him. Most likely, he’d not even thought about the conversation they had had the day before, and would laugh in Yugi’s face if he tried to apologize. Still, his other self had valued Yugi’s worries and concerns and hadn’t dismissed them, and to dismiss them himself would be to dishonor his other self’s memories.
Before he could psych himself out, he went over to talk to Anzu. “Are you busy this afternoon? I was thinking of going to visit Kaiba and Mokuba,” he said.
To his relief, Anzu didn’t look puzzled or ask him why. “Oh, that’s a good idea. We didn’t get to talk to them much yesterday,” she said. She turned around to where Honda, Bakura, Ryuji and Jonouchi had gathered and shouted “Jonouchi, get over here here.”
“What’s up?” asked Jonouchi when he got closer.
“Are the other three done with their report yet?” she asked.
“No, they were going to head to the library after this,” he replied.
“Yugi and I are going to head over to Kaiba’s place, and you should come too,” she said.
“Bleah, I wouldn’t have worked so much on our project if I knew it meant being stuck with that jerk instead,” responded Jonouchi.
“Oh come on, Yugi and I did most of it,” she countered.
Sensing and incipient argument, Yugi said, “Please Jonouchi? I’d like it if you came along.”
“Fine. But why are we doing this?” he asked.
“Well, they’re our friends, right?” Yugi said.
Jonouchi snorted at that, but Anzu smiled encouragingly at him, so Yugi supposed that was close enough
--
“Took you long enough,” greeted Jonouchi when Kaiba finally opened the door.
“To what do I owe… this.” said Kaiba, in a tone that sounded less like a question than an opportunity to sneer at them.
“Is Mokuba in?” asked Yugi, deciding not to let Kaiba’s defense mechanisms throw off his resolve. Kaiba relaxed at Yugi’s question and told them to follow him.
As they walked through the house, Yugi looked around. It was different than he remembered. The staff was gone, and the place was emptier. There were sheets over large lumps of what he presumed was furniture and empty spaces on the wall.
“Are you moving?” asked Yugi. Kaiba ignored him.
They walked in silence for a minute, before Yugi dared: “I remember, the last time I was here, Mokuba was trying to poison us.”
“What a cheeky kid,” said Kaiba in a level tone.
“Why you!” yelped Jonouchi, who stopped and held out his clenched fist.
Yugi giggled, and Jonouchi relaxed, startled. It was good to see Kaiba did have a sense of humor, albeit weird. Yugi mouthed “don’t ask” to Anzu after she elbowed him with a confused expression on her face. She had largely been shielded from the violence of those early days, and while he had accepted it as some quirk of the puzzle and the price of knowing his other self, he didn’t think she’d agree.
“We are moving to a condominium closer to the office,” said Kaiba. “As you noted, there are very few good memories here for anyone,” he explained at last.
They finally reached a door with light coming from the bottom and opened it. “Visitors for you,” said Kaiba to Mokuba, who had his eyes glued to the television screen.
Mokube turned his head to face the door. “Yugi! Jonouchi! Anzu!” exclaimed Mokuba. He got up, almost bouncing in excitement.
“We brought games,” said Yugi. He brought out the Super Famicom from his bag.
Mokuba eyed the console dubiously. “Er, Yugi, you know we own a gaming company, right?” said Mokuba.
“Just give me a moment to set this up. Trust me. It’s lots of fun,” replied Yugi.
While Yugi rummaged around the back of the television, plugging the various wires in, and then connected the multitap and controllers, he heard Mokuba showing Anzu to a cabinet full of snacks. He assumed Jonouchi and Kaiba were ignoring each other, out of deference to those around him, since he didn’t hear any insults or any physical fights.
When everything was set up, he slotted in Super Bomberman 3 and turned it on.
Mokuba looked even more skeptical when he saw the graphics. Brightly colored helmeted figures sat atop bouncing kangaroos.
“What is this.” Mokuba stated flatly, seeming very much like his brother at his most scornful.
“You’ve never played Bomberman?” said Jonouchi, looking affronted. He quickly decided to take charge of amending Mokuba’s lack in education. “You control a character and drop bombs in the play area to try to blow up everyone else without getting blown up,” he explained, while demonstrating it on the screen.
“You have, right Kaiba?” asked Yugi.
“I am familiar with my competitors’ franchises, but I do have to get some work done,” replied Kaiba, gesturing to a computer sitting at the table.
“Just for a bit? I’ve seen your high scores at the arcade,” said Yugi.
“That was a publicity stunt,” said Kaiba.
(Sure, thought Yugi. There are more effective ones. Like jumping from helicopters.)
“Please, big brother? I want to play with you” said Mokuba, either interested enough by Jonouchi demonstration to overcome his initial hesitation or just jumping on a rare chance to play with his brother.
Kaiba crumbled. Yugi knew that most likely, it was just the effect of Mokuba’s request, but part of him hoped that Kaiba still felt that desire to play games and win, even after the departure of the King of Games.
His friends got into the game quickly. It conquered Mokuba’s skepticism and Kaiba’s aloofness, and though Yugi led initially, being the most familiar with it of the five, very soon shifting alliances against whoever was leading formed. Even Anzu, who sometimes felt left behind when it came to games was enjoying herself, winning several games and impishly wrecking havoc by tossing bombs into the fray when her character died.
When Kaiba’s phone rang, Yugi could tell that it was with reluctance that he left the game. Yugi bowed out the next round, and went over to where Kaiba was standing. He watched Anzu and Mokuba gang up on Jonouchi, before turning on each other while Kaiba wrapped up.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going to happen in Egypt,” Yugi told Kaiba after he hung up.
“I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Kaiba.
“We’re friends, and so was the other me and you. You should have had the chance to be there,” Yugi insisted. “Do you know the reason Pegasus had to blackmail me into participating in Duelist City?”
Kaiba shook his head, evidently unsure where he was going.
“I wanted the next person I dueled to be you. I was waiting for you to wake up,” Yugi said.
To that, Kaiba was speechless.
“We never did duel each other, just the two of us, did we?” said Yugi.
Kaiba got his deck, slightly dusty on the shelf, and they set up their cards on the table.
“Lets duel!”