Chapter Text
The time difference between Egypt and Japan is seven hours. They don’t talk every day, they barely email each other, but Seto Kaiba knows when Isis Ishtar wakes up, leaves for work, and gets home. He knows he can call her at seven at night every night just in time for her to clock out for her lunch break if he is so inclined.
But there is business at hand, teams to check on, papers to sign, and a virtual world to launch. Seto Kaiba has never let anyone distract him from his work, and he refuses to start now.
So he makes Isis Ishtar his work and decides that's a good enough compromise.
~
Isis can feel Malik’s eyes on her as she goes about her morning routine. She makes coffee, pressing the convenient button on the machine and watching it drip into her favourite mug. There’s nothing unusual about today. The sun is hot, the sky is blue, and work starts in another hour, yet Malik won’t stop staring at her.
“Is there something you want to say, Malik?” Isis finally asks as the machine finishes filling her mug. She picks it up and turns to him, leaning back on the counter with a curious look.
Malik sighs dramatically. “Seto Kaiba kissed you,” he says, exasperated.
“That happened weeks ago,” Isis says. “What else can I possibly say about it that I haven’t already?”
“You’re different,” Malik adds. “You haven’t had an outright panic attack in a while, and you’re super relaxed. Like… like you’ve-- oh, Ra, please don’t tell me you slept with him?”
Isis quirks a smile and sips at her coffee. “I do hope you’ll stop indulging your curiosity regarding myself and Seto Kaiba. You might hurt yourself.”
Malik stares at her, wide-eyed and practically offended. “You slept with him,” he says definitively.
“You really have nothing better to do, do you?” Isis says, almost amused as she sweeps out of the kitchen toward her room. “Have fun thinking about that.”
She passes Rishid, bleary-eyed and zombie-like from having just woken up, and overhears Malik begin raving to him about his theories regarding her and Seto Kaiba. Rishid grumbles out a half-coherent response as Isis shuts the door to her room. It’s almost funny, except that this has been going on ever since she returned from Japan almost a full month ago.
First it was the initial shock that it’d even happened, the man who seemed to despise her kissing her in an airport in front of paparazzi and Duel Monsters players alike. Then it was the prying into her trip, what exactly had transpired between the two of them while she was in Japan? Now it’s this. Full-on theorizing of what their relationship even involves, since Isis has said so little on the subject.
Maybe it’s her fault for being so tight-lipped about it all, for wanting some semblance of privacy at least in her own home.
Isis checks her makeup in the mirror and picks out a dress, and as she’s about to change into it, her mobile rings. Seto Kaiba’s name flashes across the screen and she looks fondly at it for a moment before picking up.
“Come back to Japan,” he says as soon as she answers.
Isis smiles. “Is that a suggestion or a demand?” she asks. “And you never call this early. Did something happen?”
“KaibaCorp’s new IP is finally in beta,” Seto says. “I want you to be a beta-tester.”
“I don’t play Duel Monsters anymore. I don’t know how effective I’d be--”
“You don’t need to play Duel Monsters to be useful,” Seto interrupts her, almost as exasperated as Malik had been. “You just need to be here. Are you free for a couple of weeks or not?”
Honestly, work has been slow lately and the artefacts that had been brought back from Japan have already been set back into the museums here, safe and sound in their home country. Isis has nothing pressing to do for a while, and it’s easy enough to get time off during the slower seasons when she still has vacation days to spare.
“I’ll have to check,” she says. “I might be able to take some time off.”
“Let me know. I’ll pay for your flight and--”
“Seto, you don’t have to do that.”
“Yes I do,” he insists. “You’ll be here working for KaibaCorp, giving the team invaluable feedback as a beta-tester, so we’ll pay for your flight and lodgings.”
Isis can’t help but smile. “Okay, I’ll let you pay,” she concedes. “I’ll let you know if I can take the time off as soon as I know.”
“Good.”
And then he hangs up abruptly, as usual. Isis brings her mobile down from her ear and looks at the blank screen for a moment before setting it down on her bed, feeling warm as she changes into today’s dress.
~
Isis Ishtar spends most of the day thinking about Japan, about Seto Kaiba and his strange request. There must be better people for the job out there, but instead he requested her specifically, personally. It shouldn’t feel like a compliment, but somehow it is.
They don’t talk often. He rarely reaches out to her, and she doesn’t see the point in trying to keep up a regular correspondence with someone who’s too busy to take most of her calls.
Even so, they haven’t stopped talking. When she does hear from Seto, it’s always important in a way she can’t describe. It’s not that their conversations are urgent or necessary in any ground-breaking way. It’s more that they’re a welcome break in her days, something Isis can count on and look forward to. They’re the only unexpected thing that doesn’t set off her anxiety like a fire alarm.
Maybe that’s why she can’t stop smiling when she’s approved for three weeks off work to visit him in Japan.
~
Rishid doesn’t look surprised when Isis announces over dinner that she’ll be going on another business trip to Japan. Malik, on the other hand, looks as offended as he did that morning.
“What kind of business trip?” he asks.
Isis had hoped he wouldn’t ask, but it truly is an unavoidable conversation. “KaibaCorp invited me on as a beta-tester for a new project,” she says. “I agreed, since my work at the museum is done and I have nothing urgent to attend to currently.”
Rishid nods. “When will you be leaving?”
“Next week.”
Malik frowns at her. “Business? With KaibaCorp?” he asks, suspicious. “Sounds like an excuse to get laid.”
“It’s not,” Isis says. “Though, who knows…”
Malik makes a face and Isis smiles.
“You shouldn’t bring it up if you’re going to act like a child about it.”
“If he makes you happy, then that’s all that matters,” Rishid says, an echo of what he’d said when she’d arrived back home. “I’ll drive you to the airport,” he offers.
Isis nods. “Thank you, I appreciate it. You two will be fine without me for another few weeks, right?”
“Of course we’ll be fine,” Malik says, crossing his arms. “Will you?”
It shouldn’t sound foreboding, but it does. Rishid puts a hand on her shoulder and Isis blinks out of her momentary panic. “I’ll be fine,” she says, glancing at them both. Then, she smirks. “I’ll be with one of the most powerful men in Japan, after all.”