Work Text:
Seto Kaiba prides himself on hard work.
It hasn’t gotten him anywhere—in fact, he’s still trapped in the same level of poverty he’s always been at, and that will hardly change anytime soon—but he still wears it like a badge of honor.
He’s fought for his freedom, for his little brother, for his dignity, all to varying results, but the point is that he’s fought. He works part-time at a handful of places—some legally, others under the table—just to keep food on the table for him and Mokuba, and still remains at the top of his class.
Kaiba scowls as Joey walks in all smiles and jokes, like he didn’t fly in on his private Red Eyes Black Dragon jet. As if every bit of him isn’t designed specifically to piss Kaiba off.
Some days it’s like looking in a distorted, mocking mirror, telling him what he could’ve been if he was just a little luckier. While Joey had been plucked from poverty, winning his and his sister’s adoption from beating a billionaire in a game of dice, Seto and Mokuba had stayed in the same lowly situation, aging out of the foster care system and working to support themselves.
Worst of all, he has the nerve to sit right in front of Kaiba.
“You’re looking cheery this morning,” Joey teases.
Kaiba scowls in response. He wishes he could be this carefree this early in the morning, but the fact of the matter is that he has jobs and hours to be worrying about, only made worse that he’s stuck in school. It’s wasted time, and Joey’s continuing to waste his time with pleasantries.
Joey, however, continues on undeterred. Why Joey, one of the richest and—by proxy of being the richest—most popular students in school, goes out of his way to talk to Kaiba, the quiet and angry loner, no one understands. Not even Kaiba himself. “No tournaments tonight?”
Kaiba’s shoulders go tense. Duel Monsters is one of the only things he’s able to do that’s enjoyable, especially since the boom of tournaments offering cash prizes. It’s not much, and realistically speaking, it would be more worthwhile to just pick up an extra shift at one of his jobs, but he can’t bring himself to part with one of the few bright points of every week.
He doesn’t have the best deck, but he works with what he has. Joey has one of the best decks money can buy, and despite his repeated attempts to share some of the wealth with Kaiba, Kaiba hasn’t accepted once. He’d won the rarest card in his deck—the Blue Eyes White Dragon—through sheer hard work and determination during the Battle City tournament. He didn’t need anything rarer than that.
“Thinking of crashing again?” Kaiba says. Registration—or lack thereof—doesn’t mean a thing when you’re the guy that made the game mainstream.
For a second, Joey’s face flashes with actual hurt. Good. It’s not like he needed that prize money, not like Kaiba did. Even if he had immediately chosen to donate it to the community center hosting, it was a matter of principle.
“I’m really sorry, Kaiba,” Joey says, a sentiment he’s repeated at least a dozen times in the past three days. “I swear, I just wanted to come in and support ya. I had no idea they’d ask me to join last minute.”
Kaiba had had a clear chance at victory if the tournament holders hadn’t changed the semi-finals from a set of two separate duels into a five-person free-for-all. Kaiba’s deck wasn’t built for something like that, and he’d ended up getting knocked out pretty fast. It probably didn’t help that his Battle City ranking made him an obvious threat to the others, and they’d ganged up on him almost immediately. He hadn’t stood a chance.
“Let me make it up to ya,” Joey says, much quieter. Of course, classmates are almost always straining their ears, but Kaiba still appreciates the discretion. “I can cover rent? Maybe a nice dinner for you and Mokuba?”
Kaiba grits his teeth. “I don’t want a handout.”
“Money doesn’t matter to me,” Joey says dismissively.
“Well, it matters to me,” Kaiba bites back. Something dangerous bubbles in his chest when Joey acts so nonchalantly about money. It’s like nothing in the world has a price tag, based on the way Joey acts. Because that’s never mattered enough for him to need to care.
He’s never had to bear the silent social contracts of borrowing money, of spiraling in debt, of having to pay back charity at twice the price.
Joey tilts his head, looking at Kaiba like he knows exactly what’s going on in that head of his. “We could do that.”
“No,” Kaiba says immediately. Because he has work. Because being fussed over comes with a price or it has to be earned. Because he definitely did not wake up this morning feeling small and Joey’s prodding is not making his tentative grasp on bigness worse.
Joey looks him over, giving that trademarked CEO look. Seto hasn’t seen him use it for anything other than sizing up opponents. Usually it’s when he’s in a Duel Monsters match, but the only greater challenge Joey’s ever faced is Seto Kaiba when he digs his heels in.
“Meet us on the rooftop for lunch, okay?” And with that, he turns to face the front, effectively ending the conversation.
Kaiba zeroes in on the lesson. It’s not that he has to pay attention—most of this material he could learn in his sleep—but he finds it gives him something to focus on instead of regressing.
If he’s being honest, he’s been age dreaming for most of the class. Not that he wants to, but Joey doesn’t make it easy, offering hugs and attention with no fine print. It’s a comforting thought, to think he could just curl up in someone’s arms and not have to worry about working until nearly midnight. Just a nap would be fine.
Seto glares at the back of Joey’s head. If it hadn’t been for his interference, Kaiba wouldn’t even be having these thoughts—or at least they would be able to stay pointless thoughts instead of half-baked daydreams.
Joey found out by accident. He’s always been so pushy over the years. Apparently the weird loner is just the kind of charity project he’s wanted to tackle, because he’s always trying to get Kaiba involved with his friends. And when they all competed in Duelist Kingdom, Joey’s pestering only got more frequent.
Kaiba couldn’t pinpoint when Joey finally noticed something was wrong, or when he decided to do something about it, or when Kaiba let him do something about it, but here they were.
Lunch is one of the few moments that Kaiba can have all to himself. It’s always been a recovery time for him, but once Joey had decided he was someone worth fussing over, it’s become a whole different thing.
Kaiba wouldn’t take his money or his Duel Monsters cards or even the slightest hint of preferential treatment, but when lunchtime rolled around, he would take affection.
Kaiba makes it to the roof to find only Joey there. His friends don’t know what’s going on between them, but they know enough to give Joey space when he asks. He wonders how this looks to the outside observer—not that he has to. He hears plenty from classmates who think they gossip much more quietly than they actually do.
“Hey.” Joey’s on his feet in seconds, opening his arms, and Seto doesn’t have the will to say no.
He steps into Joey’s embrace, letting the frustration of the day (week, month, year, decade) melt off of him, if only for a moment.
“Hey, lil guy,” Joey says softly.
The way he holds Seto close, so they’re chest to chest, makes him feel like someone might notice his absence, as if he were more than just a fleeting blip of a map. Seto’s life is painted with effort, but the majority of those efforts go unnoticed. Aside from his class placement, no one is really aware just how much he works, not even Mokuba. Mokuba probably knows, based on how Seto is either out of the apartment or on his computer, but putting it into words makes it real, and making it real would mean it could crush him. With Joey—well, come to think of it, maybe Joey knows—but at the same time, Joey doesn’t have to know the specifics to think Seto works hard.
“How about we get a snack, huh?” Joey asks. “Would you like that?”
He’s only allowed to buy Seto things when he’s regressed, so despite Joey’s best efforts, the most he’s ever been able to buy Seto is a couple snacks and drinks from the vending machine. He’ll only take them for himself while regressed, meaning that any leftovers will go straight to Mokuba.
Seto shakes his head. Words are a little out of his skill set right now, but he doesn’t want a snack yet. He is hungry, and he did go to bed hungry, but he doesn’t want to deal with that right away. He’d rather be held for the time being.
Thankfully, Joey seems to understand. “I’ll have someone bring it up,” he says. “They can open the door and leave it in here, and then we can both get it without anyone seeing us. That sound good?”
Seto nods. He doesn’t know how Joey came to understand him so well, how he can pick up on every little tic and nonverbal cue, but he can and Seto couldn’t be more grateful. Maybe it’s a CEO thing, being able to pick up on the little things, because despite how easygoing he acts, Joey is shockingly good at running a company.
The heavy metal door swings open sometime later—Seto was admittedly dozing so he couldn’t get a decent feel on how long it’s been—and Joey breaks contact for only a handful of seconds. It’s kind of funny to see him making a mad dash for the bag, but laughing would require an amount of effort Seto can’t spare at the moment.
Instead he gives a little smile, a barely-there upturn of his lips, at the sight of food, even if it is just vending machine junk.
He selects a granola bar and nibbles on the edges, waiting for Joey to sit down beside him before getting adjusted again.
His head on Joey’s shoulder, the fuzzy edges of headspace pushing away all the adult responsibilities, he feels content.
Even if it’s just for an hour, even if he’ll have to carry on as he always has in what will feel like no time at all, for this fleeting moment, he couldn’t be more content.