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Seto Kaiba, had some where to be.
Granted, he almost always had somewhere to be, but today he did not move with as much of his usual steady determination.
Kaiba Seto also did not like a number of things. He did not like being second, he did not like feeling helpless and he did not like to know he owed anyone anything.
And today, the latter was weighing on him as he stared across the room at one Sugoroku Mutou.
Following the events of Battle City, Kaiba Seto realized he had had far too many an encounter of the esoteric sort to think that fate could not play its tricks when he moved out of turn.
And when it came to Sugoroku Mutou, Kaiba Seto had moved out of turn.
The older Mutou had ended up in the hospital after a particularly strenuous battle with Kaiba’s most formidable beasts. And to this day, Kaiba had set the thought aside, still clinging to justifications that the old many shouldn’t have turned down his lucrative offers in exchange for the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon card.
But somewhere in between losing Mokuba to Pegasus and watching Yugi and his friends mourn so openly the potential loss of their friends, this too had begun to thaw. Without even knowing it was happening, Kaiba Seto had begun to see the hurt he could cause, when, yes, begrudgingly he had to admit, acted out of fear. And fear was something Kaiba did not want to feel helpless to.
And this is how he found himself holding out a hand in greeting to the elder Mutou. With a word on his lips, he so rarely uttered. Hello Sugoroku Mutou, I want to apologize...”
For most of his life, apologies hadn’t done much for Kaiba Seto. Sure, they’d gotten him a few empathetic glances and spared him chastising when he was at the orphanage, but, once with Gozaburo, they had stopped meaning much. Kaiba, never enough or worthy of the other man’s good graces. No, not until he was even above Gozaburo himself.
And there were no apologies for that. The day Gozaburo was out of Kaiba and Mokuba’s life was one of tremendous relief, despite any media coverage.
But Kaiba realized, he did not want to become his stepfather, and that, had become to close of a reality for him to stomach. So he continued on. And Sugoroku listened.