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Kaiba didn’t know how much more of this he could take. The second you’d expressed interest in finally learning how to play Duel Monsters he’d pulled out all the stops—the best duel disk KaibaCorp had to offer, a deck he’d specially built to play to your strengths, and hours set aside out of his busy schedule to practice dueling with you.
But none of it seemed to work.
You’d gotten basics like life points and the setup of the board right, but you still seemed stuck at how and when to play the right cards. You had only just gotten the hang of setting cards in their defense and attack positions, and you were slowly beginning to understand how to set traps.
It seemed only half the questions Kaiba answered for you actually taught you anything, and he was getting desperate. While you occupied yourself with a practice match with Mokuba he snuck out, finding himself standing on quite the unlikely doorstep.
“Oh! Kaiba! What brings you to the game shop?” Yugi waved Kaiba in, the bell jingling as the door shut behind them.
“I can’t take this anymore, Yugi. (Name) hasn’t seemed to progress any further in their lessons.”
“Well Kaiba, how have you been explaining it to them?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Maybe the way they learn is just different from the way you do. I know that when my grandpa was teaching Joey how to play he had to do it in a completely different way than how he taught me. Have you tried telling them about the game with a different wording, maybe?”
Kaiba gave him an incredulous look. “Are you trying to imply that I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“No, no!” Yugi waved his hands. “I would never! I just wonder if maybe they’re having trouble with a certain aspect of the game or something like that….”
Kaiba stopped for a moment, turned, and thought to himself; you had been asking a lot of questions about timing, but he swore he’d done a satisfactory job of explaining it all. Much better than Yugi’s whole “heart of the cards” spiel. He’d answered every question you had about setting traps, but you kept forgetting to lay them in response to what he’d played. It seemed you’d understood it better when he showed you, but he couldn’t just stop in the middle of a duel to explain cards to you. Maybe if he led you through a practice duel against Mokuba….
“I’ll have to devote more hours to teaching them, that’s the key to all of this. I’ll have to orchestrate some sort of day-long duel…..work in as many practice matches as I can. Expect one of my associates to deliver you and those little friends of yours invitations soon. Yes….this will work perfectly!”
“But Kaiba if you just try explaining it to them in a different way first maybe you won’t have to—“
Kaiba spun around, narrowing his eyes at Yugi. “ No ! I never needed any help, much less from the likes of you . By the time I’m done they’ll be a far better duelist than you could ever dream of being!”
Kaiba proudly strode out of the game shop, leaving an utterly confused Yugi in his wake. As soon as he was back in his office he disappeared to make a barrage of phone calls, working late into the night to set up KaibaCorp’s first Duel-A-Thon.
*
When the day finally came Kaiba could feel a strange sense of excitement bubbling up inside him. He’d forced every single employee of KaibaCorp to take a vow of silence—anyone who spoke a word of his plans to or around you would be fired on the spot. You remained none the wiser, simply confused as to why Kaiba was suddenly so busy.
He always told you when he had important meetings coming up, and as your relationship had grown more serious he worked in ways to take you along on every business trip he could. When you asked if there was anything you could do to help he simply waved you off and told you not to worry about it, sending you off to do busy work while he worked on whatever it was that he was doing.
“Come on (Name). I don’t want you getting lost.”
“Kaiba where are we?” You groaned, looking around at the forested trail you’d been hiking along for the last 15 minutes.
“You’ll see soon enough. You brought your deck like I asked you, right?”
You jogged to catch up to Kaiba, pulling your deck out of one of the pockets in your backpack. “Yeah, but I don’t know why you told me to bring it on a hike. What, are we gonna duel in the woods or someth—“
You looked up to see a wide clearing full of food stalls and mini arenas, all filled with faces both familiar and foreign. There were people dueling throughout the space, and it seemed as if the stakes were either low or nonexistent. You turned to look at Kaiba, heart fluttering at the sight of the proud smirk on his face.
“What is all of this?” You breathed, awestruck by the sheer size of the gathering in front of you.
“After giving it some thought I realized perhaps I wasn’t doing as thorough a job as I had intended teaching you how to play Duel Monsters. So I set up a day-long event in order to teach you more about playing the game. I’ll be personally coaching you through every duel, so you don’t have to worry about being at a disadvantage because you’re new to the game.”
You smiled sweetly at Kaiba, pressing a kiss into his cheek. You loved seeing the way he still blushed at even the smallest of romantic gestures, never quite growing used to how affectionate you were compared to him. “Thank you, Kaiba. I can’t wait to start dueling everyone!”
He smiled back at you. “I have no doubt in my mind that you’ll be able to become a fine duelist, (Name). When we’re done, you’ll even be able to surpass Yugi!”
“Say no more. Let’s do it!”