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“Yes, yes, please wait just a moment! I’m coming, I’m coming, please hang on!”
The afterlife had been golden. And hot. And sandy. But mostly golden. Everything had been drenched in the color of wealth. Soaked in opulence. Radiating divinity from the valleys between the windswept dunes all the way up to the peaks of the highest obelisks. Every temple, statue, and mural had been crafted so that the largest man would feel as insignificant as the lowliest beetle before the eyes of the gods.
If he hadn’t been so focused, it might have been enough to make even the richest person in the entire world just a little awestruck. And possibly a little insane.
The richest person in the entire world doesn’t feel awestruck, but he does have a sneaking suspicion that he might have gone a little insane. Because right now he’s barely standing upright in the sloping doorway of a shop that sells board games to children. In the middle of the night.
The streetlights are dull and flickering and the windows of the game shop are pitch-black and the wind rustles the dying autumn leaves in the trees.
His coat is too expensive to feel the cold, but he gives the door a few more hard raps anyways.
“Sorry, almost there! One second! Sorry, sorry, how can I help...” There’s some fiddling with a lock and then heavy violet eyes peek out at him, “...Kaiba?”
Seto Kaiba stares at Yugi Mutou for the first time in a long time.
“You look terrible.”
The King of Games has answered the door in a baggy shirt and crumpled sweats. His bangs hang in his eyeliner-smudged eyes. There’s the soft red imprint of a palm on his right cheek. His socks don’t match but he’s still got the leather collar and the cuffs on.
“Nice to see you too!” Yugi blinks the sleep out of his eyes, “You don’t look all that great yourself! When’s the last time you actually slept?”
“When’s the last time you actually did something productive?”
Yugi’s left with his mouth hanging open and Kaiba, who is not cold, uses the brief pause in conversation to brush past Yugi and sweep right into the store.
“I’d invite you in, but I guess I don’t need to…” Yugi stands on his tiptoes and peers over Kaiba’s shoulder, “...is that your helicopter? In the middle of the street? Can you do that?”
“Why not? I probably own the street.” Leave it to Yugi to worry about the details when there are much more important matters at hand. “And if I don’t, I will.”
The door shuts with a soft click. The inside of the shop is dark and chilly and smells sort of like damp cardboard. Kaiba and his coat take up the entire entrance.
Yugi runs absent fingers through his hair. He looks a little taller than Kaiba remembers. “So… are you going to tell me why you’re here, or-”
“We have to duel.”
Yugi sighs. “Yeah, I figured. Follow me. Try not to wake up my grandpa, ‘kay?”
Kaiba’s led to a small backroom. The lights are already on and they glow a quiet yellow, casting long shadows on fragments of Yugi’s life. Bookcases filled with games and figurines collected from around the world. Sketches and scribblings stashed between boxes packed tight with cards. Souvenir postcards tacked up next to photos of his lame friends.
Kaiba spots Mokuba in one of the photos and scowls. He sees himself scowling next to Yugi at an old press conference in the picture beside Mokuba’s.
“Do you, like, want something to drink?”
“What?” Kaiba snaps his head up, away from the photos. Yugi’s just watching him, head cocked and bangs brushing his shoulders. The room feels kind of warm. Kaiba blames his expensive coat. “Of course not. I’m here to duel, not have a catch up over coffee.”
“Don’t see why we can’t do both.” Yugi shrugs, but he clears off a low table in the corner, moves aside a notebook full of diagrams and a mug of tea with a cold film floating on top. “Here.”
“What, we’re going to play here?” Kaiba almost laughs. “With no holograms?”
“Yup. How could we use holograms in a room like this?” Yugi does laugh. It’s weird and airy and not the kind of laugh Kaiba’s used to hearing anymore. “We’re simply going to play a friendly game. Just me and you and the cards.”
Kaiba’s cheeks tingle. Must be the coat. Yugi sits cross-legged on one side of the table, motions to the ground opposite him.
“You’ve got to be joking.” Kaiba stares. “You want me, Seto Kaiba , to sit on the floor?”
“Hey, you’re the one that barged into my house, demanding a duel! And now you’re trying to back out of it? Is the great Seto Kaiba turning down a challenge?”
Kaiba sits down, wordless and glaring. His legs don’t fit under the table very well and the buckles on his coat bunch around his arms. Kaiba slams his deck down hard enough that he shakes every object in the dreary room.
“Well, what are the stakes here?” Yugi sorts his cards into a neat pile.
Kaiba spreads his cards facedown, snatches them back up in one quick swoop. “When I win, you’re going to tell me what I want to know.”
The corners of Yugi’s mouth threaten to tug up. He reaches for Kaiba’s deck. “And if I win… I’m going to ask you some questions too! Best of three?”
“We’ll be done in two.” Kaiba grabs Yugi’s deck, shuffles the cards, aligns them into a perfect prism.
Yugi’s lips do tug all the way up. “Then let’s duel.”
They draw. They play. Yugi crushes Kaiba in three turns.
“What the hell.” Kaiba says.
“Good game!”
Kaiba briefly considers punching the table in half. “I don’t know what I expected, playing in such crappy circumstances.”
Yugi speaks slow and careful. “Maybe it’s not the circumstances that are crappy, maybe you just built a crappy-”
“Just ask your question.”
“Okay.” Yugi shifts, flexes his fingers. The table is small and they’re close, faces not even an arm’s length apart. Kaiba’s cheeks are turning pink. He wishes he could take off his coat. “Why are you here?”
“I already told you. To duel.”
“Yeah, but… why? Kaiba, you’ve been gone for like… months ! After everything you kind of just disappeared… Mokuba was worried about you. He called me, did you know that? He didn’t tell me what you were doing or anything but he thought I should know, I guess?” Yugi looks right at him and the smile that’s been playing on his lips starts to fade. “And not just him. I was worried about you too. I’ve been worried about you.”
“That’s stupid.” Kaiba’s knees ache. He stretches his legs under the table. His shin brushes up against Yugi’s thigh. The sudden warmth makes him jump. “I saw… him.”
Yugi’s smile is gone. “You what?”
“I saw him. The Pharaoh.”
“How?”
Kaiba crosses his arms. “Through an extremely convoluted and unbelievably expensive process that’s much too difficult for me to even attempt to explain to you. But in simple terms, it involved the manufacture of a vessel capable of accelerating to a velocity high enough to pass through the barrier between our plane and-”
“You went a different dimension?!”
“Yeah. Basically.”
“Okay.” Yugi takes a few deep breaths. He nearly drops a card. “How… how did he look?”
“What?”
Yugi’s eyes are wide despite the dark circles. “You know! Did he look happy?”
“Did he… look happy ?”
The Pharaoh had been the Pharaoh. Magnificent. Commanding. Grandiose and striking from his throne, gilded skin wrapped in ornaments the colours of the sun. Governing his kingdom with the grace and benevolence only a true born leader could possess.
He was not surprised to see Kaiba at all.
“He was ruling over a massive empire, Yugi.” Yugi waits, and Kaiba hesitates. “...but yeah, I guess he looked... happy, or whatever.”
Wherever Yugi’s looking now, it’s not at Kaiba. He clutches his cards to his chest and smiles to himself for a long moment.
“I see. Thank you for telling me, Kaiba.”
Yugi speaks so gentle. Kaiba’s face feels red. “Can we just get on with the duel?”
The second round is more like it. Yugi tries hard but Kaiba tries harder. For every spell, Kaiba’s got a trap. For every trap, Kaiba’s got a better trap. Every time Yugi summons a monster Kaiba’s got a dragon waiting for him. After twenty long minutes Kaiba claws himself to a hard-fought victory.
His back is damp under his coat.
Yugi rests his head in his hands, bony elbows on the table. “So, Kaiba, what do you want to kn-?”
“-You stopped dueling.” Kaiba cuts him off. “Since I’ve been away, you haven’t entered one tournament, haven’t made a single public appearance. Why?”
Yugi thinks for a long time about his answer. Kaiba brushes his hand across his forehead, hides the shiny trail behind his back.
“...I… We, the Pharaoh and I, we… we saved the world kind of a lot of times, Kaiba.” Yugi starts, “I think I should be allowed to take a break.”
Kaiba manages to work his face into a sneer despite the sweat. “The Pharaoh told me you’re just as strong as he is. Even stronger, actually. But I come back and you’re just sitting around, doing nothing? You’re the King of Games and this is how you choose to use your title? Screwing around in a dusty shop trying to make toys for children?!”
Yugi smiles a tired smile. “Tell me, when you saw the Pharaoh, did you duel him?”
“Of course.”
“And did you win?”
The look Kaiba gives Yugi could have immediately sent a weaker person to the shadow realm.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to answer that!” Yugi holds up his hands, “But to tell you the truth, Kaiba, I think I feel how you do. You went to see the Pharaoh because you needed to, right? You felt like... you’d never find a better opponent? Well, honestly, that’s how I feel about you.”
“You feel what exactly?” Kaiba tugs at the neck of his shirt.
“You’re my biggest rival, Kaiba.” Yugi’s voice is somehow soft and strong at the same time. “It’s not much fun dueling without you around.”
It’s Kaiba’s first laugh of the night. “You seriously think you’re worthy of being my rival? You really think you’re anywhere near the Pharaoh’s level? He showed me things that would shock even you, King of Games. Even that title is the Pharaoh’s, isn’t it? How could you ever deserve it?!”
Yugi shuffles his cards, calm practiced movements. “Play the last round, and I’ll show you.”
The last round is rough. Yugi fights tooth and nail, leather and spiked hair. He’s concentrating hard; gasping when Kaiba destroys one of his monsters, steady and confident when he counters Kaiba’s spells. He’s hunched over, face close to Kaiba’s, and when he draws a card their hands sometimes brush. When he gets excited his feet tap against Kaiba’s legs under the table.
Kaiba feels like he’s burning up. Sweat is gathering on his hairline and his hands are clammy. He struggles to match Yugi card for card, but slowly and surely he chips away at Yugi’s life points.
After a good number of turns, Kaiba’s wounded, but Yugi’s barely hanging on.
“Yugi.” It’s Kaiba’s turn. He draws and looks at his card. With what he’s got he could end it all. And that pisses him off. “The Pharaoh promised me you were my equal. He promised that you were his equal. He promised… he promised ! And you’re about to lose!”
Yugi says nothing.
The heat feels like it’s building up in Kaiba’s chest, searing hot underneath his ribs.
“After everything I went through to see him again, how could he lie to me like that?!” Kaiba flings his card down on the table. “You… you’ll never be him, Yugi!”
Yugi looks at Kaiba. For a second, Kaiba thinks he sees something like pity in those big eyes. Then Yugi sets his jaw.
“You’re right. I’ll never be him.” Yugi flips a card face up, and wipes Kaiba’s side of the board. In one move his dragons are gone and his life points are too and everything he knew crumbles in front of him.
Kaiba wonders if this is what giving up feels like. He never has before and never planned on trying it. But he doesn’t know what else to do. His remaining cards drop from his hand and he slumps over, stares at the table.
“But Kaiba, I know he’ll always be watching over me. And you too.” Kaiba barely registers what Yugi is saying, “I know you miss him, in your own way. And I do too. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t wish he was with me again!”
“Yugi, spare me your-”
“-but I am not him!” Yugi interrupts him. Yugi has only been like this once before, when they thought the world was going to end. Kaiba wonders if his world is ending. “Kaiba, look at me!”
Kaiba looks.
Yugi’s eyes are huge and watering and his shoulders tremble but his face is just as determined as the Pharaoh’s ever was.
“I am not the Pharaoh! I am Yugi Mutou, you are Seto Kaiba, and in case you haven’t noticed, we are the only ones left!” Yugi shakes. “It’s just you and me now, and Kaiba, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time!”
Kaiba doesn’t notice Yugi bridging the gap between them until Yugi’s hand is on top of his.
And it almost feels like being touched by the Pharaoh. But only almost.
This time, it feels like being touched by the sun. And the sun here is even hotter than in the afterlife.
Yugi wavers, face so close Kaiba feels his warmth, and Kaiba decides right then and there that travelling to another dimension isn’t enough. He wants to touch the sun.
He always has. He just didn’t know how to until now.
“Yugi, you won. What’s your question?”
Yugi laces their fingers together, tentative. Kaiba feels his heartbeat thumping against his palm. “If… if I said I really wanted to kiss you right now, what would you say?”
“I’d say you better hurry up and do it, or I might kiss you first.”
Yugi leans across the table and kisses Kaiba.
Kaiba’s world turns gold.
Seto Kaiba doesn’t play Duel Monsters without holograms and he doesn’t sit on the floor and he actually doesn’t know how to kiss but none of that matters because Yugi is golden. Golden lips, golden hands, golden heart.
He curls his fingers into Kaiba’s coat and he kisses him and kisses him and Kaiba kisses back and pulls Yugi closer and tastes gold and gold and gold.
He might not be gilded in the same way the Pharaoh was, transcendent and shining, but he really is the King of Games and he’s here and he’s somehow gotten over the table and climbed up into Kaiba’s lap and is tangling his hands in Kaiba’s hair and Kaiba’s coat is finally coming off and for the first time, Kaiba really does feel in awe.
“Yugi, Yugi,” Kaiba breathes against Yugi’s lips, “Hold on a second.”
Yugi’s hands cling tight to Kaiba’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
Kaiba feels a smirk coming on. “I want a rematch.”
Yugi grins, his lips brush along Kaiba’s neck. “Oh yeah? And what are the stakes this time?”
“When I win, I get to kiss you first.”
“And if I win?”
“You get to let me kiss you first.”
Yugi laughs, it sounds like gold. “Then let’s duel.”
They kiss again, Yugi’s arms around Kaiba’s waist, Kaiba’s hands cupping Yugi’s jaw, and this dimension is the goldest of them all.