Chapter Text
Yugi tried to ignore him, he really did. He tried to go about his business — get in, go buy a few packs from the new Duel Monsters box, get out — but Kaiba was just so conspicuous. The white baseball cap pulled low over his face, the big blue coat with the upturned collar that flapped dramatically every time he turned around, the comically large sunglasses, the constant glances over his shoulder, it was all too much.
Yugi really did try to pretend not to see him as Kaiba browsed the game shop. It was clear that he didn’t want to be recognized. But it was Kaiba, wasn’t it? Even without being able to see much of his face, Yugi would have known that lanky, coat-clad silhouette anywhere. And he just seemed so… distressed. Every item he looked at seemed to personally offend him, and he would huff and puff and sigh and grumble to himself. It was honestly really distracting. Who could blame Yugi for finally letting his curiosity get the better of him?
He wove gingerly through the tight aisles, careful not to knock over any precariously perched figures or game books, and sidled up quietly to Kaiba. He was glaring at a jigsaw puzzle of a dragon as if it had personally insulted his family. When it became clear he wasn’t going to notice Yugi anytime soon, Yugi coughed politely.
“...Kaiba?”
Kaiba jumped, and the puzzle box slipped through his fingers. Yugi reached out and caught it in a rare feat of instinct and opened his mouth to apologize profusely for startling him, but Kaiba just let out a groan and pulled his hat more closely over his eyes. “Ugh… It’s you… How did you recognize me?”
“Um… just a hunch.” Yugi peered up at him curiously as he put the puzzle box gently back on the shelf, standing on tip-toe to reach it. “What are you doing here, though?”
“None of your business.”
Kaiba seemed quite content to leave it at that. He turned his back with a dramatic whoosh of his coat and pulled down a Monster World guidebook, resuming his glaring.
Yugi glanced back at the crowd around the counter by the trading card display. “...You’re not here for the new Duel Monsters box?”
Kaiba let out possibly the most condescending noise that Yugi had ever heard in his entire fifteen years of life. “I had every card in that box before it was even released.”
“Well, la-dee-da,” Yugi mumbled. “What are you looking for, then?”
“I just said it’s none of your business. Go away.”
Kaiba shoved the guidebook back into its place on the shelf with far more force than was necessary and looked around the shop, frowning. He seemed to be at a loss, somehow, unsure of where to turn next.
“I could help you find whatever you’re looking for,” Yugi offered.
“How many times do I have to tell you to get lost?”
“I work at a game store! Not this one, but I still know how to find things. Cmon, Kaiba, just tell me what it is.”
Kaiba’s brows lowered in a squint. “ Now you’re just being nosy.”
“Maybe a little bit.”
Even without being able to see Kaiba’s eyes, Yugi could tell that he was rolling them. Kaiba turned his back again and stomped off to the display of miniatures across the store. Yugi followed, though he was stubbornly ignored.
Though Kaiba looking unhappy was definitely nothing new, something seemed different about him today. As he scanned the shelves of miniatures and build-kits and bright colored paints, he was fidgeting, his arms folded tightly and fingers tapping like pistons on his sleeve. Kaiba seemed to grow more and more antsy and frustrated the longer he stood there, clearly searching for something, but judging by his aimless wandering around the aisles, even he wasn’t sure what for. He was just… shopping around. For what?
Suddenly, Yugi’s eyes widened, and he let out a gasp that made Kaiba nearly jump again.
“What now?! ”
“Isn’t Mokuba’s birthday coming up?”
Though Kaiba didn’t respond, the sour twist of his mouth said it all.
“Aww, Kaiba, are you trying to pick out a birthday present?”
“ Shut up! ” Kaiba hissed, pulling his collar more tightly around his face. “Stop saying my name!”
“R-Right, sorry… But I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Fine! Yes! You’re right! Now would you leave me alone? ”
“Oh my gosh, I was just thinking the other day that I should get Mokuba something, but I didn’t know what he’d like. But since you’re here we can look around together!”
“We absolutely cannot.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Kaiba… Can’t we help each other out as friends?”
“We are not friends.”
“Sure,” Yugi said with a wink. “Definitely not. We’re just classmates who happened to save the world together multiple times.”
“Yes. Unironically, yes.”
“Ooh, does Mokuba still like Capsule Chess ? I heard there were some new terrain pieces coming out—”
Yugi dragged Kaiba around the store by his coat sleeve, and though Kaiba practically steamed at him, they both knew that he couldn’t cause a scene without being recognized. So Yugi chattered away about Capsule Chess and Duel Monsters and Mokuba, and Kaiba seethed silently (though he seemed to soften a bit whenever Yugi spoke fondly of his little brother).
Yugi cried out happily and grabbed a box from the back of its shelf — the last of the new terrain sets he was searching for. “Just in time! What do you think, would he like it?”
Kaiba gave a half-hearted grunt. “There’s not much here he wouldn’t like,” he admitted. Still, having said it, nothing seemed to catch his eye. He kept glancing around the store uncertainly, kept tapping his fingers against his arm and looking sour.
“...Come to think of it, why are you shopping around here, anyway?” Yugi tucked the box under his arm and crossed the aisle to glance over the card packs hanging on the wall. “I woulda thought you’d be able to get your hands on all kinds of secret prototype stuff that isn’t even in stores yet.”
“Naturally,” Kaiba sniffed. But he still didn’t answer Yugi’s question. He just glared at the floor, tap tap tapping his fingers, his face all twisted up with… well, who really knew when it came to Kaiba? Yugi had all but given up on trying to get a straight answer out of him when he just barely heard Kaiba say something under his breath.
“…Mokuba doesn’t want a party,” Kaiba mumbled.
Yugi blinked. “Huh?”
Kaiba let out a huff, taking off the stupid sunglasses and shoving them into his pocket. His scowl was exactly the one that Yugi was expecting. “I throw him a big party every year with all the attractions he could want. Carnival rides, arcades, celebrity guests, anything he wants. But this year he said he didn’t want one. He just wants us to hang out.”
“Aww, Kaiba, that’s really sweet…”
Kaiba gave a noncommittal harumph . “Well, I still have to give him something.”
“But isn’t spending time with your brother already the perfect gift?”
“Ew.”
Yugi snorted at that, earning himself an even more withering glare from Kaiba, but he just waved it off with a smile. “Well, still, I don’t get why you came here.”
Kaiba threw up his arms in exasperation or disbelief or maybe both. “Do I owe you an explanation for everything I do? Who died and made you the game police?”
“Nobody,” Yugi laughed, “I just thought I could be more helpful if I knew what you were trying to do.”
“If you really wanna help, get lost so I can think in peace.”
Yugi held up his hands in surrender, and his knowing smile only made Kaiba look even more annoyed. “Okay, point taken. I’ll go check out and wait for you outside.” He hurried off to the register before Kaiba could protest and bought the terrain set and a handful of card packs. On his way out, to his surprise, he saw Kaiba still looking around instead of taking the opportunity to ditch Yugi and run.
He’s seriously agonizing over this, Yugi thought, somewhere between sympathetic and amused.
Outside the shop, he decided to pass the time by opening up his card packs. To his dismay, out of the three, the first two were mostly duplicates of the same low level cards. He took a deep breath before opening the third, closing his eyes tight. The plastic cover opened with a little pop and Yugi looked in his hand and groaned.
“Bad luck, huh?”
Yugi jumped and the shopping bag nearly went crashing to the ground, but Kaiba reached out smoothly and snatched it out of the air. Even behind his glasses, Yugi could still tell that he was looking smug as he handed the bag back, as if to say, How the tables turn.
Yugi made a face as he took the bag and tucked his cards safely inside. “You know, if you gloat after you do something cool, it stops being cool.”
“Thanks, but I’m not about to take advice on how to be cool from the nerd-in-chief.”
Yugi grimaced. He often wondered whether Kaiba realized that if people were ever embarrassed by his name-calling, it was mostly on his behalf. He had half a mind to tell him so, but then he noticed that Kaiba had come out empty handed.
“You didn’t pick anything…?”
“Nothing here is good enough,” Kaiba sniffed.
Yugi could hear a kernel of truth in that. Just the smallest hint of genuine frustration. Maybe even guilt.
“Mm… I get what you mean,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s hard to find a gift that really says what’s on your heart.”
“Ugh, why does everything sound so gross when you say it?”
Yugi’s face lit up, completely ignoring Kaiba’s comment. “Wait, I have an idea! Let’s go back to my house!”
Kaiba stared, almost in disbelief. “You want me? To go to your house?”
“Er… yeah, that’s what I just said.”
“Uh, I’ll pass.”
“Aw, cmon, Kaiba! It’s not like my dorkiness or whatever is contagious.”
“That’s not what I…”
But Yugi dragged him by the coat sleeve once again toward the train station down the street, and Kaiba followed, looking a little pale.
“Yugi, you can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. I wouldn’t lie about something like that, Kaiba. That would be mean.”
“You— That’s not—” Kaiba looked at him as if he’d sprouted antlers as they hurried down the stairs to the station below. “Are you seriously that dense?!”
Yugi shot him a glare of his own, though he couldn’t muster up the kind of venom that Kaiba could. “So what if I am? You’re one to talk! Jeez, Kaiba, I know you have your whole I’m-too-cool-to-have-friends thing, but I consider you my friend, and I wouldn’t make a joke like that.”
Kaiba opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. He closed it again, silently steaming, and then crossed his arms like a petulant child. “I don’t sound like that,” he muttered.
“You definitely do.”
He went red in the face from embarrassment or anger or some combination of the two, and practically hollered, “Fine! I’ll go to your stupid house!” A few passersby turned and stared, and Kaiba hurriedly pulled his hat low over his eyes.
“Great!” Yugi beamed, taking Kaiba by the wrist once again. “Fare’s on me.”
And suddenly, Kaiba regretted his disguise. If it wasn’t for how well it hid his face, Yugi might have seen his expression and understood.