Archive of Our Own

-3712 hours

Seto Kaiba does not believe in magic. There is no “other Yuugi.” 

“Cute,” Ishizu deadpans to him over facetime. She shifts, angling her camera, and there he is, an exhausted teenager sitting at her kitchen table. He looks nothing like Mutou Yugi besides having, like, King of Games fanboy hair or something. 

He notices the camera is now on him and shifts, frowning at Kaiba. He draws himself to attention, posture perfect and regal, and then a tired little smirk trails across his face. Its familiarity feels like a sucker punch to Kaiba’s gut. 

He doesn’t look like Yuugi. He doesn’t even look Japanese. But this is the man Kaiba has been dueling against. 

“He wants to go to Japan,” Ishizu says, moving back into frame. 

“So?” Kaiba replies, voice cracking against his will. 

“So for the reasons I outlined–” The reasons Ishizu had outlined were illogical babbling typical to her otherwise cunning nature, about pharaohs and the afterlife or some nonsense– “he does not have a passport, or any way to get a passport, because he has no legal identity.”

Incidentally, these are problems that can all be solved by throwing a lot of money around. 

“I don’t see how that’s my problem,” Kaiba replies, and then hangs up. 

An unknown number with Egypt’s country code texts him not two minutes later. 

Too scared for a rematch? 😈

Kaiba writes three different angry replies, deletes them before sending, and then spends a full minute with his finger hovering over the block button. 

He ends up throwing a lot of money around. 

-3589 hours

The man’s name is Atem. Yugi vouches for him, begging Kaiba for help over the phone. It’s disgusting. Kaiba expected better from his rival. 

Kaiba only meets with Atem once initially, visiting Egypt himself to make sure this isn't some sort of delusional scam produced by the joint fever dreams of Yugi and the Ishtars. Atem speaks perfectly fluent Japanese, with a cocky smirk and confidence bordering on arrogance. His word choice is exactly as Yugi’s was in a duel and never once outside of the ring: Atem calls himself ore where Yugi has always used boku. He’s not any taller than Yugi, but he holds his head high and it creates the illusion of him being centimeters taller. 

It’s still ridiculous. Magic isn’t real. Miraculous resurrections aren’t a thing.  

“A pharaoh in a hoodie?” Kaiba sneers at him, having forced Atem to travel across the city to an upscale hotel restaurant. He sits in the chair across from Kaiba like it’s a throne, his attitude blending in perfectly with high society even where his wardrobe doesn’t. 

Atem takes a moment to blink down at his clothes like he hadn’t noticed. The sweatshirt is loose on him and has the logo of a nightclub. It either came from a charity shop or belongs to one of Ishizu’s brothers. 

“Ishizu is still working on getting my clothes back from the British Museum,” he quips back. 

Kaiba’s lip curls. “Cute,” he replies. Then he cuts right to the chase. “Prove who you are then. Duel me.”

Atem has the audacity to roll his eyes at him. “Didn’t they go over this with you? Yugi has all the cards.”

Kaiba considers backing out then and there, abandoning this imposter to let him scam someone else here in Egypt. But he can’t get over Atem’s hair, which is as impossibly natural-looking as Yugi’s. Atem brushes his bangs out of eyes exactly the way Yugi would on the Battle City blimp. He crosses his arms in thought the way Yugi would when dueling. 

Mutou Yugi no longer does any of these things, no matter how much Kaiba bothers him. Kaiba has no recollection of him doing this in class, before he’d become his greatest rival. The behavior is some sort of anomaly. 

A waitress comes by to take their orders. Bafflingly, Atem does not speak modern Arabic, and he orders in accented English. Here, he does sound like Yugi– the word choice is the same Yugi would use at international events, and Atem’s accent is noticeably Japanese. This makes sense in the context of the absurd story they’re trying to feed Kaiba: Atem knows several ancient languages from being a pharaoh, and he knows Japanese and conversational English from possessing Yugi as an undead spirit. Despite claiming to be pharaoh, he doesn’t speak Egyptian Arabic. It didn’t exist when he was alive.  

Stupid, Kaiba thinks, glaring at the man as he jokes with the waitress. If you were going to make up such a convoluted story, why not also include some excuse for speaking the local language?

Unless, of course, the convoluted story was the convoluted truth. But Kaiba, like any sane, modern person, knows this is impossible, and he refuses to fall for rouses and absurd lies. 

The waitress walks away, and Atem turns back to him and smirks. Kaiba shifts in his chair. The smirk widens.

It turns out Atem is just compelling enough that Kaiba donates more money to the problem of getting him a social security number and a passport. He does everything he can to push a visa through immigration. 

It’s not hard, he tells himself. It’s just assigning tasks to people he pays and then waiting for them to work things out. It’s not an investment of his time or effort. He is not admitting he might believe his greatest rival is actually a reincarnated pharaoh. 

-1 hours

Kaiba doesn’t go to the airport to greet Atem. He texts him instead, giving him a time and date for a duel. It will be in Kaiba’s new state of the art facility in his basement, where he’s been obsessively dueling a hologram of Yugi, which is totally a normal use of his time no matter what Mokuba says. 

And then when Kaiba crushes this imposter and makes him cry, maybe he’ll fess up to the scam. 

Desperate, are we? Atem texts back from his new Japanese SIM. Not even a ‘hello, how was your flight’?

Kaiba is paying for his stupid SIM and its associated plan. He grits his teeth and grips his phone tightly. 

I’m sending a car, Kaiba replies. Then he adds, Don’t mock my incredible generosity by forgetting your cards or something stupid. 

If he does, Kaiba will just have to lock them all in a virtual world where Atem has full access to Yugi’s deck. It’s not his preferred solution, and also his lawyers have told him it’s a highly illegal solution, but he will not be denied this duel. 

Atem texts back a photo of Yugi holding up a card in evident confusion, his face distorted in the way of a person halfway through a sentence. Kaiba accepts this as agreement and tosses his phone aside, turning back to his full-wall computer display and his careful grooming of his own deck. If this is somehow his rival, he will be bringing his all to this duel. 

He focuses on his task of reviewing card stats and running simulations of different scenarios with Yugi’s known cards and a projected deck of cards he’s likely to have added (designed with Kaiba’s personal AI, of course). Rain slaps at the bay window at his back, and he doesn’t even notice as building storm clouds make his office darker and darker. 

The photo of Mutou Yugi had not immediately struck Kaiba as a warning that Yugi would also be coming. The invitation hadn’t explicitly been for Yugi, but it wasn’t like Kaiba was ever going to say no to Yugi showing up to a duel facility with a full deck of cards. When his phone’s alarm goes off and he breaks out of his fugue, he glances at his front gate security cam. He’s surprised but not upset to see Yugi climbing out of the car behind Atem. Atem helpfully holds an umbrella out for him, and Yugi jumps like a child when there’s a sudden clap of thunder.

Kaiba looks away when Ishizu calls. 

“What?” he snaps at her. 

“You need to be careful,” she tells him. “Especially since now you are also responsible for the pharaoh. I sense impending doom–”

“I told you I’ve had enough for your mumbo-jumbo,” Kaiba seethes into the phone. He rants at her, and by the time he’s hung up, Mokuba has texted him twice that Yugi’s friends are here. 

I’m glad you’re getting along with them! Mokuba’s message reads. They’re fun 😇

Yugi’s friends? Plural? No, he wouldn’t have–

Kaiba grabs at his keyboard, calling up more security feeds. There is what feels like half of Kaiba’s graduating class, standing on his front porch and chatting with Mokuba at the door. Jounouchi is front and center, talking animatedly and telling some dumb story with his entire body. An obvious puddle from the rain is forming around his feet.

“Mokuba, do not let them in,” Kaiba uselessly commands the screen, fumbling for his phone to call him. 

It’s too late. Kaiba watches, powerless, as Mokuba steps aside and gestures them into the house. 

hour 0

The Kaiba estate rests on a ludicrously expensive plot of land on the outskirts of Domino City. It is surrounded by a twelve-foot high wall, meaning only the top stories are visible from the street. If one were to peek through the gate when one of the residents were coming or going, they’d see a carefully manicured garden, including Kaiba’s prized Blue Eyes White Dragon topiaries. Today, backlit by lightning, the mansion cuts a particularly ominous silhouette over Domino. 

The mansion itself is built in the European style, with warm stone walls and ornate columns lining a decadent front porch that Kaiba has never once sat outside on. The exterior hides that the inside of the home is ultra modern, having been updated by Kaiba the moment Gozaburo was out of the picture. The interior has every technological luxury money can buy, including a state-of-the-art security system designed by Kaiba himself. 

The purpose of this security system is to keep unwanted guests out. Kaiba has therefore taken extra measures to ensure none of the pests who keep butting into his life can get it. 

That is to say: Jounouchi Katsuya is on a permanent blacklist. Even if he found a way to sneak past the front gate– such as by arriving in Kaiba’s personal car– a trap door should have opened beneath his feet the second he stepped up to the door, plunging him into a special holding cell in the Kaiba mansion basement. 

There is a known flaw in this system. Fixing it has been on Kaiba’s to-do list for well over a year, but he’d considered it an unlikely scenario and therefore low priority. 

The flaw is this: Kaiba Mokuba is on the system’s white list. The white list should trump the blacklist, meaning that if Mokuba were to walk Jounouchi up to the mansion in some sort of act of brotherly betrayal, the trapdoor would not activate. However, in programming in the trapdoor bypass, Kaiba had accidentally set it up so that there was a small but very real chance the entire house would go into lockdown. 

Kaiba’s phone buzzes as Ishizu calls him again. He silences it. 

Kaiba marches down the grand stairs into the main entrance of his home to an orchestra of alarms. Red lights flash and bounce off the tasteful white marble of the floor. They stand out more than they should, as bulletproof shutters have veiled off all the windows in the house, cutting off what little natural light was creeping in through the storm and leaving the entryway dim. 

Yugi and his friends oggle up at him, a god descending to deign the citizens of idiotville with his presence. Kaiba crosses his arms as he scowls down at them. Ryou Bakura’s stupid shaggy hair is dripping onto his floor and Mazaki Anzu’s hideous pink umbrella now sits in his umbrella stand. 

“Um,” Mokuba says, staring guiltily up at him as he stomps down the stairs. “Uh, I don’t know what happened?”

Mokuba is standing in front of the panel that should control the house’s various electronic systems, including security. It’s currently flashing an error code. 

“Move,” Kaiba demands, and the gaggle of his idiot former classmates parts for him. At the back of the group is Atem, who raises his eyebrows at Kaiba in a mocking sort of amusement. He doesn’t step back and his perfect posture doesn’t so much as flinch as Kaiba shoulders him out of the way. 

“Shut up,” Kaiba growls at him before rounding on the panel and its error message. 

“I just put in the password,” Mokuba says. 

Kaiba jabs his finger into the touch screen a few times. Nothing changes. He digs his fingers into the sides of the panel to pry it off the wall and get access to its innards. This happens sometimes. Usually not in the middle of a lockdown, but the fix isn’t difficult.

A few seconds later, the alarms are replaced by the sound of smooth jazz. Outside, as if mimicking his rage, thunder cracks.

“Seto,” Mokuba says, voice strained. 

No further meddling changes the situation. Kaiba replaces the screen. The smooth jazz continues.

“It needs a manual shut down,” Kaiba diagnoses. 

“So shut it down manually,” Atem tells him, and Kaiba sort of wants to smack him. 

Mokuba groans in annoyance. “It has to be done at the main office,” he explains. “Seto, I thought we were going to move central command into the basement so this couldn’t happen.”

Obviously they couldn’t have done that, because the basement is dedicated entirely to Duel Monsters and one small holding cell for Jounouchi Katsuya.

A chorus of questions start up, and Kaiba holds up his hand. 

“Everyone shut up while I make some calls,” he commands. By some small miracle, most of them immediately shut up. Jounouchi starts to say something rude, but Mazaki Anzu steps directly on his foot. 

Kaiba calls the office. He talks to five different people. Somehow, no one authorized to do the shut down is in today. 

“A terrible stomach flu–” one person starts. Another explains, “Really bad, can’t even get off the toilet for more than a handful of minutes–”

“Find me someone who can,” Kaiba demands. 

He turns to find seven pairs of eyes peering expectantly up at him. 

“It’s going to be a while,” Kaiba is forced to admit. He glowers at them. “None of you touch anything.”

As if to punctuate his point, the power goes out.

hour 1

Kaiba leaves the idiot squadron in the custody of his brother for approximately three minutes while he goes to grab a Duel Monsters playmat. The lack of power knocks out his plans for a hologram duel (and he makes a mental note to install a back-up generator for the basement facility), but there’s no reason he can’t play Atem and/or Yugi immediately, analogue style. 

He comes back to find Mokuba has completely lost control of the situation. Yugi’s legion of morons have arranged themselves thusly:

• Ryou Bakura, standing alone and sopping wet in the entryway. The flashlight Mokuba had handed him is clutched in both hands and pointed at the underside of his chin for inscrutable reasons. Ryou stands below an eight foot portrait that a famous artist had gifted Kaiba, of a Victorian woman in a white dress. She stands in profile, turning her face to smile coquettishly down at the viewer. Her bustle forms the Blue Eyes White Dragon. The light of the flashlight forms the creepiest face Kaiba has ever seen on Ryou. Weirdo. 
  
  
• Mazaki Anzu, distracting Kaiba’s poor pubescent brother by existing as a woman. They are seated at the small dining table in Kaiba’s massive and largely unused kitchen, where most meals are pre-packaged tupperware set up by the personal chef who comes in twice a week. She shows Mokuba something on her phone, and Mokuba attempts his best impression of being suave by smirking knowingly back at her. Kaiba is going to need to have a talk with him about girls. Or perhaps he will hire someone to have the talk. Either way, Mokuba is completely ignoring the scene unfolding before him because he’s recommending Anzu limo services in New York City.
  
  
• Honda Hiroto and Jounouchi Katsuya, the loudest of the gaggle of fools, currently pushing at each other and shoving at Kaiba’s double-door refrigerator. Jounouchi’s problem is that he’s hungry. Honda’s counterargument is that opening a fridge during a power outage will warm the food inside faster. Honda is correct, but being smarter than Jounouchi is a bar a cockroach could climb over.
  
  
• Mutou Yugi, standing in front of his two friends and looking slightly disheveled with a glass of ice and no water in one hand and a flashlight in the other. The ice clinks as he waves his hands imploringly at his friends to stop fighting and please let him get at the water dispenser. He looks meek. Weak. Not at all like the person Kaiba has been dueling for years.
  
  
• And finally, Atem the “pharaoh,” perched regally on one of the barstools at the kitchen island and watching the scene with a bemused look on his face. He too has a glass of ice and no water, dangling casually from one hand. Condensation forms on the glass, and Kaiba watches as a droplet slides over his thumb and then down the sides of the glass, dripping off and falling to Atem’s bare calf. Atem doesn’t dress like Yugi; there’s no black leather or belt buckles. Instead, he wears a plain T-shirt and cargo shorts. Kaiba takes a moment to eye his calves, which are smooth, well-shaped, a warm brown. Is this what an ancient pharaoh would do with his time? Really?  

Mokuba is finally distracted from Anzu’s charms when Jounouchi smacks his head against the fridge and a horrible clang echoes through the kitchen. Yugi winces, and Kaiba steps forward to grab the swearing blond by the collar and yank him back, tossing him to the floor. 

“Do not dent my appliances,” Kaiba spits at him. “I know your head is hard enough.”

“Yeah, well,” Jounouchi gripes back, rubbing his head. His own flashlight had been shoved into his pocket at some point, and it rolls across the tile. “You could have shown some hospitality.”

“You weren’t invited,” Kaiba replies, and then his glare turns to Yugi. 

Yugi smiles sheepishly back at him. “We were… curious?”

“Ugh,” Kaiba replies, then turns to one of his cabinets. Food would make an excellent distraction for a dog like Jounouchi, and he knows Mokuba has some horrifying snacks stored around somewhere. He opens the cabinet to find a single bag of multigrain chips, lined with flax seeds. These are left over from Kaiba’s monthly attempt to make Mokuba eat something with actual vitamins. 

“Here,” Kaiba says, tossing the bag at Jounouchi. “Eat this, stay quiet, and don’t touch anything. Let Mokuba know if you need a bib.”

Jounouchi scowls at him, but he does pick up the chip bag. Kaiba points accusingly at Atem. 

“You are coming with me.”

Atem cocks his head ever so slightly, the start of some quip on the tip of his tongue, but he’s interrupted by Jounouchi loudly declaring at Kaiba’s kitchen is worse than Honda’s meal prepping. Honda pulls himself up to his full height and defends that plain rice and chicken with steamed broccoli is a perfect macronutrient breakdown. 

Kaiba only spends as much time in his kitchen as he needs to heat up a meal or make coffee. He doesn’t even eat in the kitchen for most meals, only bothering when Mokuba also happens to be eating at the same time. Anything else feels like an inefficient waste of his time. 

But still. He’s not just going to let Jounouchi insult his kitchen, when he’s seen the type of slop Jounouchi prefers to eat. Even Honda’s sad life of unseasoned chicken is preferable. 

Kaiba opens his mouth to let out a scathing comment about adults eating vegetables, but nearly chokes on it when Atem reaches forward and touches his arm. 

“Are we going or not?” he asks. 

Against every instinct, Kaiba turns his back on Jounouchi and leads Atem back through the entryway and into his living room. Atem pauses to admire a display of a custom-made chess set while Kaiba moves an arm chair to sit across from his couch. Kaiba can’t even remember the last time he played analogue, but he’s seen Mokuba set up this configuration to play his little Capsule Monsters game against friends. 

“Do you play piano?” Atem asks, having wandered over to the piano Kaiba bought for a ridiculous price and caused a minor uproar in the classical music community when he had it engraved with a Blue Eyes.

“No,” Kaiba replies. 

“I see.”

There’s not much else in the room (“Negative space is important,” the interior designer had said), besides a television screen that was currency useless. Atem sits on the couch, lowering himself and crossing his legs at the knee with a sort of controlled poise that most people their age don’t even know is an option. He sets his flashlight on the table, pointed upwards to form a makeshift lamp. 

“I’m surprised you don’t have a life-sized Blue Eyes statue,” he says, smirking at Kaiba. 

Kaiba feels his cheeks go traitorously hot as he unrolls his playmate. It’s not one of those garbage plaster ones a gameshop like Yugi’s would sell– like most things Kaiba owns, it was custom-made, and so it’s leather that’s been monogrammed with the Blue Eye White Dragon. 

It’s my signature, Kaiba defends in his head, fighting back the urge to be embarrassed. Why would he? Why shouldn’t he use his enormous wealth to engrave things with his favorite card?

Atem isn’t actually judgemental though. He leans forward eagerly, knee bouncing in anticipation. He’s already set his cards on the table, closer to Kaiba than to himself. Kaiba mirrors his action, and they shuffle each other’s decks with practiced hands. Kaiba notes that despite his casual clothes, Atem is wearing five separate rings, gaudy and gold. 

“Let me guess,” Kaiba says, eyeing his hands as he shuffles. “The British Museum stole your clothes but missed your jewelry?”

Atem pauses, looks down at his hands, and then laughs. 

“They came with the body,” Atem says, setting Kaiba’s deck back down on the table. “I was buried in them. You’re lucky I’m not wearing my crown.”

Kaiba snorts. Ridiculous. 

Kaiba watches intently as Atem draws his cards. He likes the look on his face as he examines them– it’s not a poker face, but the face of someone happily piecing together strategies with each card he draws, pleasantly surprised by each addition to his hand no matter what they are. 

They get as far as drawing full hands before there’s a crash from the kitchen. 

hour 2

The only reason no one dies is that the source of the noise turns out to be Mokuba. 

Well, Mokuba claims it was him. Kaiba is suspicious there were outside factors at play.

“Sorry, Big Bro,” Mokuba says, scratching at the back of his head. “Anzu said she wanted a latte…”

Kaiba squints down at his brother in deep suspicion. Mokuba has never looked that ashamed or scratched his head like that in his life. Either his budding hormones have rewritten his entire personality, or he’s covering for someone. 

It was unclear what exactly went wrong, but Kaiba’s multi-thousand dollar espresso machine has all but exploded. Someone had attempted to use it despite the lack of electricity, and then perhaps actively hit it with a sledgehammer. It’s now smashed on the floor, with coffee and milk all over the counter and floor and bits and pieces of the machine scattered about. Yugi has what looks like sugar granules in his hair.

Anzu is holding one of Kaiba's crystal coffee mugs and pouting. Yugi, at least, has gotten around to filling his cup with water, even as he sheds sugar with every nervous shift from foot to foot. 

Kaiba does not actually care about losing several hundred thousand yen in one freak accident. Or at least, he wouldn’t, except tomorrow morning will not be good without coffee. 

An eye twitches. He can just buy coffee tomorrow. He wants to get back to his duel. But obviously he’s not going to get anything done under these circumstances. 

He makes another series of angry calls. There’s still somehow no one qualified at the office, but he does get some half-hearted promises about the power being restored. 

“It’s funny,” the Domino electric employee on the other side of the line says. “It says there aren’t any outages in your neighborhood.”

“Clearly your reporting system is flawed, then,” Kaiba snaps back. Then he hangs up and calls his lawyer and directs her to talk to Domino electric instead, to put pressure on them. He needs this fixed now.  

“You have to stop doing this,” his lawyer says, sounding extremely tired. Whatever. She’s not one of the copyright lawyers juggling fourteen cease and desists from Industrial Illusions over the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and Kaiba is putting both her children through university overseas. Plus she has power in her home. She has no right to complaint. 

“Man, how long are we stuck here?” Jounouchi demands. “With no edible food?”

“It is rude to have guests and not offer food,” Atem tells him. 

Kaiba had not invited anyone but Atem over, though, and he’d given Jounouchi a perfectly edible bag of flax seed chips. Why was it his responsibility to have snacks on hand in case some unwanted visitors happened to show up?

“I have more snacks in my room,” Mokuba offers, and Kaiba twitches. He had been suspicious Mokuba was hoarding things, but now is not the time to call his brother out for hiding things. 

And so the idiot brigade leaves on a mission, sufficiently distracted by the promise of sugar and trans fats. Even Ryou peels away from Kaiba’s painting to follow the rest upstairs. They march off after Mokuba, a train of flashlights bobbing up the stairs. Atem stays behind, apparently also impatient to restart their duel, and Yugi hovers at his shoulder. 

“Is your banister a dragon too?” Atem suddenly asks, reaching out and placing a hand on the artfully crafted Blue Eyes head that the end of the banister forms. He sounds bemused and not like he’s mocking him, but Kaiba still feels a tick in his eye. 

Yugi elbows Atem gently. “Don’t make fun,” he says, a tease in his voice. “You had a whole palace, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I’ve never had themed trappings.”

“Trappings, Other Me?”

“What else do you call–”

Kaiba twitches. “Enough,” he interrupts. “We have a duel to finish.”

They decide to reshuffle and redraw their cards. Yugi watches in benign silence, and Kaiba finds he doesn’t mind the audience. It will be convenient that Yugi is right there when he wipes the floor with Atem and unmasks him as a fraud. Then he can demand Yugi go back to… whatever Yugi becomes when he duels, which obviously can’t be “possessed by Atem” because that’s insane. 

Unless Yugi is here as some sort of elaborate plan to feed moves to Atem as part of the ruse…? No, that’s ridiculous. Yugi doesn’t cheat. 

“It’s strange,” Atem comments as he draws his first five cards of the game. “In my time, a person would want to signal wealth by showing off the things they can afford, but your home is all open spaces.”

“The point is that I can afford the space,” Kaiba replies, rearranging the cards in his hands. “Besides, in an ideal world, no one would see my house but me and my brother.”

“Clearly,” Atem replies, a smile tugging at his lips as he sets two cards face down. “Otherwise, why fill it with so many dragons instead of stamping your company logo everywhere?”

“This isn’t even a fraction of them,” Kaiba tells him, watching Atem play a monster. Between the low lighting and the analogue play, Kaiba would have to lean in and squint to read the card’s text. Fortunately, though, he already has all of Yugi’s cards memorized. 

“Did you play by candlelight, before?” Yugi asks, curious, as Kaiba plays his own cards.

“By lamp, sometimes,” Atem answers, but Kaiba cuts the thought off by announcing his monster is attacking. 

That draws Atem fully into the game, then. He leans forward, even as he keeps his back perfectly straight, and his brows furrow in concentration. This is the look, Kaiba thinks, that he's been waiting for for months. He watches Atem’s face intently, catching all the details of how his eyes flick between his hand and the cards on the table. His hair is shaped similar to Yugi’s, Kaiba notes, but the texture is different. He finds himself admiring for just a fraction of a second, how the warm light of the flashlight catches in the tight coils of his hair, adding texture and depth. 

Nonsense, Kaiba reprimands himself in the privacy of his own head. He needs to concentrate on this duel.

The thing is, Atem does play exactly like Yugi always had. His strategy starts off reactive and cautionary, testing Kaiba’s deck and what strategies he might be building. Then Atem takes his own cards and sets up the perfect counters to each and every move Kaiba makes. It’s the sort of perfectly balanced battle of wills that has been driving Kaiba insane for the last few years, and that he’s been sorely missing for the last many months. 

They play for what feels like hours, but is probably only about forty-five minutes. Yugi tracks their lifepoint on his phone for them, although both have a running tab in their heads. They’re down to 1000 left each, neck and neck, and Kaiba can feel the duel is at its climax. The next couple of turns will decide the winner of the duel, and they will decide for Kaiba if this man could somehow miraculously be his rival. 

Obviously, given they’re the most obnoxious people on the planet, Yugi’s moron friends choose this moment to return, loud and boisterous on the stairs. Even Atem twitches at the interruption, although he has no outward sign of annoyance. 

“Yugi, you will not believe this kid’s room,” Anzu announces, boldly marching into the living room. She pauses when both Atem and Kaiba look up, sensing she’s interrupted something deadly important. At least, it’s deadly important to Kaiba. 

She pauses abruptly enough that Honda nearly walks into her. Ryou is still holding his flashlight under his face for some reason, and he comes to hover besides them like an ineffectual ghost. Mokuba slides in last, on his socks the way he has since he was small, with a bag of sweets dangling from one hand. 

Yugi cranes his neck and shines his flashlight at them. 

“Where’s Jounouchi?” he asks. 

hour 3

Jounouchi is lost in Mokuba’s room. 

This is, actually, the stupidest problem Kaiba has ever had to deal with. 

Atem does hesitate to stop their duel, shooting a longing gaze down at the playmat. A part of Kaiba finds himself excited by this– what strategy could Atem have to still want to fight? Or was he simply stubborn enough to stick it out even as he lost?

Yugi gets up and disappears off with Mokuba to locate Jounouchi, and Kaiba sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. It’s his turn, but his rhythm has been thrown off by this, and Atem’s attention is also halved. 

Ryou Bakura, looking somehow even paler than normal, slowly sinks down onto the couch next to Atem, a hand over his stomach. 

“I’m feeling a bit queasy,” he says when Atem give shim a questioning look. “How’s the duel going?”

“Bad, now that everyone is here to interrupt,” Kaiba gripes. 

Mokuba returns, not bothering to slide in on his socks. His face looks worried. “So, uh, don’t get mad.”

They have no idea where Jounouchi is. 

“Moron,” Kaiba scoffs as he stands. He points an accusing finger at Atem. “Don’t move from that spot. We’re not done.”

Atem raises an eyebrow, but he settles back in his seat with a very hurry up, then attitude. 

Kaiba takes the lead of his gaggle of morons now, marching up the stairs towards Mokuba’s room. Kaiba worked very hard so that Mokuba has grown up in a life where he can have whatever he wants and doesn’t have to do household chores, and as such Mokuba’s room is… a bit of a disaster. Kaiba sticks his head in every once in a while to make sure it’s not actively hazardous to Mokuba’s health, but he tries to avoid it because it is…

A mess. Mess is the word Kaiba would use, not “recently hit by a natural disaster” or “labyrinth of stupid toys.” Mokubas room is an ode to every dumb thing Mokuba has ever bought on a whim. 

Aside from the overflowing piles of toys and games, Mokuba has a full fridge and stacks of boxes of junk food. Kaiba grimaces at an artfully arranged stack of bulk-bought boxes of gummy snacks that’s clearly had a few boxes removed recently. 

“Whoa,” Yugi says, then bends and picks up a board game that’s randomly been placed on top of a pile of clothes Mokuba has only worn once. “This is limited edition…” 

Kaiba crosses the room, picking his way over junk. Some columns of it are tall enough to block even his view, but it still seems borderline impossible to get “lost” in the room. Kaiba throws open the bathroom door fully expecting Jounouchi to be in there. 

He’s not. Kaiba frowns, confused. 

“Oh, I don’t feel so good,” Ryou remarks, and Kaiba turns to see him— partially blocked by a carefully constructed stack of books Mokuba will never read— sink into an armchair. Or, at least, Kaiba thinks it’s an armchair under all the discarded bubble wrap from hundreds of capsule monster packages. 

Mokuba mirrors him by flopping down on his bed. He immediately leaps back up when there’s a strange moan. 

“A ghost?” Ryou brightens, despite looking queasy. An arm is pressed over his stomach.

“Jounouchi?” Yugi asks tentatively. He bends over, peering into the dark, harrowing depths of the space under Mokuba’s bed. 

“Yugi!” Jounouchi calls, his voice oddly distant. “I’m stuck.”

“Why did you even go under there?” Kaiba asks, crossing to the bed. He toes an inflatable alien toy he thinks Mokuba won at a carnival, sticking halfway out. The inner workings of a moron’s mind are confusing. 

“That’s where the good snacks are,” Ryou supplies, then cautiously leans forward, now pressing both hands over his stomach. “Oh, but eating them might have been a mistake…”

“Mokuba,” Kaiba chastises. He got him the fridge so he wouldn’t do this. 

“Jounouchi, how are you stuck?” Yugi asks, flashlight pointed under the bed. “I can’t see you.”

“I’m glued to something,” Jounouchi replies. “I dunno what, but the space is too narrow for me to reach it.”

Yugi ends up armying crawling under the bed, grabbing both Jounouchi’s arms, and then Kaiba drags them both out by Yugi’s feet. He grunts with exertion when he does it, and when Jounouchi finally comes free, there’s a horrible ripping noise. 

“Jounouchi! Are you hurt?” Yugi asks. 

“I’m fine, I just– ugh.” Jounouchi jacket has been ripped down the back, and there’s remnants of melon-scented green goo around the tear. 

“Oh, my mega-gummy!” Mokuba exclaims, and Kaiba pinches the bridge of his nose. 

Mokuba had gone through a… phase, a year or so ago, where he’d been very into licking and then sticking gummy candies together to make one giant gummy. This was somehow more appealing than just buying a giant gummy. Apparently, Jounouchi had become stuck to one left under the bed. 

“Oh, I ate one of those,” Ryou says, sounding shaky. “It tasted a little… off.”

He looks very green. His little friends flap around him in concern. 

“Now that that completely pointless problem is solved,” Kaiba gripes. He doesn’t really have a follow up statement. He just wants to complain. 

“Oh! Jounouchi, you should come watch Other M– Atem’s duel,” Yugi says. 

Kaiba grinds his teeth. He doesn’t usually care about having an audience or not, and so he turns and marches out of the room without comment. Fine. Let the idiots watch. 

“I can’t believe you got glued down by a candy,” Honda teases as they filter into the hallway. 

“Shuddup,” Jounouchi replies, and a light shoving match starts immediately. Kaiba tries his best to ignore the annoying noises going on behind him, but then he hears the unmistakable sound of one of the decorative stone Blue Eyes lining the hallway being knocked over and cracking against the floor. 

“Oops,” Yugi says. 

Kaiba refuses to turn around.

“I hate all of you,” he seethes. 

“Uh, hey, guys,” Mokuba calls from his room. “Ryou looks really bad.”

Kaiba was so close to getting back to his duel. Instead, Yugi blinks his stupid giant eyes at him until he goes and pulls some medications from his bathroom. 

hour 5

“That’s it!” Jounouchi announces, standing over a very green Ryou in Mokuba’s room. “We need to get out!”

It is unclear what, exactly, Jounouchi means to do, but Kaiba reaches out and grabs his collar on principle. 

“And how are you planning to do that?” he demands. If Jounouchi had a way to expel himself from the Kaiba household, Kaiba would gladly let him. However, given Jounouchi’s mental capacity and the care and thought in which Kaiba had put into making an unbreakable security system, Jounouchi is more likely to hurt himself and then make it Kaiba’s problem. 

Honda draws himself up to his full height, determination burning is his eyes. 

“We break out,” he sys, voice definitive. 

“That’s not–” Kaiba starts, but Jounouchi shrugs free of his grip, ripping his clothes free of his fingers. 

“Uh–” Mokuba starts as Honda picks up a baseball bat partially under Mokuba’s bed. 

(“Why is it wrapped in barbed wire?” Ryou wonders.)

“No,” Kaiba commands, putting himself between Jounouchi and Honda and the door to Mokuba’s room. “You will not be destroying parts of my house.”

“I think it’s worth a try,” Yugi says tentatively. “It’s getting late, and Ryou is sick.”

Ryou peers up from under his eyelashes, eyes dewey. “I think I’m getting better,” he says, despite now being glossed in a layer of sweat over his skin’s newfound delicate shade of green. 

“Don’t push yourself,” Anzu tells him, then turns to Kaiba, her own face set into deep determination. “Surely a genius like you would have an emergency exit.”

Kaiba just holds her gaze. 

“It can’t hurt,” Mokuba says tentatively.  

“There’s no point,” Kaiba grits out. “You’re just going to make more of a mess.”

“We have to try,” Yugi says, now with the flames of useless heroic determination in his eyes. 

Kaiba widens his stances. They already broke his espresso machine and one Blue Eyes White Dragon Statue. Who knows what will happen if they start swinging baseball bats around. 

Kaiba does his best to glare down his nose at Jounouchi and Honda as they face off in the middle of Mokuba’s bedroom. He knows both men were the type to get into fights in high school, but Kaiba has a height advantage, and he knows where Mokuba’s sharpest toys are. Plus, he hired a personal trainer recently, and he’s more physically fit than he’s ever been. 

Anzu marches up to him, shoulders squared, and he barely gives her a second look. Anzu is feisty, but she’s a skinny girl–

She kicks him directly in the spine and he finds himself laid out flat on the floor. Anzu is also a competitive dancer with incredibly strong legs. He regrets forgetting this. 

Jounouchi sits on him while Honda ties him up with a net that Kaiba is pretty sure was bought to hang stuffed animals from the ceiling. He fights them, but this only makes Mokuba bring out another net while Anzu pins his legs. 

“Sorry, Big Bro,” Mokuba tells him. “What if they can get out?”

Kaiba scowls at him. “When this is over,” he says, “you are grounded.”

Ryou leans over and vomits, right on Mokuba’s carpet. 

“I am so sorry,” he wheezes out, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can clean it up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mokuba tells him. “We have a cleaning service.”

“You should definitely worry about it,” Kaiba seethes, “because I am sending you the bill–”

Despite an ongoing stream of threats, they carry Kaiba down stairs and prop him up in his chair across from Atem. Kaiba’s cheeks burn with humiliation, but Atem takes the scene completely in stride. 

“What happened?” Atem asks. 

“We’re busting out,” Jounouchi explains, holding up a decorative but very real sword that Mokuba must have purchased from… somewhere. “Here.”

Jounouchi hands Atem a poker pulled from the fireplace Kaiba has never once lit. Atem stands to take it, although he looks mildly confused. Anzu grabs Yugi’s hand and says she saw a cast iron pan in the kitchen, and she drags him off while Jounouchi and Honda fan out, poking at the metal shutters of the windows before mutually deciding to try and break down the front door. 

Mokuba’s eyes dart between their retreating backs and Kaiba. “I’ll go make sure they don’t break anything important,” he says before scampering off.  

“But…” Atem says, uncertain and clearly unused to being ignored. “Our duel…?”

“I can play for Kaiba,” Ryou offers, sitting gingerly on the arm of Kaiba’s chair. “Just tell me what to do.”

Kaiba glares at him. “Untie me,” he tells him. “Or go stick your head in a toilet. You look green.”

Ryou opens his mouth to argue, blanches, and then abruptly runs off with his hand over his mouth. 

“Weak,” Kaiba snarls after him. He sets his glare on Atem. “You untie me, then. I promise to beat you before I go beat your friends.”

Atem hesitates, the fire poker still held before him like a sword. Kaiba holds himself still, refusing to make a fool of himself by squirming around in his restraints, even as he hears the loud bangs and screams of Yugi’s idiot friends futilely banging at his doors and windows. Atem moves to stand over him, the corners of his lips slowly turning upward. 

“You look like you’re on a bit of a losing streak,” he says, an infuriating smirk creeping across his face. 

“Get this off of me and I’ll show you who’s a loser,” Kaiba spits back. 

Atem’s smirk stays in place and he makes a big deal of looking Kaiba up and down. Kaiba is not used to anyone’s head being higher than his, and the look does strange things to his insides. He pulls his arms against the ties. 

The sound of his phone breaks the tense silence. 

“That might be someone who can fix this,” Kaiba says, by which he means Atem should untie him. Instead, Atem reaches forward and pulls the phone out of Kaiba’s pocket. 

“It’s Ishizu,” Atem says, pleasantly surprised, and then before Kaiba can tell her he doesn’t want to talk to that superstitious woman, Atem answers, putting her on speaker phone. 

“Have you yet been betrayed?” Ishizu asks. 

“Maybe,” Atem answers, like that’s not an insane question. “We’re locked in with no electricity.”

“You must watch out for danger from above,” Ishizu cautions, and Atem frowns like this nonsense is something to pay attention to. 

“If she’s not the electric company returning power, I don’t care,” Kaiba says. “Hang up.”

Ishizu hangs up herself. 

“Odd,” Atem says. 

“Bullshit,” Kaiba seethes. 

Atem will not untie him out of some sort of misplaced loyalty to his friend’s horrible decisions, and so Kaiba gets him to call his office instead. 

“The electric company said they’ve already sent a team,” the one employee who doesn’t have the stomach flu says. 

“Well they’re not here,” Kaiba replies, feeling increasingly annoyed. 

“Oh, but I noticed that we do have the beta system on back-up power,” the employee offers. 

“Do NOT activate the beta system,” Seto replies. It’s meant for an intruder breech and is untested, even if it comes with a convenient secondary power source. 

“Activate it?” the employee asks. 

“NO,” Kaiba yells, but this is immediately followed by a mechanical cranking noise. 

hour 8

The good news is that they have power now. 

The bad news is that: the duel is called off entirely, the metal blinds have doubled, and also now all the top floors have been cut off. The employee, likely sensing they were about to be fired, announced he was leaving the office for the day and hung up immediately. 

I’m in my room :( Mokuba texts. 

“At least that means he has food,” Atem says. 

They leave Kaiba tied to the chair. 

hour 12

They eat the pre-cooked meals in the fridge in front of Kaiba and have the gall to complain that they’re bland. A single tupperware is left out on the coffee table for him, but Kaiba attempts to bite Ryou when he gets too close, so they leave him tied up. The tupperware sits there, mocking him, as the gaggle of morons pull apart his house. 

There is no escape, and there are no more snacks. 

“Why don’t you have  a better couch?” Anzu asks him, a pillow under her arm. 

Kaiba has given up yelling at them, instead resigning himself to sitting and glaring as the gaggle of idiots try to create places to sleep for the night. The living room has a couch, and the idiots have located an old throw blanket and matching pillows in a closet, but that’s it as far as creature comforts go downstairs. No one respects the design principles of negative space. 

“Are you going to be weird if we untie you?” Atem asks. 

Kaiba narrows his eyes at him. “How would you act if you were kept prisoner in your own home?”

Atem debates his words for a second. “Happy to reveal more blankets and pillows?”

There are no more, but when they untie him, Kaiba pulls out several trenchcoats for himself. The men are letting Anzu take the couch for the night, but there’s a debate about who gets what pillows. Kaiba sequesters himself away in a sunroom at the back of the house. Mokuba likes to do his homework in here, and occasionally Kaiba will join him with his own work. It’s therefore one of the more comfortable rooms in the house. While the gaggle of morons have pilfered the cushions off the sunroom’s couch, it’s still a couch and better than sleeping on the floor. He texts Mokuba to make sure he’s okay. 

Mokuba is fine. Beside the puddle of vomit in his room, he has access to Kaiba’s own room and two other unused bedrooms. He has his whole gaming system and the charger for his phone. Kaiba is a little bit jealous. 

With all the windows blocked, there’s no sense of night or day in the house. Even so, Kaiba is tired, and he privately agrees with the idiots' plan to turn in for the night. Ideally he’d be doing this in his bedroom, but yelling on his phone for twenty minutes doesn’t fix the problem and he has no other recourse. 

Even secluded from the rest of the group for the night, Kaiba can still hear them. Loud laughter penetrates the walls, and Kaiba finds himself trying to pick Atem’s laugh out. What stupid jokes would he laugh at?

Eventually they go quiet, and in the silence of the house, Kaiba can hear Ryou clearly start to tell a ghost story. Juvenile, Kaiba thinks and wads up his designer trench coat and attempts to use it to cover his ears. Ghosts aren’t real. He just wants to sleep, so that he can make it to morning in the least torturous way possible, and then yell some more at whoever comes into the office. 

He does eventually drift off, only to be woken again by the sound of the door opening. He cracks an eye. The silhouette is either Yugi or Atem. 

“What?” he asks, voice coming out hoarse. 

“Jounouchi is scared of ghosts,” Atem answers, and Kaiba watches the light of his flashlight move towards the computer chair and work desk in the corner of the room. “He’s not sleeping, but I would like to.”

“But why do you have to sleep in here?” Kaiba gripes. They have just one floor of the mansion, but it’s still a mansion. Atem can go sleep in the indoor gym or something. 

“This chair looked comfortable,” is Atem’s response. 

Kaiba rolls over, attempting to ignore the sounds of Atem settling in, but he finds himself curious. “I’m surprised the almighty pharaoh didn’t just demand other people just leave.”

There’s a pause before Atem answers. “Jounouchi is my friend. I tried to comfort him by reminding him I was technically a ghost for his entire high school career. The reminder that he has proof that ghosts are real upset him more.”

Kaiba turns his head toward Atem ever so slightly. “They kicked you out,” he summarizes. 

“They kicked me out,” Atem confirms, and there’s the groan of the chair as he settles in. 

There’s footsteps outside, and the sound of people whisper-arguing as they move through the house. Anzu has apparently kicked all the boys out of the living room for being loud, and Ryou insists to Jounouchi that sleeping on a gym mat is the place in the house least likely to be haunted. 

“Yeah, but it’s haunted by Kaiba’s sweat,” Jounouchi complains. 

“Shh!” Honda shushes. 

Kaiba thinks about getting up to yell at them to shut up, but he’s tired and sure that Atem will steal the couch if he moves. Instead he focuses on the steady rhythm of Atem’s breathing. He eventually falls asleep. 

hour 18

Kaiba’s back hurts when he wakes. His phone is ringing. He sees the extension code of his office and answers immediately. 

“Updates?” he demands, not even waiting for whoever is on the other side to identify themselves. 

It’s the same idiot from yesterday. “Beta system is online and working,” he reports. 

Kaiba sits up and spends an uninterrupted fifteen minutes explaining to his employee just how very useless and stupid he is. The only reason he is not firing him on the spot is that apparently everyone with proper access is still out sick. 

“I guess you could just give me the passwords,” the employee suggests, without even the barest hint that Kaiba has made him cry. 

(Kaiba wants to make him cry so bad.)

Kaiba freezes at his words. He holds the phone away from himself and eyes it thoughtfully as the employee’s distant voice repeats the suggestion that he could just do the manual shut down himself if Kaiba gave him access codes and walked him through it. 

Atem is awake now, watching him curiously from the desk. He has Jounouchi’s ripped jacket laid across himself like a blanket.  

“What did you say your name was again?” Kaiba asks the employee, deadly calm. 

“Watanbe Ichiro, sir,” the employee replies, and then lists his official job title. Kaiba hangs up without further commentary. 

“That’s a dangerous look,” Atem observes, his little smirk tugging at his lips again. “Who are you going to destroy today?”

“Move,” Kaiba tells him, shoving the swivel chair aside. He pulls one of his spare laptops from a drawer in the desk and opens it, leaning on one hand on the desk while he impatiently waits for it to load. He should be able to access Kaiba Corp employment records on this. 

Atem scoots the chair back over and rests his chin on his hand while he watches Kaiba type furiously to locate Watanabe’s record. Kaiba finds he even has Watanabe’s CV, which lists him as previously being high up in a rival tech company Kaiba had intentionally run out of business. 

Watanabe Ichiro was hired roughly four months ago to main administration, to work not in a position suited to his training, but as a glorified coffee boy. One of his duties included fetching meals for upper level employees, which means he’d be in the perfect position to give an entire office food poisoning. He’d also have full access to most of the office’s schedules, including Kaiba’s. 

“Stupid,” Kaiba breathes out. 

“What?” Atem asks, and Kaiba slams the laptop shut. 

“Just some idiot trying to usurp my company again,” Kaiba replies. Or possibly just steal some Kaiba Corp assets and flee. Or maybe just get revenge on Kaiba by humiliating him by locking him in his own house. Kaiba didn’t care what the specific goal was; he was going to crush Watanabe no matter what. 

“What are you going to do?” Atem asks. 

Kaiba straightens up and glares down at his now shut laptop. Watanabe probably won’t let them out of the house, trying to force Kaiba to give him access Kaiba Corp’s mainframe. The food poisoning won’t last forever, though, and if he waits long enough, Kaiba will be able to contact another, trustworthy employee for help. 

Kaiba doesn’t think he can stand waiting. 

“I’m going to issue an ultimatum,” he says. “Are you ready for another duel?”

hour 20

The Beta System has a failsafe, designed specifically so that only Kaiba can use it. 

“You have to duel your way out?” Anzu repeats, incredulous. Next to her, Atem nods like this makes perfect sense, which of course it does. 

“We will have to be fast,” Kaiba says. “The basement facility is filled with security cameras, and so Watanbe will be able to actively monitor us. He might attempt to interfere with our escape.”

“Why didn’t you bring this up yesterday?” Yugi asks. 

Kaiba twitches. “It doesn’t matter,” he replies. “Are you cowards coming down with me or not?”

Of course they are. They always do. 

The basement of Kaiba mansion is mostly one large dueling area, with a viewing area above. There’s also a maze of cramped little rooms behind the area which hold the various machinery and computers necessary to run it. Kaiba needs every bit of available space and data dedicated to his very important duel facility, which is why he obviously can’t house command for his home security here. 

The failsafe is this: duel the AI, and then the isolation room connected to the trap door to the porch opens. There’s a ladder crammed into storage down here, and it will be easy enough to escape. 

“So only you can beat the AI…?” Yugi says, frowning at Kaiba in evident confusion. 

Kaiba has not, in fact, ever actually beaten the AI. He admits this in halting tones. This is one reason he hasn’t already attempted escape. 

“But I will win this time,” he concludes. “I have to.”

“I’ll duel with you,” Atem offers. “Just like old times.”

Kaiba wants to turn him down, to tell him this is his game and his victory. But then he remembers their unfinished duel, how it had been so close to the high he’d been chasing since battle city. 

“Fine,” he agrees. 

He and Atem take their positions at one side of the arena and the AI starts up. A hologram form Yugi flickers into being at the other side, flashing one of Atem’s smirk at them. 

“Is that…?” Atem starts, awkward. 

“Don’t you say a word,” Kaiba replies. 

Atem shrugs. “I’m flattered.”

Kaiba has dueled this AI a million times before. He feels he knows every secret it has, even if he has yet to figure out how to beat it. He therefore goes in aggressive as he always does. 

Atem seems more bemused than anything for the first two turns, as their opponent has a near-identical deck and the same mannerisms. It’s almost uncanny, to be able to compare this fake rival to Kaiba AI-generated perfect Yugi. 

But then Atem seems to get more into the groove of the duel, turning serious and suddenly switching up his own strategies. Kaiba watches in fascination as Atem draws out new secrets of Yugi’s deck he’d never considered. It’s like they both have the same compass, but Atem also has a map to go with it. Maybe… maybe there’s something to his crazy story about secretly being Yugi. 

When they win, Kaiba decides that whoever he is, Atem is even better than his AI-Yugi. 

Kaiba is panting with the adrenaline of his victory. The isolation room’s door, at the center of the arena, starts to creek open. Hologram Atem flickers in front of them. 

“No!” he says, his voice slightly off. “No, I won’t let you escape!”

The hologram charges at them. In Watanabe’s voice, it yells, “I will lock this whole place down!”

Kaiba grabs Atem's arm and yanks, hurling both of them towards the door to the isolation room. It’s stuck halfway open, and Kaiba shoves Atem inside before squeezing in himself. The door makes an obnoxious groaning noise and then slides shut again, locking them in. 

It is pitch black, and Kaiba realizes he didn’t grab the ladder. 

hour 23

I did get in contact with Kyoko-san, Mokuba texts. She said she’s weak but if she makes it through the morning, she’ll go in in the afternoon. 

Kaiba is seated on the floor of the isolation room, his face illuminated only by his cell phone screen. Tell her to be careful around Watanabe, Kaiba texts back.

He should probably call the police. He won’t though, because Seto Kaiba handles his own problems. 

Less than a meter away from him, Atem’s face briefly lights up as he checks the time on his own phone. He’d been texting and playing mobile games for the first hour of their isolation, but their phones only have so much battery life. 

He watches Atem’s eyes look up to meet his before the little blue light fades. 

“I was impressed with your AI of me,” Atem says into the darkness. “You even got the hair right.”

Kaiba snorts derisively. 

“You missed me,” Atem says, plain as day. Kaiba tenses, defensive, but Atem’s tone is almost… affectionate. 

“How could I miss you?” Kaiba sneers back. “You’re an imposter and a liar.”

“Am I?” Atem counters. 

“Obviously,” Kaiba mutters. Even if he has all of his rivals skills and all of his infuriating cocky attitude. Even if he has somehow perfectly mimicked his mannerisms. 

“Who else could be the first to beat your Blue Eyes with Exodia?” Atem counters. “Who else would duel you on a top of a castle? Would agree to duel you on top of a blimp?”

Kaiba shifts uncertainly. “Mutou Yugi,” he counters. 

He can’t see Atem’s face, but he can practically hear his eye roll.

“Yugi would,” Atem agrees. “But you know that wasn’t him. You’ve dueled him, haven’t you? You know we’re different.”

But the explanation still makes no sense, Kaiba thinks.  

“I missed you,” Atem suddenly admits. “When I was in Egypt. I wanted to see my friends, of course, but also…”

He trails off. The phone briefly illuminates again as he fidgets restlessly with it. 

“I wanted to duel you again,” he finishes. “No one challenges me like you.”

Kaiba’s stomach twists. He doesn’t know what that means, if it’s a negative or positive reaction. 

“Is there a game we could play, here in the dark?” Atem wonders. 

“No,” Kaiba replies. “Not unless you can imagine an entire chessboard in your head.”

Atem takes a few minutes to google chess and what the board looks like. He knows how to play, but it’s not as familiar to him as Duel Monsters. He takes a few moments to note how the spaces are numbered. 

“Alright,” he decides, “I can do this.”

They play chess, narrating moves out loud and keeping track of where the pieces are in their heads. Kaiba refuses to admit he’s impressed Atem can keep up with this and they only get into a debate over where an imaginary pawn is once. Kaiba hasn’t met anyone who could keep up with him in chess since he was a kid. 

Atem is good, but Kaiba is better. He feels disgustingly giddy with himself when he wins. 

“That was fun,” Atems says, a surprisingly fair loser. “Want to play again?”

[Full-sized imagine here.]

hour 24

The solution, it turns out, is easy but humiliating for them both. Luckily, there’s no one there to see them, and they can’t see each other. 

Atem stands on Kaiba’s shoulders to push open the trap door on the porch. The light is nearly blinding as it seeps in, and Atem nearly slips. 

“Don’t you dare,” Kaiba growls. 

Unlike Kaiba, Atem does not have access to a personal gym, and it takes a few minutes of struggling for him to pull himself out. Then he extends a hand down and helps Kaiba clumsily pull himself out as well. His rings are warm against Kaiba’s fingers. 

They sit on the porch for a few moments, staring at each other over the gaping hole of the trap door. Atem has bags under his eyes from a poor night’s sleep, and his hair is lopsided from not being able to do whatever he does to groom it. Kaiba is sure he looks no better. 

“I’m going into the office,” Kaiba announces, “to fix this fiasco.”

“Sure,” Atem agrees. “But do you want to finish our duel first?”

Kaiba doesn’t even hesitate. He doesn’t even care about the game mat. They lay their cards out, right on the porch. Kaiba gets through his first turn, hands shaking in anticipation, and his phone goes off. 

“Are you going to…?” Atem asks. 

“Just play,” Kaiba snaps. 

“Good,” Atem replies. 

The caller tries again twice more, and then Atem’s phone rings. He sighs, shoots Kaiba an apologetic look, and then glances at the screen. 

“Oh, it’s Ishizu,” he says, like that justifies anything, and then answers. After a pause, in confusion, he says, “Behind me…?”

Watanabe rounds the corner on the porch, disheveled with some sort of weapon in hand. Kaiba snarls, instinctually flicking a card from his hand at him in fury. 

“Ow,” Watanabe says, dropping his… gun? in surprise. 

Kaiba has dealt with this shit too many times in his life. He is tired and grumpy, and he was finally getting his damn duel. He launches himself at Watanabe, pining his face to the ground. The gun clatters away. 

“No, no, Kaiba’s got it,” Atem narrates to Ishizu, unruffled. He smirks at Kaiba, splayed out on the porch and undignified. Kaiba rolls his eyes. 

Watanabe yells some nonsense about Kaiba not getting away with how he humiliated him, and Kaiba shoves him down into the trap door and closes it. Atem has helpfully been guarding their cards from disruption from wind or random attackers. 

Atem does do the “responsible” thing and call Yugi. Apparently Watanabe had been trying to break in for an hour or two now, banging on windows, which had been frightening. Other than the scare, though, everyone is fine. 

“We can call the police and go to office after our duel,” Kaiba stresses. 

“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you,” Atem replies, sounding… bemused. Affectionate? Not mocking, somehow. “Do you want to redraw the card you threw?”  

“Shut up,” Kaiba replies, adding the card in question back into his hand. 

“Does this happen to you often?” Atem asks. 

“Like it happens to you less,” Kaiba retorts. 

Atem meets his eyes and smirks again. It really is the exact line of his rival’s smirk. The thought makes Kaiba’s heartbeat quicken. 

“Stakes?” Atem asks, drawing for his turn but not playing yet. “I could really use a visa sponsor…”

“Like I’d let you leave me again,” Kaiba snaps back. Atem raises an eyebrow. Kaiba feels his cheeks go hot, but he holds Atem’s gaze.  

“Alright,” Atem says, and his smirk morphs into something less cocky, more genuine. “For fun, then.”

“Dueling is serious business,” Kaiba replies, despite feeling… pleased by this answer. 

Atem snorts, and finally plays a monster card and a face down. 

“Dinner, then,” he replies. “Your turn.”

“You couldn’t afford the places I like to eat,” Kaiba replies, drawing a card. 

Atem flashes his teeth. “Good thing I’m not going to lose, then.”

Kaiba makes a smart remark about how he’s definitely going to win and then dump Atem’s crushed spirit down the trap door. He doesn’t admit he’d buy dinner either way.