Chapter Text
It started with a call on a bright, sunny, slow Saturday.
“Do we make deliveries?” A glance to the glass case filled with cards, the bright BRAND NEW! stickers stark against the case’s metal. “Um, sure. Within a certain distance--”
A pause as the voice on the other end named a place far out of the way. Way, way, way too far out of the way.
“- Sorry, we don’t actua—huh?”
The voice repeated its interruption.
“You’ll… Huh?”
Again.
“Er. Uh. Really?”
Yes.
“… Okay. Okay! Okay, yeah, we can do that! When do you need them?”
As soon as possible, please, thank you. The address once more. Thank you, again. Good-bye.
“Good-bye!”
A click and Yugi couldn’t help beaming at the phone, the amount the caller had been willing to pay rattling around his brain. At his elbow, a spider monkey stopped futzing with a newer capsule monster game, peering up at her human. It could’ve been a fake caller, sure, but the area code came from the richer part of town, and if it wasn’t fake—the bonus would more than make up for the trek!
Though he sounded pretty young, didn’t he? What if…
…
“We’ve got to check it out.” Stated Izumi, the monkey. He set a hand on the newly added golden puzzle around his neck while he thought, somehow feeling buoyed by its presence.
What if…
Oh, who was he kidding? He’d be a much bigger liar if he said he wasn’t curious enough to at least bike over. Even if the kid didn’t have the money, that wasn’t something he could confirm until he was there.
Izumi grinned at him, her eyes big and interested.
Gathering up the requested Duel Monster packets, he bundled and packed them away into his backpack. Barely stopping to slip on his shoes, Izumi clambering quick to her customary spot on his shoulder, it was a borderline miracle he remembered to stop and yell, “I’m off to make a delivery, grandpa! Be back in an hour!” before taking off.
---
Pulling up to a mansion that looked straight out of a Victorian-era manga, Yugi worried for a moment that the call came from a spoiled kid who had stolen his mother’s credit card. It was a valid worry, he thought, as he tentatively approached the guard house and asked to be let in to see a Mokuba Kaiba.
A niggling sense in the back of his mind said he knew the Kaiba name from somewhere—hadn’t theree been a kid with that last name in their grade? He’d transferred away months before, Yugi thought—but he couldn’t put his finger on it before arriving. Even if he had, it didn’t look like it’d matter: the guard almost laughed at him on his request.
The guard’s daemon, a rough-ridged lizard of some breed, blinked lazily from its spot under the guard house’s desk lamp.
“Mokuba Kaiba?” An older man with salt and pepper hair, Yugi couldn’t help fiddling with his puzzle’s cord under the piercing gaze. “Is this a joke? You think you can just waltz in asking to see some kid?”
That wasn’t fair. Yugi opened his mouth to protest -
“I only need to drop off--”
- only to be cut off by a higher-pitched, “I think he can waltz right in because I did invite him.”
Both guard and Yugi turned their attention to the shorter new-comer. It was a little reassuring to notice the guard seemed as taken aback as he was.
In the ensuing silence, the kid shot Yugi a wide smile, sticking out a hand to him. “Hi. I’m Mokuba. You’re Yugi?”
Yugi awkwardly shook the hand, nodded. His eyes unconsciously jumped to the dart of a shadow into the kid’s tangled black hair. It had to be his daemon - it looked like some sort of bug.
“Great!” The cheer didn’t fit with the guard’s stony look of disapproval, but the kid seemed to be trying really hard. Yugi tried to shake off the oddity and smile back. It half-worked. “C’mon, this way. I’ll show you were you can drop off the stuff.”
Which was weirder than weird when Mokuba could have easily taken the card packets himself, but just as with the hand-shake (too adult by far – the kid couldn’t have been more than twelve!), Yugi didn’t have it in him to argue.
Izumi crowded close to his neck, her tail tightening around his neck. As always, she was the one to voice what he wished he could say. Kindly, she kept her voice to his ears only.
“I don’t like the feeling of this…”
His hands found the puzzle again, his nod impeccable against her warmth.
The mansion had been deceptive: for all its vastness on the outside, the façade was nothing compared to the maze inside. They passed more rooms than Yugi would’ve believed possible to furnish, weaving from a silk-curtained lobby to party-sized dining room to two book-packed studies, and then they climbed stairs to the second story. Passing a luxurious bedroom, Yugi caught sight of a maid straightening the sheets through a door slightly ajar. Positive though he was that his eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates, he couldn’t feel too bad about it. The kid definitely had enough money to pay what he’d named over the phone. Incredible.
Mokuba, though his acting tour guide, spoke no more than eleven words the entire time. Yugi kept up a quiet conversation with Izumi to fill in the silence.
“How many servants do you think work here?”
“I don’t know… At least a dozen.”
“Can you imagine what the kitchens must look like? Wow!”
By the time they stopped outside a closed dark wood door, Yugi felt more at ease. However, the boy turned abruptly enough to throw Yugi off-balance, the teen nearly ran into the younger kid, who in turn grimaced and glared as if he’d knocked them both to the ground. He opened his mouth to apologize, but – again, interrupting – Mokuba waved his hands dismissively before a single syllable made it out.
“It’s fine.”
It didn’t sound fine…
“I have your money right here.” And so he did, pulling several triple-zero bills from his pocket as if paying triple the Duel Monster going price was no big deal. Yugi hastily dug into his backpack for the bundled cards, feeling a little foolish for not doing that sooner. As he withdrew the envelope, though, Mokuba cleared his throat and added, “But before you go, I want you to duel me.”
Yugi paused. Blinked.
Had he just heard…?
He must’ve heard wrong.
“Sorry?”
“Duel me.” Mokuba repeated again, as if it wasn’t so weird a request. Except maybe it was – the boy’s cheeks were spotted in red, as if embarrassed. “You can duel, can’t you?”
Hands raising in a defensiveness he didn’t know he felt, his words stammered out. “W-well, I can, but I don’t have my deck--”
Mokuba waved his hand dismissively, again. “That’s fine. I bought enough we can both build a quick deck. It’ll be like in the tournaments.”
“A draft play?” Yugi offered, the whole exchange feeling surreal.
Mokuba’s mouth twitched upward, but then, as though catching himself, he tried to smooth away the smile and look—stern. Or something like it. “Yeah. A draft play.”
He must’ve sensed Yugi’s further hesitation, because he added quickly in a wheedling voice: “Come on! What do you have to lose? It won’t mean anything. It’s just a game.”
Before he could think twice, a tentative, “Okay,” slipped out. Izumi’s hold tightened on his jacket.
In contrast, Mokuba looked as if he’d been handed the world. He hopped a step back, twisting to turn the door’s knob with a, “Perfect! There’s a table in here! Come on!”
The room inside could have been coated in gold and not looked more impressive, or more impersonal. The bed a deep four-poster, its curtains a rich blue silk; the desk the same dark wood as the door and as the bookshelves, which were fill to burst with books; even a couch set by a coffee-table, the papers atop the later neat and organized, the throw pillows on the former arranged perfectly. There was a shut closet to the side, but its carved wood might have been worth a hundred thousand yen even without whatever was inside. A gorgeous iron bird stand stood by the window, its occupant an immaculately groomed crow. It must’ve been the teen’s daemon, though it looked about as interested in the teen as it did in the new arrivals (which was to say, not at all). The room looked like something out of a magazine. Aside from the crow, it didn’t have a speck of personality.
An older teen sat at the desk, typing furiously into a dual monitored computer. Their arrival didn’t interrupt his typing. In fact, the teen didn’t even acknowledge them.
It made Yugi feel awkward not to even say hello, but Mokuba, after shooting the figure a look Yugi couldn’t describe, ignored the teen as well.
As it turned out, they had enough Duel Monster packets for three draft play styled decks. Mokuba babbled in a way he hadn’t before, transforming into the very picture of a boy excited for a game. Yugi slowly relaxed, the game-focused small talk an easy, friendly topic. Before they finished making their decks, Mokuba shot the working teen another glance – “He looks like he wants to ask something,” whispered Izumi; Yugi agreed – while they picked their cards, but soon enough the duel began, and then all his attention was on the field.
Mokuba was pretty good. Somehow, he’d gotten two copies of Mirror Force in his deck – it made the duel go on longer than it would have. The boy’s downfall came to his reliance on brute force, though – he wasn’t adequate at using traps or spells, and soon enough, Yugi’s monster struck the last blow.
“Good game,” he said with honesty, but the black haired boy only scowled as he shuffled his graveyard back into his deck. All the earlier joviality from the boy disappeared.
“Again.”
The demand shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is. Black eyes glare up at him – by his ear, a beetle shifts into a bat with needle-thin teeth, though it does little more than look at Yugi and Izumi.
The feeling of wrong from the first time he’d walked in returns a hundred fold; Izumi shivers, standing higher on his shoulder. She wants to go, he can tell. But the boy—
“One more! A rematch!” – Wheedles, voice verging on begging. His hesitance breaks under the demand, eyes turning down. Izumi huddles closer.
“Okay, okay. A rematch.”
In the corner of his eye, the puzzle’s sharp edge catches the window’s light.
The second duel is a disaster of strategy on Mokuba’s part. He seems rattled, off-balance, and the nervousness in turn makes Yugi’s stomach flip-flop, his shoulders hunching in the more agitated Mokuba grows. At one point, Yugi opens his mouth to make a suggestion on what card to use, but thinks better about it when a third Mirror Force appears on the field.
“Is he cheating?” Izumi whispers, clinging tight to Yugi’s hair. Mokuba’s daemon’s eyes snap toward them, giving Yugi a jolt. He swallows, and decides not to comment.
He wins again, though by the skin of his teeth. Mokuba threw the cards on the table, making him jump; the boy then bit his lower lip and stared for a long stretch of silence at seemingly nothing. Yugi fidgeted in spot, thinking distantly he needed to get back before his grandpa started worrying.
Mokuba came back to himself not too long after. He paid Yugi in full, though he once more clammed up. What was more, he wouldn’t look Yugi in the eye. Before they left, Mokuba paused and again glanced back, his lower lip caught in his teeth once more.
The other teen hadn’t once paused in his work (which looked outrageously complicated, all spinning graphs and charts and evaluations). Their exit changed nothing.
And yet, after a second of looking – “We could play later.” – Mokuba spoke with caution.
The teen at last paused in his typing. Yugi blinked, expecting him to turn around and agree.
Instead, the voice so cold Izumi squeaked in surprise:
“Get those useless things out of my room.”
Mokuba said two words to him on the way out – thanks and bye - with his eyes trained on the floor and his hands balled tight at his side. His daemon became a raggedy coyote, pacing in irritation around them as they walked. He let Yugi go at the gates; he turned on a heel and didn’t look back.
The guard was the same, curling his lip up at Yugi’s small wave as he left. His lizard daemon blinked lazily on their departure, absolutely silent.
It was an all-around discomforting experience, with the money made not coming even close to easing the tight feeling in Yugi’s chest.
It wasn’t until he was back in the gameshop, which had grown incredibly busy while he was gone (“Of course, the moment you have to leave! And where were you for so long?” asked his grandpa in between hauling in more crates of Duel Monster cards), that he managed to shake off the cold feeling the mansion had put into his bones and set the events aside as just plain weird.