kittensinboxes | I Ended Up Losing And It's All His Fault

I Ended Up Losing And It's All His Fault

Kaiba had gone to the afterlife. He'd finally achieved his dream, and in doing so, faced his eternal rival in combat.

It was never meant to be permanent, of course, but he hadn't neglected to consider the possibility that he might struggle to come back intact. Before launching across dimensions, Kaiba had set his affairs in order, although only Isono was privy to what that meant.

If he was gone for more than a month, his shares would be converted into Mokuba's name, thereby protecting the interests of Kaiba Corporation. At this point, Mokuba would be appointed interim Chief Executive Officer of KaibaCorp.

If he was gone for two, then Mokuba would formally inherit the business in its entirety, with Isono overseeing most functions from day to day with stricter clauses added to his work contract that would disallow him the chance or ability to destabilize Mokuba from his position, which would still be interim CEO for all public records.

From that point on, the changes were only reversible on paper if Seto returned within a year from the launch date. If not, Mokuba really would inherit the business as the true CEO. He'd meant it when he said he was leaving it all in his brother's hands. What else could you say when you intended to launch yourself at speed from your own space station, with no full guarantee that you wouldn't impact, rather than travel across dimensions?

It wasn't a smart idea from the start to do that, and although Kaiba had achieved his goal metaphysically, the reality was that he had, in fact, launched himself from a space station down to earth. The impact was real, and while the safety features of the pod offset a great deal of the damage, he didn't escape unscathed.

The wreckage was found half a day later, bored sixty feet into the ground. Kaiba had been pulled from it and immediately hospitalized for his injuries which ranged from mild bruising to broken bones, specifically his legs and one arm. His resting heart rate had settled at 130, which was...less than ideal, and needed to be treated.

For the next 3 months, he remained in the hospital in a private room paid for by Mokuba, away from prying eyes and off the general record so that he could heal from his injuries and reawaken healthy but still remain incognito. The former worked out, but waking up...well, Kaiba simply wouldn't. His brain activity was elevated, and his heart rate often spiked, but Mokuba, at least, knew what that meant. He'd pulled his brother from their Neural Network inches before a severe cardiac episode before.

If his vitals were behaving that way, then he got what he wanted--he got that final contact with Atem that he'd been denied due to fulfilling his own dream of spreading Kaiba Land all across the world.

What happened was anyone's guess.

But after three and a half months, Seto Kaiba finally opened his eyes, and the light made his head ache. His heart rate was finally at a level that didn't indicate atrial fibrillation, and although he was pale, thin, and exhausted, he'd finally made it back where he belonged.

He was back home--no. He was...back in a hospital. Why a hospital? Why wasn't he home? Surely, he couldn't have been gone for more than a week or so, right? The dimensional connection had been flimsy at best, and he'd had to spend his time with Atem as quickly as possible.

So why were his limbs heavy? They felt wrong. So much felt wrong, and his eyes wouldn't open all the way, but he can make out a blurry image if he just...forces them to move. Someone...?

"Mo...ku...ba?"

Ugh. No, even his voice sounds awful. The muscles of his throat feel stiff, his voice is hoarse from disuse, and he'd barely managed to say his brother's name, to see if it really was him, or...maybe someone else.

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Kaiba would have probably been satisfied to stay the way he was, letting the patchy redness fade from his cheeks before he ever turned back to face the world. But Yuugi...of course he finds the one thing that would draw Kaiba's attention.

A game.

Is he ready to play a game...? No. No, he really isn't, but his duelist's soul would never allow him to accept anything else. He yearned for challenge, for what constituted as normal in his mind.

"A game, huh?" he asks, and there's something to his voice, something raw and painful that hasn't quite abated. "You want to play a game with me?"

There really was nothing he could do to push these two completely away. Even his behavior the night prior had been overlooked, because they still wanted to welcome him back to this realm.

Make him feel as if he belonged again. Even when he'd landed broken and soulless. He'd been away for so little, but so long all the same.

"In a moment," he finally concedes, reaching a hand up to wipe at what moisture remained. "I'd never back down from a challenge."

Least of all from Yuugi. And least of all now. It's not just about the challenge, but who's offering it, and why, and when. Nothing's ever been more important than this moment, and balancing the need to acquiesce to repay a debt with accepting because he'd never turn down a true challenge.

Yuugi pretended that he didn't see the way his friend rubbed his eyes or the sound of his voice. Just a dragon would not want to be reminded of a scar or old wound, so too would Kaiba not want him to notice any shreds of pain.

Even if his fingers itched to wipe that wetness away.

(Normal. A totally normal thing.)

"Take your time," Yuugi said, "I'd need to get it set up anyway. Mokuba, do you--"

Mokuba tried to hide his smirk, opting instead to give Yuugi a knowing smile that he seemed to pointedly ignore.

Oh.

Oh he wanted to show Seto that.

Where was the anxiety when Mokuba first puppy-eyed him into showing it off? When he told him his brother would love it? And he tripped over himself with so much embarrassment that he might as well have exploded?

Gone, apparently.

Just as he knew it would be.

He was already walking over to the stack of games, grabbing the unlabeled one.

"You're gonna love this, bro." He said instead. "Yuugi's been... you know what? I'll let him explain it."

Yuugi took the box and cradled it to his chest like a beloved child.

"It's... something I've been working on. A physical prototype of a game I designed."

Kaiba does take his time, and would have even if he hadn't been told to. He stays turned away, breathing in and out to calm himself and push back the pitiful emotional response he'd had just from being wanted.

He was Seto Kaiba. He rebuilt an entire company for the better. He was a master of games, the best Duel Monster's player alive. He was an innovator, an inventor, the one this world needed to break it free from the shackles of human weakness.

Tears? He had no more tears to shed. He would reclaim his throne...with time. He had time now, his goal finally met.

It had nearly cost him everything...but he was too stubborn to die.

Once he feels ready, he turns back to face Mokuba and Yuugi, even sitting himself up completely.

He can't see himself, but there's something still jarringly small about him, something incongruent about his appearance and who he is. And yet...

"You've made a game already? Even with the setbacks?"

"I'm working on making a digital version," Yuugi said, "But I'm using this to fine-tune the ruleset and mechanics. It's easier to have a physical prototype to work with while I'm still learning how to use KC's solid vision engine."

Gods, and was that an undertaking. Everything was so complex but beautifully designed; sometimes Yuugi just played around with the tutorials -- set up like games with a Seto Kaiba AI -- to get to know the engine better.

It was fun.

He sometimes found himself looking forward to learning...

"This is the most complete version of the ruleset."

If it's a game...Kaiba can't help but be curious. Games were life, winning was success, and failure was tantamount to death. Games were the ultimate arbiter. But more than that, they were windows to the soul.

What window had Yuugi created?

"Show me," is all he says. But his eyes, they're sharp and focused, or as focused as they can be in this state.

Mokuba was already pulling out a foldable game table, designed to allow someone to play board games in bed. It looked to be designed to Kaiba's specific tastes, painted in pristine whites and blues with dragons carved into the wood.

A gift from Yuugi.

"I want to do this with a 3-D map..." Yuugi said, "But as a board game, it works better like this."

A round board.

Dice.

Cards that look suspiciously like duel monsters cards.

"This game's called Spherium."

Seto's eyes the table with a strange look on his eye. Had...Mokuba planned this? Had he meant for Seto to wake up and feel less awkward in his bedridden state, and so provided him with something to make him feel normal?

It had to be him, right?

He wants to ask...but he doesn't. Instead, he watches as the board is set up before him, his hands settled in his lap. He doesn't have to move yet. He's just watching. Listening.

Seeing the game and its parts, and trying to decipher how it all works together.

"Spherium."

He's eying those cards. How do they fit in?

"How is it played?"

"It's a strategy game," Yuugi said, "Where two or more players face off against each other in order to capture territory from their opponents. They summon monsters which can be used as troops, and each troop type has their distinct advantages and disadvantages."

He arranged the cards in four piles.

"Eventually each nation will have an ace, but I'm still fine-tuning the base rules."

He pointed to each pile in turn.

"Dragons, Tree Folk, Fiends, and Humans. I'm adding more as I go."

He went over the more intricate rules, next: how attacks worked, how to find weapons on the battlefield and use them to your advantage, how to conquer territory. How to form (and break) alliances with other players.

This was a game of wits rather than of brute strength: a game against strategists rather than warriors.

"Mokuba tends to play as the humans, and I usually use the Fiends. We can deal you in as the Dragons."

Kaiba listens intently, offering very little in turn. He's internalizing the rules, already formulating strategies based on what information he's been given. It's like breathing to him.

But he also seems mildly distracted. His hand traces along the patterning on the table closest to him, and while Yuugi continues to explain, he shifts one leg upward towards him, bending it at the knee.

The pain that blossoms forth is enough to make him jerk in the bed, but only slightly. He keeps it under control. He doesn't betray how much it actually hurt.

"...Dragons. Yes."

He is interested. He wants to play the game, but he's not drawn in entirely yet. There's a great deal still on his mind, not the least of which is his feelings about Yuugi and Mokuba still being here.

Is a game really the thing they should be doing right now? Isn't that...rewarding bad behavior?

Yuugi's eyes flicked towards Kaiba's leg. He was shifting, acting slightly distracted...

Was he in pain?

"Does it hurt?" He asked. "The table, I mean. Does it...hurt? If it's uncomfortable, I'll grab a tea table or something."

"I told you that thing was a bit too heavy," Mokuba sighed. "But noooo, you saw the dragons and had to get it."

"Mokubaaaa..."

"You bought this, Yuugi?"

That definitely draws Kaiba out of his reverie, and earns Yuugi an incredulous look that is much easier to read with Kaiba's hair unkempt as it is. The way one eyebrow cocks up in a questioning manner is hard to miss.

"Why would you do that?" he asks, practically demanding it. "It's not your responsibility to cater to my desires, and this--it couldn't have been cheap. Your paycheck is better spent on things for yourself."

All of this probably sounds very ungrateful to the untrained ear, but...no. No, that's just Kaiba being skeptical as usual. And he doesn't answer as to whether the table's too heavy, at that.

It's not. He's the one that hurt his own leg by moving it. But that's not important.

Man, wasn't this awkward.

Kaiba wasn't wrong, though; it was expensive. It wasn't exactly "kill my paycheck" pricey, but it was definitely...more than he normally would have spent on something like that.

Yuugi averted his eyes and scratched his cheek. My, was that the hint of a blush on his cheeks?

"I just... thought you would like it. The design made me think of you, you know? Sometimes you don't need a reason to want to do something nice for someone."

"Someone. Just 'someone'? I wouldn't do that."

He scoffs, glancing down at the table. There's a conflicted look on his face as he runs a slender finger along the edge of the table, tracing one of the designs.

"The workmanship is acceptable. The theming is within my interests."

But he still doesn't get it. He doesn't get you, Yuugi. They aren't friends, and giving a person who isn't your friend a gift doesn't seem right. But then...he'd been held in Yuugi's arms just minutes ago, hadn't he? He'd accepted that, and allowed himself an emotional release.

Maybe that's why this wasn't sitting right with him--it was too much, too quickly.

"Thank you, I guess," he mutters.

Mokuba gives his brother such a look at that. Sometimes...he can't with you, Seto.

...is it sad that was one of the nicest things Kaiba ever said to him? At least verbally?

Probably.

It was a thank-you, and he wasn't one for niceties. Rude and backhanded that it was, that meant he liked it, at least.

Yuugi's cheeks darkened.

Why was his stomach so warm?

"Well, you hate the 'f' word, so...figured I wouldn't use it?"

Even though Yuugi used that word constantly while Kaiba was in a coma. Even though he took pictures of things he thought Kaiba would want to see when he woke up.

"And um. You're welcome. I'm glad you like it."

"I'm not an infant. Just say friends."

Though Yuugi is right, he doesn't like that word. That's exactly what he was thinking about after all.

"Come on, let's play the--"

The door to the room opens, and there's the morning nurse, looking chipper. He gives a quick bow before addressing the three before him.

"Good morning, Mr. Kaiba. And Mr. Mutou and...Mr. Kaiba!"

See, this is why Isono used their first names when they were at work. Regardless, the nurse moves closer and starts fussing over Seto, checking his IV only at first...and although he doesn't immediately move the table atop Seto's lap, he does seem to be thinking about it while he asks how Seto's feeling, along with taking note of his vitals.

Unlike yesterday, Seto was quite compliant with any questioning. His behavior from yesterday seems to have been forgotten, in favor of attempting to get discharged appropriately and expeditiously.

The nurse assured Kaiba he'd be sending in the doctor within a short period of time, which seemed sufficient to assuage him, then went to make his way out of the room. He paused at the door however, and offered some advice:

"I think you might want to put the table elsewhere, Mr. Kaiba. It can't be doing any good for your knees."

And then he's gone.

"Aha... let me... get that..."

He should have realized that it would have caused problems. Stupid, stupid! He was so excited to try to bring him back to some level of normalcy that he hadn't considered--

"Nope," Mokuba plucked it from Yuugi's hands before he could even walk two steps. "Sit. I'll bring something that's a bit more bed-worthy."

Yuugi did, in fact, sit.

He was used to the younger Kaiba by now; he refused to take no for an answer, like his big brother.

Once the nurse is gone, Kaiba is left frowning at the table, his gaze following the spread of cards before Yuugi and Mokuba take it away. The man had been right, without the pressure, his legs felt marginally better. It hadn't bothered him in a way that was painful enough to bring up to the others, but there was a difference.

He reaches a hand down, to shift the blanket off one leg, but he hesitates instead. He feels very nearly as small as he's sure he looks, and he doesn't want to be seen this way. But...he turns to look at Yuugi.

"You have seen what's under here, haven't you? Both of you..."

Maybe it's less that he doesn't want to be seen, and more that he doesn't want to see it himself, because then it presents the hard limit on him that he's trying to overcome. Seeing what lies beneath will bring Kaiba crashing into reality harder than he'd crashed into the ground.

For a moment, Mokuba and Yuugi look at one another.

Another side effect of being so close to one another for even this period of time: they can have conversations with their eyes and gestures. Mokuba shrugs his right shoulder, as though beckoning Yuugi to start talking.

"You start. I'll follow."

"Ah...yeah." Yuugi swallows. "Your legs were crushed in the impact. They managed to prevent amputating them, but..."

"You're gonna need surgery to get them working like they used to," Mokuba finishes.

They're not saying the silent part out loud: he can't walk. He doesn't have the capacity to put weight on his legs, much less move, even with assistance.

Kaiba feels as if his chest is in a vice.

They'd known...all along they'd known and saw him try to get out of this hospital anyway. Of course they'd let him rail against the doctors, why bother to reason with a madman who couldn't even walk, and didn't even realize it yet?

He shifts the sheet off of one leg, and the way that his eyes widen, the way every single inch of his upper body tenses as if someone's run a current through him...? It's probably disturbing.

He covers up again, but the sight can't be erased. The bruising was mostly gone--where it wasn't being caused by the external fixators. Metal cages with rods driven into his ruined legs, helping to straighten his mistakes.

He'd seen Atem, as he wanted. And he paid the price for it.

The monitor tracking his heart rate and respiration lets out a warning beep, which builds into a steady cadence. He won't look at it, to see that the levels are rising. He refuses to acknowledge it at all. He won't internalize how it makes him feel.

He just turns to Yuugi and Mokuba, hands clenching at the sheets, and again, he looks so small. So human. His eyes are frantic.

"Show me the game," he demands. "I want to see the game."

Only the game, and not anything else. He wants the images burned out of his mind now. NOW!

"Okay."

Yuugi spoke slowly, with a slight lilt; he'd seen those eyes before, but they were not on Seto Kaiba's face. They were on the little brother's.

Second verse, similar to the first.

Mokuba was already moving, pulling out the game again but spreading it along a pair of side-tables that sat on the edge of the bed.

Anything to take attention away from...that.

"This was designed to be played in a 3D space," Yuugi said, setting the pieces and cards on the board. "But making a 3D board was far too difficult and unwieldy for what I wanted to do; not to mention expensive if I wanted to manufacture an analog version."

A subtle joke. Something to possibly distract Kaiba from his thoughts.

"Would you like to play against me and learn the rules as we go, or would you want to watch me and Mokuba play one and have us explain what we're doing?"

"Play me," Kaiba says almost immediately. He doesn't mean to cut Mokuba out of the equation, but even his little brother can tell that he needs this. It's written all over his face, how he needs the distraction.

Yuugi's joke is lost on him, clattering into the abyss of his anxiety--anxiety?!

Kaiba doesn't feel anxiety. Even when faced with death, he stood tall--

--but you need legs to stand, don't you? And he doesn't have working legs. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

"I'll figure it out. Just...give me the cards."

Not so much a dragon as a grounded, pathetic salamander, is he? But he clings to this game, letting Yuugi take the first move, to explain the rules to him. He only needs the barest help, he's prided himself on being the best gamer in Japan and he doesn't need to be coddled over not knowing the exact way the game works.

He picks it up well enough to force Yuugi onto the backfoot early on, at least. A fitting distraction, to be able to fight and win.

He can almost forget the ache in his legs, and where that originates from.

Almost.

Honestly, Kaiba was a natural. If the circumstances were a little different, Yuugi could have found himself truly losing himself in the experience.

He'd thought about Kaiba a lot while making the rules, while thinking of the monster types and how to move around the terrain--

Yuugi was on the backfoot early on, but he knew how to turn things around by using the terrain to his advantage. He set up a pincer attack, but he knew Kaiba would get out of it. He hoped he would; that way he could fall for his actual trap...

Mokuba meanwhile bit his lip, sitting off to the side.

Yuugi'd often talked about how he'd hoped their first game would go, but...it was a little sad that it was in the throes of an anxiety attack. Still, Seto needed this.

Heck, Yuugi needed this, too.

It was through games that the two of them communicated best, after all.

It was like breathing, to play the game...but his moves weren't the best, despite all efforts. He almost fell to the pincer, with no way out, but at the last moment, he rose to the skies, where his units would work best.

But even then, his attacks were too straightforward. It wasn't nearly as much strategy as it was bruteforcing, trying to break the back of Yuugi's forces in the most direct manner possible.

Blue eyes seemed intently focused on the cards, but they had a manic glint to them, something betraying that his heart's only partly in the game.

...Mostly in the game, at the very least. He's not trying to disrespect it.

But he's not all there. He's easy to distract.

It was obvious that he wasn't all in it, but that was okay.

This, in its own way, was how Yuugi communicated that he didn't care what Kaiba's body was like now, or how long it would take for him to walk again.

Kaiba was more than his body. He was more than the things he could do in the moment. He was power personified, a force of nature that could not be hampered and could only come back stronger. His ambitions and foolhardiness sent him to the ground and made him a grounded man, but Yuugi knew it was temporary.

It always was with Kaiba.

That was one of the things he admired about him, after all.

His tenacity.

His ability to turn almost any situation to his favor.

Even when he was half-in it with a game he didn't know, he still played incredibly well...

But Yuugi performed his coup de grace, and secured himself a victory.

Kaiba in another situation might have reacted differently to loss. He wasn't fond of losing, but he'd long since learned to accept it when it happened, and fixate on achieving victory in the future to settle the matter.

That's not what he does this time.

This time, when Yuugi takes him out, Kaiba slams his hands on the table, scattering the cards everywhere and letting out a frustrated snarl.

"Again!" he snaps, his eyes wide and practically vibrating. "I won't lose to you again!"

...Yeah he's not okay.

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