kittensinboxes | Stars, In Your Multitudes [It's always Rival, lbr. Space Station Hours!]

Stars, In Your Multitudes [It's always Rival, lbr. Space Station Hours!]

It's been a good half a year since his trip to the afterlife, and all that it entailed. Kaiba's recovered from the loss by now, and business is back how it was.

Which meant, of course, that he dealt with irritations from time to time. Today was truly a shitshow, with a stubborn negotiator who tried to walk all over him on a business deal. Pity's to them that they're from out of town, because they learned very quickly that the young scion of Kaiba Corporation was not to be tread upon.

They both left without a deal, which would certainly put development on some of Kaiba's interests back by several stages, at least...unless he did the work himself. Which was not so easy these days, when he was mired in the politics of actually being the president of the company.

It's annoying.

It's boring!

Worse still, today's encounter had left him suffering under the influence of alcohol! And for what?! For a deal that had been rescinded?! What's the point of drinking if he doesn't even get a benefit out of it?

Aggravated, he taps his bracer perhaps a little too hard, and begins dictating a text.

Have you ever been to space

It is well past 9:30 on a weekday. That is a weird question to be asking of one Yuugi Mutou, isn't it?

Seto Kaiba doesn't give a good goddamn if it is. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO SPACE YUUGI?

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It was a weird question, but one Yuugi Mutou hadn't exactly had normal sleeping hours ever since graduation. Working the afternoon shift at the game shop and spending his nights working on his own game made the man a night owl, to say the least.

It had been a long night, okay.

A very long night.

He'd been dealing with debugging his prototype for hours, because something was off with the blocking and the KCVR engine hated anything that wasn't built on a PC forged by the fucking G o d s.

When he got that text, his fingers flew over the keys and he didn't even stop himself.

No, but can I shoot your KC engine into the sun? It keeps giving me errors even though I've checked the compiler 30 times tonight.

... wait

What did he just text?!

Edited 2025-05-22 14:36 (UTC)

Hardware issue not my problem do you want to go to space

The way the words all run together is indicative of the fact that Kaiba's doing speech to text and that he's not bothering to do it right. Not that he texts Yuugi so often

...ever?

Is this new?!

But he's the kind of guy who texts with proper punctuation and all that, even when it isn't a business correspondence.

Hold on

What

Okay, this wasn't right. Did someone--did someone steal Kaiba's communicator? Or his cell phone?

Fuck.

And he texted that.

Be cool, it's fine. Seto Kaiba might be dead or kidnapped, but it's fine.

Time to quickly tap the call button before he lost his nerve to confront the asshole fucking with his friend's phone.

...

Friend?

Friend.

Sure.

Friend.

There was only a brief hesitation as Kaiba's phone goes off, overriding the text conversation, and that's mostly because he's taken by surprise.

"Why is he calling me?" he asked loudly of no one in particular. Thankfully, he did that before answering. But when he does...

"Why are you calling me?!"

"Oh thank the Gods, it's you! You're okay!"

The relieved breath came out before Yuugi could stop himself, really--

After all, he never texted him!

Much less asking about space.

"What's this about going to space?"

"Idiot, 'course I'm fine."

So fine. His voice is thoroughly straight and not the least bit slurred. He has never been more fine and in control of everything in his life, and he'll thank Yuugi not to accuse him of such ever again.

"Answer the question. Do you. Wanna go to space?"

Yup, fine. Fine and definitely not slurred. Not slurred at all.

Was he...

Was he drunk?

Couldn't be, right?

Seto Kaiba, drunk? He couldn't picture it.

"Sure."

You know what? Let's see where this goes. Can't hurt to humor a drunk Kaiba late at night, right? Besides, even if they didn't go to space and just ended up in Bermuda or something, he didn't have work...

Like he was going to be that spontaneous anyway.

"Good. Come to the KaibaCorp building, I'll meet you there."

Oh? He's very serious, it seems.

"Bring your deck. If I'm doin' you a favor the least you can do is make it interesting."

At the very least, it's very on-brand for Kaiba to just hang up after that, huh? And if Yuugi tries to call him back again, he's too busy to pick up the phone. Better to just show up prepared, right?

Because if he doesn't make it there within the next thirty minutes, Kaiba's going to harass him over text for wasting his time. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

If and when Yuugi shows up, he'll find Kaiba dressed to the nines as usual. He put all nine belts on by himself, even.

Ah.

...

S h i t.

Yuugi scrambled to get himself ready: white t-shirt, leather jacket, leather pants, favorite boots... did he look okay? He looked all right, right?

He was wearing something that was a bit more 'rocker chic' than his typical fare, but it went well with his collar and he really wanted to accessorize with his new deck holster!

Oh, right. Perfume. Marik sent him this Egyptian perfume that he said 'suited him', and he just had to try it, right?

(Why did he care?)

Okay, so here he was.

Clothes on point. Eyeliner? Popping.

Nails? Black and purple.

Earring? Dangling silver eye of Horus at the ready.

It took him 45 minutes to get there, but look. He had to get ready, okay? Don't judge him, Kaiba.

Kaiba loses track of time slightly, given his state of inebriation, and that's Yuugi's only chance of getting away with taking so long. Thus, his greeting is slightly less cold as it would be any other day.

"...You certainly dressed up for the occasion. Hah."

He's not ogling Yuugi, but he is appraising his appearance out of curiosity. Seriously...he looks like he expects something of this besides a duel. But of course, he's humoring Seto Kaiba of all people. This is NOT a date or anything.

"Come."

The taller man moves to the door of his building, taking a moment to disable the security and unlock the door. Then...in he goes.

"We'll have to travel to my earth station," he adds, doing his level best not to slur his words. "Then we can launch. It's not far."

Oh no. Was he serious after all?

Nope. Not a date.

They definitely weren't dressing up like it was a date. They definitely weren't appraising each other's outfits like it was a date.

They definitely weren't talking about things like they were--

-- actually going to space.

Wait, he was serious?!

They were just gonna... do the Thing and go to space.

Stay calm. This is. Very normal.

"Are we traveling by car?" He asked, following Kaiba inside.

They weren't... going via jet, were they?

"Of course not, why would we be going inside if we were traveling by car? Do you think I keep one in here?"

Kaiba scoffs, locking the door after Yuugi, then making his way to the elevator. The halls aren't lit, so funnily enough, Kaiba's using his phone to light their way.

He so very rarely holds it that it would probably be a true rarity for Yuugi to see it in his hands, and to find it a perfectly ordinary thing, protected by a KC brand case and nothing else.

"The sooner we're out of this building, the better. I've no interest in being here any longer than I have to."

Someone had a shit day at work.

The feeling was mutual, really. If he had to look at a screen for more than five minutes for the rest of the night, he'd see red in blueprints, linking everything together and strangling him until there was nothing left.

"That bad, huh?" He asked.

And paused.

"Me, too."

In different ways, probably. Kaiba had to deal with people on a completely different level than he did. He had to deal with men on the top of the world, likely trying to take advantage of someone so young and tough.

Look, if old people tried to take advantage of a retail worker to cut a better deal, then you bet your ass they did it in the business side of things, probably far worse so. Why else would Kaiba want to get out of the building, suggest something so ridiculous as going to space, and look drunk?

Something happened, poor guy.

("Poor guy"? What were you, friends? You barely talked after...)

Edited 2025-05-23 14:36 (UTC)

"You have no idea."

Kaiba had no interest in expounding upon that point, unfortunately. Hell, he's not entirely sure why he'd even bothered with this at all, offering to take Yuugi to space like this.

They weren't friends. They were rivals, and Kaiba respected him, but...

...he doesn't want to linger on any implications regarding the matter. He won't admit to anything so foolish and ridiculous.

(he's lonely)

They're at the elevator in no time, and Kaiba taps the button to make the doors slide open before leading the way in.

"What was so bad about your day?" he asked, with the same Kaiba attitude that betrayed his belief that nothing in another person's life could be so significant.

But he did ask, at least.

"It's not business deals or anything major, but..."

He asked, right? So that meant he could... talk. A little. Perhaps.

"I've been developing this...ah, prototype. It's been going well, really! But there's something in the engine that doesn't like what I'm doing when I try blocking out visual assets. I'd been fighting it for hours, and when I thought I had the answer, forty more errors came up! It was like cockroaches! And when I went to fix it something went wrong and I had to redo hours of work! I just got back to where I was earlier today when you called. I'm glad I take notes and that the judges are only going to see the finished product..."

"Judges? So then you're participating in a competition? Or..."

Is he participating in something else that would grant him funding of some sort? Kaiba hasn't really had time to get mixed up in that kind of thing, he had to much backlog to deal with, and negotiations needed to be done with regard to upgrading the internals of his new Duel Disk design. True, original game design was no longer something he could do. Instead, he worked with what he had, until he could find time to tinker.

Knowing that Yuugi had a concept of anything at all was intriguing. He wants to ask about it, but giving any kind of indication that he wanted to hear more was dangerous.

The simple questions, like the one he just asked, would do for now.

Yuugi nodded.

"Y... yeah! You know that indie game competition in Germany? I want to enter my game next year."

Next year, so that it had plenty of time to cook. The prototype was nearly done, but he still needed at least another six months to create a vertical slice for the competition.

Because the whole point was...

"It's a multiplayer strategy game, so I'm not sure how well it'll go with audiences, but...I believe in it. And I want to show it to the world."

"That's...that's, ah."

Kaiba stumbles over his words, but not because he's curious, or impressed!! FUCK OFF!

...Actually, he's having trouble finding the word, given that he's pretty drunk.

"...Do you really think that you can get anywhere with your concept?"

Why is this elevator going so slow?! How is he going to get out of explaining that he did not, for once, mean that in a derogatory manner so much as a legitimate inquiry?!

Yuugi scratched his cheek.

Yeeeaaaah, he expected Kaiba to be skeptical. Well, that was fine. If he couldn't impress Seto Kaiba, then how was he going to end up getting this game greenlit by Ka--

You know.

Just any company.

Just any multibillion dollar company.

"...Yeah...I believe in my concept. It's still getting tweaked, but I know I can do it. Spherium might not be the next Duel Monsters, but it will be a great game that will bring players young and old together.

"It'll also be a great addition to the growing library of games using Solid Vision and the KCVR engine."

"You..."

It doesn't sound accusatory. Kaiba's legitimately surprised that Yuugi is building a game with his proprietary tools.

He should have known before this. He's Seto Kaiba, the world's biggest ego and control freak, and he didn't know Yuugi was using his things. It made sense of course, that Yuugi's setup couldn't run his engine. Hadn't he mentioned before...?

Ugh. Maybe he really had overdone it today, with the work and the drinking.

The elevator dings, signaling their arrival to the roof shortly before the doors open. A light breeze ruffles Kaiba's coat, before he shakes his head free of whatever thoughts were rattling around in his buzzed mind and walks out into the open.

...Towards his jet.

He is going to fly them.

Yuugi can't stop him.

That.

That was.

That was the KC Dragon Jet.

That Kaiba could fly.

...

He was going to fly them to the station. On the jet.

While...

While drunk

"The...jet?" Yuugi squeaked. "We're taking the jet?"

Yuugi Mutou was allowed too set foot in the ostentatious symbol of a teenager with too much wealth and intellect and too little maturity?!

"You keep askin' foolish questions when faced with the reality of the situation," Kaiba responds sharply, reaching into his jacket for the key fob he had specifically made for this jet, as if it was a car. A quick click and the engines pre-start, before they even get into the cockpit.

"It's a short flight," he adds, as if that'll make anything better, but he's not worried, why should Yuugi be?

Foolish questions.

Ah, yes, the foolish question of 'WHY IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK WAS SETO KAIBA DRUNK DRIVING A JET THIS LATE AT NIGHT'. Surely a question that didn't need answering, for it was an obvious thing.

Yes.

Definitely.

"I'm not worried about it being short," Yuugi said, "But...have you...flown your jet drunk before?"

Please tell him this wasn't a normal thing.

"I'm not drunk," Kaiba immediately shoots back, as if it's the most natural thing to say when you are, in fact, under some kind of influence. "And besides which, all I have to do is take off and land. It has autopilot, idiot."

Rude???

...Wait, this is Seto Kaiba, and let's be real, he is nothing but rude. Would Yuugi even be surprised by this revelation?

Ah yes, the 'I am not drunk' routine. Clearly Yuugi has never heard this before from drunk patrons at his game shop or from various Domino passers-by.

Gods, how hard it was to respond with an "if you say so", but even when dealing with a drunk and strangely friendly Kaiba, he knew not to push his luck.

This was a bad idea.

This was a really bad idea. Seto Kaiba, doing liftoff and landing? In his jet??? While intoxicated???

This was the mother of bad ideas, and yet Yuugi was about to jump in this shit with both feet because what he said next wasn't the 'hell no' that should have come out of his mouth, but a cheeky "Autopilot, huh...I'll make sure not to fall asleep on the way, then."

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