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 For a deal that had been rescinded?!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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Um.

Excuse.

Sir.

When did he end up tuned in to a phone sex line? If the person on the other end was a little tipsy.

Look, don't judge him: the low burr of the man's voice with that gentle timbre was enough to jump down his pants and say hello so loudly that he needed to be reminded that this was Seto fucking Kaiba on the line.

...

Seto Kaiba.

Sexy.

Shit.

Right, right, he needed to say something...

Would breathily whispering back work:

"Yeah, I can hear you. Loud and clear."

"You don't have to whisper. Your voice is soft enough not to disrupt the audio," Kaiba responds plainly, but still with his tone kept quiet. The only reason he's doing it is because using his usual voice apparently made the audio crackle, and Mokuba had given him more than enough shit about it that now he moderated his tone!

He has no idea how it might be affecting his passenger, and it didn't matter, right?

"Secure yourself. I'll be takin' off in a few moments."

Yuugi should consider himself lucky that the cockpit dome is only now sliding shut with a pneumatic hiss, otherwise Kaiba might have looked at him in the reflection of the glass and seen him being highly affected by...Kaiba talking?!

Secure himself. Did that involve handcuffs, pinning him to bedposts? Because Gods, if he talked like that then he could get Yuugi to do whatever the hell he wante--

Oh for the love of every God that existed what the fuck was he saying. No, no, bad. He needed to secure himself with the damn seatbelt get your fucking brain out of the gutter holy shit!

"Aye aye, Captain." Yuugi chirped, trying not to think about how smooth his voice was. Whiskey was smooth, right? Or what kind of manly thing touched your skin like that and made you shiver?

Nnnngh.

Nnnnnghghghghghghghghghgh.

That...

...What the fuck is wrong with Yuugi? This time Kaiba does try to catch sight of him in the reflection of the dome as he does his flight prechecks. Because a normal person does not simply say "Aye aye, Captain" to Seto Fucking Kaiba.

"What's your problem?" he asks, and this time, his tone trends more towards normal. Enjoy the mic crackle, Yuugi. You did this.

Oh good, normality. Not Seto Kaiba speaking with his sexy fucking voice and breaking his brain (and dick) in the process.

As he buckled himself in, he scratched his cheek.

"Aha...was just making a joke? Sorry."

Because he was talking about the quip, right? Not about the part where he was squirming in his seat at the sound of Seto Kaiba's soft voice and his fucking

ASMR

BULLSHIT

"Hmmmmmm."

Dubious, doubtful noise. Try that for ASMR. But Kaiba's busy trying to take off from the top of his own building now, so he'll ignore Yuugi for the moment. And Yuugi can panic as he feels the engines power up and practically vibrate through the frame of the whole jet, maybe. That'd be because he's not capable of anything but a vertical takeoff from the top of the KaibaCorp building.

It's not exactly subtle, either, but it's likely surprising when they start to ascend straight up, and the landing gear loses contact with the ground. Then, it's up to Kaiba to hold his controls steady, which he does, surprisingly!

...But he is definitely drunk so when he shifts to horizontal propulsion after they've achieved decent height, he gives the afterburners just a little too much juice, enough to jolt even him against his seat as they shoot across the sky.

Oops.

This was a punishment for something. For what, Yuugi didn't know.

All he knew was that he was moving and clinging to his chair and his soul was ready to fly out of his body at the sheer power behind Kaiba's...

...

Thrust...ers.

Dammit brain, now was not the time to think about that! Especially when a single eject could kill him!

Thankfully Kaiba's "thrusters" are quickly removed from his control as he sets the autopilot. The speed evens out, as does the flight path, and he lets out a slow exhale, before relaxing in his seat.

"See. That was fine," he answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We're fine."

Yuugi exhaled, and...tried not to look like he was ready to ooze out of the seat.

He was ready, though.

Ready to turn into a puddle and melt into nothing as the autopilot urged him into the nearest trash can. Would he even survive this trip?

"Yep..." He mumbled. "Perfectly fine..."

"...Do you get airsick? Don't you dare throw up in my jet."

Kaiba seems pretty irritated at the thought that Yuugi might vomit in the jet, this is his BABY!

...That is, it was a very expensive jet, and he had no interest in having to get it professionally cleaned!!! NOTHING ELSE!!!

"If I got airsick, Battle City would have gone much differently," he said, "just... went a bit fast for a minute, that's all."

He was okay.

Very okay.

Just thinking about being in an enclosed space with Seto Kaiba, his ridiculous driving, and now the autopilot for an undisclosed amount of time.

"That's true. It's not as if the blimp was a smoother flight."

To be fair, the autopilot is doing a lot better than Kaiba would be at this time, not that he'd admit that. But it's a short flight in the Jet anyway, so they might as well talk to each other.

"Tell me 'bout your game," he says, and he almost sounds sober. But he's really not.

"My game..."

Something else to think about... good. He needed that. Especially with the circumstances, the ASMR voice, Kaiba's sobriety...

...

Everything.

"Oh! It's uhhh. It's a strategy game that's built on a spherical grid; imagine two or more players summoning monsters and battling it out for supremacy.

There are different modes where the players can be as complex and simple as they like; you can either focus on the simple act of conquest, you can manage the granular details of every area and unit, or somewhere in between. I wanted to make it where it was accessible to everyone's play style. The primary prototype works on the more complex variant, which can be scaled back as development needs allow. I know feature creep is a problem in game development, so I wanted to solve that problem by making the most 'complete' system first."

"Strategy, huh..."

Kaiba uses the cockpit dome to his advantage, glancing at Yuugi in curiosity as he explains the general rules. Just from the simple explanation, it sounds intriguing. More than that, it seems well thought out, enough that he's surprised Yuugi's holding the idea even now.

"Too bad you don't have the files with you now. My space station's good for...that kind of thing."

Thinking. Tinkering. Working things out, really. Even though, y'know. He also used the supercomputer to solve the Millennium Puzzle in hours. They don't have to talk about that.

"I have them," Yuugi said. "I, uh. Always take my latest version with me... and barring that, I back up the latest commits on the KCHub Repository database."

KC servers were safer than any other; the repository was an industry standard. Even companies like Schroeder Corp used them in their games division.

They had to pay a premium, of course. Individual devs like Yuugi had access to the repository for free.

"Oh."

Oh? Even he realizes how silly that sounds, and so he adds, "Well, then you can show me. If you're using my tools then I have the right."

As always, it's about Seto Kaiba, and not Yuugi Mutou. But hey, at least he's showing interest right? That's a win, in some manner!

"You want to see it?" Yuugi asked.

This should.

Not excite him. This should not make him excited, he wasn't ready he wasn't ready the game wasn't ready it was still in prototype and he wasn't ready to do the pitch yet he'd wanted to wait until it was far more polished to pitch it to KC AAAAAAAAAA

"I'd love to show you! The only person I've been playing is myself, and the AI is still being worked on, so having a live player for a playtest would be perfect! Especially if that player is you! After all, I designed the game specifically for Kaib--"

He coughed.

Ahem.

Maybe he shouldn't have said that part out loud.

Good thing Kaiba's not steering the jet at the moment, because something about Yuugi laying praise upon him like that while showing excitement about presenting his idea to Kaiba personally was doing something to him.

The warmth of the alcohol was already something he couldn't ignore, but the pride that seems to catch him alight from the inside out? Even more potent. He can't stop himself from grinning, really.

"Of course you designed it with my systems in mind, who else would you have run to? There's no company that can match what KaibaCorp does!"

He's practically preening.

The positive response, in turn, bolstered Yuugi's confidence. Because of course it did! Having Seto Kaiba not think he was being cringe or clingy for wanting to make his game for his company was something of a relief!

"Exactly!" Yuugi practically bounced on his feet, "KaibaCorp's infrastructure is the best in the business, and who better to work with me on my game than my favorite person to play with?! I wouldn't even enter tournaments if you weren't in them!"

Aha. What a thing to admit.

The most normal thing to admit.

Yup.

"...What?"

Okay, that one he couldn't quite let go. Like, go off Yuugi, of course that's legitimate, Seto Kaiba's the only real challenge in your life! But also: to just out and say it like that, it's a little much, isn't it?

"You mustn't play in too many tournaments then. Because I'm busy lately," he says, kind of circling around the awkwardness of the statement while still accepting the compliment.

Shit. That was weird, wasn't it?

Okay, okay.

Play it cool.

"Yup," he said, "No tournaments lately. No reason to go."

Because he wasn't there.

"You could be usin' them to stay sharp," Kaiba answers back blandly. In truth, he knows he'd be jealous of his inability to participate. It isn't as if he doesn't wholeheartedly devote himself to his work because he wants to, but even if he wants to do something else, the needs of his business have grown to be more important than the cards themselves.

It's not like he can just take a vacation, that'd be ridiculous. Everything with purpose, nothing frivolous.

Except...you know. This.

"Tch."

He prods at one of his screens in annoyance, and then lets out a sigh, before quietly murmuring:

"I miss the game."

"I could..." He agreed.

He could go, but he had other things to think about. He had the shop to look after, his grandfather to care for as he went up in years. He had his own game to think about, and the future that he was building for himself.

He didn't have time to play in the way he wanted, but...

He wanted to.

"And I...miss it, too."

I miss you.

"I've been busy, too. My game, the shop, and everything. Don't have as much time on my hands as I used to."

Kaiba thinks to himself, as he considers Yuugi's words, how he never walked with them during graduation. How it was Yuugi who gave the speech to their class, and not him.

Of course it would have been ridiculous. It didn't matter that he was the smartest one in their class and was tapped to give that speech himself, which he declined. It didn't matter that he was still a teenager. He didn't have time for the regular lifestyle of the high school student. His diploma was mailed to him.

Graduation day? He was elbows deep in negotiating a deal for upgraded circuitry for his Duel Disks.

Mokuba had been upset with him, of course. They had both always pushed each other to try and live a normal existence. Both had failed each other in those respects, but at the very least, Seto managed to keep Mokuba in school far longer than he kept himself.

Ugh. Why is he thinking of this now? It's never mattered! It wasn't important!

"Right..." he finally responds, too late though. Yuugi probably knows something's up. Damn it.

"We can play a game up there. In space. Almost there anyway, we should plan accordingly."

Schedules. Meeting. Planning. Nothing to chance. That's his way.

It did matter, though.

It mattered to Yuugi, though he never said it. It mattered to Yuugi that Seto wasn't there standing next to them at graduation, because he deserved to stand there, too. He deserved to make that final speech -- probably something about KaibaCorp, he'd joked, even as he tried not to let the disappointment show -- instead of Yuugi.

But he did his due diligence and gave the speech to the best of his ability, hoping that he'd at least see Kaiba once in the crowd, to hear him. To give him his silent approval (or even disdain) or something.

But...

He was clearly thinking about something. Was it work? What was it...?

He knew better than to ask, but he couldn't help but raise his eyebrow for a moment before schooling his face in his usual friendly smile.

"Yeah. Honestly...I can't wait to play with you. It's been too long."

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