Chapter Text
I’m not fond of launch parties. The fawning and scraping are bad enough on a normal day, but it’s worse in a “casual,” setting with liquid courage. I don’t want to talk to people. I don’t want to hear about what an unqualified success the new game is, as if I didn’t know. I want to be left alone, admired from a distance – and allowed to get on to the next project.
This time is different, of course, because you’re here. Some of the sycophants have attached themselves to you instead, and maybe I ought to rescue you, but you seem so happy. I wonder what that’s like. Smiling, personable. You look good, too, in a smart wine-colored waistcoat and white shirt. The trousers match. You still have that clunky, buckled bracelet, so some things never change. You’ve gotten taller, of course, and now you fill out those tight shirts of yours; but the neck is still so long and thin, and your wrists are still so delicate. I could wrap them with my thumb and forefinger.
And your eyes still have that light.
And they catch me looking across the crowded room. The tapered fingers rise to wave, and I wave back. For some reason.
I feel like a moron.
Takahashi-san is nearby, showing his wife Shadow Play, explaining how it works: “Look, Ai: the computer registers your profile. It knows your level of experience, and based on how many people are on your team, it adjusts the difficulty accordingly.”
“I don’t get it. You aren’t competing with the other players?”
It’s an audacious game: a team of players must work together to beat the Game Master and escape the labyrinth of the Shadow Realm. The Game Master, of course, is played by KaibaCorp’s most state-of-the-art AI system. The design could only come from you; players working together, rather than against one another. And the digital profile means your teammates can still play from a million miles away, thanks to our central server, more powerful than some nations’ entire network (Bolivia springs to mind).
I tested the online feature with Mokuba. It was extremely difficult with a team of only two of us, but of course we won. It had taken a week, limited as we were in play time: only for a couple hours after his daily classes, and then constrained by the difference in time zone. But the concept worked, and he’d loved it, as I knew he would. Ito-san had said it would never get off the ground, in the first project meeting. Too difficult to run, too expensive, and no one would want to play as a team when they could instead wipe the floor with the other players. I fired him on the spot. Last I heard, he’s trying to get a job with Hasbro. I don’t have time for small minds that lack vision.
Which is another problem I’m currently dealing with: thanks to the promise of the Game Master’s programming, IBM has been banging down my door, begging for us to collaborate with them on the next iteration of Watson. My secretary is getting tired of telling them no. IBM’s board and its officers are the same as any of the other technocrats trying to get me to call them, they’re like my step-father. They see the world in what they can commodify and control, buy, sell, and destroy. But us, we’ve created something.
There’s that smile from you again.
Oh, it’s for Takahashi-san, he’s beckoned you over to meet his wife, and he introduces you with pride. He’s not one of the simperers, so his praise is sincere. He has good taste.
You bow quickly and politely to him, to me. “Kaiba-kun,” still that smile, “It’s a great party!” You’re the only one who calls me that. Everyone else in the building says “san,” if they speak to me at all – except for one occasion with the girl at the coffee kiosk in the lobby, who referred to me as “Kaiba-sama,” which was odd, but amusing.
Ai Takahashi is agog, fists below her chin and eyes glittering. “Are you really the famous King of Games? You seem so young!”
“I get that a lot,” you laugh, rubbing nervously at the back of your head. No one else in the world, with your level of talent, would have your modesty. Or maybe it’s not that, maybe it’s self-confidence. You know what you’re worth and you don’t need to show off for lesser men.
Why am I smiling?
“We’ll get to keep him on staff for a little longer,” Takahashi continues. “Kaiba-san convinced him; in case there are bugs – though there won’t be – and there’s already plans for expansions. It’s going to revolutionize the entire world.”
“Kaiba-kun was insistent,” and there’s something warm in my chest, along the sternum, when you say that. “Here, I’ll help you set up the game.”
It’s my chance for an exit. Slipping onto the observation deck, it’s empty and quiet – probably from the cold, there’s a threat of snow in the air. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s nine o’clock at night in Domino. In New York, it’s eight, and Friday morning has just started. I slip into a wrinkle in time with these calls. I take the phone out of my pocket and it’s already lit up, buzzing with Mokuba’s picture center-screen.
“Good morning!” He speaks with more energy than I know he feels, getting ready for his first class of the day. “Thank you for sending me the game! My friends are so excited!” A special English translation, a prototype that won’t be on the market for a good six months, just for him to play with his friends on Friday night. I don’t mind – it’s practically free publicity for the American market.
“Are you ready for your finals?” I dodge the gratitude and zero in on what he doesn’t want to talk about. But I do, because finals mean the end of fall term, and that means winter break, and Mokuba home with me. It was difficult to let him go to America, but his sensei had insisted it was the best program for his field. Mokuba begged, and when have I ever denied him anything that was in my power to give?
A grumbling conversation ensues, what classes he’ll nail, what essays he still has to finish. We discuss our plans for the two months he’s home, and he says, “Actually, speaking of that – I’ve been seeing this doctor.”
My hand tightens on the safety rail. “I’ll be on a plane tomorrow.” All the possible ailments in the world run quickly through my mind, but he’s shouting reassurances on the other end.
“It’s not that kind of doctor!” My grip has not loosened. “Don’t…..be mad.”
….Well, that’s not a good sign. “Why would I be mad.”
“I’unno,” he mutters into the phone. “Just don’t be like you-”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“So I was talking to my friends a while ago-” he rushes forward. Mokuba’s American friends…I don’t know what to think of them, though it’s not as if I’ve had much interaction with them, either. They’re all strange and….American. They encourage his long hair, all this sharing of emotions, things that never would have been allowed with our step-father. “About parents and stuff. I told them what had happened to Mom and Dad, and they got really concerned. They were like, ‘Mokuba, you’ve got trauma.’ And helped me get this appointment with a counselor on campus, and-” It takes everything in me not to groan audibly, the hand on the rail going to pinch the bridge of my nose. He’s heard anyway, or sensed it. “See, this is what I meant!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“It’s been really good, Seto. I’ve really liked it. And we’ve talked about you, and-”
I don’t know if it’s panic that’s welling up in me, or rage, or what. It’s a darkness that never was obliterated. “What did you say about me?”
“She said – that’s Dr. Kaplan – she said we should do family therapy together.”
“What did you say about me, Mokuba.”
“That you’re the best brother in the world, okay?” He’s a little angry at me, I can tell. “That you’re my hero, you’re the best, and you never ask for anything-” Oh, I know what this is gearing up toward, a litany of my own traumas. I want to tell him, “What of it?” Everyone has trauma, no one gets out of this world alive. Did this Dr. Kaplan only ask about our parents, or has she probed the adoption yet, too? He probably wouldn’t share much about Pegasus, maybe he doesn’t need to. No one is unscathed, our parents were just lucky the accident was the worst thing that ever happened to them.
“-please, Seto?” I hadn’t noticed he’d kept going through all this, the muscles in my neck are so tight. It feels like something is about to snap. “Could we please go while I’m home? It would help me out, you know?”
It’s a long time before I answer. “Sure, fine. Whatever.”
Mokuba’s relief is palpable, a million miles away. “See, that’s why you’re the best!” He’s wrapping up the call, now that he’s gotten what he wanted out of me. “I’m at the building, I’ve got to go. I love you, Seto.” I tell him to be good, to study hard, to have fun with his friends tonight, and tell me how they like the game. Mokuba is growing up wild and free, into a person I’ll never be, and our step-father would never have allowed it. I encourage it for that reason, perhaps out of spite. I don’t necessarily believe in hell, but I do believe in the shadow realm, and I’m not particular on where he burns. The call ends – and it’s just me again, out on the balcony. The only company is the breath I breathe, clouding in the night air like a dragon’s flame. And I think-
“Hey.” You’ve stuck your head out the door, and I freeze in place. “I thought maybe you got stuck in the bathroom or something,” and you laugh gently, just a jest, no such serious concern.
I can’t speak for a long time. “Is the party finally wrapping up?”
You shake your head, but step forward, wrapping your arms around yourself and shivering. “How can you stand being out here? It’s freezing!”
“You’re not wearing a coat.” I start to shrug mine off. “Here-”
“Actually,” you say, but you take it anyway. It dwarfs you, and you look like a student again, before you hit your growth spurt, the sleeves dripping past your hands. “We have the game set up, but Takahashi-san’s wife said you ought to join us, since that would help it go more quickly. Cause you’re so good at it, I mean.”
For a second, I wonder if she said that, or you did. Which is ridiculous. But part of me still hopes- “I guess.” I go back to the door and open it for you. “If it means we can finish this earlier.”
You go back inside to the warm, golden light of the party, laughing a little. And I watch you go in before I follow. “Thanks for the coat.” I don’t reply.