Summary: Memories of who he had been before he became a Kaiba trouble Seto. For all his wealth, the mundane life his younger self possessed is forever out of his reach – but, he discovers not everything from those simpler days is gone for good. AU

Disclaimer: The settings, characters, names, likenesses, and everything else Yugioh, as always, belong to the talented Kazuki Takahashi. This story is a fan creation based upon, and showing deep appreciation for, his work.

Best Friends Forever

Memory was a funny thing. Unreliable at best, even a fully-formed adult memory. Emotional import always colored not only how powerful memories replayed in the theater of the mind, but had a hand in prioritizing how they were archived as well. His memory, even further, had been fractured by the trauma that had dramatically changed his life.

Not that he forgot any of his life before the Event. No, those memories were still delightfully, in so many cases, but toward the end, oh-so-painfully, there. Indeed, he used his will thousands of times a day, each and every day, to suppress those memories when they tried to bubble up to the surface.

Memories of a time when he was not only a child in status, but in actuality. When he was not responsible for anything other than keeping his room neat, a few routine chores around the house and yard, and his schoolwork. A time when he had his Mom and his Dad, and except for a few business trips for his father, they were always there. In the simple, trusting way of a child, he presumed they would always be there.

It had been years, and many memories made since those, but they still had the power to surprise him with their vivid clarity, and the rush of emotion they made him feel. Just remembering his room, and the shelf that bore his trophies had the power to throw his day off-kilter. Remembering the feel of his mother's hair, for she embraced her child dozens of times a day, could fill him with an impossible-to-deny melancholy. His father had liked to smoke a pipe after dinner, so that scent wafting from a tobacconist's shop always triggered memories.

Ruthlessly, whenever a memory from before the Event bubbled up, he squelched it back down. He didn't quite hate the memories, but he couldn't permit them to surface. The world had been different when he made them. He had been different when he made them. Now, he couldn't be like the person he had been back then. He wasn't certain what frightened him more about those memories. That he would feel too much, and long for what he could never have, and could never be, again...

Or that he wouldn't.

Memory was a funny thing. Thwarted memory always finds a way.

– – – – –

His first day of school! He was so excited he could hardly contain himself. Mom had taken him shopping the week before and let him pick out a schoolbag with many pockets, and pens, and pencils, and erasers, and notebooks. He had a new lunchbox with a thermos. She promised that every day there would be a special surprise for him to find in his lunchbox during lunch.

He wanted to ride the bus with the other kids, but Mom explained that while she knew he was big enough, and responsible enough for it, she wasn't ready for it. Perhaps, in a little while, once she got used to him being in school she'd be able, but right now, she just couldn't. So, she would drive him to school and pick him up afterward every day.

For as excited as he was, he still felt as if the building were going to swallow him whole when Mom stopped the car in front of the school. He turned to her, to try to say something. He didn't have a chance, as his mom's arms swept around him, pulling him in for a tight hug.

"It's okay, my sweetheart. It's a good thing, and you are going to have lots of fun. You will learn new things that your dad and I can't teach you, and you will make new friends. It's okay to feel a little scared, but, you're my big boy now, right?" He nodded, as best he could, against her shoulder. Her arms tightened him against her just a little closer, then opened. She straightened the collar of his shirt and stroked the sleeve down against his arm. "I'll be back to pick you up at the end of school. I know you will be bursting with happiness and all sorts of things to tell me!"

He looked at her eyes. There was a mist clinging to them, as if she wanted to cry, but the expression deep in them was honestly happy. It reassured him.

"You have a good day too, Mom. The school day will be over before you know it."

"There's my Seto. Oh, so brave and thinking of others. You are going to have a wonderful time!"

– – – – –

He was having a miserable time. As that first school year went on, he found that the teachers were nice, the studies interesting, and he could answer many of their questions, but the other children...

They didn't like how tall he was.

They didn't like the color of his eyes.

He picked the wrong color for his notebooks.

His pencils were stupid.

His book bag wasn't the right one.

His lunchbox didn't have the right cartoon characters on it.

They hated his name.

His dad had told him that some of the children might not like him until they got to know him; he said something about kids just being that way, but this – every kid hating him – he didn't know if he could take it. Fortunately, they left him alone during recess, the time when the children could go outside and run amok on the playground. He didn't feel much like playing, but he was thankful they left him alone. They gathered on the other end of the playground, near the swings and slides, instead. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the few minutes of relief it gave him. Their shrill voices and idiotic insults usually gave him a headache.

Today was different. The screaming got louder. He opened his eyes to see the entire group of them, almost like the pack of wolves that teacher taught them about just this week, chasing one child. He hadn't seen this child before. His first impression was of blond hair, huge eyes, and a look of abject terror on the other kid's face as he ran across the playground, trying to escape the screaming kid-pack.

It flashed through him then. The reason the children hurled insults at him, and refused to befriend him. He was different from them. So was this kid, but in a different way. He was shorter, and he showed his fear. If no one did anything, the kid-pack would hurt him.

He stood, as tall as he could, and beckoned for the fleeing child to run toward him. Evidently the blond boy saw, because he darted in the new direction and made a beeline for the taller boy. He ran up, gasping and trembling, as the other children surrounded them.

"We can get 'em both," one of the kid-pack, he seemed to be the leader, said.

"Can you?" the taller boy kept every trace of fear out of his voice. Certainly the teachers who circled the playground would stop them. Of course, those teachers hadn't done anything about the small kid being tormented. It was in his hands to stop the bullying. "I'm learning karate," he lied. "There are some very nasty techniques. I don't do them well enough – yet – to kill with a single touch, but I'm learning. Since I'm not good enough, it might only maim you. Or put you in the hospital."

The pack of kids started to fall apart. The ones on the edges, either scared of his threat, or bored now that the littler kid wasn't running around for them to chase, started to dash off to find more interesting things to do. As more and more kids wandered off, the core, the leaders, got more and more antsy.

"We won't forget this!" One of the boys, solid and chunky, got right up in the taller boy's face. Well, he tried to. He wasn't tall enough to make it seem like the threat he wanted.

"I'll remember you, too. Once I complete my martial art studies, I'll need a sparring partner – or a target to practice on."

The bully paled, shot a poisonous look up into the taller boy's face, and ran off. Since he was the leader, the rest of the instigators ran off with him, too.

"Thanks! I didn't know what to do. Running probably wasn't the best, but..."

"No, it wasn't." The taller boy heaved a sigh that was at odds with his tender years. "They like to chase you if you run. Best to ignore them."

"Easy for you to say! You're so much taller, and learning karate – I'm so short and I get so scared..."

He still hadn't made any friends at his new school. His mom and dad promised he would, but after all this time, he hadn't. The kids hated him for his weird name, and that he was so much shorter than they were, and how his hair wouldn't stay down and smooth like this tall boy's did. They hated everything about him, and none of them would play any games with him – aside from chasing him until he thought his heart would burst from the strain. This boy didn't look like he ever had to run from them – but they probably didn't like him, either.

"Maybe, if I hang around with you, since they are scared – erm, they respect you, they won't chase me anymore. And, I get bored since no one will ever talk with me. Maybe we – could become friends? I'm Yugi!"

"Seto."

– – – – –

Seto sat straight up in bed, jolted awake by the dream. Just a dream? Could it really be – a memory? It was true he hadn't lived in Domino until after Gozaburo Kaiba adopted him. He had no reason to care where Yugi, or anyone else for that matter, may have lived before Domino either – but he did now. Resolving to research that very information, he made a mental note to check into it the next day.

He might not like to remember the past, when his family name was other than 'Kaiba'. He might push those memories aside, unwilling to delve into the heartache they caused. He knew, that under it all, he feared he would not be able to continue being 'Seto Kaiba' – a single-focused, ruthless CEO and protector of his little brother – the only part of his past he was willing to reconcile with his life now – if he permitted the memories from before the Event to intrude.

But, he couldn't afford to doubt his memory. Not when he relied on it as much as he did. No, even old memories, from before the Event, had to be reliable. He would test this one, and discover if he had really known Yugi Motou before becoming Seto Kaiba, and then put this matter behind him.

Resolved on his course of action, he relaxed into his bed again, and drifted off to sleep.

– – – – –

"Darkfire Dragon." Yugi's nearly purple eyes smiled up at him. "I win!"

"You always win."

"Not true! You won – uhm – eleven games ago."

He rolled his eyes.

"Well," Yugi picked up his winning cards and twisted one between his hands. "It's easy, my grandpa owns a gaming store in another city. He sends cards to me all the time."

"I have to use my own allowance to buy them. My birthday is coming up, though, so maybe Mom and Dad will get some for me."

Yugi thrust the card he'd been toying with into his hands. "Here! An early birthday gift!"

He looked down to see the Darkfire Dragon that had just defeated him. He liked the image on this card a lot, and was going to ask Yugi to look at it more closely. He liked dragons. There were posters of them all around his room. His mom would sometimes pretend to jump in fear when she noticed one in his room. His father assured her it was 'just a phase'.

"Really?"

"Really!" Yugi smiled up at him. "We're friends, and I can tell that you like it. It's a dragon, after all, and you like dragons."

He smiled. Yeah, he liked dragons. And Yugi was a good friend to notice. Maybe not his only friend, not any longer, but his first, and, perhaps still the best. Not that he'd say it out loud. Boys didn't talk about mushy stuff like friends – well, except with his mom. He could talk with her about anything.

"Thanks." He slipped the new card into his deck, and started to riffle the cards in his hands. "Wanna play again?"

"Sure!"

Seto, the adult sleeping in his bed, would prove it to himself without a doubt the next day via more mundane means – but tonight, in his dreams, in his memories, he found his answer. Yugi Motou had indeed been his friend before the Event. His first friend, as a matter of fact. Without his awareness, for he was still sleeping, he smiled.

–end–

– – – – –
Author's note

Chances are I've advanced the development and marketing of the Duel Monsters card game in the Yugioh universe to occur long before it really could have with this story. I hope that purists of Yugioh canon will permit me this bit of artistic license. I know I could have used a different game, quite easily. Magic: The Gathering, the game upon which Duel Monsters is somewhat based springs readily to mind, and I could probably look at my MTG decks to find an appropriate dragon card, but I like the way this came out better.