Author's Notes:
Cover art from alaseos on Tumblr! So much love for your beautiful art! Thank you for helping me revise my story as well.
This is a blueshipping/mizushipping fanfiction. I advise that if you are against this ship to turn back. Additionally, I intend this fanfiction to be slow-burn, therefore romance between the two designated characters will not be a wildfire in early parts. There will be other pairings as well, some that may be disagreeable. This is a generally light-hearted story but it will have drama that appears cheesy.
The prologue is set during the cast's senior year, but the main story from the first chapter and later will occur nine years since the beginning of Duel Monsters. I have set the first chapter, the one after the prologue, to start in early June of 2015.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but Seto Kaiba wouldn't have noticed because his eyes were glued onto his laptop's screen, analyzing KaibaCorp's recent stock activity. He was also keeping aggressive businessmen at bay through furious texts and calls, not that he wasn't a cutthroat businessman himself trying to exploit other businesses for his own gains. He had a cup of black coffee situated behind his laptop that he failed to drink more than one sip, a reminder that he was located at an inconvenient place to conduct business - the Roastery, a slightly higher-end coffee shop than most. However, it was a good choice he had selected the rooftop seating area, as there were only a few other people, most of those few deciding to leave in light of Kaiba's increasingly boisterous existence.
The young CEO didn't plan on engaging in business affairs after school. Well, specifically, he didn't plan to during this particular occasion. Normally he would've went straight to KaibaCorp to appropriately conduct his business. He had just finished his school day when he ventured to the Roastery to meet someone, someone who he didn't exactly care to meet firsthand. If anything, he had rejected previous proposals to meet her from an annoying set of people that he unfortunately and frequently dealt with.
Her name was Kisara Amano, a girl who also attended Domino High but was two grades younger. The scrub squad, which consisted of Yugi Muto, Tristan Taylor, Téa Gardner, and Joey Fucking Wheeler, managed to somewhat befriend the girl. That was the beginning of ceaseless attempts to get Kaiba into meeting the girl due to absurd reasons summarized by the words "fate" and "bodacious," with Yugi and Téa using the former and Joey and Tristan using the latter.
Yugi had been especially insistent, as he was the first to recognize who Kisara resembled. She was supposedly some bullshit reincarnation of Kaiba's past love interest, which apparently meant she was destined to become his.
"Kaiba, look!" Yugi pulled up a self-portrait photo of Téa and Kisara and shoved it in Kaiba's face first thing that school morning, "Don't you see how she's the exact copy of her? Don't you think you should at least give it a shot?" This was fifth morning this kid had bothered Kaiba.
"Look, Yugi," Kaiba snarled, slamming whatever book he was reading that particular school morning, "If you think reincarnations are exactly the same, then why are you still in school and not busy bossing around your slaves as Egypt's Pharaoh? Your friends don't count despite following the same idiotic ideology you keep trying to insinuate."
"Why are you still in public school and not busy bossing around your slaves as KaibaCorp's CEO?" Yugi surprisingly spat back as Kaiba's eyes narrowed, "I may not be Pharaoh, but last I checked, I am King of Games, and that's close enough," at that factual declaration, Kaiba wanted to shoot himself for walking into that one, "You two don't have to date but you should at least talk to her."
Two weeks of persistent bugging broke Kaiba. One day it was Yugi, the next it was Téa , and so on from the dweebs. Even skipping school for business didn't prevent their incessant texts. Blocking them from his personal number didn't prevent them from using his business one. Kaiba ultimately figured that one date couldn't be terrible. He didn't have to like the girl anyways. From what he heard of her, she wasn't some rabid fangirl, so he hopefully wouldn't have to deal with future restraining orders. However, he didn't really hear of her wanting to go on this date either. Either way, she didn't seem problematic, and after today, he could finally be left alone.
Kaiba's eyes kept flicking over to the time on his laptop. He had been doing so for the past half hour. When Kisara didn't show up for the first ten minutes of the presumed date, he had immediately pursued business interests. With every minute passing, he felt a growing sense of embarrassment. No one else in the near perimeter had knowledge of his date, however, he couldn't help but feel anxiety gnaw at him. Did she not want to meet him? Was he not worth her time? He would meet business partners in various cafes across Domino City, but this time, it was different. This time it was a meeting of two people on their own accords, with supposed intent to bond in an affectionate way. Kaiba, just reaching 18, had never dated or really bonded in that way with another person. This was new.
He conducted business for an hour, doing his best to involve himself with that and ignore Kisara's lack of presence, but when the last call was made and he closed his laptop only to be greeted by a full cup of black coffee and an empty seat, a pang of sadness struck him momentarily. As he packed his laptop into his bag, his thoughts raced, and his mixture of embarrassment and sadness heightened into rage and fury.
That bitch.
Who the hell was this girl? The crew had been bothering him to meet her for half a fucking month, set her high upon a pedestal to reach the interest of Seto Kaiba, and here she wasn't. They embellished her existence to the point he slightly anticipated something. His time was more valuable than any other young adult in the universe, and she had wasted an hour of it. He felt cheated out of this "date." Instead of getting a first date experience, he got his first experience of being stood up, and he sure as hell wasn't gleeful about that. It felt like this Kisara girl just kicked him to the side of the road as roadkill, felt like he was too insignificant for her time. His thoughts continued demonizing Kisara. His phone rang, rang with his usual ringtone, which undoubtedly once served as an object of mockery in the media once it got out that Seto Kaiba set his ringtone as the roar of the blue eyes white dragon. He still stuck to it.
He half heartedly took out his phone. His ringtone was a reminder of what Kisara was supposed to represent - his favorite duel monster. Now, he was completely sure that it was nothing but a duel monster and not some sentient being he was spiritually connected to.
It was Yugi's caller ID: L'Oréal. Kaiba stabbed the answer button with his thumb.
"I don't care," Kaiba coldly interjected before Yugi could speak a word, his tone calm but seething with suppressed anger, "and she doesn't care either because she just wasted my time. You and your pathetic group of friends can stop deluding yourselves as wingmen. I don't care who she is or who she supposedly was. You can trash your destiny bullshit. From now on, I'm going to stick to living in fucking reality."
He hung up before Yugi could respond, and it was only till then that he realized he had managed to crush the delicate coffee cup into pieces from the pressure of his free hand. Black coffee with a hint of blood spilled. He released his hand, slung his laptop bag onto his shoulder, and left the mess along with any notion of destiny, fate, and the girl who could've been.