A/N: Whichever female you ship Seto Kaiba with, this can apply. I wrote it with my own Seto-obsessed friends in mind, but there are no names mentioned.

-o-

It was because of her that he stopped wearing the card-shaped locket every day.

That locket had been the one constant in his life, one thing he could always count on. Like the deck in his pocket, like his brother on his heels—only more so, because his cards had been stolen, and his brother kidnapped, and no one had ever taken his locket away.

He wasn't sure, but sometimes, he thought the picture inside that locket meant more to him than both his cards and his brother, though he loved both with more passion, more emotion than he would ever show Yugi Mutou and his band of cheerleaders. Because flipping open those plastic doors to gaze at his past flashed him back to a time where nothing was perfect except for their dreams.

Every once in a while, Seto Kaiba needed the reminder that there had been a time like that. Nowadays, with his reputation crashing down around him—thanks to Mutou, of course—he always pretended that he was forging on ahead, but it could be hard. He still had the money, he still had the ability; sometimes, he didn't have the motivation.

The pictures of the past brought him back to the future.

Of course, Seto would never admit that to anyone. Always, he boasted of how he lived for the present, and cared nothing for those children's stories of reincarnation and ancient magic. But really, the past and the future still meant more to him, because the present tried too hard to drag him down.

But then… She was part of his present.

And to hell with the cliché; she was a gift. A never-ending gift he had to peel back a new layer of every single day, every single minute. He could never quite find her heart, what was inside her; instead, he just kept finding new levels of fascinating complications that occupied him for too long. It frustrated him to no end, because each layer was so intense that he could lose himself in that part of her forever, but at the same time, he couldn't, because there was so much more to see.

On the other hand, it was perfectly alright. Because he had her all to himself, and he could keep unwrapping her every day into eternity.

She didn't mind. At least, he didn't think she did.

And because of her, he stopped having to lose himself in the past. It wasn't necessary anymore.

It did not mean he was giving up his brother, his cards, or his dreams. He kept all of them close to his heart, the heart he refused to open to any of Mutou's friendship speeches. He had better things to believe in.

Like her.

So when he left the card-shaped pendant with the pictures inside sitting forlornly on his dresser, it did not signify forgetting. It just signified letting go.

And finding motivation in something a little closer than what had happened in the past.

In her.