Summary – Kaiba and Yugi form Dual Designs Inc. a partnership company, to launch Yugi's Duel Monsters game. Their challenge now is to work together effectively without driving each other crazy. Postscript story for SotN:Ties of Friendship. AU. Genfic. Seto Kaiba and Yugi Mutou.
This is a follow-up story to my 'Ties of Friendship' which is a prequel story to Lucidscreamer's awesome 'Shadows on the Nile'. SotN is an excellent Yu-Gi-Oh! and Harlequin Intrigue fusion-fic. You don't have to read my prequel story to follow what's going on here, even though this is, as both 'Shadows on the Nile' and 'Ties of Friendship' are, an alternate universe story.
Disclaimers – Yu-Gi-Oh and all its characters are the property of Kazuki Takahashi. All I claim with my story is a deep appreciation for his imagination and characters. The situation, plot, and action in 'Shadows on the Nile' are Lucidscreamer's. She has graciously granted me permission to write prequel stories in her universe.
In this universe, an artistic Yugi created the game Duel Monsters. He has a sporadic psychic gift which at one point showed him the grave danger a kidnapped Mokuba was in. He badgered Seto enough to at least check it out, got hurt saving Mokuba, and convalesced in the Kaiba household. In gratitude, and in the beginnings of friendship, Seto decided to help Yugi make his dream of creating the Duel Monsters card game a reality. This story takes a look at the first few rocky weeks of their new partnership in the year or so before the events that take place in Lucidscreamer's 'Shadows on the Nile'.
Executive Decision
Chapter One
Oh, this is just dandy, Yugi thought as he stared down at his desk. He'd left his work spread out across it in a very specific way the night before, so he could charge right in and follow up on the brainstorm he had last night just before leaving work. His cards, concept designs, sticky notes, and files weren't missing – but they were uselessly gathered into a single pile on the desk in front of his chair.
He took a deep breath. He counted to ten. He considered all that had happened in the past whirlwind couple of weeks...
He had completed his notice at Cynucron Power so he could leave the job with a clean slate and a clear conscience. It's not as if he would ever need a reference from the company, given the recent and dramatic changes in his life, but he still had to be able to sleep at night and face himself in the mirror each day. Giving notice and completing his projects before leaving the company had been the right thing to do.
Then, there had been the task of finding and hiring someone to help him manage the wealth he suddenly found himself saddled with. A slightly bitter smile touched his lips as he recalled how Kaiba had more or less coerced him into accepting the reward for finding Mokuba. Five million dollars. Almost a pittance to someone like Kaiba – a nearly incomprehensible treasure to Yugi. It had taken him a couple of interviews – this time with him as the interviewer – to find an investment manager he trusted. He wasn't interested in aggressively growing even more wealth from his windfall. He just wanted to use it wisely to take care of himself and Grandpa while he gave Duel Monsters his full attention and best effort.
True to his word, Kaiba had allocated funds from Kaiba Corporation to incorporate Dual Designs as an equal partnership venture between himself and Yugi. With those funds, he'd purchased a small office building apart from Kaiba Corporation, hired a staff, and otherwise made every resource he thought Yugi needed available – half the time before Yugi even realized he needed it.
Symbolically, Kaiba designed the office – their office – around a giant partnership desk – which they shared fifty-fifty. Kaiba's side had a state of the art computer, Yugi's side had its twin. A daunting business phone on Yugi's side was balanced by the same phone on Kaiba's side. Neither side had an advantage over the other.
It was driving Yugi quite mad.
First, Kaiba wasn't in the office as much as he was. Yugi completely understood that, as Kaiba still had his own company to run. It was logical that Kaiba's attention was mainly focused on Kaiba Corporation, the juggernaut company that created wealth for him in the first place. Dual Designs, Inc. was going to be a financial drain the first few years anyway – assuming it succeeded. Yugi squashed that thought. No, until it succeeds.
Still, during those fifteen to twenty hours a week Kaiba was actually in the office, Yugi wanted to bellow. Kaiba handled the business negotiations and spent a lot of time on the phone. He never raised his voice, but the acid contempt that was only one tool in his verbal arsenal routinely made Yugi want to strangle him, even though he wasn't the focus of it. Then, there was Kaiba's faintly condescending attitude toward him.
In all fairness Yugi did believe that Kaiba was unaware of it. He was certain Kaiba really did try to be supportive, and Yugi forgave him for being a jerk, but...
Yugi knew the business world, office politics, effective communication in the workplace, but, his knowledge was for the other side of the boardroom, the grunts that actually did the work. So, he'd gotten a few books about corporations, negotiations, and business law with the idea of getting himself up to speed, at least somewhat, with these strange, new aspects of business before having to deal with other company executives face-to-face.
Kaiba had shot him down in his typically condescending way. "That's what I'm here for, Mutou. Read all you want, you'll never be my equal when it comes to negotiations. Leave that end of the business to me. You deal with your part."
Yugi drew the design for the brutal Judge Man that day.
For this... Yugi's attention returned to his ruthlessly neatened desk and wondered if he could reconstruct the pattern he'd had his work spread out in before. This sticky note was here, next to this series of cards, and that...
Yugi reached to place a folder down and realized he was about to put it on top of some data disks on Kaiba's side of the desk.
Oh, I bet I was encroaching on his side before, Yugi realized. Well, that put a different spin on things. Kaiba wasn't trying to sabotage him, he was simply reclaiming his part of the desk. Since he wasn't in the office all the time, Yugi had gotten in the habit of using more than his share of the flat surface when he needed it. He decided to have a conversation with his business partner about –things – the next time Kaiba was in the office.
– – – – –
"How are we dividing the labor between us, Kaiba?" Yugi asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You're in the office about twenty hours a week," Yugi began.
"And you think I'm not pulling my fair share? Have you forgotten that all of this is funded by Kaiba Corporation?" Kaiba raised an incredulous eyebrow at him as his voice dropped into an icy tone.
"No! I haven't forgotten," Yugi exclaimed. "That's not where I was going with this, at all!" Kaiba just waited. "Look, you're right. You're paying for everything, and you come in here and deal with impossible people on the phone, and Dual Designs, Inc. isn't producing anything to show for it yet, and I'm not – I'm not..." Yugi couldn't hold Kaiba's neutral, blue-eyed stare and his gaze dropped to the thick book of contract law it would take him weeks to read, much less comprehend. "I'm not suited for it, I guess. I can't do it. What you do, that is."
"Yugi."
Yugi looked up, stunned. Kaiba almost never used his first name.
"I can't draw. I can grasp your game, and," Kaiba nearly quirked a smile at him. "I'm sure I can be an excellent duelist if, no, when I put my mind to it; but... Duel Monsters – creating the game – is all you. You shouldn't concern yourself with dealing with tedious contract minutiae and the nimrods of other companies. That is the area I excel in. You design the game – I design how we present it to the world. That's how we divide the labor between us."
Yugi blinked at him. Wow. Talk about completely misreading someone. Kaiba liked snarking at people on the phone. The boardroom meetings full of pitfalls that alternately bored and scared Yugi were part of a game Kaiba liked to play. Dealing with day-to-day business tedium was a challenge Kaiba enjoyed. "Well, if you're gonna put it that way..."
Kaiba glared at him. "Get back to work, Mutou. What the hell are we paying you for?"
"Uhm...?"
"Of course you draw a salary, idiot. I do, too. We don't expect anyone to work for nothing, why should we?" Kaiba growled at him. "I've got a conference call to make and you... You've got to make Judge Man look more menacing. Add some fangs, or tusks, or something. What is with you and such wholesome-looking monsters?"
Kaiba's grousing faded as he walked down the hall toward the state-of-the-art holo-conference suite. Yugi smiled and dumped the book about contract law he didn't want to read anyway into the trashcan with a satisfying and solid thump. Strolling back to his desk he toggled on the sound system, mashing the button that played his current favorite CD. Reclaiming his chair, he reached for his favorite sketching pencil, mindless of the fact he sent the rest of the pencils rolling away. Fangs? Naw. His Vampire Lord was going to have fangs. Tusks, though – that had possibilities.
"...I drew fame and fortune on a tarot card..." sang the more-than-pleasant voice from the speakers. Yugi had to laugh at how oddly apt that line was when applied to his situation – before he bent over his sketchbook to add tusks to the daunting Judge Man.
– – – – –
Author's note: The song Yugi is listening to at the end of the chapter is by Eric Stuart, the voice actor for Seto Kaiba (there's a link to his music website in my profile). It's called 'Bad Luck' and it can be found on his 'In The County Of Kings' CD.
