Okay, fine. I'm giving in and writing a fanfic.

See, I love angsty Kaiba fics, but they require manipulating his character beyond what we see on the show. When it's well written, it's awesome. But far too frequently, it becomes ridiculous.

For instance, it is commonly paired with the author's favorite ship to create something along these lines:

Kaiba: I am so sad, I want to cry!

Person the author ships with Kaiba, mostly Joey: What? Kaiba has feelings?

Kaiba: Yes, PASKMJ, and right now, I am sad. My stepfather abused me, I'm fighting with my little brother even though it makes no sense for either of us, and I'm secretly in love with you. Boo hoo!

PASKMJ: Don't worry, I will make it all better. You see, I'm actually in love with you! Now, let's go do whatever's appropriate for this story's rating.

It gets old. So finally, I decided to write the fic I wanted to see. It's still mildly OOC, but in a way that could make sense given the situation.

Anyway, I'm telling you this not because I think you care, but to warn you that I am unlikely to write anything else. This was just to counter all those stories mentioned previously. Besides, I have no ideas.

I do welcome constructive criticism. Even if I don't write anything else, I like knowing my weaknesses.

I swear there's a fic under this massive AN. It may be awful, but at least it's grammatically correct.

Kaiba was in a bad mood. Worse than usual, even. His employees were idiots, he was subject to the pointless hormones his body produced, and now he had to attend school. Even with his reputation, he could only miss so many days before being held back, and he had to look good for the investors.

That wasn't to say he wasn't mentally damning everyone at the school. Special attention was paid to Yugi and his friends, mostly because they had treated him exactly as they always did:

Yugi acted like they were best friends despite Kaiba's protests.

The mutt racked his brain cell for an insult that would faze Kaiba in the slightest.

Everyone else looked on in various shades of silence: amusement, resignation, exasperation.

He was used to blocking them all out, and was trying to do just that when he caught one of Wheeler's latest attempts.

"And you act like you're better than us because we have to work for things, while you've just been handed the world on a silver platter."

That was the last straw for Kaiba. He turned to face Joey deliberately, Joey's grin at getting a reaction diminishing only slightly when he saw Kaiba's expression.

"That's right, I know how you got your company. You just inherited from your father. You didn't even have to build it up!"

"Did your research miss the fact that he was my adopted father? Because I would have thought even you could work out that in order to be adopted, you must first lose your parents. Often, as in my case, through death."

"Yeah, yeah. Ryou's mom died, Yugi's parents are gone, and they're two of the nicest guys around. And since then, your life's been a piece of cake. Hell, you probably killed them yourself so you could become a billionaire!"

Ryou looked uncomfortable at being dragged into the conversation and having his family brought up, but said nothing.

Kaiba's response was swift. "Yes, the part where I was forced to look after my brother at the age of eight because our relatives stole the money from the will is rather inconsequential. Would you be more interested in hearing about the orphanage?

"If you're worried about the cliche of the horrible orphanage with the matrons who beat you for the pettiest of things, don't be.

"They don't care enough to beat you. No, that task is left to the other children. As long as you don't stand out, though, you should be fine.

"Strangely, an eight year old genius taking care of his four year old brother seems to stand out. And of course, they're all too scared to go for me, so they'd target Mokuba.

"We ended up playing a lot of chess to escape from those cretins. After all, they never figured out how to bypass a locked door, so we could spend whole days in a room."

By now, everyone was murmuring uneasily. Even Joey looked a bit less sure of himself, though he tried to hide it.

"Oh no, spending days playing board games with your little brother. How did you survive?"

Kaiba smirked, knowing that he'd won. "Ah, the fun's only just beginning.
"As I said, I played a lot of chess. Enough that when world chess champion and CEO Gozaburo Kaiba visited the orphanage, I decided to challenge him."

Kaiba shook his head. "Of course, I won, forcing him to adopt us. And there's when it gets really good.

"You see, Gozaburo didn't want a child. He wanted a businessman. To that end, he didn't bother with niceties like toys or sleep. They were wastes of time that would get in the way of work.

"In fact, he took studying so seriously, I did it at the point of a switchblade. And if I made the slightest mistake, the switchblade was far from the most severe punishment I'd receive.

"And, of course, it wasn't just studying. Did I mention that KaibaCorp was a weapons dealer at the time? And what better occupation for a twelve year old than designing weapons!"

Kaiba was fighting hard to keep his composure as frenzied emotions flickered across his face..

"Don't worry, this story has a happy ending. I bought the company out from under my stepfather, causing him to commit suicide right in front of me.

"Now I could run a company full of power-hungry fools who would take any chance to undermine or overthrow me, and attempt to convert it to a gaming company while convincing the shareholders of my competence.

"And of course, I still had my brother to worry about. And just as things started to settle down, I started to have a midget making outrageous claims about ancient Egypt drag me into battles that had nothing to do with me."

He stopped to calm himself down, taking in the group's expressions.

Tea's mouth hung open. Yugi was starting to tear up, and even Joey seemed taken aback.

"Surprised, mutt? Next time, learn what you're talking about before you make yourself look even less intelligent."

With that, Kaiba swept out of the room. As his rage (and rage was all it was, he told himself) cooled, he started kicking himself for his thoughtless. At least no one else was there to witness his outburst.

Still, there was no way he could spend the rest of the day being stared at by Yugi's band of idiots. Surely he could stand to miss today.

He would have to face their pity eventually, unappealing as the thought was. Just when he had thought they couldn't get any more annoying, too.

Still, he mused. It was almost worth it, just to shut them up.