It stank.
Before anything else, Kaiba noticed that it stank.
It wasn't surprising, he supposed, if he had ever been given cause to imagine the qualities of a jail before he probably wouldn't have put "perfumed" on the list. It was a smell of neglect and bodies and sweat and vomit and… He tried to put it out of his mind, sitting back, hoping that the squelching sound as his back touched the wall was just in his imagination. The bench that he sat on was supposed to double as a bed, though anything vaguely resembling comfort or even really a mattress had long since rotted away. He inspected a series of dark stains on the fabric of the bed, hoping that he didn't have to spend the night here.
"This is entirely your fault." He stated without looking up. In the cell next to his, a series of quiet spring-squeaks and a rustling of clothes announced his companion's shifting of weight as he sat up.
"My fault?" Yugi was up and to the bars that separated their holding cells, resting against them. "If I remember correctly, we were both up there, we were both arrested and it was both our faults'."
"You were stalling for time." Kaiba told him, "throwing in a new tactic designed just to waste time. We could have been finished before anybody turned up."
"Maybe that new tactic was there to make sure we had the best duel possible. I'm sure you wouldn't want me giving you anything but my best."
"I also didn't want to spend my evening sitting in a puddle of what, at this point, I can only hope is old water from a burst pipe."
Yugi walked away, sitting back on his own primitive bed. Kaiba grit his teeth at the sound of the springs, the soft sound of the mattress. Yugi's cell sounded like it had all the amenities that his lacked, hygienically speaking anyway. From somewhere far down the corridor, a loud mumbling erupted from the drunk tank, half-formed words merging into groans and then silence. Whoever it was down there had thrown in their two cents to the debate.
Kaiba stared up at the wall opposite his cell, at the old plastic clock hanging precariously. 2 o' clock. What time had it been when they had been duelling? No later than 10, he was sure. They'd been brought to the station and quickly processed, getting thrown into the cells and told to wait. Had it really been four hours? It hadn't seemed like that from in here. How many more hours would he be waiting before someone came for him? He watched the seconds hand tick forwards, pause, tick back, shivering in place between moments. Broken. He scowled and turned away.
"When did it get to be like this?" He asked.
"Like what?" Yugi sounded tired.
"This. Us getting arrested for duelling. For doing what we do."
"In all fairness, Kaiba, we were duelling on a government building. I can't imagine it's strictly legal to climb onto a civil service building and battle one another on a busy evening."
"There was no-one there. Maybe a janitor or two."
"There were plenty of people outside. They all saw Blue Eyes White Dragon smashing into Gazelle up there. In fact I think they heard it three towns over."
"Oh please, it's nothing they haven't seen before. Domino City used to routinely feature summoned monster fights every night for tournament after tournament after tournament. You and I were in those tournaments. We both know what the norm should be."
"Maybe this is what the norm should be, Kaiba."
Kaiba wasn't sure whether he could project enough hate at Yugi to actually harm him. He was certainly going to try.
"I mean," Yugi continued, "when we first started out duelling, everything was nice and simple. Card games on school desks or laid out on someone's coat in the schoolyard. When everything started getting crazy, with Pegasus, Malik, Dartz… That was when the entire big spectacle came into it. But that was all years ago, maybe we don't need that anymore. We've still got it all up here." He motioned to his head, pushing down the jagged spikes of hair.
"Yugi, I have built an empire on the big spectacle. Once that empire hears about where I am, I will be out of this cell like a bolt, and you'll still be stuck here. If I have to hear a speech about getting back to basics and the magic of imagination, I will reach through these bars and strangle you. Do you understand?"
Yugi said nothing, but Kaiba swore he could almost hear the young man's mouth curl up into a grin. Yugi took off his coat and laid it out on the floor of his cell, flattening it out as much as he could. He reached into the pouch on his belt and took out the block of cards, shuffling them with his eyes fixed on Kaiba. In return, Kaiba walked away, resting against the bars at the front of his cell, trying to not look as frustrated as he felt. He stared up the clock.
2 o' clock.
Seconds hand forward.
Seconds hand back.
Forward.
Back.
Kaiba sighed, unbuttoning his coat.