Chapter 9 - The Sixth Labor: Finagle the Final Say

October 1

—Kaiba Corporation Research & Development Department—

The next morning, Mokuba arrived prepared. Seto was due to come back in two days, but there was every real possibility that he counted the day he left as the start of his vacation, despite having worked the equivalent of a full workday overnight. That meant he might show up tomorrow, and Mokuba couldn't afford any slip-ups if he did.

With Miri the Barista's help from the downstairs coffee stand, Mokuba, arms full of hot beverages and pastries balanced in a precarious arrangement, made his way to R&D. Luckily, a researcher was headed out right as Mokuba headed in, so he didn't have to figure out how to wave the badge hanging near his hip over the RFID sensor in some sort of complicated dance.

"Thanks, Mashirito-san," Mokuba smiled at the scientist holding the door open and edged past him, a foot holding open the door. Mashirito seemed astonished that Mokuba knew his name, and accidentally got bumped by the door as it clicked shut.

"Morning everyone," Mokuba called to the newly arrived R&D team. "I have morning refreshments and pastries if anyone didn't get their complete breakfast today. I'm positive I don't need to tell you guys that it's the most important meal of the day, right?"

A light chuckle worked its way through the ranks as a handful of employees walked up to the long table that served as the foyer to the R&D department, with glossy brochures and infographics detailing recent innovations, discoveries, and milestones.

"All right, Mokuba-kun," a voice emerged from the crowd of engineers and technicians, "You never bring us treats first thing in the morning, so you must be here because you want something."

Mokuba got along pretty well with most everyone at the company, but there was only one "employee" that deigned to call use the diminutive "-kun" honorific with him AND remain invisible behind the glut of people grabbing paper cups of hot coffee or tea. A few people stepped out of the way, and Mokuba strode forward.

"Caught me red-handed, Yuugi," Mokuba laughed. Unlike his brother, Mokuba was more easily affectionate with friends—even those who were technically under his (or more accurately, Seto's) employ, and so he had no issue walking up to Yuugi and embracing him with one arm and giving him a hearty pat on the back. "It's good to see you."

Over the years, Mokuba sprouted up in height, while Yuugi... mostly remained the same. But what he lacked in leg length, he made up for in hair height; his hairstyle was the only one outside of Kaiba Corporation dress code that everyone tolerated. How he maintained his volume without product, Mokuba never knew. He suspected it was a Mutou family secret, or something.

In any case, Yuugi's hairstyle worked well with his office look: he wore a violet collared shirt and a heather gray vest and matching trousers, along with a ruby red tie pinned with a gold tie clip. On other people, it might have looked gaudy or inappropriate, but on Yuugi, it just made sense. Like Mokuba, he didn't bother with a suit jacket if he had no reason to wear it, and the temperature in the R&D department was at what Mokuba called the "Goldilocks" setting: not too hot, not too cold.

Perfect for a negotiation, Mokuba thought. He had no need to hide his smile; it was a genuine one reflected on Yuugi's own face.

"I got you your favorite," Mokuba told Yuugi, reaching over to grab a cup marked with a star on the side. He snatched a warm breakfast sandwich in a paper bag while he was at it, and a raspberry cheese danish for himself. "Peach green tea with just a squeeze of lemon, and one ice cube, right?"

Yuugi laughed. "You've been talking to Miri-san downstairs, haven't you?" He took the cup with a grateful smile and gestured for Mokuba to follow him deeper into the department to his office: Special Director of New Game Development. Yuugi eschewed the usual trappings of what was ostensibly one of the nicest corner offices on this floor; as a "special consultant" reporting directly to Seto Kaiba, he felt like he didn't deserve the title or the office, but Seto had insisted, and when Seto insisted on something, it was often a waste of time and energy to convince him otherwise.

"Maybe. But I have a pretty good memory, I'll have you know."

"I'm sure!"

They arrived at Yuugi's corner office, a stark white room with a birch wood desk and a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows next to a file cabinet and a birch bookcase. Just like how he made a loud business suit look classy, Yuugi turned the quiet, laboratory-like office into a reflection of his personality: every one of the binders and books on his shelves came in bright colors or had neon labels on them; his suit jacket hung off a sapphire-blue coat rack with a top that looked like it had once been a chandelier.

Yuugi made his way around his desk. It was neatly arranged, but unlike the typical black-on-black layout of most directors' offices, Yuugi had a red stapler, an assortment of blue, purple, and pink pop-up sticky notes in a dispenser shaped like a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and an array of multicolored gel pens and mechanical pencils fanned out inside a Kaiba Land souvenir cup.

"So, what can I do for you, Mokuba-kun?"

Mokuba sat himself down in one of the two artsy-looking wooden chairs in front of Yuugi's desk, glancing around at the wall art—a black-and-white photo of the pyramids at Giza here, a photo of him and his grandfather there—and leaned back.

"How's the new Duel Disk project coming along? I know that's only tangential to your usual work, but I know you got involved with it at Seto's request."

"Working with Chief Kuwabara is great," Yuugi replied. "He's very passionate about getting the technology working just right, and it makes sense why he's been with the company for so long."

"He has, hasn't he?" Mokuba tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Did you know his hair used to be as dark as mine? Like, I remember it distinctly. But at some point after Battle City, it just went all gray, and he just went with it."

Yuugi chuckled. "More power to him. I remember when Jounouchi-kun found his first gray hair, he called me in the middle of the night asking if he was going to die tomorrow or something."

Perfect, I didn't even have to awkwardly bring up Jounouchi myself!

"Speaking of Jounouchi, I had a question for you. Since you're handling a lot of the debut aspects of the upcoming exhibition, I wanted to ask what your plans were for the Duel Disk."

Yuugi blinked owlishly at Mokuba. "What does Jounouchi-kun have to do with that?"

Mokuba leaned over to the desk, as if he had a secret to whisper in Yuugi's ear. They were separated from the rest of the office by a double-paned glass window and door, and there was no chance of anyone actually overhearing them, but Yuugi reciprocated the gesture nonetheless. "You know Seto's on vacation for the next day or so, right?"

"I heard rumors," Yuugi said in a low voice. "Was it supposed to be a secret?"

"No," Mokuba continued, "But I'm CEO in his stead, and the more I do now that takes projects off his plate later, the better off we'll all be, don't you think?"

Yuugi inclined himself backwards into his ergonomic mesh chair, the beginnings of a grin curving the corners of his lips. "I see what you mean. So does that mean you're taking care of the product demos and presentations now?"

"Exactly," Mokuba replied, tapping Yuugi's desk. "How do you feel about Jounouchi debuting the new Duel Disk for us?"

"You're asking me?" Yuugi's already-large eyes widened further. "I doubt I have any say in the matter, but obviously, I'm all for it. I'm not really interested in being in the spotlight these days…"

"I figured." Mokuba nodded, his lips pursed. "And as for who as the final say, well…" Mokuba smirked. "I don't see Seto around, and he made me the acting CEO, so I give you the final say."

Yuugi chuckled. "Well then, I say Jounouchi should debut it for us. Last I checked, he was doing really well in the International Leagues, so he'd be a good real world example, anyway."

"Glad we're on the same page." Things were going swimmingly. Mokuba hadn't needed to bribe, beg, or cajole Yuugi in the slightest; he'd just readily agreed that Jounouchi should get exactly what his friend wanted.

"I'm pretty sure he's coming back from Germany tomorrow," Mokuba said, unlocking his phone and flicking through a few apps: notes, calendar, email, to confirm everything he'd been painstakingly putting together over the last few days. "We'll make sure to get him in the day before the exhibition so he can learn the new interface. If we get permission from Industrial Illusions, we might even be able to have him show off the new summoning method."

"I'm looking forward to that!" Yuugi said, and Mokuba knew he was telling the truth. While Yuugi dressed a bit differently than he had when Mokuba had first met him, his personality was as enthusiastic and dedicated as ever. It was a wonder Seto had managed to get him on the payroll though, since Yuugi seemed to think that it was perfectly fine for someone of his talent to just keep working behind the counter at the Turtle Game Shop until he got old and gray like his grandfather.

"Hey, how is Sugoroku-san, these days?" Mokuba asked, realizing he hadn't seen the old man in quite some time. Perhaps, like Isono, he was "immortal", and just as spry as he'd been all those years ago, when he'd posed as "Mask the Rock," a thinly disguised Pro Duelist at the KC Grand Prix tournament.

"Doing pretty good, for someone about to turn 86 in three days," Yuugi said with a smile.

"Whoa seriously? That's awesome. Happy early birthday to him from me," Mokuba replied sincerely.

"I'll let him know."

"Are you going to be doing anything special?" Mokuba asked.

"Making him breakfast, at least to the best of my effort," Yuugi said, his cheeks flaming pink. "He asked for homemade tamagoyaki, so I'm going to try and deliver. The plan is to head home on time every day this week, if I can manage it, and have my roommate judge my trial runs."

"Oh, are you taking that whole day off?"

"No, no," Yuugi waved his hands in front of his chest. "A half-day. I can't afford to be gone all day so soon before the exhibition."

Mokuba raised an eyebrow. "Have you been talking to my brother in the past week? Before I kicked him out of here, he spouted some similar crap about not being able to 'afford' taking a break."

Yuugi's light blush morphed into a red stain that caused his cheeks to nearly match his tie.

"No, I haven't, really!" Yuugi sighed. "I just— Kaiba-kun gave me this amazing opportunity, and I don't want him to have any regrets."

Mokuba had to forcefully stifle the belly laugh that threatened to erupt from his lips just then.

When are either of them going to understand that they're best friends?

Sure, Yuugi was also best friends with Jounouchi, who was also best friends with Honda, but it didn't lessen the depth of Yuugi's undeniable friendship with Seto, at least not in Mokuba's book. Even if Seto would never say so—in so many words, at any rate—he probably felt the same way.

"You're a special consultant to the chief executive officer, Yuugi," Mokuba said out of exasperation. "You don't have to go through the usual channels to request a day off to spend with your grandpa. You can just tell me or Seto and we'll take care of the rest."

Yuugi bowed his head, his bangs obscuring his eyes. For a moment, Mokuba wondered if he was about to cry. He fully supported people being their authentic selves at work, but he spent so much time around Seto that open displays of emotions—especially those involving tears—still put him on edge.

"Thank you, Mokuba-kun," Yuugi said, his voice coming out a bit gruff.

He sounded a bit like… him, in that moment.

Mokuba knew better than to mention Atem in front of Yuugi. Even if it had been more than thirteen years since the Ceremonial Duel, in some ways, Mokuba thought Yuugi had never quite gotten over it. If he had, maybe he would have been more accepting when Anzu wanted to tell Atem's story in the form of a Broadway musical. Maybe he would have been with Anzu at the Beacon Theatre, dressed to the nines and cheering her on as she won Tony Award after Tony Award.

He still doesn't know I financed most of the production, Mokuba knew. So Mokuba never talked about anything entertainment or New York-related around Yuugi, too afraid he would slip into a funk and shut down.

Kaiba Corporation demanded excellence from all its employees, but Seto never wanted the company to depend solely on one person, not even himself. But a depressed Yuugi impacted more than just himself: he was in charge of a department of dozens of people, and worked with plenty more on a regular basis. No one could do what Yuugi could, in terms of envisioning new games, new uses for the Solid Vision technology, improvements to dueling mechanics. And no one could engineer or code Solid Vision with the speed that Seto could.

The company can survive with one of them out of commission for a while, but both of them? It wouldn't take long before we'd run into some major problems. And as much as Mokuba wanted to be more involved with the company's day-to-day activities, he had his strengths, while Yuugi and Seto each had their own. There wasn't a whole lot of overlap.

"The truth is, I don't know if I could stomach being there all day," Yuugi admitted. "Grandpa would probably close up shop and want to play Duel Monsters with me all day, but...I'm not all that excited about playing ten matches in a row, you know?"

"Gotten used to the Duel Simulator, have you?" Mokuba chortled.

Yuugi fixed him with a flat stare. "You know Grandpa doesn't use a Duel Disk, right? Not the first generation, not the second, none of them! And he insists on shuffling and cutting each deck—which he prefers to make from random packs instead of using the same cards over and over again—a certain number of times, even if that number is 36 or 47. It's never a nice low number, like two or three."

Mokuba did belly laugh this time, and before long, Yuugi joined him.

A minute later, when they'd both caught their breath and wiped the tears prickling the corners of their eyes, Yuugi sucked in a breath. "Since you said I can just ask you, do you think you can do me a favor?"

Uh-oh. I didn't expect this.

But maybe that was his mistake, thinking that anyone would really help him out "for free." Everyone had time, energy, or money to lose at any given moment.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch," Mokuba remembered learning in an economics class back in undergrad.

"Sure," Mokuba replied slowly, his left eye just beginning to twitch. "I can't promise you I'll be able to deliver, but—"

"I want to throw Kaiba-kun a proper birthday party. It doesn't have to be anything big, just something to take him away from being the perfect host for the exhibition. He should get a chance to really celebrate turning 30."

Mokuba's smile softened. Of course Yuugi would suggest something like that.

Not something for himself. Not a day off to spend with his grandpa, not a fancy outfit or a new car. Not even a nice dinner out somewhere or extra vacation time. A party. Not even a party, really, but permission to throw one for a notorious workaholic and grump.

"You don't even have to ask for that, Yuugi. I'm on board, 100 percent."

"Did he ever tell you what we did for my 30th birthday this past summer?" Yuugi asked.

"No, what'd you—wait, you said we? You guys did something together?"

"Yeah. Grandpa was… he was in the hospital getting a stent then, and so there wasn't anything to really celebrate at home. Mom insisted I still try and keep myself busy, since there was nothing I could really accomplish by sitting there, staring at the floor."

"Oh," Mokuba said softly. He had no idea Sugoroku had been through heart surgery, but he could imagine how helpless Yuugi felt. Mokuba had felt similarly, back when Seto left him "in charge" of Kaiba Corporation while the Big Five made a deal with Pegasus behind their backs. He'd desperately wanted to help his big brother then, but it was clear there was simply nothing he could do, even in keeping the vault key away from Pegasus, or stealing Yuugi's Star Chips, or…

"We went up to the Blue-Eyes White Jet platform. Watched the sunset and played this weird spherical chess game Kaiba-kun had loaded on the Duel Disk prototype from back then." Yuugi let out a breathy laugh. "He wiped the floor with me."

Mokuba's brows shot up into his hairline. "He beat you at something?"

Yuugi's gaze switched from his tall window overlooking western Domino to Mokuba. Somehow, the daylight outside—perhaps reflecting off the other skyscrapers in the area—made Yuugi's eyes look glassy.

"I'm not the King of Games anymore," he said softly. "And I'm okay with that."

Mokuba scanned Yuugi's face for any sign that he was lying, but if he was, Mokuba couldn't tell. "Is–is it because of Big Brother? Or do you mean—"

"I haven't been the King of Games for a long time, Mokuba-kun. And honestly, I'm not sure I would ever want to be again."

"Did you tell Big Brother that?" Mokuba blurted.

Yuugi reclined a bit more in his chair, looking thoughtfully up at his ceiling. "Not in so many words, no. But I think he knows."

Mokuba didn't know what to say, so he was grateful when Yuugi continued to speak.

"He brought me out of a pretty dark place I'd fallen into that day, to be honest," Yuugi said. "I never had the courage to tell him so, and even if I did, I'm sure he'd make some excuse about how it wasn't about cheering me up or even it being my birthday."

"Ha, that sounds like Big Brother," Mokuba responded. Seto didn't personally do things for other people. Or rather, he did, but it was always under the pretense of something else, like a project at work or an international call he had to stay up late for.

"So you can understand why I want to give him a proper birthday party, right? Like, the one he should have gotten when he turned 18, or on his 20th birthday, or any of them."

"Copious amounts of alcohol and pizza, check," Mokuba said with a grin. He was happy to find the smile returned. "Should I arrange for an inflatable ball pit in one of the hotel conference rooms, too?"

Yuugi guffawed at the notion. "I don't think Kaiba-kun would come within two meters of one of those things without wearing a full hazmat suit."

"You're probably right. Okay, so no ball pit, but what about laser tag?"

Yuugi laughed harder.

"An escape room? Or maybe we should have a themed costume party…"