A/N: This was initially posted last month on my AO3 account, as a birthday gift for a dear friend.

[12 Months Before Launch]

Yugi stretched his arms high in the air and let out a loud yawn into the otherwise empty lab. A quick glance up to the clock hanging on the wall by the door confirmed what he already knew: that it was far too late to be here.

"Ugh," he groaned and rolled the kink out of his neck as he got up. He should have known, when the assisting technicians said their goodbyes earlier, that he should have gone with them. And that was over an hour ago. By now everyone in the lab had probably gone for the day. And, if he was honest with himself, most of the building too.

After winning his small-scale Spherium prototype in that contest, Kaiba was generous enough to offer to collaborate and produce his game on a larger scale. That included giving him his own space in one of Kaiba's numerous development labs. But even though he was partnering with Kaiba's company, he wasn't an employee under Kaiba's thumb, and didn't want to overstay his welcome past business hours. Even if Kaiba had cleared out this space just for him.

His phone buzzed against the desk with a new message icon pinballing around the screen, waiting for his acknowledgement, and Yugi bit his lip. He had told Grandpa he would have been home by now. Hopefully he didn't make him worry too much.

Yugi swiped up on the screen. The incoming text wasn't from his grandfather. It was from Mokuba, and he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the message.

'Has Seto left the office yet? I can't get a hold of him.'

Yugi blinked. Mokuba was asking him that? Surely he could just call his brother and find out himself. Then again, by now Mokuba was out of school for the day and probably home. At this hour, Kaiba should be there with him.

Another glance at the clock. Mokuba was asking, so Kaiba wasn't home. And if he wasn't home, then where else would he be, but squirreled away in his office, working on who-knows-what that could absolutely wait until tomorrow to get done?

He woke up the laptop on the desk, given to him by Kaiba for work on the game, and sure enough, in the company messenger program, Kaiba S. still appeared to be online.

Surprise, surprise.

Yugi sighed and typed out a reply.

'Doesn't look like it! …but I'm still here too, so what does that tell you?'

Mokuba's response was near instantaneous.

'You're supposed to feed my brother good habits, not take some of his!'

A pending chat bubble appeared on the screen before another line from Mokuba dropped in.

'I really hate to ask this…but since you're still there…could you do me a huge favor?'

Yugi tilted his head to the side and sent back a thumbs up. He had a vague idea of what the favor was. Not that it would be hard to figure out. Mokuba was inquiring about his brother, after all. And since Kaiba didn't seem to be answering his phone, he guessed he was about to make a trip all the way up to the top of the tower to make sure he didn't fall asleep at his desk again….

…and he was partially right.

Yugi leaned against the side wall of the elevator as it continued its ascent to the top floors. Hanging on his arm? Takeout from the sandwich shop down the street. Mokuba's ask just wasn't to make sure his brother was still alive – but to make sure he ate. Because apparently getting the elder Kaiba to vacate the office in recent days has been nigh impossible.

The only clue Mokuba could give him as to why, over the phone on the short walk back to the office, was a barely-distinguishable mumble that sounded sort of like 'Pegasus'.

That certainly explained a lot.

The secretary's desk was unsurprisingly empty when he stepped out of the elevator and into the small, cozy lounge space between her desk and the short hallway leading to Kaiba's office, where light spilled out from the open doorway, a bright homing beacon in the night.

At least Kaiba was here and he didn't have to scour the labs looking for him. Or stumble upon the possibility that in the twenty minutes since he left his own workspace and ran to get food that Kaiba may actually have left the building. In which case Yugi would have kindly placed the wrapped sandwich in the fancy kitchen on the other end of the floor and taken his sandwich home – because Mokuba insisted he eat something too.

It didn't come to that though, for sure enough, Kaiba sat at his desk, outlined by the lamplight against the dark Domino skyline, hunched over a terrifying pile of paperwork while idly twirling a pen around his fingers.

Yugi raised his free hand to rap against the doorframe and –

"Why are you still here?"

Yugi blinked and lowered his arm. Kaiba hadn't even looked up at him. "Why are you?"

The only indication that Kaiba had acknowledged that even said anything was the barest twitch in his jaw.

"Go home, Yugi."

Yugi raised an eyebrow. For Kaiba, that was a rather pathetic deflection. Undeterred, he crossed the threshold into the office and placed the takeout bag on the edge of the desk next to the phone; the only surface untouched by the paper explosion.

Seto flipped to the next page in his Paperwork of Doom. He still didn't look up. "What's that?"

"Dinner?"

"I'm not hungry."

Yugi frowned and surveyed the space in front of him. Today's coffee mug of choice – black with what he believed to be a white dragon painted on it, sat abandoned on the far opposite corner of the desk, clear out of easy reach. Kaiba himself looked uncharacteristically undone: his jacket tossed haphazardly over the side of the office couch, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened.

He had to have hunkered down here for hours. So the odds of him having eaten at any point in the day were slim. Roland may have brought him something earlier, as he sometimes did, but judging by the cold coffee still on the desk and no evidence of food wrappers or takeout bags anywhere else in the room, he doubted today was one of those days.

So Kaiba was just being stubborn.

Typical.

"Uh huh," Yugi said flatly. "So why are you here so late?"

"Why did you bring me dinner?"

Another deflection, but this wasn't the first time Yugi sat at this side of Kaiba's desk and had a tight-lipped game of Twenty Questions disguised as a conversation. A game that, naturally, they both played to win.

"Maybe you should answer your phone," said Yugi. "Mokuba –"

"—doesn't need to drag you in to check up on me. I'm fine."

"Maybe you should just tell him that then. He's been trying to contact you all night."

"So he made you an errand boy now?"

Yugi crossed his arms. "Well, when you didn't respond to any of his calls or messages, what else was he supposed to do but think you're just withering away up here doing who-knows-what?"

A sharp intake of breath, and then the pen was set rather harshly down on the desk. Seto leaned back and glared darkly across the desk with narrowed eyes.

"Why are you in the building so late? And don't say you're here to mother me. Mokuba wouldn't have put you up to this if you had already left."

Yugi loosened up his stance and laid his hands across his lap. "I was working on Spherium," he said, "on that interface that I've been having trouble with. The lab techs helped me find a shortcut to make programming the monsters a little easier, but I guess I got carried away and lost track of time."

Yugi leaned forward, reached into the bag he set down, and pulled out the Styrofoam box, which he then pushed a little closer to the center of the desk. He was only slightly dismayed that Kaiba barely looked at it.

"What about you?"

"Spherium," Seto snapped. Even one well-accustomed to most of Kaiba's tones and moods, Yugi was caught off guard by how harsh their shared project spilled from his rival's lips – a taboo, that mentioning its name would bring divine wrath down on them both.

Similar to how, just a few years past that seemed almost like a lifetime ago, that uttering words of magic and destiny in Kaiba's presence also wrought the same levels of aggravation. Damning words, those were.

Words never stopped Kaiba before. But Spherium was a project they took on together, and as Kaiba was not one to hold back, if there was a problem or something he didn't like about the game, he'd tell him.

"Spherium," Yugi repeated.

Seto's fingers twitched, eager to take hold of something, and he started to reach for the pen again but stopped halfway there and dropped his wrist back down to the armrest on his chair and resorted to just drumming his nails against the edge.

"I spent the better part of the afternoon working on acquiring your licensing agreements."

"Oh." That didn't seem so terrible. Kaiba had assured him that he would take care of the business nitty gritty of getting Spherium completed, and that was just a piece of it, but surely those were the kinds of things that he was used to doing. Was it –

Oh. Licensing agreements. His game incorporated Duel Monsters. That meant Kaiba was bartering with Industrial Illusions all day.

OH.

Mokuba's mumble over the phone made a lot more sense now.

"I…okay, I understand." Yugi gestured to the paperwork disaster. "So what's all this?"

"This was sent over by Industrial Illusions, which I've been going line by line to make sure that Pegasus didn't slip in anything to screw us over."

Yugi bit his lip. "You think he would do that, after all this time?"

Kaiba's eyes flashed at him, a hot and fiery stare in cool contrast to the icy tone in his voice. "Pegasus may have waved a white apology flag in your face and worked his way back into yours and your friends' good graces, but he has done no such thing for me."

"Duelist Kingdom was a long time ago, Kaiba. That's in the past –"

Kaiba suddenly got up and loomed over the desk dangerously at him, for that brief moment, Yugi couldn't have been happier that the desk was wide enough that Kaiba wasn't towering directly over him.

"You of all people should not be lecturing me on forgiving him."

Yugi sighed. Pegasus never came forward with a formal apology for his actions, even after losing the Millennium Eye and after all of the other Millennium Items were laid to rest. But knowing the terrible effects that the Items themselves could do to the people who wore them, he couldn't help but forgive him after reading through the diary.

But Kaiba wasn't there with them at the time.

"If you only –"

"I could fill a book with the amount of damage Pegasus has done to me, my brother, and my company that has and will forever go unanswered, and as far as I'm concerned, he is beyond forgiving. It is a conversation I am not willing to have with you, so if that's all you're wanting, you can take your peace offering and get out."

Yugi held up his hands defensively. "Okay, okay. I didn't mean to stir the pot."

He paused. "That didn't explain why you haven't answered Mokuba's calls. That's not like you."

Kaiba huffed and pointed off to the side, and Yugi saw a shattered art frame along the side wall of the office, and what appeared to be the remains of a mangled cell phone buried in the broken glass.

"Um…"

"That was after my conference call with Pegasus," Seto said simply, and sat back down.

"You…threw your phone?"

"It was the closest thing in reach. Either that or the mug, and that was a gift from Mokuba."

Kaiba took a deep breath, sat back down, and glanced at his watch and grimaced. Yugi watched him let out a long, drawn out exhale and reach for the office phone. He cradled it between his ear and his shoulder and dialed a number long-ingrained into memory.

"Hey," Kaiba said into the phone, and for lack of anything better to do at that moment, Yugi peered at all the Industrial Illusions documents on the desk. Many pages. Fine print. Exceptionally wordy. Still, it was better than completely eavesdropping on Kaiba's conversation. "…Yes, you can rest assured, I'm alive…."

He wasn't dumb by any means, but there was a lot of jargon he'd need Kaiba to translate for him. Which he was sure would happen after he gave all the papers an initial read. Spherium wasn't solely a Kaiba Corporation product, it was both his and Kaiba's.

"…No I haven't gotten any of them," he heard Kaiba say, "…no, the call went on longer than it was supposed to…. Yes, I'm sure it's broken. …I'll have a new one reprogrammed tomorrow."

Blue eyes flickered onto Yugi for a second before flitting away to the broken art print. "Yes, Yugi is still here."

Yugi watched him then zone in on the takeout box. "…Yes."

Eyes rolled. "…You could have done the same thing, you know. Communication is a two-way street. …Uh huh. Well, I tried kicking him out once, and he's still here. …That's completely unnecessary—fine."

Blue eyes squeezed shut and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "…Alright, fine. I'll be out soon – (Yugi forced himself not to visibly react, 'soon' for Kaiba did not mean the same thing as 'soon' for most people) – but I wouldn't stay up. It's a mess. …Tomorrow then. Bye."

"Mokuba?" Yugi asked.

"Mokuba."

Another long sigh and then Seto reached for the box.

"What did he say?"

"He told me I need to stop smashing my phones after calls with Pegasus." A beat pause. "And to 'eat the damn monte cristo'."

Yugi's eyes brightened. "Oh, is that what it is?"

Kaiba got up again, grabbed the coffee mug off the desk, and beckoned Yugi to follow him out of the office and across the floor to the one of many employee kitchens squirreled around the building.

"You didn't know?"

"He didn't tell me what it was," Yugi shrugged. "So does this mean you're going to take a breather now? It'll probably do you good to stare at something that didn't come from Pegasus for a while."

Kaiba washed out the mug and grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. The second was passed to Yugi before he turned on his heel and stalked back to the office.

"You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you just took the food when I gave it to you," said Yugi.

"Look here, Yugi," Kaiba said once they made it back inside. He grabbed the sandwich box and moved towards the couch. "There are currently only two people allowed to get on my case like that. You are not one of them." He gestured to the other couch, opposite the coffee table. "Sit."

Yugi blinked at him. "Oh, you don't want me to go, now that I've fulfilled my obligation of being Mokuba's messenger?"

Seto opened the box and pulled out one of the sandwich halves cut perfectly down the center. The bread wasn't nearly as hot and crisp anymore from both the travel and sitting around on his desk, but it was loads better than the meal Roland brought him two days ago that the remainder of would be atrociously ruined in the microwave. He made a mental note to toss it later.

"Since I've destroyed my phone, and will still probably be here for another few hours, Mokuba wants proof I ate. So you'll have to send him a photo and testimony that I did, in fact, eat it and not just empty the box for a photo op."

"I see," said Yugi. "Well…then do you mind if I join you? I haven't eaten in a while either, and picked up something too. And…I guess, in the meantime, you can tell me how the call went?"

Kaiba scowled back at him.

Yugi retrieved his own dinner and sat back down opposite him. "Okay. Another time then. But…."

He glanced off past Kaiba, to the broken frame. "I have to ask…just how many phones have you broken after calls with Pegasus?"

Kaiba wiped a smear of powdered sugar off of the back of his hand – a moot exercise with most of the sandwich still to go, but better than having it get all over his clothes. "…I've lost count. But it's a better alternative than throwing the mugs."

"Is it?"

"It is when they're ones that Mokuba personally hand-painted."

"Ah." Yugi looked around the office. It was really none of his business to get involved or in-the-know on the inner workings of Kaiba's and Pegasus's business partnership. But maybe he could help find Kaiba a…less destructive outlet for getting his aggressions out. One that wouldn't throw Mokuba into a panic like it did today, and maybe would save a painting or two in the long run.

Maybe a dartboard or something. Then if they're both working late together it can be a little competitive game between them. Kaiba would probably enjoy that...

"Are you working here tomorrow?"

Yugi quickly twisted back around to face Kaiba. "Oh, uh. No, I have to be at the Game Shop. But I'll be back Wednesday."

Kaiba nodded. "We'll have to go over all of that." He jerked his head in the direction of his desk.

"Will you have finished screening them by then?"

"I'll have them finished tonight," said Kaiba, "because tomorrow I'll be down in the labs all day working on the next duel disk. …And getting another phone."

"I'm glad you're getting something fun to work on then. Not all paperwork and conference calls and destructive tendencies."

"No," said Kaiba, and he set the now empty box on the table, then leaned casually into the back of the couch and eyed Yugi with the ghost of a smile on his face. "So – tell me about the progress you're making in the lab….."

[8 Months Before Launch]

When Kaiba told him that, as part of one of the many negotiations made with Pegasus, Yugi would have to bring the most-recent demo prototype (now a tad more stylishly updated than his initial design) to New York for Pegasus to try, in the middle of a convention panel, he thought he was joking.

Kaiba, however, has both a dry sense of humor, but also doesn't kid around when Pegasus is involved, so fast-forward exactly two months later, and Yugi can't help but feel exhaustion tearing away at the adrenaline rush of standing in the middle of a panel session, with Pegasus standing beside him, leading the audience through a round of (surprisingly deafening) applause.

Pegasus picked up on the gameplay rather quickly and the two of them played their way around the sphere with cameras both overhead and to the side capturing what they were doing for the attendees unable to see in the back of the room. It was a little nerve-wracking, to sit across from Pegasus for the first time since Duelist Kingdom, only this time it was a game of his own creation, and without any underhand magical shenanigans.

He didn't expect the crowd in the room to be so large, and couldn't help but wonder if they were drawn into the panel because it was to highlight new and up and coming games, or for Pegasus…or for his name alone? Did anyone have any true interest in Spherium, or would Duel Monsters be his one-trick name for fame. He couldn't help but feel a bit awkward during his portion of the entire panel. He didn't have the boisterous charisma to hold over the masses that Kaiba and Pegasus naturally carried.

And if that was the case, and everyone came to see the panel because he, Yugi Muto – the King of Games – was on it, what did that mean for his future? Kaiba was helping to develop Spherium. That didn't mean the same would hold true for anything afterwards. Would the world treat him as a has-been, and not produce or purchase anything he created?

All of his fears that started to bubble up through his stomach were drowned back down once Pegasus shook his hand (again, still a little weird – his last interaction with the man was through a pre-recorded virtual hologram) and a good third of the audience gave him a standing ovation. For a little prototype of a game that was nowhere near finished yet.

The moderator for the panel calmed down the crowd and with only a short bit of time before the timeslot was up, opened the floor for questions, and Yugi could not have been more thankful that Pegasus fielded most of them, though he did surprise himself at the number he managed to answer coherently.

All he could think and fret over was the day the Kaiba brothers put him on the spot during their Grand Prix tournament, and mercifully he only flubbed out on a couple of questions. Bless this little crowd for being more forgiving than Kaiba's stadium.

And speaking of….

While Pegasus enthralled the audience, Yugi took a sweeping glance around the room. Kaiba was present at the start of the panel, wasn't he? Not a participant up on the stage, but just in the room. But now he couldn't find him anywhere.

He heard Pegasus prompt for him, and he smiled at the crowd, holding up the prototype game sphere. But he couldn't help the internal frown from spreading. Did Kaiba really ditch him during the demo? That was the most important part of the panel!

As soon as he was able, Yugi ducked out of the room, and moved down the long convention hall, glancing down this way and that way to every cross corridor he stumbled upon, until there! – two doors down from the main hustle and bustle of the con he spotted Roland hovering outside one of the smaller event rooms, giving off the appearance of someone lazily browsing their phone, but Yugi knew better after spending weeks on and off the road with Kaiba in developing Spherium.

Wherever Kaiba went, Roland followed.

Roland glanced up and eyed Yugi over the top of his dark sunglasses. He didn't even bother knocking on the door to announce Yugi's presence. He merely turned the handle and nodded him inside.

Kaiba sat at the head of the table, typing ferociously, beating the poor keyboard to hell and back. Yugi paused for a moment in the doorway to watch him work before making a beeline to one of the other chairs at the table. As ridiculous as it was, he always felt in awe of how Kaiba's fingers just always found their target running at breakneck speed, while if he tried typing something that fast, he was certain all he'd see would be gibberish across the screen.

"There you are," said Yugi, and nudged the door shut behind him. Kaiba barely looked at him, and kept on abusing his laptop.

Yugi dropped into a chair and propped his elbows up along the edge of the table. "You left the panel."

"I did."

"Why?"

"Something came up that I had to take care of," said Kaiba. "But I stayed through the entire demo. I slipped out towards the end of the Q&A. It was only a few minutes ago."

"Uh huh," said Yugi, "You sure you just didn't want Pegasus calling you up onto the stage?"

"He wouldn't have," said Kaiba, and to Yugi's relief, he stopped working and leaned back in his chair, giving him his full attention. "The panel had nothing to do with me."

"You're an equal part in helping to create Spherium," said Yugi.

"I'm helping you develop and distribute the game, yes. But the game itself is your creation. The best person to stand up there and share the story and how to play is you, not me."

"Well…that still doesn't do well for me, for showing off to crowds, you know?"

"I'm surprised some of his excessive drama never wore off on you. You only shared a brain for what – two years?"

"It's not the same, and you know it!" Yugi huffed. "And before you remind me of my high school graduation – for the thousandth time – I'm going to equally remind you that all that natural full-blown charisma doesn't come naturally to me!"

"I know," said Kaiba, "I remember clearing that entire day to work on your speech for Pegasus's tournament."

"…And I still flubbed it up," Yugi moaned.

"It needed work," said Kaiba, "but it was at least leagues better than how it started."

"…If you say so."

Yugi took a long glance around the room as Kaiba picked up his work again. The clock on the wall read 3:45. There was just enough time that he could hail a cab back to the hotel, drop off his prototype, clean up and grab a snack, and then get himself across Manhattan to the Theatre District, where a pair of tickets to Téa's evening show were waiting for him at the Box Office. He couldn't guarantee he'd get to the show in time for the doors to close – too much depended on how his day went here, but as it turned out, their last event item for the day ended up cancelled, so now he had several free hours to himself.

And he had an idea.

"What sort of emergency are you dealing with this time?" asked Yugi, "Surely all your super-techs and whoever else can handle something that comes up, especially since right about now we were supposed to be at that Pro League thing."

Kaiba's eyes never left the laptop. "I never said it was an emergency. You came to that conclusion all on your own."

"I don't see why else you would leave the panel right at the very end unless it was important."

"I got what I needed from the panel," said Kaiba, "I watched the demo from the audience's perspective, and took notes on where I thought room for improvement was needed. I had the panel recorded so you can watch it back and give your thoughts on how it went, and where you think we need to tweak the game."

Yugi raised an eyebrow at him. "I didn't think you had the session recorded."

"Every time we go on the road to show off Spherium, you are the one giving the demo. You see how the game plays all the time as the creator and the instructor. But what you want is to watch it from the audience's point of view, from the perspective of someone who isn't a master at games. You want to make sure that a spectator who has never even heard of the rules can follow the basic mechanics. So while you are making sure the game plays as it's meant to, I'm also watching to make sure the holograms are generating properly, because otherwise that's something I need to make sure is fixed. Are they glitching? Are they too big or too small? Do we need to scale up or down the prototype itself – these are all things you want to take note of in the beginning, so later, when we are actually beta-testing, there are only minor changes that need made."

"I gotcha," said Yugi. "So…is that something we're going to do now?"

"They're not going to have the recording that fast." Kaiba said. "Why?"

"Well…." Yugi began, "Téa got me tickets to see her show tonight, if we got out of here early enough. Come with me!"

"Sitting stuck in the center of a crowded theatre does not sound appealing," Kaiba mumbled.

"Why, what would you rather do? You've been hustled around this place all day. You have to be tired of staring at laptop screens and showing off to crowds for once."

"Even if I were, being jostled into another crowd is not my idea of fun."

"Would you rather be here, hiding from Pegasus?"

Kaiba glared at him. "I am not hiding from Pegasus."

"Suuure you're not."

Yugi got up, pressed his hands against the edge of the table and leaned forward until he was almost hanging over the top of the laptop. "I think you're just too afraid to go out and have a good time for once. I bet you'd even enjoy the show too."

Kaiba's glare didn't waver, but he had also stopped working, and was solely focused on boring his frigid stare right between Yugi's eyes.

Yugi grinned. "I bet you don't even know what show she's in."

Kaiba smirked at him. "Of course I do. She's in contact with Mokuba all the time."

Yugi's grin widened. "Okay, so what you're saying, is that you'd rather hide in either here or your hotel all by yourself than go and experience a little culture and pizazz."

Kaiba snorted. "Who said I'm staying in a hotel?"

Yugi blinked.

"This is New York City, Yugi. Kaiba Corporation has a regional headquarters here. You don't think I live out of a hotel when I stay months at a time, do you?"

"Oh, so you have a penthouse right above your office, so you can leave it, sneak upstairs, and go back to work?"

Kaiba laughed dryly. "There is a penthouse apartment on the top floor of the Kaiba Corp building. Mokuba initially wanted it, but then changed his mind at the last minute because that's exactly what he thought I'd do. We have a home uptown."

Yugi waved his hand flippantly. "Ok, well. Whatever. Doesn't matter where you live. I bet you can't go one evening without staring at a screen."

"…Is that a challenge?"

Yugi tilted his head. "Maybe it is."

His smile grew even more once Kaiba's smirk slowly fell from his face. Gotcha!

Kaiba glared at him again. "You tricked me."

"I did no such thing!" Yugi said, "I merely said what most of us believe to be true – you never get off your phone, or your tablet, or your laptop, and your brain never leaves Kaiba Corp. So just this once, maybe you should. You don't have to. I'm fine to go by myself, but I thought you might like the change in scenery."

He smiled innocently again. "And, you know…Pegasus won't be there, so you can stop hiding."

"I am not hiding."

"This the corner of the building furthest from the next Industrial Illusions panel."

Without taking his eyes off him, Kaiba slammed the lid down on the laptop and huffed. "What time is the show?"

Yugi beamed.

[2 Months Before Launch]

'When are you in the office next?'

Yugi sat up a little straighter on the stool behind the shop's register as the light ping! and the new message icon popped up onto his phone.

A quick glance out in front of him confirmed what he already knew: that no one was in the Game Shop, and he quickly unlocked his phone to read the entire message.

'When are you in the office next? Paperwork to go over before product launch on 11/8.'

The number was, naturally, unknown. But Yugi only knew of one person who would technically be texting him about game launch. And also knowing that Kaiba broke two of his phones over the last month in fits of rage, this had to be him.

He thought by now Kaiba would have invented a more indestructible phone, but he guessed that wasn't a high enough priority at the moment. Oh well.

'This afternoon,' he typed back. Grandpa wouldn't get back from his errands for at least another hour or so, so he had to hold the fort down in the meantime. He didn't mind it, today was a rather slow day out of an equally slow week, but, if any of the conventions and demo events that Kaiba previously took him to were anything to go by, Spherium was set to have a pretty amazing launch.

In just over two months.

So it was best to hold onto the peaceful slow days while he could, for there was no telling how busy the shop might become once Spherium was out and on the shelves.

The cute little chime he set his text alerts to went off again.

'What time?'

Yugi frowned and thought back to the schedule Grandpa had on the little whiteboard hanging on the fridge. A doctor's appointment and a trip to the grocery store. By now…hopefully his appointment was almost over.'

'Uh…2 or 3? Waiting on Grandpa to get home and I have a few other things to take care of before stopping by.'

'I have meetings all afternoon. I'll have them sent to your desk for review.'

Yugi stared at his phone. Kaiba wasn't very specific on what sort of paperwork it was. Just something for Spherium, which honestly could be anything. A shipping or a launch schedule, since they were so close to release? Or maybe some sort of licensing contracts? He had no idea what kind of changes he would have to be on the lookout for.

This was a lot easier to do with someone who normally read all the fine print jargon on a daily basis. Grandpa was able to help him with some of it, in the very beginning, but there was stuff buried deep in some of the packets of contracts he brought home once that Gramps just didn't understand either, and he'd been running his shop for as long as Yugi could remember.

Kaiba also didn't say how time-sensitive it all was either, which didn't help matters. Did he have to have this back on his desk by the end of the day? The week? The only thing he was sure about was that Kaiba would be unavailable for questions once he got into the building.

Yugi looked over at the clock on the bottom corner of the computer screen. 11:30am.

If there were any questions he was going to ask Kaiba, he needed to do them now.

Yugi grabbed the phone off the desk, and dialed the unknown number, which rang twice before he heard the rustling of someone picking up the other end of the line.

"What is it, Yugi?"

"Help me go over the documents," Yugi blurted out. It wasn't quite the way he planned the conversation in his head when he picked up the phone, but oh well. There was no going back now. "Please."

He ran a finger against a chip in the register counter, feeling rather foolish. Kaiba was not going to just drop everything and make time for him when he was already incredibly busy. There were a lot of other company projects coming down the pipeline with upcoming release dates, and Kaiba had been pulling a lot of long hours to take care of all of them.

And, Yugi frowned to himself, he wasn't even a real Kaiba Corp employee. Just…what, a friend with access to a virtual lab?

Did Kaiba even think of him as a friend? Sure they collaborated on Spherium fairly well over the last several months, but was Kaiba doing it out of necessity (and the promise of future profit), or did he really, genuinely want to help him out? Kaiba also never seemed irritated whenever he needed to take up his time, so that was also a win in his favor. But being cordial to a business partner was hardly a claim of friendship. Even if he did manage to get Kaiba out of the office a few times, if anything to get something to eat.

And Kaiba never refused it or complained in the end about his lack of productivity whenever he was out. Maybe, even if he never admitted it, he enjoyed the company and the rescue from Kaiba Corp to a kinder change of scenery.

"I'm not free this afternoon."

"I know," said Yugi, "but what about now? You can bring them by the shop?"

"I can't just stop what I'm doing just because you want me to."

"Well, you have a lunch hour – which I know you never eat during. You can come by then and we can go over them before you have to go back to whatever you have scheduled for the rest of the day."

Kaiba was silent on the other end.

"Please," Yugi said sheepishly, "I know it takes up your time, and I'm sorry. But there's usually something lying in those documents that I don't understand, and Grandpa can only help me so far. And this makes it easier than having to remember to track you down another day when we both have other things that need to get done."

Kaiba sighed. "Fine. I'll be there in thirty minutes."

The line clicked at the same time the door to the shop jingled open, and the mailperson dropped off a small stack of letters with a friendly wave before setting off again.

Yugi lazily flipped through the pack. Junk, junk…home decorating magazine? – Junk.

The bottommost item, a bright and colorful brochure, made him stop with one foot hovering just over the top of the pedal for the trash can.

Hmmm….

"I thought you wanted to go over documents, not go for a walk," Kaiba said stiffly.

"I did, and we are, just not at home," said Yugi. "And since you'd end up working through lunch, I thought we'd hit the best of both worlds."

Kaiba had arrived nearly thirty minutes exactly to the mark, just as he said he would. Grandpa had returned from his appointments only a few minutes prior to him showing up, which Yugi considered a blessing in disguise.

The entire morning had gone by exceptionally slow, so naturally, once he got Kaiba to agree to leave his tower it got busy. At least now Grandpa could run the shop and they could look at the paperwork uninterrupted.

Yugi had hurried outside once he heard the sound of a car pulling up in the slightly-more discreet parking area behind the shop with the intention of keeping Kaiba out of his grandfather's crosshairs – and vice versa. He honestly had no idea if Grandpa had still harbored any resentment towards Kaiba for that fateful day, when Atem first dueled Kaiba above his office and banished the darkness from his heart, or if – like he had with Pegasus – decided to forgive and move on.

He also didn't know how Kaiba himself felt about being in the same room with his grandfather, now that he'd mellowed out some since the old days of running around and saving the world. Did he harbor guilt from putting Grandpa into the hospital? Tearing up the fourth Blue Eyes?

Or was it just some event that lived rent-free in some tiny corner of Kaiba's memory, ticked off on a checklist of things that occurred and to never look back on again.

As much as a part of him really wanted to know the answer, his initial guess that Kaiba was in a piss-poor mood was absolutely right, and he decided today was not the day to ask.

He instead greeted Kaiba within four steps of his rival getting out of the car, and dropped the bombshell that they weren't going to look over the contracts here, but outside, and that he could dismiss his driver for an hour or so because they were going to walk instead of ride.

If Kaiba wasn't happy about leaving his lair, the thought of physical exercise absolutely didn't do it for him, but it seemed he was in the mood enough to humor his request, and Yugi watched him speak to the driver for a moment before the car pulled out of the tiny street behind the Game Shop and returned to Kaiba Corp.

"Where are we going?"

"It's a nice day," Yugi said mildly, "I thought we'd go to the park."

"…the park."

"Yup."

Yugi sped up ahead when they reached the corner and hit the button for the crosswalk. "It's not much farther, I promise."

Kaiba scoffed. "I may spend most of my day shut into one building, but believe it or not, I do know my way around Domino. I know where the park is."

"Did you know it's Food Truck Friday?"

Kaiba shoved his hands into the pocket of his coat and stared down at him with a raised eyebrow. "You're making that up, just like ninety percent of all of the other random holidays floating around on the Internet."

Yugi pulled the brochure from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over. "Nope!"

Kaiba barely glanced at it and started across the street. "Are you trying to conspire with Mokuba?"

Yugi followed along after him, blinking owlishly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you?" Kaiba said flatly, "This isn't the first – or even the fourth time – that you've interrupted my schedule. For food. If I didn't know better, Mokuba is using you to force me to eat."

"I don't know why anyone would have to force you," said Yugi, "We all have to eat at some point. I just thought that since I have to be at work later, I have to grab lunch. And since you're going to just work through yours, this was the best opportunity for me to grab a bite and still get to over whatever's in those documents. Win-win for both of us."

"You're not as clever as you think, and you're not going to play me like you did in New York."

Yugi shrugged, smiling innocently. "I'm not doing anything!"

Kaiba sent him back a half-hearted glare.

They stopped on the sidewalk mere steps from the edge of the park. From behind Kaiba, Yugi could see a cluster of colorful trucks in the open square, near both the fountain and the picnic tables. Colorful, zesty, tasty smells wafted through the air and made both his mouth water and his stomach gurgle in anticipation. He had no idea just what he was going to grab, but if he could catch so many flavors from this distance, the decision would not be an easy one.

"I remember you showing up at my office after hours with dinner that Mokuba sent, months ago. Then there was the invitation to duel –"

Yugi's grin didn't waver.

"—that instead of a trip to the Duel Dome, you took me to Burger World. Burger World, Yugi."

"And you enjoyed it, didn't you?"

Kaiba wrinkled his nose and Yugi couldn't help but laugh. "If I was going to go out for a burger of all things, I certainly wouldn't look for one where everything is served in a swimming pool of grease. Now don't change the subject."

Yugi, still smiling, just tilted his head curiously, hugging the folder of documents close to his chest.

"You dragged me out of the convention center for dinner and to see a show –"

"You were hiding from Pegasus. Rather pathetically too, I might add."

"I was not hiding."

"Okay."

Kaiba crossed his arms. "Any of this have any meaning to you, because from what it sounds like to me is that you just enjoy upending my schedule?"

Yugi's smile slowly slid away, and, after a fleeting peek behind him as if the park was going to vanish if he didn't check to make sure it was still there.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," he said, all traces of mirth gone. "That you think I'm just here to drag you off to places you don't want to go, even if, from where I'm standing, you didn't seem to mind. I'm sorry that you think I was just…I don't know…wasting your carefully arranged schedule.

"What I see in front of me, all these months that we've been working together, is a friend who works harder than a hundred people do in their entire lifetime, and not give himself the chance to step back and breathe. And I think you deserve a break more than anyone, even if it's only eating a sandwich on the couch in your office, or the cultural highlight of fast food – which, I might add, I'm surprised you've never been to with Mokuba before. Color me shocked - he's been to Burger World plenty of times with us."

Yugi bit his lip and looked around him at the park, and the circle of food trucks off in the distance. "Spherium releases in just a few months. I know things have been crazy for me, getting ready for launch. I don't work for Kaiba Corp, so I don't get to see everything that happens behind the scenes. I can't imagine what it's like for you, on top of everything else you have going on in your office."

He looked down at the folder. "Maybe you're right. Maybe Mokuba plotted this from the very beginning."

A single dry laugh. "Man, I wish he would have told me – that'd make this a lot less awkward."

Kaiba drummed his fingers against his forearm.

"I'm sorry," said Yugi, "I…thought it would be nice to do this outside the office. In a change of scenery. But…if you want we can go back to the office. Or wherever and whenever works better for you."

Kaiba sighed; a long, drawn out exhale as he stared out into the center of the park.

Yugi stared up at him, feeling weirdly more nervous now than any point over the course of their working relationship. He spent years listening to Kaiba's bark. Sharp words and insults fired over a dueling field were different than listening to him argue in an office, but he knew how to counter those sorts of moves. It was a language he knew how to read well.

The silence…not as much. Kaiba was never one to bite his tongue when it came to his employees or any of his friends, and certainly not to Pegasus. But Kaiba was never that way with him, not all the time at least. Kaiba's been short with him plenty of times, but there was never as much bite in his words.

When Kaiba was silent for long periods of time, he had no way of knowing just what was going on in his brain, and then he could only guess how many times he reworded his thoughts before finally speaking again. And he couldn't help but wonder just what Kaiba wished to say, but decided against it. Did Kaiba think he was too sensitive? Because he was made of stronger stuff than everyone else seemed to think, and he sometimes wished Kaiba would just come out and say what he meant to say, instead of suppressing his feelings down deep where no one could –

"Lead the way."

Yugi blinked. "What?"

Kaiba nodded towards the picnic tables. "Pick a table. And…I suppose, a truck."

"Are you sure?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have told you to lead the way."

Yugi nodded and started off through the grass with Kaiba matching his stride beside him. "I think there's a truck for every kind of food here. Anything you want?"

"Not particularly."

With a low hum, Yugi glanced about the cluster of trucks. "You're not even hungry, are you?"

"No. But I have a strong suspicion you're going to make me eat, aren't you?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Yugi, "I can hope, of course, but I'm not going to sit and make you."

Kaiba laughed dryly, "Well, that's a step above Mokuba."

Yugi took a second sweep of his options and then moved to the Mexican-style taco truck, drawn in by the bold, colorful menu, and that this was the first he had ever seen a taco truck in Domino. He paid for his trio of tacos and two drinks and wandered back to where Kaiba was sitting, having found the cleanest table in the vicinity. He pushed the second drink towards Kaiba and plopped down on the other side of the table.

"Okay, let's begin," said Yugi. He picked up the first taco and took a huge bite, immediately tasting the spicy chile powders and cilantro. Overall, it was hotter than he expected it to be, and took a huge sip of his drink.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, it's good," said Yugi, and picked up one of the uneaten tacos, still carefully wrapped in paper. "Have one!"

Kaiba pulled a face. "That looks disgustingly greasy."

Yugi laughed, put the fresh one down and meanwhile, blobs of tomato, cheese, and salsa fell out of his wrap. "Your favorite thing!"

"Hardly. And no, I'll wait."

"No, no, it's fine," Yugi said around swallows, "I can eat and talk."

Kaiba gave him a pointed look and pushed the folder away from the food basket. "You're going to get the documents filthy. I'll wait."

"It'll be awkward if you're just there watching me eat."

Kaiba snorted and pulled his phone from his inner jacket pocket. "I can just as well answer emails."

"You can just as well have a taco."

"I could just as well not."

"Oh, but they're so flavorful! Plenty of kick – you'd like it!" He paused and frowned. "Or do you not do spicy food?"

"I never said I did or didn't."

"Oh. Awesome." Yugi picked up the second taco and pushed the cardboard basket with the third one across the table. "Here you go then."

Kaiba stared down at it. Then up at Yugi. Then back down at the taco. And finally, with a sigh, tugged the basket closer and carefully picked it up by the paper wrapping that was already starting to drip a mixture of sauce and grease off the edge.

He wrinkled his nose at it.

"It's worth it, I promise," said Yugi, "and besides, would I steer you wrong?"

Kaiba huffed, and after one final look of contempt at the mess in his hands, took a bite, and after chewing it for exactly three seconds made such a face that Yugi burst out laughing.

[Launch Day]

With an empty shopping basket hooked over his arm, Yugi inched his way up and down the aisles of the grocery store while scrolling through an old text conversation at the same time.

Three weeks ago, after (once again) bringing dinner up to Kaiba after hours (another Monte Cristo, but one for him too this time because the first one he got Kaiba months ago looked so damn good), he made mention to Kaiba about celebrating Spherium's launch date. Easy for him to do, as the Game Shop closed by dinnertime every night, but Kaiba liked to hide in his office until even the stars themselves got tired of twinkling.

Surprisingly, he didn't have to beg or pester Kaiba into it; he simply blinked at him once or twice before agreeing, and then went right back to working between bites. Neither of them spoke about any sort of celebratory launch day thing again until yesterday, when he sent Kaiba a message asking about tonight's plans, which conveniently were still empty.

A time (7:00pm) had been set, but so far Kaiba had no other details other than to make sure he was out of the office by five and to go home and wait for instructions. Specific enough to make sure Kaiba followed, yet vague enough to keep him guessing through the entire day and drive him mad.

Smiling to himself, he picked up a box of noodles, checked the item off of his mental shopping list, and wandered into the next aisle. Thirty minutes later, the basket he had been hauling around replaced with a brown paper bag full of ingredients, he wandered outside to find Mokuba waiting outside the car.

"Find everything?" he asked.

Yugi nodded and settled into the passenger seat. "Yep. Thanks for giving me a ride."

"No problem," said Mokuba, "I need the driving practice anyway."

"Glad I could help," said Yugi, "and thanks again for letting me, uh, use your kitchen. I…didn't want to test the waters with Grandpa. Or with your brother."

"It's no big deal. Remember to save me a plate, okay?"

"Sure," said Yugi. "But are you certain you won't be around?"

"Yeah," said Mokuba, "I'll be studying at a friend's house. You and Seto will have finished by the time I get back."

He weaved the car through and out of Domino, and then through the mansion gates on a private little road just along the outskirts of the city where he stopped in front of the steps leading up to the front door.

"You know your way around the kitchen?" asked Mokuba.

"Not that well," Yugi admitted, "and not this one, at least. I've weirdly spent more time at your NYC penthouse than here."

Mokuba laughed. "That's because you spent that month off with my brother promoting Spherium, which – I might add – is doing well from the pre-sale? I think?" He shrugged. "Eh. Seto would know more details on that than I would. He's the one who's been at work watching the numbers all day. I've been in school."

Yugi followed him into the kitchen and set his groceries down on the counter island. "Just point me to where you guys keep all your utensils and pans and whatnot and I think I can figure out the rest. You're sure Kaiba won't mind me being here by myself till he gets back?"

"Nah, it's fine. And it's not like you're really alone. Security is around here somewhere." Mokuba started pointing at cabinets. "Plates and whatnot here. Glasses there. Pots are above your head. Knives over there."

"I think I got this," said Yugi, and he shooed Mokuba towards the doorway out of the kitchen. "Go to your friends! I promise not to burn the house down."

"I appreciate it," Mokuba laughed, "though I won't lie – if you do, then I don't have to work on convincing Seto to leave this place and move somewhere less…what's the word…"

"Isolated? Stuffy? Big?"

"Haunted," Mokuba said, pulling a face, "but it's fine. A story for another day. Catch ya later, Yugi!"

Yugi heard the sound of the front door opening and closing off in the distance while he gave his sauce one final stir. He switched off the burner and turned around with the large empty baking dish just in time for Kaiba to walk into the kitchen with his phone pressed up between his shoulder and his ear. He smiled, and gave his fingers a wiggle of a wave as Kaiba came to a complete and sudden stop, eyes wide, staring right at him. No doubt his mind whirring as to why he was standing there in the Kaiba kitchen in the middle of preparing food, rather than in his own house across to the other side of Domino, ignoring all of Kaiba's calls as to what they were going to do for dinner tonight.

Kaiba lowered his phone and shoved it back into his jacket pocket. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you," Yugi said cheerfully.

"I thought dinner was at seven."

"It is," said Yugi.

Kaiba scrunched up his brow, looked around the room, from the organized chaos on the island to the number of occupied pots and pans littering his stovetop. "How did you get in?"

"Mokuba let me."

"I should have known."

"Yep. Who else is going to let me into your house? It's not like I have a key or anything. We don't have that kind of relationship – we're not me and Joey. He's always got a key to my place for whenever he needs it."

Kaiba's eye twitched. "You did not just compare me to him."

"Would never dream of it," Yugi said casually, and started laying noodles into the bottom of the pan, "and actually, I think I would be considered Joey in that analogy anyway, but it's neither here nor there. Now come over here and help me."

Kaiba crossed the kitchen and sat on one of the barstools across from him. "What are you doing, anyway?"

Yugi snickered. "I know you've been playing with numbers all day, but I didn't think that would short out your big brain. I'm cooking, silly! For Spherium's launch!"

"I thought we were going out to celebrate," said Kaiba.

"Why'd you think that?" asked Yugi, "I'm not going to change our plans for tonight at the drop of a hat, I'm just genuinely curious as to why you thought we were going out somewhere?"

"You told me to leave the office on time and wait for instructions, which apparently I incorrectly assumed would have the name of where I was to go tonight. I didn't realize I just had to be in my own kitchen."

Kaiba watched Yugi spoon some of the sauce into the baking dish. "I'm surprised you're cooking."

"Hm? Why is that?"

"After all of the extra work and last two weeks of double-time getting the last items fixed, it seems hard to believe that your idea of stepping back and celebrating is…work."

"This isn't work. This is cooking!"

"Which you wouldn't have to be doing if we booked a reservation somewhere. It'd be far more relaxing."

"This is relaxing," said Yugi, "I like doing this. I'd hardly consider it work at all! Especially since you're going to help me!"

"I didn't realize I volunteered to be your kitchen aid."

Yugi chuckled. "Oh, you signed up for that the day you offered to help me create Spherium."

"I didn't realize cooking was part of the agreement." He tilted his head and stared at the baking dish, currently with a layer of sauce and noodles along the bottom. "Especially not…a lasagna."

"It seemed fitting."

"How so?"

Yugi handed him the hunk of mozzarella cheese and both a knife and a grater. "Pick your weapon of choice and have at it. And...well, lasagna is layered. Like us."

He looked up at Kaiba. "There are lots of levels to, uh…whatever it is that we have. We're not just collaborators on a project. We're dueling rivals. And friends, whether you choose to verbally admit to it or not. It's something you don't also have with, say, Mokuba, or Joey, or Duke, or anyone on your staff."

"Is that all?" asked Kaiba. He waited for Yugi to spoon meat and vegetables from the second pan into the dish before grating more cheese on top. "I thought this was about Spherium."

"It is!" Yugi said, and poured some more sauce on top.

"Spherium is not about us. It's about you," said Kaiba, "It is your creation. Your victory."

"That's where you're wrong, Kaiba," said Yugi, and he passed Kaiba the noodles to layer in next. "Like our dinner, it's a collaborated effort. I may have come up with the initial idea, but I couldn't have brought it to life without your help. I can't begin to peel apart all the different layers of effort that all of your virtual lab techs and coders helped with, so it's only right that we share in that success together."

He lost count at what noodle layer they were up to by the time he ran out of filling, and happily pushed the dish into the oven once Kaiba dunked the last blob of cheese on top. "And now – you can tell me how launch day went. I'm sorry I couldn't hang out at Kaiba Corp with you for the livestream, but I had to mind the shop today."

"The stream was fine. Plenty of viewership, though I will say without a second human player, the automated computer player is a bit too challenging for beginners."

"Oh," Yugi said, and then leaned against the counter. "I thought that we tested all of that beforehand."

"You can alter the difficulty, so it's not that big of a deal," said Kaiba, "Spherium is meant to be a two-person tabletop, so an AI is naturally going to be harder."

"Please tell me you beat the AI," Yugi mumbled.

Kaiba gave him a pointed look. "You really had to ask?"

Yugi held up his hands defensively. "Hey, this wasn't Duel Monsters – or chess! I had to be sure, okay?"

"Of course I beat the AI."

Kaiba got up, tugged the tie loose from around his neck, and gestured Yugi back out of the kitchen. "Come here. I've got something for you."

Yugi quickly checked the time on his phone, set a timer on the oven, and followed Kaiba back out and into the dining room where, at the end of the long table, sat a large box.

"What's that?"

Kaiba smirked back at him. "It defeats the purpose if I tell you what it is."

Yugi looked up at him incredulously. "You bought me a present?"

"I brought you a box of which there are questionable contents inside – if any. Perhaps I'm merely trolling you and it's empty."

Yugi rolled his eyes at him and lifted the lid off the top. He stared at the single item inside with a scrunched brow and narrowed eyes before giving Kaiba a fleeting look and pulled it out. He turned it over in his hands before setting it down on the table. "This…is a Spherium sphere…but it's….different…"

The sphere used in the game was a gleaming silver color that reflected the light and made the holograms that appeared around it stand out. This sphere, however was gold with etched markings going around it that it took Yugi a moment to realize were hieroglyphs.

"You said that our relationship is layered," said Kaiba, after a minute of letting Yugi admire the sphere, "and it's not just from what we have now, be it food on the fly between meetings, or our routine arena duels. It didn't start this way. There is another factor that you didn't mention: time. This...friendship, dare I say it, didn't start out as one. There were several mishaps along the way, for better or for worse, and really if it weren't for one individual, it wouldn't have happened at all."

Kaiba reached over, picked up the golden sphere, and angled the open base towards Yugi, and Yugi felt his breath hitch down in his throat. The carved image of the Puzzle sat in the crevice, and inside were a collection of symbols that Yugi had only seen once, years ago in a Shadow Game.

Yugi ran a finger along the carving and blinked back the tear that formed in his right eye. "I…"

"I miss him too, despite him being the insufferable drama king that he was," said Kaiba.

Yugi snorted and wiped at his eyes. "Like you're not any different." He gently took the sphere and set it back onto the base. "I, uh, thought that you didn't care about the past, and that there was only looking forward to the future."

"I acknowledge that he was a part of it that's too important to leave behind. Atem, in his own way, and whether he knew it or not at the time, paved the way for both of our paths to meet again at a crossroad. And we'll both continue to move forward."

Yugi nodded, looked Kaiba in the eyes, and held out his hand. "Together?"

Kaiba grasped it in a firm handshake.

"Together."