Kaiba's basement. Seems legit. Jounouchi shivers. Is he seriously the only one getting murder vibes?! This guy's even got a track record.
'Course, Jounouchi's with Yuugi. Yuugi's got a thing for murder vibes.
"I just wanted to have you over," Kaiba says, smiling. Smiling. "For game night." He motions for them to follow him down the servant staircase, into the dark.
Jounouchi lingers on the threshold. "Where's Mokuba?" he asks, wary. "Don't we need a fourth player?"
Kaiba smirks. "God will provide," he says cryptically. He sinks into the shadows.
Jounouchi turns to Yuugi, incredulous. Yuugi shrugs.
"He's in a good mood," he offers, and starts down the stairs. The hood of his jacket bobs with each step.
Jounouchi swallows his dread and tromps after him. "Kaiba's a weird dude," he grumbles.
Eerie, sing-song, from the depths: "Takes one to know one!"
"Shut up, bastard! This is shady as hell!"
Jounouchi shoulda known—it's boring ole computer stuff down here, mostly, wires and monitors and all that. No catacombs or coffins shoved against the walls or anything. Not even any spiders. And pretty decent lighting.
The end of the hall opens into a chilly, spacious room that looks like part computer lab, part old-school mansion game room. It's a hodge-podge. The walls and floor are a sandy color, and hooded chrome lamps hang above heavy, mahogany-and-velvet tables and chairs. There's a built-in bar with a flat screen TV set into the vintage backsplash. A couple sofas.
But none of this stuff is the focal point. In the center of the room, there's a lone, white card table. Kaiba sits cross-legged at one of the four chairs, steepling his fingers, looking every bit like the smug bastard he is.
Jounouchi and Yuugi take seats at the table, Yuugi at Kaiba's left hand, Jounouchi at Yuugi's.
"What shall we play?" Kaiba asks, grinning like a cat who wants to toy with his prey for a while before he chows down.
"I dunno," says Jounouchi. "Where're all the games?"
Kaiba sniffs—goddamn rich boy—and indicates the table. "Inside."
Jounouchi stares at the plain tabletop, and sure enough, there are the paper-thin edges of a screen upon its surface.
"Holograms?" asks Yuugi, beating Jounouchi to the punch.
"Of a sort."
"Okay. Lemme think." Yuugi leans forward, chewing his fingernail. Jounouchi envies his ability to go with the flow. Personally, he's pissed. His first night off in fifteen days and this is how he's gotta spend it...
Yuugi says, "Something simple. Just to warm up with." He considers the table. "...Jenga, maybe? Is that built in? That'd look cool as a hologram."
Quirking his eyebrows, Kaiba reaches under the table and presses a button. The screen on the table glows blue, then melts upward into a shimmering shape reminiscent of a Rolodex.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY? asks a smooth AI voice.
"Tell it," Kaiba says.
Yuugi appraises the sentient Rolodex, not sure how politely he should treat it. "Er. Could we play Jenga, please?"
The Rolodex shivers, then flips of its own volition to a card that says JENGA. Once again it melts upward, morphing into a clean tower of rectangular bricks.
Yuugi plucks a brick from the top, face glowing with wonder. "I can hold it!" he says.
Kaiba smirks again. "Obviously."
Jounouchi's losing more patience. Kaiba invited them over for this?! Frickin' Nerd Jenga? "This is cool an' all, Kaiba, but why the hell are you showin' us?" he says, gesticulating with each point. "Down here? In your sketchy basement? Ain't it gonna be in stores for Christmas soon, or whatever?"
Jounouchi scoots his chair back, aiming for the bar. "I need a drink. Is that stocked?"
"Sit down," says Kaiba. "You'll want to see this."
Jounouchi scowls at him. "You know what I want all of a sudden?"
"No," Kaiba says, stone cold. "I've known for a long time."
Yuugi's been glancing between them, hoping they'll resolve it on their own. Jounouchi can never resist that fretful look. Still glaring at Kaiba, he rakes his chair back in and hears Yuugi's tiny sigh of relief. "Then let's get on with it," he says.
Kaiba smirks AGAIN. "We'll go clockwise. I'll go first."
"Sounds good."
"Just go already!"
With more ceremony than Jounouchi has ever seen surrounding a game of Jenga, Kaiba pushes back his sleeve, flexes his fingers, strokes the length of the tower (WHAT is this, a sexy eating contest but with Jenga? Sexy Nerd Jenga? Somebody get him outta here), and lingers on a middle brick toward the bottom. He taps it once, slides it out, and aligns it perfectly atop the tower. Show-off.
Next, Yuugi. Yuugi always starts off neutral while he feels out the other players. He nudges an easy brick near the top, ensuring it's loose before gently wheedling it out. He grips it in his hand, still enamored with his ability to feel and hold a hologram. Before he places it next to Kaiba's, he taps Jounouchi on the shoulder with it.
"Your move," he says, with the accompanying facial expression: Thanks for doing this.
Jounouchi rubs his nose. No problem. He cracks his knuckles and regards the tower. First turn. Should be easy.
It is. He snags an outer brick two rows down from Yuugi's. It shimmers, but he really can feel it. That's weird. He adds it back to the tower, completing the top row.
"Alright, bastard," he says to Kaiba. "Your turn."
"Not yet."
Shark, viper, crocodile, barracuda—Kaiba's grin bares so many teeth he looks like all of 'em at once.
"Uh...Kaiba?"
Kaiba doesn't move. But the Jenga tower does.
All on its own, as though drawn by puppet strings, a brick emerges from the heart of the tower. It hangs suspended in midair for a moment before it coasts toward the top of the tower and settles there.
Silence. Jounouchi and Yuugi stare between Kaiba and the tower. It's haunted. Straight-up haunted...
"...Is this some AI shit?" Jounouchi manages.
"No," says Kaiba. "IDI."
"IDI?" breathes Yuugi.
"Interdimensional Interactivity," Kaiba says. "Kaiba Corp's latest endeavor."
There's something to the grinning and the staring, the laughing and the gaping, that's lost on Jounouchi right now.
"What does that mean?! Not AI? Then what the hell is it?!" Jounouchi storms to his feet again. "Quit screwing with us, Kaiba! Who took that brick out?!"
Jounouchi flinches, for more bricks start moving on their own, drifting from the tower to the table. They scoot around the tabletop with jerking movements. This is some occult shit, some shadow game shit, and Jounouchi's about to run for the exit when he realizes what the bricks are doing. They settle in one by one, and when the last brick comes to rest his mouth falls open.
They spell ATEM.
Yuugi gasps. Jounouchi's arms hang limp at his sides. Kaiba's whole being is radiant, ascendant.
"It means you can play games with the Pharaoh again," he says.
"Seto..." Yuugi can barely speak. "Oh...oh my god!" He hesitates, gazes at the empty chair. "Can I...can we...say hello?"
Kaiba wobbles a hand in the air, so-so. "Sort-of. We're working on layered communication. The game is the primary link right now."
Yuugi half-nods. While they watch, a brick detaches from the name ATEM and hovers before him. Yuugi reaches out and takes hold of it. He tugs; it holds steady.
"Oh," he says, and without warning, tears drip down his face.
Jounouchi doesn't know what to think. Kaiba says it's the Pharaoh. Yuugi believes him. But...
As though hearing his thoughts, another brick floats upward and presents itself before Jounouchi. Jounouchi's breath hitches; his hair stands on end. But Kaiba's watching, and Yuugi did it, and Jounouchi's not a coward. So he takes hold.
He feels the sting of his own tears in his eyes.
"Holy shit."
It went well, Seto thinks. Many drinks and interdimensional games later, he'd called a car for Yuugi and Jounouchi, who'd gushed with profuse and drunken gratitude on their way out.
"Thank you, Seto," Yuugi'd said, closing the distance between them with a careful hug. Seto had let him, had patted him once on the back, even. "This means the world to me."
"That's really somethin' else, y'know," Jounouchi'd said. He'd attempted a one-armed, one-second-long hug of his own, and there was barely enough alcohol in action to keep Seto from inflicting injury.
Now Seto stands alone in the game lab. Yes, it went well. Still...this is always the difficult part.
He drifts, wraith-like, to the IDI prototype console. It's littered with empty glasses and the remnants of their last game—Go Fish, a silly lark of Yuugi's.
"They went home," he says, knowing Atem can't reply.
His fingers dance over the ocean of cards in the center. On a whim, he flips the topmost card. Four of hearts. He'd hoped for a king...oh, well. This is the only way he knows how to end these sessions—vaguely, unwillingly, till he forces himself to power down the machine. Stalling.
Suddenly the cards fizzle into nothing and the Rolodex reappears. Seto watches it wheel to a stop on a card that reads PICTIONARY.
Pictionary...? Seto's eyes widen. Clever bastard! How did he not think of this?!
Seto's beaming smile strains his face. "You know I suck at drawing," he says.
The game materializes. Seto pushes virtual paper and pencil across the table. As though enchanted, the pencil snaps to life and scrawls a message, and the paper slides back to him.
Drawing cartoons, maybe. Drawing Blue-Eyes? Never! And below that, a terrible sketch of what's probably supposed to be the dragon.
"That's an embarrassment," says Seto. "Thanks for making me feel better." He slides the paper back. In the effort, Seto's wrist brushes against what must be a piece from another game. Had they worked on a puzzle? He can't remember.
The reply is quick. As benevolent as ever, Seto! I'm better at Kuriboh, anyway. A tiny, puff-ball scribble adorns the bottom.
Seto snorts at the note and then cradles it to his chest and chokes out a sob, a sappy one, the maudlin result of his drinking, surely. He wants to keep the paper, but it's not real. It's not real...but the connection is.
He composes himself first and then his reply: "I'm not tired. Shall we?"
A pause. Then Pictionary and the paper pass away, and the celebrated Rolodex comes to rest on the one and only: DUEL MONSTERS.
They'll stall for hours yet.
PIECE #8: GAMES
Doctor's Note: Do younger readers know what a Rolodex is? Not that I'm even old enough to have actively used one. There was one in the 2011 Muppet movie. If Yuugi is Kermit, then Jou is Fozzie...? And Seto is...uh-oh he's Miss Piggy isn't he SIGH I'm doing my best to make things more lighthearted, here!
Thank you for reading! - Dr. MP