a/n: good news! I graduated college with a bachelors, got a job, and still don't know how to play the piano!

"Is the line good to go?"

"All signals encrypted and stable," Kusanagi says, doing that thing where he types so fast that his hands look like they've been blurred out. "Go for it."

"You sure SOL Technologies will have what you're looking for?" The AI bounces around his new prison cell, a laptop that Kusanagi pulled out from some dusty shelf in his basement. It's so old that even with the upgrades Yusaku hastily threw into it, it can barely handle the sheer size and RAM the program takes up, but even though the fan whirls as loud as a jet engine, the AI moves with minimal lag.

But it can't support VRAINS software so when they need Ignis to help sort through the data they will, regrettably, have to let him out.

"This is an awful lot of work for something that might not be hoarding the data you want."

"It has to," Yusaku says, hitting the mute button on the laptop and dialing the number on some cheap burner he grabbed a few days ago. It rings only for a few seconds before someone picks up.

"This is Ghost Girl," someone with the voice of young woman says, "I've been waiting for your call, Playmaker."

"Secret federal agent, I'm calling it now." Yuma smashes the attack buttons with reckless abandon. "What else would explain the secrecy?"

"That makes no sense. What agency hires kids?" Yuya scoffs, watching Yuma's character miss every single attack on screen despite his obscene rate of fire. "Plus Yusaku wouldn't have time to have another job on top of this one and school, right? There's gotta be, you know, a realistic reason."

"Maybe he's just anti social," Judai says, yawning. He's kicked back and made a comfortable spot out of a plastic car seat, feet somehow perching on the dashboard, ignoring the game begging him to insert tokens. "Maybe he's got a loner rep he wants to keep up. Have you considered introducing him to Yuto?"

"Should we really be gossiping about our newest hire?" Yusei asks, leaning against the machine that Judai wasn't using correctly. "It doesn't seem like something he'd care for. He seems reserved for a reason."

"That would imply he cares what we think in the first place," Judai says. "Bet you five bucks Yusaku is a narc hired by Seto Kaiba, looking for the secret ingredient to our Exodia dish."

"Probably the worst idea you've spoken so far," Yusei says, "Do you even have any money?"

"Speaking of Seto," Yugi says, looking up from his phone. "Are they done yet?"

Judai puts in enough effort to lean forward a bit and glance down the aisle, where Atem and Kaiba were still playing. It was a bit difficult to see them, what with the crowd of people surrounding them who were lured in by the noise and theatrics.

"BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON, BURST STREAM OF DESTRUCTION."

"BLACK MAGICIAN, BLACK MAGIC ATTACK."

"No," Judai says, leaning back. "But good news, if they keep this up we'll all be kicked out of the arcade in no time."

Yugi looks mildly torn between extreme exasperation and the desire to go over there and win the game himself to finally get this duel over with. The unfortunate virtue of patience wins over and he goes back to his phone and scrolls through his news app with a sigh.

"I'm sure Yusaku is an average everyday high schooler," Yugi intones in that voice where he says things and no one particularly listens, like when he's talking about the profit margin of salads or why Judai and Yuma can't have a jungle gym in their back parking lot. "We wouldn't have hired a cop masquerading as a teenager who's sole mission is to find out an nonexistent ingredient to a dish Seto Kaiba doesn't care about."

"You can't hide the truth forever Yugi," Judai says. "I know Exodia is the end-all be-all of dishes, and one day I will prove it."

"This isn't what Yusaku is here for and you know it," Yugi says, sounding a bit like he was dying on the inside. "And the Exodia recipe was lost at sea, but no matter what I do I can't get Atem to take it off the menu. So we'll never make it again anyway."

"And here I was hoping I'd actually get to see it one day. So much for the best dish in existence," Yuya sighs. "Back to you-know-who, I just look at him and feel, I dunno, sad? Like maybe he's just really lonely. Fortunately, entertainment and smiling is my specialty."

Wearing a dazzling smile, Yuya spins on his heel and with an elaborate flourish, pulls out a bouquet of plastic flowers out of thin air, as well as some confetti shaped like doves that explode into the air and trickle down on the ground in a flurry. His magic trick is appreciated by no one, including the cleaning staff who glare at him from a few aisles over.

"Power of friendship huh. Sounds magical," Judai says, blowing a strand of hair out of his face. "New cooler idea, he's an android sent back in time to help you build a new motorcycle, Yusei."

"If he starts giving me tips on my new engine schematics, I'll let you know," Yusei says.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out, Yuya. I believe in you," Yugi says, placing a hand on Yuya's shoulder, which would be a touch more heartwarming if he bothered to look up. Yuya, tossing the bouquet over his shoulder, peers around Yugi's hand to see what he's reading.

"Lotten Town Prisoner Scandal?" Yuya reads out loud. "What's that?"

"Oh, that." Yuma briefly glances at them over his shoulder. The split second of distraction is all it takes for Yuma to lose in a sudden and violently colorful 8-bit explosion. "My sister covered that story last month. Something about, slave labor, a mine, and cowboys somewhere down south?"

"Something like that," Yugi says, scrolling past it. "It's a pretty terrifying story truthfully, but currently I'm more interested in what's going on with all these SOL Technologies leaks. New tech company comes to the city this past year and all it's done is release software and scandals that makes even Industrial Illusions look tame."

"Ugh, this is just like listening to Akari work at home," Yuma glances back sadly at the Game Over flashing across the screen of his game. "I'm out of tokens. Anyone else got any leftover?"

"Lost all of mine at Super Tennis VR," Judai says sourly. "My gym teacher was a liar, tennis does not get easier the more you play it."

"I'm out too," Yuya makes a show of emptying his pockets. "I sort of got roped into playing against Yusei's friend Jack in Accel Synchro. Spent all my coins trying to make him eat dirt."

"Jack was more worked up than I've seen in a while," Yusei says, with a small smile. "I gave him the remainder of my tokens to continue battling Yuya."

"Bah," Yuma says, slumping over the controls in defeat.

"Yeah, I can get you what you need," Ghost Girl says. "But you know the usual price I charge."

"You just want me to act a decoy again," Yusaku says, in a flat tone. "I'm sure VRAINS is much easier to navigate when everyone's more focused on me rather than a ghost in the system."

"It's not like I send them after you," Ghost Girl laughs, light and short. "You're just an attractive target for the system, since they're always on high alert for the Ignis program you went a snatched, you know. I'm really the one doing you a favor by giving you something to deal with it."

"Don't expect anything extra for it," Yusaku says. "Dealing with the security is already bad enough. I have my own goals to accomplish and I won't take on anymore risk to that."

"Calm down," Ghost Girl says, and he can tell she's probably smirking at him from the other end of the line. "I'm not asking for you to get yourself caught. After all, where would the benefit be in that? I'm sure we're all in this for our own profits, after all."

"No honor among thieves," Yusaku looks away, as the Ignis frantically tries to get his attention from the muted laptop. "Send the code over. I need at least half an hour to get what I need before any big alarms trigger, and then I'll let SOL chase me around a bit while you do your treasure hunting."

"Confident aren't you?" Ghost Girls says, and Yusaku can hear her typing away at a keyboard. "I heard the head of security has made it his personal mission to take down Playmaker and retrieve that little chatty program they lost. You ought to be more careful. Akira Zaizen isn't a hacker, but he is determined."

"I'm sure he is."

Yusaku turns back around. The Ignis has opened up a word document with the words, THIS IS A TRAP, in bright, bold letters stamped across the top. Yusaku pushes the screen down until he can't see it anymore. Lots of flashing lights imply this action is not well received, but Yusaku is turning away again to focus on anything else.

"Okay, the code's on it's way. I'm sure you'll have it decrypted in no time," Ghost Girl says. "Use it to get into SOL's databank when you're ready. Good luck."

The line goes dead, and Yusaku tosses the burner phone into a bin. Reluctantly, he raises the prison laptop screen back up and looks at the wall of angry text Ignis has created in the meantime. This is absolutely not worth un-muting, so Yusaku leaves it for later.

"I know it's a trap," He says to the angry eyeball on screen. "It always is with Ghost Girl. Put your processing power towards something useful instead of opening up Paint and badly drawing me getting arrested by SOL Technologies."

"Package received," Kusanagi says, doing too many things across multiple screens, already extracting the program from a zip file and running probably a dozen different scans on it. "I'd estimate we could have it ready in an hour. Then head in through the backdoor and look for the database with info about the Lost Incident."

Yusaku glances at the clock on one of the screens - half past six. Yuya would be getting suspicious by now, if not really hungry.

"I can't," He says, feeling a headache coming around, as Kusanagi turns to look at him with wide eyes. "We'll have to do it late tonight. I can be back in a couple of hours, probably, to start."

"Are you - feeling okay?" Kusanagi asks, and tries to feel Yusaku's forehead before his hand is swatted away. "What's going on?"

"I promised my coworker I'd treat him to dinner," Yusaku says, feeling uncharacteristically like a child as Kusanagi stares at him. "It's the coworker who's staying at my house for the week, I left some arcade meet up we had to come here. I can't avoid him if I try to ditch this. I'll be back as soon as it's safe."

Kusanagi stands up and places both hands on Yusaku's shoulders. It's very quiet for a moment other than the whirling fan of the Ignis Prison Laptop, and Yusaku is moments away from asking what's wrong because this is unsettling when Kusanagi finally breaks the silence.

"You're making friends," Kusanagi says, almost reverently.

Not this again.

"I'm leaving now," Yusaku snaps.

The high pitch of the fan almost sounds like the Ignis laughing at him.

"Cotton candy spotted," Yuma says, and Yuya perks up immediately at the sight of Yusaku, cautiously making his way back into the arcade that is even more crowded than before.

"Yusaku!" Yuya waves. "Over here!"

"You're all still here?" Yusaku asks.

"Nothing better to do," Judai says, yawning. "I kind of have to get a ride from one of these guys anyway, so I can't leave until either Yugi or Yusei does."

"Oh, sorry Judai," Yugi says, looking apologetic as he glances up from his phone. "Atem and I took the subway to get here."

"I called dibs on Yusei taking me home!" Yuma interjects. "He already said yes!"

"What?" Judai whirls upon Yusei. "Yusei, how could you?"

Yusei, who looks to be in the middle of texting someone on his phone, does not seem to notice.

"Because I asked first?" Yuma says.

"Rude!" Judai says, even though it clearly isn't. "Your house is only like four stops from the nearest station, while mine is on the outskirts of town and you know it!"

"Sounds like a personal problem," Yuma says, and then grimaces. "Besides, I have to get home and pack before I go to bed for that numbers camp thing I have to go to this weekend."

"Be honest, you're not even going to bother packing until you wake up late tomorrow morning," Yuya says, nudging Yuma with his elbow.

"Just because it's true doesn't mean you have to say it," Yuma responds, looking kind of bummed out by the apparent truth of it.

"Yuuuuuuuuuuuusei," Judai whines, trying to get Yusei's attention and making as much progress as a fish climbing a mountain would. "Come on Yusei, this is blatant favoritism denial - I'm supposed to be your fav and you're not treating me that way!"

"Mhm," Yusei says, still looking at his phone.

And for no reason that Yusaku can understand, Judai drops to the tacky ugly carpet, clutching his heart. Yuma huffs out a laugh from beside him, but smothers it with his hand.

"Yusei," Judai says, "Yusei I'm dying. I'm dying of hypothermia and heartbreak and death you are the only one with transportation capable of taking me to a hospital. Yusei look at me."

"That's nice Judai," Yusei says.

"Technology has claimed another soul," Yuya says, in a deeply solemn tone as he gestures to Yusei and Yugi. "Pray in the hope that one day they will return to us, the reason the took shelter in their digital devices to begin with."

"Hm?" Yugi says, looking up. "What's up?"

Yusaku is a little lost, amongst the sudden burst of laughter from everyone around him. A little disconnected from the close knit circle of people that feel almost a world away. That hollow feeling in his chest that has been a part of him for so long felt all the more pronounced here, watching his coworkers goof off and not knowing how to be a part of it.

But when Yuya grabs his shoulder and brings him closer to them all, to watch Judai snag the tail of Yusei's coat from his pitiful place on the ground and get dragged along the carpet like the world's worst cape when Yusei finally realizes there's something going on, something almost settles into place.

When Atem finally gets tired of winning, he strides back over to all of them with an aura just short of smug surrounding him. Kaiba, apart from literally shoving aside some of the crowd that was around them, leaves with an elegant flourish from his oversized jacket.

"You're all still here?" Atem asks, like he wasn't the entire reason they had been forced there in the first place.

"You have my wallet." Yugi says, sighing.

"I'm stranded." Judai says.

"I'm fine." Yusei says, but he's still looking at his phone so who knows where that statement was directed at.

"I'm hoping to get a free dinner." Yuma says.

"I am getting a free dinner," Yuya says, elbowing Yusaku who feels distinctly uncomfortable as everyone's eyes turn to him.

"I'm… bribing Yuya with food?" Yusaku offers, hoping that throwing together words that sound like a lie but are in fact the actual truth was the right thing to say.

"Looks like you two are becoming fast friends," Atem claps him on the back. "Here, I'll make it up to everyone and save you the trouble. Dinner's on me."

"You know," Yuya says, lifting a can of tomatoes over his head as he squeezes past Yuma who's on his way back into the freezer. "Usually when someone says 'dinners on me' that means we all go out to eat, not back to the restaurant we work at so we can do more work."

"Less complaining, more lettuce," Atem says, flipping a burger at the grill.

"We ran out of lettuce ages ago," Judai says, as he chops up potatoes with far too little attention to where he was swinging that knife.

Yusaku, who is next to him trying to peel potatoes, edges a little farther away, and bumps into Yuya who nearly side steps him right into a wall.

"Yugi, why are we missing half of our salt shakers?" Yusei asks, rifling through a bunch of boxes on the tallest shelf, due to the blatantly unfair fact that Yusei is pretty tall.

"Someone was trying to stack them into a giant glass pyramid," Yugi sighs, as he pulls out some paper plates from a box. All eyes, without hesitation, move to Judai. "They fell when someone bumped into the table and shattered."

"It would have been a great monument," Judai says, unrepentantly. "A tower reaching to the sky, a mountain that I could've stood my Elemental HERO Neos action figure on."

"What, the weird glass thing you were making in the middle of the room that customers were complaining about last week?" Yuma asks, popping back out of the walk in freezer with some ice cream.

"Yes. My Neos monument. Admittedly, it wasn't that great, and I may have failed completely, but I will succeed in the future!"

A paper plate cuts across the room like a frisbee and hits Judai in the back of the head.

"Ow!"

"Judai," Yugi says, with the face of an angel. "Please hurry up with the potatoes."

"We're ordering cheap plastic shakers from now on," Atem says, flipping another burger.

"Those would be easier to stack," Yuya whispers, and Yusaku, for some reason, smiles.

Yusaku's most predominant thought in the following hour is that it's very loud, like he's eating at the school's cafeteria, which is pretty impressive that a group of six can make enough noise to rival an entire student body.

At least it would be impressive if Yusaku was the type who appreciated these kinds of things, but having spent a good part of his life doing the very opposite of being loud and attention grabbing, a very large part of him wanted to duck into the bathrooms and crawl out a window to escape.

Except that was extremely suspicious behavior, at least to normal people. Yusaku's not sure if Judai or Yuya would consider it weird or a fun new way to leave work without a customer accosting them before they got to the door.

Yusaku is seated between Yusei and Yuma, also right at the spot where the two tables everyone pushed together to make one slightly larger table met. Yuma manages to make rice balls look like they taste better than ambrosia with the way he devours them. He is also the only one who has rice balls. Yusaku's not sure when he made them.

"Don't think Atem making us cook our own free meal means that you don't still owe me," Yuya says, pointing his useless fork at Yusaku, since everything they're eating is essentially finger food.

"You just got free food and you still want more?" Judai says, leaning over and butting in before Yusaku can say anything.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Where does all the money from your paycheck go? Into a locked safe when you can sit upon piles of gold like super financial hoarder?"

"I am the supreme dragon king," Yuya says. "All four dimensions bow before me."

"There's twelve dimensions, not four." Judai corrects.

What does that even mean? Yusaku almost debates asking, but the topic moves on just as quickly as it arrived. He turns slightly to his left, to see if Yugi and Yusei had a topic he could follow.

"Domino City's infrastructure needs repair," Yugi says, twirling his straw through his water, clinking the chunks of ice in it with every movement. "The subway system in particular. I'm worried about what would happen if a huge natural disaster occurred, like if a earthquake hit. Or a tsunami? What if both happened at the same time?"

"It would be a deadly occurrence that would doubtlessly level about a fourth of the city and take at least a decade to repair and recover from, given our lack of defenses and preparation. The lower class citizens would in particular be devastated," Yusei says immediately, like he's had this answer ready for a long time. "But the subway system is actually fairly well built. You'd likely still be able to access it in the event of a almost catastrophic event, though the trains might not be able to still run in it. It might also make for decent shelter."

"Oh," Yugi says, faintly. "That's good."

And Yusaku turns in the opposite direction.

"Why do you need to go to a camp to learn about numbers?" Atem asks. "Numbers haven't changed since their inception, right? What's the point?"

"I don't knoooow, they keep changing things and I can't keep up!" Yuma wails. "But I got a 39 on my last test so if I don't figure out how to boost my grade I'm doomed."

"Challenge your teacher to a game," Atem says. "If you win, you pass your semester. If you lose, you pay twice the amount of tuition."

"I'm pretty sure I don't have that kind of money," Yuma says. "But this sounds promising, and I'm desperate, so please continue."

"The key is not just picking a game you know how to play, but also a game that tempts your opponent into succumbing to the inner darkness within themselves and try to cheat, thus winning you the game by default." Atem says, throwing a fry in the air and catching it perfectly with his mouth. "Of course, this only works on the obviously corrupt. Otherwise you need to win fair and square."

"I don't think my teacher is full of inner darkness," Yuma says, thoughtfully. "Mr. Kitano is a really nice guy. Though, I guess he did accidentally release a bug that crashed the entire school's computer network a few years ago."

Computer. Yusaku latches onto the one topic he knows more than almost anything.

"Was that the Crashbug virus?" Yusaku asks, almost in relief.

"Yeah, I think so," Yuma says. "I guess it leaked outside of the school too? My sister was complaining about it for weeks, it deleted one of her articles or something."

"It infected the entire city," Yusaku says. "Everything from traffic lights to bank ATM's, malfunctioning and entirely going wrong. It was incredibly adaptive and hard to counter, it took a full day for it to be quarantined and then neutralized. The aftermath of it resulted in a complete overhaul of the city's cybersecurity framework and networking."

It also led SOL Technologies to create a building in this city, being hired contractors to find and fix the problem, and where SOL Technologies went, Yusaku followed.

"You know a lot about computers," Atem says, in the tone Yusaku recognizes from someone who equates technology somewhere close to witchcraft.

"I studied it in school," Yusaku says, trying to smooth over his obsession as something normal and not a tell tale sign of someone with a extensive hacker background. "We spent two weeks on the Crashbug virus."

He also spent an additional month trying to figure out new ways to get past the better encryptions and firewalls, and the history of anything SOL touches Yusaku knows like the back of his hand.

"Impressive," Atem says, and he seems like he means it. "Can you make websites?"

"Uh-" Yusaku is momentarily thrown off by the switch in the conversation. "Kind of? Why?"

"Yusei runs our website," Atem says, eating another fry. "But he's so busy he doesn't have a lot of time to maintain it. Can you do that instead?"

That's a lot different than making a website, and also a lot different than the job he's signed up to do. Programming a website is also a different language than -

"He'll pay you to sit alone in the break room sometimes with your laptop and update the menu on the site," Yuma says.

"I'll do it." Yusaku answers immediately, sealing his fate.

"Good," Atem says, satisfied. "I'll have Yusei give you whatever you need to access it on your next shift."

"That's great and all," Yuma says. "But I'm still doomed on my math weekend trip. Do you have any tips on how to make algebra easier?"

"No."

Yusaku's phone buzzes in his pocket, so he pulls it out under the table and glances at it.

10:16 PM: Ready whenever you are, Yusaku

From Kusanagi.

It's funny, or maybe cruel, how reality returns to Yusaku so quickly. Hanoi has never seemed so far away in the moment before it comes rushing back, and Yusaku is blinking away memories of a sterile, blank room and the numbing sensation in his limbs.

He shakes his head, trying to clear it. He's losing focus.

Hanoi is what he came here for. Not to make drag others into the mess that is his life.

"Yuya," Yusaku says, quietly trying to interrupt his animated conversation with Judai. It takes a few tries before Yuya notices.

"What's up?" Yuya says, shoving the last of his fries into his mouth.

"I'm not feeling so good," Yusaku says, cradling his stomach with one arm. "I think I'm going to head home early."

"Oh are you okay?" Yuya asks, trying to reach over and compare the temperature of his forehead to Yusaku's. Fortunately, he waves him off in time.

"Yeah it's just my stomach," Yusaku says, feeling deeply uncomfortable as if he actually had a real stomach ache for some reason. "You don't need to worry, it happens sometimes. But I'm gonna go home and lie down for a bit."

"Do you want me to go with you? I don't mind leaving a little early." Yuya checks one of the weird clock ornaments they have on the wall. "Or do you think you can wait a bit? I bet I can find some medicine in the break room that Judai hasn't found yet."

"No, it's okay," Yusaku says, trying to figure out how to carefully ditch someone who knows where he lives and will probably find it weird if he shows up later and Yusaku's not home. "I think I'll be fine on my own. You know how to get to my house right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"I'll see you later then," Yusaku says, shoving away from the table quickly. He's distantly aware of some people shouting bye at him and Yuya patiently explaining that he's probably fine, his stomach is just upset, probably from Atem poisoning their hamburgers, but that all fades away as soon as he gets past the doors.

The cold air has a harsh bite to it and it grounds him.

As soon as he rounds the corner, far enough away from the glass doors, he drops his arm from around his stomach and yanks his phone out of his pocket.

I'm on my way, he sends to Kusangi. He's got a smaller window than usual, but if he has to he'll make up something else to tell Yuya. And then he'll never have anyone stay over ever again, because it complicates things far too much.

He needs to focus.

Yusaku is going to find the source of his nightmares, the source of his pain, the source of everything behind the Lost Incident and make them suffer, just like he did. This is his life, or what remains of it. Therapy didn't help. Time didn't help. This is all he has left.

For some reason, he wonders what Yuya would think of that.