Notes: For the Flufftober prompt - Hot Chocolate

Part of the "Joey Mutou" verse, where Joey knew Seto and Mokuba at the orphanage and later Joey was adopted by Grandpa Mutou. Series also includes the fics "Good Luck Charm", "The (Not So) Secret Family Recipe", and "Going Home".

Accessibility Review

Joey Mutou let himself into the coffee shop, planning to get a little well earned celebratory hot cocoa for the test he'd passed in class today. It was a math test - math being the bane of his existence - and he'd gotten a B. If Yugi and Tristan weren't on clean up duty and Tea didn't have a shift at the diner right after class, then Joey would have been celebrating with them instead of alone. But he also needed to study for his English quiz tomorrow by re-listening to the Romeo and Juliet audiobook.

The nice thing about having official diagnosis for his learning disabilities was that he got different kinds of help to meet his accessibility needs. And books on tape - well, CDs now as technology marched on - made his courses easier. He didn't have to spend hours trying to decipher the tiny, cramped print of the walls of text style paragraphs that history textbooks favored or ask Yugi to read to him anymore. The school was required to give Joey every advantage so that he could keep up with his peers in class.

He also had big print books with paragraph spacing that actually made sense for certain courses. Like math. And while it was a struggle, once he'd caught back up to his age group after his time at the orphanage set him back, Joey always felt so proud of himself for maintaining his grades in the B/C range - mostly Bs. He wasn't an idiot. He just had different accessibility needs and his victories looked different from others.

Which, yes, Gramps had repeated enough times that the phrase was now a permanent fixture in Joey's brain. But he appreciated in now in a way he hadn't when he was younger.

There wasn't much of a line in the store, so Joey was able to make his order pretty quickly. Delicious, delicious hot chocolate headed his way. And a warmed up slice of banana bread with walnuts on top. Just the splurge he deserved.

Glancing around for a seat, however, Joey realized that he actually recognized someone there after all. Seto Kaiba was sitting off in a corner at a little cafe table, sipping coffee and reading a newspaper. And glaring at anyone who came too close to his bubble of personal space.

They'd been friends, once. A long time ago and in what may have felt a little bit like a galaxy far, far away. Seto hadn't been a Kaiba then, just a little kid whose parents were dead and was looking after his brother Mokuba in a terrible situation. Joey hadn't been a Mutou yet either, still bearing the last name of his abusive father whose bad drinking habits got him wrapped around a tree and Joey sent to an orphanage. Those three kids had been inseparable. Until Seto got the bright idea of beating Gozaburo Kaiba in a chess game to force the man to adopt him and Mokuba. He'd left Joey some blackmail material on the orphanage's director - unfortunately stolen not long after Seto left - and promised to come back for him soon.

But six months later, Joey had given up on ever seeing them again. His letters disappearing into a void until Joey was so discouraged that he'd given up. He'd wondered if the brothers had forgotten him or didn't want to hear from him anymore or weren't even receiving the letters at all. And Joey had, in particular, been afraid it meant they'd always meant more to him than he had to them. Though after learning that Seto and Mokuba had actually come back for him - well after Joey'd been adopted by Grandpa Mutou, but clearly once it was finally safe for them to actually try - Joey had begun to suspect that if his letters had made it to their destination that Gozaburo Kaiba had simply chucked them in the trash before Seto or Mokuba could see them. It wasn't Joey's ridiculously awful handwriting that kept his letters from reaching their destination, it was an abusive angry man who hated the child who 'humiliated' him by winning at Gozaburo's favorite game.

What little Mokuba had to say about Gozaburo had strengthened that belief.

And it made Joey want to reconnect with the Kaiba brothers all the more.

Ignoring the aura of 'back the hell off' that Seto was putting off, Joey settled into the empty chair across from him while waiting for his order.

Seto peered over the top of his newspaper with a glare that softened a little at when he registered who'd dared take a seat at his table.

"Mutou," Seto greeted.

"Kaiba," Joey replied cheerfully.

Then there's silence. Awkward, awkward silence. Joey has to fight to keep nervous laughter from happening.

"Mokuba wants to visit with you again," Seto finally said.

"He's welcome any time. With or without a big emergency," Joey promised with a grin, alluding to both Mokuba's more recent, planned visit and the more panicked and unplanned arrival before that.

Seto looked away for a moment, then folded up his newspaper and actually set it aside. "Thank you," he said stiffly. "For helping my brother while I was indisposed. While I was perfectly capable of rescuing myself... I appreciate that Mokuba has somewhere safe he can go when we're being threatened."

"Like I said, any time. Though... I do have some feedback for you on those VR pods, if you're interested," Joey offered.

"If there were glitches you noticed, those may have been the result of the Big Five's hacks in the program to override the VR Pod safety protocols," Seto noted.

Joey nodded. "Speaking of the Big Five... did they ever actually get out of the program?"

Seto looked amused now. "As far as I can tell... no. And since the program's been reset, I've found no trace of their minds in the system. Their bodies are comatose in the hospital. If they ever do wake up, I'll be firing them immediately. It seems they really did catch themselves in the trap they laid to kill me."

"So, presumably when there's no hack in place it isn't possible to actually die in those pods, right?" Joey asked.

"Mutou!" called the barista from the counter.

"Hold that thought," Joey said quickly, hurrying to retrieve his drink and snack - ignoring the bewildered look on the barista's face when she realized who Joey'd been sitting with - and returned to his seat. "Okay, so, virtual deaths for real people aren't usually real, right?"

"Of course not. The pods are supposed to limit a player to only so many hours in the game before forcibly saving their place and kicking them out into the real world. Also if any health problems are noted - glucose drops, dangerous heart rhythms, signs of panic or anxiety attacks indicative of a non-responsive PTSD episode... there's still nuance to be determined and the technology itself is being considered for development as a therapy tool." Seto sounded proud. "What the Big Five did was disable the protocols for monitoring how long a user's been in, the physical health monitoring, and the respawn functionality for user characters. Which is why it was very fortunate that they hadn't messed with the programming for the Princess' true identity."

Or else Mokuba, Mai, and Joey might be in the same predicament as the Big Five.

Joey shuddered at the thought and drank his hot chocolate.

"Obviously this has exposed some major flaws in the technology and I've pushed back the release date until these issues can be adequately addressed."

"It's definitely going to be a hit once it does get released, though," Joey said. "But I do still have some feedback for you to consider. As someone with dyslexia and dyscalculia, reading pretty much anything with tiny print just ain't gonna happen. And while it's really cool that players can augment their decks by buying additional cards in-game with the in-game currency, someone like me is gonna have no idea what those cards actually do if they're playing solo. No one to read the card text for 'em and no way to google the card text at a readable size because there's no internet access terminals. I can usually read the attack and defense points on a new card well enough, but I'm always having to pass a new card over to ask someone else what it does. So having the option to make the text bigger would help - not just someone like me, but maybe someone with visual disabilities too. But so would the ability to have the text on the card automatically read out if we tap the right spot on a card - but, like, only so that the one player can hear? That way it wouldn't disturb other players."

Seto nodded slowly and then pulled a notebook out of somewhere, jotting down notes the moment he opened it to a blank page.

Which meant he was taking what Joey was saying seriously. Wow, okay. That was kind of awesome.

"How does the game play for someone with physical disabilities in real life, anyway? Does it correct vision problems or make it to where someone paralyzed can walk?" Joey asked curiously.

"Yes. It automatically compensates for any physical disability a player may have."

"That... might not actually be a good thing." Joey saw the challenge in Seto's gaze, so he fortified himself with a drink of his chocolate and a few bites of his banana bread. "Okay, so for some people being able to see without their glasses is a great thing. That's why so many people use contacts or even opt for corrective eye surgery. But a lot of people who could correct their vision with eye surgery chose not to do so. Not everyone with visual disabilities feel like their disability is something that needs fixing. Are even insulted when someone might try to push them to 'fix' themselves or consider their disabilities to be a bad thing. Because to them, the only thing bad about being disabled is how ableist other people are and the... systemic issues in society that ableism's created over time. And imagine how jarring it would be for someone who's completely blind to try to play. Maybe someone who used to be able to see would be able to cope and even enjoy the visual input, but someone who was born blind? They won't know what they're looking at which would severely impact their ability to enjoy the game."

"And it would be the same way for other disabilities as well," Seto mused, catching on to what Joey was saying. "Someone who regularly uses a wheelchair or other disability aid might prefer to have their physical body represented in the VR environment and continue to use the disability aid of their choice..." more notes were being scrawled down. "I'd have to completely rework the user interface to allow for disabling the visual or auditory input altogether while still making the setting easily navigable - maybe increased physical sensory input options... and then character creation would need to be entirely reworked to allow for more user input into appearance and physical ability..."

Seto devolved into muttering to himself under his breath while he wrote and Joey left him to it. Clearly this was a passion project for Seto and ensuring as many people as possible could comfortably play it was an important part of that project. And it seemed Joey had just given him an important new perspective on how the whole thing could be more inclusive, allowing people with disabilities to play without feeling like it either wasn't totally accessible or that they had to erase part of themselves in order to play.

So Joey sat back and finished his banana bread before fishing out his portable cd player and the audiobook CD for his English class. He put on his headphones, pulled out his notebook, and started taking his own notes for class. He used grid paper instead of regular paper, since it made re-reading his notes easier afterwards. For one thing, it helped him keep his handwriting neater and more legible. For another, it helped block the letters in a way that made his brain less likely to flip them around into the wrong order or skip lines while reading back over what he'd written.

It was actually Yugi who'd figured out Joey did better with graph paper, back when he'd still been playing catch up in summer school after he'd fallen behind a grade during his time at the orphanage. And Gramps had been Joey's biggest advocate, pushing for him to be tested for learning disabilities and then making a fuss about everything until Joey finally got the accommodations he needed. Without their support, Joey might have given up on himself... but their belief in him wouldn't allow him to give up no matter how difficult things got. There were still teachers who heard 'learning disabilities' and thought 'lazy' and drove Joey absolutely nuts as a result. But not even they could get him down anymore.

And now here he was, advocating to Seto Kaiba for more accessibility in his VR games.

Life sure was funny that way sometimes.

There was a tapping on his wrist that caught Joey's attention. Joey paused the play and tugged his headphones down around his neck before looking up at Seto.

"I was going to get a refill. Did you want one?"

Joey checked his drink and, low and behold, it was empty. When did that happen? "Just a hot chocolate with a pump of the mint flavor in it. Coffee makes me too jittery and I can't focus on what I'm listening too."

Nodding, Seto headed off to the counter to order.

It was hard to get back into focusing on the play until he had another cup of hot chocolate in front of him. Or maybe it was just that he'd already acclimated to having Seto there with him. Either way, something in him relaxed a bit as he picked up the cup and Seto sat back down across from him.

Absently, Joey thanked Seto for the refill and his brain settled back into the zone after a few sips. It was relaxing to be able to just sit quietly with Seto like this, each of them doing their own thing. Hanging out like this wasn't something he'd ever really expected to have with Seto after they'd parted all those years ago, though he'd imagined sometimes what it might be like to be reunited with his old friend. This was better. It was real.

Joey couldn't help but hope they'd get to do it again some time.