A/N: This entire story was the result of late night hijinks on discord.

"You want me…to do what?!"

Yugi sat on the of the fancy leather sofas in Seto Kaiba's office, smiling innocently at his dueling rival despite the rather harsh look he was getting in return. Mokuba, however, was sitting on the couch opposite him, daring looks between both Yugi and his brother, the homework on the seat beside him completely abandoned in favor of watching the card-less match play out before him.

Seto was behind his desk, a coffee mug in his hand that had paused midway to his mouth as his brain tried to wrangle through Yugi's rather bizarre request.

It wasn't often that Yugi ever came to see him at the office, but considering that he and Mokuba were so busy these days working out the details of the new Kaiba Land expansion, he probably wouldn't have made it up to the top floor office even if he had tried.

Come to think of it, Yugi probably only got so far today because Mokuba was out of school and yelled into the desk intercom to let him up before he could even get a word in edgewise.

Seto put the mug down. To be completely honest, Yugi never came to see him. Any ridiculous adventure that Yugi seemed to jump into always ended up roping him in just by association. Fate of the world this, destiny that. But mercifully, those days were gone. Yugi's funky gold pyramid and the other gaudy trinkets were swallowed up by the tomb, and the mysterious Pharaoh that had been sharing headspace with him the entire time? Decided at the last possible second to not venture through the blinding gate and live the life he was denied the first time.

The world was no longer in peril. His soul was no longer on the line if he wanted to duel, and life finally returned to normal.

Well, normal as it could possibly get with two Yugi Mutos running around.

So, knowing that Yugi came to him for something that didn't involve a duel disk was at least intriguing, and probably the only reason that he let Mokuba override him and allow him past security.

Yugi started again. "Help me with a…project of sorts that I'm working on," he said. A notebook with a pen clipped through the spirals sat perched on the edge of his knees.

"What sort of project?" asked Mokuba.

"Well," Yugi leaned forward and rested his hands on the notebook. "Next month it will be my turn to host game night, and I was hoping to do something a bit…different than what the gang was used to."

Mokuba raised an eyebrow. "No good party games in at the Game Shop? The last one you got - the escape-in-a-box? It was a lot of fun!"

Yugi beamed. It was Grandpa's idea to let the gang try that one, and it was a huge success. "It really was! But I wanted to do something bigger. Téa will be on break from New York soon, and it'll be Atem's first game night outside of Dungeon Dice Monsters at Duke's and before that it was an online Monster World campaign with Bakura while he was out of the country.

"But Atem is used to Monster World and Dungeon Dice Monsters, and since he's been helping Grandpa out at the shop, he knows what all those games are, so it wouldn't really be much of a surprise."

He paused. "I have an idea…but I really can't pull it off alone."

"So you came to me for help," Seto said, his voice flat. "You couldn't ask any of your cheerleader band?"

Yugi seemed to know he was going to ask that, and his reply was quick, on point. "They don't have the space that you guys have."

"Oh!" Mokuba said, eyes bright, and he looked from Yugi to his brother and back. "If you needed like an event room or a private slot in one of our virtual arcades or something, why didn't you say so? We can set you up no problem!"

"Well…" Yugi laughed awkwardly, as Seto raised the mug again to his lips, "I was, uh…hoping to borrow your house."

Seto nearly choked on his coffee. "What!?"

Yugi cringed. Kaiba didn't say anything else, not yet, but his cold stare was ready to shut the request down before he could even explain himself.

Thankfully, Mokuba's eyes, also set on him, were wide and curious, and most importantly – friendly – and it encouraged him to continue. "Since we all really liked the escape-in-a-box game, I wanted to do something like that! But we just did an escape room game, and I didn't want to make a carbon copy. Atem really liked the puzzle and mystery from the experience though, so I went online to look up other kinds of games…."

Seto was completely scowling now, long fingers drumming against the gleaming surface of his desk.

"…and thought of doing a murder mystery, like a whodunnit, like those fancy dinner theaters they do on cruises and stuff."

"Oh!" Mokuba's eyes lit up. "That sounds awesome!"

Yugi smiled at him. At least someone was excited by it. "I thought so. It would be a cool interaction thing where everyone would probably have some sort of role to play, we'd all dress up for the part, and it would be a hunt to find the killer!"

Seto didn't look incredibly impressed. "And you need my home because…?"

"I was hoping to do it based off a Clue-style board game," said Yugi.

"Oh, I love this plan already," said Mokuba, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. He then tilted his head and shared his next thought. "Though I gotta ask – um, gathering everyone for a game like that seems like a lot to pull together. Wouldn't it be easier to just…shell out the board game?"

"Well, yeah," Yugi admitted, "but that also takes some of the fun out of it. Bakura's last campaign was really neat and we were all able to play, even without all being in the same place. I want this to be just as exciting, and twice as fun!"

"Do the rest of your friends know what you're trying to do?" asked Mokuba.

"I mentioned it to Atem as an afterthought a while ago when we were first picking out an escape room to do with the others. But he doesn't know that I'm trying to plot this out. I think he thinks that I'm trying to find a new escape-in-a-box, and I think everyone else thinks we're gonna have game night at my place."

"Oooh," said Mokuba, "So who's gonna be the killer?"

"Well, I haven't come up with that yet," Yugi said, "there's a lot I haven't plotted out." He paused. "I was hoping to get the green light before working out anything else."

He looked to Kaiba. "Your house is the largest, and it would really fit the theme of the game better than anyone else's," he said, and then quickly added, "And of course you and Mokuba would be more than welcome to play too!"

"Really?" Mokuba's grin nearly escaped right off his face.

"He's saying that to placate me," said Seto, "Because he knows otherwise there would be no reason for me to allow the Nerd Herd onto the grounds."

"No, I'm being serious about it," said Yugi, "You and Mokuba have always been welcome at game night! Atem wishes you would come, too!"

"I've come," said Mokuba, "Not to Monster World, but I made the last one at Duke's place!" He looked over at his brother, "They've been fun too! You really should come, Seto! Get out of the office for a little while!"

"Atem can wish all he wants, but I don't like your friends, Yugi. They don't like me, and we both know this."

Yugi frowned.

Seto stiffened behind his desk. "And really, the last thing I need are your friends running loose through the mansion."

Mokuba hopped off the couch, hurried around to the back of the desk and tugged on Seto's arm. "C'mon…please? It's gonna be so much fun!"

Seto finally broke his gaze with Yugi to look down at his brother. Mokuba's large eyes were pleading with him.

Mokuba pressed onward. "And the gang doesn't have to be alone in the house – even if you don't play, you can still be there too!"

Seto raised an eyebrow at him. "In other words, confined to a corner while the mutts run rampant."

Mokuba pouted and looked away from him. "That's not what I meant…." His shoulders slumped and he plunked down onto the floor next to his brother's chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

Seto glanced down at him briefly before turning back to Yugi. "Let me tell you something, Yugi. I am surrounded by people all day. I come home to peace –"

Mokuba snorted. "With that new duel disk you're trying to build? You come home to work."

Seto gave him a sharp side-eye. Mokuba returned it with a stink-eye of his own.

"Regardless of what I do when I'm home, the last thing – or the last people – I want to be around are those who are going to grate on my last nerves. I get enough of that here."

"Have you even considered that you might actually have fun?" Mokuba asked, "Maybe if you took a break now and then and did something enjoyable, you wouldn't be so cranky!"

Seto huffed and looked back at Yugi, sitting still as stone on the couch, hands clasped in his lap, mouth pressed into a thin line, just watching him banter with Mokuba.

"I think it would be a fun idea," said Mokuba, peering around the side of the desk to Yugi, "Regardless of whether or not No-Fun-Seto wants to join. And I think you should go ahead with it."

Yugi smiled at him, and then faltered. "I'm really happy you're into the idea, Mokuba, but uh…it's not just your call to make. It's Kaiba's home too, and if he doesn't want me and the gang there, I can't just overrule that."

"Pssh," Mokuba stood back up and leaned forward against the desk. "Sure you can! What if I want to do that for game night? And hold it at the house where yeah, there's way more room than the Game Shop, and it'll be a lot more immersive that way!"

He stuck his tongue out at Seto. "Don't like it? Hide in the lab for a few hours. But I should be able to invite friends over if I want to."

Followed by a look that clearly said, 'And I definitely want to'.

Seto was quiet for a minute, calculating eyes locked on Yugi, and Yugi stared right back until he finally sighed. "You want me to let Wheeler and the others into my house? There had better be a good payoff for this."

Yugi's eyebrows shot up and he looked quickly at Mokuba before resettling back onto Kaiba. "Wait – you're going to do it?"

Seto's gaze hardened. "What will I get in return for having my home invaded?"

Yugi bit his lip and looked down at the blank notebook. He didn't bank on this – the honest expectation was that Kaiba was going to simply turn him down and he would be on his way, or that Mokuba would just talk him into it. Why did he never consider that this wasn't asking a favor, but of a trade? As he did put it, Kaiba would be giving up a quiet evening at home of whatever he wanted, in order to play host to people he didn't get along with. He should have expected that something would be demanded in return.

Now he had to think on his feet. What would he be willing to accept?

"A duel with Atem?"

"Heh." A single, dry laugh. "You're going to have to do better." He didn't feel like telling Yugi that Atem had an open invitation to the private dueling arena above his office. An invitation that the former Pharaoh had already cashed in on more than twice. There was something quite exhilarating about dueling in the room where their rivalry began – only now the platform arena had been gutted and renovated with new, modern holographic emitters. The Duelist Kingdom-style machines were long gone.

So if he had to give up one of his sacred free evenings to accommodate the Nerd Herd, he must be offered something equally valuable that he didn't already have access to.

A duel, even one with Atem, was simply not enough.

Yugi made a face. "How about…uh…a tag match? Or a three-way duel between you, me, and Atem? We've never done that before."

Seto raised an eyebrow. That was certainly different. "I'll accept, at a time and place of my choosing, but that's still not enough to let Wheeler run wild through my house."

Yugi's shoulders slumped a little further inward. Kaiba already wasn't keen on playing. What else could he offer him?

What else could he afford to offer him?

"Well…" Yugi began slowly, "What would you want?"

Now Mokuba cringed. "Oh Yugi, you shouldn't have said that…."

He knew he shouldn't have, but the idea of his preferred game night excited him to no end, and he was determined to see it through. He had to get Kaiba on board. Otherwise he wasn't sure how he was going to pull off an event like this without finding a large manor or party space to rent, like the ones he saw online for booking weddings and other swanky events. Those were way out of his price range.

Although, he just opened the door for Kaiba to ask for anything he wanted. That could end up easily as expensive, if not more…in other ways.

Yugi expected Kaiba to flash him some sort of sadistic grin and let loose a number of ridiculous terms and conditions; whatever was on the forefront of his mind. Instead, Kaiba tented his fingers together in front of his face, eyes focused down at his desk, deep in thought.

Time passed, and the longer Kaiba sat there, unmoving, the more nervous Yugi became over what he would actually say in the end. He knew that Kaiba wouldn't want the rest of the gang over, and he was asking a lot. So what would he ask for to consider inviting them into his mansion? After already accepting a three-way duel?

Cool blue eyes finally rose to meet violet ones. "When are you hoping to do this?"

"Oh…" Yugi pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and starting scrolling through the calendar. "Ideally the first of February? Téa will be on break then, and I know she was planning on coming home from New York. I wouldn't want her to miss out on it."

Silence returned to the office. No one moved. Yugi held his gaze to Kaiba's. Mokuba watched his brother.

"…Very well."

Mokuba's eyes bugged out of his head and he ran over to high-5 Yugi, who could only sit jaw-dropped. "R-really!?"

Yugi smiled at Mokuba's giddiness and looked back to Kaiba. "Y-you'll really let us come?"

"On my terms."

Yugi froze and held in his next breath. Here it comes….

Control. That's what Kaiba wanted. Not total control – it was his event, not Kaiba's after all – but he wanted to 'go big or go home' and, well, those were words that Kaiba lived by.

Knowing that Kaiba jetpacked out his Blue Eyes jet at the start of the Grand Prix Tournament, he should have known the way to win Kaiba over would be to stroke his flair for the dramatics.

So now, one week later, Yugi found himself for the first time invited into the Kaiba mansion, and sat with both brothers at the dining room table. One ridiculously large table considering there were only two people who lived in the house.

When he brought his curiosity up, Mokuba had merely shrugged. "Eh. We normally just eat in the kitchen. But you wouldn't have caught our stepfather doing that. Now though? I do my homework on it."

Yugi tucked that little bit of info away and looked down at the notebook open in front of him, and tapped his pen against it idly. "So…conditions?"

Seto sat at the head of the table, a steaming coffee mug in front of him, looking as relaxed as Yugi had ever seen him. No extra belts or buckles. No crazy coats or duel-disk. No fancy suits.

A casual Saturday afternoon at the Kaiba Mansion, a once-in-a-lifetime sight that he would have to relish in as long as he possibly could.

Seto sipped his coffee, eyeing the small number of notes that Yugi had prepared ahead of his arrival. "Just how much of the mansion do you plan to use?"

"Well…" Yugi trailed off, uncertain, and looked around. This was the first time he had ever stepped through the front doors, and he honestly had no idea how many rooms there were. "I uh…really don't know? I want there to be a mystery. It wouldn't be fun to corral everyone in one room for the entire night."

"But you are planning this based off of a board game," said Seto, "Where a crime has already occurred and you need to pinpoint down who did it, where, and with what. So unless your killer is going to strike and then, say, stuff their victim in a closet, it's going to be pretty obvious to where the murder took place."

"Right," said Yugi, "But part of the mystery was going to be for all of the players to be in different places at the time of the murder, so it's not clear to just who would have had opportunity to strike. Everyone is a suspect, and it won't be clear until it happens to who is going to fake die."

A door opened and closed somewhere else in the house and Fuguta appeared minutes later checking the time against his watch, car keys in hand.

"Mokuba, it is time."

"Oh! Right!" Mokuba hopped up, and at Yugi's raised brow, added, "I'm meeting Rebecca for study help."

Yugi blinked. "Rebecca Hawkins? She's in town?" And she didn't seek him out? That was new.

"Uh huh, but only until next week. Her grandfather is studying something in the museum here before they return home. She's helping me with chemistry."

"That's really nice of her," said Yugi. He didn't realize that Rebecca and Mokuba had hit it off, though he supposed it did help that they were about the same age.

Mokuba shrugged. "It's a trade." He couldn't help but snicker. "I promised her another run at Seto's firewalls."

Seto rolled his eyes. "I reinforced it twice over since your last little attempt. She's not getting in."

Mokuba had a sly grin on his face. "Well, we'll find out! I told her if she breaks through and she's not kicked out within ten seconds I'd get her passes to USA Kaiba Land. She's determined, so I guess we'll find out!"

A quick one-armed hug to his brother and a wave at Yugi and then he was out the door. "Have fun, guys!"

Seto looked to Yugi once the front door had shut behind them. "So now that Mokuba is out of the house, I assume you have some idea of who the killer is going to be."

"I was actually going to draw names randomly," said Yugi, "And then base a story around that."

Seto seemed to mull it over before he got up, beckoned Yugi to follow, and led him into his home office. "I imagine it would be easier to build a story around why people would want the victim dead; then it wouldn't matter who you chose to be the killer."

He sat behind the desk. "Take Mokuba for example. Say you choose him to be the killer. What motive would he have for…." He waved a hand and plucked a name out of the air. "…Killing Tristan, for example? Are you going to choose your victim at random too?"

Yugi hummed thoughtfully. It would be easier to work the other way, as Kaiba suggested. "No, I think I'll have a clear idea of who is going to die."

Seto reached forward and woke the laptop on the desk. "So who's it going to be? Not Mokuba, I hope."

Yugi was quiet for a minute as he looked around the room. Various awards and small trophies filled a set of shelves along one wall. On the opposite, two duel disks sat in stands on a side table. A hand-painted mug was nestled among a set of glass dragon bookends. A gift from Mokuba, no doubt.

The room was probably more of Kaiba's private sanctuary than his own bedroom, and it gave him a new idea.

"You are."