Tidal Pools
by Cryptographic DeLurk
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The rocks were polished and smooth and sharp and coarse, and Yuugi cut his bare foot against them before he'd decided to go ahead and pull on the rubber black waders. But the water and rising sea foam splashed higher than the length of the boots up his calf, and the salt water pooled inside and stung against the cut.
Yuugi had heard that ocean water was becoming more acidic, and that blood was slightly basic. He thought about these counteracting one another, where both mingled in the microcosm of the rubber boot.
It was a shadowless noon and the tide was falling. The pools on the rocky coastline were filled with cold water and black urchins and pink cucumbers, and Yuugi decided he probably wasn't leaving without doing at least a little of the work he'd been assigned. He had a green plastic clipboard with sheets of paper far too easily smudged with drops of water, and on them he drew a grid of the tidal pool and counted the specimens in each quadrant. He took his phone out of his pocket and, thinking what a disaster it would be if he dropped it, snapped pictures of starfish and crablets and anemones.
Was there even cell phone reception here? He checked the grid. Of course there was. Kaiba wouldn't have let them go without.
Yuugi turned the camera, snapped a selfie, and hesitated to send it along with a picture of an orange starfish to Jounouchi. If he did, he'd have to explain why he was here, and it was a conversation Yuugi didn't feel entirely prepared to have.
Kaiba had insisted. Yuugi had told Kaiba, idly enough, about his assignment for uni. Soft complaints between a milkshake and fries at Burger World. Kaiba in dark shades with shoulders too thin without his jacket. But Kaiba had insisted with a sudden and uncharacteristic interest in Yuugi's academic record, like someone who hadn't missed so many days of high school he'd flunked altogether. And when Yuugi said he was pretty sure any coastline in Japan would do, Kaiba said something about how the Galapagos marked the beginning of man's journey to understand his trajectory out of miasma – to see himself evolved into something greater than himself and everything that came before him.
Yuugi didn't have the heart to tell him that that was exactly the kind of talk his biology professor would have hated – treating evolution like the pinnacle of a tower instead of a web. And she probably would have had a few choice words about Kaiba's construction project on the isles as well.
The tide was starting to rise again, and Yuugi pocketed his phone without sending anything to Jounouchi. Because if Jounouchi knew he would probably worry until Yuugi and Kaiba were safely back in Japan, so Yuugi might as well wait until then to tell him anyhow.
He made more notes on his clipboard, until he was bored, and just sat looking at the horizon and the sun reflecting off the water and the small movements of life in the pool. The shadow from the elevator tower moved around the island, like a giant sun dial marking the hours, and Yuugi and the tidal pools were eventually cast into the shadows.
It wasn't until then that Yuugi, himself, started to worry. Because Kaiba had been gone a very long time. And what if he'd left again? But he wouldn't, right? Not after the strain and the hospitalisation and Mokuba and everyone being so afraid and upset? Yuugi sat, flicking the clip on the clipboard open and closed, until all the papers dropped and Yuugi had to scramble to get them all back.
The waterline had risen just above the pools, and the last of Yuugi's papers floated serenely across that surface. Yuugi plucked it up and squeezed it out, and when he turned Kaiba had appeared at ground level – somewhere in the transition area where solid land rolled into the start of the beach.
He waved with a gangly arm, and Yuugi waved back waded his way inland.
Kaiba spoke immediately upon his return. "Are you done collecting data for your assignment?" He didn't wait for an answer, already disinterested with the pretence. "We should head back to Japan. Maybe with a stopover for some rest – anywhere you'd like." A conciliatory gesture. But he sounded distracted.
"Kaiba-kun!" Yuugi scolded, tapping the back of the clipboard against Kaiba's crossed arms.
Kaiba blinked harshly at the contact.
"Are you really not going to invite me inside the tower?" Yuugi asked. "After you brought me all the way here, you're not even going to show me where you met him?"
The place along the elevator shaft where Kaiba had winked out of existence, before he'd come crashing to the bottom.
"I- Ah…" Kaiba's mouth wrung into a thin and wobbly frown. His cheeks coloured, and he tightened his arms over his chest and averted his eyes. It was about as close to an apology as Yuugi had ever seen Kaiba get.
"It's alright. I understand." Yuugi tapped the clipboard against Kaiba's arms again. "But if we're going to stop someplace else, you'll have to choose. I don't know anything about international travel." Or romantic vacation destinations.
Kaiba seemed to relax a little. His stance loosened, and he let out a deep exhale of breath. "Alright. I'll think of something." Another tower, maybe. Or a pyramid. Or something special for Yuugi in particular, for once.
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Fin.