Chapter Two
Seto was in the kitchen pouring himself a second cup of coffee when Mokuba came dashing in, a lanky blur of dark hair and sun-bronzed skin.
"Seto!"
Seto arched a brow. "Mokuba."
"Did you hear?!" he asked, skidding to a stop. Apparently reaching eighteen years old didn't mellow him out quite like it had to Seto at that age.
"Hear what," Seto replied drolly.
"Yugi's in the hospital!"
Seto blinked. "What?"
Mokuba nodded fervently. "Yeah! The Game Shop burned down, too! There's nothing but ashes, now."
Red flashing lights and the wails of sirens.
Seto set the coffee pot back into the machine. "Which hospital?"
"Ours. I'm going to go visit him later," Mokuba chattered. "Joey said he got burned pretty bad on one side. Got some smoke in his eyes, too."
"Hn," Seto grunted, took a long sip of his coffee as he stared up at the skylight. He actually had to visit some of the upper-tier administrators at Kaiba Hospital that day.
"His grandpa got out relatively unscathed, though." He rifled around in the fruit basket. "It's just like Yugi to put everyone else before himself, even if it means he's gonna get hurt."
Seto only blinked, grunted, and thought about how he would bear any amount of scar tissue for Mokuba.
The heels of his polished shoes clicked on the white tile. The acrid tinge of sterilizers gnawed at Kaiba's lungs and nasal passages.
He hated hospitals.
Even if he owned the damn thing.
Doctor Eve Grimes gestured lazily as she expounded on the technological problems the hospital currently endured.
"Now, the tech is amazing. Don't get me wrong. And yes, at the time of its construction, this building was state-of-the-art. But, it's now falling behind. The facilities simply can't support the technology we're being supplied. The circuitry in this place is straining enough to meet our demands as it is. We're either going to need some major renovations or a complete rebuild if we want to implement the sort of equipment you're planning on bringing into here."
Kaiba's eyebrow twitched. "Renovations would mean shutting down entire wings to get the wiring up to date."
Doctor Grimes nodded. "Yes. But I'm not sure we can afford that. We nearly reach capacity as it is, and closing off that much of the hospital might mean turning away patients."
"I won't allow that to happen."
She smiled, kind. "I'm glad I work under you now, Mister Kaiba. Your father never would have cared about the wellbeing of our patients if it didn't make him any money."
"Don't bother comparing me to Gozaburo. I'm nothing like him."
She smirked, lifted a single finger, "Ah, but I was not 'comparing' you. I was contrasting you."
Kaiba rolled his eyes, lip twitching up.
They passed into another wing. Doctor Grimes bid him farewell and handed him off to a technician. They discussed KaibaCorp's new x-ray machines, and the younger man led Kaiba down the hall to inspect the aforementioned technology. Even from the corner, he could hear that damn annoying voice, loud and boisterous in the solemn atmosphere.
"Wheeler," he growled under his breath. What the hell was he doing here?
Mokuba's words from earlier echoed back to him.
Yugi.
"Woah. So you're saying they're gonna try to use skin from other parts of his body to patch up his burns? That's crazy."
A lower voice, quiet enough that Kaiba couldn't make out the exact words.
A skin graft. Not that that idiot would know the fucking term.
Kaiba passed the door. A glance.
Sugoroku Muto and Joseph Wheeler sat in armchairs. Two beds, one empty, one with an unconscious Yugi Muto. His face was bandaged. His eyes were covered by the white wraps. The heart monitor beeped steadily beside him.
Kaiba didn't actively swallow, but he felt his throat clench and his Adam's apple bob.
He kept walking.
Mokuba frowned down at his plate. He picked at his salad. Seto stared at him over the rim of his wine glass.
"Not hungry?" Seto asked.
Mokuba shrugged, poked at a cherry tomato with his fork. "Not really."
"Hn." Seto remained quiet. He didn't have to prod much - if at all - before Mokuba would spill what was on his mind.
Mokuba sighed.
Seto slanted a glance up at him before returning to cutting his chicken.
"It just sucks," Mokuba blurted.
Seto's eyebrows shot up. "Dinner? Or is it some other matter you haven't clued me into yet?"
Mokuba set his fork down, shook his head. His long black hair swayed. "No, what happened to Yugi."
The beeping of a heart monitor blipped through the back of Seto's mind. "Hn."
Mokuba's eyes glistened. Even at eighteen, he was still tender-hearted. "They'd don't have a home anymore. Everything they owned was in that game shop. Sugoroku's staying with Joey, but… still…" He sighed again. "He says that insurance company isn't willing to cover anything."
Seto's brows furrowed. "Really?"
Another shake of the head. "Nothing. They barely investigated the house before they said that the Mutos were to blame for the fire. They won't be receiving anything."
Seto remembered blue summer skies, a tiny hand in his own, staring at the foreboding building before them as they were abandoned forever.
No where to go. That sounded familiar.
A week later, Yugi was still in KaibaCorp hospital. Every day, Kaiba walked by the door. Sometimes, voices echoed from within. Other times, it was silent, save for Yugi's quiet shuffling and the consistent beeping of the heart monitor. Still, bandages wrapped his head.
Kaiba paused by the threshold. It was quiet in the room. He peered in.
The other bed remained empty, but Yugi sat up in his. Wires twined down from the sides of his head. Earbuds. His breathing was gentle and regular, but the occasional thrumming of his fingers alluded to his wakefulness.
Kaiba blinked, looked down the hallway. He was early, anyways. He crossed the threshold, knocked on the open door.
Yugi's head jerked, whipped toward the sound. He popped an ear bud out. "Grandpa?" The depth of his voice startled Kaiba.
"Not quite."
Though Kaiba couldn't see Yugi's eyes, he saw how his jaw slacked with surprise. "Kaiba?"
"Who else?" He muttered, awkwardly stepped forward, closer to Yugi's bedside.
Yugi chuckled. "I just didn't expect you to be here."
Kaiba knew practically everyone had come to visit Yugi at some point or another. Even Tea took an impromptu flight from the east coast to see her longtime friend.
"Well, this is my hospital."
Yugi nodded, relaxed back against the inclined hospital mattress. "I know. It is in the name." He fiddled with something in his hand. It was a beat-up MP3 player. Basically ancient technology. He pulled his other earbud out. "Mokuba said you're working on expansions or improvements or something."
"Hn," Kaiba grunted, looked back at the door.
"How was your day so far?" Yugi asked, not letting the silence stew. Kaiba wondered how long he'd been left alone in this room today.
"Busy. The usual," Kaiba said, he paused a moment and let his eyes linger on the bandages around Yugi's head.
"I bet," Yugi chuckled again. He ran his fingers along the side of his hospital gown repeatedly.
A breath, and the question burst forth. "How long are they going to have that damn bandage over your face?"
Yugi actually laughed a little at that, though it seemed forcibly restrained. Kaiba remembered the burn on his side. "Only a couple more days. They're mostly there to keep my eyes closed. Help heal the damage on my corneas."
Kaiba blinked. Damage on the corneas… "That could cause scarring."
A frown, half-sigh. "Yup."
"How the hell did that happen?" Kaiba asked, a little snappish.
Yugi lifted a shoulder. "The game shop was old. The materials weren't exactly… clean. The smoke created when it was burning was toxic, especially in contact with water."
"Chemical burns…" Kaiba thought aloud. "Did it damage your throat and lungs?"
Yugi shook his head. "Not too badly, all things considered."
"But your grandfather got out relatively unscathed."
Yugi smiled. It was a softly proud smile. "Yeah, I wrapped one of my shirts around his face so he wouldn't inhale any of it."
Kaiba rubbed a hand over his face. He felt more open to express himself physically when Yugi couldn't see him. "You were his eyes." A rumble of frustration lurked in his throat. "You knew."
A sheepish grimace. "I had a hunch. It… stung. A lot."
"Well, yeah! Chemical burns are going to sting, moron."
Yugi laughed, the guffaws caught between pained whimpers and grimaces, but it didn't hinder his mirth in the slightest.
"I don't know what you're laughing at. You really are an idiot, Yugi." Though the corner of Kaiba's lip twitched up.
Yugi's hands trailed along his gown, along the thin sheet of the bed. "I had to get him out of there." His voice lowered. "He's all I have left." His small fingers twisted into the material. "You would've done the same for Mokuba."
"Hn," Kaiba grunted.
He didn't say it, but Yugi was right.
He would've.
He had personally put it forth to the staff for Yugi to have more than the maximum number of guests when the time arrived. Still, only a handful could come when his facial bandages were taken off.
Kaiba paused by the doorway. The people within chatted excitedly, and, lost in conversation did not notice him.
His skin prickled, and he backed away. He walked down the hallway.
A few hours later, Kaiba learned, Yugi was scheduled for his reconstructive skin graft surgery, after some preliminary tests for his eyes.
Kaiba didn't sleep well that night.
He figured, by now, all of the tests results would be back.
Kaiba rapped his knuckles on the open door.
Yugi's head turned, and violet irises locked onto him.
He froze.
Yugi blinked, long and slow. The flesh around his eyes was red and puffy. Kaiba wasn't sure if it was from his injuries, or from crying. Maybe both.
"Who is it?" Yugi asked, voice rough.
Kaiba's stomach dropped to his feet.
"The only one who probably bothers to knock," Kaiba replied, and his tone did not come out as drolly as he was trying to make it sound.
"Oh," Yugi replied. His hands twisted into the sheets, knuckles flashing white. "Kaiba."
Kaiba stood there in the doorway, shifted from one foot to the other. "I hope you're accepting visitors right now. I'd be pretty pissed if I walked all the way here for nothing," Kaiba said.
An opening for Yugi.
But Yugi only chuckled wetly and shook his head. "No, come on in. Be my guest."
"Actually, you're my guest. So you just invited me to be my own guest in my own hospital," Kaiba said, and he actually moved to sit in the chair by the bed. "You've never made any sense, Yugi."
Yugi's head vaguely followed Kaiba's movements. Kaiba wondered just how much he could see, or if he was basing it all off his hearing.
"Ah, the smallest details never get passed you, do they?"
Closer, he could see the damage to Yugi's corneas; the blurred reflection of the fluorescent lights off his violet irises.
"No, they sure as hell don't," Kaiba replied.
A beat of silence.
Kaiba gulped. "How bad is it?"
A shaky exhale. But it seemed that, if there were any tears at all, they would have already been shed. "It's pretty bad. I… I can only see color. It's like looking through fogged glass."
Kaiba rubbed his thumb along the edge of the arm of the chair. "They have surgeries to correct that. You can get a transplant."
Yugi nodded, eyes still lingering on Kaiba. "I know. The doctor told me, but…"
Kaiba shifted, unsettled by that intense, yet vague, stare.
"... that's not the only problem." Yugi's hands twisted the sheets again. "I was exposed long enough that the damage is internal, too. My lenses are deformed." Before Kaiba's mouth could open, Yugi raised a halting hand. "They have implants for that, I know." Yugi's breath was uneven. "But there's nothing they can do about my optic nerve."
Kaiba stiffened.
"They said I'm lucky," Yugi said with a chuckle. "Lucky that I'm not completely blind. They have no idea how the nerve could be damaged in a way that it accepts colors but not images. It just can't interpret the signals anymore, I guess."
"You're permanently blind," Kaiba summarized, mouth dry, amazed by Yugi's composure.
Yugi nodded. "Yup."
"What about your career?" Kaiba immediately asked.
A sad smile. "Guess I can't play card games if I can't see them, huh? Can't really design games very well, either."
Kaiba sat, stunned. His brain just couldn't process this.
Yugi leaned his head back. "You're the first person I've told." Yugi chuckled. "I've been sitting on this for a couple days, but you have impeccable timing, Kaiba."
Kaiba didn't say anything, but his question hung heavily on the air anyways.
"You don't have the time for pity," Yugi explained quietly. "Guess I'm not your rival anymore, though, huh?"
END PART