Notes in general: I'm not an active part of the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom, but I love, love, love Yu-Gi-Oh. Ever since I first fell in love with the show, I fell super in love with Seto Kaiba. When I was younger I saw him as this tortured, tragic character; now that I'm a little older, I see him as immature, traumatized, and most certainly mentally ill, but certainly not beyond saving. My goal is to write a bunch of loosely connected Blueshipping vignettes that follow Seto on a path of growth, self-discovery, and coming to terms with everything that's happened to him. And of course, the only kind of girl who could handle a Kaiba would have to be pretty kick-ass and, tbh, a little bit mean and opinionated herself :)

I'm a super amateur novice writer, so I would absolutely adore any kind of feedback anyone has for me-in messages, comments or otherwise. I would love to be a bigger part of the fandom and to grow as a writer (since I don't think I'm ever going to get to flex my creative muscles professionally!), and I would love, love, love for someone to talk to about Yu-Gi-Oh.

Notes on Origin: Of course, since Kisara doesn't show up in the modern world in the DM canon, Kisara and Seto needed an origin story. I'll be honest, boy-meets-girl stories are kind of a struggle for me (I've been in two relationships ever, and the current one has been going on for three years). You'll have to take a leap of faith with me that they end up mutually attracted, and dating. I'm terrible with awkward, pre-first-date story lines :(

It began as a simple, random assignment for a group project on machine learning. Her assigned partner was an anonymous setok, a random handle that meant nothing to her, the user that she was going to be messaging, back-and-forth, until they had something to work with. The topic was pretty straightforward, too: clustering. Clustering anything. To work with a stranger, and learn about how to use clustering to generate meaningful results. The exact email read,

"kisaram,

Your topic for CENG 251, Introduction to Machine Learning Theory, is applications for clustering algorithms. Your partner is setok.

Please contact your partner as soon as possible, as the first deadline for this project is next Wednesday, September 22."

She strongly suspected that it was an auto-generated email, with an auto-generated topic, and skaiba was an auto-generated partner.

Kisara arrived at the computer science study room a few minutes too late, with her backpack slung hastily over one shoulder and one hand supporting its' sliding canvas strap; the other hand was gripped tightly around a blonde-roast coffee, an inch of cream and four turbinado sugars, which was mostly empty. Her round, gentle face was flushed and a little bit sweaty, and she awkwardly brushed her pale blonde hair, wilted and stringy from the summer humidity, off of her forehead.

The sight of her partner made her supremely uncomfortable—with his charcoal-colored, neatly fitted jeans, pressed white shirt, and lightweight navy blue v-neck sweater, he looked unusually pristine for the muggy mid-autumn weather. His was plugged in and charging, his briefcase—really, a briefcase, Kisara though momentarily—was laid tidily at his feet, and he had a polished silver coffee mug in one hand.

She sat down, hurriedly unzipping her backpack and juggling her laptop bag to set up her own equipment. In her haste, she set her coffee down a little too hard on the desk, and frowned as it splashed the desk and her light blue tank top. She watched as the stain sank into the fibers of her top, and the top clung to her stomach. She winced, sitting down and readjusting herself quickly.

"Er...hi. I'm Kisara. We, ah, we're working together? You're setok?"

The boy looked up. His face was a little bit intimidating to look at head-on—Kisara's appearance was all soft, rounded edges, while the boy's was sharp and angular, with hollow cheeks and startlingly large, dark blue eyes. "I'm Seto."

She extended her hand over the table, after a brief moment of deliberation, the boy took her hand in his, giving her a firm handshake. Embarrassed, she felt the firm, cool grip of his hand, and realized that hers were a little bit sweaty.

There was a pause as she opened and booted her laptop. She was keenly aware of Seto's unflinching eyes on her as she impatiently fidgeted, waiting for her computer to start.

"So...ah...clustering algorithms." Kisara brushed her hair behind her ears. "I don't have a lot of experience with them yet. Do you, er, have any ideas?"

Seto's voice was smooth, deep, inately polished; Kisara felt as if she were his assistant, instead of his partner and equal. "My interest is in Duel Monsters data. We can look for patterns in popular cards, popular playing strategies, perhaps use that kind of data to generate new strategies and new decks inherited from Duel Monsters champions all over the world."

Kisara blinked. "Wait...Duel Monsters? Like, the card game?" She was vaguely familiar with the card game that was a cult sensation, although it had a strong presence on campus, Kisara was not very familiar with the game.

What she had perceived as a relatively inane comment caused her partner to bristle. "There's lots of meta-data that can be analyzed from a game as complex as Duel Monsters. What's your problem?"

What the...? Kisara thought. The boy's visage was strangely, oddly familiar to her, although she couldn't place why. Wait...

Her eyes lit up with recognition for a brief second, and her mouth gaped open. "Oh, my god. You're that guy."

"I beg your pardon?"

She clapped her hand to her mouth. "You're the—the KaibaCorp guy! The rags-to-riches child prodigy genius who decided to turn an industry leader in military technology into a company that made hyperrealistic edgy simulations of fantasy monsters for a card game."

Gleefully unaware of Seto's stiffening posture and grimly tightened mouth, she bubbled onwards, "The one who had that crazy-weird obsession with being like, the greatest person ever at Duel Monsters? Oh my god, who hosted that weird, pompous, megalomanic tourna-"

"E-nough!" he snapped, slamming his fist on the desk, sending Kisara's coffee cup rolling off the table. Her eyes widened, and her spine straightened as she jumped to attention, startled at Seto's sudden outburst.

Seto's gaze was absolutely vitriolic, and locked unflinchingly on her. Kisara became acutely conscious of the sensation of the fabric of her sweatshirt against her collarbone, and uncomfortably aware that she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. She felt her teeth sink into her lower lip, and the slightly sweet taste of coffee and chap stick brushed the tip of her tongue. Her heart pounded against the inside of her chest. Vaguely, she could hear the ticking of the clock, the buzz of fluorescent lights.

Seto was unmoving. Although the air of rage about him was unmistakable, his expression betrayed absolutely no emotion. His thin lips were drawn into a perfectly horizontal line, his breathing was soft and regular, his bright blue eyes were narrowed almost imperceptibly. Unable to hold his gaze, Kisara stared at the space between Seto's Adam's apple and the neckline of his navy blue sweater.

"I...I'm..." Kisara felt as if her voice were disconnected from her thoughts and her body. Her conscience floated up above the scene, warmed its' back with a fluorescent lamp, watched as her shoulders crumpled and posture deflated, and she gripped her face with her hands.

"Dude, fuck, I'm...oh my god, I'm..." Her breathing quickened. She could see slices of the desk, her laptop, her turquoise cell phone, through the cracks in her fingers. She could smell the raspberry hand sanitizer she always used before working on her laptop.

After what felt like an eternity, she heard the soft rustling of a zipper, and Seto's firm, cold, exacting voice sounded from somewhere a few feet above her head.

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

After another eternity, she heard the door slam.

Nights like this she wished she had someone to talk to. She was staring into the refrigerator, blankly observing the things on the shelf: the bag of shredded cheese she vaguely suspected might be already slimy and covered in mold, the plastic container of pasta sauce she'd emptied out of a can and simmered with a sprig of basil to give it the illusion of flavor complexity, the three half-empty jugs of milk that she had bought, one after the other, after failing to drink an entire half-gallon of milk before it expired. The shelf held a few unopened sticks of butter, a bottle of yellow mustard, and several kinds of alcoholic drinks: a big bottle of pre-mixed margaritas, a container of raspberry-ginseng wine that came in a fancy bottle, several bottles of liquor-infused peach-flavored lemonade. Absently, she grabbed for the raspberry-ginseng wine, tossed the cap onto the stovetop, and sank against the oven, grimacing as the syrupy, burning tingle of wine rolled down her throat.

She hadn't spoken a word since Seto Kaiba abandoned her in the computer lab study room earlier that afternoon; what happened after was foggy. She vaguely remembered putting away her laptop, not bothering to put it back in its' case but merely throwing it into her backpack, desperate to get her interaction with Seto out of her mind. She usually listened to her music on the ride home from campus, but today she sat in the glum, heavy silence, drawing in breath after long, shaky breath as she mired in post-work traffic. That day she'd had three cups of coffee and just toaster waffles for breakfast—on some level, she knew she should be hungry. She also knew that the raspberry wine, deceptively strong despite its' saccharine flavor, would hit her hard, and fast, and maybe she could put some distance between herself and her terrible exchange with Seto Kaiba.

Half a bottle of wine later, and Kisara was slumped against the oven, staring at her dishwasher, swirling the bottle in her lap. Then she heard the electronic ding of an incoming notification on her phone.

Clumbering to her feet, she groped through her backpack to find her cell phone. The notification was from her message thread with Seto:

"I'm planning to do some research into clustering libraries we can use for benchmarking tonight. I'll let you know what I come up with. It should be trivial to find packages to suit what we're trying to do, but having the time to do the benchmarking properly might be an issue. We can discuss more the specifics tomorrow; I'll have some ideas ready."

She stared blankly at her phone, read and reread the message. Seto was going to work on the project, apparently. Like nothing happened. She stared, her head spinning slightly from the alcohol.

Kisara is typing...

"Okay, sure, that sounds great"

No, that felt wrong, impersonal, disingenous. She deleted the text, grimacing and shaking her head quickly as if to shake the drunkenness from her head.

"Look, I can do that if you need some time off. I'm sorry if I came off a little bit"

Again, wrong. Delete, delete, delete.

"I don't know what happened this afternoon, but I'm really sorry if I was out of line"

She drew in a long, steadying breath, swallowed another gulp of raspberry wine, and hit the little phone icon next to the name "Seto K" on her screen.

Calling Seto K...

Rrrrrring...

…...rrrring...

He's not going to pick up, she thought. For the second time today, her mind felt disconnected from her body. She was dimly aware of her heart slamming against her ribcage with a mighty force, but she couldn't feel the accompanying anxiety, the overwhelming spree of thoughts in her head.

Suddenly the ringing stopped, and there was an eerie silence on the other end of the line. She thought she could hear the very faint sound of someone breathing on the other end of the line.

"S—Seto, right? Seto Kaiba?" she gasped out between short, tight, panicky breaths.

More silence.

"I—uh-this is Kisara. Look, this isn't about the clustering algorithm project. I just"-she hicupped and leaned her head against the dirty linoleum floor-"I...can we talk about what happened this afternoon?"

A moment of silence, and then a short, unreadably cold, "What do you have to tell me about this afternoon, Kisara?"

She swallowed a long, shaky gulp of air. "Oh, my god, I'm...I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say. Look, I don't really know you as a person, but you must...I know I must have been way out of line. And I'm really sorry, and I know that you're like, an important guy and I'm stupid and just a student and I was being really unprofessional and I'm sorry and I know that you're never going to forgive me but I just hope that you're not going to remember me as like, this horrible person because I-"

She paused for a moment, hoping that he might interrupt her, but there was only silence on the other end of the line-"I don't want you to think I'm a bad person. And you're, you're a child genius and you have a job that everyone else would kill for, and me included, and I'm scared of you, and I don't know why I felt like I had to make fun of you, oh my God, I'm..." she trailed off, closing her eyes and letting out a deep, turbulent sigh.

The voice on the other end of the line was somehow softer sounding; still brisk, but without a distinct edge of hostility. "We don't have to talk about it anymore. Do you think you can manage to uphold your end of the project?"

She pursed her lips. "Do you...do you want to talk about it?"

Seto's voice was sharp again. "No, I do not. I'll look at software libraries tonight. Get your head together."

Click. Kisara let the phone bounce to the floor, and swigged down another big gulp of wine.

A few hours later, Kisara had rolled herself into her bed, cocooned into a blue and white quilt, still wearing her school clothes and makeup. The thought of having to look at herself in the mirror to clean her face was appalling. Her head pounded, and she shivered deeper into the quilt nest, studying the stucco patterns on the wall.

Only somewhat conscious of what she was doing, Kisara unlocked her phone, pulled up the messenger app where she had been talking with Seto...

Kisara is typing...

"I'm really sorry. I want to talk about what happened. I hurt your feelings and that doesn't sit right with me. I want to make it better."

From Seto, just moments later:

setok: "I am not about to waste our time trying to make you feel better."

Adrenaline coursed through her body, yet she felt entirely calm.

"Let me get you a coffee tomorrow. Before class? After? Can I get you a coffee after lecture, and we could talk about the project?"

A significantly longer moment later:

setok: "That would be fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

Kisara could almost feel, tangibly, the wave of warm relief that washed over her.

Kisara is typing...

"Thank you so, so much. Meet me outside the classroom tomorrow. Whatever you want, on me."

Standing awkwardly in the lobby of the lecture hall as her classmates left in droves, Kisara couldn't help but wish that she'd asked Seto to meet her at the coffee shop, instead of outside of class. The sheer volume of bodies brushing past her made her feel immensely uncomfortable, which only added to her tension.

She was trying to make a second impression, trying much harder than when she'd made her first. Her platinum hair was combed and feathered out nicely around her shoulders into shiny threads of silver silk, she was wearing her favorite pair of jeans and wedge heeled boots, and she'd consciously picked her most innocuous navy blouse, the one that offered generous coverage of her soft stomach. Before leaving for campus in the morning she had taken the time to apply a thin layer of shimmery cobalt-colored eyeliner. She tried, very hard, to give off the impression of someone kind, and smart, and professional. She was trying.

As the crowd began to thin around her, Kisara became aware that someone was standing next to her. Turning her head slightly, she was surprised to see an olive-green flannel shirtsleeve at her eye level, and as she looked up...

"Ah! Seto!" She jumped a few steps back in surprise. Seto Kaiba was leaned against the wall, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, staring into the middle distance. Briefly, Kisara wondered why he didn't think to say hi to her.

"I...um...hi. I'm glad you're here."

Seto gave no response except to nod. Kisara gritted her teeth. She'd tried so hard to make a more composed, more balanced second impression only for the unexpected to happen again. She felt her cheek puff out in an unmistakable, autonomic pout, and wrinkled her nose in disgust at herself for being so undignified.

Seto's eyes slowly turned towards hers, and she stared back evenly for a moment before muttering, "Okay, come on. I like the coffee house they have on campus. Follow me." Wincing at the tension in the air, Kisara spun on her heel and headed towards the door without waiting to see if Seto was following her.

She got her answer a few moments later, when she was aware of olive-colored flannel in her peripheral vision. Seto walked with purpose, with shoulders back and long, brisk strides extended further by the impressive length of his legs. Kisara huffed and quickened her pace to catch up.

As she began to lock into Seto's rapid pace, it dawned on her somewhere in the corner of her mind that most people would usually make some sort of small talk, but she couldn't think of anything to say. Now that she knew who he was—sure, she'd made fun of him and she didn't understand Duel Monsters, but KaibaCorp was one of the major employers that many of her classmates were angling for at networking events and job fairs—she felt awkwardly out of place. Seto Kaiba held himself with a certain kind of poise and dignity that came with experience and status, and as of now, Kisara had neither.

The campus coffee house was a bustling hub of activity, in which folksy music played loudly over the hum of chitchat and the clicking of keyboards. Kisara had been at the school long enough to know the menu by heart, which was written in miniscule, pastel chalk cursive on a blackboard over the counter. Although the droning white noise of the coffee house could be distracting—or downright aggravating, when she was trying to focus—she was grateful, in this moment, that she didn't have to worry about having anything to say to Seto for now; it was noisy enough that her usual speaking voice would be barely audible over the din.

"Small french vanilla cappuccino, please," Kisara beamed to the barista as she reached front of the line. After having spent her sophomore year of undergraduate working at a similar coffee kiosk, Kisara had always made it a point to be as sunshiny as possible to the person working the register; usually the position required dealing with an inordinate amount of crankiness and disrespect.

"Great! For here or to go?"

"To go...and, whatever he's having." Kisara motioned at Seto, who stepped forward to stand next to her in front of the counter.

"Just black coffee," Seto said briskly. His arms were still folded over his chest, and his gaze was fixed somewhere a few feet behind the barista's head.

"Of course...room for cream?"

"No, thanks," Seto responded curtly. Then he nodded, and hastily stepped out of the line, standing impatiently in the open space where customers waited for their drinks to be made. The barista behind the counter raised an eyebrow at Kisara, who offered back a noncommital, equally confused shrug.

Seto's drink came first, as it required minimal work on the barista's part. As the portly, bearded boy on the espresso bar called out Seto's "black coffee, no room, to go!", Seto picked up the cup, gave a nod of acknowlegement to the barista, and turned towards the door. Kisara gaped open-mouthed, wondering if he'd literally taken her offer at face value—she was to purchase him a cup of coffee, and after that she was going to leave him the fuck alone.

Shaken, it took a few calls of "small french vanilla cappuccino to go!" for Kisara to remember what she'd ordered. A little bit dazed, she cupped her drink in both hands and started for the door, equal parts ashamed and annoyed. So, Seto still wasn't going to be friendly, he was just going to milk her guilt for free coffee. As if he needed her handouts.

To her surprise, Seto was seated at an outdoor table, on the periphery of the seating for the coffee shop. As her eyes found him, he raised his arm above the table, a surprisingly friendly, simple gesture that he wanted her to sit with him.

As to why Seto had wanted to sit outside, Kisara couldn't fathom. Although there was a near-certain promise of the sun breaking through the clouds again today, bringing another warm and muggy afternoon, it was currently dark and cloudy outside; a mid-autumn shower seemed not entirely outside the realm of possibility. The wrought-iron seat Kisara shuffled into was cold and carried tiny droplets of humidity.

They sat in silence for a moment. Kisara removed the lid from her coffee cup and pressed her lip against the lip of the cup, letting the sweet, foamy drink trickle into her mouth. Seto held his coffee cup in both hands, gazing softly into the middle distance. Kisara took the moment to take in the whole idea of having coffee with Seto Kaiba, CEO of his own multimillion-dollar technology company. Bashedly, she realized as she studied his angular features, disturbingly large and bright blue eyes, dark hair, and broad shoulders, he was kind of cute.

"So you're a student here." For what felt like the umpteenth time today, Seto surprised Kisara by speaking first. His question sounded more like a statement than a question, and it really was more of the former than the latter—after all, she was taking a class with him.

"Yeah—that's right. I got my bachelor's in Computer Science last Spring, from another university. I'm here as a baccalaureate student, to take some extra classes before applying to grad school." As she babbled on about her academic history, she realized, vaguely, that the information was probably of no relevance to him.

"So, I mean, what are you doing here? I know Domino University is a big school, and there's a lot of super-geniuses that go here, but I feel like I would have heard by now if the CEO of KaibaCorp was a student here."

Seto leaned back in his chair, taking an indulgently long sip of coffee. "That's probably true. After all, KaibaCorp is a household name. But I've come to realize that your peers half as knowledgeable as I would give them credit for. If you kids ever want to get hired, you're going to have to learn how to network."

Kisara narrowed her eyes. "Give me a break. Everyone remembers Kaiba, the guy in the silver trenchcoat who hosted Battle City a couple of years ago. But that guy sort of..." she became uncomfortably aware that that guy was sitting right in front of her, and she had just bought that guy a cup of coffee not five minutes ago.

"...he sort of...he fell off the face of the map."

Seto's expression belied nothing. "That's about correct."

Kisara tipped her head to one side, taking another long sip of cappuccino. "I guess...I was never a Duel Monsters person, really. And I'm not from Domino City. I wasn't here when Battle City happened. But...what happened?"

For a moment, Seto looked almost taken a back. "What happened?" he stammered.

She shrugged. "Look, it's going to sound weird, but I looked you up last night. I read about the reigning Duel Monsters champion thing. And, like, Yugi Motou." Seto's face hardened visibly at the mention of Yugi Motou, but she powered on. "I know it's weird to ask, right? But I read about everything. You had a little brother. You built and exploded a tower. And then you disappeared. Are you...are you okay?" She tilted her head, allowing herself to look fully into Seto's eyes. His expression was still unreadable, but somehow softer.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand anything about running a company at eighteen," Seto said finally. His voice was almost forlorn.

Kisara chuckled. "When I was eighteen, I graduated from high school and spent that summer making fairy lights for my dorm room. Do you...do you mind if I ask you what happened?"

He sighed deeply, and Kisara winced, realizing that she was diving headfirst into personal territory. To her surprise, after a few moments, he drew in a deep breath and answered:

"Having in charge a totalitarian, egomaniac, child prodigy, wasn't good for the company image anymore. I took a step back. I went back to research and development." He paused for a quick sip of coffee. "Now I'm here."

"Right...what does that mean, exactly? Are you a student here? Are you going to get a PhD, or something?"

The corner of Seto's lip raised slightly in what Kisara interpreted as a smug kind of smile. "I'm just taking a few courses that interest me, is all. The KaibaCorp board is proficient at running the company. I'm a researcher now. I need to keep up with the cutting edge of innovation if KaibaCorp is going to stay relevant."

She raised her eyebrows, impressed. "That's kind of awesome. Is this your only class this semester?"

His asymmetric smirk was, at this point, almost certainly a smile. "I have a company to run, you know."

"Oh, sorry," she scoffed, giggling. "I'll try not to forget."