Author Notes: Euroshipping for the win!

Ryou stared down at Kaiba's contact in his phone, trying to work up the nerve to call him. He'd waited two weeks to do so, partly because he was nervous of speaking to the intimidating executive one on one, and partly because the pressure created by spirits on his mental barriers during Halloween and the days surrounding it put an uncomfortable strain on his mind.

In past years, Bakura had covered Halloween for him, doing horrible things no doubt, but when Bakura hadn't been in control, the spirits screaming at the edges of his mind had caused Ryou tremendous pain. As his mediumistic abilities weakened, so did the pain associated with Halloween and several other significant days of the year. Ryou suspected that this would be his last Halloween that he felt their presence, which would be a massive relief for him. He was content to leave spirits behind for the rest of his life.

He stared at his phone and took a deep breath, then called his former classmate's cellphone number. He put the phone to his ear and skimmed the small notepad upon which he'd written what he was going to say. He could imagine that he was one of the few people in the world who needed to do that before making a phone call, but otherwise he knew he'd stammer pathetically, forget what he truly needed to say, and end up feeling like an idiot, so to avoid all of that, he simply wrote down on paper all of the things he anticipated he'd need to say. He was ashamed to admit that he'd put off phone calls for hours, even days, simply because of his anxiety. His therapist was the one who'd taught him to write everything down first.

He held his breath as he counted how many times Kaiba's phone rang, grateful that he'd also written down what he would say if he needed to leave a voicemail. One… Two… Three…

"Kaiba. Who is this?" His answer was gruff and professional, all business.

"Hello, it's Ryou Bakura," the Brit answered a little breathlessly. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. How about you?" Although he probably did so a dozen times a day, he didn't sound comfortable while exchanging formalities.

"I'm doing well, thank you," Ryou answered primly. So far, so good. He hadn't tripped over his own tongue just yet. "I was wondering if there was a time that you wanted to meet next week to discuss… things." Ryou knew that Kaiba struggled with understanding spirits and souls, and he wanted to be sensitive about his one intellectual difficulty. Proud people had very fragile egos, after all, and the last thing he wanted to do was wound him and put him on the defensive. He never wanted to be on the receiving end of Seto Kaiba's anger.

The other end of the line was silent for a few moments, but Kaiba broke the tension when he said, "I'm available for an hour on Tuesday at one-thirty."

"Oh, good, I'm free then too. Where should we—"

"There's a decent coffee shop three blocks east from KaibaCorp HQ. Do you have transportation?"

"Yes, I can make it there easily," Ryou assured, feeling fluttery inside for reasons he couldn't understand. He'd gotten coffee with friends before—Marik, Duke, Yugi, even Ishizu—so why did it feel different with Kaiba? "Sounds like a plan, then. I'll meet you there."

"Goodbye."

Kaiba hung up, and Ryou did too, breathing a heavy sigh as he leaned against the back of the bench he sat on. He wasn't even bothered by Kaiba's abrupt, terse manner of speaking. He was just proud of himself for not screwing it up. The more he thought about the tall brunette, the more eager—and the more nervous—he felt.

Suddenly it dawned on him why it felt so different to be having coffee with Kaiba than it did when he made plans with any of his other friends: Seto Kaiba was an untouchable deity atop an ivory tower. His dragons devoured anyone who tried to come close, but for some reason, Ryou had been granted permission to ascend the pearly spiral steps towards Seto's soul. Maybe he wouldn't make it very far. Maybe he'd be banished after his first attempt, but he was at least being given a chance, which was more than anyone else ever got.

At least he was getting a chance to be Kaiba's friend.

Tuesday was breezy, so Ryou had wrapped his hair into a tight bun on the back of his head. His bangs still fell around his face, wispy strands that he had to keep pushing away from his eyes during morning classes. It was a somewhat warm day for mid-November, but it was still cold enough that Ryou wore a coat over his sweater. The black- and grey-striped garment was thin, true, but he was also wearing a black long-sleeve shirt underneath. His dark blue skinny jeans added the only element of color to his outfit, since his worn black converse sneakers adorned his feet. They weren't very warm, but his socks kept his toes from freezing.

He called a taxi after his 90-minute Latin class and asked the driver to take him to KaibaCorp HQ. It was a short drive, but the distance was just long enough that he wouldn't have wanted to walk there from campus and walk back.

Standing on the pavement with his hands in the pocket of his black pea-coat, he lifted his eyes towards the sky to check the position of the sun. It was strange for Kaiba to have said that the cafe was "three blocks east" from his office building. As Ryou turned and started walking in what he hoped was the right direction, he wondered why his directions had been phrased that way.

Something occurred to him, and he turned around, looking back up at the sun. If it were just over the horizon and he were facing it on this street, it would be glaring into his eyes with harsh force. Maybe this coffee shop was one of Kaiba's favorites, and he went there every morning. It was a silly guess, nothing more, but it was enough to sate Ryou's curiosity for now. Without further ado, he turned back around and put in his earbuds. He wanted to be there early, before Kaiba. He didn't want to keep the brunette waiting for him.

Eight minutes later, Ryou was sitting at a table for two with his gloved hands wrapped around a cup of cherry blossom green tea. He hadn't even known such a thing existed, but he'd decided to try it when he saw it on the shop's list of teas. It was absolutely divine. Even if he and Kaiba never spoke again after this, he'd definitely be returning, just for the tea.

His black gloves were fingerless, so his fingers were especially grateful for the heat of the paper cup against his skin. As he sipped his tea and watched the door to the cafe for Kaiba's arrival, he thought back to what he'd seen of the tall brunette two weeks ago at the mansion.

The ghosts in the library had told him about Gozaburo and how he was haunting Seto Kaiba. The wouldn't tell Ryou specifically what Gozaburo did or said, they only said how he affected Seto, who seemed to be a subject of pity for them all: "He makes him angry. He keeps him awake. He makes him sad." Angry, tired, hurt, sad... Those words had been whispered repeatedly by the cloud of spirits. So, Seto was distressed, but Ryou couldn't determine how long this had been going on. Ryou hoped that Kaiba had begun getting more sleep since his step-father had been banished.

"Don't I deserve to be happy?"

Kaiba had asked his step-father's ghost that question, looking like he was at the end of his rope and ready to explode. If that's how Kaiba felt, no wonder the ghosts pitied him. Ryou was tempted to feel the same way, but he knew that Kaiba loathed pity. He'd scorned pity when offered by Yugi; there was no reason for him not to do the same when it was offered by Ryou.

So he couldn't expressly pity him, but he could be patient with him. Ryou knew what it was like to be terrorized by a long-dead spirit; Duke had been patient with him—was still being patient with him, for that matter—and Ryou was immensely grateful for it. Kaiba deserved the same patience and understanding.

Even as Ryou was musing about Kaiba, that very man walked in, ordered "the usual," and upon receiving his coffee, approached the one he'd come to meet.

"Hello, Kaiba," Ryou greeted, straightening up the instant he became aware of the brunette's near presence.

"I hope you haven't been waiting long," Kaiba said as he sat down.

"Not at all, I've only been here a few minutes." He sipped his tea as Kaiba took a sip of his own black coffee. "You wanted me to explain what I did in the library with the ghosts, if I remember correctly. Is that right?"

"Yes, but before that, there's something else I wanted to ask you."

"Sure, anything."

"When I was walking you and your friend out to your car, you compared virtues are like the laws of nature. What do you mean by that?"

Ryou nibbled on his bottom lip for a moment. "The only way I can think to explain it is with an example. Like, you and I would agree that sexism is bad, right?"

"Of course."

"And when one man is sexist and treats women badly, that's a bad thing. It hurts the people around him and his relationships with others. But if we extrapolate that sexism from an individual to a society, we can see more of its damaging effects. If we create an entire hypothetical society of sexists and just let them live their lives for a few hundred years, the population would become severely imbalanced in favor of men, women would be slaves and legally treated as animals. Succeeding generations of females would be getting smaller because providing girls with medical care would be considered an unnecessary luxury, and it would always be subordinate to medical care for men. Women who are treated poorly, which would be a fair amount of them, would try to escape. Due to the shortage of females and the surplus of men wanting wives, women on the borders of neighboring countries would be at high risk for abduction. There would be no immigration into the country. No new families would be coming into the population, and most likely families and bachelors would also be emigrating. This kind of society is destroying itself with its collective and institutionalized idealogy. It was destroying the community on a national level, but it would also prevent individuals from achieving happiness and enrichment."

Ryou spoke slowly, his gestures smooth and natural, his face expressive, but in a candid way that spoke of genuine emotion, as opposed to Joey's own clownishness. Kaiba was content to watch him speak and listen to his logic. It was fascinating how he could watch his train of thought playing out in his eyes.

"So, I guess the way to abstract what I'm trying to say," Ryou continued, looking contemplative. "Is that virtue tends to align with that which perpetuates life and promotes human flourishing."

"Why does life matter?" Kaiba asked calmly.

"Objectively speaking, simply because of the ontological argument: it is better to exist than to not exist."

"What about the existence of death? Wouldn't it be better for it to exist, by that definition?"

"No. Death is an absence, not a presence, so it is synonymous with nonexistent life, which is bad."

So their discussion continued for a solid hour. Ryou did most of the talking, but the conversation wouldn't have gone anywhere without Kaiba's constant questions. The conversation meandered through many philosophical matters without Ryou realizing that they never got to the topic they'd meant to speak about in the first place: how Ryou had exorcised Gozaburo's ghost.

"... And that's why marriage is so important," the white-haired Brit mused, still holding his now-empty cup of tea. "If you'll pardon my bluntness, when a man gets a woman knocked up, then ditches her because he doesn't want the responsibility, it further perpetuates a lack of values, a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of personal responsibility, and ultimately drives the crime rates up. It's true what they say, that the person most likely to abuse a child is 'mom's boyfriend.' The Cinderella legend exists for a reason: step-parents tend to be unkind to their spouse's previous children. It makes perfect biological sense, because those children are a threat. And we see that impulse reflected in nature: when a lion drives out another lion from his pride and claims the other's females as his own, he will also drive out and even kill all of the cubs the first lion fathered. Lions don't even have the level of consciousness to remember their father and then, later in life, kill the new leader of the pride in order to avenge their father's death, but they still recognize a threat. The bottom line is that previous children threaten a non-biological patriarch." Only when those words passed his lips did Ryou realize who he was talking to and why he should have been more conscious of his audience before speaking so freely on the subject. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Don't apologize." Kaiba dismissed Ryou's apology with a wave of his hand. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh, goodness, that's what we were supposed to be talking about, wasn't it?" His cheeks turned pink as embarrassment washed over him. "I didn't mean to get us side-tracked. And now I only have"—he checked his watch—"a few minutes at best. I didn't mean to waste so much of your time."

"If it was a waste, I would have stopped you from rambling," Kaiba said calmly, a bit surprised by how flustered the college student seemed. Why did he feel so bad? If Kaiba had wanted him to shut up, he would have said so. "I do need to get back to the office, though," he said as he stood up, Ryou quickly doing the same. "I have a board meeting soon. We can address the issue next time."

"Next time?" Ryou couldn't help but feel pleased at the prospect of a 'next time.' "Of course. I look forward to it." Was that improper of him to say? He hoped not, because it was true. He could imagine that Seto didn't often have people saying that they sincerely wished to see him again. If any of his colleagues, associates, or employees said it, it would only be out of common courtesy.

"I have a few business trips this week and next, but after that I should have more availability," Kaiba said as he walked over to the trash-can and deposited his own empty cup, Ryou doing the same, then following the brunette out the door. "Call me then, and we'll work something out."

"Sounds good."

As Kaiba started walking towards KaibaCorp HQ, Ryou followed at his side. After a few moments of this, Kaiba stopped and looked down at him questioningly.

"Oh, I'm headed in this direction," Ryou explained. "Is it alright if I walk with you?"

"I don't see why not."

They walked in comfortable silence until they reached their place of parting. Kaiba hadn't planned to speak again, but when Ryou stopped and turned towards him, he didn't have much choice.

"Thank you for taking the time to meet with me," he said as he held out his hand, sounding both genuine and courteous. "I know you're very busy."

"I'm sure the same is true for you, Bakura," Kaiba replied, shaking his hand firmly. They parted then, and only when Kaiba was riding the elevator back to his top-floor office did he realize that he should have been the one expressing thanks.