Duke sighed as he stared at Kaiba's contact in his phone. He'd already let weeks go by; would Kaiba still remember their encounter a few months from now when Duke finally called him to collect on that rain check? Would it even be a good idea?

Duke had already vowed to break his sexual fast with someone other than Ryou, because he wanted to know for sure that his feelings for his roommate were real, and that was the best method he could conceive. Kaiba was an ideal candidate because he knew that sleeping with Kaiba would never be more than a one-night stand.

Would Kaiba still want to see him, though? Their kiss had been unplanned, incidental, spontaneous. They'd both been drinking, and who was to say that Kaiba would want to see him again when he was sober? Then Duke looked back at his arm, the one where Kaiba had written his number in sharpie. Kaiba wouldn't have done that unless he wanted Duke to have his number when he sobered up.

The real question was, how long was Duke willing to wait?

Life carried on as usual with minimal incidents. November came and marched forward into winter, prompting Duke to keep a closer eye on Ryou than ever. His exams were coming up and he was worried how the stress would affect his roommate. His greatest struggle was being close to Ryou without getting too close.

Ryou met Kaiba again before the end of November, but this time, they arrived at almost the same time. They made brief small talk while waiting in line together, but neither of them were very big on meaningless conversation, so it only took a few moments for them to run out of things to say. The silence was comfortable, though, and while Ryou ordered his tea, Kaiba frowned at some work-related emails on his cell; while Ryou added honey to his tea, Kaiba ordered "the usual." He received his coffee quickly, just as Ryou was replacing the lid on his tea. Ryou turned to Kaiba and they started walking towards a small table together.

"How's Mokuba do-Oh!" Ryou cut himself off as the paper cup weakened in his hand, the lid popped off, and the scalding hot water spilled onto his gloved hand.

"Hold on." Kaiba took the lid and the cup, quickly placing them on the nearest empty table and moving away to grab some paper napkins from the dispenser. When he returned, Ryou was sitting at the table and tugging off his fingerless glove, which was now decently damp with hot water.

"Thank you. I'm so sorry, I can be such a klutz sometimes." Ryou's cheeks went pink in a bashful blush as he first dried his hand with a napkin, then wrapped his knit glove in a napkin and squeezed, trying to dry it. Kaiba just watched him, leaving the top off of the cup to release the steam and let the tea cool to a tolerable temperature more quickly. Kaiba's phone buzzed on the table, making him frown and pick it up so he could silence it for the time being. He almost never put his phone on silent mode.

"Did it burn you?" he asked before sipping his coffee and setting his phone aside.

"It still hurts a bit, but I don't think it's burned," Ryou answered tentatively, holding out his left hand and turning it to inspect it carefully. Kaiba's eyes widened fractionally, and before Ryou could realize what Kaiba was doing, his hand was caught between a firm thumb and nimble fingers, and Kaiba was turning it to get a better look at the palm and the back. Ryou was frozen, his face heating with embarrassment. He kept his hands covered for a reason. Cobalt blue eyes studiously examined the rough spidery scars on both sides of his hand. While Kaiba was not highly expressive, Ryou was perceptive enough to see the surprise in his features. Ryou didn't realize that he'd been holding his breath until Kaiba spoke again.

"What the hell happened?"

Since the brunette hadn't released his hand, Ryou made no attempt to pull it back, simply keeping his wrist loose as Seto stared at his skin.

"That was actually the spirit's doing," the Brit answered softly, and Seto's eyes rose to meet his. Ryou didn't know if he even realized that he was still trapping Ryou's hand with the soft pressure of his forefinger and thumb. "Are you familiar with the Monster World RPG at all?"

"Superficially. I've never played it before."

"It's a long story, but I guess the short version is that the Spirit of the Millennium Ring had pulled us all into a Shadow Game, and while he was in control, he impaled my hand on the turret of the castle."

"Hm." Seto released Ryou's hand, and the flustered teen pulled it back to himself, tugging off his other glove and setting it aside too. "Dare I ask why?"

"You see, that's the long story…"

"We have time." Kaiba's expression was calm as he sipped his coffee again, eyes fixed on his companion.

Ryou couldn't think of a good reason for why he shouldn't satisy the CEO's curiosity.

"It wasn't long after I moved to Domino and transfered to the high school here…"

If he was going to tell the story, he was going to tell it in its entirety, because otherwise, it didn't make complete sense. He tried to move forward, but Kaiba was keen and questioned everything.

"Why were you transferring?"

"Why were you moving?"

"When did you receive the ring?"

"My father brought it back from one of his trips to Egypt. He said he felt I was destined to have it." Ryou shrugged as he stared down into his tea and took an experimental sip. "The merchant said that it had something to do with Duel Monsters, but that didn't make any sense to him, since the game was new and the ring was clearly ancient. It didn't make any sense to me either until I came here…"

Ryou was quiet for a few moments, stuck in his own thoughts as he relieved those events in a flash of memory and emotion. Kaiba simply watched him with those bright eyes that seemed fixated on his former classmate. You couldn't tell just by looking at him how much Kaiba was seeing. He saw everything, though, absorbed every slight twitch and turn as he interpreted a myriad of micro-expressions to determine what made Ryou silent.

By the end of the hour, Kaiba had incidentally teased out much of Ryou's life story. For some reason, Ryou seemed to be the only person outside the office who wasn't minorly terrified of speaking to him. Yugi and his inner circle of friends never gave him the time of day, though he couldn't blame them. Duke had spoken to him-heck, they'd done more than that-but they'd both been buzzed and it wasn't the same. Seeking a sexual partner to satisfy biological needs was one thing. Repeatedly meeting him so they could just talk one on one about anything that mattered to them-that was deliberate homosocial bonding. That was…

"Friendship always mattered to them. Yugi later told me that when he solved the Millennium Puzzle, he wished for true friends. I had wished for the same thing, and guess the spirit granted it, in his own way…" Ryou sighed looking very troubled indeed. He turned his gaze out the window and watched cars pass without truly seeing their passengers. "The difference between good and evil is so clear, conceptually, but when you look for it in real life…"

"Everything is grey," Kaiba said, finishing Ryou's thought as he turned to look out the window too. "Everything's grey, and nothing's clear at all."