The Kaibas live on a whole different planet compared to everyone else in the cast, because they got that money. As someone who's lived his whole life south of the poverty line, I've always considered the Kaibas' fortune to be part of the power fantasy. As I got older, I started to ask myself what I would do, if I had that kind of capital.
The answer I keep coming back to is: help people.
I think Noa would come to the same conclusion.
.
Ryo's home was cold. There was no finer point to put on it.
It was cold.
Noa didn't feel it, not in the way that other people did, but he knew. It wasn't uncomfortable for him, in other words, but there was no denying that he could see his breath as it left his mouth, or that Ryo was slightly, so slightly, shivering.
"You good?" Noa asked, affecting boredom. "You have, like, an electric blanket or something like that? More layers?"
Ryo shook his head. "I'll be fine," he said, in the cadence of someone who'd said it so often that the phrase had no meaning anymore; it was just a string of syllables. "You needn't worry about it."
Noa tilted his head. "Your heater's busted, isn't it?"
Ryo flinched. "I can't . . . afford to have it repaired," he admitted, eventually. "And anyway, it spikes the electric bill too much. It's better to just muscle through the winter." Like his body was actively arguing with him, Noa could hear Ryo's teeth chattering.
"Uh-huh," he said, frowning thoughtfully. "Mind if I take a look?"
"Um . . . o-okay." Ryo looked like he wanted to tell Noa to let it go.
Wanted to, but couldn't.
Noa spent the next two hours walking Ryo through his various observations, fully aware that his companion was only following one word in every six. He thought about asking after Ryo's father. Couldn't he send some money to help with repairs, considering it was his house, and he—ostensibly, anyway—lived here too? But Noa remembered being warned by every one of Ryo's other friends that bringing up the Bakura family was taboo.
He was specifically to avoid invoking Ryo's father.
Noa supposed he had no room to comment on that.
After a while, Noa pulled out his phone and made a call. This he did while very deliberately avoiding Ryo's gaze. Seto picked up on the third ring. "I'm not posting bail again," he said.
"Love you too, Aniki," Noa said. "Oi, didn't HQ get fitted with new heating? Those energy-efficient units?"
"Correct."
"Think a private residence could get fitted with something like that?"
"I'm certain one could. What's this about?"
"My bestest buddy in the whole wide world—Ryo, that is—is having some technical issues. I can slap some band-aids on the setup he's got over here, but . . . it's gonna need a complete overhaul sooner rather'n later, and I was figuring we could set him up with something a bit easier on his wallet."
Ryo hissed curses in Noa's direction, holding out his hands and shaking his head emphatically, but Noa pretended not to notice. He went back to work while he waited for Seto's response. He knew his brother often took time to work out how to respond to any request Noa made.
Noa, after all, wasn't Mokuba.
This time, however, an answer didn't take long. Seto said: "I'll send someone out in the morning."
"Aces," Noa said. "Love you, big guy."
Seto sighed, but he eventually said: "I love you too."
Noa hopped up to his feet again as he slipped his phone back into a pocket. "Now, now," he said. Ryo was struggling to find the right words to condemn him properly, and was visibly shaking with the effort. "I know what you want to say. But this is a safety issue, and I think you know that. I'm not gonna wake up one morning to find out this place went up in smoke, when I could've done something about it."
"I can't afford—" Ryo started.
"Who said anything about affording?" Noa cut in. "What you can't afford is to live in a death trap. You're talking to a Kaiba. This isn't costing you a dime and you know it. You wanna pay me back? We'll talk. For now, bundle up and have some soup. You have to survive before settling a debt, you know. Anyway. Aniki's sending someone around tomorrow."
Ryo started to say something, to argue again, but stopped himself.
His shoulders slumped.
". . . Thank you, Noa."
"You're welcome, Ryo."