This was inspired by the last episode of Yugi and Kaiba's duel at Battle City. BigBangLuver, Dookaller and I were at the end of a crazy Yu-Gi-Oh! marathon and thought Kaiba's line "Friendship is for fools!" was really funny (Seriously. His whole speech there is hilarious!). This story grew out of wanting to write something with that line for a title.

Friendship Is for Fools

Losing gets to be too much for Kaiba, and he shuts down. Luckily he runs into the one person who has any hope of helping him. If he had known who it was going to be, he probably never would have left the house.

Part I: The Hand of Friendship

Friendship is for fools!

Sometimes, when he's left the curtains open and the moon's light is free to bleed across his back wall, those words will come back to haunt Kaiba. He'll be lying awake in his four-poster bed, his mind gone blank from the mundanity of life–go to work, duel, win, go to work, duel, win, go to work, duel, lose–and the hardly thought-out, spur-of-the-moment rant he dealt after losing at Battle City will play through his mind like a nonstop megamix. He can see that day perfectly, every detail preserved in intricate detail by his masochistic mind: Yugi's friends standing around indignantly, the glowing remnants of the holographic crowd, which he had worked very hard to develop for the occasion, and the sympathetic look that just managed to leak through Yugi's stone-hard dueling face. It's all there. The only thing he has trouble remembering about that day is how he truly felt about what he said.

He's convinced himself over the months that he meant every word of what he spat into Yugi's face.

It's nights like these that make him wonder if that's really true, nights when the wind outside slides across his balcony at just the right angle to remind him of a Duel Monster being summoned, when the very house around him settles and creaks like someone slapping a card down onto a Duel Disk, when he caught too long a glimpse at the colorful photo perched on the shelf before shuffling off to bed.

Despite how much physical nausea it causes him every time he sees it, Kaiba has it situated so that it's the first thing he lays eyes on when he wakes up in the mornings. It's a photo of Yugi Moto the second time he won the regional championship, the time Kaiba thought for certain he had a surefire dethroning on his hands. At the time, he couldn't fathom how his opponent left the ring with a measly 300 Life Points while he himself had nearly 3000 on his final turn. Looking back at it now, it should have been obvious that it was a slim lead, considering who he was facing. He should have kept better track of Yugi's face down cards, known to be wary of what was surely a trap card. For some reason, though, the same reason none of his duels with Yugi ever go the way he plans, he overlooked a crucial detail and allowed Yugi to start a Chain that put their final match at Battle City to shame. Now Kaiba is stuck every morning facing a beaming Yugi, his dueling face long melted away to reveal his usual, abundantly happy self as he smiles to the roaring crowd.

Although he hates to admit it, these things keep him awake on a regular basis. This isn't the first time he's sat at the edge of his bed and simply stared, letting his life flash before him and wondering about his life ambitions. Arguably, he's the most respected man in all of Domino City. He gained a life that few would be able to claw their way to if they tried, and want is like an old friend he always hated who he calls up sometimes to flaunt his fabulous wealth.

Only that friend still has the prized possession they borrowed a long time ago, the final bridge Kaiba has yet to burn down between their valley of strife and anger, and refuses to give it back.

He doesn't see himself getting it back anytime soon.

With a sigh like someone who's about to go take the most disgusting medicine known to humanity, Kaiba pushes himself up from the bed and crosses the room without really thinking about what he's doing. If he did, he'd probably crawl back into bed and try to forget that he even thought about doing what he's about to do.

He walks right up to the shelf, ignoring the bile rising in his throat, and he stares at the photo of Yugi. He stares at the photo of Yugi winning. He stares at the photo of Yugi winning in which he can just make out the form of his younger brother running off to console him after he stormed off.

He's convinced himself over the months that he keeps it there to remind himself why he duels, to give him something to fight for and to fuel his passion in times such as this.

For some reason, unlike all the other times, looking at the photo has the opposite effect. He doesn't suddenly become inspired to forget sleep and run up to his office to start work on the schematics for the latest tournament designed to draw out Yugi and ensure that they'll face each other in the finals. Instead, his chest grows cold, and for the first time since he used his connections to get a physical copy of this photo from the Duelist's Network blog, he thinks that there might have been another reason he wanted this photo so badly, a reason that had nothing to do with the small trophy clutched triumphantly in Yugi's fingers.

Yugi isn't the only one in the photo. To his left stands Téa, her face alight with joy and more than a little hint of cocky pride at Yugi's accomplishment. Just behind her is the other guy that's always following Yugi around, Travis or Dustan or something like that. Kaiba can never seem to bring himself to care enough to remember. Even Duke Devlin has taken time out of his busy schedule to be there, and Kaiba knows for a fact that that's saying something. Tying the whole image together like some sort of nimrod with a disregard for all common decency is Joey Wheeler. He stands there at Yugi's right-hand side, practically crushing the shorter duelist's face with his armpit as he pumps his fist into the air and contorts his face with the power of victory.

Some of the most important people in Yugi's life are in this photo, and many more were there that day in the crowd. It makes Kaiba's stomach churn to know how much they all mean to each other. He's heard the story of Joey and Tristan–that's what it was!–risking their lives and braving the burning, dilapidated warehouse to pull Yugi from the flames, has seen firsthand the way Yugi was willing to lay his own grave at the bottom of the sea if it meant Joey could come out all right in the end.

Kaiba doesn't know what that's like. He's never known what it feels like to know that someone else would give their lives for him unquestionably, without a thought. Mokuba would surely do so, but Kaiba doesn't count that, because Mokuba and sacrifice will never meet. He'd give his own life before ever letting Mokuba get into a situation where that was required of him.

In any case, there are certainly other reasons that Kaiba felt such a strong desire to hang on to this photo, but he won't let himself delve any further into his own psyche. Doing so would surely spell his ruin.

So instead of giving this photo any further thought, Kaiba hovers over to the window and stares over the grounds, his grounds. The fountain in the center of the yard sits silently. The jasmine trees are in full bloom. He spies one of Roland's men making the hourly rounds. Everything he sees belongs to him.

The clock on his wall strikes three, and Kaiba drags himself back to bed.

Tomorrow he's scheduled to fly out to Dice Town to make an appearance at a Duel Monsters tech conference. Under his watchful eye, his people will give a presentation on the latest Duel Disk modification that he spent less than a month developing. In the afternoon he'll return to KaibaCorp headquarters to spend a few hours typing away at his computer. The next day the dueling circuit will be all abuzz about his latest contributions to the world of Duel Monsters, hailing him as a technological genius while he spends the day in his office trying to avoid eye contact with anyone who isn't Mokuba or maybe Roland. At some point he'll challenge Yugi to a duel. He'll probably lose, and afterwards Mokuba will treat him to a consolation dinner, though it hardly counts as "treating" if you aren't using your own money. The next day he'll lock himself in his office and go back to balancing the company's checkbook or negotiating deals with other companies. The day after that will be the same. The day after that probably will be, too.

He's convinced himself over a lifetime that this is what he wants.

But he has every waking moment to remind him that it's not.

Another person might walk into the living room to find their brother stretched out on the couch in an undershirt and jeans and see nothing out of the ordinary. Mokuba knows that this is nothing short of a personal crisis. One of his brother's legs dangles listlessly from the leather couch, and an arm sits tossed across his eyes in the most distraught way possible. It's theatrical to a fault and overly dramatic to a tee, and it's everything Mokuba would expect a personal crisis from Seto to be like. It screams of his brother.

It's still the most unsettling thing he's ever seen in his life. The sight is enough to keep him pinned in the doorway, unable to set even a single foot onto the now hallowed ground. However, it's exactly what his brother wants him to do. How could it not be? Of all the living rooms, Seto chose the one Mokuba comes through every morning on his way to get ready for school. He had to have known this. He knows everything.

With less than high hopes for the coming conversation, Mokuba pads silently across the room, but no amount of silence should be able to keep his presence from his older brother. It doesn't. He can tell that his brother is awake and knows he's in the room. His brother can tell that he can tell that he can tell, yet he doesn't make a move. This is worse than Mokuba thought.

"Uh…Seto," he says from a distance, "aren't you supposed to be in Dice Town today?"

"They don't actually need me to be there," comes his brother's simple response, and Mokuba frowns. The passion that usually fuels everything Seto says has completely melted away. There is no fire behind his voice. It's just him.

With a sigh, Mokuba throws himself into the wing-back beside the couch. "All right, Seto. What's wrong?" When his brother says nothing, he crosses his arms. "You know it'll give Roland a heart attack if he comes in here and sees you like this." The imminent and very real threat of one of Roland's mother-hen-type episodes works to at least get Seto to remove his arm from his face. His eyes, too, show no signs of the fire Mokuba has come to associate with his brother's dueling spirit. He looks empty. "Did something happen?"

"I dunno," Seto replies. He laces his fingers behind his head and draws in a long breath. "I couldn't get to sleep last night."

"What were you thinking about?"

"Everything." Mokuba doesn't ask him to say more. When Seto says "everything," he means it. "Same as usual. I don't know why last night was any different."

"Maybe you're getting sick," Mokuba says, and he places a gentle hand on his brother's forehead even though he wouldn't know a fever if he felt one. "You should take the day off if you're–" Then something occurs to him. "Hey, when's the last time you took a day off, Seto?" From his brother's silence, Mokuba assumes the answer is somewhere close to never. "That's what's wrong!"

Mokuba jumps up from his seat and yanks at his older brother's arm, much to his protest, until he's sitting up like a normal human being. He doesn't let the dull, half-lidded stare or the wild, messed-up hair get to him as he grips Seto by the arms and says, "You haven't taken a day off since you won the chess match against Gozaburo." His brother visibly flinches at the mentioning of their stepfather, but Mokuba continues. "Even you need a break. You're not a machine, Seto." Mokuba breaks out the wide, quivering eyes he saves for moments such as these. "At least take today off. For me?"

"Okay."

"Don't be stubborn, Seto. You–Wait, what?"

"I'll take the day off."

Mokuba stares at his brother for a moment without saying anything. "That's it? No–" He deepens his voice and wags his finger. "'–I run this company and I say when I get to take a day off.'" Seto merely quirks his eyebrow at the pale imitation. "Wow. You really do need a vacation." He places a hand to his chin in thought. "Tell you what? I'll go tell Roland to get the car ready. You think about where you're going to go. Okay?"

"Sure."

"Come on, Seto. Pull yourself together. Today can be nice if you let it be." He pats Seto encouragingly on the shoulder and then he dashes to the doorway. "Is twenty minutes enough time for you to be ready?"

Seto sighs. Clearly Mokuba is determined to see this through. "Yeah."

"Great. I'll let him know." Mokuba makes to leave the room before turning back around and adding, "By the way, put some deodorant on."

Mokuba is gone before Kaiba can respond. For the first five of those twenty minutes, he stays there in the living room, staring at the spot on the floor where Mokuba once spilled some grape juice when he was a small child. It never did quite return to the lustrous green it used to be. He doesn't know why they never replaced the carpet.

"Probably because it made Gozaburo so mad," he thinks to himself. As he stands, various bones in his body crack hideously. Maybe he does need to get out of the house. He stretches his arms above his head and catches a whiff of one of his pits, and he wrinkles his nose.

"Point taken."

Roland does indeed seem ready to have a heart attack as he pulls around the bend and heads for the main road. As long as it doesn't cause them to have an accident, Kaiba won't let it bother him.

He does, however, feel very bothered about the fact that he decided not to change. Although he had the mind to slip on a shirt–some brand-name article of clothing that he doesn't remember buying–he decided not to bother with the jeans under the assumption that he wouldn't be getting out of the car. He now deeply regrets it. Scowling and crossing his arms in the back of his town car while he's donning his signature dueling garb is one thing, but at the moment he feels like a spoiled teenage popstar.

"Master Kaiba," Roland says, his voice betraying his unease, "where exactly were you planning on going?"

"Anywhere," Kaiba responds. "Just…drive around for a few hours."

Roland never has been one to argue with even his most ridiculous demands, and Kaiba is glad that he doesn't choose today to start. He shifts gears and merges onto Ace Avenue, and Kaiba lets his mind wander to where it usually goes when board meetings are dragging on for too long. Soon his thoughts are weaved together in an intricate pattern that any other person would go mad trying to discern, his cards flashing through his mind along with his rival's. He spies Kaiser Sea Horse and Pot of Greed, Beta the Magnet Warrior and Soul Release. The cards soar at each other in battle, ghostly hands setting traps and monsters, and it all happens in nary a few moments. Just when he thinks he's come up with his latest fool-proof strategy, when he thinks he'll be able to give himself the satisfaction of envisioning Yugi with his head held low in defeat, the entire scene gets shattered to bits by a smiling, laughing Yugi and the rest of those geeks.

Kaiba practically jumps up in his seat at their intrusion on his private thoughts. He probably would give some kind of physical indication of his surprise if he didn't think it would bring Roland to his wit's end, and cause them to go careening into oncoming traffic. Instead he grits his teeth, tightening his fingers around the expensive fabric of his shirt.

"Why them?"

If his mind were suddenly showing him images of those new board members he regrets putting into place, he would be able to handle it. If it were showing him images of his office and that conference he skipped today, that would be fine. Even Joey Wheeler with that smug look on his face would be preferable to all of them together at once. His thoughts suddenly kick into overdrive, showing him every moment he's ever felt like vomiting at the sight of Yugi and his friends.

Friendship is for fools!

Kaiba is no fool. He's always been one to know what he wants and to snuff out desire at the slightest hint of it.

He's also known that he's had a problem with denial for a while, but he's always been in so much denial that he never did anything about it. For reasons unknown to him, he finds the chains of denial suddenly slipping lose, and soon he's staring down a desire so powerful that he wonders how he ever hid it from himself at all.

Friendship is for fools!

"I'm not a fool."

"Did you say something, Master Kaiba?"

"No."

He can't get that photo out of his head. Yugi's happiness that day didn't stem from the fact that he had just won his millionth tournament in a row, or that he had absolutely crushed his opponent in a spectacular comeback that few would be capable of. Kaiba knows the way he knows his own deck that the only things Yugi needed to feel happy were the admiration of his friends and the knowledge that they wouldn't have thought any lesser of him if he had lost. That certainly wasn't and isn't the case for Kaiba. Would he even be as happy as he imagines he would be after finally defeating Yugi and reclaiming his spot as the number one duelist in the world?

Before he can fully explore that train of thought, the image of the beaming Yugi morphs into something that shocks even him. Before his mind's eye, Yugi's face contorts into utter despair, tears streaming down his face and curling under his chin the way they did all those months ago on the docks. Kaiba has no idea what prompted such a sudden change in his thoughts. His mind seems to be doing that a lot today. It's such a vivid image that he wonders if he's having another one of those dreams he tends to have while dueling.

Then Kaiba blinks and realizes that Yugi is right there outside his window. They've stopped at a red light right next to a crowded stretch of sidewalk, and Kaiba can easily spot Yugi as he walks along the outer edge of the throng of people, his face a mess of tears. He's so close to the car that Kaiba could touch him if there weren't glass between them.

Then Yugi actually does touch the glass, his fingers splayed across the tinted surface as he dips his head low and scrunches his eyes closed, his mouth open in a silent sob. Kaiba again finds himself resisting the urge to jump back because of Yugi, and simply gawks at the sudden display of emotion. He's seen Yugi cry on plenty of other occasions, but never with such intense hopelessness.

He also never felt sorry for him on any of those other occasions.

Once he realizes what he's done, Yugi quickly withdraws his hand from the glass and wipes at his eyes, and something stirs within Kaiba. Before he knows it, his hand has shot out to roll down the window, and Yugi's shoulders go rigid. He whips around with his hands held up as if he expects to face some furious entrepreneur, and when they lock eyes, Yugi's face drops. He doesn't think he's ever seen anyone more afraid to see him in his life, which is odd considering some of the board meetings he's been to.

"K-Kaiba?" he all but squeaks, looking every bit like a Kuriboh caught in the sights of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Under normal circumstances, this would certainly be the appropriate analogy on Kaiba's end. He doesn't know what's keeping that from being the case right now. It's probably the polo shirt. "I…I'm sorry. I didn't…I…I mean…I just…"

As Yugi continues to babble incoherently, Kaiba looks him over, notices the way his hoodie seems uneven at the neckline, the way his eyeliner is smudged at the corners. He's lost. They both are. At least for today, he and Yugi are exactly the same.

Kaiba says the first thing that comes to his mind:

"Need a ride?"

Author's Note: This is the first of two parts, but you won't have to wait long for the continuation! It'll be up soon.