#kaiba spoilers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chaoscheebs · 5 months

Text

It's Midnight, Cinderella, chapter 1

In which Seto Kaiba meets a mystery man at a masquerade and things just click, but who could this man be...

(Chapter 1) - (Chapter 2) - (Chapter 3) - (Fic Tag)

-----------

Sometimes, being a CEO sucked.

Once again, Seto Kaiba had to fulfill some inane obligation to attend a gathering of people who he either found intolerable, were seeking to use him to gain a step up in life, or worse, both. The worst part of it was this was supposed to be a masquerade, but no one seemed to bother putting in the effort to at least play up the one fun part of the concept and were largely in generic formal wear except for him. Pathetic.

Or he was alone in caring about style, until he spotted him. Soft blond curls falling softly to just above his shoulders. A carefully-tied cravat around his neck, ruffles adorning the bottom of his sleeves, shining buckles on his shoes, looking like he was a prince who walked out of some fairy tale. And judging from his frown and the way he looked around the venue, he was every bit as disappointed no one else was pushing style boundaries as Seto was.

Seto was hardly a social butterfly, but this man looked at least less insufferable than the rest of the people there, so he decided to walk over and strike up a conversation. If it turned out this man was just as dull as the rest, he was perfectly capable of walking away, after all.

Or he was going to strike up a conversation, but the man in question spoke first. The man looked him over, then smiled. “Thank goodness, I thought I was the only one who took this seriously. I was thinking about going home to change…” His voice was soft, but deeper than he expected for a man his size. It almost reminded him of…

Never mind what it reminded Seto of. The past was in the past, and he needed to remember that more often. “Hmph, don’t let others dictate what you do, especially when it’s clear you’re the one in the right. It’s them who wouldn’t know style if Special Summoned a monster right in their faces.”

The man laughed. “So you play Duel Monsters too? Glad to see I’m not alone there either.”

Seto faintly smiled. Well, now, this is shaping up better than expected. “Oh, really? Are you in the competitive scene?”

“Mm, sort of?” the man said, tapping a finger to his chin and tilting his head slightly to one side. “There’s someone who’s… I want to call him a ‘rival’, but is it really a rivalry if the other person never acknowledges you? Anyway, I’m looking to defeat him and prove myself to him.” He laughs weakly. “Kind of pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Only if you think of yourself as such,” Seto replied, frowning. “You’ll never defeat him if you have no confidence.”

The man laughed again. “Oh, I have plenty of confidence in my gaming skills! It’s just everything else that’s the problem.”

“Even that can have an impact,” Seto told him. “Walk tall like you mean business, even if you have to fake it. It’ll come naturally with practice.”

“Talking from experience?” the man asked with a smirk.

Seto took a half-step turn away from him, crossing his arms and scowling. “Do I look like the kind of man who needs to practice that?”

“With a reaction like that, yes,” the man said, stepping out so he was in front of Seto. “It’s kind of cute, though, in a tsundere sort of way~”

“‘C-cute’?! ‘Tsundere?!?’ What—?!” Seto sputtered indignantly. On what planet was he, Seto Kaiba, cute?!

“Extremely cute~” the man teased, raising himself on tip-toes to get closer to Seto’s face. “Adorable, even~” Seto turned his head with a “hmph”; a clear signal for the man to stop teasing him. “All right, all right, I’ll lay off now. Even if you are cute~”

“Anyway,” Seto interrupted forcefully, “what brings you here tonight? I don’t recall seeing you attending one of these things before.”

The man rubbed under his nose, suddenly feeling bashful. “Ahahaha… A friend of mine, who runs a small indie game company that’s been trying to break into the mainstream recently got an invite, and he sort of dragged me along, saying I need to ‘make more connections’ in the industry.” He looked around, frowned, then sighed as he gestured to a man with long, dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail, who was currently flanked by several women. “Unfortunately, he immediately decided to go flirt with girls instead of helping me with that.”

Seto smirked at the man’s dismay. “You know women can work in the gaming industry too, you know.”

The man rolled his eyes, or at least Seto presumed so, judging by the displeased tilt of the man’s head. “Well, yeah, of course, but I also know how he works. There is almost zero chance they’re talking about Dungeon Dice Monsters, believe me.” He shook his head and muttered, “And he knows I’m not the best at this kind of thing either…”

“You seem to be doing all right with me.”

The man heaved a sigh. “That’s different, you came up to me first. I never know where to start and how not to sound like a game-obsessed weirdo to people. It’d be one thing if this was a convention, but this is…”

“Full of stuffy executives who wouldn’t know a fun game if it noclipped through them and ragdolled in front of them?” Seto suggested.

The man smiled. “You. You get it.”

“I’d like to think so,” Seto said, smirking, “but I am more hands-on than most people in my position. Maybe if things had been different…” He trailed off abruptly. What was he thinking, he had just met this man and he almost started telling him his life story.

“Oh? ‘If things had been different’?” the man asked. The mask had some sort of tinted lenses obscuring his eyes, but somehow Seto could feel the concern in them coming through the lenses anyway.

“… it’s nothing. We’ll just say I’m fond of tinkering and leave it at that.”

The man frowned and started to reach out a hand, but thought better of it and let it drop. “… OK. If you’re not comfortable talking about… whatever it is… then I’m not going to pry.”

“Thank you.” Seto’s eyes briefly darted away, then returned their focus to the man. “I… appreciate the concern, however,” he muttered, almost too quiet to hear over the background chatter all around them. “Anyway. Duel Monsters,” Seto ever-so-smoothly changed the subject to, “What kind of deck do you use?”

“A control deck,” the man answered, “I like seeing how I can make weak monsters actually viable, y’know? It’s a fun challenge.”

Seto raised an eyebrow, not that is was noticeable behind his own mask. “Really? I know someone else who uses one, and he’s regarded as a formidable opponent.”

“Ahahahaha, you don’t say…” the man said, looking away as he absently tried fixing some imaginary flyaway lock of hair.

“He wouldn’t happen to be your would-be rival, would he?” Seto asked. “If so, you have an uphill battle ahead of you. For all the… difficulties between us, I would be lying if I thought just anyone could take him in a duel.”

The man, suddenly looking startled, waved his hands in front of him. “Oh, no, no, no! The man I’m after uses a beatdown deck and has this thing for dragon cards in particular! I’m not—I really couldn’t—!”

“Dragons, hm? Sounds like a man with taste,” Seto said approvingly.

The man’s eyes (Seto presumes) traced over the Blue-Eyes White Dragon embroidery adorning Seto’s suit, the head of the dragon resting over his shoulder. Pointing at the dragon’s head, the man says, “You’re a fan of dragons too, huh? Wouldn’tve guessed~”

Seto smirked. “You haven’t seen the best part of this yet, either.” He glanced around him, mentally calculating if he had enough space for what he was about to do, then reached into his jacket and flipped a hidden switch. White dragon wing materialized behind him, flapping gently for a moment before wrapping around him like a cape.

The man’s jaw dropped, then raised his hands just below chin-level, curled into fists. “That. Is so. COOL! Oh my gosh, that had to take a lot of effort to get right, especially with the energy consumption! I mean, whatever’s activating that has to be smaller than the compartment in a duel disk that contains the battery, right?!?”

“Correct,” Seto affirmed. “Unfortunately, that means there’s an issue with battery life that needs to be worked out still. This was only a side project I did for fun, after all.”

“’For fun,’” the man repeated. “Haaaa, I’d say that’s a weird idea of fun, but I’ve literally forced myself to learn coding and game engines so I could join month-long game jams, so I shouldn’t judge.”

“Really? What kind of games do you make?”

“Horror ones, mostly,” the man said. “At least in my indie work, anyway. I like trying different styles of game in the genre.” A thought struck him, then he quickly fished a card holder out of his pocket and pulled out a card to hand to Seto. “Here, in case you wanna check them out later.”

Seto accepted the card, nodded, and tucked it into a pocket without looking too closely at it; something he would later regret. “I’ll look into them, then.” The holographic wings flickered, causing him to sigh. “And that would be the battery life issue…” he grumbled, reaching into his jacket again and flipping off the switch.

“Ahaha, you at least got it working! That can be half the battle in itself,” the man said.

“True,” Seto admitted, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Still, there’s room for improvement, and one way or another, I will get this so it can stay on for a full night, damn it.”

The man smirked at him. “You’re the stubborn type, huh? How cute~”

Seto rolled his eyes, scowling but feeling faint heat building his his cheeks and ears. “There you go with the ‘cute’ nonsense again.”

The smirk became a wide grin, and somehow, Seto couldn’t bring himself to deny it was, dare he say, ‘cute’? “Sorry, sorry,” the man said, without even the faintest hint of remorse. “There’s just something about you that make me want to tease you a little~”

“You’re nothing if not bold,” Seto replied, very pointedly not meeting the man’s gaze. “Most people wouldn’t dream of attempting that.”

The man shrugged. “I spent all of high school trying to hide,”—he muttered the next part bitterly—”and apparently failing at it—” he then resumed his normal volume, “that I was bi; I vowed nothing was gonna shove me back in the closet now~”

Seto’s mask may have hidden part of the now-deepening blush, but he just knew his ears were giving it away. Damn it. “I… see. So you really think…”

“That you’re cute? Absolutely~” the man said, looking infuriatingly smug as he stood on tip-toes to close more of the height distance between them. “It’s not every day you find someone smart enough and passionate enough about his hobbies to make holographic wings for himself and who’s also charmingly dorky on top of it~”

“First I’m ‘cute’, now I’m ‘dorky’?”

“The dorkiness is part of the cuteness!” the man insisted, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. Mask or no mask, it was clear he was enjoying himself and it infuriated Seto that he wasn’t infuriated by it.

“Ugh, why are you charming?” Seto grumbled to himself, earning a cute squeak from the man.

“Y-you think I’m charming?!” he said, his previous teasing bravado fleeing in a heartbeat.

Looks like he can dish it out but can’t take it, Seto smugly thought. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be standing here. I don’t tolerate wastes of time.”

The man looked at the floor, shyly rubbing his arm. “Ahahaha, I guess you wouldn’t, huh…?”

Some small part of Seto recognized this as somehow familiar, but that thought was shoved aside in favor of enjoying watching the man squirm. “Anyway, do you happen to have your deck on you? I want to see what you’ve got.”

The man frowned, then shook his head. “Unfortunately, I left that at home. Apparently most people frown on dueling during formal events?” he said, like this had either happened before or he had been scolded before he had a chance to try. Probably both, Seto thought; this man looks like the stubborn type.

“Sounds like it’s a ‘them’ problem and not yours,” Seto said before pulling out his phone and unlocking it. “How fast could you assemble a functional deck if you were provided cards?”

The man looked up and tapped his lips in thought. “Only functional? Probably not that long. It wouldn’t be that good, tho’. A good deck needs time and care.”

“True,” Seto agreed, tapping out a message on his phone. “I suppose in the interest of fairness, I’ll be making one up on the fly as well. It’s no fun crushing an unprepared opponent with the big guns.”

“Yeah, it’d only—what?” the man said, abruptly changing gears when the penny dropped. “Are you seriously—?!”

He didn’t need to finish the question; as if on cue a man appeared, carrying a large and very familiar briefcase. Satisfied, Seto tucked his phone back in his pocket and started to walk away in the courier’s direction. “I am. Come along now, time’s wasting.”

The man stared at him for a moment, laughed softly as he shook his head, almost as if he was used to this sort of thing, then went to follow Seto.

-----------

“Haaaa…” The man made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh as he set down his hand of cards. “Told you it wouldn’t be a good deck.”

Gathering his cards up, Seto replied, “True, but it put up a better showing than expected. You might have a chance against your mystery rival.” They had long since moved to a private room at the hotel the event was held in, because apparently it was considered rude to play cards during a non-card game event. And they dare call themselves professionals in the gaming industry; pathetic. Maybe if they would actually play a game every so often they could come up with something interesting.

“You really think so?” the man asked, doing the same after adjusting his mask. He seemed anxious about removing it, so Seto let it go and thus there it still sat upon his face.

Seto gets it. He doesn’t always want to be himself either, so he left his own mask on in some weird sense of solidarity. “I do. It takes a significant amount of skill in of itself to make a functioning deck in such a short time frame, let alone one that could actually give me pause.”

The man’s lips curved up into a smile—a genuine one, not a teasing one this time—and Seto found himself wanting to see more of it in the future. “That really means a lot to me; thank you.” The man then set his cards aside, stretched across the table, a hand on the table for stability and the other on Seto’s shoulder, and kissed Seto on the cheek.

The man lingered for a moment, and that’s all it took. Maybe the rush of winning got to Seto, or maybe the man’s teasing flirtations finally won him over, or maybe the man was just that damned attractive, but Seto found himself reaching out and pulling the man into a proper kiss on the lips, earning him a cute squeak of surprise from the man.

The surprise faded quickly, however, as that hand on Seto’s shoulder curled itself into a fist, clutching Seto’s jacket tightly, unwilling to let go. One kiss became two kisses, two become more, until the man climbed over the table and onto Seto’s lap.

Well. At least Seto knew where the man stood on continuing on. One hand buried itself in those soft blond curls, the other rested on the man’s back, slowly sliding downward until it found the soft curve of his ass and squeezed.

For having such a dull start, this was turning out to be a good night.

#yugioh #seto kaiba #yugi muto #rivalshipping #fanfiction #my fic #(yeah spoilers yugi is the mystery man but if you followed my rambles you knew that already)#it's midnight cinderella

19 notes · View notes