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1.
She’s not what he’s expecting.
From her file, Seto knows the basics. Name: Yusei Fudo. Physical appearance: black hair with gold highlights, blue eyes, tan skin, 5”9’, marker under left eye going down her cheek. Age: fifteen.
She ticks off all those boxes when he meets her in person.
No, what fazes him is her personality.
Yusei Fudo has been in the Junior Facility for a few weeks by now, which means that the psychologists who make inmate profiles have had ample time to observe the girl. All of them had agreed that she’s polite, kind, and quick to help others. She’s not prone to touching others without permission, and she hasn’t reacted with physical violence to anyone, even people (be they guards or other inmates) who get into her personal space and insult her.
Until now, apparently.
Seto had watched, from one of the prison watchtowers overlooking the courtyard, as Yusei went up to another girl who was at least half a head taller than she herself was, put a hand on her shoulder, and knock her feet out from under her, using her hand to turn the other inmate as she fell so that she was forced to land on her face.
And all because the other girl was grinding some Duel cards underneath her foot.
Presently, Yusei is gathering those same cards into a neat pile and offering the cards’ owner a hand up. She then says something, accepts the Duel disk offered to her, and inserts the cards she had just picked up into the deck slot. That finished, she turns back to the larger inmate, who has only just gotten back up.
The bully’s face twists into a sneer. She turns on her heel and marches back to the other side of the Duel field, taking up a ready position as Yusei does the same.
The following Duel is a one-sided beatdown so bad it’s just plain embarrassing for the larger girl. By the time it’s over, her face is red and her shoulders have hunched in. She hurries off into the crowd that has gathered as soon as her life points hit zero, refusing to stick around after receiving that thorough trouncing.
Yusei unequips the deck from the Duel disk and hands both back to the cards’ owner. She doesn’t say anything to her, just inclines her head and walks away, leaving the other inmates to gawp at her back as she, too, leaves the courtyard.
Seto was intrigued by Yusei Fudo before he even came here; it’s not often that someone manages to make it from Satellite into the city proper, break into one of his buildings alongside a teenage boy, have a Turbo Duel with said teenage boy on illegal Duel runners, and then get carted off by the police just before the end of the duel that she was just about to win.
So yes, Seto was intrigued by this girl who was so unabashed in her actions, showing not even a hint of remorse. Intrigued enough to want to come see what she’s like in person, even.
Now, after witnessing her trounce her opponent with a deck that she had barely seen in action before using herself, Seto has to curse his need to study all things interesting. Because now that she’s been brought to his attention, Seto knows that there’s no way he’ll be able to ignore this girl without first being able to figure her out.
Seto makes his way from the watchtower down to the warden’s office, long strides eating up the ground beneath his feet. When he gets to the proper door he doesn’t bother with knocking, simply letting himself into the man’s office.
“How much would it cost to have Yusei Fudo released early and into my custody?” he demands, arms crossing in front of his chest.
The man splutters. “Pardon?”
“How much would it cost to have Yusei Fudo released early and into my custody?” Seto repeats, not thrilled with having to do so but also knowing there’s a thin line that he needs to tread for this to happen.
The warden frowns up at him. “That’s not how this works-” he denies.
“How. Much?” Seto grits, patience already wearing thin.
The older frowns at him, leaning back in his seat to study him from head to toe. Then his eyes flicker, seeming to realize just who it is that stands before him. His eyes glint. “Well,” he drawls, “it depends.”
Seto sets his jaw and prepares to negotiate.
By the time that Seto’s done with the warden, the man is richer than he was before Seto made his way into his office, but not absurdly so. However, what’s more important is that the warden officially has one less inmate under his “care” and that said inmate is now under Seto’s guardianship.
He stalks his way to the office located at the front of the prison, pleased with how events turned out. When he gets there, he marches over to one of the guards sitting at the receptionist desk and slides the file he’s had clutched in his hands over to them.
The guard looks up, bored expression melting quickly into shock. Seto doesn't give them a chance to speak. “If you look in that file, you’ll find the necessary paperwork has been filled out for an inmate to be released into my custody. I’d like for you to send for Yusei Fudo. Today is now her last day.” He pauses. “And if you could have someone else collect her belongings.” He smiles. It’s not a pleasant one.
The guard nods quickly and goes to do so. Within short order, two officers have been sent to collect the girl, while another goes to gather her things. This leaves Seto to wait impatiently in the office, fingers tapping on his crossed arms.
He’s waited thirty-seven minutes - yes, he was timing it - before Yusei Fudo steps into the office. Her orange jumpsuit’s been exchanged for dark wash jeans, a blue jacket, and a black shirt with a red emblem on it. Seto also sees two Duel decks strapped to her belt - one for regular Duels and one for Turbos Duels, he assumes. She clutches the bag of her belongings in one hand.
Seto makes his way over to her. She eyes him wearily. “Yusei Fudo,” he greets, “I’m Seto Kaiba. Have they told you what’s happening?”
Yusei nods. “You’re going to be looking after me,” she says. “Why?”
“Because you puzzle me,” he admits frankly. “And unless I can figure you out, it’s just going to get on my nerves. And I’m not going to make the trip over here multiple times a week just to see you. It’s a waste of my time.”
Yusei blinks quickly, perhaps in shock that he answered her question at all. She tilts her head up to stare at his face, eyes locking onto his. Seto refuses to blink; he stared down grown men when he was just a teen, and a teenage girl so skinny she looks like a strong wind might blow her over isn’t going to be what breaks him now.
Finally done with her assessment, Yusei nods again. “Alright. But if you try anything I’m going to break your hand.”
Seto lets out a surprised bark of laughter. “I can honestly tell you that the thought never even crossed my mind. But still: noted.” He turns on his heel. “Come along.”
He walks towards the entrance doors. Yusei follows along behind him.
2.
The first week that Yusei is with him is a flurry of activity. The first thing they do, after leaving the Junior Facility, is shop for essentials that Yusei will need: more than just a couple pairs of clothing, socks, underwear (which Seto has a female employee of the shop help Yusei with. He refuses to get anywhere near that topic), bathroom items such as a toothbrush and a brush and other - ah - feminine hygiene products.
After that, they cover Yusei’s wants: her runner back, a place to work on it, which room in Seto’s house she’ll be taking as her own, a way to contact her friends so that they’ll know she’s safe and that they don’t need to worry about her.
At some point, the blond boy she had Dueled before being arrested shows up, demanding to be let in. Seto is slightly impressed by his brazenness, but is mostly just annoyed at the ruckus he makes until he’s in the house proper. Then the brat throws a card at Yusei, makes a snide remark, and leaves.
Seto doesn’t understand any of that exchange but he figures that it has to do with a complicated pats and therefore doesn’t care to find out more. Teenage drama isn’t his scene and he has no wish to involve himself in it.
That over with, back to work they go. Seto lets Yusei pick out furniture she’d like in her new room, what tools she’d like for her workspace, what laptop she’ll need for performing maintenance on her runner.
But once that’s all over, life settles back down, not quite like before but close. Seto still has a company and little brother to look after, events to organize, certain star-haired shrimps to challenge. He just has more responsibilities now: hiring a tutor for Yusei, making sure she’s eating the food prepared for her instead of just putting it aside while she concentrates on her runner, answering any questions she has to the best of his ability.
They click together easily, in a way Seto didn’t expect but is grateful for all the same. Yusei is easy to adjust to, polite and diligent and intelligent. She stands up for herself but never back talks just for the sake of it, and she’s kind to the staff that run the mansion, always helping them out, even when they laugh and shoo her away, claiming that she should be out with friends and having fun, not stuck inside with the hired help.
Seto sees all this and purses his lips in thought. In many ways she reminds him of himself, back when he was young. She, like him, is an orphan, taken in by a rich man, ripped from a life of poverty (though Seto acknowledges that her life was much worse in Satellite than his ever was in the orphanage) and thrust suddenly into the finest luxuries that money can afford. She can become overwhelmed by the choices that are laid out in front of her, the same as he was when he was a child.
She’s also driven, studying hard to make up for all the time she lost from not having a formal education; though while Seto was pressured by that bastard old man into being the best he could, Yusei puts that pressure on herself.
Then there are other times where Seto looks at Yusei and sees nothing but the differences. Seto never enjoyed having people around when he was younger, Mokuba being the only exception to the rule. He would push people away; Yusei is the exact opposite. She constantly surrounds herself with people and stays in frequent contact with her Satellite friends. Seto was a selfish and cruel child, but Yusei is always willing to lend a hand to anyone who looks to be struggling, whether she knows them well or not.
For now, though, he watches and observes and absorbs all the information that he gathers, tucking everything away into a mental folder dedicated to the teenage girl with golden streaks in her hair. There’s still so much he needs to learn about Yusei before he could solve the puzzle behind her, but for now he’s willing to wait and see how this plays out.
In the meantime, he does something that he never thought he would: he brings back family dinners.
They had started when Mokuba was a child and Seto had just taken over his adoptive father’s company. Back then, he would often go into work early and stay long into the night, needing to prove that his taking over the company wasn’t just due to a fluke. Because of this, Mokuba was often alone in their house, looked after by staff. And he was fine with this arrangement for a while, but then he started to miss his big brother, loneliness pressing down on his small shoulders.
Seto might have taken a while to notice his brother’s souring mood, but he did eventually realize what was happening. So he made a promise to his brother: barring any emergencies, Seto would make sure to be home for 7:30 so that they could eat supper together and talk about whatever was on their mind.
But Mokuba had moved out a couple of years ago, choosing to live in an apartment closer to his university campus, and those nightly dinners had become weekly, then bi-weekly dinners instead.
Seto would never admit it out loud, but he missed having his brother sitting at the same table as him, a sounding board for Seto’s ideas and a voice to help chase the stress of Seto’s work day away. But now there was another person who wasn’t an employee living in his house again, and Seto found himself thinking more and more of those evenings spent talking to someone instead of bent over his work desk long after all his other employees had gone home.
So once Yusei has had enough time to get used to her new housing, he tracks her down to tell her, “While living here, it’s expected that dinners be eaten together. Now that you’ve adjusted to living here, you’ll be expected to show up to them. Barring any emergencies, the food will be served at 7:30. Do you understand?”
Yusei looks up at him from her spot at the table, situated in the library room. “I do,” she confirms. “From now on we’ll be eating together at 7:30.”
This is another reason why he likes Yusei. When asked if she understands something, she’ll repeat what was said in her own words to show how she interpreted them, thus leaving an opening for if her understanding needs to be corrected or if she understood properly. Seto approves.
“Good,” Seto says, inclining his head to her.
“Is that all?” she asks.
“Yes. You may resume your studies.” Seto doesn’t wait for her reply, sweeping out of the room to focus instead on one of the other things that need his attention, of which there are many.
That night, Yusei arrives at the dinner table five minutes before the food is served. Her hands and face have been scrubbed free of grease. Neither of them are talkative by nature, but they do talk to each other, and Seto finds himself enjoying her presence.
It’s not what it used to be like with Mokuba, but Seto thinks he could learn to like this new dynamic just as much as the old. He finds himself glad that he thought to keep Yusei around.
3.
He takes it back. The little urchin is going back to Satellite as soon as possible.
“What the fuck?” he asks, staring at Yusei blankly.
She ignores this, continuing to wash her hair of the grease that has migrated to her head, dunking her head under the tap at the sink.
“No, seriously, what the fuck?” he repeats, almost at a loss for words.
Hair deemed sufficiently clean, Yusei turns off the tap and reaches for the towel beside her, using it to wring the water out of her black strands as she straightens up. She hums inquisitively at him, apparently more preoccupied with her task than the fact that she’s managed to cause Seto Kaiba a minor breakdown.
Once he regains his wits, Seto reaches up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, already feeling the inevitable headache.
“May I ask why you have decided to wash your hair with dish soap?” he inquires. Because that was what he had walked in on. He had been planning on asking Yusei a question, but that plan had gone completely out the window when he entered the (her, really) garage to see her lathering dish soap in her hair like it was fucking shampoo. “What happened to the shampoo?”
“Oh,” she says casually, still running her towel through her long tresses, “I ran out of that a while ago.”
“And why didn’t you ask for it to be replaced?” he demands, arms crossing over his chest.
Yusei shrugs. “Didn’t see the point when dish soap works just as well.”
Seto is unimpressed by that logic. “Try again.”
“What do you want me to say? Shampoo was a rarity in Satellite, and once you managed to get your hands on it you made sure to use it only when absolutely needed. Dish soap was a lot more common, and it gets the job done.” Yusei drapes her towel over the sink’s edge and reaches for the brush leaning against the faucet handles. (He had been wondering why these things were asked to be installed in her workspace, but he guesses he has an answer now.)
“And you didn’t ask for the staff to replace it?” he demands. “Like you did when your toothpaste ran out?”
Yusei gives him a look like she thinks he’s an idiot. Seto bristles, but doesn’t lash out. “Like I said, I didn’t need to. Why would I if I have something else that’s less expensive and works just as well?”
Seto sighs, but supposes that he can’t fault her reasoning. He’s used that thinking plenty himself: if you run out of thing A but thing B works just as well as, if not exactly like thing A, why not just use thing B? “I understand where you’re coming from, but please just inform the staff about it the next time. I appreciate you using what’s available to get by, but I’d prefer you use actual shampoo and conditioner when washing your hair.”
Yusei pauses in her hair brushing, for once looking thrown off. Her uncertainty makes her look her age, instead of the usual weariness that makes her look older than her fifteen years. “Are you sure?” she asks.
Seto feels himself softening against his will, thinking back to another young boy who was unused to splurging on things that he deemed unnecessary. “I’m sure,” he confirms gruffly. “They don’t have to be top quality brands - not that I would mind if that’s what you decided you wanted to use - but you don’t need to worry about this. Buying shampoo and conditioner regularly won’t make a dent in how much money I have, and even if it did I still wouldn’t mind. I consider them to be basic necessities.”
Yusei darts her eyes to the side, hand absently rising to card her fingers through her damp hair. “If you’re sure,” she agrees. Her eyes flicker to him quickly before darting away again. “Thank you, Seto.”
Seto softens even more, though he tries to make sure it doesn’t actually show on his face. “You’re welcome, Yusei.” Then he tacks on, “But if I ever see you washing your hair with dish soap again, I’m revoking your garage access for a week.”
Yusei grins but doesn’t bother calling his bluff.
4.
Three months. Seto has had custody of Yusei for just three months, and she’s already managed to land herself in the hospital. If he had known she was going to worm her way into his heart this quickly and deeply and cause him this much worry, he would have left her at the Junior Facility, curiosity be damned.
(That’s a lie; he hasn’t known her for long, but Yusei is already such a large part of his life he can’t imagine her not being in it, blasting music while she works on her Duel runner or sassing him for his more dramatic reactions to the idiots who work for him or asking him if he’d tell her about his work when he brought it home, looking over his shoulder as he explained what he was doing and why.)
But he’s getting off track. The point is that Yusei was admitted to the hospital, leading them to call him while at work, nearly giving him a heart attack once he realized who the caller was and why they were calling him. He had barely hung up the phone before he was on his way out of the office, calling for his driver to take him to the hospital.
He gets there in record time (partly to his driver, shall he say, bending the speed limits in a few places), and stalks up to the receptionist manning the front desk. “I’m here for Yusei Fudo,” he declares.
The nurse glances up, and if they’re surprised to see Seto Kaiba asking for a kid from Satellite they don’t show it. Instead they offer a polite but distant smile and say, “One moment”, type something, and then go clicking through a few things on their screen before they turn their attention back on him. “It’ll be room 418,” they tell him. “The elevator and stairs are just down that hall” - they point - “and once you reach floor four you’ll want to take a right. The room is on the left side of the hallway.”
Seto nods his appreciation for the directions but doesn’t bother to say his thanks aloud, instead starting to walk briskly towards the elevators. He taps his foot with impatience while waiting for the elevator and then the entire trip up to the fourth floor, and he squeezes his way between the doors once they’re open enough for him to slip through. He hangs a right, and as the nurse from downstairs said, room 418 is on the left on the hallway, about halfway down.
The door to the room is open, soft voices spilling out into the hallway. He checks the name on the plate by the door before going in, to make sure he has the right room, then enters the room without bothering to announce his presence.
One of the voices belongs, of course, to Yusei, who, Seto is relieved to see, is awake and aware and appears to only be superficially injured. The other belongs to a girl that Seto has never seen before, wearing red, white, and black, with pink-red hair and what appears to be a metal curler sitting just behind her bangs.
“Who are you?” he demands, stalking closer to Yusei in case he needs to reach for the intercom to call for help. Random people shouldn’t have access to her room, and the fact that an unknown is in here sets him on edge.
The other girl - no older than Yusei - shrinks in on herself at his tone, eyes turning downcast and guilt practically wafting off her. Yusei, though, just gives him an unimpressed look that he ignores. Someone needs to take her health and safety seriously, since apparently she can’t be trusted to do it herself.
Seto deepens his glare, even if the redhead can’t see it because she’s still staring at the ground.
“This is Akiza Izinski,” Yusei introduces, interrupting what would surely have become a silence rife with tension had the unknown occupant in the room kept refusing to answer his earlier question.
Seto turns his sharp glare onto her, but Yusei only looks back at him impassively. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” he snaps, pushing Izinski from his brain for the time being. “What the hell were you doing that you ended up in a hospital with multiple lacerations?”
This seems to light a spark in Izinski, as her head snaps up and blazing eyes train themselves on him. “Yusei was helping me,” she says, “and I won’t let you berate her for it, you giant dickweed! Who the hell do you think you are, talking to her like that?!”
Seto can feel himself puffing up, an acidic reply sitting on the tip of his tongue, but Yusei interrupts. “Akiza, it’s okay - he’s okay. He’s just worried, and he doesn’t like showing he cares about people so he defaults to grumpy,” she assures, reaching out to touch the other girl’s hand.
“I do not,” Seto grumbles, but Yusei ignores him, the brat.
“And he’s worried about me because he’s my guardian.”
Izinski’s hackles lower slightly, but she remains tense with indignation on Yusei’s behalf; Seto would appreciate the loyalty more if her scorn wasn’t directed at him. For now, he decides to switch topics instead of instigating an argument with a teenager; God knows Wheeler wouldn’t ever let it go if he found out Seto purposely went out of his way to antagonize someone thirteen years his junior.
“Are you cleared to leave?” he asks brusquely, running another look over her. Aside from the shallow cuts, Yusei is perhaps moving a little stiffly, but she’s also in her regular clothes instead of a hospital gown, so Seto is going to assume that she won’t be needing to stay the night for observation; that doesn’t discount her needing to stay here for a few more tests, however, so it’s better to double check.
“I am,” she replies, reaching over to grab her jacket from where it’s draped over one of the room’s chairs. She shrugs it on, moving slowly and almost daintily.
Seto’s eyebrows furrow. “Is there anything that I need to worry about? Any medications you need to pick up on your way out?”
Yusei shakes her head. “The doctor says I’ll be sore from some minor bruising, but that’s all, and that if I ache to take a generic painkiller in the recommended doses for the first few days, but not after that.”
Seto inclines his head in both agreement and to indicate that she and her new friend should leave the room. He lets them leave first, doing one last sweep of the room to make sure neither of them forgot any belongings, then moves to follow them before pausing in the doorway, watching as they move further down the hallway, talking quietly to each other.
He almost shakes his head in disbelief. To think, just a few months ago he wouldn’t have been able to imagine a time when he would care about someone as much as he cares about Mokuba, when he would let an outsider in close enough to him that they could see past the act he put up to what he was really feeling. But now, it’s the exact opposite. Ever since meeting Yusei his world has tilted sideways, but the change she brought has been anything but bad.
He takes a moment to let go of the tension that’s been flooding his body ever since that phone call. Then he hurries to catch up to the two teenagers - though he makes sure he’s moving at a socially appropriate speed. He’d rather die than give anything away to someone who isn’t family.
5.
It’s the beginning of July and Seto and Yusei are sitting at the dinner table for their customary family dinner when Seto decides to broach the subject.
He puts down his utensils and places his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together in front of his mouth. “Your tutor tells me that you’re almost caught up to where you should be in your education, if you had been attending school,” he begins.
Yusei, sensing that he would like her full attention, also places her fork and knife down before turning her blue eyes onto his. “He’s mentioned, yes.”
Seto studies her for a moment before venturing, “And if you had the choice between going to school, private or public, for your first year of high school or continuing your education with your tutor, which would you choose?”
Yusei’s eyes narrow in suspicion. She’s been living with him long enough to know when he asks “if you had the choice” that she actually does have the choice, rather than it being him asking about a hypothetical scenario. Her fingers drum along the table, and Seto can practically see the gears turning in her head as she thinks his words over.
“Which school do you have in mind?” she finally asks, lips still pursed in thought.
Seto allows a brief smile to steal across his face; he’s glad that Yusei knows how to ask for clarification, rather than just jumping in headfirst to anything.
“I was hoping to enroll you into Duel Academy,” he says. “I’m the owner, so of course I make sure that everything there is state of the art, from staff to facilities. Like a normal school, it offers the standard classes such as math, history, science, and so on, but it also offers courses meant to help duelists improve their decks and strategies.”
Yusei looks intrigued by this, but not overly so, so Seto figures he may as well pull out his trump card.
“As of this year, it will also feature courses on Turbo Dueling, such as Duel runner building and maintenance, and classes for those who wish to receive their Turbo Duel licence. Things along that line.” He sees her eyes spark with interest and can’t help smirking. Gotcha.
Yusei, though, still manages to keep her wits about her. “And the downsides?” she asks.
Seto shrugs. “You’ll be on an island that’s an hour away from the mainland by boat, you’ll need to share a dormitory with other teenagers - most of whom will be well below your maturity level, your days will be longer because of the classes, and you’ll need to wear the school uniform,” he admits frankly.
Yusei thinks this over carefully. “Do you have a brochure or something similar that I can look over while I think about it?” she finally questions.
Having expected this, Seto reaches for the folder that he left on the seat beside him; it’s crammed with papers that range from what tuition would have cost her had he not been her guardian to what the schedule looks like to a campus map. He slides it over to her; Yusei opens it up and quickly riffles through, then closes it again and puts it off to the side.
“I’ll look into it and get back to you in a couple of days,” she promises. “Is that all?”
“It is.”
Conversation done for now, they pick up their utensils and go back to their dinner.
As she promised, Yusei does indeed find him a few days after that. It’s one of the rare days that Seto can stay at home instead of going into work, so he’s stationed himself in his office as he goes through his less pressing paperwork.
It’s just past noon when a knock comes on his door. He calls, “Enter!” but doesn’t bother to look up at who comes into his office.
“It’s just me,” comes Yusei’s familiar voice before he can inquire as to who has interrupted him and why. “I’ve thought about Duel Academy and come to a decision.”
Seto sets down his pen so that he can focus on the girl who has taken a seat across from him. She’s… not quite relaxed, but not quite tense, either. He’s seen the look before: it normally comes before Yusei asks for something that she wants but isn’t sure she’ll receive.
“But you have reservations?” he questions. He’s found it’s better to just get straight to the point with Yusei, as she appreciates forthrightness over beating around the bush.
“They’re not so much reservations as they are conditions,” she says quietly.
Seto leans back in his seat. It’s odd for Yusei to say that there are conditions; normally, she’s more of a compromise type of person. He finds himself curious as to what she thinks is so important that she’d risk the possibility of stepping on his toes - not that he thinks she will, but he has noticed her tendency to err on the side of caution when it comes to his patience.
“And they are?” he inquires.
“I’d like for Crow to come as well,” she says, eyes trained on him to see his reaction.
It takes a moment for him to place the name, but he does. Crow Hogan, she means, a boy from Satellite with marks on each of his cheeks and his forehead. Her adoptive brother, the one she stays in regular contact with.
“I suppose I can pay for a second tuition,” he concedes. The boy is loud and annoying, and reminds him strongly of Wheeler, though not as obnoxious, but it’s not like Seto will need to have him in his house for the school year. At most, Seto will only need to deal with Hogan for any breaks in the school year and maybe for the winter and summer holidays. “Your other conditions?”
“I refuse to wear the school uniform,” Yusei informs him bluntly.
Seto, thrown by this answer, tries to cast his mind back to what the female uniform looks like for Obelisk Blues (because yes, that’s where Yusei would be going. The school belongs to him so he can damn well decide where his dau - charge, his charge will be going). He - draws a blank. He honestly can’t remember at all what it looks like. He had no part in designing any of the uniforms, seeing as he didn’t care one way or another what the students wore. The uniforms had been insisted upon by the people he paid to run the school.
“May I ask why?” he finally settles on asking.
Yusei’s eyebrows furrow and her lips pull down at the corners, practically a scowl for a girl whose normal expression is neutrality. “It’s impractical for Turbo Dueling,” she says, as if that explains everything.
And perhaps to someone else it wouldn’t. But to Seto Kaiba, this makes perfect sense. If a piece of clothing were to stop or hinder him from doing what he wanted, why the hell would he choose to wear that piece of clothing?
“Say no more. Don’t worry about wearing the uniform. If the school staff tries to start shit with you for not wearing it, direct them to me and I’ll deal with it,” he says. “Anything else?”
Yusei shakes her head in denial, eyes wide - she probably thought that she would have to fight to have her conditions met, but Seto thinks that they aren’t unreasonable, so he has no trouble with agreeing to them.
“Then sign the enrollment papers and then bring them to me so that I can as well,” he commands. “The semester starts in September, so we’ll probably start packing your things a week before that - except your Duel runner, that will need to be packed up in advance if you want to take it with you.” Seto picks up his pen and goes back to his paperwork as Yusei stands and makes her way to his office door.
Just before she leaves the room, though, she pauses and glances back over her shoulder at him. “Thank you, Seto,” she says, tone warm and small smile sitting on her lips.
Seto grunts at her and makes a shooing motion at her. But he’s careful to keep his head down so she can’t see the way his lips tick upwards for a smile of his own.