#and then they eventually kiss because y'all know where my shipping preferences lie

[chaoscheebs]

You know what?  I rambled in the tags of this reblog and I’m a-gonna blather on about something that struck me when typing it.

So we know.  WE KNOW.  Seto Kaiba is a huge bundle of trauma and issues, and we all love the idea of sweet lil’ Yugi reaching out and helping him through it (with a big side of please get therapy Kaiba).  Well.  What about the other way around?

I mean, let’s look at Yugi.  Maybe he had a much, much better family situation, let’s be fuckin’ real.  But, as someone who was bullied (tho’ thankfully not the the degree this kid was), I know how much that will fuck you up in the head.  This kid was getting his ass beat by his peers on (at least) a weekly basis (and sometimes by grown-ass adults!), you better believe he has a tangled mess of issues and bottled anger compressed enough to take out a small city.

Dude has absolutely had to keep anything he thought would be subject of mockery to himself (it’s never enough, tho’) and make himself metaphorically smaller to avoid more bullying (it never works).  How much do you think his actual friends, the people he has literally trusted with his life at this point, know about him as a person, beside “smol, sweet, ride or die”?  For heaven’s sake, Anzu, the one who’s known him the longest, didn’t know if his grandpa was alive or dead in chapter-fucking-ONE of the manga!  His fucking grandpa, who runs the game store in the building where he fucking lives.

So.  Consider.  Seto actually starts to get his shit together somewhat!  Maybe he actually gets persuaded to go to fucking therapy by Mokuba’s insistence after *gestures to everything in canon*.  And maybe he actually... starts reaching out back to Yugi’s offers of friendship.  But Seto’s a sharp man.  He has had the training from hell to learn how to pick out people’s weaknesses, and he starts zeroing in on how Yugi is low-key constantly on the defensive; always offering to help or take care of or listen to others but never saying jack shit about himself or his feelings.

And, welp, he starts realizing it’s his turn to drag Yugi out of his own 500 emotional barriers kicking and screaming instead and Seto kind of hates it!  But he’s gonna.  Because he justifies it as revenge for 5,000,000 “power of friendship/heart of the cards” bullshit speeches.  YOU ARE GETTING BEFRIENDED SO FUCKING HARD IN REVENGE, YUGI; EXPECT HIM.