The Trouble with Laundry Rooms

Disclaimer: Uh, yeah…I don't own YGO, because if I did, we'd all be in serious trouble.

AN: Please read 'The Trouble with Shakespeare' first, as this is a continuation of the joke that began in that story. Anyways…enjoy! And for those who are waiting for me to update 'Out of Time,' please bear with me. I'm working on it, I promise.

"Mom accidentally locked me in the laundry room when I was ten."

This sentence had varying effects on everyone who heard it, especially considering that it seemingly had nothing to do with the question that had prompted this mysterious remark. The answer to the question was of great importance to those listening, and this seeming non-sequitur threw all of them into a state of confusion.

Yami's brow furrowed in confusion. "Aibou, what…?" He couldn't finish.

Joey's response wasn't even coherent…he opened his mouth and closed it with an audible click one or two times, and then, garbled syllables unlike anything ever heard before in the English language tumbled out. When he realized this, he closed his mouth for the last time, and gave Yugi a look that expressed the true depth of his confusion.

Bakura burst out with "WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?!" Ryou grabbed his dark's arm as if to calm him, then gave Yugi a look that was equal parts concern and confusion. Perhaps Ms. Jackman's test had affected Yugi, only it had taken longer for the ordeal to catch up with him than it had for the others.

Marik and Malik donned expressions that screamed, What the fuck, and kept their eyes on the small tri-color haired teen, hoping he'd elaborate eventually.

Duke and Tristan stared at Yugi as if he'd grown an extra head, while a vein in Kaiba's forehead pulsed dangerously. Duke and Tristan noticed this, and inched away.

Tea, on the other hand, experienced only the briefest moment of confusion, then recalled the incident in question, and burst out laughing. Between giggles, she managed to gasp out, "I'd…completely…forgotten about…that…" She soon regained control of herself, and beamed at Yugi. "I always wondered how you managed to pass the time while you were in there!"

Yami tried again, "Aibou, I'm not sure I understand. What does laundry have to do with Shakespeare?"

Yugi chuckled, and decided to clear things up…mainly because Kaiba looked like he was in danger of suffering a stroke, and he didn't want to have to deal with Mokuba when the younger Kaiba learned that someone had broken his big brother's brain. "Laundry has everything and nothing to do with it, Yami…because you see, if I hadn't been locked in the laundry room all day, I would never have gotten to know Shakespeare as well as I do."

"You certainly had enough time to memorize any book that might have been in there," Tea giggled.

"What book? I'm lost," Joey grumbled.

"Tell them the story, Yugi," Tea urged, "It'll make more sense that way...and it's been forever since I last heard it."

"Make it fast," Kaiba sighed. "I have a company to run."

"Well…" Yugi began, "It all started with the laundry room door. The lock on it is seriously screwed up, and so the door always locks itself after you close it. One morning, Mom woke me up early because she had something to do that day, and Grandpa was in Egypt at the time, as I recall. Anyway, I was in the laundry room looking for a shirt, and…well…Mom has always had a thing about leaving doors open…and she didn't realize I was in there."

"So she closed the door, and you were stuck," Tea finished.

"Yeah. All day."

TIME JUMP—7 Years Ago

"Where is that shirt?!" The frustrated boy growled under his breath. He'd searched through the dryer and every hamper in the laundry room, and he'd even checked the one that normally held dirty clothes, just to cover all of his bases. Still, despite his best efforts, his search had not yielded the missing shirt. Sighing in frustration, the ten-year-old sank down to the floor, and looked around the room once more with tired amethyst eyes. No shirt. Wait…he looked again at the wall closest to him on the right. There it was, hanging on a hook.

Suddenly regaining his energy, the boy jumped up, and grabbed ahold of the item that had caused him to turn his room and the laundry room upside down. As he pulled it on over his head, he didn't hear the door close behind him, nor did he hear his mother calling out her goodbyes as she left. So, when he turned to exit, straightening out the shirt that had caused him such trouble, he was dismayed (and slightly horrified) to find it closed. Grandpa had warned him just last week not to close the door…giving himself a little shake, he did what any ten-year-old kid who had been locked in a laundry room would do; he started banging on the door and yelling. Unfortunately, no one was around to hear.

Eventually, Yugi realized that no one would be coming to help him any time soon, so he ceased abusing the door, stopped shouting, and seated himself on the floor. "Well, it looks like I'm going to be in here for a while," he said to no one in particular. His stomach growled; he hadn't even had a chance to eat breakfast before he'd landed in this unpleasant situation. His fingers itched to do something; mainly, attempt to solve that mysterious puzzle his grandfather had given him. Sadly, he was trapped here, and the puzzle was in his room. The boy made a note to himself to ask his grandfather to consider putting a phone in the laundry room, just in case something like this happened again. Well, at least there was a clock.

Yugi checked the clock, and groaned. It was only 9:45 in the morning! 'Mom probably won't get back until 3:00 at the earliest,' he thought despairingly. 'Well, I might as well get comfortable…'He arranged himself on a nearby pile of clothes, and eyeballed the room in an effort to find something to do. He was going to be here for at least five hours. He supposed he could do the laundry, but that sounded singularly boring, and so he dismissed that idea on principle.

His careful examination of the laundry room yielded three books; two of them were manuals, one for the washer, and one for the dryer. The third's presence left the boy utterly mystified. It was a book of Shakespeare's sonnets. "What's this doing in here?" he wondered aloud. Still, it was slightly more interesting than the other two options, so he settled down on his pile of clothes, and began to read.

Reading Shakespeare's sonnets was a lot like solving a puzzle, Yugi decided, as he worked his way through the Bard's snarls of poetic language. In addition, the metaphors were so open-ended that half the time, one portion of a sonnet could have six different meanings, and the correct interpretation was anyone's guess. 'For all I know, there is no right one,' he thought to himself.

The hours crept by, and around one o'clock in the afternoon, the boy had read the book cover to cover at least twice, and each reading left him with a greater understanding of Shakespeare than before. Unbeknownst to him, his absence from school had been noticed and reported. As he filled his brain with Shakespeare's verses, he was completely unaware that his mother had been informed of his disappearance, and that the distraught woman had made a frantic phone call to Egypt and to the police. In fact, he had absolutely no idea of the tumult that his disappearance was causing all over town. He especially could not have known that his grandfather, upon hearing that his grandson was missing, had immediately dropped everything and was heading back to Japan as he read Sonnet 116 for the fifth time.

Yugi blinked as he finally looked up at the clock again. It was six o'clock in the evening! Carefully, he stood up, wincing as his muscles cried out in protest, having been stationary for so long. His stomach complained loudly, and actually throbbed with pain at having been denied food for so long. In addition, he really needed to pay a visit to the bathroom. Carefully, the boy made his way to the door, and pressed his ear against it. It was silent.

'Mom, where are you?' he thought desperately. His imagination began to run away with him. What if something had happened to her? What if she'd been in an accident? No one knew he was in here…what if she was dead? His grandfather wasn't due home for another week or so...and it wasn't like Tea knew where he was either! By the time his grandfather got back, he'd die up here, alone, and all they'd find was a rotting corpse several weeks later.

Epic Interruption (Hey look, a jump forward!)

"Eeww…" Tea grimaced. "Thank you so much for that mental image…and I think they would've found you at some point."

"I was ten!" Yugi defended himself. "I let my imagination go wild for a minute, that's all! I'd been in there all day!"

Meanwhile, Yami had turned an interesting shade of green at the last image Yugi had given him before the interruption, along with Malik, Ryou, Joey, Duke, and Tristan. Even Bakura and Marik seemed perturbed. Only Kaiba seemed unaffected, and even he could not quite hide a telltale twitch in his features that revealed that he, too, found the situation to be somewhat disturbing at this point.

Yami said, somewhat shakily, "Well, I think you'd best continue, aibou. I doubt it can get any worse at this point."

With a smile, Yugi reassured him, "It gets better, I promise."

TIME JUMP- 7 Years Ago- Around 6 in the evening

Yugi sank against the door, tears stinging his eyes. "I'm trapped," he whispered. "Someone, please…let me out…"

Someone came up the stairs, and Yugi jerked in surprise, unable to believe what he was hearing. The sound of footsteps coming closer was accompanied by feminine sobbing, and he recognized the sobs to be those of his mother. More footsteps, and he heard his grandfather's voice. "They'll find him," the older man said.

"But where could he be?" his mother sobbed.

Enough was enough. Yugi banged on the door with all his might, and yelled, "I'M IN HERE!"

Silence. Then, movement on the other side. "Hold on, Yugi," his grandpa encouraged. "I'll have you out of there in a minute."

"Hurry," Yugi whimpered. "I've been in here all day!"

In the next moment, the door opened, and Yugi scarcely had time to so much as twitch in the direction of the bathroom before his mother had gathered him into her arms, sobbing from relief. Yugi hugged her as much as he was able. "I'm fine, Mom," he said. "I just really need to go to the bathroom." His stomach, tired of being ignored, growled. Loudly…so loudly, in fact, that his mother and grandfather stared at him. Grinning sheepishly, he added, "And I'm kinda hungry…I didn't really have a chance to grab any breakfast."

BACK TO THE PRESENT

"Let me tell you, that was a fun story to tell to the cops that spent most of the day looking for me," Yugi finished. "It was crazy!"

"You, sir," Bakura said, "Are officially a magnet for weird situations. How many other people could possibly manage to get themselves locked in the laundry room for that long?"

"Not many," Yugi shrugged. "I'm just glad that it never happened again."

THE END

Yami: Don't even think about it…

Yugi: Yeah, seriously…what is it with you, Shakespeare, and locking people in laundry rooms?

Starlily11: You mean I can't even write just one more…?

Yami: No.

Starlily11: *cries pathetically*