Emergency Provisions

While on a tedious road trip down the Dice Town Intercity Highway, Yugi stops at a convenience store for a well-deserved snack run. He might have wanted to figure out the name of the place before he went in, though. The open road is full of unexplained mysteries.

Although Yugi isn't normally one to harbor hard feelings of any kind, today has rubbed him in all the wrong ways. He's tired, he's bored, and, most of all, his unwillingness to be here surpasses that of a duelist facing Mai Valentine in the first match of a tournament. If it hadn't been his own grandfather who gave him this monumental task, Yugi would have refused outright. He would rather go to Burger World on their notorious Taco Tuesday. He would rather watch helplessly while Seto Kaiba burned all of his cards in the flames of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's white lightning attack. He would rather play a Shadow Duel while chained to an anchor that's set to fall into a fiery pit full of chainsaws.

"Energy discs," Pharaoh Atem mutters from his place at the passenger seat. Yugi glares at his companion, who shrugs and motions to the windshield with his chin. "Eyes on the road, Yugi."

Yugi obliges after briefly considering whether or not he should very purposefully keep his eyes off the road so that they'll get into an accident. Fortunately, any strife he may feel for their current predicament is outweighed by his will to live.

"It's not that bad," the pharaoh says, his eyes slipping closed as he leans his head back. "You're being a little dramatic, don't you think?"

"Pharaoh, you don't understand. This is going to take forever! And all because Grandpa wants to 'Test my skills.' Is that really necessary?"

"He said he did it when he was young," the pharaoh offers. He stifles a yawn. "Didn't he break the record for the fastest commute to Dice Town?"

"Or so he says," Yugi grumbles. "I don't care if he broke the record for the fastest duel. This is the most boring thing I've had to do in my life. It's even more boring than playing Duel Monsters without any tech."

The pharaoh suddenly peaks an eye open and uncrosses his arms, looking more awake than he has the entire car ride. "That is not true, and you know it."

"Fine," Yugi says, knowing to take back what he said before the pharaoh's will for him to live dies away. How his other half can manage to look intimidating even while slumped down with the seatbelt practically across his chin, Yugi will never know. "But still. This is terrible."

The pharaoh seems satisfied with this and goes back to his semi-dozing state, and Yugi sighs. According to his Grandpa, a drive down the Dice Town Intercity Highway is the best way for new drivers to test their skills, and to prove they're ready to face the cruel world of driving. As for Yugi, he doesn't want to have anything to do with this gods-awful highway. It's known across both Domino City and Dice Town for being the most boring drive this side of the Kaiba Dome, but Yugi's grandfather would have none of his complaints.

According to the old man, driving this road is how he proved to his father that he was ready to take on the world of driving. Yugi's mother also tackled the highway to prove to Grandpa that she was a savvy driver. Now it's Yugi's turn to partake in what is apparently a family tradition, and he couldn't be more upset.

"Just think of it as an adventure," the pharaoh says. Yugi casts a sideways glance at him. He's practically asleep now, an arm tossed haphazardly over his lap and the other lying limp against the seat. He never could stay awake for long car rides.

"Yeah, easy for you to say," Yugi mutters. There's no answer. "Great. Now I'm all alone on the open highway. How wonderful."

Yugi doesn't wake the pharaoh. As much as he desires any kind of distraction from the horrible monotony that is this drive, he knows that the pharaoh would only fall back asleep again. So much for having a companion to keep him focused on the task of driving.

"I'll get back at Grandpa for this somehow," Yugi thinks to himself. "Maybe I'll get him a horrible souvenir from the Dice Town Emporium." Some knickknack from the famous mall is the only way his grandfather will believe that he actually drove all the way there and didn't just take the pharaoh out for a nice stroll through the arcade. "Maybe I'll get him a windshield wiper."

Yugi takes great pleasure in the thought of presenting his grandfather with the gaudiest dice-themed windshield wiper he can find. It helps him get through the next half an hour or so without feeling the need to throttle the nearest person in sight, which would be the pharaoh if push came to shove.

After half an hour, however, he goes back into his funk with nothing but the endless road ahead to keep him company. To his left sits absolutely nothing, an expanse of deserted farmland that extends as far as the eye can see. To his right lies a thin stretch of woodland whose thin, unkempt trees look like they've seen better days.

"If only there were something to do," Yugi says aloud. This would be infinitely better if he had the radio to listen to. Grandpa was supposed to get it fixed before Yugi's drive, but game shop responsibilities come before getting the radio fixed so that your grandson doesn't go postal, apparently.

"Hey, Yugi," the pharaoh calls from beside him.

"What?" Yugi replies more meanly than he meant to, but he doesn't apologize.

"What's that over there?"

Yugi turns to follow the pharaoh's gaze and notices a building that looks more out of place than Joey at a cleanliness convention. It somehow manages to be both quaint and absolutely extravagant all at the same time, wooden paneling balanced off by gaudy display signs in the window. The construction bears a striking resemblance to a casino whose owners decided to turn it into a grocery store at the last minute, which doesn't seem too far off when Yugi realizes what it is.

"It looks like a convenience store," Yugi says, hope suddenly welling in his chest. He had almost forgotten what it felt like. "We should stop and get something."

"You can do that," the pharaoh says with closed eyes. "I'll stay here."

"Sure," Yugi replies, far too eager to be out of the car and interacting with human beings to chide the pharaoh for his laziness. He merges into the leftmost lane to turn into the empty lot beside the store, an illegal move that he could have avoided but for his desire to spite his grandfather.

"I can get you that energy drink you like so much," Yugi says. "I'll be back."

The pharaoh gives some sort of inaudible reply before Yugi jets out of the car. He bursts through the doors to the tiny shop with what he assumes is far more enthusiasm than any customer before him has ever exhibited, though the insides don't warrant much excitement. It's no different from any other convenience store he's ever been in, but after the long, torturous ride down the highway, it looks like a gift from the gods. It has everything a run-of-the-mill convenience store has to offer, with snacks and car supplies scattered around at random. He spies cigarettes and booze in a glass case behind the register, and surprisingly that's where they keep the Duel Monsters merchandise.

"I guess Duel Monsters cards have been known to cause lethal harm to people," Yugi chuckles to himself, although he's experienced firsthand how true this can be. "Maybe I'll actually buy some." His mind begins to race with the fanciful stories he'll be able to tell if he actually finds a rare card at this gods-forsaken convenience store. It'll be great.

"Can I help you find anything?" A disembodied voice floats from behind the stack of dueling magazines piled high on the counter.

"No thanks," Yugi says quickly. For some reason, the clerk's deep, oddly scratchy voice disturbs him. "I'm fine."

He scrambles over to the freezer along the back wall before the cashier can say anything more, and the wide variety of drinks and other freezer goods surprises him. They even have the rare and elusive Duelist Soul soft drink, which Yugi snatches up greedily.

"I'd come here all the time if it weren't in the middle of nowhere," Yugi thinks as he grabs a Duel Monster for the pharaoh and heads to the front of the store. He's not looking forward to interacting with that creepy cashier again, but it surprises him to find the cash register completely unmanned.

"Hello?" he calls. He leans forward as much as he can without making any potential clerk think he's trying to rob the place, but he doesn't see anyone. "Are you there?"

So much time passes with no answer that Yugi wonders if that voice before was his imagination. He's about to go back to the car and ask Atem if he thinks this calls for psychiatric treatment when the clerk finally calls, "Just leave the money on the counter and get out."

Yugi narrows his eyes. Something suddenly clicks in his mind, and the voice is so familiar and full of unabashed determination and passion that he wonders how he could have possibly mistaken it for anyone else. "Kaiba?"

There's a long stretch of silence again until the unmistakable CEO of KaibaCorp comes striding out from behind the stack of dueling magazines he was hiding behind. Yugi's jaw drops. If Joey were here, he would laugh at the blue and white convenience store uniform.

Yugi and Kaiba stare at each other wordlessly for what has to be at least a minute, the most awkward silence that Yugi has ever had to endure in his life. He's fairly certain that Kaiba is considering jumping off the top of KaibaCorp after this.

Finally, Yugi musters up the courage to say, "Kaiba, what in the world are you doing at a convenience store in the middle of nowhere?"

Kaiba's mouth twitches like he's a serial killer, and Yugi backs up a fraction of an inch. "Do you even know the name of this place?" he asks, his voice no longer the annoying caricature of Gozaburo that it was a few moments ago.

"Uh…I guess not," Yugi says. His eyes zero in on the logo adorning Kaiba's shirt, and his head cocks to the side. "KaibaConvenience? What?"

"KaibaCorp owns this chain," Kaiba says. He sounds less disturbed than he did before. "Here. Take a pamphlet. It'll explain everything."

Yugi reaches out uneasy hands to accept the blue and white pamphlet. "Wait. KaibaCorp has its own convenience store? Why have I never heard of it?"

"Dice Town was the test market," Kaiba explains. He comes around to the front of the counter to point at a map next to the store's mission statement, and it takes all of Yugi's willpower not to stare at his long, khaki work pants. "You'll start seeing some in Domino City as time…"

It suddenly gets very hard for Yugi to concentrate on Kaiba's words. He blinks hard and Kaiba glares at him. "Do I bore you, Yugi?"

"No," Yugi says, and his own voice sounds far away. "There was something in my eye. You were saying?"

Kaiba crosses his arms but continues nonetheless. "You might be wondering why KaibaCorp decided to invest in a convenience store. It's a funny story, actually." Just as Yugi is marveling at the fact that Kaiba knows something funny when he sees it, his vision goes so blurry that he groans and smooths a hand over his eyes. He's vaguely aware of the pamphlet falling to the floor, and he tries and fails to utter anything intelligible.

"Yugi?"

Yugi…

Yugi opens his eyes to see the forest rushing by outside his window, and he lets out a grunt as he sits up from slouching against the car door. His neck is killing him.

"Yugi," a voice comes from beside him, and he turns to find Pharaoh Atem at the wheel. The pharaoh turns briefly to look him over before training his eyes back on the road. "Do you feel all right?"

"Yeah," Yugi mutters. He sits the rest of the way up and rubs his hands over his face. "What happened?"

"You must have fallen asleep at the gas station," the pharaoh says, his voice betraying something close to worry. "I woke up and found you sleeping at the wheel."

"Oh." Yugi doesn't know what to think of that. He decides not to mention the fact that he doesn't remember stopping at a gas station. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Something about the pharaoh saying this always has the intended effect of calming Yugi's worries. "I'm sure this is why Grandpa had me come with you in the first place. I can drive the rest of the way."

Something suddenly occurs to Yugi. "Hey, wait a minute. Gramps didn't make you drive all the way out to Dice Town when he taught you how to drive!"

"Oh. Well, I…Um…" The pharaoh pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts. "I guess he expected us to do it together."

"Sure," Yugi says. It probably has more to do with grandpa's idolization of the nameless pharaoh than anything else, but Yugi doesn't say it. Instead, he says, "You know, I had the weirdest dream just now."

"Don't you think that's a little extreme, Seto?" Mokuba asks over a piping hot bowl of Roland's famous rosemary soup.

His brother doesn't look at all worried or ashamed. "I can't have anyone knowing that I work Saturdays at KaibaConvenience, not even Yugi."

"Nonsense, Master Kaiba," Roland calls from his post at the kitchen. Kaiba really needs to get around to putting up some kind of barrier between the kitchen hallway and the dining room. "If people found out that you work those shifts, they would think you're an even harder worker than they already do."

"A convenience store, Roland," Kaiba says through almost gritted teeth. "Do you know what the tabloids would do with that?"

Mokuba sighs at his older brother's paranoia. "I still think you went a little overboard. I mean, come on. Relocating them to Duel and Pump? That could be a major lawsuit if they figure it out. You're lucky they didn't wake up. And if you ask me, it was a waste of that favor Siegfried owed us."

"They'll never know what happened," Kaiba says, ignoring the comment about Siegfried. "They won't find any evidence that they were ever at KaibaConvenience." With that, he takes a sip of his soup, hiding the fact that he secretly cherishes it as the best in Roland's repertoire. There's a reason that man is his head chef. "Besides, if Yugi hadn't come in today, I never would have gotten to test out those pamphlets we developed. They'll reduce the success rate of convenience store robberies the world over."

"Wow. Congratulations, Seto. You drugged Yugi to test out your new technology."

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

That doesn't come anywhere close to justifying his brother's actions, but Mokuba shrugs his shoulders, resigns himself to the fact that his brother is always going to have a slightly deranged side, and goes back to scarfing down his soup.

Yugi grins at the shiny, cushy dice hanging off the windshield wiper in the pharaoh's hands.

"Grandpa will think twice about sending us all the way out here after he gets a look at this," he says. The pharaoh doesn't look convinced as Yugi fishes in his pocket for his wallet. "You wouldn't understand. They didn't have windshields in ancient Egypt."

"There's a funny story about that," the pharaoh says, attempting to sound mysterious, though it's hard to take him seriously while he's holding the windshield wiper. "We actually–" Yugi's face falls and the pharaoh's eyes narrow. "What's wrong? Did you forget your wallet?"

"No. It's nothing," Yugi says quickly. He stuffs the colorful pamphlet that reads "KaibaConvenience" back into his pocket. "Absolutely nothing."

Author's Note: My main reason for wanting to write this was the KaibaConvenience pun. I had been thinking about it for a while and suddenly decided to write whatever about it. I'm glad I kept the crazier parts that came out! You gotta love Atem randomly having his own body. As if that's the craziest thing in this story:P