Hey peeps! I'm gonna make this brief cause it's late here and I'm mad tired! (and I have class in 6 hrs!) Thank you first of all to everyone reading this and who has been reading my stories! (my thank you's for all your reviews and faves are on their way!) Also, read my profile if you want the long-winded explanation/update.

Yay! First prompt! (see end for translations!) P.S. if I owned Yu Gi Oh I wouldn't be in college!...and I am! :(

1. Language

"Sahab el-kheir."

"Ohayou gozaimasu."

Yuugi felt a vague heat rise to his face that he prayed didn't show, or at least wasn't evident to the grinning Egyptian passing him by. Working for an international firm had its perks, getting to meet handsome foreign men certainly qualified in his book anyway, but there were also some rather unfortunate downsides.

Like meeting handsome foreign men who turn your legs to jelly and not being able to have one damn conversation with them.

They could communicate...sort of. Through emphasis, gestures, and body language they'd formed a sort of language that, while rough and rustic, managed to let them greet each other or ask the other to step aside so that fax machine could be used; but that was about it.

And that really wasn't the sort of conversation he wanted to have with the veritable sex-god haunting their office.

The worst, and best, part was how close they had to be in order to 'talk' to one another. Their faces would fix on the other's to read the messages there, hands would touch arms and shoulders to 'say' something; Atemu had guided him out of the way more than once, and Atemu had a way of invading Yuugi's Japanese sense of personal space with how close he would lean in to speak Arabic words Yuugi had no hope of understanding. Not that he was complaining really.

But for the life of him he wished he could figure out if all of it was flirting or not. Was it customary for Egyptian men to be so intimate? Was it really necessary to touch each other when speaking? The wanting to assume, but not knowing, thing was quickly driving him insane. It was enough to make him want to pull out handfuls of hair in frustration.

"Afwan...habiibi," a silky smooth voice, like velvet and chocolate, was speaking quietly into Yuugi's ear. A warm hand with nimble fingers came to rest on his bicep, pushing ever so slightly so that Yuugi stepped to the side and let the man have access to the copier machine he had been blocking while in reverie.

Yuugi blushed and stepped to the right, but the hand remained on his arm, preventing him from moving much further away from the Egyptian, and he did not attempt to increase the distance. They were standing nearly hip to hip and Atemu was giving him that warm, lazy smile he'd seen so many times before with half-lidded eyes.

"Shukran, habiibi," something was flickering in Atemu's red-violet eyes.

'Shukran'...Yuugi knew that word by now, 'thank you', but the other...hadn't he just used it a moment ago too?

"Dou itashi mashite Atemu-san." Yuugi knew Atemu understood him; this much, and frustratingly not much more, they could verbally communicate.

"-san, Yuugi," Atemu said it with shake of his head between something like 'no' and simply laughing at Yuugi's formalities.

"Atemu-kun," he corrected with what might have been the faintest dusting of pink on his cheeks. He wasn't sure if Atemu had heard the honorific before, but he hoped he'd understand the intent at least.

Atemu must have had at least some idea because his face split into a small grin of thanks.

"Habiibi." There was that word again. Yuugi frowned bemusedly, Atemu chuckled lightly at his confusion.

Yuugi was in the midst of trying to determine a way to figure out, or question Atemu, as to the word's meaning when an impertinent beeping noise interrupted them. The copier machine had finished its duties and was signaling such with impatience. Yuugi frowned at the machine; when had Atemu even started the task? Had he been so wrapped up in gazing at the other man he hadn't even noticed? Oh, he was a goner for sure.

Atemu's hand dropped away and Yuugi forced himself not to whine at the loss of contact.

"Salam, habiibi," The departing word was bright and silky. Yuugi had to wonder if Atemu's seductive voice was a learned trait or an inherent one.

"Oh, uh, mata atode aimashou."

Atemu sent his flustered co-worker one last grin before disappearing from the small room. Yuugi sighed and, forgetting why on earth he had come here in the first place, left the room to return to his desk cubicle. A lone memo laid in his wake, utterly out of its former owner's mind.

He plopped back in his seat and idly turned in half-circles on the rotating chair before stopping and, determinedly, pulling open a desk drawer to pull out a new book, which was promptly slapped onto the surface of the desk.

It was an Arabic-Japanese dictionary he had bought five weeks ago, one week and two days after Atemu had first arrived in their office. So far it had been hardly useful. He heard the words of greeting and simple things like 'thanks' and 'excuse me' often enough that they could be figured out without the help of the dictionary, and anything more complicated failed to stick in his mind long enough for him to look it up. Such attempts to do so had ended up with him staring at the pages of the dictionary trying to figure out if Atemu had said 'bank', 'home', 'girl', 'police', 'pink', or 'stop'...or something else entirely.

'Habiibi'. That word though, that word was sticking in his brain quite nicely. Maybe because Atemu had repeated it so many times just now...or maybe it was something in the way he said it.

Yuugi flipped to the appropriate section and scanned down the columns to find the right word. With a smile of triumph he finally located it and read the definition. Then he reread it. Then his ran his finger down the page three times to make sure he had gotten the right line.

He blushed as he read the word's definition over and over.

Habiibi- (n.) def.: koibito

Translations: Sahab el-kheir/Ohayou gozaimasu: good morning/good day (same more or less) first one's in Arabic, second's in Japanese

Afwan: "Excuse me" (note: can also be used as 'thank you')

Shukran: "Thanks"

Dou itashi mashite: "You're welcome"

Salam: word of departure, like 'bye', 'see you later' etc (pretty sure it's more like a 'see you later')

Mata atode aimashou: 'See you later'

Koibito: beloved (term of endearment used to refer to a sweetheart, assumes a very close relationship...Atemus's totally overstepping some bounds :P)

Also, I totally got these offline so I apologize if I butchered the Arabic or Japanese language