Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters
Title: Plain Coffee
Romance: Yami no Yuugi x Rishid
Word Count: 2,177||Status: One-shot
Genre: Romance||Rated: PG-13
Notes: This takes place in an AU. I have no idea where this idea came from. I'm not trying to make all of mine AUs this time. It's just sort of...happening.
Challenge: Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge, Season 12, Round 3: Yami no Yuugi x Rishid: Namelessshipping
Summary: [one-shot, Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge Season 12, Round 3: Yami no Yuugi x Rishid/Rishid x Yami no Yuugi, Namelessshipping, au: coffee shop] Rishid just comes in for a cup of coffee while waiting for Malik and Isis. He doesn't want to talk, especially not to the red-eyed server.

He sat by himself, ignoring the presence of everyone else in the coffee shop, his attention focused on one of the three items on the table in front of him: his newspaper, his cell phone, and his cup of coffee. It was a simple cup of coffee, nothing fancy, plain and black and bitter as death. Just the way that he liked it.

He could feel them looking at him. He didn't look back. He didn't care about the murmurs, wondering at his scars. Let them wonder.

"Can I get you anything else?" The question came in a slightly bored tone and he looked up briefly into a pair of crimson bright eyes and a head of hair that put his brother's to shame for strangeness. Dyed, it had to be, because no one could possibly be born with hair like that.

He also wondered if the server wore contacts, because those eyes weren't natural either, they couldn't be.

But he'd been asked a question and he frowned for a moment, glancing down at his cup. He'd finished it, and hadn't even realized it. "Coffee. Black."

The server nodded, taking the cup and vanishing behind the counter for a few moments. Rishid returned to the newspaper, part of his attention still focused on the cell phone. It wasn't one of those fancy smartphones; it could do text messaging and limited online work and he thought it had a camera, but this phone had barely graduated high school, let alone attended college.

"Here you go, sir." Another cup of coffee set down in front of him, little trails of steam rising up from it. "You're the only person I know of who comes here just to order plain coffee."

Rishid glanced at the server, one eyebrow tilting upwards as he did. "What else would someone get at a coffee shop?"

"All of that." The server waved one hand toward the board behind the counter, where dozens and dozens of drinks were listed. Rishid frowned in that general direction.

"If I wanted any of that, I'd order it." He didn't even want to know what some of these things were. He wasn't sure of how to pronounce at least half of them. His Japanese was more than passable, but some words twisted his tongue, no matter how hard he tried.

He glanced briefly at the server, catching sight of the nametag as he did. It took him a moment or so to translate it; his spoken Japanese was much better than his written. Atemu? That wasn't a Japanese name at all. In fact…

"You're not from around here, are you?"

Rishid, just in the act of reaching for his new cup, froze and stared at the server. "What makes you say that?"

"Your accent, for one thing." Atemu, if that really was his name, told him. He had his head tilted a bit to the side as if waiting for an answer.

Rishid picked the cup up and sipped. He said nothing more. He didn't think he needed to. After a few moments, Atemu headed back to work, and Rishid refused to breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps he'd find a new place to wait for Malik and Isis.

He didn't. There weren't any other coffee shops close enough to the museum for him to wait, and he needed to wait for them every day, at least until the exhibition was finished.

"Plain black coffee, right?" Atemu spoke up as soon as Rishid entered the shop, the bell over the door tinkling to announce his presence. Rishid only nodded and headed right to his preferred seat. He didn't want to talk today and hoped the server would understand that.

He didn't.

"I didn't order this." Rishid delivered a scathing look to the slice of chocolate pie that sat beside his cup of coffee.

"On the house." Atemu replied without missing a beat. He frowned as he looked at the other, not seeming to notice the tattoos. Rishid knew that wasn't true; everyone saw them. "I wanted to say I was sorry."

"What?" Rishid really wished that he could find another place to wait. Or that Atemu would leave him be. He disliked being confused and this was confusing.

Atemu leaned on the seat opposite Rishid, looking down at him. "For the other day." He fidgeted, fingers clenching on the back of the cushioned booth. Rishid wondered if he'd ever apologized to anyone before. He didn't seem used to it.

Neither was he, for that matter. He seldom needed to. But he knew vaguely how it was done, and what the proper procedure was for accepting apologies.

"Thank you." He didn't feel inclined to eat the pie, though. But perhaps Malik would like it. He did have something of a sweet tooth.

If it hadn't been for someone else entering the shop and going over to order, Rishid wondered if Atemu might've said something more. He looked as if he were about to when the bell rang again. He wondered what it might've been.

Though the more he thought about it, the more it seemed that Atemu's own accent was just a trifle familiar as well, something he hadn't really noticed until now. He sipped his coffee, turning the thought over and over in his head, until Malik's text message arrived and the time came for him to leave.

"Why is he looking at you?" Malik asked, glancing behind them as they left the shop. Rishid shrugged.

"I don't know." He didn't. He kept to himself; he had nothing that would attract anyone's attention save his tattoos, and that wasn't the kind of attention he really wanted to indulge in. Then he held out the pie wordlessly. Malik blinked down at it. "It's pie."

"I can see that." Malik took it from him, turning it over as if expecting it to blow up or melt in his hands. "Why did you get a piece of pie?"

Rishid didn't answer right away. Apologies he could sort of handle. Gifts were something else altogether. "He gave it to me."

He didn't look at Malik. He could feel Malik's gaze burning into him, though, and kept his attention strictly ahead. Perhaps he really should put more time into finding a different coffee shop.

There still wasn't one. He came back, whether he wanted to or not. His main other option while waiting for his brother and sister was to sit in a park, one frequented by children, and he'd already seen enough parents scurry away with their offspring with wary looks at him. At least in the coffee shop he could sit in the back and people would ignore him without making it that obvious.

He didn't even have to look at Atemu anymore when he came in. The other simply brought over a steaming cup of coffee and set it in front of him without a word. Rishid didn't mind. The less attention he drew, the better.

Yet he couldn't help but wonder if that was what was really going on. Atemu didn't try to talk to him but he still looked at him every now and then, with the kind of air that said he wanted to say something but he just wasn't.

Rishid didn't know how long that might've gone on, if the events of that particular day didn't occur. Just like always, he entered the coffee shop and headed toward his booth in the back. For once, no one else was in there except for Atemu. He paid little attention to the bell as it rang moments after he'd entered, but what he heard after that brought him to a quick halt.

"Hand over the money."

Rishid turned silently, a hint of a frown on his lips as he took in the situation. Atemu stood behind the counter, already pouring Rishid's usual cup, and now also looking at the burly man in the thick overcoat who stood there, a gun in his hand pointed directly at the server.

"Excuse me?" Atemu looked more annoyed than frightened, and Rishid could not help the small twitch of his lips at that. There was a certain air of danger about the other man suddenly, one that spoke of great harm awaiting if this didn't clear up soon.

"I said, give me the money. Your money. In the till." The gun didn't waver, but from where he stood, Rishid could see Atemu's eyes hardening and his fingers tightening on the cup.

Every step he took toward the other was as silent as he could make it, thankful for the thick carpeting whoever owned this place had seen fit to put in. The gunman shot a quick glance over to him and swung the gun his way. "Stay out of this…what the hell did you do to your face?"

Rishid smiled. It was the kind of smile that sent chills down the spines of children and adults alike. "I carved it myself. A blood oath to my family."

The gunman stared at him, gun lowering just a fraction. "What the hell?"

"Hey!" He swung back as Atemu called out, and even as he did, a potful of steaming hot coffee landed in his face. Rishid moved forward at that same moment, grabbing the gunman by the wrist and wrenching the weapon away from him.

Matters ended up being a little complicated after that, with the police being called and both of them having to give statements and the coffee shop closing early in order to clean up officially and unofficially so Atemu could make Rishid a fresh pot of coffee.

"There are people who'd call you insane for what you did." Rishid pointed out as he sipped the new cup. "He could've shot you."

"I could say the same thing about you." Atemu sampled his own blend, leaning back against the booth's upholstery. "Why did you do that?"

Rishid shrugged. "It seemed like the best thing to do at the time." Just because the gunman got the money he wanted, it didn't mean he wouldn't have shot Atemu anyway, as well as Rishid himself for being a witness. And who knew what might've happened if any other customers arrived during this.

Atemu said nothing for a few more moments. When he did, it wasn't entirely what Rishid expected. "Did you mean what you said? About that?" He flicked his fingers towards Rishid's face.

Rishid brought one hand up there, touching gently. He thought of them as tattoos, but scars were what they really were, and he would never forget. "I did. It's…complicated." It wasn't something he liked bringing up, though it could be useful in certain situations.

"You're from Egypt, aren't you?" Atemu asked, in a clear attempt to change the subject.

"How did you know?"

Atemu grinned for a moment, a quick slice of an expression across his features. "My father met my mother there. I go back every couple of years to visit them."

Rishid wasn't in the habit of smacking himself, but he thought about doing it anyway. He wondered how much more the two of them could've known about each other if he'd simply talked to Atemu a little sooner.

It wasn't too late, however. Now that the barriers between them had lowered some, they had time.

"Rishid?" The voice was a little thinner than he was used to and he glanced over to see Malik on the other side of the window, looking from him to the 'closed' sign on the door. He realized only then that he hadn't checked for messages since the police took the robber away.

Rishid finished his coffee right away and stood up. "I need to go."

"Family?" Atemu looked over as well. Rishid nodded, heading for the door as he did. "I'd like to meet them."

Rishid halted just outside the door and turned back to him. "What about your family?" He'd never considered this before, but if Atemu wanted to meet his sister and brother, then it would only be fair that he meet whoever Atemu called family.

Atemu shrugged. "I think I can arrange that. Maybe this weekend?" It didn't sound like a date. It wasn't going to be a date. But Rishid could not help a small flicker of anxiety at the thought.

"I'll talk to them about it and see what they think." He wasn't going to commit them right away. Isis did work quite a lot, after all, and Malik had someone he was seeing when they weren't at the museum.

He would have to look into that when he had a chance as well. He wanted to know who had caught his brother's interest.

He stepped out into the crisp autumn air, Malik only a few steps away still.

"What happened?" Malik's gesture took in everything; the police tape still up, the sign on the door. "Are you all right?"

Rishid caught a glimpse of Atemu watching them, even as he closed and locked the door. "I'm fine. I just had a cup of coffee. Like always."

The End