Star Crossed Lovers

Chapter 8 Avoiding and Shock

Sunset had to be Atem's favorite time of day in the Valley of the Kings, for around this time the torches throughout the palace were lit to bring a little light to the coming nighttime darkness. The sky filled with a wide variety of colors that fit well with the Egyptian landscape. It also allowed the young prince, with the accompaniment of his loyal guard Mahad, to take an evening stroll around his favorite spot in all of Egypt, the royal garden. When he was a child, before his mother died of sickness this too was her favorite spot. She would bring him there from the time his was born till she could no longer and walk the grounds with him. Then, when he was too tired to go any further, she would pick him up and continue to walk until he fell asleep. He could always remember how at peace and serene his mother was as her violet eyes took in the beauty of the garden.

It was always filled with the rarest flowers and plants from around the surrounding territories. At the end was a small lake that led out into the Nile and was filled with lotuses and water lilies. Every morning his mother's handmaidens would water every plant and flower and would re-water them throughout the day. It was his mother's pride and joy and his father made sure it was preserved after her early departure.

The feeling of tranquility was no different tonight as Atem entered the lovely garden. At sunset it truly was a breathtaking sight. Mahad followed beside him as they made nonsense conversation about nothing in particular. Hours went by as sunset turned to full night and the stars came out to twinkle in the sky. The illumination of the torches brought a glow to the garden. Atem walked into the stream that led to the Nile and sat on the marble steps with only his feet in the water and picked up a white lotus flower. Of all the plants and flowers in the garden, this one was his mother's favorite. A fond smile was brought to his lips at her memory before he set the flower back into the water and began to walk away.

A far off noise halted his footsteps. It almost sounded like a far off scream, but he couldn't place from which direction the noise came. He turned back towards the pond and walked towards it. As the seconds crept by the noise got louder and louder until Atem was certain it was a scream but now was even more confused because it sounded like it was coming from above him. Not hearing Mahad's command to get out of the way, Atem looked up just in time for something to fall on top of him.

The impact knocked the wind out of the young prince as he, and whatever fell on him, collapsed in the shallow part of the pond. He lifted himself up onto his elbows and stared down at the mop of wet black hair that was draped over his midsection. It was clear now that the person screaming is the person now on top of him and, judging by the pitch of the scream, he would gather this bundle of wet black hair belonged to a woman which brought concern to his features. Her breathing assured him that she was not dead, but that didn't mean that she wasn't injured. Gently shaking the woman, Atem attempted to get some type of reaction out of her. The commotion of their impact brought other servants to the garden to make sure the prince was ok. Hearing her moans of pain told him she was awake and he let out a relieved breath when she started to lift herself up. All air seemed to leave his lungs when her eyes finally met his. With their faces only inches apart, Atem gazed into her dizzy, confused filled eyes that held the most beautiful shade of blue he had ever seen. She opened her mouth to speak and it seemed music was flowing from her mouth but he couldn't understand a word she was saying. After a few seconds of staring between the two, the young beauty's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she passed out on his chest, unwillingly leaving the fate of her person in Atem's hands.

There is a certain gift that every woman is bestowed upon at birth. Well, rather, both men and women have it however it is stronger in female species and males seem to typically do the exact opposite of what this power says. This power is, at times, so strong, it has been given its own name: a women's intuition. That gut feeling that every woman has that tells them when something is off. Very rarely is this marvel off on its predictions and is always to be taken seriously. And right now it's telling Kagome that a certain borderline midget…is avoiding her.

Sense school started a month ago, Yugi and Kagome have been pretty much joined at the hip in every class they had. Never had she felt any tension from Yugi, with the exception of the occasional blush on his part whenever she was too close. Their similar views and like interests made it easy for them to be open with each other; so much so that it has earned her the often evil eye from Tea when Yugi and the others weren't looking. Shizumi noticed this, causing tension with Tea; however she never acted on it at Kagome's behest, but made it clear with an evil eye of her own to never do it while she was around. In the back of her mind Kagome knew that she was being kind of selfish. She got the feeling early on that Yugi was interested in her, but she only felt for him in a platonic way. Because of this, she only acted in a platonic way towards him; trying not to be overly flirty, or hold onto him to0 much, or to stare for too long, which was hardest for her due to his resemblance to "him." To do anything more would be cruel and unfair and would make her no different than Inu Yasha.

Everything seemed to be ok. This past weekend was where everything got fishy. She had called and talked to him early afternoon Saturday. They talked like normal and all seemed well, until his grandfather came in and urged him to get off the phone. He told her he would call her back and got off. When she didn't get a call back later that evening she got worried and decided to call him herself. His mother answered but said he was busy and couldn't talk. It was obvious that she was trying to get Kagome off the phone as quickly as possible; answering with short sentencing, divulging nothing. He didn't return her phone calls all weekend which quickly got her irritated. When Monday came along she was determined to give him a piece of her mind to make it clear how upset she was but, when he saw her, he bolted before she could even get within shouting distance.

All of Monday it was the same thing; if they were in the classroom, he would avoid eye contact and his conversations with her would be short and when the bell rang he was the first one out the door without a word. Thankfully she wasn't the only one who noticed. Joey and Tristan were giving her looks of confusion and inquiry while grilling Yugi about his silence. He refused to talk about it, which only pissed her off more. To top it all off, Tea was giving her a smug smirk, like she had won a game Kagome didn't even know they were playing. The behavior continued throughout the day in every class they had together. By lunch time Kagome stopped being angry and was close to tears. She had no idea what she had done to her closest new friend to make him act this way. She didn't want to cause a scene so at lunch she sat with Mitsuyo and Shizumi instead of the three of them joining Yugi and the others. At this point she just wanted this day to be over, but it seems luck wasn't on her side.

She made eye contact with Yugi briefly during lunch. They stared for a few moments, Yugi's look of guilt was apparent after seeing Kagome's heartbroken look of betrayal. Seconds later it ended when he reluctantly looked away, making her even more sad. Unfortunately those few seconds were enough for onlooker Joey to get mad.

He stood up in a rage, turning his anger on his unsuspecting friend.

"OK WHAT THE HELL YUG?! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOU TODAY THAT YA GOT THE NERVE TO TREAT KAGOME THIS WAY, HUH?!"

That Joey was never one for subtlety…

Yugi looked down right horrified at his friend's sudden outburst.

"UU-Um…I-I don't k-know what you m-mean Joey…," he stammered, looking around at everyone whose attention was focused solely on him. He looked at Kagome briefly again and saw that she was just as shocked as he at their friend's sudden outburst, telling him she had no part in Joey's rage. Oh yeah for him. He shrieked when Joey slammed his hands down and got a little too close to his face, a hard glare pressed on his features.

"Don't give me that crap! Ya know exactly what I mean! You two are usually joined at the hip, but you've avoided her all weekend and can't even look her in the eye for more than a second let alone talk to her. What the hell did she do to you?!"

Kagome, Shizumi, and Mitsuyo all looked on in shock as the scene played out before them. If Kagome wasn't so hurt, she would have the look of pity at poor Yugi's face. He was red to the roots. She knew how much he hated being the center of attention, especially in situations like these.

"She hasn't done anything wrong, I just…." Yugi mumbled lowering his head, his voice getting quieter and quieter. Not even Joey could hear the end of his sentence, which only fueled his Brooklyn Rage*.

"What's that?! I can't hear ya when you're talking to yourself!"

"Joey, leave him alone! Maybe he just doesn't wanna hang with her anymore! There's nothing wrong with that," Tea said getting up and attempting to get in Joey's face.

"Maybe bitch needs to shut up…," Shizumi mumbled with a sneer, earning a snort from Mitsuyo and a shocked gasp from Kagome.

Joey looked at Tea like she sprouted a new head before dismissing her altogether and turning back on Yugi.

"Well Yug?!"

Yugi looked like he was about to burst.

"Yug?!"

Tick tock. Tick Tock.

"YUG?!"

BOOM!

"I'M JUST NOT GOOD AT KEEPING SECRETS OKAY!? I HAVE TO KEEP A SECRET AND IF I'M AROUND HER LONG ENOUGH I WON'T BE ABLE TO DO IT! HAPPY NOWWWWWW!?" Yugi yelled, getting up from his chair, red from embarrassment and anger to attempt to get in the face of his much taller friend.

The lunch room filled with an awkward silence at Yugi's sudden outburst. Who knew the little guy had such a set of lungs on him? Everyone waited for one of them to speak.

"What secret?" Joey inquired, having almost instantly calmed down to an innocent curiosity.

Ah Joseph; When common sense was handed down, the poor guy must have skipped that line altogether to load up on extra height and hormones. Most did the classic anime drop at his foolish question, while others simply gave him a look of 'Really?'.

Yugi wore one of those looks.

"Joey if I told you the secret then it wouldn't be a secret anymore. The whole point is to not tell anyone. Besides, you're even worse than I am about keeping secrets!"

Joey looked offended for a second, then stopped and thought about it before shaking his head in agreement with his friend.

"Ya that's true."

Joey then turned his attention to Kagome.

"Well at least now you know you didn't do anything wrong?"

Every eye turned to her making a nice scarlet color grace her cheeks.

"I never thought I did do anything wrong." All the eyes on her were unnerving to Kagome to say the least.

Eyes back to Joey like a tennis tournament.

"Ok."

To Kagome.

"Ok."

To Joey.

"QUIT STARING YA WEIRDOS! MIND YA BUSINESS!"

And match.

Everyone turned back to their lunches a little disappointed that the spectacle ended so quickly. Kagome glanced back over to Yugi who had sat back down but didn't touch his lunch and just stared into his lap. He stayed like that for a few more seconds before getting up and abandoning his lunch altogether and left the cafeteria. Kagome quickly followed in pursuit of her friend. Despite the fact she was still mad at him, that didn't mean she liked seeing him this upset. She could hear Tea getting up and chastising Joey for going too far and attempting to follow after Yugi but stopped when she and Kagome made eye contact. One look told Tea a very simple explanation.

'Don't Follow.'

In a rare sign of defeat, Tea sat back down and allowed Kagome to go after their friend.

Going down the school hallways, Kagome eventually caught Yugi staring out into the schoolyard from one of the upper story windows, looking at nothing in particular. Sneaking up behind him Kagome made her presence known.

"Hey."

She fought back a chuckle as Yugi jumped nearly three feet in the air before turning to look at her while breathing heavily. It was clear she took him by surprise. She saw that he was attempting to run and quickly put a stop to it.

"Don't. Even. Think. About. It," she said; emphasizing every word with a deadpan expression.

Yugi stopped his attempted escape and look at her like a child who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Joey's outburst in the cafeteria had pretty much extinguished all of Kagome's anger. There was only one was to handle it and they were both adults.

"Okay Yugi what's going on? Why have you been avoiding me like the plague? And what's this big secret all about?"

Yugi looked torn. He wanted so badly to tell her. To spill the beans and explain everything that happened this weekend. He hated that he couldn't talk to her like he usually does. It was true; over the past month, Yugi had developed a good size crush on his beautiful new companion. It was hard not to. However, after this last weekend, he knew nothing would ever happen between them, not like how he wanted to anyway, and he was surprisingly ok with that. She was going to find out soon and he wanted everything to be perfect for when it happened. Unfortunately he knew she wouldn't stop until she knew the whole truth…but he wasn't going to tell her. He'd keep his promise, but he'll have to push everything up till after school today. This means he'll have to make a phone call. This also means he has to deal with a growing impatient Kagome in front of him. A deep breath helped him calm his nerves.

"Look, I can't tell you what the secret is. I made a promise-," he noticed Kagome about to cut him off.

"—BUT, I will show you…after school. Come home with me and everything will be made clear. I can even guarantee you won't even remember being mad at me," he finished, a secretive grin made its way to his face as Kagome gave him the eye of skepticism.

As much as she wanted to find the truth out now…Yugi smug expression really peeked her curiosity. Something so big she wouldn't even remember being mad?

"Very well Yugi I'll play your game…but this better not be a trick AND you better not ditch me either got it?!"

Yugi shook his head enthusiastically. He ran off to call his grandpa and speed up their plans. He really couldn't wait.

Kagome looked after the little energizer bunny as he ran off with a mixture of confusion, amusement, and annoyance. All she knew is that this had better be worth it. For all the grief he put her through today, he better have the best surprise ever at that little game shop. Another feeling was starting to build up inside her, but the sound of the bell jolted her out of her trance before she could place it. With one last glance down the hallway Yugi went down, she made her way off to Physics.

Kagome waited outside the school gate for Yugi after school. She passed over what he had said with Shizumi and Mitsuyo before going to meet with them. She had doubts about meeting up with Yugi. She had spent all day trying to find the reason why he was acting so secretive and now that she was about to find out…she was almost afraid to. Throughout Physics and Music, the feeling in her stomach started building and building more and more and now Kagome had full blown butterflies fluttering like the first of spring in her stomach. For reasons she couldn't explain, she was truly anxious for what Yugi was about to show her.

Shizumi and Mitsuyo urged her to go, stating the obvious that she knows she'll regret it if she doesn't. Just as her nerves were starting to be quieted, she noticed a secret look between Mitsuyo and Shizumi. The same look that Yugi had earlier when she talked to him and suddenly they were back full force. They walked her to the school gate and remained relatively quiet the entire time and wished her good luck before leaving.

Just as Kagome was about to give up and go home, Yugi appeared looking just as anxious as she except his was more of an excited anxious than nervous anxiousness. She was shocked that he was alone. She could see him getting rid of Joey, Tristan, and Bakura. But he managed to convince Tea not to follow him home. Somehow this only increased the butterflies in her stomach.

The normally short journey to his grandpa's game shop seemed to take years, as both were quiet for different reasons. Eventually they made it, but Kagome stopped just outside and stared at the building. For a spilt second she thought she saw someone at the window staring, but the lack of light coming out of the room and the immediate closing of the blinds made it impossible to tell who it was. She looked down when Yugi started tugging at her sleeve. He gave her a look of assurance. Instead of going into the shop itself, they went into the home part of the shop. After entering the home, something in the atmosphere changed. A wave of familiarity washed over Kagome.

She knew this feeling.

She knew the one person who gave her this feeling.

Time seemed to slow down as she set her backpack down on her floor and made her way into the house, completely forgetting Yugi, to find the source of this aura.

A sliding door stood between her and the family room part of the house, where the pull was the strongest. Kagome put her hand on the side of the door, hesitating at simply sliding it across. Her nerves shook her whole body and she felt herself trembling. She knew if she didn't open this door now her nerves were going to knock her out and this whole trip will have been for nothing.

Closing her eyes and holding her breath, she slide the door open with such force that it shook the wall. Silence met her but she could feel multiple eyes staring at her but really felt one in particular willing and waiting for her to open he own.

Overcoming her fears Kagome slowly opened her eyes. When her eyes came into to focus on the figure turning towards her, they opened to a widened shock.

All the nervousness, all the anxiety was gone. She now felt like she couldn't breathe; that she was in a dream she never wanted to be woken up from.

She stared in complete disbelief at the man in front of her as he gazed back with warm, if not slightly amused red-violet eyes, as well as another emotion she knew she knew but couldn't place at the moment.

It was 'HIM!'

He had to be a dream; a figment of her imagination. This couldn't be real…SHE WASN'T THAT LUCKY!

Taking hesitant steps forward, she walked towards him; his eyes boring into hers almost like he was trying to reassure her fears without saying a word.

All of time seemed to stop when she stood in front of him. She knew there were other people in the room but none of them mattered. Only him. He was so close she could feel his body heat. She could even hear his heavy breathing. He felt and looked so very real.

She stared at her shaky hands as she reached up to touch his face; stopping for a brief moment fearing that if she touched him he would disappear and she didn't know if her heart could take it. Finally, her hands cupped his face. She could feel the warmth of his cheeks and the soft touch of his skin against hers.

"My sun, moon, and stars," his silky voice whispered huskily causing her to look up at him as he slightly moved his head to kiss one of her palms; his hands coming up to rest on her hips, though she barely felt the gesture. That sentence, that familiar nickname; few knew that nickname so the fact that he knew it, and used it so familiarly, brought a revelation crashing down upon her.

HE WAS REAL!

HE WAS ACTUALLY HERE!

SHE WASN'T INSANE!

A slew of emotions hit her all at once as tears filled her eyes and began pouring down her cheeks uncontrollably. The action caused him to look at her in shocked worry; wondering if he had done something wrong. She looked up at him and smiled the first real smile of sheer happiness she had felt in a long time, making him blush slightly and his eyes widen.

"My Pharaoh, My King," she said his nickname so quietly, even she wasn't sure if she had said it at all.

He must have heard her say his nickname caused his eyes darkened while his hands circled her waist and brought her closer to him; her own hands going behind his head. He angled his face and she knew he was going to kiss her. Kiss her in the way that always took her breath away.

Before their lips could touch, Kagome felt it. Her body giving out from the emotional strain of earlier and she could feel her vision going black. The last thing she saw was his sudden look of worry and confusion as she blacked out in his arms. Voices of worry could be heard until they deemed to nothingness. But she didn't worry, because she knew that when she woke, he would be by her side like he always was.

Her pharaoh, her king.

AAAAHHHH! This chapter took me forever. I had to make sure that it was just right for you all and I am quite proud of the results. I would apologize for the lateness but you know the saying, "Good things come to those who wait." Lol. He's back they've met and next chapter will focus on the first true conversation between the two. Kagome will also be made aware of his memory situation, which will be oh so fun with her lol. I debated on whether or not she should say his name or his nickname but ultimately decided on his nickname finding it more fitting. Another thing, the beginning, in case it wasn't totally obvious, was a flashback detailing how Kagome and Atem first met. I will have at least one flashback per chapter detailing their time together and how their love came to be. Also, I will be reuploading revised previous chapters, fixing grammatical errors and such so feel free to take a look. Nothing real big will be changed or else I'll let you know.

Oh also someone asked who Aibou was from the last chapter. In most Yu-Gi-Oh stuff I've read and doujinshi's I've read, Aibou means partner which means Yugi. Also, I say also a lot lol, yes it was Marik that helped him last chapter in case some of you didn't get that for whatever reason.

Ok so FYI two things: one, the next chapter will be from the perspective of Atem going from the end of the last chapter till the end of this one so as to tie up loose ends that people might inquire about.

Two: I'm pulling a typical writer thing and brainstorming a few different stories at a time. I've noticed that there are zero Inuyasha/Tekken crossovers so I want to create one of those with Jin/Kagome. Other stories I'm thinking about are with Bankotsu/Kagome that will be a little bit different than others so hopefully that will peak your interest and will also introduce an OC of mine, as well as one with Kagome and another OC of mine. All three will be rated M for mature because I am an adult and my mind has been in a naughty phase lately so I have to express it lol. Finally there's a story that I'm just treading water with that will be completely OC, no Inu Yasha or anime relation. However I would like your guys' feedback on which Kagome story you want me to publish the first chapter of…first lol. You guys have been so great and your feedback is much appreciated. I don't believe that the Atem chapter should take me very long so if it's not posted by the weekend….BUG THE HELL OUT OF ME! Please! I can be very lazy if not properly motivated lol.