To Angiembabe: Thanks for your support. Comments and reviews mean so much to write. I, for one, try to address every comment, and fix any error brought to my attention. According to the Yugioh wiki, Atem was born in either 1000BC or 3000BC. 1000 was during the reign of Amenemope in the 21st Dynasty. The 18th Dynasty is 1549 to 1292, the time of Tutankhamum, Hatshepsut, and Nefertiti. The year 3000 was before the 1st Dynasty and there were no pharaoh's yet. With these historic facts in mind, I looked at where the Yugioh story could fit if I treated it as fact not fiction. The nice thing about the earliest periods is that much less is known and there are hundreds of years will no named ruler. It's easy to slip in a few fictional guys and keep history intact. Because the later periods have very well documented Kings, Queens, and conquerers, and because I don't see Atem as a retelling of Tutankhamum, I took some liberty with the date, and set Atem's birth some time between 2686 and 2613, 3rd Dynasty. I'm off by about 400 years, but who's counting? I know this is only mentioned once in the last chapter, but since you brought it up, I wanted to answer it in case anyone else had the same question. Again thank you for the comment. They are always welcome! SJ

Chapter 14, Piece 16 * * * * * * * *

"Just go talk to him!" Otogi pushed Honda toward the door. "Maybe he just needs some encouragement!"

"Call Jou, then. He's good at that." Honda stopped in the hallway and held both of his lover's hands. "Ryuji, I can't do this. I'm not an editor, I'm not encouraging. I'm just going to make it worse."

"How can it be worse? Please, tell me! We have four days to get 80 pages to the printer or we forfeit our deposit. Our primary artist is stuck at an airport in visa hell, our publisher is begging his grandfather for money - again - because our backer dropped out, and I just got a call that our biggest outlet wants to cut their order in half. So how will you make this worse?"

Honda grimaced. Things did sound pretty bad.

"Hiroto, please. I'm not asking you to write it yourself. Eric knows how to do all the technical stuff, but he worries about whether anyone reads his stories. Just talk to him, tell him he's popular."

"Which one is he?"

"The story we need is the final chapter of the Japanese cop living in Kansas."

"The murder mystery? That one's great! It's like the best thing we've got."

"Don't tell me, tell him. I've got to get the bookstore to change their minds. And then I've got to do something about Jounouchi's visa."

Honda kissed Otogi's forehead. "You'll be fine. You, I believe in." He hit the elevator button. "I just hope you're right about me."

Otogi went back into the office. The bookstore probably just wanted a price discount. And Jou was able to fax from the airport's business services center; they could find someone to clean up the rough copies. But whether Mutou-san made them the loan depended entirely on whether he had any funds to spare. He had been able to give them enough to get started; now, anything would help, but a couple thousand would get them out of the current cash flow crunch.

Issue #6 and already worried about folding. Otogi made a pot of tea, all of the crises could wait at least that long.

The magazine had been an almost spur of the moment idea. Yugi and Otogi had been in Denver for a Duelist convention, and began chatting with a couple locals about locally-produced manga. There were none. They did some research, and discovered that there were some manga originally written in English or other Non-Asian languages, but most 'OELs' seemed independent, and few were reaching their target markets.

In truth, Otogi suspected that Yugi was looking for an excuse to stay in Colorado. Anyone with eyes could see that he and Mokuba-kun were good for each other. Being in the US kept Otogi's father out of his life, and Honda had been between jobs anyway.

So, they put together an American yaoi with Jou and one of the guys they met at the convention - Japanese feel and style, but characters and locations set in the States. 'Half-Hearted Mangazine' they named it, in honor of all the broken hearted people in their circle of friends. Bakura heard about the project, and got a case of issues to distribute at some shops he knew in Domino. The print runs were small, but they sold out of the first few issues. They had to do second printings for everything so far. And the buzz for the next issue was good. Larger stores were placing small orders.

But a late delivery to the printer would put them in a bind with all of their distributors. Late distribution would affect sales. Sales would affect orders for the next issue. The money was there to cover everything, but the flow was slow. Every month they were waiting for 'Peter' so they could pay 'Paul'. Even one month of cushion in the bank would give them time to stabilize. Two months, they might even be able to grow.

Otogi sighed as he picked up the whistling tea pot. A backer willing to fund them for a couple issues would give them a fighting chance.

But finding one was a fight of its own.