Boku wa Natsukashimu Desu
Hello, minna-san! Well, after...ah...almost two months...I've updated! I'm so sorry for making you wait so long!
Thank you all for your wonderful reviews! I never expected such a great response!
Review Responses!! ^_^
Painful Life: *squeaks in fear* *hides under the bed* Please don't hurt me!!! I updated! Please don't hurt me!
Kirbie: Um...not yet...Polartec is uber-awesome. But...*furtive eyes* I never said anything!
Koishii no Tenshi: Um...sorry. This one isn't too much better...I'm still trying to find a plot. Hope you don't find this too bad...
Dread Forever: Um...did you want to say something else? You only said 'um Katya', so I'm guessing that you accidentally cut your own review off…unless I'm being weird…
LilBlue Hedggie: Ah, another obsessed Yugi fan. Don't worry, this chapter is mostly Yugi. I'm an obsessed Yugi fan myself, so it WILL have mostly Yugi. ^_^
Flowacat: Yeah I know…*sniff*…suffer…oh he will suffer…*maniacal grin*…Um…did I just say something? *blinks innocently*
Neko Oni: *laughs* Yep. Angsty. Would help if you used capitalization. Lovely review, I hope you like this one too!
Towairaito Zoon: WINMX ALL THE WAY, BABY! *Big grin* I LOVE WinMX. *flashes peace sign* So much YGO goodness and I can find almost any Evanescence song on there as well(not to mention there's no stupid adware or anything) *uber-grins* Glad to know someone else uses the obscure one too! Have I seen you on there? My name is Katya123 on there (it chose it for me…)
K.C. Whitestar: But of course! I shall send you a couple others that are my favorites as a bonus as well ^_~
Mittens no Hikari and Nightlight5: You're gonna hate both me and Yami soon…*whistles innocently*
Thank you all again! I'm overwhelmed! I hope this chapter is a bit better than the last. No song this time…because I didn't find a decent one that fit…
Thoughts ~*~*~ Scene change ~*~*~
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Yugi moaned softly as he rolled over, trying to block the light shining down harshly, his own private wake-up call.
This was the only time of day that the sun shone in his private spot in between two old buildings. Yugi wondered what he was going to do as the days got longer; the sun would be waking him up earlier and earlier. For now, though, the rising sun illuminated his tiny corner, at the halfway-decent time of seven o'clock in the morning.
His stomach groaned in complaint as he arose stiffly from his small pile of rags. Amazing what people throw away...good cloth. But apparently they all love saving their leftovers.
He still had his last five dollars. He felt rather proud of himself that he had managed to keep it all week. However, the lack of food was taking its toll on him (although he refused to go to the local soup kitchen; what if the police were looking for him?), and he had to put more effort into rising to his feet.
Today, he thought determinedly, Today I'm going to find a job. There was absolutely no way he would pass up any opportunities.
He passed by the tiny bookstore on his way to the center of town as usual, but something stopped him in his tracks. He could hardly believe his eyes.
A sign read "Now Hiring" in the dingy window.
Yugi could have jumped for joy. At last, someone needed work! And how lucky it was that just the other day, he'd managed to find a quarter and wash his clothes in the local Laundromat.
Pushing open the door of the small shop, Yugi peeked inside.
The place was very cramped; bookshelves lined the walls and smaller shelves filled up the remaining space. Yugi was surprised to see a few customers browsing the shelves; he hadn't thought that the place got much attention.
He made his way towards the back of the shop, where the counter and register was. A grouchy-looking older man sat behind the counter, watching his customers, not noticing the small teenager in front of him.
Yugi felt intimidated already. That glower didn't look promising. However, he spoke up anyway.
"Um...excuse me..."
The man's head snapped to him in an instant and Yugi had to reign in his desire to flinch under that stare.
"Eh? Whaddaya want?"
Yugi gulped a bit. "Um...I was wondering...if you were...well, I mean...the sign said "Now Hiring," and I—"
The man cut him off. "Yer lookin' for a job, then?"
Yugi nodded, fidgeting nervously. He wasn't much of a people person, and got nervous when others stared for too long.
The man leaned forward, surveying him up and down, his eyebrows raising when he saw Yugi's hair.
"That hair o' yours," he sneered. "Dyed it, did you? Think it looks fashionable, do you?"
Yugi looked down. "No, sir. It's naturally that way. You can run any amount of water you like, but it'll still stick up and be three colors. And I...I don't like it."
"Hmph," the man narrowed his eyes at the youth, surveying his worn down and hungry appearance. He was a tad dirty, but was well-spoken and sounded intelligent...
"Y'know...I don' like people coming into my store lookin' dirty," the man said gruffly.
Yugi gulped. He was afraid of this. "I'm sorry, sir…I got…um…cornered by someone earlier..." He hoped he didn't sound too guilty.
The man in front of him surveyed him critically, and for a moment Yugi thought that he'd seen through his bluff. However, what the man said next surprised him.
"Damn hooligans...pickin' on anyone they please...I won't stand none of that here, no sir..." He glowered down at Yugi. "Fine, boy…you've got yourself a job. You'll be workin' in the back usually, stockin' shelves or doin' whatever else I want you to do. Name's Urameshi, but you're to address me as 'sir', you got that? I don' stand for no back-talk and I 'spect you here by eight sharp every day, clear?"
Yugi nodded. "Yessir," he said. "Um...eight sharp every day?"
"Sir," the man growled. "And yes. Eight sharp, six days a week. We don' work on Sundays. An' you don' leave till eight at night. Clear?"
Yugi nodded again. He figured that it would be better to just stay quiet around this man.
"You can start now. Get in the back and I'll show you the ropes. After that, yer on yer own."
The man got off his stool and made his way to the back, which was the same size as the shop itself, showing Yugi where things went and how to categorize. A pile of boxes was his first task: to get all the books in them categorized onto the shelves by author. Yugi bent down to start when the man grabbed his collar.
Fearing the worst, Yugi looked up at the man with frightened eyes. Paying no attention to his predicament, Urameshi growled, "An' listen here. I find you nickin' books or doin' stupid things that I don' like, I won' hesitate to cane you, y'hear?"
Eyes wide, Yugi nodded. Great. A guy who'll hit me if I screw up. Why does this sound so familiar, he thought bitterly.
He sighed a bit and began the arduous task. Quit complaining, he told himself. At least you have a job now. You'll be able to eat tonight.
The thought was cheering, and Yugi set to work at a brisk pace.
~*~*~
Jou threw himself on his bed, growling slightly in frustration. It had been a week and he hadn't seen hide or hair of Yugi anywhere. Not for lack of trying. He, Ryou and Honda had been searching the city for a week. Surprisingly, Kaiba had offered his services as well.
Yami had been too ticked off to help them. The pharaoh had been in a ferocious mood the entire week; no one got in his way. Jou figured that it was because he missed his other half and didn't want to admit it, but he wouldn't try and slide this past Yami at all. Not with the state he was in. He'd taken to blasting anything that annoyed him with shadow magic, causing the said object to explode. As of yet, he hadn't gone after any person yet, but the incident with the cat had been particularly disgusting.
"Why the hell'd you run away in the first place?" he glared at the ceiling as if it were his former best friend. "Why didn't you even bother to ask one of us if you had to run away? Y'know we would've taken you in..."
He stopped. Would he have taken him in? If Yugi had shown up on his doorstep asking for a place to stay, would Jou have let him or would he have told him to get home?
Well he knew the answer. Of course he would. But he wasn't so sure about the others. Otogi had a business to run. Honda and Anzu...their parents didn't really care, but Jou was willing to bet that they wouldn't have let him stay. Kaiba? What a joke...Jou didn't even consider him.
"At any rate, you better turn up soon or Yami'll explode." Jou sighed. Talking to the ceiling wasn't much fun. He'd rather sleep...
~*~*~
Seto growled to himself, slamming the door behind him. "Stupid, arrogant ass," he snarled at the empty hall. "I'm going to kill him." He threw himself into his desk chair, glaring at the computer as it booted up.
"Going to kill who, big bro?"
Seto jumped. "Mokuba! Quit sneaking up on me like that!"
Mokuba giggled. "But it's fun," he fake-whined.
Seto merely glowered at him and signed into Windows.
Mokuba was silent for a moment. His brother was in one of his 'moods', as their butler liked to put it.
"What happened, Seto? Who are you going to kill?"
"Yami," his brother snapped. "That arrogant ass of a human being, I'm going to throttle him in his sleep..."
Mokuba giggled. "What'd he do now?"
"It's not what he did. It's what he said."
"Oh. The idea didn't go over too well with him, I suppose."
Seto gave his computer a look that would've melted steel. Turning back to his brother, he said, "No. It didn't. The very idea that Yugi had run away because he felt inferior nearly made him blow up." Mimicking his rival, he continued, "Yugi always knew he was inferior, it was never old news, so why should he get so worked up now? He's known that for awhile, blah, blah, blah…" Seto fisted a hand in his hair, growling. "Stupid goddamn arrogant son of a bitch," he snarled again.
Mokuba raised an eyebrow. His brother was definitely pissed...
"I wouldn't be surprised if he THREW Yugi out of the house and made up the story of him running away to create sympathy for himself," Seto continued to growl, obviously needing to vent. "Goddamn asshole...that King of Games title has gone to his head…"
"I don't think he'd sink so low as that," Mokuba reasoned. "He wouldn't want to dirty his hands."
"That's not the point, Mokuba," the angry CEO cut him off. "The point is that he doesn't care. He doesn't give a crap. The only thing he misses is the servant who did his goddamn laundry."
Mokuba thought for a moment. "You don't think, then, that Yami does miss him and doesn't like not knowing what to do about it?"
"No. I don't. As much as I would like that to be true, Yami's got his head too far up his ass to feel that much emotion. You should've heard him. Going on about how it was common knowledge that he was superior and Yugi shouldn't have had any qualms about that...as if he knew what goes on in Yugi's mind..." he groused, trailing off.
"Um...Seto...didn't they have some sort of link thing where they could do that?"
"...A good point, but do you really think that ass would've cared to use it on someone so inferior?" Seto spat out the last word with such sarcasm that Mokuba raised an eyebrow.
"What are we going to do about it then?"
Seto looked at him. "Do? What is there to do, now that Yami has made it clear that he doesn't care if his…what's the word he used...hikari is found? We do nothing. We keep a sharp eye out, but we do nothing."
Mokuba fell silent, watching his brother access Kaiba Corp.'s data and begin working on it. He didn't like doing nothing...but his brother was almost always right, and he trusted his judgment. Standing up, he made his way out of the room, thinking about his brother and wondering where Yugi was.
~*~*~
"Oy...get in here, boy!"
Yugi complied quickly. He was covered in dust from the back area and exhausted.
Urameshi surveyed him. "Well, yer done for the day." Yugi nodded. "And I don' like to say it, but you worked good. So here..." he handed Yugi a twenty. Yugi stared at it. Twenty dollars? But that meant that he had made only two dollars an hour! Still, it was what he would use to eat with, so he pocketed it quietly, voicing a thank-you.
"Yer gettin' paid now because it's Saturday," the man said shortly. "I pay you every Saturday. Twenty bucks a day if you do good work. Now get. I expect you back here on Monday."
Yugi left numbly, head reeling. Weekly pay. And he only had a twenty in his hand, plus the five that he had left over. He'd be living on the Dollar Menu for awhile, until he had enough money to buy some supplies and perhaps a small place of his own.
Twenty...because I did good work, Yugi thought. Isn't the minimum wage $6 an hour? I'm sixteen...I told him when he asked, so he knows…I guess I just got a Scrooge for a boss…on the other hand, I'll get something decent next week...If I work well over the week, I could wind up with $120.
Yugi went in search of the nearest fast food place. Coming upon a McDonalds, he only allowed himself a burger and fries, no drink. It came to $2, which meant that he had eighteen left. Eighteen...he'd have to skip a day for meals if he wanted to have any left over, then.
Curling up in his tiny corner, his stomach delightfully processing the greasy meal, Yugi went to sleep, shivering under his Polartec blanket, dreams of warm places and loving arms filling his mind.
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So? How'd you like it? Bad? Good? Boring yet again?
Yami: Why must you ALWAYS make me an ass in your fics?!
Me: Um...dunno...because it's fun?
Yami: -_-;;;
Yugi; *giggles* Read and review, minna-san! *flashes adorable smile and makes a peace sign*