A Comedy of Errors
**
School was over for the week, and all the students ran joyously out of the building to enjoy every moment of freedom they were afforded. Yugi and his friends were no different, sprinting almost as if to put as much distance between them and the classroom as they could.
"So Yugi," Joey said as they finally slowed down, panting for breath on the sidewalk. "Was thinking of maybe going out for burgers, or pizza, or Chinese food… or all three! You up for it?"
"Watching you pig out for the next three hours?" Yugi said with a laugh. "Mmm, tempting. Sorry, I'll have to pass. Seto will be by to pick me up in a few minutes; we were going to see a movie, then maybe have dinner. You guys go ahead though."
"Sure you don't want us to wait with you?" Ryou asked. "You know how traffic is this time of day, he might be a few minutes late."
"Seto is never late," Yugi said, smiling proudly. "Don't worry about me. Besides, I can always call Yami if something happens…"
"Don't count on it," Bakura warned with a grin, wrapping his arms around Yami possessively. "Yami will be busy. Very busy. With all the noise he'll be making, he may not hear your call…"
Yami shot Bakura a dark look, indignantly removing the tomb robber's arms, then smiling patiently at Yugi. "Of course you can call me, Yugi. You know I'll never be too busy to help if you need me."
Bakura glared and folded his arms, grumbling. "It had better be a dire emergency in that case…"
Yugi laughed nervously at the scowl on Bakura's face. "Don't worry, Bakura. I know better than to interrupt your private time. I promise."
"Well if you're sure you'll be alright, we'll see you later," Joey said, heading down the street with the others, waving back at his friend. Yugi waved back, then sat down on the curb to wait for his boyfriend.
And wait…
…and wait…
…and wait.
After the first fifteen minutes, Yugi started on his homework. He could at least get some of it done while he waited. It wasn't until he finished the very last math problem that he looked at his watch.
An hour and a half? Had it really been that long? Something was definitely wrong; Seto should have been there long before that. Yugi dug through his bag for his cell phone, and dialed Seto's office.
**
Seto stared in frustration at the computer screen in front of him. The entire day's work stared back at him from the brightly lit screen, a perfectly written program code. His gaze scoured the equations and coding again, for what may have been the millionth time of the day. He couldn't find a single flaw.
And yet when he tried to run the program… it crashed. Error screen city, little automated blips of warnings and alerts, asking him to please reboot the machine. The thing did everything short of bursting into flames. And if he hadn't personally built this computer, he was fairly sure it would have done that too.
Somewhere there was a defect, the variables didn't add up, or something. He just had to find it first, so he could fix it. Determined, he started from the beginning of the coding, and checked it again.
"Mr. Kaiba?"
It took Seto a second or two to recognize his intercom had gone off as his secretary paged him. Rubbing his weary eyes, he muttered, "What?"
Over the intercom, his secretary's voice sounded hesitant, but she answered, "You have a call holding on line one, sir, it's-"
"I told you to hold my calls!" Seto snapped. How was he supposed to get his program fixed with interruptions like answering the phone?
"I know sir, but-"
"I'm busy!" He hit the button on the intercom, shutting it off before she could even tell him who it was that was calling. He'd let her take care of whatever excuses needed to be made to the caller. That's what she was paid for. Seto returned to work on his program, forgetting about the secretary and the caller almost immediately.
The secretary sighed as she picked the phone back up and took the caller off hold. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Kaiba is not to be disturbed. Would you care to leave a message?"
"No," Yugi murmured. "No message. Thanks." He hung up the phone, tucking the cell phone back into his bag, and stuffing in his books and homework as well.
Not to be disturbed? Seto had never refused his calls before, never called him a disturbance. Of course, he'd never been late picking Yugi up before, either. Was Seto mad at him?
He couldn't be, Yugi reasoned as he got up and started to walk home. Yugi had just seen Seto this morning, when Seto had promised to pick him up after school. So that couldn't possibly be it… could it?
His house was dark when he got there, but he knew Yami was there. Yugi dug through his bag a minute for his keys, before his fingers encountered the small hole in the bottom of the bag, just big enough for a key ring to fall through. Just perfect. Some day this was turning out to be. Well. At least it wasn't raining.
Storm clouds on the horizon rumbled ominously. Yugi glowered at them, then knocked loudly on the door. A moment later the porch light came on, and Yami opened the door.
"Yugi?" Yami blinked at him in surprise. "I thought you were out with Kaiba…"
"I was supposed to be…" Yugi muttered as he walked down the hall. "But plans change, I guess."
Yami watched Yugi walk down the hall thoughtfully… until he realized what room Yugi was heading for. "Yugi wait! Don't go in there, Bakura is-"
"Yugi?!"
"Bakura! Put some clothes on!"
"-waiting for me…" Yami finished faintly.
**
It was getting very late when Seto finally sat back and watched his program run. It wasn't perfect yet, but it didn't crash anymore. There were still a few modifications he needed to make to it, but now that he'd found the problem with his coding, they should be fairly simple.
His stomach growled in irritation, choosing that moment to point out that with all the work he'd been doing, he'd forgotten one or two important meals of the day. Seto glared, as if he could frighten his growling stomach into silence. It didn't work.
Food was definitely in order. Seto glanced at the clock, realizing just how late it was. Food could wait a minute more; he really ought to call Mokuba and tell him he'd be home much later than usual. Mokuba tended to worry about him more often than was necessary.
Mokuba picked up on the second ring, but sounded surprised to hear it was Seto. "Hey big brother."
"I'm going to be late coming home tonight," Seto said. "This program I'm working on is more obstinate than I thought it would be."
"You're still at work?" Mokuba asked. "I thought you and Yugi were going out tonight. Did he cancel?"
Seto froze, eyes widening. Yugi. He was supposed to have picked Yugi up from school. He'd forgotten all about it.
"Oh no…" Seto groaned. "Mokuba. I forgot."
"You forgot about your own boyfriend?" Mokuba asked. "That's not like you at all."
"I know! But I was working, and I just didn't even think about it…" Seto sat back in his chair, needing its support for the moment. "That was probably him trying to call me earlier too…"
"Come home and get some rest," Mokuba advised him. "You can go see Yugi tomorrow. It's too late to go see him now."
"You're right," Seto murmured. "I'll be home in a few minutes. I'll go see Yugi tomorrow morning."
**
It rained throughout the night. By the morning it had cleared, leaving the streets wet and glistening in the morning sunlight. Everything smelled fresh and damp, new.
Seto knocked again on Yugi's door. Maybe it was too early for the occupants to be up. After a moment, he was just about to knock again, but the door opened.
"Kaiba? What do you want?" Bakura demanded, leaning against the doorframe.
"Is Yugi home?" Seto asked, ignoring the tomb robber's question.
"Yeah," Bakura said with a maddening grin. "But he's not to be disturbed." Laughing at Seto's stunned expression, Bakura slammed the door in his face.
"Who was that?" Yami asked, pouring cereal as Bakura wandered into the kitchen, still laughing.
"Door-to-door salesman," Bakura said, starting to dig through the fridge. "Selling vacuum cleaners or something. I really didn't catch it."
Yami frowned. "You didn't send them to the shadow realm, did you? I told you to stop doing that…"
***
Author's note; Yes, I know I have another fanfiction currently in progress. I haven't quit with my Inu-Yasha story, "Hear No Evil." But I missed writing Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfics!