A/N: So so so... I thought I'd have finished all my current YGO fics by the end of summer... and look at that, I've only gotten two chapters out. Well, guess I was being overzealous. But damn! It's already been nine chapters? How did that happen? When I first started this, I was thinking nine would be the end of it. How time flies.

Also, I've recently noticed that I haven't been thanking reviewers! I should be taken out to a desolate field and shot in the back of the head with no warning! ...Left to be fed upon by scavenger birds and other such creatures. So here it is, the long since due THANK YOU ALL!

Disclaimers are always the same.

Warning! No, not any sort of warning that would make those of a weaker stomach turn away, but just a reference to a part in this chapter. DON'T ride a motorcycle without a helmet! It is not safe! I use it in this chapter because they are fictional characters and will not get seriously injured unless I decide otherwise. I, unfortunately, cannot protect living people from the horrors of vehicular accidents. (Maybe if I had ten cups of coffee and could reverse the rotation of the earth, but that certainly doesn't happen often.)

Chapter Nine:

Another day down. And when Seto said 'day,' he meant 'day.' He had been at the office since sunrise, and was leaving well after sunset. He sighed as he remembered that one recent night when he had slept throughout. Blessing or curse?

Three days ago, he had slept for the whole night, even though the cause of that blissful night was a group of miscreants he would have rather not been with for the day. In accordance with his supposition, the sleepless nights were returning, and he would rather push far away from any conscious thought that being worn out was helping him sleep better.

Seto pressed the button for the garage, and stood in the elevator pushing the thoughts of a certain band out of his mind. Maybe if he didn't think about them they would go away.

Yet, whenever he tried to do that, something was always there to remind him. Usually he wasn't graced with a reminder in living flesh, though when he was, Seto knew he was in for a large hassle. And something that would end in a deep sleep.

The elevator dinged and slowly opened, and as is customary in that situation, Seto walked out, head bowed toward his watch.

"Finally," Seto heard the voice of the living-flesh reminder. No peace for the wicked tonight. "I've only been waiting for longer than I can count on one hand." Yami was leaning back against a nice motorcycle, arms folded over his chest, legs crossed. He didn't look like he was in any sort of discomfort.

"No one told you to wait," Seto said. "No one asked you to wait." He turned to walk over to his car, but stopped when he saw it wasn't there. In fact, there were no cars in the garage.

"Don't worry about your car, Mokuba picked it up earlier," Yami said. He looked very pleased with himself.

"What are you planning?" Seto said quietly, as if to himself. He turned back around to Yami. "So how am I supposed to get back home?" Part of him didn't want to ask that question, he already knew the answer. Though his pride kicked in, telling him to fight until the very end.

Yami disregarded Seto's question. "I actually think you have a bed in your office, or maybe you're a masochist and just sleep slouched over your desk. Tell me, do you ever wake up with pens stuck on your face? Maybe a piece of paper?"

"Why do you ask questions you know I won't answer?"

"You're unpredictable. I never know what you will or will not answer," Yami said, a disturbing smile creeping onto his face. "In response to your earlier question, you're supposed to go out with me."

Seto paused for a second to process that statement. He had assumed Yami was going to offer to take him home, and when that happened, Seto was just going to pull out his cell phone and call his chauffeur. But this was an unforeseen twist. 'Go out with me,' that's what he said, Seto was sure of it. But what did he mean? Seto sighed and decided it wasn't worth his time to figure out the meaning in it, and reached in his pocket for his cell phone... only to find it wasn't there.

"Mokuba is a smart kid," Yami said out of nowhere, glancing at Seto's hand in the coat's empty pocket. "He basically got rid of anything that you could use to get out of riding home with me. Including your cell. And actually," Yami paused, rustling through his own leather jacket and pulled out a ring of clanging metals, "I have your keys. So even if you do manage to get away, you won't be able to get back into your house. Mokuba said he's not opening the door for anyone... well, you don't want all the details he told me he'd do to make sure you'd be on my bike by the end of the day."

Seto stood there, dumbfounded to the lengths that his brother would go through just to get him out of the house and office. He must've noticed that Seto had slept after the beach excursion, and like the caring little brother he was, Mokuba decided that Seto should go through that more. Sometimes he wished Mokuba cared a little less.

"So, are you going to stand there, or are you going to go with me?" Yami said, mounting the bike.

I have nothing better to do, not even more work, and it wasn't a bad idea, Seto enjoyed the extra sleep. But just this once.

Seto shrugged and started walking over to Yami. "Fine, but I'm not riding on the bitch seat," he pointed to the seat behind Yami.

For a second, Yami was speechless. "Why not? Do you even know how to ride a motorcycle?" He asked.

"Of course I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't be telling you to move back," Seto said.

"'Telling me,' how bossy," Yami said, rolling his eyes, but sliding up the seat of the motorcycle. "Alright, all yours. But if you get in a car accident and I die, I will haunt you for the rest of your life."

"That would be horrifying, I better not get you killed then," Seto said, kicking his leg over the seat of the bike, careful not to hit Yami in the process.

Seto had forgotten the thrill of riding in such a slim and powerful vehicle. Almost immediately his heart rate jumped, the roar of the engine just beneath him, cars slipping past in a blur of dim colors. As evident from Yami's relaxed position on the back of the bike, Seto was not driving to kill. Though he doubted that Yami ever thought Seto would be that bad, since he had taken liberty to strap his helmet to the back of the bike with bungees. No, in fact, Yami seemed even pleased, leaning back on the safety bars, hair rustling wildly in the wind.

Seto slowed down for a red light, putting his feet down to brace the vehicle. Yami took this opportunity to lean over Seto's back, placing his lips too close to Seto's ear, in his opinion.

"You have to turn left here," Yami said over the purr of the idle engine.

Seto turned around. "Why? My home is straight ahead."

"But we're not going to your home," Yami said. A smile flashed across his face. "Green light."

Seto gave Yami a peculiar look, almost to the point of distrust, which at the moment was a prominent feeling in the driver. He sighed and, since there were no other cars on the road, took his time to sort out the pros and cons. There were no pros, and all of the cons could easily be dealt with, should they arise. So Seto was at an impasse, with no motivation to go one way or the other.

"It'll be red before you make a decision," Yami said from behind. "Could you just be cooperative this one time and go along with me?"

Seto seriously took his plea into consideration, more than anything just curious as to where Yami would take him. But there was still the nagging in the back of his head that promised this ride would all be for naught and to just go home and fall into bed.

He was still stalling at the light when he felt a jab in his back. "Look, the light's already turning yellow," Yami said, matter-of-fact.

Throwing caution to the winds, Seto pealed out of the intersection with the delicious sound of rubber on asphalt and a small curl of smoke rising to the sky, and headed left. He could almost feel the self-satisfied grin on Yami's face burning into the back of his head.

The rest of the way to Yami's destination, Seto took direction with little more than a comment. Yami had taken to tapping whichever side of Seto's shoulders he wanted to go next, which Seto had first mistaken for Yami wanting something. He had pulled over and twisted around, but Yami just smiled and explained his new system of showing directions. At first it was annoying, but soon Seto didn't even take notice of the light touch of fingertips on his shoulder and automatically went right or left.

When they started getting into the hills of LA, Seto really began wondering where they were going. They had passed quiet residential homes, and were switchbacking to get up a steep hill. The mist hanging around the lower sections of the hills lightly caressed his cheeks, not quite cold enough to be chilling, but cool enough to be refreshing.

At the top of the hill, he felt Yami tap both of his shoulders simultaneously, which was a new sign. The only thing he could guess it meant was to stop, so he did.

"Here we are. North Hollywood," Yami said. Seto looked around and confirmed, seeing various landmarks in the horizons. "Just under the Hollywood Sign, actually," Yami added quietly.

"And what are we doing here?" Seto asked, more than a little stressed. But Yami wasn't paying attention to him and had already dismounted the motorcycle. Seto curiously watched Yami walk over to a chainlink fence and turn around.

"We're gonna do something illegal," was all Yami said before he turned back around and climbed up and over the fence, disregarding the barbed wire, and landed gracefully on the other side. He glanced back at Seto with a small, enticing smirk, and walked into the gathering darkness.

Seto could already see where this was going, but nevertheless leaned the bike on the kick stand and followed Yami over the fence. Seto could no longer see the smaller man, but that didn't matter, since he had a fair sense of direction and knew the end destination. It was a bit of a hike though, with nothing to distract him but the chirp of crickets and twigs snapping under his shoes. Just as he was wondering if he should just turn around and ditch Yami at the Hollywood Sign, he came upon the large, white letter 'H'. It was easily nine times as tall as himself, and definitely awe-inspiring. A constant reminder of what Hollywood means for a countless number of people.

And where exactly was the spiky-haired punk?

Seto shook his head. "If you ditched me here," like I had planned on doing to you, he thought, "I will see to it your death comes sooner than nature intended."

"You know when I'm going to die?"

At the sudden disruption of the perfect silence that had enveloped Seto before, he felt as though he had jumped out of skin. In reality, his body only tensed and he clenched his fists, but that was still more of a scare than he had gotten in recent history.

"No," he said, turning around to face his captor. "Why would I know that?" Yami was sitting on the ground, leaning back on his arms with his legs spread out in front of him.

"Well, you said, 'sooner than nature intended,' so I could only assume that you knew when I was going to die, and that dying by your hand would, indeed, not be when nature intended. But now..." He faded and looked up at the ink black sky. "How do you know I wasn't meant to be killed by you?"

Finding no suitable answer for this, Seto just grunted something indistinguishable and sat down about five feet from Yami.

If Seto had been any other person, the silence that ensued would've been unbearable. As it was, compared to the rest of the evening, the silence was a welcomed visitor in this company. Rather, the silence from the other human was welcomed, but the environment, it seemed, was trying its hardest to get on Seto's nerves. The damn crickets were going at it like it was the end of the world.

Suddenly, and without any conscious thought on Seto's part, the silence was broken. "Why do you insist on taking me with you when I clearly do not want to go? I fight and I fight, and for some reason, I still find you there. I have the feeling you just like getting me in a position where I can't decline and then watching me squirm." He glared over at Yami.

Yami, though, was smiling. "You're completely right. I do like watching you squirm, but not because I'm some sort of sadist, well, maybe a little," he added to himself with a smirk, "but I like forcing you to do things because you're too straight edge. It's not natural and certainly no fun to be the way you are."

"Why are you so sure I don't enjoy my life? I could be jumping for joy in my bedroom when no one's watching," Seto said.

"But you're not. ...And if I knew anyone who was, I'd have them committed. That can't be natural either," Yami said.

Seto shook his head at the immaturity of this conversation and turned his gaze to the Hollywood Sign. "Do you think I've gotten enough fresh air yet, or are you going to keep me out here in this excruciating social pain longer?"

He heard Yami get up and wipe his clothes free of small debris. "You're such a drama king," Yami said, laughing lightly. "Fine, let's go."

On the way back, Yami didn't pull a disappearing act, but walked side by side with Seto, and the taller man didn't know which he preferred. There was something off with this man, Seto had decided that long ago, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. He didn't even think he would ever figure it out.

Some things you're not meant to understand... Seto nodded to himself. That was for sure.

A/N: I've forgotten what was supposed to happen after this... I thought I had one more chapter before I got to a certain birthday... but now I can't remember what that chapter was about...

Anyway, while I think about that, would you be so kind as to drop a review? (Please tell me if it was completely out of character, for some odd reason I've been writing and thinking people will get mad at me 'cause they sound so unbelievable... and my betas are gone! So I have no one to yell at me if I get the characters funny. I'm so lost without them... I think I'll curl up into a little ball right now and cry myself to sleep.)