Chapter 4
(In which Seto discovers that the universe hates him, hope is dead, and there is still no coffee.)
After a thorough 'surprise inspection' of break rooms, store rooms, cubicles, labs, and offices had turned up zero Coffeenators (or even a single, vastly inferior coffee-maker), Seto had retreated to his office to rethink his strategy. Clearly, this coffee thief was a wily adversary. (Which led him right back Yami, who continued to assert his innocence. It was a vicious cycle. Also, Seto was beginning to feel the first pangs of a caffeine withdrawal headache. Ugh.)
Desperate, he sent a gofer to the nearest coffee shop with orders to buy them out. The gofer returned with a cup of hot tea and a terrified expression, and explained that the shop had been cleaned out before he got there. Seto fired him on the spot. (He also forced down the tea, which somewhat helped his headache, but did nothing to sate his coffee craving.)
The same thing happened with the next four low-level peons, each one sent further into the city in search of a coffee shop or store that actually had coffee. The last one brought back herbal tea, and it was all Seto could do not to throw it at his soon-to-be-ex-employee. The irate call from HR about the spate of sudden firings did nothing to lift his mood.
So, naturally, that was when Yami chose to stroll into his office with a fresh cup of karkade, which he set on the desk in front of Seto. Then he stood there, arms folded across his chest, and watched Seto like a raptor waiting for an unwary rabbit to poke its head up out of the weeds.
"I was a terrible person in a past life, wasn't I?" Having directed this rhetorical question to his stuffed penguin, Seto was not prepared to get an answer from Yami.
"Hm, annoying, sometimes. Grumpy, certainly," the Pharaoh said, in a considering tone as he gazed into the distance (or possibly the distant past). "But I wouldn't say 'terrible.' Not often, anyway."
"What are you babbling about?"
Yami's gaze sharpened and refocused on Seto. "Oh, come now. You're not still trying to pretend you weren't one of my high priests in ancient Egypt? I thought we'd gotten past that nonsense."
This was not a conversation Seto was prepared to have on no coffee. Or ever. But most especially not on no coffee. "I hate you."
"Have I mentioned that we were cousins?"
Seto froze for a long moment as the true horror of that statement rippled down his spine and settled like a ball of ice in his stomach. Related. By blood. To the Pharaoh. (Seto was pretty sure he could feel his DNA attempting to rewrite itself in self-defense.) It was official: the universe hated him. At the moment, the feeling was entirely mutual.
Flame-hot rage at the unfairness of everything ever swept through him, melting the ice in his guts and turning his vision liquid red. He could feel his pulse pounding in his teeth. The roaring in his ears drowned out the sounds of the office-
It took a few seconds for Seto to realize that the roaring was a physical sound and not his head trying to explode with well-deserved indignation.
"Uh-oh," said Yami.
And the world erupted like a blue-white volcano.