Chapter title: Work
Word count: 2.594
Chapter: 2/?
Chapter summary: Yami fears the worst after his boss announces he has bad news, and then calls him to his office.
Chapter warnings: Some violence
Pairings: Mentions of Puzzleshipping
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!

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Chapter 2: Work

"Morning Yami." His best friend and colleague Jounouchi said, patting his shoulder. "You look kind of tired today. Was that date with Yuugi such a success? Eh?" His friend said suggestive as he gently elbowed his friend.

Yami's cheeks turned a vibrant red at the insinuation of his friend and even more at the mental image of said insinuation. He shook his head quickly to clear him mind. "Jounouchi!" He yelled and playfully slapped his friends arm.

"I just…." Yami sighed. "I found an orphaned kid yesterday and haven't been able to get him out of my head. What if something happened to him?" Yami hadn't had the chance to take a look because the alley Juudai slept in last night was in the opposite direction of his job.

He worked together with Jounouchi at the gaming company Ninkendo. He and Jounouchi were both game designers. They made characters, levels and plots for the company's new games on command of their chief.

However, they feared that business was going to slow down, especially with the CEO of Ninkendo passing away. Also, the major rival gaming company Phony was bringing out their new console GameStation 4. Yami had heard that Ninkendo was working on a new console as well but their previous two hadn't quite been that big of a success. Maybe Phony would hire new game designers?

"Yami? You listening?"

"Huh?" Yami snapped out of his thoughts after Jounouchi poked his arm.

"I had been talking to you the whole time. You were not listening?" Jounouchi asked with mock hurt. Yami shot him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, just thinking again. What were you saying?"

Jounouchi rolled his eyes. "I was saying, why didn't you take him in then?

"I tried… but he doesn't trust strangers, which is good of course. But I am going to take him to an orphanage today if I can find him again."

Jounouchi grinned. "On a different note, how did it go with Yuugi."

Yami almost giggled like a teenage school girl with a crush. He told Jounouchi about the date, getting suggestive eyebrow wiggles from Jounouchi. His best friend knew of the crush he had on the male nurse.

"Okay, everyone!" The manager of the department said to get the attention of his employees. Jounouchi sat down behind his own desk, and listened to the man. "I have some good news and some bad news." Yami gulped at the mention of bad news. There had been rumors going around of people getting fired.

"Let's start with the good news. Kaiba Corporation has taken over our company and has given us a big job." He said with a smile. "The bad news however..." His smile turned into a frown. "We are going to have to fire a couple employees." The employees of game design murmured amongst themselves.

Yami bit his lower lip. What if he got fired? How was he going to keep paying his rent? Oh god, please let Phony hire him if the worst happened!

"Now then, would Bakura Ryou, Honda Hiroto and Sennen Yami come with me to my office?"

Through his peripheral vision, Yami could see the worried look Jounouchi gave him. Was he truly going to be fired? He could not understand why Bakura Ryou and Honda Hiroto were called too. Those two were one of the best game designers. Ryou excelled in designing monster and other horror related characters and Hiroto was the best in designing adventure games.

Yami didn't think he was too bad, but he was quite good in designing puzzle games. The long white haired man named Ryou, the pointy haired brunet named Honda, and the tricolored haired man named Yami, stood up and followed their manager into his own private office.

As they took a seat on the chairs in the office, Yami couldn't stand the tension.

"Are we going to get fired?" He asked.

The manager truly seemed flabbergasted. "What? No! Of course not! Why would you think that?" The man laughed.

Ryou , being the most silent one of the department, spoke up. "Uhm… sir… first you say that people are going to get fired and then you call us three into your office…." He explained and then hid into his chair when all eyes were on him. Yami wondered how someone so shy dated, let alone got married.

"Why would I fire three of my best designers?" The man laughed. Yami's eyes widened slightly. He was part of the best three? Well, that was new. "The reason I called you three here, is because you are getting promoted."

"Promoted?" Honda asked. The manager nodded with a smile.

"The CEO of Kaiba has reviewed everyone's work and he was most pleased with you three. He wants you three to be in charge of his new horror-survival game, it will be called Quiet Valley. Bakura, you are in charge of monsters and the setting. Honda, you are in charge of the levels and story-line. Yami, you will be making the puzzles in the game. I will email you all the details later. I want you three to decide together on how you are going to do this. I expect a plan of action in my inbox by the end of next week."

Yami was speechless. Since Ryou nor Hiroto said anything, he assumed they were as well.

"Now, I want you three to call Ushio, Kotsuzuka and Hirutani into my office." He ordered with a serious expression. The three employees nodded and left the office of the manager. It was Honda who took the task upon him to the three who probably wouldn't get the good news.

"The chiefs wants to speak to Ushio, Kotsuzuka and Hirutani." Honda said, pointing with his thumb at the door. Yami watched as they entered the office. They would probably get the bad news. Ushio's work always had a lot of glitches. While Kotsuzuka was good in horror too, he wasn't anywhere near as good as Ryou. Also, he creeped out a lot of the employees. Hirutani was good, but he always caused disturbances at the office because of anger issues. Jounouchi had told him that he used to be part of a gang.

"What did the chief say?" Jounouchi asked as Yami sat down behind his own desk. Yami looked at him confused.

"I just got promoted." He said as if he couldn't believe it himself. Jounouchi laughed whole-heartedly.

"Congratulations man!" Jounouchi said with a smile. Yami smiled back and nodded in thanks. Soon, screaming could be heard from the office. "Ugh, Hirutani again." Jounouchi grumbled.

Yami nodded, they had probably gotten the bad news. Two bulky men entered their offices and escorted the struggling Hirutani out. Kotsuzuka and surprisingly Ushio, walked out calmly.

"Good riddance." Jounouchi murmured as he typed away on his keyboard. Yami glared at his friend.

"Jounouchi, they need have to earn money too."

Jounouchi shrugged his shoulders. "Come on Yami. Don't tell me you're not happy that they're gone." Yami sighed, he had to admit that he was kind of glad that the troublemakers were gone. Still, now they had to look for new jobs and in the current economy, that was quite difficult.

"So, what the boss say?" Jounouchi asked to change the subject.

"Oh! Bakura, Honda and I will be in charge of the new game. It's gonna be a horror-survival. Bakura's gonna do the monsters, Honda the story and I'm gonna do the puzzles." Yami told.

Jounouchi hummed. "Tell Honda I wanna be part of the story."

"I'll put in a good word for you." Yami chuckled. Jounouchi gave him a thumbs up and returned to his work. Before Yami would go to work, he wanted to check one thing out. He opened a new tab on his browser and a search engine immediately popped up.

'Orphanages in Domino'

In mere milliseconds, thousands of results were found. Yami clicked on the first result. It was the site of an orphanage in Domino. Correction, the only orphanage in Domino. Yami quickly scrolled through their site. It seemed nice and all… why wouldn't Juudai want to go there?"

He closed the tab and checked his email. The manager had already mailed the details of the new game. It actually looked really interesting. Their company usually did more children oriented games but this one was adult oriented. There was another email. One from Kaiba Seto himself. The email gave a brief introduction of himself and what he planned to do. In it he read that Kaiba wanted to still make children games, but make games for grownups too. Quiet Valley was going to be one of them.

He also saw an email from Ryou about a meeting between the three. He clicked the agree button and leaned back. He was really excited about this one. Countless of puzzles went through his mind. But he would first have to talk with Honda and Bakura about this.

-o-o-o-o-o-

After work, Yami went to a supermarket. He was happy to know that his promotion came with a raise and a bonus. He was already liking this Kaiba Seto as their CEO. At the supermarket he bought a couple cinnamon buns and then made a beeline to the alley.

Unfortunately though, Juudai was not there. He sat down behind the dumpster, which smelled really badly he noted, and took out his cellphone. It was already past six so Yuugi should've been dismissed already.

Hey Yuugi, wanna hang out again?

Yami didn't have to wait for too long to receive a message. He smiled brightly as he read the reply. He typed up his reply with the days that he was available. He was very excited to tell the other about his promotion but he didn't want to do it through text messages.

A gasp made him look up. Juudai had returned, in his arms another plastic bag. He was wearing the vest that Yami had left as his pillow last night. It looked really cute on the kid for it almost reached his knees.

"Juudai!" Yami called, shooting up into a standing position. "Have you been stealing again?" He reprimanded. The boy huffed and hid the bag behind him.

"None of your business." He retorted. Yami sighed and shook his head.

"Give it back." Yami demanded.

Juudai furiously shook his head and ran out of the alley. Without thinking, Yami gave chase. He didn't have to chase the little boy for long though. Juudai bumped into a tall man. The man had his hair pulled back and tied into a tiny ponytail. Yami's eyes widened as he recognized the man.

"Hirutani!" He exclaimed in surprise. His ex-colleague sneered at him.

"Sennen." The man growled out. Obviously, he was not too pleased that he got fired so Yami could get a raise. He then looked at the fallen kid. Juudai had landed on his butt after he had crashed into Hirutani.

"Think you could get away after stealing from me kid?" He snarled, grabbing the kid by the collar of Yami's vest and lifted him up. Juudai gasped and struggled against the grip. Tears started pouring out of his wide fear filled chocolate eyes.

"Stop it!" Yami yelled, taking hold of Juudai and gently trying to tug him away from the former gang leader. Hirutani wouldn't let go. Yami picked up the groceries Juudai had stolen from Hirutani and held it out to the brute. "Here, you have them back, now let him go!" Yami screamed.

Hirutani scoffed. "No way, this kids needs to learn a lesson." The man said and balled his right hand into a fist while he held Juudai up in the air with his left. Juudai gasped and closed his eyes shut. Hirutani pulled his arm back and smirked.

"No!" Yami screamed and tackled Juudai. He got hit square in the eye and fell to the ground, tightly hugging the small child to his chest. Hirutani had let go in surprise when Yami tackled. After hitting the ground, Yami laid still, keeping Juudai with him.

Hirutani scoffed again. "Weak." He kicked the fallen man in his side before he picked up the plastic bag and walked out of the alley. Yami waited a good minute before he stood up again. He looked Juudai over for any injuries. Fortunately, the child was unharmed.

"You picked the wrong person to rob Juudai." Yami chuckled slightly. The child said nothing as he just blinked and stared at Yami. His small hand slowly reached out and touched the area around Yami's left eye.

Yami winced as the finger came into contact with sore flesh. "That bad?" He asked. Juudai nodded.

"I'm sorry." The child gasped. "This is all my fault." He cried.

'This is all your fault!'

'Why did you come into our lives? Everything was perfect until you came!'

'Rotten child!'

Yami was a little bewildered as Juudai suddenly cried harder, to the point of being called screeching. What did you do when a child cried? "T-there, there." He said awkwardly as he sheepishly patted Juudai's shoulder. It did nothing to calm the crying child down.

Juudai gasped as he was suddenly engulfed in warmth. Yami had hugged him. One of his arms was draped over the small back of the child and the other went up his neck, supporting the head with his hand.

"This isn't your fault." Yami said softly, rubbing the back of Juudai. "Hirutani is just a horrible human being. Anyone is unfortunate to meet him." Yami knew that he was cruel by saying this, but he could never forgive that man for trying to hit a helpless little child.

Juudai sniffled and hugged Yami back. The warmth provided by Yami was very welcoming and comforting. It had been a while since he had felt something like this. Yami was the first to pull away and smiled at the little child.

"I brought you something." He announced. Juudai blinked curiously as Yami opened the paper bag he had with him. "Here." Yami said, holding a cinnamon bun out.

Juudai took it and sniffed at it before he took a bite. His face lit up as he swallowed. "It's good!" He exclaimed as he took another bite. Yami smiled gently.

"Juudai…." He started gently. "Why are you not staying at Domino Orphanage?" He asked again. Juudai swallowed the bite he had taken and glared at Yami.

"I said they were mean."

Yami shook his head. "You saw for yourself that the streets are very dangerous for someone as young as you. Even I don't like to walk alone here in the dark."

Juudai looked away.

"Please Juudai. I couldn't sleep at night because I was so afraid something was going to happen to you. Won't you give it another chance? I promise everything will be okay."

Juudai determination to live alone wavered. He looked up at Yami with big chocolate brown eyes. Yami almost wanted to hug him. "Promise?" He asked with a small voice.

Yami smiled and nodded. "Promise."

Juudai then nodded with his head. He walked back to the dumpster and got all fours. He reached out and pulled Yami's leather jacket from under it. "This is yours, right?" He asked as he held the jacket out. Yami nodded and took it, only to drape it over Juudai's shoulders. He was already wearing his spare jacket and the kid had only his sweatshirt for extra heat.

"Let's go." He said and held out his hand. Juudai took it and together, they went to the orphanage.

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Author Notes: Well, here is chapter two. I hope this story isn't boring D: I don't know… it's not my most favorite written things. I will finish it, I am working on chapter 9 now but it is going really slow. It may be because I have little motivation at the moment and all that shizzle. I can hardly get out of bed.

Anywho, I think Ninkendo speaks for itself. If you hadn't figured it out, Phony is Sony with the GameStation 4 being PlayStation 4. The new console of Ninkendo was supposed to be the WII U. Those consoles hadn't come out yet by then.

Thank you to the people who faved, followed and reviewed. Next chapter: Orphanage.