Yay, a chapter that's not that long, or at least not as long. If you can't tell, I love drama! Love it, love it, I simply love it! If it's too dramatic, let me know. However, I'm hoping my readers love the drama as much as I do. So enjoy!

I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh

Ch. 4

Yugi woke up and brushed his teeth before he did anything else. After that, he took a shower. Yugi could tell that Tea already took a shower, because she always took one in his bathroom- the master bathroom. When they first moved in, it was one of those annoying qualities that you have to adjust because it's a person you love. Now he's used to it. She never woke him up when she sneaked in, so he couldn't really complain.

After he took a shower, he got dressed. He wandered to himself if anything strange would happen today like yesterday. He did have the morning off again, so who knew? Yugi decided to get a cup of coffee, and forget the weird thoughts he was having about having a weird day.

As Yugi passed through the living room, he saw Iris watching TV. He can assumed that it was the dueling channel, and showed no concern as he goes to get his cup of coffee. Cream and no sugar, just the way Yugi prepares his coffee every morning.

Yugi walked back into the living room to confirm that, yes, she was watching the duel monsters channel. However, they were showing a duel between him and some regional champion from England. It was a recording of his duel which was a huge deal at the time. People actually thought this guys might win. Of course, Yugi didn't worry, and did what he usually did which was turn it around at the last second to win. It seemed the crowd completely forgot about this ability of his, because they were surprised. The duel took place in England, that's why most of the crowd was cheering for the guy. He was the town champion who supposedly couldn't be beat. He, like the rest of them, had their once perfect record marked for the very first time by Yugi.

Yugi became embarrassed to see himself on the TV. He couldn't think of everyone focusing on him. It was strange to him, and especially strange for him to watch himself. While he was dueling, he didn't even think of the people watching him. Yugi only focused on the game.

Yugi turned his head toward the girl. In the corner of her eye, she saw him, and so she turned toward him and smiled. He smiled back, then said, "Good morning."

"Good morning." She replied. "Do you know where daddy is?"

Yugi was confused by the question. Then wandered if she knew he was staying in the garage. "In the garage." He replied.

"No he's not. I checked."

Yugi became alert, "What? Are you sure?"

"Yes, you can go check though."

Yugi walked into the kitchen. Unlocking the door and opening it, he walked into the garage. The first thing he noticed was that his own car was the only vehicle there. His father's truck was gone, and so was he. Yugi turned to go back into the house. Then he noticed a folded piece of paper taped to the door of the garage which he just came through.

Yugi pulled the note off of the door to read it: 'Yugi, I'll be back later today. I left to take care of some business and thought I should let you know.' then it has his signature.

Crumpling the note in frustration, Yugi figured that the translation of that was, 'I won't be here today, take care of my kid.'

Yugi walked back into the house to inform Iris that her father wasn't there. As Yugi entered the living room, he was furious. He looked at Iris, but didn't say anything. Clutching the back of the couch to release some stress and try to calm himself down, he could hear Tea entering from the stairs. All dressed and ready for work, she walked up to Yugi, noticing his frustration. "What's going on?"

He lifted one of his hands to hold up the crumpled note. "He left, and he didn't take Iris with him. I guess he'll be back later, but this is a huge inconvenience. Someone has to watch her, but you're leaving, and I'm leaving in an hour. We can't leave her alone."

Tea was looking at Yugi sternly. She seemed irritated. "Yugi, I told you last night to watch what you say." She scolded. She looked at Iris and corrected Yugi, "You're not an inconvenience. Your father is just inconsiderate."

Yugi didn't realize that he could have hurt Iris' feelings. He wasn't sure if Iris realized Yugi's resentment toward their father. Maybe he really didn't need to be so forward with his anger about his father when Iris was there. He looked at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you an inconvenience."

"What's an inconvenience?" She asked.

Both Yugi and Tea smiled at her.

"Well, I would take her with me," Tea began, "but we're getting shipments today. No one will be watching her and I don't have anything to keep her busy." She thought for a moment. "You're teaching your class today, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you take her with you? She can learn how to become a professional duelist!" Tea looked at Iris and asked, "Wouldn't you like that?"

At first Iris looked at Tea, then she turned to Yugi to see his reaction to the suggestion. She could see that Yugi was waiting for her answer. She would love to go to one of his classes, but she didn't want to say that and make Yugi pressured when he had to decide whether to take her or not. Iris didn't want to be an inconvenience.

Yugi at first was surprised at Tea's suggestion. He looked at Iris, waiting for an answer. Although she wasn't answering, he knew what she would say. So he answered for her, "She'd love to go. I'd love to have her there."

Iris grinned at Tea, so overwhelmed with joy that she wanted dance around cheerfully like a child. However, she held back.

Tea smiled back, "Perfect, problem solved!" Tea turned to leave.

"Wait." Yugi called. She stopped. "Look at her."He pointed to Iris. Tea looked at Iris, then back at Yugi for an explanation. He continued, "I don't know what she would wear. I don't know how to dress a child, especially a girl!"

Tea looked at the child who was still in the clothes Tea picked out for her last night. "It's not that hard. Just find a shirt that fits, and some pants that fit, and make sure they match."

"Woah, woah, woah, I can't do all of that. That's way too hard."

"You do that for yourself everyday."

"No, my clothes fit me. And I don't need to match anything because all of my clothes are black or dark blue."

"And the accessories..." Tea teased.

"They don't count!" Yugi said, defending his collar and bracelets.

Tea sighed, "It figures." She looked at Iris. "Men can't figure out how to do anything for themselves." Tea shook her head as Iris giggled. "Fine, I'll get her ready if you call Joey and tell him I'll be fifteen minutes late."

"Deal." Yugi took out his phone while Tea took Iris upstairs to change her clothes. Before Yugi dialed the number he shouted to Tea, "Wait. You can be fifteen minutes late, but you can't miss a day to watch a child?"

Tea, who was already at the top of the stairs, shouted back, "Exactly."

Yugi laughed and continued what he he was doing- calling Joey.

"Hello."

"Hi Joey."

"Oh, hey Yugi. What's going on?"

"Nothing." Replied Yugi. "I'm just calling to let you know that Tea's going to be fifteen minutes late."

"Oh yeah? Another fashion crisis?"

"Sort of. It's not Tea's fashion crisis, it's this little girl's...it's a long story."

"Oh, you're little sister."

Yugi was surprised and confused, but more surprised. "Um, yeah. How did you know that Joey?"

"Neighborhood hot line. I heard the whole story."

"Huh." Yugi simply stated. "Interesting."

"Yeah man, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. So, where did you hear about it?"

"I heard it from Kaiba."

"Kaiba?" Now Yugi was really shocked.

"Yeah, he heard it from Mokuba, who heard it from Bakura, who heard it from Serenity, who heard it from Tristan, who heard it from Mai."

"Strange."

"I know, you would think that I would hear it from Serenity or Tristan before Kaiba. Especially since I live with Tristan. Well, I guess Mai was trying to call me way earlier this morning, but I was still asleep. You know, Tristan wakes up before me. We both wake up early to catch the train to Domino though."

"No, that's not what's strange, but actually... that is strange. Kaiba?"

"Yeah."

"You were talking to Kaiba?"

"Oh yeah, didn't I tell you that I prank call him every morning? My goal is to wake him, but he wakes up long before the sun does. Anyways, he knows it's me that calls. So, he filled me in on what he heard."

"Mokuba told him, and Bakura told Mokuba? When did they start talking?" Yugi asked, trying to get filled in on the details.

"You know, Bakura works for Kaiba."

"He does?" All of this information was new to Yugi.

"Uh-huh. He works at the Kaiba Land in Tokyo. You didn't know that?"

Yugi was still trying to figure this out, "...Serenity told Bakura, and Tristan told her, and Mai called this morning to tell you but told Tristan instead. Where did Mai hear it from?"

"Well, I hear she heard it from Tea."

"Huh." Yugi stated, a lot less surprised. "Didn't know the neighborhood hot line started before sunrise." Yugi said sarcastically.

"Yeah, well you know Tea. She loves to gossip. Not that it's gossip- you know what I mean."

"It's fine."

"Hey Yugi, you know I'd love to chat longer, but I gotta' go."

"Then I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah. Man- this feels weird."

Yugi wandered, "What does?"

"Oh, well, usually you're the one that's too busy to talk. That's why this feels backwards."

Yugi was surprised again, "I'm never too busy to talk." He said defensively.

"What are you talking about Yugi? You're so busy, we haven't even really hung out in the longest time."

"Fine. Let's hang out tomorrow. We'll meet at the plaza."

"Okay. You'll be there for sure, and you won't miss it?"

"For sure...I mean, yes."

"Yeah, like you never miss your dates with Tea?"

Yugi was going to reply, but couldn't. Joey was right. "You heard about that too."

"Yeah, that neighborhood hot line is a twenty-four hour thing. Anyways, I'm sorry, again. Look, if you meet Tea when you say we'll but her, then we'll talk about hanging out. But you work too much, you need to do some serious prioritizing. Yeah, I know what that means!"

Yugi laughed."Prioritize? Isn't work a priority?"

"I can't answer that for you. You have to answer it for yourself. That's right! I can be all deep like Atem."

"Does he play Tea's little game of telephone too?"

"You bet."

"Well then, I'll talk to you later. Thanks."

"No problem. I'll talk to you later."

Yugi closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. He knows Joey didn't mean to make Yugi upset with Tea, but Yugi couldn't help it. He kept thinking about this whole thing, and continued to get angrier. Though he was patiently waiting, he was impatiently tapping his foot. All he knew was that he needed to talk to Tea about it immediately.

When Tea came back, Yugi crossed his arms and looked directly at Tea. He looked at nothing else as she came down the stairs. Tea did think that it was pretty strange, it looked to her like something was wrong. She thought she was being paranoid.

She tried not to think of it, though Yugi never looked at people that way. She just said, "See? It didn't even take fifteen minutes to put an outfit together. But I have to go right now." She approached Yugi to give him a kiss good-bye, but he didn't respond to it.

He angrily stated, "You talk way too much for your own good."

Tea quickly stepped back. She was so offended and hurt and shocked that Yugi would ever say something like that to her. Trying to stop herself from crying, she said, "Why are you being so rude?"

Yugi ignored her question, and had no sympathy for her feelings, "So am I your big discussion topic? Is my story the latest gossip? Do you always go around telling everyone what's going on in my life?" Yugi almost shouted, he calmed himself down though, because in the back of his mind he would always have some self-control toward Tea. Though he was very upset.

Tea realized what he was talking about. It didn't make sense to her that something like that would cause him to react this way. "You can't possibly be this upset about me keeping your friends informed on what's happening. Yugi, what's wrong?" She was still holding back tears.

"I can if it's my personal life. It's my business to tell. That's my job to keep them informed."

"Yeah, and that would be great- if you actually did it. Don't you think it's pretty hard to tell people these things if you don't actually talk to them? If you weren't always too busy-"

"Oh, that's right." Yugi interrupted, "How silly of me. I almost forgot that I'm the bad guy." His sarcasm was evident in his voice.

"Well Yugi. I don't know what to tell you." She crossed her arms and looked up for a second, still trying to hold back tears. She looked back at him. "You should be the expert on bad guys. Don't they neglect the people who care about them?"

Yugi had nothing to say to that. He looked down at her. Honestly, he didn't care about a word she just said. He was still so angry, and was only getting madder at himself for hurting Tea's feelings, but that's still not the root of his anger. He only had one thing on his mind the whole time. "Please Tea," she looked up at him, wandering if he calmed down. "please don't tell me that my mom knows." Yugi stared at Tea seriously, and Tea could feel his glare. "Please don't tell me that you told my mom that the only man she ever loved that broke her heart twice is staying at my house."

Tea's heart stopped. She almost couldn't speak. She held her breath. Yugi was frightening to talk to when he was like this. Tea wouldn't do something like that though. She practically had to convince herself that she didn't do anything wrong before she could even look at Yugi. She exhaled, and dizzily replied, "I...didn't." She took another breath to calm down, "I didn't tell her anything. And I know she hasn't heard anything from anyone else who does know."

Yugi looked down with relief, letting out his held breath along with his anger. He wasn't really upset about the invasion of his personal life, all along he was upset about his mom. Thinking that his mom would be devastated once she found out, he knew he would have difficulty telling her. He was so worried that she would be so heart broken, she could become ill or have a heart attack. He was afraid to hurt her. He knew he had to tell her.

Without looking at Tea, he told her, "You can go then."

Then Tea burst out into tears. That grabbed Yugi's attention immediately. She put her hands over her eyes and continued crying into them. She removed her hands and cried, "You know I wouldn't do that Yugi!" Her comment surprised him. He quickly walked up and wrapped his arms around her, letting her cry into his chest. Though muffled, he could hear her say, "I'm sorry, I wouldn't do that." She continued crying. "Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not." Man, what a jerk he was. Why did he act like that? Maybe what Atem and Tea said was right. This whole situation with his father was turning him into a monster. His father hurt his mom, now why did he have to go and hurt Tea? "Tea, I didn't mean what I said." He stroke her hair gently. "You didn't do anything wrong." He shook his head. "I was just acting like a jerk."

"No Yugi." She began to calm down. "You're not a jerk. You're a sweet, caring, and protective man. I know you didn't mean to come off so strongly toward me. But it's okay, I'm a girl who will make mistakes, and you're a guy who will make mistakes."

"A guy Tea? A guy who makes mistakes?" He repeated to her, sort of in a trance. 'A guy, who makes mistakes. A guy, who might want to fix them, because it's a mistake. Maybe if he's sorry. Maybe a guy is forgiven when he makes mistakes. Why can't he be forgiven if he asks for it, if he truly asks for it? Why can't a guy be forgiven? How do you know if he sincerely wants to be? How do you know if he really is sorry? Yugi wandered all of these questions. He thought he wandered them to himself in his mind.'

"You don't Yugi."

Yugi snapped back to reality. "What?"

Tea sniffled, but she did stop crying. "You don't really know. You can only use your best judgment, and accept the consequences if he is lying."

Yugi was horrified. "What are you talking about?"

"Those things you just said. How do you know if he's sorry? That's my answer."

He guessed that he was speaking aloud. He didn't mean for her to hear any of that. "Don't you have to go now."

"What?" She asked confused.

"Tea, you're late you have to go."

"No, it's okay. I'll be fine. I'll be here as long as you need me." She smiled now.

Yugi separated himself from her, and put out his arms to keep her away. "Leave Tea. You have to go."

"Why?"

"Well..." He didn't know what to tell her. He was still freaking out at her hearing what he said. Did she know who Yugi was talking about? Finally, he told her the truth calmly. "You weren't supposed to hear any of that." Yugi tried to bring her toward the door."You have to go now."

"Don't be embarrassed, I'm here for you."

"Thank you, now leave."

She stopped him from shooing her out the door, stopped him and turned to face him, and tried to calm him down. She placed her hands on his face to make his eyes meet hers. "Yugi, all of your friend care about you, and they want to help you. I want to let you know that I never meant any harm, and your mom is fine. If you want, we can go later today to tell your mom everything that's going on, and I'll help you. Then everything will be fine. Do you want to do that?" She smiled for him.

Her smile lit him up on the inside. He was glad that she stopped crying. But as he looked down into her eyes, he thought not only of what she was saying, what Joey said. Thinking about these, he ignored her question and blurted out, "Let's go eat dinner tonight."

Tea continued smiling, then began to laugh, then went back to her grin. She ask, "Are you serious?"

Yugi nodded but also said, "Yeah."

She removed her hands from his face, but kept smiling and replied, "No." She stopped smiling. "Yugi, you work tonight, remember? Or did you forget?"

Yugi didn't answer her again. Tea reached up to him to kiss him. He kissed her back. Then she said "I love you."

He replied, "I love you too."

She smiled one last time before turning to leave. He watched her walk out the door and shut it behind her.

Yugi sighed and walked over to sit on the couch. Looking up at the TV, he saw himself drawing a card in a duel. He immediately grabbed the remote and pressed the power button to the TV off. It switched off and he no longer felt like looking at the TV.

Iris, having watched the whole thing, walked up to Yugi. "Yeah, I've seen that one like a million times. I didn't want to watch it either." She grinned.

He noticed her smile had more wisdom than it did innocence. He smiled back, acknowledging her motive. "They do show it like all the time, don't they?"

She nodded and sat next to him on the couch. She asked, "What are you thinking about?"

He definitely knew the answer to that question. "I'm thinking about Tea." He sighed. "Do you think I work too much?"

Iris shrugged. "I think there's a reason you're on TV more than any other duelist."

"I guess that's true." He looked around collectively before turning back to her, "What does that mean? What should I do? Not work?"

She plainly stated. "I think that as the adult male it's your responsibility to find the appropriate balance between your job and your family. After all, families need that male role model and support for the family."

He nodded blankly. "That is true." He looked at her questioningly. "How would you know? You don't even know where your dad is!" He teased.

She simply replied, "Yeah, well neither do you." She smiled at him again. They both laughed.

Yugi had nothing to say except, "Okay, that's fair."

Iris laughed, "That's not fair! That's terrible for us." She kept laughing, showing her good humor toward the situation.

He smiled. "I know, it is terrible. It's not like there's anything we can do about it. Besides, who needs a father anyways?"

"Everyone." Iris teased.

"Well, who needs one right now?"

"Not us!" she said excitedly.

"That's right." He checked his cell phone for the time, "I think we should leave right now if you want to get something to eat. Are you hungry?"

She nodded.

"Then let's get out of here."