Darkness Before Dawn

Bombshell

Saturday, October 29, 2005

It started with the official looking envelope with Yugi's name and address that Jou pulled out from among the ads and bills.

"Dude, dis looks kinda serious," the blond said as he handed the envelope to Yugi.

"Uh, OK..." Yugi replied as he hesitantly opened the envelope.

As he read the letter over, his entire body began to shake. Yugi felt the paper slip from his hand as his brain refused to process what his eyes had just seen.

"Wuzzit say?" wondered Jou, impulsively snatching the paper from the floor to read.

However, before he could make much headway, Yugi snatched the paper back and clutched it to his chest.

"None a your business!" he barked.

"Yugi, wut da fuck?!" yelped the aggrieved Jounouchi, from whom Yugi turned on his heel and fled upstairs.

Jou flinched as he heard Yugi's bedroom door bang shut.

"Da fuck?" the blond said, scratching his head before shrugging and heading for his car.

He had a date with Mai!

Yugi sat at his desk, reading, then rereading the paper clutched in trembling hands. For printed in sharp black lettering on a stark white background, was nothing less than the end of the world as he knew it: The Kame Game Shop was head over heels in debt and if Yugi didn't come up with ¥5,238,175 by the end of next month, the bank would repossess the shop. He was going to lose his childhood home, the one place he had always been able to return to for safety when the world became too much? How could he live without that sense of security?

'¥5,238,175. There's no way I can make that kind of money by the end of the month. Even if I quit school and kept the shop open full time, we never had that kind of business to begin with!' Yugi thought, raking his hand through his preposterous hair. 'The only way to even begin to pay this off would be to use my college fund...'

After exiting the bus, Atem made his way home, grocery bags in hand and a look of determination on his face.

'My poor habibi has been so down of late. I'll make all of his favorites today,' Atem thought as he walked down the sidewalk.

When he arrived at the house, he noticed right away that Jou's car was gone.

'Perfect. Lunch for two will be just what Yugi needs,' the Egyptian thought as he approached the house, pulling his key from his pocket as he did so.

"I'm home!" Atem called as he shut the door behind him, set the bags down and began unbuckling his boots.

Silence answered.

"Yugi?!" he called.

Still no answer.

'He could be out for a walk,' Atem surmised as he set everything on the counter.

Atem made his way upstairs, where he saw Yugi's closed door at the end of the hall, which meant that Yugi was indeed home, for he always left his door carelessly open or ajar when he went out.

'Perhaps he didn't hear me if he's listening to music or playing a game,' Atem thought as he approached Yugi's door and turned the knob... only to find the door locked.

"What in Ra's name?" Atem said in consternation.

In all his time living at this house, Yugi's door had never been locked, in keeping with Yugi's promise to him.

"Yugi, it's Atem. I'm going to make your favorites for lunch," Atem called through the door as he knocked.

"Huh? OK... I'll be out in a sec," Yugi's voice called listlessly through the door.

"Alright. I'll see you in the dining room in one hour," Atem said.

"OK..."

A frowning Atem made his way back downstairs.

'Perhaps he's ill. There's been a bug circulating at school,' the Egyptian thought.

Atem returned to his domain and began pulling the ingredients from the bags.

Even as the enticing smell of hamburger, hummus and an Indian dish of rice, curry, lentils and chapati began to waft into the room, Yugi couldn't shake off his melancholy state.

'I can't lose the shop. I just can't. There's gotta be a way to make the money somehow. Maybe they'd let me pay in installments, like Jou did to get his car!' he thought to himself, countenance brightening just a bit at the thought.

Yugi read the paper over and found a phone number on it that was available to call if he had "questions or concerns".

"Yeah, I'd call losing the shop a 'concern,'" Yugi said acerbically as he flipped open his phone and dialed the number.

Yugi listened to the ringtone with dilated eyes and bated breath, which narrowed and huffed out an angry sigh when his call went to a recording telling him to leave a message and his call would be returned later that day.

"Hello, this is Mutou Yugi, heir to Mutou Sugoroku, calling about the Kame Game Shop. I was wondering if I could work out some kind of payment plan to keep the shop. Please return my call at ___-___-____," Yugi said. "Thanks."

'Well, that's all I can do for now,' Yugi thought as he snapped his phone shut. 'I'll just have to keep my phone on me all the time.'

"Yuuuugiiii, lunch!" Atem's voice called from downstairs.

'Thank the gods! That scent's overpowering!' Yugi thought, mouth watering as he went for his door to head downstairs.