I am so pleased you all like the story so far! Thank you for all the support!

Yugi had anticipated the trip through the mall might lead to some interesting events with an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who knew nothing about the time period, but he hadn't even accounted for something to happen so soon. Well, he hadn't thought he wouldn't have been able to get the pharaoh into the building at all.

Honestly, he hadn't even thought about the obstacle they now faced. He was so used to it, that the idea of it being intimidating hadn't crossed his mind. Even for a moment.

"Pharaoh, please, you're embarrassing me." Yugi said from where he stood on the inside of the mall. He attempted to beckon to Atem to come forward, but the ancient ruler wasn't having any of it.

"I am content where I am, thank you."

Atem was standing a relatively far distance away from the building with an agitated look. People walked by him and turned to stare at him occasionally. A lot more people would stare at him when he would take on an aggressive stance whenever they walked up to the doors that parted for them to allow them entrance.

Yes, the automatic doors of the building were the current enemy.

"Pharaoh, they're just doors, okay? It won't hurt you!"

Yugi watched as Atem glared at the doors when a couple walked through them. "What kind of sorcery is at work here?"

He groaned and slapped a hand to his face in embarrassment when a couple of teenagers started to giggle at Atem. "No magic, or anything like that. It's just electricity and stuff! Come on Atem!" As he said this, he tried to wave the man over once more. Atem didn't seem to have any interest in paying attention to him. The man looked like a puffed up cat.

The pharaoh then let out a vexed huff. "I do not trust it."

Yugi ran a hand through his hair. They hadn't even gotten into the mall yet and this was already a challenge. "Here, I'll show you." As Yugi said this, he walked forward to stand in the middle of the automatic doors. He waved his hands about to show the safety of them. "See? It's safe. They won't close on us or anything." When he looked at Atem, he saw the Egyptian had gone completely rigid.

Atem walked forward as if he was approaching a venomous snake. When he was close enough, he grabbed Yugi by the wrist and yanked him to his chest. Yugi let out a yelp as his face planted into the Egyptian. He felt arms wrap snugly around him with vice-like tightness. He let out a strained cough. "Atem... can't... breathe."

Yugi breathed a sigh of relief when Atem let him go. When he looked up, he saw the man's red eyes glaring at him sternly. "Do not do that."

Yugi found himself blushing slightly when he noticed Atem actually looked... worried. It reminded him of all the times Atem had looked out for him in the past. But things were different now. He was more capable than ever to fend for himself. He then stood up a little straighter and pointed to the building. "We need to get you some clothes. The automatic doors are just for convenience! They're not dangerous. I promise!"

Atem continued to look unsure. Yugi watched him glance between him and doors one more time. "Are you certain there is no danger?"

"Don't you trust me?" He asked of the man holding onto him. The pharaoh looked torn for a moment, but eventually, he nodded. Yugi's lips curved up into a bright smile. "Come on, let's go." He took the pharaoh by the hand and led him to the entrance. It took a little bit of force to pull Atem through, but once inside, the man rushed forward. Yugi giggled when Atem looked particularly haggard from the experience. "See? That wasn't so bad, was it?" Teasing a man that could deliver a lethal kick of doom when agitated probably wasn't the best idea Yugi had ever had, but Atem was just making it too hard to resist. Atem grunted, then turned around to send the doors one last withering glare.

Yugi chuckled before he turned his attention to the inside of the mall. He looked around. It seemed to be somewhat crowded today. Yugi walked forward, pulling Atem along with him into an aisle full of clothes.

On the outside of the mall, a couple of bystanders giggled at the pair. A woman spoke to her companion beside her. "Those two are just the cutest little couple."

Atem felt trapped. Boxed in. Cornered.

Now that the threat of the magically enhanced contraption of evil had passed, he found himself faced with yet another problem. The structure that his charge had brought him into looked far bigger on the inside than it had on the outside. And, with all of its colors and never ending layers of fabric, it looked like some kind of jungle or forest. What was worse, was he could hear the calls and hushed murmurs of its inhabitants – like quiet, dark chanting. It only fueled his belief that they were in some kind of evil, enchanted forest. Yugi did not seem to find any of this troubling at all.

Atem was quick to move out of the way of an older woman who passed by the two of them. She was waving her hands about wildly while she talked and ranted to seemingly no one. He stared at her for a long moment in bewilderment. Were such occurrences of insanity normal for this time?

"Yugi, why is that woman talking to herself? Is she mentally unstable?"

The shorter boy looked up in momentary confusion until he saw the person Atem was speaking of. He went back to searching through the clothes. "Oh, she's talking on her phone with her bluetooth." The boy stated as if it was obvious.

Atem stared at the woman a moment longer before he turned his attention elsewhere. He looked to his left and right and noticed they were flanked by garments on both sides. It was positively stifling. Yugi had walked on ahead of him while he mumbled out random things to himself like, "Now what size shirt should I get him? He kinda looks like a medium. A large might be more comfortable." This had Atem wondering if these things called 'malls' turned people crazy.

Atem was about to follow after Yugi until he heard quiet, high-pitch laughter coming from somewhere deep within the layers of clothes. He was quick to still. As quietly as he could, he turned his head to stare in the direction he thought he had heard the noise come from. His eyes narrowed as his gaze grew suspicious. The laughter quieted down to almost nothing, as if it had noticed it had been caught. There was a tense moment where nothing happened, and Atem reached out his hand to hesitantly grasp a shirt to move it slowly out of the way.

Then suddenly, something flew out of the clothes and startled Atem into stumbling backwards. A face came out between the shirts and shouted out, "Roar!" before quickly darting back inside its hiding spot. Atem was left feeling perturbed before he moved over to the area the little demon had sprang out from and yanked the shirts aside. All he saw was another layer of clothes. Confused, he moved away and walked forward to be near Yugi.

"Yugi," He saw the boy turn around to face him. "I think there are demons lurking within this jungle."

Atem watched Yugi raise an eyebrow at his conclusion. "What?" Just as the shorter boy asked, something had sprung from the clothes and attached itself to Atem's leg.

He flailed his arms around in an attempt to maintain his balance while the little gremlin wrapped around his leg yelled out, "I gotchu!"

From the looks of it, a small child had attached itself to him. The little boy could not have been older than five years. He heard Yugi start to giggle, but disregarded it in favor of flailing. The giggles turned into out-and-out laughter when he yelled out, "Get it off of me!"

"Jeffery! Come over here right now! Stop bothering people." The woman who had been talking to herself had suddenly yelled at the little boy.

Jeffery let out an "Awwww," before he listened to the woman and walked over to her.

When Atem finally managed to calm himself down after the sudden attack, he glanced at Yugi. The shorter boy looked quite amused. Yugi's laughter quieted to chuckles when Atem sent him a glare. "Oh c'mon, that was funny."

Atem did not think so. But as he stared at the beautiful smile on Yugi's lips, he could not help but smile as well. Yugi was just so... Atem could not even think of a word that would properly describe all of what the short man was. Perfection, perhaps? He felt a sense of peace whenever he felt the soft skin of Yugi's hand on his. Whenever the shorter boy pulled him along somewhere, he felt like he could follow the boy to the ends of the Earth and feel content.

And when Yugi smiled, with those eyes full of light and hope, he could feel his heart flutter. He could see the room brighten, but pale completely when next to the radiance that was Yugi.

It had him wondering, how could he possibly have ever lived without him? The light to his darkness. His light.

"Ah, here we go! Here Atem!" Atem was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Yugi's voice. The shorter boy held a simple, white t-shirt in his hands that he put up against Atem's chest to try and get a sense of whether or not it would fit him. "Looks about right." Yugi then folded the shirt over his arm. As Atem stared at the young man who went back to searching through the shirts, he wondered what Yugi thought of him. Had his feelings for the other been mutually felt? Yugi had never said he did not feel that way for him. The boy had only said they had been partners. It was a question he would have to remember to ask at a more appropriate time.

"Atem? Yoo hoo, Earth to Atem!" Atem blinked a few times when he saw a hand being waved in front of his face.

"Yes?" He asked when he was able to focus on the smaller one in front of him.

"I was asking if you wanted to take a break and get something to eat. There's a food court in here we can stop at." Yugi had a couple more shirts draped over his arm.

Atem's stomach took this time to voice its approval of such a decision. He saw Yugi grin at him when he felt his face become overly warm. He raised a hand to cough into before he turned his head to look elsewhere, trying to save as much face as he could. Embarrassment was not something he was accustomed to. "Yes, I think that would be satisfactory."

Yugi's grin turned into another one of those innocent, genuine smiles. "All right, let's go."

He followed Yugi wordlessly as he continued to think more on the subject of their relationship. He had not even been aware of anything around him until he had run into Yugi's back. He stumbled backwards a bit before he quirked an eyebrow at his charge. The young man seemed to have a habit of forgetting how to walk.

"Have we made it to this food court already?" When he looked to his left and right, he did not see any food. Only more clothes.

Yugi turned to him with a nervous half-smile. "Um, not quite."

"Why have we stopped then?"

The shorter boy let out a nervous laugh. He then pointed to something in front of them. "Well, it's on the second floor."

Atem tilted his head in confusion. "Second floor?" He then followed the direction in which Yugi was pointing with his eyes. What he saw had him going completely stiff.

Moving stairs... magical stairs that led up to another room were in front of them. Witchcraft.

"It's called an escalator. We need to walk up it to get to the second floor." When Yugi told him this, he moved his gaze back to the smaller boy. Atem's expression said what his stilled lips did not.

Oh, hell no.

They had finally made it to the second floor of this enchanted place Yugi called a mall after they had walked around for twenty or so minutes in search of stairs that were not magically enhanced. In that time, Yugi had started to do a little dance of sorts. It had him worrying over whether or not Yugi was slowly turning into a demon by this strange place's influence.

"Are you all right, Yugi?"

Yugi looked at him urgently while he hopped from foot to foot.

"Ah! I really gotta use the bathroom. It took way too long to get here."

Atem raised an eyebrow. "The bathroom?"

"Pee, I have to pee."

Atem looked down to his stomach when it had yet again made its discomfort known. He looked back up to Yugi's distraught face. "But I require sustenance."

Yugi glared at him. "Oh, don't start."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Start what?" Atem could feel the beginnings of irritation creep up on him. He did not wait on his servants to bring him food. Not that he thought of Yugi as a servant, but the point remained; he needed something to eat. It should be a priority. That was just how it was.

"That! That face. You're starting to act like a little, spoiled brat again." The shorter boy said as he gestured to Atem.

Atem felt affronted by the gesture and the words. "Excuse me?"

He watched as Yugi sighed, then looked around the area. There was a shop not too far from where they were standing with a colorful assortment of knickknacks inside. Yugi ran inside of it, leaving Atem to stand in place in bewilderment at seeing how fast the small boy could move. After a short time, Yugi came back with a bunch of colorful, little things in his hands. They were wrapped up in shiny, little wrappers with fancy words scrawled across their surface. They were like nothing he had ever seen before. Yugi then grabbed him by the hand and started to walk at a rather brisk pace.

"What are those?" He inquired as he allowed himself to be dragged off by the boy.

Yugi did not look behind himself as he said, "Candy."

That term sounded foreign to his ears. "Candy? What is candy?"

"You'll find out."

So Yugi led him to an area that immediately assaulted nearly every sense of him. There were so many people crowded around little tables. So much chatter made him think of the crowded streets of his home back in Egypt, whenever he got the chance to see it outside of his throne room. And the food, it smelled like nothing he had ever smelled before. Salt, lots of salt. It was horribly strong.

Yugi pulled him along and sat him down at one of the vacant tables. Atem eyed the area with apprehension. He was quickly realizing that he did not much care for any of his surroundings at the moment.

"Okay, I'm gonna go use the bathroom."

Atem's gaze snapped to Yugi when he heard him say that. "You are leaving?"

"Only for a second. Here." Yugi placed the colorfully wrapped 'candy' onto the table in front of him. "Eat these for now, I'll be right back." The smaller boy then quickly ran off.

Atem wanted to follow him at first, but was quick to regain his composure. He was the pharaoh. He should act as such. And a pharaoh did not run away scared when faced with uncomfortable situations. Atem looked down at the candy on the table before him. When his stomach grumbled again, he let out a sigh. He would just have to make do until Yugi returned. Carefully, he picked one of the colorful pieces up. After ripping off the wrapping, he moved the candy to his nose to take a hesitant sniff. It smelled awfully sweet. It was a round ball attached to a stick. Most gingerly, he placed it into his mouth to take a bite.

As soon as he bit down, and heard his teeth practically crack in the process, he pulled it immediately out of his mouth. It was as if he was trying to chew on a rock. This thing was edible?

"Hi mister scaredy-cat!" Atem turned his attention away from the candy when he heard a familiar high-pitched voice. He looked down to see the small child that had tried to attack him before. The little boy grinned widely, displaying a crooked set of teeth with a couple missing.

Atem glared at the little demon a moment longer before he looked to the candy in his hand. An idea came to him. He then bent down and handed the small child the supposedly edible rock. "Here, take this. Now be gone, little vermin."

The little boy's face lit up with childish glee. He took the offered candy and ran off screaming out, "Mama, mama! The nice stranger gave me candy!"

Atem shook his head. He did not understand how anyone could get that excited over a sweet smelling rock.

It was then that the sound of laughter attracted his attention. Atem looked over to see a few young-looking kids seated at a table. A group of girls giggling and laughing. He was about to simply look away, but was distracted when he heard the sound of something akin to music start to play from one of their weird devices. It was no tune he had ever heard before. Most of the songs he was used to were sung. But the one they were playing had a melody to it. A rhythm that he was unfamiliar with. It was... kind of entrancing. He found himself listening despite himself.

The longer he listened, however, the more the words being sung started to confuse him. None of them even made coherent sense together. It was just a disjointed mess of syllables with peculiar sounding instruments in the background being used as a way to accentuate the vocals. And what was a milkshake anyway?

The sound of Yugi's voice stole his attention away from the weird song. "Hey, I'm back. Sorry about that. Did you like the candy?" Atem was still lost in his thoughts when he stared up at Yugi in perplexed curiosity. He watched Yugi tilt his head when he did not answer right away. "Uh, Atem? You all right?"

After a moment, he nodded. He could still hear the odd tune in the background of their conversation. "Yes, I have an inquiry about something, if you will indulge me."

Yugi pulled out one of the chairs to sit down across from him. "Okay, shoot."

Atem's eyebrows furrowed. "Shoot?" He realized he was still fairly unaccustomed to the dialect of this day and age. It left him feeling at a bit of a disadvantage. That was another feeling he was not used to.

The shorter boy seemed to notice Atem's troubled state and shook his head with a quirk of his lips. "It's just an expression."

Atem stared at the boy a moment longer before he carried on with his question. "What is a milkshake?"

The question seemed to throw Yugi off guard, for the boy leaned back in his chair with an eyebrow raised. "A milkshake? It's just like, milk and ice mixed up with some other flavor. Like chocolate or strawberry. Why do you want to know that?" Yugi asked, looking confused.

Atem ignored the question in favor of learning more about a milkshake. "Why would a milkshake bring all the boys to the yard?"

Yugi's face turned from confused to completely baffled. "Do what now?"

"Would I go to this yard for this milkshake? And where is this yard?"

"Wait, slow down."

"What if I do not want to go to the yard to be charged for a milkshake?"

Yugi had started to chuckle, even more so when he seemed to also hear the tune playing not too far from them. Atem watched Yugi press a hand to his mouth in an attempt to quell the laughter. "Atem, hold on."

"I'm guessing you can eat this milkshake? It must be good if it attracts all the boys."

Yugi could not seem to contain his humor any longer. He was quite unintelligible with the laughing fit he was currently engaged in. Atem huffed in vexation. He wanted to know if he should be wary of the allure of this 'milkshake,' yet Yugi seemed perfectly content with his laughing. Atem puffed out his cheeks and crossed his arms. Cute or not, loved or unloved, he did not much care for Yugi's blatant amusement at his expense. What was so funny anyway? His light looked near to tears with how reddened his face had gotten.

"Oh... my... god." Atem looked over when he heard a feminine voice not too far away from the table Yugi and him were seated at. He caught sight of one of the young girls that had been playing the weird melody standing near him. Her expression was one of pure delight as she stared at him with what Atem could only assume was barely suppressed glee. She had her hands pressed firmly to her cheeks with some of the biggest eyes he had ever seen. "You are drop dead gorgeous."

Atem scrunched his face up in irritated confusion. He stared back at her a moment before he asked, "Why would you drop dead from my attractiveness? Are you ill?"

It was then that Yugi laughed so hard, he promptly fell off his seat.

Yugi pushed open the door to the Kame Game shop with his back as his hands were too full of bags of varying sizes. He was beat. So much more than he had been earlier this morning. If he thought he could feel every ache-y muscle in his body before, it was nothing compared to the strain he was feeling now. Today had been rather eventful. More so than he had expected, and he was definitely feeling the effects of it. Yugi trudged through the shop to get to the kitchen. He was practically dragging the bags along the floor as he did so.

They had left the mall shortly after the incident in the food court. After getting something to eat, they had left much sooner than Yugi would have liked, because Atem wouldn't stop complaining he was, "Far too full and tired to deal with anymore magic and demons for the day." Big talk coming from the man who hadn't had to sleep on the floor the night before, and who also didn't carry a single thing throughout the entire trip.

Afterwards, Yugi had decided to make a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up just a few things. He had left Atem outside. Mostly because he figured the both of them had had enough excitement for one day.

Yugi grumbled under his breath all the way to the kitchen. Atem was behind him with, of course, nothing in his hands. He walked gracefully in the direction Yugi was headed.

Once they were in the kitchen, Yugi moved to the counter. With all the strength he could muster, he attempted to hoist the bags up onto it. He swore he heard something pop during the action. Unfortunately, he could barely lift them up halfway. He let out a strained groan when they fell back onto the floor. His arms felt like dead weight. Atem had been watching him silently. Yugi sent the man an irritated glare.

"You can help, you know."

Atem had that look on his face that Yugi was quickly recognizing as his, "I'm so important and noble I practically shit gold. How dare you ask me that." look.

"I do not partake in the menial tasks of a servant."

Yugi let out a defeated sigh. "Of course you don't." He made another attempt to lift the bags up onto the counter, and met with little success. Another groan escaped him as he closed his weary eyes. He loved that Atem was back in the present with him. Truly, he did. But this side of him was quite a handful. He wasn't used to the pharaoh being so... spoiled. "You were so much easier to deal with when you were inside of me." Seriously, the pharaoh was getting on his near last nerve. Normally he wouldn't have minded, but he could barely lift the bags at all. The man could at least take a second to stop being entitled and help him out.

"What?" It was from that question of Atem's - the evident intrigue in his tone - that Yugi's last statement fully registered in his tired mind.

He felt his face flush hot. He couldn't believe he just said that. To Atem. What in the world was he thinking? Apparently nothing much.

"I, uh, I mean... my head. When you were in my head. Holy crap I really just said that." The heat in his face wouldn't lessen, and when he caught sight of Atem's expression that changed from snobby to curious, he only blushed more.

And what was worse, Atem seemed to be thinking about the statement. "Inside of you?" Yugi needed to find some water, immediately, because his face must surely be on fire. "Yugi," The ancient ruler lifted a hand to stroke at his chin in deep thought, and Yugi felt all the more embarrassed during the prolonged pause. "Have we engaged in sexual intercourse?"

Yugi spluttered and fumbled with the plastic of the bags' handles. They slipped from his suddenly clammy hands as he attempted to shout out, "What?! No!" Though he wondered if it had even been coherent with how his voice had raised several octaves. Honestly, the pharaoh didn't know what a milkshake was, didn't know what candy was, called a five-year-old a demon, but made the connection of, 'inside of you,' as something sexual? How conveniently not convenient.

"Oh." Atem said, a little put-off. Yugi wasn't sure if it was just him or not, but did Atem actually seem... disappointed?

Yugi tried to keep a hold on as much dignity as he could as he said, "Will you just help me with these? Please?"

Yugi watched Atem eye him a moment with a calculating gaze. He felt like nothing more than an ant right now in the ancient Egyptian's presence. The silence felt suffocating. Or maybe that feeling was coming from his face still being on fire. He wouldn't have been surprised if the fire alarm had started to beep from the steam that must be rolling off of him. Finally, the pharaoh started to move. He walked over to Yugi, and bent down to pick up the bags. In just one effortless motion, the pharaoh picked them up and placed them on the counter. The closeness was enough to make Yugi's heart pick up its pace.

"The deed has been done." Atem said as he backed away from the counter to continue to stare at him. Yugi didn't like all the attention. The pharaoh stood there, just staring at him with those magnificently intense eyes that he was used to seeing directed at another opponent, not him.

"Thanks..." The awkward atmosphere just wouldn't fade. Yugi stared down at the floor and willed the heat in his face to cool and his heart to slow down.

"Yugi?" Yugi looked back up at the ancient ruler. He really didn't like the curious look on the man's face. There was another long, deliberate pause before Atem started, "Are you sure-"

"Yes! Yes I'm sure!" He shouted out louder than was probably necessary. When he felt something wet at his nose, his eyes widened. Yugi lifted his hand to wipe at the area. When he moved his hand away and saw blood on his fingers, his eyes widened even more. He let out an embarrassed squeak and quickly ran out of the room.

Yugi plopped down onto his bed and allowed himself to fall back against the comforter, letting out a miserable groan as he did so. That man would surely be the death of him. Whether by causing him to laugh himself to death, or... - he took a moment to lift a tissue he had bundled up to wipe at his previously bleeding nose - or by brain aneurysm.

He let out a pitiful whine. He still couldn't believe he had embarrassed himself so thoroughly in front of Atem. He hadn't even thought of what he was saying before he said it. Seriously, when Atem was inside of him? He couldn't have picked a worse wording.

When Atem was inside of him.

That thought caused another blush to rush to his cheeks. Why did that one sentence make feel all... shy? Aside from the sexual innuendo, of course. But the idea of Atem being the one inside of him just made him feel...

He let out an, "eep" as he felt blood rush up a little too quickly to his head to cause the heat to worsen. Perhaps this was a thought he should consider more later. Yugi was rescued from his thoughts when his phone began to vibrate on top of his desk.

Yugi sat up and reached for the device. He noticed he had several messages from his friends. It was then that he realized he had forgotten to take his phone with him when he had brought Atem to the mall. A lot of the messages were from Joey. Most of them asking where he was, and asking how he was doing.

That's right! He hadn't even mentioned to them at all that Atem was back. They would definitely want to know the man was here. He started up a message to send to Joey.

"Hey! Sorry I haven't called. How about we all meet up tomorrow? There's actually something I need to tell you. And no, I didn't die from pizza withdrawals."

He then hit send, and placed his phone back atop his desk. A sigh found its way through his parted lips. He should probably go check on Atem. There was no telling what the man would get himself into without supervision. With that thought in mind, Yugi stood up from his bed to go in search of the five-thousand year old pharaoh.

The pharaoh will now get to be reintroduced to the gang next! Wooo. I would greatly appreciate a review!