"One Of Those Days"

Yugi has a really bad day and Yami offers comfort. Cute-but-pointless fluff :-)

Yugi Mutou was walking home slowly, hoping it wouldn't rain. It probably would, given his luck. It had been, to put it mildly, a horrible day. It had started with a surprise math quiz - which he was sure he'd failed - and hadn't gotten any better from there. Next Joey had nearly electrocuted him in science lab, and the teacher had scolded poor Yugi in front of everyone else for not paying attention to what his lab partner was doing. ("Honestly, Mutou, can't you at least try to exhibit a little common sense once in a while?!") Tea was no longer speaking to him since she'd started dating that guy from the baseball team, he'd gotten clobbered, albeit inadvertantly, after being forced into playing basketball in gym, then he'd gotten yelled at (never mind laughed at - big time ("You're a loser, Mutou! Loser! L-O-S-E-R!") in World Lit for getting the name of the protagonist of The Good Earth wrong (he really had thought it was Wang Chung, like the 80's band.) That was before lunch. At lunch, he'd discovered what might have been the first tenent of Yugi's Law - nobody ever notices you unless you drop your tray in the cafeteria. From there he'd managed to humiliate himself in History when he got Washington DC and Washington State mixed up. (Why couldn't the Americans have named one of them something different?) The teacher had kept him after class to scold him for being so inattentive ("You need to pull yourself together and get your head out of the clouds, Yugi Mutou, because as it is you'll never amount to anything. You're supposed to be intelligent, but so far you haven't shown any signs of it.") and he'd wound up missing the bus. All this explained why he was walking home, hoping it wouldn't rain.

The bus he'd missed swept by him and a voice yelled out the window, "HEY MUTOU, YOU'RE A LOSER!" Several people on the street looked around. Poor Yugi just hung his head, overwhelmed with misery. They're right, he thought. They ought to make me wear a scarlet letter L or something. The only bright spot in this whole horrible day was that Yami would be waiting for him at home. That was enough to cheer him up slightly. Just the thought of being in his lover's arms again, curling up with him while they watched TV, watching the former pharaoh get all mixed up trying to operate the new DVD player - technology was the one element of the modern world that seemed to leave Yami completely bollixed. Yugi almost had to smile, thinking of the time Yami had helped his Grandpa unplug the computer and all its various attached peripheral gadgets - only to wind up plugging the power strip back into itself and the monitor into the wall. It had taken them half an hour to figure out why nothing else would come on. He started walking a little faster, feeling almost happy by now. His Grandpa was out of town, so he and Yami had the weekend to themselves. He couldn't wait----

"Yami?" he called, opening the front door of the shop, which was actually closed for the moment. "Yami, I'm home!"

No reply. Thinking his lover must not have heard him, Yugi ran up the stairs in back to the apartment above the store, opening the door - and finding it dark, deserted.

"Yami?" Bewildered, he went back downstairs to look in the back room. No one was there. Slowly, he walked back toward the stairs, hanging his head. In his fragile mental state, he wasn't coherient enough to realize the obvious - Yami had just gone out for a bit. No, poor Yugi was certain he'd been abandoned, dumped for someone who was --- well, wasn't a loser. That last thought was too much. Yugi whimpered, dropped his bag with a thump and sank down on the bottom step, huddling into a ball and dissolving into sobs.

Yami got back about twenty minutes later. He'd gone to pick up a pizza and rent a movie, not realizing it would take as long as it did. He'd fogotten how many of those discs there were to choose from. Luckily, he had found the last copy of the one his aibou wanted to see so badly. Then the pizza place had taken almost half an hour. He hoped Yugi wasn't too worried. At least it's Friday, he thought. I'll have my little light all to myself for two whole days. If I had my way, we'd never be apart. I miss him so much when he's not with me, even for a few hours. He sighed. Sometimes he wished he was still pharaoh. Then he could have built his little Yugi a palace out of gold and lapis, taken him to bed amid silk sheets, gotten him a pure white camel and a little pet antelope - the latter had been all the rage at the time - dressed him in the finest silk and satin, taken him along to Greece and Rome and wherever else, taken him sailing along the Nile---- he smiled at the thought. They could have been married even, he and his little aibou, his consort, his beloved, in a huge ceremony with all of Egypt and Greece and Rome invited, with the celebrations lasting for weeks. I could have given him everything then. Everything. And maybe, just maybe, I could have shown him how much I love him, how very precious he is to me. As it is, all I can do is get a pizza and a video disc for the evening. He didn't realize that the latter two were all the proof that Yugi needed.

As he was letting the door shut behind him, he heard soft whimpering coming from the dark stairs. He looked around. "Aibou?"

"Y-Yami---?" Yugi sniffled, looking up.

"Koibito!?" Yami set the pizza box down and and rushed over to gather his little hikari up in his arms. "Shhh, my little angel, my beloved. I'm here now. There there." He pulled Yugi onto his lap, enfolding the little one in his strong arms. "What's wrong, my light? Why are you crying?"

"Oh Yami---" Yugi sniffled, hiding his face against his lover's shoulder. "It's just been the most horrible day. Everyone's either been laughing at me or yelling at me since I got to school---" He sniffled and choked on a sob, looking up at Yami with his amethyst eyes full of tears. "I know, I'm being a baby again---"

Yami rocked him, cuddling him and kissing away his tears. "No you aren't, sweet one. Shhh, my koibito, my angel, it's all right now. I'm here. I'll take care of you, my darling, my koi, my precious jewel---" He claimed Yugi's trembling lips in a long kiss, pulling him closer, unable to hold him tightly enough. "I love you so much, little angel, I could never begin to tell you in a million lifetimes how much." He kissed Yugi again, tenderly. "I picked us up a pizza, koibito, and I found that video disc you so wanted to see. The strange one we missed in the theater." It seemed like a pathetic offering at best, considering he really wanted to see the people who had made his little angel cry suffer, and badly, but he knew the mere suggestion would frighten Yugi, who hated seeing anyone hurt.

Yugi looked at him. "T-The Core, you mean?" He'd only mentioned it in passing, but he really had been wanting to see it. He hadn't known Yami was even really listening.

"That's the one." Yami kissed the tip of Yugi's delicately pointed little nose, loving the way his little hikari's eyes lit up when he was surprised.

Yugi hugged his lover tight. "Arigato, Yami---"

"You're welcome, my light. But for what?" Yami said, holding him.

"Everything. Being there for me. Putting up with me ---" he paused, then said softly, "For loving me."

"Now I didn't have a choice about that last one, koibito," Yami replied playfully, knowing exactly when to start teasing Yugi out of his gloom. "You made big innocent eyes at me and I was lost."

Yugi looked shy, a soft blush and the beginnings of a smile both creeping across his delicate face. He didn't realize that Yami had slipped his hands underneath his shirt until it was too late. He yelped in surprise when his lover started tickling him, trying to scramble away. They wound up rolling onto the floor and ending up in another long kiss.

"Come on, koi, let's go upstairs," Yami said when their lips parted, rolling to his feet to fetch the pizza and DVD. Yugi, feeling much better, grabbed his bag and followed. Maybe it wasn't going to be such a bad night after all.....