A Means of Communication

Chapter 9: Answering Machines

The average teenage boy dragged the rock star in disguise out of Burger World. the two of them dove into the swarming crowd on the afternoon city street. Yugi was trying to get as far away from his friends as possible. Meanwhile, his grip on Atemu's hand was almost deathly.
"Yugi, you're cutting off my circulation," Atemu commented. Yugi paused in his walking to look down at the hand.

"Oh, sorry," Yugi apologized, taking away his hand frantically. "I'm sorry, Atemu. I am so sorry," Yugi repeated face looking down at the mucky city sidewalk below. Atemu was about to protest when a person bumped violently into him in the back. Talking in the middle of a crowded moving street was not a good idea.

"Let's get somewhere where we can talk," Atemu groaned. He put a kind hand on Yugi's shoulder and steered him toward a small alcove of a store entrance, closed because it was Sunday. Yugi leaned dead-like on the locked store door, face pale.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated. "If I had any idea that they were going to be there I would never have gone in there, I swear."

"I believe you, Yugi," Atemu insisted, facing his back toward the crowd and pulling off the sunglasses to wipe the sweat of his nose. "Don't worry, it wasn't that bad..."

"Oh god, when Anzu said that about... and when Jounouchi was explaining about his hair experiment." Yugi went on like he was reliving a bad horror movie. "I wanted to die. Oh god, it was terrible."

"Yugi," Atemu reassured. "Its fine, it's not like I've never met people like that before."

Yugi stared at Atemu in dismay. "You poor soul," he muttered in awe. "I'd kill myself if my life was posted up there on media every day. You're braver than I."

"Costs of having your dreams come true I'm afraid..." Atemu said shrugging pulling out his burger from the inside of his pocket. "Damn, these things are great!" Atemu took a bite out of the burger, humming with pleasure as he chewed. "Man, I wasn't lying back there. If Ishizu sees me eating stuff like this, she really will kill me."

"Ishizu?" Yugi questioned, curiously. "You mean Ishizu Ishtar, your manager?"

"Yeah," Atemu answered. "She's afraid we'll get fat and pimply and ruin our perfect figures if we eat this stuff," Atemu explained, while chewing another large bite happily.

"Well, maybe if you eat it all the time... but look at Jounouchi and Honda. They eat that stuff constantly and they turned out alright," Yugi pointed out logically. Then the teenager shuddered as the thought of his friends came to his mind again. "Well...I'm glad you like the burger. At least one thing went right today," Yugi commented.

"You're wrong," Atemu said as he finished his food. "That's not the only thing that went right today." He stared deliberately into Yugi's purple eyes. Yugi shivered. "Neither of us ran away. We managed to get through the whole day and you know what? It was kinda fun. I mean, I am much hotter than Bakura." Yugi grinned and jabbed Atemu playfully in the side.

"What was going on with you and Ryou? You two were acting really strange," Yugi asked.

"Well..." Atemu began, tossing his left over burger wrapper into a trash can. "We've sort of met accidentally..."

Yugi gaped, astonished. "How?"

"I didn't know it was him at the time but me and Bakura were at this hotel and the bastard was really sick of the healthy food Ishizu gives us so he ordered a pizza," Atemu explained.

"Oh god." Yugi's hands flew up to his face apprehensively. "He ordered from Pizza Palace, didn't he?" Atemu nodded with a smirk and then proceed to explain how it took a while for Ryou to recognize Bakura, but not as a famous guitarist but as the guy who had stolen his backpack.