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It was a beautiful spring morning, just warm enough to drive with the windows open but not so hot that you were sweltering. It was still a touch too cold for Atem's taste, but it was what it was. He still drove with the windows down on his way to the game shop. Learning to drive a car had been, surprisingly, world's easier than learning to drive a chariot and Atem had picked it up rather quickly. All of the doodads and gizmos in the car were another story. Since Kaiba set up his phone's Bluetooth to automatically connect, he could turn on his music and drive. That was it.
Oh, and sometimes answer the phone, if he was in an area he knew well enough or on a long stretch of highway. It happened that he got a phone call from Kaiba as he turned the corner onto Yugi's block.
"Yes, my love?" he answered after fumbling to find the right button.
"Where are my cufflinks?" Ever Kaiba, no greeting or sweet hellos, always straight to business.
As it was, Atem didn't have an answer right away. Mostly because the word cufflinks didn't have a direct translation in Ancient Egyptian. It still took Atem's brain a full minute of buffering before he realized what he was being asked. The phrase Kaiba had used could have been translated closer to fancy sleeve buttons, and it just threw poor Atem off completely. Especially since he was tired and losing vocabulary in every language he spoke.
"They're in your jewelry box," Atem answered with a heavy sigh once he figured it out. "You know, the place they belong."
He heard fumbling on the other side of the phone, likely Kaiba looking for said box. "They belong wherever I put them."
"Gathering dust on your nightstand is not where expensive cufflinks belong," Atem ground out. Even by Kaiba's standards they were expensive. Sighing again, he parked on the side of the shop next to Yugi's car. He heard a loud hum and turned in the driver's seat to see the street cleaner coming up the road. About damn time, too. Atem watched very closely. They'd been having problems with the city for ages about the street in front of the shop and its general state of disrepair. The least it could be was clean.
Kaiba's exasperated huff filled the car. "And where exactly is my jewelry box?!"
The way his voice echoed, Atem just knew he was standing in their walk-in closet. Which meant he was probably looking right at the large teak box that sat on the shelf next to his duel disk. "Seto. My love. Light of my life. My morning and evening star. You have beautiful eyes. I am begging you to use them."
Kaiba growled and Atem had to bite back a laugh. “I will not be patronized by–”
“I need to call you back.” Atem hung up with a growl of his own at the street cleaner drove right past the shop without cleaning a damn thing. He jumped out of the car and stormed into the game shop, already formulating what he was going to say to the DPW. Yugi was at the counter sorting through some cards when he walked in. “That dense, brainless–it’s absurd. Insulting! Good morning, Yugi. Motherfuckers keep fucking around with us, I swear to the gods– Do you still have Diance from the DPW’s phone number?”
Yugi stared wide eyed at him, mouth agape and not sure what to say for a minute. “Um. Yes? I think? What happened?”
“Those motherfucking – The street cleaner just passed in front of the shop without cleaning the damn street!” Atem snapped as he gestured vaguely to the front door. He was sure to keep the worst of his swearing to Egyptian, just in case a customer walked in they didn’t need to hear him throwing a shit fit. “I’m sick of this, Yugi! That piece of shit Mayor has been ignoring your street for over 20 years. It needs to be paved properly, the sidewalks need to be redone, and the lampposts need updating. No one wants to drive on a pothole ridden street and risk a flat to go to a game shop! And that sidewalk is a hazard! Gods forbid someone breaks their neck because they tripped on the broken pavers!”
“It is what it is, Atem,” Yugi said with a sigh as he dug through the drawer for the requested phone number. This had been a thorn in his darker half’s side since the moment Yugi finished the Puzzle. He’d never particularly cared about the state of the street he’d grown up on and chalked it up to living in the older part of town. And his grandfather had long since given up the fight with the city and the mayor’s office about fixing anything in the streets.
Atem bristled and had to bite back the worst of his yelling. He was going to save that for Diane. Yugi finally found the business card and handed it to him. The phone was ringing in seconds.
“Domino City Department of Public Works, this is Diane speaking,” came the cheerful voice on the other end of the phone.
“Diane, it’s Yugi Mouto, how are you?” Atem greeted, forcing a smile onto his face so he sounded more cheerful than he was. It felt odd to introduce himself as Yugi after all this time, but Diane knew his voice. He’d regularly front in Yugi’s body to call the DPW about the problems on the street since Yugi himself didn’t have enough of a spine.
“Oh, Yugi! It’s been a while. I’m well, how are you? How's your grandfather?” Diane asked, but she already had an edge to her voice.
“He’s well. Listen, Diane, I need your help with something,” Atem continued, ready to get right down to brass tacks. “I just watched the street cleaner pass right in front of the shop without bothering to clean it. He was cleaning down the other road and then turned the corner and stopped cleaning but kept driving. Now come on. That’s a bit beyond the pale, don’t you think?”
He could feel Diane’s irritation on the other side of the phone. “I’ll call the cleaner and see if he can turn around before he stops. But really now, there are more important things.”
Her lackadaisical words coupled with the dismissive tone of her voice almost sent Atem to the moon faster than one of Elon Musk’s rockets. His irritation must have been palpable because Yugi took a healthy step back, even though the counter was still separating them.
“Diane,” Atem started, his voice even but laced with the undercurrent of calm anger that he’d perfected in his time on the throne. Raising one’s voice and screaming and yelling hardly got anything done, but keeping a calm tone that still spoke to one’s immense anger was an art. Still, as calm as he tried to be, he found the longer he spoke, the more he lost grip on his temper. “This family has been fighting with the DPW for over twenty years. Twenty years! That’s almost as long as I have been alive. And still, still, the Mayor refuses to do anything on this street. It hasn’t been paved, the sidewalks are a mess, you can’t even see at night because half the street lamps don’t work! This is a small business you're hurting! Not to mention all the families and kids that live on this street! Do you know how many kids I’ve seen trip on the sidewalk?! Or fallen off their bikes because the road is uneven?! Now you listen to me and listen well. The least it can be is clean! Now you send that cleaner back here this instant or I will go down to the Mayor’s office myself again!”
It would certainly be something to see the full rage of a 5000 year old Pharoah in the Mayor’s office, and part of Yugi really wanted to watch. Of all the things to get Atem into a tizzy, it was public infrastructure. He had to shake his head. Who would have guessed.
“Oh. Uh. Well. Yes. Of course. You’re right. Let me call him right now,” Diane sputtered, clearly taken aback by the well deserved baratment.
“I will be waiting for that truck to come back,” Atem growled before finally hanging up the phone. He shoved it back into his back pocket and took a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth. “I should sick Seto on the Mayor’s. That would light a fire under his ass.”
“That would do something alright,” Yugi chuckled. “Now that that’s settled, are you going to help me stock or is there something else you want to get your royal panties in a twist about?”
“I will have you know, this will be settled when I see that truck come back,” Atem sniffed, his nose going into the air on reflex. “I’m going to watch for it.”
“You’re supposed to be helping me today!” Yugi cried as Atem turned on his heels and headed for the door.
“I’m sure it won’t be long!” Atem called over his shoulder.
It shouldn’t be long. Atem leaned against the outside of the building, arms crossed and foot taping as he kept his eyes trained down the street where he last saw the cleaner. It was absolutely absurd that the city kept brushing them off like that. And to treat a small, family owned business that way made his blood boil. How dare they! The power of a leader could be seen in how well they maintained their cities. It was something Atem had prided himself on during his reign, short as it was, that he kept excellent maintenance and always kept up with improvements for his citizens. He may have forgotten those exact details while he was the Spirit of the Puzzle, but the energy had remained.
Twenty minutes passed as Atem was still waiting and growing more and more agitated. He hadn’t been on the phone that long. What was the damn problem?! Groaning, he walked back into the shop. The trucks were loud, he’d be able to hear it. His presence inside seemed to satisfy Yugi, who handed him a box of card sleeve packs to put out. At least this would give him something to occupy his mind with instead of his anger. Besides, he liked helping out at the shop. Married to a billionaire meant he didn’t have to work and going to the shop was a good excuse to get out of the house for a while. And Yugi was always grateful for the help and the company. Solomon had taken a large step back when Yugi graduated, opting instead to do a bit of traveling before he lost the ability to. With Tea off on a tour with her dance company, Joey and Mai making the dueling circuit, and Tristen working for one of Kaiba Corp’s American branches, Yugi didn’t have a lot of friends around Domino anymore.
The box of sleeves wasn’t halfway emptied before Atem heard the tell tale sound of the street cleaner coming back. He dropped the box where he stood and rushed out with Yugi calling after him. He waved the driver down as he marched up to the truck. The poor man looked completely confused, baffled even, as he stopped the truck and gingerly stepped out of it.
“Hi, thanks for coming back so quickly,” Atem grinned, shaking the man’s hand even though his return hadn’t been quick in the slightest. “What’s your name?”
“Raphe,” the man answered, befuddled by the handshake.
“Raphe, nice to meet you. Tell me, Raphe, is the reason you didn’t clean this street because it’s so badly broken up?” Atem asked, leading him along.
“Yeah, it is, it’s a pain to get through this street,” Raphe admitted with a sigh and looked over his shoulder at the state of it. “It’s a real shame.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Atem agreed, nodding diligently and giving him a charming smile. “Can you do us a favor? Can you report this to your superiors? We’ve been trying for so many years and they ignore us, but they might listen to you! After all, the state of the roads being so bad, you’re unable to do your job! That’s just not right.”
“No, it’s not right!” Raphe exclaimed as he understood the gravity of the matter. Or part of it, anyway. “Look, I’m sorry for all the trouble, really. Let me get the street cleaned up and when I get back to HQ I’ll talk to my boss, I promise.”
“Thank you, Raphe, we really appreciate it.” Atem gave him one last smile and a pat on the back.
Very diligently, Raphe cleaned the entire street within an inch of it’s life. Atem watched the whole thing as he kept going back and forth to make sure every inch was done. It was a beautiful job when it was finished and Atem made sure to give him a friendly wave before heading back inside.
“ Now the matter is settled,” Atem announced with an air of victory. And then dread washed over him as he realized it had been almost an hour and he hadn’t called his husband back or even texted him. He looked at his phone to see increasingly frantic text messages making sure he was okay.
“What’s the matter?” Yugi asked, holding back his laughter as he saw the horror slowly encapsulating Atem’s features.
“I need to call Seto,” he said softly, if not a little embarrassed. “I said I’d call him back earlier and. . . He’s going to think I’m nuts. He’s going to think I’m completely nuts, flipping out over a street cleaner.”
“You are nuts.” Yugi just grinned and Atem glowered at him.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime!”
The glare that the pharaoh shot his way didn’t have half the power it usually did and it just made Yugi laugh even more. Poor Atem walked off, his phone already pressed to his ear as he went into the back to assure his husband he wasn't dead. Still chuckling, Yugi just shook his head and went back to stocking. Most of his friends may be gone, but at least with Atem around it was never boring.