Chapter 8: - A Good Night's SLEEP
Sakura would have invited Yugi to come along to the university where her father worked, but he was still grounded, at least until tomorrow morning, so she'd come on her own, since Toya was in work, Tomoyo had practise, Tea's parents wanted to take their daughter out for a meal and she hadn't been able to work up the courage to ask Yukito to come with her.
It had been a while since she'd been to Tomoeda University to deliver a meal to her father, she didn't think she'd done it since before she had accidently unleashed the Clow Cards and that had been almost two months ago now. She was rather disappointed in herself for that and wondered if her Dad had missed the meals she had brought, since, when he got caught up in work, he would often forget to eat unless someone prodded him.
She was currently lost. They had changed things around since she had last been here, the humanities department had moved from where it had been at the start of the year, and was apparently halfway across campus.
Taking Kero's advice (the Guardian of the Clow Cards was hidden in her backpack), she had asked people for directions, but some people had directed her back to the old building, which had been closed for renovations, while others had merely looked confused and apologised.
"Is something the matter?" Sakura jumped and turned around, only to find a tall female Student had approached without her noticing, and was smiling at Sakura's nervous look.
"Uhhh, I want to find the Humanities Department."
"Humanities?" The young woman, probably around twenty years old, was joined by a pair of young men, who hovered in the background discussing something about a recent find somewhere in China, asked.
"Yeap." Sakura nodded nervously.
"Who are you looking for in the Humanities Department?" She asked, looking over her shoulder for a moment when the guys' discussion got a little loud and shutting them up with a glance, before turning back to Sakura.
"Kinomoto, from the History section."
"Kinomoto-Sensei?" One of the men suddenly looked a lot more interested.
"You know my Dad?" Sakura smiled brightly, hoping that they'd know exactly where to find her Father.
"Yes," The woman nodded, "Are you Kinomoto-Sensei's daughter?"
"Yes, I'm Kinomoto Sakura." Sakura bowed.
"You're so cute." The woman grinned, "Would you like to see one of your father's lectures?" She asked, winking at her.
"Can I?"
The woman nodded, leading the Cardcaptor over to a window, the men following, still discussing, and pointed inside. Sakura looked through the glass to see her father lecturing on Mesopotamia and the food stuffs they grew and traded. There were many students taking notes, a few who were just listening and one young man, who was poking the woman sat next to him who had fallen asleep.
"Kinomoto-Sensei's lectures are really popular." The woman who had led them over said, with a small grin.
"They are rather interesting." One of the men broke off their conversation to add.
"I never thought I'd be interested this in history when I went to college." The other added. Considering his rather lively debate that had been going on the whole time she'd been watching, Sakura had to assume that he had become rather passionate about it since.
"We're Kinomoto-Sensei's lab assistants right now." The woman said, sounding rather proud of that fact. "We're able to help him do all sorts of research."
"I see." Sakura smiled, "Thank you for taking care of my dad."
"No, we're the ones being taken care of." The woman shook her head, looking at her watch when the alarm on it beeped. "Oops, the lecture will be finished in ten minutes and we're supposed to be meeting with your father afterwards," She said, glancing into the lecture hall, where Fujitaka was in fact wrapping up his talk, "If you'd like to come with us…"
"Thank you." Sakura followed them into a building, down several winding corridors and finally to a wooden sliding door that the woman escorting Sakura knocked on and waited patiently.
"Come in…"
"Kintomoto-Sensei, your daughter's here to see you."
"Huh? Sakura-Chan?" Kinomoto Fujitaka wheeled around, concern and worry obvious as he gazed at his daughter.
"Hello." Sakura nodded, nervously.
"What's wrong?" Her Dad asked, getting out of his chair quickly and nodding to the students who had escorted her.
"I brought you some dinner." Sakura held up the food basket she'd been carrying all afternoon since she'd prepared it at five to five, once she'd captured The DASH and gotten home from school.
Fujitaka sat down, relief obvious in his tone and expression, "Thank you for coming out to see me." He said, glancing at the clock on the wall, which currently read twelve minutes past six.
"Sensei," The woman called, "We'll be in the resource room."
"Thank you, Yukari, Kaemon, Daitaro." Fujitaka nodded. The three students nodded back and shut the door behind them. "Let me go and speak to my students and then we'll enjoy all this lovely food." He said, "You want to come and see what we've been working on?"
Sakura nodded and followed her father out, leaving the basket behind.
Kero took the opportunity to leave the basket, flying, cautiously up to the window, and looking out. He'd sensed something while they'd been over by the lecture hall, but he wasn't sure what it was…
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yugi was bored.
B.
O.
R.
E.
D.
Bored.
He only had to get through tonight and then he'd be free to do whatever he wanted again, but he'd done his homework, completed his chores, had a bath, fed the cat and still he had three and a half hours until bedtime.
It wasn't even like he could talk with Yami, the Pharaoh was firmly asleep after chasing The DASH halfway across the city earlier, on their way home from school, and probably wouldn't wake up until tomorrow.
Yugi never minded helping Sakura out, not only did it mean that Sakura was catching the cards without too much trouble, Yami seemed to be getting stronger too, but when it meant that the spirit he shared his body with tended to crash out much earlier then him when they went after Clow cards, leaving him without someone to talk to when his mother was busy, he got bored.
He would have gone through his deck again, but his mum had said no games, and though Yami had broken that rule at the party, Yugi had no great urge to get caught messing around with his cards and be grounded for another week.
"Gah." The eleven year old led back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to think of something interesting to do, finally deciding to finish the book he'd been reading, ignoring the doorbell which went off twenty minutes later.
"Muto Yugi!" Yugi sat bolt upright and put his book down at his mother's tone of voice, frowning towards the door, "Muto Yugi get down here this instant."
Yugi got up and wandered downstairs. "Mum?" He asked, poking his head around the kitchen door.
His mother didn't look too amused as she ushered him into the living room, where a rather bedraggled looking blonde with a rather painful looking black eye, was sat looking rather sorry for himself, Aiko curled up on his lap, purring. "Hi Yugi."
"Joey?" Yugi stared at the boy in surprise, "What're you doing here?"
"Uhhh…" Joey looked at Yugi's mother, who looked like she too wanted an answer. "You said I could come round at any time I was in Tomoeda…"
"Sure, but…"
"Is he a friend of yours?" Kaiya asked Yugi, who nodded.
"If it's a problem…" Joey stood up.
"No, no." Kaiya reassured him, "It's just Yugi's grounded at the moment, so he's supposed to tell me if he has friends coming over."
"Yugi didn't know." Joey defended the other boy, who was looking rather confused at the events that were unfolding. "I thought I'd drop by since I'm in the area."
That was the part that was confusing Yugi. He remembered giving Joey his address so that they could exchange letters, but he hadn't known Joey was visiting Tomoeda today, he didn't even know why Joey would have been considering that it was a school day, so why had he come round?
"Will you be staying for dinner?" Kaiya asked.
"Thank you, Muto-San." Joey nodded appreciatively.
Kaiya went back to cooking and Yugi turned to Joey. "So why are you in the area, and what happened to your eye?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Joey growled, hand going to his right eye, "But I was wondering if I could crash for a while."
"Why?"
"Family stuff."
"I dunno…" Yugi hesitated; trying not to think that it sounded like Joey had run away from home.
"Please Yugi, it'll only be for a couple of nights…" Joey pleaded.
"It's not up to me." Yugi held up his hands, "If mum says yes, then yes, but she's going to want to know why."
Joey hesitated, though Yugi hadn't thought it was possible for Joey's shoulders to sink any lower, they did, and the blonde mumbled something about his mother and serenity.
"What did you say?"
"I said Mum left and she took Serenity with her."
"Who's Serenity?"
"My little sister."
"Why?"
Joey shrugged, assuming it was because of his father's drink problem, but not wanting to say anything.
"What about your Dad?"
"Hasn't been home in three days."
"Tell mum, I'm sure she'll let you stay until something can be worked out." Yugi looked towards the kitchen, "I'll go and ask."
"Thanks Yuge…"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sakura didn't need this, not here.
The SLEEP had invaded her father's meeting with his Students and had put the four to sleep, leaving Sakura and Kero awake to chase it, carefully around the building, trying to stop it from putting every single student and lecturer still in the building to sleep.
She'd finally got it cornered in her father's office, not the ideal place for a showdown, but the only other door it hadn't tried was the one to the outside and there was no way she wanted it to get out.
She jumped back, avoiding the blue dust that the card was dispersing, the reason people were falling asleep, "Sakura, watch…" Kero started yelping but swiftly joined all of the sleeping humans on the floor.
"WINDY!" She bellowed, hitting the card with her staff. She didn't need to tell it what to do, by now WINDY knew her duty, capturing the little blue sprite, who squirmed and struggled as WINDY brought it down to Sakura's level, but could escape from the intense winds, that were, to Sakura's dismay, sending all of her father's notes and papers in all directions.
This had to end now. "Return to the guise you were meant to be, CLOW CARD!"
SLEEP turned back into a card and WINDY quickly followed, her duty done.
Sakura looked around the office.
The laptop and the heavy books were fine, it was just the papers that would be a problem… how was she going to explain this?
She quickly jotted her name down on the new card and got tidying, maybe if she started now, she would be done before…
"Sakura?"
She jumped, wheeling around, only to find that Kero had woken up and was looking at the mess.
"Did you get the card?" He asked, helping her pick up as many sheets as he could carry carefully, which amounted to batches of two.
"Uh huh." She said, carefully stacking the sheets in piles that had the same header. She didn't understand a lot of what was on the sheets, but if they were tidy, she could think of something…
"Sakura-Chan?" Kero squeaked and hid behind Fujitaka's laptop as the door slid open further and the Professor poked his head round the door. "What happened in here?"
"I…I…" Sakura didn't want to lie to her father, but she couldn't tell him the truth either… or could she? They'd told Muto Kaiya, Yugi's Mum, the truth and she'd been ok with it… would her father be any different?
She hesitated, causing Fujitaka to shoo his students away and enter the room, shutting the door behind him.
"Are you alright?" He asked, kneeling so his eyes were level with hers, and putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"I'm ok." Sakura nodded, gazing at the floor.
"What's wrong?"
"Otousan…" Sakura hesitated a moment longer. "Sorry."
"What for?" Her father looked around the room, his gaze resting on the papers she'd tried to clear up, "It was bound to get knocked over sooner or later, I leave too much mess around."
Sakura's phone rang.
"Go on." Fujitaka nodded to her, sort through the papers and adjusting the order of some and looking for others.
She answered it, "Kinomoto Sakura… Yugi-Kun?"
Fujitaka tried not to be amused that the boy that his daughter had befriended only a month and a half ago, had reached the point where he warranted a 'kun' honorific.
"Wheeler-San? In Tomoeda? Sure…I mean…" She hesitated, looking at her father, "I'd have to ask… can I call you back? Thanks." She ended the call and sighed.
"Something happened?"
"Yugi wanted to know if he could borrow our camp bed for a while." She replied, glad of the distraction, but still feeling guilty, "His is broken and he's got a friend staying over for a couple of nights."
"Sure, just let me finish tidying up and we can go, I can finish up in the morning." Fujitaka said, quickly sorting the papers and stapling them together properly this time, before bagging up his laptop, grabbing the books he would need, and sending his assistants home for the first time in days.
"Come on," Fujitaka double checked that there was nothing else he needed to finish up the presentation he needed to complete, then ushered Sakura out of the door and locked up behind them, "Let's get your friend that camp bed."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You sure it's alright?" Joey asked, as Yugi set up the camp bed in a corner of his room and changed the sheets on the bed for the blonde that had invaded his house.
"I'm sure. You can have the bed, I don't mind the camp bed." Yugi nodded, making sure there was somewhere safe nearby to put his Puzzle, "I just hope you don't mind being woken up early by a kitten."
"What do you mean?"
"Aiko likes to wake me up before my alarm goes. She'll probably clamber all over you, at about six." Yugi grinned.
"But school doesn't start till half eight."
"Eight o'clock." Yugi laughed, "I have to leave the house at quarter past seven if I want to make it on time."
"Oh…"
"I wouldn't worry," Yugi shrugged, "It's not like you can come to my school and since Mum said you can stay until she can get in contact with your mother…"
"She was talking about tutoring…" Joey frowned as Yugi pulled on his PJs and, since Joey hadn't brought much with him, dug out a t-shirt that was too big for him and offered it to Joey, frowning when it didn't fit.
"She'll work something out." Yugi nodded, watching as Joey clambered into bed in just his boxer shorts.
"Light out?" Joey asked.
"Sure." Yugi shrugged, lying back on the camp bed and staring at the ceiling, it wasn't anymore interesting from here, than it had been from the bed. Joey flicked the light switch, putting the room in almost total darkness, allowing Yugi to finally relax finally.
It wasn't easy to meditate, thoughts kept popping into his head, mainly about how lucky he was that his Mum hadn't just left when she'd gotten a new job, about what would happen if his mum couldn't contact Joey's…
In the end he had to give up for the night, mentally making a note to try again in the morning. He had to do it at least once a day, to stop his magic flaring up and hindering Sakura and Kero, but he just couldn't focus.
He finally gave up, took the Puzzle off, left it on the pillow by his head and closed his eyes, drifting off quickly.
Joey was still awake when Kaiya slipped into the bedroom to check on them an hour later.
"Hey." She whispered, as Joey budged over on the bed, to make room for Kaiya to sit down.
"Hey." Joey whispered back, eyes flickering to Yugi who was murmuring something about magicians in his sleep.
"Out like a light." Kaiya laughed quietly, "Like normal when they've been chasing Clow Cards."
"Huh?" Joey looked confused, having not known that Yugi's mum knew about the magic.
"Yugi often sleeps easier after he's been chasing Clow Cards." Kaiya whispered, smiling slightly.
Joey nodded, thinking that Yugi was probably exhausted, since he remembered how tired Yugi had been after he had gamed against Ushio. "Muto-San, thank you." He whispered.
"Its okay, Wheeler-Kun," She replied, "Sleep now and I'll start making arrangements in the morning. You can't be out of school too long and if you're going to be living with us long term, I need to make some arrangements."
"I don't…"
"Go to sleep, Wheeler-Kun." Kaiya smiled at him, "I'll work it out, you just rest, you've had a long day." She ruffled his hair and stood up.
Joey watched as she went over to Yugi's bed, kissed her son's forehead, and adjusted the Puzzle, before smiling at him and left the room, pulling the door to behind her.
"Thank you." He murmured as he drifted off.
It had been a while since she'd been to Tomoeda University to deliver a meal to her father, she didn't think she'd done it since before she had accidently unleashed the Clow Cards and that had been almost two months ago now. She was rather disappointed in herself for that and wondered if her Dad had missed the meals she had brought, since, when he got caught up in work, he would often forget to eat unless someone prodded him.
She was currently lost. They had changed things around since she had last been here, the humanities department had moved from where it had been at the start of the year, and was apparently halfway across campus.
Taking Kero's advice (the Guardian of the Clow Cards was hidden in her backpack), she had asked people for directions, but some people had directed her back to the old building, which had been closed for renovations, while others had merely looked confused and apologised.
"Is something the matter?" Sakura jumped and turned around, only to find a tall female Student had approached without her noticing, and was smiling at Sakura's nervous look.
"Uhhh, I want to find the Humanities Department."
"Humanities?" The young woman, probably around twenty years old, was joined by a pair of young men, who hovered in the background discussing something about a recent find somewhere in China, asked.
"Yeap." Sakura nodded nervously.
"Who are you looking for in the Humanities Department?" She asked, looking over her shoulder for a moment when the guys' discussion got a little loud and shutting them up with a glance, before turning back to Sakura.
"Kinomoto, from the History section."
"Kinomoto-Sensei?" One of the men suddenly looked a lot more interested.
"You know my Dad?" Sakura smiled brightly, hoping that they'd know exactly where to find her Father.
"Yes," The woman nodded, "Are you Kinomoto-Sensei's daughter?"
"Yes, I'm Kinomoto Sakura." Sakura bowed.
"You're so cute." The woman grinned, "Would you like to see one of your father's lectures?" She asked, winking at her.
"Can I?"
The woman nodded, leading the Cardcaptor over to a window, the men following, still discussing, and pointed inside. Sakura looked through the glass to see her father lecturing on Mesopotamia and the food stuffs they grew and traded. There were many students taking notes, a few who were just listening and one young man, who was poking the woman sat next to him who had fallen asleep.
"Kinomoto-Sensei's lectures are really popular." The woman who had led them over said, with a small grin.
"They are rather interesting." One of the men broke off their conversation to add.
"I never thought I'd be interested this in history when I went to college." The other added. Considering his rather lively debate that had been going on the whole time she'd been watching, Sakura had to assume that he had become rather passionate about it since.
"We're Kinomoto-Sensei's lab assistants right now." The woman said, sounding rather proud of that fact. "We're able to help him do all sorts of research."
"I see." Sakura smiled, "Thank you for taking care of my dad."
"No, we're the ones being taken care of." The woman shook her head, looking at her watch when the alarm on it beeped. "Oops, the lecture will be finished in ten minutes and we're supposed to be meeting with your father afterwards," She said, glancing into the lecture hall, where Fujitaka was in fact wrapping up his talk, "If you'd like to come with us…"
"Thank you." Sakura followed them into a building, down several winding corridors and finally to a wooden sliding door that the woman escorting Sakura knocked on and waited patiently.
"Come in…"
"Kintomoto-Sensei, your daughter's here to see you."
"Huh? Sakura-Chan?" Kinomoto Fujitaka wheeled around, concern and worry obvious as he gazed at his daughter.
"Hello." Sakura nodded, nervously.
"What's wrong?" Her Dad asked, getting out of his chair quickly and nodding to the students who had escorted her.
"I brought you some dinner." Sakura held up the food basket she'd been carrying all afternoon since she'd prepared it at five to five, once she'd captured The DASH and gotten home from school.
Fujitaka sat down, relief obvious in his tone and expression, "Thank you for coming out to see me." He said, glancing at the clock on the wall, which currently read twelve minutes past six.
"Sensei," The woman called, "We'll be in the resource room."
"Thank you, Yukari, Kaemon, Daitaro." Fujitaka nodded. The three students nodded back and shut the door behind them. "Let me go and speak to my students and then we'll enjoy all this lovely food." He said, "You want to come and see what we've been working on?"
Sakura nodded and followed her father out, leaving the basket behind.
Kero took the opportunity to leave the basket, flying, cautiously up to the window, and looking out. He'd sensed something while they'd been over by the lecture hall, but he wasn't sure what it was…
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yugi was bored.
B.
O.
R.
E.
D.
Bored.
He only had to get through tonight and then he'd be free to do whatever he wanted again, but he'd done his homework, completed his chores, had a bath, fed the cat and still he had three and a half hours until bedtime.
It wasn't even like he could talk with Yami, the Pharaoh was firmly asleep after chasing The DASH halfway across the city earlier, on their way home from school, and probably wouldn't wake up until tomorrow.
Yugi never minded helping Sakura out, not only did it mean that Sakura was catching the cards without too much trouble, Yami seemed to be getting stronger too, but when it meant that the spirit he shared his body with tended to crash out much earlier then him when they went after Clow cards, leaving him without someone to talk to when his mother was busy, he got bored.
He would have gone through his deck again, but his mum had said no games, and though Yami had broken that rule at the party, Yugi had no great urge to get caught messing around with his cards and be grounded for another week.
"Gah." The eleven year old led back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to think of something interesting to do, finally deciding to finish the book he'd been reading, ignoring the doorbell which went off twenty minutes later.
"Muto Yugi!" Yugi sat bolt upright and put his book down at his mother's tone of voice, frowning towards the door, "Muto Yugi get down here this instant."
Yugi got up and wandered downstairs. "Mum?" He asked, poking his head around the kitchen door.
His mother didn't look too amused as she ushered him into the living room, where a rather bedraggled looking blonde with a rather painful looking black eye, was sat looking rather sorry for himself, Aiko curled up on his lap, purring. "Hi Yugi."
"Joey?" Yugi stared at the boy in surprise, "What're you doing here?"
"Uhhh…" Joey looked at Yugi's mother, who looked like she too wanted an answer. "You said I could come round at any time I was in Tomoeda…"
"Sure, but…"
"Is he a friend of yours?" Kaiya asked Yugi, who nodded.
"If it's a problem…" Joey stood up.
"No, no." Kaiya reassured him, "It's just Yugi's grounded at the moment, so he's supposed to tell me if he has friends coming over."
"Yugi didn't know." Joey defended the other boy, who was looking rather confused at the events that were unfolding. "I thought I'd drop by since I'm in the area."
That was the part that was confusing Yugi. He remembered giving Joey his address so that they could exchange letters, but he hadn't known Joey was visiting Tomoeda today, he didn't even know why Joey would have been considering that it was a school day, so why had he come round?
"Will you be staying for dinner?" Kaiya asked.
"Thank you, Muto-San." Joey nodded appreciatively.
Kaiya went back to cooking and Yugi turned to Joey. "So why are you in the area, and what happened to your eye?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Joey growled, hand going to his right eye, "But I was wondering if I could crash for a while."
"Why?"
"Family stuff."
"I dunno…" Yugi hesitated; trying not to think that it sounded like Joey had run away from home.
"Please Yugi, it'll only be for a couple of nights…" Joey pleaded.
"It's not up to me." Yugi held up his hands, "If mum says yes, then yes, but she's going to want to know why."
Joey hesitated, though Yugi hadn't thought it was possible for Joey's shoulders to sink any lower, they did, and the blonde mumbled something about his mother and serenity.
"What did you say?"
"I said Mum left and she took Serenity with her."
"Who's Serenity?"
"My little sister."
"Why?"
Joey shrugged, assuming it was because of his father's drink problem, but not wanting to say anything.
"What about your Dad?"
"Hasn't been home in three days."
"Tell mum, I'm sure she'll let you stay until something can be worked out." Yugi looked towards the kitchen, "I'll go and ask."
"Thanks Yuge…"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sakura didn't need this, not here.
The SLEEP had invaded her father's meeting with his Students and had put the four to sleep, leaving Sakura and Kero awake to chase it, carefully around the building, trying to stop it from putting every single student and lecturer still in the building to sleep.
She'd finally got it cornered in her father's office, not the ideal place for a showdown, but the only other door it hadn't tried was the one to the outside and there was no way she wanted it to get out.
She jumped back, avoiding the blue dust that the card was dispersing, the reason people were falling asleep, "Sakura, watch…" Kero started yelping but swiftly joined all of the sleeping humans on the floor.
"WINDY!" She bellowed, hitting the card with her staff. She didn't need to tell it what to do, by now WINDY knew her duty, capturing the little blue sprite, who squirmed and struggled as WINDY brought it down to Sakura's level, but could escape from the intense winds, that were, to Sakura's dismay, sending all of her father's notes and papers in all directions.
This had to end now. "Return to the guise you were meant to be, CLOW CARD!"
SLEEP turned back into a card and WINDY quickly followed, her duty done.
Sakura looked around the office.
The laptop and the heavy books were fine, it was just the papers that would be a problem… how was she going to explain this?
She quickly jotted her name down on the new card and got tidying, maybe if she started now, she would be done before…
"Sakura?"
She jumped, wheeling around, only to find that Kero had woken up and was looking at the mess.
"Did you get the card?" He asked, helping her pick up as many sheets as he could carry carefully, which amounted to batches of two.
"Uh huh." She said, carefully stacking the sheets in piles that had the same header. She didn't understand a lot of what was on the sheets, but if they were tidy, she could think of something…
"Sakura-Chan?" Kero squeaked and hid behind Fujitaka's laptop as the door slid open further and the Professor poked his head round the door. "What happened in here?"
"I…I…" Sakura didn't want to lie to her father, but she couldn't tell him the truth either… or could she? They'd told Muto Kaiya, Yugi's Mum, the truth and she'd been ok with it… would her father be any different?
She hesitated, causing Fujitaka to shoo his students away and enter the room, shutting the door behind him.
"Are you alright?" He asked, kneeling so his eyes were level with hers, and putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"I'm ok." Sakura nodded, gazing at the floor.
"What's wrong?"
"Otousan…" Sakura hesitated a moment longer. "Sorry."
"What for?" Her father looked around the room, his gaze resting on the papers she'd tried to clear up, "It was bound to get knocked over sooner or later, I leave too much mess around."
Sakura's phone rang.
"Go on." Fujitaka nodded to her, sort through the papers and adjusting the order of some and looking for others.
She answered it, "Kinomoto Sakura… Yugi-Kun?"
Fujitaka tried not to be amused that the boy that his daughter had befriended only a month and a half ago, had reached the point where he warranted a 'kun' honorific.
"Wheeler-San? In Tomoeda? Sure…I mean…" She hesitated, looking at her father, "I'd have to ask… can I call you back? Thanks." She ended the call and sighed.
"Something happened?"
"Yugi wanted to know if he could borrow our camp bed for a while." She replied, glad of the distraction, but still feeling guilty, "His is broken and he's got a friend staying over for a couple of nights."
"Sure, just let me finish tidying up and we can go, I can finish up in the morning." Fujitaka said, quickly sorting the papers and stapling them together properly this time, before bagging up his laptop, grabbing the books he would need, and sending his assistants home for the first time in days.
"Come on," Fujitaka double checked that there was nothing else he needed to finish up the presentation he needed to complete, then ushered Sakura out of the door and locked up behind them, "Let's get your friend that camp bed."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You sure it's alright?" Joey asked, as Yugi set up the camp bed in a corner of his room and changed the sheets on the bed for the blonde that had invaded his house.
"I'm sure. You can have the bed, I don't mind the camp bed." Yugi nodded, making sure there was somewhere safe nearby to put his Puzzle, "I just hope you don't mind being woken up early by a kitten."
"What do you mean?"
"Aiko likes to wake me up before my alarm goes. She'll probably clamber all over you, at about six." Yugi grinned.
"But school doesn't start till half eight."
"Eight o'clock." Yugi laughed, "I have to leave the house at quarter past seven if I want to make it on time."
"Oh…"
"I wouldn't worry," Yugi shrugged, "It's not like you can come to my school and since Mum said you can stay until she can get in contact with your mother…"
"She was talking about tutoring…" Joey frowned as Yugi pulled on his PJs and, since Joey hadn't brought much with him, dug out a t-shirt that was too big for him and offered it to Joey, frowning when it didn't fit.
"She'll work something out." Yugi nodded, watching as Joey clambered into bed in just his boxer shorts.
"Light out?" Joey asked.
"Sure." Yugi shrugged, lying back on the camp bed and staring at the ceiling, it wasn't anymore interesting from here, than it had been from the bed. Joey flicked the light switch, putting the room in almost total darkness, allowing Yugi to finally relax finally.
It wasn't easy to meditate, thoughts kept popping into his head, mainly about how lucky he was that his Mum hadn't just left when she'd gotten a new job, about what would happen if his mum couldn't contact Joey's…
In the end he had to give up for the night, mentally making a note to try again in the morning. He had to do it at least once a day, to stop his magic flaring up and hindering Sakura and Kero, but he just couldn't focus.
He finally gave up, took the Puzzle off, left it on the pillow by his head and closed his eyes, drifting off quickly.
Joey was still awake when Kaiya slipped into the bedroom to check on them an hour later.
"Hey." She whispered, as Joey budged over on the bed, to make room for Kaiya to sit down.
"Hey." Joey whispered back, eyes flickering to Yugi who was murmuring something about magicians in his sleep.
"Out like a light." Kaiya laughed quietly, "Like normal when they've been chasing Clow Cards."
"Huh?" Joey looked confused, having not known that Yugi's mum knew about the magic.
"Yugi often sleeps easier after he's been chasing Clow Cards." Kaiya whispered, smiling slightly.
Joey nodded, thinking that Yugi was probably exhausted, since he remembered how tired Yugi had been after he had gamed against Ushio. "Muto-San, thank you." He whispered.
"Its okay, Wheeler-Kun," She replied, "Sleep now and I'll start making arrangements in the morning. You can't be out of school too long and if you're going to be living with us long term, I need to make some arrangements."
"I don't…"
"Go to sleep, Wheeler-Kun." Kaiya smiled at him, "I'll work it out, you just rest, you've had a long day." She ruffled his hair and stood up.
Joey watched as she went over to Yugi's bed, kissed her son's forehead, and adjusted the Puzzle, before smiling at him and left the room, pulling the door to behind her.
"Thank you." He murmured as he drifted off.