Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh

Warning: Swearing, and Yugi's acting like a spoiled brat and a smartass...but it makes for an interesting story. This chapter will be kind of long, because it sets the groundwork for the entire story. This story will contain Yaoi, but there isn't any in this chapter...maybe it'll begin next chapter.

Yugi starred idly out the window, how he wished he could be anywhere but stuck inside studying. Unfortunately no matter how much Yugi HATED reading about every official decision that had been made in Khemet since Narmer had united two lands, his father insisted that Yugi study 'so when he's Pharaoh himself he'll have a wealth of knowledge to draw upon to help him make the correct decisions.' A knock on the door drew Yugi out of his stupor.

"You may enter." Yugi said. A young servant entered his room and bowed.

"Prince Yugi, the Pharaoh requests your presence in the throne room." The servant said.

"Very well, I'm on my way." Yugi said as he got up from his seat and headed towards the throne room. His father was a lot of things, but patient wasn't one of them. It wouldn't have surprised Yugi at all if the servant he had sent to get him had sprinted all the way to his room in order to get him.

Yugi walked into the throne room and bowed, "You wished to see me father." He said.

"Yes, I did. First, I have the ambassador from Nubia that is due to arrive at any time, I would like you to observe the meeting and following that there are some things that I would like to discuss with you." Pharaoh Atemu said.

'Oh just great. That's exactly what I want to do with the rest of my day.' Yugi thought and before he could respond his father spoke up.

"I do not appreciate your attitude Yugi. You are sixteen summers old for Ra's sake. It is time you begin to take your role as the heir to the throne seriously. I was crowned Pharaoh myself before I was seventeen summers old." Atemu stated rather irritated.

"Would you please stop reading my mind father, its getting..." Yugi started.

"I don't care how annoying you find it, you're going to deal with it just like everything else you need to. When I was your age I was forced to deal with it." Atemu said.

"I'm not you." Yugi yelled.

Atemu glared at Yugi, before saying, "I know very well that you're not me. But that doesn't change the fact that I want you to be ready for when you have to take the throne yourself."

"Oh, yes that's why you keep me couped up indoors reading about decisions dead guys made 200 years ago regarding taxes, or stuck in the throne room listening to you and your council go on and on about nonsense, instead of letting me have a life like a normal person." Yugi said angrily.

"You aren't a normal person. You are the crown Prince of Khemet and it's about time you accept that." Atemu snapped.

"Well maybe I don't want to be the Prince." Yugi snapped. Atemu glared harshly at Yugi but said nothing. Atemu had never laid a hand on Yugi but by the look he was giving Yugi at the moment you could clearly see he was tempted to do just that.

A knock on the door interrupted the glaring contest between father and son.

"Enter" Atemu stated.

A palace guard entered and bowed, "My Pharaoh, the ambassador from Nubia has just reached the palace gates." The guard said.

"Very well." Atemu stated.

The guard straightened up and left the room. Yugi began to walk towards the door that the guard had just exited.

"Where in Ra's name do you think you're going?" Atemu snapped.

"Anywhere but here." Yugi said as he began to push the door open.

"Yugi, you get your ass back here ri..." The Pharaoh began only to be caught off when Yugi closed the large stone door. He knew that he'd be in serious trouble later, but at the moment he just didn't care. 'I think that it's about time I do something fun for a change.' Yugi thought.

Yugi walked back to his room and locked the door. He took off all his gold jewelry and changed from his fine tunic into a cotton wrap that he'd gotten from the servant's quarters. Once he was dressed he went out to his balcony and began his careful descent to the ground before sprinting across the courtyard to the palace wall. Yugi knew from experience that hidden behind a clump of bushes was a hole in the wall. Once Yugi had located it, he crawled through it and then ran into the bustling market place. Yugi began to look from stall in fascination, he hadn't been outside the palace walls in his entire life.

Atemu was pissed, no he was beyond pissed. 'How dare Yugi do that?' Atemu thought as he stalked out of the throne room to go and deal with his son. He had told the ambassador of Nubia that he had a family problem he needed to deal with, and once he got that sorted out they would get down to business. The ambassador understood, he had two kids of his own. Atemu walked up to Yugi's room.

Yugi walked deeper into the market place. When he saw a group of teenagers playing a game of Senet. Intrigued Yugi went over to watch the game. "And you win again Yami. What is this your tenth game in a row?" a blond boy asked what looked like a teenage version of Yugi's father.

Yami just laughed, "Jou, this is my twelfth game I've won today, but who's counting?" Jou just shook his head and Yami turned his attention to the crowd that had gathered around him and his friends, "So who else wants to challenge me?" Yami said with a challenging smirk.

"I'll play against you." Yugi spoke up, after all he was pretty good at Senet, though his father still managed to smoke him whenever they played.

"Well," Yami said, "take a seat and make your first move."

Atemu pounded on Yugi's door. "Yugi open this Ra forsaken door this instant." Atemu yelled. He waited for a second, but after receiving no response he said, "Yugi you have five seconds to open this door before I blow it off it's hinges." Atemu waited as he counted calmly to five in his mind. 'Yugi you are in so much trouble once I get my hands on you.' Atemu thought before finally saying, "fine you want to ignore me I'll knock this door down and when I do you'll wish you had never been born." Atemu said as his millennium puzzle glowed brightly releasing a powerful pulse of magic that blew the door right off it's hinges.

Yugi looked at the board, Yami had him pretty much cornered. 'There has to be something I can do.' Yugi thought.

After waiting about ten minutes for Yugi to make a move Yami said, "Well are you going to make a move sometime today or are you going to forfeit?"

Yugi looked up at Yami and said defiantly, "I never forfeit Yami."

Yami smirked before saying, "Well make your move then so I can finish you off." Yugi stuck out his tongue and made his move, only to make Yami smirk triumphantly ads he made a quick move ending the game. "Looks like I win." Yami said, which made the crowd around them cheer. Yami stood up and held out his hand to Yugi who took it. "That was a good game, you almost had me a couple of times there." Yami said with a smile, Yugi found himself thinking that he had a nice smile.

"Thanks Yami I had a lot of fun. We should play again sometime." Yugi said.

Yami smiled, "I'd like that." Yugi turned to walk away, but Yami stopped him, "I'm sick of playing Senet why don't you come hang out with me Jou, Malik and Ryou."

Yugi grinned 'Sweet, I get to spend more time with this hot...wait a second where the hell did that thought come from? Oh well, doesn't really matter...especially since it's true.' Yugi thought before saying, "Sure, that sounds like fun."

Yami began to walk away with Yugi following him, "Say, I never caught your name."

"It's Yugi."

"Well Yugi, its a pleasure to meet you."

Atemu stormed into Yugi's room once the dust had settled, "Yugi get your ass over here right now. I don't have time for..." Atemu started only to stop when he saw Yugi's clothes and gold jewelry sitting on his bed. Atemu quickly walked to the bath house and threw open the door without even knocking and froze when he saw that his son was not there. Atemu closed his eyes and took a deep calming breath. His son was missing. He quickly stormed out of the room and once in the throne room yelled, "Seth, Mahado get your asses over here right now." Needless to say Mahado and Seth sprinted into the throne room as though the Winged Dragon of Ra itself was on their tails.

"What can we do for you Pharaoh?" they asked in unison as they bowed.

"Mahado I want you to organize a group of soldiers to head into the city, Seth I need you to inform the ambassador that I will talk with him tomorrow and then meet me in the courtyard, we're going into the market place." Atemu said.

"Might I ask why my Pharaoh?" Seth asked.

Atemu glared at him, "We are going into the market place to find my son." After hearing that Mahado and Seth sprinted out of the throne room to complete their tasks, knowing that Atemu would want everything done and them ready to leave in five to ten minutes.

Yugi, Yami and the rest of Yami's friend's made their way into the center of town. It was pretty crowded, apparently more so than usual because Jou commented about how he'd never seen so many people there at one time. Yami walked up to a man in the crowd and asked, "What's going on? Why are there so many people here?"

The man looked at him for a second before saying, "the Pharaoh's coming here, rumor has it he's got something urgent that he needs to tell us."

"Oh, well then I guess we'll stay here and see what he has to say." Yami said to his friends, all of whom except Yugi nodded in agreement.

"Umm, Yami I actually should be getting home, my father will be..." Yugi started only to have Yami cut him off.

"I highly doubt that your father will have a problem with you staying to listen to the Great Pharaoh give a speech from town square." Yami said. Yugi nodded, there was no way he could get out of the crowd, especially since he could see his father riding into the square followed by two priests and a number of guards. 'Great, just great. The gods must really hate me or something.' Yugi thought as he bowed down along with the rest of the citizens.

Atemu rode the rest to the center of town square and face the huge crowd that had amassed. He knew that Yugi was in the city and that as soon as this speech was made every citizen in Memphis would be looking for him. "Citizen's of Khemet, I come here seeking your assistance. My beloved son is missing and I have reason to believe that he is here in the city. If anyone at all has any information that would help me to locate him, I would be eternally grateful." Atemu said.

"What's he look like?" A random voice from the crowd shouted.

"My son has tri-color hair much like my own and he's slightly shorter than me." Atemu replied.

There was some murmuring through the crowd before someone shouted, "there's the prince, grab him." Atemu watched as two boy's matching his description were dragged to the front of the crowd and tossed in front of the platform Atemu was standing on. Atemu walked off the platform as one the boys rose to his feet, keeping his head bowed. Atemu ignored him and instead stood in front of the boy who had yet to stand up. /You are in serious trouble young man./ Atemu said telepathically. Yugi looked up from his spot on the ground. Yugi could see that his father was extremely angry and the only reason he wasn't getting the lecture of his life was because they were in public. Yugi got to his feet, deciding that he didn't want to press his luck any further. Atemu firmly grabbed a hold of Yugi's arm and led him over to his horse Yugi climbed on and Atemu did the same. "Thank you all for your assistance in the safe return of my son." Atemu said before riding back to the palace.

Once they had returned to the palace Yugi and Atemu dismounted and walk back inside. Yugi walked straight to his room, hardly even pausing to look at his door. Atemu followed straight behind him. Yugi sat down on his bed and watched as his father fixed the door, before turning his attention back to Yugi.

"Father you must understand I-I just wanted to..." Yugi began only to stop when Atemu's hand connected with Yugi's cheek.

"How dare you! You have no idea of the danger you had put yourself in, in fact if there had been any turmoil at all in the country I probably would have found you dead. But you don't care about how worried I was about you, or how angry I was when you deliberately disobeyed me, all you were concerned with was having fun. Well let me say this, I hope that you had a lot of FUN, because you won't be having and fun at all for the next month. You are confined to your room, and so help me Yugi if you try to pull this stunt again you'll wish you'd never been born." And with that being said Atemu stalked out of the room closing Yugi's door firmly behind him.

Yugi sat on his bed, his hand on his stinging cheek. After a few minutes Yugi got up and walked towards his balcony, only to find that he couldn't walk out onto it. "Argh, this is so unfair." Yugi yelled. He looked up at the sky and shouted, "Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to all of you? I just wanted to have some fun and you couldn't even let me have that." Yugi said as a tear slid down his cheek. Before going and laying back down on his bed.

Atemu had gone back to his own room with the hopes of calming down. 'Yugi has no idea the danger he put himself in today. Then again, I didn't either when I was younger, unfortunately I learned my lesson the hard way.' Atemu thought as he remembered his own trip out of the palace. One that had nearly cost him his life.

-Flashback-

Atemu and his cousin Seth had just snuck out of the palace. Neither of them had been outside the palace walls in years and so for the past month the two had planned their trip out down to the smallest detail. They had left Mana at the palace with a cover story to keep their parents from worrying about them, 'we're at the temple praying.' was the story and it was one they knew would hold up, unless there was an emergency and their parents actually went there to find them, because if that was the case they were in deep trouble.

The two wandered around for about an hour until someone bumped into Atemu dislodging the hood he had been wearing all day. Atemu apologized to the man before walking off again. However, before he made it too far he was roughly grabbed and pulled into an ally.

"Well, well look what I've got here, the crowned Prince of Khemet." The person who had grabbed him said with a sneer.

"Oh, that's great Bakura, why don't we send him back home in pieces, you know as payback to the Pharaoh for the unfair taxing...as well as the raider attack on our town last week that he did nothing about." Another voice said.

The boy, who Atemu now knew was Bakura, appeared to contemplate the idea. "Marik, you know I think that's the first good idea you've ever had." Bakura said after a moment. Atemu felt someone press a dagger to his throat. But before the two could do anything Seth came into the ally and distracted them enough for Atemu to run. Though, he didn't get to far when a dagger pierced his right shoulder. Atemu closed his eyes and blasted the two boy's off their feet before rushing out of the ally and back to the palace with Seth on his heels.

-End Flashback-

Atemu sighed, he had never told Yugi about that, in fact the only people alive who knew about it were Seth and Mana. But, that was one of the reason's he was so strict with Yugi in the first place, especially seeing as how he was the only family he had left. 'He'll understand someday.'

A/N: and I'll call that a chapter...the next part will continue with Yugi and Atemu having another argument and the ambassador...and Yami'll make another appearance...this time allowing for his character to be there on a more permanent basis. Please as always read and review...and don't complain about how Yugi's being really OOC...i need him to be a little bit, and he'll in later chapters, once Yami's around him more be a bit more in character.