Length: Around a thousand words.

Warnings: Post-canon, onesided Supportshipping (Anzu x Honda), with kinda-sorta Revolutionshipping (Anzu x Yami Yugi). Further warnings for suicide, blood, and some very confusing stuff.

Spooner Says: Spooner wanted to write a shorter piece for once, and so... Spooner wrote a shorter piece, for once?


Lose Yourself

In hindsight, what happened to him feels more like horrible fanfiction than real life.

That is to say, he feels less like his situation is at all tied to real life, and more linked with a horribly unoriginal 'what if' scenario – or, perhaps, a 'what the four letter word' scenario. The memories that haunt him are hardly the detailed, vibrant descriptions one might find in good prose, either – just bleak, cold things, pieces of information he's recited to counselors a thousand times. If he were somehow able to write out his memories, he's sure it'd read like a horrible fanfiction someone had written about the end of his

everything.

and it'd go a little something like this


Anzu Mazaki walks down the street.

It's a horrible way to start a story, yes, overused in too many role–plays and too many novels, but the author is a horrible person, and so in her mind, horrible ways of starting stories are perfectly acceptable. Ergo, Anzu Mazaki (for horrible people use full names all the time!) is walking down the street, and blah blah put your own description of the lovely day outside here blah. Strangely enough, Anzu Mazaki fails to notice how scrappy the world around her is, how the sky's 'blue' and nothing else, or even how the 'busy' street is apparently deserted for all the effort the author put into it. Anzu Mazaki just walks, walks, walks down that street, even as her personality is summed up in three words and her appearance is given far too much thought, every garment analyzed right down to the chemical composition of the buttons.

Hiroto Honda, for the record, is walking up the street towards Anzu Mazaki, on the opposite side of the road from her. The author doesn't bother showing how Hiroto Honda's whole stance straightens when he sees her, or how Anzu Mazaki flashes a little smile at him; such stupid details are neglected in favour of cold, hard facts: They are friends. They go to highschool together. They go on adventures with Yugi and Jounouchi, even if the aforementioned are the only ones doing any kind of adventuring, and they sometimes show a slight interest in the same card–game.

All in all, they have enough Fun Facts in common for them to be mercilessly shipped, do they not? And maybe, if this was a different sort of horrible fanfic, it'd be his fantasies instead of his nightmares. They'd meet and have fun together, laughing about all the silly things their silly main–character friends did, and then maybe kiss when no–one was looking, like the minor characters they were. But, because Hiroto–Honda–is–shy (he's not special enough for her, she deserves better, he wishes he was rich or famous or magical or cool, but...) and Anzu–Mazaki–is–in–love–with–someone–else (pining for someone who died a while ago, not about to consider any other option aside from joining that person ASAP), they walk straight past each other.

And Anzu Mazaki is walking down the street.

And Hiroto Honda is walking up the street.

And now they're further away from each other.

And if Honda wants that date, he should really ask now.

And then Anzu Mazaki walks a bit further down the street.

And then Hiroto Honda walks a b–

–ecause this is a story, and things happen even in Really Bad Fanfictions, something actually happens – I know, I can't believe it either, sit down and shut up and keep reading.

Namely, Hiroto Honda glances over his shoulder, opens his mouth to ask her out, and sees Anzu Mazaki...

...fly.

(I know, I can't believe it either, sit down and shut up and keep reading...)

Arms spread, she soars up and up from the middle of the street, and sails straight over the truck, leaving a trail of red feathers behind her. She flies, and because this isn't some lame fantasy thing... she falls, and it's blood instead of feathers that she's losing. She hits the ground with a sharp smack and a startled gasp, automatically tries to disguise the latter as a soft sigh – but then again, that's kind of hard when you've just jumped out in front of a truck, and half your insides are now leaking out onto the tarmac. Things happen after that, of course, but in hindsight he barely remembers what they were like. There's no point in describing the feelings that rushed through him, how the world looked –because in the last minutes before his little fantasy really bit the dust for good, it was just him and her, doing things without feelings, or explanations, or plans – like a really, really boring action scene in a downright horrible piece of prose...

She bleeds.

He rushes over to her.

She almost says something, but stops.

("Y–Y...")

He looks at her, hopes she'll pick a different sentence

She tries again, and this time manages to get the whole thing out.

("Yami... Y–Yugi... I'm... C–coming...")

He cringes, tries to tell her stuff about ambulances and love confessions and–

–she almost breathes, almost says something else, almost almost almost – but she stops.

Forever.

("Lo...v...y–y...")


And that's why his life story, in hindsight, isn't a good one, let alone a decently-written one; it's just the story of some boring minor character, who in the end failed to do anything he could call an achievement, and even failed to get the girl when The Man of Her Dreams was dead. For a time, he wonders what would have happened if he'd somehow – somehow – come over to her, in those last moments before she stepped out. He could have called out to her, rushed to her side, done so, so much more than just take another step and glance back, and he wonders if it would have changed anything, if he could have saved her life and his fantasy in the process...

...and in the two seconds between passing Jounouchi in the street and completely losing himself in the roar of an engine and a blaze of headlights, he wonders if his best friend might know the answer.

Maybe Honda... might have... should have... asked him... but...

...he never...asked questions, or asked... Anzu...

...I'll...ask her... out... when... I get there...

("A... A–Anzu... I'm... C–coming...")