Kay, let's try this again...

Disclaimer: Me no ownee.

Okay, I posted this a couple days ago, lost my nerve, took it down, and somehow I've built courage enough to try to post this again. This story is just...meh. Not one of my best, I'll say that, and also somewhat cliche.

It'd be no big surprise if I took this down again.

Enjoy!

The Inside Story


Time Magazine had published an article titled "Teenage Legends: Where Are They Now?", and it's front cover had a photograph of Yuugi Mutou, age seventeen, standing posed with a duel disk strapped to his arm. That was what had caught Anzu's attention when she had been standing in line at the grocery store, browsing over the latest magazines on the rack while waiting to be checked out She had hid her surprise and her eagerness as she picked up the magazine, looking down at the photo of a boy she had once known. Except, as she studied it, she realized it wasn't that boy in the photograph, it was him.

It was the eyes. The eyes had always given him away, and even in the captured moment in time, they were still blazing, still calculated as ever. It brought back memories of his voice, his stance, the way he demanded attention by his presence alone. Even the memory caused a faint flutter in her heart that she had almost forgotten about, that old teenager crush that had quite never went away.

Anzu touched the photograph, the glossy finish of her manicured nails bright under the lights. How long had it been since she had last seen him? Ten years? Had it been only been that long? It seemed like such a short span of time, but in truth, it was a considerable amount. They had all grown up; they had all came so far. The memory she had of him entering through the doors, his cloak flapping out, it was almost faded now. All she could remember was the emotions she had felt; the disbelief that this would be the last time she would see him. After all they had been through in two years, he had to leave (had to die), right when he had just started living again.

She remembered it hadn't been fair.

So little time had passed, yet so much had at the same time. Honda had a wife and three children now (with another on the way), and was the head of the narcotics department in Domino. Jounouchi was utterly convinced that this time (the 37th time), Mai would finally accept his marriage proposal, and they could finally settle down, have a family themselves, and live happily ever after (or so he hoped). Kaiba was still the CEO of Kaiba Corporations, which was now the highest grossing company in the world, and he had amusement parks in all the major cities around the world.

Anzu herself had come to New York almost seven years earlier, ready, finally ready, to show herself to the world. With a couple lucky breaks, and an excellent audition, she landed into a school where she could learn from the masters the art of the ballet. She had danced and danced, pouring all of her passion into being the best. And she was: soon, she was performing in dozens of productions after taking the stage name Anzu Maza, and had become famous. A production that starred her was always sold out.

They had all came a long way from where they had been, and as Anzu flicked through the pages to find the article, she came across the picture of all of them when they had been teenagers. Jounouchi was posing for the photographer (who's name she couldn't remember), Honda looked as serious as always, and she was standing to the side, holding her arm. Yuugi – no, him – was standing in the middle, in that poise that challenged anyone to deny he was anything but a bastard. He even had that casual smirk on his face, that was both confident and sexy, a visual cue to the karma that made everyone focus in on him. Anzu found herself staring at again, overwhelmed by the amount of memories: his laugh, his cocky arrogance, the way he jutted his hip to one side, the chains hanging from his belt clinking together.

Anzu had to force her tears to stay down, or to not laugh out loud, about all the things that had made him him. She had forgotten how much she missed him, how much they all did. For a long time, Anzu believed she had been the one who missed him the most out of all of them, but she now knew that wasn't true. He had touched all their lives in one way or another, taught them about friendship and to cherish memories, how to believe in themselves and never give up. They were all lessons they had taken to heart, and what had shaped them into what they were now, ten years later, and what they would become.

The article dedicated two pages on Seto Kaiba before they came to Yuugi Mutou, listing his achievements and accomplishments. Duel Monsters Champion, King of Games, and first place in the Battle City Tournament, Winner of KC Grand Prix. Those were all of the things that had made him a legend, and the article praised him for becoming so successful now that the fun and games were over. Yuugi had a doctrine in Egyptology, which was news to Anzu, since she hadn't known he had continued schooling. In fact, there were many little bits of information that she was unaware of, as she continued to read the article. He was a curator at the museum in Cairo, and was the world's leading source on Egyptian history.

These were all these things that Anzu didn't know, and she scoured the article, looking for anything that she may have missed. Yuugi's accomplishments were large and long, and all of them dealt with Egypt in one way or another. He was the head of a research team, working on a site near the Valley of the Dead. He was working on a theory that some called controversial, others, idiotic.

There were no pictures of him. Only him.

Except the small one wedged between two paragraphs in the article, of Yuugi standing in front of the pyramids, catching a moment where perhaps he hadn't been paying attention to the cameras. His shirt was being battered by the wind, long hair unkept like always, his trousers obviously a size too big. The sun was setting, judging by the colors of the sky above him: reds, pinks, oranges and just a hint of dark blue. He wasn't looking at the cameras, instead in the distant, toward the sun, and the picture had caught something in his eyes that Anzu couldn't quite describe? Hope? Longing?

Loneliness?

The last time she had seen Yuugi was during a holiday season in Japan, and they had gone to a nice restaurant for dinner near Domino Piers. The waitress had known who she was and had given them the best seats that overlooked the ocean. Yuugi had been in a suit and tie, his hair, for once, swept together and neat, and he looked quite presentable. When he sat, he sat up straight, spoke softly, but with a hint of command in his voice as he ordered them drinks. He was charming as he did so, and the waitress left in a flutter.

They talked. About simple things. School. Work. About Honda's second child, Jounouchi's twentieth attempt to get Mai to marry him. Kaiba; though Yuugi refrained from speaking too much on that particular subject, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

They talked about the productions Anzu was going to be in, and how Yuugi had been offered a job at Tokyo University to teach Egyptology. She had teased him, calling him Yuugi-sensei, and he had laughed, but it had seemed forced.

They drank.

He had learned German, Yuugi said, since the last time they saw each other, as one of his requirements for a degree in Egyptology. It hadn't been easy, and he was always teased because of the Japanese tone he added to the words. "Ägypten," he said, waving his drink as he mimicked one of his professors. "Not Agypten'o'."

They laughed and drank some more.

Their conversation remained simple and polite till it was time to leave, and Yuugi had invited her to his flat, for another drink. She had agreed and they made their way to his flat, which Anzu hadn't visited in a few years. Not much had changed about it. There were still no mirrors except in the bathroom, and it was clean and orderly. The bookshelves were still filled with dozens of books on Egyptian history, culture, anything dating to the New Era.

There weren't any games.

They ended up drinking too much, and it turned into of those conversations about those things they never talked about anymore. Duel Monsters, games, magic, ancient pharaohs. Yuugi may have been a little drunk (and perhaps, so had she), and he had been tugging at his tie as if it were making him uncomfortable before he had quieted down at the mention of his name. His eyes had suddenly blazed, filled with a passion Anzu hadn't seen for a long time, and he had looked over at the books on the shelves. He had taken one, and held it up to show her a book on Egyptian history. And he had said something that still rung in her ears.

"I am going to write him into the history books."

Where was he now? the article asked, and they gave their answer, but Anzu continued to stare at the picture of the boy she had once been in love with. Now a man standing before the great pyramids and looking out in the distance with longing in his eyes. And Anzu had to ask herself the question, as she stared at the picture.

Where was he now?

Yeah...can you tell I'm an English major?