Notes: Written for round 2 of the YGO Fanfiction Contest. The pairing is Hostshipping (Anzu x Ryou), but as with most of my fics, you'll need to squint to see it. SORRY ABOUT THAT D8
"A full house, Jounouchi," Anzu declared, laying her hand of cards on the table. She laughed as Jounouchi's face became incredulous and he looked from his own cards to hers, then back again, as if to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. She leaned back in her seat, crossing one knee over the other. "Can you do better?"
"Man," Jounouchi groaned, slouching. "Hang on, there has to be something…"
Anzu raised an eyebrow as he started re-arranging the cards still in his hands. Behind Jounouchi, sitting on a backwards-facing chair, Honda peered over his shoulder. He made a cutting motion across his throat at Anzu, covering it with his fist to his mouth and a cough when Jounouchi glanced back at him suspiciously. Anzu kept a straight face.
"Come on," she taunted. Jounouchi's brow furrowed, and he glared at her.
"Gimme a sec," he muttered, his eyes darting back and forth between his cards.
Anzu rolled her eyes and took the moment to look across the room at Yuugi, who sat in his usual seat by the window, his head propped in his hand, a faraway look on his face; Anzu had caught herself with the same expression more than once in the last few days.
She turned her attention back to Jounouchi. By now a crowd had gathered around their desks, which Jounouchi had hastily pushed together in his hurry to settle his score with Anzu. She'd beaten him at Duel Monsters a total of three times (of course, that had been before he'd placed fourth in Battle City) and for some reason, he fancied himself a master of poker and by his logic, he could even the playing field by defeating her at a different game. She was about to prove otherwise, going by the slightly panicked look on his face. She grinned.
"You still can't beat me," she said, laughing when Jounouchi scowled and slammed his cards to the table. "You'll have to do better than a straight! I think that makes it four to zero in my favor."
Jounouchi grumbled as he shooed the other students away from their desks, picking up the cards and starting to shuffle them. "You're lucky you're not a guy," he said under his breath.
"What?"
"I said—"
"You lost, buddy," Honda intervened, dragging Jounouchi by the back of his shirt towards the door. "Let's go."
Anzu glanced at the clock above the blackboard, and watched the two boys leave, before she got up and walked over to Yuugi's desk. She sat on it, touching his shoulder lightly. Shaking off his daze, Yuugi smiled at her, but there was a touch of sadness she noticed, and she didn't need to ask why. She felt it, too. Not as much as he did—he had literally lost half of himself, after all—but she felt it spike if she concentrated on Yuugi's face for too long or when her mind wandered back to that day at the museum.
"Yuugi?" she asked quietly.
"I'm okay, Anzu," he said. She thought he sounded tired, and immediately she kicked herself for trying to act like everything was normal again, because for the four of them, Yuugi especially, life wasn't how they remembered it. One important element was missing, one she had no heart left to name.
"Alright," Anzu said reluctantly, dropping her hand to her lap. "But if you need to talk…?"
Yuugi nodded, returning his gaze to the window and the schoolyard beyond. Biting her lip, Anzu tried to think of something to say; she scanned her eyes around the classroom quickly, seeing that people were leaving for the mid-morning break, until her eyes fell on the seat two rows across from her own.
"Hey," she said, frowning. "Has anyone seen Bakura since—?"
Looking back to her, Yuugi blinked. "I haven't heard from him. Maybe check with the teacher to see if he's turned up to any of his classes?"
Anzu tapped her finger against her chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."
:::
Anzu hadn't meant to go this far. Originally, her plan was to give Ryou a call, see how he was doing in light of recent events. But her feet had led her here, to a grey six-story building on the other side of Domino. The alleyway beside it was long and narrow, and led into another back street, and there was multi-colored graffiti on the fence that ran parallel to the building. In the fading light, her shadow fell long across the sidewalk and the final rays of the sun were bright in her eyes as she started to climb the stairwell.
She'd talked the school receptionist into giving her Ryou's address, as well as his home phone number. She'd tried his cellphone; it had gone straight to voicemail and she left a message, but she knew the only way to be certain that he was okay was to see him in person.
Coming to a stop in front of number eight, on the fourth level of the building, Anzu raised a hand to knock, but it dropped back by her side as she thought about what she was doing.
Was she really Bakura's friend? Did she have any business doing this? What if he had stopped coming to school for a perfectly valid reason? And what was she going to say to him if that was the case?
Deciding she'd already come this far, Anzu took a deep breath and rapped her knuckles on the door. A few seconds passed, she heard shuffling behind the door, and a muffled "Anzu?", then the door opened a few inches. Ryou's face was visible. The first thing she noticed was that he looked exhausted; he had dark circles beneath his eyes and his skin was paler than usual. His hair was pulled back off his face into a ponytail, a look she hadn't seen before on him. It made his features more prominent, but it also made him look older than he was. The sheer fatigue written on his face might've had something to do with it, too.
Realizing she hadn't said anything yet, Anzu stood up straighter. "Bakura! Hi. I know this probably isn't a good time, but I just wanted to see if you were okay. You haven't been to school since we all…got back."
He gazed at her for a minute or two, and she swallowed. Then he pushed the door open a little wider, enough for her to fit through. "Why don't you come in?"
Anzu blinked rapidly, but she stepped inside the apartment as he moved back. He shut the door behind her, offering to take her school jacket, which she gladly shed; it was warm inside. She could see the faint orange glow of a fire that was burning in the living room, and she was unable to stop herself from looking around. The place was decorated sparsely, with photo frames sitting on the mantelpiece above the fire; in them sat black and white images of people Anzu hadn't seen before, but one of them was clearly Ryou. She didn't know any of the other people, but the young girl that appeared in almost all of them had striking white hair like Ryou's.
Anzu's eyes went to the doorway of another room. From where she stood, she could see a tabletop was set up, but it was impossible to determine what kind of game it was without seeing it closer. She started to make her way towards it, but Ryou stepped in front of her, his expression guarded, but his eyes seemed vulnerable. Anzu stopped, her heartbeat quickening.
"I'm sorry," she said, without really knowing what she was apologizing for. "I just—"
"Did Yuugi send you?" Ryou asked, motioning for her to follow him into the kitchen. She did, careful to keep her eyes on Ryou's so he wouldn't think she was trying to pry into his private life.
Anzu wondered how best to answer that, what he wanted to hear. She went with the truth: "No. He did ask about you, though."
Ryou crouched down to open a cupboard, and he straightened, setting two mugs on the counter. "You didn't have to come all the way out here for me," he said. "I… There were some things I had to take care of. I'm not done with school." Then he paused. "Tea or coffee?"
"Tea," Anzu said automatically. "Bakura?"
Ryou was in the middle of reaching to one of the higher cupboards, and his grey shirt was riding up as he stretched; he glanced at her. "Yes?"
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," Ryou said, flicking the kettle on and dropping two teabags into the mugs.
"What was it like?"
"What was what like?"
Anzu hesitated. She was asking something personal, probably the kind of thing he never wanted to answer, but she'd always had questions about the things that went along with a three-thousand year old spirit inhabiting your body.
"Having him…take over," she said slowly. An imperceptible look flitted across Ryou's face, and Anzu almost regretted asking. But then he gave a shrug.
"Don't you know?" he asked. "Malik was inside your mind for some time."
Anzu shook her head, watching as Ryou carefully poured the boiling water from the kettle into the mugs, steam spilling over the brims. She rested her fingers against one of them, grateful for a bit of extra warmth.
"I don't remember," she murmured. "There are just…blanks in my memory. I woke up in places that I don't remember going to. There were some marks that definitely weren't there before. He never said anything about it, and I meant to ask him when we saw At—"
Ryou looked sympathetic.
God, was she that obvious?
Shaking her head, Anzu went on, "But I didn't get the chance to. So I wanted to know."
He studied her again, one eyebrow furrowed, his index finger and thumb at his lips.
"It's hard to say," he said finally. "How do you describe breathing?"
"What do you mean?" Anzu questioned, pulling her mug over to her side of the counter. Ryou lifted his own to his mouth, blowing lightly to cool it before he took a sip. Licking his lips, he gave a one-shouldered shrug again.
"Most of the time, I tried to fight him off. Other times, I just let him be in control. It was easier not to…" He waved a hand vaguely, and then wrapped it around his mug along with his other hand. "Even when I thought I was myself, sometimes it was hard to tell if I was actually me, or just watching him use my voice. Through me, he came so close to hurting Yuugi and all of you. It was only a week ago and that's hard to believe."
"Thanks for…sharing that with me. I know it can't be easy." Anzu smiled. "I'm glad that's over now, Bakura. You have a lot ahead of you."
Ryou raised his eyebrows, even as he smiled back at her—it was genuine, small but there. "How do you know?"
"You shouldn't mess with me," Anzu said, raising the cup to her mouth. "I beat Jounouchi at poker this afternoon."
"Like Jounouchi's hard to beat," Ryou teased, leaning against the stove.
"That sounds like a challenge," Anzu stated. "Guess that'll be two boys I had to beat to a pulp today."
Ryou ran his fingers through his bangs and laughed, and she knew she'd made the right (if rash) decision.