Summary: Anzu questions Yugi about his aesthetic choices – his very leather-centric aesthetic choices – and gets an answer she wasn't expecting.
Anzu held five Duel Monsters cards in one hand and rested her face against the other. When Yugi suggested a friendly match – no holograms, no end-of-the-world stakes, no weird evil villain threatening to steal anyone's soul – she agreed. Their gang of friends rarely got time off and it was even more rare that she and Yugi got to spend time together one-on-one. Like the good old days. However, the teen had other pressing things on her mind and she just didn't know how to question her childhood friend about it.
She thought she was doing a fair job hiding her internal struggles but it seemed like even Yugi was beginning to catch on. Even the most oblivious person was bound to notice how distracted she was considering she had lost a significant amount of life points even though they were only four rounds into the game.
"Anzu?" She looked up from her cards and saw his hesitant expression. She instantly felt guilty.
"Hm?"
"Anzu, it's been your turn for a while and you still haven't made a move. Is everything okay?"
"Uh…yeah."
She didn't know how to bring up what was bothering her without upsetting Yugi. He was already self-conscious and even though his friendship with the pharaoh had given him a significant confidence boost, it seemed that even the pharaoh had reservations about this particular topic. Or at least that's what he implied on their so-called date a few weeks prior. Looking back on it now, that date was what initiated this nagging question.
Yugi placed his cards down. "We don't have to play if you don't want to."
Anzu sighed and put her cards down too. "It's not that…"
"What is it?"
"I was just wondering how you… got into…?" The words died off and her hand began to gesture in Yugi's general direction.
His eyebrow quirked, not knowing what she was gesturing at, and his focus landed on the table in front of them. "How I… got into Duel Monsters?" he suggested.
Anzu refrained from smacking her forehead in disbelief. Why did everything have to come back to Duel Monsters? Realizing that the question was already half out there, Anzu decided that she was going to stop beating around the bush and just come out with it.
"I was just wondering how you got into," she motioned her hand at Yugi again. "Y'know? The collar. The studded belt. The leather. Yugi, you look like a low-key bondage slave."
There was a pregnant pause between the two as Anzu's question was finally out there. As she watched Yugi's eyes grow big and his mouth falling open in shock, she instantly regretted being so blunt. Maybe she could have softened the blow if she hadn't compared his aesthetic choices to that of a BDSM fiend. When she was mere moments away from apologizing and brushing off the topic, she saw the millennium puzzle flash, as if the pharaoh also wanted in in this conversation.
Yugi coughed into his fist, cheeks still pink. "Um… what makes you say that?"
"Yugi," Anzu said seriously. "The collar. The ridiculously over-sized studded belt. THE TIGHT LEATHER. I'm not judging your fashion choices but how did you get into it? Where did you get this stuff?"
He gripped the chain around the millennium puzzle and Anzu couldn't believe she forgot to mention that too.
"Well the millennium puzzle is heavy. It's made out of pure gold and that can get pretty strenuous on my neck, y'know? After I solved it, I was going around town trying to find something to help with the strain and I found myself entering a certain… shop."
"What kind of shop?"
"It was a sex shop specializing in BDSM, okay, but they had a sign out front promoting things that could help with neck strain and pain so I just went in. I didn't even know what the shop was selling until I saw the wall of flails, whips, and shackles."
Anzu felt herself blushing imagining little Yugi entering a place like that by himself, especially at the defensive tone he had explaining it all to her.
"If that wasn't embarrassing enough, I got carded by the shopgirl because she wouldn't believe that I was an adult. She thought I was a middle school kid who went in on a dare. Apparently that happens a lot. Anyway," he sighed. "The shopgirl felt bad for me after she realized I wasn't lying about my age and wanted to know why I came in. She let me try on the collar to see if it helped with the weight from the millennium puzzle and it did. After that, she said she could help me get pants for cheap because there wasn't a large market for men's leather pants in my size and she sold them all to me at a discounted price."
"So you developed your look out of pain alleviation and a bargain on pants?"
"I don't know how to hem pants, okay? And it's hard to find ones that fit when you're apparently the shortest man in Japan. Plus," he mumbled quietly, refusing to look at anything besides the wall. "I think I look good in them".
"Awww Yugi, of course you do!"
"Oh, shut up." But he didn't mean it.
"So… out of curiosity: did you have a small crush on the shopgirl?"
There was a brief pause.
"A bit. I go back occasionally to get some accessories – like bracelets, I swear!" He said defensively when Anzu shot him an incredulous look for being a regular at a BDSM shop. "But I don't think she's too impressed with my King of Games title, or Duel Monsters in general."
According to Yugi's dejected expression, Anzu felt like there might have been more to that story other than the shopgirl's disinterest in the card game, but she wasn't going to pry any further. Yugi had already told her more than enough information even though she hadn't been so eloquent in her approach.
A mischievous look appeared on Yugi's face and Anzu blinked as she wondered if it was the pharaoh who was looking at her.
"Hey, Anzu?"
"Yeah?"
"I was just wondering," he gestured towards her. "Y'know? Why don't you ever wear pants?"
She spluttered. "What?!"
"Anzu," he said seriously. "The skirts. The ridiculously short shorts. THE TIGHT DRESSES. I'm not judging your fashion choices but how did you get into it?"
Nope. Not the pharaoh. That was definitely all Yugi. He looked, and was, kind but he also had that teasing quality as well.
Okay, she understood his point. She should have had more tact. He didn't have to rub it in.
She crossed her arms defiantly over her chest.
"I think I look good in them," she replied.
Anzu was expecting for Yugi to go "Awww!" just like she had with him. Instead he surprised her when he said, "I think so too" and winked at her, which looked strangely attractive on his kind face.
He casually picked up his cards again and Anzu did too, hiding her face behind them. Whatever she was expecting from this conversation, anxiousness and self-conscious embarrassment was not it.
A ClockRepair Message: I don't know where this came from. This probably has already been done but I haven't been in this fandom since the third grade so I have a lot of catching up to do. Partial inspiration from a tumblr post and the fact that I only recently realized Yugi was wearing a dog collar and apparently no one in the show thought it was weird. And let's pretend that to be a legal adult in Japan means that you're a high school student :P