Title: we both know the smell of a convenience store at 4 a.m.
Pairing and Fandom: Persevereshipping (Otogi Ryuuji x Anzu Mazaki), Yuugiou
Rating: T
Summary: Life does not get miraculously better. Things don't change because a pretty boy she knows touched her on the face and said "you're not you right now", because none of it's new, it's all self deception. / In the end, it's not about being fixed. It's about healing. Oneshot.
Other: The title was lifted from the first line of Buddy Wakefield's 'Convenience Stores'. It however, has nothing to do with it. I just liked the line.
I'd like to give a huge thanks to MyMisguidedFairytale and TheAmberRaven for their support and advice. I don't think I could've done it without them.
Written for r5 of ygo ff contest, s9 3/4.
Anzu doesn't think about the past. This is what she tells everyone, because she's happy for Atem, and she's sad that he left, but that's alright, that's okay. They see her smile and her one hundred and ten percent effort placed into dancing and think "Oh, if only I could move on like she has."
What they don't see is this:
The way she ghosts around town at four a.m. in the morning, unable to sleep because of nightmares, or dreams, and the guilt that draws tight lines around her eyes, shame in wanting, shame in not acting, shame in that she can never try again. The way her smile slips when she thinks nobody is looking.
Anzu is an excellent actor, and hides it all away, make-up and lipstick and bright bright smiles which promise the world that she is fine. She gives her comfort but never takes, and this? This is only a recent thing. This didn't happen before when they were all here for her, and...
He wonders.
How it started.
When she started to crack.
He intercepts her one sunny afternoon after school, corners her and pushes her into a corner. Tilts her chin up with a single finger, possessive and condescending, and she flares up, firecracker of a girl, and says "What do you want, Otogi-kun?" No pretences of being alright, no pretences of normality.
"What are you doing?" he asks instead, forceful, and her eyes widen, and she's probably thinking he knows. He moves his hands away.
"Dreams," she says flatly. "The dreams are haunting me. Every time, I reach for him, and he slips out of my grasp, and I'm too late.
"It didn't happen that way. And I don't understand why I'm dreaming of it this way. I'm -" she looks up, blue eyes wide and terrified. "I'm haunted by something that didn't happen, and I don't understand why. And I can't tell my friends. They wouldn't understand."
"Would they?" he asks, tone mild. "Are you sure you're not misunderstanding them?"
She flinches. Breathes.
"I'll think about it," she says. "Thank you."
He smiles. Watches her go.
If he were honest, he would tell her, "I dream of it too. I let go, and he fell, when I could've saved him." It's completely irrational, because 1. It wasn't his choice to make, 2. He wasn't all that close with Atem, despite a sense of camaraderie with the man that he hadn't shared with his other friends and 3. There was nothing he could've done about it.
There is something, he thinks, wrong here.
Perhaps it is with him. Perhaps he doesn't understand how human grief works, and it's not all that unusual for someone to change drastically because of this - because of death, because of loss. Perhaps that lack of grief is this - the emptiness when his father almost dies, the brain filling in the gaps to see how he could use the situation to his advantage, regardless of the outcome. Perhaps it is the feeling he still remembers at the side of his mother's hospital bed, the vague curiosity as to what is to come, and nothing else.
Otogi's maybe fascinated by broken things, fascinated by himself, jagged edges of porcelain scratching at its other pieces, self-destructive and beautiful, carving out a fragmented story where there otherwise would be nothing. Something in him wants to see Anzu break. Something in him doesn't want her to, because self-destruction isn't beautiful (unless it's himself, but that's just another amusing lie).
Life does not get miraculously better. Things don't change because a pretty boy she knows touched her on the face and said "you're not you right now", because none of it's new, it's all self deception.
Even so, it's like a trigger, or maybe it is the trigger, the catalyst. She still haunts the streets in the dead of night, skin translucent and veined under the harsh flicker of the streetlights, a step away from being a true ghost. What would it be like, to drown? Yuugi and Jounouchi might know. What would it like, to fall, just as not-Atem falls in her dreams, his betrayed face haunting the back of her eyes, charred into her retinas.
She's suspected for awhile now, ever since the confrontation, so it doesn't really surprise her when she sees him sitting on a swing at the playground next to Daitou Park, watching the stars.
"That's how you knew," she says and walks over, leans against the pole.
Otogi turns and smiles at her, brings out the full force of his boyish charm into the curl of his lips, the crinkle of his eyes, and the casual, at ease posture he seems to constantly be in, a shield against the world that's melted and melded into his consciousness.
Anzu's not completely unaffected and waits for his response, doesn't trust herself to speak.
"Dreams," he says, and to anyone else, it would a mocking recreation of their own words. "If I were honest, I would've told you: he haunts me in my dreams too." A pause. "They all do."
Who, she wonders.
"So why tell me now?"
He shrugs. "Why do anything? Why grieve? Why live?"
She raises her hand as if to slap him. Puts it down. "You don't understand," and it comes out as a breath of air, a revelation under harsh artificial lighting, as if that made them any less important.
"No," he says amiably. "I don't. I never did. Some sort of empathy defect."
"You're not broken," she offers.
He laughs. "Of course I am," and there's nothing she can say to that. Anzu doesn't believe it. But even if he is broken, that means that there are still pieces to pick up, to clumsily glue together with PVA and sticky tape, until there's something there again. Organic things grow. They heal. Humans aren't pieces of pottery. They aren't made up of so many broken pieces of porcelain that broken means forever.
What good was propriety? Guilt was something they all internalised to stopped themselves from stepping out of line. Anzu leans down and hugs Otogi, and wonders if it's the right thing to do when he tenses beneath her.
"Broken doesn't mean forever," she whispers into the crook of his neck. "Lives change, people move on."
"Isn't that something you should accept yourself?"
"I am.
Slowly."
He laughs.
"What good is fixing someone if you can't fix yourself?"
"It's not about fixing." She hesitates. "It's about healing."
That makes him quiet. Thoughtful. He relaxes under her embrace. "Sit with me," he says, gesturing to the other swing.
They watch the stars until there are no more stars, visions of ephemeral light fading, merging into the brightness of day, and talk about dreams, or goals, or desires for the future. The darkness is still there, simmering beneath the surface, but Anzu feels the lightest she has since the Ceremonial Duel.
In the end, it's not about being fixed. It's about healing.
Yuugi and Jounouchi might know. - Refers to a part of the series (Battle City) where Yuugi and Jounouchi (under Malik's mind control) are forced to duel each other, the consequence of them not being that a giant shipping container will be dropped onto Anzu. Furthermore, they are chained to something (?) and the loser of the duel is dragged underwater unless they have the key.
Daitou Park - Made up park in Domino City, near the docks.
"That's how you knew," she says and walks over, leans against the pole. - Anzu is referring to Otogi's own insomnia (within this story). He's better at sneaking around than her, so she's never spotted him. That, and I imagine Domino City to be fairly big.
What good was propriety? - from what I understand, showing affection publicly in Japanese culture is generally looked down upon.
I drew on my own experiences, about how you comfort others, and how you comfort yourself, for this piece. The possibility of a sequel is there, although I haven't really been feeling like writing Yugioh lately. That, and I'm not entirely sure what it would entail, most likely "how one moves into a relationship", I guess.
Feedback is greatly appreciated!