The YGO fanfiction contest is getting started up once again! If you're so inclined, please head over to FFnet's forums and drop by our Speculations and Discussions thread! We love talking to people! You can also check out our archives from old contests as well as entries that have been submitted so far.

Pairing(s): This (official first) round of the contest we've been given Supportshipping (Anzu x Honda/Tea x Tristan)!

Continuity: As always, my fics tend to be somewhere between the anime and the manga - I don't think that there are any clear identifiers this time. It could have happened in either one.

I'm quite excited to have a little nudge to write again. If you've been waiting for anything to be updated or continued - don't worry, I've been working on it! Enjoy~

She shuffled her feet quietly against the cold marble floor. Out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted a security guard making his rounds in the area for the third time. The silent message was obvious: The building will close soon. Please leave so that I can go home. Though Anzu was well aware of the guard's plight, she would not.

Her joints ached with the effort of standing. Tears had long since disappeared, frustration melting away as the years went back. Nothing indicated her discomfort other than a sigh, but she had made up her mind. She would only leave when security was forced to confront her, their set jaws and rolling eyes set to motion as they recited, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Museum is closed. Please make your way to the nearest exit." Then they would point, and she would follow.

Until then, Mazaki Anzu would take her time, gathering her thoughts, her attention fixed on display in front of her. Resisting the urge to press her body against the glass, too, had faded over time. Now she only stared, the tension within her so strong that she felt her heartstrings would snap at any moment.

The stone tablet before her was all that was left. Each dip and twist in the etchings called out to her fingers. A piper's song at a frequency that only her ears were tuned into. She longed to touch the rough surface, to trace along the shape of his face. A tiny part of her, the girl that was still in love with him, still hoped that his magic remained; maybe if she broke the glass and ran the tips of her digits along the hieroglyphs, he would return.

For now, her hands were wrapped around the Puzzle, his only possession. The last thing that he had touched, besides the cards. A gift from Yuugi, who had understood her without speaking. It was no longer full of the magic that Anzu desperately wished for, instead holding unspoken apologies and emotions unexpressed. The dull gold was cold against her fingers, like the floor of the Museum. Devoid, and deceased.

"Ma'am," said a voice behind her.

Anzu's shoulders slumped in response. "I-I know. I'm going. I know the way out."

"Nah, it's okay." The voice took a dip in tone, and a small sigh shortly followed.

She turned to the sound, and dropped the Puzzle at the body nearly pressed against her back. Too close. But Honda caught it, and she gasped in relief. If it broke, she was certain that there would be no way to piece it back together. The magic. It's gone. She would feel terrible taking it back to Yuugi, crying over a mistake that was her fault. Perhaps it was best that the tablet was behind glass.

"Sorry," he said, taking a step back. "I just wanted to surprise you. Yuugi said you were in town." Honda appeared to look almost the same as their high school days.

"Yeah," she said. Her voice had become some sort of wild animal, and she tried her best to control it, to keep it from choking up. The security guard was making another round, locking the doors; he would be telling them to leave soon. How Honda had gotten inside was her best guest - she'd stay the night sleeping on the floor if they would allow it.

"You're here every year," he said. "How do you remember the day?"

How do you not? Anzu almost snapped back. But her lips were glued together from the effort of keeping her voice together. She decided to trust herself this time.

The picture had never left her thoughts. Yuugi and Yami, positioned opposite, the latter in his full ruler regalia. There were parts that she still didn't understand, that Yuugi had declined to explain to her ("It won't help you feel any better," he had always told her); a story rife with destiny and villanry and risk and sacrifice and sadness and peace. A book in which she had been allowed to star as a minor character. As a dancer, she knew how vital those minor parts were. They built careers, offered experience, were the molds with which every success story could be shaped. But what could she make without him? The broken dream had co-starred them both, a script that had been rejected for something more riveting, more provoking.

It wasn't until Honda shifted awkwardly that she realized she'd started crying. He looked as though he wanted to hug her, to tell her that things would be alright, but he knew that it wasn't one hundred percent true so he held his tongue. Honda was sweet like that, always had been.

"Well," he said, doing her the courtesy of looking away while she got herself together, "I was going to ask you to dinner but if you're not feeling well…"

Dinner with someone who knew, who had seen, was kind. Her dance troupe knew nothing about Duel Monsters and even less about what had happened three years ago in Domino. In fact, it seemed even the city's residents couldn't accurately recall the events. KaibaCorp had done its job - nothing out of the ordinary had "been reported" or recorded, from either Duelist Kingdom, Battle City or the Grand Prix Tournaments. The strange weather couldn't be looked up, and the tournaments themselves seemed to only exist in the minds of those who had participated. Duel Monsters in and of itself now circled around the company. If Yuugi hadn't been named Seto Kaiba's rival and the Eastern Conference Champion, it's likely that he too would have been forgotten. Perhaps it was for the best.

"It's okay." Anzu spoke clearly, though her voice wobbled just a little. "I would love to. Is anyone else going?"

"Ah," he answered nervously, "no. Just us. Jounouchi is pulling an all-nighter for class and Yuugi has a promo thing happening or something." There was no need to tell her about Otogi - like her, he often was out of the country. Shizuka was usually the person Honda talked about most, but she was mysterious absent from his update.

"What about Mai?" Anzu asked, choosing her words carefully.

"I actually don't know. She just usually shows up and goes whenever she feels like it." Like you and Otogi, she heard in the silence that followed, but it wasn't worth pursuing as a subject. She wouldn't deny it, so there was no sense it.

"I need to be around more often," she told him. It was a feeble attempt to make amends.

But Honda shook his head, kind as he was. "You come here every year - you're around."

That only made her self-conscious, and Anzu hugged herself before slipping the Puzzle into her purse. It was just as well, because the guard down the hall shouted to them from the end of the hallway. "Excuse me," he said. "We-"

"You're closed," Honda finished for him. "We're leaving. Thanks." It was very rude of him, but Anzu appreciated the gesture nonetheless. "So, dinner? Yes, or…?"

She nodded. "Sure, Honda. Thank you."

The two of them exited quickly, to the relief of security, but the two of them sat on the outside steps for a while, simply watching the walking figures on the street. To her surprise, Honda said,

"It's like they don't know. It's like… sometimes things happen to you and then you want to talk to people and you realize just how little everyone around has to do with you. We were inside and when I saw you, it just makes me remember when Yuugi used to visit. He would come up here every day. Just like you. I asked him once why he gave you the Puzzle - it didn't make any sense to me. I wasn't sure what to do when everyone was sad and upset. I don't think that I knew everything that happened as well as you guys. It's still fuzzy for me. But Yuugi said to me, 'She needed it more.'"

Anzu wasn't sure which part had her eyes prickling, but she focused hard on reigning herself in. Normally she was by herself, without anyone who knew about the Pharaoh or the dueling or… it made her realize that even on her own, being the only one who 'knew' made her special. It made things easy.

"To me it was just kind of silly, you know?" Honda continued. "Yeah, the Other Yuugi was leaving, I guess, and that was sad. But it meant that all of the weird stuff would stop happening, and that we weren't going to have to worry about someone taking our bodies or killing us or taking over the world… and then it hit me. No one else knows that's what happened. To everyone else, we're just crazy people. And that's how it always is. Even when I want to tell people, 'Hey, Shizuka turned me down after all this time,' it just doesn't matter. It didn't happen to them. I'm just one guy out of a million guys who got turned down. But it doesn't feel that way, does it? And then, I kinda got it. I got why Yuugi decided to do that."

The words caught in her throat, but Anzu pushed them out. "I was just one girl out of a million who got turned down." It came out as a whisper, and she wiped the corners of her eyes.

"I always wanted to be a real hero, the kind of guy who stands up for his friends whenever, right? But it's hard to be that while he's there, doing the same thing but better. I couldn't duel with Pegasus or Bakura or Seto freakin' Kaiba. It would never happen. I was just on the sides, doing what I can. Helping Shizuka. Dealing with things right with everyone else. But then I look around; no one remembers. No one knows. No one cares. One of the most exciting things anyone could ever do - and it doesn't matter. For Shizuka, it didn't matter. Even for me. You guys were friends with him. I was just someone he got out of trouble."

Anzu waited for him to finish.

"But now that he's gone, it's different. I can still be a hero, right?" He turned to her, his eyes shining with something she couldn't quite find a word for. "I can take you out to dinner, right? No one out there..." he pointed to everyone walking, dark silhouettes against brash colors. The sunset was dark, split between the towering shadows of skyscrapers and buildings filled with office workers. None of them could see him, or them. "No one out there cares if I take you out to dinner. They won't know, you know? But I can still do it, yeah? Just like how you and Yuugi can keep remembering, and showing up. That guy is always telling people to leave. But he doesn't matter, you know? He's the one who isn't important. He'd be dead if it weren't for us. So we're heroes, too. But who's going to come up to see us? Who's going to remember?"

He smiled at her, and added, "We just don't have cool tans." A few moments went by without another sound between them.

Anzu had never considered herself important at all. She had done nothing but stand on the side and, on one occasion, attempted to duel to save them some time. She felt much like Honda had said, like someone he had just been around to save. But that couldn't be true - at least if Honda was saying what she thought - because his loss was something less intense but not less important. Yami could have ignored them, but he hadn't. Anzu didn't have to ignore everyone else, but she had.

"I guess, like," he began again, "that was me trying to cheer you up. Do it with a bang, right? His talks always sounded like a bang." Anzu chuckled, remembering the loud, thunderous voice.

"Thanks," she said. He stood, his dark hair taking on the reddish color of the sunset. Reaching out for her hand, he helped pull her up. "And I'm sorry about Shizuka," she curtailed at the end.

"It's okay I guess," he said. "I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"I'm sorry," she repeated again. I should have been a hero, too.

The two of them descended the rest of the steps.

{FIN}