Disclaimer: I don't any of the animes I write about.
A/N: Yes another one shot from me. I'm guessing these are the type of stories I'm actually the best at. Yes and it's Anzu-centric. Actually this is a stress relief fic for me since my exams just got over and I'm having a major writers block.
Unchanging.
The only thing that remains unchanging in life is change itself. – Unknown.
The Game Shop looked a bit too plain after the Christmas and New Year decorations had been taken off. Though otherwise it was still the same. The glass top of the counter was still spotless and the register was still in the same place as it always was. The shelves still displayed rare Duel Monster cards, starter, intermediate, advanced and experience decks, various DDM die, other Duel Monsters and DDM merchandise, board games, and the rare odd gift or two.
The inner area where Yugi, his grandpa, and Atem stayed also remained unchanged. The furniture, upholstery, and the way they were arranged still remained the same. The creepers still hung at the same places. The potted plants were still at the same places never growing yet well alive.
If one entered the place after say a span of three or five years they would think that time had somehow stood at a standstill for the place.
The same could be said for the entire town of Domino, it had remained the same as if everyone was trying to hold on to one particular year in time or perhaps one day.
Everyone had tried to live in that one frozen moment.
She sighed as she looked at her friends hanging around in the Game Shop. Yami and Jounouchi had indulged in another game of Duel Monsters while seated on the floor. Yugi, Ryuuji, Malik, Hiroto, Valon, Amelda, Mokuba were all seated around the dining table playing monopoly and by the looks of it Mokuba was winning. Ryou was acting as banker while his Yami – Bakura – had disappeared. Seto Kaiba was sitting with his laptop drinking his umpteenth cup of coffee. Marik was sitting sulkily in a corner. Mai, Vivian and Shizuka were gossiping in a corner, while Rebecca and Isis were helping Yugi's grandpa serve the snacks around.
She, herself was reading a book trying to concentrate on it finding her attention and blue eyes getting diverted to her surroundings giving a light small smile whenever her gaze caught the gaze of one of her many friend's present.
If one would wonder exactly how Atem, Bakura and Marik were here and had their own bodies it would be explained by the fact that each of them had gone through some ordeal that would give them the ability to re-incarnate themselves at their present ages – or ages of their deaths as she liked to put it – and be a part of the Modern World. And besides that Bakura and Marik in addition had to promise not to be evil – putting the term bluntly and without explanation.
So everybody had learned to adjust once again to having the three of them back in their lives after it had been two years since they had been gone, and not having the entire peril of the world at their hands. And it was no easy matter since one had to get used to accepting a tame Bakura, and Marik as part of their group and trying not to be suspicious of them trying anything.
After all it had been hard to deal with the absence of the yamis in the first place and when things finally went back to how they were – at least in her opinion that was how everyone around her perceived it, everyone had woken up one morning to see each of the three yamis back again in their worlds and lives.
And suddenly everyone was trying to get everything back to how things used to be, and had succeeded – though in Anzu's opinion they hadn't done that at all. In her opinion they had just decided to create a world of pretence where everything was perfectly fine.
They tried to act that nothing major or much had changed. Everything was as it was before. They were still high school students, and friends.
With the exception of her everyone was laughing out loud, acting robust, behaving childishly, and throwing tantrums.
They were all trying to have fun. Key word being trying.
They were trying to pretend everything was great and fine. When it clearly wasn't.
The laughter was fake and forced, just as the companionship was.
It wasn't as if she was thinking that the friendship between them didn't exist any more. That would never be the case. They were friends for life and no matter how much strain of what they had all gone through put on their bonds she knew it would never break. And if anyone else said otherwise she would stand up and prove them wrong. Friendship was one of her prized values, along with acceptance, and perseverance and she defended them with everything she had. Anyone around the room would be able to second that claim of hers.
Their friendship hadn't died or dimmed but the old flame of excitement, youth and risk in the friendship had been dimmed and instead of accepting their growing maturity and more semblance they rejected it choosing to live in a frozen moment. They were now in their penultimate year of high school and would be graduating soon. They were older and whatever had happened; had happened. It was in their past. And the past is supposed to be kept in the past. They couldn't understand that. All the evil Duellists who wanted to take over the world were now defeated and gone. They weren't expected to be on their toes waiting for the next evil to strike. They had already saved the world more than once as a team.
Not that she was boasting. But they had. And after that she had left in her past. Just as she had left everything else that had already happened and walked ahead in her life as time flowed by accepting the new changes in her life and thus living it with more satisfaction.
They hadn't.
Everyone else was at a standstill.
Jounouchi still continued to act annoyingly goofy, thick-skulled and forever hungry although she knew he couldn't eat as much as he used to.
Hiroto still remained his loyal side-kick and still went nuts after Shizuka and kept his rivalry with Ryuuji for the girl. Even thought she was sure Hiroto didn't like the brunette as much as he used to.
The same could be said for Ryuuji though he to didn't show it. He still portrayed himself as the ladies man and a playboy though in truth she was sure he just wanted to walk besides Hiroto and talk about Maths and how was he going to bring up his grades in the subject.
Shizuka still continued to act oblivious to the two boys' attention and still maniacally adore her brother.
Seto still tried to act cold, aloof and distant, and like a workaholic when she had long time back guessed the truth of the matter that he didn't have a choice but to act that way with everyone else at a standstill
Malik still acted as though everything was fine. So did Isis.
Marik and Bakura were still treated as the enemies.
Everyone continued with all their old habits as if they would always be how they were two years back and they had pulled her into their world of pretence.
They had tried to return to their old normalcy and thus numbed themselves even more.
Though she wondered if the term of normalcy was true, because to her it was more of a relative pseudo-term to describe a period of time in reality – no matter how long – that deals with one full generalised time of maturity, like adolescence.
She didn't believe in that word.
But then she knew that she was the only person who thought like that and that the only others who shared her views was once a sadistic, psychotic, former tomb-robber who at one time was an enemy as well and another former enemy who was even more psychotic than the other. Try and add that as a useful term of trying to get everyone to wake up and realise that they needed to move on.
And even though it was of no use in helping the people she cared so much for, she was glad that there was at least some who decided to move on. It had connected them on various levels. She was surprised that someone who was once an enemy and someone who despised her a lot at one time now knew her most personal secrets.
Though she was sure if any one came to know they would accuse of her conspiring with the enemy.
Her blue orbs scanned the room and she noticed that Yugi had dropped out of the game and came to join her on the couch.
A gentle nod of her head and softening of her eyes showed the tri coloured spiky haired once short – though now standing a good five feet eleven and a half inches tall since his growth spurt – that she had acknowledged him, and he smiled in return.
"What's the matter Yugi?" she asked light worry lacing her tone while she gazed at him intently.
"Nothing, I just thought you might be lonely sitting here all by yourself, so I decided to give you company." He said rather chirpily.
However she didn't let the intensity of her gaze lighten much and feeling it he sighed and said, "And I was feeling a bit uneasy over there."
He looked at her studying her features silently. "Hey?" he asked taking a deep breath.
"Yeah?" she replied looking into his violet eyes already reading his emotions and understanding the questions he was about to ask. Her mother had always told her she had been perceptive about others feelings. And it was a question she had been asked many times before. "Do you wanna go outside so that you could be more comfy?" she asked. He shook his head indicating the negative.
He looked around the Shop at their friends and sighed. He too could sense the tense, numb atmosphere in the room despite the ringing laughter. "What happened to all of us? Why don't things seem normal anymore?" he asked softly.
"Time moved on and you refused to move with it Yugi." She replied back sadly.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his violet eyes echoing confusion.
She began to explain their situation to him but thought the better of it and instead said, "No matter how much I try and explain it to you, you won't understand it. Yugi this is something you have to realise on your own because you'll only be able to accept it then."
She got up to bid everyone farewell for the night and left the Game Shop promising to meet them at school the next day.
She never noticed the sad pairs of red and violet eyes watching her.
Walking down the road towards the church Anzu Mazaki let the tears fall she looked up at the stars and sent up a silent prayer to the heavens that one day her friends would finally stop living in their frozen lives and move on with time. She prayed that they would finally stop pretending and actually live in reality. She prayed that they would stop refusing the changes that had taken place in the world. She prayed that one day they would finally begin to live once again.
Meanwhile in a their respective dark corners of the room both the former tomb-robber Bakura, and the incarnation of evil Marik looked around the Game Shop while they too silently prayed that one day the people in the room would too stop living in their world of pretence so that their friend Anzu – the only person from among the others who had forgiven them for whatever they had done and welcomed them as friends with open arms – who had died a year and a half back, would finally be able to pass on into the afterlife in peace.
A/N: Sucks I know.
But like I said before this is a stress relief fic for me.
Leave a note and tell me how bad it is.