Author's notes:

Disclaimer: I own Yu-gi-oh as it applies to this story. Ha! You can't argue with that!

Neko-chan challenged me to somehow incorporate two people talking to each other on a hill and one randomly dying into a fic. I partially attempted it. What else did you expect from a Zoo-fic?

Warnings: *snickers and walks away*

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"Male, female, does it really matter?
Beauty is power and I have beauty!"
- random quote from Chrono Trigger.

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"And that is why friendship is important." She finished with a beaming grin on her face.

The audience clapped and cheered. They were expected to clap and cheer.

But she did not notice the audience. She only noticed the two teens sitting in the front gawking at her.

The teen on the right snickered and pointed rudely at her. The other teen, a blonde, mimicked the brunette's actions. They guffawed and laughed and enjoyed themselves immensely doing so.

She hated it. Though she forced a brilliant pearly-white smile on her brilliant, perfect face, she was seething inside. She would show them. She would show them exactly how important it was.

After all friendship is important. More important than her friends laughing at her. In the front seat. In front of her.

*************************************

"I can't believe you guys did that!" She screeched, cerulean blue eyes filling with spite. "You _ruined_ my speech! I'll never make it to the public speaking finals, thanks to you!"

Jounochi, the blonde, rolled his eyes. "Look, Anzu, I doubt it matters. We're two people out of a crowd of what? Two hundred?"

"Yeah. No one noticed us. Chill out." Honda nodded in agreement.

Anzu glared at them. She slowly counted to ten, partially because she was losing her temper but more because she needed time to scrounge up a believable rebuttal. "But you promised me you would listen!"

Honda sniffled. "But I can't help it! I've heard so many of your friendship rants that they just put me to sleep."

"You ignore my friendship talks?" Anzu screeched. "I painstakingly invited you to this, and you tell me that-." She spluttered, unable to go on.

Jounochi blinked. "You didn't notice us spacing out all the time on Duelist Kingdom?"

Anzu growled. "Fine! I don't need your support anyway! I have Yuugi and he cares about friendship! He needed help and I gave it him with _my_ friendship!" She lowered her voice to a conversational whisper. "Though I don't quite get why Yuugi wants to rescue his grandpa. He's just a big pervert."

Anzu continued to rant but Jounochi and Honda were no longer listening. Of course, it had nothing to do with Anzu's short skirt or the fact that if she could pass for a Barbie-wannabe if she wore a blonde wig.

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Yuugi looked in the mirror. He sighed. "I need help."

"You do." Yami-Yuugi replied glibly from the mirror reflection. "You're wearing your shirt inside out." He paused for a moment, contemplating deeply in his 'I'm a spirit in a big hunk of gold and you're not' style. It then clicked. "You know, I wouldn't be caught dead duelling wearing that. It's simply not fashionable."

"Since when did three-thousand-year old Pharaohs know about fashion?" Yuugi grumbled. He briefly wondered if there was a greater force at work, manipulating his and all his environments' actions like a master storyteller. Or manga designer, if one wanted to be artistic. He decided that it sounded stupid.
"No offence or anything, Yami, but talking to you is a little like talking to myself. What I need are some real friends."

"You don't have any, do you?" Yami-Yuugi pointed out.

Yuugi sighed. "No, I don't, I guess." He paused. "Jounochi and Honda could almost be considered my friends, but they're always busy."

"What about that other girl, Anzu?"

"I don't know." Yuugi finally confessed. "It's just too hard to tell. I don't know if she really wants to be my friend or not."

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"So friendship speeches are needed in order to make people understand each other?" Jounochi repeated dubiously.

Anzu nodded. "In order to promote friendship, you need to verbalize it. You can't expect people to read your mind, after all."

The blonde was clearly confused. "So if I say that you are an important friend, then you become an important friend to me?"

"No! Not like that!" Anzu protested, tsk-tsking. "You can't just _generalize_ answers. How do I know what you're saying is true? You have to begin a comment with 'friendship'. Like 'friendship is essential to your life' or 'friendship will bring us through'."

"But that's stupid." Jounochi clearly did not want to listen to the conversation anymore. "That's like making friendship a religion or something."

Anzu grinned smugly. "Exactly. Just like believing in the heart of the cards."

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"Checkmate." Said Yami-Yuugi.

Seto Kaiba glared. "You can't just do that! No one can win chess in so little moves."

Yami-Yuugi strutted. "Aren't I the Game King after all?"

"But-but _how_?"

The former Pharaoh gave his trademark smirk. "Just believe in the heart of the chess pieces."

Seto paused. "I thought it was the heart of the cards."

"I know." Yami-Yuugi replied quickly. "But that's old now. Heart of the chess pieces really has a better ring to it."

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"Fuck me Maliky!" he giggled in a high-pitched voice, spiky white-haired head bobbing upwards and downwards erratically. "Fuck me hard!"

Malik simply rolled his eyes at Yami Bakura. He switched the channel on the television set, ignoring the drunk tomb robber.

"Maaaaaaliky." Yami-Bakura pouted, staggering towards the blonde-Egyptian, breath reeking of alcohol. "Why wont you fuuuuck me?"

Malik took in a deep breath, eyes hardened, ready to admonish the white-haired tomb robber. He found himself speechless. Of course, this had nothing to do with Yami-Bakura's sexy wriggling ass, or his lean muscles, or his alluring chestnut eyes. Nope, not at all. "Bakura, you know I can't take advantage of our friendship like this."

Yami-Bakura blinked owlishly, then cocked his head to one side, then frowned. "But friendship is so...so..." He found the alcohol not helping his already limited vocabulary.

"...Anzu?" Malik suggested.

"Yeah! So Anzu! And Anzu is evil cause she wears a skirt!"

Malik had long learned not to argue with a drunken person's logic. Especially not one that was right - well, partially. "So, do you still want to be fucked?"

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~Two figures were standing on a hillside. They were staring at each other, sparkles in their eyes, a sunset shining behind them.

"I love you more than just as a friend, Mary."

"I love you more than just a friend too, Sue."

Cue the moaning and random erotic sounds.

"Oh Mary!"

"Oh Sue!"

Sue suddenly stopped, hair beautifully tousled, sunlight tingeing her strawberry-blonde hair a deep scarlet. "Mary. I want to tell you that I love you no matter what. It is this love that will carry out above anything else. It is this love that will prevail over everything."

Mary nodded. "Sue, only by understanding love do I understand you. I love you with all my heart."

"Love is the meaning of life." Sue said. She smiled, and then she died.~

"Why the heck are you watching that?" Anzu quickly snatched the remote away from Honda and switched channels. "You know I hate watching mushy relationship crap."

Honda goggled. "Did you just say that you hate relationships?"

Anzu snorted. "If it means having people like _that_, hell, yeah."

"B-but Mary and Sue had the best relationship! Didn't you feel sorry at all when Sue died?"

Anzu gave Honda a pitying look. "Why would I feel sorry for them? They just promoted love over friendship."

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"Sorry," Pegasus mumbled. "Couldn't resist. You really do have a nice one, you know."

Otogi gave a defeated sigh. "It's okay. My friends do it all the time."

Pegasus's eyes - well, eye - grew huge. The wheels were literally turning in his head. He slid closer to Otogi. "So... maybe friendship will help us know each other better?"

"I'd rather not." The dungeon-dice playing teen said. "It's too..."

"...Anzu?"

"Yeah." Otogi nodded. "Too Anzu."

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Yuugi walked towards Anzu. He sat down beside her on one of the many school cafeteria benches. He took a deep breath. "Anzu, I have a question to ask you."

Anzu smiled. "Sure. Go ahead Yuugi."

The smaller boy fidgeted. "Can I be your friend?"

And Anzu found she could not reply to that.

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End notes:

I'm sure you caught the Anzu bashing, but I'm hoping some of you caught the last sentence. After all, friendship is _much_ more important than making friends.

Look, look! I did a Mary Sue! I did a Mary Sue! *stops* What?