Thanks so much to all who have reviewed my previous stories! Including to the anonymous reviewers, who I can't actually reply to, but I appreciate just the same.
I wonder if I'm the only person on this site crazy enough to have made a list of the characters' birthdays? Well, I know I'm crazy, but that's beside the point (sort of). For those of you who've been following my work, yes, I do make a habit of writing birthday fics. I enjoy them.
Nothing much to warn about on this one. There is no intended or overt Peachshipping (Yuugi/Anzu) or Revolutionshipping (Yami/Anzu), or any other pairing. However, I am quite aware that this is likely to be interpreted as one or both. So feel free either way. But again, nothing intended. I meant this to be a strictly friendship (plus angst and drama) fic.
And for the record, in Japan, "bread" refers to any sort of pastry snack, sometimes sold in public schools during lunchtime, but also sold at the abundant bakeries. According to internet research, Japanese schools get a bit of a "summer break" around August for a few weeks. "Momoiro no Sora" means "Peach-colored sky."
Also, for those of you who have read my other works, please check out my profile! There's a poll there asking whether you all would like to see me write a longer piece for this fandom alongside my usual oneshots. However, if the poll tool still doesn't work, please just send me a PM or otherwise if you have an opinion on the matter.
Please leave a review when you're done, and I hope you enjoy! Happy birthday, Anzu!
Momoiro no Sora
They could have been a little better at keeping it a secret.
Yes, they had followed all the conventional methods. Not telling her the whole truth, making excuses as to why they were skipping out on treats at lunchtime for several days. But they were bad excuses, like Jounouchi suddenly developing an allergy to bread, and Honda going on a diet. Yuugi was at least creative, but even still, she really doubted the amount of money he saved by not buying bread would ever be enough to get him his own car.
But they were her boys. She had a hard time holding that against them.
And it was a nice feeling to be called out to meet Yuugi on the square late that afternoon, only to find all three of them standing there in their best outfits—which for Jounouchi and Honda meant having their shirts tucked in, and for Yuugi meant a freshly-washed uniform jacket—smiling at her, with the announcement that they were going to one of the best restaurants in town for dinner, on them. Well, assuming they skipped out on dessert.
Yes, they were her boys indeed.
"Jounouchi, this is not one of the best restaurants in town."
They had let her go first, in another of their cheesy gestures to make her feel like this day was important, and that she was important to them. It felt particularly odd trying to hold up a conversation when they insisted she walk a step ahead of them. It wasn't far enough so that she constantly had the feeling they were staring at the back of her head, but it was uncomfortable, nonetheless.
She heard Jounouchi chuckle with that characteristic nervous air, and she snatched his shirt with a lucky grab over her shoulder and pulled him forward so he looked her in the eyes.
He rubbed the back of his neck and avoided her gaze. "Well, uh, it's close to the best. Second runner-up. How's that?"
"Closer to fourth runner-up on a holiday when all the good restaurants are closed."
"Whose side are you on, Honda?"
Anzu put a hand to her forehead and wondered if this was how it felt to be the mother of teenagers. "You could have at least told me the truth."
Jounouchi pulled away from her grasp and she let him go, even though both of them knew she could have kept her grip on his shirt until the sun set and dragged him around as punishment. She didn't look at him, merely kept rubbing her forehead, but the vaguely embarrassed blush on his cheeks practically gave off an odor. Or maybe that was just Jounouchi forgetting to shower again.
"Oh, come on, we're not Kaiba! This is the best we could afford! And besides, it's not like it's the kind of place you go to every day!"
True. But still. She had imagined walking up to the places where you had to make a reservation three weeks in advance just to get a table and they gave you fancy menus with the foreign items only written in English and you weren't supposed to use your napkin for anything more than keeping in your lap.
It wasn't like this place was bad, by any means. It was well-liked and the food was good, judging from the one time she had come here with her mother when she was twelve, and the staff was friendly and professional and actually wore proper uniforms, and there wasn't gum under the table. But it was halfway around the world from her definition of fancy.
She heard the familiar patter of shy feet shuffling to stand next to her. "But I thought you liked ramen, Anzu?"
She dropped the hand on her forehead to her side and turned.
The boy who looked so familiar and yet so terribly new stared back at her with a blink. She had to adjust herself to meet his eyes—he was still shorter than her, but not as much. He was growing, even though it was difficult to see on a day-to-day basis. She doubted even he had noticed yet.
He was the same, yes, but he was also so different. He stared up at her with violet eyes questioning and a little bit concerned, as if worried that he had made some huge mistake and would have to make up for it later. The color in them had dulled. The same sparkle was there, just as it had been before, but it was hidden far behind the wall he had drawn up before him.
But that didn't matter. Those eyes were still what made him him, even more than the multi-colored hair he alone possessed.
Well. Almost.
Anzu smiled and let out her breath in a much more pleasant sigh. "I do, Yuugi. But I can't let these two idiots off for acting like what they are."
He chuckled, and something deep within her sighed in relief.
She pulled her purse secure onto her shoulder and stood up tall, facing the worn glass door in front of her with pride. "Alright, then, boys. You promised me a fancy dinner, and I expect to receive it!"
She listened to the shuffling of feet as all three of them lined up next to her. Jounouchi and Honda more stiff and obedient as they knew they would have to be in order to avoid the wrath of Mazaki Anzu-san, and Yuugi also straight and not-quite-so-tall, that faint smile still pressing through onto his face.
"Right!"
For calling themselves a ramen shop, they served a whole lot of things other than ramen.
Jounouchi and Honda both got some kind of sandwich she didn't want to know the contents of. All she knew was that it was dripping with sauce and it looked like someone had left it out in the sun to rot for about a week. She just about felt ill when they both ate a fourth of the sandwich in one bite the second the food was placed in front of them.
She was the only one who actually got ramen from the ramen shop. Plain with egg, pork and veggies. Her favorite. Yuugi at least got a plate of something that looked palatable, though she still couldn't tell exactly what it was other than it contained fish, and after seeing what the other boys had been consuming, she wasn't particularly keen to ask.
At least she got her ramen, though.
"You gonna eat the rest of that?"
She flicked her eyes to Jounouchi and resisted reaching across the table to smack him upside the head. Honda seemed to do the job plenty well on his own by giving Jounouchi the glare of the century and holding his disgusting sandwich closer to his face like a protective older sibling.
"No way are you getting mine!" he spat, and unfortunately did so with a bite of garbage still in his mouth. Anzu averted her eyes. "You've got your own!"
"I finished it! You're barely eating yours!"
"I'll eat my sandwich when I want to eat my sandwich! You should have just been smart and not scarfed it down so fast, like me!"
Anzu didn't bother to remind Honda that just because he was eating slower than Jounouchi did not mean he hadn't been gorging himself at a nearly inhuman pace.
Yuugi rubbed the back of his head and chuckled much in the way he always would when the two other boys acted up—particularly in public—and yet somehow not. Somehow different. Anzu pursed her lips.
"Come on, you two, this is Anzu's party," Yuugi reminded. Gently, as always, not giving them a good hard whack like Anzu wanted very much to do. Especially now that she noticed several of the surrounding tables were starting to give them funny looks. "Maybe try and act a little more appropriate?"
Jounouchi and Honda turned to look at Yuugi, then back at each other, then at Anzu. Anzu crossed her arms over her chest and cocked an eyebrow, resisting the urge to smirk at the little plan she had managed to make herself a part of. Honda swallowed the bite of his sandwich that still remained in his mouth. He gave a sheepish grin.
"Heh … sorry, Anzu," he muttered, and he averted her gaze when she suspected her look was turning into a glare.
She flicked her eyes to Jounouchi. He just put his hands in his lap and stared at them like a seven-year-old who had just been caught eating glue in class. She wanted to crack up laughing, or at least take a picture and post it all over school grounds. But she restrained herself, and soon he looked up at her for just a moment before going back to staring at his hands.
"Sorry, Anzu."
Anzu finally let herself smirk.
"That's okay, boys." She could just sense Yuugi giving her a slightly-less-mischievous grin. "But next time I just might have to make you buy me a soda."
Jounouchi and Honda showed sheepish smiles and rubbed the backs of their heads. Honda went back to gorging on the rest of his sandwich, and Anzu took another bite of her ramen. She let herself go quiet when she saw all the people who had been watching them from afar finally give in and go back to their own business. She rested her arms in front of her on the table, and she went back to watching her boys.
Honda finished his own dinner within a minute, and once neither he nor Jounouchi had any reason not to talk at the greatest possible volume to one another, they did. And she didn't try to stop them. Obnoxious, they may be, but they had earned the right to be a little immature. Besides, no one was drawn in by the loud talking like they had been by the loud talking combined with disgusting eating, so she could just assure herself with the thought that she didn't see anyone here that went to their school.
Her eyes wondered, after a long time, over to Yuugi, still sitting next to her at the table. He would take small bites at a time of that fish thing he was eating, then look over at the other two boys. Sometimes he would look over at her, and she would quickly glance away and start taking oversized bites of her own ramen. He never said anything about it, but she was quite sure he knew she was watching him.
He didn't seem to mind.
Yuugi smiled. He smiled a lot around her, and around everyone else, even during the recent days. When anyone asked him how he was, he would always say he was just fine, thank you, and how were they doing? She couldn't quite remember if he had ever been so polite before. It was hard, even, to remember exactly what his old smile seemed to look like, since she felt sure that the smile he wore now wasn't much like it at all.
Anzu put her cheeks in her hands and tried so very hard not to sigh.
It had been the day after they had returned when Jounouchi had dragged him along to the arcade. He had come, chuckling and having to be pulled every few steps so he didn't fall behind, and she and Honda had waited at the front entrance for the two of them to arrive.
He had smiled at her, that smile she knew so well. She had asked him if he could help her win a stuffed koala from the machine no one could beat, even though she didn't really want the koala. She watched him navigate the crane and reach for it, his eyes flicking back and forth between the controller, the crane, and the koala over in the far left corner. A minute later he was digging the miniature bear out of the collection slot, and she smiled when he placed it ever so gently in her arms.
It had crossed her mind, back then, to say that he really was the King of Games, but the words caught in her throat when she realized what that meant.
"Anzu?"
Anzu just about jumped out her seat.
She turned, and she met those big violet eyes she had known for such a long time. His eyebrows had furrowed and he had that face he wore when he was trying to figure out what was wrong, and what he could do to make it right again. Something in her ached when she thought of it, when she even started to think that he was trying to make things right for her.
She forced her lips into a smile. It was a bad fake, one of her worst attempts, but she saw his face relax. "Sorry, Yuugi, just … zoning out again. Did I miss anything?"
He smiled again. He gave her a very quick shake of the head.
"No, nothing. Just checking."
She tried her best to smile back at him, even when he returned to looking at the other two occupants of the table. She imagined it actually did some good, in a way that even she didn't fully understand. She knew he couldn't hear her thoughts or know her feelings, but she tried to make it clear.
"Anzu, are you gonna eat the rest of that ramen?"
Anzu's head shot up. "Jounouchi!"
Jounouchi nearly fell back out of his chair, and several fellow patrons glanced at them again. By the time this dinner was over, she wouldn't have been surprised if someone had filmed their entire outing and sent it in to KaibaCorp as blackmail. Come to think of it, there had been a few times when she wouldn't have put it past Kaiba-kun to put up cameras and film them, just so he'd have material to use if he ever needed to coerce Yuugi into another duel.
She offered Jounouchi a glare, and Jounouchi fiddled with his hands in his lap. "Oh, come on, I'm still hungry!"
"You ate that whole sandwich. In two minutes!"
His face went indignant. "I was hungry!"
"You're always hungry!"
"Not always!"
The look she gave him after that, even though she could not see it on herself, was enough to make him back up again and suddenly look self-conscious and a little unsure of his previous statements. Yuugi bit back a laugh, and Anzu let herself smile just a tiny bit in the joy of the moment.
Jounouchi looked very much like he was about to give some sort of retort. Likely a stupid one, something that made no sense, as she was well used to by this point. But the instant he opened his mouth, a sound met her ears that she didn't think she had heard in ages. Along with a sight out of the corner of her eye that contradicted everything else about this simple ramen shop to the tenth degree.
Singing.
And the sparkling flames of candles.
Anzu jerked her head.
She was met with a sight that made her openly gasp and blink with the light that burned her eyes. She squinted, and blinked again, and she heard the faint chuckles of the boys around her as the waiters and waitresses carrying the big white cake came nearer and nearer, as did echoed the sounds of their song.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!"
She swung her head back and forth, and very faintly, she could see the lips of Jounouchi and Honda and even the little mouth of Yuugi matching the words. Even if their pronunciation was off—and she knew English, she could tell—it was close, and she could hear every bit.
Yuugi's smile, glowing in the new sparkling of the candles, flickered in her gaze.
The cake was set in front of her, some normal candles decorating the edges and some sparklers, shimmering, gleaming like fireworks in the dark night outside.
"Happy birthday dear Anzu-san, happy birthday to you!"
Anzu thought her heart might burst out of her chest.
The waiters and waitresses, and the boys at both her sides at the table, broke into applause. Several of the surrounding patrons stared, and several of them grinned and joined in on the clapping. The whole quiet ramen place suddenly seemed like some sort of dream. A dream unlike anything she had known in her life, and a dream she knew she could never forget.
"This … what's …"
The words came out in bits, and no one else seemed to hear them but herself. Honda motioned to the cake, and Anzu just gave a shake of her head, drew in a deep breath, and huffed it all out at once. The candles went out like a light switch, and the sparklers began to fade as their fuses ran short.
Anzu watched as if in the midst of a movie as the sparklers and candles were removed, and with one more congratulations, the servers went back to their other work. The patrons surrounding them seemed to finally let go of the ruckus that had begun. Everyone else forgot the insanity that was occurring at her table, and Anzu was left looking around at the three boys who smiled back at her. Genuine, every single one of them.
It was Jounouchi who finally turned his smile into a smirk. "Well, just because we couldn't afford to order dessert doesn't mean we can't get it."
Honda chuckled with an uncharacteristic mischievous tone, and Yuugi just kept on smiling. He had his hands in his lap in that ever-so-childish and innocent manner that she had once looked down upon, but now found somehow peaceful, like a glint of joy in a world of darkness. She shook her head again.
"I … I can't believe you guys really did this!"
This time, Yuugi shrugged, a blush now somewhat more evident on his face, and he flicked his eyes back and forth before finally settling on her.
"It's your birthday, Anzu," he reasoned, and even though his voice was quiet she made it out with ease. "You expected anything less?"
Anzu did not say anything in return. She sat there, and though she knew she was not actually going to cry, she wiped at her eyes and blinked, her smile never once leaving her face. Honda cut the first piece and presented it to her on one of the plates another waiter had brought, and when she stuck her fork in, she found it cheap, overly-sweet, and the most delicious cake she had ever had.
The party began around her, in quietness and in glee. And she just watched it all unfold, strangely grateful and even more strangely at peace. Smiling, even if a part of her still did not want to at all.
"I can't believe you two actually ate half the cake."
"Well, you guys weren't gonna eat it!"
"Yeah, what did you want us to do, just let it go to waste?"
"It was a big cake, Honda, I don't think the restaurant actually expected us to eat the whole thing."
"Maybe if you guys had eaten more we wouldn't have had to finish it off for you!"
"I had a whole piece, and so did Yuugi."
"Those weren't pieces, those were a few bites!"
"Well, considering the size of your mouth and stomach, I'm sure for you it wasn't much cake at all."
"Exactly righ—Hey!"
Anzu felt something in her relax when she saw even Yuugi laugh at her joke. He wasn't actually contributing to the conversation, but as long as he seemed content, that was good enough for her.
She hadn't realized how late it had gotten by the time everyone finished the remainders of their meals and the giant dessert they had been presented with. Even when they were almost done with the dessert, the three boys had to work out how much money each of them needed to chip in to get the check right, a process made about twice as long when Jounouchi spent ten minutes searching the table for his wallet only to have Honda spot it in his back pocket when he stood up.
But they were out, and the sun had already set far beyond the horizon. The glows of the ramen shop faded behind them and they were met with the quiet night bustle and lights of Domino as they headed back toward home.
The smile on her face had remained, even if it felt sort of wrong there, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, like it wasn't quite supposed to be there. She wanted to wipe it off and examine it, figure out what was wrong. But not now. She tried to convince herself that she had gotten everything she could have wanted for her birthday. Everything she possibly could have asked for had been granted.
Yuugi took a step or two back in caution from Jounouchi and Honda when the two started glaring and trying to headlock each other, apparently in the midst of some new argument she hadn't heard the beginning of and didn't particularly want to know anything about. She rolled her eyes, and an instant later they were both rubbing their cheeks and looking at her with puppy-dog eyes they had no real ability to give. She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the ground. They both gave her equally sheepish grins. Yuugi bit back a chuckle.
Anzu shook her head and sighed. "Well, boys, I thank you for at least letting me have one piece of my birthday cake."
Gaping mouths met her eyes.
"Oh, come on, Anzu, if you'd wanted it we would have let you have it!"
"You hardly ate any of the piece you had!"
"We just didn't wanna throw away a perfectly good cake!"
She held up her hand in another threat, and both of them ducked. This time, even though she knew it was very much in spite of his own hatred for violence, Yuugi could not hold back a small laugh. Anzu lowered her hand.
Jounouchi, after a moment of cautious pause, straightened up again. "Guess we'll see you tomorrow then?"
"Mm-hmm." She kept her arms crossed and quirked an eyebrow. "Assuming you haven't made yourself sick by then."
"Oh, let it go, would you!"
She knew she was being silly, but it was her birthday, and it was fun, and Yuugi seemed to still be getting a little bit of amusement out of it. At the very least, it made him smile.
Honda raised a hand as he turned away a few moments later.
"See you guys!"
"Later, Honda!"
"Bye, Honda-kun!"
"Don't get lost on the way home!"
He spun around to face her. "Anzu!"
Yuugi snickered again, blushing at the same time, and Anzu just kept her ever-present smirk.
Jounouchi headed off next toward his own apartment, waving and smiling and making jokes until he was out of sight. Yuugi was the last to go, turning on the street that led to the game shop. He stayed and smiled back at her the longest, and for a moment, she thought she only saw the kind boy she had come to care so much for all those years. The sweet boy who never lost that gentle nature even in high school, even through all those battles and pains.
He had stayed Yuugi. And for that, she knew she had to be grateful.
She didn't start back toward her own house yet. She took another road, and tried to let herself enjoy the bit of her birthday she had left. She felt thankful that she had worn more comfortable shoes that didn't sting her feet with every step. She could walk with comfort and ease, without even knowing exactly where she was headed.
The world had gone silent around her. A few cars breezed by on the streets, and a cricket chirped in the distance. But she was alone now. Alone in her own little world, in the big world around her all filled with people and filled with the life she knew she had to live. The life she had been thrust back into, expected to go on with it like there was nothing holding her back.
Her feet shuffled along of their own volition. The same rhythmic pace, never pausing, never faltering. Always moving forward. Moving toward her new life. Toward all the dreams she had to make come true.
She breathed out. She breathed in. Her breath caught in her throat.
Anzu stopped on the sidewalk, standing next to one of the benches by the park. One of the benches she had sat on to watch the newer duelists in Battle City try out their skills while she waited to find the one she was looking for. Seeing how card games and tournaments used to be, nothing more than fun and a way to pass the time. Before they became anything more important. Back when all was quiet, and all was safe, and all was at peace.
Those brief moments in between all the chaos when she could get him to stop and relax for a minute. To stand by the edge of town at sunset, unable to let all of it go, but able to pretend, if only for an instant, that that was how the world would stay.
Just them. No enemies or threats or brushes with danger. The quiet she had never thought she wanted, but had come to appreciate more than she ever thought she could.
And the smile she worked so hard to put on his face. The smile she wished never had to go.
It didn't hurt when she dropped to her knees on the concrete and put her hands out for balance. She knew she had likely given herself a cut or a bruise, but she couldn't feel it. She didn't look. She just stayed there, struggling to keep herself as upright as she could, breathing in and out, even with her every breath hitching on something she could not see.
Her fingers scraped the sidewalk when her hands slipped onto the bench and laid themselves there. She felt her body twisted, and weak, and breathing hurt more and more by the second. She tried to keep herself together. She tried, as hard as she possibly could. But nothing worked. Nothing could keep back the tension that built up within her, mocking her, laughing at her, telling her she could not push it away.
Anzu dropped her face to her folded arms on the bench, and the tears broke the dam at last and began to fall.
She hated herself for her weakness. She hated herself for letting it go, for letting all the pain break out from within her. But she couldn't bring it back now. She couldn't stop herself, she couldn't stop the ache and the hurt inside. It had been there. It had been there ever since that day. But she had pushed it back. Because she had to be the strong one, now that those who had been so in the past could no longer be.
She drew in a shuddering breath.
The images flooded around her. Overwhelming, choking her with every moment, but she couldn't stop them. Images of those times when he would smile, times when he sounded so strong and then so young and vulnerable. All the sides of him, none of which she could ever hope to understand. But she had wanted to try. Just try to know him for who he truly was, who he had been, and who he would be.
Anzu let her tears flow, let her breaths tremble and sob. She pressed her face to her arms with increasing fervency. She knew how silly she looked. How humiliating it would seem to anyone who walked by on the street. She didn't care. She no longer had it in her to care.
But her breaths stopped entirely when the gentlest of hands touched her shoulder, brushing fingers, hesitant and uncertain, and her head shot up like someone had jerked it by a string.
Her eyes, blurred and certainly puffy and red, focused and stared.
It wasn't like she hadn't recognized the soft touch of fingers on her shoulder. She had known then, in a way, even if she couldn't tell how or why. But seeing his eyes there, looking back at her with a kindness so incredibly familiar, nearly made her heart burst within her chest. She could still feel the warmth of the tears dripping down her cheeks, and her vision was messy and vague, but she could make out that spiky hair and the small form kneeling next to her. His hand still on her shoulder. His eyes showing more sympathy that she had seen since all the pain first appeared.
She held herself for a few moments. On the ground, body trembling, frozen in that moment. But then something in her snapped and shattered, and she fell forward against his stiffening form and threw her arms around him in a desperate motion even she did not understand.
She knew it wouldn't do anyone any good. But she did it anyway.
The tears soaked the fabric of the black shirt before her face. She clutched the jacket around his back and squeezed him as tight as she could, squeezed him even as the sudden tension within him faded, and he relaxed as she could not. It took seconds before she felt his hands slip around her in return. So gentle and soft and caring. Holding her like she was the fragile one, instead of him, sitting there by her, unsure of what to do.
Anzu cursed herself when, for just a moment, she allowed her heart to imagine it was him there holding onto her, offering all he could. Not much in the eyes of many, but the world to her own.
She soaked up her own lie and basked in it for that moment, while the truth waited patiently outside, never daring to knock on the window to make its presence known.
The minutes slipped by. Or maybe it was seconds, or hours, or millennia zooming by around her. Maybe she had dozens of other birthdays and never knew them. Maybe she was just stuck here for eternity to wait and never move forward, never see the life she had once wanted so badly to gain.
She hitched on her breath when the arms around her tightened, only a bit, but there.
"I'm sorry."
Anzu stiffened, and her eyes shot open, though all she could see was the dark fabric of his shirt. She did not dare look up. But her tears ceased, and she listened, desperate, uncertain, curious and always wondering.
She felt him shift, as if there was something he wanted so badly to say, but he didn't have the courage within him. He was strong now. She had seen him as strong for longer than most. But he was still that timid boy, still yet to know his full potential, and all she knew he was to become. All he had known he would become.
"I'm … I should have done something," he muttered, and though his voice did not tremble or crack, she felt such horrible sadness within it. "I'm sorry. I ..."
He stopped for a moment there. She felt him look up at the sky above them, and she restrained herself from looking up as well. He sighed.
"He would always tell me we just have to move forward. He would always tell me … we have to meet the life we have ahead of us. Even if we have to leave things behind. Even if … we really don't want to go. We just do."
And in a sudden instant, she felt every bit of pain in him she had never seen before.
That whole day he had spent in the arcade with them, he had smiled and played games and beat every single one. He had laughed and he had gone along with it all, with she and Jounouchi and Honda, and it had felt like the most wonderful thing in the world.
The following Monday they had all gone to find him to go out for lunch, but he was nowhere to be found.
After a thorough search of the city she spotted him sitting against the wall of the outside of the high school, abandoned some weeks ago for summer break, and when she ran to him and asked him if he was okay, he had just looked up at her with tired, shimmering eyes and whispered, "I'm fine, Anzu. I'm just fine."
It was after that that the sparkle in his eyes had begun to dull.
She couldn't do anything. She knew she couldn't do anything to make any of it better. No matter how much she wanted to, no matter how much she wished that she could have changed things, that maybe they could have been different, she knew there was no other way.
She would just have to push through it.
But she had never imagined how much harder he had to push through it all than she did, just to take one step forward.
"He's … not with us anymore."
Anzu swallowed very hard to keep the sob from escaping her lips when the voice rang again in her ears. She resisted the vague urge to latch onto the shirt in front of her, and she just sat there, listening, hearing the soft thumping of his heart within his chest and reminding herself that he was here, he was alive, and he was going to stay.
She heard Yuugi swallow. "But … he'll always be here. Sort of. And … I bet if he had known … he would have wanted to be here for your birthday, too."
It took Anzu all she had not to cry.
She kept her head there for such a long time. Yuugi went silent, except for the gentle in and out of his breathing, and as his chest moved up and down her head followed it. She felt every bit of life in the Yuugi there with her, and it was not hard to imagine the other one there as well. When she could not see his face, she could not tell the difference between the two: the way they breathed, the way they lived, the way they felt. The ways in which they were one and the same.
Even when she knew all the things that made them different.
She closed her eyes very tight and sighed.
She felt him shift around her. Only a little, and she knew that it wasn't to make her move. But it brought her back to realizing that they were not all alone, and there was still a world around them. And lives to live. Lives they couldn't just abandon for the sake of themselves, lives they couldn't forget, because they knew that if they did, he would make them regret it.
Anzu could not quite let Yuugi see her smile.
She moved away from him, slowly, and his arms slipped away from her as she did. She stared at the concrete, where he still knelt in such a position that she imagined he was probably stiff. She did not meet his eyes when she pushed herself to her feet, and he did not try to make her look at him when he followed and stood, too.
Anzu shifted back and forth, and glanced everywhere but at him, before she finally looked at him, and saw more than she ever could have expected to see staring back at her in those big violet eyes.
Pain. Pain none of them could even imagine, and emptiness, and a form of despair different from most. Not breaking down and thinking nothing would ever be okay. But the kind formed of intense sorrow, but sorrow that would not last forever, and sorrow that would eventually turn to strength.
And laid over all of that like a warm, protective blanket, there was hope.
Yuugi gave her the smallest smile she could have noticed, but also the most real.
"Happy birthday, Anzu."
And this time, Anzu was quite aware and quite content with her own thoughts and actions when she smiled back, stepped forward, and wrapped her arms around him in a much more genuine hug.
She could still feel him stiffen there, in that nervous, uncertain way she had seen in no other boy she had met since primary school, and it made her want to laugh from the familiarity of it all. Surrounded in the new world where they all stood disoriented and unsure, he was still him, and she was still her, and they were all still the same friends they had always been, even if a part of them was missing.
And yet, when she thought about it, that wasn't true, either.
In every moment, in every word, in every breath he took and smile he gave, she saw him. She saw the Yuugi she had known for years, and she saw the one she had barely had the time to know. She saw all he had left behind, all he had given in the form of strength and momentum toward the future. She saw everything he had ever been, and everything he could ever be, in the eyes of the boy she had always known.
And when she felt his arms wrap around her in return, hesitant and anxious, she knew that was as true as it could ever be.
He leaned back after a moment, and he met her eyes—he had to look up at her, he was still so short—and she could see him blushing just a little bit. "Want me to … walk you home?"
Anzu looked at that sweet, innocent face, and the ever-lasting strength in those big violet eyes, and with a full smile like she would have given either of them, she gave a small but definite nod.
"I'd like that."
Yuugi smiled again, and with one more glance, he turned around and started back along the sidewalk toward her home.
Anzu followed him, and the smile across her face did not even begin to fade as they walked off into the dark, star-filled evening. The sounds of cars and people had left, and it almost felt as if they were the only ones there. All alone in the night, but always staying together, never giving up and never letting go.
She would have been lying to herself if she said she hadn't wished he could have been there for her birthday. She still did. But he was, even if it wasn't in the way that she had expected. He was always there. Always with them.
She stopped for a moment, and she turned to look at the sky about her. The clouds had departed to reveal only the faint glimmer of the stars in the darkness, and a full moon just a little off to the side. She stared at the sky, and at all the lights within, and the sky almost seemed to stare back at her. Smiling. Waving.
Anzu blinked when her eyes began to deceive her. She knew it wasn't real. It couldn't possibly have been real. But as she looked out at the wide sky above her, she could have sworn that a few stars shone just a little bit brighter. Stars that, if she looked close enough, seemed to form a face. A face with young yet wise eyes, and a signature smirk, and a head full of spiky hair adorned with a golden crown.
Looking right back at her. And smiling. Smiling like the laughter she could have sworn she heard echoing throughout the night.
"Anzu?"
She turned, her breath catching in her throat, and again she met the big violet eyes of the boy she knew so well. He blinked at her, and nearly started back.
But then she sighed and smiled in return, this smile gentle and as real as it had ever been. She did not look back at the sky, for she knew what was there, and she did not need to see it again. She knew if she looked there once more it would be gone, so she just let the memory glow on in her mind and in her heart, and she cradled that image close to her, swearing a thousand times over that she would never let it go.
Yuugi grinned, and after only a second, Anzu ran to walk by his side, heading off into the starry night and the bright future that awaited them. Together, through it all.
Yes. This was a good birthday indeed.