Disclaimer: I do not own YGO. This is a work of fanfiction for entertainment purposes only. It's another one of those timed challenges. Please excuse any egregious typos.
Soundtrack: "Girls Your Age" by Transviolet
Please note this is rated T for mild drug use/self-destructive behavior. Plus a little swearing.
...
Anzu took a long drag from her cigarette as she leaned against the side of the building. The white bricks felt hot against her back, almost as scalding as the rush of nicotine that bathed her nostrils.
Ah. Sweet relief.
Smoking was a bad habit. Something she picked up from the other dancers in the crew. Too many long hours, too many rehearsals, too many injuries, too many bills and too little money. Didn't make sense that she was spending the couple of dollars she had left on a temporary fix, but Anzu figured she deserved it after the week she's had. The head of the company just left the studio after one of his infamous huffs about whatever the hell that was bothering him today; all the dancers and instructors suffered, of course, though it was always the newest members of the company who paid the most in terms of semi-accurate yet acidic digs on their technique.
She sighed again, taking another long inhale. The smoke bubbled in the air, dissipating into the acrid city air. Whatever grand dreams she had of moving to the city had long dissipated, too, like a ring of blue gray puffs into a city full of blue and gray, most of it auto exhaust and subway fumes. Mrs. Mazaki always said there was beauty in the brokenness, hope in the hopeless, etc. etc. All of that was easy enough to believe when she was young and gallivanting around the world with people she thought would save it one day, but that wasn't the reality of twenty-something life. The hot asphalt jungle was pretty fucking cold most of the time, actually, and she was just another body, melting into a sea of people who moved to the city with dreams that have long since broken.
It was moments like this when she missed Atem. Truly, deeply, and madly with a ferocity that shocked even her therapist (the company paid for one for all the dancers, mainly because of the pending lawsuits for mental health degradation against the company head). Atem had been larger than life— a kind of escape, really, from the mundane of teenage drama and boring, boring life of malls and lipgloss. She felt alive with Atem in the way that she hasn't felt since then. That was a kind of a fairy tale kind of feeling with the young, impressionable girl riding off into the sunset with a grand prince (king, actually) with nary a care in the world.
That was all a lie, of course, but it was a fucking beautiful illusion nonetheless. He was very kingly in his actions, but he had his flaws, too. Most of all he left, with nary a word since then to even let them know he was OK.
That was a mess of emotions to work through, to be honest. Anzu thinks she probably provided the company therapist with enough work for three people. Because that's what it was, right? She was carrying the baggage of all three people. Atem, who left, Yugi, who remained, and herself, who let someone leave with half of her heart and didn't have enough left to give for the half that remained. In many ways she didn't even have a whole lot left to give herself. She just packed up what was left of her soul and moved to a brand new city, hoping that the glitzy postcards she dreamt of long before Yugi, Atem, or Duel Monsters would take away that void he left in her soul.
But even this dream felt empty, now that she was here. What was a dream without the people most important to her?
Yugi had reached out a few times since she's arrived. She hadn't really responded beyond a couple of short, polite e-mails and even shorter, more polite phone calls. Hey. I'm good, yeah. Life in the city is rough. Rats and cockroaches everywhere, y'know? Company's good. Trying to make friends. Grandpa doing OK? You're cool? House still standing, haha? Awesome. Take care.
All of that was a lie, too.
She wasn't good, for one. She was smoking in a corner between a bodega and an alleyway that just had the crime scene tape removed a couple hours ago. Life in the city wasn't just rough; it was brutal when you don't have money. Even the rats and cockroaches ate more than she did, sometimes. The company was filled with mean, bitter people who did cruel and petty things to sabotage each other, always trying to win at hamster wheel by pushing others off. No one actually wanted to be friends. They all pretended to want friendship while struggling with their own insecurities and sadness about how city life failed their every expectation with spectacular indifference.
You want to make principal dancer? Good luck with that after you break your ankle for the 3rd time. You want to live in an apartment with a doorman and washer/dryer? Good luck with that when you literally can't afford to do laundry at the quarter a load laundromat. You want to be a part time writer? Good luck with that when you're stealing warmth and WiFi from the cafe down the street with the hookah bar in the basement.
Life was rough for Yugi, too. She could tell from the tone of his voice. The shop wasn't doing well, pushed out of business by online retailing and whatever Kaiba's new screen to door delivery service was called. Yugi was struggling, with the loss of his best friends. Domino was facing a housing crisis. Blah blah blah. It was all over the news even though Yugi never mentioned it.
But they both pretended they were OK. It was a false sort of bravado, like, here, we're cool, we're struggling but we're not acknowledging it because somehow acknowledging it meant that we're weak and unworthy in some way of our dreams. We struggle and we struggle and we struggle while feeling as if letting others know about our struggles somehow invalidates us or makes us weak in their eyes.
Yugi was living his narrative of "cool guy running the game shop" and she was living her narrative of "cool girl dancing in the big city." Neither of them acknowledged the unvarnished realities of how tough life actually was for a young twenty-something. That wasn't their way. They were cool. Even when they weren't.
It was times like this that she really missed Atem. He was like a larger than life escape from the mundane reality. She had wanted to be bigger than life by just being near him. People adored him. He was charismatic, talented, super duper brilliant. Being the token "cheerleader" meant that she was, by proxy, charismatic, talented, kinda maybe brilliant by association. He was an image of someone she had always wanted to be and when he left, it was as if the image of who she wanted to be left, too.
Atem was wonderful. But he was human, too. He had an awful temper, for one, although truth to be told Anzu would be just as mad if some power hungry maniacs wanted to take over the world, too. That didn't excuse the tantrums, the sulking, and the occasional rages against the villains of the week, though. That was why Atem needed support and validation, too, because the weight of having to save the world really did a number on his ability to just let go and enjoy life.
Anzu was happy when he left. Maybe he finally found peace, she thought, after being tortured for so long about what the next threat was going to be. He never quite got over the looking over his shoulders phase of life. There was always some new threat against "the world" emanating from somewhere. He needed to go to save himself. It would have been cruel to ask him to stay, but she did wish for it, sometimes, for herself and Yugi, because they could have both really used a someone who didn't pretend like things were OK just to get through some of the bad days.
Anzu sighed as she let the ashes fall to the floor and picked her cell phone to dial an all-too familiar number.
Atem wasn't here anymore, but maybe she could be there for Yugi and he could be there for her.
They needed each other, too.
...
Poor kids. I really like making them suffer, apparently.
