Hi! Second chapter here, hope you like...this pairing is a doozie, (I have no idea how that is spelled.) I'll admit. Shorter than the first, but the next one's looking to be longer.

Disclaimer: No own Yu-Gi-Oh or Hollywood Undead

Chapter 2: The Diary

And I wanna go back to the start,
back where we started from.
And I know it's been so long.
I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong all along.

~Hollywood Undead

Anzu stared blankly at her ceiling fan, her hair swaying just the slightest bit from the air current it created. Her bed covers strewn haphazardly over her hips, hand resting atop the clock whose alarm she'd just turned off, she couldn't find the will in herself to get up. All the energy she normally had in the mornings seemed to have evaporated from her very muscles—she barely had the strength to keep her lids open.

With a deep sigh, she forced her arm to search the side table for her cell phone, sending her mother a text that she was sick and to call her off school. Less than a minute later, she received the reply.

K.

With only one eye peeked open, she almost snorted as she read the letter. It seemed that her mother was so busy at that job of hers—which kept her out at all hours and made the chances of seeing her slim to none every week—that she didn't even have the time spell out the word 'okay' to her supposedly sick daughter.

Whatever. Anzu's hand collapsed boneless to the mattress, phone slipping through her fingers and clattering over the edge of the bed to the floor. Humming in content, Anzu turned her head to the side, enjoying the feel of the fan blowing air across the bare skin revealed by her shorts-tank top pajama set. Sleep was good, she decided. When she slept, her problems all seemed to disappear. Her thoughts became incoherent babble that wouldn't hurt her anymore, and she'd never have to see their faces...

Darkness clouding her vision behind her eyelids, Anzu slipped quickly and peacefully into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

Anzu only woke up later when a knock on her door forced her to stir. Lolling her head to the other side, she yawned with half-lidded eyes, not sure if she wanted to answer or not.

When the knocking turned into full blown pounding, she gave up playing ignorant and pulled herself up with exhausted, fatigued motions. She felt strangely heavy, and watched the blank wall across from her for a good thirty seconds before continuing into the front room. Unlocking it, she sighed and fixed up her mask, and opened the door.

Kyoko Sorano glared at her from over the threshold, arms crossed and eyes menacing. "So, this is what you decided to skip school for?" she murmured. "Sleep? Lazing about?"

Anzu smiled widely. "Hello, Kyoko-san. What brings you here?"

Sorano stiffened, eyes flashing as her teeth gnashed together with a loud click. "Mazaki Anzu," she ground out, "step aside and let me in this instant."
Not wanting to argue, Anzu stepped aside and allowed Sorano to enter the house, closing the door and lounging herself on the velvet cushions of the tan couch in the middle of the living room. Sorano stood in front of her across the coffee table, arms taking their previous crossed position once more.

"So," her classmate began, "are you going to explain? Just didn't feel like coming today? Felt like sleeping?"

Anzu flinched at the girl's tone, her mask unconsciously beginning to slip at the edges. "I…I don't know….I just didn't…"

"Didn't what," Sorano let her bag slip from her shoulder, hitting the ground with a solid thunk, "set your alarm? Didn't think that someone would notice your absence?"

Anzu clenched her hands, smile faltering a little at the edges. "No! No. I, I mean…"

"What, Anzu?" Sorano came around the table, seating herself next to the other girl. "What do you mean?"

Exhaling softly, Anzu rubbed her hand along her face. When she pulled it away, it was as though she'd removed the mask with it—showing just how exhausted she was, physically and mentally.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I was just so tired. I didn't have the strength…"

Smiling in an oddly maternal way, Sorano pat the girl's shoulder. "I know, I know. Sorry I got uptight, there. I just needed you to take the damn mask off." Scooting closer, she pulled Anzu's head onto her shoulder, and began to run her fingers gently over the strands. "It's okay, Anzu. The exhaustion is your mind shutting down your emotional output. You've been loading it up with so much pain that it's decided to take a break."

Part of Anzu registered what she was saying, but the rest didn't care and just wanted to keep laying there doing nothing. "And?"
Sorano ruffled the girl's hair a bit. "We've got to get your head out of this stupor, first off. Do you like any particular books? Or movies?"

Anzu paused, forcing effort into thinking over her reply. "…Twilight. I read it, the whole series, a few years back. It was pretty good…and I've seen the movies."

Sorano smiled giddily. "Yeah! I liked the series too, but I got into it before it became so, erm, popular. I saw the movies, and the books are so very much better." She let out a gusty, almost sarcastic sigh. "I hate that it's become such a craze—the mindless fangirls that don't bother to read the books are supremely annoying. The books have much more character development than the movies. They took away the enjoyment of liking the series."
Anzu blinked leisurely. She'd never heard Sorano rant before. "I suppose."
Sorano clicked her tongue agitatedly, sighing gustily. "I guess today's going to be all about distraction and recuperation." She nudged Anzu with her elbow. "Go get that journal and pen I gave you."

Closing her eyes, Anzu breathed deeply before standing and opting to do as Sorano said. She really didn't feel like expending the energy that arguing would take.

Returning a few minutes later with the item in hand, Anzu placed it on the coffee table and curled back up on the couch. Sorano picked it up and flipped it open, rolling her eyes. "You didn't even write in it," she grumbled.

Anzu shrugged. "Didn't want to."

Huffing, Sorano shoved it into Anzu's hands with the pen. "Well, perhaps now you should start."

Blinking, Anzu stared dispassionately at the journal. She didn't want to write. She wanted to sleep…

As though sensing what Anzu was thinking, Sorano turned Anzu's face to look at her. "Do you want help, or not?"

Anzu ran a finger down the journal's spine, eyes sliding half shut as a reluctant, sad smile tugged her lips up fractionally. "I…don't want to be like this," she admitted quietly.

Patting Anzu's shoulder, Sorano nodded. "So, write. Just let me know when you're done, okay? And don't you dare wimp out—I don't want to have skipped my last five classes for no reason."

Nodding, Anzu uncapped the dark blue gel pen, laying the book open on her lap to the first page. Nibbling her lip unsurely for a second, the pen hovered over the page before she finally began to write.

'My name is Mazaki Anzu.

'And I'm sick.'

A solid thunk on the coffee table made Sorano look up from the book she'd been reading, finding Anzu had finished writing and was now massaging her fingers gently. Sorano picked up the book, leafing through at all the pages without actually reading them. The girl had filled a good fifteen pages with medium sized print, her words cramped but neat. Setting it down, she checked the time on her cell, whistling when she realized Anzu'd been writing for at least an hour and a half, maybe two hours. It was noon now.

Anzu's fingers ached like they never had before, her wrists on the verge of cramping. Yet she noticed that while her hands hurt, her heart felt oddly light, her mind clearer, and her body less fatigued. If she was honest with herself, she'd say she actually felt good.

"What now?" she whispered, looking up from beneath her lashes at Sorano.

The other girl smiled, setting the book on the table. "Well, first we're going to give you some nice brain food. We're going to watch some movie that I think you'll like, mostly to pass time, but also to get your brain flowing."

Settling back into one arm of the couch, Anzu raised a brow as Sorano searched her bag and pulled out a DVD to put in the player. When she took a seat on the opposite end of the couch, remote in hand, Anzu felt the need to ask, "What are we watching?"

With a devious grin, Sorano lowered her lids to half-mast. "Have you ever heard of Labyrinth?"

"…Pan's Labyrinth?"
Sorano rolled her eyes. "No, just Labyrinth."

"No," Anzu shrugged, "I can't say I have."

"Oooh," Sorano mewled gleefully, "are you in for a treat."

The rest of the day was spent watching movies until Sorano's stomach growled around five, obviously longing for sustenance. Grinning sheepishly, she bid Anzu farewell and exited her home, making Anzu swear to try writing whenever the familiar urge descended.

Anzu promised, half-lying—which she believed Sorano picked up on, if the look the girl had given her before leaving was anything to go by—and took a perch on the arm of the couch.

Anzu bit her lip as the silence weighed down on the room, seeming to pulse in the air. All at once, Anzu was suddenly tired. She moved to lay out across the couch, the cushions cradling all her sore muscles. Gods, it felt good.

Lids drooping, Anzu fell into a light nap, conscious slipping into that dullish haze just short of deep sleep. It wasn't until half an hour later that she awoke to a vague tapping on her door.

Shaking off the fog of sleep, Anzu sighed before forcing herself to answer the door. She soon wished she hadn't.

Malik and Marik stopped whispering to each other the moment she opened the door, turning their nearly identical lavender eyes on her.

"Ah, Anzu," Malik smiled, "hey. We were just bringing over the homework you missed."

Anzu blinked, mask slipping into place with practiced ease as she gave a close-eyed smile. "Thanks, but you didn't have to do that! I would have been fine getting it tomorrow!"

Malik's smiled dipped at one corner. "Yeah, well…"

"It was on our way, Mazaki," Marik droned, "we walk right by you on our route home."

"Oh," she said understandingly, smile pulling tighter. Unconsciously, she reached over to rub her wrist and nearly jolted when instead of the usual cloth covering, she brushed bare skin. She'd forgotten that she hadn't bothered changing out of her shorts/tank top, so the marks on her arms were exposed to the open air.

Shit shit shit.

Panic churning her stomach, she gave a brief run over the Egyptians with her eyes, noting that they hadn't noticed yet. This, however, was only because she'd unconsciously had her wrists facing away from them thus far.

Mind swirling, she blurted, "Oh! I just remembered, I…forgot something in the kitchen! I'll be right back!"

She nearly slammed the door in her haste to provide a shield for her wrists from prying eyes. Running to her room, she snatched up two thick arm bands that served as stylish wrist cuffs, each about three inches long. Snapping them in place, she felt herself calm as the gashes were hidden.

When she reopened the door just moments later, it was with her mask set firmly and easily over her features like a second skin. "Sorry about that!"

Malik smiled, and her heart hurt. "It's no problem, you got to your…whatever it is you were making, in time, right?"

For a moment Anzu didn't know what they were talking about, but then her memory sparked and she closed her eyes while nodding. "Yeah, I got it." She reached out, taking the papers from Malik's grip. "Thanks again, by the way. I appreciate it."

Malik laughed, waving a hand dismissively. "It was no problem."

A few pleasant formalities later, Anzu shut the door—with considerably less force this time—and slowly sank to her haunches. Forehead against the door, Anzu closed her eyes as her smile dropped.

That had been close.

That had been far, far too close.

Pulling back from the door, Anzu stared down at her hands. She loved them.

"Says the girl bleeding through her sleeve for them," Sorano whispered.

Her hands fisted on her knees. She didn't want to. Not anymore. Not if it meant hurting herself just to be near them. She wanted to go back; back to when she didn't love them.

"Do you want help, or not?"

A sigh gathered in the back of her throat and gusted between her lips.

She had a feeling she was going to get to know Sorano very well in the near future.

Cuz I don't wanna be like this,
I've been running these streets
for too long now, I've got nothing,
that's true, but this song now.
But the further I go,
I wanna go home.

~Hollywood Undead

Hi! Thanks for reading, and please review! I would greatly appreciate it!