Blue
Disclaimer: YGO isn't mine. This is a piece of fanfiction. (Part of a mini set of 3, actually, and I'm betting you guys can guess what the other two will be called, too, since sappy seems to be a thing at the moment.)
Inspiration: Iris Ukiyoe by Hermes, New York City by The Chainsmokers, and photos of rain drizzling on yellow taxis and sidewalks. Not mine, either.
...
A fine mist of water blanketed Anzu's hair as she wandered. Aimless. Through the still crowded streets of this adopted hometown at 2 a.m. Hollywood wasn't kidding about the city that never sleeps. Everywhere eyes wandered bodies milled about in various positions. Some eating, some laughing, some strolling, all doing something as if the world simply stretched on and on regardless of what happened to everyone else. The city seemed to have a pulse of its own, a never-ending one that continued when the crowd grew and thinned around her.
(Funny how alone she felt when surrounded by more people than she had ever seen.)
The faint hum of voices and taxis circled every room, street, and corner like a incessant lullaby.
Except Anzu couldn't sleep.
The time difference wasn't nearly as difficult as she pretended to everyone at home. Mai and Serenity insisted on staying up at night with various "emergencies" when Anzu first arrived. Joey and Tristan took over the shift not long after with various other "emergencies" that inexplicably kept them from work and school. Yugi dispensed with the pretense altogether and stayed up all night running up Grandpa's long-distance telephone bill with various stories about Kaiba's antics and Duke's new Dungeon Dice Monsters tournament.
No one mentioned him, which was just as well because she thought about him as often as the people around her seemed to breathe. Except no one thought about breathing. That was something they all did naturally, as naturally as changing trains at Broadway or side-stepping puddles or simply being, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to continue laughing and savoring and giggling even as the world collapsed around someone else.
To Anzu, breathing was as natural as feeling, not that anyone around her ever noticed.
There was a pulse to the pain, too. In the mornings, there would be a brief respite of silence, mainly because her fogged-up brain hadn't yet processed it was another day without him...yet. Even saying his name was difficult, so she avoided it like she did the inexhaustible gossip of four well-meaning roommates, who thought Anzu couldn't understand their pitying looks- poor girl, those seemed to say, we must help her survive in this new world- but Anzu knew that it was just about survival and not about living, at least not while it was light outside and she could still see, sometimes, the specks of boats in the Hudson that reminded her so much of him. Days weren't as bad as mornings because there were things to do. Classes to audit. Practices to attend. Rehearsals to complete. Meals to eat, mechanically and without tasting. Once she accidentally swallowed an entire cube of wasabi without realizing until all five roommates and their boyfriends stared in amazement- this time their gazes were envious- no one else in their class could eat so much as a single spiced ginger without tearing up and here was the new girl, pounding back entire packages of wasabi without so much as a second cup of water.
Anzu barely noticed.
It wasn't as if anything had a flavor, anyway.
Nights were difficult. During the day she could fill time with as many obligations as possible but, when everything was checked off the to-do list at night, there wasn't much to do except to grieve. The other dancers thought she was homesick. Perhaps Anzu was, in away, though it wasn't the kind of homesickness that they referred to, with exotic dishes like po' boys and pecan pie and other delicacies Anzu eyed with as much suspicion as the fried cicadas a street vendor once offered on a Popsicle stick.
Somehow, Domino no longer felt like home.
Since Egypt, sand felt like home. Golden, glittering, grain after grain of beautiful eternity. Blue and navy felt like home, too, the calming rhythm of waves caressing the wooden sides of a boat as she swayed to music no one else could hear. Purple and amethyst had always been home, even as a child with finger paints- there was something comforting and regal about that rush of colors that only grew more and more insistent now.
Sometimes she saw pieces, too, little bits of images from before, of memories that she was sure was hers but yet weren't, vignettes of silks and chiffons twirling to the beat of drums and harps punctuated by the happy, bellowing laugh of someone who loved purple, too. Sometimes she saw flashes of that time from the corner of her eye, too, but those always turned out to be well-meaning tourists with fanny packs or confused natives who didn't appreciate being jostled by wide-eyed dancers in legwarmers and faded chambray spotted with mist.
The rain beat on as Anzu wandered.
Every corner brought them closer, right?
...
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