1988
"N-nice t-t-to m-meet you! M-my n-name is Yu-Yugi Muto!" Said the new boy with a deep bow.
Anzu groaned, being a transfer student in the middle of the year could be awkward, but the boy couldn't even say his name without stuttering!
That's a great way for an 8 year old to get bullied.
The entire class laughed at his introduction, making the already shy boy retract even more.
In the first few days, the other students tried to talk to the new kid, but they soon gave up when he couldn't form a whole sentence without stuttering at least 3 times.
After the first week, the bullying started.
The other boys made Yugi carry their things and do their homework, Yugi never tried to fight back.
The girls loved to tease him, Yugi's embarrassed reactions were just hilarious. Of course, their teasing was extremely innocent given their age, but Yugi wasn't trained for this.
"Hey, Anzu-chan! Isn't the new boy cute? He's like a small animal!" One of her friends laughed.
"I guess…" Anzu never found bullying funny, but she didn't care about Yugi enough to do something about it. As long as it didn't get too far, she didn't feel compelled to take action.
One day, Yugi was playing alone during lunch break. This wasn't an uncommon sight, but today Yugi was very focused on something.
"Hey, Muto! What are you doing here all alone?" One of his usual bullies approached him.
"N-Nothing!" He hid whatever was in his hand behind his back.
"Show me!" The larger boy lunged for Yugi, easily dominating him and stealing what was in his hand.
It was a small golden box.
"Heh? What is this? Is this a gold lego or something?" The bully opened the box and started messing with its contents.
"Give it back!" The short boy yelled and tried to snatch his box back, but the taller boy held the object out of his reach.
The bully laughed, "It's mine now!"
"Please! You can't take this!" Yugi grabbed the other boy's arm and tried to pull.
"Get off!" The bully pushed Yugi away, knocking him down.
"Cut it out, Sato!" She didn't care about the short boy, but that didn't mean she wanted to see him have his belongings stolen.
"Mazaki? What are you going to do about it?" The bully asked in a mocking tone.
She kicked his crotch.
The boy fell to the ground crying and dropped Yugi's box, he quickly took it back.
"T-Thank you, Mazaki-san!" The tricolor-haired boy bowed.
"Don't mention it. Next time, defend yourself, okay?"
"What is happening here?" A teacher said from behind Anzu.
After some explanations, Anzu managed to avoid punishment. She went back to class with Yugi.
"Hey, Muto-kun," Anzu said.
"Y-Yes?"
"What's in that box, anyway?"
"I…I guess I can show you, but you need to keep it a secret!" He opened the box, revealing many golden objects.
"So pretty! Are they part of something?"
"It's a puzzle from Egypt! It was a gift from my grandpa. He said that no one ever solved it so no one knows how it looks like!"
"What are those weird symbols?" Anzu pointed to the engravings on the box.
"They say that if you complete the puzzle and make a wish, your wish will come true!"
"Really? Can you read it?"
"No…But I know I'm right!" Yugi said defensively.
Anzu smiled, "You stopped stuttering!"
The boy blinked, "I…I guess I did…"
They reached the classroom,"Why don't I help you with your puzzle?" Anzu asked with a smile.
"I would love that!" Yugi smiled.
As the days passed, Yugi and Anzu formed a deep friendship. Yugi stopped being bullied, he was under her protection now.
Anzu soon found out that Yugi really loved games of all types, from board games to toys and video games…Yugi loved all of them. But games were not Yugi's only interest, he also loved movies and manga.
Yugi was a nerd.
The first time Anzu met Yugi's grandfather was when Yugi called her to his house to play video games on a saturday. Anzu never saw someone live in a game store before.
"You must be Anzu-chan! My name is Sugoroku Muto, I'm Yugi's grandfather!" The kind old man bowed slightly and gave her a polite smile.
"It's nice to meet you, Muto-san. Yugi talks a lot about you." The girl smiled and bowed back.
"Nothing bad, I hope!"
The friends played a game called Dragon Quest III but it had way more text than Anzu was comfortable with. After annoying Yugi enough, he agreed to play Super Mario Bros instead, the original one since the second game was too hard for her.
Grandpa Muto entered the room with juice and cookies, the girl died again at King Koopa and got a game over for the 3rd time.
"Oh, this game looks very fun!" The man said as Yugi took the controller from his friend.
"Wanna try it?" The boy offered the controller to his grandfather.
Anzu was not amused to learn that the old man was better than her at the game.
The first time Anzu met Yugi's mother was when he convinced her to take him to watch Beetlejuice.
"Anzu-chan, I'm Hana Muto, Yugi's mother. It's nice to finally meet you!" The young woman smiled warmly.
"I'm Anzu Mazaki, nice to meet you!" Anzu gave a small bow.
"Yugi, why don't you go and buy us some popcorn? I want to talk with your friend a little." The woman gave some money to her son and sent him away.
Anzu felt anxious, did she do something wrong? "What is it, Muto-san?"
The woman smiled, "I just want to thank you for being Yugi's friend. He was always a shy and lonely kid, my husband moves around a lot for his job and it's hard to make friends when you don't know when you'll have to move. This is the first time in 5 years that he's back to the city that he was born in, and also the first time in his life that he made a close you." The woman gave Anzu a deep bow, making the young girl very flustered.
"P-Please, don't bow! Yugi is a great boy and I'm very happy to be his friend!" Anzu smiled awkwardly.
Hana started laughing at the girl's reaction, Anzu quickly joined in.
"What happened?" Yugi came back with the popcorn, confused with the situation.
"Nothing!" The women said together, laughing even more with the boy's expression and making him even more confused.
"Yugi, I don't think we can solve this puzzle, it's too hard!" Anzu put the pieces in her hands back into the box.
"We can do it, Anzu! Remember, if we solve it we get a wish!" Said Yugi trying to fit two pieces.
"How do you even know if we will get a wish? It's just a stupid pile of junk!"
"I just know!" Yugi gave up on the two pieces in his hands, he picked up a different pair and tried again, "It's…I can't really explain, okay? It's a feeling!"
"You've been trying for months! Whoever made this clearly made it impossible!"
"IT'S NOT IMPOSSIBLE!" Yugi threw a very uncharacteristic tantrum.
"Okay, I'm sorry!" Anzu raised her hands in defeat, trying to calm her friend down.
"...Sorry…It's just that…I need to solve this…It's like a hunger, a thirst…I have to solve it and I don't know why!" The boy dropped the pieces in his hands and looked into Anzu's eyes.
"...This is really important for you, right?" Anzu asked.
"It is."
"...Then we will solve it, maybe it's impossible but we still need to try our best, right?" The girl smiled, making her friend blush.
They kept trying to solve the puzzle, still to no avail, but just spending time with each other was enough to make them happy.
Soon, summer vacation came. The duo spent the entire vacation playing, watching VHS movies, reading manga and trying to solve Yugi's puzzle. July passed and August came.
"Anzu, d-do you…" Yugi muttered something.
"What?"
"D-do you want to go to the summer festival with me?" He asked with a furious blush.
Anzu smiled, "Sure!"
The Domino City Summer Festival is an event that happens every year at the end of August in the city of Domino. It's a traditional Summer Festival, full of food stalls and games.
Yugi really wanted to try festival games.
Sugoroku agreed to take the kids to the festival as Yugi's father was home that night and he wanted to give the boy's parents some well-deserved time together.
Anzu loved festivals and was surprised that Yugi never went to one before. As the trio walked through the stalls, a small distracted girl bumped into Yugi.
"Sorry," The small girl apologized, "Did you two see my Onii-chan?" She asked.
"How does your brother look like?" Yugi asked.
"He's this big," The girl raised her hand, going a little above Yugi's head, "He has blonde hair and was wearing a dinosaur shirt."
"We'll help you look for him!" Grandpa smiled gently.
"Thank you!"
"What's your name? How old are you?" Anzu asked.
"I'm Shizuka! I'm this much!" The girl smiled and held her hand up, showing all five of her fingers.
Anzu held the girl's hand as they walked through the festival, looking for any sign of her brother. As the group passed by a takoyaki stall, the younger girl's stomach growled.
"Are you hungry, Shizuka-chan?" Sugoroku asked.
"Y-Yes! But Onii-chan said that we didn't have money…"
Yugi smiled, "Don't worry about it! We're also hungry, it's not a problem if we buy takoyaki for us and you eat some, right?"
Shizuka smiled brightly, "Right!"
Sugoroku bought the takoyaki for them. Shizuka ate it with gusto.
The group walked through the whole festival, but didn't find the girl's brother. Yugi looked at the shooting range, the spark in his eyes told Anzu that he had a plan, "Shizuka-chan, do you like teddy bears?"
"What is a teddy bear?" She asked innocently, making Yugi frown.
"Follow me," the group followed Yugi to the shooting range, he pointed at the toy bear between the prizes, "That is a teddy bear."
"It's so cute!" The girl smiled widely, Yugi mirrored the smile without even noticing.
"Sir, I want to try!" Yugi gave some coins to the man on the stall, he gave Yugi 5 tries.
Yugi shot 2 times and missed both, Anzu and Grandpa tried one time each, also missing.
"Hey, can I try?" A tall boy with the sharpest hair that Anzu ever saw approached them.
"Sure, I guess. We're trying to get the teddy bear," Yugi gave the toy rifle to the other boy.
"Gotcha," The boy pointed the rifle at the bear and took a deep breath, he pressed the trigger.
The bullet hit its target perfectly.
"Here you go," The boy gave the bear to Shizuka, the girl thanked him and hugged the bear.
"Thank you!" Anzu smiled.
"Don't mention it, I just like target shooting!" The boy bid them farewell and went on his way, only when he left they realized that they didn't even ask his name.
They turned to leave, but a voice caught their attention.
"Shizuka! Where are you?"
"That's my Onii-chan! ONII-CHAN!" The girl called him and the boy quickly ran to them.
"Shizuka! Where did you go?" The boy hugged his sister.
"I'm sorry!" The girl hugged him back, bear still in her hand.
"Thank you and sorry for the trouble." The boy smiled, "I'm Katsuya, nice to meet you."
The group introduced themselves and told him how they found his sister.
"Sorry for the takoyaki, I can't pay you back. " He looked to the ground in embarrassment.
"Don't worry about it, Katsuya-kun! I can't ignore a hungry child if I can help it," Sugoroku smiled warmly.
"Thanks for that, really. Shizuka, give the bear back."
"No! It's mine!" She hugged the bear tightly.
"Shizu-"
"She's telling the truth, it's hers." Yugi smiled.
Katsuya frowned and opened his mouth to protest, but stopped when he saw his sister's watery eyes, "...Thanks, you guys don't know how much it means to her. See you around." He held his sister's hand and led her away. The girl kept waving at them as they disappeared in the crowd.
The trio ended the night watching the fireworks, Anzu wanted this moment to last forever.
Classes returned and their playtime became shorter. They kept doing their usual hobbies, but the puzzle was as impossible as always. Months passed, Christmas passed, New Year arrived.
Anzu's parents took the kids to visit the local shrine.
The duo made their little prayer and got their fortunes.
"Anzu, what was your fortune? Was it good?" The boy smiled.
"Nah, it was really bad." She tied her paper in one of the trees. Yugi kept asking about it, but she refused to tell him.
"Misfortune: An important person will leave your life soon, but fear not. It's not the last time you will see them."
1989
Things didn't change that much in the new year. The friends still played games, still watched VHS movies, still read manga and still tried to solve the puzzle.
Eventually, the school year ended, and with the end of the school year, Yugi dropped a bomb on Anzu.
"Y-You're moving?" Anzu asked in shock.
"Yes…My dad was transferred so we are moving, I'm sorry!" Said Yugi with tears in his eyes.
"B-but…what about the puzzle? We promised to solve it together!"
"I KNOW!" Yugi started to cry openly.
Anzu hugged her friend, "Yugi…Even if you have to solve it alone, don't give up, okay? Promise me that you'll solve it!"
"I…I will! And when we meet again, I'll show you what the puzzle looks like!"
The duo hugged until Yugi calmed down. After having a sad dinner with the Mutos, Anzu went home, promising to see her friend one last time before he left.
That night, Anzu cried herself to sleep.
3 days later, Anzu went to the Muto Gaming Shop/Household to say goodbye to her friend.
"Yugi!" She ran and hugged her friend.
"Anzu! I'm so happy that you came to see me off."
"Yugi, I made a gift," She took out a pair of bracelets made of braided strings from her pocket, one purple and black and the other pink and blue, "As long as you have this, we'll always be close!" Anzu tied the purple and black on Yugi's wrist and the other one on her own.
"Thanks!" The boy smiled and hugged her, "These bracelets are also a promise, a promise that we'll see each other again!"
Anzu and Sugoroku helped Yugi put the rest of his stuff in his father's car. His parents entered the vehicle and the old man went back to his store, leaving the kids alone.
"Goodbye,Anzu." Yugi said with watery eyes, but he bravely held his tears.
Anzu kissed his cheek, surprising the short boy and making him blush a deep crimson, "Not goodbye, just a 'see you soon'!"
He nodded and entered the car, Anzu kept waving as the car sped up in the distance.
Yugi was part of her life for only one year, but seeing him go to live somewhere else was like watching part of her leaving. Anzu knew that she was going to miss the boy, but she knew that they would meet again one day. Anzu held the bracelet in her wrist, she already missed him. She hoped that Yugi would come to see his grandfather during summer vacation.