3.
It was Otogi who brought the news. As if having a known celebrity CEO knock on their door wasn't enough for Mrs. Mazaki, she then had to bear the strange event of her only daughter appearing around the door of the kitchen and greeting him with the words, "Fucking hell, another pretty-boy mouth to feed."
"Anzu! Language!"
"Sorry, Mom."
"Honestly. You never used to talk like that."
"Did I come at a bad time?" Otogi enquired. He was polite to a fault, wearing a long coat and with hands by his sides, what looked like a newspaper tucked under one arm. He might have been Joe Average out for an evening stroll, were it not for the pale blue Cadillac parked by the kerb, and the way he sort of looked down on people, even when he wasn't. You had to prove yourself to Otogi, and he never forgot it.
"No, no, just in time. For dinner, that is. Ryou's making his famous chilli-that-goes-up-to-eleven."
Mrs. Mazaki pulled herself together and said courteously, "Would you like to stay? I'm sure there's room for one more." She wasn't shell-shocked, though she was maybe a little star-struck. Anzu moved in such elevated circles these days, and she had seen the television broadcast of her playing (and beating) Otogi at what was quite literally his own game. He seemed a nice enough boy, though, and she was attached to her rose-coloured glasses enough that she'd convinced herself his arrogance and rudeness had just been a trick played by mean-spirited editors and reporters.
Anzu looked at her mother and sighed. "Just accept the offer, bozo. It's easier than arguing."
"In that case, I'd love to stay for dinner." Otogi gave a brilliant smile and followed her in.
"I'll just … stay out of your way." Mrs. Mazaki waggled her eyebrows and went back into the living room where she'd left a DVD on pause.
Anzu goggled for a second. Could her mother think that …? Hm. Now there was a fallacy that needed wiping out when she got the chance. It had taken a while to convince her mother she didn't harbour any romantic attachment to Ryou when he first started coming over. Yuugi was like the son she'd never had, which made it easier for her to believe there was nothing between them. Now she had to start all over again with Otogi. Mrs. Mazaki seemed intent on setting her daughter up in a nice, stable relationship – even if it was all in her own head.
Ryou was stirring pots at the stove while Yuugi sliced ciabatta into a basket. They propped up the kind of easy good spirits that bespoke how often they stayed over for dinner these days. Both looked around when the kitchen door opened.
"Otogi!" Yuugi cried, obviously pleased to see him. Yuugi's good nature was too stubborn to stay sore at people for long, and if Otogi had once dressed him and Ryou in monkey suits on live television, then he had more than made up for it with his help against Malik and Noa Kaiba.
Ryou was a little more reticent. But then, he usually was – even more so than usual these days. "Hello, Otogi," he said softly.
"Hey, guys. Something smells good."
"Otogi's staying for dinner," Anzu informed them, shutting the door with her foot.
Ryou looked critically at the bubbling pots. "I guess we can squeeze in one more. Provided he doesn't eat much."
"You think I keep this figure by stuffing my face all the time?" Otogi pulled out the paper from under his arm – which turned out not to be a newspaper at all, but rather a sheaf of computer printouts. "Anyway, enjoyable as it is to discuss the details of my health regime, getting a free meal isn't why I came over. I actually came over to laugh, and it took so much willpower not to burst my seams before I got here, that if I have to wait another moment I may have to hurt you three and giggle at your well-matched remains."
"You get more disturbing every time I talk to you," Anzu said dryly, pulling out a chair at the table and plonking herself into it. She leaned it back on two legs, arms folded. "So what's so funny you felt the need to share it with us? Don't you have people you pay for this sort of thing?"
"Yes, but it wouldn't have the same effect." He shuffled through the printouts for a second, and then held one up triumphantly. "ZNN's top entertainment story tonight? The deepening relationship of billionaire CEO Seto Kaiba and gaming genius Anzu Mazaki."
"WHAT?"
Yuugi held his hands over his ears. "Crank up the volume a little, Anzu. I don't think they heard you in Australia."
Anzu picked herself – but not her chair – off the floor. "Give me that." She grabbed for the printout, noting Otogi's smug grin with some irritation. "What is this? Where the hell did someone get that idea from?"
"I don't know. But it's not just ZNN. They started it, and now most of the news channels are running the story in their celeb slots; they all think you and Kaiba are an item."
The story carried a grainy photo of herself and Kaiba climbing into a helicopter, and the headline 'Opposites Were Bound to Attract'. The photo had to have come from Battle City, and had obviously been taken by some passer-by. It wasn't even a very good photo. The wind from the rotors was kicking her hair up, making her look like the Bride of Frankenstein in stripy tights and a chain belt.
"Anzu?"
"What?"
Yuugi didn't say anything else. She looked up.
"What?"
He looked uncomfortable.
"Are you and Kaiba seeing each other?" Ryou asked for him.
"No! What would ever make you think that?"
"You do have a lot of … chemistry when you're together," Yuugi attempted to explain.
"So do nitrogen and glycerine. That doesn't mean they're a good match." She looked at Otogi, who was snickering behind his hand. "You're loving this, aren't you?"
"Enormously."
"I'd never really thought about it before…" Ryou looked pensive. "I suppose you would make an attractive couple."
"Ryou!"
"What? I'm just saying. You're both kind of pretty-looking, and you both dress funny - "
"I do not dress funny!"
"-And you both play a mean game of Duel Monsters. Relationships have been built on less."
Anzu scanned the rest of the printed sheets. Most were full of random speculation, a couple were devoted to listing all the times she and Kaiba had been spotted in each other's company, and one article wondered whether they'd actually started seeing each other when they went to the same school.
'Did a teenage tryst in the broom closet lead the way to one of the defining relationships of this year?' it asked. 'There has to be some significance that soon after Kaiba and Mazaki duelled in their first unofficial match, with Mazaki emerging the victor, Kaiba withdrew from public education completely. Was he running away? Subsequent meetings have been based around the popular card game Duel Monsters – a game championed by Kaiba Corporation – with one always trying to better the other. Is Kaiba trying to prove himself worthy of his ladylove's skill after that first defeat? Or maybe Mazaki is chasing her knight in shining armour, unable to immerse herself in the feminine mystique and so immersing herself in his preferred world of competitive gaming instead. Or is this all just some elaborate publicity stunt? The world may never know – but we can sure enjoy the ride!'
"Who writes this tripe; fourteen year old girls high from pixie stix and inhaling fumes from vanilla lip balm?"
"Sounds like the voice of experience," Otogi chuckled.
"This one here thinks I'm just after his money! Yeah, sure, that's why I work my butt off decanting coffee and making doorstop sandwiches for truckers after school." There had been some prize money after Battle City, but she'd given it to her mother to pay off the mortgage. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever forced herself to do, because although the money wasn't anywhere close to what Pegasus had offered had she chosen that prize instead of Yuugi's soul, it was still enough to make a down-payment on a minuscule place in New York. Dumb conscience and its conscience-y ways.
"Anzu, calm down," Yuugi soothed.
"They're slurring my good name!"
"Some might see it as good publicity - "
"I don't want publicity if it means I have to have some imaginary affair with a guy I'd much rather send face-first down a dry ski-slope." She grunted angrily and leaned on the table.
"It's not so bad," Ryou offered.
"No. They could be talking about our secret wedding instead. 'Unable to immerse herself in the feminine mystique'? What's that supposed to mean?"
Ryou and Yuugi exchanged a look.
"What? What?"
"Well, you have to admit, you aren't very … girly."
"I used to be. I was when I first met you."
"Yes, but Anzu, your wardrobe has altered since you first met me. If I recall, there were no chains or metal spikes involved before."
She glanced down at her makeshift belt. She'd taken no chances after Keith cut the last one with barely a flick of his knife. "It makes the Millennium Puzzle more secure." After all they'd been through together, nobody here was a stranger to the story of Yami and the Puzzle – not even Otogi. Though Anzu still felt it would be too surreal to explain things to her mother, she'd learned from the situiation with Yuugi.
"Yes, but sweetie, it's not the kind of thing you see on the Paris catwalk, is it?" Otogi arched an eyebrow. Where Yuugi or Ryou might try to spare her feelings, he had no compunction. Being able to not mince your words was something that came with owning your own successful company. "It's more like something from a fetish store."
"I don't wear so many skirts now because of Yami. It was just too weird seeing him in a mini…" Anzu ran a hand through her hair. "Crud, these articles make me sound like such a … guy."
"Apparently Seto Kaiba likes that quality in a partner."
"Seto Kaiba? Seto Kaiba? I've had e-freakin'-nough of Seto Kaiba. This all started with him and his stupid obsession with the Blue Eyes White Dragon card. I never would have shown up on Pegasus's radar if he hadn't pulled that stunt with Yuugi's grandfather. If I have to spend any more time around Seto Kaiba, I'm going to smack him so hard it'll send ripples back in time and prevent his furthest ancestors from planting baby seeds!"
"If you're going to get into the kinky stuff, can I set up a webcam? We'd make a fortune marketing something like that."
Yuugi and Ryou had to physically hold her back. Otogi just laughed and beat his fist against the table.
Yami was smirking when he appeared in her bedroom later, his back to the full-length mirror. Like a vampire, he cast no reflection, but the analogy was one she preferred to keep away from.
"What?"
"You've had a lively evening."
"I notice you didn't put in an appearance."
"Events didn't require my presence. I was happy just to observe."
"You're never happy unless you're duelling the crap out of someone." Anzu sulked, sitting cross-legged on her bed and glaring at him.
He could feel her anger at being linked to Seto Kaiba. He must do. Her veins sizzled with it, and it had been all she could do to sit through dinner while her mother made small-talk with Otogi and the guys and not burst out "I am not having an affair with Seto Kaiba!" First thing in the morning, she vowed, she was calling ZNN and telling them exactly what they could do with their theories about her love life.
In the meantime… "I don't know what you're smirking about. They say me, but they mean you."
Yami's expression faltered – just a little. "Excuse me?"
"Think about it. All the reports talk about the chemistry between Kaiba and me when we duel. And since I've never really been in control when that happens, what they're actually doing is saying that you and Kaiba would make a cute couple."
"But … but that's preposterous! The man is a loud-mouthed, closed-minded boor with a spirituality that wouldn't even fill an eggcup! As if I would ever –"
She smiled. It was a sharp-edged smile – one she would never have been able to summon before she completed the Puzzle. "Exactly. Welcome to my world."
"And I would like to repeat that there is no romantic connection between myself and Anzu Mazaki. Anything anybody hears to the contrary is a story fabricated by media and the fertile imaginations of the general public."
The press conference erupted into shouted questions and waving microphones. There was nothing the media liked more than a good love story – except maybe a love story sprinkled with denial so they could fill in the blanks themselves.
Anzu and Yami stared at the television screen. Yami knew what a television was, although after the incident with Pegasus's video trap he was more than a little wary and stood well back while it was on. Anzu, by comparison, leaned forward so far she nearly fell off the couch.
"I think I should feel pleased," she said eventually. "Except that if I do, it means there's something I actually agree with Kaiba on."
"And that," Yami concurred, "is a most disturbing notion."
"This is getting ridiculous. Are they still out there?"
Yuugi twitched the curtains. "Oh yeah."
Anzu groaned. "Why are they stalking me? Why can't they camp outside Kaiba Corp.?"
"Because Kaiba's security would tear each of them a new - "
"Thank you, Yuugi!"
Ryou emerged from the kitchen with a bag of nachos, some dip, a bottle of soda and three glasses. He looked tired around the eyes, like he hadn't been sleeping much, but his smile was bright and open. It dimmed a little when he saw their expressions. "No sign of them going away yet?"
"Nada." Anzu shook her head. "They've barely moved since we got home from school."
"Yeah. About that." Yuugi turned a little to inspect the tear in his blazer. "Do you reckon I could get The Daily Trumpet to reimburse me for this?"
"Unlikely. I have a sewing kit somewhere if you'd like to fix it yourself."
He sighed and took it off, folding it neatly and slinging it over the sofa arm. "I'll pass. I get enough of that in Home Ec."
The curtains were all drawn to prevent the horde of reporters from seeing inside. However, the equipment some of them had brought along was screwing with the TV signal, leaving them with over a hundred channels of black and white snow.
"We could do that homework Mr. Fuji gave us for Chemistry," said Ryou, sitting down and pouring drinks on the coffee table. Her mother's voice clanging around her brain like church bells summoning mourners, Anzu flung a few coasters at him, which he slipped under each glass.
"But that's not due until Monday!" Yuugi protested.
"You could always duel each other," suggested Yami.
"I think we've all had enough of that for a while." Anzu shivered.
Yuugi looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "Yami suggested a duel?" he guessed.
"How'd you know?"
"Your expression. And the fact you're talking to a lampshade."
"Oh. Right." She thought for a moment. "How about jacks? Jacks are better than homework, right?"
Ryou raised his eyes from his glass. "Little spiky things? With the rubber ball and the bouncing and the grabbing? You still have those?"
"Somewhere. In the attic. Maybe." She ran a hand through her hair. "Monopoly?"
"If we do, I claim the dog as my counter," Yuugi interjected.
"I think the dog went up the vacuum a while ago. Sorry, Yuugi."
"That's okay. I'll just be the hat."
"Wedged between the floorboards."
"The car?"
"Pot plant that died and went in the trash with a cursed can of baked beans. Long story."
Ryou popped open the bag of nachos. "Like we're going anywhere?"
"Yeah, Mom? Hi. No, no, we're fine, but I think it might be better if you stayed on at Grandma's for a while, just until this whole thing blows over." Anzu twisted the phone cord around her fingers, oblivious to the fact her mother had told her a zillion times that it ruined the wiring. "Really, Mom, we're fineWhat? Just me, Yuugi and Ryou. They came over after school yesterday and we haven't been able to leave the house since. Yeah, it's that bad. They can't come within a certain distance of the house unless I give explicit permission, but they're totally blocking the way between the front door and everything else. Uh huh. Five vans. Well, it'd be cool if the delivery boy with the groceries I ordered online could get up the path. They scared him off. I guess he doesn't get danger money. No, no, we've got some tinned stuff to last us. Besides, it can't go on too long, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. What? Siege is a pretty strong word, Mom."
Yuugi came up with some burnt toast on a plate – burnt toast that represented the last of the only slightly stale loaf in the bread bin. He looked apologetic and kind of pitiable, with his hair all mussed and his tracksuit so obviously borrowed from her wardrobe, since Sugoroku Mutou couldn't make airdrops and all either he or Ryou had were their school uniforms.
"No, don't worry about it," Anzu gabbled into the receiver. "Think of it as a chance for some real mother-daughter bonding. Gotta go now. Give Grandma my love. Mwah, bye." She clapped it back into its cradle. "You didn't."
"I'm sorry?"
Anzu diced carrots with less than military precision. Twice she'd nearly cut her finger off trying to emulate the way TV chefs whirred away with their knives, and eventually she'd been reduced to slow, gentle cuts that posed no threat to her person.
Yuugi beavered away mixing ingredients into a bowl a little way down the counter. The flour from the back of the cupboard had been infested with weevils, but somehow he was making do without it. Ryou had been banished when he started falling asleep standing up, and now snoozed with his chin on his chest in front of the silent television.
"How's that … whatever-it-is coming?" Anzu asked, scraping carrot into a bubbling saucepan.
"Great. Do you have a can opener anywhere?"
"Third drawer down. To your left."
"Ah. Thanks." Yuugi opened a tin of conserved apple pieces in a syrupy mush and emptied them into another bowl. Then he dusted a rolling pin with icing sugar and began flattening and cutting out thin strips of pastry.
"What exactly are you making?" The meal was just being put together on the fly, since nobody had been shopping before the siege began. You couldn't tell carrots had gone a little soft once they'd been boiled, and anyone could make good noodles if they had dried packets and a self-steamer. Sure, she'd broken three egg yokes attempting to mix them into the softening noodles, but for the most part things had gone okay.
"Strudel," Yuugi replied without missing a beat. "It's something Grandpa picked up years ago when he was at a archaeology conference in Germany. He showed me how to make it when I was little." He added raisins and the last of a bag of brown sugar to the apple pieces. "I think he meant it as some kind of male bonding since his bad back meant we couldn't play catch."
"Most kids just make cornflake cakes, you know."
"And where's the fun in that?" He shot her a mischievous grin. "No challenge. I used to make bets with myself over how many laps around the house I could do before it was done baking. Or I'd sit in front of the oven and play solitaire on the kitchen floor."
"You're not going to do that now, are you?"
"No. I was thinking more of poker."
"There'd better not be any ideas of strip poker in your head."
"Me?" He pressed a hand to his chest and pretended to swoon. "You wound me with your words."
Anzu slammed the dishwasher door after placing the chopping board inside. Ryou was snoring gently, but stirred at the noise, so she shut the kitchen door and opened the steamer to see how things were going. "I don't see you playing so many games anymore. Not since you really got into your artwork."
"And since I got friends," Yuugi replied, again without missing a beat.
Anzu jolted out of reflex. She knew Yuugi's obsession with games and puzzles had been a result of his lonely childhood, as though by figuring out patterns and strategies in that context he could figure out a pattern to his life and a strategy to combat it. He was still a great gamer, but it hadn't been until she showed more interest in their friendship and he stepped away from gaming a little that he started to look happier – less anxious in the set of his shoulders.
"You don't have to look at me that way. I know I was an even bigger weirdo than I am now. Now I'm just a comparative weirdo."
"Huh? Be kind. Rewind."
"Think about it." Carefully, Yuugi spooned apple filling onto the pastry strips, leaving an inch-wide gap on either side. "I didn't go out much, just sat in my room all day playing games against myself. And I live above a game shop. So not a good thing when you're borderline obsessive. When I ran out of pre-made games I made up my own. The only real variety I got was when I went downstairs to play them on the kitchen table. I even turned putting my socks on into a game. But now, since all this weird stuff came into our lives, I've turned down the weirdness control and upped the normalcy. If that makes any sense with all the incredible stuff we've been through."
He didn't mention her absences, when she'd had an attack of self-consciousness and broken contact with him until her 'fuck it' reflex kicked in and she stopped caring what people thought long enough to be his friend again.
Anzu stopped what she was doing. "I wasn't a very good friend before, was I?"
"Don't be dumb. Of course you were."
"No, I wasn't. I'm - "
"Please don't say you're sorry."
"What?"
"You know, drawing is a lot like solving puzzles." Yuugi stared at the spoon in his hand, bits of gloopy apple sludge dripping down the neck and onto his fingers. "You put it together piece by piece, and with the really good stuff you're never quite sure what you're going to end up with until it's done."
"I … never thought of it that way." Anzu shifted her weight from one leg to the other. The Puzzle bumped heavily against her hip.
"It could be something absolutely beautiful, or it could be something as hideous as … well, as hideous as your lawn after those reporters leave. Or Mr. Fuji's toupee. And sometimes, if you don't have a pre-existing picture to work from, or something to copy, things don't fit together very easily. You have to leave it a while, give yourself some space to think, and then come back later, when the different bits magically work where they didn't before. When I'm drawing, I go through so many drafts before I get something I'm satisfied with. I never used to. I used to just scratch out whatever came into my head first and be content with it. But now I think, hey, I could do better than this. Why settle for mediocre, or good, when I can get something great if I wait a while and work at it? So I try again, and I give it a different perspective this time – come at it from a different angle. And after a while, it all comes together. Do you understand what I mean?"
"I think so."
Yuugi put the spoon into the empty bowl. It jingled, metal on ceramic. He proceeded to place more strips of pastry over the first lot, press down the edges, then take a knife and cut slits at regular intervals so the strudels wouldn't explode while they were baking. "Pass me that tray I greased, would you?"
Anzu did so. He put the three strudels on it, slipped them into the oven and set the timer to ding him when they were done.
"That should do it."
"I never pictured you as the happy little housewife type."
"Oh? And what did you picture me as?"
Yuugi was good at that; asking innocent questions that raised countless unpleasant things in her mind without meaning to.
What had she pictured him as? Well, that depended on her mood at the time. She'd sometimes thought he'd be a geeky little gamer forever, always hiding behind other people and taking the punches of those bigger than himself. She'd seen him as a father, maybe, if he met the right girl. Yuugi would probably make a good father. He cared enough. Or maybe he would be an eternal bachelor, a Kind Uncle sort who was good with kids without even trying. She thought he might take over his grandfather's store someday, or take up art as a serious career – or even design his own games, just like he used to, except he would get paid for it this time.
And then, in her darker moments she'd imagined him never getting to the stage where he had to stop being the quiet and humble gamer who failed all his exams on the first try. On days when he'd been beaten up she'd imagined him with a nasogastric tube up his nose for the rest of his life. She'd all but smelled the flowers that would be littered around his wake, and heard the crack in his voice as he turned into one of those kids who just couldn't take being a victim anymore and did something stupid. She'd imagined the bullies getting too rough, going too far. And she'd imagined him becoming like his mother – driven and focussed to the point where he lost his sense of humour because he thought he was doing too much good to stop for laughter. Completely irrational things, but still, she had thought them.
She moistened her lips. "To be honest, Yuugi, I just pictured you as you."
"Ryou? You up here? Dinner's ready." Anzu pushed open the door to her bedroom. "Ryou?"
He was bent over a book, a half-chewed pen in his mouth. He looked up as she came in, hand dropping from where it had been massaging his chest. He did that sometimes, she'd noticed; touching the circle of scar tissue when he thought nobody was watching. "Hm?"
"Dinner, study-boy."
"Oh. Right." He unfolded his legs from under him, stretched, and got to his feet. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his cheek waffled where it had been pressed against his fist. "Thanks."
"No problem. Uh, Ryou."
"Yes?"
"Were you asleep before I called you?"
He dipped his head. "Not right before…"
He'd been sleeping a hell of a lot, lately. Neither she nor Yuugi could figure out why, since they barely did anything to tire themselves out except study, watch reporters and play games. They'd started a role-play game a few evenings before, wherein the warriors Salt Shaker, Pepper Pot and Sugar Dish quested for the mystical Wine Glass so they could defeat the evil Broken Teapot. Ryou had run it, since he had more experience than either Yuugi or Anzu, but it wasn't as if it involved running marathons.
Anzu frowned and beckoned for Ryou to come closer. "C'mere and let me feel your forehead."
"I'm okay - "
"Forehead. Now."
He sighed and let her press a palm there.
"Hm. You don't feel too warm."
"I'm fine. Really."
"I'll be the judge of that. Do you feel queasy?"
"No."
"Is your balance okay?"
"Yes."
"How's your memory?"
"Fine."
"Two plus two?"
"Four."
"Prime numbers?"
"One, three, seven, eleven and thirteen."
"Fastest growing religion in Scotland?"
"Jediism."
"You read that article too, huh? Okay, how many fingers am I holding up?"
"That's a very rude gesture, Anzu."
"At least it proves you're eyesight's okay." She pursed her lips. "I wonder if you're getting enough iron…"
"Anzu, please, I'm fine. There's no need to fuss over me. Just because I'm a little tired doesn't mean there's anything more sinister going on. It just means I'm not used to sleeping anywhere but my own bed and it's starting to get to me."
Anzu blushed. Was it that obvious? After what he'd been through, there was always a compulsion to wrap Ryou in cotton wool the way Mrs. Mazaki wrapped up her shepherdess and cherub statuettes when they moved house. The only problem was that Ryou was a real person, and while he was quiet and gentle, he still had the capacity to get annoyed whenever anyone got too overprotective of him. "Sorry."
His face hadn't hardened, but there was a definite softening when she said that. Sometimes Ryou's facial expressions embraced the word 'subtle' in a way Anzu had never come across before.
She let him go before her, and then snapped her fingers. "Hang on. I forgot to put my earrings in this morning and I've been meaning to do it all day."
"Anzu! Ryou!" Yuugi called up the stairs. "It's going cold! What's taking you guys so long?"
"I'll go on ahead," said Ryou, edging out of the door.
"Yeah, probably best. You go pacify him while I try to find my ankhs. I know I left them here someplace …" Anzu rifled through her jewellery box, before tipping everything onto the bed so she could sift through it all.
Ryou nodded and slipped from the room.
"Go away!"
"Just one interview – please!"
"It's all lies! Leave me alone, or I'll take out a restraining order!" Anzu slammed the window. "If I knew how. Yuugi! Ryou! Lock the windows, quick. That tabloid journalist with the beard is sniffing around again."
The sitting room had that curious flickery blue glow that said television-on-at-night. Anzu hopped off the bottom step and pushed the door open without preamble. It was, after all, her house, and if she'd spent the evening upstairs doing protracted and painful trig homework then it was only fair she get to torment the boys for a while.
The door made a loud noise as it bounced. Mrs. Mazaki hated when anyone did that, claiming it deepened the dent on the wall. However, thoughts of her mother's irritation disappeared from Anzu's mind at the sight that greeted her.
Yuugi and Ryou flew backwards, away from the television. Yuugi dived for the remote, and even the flickery glow wasn't enough to disguise their blushing.
Anzu caught a glimpse of the screen before it went black. "Oh, no," she said. "Oh, no, you two were not using my TV to watch the adult channels' previews!"
"Okay, if you say so," Yuugi gabbled. "We weren't using your TV to watch the adult channels' previews."
"You're lying."
"No I'm not! Look at this face. Would this face lie to you?"
"That face has lied to me many, many times. Teenage boys or not, this is my TV, guys. I watch my anime on this thing! You've made it all oogy with your unbridled hormones and … ooginess."
"Ooginess?"
"The situation calls for new words."
Ryou said nothing, but blushed even harder. He would soon need a blood transfusion just to keep it going at that level.
"We were just watching it for … educational purposes?" Yuugi tried.
Anzu pursed her lips and made a sucking noise between her teeth, as if she were considering this reply. "Nope. Not good enough." Snatching up a cushion from the couch, she launched herself at him. "For contaminating my beloved television, you must be punished. Banzai!"
They rolled over like puppies, and for a second it was like they were ten years old again; kids too young to care much about social calendars or spiteful rumours. Anzu whacked Yuugi across the head so hard his spikes were flattened. He cried out at his lack of a weapon.
"Ryou! Quick! Rescue me from the deranged girl-monster!"
Ryou leaned forward on one hand, but stopped, obviously uncertain where he was meant to fit into this childish game. It had the look of something played many times before – a scrap of their shared childhood they couldn't quite bear to part with. Not quite yet.
"You can't pull the cootie card, Yuugi. Nobody who tried to watch what you were trying to watch believes in cooties."
"I'm a teenager! Isn't that defence enough?"
"I'll bet you talked Ryou into it, too."
"Hey, it's not like I glued his eyeballs to the screen. We were just trying to be more macho. Ryou, back me up here. Yaa!"
The cushion went spinning out and thumped Ryou in the face. He cried out, clapped his hands over his nose and screwed up his eyes. Both Yuugi and Anzu froze, play forgotten like all playground games when someone gets hurt.
Yuugi lifted his face off the floor, spat out a mouthful of hair and asked, "Are you okay?"
Ryou opened one eye and stared at them. Then the outer corner crinkled. It changed the whole look of his face. He picked up the cushion and turned it over in his hands. "I'm fine. But I think that counts as a invitation to the party."
"Hey! I didn't force you to look!"
"It was your idea, Yuugi."
"But you went along with it!"
"Remember whose house you're in, Ryou. Remember who controls the food and toilet paper supplies."
"An excellent point. Sorry Yuugi. I believe the word is 'banzai'?"
Anzu was pacing the room like a wind-up toy, just as jittery and plastic, like she might break if she fell over. "I need to get out of here!"
"Don't we all?"
"You two could leave anytime you wanted. They aren't baying for your blood."
"Thanks, but I'll stay right here, thank you very much." Yuugi had finally given up and started sewing the tear in his blazer. "I have proof right here that they aren't exactly gentle with us, never mind wanting to get to you instead of us poor sidekicks."
"Why haven't they given up and gone home yet, anyway? It's been five days!"
"It's because there are no wars or political scandal to replace you with," Ryou murmured. "For the foreseeable future, you're news."
"Some news," Anzu grumped, folding her arms and leaning against the wall. She'd missed her ballet class, and it was making her antsy. There was only so much practice you could do with a kitchen counter as a barre. "You know I caught one of those reporters going through the trash?"
"What was he looking for?"
"That's not my point, Yuugi. My point is, it's been a working week, and interest in my bogus affair with Kaiba hasn't so much as dimmed if random reporters from Podunk, Nowhere are pawing through my garbage."
"You didn't have anything icky in there, did you?"
"Yuugi, can we please focus?"
"Only, sometimes celebrity junk goes for a mint on eBay, and I'd hate for you to see your old underwear strewn across the Internet or anything."
Anzu frowned at him, but spent a moment thinking about what had been in the garbage cans. Nothing truly incriminating. Old food packaging, mostly. No scandal in bags of Doritos and frozen vegetables. As if she'd throw away old underwear at a time like this. She had more sense than … wait – what had she done with the paper full of doodles from when she couldn't sleep? She'd thrown it away. Of course she'd thrown it away. It was trash, right? And you threw … trash … away …
"Oh, hell's bum!"
"Excuse me?"
"You remember when I had insomnia a couple of nights ago?"
"How could I forget? You woke me up going to get all those glasses of water."
"Well, see, I kind of sat talking to Yami for a while, and while I was doing that, I doodled on this bit of paper I had on my desk. Which I then threw away."
"You threw your desk away?"
"Yuugi!"
"Sorry, corny and bad. What was so monstrous about the paper?"
"It was an old flyer for Battle City."
"Doesn't sound too bad. Unless they think you kept it because Seto Kaiba organised that tournament, but that's grasping at straws a little."
"What exactly did you doodle?" Ryou asked cautiously.
"You know when you aren't concentrating, and you kind of put your name with other people's?" At their blank looks she added, "It's a girl thing, maybe. Your first name, somebody else's last name. The names of friends, or cartoon characters you think might look cute together. Stuff like that."
Ryou's eyes widened. "Oh dear."
"What?" Yuugi looked between them both. "What?"
"Imagine the worst names I could put together in this kind of situation."
"Huh?"
"She wrote 'Anzu Kaiba'. Right?"
"Correct, and amongst other things. Don't read too much into it, but I think I also put down your surnames. And I think there was something about Otogi in there, too. Cue a bunch of reporters getting their second wind as they imagine me shamelessly lusting after all these pretty boys I hang around with." Anzu thunked her head backwards against the wall. "Why did you guys have to be so pretty?"
"Oh." Yuugi nodded in understanding. Then he stopped. "Oh. Oh, hell."
"She was always, like, with them at school."
"Yeah, totally. Joined at the hip, you know?"
"Yeah. At the hips."
"So you're saying there was some sort of relationship between Miss. Mazaki and Mr. Mutou? Or Mr. Bakura?"
"Well, there's the friendship thing, and then there's the friendship thing. What those three got up to? So very thing."
"They're, like, the social outcasts, y'know? Birds of a feather? A cornucopia of weirdnesses, all completely immune to the fashions of the outside world. Nobody else wanted them, so they banded together for, like, survival or something."
"I always wondered why they went off together at lunchtime. Guess they wanted some privacy, y'know?"
"What light do you think this throws on Miss Mazaki's supposed relationship with Seto Kaiba of Kaiba Corporation?"
"He's cute."
"Shut up, Kimi. Our generation has its own words for people like Anzu Mazaki, but I think it's better to leave that sort of language implied before the watershed, don't you?"
Ryou, Yuugi and Anzu gaped at the TV. Enough of the news vehicles had left for them to get the signal for a local station with a little twiddling of the aerial. Now they wished they hadn't bothered. Having no luck with either the Mazaki household, or Kaiba Corp. outside their official press conference, a reporter with a beard the colour of cat vomit was interviewing a few of their classmates – in particular some air-headed girls who giggled and primped and waved hi to anyone who knew them.
"Well, on a scale of one to ten, this sucks," Anzu muttered.
"I don't know what disturbs me more," said Yuugi. "What they're saying about us, or the fact that they know words like 'cornucopia'."
Anzu covered her face with her hands. "How did this happen? Those girls couldn't outwit a used teabag. How is it they're being used to make us look so bad? It's just a hop-skip and a jump from this to the word 'orgy', and then I'll have to move house. Seriously."
"Surely this is illegal," Ryou appealed. "Slanderous or something. You could sue the station for saying untrue things about you."
"With what money? Under the circumstances, my boss has been really good about me not working since this started, but I don't think he's going to give me that kind of advance on my next paycheque. Not even if I ask nice." Anzu scrubbed at her scalp in frustration and rage. The back of her neck prickled, and she knew Yami had come out to see what was wrong. "Long story short, Yami," she pre-empted him. "Media pretty much done with us, except for one television station. Local one, watched by many people who know us. They're implying threesomes and who-knows-what-else. All nonsense, but sellable and juicy nonsense. Thus, you find us on the verge of a full scale panic at the state of our social reputations."
"Did we have much of those to begin with?" Yuugi mused.
"Beside the point. Before, we were just weirdoes who associated with rich people and were pretty damn good at a card game. Now we're weirdoes who associate with rich people, are pretty damn good at a card game, and might be having kinky sex with each other on the side. I want the rumour about Kaiba and me back. That was simple. I could deal with that. I could laugh at that. This? So very, very un-laughable."
Yami's expression was indecipherable, though something flared behind his eyes. He looked between them all, and then folded his arms. "So what do you propose to do about it?" He was always like that – focussing on the solution when they were all still hung up on the problem.
"Do? There's nothing we can do."
He snorted. "Defeatist. There's always something."
"I already gave statements denying my affair with Seto Kaiba. They didn't believe me about that, so why should they believe me about this?"
"If the three of you stood together they may listen more attentively."
"If we all stood together they'd doctor our photos so we weren't wearing any clothes."
Ryou's cheeks turned red, and Yuugi's eyes were round as saucers. "What's he saying?"
"Huh?"
"Yami. What's he saying?"
Oh yeah, they couldn't hear him, could they? She'd become so unexpectedly comfortable with them knowing about Yami that she sometimes forgot the limitations of their interaction with him as compared to her own. She gave them the abbreviated version.
"We could try it," Yuugi said thoughtfully.
"What?"
"Why not? I'm sick of getting homework through email. I actually want to get back to school – not to mention my house. Not that I'm not grateful for the loans, but your clothes are either too big or too tight in bad places, Anzu. Plus, Grandpa's probably blown up the dishwasher while I've been gone. And besides, it's not like we have many options besides waiting it out and hoping it goes away. I mean, what have we got to lose? Really."
"Besides the remaining shreds of our dignity?" Anzu demanded.
Wordlessly, Ryou took the television off mute, and the sound of their classmates' giggling filled the room.
She sighed in submission. "I'll get the phone."
"Good call." Yuugi eyed the screen. "Man, I wish our problems were more normal."
"Wishing for normalcy is just wishing for more weirdness," Ryou murmured.
"I suppose we should be grateful."
"Indeed."
"Who could've predicted a supermodel's drug habit would come in so handy? Certainly saved our butts."
"It did."
"And to think she was found out right here in Domino, too. It's either an incredible stoke of luck – for us, not her, obviously – or a major coincidence bordering on a really bad plot device to a really cheesy novel."
"Certainly."
"Is my life really like a cheesy novel?"
"I wouldn't know. I've never read one."
"I suppose not. That'd be too classy for my life. It's more like some warped manga, or a serialised Saturday morning cartoon."
"If you say so."
"Of course, this means I have to go back to school."
"Of course."
"School. Place of education and mixing bowl for all elements of modern teen culture. After the mall, naturally. Not to mention uniforms with short pleated skirts."
"Mm."
"So what I'm trying to say is …" Anzu looked up. "Look, Yami, I'm trying to shave my legs. Can I please have some privacy?"
"I had wished to speak with you."
"Great. Bonding. But can it wait until there's no danger of me accidentally severing an artery?" Her bare foot squeaked as it half slid into the bathtub. The balancing act, never an easy task, was further challenged by Yami. There was something intensely unsettling about an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh perched on the toilet lid not six inches from where you had foam all over your leg.
"Your ablutions are of no interest to me."
"Glad to hear it. Neither are yours to me."
"I don't actually - "
"Overshare!"
Yami frowned. "Stupid girl. I was about to say that, though they are of no interest to me, I don't understand why you, of all people, are concerned with your appearance after you talked so much of inner beauty and being true to oneself."
Anzu picked up her razor and checked it for residue. "Guess I'm just a big ol' hypocrite."
"You didn't do this while Yuugi and Ryou were here."
"I also didn't wear any skirts while they were here. Especially not after they tried to watch porn in my sitting room."
"Why hide this shaving ritual away if you think it's necessary?"
"What's with the sudden interest in my toiletry habits? I don't ask you about this kind of stuff, do I?"
"You could if you wanted to. I have nothing to hide."
"Okay. Are there any toilets in the Puzzle maze?" She gave a low, fierce smile, which faded when Yami answered her.
"Probably. There are many rooms I don't go into."
The implications of that slid around her mind like soap in a shower, and she was just as loath to pick them up. "Oh."
"I don't understand."
"Of course not. You're a guy." Anzu popped two paracetamol from their packet and poured herself a glass of water. She winced when she had to extend her leg to work the pedal bin, tiny fists of pain clenching above her hipbones.
Yami watched her down the first tablet. "And this happens every month?"
"More or less. Though the side effects aren't usually this bad." She downed the second and drained her glass to wash away the chalky taste. "Ugh. And now I wait."
"Those things you swallowed, they stop the … flow?" Yami was never lost for words, but he showed an amount of forethought in choosing these.
"I wish. They're painkillers. Strictly small-time, of course. Mom won't have anything stronger in the house."
"And this affliction is common to all females?""Affliction's maybe a strong word. Nuisance is a better one."
"Affliction is a perfectly good word. Never before have I experienced such an ache without having physical damage visited upon myself."
She looked down at herself. "Yeah, it is kind of like a punch in the guts. But like I said, it's not usually this bad."
"I think I would've remembered feeling that way before."
"Yeah, well – that'll teach you to listen to me when I say it's not a good idea to be in control today."
"I only wished to speak to Yuugi - "
"About that – he was very confused when you gasped and dropped the receiver. He thought we'd been attacked or something."
"Inside your house?"
"Remember who we're talking about." She winced again, digging one fist into her gut and one against her lower back. The feeling was not unlike her innards trying to hack their way out with a piece of broken glass. Plus her hormones were going haywire, making her swing between irritation and wanting to burst into tears for no reason. "Aah…"
"How do you stand this every month?" Yami asked, genuinely curious.
"It's not usually this pronounced. Stress makes it worse. More stress equals more pain."
He thought about that for a second."…Oh."
"Yami?"
"Yes, Otogi?"
"Doesn't it ever bother you?"
"Doesn't what ever bother me?"
"Being in a chick's body – and not in the good way."
Yami looked up from the chessboard. In ethereal mode by the TV, Anzu also looked up. Otogi had a huge flatscreen with surround sound and over a thousand digital channels to choose from. He'd made sure it was on a something she could enjoy while he and Yami got down to outdoing each other in yet another game. She sometimes got the feeling he'd never give up on trying to outclass Yami. He'd beaten him several times, in several different games, but it was never enough for either of them, which was why Otogi kept making challenges and Yami kept accepting them. The question caught her like a salmon on a hook. It was something she'd wondered about but never asked for reasons she couldn't really name.
Yami didn't answer for a moment. "Is this an attempt to 'psyche' me and win by default?"
"You kidding? Where's the fun in winning on a technicality?" Otogi grinned. "I just wondered, guy to guy, what it was like to do the sex change thing every time you want fresh air and a pair of lungs to breathe it with."
Ouch. Real tactful, Otogi.
Yami stared at him without blinking. "It's necessary," he said at last, and returned to the game.
But Otogi wasn't willing to just let it go. "Aw, c'mon. Seriously? Don't you feel even the slightest bit, y'know … emasculated?"
What is it about hanging around with me that makes guys want to prove their manliness so much? Anzu wondered.
Yami moved his Queen. "Considering the boundaries of modern society and your overall effeminate appearance and behaviour, I don't think you're really one to talk about emasculation, Otogi. At least I have an excuse. Checkmate."
Anzu sniggered as Otogi's jaw dropped.
To be Continued …
Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs
"Honestly. You never used to talk like that."
-- What, you thought sharing your headspace with someone as abrasive as Yami wouldn't change you? Not even a little?
"Ryou's making his famous chilli-that-goes-up-to-eleven."
-- Side-fling to DC's Green Arrow comic.
… she was attached to her rose-coloured glasses enough that she'd convinced herself his arrogance and rudeness had just been a trick played by mean-spirited editors and reporters.
-- I think Mrs. Mazaki digests life with a couple of heavy-duty denial tablets.
"You think I keep this figure by stuffing my face all the time?"-- Anyone else noticed how unnaturally thin the male cast of YGO is?
"… a guy I'd much rather send face-first down a dry ski-slope."
-- Inspired by the 'winter sports' monologue from Debauched Cherub by the comedian Jeff Green. I think the CD is available on Amazon. If you can get hold of it, do. One of the funniest things I've heard in years, and it stands up to repeat listenings.
"If I have to spend any more time around Seto Kaiba, I'm going to smack him so hard it'll send ripples back in time and prevent his furthest ancestors from planting baby seeds!"
-- A line pilfered from Davan's father in the webcomic Something Positive by R.K. Millholland (w w w . somethingpositive . net)
"Think about it. All the reports talk about the chemistry between Kaiba and me when we duel. And since I've never really been in control when that happens, what they're actually doing is saying that you and Kaiba would make a cute couple."
-- I'd be lying if I said I didn't have LeDiz's YGO fic Newspapers Are Evil in mind when I wrote this.
"Do you reckon I could get The Daily Trumpet to reimburse me for this?"-- Side-fling to Spider-Man in all his incarnations. The Daily Trumpet is, of course, a reference to The Daily Bugle, the newspaper Peter Parker freelances for.
"Huh? Be kind. Rewind."
-- From an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though I can't remember which one. Second or third season, I think.
"…So not a good thing when you're borderline obsessive."
-- He is. I don't care what anybody tells me, Yuugi is a borderline obsessive. Just look at the sock game.
"I even turned putting my socks on into a game."
-- This actually happened in the manga. It was (imaginatively) called 'The Sock Concentration Game'. Before school, Yuugi set out every white sock he owned, after drawing different symbols on the heels of each and turning them over so they didn't show. Then he mixed them up and tried to guess which two had the same symbols without peeking. He claimed (and I quote from the English translation): "I'm training my sixth sense for gaming!" Of course, his mother was less than impressed and smacked him with a ladle for playing games when he should've been getting ready for school (incidentally, I think this was her only appearance. Not a good impression to leave with the reader). And I'll have all of you know that I spent twenty minutes digging through my bookshelf and going through my manga just so I could be accurate with my notations. To that end, the issue this occurred in was Duel 41: Let's Find "Love"! which featured a plot about Tamagotchi-like things and Anzu's crush on Yami's voice. Rather silly, but entertaining.
"You know, drawing is a lot like solving puzzles."
-- I didn't actually intend for Yuugi to get so much into art as he did. It just kind of happened after a throwaway sentence from the segment this whole fic is based on in Another Roll of the Dice: Five Things That Never Happened to the Cast of YGO. Yet it actually turned out to make a lot of sense. This whole kitchen scene between Yuugi and Anzu is one of those scenes that wrote itself, without any consultation or permission from me.
"We were just trying to be more macho."
-- I imagine the scene preceding this went something like: "Ryou?" "Yeah, Yuugi?" "We hang out with a girl an awful lot, don't we?" "Yeah." "But neither of us have ever dated one before." "No." "I hope nobody thinks we're … not into girls just because of that." "Me too." "I mean, Anzu's our friend. I've hung out with her for years. You can be really, really good friends with a girl without needing to date her. Right?" "Uh-huh, I think so." "You think so?" "Okay, I hope so. I've been friends with lots of girls without ever being attracted to them." "Right." "That sounds really bad, doesn't it?" "So much. We need to show people we're still men." "Right. Uh, how do we do that?" "Well … real guys fight each other a lot, don't they?" "You mean like your old bullies do?" "Yeah, like Jounouchi and Honda." "I don't much like the idea of punching you. Or getting punched. Not just to prove a point." "Yeah, well … me neither, actually." "So what do we do?" "We could … we could start a basketball game at school so that the girls' skirts flap up. Everybody would be able to see we're red-blooded men then." "Wouldn't Anzu object to that?" "You're right, she'd probably kill us." "So … what then?" "Hm. The TV signal came back this morning, didn't it?" "Yeah. So what?" "If we can find a video tape to record on, I think I have an idea …" They probably intended to mention what they'd seen really loudly in front of their classmates, or even lend out the tape to prove what they'd been watching. Anzu was never meant to know what they were up to. Hey, if canon!Anzu has to defend herself against accusations of being a slut just because she hangs out with more guys than girls, then Yuugi and Ryou can feel they need to prove their masculinities here. It's only fair.
"Only, sometimes celebrity junk goes for a mint on eBay, and I'd hate for you to see your old underwear strewn across the Internet or anything."
-- Inspired by a storyline in the webcomic Queen of Wands, by Aerie (w w w . queenofwands . net).
"Oh, hell's bum!"
-- Something Geraldine Granger says in the Vicar of Dibley Easter Special. I love that show, and I love that phrase.
"You know when you aren't concentrating, and you kind of put your name with other people's?" At their blank looks she added, "It's a girl thing, maybe. Your first name, somebody else's last name. The names of friends, or cartoon characters you think might look cute together."
-- I used to do this all the bloody time – especially in boring lessons. I'd usually go the whole hog and work out percentages of affection by totting up how many times the letters L-O-V-E-S appeared in each name and then adding up every pair of numbers from there. So Anzu Mazaki and Seto Kaiba would start out as 01011, then go to 1112, then to 223, and end up as 45. Oh, don't look at me like that. It was fun when I was fourteen.
"A cornucopia of weirdnesses …"-- Twisted from something in Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time. The actual line was spoken by Ron Stoppable, and is as follows: "Time travel. It's a cornucopia of disturbing concepts."
"Shut up, Kimi. Our generation has its own words for people like Anzu Mazaki, but I think it's better to leave that sort of language implied before the watershed, don't you?"
-- I don't know whether it's the same in other countries, but on UK television (especially on the five terrestrial channels) there's a cut-off point called the 'watershed', which marks the arrival of more adult-themed, unsuitable-for-children programming. Oh, and there's a side-fling to Kim Possible in there as well, in deference to the 'cornucopia' comment above.
"Well, on a scale of one to ten, this sucks."
-- One of Xander's lines in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Prophecy Girl (first season finale).
"Those girls couldn't outwit a used teabag."
-- Taken from one of Kryten's lines in the Red Dwarf IV episode Justice. He was talking about Rimmer, but both contexts are accurate, I think.
"Wishing for normalcy is just wishing for more weirdness."
-- Borrowed from InterNutter's X-Men: Evolution epic, Don't Pity Me. I've borrowed her commentary, too, because it fits better than anything I could come up with: "I just adore the logic of this argument. It took me a while to work it out, too."
"Who could've predicted a supermodel's drug habit would come in so handy? Certainly saved our butts."
-- The Kate Moss cocaine scandal erupted the day I was writing this and was wondering how the hell Anzu, Yuugi and Ryou were going to get out of Anzu's house. Handy indeed.
"Not to mention uniforms with short pleated skirts."
-- A lot of the Anzu bashing in fanfic is based on her being a 'slut', and a lot of that is based on some of her outfits in the anime. Now, none of my school skirts were as short as hers, but I can imagine it would get quite tiresome (not to mention breezy) having to wear something like that five days a week with no choice in the matter.
"Overshare!"
-- The word 'overshare' comes from the movie Bring It On, starring Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku. That was one of the movies my sister and I bonded over when it was first released. Good times, gooood times…