Velcroshipping (Thief King Bakura x Insector Haga)
Insector Haga was in a foul mood. This was mostly due to the fact that he had already been knocked out of the Battle City tournament, especially when he had taken such precautions to win, and it had been against Katsuya Jonouchi, of all people, making it the worst moment of his life. Then again, listening to Dinosaur Ryuzaki pester him was coming in for a close second. Stupid, obnoxious, strength-loving, bug-hating brute.
"Haga, hey. Where're you going? Are you even listening to me?"
"No, I'm not listening to you," Haga snapped. "Go away."
"Hey, you're not the only one who's ticked off. I lost to a faker. How d'you think I feel?" Ryuzaki said.
"I don't care how you feel, that's the point!" Haga said, pushing his glasses up with unnecessary force.
He turned with a snap and started to stalk off. He heard Ryuzaki's shuffling footsteps behind him, and groaned under this breath. Hoping to make him go away, he ducked into a dark, littered alleyway. Maybe he'd be too freaked out to follow.
But no, the footsteps came along anyway – that is, until the dinosaur duelist yelped with surprise and stopped short. Haga glanced back, and was pleased to see that a daddy long legs had fallen on Ryuzaki's head.
"Augh! Geez – what the hell?" he said, trying to smack it.
It fell off and skittered away, and Ryuzaki tried to stomp it.
"Oh, stop that you fool!" Haga snapped, stooping to let the bug crawl onto his hand. "It didn't do anything to you."
"I don't like spiders," Ryuzaki muttered.
"Then you'll be happy to know that a daddy long legs is not a spider. It's an Opiliones, or a harvestman."
"Nerd."
"If you don't like it, go away. Or I'll let my little friend crawl over you some more."
Haga was actually surprised at how fast that got Ryuzaki out of there. Huh. Maybe he was more afraid of spiders than Haga had thought.
Haga stared at the little harvestman in his hand. It was so fascinating. How could it even stand on those spindly little legs. Its second pair of legs quivered, sensing him out and forming a picture in its mind, even though it couldn't see.
"Go on, then," he said, putting his hand down so it could crawl away. "Go back to finding food. Don't get stepped on."
A soft laugh behind him caught his attention as the false spider skittered away. For a moment, Haga thought that Ryuzaki had returned, but the tone was too deep – older than Ryuzaki.
"So you like insects, little boy?" the voice said. "You're too kind to such an inferior species."
Haga twinged with anger, and he stood up with a snap.
"For your information, daddy longlegs are not insects," he said. "And insects are not inferior: they've been around for thousands of years longer than us and they still outnumber us. They can live in this world even better than we can."
He turned as he talked, getting a look at the boy who was talking to him. The figure was tall, significantly taller than him, with strangely tanned skin and white hair. A scar marred one cheek, twisting his smirk into an eerie grin, and his eyes were dark and cold.
"Bugs are not inferior? You have a strange way of thinking, little boy."
"I am not little!"
"Size is relative," the boy said smoothly. "And you're smaller than me."
Haga bit the inside of his cheek as he realized the strange figure was right, and he was also in between Haga and the way out of the alleyway. This could turn back very quickly.
"Well – size doesn't mean anything!" Haga said. "After all, look how small ants are, and they can lift twenty times their own weight. You don't have any idea how strong I am."
The strange boy laughed: a soft, amused laugh.
"You have a good point, little boy," he said. "In that case, you should think of my referring to your size as a compliment."
"Well, you don't mean it as one," Haga grumbled.
The boy took another step into the alleyway.
"You seem to love insects more than humans," he mused. "Why is that, I wonder?"
"Because humans are stupid," Haga said. "They step on things without thinking about it – they don't care about the people or creatures they hurt."
"Ah, you've been crushed, haven't you, little boy? Crushed like an insect under a boot. And you want to rise against that."
"I have not been crushed!" Haga said, his voice rising higher than normal. "You can try to kill a cockroach, but it'll keep coming back – you can't beat my determination, and you can't make me stay a down –"
The boy was close – too close.
"You are very interesting," he said, and Haga could feel the boy's breath on his head. "Very interesting, little insect."
"It's Insector," Haga said.
"I know. But then again, this little scene never really happened."
Then he stepped past Haga, and before Haga could turn around, he was completely gone.
A/N: Sooo, I had no ideas for this one, and I tried reading some other ones for inspiration...and then I completely regretted it because Backlash Waltz was such perfection that I could never hope to match it and it almost made me a Velcroshipper. D: Still, though, Insector Haga is one of the few characters in Yu-Gi-Oh that I can claim to hate, so it's hard for me to reconcile this pairing. Still, I surprised how well it seems to work. And how interesting Haga can turn out to be as a character. Next is Veershipping (Keith x Ishizu). We're getting closer to Vaseshipping (the first one so far that I started out supporting. Vexshipping doesn't count, because I didn't support that one until after I wrote a story about it.)
