Shrimpshipping (Ryuzaki x Haga)

Their first meeting was kind of an accident. Ryuzaki had gotten the directions mixed up because his map was upside down, and had arrived in the park instead of at the tournament building. Haga had taken advantage of being early for the tournament and had noticed and followed a rare species of beetle into the same location. Coincidence or fate, either one could be true, but it was for certain that both boys were so intent upon their task that they did not see the other until they ran into each other – literally.

"Ow!" they said, almost in unison. "Hey, why don't you watch where you're going?!"

Haga had Ryuzaki's map plastered to his face by the wind, and he brushed it off irritably. Ryuzaki had a beetle on his forehead.

"Augh!" he yelped, trying to swat it.

"Hey! Be careful!" Haga said, snatching the beetle from harm's way. "You'll hurt it!"

"Hurt it?! That thing attacked me!"

Haga huffed, and pushed his glasses higher on his face.

"It's not even a twentieth of your size, dimwit. It could hardly hurt you."

"It could be poisonous! And I'm not a dimwit!"

"Well, actually, it is poisonous. But the tiny doses it carries are nowhere near enough to hurt humans – barely enough to make it itch."

He looked worriedly into his palm to check on the beetle. It looked unharmed, and fazed by its brush with death in the slightest. It buzzed for a moment in Haga's hand, and then took off into the sky until it vanished from sight.

"Who are you, anyway?" Ryuzaki said. "You got a bug fetish or something?"

"It's not a fetish, it's an interest," Haga snapped. "Who do you think you are, shorty?"

Ryuzaki's face flushed.

"Hey, you're not much taller than I am! You can't say things like that! Who do you think you're talking to?"

"A brute who doesn't understand the finer points of life."

"Why you –"

"What's the matter? Was I right, or something?"

They might have gone to blows, which would have ended badly for both of them (mostly Haga, he wasn't really the tough type), when twin alarms beeped and synchronized heads looked down. Haga glanced at his watch, and Ryuzaki checked his phone.

"Oh, no, I'm going to be late!" they said at the same time. They glared at each other. "What could you possible be late for, shrimp?" they again said in unison.

"I happen to be going to a Duel Monster tournament!" Haga said.

"No way! A bug freak like you can't be any good at games!" Ryuzaki said.

"And there's no way a brute like you would understand the first thing about strategy!"

"I'll wipe the floor with you and your bug fetish!"

"That's if you can find your way to the tournament location first, Mr. Lost!"

"I know my way! ...Hey, stop following me!"

"We're going to the same place, dipwad! Do you think I want to walk with someone as annoying as you?"

And so a beautiful friendship (cough cough hatred cough cough) was born.

"You're a moron!"

"And you're an imbecile!"

A/N: Yep, that's about as romantic as those two are going to get. They're quite amusing to write about, I have to say. Next is Shredshipping (Sugoroku x Kisara).