Treatise on Interdisciplinary Collaborations Between Entomological Studies and the Performing Arts
by Cryptographic DeLurk
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AN: I wrote this for my friend's, rainstormcolors's, birthday. Big thanks to VeryBadMau for betaing for me. All typos are on her, and any grammatical errors are me ignoring her sound advice.
Enjoy!
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"Oh, Anzu! Thank god you're here."
Anzu had only just finished changing. Clean tennis shoes and black apron tied at her waist. She pulled a clean orange t-shirt over skin sweaty from the humid spring and dance practice, and tucked it into her shorts. It was less an employee locker room, and more a dingy bathroom-slash-supply-closet. Every square foot of land was worth its weight in gold, here in Manhattan.
"Problems already?" Anzu asked.
"Oh, Anzu," Min-ah gushed. "The customer has been sitting there for hours and only ordered one drink. Anytime I go by to collect on the bill he just cackles at me like a creep and I lose my nerve. It's been like that my whole shift." Min-ah pressed her hands together. "Please, Anzu. You're so good at chasing guys away."
"Gee, thanks," Anzu grumbled, as she tossed her duffel bag on top of the cabinet. "Whatever would you do without me?"
"Die, probably," Min-ah giggled. "Drown in a pile of creepy men who won't leave and only tip one dollar for five hours of service."
Anzu rolled up her sleeves, metaphorically if not physically. She was accustomed to this job, after several years spent earning the trust of the management. It was common for guests to overstay their welcome, for all it was billed as a study café.
"You owe me for always making me do this," Anzu narrowed her eyes at Min-ah, although she didn't mean it.
Min-ah had the sense to play along, and nodded eagerly. "Table 1D."
Anzu tied her hair back and marched out into the dining area to begin her shift. She held the menu in her hand, like a bible to recite scripture from. The customer needed to pay for a new drink and proper meal to extend his stay, or get out to make room for someone properly paying.
The bowl hair cut could have belonged to anyone, and Anzu strode with confidence and determination. "Excuse me," she said curtly, rapping the menu over the customer's textbook. She turned to deliver an unmistakable stink eye –
Those glasses though – gold rimmed, connected by the figure of a beetle.
"Insector Haga?" Anzu asked, confused.
Haga blinked back at her, eyes wide.
Anzu steeled herself. "I hear you've been here for hours. You need to order some food, at least fifteen dollars worth, if you want to stay any longer." Anzu flipped open the menu and held it out for him. "Choose."
Anzu saw Haga reach for a wallet with clumsy hands. It was a duct tape creation – international orange, like her shirt, with sparkly stickers of bugs coating the outside. She felt a little bit like a bully, when Haga ran a finger across the menu and selected curry with pork cutlet.
"Well, he didn't run screaming," Min-ah shrugged, as Anzu relayed the order.
There was already curry in a pot in the kitchen, and rice in the rice cooker. The pork cutlet was frozen and ready to drop in the fryer. Anzu dolled out the curry in an oval bowl, and electing to add a few extra bits of carrot. The cutlet was still crisping, so Anzu went to the drink station and mixed matcha and milk and sugar, poured it over ice.
She set it down across the table from Haga, careful this time to not disrupt his books. "On the house," she tapped the drink.
Anzu took her time circling the café – taking orders from customers and settling bills and refilling drinks. But she left the rest of the food prep to Min-ah.
"You know him?"
"I'll tell you later," Anzu waved off the question.
When she sat down at the table, Haga was halfway through the curry and halfway through the drink. There was the other glass from before, empty with no ice. Anzu had seen on his open tab that it was peach iced tea.
Anzu sat across from him, and watched him squirm under the attention, and lose his place in his reading.
"It's been a few years," Anzu tried valiantly to open the conversation. "Are you still on the duelling circuit? How have you been?"
Haga peeled at a napkin, and then the anxious purse in his lips broke into an unsettling smile.
"I'm happy that such a cute girl remembers me," he said.
Truthfully Anzu had been embarrassed. She'd blurted out his stage name, Insector, like a title. She didn't even know his given name. She imagined walking up to a handsome actor and addressing him 'Prince Charming'.
"And a cute girl serving me at my beck and call too," Haga cackled. He twisted the spoon in his bowl of curry.
Anzu blinked, a little offended. She wondered how the Anzu of a few years ago would have reacted to that. Jounouchi had said stuff like that from time to time, and she had never let him get away with it.
Anzu reached across the table and grabbed the matcha drink. She pressed her lips to the side that had not been facing Haga and tilted it back.
Haga blushed. The creep must have mistaken it for an indirect kiss.
Anzu drained the glass, lapping until the last of the liquid drained through the strata of ice cubes, and then stood.
Haga looked down and away. And Anzu made as if to stride past him, before doubling back. She reached for the nape of his neck, pulled down the collar of his shirt, and dunked the ice cubes down his back.
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Yuugi was something stable – like a rock or the ocean or the sky and Sunday video calls.
Anzu had a picture of the four of them pinned above the wall over her desk and, when Yuugi called from his, she knew he had the same picture on his wall a world away.
The norm was that Yuugi talked about game design, and his rounin years, and his mother's good health. And Anzu talked about working in the service industry and how she wasn't looking forward to the humid New York weather she'd need to endure for Tisch's summer dance residency.
Today Bakura and Otogi were sitting in the floor of Yuugi's room, each punching combinations into the game controllers in their hands. Their eyes were focussed intently on a screen Anzu couldn't see.
"They wanted to meet here to plan the Monster World campaign they're working on together," Yuugi explained.
"It doesn't look like they're getting much planning done," Anzu said.
"I have faith in them," Yuugi professed.
They had apparently reached a pause in their game, because Bakura turned to smile sheepishly at Yuugi's webcam. Otogi followed this up with a wink, and then a startled "Hey!" as Bakura resumed playing the game without him.
"I guess everyone here is how you remember them," Yuugi said. "I saw Jounouchi the other day too. He's always running all over the place with part-time work and trying to get his duelling career off the ground."
So began the tales of Mister Katsuya Jounouchi – Super Freeter.
"Actually I ran into someone the other day too," Anzu admitted. "Remember Insector Haga?"
"Oh! That's a coincidence. How's he doing?" Yuugi smile cracked for a second, and then his brow knitted with concern. "He wasn't mean to you or anything was he?"
Anzu pursed her lips. "Er, no– He's the same little weirdo, but he didn't do anything. Just stopped by the café."
"That's good." Yuugi relaxed. "He stopped duelling professionally a while back, so I wondered what happened to him. What's he been up to?"
"I didn't get the chance to ask him."
"Well, if you see him again…" Yuugi shrugged. And the conversation moved on.
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Anzu assumed she'd chased him off, but Haga was there at the study café a few days later when Anzu came into work. She waited until the end of her shift this time, until she was changed back into her street clothes.
"I didn't think you'd come back," she admitted. It was about as close as she'd probably come to admitting she regretted it.
"The location of this café is convenient," Haga explained. "And the air conditioning's the right temperature. And anywhere I go there might be some similar confrontation. At least with you I know I deserve it."
It was more self awareness than Anzu expected from him, and she regarded him curiously.
"I mean, after all the trouble I put your friends through."
Realistically Anzu shouldn't be sitting here.
Realistically it was really nice to be talking to someone in Japanese again. And someone who she had Duel Monsters in common with. More than the nebulous pot that was 'Asian American'.
"What are you doing in New York?" she asked. She'd been drawn here by Broadway, of which there was only one. But it was harder for her to imagine why someone like Haga needed to move to one of the most expensive and crowded cities in the world.
"I was invited to be a guest speaker at a conference for Columbia's Department for Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. Although I extended my stay. The conference isn't for a few months from now and I'll be here until the end of the semester at least. Before this I did field work in the Amazon. There are so many types of bugs there. I even found a couple new ones. My conference isn't about that though, it's about the distribution of insect populations in metropolitan and rural Japan. Periplaneta japonica is–"
Haga descended into an overly animated speech about his thesis and Anzu watched his expressions rather than overanalyse his words. He wasn't good at being articulate, she noticed. He would start and restart sentences, and get distracted and confused halfway through his own speech. His laugh looked a little like a grimace. But he seemed happy.
It occurred to Anzu that he was a year younger than her, and already being invited to give speeches at foreign universities. Dance had not gone as easily for Anzu as she'd thought it might. She was still scraping her way through part time jobs to pay for school, and in the end it was probably costing her more since she'd had to extend her study past Tisch's three year program.
"You keep saying bugs," Anzu interrupted Haga's speech. "Isn't it insects?"
"Maybe?" Haga scratched the back of his head. "I just say bugs since I like other arthropods. And annelids too."
More technical terms. "I don't know anything about bugs…" Anzu pouted. She felt annoyed, and shown up.
"Well, why are you in New York?" Haga asked.
Anzu told him.
"I don't know anything about dance. So we're even."
Anzu relaxed. It didn't feel it was often people acknowledged that dance wasn't just something you did. That there was something to know about it.
And there were her other classes too. "Do you mind if I study with you?" Anzu asked. Although she wasn't sure why she was volunteering to spend her off hours in the same place she worked.
Haga laughed, obnoxious and snide. Anzu was starting to feel insulted when his face fell into something that looked almost distressed. "I mean– Sure? Please!" he said.
They studied together. And again on Friday. And again the next week.
"Your boyfriend tips terribly," Min-ah said, one day, when Anzu snuck behind the counter to make herself an iced cappuccino.
Anzu knew a searching comment when she heard one. "He's not my boyfriend," she said, as she spooned some tapioca pearls into her drink.
"Good," Min-ah said. "You can do better. He's so short."
Anzu got herself a straw and said nothing. Her eyes slid back over to where Haga was. There were a lot of problems with Haga, but how tall a boy was had never been an issue for her.
When she sat back down, she crossed her legs and leaned forward across the table to catch Haga's attention.
"You know Jounouchi used to do impressions of you?" she asked.
"Huh?" Haga startled out of his reading.
"Yeah, like–" Anzu ripped a blank sheet out of her spiral notebook, and tore it into four rectangles. She scattered them on the floor, and said in a nasally voice. "Say Goodbye to Exodia!"
Haga just stared at this, mouth gaping.
"I'm not cleaning that up for you!" Min-ah shouted from the other side of the dessert display.
Then Haga put a hand over his mouth and snorted a laugh. "I guess I really did used to sound like that." He cackled and pitched his voice into a parody of itself. "Say Goodbye to Exodiaaaa!"
Anzu couldn't help but laugh herself. It was different hearing it from the man himself, rather than Jounouchi's poor impression. Haga seemed a little shame faced though.
"It's fine. We all said some dumb things when we were younger." She thought about some of the things she'd said about Mai (worse, Rebecca) when they'd first met. She'd never apologised for any of that either.
Haga seemed uncomfortable with the heart to heart. He simply ripped his own page from his notebook and followed suit to tear it and dash it to the floor. "Say Goodbye to Exodia!" But when they both laughed that time, it felt more genuine.
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"But do you think it's okay?" Anzu demanded. "To share that joke with him?"
Yuugi looked a little out of his element. "Well, I mean, so long as he's not offended by it?"
"That's not what I meant," Anzu said. "It's not really funny, is it? He threw your cards away."
"I mean, Jounouchi started joking about it because he knew I wasn't so beat up about it I couldn't find it funny."
Anzu bit her lip. She was vaguely aware that this was about more than a bad joke shared a little too far out of their friend circle.
"It was really upsetting at the time," Yuugi admitted. "But I think even then it had more to do with Grandpa being stuck in a camcorder than the actual cards… Anyhow, we forgave Kaiba for what he did to Blue Eyes and, heh, other stuff."
It would have been more accurate to say that Yuugi, specifically, had forgiven Kaiba. Anzu and Honda had just moved on. Jounouchi hadn't even done that.
"I'm glad he's doing well," Yuugi enthused. "He seemed so insecure back then. Who would have guessed he was some hotshot in academia now?"
Anzu thought about the cartouche spun around her neck and curled up in the drawer, and was glad when the call was interrupted by Yuugi's guests slamming down on his desk right in front of the computer screen.
"Hey, Anzu!" Rebecca called.
"Yo!" Honda waved with a two-finger salute.
Mokuba didn't even do that. "Are we going to get going anytime this century, Yuugi?"
"Hey! You guys are the ones that interrupted my appointment with Anzu!"
"I didn't know you were back in Japan, Rebecca," Anzu noted "What are you guys doing?"
"Crimes," Mokuba said.
Yuugi let out a high pitched laugh. "No, what? No. Don't listen to him, Anzu. But I'm sorry I really do need to cut this short. Say 'Hi,' to Haga for me!"
"Of course," Anzu said, though she doubted she would.
Yuugi flashed her a peace sign and signed off.
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"I, uh, borrowed this from the University library," Haga coughed and slid the DVD case across the table. "It's got, uh, bugs. And it's a film. Theatrical. So I thought– Do you want to watch it? With me?"
"Now?"
Haga nodded.
"Sure. Why not?" Anzu shrugged. She got up, and walked around the table to slide into the booth next to Haga, as he got out his laptop and fumbled to get the DVD out of its case and into the disk drive.
Anzu hadn't seen Twilight of the Cockroaches in years but was surprised at how much of it came back to her. She felt bad for Ichirou, who reminded her a little of Yuugi. But she also understood Naomi's attraction to Hans. But mostly–
"This is so weird," Haga said.
"It is. It's weird," Anzu agreed. Watching tales of unhygienic living and insecticide be spun into a wartime epic, complete with morals a generation too old.
"But it's oddly touching," Haga continued to say.
"Yeah," Anzu agreed, leaning a little into his side.
She felt it had been an olive branch, of some kind. Or his attempt at reaching out to her. She left an envelope with two tickets to her department's dance performance on top of his notebook, and didn't offer any explanation.
Really, she just didn't have anyone else to give them to, except maybe Min-ah. Anzu had spent too much of college working and studying and working. The cartouche had laid heavily on her neck, and she declined invitations to parties that would have made her miss video calls with Yuugi. Anzu neglected to make friends outside of the ones she worked with directly in her department. And the only exceptions had been those of her friends who had turned out to be Dave's friends, after the break-up. God, that Spring Break performance they'd been trying to organise had gone wrong on so many levels.
Anzu danced, and didn't realise that Haga had actually come to see her before he waved her over on her way out of the venue after the performance was over. He handed her a pink carnation wrapped in plastic.
"You made it," Anzu flushed, rearranging the duffel bag on her shoulder to free her hand and accept his favour. "What did you think of the show? How'd I do?"
"It was interesting," Haga said. Modern dance was maybe a little too opaque for him. "I mean, I think you'd have a better idea than I would about how you did?"
"Idiot," Anzu said. "You're just supposed to say I did well."
"You did well," Haga parroted awkwardly. "You're very flexible."
Anzu whacked him on the shoulder. "If you're going to be like that, why'd you even come?"
Haga looked genuinely confused. "Because you gave me tickets?!" he wailed. "This is what you're passionate about, isn't it? Why wouldn't I come?"
This was fair. Anzu returned the favour and went to his guest lecture at Columbia. She sat in the middle of the room and watched the way his face lit up when he talked. He really loved bugs. She remembered how Atem's face would light up in the same way whenever he talked about games.
She walked with him afterwards. The Columbia campus was so different from hers at NYU, less scattered between skyscrapers and more in a whole unbroken piece. She forgot sometimes there were these kinds of places in New York, with this much space devoted to uninterrupted lawn and sky.
Haga was still cackling about bugs, and taking potshots at his critics in the field. He still had that bit of a sadistic streak, even though he didn't really seem keen to direct it at her. She surprised herself by finding his laugh not-too-grating and his sense of humour funny.
Someone rushed by and knocked him on the shoulder, and a slew of books and papers flew out of Haga's arms and dashed to the ground.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Anzu called after them. But they were running and gone.
Haga looked down at the mess wearily and pathetically, and then raised his arms and sent the rest of what he was holding down to the grass with it. "Say Goodbye to Exodia!" he shouted.
Anzu snorted a laugh, and then they were both guffawing, and it took them nearly a minute to stop and bend down to pick up all the papers. And, oh god, he was so pathetic. And stupid. And considerate and funny and passionate. And she really liked him.
It broke her heart.
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"What?" Anzu said, for what had to be the fourth time since Yuugi had started telling her about his duel with Jounouchi last week. And three times Yuugi had gone back and reiterated the series of turns that ended a five hour game in a draw. Anzu was retaining none of it.
"Um, you know, Anzu," Yuugi said. "You can just talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" Anzu snapped.
"Whatever's bothering you?"
Yuugi always did this. It made Anzu feel terribly selfish.
She hemmed and hawed. But, well, in the end she was selfish.
"I really like him," she said pitifully. Hanging her head down. This shouldn't have been so difficult.
"Aw, I know that, Anzu," Yuugi soothed.
"How do you know that?!"
"B-Because you talk about him all the time?" Yuugi shrugged apologetically.
"Ugh!" Anzu pulled at her hair. Apparently she was completely transparent. "Sorry, you're right. I shouldn't have snapped at you, Yuugi."
"It's okay." Yuugi forgave so easily. "But what happened? Did he hurt you? Do I need to send Jounouchi over to beat him up?"
"What? No!" Anzu said. "He didn't do anything."
"Oh, then–" Yuugi crossed his arms over his desk and tapped his fingers along the wood. "Uh, can I ask you a question then?"
Anzu nodded.
"You've dated people before," Yuugi said. "And, uh, you've never really had a problem making the first move if you need to. Why is this different?"
Well, the rest of them just hadn't been all that important! None of them had been passionate, really passionate, about anything. Hell, when she broke up with Dave he had threatened to turn her in for working without the proper VISA. They'd been assholes. None of them had ever measured up even a little to– She'd never even expected anyone to measure up to–
"Atem hated him," she said. "Like, really hated him. I don't think he ever even hated Kaiba, or Malik, or the other Bakura. But he really hated Haga for what he did to your Grandfather, and the trick he pulled in America when you–"
"Anzu…" Yuugi tried to interrupt.
"No, you weren't there!" Anzu insisted. "You didn't see how upset and rageful he was. He really hated Haga. And he cared so much about you. And I don't even blame him, I just–" She rubbed at her forehead.
"Anzu, you know it was my grandfather that got kidnapped right?" Yuugi smiled weakly. "And I was the one that got stuck in the Seal of Orichalcos? Not Atem."
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Yuugi," Anzu stammered. She was selfish, and the worst and–
"No, heh, that's not what I meant. I just–" Yuugi shrugged. "He was upset on my behalf, about things that happened to me. Don't I get some say in whether or not it's okay to move on?"
Anzu sniffled.
"It's really okay, Anzu," Yuugi said. "I mean, Atem's not here anymore. And it sucks, but– If he was I think he would have come around on Haga for your sake."
Anzu scoffed. Yuugi forgave so easily. But maybe that was a virtue.
"I mean, from what I heard he at least kept himself from shoving Haga off a moving train for your sake," Yuugi laughed awkwardly. "Anyhow, I think Atem would have wanted you to be happy. Not that you need his or my permission to be happy, Anzu. Just… I think you should give yourself permission to be happy," Yuugi finished lamely. He was clearly running out of things to say that weren't scripted platitudes.
No, but Yuugi was sweet. And maybe he was even right. The least Anzu could do was give it a try.
Anzu looked behind him. "Yuugi… Why are Mai and Bonz and Pegasus in your room?" Anzu asked.
Yuugi glanced back, to where Mai was manicuring nails on his bed. Bonz had a fresh coat of black lacquer on his own nails. And Pegasus was propped up against the headboard, in a full two piece suit, looking vaguely depressed as he flipped through some manga.
"It's a long story," Yuugi said apologetically. "And not very interesting."
"Hi Anzu~" Mai trilled in the background, waving at the camera. "I was wondering when you'd deign to notice me."
Anzu blushed and murmured an apology.
"Aw, hon, it's fine," Mai waved her off. "It sounds like you have a lot going on between school and all your romance troubles." Careful not to disrupt her nails, Mai pressed her lips to her palm and then blew it away, across the Pacific. "A kiss for good luck~"
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"Hey, if you and your girlfriend are just going to spend all your time here, you could at least order something," Min-ah said grumpily. "I'll give you both the employee discount, but the least you could do is leave a tip."
Haga was halfway through a confused set of babbling about why tipping was a thing in America and whether it was a thing in Korea when he caught on. "She's not my–"
"Whatever, just bring us some salad and popcorn chicken," Anzu said. "And some cake."
"One of those little heart shaped cakes for couples?" Min-ah goaded, making a stupid kissy face.
Haga looked like he was about to interrupt, but Anzu cut him off at the pass.
"Yeah, that's fine," she said.
Min-ah grumbled and walked off.
There, Anzu had done it. Anzu had tried, and put it out there in the room. She turned back to Haga to gauge his reaction.
He was staring down at the table, and wouldn't look at her.
"You're making fun of me," he said.
"What? No, I'm not!" Anzu bristled. "I mean, unless you don't want to–" She cut herself off and huffed in frustration. How could she have known he was going to be all sulky like this?
Anzu turned back to her own work, and flipped through her notes just a little too hard.
After a moment, Haga got up from his seat, and slid into the booth next to Anzu.
Anzu scooted over to accommodate him and watched him out of the corner of her eye as he inched closer and closer. He sat there a moment, stewing in his own apparent indecision, before turning up to quickly peck the underside of Anzu's chin.
Anzu broke into a fit of giggles.
Haga slouched a little in his seat. His eyes panned down, and Anzu could see his lip start to tremble. And, oh no. He actually looked hurt there for a moment. Like he thought she was laughing because it was some big joke on him. She had to fix that.
She entangled her arm with his and leaned down to kiss him properly.
..
Fin.