I wanted to explore Yugi and Anzu's childhood friendship from Anzu's perspective. It's based on the manga, and things that were mentioned as happening, but not always detailed, leaving plenty of room for the imagination to run wild and fill in the gaps. I have set this in between the gang graduating and Anzu leaving for New York, and this is what I came up with.

Warnings: mentions of gang violence and bullying.

When We First Met.

It was on her first day at Elementary school that Anzu initially set eyes on the sweet boy with tufty hair and kind eyes.

She could not recall speaking with him on that particular day, but did remember peering out from behind her mother, to see him holding his own mother's hand and peering anxiously up at her with big eyes.

He was gently handed over to the teacher, who offered an understanding smile and a warm welcome to yet another nervous new child.

Watching him let go of his mother's hand and step forward and into the classroom, reminded Anzu that, up until that moment, she had been excited about the prospect of starting school – she was still excited, but now a little unsure.

Beside her, another little boy started howling, making the girl behind him sob.

The pair of them made Anzu falter, and she began crying as well. Why she had cried when she had actually been excited she would never really understand, but supposed that was what being six years old was all about.

The teacher crouched down to Anzu's level. "Would you like to come inside and meet the other boys and girls?"

Anzu shook her head defiantly. No! She did not!

Mrs Mazaki let go of her daughter's hand, and Anzu was mortified when she felt her mother pushing her towards the door. "What's wrong sweetheart? I thought you were looking forward to your new school?!"

Not any more she wasn't.

"Your mother tells me you enjoy dance and gymnastics?" the teacher said kindly, and Anzu managed a smile as she nodded.

"Would you like to do some dancing today?" Anzu's eyes lit up through her tears, making them sparkle. Of course she would! She nodded again, and took the offered hand.

"Bye, Mamma," she said quietly, waving goodbye.

She did not see her mother's eyes well up with proud tears, as Mrs Mazaki watched her daughter walk into the building for her very first day at school. It was several years later that her mother actually admitted to being tearful afterwards.

::::::::::::

That first day was even better than she imagined it would be, and she found herself fitting in just fine.

As promised, they did some dancing in the giant sports hall – well, the hall looked giant to a small child.

The boy with tufty hair and kind eyes, who she now knew was called Yugi, was really bad at dancing, as were most of the other boys (some of the girls were bad, too), and he messed around doing silly stuff that could definitely not be described as dancing. The teachers ignored the children who were jumping around and being silly –at least they were getting their daily exercise.

Of course, Anzu was one of the children who excelled at dance, which got her recognised as being sporty, and potentially talented. She puffed up with pride.

Back in the classroom, Yugi showed that his talent lay in games and puzzles.

There was a giant floor puzzle, and he quickly took charge of its construction, showing the other children who were doing the floor puzzle with him how to work out where each piece went. They seemed impressed with his knowledge and skill and followed his instructions until the puzzle was finished.

Yugi seemed happy and was very pleased with himself. That was, until a mean boy named Hiroto Honda trod on his fingers and messed up the puzzle, upsetting the children who had put so much effort into their work.

Yugi cried, not because his fingers hurt, but because his hard work had been destroyed.

Honda got told off for being mean.

Neither herself or Yugi had much to do with Honda during their elementary schooling, and when they moved up to lower secondary education, Honda went Rintama. That was the last they saw of him until he transferred from Rintama back to Domino High School.

::::::::::::

A few days after starting elementary school, Anzu spotted Yugi during play break, sitting on a bench with some other children. He was showing them how to clear a particularly difficult level on a handheld game that was quite popular around that time.

They all seemed to be watching what he was showing them intently, and as soon as they moved away clutching their own games, all determined to beat that level themselves, Anzu approached him.

Fidgeting on the spot, she asked, "What are you playing?" He looked up at her and she pointed to the game in his hand.

He broke into a wide smile. "Stealth Ninja. Do you want to play?" he asked hopefully.

She hummed thoughtfully. "Is it easy?" She really was terrible at hand held games like these.

He shrugged. "A bit easy."

"Can you teach me?" she asked, plopping down on the bench next to him.

Leaning closer, he started to explain the controls, "This moves you forward. This makes you jump. Press this to dodge attacks. This to attack." She tried to pay attention as he demonstrated, but was more interested in the way his hair reflected the light to appear magenta on the ends, while cute little golden tufts sprouted out at the front. She was so tempted to stick her nose in it to see if it was soft, but was afraid she might scare him off.

She did not hear him when he asked her if she wanted to try playing the game, and asked, "Can I have a go?"

He did not comment on her inability to pay attention and smiled. "Yes. I'll start a new game." He reset the game and handed it to her.

Anzu went at it like a bull in a china shop, all fumbles and fingers. Almost immediately she fell into a pit and died. "Argh! What happened?!" That must have been something she missed when he was explaining.

"Press forward and jump together," he explained. After demonstrating, he let her have another go. It took several more attempts before she finally got over the pit.

The next bit was even harder. Yugi was trying to tell her to collect items along the way, but it was too much all at once and she kept missing them. And then a skeletal like creature appeared from nowhere and killed her. "Eep! What is that thing?!"

"Those are bad monsters," he said, accentuating the word bad, "You have to beat them."

"How?!" she said irritably.

"That's what the items are for," he told her, sounding amused that she did not know that.

Upset at being so hopeless, she pouted at him in annoyance and made him collect the items for her – his fingers moved with a dexterity she could only dream of.

Now armed with a shield and a sword, she felt confident that she could beat the skeletal thing this time. But despite thinking she was ready, it jumped out at her from nowhere and took her by surprise again. Panicking, she stabbed the buttons in the wrong order, throwing her shield away and making her avatar jump forward into the kill zone, where it immediately died.

Knowing she really was not getting any better at it, she let out a frustrated squeal and threw the game on the ground as hard as she could in a temper.

Gasping, her hands flew to her mouth in horror at what she had just done to his game. The battery cover had fallen off. The hinges of the folding casing had popped out and cracked, casing it to break into two halves that were now only held together by the wires, and the casing was scuffed. "I didn't mean to! I'm sorry!" she cried out, certain that he would no longer want to be her friend.

To her surprise, he smiled kindly at her and said, "It doesn't matter." He got off the bench and knelt to gather up the pieces. She could see he was upset that his game was broken, but was pretending not to be. "I can mend it," he said, quickly pocketing the damaged pieces so that she could not see how badly broken they were.

Despite his game being broken, he was being so kind to her that it made her feel even worse. Embarrassed and mortified, she burst into tears and got up and ran back to the classroom, leaving a confused boy alone by the bench.

::::::::::::

That night, she emptied her piggy bank to see if she had enough to compensate him, which might alleviate some of her guilt at breaking his game. All she had was five hundred and fifty Yen, and a button from her coat – so that's where the button went!

What little money she had would not be enough for a new game, but she stuffed it into her purse anyway – perhaps she could buy some sweeties with it instead, and share them with him?

She gave the button to her mother to stitch back onto her coat for her.

The next day, Anzu went to school determined to give him the money.

She spotted him at his desk and sheepishly walked over. He looked up at her with a beaming smile and dug into his backpack. "I brought this for you!" he said, producing another handheld game. She stared at it like he had dog poo in his hand, causing his smile to fade and his posture to sag. "You don't like it," he mumbled, clearly disappointed.

She quickly backtracked. "I do like it! But… I don't want to break it."

He shrugged. "This one's easier. Do you want to try it?"

She was not sure, but tentatively took it from him and looked it over. It was a smaller unit than the previous one, and lighter in weight.

"Bubbles fall and you have to pop them," he told her. It sounded simple enough.

Thanking him, Anzu carefully put it in her bag, vowing to not break it, and then pulled out her purse. "Hold your hand out," she ordered. Intrigued, he did as she said. She opened her purse and tipped the coins into his cupped hand. He quickly brought his other hand up to catch it all. "It's to buy a new game," she said bashfully.

To her surprise, he shoved the money back at her and shook his head. "No!" he said, fighting against his desire to take her pocket money so that he could buy sweets on the way home. "I can't! Mamma says I must not steal money."

"But I broke your game?!" she argued.

He came back with, "I own a game shop! I have tons and tons of games."

Anzu's eyes widened. "You own a shop?!"

He nodded and beamed with pride. "It's my Grandpa's! I help him!"

Anzu was awed. "Will you be my best friend?"

The silly grin on his face, the deep blush and enthusiastic nod told her that he most definitely did.

Later that day, Anzu bought sweeties with the money and shared them with him.

::::::::::::

A few weeks later, Yugi came to school with his tufty hair cut really, really short, like a crew cut.

Anzu was sad. She loved his tufty hair, with the colours it reflected and the way the unique golden fringe stuck out in all directions.

She had not even had chance to pluck up the courage to ask him if she could to touch it, so that she could see if it was soft or prickly!

Now his hair was just plain boring, and the golden strands barely visible against his scalp.

She thought to scold him for letting someone cut it, but her mother had warned her about being bossy so she stayed silent and spent the morning sulking.

Maybe she should stop being friends with him.

He was upset and his eyes welled up with tears when she told him she no longer wanted to be his friend. "Why?" he asked.

When Anzu told him it was because he didn't have hair any more, he was crestfallen.

Her cruel words made him cry. She cried as well.

Needless to say his hair grew back quite quickly, but his mother would always get it cut again, to keep it neat and tidy, so it was several more years before he was able to take control and grow it how he wanted, into his trademark style.

::::::::::::

Back in the present, Anzu felt a blush coming on, and distracted herself by stirring her milkshake with the straw. If she had known then, that one day she would get to run her fingers through those dark, silky strands of gravity defying hair in the midst of a passionate kiss, she would have died of embarrassment.

Smiling at the thought, she looked over at him playing table football with Honda, Jonouchi and Ryou. He and Ryou must have just scored a goal, because they were celebrating with a high-five, and Jonouchi was remonstrating with Honda, both accusing the other of being rubbish.

Rolling her eyes in amusement, Anzu drifted back into her musings about her school years:

Despite her threat, she remained friends with him for a little while longer. But like most friendships at that age, they drifted away and made new friends, leaving previous friends forgotten.

However, Anzu never forgot the boy with tufty hair, and still kept a soft spot in her heart for him.

That soft spot was put to the test when they moved up to secondary school.

From the ages of around thirteen, most of the children started growing. The girls were a bit ahead of most of the boys, and some children were slower in their growth spurts than others. Yugi was one of those left behind.

He also seemed to be much quieter than he used to be, and was still into the same games they had all enjoyed playing as younger children. At fifteen, his peers were no longer interested in playing games like Pop Up Pirate and Bucking Bronco, but Yugi still brought them to school in the hope someone would play with him. Sadly, no one did, and it caused some of the other children to tease him.

The teasing got worse as they started high school. Yugi was still one of the smaller kids, and had become worryingly quiet and shy. At breaktimes he would sit on his own a lot and play games on his own.

There were also a lot of new faces in High School, and Katsuya Jonouchi was one of them. He was bad news. Having originally attended Rintama school, which was in a more deprived area of the city, he had become an active member of Rinatma's notorious gang.

There were rumours that Jonouchi had narrowly avoided going to a juvenile correctional facility after putting a guy in hospital, and that Domino was his last chance to turn things around. Everyone was frightened of this kid with a reputation for being a thug and a bully, and they avoided him.

Having teamed back up with Honda, who had also been to Rintama but had avoided becoming embroiled in the gang culture, Jonouchi took great delight in his reputation and spent most of his time terrorising the weaker kids.

Yugi was one of those weaker kids.

To this day, Anzu still wondered if Jonouchi might not have bothered picking on Yugi, if Yugi had not stupidly spoken to him and asked him if he liked playing games?

"Yeah. I like games; games called fucking pathetic kids like you up!" was the nasty reply. Yugi looked disappointed, but wisely did not respond.

From then on, Anzu found herself keeping an eye on him, just in case he needed protecting. It both frustrated and annoyed her that he would not stick up for himself. She kept trying to tell him to fight back, but he wouldn't. And almost every day Jonouchi would take his bento box off him, leaving him without any lunch.

Anzu took to sharing her own lunch with him, earning ridicule from Jonouchi, who tried to take her lunch as well. Known for being a bit bossy and loud, Anzu fronted up to him. He leered and tried to touch her breasts, so she kicked him in the groin and left him rolling in pain on the floor.

"Don't you dare! Pervert!" she screamed.

"Fuck! Bitch!" growled Jonouchi.

Anzu kicked his backside, hard. "That's for Yugi. Don't take his lunch again." Kids nearby were in awe of her, but did wonder if she had just signed her own death warrant. Much to her surprise, Jonouchi avoided her after that incident, and as long as she was around he didn't take Yugi's lunch.

However, he and Honda still tormented Yugi when she was not guarding him. Behind her back they called her, "That bossy bitch," but she did not care. They were a pair of spineless, cretinous losers who picked on kids who did not fight back.

"You must stand up to them, Yugi," she told him one day as she dabbed at the blood coming from his nose. "I can't be there all the time to help you."

All Yugi did was scowl at her. "I don't need protecting," he growled, clearly embarrassed and emasculated at needing a girl to fight his bullies for him. But what else could she do if he would not fight them himself?

Ironic that he should then go and throw himself at the mercy of the school's most notorious bully, Hall Monitor Ushio (how that thug ever got to be Hall Monitor, she would never know), to protect the two boys who had been his tormentors, even going so far as to call them his 'friends'.

But that was Yugi: kind and generous to a fault, brave and determined.

She might have thought him foolish at the time, especially since the beating he received from Ushio had resulted in a visit to the school nurse, but what could have been extremely misplaced altruism ended up winning him two of the most loyal best friends anyone could ever have.

The day after beating up the three boys, Ushio became a bit of a laughing stock when he started thinking fallen leaves and trash were money. None of them knew at the time that the person responsible for Ushio's 'breakdown' was timid, diminutive Yugi, who was under the control of a mysterious avenger from inside the golden pendant he had suddenly been able to solve. Eight years it had taken him to solve the Millennium Puzzle –but that was another daydream, as was the occupant within.

Smiling fondly, Anzu gazed over to where the four young men were just finishing their game. Looking at them now, freshly graduated and about to embark on the next chapter in their young, adult lives, Anzu could not be more proud of all four of them.

Nothing was mentioned about what sort of handheld game Anzu broke, so I sort of made one up - no idea if there was ever a game called Stealth Ninja, but if there is/was, then hey ho. The game I envisage is a bit like Legend of Zelda on the DS - and, yes, I was as crap at it as Anzu is.

I decided not to get into detail about Anzu's crush on the 'other Yugi' as that would have been a whole chapter in itself.

Please review and let me know what you think, or if there is any other little stories you would like to read about the YGO gang.