YGO Fanfic Contest, Season 8.5, Tier 1: Peachshipping
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Title: Dancing Through Life
Pairing: Peachshipping (Yuugi x Anzu)
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Word count: 8277
Summary: Anzu always dreamed of finding stardom as a dancer. But sometimes, while pursuing your dreams, you find something else along the way that makes you just as happy.
The reflections from the slowly revolving disco ball trailed across the floor of the darkened gymnasium like stars. A dreamy love-song started to play, and all the couples in the room stood up in almost the same moment, reaching out for each other’s hands as if compelled by the music.
Anzu looked beautiful. Yuugi had blushed and told her so when he and the others had picked her up in the limousine they’d hired for the evening. Her dress was powder-blue and strapless, the top half cinched snugly around her chest and waist and the full skirt flowing smoothly all the way to her feet. She’d put her hair up in a ballerina bun, with a few curled strands left down to frame her face. And she was wearing make-up. Not a lot, but Yuugi could see the silvery shimmer on her eyelids, and the soft pink shine to her lips. Anzu, the almost-tomboy who’d always been ‘one of the guys’ (to Jounouchi and Honda, anyway) and who’d scoffed at the very idea of prom as little as a year ago, looked like a princess.
She looked like a woman. Yuugi felt like a kid wearing his dad’s clothes in his rented tux. He wanted to ask her to dance but he suddenly felt shy around her, in a way he hadn’t in years. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, wishing (as he so often did) that Atem was still here to encourage him and tell him what he should do.
“Yuugi.”
He blinked and looked up, and Princess Anzu was smiling at him.
“It’s the last dance,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to let Jounouchi steal it. If he stands on my toes one more time, I might cry.”
Yuugi blinked a few more times. He should probably have laughed at that remark, but he didn’t. Just held out his hand. And she took it.
Dancing with Anzu was effortless, if you let her take the lead. Her steps were light and sweeping, and every movement just seemed so assured. Yuugi wondered how Jou had even managed to stand on her toes.
She was wearing flat shoes, he noticed. Yuugi was sure that if he asked her why, she’d answer, quite promptly, that they were for the sake of comfort.
The fact that the difference in their heights was less noticeable this way was just a bonus, of course.
“It feels weird to be done with high school, huh?” she said suddenly.
“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Yuugi agreed. He tried to concentrate on giving a half-way intelligent response despite the overwhelmingly distracting feelings of her fingers laced with his and his other hand resting on her waist. “It’s all we’ve ever known, right?”
“Yeah, and now they’re just turning us loose...” Anzu said, glancing around the room for their friends. Jou and Honda were sitting at their group’s table, guffawing at something or other - though Honda could be seen casting occasional longing glances in the direction of Miho Nosaka, who was wearing a very ornate yellow-gold gown and dancing with a boy from another class. Ryou was sitting next to them, but as Anzu and Yuugi watched, a girl approached him and shyly asked if he’d dance with her. He said yes, because Ryou was polite and would never hurt a girl’s feelings, but he looked nervous and embarrassed as he got to his feet, and even more so when Jounouchi wolf-whistled loudly. Meanwhile, Ryuji appeared to be dancing with three girls simultaneously, switching between them every eight beats or so. Anzu shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“I’m glad everyone has something planned, at least,” she said. “No one’s just going to be sitting around their house feeling lost...Jounouchi’s got that job lined up, Honda’s off to learn how to fix cars...” A small smile returned to her face and her blue eyes shone proudly. “And you, Yuugi! You’re going to college! Didn’t I always tell you that you could do it?”
“I just want to learn as much as I can about running a business,” he said with a self-conscious laugh. “It’s not like Ryou going on the premed track. I just want to help grandpa make the game shop even more successful.”
“You say that like it’s such a lowly goal,” Anzu teased. “It’s not. It’s great.”
“...What about you, Anzu?” Yuugi asked curiously.
“Me?”
“Yeah. I thought...y’know, New York.”
“Oh.” She laughed softly. “Well, that dance school isn’t exactly cheap. I was planning on staying here another year to work and save up some more before I apply.”
Yuugi did his very best not to look overly delighted at this news.
“That’s a good idea,” he said brightly.
“...Besides,” Anzu went on quietly, dropping her gaze to the star-dappled floor. “It’s really...far. I’m not sure I’m ready to be all on my own, so far away from everyone.” She laughed again and it sounded a little sad. “I still feel like a high schooler.”
The song ended. They stopped dancing but lingered on the floor, hands clasped, arms around each other.
“Don’t worry,” Yuugi said, smiling widely at her. “No one’s chasing you away.”
-
4 YEARS LATER
-
The early summer air was still and heavy as Anzu fumbled in her bag for the key to her apartment building. She’d been working since eight o’clock that morning and had spent most of her nine hour shift rushing between a sweltering hot kitchen and a not-much-cooler dining hall. So now, as she finally managed to let herself into the building and started to climb the stairs, she was feeling sweaty, harassed and very, very unsexy.
Luckily, it was Yuugi’s turn to cook dinner that evening. She’d been making most of the meals lately, since he’d been so busy studying for finals, but now he’d submitted his last paper and sat his last exam, and he’d promised to do it tonight. And she was so glad. She didn’t want to as much as look at a stove after her long day.
She supposed she should be grateful that she’d at least escaped the greasy clutches of Burger World. But when she’d been up since 5AM to travel way out of town to some obscure and exclusive wedding venue as part of a small-but-mighty catering company, she found it a little difficult to count such blessings.
“I’m home,” she announced when she entered the apartment. Something smelled good, which meant that Yuugi was already in the process of preparing dinner, which meant that he was attempting something...ambitious. The pleasant smell wafting from the kitchen was a sign that things were going well, at least.
As if on cue, Yuugi’s head suddenly popped around the kitchen doorframe to grin at her.
“Welcome home,” he said brightly. “How was your day?”
“Tiring,” Anzu admitted, returning his smile of greeting as she stepped out of her shoes. Yuugi made a sympathetic noise.
“Food’ll be ready in about half an hour,” he told her. “I’m making...uh...” He paused and disappeared for a moment, presumably to check the recipe. “Cannelloni.”
“Cannelloni?” Anzu repeated dubiously. It sounded Italian and vaguely familiar.
“Yeah. You had it at a restaurant once and you liked it,” Yuugi said, looking rather proud of himself. “I remembered and thought I’d give it a try.”
Anzu wanted to impress upon him exactly how sweet that was and explain that she only wasn’t hugging him to death because she was sticky and gross, but just then something in the kitchen started beeping and he dashed off to attend to it. She shook her head, amused, and proceeded to the bedroom, where she dumped her purse on the bed and gladly removed the jacket she should have left at home that morning.
Half an hour gave her enough time for a quick shower before dinner. She got herself clean towels and began to peel her unpleasantly damp clothes from her body, planning to put them in the laundry basket en route to the bathroom. She’d removed her blouse and was half-way out her skirt when the door swung open.
“Anzu, I meant to ask, do you-?”
Yuugi cut himself off abruptly as his brain registered her standing there in her underwear with her skirt at her knees. He stared, frozen in place, for a moment (his eyes lingering on her lace-edged bra seemingly of their own volition) before colour flooded his face and he hastily turned away.
“I’m sorry, I should have knocked,” he squeaked, covering his eyes with one hand.
“Yuugi, you’ve seen me in my underwear before,” Anzu reminded him, picking up a towel and wrapping it around her anyway, more for the sake of his modesty than her own. “Come to that, you’ve seen me without underwear before, too.”
This was their bedroom they were standing in, after all, with the double bed that they shared and oftentimes did more than sleep in.
“Uh. Yes. Right,” he mumbled, warily turning back to face her. His cheeks were still pink.
“What were you going to ask?” Anzu said, fighting down a smile.
“Do you know where that big serving dish went?” Yuugi said meekly.
“Cupboard above the microwave,” she told him. “Right at the back.”
He nodded and scuttled back to the kitchen. Anzu rolled her eyes fondly, wondering just how he’d managed to stay such a gentleman after all these years hanging out with Jounouchi.
She took a change of clothes into the bathroom with her, lest she make her blushing boyfriend’s head explode.
~
Dinner didn’t taste quite as Anzu remembered the restaurant version tasting, and some of the fiddly pasta tubes had gotten a little mangled, but it was good and neither of them cared much for culinary aesthetics in the home.
They lounged lazily on the sofa afterwards, chatting idly. Anzu was feeling about two hundred percent better now that she was clean, fed and had a glass of wine in her hand.
“Did I miss anything exciting today?” she asked, tucking her feet underneath her.
“Not really.” Yuugi shook his head, looking faintly bemused. “Though Ryuji called about twenty times. He wants us all to go out partying with him to celebrate his ‘newfound freedom’.”
“Is that what he’s calling it?” Anzu said dryly. She wasn’t exactly devastated about the recently-finalised divorce between Ryuji and the blonde bombshell he’d married in a painfully lavish ceremony less than a year ago, but she felt that he could really stand to take the whole thing a little more seriously. As it was, this just seemed to be shaping up to be the first of many similar incidences.
“Jou and Honda are game, apparently. But he was complaining that Ryou keeps turning him down, too,” Yuugi went on. “I think he forgot that Ryou’s finals aren’t done yet...”
“Did you remind him?”
“Sure did. Not that it made much difference.” He paused for thought. “You know, I saw Ryou heading for the train station yesterday. He looks like he’s been doing that thing again. Y’know, when he replaces ‘eating’ with ‘studying’.”
“Oh no,” Anzu groaned. “We’re both free tomorrow, right? Let’s ambush him with food.”
“Yeah!” Yuugi agreed with a laugh.
“He better choose a med school close to home,” Anzu muttered. “If he goes somewhere far-flung and has to look after himself for another four years of high-pressure studying, I’ll never stop worrying about him.”
“Ah, but you probably won’t be here, Anzu,” Yuugi said. “It’ll be up to me and the others to make sure Ryou doesn’t study himself into a coma.”
“Hm? Why wouldn’t I be here?” she asked with a puzzled smile.
“Because...New York, right?” he said. A strange, sad look crept into his eyes. “I feel bad that you’re not there yet.”
“Silly, it’s not your fault,” Anzu laughed quietly. “It’s just been one thing after another eating up my savings all this time...” Driving lessons, a car, a new fridge when the old one broke down. Even splitting the cost, those things didn’t come cheap. And life just had a way of throwing things like that at you. She leaned over to give Yuugi’s knee a comforting pat. “Besides, if I’d left you alone, you’d probably have ended up like Jounouchi, living off of bread and instant noodles.”
Since Jou hadn’t gone to college to suffer the impoverished life of a student, Anzu wasn’t sure what his excuse was for his poor diet, but the point still stood. Yuugi had learned to cook from her, and she was proud that she’d taught him to be at least half-way self-sufficient.
Yuugi managed to smile at her at that, but she could tell the matter was still eating at him - because he was Yuugi and he just wasn’t happy unless she was happy.
She was happy, though. She hoped he knew that.
She felt a little bad, sometimes. She knew now (and often wondered how she hadn’t known all along) that Yuugi had had a crush on her practically since the day they met, and had quietly adored her ever since. Whereas she sure had taken her time falling in love with him. For a while she’d even thought that Atem was the one she loved - but no, it was Yuugi. It had always been Yuugi.
“Um. Anzu?” Yuugi said. He suddenly looked nervous, which was odd - especially since they were both fully clothed. “Actually, there’s something I wanted to ask you...”
“What is it?” she asked when he trailed off. She wondered if she should feel worried.
“Uh...it’s going to sound really random and sudden...I-I wanted to bring it up earlier, but...” He fizzled out mid-sentence again and chuckled helplessly. “Damn, I wanted to make a good job of this...”
He got to his feet. Anzu stared up at him dubiously.
“I’ll be right back,” Yuugi told her with a bashful smile. “I just need to go get something.”
He left the room, returning a moment later with one hand hidden rather conspicuously behind his back. Anzu set her glass down on the coffee table, sensing that this required her full and undivided attention.
Yuugi sat down next to her again, his thigh pressing warmly against hers. In his hands he held a small navy-blue box.
“...I know we’re both still really young,” he started, staring at his knees. He turned the box over and over in his hands, fretfully. “But now that I’m done with college...and trust me, even if I fail to graduate, I’m not going back-”
“You will graduate,” Anzu assured him patiently.
“Y-yeah, so now that I’m done with it, it feels like it’s time to...I dunno, start planning an actual life,” Yuugi went on. “And I can work full-time now and...and earn enough to make a life, so...”
He sighed and seemed to give up on words. He turned to her and opened the box, and when her eyes found the ring nestled inside she couldn’t tear them away from it again.
“You know what I’m asking, right?” she heard Yuugi say, and he sounded scared and she wanted to hug him but oh my God is that an engagement ring? “I mean, I’m not asking to get married now or anything, I just...” He paused and in that time Anzu managed to drag her eyes away from the ring and up to meet his desperate gaze. “I just want to think a little about my future, and whether, maybe, you’d want us to be...together for that future...”
Anzu leaned over and kissed him.
“You got me a ring,” she said dazedly.
“I did,” Yuugi confirmed.
“And...” Anzu frowned suddenly and thumped him on the arm. “You idiot, did you actually think I was ever planning any sort of future without you?”
“...Is that a yes?” Yuugi asked warily.
“Of course it’s a yes!” Anzu said. She realised she was laughing and totally unable to stop.
Yuugi literally punched the air in triumph. He looked like he’d just won the toughest game of Duel Monsters he’d ever played in his life. He took the ring out of its box and, while they both grinned like idiots, went to slide it onto her finger, just like in the movies.
Except, in a very un-cinematic turn of events, it didn’t fit. It was at least a size too big.
“...I was afraid of that,” Yuugi mumbled, looking crestfallen. “The woman at the store said it can be resized no problem, but...sorry, Anzu...”
“Give me two seconds,” she said, still giggling softly despite this disappointment. She hurried to the bedroom and came back with a thin gold chain. She looped the ring around it and fastened it round her neck.
“This’ll do fine for now,” she said, examining the ring contentedly. It was a gold band with a deep blue stone (maybe a sapphire, maybe not - it hardly mattered) flanked on either side by a tiny diamond.
“...But we won’t get married until you’re ready, ok?” Yuugi said suddenly. “Not until you’ve been to New York and the dance school and done everything you want to do. I promise.”
Anzu just smiled at him, not wanting to say anything to spoil the mood of their evening.
But hours later, when they were lying in bed and Yuugi had fallen asleep, that promise was still bothering her.
“...I dunno,” she murmured aloud, brushing a stray blond bang out of his sleeping face. “New York’s awfully far away from you.”
~
Less than three months later, Anzu found herself watching Yuugi sleep next to her in much the same way. Except that, apart from the fact that they were lying side by side in bed, nothing at all was the same.
Yuugi had indeed graduated college. Ryou had graduated too - with honours - and had been accepted into the medical school of his choice which, to Anzu’s relief, was indeed nearby. Following these triumphs, Ryuji had finally got that night of riotous celebration he’d wanted so much. None of them remembered much of it but they all looked happy in the photographs they’d found on Yuugi’s camera.
Anzu had been given a promotion at work - she was now in charge of a small group of waiters and waitresses at each event they catered for, and she commanded them like a miniature army. Her boss was always pestering her about doing training courses to allow herself to advance further, but Anzu hadn’t committed herself to anything yet, though - since she’d made an application for that dance school in New York that her teenaged self had fallen in love with.
Shizuka was doing well at high school, despite having fallen a year behind due to those long-running problems with her eyesight. Anzu had expected no less from her, but Jounouchi was continually agonising over her progress, since he seemed to be under the impression that, because his little sister had got herself a social life and a group of friends (not to mention the long list of admirers vying for her attentions), this meant she was going off the rails.
Jounouchi himself had lost his latest job last month when the company he’d been working for as a courier had shut down. But, on the other hand, his on-off relationship with Mai was currently in a blissful ‘on’ phase, and that was nice.
Honda was working happily at a local mechanics garage, fixing up cars and motorcycles to his heart’s content. He was good at what he did, and had become a frequent life-saver when Anzu and Yuugi’s unreliable rust-bucket of a car decided to break down, as it often did.
Anzu now wore her resized engagement ring on her finger. When she and Yuugi had told everyone their news, there had been a moment of stunned silence and then a cacophony of squeals and cheers and hugs and claps on the back. Her mother was already pestering her to set a date for the wedding and to pick a dress and a theme and a venue, and her boss had already offered her discounted catering for the occasion-
Then, last week, Yuugi’s grandpa had passed away.
Anzu had never seen Sugoroku Mutou cry before, but there had been a definite tear in his eye at Yuugi’s graduation ceremony. And when they’d told him about their engagement, he’d had to briefly excuse himself to ‘make some tea’ before returning, slightly red-eyed, to heartily congratulate them both. Anzu had smiled as he’d hugged Yuugi, looking so proud of him that he practically glowed with it.
But he wouldn’t be at their wedding.
Without warning, without any prior symptom or sign that anything was wrong, his ageing heart had simply given out. Stopped dead. He’d collapsed in the middle of his beloved game shop, surrounded by strangers browsing for toys and puzzles.
Anzu sighed softly in the darkness. Yuugi didn’t seem to know how to react to this kind of loss. He hated for other people, even his closest friends, to see him unhappy, because he felt it was such a bother. But in this instance, he couldn’t hide behind a bright smile. He kept retreating into himself, going quiet, looking lost. Anzu just stayed close to him, waiting patiently for him to feel ready to cry.
Even in sleep, his brow was creased, his expression troubled instead of peaceful. Anzu sighed again, brushing her lips against his forehead.
She’d made her choice. She’d tell him and the others tomorrow, after the funeral. They wouldn’t like it. Yuugi wouldn’t like it. But she’d made up her mind.
New York really was very far away, after all.
~
Yuugi had never been to a funeral before. Neither had Anzu. They’d both had to go buy appropriate clothes - a black dress for her, a black suit for him - which had really been the last thing they’d felt like doing this week.
He hadn’t heard a word of the whole church service. He was sure there had been lots of people saying nice things about his grandpa, and that was good of them and he was grateful and...and...
He couldn’t stop staring at the coffin. Trying to wrap his head around the reality - the finality - of this.
Now one of coffin’s handles was digging into his left hand, and he was glad for the slight pain because it was an odd sort of anchor.
He’d asked his friends to be pallbearers with him and they hadn’t let him down. Jounouchi, Honda, Ryou, Ryuji. The last spot had been filled by his father, who had returned to Domino for the first time in Yuugi’s memory after receiving the news. Yuugi hadn’t said a word to him.
“He’s your father,” Anzu had chided him gently.
“He’s a stranger,” he’d replied bleakly.
He could see Anzu now, standing with Shizuka and Mai, all three of them looking red-eyed and tearful. There was Arthur Hawkins, being comforted by a very grown-up-looking Rebecca. Even the Kaiba brothers, who had faded from Yuugi’s life following the departure of Atem, stood sombre and respectful in the crowd. Mokuba was almost as tall as Seto.
(Atem why aren’t you here you called him grandpa too you should be here I need you here I’m so scared so small so, so, so-)
Yuugi was horrified by how quickly the whole thing was over. He’d been told the funeral would help, that it would bring about acceptance, closure, get him ready to grieve properly, but there hadn’t been enough time-
(Come on grandpa you can’t be gone, me and Anzu are gonna get married one day, you need to be there, need to see her in her wedding dress and watch us dance she’s such a beautiful dancer.)
People were shaking his hand and hugging him and talking and he was just nodding at what he hoped were appropriate moments. Finally, Anzu found him and took his hand.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered.
He found himself back at their apartment after a brief taxi ride, sitting on the sofa holding a mug of tea that Anzu had pushed into his hands. She was sitting next to him, one hand on his shoulder. Warm and reassuring. That was Anzu. God, he loved her.
“Yuugi...” she said hesitantly. “Listen. I just want you to know. I cancelled my application. For the dance school, I mean. I’m not even contemplating going anywhere right now. I’m staying right here.”
He turned his head slowly to look at her.
“What?” he said. His voice was a weak croak. “What- no. No, Anzu, you have to go...”
“I don’t want to argue about it,” she said gently but firmly. “Especially not now. I’m not going. I need to be here for you.”
“No,” Yuugi repeated, feeling his eyes sting with hot tears for the first time that day. It was almost a relief. “Not for me, you can’t give that up for me-”
“Listen to me,” Anzu said sternly, holding his gaze with fierce fire in her blue eyes. “This is my choice. I’m not staying because I feel obligated or duty-bound as your future wife or anything stupid like that. It’s because, over and above anything else, you are my best friend, and I will not leave you at a time like this.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Besides, I loved your grandpa too. The game shop is yours now, right? We need to take care of it. Make it even more successful, like you said you would. For his sake.”
Yuugi looked at her helplessly. Of course he wanted her to stay, he was sure he’d fall apart if she left now, but...but...
“Maybe...” he started, ashamed of the way his voice trembled, “maybe you could apply again. Later. When everything is back to normal.”
Anzu smiled, taking his hand and squeezing it reassuringly.
“Sounds like a plan,” she said.
Yuugi suspected she was just humouring him.
And just this once, he let himself be humoured.
-
4 YEARS LATER
-
“There he is!” Jounouchi bellowed when the door opened. “The doctor is in the house!”
Ryou blinked and laughed in embarrassment at this exuberant greeting as Jou grabbed him in a back-thumping man-hug while loudly declaring how proud he was. After this had gone on for a few minutes with no sign of stopping any time soon, Mai rolled her eyes and dragged her excitable boyfriend away while Anzu rescued Ryou.
“You’ll have to forgive him,” Anzu said with wry amusement. “He’s so proud that he’s been repeatedly toasting your success with cans of beer the whole time we’ve been getting the meal ready.”
“Oh,” Ryou chuckled, following her through to the kitchen, where an impressive spread of assorted foods had been laid out on the table. “Ah...you guys really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble...”
“It’s no trouble,” Anzu interjected patiently, having thoroughly prepared herself for his awkward protests.
“But especially you, Anzu - you’ve been like the angel of food the whole time I’ve been studying...”
“Ryou, relax,” she ordered, ruffling his hair affectionately. “You’ve just become a qualified doctor. You deserve a banquet.”
He still looked a little fretful.
“Just...at such short notice...” he mumbled.
“What are you talking about?” Yuugi popped up from behind him, grinning. “We’ve been planning this for weeks. We all knew you’d pass.”
Ryou finally gave in and just laughed and thanked them. Then Honda appeared to offer his congratulations (a little less violently than Jou) before dragging Ryou back to the living room to introduce his new girlfriend - ‘Hey, Ryou, you remember Miho, dontcha?’
Anzu and Yuugi watched with quiet amusement from the kitchen doorway. Honda and Miho Nosaka had met again by chance a little while ago - when the exhaust pipe had fallen off her car. Since there were probably at least a hundred small mechanics garages in Domino alone, Anzu had privately concluded that their meeting had been down to something more impressive than just change. Miho, recently escaped from an unhappy marriage to a rich acquaintance of her family, seemed to agree.
Anzu’s eyes followed Ryou as he smiled at Miho and said hello to Ryuji (who, since his love-life was as flighty and ultimately abysmal as ever, was here alone). She thought of the shy boy who’d transferred to their class at Domino High, and whose mind and heart had suffered untold strain at the hands of the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. He looked happy now - confident and at ease among his friends.
...He’d grown up handsome, too. He’d long since cut his long white hair so that it now fell around his ears and just skimmed his jaw, and she thought it suited him. How he managed to stay single was beyond her.
“Hey, Ryou!” Jou called from the sofa, where he was being restrained by Mai. “Me and Honda were gonna order a stripper for you, but Anzu said no...so...so it’s her fault, ok?”
Ryou’s cheeks flushed pink. He opted just to smile indulgently in Jou’s direction rather than replying.
“We gotta get you a girl, man,” Jou went on, his already beer-addled mind apparently making a logical jump from ‘stripper’ to ‘girlfriend’. “You’ve been cooped up studying way too long. And...and now you’re gonna work in a morgue! You can’t date dead girls, Ryou...”
“Hey everyone, food’s ready, help yourselves!” Anzu called gaily before Jou could say something truly cringe-worthy relating to Ryou’s decision to specialise in pathology. Also, she hadn’t forgotten the day when, during one of her food-delivering mercy missions, a very distressed Ryou had confided in her that he thought he might be gay. She’d assured him that, were that the case, it made no difference to her and he was still her friend just like before, but she knew it was something he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with. And she wasn’t going to let Jounouchi spoil his night by nagging him about dating girls.
However, she wasn’t prepared for the bombshell Ryou decided to drop on them once they’d all loaded their plates with food and sat down to eat.
“Wait, say that again?” Honda said, looking as flabbergasted as everyone else. Ryou shifted awkwardly in his seat.
“I said that all the hospitals I’ve selected as possibilities for my residency are...pretty far from here,” he said, looking down at his plate. “Whichever one I end up going to, I’ll be leaving Domino.”
They all stared at him.
“It’s a fresh start,” he said meekly. “I need to prove to myself that I can do things all on my own, you know? I don’t think I’ll feel like an adult until I...y’know...”
He trailed off.
“...Well, a change of scenery never hurt anyone,” Yuugi piped up brightly after a moment.
“Just make sure you remember to feed yourself,” Anzu said with a smile.
“You got guts, kid,” Mai declared. She’d opened a bottle of wine (or two) and was now in a similar state to her significant other. She raised her glass. “Good for you.”
“You’ll be in our hearts,” Jou informed him sagely.
Ryou laughed.
~
When the meal was over, they all descended upon the nearest nightclub. It wasn’t long before everyone was in (mildly to severely intoxicated) good spirits and making fools of themselves on the dance floor. Anzu stood at the bar, just watching, until Ryou extracted himself from the crowd and came towards her.
“Want a drink?” he asked breathlessly as he dug some money out of his wallet.
“Coke, please,” she replied.
“Coke with what?”
“Just Coke.”
“You’re not drinking?” Ryou asked once he’d got the barman’s attention and made the order.
“Nah,” Anzu said lightly, shooting him a smile. “I’ve sworn off it. Too many hangovers.”
“Good choice.” Ryou nodded, passing her a glass. “Awful for your liver, this stuff.”
He proceeded to down about three quarters of his vodka and Coke in one gulp.
“...So how far along are you?” he asked conversationally after a moment. Anzu choked on her drink and started coughing furiously.
“Sorry,” Ryou said, patting her on the back. She laughed weakly.
“Should’ve known I couldn’t keep it a secret from Doctor Bakura,” she said, trying to hide her sudden strange embarrassment. “Even when he’s bordering on the wrong side of tipsy.”
“It was kind of a stab in the dark, actually,” Ryou admitted. “You just normally take such joy in drinking the men under the table, I figured something must be up.”
“Do you think the others know?” Anzu asked, panic rising in her chest.
“No,” Ryou replied immediately. “They’re too wasted to notice that you’re...not.”
“Do you think Yuugi knows?” Anzu asked anxiously. Ryou peered at her, clearly trying to keep his ‘sober face’ on while they pursued this subject.
“You haven’t told him?” he said, looking puzzled.
“I only took the test today,” Anzu said with a nervous giggle. “Two, actually. To be sure.”
“Wow, you only found out today?” Ryou’s ‘sober face’ promptly collapsed. “And I...wow, I’m such a good doctor.”
“You are,” Anzu said, patting his shoulder and trying not to laugh.
“But!” Ryou went on suddenly. “I think if Yuugi knew, he’d be over here sobbing about it. In a happy way, I mean. You should tell him.”
“Of course I’m going to tell him,” she said hastily. “I just haven’t had a chance yet. I didn’t want to announce it in front of everyone, you know? I’d rather keep it quiet for a while.”
“Yeah, I understand,” Ryou said with a nod and a lazy smile. “Can I be the first one to say congratulations?”
“...Thanks,” Anzu said, smiling back and hugging him. Ryou gave great hugs when he was drunk.
They parted, and a moment later Yuugi was at her side.
“Come dance with me,” he said, laughing, and led her by the hand onto the dance floor.
~
They returned home in the early hours of the morning, with aching feet but still on too much of a high to care.
Home was, of course, the house attached to the Kame Game Shop, and had been for almost four years now.
“...Hey, Yuugi,” Anzu said as they changed for bed. She was glad they could do so in the same room these days without him blushing. “On a scale of one to your graduation celebration, how drunk are you?”
He laughed.
“I’m alright,” he replied. “I thought I should be responsible and make sure Jou didn’t go jump off a roof or something.”
“Good,” Anzu said, already struggling to keep her voice light. “I’ve got something to tell you, then.”
“Yeah?” he said, throwing his clothes into the nearby laundry basket. He’d made the transition from polka-dot pyjamas to plain pyjama pants all by himself a long time ago, for which Anzu was very grateful. “What is it?”
“Um.” Anzu suddenly realised that she didn’t know quite how to approach the topic. “Well. It might come as a bit of a shock, but...”
“...Anzu?” Yuugi said curiously when she trailed off. When she didn’t say anything further for a few moments he started to look concerned. “Are you alright...?”
“Ah, there’s no way for me to say this without sounding like I’ve jumped straight out of a soap opera.” She chuckled dryly, dragging a hand through her hair. “Whatever. I’m pregnant. There, I said it.”
Yuugi’s reaction was...odd. She’d expected him to be shocked, speechless, all of those things. She hadn’t expected the look of horror that flared up in his eyes.
“Oh God,” he managed finally, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“...Are you alright?” Anzu asked apprehensively.
“I...” he started, looking aghast. “I’m sorry, Anzu, this is my fault.”
“What?” she said, perplexed. “Not unless you’ve been deliberately buying faulty condoms. It’s no one’s fault, it just happened...”
“But...it’s like I’ve trapped you here now,” Yuugi said helplessly, wringing his hands. “I mean...New York...”
“Yuugi, why are you even thinking about that?” she cried. “I’m not. I haven’t thought about that in years!”
“It was your dream,” he said almost defensively.
“When I was in high school!” Anzu nearly shouted. “When I thought being glamorous and famous was all I wanted! I outgrew that dream! That’s what happens in life. You pursue one dream and you end up finding another one along the way!”
Yuugi stared up at her wordlessly.
“I have a job I like. I have a nice home. I’m near to all my friends,” she listed off before fixing him with a glare. “And I love you, you moron.”
“...You’re happy?” Yuugi asked softly.
“Did you think I wasn’t?” she said disbelievingly. “I don’t consider my whole life here to be some kind of second-rate substitute for something I was denied. This is what I wanted. This is what I chose!”
Yuugi stared some more. Anzu frowned stubbornly.
“I’m not giving it up,” she said shortly, folding her hands indicatively over her stomach.
“O-of course not!” Yuugi cried, jumping back to his feet. “No, of course...I didn’t mean...”
“I thought you’d be happy,” Anzu blurted out. She could feel herself tearing up and wondered if it was too soon for her to blame pregnancy hormones. “Shocked and scared too, maybe, but at least happy-”
“I am!” he said desperately, putting his arms around her. “I am, I wanted to be, I just thought...Anzu, don’t cry...”
She scrubbed the tears away with the sleeve of the top she’d removed moments ago. Yuugi stood in front of her, his hands resting on her waist. Anzu could see the feelings she’d expected from him finally starting to gleam in his eyes - a giddy combination of sheer terror and high excitement.
“God,” he said, a high-pitched titter of a laugh escaping him. “There’s going to be a baby...?”
“There’s going to be a baby,” Anzu confirmed, still sniffling a little but feeling a smile slowly spreading over her face. “You’re going to be a daddy.”
“Oh God,” Yuugi said again. He looked stunned - as if that particular point hadn’t occurred to him yet. “Is there a crash-course or something I can take for that...?”
Anzu laughed, tugging him towards the bed.
“You’ve got a while to read up on it,” she told him.
-
ABOUT 9 MONTHS LATER
-
Yuugi stood in the kitchen, drying dishes and looking on in amusement as Anzu tried to help Shizuka resolve some boy-related problem over the phone.
“Well, it sounds like he’s pretty serious about you...hm? Oh, I see. Yeah, if you’re not serious about him, it’d be kinder just to break it off now. I know it’s not that easy, but...”
Yuugi chuckled and shook his head, stacking some plates away in the cupboard. Shizuka had previously always gone to Mai (who was her role-model and everything Shizuka aspired to be) with romantic dilemmas, but Jounouchi always ended up getting wind of it that way, and then there would be great uproar from him and great embarrassment from his little sister. Thus, it was now Anzu’s burden to bear. Not that she minded. She seemed to be doing her utmost to help Shizuka grow up, even as Jounouchi did everything in his power to keep her a child.
Anzu had one hand resting absent-mindedly on the sizeable bump of her stomach, as she so often did now. Yuugi grinned to himself, tempted to go over and lay his own hand next to hers, and see if the baby was in a kicking mood today.
The girls didn’t seem to reach any sort of satisfactory conclusion regarding Shizuka’s boy-trouble, but - from what Yuugi could gather from the half of the conversation he was hearing - the guy they were discussing decided to pay Shizuka an impromptu visit and so the conversation was cut short.
“Gosh,” Anzu said with a faint smile. “What a heart-breaker she’s growing into.”
She went to stand up to replace the phone on its hook, but Yuugi plucked it from her hand and did it for her. She looked at him gratefully and opened her mouth to say something further - but no sound came out. The hand splayed on her stomach suddenly tensed.
“...Anzu?” Yuugi said doubtfully. He’d just reached out to grab the last mug on the draining board, and his hand now hovered, frozen, midway there.
She took a deep breath.
“Ok, Yuugi,” she said very slowly and deliberately, looking him dead in the eye. “I don’t want you to panic or anything, but I think it might be time to head to the hospital now.”
“Now?” he repeated stupidly before realisation hit with dizzying force. “Now? It’s coming now?”
“Fairly sure. I just felt a- ah. A contraction,” she finished, gritting her teeth as she apparently felt some more. She got unsteadily to her feet, leaning against the table. “Aah...come on, time to go.”
“Should I call an ambulance?” Yuugi blurted out in alarm, everything they’d learned at those pre-natal classes going completely out of his head.
“No, we’ll be just fine driving there,” Anzu said. Her voice was becoming strained but her tone remained calm and patient - for his sake, undoubtedly. “Be a darling and go get the bag, hm?”
Yuugi snapped out his daze and sprang back to life - knocking that last mug over in his haste and barely noticing when it smashed.
“Yes, the bag,” he yelped, sprinting from the room and up the stairs. They’d been prepared and packed a bag of ‘hospital essentials’ - nightdress, dressing gown, slippers, baby clothes - a few weeks ago.
“And a towel!” Anzu called after him. “I don’t want to get the car seat wet!”
“I don’t care about the car seat!” Yuugi wailed, grabbing a towel from the bathroom anyway.
“Well, I do!”
~
Yuugi was immeasurably grateful that he’d been taught not to expect some kind of instantaneous birth, like you saw in movies and TV shows. If he’d been under the impression that that was an accurate time-scale, he probably would have started going into full-out panic-mode less than an hour into what turned out to be a very lengthy event.
But nine hours later, here they were. Nine hours of Anzu screaming and clutching his hand so tightly that his fingers were now numb, and nine hours of him telling her it was going to be alright and feeling so spectacularly useless while she went through all that pain. They’d made it through. All three of them.
Jounouchi was, impressively, their first visitor, reaching the hospital even before Anzu’s mother. Though that might have had something to do with the fact that, when Yuugi had phoned to tell him the news, he’d hung up and come running before he’d even heard whether the baby was male, female or otherwise.
“What we got?” he demanded as he burst into the ward, earning himself a few frowns from nurses and other new mothers. “I don’t really have a preference, so long as it’s human I’m happy for you-”
“A boy,” Yuugi replied dazedly. He didn’t even look up from the bundle Anzu was cradling in her arms despite her very apparent exhaustion.
Jou promptly fled the room again, returning in record time with a large teddy bear with a blue ribbon around its neck and a price tag from the hospital gift shop still dangling from its ear.
“Aw man, just look at that little guy,” he said, grinning from ear to ear as he set the bear down on the bed and looked at the baby’s sleeping face peeking out from amongst his swaddling of blankets.
“He’s so tiny,” Yuugi said in awe. He reached out with one hand but faltered, seeming unsure of what to do. Anzu smiled tiredly at him and placed their son gently in his arms. Yuugi held him carefully, looking completely lost for words.
“He’s tiny now, but he’ll grow,” Jounouchi declared, still beaming broadly. “You’re looking at the next King of Games right there.”
~
They took their time planning their wedding. Anzu wanted to lose all her pregnancy weight first, because a girl’s wedding was the most important (and most extensively photographed) day of her life and she wanted to look her best. Also, she worked in event management, and she’d seen the consequences of rushing something like this first-hand.
Their friends had teased them (and her mother had despaired) about having possibly the longest engagement in history, but they didn’t care. They’d waited until the time felt right, and it felt right about now.
It was a beautiful day.
Yuugi no longer felt like a kid in men’s clothing as he stood in his slate-grey suit. He felt like he’d earned the right to wear such a thing now, somehow. But he still felt contentedly outshone by Anzu, looking every inch the princess again in her ivory silk dress. Behind her, he could see Shizuka, Mai, Miho and Hana - Anzu’s friend from her catering job - in their matching lilac bridesmaid dresses. Shizuka was holding Shogi, now a year and a half old and wriggling excitedly in her arms. Behind him, he knew that Jounouchi, Honda, Ryuji and Ryou were similarly lined up. (Ryou having had to make quite a journey to get here, since he’d ended up doing his residency in California, of all places.)
And when all was said and done, and he and Anzu were dancing to that same dreamy love song they’d danced to at their high school prom all that time ago, he felt like he had to wrap up this moment and tuck it away at the back of his mind, because it was perfect and when things were tough (which they inevitably would be, sometimes) he might need to remind himself of this kind of happiness.
Later, they sat at their table, watching their friends and relatives mingle and dance. Yuugi had Shogi on his knee, bouncing him up and down playfully.
“...Do you think Jounouchi’s worked out why Ryou’s here with a guy yet?” Anzu asked ponderingly.
“I think so,” Honda said, looking amused. “He marched over to them a few minutes ago. Said something about making sure the guy’s ‘intentions are honourable’.”
“You’re kidding,” Anzu groaned, turning in her seat to see Ryou on the other side of the room, looking thoroughly mortified as Jounouchi not-so-subtly interrogated his boyfriend, whom Anzu had insisted he bring after Ryou had shyly confirmed his existence via email. “Poor guy...”
“Jou’s just acting out of love,” Honda chuckled. “Stupid love, but never mind...”
“Go rescue them?” Anzu pleaded.
“Sure thing,” he agreed, still chortling to himself as he made his way over to defuse the situation - most likely by plying Jou with beer.
There was a brief, comfortable silence. Anzu started slightly when Yuugi laid a hand over hers.
“You happy?” he asked with a small smile.
“I’m happy,” she confirmed.
He leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek. Shogi giggled and gurgled between them.
-
THREE YEARS LATER
-
Anzu found that most of her days off work weren’t really days of leisure anymore. There was always something she felt she had to do before she could just put her feet up and chill. Today it was a big thing. Today she was having a clear-out.
She started in Shogi’s room, since it had been his birthday recently and he now had more clothes and toys than any of them knew what to do with. And he kept growing. She felt like she’d no sooner moved up a size in his clothes and shoes before he outgrew them again.
She filled almost two charity sacks from his room alone, and then moved onto her and Yuugi’s room. Their closet was overflowing with junk, there had to be some stuff that could go-
One of the first things she found was a home-made CD. One she used to use for dance practice.
She stood staring at it, blinking as the hours spent doing stretches and pliés and pirouettes to this very CD came rushing back to her. What a long time ago that had been.
She paused. The afternoon sun was flooding in warmly through the windows, and she was fed up with tidying. She wondered if she could still dance like that now.
Their stereo and CD collection had long since been replaced by a library of MP3 tracks on their computer, so she put the disc into the DVD player, turned it up loud, and danced.
She felt stupid and clumsy and rusty at first, as she might have expected. But it came back to her. She was out of practice and not quite as fit as she used to be, but she could feel her body finding a rhythm, and her movements smoothed out and she felt half-way graceful again.
After some time she heard the front door open, and then Yuugi appeared in the living room doorway with a babbling Shogi at his heels. Anzu felt a little foolish, cavorting around the place like a teenager in her bedroom, but Yuugi smiled and indicated for her to keep going. He always said he loved to watch her dance. So she danced until the song was done.
Shogi squealed in delight and clapped his hands as she caught her breath. Yuugi barely had time to get his shoes and jacket off of him before he was running over to her, grabbing her hands and grinning.
“Teach me!” he pleaded, staring up at her with the kind of devoted admiration that only exists between small children and their mothers.
She laughed out loud and started the music again, and Yuugi stood and watched as she danced around the room with their son standing on her feet.
~