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How Anzu had ended up saddled with the once-great thief king was a tale of missed flights and dalliances as much as it was of ancient magic and science fiction. But perhaps it could be best summed up like this:
One day, Ryou Bakura forgot to pick up the Thief King from the airport. He’d forgotten to pick up the Thief King from the airport because he’d forgotten to set an alarm. He’d forgotten to set an alarm because the Thief King had stolen his cell phone and Ryou Bakura hadn’t noticed it was missing.
That had been two days ago.
“So let me get this straight.” Anzu’s voice was tinny through the receiver of Ryou’s new phone. “You forgot to pick him up from the airport in Domino?”
“Yes.”
“And now you need me to pick him up from the airport in New York?”
“Yes.”
“…”
“Anzu?”
“I think I’m missing a lot of information here. Can you tell me how he got from Domino to New York?”
“Oh, he was never in Domino,” said Ryou.
“I’m confused.” Ryou opened his mouth to explain further, but Anzu beat him to it. “Anyway, I guess I can pick him up. I don’t have a car, but I know my way around. Do you know when he arrives?”
“He’s been there for two days.”
“Two… days…?”
“Yes.”
“… and he’s just hanging out at the airport?”
“I think so. All my credit card charges are for the JFK terminal’s food court. The one with the sushi bar.”
At that moment, there was a ding on Ryou’s phone.
POTENTIAL UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITY. At 2:32 p.m. EST, activity from your card was detected at JFK International Airport. Merchant: Sushi on the Tarmac. Charge: $42.50 USD. If this was not you…
Ryou pressed the receiver up to his ear again.
“I think he’s there now.”
Anzu hadn’t really known what to expect when she showed up at JFK’s baggage claim. Okay. She did kind of know what to expect. She had met Bakura, this Bakura, before. In the Memory World. But as far as what he was like now: that was a total mystery.
She’d heard rumors from Ryou and Yuugi. He wasn’t the same person from the Memory World. Zorc’s destruction had released him from whatever it was that had made him cruel and maniacal in the first place. And he’d even adapted to the modern world quite well.
The man she'd been looking for, a shock of white hair and tanned skin, holding his phone up to her face—was this really what she'd been expecting?
“You see this?” Bakura said to her, shoving his phone right into her face instead of saying hello. "What is this?" He’d been playing Duel Links. He was up against a harpie player. It didn’t look like he was going to win.
“Oof, tough luck,” Anzu said like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like she hadn’t just caught two buses and a train to get there. Like she was talking to Honda or Otogi and not the man who had tried to kill her and all her friends and plunge the world into darkness.
“Do you have a Book of Moon or something?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But you built this deck right?”
“It’s Landlord’s.”
There was a long silence. Actually, it wasn’t silent, because it was a major airport in a major city, but Anzu just couldn’t think of what to say next.
“I guess I’ll be hosting you until Bakura, um, the other Bakura can sort out the paperwork and have you fly back to Japan. But I have to ask, just what are you doing in America?”
He gave her a blank stare. At that moment, the loser screen for the duel played with Bakura's character announcing their defeat.
“There’s something I need to do,” he said.
Anzu didn’t think there was any use getting more out of him than that. If he wanted to tell her later, he would. If not, well whatever. She wasn't going to dwell on it.
“It’s going to be a while til we get back to my apartment. Got all your stuff?”
Pocketing the phone, he picked up the duffel bag that had been at his feet. And then they were walking back to the train, and, for Anzu, back home.
Anzu’s apartment was a former warehouse turned studio apartment. She’d taken one look at the big open space and had signed the lease later that day. She was in love with the brick, the wide windows overlooking the rooftops of nearby buildings, and its potential.
Over the months since she’d moved in, she’d converted it into her own personal dance studio, with large mirrors set up against the walls. She’d also had patricians installed, so she could get a good night’s sleep whenever she wasn’t practicing. It was because of the patricians that she’d agreed to take in Bakura. She had a couch, of course, but she really couldn’t imagine living with a man she barely knew without any walls.
"And don’t worry about the stealing thing," Ryou had texted her. "It’s more like borrowing. He usually returns the things he takes."
Reading the text hadn’t made Anzu feel any better, but her gut told her that picking him up was the right thing to do. He was in a foreign country, after all, in a different time than the one he'd been born in. As far as she was concerned, it would only be for a couple of days. She could deal with that.
The thud of the duffel bag hitting the floor jolted her out of her thoughts. Bakura was looking around her apartment, scoping it out with a sort of distant, uninterested gaze. In some ways, he did remind her of the other Bakura. The other other one. The one that had terrorized her friends.
Then, he turned to her, gave her a sort of unassuming look, and pointed to the door.
“Is that your bathroom?”
“Um yeah,” she said. “Help yourself.”
He took out a couple of things from his bag and shut the door behind him. Anzu listened to the squeak of the shower as it went on, and the astounding amount of curse words as the water temperature shot up without warning.
She’d forgotten to warn him about that.
“Yeah, don’t turn it up all the way, maybe try three-quarters,” she shouted throw the wall.
She heard a muffled sound that could have been either thank you or fuck you and decided she should probably get a head start on practicing her new routine.
Although she hadn’t been keeping track of the time, she heard the bathroom door open a little later than she’d been expecting. “Hey,” she said, midway in a stretch, staring at the wood floor she’d been able to install because of her lax landlord. “The couch is yours. It folds out into a futon. I’ve never slept on it but Shizuka said it was comfortable when she... visited.” She had just looked up. The first thing she noticed was Bakura’s chest, marked with scars. He’d put on some jeans, at least, but fresh out of the shower, the imperfections on his skin shined under the recessed lighting in her apartment.
That, and his muscles.
“Are you hungry?” She said, quickly looking away. “There’s some food in the fridge. Somen, kale, things like that.”
“No,” he said, whipping the phone out again, “but what’s your wi-fi password?”
Their relationship for the next few days was more or less like how that conversation had gone.
Anzu commuted to practices and classes as Bakura stayed home and played Duel Links all day. Presumably.
“Hey. How much does a place like this cost?” Bakura threw the question at her casually, like he was tossing a ball on a lazy summer afternoon. Anzu was trying out the special from the new falafel place she’d passed on the way to the station.
In the 36 hours she’d known him, she’d discovered that he was kind of a quiet guy. He didn’t seem to need a lot and seemed content with playing games on his phone. She’d been expecting so much worse than this was a relief. She’d even bought him some falafel, which he'd eagerly accepted.
When she told him the price his eyes widened an almost hilarious degree.
“H-how do you afford that?”
“I have a full-time job as a dance instructor, and get paid for the performances I’m in. I’ve even been in a few big-name live shows. And of course,” she looked at his phone and back to him, “the royalties I make off of Duel Links.”
“Royalties?” He asked, her words finally piquing his interest. “You mean money?”
“Yep! It adds up!”
He looked at the phone, then back to her.
“If… if I were in Duel Links, would I get royalties too?”
“I don’t see why not,” Anzu said, “Kaiba created the game, and he even sends Jounouchi royalties.”
There was a glimmer in Bakura’s eyes like he’d just discovered buried treasure.
He didn’t know what to call her. He’d always referred to people by the jobs they had: Pharaoh, Vessel, Landlord. But it seemed a bit strange to call her Dance Instructor.
When he’d appeared in the modern world, he discovered he’d been able to keep his memories of when he’d lived in Egypt, and the time after, when he’d lived in Landlord’s body. But this time it was different. He didn’t feel Zorc anymore. And he didn’t feel angry anymore.
He tried to figure out exactly why that was, but there didn’t seem to be any particular reason for it. Landlord had offered an explanation: you were freed from the curse of Kul Elna, Zorc, and the Millennium Items. Perhaps Horakhty took pity on you and gave you another chance to live a normal life.
Bakura hadn’t believed Landlord’s explanation, but he’d gone along with it anyway because in truth he didn’t care why it happened. He was here now and it didn’t seem like there was a point in trying to figure out why.
So he’d tried living a normal life with Landlord. Helped him categorize things at the museum, helped him paint his TRPG figures, helped him buy groceries (and only stole when he felt Landlord was being exceptionally ripped off).
Then Landlord had been called away to Egypt and had asked Bakura to join him.
And Bakura hadn’t been sure what he’d been expecting, but the county that was now Egypt was barely recognizable. He’d felt such a sense of wrongness looking at it. Like knowing you’ve left something precious to you behind on a subway seat.
He hadn’t been on many subways before, but right now, Anzu was telling him a story about one, like she was talking to one of her old friends.
“—luckily a nice man told me I’d left it behind, or else, I probably wouldn’t have seen it again.”
She showed it to him. It was an old plastic keychain.
He quirked his eyebrows at her. It didn’t look expensive, or new even. He wasn’t even sure what it was, to be honest. The plastic was old and beat up, as if someone had stepped on it.
“Yeah, I know. It’s really old, and they don’t make keychains for cellphones anymore. But it’s seen me through a lot. I can’t imagine parting with it.”
Bakura put his arms behind his head and leaned back against the brick wall. It was cool, even a bit cold. He could feel it through the shirt he was wearing.
“If you don’t want to lose it, you should keep it somewhere safe.”
“Yeah,” she smiled softly, pausing to look at it. It fit in her palm.
“Hey,” she said, “grab your jacket.”
“Why?”
“We’re going out.”
Anzu’s weekend wasn’t a traditional one. It was on Tuesdays, and usually Wednesdays, but if not on Wednesdays, then sometimes Thursdays, or the following Monday. She preferred it that way. That way she could enjoy herself: the parks wouldn’t be filled up with people, the library or museum would only have the typical bands of tourists and field trippers, and the restaurants and theaters weren’t packed. She’d found plenty of interesting things that way, tried foods she couldn’t pronounce, and met people from all around the world.
Now she walked on the pathways dotted by the newly planted tulips, two drinks in hand nearly freezing her fingers.
“Here,” she said, passing Bakura one.
He took a sip of the drink, and then immediately coughed it up again, sputtering and hacking into the pristine white tulips that had been planted along the walkway.
“Are you trying to kill me?” He threw her a look. What he had spit up was nearly indistinguishable from the dark, loamy soil of mid-March.
“I got you what you asked for.”
Bakura looked at the drink and then back at her. “This isn’t what I asked for. This is death in a cup.”
“You’re supposed to chew the tapioca, not try to swallow it all at once.”
He gave her a look before sipping his drink through his straw, slowly this time, and then made the tiniest chewing motion just to spite her.
Anzu was no stranger to immature behavior. She rolled her eyes and just kept walking.
This park was one of her favorites. There was a little of everything: a lawn and flowers, cute little food and drink stands, and even a carousel. She watched the children’s gleeful eyes as they went around one by one, the horses undulating to the music.
“Were… you…” Anzu struggled for the right words. “Did you have a girlfriend back then? Or a boyfriend? You know, someone special?”
Bakura shot her a wry grin. “No. Not like that. No human was important to me back then. But,” his eyes seemed to glitter, “I had this mare.” He said her name, as fluidly as water, but to Anzu’s ears, it was an incomprehensible sound like the sound a stone makes rolling down a mountain. “I think, in your tongue, it means Crusher of Foreign Countries. But I think Crusher of Worlds has a nicer ring to it.”
He flashed her a smile. His teeth were sharp.
Anzu listened, hypnotized by the carousel horses and the sound of his voice.
“She was the most reliable thing I knew. She was lightening on the sand, could outrun any royal steed. I took care of her well, only the best for her.”
“What happened to her?” Anzu asked. Her voice was hardly a whisper this time. She’d become enraptured by his words, could imagine one of those carousel horses breaking off from the ride and flying across desert sands.
“I… don’t know. Can’t imagine them killing a horse like that, even if they knew who the owner was. They must have taken her for themselves. She probably lived a good life, birthing colts from the palace stallions. Must’ve had a lot of boyfriends.” He chuckled.
Anzu twirled her finger in her hair. She didn’t need to imagine the Ancient Egypt Bakura had lived in; she’d been there, or something close to it. When Bakura had been their enemy, a villain totally irredeemable.
But the person she’d been living with for the past few days could hardly be described as one. A game addict—that was for sure. But a villain? Irredeemable?
No. He was just like all her other friends. Just a guy, hopelessly addicted to games. She knew the type well.
“Hey… girl… err… A-Anzu?”
She blinked, coming out of her daydream.
“Zoned out for a second,” she said and paused. “You… you just called me by my name, didn’t you?”
Bakura blinked. He stuck the straw in his mouth, presumably so he wouldn’t have to explain himself.
Anzu grinned.
They traveled across the city, visited parks, and explored tiny shops. Anzu tried chocolate with hot peppers as Bakura dug into a street taco topped with sea urchin. Anzu missed this: having someone to share the city with. It’d been so long since Shizuka had come. She couldn’t blame any of her friends, though. She’d moved to the opposite side of the world. Travel was bound to be difficult.
The city grew dark too quickly and they took the subway back. American subways were always such a riot of noise and sounds, but she and Bakura stayed silent. Anzu watched the different stops fade in and out and she didn’t miss the way Bakura’s head turned when they passed the mosiac for the museum.
Anzu had to admit. It was a very nice email, very to the point.
“Yeah, it looks good. Send it.”
Bakura hit the send button. They were huddled around her laptop, resting their feet after a long day of walking. Anzu would have called it a day, but then Bakura had whipped out his phone, started up Duel Links, and she remembered what he’d wanted to do.
She’d convinced him to write the email and though she honestly wasn’t sure how it would turn out, now she was pleasantly surprised Bakura had nailed the tone. Not too pleading, not too apathetic. Very business casual, whatever that was.
She was just about to hit the hay, for real this time, when a reply came in.
“That was fast,” Anzu said as they both craned their necks to read it.
Thank you for your email, it began cordially enough. Anzu scanned it, trying to derive meaning from the business jargon.
After careful review, another sentence began. Anzu blinked. Careful review? There hadn’t even been a two-minute gap between when Bakura’s email was sent and when the reply had come in. She kept reading.
…. We cannot offer a timeline for Thief King Bakura (DM)'s introduction to the game.
She heard Bakura huff in disappointment.
However, we can offer royalties for Yami Bakura (DM), as we understand both Bakura Ryou and Thief King Bakura are the inspiration for this character.
Sincerely,
Kaiba Corporation
“Well, that’s good news, right?” Anzu said, holding back the urge to slap him on the back. A win was a win, after all.
Suddenly, Bakura slid the chair, so that Anzu had to jump out of the way to avoid it.
“I don’t want it!”
“What?”
Bakura shot up and made his way to the door.
“Wait. I don’t understand,” Anzu called after him.
He turned to look at her.
“That’s not me.”
“Wait. What do you mean? Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer.
Truth be told, the city wasn’t all that different in the nighttime. There was enough light to see the cracks in the sidewalk, and the wail of sirens and chatter of restaurants kept it as far as you could get from a ghost town.
But there was something else about it. Something that Bakura hadn’t anticipated when he’d stormed out of Anzu’s apartment.
And that was the fact that it was fucking cold.
Bakura shivered. He hadn’t yet experienced a proper Domino snowfall, and he’d been in Egypt for all of the winter anyway. Even for mid-March, the temperature at night was only just above freezing and he was sorely not prepared for.
Still, he trudged on.
He swiped a subway pass from a nervous-looking tourist and rode through the night. He got mixed up a few times, caught the wrong train, but eventually, he did find it.
After all, he’d been searching for it all this time.
Anzu heard the door open and shut at about 2:30 in the morning. She heard the sag of the futon and the squeaks of him trying to find a comfortable position. It wasn’t until 2:43 that things got real quiet. Even the city cooperated in the silence, the sirens sounding farther away than usual.
One thing she was thankful for: at least he’d come back at all.
Sometimes he watched her practice when she thought he wasn’t looking. He’d have his phone out, pretend to be really invested in a game, and then just look at her as she spun and stepped and twirled.
That’s when an idea popped into his head. At first, it was a nascent thing, floaty, like those dandelion seeds that grew on the edges of parks and sidewalks. He’d seen some kids pluck them before, saw them carried off on the breeze, like a spirit floating softly, no revenge to hold it down.
Anzu didn’t quit. She kept going, perfecting her form, and when his eyes caught hers, he wasn’t sure who was watching who anymore. He tried to concentrate on his phone, tried to follow the flow of the game he’d been playing, but he’d lost it.
“Hey,” she said, out of breath but still chugging on. “Wanna join me?”
“Wh-what?” He looked around, looking for an escape, a convenient excuse. He couldn’t find one.
“Yeah, come over here.” There was sweat on her forehead. It made her bangs stick to her face. Bakura wasn’t sure how that made him feel. Disgusted? Intrigued?
He came over, left his phone on the couch. The floor felt smooth under his bare feet.
“What do I do?” It came out as one word. WhatdoIdo? He slouched.
“Follow me,” she said. “Do what I do.”
He tried to match her movements, but his body didn’t flow as smoothly as hers. She was a current, flowing fast and bright, and he was a leaking, wooden boat getting caught up in her.
Still, he tried to follow her movements, as awkward and strange as he thought he was. For a moment, he almost felt it in his bones, a kind of calmness overtook his brain. There was only his body and the music, the beat guiding his steps. No thoughts or emotions. Just movement.
Minutes later, he’d collapsed on the couch. There was a thin layer of sweat on his chest and arms and forehead as he tried to catch his breath. Anzu was still standing, but it seemed as if the routine had taken a lot out of her too.
“It’s a workout, isn’t it?”
He wanted to say something to her, something akin to how he’d done far more than that without breaking a sweat. But those times were behind him, and whether he liked it or not, he’d become just about as athletic as Landlord.
Instead, he said, “Hey. I need your help with something.”
“I’m pretty sure that only exists in spy movies,” said Anzu, taking a sip from her water bottle. She was about to say something else, to try to dissuade him from what she thought he was planning to do when her phone started to ring.
“Oh hey, Bakura,” she answered. Bakura turned his head toward her, confused.
“I mean, Bakura Ryou.”
“…”
“I see. That’s great news.”
“…”
“‘Course. I’ll tell him right now.”
“Hey,” she said, turning back towards the Bakura on the couch. “Good news. He was able to get your paperwork all sorted out. You’re clear to fly the day after tomorrow.”
Anzu expected that Bakura might take this news with something other than a frown, but Bakura just frowned at her, and the phone in her hand, and then cleaned out the earwax in his ear using his pinky.
“Do you think he’s happy about this?” Ryou asked over the phone in a hushed whisper.
“He sure feels something about this,” Anzu commented.
She, too, sure felt something about all this.
She just wasn’t sure what it was yet.
Anzu forgot the conversation the next day. She was too busy getting ready for work to notice Bakura’s pensive mood or the way he seemed distracted by something other than his phone.
“Hey,” she said, pulling on his jacket and tucking her purse under her arm. “There’s some leftover curry in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
She barely noticed Bakura open his mouth.
“Gotta run,” she said, flying out the door and hoping she’d memorize the new routine well enough for the show next week.
It was only as she was running down the steps to catch the subway that she realized he’d meant to tell her something and she hadn’t listened at all.
Work was exhilarating and exhausting. Anzu’s feet dragged on the floor as she finally reached her apartment, keys jingling as she turned the nob and let herself in. This was where she found him, wearing not his usual red hoodie, but black sweats. Even his white hair had been tucked away beneath a black beanie. The kind that burglars in movies always wore.
“Um…” she started.
“Later,” he said squeezing past her to get to the door.
“Wait a minute.” Her hand pulled the knob. She hadn’t wanted to slam the door, but it did, an angry loud noise that her neighbors would probably complain about later. She tried to calm herself as she spoke but her heart was beating furiously. “Wait. Where are you going?”
He gave her a frown.
“Museum.” It was a garbled-up mess of a word. Like a confession and omission all at once.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to…” She held the doorknob tight as he went to reach for it.
“What do you care?” he said. A grating edge had come over his voice. It reminded Anzu of when he’d been the other Bakura, the dark one.
“I…” Anzu started but realized she had nothing else to add. For once, there weren’t any words of conviction bubbling at her lips, no pleas to his humanity. She’d thought he’d be something else. But maybe he hasn’t changed at all. A thief in the night comes to take her heart away. And leaving nothing in return.
Anzu let go over the knob. She didn’t turn back not even as the door slammed shut.
Bakura walked down the halls of the museum. After dark, it was still lit, though its emptiness had a certain cold and detached feel to it. It felt like so many places he’d been in his past life, dead places where humans had left their mark.
His footsteps didn’t echo in the hallways. Something about having his own body apart from Landlord’s was that all of his old reflexes were back. He could fight like nobody’s business and sneak around.
Now he sidestepped the security and hovered in the blind spots around the cameras.
Anzu was right. There weren’t any lasers, at least none that he could see up close.
It wasn’t like he was after jewels or precious gemstones anyway. They’d never been anything more than trinkets in his past life, and now was not the time when he would start changing his mind.
He finally arrived at the exhibit he’d been searching for. Quietly, he entered the room.
And there were lasers. Like a lot of lasers.
He took a step forward. And then one back. Of all the things to put lasers around, it had to be this exhibit. He hadn’t thought this one would be that much of a security concern, as say, the priceless art he’d passed in the hallway, but who knew?
Well, there was only one way forward. He took a step…
And then the museum walls faded away. He was back in Egypt on a narrow bridge. The priest was staring him down, and on his chest rested the ring.
Bakura shook his head. Closed his eyes. Opened them again.
He was back in the museum.
That’s not me anymore, he tried to tell himself. I’m not him anymore. I’m not controlled by Zorc or the spirits of the dead. I’m…
Just then, he heard footsteps. Just his luck, a security guard with impeccable timing. He could always deck the guy, but something told him that would only attract more unwanted attention.
He settled for hiding behind the least lasery exhibit. The steps grew closer, but Bakura was sure he was pretty well hidden, all things considered.
And then, just like that, Anzu appeared.
His jaw dropped.
He had to blink, look again.
Anzu was still there, looking at him no less, from his poorly chosen hiding spot.
“Hard to believe,” she said, not even trying to lower her voice, “they really have lasers in here. Just like the movies.”
He stood up, dusting himself off, and gave her a look that he hoped told her he was both relieved and humiliated that she’d found him.
The sound of the lasers tickled his ears.
“How…?” he started.
Anzu shrugged. “I know a guy,” she said like it was nothing. “Although maybe I should have asked him to turn these off first.”
Bakura wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. He stuck them in his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting.
Anzu sighed. “Welp looks like there’s no helping it.”
Then, she took a step forward and moved her body in an elegant arc. No one should have been able to move like that, but she could. An almost impossible slant, a trace of limbs, and then she was over the first array and moving toward the next, her arms in the air like a bird about to take flight.
Bakura could only watch her, his heart beating. The lasers were no match for her. Nothing was.
Then she was on the other side and flipping a switch. The lasers disappeared. Bakura still heard his heart thudding away in his chest as he walked forward, toward her, all barriers removed, but he tried not to let it show.
Anzu hadn’t planned on this. She hadn’t planned on a lot of things: bribing Matthew the security guard with tickets for a show she was in, finding Bakura in the Egypt part of the museum (because where else would he be?), and playing limbo with lasers.
But now she was here, staring at the object that Bakura had come for.
It was a flat piece of stone. A relief had been carved into it. Anzu titled her head. Trees, perhaps, or stalks of wheat.
Bakura was quiet for a time. Just looking at it.
She glanced at the little plaque next to it. An offering table from an unknown village.
“It was an offering table,” Bakura said, touching it with his palm. “My village didn’t have a proper temple, so people used this to make offerings to the gods.”
“Do you…” Anzu paused. “Are you going to take it?”
A thief, Anzu's mind yelled at her. No, no. Just some guy, she yelled back.
Bakura snickered.
He pat the stone’s surface and traced his fingers along the curves of the relief. “No. That’s not why I came.” From his pocket, he took out a sharpie. He crossed out the word unknown and wrote Kul Elna.
She saw him off to the airport the next day, standing at the curb and hailing one of those classic yellow taxis.
They stood there in silence. Or as silent as it could get in New York City.
Just as Bakura threw his duffel bag into the seat, she kissed him. It was quick, a peck on the lips and nothing more. But he stood there, dumbfounded until the driver honked his horn and she pushed him into the back seat, a smile on her face and the memory of a kiss on her lips.
The door slammed shut, the car shot forward, and, for the first time since returning to the modern world, Bakura looked back. It was a view he could get used to.