365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Telling Stories

1/30/19

"We have so many stories about Judai, there's too many to count," Yubel chuckled, floating next to where Haou was happily cleaning off a plate of pizza, "Some of them are from before he had us too, since fusing our souls and awakening Haou meant that we got to see his memories. That child was innocent, even as a teenager!"

"Innocent?" Yusei asked, still feeling quite blindsided even though he'd had about ten minutes now to process what was happening. He'd grabbed a glass of water and sat down so he'd have something to ease the bit of nervousness he had away.

"Oh yes, he was quite innocent until we came around and finally started teaching him things he should've learned about years beforehand. The only things he really knew about were having friends and dueling, mainly because his parents were never around to teach him," she explained, scowling a bit at the thought. "They weren't completely horrible people, I can understand that now, but they certainly didn't care for him much. He was left alone in a huge apartment for most of his childhood, and he lost the ability to see duel monsters at a young age for... reasons. Luckily they came back when he was a teenager, but that's besides the point - the point is that he was naive as hell."

Having finished his food and downed a glass of iced tea, Haou finally joined the conversation, "He didn't know what a fiancee was until we told him. He was eighteen."

Yusei blinked in surprise, "Really?"

"One time in his first year of Duel Academy, this one student got really mad that Judai'd been able to become friends with the girl the student liked - it was some stuck-up rich kid - and challenged him to a duel to decide who'd become her fiancee," Yubel laughed, a wide grin appearing on her face, "Of course, after Judai won, it was pretty clear he had no idea what a fiancee even was. The poor girl didn't even try to explain it to him, saying that it just meant that they were friends!"

"We think she went on to tell all his other eventual friends about this because they never tried to explain anything even remotely close to love or politics or anything along those lines to him," Haou stated.

"Yes, in fact they would actively try to avoid those topics around him! He never noticed it back then, but it was so obvious to us when we got his memories. Whenever he said anything odd, they'd just move on and pretend it never happened!"

"That's... that's actually kind of funny," Yusei said, laughing a bit as he thought about it more; yes, he could easily see Judai being that oblivious to things as a teen. It fit with his personality, at least.

"You're lucky to be meeting him at twenty-two," Haou said, golden eyes closing as he sipped away at the extra mug of warm tea he'd also gotten earlier before continuing, "Judai's now... socially trained. Travelling helped him."

Yubel snorted at that, "Yeah, that and us explaining every little bit of how people interact with each other. Don't get us wrong, Judai's always been exceptional at reading people and getting along with them, but that's all instinctual; it did nothing to help him with actually understanding why different relationships existed, how things differ between different cultures, and all that stuff. Caused a lot of hilarious conversations with people in the beginning, like the time he couldn't figure out why this one girl in... I can't remember where, somewhere in Europe though. Anyway, this one girl clearly was trying to hit on him, but it all completely went over his head."

Haou actually laughed this time, a low chuckle escaping before he added on, "It took us a couple days to get it through his head, because apparently the boy had never had 'the talk' either, let alone learned about attraction to others. This was at nineteen."

Yusei choked, the sip of water he'd been taking backfiring on him.

"...Nineteen?!" He coughed out in shock. Even knowing now that Judai had clearly been uninformed in his academy years, wasn't nineteen a bit late to realize that sexual attraction even existed?! At the orphanage, Martha had taken them all aside individually when they were about nine or so to give them a basic version of sex ed - a bit earlier than she'd like to have to do it, she explained, but considering they lived in the Satellite in rather harsh conditions, it was necessary for them to learn about. But still, nineteen?

"Yup! But that's enough of that for now. Haou, wasn't there something you wanted to ask him?" Yubel stated. Yusei glanced over at the man in question, humming curiously despite getting a vague feeling of whiplash from the sudden topic change.

"Yes," Haou mused, a serious look resettling quickly on his face before he set his now-empty mug down and turned his eyes back to Yusei, "I was wondering if you'd bring me to... what was it called?"

"An arcade."

"Yes, an arcade. Judai used to rant about them sometimes, saying that he wanted me to experience one, but that we didn't have the money to," he explained.

Personally, Yusei found it rather hilarious that he asked to go to an arcade of all places; he had such a serious expression on his face after all, and judging from Yubel's amused smirk he wasn't the only one who found the situation funny.

"Sure, I'll bring you. Judai has more than enough money for an arcade at this point," Yusei responded, smiling a bit before tilting his head and blinking in thought, "To be honest, I've never really gone to an arcade before either. I've only been in one once before, and that was because someone had hidden information we needed in a game there."

"Good, then we can learn about this place together," Haou stated, nodding his head seriously before standing from his chair. Yusei thought the man was just secretly glad he wasn't the only one that was unfamiliar with the place. With that, they both went about gathering their things, casually conversing about how exactly an arcade functions.

Meanwhile Yubel, who'd been staring at Yusei in disbelief, broke down in laughter at the two stoic men conversing so seriously about arcades of all things. Boy, she'd have a hell of a story to tell Judai later.