365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Setting Up A Board Game

2/24/19

"If my grade takes a hit because of this Judai, you're going to have both Professor Tenjoin and me on your tail," Akiza warned, though the glint in her eyes told him that she clearly liked the edits he'd asked her to add in.

"Eh, if that happens I'll talk to her about it, don't worry," Judai replied, a permanent grin stuck on his face as he re-read the lines they'd added in.

The others, who'd been looking over their shoulders to see what they were doing, all let out a slight sigh but were amused anyway.

"Alright, I'm done," Jack announced, stomping down the stairs suddenly, "What've you guys gotten up to down here?"

"Making Akiza's research project much better than before-"

"Judai's attempting to save himself from the wrath of his friends when they inevitably find out he's still alive," Yusei said, cutting off Judai with a mischievous look. Judai pouted, giving him a playful glare that everyone else laughed at.

"If you're not dead on our doorstep when they're done with you, I'll be thoroughly surprised," Jack snorted, "How exactly can you even start to mitigate that with her project?"

"By making fun of my old Duel Academy rival, who happens to be Asuka's husband and the topic of Akiza's project," Judai responded with a happy grin, "Granted, Thunder's the one who proclaimed us to be rivals in the first place, but either way it'll be incredibly obvious that I had some input in the report."

Jack raised an eyebrow at the name, scowling slightly, "You wouldn't happen to be talking about Manjoume Jun, would you? That guy's a goddamn prick-"

"Language, Jack! There's kids around!" Crow piped up with a grin, giving him a playful punch to the arm.

Jack gave him an irritated look before continuing, "-I had to meet him before at a couple tournaments. He was one self-centered bas-man, but a good duelist regardless."

Judai chuckled at his quick corrections, saying, "Sounds like him, alright. Here, wanna read over what we wrote?"

"Hel-Heck yes, let me see this."

Everyone backed up and made room for Jack to read over the report; in the meantime, Judai gathered up all the empty drink cups and put them in the sink to deal with later.

"Well, what are we doing now?" Judai asked, humming slightly as he rejoined the group outside the kitchen.

Lua perked up, asking, "Oh! Can we try the game we brought now? I've been wanting to try it for a while now!" Next to him, Luka nodded in agreement with her brother while looking rather excited as well.

"Sounds fun to me," Akiza said, Crow cheering in agreement as well.

"Why don't you guys go get it while we clear the coffee table and gather up enough chairs?" Yusei suggested, giving the twins an encouraging smile and waving them off. They did so, quickly running back over near the door and starting to rummage through the backpack that Jack had been holding when they first arrived. Meanwhile, the rest of them made quick work of setting up around the couch and the table so that there was enough space for everyone to sit.

Jack joined them a minute later, plopping down in a chair with a slight huff, "If they miss that you're back after reading that, I'll burn my deck. Also, Akiza, I fixed a few grammatical errors you had - I'm great, I know."

Akiza blinked before smiling at him, "Thanks, Jack. I haven't actually proof-read it yet, so..."

"Yeah yeah, whatever."

Judai, Crow, and Yusei all shared a look, grinning at Jack's tsundere tendencies. Crow, never one to pass up an opportunity to tease someone, was quick to drag Jack into a headlock like he'd done to Judai earlier, resulting in another entertaining round of arguments between the two.

Personally, Judai was just glad it wasn't him again.

"Here it is!" Lua shouted, lugging a rather large box over with Luka. How in the world had that fit in that backpack? Eh... maybe it was like his own pack - it looked small, but whenever Judai tried to find anything in it it was liked searching through a void. Gods forbid he ever put anything small in there that wasn't in a bigger case because he'd never find it again, even after dumping the entire thing out onto a table or something.

Rest in peace wherever you ended up, small candies from that one family in... whatever country that was.

Yubel laughed at him in the back of his head at the memory, and he grumbled at her in return. They'd been homemade, dammit, and he'd only gotten to have one before they'd disappeared forever. He was still salty about it to this day.

"Haunted House Mysteries: Duel Monsters Edition, huh? You said it was like Clue?" Yusei asked, opening up the box and grabbing the rule book to read through while everyone else pulled out the game pieces and started unwrapping them.

"Well, that's what the description was at least. It looked cool so we got it," Luka replied, looking down at the piece she'd pulled out, "Aw, there's a Kuriboh player piece - can I be this one?"

"Sure, go ahead - you can be whatever you want to be," Judai grinned, noticing another piece, "Oh sweet, Winged Kuriboh! I can't lose now, I can play as my partner!"

"Huh, they must've just picked a bunch of fan favorites," Crow said, holding up a miniature Mokey Mokey and Marshmallon, "How much did this thing cost? These are really well designed."

Lua just shrugged, causing Crow to give him a deadpan stare, "Seriously?"

"Hey, we're not the ones that bought it! Our parents actually sent it to us, telling us to go have fun with our friends..." Lua responded with a slight pout, though Judai was rather happy to see that both the twins had a small smile on their faces; obviously they were starting to think a bit more seriously about that situation with their parents, and the parents themselves were actually trying to be mindful of them.

"Alright, I think I got the gist of it," Yusei said, keeping the rule book open with his finger, "Here's how we set it up..."

And thus, the game began.