365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Different Card Games

3/5/19

Yusei glanced at his hand before looking up to see a manic gleam in Jack's eyes and disappointment in Crow's; if there was one thing he could be sure about, it was that they couldn't hold a poker face to save their lives. On the other hand, Haou was extremely good at holding a poker face, which... well, it made winning a hand of high-low split poker much harder. Surprisingly Yubel was doing a pretty damn good job at not laughing whenever Haou got a ridiculously good hand, so Yusei couldn't use her as a judge of how good his hand was for this game.

Needless to say, Haou was destroying them. Yusei himself wasn't actually doing that bad since he was a safe player and wasn't afraid to call out low, which netted him a fair few wins purely because he was the only one to do so some rounds. However, Haou's goal in this was to piss off Jack as much as he could, so he called high every time because Jack would always call high.

"Alright guys, ready? Thumbs up for high, thumbs down for low," Crow said, everyone holding out their fists, "Three, two, one, go!"

He and Crow went low while Jack and Haou obviously went high.

"Seven," Yusei said, placing his hand down on the table.

"Of course you would get that," Crow muttered, revealing his pair of two's. They were quick to move their attention to the other two though, who were about to reveal their hands.

"I've got a straight flush," Jack smirked triumphantly, slamming his cards down on the table for everyone to see. Crow whistled lowly in response, turning wide-eyed to say something before pausing as Haou calmly placed his hand down.

"Royal flush," he said, finally dropping the poker face and allowing the widest smirk Yusei'd seen him make yet to appear on his face. Yubel started laughing wildly behind him, muttering between breaths something about the chances of drawing such a hand.

"Bull-fucking-shit!" Jack yelled, finally losing it, "There's no way! You have to be cheating!"

Meanwhile, Crow was still gaping down at the cards on the table, "Holy shit, it's an actual royal flush."

"It's fucking not!"

"I'm not cheating."

At this point Yusei'd had just about enough of this, so he decided to escape to his and Judai's room after taking a quick detour to the kitchen to get another drink. Should he get coffee? If he did, then he could take the painkillers with it, and the caffeine would make them work faster...

Humming, he decided to make coffee after all, quickly loading the brewer with the required materials almost absentmindedly.

In the background the arguing continued, though Yusei didn't really mind it so much now that he was in a different room. Now that Jack wasn't yelling right next to his ear, he could find the hilarity in the situation.

"Prove it!"

"An actual royal flush..."

"Why would I cheat? Victory would mean nothing if I did."

"You're a pompous, cheating asshole."

"I am none of those things."

"I-I should take a picture of this, this is legendary-"

"I refuse to believe you aren't cheating. God, we've played how many different games in the last five hours? And you haven't lost once!"

"I lost at Go Fish, Yusei won."

"That doesn't fucking count because you still beat me at it!"

Yusei heard Jack let out a yell while he was getting out the bottle of painkillers, his coffee slowly being brewed into his mug; he was sure it would end with a crash, but to his surprise, there was only another choked sound of outrage.

"...It's not very befitting of a 'King', even a false one, to become so enraged as to try and flip a table."

"I've returned with the camera! Thanks for making sure he didn't ruin the table, Haou!"

"Goddammit, let go of me! Don't take a goddamn picture of it Crow, there's no way it's a real royal flush-"

"Those shadows are really versatile, huh? And Jack, stop being a sore loser."

Haou hummed in pride while Jack let out more profanities in response.

Yusei sighed in happiness as he gulped down two pills before slipping past the commotion and upstairs, though he caught Haou's eye before fully exiting to make sure it was okay. He pointed up to the room in question, pointedly ignoring the fuming blond being held in place by shadows near the table, and upon getting a nod in response, made his way up and shut the door behind him.

Back to work he went, then. At least the door shut out most of the noise so he could do so in peace. Thanks the stars he liked his work so much because he could easily get lost in it and ignore everything else, and by the time he tuned back in to the world of the living, a more relaxed Judai would probably be back in control.

Actually, now that he thought about it... Judai had told him the names of his friends, and he could probably figure out where they were in the city. It might help him worry a bit less about it if he knew exactly who was here so he could prepare himself better.

Work could wait, he had more important things to do now.