365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Crowded Room

3/18/19

"...Shit, you're all still here," Jack stated, staring deadpan from his position at the door at the scene in the living room.

"No duh we're all still here," Jun retorted shooting him a glare after moving a piece on the game board, "Playing this stupid game and that stupid game and all the stupid games."

"Hey man, it's not our fault you keep losing," Judai said, humming happily as he moved his own piece and took over a solid chunk of Jun's territories with a single, well-placed move.

"You do keep getting baited easily," Asuka added, gesturing to the area that Judai had taken to make her point clear. She gave a satisfied grin at the grumble Jun made in response, though he kept playing at least.

"You keep making it too easy to take resources from you, no matter what game it is," Sho admitted as well, pushing up his glasses a bit as he looked down at his cards, "Even if we can't beat Judai, at least we haven't gotten dead last every single time."

"It's rather impressive, actually," Kenzan chuckled, though he was quick to dodge the hand that came for him afterwards.

Jack and Crow made their way inside while Jun made his irritation clear, dropping their stuff off to the side before making their way to the other group that was gathered around the desk.

"Ah, I told you we'd be meeting again soon, Atlas," Edo said, waving them over with a smile, "Don't mind these two, they're busy talking science and stuff. As for you, I don't believe we've met before? I'm Edo Phoenix."

"Crow Hogan, nice to meet you," Crow replied with a grin, shaking the hand that was offered to him, "I see Yusei found a kindred spirit in someone."

"Yes, well, they both work with duel energy apparently and they've literally been in their own world for hours," Edo explained, gesturing to Yusei and Johan who had two laptops and a couple holo-tablets surrounding them, "Judai was with them for a while there before he got forcibly dragged away to catch up with everyone else." He shrugged before continuing, "I'm here because I find it interesting stuff to learn about, you can never know too much after all."

"Don't let him fool you, he's been giving input about the business side of this stuff the whole time," Johan grinned, turning around suddenly, "The name's Johan Andersen, let's get along, yeah?"

Yusei blinked in confusion before finally noticing that there were two other people there now, "Oh, Jack, Crow - welcome back."

"Now you notice?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow with a teasing grin. After all, it was a very common occurrence to have to call out Yusei's name a couple times to get his attention if he was fully focused on his work - it's like the outside world just stopped existing for him.

Didn't stop them from teasing him about it, though.

"Yusei, how could you?" Crow cried, bring a hand up to his forehead as if he were in pain, "I thought we were brothers, and yet you forgot about us..."

Yusei gave them an exasperated look, shaking his head slightly with a sigh, "Guys..."

"Don't worry, we can continue this later," Johan said, looking back at Yusei after getting out a short laugh from Crow's antics, "The facility won't be going anywhere, after all, and I've been planning to move back to the city for a while now anyways. I should be all settled in in a couple weeks or so, and then I'll actually have the equipment we need to figure out stuff."

"I'll help you guys out with it too, so if you need anything don't be afraid to call," Edo added.

"Alright, thanks you two. I'll tell Judai about it later," Yusei replied, getting to work closing all the programs they'd opened while Johan powered down some of his little devices he'd happened to have on him at the time.

"The reactor facility?" Crow questioned, staring curiously at them, "What's going on there?"

"Didn't you and Judai go there for something before?" Jack frowned, thinking back to the first few weeks that Judai was there - Yusei had vaguely mentioned it, and at the time it had just seemed like he was showing him his project, but were they there for a different reason?

"I'll tell you guys about it later, for now though..." Yusei replied, trailing off as he glanced over at the other group, "for now I think we need to go save those guys from their doom."

And he was very right about that, because Jun looked to be about two seconds away from simply tearing up the cards in his hand. Asuka was looking on in clear amusement as Kenzan and Sho struggled to reign in their laughter so that they didn't die to Jun's wrath, while Judai just kept on playing and seemingly was able to ignore how pissed he was making his rival by constantly winning.

"Yeah, I think it's about time for us to go," Edo said, sighing before turning to Johan, "You take Sho and Kenzan, Asuka and I will handle Jun."

"At least Judai de-materialized the Ojamas soon after we got here," Johan noted, "Or he would've flipped out hours ago."