365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Materializing

3/30/19

Judai hummed halfway through the afternoon, catching Yusei's attention and earning him questioning look as he studied him. They were all still camped out in the living room, though at this point a couple more of everyone's duel spirits had come out to play, so it was more chaotic than before.

"Y'know, I should probably teach you how to materialize duel monsters," Judai said, "It's not like you can't now, after all, and if you practice you'll be able to do it without draining yourself so much."

"Yusei can do it, too?" Jack asked, looking over from where he'd been intently listening to his three Resonators as they chattered away. Evidently, whatever they were talking about had piqued his interest enough to not get bored, which was impressive but also made sense considering they were his duel spirits.

"Of course he can," Judai replied, gesturing idly in Yusei's direction, "He just has to learn how to harness his core's duel energy and then he'll be good to go."

"You make it sound so simple," Yusei muttered, sending him a disbelieving look, "but I get the feeling it's really not."

"Regardless of whether it's simple or not, you'll probably do just fine at it," Crow said, half-buried in feathery duel monsters, "Besides, it's a good skill to have so it's not like you can just not learn it."

"See, Crow gets it," Judai grinned, sending the other a thumbs up that struggled to be returned due to Crow's arms being trapped. He turned back to Yusei, continuing, "Come on, we'll start easy. I know you have some level one monsters, so just pull out one of them and a duel disk and I'll walk you through it."

Yusei sighed but smiled and got up anyway, saying, "I'm assuming level ones are easier to summon energy-wise?"

"Yep! The cost goes up as the level does," Judai replied, scooting over on the couch so that Yusei had more room for his arm with the duel disk on it when he sat back down. Yusei pressed a button, and with a whir the duel disk started up and went into standby mode; Judai sneaked a peek at the card he'd grabbed and noted that it was Unknown Synchron.

"Alright, so here's how it works! It's all about intent," Judai explained, tapping the monster zones on the disk with a finger, "When you put your monster card down, you gotta do it with the intent to materialize them. Honestly, that does most of the work since you'll subconsciously channel duel energy into it when your intent to summon is there, but since we want you to eventually be able to materialize spirits without a duel disk you need to focus on being able to sense the duel energy as you pull it from your core."

"That... does sound pretty simple," Yusei admitted, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Well, it's simple for us at least," Judai replied, giving Yusei a meaningful look that the other was quick to catch onto judging from the understanding that lit up his eyes. Being a King of Games was pretty much cheating in this regard, since it made it extremely easy to summon - for other psychics, like Akiza, they would have to focus a lot more on pulling the energy out (unless, of course, their cores held too much energy or they were going through an extreme emotional reaction - those types were never fun to deal with and always led to someone getting hurt).

"Well, here goes," Yusei said, pausing for a moment to focus before putting the card on the disk. Judai saw his eyes narrow slightly and flicker downwards towards his stomach, which was a good sign as it meant he could feel the energy moving in his core already.

With a high-pitched hum, Unknown Synchron popped up in front of them, its single eye closing happily as it floated around Yusei.

"See, you did just fine and on the first try, too," Crow said, backed up by a grunt from Jack in agreement.

Yusei smiled slightly in response, reaching up to Unknown who was quick to nuzzle against his hand before darting off to go play with the rest of his duel monsters.

"Now, go get the rest of your level ones and some level twos if you don't have enough and summon them too," Judai grinned, ruffling Yusei's hair slightly and retreating before he could protest, "You'll start to feel your energy reserves more as you use them up, so you get to keep them all here at once."

"...How tired am I going to be from this?" Yusei asked, giving Judai a wary look but going through his deck and pulling out his monsters anyway.

Judai gave him a foxy grin, answering, "You'll finally be able to follow a proper sleep schedule."

They all laughed when Yusei groaned in misery, summoning the rest of his monsters unceremoniously.

"Don't worry," Judai whispered, leaning down next to his boyfriend's ear and grinning at the ever-so-slight shiver he gave in response, "I'll make sure to only keep you up a little bit - you're cute when you're tired, after all."

Ah, how satisfying it was to watch Yusei turn red and try to hide when he teased him like this.