365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Break Before Finals

4/19/19

"And with that, Judai Yuki moves on to the finals! Now, after a ten minute break we'll be seeing who he gets to face - will it be the new-"

Judai sighed in relief, grabbing his cards out of the stand and putting them back in his deck holder before wandering off the stage. That'd been a relatively close match, considering his opponent had just the right monsters with just the right amount of attack points to make it so his monsters couldn't get the Skyscraper buff when they attacked, but he'd managed to pull through with a well-timed Winged Kuriboh LV10 again. It hadn't been nearly as flashy as the last time, but it opened the field and let him finish off his opponent, so that was all that really mattered to him.

"Judai!"

He blinked when he heard his name being called from down the hallway - man, everyone seemed to like meeting up with him right after his matches. Not that he was complaining of course, since it let him pass the time between matches much quicker while not having to just sit around anxiously - for instance, he and Carly had managed to come up with a reasonable explanation for at least Yubel and some of his unique Elemental HERO's, though they were still stumped on how to pass off his Neo-Spacians. Before that, Edo and Jun had joked around with him like old times and told him about the sponsorship stuff and how it worked in the process.

Looking up, he saw that it was Akiza, flanked on both sides by the twins.

"Hey guys, you liking the matches so far?" He greeted, laughing when Lua was quick to run at him and start ranting about the duels.

"You pulled out Winged Kuriboh again, that was so cool! And then you have those super cool heroes, and your Flame Wingman went and destroyed the guy's super strong monster, and-"

"Lua, calm down! He's probably pretty tired from dueling all day, and he's still got another match to go," Luka reprimanded with a frown, pulling her brother back a bit so he wasn't right in Judai's face.

"It's alright, I'm not doin' that bad," Judai said, patting both of them on the head with a smile.

"Here," Akiza said, holding out a can of soda to him, "Figured you might want the caffeine. I was going to get you a coffee but Yusei told me you weren't a fan of it, so I got this instead on the way in - I only just got here right before your duel after all."

"Thank you!~" Judai sang with a grin, taking the drink and cracking it open eagerly, "So, you know how my day's been, how's yours?"

Akiza groaned slightly at the reminder, stating, "Group project, it sucked but today was the only day everyone was available to work on it."

"Well, at least you're here now," Judai replied sympathetically, letting out a content sigh after taking a sip from the nice, cold drink, "And you two? I know Lua's been enjoying the duels, what about you Luka?"

"Oh! I've been enjoying them a lot!" Luka answered, perking up slightly at the attention, "I-It's much nicer being able to watch from the room. Last time we watched a tournament in person, we had to watch from the stands and we got stuck behind some really tall people..."

"I understand that one completely," Judai said, nodding seriously in agreement, "Darn tall people, always blocking our view! And making fun of us!"

Lua and Luka giggled at him while Akiza cracked a smile in amusement at his antics, raising an eyebrow and asking, "Aren't you shorter than everyone you live with?"

"Don't remind me," Judai pouted, holding a hand to his heart dramatically and sniffling, "It's not fair! They can reach the top shelves and I can't, and do you know where they keep the extra supplies in the main storage closet? In another cabinet inside it, on the top shelf! I had to get a new toothbrush once and ended up having to get Yusei to help!"

"M-maybe you should get a footstool?" Luka suggested innocently, tilting her head in question.

"Oh yeah! We have those for the kitchen so we can reach the sink, it's super useful!" Lua exclaimed, grinning at him with an equally innocent face.

Oh, how precious these two twins were. If only they realized that what they were saying only made Judai feel worse, because he didn't want to have to need a footstool to get basic supplies from the closet! Or for anything like that!

...Then again, like he's mentioned before, he actually liked being short because then Yusei was really tall to him and it was a nice feeling to be wrapped up in bear hugs and cuddled at night.

Still, he couldn't help but sulk at the principle of it all, much to the twins' confusion and Akiza's amusement. They pat him on the back and started leading him down the corridor back to the waiting room while he pouted and continued to sip at his soda to make himself feel better.