365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Trade Secret

5/14/19

"...Yusei's sick?" Jack repeated, giving Judai a wary look from the kitchen table next to Crow.

"Yup," Judai answered, happily making himself dinner and sipping at a mug of tea while he did so. Yusei had finally gone back to sleep, which meant he was finally able to relax for a bit without worrying too much.

"You're surprisingly... chipper despite this," Jack stated, looking to Crow afterwards for answers, "Did you tell him about how he gets when he's sick?"

"Yeah, but even I expected him to be a bit tired after taking care of him for the whole day," Crow replied. Both he and Jack turned to Judai afterwards with curious gazes, so he had to answer somehow.

"I can be very persuasive," Judai said, a small smile forming on his face that he barely kept from growing wicked.

"Uh huh... and how's that?"

Judai hummed for a moment, thinking of how to word what he'd done without really letting on to what it was before saying, "All it took was a couple well-placed threats to get him to stop asking about his laptop. Simple, really."

Ah, he couldn't wait to see said well-placed threats once they'd all fully developed later. The great part was that because they were well-placed, Judai could leave as much as he wanted and no one else would ever get to see his dear Yusei like that; he may not enjoy his duel monster instincts sometimes, but things like this were fine in his book.

"Seriously?" Crow frowned, giving him an incredulous look while Jack simply narrowed his eyes, "We've threatened to break the damn thing before and that hadn't deterred him at all. What did you do?"

"Trade secret," Judai replied with a silly grin, shamelessly stealing lines from Yusei at this point because they worked so well for getting out of explanations. Judai may be better at reading emotions and people overall, but Yusei was extremely good at the technical one-liners that either ended conversations or left no room for the other person to control it. Personally, he thought it was mainly a stoic-person trait since Haou was pretty good at the same thing - using less words yet leaving a great impact with them.

Crow rolled his eyes in response, going back to munching on the food in front of him instead of trying to pry information out of Judai any longer; Jack let out a slight sigh into his coffee mug before drinking it, effectively letting the topic go for now.

"Anyway," Jack started after a second, "On a completely different subject, Carly managed to squirm her way into a special reporter character in DDO."

"She did?!" Judai quickly spun around excitedly, somehow managing not to send the food in his hands flying, "Yes! Now we've got someone to keep up with all the stuff circulating in-game!"

"What's this about?" Crow asked confusedly, shoving another bite of beef into his mouth.

"It's a publicity stunt pretty much, but it's smart," Jack admitted, waving haphazardly towards Judai, "He knows more about it than I do - Carly was speaking too fast when she told me about it for me to pick up on much."

"Basically, they're characters that have access to special camera functions and are given the ability to fly," Judai explained, joining them at the table with a content sigh once he sat down, "It'll let them take better pictures for articles and such, especially when the tournaments happen. Apparently when they hold one, they also get the ability to turn invisible so they don't get in the way during duels, but it's only during the tournament period so no one can abuse it."

"Makes sense, but why did you get so excited about it?" Crow asked, looking up in thought, "It's cool yeah, flying is cool, but it doesn't seem like that big a deal."

"'Cause you don't think like a reporter," Judai replied, pointing his fork at him as he continued explaining, "This was a free opportunity for Carly to get more gossip while also getting to have some duels and free article topics handed to her on a silver platter. That, and if Yusei and I ever need something corrected, she can do it on all platforms now - social media, video games, in the newspaper, etc. Most of our bases can be covered while boosting her reputation in the journalism field."

He'd have to text her about it later, he'd barely been looking at his phone all day due to Yusei. Not that he was truly upset about that though, considering how clingy and cute Yusei had been, even once he relented and went to sleep; Judai had to stay with him and let him hug his arm (specifically his arm, for whatever reason Yusei had conjured up with those feverish gears of his) in order to get him to even consider finally going to sleep.

Either way, he had food to eat and tea to drink now, and that's really all that mattered to him at the moment. He could worry about all the other stuff later.