365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Party Etiquette

5/29/19

His phone ringing brought Yusei back to reality from the little bit of work he'd gotten started on, glancing away from his laptop to see who could possibly be calling him - it wasn't often that he got calls, and when he did they usually tended to be from the twins. Lua liked to ramble and it was easier for him to talk quickly into his ear than to try and text it all to him.

On that note, though... why in the world was he getting a call from Manjoume? At nine-thirty in the morning no less? Being dragged away from his work when he was only about an hour in made him slightly grumpy, and he was half-tempted to hang up on the spot so he could get back to work. He knew better than to do that, though.

Might as well just pick up and see, Yusei thought to himself with a sigh, taking a quick look around the room and noting that Judai still hadn't come down from their room yet.

"Hello," Yusei greeted simply, accepting the call and spinning around idly in his chair.

"Mornin'," Manjoume responded, immediately moving onto the reason for the call without any prompting on Yusei's part, "Can you tell Judai to stop being a scaredy-cat and just accept the fact that he needs to learn etiquette for the parties? Phoenix and I need him up to snuff for the future 'cause we're sponsoring him, and we need to make sure he doesn't fuck up, so we need him to come over and take a day to learn it. We're even the ones who'd be teaching him."

"...I mean, it's pretty basic stuff isn't it? You just get on people's good sides and Judai excels at that, I kinda get why he doesn't want to be forced into etiquette lessons if he already knows it," Yusei replied, frowning to himself in confusion. The following silence afterwards was slightly ominous, if only because he didn't know Manjoume very well (other than that he had a temper to rival Jack's) so he couldn't tell what would happen next.

"Are you serious?" Manjoume practically hissed through the line, seeming to take a deep breath before asking, "Okay mister Savior, here's a pop quiz just for you - how do you properly exchange business cards with someone?"

"...I don't have business cards, I've never had to do that before?" Yusei slowly said, his confusion leaking heavily into his voice this time. What... why was he being asked that of all things? Did it matter that much anyway? Wouldn't you just give the person your card and thank them when they gave you theirs?

"Oh my god," Manjoume breathed into the phone, "How the fuck have you survived this long? Haven't you been forced into fancy parties and exhibitions and stuff by the government?"

"Yeah, but no one ever complained about me or anything-"

"Because you're the goddamn freaking Savior of the city," Manjoume hissed once again, cutting him off; Yusei heard furious typing in the background, and he pulled his phone away from his ear to stare at it with bewilderment.

Judai luckily showed up at that moment, the door to their room creaking open as he walked out and paused at the sight of Yusei not working and instead staring at his phone like it was something he'd never seen before in his life - at least, that's how Yusei felt at the moment, especially considering it'd been a solid two minutes since Manjoume had last said anything. Right as Judai went to say something whilst walking down the stairs, they both startled at the sound of Manjoume's voice.

"Okay, this is just... I have no words, you need to come in and learn the proper etiquette too. At least you have a legitimate reason for not knowing it though, unlike Judai," Manjoume stated.

"Hey! What the hell, man?!" Judai exclaimed, quickly coming over and gesturing for Yusei to pass him the phone, which he did so gladly, "Jun, I refused so you call Yusei? And now you wanna make him go through that hell, too? You two can be merciless if you put your mind to it!"

Yusei watched and listened as they continued to argue back and forth over the phone, mulling over what Manjoume had told him. He had a good point in that Yusei had just assumed he was doing fine because no one had told him otherwise, but... he had a feeling Manjoume had somehow managed to pull up videos of him at the exhibitions he'd gone to before and found a lot wrong with what he'd done. He was right in that he wouldn't know the proper etiquette, which Yusei appreciated him recognizing the reason for, and that it was probably a good idea for him to learn it.

Besides, if anyone could convince Judai to sit and endure lessons, it's him; plus he'd be getting them as well, so they could share the pain of stifling formalities together.

"Let them teach us," Yusei stated loudly, immediately causing Judai to whip around and face him from where he'd been pacing in the middle of the room.

"What?! You want to go through hell? Because it sounded to me like you just said you wanted to go through hell," Judai faltered, gaping at him in shock.

Yusei rolled his eyes at him, gesturing for him to come closer and pulling him into his lap once he did, "Yeah, well, we do need to know this stuff. Apparently I've already messed up a bunch, and I don't know about you but I don't want to deal with the knowledge that I'm that bad at it and didn't do anything to try and remedy that. We can just do it together, it won't be so bad if we do."

"Listen to your boyfriend, Judai," Manjoume said, a slightly teasing tone lacing his words and causing Judai to huff in defeat.

"Fine," Judai groaned, glaring down at the phone in his hand before saying, "Text the day you want us over to me, bye." With that he hung up, his glare melting into a pout as he looked behind himself at Yusei.

"You know it's for the best, dear," Yusei said quietly, kissing his cheek with a smile and slowly managing to pull a smile out of Judai as well.

"Yeah, I know, but it still doesn't mean I have to like the fact that it's Thunder and Phoenix teaching us," Judai admitted, snuggling further into him with a happy sigh after turning so his legs hung over one of the chair arms.

Seeing the opportunity, Yusei capitalized on the position and locked Judai in place with one arm, balancing on the other while peppering his face his eskimo kisses. Judai's beautiful laughter soon filled up the room, turning slightly breathless after a minute or so passed and Yusei still hadn't let up; once Yusei realized this, of course, he had to keep going, if only to see how much Judai could actually take.