365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Fears

6/7/19

Yusei had just sat down at his desk, ready to start finishing up the last of his work - he was on the homestretch at this point and estimated that he'd be done within the next few days, just as he'd predicted earlier. Everyone was still milling about, seeing as it was now the weekend so Jack didn't have work and Crow didn't have his first client until midday; they'd just finished chatting over breakfast and were now figuring out how to spend the rest of their time.

Unfortunately, this meant everyone was still downstairs, and heard very loud squeak he made when he went to move his mouse and found a spider there next to it. Judai happened to be the closest one to him, and Yusei immediately shoved himself away from the desk, keeping an eye on the still bug whilst backing up and hiding behind him.

"Yusei?" Judai asked, looking bewildered by his sudden outburst. Jack and Crow poked their heads out of the kitchen curiously, having heard the noise.

Yusei simply pointed at the desk, not trusting the thing to stay put if he took his eyes off of it because that's just what they did if you didn't, stating, "Spider."

Judai gaped at him in disbelief, while Crow and Jack started snickering behind him upon realizing what had happened.

"Yusei, do not tell me you're actually afraid of-"

"Get rid of it," he whined, cutting him off and pushing him towards the desk while backing up further towards the couch - not far enough that he couldn't see it anymore, though. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noted that he wasn't able to back up very far as a result, and that that should be worrying him for some reason, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to care about that at the moment.

He wanted the stupid thing gone, and he wanted it gone yesterday.

Judai continued to look at him in disbelief for a few moments, catching himself from tripping at the slight push that Yusei had given him before finally turning around and moving towards the desk. Then, to Yusei's utter horror, he picked up the spider with his bare hands.

He let out a low, high-pitched whine as his own disbelief filled him, not even able to form any words at the sight. At this point Crow and Jack were full-on laughing at him, leaning against the kitchen entrance for support, and Judai merely opened the door and shooed the menace away onto the ground before closing it again.

"There, it's gone now, see?" Judai said, turning around and pausing at the look of horror Yusei was currently giving him.

"Judai," Yusei said, inexplicably looking between the door, his mouse, Judai's face, and Judai's hands before finally managing to strangle out, "Why, Judai?!"

"Why what? I got rid of-"

"Go wash your hands! Right now!"

"I- yeah, I know I got that, I was going to-"

"You idiot! Who just- who just picks up- why?!"

"I think you actually broke him this time!" Crow cried, laughing uncontrollably at the scene and wiping a tear from his eye. Pharaoh popped up from behind his legs, looking curiously out at the scene before suddenly having to move to avoid getting hit as he dropped to sit on the ground instead of leaning on the wall. Jack was unashamedly filming the entire thing on his phone, his laughter having died down to quiet snickers, but the wicked smile on his face showed just how much of a kick he was getting out of this.

"All I did was get rid of it!" Judai replied as he quickly made his way to the bathroom, Yusei following him closely to make sure he did it well enough.

He had to be sure. It was bad enough he was already needing to disinfect his entire desk at this point.

"Couldn't you have done anything else?" Yusei questioned, still only managing to squeak out high-pitched, strangled words, "What kind of idiot picks up a spider?!"

"It was a daddy long legs, those are harmless!" Judai retorted, to Yusei's relief using a large amount of soap as if he realized he needed to in order to make Yusei happy, "Come on man, how can you survive the Satellite and then be afraid of spiders?"

"He's not afraid of spiders, he's afraid of bugs in general," Jack corrected him, stopping his recording right there and putting his phone away before continuing, "And believe it or not, this guy would completely clean up the places he stayed at when we were growing up and used some sort of half-baked spray he made to keep out bugs."

"It was not 'half-baked', I got it from a book I found in the trash pile one day and it worked very well, thank you," Yusei sniffed, pouting off to the side as everyone stared at him with varying levels of amusement. He busied himself with getting out some disinfectant wipes from the cabinet in the bathroom and going out to wipe down his set-up, everyone else following to watch him.

Judai let out a whistle behind him before saying, "Wow, you would not have liked the Slifer dorms, we had cockroaches everywhere, all the time - could never get rid of them and you just had to get used to finding them around in places you didn't want them to be. Like your clothes, or your bed, and the baths."

Yusei paled at the thought, whipping around to stare at him wide-eyed in sheer horror, "What."

"Yup! Lived there for three years, I don't get bothered by bugs at all," Judai replied, an easy grin falling onto his face as if this wasn't something absolutely terrifying to imagine for Yusei.

"Wait, weren't those school dorms? Why were they so run-down?" Crow wondered. Yusei had to give him credit for being able to think past the issue of cockroaches being everywhere, because he certainly couldn't do that right now.

He was getting chills down his back just thinking about it, and he turned back to his cleaning with a cringe to try and take his mind off it.

"Eh, us Reds were the lowest ranks there, so the logic was that our accommodations sucked to go along with that. They even tried to tear it down at one point, which would've put everyone living there without a room, but luckily that ended up not getting followed through with."

"Still doesn't sound right..."

"It wasn't. I don't think it was supposed to get that bad, but with everything that ended up happening while I was there I think fixing it was something that just got pushed off for more important things," Judai admitted, "Pretty sure they did end up tearing it down in the end though. I was the only one living in it still by the end of the third year, after all, so when I left there was probably no more incentive to keep it around."

Yusei so badly wanted to comment something snarky about the bugs, but Judai sounded rather... wistful and sad about it, so he refrained from doing so and just finished up with his cleaning, tossing out the wipes with a relieved sigh.

And then out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Pharaoh laying in his special corner and was hit with a sudden realization.

"Judai, did you ever give Pharaoh anything for fleas or ticks?" Yusei asked, moving next to him so he could tug on his sleeve lightly for emphasis.

The silence in the room told him everything he needed to know, and within the next five minutes Judai had willingly let him drag him to the computer so he could help him set up a vet appointment. He was not going to let this cat, who consistently wandered around outside on his own doing who knows what, go without protection from fleas and ticks, let alone all the other shots he probably didn't have.

He didn't care if the cat was magical and had been fine thus far after so many years, he was getting those damn shots and meds. At least Judai didn't even try to fight him on the topic, instead choosing to lightly scratch at his hair to get him to calm down; Yusei un-tensed thanks to that, something he hadn't even realized he'd been doing at the time, which earned Judai a peck on the cheek.

Stars knew Yusei wasn't going to thank him any time soon for getting rid of the spider because honestly, Judai getting rid of it was more traumatizing of an event than finding the spider right next to his hand.