365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Ice Cream

6/13/19

An hour later, Judai was just about done with the heat. It'd become a little more bearable since he'd started consistently guzzling down ice water to deal with it, but one could only drink so much water at a time before they simply couldn't drink anymore.

"Yusei, please tell me we have ice cream," Judai groaned, setting down the cards in his hand - he'd managed to straighten his mind out after burying his head into the ice pack for a bit, the biting cold knocking him out of whatever heat haze he'd been in. Though, to be fair, that was probably around the same time the water he'd drank started kicking in, so he probably had been going through the beginnings of heat exhaustion and just hadn't realized it.

"We've got cookie dough, I'm pretty sure," Yusei replied, smiling at his antics as Judai nearly jumped off the couch in joy.

"Yes! Come on, ice cream time," Judai cheered, barely managing to wait for Yusei to stand up before grabbing onto one of his arms - which, by the way, were still looking positively divine to him - and dragging him to the kitchen, "You get the bowls, I get the ice cream."

Yusei hummed, and a few minutes later they both had a decently sized bowl of ice cream in their hands and were sitting on the kitchen counter in front of the open window, enjoying the slight breeze that was blowing at the moment. Pharaoh happened to come in from his daily excursion at that point, too, and ended up laying on the window sill while staring at them with a begging look on his face.

"No ice cream for you, mister," Judai stated, staring right back with an exasperated look when the cat turned to look at Yusei instead.

Too bad for Pharaoh, because Yusei wasn't going to budge either, saying, "Ice cream is still a milk product, that's not good for you. Sorry."

Pharaoh meowed for a bit in response before seemingly accepting that he wouldn't be getting anything, jumping off the sill and ultimately onto the floor so that he could go settle down into this corner. For a moment Judai worried about him getting too hot with his coat, but then he realized that this same cat had survived a desert climate for multiple months without issue, so he merely dragged the mini fan that was on the desk over to sit next to the cat's bed with a shadow.

The cat would be fine without it, yeah, but it was only courteous; Judai didn't want to subject anyone else to the ridiculous heat either if he could prevent it, cat or not.

"You think it'll be cooler if we go to our little spot looking out at the bridge?" Judai mused, looking back out the window after shoving another bite of ice cream in his mouth and enjoying the cool creaminess of it.

"Probably, it's right next to water after all," Yusei replied, tilting his head towards him, "Did you want to go? Riding the bike there might be nice too 'cause of all the air rushing by. We can just bring our decks and work on it more there."

"Yeah, but we'll still have to wear our jackets for the ride over there for the extra protection," he muttered, debating on it in his head. Did he really want to have to put on a jacket in this weather? Not really, no, but going to a cooler spot that would also be shady due to all the trees surrounding it sounded wonderful.

"Well, we don't have to."

Judai blinked at him in shock, hardly believing that Yusei was the one who had just said such a thing, "Since when have you not cared about safety?"

Yusei raised an eyebrow at him, a little smirk quirking up on his lips that made Judai's mind go blank for a split second as he replied, "I know I haven't really gotten much of a chance to prove it to you, but I'm far more of a dare-devil than you think. Comes with growing up in a place like Satellite, I've done some crazy stunts in my life - I just happen to be a bit more cautious now that I can be."

Judai found himself unable to answer beyond giving him a wide-eyed stare, his face heating up as he took in this side of Yusei that he'd really only gotten glimpses of before whenever they teased each other.

Yusei chuckled at him, and before Judai knew it he was holding onto Yusei tightly and enjoying the cold air battering at their bare arms as Yusei drove them towards their spot by the bridge.

...On second thought, maybe the heat had gotten to Yusei too, and it was just the catalyst needed to bring out this side of him. And if they happened to be a bit more touchy than they usually were while sitting at their bench and strategizing, Judai blamed it on the weather as well.