365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Late Return

7/4/19

Yusei was slightly (read: extremely) irritated with some of his co-workers, considering one of them had fucked up somehow and resulted in a confusing mess and panic that had ultimately amounted to nothing but wasted hours in the dead of the night.

It must have shown on his face because the second he came in the door and set down his keys, Judai was there and gently pulling him upstairs.

"Hey," Yusei greeted quietly, relaxing at the feel of the other's hand fiddling with his hair and pressing a quick kiss to his forehead in thanks.

"Welcome home," Judai smiled tiredly, though it looked just as bright as usual to Yusei despite that, "You look like hell, dear."

"Gee, thanks," Yusei replied, chuckling along with him for a moment before admitting, "I feel like it too."

It was almost one o'clock in the morning, which meant he'd stayed up waiting for him. His chest swelled with affection for the other as he slipped off his jacket and haphazardly tossed it on the chair once they reached their room, catching the pajamas and hoodie thrown at him afterwards and quickly going through the motions so they could get to sleep sooner.

He seriously wanted to forget that the last few hours had even happened in the first place. It was just so ridiculous what'd happened, turning the one-hour meeting into a five-hour one through some ungodly combination of circumstances. It rankled at him just thinking about it, but he couldn't help it.

"You okay?" Judai asked when he came back in and huffed at his line of thought.

Yusei wasted no time in crawling in bed, hugging Judai tightly in his arms and burying his head into the other's neck, "Yeah. People are idiots, though."

"Major idiots," Judai agreed, managing to wrap his arms around him as well and letting out a content sigh that ruffled his hair, "When I got your text saying it'd be a lot longer for you to get back than you originally thought, I knew something had to have happened."

"I don't even know why I had to get involved with it," Yusei complained, "It had barely had anything to do with me, the only part I had was that one of my research reports happened to be in the messed-up paper trail."

He felt odd complaining out loud like this since it was something he rarely, if ever, did - however, with Judai, it was something he felt comfortable doing, and he felt a lot better after mumbling out a rant into the other's neck for a few minutes. He wasn't sure it was even understandable at times, but Judai kept making little comments and hums to show he was paying attention, so he kept going until he finally ran out of things to say about it.

"Your co-workers seriously suck," Judai stated, silence falling for a moment before they both started laughing quietly.

"They're usually not that bad, but everything just seemed to go wrong at once," Yusei chuckled, chest feeling lighter and a relaxed smile falling easily into place, "Ah... sorry for dumping that all on you, by the way."

"Don't be - in fact, do it more," Judai encouraged, nudging his head with his cheek and placing a kiss on his temple, "I like listening to you complain like that, it means you're not just passively taking people's shit like you always seem to do."

"I'm too tired for you to suddenly decide to psychoanalyze me," Yusei snorted, lightly hitting his back with one hand, "You're too good at it, damn it."

Judai seemed to choke back a loud laugh at that, relenting, "Alright alright, but just to double-check - we're good to sleep in, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Good. Love you, Yus."

Oh, that's a new one, Yusei thought to himself, smiling fondly upon hearing the words and curling further into Judai's warmth. One day he'd be able to think up something for Judai's name, but it was a little more difficult than just shortening it - it sounded weird to him to do that.

"Love you too."