365 Days of Starshipping (Part 2)

Tea Talk

10/22/19

"What kind of tea is this? It's really good..." Judai asked, sipping lightly at the hot drink while they waited for Aleister to go make sure everything was okay in the lab before anything else. The last thing he wanted was for an actual explosion to happen for some reason, especially in the guy's home, and it wasn't like waiting for a couple minutes would kill them at all.

"I know he said he was experimenting with some new blends, so it's probably one of those," Yusei replied, humming a little as he tried his tea as well, "You're right, it is good."

"If it's using stuff that grown in the gardens then I'm definitely getting the mixture before we leave, I really like it," Judai stated, taking another sip and enjoying the sweetness of it - he hadn't added any sugar or anything, but it was just naturally sweet and tasted a little like one of the new fruits from the gardens that he still couldn't remember the name of to save his life.

One day, he was going to need to just sit down with a notebook and write down the entirety of the garden's inventory. Actually, he still had those unused bullet journals he'd gotten on his birthday from Thunder and Asuka...

Well, he knew what those would be getting used for now - it was just a matter of getting the info and jotting it down.

"O-okay, sorry for the wait but everything looks to be in order, luckily," Aleister greeted as he came back in the room, sitting on the couch across from them with a slight huff before pouring a cup of tea for himself.

"Not a problem, it's better to check with those kinds of things," Judai reassured him, pausing for a moment to let him drink some tea before continuing, "Anyway, I'm super curious - what's the story here? Because I was not expecting that today at all, that was awesome!" He pouted a little after, tacking on jokingly, "And you never let me use your cards at all..."

"Because like I told you before, my King, they wouldn't do well being in your actual deck," Aleister reminded him, pushing up his glasses a little with an exasperated look, "They may be Fusion Monsters as well, but there's too much to it to fit into your deck without messing up the balance a lot."

Huh, his stutter is gone, Judai noted curiously, only noticing because he was so used to hearing it whenever he talked with the spirit that he pretty much just expected it from him, Usually he stutters at least once no matter what he's saying...

Then again, now that he thought back to it, Aleister had only stuttered once when he'd spoken to them during the duel, so maybe it was just a result of getting to fight again after a while of not being able to. He wouldn't be surprised if it was and he just decided to leave it as one of the other's odd quirks.

"The Queen here brought up your tournament last time he was here, though, which lead to a lengthy discussion about different strategies and decks for tag duels, mainly because I was curious about the kinds of cards that generally got used together and how it related to actual relations in the spirit dimensions," Aleister explained, "It's a bit of a hobby, keeping track of those kinds of things."

"Then I brought up that I wanted to see if there were any particular cards either of us could use as support for each other's decks other than what we'd already come up with, and he brought out his cards to take a look at," Yusei continued next to him with a smile, "I was interested and willing to use them since they did seem to be made to work as support for your deck, and we spent a good chunk of time just going over each one and how to fit it into my deck."

"Synchro Summoning is a fascinating concept I plan to look into more when I can, it's intriguing how it translates from your game to the actual monsters themselves," Aleister stated, seeming to pause in thought before suddenly saying, "A-ah, sorry, that's besides the point - the point is we realized that my archetype would do much better in tag duels, so we came up with a way for him to use them. I asked him not to tell you since I figured you'd appreciate the surprise."

"You bet I did," Judai grinned, not minding the long-winded explanation in the slightest - he knew it was just how those two's minds worked and after being with Yusei for so long now he was more than adjusted to it, even with Yusei doing his best to simplify his explanations most of the time, "Most importantly though, did you have fun?"

He felt Yusei squeeze his hand a little tighter and saw him smile fondly at him while Aleister blinked at him in surprise before closing his eyes and smiling a little.

"I suppose I did, yes," Aleister mused, cup clicking lightly as he put it down and looked down at the liquid, "Fun, huh...?"

"Speaking of which, if there's anyone else that wants to be used in a duel, make sure they know that they can give one of us their cards," Judai mentioned, Yusei having brought it up his idea earlier with him on the ride home before he could forget about it - he'd known about a lot of the spirits living in his realm not being used to peace-time at all, but he hadn't actually put two and two together to use them in duels to curb any lust for fighting they had.

Yusei nodded alongside him, saying, "We don't mind dueling each other at all with various decks just so we can use them, it's good practice and still a lot of fun."

Aleister agreed easily to it, realizing pretty easily why they were suggesting it in the first place, and the conversation drifted to various other things regarding the kingdom, followed by a short rant by both the duel spirit and Yusei about what sorts of things they'd figured out in their research.

Also, Judai did end up getting the blend of tea in the end, along with instructions on exactly what to do. He'd probably end up turning to Aleister for information at some point for that guidebook of his...