365 Days of Starshipping (Part 2)

Hopping Along

10/30/19

The night before Halloween, Judai decided that it was finally time for Yusei to try to actually fly a bit - it'd just be a little bit, yes, but it was also the next step he needed to take and if Judai thought he was ready, then Yusei would trust him on it and try.

Over the last few weeks they'd been focusing mostly on making moving his wings feel more natural - there were so many new muscles and ligaments that it was a slow process that honestly, weeks wasn't enough to cover; Yusei was still held little confidence that he'd actually be able to go in the air, even if he could flap his wings correctly now.

Even then, it's only been slowly so that I don't pick up too much dust, Yusei mused as they walked to the park, hands locked together once again and hidden slightly inside each other's sleeves. It was a cold night, so they were wearing their matching minimalist hoodies and huddling close together to stay warm; it had the side effect of making him feel light and fuzzy despite the frosty bite of the air and he couldn't be happier at the moment.

From the looks and sounds of it, Judai was feeling much the same way, humming very slightly under his breath with a small smile permanently etched onto his face.

"Y'know, I think it's a good thing we decided on the fair in the end," Judai brought up, looking over at him from where he'd been taking in the passing sights, "A lot of the Halloween decorations around the city have already been set-up in advanced, so we get to see them now... if we'd gone to the park again we would've already seen a lot of it."

"Hadn't thought about that... I mainly chose the fair because it sounded more interesting," Yusei admitted, feeling his face heat up a little in embarrassment when Judai raised his eyebrows at him with a quirked smirk, "Judai, it was not because of the rides."

"Adrenaline junkie~" Judai sang in response, leaning in as close as he could as he teased him, "Don't deny it, you already even said that you were one before, you can't take it back now!"

"I swear it was not solely because of the rides," Yusei begrudgingly said, editing his previous statement to be more accurate. He got a kiss from Judai as a reward though, so he couldn't stay down for very long.

"Better. Now, what was the other reason then?" Judai asked, giving him an inquisitive look as they came up to the park entrance.

How would he even begin to describe it? Yusei just got this... feeling of wanting to go when he thought of the fair again and thought of Judai. Something about knowing he'd be with him and doing all this stuff and going on rides again just made his heart long with want, which wasn't something he'd ignore any time soon. Besides, he'd pretty much gotten his fill of street food recently thanks to how many outings he and Judai had made purely because they could now that the weather was fully changed into cooler autumn weather, so going to another local park event that was mainly that along with activities that were much like the ones they'd seen during the Tanabata Festival was less appealing overall than going to the amusement park again.

"It's just... more interesting, I don't know how else to put it," Yusei replied, sighing softly as he gave up trying to put words to the feeling, "I just felt like I wanted to go there more with you."

"That's fair!" Judai chuckled before suddenly pausing, a smirk suddenly forming once again as he looked back at him, "Heh, fair."

"Ha ha, very funny," Yusei snorted - it was such a bad pun, but it was Judai and that made it ten times more entertaining solely because of the cute, proud expression he wore when he delivered it, "Anyway, we're here. Shall we get started?"

"Eager, are we?" Judai teased lightly, letting go of his hand and taking his warmth with it; if it weren't for the fact that Yusei was actually excited about what they were doing, he'd be mourning the loss a lot more than he currently was, "Alright, let's see those beautiful wings of yours, dear."

The compliments were certainly a nice bonus to all this, too.

They spent a couple minutes just warming up again before going through a shortened version of their usual routine, where Judai'd show Yusei his own wings for reference and he'd try to copy it in such a way that worked with his own. After he was sure he was ready, Judai steadily went over exactly what to do again to get him to fly.

"We don't want you going too far, so think of it as just doing a small hop, but using your wings instead of your legs for the most part," Judai explained, doing a short hop himself for demonstration and pushing only a little ways off the ground with his wing flap instead of all the way, "See? You'll still crouch down and shoot up with your legs, but your wings are what'll provide the force to lift you up off the ground. I'll be right here, so even if it takes you a few tries to get a feel for how much strength you need to use you won't fall at all."

"Okay..." Yusei said, taking a deep breath to center himself before focusing completely on his wings and the rest of his body, "Short hop. Let's do this."

He stumbled a little the first time, wings touching the ground more than they should have because he'd flapped them too early, but like Judai'd assured him he was easily caught before he could fall to the ground. The second time he didn't do it hard enough, but he at least got the timing correct on the wings. Third time's the charm though, and on that one he not only got the timing correct, but found a relatively close balance to what he needed to lift off the correct amount - he could feel the pressure of the air being shot down from his wings, which pulled him up in the air and left him in free-fall for the short five seconds he'd be off the ground.

Didn't mean he could stick the landing though, which meant he fell into Judai's waiting arms right afterwards, but they were both laughing happily at the success, sharing equally excited looks as they moved onto the next step immediately after; Yusei may not be able to actually fly anytime soon, but he'd be mastering every little step along the way as much as he could so that he'd be damn good at it when the time finally did come.