365 Days of Starshipping (Part 2)

Spreading Cheer

12/21/19

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise!" Martha laughed as she opened the door, finding not just all three of her oldest troublemakers and Judai, but also Lua and Luka, who'd apparently last visited sometime the previous year, "How're you all doing?"

"We're doing great!" Lua chirped, holding up a box that matched the one in Luka's hands and continuing, "We brought a present, too!"

"W-we had a lot of candy canes, so we figured the others might like them," Luka added on, holding up her own as well with a small smile. Yusei only noticed now, though, that she'd barely stuttered at all the previous day when they'd all been in the video call together; either she was doing better and her parents were helping her to try and get rid of it or she simply wasn't nervous at all around the rest of them, though if he were to take a guess he'd probably say it were the former. They seemed like good parents and would probably recognize that the stutter might be indicative of something other than shyness - granted, he was sure it wasn't, but checking never hurt and lessons still existed that were meant to boost confidence and improve public speaking.

"The others will love them, thank you sweeties," Martha smiled, ruffling both their heads before waving them off inside, "Why don't you go hand them out now? Everyone just had lunch not too long ago. Make sure everyone only gets one each for now, though, okay?"

"Okay!"

"Will do!"

With that the twins disappeared inside, muffled sounds of cheers coming through the hallways as the kids recognized the friends they hadn't seen in so long. All of them smiled at the sound before turning back to each other, Martha waving them all in as well.

"You all come in too, no point standing around here," she laughed, patting Jack and Crow roughly on the back since they happened to be the closest, "While you're here though, could you look at a few things for me? I think a couple of the Christmas decorations are ready to die out, so I'd like to know if I need to replace them or not."

"Sure! You know I always bring my tools wherever I go," Crow agreed, nudging Jack with a grin, "You'll help, right?"

"Of course I'll help," Jack muttered, looking rather subdued for now, "Who do you take me for?"

"How're you doing though, Martha?" Yusei asked, following behind as Judai made sure to shut the door once they were all in.

"I'm doing quite well - it's still amazing how much of a difference the holidays make when it comes to the children's moods," Martha replied, moving away from the other two to pat both Yusei and Judai on their backs this time, "And what about you two lovebirds?"

"Oh, they're lovebirds alright," Crow snickered, Jack smirking next to him with a nod while Yusei just rolled his eyes along with Judai, "We've got pictures if you wanna see them."

"Wait, what?" Judai asked, narrowing his eyes at him with a suspicious look, "What pictures? I've made extra sure not to let you guys slip any pictures away."

On the other hand, Yusei knew exactly what pictures Crow was talking about - they were most likely the mistletoe incident and a compilation of a few other times where he hadn't cared enough about having their pictures taken and Judai hadn't noticed them doing so. He'd actually forgotten about that until now, and he made a mental note to remember to ask Crow for digital copies of the files - he definitely would not be going to Jack for them because Crow's teasing was significantly easier to ignore than Jack's, plus he still had that dirt on his brother's love life to hold over him if it got too bad.

"Oh don't worry, I've got ones of Jack and Carly too-"

"You what?!" Jack exclaimed, turning on a dime and giving Crow a betrayed look, "When? How?!"

Crow cackled as he dodged a grab at him and ran inside, yelling, "Kids, Crow the bullet is here! Save him from the big bad wolf Jack!" A litany of happy cries followed the declaration, and soon enough the inside sounded like chaos. The remaining three of them looked on in exasperation, sharing a smile between them.

"So he did get the girl, huh?" Martha mused, a proud look on her face, "Finally starting to put himself together again, it's about time."

"Yeah, you really helped with that. After you came over that one time and lectured him he's just been doing better and better," Judai smiled, "We'll have to get Carly down here one day to meet you, you'll really like her."

"You'll probably also wonder how in the world those two got together, she's far more energetic than him," Yusei joked, knowing fully well that the same could be said about their relationship as well - Judai was far more energetic than he was normally, even if he had his serious moments (which could happen at the drop of a hat, too).

They heard a muffled yell from further down the hallway in the main room that sounded an awful lot like Jack and Crow, who were, if Yusei had to guess, probably in the middle of getting dog-piled by all the kids. It made him half-tempted to summon a couple duel spirits to go add to the chaos, just to see what would happen.

"Well, let's go save those two - I'd like to see all those pictures, after all!" Martha stated, leading the way inside.

Yusei heard Judai let out a sigh from next to him, though it took no longer than a couple seconds for them to be holding hands and making their way down the hallway after her. That was only after a quick kiss, of course, and a knowing look from Judai that told Yusei he'd be hearing about those pictures later and why he never told him about them; he hoped that he'd feel better about it after seeing them and getting over the initial embarrassment, though, because he knew that Judai was a total sap and would absolutely love having pictures of them kissing under mistletoe.