365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Giving Advice

6/15/19

Judai yawned and rubbed at his eyes when late morning finally hit, having one of those rare moments where he actually managed to wake up fully and immediately instead of becoming coherent over time. He smiled down at Yusei, who'd slumped down with him on the couch evidently before going to sleep, and noted that while Crow was still snoring away on the ground on a veritable mountain of pillows, Jack was missing.

The clanks in the kitchen told him that he was making his usual coffee, though, so he reluctantly untangled himself from Yusei while being careful not to accidentally wake him up. Another round of yawns hit him as he walked into the kitchen, which earned him a huff as a greeting from Jack.

"Mornin'," Judai mumbled, his greeting slightly distorted thanks to the yawn, "You just get up?"

"Yup," Jack replied shortly, impatiently tapping his foot and waiting for the coffee machine to finish brewing so he could get his morning cup.

Judai got to work starting on a simple, but filling breakfast to fill them up for the tournament today. As he did so, he had the sudden thought that this was a rare moment where he was actually alone with Jack, which reminded him that he had threatened to 'talk' to him about Carly all those days ago during the last tournament.

It was just to tease him originally, but recently Carly had been getting a little bummed out about it. Considering Jack was keeping a job and had his shit partly together now, she complained that he hadn't shown even a little sign of asking her, and Judai had assured her that she hadn't imagined him liking her when she fretted about it over text. Maybe teasing him a bit about it now would be the push Jack needed to finally ask her out, because Judai had seen the look he gave her.

That man was totally head over heels for her, and he was straight-up lying if he tried to say otherwise. Besides, Judai would never pass up possible blackmail material for later.

"So Jack," he stated, getting an immediately wary stare from the other upon hearing his lighthearted tone, "Don't think I forgot about talking to you about how utterly head over heels you are for a certain swirly-glasses."

"Shut up," Jack grumbled.

"So you don't deny it?"

"I said shut up, damn it."

"Out of curiosity, why haven't you asked her out yet?" Judai pushed, patiently waiting for Jack to stop glaring at him and answer.

It took a minute or two of silence, but eventually Jack uncrossed his arms and replied, "It's complicated."

"I'm sure if you talked to her about it, she'd understand," Judai countered, shrugging as Jack looked at him incredulously, "What? I'm not going to ask you to explain beyond that, I'm just saying that you should talk to her about it. I was half convinced you two were already together when I talked to you guys before, so I can tell she cares about you."

"I... know she does, like I said, it's complicated," Jack muttered, finally being able to pour a cup of coffee now that it was done and swirling the liquid around before sipping at it. Judai could tell that it improved his mood significantly, considering he continued on to say, "Also, when you put it like that you make it sound like we're all over each other or something, we're not. At least, we're not nearly as bad as you and Yusei were - Crow and I could barely believe our fucking eyes, you two were literally attached at the hip from the first moment you came here."

"Yeah yeah, I got it. You guys have lorded that over us for months," Judai pouted, pulling down a few plates before he turned on the stove and started cooking the pancake batter he'd quickly whipped up, "That's besides the point, though. I'm telling you to go talk to her instead of bottling it up, because bottling it up does nothing good in the end."

"Speaking from experience, I assume," Jack stated, finally conceding with a sigh, "Fine, whatever. We'll see."

Judai hummed in success, sprinkling some berries into the currently cooking pancake - this one would be Jack's, as the other had told him a couple months beforehand how he liked them. He figured the least he could do for bugging him like this was shove a plate of good food in front of him.

"Y'know, you put on that tough front but you're really just a big softie, aren't you?" Judai teased, earning himself a middle finger for his trouble which only made him snicker, "Aw, you just know it's true. At least it's the weekend so you can come to the tournament, Carly will be there!~"

"God, you are insufferable."

"Just wait, you can help me tease the shit out of Crow once we finally figure out who he likes. I know there's someone and I'm ninety percent sure Yusei knows something about it, but I haven't been able to get it out of him yet because he quotes it as being 'too good of blackmail material' to give up yet."

The gleam in Jack's eyes matched his own at that moment, and they shared a mutual nod agreement. Crow had been a lot more active about teasing literally everyone and anyone, especially when it came to relationships, so getting revenge on him one day for it all was something they both greatly looked forward to and would definitely work together on.