Nothing was working. Absolutely nothing was working, and nothing made sense. Every time he thought he'd found the answer, additional information from the problem contradicted it and he had to start from scratch. He didn't understand why this was so difficult. He had been perfectly fine in the previous classes. All of this should be fine. He should understand this. It should be easy. And yet, it wasn't. Nothing was adding up no matter what he tried and it didn't seem to matter how many angles he tried to come at it from, there was no solution.

"There has to be an answer… there has to be," he muttered under his breath, running his hand through his hair for the umpteenth time and tugging on a few locks. There was already a small pile of hairs gathering on his paper as he hunched over it, too focused on the problem and his frustration to notice how much hair he was worrying out of his scalp.

No.

No.

Wrong.

No.

The pattern repeated itself over and over again no matter which problem he attempted now. Every single one lead back to the same dead end. He just couldn't get it. He couldn't grasp whatever it was he was supposed to be understanding or getting from this godforsaken assignment. His breaths came in shorter gasps now as he realized he couldn't do it. No matter what he tried, he couldn't do it.

"Why?"

Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead on the edge of his desk and put his hands over his ears, gripping onto his hair tightly as if that would help him focus better. As if the answers would just come to him from that alone.

Some part of him registered the door behind him opening and closing, but it wasn't until he felt a hand on his shoulder that he snapped out of it enough to lift his head and look up at the new arrival.

Concern was written all over his face, from his creased eyebrows to the darker glint in those brown eyes.

"Yusei, hey, what's wrong?" Judai asked, though his voice sounded far away.

Yusei could only shake his head, looking back to the assignment he should be working on. He should have been finished with this hours ago.

"I can't do it," he mumbled again, shaking his head.

Judai followed his gaze, scanning over the several pieces of scratch paper and failed attempts along with the original paper, covered in eraser smears and full of little grooves where Yusei had written previously. He'd never seen him have so much trouble with much of anything before. If anything, the only thing that gave him this much grief was upgrading or building a new engine. Even then, he looked alive while trying to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it. Currently, he looked almost like a madman, frantically trying to grasp at a lifeline that wasn't there.

"Now, I don't believe that. I'm sure you can, Yusei," Judai assured, smiling to the other. "Why don't you just take a break from it. It's the weekend. You can just come back to it tomorrow and try again."

Yusei stubbornly shook his head, "no, you don't understand. You don't understand, Judai. It doesn't make sense. It's supposed to make sense. I-"

He really didn't know when he started tearing up or when his chest had tightened so painfully that he couldn't breathe. The tears of frustration and shame welled up in his eyes as he looked up at Judai, threatening to spill over as he openly admitted he had no idea what he was doing. Just like that, he couldn't take it anymore. It was almost as if a small thread in his mind snapped and he lost whatever tiny bit of self-control he had been desperately clutching onto.

"Yusei? Yusei, hey!" Judai looked around the room for something to comfort the sobbing mess in front of him, but there wasn't anything within arm's reach. "Sweetheart…"

He pulled Yusei forward to lean into his chest and wrapped his arms around him. He rubbed gentle circles into his back and cradled the mechanic's head in his arm. Judai places several kisses all over the crown of his head and quietly tried to shush him.

"Judai, I don't understand. Nothing makes sense. I've tried everything." Yusei whimpered into his shirt, reaching up to grip onto the other like a lifeline. "I can't do it."

"Alright, enough of that. Don't you dare say that." Judai scolded, drawing back to lift Yusei's chin up and make him look at him. "I don't know what kind of crazy problem you've got going on there, but there's no chance you absolutely can't do it. That's just crazy talk."

The brunette smiled at his boyfriend and placed a soft kiss to his lips, trying to help the other take a second to remember how to breathe.

"You're coming with me. Out of this room. Now." He informed before hoisting the other up into his arms.

Yusei wasn't difficult to carry, but him struggling definitely didn't help matters at all. Judai wasn't about to budge though and marched up the stairs with him, depositing him on their bed and closing the door.

It almost broke his heart to see Yusei just sitting in the middle of their bed, looking completely lost and struggling to stop crying. The last time Judai had seen him like this, he'd had an awful nightmare that the reactor he'd built had a meltdown like his father's and he was the only survivor.

"Judai, please, I need to go back and finish that problem. I can't leave it now." Yusei pleaded, looking at some random point on the comforter in front of him.

Judai shook his head and walked back over to him, climbing into bed beside him and pulling him into his lap. "No, you don't. What you need to do right now is come here." He murmured into his ear, pressing the Yusei's head up against his chest. "Listen. Follow my breaths. You need to calm down, Stardust. You're having a panic attack."

He knew what Judai was saying. He heard the words, and to some extent he understood them, but his brain still didn't want to process them. He needed to do something he couldn't just lay here and be cuddled. Dammit, his chest felt as if there were a vice being cranked tighter and tighter the longer he was away. He had to figure it out. He had to… listen to the heartbeat in his ear. It was so rhythmic and steady. It sounded warm like the firm hand on his back, rubbing circles and massaging his shoulder every now and again. He had to focus on the hand in his hair, gently working out the tangles he'd matted into it from his constant ruffling and pulling.

Slowly but surely, Judai felt Yusei begin to relax in his arms. His shoulders let go, then he started leaning into him more fully. Finally, his shaky breathing stuttered and gave way to a slow, deep rhythm that matched his own. Still he kept up what he was doing, if only to make extra sure that Yusei wasn't just faking it to get back to his homework downstairs.

"Yusei, look at me," he whispered, kissing the crown of the raven's head and waiting patiently. "There you are. There's my Stardust."

The moment Yusei had lifted his head, his face was peppered in kisses all over his face and he was showered in sweet nothings from his over excitable counterpart. He didn't have the energy or ability to push Judai away or back from him considering his hands were still pinned, but all the same, he didn't quite feel the need to. It was almost the opposite. He found himself lifting his head into the shower of kisses instead, letting Judai wipe away his tears as well. After Judai seemed to have deemed him clean, he was pulled close again and cradled into his chest. This time, Yusei nuzzled in and closed his eyes, letting Judai rock them both slightly.

"I'm sorry you're having so much trouble on that problem," Judai spoke up after a long break of silence.

Yusei managed to shake his head a little and reply, "it's not your fault. You didn't write the question."

"I know, I know, but still. You seem so upset by it." Judai confessed, leaning back up against the headboard now. "I wish I could help you with it."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Yusei's lips, and he lifted his head to press a deep kiss to Judai's lips. He wanted to apologize for breaking down and reassure him he didn't need to make up for his own lack of understanding, but he couldn't get words to string together coherently enough so he was left with this. Such a simple act, and yet it held so many meanings. Especially for him when words weren't sufficient.

"Alright. How does a nice, hot shower and some soft pajama pants sound?" Judai asked when they finally broke apart for air. "I'm not letting you go back downstairs until you've at least taken a nap."

Yusei shook his head a little at him and shifted so he could nuzzle his head under the other's chin. "I think that sounds great, actually. Please don't let me."

"I won't, don' t worry," Judai promised, kissing his forehead.

"Thank you," Yusei said softly, looking up at him. "I love you, Kuriboh-chan."

"I love you too, Stardust,"

Kitana: I've been going through some rough times with my college work and I've been feeling really frustrated lately. So, of course I took it out on poor Yusei.

Thank you for reading

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