2/13/19

Judai's phone buzzed in his hand early the next morning, an email alert popping up at the top of his screen. When he tapped it and read through the email, his eyes lit up in excitement.

"Yusei, tournament sign-ups just began in Duel Dimensions - it's a flash tag-duel tournament! It's later today, we have to do it!" Judai exclaimed, sitting up quickly from where he'd been lounging on the couch. Yusei looked over curiously next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders before looking at the email himself.

"A flash tournament? Are they going to get enough people for that?" Yusei questioned, reading through the requirements, "We should be good to duel since it's an 'anything goes' tournament, and skills are allowed. Should we use this as a test run for our new decks? We did finish them for the most part, we can just tune them slightly before the tournament."

"Hell yeah, we're going to destroy everyone!" Judai cheered, pointing at the last section of the email, "It says there's special Valentine's themed rewards just for participating, and that the winners will get a unique cosmetic item. I guess that's why it's a tag-duel tournament, they're hosting it because Valentine's Day is tomorrow... why hold it today then?"

Yusei hummed, giving Judai back the phone to so he could look at the rewards list - Judai knew he wasn't too interested in any of the cosmetic items, just the cards and the actual duels, so he let the taller man move him so he was being hugged from behind, the other's head digging into his shoulder and neck.

"Probably because a lot of people will be busy with other plans tomorrow," Yusei replied.

"True - speaking of which, should I be worried about anything tomorrow?"

Yusei snorted at that, "That's what I should be asking you. You're still sitting on that request from winning the bet, Judai."

Well, at least it meant Yusei knew him well - Judai was planning to use it tomorrow, after all, though to be honest it was killing him to save it for so long. Having so much time to think about what he could use it for was backfiring on him and truly testing his willpower to go through with his plan.

"Will it make you feel better if I say you'll like it too?" Judai asked, turning his head to give the man a cheeky grin.

"So you are planning something," Yusei said, raising his eyebrows slightly with a smile before catching him in a kiss that Judai was quick to lean into, turning his phone off and putting it off to the side so he could turn his body around to face him.

A snicker from the top of the stairs broke them apart quickly, their faces flushing red as they snapped their heads up towards the noise.

"You guys really make this too easy," Crow teased, waving a camera around in the air. Judai however, face burning from embarrassment, was determined this time to save himself and Yusei from the teasing; he quickly sent a shadow to snatch the camera out of Crow's hands, causing the man to yell in surprise.

"What the hell?!" Crow sputtered, running down the stairs quickly after the camera which had been brought back to Judai. Judai felt rather proud of himself, a wicked grin spreading on his face, especially when Yusei re-wrapped himself around him to help him protect the camera from the incoming human missile.

"Quick, delete it," Yusei said, shoving a palm roughly into Crow's face when he tried to reach for it and holding him away. Within seconds Judai had found the picture and deleted, though he was slightly disappointed to see that they'd been the only pictures on the camera - clearly this was only a small victory, and not one that would win the war since they obviously would've made tons of backups of the other pictures.

"Tell you what Crow, if you and Jack decide to partner up for the tag-duel tournament in Duel Dimensions today, I'll give you the camera back," Judai said, noticing that the ginger had stepped back and was staring at them in despair, mumbling something about the camera being expensive. The man perked up at this, though he was quick to narrow his eyes at them.

"What's the catch here?" he asked, glaring slightly in distrust.

"It's a Valentine's themed tournament," Judai replied chirpily.

Crow's eyebrow started twitching in annoyance, though clearly the camera won over in importance since he was soon running up the stairs and slamming the door open to Jack's room to yell at him to sign-up with him for the tournament. Judai, feeling very accomplished, was quick to turn back to Yusei, who was looking back in amusement.

"Now, back to what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted."

"You know they still have phones, right?"

"...Shit, back to our room we go."


Crow and Jack didn't get too far in the tournament, as they kept bickering and, to be honest, simply didn't have the time or even enough hours played to synergize their decks and play-styles well. However, Crow at least wasn't too upset about the loss, considering he got his precious camera back. On the other hand, Jack had been grumpy most of the day, muttering about 'swirly-glasses' and his reputation; Judai felt like he was missing something there, but he wasn't about to bring it up so he supposed it would just get to stay a mystery.

Judai and Yusei did, however, win the tournament by a landslide like Judai'd predicted earlier - having skills be allowed let them absolutely destroy their opponents by the time both their second turns came to pass. The special skill Shine Brightly With You that they'd earned from the hidden quest was even more broken of a skill than they'd initially thought, as they were able to lock down their opponents by bringing out a tuner and a non-tuner for free during their first turns, then immediately summoning Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon and Clear Wing Synchro Dragon after looping their hands a bit so they could get some extra special-summons and draws.

To be honest, Judai felt a little bad about their absolute domination in the tournament, but the crowd in the arena's stands was eating it up with gusto and their opponents seemed to take their defeats with grace, so overall he had a lot of fun with it. Also, the stadium itself was huge - Judai would have to ask Yusei later how big pro-league tournament venues were now and if they were this size because it was a bit overwhelming, though to be fair this was a video game world so they could take up as much space as they wanted.

Still, seeing their dragons fly around in the huge, magitech-filled stadium while being cheered on loudly by spectators was really cool.

Once they'd won, they were quick to run to the stadium's warp portal and teleport to one of the less-populated towns in the game - it didn't have a lot of people because it didn't have many quests, and of those quests they were all side-quests.

"So what did we get for winning? Did you say it was a cosmetic item?" Yusei asked, moving close to his side while letting Quillbolt down on the ground. Quillbolt and Winged Kuriboh, despite not being used in their tag-duel decks, were still there to play and had cheered on their partners during the tournament; at the moment though they'd spotted the marketplace for this town, so they were quick to leave so they could go see if there was anything interesting.

"Yeah, it's some sort of unique one, though we should have gotten it by n- oh hey, I got mail! That's probably it," Judai responded, tapping on the blinking envelope icon and taking the attachment from it, "Let's see... an arm equip? Red Ribbon of Love, huh?"

"Oh, I see," Yusei said, equipping it before Judai could. A bright red bow appeared on his wrist, long strands of ribbon dangling down and just barely not touching the ground. "It's like the rings, where it has a special effect when another person wearing the item is within the effect range, but it can also be worn on its own."

Judai hummed, equipping it on himself so they could see how the couple effect worked - it ended up being that their wrists were connected by the ribbon strands that were originally hanging down, but the bows on their wrists stayed in place. He tried moving back and forth to see if it would pull Yusei with him, but the strands just elongated and shortened accordingly.

"Well, it's pretty cute at least," Judai grinned, lacing his fingers through Yusei's. Once he did so, little floating hearts faded into existence around them, mixing in with the sparkly aura from their rings.

"...I'm a little scared to look at the forums after this," Yusei stated, staring at the effects for a moment before sighing, "Then again, maybe this is a good thing. At this rate we won't have to deal with people bothering us with questions about our relationship status because it's so blatantly obvious we're together."

"Eh, I guess that's true, though I don't really care about what other people have to say about it - all I care about is you," Judai said, giving him a warm smile. He wished the game could simulate blushing faces through normal interaction at that moment, because the little smile Yusei gave him in return would surely have been accompanied by a bit of pink had this been in the real world.

"Same here, now come on - let's go eat something, we've been playing for over six hours straight now because we couldn't log out during the tournament," Yusei replied, letting go of him so he could find get to the log-out button, "I still can't believe they got so many sign-ups in such little time, this game is really popular..."

Judai chuckled at that, pulling the other over for a kiss once they'd both logged out and taken off their headsets.