Content warning: more homophobia.

I wake up early in the morning, so that I can go over my notes from the past week to formulate a clear thought before going to work. I have known since Friday evening, that I'd have to hold a presentation today in the afternoon about which direction I want my research to go towards. If I already structure my thoughts now, it will be easier to put them into slides, but still there is only one thing I'm working with, and that is my useless economics degree. Well, I am not entirely without a plan, but it would still be better if my plan was more coherent. Then again, my theory is based on one that I don't completely understand and another one that's just make-believe fantasy, so the result isn't going to be any better than either of the two are on their own.

Chris drives me to work, same as always, and we're greeted by Yuri, same as always. Both of us ask for the usual as we usually do. As I walk past her, she whispers something into my ear. "Would you like to kiss my feet?" I slam Yuri against the wall and my hand right next to her. "Ahn~, ojou-sama, you're so forceful!"
"Don't tell a word about that to Chris or anyone else!" I threaten her with violence, but in image only. It is very clear to me, that she is actually stronger and could reverse this situation as she pleases. But I still can't let her continue like that, I need to protect my reputation.
Chris whistles behind me. "I never knew you had the hots for Yuri. You should keep me up to date about stuff like that."
Well, that quickly went in the wrong direction. "No, I don't," I defend myself against the accusation of lesbianism.
"So you're just bullying her?" the brown-haired man, who we know from such questions as "And what project exactly are you working on?" or his dislike for drugs interjects. "That's a very extreme thing to do to another person when they're vulnerable. Are you even aware of the consequences of your acts?" Yuri is literally 10cm taller than me and could suffocate me with her chest if she wanted to, but sure, let's assume her to be the vulnerable person here.
"No one asked for your opinion. This is a quarrel between two lovers." Yuri winks at him, triggering a disgusted reaction, after which he quickly disappears into his office.
"I'm not your lover!" I object.
"You two sure do fight like a married couple," Chris comments.
"We don't!" I am surprised to hear Yuri's voice echo my sentiment, but much calmer than I myself am. What is my goal here?
"Are you sure about that?" Chris raises an eyebrow.
"I am." Yuri bows to Chris. "I brought ojou-sama's violent action upon myself by provoking her. I shall be more careful in the future."
"Is that so? I'll leave it to you two to sort things out, then." Chris heads into our office.
"Can I really trust you to be quiet about that?" My gut feeling tells me I can't.
"Please apologize my rude remark. I had to confirm something for myself." That woman is and always will be a mystery to me.

While I am busy crafting my very professional Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation™, Yuri only interrupts us to deliver coffee and tee as is usual. But even then, she can't stop herself from getting close to me and whispering stuff into my ear. "Ojou-sama, apologize my rudeness, but you may want to ask for help."
"I will ask for help, if you don't stop pestering me!" I don't really know, what's wrong with me today, either, but for some reason I have this urge to punch Yuri in her face. Probably because her constant attempts at getting into my panties are slowly getting under my skin.
"Stop that, Sakura!" Chris intervenes, separating the two of us. She looks over to my work place. "What the hell is this?" She points at my presentation. "Don't tell me…"
"That's my presentation, so what?" There really wasn't anything wrong with it, was there?
"Holy fuck, what the fucking fuck did you fuck to get this fucking mess?" Okay, perhaps there was. I couldn't really tell, what it was, though. My presentation should have everything a presentation needs. Long sentences with loads of buzzwords, stock photos, unlabeled graphs with arrows pointing upward and to the right , something about market shares… what could be wrong with it? "Where did you learn how to do scientific presentations?"
"Oh, uhh… this was company policy at my previous workplace." I had forgot, that the context was completely wrong.
Chris sighs. "It can't be helped, then. I'll send you the lab's guidelines on presentations, you'll be fine if you just follow them."

I receive an email from Chris, which consists of a link towards some web page. Let's see… "Guidelines for presentations at Momentum Labs". Some introductory stuff… ahh, there, the first item. "Use one of the following templates: latex, OpenDocument, PowerPoint®." What does latex have to do with scientific presentations? That sounds like something Yuri would wear in private. And why is it spelled so weirdly? I look at the clock and see, that I don't have the time to dive into all those questions right now. I download the PowerPoint® template and proceed.
"Follow guidelines for scientific presentations as outlined by the New Domino Institute of Technology, specifically with respect to the following points." It goes on to list a whole bunch of stuff, like having three to five bullet points per slide, not writing full sentences, always labelling graphs, not including inappropriate imagery, and so on, and so forth. Sounds manageable.
"Ideally, your presentation will have a title, a motivation, background as necessary, and a main section in which you bring forth your proposal, findings, etc. Structure it accordingly to let people follow your thoughts more easily." So I have to actually explain all the bullshit lingo? Oh God, have mercy with me.
"Always close off the presentation with a summary or conclusion. Never use blank slides asking for questions or thanking people for their attention." Good to know.
Well, that's enough guidelines to study for one presentation and I don't have time to read more closely. With great hurry I adapt my existing presentation to follow them. Hopefully, it will be good enough.

We meet in one of the meeting rooms. It has place for ten to twenty people, but it seems only a few of them will be there today. Chris is one of them, of course, as we share an office and are thus expected to help each other wherever we can. So are Kazuko – or should I call her Ms. Kirigaya at work? – and Ms. Pyon, who I'm pretty sure is too shy to be called by her given name. The others are the brown-haired guy and some people I don't know. Yusei will join us later, when the meeting formally starts.
Chris helps me connect the laptop to the beamer and fires up my presentation. She hands me the presenter and instructs me on its usage as if I had never used such a device before, explaining each and every button in great detail. She probably just wanted to make up for earlier, when she saw my "fucked" presentation and only provided little help to fix it. I'm still thankful for what she did, however, it will probably help me impress Yusei with my super scientific™ presentation skills™.
Five minutes before the meeting is scheduled, Yuri enters with her tartines on a tray. She really likes making those, it seems. I take the one with salmon on it and eat it. I must admit, salmon on a slice of bread is almost as good as salmon on rice with wasabi. But I still miss the wasabi. Does Yuri not like spicy food, even though everything else about her is very spicy?
Yuri leaves just in time for Yusei to enter, bringing a large stack of paper with him. He clears his throat and takes a seat. "If I remember correctly, Inoue-kun is going to present her project today. Is that so?"
"Indeed." I fire up the presentation once again – Chris closed it after having ensured that everything works. "I will bring forward some applications of economics on Momentum research."

I start my presentation with the graph, that always impresses people, the curves of supply and demand. There is little meaning in the graph itself, it only shows intersecting curves with economists musing about what might happen if either curve were to shift one way or another. But the same principle applies to Momentum, if the word "price" were to be replaced by "disaster potential".
"It follows then, that we can express disaster as a ratio of supply and demand. If S is our supply and D is our demand, we achieve an optimal ratio with S = D. If S is greater than D, we're wasting energy and with significantly higher S we have over-spinning. If S is lower than D, however, we need additional, non-clean energy sources and with significantly higher D we have a perfect recipe for a blackout."
"The physics is quite interesting in this," the brown-haired guy remarked, "but please tell me, what formula did you use exactly to quantify the disaster potential?"
"It doesn't matter." Yusei shielded me from his criticism like a knight on a shining D-Wheel. "Her fundamental observation, even if not cited, is supported by all currently valid papers on the matter."
The brown-haired guy and Yusei stare at each other, which only makes it more obvious, who much better the latter is in every aspect. He has crabbier hair, more muscles, he supports me… Twink-kun just can't compare to that.
Yusei's attention shifts back to me with a sharp gaze. "Go on," his deep voice commands.
"Yes, right…" Out of panic, that Yusei-senpai noticed me, I forgot the contents of my next slide. What was it again? I take a short glimpse to remind myself.

"This is the portion, in which we discuss, how to affect supply and demand." Nailed it! Next slide. "It is well known, that supply is proportional to the frequency of Synchro Summons, which we can't directly control." Ahh, that's a nice one, again with a symbolic graph to show the correlation between the two. "However, we can somewhat guide this number through various incentives. Of course, we won't be able to affect people, who Synchro Summon for the sake of Synchro Summoning, but most players also want to win the games they play, especially within tournaments."
"Nakano-kun's 625 duel experiments, huh…" Yusei mumbled to himself. To be frank, I have no idea, what those 625 duel experiments were, as I pulled this presentation out of my ass mere hours ago and thus did not have the time to look into any related research whatsoever. And now I'm fucked, because that means, I have to come up with another idea.
"I'm sorry, I haven't looked at those experiments in detail yet. My personal intuition, was, that we could introduce new Summoning mechanics, that work differently from Synchro or Fusion."
The room is silent as my fellow researchers ponder that idea. It is heresy, I know, but from my experience back in the real world, people often ridicule or complain about new mechanics before eventually getting used to them. "That is an interesting thought." Yusei writes it down. "Do you have anything in particular in mind? If so, I could probably arrange a meeting."
"As a matter of fact, I do, but let's also quickly talk about demand, so that I can conclude."
"Very well." Yusei agrees with me smilingly. I have the vague feeling, that somewhere else in the world something very bad must have happened, as it is quite a rare occasion for his mood to be that positive, but I shall not complain about it.
"Right, we can reduce demand by creating more energy-efficient devices, but we can also increase it by using inherently 'wasteful' technologies. Kirigaya's virtual reality project springs to mind, as virtual realities require a lot of power. We could also try to make Solid Vision produce actually physical monsters, although that would also have its drawbacks…" Specifically with regards already present fears concerning psychic duelists.

I close off my presentation with some generic good sounding words about being able to improve the security of Momentum by monitoring supply and demand and applying ad-hoc adjustments. Yusei seems to have taken great interest in my idea. In a sense, it even coincides with his Fortune program, which links New Domino City to other cities in Japan, increasing potential demand. However, even if all of the world was connected in such a manner, we'd still have to control Synchro Summoning. Imagine ten billion Synchro Summons per second – no matter how big your apparatus, it won't be able to bear that kind of load.
"Your ideas do all sound very interesting, Inoue-kun." Oh my god, Yusei didn't just feign interest, he noticed me! "But they're probably a bit too much to handle if you wish to pursue them all. For now, I'd like you to focus on just one of them. And since the demand side appears to already be handled by others, you'll be in charge of inventing new Summoning methods and taking care of their implementation. You need to ensure, that our duel disks can handle them and that Kaiba Corporation actually prints cards. Can you do that?"
I agree to the task, even though I'm not quite sure, whether I actually can. R&D for Xyz Summoning probably took Konami years, but with the power of hindsight, I can appropriate their results for myself and I need to do so quickly if I want to be added to the team by the end of the month. Talk about stress.
"Are there any other questions?" Yusei looks around the room, but I doubt, that anyone would dare speak up against me after that – especially Twink-kun, whom he scolded earlier. He closes off the meeting and I let out a relieved sigh as everyone exits the room before exiting it myself. I need a break from all this before I can go on. Could I perhaps pester Yuri into making me some of those bread slices? No, wait, there may even still be some in the meeting room. There are. I take two or three of them and eat them happily. Now I'm ready for… what's that? I walk by this pin board every day, but not once did I stop to look at what's posted there. "Ciel Malmström's genealogy"… looks like Twink-kun is roughly 75% German or French and 25% Scandinavian, with 0.2% Japanese thrown into the mix and some unknowns. Who would ever ask for that kind of data?

I get back into my office and throw myself into the chair, causing some small noise as I do so. And of course, that noise would cause Chris to notice me.
"Say… you are not by any chance in need of a massager to relieve yourself from stress, are you?" A weird thing to ask, but I guess you could take it, that I'm quite stressed right now. I could certainly use a massage or a hot bath or whatever else might help me relax a bit, but I'm still at work. Nevertheless, it's not wrong to ask for details.
"What kind of massager?"
"The kind, that makes you ask that question in the first place." I have no clue, how to interpret that answer. Does she mean, that there are only two of them, and that one possesses a certain quality, that the other does not, with that quality being the one, that would prompt someone to ask this question instead of… say, "but can it do X"? "To be more exact, I need some testers for this baby right here." Chris dramatically reveals the device, she was just talking about: The Minami Momentum Massager, apparently invented by herself.
She gives me the box and I take it from her. The packaging contains interesting ad slogans, such as "Become one with the wind", a reference to what Sherry said in the Anime with the scene showing her figuratively naked as she did, subtly implying the use of this device for something sexual. "Feels like a riding duel on your clit" on the other hand was quite on the nose. "And why are you giving me that?"
"I need others to test it and I thought you could put it to good use." Just what was she implying with those words? That I look like someone, who has no boyfriend and would therefore bring the device to its physical limits?
"I'm not too sure, how well I'll perform as a tester, to be honest."
"Don't mind that." Chris waves around her hands as she waves away my doubts. "Just use it whenever you want and report your experience in as much detail as you want to share. Don't worry, I'll happily anonymise your data before publishing any of it."
Well, that sounds like a plan. Perhaps I could try searching for fanart of Yusei later and do this or that with it. Come to think about it, do such sites even operate in this world? Given that Yusei is a really existing person, the moral implications of drawing or viewing porn of him are quite different to what they would be back in my world, where he doesn't exist.

I wrap up my work and we hit the bar as usual. Chris ensures my safe arrival at home, as always. The next day starts just as the day before, except that Chris informs me, that she hid the massager in a safe place where Zora wouldn't dare look for it. I kinda wonder how she knows where Zora would and would not look for dirty stuff, but I can't complain. After all, I already agreed to test it for her.
One thing I can sadly not complain enough about is Yuri's treatment, however. I have seen her darker side. I know, that she is capable of defending herself. But I must still watch as others take her service for granted or otherwise discriminate against her. Take this evil princess with a white beehive for her hair as an example. Who does she think she is? The Queen of Britain? It surely seems that way, as she not only demands her tea to be brought in finest porcelain, but also needs her sugar to be exactly measured up to three significant digits with a fucking spoon! All while she laughs in a stereotypical manner. Such characters are better written in anime or manga, where they may in some instances have a reason to act the way they do. Nothing could excuse that, however. It's just plain cruelty, as she watches Yuri shiver in terror while micromanaging each of her movements. Why does Yuri not notice, that this would an appropriate time to use her powers? Can she perhaps not, because she's too afraid?
"Mornin', Nagumo," I hear Chris call out to her. "Don't take the roleplay too far."
"Have a nice day, Ms. Minami." She orders Yuri to put away the spoon and takes a sip of her tea.
"You already took it too far." Chris lets out a sigh before walking away. Is that it? Are you so used to her "roleplaying", that you simply let this slide as if it was nothing? Well, I, for one, can not do that. I solve this problem the only way I know how to solve such problems. By dragging Yuri away from them. I tell her to get coffee for Kazuko, she seems to me like the person who drinks much of it.

Back in my office, I start up my laptop and some emails are sent back and forth between me and some poor soul at Kaiba Corporation. I need some tea to calm myself down after an hour of pointless arguing, but I don't want to bother Yuri – her day was hard enough already. I head to the kitchen and surprisingly see Ms. Nagumo as she grabs herself a cup of coffee. "Has the fine lady risen from her throne?" I jab at her.
"Ryouko is fine. Ryouko with the 'ryou' for 'end'." She was surprisingly nice all of the sudden. Does the withdrawal of Yuri make her calm down?
"And I am Inoue Sakura." I bow myself to her as that's the polite thing to do.
She chuckles. "I know, who you are, honey." Her coffee is ready and she pours it into a cup, adding plenty of sugar to make it palatable. That might even have been more sugar than coffee. She gulps the entire thing down in a matter of seconds, her face revealing that it was quite an unpleasant taste to her. Which was no real surprise, given that she likes nothing except the Yuri's most delicately prepared tea. "You should hurry up with your tea unless you want to stand in the way of Yuri's cleaning schedule."
Did she… "Did you…" Did she just… "Did you just say that?" I can't anymore. I just can't. "You were the one this morning to pressure her to make tea just the way you wanted, to the point that Yuri was shaking as she prepared it for you. And you tell me, that I am holding her up?"
"Yeah, that's right." Within the blink of an eye, Ryouko's soft eyes changed into ones that better fit her personality, and interestingly her voice got deeper as well as she was filled with rage. "Yuri's schedule is already tighter than any of her dresses and yet you decide to mess it up even further. At that point, I will have to sacrifice my precious time with her to make up for your inability to think further than one step. And I don't like not having my time with Yuri."
Uwah, she's dangerous on multiple levels.
"Ojou-sama…" We notice Yuri standing behind her being shaken to tears. "To think, that ojou-sama has so deep feelings for me." I personally would distance myself from anyone giving off such clear Yandere vibes, but then again, I'm not Yuri. Does she actually enjoy being in such situations?
They embrace each other in a hug, creating a visible aura of lilies around them. I instinctively take a step back out of fear of what could happen to me if I were to inhale Yuri's scent. "Not to interrupt you, but I don't think hugging is part of Yuri's schedule."
Ryouko gives my ears another taste of her evil princess laughter. "I don't care about that, as long as I am the one spending that time with her." Doesn't that contradict what she just said earlier? Fuck it, I've stopped caring as well. I take my boiling water and some tea leaves and get back into my office.

Emails, emails, and more emails, no end to them in sight.
"Hello, Pizza Hut? I'd like to order a large 373. Thanks." To think, that Chris is such a frequent customer, she has a pizza named after her. "Don't worry, I'll share it with you. That will make things easier for Yuri as well." Does she know I am worrying about Yuri? Or does she herself care about that and is trying to make me care as well?
"Sounds good." I let out a sigh, but hope she doesn't notice. She does.
"You know, you could ask me about other people in the office and how to deal with them." Chris is right, it really does feel as if I don't belong here. I spend little to no time with Yusei, I can't even have my own pizza ordered, I get into fights over Yuri even though I'm not really interested in her and just want her to be treated as a person like everyone else. So that's why I was unemployed in my previous life. It isn't just, that Japanese hiring practises suck, although they certainly do. I suck. And not even in the way, that would be pleasurable for Yusei. Ahh, what should I do? "Let's do something with the three of us. Just you, me and Ms. Nagumo."
"That would just remind me, how much I suck compared to you." It's true. Chris gets along with everyone. I can't even think of striking a conversation with Hyona, because I know how shy she is and how much she doesn't want to talk to anyone. Same with Kazuko's obsession with games, I'd just annoy her during some grind. And the only reason I can talk to Yuri is because she's paid to be polite to all of us. Her true self is way scarier.
Eventually the pizza arrives, we eat it and enjoy our more or less fruitless afternoon. Chris already has plans for a new invention – hopefully something that is usable outside the bedroom – and I am stuck with mails. Just before it's time for us to depart, I receive a mail from a different person. One Emily Goodwin, who apparently wants to arrange a meeting with us. The date and time are… tomorrow at 10 in the morning? In Goodwin Manor? The entire team is welcome, but at least Yusei and I are required to be present? I can't believe it. Shortly afterwards, Yusei writes another mail informing us, that the Lab won't be open tomorrow until the meeting is over. I sigh. This means, he intents to drag us all over there.

Despite my complaints, Chris still arranges a shopping mall tour for the three of us. I don't even have money to spend on clothes, damn it, my rent is already paid by Yusei because I can't. I sigh as we walk past the many fancy shops, all of which advertise their brands through Misty as if she's the only model existing. One store even has a live-sized animated version of her wearing glasses and everything, just missing the price tags. Wait a minute…
"Nice." Ryouko takes a photo and sighs. "If only Yuri could stand among photos of herself so easily." Okay… that sounded a little bit creepy. I decide to not press her for more details, although I am quite sure I can already picture myself the kind of scenario she is referring to.
"What is even the relationship between you and Yuri?" Maybe if I go through that route, I can understand what made her so possessive about her without learning things I never wanted to know.
"Yuri is everything a woman could ask for," Ryouko responds, clarifying that "she has a nice body and good taste in art and literature." I wonder what kind of art or literature Yuri would recommend me if I asked her. Probably Flower Tales at best. I'm pretty sure the former is more important to her, but I accept her answer without further discussion.
"Hey, Sakura, look!" Chris demands my attention and directs it towards a hair pin with a cherry blossom motif. If I had a Yen for each of my friends, who did that… I'd have ten Yen. I don't have that many friends after all and I carefully selected them to not be Naruto fans as I don't like to be the butt of a visual pun. "You don't seem to like that. And here I thought you'd like your own name."
"When did I say that?" Well, I didn't really hate it either, but like was also too strong. Most of the times I felt indifferent about it, but context really does matter.
"Remember when I told you about Chris being a boy's name?" Of course I do, that was like a week ago. Who wouldn't? "You had such a smug look on your face, I thought you were proud to be a cherry blossom."
"It has its ups and downs," I confess. "But unlike someone else, I don't really want to wear my name, so to speak."
"Fair enough. I'll buy one for Yuri then and tell her it's from you." Chris knew how to tease me, but if I were to let her know that, she'd only do it more.
"I think I should go home now. After all, I already have a present from you." And what a good excuse it was to actually test it.
"Is that so?" Chris smirks knowingly. "I'll be waiting for your review."