365 Days of Starshipping (Part 2)

Properly Chastised

9/24/19

Yusei woke up at first very sleepily, but he eventually did manage to pry his eyes open, even if it took a while to truly get his bearings and realize that yes - he was asleep on the couch when he knew for a fact that he'd been working on his work earlier by the desk. He awoke to the smell of savory food drifting out of the kitchen, telling him that Judai'd been cooking and had probably found him asleep at his desk when he'd gotten up to start on the food, which also meant that he'd been the one to move him to the couch.

He winced at the thought, realizing that it would be pretty obvious now what he'd been doing the past week or so every night in an attempt to get more work done - he'd just gotten such a large stack of work that he was feeling stressed beyond belief about it, but... well, he knew what the consequences were for getting caught. He knew before Judai came out of the kitchen that he'd fucked up, which luckily helped everything to go smoother when Judai finally peeked his head out and saw him trying to muster the energy to sit up.

"How're you feeling?" Judai asked with a worried frown, wandering over and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, "I got pretty worried when I looked over and found you dead asleep at your keyboard."

He halfheartedly debated over just barreling through the lecture that was sure to come, but in the end curiosity and sheepishness won out and Yusei replied quietly, "I'm sorry... Are you mad?"

"I'm not mad, I know why you did it - I know you, Yusei," Judai stated with a soft sigh that filled him with relief - Yusei wasn't sure what he'd have done if Judai had actually been pissed off at him or something - before a gentle flick hit his forehead accompanied by a little laugh, "Plus you apologized just now, so you already know what you should've done. But that doesn't answer my original question - how are you feeling?"

I'm trying to do my best not to think about that right now, Yusei mused, wincing at the headache he could feel pounding at his head and body feeling like molasses every time he tried to move.

"Terrible," he ended up mumbling, leaning into Judai's touch once he realized that the hand on his face was actually pretty cold and felt soothing on his skin, "Head hurts and everything feels fuzzy."

"Think you can eat right now or no?" Judai asked, giving him a careful, critical look as he attempted to get up and off the couch and let out a very big yawn that lasted for a solid ten seconds.

That yawn made him feel a little better though, snapping Yusei to alertness a bit more clearly now even if his body still felt slow and fuzzy, so he replied, "Yeah, I can as long as I don't move much. How long was I out for?"

"Not long enough," Judai immediately stated, giving him what was quite possibly the driest look he'd ever received from him, "You're going upstairs and sleeping right after you finish eating, got it?"

"Ah... got it," Yusei said, feeling properly chastised at this point and giving Judai a little sheepish smile, "I- I got a little paranoid, I guess, about getting everything done on time, so-" he let out another yawn, "-so that's why I started staying up so late recently. I'm sorry."

"I know, don't worry, you don't have to apologize again," Judai smiled, kissing his cheek lightly and gently giving him a hug, which he greatly appreciated because Yusei really didn't want to accidentally make his headache worse and not be able to eat because of it, before lightly brushing the hair out of his face and pulling back with a fond look, "Give me a minute, I'll go get your food, 'kay? Don't fall back asleep on me Yus or I'll start sayin' your gears are getting rusty."

Yusei still managed to get a laugh out of that one, but it was also the only thing preventing him from giving into the urge to flop back down and dig into the blankets for more sleep.

I suppose this means I finally did get used to a regular sleeping schedule, he thought, thinking back to how he used to be able to pull all-nighters without many problems or second thoughts at all - trying to do that but with roughly two or three hours of sleep every night just felt impossible now, and not even coffee could help at this point. Having such little sleep was actually worse than getting no sleep at all for his concentration, mainly since getting that little bit of sleep ensured that he'd be feeling the effects of tiredness the whole day instead of only some of the day (as when one doesn't sleep, they get an odd 'happy high' of alertness around thirty hours of being awake before crashing again a couple hours later), and it had only been a matter of time before he just couldn't do it anymore.

He startled when a hand suddenly snapped its fingers in front of his face, quickly coming out of his head to find that Judai was giving him an exasperated smile and had placed a bowl of- wait.

"You made ramen?" Yusei asked, perking up and immediately doing his best to stave away all the sleepy fuzziness and focus on the little bowl of divine smells currently in front of him on the coffee table, "Doesn't that take like, forever to make?"

"There's a couple things you can change if you really want to make it within a couple hours," Judai chuckled, an amused grin stuck to his face from seeing him zoned out so easily, "Go ahead, try it."

It took a bit of fumbling with the spoon and the fork that Judai'd thankfully had the foresight to give him instead of chopsticks thanks to his current state, but Yusei very nearly cried because it just tasted so amazing and Judai was just the best thing that ever happened to him; he, of course, said this to Judai right after the first bite, and the other laughed a little before realizing that he was legitimately starting to tear up and panicking slightly and fussing over him.

Stars, he really needed to just sleep for a solid day or something. He was way too tired to deal with anything normally right now.