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Samatoki knocks on the door to the Yamada household. He's met with no response even though he can hear the TV playing. The next two times he has to knock get progressively louder, hurting his knuckles as they rap at the door.
Eventually, the door swings open and Samatoki has to bring his eyes down from Ichiro's eye level, where he'd been expecting him, to lock eyes with Saburo instead.
"What do you want?" he asks irritably. Samatoki ignores his bratty tone and remains civil.
"Where's your brother?"
"Out."
"... Where?"
"None of your business."
Alright, now Samatoki's starting to get pissed off. They glare at each other during a few moments of tense, awkward silence until Saburo sighs.
"You can come in, I guess," he says, stepping out of Samatoki's way.
"Is it just you here, kid?" Samatoki asks as he enters the house. There are commercials playing on the TV, which is probably the reason he finally bothered to open the door.
"Yeah. Big bro will be here soon if you want to wait for him."
"How soon?"
Saburo doesn't answer him and instead returns to the sofa. When his show comes back on, characters with vibrant, colorful hair are playing with cards.
"This, uh, Yu-Gi-Oh?" Samatoki asks. It's the only card game anime he's heard of.
"No," Saburo answers without further explanation. Well, alright then.
It's definitely still awkward between Samatoki and Jiro, but at least that one tries for his brother's sake. Saburo doesn't bother trying to get along with Samatoki at all unless he wants some spending money, since he knows Samatoki will give it to him (even if he fusses about him being a spoiled brat).
"... You play this game?" Samatoki asks, hoping to god it exists in real life and he doesn't sound like an idiot.
"Kinda."
"What's kinda mean?"
Saburo doesn't answer him. Fuck, he might as well try for the bonding opportunity.
"Is it a pain in the ass to learn?"
"... Not really." Saburo's tone is a little lighter and he finally bothers to look at Samatoki when he's talking to him.
"Wanna teach me how to play?"
"Ugh... how are you doing so well on your first try?" Saburo complains as a fifth card slides into his damage zone.
"Fuck if I know. I haven't read half of these cards still, hang on," Samatoki says as he checks the effects on the unit he just attacked with.
"That deck barely has any on-hit effects. You don't have anything like that on the field right now," Saburo explains as he draws a card. "Anyway, it's my turn."
Before he can do much of anything, the front door opens and Ichiro and Jiro announce themselves.
"We're home! ... Wait, huh? Samatoki, when did you get-- oh! You're playing with Saburo!" Ichiro sounds so fucking excited, running right over to where the two are sitting at the dining room table.
"Huh? I thought you still hated him, Saburo," Jiro asks, walking over at a normal pace.
"He's probably gonna hate me even more when I survive this turn."
"When? ... You have a perfect guard, don't you? And I know you checked a heal for G guarding a few turns ago."
"Hit me with everything you've got, kid."
"Don't call me that," Saburo reminds for maybe the fifteenth time by now.
As Saburo is setting up for his turn, Ichiro leans down with his hands on Samatoki's shoulders and whispers in his ear.
"Thanks for playing with him," he says. "He doesn't really have any friends."
"Can't imagine why," Samatoki says flatly.
"Hey, be nice," Ichiro warns, his voice back to a normal speaking volume.
Saburo attacks Samatoki with three units that Samatoki manages to guard against. He checks a stand trigger and gets a fourth attack that Samatoki has no choice but to take, putting them both at five out of six damage now.
"And since she hit you, the effect of that unit lets me return a card from the drop zone to my deck and look at five from the top for a card with Arboros in its name."
"Huh? This isn't the deck you usually like to play," Jiro points out.
"Shut up, I just felt like using this one. Anyway, I'm putting another copy of Sephirot in my hand for stride fodder," Saburo announces, showing it to Samatoki before adding it to his hand and shuffling his deck.
"Are you going easy on Samatoki?" Jiro accuses, sounding like a jeer.
"I said shut up!"
"You totally are!"
While they're arguing, Samatoki draws a card. Jiro takes a look at Samatoki's side of the field and notices which deck he's using.
"Oh, here," he says, picking up the smaller deck that the G zone consists of and taking a card out. "Stride this one."
"Hey! Don't help him!" Saburo protests, reaching over to try to take the card from Jiro's hand. Jiro hands it to Samatoki.
"This one's got her tits out," Samatoki comments.
"That's a guy," Jiro corrects.
"... Is it?"
"Dark Irregulars have a lot of hot people in spandex," Ichiro says. "I sure hope you picking this deck doesn't translate to anything in real life."
"Oh shut up, I picked it because of... hang on."
Samatoki sifts through his G zone for Scharhrot, a cool, stoic vampire sitting with his legs crossed.
"Oh, so it's corduroy you're into, not spandex. I'll keep that in mind."
"Stride Balaam already!"
"Ugh, it's that one..?"
Samatoki reads the card and can immediately understand why Saburo is intimidated by it. It seems... overpowered, to say the least.
"So if a card goes into the soul, you can't guard against him with grade 1s?"
"No, I can't guard with grade 1s at all this turn if you activate Darkness, plus I can't guard with grade 0s against Baleful Repressor..."
"Oh, hell yes."
Out of the corner of his eye while he's taking his turn, Samatoki sees Ichiro staring at the two of them, looking absolutely giddy. Samatoki pauses to look at him and honestly gets a little embarrassed at the love in his eyes. What's with him, staring at Samatoki like that so openly..?
When Samatoki attacks, Saburo doesn't bother guarding since he has no heals to discard for G guarding, essentially rendering him completely defenseless with those effects active.
"You won your first fight..." Saburo concedes, moving the sixth card to his damage zone.
"Hey, maybe you have a knack for it!" Ichiro says with an obvious wink.
Samatoki guesses he's stuck playing cards with Saburo from now on.