A/N: Technical speak taken shamelessly from the anime, as I know nothing about engineering or whatever it is Yusei and Bruno like to talk about.

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Chapter 7: Brain Buddies

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Jack's next rival shows up a few days later. His jealousy increases tenfold when an air-headed amnesiac going by the name of Bruno appears out of the blue and comes to stay with them at Poppo Time.

He probably wouldn't have cared if it weren't for the fact that Bruno is apparently some kind of engineering genius that Yusei has completely abandoned Jack to fawn over. Currently, the former Duel King is clenching the arm of his seat so hard that he might break off the end of it.

"See how the boost is running through the core processor? I tweaked the code lines so that the timing would start earlier, so the energy generates from the beginning."

"But won't that overheat the intake manifold?"

"I'd normally suggest adding some sort of ventilation, but that clearly won't work for this design…"

"Well, how about an alternative, say…"

Bruno and Yusei are looking at her laptop, and their faces are leaning dangerously close together. They likely don't even notice the extremely short gap between them; they're far too deep in conversation. Yusei is pointing to something on the screen, and Bruno puts his hand over hers and guides it to a different part of the diagram.

He explains something, gesturing exaggeratedly with his free hand as he speaks, and Yusei turns and grins at him. Her blue eyes are wide, enthusiastic, filled with wonder and fascination.

"That's brilliant!" she exclaims. "I've been working on this for months with no go; how did you come up with it?"

He laughs and rubs the back of his head sheepishly, blushing a little. "Ha ha, thanks! I-it's no big deal, though, I'm sure you would've seen it, too. Uh, well, it came to me when…"

Jack scowls. He doesn't remember Yusei ever praising or even looking at him like that.

He is just barely holding back the overwhelming urge to stomp up to them, grab Bruno by the scruff of his neck, and throw him out on the street where he belongs.

"Bruno, back the fuck off! You're breathing in Yusei's air," he growls out loud. But, of course, neither of them even look up.

"The challenge in the planetary particle engine design is gonna be stabilizing the turbo properties of the…"

"Yeah, but if you lower the GPM, you'll lose the core momentum… That's not the best trade-off."

"Ah, good point. I guess we could boost the momentum in a different way by rerouting the energy into the accelerator and then…"

"Right, right! That could keep the interior cool while the…"

Jack wants to strangle something. And by something, he means Bruno.

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After not hearing from Yusei for a while, a worried Carly visits Poppo Time.

Another photo appears on her blog soon after. What most viewers notice first is how in the middle of the garage rests the internationally-known Wheel of Fortune, the Yusei Go, and the Blackbird. They next see the members of a very displeased Team 5D's all sprawled around the room, sporting varying degrees of exasperation and boredom on their faces.

In the corner, though, Duel Queen Yusei Fudo is working (very) closely to a blue-haired man, and they seem to be completely engrossed in what they are doing. Meanwhile, Jack Atlas is glaring murderously at the back of said man's head.

Once again, there are lots of comments.

"Omfg, Jack's face tho."

"Lol, Jack is so jelly atm."

"Who is that w/ Yusei? Someone plz tell me. Thx."

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