"Jounouchi Katsuya! What is it that you want the most right now?"

Jounouchi backed away from Kaiba, his eyes slightly widened. Kaiba's blue eyes were in a blaze of fiery passion, and his tall form menacingly stood over Jounouchi, who had been minding his own business and had attempted to eat his lunch before Kaiba all but ambushed him. Jounouchi's stare looked like he was asking Kaiba what was his problem and what Kaiba wanted from him. Yuugi-tachi, who were used to Kaiba's strange behavior towards Jounouchi by now, silently but quickly escaped the classroom to eat their lunch in peace before any bloodshed started.

"…What's your problem and what the hell do you want, Kaiba?" Jounouchi snapped, giving a light shove to Kaiba's chest. "You don't come to school for ages, and you pop out of no where to ask me a stupid question like that? Even if you ask me that…"

"Surely, there is something you want right now! Money! New clothes! Name one thing you want or need the most!" Kaiba interrupted. Because he looked like he would jump over the desk and throttle Jounouchi any second now, Jounouchi backed further away from him, clutching the desk that was protecting him from Kaiba for now. He did not have the courage to ask Kaiba why in the world did Kaiba want to know his desires. But then again, Jounouchi always did insist that Kaiba wasn't exactly right on the head.

"…"

"Well?"

"…Oden (fish cake)."

"…Haa?"

Not noticing that Kaiba suddenly turned pale, Jounouchi became excited at the idea. "It's been such a long time since I've eaten oden! Right, right, it'll hit the spot in cold weather like this! With boiled, tender radish and hot soup! It'll be so good—I really want some!"

Jounouchi paused and looked at Kaiba curiously. Kaiba looked like he had accidentally eaten a very nasty bug. "…What's wrong, Kaiba?" He finally asked him when Kaiba remained silent.

"Wha—What a mediocre request! As to be expected from a proletariat like yourself!" Kaiba finally yelled. Jounouchi twitched.

"…So why did you ask a proletariat like me something like that anyway? Get lost so I can eat my lunch, you annoying jerk!"

The pickled plum Jounouchi had thrown at Kaiba hit him precisely on his nose. While the two engaged in a screaming match, with occasional lunch items tossed here and there, their classmates thought it a good idea to escape the battle zone and eat their lunch elsewhere.

---

"Niisama, I think it will be best to give present that the person wants, no matter how stupid the present may sound to you," Mokuba said, blowing on his tea to cool it. Kaiba's scowl deepened. The tapping noise of the keyboard grew louder, as if Kaiba was attempting to break the keys apart.

"Of all things, why would he want to eat such… unsavory dish? The way those fish cake jiggle… The slippery texture of radish… It's absolutely the worst food that was ever made! And it is so very… very… mediocre!"

"But still, that's what aniiyome-sama (sister-in-law, referring to Jounouchi) wants, right?" Mokuba put down his cup and stood up. "It isn't like you have to eat it or anything, so don't feel so pressured, Niisama. Shall I ask Isono to look up the best oden shops in Domino City right now?"

"Nonsense!" Kaiba sharply said. "You understand that Jounouchi Katsuya, in the very near future, is to be my wife!"

"Yes, Niisama," Mokuba politely answered. When Kaiba was not making sense, it was best to smile and nod to whatever he was saying and pretend to understand what he was babbling about. It was rumored that the ability to smile and nod no matter how eccentric the young CEO acted was one of the requirements to be an employee of the Kaiba Corporation.

"That means, of course, that I cannot allow my wife-to-be to eat just any oden soup! Aside from losing face for letting my belongings eat low-class oden soup filled with MSG and heaven knows what else they put in that garbage, I will not allow anything but the best to pass through my Jounouchi's mouth!"

"But of course, Niisama," Mokuba agreed, trying his best not to look like what he really wanted to say was, 'What the hell are you talking about, Niisama?'

"Then there is really only one way to make sure only the best ingredients are used to make the oden soup with most tender and loving hands!"

"I'll go ask the chef to make the soup right away, then! No, I should ask Isono to buy the best ingredients first, right?" Mokuba said. He finally felt that he had understood his older brother, but the said older brother sternly shook his head.

"That is not what I meant, Mokuba! I am saying that I, Kaiba Tenjyoin Seto, will personally make the oden soup filled with my love for Jounouchi! Wahahahaha!"

"…"

Mokuba stared at his brother as if he had sprouted another head while Kaiba triumphantly jutted his waist in precisely 45 degrees and laughed. Kaiba… was starting to scare him. Perhaps he had been working too hard lately. After the new duel disk blueprint was shipped to the factories, Mokuba felt that a vacation was in order.

"Ah, um, Niisama?"

"Yes, Mokuba! Is it not a splendid idea? I am sure that was what the proletariat was implying when he made that request; he was just too shy to say that 'I want to eat food that is made with your loving hands, Kaiba-kun!' Isn't that quite cute! Wa—hahahaha!"

"Er, that is, Niisma. You've never so much as boiled water before, much less cook something, right? …You know how to make oden soup?"

Kaiba choked in the middle of laughing. While his face turned almost as blue as his eyes, Mokuba frantically pounded on his back and handed him his tea. Kaiba gulped the tea down, then immediately spat it back out. It was too hot.

"Niisama! Niisama, are you all right?" Mokuba asked, pounding harder on Kaiba's back. It took few more seconds for Kaiba to recover. As soon as he was able to breath again, Kaiba started to laugh again, as if nothing had happened.

"—Don't worry about such petty details, Mokuba! There is nothing that I cannot do, for I am perfect! Wahahahaha!"

Mokuba felt sweat running down his back, but he managed to keep a smile on his face. After all, being the vice president of the Kaiba Corporation and Kaiba Seto's little brother, nothing shocked him too much anymore. "But of course, Niisama. Will you be shopping for the ingredients yourself?"

Kaiba hesitated, but only for the briefest moment. "No, I will take care of everything."

With that, Kaiba picked up his trench coat and briefcase to go to the bookstore. He did not know what ingredients he was supposed to use, aside from oden, much less how to cook the ingredients into an edible soup. Mokuba, who knew this all too well, sighed and picked up his teacup again.

It was best not to bother Kaiba when he was excited.

---

"Seto-Obousama, I will take care of that, so please get some rest," Isono anxiously said, hovering over Kaiba who was measuring out soy sauce in a beaker. Chefs and maids stood in the corner of the kitchen, watching their normally cold and aloof employer clad in blue apron and glaring at the newly bought cookbook as if he wanted to burn a hole through the pages. They all stood near the entrance, so that should anything go wrong, they can escape as soon as possible. Only Isono was brave enough to approach the young master.

"Go away before I fire you, Isono," Kaiba snapped, narrowing his eyes as the contents of the pot bubbled away. He shook the thermometer he had stuck into the soup, then turned to measure out fish sauce with a pipette. Chopped onions, scallions, sea weed, and radish pieces were neatly measured to the nearest milligram and stacked in the corner, while he measured out sauces and condiments. He looked more like he was conducting a chemical experiment than cooking. In short, he looked terrifying.

"Niisama! How is it going?" Mokuba asked, popping his head into the kitchen. He grinned at the employees huddling in the corner. "Hi everyone!"

"What in the world do they mean by 'shimmer'? At what temperature am I supposed to do the act of 'shimmering'?" Kaiba mumbled to himself, already lost in his own world. Mokuba watched Kaiba adding radish and oden to the broth, then glaring even harder at the cookbook.

"Niisama, Niisama, aren't you going to check how it tastes?" He asked when Kaiba made no attempt to taste the soup, even when it looked like he was nearly finished. Kaiba looked at Mokuba with a strange expression.

"Me? Taste this thing?"

"Well, you don't want Jounouchi Aniiyome-sama to say the soup doesn't taste good, right? You won't know unless you try it to see if it tastes fine or not!" With that said, Mokuba fished out an oden and stuck it into his mouth.

"…Well? How is it?" Kaiba asked Mokuba, who had suddenly became silent. Mokuba had turned pale.

"Ah, um, I forgot that I had some homework to do!" Mokuba said, scratching the back of his head. "Do your best with the oden soup, Niisama!"

Feeling uneasy with the strange reaction, Kaiba poked at a floating oden with a chopstick. Taking a deep breath, he picked the oden up and tasted it himself.

"…Kuooooo!"

The employees thought this was a good time to run as if their life depended on it.

---

Kaiba Tenjyoin Seto (Male, 17-years-old) was a person that others commonly called a 'genius'. Not only was he the president of the prestigious Kaiba Corporation at the young age of 17-years-old, he was one of the top duelists of the world, as well as top of his classes at school. He was able to pilot helicopters, drive cars, and even control battleships. He was world-champion chess-player and he was a good sportsman, too. But in January 25th of his seventeenth year, he had learned that there is something that he couldn't do.

He couldn't cook.

"Niisama, why don't you just use the sauce that came with the oden package? Then you just have to add the oden and radishes, right?" Mokuba suggested. Kaiba fiercely turned towards him.

"Do you think that I have labored this long just to feed my sweet darling honey Jounouchi MSG-ridden junk food? It must be made from scratch! Even had Jounouchi asked me for diamonds that cost billions of dollars, even had he asked for rocks from the moon, I was determined to get anything for him for his birthday! Then how is it that I cannot even provide such a simple gift as oden soup for him? I refuse to be such an incompetent husband!"

While Kaiba ranted, Mokuba tried out the results of trial number five and cringed. He wondered how it was that his brother was able to make such disgusting object with delicious, edible ingredients. Cooking was only about following directions, right? Surely, there is no reason that Kaiba would be so bad at cooking…

Mokuba sighed and watched his brother chopping onions vigorously. His eyes wandered to the cookbook, then he watched his brother throwing ingredients into the pot with gusto. His eyes widened.

"Um, Niisama?"

"Yes, Mokuba."

"…Why aren't you making the base stock before you put in those ingredients?"

"…What is a base stock, Mokuba?"

Mokuba pointed at the corner of the cookbook, which showed how to make soup base for the oden before adding other ingredients in.

"You're supposed to make the soup before you add oden and other vegetables, Niisama," he timidly suggested. Kaiba stared at the tip of Mokuba's finger, which pointed at the directions.

"…You mean, that's part of cooking the oden soup? It is not a separate, different dish?"

"…No, Niisama."

"…Oh."

"…Yeah."

There was a heavy, uncomfortable silence between the Kaiba brothers. Then suddenly Kaiba burst into laughter. Mokuba edged away from the table and wondered if he should call the psychiatrist or the lunatic asylum.

"Wa-hahaha! Of course it was impossible that there is something that I cannot do! I had simply misunderstood the instructions! I'm a genius, after all! Wait for me, my lovely cutey proletariat! Now that I know what is the problem, I shall make you a delicious oden soup!"

Mokuba watched Kaiba return to cooking with even more enthusiasm than before. Why was it that he was starting to feel sorry for Jounouchi?

---

"Jounouchi-kun! There is someone looking for you!"

Jounouchi wiped the sweat off of his face and looked up, surprised. Brushing his damp blond hair away from his eyes, he rubbed the towel vigorously against his neck as he walked towards the direction of the voice. "At this hour?"

Amber-colored eyes focused on a tall, slim form of a man, and his expression immediately darkened.

"…Oh. What do you want, Kaiba?"

"I told you not to work in construction sites such as this! Did I not tell you how dangerous it is?" Kaiba immediately scolded, looking displeased. Jounouchi ignored him. This was not the first time Kaiba complained about things that did not concern him.

"Whatever. So what do you want? I have to work; I really need today's wage to pay this month's rent, okay? So if you don't have anything useful to say, please go home, wipe your feet, and get some slee—Waaaaa!"

The last sentence ended in a scream, because Kaiba picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. Jounouchi pounded on Kaiba's back, blushing brightly.

"What the heck are you doing, Kaibaka! Let me go!"

"I've bought you for today, so shut up and be good."

"Let me go you perverted stupid octopus!"

Ignoring Jounouchi's screams, Kaiba stuffed him into the backseat of his limousine. Because this was not the first time Kaiba had kidnapped him, Jounouchi pouted and curled up in the corner of the car.

"…Where are we going?"

"You'll see when you get there."

Throughout the entire drive, Kaiba looked really happy, so Jounouchi couldn't help but shiver. Was it a new Blue-eyes White Dragon statue? Another way to make him and Yuugi-tachi get into mortal danger? Just what was the psychotic dragon-mania thinking?

When they arrived at the Kaiba mansion, Jounouchi was dragged into the kitchen. The table was already set for two, and there was a big pot in the middle of the table. Kaiba proudly lifted the rid of the pot.

"Ah! Oden soup," Jounouchi said, surprised. "Kaiba… For me? Why?"

"It's your birthday today, isn't it, loser dog?"

"…How did you know today's my birthday?" Jounouchi asked, staring at the stalker known as Kaiba. Kaiba shrugged.

"I have my ways."

"Um, thanks, I guess," Jounouchi said, suspiciously looking that the oden soup. He turned. "Because today's my birthday, Yuugi actually bought me oden soup from the street vendors on my way home. I'll just be thankful of your kind thoughts. Now I must really go back to work…"

"…You won't even taste it?"

Kaiba's voice had grown very quiet. It wasn't menacing kind of quietness; there was no icy edge to the voice. It was more of a disappointed, soft-spoken voice. Surprised, Jounouchi turned to look at Kaiba. Kaiba's face was expressionless, but somehow Jounouchi felt a strange pang on his chest. He took a seat on the table and clasped his hands together.

"Actually, I'm hungry. Thank you for the food!"

The oden soup was surprisingly delicious. Kaiba continued to stand and watch Jounouchi.

"What are you doing? Sit down and eat," Jounouchi said, pulling up a chair next to him. Kaiba sat down, but he did not eat. "Kaiba? Did you poison this?"

"No!" Kaiba angrily snapped. He hesitated, then turned his head away. "…I… don't like oden, that's all."

"Eh… Kaiba, you're still picky about your food? You're still a child!"

"Shut up!"

Jounouchi brightly laughed, then held up the already-empty bowl. "Seconds, please!"

Kaiba scooped up some more rice for him. "…Is the soup okay?"

"It's really good!" Jounouchi happily said. "It's just like how my mom used to make it! Say thank you to the cook for me!"

"You're welcome; it wasn't a big deal."

"…?"

Jounouchi nearly choked on his rice when he realized the implication of Kaiba's words. "Kaiba, you… Did you make this?"

"…!"

Realizing his mistake, Kaiba turned his head away once more. Jounouchi couldn't hide his surprise.

"You're got to be kidding me! Kaiba, you're good at cooking! Actually, you're surprisingly a nice guy!" Jounouchi started to laugh again. Kaiba always thought that Jounouchi had a really nice laughter. Kaiba froze when he felt soft, warm things pressing against his cheek. His eyes quickly turned towards Jounouchi.

Jounouchi was kissing his cheek.

It was only fleeting, soft kiss, but Kaiba felt his cheeks heat up into a brilliant blush. "Wha- what—"

"Thank you for the food! Good night, Kaiba!"

Jounouchi leapt up from his seat to leave, but was stopped by Kaiba's hand on his arm. He questioningly looked up at Kaiba.

"…Do you… want to… eat some cake before you go?"

Kaiba nervously watched Jounouchi looking up towards the ceiling, contemplating this proposal. Then Jounouchi turned to widely grin at Kaiba.

"Sure, why not?"

---

-The End-

Ahahaha… Who are you people… OTL The image of Kaiba in my mind was really like this. An idiotic dragon-obsessed psycho… (Are you really a Kaiba fan?;;) Actually, I just wanted to write a story where Kaiba had to eat his least favorite food, oden. I'm sorry for always being mean to you, Kaiba Shachou-sama… By the way, Tenjyoin is not really part of Kaiba's name; those who have watched Yuugiou GX will understand… That Kaiba and Jounouchi had two children… (Cut that out.)

Happy birthday, Jounouchi-kun. Please make Kaiba happy, even if he's an idiotic pervert who's obsessed with duel monsters and dragons, not to mention he's a psycho… (Hey.)