The four eventually made it to a small Japanese restaurant, and, upon entering, found that it was equipped with the classic Japanese low to the ground tables. Ryou's eyes lit up. He had never had an authentic Japanese eating experience before.

Upon noticing Ryou's thrilled expression, the other three smirked and chuckled. He really was just too adorable for his own good, and Mariku was starting to see why Bakura was attracted to this kid. Too bad Ryou was completely oblivious to his feelings. He was still trying to wrap his head around the whole 'this guy's a three thousand year old thief,' thing.

After a few minutes of standing and talking about a couple of random things, a pretty young Japanese lady came up to them. "Hello," she said with a smile. "Welcome, and prepare for an authentic Japanese dining experience. If you'll just follow me, I'll seat you at your table. If you could take your shoes off first, thank you."

They removed their shoes, Marik almost falling over when Mariku 'accidentally' bumped into him, throwing his equilibrium off. To Mariku's disappointment, Marik managed to right himself, straightening and throwing a glare in his direction. Mariku just smirked, and his fellow Egyptian relented and gave a small smile too. Ryou and Bakura were still snickering about the short interval of flailing limbs required by Marik to keep his balance. They got glares too, although the smile was still on Marik's face.

Once their shoes were laid with the other shoes, the hostess led them to their table where they all sat down pretzel style, Bakura looking almost comical with his long legs all folded in on themselves. He looked down at himself and sat still for a moment before striking an exaggerated meditation pose and chanting 'ohm,' a few times. The rest of them laughed, and Ryou thought, 'I would have never expected a thief to be so good natured and humorous. But I suppose he's learned in his long life that you have to be to keep sane. I know I wouldn't be able to live life without having a few laughs and rolling with the punches'. Marik's voice interrupted Ryou's thought process as he addressed Bakura.

"Any particular reason you went monk on us there, my friend?" he asked with a grin. Bakura grinned right back.

"It just felt like a good moment to do it. And I was already cross-legged, so why not? Now, I'm hungry, so shut up and let me look at the menu, will you?"

Marik just smirked and shook his head as Mariku did the whole 'I'm going to pretend to yawn so I can put my arm around your shoulders' thing to him. He pretended not to notice, but there was a gleam in his eyes as he glanced sideways. He had been crushing on Mariku for a long time before Mariku decided to invade his hot tub. I'll give you one guess as to what happened that night.

Bakura surfed through the entire menu, seeming to only glance at the names, which confused Ryou, but the two tanned males grins told him that they knew. Once he had gotten to the end of the menu, Bakura put it down and promptly announced that he knew what he was ordering. Ryou was severely confused.

"How? How can you know what you're ordering when you only glanced at the titles?" he asked, brow furrowed. Bakura thought his confusion was possibly the most adorable thing he'd ever seen.

"It's easy," Mariku said. "He's made a ritual out of only ordering things he can't pronounce," Bakura smiled and nodded as if that made perfect sense. Which it didn't. Not to Ryou, anyway.

"Why?" he asked.

Bakura laughed. "I guess it just happened after that one time us three," he nodded toward Marik and Mariku, "went to this restaurant, and I couldn't pronounce the dish. Those two dared me to order it anyway, even though I had no idea what it was, and it was really good. So since then I just go through the menu looking for something that I can't read. It's become a habit at this point," he shrugged.

Marik smiled. "You should see him when he goes to a restaurant and he can pronounce everything. He gets all disappointed and mopes around. Until the food arrives. Then he forgets all about it and eats like a pig," he jabbed, aiming a sickly sweet smile at Bakura.

"I do not eat like a pig!"

"Like hell you don't!"

Bakura was about to retort when their waitress walked up, looking rather interested in the four good-looking males at the table. She quickly noted, however, Mariku's possessive arm around Marik's shoulder, and the flirty grin Marik was shooting at the other blonde and turned most of her attention over to Bakura and Ryou. "What will you boy's be ordering today?" she asked, obviously making a shameless attempt at a seductive tone. Too bad they were all gay. Marik, Ryou, and Mariku ordered, and Bakura just cheerfully pointed to his selection.

The food arrived quickly, and Bakura's unknown dish turned out to be some kind of meat substance with some sprouts and other greens. They all watched eagerly as he took the first bite carefully. (He struggled with the chopsticks for a minute but eventually just took one into his hand and stabbed his food with it. Effective enough.) He chewed and a slow smile spread across his face. Once he swallowed he pumped his fists into the air in a victorious manner. The three at his table and a few others at the tables around them laughed when he spoke loudly. "My luck with intricately named food holds!" With his expression you'd think he just won the election for president.

Ryou shook his head. "I'm glad you're so thrilled with yourself, th- Bakura," he said. He had almost slipped and said 'Thief King,' but had saved himself. Thankfully the others didn't notice his slipup. He wasn't quite ready to let Bakura know that he was aware of who he was yet.

Eventually they all finished their food, Bakura extremely happy that he had yet to find an unpronounceable dish that he didn't enjoy, and they were ready to head over to Ryou's apartment to get his clothes.