Hibachi – n., charcoal burning cooking grill. Other dictionary – a portable barbecue of Japanese design, with a base for the fire with vents under it and one or more adjustable cooking racks

A/N: Wow. Japanese word in a three dollar dictionary. According to Wikipedia, hibachi is a room heater. But a hibachi grill it shall be.


Hunk swallowed a mouthful of beef. "It sure is nice to get out once in a while," he said contentedly.

"Whatever happened to Sven and Romelle?" Allura asked, helping herself to more fried rice.

"She and Sven went for a walk on the beach," Prince Bandor said.

"I didn't know you could cook, Keith," Allura said, looking over at their commander. He looked up from the fresh-caught shrimp he was seasoning.

"'Course he can cook," Lance said dismissively. "Keith can do anything."

"Sunburn getting to your head?" Keith joked. Allura wasn't sure if Lance got redder at the comment—it was hard to tell in the firelight. She drew her legs up closer to herself. The breeze coming off the ocean was getting brisk—and she wanted to leave a bit of room for Keith to sit next to her.

"Cold, Princess?" Hunk asked helpfully—almost hopefully—on her left.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just trying to get comfortable," she answered dismissively.

"You know," Pidge said, stretching out his short legs and leaning back. "Usually when we're on vacation around a camp fire, we tell ghost stories."

"Do you know any good ones, Keith?" Allura asked.

"Keith always makes them up as he goes along," Lance stated.

"I've got a good one—I actually heard it from the guy I bought this grill from, back at Demeter Spaceport." Allura settled comfortably and watched Keith's face as he told the story. "The thing was, he told me it was a Haunted Hibachi."

"Making it up," Lance said, shaking his sunburned head.

"Shush!" sounded in four different tones.

"Anyway, it's pretty hard to get an old-fashioned hibachi grill anymore, especially in space," Keith continued. "It had been a family possession, but the man said he just couldn't keep it anymore. He told me that it last belonged to his Great Uncle, who was the cook on a small research vessel. He got special permission to use the coal-burning hibachi on the ship. Well, one night in orbit over a dwarf star, the fire acted weird. He was just cooking like normal, but it kept flaring up and consuming dinner. The crew weren't even coming up to dinner—as he'd soon find out, because the dwarf star was growing. The fire in the grill was calling out to the fire of the star—but they didn't find that until too late. The pilot saw what was happening just fast enough to drop the blast doors and save the ship when an erratic flare took out the research deck, killing the crew instantly. But the Hibachi Man didn't know the flare was coming, and couldn't save himself from his own fire…

"But he didn't die," Keith said in a chilly tone. "The fire needed to live, and it lived in him. The fire kept the Hibachi Man alive and in terrible pain while it used him to get back to civilization in a dead ship. At home port they put the fires out and gave the hibachi to his family." Keith sighed. "I don't believe ghost stories, so I bought it. But the old man I bought it from told me to keep it away from other fires, because it still calls out—"

The campfire flared six feet in the air, a bright avenging red. Allura gave a throat-ripping scream that trumped the yells everyone else gave. The flare, as flares do, fell quickly and made the screams seem melodramatic—but not as much as three distinct strains of laughter. Keith's laugh—somehow authoritative in laughter of all things, Sven's accented guffaw, and Romelle's breathless, gasping, unrestrained giggling.

"ROMELLE!" Allura shrieked rather gracelessly. The only thing keeping Romelle upright was her husband's grip around her waist, and that was slipping.

"Y-y-you-your faces!" she managed. "You couldn't have believed it! Oh, but toss some gin on the fire and it's all true!" Romelle collapsed laughing.


Word count minus from notes: 650

A/N: Romelle probably had the gin to throw on the fire anyway. And Keith was in fact making it up as he went along—Sven and Romelle just have incredibly good timing. You all decide what happened next…