Castleshipping (Jonouchi Katsuya/Kaiba Seto/Priest Set)

. . .

Now, while it was a fact that Jonouchi Katsuya despised Kaiba Seto, he sometimes found something strangely...interesting about him.

Jonouchi rested his cheek on his fist, trying to make sense of exactly what he was watching. He hadn't really wanted to come over the Kaiba mansion; it made him angry just to look at how much empty space the asshole CEO had to himself, but Yugi needed to drop by to get some things for his next game exhibition, and he and Mokuba had gotten distracted by something and disappeared from the kitchen, leaving only Jonouchi and Kaiba in a terribly awkward silence.

Kaiba hadn't even greeted them when they had come in through the back kitchen door, just grunted at Mokuba and continued doing...whatever he was doing. Jonouchi half thought about making a crack at him, but he was just so shocked to see the CEO baking that any snide remarks he could think of just withered away.

Kaiba's hands moved incredibly quickly and with an amazing amount of precision. He was able to crack eggs one handed. That wasn't a skill that Jonouchi would have imagined he'd have. He probably shouldn't be staring, but it was a little mesmerizing, and he was still kinda still in that Kaiba Seto can cook daze.

For his part, Kaiba looked a little irritable, but he wouldn't acknowledge Jonouchi, acting as though he wasn't sitting there at the table staring at him. He looked weird without his normal ridiculous coat, instead in just a plain turtleneck with the sleeves rolled up. His body rocked slightly as he started to stir the bowl with perhaps a little more aggression than was totally necessary—probably because Jonouchi was staring at him.

Jonouchi frowned, squinting a little.

For some reason, something about Kaiba seemed different than normal. He wasn't as...crackly, was the only word Jonouchi could use to describe it. Making cooking was his weird stress reliever, because even though Jonouchi was here, the guy seemed actually pretty calm. There was just something...quiet about him for once.

Kaiba didn't meet his eyes as he turned around back to the table, still staunchly pretending that Jonouchi wasn't there. He turned the dough out of the bowl onto the table and started to knead it. Fold, punch, fold, punch, over and over, a mesmerizing repetition. Yeah, Jonouchi wasn't imagining it. He had...quiet eyes for once. There wasn't any of that irritable, sparkling rage that normally characterized his scowling face. It was just...quiet.

For a minute—just a flicker, really—Jonouchi thought maybe he was looking at someone else. Someone quiet, with calmer eyes than Seto's, deep tan skin and gentle hands kneading at bread that he wasn't supposed to be making himself. He looked just as out of place cooking as Seto did, but there he was, and his soul seemed quiet.

Seto turned away again and the strange inner vision faded.

Jonouchi didn't think he should say anything and break the moment, but the words tumbled out anyway.

"You know," he said. "I wonder if we would have maybe liked each other if we had met somewhere else first."

"And here I thought you were going to stay quiet for once," Kaiba muttered.

The tension returned to the quiet kitchen, and Jonouchi decided to take his time tracing the grain of the wooden table. Well, at least things felt... a little different than they normally did.

. . .

A/N: These are so hard. Next is Casteshipping (Atem x Thief King Bakura).