This one is on the shorter side, but mostly that's just because it's a really simple idea that I've always loved. Singing is an innately human thing. We thrive on music, we humans, and long before we had recordings, we had to make all our music ourselves. It's woven into our history, deep in our DNA. Give a human enough time, they will start making music.

Anyway, I just feel like Seto would have a nice singing voice.

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Seto was always at his most comfortable when he was doing something with his hands. Most people thought he was at his best when he was dueling and, while this tended to be true, the core of the theory was much simpler: so long as he was busy with something, so long as he was moving, Seto was as much at peace as he could be.

So, whether he was dueling, building, playing a game, at his computer, or simply cleaning counters, he always seemed to be enjoying himself more than he ever did when he was, say, sitting in for a meeting, or waiting for a phone call, or in an elevator, or anything else that required him to be still.

Seto always set aside at least two nights in any given week when he cooked dinner himself.

He generally couldn't afford more than those two nights; he simply didn't have the time.

Going through the motions of preparing the kitchen, making a meal, cleaning up afterward; it soothed the part of him that liked dealing with a process. Steps to complete, a list to cover. He liked recipes, even when he didn't follow them; he liked knowing that there were rules, even when he'd already determined that he was going to break them.

Sometimes he made a show out of cooking, moving with flourishes and flipping various utensils through the air. He was more and more likely to do this if he knew that someone was watching; he was, at his heart, just as much a performer as he was an engineer.

But if he was alone, and especially if he was cleaning and organizing at the end of the night, Seto would sing. While he wiped the counters and scrubbed the dishes, he sang. It seemed to keep him on task, to ensure he kept focus, but more than anything else he seemed to do it just because he liked it.

Sometimes Mokuba would watch, huddled near the threshold of the door so as to avoid being seen and breaking the spell; and most recently, he called for Noa to join him.

The two boys watched, spellbound, as Seto worked.

"For six hellish months, we passed away," Seto sang, low and slow, entirely to himself, "on the cold Kamchatka Sea. But now we're bound from the Arctic Ground, rollin' down to Old Maui . . ."

And so it went, so it went.

"Is that . . . a whaling song?" Noa whispered.

"Our father," Mokuba said, "used to sing shanties when he worked around the house. Niisama told me."

"Your . . . your real father," Noa guessed.

"Yeah," said Mokuba. "I guess he did it to keep himself occupied, but also I guess work songs are supposed to help you keep a rhythm? That's what they're for. Like, that's why they're written like that. It's to help your rhythm. See how Niisama's moving in time with the song?"

Noa nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Rollin' down to Old Maui, me boys," Seto crooned, "rollin' down to Old Maui . . ."

"He picked it up from Papa," Mokuba said.

There was something of an awed reverence in the way Mokuba referred to his and Seto's sire. He couldn't remember the man; he'd been too young, and he didn't have his brother's perfect recall. But he knew, above all other things about him, that Kohaku Yagami had been an important man.

Noa was smiling.

"I think," he said, "I'd have liked to meet your father."

Mokuba smiled back. "Yeah."

"How soft the breeze through the island trees," Seto offered, "now the ice is far astern. Them native maids, them tropical glades, awaiting our return . . ."

"I like this song," Noa said.

Mokuba's smile widened. "Yeah."